Spain appears to be the next eurozone country to go under.
Standard & Poor’s just slashed the credit ratings of Spain's top five banks after previously downgrading ratings on 11 Spanish banks back in late April. Moody's followed suit soon after.
Bankia, one of Spain's largest banks that was partially nationalized recently after a 4.5 billion euro bail out has asked the Spanish government for a further 19 billion euro ( $24 billion). One in ten bank accounts in Spain are in Bankia. It's an open question whether Spain can afford to bail out Bankia...or whether it can risk the social unrest that would come form letting it tank.
Bankia's rating was cut to BB+, one notch into junk status, from BBB-, while another bank BFA, which was already in junk status, was cut to B+, four notches into junk territory, from BB-.
Aside from an out of hand welfare state glommed onto by thousands of immigrants from North Africa and the Arab world, Spain has a serious problem with more prosperous regions like Catalonia being called on to fund poorer areas .
And Catalonia has just told Madrid that it is running out of cash.
Spain's big ace in the hole was that it had done a reasonable job selling its debt thus far, about half of what the country will need for 2012. But now Catalonia, by far Spain's most properous region has informed Madrid that it needs help from the central government because it's running out of options for refinancing any more debt for this year.
Meanwhile, its highly indebted regional governments face 36 billion euros of debt refinancing bills this year, far above the previously stated 8 billion.
Will Spain go to the IMF and/or eurozone's rescue fund to make up the difference? And will German taxpayers be willing to stick their hands in their pockets again?
Stay tuned...
Friday, May 25, 2012
The Latest LATMA - State Of The Art Israeli Satire!
A few notes..
Ofer Eini is the head of the Israeli union Histadrut..noted for thuggish behavior and intimidation in union elections that recalls the reign of Jimmy Hoffa for Americans.
The song 'Jews United Against Israel' is especially good. And yes, Yariv Oppenheimer, the head of Israel's foreign funded Shalom Akshav (Peace Now) really is this clueless and disgusting in real life.
The '3,800 shekels' skit is a satire on Israel's social protesters.
The 'rape by infiltrators' is a reference to a recent wave of crimes committed by illegal aliens in Israel, mostly Africans.
Enjoy!
Baghdad Talks End In Deadlock - Iran Refuses to Curb Nuclear Program
The talks about talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1 (the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany)came to an end yesterday without any concrete results.
Meanwhile, the Iranians made use of the months of time granted them to double their stockpile of uranium that is close to weapons grade at 20%, and to vastly increase the amount of working centrifuges at it's hidden Fordrow plant, where IAEA inspectors reported they had found particles of 27% enriched uranium. well above weapons grade.
The Iranians are apparently unwilling to give up 20% plus enrichment or provide what the western nations consider adequate monitoring of their nuclear program in exchange for what's been put on the table thus far, which includes medical isotopes, some nuclear safety cooperation and spare parts for civilian airliners that are badly needed in Iran.
Saeed Jalili, Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator, claimed the Western plan's were 'unbalanced' and accused the West of “language and phrases very similar to those employed by Israeli government leaders”.
This takes real nerve on Jalili's part, considering that the entire Iranian nuclear program was clandestine and illegal according to the non-Proliferation Treaty Iran signed until it was outed by Iranian dissidents in 2004.
The talks are expected to resume on June 18-19 in Moscow according to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
“It is clear that we both want to make progress, and that there is some common ground,” Ashton, who is formally leading the talks, told reporters at the end of the talks. “However, significant differences remain. Nonetheless, we do agree on the need for further discussion to expand that common ground.”
So far, there doesn't seem to be much common ground - but a great deal of Iranian success in playing for time while the centrifuges run and they work at getting their nuclear facilities out of harm's way.
The Iranians have run this game successfully several times before, and it remains to be seen if they'll manage to pull it off again.And especially, whether the Israelis are going to decide to do some 'talking' of their own.
One thing's certain. Iran is not going to give up its nuclear weapons program because of any agreements or incentives from the West. if that were on th etable, it would have happened already.
Meanwhile, the Iranians made use of the months of time granted them to double their stockpile of uranium that is close to weapons grade at 20%, and to vastly increase the amount of working centrifuges at it's hidden Fordrow plant, where IAEA inspectors reported they had found particles of 27% enriched uranium. well above weapons grade.
The Iranians are apparently unwilling to give up 20% plus enrichment or provide what the western nations consider adequate monitoring of their nuclear program in exchange for what's been put on the table thus far, which includes medical isotopes, some nuclear safety cooperation and spare parts for civilian airliners that are badly needed in Iran.
Saeed Jalili, Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator, claimed the Western plan's were 'unbalanced' and accused the West of “language and phrases very similar to those employed by Israeli government leaders”.
This takes real nerve on Jalili's part, considering that the entire Iranian nuclear program was clandestine and illegal according to the non-Proliferation Treaty Iran signed until it was outed by Iranian dissidents in 2004.
The talks are expected to resume on June 18-19 in Moscow according to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
“It is clear that we both want to make progress, and that there is some common ground,” Ashton, who is formally leading the talks, told reporters at the end of the talks. “However, significant differences remain. Nonetheless, we do agree on the need for further discussion to expand that common ground.”
So far, there doesn't seem to be much common ground - but a great deal of Iranian success in playing for time while the centrifuges run and they work at getting their nuclear facilities out of harm's way.
The Iranians have run this game successfully several times before, and it remains to be seen if they'll manage to pull it off again.And especially, whether the Israelis are going to decide to do some 'talking' of their own.
One thing's certain. Iran is not going to give up its nuclear weapons program because of any agreements or incentives from the West. if that were on th etable, it would have happened already.
* Chuckle* DNC Head Wasssrman-Schultz Steps In It Again
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Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the gal from J-Street and President Obama's hire to run the Democratic National Committee just committed another large blunder.
Wasserman-Schultz had been booked into Miami's Temple Israel to try and sell the Jewish congregation there on how good President Obama is for Israel. Also scheduled to speak was Stanley Tate, one of its past presidents and most respected memberswho actually helped found Temple Israel's congregation.
Since Tate is a former founder of the Republican Jewish Coaltion ( RJC) and a Romney supporter, it was pretty predictable that his speech would contain a few facts that would make Wassermann-Schultz's pro-Obama spin look silly. So she had Tate banned from speaking:
Tate also stated that the Board of Trustees held a “special” meeting on May 14th where the majority of the board decided not to let him address the congregation.During a phone interview with Mr. Tate, the former founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) said that Wasserman Schultz told board members, “Stanley cannot be allowed to speak”, and that “no other speaker can speak in opposition before or after her.”
Tate and his resigned from the congregation in protest.And he went public to the members of the Congregation about it.
Unfortunately for the Left leaning board of Temple Israel, Tate and his family are particularly well thought of, especially after having a relationship with Temple Israel that went back over 70 years. A number of members resigned in sympathy and demonstrations at the Temple were planned for the night of Wasserman-Schult's speech...resulting in Temple Israel 'disinviting' Obama's J-Street diva and canceling her speech for 'security reasons'. At least that was the story The temple's president, Ben Kuehne, a Miami attorney, gave to the media.
Jewish Synagogues do not pass a collection plate at every service or have an offertory. Instead they charge annual dues for memberships, take donations from congregants and sell tickets to Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur services ( known as High Holidays, when even most unaffiliated Jews attend services) to non-members.
Losing a significant number of paying members and the resulting bad publicity apparently had an effect on Temple Israel's bottom line. And that's why Wasserman-Achultz got th eboot, not 'security'.
Congratulations Mr. Tate and congratulations to the congregants of Temple Israel..kol hakavod.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the gal from J-Street and President Obama's hire to run the Democratic National Committee just committed another large blunder.
Wasserman-Schultz had been booked into Miami's Temple Israel to try and sell the Jewish congregation there on how good President Obama is for Israel. Also scheduled to speak was Stanley Tate, one of its past presidents and most respected memberswho actually helped found Temple Israel's congregation.
Since Tate is a former founder of the Republican Jewish Coaltion ( RJC) and a Romney supporter, it was pretty predictable that his speech would contain a few facts that would make Wassermann-Schultz's pro-Obama spin look silly. So she had Tate banned from speaking:
I have been told by the Temple Israel Board of Trustees, that in no uncertain terms, I am not welcome, nor am I desired to speak on the bema (dais), nor does the Temple want me in any way to address the attendees on the evening of May 25th, after the Shabbat Services, even though the other invited speaker will be giving her politically motivated remarks on the topic of “Maintaining a Strong U.S. – Israel Relationship.” – Stanley Tate
Tate also stated that the Board of Trustees held a “special” meeting on May 14th where the majority of the board decided not to let him address the congregation.During a phone interview with Mr. Tate, the former founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) said that Wasserman Schultz told board members, “Stanley cannot be allowed to speak”, and that “no other speaker can speak in opposition before or after her.”
Tate and his resigned from the congregation in protest.And he went public to the members of the Congregation about it.
Unfortunately for the Left leaning board of Temple Israel, Tate and his family are particularly well thought of, especially after having a relationship with Temple Israel that went back over 70 years. A number of members resigned in sympathy and demonstrations at the Temple were planned for the night of Wasserman-Schult's speech...resulting in Temple Israel 'disinviting' Obama's J-Street diva and canceling her speech for 'security reasons'. At least that was the story The temple's president, Ben Kuehne, a Miami attorney, gave to the media.
Jewish Synagogues do not pass a collection plate at every service or have an offertory. Instead they charge annual dues for memberships, take donations from congregants and sell tickets to Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur services ( known as High Holidays, when even most unaffiliated Jews attend services) to non-members.
Losing a significant number of paying members and the resulting bad publicity apparently had an effect on Temple Israel's bottom line. And that's why Wasserman-Achultz got th eboot, not 'security'.
Congratulations Mr. Tate and congratulations to the congregants of Temple Israel..kol hakavod.
How The Left Does Discourse and Respects Free Speech
By now, you've probably heard a little bit about convicted Speedway Bomber Brett Kimberlin, who works for a Leftist 501 C group .
Aside from threats to Robert Stacy McCain's family, Kimberlin and his associates also specialize in SWATing, which involves making a 911 call to local law enforcement and sending a SWAT team to your target's home. Pat Patterico, who was a victim of Kimberlin's has a story you should read.
Ace has some decent suggestions on what to do to counteract this kind of political terrorism.
And here's a list of pieces on the subject by Watcher's Council members:
Bookworm Room: Hurrah! It’s Everybody Blog About #BrettKimberlin Day *UPDATED*
Gay Patriot:I stand with Stacy. And Aaron. And Patterico
The Noisy Room:Stalking the Blogosphere – BlogBurst Friday for Free Speech (with a lot of links to other stories on this throughout the blogpsphere)
The Political Commentator:Re: Brett Kimberlin Day and at least for today, a true bipartisan issue!
Rhymes With Right: Brett Kimberlin -- Terrorist
The Right Planet:BlogBurst Friday: Blog About #BrettKimberlin Day
Simply Jews:Brett Kimberlin: an American success story?
My apologies to anyone whom I inadvertently missed....
The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks Watchers Council Results
The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.
What is peace between nations? What does it consist of and how does it happen? This week's winner, Joshuapundit's What Does Peace Mean Anyway? decided to examine that very timely question, with a glance at how it applies to the Middle East. Here's a slice:
Peace is said to be a high priority, no matter whom you talk to.People crave it and pray for it, and rightly so.
This is a much more important issue, I think, than most of us realize, especially in these days when people use terms like 'The Long War' and 'the peace process' .Yet few of us, especially in the West actually stop to think of what we really mean by peace, and what you can't define clearly is frequently illusory.
The Bible provides one definition, with the prophet Isaiah talking of a time of peace so profound that men will not only transform the arms of battle into implements of peace but cease to study the arts and strategy of war.
That's obviously an unrealized ideal in the immediate future.
Islam is much more direct about the matter. Westerners are confused when Muslims say that Islam means peace (actually, it comes from the Arabic aslama, which means submission). To Muslims, who divide the world into dar Islam, the part of the world where Islam rules and the non-Muslim world, referred to as dar harb ( literally the house of war), peace is much simpler. It's a condition where the entire world is dar Islam, exactly what Mohammed ordered his followers to strive for right before his death in 632 CE, according to the Hadiths.
If some Muslims talk of peace when they actually mean a time of dar Islam, it's understandable that something gets lost in translation - sometimes deliberately so.
So, is peace then simply an absence of war and conflict? It ain't necessarily so.
In our non-Council category, the overwhelmong winner was The Other McCain with Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland submitted by Rhymes with Right
In his piece, Robert Stacy McCain writes an account about he and his family being harassed by a convicted domestic terrorist named Brett Kimberlin who just happens to have a wealthy and well connected family after McCain wrote an article about his depredations. We here at the Council chose to make this week's contest part of a blogburst going on around the 'sphere at a great many sites. A number of the Council members have written individual stories about what's going on or are linking to other stories about what's going on - to show Stacy he's by no means alone and we stand with him. You should do the same.
Yeah, we got your six, Mr M. Stand your ground, in every sense of the word.
Here are this week’s full results. New Zeal and The Mellow Jihadi were unable to vote this week; neither was affected by the 2/3 vote penalty:
Council Winners
- *First place with 3 2/3 votes! Joshuapundit – What Does Peace Mean Anyway?
- Second place with 2 2/3 votes – The Razor- Geert Wilders: A 21st Century Canary in a Coal Mine
- Third place with 1 2/3 votes – The Right Planet-Marx Is For Hippies
- Fourth place with 1 vote – Gay Patriot-Is there anything Barack Obama doesn’'t politicize?
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room- The Fiction of Barack Obama
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews- Tombstone and Mexican spotted owl
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Bookworm Room- Is Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, a 1978 case rejecting academic racial quotas, the smoking gun behind Obama’s Kenyan identity? *UPDATED*
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey –Still More Narrative Fail
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi –The Biggest Loser, Navy-style
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Rhymes With Right – Professional Malpractice By North Carolina Social Studies Teacher
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – The Enforcement Deficit
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Political Commentator –It's 8:00 AM, do you know where your tax money is going?
Non-Council Winners
- First place with 4 2/3 votes! – The Other McCain- Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland submitted by Rhymes With Right
- Second place *t* with 2 votes – Mark Steyn –Eternally shifting sands of Obama's biography submitted by The Noisy Room
- Second place *t* with 2 votes – Andrew McCarthy – Western Sharia submitted by Joshuapundit
- Third place with 1 vote -Melanie Phillips The BBC Is Using Taxpayer's Money To Spread An Ancient Racial Libel submitted by The Razor
- Fourth place with 2/3 vote Israel Hayom -A Worthless Piece Of Paper submitted by The Political Commentator
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -PJ Media/Roger Kimball Who Is Barack Obama? The Question that Won’'t Go Away submitted by The Right Planet
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote - The Texas Scribbler – Lynching A Black Man submitted by Simply Jews
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Paul Miller/Shadow Government –Obama's legacy on Afghanistan submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Center for Defense Studies –Rushing for the Exits: The Wrong Lesson of Afghanistan submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -FrontPage –Chicago Braces for Leftist Violence and Mayhem submitted by The Independent Sentinel
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Publius Forum–VIDEO: Violent Union Thugs Using Ball Bat on Effigy of SC Gov. Nikki Haley! submitted by VA Right!
- Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Gatestone Institute –Apartheid: The Big Lie submitted by The Watcher
See you next week! And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Liar's Arithmetic - Obama's Insane Spending Is No Myth
The latest attempt by the Obama campaign to use its media lackeys to create 'spontaneous' talking points surfaced yesterday and escalated today with an obviously pre-arranged barrage.
It started off with a piece in Market Watch by someone named Rex Nutting entitled, 'The Obama spending binge never happened.'
Essentially, the piece is a variation on the old hit tune 'Bush Did It.' Nutting attempts to bedazzle the math challenged by producing charts of federal spending under various presidents that purport to show that President Barack Obama is actually a fiscal conservative, presiding over the lowest federal outlays in modern history, Hey, who knew? And the very next day, like clockwork, these 'facts' were trumpeted in op-eds in the WAPO, The New York Times, The Soros media outlets and various outlets in the Lefty blogosphere. Another right wing myth exploded!
The president's campaign staff, of course,had his teleprompter loaded in advance to take advantage:
“I don’t know how they've been bamboozling folks into thinking that they are the responsible, fiscally-disciplined party. They run up these wild debts and then when we take over we have to clean it up,” Obama said. “And then they point and say, 'Look how irresponsible they are.' Look at facts, look at the numbers. And now I want to finish the job," President Obama said at a fundraiser in Denver.
Simple addition shows us that President Barack Hussein Obama has run up more debt than every one of his predecessors combined. So how did Nutting attempt to spin this and defy basic math?
Simple.
First he credits President Bush with massive spending during his second term, and adds well over a trillion dollars for 2009...conveniently leaving out that the 'wild debts' President Obama was pontificating about started cascading after January of 2006...when the Democrats took over both houses of Congress with a veto proof majority and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid started running things.
Second, he also leaves out the cute little fact that the then Senator Obama was a member of Congress who was sworn in after the 2004 elections and remained in the Senate throughout George W. Bush's second term. Barack Obama thus voted for every bit of those 'wild debts' he's laboring to convince people he had nothing to do with..including TARP.
President Obama's 'stimulus' (essentially a looting of the federal treasury for his political allies), the gifting of GM to the unions at the taxpayer's expense and the subsequent tax break at the taxpayer's expense, the half trillion stolen from Medicare to pay for ObamaCare, the billions gifted to Obama donors and bundlers touting various green energy scams like Solyndra, $2 billion for the President and Michelle's little road trip to India, a billion or more for the Libya War, none of these appear on Nutting's chart as spending. Neither do the effects of the president's policy of quantitative easing, which involved 'digitizing' dollars to 'buy' debt and significantly lowered the value of U.S. currency.
Nutting also comes out with this gem: " [Obama's] budget proposals called for even more spending in subsequent years. But the Congress (mostly Republicans but many Democrats, too) stopped him. If Obama had been a king who could impose his will, perhaps what the Republicans are saying about an Obama spending binge would be accurate."
You have to wonder who writes this man's comedy material.
The budget and spending that were mandated were entirely the work of the Democrats who controlled both houses of Congress. And far from 'stopping him' the Democrats forced ObamaCare, the 'stimulus', the auto bail outs and many other wasteful programs through without Republican input, because they had enough votes. Does Nutting not want us to remember how the Republicans were literally locked out of the room while these programs and legislation were crafted? The GOP wasn't able to get control of the House of Representatives until January of 2011, and even then they've been thwarted by this president use of executive orders and signing statements to recklessly continue running up the nation's credit card - to the point where our national credit rating was lowered for the first time in history.
And the constant references to 'the Obama budget' are giggle worthy all by themselves. There's been no Obama budget for three years...just requests to raise the debt ceiling to keep the fiction going.
I really hope the president and his allies like Nutting keep singing this particular song...first, because 'Bushie Done It' isn't quite the hit it once was, and because the obvious bolshoi is so easily refuted.
President Bush spent far more federal money than I liked, but he also had trillion dollar hits in the form of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina to deal with. As my friend over at Political Math reminds us, comparing Bush's spending with Obama's is like comparing someone driving 63 MPH with someone roaring along at 170 MPH...and never mind that during Bush's second term, the Democrats called the tune! In fact, if anything, President Obama's recklessness and speed has increased markedly since the video was made.
The Obama Campaign's October Surprise - With An Assist From The Hollywood Left
"Yeah, I got bin-Laden. Me, myself and I."
The Obama campaign has an October surprise planned for us. And among other things, it involved providing unprecedented access to classified material and giving access to a major special ops planner and commander to people without even a glimmer of a security clearance.
Documents acquired by Judicial Watch from the U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA show that they were instructed by the White House to meet with Kathryn Bigelow, Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker, and screenwriter Mark Boal (both Obama donors) provide them with access to classified material as well as the identity and access to a special ops planner and Commander of SEAL Team Six for the purpose of assisting Bigelow and Boal in finishing their upcoming Hollywood movie on the assassination of Osama bin-Laden.
Just by coincidence, that film, which will undoubtedly feature the president's 'gutsy' decision and portray him as a courageous leader is scheduled to hit the screen on..wait for it..October 16th, 2012. A couple of weeks before America goes to the polls:
“These documents, which took nine months and a federal lawsuit to disgorge from the Obama administration, show that politically-connected film makers were giving extraordinary and secret access to bin Laden raid information, including the identity of a Seal Team Six leader,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is both ironic and hypocritical that the Obama administration stonewalled Judicial Watch’s pursuit of the bin Laden death photos, citing national security concerns, yet seemed willing to share intimate details regarding the raid to help Hollywood filmmakers release a movie ‘perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost’ to the Obama campaign.”
It's bad enough that this is essentially a Hollywood produced campaign ad, and amounts to a multi-million dollar contribution in kind, forbidden by FEC rules.
Even worse, neither Bigelow or Boal have any kind of security clearance, nor does anyone involved in the making of this film who might have access to the classified information that was revealed as well as the identity and location of the SEAL commander. They could fall into the hands of the wrong people with distressing ease.
This president has said repeatedly that America is 'at war with al-Qaeda'. If you grant him that premise, can this be seen as treason, legally defined as aid and comfort to the enemy in war time? It could most assuredly be treason if it involved an enemy we'd had Congress declare war on as the Constitution mandates.
That aside, it's obvious we are dealing with people who care very little about the country or its security and everything about retaining power.
They will say or do anything to retain it.
Again, this is another story that ought to be a screaming headline for every news source in the country. Instead, it's been buried.
Video: Palestinian Authority Educates Its Children To Fight 'Inferior And Cowardly' Jews And Christians
Israel's 'peace partners' on a recent edition of a typical kid's show on PA-run Palestinian TV. It speaks for itself.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Robin Gibbs Of The BeeGees Sings About Israel
Robin Gibbs, the Australian singer who just passed away at age 62 of cancer had a song called "Israel" that he wrote after a trip to Israel that was performed by his group the BeeGees back in 1971 .
This soulful tune definitely rates an encore. RIP Robin Gibbs.
(h/t, Carl via Ofir Gendelman on Twitter)
Trayvon Martin Case: Several Witnesses Change Their Stories
As more evidence is released by prosecution in the Trayvon Martin shooting, a peculiar thing is happening. The initial accounts made to the police back when the details were fresh in the witnesses' minds have changed somewhat in followup interviews...and mostly from definitive statements to 'well, it was dark and I'm not sure' kind of statements.
I wonder if the death threats, charges of racism, wide spread public protests in the city where the shooting took place, the initial media characterization of Zimmerman as a racist thug and even the comments of a certain president just might have had something to do with that? Along with the quite justified fear that their personal information is likely to become public?:
*****************************************************
That last witness is especially hilarious. A month after the incident, he's quizzed on his subjective impression of Zimmerman's demeanor! Now there's a sustained objection from Zimmerman's lawyer waiting to happen.
More important, remember that the prosecution needs to prove murder two beyond a reasonable doubt. Now that key witnesses have doubts and conflicting accounts after their 'reinterviews' during the hoopla surrounding the case, you have to wonder exactly how the prosecution does that.
The only way I see Zimmerman getting convicted is if the prosecution manages to seat a majority black jury,play the race card and push for race based jury nullification the way the defense successfully did in the OJ Simpson criminal trial.
Another thought..speaking of race based, isn't it odd that every time President Obama sticks his two cents into a matter that involves a conflict between a black person and a white person, he invariably comes down defending the black person? One might almost think he had a problem with race. Or something.
I wonder if the death threats, charges of racism, wide spread public protests in the city where the shooting took place, the initial media characterization of Zimmerman as a racist thug and even the comments of a certain president just might have had something to do with that? Along with the quite justified fear that their personal information is likely to become public?:
A young woman who lives in the Retreat at Twin Lakes community, where Trayvon was shot, was interviewed twice by Sanford police and once by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
She told authorities that she had taken out her contact lenses just before the incident. In her first recorded interview with Sanford police four days after the shooting, she told lead Investigator Chris Serino, "I saw two guys running. Couldn't tell you who was in front, who was behind."
She stepped away from her window, and when she looked again, she "saw a fistfight. Just fists. I don't know who was hitting who."
A week later, she added a detail when talking again to Serino: During the chase, the two figures had been 10 feet apart.
That all changed when she was reinterviewed March 20 by an FDLE agent. That time, she recalled catching a glimpse of just one running figure, she told FDLE Investigator John Batchelor, and she heard the person more than saw him.
"I couldn't tell you if it was a man, a woman, a kid, black or white. I couldn't tell you because it was dark and because I didn't have my contacts on or glasses. … I just know I saw a person out there."
**************************************************
A young mother who is also a neighbor in the town-home community never gave a recorded interview to Sanford police, according to prosecution records released last week. She first sat down for an audio-recorded interview with an FDLE agent March 20, more than three weeks after the shooting.
During that session, she said she saw two people on the ground immediately after the shooting and was not sure who was on top, Zimmerman or Trayvon.
"I don't know which one. … All I saw when they were on the ground was dark colors," she said.
Six days later, however, she was sure: It was Zimmerman on top, she told trial prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda during a 21/2-minute recorded session.
"I know after seeing the TV of what's happening, comparing their sizes, I think Zimmerman was definitely on top because of his size," she said. ( actually, Martin, a football player is larger than Zimmerman)
************************************************
This witness lived a few feet from where Trayvon and Zimmerman had their fight. On the night of the shooting, he told Serino he saw a black man on top of a lighter-skinned man "just throwing down blows on the guy, MMA-style," a reference to mixed martial arts.
He also said the one calling for help was "the one being beat up," a reference to Zimmerman.
But three weeks later, when he was interviewed by an FDLE agent, the man said he was no longer sure which one called for help.
"I truly can't tell who, after thinking about it, was yelling for help just because it was so dark out on that sidewalk," he said.
He also said he was no longer sure Trayvon was throwing punches. The teenager may have simply been keeping Zimmerman pinned to the ground, he said.
He did not equivocate, though, about who was on top.
"The black guy was on top," he said.
***************************************
After this neighbor heard gunfire, he went outside and spotted Zimmerman standing there with"blood on the back of his head," he told Sanford police the night of the shooting.
Zimmerman told him that Trayvon "was beating up on me, so I had to shoot him," the witness told Serino. The Neighborhood Watch captain then asked the witness to call his wife, Shellie Zimmerman, and tell her what happened.
In two subsequent interviews about a month later — one with an FDLE investigator and one with de la Rionda — the witness described Zimmerman's demeanor in greater detail, adding that he spoke as if the shooting were no big deal.
Zimmerman's tone, the witness said, was "not like 'I can't believe I just shot someone!' — it was more like, 'Just tell my wife I shot somebody …,' like it was nothing."
*****************************************************
That last witness is especially hilarious. A month after the incident, he's quizzed on his subjective impression of Zimmerman's demeanor! Now there's a sustained objection from Zimmerman's lawyer waiting to happen.
More important, remember that the prosecution needs to prove murder two beyond a reasonable doubt. Now that key witnesses have doubts and conflicting accounts after their 'reinterviews' during the hoopla surrounding the case, you have to wonder exactly how the prosecution does that.
The only way I see Zimmerman getting convicted is if the prosecution manages to seat a majority black jury,play the race card and push for race based jury nullification the way the defense successfully did in the OJ Simpson criminal trial.
Another thought..speaking of race based, isn't it odd that every time President Obama sticks his two cents into a matter that involves a conflict between a black person and a white person, he invariably comes down defending the black person? One might almost think he had a problem with race. Or something.
Enviro-Wackos Triumph - Los Angeles Bans Plastic Bags From Markets
In case you haven't heard, all of Los Angeles' problems with deficits,unemployment, decreased revenues and crumbling infrastructure have now been solved.
The Los Angeles City Council just voted 13 to 1 to ban plastic shopping bags and to charge a fee of 10 cents per bag for paper. Councilman Bernard Parks cast the lone no vote.
The rationale on this is supposedly to cut down on landfill. In reality, the city has been mandating that plastic bags get recycled in a separate trash can as they're disposed of, just like the paper ones. The plastic bags can be melted and re-used, while the paper ones can be re-pulped.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wanted to ban paper bags as well, but Council members felt that the extra fee will probably depress paper bag use to the point where that won't be necessary. Besides, the city wants the money. Hey, an additional tax of ten cents per bag for every load of groceries!
Councilman Paul Koretz, who pushed for the ban, put a nice cover over the real motivations for keeping the paper bags available by saying that city officials would conduct a study in two years to determine whether the prohibition should be expanded to include paper. “My hope is that so few paper bags will be used as a result of this measure that the formal ban … on paper bags may not even be necessary,” he said. Of course the taxpayers will pay for this study.
Wednesday’s vote kicks off a four-month long environmental review of the bag ban, followed by passage of an ordinance putting it into effect, a foregone result at this point. Larger stores will then have six months to phase out plastic bags and smaller markets a 12-month phase-out period. For paper bags, retailers would be required to charge 10 cents per bag starting one year after the plastic bag ban is enacted.
"Let’s get the message to Sacramento that it’s time to go statewide," said Councilman Ed Reyes. He's right of course. Other California cities like San Francisco and San Jose have already banned plastic bags, and state-wide ban is almost certainly just a matter of time.
Another aspect of the ban is that Los Angeles' unemployment rate will grow since bag manufacturers will be closing down and leaving the state, taking all those jobs with them. Some of the smaller markets may leave too, and shoppers, at least for awhile, will avoid the fees and taxes by patronizing stores in local cities like Glendale that are not part of Los Angeles. That will likely cost the city a lot more in tax revenues than the bag fee is going to provide, but who's counting? Employees of companies like Crown Poly turned up in droves to plead with Council members not to kill their jobs, but Gaea was triumphant - and who cares about those carbon dioxide emitting humans anyway? Let 'em leave.
Just another chapter in the saga of Wack-a fornia. Kill jobs and businesses while nanny stating to make the life of the average person more difficult, less convenient and more expensive..that's the California Way.
The Los Angeles City Council just voted 13 to 1 to ban plastic shopping bags and to charge a fee of 10 cents per bag for paper. Councilman Bernard Parks cast the lone no vote.
The rationale on this is supposedly to cut down on landfill. In reality, the city has been mandating that plastic bags get recycled in a separate trash can as they're disposed of, just like the paper ones. The plastic bags can be melted and re-used, while the paper ones can be re-pulped.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wanted to ban paper bags as well, but Council members felt that the extra fee will probably depress paper bag use to the point where that won't be necessary. Besides, the city wants the money. Hey, an additional tax of ten cents per bag for every load of groceries!
Councilman Paul Koretz, who pushed for the ban, put a nice cover over the real motivations for keeping the paper bags available by saying that city officials would conduct a study in two years to determine whether the prohibition should be expanded to include paper. “My hope is that so few paper bags will be used as a result of this measure that the formal ban … on paper bags may not even be necessary,” he said. Of course the taxpayers will pay for this study.
Wednesday’s vote kicks off a four-month long environmental review of the bag ban, followed by passage of an ordinance putting it into effect, a foregone result at this point. Larger stores will then have six months to phase out plastic bags and smaller markets a 12-month phase-out period. For paper bags, retailers would be required to charge 10 cents per bag starting one year after the plastic bag ban is enacted.
"Let’s get the message to Sacramento that it’s time to go statewide," said Councilman Ed Reyes. He's right of course. Other California cities like San Francisco and San Jose have already banned plastic bags, and state-wide ban is almost certainly just a matter of time.
Another aspect of the ban is that Los Angeles' unemployment rate will grow since bag manufacturers will be closing down and leaving the state, taking all those jobs with them. Some of the smaller markets may leave too, and shoppers, at least for awhile, will avoid the fees and taxes by patronizing stores in local cities like Glendale that are not part of Los Angeles. That will likely cost the city a lot more in tax revenues than the bag fee is going to provide, but who's counting? Employees of companies like Crown Poly turned up in droves to plead with Council members not to kill their jobs, but Gaea was triumphant - and who cares about those carbon dioxide emitting humans anyway? Let 'em leave.
Just another chapter in the saga of Wack-a fornia. Kill jobs and businesses while nanny stating to make the life of the average person more difficult, less convenient and more expensive..that's the California Way.
Pakistani Who Helped Locate Bin-Laden Gets 30 Years For Treason - After Being Outed By SecDef Panetta
A Pakistani physician who helped the CIA locate Osama bin-Laden in Pakistan has been sentenced to over 30 years in prison for treason.
Dr. Shakeel Afridi was arrested three weeks after US Navy Seal Team Six assassinated bin-Laden at his hideaway in Abbottabad, only 30 miles from Islamabad.
Dr Afridi was not present in court on Wednesday nor was he represented by a lawyer:
“He has been sentenced for 33 years on treason charges and has been moved to Peshawar central jail after the verdict was announced by the local court,” said Mohammad Siddiq, spokesman for the administrative head of Khyber, where the case was heard.
Dr. Afridi set up Dr Afridi set up a hepatitis vaccination campaign in March last year, according to residents of Abbottabad.
The CIA had seen an al-Qaeda courier enter bin-Laden's compound there, they weren't sure that bin-Laden was actually present. Dr.Afridi's role was to attempt to obtain a DNA sample from a tall figure the CIA knew was inside because of satellite imagery.
Although he wasn't able to get a blood sample, Dr.Afridi was able to secure a telephone number for Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, bin Laden’s trusted courier, enabling the CIA to confirm his identity.
What evidence did the Pakistanis have against Dr. Afridi? Simple. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta outed him (on 'Sixty Minutes', no less) and gave the Pakistanis an open and shut case:
I seem to recall the Angry Left going absolutely berserk over someone allegedly outing Valerie Plame. I guarantee you that won't happen to Leon Panetta.
More to the point,imagine you're a CIA agent trying to recruit assets in a foreign country. How successful do you think you're going to be after potential informants see the Secretary of Defense performing on national TV and shooting his mouth off like this?
If we were actually in a declared war, this would be treason, by definition.
Dr. Shakeel Afridi was arrested three weeks after US Navy Seal Team Six assassinated bin-Laden at his hideaway in Abbottabad, only 30 miles from Islamabad.
Dr Afridi was not present in court on Wednesday nor was he represented by a lawyer:
“He has been sentenced for 33 years on treason charges and has been moved to Peshawar central jail after the verdict was announced by the local court,” said Mohammad Siddiq, spokesman for the administrative head of Khyber, where the case was heard.
Dr. Afridi set up Dr Afridi set up a hepatitis vaccination campaign in March last year, according to residents of Abbottabad.
The CIA had seen an al-Qaeda courier enter bin-Laden's compound there, they weren't sure that bin-Laden was actually present. Dr.Afridi's role was to attempt to obtain a DNA sample from a tall figure the CIA knew was inside because of satellite imagery.
Although he wasn't able to get a blood sample, Dr.Afridi was able to secure a telephone number for Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, bin Laden’s trusted courier, enabling the CIA to confirm his identity.
What evidence did the Pakistanis have against Dr. Afridi? Simple. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta outed him (on 'Sixty Minutes', no less) and gave the Pakistanis an open and shut case:
I seem to recall the Angry Left going absolutely berserk over someone allegedly outing Valerie Plame. I guarantee you that won't happen to Leon Panetta.
More to the point,imagine you're a CIA agent trying to recruit assets in a foreign country. How successful do you think you're going to be after potential informants see the Secretary of Defense performing on national TV and shooting his mouth off like this?
If we were actually in a declared war, this would be treason, by definition.
WH Spokeshole Carney Embarrassed Into Silence When Asked About Obama's Support For OWS
Now, this is one worth remembering...President Obama's Press Secretary Jay Carney is so embarrassed by FOX's Senior White House Correspondent Wendell Goler asking him about the president's support for the OWS creeps that he is actually stunned into silence as he tries desperately to spin and come up with some kind of creditable lie to cover for it:
Carney, like George Stephanopoulos before him will almost definitely get offered a contract as a Lefty talking head for one of the alphabet networks. Let's make sure we remember Jay Carney's regard for the truth when that happens.
Wendell Goler: The President has voiced support for the Occupy folks in the past, or at least their goals, did their actions in Chicago sour his support?
Jay Carney: Well I think you’re making broad comparisons between uh uh different groups, what the President has said in the past is uh he has understood uh the frustrations Americans have about ((pause)) the ((pause)) failure in particular of Wall Street in some cases to uh uh, (pause) well obviously Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis that precipitated the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Watcher's Council Nominations - Seven Days In May Edition
Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.
Council News:
This week, The Mental Recession, The Pirate's Cove and Maggie's Notebook took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status with some great pieces.
You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.
Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.
It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?
So, let's see what we have this week....and be sure to tune in on Monday for next week's Council forum question!
Council Submissions
- The Noisy Room – The Fiction of Barack Obama
- The Right Planet – Marx Is For Hippies
- Joshuapundit-What Does Peace Mean Anyway?
- The Colossus of Rhodey – Still More Narrative Fail
- The Independent Sentinel – Sebellius Channels JFK to Promote Government As the New Religion
- Simply Jews – Tombstone and Mexican spotted owl
- GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Yemen Blitz
- The Political Commentator – It's 8:00 AM, do you know where your tax money is going?
- Bookworm Room – Is Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, a 1978 case rejecting academic racial quotas, the smoking gun behind Obama’s Kenyan identity? *UPDATED*
- Gay Patriot – Is there anything Barack Obama doesn’'t politicize?
- VA Right! - Defending Obama Has Become Like Defending Cigarettes
- The Razor – Geert Wilders: A 21st Century Canary in a Coal Mine
- Rhymes With Right – Professional Malpractice By North Carolina Social Studies Teacher
- The Glittering Eye -The Enforcement Deficit
- The Mellow Jihadi – The Biggest Loser, Navy-style
Honorable Mentions
- The Pirate's Cove - What If Occupy Gave A World Wide Demonstration And No One Came?
- Maggie's Notebook - Obama's Gutted MediCare
- The Mental Recession - Union Leader Beats Nikki Haley Effigy With a Baseball Bat
Non-Council Submissions
- Mark Steyn –Eternally shifting sands of Obama's biography submitted by The Noisy Room
- PJ Media/Roger Kimball – Who Is Barack Obama? The Question that Won’'t Go Away submitted by The Right Planet
- Andrew McCarthy – Western Sharia submitted by Joshuapundit
- Truth Before Dishonor – Just who is waging a war on women? submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
- FrontPage Magazine – Chicago Braces for Leftist Violence and Mayhem submitted by The The Independent Sentinel
- The Texas Scribbler – Lynching A Black Man submitted by Simply Jews
- Center for Defense Studies – Rushing for the Exits: The Wrong Lesson of Afghanistan submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Israel Hayom -A Worthless Piece Of Papersubmitted by The Political Commentator
- Maggie's Farm/Bruce Kesler-The Difference Between John Kerry 2004 and Barack Obama 2012 submitted by Bookworm Room
- American Spectator -Losing the World to Win Reelection submitted by Gay Patriot
- Publius Forum – VIDEO: Violent Union Thugs Using Ball Bat on Effigy of SC Gov. Nikki Haley! submitted by VA Right!
- Melanie Phillips –The BBC Is Using Taxpayer's Money To Spread An Ancient Racial Libel submitted by The Razor
- The Other McCain – Brett Kimberlin Saga Takes a Bizarre Turn, Forcing Me to Leave Maryland submitted by Rhymes with Right
- Paul Miller/Shadow Government – Obama's legacy on Afghanistan submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Commentary – The Failure Of Arab Liberals submitted by The Watcher
- Gatestone Institute – Apartheid: The Big Lie submitted by The Watcher
Enjoy! And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Answers Sought On Obama's Release of Hezbollah Commander Who Killed 5 U.S. Troops
The Obama Administration hasn't just limited its catch and release program of our enemies to the Taliban.
The latest beneficiary is Ali Musa Daqduq, a Hezbollah commander connected with the killing of five U.S. soldiers back in 2007. Daqduk was released to the Iraqis in December of 2011 and was freed by them shortly thereafter, and some members of Congress, especially Representative Col. Allan West want to know why the Obama Administration kicked him loose. So do I:
Republicans on Capitol Hill are furious over the Obama administration’s handling of a purported Hezbollah commander, who was connected to the killing of five U.S. soldiers in 2007 and now is set for release by an Iraqi court.
The most recent GOP lawmaker to express frustration and to demand answers from the administration is Florida Rep. Allen West, who on Wednesday sent a letter to President Obama questioning why Ali Musa Daqduq was turned over to Iraq in December 2011.
West dismissed the argument by Obama officials that they were forced under a Bush administration agreement to release Iraqi citizens upon exiting in December 2011, saying Daqduq was in fact a Lebanon citizen.
“You had options when dealing with this terrorist,” wrote West, a 22-year Army veteran. “When you were elected president, the American people expected you to provide leadership.”
West suggested Daqduq should have been transferred to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he could have been tried before a military commission. He also called Daqduq’s release an “utter betrayal” to American soldiers who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It gets better. In a letter sent by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 10 to Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta accuses the administration of deliberately withholding information from lawmakers about the charges against Daqduq and his subsequent release to the Iraqi authorities until after it had occurred.
“Eight pages of charges ... appears to indicate that either the administration was purposefully withholding information from Congress or it had not done the due diligence required to file charges,” states the letter signed by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s ranking GOP lawmaker, and the seven other GOP lawmakers on the committee.
This should be a top story on all the alphabet networks and a headline on every newspaper in the country. Instead, we get to read about a WAPO/ABC poll with no mechanics given that purports to show Romney and Obama 'tied', about Obama's attack on Bain Capital and about Ann Romney's equestrian hobby.
They ought to be ashamed of themselves, as should this president.
Head To Head Debate:Should The US Pull Out Of Afghanistan? And If So, How And When?
Two weeks ago, the Council Forum Question was Should The US Pull Out Of Afghanistan? And If So, How And When?
While a number of Council members weighed in, Courtney Messerschmidt of GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD was unable to, but took great exception to some of the views expressed..Joshuapundit's in particular.
Therefore the two of us decided to debate the matter in a brand new edition of Head to Head, the Watcher's Council's very own version of a cage match that you'll see onsite from time to time. Grab some popcorn, pour out a cold one and watch the action!
Courtney: This is a trick question.
“War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” vClausewitz
Organized conflict - war - is - to paraphrase the delightfully correct and psychic vClausewitz - the ho of politics. A continuation of Statecraft through - let us speak plainly here - bloody, destructive, hurtfully helpful and other means.
And currently - politics au courant show an almost complete lack of will on the American polity to continue war in the Stan. Case closed, right?
Totally incorrect.
"We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offense...We shall lay down our arms when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed and not before" - Thomas Jefferson
For Great Satan to split the AO where she was brutally attacked and in which more attacks are now being planned is never, ever going down, so long as there is the slightest chance, possibility or opportunity of a repeat.
There is no safe haven that al-Qaeda covets more than the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. That turf presents a unique opportunity for enemies and a threat to Great Satan. Situated in rugged terrain hundreds of miles from any coastline, with weak or nonexistent governance and security services, this region provides both a home to al-Qaeda and possible access to new clear weaponry.
“War is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity with other means.” vClausewitz
The two tactics Great Satan has employed since 44"s trip are the fading Counter Insurgency - or AFPAK Surge (to distinguish it from the Original Surge in Iraq) and the new school air powered/especial op driven Counter Terrorism tactic.
Surging is a slow, bloody, grinding process. And it ain't into time. Convincing fence sitters to hook up with the Strongest Tribe, finger the bad guys for especial considerations and discourage insurgents from continuing the insurgency. Surging takes tons of precious blood and treasure. Boots on the ground are an enormous deployment and set piece battle skills are diminished as troops ditch the Ray Bans, learn a few cuss words and mullah jokes in Pashto and control turf.
Counter Terrorism is a way diff critter. Professional, career minded cats well versed in the dark arts of Marine Recon, Rangers, SEALS, Green Berets and Delta Force hook up with local and global intell, spies and air power (bombers, cruise missiles and the ever popular Drones Gone Wild) to contain, discourage and annihilate terroristical state and non state actor outers. More like a killing machine than a convincing convention, CT is a nice way of saying annihilate. Yemen is a total war zone for Counter Terrorism for example and at last check - there are zero groups, efforts or calls to unAss the place
In fact, Counter Terrorism is the only way to go to deliver pain and misery on our enemies when political desires for open conflict and COIN tactical delights are exhausted. Several cats have penned stuff recently worrying that CT tactics can continue at an exponential rate world wide without a flicker of interest from the American people simply because there is no American blood shed, little treasure (comparatively speaking) being blinged and no discouraging headlines for inappropriate handwringers to inappropriately handwring over.
Aside from the happy effect of proving once again Americans are kinda crazy and lethal in wartime - it also sends the conflict free signal to other nation states of sorts that in order to keep Great Satan out of their respective hoods it's way better to hop on the Writ of State train - lest Americans show up and stay forever.
"Our objective is to create an Afghanistan that can stand on its own, that ultimately is going to be able to secure its own territory, not provide a safe haven for terrorists, not drag down the security of the entire region" - Dr Col John Nagl
CT would prevent the hard hammered Taliban group headed by Mullah Omar and operating in southern Afghanistan (including especially Helmand, Kandahar, and Oruzgan Provinces) from taking control of that area upon the withdrawal of American and allied combat forces. The remaining Afghan security forces would be unable to resist a Taliban offensive.
They would be defeated and would disintegrate. The fear of renewed Taliban assaults would mobilize the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras in northern and central Afghanistan. The Taliban itself would certainly drive on Herat and Kabul, leading to war with northern militias.
This conflict would collapse the Afghan state, mobilize the Afghan population, and cause many Afghans to flee into Pakistan and Iran.
Advocates within Pakistan of continuing to support Taliban argue that Great Satan will abandon Afghanistan as she did last millennium, chaos only Taliban or something equally creepy will be able to void fill in a gig that pleases Pakistan and her "Strategic Depth" Strategy.
UnAssing would prove them right.
Pakistani operations against their own insurgents--as well as against al Qaeda, which lives among those insurgents--would probably grind to a halt as Pakistan worked to reposition herself in support of a revived Taliban government in Afghanistan. And a renewed stream of Afghan refugees would likely overwhelm the Pakistani government and military, rendering coherent operations against insurgents and terrorists difficult or impossible.
The collapse of Land of the Pure, or even the revival of an aggressive and successful m"hammedist movement there would be a major suck fest for the region and for Great Satan.
Just as bad, a significant increase and risk that al Qaeda might obtain new clear nastiness from Pakistan's stockpile, risking an Indo-Pakistani war involving the use of new clear detonations.
Face it - no way America can truly leave.
Rob: It's a time honored debate tactic to attempt to reframe the question at hand. But reality unfortunately still bites.
I doubt that Clausewitz would recognize what's going on in Afghanistan as war, since one thing both he and Sun Tzu shared was an iron clad principle that war should never be engaged in without concrete and obtainable objectives. Yet, that's exactly what we did in Iraq and what we're doing in Afghanistan.
Not only shouldn't we stay in Afghanistan, we should never have wasted our blood and treasure going there in the first place. Staying in Afghanistan assumes we have something to 'win' there. We don't.
The above quote used by Dr. Col. John Nagl on what our supposed goals are in Afghanistan is a brilliant summary of exactly why this is true. Afghanistan has never 'stood on it's own' because it's not so much a country as a collection of tribal fiefdoms and 'securing territory' has always been a matter of interaction between those tribes since the country has never had a strong central government. Not only that, but the majority of the Afghans have a very different idea of what 'terrorists' consist of than we do...and they could care less about our definition. Frankly, the majority want to keep Afghanistan as their little 7th century jihadi Disneyland, and they're not interested in buying the radical ideas of freedom and democracy we're selling. Neither is any other Muslim nation,because it doesn't jibe with their core values.
The reasons given above for 'staying the course' in Afghanistan can be boiled down to the following:
'If we leave, Afghanistan will be a failed state that we can be attacked from again.'
Actually, there are all kinds of states we can be attacked from again, some failed, some that merely embrace radical Islam and some that are both. One of them is just south of Afghanistan. Nothing we've done in AFPak thus far will prevent future attacks from being planned, especially since we've given the perpetrators no cause to fear our response whatsoever.. As I previously revealed to my readers, of the reason Osama bin-Laden was ratted out in Abbotobad was to allow Ayman al-Zawahiri to take the organization back to the Arab world, where they're already enjoying a resurgence in Libya. Egypt and yes, Iraq.
Zawahiri was formerly a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, the main inspiration for al-Qaeda and numerous other similar groups, and when the Islamists take over Egypt, Libya, Gaza and probably Jordan and the Palestinian occupied areas of Judea and Samaria, al-Qaeda will fit right in nicely.
Yes..the Muslim Brotherhood, the group the Obama Administration is cultivating and enabling at every turn. And just as a side note, guess who our official envoy to the Taliban is to negotiate our surrender? None other than Sheik Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood's radical jihadist leader.
Nice how that fits together, isn't it?
'Surging is a slow, bloody business, and it takes time.'
Horse manure. Ask the ghost of General Patton and the men of the Third Army how long a decent offensive takes..against a much stronger enemy. What takes time is waging war using ridiculous rules of engagement with an emphasis on political correctness and hearts and minds. Especially when you don't even admit whom the enemy is.
And by the way, what convinces 'fence sitters' in Muslim culture whom to ally themselves with is not drinking tea and eating mangy goat meat but either baksheesh in hand or fear of the Strong Horse. Right now, these fence sitters don't perceive us as the Strong Horse, and rightly so.That, by the way, includes the Afghan Army we spent all that money to put together. The majority aren't to be trusted, as anyone whose been there lately will tell you.
'If we don't continue to slog it out in Afghanistan, Pakistan will cease its counter terrorism efforts and might become even more jihad friendly and anti-American'. Especially now when we have Mullah Omar and the Taliban right where we want them.'
I won't even go into detail about how effective Pakistan's 'counter terrorist' efforts have been. Suffice it to say that aside from hiding Osama and tipping off terrorists to upcoming strikes, they've impeded us every step of the way. More terrorism has emanated out of that country than ever came out of Afghanistan.
Speaking of Clauswitz, another thing he and any reputable strategist talk about at length is the need to keep your supply lines open and your lines of retreat intact. We've done neither. As I write, the Pakistanis, not content with the $7 billion in baksheesh we've already given them are now demanding a bribe of £3,000, - over $4,700 dollars- per truck to reopen the roads and allow supplies for our troops in Afghanistan to cross the border.
Aside from the increased cost and difficulty in supplying our forces, there's increasing doubt that we're going to be able to pull our troops and equipment out safely, even if we pay the Pakistani's price.
And as for the Taliban getting access to Pakistan's nukes..I'd love to know how a hundred thousand US troops who aren't even allowed to enter Pakistan are going to stop that from happening ...as opposed to, say, a JDAM strike on Pakistan's nuclear facilities.
What America - or at least, two American presidents - have never been willing to face is that we're fighting an ideology, not simply a bunch of 'terrorists'. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-taiba are simply groups of subcontractors in the jihad against the West, and there are plenty of Muslim nations willing to provide them with the essentials any group like that needs and indeed can't survive without- money, logistical support and a haven to train, plan and recruit.
After 9/11, rather than confront -militarily or otherwise - the Muslim nations openly supporting jihad against America and the West, two presidents have elected to ignore what we're actually fighting and concentrate on placating the Muslim world. That's why we're still fighting this war a decade later, stuck in a conflict of attrition. COIN is the obvious result of our military attempting to square the circle between actually fighting a war and appeasing our political elites. The results, at best strategic retreats, have been predictable.
Far better we salvage what we can in men and material from Afghanistan until we have leadership actually willing to fight a war the way it needs to be fought and a commander-in-chief worthy of our efforts.
Real peace comes from victory.
Read the rest here.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Teacher Screams At Student : 'It's Criminal To Criticize Obama'
Just a look at your standard classroom indoctrination at work and what happens if you question it.
The video shows the interaction between a teacher ( now identified as one Tanya Dixon-Neely) at North Rowan High School in North Carolina telling her class all about the story of Mitt Romney allegedly bullying someone in high school.
When one of her students asks her, “Didn’t Obama bully someone though?” The teacher says: “Not to my knowledge.” The student then cites the fact that Obama, in Dreams from My Father, admits to shoving a little girl around. “Stop, no, because there is no comparison,” screams the teacher. Romney is “running for president. Obama is the president.” she goes absolutely berserk and starts screaming that no one is going to disrespect President Obama in her classroom.
She then goes on to say that you can be arrested for 'slandering the president', that people were arrested for 'saying bad things about President Bush' and that 'you think when you get arrested they read you your rights? They don't.'
When the student refuses to be intimidated into agreeing with the teacher, Dixon-Neely states, “OK, do I have to get my cane?”
Yes, this woman is actually an accredited teacher paid for instructing children in social studies.. And what's more, she's going to remain one. They're not going to suspend her, not even for giving her students blatantly false information or for her abysmal classroom management skills.
The most the The Rowan-Salisbury School System released a statement saying that the incident should be used a 'learning experience'.
Extra credit - the teacher isn't shown, but listen to the vocal inflections, particularly when she loses it and starts hysterically defending Obama and see if you can guess her race.
Soccer Dad's Mideast Media Sampler, 5/21/12
Today's sampler and analysis of Mideast media content from my pal Soccer Dad:
1) Jerusalem the panoramic
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has a remarkable website devoted to Jerusalem centering around an annotated panoramic photograph of Jerusalem. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)
Of particular interest is a project titled, Jerusalem in International Diplomacy, by Dr. Dore Gold. The executive summary is here.
The July 2000 Camp David Summit was clearly a diplomatic failure. It resulted largely, though not exclusively, from the insurmountable gap between Israel and the PLO over the issue of Jerusalem. Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Bill Clinton insisted on holding the summit apparently assuming that the diplomatic gaps between the parties could ultimately be bridged. Were they equipped with a more accurate assessment of the positions of the principal parties on the Jerusalem question, they might have anticipated that the summit would not succeed. For the PLO, the various Clinton proposals were a non-starter. But for Israel, as well, Barak's readiness to even consider concessions on Jerusalem led to the collapse of parliamentary support for his government, a massive public demonstration against the U.S. proposals, and finally, when combined with Palestinian violence, Barak's loss in national elections by an unprecedented majority to Ariel Sharon.
Israel suffered from a more fundamental diplomatic failure of its own, beyond its misreading of the Palestinian position on Jerusalem. The structure of the peace process, whereby Israel has focused all its energies on an abstract, albeit worthy, goal of peace, while the Palestinians' diplomatic energies were concentrated on a concrete goal of achieving a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem, inevitably led the negotiations in the direction of the party with the more articulated objective -- namely, the Palestinian goal of sovereignty in Jerusalem. This diplomatic asymmetry led to a clear-cut erosion of Israel's own claims.
Yet, a careful reading of the historical record of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem and an understanding of the international legal rights of the Jewish people to their historical capital might have led negotiators to take a stronger stand on behalf of Israel's rights in the city. This study was conceived with the purpose of providing both a more realistic understanding of the actual positions of the principal parties to the Jerusalem question and a deeper appreciation of the rights Israel possesses in Jerusalem for any future negotiations.
Gerald Steinberg and Naftali Balanson explain what the JCPA is fighting in How the EU-NGO alliance destabilizes Jerusalem.
It is bad enough that the EU funds a group whose leaders promote “one-state” polices and use demonizing rhetoric that incites hatred – the fact that this becomes the basis for policy is even worse.The Jewish Press takes you on a tour of Ir David. (The City of David)
While the EU/NGO reports are filled with false or misleading allegations targeting Israeli policy in Jerusalem, other basic information that contradicts this bias is entirely missing. Thus, there is no discussion of the role of the Jerusalem municipality in providing building permits for Arab residents of Jerusalem at a level comparable to Jewish residents; in opening post offices, public clinics, and classrooms; in inaugurating the light rail systems, which serves both Arab and Jewish neighborhoods; and with respect to other programs for the benefit of Arab neighborhoods.
The EU, again following the lead of these fringe NGOs that are their “advisors” on Jerusalem affairs, also erased the central security context and the historical background. For instance, both EU documents regarding Jerusalem assert an “institutional and leadership vacuum in East Jerusalem created by the prolonged closure of those institutions, in particular that of the Orient House.” They erase the background to the Orient House closure in August 2001, when, as part of Israel’s defense against mass terror, including the horrific Sbarro pizzeria bombing in the center of Jerusalem, Israeli security forces found stolen weapons in the Orient House and documents proving that Palestinian officials had been operating illegally from the building.
2) The "debate" over Megrahi
The New York Times had a headline Libyan’s Death Brings Up Debate Over His Release. The article has precious little about the debate over the convicted Lockerbie bomber's release three years ago; it's more about doubts of Megrahi's incarceration - or guilt. In the debate over his release, the New York Times (on its op-ed page anyway) came down in favor of the release by allowing Saif al-Islam Qaddafi to argue (probably falsely) that Megrahi received No Hero's Welcome in Libya. Though about a year and a half ago the New York Times finally discovered that the Qaddafis were not nice people; it wasn't that long ago it allowed the family to avail itself of precious op-ed space.
3) Why there's no Arab spring
Shlomo Avineri (via Honest Reporting, Daily Alert):
Simply put, a rosy outlook for countries like Egypt cannot be assumed on the basis of exhilarating images on CNN or Al Jazeera, or the fact that masses of young, well-educated, English-speaking men and women are connected through Facebook and Twitter. The great majority of Egyptians were not in Tahrir Square, and many of them lack not only access to online social networks, but also electricity and safe drinking water. Democracy and free speech are not at the top of their agenda.Jonathan Schanzer and Steven Miller:
Egypt's silent majority also identifies with the authenticity represented by various Islamic groups, while principles of democracy and civil rights seem to them to be imported Western abstractions. So the tremendous victory of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Nour Party in Egypt — as well as that of Ennahda in Tunisia — should come as no surprise.
However, the Saudi royal family was not content to simply enforce its draconian media laws as a means to prevent unrest in the kingdom. In an attempt to buy the loyalty of his subjects, King Abdullah pledged more than $35 billion to the Saudi people upon returning from his three-month convalescence in Morocco on February 23rd. This package included increased funding for housing, studying abroad, and social security. State awarded its employees a 15 percent salary increase, and infused $10.7 billion into the country's development fund, which offers interest-free loans for Saudis to build homes, marry, or start small businesses. The measures were further designed to alleviate unemployment, believed to be around 40 percent for Saudis between 15 and 24.[5]
These measures conspicuously lacked any indication that the king was considering the political reforms that masses were calling for around the region. The government proved as much when it arrested founding members of the Islamic Umma Party, a self-professed "moderate" party that blatantly flaunted the state's long-standing ban on political parties.[6]
...
Nevertheless, based on the relative calm that prevailed, the financial package appeared to allay some of the concerns of Saudi citizens, at least for the time being. On the other hand, they may have been afraid of protesting due to the expected response of the Saudi state.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Obama To EU Leaders: Ease Up On Austerity,Push For 'Growth'
In this week's G-8 summit in Chicago,President Obama's message to European leaders is going to be one of cutting back on austerity programs and pushing for growth.
'Growth' in this context has a very different meaning in socialist NewsSpeak than it does in common usage. Here 'growth' mean sharply raising taxes, especially on the 'rich' and the corporations and funding government stimulus programs, increased social welfare benefits and government funded jobs.
Since this is exactly what got the EU into such dire straits in the first place,President Obama's message is roughly equivalent to telling an alcoholic to ditch those AA meetings, step up to the bar and have a few drinks.
Lest you think this doesn't apply to America, please remember that this is exactly the economic program this president has applied here..with absolutely dire results. The only thing that has delayed a similar collapse to the one seen in Europe is the inherent size and strength of the American economy.
A big tree takes longer to chop down than a medium sized one, but President Obama has made significant progress with the job and no doubt looks forward to completing it if he's re-elected.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Beware Of Armed Chimps! No Joke!
Especially if they're behind bars..
Santino, a male chimp at Sweden's Furuvik Zoo has apparently devised various schemes for tricking humans that has scientists rethinking their theories on animal behavior, according to a new study published in the journal PLoS One. There ar researchers who see this chimp's actions as hinting at a deep level of thinking once only associated with humans.
One day two years ago,Santino apparently got tired of being gawked at by zoo visitors, so he started throwing stones in their general direction.
Later that same day, when a different group of people approached his pen, the chimp came up with a new idea. "Santino approached them holding two stones, but this time appearing non-aggressive and munching on an apple," says Eoin O'Carroll at The Christian Science Monitor. He waited until the humans got closer and then pelted them with the rocks , taking the humans by surprise.
Santino got even craftier. Later, when no one was watching, Santino collected a large amount of hay and placed it near the visitor's section, hiding his collection of stones under it. He then plopped down on the hay, and when unsuspecting visitors came close and without any warning, pelted them with his hidden arsenal.
After zookeepers removed any rocks from his pen to prevent Santino from using them as ammo, he came up with a new tactic. Santino was caught breaking off pieces of the concrete floor, which he had fashioned into small discs he could throw.
Yes Santino is one crafty chip.
Simian males have been known to fling missiles like sticks and feces at onlookers before. I once observed a group of black children at the Bronx Zoo getting a poop bombardment from a bunch of chimps the children had been laughing at a little too exuberantly, much to the chimp's amusement. But what makes Santino's attacks different is that he planned the attacks so deliberately, varying his tactics each time for better results. Psychologists call this theory of mind, the ability to understand that others possess thoughts, desires, and motivations different from one's own.
Or in other words, Santino gave some thought to psyching out the enemy for maximum effect, and used the U.S. Marine's splendid motto..'Adapt, Improvise, Overcome'.
So, what's Santino's motivation? Michael Huffman of Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute think the primate's stone-throwing is all about testosterone, and "may serve to augment the effect of intimidation displays." Other scientists think the answer could be that Santino simply gets enjoyment out of tricking humans.
Of course, the real motivation is probably to be found in an application I located to the Federal government for a $300,000 grant from the Obama Administration's stimulus funds or its equivalent in cherries, grapes, bananas and Jack Daniels filed by one 'Dr. Santino Chimp' of Sweden to provide shovel ready jobs in a stone quarry.
I may not have gotten that last part exactly right.
Talking About Jeremiah Wright Is Playing The Race Card?
Apparently that's what two writers at The Politico think, as they report on the 'quandry' Republicans are apparently in over making Wright an issue in the 2012 campaign.
C'mon.
Talk about injecting race into the campaign...if blacks like the anonymous Obama adviser quoted on page 2 of the story ( the person's race is fairly obvious from the 'us' part of the quote) or for that matter anyone else of any racial background votes for President Obama based primarily on his race, isn't that injecting race into the campaign? Not to mention racism according to Webster's?
How would the Politico describe people openly voting for Mitt Romney as 'the white candidate'?
This story, the way it's constructed, seems to concentrate on the GOP's 'problem' in avoiding being perceived as racist for fear of alienating the black vote. In reality, President Obama is going to get the majority of the black vote precisely because of his race, even though his policies have arguably affected blacks disproportionally. Not only that, but Wright, an intimate of the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan is an anti-Semite, as is Al Sharpton, another prominent intimate and supporter of this president.
Why are these topics taboo? Obviously if Republicans can be ( by extension) admonished for making Wright an issue in this campaign due to perceived racism, than why not the Obama campaign for seeking to defend Wright and minimize the issue of the obvious bigotry Wright and other intimates of the president are associated with?
Obviously the Politico and much of the dinosaur media feels this angle doesn't merit coverage. But I assure you, there are a great many people who are asking these same questions now that the sheen of electing 'the historical first black president' has worn off.
Live by identity politics, die by identity politics.
House GOP Leaders Demand AG Holder Cooperate With Congress On 'Fast And Furious'
House GOP leaders sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that he cooperate with Congress in its investigation of the Fast and Furious scandal, which involved the Justice Department illegally selling over 2,000 weapons to Mexican drug cartels after 'walking' them across the border. Over 300 deaths have been attributed to these weapons, including the murder of Brian Terry, a U.S. border patrol agent. Most of the weapons remain unaccounted for.
House Speaker Boehner and the GOP leadership have threatened to cite Holder for contempt of Congress unless he begins complying with the subpoenas issued by Rep. Daryl Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley's investigative committee. Such a citation for contempt is already being prepared.
The investigation has been hampered but what both Grassley and Issa have termed 'stonewalling' as well as apparently deliberate misstatements of fact under oath to Congress. Attorney General Holder has already had to withdraw Feb. 4, 2011, letter that provided false information to Congress about when he first became aware of Fast and Furious, after memos were discovered that contradicted his statements.
If a contempt motion is issued, it would come to a vote of the full House, where it would almost certainly pass. Once a contempt resolution passes, Congress could seek enforcement through federal courts if the Department of Justice still refuses to comply.
The way this works is interesting and should provide a spectacle in and of itself.
Following a contempt citation, the presiding officer of the chamber is instructed to refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. It's the legal duty of the U.S. Attorney to refer the matter to a grand jury for action.
The penalty if convicted is not less than one month nor more than twelve months in jail and a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000.
Ah, but there's a controversy involved.
According to the views of some interpretations of the Constitution, Congress cannot properly compel the U.S. Attorney to take this action against the Executive Branch, because the U.S. Attorney is a member of the Executive Branch who ultimately reports only to the President. Therefore, they see it as a violation of separation of powers to force the U.S. Attorney to act against the executive branch, because it involves forcing a subordinate of the President to act against the branch of government controlled by the president.
Depend on President Obama to shield Holder by making that argument. Of course, President Obama could act in the interest of justice and either compel Holder to cooperate or appoint an independent prosecutor, but based on his actions thus far it appears this president has personal motives for not doing so.
Ultimately, this might be referred to the Supreme Court, which might make the matter irrelevant since it's unlikely they would render a verdict before Holder is out of office. That still wouldn't make him immune from future prosecution should Congress wish to pursue the matter, but it does stop Fast and Furious erupting as a fresh scandal prior to the election.
That, by the way, is akin to how President Nixon dealt with Watergate during his first term. It would be ironic if President Obama were to be re-elected, only to have Fast and Furious explode during his second term.
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