Short takes - Joshua's Army News Update, 7/15/07

Short takes is Freedom Fighter's way of cramming a lot into a small space..kind of like the young gentleman above. Here's a brief rundown of some of today's items of interest:

• Our dear friend Vladimir Putin informed the US and EU that he's pulling out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, signed in Paris in 1990. The treaty was a product of the Soviet Empire's breakup, and puts limits on how many tanks, armored combat vehicles, attack helicopters and combat aircraft countries can deploy in Eastern Europe. It also called for the Russians to withdraw all of their forces from Georgia and Moldava on the Black Sea - which, being the Russians, they never fully complied with.
  
  Of course,it's about the proposed missile shield, designed to protect Europe from Russia's client Iran. According to Putin, Iran isn't a threat, and this is just an excuse to threaten Russia and limit their ` sphere of influence' - in other words the possibility of Russia getting some of its old empire back.
  
  I guess the fishing trips at Kennebunkport didn't go so well.

• I already knew Israel's Ehud Olmert was insane, but now it's getting to the point where he needs to be taken and confined somewhere before he hurts anyone else. For starters, Israel agreed to an `amnesty' in Judea and Samaria for 180 Fatah terrorists from the Tanzim and the al-Aksa Martyrs' brigade provided they renounce violence ( "I call fingers crossed, you silly Jew" - bang!)
  
  This is supposed to help prop up Abbas and Fatah.
  
  Almost all of these scum have blood on their hands, and have been involved in some of the most horrible,savage attacks on Israeli civilians.
  
  Aside from the fact that they are still drawing paychecks from Fatah and Abbas,they will now be free to run back to Damascus and Tehran for help with fresh `operations.'
  
  But wait, there's more:
  
  The Olmert Government decided to allow Naif Hawatme and Farouk Kaddoumi to enter the `Palestinian' territories onthe West Bank.
  
  Kaddoumi was the old Fatah political chief, who was too openly hardline even for Arafat, who asked him to relocate after Kaddoumi refused to even make a pretense of going along with the Oslo Accords.
  
  Hawatme is famous among the Palestinians for taking over a school at a place called Ma'alot and murdering 26 children. For those of you with a strong stomache, here are the details
  
  Needless to say,the Shin Bet is apoplectic about this, but nothin' stops Olmert when he's in a giving mood. The funny part will come when Abbas is either overthrown by Hamas or when the two terrorist factions join hands against the hated Jews...remember what one of my notorious little birdies told me about Iran and the Saudis pushing Hamas and Fatah into a sitdown to get them back together.Abbas is too weak to do anything else.
  
  @#$@#!!

• More good news, unfortunately. Thanks to none other than the IAEA's very own Inspector Clousseau, Mohammed El-Baradi, the mullahs have won themselves a six month `grace period' by agreeing to one visit to it's heavy water facility in Arak and “improved inspections” at Natanz - with no specifications of what that means or which sections of Natanz are going to be open to inspection.
  
  Of course, there will be no inspections, however limited, of the new facility the Russians are building for the mullahs at Bushehr...and especially none at this place.
  
  These terms were agreed to by El-Baradi's own deputy,Olli Heinonen in Teheran this week.
  
  El-Baradi, of course, hailed this as `a way out of the crisis' whichis exactly what UN foes of a third round of sanctions are looking for.
  
  And Foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki spoke triumphantly in Tunis Saturday of a “new chapter in Iran’s relations with the UN agency.” The bit about `relations' could certainly give rise to a vulgar remark on my part, but I'll resist the temptation.
  
  The Mullahs probably now have until at least December 2007 to expand their air defenses, overcome the hurdles in going from enrichment to weapons technology, and stick as much as possible underground where it can't be bombed.
  You planning on doing anything about this, Mr. President? Just wondering...

• Speaking of the president, his approval rating dipped to 29% for a couple of days,until it was rscued by an AP/Ipsos poll showing him at a whopping 33 %, which brought his average approval rating back up to 31%.
  
  Congresses' approval rating? 25%.