Wouldn't it be great?

What he said.

About that KGB video

and why I'm not linking it. (Go to Pajamas Media.)

This is an example of something I think is probably true and probably important - but I'd like to have better sourcing and context before posting it. Yuri Bezmenov is (we're told) a former KGB agent, and he explains the KGB's covert tactics including "demoralization" in the US.

Now I don't doubt for a minute that the Soviet Communists did a lot of damage to America with covert operations, and it wouldn't surprise me if every word Bezmenov says is true. But here's the thing: Who is interviewing him? Where and when was the interview conducted? What do we know about Bezmenov other than what the video (and Pajamas media) tell us?

I'm an enemy of Communism. But not every enemy of Communism is a friend of mine.

Where did this video come from? And did the folks at Pajamas Media take a look at the other videos this same YouTube user has posted?

And did they notice the "88" in the guy's username?

Morning Report: June 7, 2007

A Turkish offensive sparks rumors and denials.

Turkey-Iraq-Kurdistan update. Debka is standing by its story of a major anti-PKK offensive by Turkish forces, but has backed down from its earlier claim that some 50,000 Turkish troops had entered Iraq. According to a press release, Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gül (and will somebody please tell Debka that the man's name is Gül, not Gulf) denied that any troops had crossed the border at all.

Turkish FM denies troops enter northern Iraq
Published: 06/06/2007 16:28 GMT

ANKARA - Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul denied Wednesday that Turkish troops had entered neighbouring northern Iraq in a cross-border operation to hunt down Kurdish terrorists.

"There is no incursion into any other country at the moment," Gul told reporters here.

He was responding to a question on media reports that several thousand Turkish troops had crossed into the Kurdish-held autonomous enclave to crack down on Kurdish terrorists based there.

Interestingly enough, a similar denial came from Baghdad:

Iraq says sees no sign of incursion by Turkish army
Wed Jun 6, 2007 12:40PM EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Wednesday there was no evidence that Turkish troops had crossed the Iraqi border to launch a military operation against Turkish rebels hiding in the mountains.

"We have checked all along the border and there hasn't been any incursion or military operation inside Iraqi territory," he told Reuters.

"Iraq will not tolerate any military incursion. There is always room for dialogue," he said.

A Turkish military official said Turkish troops had conducted a "limited operation" into northern Iraq in recent days in pursuit of Kurdish rebels.

"This cannot be called a cross-border operation, it is a limited operation," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Here's what Debka is saying about the Turkey/Iraq situation now:

June 7, 2007, 3:59 PM (GMT+02:00) - Turkey imposes three-month martial law on its border region with Iraq, closes region’s airspace to civilian flights, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.

The announcement appeared Thursday, June 7, on the Turkish General Command’s Web site and mentioned three zones Siirt, Sirnak, where Turkish forces fighting Kurdish PKK rebels are concentrated, and Hakkari.

It followed the outbreak of fierce battles between Turkish army and Kurdish PKK rebels on both sides of Turkish-Iraqi border. A Turkish Black Hawk shot down over Iraq and several tanks hit. Heavy casualties are reported on both sides.

The PKK Kurdish Workers Party turns out to have been ready for the major Turkish operation, well-armed with anti-tank and shoulder-borne missiles for shooting down Turkish warplanes and helicopters. Despite Ankara’s blackout on the scale of operation against the Kurdish rebels on both sides of the border and the scope of the Turkish incursion of Iraq, DEBKAfile’s military sources report the situation as of Thursday, June 7:

PKK bands, who stole earlier into southeastern Turkey from Iraq and locally, are hitting Turkish concentrations behind the lines and impeding their thrust into Iraqi Kurdistan to destroy rebel hideouts. The Turkish army is therefore fighting on two fronts: in the southeastern Turkish Gabar, Cudi and Bakok mountains and River Cehennem, as well as in northern Iraq.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reported Wednesday that the several thousand troops which entered N. Iraq were only the first wave of the Turkish invasion, with more to come. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US ambassador to Ankara had met with the Turkish General Staff, which confirmed that the initial reports of the invasion were not accurate [duh - aa]. Later reports spoke of a “cross-border” raid.

Our military sources estimate that some 15,000 rebel Kurdish Workers Party, PKK, are holed up in Iraqi Kurdistan. To destroy their bases would require many more than the few thousand Turkish troops and longer than a cross-border raid admitted by Ankara – especially if the incursion sparked Iraqi Kurdish resistance as has been threatened. ...

Full post at the link. That's absolutely all I have on this at the moment, so now you know as much as I do. I'll post anything else that comes up.

Commentary. My unscientific guess is that there was a cross-border attack, and the "several thousand troops" figure is closer to the truth. There is probably a lot of backstage poltics going on here; the Kurds are not a political monolith, and Kurds on the Iraqi side of the border may have different interests from those on the Turkish side - with all due respect to the ideal of a unified Kurdistan. I'm hoping Michael Totten will post something on this soon. Right now he's resting up from our road trip with Judith Weiss yesterday.

JFK Terror Plot Update

Latest updates. Tammy Bruce: 'As I noted about an offhand comment made by one of the Islamists wife, there seems to be quite a direct connection to the JFK Airport plot to both Venezuela and Iran. Now, the FBI is making noise that they, too, are curious about the situation. The fact that this is news to them concerns me. Chavez and Ahmadinejad have been making eyes at each other for quite some time, even to the point last year of Chevez offering Venezuela as aplace for Iran to park some of its warplanes.

I have also reminded you on various occassions about al-Qiada, Hamas and Hezbollah running the drug operations in South America, and using the Mexican border as a conduit for Islamists terrorists. Thism akes the absurdity of the amnesty bill the monumental danger to homeland security. Even though Michael Chertoff seems to be more worries about $50 lettuce.'

Abdul Nur, 4th suspect in JFK terror plot, surrenders. 'A Guyanese suspect in an alleged plot to bomb a fuel pipeline feeding New York's John F. Kennedy Airport surrendered to police Tuesday in Trinidad, a police official said. Abdel Nur turned himself in at a police station outside the Trinidadian capital of Port-of-Spain, police spokeswoman Wendy Campbell told The Associated Press. "This is the fourth of the group we were looking for" in the alleged plot to blow up fuel lines that feed the airport, said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko in Washington. ... The others arrested include a former opposition member of Guyana's parliament and a former airport air cargo employee who was arrested in New York. ... U.S. authorities claim the alleged plotters unsuccessfully sought support in Trinidad from Jamaat al Muslimeen, a radical Islamic group that staged a deadly coup attempt in the Caribbean nation in 1990. In addition to Nur, Trinidadian authorities are holding two suspects: Abdul Kadir, the former Guyanese lawmaker, and Kareem Ibrahim of Trinidad. They are fighting extradition to the United States. The other suspect named, Russell Defreitas, is a former JFK air cargo employee who was arrested in New York. He is a U.S. citizen native to Guyana, a former Dutch and British colony on the northern coast of South America.' Go to the link for full story.

KEYE-42 (CBS) has more, with quotes from anti-terrorism expert Richard Miniter. They've also got a still from the video at Lindenwood Diner where Defreitas took his last breaths as a free man. And reminders that this nutjob was nursing a grudge against America and Israel for a long time.

CNN: Four men charged. This item has a good video segment by CNN (worth sitting through the commercial).

Remarks. One thing that's starting to bug me about this story is that the Government's assessment of the plot seems to be inconsistent: it would have resulted in a "significant loss of life" (Mark Mershon, FBI) and yet it "wasn't technically feasible" (Homeland Security). Well, which is it? It might be possible to reconcile these two statements, but on the face of things it looks as if the Feds can't make up their minds.

Morning Report: June 5, 2007

One terrorist plot busted, but many more to go. Are we surprised that Iran's name is coming up? Sometimes the biggest challenge is keeping the power on.

JFK terror plot "tip of the iceberg". The Telegraph: 'The alleged conspiracy to blow up John F Kennedy airport, in New York, and a recent plot to kill soldiers at a nearby United States Army base represent only the "tip of the iceberg" of terrorist plots against America, according to US officials. "There's a lot of activity out there," a counter-terrorism official said yesterday. "Obviously, you don't want to tip off every suspect that they are being monitored. On the other hand, we are not going to wait until the fuse is lit." He said that the airport plot, which sparked a lengthy FBI sting operation, was first detected by CIA operatives in the Caribbean and South America nearly 18 months ago. "Our intelligence agencies pay careful attention to what goes on there," the official told The Daily Telegraph. ... The FBI announced at the weekend that they had foiled a plan to blow up a 40-mile fuel pipeline to JFK airport, which handles a thousand flights a day. It was allegedly hatched by Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese-born American citizen who had enlisted the help of a Guyanese politician and a radical Islamist group in Trinidad, when he worked as a cargo handler at the airport before 1995. The counter-terrorism official said that although the plan "was not technically possible" it was one of many cases being investigated by the US government and highlighted the twin dangers of Muslim Islamists holding American passports and plots with links to other countries.'

Iran connection? Via Power Line, The New York Sun reports: 'As New York police and the FBI interview suspects in an alleged plot to attack John F. Kennedy International Airport, one thread the ongoing investigation will explore is why one of the suspects was planning to go to Iran. A former Guyanese legislator, Abdul Kadir, was arrested in Trinidad on Friday on a plane bound for Caracas, Venezuela. According to Mr. Kadir's wife, Isha Kadir, he was in the island nation to pick up an Iranian visa so he could attend an Islamic conference in Tehran. Two of Mr. Kadir's children are studying in Iran, according to Mrs. Kadir. Trinidad's counterterrorism police are also investigating whether one of Mr. Kadir's alleged co-conspirators, a 56-year old Shiite imam in Trinidad named Kareem Ibrahim, had ties to Shiite organizations in southern Iraq and Iran through an Islamic discussion group he hosted, according to the Trinidad Express.'

Power surge. CENTCOM: '“The surge has assisted civil military operations by putting more coalition eyes on the environment, so that we get a more responsive analysis of what essential services and economic development services are needed by the populace,” said Lt. Col. John Rudolph, the assistant chief of staff of civil military operations for Multi-National Division – Baghdad. Rudolph said civil military operations in MND-B’s area of operation, which run the gamut from governance to agriculture to infrastructure to economic improvements, have already dedicated more than $163 million of Commander’s Emergency Relief Project (CERP) funds to projects all aimed at improving the quality of life for Iraqis living in and around Baghdad. “This really is about improving the quality of life for the Iraqis,” said Brig. Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the deputy commanding general for support with MND-B. That “support” role not only touches the lives of the 50,000-plus troops working under MND-B, but also the Iraqi people. He said it’s challenging to move ahead with quality of life initiatives in the face of extremist efforts to stop them. “There is a perception that I’ve seen in every sector of this region we have responsibility for - when I talk to the Iraqis - that the Americans have the ability to put a man on the moon, and yet they can’t provide us with electricity,” Brooks said. “That whole idea of an expectation that we promised and haven’t delivered causes a great deal of problems.” Most westerners and Americans, for sure, cannot conceive flicking on a light switch on the wall and having it click with no effect. But, Baghdad has never had electricity flowing to its six million residents 24 hours a day. Electricity, or the lack thereof, was also tool used by the Ba’athist regime to reward or punish the population. “You saw areas favored by Saddam and his regime see power longer throughout the day, but they still didn’t get power 24/7,” Rudolph said. “They still had to use what they called the ‘generator men,’ who were entrepreneurs who had their own generators and supplied power to local neighborhoods for the ‘off power’ periods - even during Saddam’s period.”'

Suspected terrorists detained. MNF-Iraq: 'Coalition Forces detained four suspected terrorists including one suspected terrorist cell leader Tuesday morning during raids in northeast Baghdad. The individuals detained during the raid are believed to be members of the secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training.'

Commentary. The official quoted in this morning's first item says the plot was "not technically possible", which comes as a relief and will no doubt provide amusement for those who insist that concerns about terrorism are exaggerated. Well, good; and let's hope the rest of the terrorist iceberg isn't technically possible either, but my money's on keeping the fight on.

There are two things going through my mind right now. The first is that it's a well-established technique of the Left to practice the art of misdirection. Whenever the concern is raised about domestic terrorism, or a foreign islamist threat, or Communist influence in our government, the response is to shift the focus from the concern itself to a counter-concern: "Some people think terrorism is a threat [primary concern], but what about the threat from domestic wiretapping [counter-concern]?" The function of the counter-concern is to divert attention from the primary concern, which is left unaddressed. There is no interest in the question, "Why might some people consider terrorism a threat? Is terrorism a threat?"

The second is the principle noted by Jonathan Weiner in the Counterterrorism Blog, "What we have seen in common with each of these dangerous movements fizzling out is the lost of belief in the underlying ideology that sustained the terrorist fervor, and the integration of persons who once could have been subjects from recruitment into the opportunities of mainstream society." In this process - as in the ground war itself - patience and persistence will be the key.

I remember reading a comment on a liberal friend's journal worrying about the "'war on terror' mentality". It is this "mentality" that most spooks our enemies and their enablers, and it is indeed precisely this "mentality" that we must maintain. This means holding our ground and being clear in our conviction that the blessings of freedom and liberal democracy are worth defending.

Sadr's Return

Omar Fadhil at PJM:

Given the combination of SIIC leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s [wiki] absence from the Shia political scene, the training Sadr received in Iran, and the timing Tehran chose for his return, Moqtada al-Sadr has obviously returned strong. Strong enough to summon seven Iraqi governors to meet him and listen to his instructions about how they should run their respective provinces in central and southern Iraq at the same time his militiamen were fighting the police forces of at least one of those provinces.

In the speech Sadr made at that meeting he called for the peaceful coexistence and cooperation of the police and army on one side, and the Mahdi Army on the other.

Setting aside the fact that endorsing an armed outlaw militia is a brazen violation of the constitution and criminal law (militias that existed prior to OIF are something of a different case, though they too remain constitutionally unacceptable), the meeting sets a dangerous precedent. Sadr is presenting himself as a head of state, leading senior state officials to his meeting like sheep, and challenging the power of the legitimate leaders of the country.

Maliki reacted quickly and gathered the governors around his table in an attempt to minimize Sadr’s influence, and ordered the governors to cleanse their security forces of any elements whose loyalties lie outside of the Iraqi government. It remains unclear which man made a bigger impact. And it remains painfully disappointing that no one in the government did anything to condemn Sadr’s move, or publicly denounce his undermining of the structure of the state.

It’s become clear now that Iraq will not become a successful state when such violations of the law can happen in the open and remain unchecked. Confronting Sadr’s militia with limited operations is not enough—it’s time to deal with him seriously. ...

Read the rest.

Update

I'm getting caught up with some old drafts that I had been putting off posting until I got them more filled out and polished. Well, the great is the enemy of the merely adequate; so I'm just going to throw them up there. Totten and Taheri raise some important points about liberalism, and I am still hoping to come back to these with a few thoughts of my own. Meanwhile, please take a few moments to read this.

Also, I've just put up a bunch of posts at DiL on Typepad which I'm going to copy over to here (Blogger site) shortly.

Don't forget to watch the Google Reader, newly added to the right-hand sidebar just above the links list. I am continually updating that with new items of interest from my favorite feeds.

Finally, I am experimentally making the transition from Safari to Firefox as my main browser. I'm mostly a novice at html and I'm still getting used to how Firefox handles style tags and text; so please be patient if the format here looks a little funny now and then.

The Dream Palace of the Liberals

Already linked at Morning Report, but worth a post of its own, here's a selection from The Liberal Betrayal by Amir Taheri:

BEFORE the U.S.-led inter ventions in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, much of the Middle Eastern Left shared the views of its U.S. and European counterparts with regard to America.

"We looked to the Left in the West and imitated it," says Awad Nasir, one of Iraq's best-known poets and a life-long Communist. "We heard from the United States and Western Europe that being Left meant being anti-American. So we were anti-American. And then we saw Americans coming from the other side of the world to save us from Saddam Hussein - something that our leftist friends and the Soviet Union would never contemplate."

Mustafa Kazemi, spokesman for the new Afghan front, expresses similar sentiments. "Our nation is still facing the menace of obscurantism and terror from Taliban and al Qaeda," he says. "Thus, we are surprised when elements of the Left in the United States and Europe campaign for withdrawal so that our new democracy is left defenseless against its enemies."

IRAQ'S parties of the Left were shocked when the new So cialist government in Spain decided to withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition in 2004. "We had hoped that with a party of the Left in power in Madrid we would get more support against the Islamofascists, not a withdrawal," says Aziz al-Haj, the veteran Iraqi communist leader.

Tareq al-Hashemi, vice president of Iraq, has also gambled his impeccable progressive record on the success of the pluralist experiment in his country. "Our enemy is al Qaeda, not the United States," he says. ...

Go read it all, and then take a trip down memory lane with this article describing what happened when Iraqis tried to speak at an anti-war rally in 2003:

I
spent part of last Saturday with the so-called "antiwar" marchers in
London in the company of some Iraqi friends. Our aim had been to
persuade the organizers to let at least one Iraqi voice to be heard.
Soon, however, it became clear that the organizers were as anxious to
stifle the voice of the Iraqis in exile as was Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

The
Iraqis had come with placards reading "Freedom for Iraq" and "American
rule, a hundred thousand times better than Takriti tyranny!"

But
the tough guys who supervised the march would have none of that. Only
official placards, manufactured in thousands and distributed among the
"spontaneous" marchers, were allowed. These read "Bush and Blair,
baby-killers," " Not in my name," "Freedom for Palestine" and "Indict
Bush and Sharon."

Not one placard demanded that Saddam should disarm to avoid war.

The
goons also confiscated photographs showing the tragedy of Halabja, the
Kurdish town where Saddam's forces gassed 5,000 people to death in
1988.

We managed to reach some of the stars of the show,
including Reverend Jesse Jackson, the self-styled champion of American
civil rights. One of our group, Salima Kazim, an Iraqi grandmother,
managed to attract the reverend's attention and told him how Saddam
Hussein had murdered her three sons because they had been dissidents in
the Ba'ath Party; and how one of her grandsons had died in the war
Saddam had launched against Kuwait in 1990.

"Could I have the microphone for one minute to tell the people about my life?" 78-year old Salima demanded.

The reverend was not pleased.

"Today
is not about Saddam Hussein," he snapped. "Today is about Bush and
Blair and the massacre they plan in Iraq." Salima had to beat a
retreat, with all of us following, as the reverend's gorillas closed in
to protect his holiness. ...

Go read the rest at the link. Now, putting it all together, here's Cinnamon Stillwell:

It's gotten to the point where one would be hard pressed to tell the difference lately between the foreign policy of so-called liberals and that of so-called realists. Both are in favor of the sort of isolationism that would leave dictators and theocratic regimes to their own devices, not to mention the oppressed people living under their thumbs. To the extent that engagement with these foreign powers is encouraged, it's in favor of meaningless negotiation in the craven hope that they can save their own skins in the process.

And let it be lesson to those who still don't understand why some of us no longer wish to associate ourselves with Western leftism. There's nothing "progressive" about it.

***

Liberals by nature are idealists. It is our blessing and our curse.

Here is Amir Taheri on liberalism, east and west.

In much of the Middle East, most notably Afghanistan and Iraq, the Left is part of these new alliances.

- In Iraq, two rival Communist parties, along with Social Democrats and other center-left groups, supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and continue to play a significant role in the new pluralist system. They are resolutely opposed to a premature withdrawal of American and allied forces, as demanded by the U.S. Congress.

- In Lebanon, Walid Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party is at the heart of the democratic movement to against the Islamic Republic's attempt to dominate the country through its Hezbollah surrogates. The Lebanese democratic movement includes other parties of the Left, notably the Socialist Salvation Movement (Inqadh) and the Movement of the Democratic Left.

- In Iran, virtually the whole of the Left rejects President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Americanism and calls for normalization of ties with the United States. The recently created independent trade-union movement is emerging as a vocal challenger to Khomeinism.

Now here's Michael J. Totten on Iran's revolutionary liberals :

The Communists hosted us warmly and kindly gave us a tour of their camp. But the liberals who split with them in the late 1980s proved to be far and away their intellectual and political superiors.

(UPDATED TO CLARIFY: There are two
separate Iranian parties here who both call themselves Komala. One is
communist, the other is liberal. The people interviewed in this article
are the ex-communists. The people interviewed in the previous article
are still communists.)

Secretary General Abdullah Mohtadi and Political Bureau member Abu
Baker Modarresi sent two men to pick us up from our hotel – just to
make sure we made it to the right place. They drove us to their safe
house under armed guard less than an hour away from the Iranian border.
We met over coffee and cigarettes.

MJT: You are both from Iran?

Mohtadi: Yes, yes we are.

MJT: How long have you been here?

Mohtadi: The first time our headquarters came inside Iraqi
Kurdistan was in late 1983, when we lost the last liberated area in
Iranian Kurdistan. So we moved our headquarters to Iraqi Kurdistan at
that time, which was under Saddam Hussein. For some months they were
reluctant to accept us, but they realized, okay, we are against the
Islamic regime.

MJT: Did you ever have any problems with Saddam’s government?

Mohtadi: Yes. They shelled us. Also, we are the only Kurdish Iranian party that has been gassed by Saddam Hussein. ...

MJT: You had a split with the
Komalah Party down the road at some point. We know about that because,
as you know, we accidentally met them a few days ago instead of you.

Mohtadi: That Komalah Party was established as an underground
organization in 1969, under the Shah. We were a leftist organization.
It was the 60s and 70s. It was a struggle against the Shah, against
oppression, dictatorship, for social justice, and against…the United
States. Sorry. [Laughs.]

MJT: Well, that’s alright.

Lasswell: My father was working pretty vigorously against aspects of the United States at the same time.

Mohtadi: We were also inspired by the anti-war movement in the 70s.

MJT: We wouldn’t expect you to have any other position. You’re a leftist, so…

Mohtadi: Yeah, ok. So, members of Komalah were arrested
several times. Every other political dissident in Iran…there was no
political freedom, especially in the 1970s. A system of very harsh and
brutal torture was carried out in Iran, in the prisons. The
dictatorship intensified. The Shah paved the way for his overthrow.

So many organizations in Iran were crushed and disintegrated. Komalah was not. We survived. ...

Mohtadi: There were two different groups, religious and
secular leftist guerilla groups who were influential at that time.
People thought they were the way out of the dictatorship. Many many
intellectuals and students and political activists joined them. But we
wrote different pamphlets criticizing their methods. And that made us
people who had something, a kind of political theory for a movement.

MJT: What do you think of PJAK? [The Iranian wing of the Marxist-Leninist Kurdistan Worker’s Party, the PKK, from Turkey.] Are they the kind of people you just described? Or are they more…popular than that?

Mohtadi: No, no, no, they are not popular. They are part of the PKK. When they cross the border [from Turkey] they change their name.

The problem with the PKK…I mean, the Kurdish toilers have every right to fight for their rights and their freedom. But the PKK as
an organization is not reliable. They are very fanatic in their
nationalism. They are very undemocratic in nature. They have no
principles. I mean, they can deal with Satan. They can fight the Kurds. ...

Lasswell: The people down the road [referring to the estranged and unreconstructed Communist faction of the Komalah Party] said the PKK has a lot of money.

Mohtadi: They do.

MJT: Where do they get this money? Do they get it from these other regimes?

Mohtadi: The Kurdish-Turkish community in Europe is a huge
community, unlike the Iraqi Kurds who are a few thousand or tens of
thousands. They are millions. And they tax people. They impose taxes on
people, on every business that Kurds have in Europe. They cannot fail
to pay.

MJT: So it’s basically a mafia now. In Europe.

Mohtadi: I think so, yes. Unfortunately, they are. They also
have bases on the border between Iran and Turkey. They help people
smuggle drugs and they tax them. It is a huge source of raising money.

PKK ideology is a mixture of Stalinism, Kurdish tribalism, patriarchalism.

MJT: I thought they were opposed to tribalism.

Mohtadi: They exploit the tribal culture. They have mobile
phones, walkie talkies, satellite stations, but I don’t consider them
to be a modern party in the real sense of the word. Like the mafia. The
mafia was modern in a sense, but they exploited the medieval culture
that was there in Italy, the family connections, the family loyalties.
The PKK did not start the struggle against
Turkey until they had eliminated other Kurdish groups and achieved a
monopoly of the Kurdish movement. ...

MJT: If I describe you as social democrats, is that accurate?

Modarresi: We won’t be angry. [Laughs.]

Mohtadi: We haven’t decided to take that name or not. But we
are for democratic values. We are for political freedoms, religious
freedoms, secularism, pluralism, federalism, equality of men and women,
Kurdish rights, social justice. We are for a good labor law, labor
unions. There is an element of the left in our political program.

MJT: You sound like the mainstream left.

Mohtadi: But as a leftist and as a Kurd I thought the left
discredited itself by associating itself with Saddam Hussein and with
the political Islamist groups. The left, the genuine left, should have
been the real defenders of democracy, of political rights, of political
freedoms, of overthrowing dictators, no matter if the United States
government is or is not against them.

Liberals, being idealists by temperament, wish for a day when war will be abolished. This wish is noble in itself, but is not the basis for a sound defense policy. Albert Einstein's famous quote, "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war," is factually wrong and was proved so by the effectiveness of deterrence in the Cold War.

But still there persists a wish to do away with warfare, or at least to make it disappear.

The Democrats' obsession with "special forces" as a military cure-all, as described in this Michael Fumento's Weekly Standard article on the Democrats' Special Forces fetish, is an example of this kind of wishful thinking. In this view, America's Special Forces troops are X-Men. They are superheroes with magical powers. They can overcome evil without the messiness of regular warfare. And best of all, they operate in secret - hey, that's what makes 'em special! - so the rest of us don't have to know too much about what they are doing. Pelosi's New Direction for America promises on page 10 to "double the size of our Special Forces".

Here's Fumento:

If you like SOF, you love the SEALs. They are the stuff of legend, and I'm proud to be among the few journalists to have been with them in combat in Iraq, thereby allowing me to say with firsthand experience that the legend is deserved. They truly fight like machines. So we want a lot more SEALs, right? Ideally, yes. But Special Operations Command is already "mandated to create two entirely new SEAL Teams by 2010," notes 14-year SEAL veteran Matthew Heidt (who blogs as "Froggy" at www.blackfive.net). Attrition in the would-be SEALs' first round of training, the BUD/S course, "is 70 percent or more," according to Heidt, and even to man the two new authorized teams by 2010 "will be difficult . . . unless training standards are radically lowered."

Capt. Larry Bailey, a SEAL for 27 years, vouches for the difficulty of expanding the teams. He's best known for tirelessly exposing men who fraudulently claim to have been SEALs (of which there is a virtual epidemic). But he commanded the BUD/S School at Coronado, Calif., for three years in the 1980s. He was given a mandate to graduate more SEALs without lowering the quality and did so temporarily. Nevertheless, "the Naval Special Warfare Center, which runs BUD/S, has been for years doing everything it can, short of lowering standards, to increase the number of graduates from this most difficult course," he told me. "There are just so many souls that can withstand that stress."

Go to www.navyseals.com and click on "training" and you'll wonder that even 30 percent survive. "Doubling the size is impossible," Bailey told me. "But there's something about special ops that appeals more to Democrats than GOP," he added. "There's almost like there's a craving to be accepted by real men. I don't know any liberal Democrat who doesn't like special ops."

Expanding other units will prove more doable because their attrition rates are lower. But few if any Special Operations Forces units could be doubled, much less the overall force. "Doubling SOF is a joke," says Heidt.

Utopianism is a form of perfectionism. In the perfectionist or utopianist mindset, only two conditions exist: perfect and not-perfect. In this view, whatever is "perfect" has no faults, and whatever is "imperfect" has no value.

Morning Report: June 4, 2007

JFK terror plot updates.  More on the JFK terror plot.  ThreatsWatch: 

In 2006, the House Committee on Homeland Security released a report titled A Line In The Sand: Confronting The Threat at the Southwest Border (PDF).  Within it is found the following paragraphs regarding terrorism, South America and how little we know about the convergence.

Furthermore, according to senior U.S. military
and intelligence officials, Venezuela is emerging as a potential hub of
terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, providing assistance to Islamic
radicals from the Middle East and other terrorists.
...

“Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, has been clearly
talking to Iran about uranium,” said a senior administration official
quoted by the Washington Times. Chavez has made several trips to Iran
and voiced solidarity with the country’s hard-line mullahs. He has
hosted Iranian officials in Caracas, endorsed Tehran’s nuclear
ambitions and expressed support for the insurgency in Iraq. The Times
reports Venezuela is also talking with Hamas about sending
representatives to Venezuela to raise money for the militant group’s
newly elected Palestinian government as Chavez seeks to build an
anti-U.S. axis that also includes Fidel Castro’s Cuba. “I am on the
offensive,” Chavez said on the al Jazeera television network, “because
attack is the best form of defense. We are waging an offensive battle….”

Given all that is happening in Chavez’s Venezuela, some American
officials regret that terrorism is seen chiefly as a Middle East
problem and that the United States needs to look looking to protect its
southern flank. A U.S. intelligence
official expressed concern that “Counterterrorism issues are not being
aggressively pursued in this hemisphere.” Another intelligence official
stated terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay are not being
interrogated about connections to Latin America. The bottom line, when
it comes to terrorism so close to U.S. shores, says the official, “We don’t even know what we don’t know.”

And hence, the sudden unexpected appearance of Guyana as a potential
hub of terrorism support and finance. When the arrested in the JFK
Airport plot include a powerful former member of Guyana’s parliament,
the usage of that individual’s influence within and upon government
there must be considered. Think “Passports.”

Go read the whole thing at the link.  Douglas Farah at the Counterterrorism Blog has more:  'Plots such as that of bombing JFK airport can come to fruition
because of the mixture of Hezbollah training and intelligence guidance
under the protection of states; access to sophisticated weaponry from
the FARC and other rebel groups in the northern tier of South America,
again with the protection of states, primarily Venezuela; clear, easy
access to our borders through the normal _coyote_ routes through
Central America; the ability to move people and materiel by the Central
American _maras_, or gangs, that now have franchise operations in more
than 30 states in the United States.'

Putin to target Europe.  Washington Times:  'President Vladimir Putin sent a chilling message to world leaders on the eve of the Group of Eight summit with a threat to aim Russian nuclear missiles at European cities for the first time since the Cold War. In comments that seemed calculated to cause consternation and division at Wednesday's meeting in Germany, the Russian leader said U.S. plans to erect a missile-defense shield in Eastern Europe had left him with no choice but to retaliate.  "It is obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States is located in Europe, we will have to respond," he told reporters from G-8 countries in Moscow over the weekend. "What kind of steps are we are going to take in response? Of course, we are going to acquire new targets in Europe." '  CNN:  'Speaking to foreign reporters days before he travels to Germany for the annual summit with President Bush and the other Group of Eight leaders, Putin assailed the White House plan to place a radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland. Washington says the system is needed to counter a potential threat from Iran.'

CAIR named as terrorist supporter.  And now for a spot of good news.  From Captain's Quarters: 

Federal prosecutors have named the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an unindicted co-conspirator in support of the terrorist group Hamas. CAIR joins Islamic Society of North America and The North American Islamic Trust as accused terror-supporting organizations in the case against The Holy Land Foundation's officers, as well as 300 other individuals and entities:

Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.
Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. ...

Read the rest at the link.  Ed concludes:  'It's about time that CAIR got outed, and in a manner which shows the editorial boards of papers like the NY Times and the Strib as the saps and suckers they are. It's also time for Keith Ellison to explain his ties to CAIR and to either repudiate them or to resign his office.'

Commentary.  I suppose I should have included an item on Ahmadinejad's latest declaration that the countdown to Israel's destruction has begun.  But that's not exactly news, is it? 

JFK Terror Plot

Read the full post at Dreams Into Lightning: JFK Terror Plot.

For all related posts, go to JFK Terror Plot - index.

Morning Report: June 1, 2007

A British hostage speaks for the camera, a mayor and a governor talk about boycotts, and the Coalition strikes another blow against the enemy in Iraq.



BBC journalist appears on video, denounces everybody.  JTA:  'A BBC journalist kidnapped in the Gaza Strip appeared on a videotape, denouncing Israel and U.S. and British policy in the Middle East.  Alan Johnston appeared healthy in the video broadcast Friday on Al-Ekhlaas, a website used by Islamist groups.  It was not immediately clear when the video was made or what kind of pressures if any were used to get Johnston to speak. Johnston has been held, apparently by the "Army of Islam," for nearly three months.'



Red Ken opposes Israel boycott.  Not one of our favorite people, London's leftist mayor Ken Livingstone hasn't suddenly become a staunch Zionist - but he doesn't think the time is quite right for a boycott of Israel, as has been advocated by some British academic and labor groups.  Arutz Sheva:  'London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone has expressed his opposition to the academic boycott of Israel by the University and College Union.  “Now is not the time for boycotts," he said. "Boycotts should only be used as a last resort, when there is no other alternative, such as was the case with South Africa but is not the case here.” Speaking at a meeting organized Tuesday night by the Movement for Reform Judaism and the London Jewish Forum, Livingstone said that such a boycott would undermine efforts to restart the Middle East "peace process."'

Florida's Governor Charlie Crist calls for Iran, Sudan divestment.  JTA:  'Florida's governor wrote to his 49 counterparts urging them to join his state in divesting from Iran and Sudan.  "During the recently concluded Florida legislative session, the Florida Senate and House of Representatives passed legislation to divest the Florida pension fund of financial sectors and businesses that deal with the governments of Iran and the Sudan," Gov. Charlie Crist (R.) said in his letter from Israel, wher he is leading a trade mission.  "The legislation, unanimously passed in both chambers, is a statement to the Iranian and Sudanese governments that Florida will not idly stand by and allow businesses that operate in Iran and the Sudan to foster terror. I look forward to signing this legislation upon my return to Florida.'

Six terrorists killed.  MNF-Iraq:  'Coalition Forces killed six terrorists and detained 18 suspected terrorists in operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq Thursday and Friday.  North of Fallujah Thursday afternoon, Coalition Forces conducted an operation to capture suspected terrorists allegedly associated with al-Qaeda senior leadership.  Coalition Forces attempted to stop their vehicle, but when the suspected terrorists resisted, Coalition Forces used proper escalation of force measures and engaged the vehicle with automatic weapons, killing three men. Inside the vehicle, Coalition Forces found two mortar rounds, a rifle and an approximately 100-pound improvised explosive device.  The vehicle and heavy explosives were safely destroyed on site.  While Coalition Forces were at the scene, they received small arms fire from a nearby orchard.  Taking appropriate self-defense measures, the ground forces engaged the armed terrorists, killing three.  Coalition Forces also found grenades and assault vests in the orchard.  In a follow-on operation Friday morning, Coalition Forces detained one suspected terrorist in a building north of Fallujah for his alleged ties to al-Qaeda senior leaders.'

Site update. You can follow these stories and others at my Google Reader, News1@DiL. Watch for a sidebar widget, too.



Commentary.  Everybody knows the adage about "the best defense".  The Belmont Club examines the disturbing implications of this principle:

The FBI now occupies a position comparable to that of Fighter Command in Britain during World War 2. And although it will doubtless do its best to stop attacks, one wonders whether [British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin] was right about the inevitability of tragedy. Historically he was proven correct in that to the end of the Second World War bombs fell upon London. Even after the Battle of Britain the Nazi threat continued to mutate. Between June 1944 and March 1945 -- practically up to the time Germany surrendered -- "8938 people were killed by Flying bombs and rockets and 25,000 were seriously injured and many maimed for life. In addition over 2,000 British and US Airmen lost their lives attacking the Flying bomb and Rocket sites." That little known corner of Second War history contains far more blood and carnage than the cumulative loss in Iraq and Afghanistan. Baldwin was proven correct too, in predicting that the riposte would be retaliation on a scale designed to dwarf the Nazi attack. Between 300,000 and 600,000 German lives would be taken by Allied counter-bombing. Where Baldwin proved wrong was in believing that this prospective exchange of horrors could be avoided. It could not; and Baldwin's hesitation made the horror even greater.

Fifty-one kinds of North American quarters.

Note to self:

If it has a picture of Queen Elizabeth on one side and a caribou on the other, it's Canadian.

Otherwise, you can do your laundry with it. This includes bisons (Kansas), palmettos (South Carolina), Minutemen (Massachusetts), ships at Jamestown (Virginia), peaches (Georgia), and the Statue of Liberty (New York).

Note to the United States Mint:

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE PEOPLE. 

Is there some sinister plot by Al-Qaeda to flood the American economy with worthless counterfeit twenty-five-cent pieces?  Perhaps Osama bin Laden wants to plunge the innocent people of the United States into an abyss of abject misery with a lifetime of expired parking meters, jammed vending machines, and wet underwear.

Or maybe the good people at the Treasury Department just have way too much time (and money - duh) on their hands.  I'm betting on the latter.

Is it oxymoronic to say that "the Mint is making too much money"?

Grrrrr.