Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria

What do you know? President Bush was telling the truth. The whole article is here and and an interview here.

The man's name is Georges Sada and was the number two official in Saddam's air force. He recently wrote a book called, "Saddam's Secrets," talking about what transpired in his regime. According to Mr. Sada, all of the WMDs were moved to Syria before the U.S. invasion. Saddam realized that this time the Americans really were going to do something. I guess that helps when you have a President interested in the country he represents. Slick Willie could learn something.

Here is an excerpt of the interview between Sean Hannity, Bob Beckel and Georges Sada:

HANNITY: Yes. You reveal in this book, there's been so much discussion about weapons of mass destruction, whether they had them, where they were stored, how they got rid of them, you know, when it came time for the United States to invade and where are they now? You answered these questions.

SADA: Well, I want to make it clear, very clear to everybody in the world that we had the weapon of mass destruction in Iraq, and the regime used them against our Iraqi people. It was used against Kurds in the north, against Arabs — marsh Arabs in the south...

HANNITY: Some people say they were destroyed. Did we still have them leading up to the invasion?

SADA: No, he had a very good organization that Saddam was created to show some of them but to continue to hide.

HANNITY: So he had them.

SADA: Yes.

HANNITY: Where were they? And were they moved and where?

SADA: Well, up to the year 2002, 2002, in summer, they were in Iraq. And after that, when Saddam realized that the inspectors are coming on the first of November and the Americans are coming, so he took the advantage of a natural disaster happened in Syria, a dam was broken. So he — he announced to the world that he is going to make an air bridge...

HANNITY: You know for a fact he moved these weapons to Syria?

SADA: Yes.

HANNITY: How do you know that?

SADA: I know it because I have got the captains of the Iraqi airway that were my friends, and they told me these weapons of mass destruction had been moved to Syria.

BECKEL: How did he move them, general? How were they moved?

SADA: They were moved by air and by ground, 56 sorties by jumbo, 747, and 27 were moved, after they were converted to cargo aircraft, they were moved to Syria.

Bin Laden Speaks Out

Today Osama Bin Laden offered the United States a truce. It appears that he has been reading the liberal media because he quoted their poll numbers and pandered to their causes. He claimed that Bush is out to kill Muslims because of the Iraqi war. He neglected to mention that he was sorry for the murder of 3,000 people on September 11, 2001.

The excerpts of the speech are here.

My message to you is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end them. I did not intend to speak to you about this because this issue has already been decided. Only metal breaks metal, and our situation, thank God, is only getting better and better, while your situation is the opposite of that.

But I plan to speak about the repeated errors your President Bush has committed in comments on the results of your polls that show an overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. But he (Bush) has opposed this wish and said that withdrawing troops sends the wrong message to opponents, that it is better to fight them (bin Laden's followers) on their land than their fighting us (Americans) on our land.

We don't mind offering you a long-term truce on fair conditions that we adhere to. We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat. So both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war. There is no shame in this solution, which prevents the wasting of billions of dollars that have gone to those with influence and merchants of war in America who have supported Bush's election campaign with billions of dollars.

Hillary Compares GOP to Plantations

Hillary Clinton compared the House GOP to plantations on MLK day.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking yesterday at a ceremony honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissent is not tolerated.

Her comments, made before a predominantly black audience at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, drew a harsh response from national Republicans, but black leaders came to her defense.

At the ceremony, Mrs. Clinton, the junior Democratic senator from New York, said that Democrats were largely responsible for much of the nation's progress in areas like civil rights and women's rights.

But she suggested that things had changed in recent years with the Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, according to a transcript of her remarks.

Mrs. Clinton added that the House has been "run like a plantation" under Republicans. "And you know what I am talking about," she said. "It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary point of view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument."

Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, accused Mrs. Clinton of using divisive and racially tinged language to score partisan points. "On a day when Americans are focused on honoring Martin Luther King, it is disappointing that Senator Clinton is focused on advancing her own agenda," she said.

But Mrs. Clinton's aides defended the comments, as did black Democratic leaders.

"As she said, under Republican rule the House leadership has stifled real and substantive debate, preventing Democrats from offering amendments and engaging in real discussion," said Philippe Reines, Mrs. Clinton's spokesman.

Read the whole article here.

New Orleans Mayor Says God Mad at U.S.

Ray Nagin the mayor of New Orleans took the liberty of saying something stupid again. He said, "Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country." He then went on to say, "Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."

Read the whole article here.

Nagin also promised that New Orleans will be a "chocolate" city again. Many of the city's black neighborhoods were heavily damaged by Katrina.

"It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans _ the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans," the mayor said. "This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

Gerald Ford Hospitalized

See the whole article here.

Former President Ford was undergoing treatment for pneumonia Monday at the same facility where he was briefly hospitalized a month ago, his chief of staff said. He was said to be doing well.

Ford, 92, was admitted Saturday to Eisenhower Medical Center near his home in Rancho Mirage in Southern California, Penny Circle said.

"Based on his age it is prudent for his initial course of treatment — IV antibiotics — to be done at the hospital," Circle told The Associated Press.

Ford was admitted to the hospital Dec. 12 and left the next day. Circle said at the time that Ford had undergone a regularly scheduled health exam but noted that he also had been battling a bad cold.

Ford suffered two small strokes five years ago and spent about a week in a hospital.

He became the nation's oldest living former president after the death of Ronald Reagan in 2004.

Thomas Jefferson Spoke of the Judiciary

Who would have known that we would be living the following today:

"The Constitution...is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please." --Thomas Jefferson

Alito Up Against Dems

It appears that the Democrats are adamently opposed to Sam Alito despite the fact that they have very little to oppose him on.

Schumer said that while every nominee who aspires to become a Supreme Court justice bears a heavy burden of proving their worthiness, Alito's burden is "triply high."

"First, because you've been named to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, the pivotal swing vote on a divided court; second, because you seem to have been picked to placate the extreme right wing after the hasty withdrawal of Harriet Miers; and, finally, and most importantly, because your record of opinions and statements on a number of critical constitutional questions seems quite extreme," Schumer said during the hearing.

Schumer argued that on issues such as abortion, which Alito has written about in the past, he cannot employ the so-called Ginsburg rule. He and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., added that the growing importance of the court to adjudicate on executive powers adds to Alito's "burden."

"If, tomorrow, we find our questions not being answered, if there's evasion, then I'm afraid that that burden will not be met," Durbin said. "He has gone, I'm afraid, to a marginal position when it comes to the power of the executive. We have to know if this is going to guide him if he is on the Supreme Court."

Just Confirm Sam Alito

It is absolutely amazing that libs are so focused on their special interest groups, they cannot even pretend to understand the Constitution. In the Constitution, it clearly states that the president has the right to choose his nominee. No where in the document does it list that he or she must be within a certain judicial philosophy. That's not good enough for Senator Chuckie Schumer, but then again, he referred to the one who leaked the NSA spying to the New York Times as a "whistleblower."

This article says it all.

"A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case, and a judge certainly doesn't have a client ... the judge's sole obligation is to the rule of law," Alito said.

"Good judges are always open to changing their minds," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"There is nothing more important for our republic than the rule of law," Alito said. "No person, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law and no person in this country is beneath the law."

"I have reserved my own vote on this nomination until the hearing is concluded. As chairman, I am committed to conducting a full, fair and dignified hearing. Hearings for a Supreme Court nominee should not have a political tilt for Republicans or Democrats. They should, in substantive fact and in perception, be for all Americans," Specter said.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told Alito that he has a triple burden to clear before he can be confirmed. That includes proving that he won't swing "the fulcrum of the court" to the right by replacing the moderate O'Connor and that he is more than just a darling of the conservatives.

"The same critics who called the president on the carpet for naming Harriet Miers have rolled out the red carpet for you, Judge Alito. We would be remiss if we did not explore why," Schumer said.

"Most importantly, though, your burden is high because of your record. Although I have not made up my mind, I have serious concerns about that record. ... You give the impression of being a meticulous legal navigator, but, in the end, you always seem to chart a rightward course."

Republicans have argued that the nominee cannot be forced to answer questions on issues that may come before him on the court; Democrats in the past have told more liberal judges like Ruth Bader Ginsburg that that same rule applies.

But Schumer argued that on issues such as abortion, which Alito has written about in the past, he cannot employ the so-called "Ginsburg rule" and refuse to answer some questions. Specter has said Alito has the right to be as brief as he wants in his answers.

Specter and Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Charles Grassley of Iowa bashed special-interest groups who they said are out of the "mainstream" and have been twisting and distorting the issues and cherry-picking certain decisions to characterize Alito's entire judicial philosophy in order to sway lawmakers one way or the other.

Bush said he wants the Senate to conduct the hearings in the "dignified way" he said Alito deserves.

"The Supreme Court is a dignified body; Sam is a dignified person. And my hope, of course, is that the Senate bring dignity to the process and give this man a fair hearing and an up or down vote on the Senate floor," he added.

Filling O'Connor's seat is a "pivotal appointment," since she was the fifth vote on 148 cases, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., telling Alito, "you well could be a very key and decisive vote."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Alito's opinion on abortion rights shouldn't exclude him from getting an up-or-down vote. For example, Ginsburg, who was appointed to the high court by President Clinton, was openly pro-Roe and was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3.

"If she came over in this atmosphere, she wouldn't get 96 votes," Graham said, adding that those in the "mainstream" include every Republican on the committee.

"We represent from the center line to the right ditch in our party and if all of us vote for you — you've got to be pretty mainstream … if every Republican member of the Judiciary Committee votes for you and you're not mainstream, it means we're not mainstream. It's a word that means anything you want it to mean," he said.

Graham said passionate feelings run on both sides of the issue.

Aside from abortion, the scope of the executive branch of power and campaign finance reform — two big issues coming before the court shortly after Alito's confirmation vote — will also be examined. Other issues include: First Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of speech and religion; Fourth Amendment rights relating to unreasonable search and seizure, warrants and probable cause; and the death penalty.

The issue of presidential powers is even more glaring since a frenzy erupted around Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a warrant on American citizens talking with possible terrorists overseas.

But Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is skeptical of the president's agenda and Alito's purported deference toward it.

"In an era when the White House is abusing power, has authorized torture and is spying on American citizens, I find your support for an all-powerful executive branch and almost unlimited power for government agents to be deeply troubling," Kennedy said.

I think that it is safe to say that whenever Kennedy suggests something, it is a safe bet to do the exact opposite...such as not leaving a woman in a sinking car.

Al-Qaida Planning AIDS 'Suicide Bombers'

This is down-right sick! I cannot believe that liberals want to "understand" these people. What's to understand. They kill, and when they find that there are ineffective, they look for a deadlier means.

Al-Qaida is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to Britain's Sunday Mirror.

The newspaper reported that terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe.

Under the heading "HIV/Hepatitis" the document states: "There is evidence that terrorists might be deliberately recruiting volunteers with diseases that are spread by blood transference."

Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments from a suicide bomber could penetrate the skin of a victim more than 50 yards away and infect them.

Perspective On Iraq

Burt Prelutsky is right on. I could not agree more. Below is an excerpt. The entire column is here.

As I say, I was in favor of invading Iraq whether or not Hussein was funding research on a nuclear bomb for many of the same reasons I would have been predisposed to invading Nazi Germany in the 1930s and getting rid of Adolf Hitler, even if I’d been unaware that Werner von Braun and his band of elves were working on the V-2 rocket.

For all the faults that people find with President Bush, a few of which even I acknowledge, his determination to bring democracy to a part of the world where it’s almost as rare as a ham sandwich convinces me that history -- at least history written by the politically unbiased -- will judge him favorably.

Jack Abramoff Proves Too Much Government Is A Bad Thing

In light of the Jack Abramoff scandal, it is apparent that we need to have a smaller government. Star Parker outlines the specific issues here.

Already there is talk in Washington about "lobbying reform legislation." Washington has seen many scandals over the years, followed by a lot of reform legislation that was supposed to close the gaps allowing improper influence and corruption. Yet, despite a lot of laws about what lobbyists can and can't do, along came Abramoff to show what a truly talented, creative, and energetic liar and charlatan can accomplish.

There are two themes here to remember.

First, excessive government is a big part of the problem. The more of our lives that we turn over to politicians and bureaucrats, the more we expand the scope of the culture of power and influence that emerges from this. When we address corruption with new laws, we just make government bigger and therefore expose ourselves to more, not less, of the same problem.

Second, the more we choose to believe that our problem is not enough laws, the more we distort the truth that the problem is corrupt people, not a corrupt system.

Saddam Training al Qaeda

Who would have thought that President Bush was in fact telling the truth. Certainly not the libs in Congress or the media. Fortunately, some members of the media do their homework and can accurately deliver the news. The whole article is here, but I will add an excerpt below.

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

Strong Economy

Maybe it is just the Bush-haters who fail to see the economic growth since President Bush's tax cuts, but unemployment is now at 4.9%. For anybody with any economics background, they know that 5% is considered, no unemployment.

The article is here.

Give President Bush Some Credit

Check out this article called, "The Dog That Has Not Barked."

1,576 days have passed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and still there has been no subsequent terrorist assault on American soil.

Is this just good luck, or is it the result of good policy?

The danger is that the farther 9/11 recedes in memory, the less we appreciate that it hasn’t happened again. When it comes to the war on terror, many Americans have become short-sighted, ungrateful and decadent.

Consider “Munich,” the new Steven Spielberg film. The movie, which last month was the subject of a cover story in Time magazine, follows the response to the brutal murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. According to Spielberg’s version of events, Israel commissioned a small team to travel throughout Europe to assassinate the terrorists behind the killings.

Rather than an inspiring story of justice and deterrence, Spielberg’s movie is a depressing tale of retaliation as counterproductive and morally corrupting. In an interview, the director said, “A response to a response doesn’t solve anything.” Instead, you need to sit down and talk things out “until you’re blue in the gills.”

There’s little doubt that Spielberg is referring, not just to Munich 1972 but to America post-9/11. The last shot in the film catches the twin towers of the World Trade Center in the background.

Several times in “Munich,” characters point out that, if the Israelis kill a terrorist, many more will rise to replace him, and these successors will be even worse. That may have been true with Nazis during World War II, but what is the alternative? To let the World Court handle the matter? To try to reason till you’re blue in the gills with Black September and al-Qaeda? Spielberg calls his movie a “prayer for peace,” but it is highly likely that calling a halt to the hunt for bin Laden and his henchmen will lead to more bloodshed, not less.

The terrorists’ lack of success is the result of a response that has been aggressive and single-minded -- at home, in Iraq and in places we know little about. The policy is working. It has kept us safe. We tamper with it at our own extreme peril.

Rapist Gets 60 Days In Jail

If only Michael Jackson stood before Judge Edward Cashman, he would not have had any financial trouble. He would have simply sat in jail for the maximum of 60 days. Apparently this judge does not believe the loss of an 11 year old girl's innocence is worthy of punishment.

He said, "The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul." He stated that he handed down stiff sentences at one point, but went on to say, "I discovered it accomplishes nothing of value;it doesn't make anything better;it costs us a lot of money; we create a lot of expectation, and we feed on anger."

It is time to impeach this guy. He clearly is on the wrong side of the law. Naturally the family of this young girl is outraged, as is any logical person.

The whole article is here.

2005 Conservative Movies

We all knew that they had to exist. This is the list.

I honestly can say that I have not seen the majority of them. From the list I have seen Batman Begins, King Kong and Memoirs of the Geisha. Personally, I only saw Batman Begins as being in line with Conservative values, as it is truly patriotic.

Batman Begins – The film offers a new take on the comic-book hero, especially his origins. Absent are the silly super-villains with their tricks and weaponry. In place of “those wonderful toys” (as the Joker calls the Caped Crusader’s tools of the trade in the first Batman movie), we have a truly dark knight, trained in martial arts and mind-control in the Far East.

As Batman struggles to understand the nature of evil and the difference between justice and revenge, he confronts his most deadly challenge – the League of Shadows (led by the charismatic Ra’s Al Ghul). Ra’s is a mirror image of Batman, where the fight against evil is perverted into a self-righteous, ego trip. In other words, Christian Bale’s Dark Knight ends up battling his darker side.

There’s a strong cast, including Michael Caine as loyal butler Alfred, Katie Holmes as Bruce Wayne’s love interest and Liam Neeson as the villain who seeks to destroy Batman by corrupting him. This is a superhero movie with a message worth contemplating.

Revenge Of The Sith & Terrorism

I watched Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith today and could not help remembering the nonsense that the liberals were pushing near its release. They contended that the movie was a fantasy viewing of modern day America and portrayed President Bush as the Emporer (also the Sith Lord) and Darth Vader. The whole article is here.

I do recall at the time that intelligent people, ones who take the terrorism threat realistically viewed the film of an example of what happens if evil is not eliminated when the chance is available.

For those who are unfamiliar with the story, Obi Wan Kanobi has the chance to kill Darth Vader, but does not. Instead he leaves him to burn in the volcanic eruption. Unfortunately for the Jedi, the Emporer rehabilitated Vader into the monster of the original Star Wars trilogy.

The liberals would have us believe that terrorism would simply disappear if we chose to ignore it. Intelligent individuals know that true evil will always avenge their losses and they have proven themselves throughout the '90s with the first World Trade Center attack, the bombing of the U.S. Embassies and the U.S.S Cole.

Had Obi Wan killed Vader when he had the chance, the Emporer would have been easier to destroy and the original trilogy would never had been. It is possible that had Clinton attacked Al Queda and Iraq as he planned (see previous post) that 9/11 might not have occurred. I find it interesting that without this one event, President Bush might not have shown the strength of a leader, and subsequently would not have been re-elected.

The libs praise Clinton and her perverse lifestyle, yet never mention his major inadequecies when it comes to leadership. Clinton helped the liberals arch nemesis win a second term.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all. Let's hope that 2006 brings good news for America and all of the people who live in this great nation. Let's look forward to the further development of Iraq, and hope good things continue to happen for the people of that nation.