Armies of Liberation

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.

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?

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.”

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 …)

(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 …)

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 …)

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.

My oped in the Yemen Times, Why Al-Khaiwani Matters to the US.

President Bush of the United States has stated: “A vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit (terrorists) radical ideology of hate.” If this is true, then a free and unmolested Yemeni media enhances American security. Having great respect for liberty, and those who struggle for it, many Americans hope the “rescue ship” for Yemen, democracy, is not sinking, especially in light of continued media harassment.

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2004 – The Afghan presidential election held Oct. 9 was a remarkable event, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said at the Pentagon today.

The election was relatively violence-free. U.N. officials estimate that about 80 percent of the 10 million Afghans registered to vote did so. Counting the ballots has begun in the capital of Kabul.

Khalilzad said this progress was in spite of al Qaeda and Taliban threats to
disrupt the election. The ambassador said some Afghans prepared themselves for death – washing themselves and saying prayers – before going to the polls. (Read on …)

Amir Taheri:

Both Israel and the Palestinians still have to ask hard questions from themselves. The Palestinians must ask whether or not they are prepared to accept the “injustice” of Israel’s existence and, if yes, in what shape. The Israelis, for their part, must ask whether or not they can truly accept in their hearts the “injustice” of relinquishing their claim on parts of their “promised land,” including the “holy city” of Jerusalem.

It is only when both sides have accepted an “unjust” peace that they can close the circle of violence which, in one form or another, has engulfed them for half a century.

WEll, this is annoying:

The European body charged with ensuring fair and transparent elections in member countries has selected 60 monitors from 25 countries to observe the U.S. elections next month, concentrating on closely contested states.
The observers represent a broad range of political philosophies, from the far left to the far right. The group includes communists from France and Russia, a Turkish women’s rights advocate and a counterterrorism expert from Belgium. …
The State Department reluctantly extended an invitation to the OSCE this summer, after a dozen Democratic members of Congress requested observers from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

I had to email. I couldn’t help it. It was that bad. Ted Koppel gave John O’Neil 6 minutes to respond to a 25 minute piece and then belittled him when he tried to answer the broader question.

ABC and Ted afforded more credability to the Vietnamese peasents than this American veteran. In the few seconds he had, O’Neil said “You’ve been had, Ted,” pointing out that Vietnam is VERY fonda Kerry.

The story is here, complete with a picture of Kerry and a puppy.

Update: Wizbang has more:

Koppel said something to the effect of “Why not just admit Kerry was right?” It was a rather bold question considering the report was inconclusive at best.

In reply, O’Neil took both Koppel and ABC to task for not asking any of the Swift Boat Vets on to tell their story and for not even telling John Kerry’s own version of the story but for only going to communist country and asking our former enemies.

By repeatedly highlighting that John Kerry even agreed with his version of the events in question, John O’Neil deflated what should have been a very good show for ABC.

This is my email: (The subject line was “What are You Afraid Of, Ted?)”

Dear Ted Koppel,

I find your report on Kerry’s medal both a disservice to the American people and a breach of your duty as an “impartial” reporter of news. It is amazing that you chose to focus on one sliver of the Kerry controversy. It is unfair to me that you allotted 6 minutes to John O’Neil and tried to restrict his comments to your agenda.

The larger issue of whether Kerry’s post war, antiwar activities negatively impacted the troops is completely uncovered. As some of your viewers had not experienced the disgust with which the US treated its returning veterans, it would seem that Kerry’s charges and their impact on the US policy and psyche are a real issue.

Your dismissive attitude toward Mr. O’Neill and all the Swift veterans is a mystery to me. These are decorated American patriots, our finest and bravest, who may have a relevant point considering Kerry’s fitness to serve as commander in chief is based on his Vietnam career. Where is YOUR respect to them and to the viewer?

I would not have expected from you what we have seen from Dan Rather- trying to impact an election with a distorted and one sided presentation. Clearly you invested time and resources to bring this story. Your insistence on taking the word of Vietnamese peasants over decorated American heroes, without even providing equal time, is fundamentally wrong.

You said you wanted to “set the record straight.” How much air time have you given the Swift veterans? I would like to hear more of their interpretation and believe they have a right to present it more than communist peasants have a right to their say.

You say “not reporting can be seen as much of a political statement as reporting.” Yes. You have not reported on the view of the Swift vets and this is a political statement.

I prefer not to have to buy the book to find out what O’Neil is trying to say. This is your job as the gatekeeper to the marketplace of ideas. I would have expected one media outlet to give them a fair shake. Unfortunately, the fair shake is not coming from Nightline. So I am expected to choose who would do a better job in Iraq, Bush or Kerry, while the media is imposing a blackout on the Swift veterans who may or may not have insight in Kerry’s leadership abilities and military views. Thanks for nothing.

Extremely disappointed with ABC, Nightline and you Ted,

Sincerely,
Jane Novak
(I gave my phone number in case he wants to call.)

Update: Jeff has another reason to write to ABC today.

MEMRI from Al-Arabiya TV.

Muhammad Ra’d: “[The kidnappers] brought me into a room reeking of blood – there was dry blood on the ground. A masked man was there, holding a whetting stone and a knife, he was sharpening the knife with the stone.”

Interviewer: “What do you mean by knife?”

Muhammad Ra’d: “A butcher’s knife used for slaughtering. At this stage I said, this is it, I’m about to be slaughtered, this is my end – slaughter. I didn’t think of anything else. That’s it. I’d rather you slaughter me now, the sooner the better, just let me rest. The one holding the knife gave me a strange look. The commander came. They call the one who authorizes the slaughter ‘commander.’ He took me out and said…” (Read on …)