Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

John Kerry is beating his gums in front of an audience right now, and I saw a banner roll across the TV screen that quotes him as saying, “Our credibility in the world is plummeting.”

Interesting.

For years, governments around the world have been uneasy in making commitments with the US because we have a tendency to change direction with new Administrations. In other words, our credibility is often suspect. For two years now, people who opposed our invasion of Iraq, for whatever reason, have tried to paint Dubya as a liar and cheat, and the lowest form of humanity. That has happened both here and abroad. I would say that any loss of credibility is due to their constant harping rather than any fact.

Yet every leader in every nation of the world now actually views US policy as much more credible than before 9/11. Credibility comes from doing what you say you will do. People may not like what Dubya has done, but you can’t make an honest assessment and say he isn’t following his stated policy in regards to foreign policy.

We as a nation, not just George W. Bush, have decided we need to eliminate the supporters of Islamicists or make them crawl back into a hole. They know this. Our credibility will be diminished only if we take a more nuanced approach, and return to the 9/10 mentality of legal action, and warrants for the arrest of people like bin Laden.

Credibility means commitment. How committed are we?

Chadster has been following the Oil for Food scandal involving virtually everyone in the UN Secretariat, but there’s been little to post recently. He links to this article about some of the ties to our “allies”:

One was a company – Galp International Trading Corp., linked to a Liechtenstein firm, ASAT Trust – that has been identified by the United Nations itself as “belonging to or affiliated with al-Qaida.” The other was a Geneva-based subsidiary of a Saudi company, Delta Oil, which had close financial ties in the 1990s to the Taliban, which provided safe haven for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

I’m sure the folks at the UN are consumed with other issues, and have no time to deal with the scandal. I know they’re really, really, really busy with the problems in Darfur. I just heard an update this morning. The UN is deciding whether to debate whether to appoint a commission to determine whether there is, actually, genocide being visited upon non-Muslims so they can debate whether some form of sanctions should be imposed on Sudan.

Now that’s busy!

Mansoor Ijaz, the man whose analysis I trust most on the issue, seems to think the Islamicists are gasping for breath.

Osama bin Laden’s global vision

What is it that some people just don’t grasp about the danger posed by Islamicists, Wahabis in particular. John understands.

I believe we massively underestimate the threat to our way of life. Two well-timed and well-placed nuclear detonations, with warheads not much larger than the ones that were routinely placed on artillery shells in the Cold War, could easily kill the president and the six people in line to succeed him, all of Congress, the Supreme Court, the FBI and the Department of the Treasury. The dollar might well become worthless, as might everything denoted in dollars. The world’s stock markets would plunge, and the value of everything in the world would plummet.

Nuance and diplomacy only work if you choose to ignore the fact that they don’t.

Dan Darling has some interesting thoughts on the situation in Beslan. In particular, he notes some information on the problems in Chechnya you might not have known. For one, the majority there are Sufi Muslim, but the Wahabis are interested in wresting control from Russia, and the Sufi.

There are quite a few folks out there who still cling to the idea that the cause of all our problems with Islamicists springs from our relationship with Israel. Israel is the red herring in this mystery. The real clues are, as Holmes would say, “Elementary.” I would like to direct new readers who question this to take a look at my current compilation of information here for a better understanding. No right-wing politics, just honest history and analysis, along with the view of Islam from both sides.

Arthur Chrenkoff has compiled quite a collection of news items from Euroworld. Get a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy. My favorite (from a long list of them):

In economic news, there are signs that Great Britain is catching the Continental disease, as businesswoman Beryl King is “banned from asking for ‘hard-working’ staff in a job ad because it discriminates against the lazy.” Then again, it’s a good sign that in the UK even the lazy ones are still looking for work.