Tuesday, August 31, 2004

How Kerry stood up for veterans

Or, here is why the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are mad.

From The American Thinker

John Kerry has often stated how proud he is of how he stood up for Vietnam Veterans when he came back from his four month tour in Vietnam. A recent example appeared on CNN’s website on March 23, 2004:

"I'm proud of the way I stood up for veterans when I came home from Vietnam, and proud of what we achieved as veterans speaking up for our fellow veterans who were still carrying on the fighting."

Were Kerry’s actions and statements something he should be proud of? Did he stand up for Vietnam Veterans and those still fighting the war when he came back?
Below is the transcription of a leaflet from the Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) demonstration in Valley Forge, in September 1970, which Kerry helped organize. Kerry was also one of the featured speakers at this event—along with Jane Fonda:

(From Home to War, by Geraldo Nicosia.)
A US INFANTRY COMPANY JUST CAME THROUGH HERE: If you had been Vietnamese:--We might have burnt your house.--We might have shot your dog.--We might have shot you .--We might have raped your wife and daughter.--We might have turned you over to your government for torture.--We might have taken souvenirs from your property.--We might have shot things up a bit. --We might have done all these things to you and your whole town. If it doesn't bother you that American soldiers do these things every day to the Vietnamese simply because they are "gooks", then picture yourself as one of the silent victims. Help us to end the war before they turn your son into a butcher... or a corpse. Six months later Kerry represented the VVAW alongside phony Vietnam Vet Al Hubbard on NBC’s Meet The Press. Here is an exchange from that interview (see also this image):

Read the rest

Monday, August 30, 2004

Edwards Says Kerry Plans to Confront Iran on Weapons

Well, I for one can't wait to see what Kerry's plan is.

From The Washington Post

A John F. Kerry administration would propose to Iran that the Islamic state be allowed to keep its nuclear power plants in exchange for giving up the right to retain the nuclear fuel that could be used for bomb-making, Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards said in an interview yesterday.

Edwards said that if Iran failed to take what he called a "great bargain," it would essentially confirm that it is building nuclear weapons under the cover of a supposedly peaceful nuclear power initiative. He said that, if elected, Kerry would ensure that European allies were prepared to join the United States in levying heavy sanctions if Iran rejected the proposal. "If we are engaging with Iranians in an effort to reach this great bargain and if in fact this is a bluff that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons capability, then we know that our European friends will stand with us," Edwards said.


Well, that certainly is "confronting them", isn't it?

"Kerry would ensure that European allies..." And just how is Kerry going to "ensure" our European allies will do anything Kerry wants?

"levying heavy sanctions..." That ought to scare them alright.
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John Kerry's missing medical records

Unlike President Bush, John Kerry has not released his medical records.

The American Thinker may have the answer to "why not" - parasomnia.

Much more troubling than cancer, however, are indications, from those who know him well, that John Kerry suffers from parasomnia, a sleep disorder, which can manifest in many ways, including insomnia, sleepwalking, night terrors, and restless leg syndrome, among others.

The irrepressible Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira Heinz Kerry has provided vivid first hand testimony of her husband’s sleep disorder:

When Kerry is asked about the nightmares that haunted his sleep for years after he returned from Vietnam, he shrugs. "I don't think I've had a nightmare in a long time," he says. But then Heinz begins to mimic Kerry having a Vietnam nightmare.

"Down! Down, down!" she yells, patting her hands down on her auburn hair.
"I haven't gotten slapped yet," she says. "But there were times when I thought I might get throttled." [emphasis added]

Kerry quivers his right foot [emphasis added] and steers the discussion to the counseling programs he has supported for Vietnam veterans. Asked if he has been in therapy himself, he non-answers [emphasis added]. "It doesn't bother me anymore, I just go back to sleep."[...]

According to the New York Daily News, the Kerry campaign considers mental health to be a perfectly valid subject of controversy, at least when it concerns one of their political opponents. James Zumwalt, son of illustrious Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, is said to be the subject of a dossier compiled by campaign opposition researchers, because he testified in support of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He is said to have


attempted to kill himself with an overdose of prescription drugs," after the murder of his ex-wife's fiance, John Kowalczyk, according to the dossier.


Blogger Ed Morrisey aptly comments:


at least the Democrats have agreed in principle that medical records should be released as a basis for public debate in this presidential cycle. Bush released his, now Zumwalt's are out in the open -- so where are Kerry's?
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Good news Iraq - part 8

Chrenkoff's good news Iraq part 8, is up at the Wall Street Journal.
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More Alleged Hamas Operatives Linked to DC-Area Think Tank

From Town Hall

(CNSNews.com) - The Virginia man recently detained after his wife was seen videotaping Maryland's Chesapeake Bay Bridge has ties to a Springfield, Va., Muslim think tank that is an alleged front for the terrorist organization Hamas.

The think tank, the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), is located just fourteen miles from the U.S. Capitol. Counter terrorism analyst Peter M. Leitner has described UASR as one of the "phony organizations that are really terrorist cells [and] part of the international terrorist network." UASR has been the subject of a CNSNews.com investigation since March.

Ismael Selim Elbarasse and his wife were spotted in their SUV by two Baltimore County, Md., police officers on Aug. 20. Elbarasse's wife was reportedly videotaping the 4.3 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the main span that connects Maryland's Eastern Shore to the Baltimore, Washington D.C., metropolitan area.

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Rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr Urges End to Iraq Fighting

From Fox News

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (search) called on Monday for his followers across Iraq to end fighting against U.S. and Iraqi forces, an al-Sadr aide said.

"(He) has called for a halting of all military operations in Iraq, and we are studying the idea of joining the political process," said Naim Al-Kaabi, an al-Sadr aide in Baghdad.

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Saturday, August 28, 2004

More medal problems for John Kerry

Here is a comment I posted on a website today.

So what should been done with Kerry for his lies?

From the Sun Times

http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-lips27.html

"...an official Defense Department document summarizing Kerry's military career posted on johnkerry.com, includes a "Silver Star with combat V."

But according to a U.S. Navy spokesman, "Kerry's record is incorrect. The Navy has never issued a 'combat V' to anyone for a Silver Star."

Naval regulations do not allow for the use of a "combat V" for the Silver Star, the third-highest decoration the Navy awards. None of the other services has ever granted a Silver Star "combat V," either. "

Oh, well what is the big deal about a "V" pin anyway? Let's ask John Kerry what he thinks.

From NRO

http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerryspot.asp

Scroll down to this: KERRY ON BOORDA [08/27 03:53 PM]

When asked about Adm. Boorda's controvesial "V" pin, Kerry had this to say.

“Is it wrong? Yes, it is very wrong. Sufficient to question his leadership position? The answer is yes, which he clearly understood,” said Sen. John Kerry, a Navy combat veteran who served in Vietnam.

"Sufficient to question his leadership position".

And John Kerry says,

“If you wind up being less than what you’re pretending to be, there is a major confrontation with value and self-esteem and your sense of how others view you.”

That sure sums up John Kerry. But Kerry has more to say,

Of Boorda and his apparent violation, Kerry said: “When you are the chief of them all, it has to weigh even more heavily.”

And Kerry wants to be "chief of them all".

So what did Adm Boorda do when challenged about incorrectly wearing the "V" pin?

"Hours before he was scheduled to meet with Newsweek reporters to discuss the controversy, the admiral went to his home at the Navy Yard and shot himself in the chest."

I don't think Kerry should commit suicide but since Kerry himself says that falsely claiming the "V" pin is "Sufficient to question his leadership position", then John Kerry has to "question his leadership position" and should withdraw as a candidate for President and Commander in Chief.

Kerry's false claims to two "V" pins can be found in his own military records which he posted on his own website.

http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/DD214.pdf

Posted by: marc at August 28, 2004 04:52 AM

Friday, August 27, 2004

Another group of veterans attack John Kerry - P.O.W.s

If Kerry thought the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were the only Vietnam vets who thought Kerry is unfit to be Commander in Chief, he was badly mistaken.

Another group of Vietnam veterans, Stolen Honor, made up of Vietnam POWs has started their own campaign to expose Kerry.
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Thursday, August 26, 2004

Muqtada al-Sadr looting Najaf shrine

While Sadr's men keep the Iraqi troops busy, Sadr and his henchmen are looting the shrine.

Police also arrested several al-Sadr aides with valuables from the shrine in their possession, al-Jazaari said. One of al-Sadr's top lieutenants, Sheik Ali Smeisim, was among those arrested, police officials said on condition of anonymity.
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Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Who signed Max Cleand's letter and more importantly, who did not

Here is a list of who signed Max Cleland's letter accusing Bush of "character assassination".

The senators signing the letter included Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings of South Carolina, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Tom Carper of Delaware and Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg, both of New Jersey.

Sen. Tom Harkin's name stands out for two reasons.

First, he, like Kerry, has lied about his service in Viet Nam, Harkin was never in Viet Nam even though he claimed he flew combat missions there.

Second, Harking called Cheney a "coward" for getting a draft deferrment, which I would say qualifies as character assassination. By his standards, Clinton would also be a coward and all who got a deferrment. Harking has since been dropped by Kerry on the campaign trail.

More importantly, look who is not a signatory - Sen. John McCain!
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The Democrats and character assassination

Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland said today:

"As veterans of the armed services, we ask that you recognize this blatant attempt at character assassination and publicly condemn it," the letter to Bush says.

While at the same time Kerry is doing some character assassination of his own.

A group of Democratic loyalists is compiling incriminating dossiers on the members of the veteran group [Swift Boat Veterans for Truth] - and they sent us a preview of what might be in store for Swift Boat activist James Zumwalt, son of illustrious Adm. Elmo Zumwalt - and it isn't pretty.
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John Kerry's anti-Viet Nam book "New Soldier" is available for download

But you better get it quick before the site is shut down. Kerry has bought out all of Amazon's stock of the book and there is a long waiting list.

Get John Kerry's "New Soldier" here.
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Has Kerry Backed Off Of First Purple Heart Claim?

From Captains Quarters

A number of people have written to me overnight stating that a Kerry campaign spokesman has acknowledged on Brit Hume's Fox news show that John Kerry's wound on 2 December 1968 came from an unintentionally self-inflicted wound -- an accident, in other words. So far, I find nothing on this on the Fox web site, but they are notoriously poor at posting transcripts, or even summaries of their own programs. Can someone post the link in the comments section of this post if any confirmation can be made?

UPDATE: Here's the link to the Fox News report from Major Garrett. It mostly covers the Chris Wallace interview with John Hurley and CNN's interview of Bob Dole. Towards the end, Garrett talks about the first Purple Heart:

GARRETT: And questions keep coming. For example, Kerry received a Purple Heart for wounds suffered on December 2nd, 1968. But an entry in Kerry's own journal written nine days later, he writes that, quote, he and his crew hadn't been shot at yet, unquote. Kerry's campaign has said it is possible his first Purple Heart was awarded for an unintentionally self-inflicted wound.

Score another one for the Swiftvets, and another retreat for Kerry, this time on a key contention for both a medal (which some, including me, felt were too difficult to argue effectively) and for his truncated tour of duty. Without that first Purple Heart, Kerry would have had to stay on the Swiftboat assignment past March 17th and remain in combat. Now that the Kerry campaign seems to have retreated from Kerry's citation, the fact that Kerry pushed this award weeks later up a different chain of command takes on a great deal more significance. Instead of bravely taking on combat, he now looks desperate to get out ahead of everyone else and willing to falsify records to do it -- which is exactly the impression that his later assertions have given us.

Note: the link above opens a windows media player screen.
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KERRY PHONES SWIFT BOAT FOES

In yet another sign of how desperate John Kerry is to stop the Swift Boat Veterans, Drudge is reporting that Kerry phoned "Robert "Friar Tuck" Brant Cdr., USN (RET) Sunday night, just hours after former Sen. Bob Dole publicly challenged Kerry to apologize to veterans."

Brant was skipper of the #96 and # 36 boat and spent time with Kerry in An Thoi. Kerry and Brant slept in the same quarters, and Brant used to put Kerry back to bed at night when Kerry was sleepwalking.

Brant received a call from Kerry at his home in Virginia while he was watching the Olympics on TV.

The call lasted 10 minutes, sources tell DRUDGE.

KERRY: "Why are all these swift boat guys opposed to me?"

BRANT: "You should know what you said when you came back, the impact it had on the young sailors and how it was disrespectful of our guys that were killed over there."

[Brant had two men killed in battle.]

KERRY: "When we dedicated swift boat one in '92, I said to all the swift guys that I wasn't talking about the swifties, I was talking about all the rest of the veterans."

Kerry then asked if he could meet Brant ["You were one of the best"] -- man to man --face to face.

Brant declined the invite, explaining that Kerry was obviously not prepared to correct the record on exactly what happened during Vietnam and what happened when Kerry came back.

Developing...


He has to ask? Is Kerry really that dumb?
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Tuesday, August 24, 2004

John Kerry's Vietnam Boomerang

The war is long over, the troops came home years ago, the US's "quagmire" in Viet Nam is long over, for everyone except John Kerry. What in the hell were the Democrats and John Kerry thinking?

John Kerry started the mess he now finds himself in but somehow it is Bush's responsibility to stop it? How ironic, John Kerry has to run to Bush to bail him out of the mess he himself created.

From The Wall Street Journal

What did Mr. Kerry expect, anyway? That claiming to be a hero himself while accusing other veterans of "war crimes"--as he did back in 1971 and has refused to take back ever since--would somehow go unanswered? That when he raised the subject of one of America's most contentious modern events, no one would meet him at the barricades? Mr. Kerry brought the whole thing up; why is it Mr. Bush's obligation now to shut it down?

And

The irony here is that a main reason Mr. Kerry has focused so much on Vietnam is to avoid debating Iraq and the rest of his long record in the Senate. He wants Americans to believe that a four-month wartime biography is credential enough to be commander-in-chief. But a candidate who runs on biography can't merely pick the months of his life that he likes--any more than a candidate who makes Vietnam the heart of his campaign can confine the resulting debate to his personal home video.

In another sign of how desperate Kerry is to get him out of his own Viet Nam quagmire, Kerry called Senator Dole to moan about Dole's comments about Kerry.

From NewsMax

"He said he was very disappointed, we'd been friends. I said John, we're still friends, but [the Swiftvets] have First Amendment rights, just as your people have First Amendment rights.

Dole told Kerry, "I'm not trying to stir anything up, but I don't believe every one of these people who have talked about what happened are Republican liars.

"And very frankly, Bush is my guy, and I'm tired of people on your side calling him everything from a coward to a traitor to everything - a deserter."

Dole said he urged Kerry, "Why don't you call George Bush today and say, 'Mr. President, let's stop all this stuff about the National Guard and Vietnam - and let's talk about the issues."

Dole said Kerry responded, "I haven't spent one dime attacking President Bush."

But the Republican war hero shot back, "You don't have to. You've got all the so-called mainstream media, plus you've got MoveOn.org and all these other groups that have spent millions and millions of dollars trying to tarnish Bush's image."

"Don't tell me you don't know what some of these people are doing," he told Kerry.


It doesn't end with Kerry though. Sen. Tom Harkin called VP Cheney a "coward". I would say that someone who lies and claims to have served in Viet Nam when he did not, is a real coward. Nothing could be more disugsting than for a politician to tread on the memory of those who died in Viet Nam, for his own gain. That is what Sen Tom Harkin has done.

From Business Week

If Kerry did shade the truth, he sure wouldn't be the first politician to do so. Only last week, voters were treated to the spectacle of Kerry point man and Iowa Senator Tom Harkin fulminating about the Swift Vets' ads. Yet Harkin is himself an exposed fabulist, having once claimed to have jousted in his F-4 Phantom with North Vietnamese MiGs.

The truth? He never saw combat, spent his war ferrying military planes from Japan to the Philippines for routine servicing, and apologized for his fictions when subsequently exposed by fellow Senator Barry Goldwater.


Not only did he not see combat, Harkin was never, ever in Viet Nam. Just like Kerry was never, ever in Cambodia.

This has got to be one of the strangest elections ever.

The Democrats, the anti-war party, running the campaign on the most anti-war of all wars, Viet Nam; then wailing to Republicans like Bush, Dole and McCain to get them out of their own mess.

The Democrats, the liberal party, supposedly supports first amendment rights, tries to deny veterans their first amendment rights. Kerry, a supposedly hornorable Viet Nam vet wants to be able to say whatever he likes but the Swift Boat vets, who also served honorably, are not to be allowed to speak out?

The Democrats, purport to support freedom of the press, yet tries to stop 527 groups like the Swift Boat veterans, who have only spent just over $2M dollars, while the Democrats spend over $62M on 527 ads.

The Democrats scream that Bush is working with the Swift Boat vets and yet they have no proof whatsoever. And yet here is proof positive that the Democrats are working with MoveOn.org.

And John Kerry leads the Democrats. Question is, where is he leading them?
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Monday, August 23, 2004

Celebs Aiding Anti-Bush Web Campaign

While John Kerry screams for the SBVT ads to be pulled, his front group MoveOn.org has been busy.

The Internet political group MoveOn.org on Tuesday premieres 10 new anti-Bush ads created by award-winning directors and starring popular Hollywood actors. An independent group not connected directly to Democratic candidate John Kerry, MoveOn has promised an unconventional approach to the election.

Wonder why they felt the need to point that out? And, what alternate universe do they live in?

I wonder if ABC is aware of this little nugget on the Democrats own website.

The Democratic Party is partnering with MoveOn.org, People for the American Way, Campaign for America's Future, and dozens of other groups representing millions of Americans to organize a massive public mobilization.
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Financial backing for al Qaeda down, report says

From SF Gate

Washington -- Financial support for al Qaeda and the size of its operating budget have plummeted in the three years since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the network "continues to fund terrorist operations with relative ease," according to new findings released Saturday by the 9/11 commission.

The report from the panel also says that the Saudi government provided lackluster cooperation in the effort to stanch the flow of money to al Qaeda for two years after the attacks, but began to respond more aggressively after several al Qaeda strikes in the kingdom last year.

Al Qaeda's annual budget appears to have shrunk from about $30 million a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to as little as a few million dollars per year now, the commission reported. Funding for the terrorist network has shriveled during that same period, partly because of the more aggressive stance by Saudi Arabia, the report said.

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Kerry working with MoveOn.org. Kerry denies that he is working with MoveOn.org. But here is a webpage from the Democrats own website showing Kerry is working with MoveOn.org. Here is the weblink: http://www.democrats.org/wvc/weekinreview/200305120002.html Posted by Hello
John Kerry's imploding campaign

From Chris Lynch

August was a bad month for the Kerry campaign.

Let's take a look at the month of August to illustrate how the Kerry Campaign has truly been the gang that couldn't shoot straight. (How come nobody has been fired for this epic bumbling?)Aug. 1 - Normally a candidate gets a "bounce" in the polls immediately after his convention - not so for Kerry.

Aug. 2 - Kerry advisor says Kerry will make world safer by giving Iran nuclear fuel and hope that they use it for good. Sane people everywhere say, "Are you friggin' kidding me?" Meanwhile the Kerry campaign suffers some guilt from association after Howard Dean questions the timing of terror alerts in New York - claiming they could be politically motivated. Again, sane people everywhere ask, "Are you friggin' kidding me?"

Aug. 3 - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth explain their version of the real story of John Kerry's military history - this picture was interesting

Aug. 4 - The Kerry campaign and DNC lawyers threaten legal action against any stations that air the Swift Boat ads. Instead of addressing the allegations made by the vets - Kerry decides that threat of legal action would be better. The campaign slogan is officially amended to "Bring it on.....and we'll sue!" Meanwhile Senator Kerry announces:
I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history.

Aug. 5 - Kerry tells reporters that he would not have waited around like Bush did for 7 minutes on 9/11. He states:
"Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whispered in my ear, 'America is under attack,' I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had something that he needed to attend to -- and I would have attended to it." This claim comes back to bite him in the ass when his actual reaction to the morning of 9/11 is revealed - over 40 minutes of not being able to think or act.

Read the rest, every day in August has been a bad day for Kerry.
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Good news from Afghanistan, Part 3

Chrenkoff's latest roundup of good news from Afghanistan is up.
Why the Left and John Kerry must destroy the Swift Boat Veterans

From Minion of the Great Satan What a name for a blog!

Psychoanalyzing the Left

Looking at the mainstream media's and the left's(but I repeat myself) reaction to the Swift Vets allegations, the level of denial regarding the story is just astounding. Even during the height of the Clinton scandals, when confronted with ugly facts or allegations, the media did report the facts, even if they did sometimes use language to obscure the more serious allegations.

This time, things are different. In almost a passive/aggressive fashion, the left has basically been whistling past the graveyard on the Swiftvets story. It is almost a mass psychosis, where the only response that the Democrats and the media seem to have is to slime the accusers, no matter who they might be, and no matter what the veracity of the charges are. It is almost as if the Swiftvets attack on Kerry is on something so personal, such part of their inner psyche, that it shakes their world view to its very core, and as a result, it cannot be true. The question is why has these series of ads, about acts that occurred between 33 and 35 years ago, creating this reaction?

When Clinton's pot use and draft dodging were exposed, it didn't create this response. Granted, the blogosphere wasn't there to fact check the mainstream media, but I don't think it would have made much of a difference anyway. Clinton's being a doper didn't really challenge the boomerleft's worldview to any extent. Even the abundant affairs, sexual pecadilloes, and various and assorted tawdry acts never really hit home with the boomerleft. Free Love, right?

But the SwiftVets allegations somehow have touched an open nerve amongst the left wing, and especially amongst left wing boomers. The reason for this, I think, is that these allegations not only attack John Kerry's conduct specifically, but, in the broad sense, they attack the entire moral stance of left wing baby boomers in general. Think about the following statements:


The Vietnam War was fundamentally immoral. This is the sine qua non of left wing boomerdom. It is simply established fact that the Vietnam War was a patently immoral act. The South Vietnamese did not believe in freedom, the Viet Cong were no different than the South Vietnamese Army, and Americans were dying to keep alive a corrupt militaristic regime. Kerry, along with other anti-war activists, repeatedly hammered home this point as justification. Of course, millions of Southeast Asians felt compelled to flee only after the Communists won. However, the reason for this is also simple. Nixon did it.

Since the Vietnam war was fundamentally moral, protesting the war, was fundamentally moral, and violent/seditious protest, while justified, was only a flawed execution of a moral protest. This is something which is still a fundamental part of the boomer left ethos. The boomer left, which now dominates Hollywood, the mainstream media, and the Democrat party, do not consider the bombings, shootings, riots etc, that were committed by leftist radicals in the '60s and '70s to be as offensive morally as the attempts of police, etc to maintain order. The Guardsmen at Kent State were evil. Robbing a bank and killing a cop to support "the resistance" was merely misguided.(A perfect example of this attitude is this episode(#92) from the series Law and Order. The DA gives a plea bargain to a leftist radical who killed a cop in the early 70s, because "times were different then)"

Vietnam Veterans committed unspeakable war crimes as a matter of course, and with the tacit agreement of their superiors. This was one of the key elements of Kerry's Senate testimony. Not only is it one of the key elements of his testimony, it is also one of the key bits of American folklore about Viet vets that persisted in movies for 30 years after Vietnam, and still is considered a simple and irrefutable fact by the left today.

Because of these war crimes that were committed, Vietnam Veterans were emotional cripples, and were psychopathically violent. Again, this is an allegation that came out of John Kerry's testimony, and was the prevailing conventional wisdom for at least 15 years, and is, to a much lesser extent, still considered true among portions of the boomer left. The prevailing one line joke during the '70s into the early '80s was about the Vietnam Vet having a flashback and and shooting up a McDonald's, which was the precursor to the "disgruntled postal worker" today.

That is why the Swiftvets are being responded to with such a virulent reaction by the mainstream media. Most of the senior editors, producers, and reporters among the national press corps came of age during Vietnam. Most were either anti-war protestors, or very sympathetic to the anti-war cause. As teens and adults, they bought into the anti-war ethos, and John Kerry's anti-war record was a big piece of that. The Swiftvet allegations not only attack John Kerry directly, they also, by using John Kerry as a proxy, attack the central tenets of the anti-war boomer left. While the Swiftvets aren't saying as much, the import of what they are saying is obvious. Not only is their attack damaging to John Kerry personally, it is also damaging to the entire argument that the anti-war boomer left has made for the past 35 years. And that is why the Swift Vets must be destroyed. If they are proven true, then the Vietnam anti-war protests were deeply wrong, and that just can't be tolerated.

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Saturday, August 21, 2004

John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

The latest Swift Boat ad is here and the next free chapter of their book is here. (Note: it is in pdf)

Thursday, August 19, 2004

TERESA HEINZ KERRY - John Kerry not qualified to be President

From The Times

TERESA HEINZ KERRY, America’s would-be First Lady, reinforced her reputation for blunt speaking yesterday by admitting that her husband was not qualified to hold the Oval Office.

“I think nobody is truly qualified to be President of the United States,” she said, displaying the plain speaking that has become her trademark, and a possible liability for John Kerry’s campaign.

“I mean, are you qualified to run the world . . . not run it, but have that influence? No, nobody is,” she said in the latest Reader’s Digest.

Many American voters may be drawn to the evident reasoning behind her argument. But others are likely to be less sympathetic. Presidential campaigns rarely admit to any human frailty on the part of their candidate.

Her honesty apparently fell flat with Reader’s Digest, which said that the message she left hanging in the air was: “Vote for John. He’s less poorly qualified than the other guy.”

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Teleportation goes long distance

From The BBC

Physicists have carried out successful teleportation with particles of light over a distance of 600m across the River Danube in Austria.

Long distance teleportation is crucial if dreams of superfast quantum computing are to be realised.

When physicists say "teleportation", they are describing the transfer of key properties from one particle to another without a physical link.


This also has important implications for secure communications. With quantum communications you will know if someone "read" your message because that will alter the quantum state of those communications.
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Al-Sadr says militia will leave Najaf mosque

Notice how CNN and The BBC report this story differently.

From CNN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced Wednesday his militia would leave the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, following a threat by the Iraqi government to "liberate" the holy site.

In a letter issued by al-Sadr's office in Baghdad and read to the Iraqi National Conference, the cleric said he agreed to demands made Tuesday night by a delegation from the conference that he and his forces leave the mosque, disband his Mehdi Army and "enter into the mainstream political process."


And now from The BBC

Iraq cleric offers to end revolt

Radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has offered to end an uprising in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf.

However, Mr Sadr says there must be a truce before his Mehdi militia will leave the Imam Ali shrine and disarm.

Fighting is continuing in Najaf, where Mr Sadr's forces have battled US-led troops for nearly two weeks.

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Wednesday, August 18, 2004

ANTI-KERRY AD A HIT

From The New York Post

WASHINGTON — Vietnam veterans opposing John Kerry have scored a hit with a tough TV ad that claims he lied about his war record — it makes swing voters think twice about backing Kerry, an independent study has found. [...]

The Swift Vets study used 1,275 participants, including 371 independents, who watched ads and registered their reaction at every second using technology normally used to rate product ads. Half viewed the Swift Vets ad and the other half saw a pro-Kerry ad based on his convention speech, which was rated less persuasive.

HCD is also completing a study of a counter-ad by the liberal group MoveOn.org that questions President Bush's military record — it appears far less effective in raising doubts among pro-Bush swing voters.


This caught my eye:

"The Democrat's team yesterday held a press conference of pro-Kerry vets, but none of his crewmates was able to validate his Christmas-in-Cambodia claim. "

They can't, because Kerry lied.
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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

British terrorists charged with nuclear offense

From The BBC

Anti-terrorism police have charged eight men with various offences, including conspiracy to murder.

They were also charged with conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by using radioactive material, toxic gas, chemicals or explosives.


"A public nuisance"! Radioactive material is a lot more than a nuisance for christ sake!
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Monday, August 16, 2004

More John Kerry lies exposed

From The Union Leader

The Mary Ann myth:
Kerry falsifies NH woman’s story

NEXT TIME John Kerry accuses President Bush of misleading the American people, remember Mary Ann Knowles.

Knowles is the Hudson woman whose battle with breast cancer Kerry has turned into a campaign anecdote. Here is what Kerry said about Knowles during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on July 29:

“What does it mean when Mary Ann Knowles, a woman with breast cancer I met in New Hampshire, had to keep working day after day right through her chemotherapy, no matter how sick she felt, because she was terrified of losing her family’s health insurance? America can do better. And help is on the way.”

What it means is that John Kerry is fibbing. As Union Leader correspondent Scott Brooks reported on Sunday, Mary Ann Knowles did not have to work through her chemotherapy for fear of losing her health insurance. Employed by Elderhostel, the Boston-based non-profit travel organization for people 55 and older, Mary Ann had 26 weeks of paid disability at her disposal. More was available for a long-term illness. She did not have to work through her chemotherapy. She chose to.

Knowles would have lost some income had she taken the disability leave, said her husband, who is unemployed. But she would not have lost her health insurance, as Kerry has repeatedly misstated.

Asked if the Kerry campaign bothered to get the details of Knowles’ personal story, spokeswoman Judy Reardon said Kerry’s use of the words “every day” in describing Knowles story was “a colloquialism.” She went on: “When a woman has a mastectomy and goes through therapy, I don’t need to double-check on her.”

In other words, Kerry knowingly used the words “every day” when he did not mean “every day,” and he used the phrase: “she still has to go to work every day — just to hang on to their health insurance” when she did not have to work every day and was in no danger of losing her health insurance.

In short, he lied. Repeatedly.

With all that has come to light about Kerry’s voting record and his Vietnam service, his misrepresentation of Marry Ann Knowles’ story should surprise few. Kerry cannot even get his own personal history straight, so how can we expect him to correctly relay someone else’s?

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The BBC ignores the growing "Cambodiagate" engulfing John Kerry

Here is a copy of my email I sent to the BBC asking why they are ignoring this scandal.

Now that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal (in addition to The Telegraph and The Herald in Britain) are reporting on John Kerry and "Cambodiagate" and since as the referenced link shows the BBC reported on the charges that Bush was AWOL, will the BBC now start reporting on this scandal rocking John Kerry's campaign?

(referenced link: http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=newsukfs&tab=news&q=bush+awol)

If not, why not?

This link:

http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=newsukfs&tab=news&q=Fahrenheit+9%2F11

is the search results for Fahrenheit 911. Notice that there are 57 hits for that search.

This link:

http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=newsukfs&tab=news&q=Unfit+for+Command

is the search results for "Unfit for Command", a book that exposes John Kerry's lies. Notice the hit results are zero.

Why are you telling your viewers only one side of the story?

As a TV license payer and as a reader of the BBC website I have a right to be told the whole story.

When do you plan on reporting on "Unfit for Command", The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and "Cambodiagate"?


Here is a link to the BBC feedback form. If enough people write to them and ask similar questions maybe they will start to report on this growing scandal.
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Israeli companies to build barrier, wall, fence or something for EU

From Globes

Magal to participate in tender for European separation fence

Israeli companies will participate in tenders to build hundreds of kilometers of fences along the EU's new eastern border.

Felix Frisch 12 Aug 04 17:22

After European representatives launched a campaign against Israel's separation fence, and voted against Israel at the UN general assembly, the EU is planning a separation fence of its own. The EU plans to build a fence to separate its new members - Poland and Hungary - from its new neighbors - Russia, Belarus and Ukraine - to prevent the free movement of migrants seeking to enter the EU.

Israeli companies that specialize in the construction of warning fences and security systems will participate in tenders to build hundreds of kilometers of fences along the EU's new eastern border.

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Sunday, August 15, 2004

Al Qaeda says time up for Italy

From Paramount Stations

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) A statement released Sunday in the name of an al-Qaida-linked group said the Italian government has "dug its grave by its own hands" after it ignored a warning to withdraw its troops from Iraq by Aug. 15.

An Aug. 7 statement signed by the same group, the Abu-Hafs al-Masri Brigades, warned Italy to withdraw troops from Iraq by Aug. 15 or it would bring "unbearable hell" to Italians.

Sunday's statement said Italy's silence "has proven to the world that there is no difference between a civilian or a military person in Italy."

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Chance of going to Iraq doesn’t deter recruits

From The Desert Sun

You hear a lot of talk about polls and the war in Iraq. But it is things like this that tell the real story.

Most of them already know before they walk inside the military recruitment office: if they sign up for enlistment, there is a good chance they will participate in the war in Iraq.

And it’s a "hot" war, with intense battles being fought and televised every day.

But that hasn’t dimmed the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of young men and women signing up for military service.

The Army is expecting to meet its enlistment goal of 77,000 recruits for the fourth straight year, and it has plans to raise that goal to 80,000 next year. Navy retention rates are climbing, as are admittance standards. Marine Corps retention and recruitment are also on the rise.

The local United States Army recruitment office in Indio is doing even better than the national trend. The office is experiencing a boom in interest and contracts, according to Staff Sgt. James Chase.

"Our numbers are up by at least 50 percent," said Chase. "(The recruits) just want to defend their country, and they’re tired of seeing other people die."

As of July 30, 1,044 soldiers have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since the war on terror began.

But rather than scaring recruits away, which some military officials expected, the recent combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have lit a fire under many recruits who sign up for military service.

"It isn’t for education, it isn’t for money or all this stuff you read …," said Chase. "The people that come in here and join the Army want to go over there and help their country. They aren’t scared of dying.

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Saturday, August 14, 2004

Anti-American protest at the Greek Olympics

Keep the following history in mind before you read the anti-American protest at the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games.

Afghanistan

Dreaming of Dismembered Limbs

One Year Later - Abdul Jalil and Mohammed Ismail could hardly have crossed paths under more gruesome circumstances. Jalil, accused of theft by the Taliban, was about to have his hand publicly chopped off on a dusty Kabul soccer field. Ismail was the groundskeeper responsible for cleaning up the gore from the weekly amputations by Afghanistan’s harsh fundamentalist regime.[...]

About this time, Ismail was at the sports stadium, preparing the field for a soccer match between two local teams. Taliban soldiers drove the truck carrying Jalil and the other prisoners into the stadium through a small tunnel at the north end and parked at centerfield. “When the truck drove in, I knew what was going to happen next,” Ismail says. “So I left the field and walked into a tunnel so I wouldn’t have to see it.” The thousands of spectators, there for the soccer match but familiar with the Taliban’s practice of cutting limbs off alleged thieves and toppling brick walls onto men accused of homosexuality, waited in silence.

The soldiers took Jalil off the truck first, removed his blindfold and motioned him toward a table where a doctor was waiting with a long knife. Once he realized where he was, Jalil struggled with the soldiers, who beat him with their rifle butts until he fell to the ground. He pleaded with his captors and screamed to the crowd that he was not a criminal, but the silence continued. The soldiers dragged Jalil to the table, restrained his right arm against the metal surface and rolled up his coat sleeve. The doctor, who was masked so he wouldn’t be recognized, began sawing off his wrist. “I was screaming and crying,” Jalil says. “After about 10 minutes I fainted, and when I woke up, I was in the hospital.”

Other stadium workers said it took the doctor a further five minutes of sawing before Jalil’s hand finally came off. The doctor spent the next hour removing the hands of two other prisoners, and finally the foot of the last one. Taliban soldiers threw the four men back into the truck and drove off. Ismail came back onto the field with a bucket of water to clean up the blood when he noticed the severed body parts on the ground.


Iraq

Iraqi soccer team torture

Before every match, players were forced to watch a video in which Odai threatened them if they did not triumph, Baba said. [...]

After losing an important match, he said, the entire team was once taken directly from the soccer stadium to jail in a bus with blacked-out windows. They were crammed into a single cell and beaten with sticks.

"It was normal to spend days and weeks in jail," said Laith Hussein, the team's current captain, who is not related to the former president. "We would joke that we had three homes -- our own houses, the stadium and jail." [...]

A missed penalty kick could bring a humiliating head-shaving at the Stadium of the People, team members said. Sometimes players were forced to play "matches" in which they would kick concrete balls around the prison yard in 130-degree heat.

Another player, Sharar Haddar, has said that Odai dragged him and his teammates over concrete, pulling skin off their backs, then yanked them through a pit so that sand stuck to their raw skin and made them jump in a vat of sewage.


So what was the anti-American protest at the opening ceremony all about?

Games Opening Ceremony Full of Spectacle

"There was huge applause for Afghanistan on its return to Olympic competition after an eight-year absence and with its first female athletes.

The entrance of the more than 500-member U.S. team - led by basketball guard Dawn Staley - drew cheers. But some people also stood and put their thumbs down in an apparent show of displeasure for the war in Iraq. Moments later, the Iraqis entered to a roaring ovation."


Cheers for the liberated and jeers for the liberators.
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Friday, August 13, 2004

Kerry set to admit he lied about "Christmas in Cambodia"

According to The Drudge Report, Presidential wannabe John Kerry, is going to admit to one the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's charges that he lied about being in Cambodia on Christmas eve in 1968.

Kerry wants to spin this by saying he just got the dates wrong. The problem with that story is that Kerry is on record saying how being in Cambodia on Christmas eve 1968, was "seared - seared in my brain". Kerry has repeated this story over and over and has been quite adamant that he was "5 miles inside Cambodia" on that date.

Why is this important? Because Kerry used this incident as a central point of his anti-war campaign immediately after returning from Viet Nam. He claimed the US government was lying about the war and he was living proof. Kerry has used this story over the last 30 years to advance his views.

Think about this to. After more than 30 years, Kerry now "remembers" that it was January 1969 and not Christmas eve 1968. And yet 30 years ago, right after the event, Kerry has a different "memory".

JANUARY -- NOT CHRISTMAS -- KERRY IN CAMBODIA

**Exclusive**

TOUR OF DUTY author and John Kerry historian Doug Brinkley is rushing a piece for the NEW YORKER: to set-the-record-straight on Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia tale, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Kerry has turned to author Brinkley for a "modification" after it was exposed that Kerry was not in Cambodia during Christmas of 1968, as he once claimed from the Senate floor.

[exposed by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth]

The Brinkley piece for the NEW YORKER will now say that Kerry was not in Cambodia during Christmas, but rather in January, publishing sources tell DRUDGE.

MORE

Since the early 1970s, Kerry has spoken and written of how he was illegally ordered to enter Cambodia. Kerry mentioned it in the floor of the Senate in 1986 when he charged that President Reagan’s actions in Central America were leading the U.S. in another Vietnam. Here’s what he said as excerpted from the new book, UNFIT FOR COMMAND:

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me."

John O’Neil’s, author of UNFIT FOR COMMAND, comments on the “clarification:”

“John Kerry describes Christmas Eve in Cambodia as a critical turning point in his life. We now know that his story is completely false. My question is how many people do you know have invented a turning point, one that is seared in his memory? While it makes sense for John Kerry to come clean about the Cambodia story, it is one of several tales that the Kerry campaign will have to face and clarify.”

“By claiming we were engaged in a war crime and crossing international borders, John Kerry damaged the credibility of all the commanding officers above him and insulted the sailors who served with him,” said John O’Neill, member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.”

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Osama to air message ending truce offered to Europe

From The Daily Times of Pakistan

DUBAI: An Islamist website said on Thursday that Osama Bin Laden or his second in command was due to release an audiotape to declare an end to the truce he offered to Europe if it pulled troops out of Iraq.

“Expect an audio message from Osama Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri,” said a statement on the Minbar Ahl al-Sunna wal Jamaa website, which has repeatedly posted terror-related news and videos by various shadowy groups.

“To all Muslims: expect an audio message from Osama Bin Laden on one of the satellite channels during which he will announce the end of the truce that he has given to the Europeans for a pullout from Iraq,” it said.

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Rift grows as Iranians caught fighting for Sadr

From The Guardian

Security officials in Baghdad were last night urgently investigating the background of 30 Iranians who were caught fighting for a rebel Shia cleric in Iraq, amid mounting concern over the involvement of the Tehran regime in the uprising. [...]

The 30 men were captured in the southern city of Kut on Wednesday and officials are trying to establish whether they have any links to Tehran.[...]

The source said two trucks laden with weapons destined for the fighters of the militant cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, had been stopped at the Iranian border on Wednesday night. [...]

He added: "There has been a continuous stream of vehicles over the last few weeks trying to ferry arms across the border from Iran.


For some reason the Guardian throws out this statement.

Foreign fighters account for only a fraction of the insurgents in detention in Iraq.

How the hell does the Guardian know that? They don't. They just threw that out because they want their readers to think there is a mass uprising in Iraq against the US.
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Saddam's oil-food fraud: 'UN let him do it'

From International Herald Tribune

For years the world blamed the US for the deaths of "thousands" of babies in Iraq due to lack of food and medicine. Finally, the truth is told.

Multiple investigations now under way in Washington and Iraq and at the UN all center on one question: How did Saddam amass so much money while under international sanctions?

An examination of the program, the largest in the UN's history, suggests a straightforward answer: The United Nations let him do it.

"Everybody said it was a terrible shame and against international law, but there was really no enthusiasm to tackle it," said Peter van Walsum, a Dutch diplomat who headed the Iraq sanctions committee in 1999 and 2000, recalling the discussions of illegal oil surcharges. "We never had clear decisions on anything. So we just in effect condoned things."

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Teenage Ally Helps Soldiers in Iraq

From Fox News

What the boy had was information on a well-connected cell of 40 fighters whose leader was a former officer in Saddam Hussein's (search) army. He was also the boy's father.

Here is a bit that caught my attention.

They found explosives, rocket propelled grenades and a complete weapons system they hadn't seen before.

What does that mean?
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Thursday, August 12, 2004

ABC News and the missing Americans

This would be absolutely hilarious if we were not talking about a major news oulet like ABC News.

In this article a group of no less than 13 ABC News reporters tells us that "this is now John Kerry's contest to lose."

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but reporters are supposed to find out the facts and relay them to us. To this end the intrepid ABC News gang set out to find if there were any "American[s] who voted for Al Gore in 2000 who is planning to vote for George Bush in 2004."

Guess how many missing Americans the entire group of 13 ABC News reporters found? ZERO.

So confident are they that the ABC Newshounds even offered a challenge by leaveing an email address to contact them if you are one of these missing Americans.

Forget the fact that that we still can't find a single American who voted for Al Gore in 2000 who is planning to vote for George Bush in 2004. (If you are that elusive figure, e-mail us and tell us who you are and why: politicalunit@abcnews.com.)

So, where is the humor you ask? Here

Now, for the first time in my life, I am going to vote for a Republican candidate for president, the incumbent, George W. Bush. I voted for Al Gore in 2000. I was one of the few Democratic leaders who supported Gore in the 1988 presidential Democratic primary when Michael Dukakis received 45 percent of the primary vote in New York City, Gore 7 percent, and Jesse Jackson carried the City with 46 percent. - Edward I. Koch, former mayor of New York.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Another Mosque leader busted

From Chicago Tribune

A federal judge Tuesday ordered that a leader of a mosque on Chicago's South Side remain in custody on charges that he trafficked in a chemical essential to manufacture an illegal narcotic.

Tariq Isa, 55, a Palestinian-American, was arrested Thursday as he arrived at O'Hare International Airport on a flight from the Mideast, officials said.

An indictment charging Isa with distributing almost 1.73 million tablets of pseudoephedrine was returned in May in federal court in Chicago but sealed until after his arrest.

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Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Showdown with Sadr in Najaf

From an Iraqi blogger.

American Humvees are patrolling Najaf’s streets and announcing through loudspeakers that civilians should evacuate Najaf city as soon as possible. This has coincided with the departure of all the 4 most important clerics from Najaf today “ Grand Ayetullah” (The last one left today). Also a curfew was announced yesterday in Sadr city from 4 p.m. till 8 a.m. and will continue for an undeclared time.

It seems that it’s time at last! I hope they get Muqtada this time and also all his deputies. People here are not only disgusted and upset with this gang but also most of them showed extreme anger and some of them went as far as condemning Islam and even the Mahdi himself!! I don’t agree of course with that, as Muqtada has nothing to do with Islam.

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'Tube flood plan' to kill thousands

From This is London

A terror plot to detonate a bomb inside a Tube tunnel beneath the Thames has been uncovered by MI5 chiefs, it was reported yesterday.

The explosion would pierce the bed of the river, leaving tens of thousands of rush- hour commuters to be drowned or trampled underfoot in the panic as people tried to flee.

Blueprints for an attack on the Underground and maps of the tunnels were reported to have been discovered a t an al- Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, a Sunday newspaper reported. It is the latest in a series of terror scares.

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John Kerry and Cambodiagate

Sorry for the lite posting lately, I do have several excuses. First the kids are on summer break (they go back next week, thank god). Second, as the election gets nearer I have spent a lot of time researching the two candidates. And lastly, I have spent far too much time over at The Newshounds.

The Newshounds are a site set up by the "Outfoxed" organization to attack Fox News. If this group is a representative of the Democrats, boy are they in trouble. These moonbats still claim Gore invented the internet.

If you visit the moonbats, er, Newshounds, and I recommend you do, be warned they don't like being disagreed with. Instead of refuting your claims, your more likely to be called names.

After a visit Newshounds be sure to visit Johnny Dollar. Johnny is a lawyer who set up a site to counter the Newshounds. Let the food fight begin!

Here is a recent sample of a post I left on the Newshounds site.

"This Swift Boat story should be very over..."

Reported by deborah at August 9, 2004 10:48 PM

It's just getting started.

Take the chapter from their book about Christmas in Cambodia for instance.

Here is what the scandal, now being called "Cambodiagate", is about.

For decades, John Kerry has told anyone who'd listen that at Christmas 1968 he was on an illegal mission inside Cambodia. On the floor of the Senate in 1986, while attacking President Reagan for turning Central America into another Vietnam quagmire (wrong as usual), Kerry said: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared – seared – in me." [It was so "seared - seared - in me" but somehow Kerry's own book "Tour of Duty" says Kerry was no where near Cambodia]

The illegal Yuletide foray was so seared into him that he brought it up at every opportunity.

As he told the Boston Herald in 1979, "I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."

LBJ was President on Christmas Eve 1968, but let that pass. Here's an Associated Press story from 1992: "Navy Lt John Kerry knew he had no business steering his Mekong River patrol boat across the border into Cambodia, but orders were orders… By Christmas 1968, part of Kerry's patrol extended across the border of South Vietnam into Cambodia."

Just one problem. It never happened. Every living officer up his chain of command says Kerry was never ordered to Cambodia. At least three of his five crewmen say their boat was never in Cambodia. And if you don't believe any of his fellow veterans, read the excerpt from Kerry's own journal published in Tour Of Duty, the recent hagiography by Douglas Brinkley.

On December 24 1968, Kerry was at Sa Dec – that's well inside Vietnam, 55 miles from the Cambodian border – and waxing wistful to his diary about a quiet Christmas far from home: "Visions of sugarplums really do dance through your head and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real. It's Christmas Eve."

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/08/10/do1002.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/08/10/ixopinion.html

And Fox News isn't the only media interested in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Look, I would rather talk about the war. The current one, I mean — not the one that ended three decades ago. But, insofar as I understand the rules of Campaign 2004, every time any member of the administration says anything about the present conflict, he is accused by Democrats of shamelessly "politicizing" it. Whereas every time John Kerry waxes nostalgic about those fragrant memories of the Mekong Delta, he should be allowed to take his unending stroll down memory lane unmolested. After all, as everyone from John Edwards to Max Cleland to Bill Clinton has assured us, being a Swift boat commander for four months is the indispensable qualification for being president. When Hillary runs in 2008, no doubt she'll be leaning heavily on her four months running a Swift boat up and down the Shatt al-Arab during the Iraq war.

But hang on, most of these fellows in the anti-Kerry ad — the ones talking about how he can't be trusted, etc — are also Swift boat commanders? If being a Swiftee is the most important thing in American life, why are all these "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" less entitled to be heard than John Kerry?

Well, because they're part of the "Republican smear machine". Apparently, it's the GOP's fault that only one of the 22 surviving Swift boat officers who served with Mr. Kerry is willing to support him, and that a big bunch of the remaining Swiftees feel strongly enough about his conduct 35 years ago to appear in one of the most remarkable political ads ever seen.

Had enough of Vietnam yet?

Most Americans had enough of it at the time. The clever clogs at the Democratic Party should have figured that out before they decided to relaunch John Kerry and John Edwards as Bob Hope and Jill St. John on their USO tour for the presidency. They should never have signed on to this vanity candidacy, even before the multiplying barnacles began encrusting the hull of the campaign boat.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040808-110052-1938r.htm

Here are a few links with a lot more background on this developing scandal.

http://instapundit.com/archives/017097.php

http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2004/08/an_impeachable.php

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2004/08/kerry_vesrsus_t.html

Posted by: marc at August 10, 2004 06:43 AM
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Monday, August 09, 2004

Swift Boat veterans lawyers call Kerry a liar

Recently Kerry tired to muzzle the press by issuing a scare letter from his lawyers. Notice the tone of the letter, it says your "station may freely refuse this advertisement". Not much of a threat.

Now, the Swift Boat veterans have issued their own letter from their lawyers. The letter lays out the Swift Boat veterans proof that back up their claim that Kerry lied about much of his Viet Nam service.

It's interesting to note that Kerry instead of defending his record, is trying to smear the Swift Boat veterans and muzzle the press.

One of the first attempts at smearing the SBVT veterans was made by Michael Kranishwriting in the Boston Globe. Kranish claimed one of the vets retracted his story. Problem is that vet denied he retracted his statment and accused Kranish of misquoting him. Here is a site with a good round up of this story with plenty of links.

Why would Kranish try and smear the SBVT veterans? Well it just might have something to do with Kranish authoring Kerry's official campaign biography. Even this story itself is riddled with scandal. Just follow the links to see this shifting story.

Now it seems the Democrats plan an all out assault attacking the SBVT veterans character and background.

The Democrat National Committee has prepared a full-scale assault against the Vietnam Veterans for Truth to draw their character and veracity into question, according to one anonymous source inside the DNC. The campaign of character assassination is scheduled to coincide with the release of the book Unfit for Command which reveals inconvenient facts for the Kerry campaign.

“We have prepared what we call ‘Brown Books’ that contain damaging military records, personal credit histories, medical histories, psychiatric histories, divorce records, you name it,” our source told us. "We've got the goods on the Veterans who oppose Kerry."


If you can't kill the message, kill the messenger seems to be the Democrats tactic. A tactic I predict that will backfire badly for Kerry.
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Sunday, August 08, 2004

IRAQ: Sadr Calls for His Army to Rise Up and Ask for a Ceasefire

From Strategy Page

August 7, 2004: Muqtada al Sadr's Shia radical militia has lost over 400 dead in the last few days, and the government has given Sadr 24 hours to disband his militias. Sadr was unable to get a ceasefire, and is now denouncing the United States as the enemy of Iraq and Islam. The problem with this is that the majority of Iraqi Shia don't like Sadr or his gunmen. This is why the government is demanding that Sadr surrender. The local and national government approved the use of American troops, although some government officials are complaining about the use of force. But Sadrs men were getting out of control, and trying to replace the police and local government again, as they did last April.

Did Sistani leave Iraq for treatment abroad as a nod to the Iraqi government to get rid of Sadr?
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Ex-S.D. sailor allegedly linked to terror suspect

From Sign On San Diego

Investigators are trying to determine whether a San Diego sailor passed Navy secrets about security weaknesses and warship movements to a British man accused of having terrorist links, according to court documents unsealed yesterday.

E-mail messages from the unnamed sailor, sent in late 2000 and 2001 before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were found in December in computer files belonging to Babar Ahmad, who was detained Wednesday in London, according to the 31-page arrest affidavit.

The computer files contained details about security arrangements and movements of the San Diego-based Constellation carrier battle group, which included the destroyer Benfold, on which the sailor was serving at the time.

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Senior al-Qaida operative is arrested in Dubai, Pakistani sources say

From Reuters

ISLAMABAD - A senior al-Qaida operative who knew Osama bin Laden has been arrested in Dubai and handed over to Islamabad, Pakistani intelligence sources said on Saturday.

Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a leader of the radical Islamic group Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, was also linked to assassination attempts on Pakistan's president.

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Saturday, August 07, 2004

Briton 'had Gulf battle plans and links to US navy mole'

From The Telegraph

A Briton who appeared in court in London yesterday on extradition charges allegedly was in possession of US navy battle plans and had contacts with an apparent Islamist spy within the [US Navy] service.

American authorities claim that Babar Ahmad, 30, ran a terrorist fundraising and recruiting agency on the internet, much of it on behalf of the Taliban in Afghanistan.[...]

Authorities in Connecticut yesterday unsealed a 31-page indictment against Ahmad. Federal prosecutors said the investigation had spread to include his possible ties to an Islamist traitor serving aboard a US vessel.

The "highly sensitive" investigation" was triggered by the alleged discovery by Scotland Yard officers in a raid on Ahmad's home last December.

They allegedly found a computer disk containing classified descriptions of planned movements of a battle group in the Straits of Hormuz, off Iran, and offering guidance on how best to attack individual ships.

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Thursday, August 05, 2004

Kerry's Viet comrades call him a liar in TV ad

From World Net Daily

WASHINGTON – A blistering new TV commercial produced by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth quotes John Kerry's Vietnam comrades calling him a liar, questioning his honor, accusing him of misrepresenting his actions for medals and attacking his character.

The ad begins with Kerry's vice-presidential running mate, John Edwards, speaking: "If you have any question about what John Kerry's made of, just spend three minutes with the men who served with him. ..."
"Here's what those men think about John Kerry," reads a message on the screen.

That quote is followed by brief testimonies of 13 men explaining they "served with John Kerry."

Lieutenant Commander George Elliot: "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam."

Ensign Al French: "He's lying about his record."

Lewis Letson, lieutenant commander, medical center: "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury."


I suppose Edwards will lead the legal team that does the suing.

You can watch the video ad here in Windows media format.
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Terror arrest sparks Heathrow attack fears

From The Daily Mail

A senior Al Qaeda agent planning an attack on Heathrow Airport was reportedly among twelve men arrested in anti-terror raids across England.

The man was detained as a result of intelligence gathered after a recent raid in Pakistan, according to media reports.

The Al Qaeda figure was said to be in the advanced planning stages for an attack on Heathrow.

Last month's raid in Pakistan led to the arrest of 25-year-old computer expert Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan and the seizure of his computer files. The files included what appeared to be plans to attack targets in Britain and the United States.

Pakistani intelligence officials told CNN that Khan revealed to them the existence of a terror network in Britain.

He told them he often relayed messages from Pakistan to the leader of the British cell, who was a top Al Qaeda agent who went by the codename Bilal.

The officials reportedly said the intelligence led to the arrests across England on Tuesday, and that the alleged senior British Al Qaeda figure was among those detained.

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Iraqi citizens rise up and free hostages

From AP

In an extraordinary assault, gunmen in the city of Fallujah stormed a kidnappers' lair and forced the overmatched militants inside to flee, freeing four Jordanian truck drivers held captive, local officials said Wednesday.

The raid, in a city that has long been hostile to the U.S. military and supportive of Saddam Hussein, marked the first time local gunmen had broken foreign hostages out of captivity. They called the kidnappers "terrorists' and outsiders.

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Wednesday, August 04, 2004

U.S. LAUNCHES MAJOR MISSION ALONG SYRIAN BORDER

From Middle East Newsline

BAGHDAD [MENL] -- The U.S. military, backed by Iraqi forces, has launched a major operation along the border with Syria.

U.S. officials said Operation Phantom Linebacker has comprised of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as armored combat vehicles, unmanned air vehicles and helicopters in an effort to stem the flow of insurgents, funds and weapons from Syria into Iraq. The officials said the operation came in wake of a determination that the Sunni insurgency, including support for Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, was coming mainly from Saddam Hussein loyalists who have fled to Syria.

Officials said the operation was the largest by the United States to stop weapons from Syria. Earlier missions involved mainly fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft in pursuit of Sunni insurgents along the more than 500 kilometer Iraqi-Syrian border.

The operation began on Aug. 2 and also comprised a range of Iraqi security forces. They included the Iraqi Border Police and Iraqi National Guard.

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New York terror alert

The Democrats are making a big deal about the date of the intelligence that instigated the latest terror alert. Here is some food for thought on that score.

"One of the most sobering pieces of information to come out of the investigation of the March 11th [2004] [Madrid train] bombings is that the planning for the attacks may have begun nearly a year before 9/11. In October, 2000, several of the suspects met in Istanbul with Amer Azizi, who had taken the nom de guerre Othman Al Andalusi—Othman of Al Andalus. Azizi later gave the conspirators permission to act in the name of Al Qaeda, although it is unclear whether he authorized money or other assistance—or, indeed, whether Al Qaeda had much support to offer. In June, Italian police released a surveillance tape of one of the alleged planners of the train bombings, an Egyptian housepainter named Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, who said that the operation “took me two and a half years.” Ahmed had served as an explosives expert in the Egyptian Army. It appears that some kind of attack would have happened even if Spain had not joined the Coalition—or if the invasion of Iraq had never occurred."

The New Yorker

Pakistan Bags Top Al Qaeda Suspect, Several Arrests

From Reuters

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan arrested a suspected member of al Qaeda with a multi-million-dollar price on his head and several others, government officials said Tuesday.

Arrests over the last three days in Pakistan follow on from an earlier sweep for militants which led to information of a possible attack in the United States and a subsequent rise in the U.S. state of alert.

"We have arrested in the past 24 hours from Punjab another two people of African origin who in our view have links to al Qaeda," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told Reuters.

"Before that another person was arrested who has a multi-million-dollar bounty on his head," the minister added, but he declined to give any further details on the big catch.

The crackdown on militants in Pakistan has apparently gathered pace since the capture of a computer engineer who acted as an e-mail postman for the groups by distributing coded messages. The New York Times said he was arrested in mid-July.

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Terror attack to be in early September

From Newsday

WASHINGTON -- More financial institutions than previously disclosed may be at risk of attack, and an al-Qaida operative has told British intelligence that the group's target date is early September, intelligence sources said yesterday.

The operative, described as "credible" by British intelligence, told his debriefers that the attack would take place "60 days before the presidential election" on Nov. 2, according to a former senior National Security Council official. On Sept. 2 President George W. Bush is expected to address the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden.

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Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Report: Zarqawi Trying to Get Message to Bin Laden

From Fox News

WASHINGTON — Jordanian terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search), believed responsible for a series of attacks, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq, has been trying to communicate with Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden, a senior defense official tells FOX News.

Within the past several days, the anonymous defense official said, a courier had been intercepted inside Iraq bearing a message from Zarqawi to bin Laden. The official would not reveal the contents of the message or exactly when and where its bearer had been found.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Arrest of Al-Qaeda computer engineer in Pakistan led to new US alert

From AFP

The capture of an Al-Qaeda computer engineer in Pakistan in mid-July led to the most recent terror alert in the United States, the New York Times reported, quoting senior US officials.

Pakistani officials arrested Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old computer engineer, on July 13, according to the Times. The suspect is believed to have used and managed an Al-Qaeda communications system where information was transferred via coded messages, according to the Times.

A senior US official told the Times that "documentary evidence" found after Khan's capture showed in detail that Al-Qaeda members had been studying the buildings they want to target in New York, Newark and Washington even before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

A second senior US intelligence official told the newspaper the information was more detailed than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work.

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Sunday, August 01, 2004

The New York Times trashes Kerry's acceptance speech

The New York Times

"What an incoherent disaster. When you actually read for content, you see that the speech skirts almost every tough issue and comes out on both sides of every major concern. The Iraq section is shamefully evasive. He can't even bring himself to use the word "democratic" or to contemplate any future for Iraq, democratic or otherwise. He can't bring himself to say whether the war was a mistake or to lay out even the most meager plan for moving forward. For every gesture in the direction of greater defense spending, there are opposing hints about reducing our commitments and bringing the troops home."...

"And it all brings back the memories of Kerry the senator. For though convention viewers may not be aware of it, Kerry has actually had a career since his four months in Vietnam - mostly in the Senate. It's not true that Kerry is a flaming lefty (he's a genuine budget hawk and he voted for welfare reform), but he was wrong about just about every major foreign policy judgment of the last two decades. He voted against the first gulf war, against many major weapons systems. He fought to reduce the defense budget. He opposed the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in the early 1980's. He supported the nuclear freeze. His decision to authorize war in Iraq but vote against financing the occupation is the least intellectually coherent position of all possible alternatives."

Wow! And this is from The New York Times which calls itself a liberal newspaper.

The New York Times

"Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?
By DANIEL OKRENT

Published: July 25, 2004

OF course it is.

The fattest file on my hard drive is jammed with letters from the disappointed, the dismayed and the irate who find in this newspaper a liberal bias that infects not just political coverage but a range of issues from abortion to zoology to the appointment of an admitted Democrat to be its watchdog. (That would be me.)

"...Democrat to be its watchdog"
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The New York Times trashes Kerry's acceptance speech

The New York Times

"What an incoherent disaster. When you actually read for content, you see that the speech skirts almost every tough issue and comes out on both sides of every major concern. The Iraq section is shamefully evasive. He can't even bring himself to use the word "democratic" or to contemplate any future for Iraq, democratic or otherwise. He can't bring himself to say whether the war was a mistake or to lay out even the most meager plan for moving forward. For every gesture in the direction of greater defense spending, there are opposing hints about reducing our commitments and bringing the troops home."...

"And it all brings back the memories of Kerry the senator. For though convention viewers may not be aware of it, Kerry has actually had a career since his four months in Vietnam - mostly in the Senate. It's not true that Kerry is a flaming lefty (he's a genuine budget hawk and he voted for welfare reform), but he was wrong about just about every major foreign policy judgment of the last two decades. He voted against the first gulf war, against many major weapons systems. He fought to reduce the defense budget. He opposed the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in the early 1980's. He supported the nuclear freeze. His decision to authorize war in Iraq but vote against financing the occupation is the least intellectually coherent position of all possible alternatives."

Wow! And this is from The New York Times which calls itself a liberal newspaper.

The New York Times

"Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?
By DANIEL OKRENT

Published: July 25, 2004

OF course it is.

The fattest file on my hard drive is jammed with letters from the disappointed, the dismayed and the irate who find in this newspaper a liberal bias that infects not just political coverage but a range of issues from abortion to zoology to the appointment of an admitted Democrat to be its watchdog. (That would be me.)

"...Democrat to be its watchdog"
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Brain Bliss