More Iran Stuff

Iran Press News has a story reprinted form FrontPageMagazine.com by Kenneth R. Timmerman. In his piece, Getting Iran Wrong – Again, Mr. Timmerman rips both the Press and the Careerists at State (may favorite people) as the ones that are just getting in the way of the Administration's desire to do the right thing in Iran.

The story starts here:

Washington Post reporter Karl Vick, reporting from Tehran this week, trumpeted that the new U.S. strategy to help pro-democracy groups inside Iran “could backfire,” by tainting activists as American agents.
“We are under pressure here both from hard-liners in the judiciary and that stupid George Bush,” he triumphantly quotes an Iranian “human rights activist” as saying.
The only problem is, the “human rights activists” and “pro-democracy” folks Karl Vick quotes are nothing of the sort. They are members of the discredited “reformist” movement, which ruled Iran from 1989 until last year.

And just gets worse:

It’s absolutely critical that we get Iran right. On one side, we have a fake Iranian “resistance” group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which has jinned up a massive lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill. They are hoping to convince Congress to get the Administration to lift the State Department’s designation of the group, which dates from 1994, as an international terrorist organization.
“Imagine the message that would send to the Iranian people,” one administration official who is appalled at the MEK lobbying efforts told me.
“So we’re telling them they should be ruled by some crazy terrorist cult?” As I reported recently, the MEK helped bring Khomeini to power in 1979, but had a falling out two years later over how to share power. Call them Iran’s Trotskyists, if you will.
Sazegarah believes the main tool the U.S. should use is political recognition of the opposition. He urged a boycott of last year’s presidential elections, as a first step toward convincing the international community to reject as illegitimate Iran’s Stalinist-style elections. The reformists, on the contrary, are still hoping to change the face of the current regime, to make it more palatable to the West. The CIA has also fallen for Iranian maskirovka, repeating year after year in unclassified intelligence assessments that “no viable opposition” exists in Iran. This is strategic deception at its best. You’d think that the few Cold Warriors left at Langley would teach their younger colleagues the old Soviet tradecraft.

You know that the more things change the more they stay the same.

As Benjamin Netanyahu once said;
The Communists did irrational things for rational reasons,
The Islamists do irrational things for irrational reasons.

Chafee's Office Is Understaffed

Why do I say that? Because here is a guy who is always stepping in a giant stinking pile of horsebleep, and he just has a small group of people answering the phones.
"Hi would like to voice my displeasure at the Sentor's decission to 'thnk about' supporting the Centure Resolution put out by uber-Liberal Russ Feingold (D-Moon)"

Crickets, followed by a request for my name and the city that I live in.

Keep up the slams.

Well you all know what to do.
Phone the Senator. Washington, DC (202) 224-2921
Providence, RI (401) 453-5294
Newport, RI (401) 845-0700
E-blast the NRSIPC, go to the upper corner, they have a contact us link, use it.

Religion Of Peace My A$$

We have all heard the bullbleep about Islam being a religion that is tolerant of others within their grasp. Well this news clip from Iran Press News should put that to rest.

Received reports indicate that the regime's brutal forces have attacked Iranians celebrating the Festival of Fire (Chaharshanbeh Souri). This is an ancient Persian celebration, predating Islam by a couple of thousand years; it marks the approaching of the Iranian new year (which is also pre-Islamic), celebrated on March 21, the vernal equinox.

Well this must just be a bunch of Right Wing clap trap about the wonderful Mullahs, who just want to make everyone's life better.
Here is my favorite part of the story:

Last week, KAYHAN, the mouthpiece newspaper belonging to the Fuehrer Mullah Khamnei, in yet another shameless and fascistic attempt at destroying all things Persian, pronounced the observance of the ancient Persian New Year and the pre-New Year celebration of the Festival of Fire to be Haraam (forbidden by Islam or religiously unclean). (emp. mine)

Great stuff over at this site, reminding all of us that the war on terror is being fought everyday, by people on the forgotten front line.

The RINO Feingold Standard

Yesterday CBS News asked Will Russ Feingold Stand Alone Again?

Well, we here in Rhode Island know the answer to that one. Not as long as Missin' Linc is in the US Senate.

Arizona Republican John McCain, a friendly collaborator with Feingold on campaign reform, pointedly criticized the resolution, saying it was "unfortunate and wrong." McCain said: "Russ and I are close personal friends. We just have a very strong disagreement on this issue."
One liberal GOP senator, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, offered some praise for Feingold, saying the resolution would be "positive" if it fueled debate over the legality of some policies in the war on terrorism.

Reading this piece from Feingold's HomeTowne Fishwrap, one is struck by the fact that John McCain (R-Media) is trying to move closer to the President. And anyone who has been listening to Rush, knows why.
But our little boy, just keeps on moving further and further from even the center of the Republican Party, but the National Republican Senatorial Incumbent Protection Committee just doesn't care.

Well you all know what to do.
Phone the Senator. Washington, DC (202) 224-2921
Providence, RI (401) 453-5294
Newport, RI (401) 845-0700

E-blast the NRSIPC, go to the upper corner, they have a contact us link, use it.

Keep attacking it will help.

Happy Purim

From a goyim.

Why? Here is part of the story: (NIV)

Esther 9
Triumph of the Jews
16 Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jews who were in the king's provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of them but did not lay their hands on the plunder. 17 This happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.
Purim Celebrated

18 The Jews in Susa, however, had assembled on the thirteenth and fourteenth, and then on the fifteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.
19 That is why rural Jews (those living in villages) observe the fourteenth of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting, a day for giving presents to each other.
20 Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, 21 to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar 22 as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.
23 So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. 24 For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction. 25 But when the plot came to the king's attention, [a] he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. 26 (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur .) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, 27 the Jews took it upon themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed. 28 These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never cease to be celebrated by the Jews, nor should the memory of them die out among their descendants.

You see the Jews in Persia were free from the terror of Haman, a man who wished to kill all the Jews. Gee doesn't that sound familiar?

They still survive, and while modern Jews face more Hamans, LET US ALL STAND WITH THEM.

The Deafening Sound Of Crickets

Yesterday (hat tip conspiracy squirrels) I read where the WaPo's former head honcho Ben Bradlee, is quoted by Vanity Fair as saying the "likely source" who revealed Valerie Plame's identity to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's is former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Patrick Casey who runs the site had a great rant about how Armitage was his first choice for the role of PlameLeaker, and how the media would cover this piece of news:

This is a problem for the press and Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. Richard Armitage was/is unfriendly to Bush. He was knowingly leaking info to portray Bush in the worst light possible. He wanted Bush defeated in 2004... Armitage knew that Plame and Wilson were lying through their teeth. But even Armitage, who wanted Bush to be politically hurt and to lose the election, couldn't stand the way his allies in the media were playing up Plamaquiddick. Let's see how the press spins this one...

Well we have an answer, silence.

I did a search of news stories based on the news of what Ben Bradlee told Vanity Fair and the lack of coverage was striking. This piece from UPI sums up how the press is spinning the negative (to them) news of who it was that really told Bob Woodward what Ms. Plame did for a living.

However, Bradlee told the Post he didn't "think I said it," when talking to Vanity Fair. "I know who the source is and I don't want to get into it. ... I have not told a soul who it is," Bradlee told the Post.

Vanity Fair said Marie Brenner, who wrote about the Plame affair for the magazine, was not available for comment. Armitage also did not comment to the Post on the report.

Isn't that interesting.
Now I will guarantee that had Ben said Scooter Libey, there wouldn't be a retraction, or silence.

Now to me the real tragedy in this story is something that Patrick hints at, and if you have ever read my State Department rants, you know where I'm going with this.

The two people that I would have thought would have been perfect to clean up the State Department became part of the problem. Behind the scenes, Armitage and Powell became professional "Cover Your Ass" men, attempting to deflect any and
all criticism justly and rightly targeted towards the State Department and the CIA towards the Bush Administration and the White House.

It is the whole Foggy Bottom Curse. The type that turns smart people into the zombie followers of the cult of John Foster and Allan Dulles. While I realize that there were other bureaucratic leaders of State and CIA, these two Banana Lawyers are the ones that I blame the most.
Why? Just because of this:
Appeasement and Diplomacy, the twin evils of American Foreign Policy now and then.
We have always faced something that challenged American power and plans, and these two men were big fans of not stepping on the BIG toes even while making moves that challenged the little ones. Fight and challenge Communism to a point, but don't piss Uncle Joe off. Now this policy is best described as Fight and challenge Terrorism everywhere but the places that nurture and finance it. The Madaras', The House of Saud, Iran, and until recently Iraq.

Also At The WSJ

One of my favorite writers was interviewed and restated one of my favorite quotes.

Tom Wolfe was interviewed in the Saturday edition of the WSJ and he raised the issue of Blue states Vs. Red states in the best description I've ever heard.

"And so many of them are so caught up in this kind of metropolitan intellectual atmosphere that they simply don't go across the Hudson River. They literally do not set foot in the United States. We live in New York in one of the two parenthesis states. They're usually called blue states--they're not blue states, the states on the coast. They're parenthesis states--the entire country lies in between." (emphasis mine)

What a great way to look at it.

Sometimes Smart People Say Stupid Things.

Case in point, Francis Fukuyama, best known for his 1992 book, "The End of History and the Last Man." He has a new book about the Iraq War, one in which he claims it was a bad idea. This is part of a new book from the neo-con historian and culture critic, called "America at the Crossroads," his latest tome.
Now I will cut Mr. Fukuyama some slack on this because he is usually right on when it comes to issues of national security, but I will also let BRET STEPHENS over at the WSJ take the history of Mr. Fukuyama's stand against the war to task.
I want to focus on one of the other points that Mr. Stephens raises in his "review' of this book. Mr. Stephens breaks part of the book's argument down with this piece:

the administration failed to anticipate the extent to which the war would aggravate anti-Americanism and reshape global politics accordingly. Second, it mischaracterized and exaggerated the threat posed by radical Islamism: Jihadism, he writes, is "a byproduct of modernization and globalization, not traditionalism," which is better dealt with by integrating Muslims already living in the West than by " 'fixing' the Middle East." (emphasis mine)

What?!?!?
Here is a man who understood the historic ramifications of the death of communism, as it was dying, and yet he misses the whole history of Islamism and Jihadism. These ideas were not born when the House of Saud let infidels build airbases on their land, or even when Jews moved back into the Promised Land, NO these ideals and ways of life have existed in Islam for as long as there has been Islam.
Jihad is one of the tenants of the faith. It is how the religion spread thro the already Christianized Middle East, southwestern Europe, and even the southeastern corner of Europe, to the gates of Vienna. In their wake "infidels" were either killed, converted or made into dhimmi.
If you have any questions about this, check out the book link included.

Civil War?

Mohammed over at Iraq The Model has a great piece about the violence in Baghdad and elsewhere in his home country.
Well it seems that the violence has a connection, not just to sectarian differences, but to the BIG STORY over there. No I don't mean a news show with Mohamad el-Gibson, THE TRIAL.

Looking at the time pattern of violence escalations we can notice that spikes in attacks curve coincide with the sessions of Saddam's trial which indicates that followers of Saddam are still strong and active inside Baghdad and it seems that those are isolating themselves from the developments in the Iraqi scene even with regard to their politician friends and public base so to speak as the latter had changed their methods and switched largely to political means of opposition.

Those Saddam followers are moving far away from the general course of events and are likely to remain a source of trouble for a long time to come but their determination I suspect will fade after Saddam is executed.

Boy, do I love those last four words.