Understanding General Petraeus's Strategy

Excellent article from Fredrick Kagen who was instrumental in pushing for the surge strategy. This is his testimony to Congress.

In Petraeus we trust

Iraq and the Neoconservatives

Detailed article about the NeoConservative movement and beliefs

Iraq and the Neoconservatives

Ann Coulter's response

Ann Coulter's response to the Edwards setup

"Ex-Muslim" group launches in Britain

Talk about bravery- I hope they have police protection, you'd be safer squealing on the Gambinos.

TB - brought to you by NAFTA

"The percentage of positive cases is believed to be high because many of the plant's employees come from other countries where the disease may be more prevalent, said agency spokesman Thom Berry."

Let's translate from the Orweillian truthspeak. What "because many of the plant's employees come from other countries where the disease may be more prevalent" actually means is "a new American", no that's not it, maybe an "eventual American working here without all the i's dotted and t's crossed"

Vaclav Klaus in 2008

{Could the Czech President run for the Senate? Let's let him telecommute and participate via C-SPAN?}


Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, argues in the Financial Times that ambitious environmentalism is the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity.

WINNING ON OFFENSE

By RALPH PETERS

HALLELUJAH! For the first time since Baghdad fell, our military in Iraq has a comprehensive, integrated plan to defeat our enemies. Until now, our efforts have always been piecemeal, stop-start affairs. Even our success in the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004 went unexploited.

Bush weighs reaching out to Muslim Brotherhood

FDR weighs reaching out to Nazis (1942)
Bush weighs reaching out to Muslim Brotherhood (2007)

The Bush administration is quietly weighing the prospect of reaching out to the party that founded modern political Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood

Father of the Iranian revolution - Jimmy Carter

Author Michael Evans puts Jimmy Carter in proper historical prespective.

Analysis of immigration bill

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1513.cfm

From the conclusion:

"The bill offers alien terrorists new pathways to obtain legal status, which will make it easier for them to carry out deadly attacks against American citizens."

Read it all

Smugglers set fires at border areas

{Ok, now they have done it - now Al Gore will have to come out in favor of the fence to save the planet.}

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20070619-121814-2527r

U.S. Border Patrol agents seeking to secure the nation's border in some of the country's most pristine national forests are being targeted by illegal aliens, who are using intentionally set fires to burn agents out of observation posts and patrol routes.

   
In the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, with 60 miles of land along the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Forest Service firefighters sent in to battle fires or clear wild-land fire areas are required to be escorted by armed law-enforcement officers.

Bin Laden lays low, protected in Pakistan

http://www.examiner.com/a-786435~Bin_Laden_lays_low__protected_by_network_in%20%20_Pakistan.html

"graduation ceremony"

{Hint- they aren't Methodists.    Surprisingly it does not mention what the US has done to make them do this, I am sure the New York Times will cover that angle}

ABC News has a videotape showing the perverted “graduation ceremony” of teams of newly-trained suicide bombers supposedly sent to attack the US and Britain.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25901_ABC-_Suicide_Bomb_Teams_Sent_to_US_Europe&only

Iraqi Orphanage Nightmare

{Just another example of how cheap life is deemed in other countries, it's disgusting, It's moments like these where I know America and the American Military serve a higher purpose}

U.S. Troops Discover And Rescue Orphan Boys Left Starving, Chained To Beds

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/18/eveningnews/main2946007.shtml

father of scientific climatology, considers global warming a bunch of hooey

{Leave it to an 87 year old Climatologists to call it like it is.  Where are we going to be when these guys are gone and the hippies are the Professor Emeritus' of the world.}

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/197613

Key passages:

Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers global warming a bunch of hooey.

"There is a lot of money to be made in this," he added. "If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can't get grants unless you say, 'Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide.'"

Bryson didn't see Al Gore's movie about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."  "Don't make me throw up," he said. "It is not science. It is not true."

Pace is out - another victory for spineless liberal Democrats over a spineless White House

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20070616-121131-5604r

Key passages:

  A Vietnam veteran, Gen. Pace indicated in his Norfolk comments that his experience in that war colored his decision not to quit voluntarily.

"The other piece for me personally was that some 40 years ago I left some guys on the battlefield in Vietnam who lost their lives following Second Lieutenant Pace," he said. "And I promised myself then that I will serve this country until I was no longer needed -- that it's not my decision. I need to be told that I'm done.

"I've been told I'm done."

Gen. Pace confirmed that Mr. Gates had told him he preferred to keep him as chairman but in mid-May began to see signs of opposition on Capitol Hill.

"This is a man who thinks nothing of himself. He has always put the military first," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "The president was very reluctant to accept the recommendation of the secretary of defense, but he respects [Mr. Gates] and agrees with his assessment."

This is sickening to me, when you give a bum like George Tenant the Medal of Freedom, and go to the mattresses over AG Gonzalez, but at the first sign of anything being "contentious" the White House throws an honorable and decent Man under the bus, a Man that that has served with distinction and honor for 40 years.  Notice how the WH spokesgal puts this on SecDef Gates.

As Sarge would say in "Beetle Bailey" this is a bunch of &$@#%.

Semper Fi

Email the Marines - I am not asking.

Great interview at BlackFive with a Marine Colonel in Anbar province.  Worth reading the whole interview here.  His major request was that You drop an email to express your support for the Marines.  As the Colonel mentioned, they watch the same news we do, I can't imagine how difficult it would be to do what they do and watch this propaganda. 

Article link is here:

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/06/roundtable_with.html

Email address to the Marines in Anbar is here:

RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil

From the desk of Gen. Chuck Yeager

From the desk of Gen. Chuck Yeager:
November 20, 2006

To my Fellow Americans,

Congressman Duncan Hunter is the best candidate for President of the United States of America that I know - he has integrity, tenacity, courage, and diplomacy. He is intelligent and thoughtful, does his research, and acts on it.
I have known Congressman Duncan Hunter for over 35 years. Duncan served his country in the Army and is a Vietnam vet. In Vietnam, he served in one of the most dangerous outfits - the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 75th Army Rangers.

Duncan Hunter is the former and very effective Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and I am proud to be the Honorary Chair of the Congressman Duncan Hunter for President Committee.

Chuck Yeager


Please check out more at Duncan Hunter's website

Reid attacks General Petraeus

This loser knows no lows, Harry Reid couldn't carry Gen. Petraueus' jock but yet here he is taking shots at the most important Commander in the war. Reid and his ilk can't wait for the US to lose in Iraq, they are practically salivating over it.

Huckabee link added

Great resource for those looking at Mike Huckabee. Look for a surge here in Iowa the more he gets around. I predict a big showing at the straw poll in Ames.

http://mikehuckabeepresident2008.blogspot.com/

What really happend in the Middle East

Good history lesson

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened

Pakistan's soldiers 'huddling in their bases' in tribal regions

The Pakistani army is paralysed by the growing Taliban threat and some retired officers are covertly aiding the militants, according to a former CIA officer.

Soldiers posted to Waziristan, a tribal area that hosts an estimated 2,000 al-Qaida fighters, are "huddling in their bases, doing nothing", said Art Keller, a CIA case officer who was posted to Pakistan last year.

"Their approach was to pretend that nothing was wrong because any other approach would reveal that they were unwilling and unable to do anything about Talibanisation," said Mr Keller, who has visited Waziristan.

Laura Ingraham blasts Tony Snow

Listen to Laura Ingraham dismantle Tony Snow yesterday.

Huckabee looks to break from second-tier pack

Mike Huckabee has been stellar in the debates, he's one of those guys that the more people see of him the better he is going to do. I am a Duncan Hunter man right now, but Huckabee is right there.

Best Quote:

"One of the things that is frustrating is there's more attention on Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear than who's going to be the next president," Huckabee told reporters.

Check out the youtube video of his awesome response to the media ingrate asking him about his stance on evolution. It's a Grand Slam response..

US military prepared for 'worst' with China

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070614/wl_asia_afp/uschinamilitary

Their game since 9-11 is to conduct massive build-ups and grow more aggressive & brazen knowing our attention is focused elsewhere.

Don’t forget the E-3 incident in April 2001?

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=44955

Computer animation of WTC attack

Courtesy of Purdue

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2007a/070612HoffmannWTC.html

Rockford

Bookmark the counterterrorismblog.org  - great resource

They have a link to a .pdf about the attempted terrorist attack in Rockford, IL.  (remember that one?)  You won't if the media has it's way.  They've done a great job of 9-11 so far-is there even footage of 9-11 still in existence? , so how would anyone remember Rockford, Seattle, Ft Dix, San Francisco, LAX, JFK, Sears Tower, Salt Lake City, Chapel Hill, NC………...

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/06/nefa_series_target_america_the.php

Military officers now targets on Hill (aka Liberals hate the military)

Unfortunately this is what happens when:
1. The administration cedes leadership and self neuters themselves - I would think Gen Pace deserves a more rigorous defense than AG Gonzalez is receiving

2. Political correctness is applied to national security
3. Liberals show themselves for their true feelings of uniform personnel
4. Democrats are elected

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070614/D8POHGRO0.html

Military Officers Now Targets on Hill

Key passages:

• On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the stunning announcement that he would not recommend Pace to serve a second two-year term as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Marine Corps four-star general had not been a target previously of Democrats' ire on the war, but Gates said lawmakers made it clear the confirmation process would be ugly.


• Tauscher, D-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Pace lost standing among members in March when he said homosexual acts were immoral and that the military should not condone the behavior by allowing gays to serve openly. He later apologized, including in a personal letter to Tauscher, for expressing what he said were his personnel views.


• Tauscher said his comments on gays "showed his ignorance" and "had to be deeply discounted because they came from a man who had presided over a war that we got into on a lie and what I consider to be a serious dereliction of duty in having our troops and our readiness so destroyed by the policies of this administration."

Freedom, not climate, is at risk By Vaclav Klaus

{ The President of Czech Republic has been the only world leader other than John Howard of Australia that has shown any backbone about this snake-oil hysteria of man-made global warming.  It's rare, but it's enjoyable to read something from a leader with courage and simple common sense}

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9deb730a-19ca-11dc-99c5-000b5df10621.html

Freedom, not climate, is at risk
By Vaclav Klaus

Published: June 13 2007 17:44 | Last updated: June 13 2007 17:44

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.

Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).

Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.

I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.

The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

As a witness to today’s worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:
■Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
■Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
■Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
■Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority

■Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
■Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction

■Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

The writer is President of the Czech Republic

When lawyers run wars.....

I trust these lawyers volunteer their time to assist the Men who have lost limbs and families of those who have lost lives because of their decsion.

In 2004, CIA operatives in Iraq believed that they had identified the signatures of 11 bomb makers. They proposed a diabolical -- but potentially effective -- sabotage program that would have flooded Iraq with booby-trapped detonators designed to explode in the bomb makers' hands. But the CIA general counsel's office said no. The lawyers claimed that the agency lacked authority for such an operation.

US casulties in perspective

Terrorist deaths in purple

Read more at:
http://northshorejournal.org/index.php/terrorist-death-watch/

the definition of courage - Semper Fi

Photo of boy's grief, courage touches nation

Letters reach out after Marine's burial

Ahmadinejad and JFK

Ahmadinejad and JFK
New York Sun Editorial
June 5, 2007

Police, FBI Plan To Examine Iran Links in JFK Plot

Police, FBI Plan To Examine Iran Links in JFK Plot and now back to Paris Hilton coverage......

Remember the Anthrax!

The Threat of Bioweapons

By Janet Ellen Levy

Immediately following 9-11, an anthrax attack originating from letters containing anthrax spores infected 22 people, killing five. After almost six years, the case has not been solved.....

Smartest Woman On Earth?

Election 2008: Sen. Hillary Clinton's fans suggest that her brilliance outshines her character flaws. But if she's so smart, how did she flunk the D.C. bar exam, one of the easiest in the nation?

Rosie's "greatest hits"

http://www.mrc.org/Profiles/odonnell/welcome.asp

This is "greatest hits" rundown of Rosie's most delusional.  Great exchange in 1999 with Tom Selleck at the bottom

ISU: Christians need not apply

Shockingly the most hostile campus to Christians in Iowa recently is not Iowa City but Ames ?!?!?

C'mon ISU, I count on you to balance out the hippies in Iowa City and Grinnell. First Dr. Gonzalez is targeted by a "petition" for daring to be a Christian. As we all know from the Duke Lacrosse story "petitions" are always beyond reproach. I have to say that only in academia would signing a "petition" be viewed as an acceptable reaction, what a bunch of wusses.

Considering this is a school that had not too long ago "In the year of our Lord" inprinted on it's diplomas, It's fair to say the hippies have won another one and have once again proven they have no intention of being educators but indoctrinators.

Of course this could all go away with a University President with a spine, but I might as well be asking for a Leprechaun to appear. Also don't forget ISU's Softball team refusing to stand at a Baylor game during the pre-game prayer. Gotta love that tolerance.

By the way, why doesn't the Register mention that religious studies professor Hector Avalos is an atheist and faculty adviser (aka Chaplain??) to the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society.

Blood of Iraqi Martyrs

Blood of Iraqi Martyrs 
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 25, 2007

There is another tragedy taking in place in Iraq on a daily basis, far from the front pages and the TV news. It does not involve the kidnapping of U.S. troops, nor even the fire-bombing of Muslim shrines by other Muslims, both of which by now are familiar to most Americans.

This is a tragedy taking place in a total media vacuum. Even our government has remained silent as it continues.

Perhaps it’s because the victims are Christians. Indeed, members of the most ancient Christian communities in the world.

Over the past three years, Iraqi Muslim extremists have targeted Christians in systematic attacks, aimed at driving them from their homes, their work places, and their churches.

Just last week, a group of armed Muslims set fire to St. George’s Assyrian Church in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, completely decimating what remained of a church already hit by a deadly fire-bombing in October 2004.

The Christians of Iraq include Chaldeans, Syriac Orthodox, and Assyrians. All trace their roots to the early church and use a liturgy still written and sung in Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus.

Read it all here:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=28448

If We Fail.Been there, done that.

If We Fail…Been there, done that.

By Victor Davis Hanson

Read it all:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODk0NDc4ODYyOGM1YzA0MTc3YjgwMjY5Mjg4OGY5MmE=

 

3,000 Christians added daily in China

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53808

3,000 Christians added daily in China
Faithful undefeated by beatings, arrests, confiscations and destruction of churches

osted: January 18, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Worship services are being broken up by baton-wielding police officers, participants arrested, Bibles confiscated and Christian church buildings demolished. But still, an estimated 3,000 people every day come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ in China.

The report comes from Voice of the Martyrs, a U.S.-based Christian group that works specifically to help those members of the persecuted Christian church worldwide.

The most recent arrests happened just a few days ago, when a house church meeting in Henan province was broken up and 11 people arrested, the organization said.

(Story continues below)

"Police from Yongfeng township police station in Xiuwu county, Henan province, raided a Christian meeting in a home in Chencun village. Eleven Christians were arrested, two were released the next day and nine remain in jail," the report said.

"Police broke in and proclaimed the gathering a cultic and illegal activity," the report said.

Legal and financial help is being provided to those people during their detention.

However, VOM said that a more than 50-year campaign to eradicate Christianity from China has left that nation with the equivalent of a new mega-church being added each day.

"Chairman Mao Zedong declared the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 and quickly sought to purge society of anything religious, causing China's people to endure great hardship ever since," a VOM analysis of the nation said. "Mao's Great Leap Forward in the late '50s and the Cultural Revolution in the '60s and '70s left millions of his countrymen dead or victimized.

"Today, with its policies of forced abortion and sterilization, China's human rights record is one of the worst in the world. Authorities reportedly sell the organs of executed prisoners to meet the demand for transplants. It system of 're-education through labor' detains hundreds of thousands each year in work camps without even a court hearing. China's 'strike-hard' policy, presented as a crackdown on criminals, is hardest on Christians, putting more believers in prison or under detention than in any other country. The confiscation of church property and Bibles continues – even Bibles officially printed by the government," the report said.

"Yet the church grows: an estimated 3,000 Chinese come to Christ each day. China's house church movement, which comprises approximately 90 percent of China's Christians, endures unimaginable persecution, yet stands on its commitment to preach the gospel no matter the cost."

Two of the people in the latest raid by police were released a day later, but nine remained in jail, according to VOM and China Aid Association, which also reported on the arrests.

Among those still being held in detention for worshiping in the home were Ju Xiang, 48; Liu Xiaoduo, 42; Wang Shegin, 40; Fu Juyi, 36; Hong Xia, 37; Xue Xianghuo, 49; and Xue Xiaona, 34, officials said.

VOM said the persecution is having little effect on the desire to know more about Christ. "In the past year, we received more requests for Bibles and Christian books from Chinese believers because they wanted to share the gospel with others," a VOM source within the restrictive nation said. "The Communist government of China does not see Christ as the most important person in an individual's life. Christians count it a privilege to believe in and suffer for Jesus Christ."

The contact said Christians simply adjust to the persecution at hand – including arrests, demolished buildings and confiscated materials.

VOM currently is supplying Bibles and copies of other Christian books, including "Tortured for Christ" by VOM founder Richard Wurmbrand, to Christians in China.

"American Christians have also mailed more than 107,310 New Testaments to China through Bibles Unbound (www.BiblesUnbound.com)," VOM said. "Pray God will protect believers in China and give them strength and courage to continue their faith in him."

VOM is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville, Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.

It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for his refusal to recant Christianity.

He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound scars on his body.

The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized in 1967, when his book, "Tortured for Christ," was released.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The secret for which Sandy risked his all

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53812

If not the most skillful of embezzlers, Samuel "Sandy" Berger is a far more formidable character than the media would have us believe. When he made his now-storied sorties into the National Archives, he risked his career and his reputation in so doing, and he knew it. Rest assured, he would not have done so were the secrets to be preserved not worth the risk of pilfering them.

True to form, the major media refuse to even ask the most fundamental question: Just what secrets would justify so much personal exposure? Having read the report on Berger by the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, I am more confident than ever that I know the answer.

As the House report makes clear, Berger did not exactly welcome this assignment. This confirms my suspicions. The archivists told the committee, in fact, that Berger "indicated some disgust with the burden and responsibility of conducting the document review."

Apparently, he did not have much choice in the matter. Former President Bill Clinton had, according to the report, "designated Berger as his representative to review NSC documents." Berger was Clinton's go-to inside guy.

In his first term, Clinton had hired this millionaire trade lawyer and lobbyist to be deputy national security adviser, not because of Berger's foreign policy experience, which was negligible, but because of his political instincts, which were keen and reliable. Clinton entrusted Berger with some very sensitive assignments, particularly in relationship to China, and rewarded him for his trust with the job of national security adviser in his second term. This job does not require Senate confirmation. It is unlikely that Berger could have gotten any job that did.

As we now know, Berger made four trips to the National Archives. He did so presumably to refresh his memory before testifying first to the Graham-Goss Commission and then to the 9/11 Commission. Berger made his first visit in May 2002, his last in October 2003.

As we now know too, he stole and destroyed an incalculable number of documents during these four visits. "The full extent of Berger's document removal," reports the House committee, "is not known and never can be known."

As the report clarifies, "Archives staff would have no way to know" if any part of a given National Security Council document was removed. Further, had Berger removed papers from a Staff Member Office File – these more loosely enumerated than the NSC documents – "It would be almost impossible for the Archives staff to know."

Among his more flagrant acts of criminal mischief, Berger purloined some highly classified documents and stashed them "at a construction site where they could have been found by anyone." This behavior does not exactly classify as "inadvertent," the media's original characterization of Berger's motivation.

As the House report also establishes, the FBI never questioned Berger about those first two visits nor submitted him to a polygraph about any of the visits as his plea deal required. The Department of Justice's only source of information about possible theft during Berger's first two visits was the man himself, and Berger has proved almost comically unreliable.

In fact, Berger has changed his story about the documents as often as his boss did about Monica, in both cases to adapt to the emerging evidence. Berger even refused to be interviewed by the House committee, the one honest enterprise in the whole investigation.

We know too that on his first visit, according to Archives staff, "Berger was especially interested in White House terrorism adviser Richard Clarke's personal office files." Again, this confirms my suspicions. According to the committee, "Had Berger seen 'a smoking gun' or other documents he did not want brought to an investigatory panel's attention, he could have removed it on this visit."

The much-discussed Millennium After Action Review was hardly the gun that smoked. In fact, the DOJ saw the Millennium Review as "beneficial to the Clinton administration" in that it made them look "engaged" in the war on terrorism.

The Millennium Review made the news only because it was the first document Berger got caught swiping, then on his third visit. The benign nature of this review led the DOJ to conclude that Berger took the documents for his "personal convenience," and the media predictably played right along.

To understand what that "smoking gun" might have been and how it involved Clarke and Berger, let us turn to the fateful summer of 1996. At that time, Col. Buzz Patterson carried the "nuclear football" for President Clinton. Given his security clearance, Patterson was entrusted with any number of high-security assignments. One morning in "late-summer," Patterson was returning a daily intelligence update from the Oval Office to the National Security Council when he noticed the heading "Operation Bojinka."

As Patterson relates, "I keyed on a reference to a plot to use commercial airliners as weapons." As a pilot, he had a keen interest in the same. "I can state for a fact that this information was circulated within the U.S. intelligence community," Patterson writes, "and that in late 1996 the president was aware of it." The president's handwritten comments on the documents verified the same.

The Philippine police had uncovered plans for aerial assaults as early as January 1995 and shared those plans with the FBI almost immediately. The man responsible for those plans was Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing and very possibly an Iraqi contract agent. His accomplice was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9-11 and allegedly Yousef's uncle.

Understandably, the 9/11 Commission was very concerned about who knew what when in regards to the use of planes as bombs. Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was asked on her first real question: "Did you ever see or hear from the FBI, from the CIA, from any other intelligence agency, any memos or discussions or anything else between the time you got into office and 9-11 that talked about using planes as bombs?"

Rice said no. She was likely telling the truth. Clarke had acknowledged as much during his earlier testimony. He admitted that the "knowledge about al-Qaida having thought of using aircraft as weapons" was relatively old, "5 years, 6 years old." He asked that intelligence analysts "be forgiven for not thinking about it given the fact that they hadn't seen a lot in the five or six years intervening about it."

Before the summer Olympics of 1996, in fact, Clarke had warned security planners about the possibility of Islamic terrorists hijacking a 747 and flying it into Olympic Stadium. Two days before the start of those Olympics, on July 17, Saddam's National Liberation day, with the U.S Navy on the highest state of alert since the Cuban missile crisis, TWA Flight 800 blew up inexplicably off the coast of Long Island.

The fact that the president was reviewing Bojinka plans soon after the destruction of TWA Flight 800 makes the versions of those plans with his handwritten notes on them all the more critical. If found and revealed, they would, at the very least, acknowledge that the Clinton administration had a keen interest in the possible use of planes as bombs five years before Sept. 11.

That interest obviously died, and Clarke served as chief assassin. Among other roles, it fell upon this Clinton sycophant to devise the "exit strategy" that transformed a seeming aeronautical assault on TWA Flight 800 into a "mechanical failure." In his book "Against All Enemies," he takes full credit for this bit of aviation alchemy.

Clarke was likely also responsible for getting the CIA and FBI to breach the storied "wall" and work together on the creation of the notorious "zoom-climb" animation. This animation showed a nose-less 747 rocketing vertically 3,200 feet into space and confusing onlookers. The FBI used it to discredit all 270 of its eyewitnesses to an apparent missile strike.

The media swallowed the zoom-climb as uncritically as they had the "mechanical failure." The New York Times did not bother to interview any of the 270 relevant eyewitnesses. Say what you will about former Timesman Jayson Blair, but he at least would have made one up.

Berger played a key role in the TWA Flight 800 sleight-of-mind as well. On the night of July 17, 1996, Berger was among the scores of staff summoned to the White House for an emergency meeting – a first for a domestic airplane crash. Col. Patterson was there as well but was kept fully out of the loop. When I asked Patterson if anyone was holed up in the family quarters with the president, he could tentatively identify only one person. And that person was Sandy Berger, then just the deputy national security adviser. Berger's boss, the less "reliable" Tony Lake, was relegated to his own office.

A logical deduction from existing evidence is that Clarke put the "planes-as-bombs" talk on hold for the five or six years after the TWA Flight 800 disaster lest such talk evoke unanswered questions about that fateful crash. Berger's task, I surmise, was to make sure all references to Bojinka, planes-as-bombs, and/or TWA Flight 800 were rooted from the Archives, especially any documents with handwritten notes that led back to co-conspirators Berger, Clarke and Clinton.

On Friday April 1, 2005, the Department of Justice announced its embarrassingly lenient plea deal with Berger. The timing was more than fortuitous. On March 31, Terri Schiavo had died. On April 2, Pope John Paul II would die. DOJ could not have chosen a day better calculated to give a casually indifferent media an excuse for ignoring a bombshell of a story.

"It remains unclear," asked the Washington Post about the Berger story line as it existed in April 2005, "why he destroyed three versions of a document, but left two other versions intact."

As I responded at the time, the answer to this question was too obvious to ask –handwritten notes on a document make one version entirely more dangerous than an identical document without those notes.

The Wall Street Journal, among other media, did not take kindly to ruminations like mine above. I will flatter myself that its editors had me at least somewhere in mind when they opined April 8, 2005, "Some people won't let a bad conspiracy theory go."

The Journal continued in full hauteur, "We're referring to those who loudly assert that former NSC adviser Sandy Berger was trying to protect the Clinton administration when he illegally removed copies of sensitive documents from the National Archives in late 2003."

The Journal cited chief of DOJ's Public Integrity Section, Noel Hillman, who claimed that "no original documents were destroyed, and that the contents of all five at issue still exist and were made available to the 9/11 Commission."

According to the Journal, the "confusion" stemmed from the "mistaken idea" that Berger destroyed handwritten notes by various Clinton administration officials in the margins of these documents. This, said Hillman, was simply an "urban myth."

As we know now, the only urban myth in play was that presumed Republicans like Hillman were, as Berger claimed, trying "to assassinate his character to pursue their own ends." In fact, they were covering for him. "Nothing was lost to the public or the process," said Hillman of Berger's theft in April 2005. This was transparently false.

The House Committee found the DOJ to be "unacceptably incurious" about investigating Berger's time in the Archives, especially his first two visits. Although Hillman would publicly claim that Berger "did not have an intent to hide any of contents of the documents or conceal facts from the [9/11] commission," Hillman had been told on at least four prior occasions that the opposite was true.

According to the House report, "The 9/11 Commission was specifically interested in the office files of White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, and never was told that Berger had access to Clarke's original office files on May 30, 2002, and July 18, 2003."

If not exactly apologizing to us humble conspiracists, the Journal has at least admitted its error. Hillman was indeed dissembling, Journal editors acknowledged last week: "Mr. Berger was in a position to remove documents from Mr. Clarke's files, and thanks to lax security, breaches of protocol and undue deference on the part of Archives staff, we may never know whether Mr. Berger took documents other than the five he's admitted to removing."

The media will assuredly "never know" for one good reason: They refuse to look. If they do, they will discover a rat's nest of conspiracy that will make Watergate seem as consequential as a Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.

Why the Leakers haven't been punished

[It's disturbing how many traitors we have working for us in key positions-if only we could catch one.  Why stop leaking, there is never any consequence]

Leak Probes Stymied, FBI Memos Show
BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
January 10, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/46407
A lack of cooperation from one or more intelligence agencies led the FBI to abandon several recent criminal investigations into leaks of classified information to the press, records obtained by The New York Sun indicate.

In January 2005, a top FBI official asked the Justice Department to close three pending leak inquiries because the "victim agency" repeatedly refused to assist the probes. The FBI's contact at the agency "has been uncooperative with the investigating field office and on numerous occasions failed to return phone calls or provide the case agent with requested documents pertinent to the investigation," the memo said, adding that the agency "cancelled personnel interviews, security briefings and meetings at the last minute and failed to reschedule for another time."

"None of the cases can proceed without the cooperation of the substantive unit at the victim agency, therefore the FBI considers all logical leads covered," the FBI official wrote. Within days or weeks, the cases were closed.

The memo, which was among more than 300 pages of leak investigation files released to the Sun this week under the Freedom of Information Act, was heavily redacted by the FBI, which removed the name of the writer, the identity of the intelligence agency involved, and nearly all details about the alleged leaks.

The documents provide a rare window into the Bush administration's effort to combat leaks of classified information that the administration has said are damaging national security in wartime. "At some point in time, it would be helpful if we can find somebody inside our government who is leaking materials, clearly against the law, that they be held to account," the president said at a press conference last month. "Perhaps the best way to make sure people don't leak classified documents is that there be a consequence for doing so."

However the records suggest that reticence on the part of intelligence agencies sometimes contributes to the futility of leak probes, and that, at least when it comes to leak investigations, the much-vaunted full cooperation between the FBI and other intelligence agencies after September 11 has yet to come to fruition. "It turns out you never can find the leaker," Mr. Bush lamented.

In an exchange of e-mails in September 2005, FBI agents handling a leak investigation codenamed "May Apple," complained about difficulties in getting basic information about who saw classified documents key to the case. A meeting was planned with agency lawyers to discuss requests that were pending for a year. "So close it if they stonewall him tomorrow and/or we learn the distribution list is too great, right? I bet the latter will at least point us to closing even if they are totally cooperative," one agent wrote.

A few weeks later, the head of the FBI's leak-sleuthing section, Michael Donner, wrote to the Justice Department's counterespionage chief, John Dion, asking to close the probe. The FBI's Washington field office "concluded that the investigation had languished due to repeated requests for information…that have not been fulfilled in a timely manner," Mr. Donner wrote. "Due to noncompliance from the victim agency and wide dissemination of the classified information, the FBI was unable to determine the source of the leak." In all of the released records, the FBI deleted the name of the agency or agencies about which the investigators complained. However, a former Justice Department official said the vast majority of leak probes originate at the CIA. In the "May Apple" case, references in the files to top-secret cables and to an Office of General Counsel also point to Langley, as the government's other main user of cables, the State Department, does not have a general counsel's post.

A CIA spokeswoman, Michele Neff, flatly denied that her agency has resisted the FBI's efforts to hunt down leakers. "That's simply not the case," she said yesterday. "Why would we not want to get to the bottom of the leaks? The Office of General Counsel works closely with the Department of Justice on investigations regarding unauthorized disclosures."

Ms. Neff pointed to a November interview in which the current CIA director, General Michael Hayden, said recent leaking has caused serious harm to his agency's effectiveness and to individuals. "When that takes place our ability to protect both the security and the freedom of the nation is reduced," General Hayden told WTOP radio. "I can say as a matter of first principle that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information has actually led to the deaths of individuals."

A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said it is uncommon for leak investigators to encounter resistance from their counterparts in the intelligence community. "Generally, we feel we receive excellent cooperation from the intelligence agencies and other victimized agencies in leak investigations," he said.

Ms. Neff and Mr. Boyd said they could not comment on specific cases, such as the ones where the agents reported a lack of cooperation. Mr. Dion, the Justice Department official who received the memos detailing the difficulties, and the current head of the CIA's Office of General Counsel, John Rizzo, declined requests to be interviewed for this article.

Mr. Donner, the FBI official who oversaw some of the probes described in the memos, retired last year. In an interview yesterday, he also declined to discuss specific cases, but acknowledged some instances where agencies were not enthusiastic about helping the FBI. "They know if they do not give us more information or refuse to, the case will not push forward. They'd rather have it go away or have it dropped," the former agent said. Many of the leak cases are initiated by the CIA, which sends the Justice Department a standard, 11-item questionnaire. Asked why an agency would refer a leak for investigation and then decline to provide necessary information, Mr. Donner said, "They have a disclosure potentially of a violation of federal law. They're obliged to provide it or refer it to the FBI." He said resistance may sometimes be because of legitimate concerns about further dissemination of sensitive data.

According to the records, the main reason for dropping leak investigations is that the classified information in question was so widely distributed that it is difficult to focus in on suspects. Mr. Donner said the current drive to share intelligence information made his job even harder. "I'm an old-school guy. A lot of people don't ‘need-to-know,'" he said.

Mr. Donner, who helped crack some high-profile spy cases, such as that of Aldrich Ames, said the leak chasing was frustrating. "I wish we had better success in this area," he said. "This stuff is a wilderness of mirrors."

The friction apparent in the records obtained by the Sun calls into question assurances by senior government officials that law enforcement and the intelligence community are working hand-inglove to ferret out leaks. In an unusual op-ed piece published in the New York Times in February 2006, the-then director of the CIA, Porter Goss, decried illegal leaks and promised that close coordination to eradicate them was underway. The Justice Department "is committed to working with us to investigate these cases aggressively," Mr. Goss wrote. "In addition, I have instituted measures within the agency to further safeguard the integrity of classified data."

Mr. Goss took over in September 2004, months before the FBI's moves to abandon the probes. However, it is unclear how much control he was able to establish over the agency. The former congressman and his staff clashed repeatedly with veteran CIA officials, some of whom quit. A top aide to Mr. Goss, Patrick Murray, who once oversaw an anti-leak task force for the Justice Department, reportedly crusaded against leaks at Langley. In May 2006, Mr. Goss abruptly resigned, offering no public reason for his departure. A former prosecutor who has accused career CIA officials of waging a leak campaign to undermine President Bush, Joseph diGenova, said yesterday that he suspected the resistance to the investigations was part of that effort. He also questioned why the leak cases were dropped.

"Stopping a leak investigation, assuming it's a serious leak, just because the victim agency won't cooperate is the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life," Mr. diGenova said. "A grand jury subpoena should issue….It seems to me there should be some sort of Congressional investigation of those instances."

The disclosed records also suggest that many investigations into leaks of top-secret data are abandoned without pursuing some obvious, if intrusive, investigative techniques, such as seeking testimony or phone records from members of the press. Other components of the Justice Department have recently used those tactics in less sensitive cases, such as leaks about planned federal raids of Islamic charities and about a grand jury investigating steroid use in baseball.

"There is a stunning lack of balance in the way all these cases are approached," Mr. diGenova said. The FBI files were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought in July by this reporter. In November, a federal judge in San Francisco, citing the intense public interest in leak investigations, ordered the government to answer the requests within 30 days. The judge, Maxine Chesney, recently extended the deadline to April for some of the agencies involved.

Last month, the FBI told Judge Chesney that 22 of 94 files believed to relate to recent press leaks were missing with no indication of who had removed them.

Read the documents here.

THE BEAR GOES WALKABOUT

http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=24

THE BEAR GOES WALKABOUT
You gotta love these alternative theories for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the late “Russian dissident” (and there’s a phrase one hadn’t expected to make a comeback quite so soon). Relax, say the Kremlinologists (and there’s another), it wasn’t Putin who had the guy whacked. It was rogue elements within the state apparatus who gained access to supposedly secure facilities and then contaminated five international jets and dozens of joints all over London in order to pull off the world’s first radiological assassination.
Oh, well, that’s okay then. Nothing to worry about.
The late Mr Litvinenko, on the other hand, added to the story some last-minute wrinkles of his own. On his deathbed, the former KGB agent converted to Islam and asked that one day his corpse be reburied in a peaceful and independent Chechnya.
Now what’s that about? Well, like many in Russian political and media circles – including his fellow murder victim Anna Politkovskaya – Litvinenko had become intrigued by the 1999 Moscow apartment-house attacks that killed 300 people and provided the pretext for the Second Chechen War: Were they, in fact, a set-up intended to advance the career of Vladimir Putin? In other words, his entire presidency is founded on a lie. One can understand why a belief in such a conspiracy might destroy one’s faith in one’s country, and even that it might lead one to embrace Chechen separatist leaders, as Litvinenko did. But it doesn’t entirely explain the Muslim conversion business.
I say somewhere or other in my new book that, just as the export of Russia’s ideology was the biggest destabilizing factor in the last century, so the implosion of that ideology could be one of the biggest in this century. That’s to say, what’s left of the Soviet Union has hit the apocalyptic jackpot: the Middle East has Islamists, Africa has Aids and North Korea has nukes, but only Russia has the lot – a disease-riddled Slav population and a fast growing Muslim population jostling atop a colossal nuclear arsenal. The Litvinenko murder is only the first of many stories in which Islam, nuclear materials and Russian decline will intersect in novel ways.
There are ten million people in Moscow. Do you know how many of them are Muslim? Two and a half million. Or about a quarter of the population. The ethnic Russians are older; the Muslims are younger. The ethnic Russians are already in net population decline; the Muslim population in the country has increased by 40% in the last 15 years. Seven out of ten Russian pregnancies (according to some surveys) are aborted; in some Muslim communities, the fertility rate is ten babies per woman. Russian men have record rates of heart disease, liver disease, drug addiction and Aids; Muslims are the only guys in the country who aren’t face down in the vodka.
Faced with these trends, most experts extrapolate: thus, it’s generally accepted that by mid-century the Russian Federation will be majority Muslim. But you don’t really need to extrapolate when the future’s already checking in at reception. The Toronto Star (which is Canada’s biggest-selling newspaper and impeccably liberal) recently noted that by 2015 Muslims will make up a majority of Russia’s army.
Hmm. That’ll add an interesting dimension to the Chechen campaign. Say what you like about Russia but it doesn’t want for plot twists. It is, in that sense, a textbook example of Donald Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns”: a thing we know we don’t know. What will happen in Russia? A remorseless evolution into a majority Muslim state? Bosnian-style civil war? The secession of a dozen or so of Russia’s 89 federal regions? A Muslim military coup? Or a panicky attempt to arrest decline by selling off your few remaining assets, including national resources to the Chinese and nukes to anyone who wants them? None of us knows, but we should know enough to know we don’t know. The Russia of 15 years ago is already ancient history.
Which brings me, alas, to the Iraq Study Group. This silly shallow report, of which James Baker, Lee Hamilton and the rest should be ashamed, betrays no understanding of how fast events are moving. It falls back on the usual multilateral mood music. It wants Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel and everything else to be mediated by the transnational jet set – the Big Five at the UN, the EU, the Arab League. Just for starters, look at the permanent members of the Security Council: America, Britain, France, Russia, China. What’s the old line on those fellows? The World War Two victory parade preserved in aspic? If only. By 2050, Russia will be the umpteenth Muslim nuclear power, but the first with a permanent seat on the UNSC. Or maybe the second, if France gets there first. And, judging from London literary offerings like George Walden’s Time To Emigrate?, Britain might not be far behind. But, as I said above, forget the extrapolations: already, domestic Muslim constituencies are an important factor in the foreign policy thinking of three out of the big five. Are Baker and Hamilton even aware of that?
As I always say, there is no “stability”. We thought we’d “contained” Soviet Communism. Instead, the social pathologies that took hold during the Russian people’s half-century of “containment” will have profound consequences for us and the rest of the world long after the last Commie is dead and buried.National Review, December 18th 2006
NEW YEAR RESOLUTION
My New Year's resolution is not to make any New Year predictions. I called last year pretty badly -- readers may remember my confident assertions every week or two that the Republicans would hold the House and Senate. War is a tough sell in a democracy, particularly the kind of war we face today. On the other hand, one should never underestimate the seductiveness of complacency. If you happened to catch John Edwards, the hair-today-gone-tomorrow pretty boy of the 2004 campaign, re-emerging in the artfully positioned debris of New Orleans last week, it was hard not to be impressed: An empty suit had somehow managed to get emptier. He's running for president on five big priorities: 'guaranteeing health care,' 'leading the fight against global warming,' 'strengthening our middle class and ending the shame of poverty,' and by then my fingers were too comatose to write down the fifth theme but, if memory serves, it was guaranteeing to lead the fight to strengthen ending the shame of platitudinous campaign rhetoric.

Baby Mullet

Our Fallout-Shelter Future
We’ll be back to duck and cover if we don’t stop Iran first…

By Stanley Kurtz

American politics is about to undergo a sea change. Our lives are going to be transformed on a more personal level as well. Sometime between now and five-to-ten years from now we’re going to be forced to choose between preemptive war with Iran, and living in a post-proliferation world. War with Iran will probably mean casualties on American soil. Iran has likely placed terrorist agents in the United States, with instructions to retaliate against civilian targets in the event of war. We’ll also likely see attacks on Persian Gulf oil shipments, and therefore a huge spike in the price of gasoline, with major economic consequences.

 
But what if there is no preemptive strike? What if Iran gets the bomb? (I find it tough to credit the notion that a negotiated agreement with Iran can prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. At any rate, only an imminent American military strike would have any hope of generating a verifiable bargain.) An extraordinary new article by Stephen Peter Rosen, “After Proliferation: What to Do if More States Go Nuclear,” makes it obvious that our lives and our politics are going to change dramatically in a post-proliferation world. So either we go to war with Iran — likely a more costly war than any we’ve faced since 9/11 — or our lives will transform forever. To see what I mean, let’s take a tour of Rosen’s remarkable argument.

Who Hit Me?
Rosen begins by sidestepping (or seeming to sidestep) the controversy between hawkish proliferation pessimists and dovish proliferation optimists. Proliferation pessimists (like yours truly) see only a limited chance of averting disaster if states like Iran get the bomb. For hawkish proliferation pessimists, tough action in the present is our last, best chance to keep the dangerous nuclear genie corked-up in his bottle.

Proliferation optimists, on the other hand, see reasons for hope in the record of nuclear peace during the Cold War. While granting the risks, proliferation optimists point out that the very horror of the nuclear option tends, in practice, to keep the peace. Without choosing between hawkish proliferation pessimists and dovish proliferation optimists, Rosen simply asks how we ought to act in a post-proliferation world.

Rosen assumes (rightly I believe) that proliferation is unlikely to stop with Iran. Once Iran gets the bomb, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are likely to develop their own nuclear weapons, for self-protection, and so as not to allow Iran to take de facto cultural-political control of the Muslim world. (I think you’ve got to at least add Egypt to this list.) With three, four, or more nuclear states in the Muslim Middle East, what becomes of deterrence?

A key to deterrence during the Cold War was our ability to know who had hit whom. With a small number of geographically separated nuclear states, and with the big opponents training satellites and specialized advance-guard radar emplacements on each other, it was relatively easy to know where a missile had come from. But what if a nuclear missile is launched at the United States from somewhere in a fully nuclearized Middle East, in the middle of a war in which, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran are already lobbing conventional missiles at one another? Would we know who had attacked us? Could we actually drop a retaliatory nuclear bomb on someone without being absolutely certain? And as Rosen asks, What if the nuclear blow was delivered against us by an airplane or a cruise missile? It might be almost impossible to trace the attack back to its source with certainty, especially in the midst of an ongoing conventional conflict.

More Terror
We’re familiar with the horror scenario of a Muslim state passing a nuclear bomb to terrorists for use against an American city. But imagine the same scenario in a multi-polar Muslim nuclear world. With several Muslim countries in possession of the bomb, it would be extremely difficult to trace the state source of a nuclear terror strike. In fact, this very difficulty would encourage states (or ill-controlled elements within nuclear states — like Pakistan’s intelligence services or Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) to pass nukes to terrorists. The tougher it is to trace the source of a weapon, the easier it is to give the weapon away. In short, nuclear proliferation to multiple Muslim states greatly increases the chances of a nuclear terror strike.

Right now, the Indians and Pakistanis “enjoy” an apparently stable nuclear stand-off. Both countries have established basic deterrence, channels of communication, and have also eschewed a potentially destabilizing nuclear arms race. Attacks by Kashmiri militants in 2001 may have pushed India and Pakistan close to the nuclear brink. Yet since then, precisely because of the danger, the two countries seem to have established a clear, deterrence-based understanding. The 2001 crisis gives fuel to proliferation pessimists, while the current stability encourages proliferation optimists. Rosen points out, however, that a multi-polar nuclear Middle East is unlikely to follow the South Asian model.

Deep mutual suspicion between an expansionist, apocalyptic, Shiite Iran, secular Turkey, and the Sunni Saudis and Egyptians (not to mention Israel) is likely to fuel a dangerous multi-pronged nuclear arms race. Larger arsenals mean more chance of a weapon being slipped to terrorists. The collapse of the world’s non-proliferation regime also raises the chances that nuclearization will spread to Asian powers like Taiwan and Japan.

And of course, possession of nuclear weapons is likely to embolden Iran, especially in the transitional period before the Saudis develop weapons of their own. Like Saddam, Iran may be tempted to take control of Kuwait’s oil wealth, on the assumption that the United States will not dare risk a nuclear confrontation by escalating the conflict. If the proliferation optimists are right, then once the Saudis get nukes, Iran would be far less likely to make a move on nearby Kuwait. On the other hand, to the extent that we do see conventional war in a nuclearized Middle East, the losers will be sorely tempted to cancel out their defeat with a nuclear strike. There may have been nuclear peace during the Cold War, but there were also many “hot” proxy wars. If conventional wars break out in a nuclearized Middle East, it may be very difficult to stop them from escalating into nuclear confrontations.

Duck!
What would life be like in such a world? Rosen argues that we must lose no time in constructing a specialized radar and satellite warning network trained on the Middle East. Without knowing who’s sending missiles against us, we cannot strike back or deter. Rosen also argues that even a somewhat leaky anti-missile defense system is going to be a must. A star-wars-type missile-defense system may have seemed powerless against the massive might of the old Soviet nuclear force. But against a growing nuclear power with a small arsenal, or against Islamic radicals who manage to commandeer an isolated nuclear-armed missile, an anti-missile defense could make a real difference.

This leads us to what may be Rosen’s most striking recommendation. “Duck and cover” is back! In a post-proliferation world, we are going to be raising another generation of children (probably several generations of children) marked by nerve-wracking “retention drills.” And get ready...the fallout shelter is coming back, too. Given the Soviets’ overwhelmingly large nuclear arsenal — capable of turning the entire United States to dust in the event of a major nuclear exchange — fallout shelters came to seem like a joke. But when dealing with a possible strike from a single weapon, or at most a mere handful of weapons, the logic of the fallout shelter is compelling. We’re going to need to be able to evacuate our cities in the event of a direct attack, or to avoid radiation plumes from cities that have already been struck. Tens or hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved by such measures.

But what about the problem of retaliation? Is there a middle way between the seemingly intolerable option of doing nothing to respond to a nuclear strike on New York or Washington, and indiscriminate nuclear retaliation against a country that may not even have attacked us? Rosen says the answer is a massive conventional campaign to take over and transform the countries that have struck us. That may seem intolerable now, but the public will demand no less in the wake of a nuclear attack on American soil.

So this is the upshot of Rosen’s remarkable article. Now let’s think through the implications.

Dead Doves
For starters, the dovish Democrats are doomed. In “Hawkish Gloom,” I pointed in broad terms to the imminent hawkification of the United States. Well, Rosen’s detailed account of a post-proliferation world makes it clear that the revitalized George McGovern-Howard Dean wing of the Democratic party cannot survive much past the moment when Iran gets the bomb. As soon as that happens, we’re going to plunged into a proliferation crisis and a new Cold War, at least as dangerous as the first Cold War (arguably more so). At that point, the Democrats are going to beg Joe Lieberman to come back and give them his blessing. It turns out that we really are going to see a purge of the Democratic doves, and the accession of a Truman-like party, although it will probably take quite a few election cycles before the Democrats finally manage to remove taint of their Ned Lamont wing.

Funny how the very thing the doves don’t want — a preemptive strike on Iran, is the only thing that can save them. A nuclear Iran, followed by cascading proliferation throughout the Middle East and beyond, means the death of the dove. Even a negotiated and verifiable agreement to put an end to Iran’s nuclear program is inconceivable without the sort of credible threat of force the doves have made impossible to sustain.

A fully nuclearized, multi-polar Middle East will put us onto a permanent war footing. With Americans building fallout shelters, running evacuation drills, and otherwise preparing for a terrorist nuclear strike, dovishness won’t even be an option. Our political choices will probably be of two types. Exactly how hawkish shall we be, and how shall we shape our alliances?

After Iran gets the bomb, the fantasy that we can handle the post-9/11 world with our tiny military is going to disappear. As Rosen points out, the only middle way between helpless acceptance of nuclear terror and massive nuclear retaliation against countries that may not even have attacked us, is going to be through conventional invasions. Before, and certainly after a nuclear attack (even a terrorist and/or Iranian nuclear strike on Israel or Saudi Arabia), Americans will be forced to raise a large army capable of transforming the Middle East before final Armageddon strikes.

What’s that you say? We tried that in Iraq and it didn’t work. Well, after the bomb goes off, I assure you we’re going to try it again. In fact, you’ll demand that we try it. And with your patience and political support, at that point, who knows, it just may work.

New Arguments
Over and above our political arguments over precisely how much to expand our military (really a lot, or a whole heck of a lot), we’re also going to argue about our alliance strategies. With multiple nuclear powers, there will probably be a lot of shifting coalitions. True, the initial alliances are already evident. In a nuclear Middle East, we will be allied with Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia against Iran. But who knows whether Iran may try to strike a deal with one of the other Muslim states at some point, perhaps cozying up to Saudi Arabia if America puts too much pressure on the House of Saud. Just as America (very imperfectly) peeled Pakistan away from the informal rogue-state coalition after 9/11, shifting alliances between multiple nuclear camps will become a real possibility. American power will no longer command a fully nuclearized world. Instead, we’ll be the first among nuclear equals, jockeying for position against coalitions of powers who collectively may be able to stand us down. In this new world, Ned Lamont and the Daily Kos will be a distant memory.

The most egregious American doves don’t even bother to think out a position on the prospects for deterrence in a post-proliferation world. Implicitly, however, like their realist counterparts, the Howard Dean doves are proliferation optimists. Whether they’ve thought it through or not, their policy preferences require them to believe that a nuclear Iran can be deterred on the model of the Cold War.

Rosen claims to be neutral between the dovish proliferation optimists and the hawkish proliferation pessimists. But the truth is, everything Rosen says inclines us toward pessimism. One after another, Rosen knocks down the pillars of the Cold War deterrence analogy, showing that in a post-proliferation world, the balance of forces will tend toward instability. The lesson is that we face two choices: preemptive war with Iran, or a nightmare world on the brink of nuclear war and nuclear terror for the foreseeable future. Anyway you slice it, the doves are doomed. Unfortunately, so may we be all. Ready or not...duck and cover!

Iran's Day of Terror?

 
Iran's Day of Terror?           
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 27, 2006
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frustrated Western officials by refusing to reply to their offer of various incentives in exchange for Iran’s discarding its nuclear program until August 22. The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months?

Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay. He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”

The Night Journey, or Miraj, is central to Islam’s claim to Jerusalem as an Islamic holy city. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was carried on a Buraq, a miraculous horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven and met the other prophets. The only thing the Qur’an has to say about it is this: “Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque, whose precincts We did bless, in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things)” (17:1). There is no identification of the “farthest Mosque” with any mosque in Jerusalem in this, but the Hadith is very clear on the identification of its location with Jerusalem.

The traditions say that Muhammad and the Buraq, along with the angel Gabriel, went to the Temple Mount, and from there to heaven itself, where Muhammad encountered various prophets. In the sixth heaven was Moses, occasioning a dig at the Jews. “When I left him,” Muhammad says, “he wept. Someone asked him, ‘What makes you weep?’ Moses said, ‘I weep because after me there has been sent (Muhammad as a Prophet) a young man, whose followers will enter Paradise in greater numbers than my followers.’”

Evidently, however, Muhammad’s stories of his journey were not altogether convincing: even some of the Muslims abandoned their faith and challenged Muhammad’s most faithful follower, Abu Bakr, to do the same. Abu Bakr was contemptuous: “If he says so then it is true. And what is so surprising in that? He tells me that communications from God from heaven to earth come to him in an hour of a day or night and I believe him, and that is more extraordinary than that at which you boggle!” The world has continued to witness such unshakeable devotion from Muslims to this day.

Did Muhammad really go anywhere? According to his favorite wife, Aisha, he did not: “The apostle’s body remained where it was but God removed his spirit by night.” Nevertheless, the Night Journey has become firmly embedded in the Islamic consciousness, such that Muslims today celebrate it as one of the central events of Muhammad’s life. And now, according to Ghadry, Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey. What the Iranian President, he says, is “promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.”

Certainly a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand. He hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in his phrasing when he said that Israel “pushed the button of its own destruction” by finally retaliating against Hizballah’s relentless rocket barrage from south Lebanon.

“Arrogant powers,” Ahmadinejad said, “have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region. But today, the occupier regime” – that is, Israel – “whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion, has reached its finishing line.”

Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the Miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem? Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry’s words and move to stop Iran before it is too late?