Do you consider all Americans of Italian descent to be affiliated with the mob, simply because they share the same heritage as the members of La Cosa Nostra? Thankfully, most people don't. ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, however, apparently wouldn't have a problem making such a claim, judging by the way he seems to view Sunni Muslims in Iraq.
Recently Jennings implied, during an interview with Secretary of State Rice, that the Iraqi elections of January 30th were "illegitimate" because some Sunnis failed to participate in the voting process, and who now complain that the U.S. occupation of their country was the cause. The is the same mentallity which drives many of the anti-war moonbats.
So what has that got to do with the American mob, you ask? Well, it's quite simple really. You see, Saddam Hussein and the vast majority of his followers are Sunnis (and Baathists), and they once ran Iraq much like a mafia crime family. Most Sunnis, however, are not Saddam loyalists, just like most Italians are not mobsters, and it's a pretty safe bet that the Sunnis who are doing all the yawping about the elections, are the very same people involved in a lot of the terrorist acts which have taken place in that country.
People like Jennings would like for you to think of these parasites merely as Sunnis, but the fact that most of them are members of that particular Muslim sect is basically irrelevant. The entire MSM (CBS/NBC/ABC/BBC/CCN) are pushing, and pushing so hard its almost obvious, the same sort of reasoning.
It would be like referring to a mob family in this country as merely Italian, and implying that what the members of that family had to say was representative of the attitudes of all Italian people.
That, of course, would be absurd and insulting to Italians everywhere; just like suggesting that this small group of Saddamites speaks for the entire Sunni population is insulting to all decent Sunni Muslims. The fact is that while a smaller percentage of Sunnis voted last Sunday than did Shiites, they still had the opportunity to vote. If any of them had wanted to vote, but failed to, it wasn't because of our military's presence in Iraq. It was because they felt intimidated by others within their own community, and didn't have the guts to stand up to them. Or, like the 'disenfranchised' here are too lazy, stupid, or drunk to get of their fat ass and go vote
Face it, most of the people complaining about the elections now didn't want there to be elections to begin with That inclused Jennings himself and most of the other MSM talking heads.
, and they are counting on media personalities like Peter Jennings to convince the people of the western world that the entire Sunni population got hosed on election day. Jennigs is a staunch ally of the Islamoterrorists. He gives them cover (that school in Russa) when they do something particulary horrible and cover up other activities.
Is it Jennings' argument that the Iraqi elections are lacking in legitimacy because the people Including Jennings himself
who never wanted them to occur in the first place are now crying disenfranchisement? And is it also his contention that the claims of the people who have supported Saddam's rule all along are representative of the opinions of all Sunni Muslims in Iraq simply because they themselves happen to be Sunnis?
If so, then I think it's safe to say that Mr. Jennings would likely be just as quick to characterize all Italians as mobsters, all Irish people as drunks, and all Jews as penny pinchers. Of course, intelligent people understand that those sorts of bigoted depictions are both despicable and ridiculous.
They also know that most Sunni Iraqis aren't cowardly Islamo-fascists, and that not all Canadian-born journalists are Bush-bashing nincompoops, in spite of the fact that one in particular just happens to be exactly that.
#1
It would be nice if these "news" people would focus on delivering news rather than editorial commentary, bogus surveys, quotes out of context, tabloid pieces, and Bush/American bashing. Unfortunately, that would require a quality of editor that is apparently not attracted to television.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/06/2005 14:56 Comments ||
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The Marriott corporation has just announce that it had canceled an event to celebrate the "Islamic victory against America."
The event, billing itself as: "Twenty Sixth Anniversary of the glorious victory of the Islamic Revolution and Death to America Day", was scheduled for tomorrow.
I reported last Tuesday, the Iranian government had booked the use of the Bethesda Marritott. The opposition to the event was lead by Dr. Iman Foroutan, executive director of SOSiran.com and ActivistChat.com.
Our combined efforts apparently generated a firestorm of letters, phone calls and faxes to the Marriott corporate office.
As a result, the Washington Post is now reporting that the Marriott canceled the event saying:
John Wolf, a Marriott spokesman, said yesterday that the hotel canceled the event after realizing it is illegal to do business with Iran. He said Marriott officials will "be taking steps" to prevent similar bookings in the future.
Announcement of the event raised an outcry from Iranian opponents of the countryââ¬s regime who live in the United States. They organized a campaign calling on Marriott to cancel.
"For them to come celebrate the anniversary of their glorious revolution in the United States is just wrong," said Iman Foroutan, director of the Iran of Tomorrow Movement, an American-based organization working to oust Iranââ¬s fundamentalist regime. "If they allowed this, I would not be surprised if al Qaeda celebrated their next anniversary in the heart of New York."
In a letter sent this week to Marriott officials and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Foroutan cited an order from then-President Bill Clinton designating Iran as "an extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy" of the United States. The letter went on to say that it is illegal for Iran to do business within the borders of the United States.
Thank you to everyone that took the time to contact the Marriott! Together we can make a difference.
#3
I am extremely disappointed that Marriott even took the booking in the first place. They are a major US corporation and the founder happens to be a member of my church . . . I don't know if he is still involved in running the place though . . . maybe we will see a 'regime change' within the structure of Marriott if it took public outrage to cancel this event . . .
Posted by: Jame Retief ||
02/06/2005 21:09 Comments ||
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#4
Darn. I wonder who would have shown up. Me and a bunch of other people wonder. Government people.
I'm sure they had the list of attendees.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/06/2005 21:17 Comments ||
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I hope that the ass hats and the Euro-dhimmis are extremely annoyed.
Some in the MSM get it. But what will they do about it?
Muslim villagers in the Darfur region of Sudan--that is, those not yet murdered with the approval of their government--got some wonderful news last week. A United Nations commission concluded that while they surely are being slain at a systematic clip, that doesn't constitute "genocide."
One imagines a grateful leader of the victimized villagers telling a cluster of terrified fellow survivors: "This just in! A UN report says we are being killed, raped, tortured, kidnapped and driven from our homes. It says most of the attacks are `deliberately and indiscriminately directed against civilians.' It even says Sudanese officials may have acted against us `with genocidal intent.' But a UN investigation finds no genocide here in Darfur. Isn't this great? Our government's henchmen, those vicious Arab Muslim militias, they must not want to kill us all!"
The Bush administration hasn't been so squeamish. It loudly calls the killing of the Muslims what it is, genocide, and has implored the UN to stop the killing. A finding of genocide by the UN would push the rest of the world to act. But placing international sanctions or embargoes on Sudan isn't on the agenda of China or France, which have oil interests there, or of Russia, which sells Sudan weapons.
How, then, could the so-called "world body" deflect noisy U.S. demands that it halt the bloodshed in Sudan? Easy: The UN commission recommended that the UN Security Council refer the Darfur slaughter to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The Bush administration has wanted nothing to do with that court because of its potential for politically motivated acts aimed at Americans.
With their limp recommendation of court action, the UN diplomats can tell themselves they have addressed the killing in Darfur--while not doing anything to stop it. The likes of China, France and Russia don't have to veto a resolution the Security Council doesn't even consider. In similar fashion, a decade ago, the UN averted its eyes from the madness in Rwanda. So too, during the 1990s, did the feckless UN pepper a murderous Saddam Hussein with righteous resolutions it had no intention to enforce.
Late in 2004 a different UN report, this one on the organization's future challenges, admitted it was hamstrung by "an unwillingness to get serious about preventing deadly violence."
But more than "unwillingness" was at work in Iraq. Last week an interim report by investigators probing the UN's oil-for-food program charged that Benon Sevan, the former head of the program, had repeatedly made improper requests for oil from Iraqi officials. In short, a top UN official who was supposed to be riding herd on Hussein and helping the starving Iraqi people was helping a friend obtain contracts to sell Iraqi oil. The report suggests that Hussein's flunkies were happy to help Sevan obtain oil because, as Iraq's former oil minister told investigators, "He was a man of influence."
At the time, Hussein needed friends to help him skirt, and perhaps end, international sanctions against his regime. Last week's report asserts that because of porous auditing under oil-for-food, the dictator was able to avoid detection when he received illicit kickbacks from companies with which he was doing business.
The complex investigation of oil-for-food is proceeding on many fronts. One involves whether a company that employed the son of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan improperly got a major contract to inspect goods bound for Iraq under the $64 billion program.
Annan's chief of staff described him as shocked and dismayed by the report. If so, Annan may need a deep well of shock and dismay: Five U.S. congressional committees, and a federal prosecutor, are probing corruption on his watch.
Not until oil-for-food is fully autopsied will the answer to the larger question here come clear: Which is more likely to speed the UN's race to utter irrelevance--its inability to see the mass killings of human beings as a reason to do something, or the corruption that tarnishes its noble-sounding yet so often meaningless words?
There is no resurrecting the dead. There are, though, other lives that could be saved, although that now is a dwindling hope. In Sudan--as happened in Rwanda and Iraq--a gutless UN speaks for a world that would rather not interrupt the slaughter.
Posted by: Spot ||
02/06/2005 11:01:37 AM ||
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More on Sevan and "our" U.N. officials from an April 2002 item:
"In the interview, Mr. Goldberg said when he spoke with Mr. Sevan about the oil-for-food program, Mr. Sevan quickly let him know that he was 'unmoved' by the demands of the Kurds. Mr. Sevan went on and said, 'If they had a theme song, it would be Give Me, Give Me, Give Me. I am getting fed up with their complaints. You can tell them that.'"
http://www.kurdmedia.com/reports.asp?id=840
Posted by: Tom ||
02/06/2005 14:45 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe the Chicago Tribune and the Guardian can battle it out.
At tough times in my life, with the landlord tossing my clothes and record collection out on to the street, I could have used an aunt like Benon Sevan's. Asked to account for the appearance in his bank account of a certain $160,000, Mr Sevan, executive director of the UN Oil-for-Food programme, said it was a gift from his aunt. Lucky Sevan, eh? None of my aunts ever had that much of the folding stuff on tap.
And nor, it seems, did Mr Sevan's. She lived in a modest two-room flat back in Cyprus and her own bank accounts gave no indication of spare six-figure sums. Nonetheless, if a respected UN diplomat says he got 160,000 bucks from Auntie, we'll just have to take his word for it. Paul Volcker's committee of investigation did plan to ask the old lady to confirm her nephew's version of events, but, before they could, she fell down an elevator shaft and died.
If you're a UN bigshot, or the son of Kofi Annan, or the cousin of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, or any of the other well-connected guys on the Oil-for-Fraud payroll, $160,000 is pretty small beer. But, if you're a starving kid in Ramadi or Nasariyah, it would go quite a long way. Instead, the starving-kid money went a long way in the opposite direction, to the Swiss bank accounts of Saddam's apologists. "The Secretary-General is shocked by what the report has to say about Mr Sevan," declared Kofi Annan's chief of staff, Britain's own Mark Malloch Brown.
That's how bad things are at the UN: even the Brits sound like Claude Rains. Of course, the Secretary-General isn't "shocked" at all. And nor are the media, which is why the major news organisations can barely contain their boredom with the biggest financial scam of all time — bigger than Enron, Worldcom and all the rest rolled into one. If ever there were a dog-bites-man story, "UN Stinkingly Corrupt Shock!" is it.
And, in a way, they have a point: what happened was utterly predictable. If I had $64 billion of my own money, I'd look after it carefully. But give someone $64 billion of other people's money to "process" and it would be surprising if some of it didn't get peeled off en route. Especially if that $64 billion gives you access to a unique supply of specially low-priced oil you can re-sell at market prices. Hire Third World bureaucrats to supervise the "processing" and you can kiss even more of it goodbye. Grant Saddam Hussein the right of approval over the bank that will run the scheme, and it's clear to all that nit-picky book-keeping will not be an overburdensome problem.
In other words, the system didn't fail. This is the transnational system, working as it usually works, just a little more so. One of the reasons I'm in favour of small government is because big government tends to be remote government, and remote government is unaccountable, and, as a wannabe world government, the UN is the remotest and most unaccountable of all. If the sentimental utopian blather ever came true and we wound up with one "world government", from an accounting department point of view, the model will be Nigeria rather than New Hampshire.
That's why Washington has no interest in joining Gordon Brown's newly announced Cash-for-Guilt programme, under which the Chancellor (or, to be more precise, you) has agreed to improve the Afro-kleptocracy's cash flow by transferring 10 per cent of its debt burden to the United Kingdom — a perfect example of the malign combination of empty European gesture-politics and Third World larceny that's been the default mode of progressive transnationalism for far too long. By contrast, consider the splendid John Howard. In announcing Australian's $1 billion tsunami aid package, he was careful to emphasise that he wouldn't be wiring it via the estate of Benon Sevan's late auntie.
If Paul Volcker's preliminary report on Oil-for-Food dealt with the organisation's unofficial interests, the UN's other report of the week accurately captured their blithe insouciance to their official one. As you may have noticed, the good people of Darfur have been fortunate enough not to attract the attention of the arrogant cowboy unilateralist Bush and have instead fallen under the care of the Polly Toynbee-Clare Short-approved multilateral compassion set. So, after months of expressing deep concern, grave concern, deep concern over the graves and deep grave concern over whether the graves were deep enough, Kofi Annan managed to persuade the UN to set up a committee to look into what's going on in Darfur. They've just reported back that it's not genocide.
That's great news, isn't it? For as yet another Annan-appointed UN committee boldly declared in December: "Genocide anywhere is a threat to the security of all and should never be tolerated." So thank goodness this isn't genocide. Instead, it's just 70,000 corpses who all happen to be from the same ethnic group — which means the UN can go on tolerating it until everyone's dead, and Polly and Clare don't have to worry their pretty little heads about it.
That's the transnational establishment's alternative to Bush and Howard: appoint a committee that agrees on the need to do nothing. Thus, a few days ago, the UN Human Rights Commission announced the working group that will decide which complaints will be heard at their annual meeting in Geneva this spring: the five-nation panel comprises the Netherlands, Hungary, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. I wouldn't bet on them finding room on their crowded agenda for the question of human rights in Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe, would you? One of the mystifying aspects of UN worship is the assumption that this embryo world government is a "progressive" concept. It's not. Its squalid geographic voting blocs, which use regional solidarity to inflate the status of nickel'n'dime dictators, are merely a Third World gloss on the Congress of Vienna — a relic of an age when contact between states was confined to their governing elites. In an era of jet travel, internet and debit cards that work in any bank machine from Vancouver to Vilnius to Vanuatu, there are millions of global relationships far better for the long-term health of the planet than using American money to set up Eurowimp talking shops manned by African thugs — which is what the UN Human Rights Commission boils down to.
The Bush Administration is now said to be considering using Kofi's "shock" to effect a regime change of its own at the UN. But to whom and to what? I'd be in favour of destroying the UN — or, failing that, at least moving its headquarters to Rwanda, but either of those options would require a level of political will hard to muster in modern sentimental democracies.
The best alternative to the trans‐national jet-set is nothing — or at least nothing formal. When the tsunami hit, the Americans and Australians had troops and relief supplies on the ground within hours and were coordinating their efforts without any global bureaucracy at all. Imagine that: an unprecedented disaster, and yet robust, efficient, compatible, results-oriented nations managed to accomplish more than the international system specifically set up to manage such events. Would it have helped to elect a steering committee with Sudan and Zimbabwe on it? Of course not. But, if the UN wants to hold meetings, hector Washington, steal money and give tacit approval to genocide, let it — and let it sink into irrelevance.
Posted by: tipper ||
02/06/2005 9:04:56 AM ||
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Mark Steyn says he's in favour of destroying the UN. Good. Actually I wouldn't mind a General Assembly or pool of diplomats for discussion-purposes only, but things go awry as soon as the diplomats try to take action other than just reporting back to their governments.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/06/2005 12:03 Comments ||
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"One of the reasons Iâm in favour of small government is because big government tends to be remote government, and remote government is unaccountable, and, as a wannabe world government, the UN is the remotest and most unaccountable of all. If the sentimental utopian blather ever came true and we wound up with one "world government", from an accounting department point of view, the model will be Nigeria rather than New Hampshire.
We've come to a sad state when a Marine who has risked his life repeatedly to keep our country safe can't speak his mind, while any professor who wants to blame America for 9/11 is defended by legions of free-speech advocates. If a man like Mattis hasn't earned the right to say what he really believes, who has? Had Gen. Mattis collapsed in tears and begged for pity for the torments war inflicted on him, the media would have adored him. Instead, he spoke as Marines and soldiers do in the headquarters tent or the barracks, on the battlefield or among comrades. And young journalists who never faced anything more dangerous than a drunken night in Tijuana tried to create a scandal.
FORTUNATELY, Lt.-Gen. Mattis has three big things going for him: The respect of those who serve; the Marine Corps, which won't abandon a valiant fighter to please self-righteous pundits whose only battle is with their waistlines; and the fact that we're at war. We need more men like Mattis, not fewer. The public needs to hear the truth about war, not just the crybaby nonsense of those who never deigned to serve our country.
In my own far humbler career, the leaders I admired were those who had the killer instinct. The soldiers knew who they were. We would have followed them anywhere. They weren't slick Pentagon staffers anxious to go to work for defense contractors. They were the men who lived and breathed the warrior's life. Table manners don't win wars. Winning our nation's battles demands disciplined ferocity, raw physical courage — and integrity. Jim Mattis has those qualities in spades.
Semper fi, General.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
02/06/2005 4:00:41 PM ||
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Uncharacteristically, Rummy missed a chance on one of the talk shows this morning. When asked about General Mattis' remark by one of the Bighairs (Wolf Blitzer, I think) Rummy basically said that the Commandant of the Marine Corps had dealt with the issue and that was the end of it. I would much rather have seen him come out swinging with a defense of Mattis' very considerable achievements (taking Baghdad, for example.)
Posted by: Matt ||
02/06/2005 16:23 Comments ||
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Maybe, Matt, but if Rummy had done that what would have changed? All the people who currently respect Mattis would still respect him, and all the people with access to the airwaves who have it in for the military and for Rummy would have gone to town, Abu Ghraibing this thing. Mattis doesn't need defending against pin-pricks, and no-one on the left would have been persuaded to understand Mattis's comments just by having Rummy defend them. It was probably as well to just deprived the MSM of their little toy.
Posted by: Patrick Brown ||
02/06/2005 16:53 Comments ||
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Patrick, that's a good comment, but if I had been in Mattis' position I think I would have wanted the SecDef to say a few words in my defense.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/06/2005 17:04 Comments ||
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#4
And drag the non-story out even more?
Posted by: Tom ||
02/06/2005 17:05 Comments ||
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#5
I'm not certain of the best venue for this, but I think that one thing all of us should do is "bombard" various "opinion makers" including our members of Congress with parise for Mattis. One of the things that's happened over the years is that whenever some one in the PC side of life gets offended by something they get a lot of attention for their self-righteous opinions. If we flood Congress, etc with POSITIVE comments, much of that political power can be nullified.
I'm not suggesting that we can "cure" it in a single attempt, but even a first attempt will go a long way toward brining balance to these issues.
Posted by: Ralph ||
02/06/2005 17:50 Comments ||
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I absolutely guarantee you that the Commandant called him and demanded his letter of retirement. It will likely delay for a few weeks to let the furor die down, and to give the appearance he is retiring on his on.
A Magnificent Day for Iraq
by Dr. Mohammed T. Al-Rasheed, comments@d-corner.com It is always good to see an Arab (other than Faoud Ajami) actually make sense! It has it all: logic, rationality, pro-American. And, in the freakin' Arab News from the Gulf. My-o-my. Bravo Iraq! For history, Jan. 30, 2005, is one magnificent day for Iraq and the Arab nation. Regardless of who won and who lost, the day should be a permanent fixture on the Arab calendar forever. I don't want to talk politics; I simply want to celebrate history.
Everyone says that this is the first free elections in Iraq for fifty years. That is another lie. There has never been one single free election in the long history of the Arabs ever. This is the first one.
It took the Americans to conduct it and force it down the throats of dictators, terrorists, exploding deranged humans, and odds as big as the distance between the USA and the Middle East.
British guns and soldiers were in the area for so long yet did not care to look at the people. They waltzed with people Gerty and Lawrence (their colonial spies) baptized and were happy to see the nations slip into slavery. Likewise, the French could not bring themselves to see that the Arabs were good enough to cast a vote. And even when it happened in Algeria, the French orchestrated a putsch to annul it.
On Sunday America vindicated itself to all doubters, including me. They delivered on the promise of an election, so I am sure they will deliver on the promise of withdrawal. Occupation boots are heavy and brutal no matter what their insignia or colors. Yet homegrown dictatorship is even harsher and more deranged. In the name of nationalism and "freedom" from imperialism, Iraqi boots crushed Iraqi skulls for so long. When "going home," such dictators either jetted to Geneva or went to Tikrit. At least an American soldier has no such home in either place. He or she would simply want to go back to his fried chicken and home baked cookies. In that there is hope and a withdrawal schedule.
If the endgame is propaganda, I don't expect trashing America will end in our media. If, on the other hand, we write about what we feel is right and wrong, many should think again — at least on this issue.
A priori, taking the pen against America is not a good thing; similarly, taking the pen in praise of America is not treasonous. We have brains and we should use them. Perhaps in the coming weeks we will take issue with America again. But for today, I am celebrating by having a McDonald's. I hate fast food, but for this day I will make an exception.
#1
It truly deserves repeating without any further comments:
"Everyone says that this is the first free elections in Iraq for fifty years. That is another lie. There has never been one single free election in the long history of the Arabs ever. This is the first one."
Posted by: Tom ||
02/06/2005 15:19 Comments ||
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#4
for so long. When âgoing home,â such dictators either jetted to Geneva or went to Tikrit. At least an American soldier has no such home in either place. He or she would simply want to go back to his fried chicken and home baked cookies. In that there is hope and a withdrawal schedule.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
We've come to a sad state when a Marine who has risked his life repeatedly to keep our country safe can't speak his mind, while any professor who wants to blame America for 9/11 is defended by legions of free-speech advocates. If a man like Mattis hasn't earned the right to say what he really believes, who has? Had Gen. Mattis collapsed in tears and begged for pity for the torments war inflicted on him, the media would have adored him. Instead, he spoke as Marines and soldiers do in the headquarters tent or the barracks, on the battlefield or among comrades. And young journalists who never faced anything more dangerous than a drunken night in Tijuana tried to create a scandal.
Bravo Iraq! For history, Jan. 30, 2005, is one magnificent day for Iraq and the Arab nation. Regardless of who won and who lost, the day should be a permanent fixture on the Arab calendar forever. I don't want to talk politics; I simply want to celebrate history.
