Fidel Castro Steps Down...

The ailing dictator,81 finally decided to retire in favor of his brother Raul after being Presidente' For life for forty odd years.

I can just hear the tearful plaudits of the Hollywood Left,who have been Fidel's fan club for years.Check out these quotes on Hollywood's favorite tyrant:

“Very selfless and moral. One of the world’s wisest men.” –Oliver Stone.

“Cuba’s Elvis.” –Dan Rather.

“Castro is at the same time the island, the men, the cattle, and the earth. He is the whole island.” –Jean Paul-Sartre.

“A dream come true!” –Naomi Campbell.

“If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, you have no choice but to support Fidel Castro!” –Harry Belafonte.

“A genius.” –Jack Nicholson.

“Fidel, I love you. We both have beards. We both have power and want to use it for good purposes.” –Francis Ford Coppola.

“The first and greatest hero to appear in the world since the Second World War.” –Norman Mailer.

“Socialism works. I think Cuba might prove that.” –Chevy Chase.

“Castro is an extraordinary man. He is warm and understanding and seems extremely humane.” –Gina Lollobrigida.

Interesting that none of these cretins chose to actually reside in Fidel's Paradisio.

It's such a pleasant place that over 20% of the population risked their lives in small boats over the open sea in shark infested waters to get away from it.

At this point, a country that used to export food is a major food importer that needs heavy rationing to survive, the number of hospitals and clinics has shrunk since Batiste from 334 to about 200, and civil liberties are non-existant.

And as for the amenities, I wonder if any of these people ever got the chance to visit Fidel's gulag on the Isle of Pines, with the gallows, the torture chambers,the forced labor camps and the shark pens reserved for Fidel's `enemies of the state'? Or were they too busy having the vapors about Gitmo and waterboarding?

Now here's a poser...many if not all of these people would easily say that one of the reasons they feel the US is despised around the world is that 'we torture.' So, what's their explanation for the esteem they have for the Castro regime in Cuba?

It's the same sort of morally disgusting love affair the Left had with Stalin.

As for El Jefe, he probably won't be around too much longer and will probably not face any earthly justice...but I wouldn't want to be him on the other side of this life.

Musharraf's Party Crushed In Pakistani Elections

The long awaited Pakistani parliamentary elections were held today,and the results so far indicate a major loss for Pakistani President and US ally Pervez Musharraf.

Turnout was fairly low because of threats of violence and unrest,but the returns from the AP in Pakistan and from Aaj Television indicate that Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party will end up with about 110 seats in the 272-seat National Assembly, with the Islamist Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister party taking 100 seats.

Mr. Musharraf’s party appears to have been badly defeated, looking to hold on to about 20 to 30 seats.

This means a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and a parliament that could undo Musharraf's policies, end any crackdown against Islamists in Waziristan and elsewhere and possibly even try to remove Musharraf. And it's obviously a major setback and repudiation for the Bush Administration, who is seen in Pakistan as Musharaff's backer.

On the plus side,Mushjarraf still controls the Army, a powerful plus in Pakistan and the Leftists and intellectuals of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and the Conservative Islamists in Nawaz Sharif Pakistan Muslim League are not exactly soul mates, except in their disdain for Musharraf and the US, and neither has enough of a majority to rule without the other.

It remains to be seen what kind of horsetrading can be done.

Cindy Sheehan Shills For The Muslim Brotherhood

Just when you thought that Cindy Sheehan could sink no lower she surprises you.

Her latest gambit is an excursion in Egypt to shill for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

The Salafist Muslim Brotherhood,for those of you unfamiliar with them are one of those core, embryonic groups pumping up the volume for Islamic fascism and the New Caliphate.

They started in Egypt and are the most entrenched there and Islam expert an dbest-selling author Robert Spencer of JihadWatch has rightly called the Muslim Brotherhood "the parent organization of Hamas and al Qaeda" ( and thus of CAIR here in the US).Sayyid Qutb, Osama bin-Laden's major influence was one of the elder statesmen of this group.

In Egypt,they are the main opposition to Hosni Mubarak and quite a strong one, looking to depose the existing regime and put an Islamist government in its place.

Needless to say, Mubarak has cracked down on them,not out of any great friendliness to the west but out of sheer self-preservation. During the last Egyptian 'elections', the Brotherhood was only prevented from seizing a major share of power because Mubarak had the sense to shrug off George Bush's pushing him to embrace the grand mirage of Arab Democracy and run what I guess we'd call a more ummm...traditional outing at the polls for Egypt. If he hadn't, Egypt might just have ended up with an Islamist government ala' Hamas.

Ever since, the Mubarak government has engaged in a wide-ranging crackdown against the Brotherhood. In February 2007, Mubarak ordered 40 of the organization's members to be tried by a military tribunal on charges of money laundering and terrorism. The court's verdict is supposed to be announced February 26th.

And believe it or not,that's what brings Cindy Sheehan into the picture.

She's part of as Leftist junket protesting the Egyptian government to release these people.

"I am here to protest the trial of civilians in front of a military tribunal as this is a violation to international law," said Sheehan.

"As a mother of a son who was killed in the war, I presented a letter to Ms. Suzanne Mubarak to realize how those women and children are suffering."

Hmmm.

Now, I understand why Ol' Cindy would take up with the Muslim Brotherhood. Mubarak is sort of a US ally, or at least not an enemy, and the connection between the Angry Left and Islamic fascism is pretty well documented. And Sheehan and the Muslim Brotherhood certainly feel the same way about Jews.

But to use her dead son Casey's memory on this particular gig? When he died fighting the same kind of people and was killed by them in Iraq?

Like I said,just when you think this scummy harridan could sink no lower, she surprises you.

A major disgrace to the memory of someone who by all accounts I've heard was a brave and decent man.

US Recognizes Kosovo Independence; EU, Asia Split

Well, it's official...the US has already recognized Kossov's independence along with the UK, Germany, France,Italy and several other members of the EU after a last minute meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels in which it was agreed that Kosovo should 'not set a precedent for other states'.

I wonder exactly how they plan on locking this particular barn door now that the horse is gone?

Spain, Greece and a number of other EU states have decided not to drink the Kool-Aid and withhold recognition because they feel it is a violation of international law and will encourage seperatism.

China, Indonesia, and a number of Asian nations are also holding back from recognizing Kosovo.

The Serbs have already recalled their envoy from Washington, as Serbia's Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, told parliament in Belgrade that America had "violated international law for its own interests".

Well, the Saudis' interests, anyway. Other than that, he's essentially correct.

The UN Security Council is already in session over violating its' own resolution which called for Kosovo to remain part of Serbia and to only have a degree of autonomy based on it being a multi-ethnic enclave. Or,in other words, ending the jihad against Serbian Christians, which of course has continued while the NATO peacekeepers conveniently look the other way.

Russia is expected to veto Kosovo entering the UN and Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, was quoted in the BBC as saying that Kosovo had little to gain from declaring independence.

"There is no way they will get into the United Nations or the OSCE or the Council of Europe," he said.

"So what will they be getting, changing nameplates at the offices of Western countries in Pristina, calling them embassies?"

As for the Serbs, there have been widespread demonstrations in Belgrade and among ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. And in an ominous move the 300-odd Serbs in Kosovo's police force have gone over the border and put themselves under Serbian command.

And Serbian police on Monday filed criminal charges against the three most senior Kosovan figures - Fatmir Sejdiu, the president, Hashim Thaci, the prime minister, and Jakup Krasniqi, the parliamentary speaker - with "organizing the proclamation of a phony state on Serbian territory".


For those of you unfamiliar with Kosovo and why this is important to Americans, go here for a recap and a bit of information...

Short Takes - Worth Reading, 2/18/08

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:

Michael Totten: The Dungeons Of Falujah - a little glimpse of hell on earth from a master writer.

US and Foreign Muslims Overwhelmingly Support Obama in Gulf Forum Ah , yes..one's known by one's supporters as well as ones' enemies...

Soccer Dad: What If It Were Palestine? Blogpal Soccer Dad looks at the similarities and differences between Kossovo and 'Palestine' in an interesting rundown..

Potentially Habitable Planets Are Common, Study Says The National Geographic has an interesting study out suggesting that more than half of the sunlike stars in the galaxy could have terrestrial planets with the potential to harbor life..

Michael Barone: More On A Clinton Comeback the dean of American Poltical writers continues with his examination of why Hillary Clinton will be the Democrat nominee..

Christopher Hitchens: When The Media Censors Itself An important, must read article on the cowardice behind what the dinosaur media decides to run...

Wolf Howling: Calls For Sharia Law In The West Are Calls To Radicalizaiton GW has a fine piece that outs the current push for sharia law to be implemented as exactly what it is...

Palestinians Re-Open The Orient House

BlogPal Carl inJerusalem at Israel Matzav has a disheartening story - the Palestinian Authority,in defiance of Israel has decided to unilatterally reopen the Orient House inIsraeli Sovereign territory in Jerusalem:

"In response to the murder of fifteen innocent civilians by a suicide bomber at Sbarro's Pizza in Jerusalem earlier that day, on August 9, 2001, Israeli security forces shut down Orient House , a building just over the 'green line' in 'east' Jerusalem that the 'Palestinians' had made into a quasi government headquarters in violation of the Oslo Accords they had signed with the Rabin government in 1993 and 1995. In August of this past year, 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen appointed former director of the Islamic Wakf Adnan Husseini as his 'adviser on Jerusalem affairs.'

The Wakf is the organization that controls anything the Muslims call a holy site, and that currently controls the Temple Mount; the organization is responsible for multiple, daily violations of Israel's Antiquities Law on the Temple Mount.

Husseini is also a cousin of the late Faisal Husseini, who held the position under Yasser Arafat. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post shortly after his appointment, Husseini placed a priority on reopening Orient House" {...}Today, the day after an Israeli government decision to close it for another year, the 'Palestinians' reopened Orient House

The late Faisal Husseini, by the way is a descendant of the infamous Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the PLO functionary who famously called the Oslo Process `a Trojan horse' used against Israel.

Actually, there's a lot more the Israeli government can do about this if they wanted to, just as there is a lot more they could do about getting the US embassy moved to Jerusalem...IF they wanted to.

The Orient House is on Israeli sovereign territory. There is absolutely no reason the Jerusalem police (or the IDF) could not move in, evict the miscreants and close it down again. It's intolerable that a hostile foreign entity would be allowed to establish a `headquarters' there

Then there would be no cause for foreign diplomats to go there.

The same with the embassy. Congress is on Israel's side on this one, Israel could send a covert message to President Bush that the status quo is unacceptable and that the Israeli government will boycott any meetings or affairs held there, will not accept the credentilas of US diplomats working out of there and not allow Israeli citizens to work there or enter the building until the situation changes would give Bush an opportunity to save face by actually keeping the campaign promise he ran on in 2000.

I have a feeling that faced with public embarrassment, he would do just that.

Of course, Olmert and Livni would actually have to have a spine to do this.

What is wrong with these people??

Muslims And The Right Not To Be Offended

You might recall that I mentioned that Danish police jailed three jihadis they caught plotting to murder Kurt Westergaard, one of the cartoonists behind the famous Mohammed Cartoons..and in solidarity, a dozen Danish papers re-ran the cartoons.

Since then, Danish 'youths' have been on the rampage for seven straight nights burning cars and buildings, like this elementary school in Copenhagen, and about twenty Muslim 'youths' have already been arrested.



Meanwhile, the 73 year-old Westergaard with a fatwa on his head is under heavy guard in fear of his life.

Now it's a funny thing...I could sit here and write for hours about the things that offend Muslims and still only scratch the surface. Whether it's pictures of Mohammed, Winnie the Pooh, uppity women and their clitorises, Jews, Pokeman, dogs, alchohol,homosexuals, any references to Islamic Terrorism as Islamic terrorism, Christians building churches or worshipping in 'Muslim' land,or a slew of other provocations, one thing's as certain as the sun rising in the east - a substantial percentage of the proponents of the Religion Of Peace will react with seething rage and violence.

Of course, one could sum up what seems to offend the majority of Muslims quite nicely as simply the inherant nature of living in a secular democracy where ideas - and let's be honest about it, whole groups of people - are free to believe or to live in ways that Islam's supremist ideology finds dangerous.

That's what summons up what I can only call medieval savagery.

What we're really talking about, of course, is the right to be offended and what one has the right to do about it.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, Muslims have a perfect right to be offended by the relatively inocuous cartoons of Mohammed. There are certain cartoons that offend me as well,like the hideous scribblings promoting Jew hatred or Holocaust denial rampant in the Muslim world and appearing on an almost daily basis.

But it's the response that's the problem. As a matter of fact, I'd venture to say that I'm just as offended by Muslim reactions to the MoToons as Muslims are by the cartoons themselves.

Except when something offends me, I don't strap a bomb to myself to blow up the innocent, burn mosques,torch buildings, or behead people and call it something Holy.I write about it and attempt to educate people..to influence the debate, as it were.

So far, hydrophobic Muslims who choose to vent their rage using murder and destruction have pretty much gotten a pass. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were to change in the near future. If Muslims continue with this sort of behavior,a lot of more non-Muslims - and thus, their governments - are going to decide that expulsion, murder and destruction is a lot more effective way of dealing with the problem than merely writing outraged pieces or trying to Understand Their Rage And What We May Have Done To Provoke Them, ad nauseum.

Once that happens, Muslims are going to have a bigger problem than a few cartoons to deal with, given the West's superior ability to dole out carnage when sufficiently provoked.

It would be far better for those Muslims who seem to think that they have a right to respond violently to whatever happens to offend them to learn to live peacefully with a certain non-violent level of 'offense', I think.

Kosovo

There's big news in the Balkans today as Kosovo declared its independence today, with the tacit backing of much of the EU and the US.

Kosovars in Mitrovica watched Prime Minister Hashim Tachi on television as he spoke at the parliament in Pristina during an extraordinary session where the unilateral independence of Kosovo was pronounced.

The Serbs and Russians are livid over the event, and it might be worthwhile to take a look at the reasons why.

For the Russians, it amounts to yet another instance of US interference in what it considers its turf as the historic ally and protector of the Serbs.

For the Serbs, it marks the finish of a long process of ethnic cleansing against Christian Serbs in the region and the creation of a Muslim enclave in a place that resonates in their history.

The Balkans were in the front lines during the Islamic invasion of the Balkans and Southern Europe in the 14th century, and Kosovo was the site of the Serbs' defeat by the Ottoman Turks under the brutal Murad I in 1389 when the Turks invaded Europe. The battle of Kosovo Field figures prominently in Serbian poetry and history and has great national significance to the Serbs.

To put it in western terms, giving Kosovo back to the Muslims for the Serbs is roughly the equivalent of the US ceding the Alamo back to Mexico or more closely,like the French ceding Alsace-Lorraine back to the Germans.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was autonomous for a decade or so,but in 1989 came under the control of Serbia. The Bosnian War saw the establishment of the Kosovar Liberation Army(KLA)in 1996 with financing, arms and training from places like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya. The KLA began killing Serbs and burning churches in Kosovo with their main goal being to drive the Christian minority out of the province, and eventually the KLA was able to establish control over areas within the Kosovo,which did not sit well with the Serbs.

In February 1998, Serb President Milosevic sent Serbian troops to take back KLA-controlled areas, at which point NATO and the Clinton Administration got involved,bombing Serbia for 78 days in an aerial campaign starting in March 1999 designed to break the Serbs. Coincidentally, the air bombardments just happened to occur at the height of President Clinton's problems with perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair, giving rise to the phrase 'wag the dog'.

The Serbs finally gave in on June 9th, 1999.

Since then, NATO forces have essentially acted as a buffer between Kosovo and Serbia,while doing little to halt the ethnic cleansing of Christian Serbs from the region by the KLA.

Which brings us up to today's events.

Following the unilateral declaration by the Kosovars,Russia immediately called for a session of the UN Security Council. “We expect the United Nations’ and NATO’s mission in Kosovo to fulfill their mandate swiftly … and annul the decision of the Pristina organs,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its web site.

The 'mandate' the Russians are talking about is UN Resolution 1244,which calls for Kosovo to remain under Serbian sovereignty in Kosovo while providing for the province's "substantial autonomy" and rejects a unilateral settlement enforced on th eSerbs without their agreement.

And Serbian President Boris Tadic said Sunday that his country would never accept Kosovo’s “unilateral and illegal” declaration.Little wonder at that one..there are small Muslim minorities in other parts of Serbia and in places like Bosnia, Macedonia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And Tadic himself,who was billed as pro-Western only won the recent elections by a bare 51% based on the idea that he could reverse the decade and a half long policy trend in the US and EU to appease Muslims world wide at Serbia's expense.

That slim hope is gone now, and Serbia is essentially lost to the west,while the US can expect no gratitude from the Muslim world.

What the ill thought out US support for a Muslim enclave in Kosovo has done is to expend a great deal of political capital with Russia,who we can now expect to be less cooperative on issues like Iran, energy supplies to Europe and North Korea if the Bush Administration continues its backing of Kosovo and the KLA.

Aside from that, an independent Kosovo would essentially become another Gaza, supported by the International community and EU and American taxpayers to the tune of a few billions a year. And since it has no potential for a functional economy without close ties to Serbia, Kosovo would mainly exist as a corrupt recruiting depot and staging area in Europe's underbelly for crime and for Jihad terrorism. Remember Osama bin-Laden's remarks on 'white Moors' and where the jihadis who planned to kill US troops at Fort Dix came from.

If an independent Kosovo is endorsed by the US, we might just sow something we'll be sorry for later.

Congress Drops The Ball On US Intel - Again

"It's an OK job, provided you don't want to work for a living." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy, describing Congress while serving there.

JFK had it more right then he knew.

What do you do if you're in Congress and a bill vital to US security against Islamic terrorism is due to expire in a couple of days? Do you work overtime on the people's business you were elected to do and make sure it gets renewed?

Nah. It's time for a ten day vacation!

The bill I'm speaking about, of course, is the Protect America Act which was designed to iron out the difficulties inherent in the 1978 FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) which allows US inteligence personnel to spy on comunications between suspected foreign agents. The original FISA, which was enacted over 30 years ago before the era of modern telecommunications has strictures that simply don't work in the era of e-mail and lightning fast wireless communications such as text messaging. Under certain conditions, the original FISA even requires warrants for our intelligence people to spy on communications between two suspected foreign agents even if they're both on foreign soil.

It's also worth considering that FISA was drafted during the Carter Administration, when our intelligence establishment was being gutted by one of the most ineffectual presidents in our history withthe help of some of the same accomplices in Congress that still sit there today.


The Protect America Act is temporary legislation was designed to bring FISA up to date and close a number of loopholes in the original outdated laws.It was originally passed in August of 2007, but was designed to 'sunset' and end on February 15 of this year.

What was before Congress was legislation to make the Protect America Act permanent and to give legal immunity to telcommunications companies cooperating with US intelligence efforts.

By a vote of 68-29, the Senate last week passed a bipartisan bill to do exactly that. Two interesting sidebars: both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted against this bill that's vital to US intelligence and voted for an amendment by Chris Dodd (D-CT) to exclude the provision of legal immunity for telecommunications companies that was voted down by a huge majority. And just by coincidence, Clinton, Obama and Dodd all receive substantial support and contributions from the trial lawyers associations.

When the bill was sent to the House, House Republicans demanded the majority bring the Senate bill to the House floor and said they would remain in Washington during the recess to complete the bill, but the Democratic majority chose to adjourn for the President’s Day recess without even considering the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate. And because of that, the current 15-day extension expired at midnight on Saturday.

These same House Democrats found ample time to spend hours on the state of Roger Clemmon's buttocks and what was injected there and to issue partisan contempt citations against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton and ex-White House Council Harriet Miers over the dead issue of the investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys.

Those issues were apparently more important than updating our laws so that our intelligence community won't be forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops to open new terrorist surveillance cases and do their job properly to protect the country during wartime.

President Bush had it right when he accused the House of being 'irresponsible' and said "House leaders chose politics over protecting the country — and our country is at greater risk as a result."

OK, given the President's record on our borders and his constant shilling for Dubai and the Saudi wahabists in our country, this is a little bit like the pot calling the kettle black - but he's still right on this one. These people are playing politics with our lives.


The Protect America Act is important legislation designed to to close a significant intelligence gap by enabling intelligence professionals to collect, without a court order, foreign intelligence on targets located overseas - known as ‘foreign-to-foreign contacts’ - regardless of how the information is moved.

Not doing it,especially in wartime is absolute idiocy.

Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley put it quite well. "We're making all the time every effort we can on intelligence, and when one of your important tools is taken away from you for a period of time, it's hard to compensate for it," he said. "That's why we call it a 'gap in intelligence.' Gaps are hard to fill."

There is absolutely nothing in the Protect America Act that conflicts with the historic way that America has dealt with the issue of civl liberties during wartime. FDR would have been astounded by the political posturing surrounding what amounts to basic common sense when protecting our country...but unfortunately, this is what the majority of the Democrats seem to have morphed into.

This week, NancyPelosi and her pals will return to their districts and relax for a few days.

Meanwhile, the jihadis aren't taking a vacation from trying to destroy us.

Obama And Clinton Campaign Advisers Take An Under The Radar Trip...To Syria

Just in case any of you had any doubts about the two Democrat presidential candidates attitudes toward the War on Jihad and Islamic terrorism...

One day after arch-terrorist Imad Mugniyeh was assassinated in Damascus,major campaign advisers in both the Obama and Clinton campaigns are conducting high level meetings with the fascist, terrorist enabling Assad regime:

What in the world are advisers to both Senators Obama and Clinton doing in Syria in the middle of a presidential campaign — and why are the two campaigns so unforthcoming about the details of the visits? The same week that a terrorist mastermind harbored by the Baathist regime in Damascus was assassinated by a car bomb, both one of Mr. Obama's foreign policy counselors, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a long-time critic of Israel, and one of Mrs. Clinton's national finance chairs, Hassan Nemazee, were meeting with President Assad.

Mr. Brzezinski himself issued a statement to the Baathist controlled press in Damascus, where he was quoted by the official Sana News Agency as saying that the "talks dealt with recent regional developments, affirming that both sides have a common desire to achieve stability in the region, which would benefit both its people and the United States."

Namazee had nothing to say to anyone about his meeting with Syria's Assad - nor would th ecampaign comment on it.

So here we have an interesting question. The two top Democrats both have top level campaign advisers meeting with the dictator of a regime that actively sponsors terrorism against the US and a US ally, Israel at the same time. Why?

Are they conducting some kind of secret negotiations on their own with the regime? Remember Nancy Pelosi's little jaunt to Syria and her statement " We (Democrats) have our own foreign policy"?

Or are they bidding? Do they have some kind of competing offers on the table?

Bush Flaunts US Law For the Palestinians - Again

The current occupant of the White House put in a good day's work on behalf of the Palestinians today signing two waivers that have become routine when it comes to subverting the wishes of Congress.

The first one was yet another six month waiver of a law which bans the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington, D.C.

That law dates from anti-terrorist legislation dating back to the 1980’s, but has been routinely waived by Bush and Clinton since Oslo back in 1993.So once again,the United States will continue to host a terrorist organization.

The second one is more recent, and another Bush tradition. That six month waiver violates US law and postpones relocating the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israel thus remains the only country with diplomatic relations with the US that has no embassey in its capitol.

Now, George W. Bush campaigned on the promise that he would move the embassy back in 2000,when he was still trolling for Jewish and evagelical votes but once he got elected, a funny thing happened to that promise....

In less than a month after Bush entered the White House, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell reneged on Bush’s campaign promise, citing tension and violence in the area. Powell rejected attempts to pin him down on exactly when the embassy would relocate to Jerusalem.

The new Bush administration’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice also stalled, saying the new administration was still committed to the move, but could not say when it would take place.

On June 12, 2001 President Bush issued the second of what would become a series of semi-annual “routine” waivers to delay the embassy’s relocation to Jerusalem.

What this does,of course is to send a message to the Arabs that the Bush Administration agrees with them that Jews have no right to sovereignity over their holy places or even the right to live in half of Jerusalem,let alone the right to having a united Jerusalem as their capitol.

Speaking of the Palestinians, in an update of a story I covered previously, a bi-partisan group of 8 US Senators,led by Chuck Schumer signed a letter to US Secretary of State Condi Rice on the proposed State Department interference with judgements against the Palestinians in US courts for the murder of American citizens said they opposed any "government interference with the victims' legal rights."

"We are concerned that as courts render judgments holding terrorists and sponsors of terrorist acts accountable," the senators wrote. "Political efforts to have our government intervene and unduly influence the courts may undermine verdicts imposed by independent arbiters."

In other words, they're asking the Bush Administration to support legally awarded compensation to victims of Palestinian terrorism instead of supporting the terrorists.

The Bush Administrationhas until the end of February to make up its mind.

Hezbollah's Nasrullah Declares 'Open War' On Israel At Mugniyeh Funeral

I suppose that would be different from the war Hezbollah has been conducting against Israel for decades.

Hezbollah's Sheik Nasrullah had a good time riling up the troops at the funeral of Hezbollah Chief of Staff and mass murderer Imad Mugniyeh today, declaring open war on Israel:

"If the Zionists want war, then they shall have it," Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast at the funeral of Mugniyeh. "If you want an open war, then let it be an open war."

He also said that the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel was not over and that the UN ceasefire mandated by Resolution 1701 had never happened and had no meaning as far as Hezbollah was concerned...but we knew that, right?

"The July war is not over, it is ongoing and no ceasefire was ever declared," Nasrallah said "The blood of Imad Mugniyeh will contribute to the disappearance of the Jewish state."

In a related bit of news, Syria claims to have conducted an `exhaustive investigation' into the Mugniyeh hit and promised to `name the Mugniyeh killer soon'.

And even more interesting, the Syrians claimed to have rounded up several Palestinian suspects in the assassination.

I'd predict that they're likely expendable tools who the Syrians can extract a quick confession out of and charge with being spies for the Zionists as 'proof'that Israel was behind this particular bit of rodent removal - even though it likely was the Mossad.

Meanwhile, Israel has deployed additional troops on the northern borders and put its embassies and nationals overseas on high alert. Jewish centers such as schools and synogogues are also reportedly receiving extra police protection here in the US.

The Saudis Prepare To Execute A Woman - For Witchcraft

"She's A Witch! Burn Her!"

No,this isn't a bit in a Monty Python movie...this is the real stuff.

Our `Eternal friends' the Saudis are preparing to chop off the head of one Fawza Falih for witchcraft, in the northern Saudi town of Quraiyat based on a supposed 'confession' and on statements from witnesses who said she had "bewitched" them.

Falih, who is illiterate, later retracted her confession, claiming it was extracted under duress by the kingdom's religious police, and that she did not understand the document she says was forced to fingerprint.

The Saudi court cited testimony in which a man claimed he became impotent after being bewitched by Falih.Allegedly, she was supposed to have used jinns in her sorcery.

The death sentence was issued, according to the court for the benefit of "public interest" and to "protect the creed, souls and property of this country."

Some human rights groups have appealed to King Abdullah to pardon the woman, an din mayhappen, since this particular case happened to see some daylight. I'm sure there are plenty of others we never hear about.

This is the sort of culture and mindset that the Saudis are spending millions to import into the west under the guise of multiculturalism - without hindrance in the slightest from our leaders.

Keep this in mind the next time some tool starts talking to you about `Islamophobia' or allowing sharia law to be used in this country.

Watcher's Council Results, 2/15/08

The Council has spoken! A complete list of results can be found at the site of our fearless leader, the infamous Watcher of Weasels


This week's winner was Mandate Me, Baby by Right Wing Nut House, Rick Moran's interesting piece on the Democrat's proposed mandatory health care.

In second place was Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and McCain Derangement Syndrome by Wolf Howling, GW's well-written piece onthe Conservative pundit's revolt against the propective GOP nominee.

In the non-Council category the winner was Are We At War? And What Is the Political Consequence of That For Conservatives In This Election? by BeldarBlog

In second place, we had The Final Mission, Part II byMichael J. Totten

Hearty congratulations not only to the winners, but to the rest of the entrants.

Romney Endorses McCain

Well,it's official now...Senator John McCain will be the Republican nominee.

I expected Romney to do this in about a month, or perhaps at the convention but he obviously looked at the polling data for thenext upcoming GOP primaries and decided he had more leverage now.

As I told one member of Joshua's Army, the best thing to do now is simply face up to that and figure out what you plan to do about it...with the knowledge that Hillary or Obama will likely be the alternative offered.

Rush Limbaugh On The Media, McCain And Talk Radio

Rush Limbaugh did something very rare for him - aninterview with the dinosaur media.

Here, in a piece in TIME Magazine, he lays out his thoughts on the media, the impending campaign between John McCain and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and conservatism and its direction...a worthy read by a man who. regardless of whether you agree with him or not is a major thinker on politics and political philosophy. An dsomeone whom I've found to be almost uncanny in his ability to forecast the political future. Here are a few nuggets:

TIME: So I understand from listening to your show yesterday
that your attacks against John McCain were all part of a secret plan. You are making yourself John McCain's biggest helper by attacking him.

LIMBAUGH: Well, it's not a secret plan. Look it, I've
been fascinated, honestly Jay, with the attention paid to me by people who really have not undertaken to understand how I succeed, how I define my success.

I don't define my success by who wins elections, because politicians are going to come and go, and I'm going to be around as long as I choose to be. It just amazes me. So I thought I'd have some fun with this since there seems to be a narrative and a template in a lot of the media about talk radio and me in particular. I thought I'd throw a curve ball out there yesterday. And there is some truth to it, by the way. I do think if I really came out fervently, and passionately endorsed McCain, some of the independents and Democrats who were thinking about voting for him might be dissuaded by it simply because they have such a virulent dislike for me. But I threw it out just to have fun with all this, which is my primary objective every day.

TIME:Is there anything John McCain can do to persuade you he's acceptable?

LIMBAUGH:I don't think he should even try. He's got to
be who he is. I don't think he needs to reach out. His job is not to be
acceptable to a single person. I'm not sitting here demanding that. I don't have that kind of sense of power or existence.{..}

You know, when it comes down to a general election — looks like it's going to be Obama versus McCain — any number of ways of playing this, and one of them, I don't necessarily have to tout McCain, but I certainly will be critical of Obama. Once we get down to the general, you start examining what this guy's policies are. Right now [Obama is] saying nothing better than anybody has ever said it. At least in my lifetime. It's going have to get specific at some point.

I said this on the radio yesterday. I really do take all this seriously in terms of the future of the country and where we're headed. And liberalism to me, based on its history, portends disastrous things for the future of the country. I think liberals in a political sense need to be defeated, not accommodated, not reached across the aisle and hugged, not walked across the aisle and accommodate them and bring them in. And I certainly don't want the Republican Party to be redefined by becoming victorious on the basis of a bunch of liberal Democrats being attracted to the party as liberal Democrats. I'd love to have them if they are converted to our side. But we're missing genuine conservative leadership, so that's not going to happen.

TIME:You'll be critical of the Democratic nominee. Will you continue to hold McCain's feet to the fire as this goes forward?

LIMBAUGH:Well, probably. But it's not personal. I firmly believe that conservatism — genuinely articulated, passionately articulated — wins in national elections most every time it's tried. I tell people, 'Go back to the eighties.' Ronald Reagan did not have talk radio or an alternative media supporting him. What was he down — in the House of Representatives — the Democrat margin then was what, 130 seats or something? And they [the Republicans] were led by a guy named Bob Michel whose objective every day was to make sure he was invited to play golf with Democrat leaders. And [Reagan] didn't have the Senate for most of his eight [years]. Look what he did. He got his tax cuts through — a number of things. It can be done. We're dealing, I think, with Pelosi and Reid, two of the most incompetent, ineffective Democrat leaders in my lifetime. Now the idea that we conservatives cannot go beat these people without having some of them join us as who they are — it offends the hell out of me. Conservatism, if you look at Reagan, that kind of leadership, it can happen. And so, yeah, I would love to try to be a force, of seeing to it that that's part of a national Republican campaign — absolutely.

Read the whole thing at the link above.

Gotta Love Those Danes....MoToons Redux

Remember the Mohammed cartoons?

Recently, Danish police jailed three jihadis they caught plotting to murder one of the cartoonists..and in solidarity, a dozen Danish papers re-ran the cartoons.

There is still a fatwa-licious bounty on the heads of the cartoonists, by the way.

The Danes are apparently waiting for a reaction by the Islamic Faith Community, Demark's equivalent of the Muslim Council of Britain who's imams provoked the riots and violence over the cartoons by traveling overseas to the Middle East, adding a few fairly obscene cartoons of their own that were never even part of what was printed and whipping their co-religionists into a frenzy..

Group spokesman Kasem Ahmad said even though printing the cartoons "was like a knife in our hearts," the group would not take action this time.

"We have no plans to travel abroad or export this problem," he told reporters at a mosque in Copenhagen. "Now we have decided to neglect and ignore any possible provocation."

Wise choice. The Danes are a fairly tolerant and humane bunch, but even their patience isn't unlimited.And they apparently draw the line at people being murdered over some inocuous cartoons.

The papers said they wanted to show their firm commitment to freedom of speech after Tuesday's arrest in western Denmark of three people accused of plotting to kill Westergaard.

"We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper will always defend," said the Copenhagen-based Berlingske Tidende.

I agree..and in solidarity, here is JoshuaPundit's own re-run of the Mo' Toons, originally run in February, 2006:

Obama And McCain Sweep The Potomac Primaries

Senator Barack Hussein Obama swamped Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's Potomac primaries held in Virginia,Maryland and DC and passed her for the first time in the delegate count.

There was huge turnout in the area, with Obama taking Virginia by 64-35%, Maryland by 60-37% and Washington DC by 75-24%.

These percentages mean that Obama ended up with most of the delegates, and in fact he's actually slightly ahead of Clinton now when you add up both the pledged delegates awarded in the primaries and the superdelegates. The Dems have a major horse race going on, and I doubt it will be resolved before the convention.

It's less than a horse race among the Replicans, with John McCain shutting out Mike Huckabee and winning convincingly 50-41% in Virginia, 55-29% in Maryland and 68-17% in DC. He now holds a substatial lead in the delegate count.

McCain's task is to try to unify the GOP behind him,something that will take some doing but is undoubtedly getting a boost as the spectre of Hillary or Obama as president comes closer to reality.

Imad Mugniyeh Meets His Just End

We had a major victory in the War on Jihad today as Imad Mugniyeh received justice today in the form of a car bombing in Damascas. It was likely the work of the Mossad, although Israel, characteristically is denying it had a hand in this particular bit of pest control.

Mugniyeh was one of the movers and shakers of Islamic fascism, one of Hezbollah's chiefs of staff and has been high on the US wanted terrorist list for more than two decades. For those of you new to the site, here's a brief rundown on him, reproduced from a previous piece of mine on Lebanon that's been spiking the JoshuaPundit hit counter today:

Mugniyeh started his career as a founder of what became Hezbollah.Among his other activities, he was the mastermind behind the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the US Marine barracks, as well as the 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, where he gave orders for U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem to be beaten to death on the flight. He was also behind the kidnapping of dozens of people in Lebanon in the 1980s, including Terry Anderson and U.S. Army Colonel William Francis Buckley, whom he personally had tortured to death, recording the proceedings on video.

Mugniyeh then joined up with Yasser Arafat's Force 17 and later joined al Qaeda as one of bin-Laden's chief lieutenants. Among other things, he helped arrange the Karina-A arms shipment from Iran via Hezbollah to the Palestinian terrorists. He was the liason between al Qaeda and Iran, the Palestinians and Hezbollah and was one of the few people trusted by all parties.

And just for the record,Mugniyeh was a Shiite, which hopefully will be food for thought for anyone reading this whostill lives in th efantasy that Sunnis and Shiites won't work together when it comes to jihad against the West.

Hezbollah, of course, is blaming Israel and called an emergency conference of its leadership Wednesday to determine what action, if any, it will take in retaliation.

Mughniyeh’s death is a major blow to the jihadis. Mughniyeh was a brilliant strategist and a major liason between different groups, which made him uniquely valuable. He was probably the only man alive trusted personally by the Iran's supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, Hamas and Syria's Bashar Assad.

Nice job of rodent removal and major good news.

Gary Bauer And Oliver North Endorse McCain

Senator John McCain picked up two important endorsements today - and meaningful ones as far as I'm concerned.

The first one was from someone you know well, Colonel Oliver North. Here's a bit of what he had to say about the matter:

{...}

Neither John McCain nor anyone in his campaign asked me to write this column. But I cannot sit silently while my fellow conservatives do to John McCain what GOP "moderates" did to me. Today the stakes for our country are far higher, and the implications for the future are far greater than who sits in one of 100 U.S. Senate seats. Now our nation is at war against a vicious foe. We need a president who has proved how to win it.

During the course of the past six years, I have made a dozen protracted trips to cover U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines defending us against a jihad hostile to all that we hold dear. In the dark days when Iraq's Anbar province was the bloodiest place on the planet, John McCain was one of the few in Congress brave enough to venture into that cauldron. I know because I saw him there.

During those trips, he listened to bright, brave young Americans wearing flak jackets and flight suits and became a steadfast supporter of a winning strategy for ending this long and costly conflict. But the senator's commitment goes far beyond political rhetoric. One of his sons is a student at our alma mater; the other is a Marine Corps lance corporal serving in harm's way. Thanks to John McCain's vision and resolve, a few weeks ago, my cameraman and I walked in shirt sleeves down streets in Ramadi and Fallujah, where we used to dodge bullets, IEDs and RPGs.

The election in November will determine how we proceed on the most profoundly important matter confronting our nation: the crucial outcome of an unprovoked war being waged against us by radical Islam. All other issues, as important as they are, pale in comparison to achieving victory over those who seek to destroy our very way of life.

Sen. McCain has pledged to win this war. We must do so, for the consequences of failure would be staggering. But as he has acknowledged, he cannot do that without the support of conservatives who man the phone banks, raise the funds, walk the precincts and turn out the vote on Election Day. I hope my fellow conservatives will decide as I have: We need John McCain as commander in chief.

The other endorsement came from a man not so well known,but someone I've come to know and respect through our work together on various issues and a man that I supported for president when he ran some years ago, Gary Bauer:

{..}As a conservative Republican, I respect those who seek ideological purity from the man who would lead our party. But it is also as a conservative Republican that I respectfully ask conservatives to consider these crucial numbers before they abandon Mr. McCain.

Six — That's the number of Supreme Court justices who will be 70 years old or older on Inauguration Day 2009. That number includes all five of the court's left-leaning members. Court watchers predict that the next president will appoint at least two, and as many as five, justices.

Twenty-six — That's the average tenure in years of Supreme Court justices since 1970. While presidents remain in office for four or eight years, Supreme Court appointees have the opportunity to shape our laws for a generation or more.

We know what sort of justices Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama would appoint. Both voted against John Roberts and Samuel Alito and have spoken admiringly of the court's most liberal justices. Mr. McCain, on the other hand, voted to confirm both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, and he has pledged to nominate "strict constructionist" judges in the mold of the court's four conservative members. With so many Supreme Court rulings — including those concerning abortion, affirmative action, states' rights, the Second Amendment and religious freedom — being decided by slim 5-4 margins, the prospect of either Democratic candidate nominating even one justice should be enough to rally conservatives around Mr. McCain.

Eighty — That's the percentage by which Iraqi and American deaths fell between December 2006, just before Mr. Bush announced the troop surge, and December 2007. In the face of national defeatism, Mr. McCain stood, virtually alone, as an outspoken defender of the surge strategy. Although he knew his position was deeply unpopular, as he once told a reporter, "I'd rather lose the presidency than lose the war."

Eighty-two — That's the lifetime American Conservative Union rating John McCain has compiled in 25 years in Congress, a score comparable to those of numerous other Senate conservatives, including Sens. Charles Grassley, Lamar Alexander, Bob Bennett and former Sen. Rick Santorum. Meanwhile, Mr. McCain has a 4 percent lifetime rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League, voting pro-life 123 times out of 128

Adding up these numbers helps explain why so many conservative leaders — including Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, Phil Gramm, Jon Kyl, Haley Barbour, Jack Kemp, Tim Pawlenty and Ted Olsen — have endorsed Mr. McCain.

I've done the math, and that is why I have decided to join these and many other conservatives in endorsing John McCain for president in 2008.

It's one thing to see endorsements from people you don't know personally.That happens all the time.

In this case, these are people who's integrity, patriotism and common sense I have absolutely no doubts about, people I've interacted with personally and have tremendous respect for.

So, like a lot of people, I have some thinking to do. It may just be time for me to get off the fence.

Watcher's Council Nominations, 2/12/08

Every week, the Watcher's Council members nominate two posts each, one from the Council members and one from outside for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week's Council nominations can be found at the site of our fearless leader, the infamous Watcher of Weasels




Do take the time and check out the non-Council links..they are always rewarding.

Here's this week's lineup:



None Dare Call It Murder Joshuapundit - My piece this week deals with murder -in this case, the Palestinian Authority's attempts to use the US government to shield it from court judgements resulting from murders it sponsored of US citizens. Will the Bush Administration support court ordered compensation for victims of terrorism or or will they rule against their own citizens in favor of a terrorist entity? We'll soon know...

It's Going To Be One Interesting "Race" The Colossus of Rhodey - The "race" Hube is referring to is not only the current political campaign, but the racial issues surrounded Barack Hussein Obama and the inherent pass he's gotten from the dinosaur media because of it.

Philip's Complaint, or Liberal Political Thinking in a Nutshell Bookworm Room - In a nice play on the title of the last book he wrote that anyone read, Ms. Bookworm uses the puerile novelist Phillip Roth's interview on politics with the German magazine Der Spiegel as a perfect example of the Leftist mindset. BTW, Ms. Bookworm..congratulations on the fabulous new digs..very nice!

The Balance The Glittering Eye - Dave Schuler writes about an article in the New York Times that quotes a scientific study showing that biofuels actually add more greenhouse gases in production that they same by substituting for petroleum. Another thing he mentions is the effect on farmlands and food prices, something that we are already seeing the effects of at the supermarket.

Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and McCain Derangement Syndrome Wolf Howling - GW compares the stances of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and others who refuse to embrace the candidacy of John McCain with the Left's `Bush Derangement Syndrome', and I can see why he feels that way, although in fairness, much of the Bush Derangement Syndrome that has kept the Angry Left frothing at the mouth for the past 8 years was based on sheer infantile nonsense while I think McCain's detractors have some very real concerns. That being said, his point is well taken about the differences in what John McCain would do as president and what Hillary or Obama would do ...and in all honesty, some of the endorsements McCain has gotten lately are slowly pulling me in GW's direction as well.

The Problem of Double Standards In Political Speech/Contribution Limitation Laws Rhymes With Right - Greg's piece this week concerns the very real loopholes in McCain -Feingold when it comes to donations `in kind' as opposed to cash - say, a speech by Oprah or a CPA acting as an unpaid campaign treasurer. His argument is that such largesse should be ounted as a campaign contribution just as cash is. Another point I'd be interested in is whether someone like Oprah deducts what she customarily gets for a personal appearance from her income taxes as a charitable contribution whenever she does an event for Barack Obama...

America In a Six-Word Slogan Cheat Seeking Missiles -Laer saw a challenge and leaped into the breach, he did! Laer saw a particularly smarmy blog connected to the New York Times running a contest for a six word slogan to describe America and needless to say, many of the entries were insulting and showed the sort of respect and love for country we've come to expect from the Times.

Not wanting to take that lying down, Laer seems to have alerted half the blogosphere to come up with a fitting entry for our Republic...well done sir! My personal entry? `The Last Best Hope Of Mankind.'

Trying a Child For Her Own Murder: Legalistic Idiocy The Education Wonks - Edwonks likewise writes about murder this week. In this case, it's about a particularly horrendous case of murder, and the attorney trying to get the murderer off by demonizing the victim. It's simply unbelievable what the legal profession has become in America.

How the Democrats Will Attack McCain... and Fail Miserably Big Lizards - Daffyd quotes a leaked memo by Howard Dean on attack points against the prospective GOP nominee and predicts why those attacks will be ineffectual.

Complex Done With Mirrors - Callimachus noticed the endorsement for Barack Hussein Obama by Eisenhower's grand daughter which quoted Eisenhower's farewell address to the nation, which he considers one of the better presidential speeches in history. In discussing the speech , Cal shows that the actual speechin its entirety is 180 degress away from Obama's actual positions. I agree with him both on the quality of the speech and on the implausibility of applying the sentiments expressed in it to Obama.

Of Israel, the Palestinians and the United States Soccer Dad - This week's piece by Soccer Dad deals with the hysterical defense by Left-wing Jews of their support for Barack Hussein Obama's candidacy, their insistance, in spite of the people around him that Obama is pro-Israel and the attacks they've launched against people who've raised some very legitimate questions in this regard. As Soccer Dad points out, the key to Middle East peace is not so much what Israel will or won't do as much as whether the Arabs are willing to totally change their attitude towards Jews and a Jewish state .

Mandate Me, Baby Right Wing Nut House - Rick reprises an American Thinker piece of his examining the problems with mandated , forced health insurance ala' Obama and Hillary.

None Dare Call It Murder

Just how far will Condi Rice and the US State Department go to excuse Palestinian terrorism? We may soon find out.

Blogpal Soccer Dad has an outrageous story on the Palestinian Authority's attempts to use the US government to shield it from court judgements resulting from murders it sponsored of US citizens.

According to the Washington Post, our State Department is actually considering supporting the Palestinian Authority in avoiding paying hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments won by American victims in US courts for Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel.

Testimony in both US and Israeli courts has provided clear evidence connected the Palestinian Authority to the attacks in question, and they are actionable under a US law passed by Congress in 1990 after the murder of wheel chair- bound Leon Klinghoffer by Palestinian terrorists who seized the Achille Lauro cruise ship.That murder, by the way, was one of many that was directly ordered by Arafat, and tapes exist of ship to shore communications between Arafat and the leader of the hijackers Muhammad Zayden, AKA Abu Abbas to prove it.

One of the victims who successfully sued the Palestinian Authority is Leslye Knox, the mother of six children and the widow of Aharon Ellis,(z"l) a U.S. citizen who was killed in 2002 while singing at a bar mitzvah in Hadera, Israel. In 2006, she won a judgement in federal court and the PLO and the Palestinian Authority were ordered to to pay Knox and other Ellis relatives nearly $174 million. So far, they're still waiting to collect.



Another case was brought by the orphaned children of Yaron Ungar,(z"l) a U.S. citizen killed in Israel in a 1996 terrorist attack. Ungar's relatives were awarded $116 million, which the Palestinian Authority has not paid a penny on to date.



And these cases are only the tip of the iceberg.

The original rationale for the Palestinians to avoid paying and drag things out in court was an argument that they had sovereign immunity, meaning that as a state they were beyond the reach of the American legal system. Their lawyer at that time was Ramsey Clark. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, US courts totally rejected those arguments on the grounds that Palestine was not a state, with the US Supreme Court declining to hear the case.

At that point, about $200,000 in two of the PLO mission's bank accounts were frozen and later another account for more than $100 million was frozen by the courts. At that point, Arafat II Mahmoud Abbas wrote to US Secretary of State Condi Rice in November 2006 and asked her to intervene.

The new line from the Palestinians is that the lawsuits are going to bankrupt the Palestinian Authority and derail that wonderful peace process.

At the time, Rice correctly wrote to Abbas that that the Ungar case had gone all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to review it, so "the judgment is final and enforceable in United States courts." She suggested that the Palestinian Authority explore "out of court solutions so as to avoid enforcement actions."

But of course, that was before Annapolis.And the story may have changed.

"With a new set of lawyers -- Richard A. Hibey and Mark J. Rochon of the Washington firm Miller & Chevalier -- the Palestinian Authority last year said the Knox judgment should be nullified because the authority was now prepared to litigate the case and offer a vigorous defense. Citing Rice's letter to Abbas, the new legal team urged U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero to request a "statement of interest" from State because of the "international ramifications."

"The judgment's potential interference with American foreign policy presents a unique and exceptional circumstance justifying relief from a default judgment," the lawyers argued.

Marrero in December issued an order asking whether the United States contemplated issuing a statement of interest in the case. He gave the government 45 days to respond, but at the government's request, he recently extended the deadline until the end of February."

The entire legal reasoning here is farcical. The Palestinians have been in court for years fighting this and took it all the way to the Supreme Court and that somehow doesn't constitute ` a vigorous defense?'

According to Afif Safieh, head of the PLO Mission in Washington DC "There has been a rethinking in the State Department that I wholeheartedly welcome." He was quoted as calling the lawsuits "politically and ideologically motivated to drive the Palestinian Authority into bankruptcy."

By that, I presume he means financial rather than moral bankruptcy. Although, as regular members of Joshua's Army know, the PA is far from destitute.

Nevertheless, the decision is Washington's now.

Will the Bush Administration choose to support compensation for victims of terrorism or will they rule against their own citizens in favor of a terrorist entity?

How would you feel if Aharon Ellis and Yaron Ungar were your deceased loved ones?

The WAPO article quoted David J. Strachman, the Rhode Island lawyer representing many of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits as saying "If the State Department tips the scales of justice against the victims in order to support adjudicated terrorists, the war on terrorism will be seen throughout the world as a farce."

I can't wait to find out which way this goes.


Most Important: E-mail your Congressmen and use the White House Comment line at (202) 395-0805

And by the way, here's the contact information for Miller & Chevalier:



inquiries@milchev.com <inquiries@milchev.com>

Washington, DC
655 Fifteenth Street, N.W.
Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005-5701

Phone: 202-626-5800
Fax: 202-626-5801



Members of Joshua's Army are cordially invited to let these scum know what you think of them representing a bunch of terrorist murderers against their own countrymen and trying to defraud widows and orphans out of their lawful compensation. Just keep it civil.

Clinton Catches Fire From Latinos For `Disloyalty'

There's one thing about gleefully playing racial politics - once you choose to go down that muddy road, you're pretty much stuck with it unless you want to look like an absolute charlatan.

As you know, I've written before on these pages about what I considered to be the Clinton's deliberate tactics in making use of the animosity between Blacks and Latinos as a campaign strategy to marginalize Barack Obama as the Official Black Candidate, and the way Barack Obama stepped into it inhis own attempt to play the race card. This worked well for the Clintons in places like Nevada, Florida and California,( just as it worked well for Obama in South Carolina and Georgia) and Lady Macbeth has been rewarded with a vast majority of the Latino vote.

However, she may have overplayed her hand.

After Obama's sweep of the primaries over the weekend, Senator Clinton decided to make a personnel change and have her campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, who's Hispanic, step down in favor of long-time Clintonista Maggie Williams - who just happens to be black.

This apparently didn't sit well with Steven Ybarra, a California superdelegate who heads the voting-rights committee of the DNC Hispanic Caucus.

According to the New York Post,he circulated a blistering e-mail to the other members of the caucus, accusing Clinton of disloyalty for ousting a Latino in favor of a black.

"Apparently, loyalty is not a two-way street," he wrote. "Latino superdelegates like myself . . . will have cause to pause."

Ybarra was quoted by the Post as calling the removal of Solis Doyle just weeks before the Texas primary, where 36 percent of the population is Hispanic, was "dumb as a stump."

He may very well be correct about that.

For her part, Solis Doyle did what was expected of her and told the press that Ybarra was writing on "false information," and that she's staying on as an adviser.

Bush's New Plan: $1.4 Billion In Foreign Aid To Mexico

Yes, you read that right -the current occupant of the White House wants to give $1.4 billion of our tax dollars as a national security/'stimulus package'...for Mexico!

It's called the Merida Initiative, it's hidden away in the 2008 Supplemental Budget an dthe Bush Administration has been working on it in secret with Mexican Presidente Calderon for over a year.

The idea, apparently is that Mexico needs help keeping out illegal aliens from its southern border with Central America..war on the drug cartels and that sort of thing. Michelle Malkin has the story:

"We can’t finish our own border fence, properly supply our immigration agents and border patrol with all the equipment and resources they need, or get our house in order. Yet, the Bush administration wants to fork over $1.4 billion to Mexico and Central America–with much of it going into the hands of corrupt law enforcement officials and government bureaucrats who have worked tirelessly to undermine our immigration laws. The funding is tucked into the 2008 supplemental budget.

Naturally, the State Department has taken a lead role. They’ve held meetings in secret and cut out members of Congress from discussion. You’ll love the explanation for the secrecy: Mexico is “sensitive,” you see. Also, according to one expert, “Mexico is very protective of its sovereignty and very worried about any incursion of U.S. security forces or private contractors—like Blackwater—coming in to train Mexicans.” Yeah, they’re worried about incursions and sovereignty."

This is amazing, especially as Mexico already receives about $50 billion a year in 'economic stimulus' from the US siphoned out of our economy in the form of repatriations from expatriate Mexicans, legal and otherwise, which is Mexico's second largest source of revenue after oil, believe it or not.

The idea of throwing $1.4 billion at the same corrupt forces that are in cahoots with the drug lords to a large extent while we haven't yet put our own border in order as far as illegal aliens go is ludicrous.

It's exactly this sort of hypocrisy and contempt for the wishes of his fellow citizens that is really behind the loathing most Americans feel for the current occupant of the White House. He brought it on himself and unfortunately, it is entirely justified.

There's still time, Mr. President. Step into the light.

Berkeley Versus The Marines

hat tip to krs601

You'll remember that I previously wrote about how Code Pink and the City Council of Berkely, California are waging war on the local Marine recruiting office and illegally interfering with them.

Here you have a chance to see exactly what these foul people are doing...as the Berkeley cops explain to a local resident `we're trying to be neutral.'

In response to action by Republican Senator Jim Demint who wants to strip Berkeley of over $2 million dollars in Federal funds for disobeying US law, the city has backed away slightly, with Berkeley's Mayor, Tom Bates now acknowledging that the city `went to far' in passing a resolution calling for the Marines to leave and declaring them uninvited and unwelcome intruders, and in allowing the odious Code Pink special parking spaces and sound permits and encouraging them to interfere with the Marine recruiter's rights and duties.

I'm amazed at the restraint the Marines are showing, and as far as I'm concerned every one of these people ought to be arrested for sedition - including the mayor and the Council members.

US Seeks Death Penalty For Six 9/11 Detainees

Well, it took almost 7 years, but The US is finally bringing to trial six detainees involved with the 9/11 attacks...and they're going to ask for the death penalty in the virgin run of the military tribunal system as used for terrorist detainees.

The six consist of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to being the mastermind behind the attacks, Mohammed al-Qahtani, the man officials have labeled the 20th hijacker; Ramzi Binalshibh, said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and leaders of Al Qaeda; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been identified as Mohammed's lieutenant for the 2001 operation; al-Baluchi's assistant, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi; and Waleed bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who investigators say selected and trained some of the hijackers.

The military tribunal process has more secrecy involved than a normal court trial but gives these cockroaches the same rights as US military accused of crimes and tried under the system, including the right to remain silent, call witnesses, and discovery rights to know the evidence against them. Appeals can go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, so even if they're convicted the process could take quite some time.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. The 'troothers' and those who claim 9/11 was an inside job by the Bush Administration will of course look on these men as scapegoats who were 'coerced ' to confess, especially since the CIA admits Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded when they feared that further attacks were imminent.

Among the Angry Left,we can expect lots of verbiage about how wrong the death penalty is and how barbaric this will look to the Muslim world and our friends in the EU.These tools will have a bit more fuel to stoke the fires of their general air of rage and disaffection.

Of course, in a large part of the Muslim world, they will be seen as either innocent victims being set up for something pulled off by the Jooos or as holy 'martyrs' on their way to Paradise and the 72 virgins. Ditto for the rage and disaffection quotient.

So it's essentially a no-win situation for the US and the prosecutors no matter what they come up with in terms of the PR battle. I mean, can you just imagine what the New York Times editorial pages will do with this one?

Of course, esteemed members of Joshua's Army,there is a better way to handle this, and I pass it on to the prosecution as a public service. Lemonade out of lemons, as it were.

After a nice speedy trial and expedited appeals, I suggest that rather than lethal injections or that rot, we use the gallows, the firing squad or perhaps Ol' Sparky as the preferred method of disposal in these cases,and that we televise the event, especially in the Muslim world. I also suggest we include some nice pigskin shrouds or pieces to be worn by the condemned during their executions that these miscreants (and the audience) are allowed to see before the Big Event.

This has multiple benefits. When faced with a pigskin burial, one or more of the convicted murderers might just remember a few important details they wish to share with us about their partners in crime. And the audience would likely see these 'martyrs' breaking down and carrying on like the abject cowards they are as they're executed and learn two important lessons:one, that these men are not heroes to be emulated and two, that murdering Americans in cold blood has no heavenly payoff in the next world and that you mess with our beloved Republic at your peril.

Told you. Lemonade out of lemons.