Libertarian Leanings

Solomonia interviews Richard Landes

History Professor Richard Landes of Boston University has launched a new media watch-dog project, that will monitor the performance of the press and the rise of anti-Semitism.  He talks about it in an interview at Solomonia.

We're heading over to an office to deliver a video tape of a debate the professor has just participated in. He leans over to me, this self-described Man of the Left, and says in a confiding tone, "Of the three participants...I was the right-winger." He rolls his eyes.

That's the state of things in 2005, where a guy who simply wants the truth to be told, who wants a little fairness -- fairness for the Jews, for Israel, for America...and for the Palestinians, too -- can be considered "right wing."

Look for Professor Landes' new web site, Second Draft, a project of 21st Century Media Group, in early September. The URL will be released around that time.

Bold Prediction!

Judith Miller will win a Pulitzer Prize! ...for an article that was never written.

Groan. We covered this in more detail in this old post, "Judy Miller, First Amendment Champion!". For brevity, let's go to the Washington Post Q&A:

Q: Doesn't Fitzgerald know the identities of Miller's and Cooper's sources? Haven't the sources signed waivers that allow the reporters to talk to the prosecutor?

Yes and yes. But Miller, who did some reporting but never wrote a story, says that the waiver is not voluntary under these circumstances and that she is upholding the journalistic principle of never breaking a promise of confidentiality to a source.

Well, maybe not a Pulitzer.  I think you actually have to write something to win one of those, but I'm sure they'll come up with some other medal of freedom type award.  How about:  "For bravery and obstruction of justice in the fight to save America from the indescribably evil George W. Bush". 

Able Danger - a new witness

Free Republic reports that Congressman Curt Weldon (R - PA) has found another Able Danger witness.   

Congressman Curt Weldon (R - Pennsylvania) gave another exclusive interview to Dom Giordano this evening (Monday) and broke the news that he will be giving a speech on September 8th (next Monday) during which he will present yet another 'Able Danger' witness. This new witness will attest (and will swear under oath when called) that he was "ordered to destroy records" relating to the 'Able Danger' program.

This order to destroy the records occurred prior to 9-11-01. Weldon intimated that it happened during the Clinton Administration.

The witness, who Weldon did not name, says that he was ordered to destroy records and was threatened with jail if he failed to comply. Weldon said that he has the names of the people involved, including the person who gave the order, and HE WILL NAME THEM in his speech.

Hat tip to Captain's Quarters commenter Gilliam1.

Update:  I wonder what year this is going to be.  Next Monday is September 5th.  Must have been looking at the August calendar.  August 8th fell on a Monday.

Rice at State

Gregory Djerejian, Belgravia Dispatch, posted a rebuttal to Jim Hoagland's charge in the Washington Post that,

Despite her success in defusing tensions with allies abroad in her first seven months, Rice still invites skepticism from mid-level Foreign Service officers who bridle at the thought of their beloved State Department becoming "White House Annex 2."

Here is an excerpt of a note from Eric Shimp, former FSO and trade negotiator, that Mr. Djerejian posted in full.

...this is a Secretary engaged in the essence of diplomacy. Dr. Rice is out there, in the field, working a travel schedule not seen since (and probably eclipsing) James Baker. Moreover, Dr. Rice is making practical decisions that don't detract from her overall value system; in doing so, she is effectively involving more of State's inherent expertise overseas.

It's worth reading all of it.

An invitation

With the support of MoveOn.org and others, Cindy Sheehan has been demanding that the President meet with her to explain,

"I want to ask the president, why did he kill my son?" Sheehan told reporters. "He said my son died in a noble cause, and I want to ask him what that noble cause is."

Clifford May has an invitation for Cindy Sheehan that was run as a full page ad in Sunday's Waco Tribune-Herald.

...let me suggest an alternative: Come visit with me. Our meeting probably won't get much publicity, but I can promise you an interesting discussion. I'll invite to join us some of the many Iraqi freedom fighters with whom I've been working for the past several years – many of them women -- as well as democracy and human rights activists from Syria, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon and other countries.

You say you want to know, “What is the noble cause that my son died for?” They would answer: Your son died fighting a war against an extremist movement intent on destroying free societies and replacing them with racist dictatorships.

The Iraqis will want to tell you what life was like under Saddam Hussein – the mass murders of hundreds of thousands, the women and girls who were gang-raped by Saddam's cronies, the creative forms of torture that were ignored by the “international community.”

I know several Baghdadi businessmen whom Saddam suspected of disloyalty. He had their right hands amputated. Want to meet them? The doctors who were forced to perform these amputations are worth chatting with as well. 

It's true, as you and others have pointed out, that we did not find Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. But don't be misled into believing that Saddam never had any. Indeed, he used chemical weapons against the Kurds, slaughtering thousands in villages like Halabja, where mothers laid down in the streets and embraced their children in their final moments. We can show you pictures. We can introduce you to survivors.

Like you, I wish America's intelligence agencies had known more than they did about Saddam's capabilities. But Saddam's intentions were never in doubt.

I rate the chances of her accepting his invitation somewhere between slim and none.

Poverty

Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post anticipates good economic news from Census Bureau today.  In his article today he says,

The Census Bureau tomorrow will release the latest statistics on poverty in the United States, the income level of an average household and the number of Americans still lacking health insurance.

Don't believe the numbers.

Having a hard time coming up with bad news, Jonny? 

Update:  A clue to the basis of Jonathan Weisman's story may be found in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

Now that the economy has created some four million new jobs over the past two years and the unemployment rate has fallen to a five-year low, the left's jabs about the Bush "jobless recovery" have lost their sting. So just in time for Labor Day, the Democrats' new line of attack against the Bush tax cut policies is "stagnant wages."

Labor Day is coming up!  Time for some disingenuous lefty solidarity with us exploited workers, so on to the attack.  In the coming days we can expect a barrage of articles and opinion columns explaining why good economic reports are not to be believed.

Chalabi

Robert L. Pollock's Opinion Journal column tells the story of the remarkable Ahmed Chalabi, all but written off as an impact player in push for Iraqi democracy months ago, now proving to be perhaps the indespensible player.

Meanwhile, Baathist insurgents have obtained the phone directory of another victim--murdered ministry employee Haider Mohammed al-Dujaili--and are threatening still more. Mr. Chalabi has re-emerged in their eyes as a prime threat. Why? Because he survived a concerted White House campaign last year to undermine him, brokering the Shiite-led electoral list that won the January election and becoming deputy prime minister; because he had become a major player in the constitution-writing process that culminated this past weekend; and because he is rapidly becoming a key figure for U.S. military commanders on the ground here as they contemplate the feasibility of troop drawdowns.

"Very personally courageous," "not afraid to make decisions," and a "hugely important figure in Iraq" are among the phrases I heard U.S. officers apply to him during two weeks I spent in the country earlier this month. Another sums up the stakes thus: "Chalabi is there to talk about protecting strategic infrastructure so they can sell oil so they can fund their own security-force development."

I think we're reaching the point where ending the American occupation is more of an excuse for continued violence than an actual goal.  The prospect of Chalabi's success in the effort to fund Iraqi security forces with Iraqi oil revenue is a much greater threat to the the terrorists than the American occupation.  It will signal the defeat of terrrorism in Iraq.  Zarqawi's letter to bin Laden will finally come true.

When the Americans disappear from these areas – and they have begun to do so – and these agents, who are linked by destiny to the people of the land, take their place, what will our situation be?

If we fight them {and we must fight them}, we will confront one of two things. Either:

1 – We fight them, and this is difficult because of the gap that will emerge between us and the people of the land. How can we fight their cousins and their sons and under what pretext after the Americans, who hold the reins of power from their rear bases, pull back? The real sons of this land will decide the matter through experience. Democracy is coming, and there will be no excuse thereafter.

2 – We pack our bags and search for another land, as is the sad, recurrent story in the arenas of jihad, because our enemy is growing stronger and his intelligence data are increasing day by day.

Chalabi himself has said before, the violence in Iraq is sectarian not religious.  It's about power.  It's about criminals who hope to regain and retain power through murder.  We can expect the next round of kidknappings and murder to begin on the pretext that the draft constitution is unacceptable.  Unbridled Sunni/Baathist power is the only acceptable outcome for the terrorists.

Look who's backing Cindy Sheehan

Via Tim Blair and Little Green Footballs, Cindy Sheehan has the backing of David Duke and Company. 

More and more Whites are starting to understand the danger of Jewish power, and Cindy Sheehan's mission against the Zionist's war in the Middle East is one of many open doors to an increase of that understanding.

She must be thrilled.

The strength of their argument

A Sunni cleric who urged his congregation to vote in the upcoming elections has been kidnapped.

BAGHDAD -- Like many of Baghdad's fiery Sunni clerics, Sheik Omar Ibrahim al Duleimi was never afraid to stir up things at Friday prayers.

When he urged his congregation to rise up and fight the American occupation, U.S. troops would routinely haul him in for questioning.

When he urged his congregation to register to vote in elections, the threat came from his compatriots -- insurgents who sent him warning messages that he ignored.

On Wednesday, the sheik paid what may be the ultimate price for his defiance.

The terrorists would seem to want only that the bloodshed continue.  I suppose they have talent for nothing else.  They claim to resist the American occupation, but ending the occupation is also the aim of Sheik Omar Ibrahim al Duleimi.

"In the last two weeks he had been saying in prayers that all Iraqis should vote. He said if we get a government, president and constitution, the Americans will have no reason to stay," his assistant, Qassim al Janaabi, said.

In spite of this, 22 Sunni clerics have been killed in recent weeks for urging their congregations to join in the elections.  This, according to the Association of Muslim Scholars which is a hard-line Sunni organization with ties to the terrorists.

Sheik al Duleimi's 22 year old son Hatem, thinks that his father was right.

"The election is a new weapon we can use against the occupation," he said. "But these extremists refuse any kind of election. They are not mujahedeen, they are just terrorists."

And their position is, "Agree with us or we'll kill you."  It's all quite logical.

Gaza

According to The Washington Times, the terrorist organization Hamas, referring to the Israeli pullout from Gaza as a victory, has no plans to live in peace with Israel.

Senior Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, who masterminded the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings, also urged the destruction of the Jewish state.

It was the latest call for continued violence by Hamas officials as the group refocuses its armed struggle on the West Bank, where most of Israel's 246,000 settlers live.

"You are leaving Gaza today in shame," Mr. Deif said in comments directed toward Israel, which finished evacuating the last of its 21 Gaza settlements Monday.

"Today you are leaving hell," he said. "But we promise you that tomorrow all Palestine will be hell for you, God willing."

Interestingly, the article makes no reference whatever to the Palestinian Authority.  I once thought they might come to the table.