CLINTONISTA ADMITS DEMS ROOTING FOR TERRORISTS

A senior Clinton administration national security official offered a stunning admission this week, confessing during a national television interview that Democrats are secretly rooting for the Bush administration's war on terrorism to fail.

In comments largely overlooked by the mainstream press, former Clinton National Security Council member Nancy Soderberg discussed the recent outbreak of democracy in the Middle East with "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart.

"As a Democrat, you don't want anything nice to happen to the Republicans, and you don't want them to have progress," Soderberg observed, before quickly adding, "But as an American, you hope good things would happen."

However, Soderberg quickly undermined her own caveat, noting, "It's scary for Democrats, I have to say."

www.newsmax.com

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Haider Ajina has translated for us a poll that appeared today in the Iraqi newspaper Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed. The poll surveyed 2,878 Iraqis in and around Baghdad:

Do you support the severe measures the Iraqi Government is taking against terrorist acts in Iraq?

93.56% = Yes
6.44% = No

How do you think Arabic satellite news companies are covering Iraqi news?

Neutral = 16.75%
Not Neutral = 7.25%
Negatively Biased = 76%

What is your opinion of U.N. Resolution 1546?

It achieves the ambitions of Iraqis for sovereignty = 73.12%
It satisfies ambition of certain Iraqi groups = 12.90%
It helps legitimise the American occupation = 13.98%

This is why I keep saying: the "insurgency" is over. The terrorists lost. What is going on now is just crime. Criminals can kill, but they can't affect history. As Haider says:

Iraqis are solidly behind their government's security forces pursuing the terrorists and with their vote on Jan. 30th they defeated the terrorists and now it is time to round them up.

Iraqis are also wise to Al-Jazeerah and her ilk of TV stations being anything but supportive or just neutral in their coverage of Iraq. Quite the contrary they want to injure Iraq's democracy. As more and more Arabs recognize these dubious links [to terrorist groups], they will pull their support of these stations (by not watching them).  Sunday, March 6, 2005

www.powerlineblog.com

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APPEASEMENT WEASELS WANT TO LEGALIZE HAMAS

In another sign of Europe’s abject moral bankruptcy, France and Spain are trying to legitimize Hamas: France and Spain bid to ‘legalize’ Hamas. (Hat tip: Hazel.)

France and Spain are working towards removing Hamas from the European Union’s list of terror organizations, the London based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted Palestinian sources as saying Sunday.

According to reports, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has appointed envoys to look into the possibility of removing the organization from the list.

The report added that removal of Hamas from the list would be subject to a Hamas commitment to end suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli citizens.

Spanish foreign ministry representatives were holding talks on the matter with Hamas representatives in Beirut and Damascus, the report said.

According to the report, France and Spain are seeking to remove Hamas from the list of terror organizations ahead of Palestinian Authority general elections, scheduled to be held June, in which Hamas is expected to score high marks.

Senior Spanish and French officials are working towards convincing European governments to bring about a change regarding Hamas, claiming it is unwise to boycott a movement with such a dominant presence on the Palestinian street.

That last part is true. It is unwise to boycott Hamas.

The wise way to deal with groups like Hamas is to wipe them off the face of the earth.

MEET THE NEW BOSS

In an interview with TIME magazine, Mahmoud Abbas/Abu Mazen blames the suicide bombing of the Stage nightclub in Tel Aviv on Israel, and brushes off concern that the genocidal terror gang Hamas will be part of the Palestinian parliament: Escaping Arafat’s Shadow. (Hat tip: Sandspur.)

TIME: Who was responsible, then, for the Tel Aviv attack?

ABBAS: It was individuals. We arrested five. If you ask me who is responsible, the Israelis are responsible. The bombers came from the suburb of Tulkarem to Tel Aviv, crossing the wall. So who is responsible? The wall and the Israelis.

TIME: Hamas won seats in municipal elections in January. Now the P.L.O. has an opposition?

ABBAS: This is proof that they are going to be a political party, which is good.

TIME: Israelis and Americans are shocked to think Hamas could be in your parliament.

ABBAS: Why not? They should be in the parliament. They will share responsibility.

TIME’s title for this interview is unintentionally ironic, because Abbas sounds like a virtual carbon copy of Arafat with slightly better English. What a sham.

IRAN ADMITS LYING ABOUT NUCLEAR PROGRAM

The mullahs must be feeling pretty secure to make this statement: Iran Admits Keeping Nuclear Program Secret.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran confirmed Sunday that it initially developed its nuclear program in secret, going to the black market for material, and blaming its discretion on the U.S. sanctions and European restrictions that denied Iran access to advanced civilian nuclear technology.

Iran now openly admits that it has already achieved proficiency in the full range of activities involved in enriching uranium — a technology that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear reactors or an atomic bomb.

Washington has accused Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to build a nuclear bomb. Iran denies this, saying its nuclear program is merely geared towards generating electricity.

“True. There was secrecy,” former president Hashemi Rafsanjani said Sunday. “But secrecy was necessary to buy equipment for a peaceful nuclear program.”

“If sanctions had not been imposed on us, we would have declared everything publicly, but we had problems buying metal. Nobody sold us anything in the market,” he said.  Sunday, March 6, 2005

AL QAEDA ON THE STREETS OF BRITAIN

Former Metropolitan Police chief Sir John Stevens is trying to wake up Britain: Al-Qaeda ‘on streets of Britain.’

Former Metropolitan Police chief Sir John Stevens says up to 200 Al-Qaeda “terrorists” are operating in Britain and the threat of attacks is real. He urged the government to press ahead with its controversial anti-terror legislation as quickly as possible.

Sir John, writing in the News of the World, said militants trained by Osama bin Laden “fester” across the country.

But the Liberal Democrats accused him of sending “mixed messages” adding to an already “complicated situation”. Civil rights groups have also criticised the government’s plans, calling for an end to detention without trial. They say the principles of justice and human rights are fundamental to British law and should not be lost.

But Sir John said any delay in enacting the legislation would bring “comfort” to al-Qaeda. He said there were small networks of militants who had been trained by Osama bin Laden and had “spawned and continue to fester” in British towns and cities.

The Prevention of Terrorism Bill would allow authorities to impose curfews or tag suspects, as well as banning them from using telephones or the internet.

“The main opposition to the Bill, it seems to me, is from people who simply haven’t understood the brutal reality of the world we live in and the true horror of the terrorism we face,” Sir John wrote.

Sir John’s comments, which are critical of politicians opposing the proposals, may be seem [sic] by some as highly political.  Saturday, March 5, 2005

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RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

www.coxandforkum.com

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www.michellemalkin.com

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WAR ON TERROR BOLSTERING MODERATES, NOT RADICALS

One of the arguments from the Left after 9/11, and especially in the build-up to the Iraq invasion, was that George Bush and Tony Blair's prosecution of the war on terror would only result in further extremism. Many argued that Bush became al-Qaeda's best recruiter, and that the US had blundered into following Osama bin Laden's playbook. Predictions of massive shifts towards radical Islamism in previously moderate populations abounded, complete with allusions to a global uprising of Islam against Western civilization -- Armageddon.

Unfortunately for the Chicken Littles, those predictions have suffered the same fate as those proclaiming disasters in the Iraqi desert or Afghani mountains for American military forces. The New York Times reports that the forward engagement of Islamofascists have empowered Muslim moderates and liberals to marginalize the radicals as never before, even within the mosques themselves:

Inayat Bunglawala had just finished his talk on "Islamophobia and the Media" at the London Muslim Center when a man stood and berated him. "Where is your beard and your thobe?" Mr. Bunglawala said the man shouted, referring to the long garment worn by some Muslim men. "How dare you come to the mosque without them. How dare you preach about the new Koran."

Then something unusual happened on that day in January, said Mr. Bunglawala and others who were there. The several Islamic militants in the room were chased outside by the crowd, and a fistfight broke out. The militants, followers of Abu Abdullah, a firebrand imam, quickly retreated. "These jihadis are like schoolhouse bullies," said Mr. Bunglawala, the communications director for the Muslim Council of Britain, the country's largest Muslim organization. "We sense a feeling of enough is enough now."

If the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks plunged the Islamic population in Britain and elsewhere into a state of alarm and dread, then the Iraq war and its aftermath have had an unforeseen consequence here: they have helped galvanize and embolden a core group of mainstream British Muslims to find its voice and make demands.

Mainstream Muslims have lined up against the war and Prime Minister Tony Blair, opposed new restrictive antiterror laws and warned of the dangers of Islamophobia. But they are also speaking out with uncharacteristic fervor against Islamic militants, making sharp moves to isolate them, and working to strengthen ties between moderates and the British establishment.

Prior to the outbreak of World War II, two extreme and related forms of government appeared to be ascendant: fascism and communism, with Western democracies appearing decadent and failing. After all, the democracies hadn't had the energy or the inclination to stop Italy from invading Ethiopia, issuing worthless declarations in the League of Nations but taking no action to stop Mussolini or force him to withdraw. They stood by while Germany rearmed, and even worse, carved up one of their own allies without their consultation (Czechoslovakia) to appease Hitler and his Nazi government. Stalin used communism to commit bloody purges and to acquire border nations by the handful. Even within the democracies, people looked to these "new" forms of tyranny as historical inevitabilities.

For all their faults as free-market democrats, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill refused to surrender to the forces of tyranny, even when they appeared to have momentum within the democracies themselves. They fought the bloodiest war in history to end fascism and then touched off a forty-year Cold War to contain communism until another visionary and forward-engaging world leader, Ronald Reagan, seized the chance to kick the last rotting struts out from under communism. In all of these cases, ankle-biters abounded to predict our defeat if we fought for freedom and liberty as well as our own security, and that we should learn to live with the ascendancy of tyranny. In its way, this pattern reminds one of Jimmy Carter's infamous and embarassing "malaise" speech, an ingrained defeatism that pretends to hold out a promise of a brighter day as long as we accept our defeat as inevitable and accept second-tier status for ourselves.

Once again, those who would defend freedom and fight for liberty have been proven right, as has been the case for almost a century now. One wonders how many times this has to happen until the defeatists learn and understand the lesson.

SPIDERHOLE NIGHTMARES, PART II

For those who still doubt that the invasion of Iraq has anything to do with the wave of democratization sweeping across the Middle East and the thus-far impotence of the dictatorships to stop it, the Commissar at the Politburo Diktat noticed this comment from Bashar Assad in an interview with the Turkish press:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, under pressure to withdraw troops from Lebanon, insisted he should not be compared to Saddam Hussein and that he wanted to cooperate with international demands, according to an interview released Sunday. ...

At the end of the interview, which was conducted last week, Assad said: "Please send this message: I am not Saddam Hussein. I want to cooperate."

Watching Saddam get pulled out of that spider hole by American soldiers has generated an entirely new calculus in the cesspool of tyranny and corruption throughout the Muslim world. When Moammar Gaddafi and Bashar Assad want to assure the West that they aren't anything like Saddam Hussein, their aim isn't to convince their people to love them. They want the US to understand that they've learned the important lesson that George Bush means exactly what he says.

Assad wants the Turkish press to send that message. Assad could send it himself by getting all the way out of Lebanon and ceasing all support of terrorists. We'll see if he has learned the lesson well enough.  Sunday, March 6, 2005

www.captainsquartersblog.com

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The good news from the Middle East remains Topic A this weekend. At Time, Michael Duffy thinks that history has turned a corner in the Middle East, but adds, correctly, that "the democracy deal isn't sealed." At Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria acknowledges that President Bush "has been right on some big questions." Zakaria belongs to the Tom Friedman school of analysis -- agree with Bush's key foreign policy decisions, sort of, but insist that Bush has merely stumbled into the correct decision and has implemented it incompetently. Zakaria's latest piece is less grudging than that, although he does suggest that Bush's apparently correct line on the Middle East is "related to his relative ignorance of the region." Sigh.

The best piece I've seen on the subject comes, not surprisingly, from Reuel Marc Gerecht in the Weekly Standard. Gerecht begins by noting that "the issue is not whether the basic understanding of contemporary Muslim political legitimacy has been overturned -- it has -- but how forceful the regimes in place will resist the growing Muslim democratic ethnic. He then offers a country-by-country analysis of this question. Gerecht concludes by reminding us that January 30, 2005 is only the first paradigm-changing event to come from Iraq. There are more elections to follow and, of course, the trial of Saddam Hussein.

And speaking of paradigm shifts, Big Pharaoh notices that Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper has used the word terrorist to describe an attack on Iraqi civilians in Iraq, apparently for the first time. Via Instapundit.  Sunday, March 6, 2005

Clifford May has an important column in today's Washington Times about the 12 year-old Palestinian boy who allegedly was shot and killed by Israeli gunfire in September 2000. The death of the boy, Mohammed al-Durra, helped set off an intifada, according to former Senator Mitchell's 2001 report. However, May argues that Israeli gunfire did not kill al-Durra, and suggests that a government-owned French television network cameraman may have staged the "death."

That Israeli gunfire could not have killed the boy was the conclusion of (1) a German television documentary in 2002, (2) liberal journalist James Fallows writing in Atlantic Monthly a year later, (3) the editor-in-chief of L'Express and a French documentary filmmaker who reviewed the unedited video of the shooting, and (4) Nahum Shahaf, the physicist assigned by the Isreali government to review the incident. Each concluded that it was physically impossible for the Israelis to have killed al-Durra given the position of the troops in relation to the boy. Even France 2, the television station that initially claimed the deadly gunfire was coming from the Isreali position, now states that no one can say for certain who killed al-Durra.

But there is more. The film was shot by a Palestinian cameraman. No one else representing France 2 was present. The information used by the France 2 reporter in the voiceover came solely from the Palestinian cameraman. The reporter now states that he doesn't know the facts, but defends his claim that the Israelis killed al-Durra on the theory that it "corresponded to the reality of the situation not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank." In short, the facts of the case don't matter. Indeed, they can be fabricated as long as they correspond with the beliefs of those who "report" them.

It is only a small step to say that the facts can be staged. And that may be what happened. The two Palestinian doctors who viewed the body at the morgue say that it arrived before 1 p.m. But France 2 reported that the deadly gunfire began at 3 p.m. Thus, it may well be that the child at the morgue and the child in the France 2 report were different children. Moreover, France 2 reported that it had footage of al-Durra in death throes, but did not include that footage because it was too "unbearable" to watch. But France 2 has not been able to produce that footage. Finally, there are claims that the footage, viewed in slow motion, shows the cameraman's finger indicating "take two" -- in other words, that the scene should be repeated.

Did French state-owned television stage an event that helped trigger the intifada, including suicide bombings undertaken in the name of avenging al-Durra? We don't know. Did French state-owned television falsely blame Israel for the death (or non-death) of al-Durra based on the uncorroborated word of a Palestinian and the prejudices of its own reporter? The answer seems clearly to be yes.

HINDROCKET adds: I'm getting a feeling of deja vu here: the French report "corresponded to the reality of the situation not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank." In other words, it was "fake, but accurate." How many other mainstream media outlets are there that view this as the appropriate standard for judging evidence?

BIG TRUNK adds: Lorie Byrd writes to note that she and Thomas Lifson discussed the underlying story last month in posts here (Byrd) and here (Lifson).  Saturday, March 5, 2005

www.powerlineblog.com

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GOOD NEWS FROM AFGHANISTAN, PART 10

To read Chrenkoff's latest post, click here.   Monday, March 7, 2005 

(you can read the whole article in PDF).

2005 might just be the year when the regime in Teheran implodes. Arguably, it probably wouldn't need much push to collapse, and the revolution currently sweeping the region might just provide that extra spark for the Iranian conflagration. In a secret report to the leadership, the Revolutionary Guards Corp is said to have admitted that should rioting in Teheran last longer than six hours, they won't be able to control the situation.

There might not be much that the Free World can do to assist Iran's dissidents and democrats (although I recommend my recent interview with Iran expert Michael Ladeen for some useful ideas and suggestions), but speaking as a child of communism I can say that the most important thing we and our leaders can do is to let people of Iran know that they are not alone, that we support their aspirations, and that their struggle is important to us. When you're facing your oppressors, one of the potentially most demoralizing feelings is that you're alone in the world and no one gives a stuff.

In the meantime check out the latest daily briefing at Regime Change Iran blog.  Saturday, March 5, 2005

www.chrenkoff.blogspot.com

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www.michellemalkin.com

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HORMUZ

Austin Bay discusses the possibility that Iran might close the Straits of Hormuz in response to US and European sanctions to prevent Teheran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The Iranians didn't actually threaten anything but simply warned of an "oil crisis" in the event they were pushed to the wall. ABC News Online says:

Iran's top nuclear official has warned the United States and Europe of the danger of an oil crisis if Tehran is sent before the United Nations Security Council over its nuclear program. ... "The first to suffer will be Europe and the United States themselves, this would cause problems for the regional energy market, for the European economy and even more so for the United States," he said.

The Iranians were at pains to distinguish between a 'reasonable' Europe and an intransigent United States. Teheran pointedly implied that if the whole region were destabilized the fault would lie squarely with the United States.

Mr Rowhani, who was speaking at a conference in Tehran on nuclear technology and sustainable development, however expressed optimism that an agreement would be reached with Europe over the development of Iran's nuclear program. ...  Mr Rowhani warned the US that it could destabilise the region if it blocks an accord with Europe. If Washington brings the issue before the Security Council, "Iran will retract all the decisions it has made and the confidence-building measures it has taken", he said.

Actual speculation that Iran was threatening naval action was from the Persian Journal, which reported ominous statements from a senior member of the Iranian government.

"An attack on Iran will be tantamount to endangering Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and "in a word" the entire Middle East oil," Iranian Expediency Council secretary Mohsen Rezai said on Tuesday. About 40 percent of the world's crude oil shipments passes through the two-mile wide channel of the strategic Straits of Hormuz. ... Teheran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz and use its missiles to strike tankers and GCC oil facilities. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that oil tanker traffic through the Straits of Hormuz will rise to about 60 percent of global oil exports by 2025. Rezai, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ... said such a significant increase in oil prices would also be sparked by international sanctions on Tehran.

The Iranians could blockade the Gulf, but for how long is the question. (DIA) Director Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby testified last month that

"Iran can briefly close the Strait of Hormuz, relying on a layered strategy using predominantly naval, air and some ground forces. Last year it purchased North Korean torpedo and missle-armed fast attack craft and midget submarines, making margin improvements to this capability."

The threat seems serious because he strait is only two miles wide in places. The World Tribune Com claims that "Teheran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz and use its missiles to strike tankers and GCC oil facilities, according to the new edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com. Within weeks, the rest of the world would be starving for oil and the global economy could be in danger." In fact, a blockade of the Persian Gulf has been attempted before -- by Iraq -- but went largely underreported in the pre-Internet days during the Tanker War of 1984-1987.

In 1981 Baghdad had attacked Iranian ports and oil complexes as well as neutral tankers and ships sailing to and from Iran; in 1984 Iraq expanded the socalled tanker war by using French Super-Etendard combat aircraft armed with Exocet missiles. Neutral merchant ships became favorite targets, and the long-range Super-Etendards flew sorties farther south. Seventy-one merchant ships were attacked in 1984 alone, compared with forty-eight in the first three years of the war. Iraq's motives in increasing the tempo included a desire to break the stalemate, presumably by cutting off Iran's oil exports and by thus forcing Tehran to the negotiating table. Repeated Iraqi efforts failed to put Iran's main oil exporting terminal at Khark Island out of commission, however. Iran retaliated by attacking first a Kuwaiti oil tanker near Bahrain on May 13 and then a Saudi tanker in Saudi waters five days later, making it clear that if Iraq continued to interfere with Iran's shipping, no Gulf state would be safe. These sustained attacks cut Iranian oil exports in half, reduced shipping in the Gulf by 25 percent, led Lloyd's of London to increase its insurance rates on tankers, and slowed Gulf oil supplies to the rest of the world ...

As the Tanker War spread to attacks on all shipping, the tankers were convoyed in and out the Gulf by naval vessels, resulting in one action where the FFG-7 class USS Stark was nearly sunk by a French built Exocet missile fired by an Iraqi warplane. Iran did not attack US naval vessels at the outset.

Iran refrained from attacking the United States naval force directly, but it used various forms of harassment, including mines, hit-and-run attacks by small patrol boats, and periodic stop-and-search operations. On several occasions, Tehran fired its Chinese-made Silkworm missiles on Kuwait from Al Faw Peninsula. When Iranian forces hit the reflagged tanker Sea Isle City in October 1987, Washington retaliated by destroying an oil platform in the Rostam field and by using the United States Navy's Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) commandos to blow up a second one nearby.

Within a few weeks of the Stark incident, Iraq resumed its raids on tankers but moved its attacks farther south, near the Strait of Hormuz. Washington played a central role in framing UN Security Council Resolution 598 on the Gulf war, passed unanimously on July 20; Western attempts to isolate Iran were frustrated, however, when Tehran rejected the resolution because it did not meet its requirement that Iraq should be punished for initiating the conflict.

In early 1988, the Gulf was a crowded theater of operations. At least ten Western navies and eight regional navies were patrolling the area, the site of weekly incidents in which merchant vessels were crippled. The Arab Ship Repair Yard in Bahrain and its counterpart in Dubayy, United Arab Emirates (UAE), were unable to keep up with the repairs needed by the ships damaged in these attacks.

Parallels with the earlier Tanker War are bound to be inexact. Most naval attacks were by Saddam Hussein's forces in the Northern Persian Gulf, where the waters are wider. Iraq did not enjoy Iran's geographical advantage of actual positions at the chokepoint. But the Iranians demonstrated the ability to fire missiles from land batteries at maritime targets owing to the extreme narrowness of the Straits and to mine it. Another FFG-7 class warship, the USS Samuel B. Roberts was seriously damaged when it struck an Iranian mine in April, 1988 and was so heavily damaged it had to be shipped home by heavy lift for a year's repair at Bath Iron Works.

Three days after the mine blast, forces of the Joint Task Force Middle East executed the American response - Operation Praying Manits. During a two-day period, the Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force units of Joint Task Force Middle East destroyed two oil platforms being used by Iran to coordinate attacks on merchant shipping, sank or destroyed three Iranian warships and neutralized at least six Iranian speedboats.

But the bottom line is that an Iranian blockade of the Gulf of Hormuz will probably fail to stop tanker traffic completely, just as it failed in the 1980s. US forces in the region have grown comparatively more capable, with facilities within the Gulf itself, both in Bahrain and in Iraq, for example. An Iranian blockade would however, disrupt tanker sailings, increase insurance premiums and generally drive the cost of crude upwards; it might even sink a number of tankers and naval vessels, but in the end the United States would prevail. Strangely enough, the Iran blockade threat is more powerful "in being" than in actual implementation. While it remains simply a threat, it can be used as a diplomatic lever to extract concessions. If actually carried out, Europe and China, whatever their political inclinations, would be forced by economic necessity to help break the blockade.  Monday, March 7, 2005 

http://belmontclub.blogspot.com