Michelle Malkin exposes the lie by Paul Krugman that Ashcroft’s Justice Department hasn’t convicted any terrorists since 9/11. Krugman says this shows Ashcroft is a terrible Attorney General.
If the only measure of success in this war against Islamicists is the number of them we convict, we haven’t learned anything.
How about the number of them we’ve killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the number still being held where they can do us no harm?
It is unpleasant to think about, but the world is a very corrupt place. In international politics and diplomacy, corruption is the primary currency. In the last six months, this has been highlighted like never before. It has always been there, it has simply become far more visible. A lot of the credit goes to the explosion of information accessibility through the blogosphere and other internet connections.
Just to mention the most visible of recent examples of this corruption we have the Oil-for-Food scandal, French oil contracts in Sudan, and the UN complicity, along with Russia’s, in the 380 tons (or was it 3 tons) of explosives which may be missing from Iraq.
These are examples which have managed to bubble to the surface. They are examples of the rule rather than exeption. Saddam Hussein spent a great deal of his country’s capital buying off various politicians and diplomats. In the larger world outside the US, the political class view such activity as standard business practice. Which is one reason they view Bush with suspicion and disdain. He isn’t playing the game according to their well-established rules–rules that would simply enrich him and others in his Administration if he would just play nice.
Our State Department understands the rules. They prefer to play the game. A healthy retirement income awaits any diplomat who steers the US government in the right direction. Even someone of strong ethics like Colin Powell has difficulty in herding those cats. They know that the Administration will change every eight years at most, and they can simply return to International Rules.
The focus today remains on Saddam, but there are plenty of others out there concerned that they might be next. Baksheesh has already been rendered. Continued payment requires that the UN, and others who know how the game is played, put hurdles in the way of any US action. There are plenty of “leaders” around the world who know their power lies not in a mandate of their citizens, but in the good graces of Kofi Annan.
Any time someone mentions diplomacy, you must consider this.
Robert Mugabe and Kim Jung Il do.
…and the UN out of the US. I don’t see how we can draw any other conclusion. The UN is staffed by the hoi polloi of the international set, and live the good life in New York at the expense, primarily, of US taxpayers. They seem to view us as serfs, as they do their own countrymen.
During the Cold War, the UN actually served a function–to lend credibility to disputes between the First World and Second World. It became the forum for the Third World to exert some influence, although that influence was limited by the authority of the main players: France, China, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States, the five surviving governments of WW II. France often sided with their socialist brethren.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the UN became more a sounding board for dictators hoping to fill the void. And it became a vehicle for “restraining” the last remaining super-power. The drive for a European Government is being championed by the same people who believe a World Government is the best of all possible outcomes. Any sign of strength in the US is viewed as a threat.
Big Trunk points out what I view as the final straw:
…collusion between foreign entities, the MSM, and the Democratic Party to change U.S. policy through disinformation.
The foreign entities, including Britain’s Guardian, are mostly in the UN. Kofi Annan and many others, including his son, apparently made millions off the Oil-for-Food Program which Dubya so rudely ended. Kofi himself has made his contempt for our President known. Others have been more reluctant to go on the record, perhaps out of fear they’ll end up back home rather than in the Big Apple. But they speak in whispers, and those sounds come through clearly, if only anonymously.
The latest issue, to which Big Trunk alludes, is detailed in two articles he cites. In the first, Clifford May makes it clear that people in the UN want Bush gone, and will do what they can to help CBS, The New York Times, and the Kerry campaign unseat him. And they are using what may be imaginary stockpiles of explosives to try.
In a related article, Dr. Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation, points the finger at the nuclear watchdogs at the UN:
There is certainly no shortage of tensions between the IAEA and the Bush Administration. Since U.N. inspectors led by Hans Blix were withdrawn from Iraq ahead of the U.S.-British liberation of the country in 2002, relations between the IAEA and the U.S. government have been stormy. The United States has consistently opposed the return of U.N. inspectors to Iraq, despite repeated requests, and has been critical of the IAEA
Today, Ralph Peters addresses the concerns of a friend of his who is now in Iraq. No, he doesn’t fear for his safety. He fears for the conclusion of our efforts in Iraq.
He badly wanted me to write another column before Election Day stressing that our troops are winning in Iraq.
This fight in Iraq is but a single battle in the overall war against fundamentalists who use terror as their primary weapon. The reason for using terror is to get their enemy to give up–quit fighting. They will then be free to do as they wish. And what they wish is to take over every government in the world and turn them all into Islamic cultures under sharia law. Any government they can cow is one they no longer have to deal with except in times of their choosing.
Peters is one of the best in analyzing strategic situations, and he sums this one up well:
Al Qaeda and its affiliates are rapidly using up the human capital they’ve accumulated over decades. The casualties in Iraq are overwhelmingly on the terrorist side. Extremist leaders have paid a particularly heavy price. But they won’t stop fighting because they can’t. The terrorists have to win in Iraq. They have to defeat America.
The astonishing thing is that so many of our fellow Americans don’t get it. The terrorists aren’t committing their shrinking reserves because the outcome’s a trivial matter. They recognize the magnitude of what we’re helping the Iraqi people achieve.
This is the big one. The fate of a civilization hangs in the balance. And all we hear from one presidential contender is that it’s the “wrong war, at the wrong time.”
We hear from the Kerry campaign that the military is stretched to its limit. In the next breath they will tell you Kerry will increase troop strength in Iraq.
The enemy have put all their eggs in the Iraqi basket. Dubya wants to destroy those eggs. Kerry has been clear he doesn’t.
The last few days have been a challenge. But the site now functions once again. My database was corrupted in some way, and it has to do with some spam, and the fact that my hosting service decided to implement MySQL at the same time. They also upgraded Perl.
I managed to recover all but the last week’s posts, and kept my current posts on the index page without rebuilding so I could try and keep them, also. Unfortunately, the comments for those went away. I decided to only repost a couple of them.
I will move to WordPress and a new hosting service this week. Kate runs Venom Pages, and I’ve already got my spot reserved on her server. And Bogey has given me some sound advice on a new look for Bunker Mulligan to go along with the move. I’ll be working on that. I offered to pay for his expertise with a round of golf and a buffet brunch with the wives at the club. It may not be enough.
Now that the flu vaccine issue has played itself out, it’s time for rational evaluation.
About 20 years ago, the Air Force, and I must assume the other services, made flu shots mandatory for all military personnel. Every year we all got the shot. Last year when I went to Kuwait, I had to get one again. Not once did I ever want one. I still don’t.
Now, perhaps the vaccines have improved to the point where they will protect me from every strain extant. I doubt it. But in the past, it was a crap shoot. Each year a new vaccine would be developed to counter what health officials (whoever they are) deemed were the most likely viruses to be prevalent that year. Most times they were about half right.
In other words, the chances were about 50-50 you might be protected from getting a flu virus if you had the vaccine.
Again, I don’t want to get the vaccine. If I get the flu, it lasts several days and I’m inconvenienced.
The very young and infirm are at some risk if they contract the flu, but the danger is more in not treating it than in contracting it. Getting the flu is not a death sentence. If you get the flu, you see a doctor and get some medication to relieve the symptoms and provide some relief. If you have major medical issues, more drastic action may be necessary.
For some reason, people who refuse to take an anthrax or smallpox shot are insistent that they get a flu shot. Folks, every new year brings a new flu vaccine. It is, by definition, experimental.
Our friends in MSM used to scoff at flu vaccine, and viewed it as a government program gone amok. Now they view it as a necessity which the government is responsible for furnishing. Next, they will insist it should be required of everyone. That may be good. Then the drug companies would know how much to make.
But it would be yet another personal freedom gone away.
Mark Steyn has more on flu vaccine, and Kerry’s plans for government health care, and the war.
Speaking of which, if there’s four words I never want to hear again, it’s “prescription drugs from Canada.” I’m Canadian, so I know a thing or two about prescription drugs from Canada. Specifically speaking, I know they’re American; the only thing Canadian about them is the label in French and English. How can politicians from both parties think that Americans can get cheaper drugs simply by outsourcing (as John Kerry would say) their distribution through a Canadian mailing address? U.S. pharmaceutical companies put up with Ottawa’s price controls because it’s a peripheral market. But, if you attempt to extend the price controls from the peripheral market of 30 million people to the primary market of 300 million people, all that’s going to happen is that after approximately a week and a half there aren’t going to be any drugs in Canada, cheap or otherwise — just as the Clinton administration’s intervention into the flu-shot market resulted in American companies getting out of the vaccine business entirely.
As a Canadian, Mark knows of what he writes.
Steve Sailer did some extensive research and analysis for an article at VDARE.com comparing the intelligence of both presidential candidates. Steve concludes, among other things:
The subtle difference between Bush and Kerry in two words: Bush is competitive and Kerry is ambitious.
Read the article to see who is smarter.
Sarah saw it linked by Hud, and virtually challenged me to comment. Even though my brain power has been consumed by MT and comment spam issues the last few days, I thought I should at least give it a try. After all, I’ve taken all the Air Force versions of the tests mentioned, and at about the same timeframe as the candidates.
In an aircraft, an attitude indicator, also known as an artificial horizon, gives a pilot visual indication of the aircraft’s orientation in 3-dimensional space. An aircraft can be oriented through pitch, roll, and yaw. The attitude indicator gives roll and pitch information. The pilot portion of the AF test gives attitude indications, and the examinee must select the drawing of an aircraft which reflects the correct orientation based on the indication.
For me, this was pretty simple, although inverted flight might catch me off guard. I had experience flying, and understood instrumentation. Others without that experience would have more difficulty. The score Bush got reflects that lack of experience.
The other portions of the tests are quite similar to the ACT, SAT, and various IQ tests. I didn’t take the SAT, but I’ve taken several versions of IQ, as well as the AFQT and AFOQT mentioned. The difference is in scoring.
Both the AFQT and AFOQT scored on a percentile basis when I took them, and the maximum score was 95. All the Air Force cared about was what percentile you fit in. A score of 95 meant you scored better than 95% of those who took the test.
I won’t tell you what my scores were, but I agree with Steve that the AFOQT, AFQT, and IQ scores correlate well. Mine did. I will brag on myself a bit, though, and tell you my scores were better than either Kerry’s or Dubya’s.
What does that really mean?
Kerry has generally tried to portray himself as an intellectual, which has been a successful strategy for him in college-crowded Massachusetts.
In contrast, the only election Bush ever lost was a 1978 Congressional race in the Texas Panhandle, where his opponent made fun of Bush for having degrees from Yale and Harvard.
Bush resolved never to get out-dumbed again.
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