Congress Should Protect Free Speech and those Exposing Terror Financiers

The Terror Finance Blog: Congress Should Protect Free Speech and those Exposing Terror Financiers

Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) argued in a WSJ the need for national legislation to protect free speech and those who expose sponsor of terrorism. “Our Constitution is one of our greatest assets in the fight against terrorism. A free-flowing marketplace of ideas, protected by the First Amendment, enables the ideals of democracy to defeat the totalitarian vision of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

That free marketplace faces a threat. Individuals with alleged connections to terrorist activity are filing libel suits and winning judgments in foreign courts against American researchers who publish on these matters. These suits intimidate and even silence writers and publishers. ...

The Muslim Brotherhood: Now on Facebook

Never mind Scrabulous, will there be a Halal or Haram application? "Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood goes on-line on Facebook," from Adnkronos International, July 25:

Cairo, 25 July (AKI) - The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has launched a discussion forum on Facebook, the popular social networking website.

A group of young Muslims decided to put the Muslim Brotherhood on Facebook after they received the go-ahead to do so from the Brotherhood's second-in-command, Muhammad Habib.

The creators of the project decided to call themselves an "electronic student cell of the Muslim Brotherhood" and their aim to to push for the return of an Islamic Caliphate [a Muslim state]."

The Muslim Brotherhood has been outlawed by the Egyptian government, which accuses the group of encouraging violence in order to establish an Islamic state.

This new youth wing decided to choose the Internet as a way to spread their message.

Their political activity is also not limited to Egypt either but is aimed at Muslims all around the world.

The new discussion forum on Facebook is based on five points.

The first is the organisation of protests in all Muslim countries for the salvation of Islam and issues of the Islamic nation.

The second issue refers to the spread of the stories of the Prophet Mohammad with regards to the caliphate and the third point is a request to all imams to talk about this issue in their sermons.

The fourth and fifth points are spreading of leaflets to remind Muslims of the importance of the caliphate and to sensitize all Islamic parties and organisations to support this initiative.

This forum on Facebook was endorsed by Habib, even if he believes that this group of young people are not actually militants of his movement.

"I do not think that the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood do something like this because they cannot think in this way," said Habib in an interview with Arab satellite television network Al-Arabiya.

"Our young people follow the direction of the management and they do not work separately, starting individual activities without waiting for the common decision of the movement," he said.

Despite the remarks by Habib, other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, such as the parliamentarian, Hamdi Hasan, have strongly criticised the initiative of the youth group.

"It is based on a campaign that does not have sense and could be read as an internal division of his movement promoted by the new generation," said Hasan.

Charges dismissed against Marine in Iraq shootings

By CHELSEA J. CARTER Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO — Charges have been dismissed against a Camp Pendleton Marine sniper accused in the shooting deaths of two Syrians in Iraq, Marine Corps officials said Thursday.

The charges against Sgt. John Winnick II were dismissed without prejudice by the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, meaning charges could be brought again at a later time.

Winnick, 24, was charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter and failing to adhere to the military's rules of engagement by firing without reasonable certainty that his targets were hostile.

"In light of all of the circumstances, the commanding general has determined Sgt. Winnick's actions do not warrant referral of the charges to a military justice forum," said Marine Corps spokesman Mike Alvarez.

Alvarez said he didn't know why Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland left the door open for possible future prosecution.

An investigating officer had recommended that Winnick face a lesser charge of dereliction of duty for the June 17, 2007, shooting in Iraq's western Anbar province.

"This is the first I'm hearing of it," Winnick's attorney, Gary Myers, told The Associated Press when asked for reaction to the dismissal.

"We are obviously pleased, and it was the correct result," he said.

Myers said Winnick, of Del Mar, Calif., was not immediately aware of the dismissal of charges but believed he would be "relieved" by the news.

"Now he can go back to being a Marine," he said.

During an Article 32 hearing, similar to a preliminary hearing, to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to send the Marine to court-martial, Winnick testified that he shot the men because he believed he was protecting his comrades.

The shooting began after a soda delivery truck stopped near a sniper team hideout on a busy road near Lake Tharthar where roadside bombs were a common threat.

During the hearing, Winnick's comrades testified that the Marine fired a fatal sniper round at a man who hopped out of the cab, removed a container or bag from a side compartment, and appeared to begin digging at the ground. Winnick then killed a second man with a shotgun after the team stormed out of its hiding place, they testified.

Winnick had faced up to 40 years in prison and dishonorable discharge if convicted on all counts, which also included aggravated assault against two truck passengers who were injured in the fight.

State Department mum on Islamic promotion

(Compiler's note: I just can not remember, what was our "outreach" program for the Nazi during WWII? Some people just don't yet seem to understand we are now at war to the bitter end)

The U.S. State Department isn't explaining the production by the government of a calendar promoting Islamic mosques in America.

"We're not going to get into whether or not, or why the mosque-themed calendar was produced. The production of the mosque-themed calendar is one part of a very broad outreach program, a multi-faceted program," ...

But there was no answer available as to whether any of those themes and outreaches include Christianity.

According to the Gates of Vienna blog, the government advertised:

In celebration of Ramadan, Global Publishing Solutions (GPS) is offering a limited edition of the 2009 Mosques in America Wall Calendar. This 12-month calendar is perfect for Muslim outreach efforts, as well as office and event giveaways.

The wall calendar features a vibrant photograph or photomontage for each month, displaying the beauty of mosques in America.

The upper half of the hanging calendar depicts mosque facades or interiors, and the lower half displays a monthly calendar grid. The 28-page calendar is saddle-stitched and measures 23 x 30 1/2 cm (9 x 12 inches)

This item is on sale until August 1st, 2008 in shrink-wrapped packs of 20 pieces.

One page from the U.S. State Department's "Mosques of America" 2009 promotional calendar

On the Gates of Vienna site, a reader posted a comment recommending the State Department "adorn the calendar with equally vibrant Quranic verses and hadiths, samples of what is preached in those mosques. For example: January: Kill the infidels wherever you find them. February: Allah's Apostle said: I've been made victorious with terror – and so on and so forth."

JihadWatch.org pointed out the page was pulled after the weblog Snapped Shot posted an image of it. Snapped Shot said it seems the public servants at State "get all nervous when We, The People actually notice" what they're doing.

JihadWatch also made available captured screen shots of the top half and the bottom half of the page.

Did explosion cause jet hole?

A GAPING hole which ripped through the belly of a jumbo jet mid-flight may have been caused by an explosive device or a damaged fuselage, aviation experts say.

The packed Quantas Boeing 747 was forced to make an emergency landing in the Philippines today after the hole ripped through the plane’s belly.

Some passengers were so terrified they vomited when oxygen masks has to be used as the Melbourne-bound flight touched down. ...

The Pakistan Frontier Corps in the War on Terrorism – Part One

By Tariq Mahmud Ashraf

Pakistan’s first line of defense against insurgent forces in its loosely-ruled western frontier region is not Pakistan’s regular army, but a long-neglected, locally raised paramilitary. A remnant of the British colonial era, the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) has been maintained and stationed in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan province by the government of Pakistan since independence. Although the FC is a paramilitary organization led and commanded by officers from the regular Pakistan Army, the oversight of FC-NWFP and FC-Baluchistan rests with the federal Ministry of the Interior. The FC formations in the two provinces are separate administrative and functional entities with each commanded by a serving major general from the Pakistan Army. While FC-NWFP is headquartered at Peshawar, FC-Baluchistan is based in Quetta. ...

PKK Kidnappings an Isolated Initiative or a New European Strategy?

By Gareth Jenkins

The seizure in eastern Turkey on July 8 of three German mountaineers by a unit of the People’s Defense Force (HPG), the armed wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was the first time in more than a decade that the organization had kidnapped Western tourists. The kidnapping is believed to have been a reaction to a crackdown by the German authorities on pro-PKK media outlets in Germany and appears to indicate a new willingness to explicitly target nationals of countries whose governments are regarded as being hostile to the organization. The three mountaineers, all male, were members of a group of 13 who had arrived in eastern Turkey on July 6 to climb the 5,137-meter high Mount Ararat. They received a permit from the Turkish authorities and were accompanied by a Turkish guide. At around 10 PM local time on July 8, after setting up base camp at around 3,200 meters, the group was approached by five HPG militants, who delivered a lecture in broken English on the PKK’s armed struggle before kidnapping three of the climbers at gunpoint. ....

Empowering “Soft” Taliban Over “Hard” Taliban: Pakistan’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy

By Sadia Sulaiman

The phenomenal rise of various Pakistani Taliban militant groups since 2004 and subsequent militant activities in both Pakistan and Afghanistan have surprised many. In a short span of nearly three years, the Pakistani Taliban threat has developed into a considerable political and security challenge to both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The presence of figures from al-Qaeda’s senior leadership and other foreign militant groups in the North Waziristan Agency, South Waziristan Agency and Bajaur Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan has provided enormous support to various Pakistani Taliban groups in the shape of ideological, strategic, tactical and logistical assistance, particularly in the development of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and suicide bombings.

The formation of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in December 2007 by various Taliban groups effectively brought together 27 Taliban groups under one umbrella. The union was viewed as an attempt to pursue Talibanization in Pakistan while conducting a “defensive jihad” against Pakistani security forces operating in FATA and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) (Islam Online, March 6). Baitullah Mahsud, who heads the TTP, is blamed for most of the suicide attacks and terrorist violence in FATA, NWFP and Punjab province in 2007. Mahsud is also accused of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. ...

Obama's $845 billion U.N. plan forwarded to U.S. Senate floor

by Bob Unruh

The U.S. Senate soon could debate whether you, your spouse and each of your children – as well as your in-laws, parents, grandparents, neighbors and everyone else in America – each will spend $2,500 or more to reduce poverty around the world.

The plan sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is estimated to cost the U.S. some $845 billion over the coming few years in an effort to raise the standard of living around the globe.

Barack Obama

S.2433 already has been approved in one form by the U.S. House of Representatives and now has been placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar for pending debate. ...

A Goliath in Pennsylvania faces a challenge from a David

By MICHELLE MALKIN

A jaw-dropping political miracle may be on the horizon: the long-deserved comeuppance of troop-smearing, pork-feasting, scandal-tainted Democratic Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania.

Murtha’s challenger, staunch conservative Republican newcomer William Russell, raised nearly $670,000 in the second fundraising quarter. The 18-term earmark king Murtha scraped together a measly $119,000. Russell’s underdog campaign bested Murtha without the perks of incumbency, national name recognition, big PAC donations or mainstream media support.

Even more amazing: Russell, 45, a Desert Storm veteran, former Army lieutenant colonel and Army reservist who survived the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon, was not even publicly campaigning during the quarter. He is on active duty with the Army until after Aug. 1 and is barred from actively campaigning until then.

If all that didn’t make this enough of an inspiring David and Goliath story: In February, a Pennsylvania judge ruled that Russell had failed to collect enough signatures to make the primary ballot. But Russell refused to give up on his goal of permanently redeploying Murtha from his entrenched seat of power in Washington. The GOP neophyte persevered on a shoestring budget and won more than 4,000 write-in votes in the spring to earn a spot on the general election ballot. According to Russell’s campaign manager and veteran GOP activist Peg Luksik, the bulk of contributions from about 16,000 donors in the second quarter were less than $50.

Russell’s clear on where he stands. No doubt Barack Obama would label him bitter and clingy. “I am a conservative,” he says in his defining campaign statement. “I believe in the sovereignty and security of this one nation, under God. I believe the primary role of government is to provide for the common defense and a legal framework to protect families and individual liberty. ... I believe that no one owes me anything just because I live and breathe.”

The excitement and buzz around Russell stand in stark contrast to grass-roots disgust on the right with Beltway Republicans who continue to push the party to the left in a brain-dead attempt to “rebrand” the GOP. He has united pro-troops families, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, Reagan Democrats and Independents fed up with Murtha’s culture of corruption dating back to his Abscam days in the 1980s. Murtha was not indicted in the infamous bribery probe, but he was videotaped entertaining a $50,000 bribe from undercover FBI agents posing as emissaries for Arab sheiks trying to enter our country illegally.

Russell decided to enter politics after hearing Murtha’s slanderous 2006 accusations that Marines in Haditha “overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” As I reported in June, seven Marines have been cleared or won case dismissals in the Iraq war incident Murtha recklessly adjudicated in the court of public opinion.

Perhaps that complicity explains the great media wall of silence around Russell’s upstart campaign. Republican Bill Russell offers ethical, freedom-enhancing, pro-responsibility, anti-retreat, unapologetically conservative change they don’t want to believe in.

Emergency: E-Verify Opponents Trying To Undermine Its Reauthorization

Efforts to reauthorize E-Verify are under attack in the House and the Senate. In the House, business and open-borders groups who oppose E-Verify are trying to persuade Representatives to limit the term of its reauthorization to three years. In the Senate, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), also an E-Verify opponent, has placed a hold on reauthorization legislation until Congress submits to his demand to drastically increase the number of permanent, employment-based visas for foreign workers (see Roy Beck's blog on Menendez).

House Action

Business and open-borders groups now recognize it will be difficult to stop the reauthorization effort in the House, so they are seeking to limit its impact by limiting its term. These groups are trying to persuade House members to limit the term of its reauthorization to three years so they will have an early chance to weaken E-Verify in a political climate they hope is better for them.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) have suggested the possibility of moving a bill to the House floor next week that would reauthorize E-Verify for 10 years. It is not known whether they will move a “clean” bill, i.e., one that reauthorizes E-Verify without making other changes, or attempt to incorporate measures that would weaken the program’s effectiveness.

NumbersUSA is seeking a permanent reauthorization of E-Verify, which is now set to expire in November, but could agree to a minimum renewal period of ten years for now. We also are pushing for a phased-in mandate for all employers to use E-Verify, as embodied in the SAVE Act.

The short-term extension proposed by business and open-borders groups is little more than a ploy to buy time to further weaken E-Verify and continue efforts behind the scenes to enact an amnesty during the next Congress. The best solution for Congress, and for the nation, is to pass a “clean” reauthorization before members break for their August recess, and then resume efforts to enact the SAVE Act in September.

Please call your U.S. Representative today (202-224-3121) to ask for a “clean” reauthorization of E-Verify, preferably with no sunset but for a minimum of ten years. NumbersUSA members can go to their Action Buffet corkboard to pick up additional instructions.

Senate Action

Senator Menendez has announced that he intends to hold reauthorization of E-Verify hostage until Congress submits to his demand to drastically increase the number of permanent, employment-based visas to be made available to US employers seeking to import foreign workers to permanently take American Jobs. He claims that he would do this by “recapturing unused” employment-based visas from as far back as 1991 and then add them to the current numerical cap of 140,000 employment-based visas that are available each year.

The State Department estimates that the Menendez plan would add 550,000 additional employment-based visas, which would remain available until they are all used. Current law, however, clearly states that any employment-based visas not used in one year are allocated to the family-preference categories in the following year. That means that there are no “unused” visas from past years to “recapture.” Sen. Menendez ignores this provision of law, though it is safe to say he would not ignore the part of the law that says that any family-based visas not used in one year are allocated to the employment-based category for the following year.

The fact is that current law ensures that all visas are used by transferring them between the two major categories of legal, permanent visas: family-based and employment-based. Senator Menendez needs to understand that the only way to "recapture" 550,000 "unused" employment-based visas is to "recapture" them from the family-based category to which they were reallocated.

We urge those of you in New Jersey to call Sen. Menendez (202-224-3121) and tell him to stop blocking the reauthorization of the E-Verify program, immediately! There are no “unused” visas so his proposal will not do what he says it will do. NumbersUSA members can go to their Action Buffet corkboard to pick up additional instructions.

NJ Sen. Menendez Now Blocking E-Verify

E-Verify (the effective program to keep illegal aliens out of U.S. jobs) now is facing danger in the Senate, as well as the House (see my previous blogs on House troubles).

The NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team has been told that Sen. Menendez (D-N.J.) has put a "hold" on legislation to reauthorize the E-Verify workplace verification program. That means the Senate is barred from voting to keep it alive. Without a vote, E-Verify will die in November.

Our understanding is that Sen. Menendez is blocking the most effective tool against illegal immigration in order to get something else that he wants. He will allow an E-Verify vote if he is allowed to give hundreds of thousands of skilled American jobs permanently to hundreds of thousands of additional immigrants.

At a time when skilled Americans and students aspiring to those jobs are finding a depressed job market, Sen. Menendez is insisting on flooding their occupations with even more foreign workers. And if he doesn't get his way, he will take away the best tool that employers have to keep illegal foreign workers from taking jobs at every rung of the ladder, but especially at the lower-skilled job level. ...

58 Illegal Aliens Arrested in Ohio Enforcement Actions

Yesterday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 58 illegal aliens during eight enforcement actions in the Ohio towns of Ashland, Fremont, Norwalk, Oberlin, Oregon, Sandusky, Vermilion and Youngstown. All were employed in the Norwalk-based Casa Fiesta restaurant chain. Agents also searched a Norwalk home after a warrant was issued.

The raids were the result of a one-year criminal investigation, according to an ICE press release. The release notes that everyone detained was medically screened and interviewed by ICE agents to determine if they have medical, sole-caregiver, or other humanitarian issues. Three of the four women arrested were released on humanitarian grounds pending their appearance before an immigration judge, which will determine if they will be deported.

This is the second enforcement action related to suspected illegal staffing operations in Ohio this year. An April 16 raid of seven restaurants in Ohio and five other states netted 45 arrests of illegal aliens and criminal charges against employers for recruiting and harboring illegal aliens. ...

Change They Can Believe In

... Media infatuation with Obama has only grown since he locked up his party’s nomination in early June. On magazine covers, newspaper pages and television screens, the storyline is all too clear: It’s all Obama, all the time.

Among the more disturbing features of this adulation is its embarrassing effect on supposedly hard-nosed journalists. MSNBC News’ Lee Cowan aptly diagnosed the symptoms of Obamamania when he observed that “it’s almost hard to remain objective because it’s infectious. It’s almost not cool if you haven’t seen him in person.” One need only consider the sad case of Chris Matthews, who has gushed that Obama is “sort of a gift from the world to us in so many ways.” Hardball this is not.

With the media’s biases so starkly exposed, it’s little wonder that Americans have lost faith in their fourth estate’s ability to cover the presidential race fairly. A recent Rasmussen found that 49 percent of respondents believed reporters would favor Obama in their coverage this fall. Just 14 percent expected the media to back John McCain.

Such suspicions are warranted. For instance, a Project For Excellence In Journalism survey showed that Obama was a main figure in 78 per cent of newspaper, radio and television election reports in the six weeks since early June. By contrast, only 21 percent of reports focused on McCain. The Tyndall Report, which monitors the nightly newscasts of the three major American television networks, reported a similar bias. It found that CBS, NBC and ABC have expended 114 broadcasting minutes covering Obama since Hilary Clinton’s June withdrawal from the primaries, and only 48 minutes to McCain. On the media’s radar, the former Vietnam P.O.W. is M.I.A.

A stunning example of journalistic favoritism-in-action was furnished by the New York Times. Last week, the paper published an op-ed by Obama detailing his plan for Iraq. One might think that McCain would be similarly entitled to this highly desirable piece of media real-estate. Yet, when McCain submitted a rebuttal piece, criticizing Obama’s timetable for the withdrawal of American troops, the paper refused to publish it. A Times editor claimed that McCain’s submission did not have “enough new information,” and encouraged the senator to resubmit a new version. As critics noted, this was the kind of brush-off typically reserved for unwanted freelancers, not would-be presidents. (Interestingly, while the Times decreed McCain’s article unfit to print, a European paper, the Berliner Tagesspiegel published it this week.) ...

Are You On the Terror Watch List? Good Luck Getting Off It

... After having begun a series of investigative stories criticizing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in May 2008, CNN reporter Drew Griffin reports being placed with more than a million other names on TSA's swollen terrorism watch list.

Although TSA insists Griffin's name is not on the list and pooh-poohs any possibility of retaliation for Griffin's negative reporting, the reporter has been hassled by various airlines on 11 flights since May. The airlines insist that Griffin's name is on the list.

Congress has asked TSA to look into the tribulations of this prominent passenger. ...

State Gets Boost In Homeland Security Funds

WASHINGTON - — Because of "high-risk urban areas" Hartford and Bridgeport, Connecticut is getting a serious boost to the homeland security grant dollars to be formally announced by the Department of Homeland Security on Friday.

The state will haul in $15 million overall — up 42 percent from last year. The grant information, released by U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman's Senate homeland security committee, included about $10.6 million for the state, $2.3 million for the Hartford area and $2 million for Bridgeport.

"This funding will help Connecticut homeland security officials prevent disasters by sharing and analyzing law enforcement and terrorism information," Lieberman said in a statement Thursday. ...

Justice Advised CIA in '02 About Legal Waterboarding

Lawyers for the Bush administration told the CIA in 2002 that its officers could legally use waterboarding and other harsh measures while interrogating al-Qaeda suspects, as long as they acted "in good faith" and did not deliberately seek to inflict severe pain, according to a Justice Department memo made public yesterday. ...

Toward A 'Homeland Security Court' for Captured Terrorists

WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 16, 2007—“The government’s system for detaining terrorists without charge or trial has harmed the reputation of the United States, disrupted alliances, hurt us in the war of ideas with the Islamic world and been viewed skeptically by our own courts,” wrote Jack L. Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor and assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2004, and Neal Katyal, a Georgetown law professor who represented the plaintiff in the 2006 Supreme Court case that struck down the Guantánamo tribunals, in a New York Times op-ed last Wednesday.

Goldsmith and Katyal’s observations pretty much sum up the plethora of problems the Bush administration has incurred in dealing with the enemy combatants captured on the battlefields of the war on terror, which the 9/11 attack inexorably forced us into. The principal problem of this war, though, is there has been no formal declaration of war by America, never mind that Al Qaeda declared war on us.

Compounding this glaring oversight is the hastily constructed judicial process to imprison, charge and try the terrorists who are fighting this war – it’s in disarray, and, by most accounts, insufficient for adjudicating the fate of this war’s captured enemy combatants.

Consequently, a bipartisan cadre in Congress has begun to push legislation to halt funding for the Guantanamo Bay (GITMO) detention center and to grant habeas corpus rights to detainees, the latter of which are not rights afforded to prisoners of war under universally accepted conduct of war. ...

Expedited Trials of Illegal Immigrants Are Questioned

Criminal defense and immigration lawyers yesterday challenged the government's use of expedited trials to convict 306 illegal immigrant workers at a meat processing plant in Iowa in May, arguing that fast-tracked group trials violated defendants' rights.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's immigration panel, said after a day-long hearing that she found the Justice Department's actions against workers at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville, Iowa, "to be unusual and provocative, and I do have questions about whether they meet the requirements of due process that is guaranteed in our Constitution." ...

Prep for disaster—medical volunteers needed

Pandemic flu, anthrax, “dirty bomb.” Could it happen? Absolutely. These and other disasters could happen at any time. The Ogle County Health Department (OCHD) is seeking medical volunteers to assist the staff in the event of a disaster. With skilled volunteers, the Health Department would be able to provide a quicker response to any disaster that may occur.

In certain disasters, such as an anthrax exposure or pandemic flu outbreak, there may be antibiotics or vaccinations that could prevent or lessen a disease’s impact. The Health Department would be responsible for distributing these medications. OCHD has planned and practiced the distribution of emergency medications for Ogle County citizens. With the help of medical volunteers, they could more efficiently distribute needed medications or vaccinations. Points of distribution have been established in Rochelle and Oregon, with a backup site in Byron. During an emergency, the public would be directed to one of these sites.

If you are a nurse, physician, dentist, veterinarian or pharmacist, and would be interested in assisting with the distribution of medications during a disaster, OCHD would like to hear from you. At this time, you will be placed on a response list. No time will be required from you unless a disaster occurs. Information will be distributed periodically to keep you knowledgeable on current situations.

Border Patrol in pursuit of radiation

ALAMOGORDO — Bud Hertzner went to El Paso to take a medical stress test. On his way home, he and his wife, Sharon, received a surprise at a local Border Patrol checkpoint.

"I pulled up in the station at (U.S.) 70 and the guy had a thing on (his) belt like a cell phone," Hertzner, an Alamogordo resident, said. "It was blinking."

He was surprised when he was asked to provide paperwork to prove he had been to the doctor.

"Sharon and I looked at each other like, "What's going on here?'" Hertzner said.

The equipment on the officer's belt turned out to be a radiation detector and, because Hertzner's medical test involved nuclear medicine, he was slightly radioactive. The officer at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint asked for Hertzner's driver's license and for his letter of appointment to the doctor.

After verifying Hertzner's identity and glancing through his car, the Border Patrol officer waved him on through. ...

Panel urges anti-terrorism agency

UNITED NATIONS — A Swiss-led, five-nation panel proposed Thursday that the United Nations assert itself as leader of a global fight against terrorism and establish a new agency or program to coordinate that effort.

U.N. ambassadors from Costa Rica, Japan, Slovakia, Switzerland and Turkey suggested that the U.N. General Assembly create an agency for counterterrorism along the lines of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It also recommended that the U.N. assist counterterrorism officials from individual nations in promoting "a human rights-based approach to counterterrorism" that disdains torture and preserves prisoners' rights.

The panel, launched by the Swiss U.N. mission in November, is an attempt to involve more of the General Assembly's 192 member nations in fighting terrorism. It also seeks to shift some of the emphasis away from military or police work and onto grappling with interrelated social, economic and health factors. ...

Egyptian Muslim Preacher 'Amr Khaled: Within 20 Years Muslims Will become the Majority in Europe; Enemies of Islam Want to Drive 30 Million Muslims ou

Fascinating video interview ....

'Bush lied, people died' doesn't hold up

In recent the mantra of “Bush lied, people died” has become something of a truism in some circles. But while that slogan makes a clever bumper sicker, it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

In his recent book “War and Decision,” former Pentagon official Douglas Feith attempts to set part of the record straight regarding the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Feith's account paints the Bush administration as well meaning but sadly incompetent.

Feith demonstrates that the administration gave multiple reasons for war in Iraq, including continued violations of U.N. resolutions, violations of the first Gulf War cease fire, humanitarian abuses, regime links to terrorism and the continuation of weapons of mass destruction programs (as distinct from the actual possession of WMD). Iraq's actual possession of WMD was only part of a broader argument for war.

Yet, they did argue that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of WMD, an argument that proved false. But most Western intelligence agencies also believed Iraq had significant stockpiles of WMD.

Members of Congress had access to the same intelligence as the executive branch and most came to the same conclusions. Former Clinton administration officials, including Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton himself initially supported the war based on Iraq's possession of WMD.

Multiple independent investigations, including the Robb-Silberman commission, have cleared the administration of “cooking the intelligence.” Bush said Iraq had stockpiles of WMD because the CIA insisted it did. Still, the Iraqi Survey Group in part vindicated the administration by noting even though Iraq did not possess large numbers of WMD, the programs were in place to reconstitute WMD in short order. For whatever reason, the administration decided not to present this evidence in its own defense.

So what went wrong? Feith argues that the administration failed to press the intelligence community on the sourcing of its reports. Policymakers were unaware that the CIA had no human intelligence to back up its claims. The president was also ill-served by aides who isolated Bush from internal disagreements instead of presenting him with stark alternatives from which to choose. Bush also did not discipline State Department and CIA officials who serially leaked to the press their disagreements with administration policy that the leakers, for whatever reason, failed to mention in official meetings.

The post-war Iraqi situation quickly went from bad to worse. Post-war planning started late so as to avoid the appearance of rushing to war. Also, military leaders, civilian Pentagon officials and the State Department all squabbled over how to train a new Iraqi military and how quickly power should be transferred over to the Iraqis. These arguments festered without resolution.

Finally, Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, unilaterally decided that the Iraqis needed a finalized constitution, as opposed to simple negotiations, before control could be handed over. Bremer ended up leading a14-month occupation that was intended to last only weeks.

In Feith's account, Bush did not demand to be presented all options and gave little guidance or discipline to his appointees. The CIA was rife with incompetence and allowed political agendas to influence its work. The administration made only lame attempts to defend itself in public. In short, the Bush administration showed great incompetence, not maliciousness.

One would think that the charge of incompetence would satisfy Bush haters. But the “Bush lied” mantra frees them of the intellectual heavy lifting required to critique executive management, policy formation processes and intelligence gathering, dissemination and analysis. This is akin to Republicans of the 1990s who worried more about the status of Bill Clinton's pants than actually articulating their own agenda.

To see one's political opponents as evil frees us from having to think hard about politics and allows us the easy comfort of believing ourselves morally superior to our adversaries. This vice is not unique to any particular quarter in American politics. The “Bush lied, people died” slogan is just its latest rendition.

Jon D. Schaff is associate professor of political science at Northern State University in Aberdeen. The views presented here are the author's own and do not represent those of Northern State University.

Uncle Jay Explains the News-

So, what are these Jokers in the news up to now? They’re uniting to fight against the newest major threat: a cartoon! If the most important issue in the news is an issue of The New Yorker, does that mean the banks are okay again? That the war is over and we can afford to drive to the grocery store, and also afford the groceries? Uncle Jay explains it all! -- so click on the title above and see "Uncle Jay" in action.

Democrats Urge Suspension Of New Terror Threat Alert System

Responding to warnings in a government audit, congressional Democrats are calling on the Homeland Security Department to suspend a new threat alert system until the program is retooled to meet state and local needs.

Department spokesman Russ Knocke said Thursday that the department does not plan to put the program on hold.

The new system, which is to be the main way the department communicates regular threat information to local and private sector officials, has had a troubled history. The department scrapped a $91 million system, dubbed the Homeland Security Information Network or HSIN, after reports found that the program lacked critical security and structural functions that made it unworkable.

It’s been placed on life support until it can be replaced by “HSIN Next Gen,” which is due to be completed next September with an estimated price tag of $62 million.

Mysterious blast in Iran: sabotage of Hizballah arms convoy?

Good news -- sabotage inside Iran?

"'Mysterious Iran blast likely an attack on Hizbullah arms convoy,'" from the Jerusalem Post, July 25 (thanks to Dennis):

A mysterious explosion in a suburb of Teheran that killed 15 people last Saturday was likely an attack on a Iranian military convoy carrying arms to Hizbullah, the Telegraph reported Friday.

The Revolutionary Guards imposed a news black-out immediately after the blast, but the UK newspaper reported that it looked like sabotage was responsible for destroying the convoy as it traveled through Khavarshahar. ...