[Update: Today's article in Reuters puts my little musing of yesterday in a sharper focus.]

I think of things while in the shower. Like this moring, I was thinkin’ that in just a few more weeks the eyes of the world will be on the new Olympic stadium in Bejing as the athletes march in the opening ceremony. Heads of state from all over the world will be there, including President Bush and one would assume the highest ranking of the Chinese Communists. All the high-ranking al Queda operatives and planners could possibly be thinking as they watch and read about the 2008 Olympics is, “What a target rich environment — Oh ya betcha!” When I got that far in my mind, my inner Tom Clancy decided it was time for a little channeling o’ the Okie . . .

“No, it wouldn’t be easy, maybe not even possible, but if one could pull this off, Allah would be most pleased and the virgins would be non-stop — even to the point where a faithful man would have to consider asking for them to stop, or maybe slow it down a bit. But, one would have to have faith that if there would be so many of them that the stamina would also be provided. What other payment would suffice the success of such a demonstration of the power of Allah? The time to dream is over, time to act. The torch has reached the platform and in mere moments the Olympic flame will be lit — and then the flame of cleansing will follow. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! . . . It is time.”

The last thing that anyone in the Olympic Stadium saw was the Olympic flame coming alive followed by a searing beyond-white light — microseconds later no one in the immediate area was alive, actually no one was anything at all except for vaporized and burned at the molecular level. Televised images of the Olympic Opening Ceremony from inside the Olympic village ceased immediately, those from remotes within a few miles went black seconds later — only those from far away that had satellite links showed what had to have been a nuclear blast. Spy satellites confirmed this and that knowledge set off a second chain of events.

The Chinese military immediately began looking for the likely culprit — surely this had to have come from Russia, or the U.S., probably Russia. Not England, or France. Pakistan? India? Not likely, but have to admit, close. North Korea? No.

Most of all, must save face. Who to strike? Eenie. Meenie. Miney. Mo.

The Russians saw it coming but with little time to decision make, let alone act. “Punch the Button comrades . . . punch ALL the buttons!”

Washington had more time, and the ballistic missile defense system saves San Francisco. Lucky them . . . The President gone, the east coast soon to be history — what to do? Launch ‘em ALL! Let God sort it out.

The Israelis weren’t stupid. Western Europe and America were never going to help, never going to be able to help, not in this or the next generation’s lifetimes. The Arabs and the Persians would descend upon God’s people and finish what the Nazi’s started decades ago. It really wasn’t a decision to make, it was fate, and destiny, and if God was willing — self preservation.

They launched ‘em ALL! No more Saudi oilfields and refineries. No more Iraqi oil. No more Arabic capitals. No more Iranian nuclear threat. No more much of anything . . .

Needless to say, what would be left of the world, and the world’s economy, wouldn’t be a very fun place to be. We don’t really understand the environmental fallout of pumping that much radioactive matter into the atmosphere, but one wouldn’t be able to put up an argument that what followed wasn’t man-caused Climate Change. This time, that moniker would fit.

If I were even remotely as talented at Robert Ferrigno this would be a great place to start a story. I’m not — so let’s hope we never have to live it to find out what happens . . .

Sheer, unadulterated arrogance and hubris — thy name is the Los Angeles Times! I’ve got a few more words for them as well, some beginning with “a” and some with “f”, but none that I usually allow on this blog. What’s got the Okie’s ire all up and foaming this AM? Well, in today’s page one, above the fold story, right next to their crocodile tears filled pat-on-the-back coverage of the 4,000th American to make the ultimate sacrifice they have this “story”, Terrorism money is still flowing, where LAT staff writer Josh Meyer opens with:

The U.S.-led effort to choke off financing for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is foundering because setbacks at home and abroad have undermined the Bush administration’s highly touted counter-terrorism weapon, according to current and former officials and independent experts.

In some cases, extremist groups have blunted financial anti-terrorism tools by finding new ways to raise, transfer and spend their money. In other cases, the administration has stumbled over legal difficulties and interagency fighting, officials and experts say.

But the most serious problems are fractures and mistrust within the coalition of nations that the United States admits it needs to target financiers of terrorism and to stanch the flow of funding from wealthy donors to extremist causes.

Sounds pretty damning now, doesn’t it? Why can’t BushCo put together a “coalition of nations that the United States admits it needs to target financiers of terrorism”? Why are they having so much trouble trying to “stanch the flow of funding from wealthy donors to extremist causes?” Mr. Meyer, Mr. Meyer — the Okie knows! It must be here somewhere in this in-depth blathering — wait, there must be more . . . there must be some acknowledgment of the SWIFT Program that was combining the cooperation with International banks and the Treasury Department to “track” terrorists funding efforts all around the globe.

Oh yeah, you, the LA Times and the New York Times blew the whistle on the SWIFT terrorist-financial-tracking program way back in June of 2006 in order to get a big “GOTCHA” on the Bush administration just in time for the ’06 Congressional election cycle. The administration, and anyone else with at least half a mind was aghast at your combined arrogance and actions bordering on treason. Of course, Lefties everywhere sang your praises for “protecting” their rights. Please . . . and then you, via the now gone LAT editor Dean Baquet along with the NYT’s Bill Keller, doubled down and made public statements supporting your actions.

In that last Okie post on the Keller statement I made this observation:

In other words, “we [the MSM] so hate George Bush that nothing he has ever done or will ever do, successful or not, on our behalf or not, for the good of America, or not — can be tolerated. If we can get some agenda-driven weasel in the Executive bureaucracy to spill some classified dope, we’ll roll with it — Every time!” So according to you guys, in WWII the press should have spilled the beans about Enigma, our breaking of the Japanese codes, (oh yeah, the Chicago Tribune DID that! Yipes!), or the launch timing of D-Day?

We are in a WAR! Hello!

Well, gee guys, we’re still in a war! The radical Islamic Jihadis still want all of us DEAD! You still want to GET George Bush so much that you’ll print anything to make this administration look inept. Maybe all this terrorist monies wouldn’t be moving around so easily if you had kept your big collective pie hole shut!

Sometimes need to know shouldn’t get trumped by right to know. Once again the LA Times shows its true colors, and they aren’t Red, White & Blue. Probably not nuanced enough . . .

Technorati Tags: Los Angeles Times, Al Qaeda, SWIFT Program, Dean Baquet, Bill Keller

The next time someone tells you that all things are relative and that we shouldn’t be judgmental of other cultures, read them this:

Two women suicide bombers who have killed nearly 80 people in Baghdad were Down’s Syndrome victims exploited by al Qaida.

The explosives were detonated by remote control in a co-ordinated attack after the women walked into separate crowded markets, said the chief Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad General Qassim al-Moussawi.

Other officials said the women were apparently unaware of what they were doing in what could be a new method by suspected Sunni insurgents to subvert toughened security measures.

More than 70 people died and scores were wounded in the deadliest day since the US “surge” of 30,000 extra troops were sent to the capital this spring.

There’s low, there’s lower, and then there are those that need to be hunted down and destroyed like rabid dogs. Al Qaeda is firmly in that latter category!

[Update]
Captain Ed remarks about this in a much more elegant manner:

In a way, this shows how desperate AQ has become. They obviously cannot fill their ranks with willing participants, and even hostages won’t suffice. Instead, they exploit the weakest and most innocent and use them as commodities to kill as many people as possible.

The Iraqis have seen this evil up close and have rejected it. They understand now that there is no accommodation with evil. It has to be defeated, and defeated utterly.

Technorati Tags: Al Qaeda

No matter how you look at this one, it’s not good. Via the AP:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan’s deposed chief justice called on lawyers nationwide to defy police and protest President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule, while the Cabinet debated whether to delay parliamentary elections by as much as three months, a minister said.

In the lawless northwest, Islamic militants seized a town from outnumbered security forces who surrendered without a fight.

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, said over the weekend he was declaring a state of emergency to respond to a growing Islamic militant threat. He suspended the constitution, put a stranglehold on the media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent. Thousands of people have been rounded up and thrown in jail.

In the Swat valley near the Afghan border — a focus of a wave of militant violence — about two dozen police officers and several troops offered no resistance to militants who seized three police stations and a military post in and around the town of Matta.

“We didn’t harm the police and soldiers and allowed them to go to their homes as they didn’t fight our mujahideen,” said Sirajuddin, a spokesman for Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand cleric whose armed followers are battling security forces.

He said the militants had hoisted their black and white flags over the captured posts. A police official in Swat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job, confirmed the surrender.

In Islamabad, the ousted chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, called for mass protest against the government.

Just another crumbling government in the land of Islam? Just another third-world hell-hole falling apart due to corruption and internal neglect? Just another military coup leader getting his? Probably all that and more — a lot more. Pakistan, the Brits’ big foul-up of post WWII attempts to fix the mess they made of India, is armed to their nuclear teeth to thwart India’s own nuke arsenal, and that is what’s really at stake in this current crisis. The thought of a radical Islamic takeover of a government that has dozens of nuclear weapons must have the White House and the leaders in Tel Aviv hammerin’ down Nytol by the bottle. And then there’s that little inconsistency of policy about our supporting Musharraf’s military-controlled government while our troops are fighting and dying just across the border to enable democracies to flourish in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Bush urged Gen. Pervez Musharraf to hold elections as the crisis caused by the Pakistani leader’s declaration of a state of emergency continued into its fourth day. Although some congressional lawmakers explored ways of cutting aid to the Musharraf regime to protest the suspension of the country’s constitution, observers agreed such a move would be unlikely to succeed. In addition, the media are taking President Bush, who has relied on Musharraf in the war on terrorism, to task for the contradiction between the Pakistani general’s actions and Bush’s effort to promote democracy in the Muslim world.

Meanwhile, in an Orwellian-style moment, the Dems get frisky while the Repubs council restraint.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., warned against being too soft.

“Pakistan will only be a reliable and capable ally against terrorism when its government is not seen as an enemy by its own people,” she said.

But Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, warned against being too hasty with rebukes. “As politics in Pakistan continue evolving, we should not rush to abandon Musharraf but work with him to get Pakistan back on the path toward democracy,” he said.

The gist of Duncan Hunter’s statement was echoed by John Bolton yesterday on Hugh Hewitt’s show:

HH: What ought to be the reaction of the United States to Musharraf’s declaration of military rule?

JB: Well, I don’t think it’s anything we should celebrate, of course, but I think we have to be practical about this. This is a regime in control of a number of nuclear weapons, it’s a regime we need to fight the remainder of al Qaeda and Taliban along its border with Afghanistan. And I don’t think we ought to be pushing Musharraf out the door, or necessarily in a direction of coalitions with the likes of Benazir Bhutto, if he thinks it would weaken his position, because the alternative is not a nice Jeffersonian democratic government. The alternative to Musharraf right now is an Islamo-fascist government in control of nuclear weapons, and that’s definitely something to fear.

HH: Is there a danger that Musharraf could become Bush’s Shah or his Diem?

JB: Well, I think that’s entirely possible, and I think part of the reason is the State Department was pushing Benazir Bhutto on him, and I think it was a very foolish strategy, because you can’t say take on some of the democratic opposition and not take on the rest of it. This trying to read internal Pakistani politics is hard for the Pakistanis, let alone for people at the State Department.

Over at the Center For Contemporary Conflict one finds this 2003 estimate of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capabilities:

Adding together its possible plutonium and HEU inventories, Pakistan could have enough fissile material to produce between 35 and 95 weapons, with 60 as the median estimate.

Four years later, who knows how many more? What this brings to mind is the importance of how the Presidential primary candidates of both parties answer the question, “What will your administration do to combat the advance of radical Islamic terror?” With the drug traffickers to our south having smuggling strategies like this, and with petrodollars flowing freely to terrorist groups, the possibilities are truly “terrifying”. Kinda the point, huh? Makes the answer to that question asked above a bit more important than views on single-payer health care — at least it does in my book.

Meanwhile, the Brits get their panties in a snit over their own interpretation of WWIII and decide to go to war with the sun. I say, good luck ol’ chaps, tallyho! BTW — take ol’ Big Al with ya!

This AM I heard on Dennis Prager’s radio show his brief interview with Bartle Bull, foreign editor of the UK’s Prospect Magazine and editor of Middle East Monitor who has been on many embeds with Iraqi troops and militias. Bull declares in his Wall Street Journal piece that the won in Iraq has been won.

The war in Iraq was always going to be won by the Iraqis, and so it has proven. But the Iraqis who have won it are on our side.
{…}
The biggest unifier of all currently might be the most predictable one. Help from foreigners is welcome in Iraq. The country’s elected prime minister, possessing after Iraq’s heroic elections more popular legitimacy than almost any leader in the world, often points out that the Coalition is there as invited guests. When the U.S. Senate passed its disingenuous “plan” for extreme federalism in Iraq last week, the uproar in the country crossed the sectarian divide. Iraq already has a constitution. It was written by freely elected Iraqis and ratified overwhelmingly by the public in a brave vote two years ago.

Thousands of Americans and their allies have died helping to give Iraqis this opportunity. We have shown enormous skill and bravery in helping them fight their enemies, and immeasurable goodwill in sending our young men to protect Iraqi schools, mosques and polling booths. The reason we and Iraqis are winning this war together is that its purpose is to give Iraqis what they want.

It was interesting to hear him telling Dennis that even though the carnage is far from over, the actual war for Iraq has been settled — at least unless we, the US, does something stupid like pulling out completely in short order. Winning the support/acceptance of the Shia (majority of the population) was the ticket. After getting out from under decades of brutal repression by Saddam and the Baathists (Sunni) the majority isn’ keen on lying down under their thumb once again. Funny what getting to cast a vote can do.

Over at Back Talk blog, Engram is analyzing the death count stats and sees some encouraging trends.

Back in 2004 and 2005, there was an insurgency in Iraq driven by former Baathists who wanted to restore themselves to power. In 2006 and 2007, most people (and all Democrats) thought they witnessed a civil war break out in Iraq as casualties increased dramatically. What they actually witnessed was a declaration of war by al Qaeda and a response by Muqtada al Sadr’s Shiite militia. What you are watching now is al Qaeda starting to lose the war they started. I obviously don’t know what the future holds, but I can say that the recent trends are very favorable.

Over at Big Lizards Dafydd is looking at similar data and seeing the same light at the end of the tunnel.

As Iraq cools down, its very existence should make it much easier to deal with problems like Iran, Syria, and even countries in other regions, such as North Korea and Venezuela. Too, the final success of the Bush policy will induce other Western nations — those bold, independent trendsetters — to jump on the bandwagon. (“Oceania has always supported pre-emptive strikes, covert action, and counterinsurgency!”)

All I can say is thank you, Mr. President, for quite literally sticking to your guns. You will be remembered… but not the way Majority Leader Harry “Pinky” Reid (D-Caesar’s Palace, 90%) fantasizes!

Thanks guys, one certainly won’t be reading this in the NYT, LAT or WaPo anytime soon!

Technorati Tags: Bartle Bull, war in Iraq

In an in depth look at Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. George W. Bush Zombietime gives us a peek at a few things that WE all already know:

. . . that our courts are a labyrinth of strange proceedings,

The government requested that the case be thrown out of court on technical grounds, since the only way Al-Haramain could even prove it had the standing to challenge the surveillance was to cite the mysterious document — which the government claimed was not admissible as evidence. Al-Haramain countered that it could rely on people’s memories and descriptions of the document. An Oregon district judge ruled in Al-Haramain’s favor: the case could go forward. The government appealed the judge’s decision to the Ninth District Court of Appeals (which brings us back up to August 15, 2007). Whichever way the appellate judges rule, one side or the other will then appeal it to the Supreme Court.

. . . that the 9th Circuit is Liberal beyond reason,

Which leaves us with Harry Pregerson, the man in the middle. According to most sources, Pregerson (a Carter appointee) is the most liberal of all appellate judges.

During oral orguments on August 15, Judge Pregerson showed his colors as he verbally mocked the government’s lawyers when they said that the judges should give “utmost deference” to the government’s designation of what constitutes matters of national security. Pregerson’s snide remark upon hearing the phrase was, “What does ‘utmost deference’ mean? We just bow to it?”, which elicited laughter from the courtroom audience. And yet the government attorneys were merely quoting verbatim this ruling (pdf file) from September 2006 by United States District Judge Garr King who was citing earlier legal precedent when he himself said that the judges are expected to give “utmost deference” to the government’s opinion as to what merits “Top Secret” security classification.

. . . that the press really can’t be bothered to even investigate, let alone report, truth — especially if “truth” might be in conflict with its own Liberal agenda.

After both the Hepting and Al-Haramain cases had been heard by the judges, the court session was gaveled to a close and everyone had to file out of the building. Because cameras had been banned from the proceedings, the media were waiting outside en masse, hungry to get footage and interviews.

Interviews with the proper people, that is.

How progressive of them. I really don’t have to write it, do I . . . ?

Technorati Tags: Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, Al-Haramain, Ninth District Court of Appeals, Judge Pregerson, Hepting