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The Star Tribune, never failing to miss an opportunity to rip on America, has published an editprial by Minnesota "writer" Syl Jones where he proclaims America is winner of the "Arrogance Award." Syl ones has an award coming to him.

From the Strib:

The winner of the Most Arrogant Nation In The World award is clearly the United States of America. We are arrogant in our dealings with sovereign nations like Iraq. We are arrogant toward our own citizens. We are arrogant in assuming that we have a special place in history. We are arrogant in believing that all nations want and need our kind of democracy. So, let's all reach around and pat ourselves on the back. We've won. "Arrogance Is U.S.," and the whole world knows it.

Jones's claim of Arrogant Americans is synonymous with the proverbial "Ugly American", and is as off base as the latter was in its heyday. He is half-right about our believing that all of the world wants Western democracy. We can, however, all name a few people who don't want Western democracy: Kim Jong Il, Ahmadinejad, Castro, Hugo Chavez, Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi "Army" death squads, and, of course, the folks at MoveOn.org. There are others.

We insisted on putting our massive footprint in the heart of the Middle East, where we don't belong. Arrogance. We lied to the world about WMDs, about a link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and about our real purpose in Iraq, for political reasons. Arrogance. We proclaimed that we'd be welcomed as liberators. Arrogance. We told the world that we were fighting them "over there" so we don't have to fight them "over here." More arrogance.

Fact: over 500 chemical weapons, WMDs have been recovered since 2003. Fact: there were links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda as Iraq was used as a safe haven for meetings. Fact: Hussein provided financial incentives to Palestinians to produce suicide bombers. Fact: Many Iraqis (Muqtada al Sadr and his death squads excepted) did welcome the U.S. led coalition as liberators. Fact: we are fighting them over there, although they are still attempting to bring it over here, so far they have failed due to the vigilance of our Armed Forces and Intelligence Agencies.

We sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan without the needed armaments and equipment.

Thanks to Congressmen like John F. Kerry who voted against the funding of our troops.

We told soldiers who spilled their blood on foreign soil that, "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want."

Thanks to the Clinton Administration which gutted the military during the '90s, and Congress refusing to pass the funding to rebuild it to Reagan-era levels.

We disbanded the Iraqi army and put 100,000 armed men out of work, further destabilizing the nation.

Whether or not that was a mistake is something open to debate. He may be right. What he fails to mention is that prior to military action, Hussein emptied the prisons of violent criminals, which contributed to the problems of stabilizing the country.

Syl Jones continues to prove he is either ignorant, incapable of grasping the facts, or is a denier of the facts. He ends his rant with the age old "Bush was AWOL" bit during Vietnam, despite the fact that Bush volunteered (and was turned down) for service in Vietnam. Despite the fact that Bush was NEVER AWOL, Jones chooses to push that bit of propaganda just like the best of the Nazi propagandists he references in his bit about what "homeland" means. Cheney and the deferments, like that's a bad thing when Clinton did the same thing, but Bill did it with the intent to avoid service in an unpopular war by running off to college. He continues a Riefenstahlian bit with Vietnam being nothing more than the death of over 50,000 Americans in an attempt to bolster an anti-Communist government and fails to acknoldge the fact that when the Democrats pulled support in the aftermath of Watergate, South Vietnam fell to the communists resulting with the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese, many of whom were later executed. Cambodia also fell to the Khmer Rouge because of our failure to support the anti-communist government of South Vietnam, and some 3 MILLION people were killed.

Syl Jones, you may believe that the U.S. is an arrogant nation. It is for the above that you are now a recipient of the Moonbat Award. Congratulations. Think you can pull your head out of your arrogant…

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Posted by Sqotty at 7:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Sometimes, one never knows where one will find idiocy. Today I found it in the letters to the editor of the Saginaw News.

The White House, Congress and the Supreme Court have a checks and balance system that gives them equal powers. Our forefathers designed it so we no longer could be ruled by a single person like King George III. President George is putting this system to the test and trying to turn back the hands of time.

First of, there three branches of the Federal government were not given equal powers. They were given different powers to serve as checks and balances. Congress was set up with two chambers in order to for legislation and to prevent the Executive branch from wielding too much power. For instance, all tax bills begin in the House of Representatives while the Senate as the power to advise and consent on various Presidential appointments, which helps subdivide the powers within Congress. The President, as the executive, signs into law the various bills that originate and pass through Congress. The Supreme Court is set up to interpret the law and resolve Constitutional conflicts, sometimes even getting it right, but not always (like it blew it with eminent domain). The original purpose of the Senate, lost since the 17th amendment, was to serve as a check against the Federal government seizing too much power from many States.

I also don't like the way they say "President George," associating him King George. This is improper and disrespectful; it shows a certain level of contempt for the President as it is intended to be an insult.

Most of the info the White House has given us in the past has been lies, and now they don't want us to know the truth. This doesn't seem to be a fair check- and-balance system.

Either they are referring to the false claims that Bush lied about the reasons for going into Iraq, or they are referring to Bill Clinton lying about getting Presidentials from Monica Lewinski. In the former, on every claim of lies, from WMDs in Iraq to involvement with various terrorist groups, Bush and the Administration have been proven right, while the chickendoves have been proven to be full of nothing but chickensh*t.

Did the hawks worry about the 3,640-plus military lives lost or the tens of thousands maimed and injured? Did they care about the 900 government contractors killed or the reporters who have lost their lives trying to get us the truth about the war? Some reports have said that President George has killed more Iraqi civilians than Saddam Hussein.

More so than the chickendoves who voted against the $86 billion to provide body armor to the troops in the field. (Need a better term to cover moonbats like Kerry who at least served in the Armed Forces, even though they are wrong on every issue in Washington.)

Although there are some sites that "claim" the war in Iraq has resulted in half a million deaths, it is closer to 60,000. That's still a lot of people, however it is known that Hussein murdered about half a million people during is reign of terror. Further, the vast majority of those killed in Iraq died at the hands of foreign terrorists (al-Qaeda) and sectarian death squads (like those operated by Muqtada al-Sadr), not by U.S. and coalition forces.

In May, Bush said "if the Iraqi government were to say leave, we would leave." Well, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq told us to leave. But why change now? Why would you take the $12 billion spent on the war each month and help the poor or improve education or improve our health care system or save Social Security?

Although the Iraqi government has discussed a U.S. pull-out, the government has not ordered it. We're still there at their invitation.

As for the $12 billion spent each month, if we were to end the war today and save that money, it should be returned to the people who pay it: cut taxes. Sure, helping the poor is a good idea, but it is best accomplished through charitable organizations, not through government handouts which is subject to tremendous waste and abuse. Yes, education needs to be improved, and so far the Democrats have blocked all attempts to reform education and allowing school choice (vouchers) rather than taking a progressive stance and letting Americans choose where and how their children are educated. Competition will force the public schools to improve. Health care is and always will be a hotbed topic. We have the best health care system in the world. Yet the whackos on the left want Hillarycare and force Americans onto a Cuba-like system where only those with power get the best care and everyone else gets third-world treatment. As for saving Social Security, the liberals and Democrats have blocked every attempt to reform the Social Security system and allowing working Americans to control their "contributions" to a system that is doomed to insolvency.

Bush keeps pointing fingers at Iran as a threat, but more than half of the extremists in Iraq are Saudis, not Iranian. Bush and Cheney can't go after their friends that make them money or are militarily strong. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates all have ties to al-Qaida and terrorism, but are kept under the radar by this administration.

Now this guy shows what a Moonbat he truly is. He has bought the Obama "get tough on terrorism" line of invading our allies. Yes, many of the extremists are not from Iran. However, Iran has been supplying them with arms, money and training. Iran has infiltrated into Iraq, and even taken British sailors and Marines hostage. Yes, many of the al-Qaeda terrorists are from Saudi Arabia and other places. Yes, bin Ladin may be hiding out in Pakistan. The government of Pakistan is in a somewhat precarious situation because of the terrorists, the Taliban, and other extremist forces, including domestic groups. If Pakistan were to let the U.S. in to go after bin Ladin (and I bet they would like to) they would have a revolution on their hands and an extremist government would come to power and have immediate access to nuclear weapons.

The governments sited in this editorial are working with us to solve the al-Qaeda problem. They may not be doing as much as we would like them to. But the alternative would be far worse, and would bring further destabilize the region with radical Islam.

The piece concludes with one line:

We just want the truth.

Quite frankly, dude, I don't think you'd know the truth if it jumped up and bit you on the nose.

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Bush Iraq Moonbat

Posted by Sqotty at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The Red Star Tribune editorial staff is off to their usual tricks of biased reporting and scare-mongering. This time in response to the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. The bigger question is: are they reading the same report I am? If so, how can they come to the conclusions that they do?

From the Strib editorial:

The headline finding in the two pages released this week is that Al-Qaida has rebuilt itself during the past two years and now represents perhaps as great a threat to the United States as it did six years ago.

What the NIE report states is:

Al-Qa'ida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the Homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots, while pushing others in extremist Sunni communities to mimic its efforts and to supplement its capabilities. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.

No where in the NIE report does it assert that al-Qaeda poses as great a threat as it did prior to 9/11.

Al-Qaeda has rebuilt its leadership structure and has established a safehaven in Pakistan, but it is a long way from rebuilding itself to pre-9/11 levels as the MSM claims that it has done.

The report also clearly states that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is the "most visible and capable" arm.of al-Qaeda, something that the politicians and the MSM seem to overlook in their ongoing quest to get us out of Iraq.

The NIE also states that al-Qaeda is leveraging contacts from AQI, as well as other terrorist organizations in order to enhance its own capabilities leading up to attacks on the U.S. This strategy makes sense and we should not be surprised by its being used by al-Qaeda.

The NIE also has a few bullet points that should not come as a surprised, and should be kept in the minds of our leadership, both military and legislative, so as to keep the m focused on the ball.

We assess that al-Qa'ida will continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability.

This should also be used to emphasize the need to secure our borders (both North and South) to prevent terrorists from smuggling not only themselves, but the materials needed, but not readily available in the U.S., to construct these kinds of weapons. Specicifcally, we need to prevent them from obtaining or transporting into the U.S. U-235 and/or plutonium, either of which can be used to build small nuclear bombs. And both may soon be available to them courtesy of Iran.

The Strib seems to not get it:

Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, tried to turn that finding into the newest reason why Americans have to stay and fight it out in Iraq. But this is looking-glass logic taken to an absurd extreme. If Bush's misjudgments created the problem -- inviting Al-Qaida to take root in Iraq and putting American troops in its cross hairs -- why should voters trust his judgment to solve it?

Yes, we have to finish what we started in Iraq, and that includes leaving it as a secure and thriving democracy. To do less than that would result in AQI or Iran (or both) taking over Iraq and using it as a terrorist staging ground. It would also provide a protective barrier for Iran from U.S. and Coalition forces should hostilities erupt, as well as providing greater economic capabilities to the terrorist organizations.

Prior to 2003 and the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime, Iraq was already supporting terrorist groups by providing them safehavens for meetings and training grounds, as well as supplying funding and incentives to suicide bombers to attack Israel.

Although Iraq was not directly involved in the attacks of 9/11, it was in bed with al-Qaeda. Iraq was in violation of many U.N. resolutions concerning chemical weapons, and after the invasion over 500 such weapons have been recovered in addition to many tons of precursor materials needed to build more such weapons.

The editorial staff of the Star Tribune proves once again that THEY are the ones living in Wonderland.

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al-Qaeda NIE Iraq War on Terror

Posted by Sqotty at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Froma Harrop's column in the Red Star Tribune is not exactly full of surprises. She rants on about how bush will go down in "ignomy" for "trying to wage an unnecessary war on the cheap," referring to the war in Iraq, and how America is a nation of indebtedness (so, what else is new?).

She starts her piece (I had to search around to find out that Harrop is a woman, born in New York) about how people seem to think that anything can be fixed with a trip to Circuit City.

Alas, retail therapy will not cure what's depressing most people -- which is the growing sense that America is rapidly losing its national greatness. Up ahead, the public sees enormous challenges and huge threats, and a national leadership that doesn't care a fig about the communal big picture. They're witnessing this end-of-empire spectacle, where the powerful grab as much loot as they can before the bottom falls out -- all the while diverting the public's attention with flag-waving and noisy expressions of religiosity.

Actually, if there is such a growing sense that America is losing its greatness, it is because of the rantings of the Leftists here and in Europe who keep stating such is the case because they suffer a severe case of p***s envy. Americans, by and large, live far better than most Europeans. We have, on average, a higher standard of living than most of Europe, marked by larger homes.

As for "national leadership that doesn't care a fig about the communal big picture," she has a point. Many of our elected leaders refuse to address the growing need to reform our social security system via privatization; fix our tax code, especially the Alter native Tax Method which is catching more and more Americans; secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws; but pushing hard to destroy our health care system by socializing it.

But then, she must be referring to G.W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress, especially those who support fixing these problems (in all fairness, Bush is not exactly keen on securing our border or enforcing our immigration laws), and not to the Democrats who don't want Americans to be in control of their own destiny.

The last part of the paragraph really torques me off: It implies that many Americans are easily suckered in by patriotism and religious faith, and that the deceivers are people of wealth and power trying to clean up with ill-gotten riches. Oh, wait, that sounds like Hillary. But, again, that is not who she is referring to.

People are feeling conned as well as poorly led, which is not a pleasant sensation. Small wonder that 70 percent tell pollsters that the country is on the wrong track.

Sounds like she is mistaking Bush for Carter; and what polls is she referring to? What were the questions asked, and who was asked? I've never been the victim of any such polls. I don't think I know any one who has. What are the demographics behind these polls? Was it taken in Castro District of San Francisco? Okay, if it was, it wouldn't surprise me.

Has there ever been a time when 100% of the people believed this country was on the right track on 100% of the issues? Realistically, is such achievable? No!

She goes on to mention American volunteerism, and the willingness of Americans to put their lives on the line for others. At least she got that part right. But what about the rest of her diatribe?

Thus, they feel vaguely insulted when their political establishment hangs low prices and tax cuts so high on the national altar.

Hey, beats the heck out of high prices and even higher taxes, which is what the Lefties are pushing hard to get. They've already achieved higher prices by refusing to allow drilling in ANWR and the out continental shelf, making the U.S. more dependent on foreign oil than it was previously (especially as India's oil consumption as quadrupled in recent years, and even China is soaking up more go-juice than ever before). The Moonbats have also prevented the building of new domestic refinery capacity, further acerbating fuel prices when an existing refinery goes offline (like Kansas, currently).

To the Left, any and all tax cuts are only of benefit to the rich. I guess in their limited brain capacity, I and everyone I know is rich beyond their wildest dreams, rather than being just a bunch of hard working Americans trying to make ends meet.

she gets another point right when she says that Americans are heavily indebted, getting further behind, with the average household carrying $6,600 of credit card debt. The number is slightly surprising as I thought it would be higher.

This next point also gets my goat:

America grew strong on Yankee ingenuity and scientific progress. Yet three Republican candidates for president question the theory of evolution, a building block of modern biology. The Bush administration's hostility to embryonic stem cell research is disappointing, but its efforts to talk down its potential are a disgrace. Add to that its public doubting of the science on global warming, then half-hearted measures to address the threat. Something has changed since America put men on the moon.

First, she implies that the theory of evolution is in fact a scientific law. No one has ever proved that the theory is correct. She further implies that divine creation is bogus, and anyone who believes in creationism must be off of their nut. Admittedly, no one has ever proved that the theory of creationism is a scientific law either. People who accept creationism do so as a matter of faith. What's wrong with that? On the flip side of the coin, people also accept evolution as being fact based on a matter of faith, just not religious faith. Of course it is also possible that evolution is a part of God's plan, making both real, however believing such is also a matter of faith.

On the matter of stem cell research, there is nothing preventing the Left from putting their money where their mouths are and investing their own dollars into embryonic stem cell research. In their limited view, things are only good of government does it for you.

Finally, we get to Global Warming, one of my favorite topics. No one, and I do mean no one, in the political arena, or elsewhere, is denying that there is a current warming trend in the Earth's climate. What is under debate is what is causing the current warming trend. The rabid Moonbats on the left foam at the mouth about it being manmade carbon emissions, while many scientists, for decades now, have been providing research that indicates that it is changes in solar activity, combined with cosmic radiation, as well as variations in the Earth's orbit and tilt, that is causing Global Warming. The lefties trot out their computer models that "proves" their point that it is carbon causing climate change despite the existing body of scientific evidence that proves their models wrong, and ignores the fact that the models are flawed (even the engineers behind them say they are not accurate), can not recreate known historical climate variations, and can be programmed to provide any results that they would like to "prove" their point. These climate computer models are nothing but crystal balls used with a bunch a mumble-jumble to hoodwink Americans (and, indeed, the world) into believing it is man that is causing Global Warming.

Indeed, something has changed since we put men on the moon. The Democratic Party has let itself be taken over by hard-core Leftwing Moonbats bent on destroying all that is good about America. And Froma Harrop is on their side.

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Posted by Sqotty at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I am stunned that the a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.startribune.com/commentary/story/1267828.html">Star Tribune would publish a propaganda piece for a terrorist organization. No, I am not speaking of al-Qaeda, but Hamas. This is sickening. If I were a subscriber to the Red Star Tribune I would cancel my subscription. As it is, I check out the online edition only, therefore no subscription to cancel.

The commentary piece is by a Palestinian named Ahmed Yousef, and he has a lot to say about how it is America's fault that things are lousy for the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian National Authority apparently joins the list of elected governments targeted or toppled over the past century by interventionism: nations that had the courage to take American rhetoric at face value and elect whomever they would. No doubt some in Washington persist in the fiction that the United States is following a "road map" to democracy for Palestinians, just as others believe the Iraq war has been a sincere exercise in nation-building. Neoconservative strategists have miscalculated, however, and Hamas is stronger than ever.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. Although they are not international in nature, they have used terrorist attacks against Israel for decades, suicide bombings have become the weapon of choice for Hamas, murdering children and the elderly. When Israel retaliates by eliminating their terrorist thug leaders, they cry "foul."

Some critics raise the red flag of "Al-Qaida" and say that Hamas and parliament are a stalking horse for Salafi jihadists. I defy them to demonstrate one instance in which Hamas' military structure has struck against any force outside the theater of the occupation. The struggle has always been against the Israeli agenda of ethnic cleansing and conquest. Hamas is a movement of Palestinian liberation and nationalism -- Islamist, yes, but in the sea of contending faiths that is the homeland, where is the sin in loving one's creed?

Al-Qaeda like? Iffy, but certainly a "stalking horse for Salafi jihadists' is a fair assessment, although they are more public than "stalking."

As for the "military structure" of Hamas, if they really were a legitimate military, they would stop targeting school buses and shopping malls and focus on strictly military targets. However, they are nothing but a bunch of cowardly terrorists bent on murdering innocents.

This guy falsely claims that Israel is carrying out an "agenda of ethnic cleansing and conquest." If this were true, there wouldn't be any Palestinians for Israel would have succeeded at that already. Instead, the Palestinian population continues to grow faster than the population of Israel.

Further, it is the Palestinians, through organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and others that have been pushing an agenda of ethnic cleansing against the people of Israel. Israel has had to deal with mortar, rocket, and suicide bombings nearly everyday for the last six or seven years.

Palestinians want, on their terms, the same thing Western societies want: self-determination, modernity, access to markets and their own economic power, and freedom for civil society to evolve. Those who warn of "failed states" and "Hamastan" as a breeding ground for terrorism forget where blame for failure belongs -- at the feet of the American administration, which has chosen to isolate the elected government.

The Palestinian people could have achieved their goals of self-determination, etc. decades ago. They could even achieve such today, immediately, if they had the leadership and the will to live in peace with their neighbors. However, the majority has been unwilling to accept a two-state solution, and many who claim they support such, are merely talking out of the sides of their mouth. This includes Hamas.

And they blame us for their problems, when it is clearly something they are in total control to achieve, or, as they have chosen, flush down the toilet.

The Bush administration never intended to honor the outcome of fair and transparent elections in the occupied territories. The embargo, designed to punish the electorate for its choice, was the first step toward crushing new democratic institutions. The second has been to find collaborators for the American agenda and to supply them with advisers, funds and weapons for their campaign of destabilization. The final step will be to truncate Gaza from any proposed Palestinian state and make it a de facto prison for all "undesirable" aspects of Palestinian nationalism. This will culminate in provocations designed to trigger a military response from Israel, which will "justify" a war on Gazans. This would be tragic for all concerned, and the international community, especially the Arab League, must not allow such an outcome.

The U.S. rightfully cut of support of the Palestinian Authority as it is run by a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of a close ally, Israel. The American people should not be expected to have their tax dollars, money that I work hard to earn, handed over to a pack of murdering thugs. If the Palestinian people had chosen to elect leaders instead of terrorists, things would be different. And that is the bottom line: Palestinians need leaders, real leaders, who are willing to step up to the plate and actually lead their people to peace and prosperity, rather than down the road of terrorism and destruction.

I guess I should not be surprised that the Red Star Tribune would publish this piece of tripe. The editorial staff of the Red Star Tribune, and other newspapers across the country seem to think that terrorists are the good guys, while America is the bad guy. They must be deranges.

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I have yet to figure out how the editorial staff at the Red Star Tribune could be so wrong about things so often. Today's installment form the Paper of Surrender concern's former President jimmy Carter's statement about the Bush administration being "the worst in history." At least in regards to foreign policy and standing in the world community. This coming from a one-time loser who had the absolute worst administration, whose policies, both foreign and domestic, were such failures that he was ousted after four overly-long years in office.

A little comparison is in order.

During the Carter years, the U.S. economy stagnated under double-digit inflation. At that time, interest rates, both on loans and on deposits were sky high. The two are directly related and tightly intertwined. The more expensive it is to borrow money, the higher resulting interest rates.

Carter hamstrung the nuclear energy industry by pushing an agenda that resulted in laws being passed that eliminated the industry from being able to reprocess spent fuel rods. This resulted in the mess we are in today where power plants are stuck stockpiling the radioactive waste instead of shipping them to other reactors that could use the waste to generate more energy.

He also reinstated draft registration, which has set the stage for the possibility for implementing a draft, eliminating the all-volunteer military and setting it back to the Vietnam era and forced conscription of recruits. Bad idea.

Perhaps Carter's biggest failure is in regards to Iran. He failed to support one of our closest allies in the Middle East - the Shah of Iran. When the Shah was deposed and replaced by radical Islamists, Iran became an anti-Western totalitarian theocracy. The fall of Iran was followed by the embassy hostage crisis which Carter failed to resolve due to his ineptitude.

President Bush, on the other hand, inherited from his predecessor, an economic recession and failed economy. The economy continued to flounder and sink after terrorists struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands of people and causing massive destruction.

Under Bush, America responded to the terrorist attacks by invading Afghanistan and removing the repressive Taliban regime, co-sponsors and protectors of al-Qaeda, perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.

The American economy prospered under a series of tax cuts, which also resulted in increased tax revenues. Unemployment fell to lows not seen since before the .COM bubble, and remains low even today.

The Bush Administration correctly perceived that Saddam Hussein was a threat to stability in that region, as well as being a co-sponsor of terror. Iraq had been used as a safe haven for terrorists to meet and plan. Hussein also had chemical weapons that he continued to hide from the Dunsels sent by the United Nations to inspect. Hussein was also directly responsible for the murder of over 500,000 Iraqis during his rule. Kidnappings, rape and torture were the rule of the day. Iraq routinely fired on U.S. and other allied aircraft that were patrolling the skies in accordance to the Gulf War cease fire agreement.

It is clear to me that given the historical facts, it is the Carter Administration that is "the worst in history."

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Bush Carter Iraq Dubya Foreign Policy

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It looks as though the Star Tribune is changing its name to the Surrender Tribune, as it rails against the probable capitulation by the Democrats in Congress on setting conditions of surrender to terrorists in regards to funding our Armed Forces currently operating in Iraq. So far, the attempts made by the Party of Surrender to force a timeline for withdrawal, as been vetoed, and they do not have the support to over ride the vetoes.

From the Strib:

What a joke the Democratic majority in Congress risks becoming. On Tuesday, as nine more American soldiers were dying in President Bush's failed Iraq war, the Democrats were caving to Bush and agreed to pass a supplemental war appropriation with no meaningful strings attached. Will the challenge to Bush's Iraq policy mandated powerfully by last fall's congressional election come to such a pitiful, mewing end? It should not.

Although things have not gone anywhere near as well in Iraq as any of us would like, there are a number of reasons why this is so, beginning with the hard-left, including John Kerry, voting against the $86 Billion in funding for equipment the troops on the ground needed. Especially body armor.

The hard-left Democrats, in their rush to pull our troops from Iraq are short-sighted, and only prove that they are willing to do anything to discredit President Bush, even if it means handing Iraq over to terrorists and thugs.

Things could have gone better in Iraq. We all know this. We should never have trusted and negotiated with Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of an armed militia that has been fueling sectarian violence since 2004. 20-20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't mean squat in the long run, and we don't have a time machine capable of sending people back to correct the mistakes.

As for having received a "mandate" in 2006, that is hardly the case. If they had received such a "mandate" from the American people, there would be no problem in achieving the votes needed to override a presidential veto.

Members of Congress have done the job the American people expected of them. They've given Bush the war money he needs, but he rejected it. The ball is in his court. He can accept a timeline for ending American involvement in the war, or he will get no funding, and the Pentagon can begin withdrawing from Iraq sooner rather than later. The American people simply will not agree to continue funding a war without end.

Actually, this is half-true. They've voted to grant the funding only with conditions that UNCONSTITUTIONALLY shifts power away from the executive to the legislative branches. Under our Constitution there is only one Commander-in-chief - the President.

Congress is expected to provide the funding that will adequately equip our troops to continue to do the job that is needed to assist our fledgling ally in securing liberty for its people. If we withdraw before that is accomplished, then it will send a signal to Muqtada al-Sadr, al-Qaeda and the terrorist networks, and the Mullahs of Iran that Iraq is now theirs for the taking. And the sacrifice our troops of made will be in vain.

If the hard-left continues to fail to provide the funding that will provide the equipment that will improve our troops ability to survive in the hostile environment, including the new v-shaped hauled combat vehicles that have proven more resilient at protecting our troops than the more vulnerable Hummer.

To claim that legislation that authorizes funding with a timetable for surrender, I mean withdrawal is the same as saying that there will be no funding provided.

Failure to properly equip our troops in the field the latest and best technology for them to accomplish their mission on the part of Congress means that more of our precious troops lives will be in greater risk. Their blood will be on the hands of the hard-left controlling Congress for their continued refusal to provide them with that which they need, and their mouthpieces in the media, including the Star Tribune.

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Iraq War on Terror al-Qaeda Muqtada al-Sadr Star Tribune

Posted by Sqotty at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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According to Matthew Gross on the John Edwards Blog, Fox News is not giving Edwards a "fair and balanced" coverage. Nor are they expected to give any candidate that's a Democrat a fair shake. As if CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, or any other arm of the DNC, I mean, Main stream Media, gives a Republican candidate a fair shake. The facts on the matter are clear. Fox News is far more balanced when it comes to the political arena than any other news outlet.

Here's a sample of what Gross wrote on the subject:

You may have heard by now that John Edwards was the first candidate to officially say no to the Fox News debate in Nevada -- and because of the hard work of so many grassroots and netroots Democrats, news is breaking tonight that Fox is out.

Fox has already started striking backat John for saying no. (There's a surprise - Fox attacking a Democrat.) Last night, Roger Ailes - the life-long Republican operative who is now Chairman of Fox News Channel - said that any candidate "who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake" and "is impeding freedom of speech and free press."

And John's not their only target. Tonight Fox News Vice President David Rhodes is telling news organizations not to get involved in the Nevada Democratic Caucus because of "radical fringe" groups - meaning grassroots Democrats (that would be you) - who objected to Fox's long history of spreading Republican propaganda at the expense of Democratic leaders.

The whole right-wing is getting in on the attack; the Drudge Report is blaring the headline: "War! Dems Pull Out of Fox News Debate."

Enough is enough. It's time to send a clear message to Fox News and their allies that their right-wing talking points and temper tantrums won't go unchallenged anymore - when it comes to what Democrats should do in the Democratic primary, we'll decide - no matter what they report.

The so called grassroots and netroots of the Democrats are radical groups like MoveOn, which is about as far left as you can get, and has a history of posting repugnant comparisons of President Bush to Hitler. Many of them are about as anti-American as you can get.

What I mean by anti-American is that they do not support the basic principles on which this great nation was founded: liberty, personal responsibility, self-government. What they push is a reliance on, and expansion of, government; controlling population through social programs and banning free will. They do not want Americans to have a choice on many issues (except for abortion, which is contrary to the Declaration of Independence guarantee of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happinesss").

Whether or not Ailes of Fox news is accurately quoted is something I don't know. I would like to see the entire film clip so I can see the context.

As for the Nevada debate, Edwards has a right to not attend. He's being pretty short-sighted, but, in a free country, that is his prerogative. It's no biggie to me.

What Gross then writes is that so-called "temper tantrums" by the supposed "right-wing" is not okay and will not be unchallenged. However, left-wing temper tantrums are perfectly okay. Go figure.

One thing is certain, it's going to be one heckuva campaign, and a long one at that.

Tags:

John Edwards Fox News

Posted by Sqotty at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Gotta love the Liberal-Left, especially the media types, and how they use words to twist things to get their agenda across. The current big example is the controversial spanking ban being floated in my former home state of California. The ban is being pushed by Leftist Assemblyman Sally Lieber, and in interviews used beating, abusing, and hitting to be an interchangeable word with spanking. The difference is huge.

When a person hits someone, it is with the intent to do bodily injury. When one spanks a child, it is to get the message across that their behavior is unacceptable, but not do injury. If spanking is used, it should be when all other methods of disciplining a child has failed.

Here's a bit from the Blue Streak:

Occasional spanking may not hurt kids, the studies find, but I've yet to meet or read a child psychiatrist who recommends it as a first resort in raising kids. If you can't hit your wife, your friends, even your pets, why should you be able to hit babies?

This quote strikes another chord, using babies instead of children, as well has substituting the word hit for spank. It is never okay to strike a baby. As a parent, I have serious problems with anyone who believes striking an infant in any way for any reason as being acceptable. Babies are too young to understand if a parent finds their behavior unacceptable. Besides, their world consists of eat, sleep, poop, and exploring their new surroundings.

Children, on the other hand, are capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong, and need to be taught those differences, and disciplined when they break the rules. However, the difference between spanking a child that is misbehaving and beating a child to inflict injury is huge. Laws are already inplace to protect children from abuse. However, when you make it a criminal offense to spank a child, you take away one of the most important tools a parent has to discipline a child.

Don't get me wrong here, I don't think spanking should be used as a primary tool, but as a tool to discipline when all else fails. It should never be done with the intent to inflict physical harm. God willing, I hope and pray to never have to use such a tactic. It took some pretty serious misbehavior on my part to warrant a spanking growing up, and I did get spanked a couple of times, and I earned those times. But I was never hit or beaten.

Tags:

Sally Lieber California Spanking Ban

Posted by Sqotty at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Looks like the Red Star Tribune is living up to its name once again, this time taking the side of Communist China after that country successfully destroyed one of its weather satellites as a show of force, the old "we can knock out satellites, too." In its editorial today The Red Star Tribune states:

China's apparent success in felling a weather satellite with a missile presents a serious diplomatic and defense challenge to the United States. As worrying as the technical ability it required (not great; the U.S. ability to knock down satellites dates to 1985) are the intentions China signaled: It aims to be a force in missile defense and military uses of space. Washington, it seems, has been hanged with its own space weaponry rope. Perhaps now it will take seriously China's long-standing desires for international talks on military issues involving space.

Bush administration cries of foul and protests decrying China's militarization of space reek of hypocrisy. From the early days of the first Reagan administration, hawks in the Republican establishment have pursued dreams of space-based weapons systems with nary a concern over what anyone or any nation might think. Many others have always believed that anything even hinting at military use of space was a thoroughly bad idea. Blowing up satellites is a particularly bad idea, as the United States and Russia discovered decades ago, because it creates a great deal of space debris that puts other space vehicles at risk.

True, blowing up satellites does create debris fields that may be hazardous to other low-Earth orbit satellites. There is, however, a big difference between the intentions of the U.S. and those of Communist China. China has on many occasions, including as recently as 2006, threatened the use of nuclear weapons against the United States, particularly where our continued support of an independent Taiwan is concerned. The only reason for the Communist Chinese to pursue the development of satellite killers is to neutralize U.S. space-based missile defense systems (SDI).

China is only interested in terminating the U.S. ability to stop their nuclear missiles from striking their targets. This will give them a strategic advantage, militarily, over the United States. No SDI, no stopping incoming nukes, bye-bye USA.

Further, trusting Communist Dictators, or any dictator for that matter, to keep their word is foolish. Eisenhower trusted the Soviets to cease nuclear weapons development in the '50s, and that was proved to be trust misplaced, as the Soviets continued development, using the time bought through deceit to close the nuclear weapons gap that then favored the USA.

In the 1990s, former President Carter brokered the deal with North Korea that the Clintons signed off on, that handed nuclear technology to Kim Jong Il on the condition that Communist North Korea would cease all nuclear weapons programs. Again, we have learned that that was trust misplaced as they now have several nuclear weapons. Thanks to Democrats like Carter and the Clintons.

Iran claims to only be developing the refinement of nuclear materials for peaceful uses, yet they continue to call for the destruction of Israel, and could easily become the supplier of uranium 235 to al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups who would trade their lives to kill millions with a few well placed nukes. And that is a very easy thing to do, once they have a supplier of uranium 235, or plutonium.

Why is it, given this history, the Liberal Media and the Liberal-Left that today controls what was once a great political party, think the United States is the bullying bad guy, and that these dictatorships, who have murdered thousands, and in the case of China, millions, of their own people?

The editorial has more:

The Bush administration was then considering abrogating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia because it was impinging on administration plans for its "Star Wars" programs. Bolton was asked: While neither China nor India is party to the ABM treaty, both nations' nuclear postures are predicated on the treaty's existence. Given that, shouldn't their concerns be considered before the United States unilaterally abrogates the treaty?

His answer dripped scorn, for the question and for its implication that perhaps the United States should consider what others think of U.S. actions. Well, he said, I guess we should just let foreign nations determine U.S. foreign policy.

Actually, the U.S. did not abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. That treaty was with the Soviet Union, and when it finally ended up on the trash heap of history where it belonged, all treaties with the Soviet Union also ended.

As for China, or India for that matter (why didn't they mention Pakistan as well?), if they have "concerns" about a treaty between the U.S. and a country that no longer exists, why should it be considered as more important than U.S. concerns? Bolton's response is classic, and why I believe it is a disgrace that the Democrats in the Senate blocked his appointment to the United Nations. There is little doubt that the Liberal-Left and the Main Stream Media would prefer the United States defer all foreign policy (and in many cases, doemstic policy as well) to the foreign nations such as China, North Korea and Iran, or, better still, to the United Nations.

To the Red Star Tribune and the rest of the Liberal-Left controlled media, it is always the U.S. that is at fault when there are confrontations with other nations. They trust murdering dictators more than they trust our own leaders.

Tags:

SDI China ABMT Foreign Policy

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Interesting editorial from the Red Star Tribune on how Democrats are now being blamed for the "mess" in Iraq.

A new, pernicious line of argument is taking hold in Washington that should be clunked in the head until it dies. It holds that the Democrats in Congress are to blame for the mess in Iraq because they have offered no alternative around which Americans can rally, and that this is because they and their friends in the antiwar community want the United States to fail.

I believe it is correct to say that Democrats and their Liberal, anti-war, puppeteers are to blame, at least in part, the reasoning to do so is not due to reasons outlined in the editorial, but due to their continuous calls for withdrawing from Iraq, references to Iraq as being "another Vietnam," and various types of rhetoric, such as "No war for oil" and "Bush lied, people died." Instead of supporting the mission of our troops in Iraq, they continue to thwart the administration's plans that may bring victory, choosing to use Iraq as a political hockey puck in order to achieve their own politcal gain (which, as shown in the 2006 elections, had some impact on the composition of the new Congress).

It also doesn't help that our involvement in Iraq, as during our operations in Vietnam, garnered anti-war protests, and liberal celebrities using their stardom to convey an anti-war message. This emboldens the terrorists and sectarian death squads operating in Iraq. It also sends a signal to Iraq's neighbors, Syria and Iran, giving them a "green light" to continue to supply arms, money, and manpower to the anti-government forces operating in Iraq.

This is not Vietnam, nor should this war be compared to that war. Except for the home ground, where the media, the leftist anti-war zealots, and Liberal Democrats push for abandoning the fledgling democracy in Iraq before it has a chance to set down roots and anchor itself deep enough to overcome the challenges that terrorists and sectarian death squads pose.

Here is another fine example of the real reason we are having such troubles achieving victory in Iraq:

Underlying this reasoning is a bleak recognition that Bush's latest gambit, built around the so-called surge, won't work, coupled with some magical thinking: that indeed a formula exists which could reverse American fortunes and bring the Iraq expedition to a successful conclusion. But, the argument goes, Democrats have failed to embrace it, so this mess is their fault.

Lots of small, inconvenient facts are jettisoned to make this argument -- such as the growing number of Republicans who are joining their Democratic colleagues in opposition to the war. But the central, painful truth that gets ignored is this: Nothing can reverse American fortunes in Iraq. The United States already has failed. Bush failed. It's over. All that remains is working through the best way to get American troops out of Iraq.

There is a plan which can accomplish that, put forward by the Iraq Study Group (ISG). It entails shifting from a military to a political and diplomatic emphasis, strengthening efforts to train Iraqi troops and beginning the withdrawal of American combat forces. We wish the Democrats would use the power of the purse to force Bush's acceptance of the ISG approach. The political risk is that they would then be accused of undermining the troops. But that's a risk worth taking, and the Democrats have a good retort: They weren't the ones who put the troops in Iraq in the first place, in inadequate numbers with inadequate resources (remember the missing armor?). It now falls to the Democrats to keep the troops safe by the only effective way possible: getting them out of Iraq.

The understanding I have (and I could be mistaken) is that the "surge" was part of the plan put forth by the ISG. With five brigades being added to the area surrounding Baghdad, the hottest spot in Iraq, effectively doubling the number of "boots on the ground," it may be possible to finally securing that part of the country. That is the key to achieving victory in Iraq. Secure the capital and its immediate surroundings, and you have the basis to secure the rest of the country, and send a message to Iraq's enemies, most notably Iran, that their continued interference with Iraq will not be tolerated.

It is also false to say that the Democrats were not "the ones to put troops in Iraq in the first place." They all (with maybe one or two exceptions) voted in favor of liberating Iraq. Liberating Iraq was the right thing to do then, and it is the right thing to do today.

One thing the editorial does get right is that the bulk of Democrats never embraced the plan. The only reason for that is because it was put forth by President Bush, and not one of their own. I have no doubt that if it we had elected Gore in 2000 (and no, the election was not stolen from him), they (the Democrats in congress) would have rallied behind any plan he set forth. Of course, that would most likely be some superficial aerial bombing of Afghanistan with little or no effect on al-Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein would be alive and well, and continuing to butcher Iraq's that oppose him.

As for the "missing armor," that was the fault of Democrats voting against funding the necessary equipment for the troops in the field. Remember John Kerry's "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against." A sizable part of that was for body armor and other equipment for the troops serving in Iraq. It is Congress that controls the purse strings of government, and if the troops were in Iraq with insufficient equipment, it is because Congress failed to provide the funding necessary to assure that the troops were properly equipped.

Somehow, I am not surprised by the extreme bias presented by the Red Star Tribune. The Main Stream Media has been, for some time now, nothing more than the propaganda arm for the left-wing of the Democratic party. In their opinion, Democrats can do no wrong and Republicans can do nothing right. Yeesh!

Tags:

Iraq Study Group Iraq Vietnam War On Terror Kerry

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Here's a good one from the Red Star Tribune by Aggergaard. He is complaining that the recent sale of the Strib, along with earlier sales of the Pioneer Press has had a dramatic impact, bringing job uncertainty to the newsroom.

The sales remind us that local journalism is about money. But for those who work in local journalism, the industry also is about uncertainty and (lack of) job security. Their plight should concern us all, and we should ready ourselves to do something about it.

Welcome to the ranks of the real world. It's about time, too. Most working Americans constantly have to worry about the security of their own job. Layoffs are a "threat" that lingers throughout most industries, especially in the high tech field in which I am employed.

The trick to surviving and overcoming a layoff is keeping job skills fresh and being adaptable. Not difficult to do in high tech, but some industries are less adaptable than others, like airplane mechanics and pilots (as well as others in the airline industry). There are only so many jobs in that field, and if a major employer goes under, or has to reduce its workforce, that results in a glut on the job market for that particular field.

The same is true with journalism, although there are other avenues open to those who are adaptable, like copy writing for advertisers, or writing tech manuals, etc. Those jobs don't have the same caché as writing for a newspaper. There is also the possibility in going into a completely different field as Aggergaard did (he went to Law School).

After he rants on for a few paragraphs about where "news" comes from and the demise of the print media (news papers) he comes up with these gems:

Local newspaper employees earn decent wages, particularly when compared with those who work in smaller news markets. They have health insurance, and many have 401(k)s. But their content is used, if not stolen, by other media whose workers are not paid as well, if at all. The irony is that those "new" media increasingly gain the public's trust while Mainstream Media lose both trust and their workforce.

Sure, the big papers pay well, especially compared to the small town papers that publish once or twice a week. They have a much larger market. As for losing trust to the New Media (I.E. the Internet and bloggers), they have to clean up their own backyard first, and not just in the print media like the guy from the New York times who was caught not only plagerizing, but making up facts to fit his stories (good gravy, anybody remember his name?). It also has to happen with televised news casters, like Dan Ra^ther, who use forged memos to justify a political position and create a controversy over something that never happened. It was a blogger, Little Green Footballs, that exposed that one, and brought us Ra^thergate during the 2004 election cycle.

When things like this take place on a recurring basis, it is no wonder that people lose their trust in the Main Stream Media. Then people turn to products that they can trust.

Mainstream Media's demise is welcomed by some, particularly those who find it biased and accordingly rely on blogs and other less-filtered media to define their truths. I am a blogger too, but I would never suggest that a blog, or at least my blog, should be a primary place for information. I do not have time to be a true journalist anymore because I'm too busy trying to make a living.

What he is saying here is that it's the bloggers fault that Main Stream Media is losing it's credibility and market, not the fact that news papers and other elements of the MSM are failing to deliver high quality and accurate (and, most importantly, UNBIASED) reporting.

He blames bloggers, but, in fact, bloggers are not to blame. If the MSM wants to stay viable (and it should) it needs to foster a culture of adaptability, and clean up its backyard. The role of newspapers is to report the facts, NOT set an agenda and steer the public discourse, which is what it so desires to do.

I will give Aggergaard one point. One should not get all of their news from bloggers. Most are not into reporting the news, but analyzing and commenting on it. Occasionaly reporting on events that they witness. Sometimes even exposing the faults, more frequently the bias, that infects newspaper journalism.

Posted by Sqotty at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Sometimes it is hard to determine whose side the editors of the Red Star Tribune are on. Ours or our enemies. The latest from them is a piece denouncing the probability that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and a demand that we (America) sees proof before jumping to conclusions. It also sights the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as reason to accept Iran's claim of peaceful use of nuclear materials. North Korea was also a signatory of the NPT (withdrew in April 2003), and we all know what's going on over there.

President Iwannajihad of Iran has frequently claimed, just as Kim Jong-il, that all they are doing is working towards the peaceful development of nuclear materials for power generation. President Iwannajihad, and others in Iran, has frequently called for the total destruction of Israel, a goal that can only be achieved through the use of nuclear arms.

The Red Star Tribune editorial has described Iran as an "international troublemaker." This is too weak a word, as Iran, under the control of a Islamic Theocracy, has previously committed an act of war against the United States by invading our Embassy (remember, under international law, embassies are considered sovereign territory for the country whose embassy that is), has repeatedly threatened to cut off oil shipments from the Persian Gulf, and, currently, is supplying arms, munitions, money and personnel to terrorist groups operating in Iraq.

Iran is closing in on being able to provide weapons grade materials to terrorist organizations. Iran does not need to develop a bomb themselves since all they have to do is provide the most important (and hardest to acquire) component, uranium-235 and/or plutonium, to al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other groups who will happily do the deed themselves. And it doesn't take all that much nuclear material to get a sizeable bang for your buck.

Tags:

Iran
Nuclear+Weapons
Nuclear+Nonproliferation+Treaty
North+Korea

Posted by Sqotty at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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The Red Star Tribune is siding with the zealots on the left and John Hopkins inflated numbers as to how many people have died in Iraq. From the Red Star Tribune's editorial page:

Of the 655,000 deaths the Johns Hopkins researchers calculated in their extrapolation from the sample, about 601,000 resulted directly from violence and about 54,000 from a generally deteriorating health and environmental climate in Iraq. The researchers estimated that American forces were responsible for almost one-third of the deaths. (emphases added)

The piece states that the methods used are the same as used by the U.S. Census and various survey agencies. This means they have not actually verified their data, only surveyed some people and extrapolated the data to get the desired results.

Bear in mind that census data is often inaccurate and riddled with bad or duplicate data. I know this, as I've been able to identify an ancestor as appearing twice on the 1880 census. It was a common practice to put in duplicate data and erroneous data back then as census takers were by the household listed. And people frequently gave bad information as they liked their privacy.

Now we have a bunch of yo-yo's using the same kind of methods, getting only sample data, and then manipulating the data to get such horrendous numbers (if they were indeed accurate, they would be horrendous) in order to push their own political agenda.

If the data used is accurate, then where are all of the bodies?

If, and I do mean IF, the United States were truly responsible for deaths in these kinds of numbers, it would not be possible to hide these bodies, even if we were the kind of country to do so (which we are NOT!). That's something on the order of 200,000 people per year and somewhere around 500 people per day, EVERY SINGLE DAY!

Note that nowhere is it stated that John Hopkins or any of these other so called "experts" has actually attempted to validate the results of their "survey's" by actually identifying and counting the bodies.

This is not to say that large numbers of people have not died in Iraq. There has been, and mostly as a result of sectarian violence or terrorist attacks. Then there are those killed by Iraqi, U.S. and Coalition Forces in the defense of Iraqi freedom.

I don't know what the numbers are, and am not sure who does, and I would not be surprised if it is in the range of 100,000 killed. But when I read a statement that over 655,000 people are CALCULATED to have died based on sample data and surveys, one has gotta ask: where's the bodies? If anybody has the raw data available, please, point me to it as I'd like to see it.

Tags:

Iraq
War on Terror

Posted by Sqotty at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Once again, The Red Star Tribune shows its political bias, this time in their editorial, "October's Toll: 103."

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., spoke at the National Press Club last week on Republican Senate prospects in the coming election; she heads the GOP's Senate campaign committee. On Iraq, she warned, ominously, that if the United States withdraws now, Iran and Syria will move into Iraq.

So what, we would have asked, is your point? The U.S. misadventure in Iraq has been so thoroughly botched by the Bush administration that, sooner or later, Iran and Syria most likely will get to involve themselves in Iraq no matter what. How does "staying the course" accomplish anything beyond getting more Americans, and Iraqis, killed?

Although the Red Star Tribune has a point when it says that our staying in Iraq will result in more American soldiers being killed by terrorists, one has to challenge their claim that pulling out will result in fewer Iraqi's being killed. At least, that's how that last sentence read...if staying the course will get more Iraqi's killed, then, by extension, withdrawing immediately, should reduce the number of Iraqi's killed. Right?

Wrong!

There is no doubt that the only thing preventing an all out civil war, with one side being the al-Qaeda terrorists, another being the sectarian death squads, leaving the fledgling democracy of Iraq in stuck in the middle.

The terrorists want a Muslim state governed by Sharia Law. Iraq is a place where they believe they can achieve this goal if the Coalition disolves and the U.S. pulls out of Iraq.

Moreover, follow the thought a bit further: Who says other countries in the region would let Syria and Iran, or anyone else, turn Iraq into a threatening puppet state? Surely Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and a few others would have something to say about that.

The terrorists are made up of Muslims from many nations, not limited to indigenous thugs, but Jordanians, like the late al-Zarqawi, as well as Egyptians, Syrians, Palestininas. and let's not forget about those Iranians that keep sneaking across the border to muck up the works, and supplying the terrorists with weapons. Terrorists have also been streaming across the border from Syria, which has been serving as a jumping off point, into Iraq.

There is no doubt that Syria would love to have Iraq as a puppet state, especially with those rich oil fields. Iran sees it as a brother in Islam, that should adopt Sharia.

Regardless of whether you believe the War in Iraq is/was just is no longer the issue. The issue is whether or not we want to help the majority of Iraqi's achieve a Democratic form of self-government, or abandon them to the terrorists and the death squads, who will set Bagdad in flames, and let the streets run red with the blood of millions who the terrorists consider to be kafirs.

It is obvious to me that the editorial board at the Red Star Tribune has not red The Looming Tower. They should, as then they would have a clearer understanding of what is going on in the Middle East.

Tags:

Iraq
Iran
Syria
al-Qaeda

Posted by Sqotty at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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If you are a Christian running for office in Minnesota as a Republican, watch out! The religious bigots in the DFL and their lap-dog supporters in the media, are out to roast you.

Religious persecution against Christians is nothing new. This country was founded by Christians who fled persecution in Europe, coming to the New World where they could practice their beliefs unmolested.

Lutherans were especially persecuted during the Reformation, including priests and other Reformers who burned alive during the early part of the 16th Century.

I thought it was pretty bad in California, where I lived most of my life, where there were people who would look down at you if you professed any inclination to practicing Christianity.

Here in Minnesota, I expected better. Unfortunately, this is in the Red Star Tribune:

Kessler asked: "The Minneapolis-based Star Tribune reports ... that the church you belong to is affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod which, it says, regards the Roman Catholic pope as the antichrist. Is this true? Do you share the views of your church? And, why should any Catholic in the Sixth District vote for you if it is true?"

Bachmann replied, "That's a false statement. ... It's abhorrent, religious bigotry. I love Catholics, I'm a Christian, and my church does not believe that the pope is the antichrist. That's absolutely false. ... I welcome and have as part of our family many Catholic members as well."

Here we have a Republican candidate for Congress being questioned about her religious views, and the views of the church she belongs to. Yet the only outrage being expressed is by people on the political right.

Over the campaign season, Keith Ellison, a Muslim and former member of the racist Nation of Islam and close associate of Louis Farrakhan, a known racist, has come under fire for those associations. Yet, the "defenders of truth" known as the main stream media and the DFL, decried challenges to Ellison's affiliations, as being religious bigotry. Never mined the fact that Ellison's religious beliefs NEVER came under fire. Only his affiliations with the KKK-like organization, Nation of Islam, and its leaders.

From Wikipedia:

The Nation of Islam teaches that Black people were the original humans. Louis Farrakhan has stated that "White people are potential humans…they haven't evolved yet."

Unlike challenges to Ellison and his affiliation with known racists, this is pure religious bigotry of the worst sort. Where is the Wetterling Campaign on this gross assault on someone's religious beliefs? Aside from denying involvement, she is nowhere to be seen.

Lesson to be learned: if you are a Democrat, you can be as racist as you want, freely affiliate with racist organizations like Ellison with the Nation of Islam and Robert Byrd and the KKK; but if you are a practicing Christian and a Republican, watch out! They'll persecute you for your beliefs, or for the doctrine of your church puts out.

Tags:

Michele Bachmann
Patty Wetterling
Keith Ellison
Nation of Islam

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More of the things you won't see in the Main Stream Media. Off of the Multi-National Force - Iraq site:

CAMP AL ASAD, Iraq (Aug. 30, 2006) - U.S. Marines detained 16 confirmed insurgents and 24 suspected insurgents yesterday throughout the Haditha Triad region in western Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

Marines from the Hawaii-based 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, known as "America's Battalion," captured the known and suspected insurgents during both routine and pre-planned counterinsurgency operations in the "Triad" region.

Some of the insurgents captured are known for intimidating the local populace, attacking Coalition and Iraqi forces, and providing logistical support to local insurgents. In one captured insurgent's home, a Marine patrol discovered various materials used to construct improvised explosive devices (IEDs), an AK-47 assault rifle with multiple round cartridges and binoculars.

Furthermore, a U.S scout sniper team fired upon anti-Iraqi forces, which were firing upon a Marine M1A1 tank on a road in Haditha. Two of the insurgents were killed; one was critically wounded and medically evacuated to a U.S. military medical facility for treatment. This follows a day after a separate scout sniper engagement which resulted in one insurgent being killed while digging a hole in a spot where numerous IEDs have recently been discovered or detonated.

"The Battalion's successes over the last several days are really the result of the anti-Iraqi forces conducting attacks out of desperation. They see the growing capability of the Iraqi Army and recent fielding of the Iraqi Police as the clear beginning to the end of their influence in the Triad," said Lt. Col. Norm Cooling, commanding officer of 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.

Okay, the reason we won't see this is that the MSM only wants to print the BAD News, like the death of American soldiers, or the car bombings that kill and injure scores of innocent Iraqis.

The Multi-Nation Force - Iraq site is a good source of up to date happenings in Iraq.

Other news reported there include an update on the Iraqi military readying to take on more command and control responsibility for their country and the Army Corps of Engineers has completed a project in Diyala providing electricity to the 63,000 residents there. Good stuff to read.

Tags:

Main Stream Media
Iraq
War on Terror

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The Red Star Tribune is at it again, yet another attack on the Bush Administration and Republicans in Genera, this time over the threat of Nuclear Weapons in the hands of the Ayatollahs running the totalitarian government of Iran.

Stop us if you've heard this one: The Bush administration and Republicans in Congress believe, or want to believe, that a serious nuclear threat to the United States is developing in the Middle East. To make that case, they need help from U.S. intelligence agencies. And those agencies' analysts don't believe the threat is nearly as worrisome as the Bush clan does. So the Republicans begin beating up on the intelligence types, trying to force them to change their view. Over at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld sets up his own separate group to produce independent analysis of the threat. The race is on to document a dire nuclear threat that probably doesn't exist.

Stop, you say; we're talking about events leading to the war in Iraq.

Well, we could be, but we're not. This time it's Iran. The administration wants proof that its tough-guy approach to the Persian state is justified, but the pros in intelligence analysis aren't having any of it. Iran, they say, doesn't have the capability to produce nuclear weapons now and probably won't have for another five to 10 years.

That's not very convenient for the Bush administration, because today Iran will run out the clock on a U.N. Security Council resolution requiring that it stop its nuclear weapons programs -- mainly uranium enrichment. Not only did Iran not comply, it went out of its way to defy symbolically the Security Council: It began a new enrichment effort -- of a small amount of uranium to a low-enrichment level not suitable for weapons.

We know that Iran is enriching Uranium, the process to separate Uranium 235 from Uranium 238. Iran has stated on numerous occasions that it wishes to obliterate Israel from the face of the Earth. This will take nuclear weapons. The zealots running Iran, Syria and the Palestinian Authority, as well as their supporters and the various terrorist organizations they have fostered, do not care what this will cost in regards to human life, including their own lives. We know that al-Qaeda in particular wishes to get its hands on nuclear weapons.

How long will it be before they can acquire what they need to carry out an attack on New York or Tel-Aviv with nuclear bombs? Less than five years, probably, less than ten years, certainly.

And we know that they have willing zealots fully prepared to die carrying out such missions.

And it isn't that hard to do, especially since numerous articles are floating around in books, magazines and the Internet on just how to do it.

The editorial also ignores the fact that North Korea, thanks to former President Jimmy Carter and the Clinton Administration now has several nuclear weapons. What is preventing them from brokering a deal with al-Qaeda, supplying them with sufficient quantities of U-235 or, assuming they are moving in that direction, Pu-239, so that al-Qaeda can carry out their mission of hate.

When you look at the thousands of tons of illegal drugs that are smuggled across our borders every year, not mention the 10s of thousands of illegal aliens, how easy will it be to smuggle a few softball sized packages into the United States and nuke San Francisco?

It could happen. And in less than the five to ten years the Red Star Tribune's editorial staff seems to think it will take.

All this from an organization that has now switched from the cry of "There were no WMDs in Iraq" to "Iraq had no nuclear ambitions," both of which have been proven wrong, from the recovery of over 500 chemical weapons, the discovery of botulinumtoxins in 2003, tons of precursor chemicals posed to restart chemical weapons programs, and nuclear waste left in a fashion to poison our troops in the field, all of which has been reported in the Main Stream Mediaand then ignored.

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Posted by Sqotty at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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It's been a while since I have visited the Multi-National Force Iraq site, a site I need to spend more time at. Here's the latest:

During a press conference Aug. 23, Iraqi and Coalition leaders discussed a recent combined operation in Baghdad’s Shulla, Nur and Ghazaliyah neighborhoods that resulted in a sharp decrease in levels of violence in the area and paved the way for improved essential services.

Brig. Gen. Jaleel, commander, 1st Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, and Col. Michael Shields, commander, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, highlighted the joint nature of the 10-day operation - in support of Operation Together Forward - as well as the relationship between Iraqi and Coalition forces and the people of Ghazaliyah.

Shields discussed the teamwork necessary to complete a mission that involved the clearing of more than 20,000 buildings, the capture of several individuals, and the discovery of 15 weapons caches.

The article continues to point that while the recent operation was being carried out, there was a dramatic drop in violence. Worth the read.

More news on the site includes a story of a Marine using soccer balls to reach out to the Iraqis in the area where he patrols and the training of the Iraqi Air Force. More items of interest neglected by the MSM.

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Posted by Sqotty at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The liberal wankers at the Red Star Tribune are at it again: denouncing oil and not offering any alternatives.

Here's a gem from the article:

The answer isn't more drilling, as some conservatives urged in the wake of BP's shutdown of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay field. That would be like giving a bigger meal to a fat man. What's needed is a new direction.

They are against "Big Oil" because oil companies are capitalistic by nature (never mind that news papers are also capitalistic endeavors…we never here about "Big Media" and their record profits). Drilling oil in ANWR as well as the outer continental shelf will go a long way toward alleviating the current fuel crunch.

Natural gas prices have also skyrocketed as the demand by electrical plants has increased, especially since many existing generators as well as new plants have switched from "dirty-polluting" coal to "clean" natural gas. This has put a strain on winter time heating budgets as the vast majority of homes are heated by natural gas, hurting the poor the most.

One thing that would help there is building new (and modern) clean burning nuclear power plants, thus reducing the demand for natural gas to electrical power plants. But the left, the self-proclaimed "guardians of the poor and down-trodden" block all attempts to build new nuclear power plants. It's okay for France, Germany, China and Iran to have them, but not here in the good ol' U.S. of A.

As for oil, the left, and the so-called "guardians of truth", the Main Stream Media, want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil (which I applaud) but refuse to consider opening up ANWR or other oil rich areas to development.

At least they recognize that global demand for oil is up, and site China as one example (India's demand has gone up 400% over the last 20 or so years), and that much of the world's currently tapped oil supplies are in unstable totalitarian countries, like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela.

But where are their ideas for alternatives? They do not present any! Time to open up ANWR and the outer continental shelf as well as build more nuclear power plants.

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Posted by Sqotty at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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At the time of writing this piece, there is yet to be any mention of the declassified portion of a report detailing out the discovery of some 500 chemical weapons that have been found in Iraq since 2003 in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The St. Paul Pioneer Press has this headline: "New report offers no evidence that Iraq stockpiled WMD"

Now wait a minute…500 chemical munitions does not constitute evidence that Saddam Hussein was not stockpiling WMDs?

It gets better:

But the intelligence officials said the munitions dated from before the 1991 Persian Gulf War and were for the most part badly deteriorated. "They are not in a condition where they could be used as designed," one intelligence official said.

This is contrary to what the report states…from the actual report (point 5 from the report):

While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

Last I checked, if they were not in a "condition where they could be used as designed" implies that the chemical agents are completely inert, in other words, HARMLESS.

The actual report states exactly the opposite, the darned things are dangerous.

Here’s another interesting tidbit:

They (intelligence officials) said the old munitions had been found in groups of one and two, indicating that they'd been discarded, not that they were part of an organized program to stockpile banned weapons.

The declassified portion of the document gives no such details. Either these so-called intelligence officials are passing out classified information and thus violating the law, not to mention National Security, or they are liars.

And it gets better:

One of the declassified key points says the munitions - apparently dating from Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran - could be sold on the black market.

But one intelligence official said there was "no evidence that any element of the insurgency in Iraq is in possession of these kinds of munitions."

The terrorists haven’t been in possession of WMDs? Time for some history lessons:

May 18, 2004, the Washington Post ran a piece detailing out how terrorists used an artillery shell filled with sarin nerve gas. Fortunately, it failed to trigger as needed to mix the chemical agents so as to create a lethal mix. It was believed that the terrorists that planted the bomb did not know exactly what they had, or did not know how to effectively use it.

There was also an artillery shell filled with mustard gas around the same time.

So much for the intelligence of the unidentified "intelligence official."

There is no doubt that the terrorists are attempting (and inadvertently, succeeding) at acquiring such munitions. Let’s hope they (the murdering terrorist thugs) continue to fail to realize what they’ve got when they do get 'em, or fail to figure out how to correct use them.

I suspect that the writer of the piece has not been following the War in Iraq, and the case of WMDs, as indicated by his failure to recognize a load of horse hockey when it is dropped on his lap.

Either way, this particular piece is an extremely biased piece; sounds to me like the leftwing controlled MSM is finding numerous ways to spin the declassified data on WMDs recovered in Iraq.

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Posted by Sqotty at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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When I ran across the commentary piece, Selective Outrage on the LA Times website, I thought it would prove to be an expose on how main stream media has botched it again, in response to the recently retracted Newsweek hit piece on our military in regards to the alleged flushing of a Koran down the toilet. The Newsweek piece was retracted as it had been proven that this incident never happened.

I was proven wrong about the piece. It turned out to be yet another example of main stream media elites banding together to protect their own, and blame America and our military in the process.

From the aforementioned editorial:

According to chaos theory, the flapping of a single butterfly's wings can trigger a hurricane halfway across the globe, a phenomenon known as the "butterfly effect." Now the Bush administration thinks it has detected something that might be called the "Newsweek effect." It says the magazine's publication of an item in its May 9 issue, alleging that U.S. guards flushed the Koran down a toilet in order to humiliate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, was a cause of riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan last week that left at least 14 people dead.

The Afghan authorities, U.S. military and residents said outside instigators seemed to be stirring up the violence and taking advantage of student and public protests over reports that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at the Guant�amo Bay detention center for Taliban suspects. Student demonstrators were demanding that the U.S. interrogators who are alleged to have placed copies of the Koran in the toilet to upset detainees, and in one case reportedly flushed the holy book down the toilet, be arrested and tried by a Muslim court.

And also, this off of Yahoo News/Reuters:

Afghan police opened fire on protesters on Wednesday killing four and wounding dozens after violent demonstrations over a report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran.

The more interesting question may not be how Newsweek goofed, but why the Muslim world is so ready to believe the story. For all the administration's huffing and puffing about Newsweek getting the story wrong, it has produced such a catalog of misdeeds at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo that almost any allegation is instantly credited abroad. The administration itself has said that 11 soldiers have been disciplined for abusing prisoners at Gitmo.

The LA times piece closes with a push to shut down the prison at Guantanamo, giving the prisoners legal protections. The LA Times may be naive enough to believe that this will help the U.S. where world opinion is concerned.

Okay, if these prisoners are to stand trial, separate them into two groups: those from the Afghan War and those form the Iraq War, and try them in those countries respectively. They'll find that they wished they had stayed in Guantanamo.

No doubt that if that were to happen, they would find the means to blame Bush for that as well.

Incredibly, they have yet to show any outrage towards their favorite heroes, Clinton and Carter, for giving the world a nuclear armed North Korea.

For another look at this piece, check out the Anti-Strib's take on the subject.

Posted by Sqotty at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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