Meanwhile, back to Somali Pirates: Huge ransom demanded for release of three ships

Maybe it's inflation, but Somali pirates want $8 mln to free three ships:

Somali pirates are demanding a ransom of $8.2 million to free two Malaysian tankers and a Japanese-managed bulk carrier that they hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, a maritime official said on Tuesday. Gunmen from Somalia have seized at least 30 vessels so far this year, making the waters off the Horn of Africa nation the most dangerous in the world. On Tuesday, the Malaysian vessels' owner ordered the rest of its fleet not to enter the area. Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said the pirates wanted $4.7 million to release the Bunga Melati 5 and its sister ship, the Bunga Melati Dua, which are both owned by Malaysian national carrier MISC . He told Reuters the gangs were also demanding $3.5 million to free the MV Stella Maris, which was hijacked on July 20. "We believe all three ships are near Eyl village, where the pirates have the strong support of locals," Mwangura said.

Meanwhile, the EU is talking: ....

Putin’s Useful Idiots

The recent war in Georgia announced the return of Russia as a ruthless power to be reckoned with. More disturbing still, it reminded the world of the return of a system that brutally eliminates those who dare to criticize its policies. The murder of anti-government journalist, Magomed Yevloyev, in Ingushetia by police on Sunday is just the latest indication that the Putin regime doesn't flinch to eliminate dissent in all of its forms.

But while Russia is brutally annexing its neighbors and still killing its opponents at home, the international community is now witness to the reemergence of a Cold War relic: the Western apologist for Russian aggression once known as the “useful idiot.”

The term, attributed to Vladimir Lenin, was once applied to those naïve, (and not so naïve) “progressive” Westerners who sought to aid Soviet communism by downplaying – or flat-out denying – the evils it entailed. Prominent in their ranks were such luminaries as playwright George Bernard Shaw, New York Times journalist Walter Duranty and British Labor Party leader Arthur Henderson. Although the Soviet government held these sympathizers in contempt, they parroted its propaganda with the enthusiasm of true believers.

Now they’re back. ....

UN Anti-Terror Effort Bogged Down Over Terrorism Definition

(Compiler's note: It is hard for me to imagine a more useless organization than the U.N.)

(CNSNews.com) – Seven years after the U.N. Security Council responded to 9/11 with a tough resolution aimed at tackling the scourge of terror, its ability to do so remains hamstrung by a failure to agree of a definition of terrorism – and by policies evidently designed to avoid embarrassing or annoying member states.

A long-running effort to define terrorism repeatedly has run into hurdles erected by mostly Islamic states determined that the fight against occupation – especially the one waged by the Palestinians – should be explicitly exempted. ....

Georgia invasion 'planned since April'

by Alan Philps

The Russian invasion of Georgia was not a spontaneous response to what Moscow called “genocide” in South Ossetia but had been planned in detail since April, according to Russia’s leading independent defence analyst.

The plans all but ensured that fighting would break out before the end of August, though the exact timing depended on how readily the Georgian government could be provoked into starting it, Pavel Felgenhauer states in a new analysis of the conflict.

It is generally agreed that the spark for the war was the Nato summit meeting in Bucharest in April at which Georgia was promised eventual membership of the western alliance, in the teeth of opposition from the Russians.

According to Mr Felgenhauer, Vladimir Putin, who was president of Russia at the time but now serves as prime minister, set in motion a range of measures to support the two separatist territories in Georgia – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – and prepare for a military incursion.

By the start of August, Russian military engineers repaired the railway linking Russia to Abkhazia, allowing the sudden appearance of tanks and other heavy military equipment that was later used to attack and loot the Georgian army base at Senaki, Mr Felgenhauer wrote in Novaya Gazeta, one of the few Moscow newspapers outside the control of the Kremlin.

In South Ossetia, as the Russian-backed separatists stepped up attacks on Georgian police and military, the Russian army began to bring in some heavy weapons to supplement their existing, lightly armed troops who were there as internationally sanctioned peacekeepers.

Russia’s Black Sea fleet, as well as paratroopers and marines, were mobilised in the area for summer exercises titled “Kavkaz-2008”, which concluded on Aug 2.

The incursion had to start by the end of August, as the troops could not be kept on full alert endlessly and the pass through the Caucasus Mountains to South Ossetia would be snowed in by October, leaving only the Roki tunnel, which is so narrow it is reduced to one-way traffic when heavy military equipment is brought in.

Mr Felgenhauer said that, if the Georgian army was not provoked to attack South Ossetia, then the Russians would ensure that fighting broke out in Abkhazia, with the separatists trying to take the Kodori Gorge, the last remaining territory still under Georgian government control.

In the end, the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, responded to a series of shooting incidents and roadside bombs with a full-scale assault to recapture the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

Against this background, it is not surprising that Mr Putin, in Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, responded speedily to the Georgian assault with the accusation of “genocide” – the charge Nato used to justify its assault on Serbia after the Serbian army forced a mass exodus from the province of Kosovo in 1999. ....

Illegal Workers Leaving California in Large Numbers

Recent employment figures show that California's day labor population is dropping due to a decrease in the number of construction jobs caused by America's recent economic downturn. UCLA Professor Abel Valenzuela says that it is likely that only 10% to 15% of California's day laborers are able to find work each day -- down from 40% only a few years ago. "Things are really drying up," Valenzuela said, "[one alternative is], clearly, to leave the United States and head back."

However, it is likely that California's economic downturn is not the sole reason for the decrease in the number of day laborers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become more vigilant in tracking down illegal workers (particularly those who resort to fraud to attain employment) and the Border Control's numbers are growing, as are the miles of security fencing at the U.S. - Mexico border.

It is clear that the ICE's policy of attrition might be paying dividends: arrests at the U.S. - Mexico border are down 17% compared to this time last year, despite increased Border Patrol activity. It is plausible to assume that illegal aliens are not entering as fast as they have been in recent years due to the economic downturn and the U.S. government's increased vigilance. In fact, a recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies comes to a similar conclusion. ....

Islamofascist Anisa And El Fattah declares Michelle Malkin “an enemy of the people”, incites violence against Jews, Christians

by Patrick Poole

When the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded, the HAMAS network leaders in the US turned to one of its own, Anisa And El Fattah/Caroline F. Keeble to serve as one of its founding board members. Her two mentors and former employers, HAMAS chief Mousa Abu Marzook and Abdurahman Alamoudi, have respectively been designated a terrorist and convicted of terrorist support. Thus, she is quite familiar with both the overt and more subtle methods of cultural terrorism.

Recently, Anisa And El Fattah, a Central Ohio resident, published an editorial inciting violence against her old enemy — “Judeo/Christian fascists”. This time around, however, she put a face with the name: conservative media pundit and blogger Michelle Malkin. Her article, “Michelle Malkin: Enemy of the People and the US Constitutiion [sic]”, was published in a number of places, including her National Association of Muslim American Women blog.

In the article (reprinted below), Fattah encourages her supporters to “fight back”, demanding that they fight “more forcefully”, against her enemy. She also recommends that federal racketeering statutes and criminal charges be used to silence the “Judeo/Christian fascists”. Those who have been following my reporting on Anisa And El Fattah’s local activities might recall that late last year she was publicly defending neo-Nazis in a published interchange with law professor Eugene Volokh. She later came out defending the neo-Nazi website, STORMFRONT. And in December, she spoke to a student group acknowledged by the FBI to be a front group for the Iranian mullahocracy.

Thus, it isn’t hard to catch the irony of her jihad against Malkin. ....

NYPD beefs up security for Ramadan

(Compiler's note: The above title is NOT a misprint. rca)

by Robert Spencer

Watch the Undercover Mosque videos here. Note that Khalid Yasin, featured in the second video advocating harsh Sharia punishments, also speaks in America, and has been sponsored by mosques in doing so. And that 80% of mosques in the United States are controlled by the Saudis, who are blamed in this documentary (somewhat inaccurately) for all the radicalization in British mosques.

Note also that hate propaganda of just this kind has been found in American mosques -- which should not be surprising not only because of the Saudi connection but because much of this is mainstream Islamic teaching.

And finally, note that jihadist activity tends to increase during Ramadan.

Now in light of all that, when you see a headline like "NYPD beefs up security for Ramadan," you would think that the New York cops are on alert against terror attacks coming during the month in which Muslims redouble their efforts to serve Allah -- right? Wrong -- they're beefing up their protection of the mosques themselves, which are apparently under threat from venomous Islamophobes.

Any vigilante attack against any mosque in the U.S. is wrong and stupid, and to be condemned. But this is just another indication of how CAIR's hate crimes propaganda, trumped-up as it is, rules the day: the mosques are well-protected, but what about the potential victims of the jihadists who may be inside them?

"NYPD beefs up security for Ramadan," by Jonathan Lemire for the New York Daily News, August 26 (thanks to Twostellas):

The NYPD Tuesday announced heightened security for the city's mosques during the upcoming Islamic holy observance of Ramadan.

Local precincts will dispatch more officers on foot patrol and in squad cars to patrol the areas surrounding the mosques during the month-long religious observance that begins on Monday.

"Collaboration with the public is a vital ingredient in our efforts to keep the city safe," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly during the NYPD's annual pre-Ramadan conference with 250 Muslim community leaders.

Cops will also be briefed on the religious guidelines specific to Ramadan in anticipation of the observances, Kelly said.

The community leaders were warned to be mindful of the mosque's donation boxes, some of which were robbed last year.

Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism

(Compiler's note: This is a "must read" article. It has significant impact on our national security. Everyone should read this article from Investors Business Daily. Do not brush it off as just some anti Obama rant -- it is very revealing on where we may very well be headed. No matter whether you consider your personal political brand as liberal, moderate or conservative you probably won't want to hear what this article has to say, but you need to. It's from Investors Business Daily, not some right wing publication or McCain's political camp, and it is a very revealing view of Democrat presidential candidate, Obama.. )

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.

It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.

In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).

Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.

It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.

Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.

Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.

Among his proposed "investments":

• "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.

• "Free" college tuition.

• "Universal national service" (a la Havana).

• "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").

• "Free" job training (even for criminals).

• "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).

• "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.

• More subsidized public housing.

• A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."

• And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.

His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.

That's just for starters — first-term stuff.

Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.

You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.

But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?

Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.

The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.

A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."

As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.

"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**."

After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.

His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.

The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.

After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.

While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.

(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)

Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.

As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."

His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."

"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."

Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.

(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)

In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.

(Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)

With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."

He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.

Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."

He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.

Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.

Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.

The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.

But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.

Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.

Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.

Mexican President Admits Mexico Disintegrating

MEXICO CITY -- Moving quickly to address mounting anger over crime, President Felipe Calderon promised Sunday to adopt several proposals from civic groups who led more than 100,000 Mexicans in marches against daily kidnappings and killings.

Among the measures are the creation of a citizens' panel to monitor government progress in fighting crime, better police recruiting and oversight systems and equipping police with more powerful weapons, Mexico's conservative president said.

Calderon acknowledged that Mexicans are desperate to see results two years after he took office and began an aggressive battle against drug traffickers and other criminal gangs.

The government "shares the demands and the indignation of the people," Calderon said after meeting with 14 civic leaders who staged Saturday night's candlelight protests in the capital and cities across the country. "We know the biggest problem in Mexico is public insecurity."

Homicides and kidnappings have surged despite the deployment of more than 25,000 soldiers and federal police to hotspots across Mexico, and the arrest of several top drug lords. ....

DNI Open Source Innovation Challenge 2008

by Kent's Imperative

We are unabashed believers in the unique contributions offered by open source intelligence as a discipline, and have been greatly pleased to see the increased prominence of such efforts within the Intelligence Community over the past decade. Today’s OSINT is a far cry more advanced from the early days of the 1990’s, when the first glimpses of the potential offered by the information revolution were visible in the newly opened media markets of the Soviet Union.

One of the most dramatic shifts since that time has been the development of OSINT as more than a mere data gathering function, increasingly focused on providing insight through rigorous analysis and imaginative exploration. Analytic outreach naturally goes hand in hand with open sources. And while the intelligence community is still grappling with the best manner to encourage and develop such efforts, this evolution is a fascinating space to observe and participate in.

Thus we are immensely interested to see the results of the DNI’s Open Source Innovation Challenge for 2008. This is a frankly unprecedented effort - and long overdue. Announced via email and on their public blog, the invitation speaks for itself:

Special Announcement

The Open Source Innovation Challenge

We are pleased to announce an exciting opportunity in conjunction with the DNI Open Source Conference 2008: "The Open Source Innovation Challenge." This is a unique occasion for representatives from academia; think tanks; industry; the media; federal, state, local, and tribal government; and other diverse sectors to use open source information to address real intelligence challenges. Subject matter experts from any field can apply innovative research techniques, thus giving new insight to the Intelligence Community.

Can you provide the most innovative and relevant answer to the Challenge questions?

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has provided two Challenge questions (below) and instructions to all conference registrants. Those who choose to accept the Challenge can submit a answer for one of the two challenge questions posed. Entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges consisting of senior IC representatives. The three entries judged to be the best answers to Challenge questions will be announced during the opening plenary session of the DNI Open Source Conference on September 11th and the answers will be presented at the concluding conference plenary on September 12th. The Challenge is open to all conference registrants, including those who are not able to attend due to overwhelming registration demand.

Challenge Questions

1. Using the best open sources to inform your answer, is Al Qaeda a cohesive organization with strong and centralized control, intent and direction?

2. According to open sources, who will be the global leader in alternative fuels and why?

Challenge Guidelines

1. Challenge Participants and Entries: Entries can be submitted either by individuals or teams, with no limit to the number of individuals on a team. Teams can consist of individuals from any number of organizations, rather than representatives exclusively from a single university, company or organization; multidisciplinary teams are encouraged. Each person, however, can only enter the Challenge once—as an individual or part of a team, not both. At least one member of each team must be a registered conference attendee and entries from individuals must be submitted by a registered (not necessarily a confirmed) attendee. Entries should address one of the two Challenge questions proposed; entries attempting to address both questions will be disqualified.

The remainder of the full guidelines may be found here.

This seems to us an excellent opportunity for a number of academic and private sector shops to demonstrate their mettle in front of a very serious – and no doubt quite attentive – audience. The timing – and timelines – reminds us more than somewhat of the Burundi exercise of years past. This is certainly no coincidence, and we have long felt it was time to update the original work performed for the 1995 Aspin-Brown Commission on Intelligence in a modern context.

To all those participating, bonne chance.

Australia warns of high risk of terror attacks on US flights

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australia on Sunday warned of a "high risk" of terror attacks on domestic and international flights in and to the United States, urging citizens to be vigilant while in the country.

"We advise you to exercise caution and monitor developments that might affect your safety in the United States because of the risk of terrorism," the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a travel advisory.

The department urged travellers to monitor the media for information about possible new security threats.

"The United States Department of Homeland Security's Advisory System Threat Level is at Orange for all domestic and international flights, indicating a 'high' risk of terrorist attack," it said.

"It is at Yellow or 'elevated' for all other sectors, indicating a significant risk of terrorist attack." ....

Communism for Dummies

by: Malcolm A. Kline, August 28, 2008

America’s so-called intellectual elites remain either smugly ignorant or in outright denial of the West’s struggle with communism that consumed much of the 20th Century and is still too much with us, late and soon. “Some historians cannot bring themselves to call Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot what they truly are,” writer and scholar Lee Edwards noted when accepting an award from the Fund for American Studies. “I refer you to the current edition of Webster’s New College Dictionary in which Hitler and Mussolini are described as ‘dictators’ while Lenin and Mao are called ‘leaders.’”

“Fidel Castro is given special status as ‘Cuban revolutionary premier.’” A prolific author and teacher, Edwards was also the recipient of Accuracy in Media’s Reed Irvine award for investigative journalism, named after AIM’s founder.

As if on cue, the Washington Post tabloid Express newspaper managed to mangle about 20 years worth of history in less than a paragraph in its ‘night out’ guide on August 27, 2008. “Dalton Trumbo is famous for two things: Johnny Got His Gun, the stunning anti-war novel about a young soldier living inside his own head after a devastating injury, and for not cooperating with McCarthy’s anti-communist tribunals and being summarily blacklisted,” the Express informs us. “After that, he could no longer work and there went his career.”

Actually:

• Trumbo rushed Johnny into print during the Hitler-Stalin pact, when American communists followed the Soviet Union’s orders in protesting U. S. involvement in the fight against Nazi Germany;

• The “tribunal” that unfriendly Hollywood screenwriter Trumbo refused to cooperate with was the U. S. House Committee on UnAmerican Activities on which Senator Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisc., never served; and

• Trumbo continued to work under pseudonyms during the blacklist and under his own from the time that he wrote the screenplay for Spartacus in 1960 until his death in 1976.

Meanwhile, our putative best and brightest remain clueless about the barbarism of puppets of the former Soviet Union that still practice Marxism, such as the governments of Zimbabwe and, yes, the People’s Republic of China. “Maybe since 9/11, maybe as a result of the Cold War, we gradually put more importance on the coercive elements of power,” David M. Lampton of Johns Hopkins stated in the September issue of the university’s magazine. “Seeing the largest problem with China as its military is unwarranted.”

Lampton serves as director of China studies and dean of the faculty at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Hopkins. His latest book is entitled The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money and Minds. “I think honesty requires that nobody can predict what something as large and rapidly changing as China is going to be like 20 or 30 years from now,” Lampton says. “But if we treat China as a threat today, we will create the reality we seek to avoid tomorrow.”

As we have noted in a previous dispatch, Lampton also defends a revered figure at JHU, the late Owen Lattimore, a consultant to the U. S. State Department at the time that Mao Tse Tung came to power. Lattimore actually was investigated by Senator McCarthy and his FBI file that runs to thousands of pages can be found in the Bureau’s electronic reading room.

On a visit to the Koyma mines in the Soviet Union, Lattimore found “extensive greenhouses growing tomatoes, cucumbers and melons to make sure the hardy miners get enough vitamins.” “This rendering of a Siberian slave camp as a sort of art colony cum health spa run by cultured esthetes suggests Lattimore was no piker in these matters but ranked with the most abject of Soviet hacks as an apologist for Stalin,” author M. Stanton Evans notes in his book Blacklisted By History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies.

In a footnote, Evans quotes historian Robert Conquest’s calculation of the death toll among the miners at Kolyma—“30 percent per annum.” “In one of the Kolyma penal camps, which had started the year with 3,000 inmates, 1,700 were dead at the end,” Conquest wrote in The Great Terror.

“Of course, without all the cucumbers and tomatoes, the death toll might have been even higher,” Evans observes wryly.

Iraq takes control of Anbar province from U.S.

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military turned over control of Iraq's Anbar province, once the country's most dangerous, to the Iraqi government Monday in a landmark step toward the withdrawal of more American troops.

President Bush declared in a statement that al-Qaeda had been defeated in the western desert province, which was on the brink of collapse to the Islamic militant group two years ago. .....

Bolivia cements Iran ties amid US dismay

Bolivia's President Evo Morales says his official visit to Iran aims at raising Tehran-La Paz political relations to a much higher level.

In a meeting with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bolivia's visiting president pointed to the two countries' opposing stance against imperialism and said that his visit is 'a symbol of unity and solidarity among Iranian and Bolivian nations.'

"In addition to promoting political relations, this visit aims at enhancing bilateral ties in the fields of commerce, industry, agriculture, gas and oil," the Bolivian president added.

Iran-Bolivia overtures come as the United States has expressed grave concerns over the warming of relations between Iran and Latin American countries. ....

Barak confirms report Israel foiled 2 Hezbollah kidnap attempts abroad

(Compiler's note: You can almost bet that American businessmen will be next as representatives of the "Great Satan.")

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday confirmed that Israel security forces had recently foiled two attempts by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah to kidnap Israeli businessmen abroad.

Barak made the comments while touring the South, and called on the public to act in accordance with warnings issued by the government's counterterrorism unit. ....

Top Pakistani official concedes Al-Qaeda has free movement in Pakistan

Interior ministry chief Reham Malik is now in line for promotion to Captain Obvious.

More on this story. "Al Qaida has free movement in Pakistan, top official concede," by Saeed Shah for McClatchy Newspapers, September 1:

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's top security official Monday admitted that al Qaida's leadership moved freely in and out of the country and vowed that "no mercy" would be shown to extremists based in its tribal territory that borders Afghanistan.

In the past, Pakistan has been heavily criticized for rejecting evidence that al Qaida was largely based in the country and for denying that the tribal territory was used as a safe haven for Afghan insurgents.

Rehman Malik , the interior ministry chief, revealed that al Qaida deputy leader Ayman al Zawahiri and his wife had been in Mohmand, part of the tribal area. Most of time, Malik said Zawahiri was mainly in Afghanistan's Kunar and Paktia provinces. [...]

Extremist groups in Pakistan launched a vicious campaign of suicide bombings last year, aimed at both military and civilian targets. The attacks are thought to be directed by al Qaida.

Predictable deflection of responsibility (note the use of passive voice) and calls for "dialogue":

But Malik called for more action from other countries too. He said that the al Qaida "syndicate" was allowed to operate across the region, from Iraq to the Philippines and "free passage was given to them" to come to Pakistan . "We need a regional dialogue," he added.

In another break from Pakistan's recent approach, the interior ministry chief, said that Islamabad planned to use the tribes in its border area to fight the extremists, indicating that a 15,000-strong militia of volunteers would be assembled.

The move would ape the success of the U.S. approach in Anbar Province in Iraq , where Sunni tribes were armed and paid to fight al Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni extremists.

Malik said that in Bajaur, a part of the Pakistan's tribal territory, the Salarzai tribe had raised its own force, known as a "lashkar". Moderate tribesmen are wary of resisting the extremists because of a lack of back up from the Pakistan state. "They (tribes) were left high and dry before, it's true," Malik conceded. [...]

He also conceded that the fighters "operate on both sides" of the border. Malik's remarks came amid signs that Washington is more comfortable with Islamabad's role in the anti-terror fight, after years of accusing Pakistan of not doing enough and being too ready to enter into peace negotiations with the militants.

"We either hand over Pakistan to these Taliban or we fight back," Malik said. "I can assure you that they (the militants) are on the run, either they can surrender or die."

Tell that to the residents of Peshawar.

It is not just rhetoric this time, analysts said. In recent weeks, Pakistan has launched military offensives in two parts of the tribal territory, Khyber and Bajaur, and in the neighboring area of Swat. Over the weekend, Malik announced a ceasefire in Bajaur, to mark Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims. On Monday, responding to criticism that this would give the extremists breathing space, he stressed that the truce would only last a month and the security forces would crack down on any militant activity during that period.

Seeing is believing.