Wednesday Night News & Notes

A tumultuous day to say the least. Unfortunately, the tryst by Sanford will get all the ink while the crackdown in Iran will get inside the paper coverage.

Here's what else is going on:

-Shocka! The Saudi's have deep ties with terrorist's. And to think not only did Bush hold hands with their leader, Obama debased himself by bowing to him.

-House Democrats are looking to stick the next nail into the coffin of capitalism in the US by re-opening all trade pacts including NAFTA.

-The Aussies may help America again.

-Bawnie Fwank is trying to create a new housing bubble. The dude never learns.

-Predictable. Dem tax laws close plant in Tampa built a hundred years ago and force production out of the US. Another 500 jobs not saved and lost by the Obama administration.

Change With No Hope: Obama Bails On Israel

For more than 60-years the government of the United States has had a special relationship with Israel that was considered strategic, cultural and technological. That may now be coming to an end.

Obama's speech yesterday to the worlds Muslims was in effect a major change in US Middle East policy. By engaging the Muslim and Arab world, Obama will have to change our relationship with Israel and he effectively did so yesterday.

Yes, there have been strained moments but when we needed an ally in the region, we had one who would take care of the dirty work we needed done. Whether it be taking out the Iraqi nuke facility at Osirak or the Syrian atomic facility, the Israeli's acted with professionalism and incurred the wrath of the hand-wringing world for our strategic interests as much as their own.

The Israeli public is apoplectic and the Obama administration has placed Netanyahu in an awkward position at home. By courting the Arabs, Obama has effectively shunned the Israeli's and their quest for security. His actions will only embolden Ahmadinejad and Assad while also giving rise to a renewed fundamentalism in Egypt and Jordan.

The Arab world has never supported us and won't now. They'll speak in platitudes and soundbites that will look good in print but will continue to do what they've always done; work against our interests for their own self-preservation. Name one reliable ally we've had in the Mideast. Saudi Arabia was nice to us when they needed our protection but would just as likely push for $200 per barrel oil and make us grovel then help us in any real way. I guess we could count Kuwait but their proximity to Iran and Saudi Arabia would ensure major instability should they be too vociferous in backing our aims.

So we find ourselves at the dawn of a new era, an era that sees us disengaging with an old, reliable ally and engaging with those who bred and, in fact, encouraged through state media attacks on our interests at home and abroad.

Bow to the Saudi King, What Bow?

The White House is now saying Obama had to lean over to shake King Abdullah's hand and didn't bow or something. This after we were told he dropped something. Things have become so Orwellian that The One is trying to get us to disbelieve what we see with our own eyes:



Wait, maybe he was picking something up after all (via William Warren):

Obama Shows Subservience to Saudi's

From the What Would They Say If Bush Had Done This department, we have the leader of the most-powerful nation in the world bowing to a thug who leads a theocratic, misogynistic desert nation:

Now anyone with even a cursory knowledge of American history and foreign protocols knows that America never bows her flag (unless at sea) or her head to anyone--especially a monarch who pisses on human rights and democratic reforms.

Leave it to Obama to make us look even weaker in the eyes of the Arabic and Muslim world. After his little love video was scorned by Iran and the Taliban laughed at him, one would think he would understand that they look at this as extreme weakness and that means more than anything to them.

If Bush 43 had done this, the Michael Moore's of the world would have been drooling on themselves in hopes of showing that he was a Saudi dupe. With Obama, not so much.

Obama Perpetuates Torture of Terrorists

Oh how sweet it is. Obama is now finding out just what a difficult job it is to deal with those who with America harm. Or as Bush famously noted: "It's hard work".

The libs screamed about the alleged abuses perpetrated by the evil Bush regime and turned all their hopes to BHO because he took a "courageous" stand against torturous tactics like waterboarding and playing the Barney song too loud.

Guess what libs, your man, Mr. Hope and Change (TM) is selling you out:

The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

But, but, but, President Bush used rendition and the left screamed like little girls. Now...I'm deafened by their silence.

Rendition is actually the worse method for dealing with terrorists short of assassination. We effectively give them to their home countries where they are tortured in much more barbaric ways then temperature changes and blaring Christina Aguilera music. The Obama EO effectively ensures that more torture, not less, will occur. Either that or they are released and continue jihad as happens so often in Yemen.

So how is it going to be liberals? Obama, by shutting down Gitmo is setting in motion a scenario whereby we'll see either more torture of suspected terrorists or less security for the US. You can't have it both ways; you either disagree with the president and say so--the intellectually honest choice. Or you remain silent while the president you elected continues to sanction torture world-wide. My guess is you'll select the latter over the former.

It's quite a conundrum, huh? I mean, here's the man who just by taking the oath was going to make the world all happy and sunny again and he seems to be overwhelmed in his first month. He's had to be pragmatic and realistic about the threats we face and in doing so has ditched everything you elected him for. In other words, he's shown that he's more like Bush in dealing with national defense the Jimmy Carter retread you hoped for. Hope y'all enjoy it.

I think I may finally go see the movie Rendition now that it's not only an anti-Bush flick but anti-Obama as well.

Please read Moe Lane at Redstate and at his own site, his take is excellent. Moe won't link to the libs who were most outspoken about renditions but I will:

Andrew Sullivan railed against the practice here. Notably, he wrote the following two weeks ago:

The rationale is not torturing for “intelligence” but protecting the public while evidence is searched for and doubt remains. Equally, some kind of rendition programme that follows the lines of Bill Clinton and the first President Bush — and that eschews any co-operation with regimes that torture — is a reasonable tool in the war against jihadist terror. It’s the Bush-Cheney innovation of “extraordinary renditions” and disappearances that has to end.

Emphasis mine. What nations would these men be sent to that don't use torture?

Nearly every captive at Gitmo is from the Mid-East; mainly Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria and Morocco. According to Human Rights Watch; Pakistan, Syria, Egypt and Morocco practice torture--real torture, not water boarding--while Amnesty International says that the Saudis and Yemenis use torture as well.

So tell me where you fall on this, Sully.

See also Ed Morrisey.

Released Gitmo Detainee Becomes Yemen al-Qaeda Leader

Under pressure to release Gitmo detainees, President Bush released a big one and it's come back and bite us in the ass:

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.

Nice, it appears that Saudi rehab program worked just fine. I'd imagine it went something like this:

Saudi Rep: Ali, the rabid dogs in the US have released you to us. We will alllow you to go free so long as you perform your terror acts against them and not the kingdom. Do you agree?

Ali al-Shihri: Yes, I agree. Just attack the Great Satan and Zionist pigs but not any Saudi interests.

Saudi Rep: Good, here' $1-million to get you rehabilitated in Aden.

The NY Times is carrying Obama's water on this because they know full-well that he can't just close Gitmo and send the detainees to all corners of the Earth. It sounded like a good idea back last January in Iowa but now , this January in DC, not so much. The Times knows this and gave him an out. All liberals read the Times and all Liberals still believe what the Times says so they do a story on this guy who was released by Bush, they get to slam the former president and let the world know that Obama is trying to keep his word (through some murky plan) but it could be a problem so give The One some time. They're giving him cover.

Suppose Obama closes Gitmo and one of the detainees he releases comes back to attack America, he'll be destroyed politically and the Times knows that so they run this story and make sure everyone knows that it was a Bush release who is back on the battlefield.

More here, here, here and here where some misguided lefty thinks the Times is in cahoots with the military.

Saturday Morning News and Notes

Happy weekend.

Here's what happening:

Breitbart unveils his new site Big Hollywood. It's meant to be a competitor to HuffPo with a conservative slant.

Breaking news! Obama sent out an e-mail with no plea for money for the first time in two years.

Irony alert: Somali pirates drown with ransom money paid via parachute by the Saudis for the oil tanker they hijacked (see picture at right). Enjoy hell boys.

Little girl found via Google. Is there anything Google can't do (besides stand up to the oppressive Chinese that is)?

Democrats finally realize their Senate leader is a (barely)functional idiot.

Finally; I like Carolina and Baltimore today in the NFL playoffs.

Hey Obama, Welcome to the World of a Nuclear Iran

Obama had no problems criticizing the Bush administration during his campaign. He'll get to see exactly how difficult being President is:

Iran poses the greatest foreign policy challenge to the new president with Tehran on course to produce a nuclear bomb in the first year of an Obama administration, an unprecedented coalition of top think tanks warned yesterday.

Barack Obama must follow through on his promises of direct talks with Tehran and engage the Middle East region as a whole if he is to halt a looming crisis that could be revisited on the United States, the experts warned.

“Diplomacy is not guaranteed to work: it is not,” Richard Hass, one of the authors said. “But the other options – military action or living with an Iranian weapon are sufficiently unattractive for it to warrant serious commitment.”

Great.

Obama's promise to hold unconditional talks with the Iranian regime looks like a great idea right about now. He'll be loathe to use military force or even the threat of it but that's exactly what's needed, the old carrot and stick. Negotiations should be just peachy.

Iran will feel they have the upper hand in negotiations because, well, they essentially do. They know Obama will never invade even though he has talked tough in the past and the hard-left who supported him would go ape shit if he even considered it. Plus, we'll have Hillary Clinton meeting with Ahmedinejad who will show one face in public but do the Ayatollahs bidding in private. In other words, we're screwed. Unless, of course, Israel hits at the Iranian nuke site as they did in Iraq in the eighties and precluded Saddam from finishing what Jacques Chirac started at Osirak.

This is no longer a speech in Scranton BHO, this is the real deal. Iranian hegemony will know no limits should they get a nuke and the Saudis will get one soon after if they haven't already procured one thanks to the largess of AQ Khan.

Welcome to the real world where the media won't be so complicit and the players will not be so forthright and honest. I'm sure George W. Bush will have a chuckle over the next four years.

Changing Our Tune on Domestic Drilling

I've often heard it asked, "at what price would we change our driving habits?" It appears we know that the amount would be $4.00 per gallon plus change.

I guess the real questions should have been; at what gasoline price would we stop being idiots and start extracting our own oil? That question also seems to have been answered:

A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center revealed that 47 percent of respondents considered energy exploration, drilling and the building of new power plants to be the country's top priority.

Five months ago, 35 percent held that view, according to the survey.

Respondents were more accepting of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and 60 percent felt increasing energy supplies was more important than protecting the environment. Fifty-four percent felt that way in February.

Another poll conducted June 24 by InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position on behalf of Associated Industries of Florida found that 61 percent of Florida's registered voters favored increased exploration and production of oil and natural gas off Florida's coast.

We're well passed the point where this should even be up for discussion. We have the technology to remove the oil in an environmentally safe manner while putting pumps and wells online in a few years as opposed to decades.

I've heard the garbage spewed by environmentalists and Democrats about it taking 7-10years before it would have any effect but that just goes to show how flawed their thinking is. The day we made it clear to the world that we were making it a national mission to become energy independent, the market would free fall. The world knows that we can do anything we put our collective minds too--think Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

If we had a sane energy program where we began drilling immediately in conjunction with tax inducements on oil and auto companies to develop a cheap and efficient energy source that has little of no emissions, the world would have to stop and take notice and American business would see a boom we sorely need.

In the short-term, developing nations like China and India would still need oil and the Saudis would still make their money but a generation from now, American technology will be used to get the world off the oil crack pipe. The price of oil would plummet 80-90% as it would still be a commodity for plastics, jet fuel, diesel, etc. but the demand would be a fraction of what it is today.

It all starts with us becoming energy independent but ends with the world using American-made non-petroleum fuels.

Barbaric Kingdom May Allow Churches

Of course there are stipulations as there always are when dealing with the Saudi's:

Riyadh, 20 March (AKI) - No churches should be permitted in Saudi Arabia, unless Pope Benedict XVI recognised the prophet Mohammed, according to a Middle East expert.
While Saudi mediators are working with the Vatican on negotiations to allow places of religious worship, some experts believe it will not occur without this recognition.

Anwar Ashiqi, president of the Saudi centre for Middle East strategic studies, endorsed this view in an interview on the site of Arab satellite TV network, al-Arabiya on Thursday.

"I haven taken part in several meetings related to Islamic-Christian dialogue and there have been negotiations on this issue," he said.

"It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a church in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian churches recognise the prophet Mohammed."

"If they don't recognise him as a prophet, how can we have a church in the Saudi kingdom?"

Alright, I'll play. Perhaps the US, Europe and Australia ought to say to the Saudi's the following:

"You can build a mosque but you have to recognize Jesus as the Son of God."

"If you don't recognize him as the Son of God, how can we have a mosque in the United States?"

That should go over quite well, don't you think? I'm sure the Saudi's will be more than happy to comply with that little plan.

By the way, it should be easy to recognize the Prophet Mohammed, there's been plenty of pictures of him floating around lately including a whole bunch right here in several poses. Here's a slideshow to make it even easier to recognize him.

Oh yeah, I've seen him and I recognize him, now build some churches in the Kingdom.

Update: More Mohamadness at Tim's joint.

Lawsuit Against Saudi's Continues

A drawn out lawsuit against Saudi Arabia and the royals continues as the lawyers argued the case in front of a judges yesterday:

NEW YORK - After years of legal maneuvering, a huge lawsuit against the government of Saudi Arabia and key members of its royal family was put to a crucial test yesterday as lawyers for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks urged a federal appeals court to reinstate the government of Saudi Arabia as a defendant.

The Cozen O'Connor law firm of Philadelphia was the first to file suit against the government of Saudi Arabia in 2003, alleging that the desert kingdom bears responsibility for the attacks because it permitted Islamic charities under its control to bankroll Osama bin Laden and his global terror movement.

Cozen represents scores of U.S. and European-based insurers in the case who have paid out billions in claims. Other lawyers have since filed suit against Saudi Arabia on behalf of individual victims and other insurers. Yet others have not named Saudi Arabia, choosing instead to go after individual members of the royal family, the charities, alleged terrorism financiers and others.

The court did not indicate when it would rule on the appeal.

The Saudis have escaped all of the criticism in their complicity in 9/11 events and Bush has not exactly been adamant about discussing the issue.

Hopefully this lawsuit is allowed to go forward.

As a side note, this story was featured in the Business section.

Our Friends the Saudi's

Here's a brief synopsis of how President Bush's trip to the misogynistic, anti-Christian, terrorist supporting, Islamic kingdom went:

Bush: Hey, you know that oil prices are really high and it's hurting my nation economically, can you open up the taps a bit and send more oil into the world market to reduce the price?

King Abdullah: No

Bush: What about maybe controlling the terror element that's fighting us in Iraq, could you stop your businessmen from arming insurgents so our military men and women aren't killed?

King Abdullah: No

Bush: OK, how about a little support in getting a treaty signed between the Israeli's and Palestinians? Do you think you can make any concessions to the Israeli's?

King Abdullah: No

Bush: OK then, here's a $20-billion weapons deal for you.

King Abdullah: Thanks.

Bush: You're welcome, that's what friends are for.

Update (1/16/08 0927):

Bush: Pretty please with sugar on top, pump more oil. I'll forget that the majority of the 9/11 hijacker's were Saudi's.

King Abdullah: No.

Petraeus Credits Syria With Assistance in Iraq

General David Petraeus says that Syria has been a great help in damming the flow of insurgents into Iraq:

"The progress that has been made against al Qaeda-Iraq this year is very significant," Petraeus said on the December 28 edition of Bill O'Reilly's radio show, which was guest-hosted by Dom Giordano.

"It has been helped, I should note, by the way, by actions in a number of source countries, including Saudi Arabia, some of the Gulf states, and some north African countries, who have conducted operations against so-called foreign fighter facilitators, financiers, and others who have supported and provided money and individuals to al Qaeda-Iraq. And also, by Syria, which has taken more aggressive action against al Qaeda-Iraq in the networks in Syria that take individuals through Damascus Airport and then on into Iraq."

Why would Syria be helping us? I think it has a great deal to do with the fact that when Israel launched the air raid earlier this year (most likely with US assistance), we and Israel were extremely tight-lipped and did not gloat or even claim anything had occurred. This helped "Boy" Assad immeasurably as leadership in the Mideast is based on strength and any sign of weakness allows ones enemies to grow in stature. An Israeli invasion of Syria would be seen as a major sign of weakness for Assad and the allied Israel and US spared him the humiliation by tamping down the story from the outset.

Add to that some secret diplomacy and our carrot and stick approach when dealing with Syria and you come to the conclusion that they are finally seeing the light. By Petraeus' acknowledging their aid it is the Bush administration saying in not so subtle terms that if you help us, we'll help you and hopefully will lead to a more stable Lebanon and pressure on Hezbollah.

While the General credited the Saudis and others, the pipeline of Jihadist's coming through Syria on the west and Iran on the east has been stanched and that is one of the major victories that Petraeus has won this year.

Evil Teddy Bear Teacher Gets 15 Day Sentence

That's correct. Life under Islam is joyous, is it not?

British teacher Gillian Gibbons has been convicted of inciting religious hatred for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad and sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan, one of her defense lawyers said Thursday.

"The judge found Gillian Gibbons guilty and sentenced her to 15 days jail and deportation," said Ali Mohammed Hajab, a member of her defense team.

Gibbons, 54, was arrested Sunday after complaints to the Education Ministry that she had insulted Prophet Muhammad, the most revered figure in Islam, by applying his name to a toy animal.

The maximum penalty for the charge, which has attracted world wide attention was 40 lashes and six months in prison.

Incidentally, wouldn't it be considered insulting Islam when a man named after the Prophet flew a plane full of people into a building murdering thousands? Uh, never mind.

It's funny, liberals hate Christians yet support Islamic radicals. How can they not be ashamed when in the past week we've seen a woman who was gang raped sentenced to jail in Saudi Arabia? Again, never mind.

One more note: remember when Cameron Diaz went on Oprah and actually said that if Bush were re-elected, rape would become legal? I don't recall her saying anything this week against the Saudis where rape is not only dismissed more or less but the victim goes to jail.