Target Centermass

Category: War on Terror

  • 9/11 Families, Others Oppose Sharp Objects on Planes

    Air safety standards are being loosened, and many are justifiably not happy about it.

    The government’s proposal to allow small scissors and some other sharp objects back onto airliners is causing an uproar among flight attendants, families of victims of the Sept. 11 hijackings and several lawmakers.

    Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley on Friday outlined the proposal as part of a broader shift in airport security. The plan will allow airline passengers to carry scissors less than 4 inches long and wrenches and screwdrivers less than 7 inches long. The plan is scheduled to go into effect Dec. 22, just in time for the Christmas travel rush.

    Hawley also revealed that there is intelligence suggesting that terrorists study the screening procedures at airports in order to evade them.

    “We do have intelligence that terrorists do watch our screening process, it doesn’t matter how much they survey because it will be unpredictable and they will not know what to expect at any time,” he said.

    Passengers should expect more randomness at security gates so would-be terrorists won’t know for sure what they will see. For example, an airport might require all passengers to remove their shoes one day but not the next.

    “It is paramount to the security of our aviation system that terrorists not be able to know with certainty what screening procedures they will encounter at airports around the nation,” Hawley said. “By incorporating unpredictability into our procedures and eliminating low-threat items, we can better focus our efforts on stopping individuals who wish to do us harm.”

    Yes, you want to use randomness to throw off potential terrorists. Here’s an idea: target likely terrorists. Yes, I advocate profiling. We are facing a global enemy, that is true, but that enemy has predominantly had certain identifying characteristics.

    Among the items no longer prohibited from airliner cabins: scissors 4 inches or less, and tools such as screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers that are smaller than 7 inches.

    Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., said Thursday they intend to introduce a bill called the “Leave All Blades Behind Act” to preserve the current prohibition on sharp scissors, tools and knives in airliner cabins.

    “On Sept. 11, we witnessed the devastation and death that can be perpetrated onboard a plane with commonly-used items like boxcutters, and TSA wisely took action to ban such sharp objects. Now is not the time to overturn this ban, since we know that Al Qaeda continues to put passenger plans near the top of its terrorist target list,” Markey said. “The Bush administration proposal is just asking the next Mohamed Atta to move from box cutters to scissors as the weapon that’s used in the passenger cabin of planes.”

    Crowley noted that he lost his cousin, a former FDNY chief, on Sept. 11, “and the fact is that we are no safer today than we were 4 years ago.”

    “Flight attendants and airline passengers put themselves at risk everyday. There are more effective ways of increasing efficiency without compromising security,” he added.

    The TSA has said that small, sharp objects do not pose as much of as risk now that airplane cockpits have fortified doors.

    Hawley has complained that airport screeners spend too much time confiscating small objects from innocent passengers. He wants them to focus instead on searching for what the TSA views as a more serious threat: improvised explosive devices.

    While Hawley said Friday there is no intelligence suggesting IED attacks are imminent in the United States, there is significant concern this style of strike is not out of the question.

    Airlines generally support the plan. So does the pilots’ largest union, the Air Line Pilots Association.

    Bob Hesselbein, the union’s national security committee chairman, said pilots think it’s more important to focus on passengers’ intent rather than what they’re carrying.

    “A Swiss army knife in the briefcase of a frequent flyer we know very well is a tool,” Hesselbein said. “A ballpoint pen in the hands of a terrorist is a weapon.”

    Okay, there’s a logic to last last quote, but it’s a logic quickly overcome. The frequent flyer should know to adapt to the rules and remove his Swiss army knife from his carry-on baggage. The terrorist can find a variety of potential weapons — why expand the menu?

    TSA screeners this year alone have confiscated 12.6 million prohibited items, including 3 million sharp objects, according to the Homeland Security Department.

    They’ve also taken away 8.1 million lighters, the only item prohibited by law. Congress, concerned that terrorists would have an easier time igniting a bomb with a lighter than with matches, enacted the ban. It took effect April 14.

    Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation Committee’s aviation panel, agrees with Hawley that screeners should be looking for explosives rather than small, sharp objects that could be used as weapons.

    “You have a huge army of pilots that are now armed, you have significant numbers of federal air marshals, you have secure cockpit doors, you have an alert public,” Mica said. “Terrorists aren’t dumb, they can see what the weakness in the system is.”

    More than 18,000 screeners have been trained on advanced explosives detection techniques, Mica said.

    But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee’s aviation panel, objected to the policy shift. In a letter to Hawley, she wrote that the change “could undermine the progress we have made in securing our skies since the 9/11 attacks. Security demands vigilance; we cannot become complacent.”

    Markey said the TSA is presenting the public a false choice. If there aren’t enough screeners to check for sharp objects and bombs, he said, then more screeners should be hired.

    The Association of Flight Attendants supports Markey’s initiative, as does The Southwest Airlines flight attendants’ union, Transport Workers Local 556.

    “Under no circumstance should potentially dangerous weapons be allowed onboard an aircraft,” said Patricia Friend, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International president.

    “I have not spoken to a flight attendant at any airline that isn’t outraged by this,” added Thom McDaniel, the president of the Southwest Airlines flight attendants’ union. “They want to focus more on explosives, but they’re not even mentioning that the biggest threat to commercial aviation right now is still the fact that most cargo is not screened.”

    Justin Green is an attorney for the families of three flight attendants who died aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which Sept. 11 hijackers crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. Two of the flight attendants, Bobbi Arestegui and Karen Martin, were stabbed by the terrorists. The third, Betty Ong, reported what was happening during the hijacking in a telephone call to authorities on the ground.

    “The families are outraged that the TSA is planning on letting weapons back on board,” Green said.

    As I have previously stated, so am I.

    We cannot roll back the clock to a time we pretended we were safe, even with supposed cockpit security. Are those cockpits secure against blood being repeatedly shed outside while the pilots hear the screams? Are we certain that the doors are safe against tools allowed, along with anything missed? Can we get an update on the air marshall program to alleviate concerns about the relaxation of rules?

    This is not a matter of constitutional liberties, as they are not involved; instead, it is a question of convenience during a matter of travel of choice, travel in which lives may be at stake.

  • Blue on Blue: Dems’ Split Surfaces

    Back in June, I blogged about red on red. That’s American military jargon for enemy fighting, intentional or incidental, among and between our opposing forces. In that post, I mentioned the obvious fact that colors play key roles in other areas, specifically naming gangs and American political demarcations. Well, digging into the latter, lets take a little look at some developing blue on blue.

    First, I want to point out that the Democrats, as the party in opposition, have had two tremendous political advantages to date in their stances on the campaign in Iraq. Those advantages are as follows:

    • A generally all-too-friendly mainstream media, both to the Dems and to our enemies — a media that long allowed has allowed the Dems to oppose President Bush without offering alternatives, that exalts Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan with exposing the extremism of her beliefs or her attention addiction
    • An administration and military that has done a poor job (unfortunate assist to that same mainstream media) in terms of communicating our military successes and progress in rebuilding an Iraq devastated chiefly long before the invasion

    Unfortunately for the Democrat party, they have had some sizable hurdles to clear, hurdles that insist on cropping up again and again:

    • A far-left base comprised of elements that root for defeat, will accept defeat, wish to redefine defeat from how the Islamic world would define defeat, or want to pretend there would be no defeat from early withdrawal based on the fact that fighting Islamic terrorists in Iraq does not make the campaign part of the war against Islamist terror
    • A large portion of Americans who are ashamed of the way we have, in our recent history, cut and run, be it from Viet Nam, from Beirut or from Somalia, and recognize that these abandonments did not result in recognitions of supposed mistakes and good will when viewed through the eyes of our enemies, but rather clear signs of weakness — bloody America and America will run
    • A stubborn majority-party president that seems certain of his course of action
    • A military that has succeeded at every turn with casualties below most predictions, dominant when needed (the initial conquest of Iraq was amazing by military history standards but should be overshadowed by the amazing November 2004 urban assault on Fallujah, an offensive that redefined urban-warfare success) while maintaining an unprecedented degree of professionalism (despite the occasional bad apples, a card that has been way overplayed by the mainstream media [see the approximately 43 consecutive frontpage Abu Ghraib headlines in the NYT for example] without any historical context)

    Those are certainly some complexities to overcome for a group that wishes to be viewed as pro-American, pro-military and pro-War on Terror. Those hurdles can only be managed if the advantages that I stated earlier carry the day.

    Unfortunately for the Democrats, the GOP in the Senate decided to show a little spine and force the Dems to lay down their cards. Then, the administration decided to get just a little vocal about both plan and progress.

    With just this slightest provocation, the Dems were forced on the defensive and the media was forced to cover the great big blue crawdad move, as Dem pols scattered in different directions and their weaknesses were exposed. Here’s some media coverage of the anarchy currently under the Dem banner.

    Democrats divided over Iraq timetable

    Democrats nationwide generally say that the United States should withdraw its troops from Iraq but remain divided over how and when.

    Like their party leaders in Washington, members of the Democratic National Committee offered a range of opinions Friday about the recent call from Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a Vietnam War veteran and strong military ally, for a complete pullout within six months.

    “I think the presence of American troops are incendiary to all parties in Iraq,” said Robert Bell, who agreed with Murtha’s proposal. “I think eventually there’s going to be a civil war. It’s time for the Iraqis to take care of their own problems.”

    The DNC was holding a three-day meeting in Phoenix.

    […]

    Democrats seemed split over whether the party has been able to capitalize on problems nagging the administration, including the war in Iraq and federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

    […]

    Gaetan DiGangi, a committee member from New Hampshire, said the Democrats shouldn’t take a mean-spirited approach in pointing out Bush’s failings.

    “We are looking to offer something that’s an alternative, and I think we are moving towards that,” DiGangi said.

    Democratic Lawmakers Splinter on Iraq (hat tip to Captain’s Quarters and its coverage of the article)

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s embrace Wednesday of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq highlighted the Democratic Party’s fissures on war policy, putting the House’s top Democrat at odds with her second in command while upsetting a consensus developing in the Senate.

    For months now, Democratic leaders have grown increasingly aggressive in their critiques of President Bush’s policies in Iraq but have been largely content to keep their own war strategies vague or under wraps. That ended Wednesday when Pelosi (D-Calif.) aggressively endorsed a proposal by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, leaving only a much smaller rapid-reaction force in the region.

    The move caught some in the party by surprise. It threw a wrench into a carefully calibrated Democratic theme emerging in the Senate that called for 2006 to be a “significant year of progress” in Iraq, with Iraqi security forces making measurable progress toward relieving U.S. troops of combat duties. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last month that “it’s time to take the training wheels off the Iraqi government.”

    What’s more, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) issued a statement Wednesday that was in marked contrast to Pelosi’s. “I believe that a precipitous withdrawal of American forces in Iraq could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation’s security and credibility,” he said.

    Catering to all is a losing strategy

    DEMOCRATS, especially those with presidential ambitions, think they’re being so clever. They have devised a line of argument they believe will help them benefit politically from President Bush’s troubles in Iraq.

    But it turns out they aren’t so clever after all. What they’ve come up with stands a good chance of backfiring and doing Democratic candidates more harm than good. Even though Iraq seems to be a huge liability for the president and the Republicans, it’s possible that the war will eventually hurt the Democrats as much as anyone.

    That’s a shame. The Bush administration has made plenty of mistakes in Iraq — starting with the fact that it didn’t send enough troops, and didn’t provide adequate supervision for some of the troops it did send. Remember Abu Ghraib? This country could stand an honest and vigorous debate, not about how we got to this point but about where we go from here.

    But this much is certain: If a debate comes, it’ll be no thanks to Democrats. The best they could dream up goes something like this: “We were hustled. Sure, we voted to authorize President Bush to use military force to invade Iraq, but we were misled. Not that we regret toppling Saddam Hussein. We only regret that we weren’t given all the necessary information to make a more informed decision.”

    The “we were hustled” approach offers something for everyone. If you support the war, you can applaud Democrats for backing the president. If you oppose the war, you sympathize with them for being conned by what you’ve probably already decided is a devious bunch.

    But Democrats are forgetting one crucial detail, something they should have learned from recent presidential defeats: Americans hate politicians who duck responsibility for their actions by relying on parsed phrasing and other word games.

    Dems Split on Iraq War Approach

    A day after his latest speech detailing progress in Iraq, Bush stood next to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who wants U.S. troop withdrawals to begin before the end of this year.

    “You don’t need 160,000 people to be doing what we are doing in Iraq today. This is not World War II, this is not Korea, this is not Vietnam,” Kerry said after the White House ceremony commemorating the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

    Kerry is using his Web site and billboards in New Hampshire and Indiana to push his proposal to bring 20,000 troops home before Christmas and “bring home most of our combat troops in 2006.” He seemed to contradict himself, however, when speaking with reporters Thursday at the White House.

    “The truth is, yes, it is going to take a lot longer and many of us believe that, in fact, that goal is not the most realistic one in the short term, that you’re going to have a longer-term struggle in that regard. Now, what we need to do is provide a sufficient level of security and stability so that American forces can begin to come home,” Kerry said.

    That is in essence what the president argued Wednesday and for the last two years. Reinforcing that the White House already had that in mind, spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday that some troop withdrawals could come after the Dec. 15 election in Iraq.

    “We fully expect, as the Pentagon has indicated, that we’re going to be able to reduce some of the troop levels that we increased heading into the elections after the elections take place,” McClellan said. “I think some have talked about how next year could be a period of significant transition.”

    While that might seem to be what Kerry wants, the Massachusetts senator said he and his fellow Democrats are largely united in their opposition to Bush strategy.

    “There is much greater agreement between all of the Democrats, then there is a difference between all of us,” Kerry said.

    But Kerry’s assertion doesn’t follow the recent call for troop withdrawal in six months by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa

    White flag Democrats

    And the Democrats wonder why they are considered weak on national security? It’s not because anyone doubts their patriotism. It’s because a lot of people doubt their judgment and toughness.

    As if to prove the skeptics right, Democrats have been stepping forth to renounce their previous support for the liberation of Iraq even as Iraqis prepare to vote in a general election. Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards, John Murtha — that’s quite a list of heavyweight flip-floppers.

    […]

    There are some honorable exceptions to this defeatism — Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton and Wesley Clark have remained stalwart supporters of the war effort — but they are clearly in the minority of a party steadily drifting toward Howard Dean-George McGovern territory.

    Just a few years ago, it seemed as if the Democrats had finally kicked the post-Vietnam, peace-at-any-price syndrome. Before the invasion of Iraq, leading Democrats sounded hawkish in demanding action to deal with what Kerry called the “particularly grievous threat” posed by Saddam Hussein. But it seems that they only wanted to do something if the cost would be minuscule. Now that the war has turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated, the Democrats want to run up the white flag.

    They are offering two excuses for their loss of will. First, they claim they were “misled into war” by a duplicitous administration. But it wasn’t George W. Bush who said, “I have no doubt today that, left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons [of mass destruction] again.” It was Bill Clinton on Dec. 16, 1998. As this example indicates, the warnings issued by Bush were virtually identical to those of his Democratic predecessor.

    The Democrats’ other excuse is that they never imagined that Bush would bollix up post-invasion planning as badly as he did. It’s true that the president blundered, but it’s not as if things usually go smoothly in the chaos of conflict. In any case, it’s doubtful that the war would have been a cakewalk even if we had been better prepared. The Baathists and their jihadist allies were planning a ruthless terrorist campaign even before U.S. troops entered Iraq. Their calculation was that if they killed enough American soldiers, the American public would demand a pullout.

    So far the terrorists’ plan seems to be working. Even most Republican senators are demanding a withdrawal strategy. But it is the Democrats who are stampeding toward the exits. Apparently the death of about 2,100 soldiers over the course of almost three years is more than they can bear. Good thing these were not the same Democrats who were running the country in 1944, or else they would have pulled out of France after the loss of 5,000 Allied servicemen on D-day.

    Even as a self-proclaimed Reagan revolutionary, I voted for the Libertarian Party candidate in every presidential election I was able to until 9/11. Yes, I voted Libertarian in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000.

    I voted for George Bush in 2004.

    I cannot respect the Libertarian Party’s view of international realities, and I cannot believe for a moment that the bulk of today’s Democrats care more about the future hopes I hold for my possible children and grandchildren and the state of our republic than they do about their own temporary political gain.

  • Attack on Marines Worst in Iraq Since Aug.

    There was bad, bloody news out of Iraq today.

    A roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 while they were on a foot patrol near Fallujah, the Marine Corps said Friday, in the deadliest attack on American troops in nearly four months.

    Thursday’s bomb, which was made from several large artillery shells, struck members of Regimental Combat Team 8 of the 2nd Marine Division near the city about 30 miles west of Baghdad, the Marine Corps said.

    […]

    Of the 11 who were wounded, seven have returned to duty, the Marine Corps said. It added that Marines from the same unit continue to conduct counterinsurgency operations throughout Fallujah and surrounding areas.

    My best wishes and condolences for the families and comrades of these fallen Marines.

  • Pager-forced Link Dump

    I have been owned by the oncall pager, but here’s some reading for y’all.

    ‘This is our Belgian kamikaze’

    Belgians were trying to come to terms Thursday with the news that a working class woman from an industrial southern city had turned from a “nice” shop assistant into a suicide bomber who blew herself up in Iraq.

    “This is our Belgian kamikaze killed in Iraq,” headlined the newspaper La Derniere Heure on Thursday over a picture of a thoroughly normal-looking, smiling girl looking into the camera.

    When her mother, Liliane Degauque, saw police coming to her doorstep on Wednesday, she immediately knew what it was about. The evening before, she had heard the reports there had been a terrorist attack on Nov. 9 by a Belgian woman.

    “When I saw the first pictures, I said to myself, ‘it is my girl.’ For three weeks already I tried to contact her by telephone but I got the answering machine,” she told the RTBF network on Thursday.

    Authorities on Thursday formally arrested 5 of the 14 suspects they detained in dawn raids the day before and charged them with involvement in a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including Degauque’s daughter Muriel, who died at 38.

    Nine were released. Those placed under arrest were a Tunisian and four Belgians, three of whom had foreign roots.

    “This action shows how international terrorism tries to set up networks in western European nations, recruit for terror attacks in conflict areas and look for funds to finance terrorism,” said Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

    In her younger years, Muriel lived a conventional life in the Charleroi area. Media reports said she finished high school before taking on several jobs, including selling bread in a bakery. “She was so nice,” said her mother. The picture in the paper dated from that time.

    She told media, however, that her daughter could easily be influenced.

    Muriel changed first when she married an Algerian man and later one with Moroccan roots. She was increasingly drawn into fundamentalist religion.

    “It is the first time that we see that a Western woman, a Belgian, marries a radical Muslim, and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter,” said federal police director Glenn Audenaert.

    Belgium. France. The Netherlands. All have been served notice of the Islamist danger in their midst. None yet have taken their individual national wake-up calls seriously enough yet. This is not just a condemnation of these three countries but also of all around them. After all, to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, any fool can learn from his own mistakes, but it is preferable to learn from the mistakes of others, as well.

    Ramadi Insurgents Flaunt Threat

    Armed fighters claiming allegiance to Abu Musab Zarqawi took to the streets of a western Iraqi provincial capital Thursday in a fleeting show aimed at intimidating Iraqi Sunni Arab leaders taking part in dialogue with U.S. Marines in a stronghold of the insurgency, provincial officials, residents and other witnesses said.

    The scene — lean figures, many in masks and dark tracksuits lugging shoulder-mounted rocket launchers or wielding AK-47 assault rifles — reinforced what the U.S. military has acknowledged is the strong insurgent presence in the Euphrates River cities and towns of Anbar province, an overwhelmingly Sunni area near the Syrian border. The appearance of the fighters dismayed many of the residents of Ramadi, the war-blighted provincial capital.

    […]

    The armed fighters on the streets left statements in the name of Zarqawi’s group, saying their show of force was in response to negotiations between the “Sunni midgets and the stooges of the occupation forces.” The statements contained pledges to kill each Sunni leader participating.

    The U.S. military, which maintains Marine bases and thousands of troops on the outskirts of Ramadi, denied the accounts of unrest, saying that the city was largely calm Thursday and that insurgents were manipulating the news media. “Today I witnessed inaccurate reporting, use of unreliable sources, media using other media as sources, an active insurgent propaganda machine, and the pack journalism at its worse,” Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division, said in an e-mail to news organizations.

    Witnesses in Ramadi said they saw some of the armed fighters instruct a journalist for an Arabic-language news outlet to report that Zarqawi’s group, al Qaeda in Iraq, had taken over the entire city. The Arabic outlet by late Thursday was reporting only that the fighters had held some streets of the city center — a description of events in line with the eyewitness accounts and reports from other news organizations. News directors for the organization did not respond to requests for comment. The news organization is not being identified for security reasons.

    This is about as clear evidence as you can have that there are two wars being conducted — on the battlefield and in the media. The terrorists know this and, unfortunately for them, showed themselves to be truly crippled if little stunts like their assaulting and briefly holding a couple of city blocks comprise their current hope to pull of a Tet offensive-type media success.

    Germany: No ransom for Iraq kidnappers

    German leaders said Thursday they still have had no contact with the kidnappers of a German woman seized in Iraq and Chancellor Angela Merkel said considering paying a ransom was “not up for discussion” at this time.

    Susanne Osthoff and her Iraqi driver were taken last Friday, and were pictured in a videotape blindfolded on a floor, with militants – one armed with a rocket propelled grenade – standing beside them.

    The militants are reportedly demanding that Germany cease its dealings with Iraq’s government or they will kill the hostages. Germany was an ardent opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has refused to send troops there, but has been training Iraqi soldiers and police outside the country.

    Merkel indicated in a speech Wednesday that Germany will not change its Iraq policy, stressing that the country “will not let ourselves be blackmailed” over Osthoff’s abduction.

    On Thursday, Merkel told reporters that the government was “doing all its can to save her life and that of her companion.”

    Asked if Germany would consider paying a ransom, Merkel said that was “not up for discussion at all now.”

    “At the moment it is about very elementary questions … First of all, we are interested in finding out how to make contact” with the kidnappers, Merkel said.

    Well, that’s not actually a very strong stance. Hopefully, Merkel will prove to have more of a spine than to cave in to terror and help finance future bloodshed for short-term political gain. You know, like the Philippines. Or allegedly the Italians and French.

    Finally, two blog must-reads:

    The Telegraph’s Nose Just Grew Ten Feet

    Should we hold newspapers accountable for exagerating or just lying? No, I do not mean legally, but as consumers we do drive their paychecks to print out blatent lies and mischaracterizations. Take for instance the following article in The Telegraph [headlined US ‘paid journalists to lie about war’]

    […]

    As a member of the free press, that is unless George Soros has purchased The Telegraph, the rag should know how the same press they operate under works. Apparently they do not. First things first though in this abysmal piece of journalism. Even though The Telegraph cites the Los Angeles Times for breaking the story, no where in the LA Times piece is there any information regarding the United States “paid journalists to lie about war” as stated in the title. I urge everyone to read the original LA Times piece to verify.

    Read it all. This story is growing and needs to be seen for its absurdity as early as possible.

    Picturing Polls, Red vs. Blue

    Here are recent (already outdated) poll numbers put into picture form of President George W. Bush’s approval ratings as seen on numerous Leftist websites.

    Not a good show for Chimpy-Bushitler, that is for sure!

    Too bad their data is no longer accurate. The current and respected Rasmussen Report has his approval rating back to 46%.

    These earlier polls do make you assume that if “W” is having such a hard time, then surely his democratic opponents are reaping the benefits. Right?

    But, looking at Congressional Democratic approval ratings you get this…

    Go see Gateway Pundit’s collection of red-blue maps. Interesting and unheralded, though not surprising.

  • 14 Terror Suspects Detained In Belgium

    The war in Iraq continues, and Europe continues to be a front despite the distance.

    Belgian police raided homes in four cities Wednesday and detained 14 people suspected of involvement in a terrorist network that sent fighters to Iraq, including a Belgian woman reported to have carried out a suicide bombing in Baghdad.

    Belgian authorities “want to dismantle this network, which we knew was on our territory and which aimed to send volunteers” to fight in Iraq, Glenn Audenaert, the federal police director, told reporters.

    More than 200 police officers took part in raids at dawn in Brussels and three other cities following media reports that a Belgian woman had blown herself up in a Nov. 9 attack in Baghdad. The woman reportedly carried out a car bombing against an American patrol. U.S. officials said she was the only person killed.

    The woman was 38, her first name was Mireille and she came from a middle-class background in Charleroi, about 30 miles south of Brussels, an official close to the investigation said on condition of anonymity.

    The woman converted to Islam after she married a man from Morocco, officials said. “This is how she came into contact with the organization which allowed her to become a fighter,” Audenaert said.

    Her husband was killed in Iraq in a separate incident, officials said.

    Nine of the 14 suspects detained Wednesday were Belgian. Three were Moroccan and two were Tunisian.

    Europe’s longstanding immigration policies, poisonously too generous to the north of Africa and its included radical elements, and its willingness for years to overlook a growing militant threat are now bearing fruit. Unfortunately, the Euro nations, while seemingly willing to play hardball and police up the symptoms after the fact, refuse to address the disease of the radical and growing Islamist elements in their societies.

  • Sharp Objects may be Allowed on Planes

    The decorations, the music, so many other signs tell me we’re moving into the December holiday season, but, for some reason, it really seems that we instead are heading backward … to Sept. 10.

    Airport security screeners are reportedly going to let passengers bring sharp objects on board airplanes again. Today’s Washington Post says the Transportation Security Administration plans to announce security changes Friday.

    Sources quoted by the paper say the new rules will allow things like scissors in carry-on bags. The reasoning is that such items are no longer regarded as the greatest threat to airline security. Homeland Security Department officials are said to be more concerned about preventing suicide bomb attacks at airports. Officials want screeners to focus more on finding things that can explode rather than things that are sharp.

    The Post reports the newly relaxed rules would allow scissors under four inches long tools [sic] shorter than seven inches.

    TSA spokeswoman says the new initiatives will be positive for both security and customer service.

    Hmmm … about those “tools shorter than seven inches,” would those include boxcutters? Scissors are fine, as terrorists will be asked to run with them.

    Look, I don’t care about customer service anywhere near the amount I care about customers not being turned into corpses and innocent people on the ground dying, possibly again by the thousands. It does not matter that sharp devices are no longer considered the greatest threat. If they are any threat at all, there is no reason for a change that may cost lives.

  • Activists’ Group Blames U.S., Britain for Iraq Kidnappings

    Idiots.

    A peace group has blamed the United States and Britain for the abduction of four of its activists in Iraq.

    The activists were kidnapped on Saturday.

    Among them is 74-year-old Norman Kember, a retired professor from London.

    Christian Peacemaker Teams, which has been working in Iraq since 2002, has released a statement saying it is saddened by a video tape, which aired on Arabic television channel Al Jazeera, showing the four men being held hostage by insurgents.

    It says the kidnapping is a direct result of the actions of the US and UK governments due to the illegal attack on Iraq.

    Unless the nabbed peaceniks are in the hands of coalition forces, which they’re not, I’d say that the U.S. and U.K. are no more to blame — no, wait, make that far, far less to blame — than the captured idealistic twits who foolishly, recklessly and quite voluntarily put themselves into danger. While I wish for the best for these activists, blaming those who will work to save them is pathetic.

    Hey, here’s a crazy notion — why can’t we blame the thugs who actually did the kidnapping?

  • Texas Guard Unit Heading Home

    My dear friend William J. Hartmann, my former tank crewmate and close buddy of several years, prepped for deployment to Iraq. He served there. Now, he and his comrades from the Texas Army National Guard’s 36th Brigade are honorably returning home.

    The Dallas Morning-News recently covered this deployment and return by interviewing the brigade’s Lt. Col. Jeffrey Breor. The following is the paper’s intro to the story:

    After almost a year in Iraq, the 3,000 soldiers of the National Guard’s 56th Brigade Combat Team are heading home this month, completing the largest deployment of the Texas National Guard since World War II.

    They traveled more than a million miles, providing security for supply convoys and searching for roadside bombs. They built new schools in impoverished villages and helped secure ballots for the country’s historic elections.

    And they saw some of their friends and neighbors die.

    “Yes, we’re getting to the end of our mission,” said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Breor of McKinney, speaking recently from Camp Tallil in southern Iraq. “But I’m not ready to say we’re done.”

    Staff writer Vernon Smith Jr., who spent time with the brigade earlier this year in Iraq, spoke to Col. Breor by telephone about the brigade’s experiences over the last year.

    As the full story of the interview requires free subscription (which I have found tolerable), I have waited a few days and posted the rest of the insightful Q&A at the option of the reader.

    (more…)

  • Two Arrested in Attacks on Oakland Liquor Stores

    Though media attention during the war against radical Islamism has been focused on international culprits, the rising danger of militancy of a made-in-America variety has occasionally found the limelight. Usually, this has tended to be descendants of Arab immigrants or caucasian converts like that bastard John Walker Lindh. Stories about black Moslems in America have tended to be about how they have been a people of peace, quite happy and settled in American society, aside from the occasional threat of Islamist gang-related terror.

    I propose that this is all a little too politically correct and that there is a militancy in portions of the American Moslem population that would readily lend itself to the efforts of our civilization’s enemies. As anecdotal evidence, I present the following duo, allegedly two of a group willing to commit violent crime based upon their rigid religious beliefs.

    Two men were arrested late Tuesday for their role in vandalizing a pair of stores for selling alcohol to blacks, Oakland police said.

    Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said that Donald Cunningham, 73, and Yusef Bey IV, 19, turned themselves in to face charges including robbery, felony vandalism, conspiracy and terrorist threats. Police have obtained warrants charging four other suspects with similar crimes and expect arrests soon.

    Bey, who has been linked to a black Muslim group that runs the Your Black Muslim Bakery store chain, was taken to North County Jail and was being held on $200,000 bail, according to police.

    The arrests cap a bizarre week that has included the vandalism of the San Pablo Liquor store and the New York Market last Wednesday by men wearing suits and bow ties.

    The men, all of whom were black, smashed liquor bottles and toppled food racks while demanding that both stores stop selling alcohol to black people, authorities said.

    Then, days later, the store clerk at the New York Market was kidnapped and the business was burned down.

    Store employee Abdel Hamdan was found safe in the trunk of a car Monday, about 12 hours after the fire, as police sought to get to the bottom of the attacks.

    “We’re very happy that he came back safe,” said Frank Hernen, manager of New York Market. “We don’t want this to go further.”

    […]

    The incident at San Pablo Liquor was caught on surveillance tape, and police said they have identified six of the 10 or 11 vandals and believe the same men trashed the New York Market.

    Suspicion immediately fell on the Nation of Islam, a group of Muslims whose members often wear suits and bow ties. However, Jordan said the suspects are not members of the Nation of Islam. He held out the possibility that they belong to a separate Muslim group based in Oakland.

    In 1993, Muslims affiliated with a group which operates the Your Black Muslim Bakery store chain and whose members also wear suits and bow ties, were involved in a similar incident at a Richmond liquor store, police said.

    Investigators were looking into the recent vandalism as hate crimes because the store owners are of Middle Eastern background and are Muslims, Jordan said Monday.

    “In both incidents, the suspects entered the store and questioned why a Muslim-owned store would sell alcoholic beverages when it is against the Muslim religion,” police said in a statement.

    Interestingly, currently this is apparently a matter of Moslem-on-Moslem violence. I see little reason to see that this could not expand to other targets and grow to more violent methods. There are, after all, only large chunks of the history of the religion in question upon which to base these possibilities of escalation.

  • Mother’s Iraq Protest Plays to Smaller Crowd

    Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan’s Thanksgiving vigil in Crawford will not go down as a rousing success.

    Dancing to reggae music and hugging her supporters, Cindy Sheehan led an anti-Iraq war rally Saturday at a one-acre campsite adjoining the ranch where President Bush is spending his holiday weekend

    Wait, whoa, stop right there! Dancing to reggae music? Is this Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan’s idea of a mournful vigil? A traditional Thanksgiving? No, it’s a brief crack in the mainstream media’s coverage of Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan. Oops, sorry about that folks, don’t expect to hear more about it, or about her actual radically leftist views. Now, back to the story.

    As in August, when she galvanized attention and made headlines for days with similar protests, there were songs and speeches and demonstrators holding signs reading “Bring the Troops Home” near the main entrance of the 1,600-acre ranch where Bush has been vacationing since Tuesday.

    Unlike then, when hundreds came from all over the country for major events at the two campsites named after Sheehan’s son, who was killed in Iraq, Sheehan found herself addressing a crowd of only about 100 Saturday afternoon. The large tent where supporters had erected a stage hung with the banner “Speak Truth to Power” was only partially full. In the morning Sheehan signed copies of her new book, being published this week, for an even smaller crowd.

    Regarding that sparsely-attended book signing, Jawsblog looks at a picture similar to the one accompanying the WaPo piece and reminds us of a time-tested business axiom.

    Meanwhile, turn out the lights, the party’s over … for now.

    Dozens of war protesters packed up their tents and left their campsite in a field near President Bush’s ranch Sunday, vowing to return during Easter for a third vigil if U.S. troops are still in Iraq.

    The weeklong protest, which coincided with Bush’s Thanksgiving holiday visit to his ranch, drew about 200 people. It was a continuation of the August demonstration led by California mother Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey died in Iraq last year during combat.

    […]

    Before leaving town Sunday, the group of about 50 war protesters held an interfaith service at the Crawford Peace House.

    They also planted a tree at their campsite, a private lot about a mile from Bush’s ranch. The landowner who let demonstrators use the property the last few weeks of the August vigil has leased it to them through next year. Before last week’s protest, the group had water and electricity installed.

    “We’re here for the long haul. As long as this country is at war with Iraq, we’ll be here to oppose it,” said Hadi Jawad, a co-founder of the Crawford Peace House, which opened a month after the war began in March 2003. “I think Crawford has become a point of pilgrimage to a lot of people. This has become hallowed ground.”

    Hmmm … I’ve been to Crawford, and it ain’t hollowed ground. Not even if one adds a silly sculpture and calls it a monument. For hallowed ground, I would instead offer the site where Casey Sheehan raised his right hand and volunteered for our country’s military. Or perhaps the site where he chose to re-enlist, again vowing to support his nation. Or perhaps the site where he fell, giving all in service to his nation and his comrades in a manner he rightly held noble.

    I am curious about the financing of that water and electricity installation. Any chance we could get some names there?

    Perhaps upon Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan’s return to Crawford in Easter, we can actually get media coverage of the woman herself? Maybe some video of the mournful Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan dancing to reggae during the traditional egg roll? Maybe an inciteful look at her controversial quotes that have pretty much gone uncovered outside the blogosphere? Nah, that would take reporting.

    During her autumn stunts, I blogged that Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan was fighting tooth and nail for an addition to her fifteen minutes of fame. In a comment on my post about the silly monument, Phil pegged her as currently being at about her nineteenth minute. The woman is addicted to attention, as demonstrated by her jealousy of hurricane coverage, and will not wait until Easter. I only fear how low Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan will stoop to be in front of cameras in the meantime.