Thompson spoke for about 25 minutes and covered a lot of ground. In a speech of that length you can either cover one topic with some depth or you can skim the surface of a lot of topics. Since there was no overriding theme, Thompson chose the latter. What follows is my account of Thompson’s comments today.

Senator Thompson had quite a few quotable moments. The first was in his recounting of his visit with Former Prime Minister Thatcher and her relationship with Ronald Reagan. Referring to the accomplishments of the two Thompson said “strength doesn’t cause wars, strength prevents wars.” He then recounted how following the end of the cold war the US cut defense spending by more than 1/3, military development by 50% and allowed our intelligence operations to languish, particularly our human intelligence capabilities. He pointed out that through numerous attacks on our assets around the world we did little to nothing until 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

Thompson showed a real grasp of the situation we face in Islamic fascism. He said that our enemy sees this conflict as having already gone on for a hundred years and they are prepared to go another hundred if necessary. He said that people just don’t understand or appreciate that fact. He went on to say that in previous conflicts the country always pulled together but now partisan politics takes precedence. A big applause moment was when Thompson talked about the sons of two friends who are serving in Iraq and have re-upped. He said they had hope and optimism and he wasn’t going to give up hope so long as they held it. Thompson said we need leadership to bring us together, implying that he can provide that leadership.

In the subject of illegal immigration Thompson agreed that it was dividing our party but he expressed optimism that the party would get past it. He emphasized that the resolution had to come from consideration of what was best for the country, not what was best for either party. He said that thousands of illegal immigrants are not Mexicans and that is a grave risk to national security. Thompson said that we could not hope to protect our country until we secure our borders and he flatly said that the current immigration reform bill is not what is best for this country. He rightly pointed out that we got the same promises in 1986 that we are getting today and there is no reason to believe them now. He also pointed out that the US grants one million green cards per year now so claims that we are taking an anti-immigration stand are unfounded. In another quotable moment Thompson said “we welcome legal immigrants and this is home to all of us but we get to decide who comes to our home.” Thompson said the government can’t handle the backlog of four million legal immigrants waiting on processing now so how can they possibly handle 12-20 million more?

On the question of taxes Thompson said that low taxes benefit everyone but the tax and spend types want to divide up a static pie instead of increasing the size of the pie so everyone gets a larger piece, precisely Reagan’s position. He did not endorse the FairTax but he did say that we are bankrupting the country, the government and the economy and that waiting to fix the problem hurts everyone.

In a great moment for religious conservatives Thompson, referring to the Declaration of Independence, said that our rights come from God and not from government. He went on to say that our founding fathers knew what they were doing when they set up our federal form of government with separation of powers. The implication seemed to be that we’ve strayed far from that ideal now. While not expressly mentioning abortion or assisted suicide, Thompson emphasized the sanctity of human life.

Thompson said we need a new coalition of people coming together for the good of the country. The clear implication was that he could build that coalition. That is exactly what Ronald Reagan did. He built a coalition of people from both parties, not in government but in the electorate. Reagan won two landslide victories by convincing democrats to vote for him.

I’ve often said this country is floundering because no leader has been able to cast a vision that the people caught hold of. Bush seems to understand the threat from Islamic fascism but he has utterly failed to articulate that to the people in a way that grabs their attention. There have been a lot of comparisons between Reagan and Thompson, not the least being they are both actors. Some have pointed out that Thompson is not like Reagan in the sense that Reagan has a long history of conservative intellectual thought and writing. Thompson clearly does not have that.

There is, however, one comparison that really works and that is the ability to communicate. Reagan could cast a vision and so can Thompson. On all the issues I’ve heard him speak on Thompson has been on the right side. He certainly was today. He may not be the conservative intellectual Reagan was but he has that long missing ability to communicate in a way that is at once understandable and compelling. He has the ability to cast a vision. I believe that he can bring in a lot of Democrats and that could easily turn the tide, not just in the election but also in terms of moving this country forward as a people with a common vision for the future. Unless this country gets behind a strong leader who is willing to do what it takes, we are in for a very difficult and painful future. As Churchill said, “sometimes it isn’t enough to do your best, sometimes you have to do what is required.” We, as a country, must be willing to do what is required if we expect our future to look anything like our past. It is my belief that of all the Republican candidates, Fred Dalton Thompson is far and away the best man to cast the vision for this country.

As an ending note let me relate my brief exchange with Thompson today. There was a large crowd of people who wanted to meet Thompson and shake his hand and I was in the middle of it. When I finally got the chance I extended my hand and Thompson took it. He has a real man’s handshake. His large hand wrapped around mine with a firm grip the way a man is supposed to shake hands, not bone crushing but you know you’re shaking hands. I told him that a lot of people were really excited at the prospect of him running and I was one of them. He smiled and thanked me. Then I told him that all those people, including myself, were going to be really disappointed if he decided against running. He grinned real big and said, “so will I.”

————–
NOTE: I recorded Thompson’s speech on my cell phone. The audio isn’t the best in the world and there is considerable background noise but it you can hear what Thompson had to say. The format is a peculiar cell phone format and I can’t find a way to convert it to mp3. I’m thinking about uploading it anyway since Real Player will play it but I’d prefer to convert it to mp3 so everyone can use it. If you know a good way to convert it, please let me know. Alternatively, if you have the ability to convert it I’ll be happy to send it to you for conversion if you’ll send the converted file back. Just let me know.

UPDATE:  Thanks to Orlando the file is now in mp3 format.  To listen to it click here.

Technorati : Fred Thompson

The question remains, regardless of what most Americans believe or don’t believe, what are the realistic options regarding this war? Is a pullout, or as Democrats like to phrase it, a phased redeployment, actually a viable option? What can be expected if we do pull out? I think there are a couple of obvious answers that cannot be easily swept away.

First, American credibility will be decimated for the foreseeable future, regardless of who controls Congress or the White House. We have already had too many instances where we did not follow through with our commitments and the world already suspects that we cannot be depended upon to do what we say we will do. Perhaps that is a consequence of our form of government, although historically we had a much better reputation. From here on out we will not be able to gain allies in any serious international endeavor because the world will now that when it gets tough we bail out.

As serious as such a consequence may be, it is not as serious as the second difficulty with the redeployment strategy. As noted above, much of the world already expects that when it gets really tough the US will run. Indeed, Osama bin Laden said as much following our exodus from Somalia and that has been the stated strategy of Islamic fascists the world over. They know they cannot beat the US in a military sense. So their strategy has been to make it too costly to continue to engage them. They understand that the longer they drag this out the less support the President will have at home and, eventually, that support will dry up and he will have little choice but to withdraw.

So what happens then? The Islamic fascists declare their victory over America to start with. And as much as politicians may want to deny it, the claim will be valid. And with that victory will come an incredible increase in the ability of the Islamic fascists to recruit. Their approach will have been fully validated and new recruits will flood in in numbers never before imagined.

And who will be running this new army of Islamic terrorists? Probably Iran. And since we already know what Iran’s goals are, it will not be surprising if shortly thereafter the incidents of terrorism in Israel increase dramatically. Of course, Israel will only be the next step, not the last step. The Islamic fascists refer to Israel as the little Satan. Great Satan is reserved for the US. And if you labor under the false belief that they will change that view if we pull out of Iraq, lets just dispel that right now. Make no mistake, They WILL come after us here on American soil and their goals will far exceed 9/11.

While many Americans have fallen for the ridiculous assertion that Iraq has been a distraction from the war on terrorism, nothing could be further from the truth. Whatever you may believe about the start of the war, whether justified or not, the Islamic fascist themselves claim that Iraq is now the central front in that war. Anything short of complete and total victory there will be disastrous for the US and the world.

I am not the best prognosticator around and I don’t claim to have any sort of crystal ball. But I know this much, the troop increase that President Bush is starting to implement is, at worst, the minimum required at this moment. Regular readers will know that I am not a Bush cheerleader. He has often disappointed me because he is not a conservative. But he is the Commander in Chief and he is the only person in the world who is capable of waging this war, a war that absolutely must be waged. I don’t know if Bush will use these additional troops in an effective way. My gut instinct is that he won’t because America simply does not have the stomach to do what needs to be done. Still, the alternative to adding troops is far worse.

I urge all Americans who value freedom to support the President now. I’m not asking you to like him or approve of his overall job as President. I don’t approve of his overall performance. But he, our troops and the world need us to stand as one and win this conflict. The consequences of failure are simply too dreadful to contemplate.

It never ceases to amaze me how liberals can at once accuse the president of being stupid, dumb, illiterate, and a whole host of other descriptions indicating his lack of intelligence while simultaneously giving him credit from some of the best planning and strategy anyone has ever seen in orchestrating all the events they claim he is responsible for. How can an idiot be so successful at thwarting Democrat plans? And if Bush is indeed and idiot, what does that say about Democrats and their inability to defeat him in general?

The list of events liberals believe George Bush orchestrated to raise his standing and hurt Democrat prospects is impressive indeed. A Google search for the term “Bush orchestrated” turns up all of the following.

• the 9/11 attacks
• the Katrina disaster
• the Valerie Plame affair
• the story of the interdiction of an Islamic plot to blow up airliners en route to the US to raise his approval ratings
• lower gas prices prior to this election

Given sufficient I have no doubt the list could grow larger than the totality of this blog. Nevertheless, the point is made that liberals have given George Bush tremendous credit for planning and implementing some pretty big conspiracies. Yet at the same time they never tire of telling us just how simple minded, how stupid Bush is. Once again, a simple Google search for the term “Bush is an idiot” turns up 3,130,000 hits.

Whether or not the Hussein verdict will have any impact on the election remains to be seen. My own feeling is that if there is an effect, it will be so small as to be immeasurable. But Democrats love a conspiracy and they particularly love an excuse. And make no mistake, this charge of Bush involvement in the timing of the Hussein verdict is all about Democrats having an excuse if they don’t prevail on Tuesday. As Eric Hoffer put it in The Passionate State of Mind:

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.

The fact is, Bush is no idiot. If Democrats actually paid attention instead of looking for excuses they’d understand that. In the present case, not only have the accused him of orchestrating the verdict to be announced today, they also lament the fact that he has no control over the Iraqi government in general and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in particular. So once again, the Democrat schizophrenia is manifested with diametrically opposed positions regarding Bush.

Certainly everyone, including the Bush administration, prefers diplomatic solutions over military solutions. But rational people understand that sometimes, diplomacy isn’t enough. Diplomacy failed utterly with Nazi Germany. Was that because Great Britain and others didn’t have effective diplomats? Was it because their approach to a diplomatic solution was the wrong approach and another might have worked? Or was it simply that Hitler was not going to be deterred by diplomacy? Was it that Hitler was willing to milk the diplomatic process to gain more time to achieve his goals.

Generally speaking Republicans subscribe to the second set possibilities. Democrats, it appears, subscribe to the first. They seem to believe that there is no situation that cannot be solved diplomatically. The only question is, what is the correct diplomatic approach? Based on this belief, every situation that results in military conflict is a failure of diplomacy in the sense that whoever directed the diplomatic effort chose the wrong diplomatic course. The implication is that another approach would have been successful.

Interestingly, when a Democrat is in the White House, Democrats in general are much less willing to apply the standard they espouse when a Republican is in the White House. What does that imply? Well, it implies one of two things, neither of which is flattering to Democrats.

The first possible implication is that Democrats don’t really believe what they say they believe. It implies that they agree with us that, in the end, some situations do not have a diplomatic solution and require military solutions. But they are willing to pretend to a belief in order to politically harm a sitting president.

The second possible implication is that Democrats do believe what they say they believe but they are unwilling to apply it to a president from their own party because it would be politically damaging to do so.

Either way, the implication is that, for Democrats, politics trumps belief. Political advantage is more important than principle. Another word for that is demagogue. Indeed, either way you slice it, you come up with Democrats being demagogues.

Yes, there are times when diplomacy fails. Every administration wants to exhaust the diplomatic options before moving on to more hostile, militaristic options. Every administration understands that, while diplomacy must always be pursued, sometimes it will fail. Failure, however, does not automatically mean that the approach was wrong. Sometimes it simply means diplomacy was never going to work. It has to be tried but it will not always work. That means diplomatic failure does not necessarily say anything about the attempt or the administration making the attempt.

Democrats, however, see in diplomatic failure, an opportunity to score political points. Since the greatest good, in their view, is for them to regain power, it is always acceptable to demagogue an issue for political gain. The end justifies the means, in other words.

We now face a dangerous situation with North Korea. One commenter on another site said he didn’t see how Bush could possibly be helped by the North Korean nuclear test. He said, “All it shows is that yet another piece of their national security approach has been a dismal failure.” In his view, Bush is responsible for Kim Jong Il’s actions. It never occurs to him that Clinton’s approach was no better and, arguably, may have been worse.

It must ultimately be accepted that diplomacy has little chance of working with any leader who cannot be trusted to honor the agreements he makes. Kim Jong Il made specific agreements with the Clinton administration. He did not keep them. Is that Bush’s fault? It is not and .iIt is irrational to expect a liar to keep his word.

The situation Bush now faces remains, for the moment, a diplomatic one because we don’t have a lot of military options just now. But eventually we will have to make military options. North Korea is not going to change and if they are allowed to continue in the direction they are headed, it will embolden other megalomaniacal leaders to pursue similar policies.

In the end the real diplomatic failure will be the failure to recognize when diplomacy is at an end. It has been said that war is merely diplomacy by other means. True diplomatic failure is the unwillingness to accept that diplomacy has ceased to be fruitfuland it is time to move on to “other means.”

Thomas says that congressional Republicans “seem to have run out of ideas.” He goes on to say,

They now ask for votes on two levels, neither of which is appealing. The first is that the Democrats would do a worse job than Republicans, which is like choosing which of two ugly sisters to take on a date. The second is they crave power for its own sake. Republicans have failed to give voters sufficient reason to vote for them, except for one that trumps all the rest – they can better defend the country.

That’s not a generally rosy picture but it is accurate. Like the perpetual argument of the Democrats, Republicans have been reduced to saying “we aren’t as bad as they are.” But even in that unenviable position, the Republicans still hold a superior argument to Democrats because they actually have ideas and plans for dealing with terrorists. The Democrats have nothing but opposition. As Thomas said,

Democrats have no plan for keeping America safe, or winning the war against the fanatics. They have opposed most of the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance methods. They have opposed aggressive interrogation tactics designed to get information to protect us, including opposition to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where detainees are treated better than they could expect if they were detained in their homelands.

<snip>

For all of their promises to do a better job of fighting this war, Democrats have no plan, other than retreat. That is the plan the terrorists have for us. Retreat is not in their playbook. The terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere don’t speak of timetables for withdrawal or bringing their fighters home in time for Ramadan. They’re in it for the long haul. They believe we are not. A victory by Democrats next month will validate their view and encourage them to fight harder.

That pretty well sums up the Democrat position. The question is, is the American electorate paying enough attention to know that? The Democrats, particular in the MSM and the blogosphere, have worked overtime to obscure those facts because they know they are hurt by them. The challenge for Republicans and conservatives is to get that message out. I’m doing my part.

Whatever you think of Bush’s management of the war, no one honestly argues that he throws his finger in the wind to see what is popular. For good or for ill, Bush leads from principle. You may disagree with his principles but you cannot honestly argue that his positions are unprincipled.

The Democrats, on the other hand, think that polls are the way to lead. Or at least they think that polls show the way to electoral success. Today’s Opinion Journal quotes from a memo sent to Democrats:

A memo sent out to Democrats last week by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a strategy group led by former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg, discusses Mr. Bush’s “failure in Iraq, which energized Democrats and dispirited Republicans.” It urges Democrats: “On Iraq, stress Bush/GOP ‘mismanagement’ and need for a ‘new direction.’ “

The article goes on to say:

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner says it has polled each element of this strategy, and that the poll numbers suggest public support for these Democratic positions. A poll-certified national-security strategy just might work with the out-of-sorts 2006 electorate. But there was a reason for 2002 and 2004. Those Democrats who did get elected channeled their energies into denouncing the Bush anti terror programs and backing the Lamont Insurrection. So there’s a problem with the current hand-the-war-to-us strategy: Their hearts and minds really aren’t in it. They don’t want the war.

Precisely!

The Democrats don’t believe in the war. Indeed, if Move On.org is any indicator, the Democrats don’t believe in national security at all. One could be excused for thinking they don’t even believe in the founding principles of this country. Yet all we hear from Democrats across the land is that they are better suited to prosecute the war and to defend this country!

The last thing this or any country needs is leadership by poll. Bill Clinton was infamous for polling every decision before he made it. That is not leadership. There is a reason we have a republic rather than a democracy. We entrust our leaders with the authority to make important decisions unhindered by the whims of public opinion. It doesn’t always work that way, but that is the idea. When leaders only make decisions based on polls they aren’t leading and we may as well have a direct democracy.

As the recent NIE demonstrates, the American public doesn’t have, indeed can never have, the information necessary to make decisions regarding war and terrorism. While the Democrats never tire or demagoguing the NIE, that is, we don’t know its contents and we shouldn’t. And without such information how can we possibly make rational decisions about what is the right course? We cannot and neither can Congressional Democrats. But then, rational decisions aren’t what they’re after. Winning in November is paramount, above all else.

To be sure, Republicans also holding winning in November to be paramount. But as I’ve said many times before, they are not nearly so prone to mangle to truth to achieve their goals. Certainly there are exceptions but they remain exceptions. Democrats, on the other hand, poll every course they might take to see which will bring them the most popularity. Which ever course wins is their choice. No thought is given to where the poll winner is actually good for this country, good for the war, good for our troops. The only consideration is whether is helps achieve victory.

That is not leadership and it isn’t what America needs. We need leaders and right now, Bush has demonstrated a proven ability to lead.

President Bush has fired back today, saying he will declassify parts of the NIE and make it available at www.dni.gov (look for it possibly as early as Tuesday afternoon) so that everyone can read what it says and decide for themselves. Bush claims the leaked portions of the report have been taken out of context and that it does not support what Democrats claim it supports.

The timing of the leak, considering the report came out in April, is suspicious on its face. That we are so close to the mid-term election lend credence to the notion that this is a purely political move. Additionally, the assertion that we were somehow safer when al Qaeda was attacking us on 9/11 is counter intuitive at best. There has been a constant drumbeat that our presence in Iraq is a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. While there may be an element of truth to this claim, it is also true that pretty much our very existence is also an effective recruiting tool. The implication that we should just bring everyone home and mind our own business is naive at best. Such thinking is the epitome of Chamberlain appeasement and it has been shown historically to be disastrous.

What has been interesting in this latest leak is the defense Democrats have offered for it. Repeatedly the claim is made that since the report conflicts with what Bush has been saying, we should see it, implying that leaking it was okay. At least that’s the way their defense is coming off.

This raises an interesting question. Do the Democrats believe that all classified information that does not support the president’s position should be public? If they believe that, do they believe that applies when a Democrat is in the White House?

We seem to have developed an environment in the Democrat party that says leaks are always okay if they undermine the President’s position. Their justification is that the President has been lying to us and we should know that. The evidence, of course, does not support the claim that the President has lied. It may support the assertion that he has been wrong on this or that question but that is not the same as lying.

A further question is, how can a President, any President, conduct a war, foreign policy, or any other function of the executive branch if he does not have the ability to keep classified information secret? I doubt very much whether any President has ever been in a position where all the intelligence at his disposal fully supported his choice of action in a war. How can a President be expected to carry out operations in a war when every piece of intelligence is leaked to the press?

I wrote a piece back in June with the title Some Call it Treason where I made the case that the New York Times should be charged with treason. But the media isn’t the only culpable entity here. Some in the administration are leaking important classified information that is harmful to our military efforts for political reasons and somehow that has to be stopped! The notion that each individual in government is free to make his or her own decisions about what should be public and what should not, based on their own personal opinions about politics is simply dangerous and is not supported in law or the Constitution. It is, in my view, treasonous for individuals in the government to intentionally undermine the military effort in a time of war, particularly for political reasons.

Our US intelligence community and state department are in dire need of a thorough house cleaning. The traitors need to be found, prosecuted and cleared out. We cannot hope to win this war with Islamic fascism, regardless of who the President is, so long as classified information continues to flow freely to the press.

UPDATE:

Hugh Hewitt has an excellent treatment of this subject here.  He quotes Jack Kelly saying:

Attacking our enemies does tend to make them angrier. But they were angry enough to start with, and failing to respond to their attacks can have worse consequences than defeating them in battle.

Anyway, all we know about the NIE is what the leaker and the New York Times want us to know. That’s not enough.

There is, of course, much more.  Hewitt’s column is well worth reading.

Technorati : NIE partisan politicize politics demagogue

Speaking at an academic conference in Germany the Pope quoted from 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus who was critical of Islam.

In a speech on Tuesday the Pope repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet brought was evil “such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. SOURCE

Predictably the Islamic world is up in arms about it, in many quarters going so far as to call for the Pope to be beheaded! Michelle Malkin passed on a photo being circulated in Islamic websites.

The script in red calls for the Pope’s beheading. The rest of the translation:

“Swine and servant of the cross, worships a monkey on a cross, hateful evil man, stoned Satan, may Allah curse him, blood-sucking vampire.”

Will the dhimmis at the New York Times have anything to say about it?

Of course not.

Or how about the photo below, also from Malkin?

No one should be surprised. When it comes to Islam, they get a pass every time. No matter how hateful their rhetoric or how horrific their actions, the west remain the bad guys and Islam is bathed with sympathy. When are we going to wake up and recognize Islam for what it is? It is a hateful, violent religion that has no place in a civilized world. Claims that Islam is a religion of peace that is being perverted by extremists is belied by the fact that the chats for the Pope’s beheading are coming from around the world. Everywhere Islam flourishes, violence and hate follow close behind.

The Moral Emptiness of the Left
September 12th, 2006

Life consists of choices, and no choice is graver than war or peace. The 9/11 assault on New York City and Washington, D.C. posed such a choice. Should we go to war against bin Laden and the Taliban? The answer had to be “Yes” or “No.” Those who deny that the President of the United States was confronted with that choice are not morally serious. They do not live in this world.

In the days after 9/11 it was clear that no criminal prosecution could work, because the Taliban baldly lied to the world about hiding al Qaeda and bin Laden. Thus the only choices for the United States were to do nothing, or to change the Taliban regime to get at al Qaeda. Doing nothing would have rendered us more of a target. Thus the war in Afghanistan was the moral choice to make—indeed, the only moral choice. The alternative to fighting and killing—remember, this is the real world—was helplessness.

In this world, helpless superpowers are just shark bait. We fought, and we were right to fight.

Read the rest of this article here.

H/T The Absurd Report

The simple answer is political correctness. The US has been afraid of offending our enemies. Of course we’ve not been alone in that regard. Most of the western world has also engaged in this PC dance to avoid offending those who wish to destroy us. It goes hand in hand with the constant chatter about Islam being a religion of peace. What nonsense!

Now Bush has gone and used the proper terminology. He said we are at war with Islamic fascism and that is precisely true. Saying so has, as expected, offended our enemies and they are now ranting about it.

Writing for Jewish World Review, Victor Davis Hanson has some relevant points to make about the new designation the Islamists are so offended by. In the Sept. 7 edition Hanson says:

The common denominators are extremist views of the Koran (thus the term Islamic), and the goal of seeing authoritarianism imposed at the state level by force (thus the notion of fascism). The pairing of the two words conveys a precise message: the old fascism is back, but now driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam.

What our enemies object to is the truth. Truth is precisely what they cannot abide. If we, as their enemies, truly understand the threat, we may actually “do what is required,” as Churchill famously said. So long as we are lulled by false terms like the “war on terror” and “Islam is a religion of peace,” we will tend to be more complacent. After all, such descriptions don’t exactly convey a feeling of urgency.

So let’s call it what it is. We are fighting a war against Islamic fascism. We are not fighting terrorism and Islam is not a religion of peace. Accuracy is one of our best weapons.

That is changing with the blogosphere. Richard, at EU Referendum, has written a great article detailing some of the more important battlefield lessons learned in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. He does a masterful job of demonstrating where the wrong tactics have been used and what tactics and weapons have proved more effective. It is well worth your time to read.

Predictably lefty moonbats have jumped at the chance to blame Bush. Dean’s World and the Queen of all Evil reference Americablog’s attempt to link the elevated terror alert to Joe Lieberman’s primary lose in Vermont on Tuesday! John in DC headlines his Americablog piece “Lieberman loses, CODE RED, CODE RED, CODE RED.” He goes on to say:

And isn’t it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman’s loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

And just at that moment we get our FIRST ever red alert. Beam me up, Scotty.

Wow. At times like this I wonder if we’ve all popped up in wonderland. How do these people reach such conclusions? Every time ANYTHING happens, the moonbats claim Bush is somehow responsible for it. What they fail to realize is that Bush would be a world class genius to pull off everything the left attributes to him. But they think he’s an idiot. They haven’t seemed to notice that these two positions are incompatible. But then an incoherent world view is fairly common on the left.

So the left believes that the events in the UK today have been cooked up by the Bush administration to make Democrats look bad. Is there any possibility that could be true? They also bristle at the claim that this “has the fingerprints of Al Qaeda.” So what evidence is there that Al Qaeda was behind this?

I find it very difficult to swallow the notion that Tony Blair and MI5 would do all this to make Bush look good or Democrats look bad. To begin with, apart from the current war on terror, Blair is quite liberal. He is, after all, the leader of the labor party. What possible motive could they have for fabricating this?

I’ve been reading the StratFor special report this afternoon and it contains some very interesting information. For those who are unfamiliar with StratFor, they are a private intelligence company. They provide intelligence information to individuals and companies around the world and they have a very good reputation. They are not a partisan organization in any way.

In a piece entitled “Special Report: The Tactical Side of the U.K. Airliner Plot” StratFor says that this does indeed look just like an Al Qaeda plan. They don’t just make the assertion either, they give specific evidence to support it. Says StratFor, “After his participation in the first World Trade Center bombing, Abdel Basit (also know by the name on his fraudulent Iraqi passport, Ramzi Yousef) settled down in Manila, Philippines. He assembled a cell of operatives who began to plan a long list of terrorist attacks.” They go on to detail Basit’s plans to construct bombs using a doll stuffed with nitrocellulose, a detonator and a timer made from a modified Casio wristwatch. On Dec. 11, 1994, they tested this device on Philippine Airlines flight 434. While it worked, it did not down the aircraft and only killed one person and injured 10. To improve the explosive capability of the device they worked on adding a “liquid form of an acetone peroxide explosive, which they were going to place in contact lens solution bottles.” They managed to burn down their apartment while making the bomb and never got a chance to test it. But this Al Qaeda plan is remarkably similar to the descriptions we are hearing in the news today. StratFor seems to believe that the plan was sound and could bring down a commercial aircraft.

I find little reason to suspect that this whole episode is in any way fabricated. While the timing may indeed benefit Republicans and harm Democrats, virtually anything like this at any time will have the same effect. Democrats have positioned themselves such that, bad news for this country is good news for them and vise versa. Having taken such a position, it is difficult to imagine any set of circumstances involving the capture of terrorists that would not harm Democrats, regardless of the timing.

One can argue whether there was a need for the increased terror alert for airline travel but the fact is, from the perspective of Democrats good news for the US is bad news for them. I’d hate to be in such a position but that’s the call they’ve made and that’s what leads them to attempt undermine any good news that comes along.

Update: Here’s another great cartoon from Daryl Cagle by way of blonde sagacity.  It fits well with my post from two days ago.

For its part Israel has continuously been called upon to defend herself for almost six decades. Hardly a year has gone by that Israel has not had some enemy attack her with guns, rockets and bombs. Israel has had little choice but to take harsh action to protect her citizens. To be sure, Israel has had to play for the media but her first priority has been the defense of her borders and her citizens.

On the other side there is Hezbollah, Hamas and the rest of the Islamic world that would do almost anything to ensure the destruction of Israel. But the other side uses weapons like guns and bombs only as an intermediate method. The attacks themselves are not designed to win anything. Rather, they are designed to elicit a response that can then be played politically. Hamas and Hezbollah are masters at this game because they have no need to defend anything. They have to provide Israel.

The media, always suckers for underdogs and radicals, are key players but not they way they think. In reality they are pawns in the hands of terrorists.

If you doubt any of this all you need to convince you other wise is a few pieces of information, readily available to all, even the press.

The first piece of information is mainly known by all, that Hezbollah is hiding behind civilians, itself a war crime. But Hezbollah isn’t only hiding behind willing civilian supporters, it is hiding behind unwilling hostages in its effort to stave off Israeli attacks. As we’ve seen, this in not an entirely effective tactic. It now seems, however, that the tactic was never intended to avoid attack. Instead, it was designed and intended to produce civilian casualties that can then be used to win the PR battle in the press. That has indeed been a successful tactic to date. That Hezbollah has forced civilians to remain and face Israeli attacks is documented by Heidi at EuphoricReality.

So Hezbollah orchestrates the deaths of dozens and scores of civilians at the hands of Israel, thereby creating a PR nightmare for Israel and growing support for Hezbollah. But it goes even farther than that!

Yesterday EU Referendum broke a story that graphically illustrates Hezbollah’s tactics and its complete disdain for the civilians it purports to be helping. EU Referendum, using a series of photos from different news outlets, demonstrates how Hezbollah has staged the media photo ops. The same rescue worker is shown rescuing the same dead child over and over again, at different times, photographed by different photographers working for different news organizations. And the dead child appears to have been dead for several days! And Hezbollah accuses Israel of not caring for children!

The media, of course, could have figured all this out. It wasn’t that difficult to do. But the media had no incentive to do so because, for the most part, the media supports anyone who is opposed to Israel.

The media never mentions how Hezbollah, for example, continues to purposefully target civilians in Israel while Israel places their own soldiers in harms way in its effort to avoid civilian casualties. The media never uses the phrase “war crimes” in the same sentence with Hezbollah but they readily accuse Israel of war crimes if civilians are killed because Hezbollah is hiding behind them. Using the media’s rationale, Hezbollah has found the ultimate conquest tool because hiding behind civilians (did I mention that this is a war crime?) can never be defended against.

Thanks to bloggers like EU Referendum and Euphoric Reality the truth is coming out. And if past experience is any guide, the MSM will have little choice but to cover it as the story grows over the next few days. But the MSM will not change their ways and terrorist organizations like Hezbollah will continue to have willing allies in the media. Because this is true, the role of bloggers continues to grow in importance. So be sure to keep supporting conservative bloggers. They have earned it! 

Dear Friends:

I have not written in the last weeks. So many words were spilled onto the internet, most said it all. And although there are things that words cannot possibly cover, I have come to the point that I need to try.

• What words can possible convey the heartsick and pain of visiting Nahriya last Thursday and finding that the silence of those who had fled was so much more audible than the sounds of tourists flocking to the town in previous years. We invest in building, planting and growing, and in a moment, a few madmen, crazed with their lust for our blood and the ruin of our accomplishments, invest their all in destruction.
  
• What words can convey the gut curdling frustration at the tears of the world for the Lebanese, who have aided and abetted the terrorist for years in allowing them to build their factories of destruction under cover of their houses, while the unprovoked destruction of our economy, homes and businesses and the loss of our lives is considered not “worthy of such a strong attack
  
• What words can convey the heroism and quiet determination of aged Holocaust survivors,shrunk and wrinkled with age, the burden of their survival, and building the State of Israel through so many wars. Replaying the dialogue of their youth and reliving the 70 year old dilemma of whether to stay or to go – we watch them gather the last of their strenght yet again, to vow that from this place they will not move – not from a million rockets.
• And what words can convey the heartbreaking rejection from a world that can see the lengths to which Israelis go to save civillian lives of the enemy, at the cost of our own soldiers and yet condems us when there is loss of life despite our unrealistic efforts. The terrorists know of our sensibilities, so they hide among civilians – no one else would care!  I once asked a teacher of mine: the Tanach was written in a violent age – why are the Hebrews exhorted to wipe out the enemy – that is what people did then, and it seems so cruel now. And the teacher answered that God knew the hearts of his people – that what others did naturally, we needed to be told to do – and still we did not do it. That doing the cruel things that a sovereign nation must do to survive did not come naturally to us. And yet it is us that the world condemns.

I could fill a book with the words that I do not have for this latest installment to our trajedy.

Instead, I have pasted below the Ethical Code of the Israel Defense Force. Every Israeli soldier learns this, and carries it around in his/her pocket (in Hebrew of course). I am proud of our military – they are fighting with a humanity that can only grow out of love – for our people and our country, for our past and the future that we hope to build. The code below is the expression of who we are.

This was taken from the official site of the IDF

With hope for peace 

Shalom

Linda

 __________________________________________

http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=32 

The Ethical Code of the Israel Defense Forces

The IDF Spirit

The Israel Defense Forces are the state of Israel’s military force. The IDF is subordinate to the directions of the democratic civilian authorities and the laws of the state. The goal of the IDF is to protect the existence of the State of Israel and her independence, and to thwart all enemy efforts to disrupt the normal way of life in Israel. IDF soldiers are obligated to fight, to dedicate all their strength and even sacrifice their lives in order to protect the State of Israel, her citizens and residents. IDF soldiers will operate according to the IDF values and orders, while adhering to the laws of the state and norms of human dignity, and honoring the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state

Spirit of the IDF-Definition and Origins

The Spirit of the IDF is the identity card of the IDF values, which should stand as the foundation of all of the activities of every IDF soldier, on regular or reserve duty. The Spirit of the IDF and the guidelines of operation resulting from it are the ethical code of the IDF. The Spirit of the IDF will be applied by the IDF, its soldiers, its officers, its units and corps to shape their mode of action. They will behave, educate and evaluate themselves and others according to the Spirit of the IDF.

The Spirit of the IDF draws on four sources:

• The tradition of the IDF and its military heritage as the Israel Defense Forces.
  
• The tradition of the State of Israel, its democratic principles, laws and institutions.
  
• The tradition of the Jewish People throughout their history.
  
• Universal moral values based on the value and dignity of human life.
  

Basic Values:

Defense of the State, its Citizens and its Residents – The IDF’s goal is to defend the existence of the State of Israel, its independence and the security of the citizens and residents of the state.