What Bush did

The Left continues with its attempts to rewrite history. The always popular subject is that Bush did nothing to prevent 9/11. Of course that is pure BS, and deserves to be scorned. In addition I note that that doesn’t track with what Richard Clarke, Clinton’s NSA who was retained by Bush, has said. From an interview:

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.
Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

Clarke rambles a bit here, but there are two key points. There was no PLAN but their was a STRATEGY. But since they could not solve the Northern Alliance, Pakistan, etc., and had not for over two years, they couldn’t produce a PLAN.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.
And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.
So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

Clarke rambles again, but the two key points is that within days of the start of the start of the Bush administration it was decided to increase resources in going after al-Qaeda, “five fold.”

The second point is that nothing Clinton had started was stopped. “…the lethal findings were still in effect.”

So Bush kept Clinton’s CIA going and decided to increase the resources 500%.
Now you can argue that this wasn’t enough, but the facts are that this was 7 months before 9/11 and demonstrates Bush’s belief that there was a problem and pledged to increase the resources.

Plus, the problems with the Northern Alliance and Pakistan that Clinton could not solve for over two years still remained.

ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — one, there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?
CLARKE: You got it. That's right.

Link

Now the Left likes to make much over the Presidential Daily Briefing that Bush received on 8/6/01 that said that al-Qaeda was going to attack. Bush’s response was less than nice, dismissing the briefer with an “Okay, now you’ve done your job” type comment.

Why was he grumpy? Most likely because there was nothing new in the report and he regarded it as a CYA by staff. Why do I say this? Because he already knew it.

"At the special meeting on July 5 were the FBI, Secret Service, FAA, Customs, Coast Guard, and Immigration. We told them that we thought a spectacular al Qaeda terrorist attack was coming in the near future." That had been had been George Tenet's language. "We asked that they take special measures to increase security and surveillance. Thus, the White House did ensure that domestic law enforcement including the FAA knew that the CSG believed that a major al Qaeda attack was coming, and it could be in the U.S., and did ask that special measures be taken."

Link

The above is from an interview with NSA Rice and shows that 32 days before the meeting Bush knew about it and had his NSA warn all the agencies. And there was little more he could have done outside declaring martial law and taking control of all entrances into the US and all movements within the US.

So there you have the facts. Clinton dithered and Bush took action. It may not have been enough but it was all he could have done, and should have done based on the information he had.

To my friends on the Left, no charge for the education.

Marxism announcement

Hussein is busy announcing that people who bought houses they couldn’t afford are to be bailed out by people who bought houses they could afford.

This varies from place to place.

In San Francisco that is up to $700,000. In short, Farmer Auntie Jane living in a $60,000 house in Kansas is helping Street Artist Howard in San Francisco pay for his home. Howard will, at some point, sell the house for a cool $1,500,000, move to the burbs of Kansas City buy a home for $200,000 and spend his retirement comfortably playing poker at the local casino while complaining about the backwardness of Auntie Jane and her Kansas City living cousins.

Joe the Plumber was more correct than even he knew.

I am a social liberal. This is not liberalism. This is Marxism.

8 to 5 on Burris

Sen. Roland Burris's (D-Ill.) political fate appeared to be in real jeopardy late today as he continued to acknowledge gaps in his testimony to a state House panel investigating former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Senate Democrats beginning a preliminary ethics inquiry into his conduct.

Burris today said he had tried to raise money for the embattled Blagojevich in the run-up to his appointment by the governor to the Senate seat vacated by President Obama -- the latest in a series of revelations that raised serious questions about whether he had been entirely truthful in his sworn testimony before an Illinois state House committee weighing whether to impeach Blagojevich for allegations that he sought to sell the Senate seat.

Originally Burris said he had contact with only one Blagojevich associate -- Lon Monk -- but over the weekend he acknowledged that he had had several conversations with the governor's brother, who inquired about the possibility of Burris raising money for Blagojevich.

The string of revelations has prompted Senate Democrats to scramble to stop the bleeding in a situation that has already caused the party -- both in the state and nationally -- considerable embarrassment.

Link


If I was an odds maker I would give 8 to 5 on Burris never having a glove laid on him.

What he's done Democrats look at as resume enhancement.

Gun training

Major General Cosgrove is Australian and I have no idea if this actually happened, but if it didn't it should have.

General Cosgrove was interviewed on the radio recently. You'll love his reply to the lady who interviewed him concerning guns and children. Regardless of how you feel about gun laws you got to love this! This is one of the best comeback lines of all time. It is a portion of an ABC interview between a female broadcaster and General Cosgrove who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military headquarters.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
So, General Cosgrove, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery and shooting.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
But you're equipping them to become violent killers.

GENERAL COSGROVE:
Well, Ma'am, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?

The radio went silent and the interview ended.

I think that's called put up or shut up.

Hat tip to Jimmy M!

What Wilders woud have said - Bump and Update

It appears that the enemies of free speech have hurt their cause.

If the Dutch general elections were held today, Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV) would get 25 seats in parliament, according to the weekly poll of Maurice de Hond, two more than a week ago. The party current holds nine parliament seats.

This makes the PVV the second largest party, following the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Prime Minister's Jan Peter Balkenende's party, with 27 seats.

Link to IslamInEurope


As you may, or may not, know, Wilders was barred from entering England because his video Fitna and his political positions regarding Muslim immigration into the Netherlands and Europe is deemed hate speech.

This is excerpts from the speech he planned on giving.

Today, I come before you to warn of another great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, the end of democracy. It is not a religion, it is a political ideology. It demands you respect, but has no respect for you.

Today, I come before you to warn of another great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, the end of democracy. It is not a religion, it is a political ideology. It demands you respect, but has no respect for you.

There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is build on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never go away. First, there is Quran, Allah’s personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect.

Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about it’s goal. That’s a given. The question is whether the British people, with its glorious past, is longing for that submission.

Britain seems to have become a country ruled by fear. A country where civil servants cancel Christmas celebrations to please Muslims. A country where Sharia Courts are part of the legal system. A country where Islamic organizations asked to stop the commemoration of the Holocaust. A country where a primary school cancels a Christmas nativity play because it interfered with an Islamic festival. A country where a school removes the words Christmas and Easter from their calendar so as not to offend Muslims. A country where a teacher punishes two students for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class. A country where elected members of a town council are told not to eat during daylight hours in town hall meetings during the Ramadan. A country that excels in its hatred of Israel, still the only democracy in the Middle-East. A country whose capitol is becoming ‘Londonistan.’

I would not qualify myself as a free man. Four and a half years ago I lost my freedom. I am under guard permanently, courtesy to those who prefer violence to debate. But for the leftist fan club of Islam, that is not enough. They started a legal procedure against me. Three weeks ago the Amsterdam Court of Appeals ordered my criminal prosecution for making Fitna and for my views on Islam. I committed what George Orwell called a ‘thought crime.’

You might have seen my name on Fitna’s credit role, but I am not really responsible for that movie. It was made for me. It was actually produced by Muslim extremists, the Quran and Islam itself. If Fitna is considered ‘hate speech,’ then how would the Court qualify the Quran, with all it’s calls for violence, and hatred against women and Jews?


Mr. Churchill himself compared the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Well, I did exactly the same, and that is what they are prosecuting me for.


The Court’s decision and the letter I received form the Secretary of State for the Home Department are two major victories for all those who detest freedom of speech. They are doing Islam’s dirty work. Sharia by proxy. The differences between Saudi Arabia and Jordan on one hand, and Holland and Britain are blurring. Europe is now on the fast track of becoming Eurabia. That is apparently the price we have to pay for the project of mass immigration, and the multicultural project.


Ladies and gentlemen, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack. In Europe, freedom of speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural component of our existence is now something we again have to fight for. That is what is at stake. Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue. The question is: Will free speech be put behind bars?


We have to defend freedom of speech.


For the generation of my parents the word ‘London’ is synonymous with hope and freedom. When my country was occupied by the national-socialists the BBC offered a daily glimpse of hope, in the darkness of Nazi tyranny. Millions of my country men listened to it, illegally. The words ‘This Is London’ were a symbol for a better world coming soon. If only the British and Canadian and American soldiers were here.


What will be transmitted forty years from now? Will it still be ‘This Is London’? Or will it be ‘this is Londonistan’? Will it bring us hope, or will it signal the values of Mecca and Medina? Will Britain offer submission or perseverance? Freedom or slavery?

Link Wilders speech.

I urge you to click on the link and read his speech. It is accurate but calm. Wilders is no raving radical. He merely brings the truth supported by historical facts and puts it before us.

But England has turned him away. The cradle of democracy. The birthplace of the Magna Carta - The Great Charter of Freedom - has now collapsed into a fearful slop of political double speak because it fears Wilders and his 15 minute video will cause riots.

The Magna Charter wasn't just given by the King. It was forced from him by people who would have likely lost all, including their lives, had they lost their demands. Now they are afraid of what a Dutch politician will say and a 15 video. How so very descriptive of so many of Modern Western Man. Stupidly ashamed of his past he trembles at the thought of someone speaking freely.

Link

If the truth causes the threat of riots then isn't it time to speak the truth before worse happens? Think about that. What is next? “We shall riot if everyone is not summoned to prayer? We shall riot if “honor killings” remain illegal?" Sound stupid? Well, I would have said so if ten years ago you had told me a Dutch politician had been barred from England because of a 15 minute video and his political statements.

Fitna is not hateful. It is truthful. Some may regard it as ugly, but what it reveals is ugly. It doesn't attack Muslims. It reveals what the radical Muslims have done by their selecting only what they want from the Koran. No Muslim should be concerned over what it says anymore than what a Christian should be concerned over what is said in some passages in the Old Testament. But just as Christians should be concerned if some group started preaching and acting on those passages, Muslims should be concerned over the acts of the radicals and extremists.

We in the US still retain a great deal of what England and Europe once had, free speech. But even here we see speech codes in our once great universities and students destroying newspapers and newspaper stands. Other students are charged and threatened with dismissal because of what they may have posted on the student center bulletin board.

In our last election it was forbidden by the press to call Hussein, Hussein because it was a Muslim name. Yet his whole name is Muslim and he chose to be sworn in as Barack Hussein Obama.

The issue was never "Hussein." It was about him wanting the power to tell you what to say and a large number of you threw away your freedom of speech to run trembling in anticipation of the love of a second rate Chicago Politician.

So read Wilders' speech. Watch the video. Understand and see what is coming towards us at light speed.

Fitna

The above is an expansion of my comment in the Tennessean.

Biting through a ten penny nail

I just read the following by a commentator over at Time's "Swampland" blog:

The core of the current crisis (under which I would include a couple difficult wars lacking clear timelines of completion,.......

Uh, can anyone tell me how you have a "clear timeline" for a war?

When I read something like this I just want to find the writer and yell:

Do you ever try thinking before you write something?

Link

American Carol, a review...

Well, I finally purchased the DVD and watched the Right's attempt at making fun of the Left.


And it is 83 minutes of outrageous humor. At least as funny as "Blazing Saddles," maybe more so in many parts. And it skewers the Left. I mean it ties them to a skewer and roasts them.

Get yourself a copy and enjoy. The trailer only covers 1% of the humor!

Movie trailer.