There are problems about the US Middle East situation that are difficult to convey to most Americans. Read the prologue to Seven Pillars of Wisdom by TELawrence where he describes the Arabs as high-minded, generous, poetic and yet at the same time highly volatile and extremely prone to the most outlandish conpiratorial thinking.
Ditto for a lot of Islamic countries, which have allowed the Arab ethos
embedded in the Quran to I'm reading Sir Olaf Caroe's book The Pathansabout
North Waziristan, where ObL may be making his home, and discover that these hyper-Aryan mountaineers [Hitler tried to recruit these incredible Pushtun-speaking warriors by using the Grand Mufti and his Gillani allies back in 1940---these Pathans were even involved in Raschid Ali's insurrection in Baghdad in 1941!] are of the same Hanafi Islamist school as the Arabs, believe in a Baghdad caliphate over the entire world, and have a strict tribal honor system called "nizat" which has resisted penetration by the Brits for a hundred years and by the Paks for the last sixty after that.
But ObL, I would wager, has now married into these Waziri and Masmud tribal
units a la King Abdul-Aziz, who married at least one woman from each of Saudi
Arabia's forty-odd tribes [except the Harb, who retaliated by taking over the
Mecca Mosque in 1979!]!
Sorry about conveying too much information and for a couple of years at State, I was the institutional memory of sorts on Saudi Arabian lore---April Glaspie and Barbara Bodine used to consult me! And that's why I got a stint at CSIS.
What I started to say is that there is no way for the US or any western nation
or organization [even the UN] to penetrate the incessant feuding and almost non-stop
assassinations [Bashar Al-Assad killing Rafiq Hariri is just a recent example] that
have characterized the way power changes hands over there.
Americans seem to be acting on the "rational actor" hypothesis conferring all sides
with bona fides and assuming that both sides in the confrontation in the Middle East want to come out of the confrontation alive and well. Twelver Shi'ism is not
"rational" and makes Catholic hagiography and mythology look positively scientific by comparison. When Ahmadinejad of Iran says he felt a halo around himself as he addressed the UN, that he communes with the Twelfth Imam who disappeared down a well in the 10th century, and that he believes that a nuclear war destroying Israel will bring about the resurrection of said Imam from his "occultation," AHMEDINEJAD BELIEVES WHAT HE SAYS!
What Arabs and Muslims are afraid of on many levels is that their own
passivity, punctuated by violent outbursts of frantic activity, will not pass
muster in a somewhat Darwinian globalized economic and political environment.
In multicultural environments in a modern and modernizing context, the submissiveness demanded by Islam to an implacable and unchangeable Quranic-inspired patriarchy will not do well under competitive environments. Plus abandoning their patriarchal manhood by conferring equal rights to women will reduce Arab and Muslim men to just another specimen of anthropological variety---not their own narrative of world-conquering heroes of a near-mythic past. Their grandiosity
will be stripped and like the Wizard of Oz, the opened curtain will reveal
nothing special.
A reader writes: "For example, just what are we doing on the diplomatic front to try to bring the rest of the Islamic world over to our side of the table? If not actively on our side, at least not passively on the side of the terrorists? Is that a completely impossible goal?"
First, under Condi Rice, the State Dept has become numero unofor the first time in a while in some ways, or at least competitive. This in spite of the fact that Elliot Abrams acting as neo-con rep under Cheney's dead hand continues to obstruct Rice's efforts at engendering a more comprehensive US horizon of political bilateral contacts than was attempted before by the severely-tight leash that Colin Powell was restrained by.
Under Rice, Nick Burns [former Ambassador to Jordan] and my old buddy David Welch is chief negotiator [I went to Oriole games and Redskin TV with DW, Marilyn sold him and wife Gretchen a house!] in the Arab/Israel post-Lebanon situation. Rice is the only diplomat the Israelis will listen to. Plus Rice is still admired by the secular Arab regimes who realize that GWB is holding her back from wider contacts at Cheney's behest.
But the overarching problem lies in the western media's anti-Bush crusade which
actually encourages the wildest fringe wackos---always delusional and hyper-
inflated as to their own importance [the Iranian Chief Ayatollah actually
predicted that Iran will surpass Detroit "in a few years" after Iran's first
car came off the assembly line, and there are countless other examples I wish I
could put onto my blog] and the common Middle East trait of slipping into a delusional grandiosity that makes French passion for sniffing its own flatulence pale in comparison!
These whack-jobs will multiply no matter what happens and will attempt to
overthrow their own govts if thrown off the scent of hating the US---that is
why the Saudis are secretly happy their jihadi kids are sneaking off to
Baghdad---with the help of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif whom I actually
met [one of few Americans, whom he detests, to ever do so] way back in the
day---to explode themselves somewhere else. Other Arab govts secretly are
happy the US is the whipping boy, and will subtlely encourage this if the
jihadis begin to agitate in their homelands.
And Bernard Lewis was the first scholar to note that the Wahhabi movement in the 1740s back in the first days of the Saudi dynasty was the VERY FIRST ANTI-COLONIAL UPRISING WITH SOME MEASURE OF SUCCESS anywhere in the world, when the Saudis pushed the suzerainty of the Cairo-based wazirs of the Ottoman hyperpower out of the peninsula. By the early 1800s, the Wahhabi warriors were besieging Damascus and Baghdad in the same year [1805] which sparked a huge Egyptian expeditionary force under Mohammed Ali which destroyed the Saudi capital of Diriyah still in ruins outside of Riyadh.
Yes, the Saudis are easy to ridicule, and certain elements like Prince Naif are resolute haters of America. But their radical Salafost version of Islam captivates hyperactive Arab "hittistes" who are unemployed and virtually unemployable, but tempted by the inbred Islamic hostility toward the west to join the ranks of "martyrs" in the new heresy spawned by Sayyed Qutb and metasthesizing throughout the Islamic world.
To answer the last part of my reader's question, the US must at least support in some fashion the unfashionable and unattractive regime of Bashar "Stick-Insect" Assad in Syria. Unattractive as it may be, it beats the alternative since there is no secular replacement alternative in Syria, and the Alawite ascendency is probably as good as it can get.
Second, the US must begin to distance itself from Israel in some elements of its foreign policy in the region, at least more than symbolically, in order to regain the "indispensable" role it once had in the region. But that said, allowing Hamas to participate in the PA elections, contrary to Israeli advice, and at the urging of Rice, was in hindsight a terrible mistake.
We must finally come to the conclusion, first brought to my attention by the CIA station chief in Jidda, Ray Close, in the mid-70's, that free elections untrammelled by military elites will inevitably lead to Islamic religious hysterics' taking office. Ray told me this three years before the Islamic revolution in Iran, which was largely enabled by Jimmy Carter's projection of weakness and his indecisive swerves between dialogue and force. [A State Dept female functionary, ala Barbara Bodine in the Path to 911 film, threw a hissy fit and nixed rubber bullets for the Shah's police with her lipstick---according to Bill Maynes. Hundreds of students were slaughtered a year later when the Shah's police used live ammunition, sparking the chain of events leading to the US Embassy takeover and the Ayatollah's return.] Afghanistan was another problem instigated by the perception of American indecisive jitteryness. [The USSR might still be around today had Carter been reelected in '80]
So some sort of truce in the Democratization rhetoric should be called. And someone more competent and internationally seasoned than Karen Hughes should represent the face of America in the Middle East. Perhaps George Mitchell could be persuaded, although having him work with the Gang That Can't Shoot Straight in the WH/Pentagon nexus under GWB would be almost unimaginable.
Realpolitik of some sort might produce an antidote to the venomous toxic-waste emanating westward from Southwest Asia. But abandoning Iraq, as much as it has been mismanaged by TGTCSS, cannot help but make the situation ten times worse.
It is a Hobson's Choice, but Iraq has two more years to make a go of Democracy. After that, it's anybody's bet.
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Applebaum on Why England Still Sleeps
Anne Applebaum knows more about anti-American feelings than just about anyone else. As the Pulitzer-winning author of Gulag, this brilliant multilingual author described in awesome detail just how horrific the Soviet social experments under Stalin ended up, killing millions in god-forsaken frozen hells north of the Arctic Circle. Applebaum starts out:
Applebaum is far too generous to the degenerate otiose slackers on the continent and in the UK. They really hate us because we WON THE COLD WAR and they were on the winning side, but in the back seat. The Poles, Czechs and Ukrainians love America for what it is, a nation dedicated to freedom. The Eurotrash are dedicated to 35-hour weeks and the old saying "work is the curse of the drinking classes."
Anne is a gentlewoman, a real class act and is a bit out of her element with the largely Bolshie types at the WaPo. And she is from another planet compared to the lumpen-nomenklatura of the Guardian, Independent, BBC and other chronic leftist chattering-class guidebooks. These barnacles on the ship of the UK have never, ever forgiven the US for trashing the USSR and gelding the PRC via Reagan's Star Wars spending. What sticks in their reptilian craw is that Margaret Thatcher was encouraged by Reagan to trash the TUC and other impedimenta of the loony leninist left---and lead the UK back into prosperity, and Thatcher-lite New Labour.
After pointing out that at least Bush is doing things to counter the assault on western values by self-exploding Islamic fanatics, Applebaum points to the lassitude and smug lethargic attitudes of the EU core and avers:
Twice in the last century, the US has intervened to bail out the arrogant feckless eff-ups in the formerly influential parts of western Europe. We don't want to or have to keep them safe, this time from their own heedless mindless self-absorbed arrogance.
The dislike of America, the hatred for what it was believed to stand for – capitalism, globalisation, militarism, Zionism, Hollywood or McDonald's, depending on your point of view – was well entrenched. To put it differently, the scorn now widely felt in Britain and across Europe for America's "war on terrorism" actually preceded the "war on terrorism" itself. It was already there on September 12 and 13, right out in the open for everyone to see.
Applebaum is far too generous to the degenerate otiose slackers on the continent and in the UK. They really hate us because we WON THE COLD WAR and they were on the winning side, but in the back seat. The Poles, Czechs and Ukrainians love America for what it is, a nation dedicated to freedom. The Eurotrash are dedicated to 35-hour weeks and the old saying "work is the curse of the drinking classes."
Anne is a gentlewoman, a real class act and is a bit out of her element with the largely Bolshie types at the WaPo. And she is from another planet compared to the lumpen-nomenklatura of the Guardian, Independent, BBC and other chronic leftist chattering-class guidebooks. These barnacles on the ship of the UK have never, ever forgiven the US for trashing the USSR and gelding the PRC via Reagan's Star Wars spending. What sticks in their reptilian craw is that Margaret Thatcher was encouraged by Reagan to trash the TUC and other impedimenta of the loony leninist left---and lead the UK back into prosperity, and Thatcher-lite New Labour.
After pointing out that at least Bush is doing things to counter the assault on western values by self-exploding Islamic fanatics, Applebaum points to the lassitude and smug lethargic attitudes of the EU core and avers:
Instead of pointing fingers, the fifth anniversary of 9/11 might be a good time to reverse course. If "war on terrorism" has become an unpopular term, then call it something else. Call it a "war on fanaticism". Or – as we used to say in the Cold War – call it a "struggle for hearts and minds" in the Islamic communities of Europe and the Middle East. For whatever it's called, it won't succeed without both American and European support, without American and European mutual sympathy. And whatever it's called, if it fails, the consequences will be felt on both sides of the Atlantic.
Twice in the last century, the US has intervened to bail out the arrogant feckless eff-ups in the formerly influential parts of western Europe. We don't want to or have to keep them safe, this time from their own heedless mindless self-absorbed arrogance.
Blair Booed in Lebanon: News?
The Financial Times joins Reuters and the Guardian among the Brit MSM flagellations of Tony Blair for having the bad taste ato be booed by "over 1000" protesters during Blair's stop in Lebanon.
The FT doesn't even have the journalistic integrity of Reuters, a traditional peddler of slops, which mentions that most Lebanese are angry with the Hezbo terrorists infesting their own government.
Could the FT lapse in journalism be related to Tony's domestic problems in the UK?
In any event, the shoddiness of FT journalism on the US and Middle East means I'm not going to renew my subscription.
The FT doesn't even have the journalistic integrity of Reuters, a traditional peddler of slops, which mentions that most Lebanese are angry with the Hezbo terrorists infesting their own government.
Could the FT lapse in journalism be related to Tony's domestic problems in the UK?
In any event, the shoddiness of FT journalism on the US and Middle East means I'm not going to renew my subscription.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Hitchens on Fighting Back
Opinion Journal
lists a good reprise of the last decade's horrors:
Hitchens demonstrates his secular bent along with his strong dislike, make that hatred, of Christianity, in the next paragraph.
Hitchens states the strong conviction that a lot of stinkers were waiting the next day to become opposed to whatever ensued from the tragedy:
Hitchens goes on at length to spank these tiresome hypocrites some more.
The stupidity and the naivete of the American media is legendary. Last night I watched [along with very few other viewers, if the Cable Nielsenss are to be believed] a talking head ranter on MSNBC spew hatred of GWB for about two minutes, then switched to some more interesting news. Switching back five minutes later, the unwatched spewer was still in high rant. Seems Bush is to blame that there is no memorial to the 9/11 victims at Ground Zero yet. Another high crime and misdemeanor to put on Conyers' list of impeachable offenses! Hitchens ends quietly:
Responsibilities again! The Hollyweirdos and MSM in the US are not up to the task, but the real America will certainly not let the American Project be hijacked by a slacker generation---the Boomers---and ceded to an alien civilization.
Will the Real America please step up to the plate?
lists a good reprise of the last decade's horrors:
(1) The reopening of a restaurant in Bali, where several dozen Australian holidaymakers and many Indonesian civilians had earlier been torn to shreds. (2) The explosion of a bomb at a Tube station in London which is regularly used by two of my children. (3) The murder of a senior Shiite cleric outside his place of worship in Iraq. (4) The attempt to destroy the Danish economy--and to torch Danish embassies and civilians--as a consequence of the publication of a few caricatures in the Danish press. (5) The murder of the U.N. envoy to Baghdad: a heroic Brazilian named Sergio Vieira de Mello, as vengeance (according to his murderers) for his role in shepherding East Timor to independence. (6) The near-successful attempt to blow up the Indian parliament in New Delhi, and two successful attempts to disrupt the commerce and society of Mumbai. (7) The destruction of the Golden Dome in Samara: a place of aesthetic as well as devotional importance. (8) The bombing of ancient synagogues in Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco. (9) The evisceration in the street of a Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, and the lethal threats that drove his Somali-born colleague, a duly elected member of the Dutch parliament, into hiding and then exile. (10) The ritual slaughter on video of a Jewish reporter for this newspaper.
Hitchens demonstrates his secular bent along with his strong dislike, make that hatred, of Christianity, in the next paragraph.
This list is not exhaustive or in any special order, and it does not include any of the depredations undertaken by the votaries of the Iranian version of Islamic fundamentalism. I shall just say that I have stood, alone or in company, with Hindus, Jews, Shiites and secularists (my own non-sectarian group) in the face of a cult of death that worships suicide and exalts murder and desecration. This has not dimmed, for me, the importance of what happened in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania. But it has made me slightly bored with those who continue to wonder, fruitlessly so far, in what fashion "we" should commemorate it
Hitchens states the strong conviction that a lot of stinkers were waiting the next day to become opposed to whatever ensued from the tragedy:
At the moment, anyone who insists on the primacy of September 11, 2001, is very likely to be accused--not just overseas but in this country also--of making or at least of implying a "partisan" point. I debate with the "antiwar" types almost every day, either in print or on the air or on the podium, and I can tell you that they have been "war-weary" ever since the sun first set on the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and on the noble debris of United Airlines 93. These clever critics are waiting, some of them gleefully, for the moment that is not far off: the moment when the number of American casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq will match or exceed the number of civilians of all nationalities who were slaughtered five years ago today. But to the bored, cynical neutrals, it also comes naturally to say that it is "the war" that has taken, and is taking, the lives of tens of thousands of other civilians. In other words, homicidal nihilism is produced only by the resistance to it! If these hacks were honest, and conceded the simple truth that it is the forces of the Taliban and of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia that are conducting a Saturnalia of murder and destruction, they would have to hide their faces and admit that they were not "antiwar" at all.
Hitchens goes on at length to spank these tiresome hypocrites some more.
Anyone who lost their "innocence" on September 11 was too na?ve by far, or too stupid to begin with. On that day, we learned what we ought to have known already, which is that clerical fanaticism means to fight a war which can only have one victor. Afghans, Kurds, Kashmiris, Timorese and many others could have told us this from experience, and for nothing (and did warn us, especially in the person of Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance). Does anyone suppose that an ideology that slaughters and enslaves them will ever be amenable to "us"? The first duty, therefore, is one of solidarity with bin-Ladenism's other victims and targets, from India to Kurdistan.
The stupidity and the naivete of the American media is legendary. Last night I watched [along with very few other viewers, if the Cable Nielsenss are to be believed] a talking head ranter on MSNBC spew hatred of GWB for about two minutes, then switched to some more interesting news. Switching back five minutes later, the unwatched spewer was still in high rant. Seems Bush is to blame that there is no memorial to the 9/11 victims at Ground Zero yet. Another high crime and misdemeanor to put on Conyers' list of impeachable offenses! Hitchens ends quietly:
"We"--and our allies--simply have to become more ruthless and more experienced. An unspoken advantage of the current awful strife in Iraq and Afghanistan is that it is training tens of thousands of our young officers and soldiers to fight on the worst imaginable terrain, and gradually to learn how to confront, infiltrate, "turn," isolate and kill the worst imaginable enemy. These are faculties that we shall be needing in the future. It is a shame that we have to expend our talent in this way, but it was far worse five years and one day ago, when the enemy knew that there was a war in progress, and was giggling at how easy the attacks would be, and "we" did not even know that hostilities had commenced. Come to think of it, perhaps we were a bit "innocent" after all.
Responsibilities again! The Hollyweirdos and MSM in the US are not up to the task, but the real America will certainly not let the American Project be hijacked by a slacker generation---the Boomers---and ceded to an alien civilization.
Will the Real America please step up to the plate?
Chicago as Corrupt as New Orleans?
Slate has a piece on Chicago corruption
written by Dan Engber that covers some of the bases and points out that LA and Miami actually have higher elected-official crime rates than the Windy City.
I had a vivid little sojourn into the fringes of Chicago politics when I raised $100K from Amoco to push for NAFTA at a time early in '93 when the Clinton push for a free trade area was stuck in a slough of despond. Using my old CSIS contacts, we set up a big successful conference in DC with Bill Bradley and Bill Richardson among the star participants. Somehow the process kick-started itself shortly thereafter and I have at least timeline-evidence that I did my tiny part to get the eventual NAFTA legislation before Congress.
Subsequently, a year later a lawyer friend of mine who was a partner of William Daley, brother of the mayor [and shortly to become Sec'y of Commerce], got me an hour-long meeting with Bill at their sumptuous law digs. The meeting was cut short as Daley quickly ascertained that my ability to raise Amoco money for NAFTA [Amoco had a Mexico Entry Strategy at the time] did not extend to more political areas of pecuniary dispensation. So Bill Daley scuttled out about 20 minutes later, but not without subtely disparaging Amoco's [and my own] role in the NAFTA runup to passage.
Strangely, he himself appeared not very excited about NAFTA either.
My point in bringing this up lies in the bottom-line nature of Chicago politics nowadays. Actually, I had several chances to handshake Dick Daley's hand and he is much more affable and politically adept than his brother---at least from my continuing observations of the Chicago political to-and-fro.
My final question is wondering why Bill Daley acquiesced when Clinton ordered Commerce to delete any ethnic background descriptions of European ancestry from the 2000 census. His own kin, the Irish, already numbered 50 million, second only to around 60 million Americans of German ancestry. The English lagged behind at third place. Was Clinton worried about the Catholic conservatism of the Irish or the natural conservatism of the Germans being stimulated by ethnic self-awareness?
Finally, a military vet friend of mine down here in Boca had a grandfather who was in charge of the Corps of Engineers maintaining the dikes in New Orleans. My friend says the NO dikes were weak because long ago corrupt NO pols began requiring the COE to bid out the required building and maintenance to local contractors, who naturally dispensed generously to said local pols, and of course, oversight was lenient to these contractors.
So blaming Katrina on Bush is as sensible as blaming 9/11 on Bush. Democratic chicanery and malfeasance in both cases is far more responsible for the twin disasters the Dems are trying to pin on GWB.
written by Dan Engber that covers some of the bases and points out that LA and Miami actually have higher elected-official crime rates than the Windy City.
I had a vivid little sojourn into the fringes of Chicago politics when I raised $100K from Amoco to push for NAFTA at a time early in '93 when the Clinton push for a free trade area was stuck in a slough of despond. Using my old CSIS contacts, we set up a big successful conference in DC with Bill Bradley and Bill Richardson among the star participants. Somehow the process kick-started itself shortly thereafter and I have at least timeline-evidence that I did my tiny part to get the eventual NAFTA legislation before Congress.
Subsequently, a year later a lawyer friend of mine who was a partner of William Daley, brother of the mayor [and shortly to become Sec'y of Commerce], got me an hour-long meeting with Bill at their sumptuous law digs. The meeting was cut short as Daley quickly ascertained that my ability to raise Amoco money for NAFTA [Amoco had a Mexico Entry Strategy at the time] did not extend to more political areas of pecuniary dispensation. So Bill Daley scuttled out about 20 minutes later, but not without subtely disparaging Amoco's [and my own] role in the NAFTA runup to passage.
Strangely, he himself appeared not very excited about NAFTA either.
My point in bringing this up lies in the bottom-line nature of Chicago politics nowadays. Actually, I had several chances to handshake Dick Daley's hand and he is much more affable and politically adept than his brother---at least from my continuing observations of the Chicago political to-and-fro.
My final question is wondering why Bill Daley acquiesced when Clinton ordered Commerce to delete any ethnic background descriptions of European ancestry from the 2000 census. His own kin, the Irish, already numbered 50 million, second only to around 60 million Americans of German ancestry. The English lagged behind at third place. Was Clinton worried about the Catholic conservatism of the Irish or the natural conservatism of the Germans being stimulated by ethnic self-awareness?
Finally, a military vet friend of mine down here in Boca had a grandfather who was in charge of the Corps of Engineers maintaining the dikes in New Orleans. My friend says the NO dikes were weak because long ago corrupt NO pols began requiring the COE to bid out the required building and maintenance to local contractors, who naturally dispensed generously to said local pols, and of course, oversight was lenient to these contractors.
So blaming Katrina on Bush is as sensible as blaming 9/11 on Bush. Democratic chicanery and malfeasance in both cases is far more responsible for the twin disasters the Dems are trying to pin on GWB.
Mickey Kaus Hits Two Four-Baggers
Mickey Kaus defrocks the leftist high priests in a more than usually irreverent fisking/frisking of HuffnPuff hilarity.
Here's Mickey taking the Halloween outfit off another far-left fright clown:
But wait, there's more! Mickey also takes "shortsighted party hack" Pelosi behind the woodshed for another of her airhead escapades, opposing Arnold's redistricting.
Pelosi is the Emily Litella of the Three Stooge/Keystone Cop troika atop the tottering Dem political [inverted?] pyramid. Hermaphroditic Reid and the Deaniac are in good company with "Never Mind" ditz-of-the-House Nancy.
I hope she becomes Speaker, because if past is prologue, she will futz up things so badly for the Dems that the House will relapse into Repub control in '08.
Here's Mickey taking the Halloween outfit off another far-left fright clown:
Max Blumenthal's piece on the right-wing network behind The Path to 9/11 will go right into the press kits of David Horowitz and the conservative Liberty Film Foundation. (Who knew their blog was "heavily trafficked"! Donors will be pleased.) ... P.S.: I assume Blumenthal's right and Path, even with edits, isn't at all a neutral look at pre-9/11 anti-terrorist efforts. Still, are you worried about an "emerging network of right-wing people burrowing into the film industry with ulterior sectarian politican and religious agendas"? Maybe I'm complacent about the threat, but isn't that a little like worrying about the growing anti-Zionist foothold at The New Republic? If you put Hollywoods's entire network of right wing people in David Horowitz's living room, you wouldn't have much trouble getting to the hors d'oeuvre tray. If you tried to put Hollywood's network of left wing people in the Los Angeles Convention Center, the fire marshal would close it down.
But wait, there's more! Mickey also takes "shortsighted party hack" Pelosi behind the woodshed for another of her airhead escapades, opposing Arnold's redistricting.
Re: Cake-baking: Alert reader T.F. asks:
Have you already mentioned that if Schwarzenegger's redistricting had passed, the cake would be baked because the Dems would pick up at least five seats in California instead of zero? [Emphasis added]
No, I don't think I have mentioned that. ... P.S.: At least Nancy "I'm-going-to-become-Speaker" Pelosi wasn't such a shortsighted party hack that she raised money to defeat the measure that would have gotten her party a third of the seats it needs.
Pelosi is the Emily Litella of the Three Stooge/Keystone Cop troika atop the tottering Dem political [inverted?] pyramid. Hermaphroditic Reid and the Deaniac are in good company with "Never Mind" ditz-of-the-House Nancy.
I hope she becomes Speaker, because if past is prologue, she will futz up things so badly for the Dems that the House will relapse into Repub control in '08.
Best Brit PM Since Thatcher Muses on Complacency
Tony Blair is the US's favorite foreign leader. Not even the hateful Dems despise him that much---though they love America-hater Chirac much more than Tony.
In an interesting Ha'aretz interview, Blair says:
Bush and Blair have taken their case to the people and paid the price.
Cowering cowards like Chirac and his Spanish sock-puppet keep their heads down and assume the position, hoping this Islamist fascists will take them gently.
In an interesting Ha'aretz interview, Blair says:
Amongst the people in Europe and Western opinion there is a big battle to be won. I mean, I'm being just honest about this. And I think there is a desire not to face the fact that we are fighting a global struggle. There are all sorts of issues to do with America and whether people want to be associated with America. And I think there is sometimes a naivete about organizations like Hezbollah and the activities of Iran. I'm just being frank. I think there is a battle, and it is important that we take our case out and win that battle.
Bush and Blair have taken their case to the people and paid the price.
Cowering cowards like Chirac and his Spanish sock-puppet keep their heads down and assume the position, hoping this Islamist fascists will take them gently.
Hiding in Plain Sight: Steyn on Radical Islam
Mark Steyn has a couple of nuggets in a piece outlining just how sluggish and lethargic America has become to an enemy vowing to nuke us back to the Stone Age.
While the Jimmy Carter/Billy Jeff crowd chants mantras pushing privacy and preventing profiling. Here's a bit of Steyn:
O'Neill's investigation of the bombing of the Cole was thwarted by a PC Ambassadress, Bobo Bodine, [whom I dated in the mid-seventies] more concerned with local sensitivities than apprehending the plotters, who were still inside the Republic of Yemen.
Again and again, the CIA was thwarted by the Clintonista WH, and last night the chief Bin Laden chaser Paul Scheuer at the CIA insisted on FOX-NEWS that Bin Laden was falcon-hunting at the same site for three days while Richard C. Clarke was dithering and ultimately vetoing a cruise missile attack. The veto came because there were senior Emirate officials with Osama and an attack might harm UAE relations [there was a big F-16 deal in the offing and General Dynamics is a big Dem Party contributor]. Clarke has been trying to blame George Tenet for years, but Scheuer insists that it was Clarke [and thus Clinton] who nixed killing ObL. Can you imagine Billy Jeff wringing his hands over the issue between BJs?
And the CIA and FBI were withholding info from each other because of turf battles, including intell on future 9/11 participants.
And Janet Reno/Jamie Gorelick did their best/worst to hamper law enforcement from national security by hyper-lawyering any interagency cooperation through legalistic "firewalls." Able Danger was buffaloed by DoD lawyers into suppressing info on Mohammed Atta. And of course, Albright must inform her Paki counterpart that cruise missiles are coming over the country to Afghanistan, again violating operational security. And giving ObL enough time to scamper to safety. Doesn't that superannuated bimbo know how porous and infiltrated Pak intell is by AQ sympathizers? Probably not.
The Northern Front soon-to-be-martyred leader Mahsoud was correct to ask "Are there no men in Washington?" "Are they all cowards?" In the cases of Clarke, Berger and Clinton, yes and yes.
What is clear in hindsight is that hierarchies of approval to gain clearances on operations effectively destroy operational effectiveness.
And when you make a trade lawyer like Sandy Berger into NSC Chair, disaster is sure to ensue.
There's an old saying in the business world, if you want a deal to work, don't bring in the lawyers until all the parts are agreed on.
Because lawyers kill deals, and in the over-lawyered super-legalistic Clinton Administration, 2996 innocent New Yorkers in the WTC.
I'd love to see the documents Sandy Berger was caught stealing in the National Archives. His fingerprints are all over the Clinton FAILED FOREIGN POLICY and he sure wanted to remove the original documents with his marginal notations.
Berger is only marginally dumber than Reno or Gorelick or Clinton himself, a legal beagle san pareil. And now Berger is a convicted felon. But of course, that won't stop him from getting a job in the next Dem administration.
While the Jimmy Carter/Billy Jeff crowd chants mantras pushing privacy and preventing profiling. Here's a bit of Steyn:
O'Neill must have felt his world come full circle. Six years earlier (as vividly recounted in Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower) he'd organized the capture in Pakistan of Ramzi Yousef, the man behind the first World Trade Center bombing and a terrorist who'd planned to crash a plane into CIA headquarters.
In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote: "The failure to prevent Sept. 11 was not a failure of intelligence or coordination. It was a failure of imagination." That's not really true. Islamist terrorists had indicated their interest in U.S. landmarks, and were known to have plans to hijack planes to fly into them. But men like John O'Neill could never quite get the full attention of a somnolent federal bureaucracy. The terrorists must have banked on that: After all, they took their pilot-training classes in America, apparently confident that, even if anyone noticed the uptick in Arab enrollments at U.S. flight schools, a squeamish culture of political correctness would ensure nothing was done about it.
Five years on, half America has retreated to the laziest old tropes, filtering the new struggle through the most drearily cobwebbed prisms: All dramatic national events are JFK-type conspiracies, all wars are Vietnam quagmires. Meanwhile, Ramzi Yousef's successors make their ambitions as plain as he did: They want to acquire nuclear technology in order to kill even more of us. And, given that free societies tend naturally toward a Katrina mentality of doing nothing until it happens, one morning we will wake up to another day like the "day that changed everything." Sept. 11 was less "a failure of imagination" than an ability to see that America's enemies were hiding in plain sight.
O'Neill's investigation of the bombing of the Cole was thwarted by a PC Ambassadress, Bobo Bodine, [whom I dated in the mid-seventies] more concerned with local sensitivities than apprehending the plotters, who were still inside the Republic of Yemen.
Again and again, the CIA was thwarted by the Clintonista WH, and last night the chief Bin Laden chaser Paul Scheuer at the CIA insisted on FOX-NEWS that Bin Laden was falcon-hunting at the same site for three days while Richard C. Clarke was dithering and ultimately vetoing a cruise missile attack. The veto came because there were senior Emirate officials with Osama and an attack might harm UAE relations [there was a big F-16 deal in the offing and General Dynamics is a big Dem Party contributor]. Clarke has been trying to blame George Tenet for years, but Scheuer insists that it was Clarke [and thus Clinton] who nixed killing ObL. Can you imagine Billy Jeff wringing his hands over the issue between BJs?
And the CIA and FBI were withholding info from each other because of turf battles, including intell on future 9/11 participants.
And Janet Reno/Jamie Gorelick did their best/worst to hamper law enforcement from national security by hyper-lawyering any interagency cooperation through legalistic "firewalls." Able Danger was buffaloed by DoD lawyers into suppressing info on Mohammed Atta. And of course, Albright must inform her Paki counterpart that cruise missiles are coming over the country to Afghanistan, again violating operational security. And giving ObL enough time to scamper to safety. Doesn't that superannuated bimbo know how porous and infiltrated Pak intell is by AQ sympathizers? Probably not.
The Northern Front soon-to-be-martyred leader Mahsoud was correct to ask "Are there no men in Washington?" "Are they all cowards?" In the cases of Clarke, Berger and Clinton, yes and yes.
What is clear in hindsight is that hierarchies of approval to gain clearances on operations effectively destroy operational effectiveness.
And when you make a trade lawyer like Sandy Berger into NSC Chair, disaster is sure to ensue.
There's an old saying in the business world, if you want a deal to work, don't bring in the lawyers until all the parts are agreed on.
Because lawyers kill deals, and in the over-lawyered super-legalistic Clinton Administration, 2996 innocent New Yorkers in the WTC.
I'd love to see the documents Sandy Berger was caught stealing in the National Archives. His fingerprints are all over the Clinton FAILED FOREIGN POLICY and he sure wanted to remove the original documents with his marginal notations.
Berger is only marginally dumber than Reno or Gorelick or Clinton himself, a legal beagle san pareil. And now Berger is a convicted felon. But of course, that won't stop him from getting a job in the next Dem administration.
Bush Hatred Reveals Mass Psychosis on Far Left
The Boston Globe has an interesting article listing a long litany of lies and libels and sheer loony lunacy about Bush, with whack-jobs like turncoat Jeffords to chronic drunk Fat Teddy to treehouse dweller Cindy---all raving because they don't have a backbone and GWB does.
But now a whole wave of not-so-subtle frenzied froth-mouths want GWB assassinated. As co-conspirators with Al-Qaeda, they want the downfall of the West ASAP, and multiculti moral relativism to tilt toward violence and subversion to attain their so-called goals.
Which are what, exactly?
Anarchy, followed by a Saddam-style rule of the left?
Jay Rockefeller seems to think so.
But now a whole wave of not-so-subtle frenzied froth-mouths want GWB assassinated. As co-conspirators with Al-Qaeda, they want the downfall of the West ASAP, and multiculti moral relativism to tilt toward violence and subversion to attain their so-called goals.
Which are what, exactly?
Anarchy, followed by a Saddam-style rule of the left?
Jay Rockefeller seems to think so.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Saturday, September 09, 2006
PuffinHost Truthout Blogger Roasted by Rick Moran
Rick Moran skewers the latest emanation [or is it "penumbra," Judge Billy O. Douglas always was a bit foggy] of the mass-psychosis on the schizophrenic paranoid left.
A fruitcake named Blumenthal has put up a series of bogus spins and fake connections and Maureen Dowdist strategic deletions/redactions---all saying that Nowrasteh was part of a cabal headed by David Horowitz, the wizard of Bolshie nightmares, to snatch the agenda from the ultra-left as to rewriting history.
This after Plamegate last week plummeted in a flaming death-spiral without a peep of remorse or accountability by the screeching shriekers on the hallucinatory fringes of the Democratic Party.
Which is where the fact-challenged Max, alias Jason Leonard of Truthout, or any number of emanations or penumbras of the hysterical Chicken Little rad-left, are now being rightfully positioned on the political GPS---the Robert Scheer, Baba Shrieksand loonland of the psycho-ward left.
Oh, by the way, Max "Jason Leonard" says that Nowrasteh is the hub of this hysterical hubbub---the same guy who produced a mini-series about Reagan's being shot---with far right-winger OLIVER STONE!!!
Not that that will keep the padded-wall dwelling southpaw spewers from continuing their rat brigade parade on-line echoing paranoid delusions.
A fruitcake named Blumenthal has put up a series of bogus spins and fake connections and Maureen Dowdist strategic deletions/redactions---all saying that Nowrasteh was part of a cabal headed by David Horowitz, the wizard of Bolshie nightmares, to snatch the agenda from the ultra-left as to rewriting history.
This after Plamegate last week plummeted in a flaming death-spiral without a peep of remorse or accountability by the screeching shriekers on the hallucinatory fringes of the Democratic Party.
Which is where the fact-challenged Max, alias Jason Leonard of Truthout, or any number of emanations or penumbras of the hysterical Chicken Little rad-left, are now being rightfully positioned on the political GPS---the Robert Scheer, Baba Shrieksand loonland of the psycho-ward left.
Oh, by the way, Max "Jason Leonard" says that Nowrasteh is the hub of this hysterical hubbub---the same guy who produced a mini-series about Reagan's being shot---with far right-winger OLIVER STONE!!!
Not that that will keep the padded-wall dwelling southpaw spewers from continuing their rat brigade parade on-line echoing paranoid delusions.
Degenerate Generation: Boomers Get Stoneder and Slacker
The DEA has come out with a new stat indicating that the rate of drug abuse among teenagers has DECREASED about 1% in 2004. The same survey indicated that the Boomer Generation illegal drug use had INCREASED about 1.5%
Why should we wonder why the '60s generation has led to the gradual diminishment of American life in almost every department, from gaming [gambling] to sexual licentiousness to a nation of scofflaws [55 mph speed limit, need I say more?]?
Infanticide on demand and divorce without fault have riven the basis of the family and illegalities being made legal threaten to destroy the very institution of marriage.
Although Clinton lying under oath [his supporters say that if he breaks his presidential oath on matters concerning sex, then that's OKAY] is the iconic moment for the poster boy of Boomers [born illegitimate, changed name, mother married multiple times, serial adulterer], Jimmy Carter could have been their godfather, with his fingerpointing and denial of accountability as the list of his failures went into double digits.
Jimmy and Billy Jeff are the twin pillars that the Dems will build their new edifice of denial and evasion of accountability and moral relativism.
And for the Boomers, especially the stoned [and getting stoneder] slackers on the left, that is just fine.
Why should we wonder why the '60s generation has led to the gradual diminishment of American life in almost every department, from gaming [gambling] to sexual licentiousness to a nation of scofflaws [55 mph speed limit, need I say more?]?
Infanticide on demand and divorce without fault have riven the basis of the family and illegalities being made legal threaten to destroy the very institution of marriage.
Although Clinton lying under oath [his supporters say that if he breaks his presidential oath on matters concerning sex, then that's OKAY] is the iconic moment for the poster boy of Boomers [born illegitimate, changed name, mother married multiple times, serial adulterer], Jimmy Carter could have been their godfather, with his fingerpointing and denial of accountability as the list of his failures went into double digits.
Jimmy and Billy Jeff are the twin pillars that the Dems will build their new edifice of denial and evasion of accountability and moral relativism.
And for the Boomers, especially the stoned [and getting stoneder] slackers on the left, that is just fine.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Will Lyin' Bill Buffalo ABC?
Newsweek's Mark Peyser sensibly puts into perspective the firestorm blown up by Dem Senators, fake historians [living fossil Arthur Schlesinger Jr is trotted out in his comatose state on a gurney and fake Sean Wilentz hops on for the ride], and all sorts of Wizard of Oz effects engineered by psycho-ward consultants [even 200,000 fake signatures, all breathlessly hyped in fake AP and Reuters and BBC fake news reports].
Peyser points out that the movie is extremely engrossing, which fake movie critics like the girlie-boy Ebert and other agitpreppy cineastes deny. I'd like to see for myself.
After Plamegate, the Republicans need a comebacker, and since there are no apologies from the spew brigade on the left for that two-year fiasco, Iger should not cave to a bunch of Mau-Mauing. Remember that the mass-psychosis on the left should not make you believe they are going to do anything except the stuck-on-stupid things you've seen before. The Dems are a paper pussycat.
ABC will make more money in the long run from rich righties who may actually watch Gibson instead of Williams or Couric and drive them to #1 on the evening news.
Iger should think big, and if George Mitchell butts in, tell him you'll resign. Be strong like Eisner would be!
Peyser points out that the movie is extremely engrossing, which fake movie critics like the girlie-boy Ebert and other agitpreppy cineastes deny. I'd like to see for myself.
After Plamegate, the Republicans need a comebacker, and since there are no apologies from the spew brigade on the left for that two-year fiasco, Iger should not cave to a bunch of Mau-Mauing. Remember that the mass-psychosis on the left should not make you believe they are going to do anything except the stuck-on-stupid things you've seen before. The Dems are a paper pussycat.
ABC will make more money in the long run from rich righties who may actually watch Gibson instead of Williams or Couric and drive them to #1 on the evening news.
Iger should think big, and if George Mitchell butts in, tell him you'll resign. Be strong like Eisner would be!
French and British Lefts Pas de Deux: Kill the King[Queen]
The Economist has a good article on the fratricidal strife in the French Left as the Socialists try to take back the presidency Chirac deprived them of after Mitterand. The gist of the article:
So should France expect much change if either one of these is elected?
And the Economist doesn't mention that Britain has much the same problem, only on the flip side. The Govt in power appears to be self-destructing slowly like the Thatcher regime did while I was living in London sixteen years ago. Gordon Brown is undermining Tony Blair as if the PM job was an entitlement for [New] Labour, just as Heseltine did with Thatcher. David Cameron might have the last laugh, and England might reject the [Olde?] Labourite Brown and swerve right into Tory arms.
My money says Cameron and Sarkozy will be on top two years from now.
it looks as if the standard-bearers will indeed be Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal. For months the polls have suggested that the campaign will become a contest between them. Attention is now turning from the candidates to their strategies—which in some respects seem confusingly similar.
Both Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal promise to break with the past (Mr Sarkozy's favourite word is rupture). Being different and unbound by party traditions has been their common recipe for success at a time when the French are disillusioned with the political class. Both have broken party taboos: she by attacking the 35-hour week, he by calling for positive discrimination.
Both have also talked more of values than of actual reforms. The work ethic, classroom discipline and family values have been recurring themes, not concrete proposals to tackle France's 8.9% unemployment. Mr Sarkozy, who vows to cut the jobless rate to 5%, once called himself a liberal and urged more flexible labour laws. But since the government withdrew its new flexible youth contract last spring, his language has changed to what he calls “popular liberalism”. Last week, when the government announced a big rise in the minimum wage and more subsidies for low earners, Mr Sarkozy cheered.
Ms Royal is as hard to read. She has expressed admiration for Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, and she recently went to Sweden to study the Scandinavian social model. But she wants to scrap a flexible work contract for small companies that was introduced a year ago. And her real objection to the 35-hour week is that it benefited managers, not workers.
So should France expect much change if either one of these is elected?
There are two risks in maintaining such vagueness for the next seven months. One is another 2002, when disillusion and leftist squabbling enabled the National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, to beat Mr Jospin in the first round. The second is "another 1995," as Mr Baverez puts it. That year a candidate promising vague but radical change was elected. Yet, 11 years on, the problems that Jacques Chirac vowed to tackle still haunt France.
And the Economist doesn't mention that Britain has much the same problem, only on the flip side. The Govt in power appears to be self-destructing slowly like the Thatcher regime did while I was living in London sixteen years ago. Gordon Brown is undermining Tony Blair as if the PM job was an entitlement for [New] Labour, just as Heseltine did with Thatcher. David Cameron might have the last laugh, and England might reject the [Olde?] Labourite Brown and swerve right into Tory arms.
My money says Cameron and Sarkozy will be on top two years from now.
Chris Mathews Outted as Dem Hack, Scared of Cheney
Newsbusters has once again proved that Chris Mathews is a slick-talking empty-headed coward when it comes to follow-up on a story he has touted 27 times on his program, Plamegate, then runs south when he's revealed to have been pushing a peanut with his nose.
Why not get Nora O'Donnell or someone else with balls to look into all the misleading garbage the lyin' left has thrown at Rove and Libby over this snipe hunt. Their mighty Wurlitzer, as usual, had a whole bunch of tunes based on no facts---and Wilson has been outted as a liar.
Now Mathews has been outted as a coward and no journalist at all---again.
Why not get Nora O'Donnell or someone else with balls to look into all the misleading garbage the lyin' left has thrown at Rove and Libby over this snipe hunt. Their mighty Wurlitzer, as usual, had a whole bunch of tunes based on no facts---and Wilson has been outted as a liar.
Now Mathews has been outted as a coward and no journalist at all---again.
NYT Approves ABC Movie; Dems Attack Free Speech
Girlie-man Reid of Nevada and his arm-waving Arianna shriekers Boxer & Company attack free speech and the First Amendment, except when it suits their purposes like with the scurrilous fact-free Michael Moore hallucinations in Fahrenheit 911.
Last Saturday I predicted that
Behold some of the FACTS that the Clinton squads and girlie-men Dems in the Senate want to suppress---like their Bolshevik ancestors they wish to airbrush out faces and redact historical facts that don't support their parallel-reality history of the '90s. I also noted:
The 9/11 Commission only glanced at a lot of the systemic hyper-lawyered Gordian-knot bureaucratics that the Clintonista legalists had tortuously woven to keep the old Bolshie fear of having privacy invaded. J Edgar is alive and well in these superannuated activists' nightmares. Knee-jerk liberal reactions to privacy concerns trumped national security for these Gorelick types---Gorelick was actually on the Commission, along with Ben-Veniste, which is putting the devil's advocate entirely in charge of sanctification proceedings. Gorelick was part of the original problem in apprehending terrorists, and Ashcroft was right to demand her removal on grounds of conflict of interest.
But such conflicts of interest don't bother Dems, as we have recently seen in the case of Michigan Judge Diggs. Nor do Freedom of Speech issues, for the Democratic Leadership of the US Senate, bathing in hypocrisy as soprano Harry Reid threatens ABC with legal problems. High-handed is okay for the MSM as long as it's the Democrats shaking their fists and pointing fingers [or in Arianna's case, waving arms and shrieking]. I finish the piece thus:
Free Speech and the First Amendment are not to be trifled with, even by girlie-men and their female cohorts.
Last Saturday I predicted that
...the ABC mini-series, if it withstands the onslaughts of the Clintonista mafia, will demonstrate how the first WTC bombing in '93, the Bojinka plane plot in '95, the twin embassy bombings in '98, and the bombing of the Cole in 2000 all failed to stir the Clinton Administration out of its kumbayeh lethargy vis-a-vis the Al-Qaeda threat. And the huge question remains why in '96 did the Clintonistas pass up the Sudanese offer of delivering Osama to the US on a platter. I believe history written by true historians will show that the over-lawyered Dems didn't want the legal hassles---obviously in hindsight the Clinton priorities were totally parochial---and hoped the Saudis would take care of Bin Laden, who scampered off to Afghanistan as soon as the opportunity arose.
Behold some of the FACTS that the Clinton squads and girlie-men Dems in the Senate want to suppress---like their Bolshevik ancestors they wish to airbrush out faces and redact historical facts that don't support their parallel-reality history of the '90s. I also noted:
We can thank Clinton and his Reno/Gorelick-led DOJ for "orders that made it harder to share information among intelligence and law enforcement agencies" and hyper-legalistic requirements putting firewalls between various Govt. Departments. Pre-emptive detection such as the Able Danger project faced numerous obstacles in the over-lawyered environment the Clintons engendered.
The 9/11 Commission only glanced at a lot of the systemic hyper-lawyered Gordian-knot bureaucratics that the Clintonista legalists had tortuously woven to keep the old Bolshie fear of having privacy invaded. J Edgar is alive and well in these superannuated activists' nightmares. Knee-jerk liberal reactions to privacy concerns trumped national security for these Gorelick types---Gorelick was actually on the Commission, along with Ben-Veniste, which is putting the devil's advocate entirely in charge of sanctification proceedings. Gorelick was part of the original problem in apprehending terrorists, and Ashcroft was right to demand her removal on grounds of conflict of interest.
But such conflicts of interest don't bother Dems, as we have recently seen in the case of Michigan Judge Diggs. Nor do Freedom of Speech issues, for the Democratic Leadership of the US Senate, bathing in hypocrisy as soprano Harry Reid threatens ABC with legal problems. High-handed is okay for the MSM as long as it's the Democrats shaking their fists and pointing fingers [or in Arianna's case, waving arms and shrieking]. I finish the piece thus:
We'll see if the Clintonista nomenklatura can scare or persuade the ABC Disney front office into last minute revisions.
But pundits like Glenn Reynolds and Hugh Hewitt are already in possession of the full six-hour final cut and, if last-minute air-brushing does ensue, these folks can make the "objectionable" cutting-room floor clips available to YouTube and other on-line sites.
Free Speech and the First Amendment are not to be trifled with, even by girlie-men and their female cohorts.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Chevron Discovery in Gulf: How Big and How "Real?"
When I was International Editor of The Oil Daily, very early on I filed a huge front-page story about a Statol find off Norway that prospected huge amounts of oil. The source seemed reliable and I went with the story. As petroleum geologists can get excited and hypothesize a bit, it turned out to be in large part exaggerated.
Chevron's big discovery in the Gulf of Mexico also has a few second thoughts attached several days after its announcement amid much fanfare. The link above has extra thoughts, but here are the main points to give more perspective on the size and substance of the find:
Prudhoe Bay and ANWR remain our best bets for expanding our in-country resource base. But the political system in Washington is busted and broken on so many levels, the likelihood of getting more American oil onstream offshore or out of the ground remains slim.
And the political risk attached to oil imports is the stuff of daily headlines.
Chevron's big discovery in the Gulf of Mexico also has a few second thoughts attached several days after its announcement amid much fanfare. The link above has extra thoughts, but here are the main points to give more perspective on the size and substance of the find:
1. The range of amount -- from 3 billion to 15 billion (in itself a huge range -- reserves of Exxon Mobile are around 14 billion barrels total) is comprised of no single field of more than 300 million barrels. An entire area of as much as 15 billion barrels with no "giant" over 1 Bn bar oil field is unusual. Oil discoveries tend to cluster with a giant (King) and several queens and even more jacks.
2. The area is very deep: 7000 feet of seawater and a further 20,000 feet below the ground. That is about 3 miles below the surface, in 1+ miles of deep water. The normal time to accurately estimate oil and gas field size is months. These fields are more challenging because of the extreme depths. It is therefore likely that very little is known with certainty about the potential reserves from a geological standpoint.
3. Production will not start, at the very earliest, at 2010. Full production, will not start at the very earliest 2013. Many projects are being delayed so these dates are most likely the best possible scenario.
4. The wells are located in deep water and will not be served by underground GOM pipelines. The oil will be pumped directly to tankers. Pipelines are faster and more efficient, and tankers will put a higher price and limited the amount of oil pumped out.
5. The wells are most likely mainly natural gas, as they are very deep. All estimates are in barrels of oil equivalent. Oil tends to form closer to the surface, gas deeper. Therefore the discovery is likely to impact natural gas markets, not oil, if the gas exists in meaningful quantities.
6. The US Senate is weeks away from voting on the lifting of the 25-year ban on offshore drilling off the majority of the coasts in the US. This offshore drilling bill was approved in the Congress but political analysts believe the bill will face more opposition in the Senate. The oil industry stands to make high profits if Congress will open up Florida and the Offshore East coast to drilling. To date the offshore drilling bill has not been approved by both houses because of environmental interests. A large potential oil “discovery” in the Gulf would provide evidence that the passing of the offshore oil bill would be beneficial.
7. Related to point #6, the announcement is reminiscent of the Mexican "huge oil discovery" announced last year, of a possible 10 billion barrels, which was quietly revised this year to around 43 million barrels, a downward revision of 99.57%. This similar "discovery" was made in Mexico last year a few months before the Mexican parliament was to vote on Pemex (state oil co)'s budget and rights to expand drilling. This illustrates the potential political pressure to announce oil and gas discoveries.
8. The wells are estimated to cost between $80M to $120M each, starting in 2010, and a completion time of 60 days. Payback period with gas at $7 is about 3 to 5 years (by my rough calculations). Although it is likely that some new technical issues will be likely be needed to be resolved as the depth is approaching record levels. Further, insurance rates at these depths in the Gulf will likely be very high – the rough payback period here doesn’t include insurance costs.
Prudhoe Bay and ANWR remain our best bets for expanding our in-country resource base. But the political system in Washington is busted and broken on so many levels, the likelihood of getting more American oil onstream offshore or out of the ground remains slim.
And the political risk attached to oil imports is the stuff of daily headlines.
WaPo David Broder Speaks Out the Real Truth
In the conspiracy-prone leftist mind, a bolshie gene works overtime cooking up elaborate scenarios whereby their agenda is being thwarted by Diebold voting machines or the United States Supreme Court on purpose, as part of a diabolical plot hatched by evil geniuses on the conservative side of the political fence.
Michael Moore is a good example of this reality-averse near-psychotic twisting of a few facts to construct a large edifice of interconnected conspirators. Hollyweirdos like Clooney use this mindset in movies like Syriana.
Demented lefties like alleged wife-beater Sidney Blumenthal have put up Thomas Pynchon hallucinations onto blogspots like Salon.com. The eminently sane Democrat David Broder points out some of these agitprop excesses in a calm and balanced fashion and makes a polite request:
Broder's observation assumes that the schizoid mass-psychosis on the far left can be wheedled and cadged back into some sort of civil discourse.
There are no meds strong enough to reel in some of the southpaw whack-jobs Broder names in his article back to a semblance of reality.
Michael Moore is a good example of this reality-averse near-psychotic twisting of a few facts to construct a large edifice of interconnected conspirators. Hollyweirdos like Clooney use this mindset in movies like Syriana.
Demented lefties like alleged wife-beater Sidney Blumenthal have put up Thomas Pynchon hallucinations onto blogspots like Salon.com. The eminently sane Democrat David Broder points out some of these agitprop excesses in a calm and balanced fashion and makes a polite request:
These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.
Broder's observation assumes that the schizoid mass-psychosis on the far left can be wheedled and cadged back into some sort of civil discourse.
There are no meds strong enough to reel in some of the southpaw whack-jobs Broder names in his article back to a semblance of reality.
Unconfirmed Report Bubba Makes Disney Edit 9/11 Mini-series
Ostroy Report reports that Billy Jeff ClyntOOn managed to buffalo or strong-arm Disney CEO Iger into editing out scenes that metaphorically portray the Clintonian overlawyered incompetence and moral cowardice leading up to the catastrophe of 9/11. I'm quoting one sensible commenter since he seems to get it rigbt:
Since this is an ultra-left blogspot, the anonymous comment above was flamed by froth-at-the-mouth Orcs spewing gibberish and mis-spelled obscene trash-talk.
Sandy "Fawn Hall" Berger must have trashed the "eyes-only" docs [with his personal comments on the margins] he sneaked out of the National Archives. Why would he commit a felony unless it was to cover up his criminal malfeasance in allowing Bin Laden to go free, which the mini-series portrays metaphorically which outlining his moral cowardice at the same time.
Wonder if there are back-up docs which have his scribbled notes on the margins somewhere in the Archives?
...There are plenty of reasons to show how the Clinton adminstration delinquence helped Al Qaeda continue to practice attacking the United States and plan 9/11.
- The 9/11 commission details 4 distinct opportunities to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden. The Clinton administration blocked each of these opportunities.
- Jamie Gorelick's "wall" was dangerously excessive and unneccessary and actually prevented the CIA and FBI from communicating terrorism information.
- The "Able Danger" project pinpointed 4 of the 9/11 terrorists years before 9/11. The clinton administration took excessive measures to prevent these terrorists from being arrested, citing "civil rights protections".
- Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to stealing and destroying classified documents from the most secure government documentation storage location in Washington. What did he steal? What is he hiding?
The clinton thugs will continue to threated retaliation against any organization that will highlight their failure to protect the American people as Al Qaeda planned the 9/11 attack on Clinton's watch, attacked the United States regularly and frequently - each with growing sophistication, and cumulating on 9/11 early into the Bush administrations first year in office.
Since this is an ultra-left blogspot, the anonymous comment above was flamed by froth-at-the-mouth Orcs spewing gibberish and mis-spelled obscene trash-talk.
Sandy "Fawn Hall" Berger must have trashed the "eyes-only" docs [with his personal comments on the margins] he sneaked out of the National Archives. Why would he commit a felony unless it was to cover up his criminal malfeasance in allowing Bin Laden to go free, which the mini-series portrays metaphorically which outlining his moral cowardice at the same time.
Wonder if there are back-up docs which have his scribbled notes on the margins somewhere in the Archives?
Canada Poll Waves White Flag on GWOT
Canadians blame the US more than any other cause for 9/11. The mass-psychosis north of our border continues to grow, particularly in Quebec, where the French surrender-gene predominates.
By the same token, these clear-thinking Cartesians would blame Spain for the Madrid train massacre. And the UK for the 7/7 attacks. And the Germans for the [failed] train attacks thwarted just last month and hushed up immediately by the MSM. And Indonesia for the Bali terrorist mass murders. And India for the Mumbai train massacre earlier this year.
It would have little to do with a fanatic froth-at-the-mouth branch of Islam that actively recruits Canadian citizens to commit mass murder and mayhem. That would strain the Canadian smug self-absorbed Pollyanna view of itself and the roseate hues of the prism it views others. The U.S. has a swath of mindless Canada-ness called the Left Coast, so this chronic cowardice may be catching.
And of course, the giant minds to the north would logically blame Canada for the plot by "23 normal average Canadians" a couple of months ago to blow up National Police HQ and some Ottawa govt. buildings. The article contains this laff-riot:
At least one country nearby appears to have a greater death wish than American liberals.
You'll remember that the lib-lefty dunces, led by the ever pliant Jimmy Carter who let the North Koreans convince him [and his gullible Clinton pilot fish] that they would cease working on nukes in the mid-90s, if the US would pay NK enough money. Of course, several billion dollars later North Korea has the bomb, probably purchased in part with Jimmy's gift money! So the USA has a few fools, but Canada appears to have approached a majority in the imbecilic-denial department.
At least it was useful in the Cold War, but now this porous kumbayeh country allows Muslims, both homegrown and imported, to threaten our northern border. Better to treat Canada as an unwitting threat.
By the same token, these clear-thinking Cartesians would blame Spain for the Madrid train massacre. And the UK for the 7/7 attacks. And the Germans for the [failed] train attacks thwarted just last month and hushed up immediately by the MSM. And Indonesia for the Bali terrorist mass murders. And India for the Mumbai train massacre earlier this year.
It would have little to do with a fanatic froth-at-the-mouth branch of Islam that actively recruits Canadian citizens to commit mass murder and mayhem. That would strain the Canadian smug self-absorbed Pollyanna view of itself and the roseate hues of the prism it views others. The U.S. has a swath of mindless Canada-ness called the Left Coast, so this chronic cowardice may be catching.
And of course, the giant minds to the north would logically blame Canada for the plot by "23 normal average Canadians" a couple of months ago to blow up National Police HQ and some Ottawa govt. buildings. The article contains this laff-riot:
"There are a lot of people who think we should be listening closely [to extremist groups] and that there is an opportunity to dialogue with these sort of groups."
At least one country nearby appears to have a greater death wish than American liberals.
You'll remember that the lib-lefty dunces, led by the ever pliant Jimmy Carter who let the North Koreans convince him [and his gullible Clinton pilot fish] that they would cease working on nukes in the mid-90s, if the US would pay NK enough money. Of course, several billion dollars later North Korea has the bomb, probably purchased in part with Jimmy's gift money! So the USA has a few fools, but Canada appears to have approached a majority in the imbecilic-denial department.
At least it was useful in the Cold War, but now this porous kumbayeh country allows Muslims, both homegrown and imported, to threaten our northern border. Better to treat Canada as an unwitting threat.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Nutroot MSM Penetrates via NYT
Editor & Publisher is proof that my hardly prescient prophecy yesterday that "Can't wait for the NYT ...and the MSM loon-platoon-left to start weighing in. Probably today or tomorrow." has become the lead story that will continue to pump itself up as Richard C. Clarke, the self-serving office-seeker and the despicable Sandy "Fawn Hall" Berger try to extricate from the ABC portrayal of their malfeasance and incompetence.
Not to mention moral cowardice, which flowed downward from the rotting fishhead--Billy Jeff, who is aptly seen in the mini-series as preoccupied with extricating his own sorry ass from lying to the American People and to a Court of Law, thus violating his Presidential Oath and rendering him a fit subject for Impeachment.
Last Saturday, I wondered if "We'll see if the Clintonista
nomenklatura can scare or persuade the ABC Disney front office into last minute revisions."
Thankfully, Gov. Kean, who headed the 9/11 Commission on which the ABC mini-series is based calls it "balanced and objective, and a docudrama, not literal truth."
But nothing will stop the Clintonista hordes in the MSM from trying to derail a "balanced and objective...docudrama" because the truth is something the NYT and its pilot fish want to hide.
Not to mention moral cowardice, which flowed downward from the rotting fishhead--Billy Jeff, who is aptly seen in the mini-series as preoccupied with extricating his own sorry ass from lying to the American People and to a Court of Law, thus violating his Presidential Oath and rendering him a fit subject for Impeachment.
Last Saturday, I wondered if "We'll see if the Clintonista
nomenklatura can scare or persuade the ABC Disney front office into last minute revisions."
Thankfully, Gov. Kean, who headed the 9/11 Commission on which the ABC mini-series is based calls it "balanced and objective, and a docudrama, not literal truth."
But nothing will stop the Clintonista hordes in the MSM from trying to derail a "balanced and objective...docudrama" because the truth is something the NYT and its pilot fish want to hide.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Narcissism at Home and Abroad
Long ago, I managed to score a three-week vacation in Bali, during one of my tours overseas, and was staying at the Bali Hyatt with an international group of shrinks/psychiatrists who were having a conference on narcissism in international leaders---fittingly, Sukarno was in charge of Indonesia at the time. As I was political officer in the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia at the time, the shrinks began to treat me as worthy of numerous Heinekens in the pool bar after I had played a dozen games of tennis on the clay courts of the resort [I played with the pro, as no one was interested at the time]. Fellini was staying there too, with his entourage of bodyguards and boyfriends.
The upshot of the many conversations was that politicians---especially Middle East ones---were narcissistic to begin with and became egomaniacs if not megalos after attaining power, especially in non-democratic countries. I remember vaguely citing Sadat---who at that very week was going to Jerusalem---as being an exception that proves the rule. Sadat was grandiose and ego-driven, but a mere amateur compared with Assad or Saddam, both of whom were in early ascendancy. I also had been in three meetings with Crown Prince Fahd and found him very polite and gracious---even though he was effectively the ultimate "decider" in his country. Most of the shrinks were of Jewish origin and excited by Sadat's visit, so my divagations at the pool garnered many free beers.
Fast-forwarding three decades, a new political powerhouse of the left has reared its head in the USA, consisting of artistes, mostly B-List, and MSM shoulder-rubbers who want a slice of the celebrity glamour. A new study by Drew Pinsky, celebrity shrink, finds that href="http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/05/prnw.20060905.LATU045.html">Celebrities, especially Hollyweirdos, are narcissistic too!
First politicians, then movie stars and journalists.
Who wouldda thunkit?
The upshot of the many conversations was that politicians---especially Middle East ones---were narcissistic to begin with and became egomaniacs if not megalos after attaining power, especially in non-democratic countries. I remember vaguely citing Sadat---who at that very week was going to Jerusalem---as being an exception that proves the rule. Sadat was grandiose and ego-driven, but a mere amateur compared with Assad or Saddam, both of whom were in early ascendancy. I also had been in three meetings with Crown Prince Fahd and found him very polite and gracious---even though he was effectively the ultimate "decider" in his country. Most of the shrinks were of Jewish origin and excited by Sadat's visit, so my divagations at the pool garnered many free beers.
Fast-forwarding three decades, a new political powerhouse of the left has reared its head in the USA, consisting of artistes, mostly B-List, and MSM shoulder-rubbers who want a slice of the celebrity glamour. A new study by Drew Pinsky, celebrity shrink, finds that href="http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/05/prnw.20060905.LATU045.html">Celebrities, especially Hollyweirdos, are narcissistic too!
First politicians, then movie stars and journalists.
Who wouldda thunkit?
Appeasement and Vali Nasr's Shi'ite book
Hugh Hewitt has a good retort to the nonsense that the WaPo's answer to the NYT's Bob Herbert, Eugene Robinson, spouts about how we must lose the GWOT by attacking our friends in the region, namely the Iraqi govt and the Paki government, re Hewitt:
Vali Nasr kept me up last nite after the sad football game that saw FSU beat Miami with an excellent talk on C-Span about his new book, based on the Foreign Affairs article about the rise of Shi'ism and how the US must confront this new phenomenon which is largely a result of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Read the Foreign Affairs piece linked and get a drift of Nasr's extensive thinking about the new rising hegemony of Iran in the region.
I bring him up because during his extemporaneous remarks on C-Span, Nasr compares the grandiose chest-thumping of the undemocratic dictatorship Iran with the militarists in Japan in the '30s. Both Japan and Iran are countries of drastic dichotomies, as Ruth Benedict's book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword on Japan could be written, mutatis mutandis, about Iran. The Rose and the Peacock Throne.
Nasr also illuminated how and why the Iraqi government Shi'ites might be distrustful of the US and not want Moqtada Al-Sadr to disband his militia. Shi'ites consider themselves betrayed by the British in 1920 when they abstained from elections under the mandate, giving the minority Sunnis preponderant weight in the new [Sunni] monarchy. Gertrude Bell goes into this in her memoirs.
But the big betrayal was in 1991 when GHWB called on Shi'ites to rise up against Saddam after the Gulf War, which resulted in perhaps 300,000 slaughtered by Saddam, according to Nasr, and another 100,000 refugees into Iran.
Then recently, the Sunnis were being promoted by American Pro-Consul Khalilizad, who although of Afghan extraction and thus roughly a Farsi speaker [he also speaks Arabic], remains distrusted by the Shi'ite PM, if I understand Nasr's analysis, because the new govt believes the US will always give the nod, at the end of the day, to its Sunni allies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan.
Nasr told the audience that GWB told a friend---Nasr teaches at the Naval Academy---that he was informed that "the Shias are all liars..." Nasr does not say it, but Bush is tight with the two King Abdullahs, both of whom are constantly inveighing against the "Shia crescent" forming across the region with Hezbo Lebanon, Syria, Shi'ite Iraq and Iran---all forming closer ties as the shake-out of Saddam's departure continues.
But Nasr was pressed by a questioner about his comparison of Iran with pre-war Japan and volunteered that Iran's recent bumptious behavior also paralleled Wilhelmine Germany and China in the fifties/sixties in its self-conscious assertiveness.
I want to blog more about Nasr's thinking and the paranoia of the Sunni American allies mirrored by the Shi'ite fear of the Gulf powers and Egypt.
But Nasr's remarks should keep thoughtful observers from regarding the Bush team's talk of "appeasement" from being wholely without merit and mere baseless bluster meant for domestic election purposes. I'll give the last word to Hewitt again:
Apparently the policy of the Appeasement Democrats is to attack out friends and ignore our enemies. Thus in Mr. Robinson's world, we should withdraw support for the newly elected Iraqi government and turn on President Musharraff because, in the former case, the government in Baghdad is alleged to have ties to extremists and in the latter because the Pakistan ISI did indeed support Islamists before 9/11.
Vali Nasr kept me up last nite after the sad football game that saw FSU beat Miami with an excellent talk on C-Span about his new book, based on the Foreign Affairs article about the rise of Shi'ism and how the US must confront this new phenomenon which is largely a result of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Read the Foreign Affairs piece linked and get a drift of Nasr's extensive thinking about the new rising hegemony of Iran in the region.
I bring him up because during his extemporaneous remarks on C-Span, Nasr compares the grandiose chest-thumping of the undemocratic dictatorship Iran with the militarists in Japan in the '30s. Both Japan and Iran are countries of drastic dichotomies, as Ruth Benedict's book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword on Japan could be written, mutatis mutandis, about Iran. The Rose and the Peacock Throne.
Nasr also illuminated how and why the Iraqi government Shi'ites might be distrustful of the US and not want Moqtada Al-Sadr to disband his militia. Shi'ites consider themselves betrayed by the British in 1920 when they abstained from elections under the mandate, giving the minority Sunnis preponderant weight in the new [Sunni] monarchy. Gertrude Bell goes into this in her memoirs.
But the big betrayal was in 1991 when GHWB called on Shi'ites to rise up against Saddam after the Gulf War, which resulted in perhaps 300,000 slaughtered by Saddam, according to Nasr, and another 100,000 refugees into Iran.
Then recently, the Sunnis were being promoted by American Pro-Consul Khalilizad, who although of Afghan extraction and thus roughly a Farsi speaker [he also speaks Arabic], remains distrusted by the Shi'ite PM, if I understand Nasr's analysis, because the new govt believes the US will always give the nod, at the end of the day, to its Sunni allies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan.
Nasr told the audience that GWB told a friend---Nasr teaches at the Naval Academy---that he was informed that "the Shias are all liars..." Nasr does not say it, but Bush is tight with the two King Abdullahs, both of whom are constantly inveighing against the "Shia crescent" forming across the region with Hezbo Lebanon, Syria, Shi'ite Iraq and Iran---all forming closer ties as the shake-out of Saddam's departure continues.
But Nasr was pressed by a questioner about his comparison of Iran with pre-war Japan and volunteered that Iran's recent bumptious behavior also paralleled Wilhelmine Germany and China in the fifties/sixties in its self-conscious assertiveness.
I want to blog more about Nasr's thinking and the paranoia of the Sunni American allies mirrored by the Shi'ite fear of the Gulf powers and Egypt.
But Nasr's remarks should keep thoughtful observers from regarding the Bush team's talk of "appeasement" from being wholely without merit and mere baseless bluster meant for domestic election purposes. I'll give the last word to Hewitt again:
This is a glimpse of the Democratic foreign policy in waiting, a foreshadowing of the demands of a Democratic Congress for investigations of human rights abuses of the new Iraqi government and for a cut-off of aid to Pakistan. As was the case with foreign policy under Presidents Carter and Clinton, today's Democrats find it much more compelling to attack our friends while turning a blind eye towards our enemies. This approach brought us the Islamic Republic of Iran during Carter's years and a nuclear North Korea and 9/11 under Clinton's watch.
Eugene Robinson longs for the good old days when our leaders did not speak of the dangers of the world. "Peace in our time" did not appear in his column, but it surely is on his mind.
ABC and Road to 9/11
Newsbusters reports on the nutroot blogstorm concerning lightweight Billy Jeff Clyntoon and his featherweight crew of Berger and Albright being portrayed as cowardly incompetent losers on the ABC mini-series coming Sept 10-11. I hope they have a postscript with Berger walking out of the National Archives like Fawn Hall with eyes-only original copies crammed into his pockets and shoes.
The MSM never did play up Berger's crimes against humanity and the American people, although he was caught red-handed. Sooner, in this cast Sept.10th, creepo-Clyntoon might have the finger pointed at him as it should have been all along.
But just tune onto memeorandum to hear the loons on firebiyotchlake croon lunacy and spew obscene rat-a-tat-tat at ABC and everyone who dares to look closely at why Clyntoon let Osama go again and again.
The oaf-in-chief himself is phoning Bob Iger at Disney trying to get cuts and edits that don't portray himself as the most incompetent eff-up in the WH since Jimmy Carter.
Can't wait for the NYT and WaPo and the MSM loon-platoon left to start weighing in. Probably today or tomorrow.
Can you imagine airhead Pelosi and girlie-man Reid or Deaniac getting into it?
The MSM never did play up Berger's crimes against humanity and the American people, although he was caught red-handed. Sooner, in this cast Sept.10th, creepo-Clyntoon might have the finger pointed at him as it should have been all along.
But just tune onto memeorandum to hear the loons on firebiyotchlake croon lunacy and spew obscene rat-a-tat-tat at ABC and everyone who dares to look closely at why Clyntoon let Osama go again and again.
The oaf-in-chief himself is phoning Bob Iger at Disney trying to get cuts and edits that don't portray himself as the most incompetent eff-up in the WH since Jimmy Carter.
Can't wait for the NYT and WaPo and the MSM loon-platoon left to start weighing in. Probably today or tomorrow.
Can you imagine airhead Pelosi and girlie-man Reid or Deaniac getting into it?
Monday, September 04, 2006
PBS Margaret Warner and Crew Expelled from Iran
Although no one has ever accused the PBS and CPB of being negligent on politically correct bowing and stooping to nasty ugly regimes from North Korea to Chavez' Venezuela, Margaret Warner has been evicted from Iran, along with her TV crew.
She is the only foreign reporter so treated and believes it might have something to do with an interview of the parents of a prisoner in the dreaded dungeons of Tehran.
Warner is extremely sensitive to Middle East sensibilities and a warm gracious individual, and I suspect she speaks or at least understands Arabic, from her interviews on the West Bank and Gaza and elsewhere.
When you are dealing with a regime based on undemocratic procedures behind a facade of quasi-democratic fakery, you should expect gratuitous expulsions for practically no reason at all.
Comes with the territory.
She is the only foreign reporter so treated and believes it might have something to do with an interview of the parents of a prisoner in the dreaded dungeons of Tehran.
Warner is extremely sensitive to Middle East sensibilities and a warm gracious individual, and I suspect she speaks or at least understands Arabic, from her interviews on the West Bank and Gaza and elsewhere.
When you are dealing with a regime based on undemocratic procedures behind a facade of quasi-democratic fakery, you should expect gratuitous expulsions for practically no reason at all.
Comes with the territory.
New Yorker and King Abdullah's Jordan
The Financial Times has an article concerning a fellow who wounded six tourists in Amman yelling Allahu Akbarun, and killed one British man. Contrary to Dominion of Canada and Seattle Wash practice, authorities announce that "This operation is considered a terrorist act unless the man is found to be deranged." Unlike the Muslim man in Seattle who shot six women at a Jewish Community Center and killed one, screaming "I am a Muslim and I hate Jews," who the Seattle papers mused was probably just an angry woman-hater. Or the fire-bomber in Montreal who torched a Jewish school in an act of "unexplained arson," ......you get the picture.
I am very exercised by the Jordan incident because I always considered Amman one of the most welcoming of Arab cities. I even recommended to the State Dept upon request for a new location for the Arab language Foreign Service Institute that it be set up in Jordan for the relative purity of its desert Arabic---this after the Beirut FSI where I studied was being moved to Tunis, a doubtful place to learn the most complicated language in State's estimation [along with Japanese].
Also, I just finished reading a good piece in The New Yorker [not online] about King Abdullah's attempt to establish a Jordanian version of Deerfield Academy, where the King schooled in his youth, in the vicinity of Amman at a new venture called "King's School." While reading I remembered having lunch with Crown Prince Hassan in the Middle East Institute garden in the early '80s when I was a Fellow there in DC. The jovial CP and I kept in touch for a while, but I think King Hussein may have made the right choice when on his deathbed he chose the young and energetic Abdullah to succeed him rather than the intellectual Hassan.
I also wondered whether the new and much-hyped school, with its multicultural and non-religious curriculum, wouldn't automatically become a cynosure for whack-job Islamists aiming to explode themselves in the new school among students from Israel, the US and many Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Just how much would security measures to prevent terrorist acts also prevent an atmosphere of intellectual and personal development that the King seeks to replicate from the quiet countryside of Massachusetts?
Much as I admire the young and energetic King's noble ambitions, I'm afraid that the one percent of Muslims who are rabid fanatics [adding up to perhaps five million males] might find some way to attack a school that might become a symbol of toleration and comity among civilizations.
While at the US Embassy in Jidda in the seventies, I tried to brush up my Arabic by studying at King Abdul Aziz University, where Osama was studying at the time. And the seething hostility I as a Westerner and non-believer encountered convinced me of one thing.
Toleration is not on these fellows' agenda.
I am very exercised by the Jordan incident because I always considered Amman one of the most welcoming of Arab cities. I even recommended to the State Dept upon request for a new location for the Arab language Foreign Service Institute that it be set up in Jordan for the relative purity of its desert Arabic---this after the Beirut FSI where I studied was being moved to Tunis, a doubtful place to learn the most complicated language in State's estimation [along with Japanese].
Also, I just finished reading a good piece in The New Yorker [not online] about King Abdullah's attempt to establish a Jordanian version of Deerfield Academy, where the King schooled in his youth, in the vicinity of Amman at a new venture called "King's School." While reading I remembered having lunch with Crown Prince Hassan in the Middle East Institute garden in the early '80s when I was a Fellow there in DC. The jovial CP and I kept in touch for a while, but I think King Hussein may have made the right choice when on his deathbed he chose the young and energetic Abdullah to succeed him rather than the intellectual Hassan.
I also wondered whether the new and much-hyped school, with its multicultural and non-religious curriculum, wouldn't automatically become a cynosure for whack-job Islamists aiming to explode themselves in the new school among students from Israel, the US and many Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Just how much would security measures to prevent terrorist acts also prevent an atmosphere of intellectual and personal development that the King seeks to replicate from the quiet countryside of Massachusetts?
Much as I admire the young and energetic King's noble ambitions, I'm afraid that the one percent of Muslims who are rabid fanatics [adding up to perhaps five million males] might find some way to attack a school that might become a symbol of toleration and comity among civilizations.
While at the US Embassy in Jidda in the seventies, I tried to brush up my Arabic by studying at King Abdul Aziz University, where Osama was studying at the time. And the seething hostility I as a Westerner and non-believer encountered convinced me of one thing.
Toleration is not on these fellows' agenda.
Montreal not on St. Lawrence River, but on De Nile
CBCNews exhibits again why crazed Islamists are more likely to come over the border from Canada than fly in from overseas via airports. Like the terrorist caught coming over from BC carrying explosives for a Milennium blast-off and apprehended because of an alert US Border Agent, there are a lot of unhinged "normal average Canadians" like the twenty-three arrested for plotting to blow up the Toronto HQ of the National Police and some unspecified Ottawa government buildings.
Those "normal average Canadians" strangely had names with Ahmed, Ali, Mohamed, and other Muslim monikers. Hmmm.... This is going to tax the forensic and analytical capabilities of the Canadian legal system. What could have been their motive?
The Montreal police are also puzzled by a fire-bombing of a Jewish religious school:
Yes, very puzzling. Especially since it is unprecedented except for only one incident:
Note the careful omission of the name of "a 19-year-old man who worked part-time at Canadian Tire." I wonder if it could be a Muslim name?
And I wonder if those super sleuths in Montreal will ever figure out the motive for this
"unexplained case of arson?" My guess is that they will never think of looking for an "average normal Canadian" with a Muslim name and background. That would exhibit a lapse in political rectitude uncharacteristic of the PC-ruled Solons in the land of the brain-dead.
Those "normal average Canadians" strangely had names with Ahmed, Ali, Mohamed, and other Muslim monikers. Hmmm.... This is going to tax the forensic and analytical capabilities of the Canadian legal system. What could have been their motive?
The Montreal police are also puzzled by a fire-bombing of a Jewish religious school:
Although officials of Jewish groups disagree, police have been unwilling to declare the attack a hate crime. In the absence of graffiti or other other evidence, it is being treated as an unexplained case of arson.
Yes, very puzzling. Especially since it is unprecedented except for only one incident:
Even so, it has stirred memories of a firebomb attack that destroyed the library of Montreal's United Talmud Torah school in 2004.
Then, the library of the United Talmud Torah school in Montreal was destroyed by another firebomb attack, in 2004. (Canadian Press) A note left at the school said the fire was in retaliation for the Israeli army's killing of a leader of the Hamas militant group.
The following year, a 19-year-old man who worked part-time at Canadian Tire was sentenced to two years in prison for the attack.
Police tracked the man down through evidence left at the scene, including long wooden matches, kerosene and four plastic fuel containers made exclusively for Canadian Tire.
Note the careful omission of the name of "a 19-year-old man who worked part-time at Canadian Tire." I wonder if it could be a Muslim name?
And I wonder if those super sleuths in Montreal will ever figure out the motive for this
"unexplained case of arson?" My guess is that they will never think of looking for an "average normal Canadian" with a Muslim name and background. That would exhibit a lapse in political rectitude uncharacteristic of the PC-ruled Solons in the land of the brain-dead.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Maher Not Funny and No Joke
Bad Taste and attacking religious beliefs are the flip side of no beliefs at all. I myself had a pistol put to my head for a minute in Beirut in 1975, not for religious reasons, but in a complex situation where religions were a large part of the problem. I don't know if I would have recanted had the demand occurred to foreswear Christianity.
Not much you can say about Maher's remarks about Christianity, but they are obviously a projection of his own mindset and not an indication of what's out there in the US heartland. Down in my neck of the woods, Florida Cracker represents the prevailing vibe. At my old campus hangout in Ann Arbor, Dr. Sanity is surely a minority, although much more intelligent than her DU neighbors at the U. of Mich. The Left Coast mindset represented by Calif natives like Centanni and Maher are bathed in the waters of a river that flows through Egypt.
It's sad when trashing religion makes for good TV, and the Carter appointee on Larry King displays just where that strain of Democrat really comes from. As for me, I have to agree with the Newsbuster readers whose humor is represented thusly:
Not much you can say about Maher's remarks about Christianity, but they are obviously a projection of his own mindset and not an indication of what's out there in the US heartland. Down in my neck of the woods, Florida Cracker represents the prevailing vibe. At my old campus hangout in Ann Arbor, Dr. Sanity is surely a minority, although much more intelligent than her DU neighbors at the U. of Mich. The Left Coast mindset represented by Calif natives like Centanni and Maher are bathed in the waters of a river that flows through Egypt.
It's sad when trashing religion makes for good TV, and the Carter appointee on Larry King displays just where that strain of Democrat really comes from. As for me, I have to agree with the Newsbuster readers whose humor is represented thusly:
Bill is far too sophisticated for me, I didn't even smirk. My idea of humor is Dangerfield or Henny Youngman."A man is at the bar, drunk . I pick him up off the floor and offer to take him home. On the way to my car, he falls three times. When I get to his house, I help out of my car, and on the way to the front door, he falls four more times! I ring the bell, and say, "Here's your husband!". The man's wife says, "Where's his wheelchair?".
Noel Sheppard Says:
September 3, 2006 - 13:10
A sandwich walks into a bar, and asks for a scotch on the rocks. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve food here." ns
balboa Says:
September 3, 2006 - 13:20
What do you call a boomerang that doesn't return?
A stick.
RJ Says:
September 3, 2006 - 14:28
Bill Maher is a pig. He can't become Muslim.
tumbler Says:
September 3, 2006 - 14:30
RJ; that's terrific! We agree on that. And it's devilish keen of you to make the point.
Steyn on Faustian Wager & Western Journalists' "Conversions"
[url=http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn03.html]Mark Steyn[/url] quotes Goethe and Andy Sullivan and Arthur Conan Doyle and the Sydney Morning Herald in this piece which stands up to the finest journalism of our time, the sort of Edward R. Murrow of the Right that Steyn is becoming:
Between masochists like Centanni/Wiig and inverts like Sullivan, the western media are becoming quisling handmaidens to Islamist chest-thumping. Reuters and the Sydney PC editors convey to the wily oriental gentlemen that the low-hanging fruit of western decadence are theirs for the picking.
T.S. Eliot had it right for western civ when he prophesied on how our world will end: "Not with a bang, but a whimper."
BTW, with an ironic hat/tip to quisling degenerate Unclaimed Territory, I want to credit the excellent writer [url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/doing_the_enemys_work.html]David Warren[/url] for quoting Jean-Christian Revel for saying:
Did you see that video of the two Fox journalists announcing they'd converted to Islam? The larger problem, it seems to me, is that much of the rest of the Western media have also converted to Islam, and there seems to be no way to get them to convert back to journalism.
Consider, for example, the bizarre behavior of Reuters, the once globally respected news agency now reduced to putting out laughably inept terrorist propaganda. A few days ago, it made a big hoo-ha about the Israelis intentionally firing a missile at its press vehicle and wounding its cameraman Fadel Shana. Shana was posed in an artful sprawl in a blood-spattered shirt. But it had ridden up and underneath his undershirt was spotlessly white, like a summer-stock Julius Caesar revealing the boxers under his toga. What's stunning is not that almost all Western media organizations reporting from the Middle East are reliant on local staff overwhelmingly sympathetic to one side in the conflict -- that's been known for some time -- but the amateurish level of fakery that head office is willing to go along with.
Down at the other end of the news business, meanwhile, one finds items like this snippet from the Sydney Morning Herald:
"A 16-year-old girl was tailed by a car full of men before being dragged inside and assaulted in Sydney's west last night, police say . . .
"The three men involved in the attack were described to police as having dark 'mullet-style' haircuts."
Three men with "mullet-style" hair, huh? Not much to go on there. Bit of a head scratcher. But, as it turned out, the indefatigable Sydney Morning Herald typist had faithfully copied out every salient detail of the police report except one. Here's the statement the coppers themselves issued:
"Police are seeking three men described as being of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean appearance, with dark 'mullet-style' hair cuts."
That additional detail narrows it down a bit, wouldn't you say? The only reason I know that is because the Aussie Internet maestro Tim Blair grew curious about the epidemic of incidents committed by men of no known appearance and decided to look into it. One can understand the agonies the politically correct multicultural journalist must go through, distressed at the thought that an infelicitous phrasing might perpetuate unfortunate stereotypes of young Muslim males. But, even so, it's quite a leap to omit the most pertinent fact and leave the impression the Sydney constabulary are combing the city for mullets. The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby wrote the other day about how American children's books are "sacrificing truth on the altar of political correctness." But there seems to be quite a lot of that in the grown-up comics, too. And, as I've said before, it's never a good idea to put reality up for grabs. There may come a time when you need it.
It's striking how, for all this alleged multiculti sensitivity, we're mostly entirely insensitive to other cultures: We find it all but impossible to imagine how differently they view the world. Go back to that video in which Fox's Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig announced their conversion to Islam. The moment the men were released, the Western media and their colleagues wrote off the scene as a stunt, a cunning ruse, of no more consequence than yelling "Behind you! He's got a gun!" and then kicking your distracted kidnapper in the teeth. Indeed, a few Web sites seemed to see the Islamic conversion routine as a useful get-out-of-jail-free card.
Don't bet on it. In my forthcoming book, I devote a few pages to a thriller I read as a boy -- an old potboiler by Sherlock Holmes' creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1895 Sir Arthur had taken his sick wife to Egypt for her health, and, not wishing to waste the local color, produced a slim novel called The Tragedy of the Korosko, about a party of Anglo-American-French tourists taken hostage by the Mahdists, the jihadi of the day. Much of the story finds the characters in the same predicament as Centanni and Wiig: The kidnappers are offering them a choice between Islam or death. Conan Doyle's Britons and Americans and Europeans were men and women of the modern world even then:
"None of them, except perhaps Miss Adams and Mrs. Belmont, had any deep religious convictions. All of them were children of this world, and some of them disagreed with everything which that symbol upon the earth represented."
"That symbol" is the cross. Yet in the end, even as men with no religious convictions, they cannot bring themselves to submit to Islam, for they understand it to be not just a denial of Christ but in some sense a denial of themselves, too. So they stall and delay and bog down the imam in a lot of technical questions until eventually he wises up and they're condemned to death.
One hundred ten years later, for the Fox journalists and the Western media who reported their release, what's the big deal? Wear robes, change your name to Khaled, go on camera and drop Allah's name hither and yon: If that's your ticket out, seize it. Everyone'll know it's just a sham.
But that's not how the al-Jazeera audience sees it. If you're a Muslim, the video is anything but meaningless. Not even the dumbest jihadist believes these infidels are suddenly true believers. Rather, it confirms the central truth Osama and the mullahs have been peddling -- that the West is weak, that there's nothing -- no core, no bedrock -- nothing it's not willing to trade. In his new book The Conservative Soul, attempting to reconcile his sexual temperament and his alleged political one, Time magazine's gay Tory Andrew Sullivan enthuses, "By letting go, we become. By giving up, we gain. And we learn how to live -- now, which is the only time that matters." That's almost a literal restatement of Faust's bargain with the devil:
"When to the moment I shall say
'Linger awhile! so fair thou art!'
Then mayst thou fetter me straightway
Then to the abyss will I depart!"
In other words, if Faust becomes so enthralled by "the moment" that he wants to live in it forever, the devil will have him for all eternity. In the Muslim world, they watch the Centanni/Wiig video and see men so in love with the present, the now, that they will do or say anything to live in the moment. And they draw their own conclusions -- that these men are easier to force into the car than that 16-year-old girl in Sydney was. It doesn't matter how "understandable" Centanni and Wiig's actions are to us, what the target audience understands is quite different: that there is nothing we're willing to die for. And, to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead.
Between masochists like Centanni/Wiig and inverts like Sullivan, the western media are becoming quisling handmaidens to Islamist chest-thumping. Reuters and the Sydney PC editors convey to the wily oriental gentlemen that the low-hanging fruit of western decadence are theirs for the picking.
T.S. Eliot had it right for western civ when he prophesied on how our world will end: "Not with a bang, but a whimper."
BTW, with an ironic hat/tip to quisling degenerate Unclaimed Territory, I want to credit the excellent writer [url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/doing_the_enemys_work.html]David Warren[/url] for quoting Jean-Christian Revel for saying:
Jean-Fran?ois Revel: "Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it."
At the time Revel said this, the enemy power was Soviet Communism. The intellectuals, the smart journalists, the fashionable academics, the smug urbane of all descriptions, were hardly pro-Communist. They were more ironical than that, they were "anti-anti-Communist". Today they are anti-anti-Islamo-fascist.
Sistani Withdrawing into Occultation?
In what only can be bad news for the Coalition Forces trying to sustain some sort of civil polity in Iraq,The Daily Telegraph reports that Ayatollah Sistani is beginning to despair over ending the sectarian strife between Sunni and Shi'ite militias.
The 70-something year-old Sistani appears to be losing the allegiance of many young Shi'ites to Moqtader Al-Sadr, the young heir-apparent to Sistani and leader of the most violent Shi'ite militia. The cycle of violence and retribution appears to be escalating between Sunnis and Shi'ites as the police and government agencies appear mired in corruption and apathy.
The problem seems to be that Sistani is a theologian and al-Sadr a politician:
More than a pity, Sistani's withdrawal into occultation would be a disaster for the forces of moderation in a country sliding slowly toward civil war.
The 70-something year-old Sistani appears to be losing the allegiance of many young Shi'ites to Moqtader Al-Sadr, the young heir-apparent to Sistani and leader of the most violent Shi'ite militia. The cycle of violence and retribution appears to be escalating between Sunnis and Shi'ites as the police and government agencies appear mired in corruption and apathy.
The problem seems to be that Sistani is a theologian and al-Sadr a politician:
"Muqtada al-Sadr asks them what the situation is on the street, are there any fights against the Shia, he is asking all the time. So the people become close to al-Sadr because he is closer to them than Sistani. Sistani is the ayatollah, he is very expert in Islam, but not as a politician."
Even the Iraqi army seems to have accepted that things have changed. First Lieut Jaffar al-Mayahi, an Iraqi National Guard officer, said many soldiers accepted that al-Sadr's Mehdi army was protecting Shias. "When they go to checkpoints and their vehicles are searched, they say they are Mehdi army and they are allowed through. But if we stop Sistani's people we sometimes arrest them and take away their weapons."
Western diplomats fear that the vacuum will be filled by the more radical Shia clerics, hastening the break-up of the country and an increase in sectarian violence.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's former special representative for Iraq, said the decline in Ayatollah al-Sistani's influence was bad news for Iraq.
"It would be a pity if his strong instincts to maintain the unity of Iraq and to forswear violence were removed from influencing the scene," he said.
More than a pity, Sistani's withdrawal into occultation would be a disaster for the forces of moderation in a country sliding slowly toward civil war.
Western Friends of Al-Qaeda
The Counterterrorism Blog has a good sum-up of Orange County expat Adam Gadahn's 41-minute tape. The most interesting segment to me was the hat/tip and thank-yous to the people Al-Qaeda considers their friends and allies:
It goes without saying that "journalists" like Hersh and Fisk encourage Al-Qaeda to believe they have allies in the MSM who will give their side of the picture. Galloway is a joke, but AQ believes he is a useful idiot, in any event.
Much more worrying is the thought of Jihadists infiltrating the US Armed Forces. Phares has the background as a Lebanese fluent in French and English as well as Arabic to understand much more clearly the extent to which the Jihadists are capable of inserting sleeper cells into American military and other security operations. Read it again:
And this problem should also concern Americans across the entire spectrum of the political landscape. Even including Democrats, who customarily bathe in a river that flows through Egypt.
The "friends" of al Qaeda?
"Azzam" names "sympathetic" personalities for whom he has messages for action; He asks journalist Seymour Hirsh to "reveal more" than what was published in a New Yorker article on the War: Obviously an open call by al Qaeda to Mr. Hersh to resume the attack against the US War on Terror. Then "Azzam" turns to two British journalists and thanks them for their "admiration and respect for Islam" and encourages them to do the final step: Convert. He names British MP George Galloway and journalist Robert Fisk. But more troubling in Gadahn’s tape was his direct call to Jihadists within the US Armed forces to work patiently till the time comes and they should continue to aggregate while escaping the surveillance of their military authorities. This theme, which I covered briefly in Future Jihad, is of great concern to US national security. The "Azzam" speech brings further concerns as to the credibility of this threat.
It goes without saying that "journalists" like Hersh and Fisk encourage Al-Qaeda to believe they have allies in the MSM who will give their side of the picture. Galloway is a joke, but AQ believes he is a useful idiot, in any event.
Much more worrying is the thought of Jihadists infiltrating the US Armed Forces. Phares has the background as a Lebanese fluent in French and English as well as Arabic to understand much more clearly the extent to which the Jihadists are capable of inserting sleeper cells into American military and other security operations. Read it again:
But more troubling in Gadahn’s tape was his direct call to Jihadists within the US Armed forces to work patiently till the time comes and they should continue to aggregate while escaping the surveillance of their military authorities. This theme, which I covered briefly in Future Jihad, is of great concern to US national security.
And this problem should also concern Americans across the entire spectrum of the political landscape. Even including Democrats, who customarily bathe in a river that flows through Egypt.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Clinton and the Road to 9/11
The Financial Times has a book review of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda's Road to 9/11. In the light of the upcoming ABC-TV mini-series, New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright's book appears to be one of salutary importance. I myself spent months in Riyadh in the '80s as did author Wright, and the otiose habits of the Saudi government and business communities were legendary. Plenty of free office time for the few ambitious Saudi males not engrossed in making money to become enamoured of getting the hell out of that air-conditioned hellhole and actually do something with one's life.
The review gives a long recitation of Wright's examination of takfir, the specious religious commutation of the punishment of murder as a crime if it is killing anyone who is an "apostate," an interpretation stretched by Al-Qaeda and the GIA in Algeria to include anyone outside their core support groups. We have seen in Iraq how this has been exercised to include ethnic genocide. After examining all the heterodox elements of the takfiri extremist groups, Wright then switches to the feckless victim-to-be:
We can thank Clinton and his Reno/Gorelick-led DOJ for "orders that made it harder to share information among intelligence and law enforcement agencies" and hyper-legalistic requirements putting firewalls between various Govt. Departments. Pre-emptive detection such as the Able Danger project faced numerous obstacles in the over-lawyered environment the Clintons engendered.
Fouad Ajami puts the Clintons' persistent insouciance in the face of numerous wake-up calls in context in his book The Foreigner's Gift.
But what do the ancien regime Democrats want? If we are to believe their "moral" leader, Jimmy Carter, perhaps more appeasement or at least marathon talkfests where another exercise in Camp David magic might ensue?
Meanwhile, in the real world of facts and history, the US faces an implacable enemy, and there is yet no definitive version of how this situation came about. If we are to believe the Democrat line, GWB inherited a tabula rasa in 2001 and within months, blundered somehow into 9/11. Only the Arianna and Kossack edgy left can swallow hokum like that.
So the ABC mini-series, if it withstands the onslaughts of the Clintonista mafia, will demonstrate how the first WTC bombing in '93, the Bojinka plane plot in '95, the twin embassy bombings in '98, and the bombing of the Cole in 2000 all failed to stir the Clinton Administration out of its kumbayeh lethargy vis-a-vis the Al-Qaeda threat. And the huge question remains why in '96 did the Clintonistas pass up the Sudanese offer of delivering Osama to the US on a platter. I believe history written by true historians will show that the over-lawyered Dems didn't want the legal hassles---obviously in hindsight the Clinton priorities were totally parochial---and hoped the Saudis would take care of Bin Laden, who scampered off to Afghanistan as soon as the opportunity arose.
I believe that Clinton's tendency toward self-absorbed infatuation with himself prompted his egomania to give its full attention to some sort of resolution of the Arab/Israeli dispute. This in itself was not at all bad, as it would ratchet down a key incitement to the humiliated Arab World's anger at the USA. Plus Golden Boy Billy Jeff would win a Nobel Prize in the process. But a by-product of Clinton's single-minded focus on Arab/Israel was that this mentality did not like messy confrontations or legal conundrums, such as an arrested Bin Laden in US custody might have engendered.
We'll see if the Clintonista
nomenklatura can scare or persuade the ABC Disney front office into last minute revisions.
But pundits like Glenn Reynolds and Hugh Hewitt are already in possession of the full six-hour final cut and, if last-minute air-brushing does ensue, these folks can make the "objectionable" cutting-room floor clips available to YouTube and other on-line sites.
In the end, however, as Fuad Ajami noted above concerning the Clinton Administration's wishful thinking: "History has mocked them..."
The review gives a long recitation of Wright's examination of takfir, the specious religious commutation of the punishment of murder as a crime if it is killing anyone who is an "apostate," an interpretation stretched by Al-Qaeda and the GIA in Algeria to include anyone outside their core support groups. We have seen in Iraq how this has been exercised to include ethnic genocide. After examining all the heterodox elements of the takfiri extremist groups, Wright then switches to the feckless victim-to-be:
The other part of Wright’s book describes the history of the few Americans who recognised early the threat posed by al-Qaeda. It is a story of missed opportunities, of bureaucratic and personal infighting, of orders that made it harder to share information among intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Even if everything had worked perfectly, there is no guarantee that 9/11 would have been thwarted. But Wright’s book reinforces the sense that, had things been different, it could have been.
We can thank Clinton and his Reno/Gorelick-led DOJ for "orders that made it harder to share information among intelligence and law enforcement agencies" and hyper-legalistic requirements putting firewalls between various Govt. Departments. Pre-emptive detection such as the Able Danger project faced numerous obstacles in the over-lawyered environment the Clintons engendered.
Fouad Ajami puts the Clintons' persistent insouciance in the face of numerous wake-up calls in context in his book The Foreigner's Gift.
For the full length of a decade, the 1990s, the anti-American subversion---and the incitement feeding it---knew no respite. Appeasement had not worked. The "moderns," with Bill Clinton as their standard bearer, had been sure we would be delivered by the marketplace and the World Wide Web. History has mocked them.....
But what do the ancien regime Democrats want? If we are to believe their "moral" leader, Jimmy Carter, perhaps more appeasement or at least marathon talkfests where another exercise in Camp David magic might ensue?
Meanwhile, in the real world of facts and history, the US faces an implacable enemy, and there is yet no definitive version of how this situation came about. If we are to believe the Democrat line, GWB inherited a tabula rasa in 2001 and within months, blundered somehow into 9/11. Only the Arianna and Kossack edgy left can swallow hokum like that.
So the ABC mini-series, if it withstands the onslaughts of the Clintonista mafia, will demonstrate how the first WTC bombing in '93, the Bojinka plane plot in '95, the twin embassy bombings in '98, and the bombing of the Cole in 2000 all failed to stir the Clinton Administration out of its kumbayeh lethargy vis-a-vis the Al-Qaeda threat. And the huge question remains why in '96 did the Clintonistas pass up the Sudanese offer of delivering Osama to the US on a platter. I believe history written by true historians will show that the over-lawyered Dems didn't want the legal hassles---obviously in hindsight the Clinton priorities were totally parochial---and hoped the Saudis would take care of Bin Laden, who scampered off to Afghanistan as soon as the opportunity arose.
I believe that Clinton's tendency toward self-absorbed infatuation with himself prompted his egomania to give its full attention to some sort of resolution of the Arab/Israeli dispute. This in itself was not at all bad, as it would ratchet down a key incitement to the humiliated Arab World's anger at the USA. Plus Golden Boy Billy Jeff would win a Nobel Prize in the process. But a by-product of Clinton's single-minded focus on Arab/Israel was that this mentality did not like messy confrontations or legal conundrums, such as an arrested Bin Laden in US custody might have engendered.
We'll see if the Clintonista
nomenklatura can scare or persuade the ABC Disney front office into last minute revisions.
But pundits like Glenn Reynolds and Hugh Hewitt are already in possession of the full six-hour final cut and, if last-minute air-brushing does ensue, these folks can make the "objectionable" cutting-room floor clips available to YouTube and other on-line sites.
In the end, however, as Fuad Ajami noted above concerning the Clinton Administration's wishful thinking: "History has mocked them..."
ABC Holds Fast Against Dem Revisionism
The Financial Times has a book review of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda's Road to 9/11. In the light of the upcoming ABC-TV mini-series, New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright's book appears to be one of salutary importance. I myself spent months in Riyadh in the '80s as did author Wright, and the otiose habits of the Saudi government and business communities were legendary. Plenty of free office time for the few ambitious Saudi males not engrossed in making money to become enamoured of getting the hell out of that air-conditioned hellhole and actually do something with one's life.
The review gives a long recitation of Wright's examination of takfir, the specious religious commutation of the punishment of murder as a crime if it is killing anyone who is an "apostate," an interpretation stretched by Al-Qaeda and the GIA in Algeria to include anyone outside their core support groups. We have seen in Iraq how this has been exercised to include ethnic genocide. After examining all the heterodox elements of the takfiri extremist groups, Wright then switches to the feckless victim-to-be:
We can thank Clinton and his Reno/Gorelick-led DOJ for "orders that made it harder to share information among intelligence and law enforcement agencies" and hyper-legalistic requirements putting firewalls between various Govt. Departments. Pre-emptive detection such as the Able Danger project faced numerous obstacles in the over-lawyered environment the Clintons engendered.
Fouad Ajami puts the Clintons' persistent insouciance in the face of numerous wake-up calls in context in his book The Foreigner's Gift.
But what do the ancien regime Democrats want? If we are to believe their "moral" leader, Jimmy Carter, perhaps more appeasement or at least marathon talkfests where another exercise in Camp David magic might ensue?
Meanwhile, in the real world of facts and history, the US faces an implacable enemy, and there is yet no definitive version of how this situation came about. If we are to believe the Democrat line, GWB inherited a tabula rasa in 2001 and within months, blundered somehow into 9/11. Only the Arianna and Kossack edgy left can swallow hokum like that.
So the ABC mini-series, if it withstands the onslaughts of the Clintonista mafia, will demonstrate how the first WTC bombing in '93, the Bojinka plane plot in '95, the twin embassy bombings in '98, and the bombing of the Cole in 2000 all failed to stir the Clinton Administration out of its kumbayeh lethargy vis-a-vis the Al-Qaeda threat. And the huge question remains why in '96 did the Clintonistas pass up the Sudanese offer of delivering Osama to the US on a platter. I believe history written by true historians will show that the over-lawyered Dems didn't want the legal hassles---obviously in hindsight the Clinton priorities were totally parochial---and hoped the Saudis would take care of Bin Laden, who scampered off to Afghanistan as soon as the opportunity arose.
I believe that Clinton's tendency toward self-absorbed infatuation with himself prompted his egomania to give its full attention to some sort of resolution of the Arab/Israeli dispute. This in itself was not at all bad, as it would ratchet down a key incitement to the humiliated Arab World's anger at the USA. Plus Golden Boy Billy Jeff would win a Nobel Prize in the process. But a by-product of Clinton's single-minded focus on Arab/Israel was that this mentality did not like messy confrontations or legal conundrums, such as an arrested Bin Laden in US custody might have engendered.
We'll see if the Clintonista nomenklatura can scare or persuade the ABC Disney front office into last minute revisions.
But pundits like Glenn Reynolds and Hugh Hewitt are already in possession of the full six-hour final cut and, if last-minute air-brushing does ensue, these folks can make the "objectionable" cutting-room floor clips available to YouTube and other on-line sites.
In the end, however, as Fuad Ajami noted above concerning the Clinton Administration's wishful thinking: "History has mocked them..."
The review gives a long recitation of Wright's examination of takfir, the specious religious commutation of the punishment of murder as a crime if it is killing anyone who is an "apostate," an interpretation stretched by Al-Qaeda and the GIA in Algeria to include anyone outside their core support groups. We have seen in Iraq how this has been exercised to include ethnic genocide. After examining all the heterodox elements of the takfiri extremist groups, Wright then switches to the feckless victim-to-be:
The other part of Wright’s book describes the history of the few Americans who recognised early the threat posed by al-Qaeda. It is a story of missed opportunities, of bureaucratic and personal infighting, of orders that made it harder to share information among intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Even if everything had worked perfectly, there is no guarantee that 9/11 would have been thwarted. But Wright’s book reinforces the sense that, had things been different, it could have been.
We can thank Clinton and his Reno/Gorelick-led DOJ for "orders that made it harder to share information among intelligence and law enforcement agencies" and hyper-legalistic requirements putting firewalls between various Govt. Departments. Pre-emptive detection such as the Able Danger project faced numerous obstacles in the over-lawyered environment the Clintons engendered.
Fouad Ajami puts the Clintons' persistent insouciance in the face of numerous wake-up calls in context in his book The Foreigner's Gift.
For the full length of a decade, the 1990s, the anti-American subversion---and the incitement feeding it---knew no respite. Appeasement had not worked. The "moderns," with Bill Clinton as their standard bearer, had been sure we would be delivered by the marketplace and the World Wide Web. History has mocked them.....
But what do the ancien regime Democrats want? If we are to believe their "moral" leader, Jimmy Carter, perhaps more appeasement or at least marathon talkfests where another exercise in Camp David magic might ensue?
Meanwhile, in the real world of facts and history, the US faces an implacable enemy, and there is yet no definitive version of how this situation came about. If we are to believe the Democrat line, GWB inherited a tabula rasa in 2001 and within months, blundered somehow into 9/11. Only the Arianna and Kossack edgy left can swallow hokum like that.
So the ABC mini-series, if it withstands the onslaughts of the Clintonista mafia, will demonstrate how the first WTC bombing in '93, the Bojinka plane plot in '95, the twin embassy bombings in '98, and the bombing of the Cole in 2000 all failed to stir the Clinton Administration out of its kumbayeh lethargy vis-a-vis the Al-Qaeda threat. And the huge question remains why in '96 did the Clintonistas pass up the Sudanese offer of delivering Osama to the US on a platter. I believe history written by true historians will show that the over-lawyered Dems didn't want the legal hassles---obviously in hindsight the Clinton priorities were totally parochial---and hoped the Saudis would take care of Bin Laden, who scampered off to Afghanistan as soon as the opportunity arose.
I believe that Clinton's tendency toward self-absorbed infatuation with himself prompted his egomania to give its full attention to some sort of resolution of the Arab/Israeli dispute. This in itself was not at all bad, as it would ratchet down a key incitement to the humiliated Arab World's anger at the USA. Plus Golden Boy Billy Jeff would win a Nobel Prize in the process. But a by-product of Clinton's single-minded focus on Arab/Israel was that this mentality did not like messy confrontations or legal conundrums, such as an arrested Bin Laden in US custody might have engendered.
We'll see if the Clintonista nomenklatura can scare or persuade the ABC Disney front office into last minute revisions.
But pundits like Glenn Reynolds and Hugh Hewitt are already in possession of the full six-hour final cut and, if last-minute air-brushing does ensue, these folks can make the "objectionable" cutting-room floor clips available to YouTube and other on-line sites.
In the end, however, as Fuad Ajami noted above concerning the Clinton Administration's wishful thinking: "History has mocked them..."
Friday, September 01, 2006
Fox Agrees to Guard Hen House: Secular Blasphemy
Secular Blasphemy has the correct metaphor to describe Kofi Annan's wide-eyed announcement that Syria has agreed to cooperate with the UN to keep arms from getting to Hezbollah "where possible."
Of course, Annan has found it impossible to enforce UNSC Res 1559 and has demonstrated on every occasion possible how much he favors the Arabs against the Israelis in every possible context. But why should that pose problems?
UNIFIL has broadcast IDF positions and served as human shields for Hezbo rocketeers, who then drive away to leave UN "peacekeepers" to face the music seconds later as the drones pound the rocket launch pad---maybe that excites the vertically-challenged UN SecGen's admiration.
Now he's in Iran to cringe and simper on how great it would be if Iran and the UN could "just talk about Iran's flouting the IAEA and UN SC resolutions calling for sanctions. Maybe Kofi could get his son a consulting contract with Iran?
Elsewhere, Charles Krauthammer voices a few "inconvenient truths" about dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101444.html">Hezbollah's "victory" which even Nasrullah admits he would have foresworn had he seen the consequences of starting such a "victorious" war. Hezbo is now cornered in Lebanon, with even the egregious Michel Aoun calling for its disarmament, and this human political weathervane reflects deep anger inside Lebanon against Hezbo. And as CK points out, the Israelis only blew up Hezbo TV towers, not the $1 billion power grid that Israel will blow up the next time the Lebanese fail to keep the 20% voting bloc Hezbo in line.
The usual western media hookers, led by the BBC and anti-Israeli NYT, march lockstep to the delusion that Hezbo scored a gigantic victory.
However, anyone who knows the Middle East knows that boots on the ground beat media hype ten times out of ten, and now the boots are UN and Lebanese Army south of the Litani.
Of course, Annan has found it impossible to enforce UNSC Res 1559 and has demonstrated on every occasion possible how much he favors the Arabs against the Israelis in every possible context. But why should that pose problems?
UNIFIL has broadcast IDF positions and served as human shields for Hezbo rocketeers, who then drive away to leave UN "peacekeepers" to face the music seconds later as the drones pound the rocket launch pad---maybe that excites the vertically-challenged UN SecGen's admiration.
Now he's in Iran to cringe and simper on how great it would be if Iran and the UN could "just talk about Iran's flouting the IAEA and UN SC resolutions calling for sanctions. Maybe Kofi could get his son a consulting contract with Iran?
Elsewhere, Charles Krauthammer voices a few "inconvenient truths" about dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101444.html">Hezbollah's "victory" which even Nasrullah admits he would have foresworn had he seen the consequences of starting such a "victorious" war. Hezbo is now cornered in Lebanon, with even the egregious Michel Aoun calling for its disarmament, and this human political weathervane reflects deep anger inside Lebanon against Hezbo. And as CK points out, the Israelis only blew up Hezbo TV towers, not the $1 billion power grid that Israel will blow up the next time the Lebanese fail to keep the 20% voting bloc Hezbo in line.
The usual western media hookers, led by the BBC and anti-Israeli NYT, march lockstep to the delusion that Hezbo scored a gigantic victory.
However, anyone who knows the Middle East knows that boots on the ground beat media hype ten times out of ten, and now the boots are UN and Lebanese Army south of the Litani.
Where's the NYT? Hiding Behind Pinch's Skirts?
The Washington Post manfully owns up to its ridiculous role in the preposterous crime known as the Plame Affair, where a creepy socialite named Wilson alleged he was the victim of a WH cabal and otherwise vaulted himself onto Vanity Fair's cover and into liberal darlinghood, like other discredited southpaw showmen going back to Walter Duranty, the NYT star Pulitzer Prize reporter whose love for the since discredited Stalin used to garner liberal darlinghood credits galore. Here is the Post's mea culpa:
Like the former "paper of record" called the NYT.
Like prevaricators on the leftist media front from Jason Leopold of the hilariously misnamed "Truthout" to Vanity Fair Hollyweirdo Wolfe ["greatest scandal of the century"] all the way to the lying liars at AirAmerica, the New York Times again stands victim of its own self-absorbed preening. Tom Maguire asks the same question and notes how many WaPo reporters, including Bob Woodward's "eerily prescient" observation that it would be sourced to "gossip," actually didn't buy into a full pitcher of Kool-Aid.
But knowing how deeply they quaffed of their drink of choice, I'm not holding my breath waiting for the NYT and other far-left Wilson backers to recant.
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.
Like the former "paper of record" called the NYT.
Like prevaricators on the leftist media front from Jason Leopold of the hilariously misnamed "Truthout" to Vanity Fair Hollyweirdo Wolfe ["greatest scandal of the century"] all the way to the lying liars at AirAmerica, the New York Times again stands victim of its own self-absorbed preening. Tom Maguire asks the same question and notes how many WaPo reporters, including Bob Woodward's "eerily prescient" observation that it would be sourced to "gossip," actually didn't buy into a full pitcher of Kool-Aid.
But knowing how deeply they quaffed of their drink of choice, I'm not holding my breath waiting for the NYT and other far-left Wilson backers to recant.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)