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Sunday’s rally for Israel

Posted by Richard on August 7, 2006

As I’d promised, I attended the rally Sunday evening in support of Israel and America’s war on terror, and I’m glad I went. It was long (too many predictable and repetitive politician’s statements!) and tiring, but inspiring and in most ways successful. 850KOA’s "Gunny Bob" Newman did a good job as MC. He estimated the crowd at 2000, and I think that’s a bit generous, but not by much — I’d guess it was about 1500.

The speaking highlights were Israeli Consul General Ehud Danoch, Cheryl Morrison of Faith Bible Chapel, and Arabs for Israel founder Nonie Darwish. I’ve heard Morrison do a much better job, but even a so-so Morrison was an inspiring and energizing speaker who revved up the crowd. I’m sure that Darwish, too, has sounded better — her voice was hoarse and raspy, as if she’d been speaking at way too many rallies lately. But her message was also inspirational. It needs to be heard — and heeded — by all those people who say that they’re moderate Muslims.

On the negative side: None of Denver’s three main news channels (the NBC, ABC, and CBS affiliates) covered the event.

On the positive side: The Rocky Mountain News story quoted my t-shirt:

Supporter Mike Higgs wore a leather motorcycle vest and a blue ribbon pinned to his shirt.

"I think they (Israel) have the right to do what they need to do to protect their country, just the same as we do," said Higgs, a Vietnam veteran from Thornton. "If we were under attack, getting bombed day after day, wouldn’t we want to stop it?"

Higgs motioned to the phrase on a man’s white T-shirt: "Except for ending slavery, fascism, Nazism and communism, war has never solved anything."

"That," Higgs said, "basically sums it up."

That’s this ProtestWarrior shirt — one of their first and still one of the best. And, by golly, reporter Bianca Pietro actually quoted it accurately. Thanks, Bianca! And thanks, Mike, for noticing the shirt and pointing it out!
 

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Rally for Israel in Colorado on Sunday

Posted by Richard on August 4, 2006

If you live within driving distance of Denver, please come to the State Capitol Sunday evening at 6:30 for a big rally in support of Israel. Among the speakers will be Nonie Darwish, the founder of Arabs for Israel and author of the forthcoming book, Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. Here’s the description from Amazon:

Why are so many Muslims embracing jihad and cheering for al-Qaeda and Hamas? Why are even the modern, secularized Arab states such as Egypt producing a generation of angry young extremists?

Nonie Darwish knows why. When she was eight, her father died while leading Fedayeen raids into Israel. Her family moved from Gaza back to Cairo, where they were honored as survivors of a “shahid”—a martyr for jihad. She grew up learning the same lessons as millions of Muslim children: to hate Jews, destroy Israel, oppose America, and submit to dictatorship.

But Darwish became increasingly appalled by the anger and hatred in her culture, and in 1978 she emigrated to America. Since 9/11 she has been lecturing and writing on behalf of moderate Arabs and Arab-Americans. Extremists have denounced her as an infidel and threatened her life.

In this fascinating book, she speaks out against the dark side of her native culture—women abused by Islamic traditions; the poor and uneducated mistreated by the elites; bribery and corruption as a way of life. Her former friends and neighbors blamed all the their troubles on Jews and Americans, but Darwish rejects their bigotry and calls for the Arab world to make peace with the West.

The only hope for the future, she writes, is for America to continue waging its War on Terror, seeding the Middle East with the values of democracy, respect for women, and tolerance for all religions.

Darwish was a guest recently on the Mike Rosen radio show, and people who heard her were very impressed.

I’ll certainly be at the rally, probably wearing a ProtestWarrior T-shirt. 🙂 Please join me! Here’s all the info:

NO CONCESSIONS TO TERRORISTS!
Support Israel and America’s War on Terror
Colorado State Capitol
Sunday, August 6, 6:30 p.m.
Organized by: Americans Against Terrorism

 

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Naming the war properly

Posted by Richard on August 2, 2006

I’ve said a hundred — no, a thousand — times that "War on Terror" is a stupid name and a terrible mistake. Terror isn’t an enemy, it’s a tactic, and it’s critical that we properly identify the enemy. Rand Simberg did as good a job of explicating that point as I’ve seen. As Bob Bidinotto said, "I wish I had written this, but Rand Simberg beat me to it":

So, up in Seattle, a Muslim goes Jew hunting in a target-rich environment, killing one and wounding several others, all of them women, one of them pregnant (he almost got a twofer, there). Once again, we’re assured by the authorities that there’s no reason to think that this is terrorism. In fact, the police are now reportedly guarding the local mosques against "retaliation," ignoring the fact that the vast amount of such incidents seem to occur not against mosques (in which much hateful propaganda is propagated), but against synagogues.

Stop and think about the absurdity of that for a moment. A man walks into a building full of Jews, says that he’s angry about Israeli actions, and starts shooting at innocent civilians. But we should be relieved, I guess, because it’s not terrorism.

This is just the latest example of the ongoing folly, begun in the wake of September 11, of calling the conflict in which we suddenly found ourselves (but had really been going on since at least 1979) a war against "terror." …
…

As was the case with the first three world wars, we are at war not with terror or any other particular tactic, but with an idea, or rather, a large set of ideas, most or all of which are inimical to our culture, and to the civilization that is an outgrowth of the Enlightenment. There is no win-win outcome to this war. There are, in the words of divorce courts, irreconcilable differences between the West and the Jihadis. There is, ultimately, not room enough on this planet for both ideologies, because theirs demands submission of all to it.

Outstanding. By all means, go read the whole thing. Then, if you missed it, check out my recent post, Nazi roots of modern Islamofascism, for more about the nature of our enemies. The ideology with which we’re at war shares many ideas and values with one that we’ve had to fight before.

UPDATE: In an earlier post about Israel, Simberg crystallized the difference between Israel and Hezbollah:

… Israelis kill civilians when they miss their targets. Hezbollah (and other terrorist organizations) kill civilians when they hit theirs.

And then he quoted Josh Trevino, who authored this devastating ‘graph (emphasis in original, changed from italics to bold):

Need it be said — and it is a sign of our fallen age that it does need to be said — Israel’s enemy in this war operates under no such constraint. (One assumes that in bygone days, the difference between a Western democracy and a band of murderous savages would not need repeated explanation.) Hezbollah and the average Islamist do not shrink from direct assaults on civilians as such and as an end in itself. Indeed, it has been their sole tactic in this entire war. If they have not produced scenes of masses of dead children, it is not for lack of trying — it is, after all, the only thing they try for. That they have not managed it is indicative of the confluence of blind luck and Israeli battlefield superiority. But give it time: give it infinite time to launch its rockets and try its luck, as the braying proponents of ceasefire would have it, and eventually we’ll see Jewish children, too, incinerated in their sleep. The difference, of course, is that the perpetrators then will celebrate.

 

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What would you do?

Posted by Richard on July 14, 2006

Imagine you’re an Israeli Jew, maybe a resident of Haifa. Maybe you, or your parents or grandparents, fled to Israel from Baghdad or Amman or Cairo more than half a century ago to escape persecution. All of your life, peace and security have been pressing issues. There was always the threat of all-out war, of course, but the day-to-day routine terrorist attacks were the real burden.

In the early years, Palestinian terrorists attacked with guns, shooting as many people as they could — schoolchildren if possible — before attempting to escape. Israel countered by arming large numbers of its citizens, and such attacks became less and less successful.

In response, the Palestinians adopted a new tactic: suicide bombings. They apparently really do love death, as they proudly proclaim. This tactic was terribly effective and difficult to stop. Over time, you and your fellow Israelis simply learned to live with a certain level of random horror.

Recently, though, the situation seemed to improve. Sure, a market, bus, or restaurant occasionally blew up, and you might be unlucky and be in it at the time. Or you might arrive a few minutes later to see the mangled bodies and pieces of flesh in the rubble. But the number of suicide bombings had declined precipitously, especially since large sections of The Wall went up and the Gaza border was secured. You were feeling safer and safer in your day-to-day activities.

In response, however, the Palestinians seemed to be adopting yet another new tactic. This time, maybe two. First, they lobbed more and more rockets into random targets, initially from the safe haven of Gaza, and then from Lebanon as well. They bragged about having thousands and thousands of rockets — and their friends in Tehran, Damascus, and Ryadh will surely buy them more.

But the Palestinians’ second new tactic was the real chiller: kidnappings. Carried out regularly and routinely, on even a modest scale, kidnappings could be a terribly effective terror weapon, in many ways more so than suicide bombings. They leave the friends and families of the victims — and by empathy, every caring person in the country — on the hook day after day after day — hoping, fearing, despairing. They tie up all kinds of military and police resources trying to locate and rescue the victims. And after milking the situation for all the agony they can cause, the terrorists can indulge their murderous, barbaric natures and return their victims’ bodies in this condition to further traumatize the population.

So imagine you’re that Jew in Haifa, huddled in your bomb shelter in case of more Iranian missiles. You’re thinking about the future. It’s not the immediate hostilities that you’re worried about. You’re pretty confident of the IDF’s ability to bring the current intense fighting to a successful conclusion, unless too hobbled by the timidity of the politicians.

No, you’re thinking about what life in Israel will be like over the next 2, 5, 10 years — however long the nation has to put up with a certain level of random rocket and missile strikes, and routine kidnappings and tortures, ending in butchery. However long dismembered bodies on the streets will be something you just have to learn to live with.

Imagine you’re that Jew in Haifa — what would you do?

I know what I’d do. I’d contact every elected official I could reach, every newspaper, TV station, and radio program, every blog and forum. I’d be saying as forcefully as I could to anyone who’d listen: Do not let these new tactics continue for years like the suicide bombings. Do whatever it takes to nip this in the bud, to stop these animals now.

Whatever it takes. 
 

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Identifying India’s enemies clearly

Posted by Richard on July 12, 2006

In my earlier post about the 7/11 attack on Mumbai, I noted that it wasn’t just about Kashmir, even though a Kashmiri Islamist terror organization seemed to be responsible. Dr. Walid Phares’ new article, The Jihadist War Against India, provides much more detail about the "Laskar" (or "Lashkar") organization responsible and its connections to al-Qaeda, other organizations, and the global Islamofascist movement (bold emphasis added):

The main “movement” that starts in Pakistan and stretches into the Indian province of Kashmir is Laskar-e-Taiba, which was founded in the late 1980s by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. … In reality, the “Laskars” are another form of Kashmiri Taliban whose aim is to establish an Emirate in the Indian province of Kashmir before joining forces with the Islamists of Pakistan and the Taliban of Afghanistan to create a massive and powerful “Jihadi Principality” in south Asia stretching from Iran to China.

The Laskar Taiba is under the ideological auspices of a Wahhabi-style foundation in Pakistan, the Markaz Dawa ul-Irshad, also created in the late 1980s. Some reports conclude that the “Dawa” is the mother ship, while the “Laskar” is the army, or one of its armed branches. In the jungle of south Asia’s Islamic fundamentalism, networks are intertwined but well connected. … As in the case of Chechnya, the Islamists hijacked the “ethnic cause” and transformed it into a jihadist onslaught. The “Laskar” and their supporters inside Kashmir and the rest of India have in reality moved the center of their struggle from classical separation from India to the establishment of a Taliban regime in northern India, whose real objective would be to radicalize India’s 100-million-strong Muslim community. Reports indicate that this penetration is now embodied by the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), accused by Indian sources of being an associate of the Laskar. Hence, the “Talibanization” of Kashmir’s issue has become the dominant threat to India and by ripple effect also to President Musharref Pakistan. For the second internal enemy to the aggregation of all jihadists from Waziristan to Kashmir is none other but the president of Pakistan. They believe he is “not helping them enough against India,” as they claim on their websites and, obviously, on al-Jazeera.

But above the clouds of the Pakistani-Indian magma, Osama Bin Laden has issued his mortal fatwas against the south Asian “infidel.” In at least their last four messages – audio or video – aired on al-Jazeera or posted on al Sahhab website, Osama bin laden and Zawahiri blasted the Hindus as an abhorred enemy. Lashing out against one billion Hindus in the subcontinent, not distinguishing between governments and individuals, the chief Jihadists ordered their henchmen to shed the blood of the Indian masses on ideological grounds.

Here again, after the U.S., Spain, Britain, Russia, and other target nations of terrorism, India will have to declare the identity of the criminals, not only in term of their names and the names of their organizations, but the name of their ideology and its content. The more jihadists widen their bloody fault lines against the international community, the more they will isolate themselves among “infidels” and Muslims alike.

I’ll say it again — the enemy isn’t terrorism. That’s a tactic. The enemy is a global jihadist movement of Islamofascists. Their beef isn’t about Iraq, or pictures of the prophet, or U.S. imperialism, or Kashmir, or some unspecified slight in Indonesia or one of the hundreds of other places they’ve struck. Their beef is that everyone isn’t a devout Muslim obeying their 7th-century laws — or at least a submissive and respectful dhimmi.

Everyone — Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, whatever — who refuses to convert or submit must either be prepared to fight or to die.
 

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Today, we are all Indians

Posted by Richard on July 12, 2006

According to New Delhi Television (NDTV), Indian government sources said the Mumbai (Bombay) train attack was the work of Lashkar-e-Toiba, a Kashmiri Islamist terror organization with ties to al-Qaeda, working with the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The toll in the series of blasts now stands at 183 killed and 714 injured. (UPDATE: The Breaking News page linked above has changed. The referenced story is now here.)

Obviously, this attack wasn’t about Iraq. But it wasn’t just about Kashmir, either. It was part of the jihadist quest for world domination. A Washington Times editorial said it well:

Years ago, before the onset of the war on terror, Lashkar-e-Taiba enjoyed an undeserved reputation for focusing on Indian targets in Kashmir, which allowed some to conclude that the group should be of secondary interest to outsiders. The reputation was not deserved because the group had in fact begun striking targets outside Kashmir, and because its ideological affinities to al Qaeda, its direct ties to the global jihad and its hatred of Israel, India and the United States were well known. But it allowed the group to hold on to the nominal perception that its aims and purview were primarily regional, and thus primarily a problem for India.

No more. That was all but assured with the nuclearization of the subcontinent, confirmed by the parliamentary attack in 2001 and then by the destabilizing effects of subsequent attacks in Delhi and Bombay, which shattered whatever was left of the "Kashmir-only" image. Today the tragic Bombay bombings — designed to demoralize one democracy’s hub of finance and culture — underscore that fact, illustrating how fully the group has converged with the international jihad.

This attack must not be allowed to ratchet up tensions between India and Pakistan, which many Indians accuse of secret support for the terrorists. One early positive step was the Pakistani Foreign Ministry’s strong condemnation late on Tuesday. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf augmented the message: "Terrorism is a bane of our times and it must be condemned, rejected and countered effectively and comprehensively." Pakistan must help India identify and apprehend the terrorists.

It might even take a cue from Europe. "We are all Americans now," some said after the September 11 attacks. Today, we are all Indians.

That NDTV page has a place where you can post a message of support or condolence for the people of Mumbai. (UPDATE: When the Breaking News page updated, the comments posted to the previous story went away, and I don’t see any archive or other way to access them now.)

I was heartened to see that a number of the commenters "got it" regarding the global war against the Islamists, and invoked Israel and the U.S. as examples to emulate. Here’s a sampling:

Terrorism is greatest threat to humankind in this era. We all collectively should stamp out this evil from society.

My heartfelt condolences for the breaved families. This is the high time INDIA should adopt ISRAEL policy. Eye for an eye.If you kill innocent people we will kill you. …

It’s sad that in a country which always supports peace against violence ,these sort of attacks keep happening again & again.The only way to solve this problem, is the american way of fighting against the terrorism. …

Ours soft state policy towards terrorist has proved fatal. … Can we learn from US and Jews ? Just kill the killer wherever they are.

Why India doesn’t retaliate to these as US did. It became annual act in mumbai, it seems terrosists are making annual function in mumbai by bombing the city

 Its time now for Indian government to follow the path of ISRAEL. … Its time now for INDIA to change its ANTI-TERRORISM policy & therefore its foreign policy too. …

… We should learn from Israel and take stern action against them.

… Its high time we gave up being pussy cats and became like Israel.

Hmm. Maybe all of us who take the threat of Islamofascism seriously should adopt the slogan, "We are all Israelis now."
 

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Remembering the London bombings

Posted by Richard on July 7, 2006

It’s been a year since the London tube (subway) bombings, and Howie at The Jawa Report put together a retrospective, linking to "The Jawa Reports account of the hours and days following this cowardly attack." Well worth your time.

Others are remembering the 7/7 bombings, too. As Bill Roggio noted at Counterterrorism Blog, al-Qaeda is celebrating the anniversary via a newly-released video crowing about the attack, lionizing the perpetrators, and promising more to come.

Meanwhile, Perry de Havilland at Samizdata.net reminded us that Britain has more than its share of craven cowards who’ll do anything to avoid incurring the wrath of the Islamists and are ready to embrace their dhimmitude. De Havilland linked to this Daily Mail article reporting that the Church of England may dump St. George as patron saint of England. He scoffed at the idea (emphasis added by me):

… I would have to say that the Church of England are flattering themselves if they think it is actually up to them. … I suspect the association of this mythic dragon-slayer with ‘Englishness’ will outlive England’s established church comfortably.

In a post-Christian society like England, St. George, who may or may not have been a Roman general, is really just a cultural construct that embodies certain mythic values ascribed to England. And that is, of course, why the emasculated appeasers who make up the leadership of the Church of England really want to replace the mythic warrior St. George:

But the Church of England is considering rejecting England’s patron saint St. George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims.

The news story provided further evidence of why the pusillanimous poltroons of the Church of England might not be comfortable with St. George:

The image of St George was used to foster patriotism in 1940, when King George VI inaugurated the George Cross for civilian acts of the greatest bravery. The medal bears a depiction of the saint slaying the dragon.

However, George has become unfashionable among politicians and bureaucrats. His saint’s day, April 23, has no official celebration in England, and councils have banned the St George flag from their buildings and vehicles during the World Cup.

The saint became an English hero during the crusades against the Muslim armies that captured Jerusalem in the 11th century. 

The crusades … oh, my! No wonder that flag’s been banned and the Church wants to dump this guy. Why, any invocation of St. George is bound to offend Britain’s Muslims, and who knows what that might drive them to do. On the other hand, if we avoid giving offense, the Islamists won’t hurt us, right?

I wonder how long before the bishops of the Church of England discuss dumping the cross as a symbol because it offends Muslims.

 An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured.
      — Konrad Adenauer
 

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Financial privacy: what would Kerry do?

Posted by Richard on June 28, 2006

Hugh Hewitt has been a bit, um, put out by the New York Times’ disclosure of terrorist finance tracking. Today, Hewitt pointed out that the Gray Lady had a different attitude in a September 2001 editorial (emphasis added):

The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies.…If America is going to wage a new kind of war against terrorism, it must act on all fronts, including the financial one.

The contrast between what the Times said then and now triggered something in my on-again, off-again memory. After refreshing that memory a bit, I have a question for the New York Times and its supporters: Would this story have been pursued — and published despite administration pleas — during a Kerry administration?

You see, if history is any guide, a President John Effin’ Kerry would not only have authorized the same SWIFT program monitoring — he’d have pushed for much more aggressive and far-reaching monitoring than Bush authorized, and he’d have put far fewer privacy and civil liberties safeguards in place.

On Sept. 26, 2001, Kerry testified on money laundering and terrorism before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. An adaptation of that prepared statement appeared in a DLC publication a couple of months later. It began:

There can be no war on terrorism without declaring a war on money laundering. Only Osama bin Laden’s vast resources allow him and al-Qaida to pay the living expenses of sleeper terrorists for years on end and move them around the world. This global terrorist network has a financial ledger that more closely mirrors that of a Fortune 500 multinational corporation than that of an isolated fanatic.

To defeat this new kind of terrorist, we must cut off the money that supports him. The United States must lead an aggressive effort at home and around the world to eliminate the ways in which dirty money flows through the banking system to finance new criminal enterprises. 

A burning desire to destroy all vestiges of financial privacy has been one of the enduring traits of Kerry’s character for almost his entire political career. When the Patriot Act was originally debated, Kerry fought strenuously to strengthen government access to financial records and weaken financial privacy protections. John Berlau’s 2004 Reason article, John Kerry’s Dark Record on Civil Liberties, documented the Senator’s long-standing hostility toward encryption and privacy, and his enthusiasm for financial transaction monitoring and asset forfeiture. For instance:

Many on the left and right worried about overreach from the federal "Know Your Customer" regulations of 1997-98, which would have required banks to monitor every customer’s "normal and expected transactions." Those proposed rules were eventually withdrawn after the ACLU, the Libertarian Party, and other groups generated more than 100,000 comments in opposition. But from his writings and statements, John Kerry seemed worried that the regulations did not go far enough. …

Kerry then expressed his belief that bank customers are entitled to essentially zero privacy. "The technology is already available to monitor all electronic money transfers," he wrote (emphasis added). "We need the will to make sure it is put in place."

A 2004 Money Laundering Alert article, which detailed Kerry’s many years of anti-money-laundering advocacy, noted (emphasis added):

The Kerry Amendment to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (S. 3697) was “a good example fairly early on that showed what Kerry was willing to take on,” said Bruce Zagaris, a Washington, D.C. lawyer and publisher of International Enforcement Law Reporter. …

The amendment called for Treasury to negotiate information-sharing agreements with foreign countries covering money laundering cases and currency transactions over $10,000. …
…

Kerry introduced four more money laundering-related bills in 1989. They included legislative proposals to create a money laundering advisory commission, make U.S. currency traceable by electronic scanning, improve money laundering intelligence and revoke charters of banks involved in money laundering. …
…

“Senator Kerry has long taken the view that U.S. national security requires us to have the ability to trace funds on a global basis when someone has engaged in criminal or terrorist activity,” said Jonathan Winer, a former State Department enforcement official who was Kerry’s Senate counsel and legislative assistant.

Months before 9/11, Kerry sponsored the International Counter-Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption Act, which would have authorized Treasury to require financial institutions to file suspicious activity reports on transactions involving any person or jurisdiction deemed a primary money laundering concern. Financial institutions would have been required to identify the owner of any account opened or maintained by a foreign person.

The bill, which did not pass, was criticized for giving Treasury too much power. After 9/11, however, Kerry was a major player in getting these provisions incorporated into the USA Patriot Act...

Do you recall anyone in the Democratic Party denouncing Sen. Kerry’s lack of respect for civil liberties and financial privacy? Neither do I.

Do you think if Kerry were President today, Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Max Baucus, and various other politicians, talking heads, and media pundits would be calling him a criminal and suggesting censure or impeachment? Me neither.

Do you suspect that in a Kerry administration, we’d never even know about such intelligence operations because the liberal/leftist career employees in the State Department, CIA, NSA, etc., would keep their mouths shut instead of doing everything in their power to bring the administration down? Yeah, me too.
 

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Calling evil evil

Posted by Richard on June 22, 2006

Ralph Kinney Bennett at TCS characterizes perfectly the monsters who brutally tortured and killed Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker — and, in passing, those who ignore, excuse, or refuse to judge them:

This is the routine evil of those worse than beasts.

This is the routine evil that beheaded Daniel Pearl, and Nick Berg; that left Van Gogh dead on a street in Holland.

This is the routine evil that still wraps itself in the garb of a religion while leaving young students bound and shot beside their bus and innocent women and children blown to bits in the market place.

The routine evil that draws comfort from the ignorant maunderings of a Murtha or a Sheehan; that somehow escapes the diligent moral radar of Human Rights Watch.

The routine evil that finds shelter in partisan "talking points" about the war and the shameless babble of armchair thumbsuckers about "reciprocity" with Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.

The routine evil of men with a vision of a world of subjugated women and mindless children, ignorant of all but blood and suicide and revenge.

This is the routine evil that dreams of cyanide gas in subways and thirsts for a nuclear weapon.

This is the routine evil that some still think can be embraced into civility, "brought into government," tamed away from its loathsome imperatives.

This is the routine evil that will not be ignored and must be exterminated.

Bravo.
 

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Did the NSA save the New York subways?

Posted by Richard on June 21, 2006

Here’s another belated observation about a Sunday news show. On CNN Late Edition, Wolf Blitzer interviewed Senators Pat Roberts and Dianne Feinstein, the chair and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he asked them about the story of an aborted 2003 al Qaeda plot to attack New York’s subways. Both senators were circumspect, as you’d expect. But Roberts suggested something — and Feinstein appeared to back him up — that I found remarkable. Blitzer starts off (emphasis added):

Senator Roberts, the chairman, let me start with you and read to you from the new edition of Time Magazine, our sister publication, an excerpt from the book, "The One Percent Doctrine" by Ron Suskind.

In it, this paragraph: "There would be several placed in subway cars and other strategic locations and activated remotely. This was well past conception and early planning. The group was operational. They were 45 days from zero hour. Then Ali told his handlers something that left intelligence officials speechless and vexed. Al- Zawahiri had called off the attacks," referring to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two Al Qaida leader behind Osama bin Laden.

A report that there were cyanide gas attacks planned for the New York subway system that were inexplicably called off. What can you tell our viewers about this?

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: Well, not very much, except to say the Intelligence Committee is briefed on these kinds of threats. I would simply say that we’ve had a briefing.

It points up, once again, the value of the terrorist surveillance program, the NSA program that’s been in the news so much. We are able to detect and deter and stop such attacks. And we were very fortunate that that did not happen.

BLITZER: But can you confirm that there was such a plot in the works?

ROBERTS: I can’t either confirm or deny, but I can just simply repeat that we are briefed on these kind of threats. And, as I say again, I’m very happy we have the capability to do what we do to stop these attacks. And that goes back to the statement you’ve heard a lot that, you know, thank goodness we’ve not had an attack of that nature since 9/11. But that’s not by accident.

BLITZER: Senator Feinstein, I know you’re restricted on what you can say about these kinds of sensitive intelligence-related matters.

Two former intelligence officials have told CNN there was such a plot in the works. We have not been able to confirm that they were only 45 days off of actually launching it. But go ahead and add whatever you want.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, I think the chairman said what could be said about it. I don’t think that anybody doubts that there are people that want to do us harm, that there are those that want to launch these attacks. They will if they can.

And so, you know, there’s the need for eternal vigilance. And I think Senator Roberts is correct. The terrorist surveillance program is an important tool in this area.

And there’s only one defense and that is good intelligence. And there is a very real need for us to do everything we can on the Intelligence Committee to see that the intelligence community, all 16 agencies, have really recovered from what led to the Iraq adventure, which was mistaken information, and that we get it correct.

And in fact, good intelligence has stopped what were real threats. And I think that’s important for the American people to know.

Sen. Feinstein is not exactly a shill for the Bush administration. I interpret those statements as strong hints — quite strong, within the constraints of the "we can’t confirm or deny specifics, we can only speak in generalities" paradigm — that the NSA’s international communications surveillance program played a critical role in learning about — and perhaps deterring the execution of — an attack on New York subways.

That seems pretty significant to me. I suspect that it’s as close to confirmation of a direct benefit from the NSA program as we’re likely to get — until the historians get their hands on the relevant documents about 50 years from now.
 

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He lived just long enough

Posted by Richard on June 9, 2006

As I made pretty clear in an earlier post, I don’t share Michael Berg’s sadness at the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I’m delighted by it. Richard Miniter provided some further justification — as if any were needed — for feeling that way:

If you are looking for the legacy of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, do not look in the concrete rubble of so-called safe house in Baqubah that became his final resting place. Instead, look less than 10 miles to the west, on the side of the road in the desert town of Hadid, for a pile of cardboard banana boxes.

Inside those boxes were nine human heads.

Some of the heads still had their blindfolds on. Iraqi police are still attempting to identify the murdered men.

Days earlier, in Baquba, Iraqi police found another eight severed heads. One of those heads belonged to a prominent Sunni Muslim imam, who preached peace and tolerance.

Clumsy, brutal decapitations with dull knives, screaming victims, and spurting blood were al-Zarqawi’s specialty and signature — something he truly enjoyed and promoted. That imam who preached peace and tolerance? That would have been you, Mr. Berg, had you actually pursued your "reconciliation" with al-Zarqawi.

Mac Johnson captured my own thoughts and feelings about al-Zarqawi perfectly in a must-read column entitled An Evil Man’s Death Replenishes Me. He began by setting himself apart from other analysts in the media:

I do not believe that it is the job of the chattering class to divorce itself from the society that has given it the right to chatter. I do not believe it makes a journalist or a commentator moral and righteous to coldly report on a war involving his own people as if he were filing scientific reports on the inconsequential battles between two different sorts of ants.

I believe in America. Occasionally, I even believe in right and wrong, and good and evil. And I believe in taking sides between them.

Bravo!

Johnson went on to ask if this wasn’t a cause for celebration, not somberness:

… Suppose, in a worst case scenario, that Zarqawi’s death did not shorten or lengthen the war by one minute. Suppose it did not result in even one fewer suicide-bombing or beheading, or death, or did not affect one popularity poll or bill before Congress.

Wouldn’t it still be a good thing? Don’t some people just need killing?

Perhaps I am callous or impolite or just simple-minded, but aren’t there some people so loathsome and onerous that their death need not have a single consequence beyond their introduction to decomposition for that death to be a happy moment for the rest of us? …

Yes, there are such people — and al-Zarqawi more than qualified! Johnson outlined why at some length — read the whole thing.

In describing what he thought al-Zarqawi deserved, Johnson became prescient (emphasis added):

Not only do I hope he eternally rots, burns, re-corporealizes and then rots and burns again well within the lowest levels of Hell, I hope he did not die instantly. I hope there was a brief moment in which he realized he was dying, and that it was an American who had killed him, and an Iraqi that turned him in. …

Damned if that isn’t exactly what happened!

BAGHDAD, Iraq Jun 9, 2006 (AP)— A mortally wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still alive and mumbling after American airstrikes on his hideout and tried to get off a stretcher when he became aware of U.S. troops at the scene, a top military official said Friday.
…

"He was conscious initially, according to the U.S. forces that physically saw him," Caldwell told Fox. "He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was U.S. military."

Yesss! He saw and recognized the American special forces! The son of a bitch lived just long enough!

That just delights me no end — maybe there is a God, after all — or something to this notion of karma. 🙂
 

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Mourning al-Zarqawi

Posted by Richard on June 9, 2006

I can’t even begin to understand the wretched and debased moral sense of the late Nicholas Berg’s father, Michael (who has been an anti-war activist for 40 years, and is currently the Green Party candidate for Congress in Delaware). According to ABC News:

Michael Berg, whose son Nick the CIA believes was beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2004, told ABC News’ Aaron Katersky on Thursday that he abhors that the U.S. military has killed al-Zarqawi.

"I will not take joy in the death of a fellow human, even the human being who killed my son," said Berg, who blamed President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — and not al-Zarqawi — for the death of his son because of what Berg said is their role in authorizing the torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
…

Berg, who said he begged the United States government not to kill al-Zarqawi so that Berg could reconcile with him, worries that only more death will come out of his killing. 

In the AP story at Fox News, Berg described what he believes should have been done with al-Zarqawi — and why:

Berg said "restorative justice," — such as being forced to work in a hospital where maimed children are treated — could have made Zarqawi "a decent human being."

Simply breathtaking…

Mr. Berg, if any of those maimed children, or their nurses or doctors, were "Jewish pigs" — or any kind of infidel, including Shiite — al-Zarqawi would gleefully saw off their heads with the same combination of enthusiasm and lack of skill that he exhibited in the barbaric murders of Nick Berg and Eugene Armstrong. Your insane fantasy of "restorative justice" making him into a "decent human being" would simply enable him to keep killing — and recruiting and directing others to kill. In other words, Mr. Berg, more death comes out of letting people like al-Zarqawi live.

A lot of people view folks like Berg as idealists — misguided and unrealistic, but well-intentioned and somehow noble or admirable. That’s a load of crap. Check out the campaign website and articles linked above, or this interview in which he compares Bush unfavorably to Saddam Hussein — compare how Berg speaks of al-Zarqawi and the terrorists ("what we call the insurgency, and what I call the resistance") with how he speaks of Bush and Rumsfeld. Does Berg sound like he’s prepared to "reconcile" with Bush and Rumsfeld and forgive them their "sins"? Do you think Berg believes a little community service will make W. into a "decent human being"?

Michael Berg is forgiving, tolerant, and non-judgmental toward some of the most brutal and barbaric people on the planet, but he loathes those of us who argue that the values of the U.S. and Western Civilization are superior to the values of Islamofascism. I think it’s disgusting and contemptible.

There are plenty more like him on the moonbat left. On-line, you’ll find them at places like DailyKos and Democratic Underground (sorry, I can’t be bothered to provide links). They greeted the death of al-Zarqawi with the same mix of disappointment, anger, paranoid skepticism, and resentment that they displayed when Saddam was captured.

Berg and his allies exhibit a venomous hatred for Bush, Blair, capitalism — everything Western, really — but they display a studied "neutrality" toward those who want to destroy us. Sorry, that’s not pacifism or neutrality — that’s being on the other side.
 

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A modest proposal for New York

Posted by Richard on June 2, 2006

The Department of Homeland Security has released a list of the anti-terrorism grants to cities for fiscal year 2006, and some people are screaming bloody murder. DHS official said they need to spread the funding to more communities, so past major grant recipients like New York and D.C. are facing significant cuts this year.

New York politicians across the entire New York political spectrum — from moderately liberal Republicans to extremely liberal Democrats — are up in arms, of course:

New York will receive $124.5 million in anti-terrorism grants for cities at high risk of attacks, a deep cut of some 40 percent described as "a knife in the back" by one lawmaker.
…

"As far as I’m concerned, the Department of Homeland Security and the administration have declared war on New York," said Rep. Peter King of Long Island, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "It’s a knife in the back to New York and I’m going to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision."
…

"Anyone who can’t see New York monuments at risk is blind as a bat when it comes to homeland security," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

"When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "They don’t have a map of any of the other … 45 places."

I’d like to make a suggestion to Messrs. King, Schumer, Bloomberg, and their friends and supporters: Why don’t you apply the same principles to the prevention of terrorist attacks that you apply to the prevention of "gun violence"? Prohibit the possession of bombs, explosives, incendiary devices, and other terrorist weapons within the City of New York without a permit. Then issue permits only to a well-connected, privileged few.

Oh, and post plenty of signs declaring New York to be a "Terrorist-Weapon-Free Zone" and warning of severe prison terms for possession of a terrorist weapon without a permit.

That should make you all much safer, right?
 

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The lesson of United 93

Posted by Richard on May 18, 2006

Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy noticed a Michael Kinsley column suggesting that the government, at least, hasn’t learned the lesson of United Flight 93. Kinsley argued that the feds are still officially telling us to remain calm in an emergency and do what we’re told — to not do what the heroes of United 93 did:

… For a while after 9/11 there was talk of changing the official policy regarding hijackings and to start encouraging the passengers to whack the hijackers with their pillows, and so on. … But today, airline passengers are still told at the start of every flight that in an emergency they should remain calm and follow instructions from anyone in a uniform…

Poking around the Web, I stumbled across the official "Hijacking Survival Guidelines" for employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They say, "Stay calm and encourage others around you to do the same. Do not challenge the hijackers physically or verbally. Comply with their instructions. Do not struggle…."

Somin said the official advice no longer mattered, but was bothered by it nonetheless:

Should another hijacking occur, I think many passengers are likely to resist the terrorists regardless of what government bureaucrats might say. Flight 93 has entered the popular consciousness in a much more powerful way than any government-issued instructions could. Still, it is deeply troubling that the homeland security bureaucracy can’t get this relatively simple issue right. If they can’t even learn the most obvious lessons of the last major terrorist attack, I highly doubt that they can effectively prepare for the next one. 

I think Kinsley set up a straw man. The standard flight attendants’ emergency spiel isn’t about hijackings, it’s about depressurization, water landings, and exiting the cabin. And Kinsley failed to note the following disclaimer in that document from the USDA site that he quoted (emphasis added):

The guidance below focuses on avoiding violence and achieving a peaceful resolution to a hijacking. This guidance was developed prior to September 11, 2001 when two hijacked airliners were flown into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. Since then, there has been considerable public discussion of a more active and aggressive reaction to the initial announcement that a plane is being hijacked. As of this writing, the U.S. Government has not developed new guidelines for how to react to a hijacking. The appropriate reaction may depend upon the presumed purpose of the hijacking — the hijackers’ goal a suicide mission to use the airplane itself as a bomb, take hostages to gain publicity for a political movement, or a simple desire to escape to another country.

I couldn’t find a revision date. BTW, it’s not a USDA document. It’s part of an antiterrorism training module created by the Dept. of Defense for military and civilian employees and contractors who travel frequently on government business. I assume these sorts of training modules are probably widely shared among agencies.

Nonetheless, I recommend Kinsley’s column, which discussed some important issues — courage and cowardice, obedience and defiance — and acknowledged that some questions are much easier to answer in retrospect:

It is the nature of authorities to assert authority, and its hard to imagine officials of anything urging people to pay no attention to official instructions. But there is also some logic here. The policies followed by police and fire officials at the World Trade Center (at the cost of their own lives as well as others’) seem very wrong in hindsight. But these rules themselves were the product of hindsight. During the first World Trade Center bombing, back in 1993, rescue attempts and fire control were frustrated by the anarchy of thousands fleeing unnecessarily down narrow emergency stairs. Emergency planners are like generals—always fighting the last war. But what other choice do they have? Let he who anticipated that the next four hijacked planes would be pointed at major office buildings cast the first stone.

With convenient symmetry, it also seems to be the nature of most people, most of the time, to obey authority. The famous Stanley Milgram experiments at Yale in 1961 demonstrated that it is frighteningly easy to induce ordinary people—good people—to inflict pain on others, when ordered to do so by some authority figure. Sept. 11 demonstrated that most people will sit tight and obey orders even unto their own deaths. The defiance of authority is a big reason the United 93 story is so thrilling. This was heroism, American-style. Dissing the Man on your way out the door. These folks were cowboys. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood don’t have time for the rules, and neither did they.

Yep, "heroism, American-style" and "cowboys" — that’s the story of United 93. Kinsley got that part right.
 

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali coming to America

Posted by Richard on May 15, 2006

It hasn’t been easy for Ayaan Hirsi Ali lately. At the end of April, a Dutch appeals court agreed with her neighbors that — since Islamofascists want to kill her — her presence put them at risk, thus violating their human rights. She was ordered to vacate her apartment.

Ponder the logic of that for a moment. The court held that Ayaan Hirsi Ali — not the murderous thugs who threaten her — had caused her neighbors to feel less safe, and thus had violated their rights under Article 8 of the European Treaty on Human Rights.

More recently, political opponents expressed shock at the "news" that she’d lied on her 1992 asylum application (even though she’d revealed this in 2002 when she ran for parliament), and demanded that she be deported. Judith Apter Klinghoffer noted that Hirsi Ali, like Anne Frank, seems to be "too much trouble" for the Dutch.

Apparently, Hirsi Ali has had enough of Dutch cowardice and dhimmitude. Today, it’s being reported that she’s accepted a position with the American Enterprise Institute and will be moving to the United States in September.

The Netherlands’ loss is our gain. Welcome, Ms. Ali!
 

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