Ignorant, not naive

Betsy links to Jennifer Rubin's post,

An advisor, Daniel Kurtzer, to Barack Obama says that Obama didn't realize what he was saying to AIPAC when he used the term "undivided" in reference to Jerusalem. According to Kurtzer, Obama had "a picture in his mind of Jerusalem before 1967 with barbed wires and minefields and demilitarized zones." Kurtzer says that only after the speech did Obama realize it was a "code word" to use the phrase, "but it does not indicate any kind of naivete about foreign affairs."

As Rubin says,

Once again, this suggests that there is too little adult supervision of a candidate unaccustomed to speaking on the world stage about issues in which there are lots of code words, indeed in which every word (e.g. "preconditons," "immediate withdrawal") has meaning to Americans' foes and friends."

Bashar Assad Understands What Obama The 'Never Mind' Candidate Doesn't

Syria's Assad says wants results from Israel talks:"This is not like drinking tea," Assad, in India on a four-day visit, said when asked if he would meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Paris.

"The meeting between me and the Israeli prime minister will be meaningless without the technocrats laying the foundation, without reaching the final stage."

And as the campaign develops, Poohbama rolls right along. Drew has a photo of Obama's foreign policy team.




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Jimmy Carter, tyrant-loving fool

A couple of years ago Gateway Pundit posted Jimmy Carter Parades the World's 10 Worst Dictators, a who's who in Jimmy's work: Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro, Kim Jung Il of North Korea and Omar al-Bashar of Sudan all hold places of honor at Jimmy's table.

Let's also not forget Jimmy's fondness for Yasser


and Hugo


Therefore it was only a matter of time before this was announced: Report: Jimmy Carter to Meet With Hamas Leader in Syria

Former President Jimmy Carter is reportedly preparing an unprecedented meeting with the leader of Hamas, an organization that the U.S. government considers one of the leading terrorist threats in the world.

The Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday that Carter was planning a trip to Syria for mid-April, during which he would meet with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, on April 18.
...
Meshal, who lives in Syria to avoid being arrested by the Israeli government, leads Hamas from his seat in Damascus, where he is a guest of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Well, while Jimmy's in the vicinity, he might as well drop by Bashar's, who Nancy remembers so fondly:


Because, after all, few things spread the virtues of democracy like kissing up to murderous thugs.

UPDATE
A golden moment via Macsmind,


Via Judith,


UPDATE, Thursday 10 April
Who pays for Carter?
Jimmy Carter and Unconscious Hate



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The Little Wicked Wicket Gate, and a few other items

I was just talking to Baron Bodissey and remembered an excellent post of his, The Little Wicked Wicket Gate where he discusses Orthodox Secularism. His message is as relevant today as it was then.
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Cindy Sheehan goes to NYC.
Again.
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Wiretap Debacle: How politics has gutted the terrorist surveillance program.

Accommodation as an Islamist Political Instrument
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NonParty Politics doesn't like what he saw in the Daily Show...
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Michael Totten interviewed Barry Rubin a couple of weeks ago. Rubin's the author of The Truth About Syria. Here's the Amazon link:

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In a lighter mode, there is kaffir, and then there's kaffir.

I wonder if Nancy has her scarf ready....

Via Jihad Watch, Islamic militants, security forces battle in Lebanon. The AP calls them Islamic militants, the NYT calls them Islamists, and people are dying:

Eight civilians were killed by shelling today, according to Reuters, adding to the 22 Lebanese soldiers and 17 militants killed in the fierce fighting on Sunday.

Witnesses said that militants belonging to Fatah al-Islam fired rocket-propelled grenades as well as machine guns today at army posts on the camp perimeter, according to Reuters.

The continuing violence is one of the most significant challenges to the Lebanese army since the end of Lebanon's bloody civil war.
...
Many of the complex crosscurrents of Lebanon's politics have been visible in the crisis. The camp in Tripoli has been off limits to the Lebanese army under an agreement with the Palestinian leadership and Arab countries. On Sunday, Lebanese citizens, who hold the Palestinians responsible for sparking the civil war in 1975, cheered the army on the streets of Tripoli and outside the camp.

Syria, which Lebanon accuses of backing Fatah al-Islam, closed several border crossings in the area. And the fighting broke out as the United Nations Security Council took up a resolution to try suspects tied to the February 2005 assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Syria has been accused in previous investigations of ordering the killing, but vigorously denies any connection.
...
Fatah al-Islam has been a growing concern for security authorities in Lebanon and much of the region. Intelligence officials say that the group counts between 150 and 200 fighters in its ranks and that it subscribes to the fundamentalist precepts of Al Qaeda.

The group's leader, Shakir al-Abssi, is a fugitive Palestinian and former associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia who was killed last year in Iraq. Both men were sentenced to death in absentia for the 2002 murder of an American diplomat, Lawrence Foley, in Jordan.

Christians are targeted

I haven't figured out why the BBC's using scare quotes, Lebanon clashes 'kill civilians' but the death toll is significantly higher than the AP report shows. Update: The WaPo states that 50 combatants were killed in the first day of fighting Sunday

Here are some Facts and figures on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

Gateway Pundit posts that

One of the men killed in Sunday's fighting, Saddam El-Hajdib, was a suspect in a failed German train bombing a sign that Nahr al-Bared refugee camp had become a refuge for militants planning attacks outside of Lebanon.

A spokesman for the Lebanese government was interviewed by the BBCA newscast and blamed Syria for the bombing. Certainly the Lebanese media's clear about it: Lebanon media see Syria behind violence.

Michael Totten links to Why Syria, why now?

The Lebanese citizen says, "justice is a principle above all. Security on the other hand has its own logic; you kill this guy, you spare that guy..."

Yeah, but you don't understand, as Assad's court scribe Patrick Seale put it, "Syria cannot tolerate a hostile government in Lebanon"! So it must kill all politicians that it doesn't like! But hey, "it doesn't mean the end!"

Will Nancy don her scarf again and go ask her buddy to stop?

Via Pajamas Media, From Beirut to the Beltway, explains that even if the Lebanese army wins this one, the battle will not be over and that,

In other words, Hizbullah is siding against the Lebanese government and army by not even acknowledging Fatah al-Islam, or its sponsor, and blaming it on a US-Israeli conspiracy.

I'm sure Nancy can't wait to sink her teeth on that, too.

Meanwhile, you wouldn't know that Israel is under attack by reading the headlines.

Update Captain Ed asks,

And where is the UN in all of this? It's their refugee camp which has fostered these groups and allowed them to operate openly. Shouldn't the UN be disarming people in refugee camps? Or have they abandoned that mandate, as they have abandoned others?

Update 2: Welcome, EU Referendum readers. Please visit often, and if you have a chance, listen to my Blog Talk Radio podcasts, including my most recent ones on on Tony Blair, and on Israel

A Jacksonian posts on Syrian WMD capability

Syrian WMD Sites - The Basic List:

First, and most importantly, is that the phosphate deposits in Syria are a multi-part threat. Phosphates, of course, are used in agriculture for fertilizer and in the steel and glass-making businesses, along with standard chemical industry. Phosphate is one of the basic building blocks of life and a necessary element for life to continue. As such it also serves as the dual basis for the chemical and biological weapons development going on in Syria. The prime mover in this is that Syria has not signed on to the Chemical Weapon's Convention and feels free to develop such weapons. On the biological weapons side, things are a bit more nebulous: even though a treaty signatory, Syria has been putting together a multi-use pharmaceutical industry which would also serve as the basis for a bioweapons industry.
...
On the chemical weapons side, however, there is no doubt of Syrian manufacture of same, especially VX nerve gas and Sarin. These are both dependent upon the phosphate industry and the steep ramping up of that industry does not bode well for those trying to limit Syrian manufacture of chemical weapons.

This is a must-read.

If you can't believe this will affect you because it's clear across the world, bear in mind that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said during a visit to Damascus in August that he and Syria

will "build a new world" free of US domination, vowing eventually to "dig the grave of US imperialism."

and that Iran Air launches weekly flights to Venezuela through Syria.

More on Syria and WMDs from A Jacksonian,
Syrian WMD facilities: Palymra and Homs
Fun with GIS and INTEL Analysis
Your own All Source Exploitation organization

Israel in the foreign media: JP's Gil Hoffman at Princeton University

UPDATE: I completed the post and the lecture is now posted in full
Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent and analyst for the Jerusalem Post, was on campus yesterday afternoon and the subject of his lecture was Israel in the eyes of the foreign media.

The lecture, which coincided with Hans Blix's, was not promoted heavily and I wasn't the only person in the audience to learn about it at the last minute. Unlike the al-Jazeera lecture of April 13, 2005, this one was sparsely attended, with an audience of only 40 or so. He's a most interesting guy, and I decided to post nearly all my notes on the lecture.

Hoffman's main contact at his job is giving interviews with foreign media, such as CNN, BBC. Of them, mostly al-Jazeera is tremendously interested in what's going on in the country. When the Prime Minister gave a 45-minute long press conference regarding rape accusations, the local TV stations stopped after the first 20 minutes, but al-Jazeera carried the whole press conference. Having the al-Jazeera coverage not only in the conflict but in cultural and social events in the country shows the Arab world that Israel has more to offer than the conflict.

During the Barak years there was no foreign media spokesman, and the only on who spoke English detested Barak.

The Israeli military studied what happened in Jenin - where the fighting was reported as a massacre against the Palestinians, something that couldn't have been further from the truth. In fact, the troops had gone house-to-house to minimize casualties while trying to find terrorists. As there was no foreign media to do the reporting, the Palestinians got out a blood libel. From then on, the Israeli mililitary have made very effort possible to make sure the media go everywhere they go. No doubt this has improved how Israel comes across in the foreign media.

In contrast, last Summer there was a lot of media based in Jerusalem - and the media understood that it was Israel's international border that was being defended.

Israel faces four major threats:

Iran
Syria/Lebanon
Palestinians
Internal rifts inside Isr society that threaten to tear from within: Divides between rich poor, Askenazi/Spahardic, Right/Left, all thses issues divide israelis.

The most scary? Iran.
Nuclear weapons: having them at all because if Iran has them the entire country of Israel would be the way Northern Israel was last country within range last Summer: The whole country would have to go down south or underground. Who would want to live in such a country? Iran is also developing longer range missiles to reach Europe; the US has established an antimissile base in Poland. Additionally, Iran supports Chavez; Iran then talks about the Jewish state from Israel and in Florida.

However, Hoffman genuinely thinks things will be alright, as the issue's being handled discreetly at the highest levels. Olmert has been helping the country by networking with foreign powers ever since he was mayor of Jerusalem, and continues to this day, travelling to Russia China, Egypt London, US, and France, returning more optimistic after each visit.

A second reason for optimism: what is going on in American politcs. A lame duck President has to worry only about his place in history; if he saves the wold from nuclear destruction that will certainly earn him a place. The Democrat oposition now they alreay have the blue states and a way to gain red states is to prove they are tough. There's a stream of Dem candidates visiting Israel, plus they want the Republicans to deal with Iran before they go the White House.
Additionally, the previous UN Secretary General never understood the fundamentalism threat. Now Ban Ki-moon's trying to prevent North Korea from developing atomic weapons, but Iran is also a top priority.
Politics inside Iran: Ahmadinejad is losing the support of his people and there's anger against him. As mayor, he improved the conditions of Tehran but has now brought the world against Iran. The Iranians need outside assistance to feed their people. Israel is hopeful that sanctions will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

What matters most is the politics in Israel. Used to be that generals were in charge, now Olmert is in charge but Israelis trust generals more. Hoffman said that in 62 days, Peretz (Minister of Defense) will be replaced, and the 2 leading candidates are miliary men. Israel needs a ough guy as Min of Def, as Nassralla head of Hizbollah, said last Summer that he wanted to test the weak leadership.

Ofense and defense
Defense: Israel has the Arrow Missile Defense System, which was tested again yesterday.
Ofense: Israel won't be acting alone but with the countries that Olmert visited this last year acting together. When an Israeli general said last year, "Sometimes the last resort is the only resort", it was the first time anyone had hinted at military option. In Iran they are scared of Israel, and the enemies are still scared of the Jewish state.

I'll continue on this post later today. Continuing:
The threat from Syria and Lebanon:
Hoffman went to the north during the bombing last Summer. Dodging missiles and living in shelters was terrible for Israel to endure. However, the media didn’t get to see any of the damage because Iraelis don't dwell in their victimhood. After suicide bombings they clean up immediately, and everything had been rebuilt immediately after the bombings from Lebanon. Israelis have resilience and morbid sense of humor.
They have to prepare for another war next Summer: those 4000 missiles that Hezbollah shot at Israel last year have already been replenished by Assad/Syria. Everybody in the military's been recalled for retraining. There will be pressure on Olmert to quit after results of investigation on what went wrong comes out.

Assad has three pictures in his office: his father's, Ahmadinejad's, and Nassarallah's.

The other threat are the Palestinians:
In the 14 months since they elected Hamas, Irsael had elected the government most willing to make accommodations that could have ended the conflict. Israel gave them two conditions: disarmament, and accepting the existence of Israel. Not a country in the world was supporting the Hamas government until last week, when Norway broke the boycott to spite Europe. At that time a suicide bomber was caught and a sniper attacked; Hamas claimed credit for that sniper, signaling that it’s not very smart to join Norway.

The Q&A Session:
My question was, what is being done with reporters like Charles Enderlin, who uses stringers that make up reports out of whole cloth?
Israel has a problem with foreign reporters having to rely on stringers. While Israelis speak freely in a divided kind of way, on the Palestenian street people won't say anything out of fear from their lives. An organization in Israel has offered Arabic speakers to translate in the Palestinian areas.

2. How about the BBC's fairness?
BBC sometimes is not very fair to Israel.
Al-Jazeera has never interviewed him three-against-one, the Israeli against the Arab, the Palestinian and the Lebanese.
When they interviewed him in London, the first question was "is this a land-grab?", after the withdrawal from Gaza.
Israel is not given the benefit of the doubt. He tells them that the people of Israel want peace.

3. How important is the issue of recognition?
For Israel, it's very important that its enemies allow it to exist. "Don't kill us."

4. What is the difference between al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, and the new all-Arabic BBC?
By allowing Israel's Arab-language spokespeople on Arab media, it is good for Israel because they see more Israelis as people and not enemies. As far as actual news, foreigneers and rich Arabs tend to watch al-Jazeera, but al-Arabiya's on TV screens throughtot arab world.
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Update, Wednesday March 28
On a related subject, BBC pays £200,000 to 'cover up report on anti-Israel bias'

The BBC has been accused of "shameful hypocrisy" over its decision to spend £200,000 blocking a freedom of information request about its reporting in the Middle East.
...
The corporation is fighting a landmark High Court action, which starts next week, in a bid to prevent the public finding out what is in the review, which is believed to be critical of the BBC's coverage in the region.

BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that is coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed by a pro-Palestianian bias.

The corporation famously came under fire after middle-east correspondent Barbara Plett revealed that she had cried at the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.

The BBC's decision to carry on pursuing the case, despite the fact than the Information Tribunal said it should make the report public, has sparked fury as it flies in the face of claims by BBC chiefs that it is trying to make the corporation more open and transparent.

Politicians have branded the BBC's decision to carry on spending money, hiring the one of the country's top public law barrister in the process, as "absolutely indefensible".

They claim its publication is clearly in the public interest.

The BBC's determination to bury the report has led to speculation that the report was damning in its assessment of the BBC's coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict that the BBC wants to keep it under wraps at all costs.

h/t The Anchoress

One party? Not so fast

Venezuela's communists, other leftists, resist president's push for single socialist party. See update below

At the same time, Academic Elephant, blogging at Red State, asks, Is the opposition in Venzuela really dead? Rosales is forming a new opposition party.

Are there signs to a crumbling power equation? Gustavo Coronel explores the subject as Chavez shifts from strategic action to instrumental action.

Academic Elephant had a great post on Chaveonomics 101. Things are so bad in the Venezuelan economy that Hugo's officially announced that he'll massage the inflation numbers so they don't look as bad. Things are getting worse:

In the slums of Caracas, Chavista grocery patrons are now being branded on their bellies (food goes into your belly, right?) with indelible ink by store personnel to ensure that they do not buy more chicken than the government arbitrarily allows.

Still, he continues to nationalize whatever he sees fit. Crime is rising, and tourists are robbed and raped in their hotels

Venezuela was ranked among the four most dangerous countries on the Latin Security Index developed by Holder International for Latin Business Chronicle.

According to the US State Department, Venezuela's one of the principal drug-transit countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Venezuela News and Views has a round-up on How to deal with Chavismo - and Hillary wants us to turn off the lights 'because we don't want to send any more money to Chavez in Venezuela'. Good idea Hillary, now please go tell Joe to go fall in line because 'I Do Feel Noways Tired of his affiliation with the newly-minted dictator.

While continuing to enhance ties with Iran, Hugo's not friendly towards its neighbor Guyana. Now imagine a small defenseless country bordering with a large country that has embarked in an arms race that appears to have no limit.

Last evening I was working on this post when my friend Sigmund Carl and Alfred emailed me this article, Syria ready with bio-terror if U.S. hits Iran
Damascus reportedly hiding WMD among commercial pharmaceuticals. As it turned out, he sent the email just as I was reading that the Venezuelan Foreign Minister was visiting Syria's Bashar Assad in preparation for Assad's visit to Venezuela.

Update V Crisis posts on the single party story: Venezuela's communists weary of Chavez's hegemonic construct?

The business of determining what Venezuelan political event will be picked up by major international news outlets is tricky. The communist State of Venezuela has become a place where not two weeks go by without a major scandal hitting the news. And when I say major scandal I'm not exaggerating. Check out these examples since the beginning of this year:

-- Hugo Chavez declares himself a dictator and promises to send Church hierarchs literature on Marx and Lenin so that they'll understand what his 'socialism of the 21st century' is all about.
-- Officials from Venezuela, by any measure an underdeveloped country, sign in London, by any measure and in itself one of the world's leading economies, an agreement to subsidise fuel of its public bus fleet.
-- Hugo Chavez sort of makes official his break up with Israel.
-- Hugo Chavez nationalizes local and foreign owned power and telecom companies.

You must read the rest.

Syrians at the Embassy, self-help, and today's items

Dan Riehl's post, Syria Attacked American Embassy, takes a second look at something he posted on last September.
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If you haven't read Steve Salerno's book, SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless, but you watch daytime TV, you should read it. Shawn Macomber interviews Steve Salerno, Self-Help Cries Out for Help

"We are each, to varying degrees," you write, "victims of 'second-hand self-help.'" Further: "You may think Dr. Phil is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or you may chortle at his braggadocio and his sagebrush sagacity. But almost no one worries about Dr. Phil." How, exactly are we with neither subscription to Oprah's magazine nor $7000 tickets to a Tony Robbins weekend caught in that web? Why should we fear Dr. Phil?

SS: Where to begin? Moral relativism, with its blurring and rationalization of good and evil, comes directly out of self-help's concept of "personal truth" -- that is, each of us is entitled to define his private reality, with all such realities enjoying equal stature. Self-help also gave us the self-esteem movement, and its idea that the very worst thing you can do is hurt someone's feelings. This has been especially disastrous in schools, where the practical effect is to teach kids to pride themselves on second-rate performance; test scores clearly show this. Today's entitlement culture had its genesis at the intersection of those two constructs: self-esteem and personal truth. The "diseasing of America," too, can be traced to AA's successful crusade to de-stigmatize alcoholism. That reasoning has since been expanded to cover myriad behaviors that once were regarded as character flaws. Further, since diseases are things you have to recover from, companies now find themselves in the curious position of committing a disproportionate amount of resources to their least productive workers. You don't just summarily fire people anymore. You send them to rehab. The menu now includes paid programs for substance abuse, gambling, "anger management," sexual addiction, etc. Then there's the whole Culture of Blame and all of its documented ills. At the other end of the spectrum, "empowerment" dogma is inducing millions of Americans to abandon medical orthodoxy and instead "tap their inner healing energies." Major medical centers now include mind-body regimens as part of the overall treatment for no better reason than patients increasingly are asking for it. So you have medical protocols driven not by validated research, but by consumer demand. What a terrifying notion! I could go on and on.

Via Maria, self-help yourself to a nap.
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Also from Maria, Bert Preluski asks, Will Jimmy Carter please just go away? The problem is, every time Jimmy goes away he blesses the pseudo election of some tinpot dictator or another.
-----------------------------------Two videos via Stop the ACLU,
Scrappleface self-helped himself:

and also, Stuck Mojo:

Stuck Mojo reminds me of Iron Maiden, only with guts.
More on Stuck Mojo here. Here's their official website.
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If you love French movies, you'll love Hezbollah, Mon Amour