Via Breitbart:

Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda number two, in a video posted on the Internet reportedly called US President George W Bush a liar who had "failed in his war against Al-Qaeda."
The Qatar-based Arabic-language satellite station Al-Jazeera said that in the video, "Zawahiri called Bush a liar and said he had failed in his war against Al-Qaeda."

On Thursday, Islamist websites on the Internet had said there would be a new video message posted by Zawahiri entitled " Bush, the pope, Darfur and the Crusades."

The comments, made in a video filmed under generator power deep in a guano-covered cave, were deemed to be authentic.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:18 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I used to enjoy reading Dean Esmay's blog from time to time, and I can't remember when or why I stopped dropping by. Maybe it was becuase of rants like this.

Quite simply, the attack Esmay levels against Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, and Little Green Footballs is not based in any reality I'm familiar with. All three of these blogs do frequently comment on Islamic terrorism, but they also highlight reform-minded moderate Muslims as well. To state, as Dean has, that these blogs are anti-Muslim is quite simply a falsehood.

I don't know if Esmay is pruposefully lying for some reason, or if he has simply gotten so wrapped up in his interpretation of what he thinks people say that he can't tell what they actually say. In any event, his factless rant and his outbursts of of overwrought emotional violence against his commentors is quite sad. It's rare to see a blogger so publicly implode.

All three blog's Esmay attacked have posted rebuttals.

Michelle Malkin

Hot Air

Little Green Footballs

I hope Dean enjoys the burst of traffic. Odds are that once the dust settles, he will have lost both respect and readers.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:13 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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I wonder what the rest of the Arab world must make of this:

Earlier this week, Israeli press reports suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met recently with a senior official in the Saudi government, maybe even with the Saudi king.

Olmert denied the reports but praised the Saudis for standing up against Hizballah in recent weeks. The Saudi government also dismissed reports of the meeting as a "fabrication." But other media reports persisted in suggesting that some contacts between Israeli and Saudi officials had taken place.

Whether or not the contacts took place, Saudi Arabia and Israel undoubtedly have a mutual interest -- Iran, said Dr. Guy Bechor from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

Saudi Arabia, a majority Sunni Muslim country, is concerned about the strengthening of ties between Shi'ite Muslims in Iran and Iraq and with Hizballah in Lebanon, said Bechor.

Iran has so far resisted international pressure to suspend its nuclear program, which Western states believe is intended to produce atomic weapons -- something that Iran denies.

"[The Saudis fear that] if there is some type of attack against Iran from the West, Iran will hit Saudi Arabia," said Bechor in a telephone interview.

Saudi Arabia is looking for friends and connections in the region and is working to create a Sunni alliance together with Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, and that anti-terror alliance could secretly include Israel, said Bechor.

The world seems to think that only the United States and Israel are likely to forcefully oppose Iran's apparent desire for nuclear weapons, but if the Saudi government forms ties with Israel over their joint concerns about Iranian intentions, then the dynamics we assumed about the pending conflict have the possibility to radically change.

The hope is that political pressure can be brought to bear to convince Iran that an attempt to develop nuclear weapons is not in their best interests. If a political settlement is unreachable, the shift them focuses to when Iran may face military action, and by whom.

Today Israel reiterated a position held by U.S. President George W. Bush that Iran would not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and if Saudi Arabia can be counted upon for either passive or active support in military operations, the likelihood of political and military success in the wake of a pre-emptive strike increases dramatically.

If Saudi Arabia offers "passive" military aide by allowing Israeli strike aircraft to fly through and refuel in Saudi airspace, it would greatly reduce the amount of time IAF strike fights would have to spend in hostile air space, and enable Israeli aircraft to carry more munitions deeper into Iranian territory.

If Saudi Arabia offers active military assistance, particularly air power, then the situation could arise where a joint mission flown by the two most advanced air forces in the Middle East could put hundreds of strike aircraft over Iran, conceivably wrecking much of Iran's nuclear infrastructure without any direct involvement by American military forces at all. It is also worth mentioning that a joint strike conducted by regional powers instead of Western militaries, it would also be far more successful politically.

It seems unlikely that such a joint mission, or a multi-nation alliance mission is in the works, but the possibility will greatly complicate Iranian plans.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:29 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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A letter (PDF) found in the rubble of the safehouse in which al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was killed seems to dispute some of the dire conclusions reached in the leaked excerpts of the National Intelligence Estimate as published by the New York Times and Washington Post last week.

The captured letter sheds new light on the friction between al-Qa`ida's senior leadership and al-Qa`ida's commanders in Iraq over the appropriate use of violence. The identity of the letter's author, “`Atiyah,” is unknown, but based on the contents of the letter he seems to be a highly placed al-Qa`ida leader who fought in Algeria in the early 1990s. `Atiyah's letter echoes many of the themes found in the October 2005 letter written to Zarqawi by al-Qa`ida's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri; indeed, it goes so far as to explicitly confirm the authenticity of that earlier letter. `Atiyah's admonitions in this letter, like those of Zawahiri in his letter to Zarqawi, also dovetail with other publicly available texts by al-Qa`ida strategists.

Although `Atiyah praises Zarqawi's military success against coalition forces in Iraq, he is most concerned with Zarqawi's failure to understand al-Qa`ida's broader strategic objective: attracting mass support among the wider Sunni Muslim community. `Atiyah reminds Zarqawi that military actions must be subservient to al-Qa`ida's long-term political goals. Zarqawi's use of violence against popular Sunni leaders, according to `Atiyah, is undermining al-Qa`ida's ability to win the “hearts of the people.” 2

According to `Atiyah, Zarqawi's widening scope of operations, culminating with the November 2005 hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, has alienated fellow Sunnis and reduced support for the global al-Qa`ida movement. In this vein, `Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to avoid killing popular Iraqi Sunni leaders because such actions alienate the very populations that al-Qa`ida seeks to attract to its cause.3 `Atiyah also encourages Zarqawi to forge strategic relationships with moderate Sunnis, particularly tribal and religious leaders, even if these leaders do not accept Zarqawi's religious positions.

`Atiyah instructs Zarqawi to follow orders from Usama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri on major strategic issues, such as initiating a war against Shiites; undertaking large-scale operations; or operating outside of Iraq. `Atiyah goes on to criticize Zarqawi's board of advisors in Iraq for their lack of adequate political and religious expertise, and he warns Zarqawi against the sin of arrogance. Because al-Qa`ida is in what `Atiyah calls a “stage of weakness,” `Atiyah urges Zarqawi to seek counsel from wiser men in Iraq— implying that there might be someone more qualified than Zarqawi to command al-Qa`ida operations in Iraq.

`Atiyah closes with a request that Zarqawi send a messenger to “Waziristan” (likely, Waziristan, Pakistan) in order to establish a reliable line of communication with Bin Laden and Zawahiri. `Atiyah confirms in the letter that al-Qa`ida's overall communications network has been severely disrupted and complains specifically that sending communications to Zarqawi from outside of Iraq remains difficult. Interestingly, he explains how Zarqawi might use jihadi discussion forums to communicate with al-Qa`ida leadership in Waziristan.

According to this captured document:

• Zarqawi had failed to understand and execute al Qaeda's broader strategic objectives, and instead had alienated fellow Sunnis from al Qaeda, reducing their support of the terror organization.
  
• Zarqawi group did not have "adequate political and religious expertise" and was "in a stage of weakness."
  
• al Qaeda's communications lines have been severely disrupted.
  

The al Qaeda letter shows a terrorist group that does not seem to feel it is winning. This seems to be very much in contrast to the version of events as published in the Post's article, where it is claimed that "the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position."

Note that the Post article does not seem to cast a critical eye toward this NIE, even though in the same article, it points out that all of the conclusion in the 2002 NIE "turned out to be false."

I suppose it is possible that both al Qaeda and the United States could be facing concurrent setbacks, but it appears to me that our leader isn't hiding in a mountain cave, nor in any immediate threat of being killed by a missile-equipped drone high overhead.

If I am to believe either document, I think the captured al Qaeda document shows the true situation on the ground far more accurately, as bad as that may be for the media and Democratic Party view.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:55 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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It's here (PDF) if you really must read it, but it won't tell you news junkies anything you haven't already figured out for yourselves.

The only question I have is whether or not either the NY Times or Washington Post will admit they were used as dupes in a propaganda effort.

I'm guessing they won't.

Update: From Hugh Hewitt:

The democratic Party and its agenda journalist allies are campaigning for retreat from Iraq, a retreat that would be a decisive victory for the jihadists. Thus any vote for any Congressional Democrat is a vote against victory and a vote for vulnerability.

And that is the conclusion supported by the NIE, touted just 48 hours ago by the left as the key document of this political season.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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"Do you forget people jumping off the 80th floor or 70th floor when the planes hit them? Can you imagine what it will be for a man or woman to jump from that high?" Karzai asked recalling some of the more shocking scenes from the World Trade Center bombing. "How do we get rid of them? ... Should we wait for them to come and kill us again?"

Thus spoke Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan to the media assembled in the East Room of the White House in a joint press conference held with President George W. Bush this morning.

Sometimes, we do forget, or at least we want to.

It is far easier to try to forget, or try to pretend that it could never happen again, or pretend that it was somehow our fault, and that if we were just nicer or better or different in some little way, that that day wouldn't have occurred. It is a shame that man from half a world away had to visit our nation's capitol and remind some of us of what should be so obvious.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:31 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Bill Clinton's attempt at a face-saving, over-the-top response to Chris Wallace during an interview aired on Fox News Sunday has resulted in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responding, saying that much of what Clinton intoned was a lie:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday accused Bill Clinton of making "flatly false" claims that the Bush administration didn't lift a finger to stop terrorism before the 9/11 attacks.

Rice hammered Clinton, who leveled his charges in a contentious weekend interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel, for his claims that the Bush administration "did not try" to kill Osama bin Laden in the eight months they controlled the White House before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," Rice said during a wide-ranging meeting with Post editors and reporters.

"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice added.

The secretary of state also sharply disputed Clinton's claim that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for the incoming Bush team during the presidential transition in 2001.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," Rice responded during the hourlong session.

Her strong rebuttal was the Bush administration's first response to Clinton's headline-grabbing interview on Fox on Sunday in which he launched into an over-the-top defense of his handling of terrorism - wagging his finger in the air, leaning forward in his chair and getting red-faced, and even attacking Wallace for improper questioning.

I'm relatively sure that much of what the Bush Administration has done regarding terrorism in the months prior to 9/11 remains classified, and so it is difficult to say with any certainty what steps the Administration may have been taking. I would have hoped that among the first steps of the Administration on the subject after taking office would have been to start revamping the human intelligence effort that Clinton gutted in his eight years in office.

Why did Clinton gut American surveillance? Look to the Donkey:

In the past twenty years, there have been at least two high-profile incidents involving leaks. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont was forced to resign from the Senate Intelligence Committee after being tied to a series of leaks in the 1980s. Congressman (later Senator) Robert Torricelli revealed secret information acquired by virtue of his position on the House Intelligence Committee. The information involved a source in Guatemala who had been allegedly been involved in a murder at the behest of then-girlfriend Bianca Jagger. The resulting scandal caused a Clinton Administration “human rights scrub” of human intelligence assets who had been alleged to have connections with criminals or terrorists. Of course, the “human rights scrub” placed the very people who would know about the activities of terrorists and other bad guys off limits to the CIA.

In short, Bill Clinton, embarrassed by Democrats leaking top secret information to the press, decided that instead of cracking down on Democrats, that the best thing to do was to sever the CIA's contact with the very people who would be in the best position to give us information about terrorist activity.

This of course, is the same Bill Clinton that invited terrorist leader Yasser Arafat to the White House on numerous occasions and refused to address Iraq's terrorist threat, even though three of the world's most famous terrorists prior to Osama bin Laden—Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and the bomb-builder of the 1993 Word Trade Center attacks Abdul Rahman Yasin—lived as Saddam's guests in Baghdad.

The Clinton Adminstration also downplayed the fact that Yasin's bomb was built as a chemical weapon; an ammonium nitrate bomb laced with sodium cyanide. Yasin hoped that the bomb would disperse a cloud of poisonous cyanide smoke, killing thousands in the tower as it went up through the elevator and ventilation shafts. Fortunately, the cyanide was vaporized by the blast instead of dispersed in the smoke, and the tower was not undermined by the blast as he hoped. If Yasin had been successful in his 1993 attempt, the casualties of the 1993 Trade Center Attack would likely have far eclipsed the casualties of 9/11. The Clinton Administration responded by treating the treating the attack as a matter of criminal law instead of urgent national security.

The pattern continued.

20 were killed and 372 were injured in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. The Clinton Administration did not respond. FBI Director Louis Freeh notes that neither Clinton nor Sandy "Pants" Berger wanted to deal with the fact that Iran was behind the attacks. In the remaining years of his Presidency, Clinton did precisely nothing to bring the bombers to justice. Frustrated by the Clinton Adminstration's inaction, Freeh finally contacted former President George H.W. Bush to move the case forward (my bold):

I had learned that he [former President Bush] was about to meet Crown Prince Abdullah on another matter. After fully briefing Mr. Bush on the impasse and faxing him the talking points that I had now been working on for over two years, he personally asked the crown prince to allow FBI agents to interview the detained bombers.

After his Saturday meeting with now-King Abdullah, Mr. Bush called me to say that he made the request, and that the Saudis would be calling me. A few hours later, Prince Bandar, then the Saudi ambassador to Washington, asked me to come out to McLean, Va., on Monday to see Crown Prince Abdullah. When I met him with Wyche Fowler, our Saudi ambassador, and FBI counterterrorism chief Dale Watson, the crown prince was holding my talking points. He told me Mr. Bush had made the request for the FBI, which he granted, and told Prince Bandar to instruct Nayef to arrange for FBI agents to interview the prisoners.

Several weeks later, agents interviewed the co-conspirators. For the first time since the 1996 attack, we obtained direct evidence of Iran's complicity. What Mr. Clinton failed to do for three years was accomplished in minutes by his predecessor.

The Clinton Administration's response? According to Freeh, they buried the evidence collected after a series of "damage control" meetings. It was only after Clinton exited office and President George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice got involved that charges were brought forth against the conspirators on June 21, 2001, five years after the attacks, and just four months after President Bush took office.

That pattern continued.

More than 200 were killed and more than 4,000 were wounded in simultaneous 1998 car bomb explosions on the U. S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Clinton responded by firing cruise missiles at the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and at nearly empty al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Physical targets were destroyed, but only 20 terrorists were thought to have been killed, and Clinton Secretary of Defense William Cohen said that killing bin Laden, "not our design." Legally, a handful of terrorists were captured, tried, and convicted. Many more terrorists associated with the plot remained free.

Clinton's most robust response to terrorism was still ineffective.

Five months before Clinton left office, 17 sailors were killed and 39 were wounded when the U.S.S. Cole was hit by an al Qaeda suicide boat bomber while refueling in the Yemeni port of Aden. The rules of engagement prevented Cole guards from firing upon the approaching vessels without direct order from senior officers. According to Wikipedia:

Petty Officer Jennifer Kudrick said that if the sentries had fired on the suicide craft "we would have gotten in more trouble for shooting two foreigners than losing 17 American sailors."

Bill Clinton left office having never paid more than lip service to finding or destroying those behind the attack. On November 2, 2002, an armed Predator drone operated by the CIA killed Abu Ali al-Harithi and five other terrorists traveling with him in Yemen. The bombing's mastermind, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was captured that same month and is currently being held by the United States at an undisclosed location.

Bill Clinton did next to nothing to attack al Qaeda in response to four terrorist attacks on the United States during his eight years in office. That he would feign outrage and falsify excuses for his inaction is to invite the criticism he so richly deserves.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:13 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Another Jihadi leader gets killed:

British forces said they killed a top terrorist leader Monday, identified by Iraqi officials as an al Qaeda leader who had escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan and returned to Iraq.

Omar Farouq was killed in a pre-dawn raid by 250 British troops from the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment on his home in Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, British forces spokesman Maj. Charlie Burbridge said.

Farouq was killed after he opened fire on British soldiers entering his home, Burbridge said.

"We had information that a terrorist of considerable significance was hiding in Basra; as a result of that information we conducted an operation in an attempt to arrest him," Burbridge told The Associated Press by telephone from southern Iraq. "During the attempted arrest Omar Farouq was killed, which is regrettable because we wanted to arrest him."

I'll admit to being easily amused by this "eats, shoots and leaves" phrasing from above:

Omar Farouq was killed in a pre-dawn raid by 250 British troops...

Killed by 250 British soldiers, or killed during a raid conducted by 250 soldiers? The answer is obviously the latter, but the-less-than-perfect sentence construction creates a quick mental image of 250 British soldiers concurrently pouring lead into one hapless jihadi.

And yes, that's good for a smirk.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:28 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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We've got another rumor that Osama bin Laden may have died. Ace makes a more compelling case that I've heard in a while, but until I see a rotting head on a pike, or at least the results of a DNA test, I won't be fully convinced.

The AP story, again not confirmed, is here.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:12 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I've been reading some of the commentary leveled against the deal reached between the Congress and the White House to continue to use coercive interrogation techniques to extract information from certain high-value terrorists we have captured.

I left a version of the following as a comment (not yet posted) at the ABC News Blog The Blotter in response to criticism of the program there, and I think it sums things up nicely:

...the simple fact of the matter, as Brian Ross has stated in other forums, is that the six techniques advocated for by the CIA do work very effectively. Ross has stated that 14 terrorists have been interrogated using these methods, and all 14 have given up useful intelligence that has saved American lives as a result. None of these terrorists have been permanently injured using these techniques. Not one.

The White House and Congress have merely asked that these effective techniques be continued, to save the lives of our friends and neighbors.

Most Americans have a Jacksonian view of dealing with our nation's enemies. We will afford every right and privilege afforded by the laws of war to an honorable enemy soldier captured on the field of battle. If you fight America honorably, we will treat your honorably, even though you are our enemy. At the same time, if our enemy dismisses the agreed upon common decencies and rights, there are no legal moral or ethical reasons that we should treat them with kidd gloves at the expense of our own lives.

If our enemies are dishonorable, attacking innocent men, woman, and children instead of legitimate targets, then our gloves will come of as well, and we have the right to engage you in total war with all the methods at our disposal to defeat you. And yet, the United States has conducted an exceedingly restrained and honorable war against terrorists and the nations that support terrorism.

Even though we have the unquestioned capability, we have not launched the large-scale carpet bombing campaigns against cities and civilian populations that we did in the Second World War. We use precision-guided weaponry whenever possible, with protection of even enemy-sympathetic citizenry always at the forefront of our mission planning. Our honored military veterans are fully aware of the great pains we take to minimize civilian casualties, even though the pains we take to ensure the safety of innocents often puts our soldiers lives at risk in exchange. We have without a doubt, and without contradiction, the most lethal and compassionate military force that this planet has ever seen.

But even though we are compassionate, we recognize that to survive as this great and compassionate nation, we cannot be weak and cowardly, as many would clearly like us to be.

The techniques we use are unpleasant and coercive, but they are not torture, and it is both dishonest and disheartening to see our own media attempting to blur the line in such a way to make all such life-saving intelligence gathering techniques a crime.

By their own repeated, long-standing and well-documented series of abuses of basic human rights and dignities, the terrorists we have captured have forfeited any right for human treatment, and yet we consistently treat them better than we do domestic criminals in our prisons and jails.

We are clearly on moral ground here, no matter how willing many people in our own nation are willing to give that ground away.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:27 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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Liberals Love Cool Ahmadinejad:

I keep talking about this with people in real life, but it deserves a blog mention as well -- Mahmoun Ahmadinejad has a pretty sweet hipster style. It all starts with a beard not unlike the one I and many of my twentysomething male friends sport. But it goes deeper. The man went without a tie to address the UN General Assembly. And I was in a bar where the TV was showing his interview with Anderson Cooper (it's DC, these things happen) and while there was no sound, he certainly looked witty and charming. There was also this clip of him walking down some hallway shooting the shit with Kofi Annan. It's like diplomacy! Bush should try it. One gets the sense that he's getting his stody red tie-wearing ass kicked this session by sundry third world goons and it's really not a proud moment for the United States

I left the following response in his comments:

Matt,

There are plenty of fools shuffling down the streets of New York with scruffy beard thinking they know the will of God, it's just that most of them are either homeless or tenured, and none are worth the fawning adoration you bestow on a man that denies the holocaust while advocating its return.

We want to stop him from commiting genocide. They look to him for fashion tips.

Security moms, please take note.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:37 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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This is what he says:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted Thursday that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful and said he is "at a loss" about what more he can do to provide guarantees. "The bottom line is we do not need a bomb," he said at a news conference on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. "The time for nuclear bombs has ended," he added.

This is what they do:

Iran successfully test-fired a missile that can avoid radar and hit several targets simultaneously using multiple warheads, the military said Friday.

The Fajr-3, which means "Victory" in Farsi, can reach Israel and US bases in the Middle East, state Iranian media indicated - causing alarm in the United States and Israel. The announcement also is likely to stoke regional tensions and feed suspicion about Tehran's military intentions and nuclear ambitions.

MIRVs--multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles--were developed in the 1960s with one goal in mind, the delivery of multiple nuclear warheads from an intercontinental ballistic missile. Only recently has the United States become the first nation to consider converting MIRVs into non-nuclear weapons systems.

The Fajr-3 mentioned in the article above is designed and tested with a MIRV that carries three warheads. Israel can be effectively "wiped off the map" as Ahmadinejad has promised, with just two nuclear warheads.

Iran says it does not want nuclear weapons, yet it develops and tests nuclear-capable missile systems while continuing to try to hide its nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the apocalyptic, holocaust-denying "pocket Hitler" of Tehran, has been caught lying again.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I can't understand why Israel has delayed its withdrawal in the wake of a 34-day war instigated by Hezbollah.

After all, UNIFL (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) did promise they would keep the peace by acting as a buffer between Hezbollah and Israel, and they are certainly doing a spectacular job thus far.

Here are French tanks under UNIFL in peacekeeping duties. That parking lot is certainly well-defended. No Hezbollah activity there.

Here are Italian peacekeepers under UNIFL. No Hezbollah rockets in these boxes of merchandise.

This French peacekeeper can't see any members of Hezbollah through these sunglasses.

It certainly looks like southern Lebanon is under the kind of helpful protection we've come to expect from the United Nations.

I don't understand the Israeli concerns at all.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:39 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Apparently, even harsh critics in the CIA say it is an extremely effective (a perfect 14 for 14) and accurate intelligence gathering technique that has proven effective and saved American lives without a single terrorist suffering permament damage.

It's time we get this out the hands out of unsanitary back-alley torturers.

Torture. Let's keep it safe and legal.

Update: Olbermann. Proved a fool again.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:54 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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A striking bit of journalistic malpractice seems to have affected the mainstream media web sites this morning, as news site after news site failed to provide their readers with the transcript of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech last night to the United Nations.

As of noon at ABC News, it is as if Ahmadinejad never spoke, as their was no reference to his address in front of the United Nations on their Web site's front page, and is notably absent from the headlines of their political section as well. I had to search Google News to find this report on their site, which did not link to the transcript, nor provide Ahmadinejad's closing remarks.

Likewise, Ahmadinejad's speech was not easily found on the CBS News site, and when an article was found buried below the fold of their International news section, their story, as well, did not provide a transcript nor a summation of his closing remarks.

The New York Times had Bush's transcript from hours before, but couldn't be troubled to run that of the Iranian President. CNN did likewise.

The Boston Globe, Fox News, MSNBC, and most other news organizations also failed to either discuss the apocalyptic overtones of the Iranian President's remarks, or provide a transcript from easily available wire reports. To their credit, the Washington Post at least provided the transcript far down on their World News page, though they provided precious little commentary otherwise.

What is the reason the world media was apparently so eager to bury the content what was a highly anticipated speech by Iran's flamboyant President?

It was likely his dark conclusion:

Whether we like it or not, justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world, with the will of the almighty God. It is imperative and also desirable that we, too, contribute to the promotion of justice and virtue.

The almighty and merciful God, who is the creator of the universe, is also its lord and ruler. Justice is his command. He commands his creatures to support one another in good, virtue, and piety, and not in decadence and corruption.

He commands his creatures to enjoin one another to righteousness and virtue, and not to sin and transgression. All divine prophets, from the prophet Adam, peace be upon him, to the prophet Moses, to the prophet Jesus Christ, to the prophet Mohammad, have all called humanity to monotheism, justice, brotherhood, love and compassion.

Is it not possible to build a better world based on monotheism, justice, love and respect for the rights of human beings and thereby transform animosities into friendship?

I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people, with love for all humanity, and, above all, longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.

Oh, almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirst for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and makers among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.

This same Iranian President spoke in front of the United Nations previously on September 17, 2005, a fact also missing from many news accounts of the last week. Those that did mention Ahmadinejad's September speech uniformly left off the fact that Ahmadinejad claimed that his September speech in Front of the same United Nations chamber was touched by the Divine:

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad says that when he delivered his speech at the UN General Assembly in September, he felt there was a light around him and that the attention of the world leaders in the audience was unblinkingly focused upon him. The claim has caused a stir in Iran, as a transcript and video recording of Ahmadinejad's comments have been published on an Iranian website, baztab.com. There are also reports that a CD showing Ahmadinejad making the comments also has been widely distributed in Iran. Is the Iranian president claiming to be divinely inspired?

Prague, 29 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- According the report by baztab.com, President Ahmadinejad made the comments in a meeting with one of Iran's leading clerics, Ayatollah Javadi Amoli.

Ahmadinejad said that someone present at the UN told him that a light surrounded him while he was delivering his speech to the General Assembly. The Iranian president added that he also sensed it.

"He said when you began with the words 'in the name of God,' I saw that you became surrounded by a light until the end [of the speech]," Ahmadinejad appears to say in the video. "I felt it myself, too. I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there, and for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink."

Ahmadinejad adds that he is not exaggerating.

"I am not exaggerating when I say they did not blink; it's not an exaggeration, because I was looking," he says. "They were astonished as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."

During this same speech, Ahmadinejad called for the near-term reappearance of the 12th Imam, who he feels will redeem the world through an apocalypse he feels his sect has the right and responsibility to create. As I noted in August, the mullahcracy that runs Iran belongs to the apocalyptic Hojjatieh sect, a branch of Shia Islam so radical it was banned in 1983 by Ayatollah Khomeini. Their views are, to put it mildly, are startling:

...rooted in the Shiite ideology of martyrdom and violence, the Hojjatieh sect adds messianic and apocalyptic elements to an already volatile theology. They believe that chaos and bloodshed must precede the return of the 12th Imam, called the Mahdi. But unlike the biblical apocalypse, where the return of Jesus is preceded by waves of divinely decreed natural disasters, the summoning of the Mahdi through chaos and violence is wholly in the realm of human action. The Hojjatieh faith puts inordinate stress on the human ability to direct divinely appointed events. By creating the apocalyptic chaos, the Hojjatiehs believe it is entirely in the power of believers to affect the Mahdi's reappearance, the institution of Islamic government worldwide, and the destruction of all competing faiths.

Ahmadinejad's speech last night echoed his beliefs last night. When he stated, "Whether we like it or not, justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world," sooner is now and later is a point that eerily seems to coincide with when many intelligence experts feel Iran may have the capability to build a functional nuclear weapon, and bring about the man-made Armageddon that the Hojjatieh sect feels is their obligation to Allah.

This leads us back full-circle to ask once more why major U.S. and world media outlets have largely refused to issue transcripts of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech last night to the United Nations, and why they chose to embargo his dramatic closing provided above.

I submit that if the media covered Ahmadinejad's full remarks including the religious references that they clearly and cleverly omitted, then they would have to confront the scope of the clear and present danger that the Iranian regime presents to the rest of the world. Admitting this danger goes against the carefully crafted narrative that they have led themselves to believe, a narrative that they have passed along to their readers and viewers that the United States and Israel are the root causes of problems in the Middle East.

To admit the dangers of the intertwining of Iranian nuclear weapons development with a radical and apocalyptic eschatology is to admit that President George W. Bush is correct in his determination to prevent Iran from developing the ability to effect a religious nuclear war. It is to admit that there are far greater dangers to our freedoms than terrorist surveillance programs and chilled members of al Qaeda.

To admit that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad means precisely what he says, and has said time and again, is to admit to larger dangers that neither the press nor the Democratic party they overwhelming support can admit. To admit to the truth—to show what Iran and its leader represent as a threat to the world—is to shatter a carefully crafted illusion they have formulated that most of the problems of the world originate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

When faced with revealing a truth that would create cognitive dissonance, the media has made the subconscious decision to simply excise, and then ignore, the facts that undercut their "larger truth." They'd rather risk lives than admit the possibility that President Bush's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran are precisely on target.

They aren't scared about the possibility of millions of people dying. That are far more fearful that the President is right, and that the world they've created for themselves is all too wrong.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:59 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Whether inspired by Hamas and Hezbollah or Sunni and Shiite terror leaders in Iraq, it's hard to see attempts such as these to use children as bait or targets with anything other than abject contempt:

Shiite militias are encouraging children — some as young as 6 or 7 — to hurl stones and gasoline bombs at U.S. convoys, hoping to lure American troops into ambushes or provoke them into shooting back, U.S. soldiers say.

Gangs of up to 100 children assemble in Sadr City, stronghold of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, and in nearby neighborhoods, U.S. officers said in interviews this week.

American soldiers have seen young men, their faces covered by bandanas, talking with the children before the rock-throwing attacks begin — and sometimes handing out slingshots so the volleys will be more accurate, the troops said.

"It's like a militia operation. They'll mass rocks on the last or second-to-last vehicle" in a U.S. patrol, said Capt. Chris L'Heureux, 30, of Woonsocket, R.I. "There's no doubt in my mind that they're utilizing these kids in a deliberate, thought-out way."

The U.S. military is of course ignoring the attacks thus far. Armored combat vehicles are not threatened by rocks, but it is probably only a matter of time until the same militiamen stoop to an even lower level.

As U.S. forces refuse to be baited by children armed with rocks, it is probably only a matter of time before they arm one of these children with a grenade, knowing that a 6 or 7 year old will not be able to throw the one-pound weapons far enough to keep from killing or wounding themselves.

The deaths of these children--caused directly by al-Sadr's militiamen--will be blamed upon coalition forces in a "Pallywood" production in an attempt to further inflame tensions in an area where al-Sadr's "Mahdi Army" of rag-tag militiamen and death squads are coming under increasing pressure from U.S. and Iraqi Army forces.

There are two ways of resolve this style of cowardly attack before deaths result from the militia's use of children, one military, and one social.

Militarily, U.S. and Iraqi forces--especially Iraqi Army forces--must step up the tempo of operations inside the Sadr City slums of Baghdad, arresting and if necessary killing Muqtada al-Sadr and other leaders of the Madhi Army.

At the same time, Iraqi police and military units need to go on a public relations offensive in Sadr City, informing mothers and fathers of how al-Sadr's militiamen are using their children as bait. It is quite possible that some parents support the cowardly acts of the al Sadr militiamen, but I suspect many will respond with anger towards the militia and their children's too willing participation as did the one mother mentioned in the article:

After several rocks were thrown at passing U.S. vehicles in Shaab, soldiers followed one child home. When soldiers told his mother what had happened, she slapped her son across the face in front of them.

A smart P.R. campaign waged by Shiite soldiers in the Iraqi Army can turn the militia's cowardice and scheming against them, driving a wedge between al Sadr and the people he would use to consolidate his own power. One can only hope that the Iraqi Army is smart enough to realize that this potential for tragedy can be turned into an opportunity to strengthen ties between the Iraqi Army and those they would protect.

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So much for collapsing in fear (h/t: PJM):

THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to "violent" Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope's "extraordinarily effective and lucid" speech.

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address "with great urgency" their religion's association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the "clash of civilisations" endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

"We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times," he said. "There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths."

Lord Carey, seem to know the Islamic faith and culture quite well.

Lord Carey, who as Archbishop of Canterbury became a pioneer in Christian-Muslim dialogue, himself quoted a contemporary political scientist, Samuel Huntington, who has said the world is witnessing a "clash of civilisations".

Arguing that Huntington's thesis has some "validity", Lord Carey quoted him as saying: "Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power."

As they say, read the whole thing.

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I'm with Bryan all the way on this.

Many countries have been state sponsors of terrorism, but France has just become the first state sponsor of hostages.

Enjoy the Brie, boys.

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Gee, what didn't he do?

This week he stood outside Westminster Cathedral in central London to call for the execution of the Pope as punishment for 'insulting Islam'. He fulminated against Pope Benedict XVl, adding: "Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment."

It's a long way from his days as a medical student at Southampton University, where, friends say, he drank, indulged in casual sex, smoked cannabis and even took LSD. He called himself 'Andy' and was famed for his ability to drink a pint of cider in a few seconds.

One former acquaintance said: "At parties, like the rest of us, he was rarely without a joint. The morning after one party, I can remember him getting all the roaches (butts) from the spliffs we had smoked the night before out of the ashtrays, cutting them up and making a new one out of the leftovers.

"He would say he was a Muslim and was proud of his Pakistani heritage, but he did-n't seem to attend any of the mosques in Southampton, and I only knew of him having white girlfriends. He certainly shared a bed with them."

On one occasion, 'Andy' and a friend took LSD together. The friend said: "We took far too much and were hallucinating for 20 hours."

Stoner. Drunk. Acidhead. Islamist.

It appears Mr. Choudary is addicted to all sorts of self-destructive behavior.

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The U.K. Guardian has obtained a list of seven interrogation techniques that the CIA would like to use to interrogate al Qaeda terror suspects.

They are:

• induced hypothermia
• forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods
• sleep deprivation
• a technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized
• the "attention slap" or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage
• the "belly slap"
• sound and light manipulation

Color me unimpressed. Throw in copious amounts of alcohol and some co-eds, and this sounds more like my college years than torture.

Inducted hypothermia
Hundreds of thousands of people expose themselves to this voluntarily every Saturday for three to five hours at a time, once tailgating is included. It's called going to a college football game.

Torture.

Forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods
In college, this period is called "registration."

Torture.

sleep deprivation
This is called "final exams," where sleepless nights are commonplace and stress levels stay very high for days at a time.

Torture.

a technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized

We called this "going to bars." Sometimes the grabbing was wanted (where we called this horrific act "flirting"), was innocuous (grabbing a friend by the shirt to drag them to the next bar), or was not wanted (grabbing someone to eject them from a bar). I've done all three as a student and short-term bar manager, and at least at my college, you saw a lot of all three on Halloween, where the holiday was one of the biggest celebrations of the year.

Torture.

the "attention slap" or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage

We have another term for this: male bonding.

It was observed pretty consistently throughout college, and it is also called "horsing around." Fraternities--groups people voluntarily joined of their own free will--generally did things that were a lot worse and often lot more disgusting. I'd rather go through a chest slap than get the "wear a raw egg on your head under a hat all day" treatment one fraternity made their pledges go through when I was in school, and the stuff they did in earlier times to pledges would certainly be a war crime in today's climate.

Torture.

the "belly slap"

See above. Not uncommon where testosterone and alcohol intermingle. Annoying? Check. Torture? If so this blogger (certainly an odd duck by any measure) is the Marquis de Sade reincarnated.

sound and light manipulation
Here in the United States, we don't call that torture, we call it "going to bars and concerts." Again, tens of thousands of college students pay good money for this kind of treatment every night of the week.

Torture.

Admittedly, the environment provided by the CIA to carry out interrogations will not be festive and those being interrogated are not there of their own free will, but that hardly constitutes torture. Some normal prison conditions in the United States expose prisoners to far worse treatment, and most of that comes from other inmates. Some prisons such as the Cook County Jail in Dick "Gulag" Durbin's home district are worse than the conditions of Abu Ghraib.

I don't feel outraged if terrorists are slapped around a little bit, or made cold, or tired, or uncomfortable. Run-of-the-mill prisoners in American jails face the same treatment as those terrorists we've captured, and many face far worse.

Many of the techniques described here are no more violent or degrading than what I've seen fraternity pledges exposed to, and to the best of my knowledge, no members of al Qaeda have been forced to serenade a sorority with "You lost that Lovin' Feelin'" wearing nothing but their "tighty whiteys" and a smile on a cold winter morning.

Perhaps when John McCain is done torturing our intelligence gathering capabilities, he can do to the universities what he has already done to campaign finance reform.

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