American video games display the power of our soldiers and military might and technology.

Iranian video games rely on bombs being planted by terrorists on a defenseless U.S. oil tanker in order to disrupt oil transport through the Straight of Hormuz.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A new Iranian computer game sets players the task of blowing up a U.S. tanker in the Gulf to block the sea route for much of the world’s oil supplies, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

The game, “Counter Strike”, invites players to plant two bombs on the oil tanker to sink it and make the strait of Hormuz impassable, the Jomhouri-ye Eslami daily reported. About two-fifths of globally traded oil passes through the channel.

The game illustrates a warning by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said in June that oil exports in the Gulf region could be seriously endangered if the United States made a wrong move on Iran.

Our videos games here in the states have you play the part of highly elite soldiers who lay an extreme case of whoop ass down on legitmate targets, usually highly defended, as opposed to simple civilian tankers. For instance, Ghost Recon 2 takes place on the Korean Penisula, a place we all know has the specter of a nuclear exchange with much thanks to Mr. Kim of the Poofy Hair. I am just waiting for the terrorists to start having car bombing games, or perhaps even beheading video games. Only a matter of time…

Said Duncan Avatar @ 6:51 pm Comments (2) | Permalink   

At what point does one’s action actually become treasonous?

trea‧son  /ˈtrizən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[tree-zuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun

1.	the offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or to harm or kill its sovereign.

2.	a violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state.

3.	the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.

Today in Charlotte, An organization called Action Center for Justice is holding an “impeachment rally.”  On their web site, they list various supporters and groups, such as the Charlotte Green party, that are “united” to remove president Bush.  They claim to be calling for the impeachment of Bush (and yes, this is the same group that caused riots in Charlotte last weekend).

One of their supporters and sponsors of this event is “World Can’t Wait.”  This organization has, as it’s stated goals, to “Drive out the Bush regime.”  They say that there is no political solution.  They say that there will be no “Democrat savior.”  Instead, they want to drive out the Bush regime by “any means possible.”  They say that “Bush must be stopped.”

So, is this an attempt to overthrow the government?  Or just some innocent protests?

Said Ogre @ 8:27 am Comments (2) | Permalink   

There was a time when Al Gore pandered to voters with boasts like this:

I’ve raised tobacco … I’ve shredded it, spiked it,… and sold it.

If this is true, he owes his environmentalist friends a fortune in eco-indulgences, because now Gore has revealed that cigarette smoking is a “significant” contributor to his current hobbyhorse, the bane of mankind and all life on Earth, global warming.

The revelation was made to a receptive audience at United Nations headquarters, where Prince Albert spent nearly 3 hours lecturing bureaucrats on the perils of warm weather, on invitation from his old pal Kofi Annan.

Those in the audience lacking the initiative to sneak out of the auditorium learned not only that cigarette smoking is causing the planet to heat up, but that Greenland runs the risk of “splitting in two” — and that if that happens, parts of Manhattan, Shanghai, and Mumbai “will disappear.”

It just gets scarier and scarier, doesn’t it?

Cross-posted @ Moonbattery.

Said Van Helsing @ 4:46 pm Comments (3) | Permalink   

Bumper Sticker Contest

The 2006 Battle for Congress is about to shift into high gear. With just 40 days before the November 7th election , candidates are beginning the advertising blitz on television that will soon become a blur.

So let’s beat the wave that is coming for political message overload and have some fun making up bumper stickers and campaign slogans.

My favorite from the 2004 presidential election was:

Here are a few other goodies:

Have Some Fun: Submit Your Bumper Sticker or Slogan

Got an idea for a great bumper sticker or slogan? Drop it in the comments section. Better yet, play with the simple graphics tools that came with your computer (it’s not that hard) and post a graphic on your blog and link to it here.

If graphics aren’t your thing, here are some tools you can use to create Chinese restaurant signs, or visit Generator Blog , Txt2Pic or Here for more fun toys like this:

Crossposted from Stop the ACLU In case you haven’t heard, a group of dissenters from the ACLU are rebelling and calling for a change in the current leadership of the main organization. The summary of things this new group is fed up with is hypocrisy and the ACLU is full of it. Purging the ACLU of its hypocrisy is bound to be a Goliath task. Where do we even begin with the ACLU’s hypocrisy? How about its odd stance on the Second Amendment? They have decided that the term “the people” that is contained in the Second Amendment does not apply to “the people” as it does in all of the other rights contained in the Bill of Rights. Instead they say that the Second Amendment only applies to militias such as the National Guard. They defend even the most radical free speech issues as individual rights, but somehow have adopted the opposite position on the Second Amendment. In August of 2005 the New York ACLU sued against random bag searches on the NY Subway. Ironically the NYCLU HQ has a sign warning visitors that all bags are subject to search. The ACLU have fought tooth and nail against the Bush administration’s NSA program, a program designed to track international phone calls being made to or from suspected terrorist organizations. They have hailed themselves defenders of the right to privacy and labelled the program an illegal “secret” program of “domestic spying”. All the while the ACLU has its own “secret” program of domestic spying of its own members and their personal financial information. This program has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with the real bottom line of fund-raising. Former ACLU board member Michael Myers was shocked at this discovery.

The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide variety of information about its members and donors in a fund-raising effort that has ignited a bitter debate over its leaders’ commitment to privacy rights. Some board members say the extensive data collection makes a mockery of the organization’s frequent criticism of banks, corporations and government agencies for their practice of accumulating data on people for marketing and other purposes. The group’s new data collection practices were implemented without the board’s approval or knowledge and were in violation of the ACLU’s privacy policy at the time, according to Michael Meyers, vice president of the organization and a frequent internal critic. He said he had learned about the new research by accident Nov. 7 during a meeting of the committee that is organizing the group’s Biennial Conference in July. He objected to the practices, and the next day, the privacy policy on the group’s Web site was changed. “They took out all the language that would show that they were violating their own policy,” Meyers said. “In doing so, they sanctified their procedure while still keeping it secret.”

After spending 23 years on the ACLU board, the “defenders of free speech” issued gag orders to him, not to speak about the issue. Now thats free speech for you. When it comes to free speech the ACLU claim to be its most steadfast defender. Now, I am not an absolutist on unlimited free speech. However, most people would think that an organization arguing for hate cults to protest with “God Hates Fags” signs at military funerals, neo nazis to march through Jewish neighborhoods, and that child porn distribution is protected by the First Amendment are about as absolutist as it gets. Not so! When it comes to abortion protesters the ACLU could care less about their free speech rights. As a matter of fact they actively fight against pro-life protesters’ free speech and have even tried RICO lawsuits on them. It is scary to see just how far the ACLU will go for its unrestricted abortion agenda. Free speech definitely takes a backseat to their pro-abortion agenda. They have even listed it as their number one priority pushing the defense of the First Amendment, the alleged heart and soul of the ACLU’s mission, down to third on the list, after civil rights. But don’t just take my word for it, listen to the words of a former Executive Director:

The right to express unpopular opinions, advocate despised ideas and display graphic images is something the ACLU has steadfastly defended for all of its nearly 80-year history. But the ACLU, a group for which I proudly worked as executive director of the Florida and Utah affiliates for more than 10 years, has developed a blind spot when it comes to defending anti-abortion protesters. The organization that once defended the right of a neo-Nazi group to demonstrate in heavily Jewish Skokie, Ill., now cheers a Portland, Ore., jury that charged a group of anti-abortion activists with $107 million in damages for expressing their views. Gushed the ACLU’s press release: “We view the jury’s verdict as a clarion call to remove violence and the threat of violence from the political debate over abortion.” Were the anti-abortion activists on trial accused of violence? No. Did they threaten violence? Not as the ACLU or Supreme Court usually defines it, when in the context of a call for social change. The activists posted a Web site dripping with animated blood and titled “The Nuremberg Files,” after the German city where the Nazis were tried for their crimes. Comparing abortion to Nazi atrocities, the site collected dossiers on abortion doctors, whom they called “baby butchers.” … This is ugly, scary stuff. But it is no worse than neo-Nazi calls for the annihilation of the Jewish people, or a college student posting his rape fantasies about a fellow coed on the Web, both of which the ACLU has defended in the past.

Defending NAMBLA to print material advocating for sex between grown men and boys is the definition of defending “robust freedom of speech” in the ACLU’s book, but defending people’s right to protest against killing the unborn somehow fails to make the list. But the hypocrisy does not end there. When it comes to protecting religious expression the ACLU has proven itself to be number one in America’s religious censors. They have consistently shown themselves to be hostile towards Christianity in particular. When the Tangipahoa Parish School Board in Louisiana opened its board meetings with a prayer like they had for 30 years the ACLU sued. After the ACLU won that case and the School Board ignored the court ruling, Louisiana ACLU chief Joe Cook called for them to be jailed and compared them to terrorists. Mr. Cook is currently leading an attack on plan for a Katrina memorial paid for with private funds to be erected on private land simply because it is in the shape of a cross and might offend some sensitive passerby. When valedictorian of Foothill High, Brittany McComb, decided to share her faith voluntarily at her graduation cermony the ACLU said it was the right call to pull the plug. Currently when the ACLU wins a case from attacking religious expression it is awarded attorneys fees, often in the millions, at the expense of the American taxpayer. The U.S. House of Representatives recognized this abuse and passed the Public Expression Of Religion Act to put a stop to it. However, the threats and abuse will continue however if we can’t convince the Senate to pass this as well. But the hypocrisy goes even further. The ACLU’s disdain for free speech outside of its agenda extends beyond Christians and pro-lifers to its own dissenting members. Very recently the ACLU attempted to put forth a policy restricting the free speech of its own members. Natt Hentoff, another former ACLU board member, was incredulous.

“For the national board to consider promulgating a gag order on its members — I can’t think of anything more contrary to the reason the A.C.L.U. exists.”

After a huge controversy, media coverage, and public concern of the NY Attorney General’s office the ACLU dropped the proposal. Instead they switched to more effective measures of replacing or voting out the members that were not in line with their agenda. When it comes to principles the ACLU has none other than lining their pocketbooks and furthering their own liberal agenda. As I said at the beggining of the article, cleansing the ACLU of hypocrisy will be a mammoth task. I don’t think its possible. I’m more hopeful that their own greed and corruption will eat them from the inside. I think we are beggining to see the cracks and hopefully enough light will shine through them to wake people up to the truth. This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

Said Jay777 @ 7:54 am Comments (0) | Permalink   

Muntasir al-Jibouri, has been captured! For those who aren’t aware of the significance of this, Rusty at the Jawa Report has a detailed post about it.

Ansar al Sunnah is the second worst terrorist organization in Iraq. They are probably made up of the remnants of Ansar al Islam, and mostly operate in Iraq’s North. They are also Kurds. Occasional they pull off an operation in Kurdistan, but the Peshmerga (Kurdish fighters, secularists) have effectively wiped them out. The Kurds know what to do with Islamist terrorists. They kill them.

Exactly. As you may recall, I’ve been battling someone at the Wide Awakes about Ansar al Islam and its connection with both Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein; the post on that is here. The closer you look at the different groups, the more you see the links between them.

Said Cao @ 6:54 am Comments (0) | Permalink   

Since there was a reaction from an alleged ‘journalist’ at the Wide Awakes on the post below which I cross posted over there on Sunday, I’d like to add a few things. Here is a comment from someone who doesn’t have the nerve to post his name, but exposes himself to be a journalist who interviews terrorists and apparently believes their lies:

I see from your post that you have no regard for facts, but nevertheless I will try to straight out a few flaws:

# Mullah Krekar ran an extreme Islamist group called Ansar al-Islam. This group fought against Saddam Hussein for controll in Northern Iraq.

Krekar had met with bin Laden, thats true. But he hated Saddam Hussein, he told me. The reason: Saddam Hussein were never a friend of Islamists, which he saw as possible adversaries.

# Mojahedin-e Kahlq (as you call it in your post, or Mujahedin e-Khalq as you call it), is not a ‘terror group active in Pakistan’. It’s a terror group, alright, but it is an Iranian group supported by Saddam Hussein against Iran since the Iraqi-Iranian war.

These are just a few quick facts which I know from my personal research as a journalist.

There are more flaws in your post I am sure, but I will not correct what I have not personally researched and know to be facts. To bad you don’t have the same respect for your readers.

Too bad the writer of that comment a) doesn’t have enough respect for my readers to reveal who he is and b) doesn’t have a thing to say about the following which I offered in comments as proof that Ansar Islam in fact was connected with Saddam’s regime and bin Laden. I think many journalists believe mistakenly that we are not all that bright; that they are the bastions of truth and reporting when in fact, what they do is manage PERCEPTIONS and do not offer facts but obfuscation of problems and facts with extraneous information instead. Note that Time employed a Vietcong agent for 15 years. Note the AP’s long awaited recent admission that the Pulitzer prize winning photog Bilal Hussein is in fact being held by the United States government because of his connection with terrorists…since April!

The most recent controversy with regard to Bilal Hussein’s photographic propaganda prowess is in regard to numerous photographs taken from the terrorists’ perspective which the AP has leveraged for their propaganda value. The photograph of the italian’s corpse which by all appearances already is going through the beginning stages of rigor mortis with two terrorists pointing guns at the corpse’s head, is a case in point. The AP’s story was that the terrorists had gunned him down when he blasted through a terrorist checkpoint and ran over a terrrorist. Later in the same story, amazingly enough, they talk about how the terrorists executed him. So now we get to the REAL giste of the story, they shot the poor cuss in cold blood because he was allegedly a supporter of America. The dramatic story of this man being gunned down after he ran over a terrorist is smoke and mirrors. By the way, Salvatore Santoro, italian victim we’re we’re discussing here, was killed back in December of 2004. The reason we’re bringing it up is because he’s one of the subjects of Bilal Hussein’s photo shoots to support terrrorists. And on the face of it, the AP’s story looks as though it initially achieves that goal.

And let’s not forget the fairly recent photoshopping disaster from al-Reuters and Adnan Hajj. Not to mention the Qana ‘’massacre”. As far as photos are concerned, the propaganda pumping msm doesn’t ever seem to quit. Not to worry, though, there are plenty of terrorist-sympathizing writers to go along with the photogs.

It is out of respect for our readers that we bloggers go out and compare news stories such as these, photographs and ridiculous statements for their propaganda value and how they influence public perceptions as compared to the facts, and then lay everything out for everyone to see so people can draw their own conclusions. That IS what real journalism is; and that’s what the msm seems to have completely forgotten in the secular newsrooms of today.

This reminds me of Times magazine’s ‘journalist’ who had Thanksgiving with the Taliban. Just two months after 9/11– Mr. McGirk was spending Thanksgiving with the Taliban, and he considers them to be nice guys. I don’t quite understand journalists’ fascination with the terrorist enemy we’re fighting other than their extreme desire to destroy America and join the terrorists in achieving that. Again, it’s ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ in this instance. Unfortunately too many of these journalists haven’t really thought this alliance out very much. What they should really do is study what it would be like for them to live under sharia law, and stop to consider what it is they’re really doing. McGirk, as you may recall, was the one in touch with the George Soros-funded Human Rights Watch and the interesting human rights group Hammurabi an alleged ‘humanitarian organization’ over the Haditha incident. It was pretty clear early on that the facts told a different story than McGirk was telling. Time corrected this story on numerous occasions after their lies were exposed. For example, Thaer Thabit al-Hadithi, was allegedly a “young man” and a “budding journalism student”, then it turned out he was a middle-aged man who was one of the two people behind the Hammurabi ‘human rights’ organization. Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani was the other guy behind Hammurabi ‘human rights organization’. The AP accepted photographs from Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani, too-yet he, too was detained, like Bilal Hussein, because of his connections with terrorists.

Take a look at the following FACTS about Ansar al-Islam which this individual apparently missed because he’s too concerned with interviewing terrorists and believing their al-tekeyya:

According to a former Ansar al-Islam commander who was interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor under the pseudonym Rebwar Kadr Said, the links between Kurdistan’s Islamist minority and what would later become al Qaeda run all the way back to the 1980s in Afghanistan, when bin Laden’s mentor, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, took aside two men (a Kurdish Islamist named Faraj Ahmad Najmuddin and a Palestinian) and told his followers to look after the two groups that both men represented, effectively placing the fate of the Kurds on par with that of Palestinians in the eyes of Azzam’s followers.

Like far too many other groups of foreign veterans of Afghan War, the Kurdish Islamists returned home radicalized and–believing that Saddam secular Baathism could be overthrown just as easily as the Soviet communism–rallied for jihad against Baghdad during the late 1980s
and early 1990s. During the uprising following the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurdish Islamists appear to have caught bin Laden’s eye. The 9/11 Commission Report noted the al Qaeda leader’s past sponsorship of Kurdish Islamists in the hopes of convincing them to join the nascent terrorist coalition that he was assembling in Sudan. Rohan Gunaratna, one of the world’s leading experts on al Qaeda, identified two propaganda tapes, amidst the dozens of al Qaeda videos found in Afghanistan by CNN, as having been produced by the Kurdish Islamists. These tapes, among other things, identify Saddam Hussein as an enemy of Islam and call for jihad against the infidel Baath party.

WHILE MANY OBSERVERS and analysts have cited bin Laden’s early support for the Kurdish Islamists–such as his early attempt to dissuade the Saudi leadership from accepting Western support following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait by offering to lead an army of mujahedeen against Saddam Hussein–as evidence of the ultimate incompatibility between the two men, they forget that as early as 1992 an internal Iraqi intelligence document lists bin Laden as an intelligence asset, suggesting that his prior willingness to field an army against the Baathists had given way to more pragmatic thinking.

Similarly, while bin Laden was more than willing to sponsor Kurdish Islamism against Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the Gulf War, any eagerness to aid in the overthrow of Baathism in Iraq appears to have paled in comparison to his desire to accommodate Hassan Turabi, who was al Qaeda’s primary host while the organization operated in Sudan. As noted in the 9/11 Commission Report, Turabi (who had previously backed Saddam during the Gulf War) brokered an agreement under which bin Laden would cease supporting anti-Saddam activities. And while the 9/11 Commission Report noted that bin Laden continued to support Kurdish Islamism even after this agreement, it failed to note that by 1993 the group had, by and large, ended its anti-Saddam activities and instead was focusing on creating a parallel Islamist Kurdish administration in contrast to the more secular authority of the leading Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). This move culminated in armed clashes with the PUK in December 1993.

From an Islamist perspective, this should be seen not only as a challenge against the major Kurdish authorities but also as a challenge to the establishment of anything resembling secular democratic society in the Middle East. As with their previous jihads against Saddam, the Kurdish Islamists were defeated and eventually splintered into a number of factions along the northern Iraqi border with Iran. At the time, most observers believed that the threat posed by Iraqi Islamism was at an end.

YET ONCE AGAIN, al Qaeda disagreed. In April 2003 the New York Times reported that in 2000 and 2001 bin Laden hosted the several Kurdish Islamist leaders in Afghanistan, urging them to put aside past differences and form a single organization in the region. Collin Powell’s presentation before the U.N. Security Council added yet another detail to this picture, claiming that in 2000 an Iraqi intelligence agent had offered al Qaeda Saddam’s blessing to establish a safehaven in northern Iraq, a view that appears to be supported by a comment in the 9/11 Commission Report: “There are indications that by then [2001] the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al-Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.”

Yet with or without Iraqi assistance, one by one the Kurdish Islamist groups heeded bin Laden’s call to unite. In July 2001, the Kurdish Hamas united with al-Tawhid, forming the Tawhid Islamic Front and sending several members to Afghanistan for training. Then in September 2001, Tawhid Islamic Front merged with the Second Soran
Unit to become Jund al-Islam, after which time the new organization launched a bloody campaign against the ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Despite its small size, Jund al-Islam soon proved its worth in battle against the PUK, quickly gaining the support of another group of Kurdish Islamists led by Faraj Ahmad Najmuddin, now known as Mullah Krekar. By December 10, 2001 the two groups had merged together and Ansar al-Islam was born.

Dan Darling is a counter-terrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Policing Terrorism.

Krekar claims Islam will win

Norway’s most controversial refugee, Mullah Krekar, told an Oslo newspaper on Monday that there’s a war going on between “the West” and Islam. He said he’s sure that Islam will win, and he also had praise for suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

These groups are connected, because they believe in that old arab proverb; the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

As recently as March of 2006 Mullah Krekar was praising bin Laden, how much more evidence do you need?

Mullah Krekar, the Kurdish Islamic leader who now lives in Norway, has both confirmed and denied that he is the leader of the terror group Ansar Al-Islam. So which one are we going to believe, given the facts–the confirmation or the denial–or do we believe al-takeyya for its face value because the denial was given personally by the man himself?

Gosh, some people are unbelievably naiive!

Friday, June 02, 2006

Ansar al-Islam and Saddam Hussein’s Regime
Mark Eichenlaub

Much has been written about Iraq’s possible state-sponsorship of the Islamic militant group , who resided in Northern Iraq between 2001 and 2003, referred to by an assortment of names (Jund al-Islam, Ansar al-Islam, later Ansar al-Sunnah, etc.).

Now that some of the people involved in the possible relationship have been caught and interrogated, and the region has been secured and analyzed, the story should be reevaluated.

What allegations of support can be better confirmed or denied 3 years after the start of the U.S. led invasion?

- Abu Iman al-Baghdadi, 20 year veteran of Iraqi Intelligence, told BBC news that Saddam Hussein is funding and arming Ansar al Islam to fend off anti-Saddam Kurds
Jim Muir, BBC, July 24, 2002

-Qassem Hussein Mohamed, 20-years of service in Iraq’s Mukhabarat, says that Saddam Hussein has been secretly aiding, arming and funding Ansar al Islam and al Qaeda for several years Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, 4-2-02
Jeffrey Goldberg, New Yorker, 3-25-02

- The NSA was said to have intercepted phone calls of Iraqi officials praising Ansar al Islam and talked of funding the group Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard, 7-22-05

- Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, in interviews with Jonathan Schanzer of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and others, has said that high ranking Iraqi officers were in league with Ansar al-Islam/al Qaeda affiliates well before the start of the war Jonathan Schanzer, Weekly Standard, 3-01-04
- Local Kurds later reported similar stories Preston Mendenhall, MSNBC, “War Diary”
- A number of high ranking former Mukhabart agents and Military officers have been caught working with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ansar al-Islam in Iraq Mark Eichenlaub, NewsBlaze, 2006

- Captured Ansar al Islam members told reporters Michael Howard and Jonathan Schanzer that the head of Iraq’s Mukhabarat was helping Iraqi officials smuggle military grade TNT and other weapons into the possession of Ansar al Islam. Michael Howard, Guardian Unlimited, 8-23-02 Jonathan Schanzer, The Washington Institute, 1-15-03
-TNT, which bore the trademarks of the Iraqi military, was later found among Ansar’s possessions by Kurdish security forces. Micheal Howard, Guardian Unlimited, 8-23-02

- Captured Ansar members have told their captors that Izzat al-Douri, one of Saddam Hussein’s top aides, is now leading Ansar attacks on coalition targets Globalsecurity.org 10-03, Jack Fairweather, UK Telegraph, 10-31-03; AP, October 31,2003

- Landmines, chemical weapons gear and mortars were all found among the rubble of Ansar al Islam’s destroyed camp in Northen Iraq Newsday, March 31,2003, just as captured Iraqi Intelligence officers and Ansar al Islam members had claimed BEFORE the war Jeffrey Goldberg, New Yorker, 3-25-02

- Atropine auto-injectors (antidote for chemical weapons), which had been mass ordered by Iraq in late 2002, and gas masks were found at both the Ansar base in Northern Iraq and official Iraqi military compounds CNN, 10-12-02 and CNN, April 8, 2003

- A number of captured or surviving members of Ansar al Islam, including their Media Chief Mohamed Gharib, have told reporters that their group accepted financial and weapons assistance from Saddam Hussein’s regime Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, 10-16-2003

Enough human testimony, coupled with the discovery of numerous examples of physical evidence (weapons, mines, antidotes, etc), makes it possible to re-examine the question of whether or not the regime of Saddam Hussein sponsorsed Ansar al Islam. While the of extent of sponsorship remains an open question, there is an ample amount of evidence to conclude that mines, money, TNT, chemical weapons gear and other forms of logistical support took place. All of these things are clear violations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, barring Iraq from harboring or aiding known terrorist groups.

Further information on Ansar al Islam is available at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism’s section on Ansar al-Islam and Dan Darling’s “Ansar al-Islam Dossier” published for the Center for Policing Terrorism.

Said Cao @ 6:33 am Comments (3) | Permalink   

We’re told the Democrats need to pick up just 15 seats to gain control of the House. And the 20 House races listed at Real Clear Politics as the most likely to flip are all Republican.

President Bush is still well under 50% approval. Hell, he cannot reach 45% yet.

And those generic polls show Democrats have this huge lead over Republicans. The Associated Press has ceded the election to the Democrats.

So why have London bookies moved the odds from 8-13 Democrat just two weeks ago to 5-6 odds on both sides?

The pendulum seems to be swing back weeks before the absentee balloting opens up on Oct. 7 (Election Day is Nov. 7).

Could it be that voters aren’t happy with the prez or his party, but when they turn to the opposition, the voters are really turned off? Consider Dr. Howard Dean’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, “Democrats Offer a New Direction“:

We need a Democratic Congress to fight the war on terror — and to end the war on America’s families.

What? The war on families? Dr. Dean then spewed a litany of statistics designed to show that it is the Irish famine all over again in suburbia, but I think most of us are grown-ups who understand that the dot.com boom that Bill Clinton enjoyed became a bust in the 21st century.

Gasoline prices are down 48 cents a gallon in a month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 7% this year. Unemployment is below 5% and tax revenues are at an all-time high.

War on families? If so, the families are winning.

Which leaves the war on terror. Dr. Dean wrote, “We will have a defense policy that is tough and smart, starting with phased redeployment of our troops in Iraq, and shore up our efforts to attack al Qaeda and fight the war on terror.”

Voters calculate that as phased redeployment=immediate withdrawal=surrender.

Equals why bettors have pushed the odds down to even in London.

- Don Surber

Said Don Surber @ 6:55 pm Comments (0) | Permalink   

With the news today from a French newspaper of Osama bin Hidin’s apparent demise, one has to question both the veracity and timeliness of the information, especially coming from the French:

A French newspaper published what it said was a report by the country’s intelligence services that said Saudi Arabia believes Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan this month.

France’s foreign intelligence service, the DGSE, refused to confirm the substance of the report, and no immediate official reaction was forthcoming from Saudi officials Saturday.

But European and Pakistani officials tracking bin Laden’s whereabouts told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that the report could not be seen as reliable.

Well, that’s hardly a shock, I suppose. The French have hardly been reliable in the War on Terror, why should their newspaper reporting be any different? Besides, how would it benefit the French if the story were true?

Well, first off, it would allow them to point out that Bush failed to capture bin Laden, and you know Chirac would use that little tidbit to score political points. He’s not been in the spotlight too much recently, and he would undoubtedly attempt to further his political visibility amongst world leaders by pointing out that failure.

Secondly, it would take some of the heat off the French for their prevarications, and focus it elsewhere. I mean, the French waffle so much, they should have been the ones to have the breakfast food named after them, not the Belgians.

Note the source, though — a regional French paper:

The French regional newspaper l’Est Republicain published what it said was a DGSE report dated September 21.

“According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi security services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead,” the DGSE report quoted by the newspaper said.

It said that “information gathered by the Saudis” indicates that bin Laden “might have succumbed to a very serious case of typhoid fever resulting in partial paralysis of his lower limbs while in Pakistan on August 23, 2006.

“His geographic isolation provoked by constant fleeing is believed to have made medical assistance impossible (and) on September 4, 2006, the Saudi security services received preliminary information of his death.”

L’Est Republicain said the Saudis were “waiting to obtain further details and notably the exact place of burial before officially announcing the news.”

Nobody — I repeat, nobody — is confirming this story. Not the Saudis, not the U.S., not even the French DGSE. Furthermore, Reuters reports that the news doesn’t fit with events that would be expected on such momentous news:

Media reports suggesting that bin Laden was dead, seriously wounded or in ill health have surfaced periodically over the years, especially during lengthy periods of time without taped messages from the al Qaeda leader.

U.S. officials have suggested that his death would be accompanied by a surge of e-mail and telephone chatter among bereaved al Qaeda members, if not an actual announcement from the militant network.

But officials said they were not aware of any such chatter in recent weeks.

Is he alive? Is he dead? My bet is that he’s probably alive, but that’s a guess. I do know that folks are looking for him, they’ve probably got him confined to a specific area, and $25 million is a lot of money. We may get him, and we may not. Bush said it best when he said that bin Laden’s “certainly not leading any parades these days.”

However, I wouldn’t mind seeing him leading one more parade — that of his own funeral procession after we stick a 2000-lb bomb up his backside.

TD

Said tdillard @ 2:06 pm Comments (0) | Permalink   

OK, I know, corny title with that Dog has gone through, but I would honestly rather pay to hear him sing (never even heard if he can or not) than the idiotic, moon-battish, horribly annoying Natalie Maines. It seems that Natalie is shooting her mouth off again, and now she isn’t bashing the President, but actually calling HER OWN HOME TOWN “backwards” (my word not hers).

I really didn’t lose a lot of sleep over the fact that she doesn’t understand why no one likes her any more, but what did upset me was hearing that Duane “Dog” Chapman, aka Dog the Bounty Hunter, is having to actually FIGHT to not be extradited to Mexico! I don’t know about you, but am leaning VERY FAR into Dog’s corner as opposed to supporting the “judicial” system in Mexico.

Said The Smoke Eater @ 9:19 pm Comments (8) | Permalink   

…but pretty much everything I was going to say has been said.

So here’s a short collection of some pertinent links that I more or less ditto (all from Townhall.com). Please add your blog links and comments in the comment section.

Larry Elder - Islamofascists to Pope Benedict XVI: “Apolgize — or else”

Terence Jeffrey - Benedict is right

Michael Medved - The Pope’s Big Mistake: Invoking Past Conflict

Chuck Colson - Proving his point

William F. Buckley - Missing from the Pope

Patrick Buchanan - Benedict XVI — On God and the prophet

Brent Bozell III - Islam’s special standard

More…

Cliff May - Submit or die

Charles Krauthammer - The irony of the offense

Said Lyn @ 3:17 pm Comments (2) | Permalink   

Crossposted from Stop The ACLU Via The ACLU Website:

The American Civil Liberties Union today expressed its disappointment with the House passage of a bill placing undue and unnecessary burdens on Americans’ fundamental right to vote. H.R. 4844, the “Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006,” requires voters to present a government-issued photo ID in order to vote in federal elections. In addition, beginning in 2010 voters would be required to present a photo ID that was issued based on proof of citizenship in order to vote. The measure passed by a vote of 228-196. The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office: “Less than two months after the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, the House of Representatives has chosen to pass legislation disenfranchising the very citizens the VRA was designed to protect. No eligible citizen should have to pay to vote. There are voters who simply don’t have photo ID and requiring them to purchase one in order to vote would be tantamount to a poll tax. This measure will disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minority voters, senior citizens, voters with disabilities, and others who do not have photo identification nor the financial means to acquire it.”

What a load of crap! This ridiculous “poll tax” meme is quickly making its rounds. Nancy Pelosi has taken the ball with this one and ran with it headlining with the alarmist title, “Voter ID Bill Is an Attempt to Suppress the Votes of Millions of American Citizens!” Give me a break! You have got to be kidding! Perhaps they are worried this act will supress “millions” of illegals and dead people from voting! An I.D. is required in many of the most basic things in America such as driving a car or even cashing a check. Please, tell me how all of these poor people that can not afford to get an I.D. cash their welfare checks? Rep. Henry Hyde makes the same point.

But Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who sponsored the Federal Election Integrity Act, says requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls “presents no greater hardship than people face performing everyday activities.” For example, Hyde noted that government-issued photo IDs are required for driving vehicles, applying for Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, food stamps, boarding airplanes, entering government buildings, registering at school, getting student loans, renting movies, and cashing checks. Given all the cases in which U.S. citizens are asked to produce photo IDs, it should not be difficult to produce IDs to guard against fraud in the electoral system, Hyde said.

It really isn’t surprising that the ACLU would be against making our democratic process have more integrity. After all, they know which side butters their bread. They even keep a scorecard on Congress. The ACLU are involved across the country fighting voter I.D. laws. In Missouri at least 16 St. Louis area Democrats have been found guilty of election crimes in the last year and a half! When Republican Gov. Matt Blunt signed a law requiring voters to provide I.D. the ACLU had to come up with a different argument than the poll tax crap. Even though Missouri the Missouri law provided for free photo IDs that voters could obtain before election day the ACLU represented a group of Democrats to challenge the law by arguing for a loophole they found stating the law violated a state constitutional provision against imposing costs on local governments without providing state funding. So much for the poll tax argument or putting an undue burden on the poor. As a matter of fact as Digger’s Realm points out:

Those against it are claiming it’s a poll tax on the poor, minorities and elderly and that they can’t afford to get a drivers license or passport. They fail to mention that the bill includes a portion to pay for free for the poor who can’t afford a photo ID.

People can see for themselves. The full text of the bill is here. The ACLU were also involved in the recent case against a similar bill in Georgia that was struck down. It also provided free I.D.s. They also fought voter ID laws in New Mexico, Michigan, and Indiana. The ACLU has clearly shown its true colors in support of voter fraud. The only possible reason I can realistically see why someone would be against this bill is if they actually desire for voter fraud to continue. Once again the ACLU has shown just how transparent their lie of non-partisanship is. It is clear what the ACLU and democrats want. They want rights for illegal aliens, dead people, and felons to vote early and often. This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

Said Jay777 @ 8:05 am Comments (0) | Permalink   

Should we take this sort of thing seriously? After all, Juan Cole informs us that this kind of talk is perfectly understandable:

The Vatican continues to decline to apologize, only saying that no offense was meant by the Pope’s remarks.

Some commentators have complained about Muslim sensibilities in this regard. But in my view, this sensitivity is a feature of postcolonialism. Muslims were colonized by Western powers, often for centuries, and all that period they were told that their religion was inferior and barbaric. They are independent now, though often they have gained independence only a couple of generations (less if you consider neocolonialism). As independent, they are finally liberated to protest when Westerners put them down.

There is an analogy to African-Americans, who suffered hundreds of years of slavery and then a century of Jim Crow. They are understandably sensitive about white people putting them down, and every time one uses the “n” word, you can expect a strong reaction. In the remarks the pope quoted about Muhammad, he essentially did the equivalent of using the “n” word for Muslims. It is no mystery that people are protesting.

Shooting old women in the back, burning churches, and threatening the life of the leader of a billion Catholics is an excellent demonstration of Muslim “sensibilities” I must say. Cole’s analysis is spot on. Who woulda thunk it? All the burning, and killing, and screaming, and gouging, and stabbing is the fault of the West and our mean old ancestors who told the fanatic’s ancestors that their religion was dirt. Failing that, it is the legacy of those superior airs put on by the Brits and the Frogs that is causing our Muslim brothers so much pain.

Of course, the good professor conveniently forgot to mention the most famous footstools in history - the Ottomans - and their bloody, inhuman rule over the Middle East. By the time Napoleon saw the pyramids, the Ottoman’s had made themselves at home in the region for nearly 300 years. Known as “the sick man of Europe” the Ottoman’s proved that they not only could out-atrocity the west on any given day, but also proved that they could be pretty damn good colonial oppressors themselves even when they weren’t feeling 100%.

Of course, the Ottomans didn’t worship Jesus. They didn’t recognize the Pope’s authority. They never saw the inside of a synagogue (except to set fire to one), nor did they worship, Bal, Babel, Ra, Isis, or any other regional deity. They followed the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed.

So much for the Cole theory of Post Colonial Stress Syndrome.

Then again, there’s that curious analogy al-Cole uses to instruct us stupid Americans in how it feels to have your religion called “evil and inhuman” by a long dead and rotting 15th century vassal emperor of Byzantium. It’s exactly the same thing as calling your black neighbor a ni***r.

True, you’re more than likely to get bopped in the nose for using such a racial obscenity. But I daresay you would probably get to keep your head. Nor is it likely that said justifiably outraged black man would follow you home and torch your house, kill your children, behead your wife, steal your possessions, and force your relatives to abandon the religion of their fathers and convert to Islam.

Other than those differences, Cole’s analogy rings true, doesn’t it?

Juan Cole is not an apologist for radical Islamists. He is an enabler. In that sense, he and all who try and pass off the behavior of these extremists as a reaction to anything is either childishly naive or a prevaricator of the first order. The radicals do not need an excuse to kill their enemies. They are told to do so by those who have hijacked Islam and then instruct their fanatical followers using an interpretation of the Koran so far from the true meaning of that book that they can twist and obfuscate anything the Prophet said to justify their murderous urges.

A better analogy is our own homegrown terrorists who use the bible to justify the murder of abortionists. There is nothing in any bible I’ve ever read that could ever countenance murder. Whether you believe abortionists are killing innocents or not, it should be pointed out that it ain’t your call, friends. As we should render unto Caesar, we should obey the law. The abortionists will get their just due in the hereafter. And if you believe in that, then you know they’ll pay for their crimes in ways that makes anything the Christian extremists do to them pale in comparison.

To be fair, Cole graciously tries to show the Pontiff a way out of his death sentence. All he has to do is grovel:

All he has to do is say he is sorry if it appeared he was slamming Muhammad and Islam, and that this is what the Catholic Church actually feels about the issue:

* The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ, “the way the truth, and the life” (John 14, 6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself (4).

There’s much more that Cole quotes, all of it from a 1965 Second Vatican Council pronouncement on the relation of the Catholic church to non-Catholic religions.

Yeah…that’ll do the trick. Try reason and light on people with blood on their hands and hate in their hearts. I suggest for practice, the Pontiff rehearse the speech before a brick wall. That way, he won’t be disappointed when the targets of his sweet reason react with less enthusiasm than the edifice.

Cole usually has something helpful to contribute to the debate over the meaning of Islam and its relationship with the west. I find much of his writing learned and even fascinating. But there are many times recently when he has allowed his obvious sympathies to override his judgment and even perhaps his scholarship.

For Cole, it isn’t that the crocodile will eat him last. It’s that he thinks all those forms around him in the water are nothing but logs.

Said Rick Moran @ 9:39 am Comments (0) | Permalink   

Yep. I can’t say the I couldn’t agree with the guys over at Wuzzadem more:

Is it just me, or is it everytime someone even sneezes in the direction of Islam, it is an excuse for the Imams and mullahs and just about anybody else to stir up the “Islamic rage”? Honestly. I find it hard to believe that people actually are siding with those who bomb churches and murder nuns in response to a man’s comment. Where is this religion of peace I keep hearing about? Perhaps those practioners of this peaceful religion would like to go and stop their brothers and sisters who have their bloodlust all riled up?

I am not holding my breath.
Waiting for the “progressive” spin on this one. Perhaps we can blame this too on G.W.?

UPDATE:

The guys as Six Meat Buffet hit the nail on the head too!

Said Duncan Avatar @ 4:00 pm Comments (1) | Permalink   

For about a week now, Muslims around the world have been rioting and engaging in violence. This is from the self-proclaimed “religion of peace.” Why? In case you missed it, it’s because the Pope, a significant figure in the Christian religion, had the audacity to read a quote from someone who died over a thousand years ago. As GM noted here yesterday, the Muslims, by their actions, have completely validated the quotation while at the same time complaining about it!

Now if you look closely at the words of the Pope, he very clearly stated that the words not only were not his, but were also specifically NOT HIS OPINION. In other words, he DISAGREED with that quote. So the Pope is actually trying to AGREE with Muslims that they are peaceful! He tried to claim that Mohammed was GOOD! And the Muslims’ reaction? Burn churches, attack Christians, and assassinate nuns.

Folks, we ARE in the midst of a religious war, whether you want there to be one or not. This is the exact same pattern of actions that led to the crusades — the Muslim religion tried to spread itself all over the world like a plague, and the Christians of Europe fought back, defensively, and managed to allow people to be free to choose their own religion. However, the biggest difference is that this time, a large portion of the world is willing to completely submit and convert to Islam, willingly, or at the point of a gun.

To review: The Pope agreed with Muslims that their religion is peaceful. He tried to point out that no one should use religion as a basis for violence. And the reaction from Muslims is to continue to attack anyone who is NOT Muslim. If you are not a Muslim, you are a target. You will be killed or you will convert. This action will not stop until the Muslims stop their violence, period.

The only question remaining is how you, personally, will help stop their violence. Your options, as defined by the Muslims who are initiating the violence, are: convert to Islam or die. Other potential options are to kill them before they kill you. I’m open to any other options — but keep in mind, Muslims are not.

Said Ogre @ 7:56 am Comments (16) | Permalink