DENZEL VISITS TROOPS AT BROOK ARMY MEDICAL CENTER
Denzel Washington and his family visited the troops at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas (BAMC) recently. This is where soldiers, especially burn victims, come to be hospitalized. The Center has buildings called Fisher Houses, which are hotels where soldiers' families can stay. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on base but they are full most of the time. Denzel made "a substantial donation" to the Center's work.
Question: why do Alec Baldwin, Madonna, Sean Penn, and other Hollywood types make front page news with their anti-everything American tune and this doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section of any newspaper -- except the base newspaper in San Antonio?
NO WONDER THE EXEMPT MEDIA LOVES AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
The Exempt Media's love affair with Amnesty International suddenly become more understandable when AI's executive director, William Schulz, responded to questions about the use of the "gulag" analogy to Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo. When asked to defend its allegation, Schulz said he didn't know that it was accurate:
Despite highly publicized charges of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, the head of the Amnesty International USA said on Sunday the group doesn't "know for sure" that the military is running a "gulag."
Executive Director William Schulz said Amnesty, often cited worldwide for documenting human rights abuses, also did not know whether Secretary Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved severe torture methods such as beatings and starvation.
Schulz recently dubbed Rumsfeld an "apparent high-level architect of torture" in asserting he approved interrogation methods that violated international law.
"It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea," Schulz told "Fox News Sunday."
In other words, Amnesty International's report consists of nothing but conjecture and opinion, not fact. It's a startling admission of the threshold used by the once highly-regarded watchdog group. They've compiled their report and their accusations based on assumptions. In fact, despite their earlier allegations, Schulz admitted that he has no idea whether the International Red Cross has been given access to all prisoners at Guantanamo, let alone other military detention facilities.
No wonder the American media loves Amnesty International -- they use the same editorial thresholds for publication. Just like Newsweek, AI apparently feels that any rumor that matches the preconceived notion of its publisher merits reporting as fact to its readers.
WHY THE EURO MAY COLLAPSE
Charles Moore explains in today's Telegraph why the Euro may soon disappear, as the political union it hoped to represent has been dashed by two consecutive referenda:
In this week of great events in Europe, it was something small that really caught my eye. In an article about the problems of the euro, the German magazine Stern advised readers to check their euro banknotes. The notes issued in Germany, it explained, begin their serial numbers with "X"; those issued in Italy begin with "S". Hold on to the former, was the suggestion, and get rid of the latter while you can.
Stern's X-factor advice was based on the idea that the euro zone might break up. When the euro began in 1999, it was glorious for Italy, Spain, Portugal and (prospectively) for Greece. Their interest rates halved. Boom followed. But those countries had not abolished their inflationary habits when they abolished their currency, and now they had lost their old remedy of devaluation. As a result, their competitiveness is collapsing. Italy's competitiveness against Germany has fallen by a quarter since 2000. Within the system today, all that Italy could do is to deflate, but in the resulting squeeze, revenues would fall, causing the deficit to explode. Real wages would have to be cut to compete with Germany. The politics would be horrible.
An alternative would be for the European Central Bank to inflate from the present two per cent a year to, say, four or five per cent to rescue the Mediterranean spendthrifts. But if that happened, there would be revolt in Germany. That devout believer in sound money only sacrificed her beloved deutschmark and joined the euro to make European finances German, not to make German finances Italian. It is therefore beginning to cross German minds (and other northern European ones, as the Dutch referendum vote showed) that they might be better off outside the currency. Hence the need to scrutinise the banknotes.
First, one has to wonder why Brussels has identifiers on their bills to indicate countries of issuance on the euro. It almost appears as an admission that the difference could create valuation fluctuations between national versions of the euro, an anathema to its entire raison d'etre. However, since they're there, Stern's advice is well taken. Italy and now France have openly talked about abandoning the united currency, and if the euro breaks up, those notes will likely take steeper dives than those of Germany.
I, for one, wouldn't want to hold much in euros from any country at the moment. Moore gives the euro another eighteen months, but given the cracks already showing in its foundations, that survival time frame may be optimistic. If France and Italy, two nations who benefited most from adopting the euro, decide to dump the currency, Germany will want to immediately bring back its solid and dependable deutschmark, regulated by the private Bundesbank. If that happens, the rest of the continent still using the euro will face economic ruination, as the currency will utterly collapse without German backing. Sunday, June 5, 2005
www.captainsquartersblog.com
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http://news.bostonherald.com/holbert
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A STORM IN A TOILET
The Hood report into mishandling of Koran at Guantanamo Bay is out, and what a fizzer it has turned out to be - to the great disappointment of the mainstream media, which are still nevertheless running with the "Pentagon confirms mishandling/desecration" line. This doesn't look too impressive when you actually contrast it with what has been uncovered during the investigation.
In summary: Guards 5, Detainees 15.
The most serious incident involved urine sprinkling a Koran. The guard who was relieving himself says he had no intention of doing anything sacrilegious - the wind carried the urine through the airwent and into the cell block. In any case, following the incident he had been transferred to the gate duty, with no further contact with prisoners.
The second most serious incident involved an interrogator stepping onto a Koran. The person later apologized but as it doesn't seem to have been their only lapse in behavior, their employment was terminated.
The other three cases are even more minor - certainly no "flushing Koran down the toilet" material.
So what about the detainees?
Hood also said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qurans. "These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran," Hood's report said. It offered no possible explanation for the detainees' motives.
In the most recent of those 15 cases, a detainee on Feb. 18 allegedly ripped up his Quran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had given up on being a Muslim. Several guards witnessed this, Hood reported.
That's pretty serious stuff - deliberately destroying and desecrating the holy book - including the famous "toilet flush". Strangely, I do not expect rallies and riots throughout the Islamic world protesting the detainees' "mishandling" of their own Korans; although should such rallies eventuate, they would probably still lay most of the blame on the US authorities for failing to stop the prisoners from committing desecration. It's early days though, the Hood report has only just been released, so there is still time for the righteous anger from the Gaza Strip to Jakarta at the sacrilegious actions of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists. But I won't be holding my breath seeing that several other recent events do not seem to have roused the Islamic street at all.
Only a few days ago, another Shia mosque in Pakistan was bombed. A letter recovered from a body of one of the militants shot by the police warns of more such attacks in the future. There certainly have been many in the past. As De A.H. Jaffor Ullah notes in the Bangladesh "Independent" many of these attacks are being carried out on Muslim Sabbath day.
In Iraq, meanwhile, a suicide bomber had driven a minibus full of explosives into a Sufi monastery in Balad, killing nine. On the same day, in Basra, another Shia cleric was assassinated.
Bombing places of worship and killing religious leaders - words like sacrilege, blasphemy, and desecration spring to mind, at least to my mind. But wait, the victims were Shia and Sufis, and since 90 per cent of Muslims are Sunni and not exactly friendly, maybe "the silence of the imams" can be explained by the general ill-feeling among the orthodox majority toward heretics?
So how about this:
A few weeks ago, one of Afghanistan's top religious clerics, Mawlavi Abdullah Fayaz, presided over a meeting of some 500 other senior religious leaders, who have condemned the Taliban and officially removed the title "leader of the faithful" from Mullah Omar. A few days ago, Fayaz was assassinated. Two days later, the mosque in Kandahar where his funeral was being held, was suicide bombed, killing at least 20 people and injuring 50 others.
Fayaz was an orthodox Sunni, and the bombed mosque in Kandahar was a famous Sunni place of worship.
The reaction? Zilch. No rallies, no riots, no chanting, no flag-burning.
So what's the explanation? Is there a desecration double-standard at play, where Muslims can get away with murder (literally) but it's only not OK if the infidels do it? Don't think so. Most likely this stark contrast between the outrage in one case and the deadly silence in the other is a sort of an underhanded compliment for America - the recognition of the fact that if the United States have done (or is said to have done) something wrong, you can jump up and down, burn the stars and stripes, chant against the Great Satan, and the Great Satan will profusely apologize for hurting your feelings. But if the Islamic extremists do something wrong - something sacrilegious and offensive - and you start jumping up and down in protest, the extremists will simply come over and kill you.
There are problems within the Muslim world, but the United States is the least of the worries. Sunday, June 5, 2005
www.chrenkoff.blogspot.com
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www.daybydaycartoon.com
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WAVE OF DEMOCRATIZATION - AN BUSH AS ICON - REACHES AZERBAIJAN
Another former Soviet republic threatens to join Georgia and Ukraine, with popular demands for democracy and electoral reforms rattling the Azerbaijani authoritarian government. A demonstration of 10,000 in the streets of Baku, on the Caspian Sea, demanded that their parliament enact reforms allowing for free elections to replace the current head of state, who succeeded his father in widely discounted elections two years ago:
About 10,000 protesters chanting "Freedom!" marched across Azerbaijan's capital Saturday, urging the government of this U.S. ally to step down and allow free parliamentary elections this year. Some of them carried portraits of President Bush.
The rally in Baku was the largest opposition demonstration in the former Soviet republic since October 2003, when one person died and nearly 200 were injured in clashes between police and demonstrators protesting vote-rigging in a presidential election.
Tensions have been building in this Caspian Sea nation in the run-up to parliamentary elections set for November. Some observers predict that Azerbaijan could experience a massive uprising similar to those that toppled unpopular governments in three other former Soviet countries -- Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan -- in the past 18 months.
Supporters of several opposition parties chanted "Freedom!" and "Free Elections!" while holding placards with such slogans as "Down with robber government!" Placards with Bush's image included the call, "We want freedom!"
Note especially the iconography, which has been popular throughout the region with democratic activists. Bush has literally become the poster boy for this rising tide of grassroots activism throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia. The power of his words at his last inauguration had been widely discounted by his political opposition and a good part of the American media -- but it has not gone unheeded by those looking for liberty and freedom.
Geopolitically, it might be tough for the administration to go public with support. So far, despite its Muslim foundations, the Azerbaijanis have assisted the US in its war on Islamofascist terror, perhaps out of fear of its southern neighbor, Iran. The current Baku government has also agreed to build a pipeline for exporting oil to the West, a key strategic piece of energy independence from the more radical Islamic states to the south.
However, expect the Bush administration to press Baku on making enough reforms for respectable elections. It may wind up being a win with either faction, and a freely elected democracy bordering the north of Iran will help seal the Iranians' isolation and make it that much harder for them to export their own brand of radicalism and terror. Sunday, June 5, 2005
SENATOR HARKIN: CHRISTIAN BROADCASTERS "OUR TALIBAN"
Robert Novak reports that stupid statements on Air America aren't limited to the liberal network's hosts. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin appeared on Randi Rhodes' show and called Christian broadcasters "our home-grown Taliban":
On the day before Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen was confirmed by the Senate as part of a negotiated compromise, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin called her "wacko."
Harkin, appearing on liberal Randi Rhodes's national radio talk show, became animated as he said of Owen: "This is not a person to put on the bench for a lifetime appointment. This person is wacko! She's wacko!"
On the same program, Harkin said Christian broadcasters are "sort of our home-grown Taliban." He added: "They have a direct line to God. And if you don't tune into their line, you're obviously on Satan's line."
Thus goes the Democratic outreach to the Christian community. In fact, Harkin and Howard Dean have defined a new era in party-building for the Democrats, where any display of faith makes someone a "wacko", and the equivalent of Islamic lunatics that beat men for flying kites and women for displaying their ankles. If Tom Harkin can't tell the difference between James Dobson and Mullah Omar, then Iowans should check his corn to see what he's been using for fertilizer.
Their fear and distaste for Christians borders on bigotry -- and yet the media eats it up. Christians and other people of faith are increasingly repelled by this rhetoric, and hopefully will remember it when the Democrats claim at election time that they respect faith. If they did, they wouldn't compare Christians to Islamofascist terrorists. Saturday, June 4, 2005
www.captainsquartersblog.com
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SACKED OIL-FOR-FOOD STAFFER: I'M A PATSY
Joseph Stephanides, the Oil-for-Food official fired on June 1 by Kofi Annan, says he was sacked to take the heat off Annan and other United Nations kingpins: Sacked Oil-for-Food Staffer: I’m a Patsy. (Hat tip: Newsbeat 1.)
Coming out swinging two days after his client was canned, the lawyer for Cypriot mid-level bureaucrat Joseph Stephanides said he plans a major battle against U.N. leadership to get reinstated and refute charges he engaged in “serious misconduct” in the award of a lucrative inspection contract to a British firm.
Lawyer George Irving told The Post Stephanides was “essentially the messenger” when he warned the British mission to the United Nations in 1996 that the company Lloyd’s Register needed to substantially lower its tender in order to beat out a French firm that submitted the lowest bid.
The commission investigating the oil-for-food scandal headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker charged Stephanides was acting independently during his talks with the British mission.
But Irving provided The Post with internal documents dated in August 1996 that show Stephanides made at least five superiors aware that Lloyd’s was better-suited to handle the oil-for-food inspection contract and that he was recommending that it lower the cost of the bid.
“My client has been made a scapegoat to divert attention from others,” Irving said.
PALESTINIAN ELECTIONS PUT ON INDEFINITE HOLD
Holocaust-denying Palestinian “president” Mahmoud Abbas/Abu Mazen has postponed Palestinian parliamentary elections ... indefinitely.
Citing the need to hold further consultations with various Palestinian factions, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday decided to postpone parliamentary elections indefinitely.
Hamas responded by threatening to call off the nonexistent cease fire.
The decision has drawn sharp criticism from Hamas, whose leaders accused Abbas of violating agreements reached with the Islamic movement and other factions during talks in Cairo earlier this year. ...
Hamas called the postponement a “violation of the Palestinian national interest” and of understandings it reached with Abbas to abide by the truce. Saturday, June 4, 2005
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog
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FOUR MONTHS SINCE THE IRAQI ELECTIONS...TIME FOR DEMOCRATS TO ATTACK
By Hugh Hewitt
From this morning's Washington Post:
"After dialing down criticism of Bush's policy following the successful January elections in Iraq, congressional Democrats are increasingly challenging the president's decisions and public assessments, and developing alternative policy ideas. 'The administration has failed to level with the American people,' said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). 'It's terrible because they refuse to provide a full picture of what is really happening there.'"
The absurd thing about Reid's statement is that pretty much every American who cares to know the situation in Iraq knows it, but gets an enormously skewed view of the situation from MSM. Chrenkoff is the reliable guide to all things Iraqi, not just the car bombs, and Belmont Club the Fourth Rail, VictorDavisHanson, and Winds of Change provide the strategic analysis. Dems trying to peddle "Iraq as Vietnam" find it slow going because the new media provides the real news, not the "beat Bush and the GOP" version of it. The few MSM voices that challenge the Dem tilt of the MSM --Jack Kelly, Michael Barone, etc-- have seen the blogosphere amplify and extend their objective analysis beyond their old orbits. Completely new perspectives from bloggers building powerful followings --LaShawn, Mudville Gazette, Major K-- are also helping to shape the public's very sophisticated understanding of the Iraq rebuilding process. Not only is there no Walter Cronkite in 2005, ready to return from some Baghdad version of Tet and declare that the peace cannot be won, even if there was, he wouldn't be believed because the facts are available for all to read.
Speaking of Greyhawk, don't miss his write-up of Sgt. Peter Damon. That amazing soldier may inspire some new sign-ups at SoldiersAngels, which keeps on connecting home-front patriots with soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan who could use some extra mail and a care package or two.
If the Democrats add an attempt to turn Iraq into Vietnam again, their tactics of delay and obstruction will take on a hard left tinge that spells big trouble for them in 2006. Here's the MSM "conventional wisdom" update on the senate races of 2006, also from the Washington Post. The report overstates the Dems' grounds for optimism and greatly understates the Dems' vulnerabilities in places like West Virginia, Washington State and of course Florida, Nebraska and North Dakota. MSM was surprised by the off-year results in 2002, and it looks like the POst, at least, has kept its blinders firmly in place 18 months out from the 2006 contests. Sunday, June 5, 2005
www.hughhewitt.com
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OPERATION THUNDER ROLLING ALONG
by Bill Roggio
Almost one week has passed since Operation Thunder (also referred to as Operation Lightning) was executed on the heels of New Market in Haditha and Matador on the Syrian Border. The purpose of Thunder is to secure Baghdad, then expand operations and the presence of Iraqi security forces into the Sunni Triangle. Evidence surfaces that Thunder is freeing up forces in other areas of Iraq to pursue the offensive, and perhaps expanding operations outside Baghdad.
South of Baghdad in the Triangle of Death, a region delineated by the towns of Yusufiyah, Latifiyah and Mahmudiyah, Coalition and Iraqi forces conduct a sweep and arrested 108 suspected terrorists. In Mosul, the Coalition bags a senior aide of Zarqawi, who is thought to be high in the command structure of the terrorist group Ansar al-Sunnah. There are excess U.S. forces to spare in Mosul as well.
Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition forces on Friday arrested Mullah Mahdi and five other suspected terrorists -- Mahdi's brother, three other Iraqis and a Syrian…This week, the U.S. military increased its numbers in the province to about 4,000 troops and began a sweep of the area, looking for insurgents who might be using the remote region as a staging ground for terror attacks across Iraq.
read the rest!
Sunday, June 5, 2005
www.windsofchange.net
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SPLISH SPLASH I WAS SHAKING A BAATH!
DEBKAfile - which, for all its renowned erratic qualities, has better ears in Syria than any American publication I can think of - has some interesting commentary today on the forthcoming Baath Party convention beginning Monday in Damascus. It would be fantastic if one of the Syrian blogs could gives us a report (though it is more than slightly unlikely that they would admitted), because this promises to be a fascinating event in the ongoing history of fascist bloodletting. According to Debka:
The Baath convention looks like becoming a battleground for delegates' accusations and counter-accusations over the responsibility for Syria's debacle in Lebanon. Assad is expected to use this dispute and the political reform slogan as an opening for sacking two-thirds of the top level of the Baath party's ruling institutions, including, according to rumors in Damascus, vice president Khalim Haddam.
Debka adds:
The certainty has gained ground in Middle East capitals that US president George W. Bush has decided to wash his hands of Assad once and for all. Washington will not act directly to remove him; but neither will it refrain from indirect moves that contribute to his downfall. This conviction is reportedly the spur for Rif'at's decision to be on hand to retain the Assad clan's hand on the reins of power should they slip from his nephew's grasp.
Rif'at is the brother of Bashar's father - the late, unlamented Hafez Assad - and was exiled sixteen years for attempting to assassinate his brother. Nice class of people. Saturday, June 4, 2005
www.rogerlsimon.com
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ASSOCIATED PRESS SMEARS JOHN BOLTON, BUSH
The latest Associated Press push to discredit John Bolton is one of the sleaziest, most biased pieces of work I’ve read in quite some time: Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing. (Hat tip: zombie.)
The point of this article is that John Bolton was the Bush administration’s bully boy, helping them mislead the noble United Nations into war with Iraq by undermining the work of UN weapons inspectors. It’s amazingly full of distortions and sneaky tricks; one of the worst is near the beginning:
John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.
A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani “had to go,” particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
Bustani, who says he got a “menacing” phone call from Bolton at one point, was removed by a vote of just one-third of member nations at an unusual special session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), at which the United States cited alleged mismanagement in calling for his ouster.
Obviously, the Associated Press wants you to believe that this “menacing phone call” was part of Bolton’s bullying over the Iraq War. You’ll have to read carefully down to the bottom to find out that the call took place in June 2001—long before the September 11 attacks—and even this information is surrounded by misdirection:
Former Bustani aide Bob Rigg, a New Zealander, sees a clear U.S. motivation: “Why did they not want OPCW involved in Iraq? They felt they couldn’t rely on OPCW to come up with the findings the U.S. wanted.”
Bustani and his aides believe friction with Washington over OPCW inspections of U.S. chemical-industry sites also contributed to the showdown, which went on for months.
In June 2001, Bolton “telephoned me to try to interfere, in a menacing tone, in decisions that are the exclusive responsibility of the director-general,” Bustani wrote in 2002 in a Brazilian academic journal.
He elaborated in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde in mid-2002, saying Bolton “tried to order me around,” and sought to have some U.S. inspection results overlooked and certain Americans hired to OPCW positions. The agency head said he refused.
Read the whole thing; this is by no means the only distortion in the piece.
PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR WATCH
Palestinian militants storm Nablus offices to denounce Abbas.
NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) - Militants loosely affiliated to the Fatah party of Mahmud Abbas stormed public offices in Nablus under a hail of gunfire, accusing the Palestinian leader of failing to honour security promises.
The band of 20 militants from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades barged into the local interior ministry office in the northern West Bank city on Sunday, opened fire and ordered everyone out, Palestinian security sources said.
The gang then stormed the governor’s office at the other end of town, ordered out all staff under gunfire and lightly wounded one man, they added. Sunday, June 5, 2005
HUGE MADRID RALLY AGAINST PLANS TO "NEGOTIATE" WITH TERROR
Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards took to the streets of Madrid today, to protest the Zapatero government’s plan to “negotiate” with Basque terror group ETA: Huge Madrid rally against ETA talks. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
MADRID, Spain (AP) — Hundred of thousands of people, including relatives of those killed or wounded by bomb attacks by Basque separatists, packed the streets of Madrid Saturday to protest a government offer to hold talks with the armed group ETA if it renounces violence.
The demonstrators shouted slogans against Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his Socialist government and demanded the resignation of the government’s ombudsman for victims of terrorism, Gregorio Peces Barba.
Zapatero says the time is right to seek talks with ETA, arguing that the group has been seriously weakened by a wave of arrests over the past two years and has not killed anyone since May 2003. Saturday, June 4, 2005
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog