Analysis: Israel at war

Two days of dizzying escalation, and there can be no illusions: Israel is at war.

Yep! No doubts here!

There are those who have branded this latest conflict a continuation of Israel’s War of Independence, and there is no little truth in the assertion. On both of the fronts on which Israel has been drawn into heavy fighting, its enemies can make no legitimate claim to be pursuing a territorial dispute: as of last summer, Israel relinquished its hold on the Gaza Strip; in Lebanon, it pulled back to the UN-certified international border six years ago.

Except that, in both cases, the Jewish state’s assailants are indeed pursuing a territorial ambition – to unseat Israel from its own sovereign lands.

I think he’s got it nailed down pretty well.

Senate denies funds for new border fence

Less than two months after voting overwhelmingly to build 370 miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted against providing funds to build it. “We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of legislating,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican whose amendment to fund the fence was killed on a 71-29 vote. “The things we do often sound very good, but we never quite get there.”

Just a sellection of headers from DRUDGE REPORT says it all, as WW-III may be getting started (or not).

Hizbollah, Israel head for showdown…
Drone Attacks Warship…
Syria and Iran told to rein in guerrilla group…
Hizbollah chief defiant…
Palestinians Stream Into Gaza From Egypt…
Vatican condemns Israel for attacks on Lebanon…
Hizbullah: We will hit beyond Haifa…
General warns range greater than thought…
200,000+ now staying in bomb shelters…
USA warns against travel; authorizes personnel evacuation…

Hopefully Israel will literally stick to its guns and forcefully disestablish Hezbollah and Hamas once and for all.

Democrats pull ad with flag-draped coffins

Democrats pulled an Internet ad that showed flag-draped coffins Friday after Republicans and at least two Democrats demanded it be taken down on grounds the image was insensitive and not fit for a political commercial.

Apparently at least SOME Donks are not without some sense of shame!

Battle Plans

The next Middle East war – Israel against genocidal Islamism – has begun. The first stage of the war started two weeks ago, with the Israeli incursion into Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and the ongoing shelling of Israeli towns and kibbutzim; now, with Hezbollah’s latest attack, the war has spread to southern Lebanon. Ultimately, though, Israel’s antagonists won’t be Hamas and Hezbollah but their patrons, Iran and Syria. The war will go on for months, perhaps several years. There may be lulls in the fighting, perhaps even temporary agreements and prisoner exchanges. But those periods of calm will be mere respites.

The Chief has always figured that there could be nothing as far as any lasting resolution of the Jihadistan Islamofiascist terror war is concerned as long as Hezbollah, and Ham-ass were going concerns in Paleswine and Lebanon.

Both are convenient front-men for Syria and Iran, who are truly part of the axis of evil (in spite of Bush’s neglect to include Syria in that initial list.

Here’s hoping that Israel takes names and kicks butt over there! If so it couldn’t happen to more deserving folks.

from the London Telegraph:

Israeli forces bombard Lebanon

Israel imposed a naval blockade on Lebanon, bombed its airports and threatened to sever the main road to Syria yesterday as fears grew that the military confrontation in Gaza and Lebanon could develop into a wider regional conflict.

Definitely no more Mr. Nice-guy!

Civilians fled on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border and the Hizbollah militia responded to Israel’s intense air and artillery bombardment with volleys of more than 80 rockets into northern Israel. Two rockets were said to have fallen as far south as the port city of Haifa for the first time.

What a concept. A nation is attacked across its border, and then acts forcefully to defend itself and its people. The Chief hopes someon in Washington is paying attention, and perhaps may even learn what to do.

Hidden agenda

This comes up in the context of the upcoming G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia.

This year, as at past G-8 meetings, there will be another, enormously momentous item in play – a threat that will receive, all other things being equal, little if any public notice. Call it a hidden agenda. Unless President Bush asserts his adamant opposition, it is likely that the G-8 leaders will once again do what they did last year. They will endorse in some fashion the imposition of global taxes.

Yech!

Most Americans would of course reject such a notion – as has Mr. Bush in the past. For starters, as a general rule, we don’t like taxes very much. Then there is the natty little problem that we may have no say over the size or character of global taxes. These amount to “taxation without representation,” something our founders considered so intolerable they put on the line their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to be free of it.

OK, so what else is wrong here?

Worst of all, global taxes are well understood by their proponents as a way of addressing what they see as grievous ills. Chief among these is the sovereignty exercised and the concentration of wealth enjoyed by nations like the United States.

Bingo! This is why Soros, Turner, Carter, et al are salivating at the prospect of a UN based IRS.

Fortunately there IS a poison pill or two that may be in the offing:

The only hopeful news is that the Congress has begun to awaken to the danger represented by these initiatives – and the precedents they are creating. The House of Representatives has adopted legislation “that prohibits the Treasury from paying UN dues if the organization attempts to implement or impose any kind of tax on U.S. citizens.” Unfortunately, this would not necessarily prevent global taxes from being inflicted through the action of member states, as is being done now by the French and their friends.

Today [Tuesday], however, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska will be introducing legislation designed to penalize the UN by withholding American funding if it advocates, promotes or tries to impose global taxes on U.S. citizens. They are to be commended for taking this initiative and the full Senate should adopt it at the earliest possible moment.

This is a low profile issue (especially in the MSM), but still is one worthy of close attention, or we could all wake up and find ourselves in deep…you get the idea!

Kim Jong-Il offers to abandon nukes in exchange for role as villain in new Bond film

Hey – he DOES fit that pattern! It would work out, at least for Hollywood.

Beheading Desecration Video of Dead U.S. Soldiers Released on Internet by al Qaeda

If you have ANY doubts about whether or not we should be fighting to eliminate Islamofascist Jihadistanis, this should be as strong a reminder as anything else – like the censored videos of 9-11 victims diving out the windows to avoid incineration, etc.

It reminds the Chief once again that when Islamists refer to their “religion of peace”, it is only the peace that results from willing and complete submission to their spiritual abomination that sanctions stuff like this.

WARNING: If you do take a look at this stuff, remember, it’s about as graphic and tough as anything you can imagine. FOr comparison purposes, it brings to mind the stuff NOT shown in the scene where William Wallace is executed in Braveheart. One can only hope that the US troopers were killed FIRST, before they were so grossly abused, but one can also only fear that this may not have been the case.

We CANNOT live with these people. They can only be exterminated. They need to be shot not once or twice, but three times, to make sure that the time and paperwork to put them someplace like GITMO is not wasted.

DEUS VULT!

Co-ordinated Bombay blasts kill 163 on rush hour trains

UPDATE: Count up to 190 later in evening!

At least 163 Indian commuters were killed tonight when seven co-ordinated bomb blasts tore through crowded trains and stations in the Indian financial capital of Bombay, creating rush-hour chaos on one of the world’s busiest train networks.

(Hmmmm. The Chief notes in passing that there’s none of that post-colonial “Mumbai” stuff for the Times of London! To them it’s still “Bombay”!)

More seriously though, the only real question is which particular flavor of Islamofascism is accountable for this latest incident of mass murder – not that it really matters to India and the dead and injured victims.

In fact, the Chief would submit that it doesn’t matter to anyone – Islamofascists are all (bad) seeds out of the same pod, whichever faction they claim as their identity.

Kill ’em all, celebrate with a nice ham and swiss on rye afterwards, and F’ ’em if they can’t take the joke!

China’s Secret Arms Trade

A spate of recent spying cases opens the lid on China’s aggressive military buildup. What’s most troubling: It is based largely on U.S. technology.

These guys are the REAL threat. Where does Iran get a lot of its military tech? ChiComs. What about North Korea? Chicoms again. Hey – that’s 2/3 of the original “Axis of Evil” made in Beijing, using tech stolen from…USA.

What’s to say? This is an important and alarming article.

We need to start throwing away the key (at least) or executing (preferred) spies again.

Judge rules FBI raid on Hill office legal

A federal judge in Washington yesterday said the FBI’s search of Rep. William J. Jefferson’s Capitol Hill offices in a bribery investigation — which ignited a firestorm of protest in Congress — was legal and denied efforts by defense attorneys to have the seized documents returned.

So much for Congressional privilige in this sort of thing. I guess $90,000 in “cold cash” stuck in the freezer is a bit much even for a federal judge to swallow.

U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas Hogan, in a 28-page opinion, described the “facts and questions of law presented” by the May 20 weekend raid on the Louisiana Democrat’s office as “indeed unprecedented,” but said it was “well-established” that a member of Congress was as bound to criminal laws “as are ordinary persons.”

What a concept! Congresscritters subject to the same law as us peasants…er…”ordinary persons”!

‘Marriage’ amendment OK’d for vote

Another set of state supremes, this time in Massachusetts have ruled in favor of the constitutional legality of a marriage definition amendment, this time in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, showing that the legal system is not totally mind-dead just yet.

This allows the proposed amendment to continue its progress towards an eventual vote, possibly in 2008.

The same piece notes progress of similar move in Arizona, but a signature certification problem in Illinois on a non-binding initiated resolution.

In general, the Chief supports such amendments for a variety of reasons previously posted.

Cry havoc, and let slip the puppies of war

This analysis is from Spengler, writing in Asia Times Online, IMO one of the most perceptive commentators around in media these days.

Dogs of war incline toward caution, which after all is how they grew up to be dogs. More worrisome are puppies, who do not know what danger is. Gavrilo Princeps, the Serbian gunman who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand dead in June 1914, was a puppy. So are the Hamas kidnappers, who at this writing still hold Israeli Army Corporal Gilad Shalit, and the Mehdi Army shooters who reportedly disposed of several dozen Sunni civilians in Baghdad on the weekend. The North Koreans, by contrast, are just nasty old dogs who long ago got loose from their leash.

Unfortunately, there’s more, much more. Read it and weep.

Terrorist who plotted Beslan school siege dies in blast

The Chechen terrorist who claimed to have masterminded the Beslan school siege was killed in a huge explosion yesterday. Shamil Basayev was apparently preparing to mount a fresh attack to coincide with this weekend’s G8 summit in St Petersburg. Russian officials claimed he was killed in a special forces operation after a decade-long manhunt.

The Chief would guess that this makes the Russians feel pretty good, and in fact this guess is confirmed by Putin himself:

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was jubilant after being told of Basayev’s death. “For the bandits, this is just retribution for our children in Beslan … and for all the terrorist attacks they carried out in Moscow and other regions of Russia,” he said.

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Marines Want Space Plane

Is a Space Ship One type space craft destined for military purposes? According to the Marines, aye-sir!

The Chief is impressed by this idea!

The space insertion project, dubbed Hot Eagle, seems a bit far-fetched. Despite the obvious technological obstacles, military and defense contracting officials say that developing a craft that would accomplish the SUSTAIN mission is feasible.

This article has links to several sites covering this concept in more detail, and in a serious way, like this one in The Space Review.

There are obvious Sci-fi concepts that come to mind. In spite of the most obvious: Heinlien’s “drop ships” as illustrated in his book, and incorrectly in the Starship Troopers movie, the Chief thinks a better model are the space marine “assault shuttles” as presented in David Weber’s “Honorverse” books.

Sci-fi or not, this sounds like a plan to the Chief…go for it!

West mounts ‘secret war’ to keep nuclear North Korea in check

This one comes from the Times of London.

A PROGRAMME of covert action against nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea and Iran is to be intensified after last week’s missile tests by the North Korean regime.

Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a “secret war” against Pyongyang and Tehran.

There’s been a LOT going on out there under the radar, and it’s a good thing too! Check it out.

Notice how this isn’t in the US MSM? I guess it doesn’t make a good club to use to bash the President.

It’s WW-III, and U.S. is out of ideas

OpEd from the NY Daily News

Last week’s headlines prove the point: North Korea fires missiles, Iran talks of nukes again, Iraq carnage continues, Israel invades Gaza, England observes one-year anniversary of subway bombing. And, oh, yes, the feds stop a plot to blow up tunnels under the Hudson River.

World War III has begun.

Dang! Another one just got mugged by reality!

Either that or he accidently ordered a double espresso and woke up.

Welcome to the real world. Better late than never!

Japan Considers Strike Against N. Korea

Japan said Monday it was considering whether a pre-emptive strike on the North’s missile bases would violate its constitution, signaling a hardening stance ahead of a possible U.N. Security Council vote on Tokyo’s proposal for sanctions against the regime.

This will also only increase the discussion in Japan of changing their Constitution to allow re-militarization without the need to maintain the charade of the “Japan Self-defense Forces”.

The Chief thinks this is a logical idea, whose time is rapidly approaching.

Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz

My favorite quotation from Max Headroom is in order here: “Lincoln said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. I (Max) say, if you don’t teach them to read you can fool them anytime you want to.”

Once again it is demonstrated that the art of satire applied to moonbats is in serious danger. It seems no matter how far-fetched a hypothetical situation is invented to carry moonbattery to it’s logically absurd extremity, they never fail to adopt it for themselves, as a SERIOUS proposal.

The latest illustration of this is a plan to dumb down spelling:

When “say,” “they” and “weigh” rhyme, but “bomb,” “comb” and “tomb” don’t, wuudn’t it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound? Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster and illiteracy rates would drop. Opponents say a new system would make spelling even more confusing. Eether wae, the consept has yet to capcher th publix imajinaeshun.

“It’s a very difficult thing to get something accepted like this,” says Alan Mole, president of the American Illiteracy Literacy Council, which favors an end to “illogical spelling.”

What about illogical thinking? Ooops! Better not go THERE!

This has to be rite up ther along with Ebonics(c) advocates, proving that stupid ideas are truli not based on race – wites can play the game just as dumli as blaks do.

A couple of years back the Chief got a satirical proposal for “simplification” of the spelling of English in the context of something called “Euro-English”. This uncannily reminds him of this simplified spelling idea. Check it out:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement
whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”. This should klear up
konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This
will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes
are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double
letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e”s in
the language is disgrasful, and they should go away.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz year,
ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and
similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of
leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi
to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru!

And zen ve vil tak over ze vorld!

Once again, moonbat reality catches up with satire.

Q.E.D.

Calderon Wins Mexican Presidential Race

The Chief noted his shooting from the hip evaluation that the two leading candidates south of the border represented Dumb vs. Dumber as far as the US was concerned.

If this is the case, then “dumb” won, although “dumber” has demonstrated the right to the title by promising to move into similar realms as the USA DUmmies (Democratic Underground, et al) who are STILL unwilling to accept the result of Florida 2000 and Algor’s loss.

The ruling party’s Felipe Calderon won the official count in Mexico’s disputed presidential race Thursday, a come-from-behind victory for the stiff technocrat. But his leftist rival refused to concede and said he’d fight the results in court.

Calderon, a conservative who preached free-market values and financial stability during the campaign, was already reaching out to other parties to build a “unity government.” His opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, blamed fraud for his narrow loss in the vote count and called on his supporters to fill Mexico City’s main square Saturday in a show of force.

There seems to be plenty of stupidity to go around on both sides of the border!

‘Nuff said!

Calderon Wins Mexican Presidential Race

The Chief noted the Mexican election as being, as far as the US is concerned, a contest between dumb and dumber. If that were the case, then apparently “dumb” won a close contest after some Florida-style machinations that somewhat delayed the results.

Also like the FLorida 2000 hassle, the losing opposition is demonstrating that it indeed does deserve the Chief’s epithet of “dumber”, by promising to move into a realm similar to the US DUmmies (Democratic Underground, et al) who still haven’t accepted the fact that Algor lost in Florida.

The ruling party’s Felipe Calderon won the official count in Mexico’s disputed presidential race Thursday, a come-from-behind victory for the stiff technocrat. But his leftist rival refused to concede and said he’d fight the results in court.

Calderon, a conservative who preached free-market values and financial stability during the campaign, was already reaching out to other parties to build a “unity government.” His opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, blamed fraud for his narrow loss in the vote count and called on his supporters to fill Mexico City’s main square Saturday in a show of force.

‘Nuff said!

Whalen challenges Herseth to debate

Sibby Online notes a challenge to debate from GOP House candidate Bruce Whalen of Pine Ridge thrown into the ring in a Dave Kranz column.

Personally the Chief thinks that the use of debates in campaigning at all levels would be highly instructive – BUT – the debates should be Lincoln-Douglas style, NOT the contemporary “moderated” and highly ritualized events that pass for “debates”.

Oh well. Just a thought. I would be HIGHLY surprised if real debates were held, but it would be a nice change.

NY High Court Rules Against Same-Sex Marriage

The New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, ruled Thursday that the state “constitution does not compel the recognition of marriages between members of the same sex.” In its 4-2 decision, the court said that “whether such marriages should be recognized is a question to be addressed by the legislature.”

This is definitely encouraging. A court that thinks that legislation should be done by…ready for this?…THE LEGISLATURE! What a concept!

One can only hope that it catches on!

The Vatican Confronts Islam

The estimated 40 million Christians in Dar al-Islam, notes the Barnabas Fund’s Patrick Sookhdeo, increasingly find

themselves an embattled minority facing economic decline, dwindling rights, and physical jeopardy. Most of them, he goes on, are despised and distrusted second-class citizens, facing discrimination in education, jobs, and the courts.

These harsh circumstances are causing Christians to flee their ancestral lands for the West’s more hospitable environment. Consequently, Christian populations of the Muslim world are in a free-fall. Two small but evocative instances of this pattern: for the first time in nearly two millennia, Nazareth and Bethlehem no longer have Christian majorities.

This reality of oppression and decline stands in dramatic contrast to the surging Muslim minority of the West. Although numbering fewer than 20 million and made up mostly of immigrants and their offspring, it is an increasingly established and vocal minority, granted extensive rights and protections even as it wins new legal, cultural, and political prerogatives.

This is nothing new – what is new here is that patience is running out, and even the Vatican is increasingly willing to pubhlically call a spade a spade:

This widening disparity has caught the attention of the Church, which for the first time is pointing to radical Islam, rather than the actions of Israel, as the central problem facing Christians living with Muslims.

Wow! What a concept! RADICAL ISLAM is the problem, not Israel? What’s next?

Obtaining the same rights for Christians in Islamdom that Muslims enjoy in Christendom has become the key to the Vatican’s diplomacy toward Muslims. This balanced, serious approach marks a profound improvement in understanding that could have implications well beyond the Church, given how many lay politicians heed its leadership in inter-faith matters. Should Western states also promote the principle of reciprocity, the results should indeed be interesting.

Friends rallying to defend DIA spy

This is just nuts! How can the indefensible be defended like this?

A senior intelligence official is leading an effort within the Bush administration to defend former Defense Intelligence Agency China specialist Ronald Montaperto, who pleaded guilty recently to espionage-related charges involving Chinese intelligence. Lonnie Henley, a friend of Montaperto and another former DIA China specialist, has written e-mails and had telephone conversations with intelligence and policy officials criticizing the FBI investigation and seeking to downplay the damage caused by Montaperto’s 22 years of contacts with two Chinese military intelligence officers, according to officials familiar with the private support program.

The effort by numerous pro-China intelligence analysts is aimed at protecting their prestige and influence, and at shielding others in government who share Montaperto’s benign views of China and the Chinese military, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The result has been near-silence from the Bush administration and Congress on a major Chinese spy case, while at the same time President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials publicly criticized recent press disclosures of a classified anti-terrorism financial-tracking program.

There is nothing that the Chief can see that justifies this sort of thing. The mental myopia regarding the ChiComs is just as serious as it would be if we were downplaying the threat of the Taliban in Afghanistan. (Oh….right…or rather wrong…whatever.)

As deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia under Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John D. Negroponte, Mr. Henley is one of the most senior U.S. intelligence analysts. His defense of Montaperto and criticism of the FBI is unusual and has raised concerns among U.S. counterintelligence officials that there are others in the intelligence community who may have improperly shared classified information with China.

What’s the record have to say?

Montaperto pleaded guilty June 21 in federal court in Alexandria to one count of illegally retaining classified documents, based on statements to investigators and several classified DIA reports found in his Springfield home. He claimed he could not remember all the classified data he supplied Chinese intelligence officers Yang Qiming and Yu Zenghe. The guilty plea followed statements to investigators made by Montaperto in 2003 that included an admission of providing “top secret” information to Chinese military intelligence officers. Montaperto said he passed top-secret information to Mr. Yu, a military intelligence officer and attache at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, according to the court papers in the case.

Whay aren’t “Mr. Yu” et al declared personna non grata and kicked out of the country? We used to do this regularly to the Russians in similar cases!

Somebody needs to use a big broom to clean house in what apparently is a “China establishment” within the US intel community, and begin by identifiying what’s really been going on here: high treason!

“Treason doth never prosper – What’s the reason?
If it doth prosper, none dare call it treason.” – Sir John Harrington

Spies. Ropes. Trees. Some assembly required.

Illegal students face expulsion from France

What a “man bites dog” story!

An amnesty for foreign students who are in France illegally expires with the end of the school year tomorrow, making tens of thousands of youths eligible for deportation and prompting cries of alarm from left-wing and pro-immigrant groups.

Hey, if the Fwench can muster enough determination (which still remains to be seen in the end) to move in this direction, there should be no reason why we can’t do it too.

Mexico election too close to call

Mexico’s intensely fought presidential race was deadlocked between rival leftist and conservative candidates yesterday, revealing deep divisions in this country of 100 million. The standoff will lead to days of political uncertainty until enough votes are counted by the official Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to declare a clear winner.

As far as the Chief is concerned, neither one of these guys will do us much good, but one of them is not as bad as the other.

We REALLY don’t want a Marxist oriented socialist to manage…er…mismanage the government down there. Who wins? Who knows!

Senators promise Gitmo statute

Well, SCOTUS’s ruling on Tribunals for the GITMO inhabitants suggested that if this decision wasn’t liked, that Congress was free to address the problem.

Hopefully this is an early sign that this could be done.

Don’t Believe the Hype

Algor’s claims of scientific unanimity have less credibility than his claims to have won in Florida in 1980.

Dr. Richard Linzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT explains why in this WSJ OpEd piece, including enough scientific statements of what Algor no doubt would find as truly “inconvenient truths”.

Check it out.