What struck me as the best commentary on the Bosnia story came from a poster called GI Joe who wrote in to a news blog: "Actually Mrs. Clinton was too modest. I was there and saw it all. When Mrs. Clinton got off the plane the tarmac came under mortar and machine gun fire. I was blown off my tank and exposed to enemy fire. Mrs. Clinton without regard to her own safety dragged me to safety, jumped on the tank and opened fire, killing 50 of the enemy." Soon a suicide bomber appeared, but Mrs. Clinton stopped the guards from opening fire. "She talked to the man in his own language and got him [to] surrender. She found that he had suffered terribly as a result of policies of George Bush. She defused the bomb vest herself." Then she turned to his wounds. "She stopped my bleeding and saved my life. Chelsea donated the blood."
Made me laugh. It was like the voice of the people answering back. This guy knows that what Mrs. Clinton said is sort of crazy. He seems to know her reputation for untruths. He seemed to be saying, "I get it."
Posted by: Mike ||
03/28/2008 06:38 ||
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Link ||
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#1
her campaign reveals new levels of thuggishness, though that's the wrong word, for thugs are often effective. This is mere heavy-handedness.
S'what happens when you don't have the Carvilles, the Begalas, the Arkansas mafia, etc. It's a case of having the playbook but not the team.
Could the screening of Wilders' video have been prevented by law?
No, at least not in principle. The Dutch constitution does not allow censorship, which is defined in Article 7 as the freedom to publish or show anything without prior consent. This freedom applies not just to the printing press. It also covers art, movies, photos, cartoons indeed any medium that can be used to express oneself. Its a basic civil right and a founding principle of Dutch democracy. Basic civil rights also include the freedom of religion, protection from discrimination and the right to equal treatment. In democratic societies these basic rights are sacrosanct and protect individual citizens from the potential abuse of power by governments.
The only way the government could over-ride this basic right would be to declare a State of Emergency. Then it could have used special powers, including media censorship. But this was never a real option. Wilders' video may be a public relations disaster for the Netherlands but it is not a national disaster like war or serious flood caused by a break in the dykes.
Posted by: ryuge ||
03/28/2008 06:46 ||
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Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
The genie is out of the bottle. If anyone has a link where a .wmv or .avi or .mov can be downloaded, post that link here in the comments...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/28/2008 8:37 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Wilders played this one just right. The three major elements to Fitna are quotes from the Koran, "Kill de white mans!" speeches from Mullahs, and terror attacks. No opinion, no editorial. It has been pre-translated into a bunch of languages, so be sure to get the English language one.
Now, the important thing is what Muslims will do in response, *and* how Wilders exploits the victory.
Were I in Wilders' shoes, I would have two dozen similar movies ready to go. The *purpose* of doing so would be to help unite the right wing Euro political parties, and to politically gain in the Netherlands.
#6
Have already downloaded the film. Be warned, you only get one chance at a free download.
Note that the headline "Could the Wilders Film Have Been Banned" presupposes that it should have been banned, that it must be banned, that all right-thinking hewers to the party line people should condemn the film and work for its banning.
Obama, at a fundraiser, last night: "For those of you who are just weary of the primary, and feeling kind of ground down or that it's like a Bataan death march, I just want everybody to know that the future is bright."
Jen Rubin: "Yeah, just like that. (Note to our Democratic friends: avoid analogies which compare, even in jest, the minor stresses of campaigning to war crimes; there's a candidate out there who knows something about real wars and real suffering.)"
If Obama's campaign is the Bataan Death March, does that make Hillary Clinton the Imperial Japanese Army? Is Carville the analog of General Homma?
. . . I'm not going to jump up and down and demand an apology or suggest that Obama is insensitive to veterans or anything like that. I'm just going to note that shortly after 9/11, when some were proclaiming the death of irony, there was a widespread sense that it was silly to apply military metaphors, associated with killing and death, to mundane inconveniences.
. . .
Calling a long and tiring campaign a death march is about one step removed from Reductio ad Hitlerium, because while I'm sure the candidates, their staffs, and the people who cover them are exhausted, it just doesn't compare to war atrocities. Maybe Obama's just jealous because Hillary got to dodge sniper fire in Bosnia and he missed all the fun.
As Rubin notes, it gives off a whiff of "poor me, poor me" whining.
Obama gets a pass this time, but this metaphor ought to be mothballed.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/28/2008 12:23 ||
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#1
All worn out, and hasn't even started to work at the Oval Office yet. You ain't got the stamina for the job.
#3
I knew some guys who were in the Bataan Death March (Company A of the 192nd Tank Battalion)and in the Japanese prison camps afterwards. Some were our neighbors when I was growing up. One was my barber until he passed away. I've heard the survivors' stories and have seen the looks in their eyes whenever the topic was even mentioned.
To equate a political campaign, of any sort, to the horror of what our guys (and gals) went through under the Japanese is an abomination in and of itself.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/28/2008 14:29 Comments ||
Top||
#4
how can he even compare this too the Baatan Death March? Ask the people there i bet they would say it was a little different
#7
Does the Man's staff know there are real survivors of the March still alive? Can't wait for those 'personal interview' stories to hit the air/net. They can also talk about being prisoners of the Japanese for 3 years and how it's just like that today too. /sarcasm off
#8
he knows nothing about it beyond the name and cares less You can say the same about his supporters. That candidate will say & do anything to get into office.
BTW, the best work of fiction about the Bataan Death March IMHO is Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony" It is about a survivor of the march. From that I got an understanding about PTSD that I never got during training.
When it comes to power, the Bush administration has always firmly believed two things: first, the President should have more of it; and second, international institutions like the U.N. should have less of it. In that respect, the landmark ruling on U.S. treaty commitments handed down by the Supreme Court Tuesday seems to be both good news and bad news for Bush and his hard-line colleagues in the office of the Vice President. The court slammed the door on a provocative power-grab by the White House, but it also potentially undercut a whole category of treaties, in the process exposing America's weak system for complying with international law.
Anybody remember when Time used to bill itself as the weekly news magazine?
#1
I have nto read Time or any of the MSM rags in ages. Is this typical of thier publishing thiese days, an inflammatory piece of sh*t editorial masquerading as a news story? I doubt the author could have loaded up the language any more than he did...
Bush and his hard-line colleagues
provocative power-grab by the White House
America's weak system for complying with international law (meaning Americas strong system for rejecting International law as overriding our own)
But the big brains at the White House were working with an ingenious plan (Pinky and the Brain reference?)
an erosion of America's respect for international law
seriously damaged after eight years of high profile snubs by the Bush administration
Bush's war on terror end-runs around the Geneva Conventions
Do people actually beleive these morons are in any way objectively coving the news?
#3
..an erosion of America's respect for international law..
You mean like the words and text of the Geneva Convention which specifies that those who don't follow the rules are not entitled to its protection? All depends on who's ox is being gored.
Hillary Clinton's been all the news this week, after she "misspoke" about Whitewater, Travelgate, missing files, suspicious pardons, Johnny Chung and cattle futures. Oh wait, after she "misspoke" about Bosnia. Oh wait, same thing.
That's one way to make sense of the unrelenting, unforgiving, 24/7 news coverage of Mrs. Clinton's fictional telling of Bosnian sniper fire and the subsequent debunking of her every word. In a nasty primary battle that has already featured racial slurs and Chicago slum lords, missing tax documents, and a "monster," you might expect this slip-up to have been yet another blip in the media cycle.
But that would have been to deny the press, the pundits, Democrats, and even Barack Obama, the catharsis of finally -- finally! -- getting a chance to confront the Clintons' questionable mores. Hillary's and Bill's scandals have been the elephant in the primary room ever since she first signaled a run. Yet up to now everyone has been too scared, or too loyal, or too weary to touch the ugly past. Her Bosnia misspeak is now serving as proxy for all the truths about the Clintons' non-truths, allowing even liberals to break free from their Clinton dependence.
And how liberating it is! . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
03/28/2008 06:48 ||
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#3
Also the Obama campaign and pro-Obama MSM desperately needed something to bury Obama's racist
and antiamerican friends ("Tell me with you are walking and I will tell you who you are" Spanish proverb) out of the light.
#4
More than anything else, I think the Dems finally have an opportunity to lose the Clintons, and are as happy to dispense with them and the Clintons were to double cross everybody they knew.
If Iraqis could elect Americas next president, chances are good that the next occupant of the Oval Office would be Gen. David Petraeus.
Barring that unlikely development, John McCain will do. Or so I hear from an Iraqi journalist with whom Ive corresponded the past couple of years, a woman whose family was once courted by Saddam Hussein but who later became a victim of his torturers. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
03/28/2008 09:36 ||
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An article by Nibras Kazimi, Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute
Operation Cavalry Charge in Basra is going much better than anticipated; solid leadership coupled with a much-diminished enemy is harvesting very quick results.
Here are the key points on Day 2 of the operation:
* The word from Hayyania, one of Basras most populated and poorest neighborhoods, is that the situation is calm and under control. The Iraqi Army has taken up positions in the main thoroughfare while the criminal gangs and the Sadrists seem to be sitting this one outtheyre not engaging the government troops and are instead keeping a low profile.
* Both the Army commander of Operation Cavalry Charge, Lt. Gen. Mohan Hafidh al-Freiji, and the police commander, Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf al-Muhammadawi, are very able commanders and brave men, with al-Muhammadawi, an ex-tank officer in the Iraqi Army, tending towards brutality. Hes also helped by the fact that he can draw upon important tribal relations in the all-important Albu-Muhammed tribe of nearby Amara Province.
* The Iraqi Army is operating with the utmost restraint which reflects their good training and new ethos; this in not the Saddam-era Army whose first instinct is to level rebellious neighborhoods to dust. Maliki has given the criminal cartels 72 hours to come out with their hands over their headsthis is not a battle, its rather a law-enforcement stand-off.
The Iraqis hold the British responsible for dropping the ball in Basra and in Amara, allowing the crime cartels to expand and take root.
* The Iraqi Army holds the British Forces cowering behind barbed wire in Basra Airport in the lowest regard; the Iraqis hold the British responsible for dropping the ball in Basra and in Amara, allowing the crime cartels to expand and take root. Iraqi officers regularly dismiss the British military as sissies and cowards. ....
* Many parts of Baghdad where one would assume the Sadrists could potentially be troublesome such as Husseiniya, Bunook, Shia Ghazaliyya, and Washash experienced no acts of violence. The places where there was limited violence and tension were Sadr City, Bayaa, and very sporadically in al-Shula. In fact, most of the people who Ive spoken to throughout the day, many of whom were out and about travelling across wide swaths of Baghdad, seemed surprised that the situation was that calm.
News of the situation in the provinces of Diwaniyya, Kut and Hillah has been widely exaggerated by al-Sharqiyya TV and consequently by certain western media outlets that are pretending to be covering the story when what theyre really doing is taking questionable reporting by an openly hostile TV station and passing it on to the western news consumer as original.
Traffic was sparse and dozens of mortars rained down indiscriminatelyone near the Salhiyya Apartments, most directed at the Green Zonebut otherwise the overall situation was stable with the Iraqi Army and Police in control.
* The Sadrists can only keep the shops and schools closed through intimidation, including spraying some shop owners with gunfire in the Bab al-Shargi neighborhood. But it is also interesting that one form of intimidation taken by Sadrist activists has been to take photographs of shops that have remained open despite the call for a strike. This sort of behavior indicates that although the Sadrists may not be able to anything about this defiance now, theyll remember these scabs and settle these accounts later. This shows weakness.
* The radically Sunni al-Sharqiyya TV (owned by Saad al-Bazzaz, who in recent years has financed his media conglomerate with monies from the dethroned ex-ruler of Qatar, the Barzanis and the U.S. Department of State) is curiously propagating and amplifying Sadrist ( maybe Iranian) psyops. Whats even funnier is that al-Sharqiyyas bogus reporting is looping back into western reporting on the situation in southern Iraq. It seems that news of the situation in the provinces of Diwaniyya, Kut and Hillah have been widely exaggerated by al-Sharqiyya and consequently by certain western media outlets that are pretending to be covering the story when what theyre really doing is taking questionable reporting by an openly hostile TV station and passing it on to the western news consumer as original and objective reporting.
* Ahmad Chalabi is trying to reconcile the Sadrists with Maliki. No word on whether Maliki is receptive to this overture.
This article starring:
Ahmad Chalabi
Jalil Khalaf al-Muhammadawi
Mohan Hafidh al-Freiji
Nibras Kazimi
Operation Cavalry Charge
Saad al-Bazzaz
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/28/2008 00:35 ||
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Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Mahdi Army
#1
I may be looking through rose colored glasses, but this seems to be the best analysis of what is happening that I have read.
The fighting among Shiite militias and government troops in Basra is a glimpse of Iraq's future, and pivotal cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in deep trouble, according to two CNN correspondents and a CNN military analyst.
The fiery religious leader has a loyal following in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood and other enclaves thanks to generous social programs, but his political movement, his Mehdi Army militia and the cease-fire al-Sadr recently extended are no match for Iranian intrigue, according to CNN's experts. "Al-Sadr is involved in a very complicated relationship with the Iranians," said CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware. "The Iranians do provide funding and support for his militia, yet at the same time they're trying to rein him in and get him to adopt a certain political agenda, which from time to time he resists."
Ware said Iran wants to use al-Sadr's populist base to advance its agenda in Iraq. "However, they don't want to see him get too big for his boots or to rise to a position where they can no longer have sway over him."
Iran has weakened al-Sadr by encouraging dissension within his Mehdi Army and backing hardliners -- known as the Special Groups -- who break away and keep up the fight against the U.S. occupation, Ware said. "Iran's very good at putting pressure on you, forcing you to split, and anything that squeezes out the side, Iran picks up and turns into hardline factions," Ware said. "That's exactly what's happened to Muqtada. He's had purge after purge after purge of belligerent commanders, and they've all been swept up by Iran. "And now the most lethal attacks on U.S. forces, the most coordinated attacks on U.S. forces, the most daring attacks on U.S. forces in the country are committed by Iranian-backed breakaway elements of Muqtada's militia faction."
This article starring:
Mehdi Army
CNN Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware
Muqtada al-Sadr
Mahdi Army
Special Groups
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2008 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
Ware? People are still listening to that agenda driven, generally wrong jack-hole?
#2
Ware got the first part right. Taking out Sadr, Medhi army and Iranian agents are milestone points in Bush's Iraq Pert chart.
Posted by: ed ||
03/28/2008 2:01 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Typical MSM deceptive crap. Blurs Shia on Shia violence with the Sunni insurgency and pretends it's all of a whole, which it aint.
The current Shia on Shia violence is about who controls the revenue streams. It will be over quickly (a couple of weeks) and the government will win, although with residual Iranian meddling (terrorism). For the simple reason the government will make the cost of controlling the revenue streams (particularly oil distribution)too high and those involved will either get out all together or gravitate to 'traditional' criminal revenue sources - drugs robbery, etc.
#4
We all know al Sadr is going to get a bunch of his followers killed and then at the last instance jump up and say he's joining the peace process.
Then he's going to talk about how important and powerful he is until he's replentished his supply of suckers, and then it's Into the Breech again, shooting up civvies until the army (Iraqi or American) comes out and kills them again...
#6
Al-Sadr should be in the same kind of trouble that Saddam was in. Suppose the guy is hung as a traitor. Could the aftermath be any worse than his troublesome constant pot-boiling? He should be told the hangman awaits if he doesn't stop fomenting trouble against the State of Iraq.
You have to admire George Habash. Granted, he was a mass murderer. But, as the muted response to recent protests in Tibet underscores, his understanding of both human nature and international politics was unsurpassed.
Habash, who died in January, founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small terrorist group that grabbed world attention in the 1960s and 1970s with high-profile airline hijackings and bombings. Other Palestinian groups soon followed suit.
Given the outrage and horror that greeted these attacks, people without Habash's sophisticated understanding of how the world works might have thought them counterproductive. But Habash knew better. As he explained to the German magazine Der Stern in 1970: "For decades, world public opinion has been neither for nor against the Palestinians. It simply ignored us. At least the world is talking about us now."
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
GEORGE HABASH
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2008 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[3 views]
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#2
Well... this sort of thing was what I advised doing about three years ago - a sort of modern version of Frank Capra's
"Why We Fight". My version here.
#9
Thanks fer the download lotp! Head on over to the O Club...tbere's a dry martini waitin' for ya ;]
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/28/2008 19:49 Comments ||
Top||
#10
The Removal of "Fitna:
Official LiveLeak Statement.
Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of British media that could directly affect the safety of some staff members, Liveleak has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.
This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realized LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.
Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture.
We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.
LiveLeak.com
Posted by: ed ||
03/28/2008 19:53 Comments ||
Top||
#12
As business people, LiveLeak had little choice. Their job is to make money for their investors, not to spend it in defence against negligence claims from their departed employees' next of kin. But they got it out. It'll be hard to put back in the bottle.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2008 21:40 Comments ||
Top||
#15
Glenn Reynolds has posted several new links here.
Suffer, jihadi bastards. I hope your worthless heads explode.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/28/2008 22:01 Comments ||
Top||
#16
And the cancer grows. And the awareness of cancer grows. Dr. Satan preaches with many mouths in many tongues, but one message.
Kill others and kill again and again, and if you die, join me in an orgy while others kill again.
I now think Islam has dragged it's followers down below the level of humanity, down into subhumanity, into survival of the fittest. Many will die and they should and the 'religion' of Islam should also die, now and forever.
Shortly before Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, gathered his subordinates and ordered a memorandum sent to every single regional and store manager in the imperiled area. His words were not especially exalted, but they ought to be mounted and framed on the wall of every chain retailer -- and remembered as American business's answer to the pre-battle oratory of George S. Patton or Henry V.
"A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level," was Scott's message to his people. "Make the best decision that you can with the information that's available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing."
This extraordinary delegation of authority -- essentially promising unlimited support for the decision-making of employees who were earning, in many cases, less than $100,000 a year -- saved countless lives in the ensuing chaos. The results are recounted in a new paper on the disaster written by Steven Horwitz, an Austrian-school economist at St. Lawrence University in New York. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency fumbled about, doing almost as much to prevent essential supplies from reaching Louisiana and Mississippi as it could to facilitate it, Wal-Mart managers performed feats of heroism. In Kenner, La., an employee crashed a forklift through a warehouse door to get water for a nursing home. A Marrero, La., store served as a barracks for cops whose homes had been submerged. In Waveland, Miss., an assistant manager who could not reach her superiors had a bulldozer driven through the store to retrieve disaster necessities for community use, and broke into a locked pharmacy closet to obtain medicine for the local hospital.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart trucks pre-loaded with emergency supplies at regional depots were among the first on the scene wherever refugees were being gathered by officialdom. Their main challenge, in many cases, was running a gauntlet of FEMA officials who didn't want to let them through. As the president of the brutalized Jefferson Parish put it in a Sept. 4 Meet the Press interview, speaking at the height of nationwide despair over FEMA's confused response: "If [the U.S.] government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis."
This benevolent improvisation contradicts everything we have been taught about Wal-Mart by labour unions and the "small-is-beautiful" left. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
03/28/2008 12:40 ||
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#1
As the president of the brutalized Jefferson Parish put it in a Sept. 4 Meet the Press interview, speaking at the height of nationwide despair over FEMA's confused response: "If [the U.S.] government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis."
Oh, Queen Hillary would not like to hear that truth about government. I mean, government is the best form of social support. /sarcasm
#2
FEMA of course has to follow the law, particularly in the handling of appropriated funds. Now if Bush had been willing to weather the criticism and issued a blanket pardon on 'errors' but not outright intentional criminal theft of funds to start with, a lot less CYA would've been avoided. The critics don't care. If he loosens the paperwork you get a degree of fraud and loss of accountability. Complain, complain, complain. If you maintain accountability you're slow in dealing with the paper work and parsing out the relief money. Complain, complain, complain.
Of course it doesn't help that FEMA is the new patronage department, for both parties. It used to be a DoD responsibility, but in the gutting of the services in the post-Vietnam period, the military was happy to get another unfunded, unresourced mission out of the door. Of course as Katrina demonstrated, the one part of the government that did function reasonably well was the uniformed services.
#3
On the funnier side, after a hurricane in Florida and with another expected, Wal-Mart turned to its formidable database, the largest in the world, to determine the most important emergency supplies of people prior to hurricanes, so they could be certain of having enough of it available in those regions expected to be hardest hit.
Of all the supplies people stocked up on prior to a major hurricane, such as generators, boards and nails, batteries and flashlights, the database was clear that above all else, the public needed vast amounts of two things to prepare for a hurricane, eclipsing everything else by a wide margin:
#4
oh what fuckin bullshit. these where normal ppl doing what was right not wal mart corp doiong what they thought best. i bet the rreal word from above was shoot if there is looting. Next let's put up a billboard saying wal mart saved ketarina victims.Personnaly I am sick of hearing about how Bush fucked it up maybe they should have gottne their lazy asses out of harms way except the ones that couldn't. For the ones that could and stayed and are now bitching shoot them in the head
#6
sinse, I don't like the Wal-Mart plicy of buying almost exclusively from China (thankf Her Thighness for that) but they do support the communities where they do business. It's good business sense. They provide the Mounted Search and Rescue Unit I belong to with equipment , water, foods we can carry for several days, and fuel for lanterns and cook-stoves. Wal-Mart is not the Monster depicted in the MSM. They do fight Unions but they do offer employees decent wages and health care.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/28/2008 19:06 Comments ||
Top||
#7
The story about WalMart's performance during Katrina was available at the time, but were buried by the MSM which had other axes to grind. The USCG was never given proper recognition for its actions, some type of presidential citation would have been in order. At least Gov. "Stuck on Stupid" Blanco is out of office.
#8
We had a flood last summer that flooded 1/4 of my town. I started sandbagging at 6am that morning. The WalMart trucks arrived by 10am. Say what you will sinse, they were there with us before anyone else.
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.
The fighting among Shiite militias and government troops in Basra is a glimpse of Iraq's future, and pivotal cleric 
