Armies of Liberation

My brother Gordon:

“The thing that I find amazing about it is that John Kerry’s first response was to go conduct a poll,” Cheney told supporters in Fort Dodge, Iowa. “He went into the field … to find out what he should say about this tape of Osama bin Laden.”

Do you need any more evidence that this person takes a stand on nothing? To quote Bob Dole before he went down in flames, “Where is your outrage?”

Do you really want quiet masquerading as “peace”? Do you think we ought to sign treaties with dictators and murderers to make us feel good while they continue to develop weapons and fund terrorism?

Bin Laden threatened Republican majority states in his latest messge, according to an Islamist website, while offering a truce to the Democrats. Republicans are the threat and the attempt is to splinter them off while maintaining an understanding, similiar to that offered to Europe, of mutual non-aggression.

MEMRI:

This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: “Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security.”

The Islamist website Al-Qal’a explained what this sentence meant: “This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, ‘Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,’ it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy. By this characterization, Sheikh Osama wants to drive a wedge in the American body, to weaken it, and he wants to divide the American people itself between enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and those who fight for us, so that he doesn’t treat all American people as if they’re the same.

Pushy me, I emailed blog buddy Ali in Baghdad for his thoughts on the election, this is his response:

May be American peaple vote for Kerry because of Bush mistakes in Iraq and in US money - but as for us here in Iraq - we love Bush because he is the only leader who get rid of Saddam - If Bush didn’t make this war - Iraqi peaple will die every day - No technology - no better life just for Saddam - Now Iraqi peaple die every day as U know but for only coming few years - But if Saddam still the leader of Iraq Iraqies will die for the rest of their life and no body care (All now care about Iraq if we make compretion - Bush is the only leader who did care about the problem (Saddam) - Thats why we love him.

Crossposted at The Left Right Debate.

More from Iraqis at Beautiful Atrocities: “The most important factor in this struggle after the Will of God is your choice, your steadfastness & your resolve. Give the enemy the slap in the face & the great disappointment he deserves. You are the leaders; & all the lovers of freedom & enlightenment everywhere will take heart as they see your courage & defiance at the helm.”

More at Rusty’s:

President Bush now represents a symbol of defiance against the terrorists and it is a fact, that all the enemies of America, with the terrorists foremost, are hoping for him to be deposed in the upcoming elections. That is not to say that they like the democrats, but that they will take such an outcome as retreat by the American people, and will consequently be greatly encouraged to intensify their assault.

I’m a blogger babe. While some of you have the luxury of blogging in your jammies, some of us blog in our miniskirts and high heels.

When John Kerry says now that he will find and kill the terrorists, is he talking about those that perpetrated the attack on the US or is he talking about all those who aim to destroy the US and other non-Islamic states including those terrorists in Iraq?

HT: LGF
Walter Cronkite belongs in the home for the raving moonbats and totally wacked out with Jimmy Carter.

Somewhat smiling, Cronkite said he is “inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing.”

Interviewer Larry King did not ask Cronkite to elaborate on the provocative election eve observation.

But we know who was really behind it.

Arab News: Over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries have signed a petition to the United Nations calling for an international treaty to ban the use of religion for incitement to violence.

It also calls on the Security Council to set up a tribunal to try “the theologians of terror.” The petition is addressed to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and to all members of the Security Council and its current chairman.

Wonderful idea, I only wish there was an institution more competent than the UN to bring it to.

AmirTaheri.

Carters envoy to the UN, a certain Andrew Young, described Khomeini as a Twentieth Century saint, and begged the ayatollah to show magnanimity and compassion.

Carter went further by sending a letter to Khomeini. Written in longhand, it was an appeal from one believer to a man of God. Carters syrupy prose must have amused Khomeini who preferred a minimalist style with such phrases as we shall cut off Americas hands.

As days passed, with the American diplomats paraded in front of television cameras blindfolded and threatened with execution, it became increasingly clear that there would be no thunder and lightning from Washington. By the end of the first week of the drama, that was to last for 444 days and ended the day Ronald Reagan entered the White House, Khomeinis view of the United States had changed.

Ahmad Khomeinis memoirs echo the surprise that his father, the ayatollah, showed, as the Carter administration behaved like a headless chicken.

What especially surprised Khomeini was that Cater and his aides, notably Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, rather than condemning the seizure and the treatment of the hostages as a barbarous act, appeared apologetic for unspecified mistakes supposedly committed by the US and asked for forgiveness and magnanimity.

Once he had concluded that the US would not take any meaningful action against his regime, Khomeini took over control of the hostages enterprise and used it as a means of propping his anti-imperialist credentials while outflanking the left.

Criticising President Bush for reading My Pet Goat, and complaciency prior to 9/11, Usama bin Laden makes his reappearance in the world media.

“We decided to destroy towers in America,” bin Laden said, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. Bin Laden also accused President Bush of deceiving the American people. In an address just days ahead of the U.S. presidential election, bin Laden also said the U.S. administration resembled “corrupt” Arab governments.

There’s debate as to whether bin Laden intends to encourage Bush’s re-election because it creates extremism or whether the statement was made in hopes encouraging a “sensative” Kerry presidency. Regardless of what’s in this maniac’s mind, one thing is clear, it’s time to stand together, united and tough, and spit in his face.

For the first time, bin Laden admits to the 9/11 attacks and boy that’s just going to crush those in the Arab world who have been insisting for years it was the Joooooos or Bush himself.

More at Digger’s Realm: In other related news the stock markets got a significant bump when the videos existance was announced and validated. Signs that the market feels this will help get Bush re-elected.

Ramblings Journal: Refering to next week’s elections, UBL told Americans: “Your security is not in the hands of (Democratic candidate John) Kerry or (President George W.) Bush or al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands ….”

More: Rooftop Report. Passionate America has a close-up of UBL.

Rusty: Some Americans call for al-Aljazeera to be bombed.

Why do so many around the world hate America? We can start with al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, and media outlets like it, blame all the world’s ills on the United States. The context they provide for all images has a single unifying theme: the US is the cause of so much suffering in the world.

Bill has the translations: “In addition, the infidel George Bush is outsourcing America’s future with tax cuts to the wealthy. Where are the 1.6 million jobs? The infidel Bush is the first infidel since the infidel Herbert Hoover to lose jobs! Awake from your slumber, America! The infidel John Kerry has a plan. You can do better, Insha’Allah!”

“Let me tell you, I spoke to the infidel Christopher Reeve a week ago, and if the infidel John Kerry is elected President, Insha’Allah, the infidel Christopher Reeve will walk again!”

“The infidel Mary Cheney is a lesbian.”

CBS continues trying to wield its influence with the American electorate. After neligently airing fraudulent documents in an attack on President Bush, they planned their own October surprise: to air the “missing explosives” story 48 hours before the elction is held, with little time for an accurate rebuttal. Lucky for us, the New York Slimes ran with the story earlier this week after “the source” approached them as well. Now that the credibility of the story has been effectively challenged, CBS has neglected to advise its viewing audience of the evidence suggesting the explosives were removed prior the arrival of US troops, with the assistence of Russia.

MRC: ABC, NBC, FNC and CNN, but not CBS, on Wednesday night provided new details, about what is known to have happened at the al-Qaqaa compound in January to May of 2003, such as how satellite imagery shows trucks at the facility, which cast more doubts upon the charge that the 377 tons of explosives disappeared after U.S. troops arrived. Jim Axelrod noted on the CBS Evenings News that “the President today finally broke his silence over the missing explosives in Iraq,” but it was CBS which remained silent over the revelations which conflicted with their original anti-Bush administration spin. Axelrod gloated over the negative impact on the Bush campaign: “Mr. Bush had to say something. The timing of the story couldn’t be worse for him” since “the missing explosives are the kind of development that could push undecideds the other way.” ABC’s Dean Reynolds ruled that Bush’s “counterattack, that Kerry basically doesn’t know what he’s talking about” on what happened to the explosives, “does not address the fundamental problem that the Senator posed” about how unguarded ammunition has left troops “at greater risk.” CNN’s Jamie McIntyre picked up on a Pentagon point that “the lost stockpile amounted to less than one-tenth of one percent of the 400,000 tons of total munitions the U.S. has found in Iraq.”

A loyal CBS viewer with few alternate media resources is woefully misinformed, and clearly deliberately misinformed. Kinda makes you feel sorry for them.

I got this essay in an email from one of the ME editors I work with who does groups mailings now and then. Its a brutally critical assesment of the Arab mentality by Youssef M. Ibrahim:

Outside View: Fear dominant in Arab psyche

Published 10/26/2004 7:29 AM

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 26 (UPI) — Fear is deeply ingrained
in the Arab psyche, a gene implanted in the Arab mind no matter where
it lives. There is a fear to speak, write, read or even hear truth.

It is so contagious in fact that it affects Arab immigrants who carry
this home-grown fear with them to new domiciles wherever they go,
hiding behind it to avoid melting into the societies they took refuge
in. There and here fear hangs in the air, blocking oxygen to the Arab
mind, dominating thinking processes, surfacing in a self-censored
media, nervous jokes, absurd commentary that wastes hours describing
black as white. It even affects expatriates and visitors who come and go, so much that many of the foreigners who live among us in this Arab world become a version of “Lawrence of Arabia,” striving to be more Arab than the Arabs.

No one is born this way, of course. Fear is an environmentally acquired
characteristic. At home it is the product of unilateral rule,
hereditary power in republics as well as monarchial systems, rejection
of democratic culture, dominance of the male persona which eliminates women as equal partners and a demeaning embrace of hand-kissing instead of merit as a way to climb the social ladder.

For the immigrant Arab community, these fears have been more
complicated ever since the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11 2001, by the Western adoption of systematic persecution and singling out of Arabs and Muslims as potential terrorists, deepening racism and the treatment of others as second-class citizens. The sum total of it is that Arab children are growing up thinking the eminently absurd is normal. In America today, an Arab-American community of some 3 to 4 million people has no voice because it is afraid. Having a voice means attracting attention, perhaps trouble, most Arabs will tell you, which is a total failure in understanding of how democracies function.

In Europe, where some 35 million Arabs live, most have crawled back
into cultural caves – speaking Arabic, wearing the hijab, eating
Arabic and thinking Arabic instead of opening up to the societies that
embraced them. (Read on …)

Jeremy reports the details of the The WTimes report:

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, “almost certainly” removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

“The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units,” Mr. Shaw said. “Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units.”

Doesn’t Russia have a seat on the Security Council? The same Security council John Kerry wants to entrust with US foreign policy? Wasn’t Russia one of the top recipients of Oil-for-Weapons money? The same policy of sanctions and “containment” John Kerry thought should have been left in place? Now that John Kerry has been throwing wild accusations at the President for three days, do you think he will apologize now that the facts are starting to come in?

(CP@The Left Right Debate)

ISPN: UN refusing to aid Iraq elections:

Annan also made clear the United Nations is not ”planning” or ”organising” the elections. ”We are offering support and advice. And we will continue to do that.”

On Wednesday, Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari was quoted as saying: ”We feel very disappointed that the participation of U.N. employees is not up to the required level and there is a limited number of officials, and we are at the end of October.”

The world body now has only 35 international staffers in Iraq, of which six are election experts. In contrast, the United Nations had more than 600 international employees monitoring elections in Afghanistan last week.

Asked if Iraq should postpone the vote because of the deteriorating security environment, Annan said: ”It will be their call, not ours.” The ”ownership” of the elections belongs to the Iraqis, he added.

So far only one country — Fiji — has pledged to send troops to protect U.N. staff members in Iraq, despite a Security Council resolution urging all 191 member states to help provide a military force.

Fiji is sending about 130 troops while Australia has volunteered to provide logistics and military equipment.

ISPN What is terrorism? The UN doesn’t know:

”After six years of protracted negotiations, the final draft was ready for adoption by the U.N. Legal Committee last week,” a Third World diplomat said Tuesday. ”But it hit a snag over definitions of terrorism and military exemptions,” he said.

”We will meet early next year to continue our discussions,” Perera told IPS. ”We are hopeful of resolving the outstanding issues.”

The treaty not only obligates states to extradite anyone committing an offence with a nuclear explosive device but also outlaws the possession of radioactive material by non-state actors.

The United States is sticking by a contentious article in the draft treaty that says the activities of armed forces — in as much as they are subject to rules of international law — will not be governed by the proposed convention.

Muslim countries are not only opposed to this military exemption, which they say will provide governments such as Israel with free passage to ‘’state terrorism,” but are also demanding a clearer distinction between a ”terrorist” and a ”freedom fighter.”

”A universally accepted definition of terrorism must be agreed upon, so that terrorism is not confused with the struggle of peoples for self-determination,” says Emine Gokcen Tugral of Turkey.

In a recent translation by MEMRI, the Iraqi paper that first published the names of those who recieved vouchers in the Oil For Food Scandal follows up on the Daulfer Reports and incorporates information found in Iraq’s intelligence files. This jumped out at me:

Another person who was directly involved in terrorism is Abu Al-Abbas, who was allocated a total of 11.5 million barrels, some of which was lifted by Vilma Oil Consultant, a Spanish company. Abu Al-Abbas has also sold 1.5 million barrels through Ayad Ammora and Partnership (Syria), which is also listed as a recipient of vouchers for 18 million barrels.

Abu Al-Abbas was first mentioned in a “top secret and personal” letter (No.110/2/43 of 25 January 1993) from the Iraqi intelligence service to the secretary of the president of the republic. The letter listed the terrorist organizations that could be employed by Iraq to carry out sabotage and terrorism activities against American interests in the Arab world.

So while Saddam had not stockpiled weapons, only retained the ability and knowledge base to reconstitute his progam once attention had faded, he had given support to international terror groups. Saddams overt funding of $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers is but a small instance of his involvement in supporting the network of international terrorists. He was actively seeking those who would target the US interests (property and people) and using money stolen from the mouths of starving Iraqi children.

Saddam had corrurpted the UN system in order to pay hundreds of millions to terrorists and allegedly to obtain influence on the security council: “Gemmar was also the trading company used by the Iraqi-French Friendship Society (15.1 million barrels), the former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (12 million barrels), and the Lebanese Alias Al-Farzali (multiple vouchers), who was listed under France.”

According to the Iraqis: “The most intriguing of all is the case of Benon Sevan, the UN director of the Oil for Food Program. Mr. Sevan…received several vouchers. The last one for 1.5 million barrels appears to coincide with Mr. Sevan’s visit to Iraq…in February, 2002. At the meeting, Mr. Sevan was quoted… as stating that the program “suffers from paralysis.”

Of the ten billion scammed from the Iraqi people by Saddam with the assistance of a corrupted UN, it is becoming increasingly clear millions were directed to funding terrorists and the US remained a high value target for Saddam.

Cross posted at The Left Right Debate.

Read the whole article: (Read on …)

Via The Jawa Report:

Found in archives at Texas Tech Univiersity as part of that university’s Vietnam-era archive which holds more than 2 million documents: Document number one: “a 1971 “Circular” distributed by the Vietnamese communists within Vietnam.” From the document: The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and guidance from the friendly ((VC/NVN)) delegations at the Paris Peace Talks.

The second document is described as “a communist Directive designed to motivate discussions within Vietnam about promoting the ongoing antiwar activities in the United States.” It can be found here. In the document NV sympathizers are urged to step up propaganda activities that demoralize US troops. The document cites John Kerry’s denunciation of ‘war crimes’ and the staged event where he ‘gave back’ his medals as examples that would help demoralize the troops.

via Wizbang: World Net Daily article:

The first documentary evidence that Vietnamese communists were directly steering John Kerry’s antiwar group Vietnam Veterans Against the War has been discovered in a U.S. archive, according to a researcher who spoke with WorldNetDaily.

At Say Anything: Document numbers, details, history and a link to the New York Sun article.

In the Bullpen: Chad has an interview up with the director of the Vietnam Archives at Texas Tech. The director is backing the authenticity of these articles.

(MCR)While ABC’s Peter Jennings pegged the crowd, for Bill Clinton’s Philadelphia appearance with John Kerry, at “as many as thirty thousand [30,000] people,” CBS’s Byron Pitts on Monday night touted “an estimated crowd of some one hundred thousand [100,000] supporters.” Pitts relayed how Clinton’s mission was to “remind supporters of the good old days when employment was up, the deficit was down and a Democrat was in the White House.” Pitts failed to remind viewers that when Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, the unemployment rate stood at 5.2 percent, just two-tenths lower than today’s rate.

As much as we bristle at the media bias in the US against President Bush, and the left is still up in arms that Indymedia’s servers were seized, there’s a vast gulf to cross to real censorship.

ifex.org”>IFEX: Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has ranked North Korea as the world’s worst country for journalists for the past three years. For a country whose government believes the duty of all journalists is to publicise the “greatness” of President Kim Jong-il and demonstrate the “superiority of North Korean socialism,” independent reporting is virtually non-existent.

A new RSF report, “Journalism in the service of a totalitarian dictatorship,” reveals that at least 40 journalists have been subjected to “re-education” or sent to concentration camps for such errors as misspelling a senior official’s name.

The ruling party controls all news media and forces all journalists to work according to a “permanent information plan,” which sets four priorities for reporting, says RSF. These include praising the President, extolling the “superiority of North Korean socialism,” denouncing “imperialist and bourgeois corruption” and accusing foreign powers of plans to invade the country. only non-governmental news sources are foreign-language radio stations which broadcast in the Korean language. Radio and television sets in North Korea are pre-set to state media frequencies and those who listen to foreign radio stations risk imprisonment. Read the full report here (pdf).

In RSF’s 2004 global press freedom index, North Korea ranks alongside Cuba, Burma, China and Vietnam as the world’s worst places for journalists. The index rates countries according to the degree to which independent media are persecuted or censored. This year, the worst performing countries are located in East Asia and the Middle East. See:article.

This is the worldwide round up for last week: (Read on …)

Via The Jawa Report:

Found in archives at Texas Tech Univiersity as part of that university’s Vietnam-era archive which holds more than 2 million documents: Document number one: “a 1971 “Circular” distributed by the Vietnamese communists within Vietnam.” From the document: The spontaneous antiwar movements in the US have received assistance and guidance from the friendly ((VC/NVN)) delegations at the Paris Peace Talks.

The second document is described as “a communist Directive designed to motivate discussions within Vietnam about promoting the ongoing antiwar activities in the United States.” It can be found here. In the document NV sympathizers are urged to step up propaganda activities that demoralize US troops. The document cites John Kerry’s denunciation of ‘war crimes’ and the staged event where he ‘gave back’ his medals as examples that would help demoralize the troops.

via Wizbang: World Net Daily article:

The first documentary evidence that Vietnamese communists were directly steering John Kerry’s antiwar group Vietnam Veterans Against the War has been discovered in a U.S. archive, according to a researcher who spoke with WorldNetDaily.

At Say Anything: Document numbers, details, history and a link to the New York Sun article.

In the Bullpen: Chad has an interview up with the director of the Vietnam Archives at Texas Tech. The director is backing the authenticity of these articles.

In a recent translation by MEMRI, the Iraqi paper that first published the names of those who recieved vouchers in the Oil For Food Scandal follows up on the Daulfer Reports and incorporates information found in Iraq’s intelligence files. This jumped out at me:

Another person who was directly involved in terrorism is Abu Al-Abbas, who was allocated a total of 11.5 million barrels, some of which was lifted by Vilma Oil Consultant, a Spanish company. Abu Al-Abbas has also sold 1.5 million barrels through Ayad Ammora and Partnership (Syria), which is also listed as a recipient of vouchers for 18 million barrels.

Abu Al-Abbas was first mentioned in a “top secret and personal” letter (No.110/2/43 of 25 January 1993) from the Iraqi intelligence service to the secretary of the president of the republic. The letter listed the terrorist organizations that could be employed by Iraq to carry out sabotage and terrorism activities against American interests in the Arab world.

So while Saddam had not stockpiled weapons, only retained the ability and knowledge base to reconstitute his progam once attention had faded, he had given support to international terror groups. Saddams overt funding of $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers is but a small instance of his involvement in supporting the network of international terrorists. He was actively seeking those who would target the US interests (property and people) and using money stolen from the mouths of starving Iraqi children.

Saddam had corrurpted the UN system in order to pay hundreds of millions to terrorists and allegedly to obtain influence on the security council: “Gemmar was also the trading company used by the Iraqi-French Friendship Society (15.1 million barrels), the former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (12 million barrels), and the Lebanese Alias Al-Farzali (multiple vouchers), who was listed under France.”

According to the Iraqis: “The most intriguing of all is the case of Benon Sevan, the UN director of the Oil for Food Program. Mr. Sevan…received several vouchers. The last one for 1.5 million barrels appears to coincide with Mr. Sevan’s visit to Iraq…in February, 2002. At the meeting, Mr. Sevan was quoted… as stating that the program “suffers from paralysis.”

Of the ten billion scammed from the Iraqi people by Saddam with the assistance of a corrupted UN, it is becoming increasingly clear millions were directed to funding terrorists and the US remained a high value target for Saddam.

Cross posted at The Left Right Debate.

Read the whole article: (Read on …)

After the unprecedented arrest of the editor in chief al-Khaiwani of Yemen’s oppostion newspaper Al Shoura, the roll back of free speech continues in Yemen. This week a magizine was de-licensed and a newspaper in operation for 25 years was suspended-for changin its logo.

YTimes: The Ministry of Information has closed operations of a new magazine, “al-Neda,” which printed its first issue Oct. 13, and, in a separate move, suspended al-Hurriye newspaper.
The ministry has withdrawn all the copies of the first issue of al-Neda from different bookshops for passing the legal period of issuance (6 months) by two days and has cancelled the license of al-Hurriye for an alleged change in the newspaper’s logo.

Observers and politicians confirmed that the newspaper exceeded its authorization period by two days, but this is not a standard measure applied on most Yemeni newspapers.

The magazine may have been targeted if some journalists wrote topics not favoured by the government. The first issue of “al-Neda” had several topics such as: conflicts among wings within the ruling party (the General People’s Congress), campaign collecting of international signatures for Mr. Alkhaiwani, greetings to Judge Muhammad Luqman by the Socialist writer Omer Muhammad al-Muqaleh, disaster of parties transfer in Yemen by the Journalist Nabeel al-Soufi, plus sports and cultural events and a number of other topics.

(Read on …)

Check out The Left Right Debate.

Pro-Kerry/Anti-Bush comment on the left side.

Pro-Bush/Anti-Kerry comment on the right side.

Ground breaking design by Blogs About.

KTimes: The Dawatul Islamia of Korea, an anti-South Korean Islamic organization detected by the government in April, was confirmed to be a branch of an Islamic political party in Bangladesh.

(HT:Jihad Watch.)

We know Kerry voted for sanctions on Cuba before he voted against them. (Here’s the article link.) (HT:LGF)

”I’m pretty tough on Castro, because I think he’s running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world,” Kerry told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney in an interview to be aired at 11:30 this morning.

Then, reaching back eight years to one of the more significant efforts to toughen sanctions on the communist island, Kerry volunteered: “And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him.”

It seemed the correct answer in a year in which Democratic strategists think they can make a play for at least a portion of the important Cuban-American vote — as they did in 1996 when more than three in 10 backed President Clinton’s reelection after he signed the sanctions measure written by Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dan Burton.

There is only one problem: Kerry voted against it.

Helen has a bit more on Kerry’s Cuba policy, if it can be called a policy, more correctly perhaps its a vague mention of a plan.

It seems the big story breaking today is that one below about Kerry lying about meeting with the UN security council. Those of us paying attention already know he’s a liar. Those who hate President Bush will excuse anything in Kerry. Bill has some great analysis and a roundup of thinking around the sphere about the importance of this story.

I propose a new scandle: Irangate.
Has John Kerry been corrupted by donations from supporters of the Iranian regime?

We have all the ingredients in our handy dandy scandle kit: voter ignorance of the topic, MSM refusal to cover it, documented facts, resources, Kerry’s own statements, court testimony. Most importantly, its a true story.

I’m sure you recall the letter the Kerry camp sent to Iranian officials as reported in the US and Iranian media at the time:
“Iran’s Mehr News Agency reports it has received an e-mail from the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry pitching the candidate as one who will “repair the damage done” to international relations by President Bush.”

John Kerry’s Irangate?
WND

On Monday, Oct. 18, 2004, Hassan Nemazee, an
Iranian-American, one of John Kerry’s top fund-raisers, was
deposed in New York City. Under oath, Nemazee acknowledged
that he has raised over $500,000 for the Kerry presidential
campaign.

Iran had slipped into the first presidential debate
virtually unnoticed. Near the end of the debate, John Kerry
restated his position that the United States should supply
Iran with nuclear fuel. Kerry said:

“I think the United States should have offered the
opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see
whether or not they were actually looking for it for
peaceful purposes. ”

Alarm bells should have been sounding for any listener who
cared about international peace or the security of Israel.
The Islamic government ruling Iran is by all rational
analyses a rouge, terror-supporting, mullah-dominated
regime with a history of suppressing freedom with a fierce
hand of violence. This is the same Iranian regime that held
our diplomats hostage for 444 days under President Carter.

(Read on …)

It’s been five years that UN has been in control of Kosovo and the Serb minority still don’t feel safe, and they have expressed this dissatisfaction with the international adminstration by boycotting the general election.

WTimes: Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said the Serb boycott reflects the despair of the province’s Serbs. “With their boycott, Kosovo’s Serbs made a stand to refuse the only right given to them in Kosovo, the right to vote,” Kostunica said in a statement.

But there appeared to be disenchantment also in the ranks of ethnic Albanians unhappy with the progress made in the province since the end of the war, because international and local officials have failed to address the dire economic situation.

The election came seven months after mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked Serbs and their property in riots that killed 19 people and injured more than 900. The violence was the worst since the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

In New York, the office of U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan issued a statement congratulating the people of Kosovo on the elections: “The turnout and good management of the electoral process, for the first time by the Kosovans themselves, demonstrates their understanding of the importance of making their voices heard,” the statement read.

John Kerry has been saying for a while that he met with “the UN entire security council” prior to the vote on resolution 1441 which found Saddam in material breach and authorized serious consequences. But several security council members have no recollection of the meeting of the group.

France though jumped to Kerry’s aid: Jean-David Levitte, then France’s chief U.N. representative and now his country’s ambassador to the United States, said through a spokeswoman that Mr. Kerry did not have a single group meeting as the senator has described, but rather several one-on-one or small-group encounters. Ah but that’s just a nuance, a minor mistatement, with no bearing on Kerry’s honesty.

WTimes: When reached for comment last week, an official with the Kerry campaign stood by the candidate’s previous claims that he had met with the entire Security Council.

But after being told late yesterday of the results of The Times investigation, the Kerry campaign issued a statement that read in part, “It was a closed meeting and a private discussion.”

The statement did not repeat Mr. Kerry’s claims of a lengthy meeting with the entire 15-member Security Council, instead saying the candidate “met with a group of representatives of countries sitting on the Security Council.” (Is that a flip flop or revisionism?)

Asked whether the international body had any records of Mr. Kerry sitting down with the whole council, a U.N. spokesman said that “our office does not have any record of this meeting.”

Somehow or another though this mystery meeting is SEARED in Kerry’s memory and has been repeated cited by him.

At the second presidential debate earlier this month, Mr. Kerry said: “This president hasn’t listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable,” Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator.

Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in December 2003, Mr. Kerry explained that he understood the “real readiness” of the United Nations to “take this seriously” because he met “with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein.”

Kerry lying? for political gain? He probably just got confused, like he was confused about spending Christmas in Cambodia (which he testified to in his congressional testimony in 1971 and later from the Senate floor and in several interviews) when he was really fifty miles away. In this case he was probably around the corner from the UN buying a hotdog and discussed it with the vendor. More at INDC.

Best Snarky Remark: Doug: But does he keep a magic sock from Kofi Annan in his briefcase?

Looks like Sally Jesse Raphalle and Talks like Michael Moore.

The EU is Not Playing Games! “Laserdome is an affont to human dignity.” Yup, and Monopoly should be outlawed as well since it encourges capitalist hegemony.

Scenes from a Kerry Presidency.

While many religious Muslims see the danger of extremist mentality and are working on a “reformation” of Islam, they face extreme hostility and physical threats.

MEMRI: A seminar on Islam and Reform produced these proposals:

“1- Reframing a new intellectual Islamic context, characterized by clarity and unity of perception, that seeks to take into account all the changes and transformations that took place in the social life of the various countries of the Muslim world during the last 11 centuries.

“2- Implementing a radical revision of the Islamic heritage that involves all Islamic scholarship relating to Islamic Jurisprudence and the Sunna, the Traditions of the Prophet - all of which were founded during the first three centuries of Islam. The participants called for reliance on the Koranic text as the sole authentic source to be utilized for reviewing the entire Islamic heritage.

“3-Confronting all institutions - whether composed of clerics or lay persons - that claim a monopoly over religion and the proper interpretation of its holy text. Instead, a new spirit should seek to establish the right of ijtihad for all, under the banner of an Islamic reformation relevant to in the current century.

“4- Confronting and refuting the visions and statements of radical religious movements so as to retard their penetration into the Arab society specifically among youngsters many of whom are living in a state of depression under the stress of economic hardship.

“5- Intensifying dialogue with moderate and enlightened elements in the Western world, particularly in the United States. In this the language of dialogue and partnership is the instrument for dealing with the other ‘non-Muslims’ on the basis of the principles of co-operation, respect of national independence, and peaceful co-existence among civilizations and nations. In that context, Muslim communities abroad could function as channels of contact.

“6- Despite some initial controversy in regard to reform priorities, the consensus stressed the need for implementing both political and religious reform simultaneously in order to attain comprehensive reform.

“7- Emphasis was placed on the importance of incorporating moderate Islamic movements in the democratic process; thus enabling those movements that accept democracy as a strategic option and recognize and respect the major principles and values of a liberal democratic civil society in a modern state to practice their political role freely.

“8- To that end, and in [order] to reach a common agenda for reform in the Arab world, the participants strongly recommended initiating wide-ranging in-depth dialogues with the leaders of all peaceful Islamic movements.

“9- In order to maximize the benefits from the workshop, all the papers presented and the discussions that took place will be compiled and published in both Arabic and English.

“10- Both the workshop and the participants will be considered a key nucleus for establishing a new network for reformers in both the Arab and the Islamic worlds who will be regularly invited twice a year to follow up on the implementation of the workshop’s recommendations as embodied in this, its Final Declaration. It is agreed also that participants could also recommend persons interested in the issue of Islamic reformation to join the network.

“The seminar and its recommendations raised the ire of high-ranking members of the religious establishment in Egypt. The Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, harshly attacked the seminar and its participants, and claimed that their call “to confront all institutions that claim a monopoly over religion” was directed against Al-Azhar.

In an interview with the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Al-Aam, Tantawi claimed that voices in the seminar “called explicitly for the disavowal of the Prophet’s sunna; Al-Azhar and [Egyptian] society reject this.” According to Tantawi, these research centers whose representatives participated in the seminar “have a destructive influence on Egyptian society and they must be stopped and brought to trial…This is an explicit call to discard a major source of Islamic religious law - the Prophet’s sunna. This is a danger in which some of [our] external enemies are interested [in promoting].”

The reformers answer the charges: “On October 10 the Ibn Khaldun Center published a statement in response to Sheikh of Al-Azhar’s accusations. The statement read: “Sheikh Al-Azhar says that ‘the participation of Western [research] centers in the conference is a mark of shame and a disaster which society and its leaders need to prevent.’ We ask: does Sheikh Al-Azhar believe that a particular group of people holds a monopoly on ijtihad and that this group does not include Western individuals? [If so,] what are we [Muslims] doing in departments for Islamic Studies in Western universities? Should we demand to dismantle [these departments], since they lack authority [to deal with these subjects]? Are we opposed to dialogue with these Westerners because they have no authority to speak about Islam? We would be happy to remind Sheikh Al-Azhar that Islam is a universal message to all people, that ijtihad is an Islamic duty, and that the gates of ijtihad are open to all and no one has the right to close [them] or to monopolize it…”

France with its colonial history has resisted integrating Muslims into the main stream of French society: there’s no melting pot in France. The physical and economic seperation of Muslims as well as the headscarf ban may be offshoots of the French mindset that these previously colonized people are not equal to the authentic French. Another result is the resulting disaffection of young Muslims and the rise and legitimization of extremeist ideologies.

NYTimes: France’s antiterrorist police on Friday identified a young Frenchman killed fighting the United States in Iraq, the first confirmed case of what is believed to be a growing stream of Muslims heading from Europe to fight what they regard as a new holy war….”We consider these people dangerous because those who go will come back once their mission is accomplished,” the intelligence official said. “Then they can use the knowledge gained there in France, Europe or the United States. It’s the same as those who went to Afghanistan or Chechnya.”

full article (Read on …)

Mass media is a powerful tool in shaping thought, beliefs and underlying assumption about the nature of the world and the forces driving history. TV with an agenda. WTimes:Every evening about 10 million people across the world are tuning into Al-Manar television, a satellite channel that lauds suicide bombers, accuses the United States of crimes against humanity and shows the Statue of Liberty as a gory, knife-wielding figure dripping blood.

One video juxtaposes U.S. footage of soldiers with gory corpses and ends with a suicide bomber’s belt exploding, all set to these lyrics: “Down with the mother of terrorism. American threatens in vain, an occupying army of invaders. Nothing remains but rifles and suicide bombers.”

full article: (Read on …)

NYTimes: North Korea on Friday set out three conditions to be met before it would return to the regional talks on its nuclear weapons program.

The United States must drop its hostile policy, join an economic aid program for the North and agree to discuss “South Korea’s nuclear problem,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told the official KCNA news agency.

full article (Read on …)

And Lose.

They didn’t have a leg to stand on.

But The Fact That Everyone Is Talking About The Thievery

Kofi Annan is upset that the UN’s repuation has been damaged by the Oil for Food Scandal. He seems less upset that his agency was corrupted, funds for starving children diverted to terror groups, and members of the security council were targeted with bribes.

WTimes: “There is no doubt that the constant campaign and discussions [over the scandal] have hurt the U.N.,” said Mr. Annan, who was given a private briefing in New York by Mr. Volcker. “That’s why we want to get to the bottom of it and clear it as quickly as possible. It has done damage, yes.”

The Volcker panel, in a statement released yesterday, said the new report does not address widespread charges of oil smuggling and deals cut by Saddam with foreign vendors outside the oil-for-food framework.
Investigators are “concerned with determining the extent to which smuggling was known to the members of the Security Council, other U.N. authorities and U.N. contractors,” it said.
In his report to Congress earlier this month, the CIA’s chief weapons inspector for Iraq, Charles A. Duelfer, said Saddam systematically undermined the purpose of the oil-for-food program to acquire banned goods and curry international favor to end sanctions.
Particularly targeted, Mr. Duelfer said, were companies and prominent officials in Russia, France and China, all with vetoes on the U.N. Security Council.

(crossposted at Caribpundit.)

UPDATE: The Arab News in Saudi Arabia has an editorial today “Oil for Food and Cronies” that reaches the conclsion that the US is best suited to do the investigation.

is like some pampered debutante who goes postal when the cute jock leaves her for the wholesome farm girl.

Rolling Stone interviews Maureen and Doug finds “It’s staggering… it’s stunning… it’s left me in need of a beer.” Get liquored up and read it all.

My oped as a letter in the Bangladeshi paper “The Independent.” They changed the title from “Thank the American Soldier” to “Day of Democracy?” but the article is the same:

It is a day to admire the democracy that has taken root in the stony mountains and on the dusty streets of Afghanistan. The Afghan baby born today, wrinkled and wailing, has democracy as a birthright and duties to fulfil.

As gloomy as I am (for a good explaination why, read this- Dean sums up my thinking well and saves me the trouble of writing since I am, well, gloomy:

If anyone proposes such a task in the future, I’ll simply say “Look to the Iraq war. It will end in disaster because the press will only report failure and death and excuse that with phony mealy-mouthed claims of “objectivity,” and within a year or two the American people will go wobbly. It’s just who we are as a people.”

, I guess the international war of ideas will continue after the election. As disappointed in America as I will be if Kerry wins or even gets a substantial portion of the vote, there’s still work to do or maybe much more work than I had realized.

Update: This NYPost oped is pretty good too:

ONE of the pillars of liberal or thodoxy is to refer to all U.S. military operations as another Vietnam. Many consider their ability to influence our government’s withdrawal from that country as a great moral victory against an unjust war.

There’s one problem: We lost that war. And in the wake of our withdrawal, celebrated as finding peace, communism reigned on the Southeast Asian peninsula. For that “great moral victory,” 2 million Vietnamese were imprisoned, killed or became boat people in search of a new country.

But more importantly, America’s status as a paper tiger took root. Our enemies began to realize that wearing down the American public’s pysche could be just as effective as confronting our soldiers in battle.

Even more astounding was the realization that segments of America itself, the anti-war movement, a leftist-leaning media and a large portion of the Democratic Party, were willing to aid that undermining.

Despite 9/11, the bring the troops home mentality still resonates with liberals everywhere. But make no mistake: Just as it was in Vietnam, it is still a losing mentality, one we can ill afford against Islamo-facism.

In New York and Florida as reported by Four Right Wing Wackos.

Even when I followed the link to MSNBC, I had to check that it was the real MSNBC, considering it was Gordon’s post and it contained this gem from Jimmy Carter:

Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war weve fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.

Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonials really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely, and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way.

I think in many ways the British were very misled in going to war against America and in trying to enforce their will on people who were quite different from them at the time.

Right on Red, who first found the transcript, wins the best post title competition with this one: Jimmy Carter says American Revolution was wrong war, wrong place, wrong time.

Somebody Pleeeeze tell Jimmy Carter to stick to peanuts, that he was a horrible president, and we voted him out of office years ago because no one wants to hear it. And BTW, Florida is not a third world country, thank you very much.

Claudia strikes again and the world is in her debt:

“With the aim of shedding sanctions, Saddam, according to his regime’s own records, was throwing billions in business and millions in bribes to France, Russia and, to a lesser extent, China, all veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council. As it happened, sanctions were indeed eroding, and these three nations opposed the decision of the U.S. and Britain that Saddam either had to shape up or be shipped out.

But in Mr. Annan’s view, Saddam’s oil money had nothing to do with it. Nobody buys the officials of France, Russia and China. They are serious and important.

To be fair, maybe that’s how the world would appear to anyone dulled for decades by U.N. diplo-speak–and Mr. Annan has toiled there for 42 years. But in the modern world, the notion that Russia and China in no way qualify as banana republics might be news to the state-muffled media of both countries. It might also surprise readers of the Berlin-based Transparency International Corruption