The 545 People Responsible For All of America's Woes

By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them..

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices, 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi.

She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you.

Obama seeks to double US foreign aid

(Compiler's note: What on earth is this new administration thinking?)

Despite America's deep economic crisis, the Obama administration's 2010 budget unrolls a program to double total foreign aid, which includes that for Israel and the Palestinians, according to a budget overview released Thursday. ....

My Muslim President Obama

Why members of the Islamic faith see him as one of the flock. ....

Ron Paul: 'Get Rid of the Federal Reserve'

By: Rick Pedraza

Rep. Ron Paul, in a speech delivered to an enthusiastic crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference, said conservatives “have to be devoted to and willing to stand by and defend the Constitution, and have the position that it is absolutely necessary to get rid of the Federal Reserve system.”

Paul, who ran for president in 2008 championing the Constitution, talked about his bill seeking to abolish the Federal Reserve, which he said is getting bipartisan support in the Congress.

“We’ve gotten ourselves in a mess because the conservative movement, which was designed to bring us back to our roots of limited government, smaller government and more individual liberty, hasn’t happened,” said Paul, R-Texas.

Paul believes that in many ways, the conservative movement has had a struggle defining what and who a true conservative really is.

“After finally getting the House, Senate and White House in 2000, what did we do? We doubled the size of the Department of Education. I thought we were supposed to get rid of the Department of Education!" Paul said.

“Now, since we did not do the job we were supposed to do, the opposition has taken over, and they’re going to double and triple and quadruple spending. Believe me, we’re in serious trouble,” he warned.

“In the past 12 months, our national debt went up $1.5 trillion, and next year it’s going to be more. Young people know what they are getting. They know they are getting a bad deal. They’re getting nothing but debt.

“We’re in an atmosphere now where if we can accept the idea that the taxpayers can bail out the banks and big business, there is nothing that can't be funded. Everything will be appropriated. There will be no cuts.

“Our financial system has come unglued, but the next shoe to drop will be the disintegration of the dollar. We as conservatives and believers in limited government have a tough task to restrain big spenders before that happens because, when that happens, what is threatened is our liberty.”

Paul said the main purpose of a government in a free society should be the preservation of liberty.

“Fortunately, we live in a country that knew something about that and emphasized that in our early years, but we have forgotten it and lost our confidence."

Paul said conservatives today are not determined to present the case for liberty.

"We have chopped liberty up into pieces," he explained. "We have economic liberty, we have social liberty, and we have a foreign policy that is built on total fallacies. We have to put this all back together again and, fortunately, we have something that can pull it back together, and that is the understanding of the Founding Fathers that put it in our Constitution."

"If we followed the rules and did the job right, we wouldn’t have a welfare state.”

Paul said the job ahead for conservatives is “to present this case and still prove that we are the humanitarians. The liberal do-gooders and the big spenders who say, ‘We’re going to give a free house to everybody, free medical care to everybody, free education’ – that’s preposterous.

“If you care about your fellow man, there is only one way you can maximize prosperity and freedom, and that is through the rule of law and making sure that everybody understands that liberty is an individual thing and not a collective right.”

Missing Child - Nashville, Tennessee

(Compiler's note: One of my grandchildren made me aware of this tragic story. Please contact this family -- phone numbers below -- if you know anything about this missing child.)

The mother of this child is a member of the Victory Church on Brick Church Pike, Nashville, Tennessee. Please forward…. You never know who knows somebody!!!!!
Please Forward! Missing 4 year Old Boy - Another child missing.Please forward to everyone you know. Her family needs your help finding him .

PLEASE HELP US BY FORWARDING THIS EMAIL UNTIL THIS REACHES A WORLD-WIDE AUDIENCE AND JERAMIAH IS RETURNED HOME SAFELY

David Gleaves (father) – 615-862-8269

Princess Ladd (mother) – 615-977-9653

Danyell Renwick (aunt) – 615-554-0213

Margoretta Ladd (aunt) 615-596-0132

Latesia Appleton (aunt) 615-578-5388

GOD FIRST, PEOPLE

If this were your child, you would forward it.

Introduction of Real Islam Brings Real Honor Killings, Real Mass-Murder to Russia

from Winds of Jihad

Russia Jihad:

Chechen leader imposes “strict brand of Islam”

Chechnya will be Russia’s “safest place”, Ramzan claims
The Associated Press

Saturday, February 28, 2009 Sharia

GROZNY, Russia: The bullnecked president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at the mosque and with chilling composure explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die. Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had “loose morals” and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings.

“If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed,” Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic.

The brutal biography of Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov

Ramzan Kadyrov, 31, in front of his presidential residence in Gudermes, has been Chechnya’s leader for a year. During that time, he has managed to silence dissent, pacify the Russian republic and embark on a massive reconstruction campaign.

The young president has silenced dissent, pacified the Russian republic and embarked on a massive reconstruction campaign. His critics are hard to find, because they have a habit of disappearing.

* Chechen president to inaugurate ‘largest mosque in Europe’

* Muslim women ‘face crisis over violence’

The 32-year-old former militia leader is carrying out a campaign to impose Islamic values and strengthen the traditional customs of predominantly Muslim Chechnya, in an effort to blunt the appeal of hardline Islamic separatists and shore up his power. In doing so, critics say, he is setting up a dictatorship where Russian laws do not apply.

Some in Russia say Kadyrov’s attempt to create an Islamic society violates the Russian constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women and a separation of church and state. But the Kremlin has given him its staunch backing, seeing him as the key to keeping the separatists in check, and that has allowed him to impose his will.

“Kadyrov willfully tries to increase the influence of local customs over the life of the republic because this makes him the absolute ruler of the republic,” said Yulia Latynina, a political analyst in Moscow.

Kadyrov’s bluster shows how confident he is of his position. “No one can tell us not to be Muslims,” he said outside the mosque. “If anyone says I cannot be a Muslim, he is my enemy.”

Few dare to challenge Kadyrov’s rule in this southern Russian region of more than a million people, which is only now emerging from the devastation of two wars in the past 15 years. The fighting between Islamic separatists and Russian troops, compounded by atrocities on both sides, claimed tens of thousands of lives and terrorized civilians.

Kadyrov describes women as the property of their husbands and says their main role is to bear children. He encourages men to take more than one wife, even though polygamy is illegal in Russia. Women and girls are now required to wear headscarves in all schools, universities and government offices.

Some Chechen women say they support or at least accept Kadyrov’s strict new guidelines.

“Headscarves make a woman beautiful,” said Zulikhan Nakayeva, a medical student whose long dark hair flowed out from under her head covering, her big brown eyes accentuated by mascara.

But many chafe under the restrictions.

“How do women live in Chechnya? They live as the men say,” said Taisiya, 20, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of retribution. She was not wearing a headscarf while shopping in central Grozny, which she said was her way of protesting.

Dead Terrorist Remembered: Bin Laden’s man in Chechnya

* Politician, warlord, terrorist … the death of Shamil Basayev did not bring peace to his Caucasian homeland.

Most women now wear headscarves in public, though the scarves rarely fully cover their hair and in some cases are little more than colorful silk headbands. Women who go out without a headscarf tend to tuck one into their bag for use where headscarves are required.

Many people suspect Kadyrov is branding the seven late November slayings honor killings to advance his political agenda. He said the women were planning to go abroad to work as prostitutes, but their relatives found out about it and killed them.

Few Chechens believe that.

“If women are killed according to tradition then it is done very secretly to prevent too many people from finding out that someone in the family behaved incorrectly,” said Natalya Estemirova, a prominent human rights activist in Grozny.

Estemirova said two of the women were married, with two children each. Their husbands held large funerals and buried them in the family plot, which would not have happened if the women had disgraced their families, she said.

Kadyrov’s version also has been contradicted by federal prosecutors in Moscow, who have concluded relatives were not involved. No arrests have been made and the investigation is continuing. Kadyrov’s office refused to comment on the investigators’ conclusion.

The Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that some of the women worked in brothels frequented by Kadyrov’s men. Many Chechens say they suspect the women were killed in a police operation. The truth of the killings may never be known, given how much Kadyrov is feared.

Rights activists fear that Kadyrov’s approval of honor killings may encourage men to carry them out. Honor killings are considered part of Chechen tradition. No records are kept, but human rights activists estimate dozens of women are killed every year.

* Mufti wants to boycott Holland over movie, but isn’t sure which one…

however, when an Interfax correspondent asked the author to specify what film he opposes, he was at a loss and repeated it was about the Prophet’s wives.

“What the president says is law,” said Gistam Sakaeva, a Chechen activist who works to defend women’s rights. “Because the president said this, many will try to gain his favor by killing someone, even if there is no reason.”

Sakaeva also said she worried that Chechen authorities would now be less willing to prosecute men suspected of killing women.

Kadyrov inherited his position from his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, a Muslim cleric and former rebel commander who fought the Russians during Chechnya’s war of independence in 1994-1996. Shortly after war broke out again in 1999, the elder Kadyrov switched sides and brought Chechnya back into Moscow’s fold.

Ramzan Kadyrov worked as the head of his father’s security force, which was accused of kidnapping, sadistic torture and murder. After Akhmad Kadyrov was killed by a terrorist bomb in 2004, power passed to his son.

Vladimir Putin, then president and now prime minister, embraced the younger Kadyrov, who has succeeded in ending a wave of terror attacks that haunted the early years of Putin’s presidency. But as Kadyrov has consolidated his power, many of his critics and political rivals have been killed. Some have been gunned down on the streets of Moscow, including journalist Anna Politkovskaya, whose death in 2006 shocked the world.

In one of the most recent killings, a Chechen who had accused Kadyrov of personally torturing him was shot last month as he walked out of a grocery store in Vienna, Austria.

Kadyrov has denied any involvement in the killings.

The Kremlin appears willing to continue allowing Kadyrov to rule as he wishes, as long as he prevents another outbreak of violence. And Kadyrov has won the grudging respect of many Chechens for bringing a measure of peace and stability.

“People want to believe that things are getting better,” said Sakaeva. “They are tired of war.”

****

RELATED

• Which has more Islamist terrorism, Europe or America?
• A ‘dhimmi’ view of Europe

Pamela has more:

UN’s Yakin Erturk: “In these countries, those who speak on behalf of Islam still justify things like stoning or killing a woman for this or that reason as being part of their religion. I have heard this at the most official of levels”. (more here)

You know these Muslims ….. they took a whole school hostage near Chechnya turned and massacred hundreds of children and adults.

Paul Harvey 1918 -- 2009

(Compiler's note: A national treasure has gone the way of all the earth. I'm still stunned in learning of Mr. Harvey's death. Like others in this great nation, I grew up glued to the radio when his radio show came on. Although I never met Paul Harvey, I count him as a friend and I will miss him greatly. "Paul Harvey was one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters in our nation's history," so says ABC Radio Networks President Jim Robinson -- and I agree. I also know that Paul Harvey is happy to once again be in the company of his wife Angel who preceded him in death. "Good day" and goodbye.)

this article is from the blog "In From the Cold"

Paul Harvey has died.

And radio will never be the same.

The legendary broadcaster, whose delivered radio newscasts in a style that was uniquely his own for more than 50 years, died Saturday in a Phoenix hosptial. He was 90.

ABC Radio, which carried Mr. Harvey's broadcasts for almost 60 years announced his passing last night. Network President Jim Robinson described the radio icon as "one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters" in our nation's history, a voice that "became a trusted friend in American households."

Former President George W. Bush praised Harvey for his commentary that "entertained, enlightened and informed." Paul Harvey received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Mr. Bush in 2005. Mr. Harvey is one of only two radio journalists to win the nation's highest civilian award; the other was Lowell Thomas.

But such accolades don't begin to capture the man--or his legacy. Harvey was fond of saying that he "grew up in radio newsrooms," beginning in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Originally hired as a station janitor at KVOO, he was eventually allowed to read commercials and handle other on-air assignments.

By 1940, he had moved to St. Louis, working as roving reporter for KXOK. One day, a young school teacher named Lynne Cooper came to the station for a news program. Harvey met her and was instantly smitten. Inviting her to dinner, he proposed after only a few minutes of conversation. She finally said "yes" a year later.

The relationship between Mr. Harvey and his "Angel" was more than a marriage. It was a full partnership that had an enormous impact on both his career and the future of American broadcasting. Bruce DeMont, director of Chicago's Musem of Broadcasting, notes that Lynne Harvey played a major role in her husband's succeess. She was his producer for many years and developed ideas that became trademark radio shows, including the highly succesful "Rest of the Story."

In 1944, it was Mrs. Harvey who suggested a move to Chicago, after her husband's discharge from the Army Air Corps. It was a bold (and risky) move. In those days, Chicago was home to scores of radio programs and the networks maintained extensive broadcast facilities in the city. Chicago represented the big time for an aspiring broadcaster, success was anything but assured.

Mr. Harvey later remembered the city had "hundreds" of unemployed announcers when he arrived. As an outsider--competing against more established talent--he faced long odds.
But he soon found employment, hosting a jobs show for returning military personnel on Chicago's WENR (now WLS).

Hoping to capitalize on his growing popularity, the station soon offered him a newscast. Despite intense competition from other stations, Harvey's wife urged him to take the 10 p.m. slot. It proved to be a fortuitous decision; within months, his program was the number one newscast in Chicago, and Mr. Harvey was on his way.

During those late-night broadcasts, Harvey perfected a unique, personal delivery style that was vastly different from other radio news programs. During that era, news broadcasts were often delivered by staff announcers, reading wire service copy in a "voice of doom" baritone.

Mr. Harvey preferred to write his own scripts, in a folksy conversational tone that captured--no, commanded--the audience's attention. Decades before there was "appointment TV," Paul Harvey's broadcasts became "appointment radio." Three times a day, kitchens, garages, offices, dorm rooms and workshops across America fell silent, as listeners tuned in for his morning or noon newscast, or "The Rest of the Story," which typically aired in the late afternoon.

What they heard was a masterful blend of radio performance and the written word. His broadcast opening (Hello Americans, this is Paul Harvey...stand by for news!) and closing (Paul Harvey...Good Day) became part of the cultural landscape and he's credited with adding such terms as "Reganomics" and "skyjacker" to the lexicon.

More amazingly, Mr. Harvey remained at the top of a fickle business for more than 60 years. ABC began carrying his broadcasts nationally in 1951 and Harvey remained the network's biggest--and most profitable--star until his death. He signed his last contract with the network at age 80, for a reported $10 million a year. Paul Harvey earned millions more from books, speaking fees and a syndicated TV commentary that aired for years on stations around the country.

Yet he remained a modest, unassuming man, by most accounts. As a celebrity, he was practically invisible. Aside from an occasions awards dinner or industry function, Mr. Harvey was rarely seen on the social circuit. Away from the microphone, he spent most of his time with his wife and son (Paul Jr.), best known as the writer for The Rest of the Story, and the announcer heard at the beginning and end of his father's newscasts.

Harvey was not without his critics. Decades before Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity hit the airwaves, Paul Harvey was assailed for his unabashed conservatism. Others claimed that he wasn't really a journalist because he read commercials for his sponsors.

In response, Mr. Harvey said that he was "fiercely loyal to those who put their money where my mouth is," and noted the clear divide between the news and advertising on his programs. "And now, page two," was the trademark segue to the first commercial break. Always taking the high road with critics, Harvey never complained that other newscasters--most notably Charles Osgood of CBS--were never faulted for reading their commercials.

Paul Harvey's life was also remarkably free of scandal, despite his years in the public spotlight. He reportedly received a less-than-honorable discharge from the Air Corps (reportedly for taking a plane for a joyride), but that incident was quickly forgotten. In the early 1950s, he was arrested after climbing over the fence of a Chicago nuclear plant, checking out a tip about a security breach at the facility. After that, Harvey's name rarely appered in the headlines, save announcements of his latest ratings triumph, or some sort of industry award.

Toward the end of his life, that remarkable voice began to lose some of its resonance and health issues forced him to miss more days of work. But there was still magic in that staccato style, impecably turned phrases and those perfect pauses that drew listeners even closer to the radio --and the man behind the microphone.

In a medium often defined by imitation, Paul Harvey was an original. We will never see his likes again. He is already missed.

Islamic hate-preacher gets OK to march in London calling for the implementation of sharia

Out to "emulate the Prophet"

"The startling move comes just days after processions celebrating St George were banned for being racist" and "despite a previous demonstration in which some of his supporters chanted: 'Bomb the UK.'" All in the name of "diversity."

"Hate preacher get OK to run sharia law demo," by Tom Savage and Ross Kaniuk for the Daily Star, February 28:

HATE preacher Anjem Choudary will march in London today calling for Britain to adopt Islamic Sharia law.

The startling move comes just days after processions celebrating St George were banned for being racist.

Choudary was given the green light yesterday despite a previous demonstration in which some of his supporters chanted: “Bomb the UK”.

Publicity for the march, in the East End, carries 41-year-old Choudary’s personal mobile number and says the aim of the campaign is to “emulate the Prophet and his companions, by calling for Islam and speaking out against the oppression of man-made law”.

Bet Choudary can't wait till his band of muhajirun's becomes strong enough, so he can begin emulating Muhammad's Medinan phase, that is, full blown jihad -- complete with British plunder and concubines. Too bad for him, though: he probably has to wait a few more years for that to be possible.

It says that Britain is full of “disbelievers” who are involved in prostitution, gambling, alcoholism and worshipping other gods.

The publicity says women are welcome to join the march but they must walk at the back of the procession as “strict segregation will be enforced”.

The demo comes 18 months after three of Choudary’s supporters were jailed for soliciting murder in a London protest against cartoons of the prophet Mohammed published in Denmark.

That was when some demonstrators chanted “Bomb the UK” and “Europe, you will pay with your blood”. Organiser Choudary was fined.

Today’s march won permission after a council withdrew funding for a St George’s Day parade in the Midlands – on the grounds that it was “racist”.

Parade founder Mark Cowles, 40, of West Bromwich, said yesterday: “I can’t believe Choudary’s event can go ahead.

“The British establishment is trying to take away the British voice but other cultures choose to force their way of life on us.”

A Strategy for Afghanistan

By Henry A. Kissinger

The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point.

The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk.

Heretofore, America has pursued traditional anti-insurgency tactics: to create a central government, help it extend its authority over the entire country and, in the process, bring about a modern bureaucratic and democratic society.

That strategy cannot succeed in Afghanistan -- especially not as an essentially solitary effort. The country is too large, the territory too forbidding, the ethnic composition too varied, the population too heavily armed. No foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan. Even attempts to establish centralized Afghan control have rarely succeeded and then not for long. Afghans seem to define their country in terms of a common dedication to independence but not to unitary or centralized self-government.

The truism that the war is, in effect, a battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan population is valid enough in concept. The low standard of living of much of the population has been exacerbated by 30 years of civil war. The economy is on the verge of sustaining itself through the sale of narcotics. There is no significant democratic tradition. Reform is a moral necessity. But the time scale for reform is out of sync with the requirements of anti-guerrilla warfare. Reform will require decades; it should occur as a result of, and even side by side with, the attainment of security -- but it cannot be the precondition for it.

The military effort will inevitably unfold at a pace different from the country's political evolution. Immediately, however, we are able to make sure that our aid efforts, now diffuse and inefficient, are coherent and relevant to popular needs. And much greater emphasis should be given to local and regional entities.

Military strategy should concentrate on preventing the emergence of a coherent, contiguous state within the state controlled by jihadists. In practice, this would mean control of Kabul and the Pashtun area. A jihadist base area on both sides of the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border would become a permanent threat to hopes for a moderate evolution and to all of Afghanistan's neighbors. Gen. David Petraeus has argued that, reinforced by the number of American forces he has recommended, he should be able to control the 10 percent of Afghan territory where, in his words, 80 percent of the military threat originates. This is the region where the "clear, hold and build" strategy that had success in Iraq is particularly applicable.

In the rest of the country, our military strategy should be more fluid, aimed at forestalling the emergence of terrorist strong points. It should be based on close cooperation with local chiefs and coordination with their militias to be trained by U.S. forces -- the kind of strategy that proved so successful in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold in Iraq. This is a plausible approach, though it seems improbable that the 17,000 reinforcements President Obama recently committed are enough. In the end, the fundamental issue is not so much how the war will be conducted but how it will be ended. Afghanistan is almost the archetypal international problem requiring a multilateral solution for a political framework to emerge. In the 19th century, formal neutrality was sometimes negotiated to impose a standstill on interventions in and from strategically located countries. This provided a framework for defusing day-to-day international relations. (Belgian neutrality, for example, was not challenged for nearly 100 years.) Is it possible to devise a modern equivalent?

In Afghanistan, such an outcome is achievable only if its principal neighbors agree on a policy of restraint and opposition to terrorism. Their recent conduct argues against such prospects. Yet history should teach them that unilateral efforts at dominance are likely to fail in the face of countervailing intervention by other outside actors. To explore such a vision, the United States should propose a working group of Afghanistan's neighbors, India and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Such a group should be charged with assisting in the reconstruction and reform of Afghanistan and establishing principles for the country's international status and obligations to oppose terrorist activities. Over time, America's unilateral military efforts can merge with the diplomatic efforts of this group. As the strategy envisaged by Petraeus succeeds, the prospects for a political solution along these lines would grow correspondingly.

The precondition for such a policy is cooperation with Russia and Pakistan. With respect to Russia, it requires a clear definition of priorities, especially a choice between partnership or adversarial conduct insofar as it depends on us.

The conduct of Pakistan will be crucial. Pakistan's leaders must face the fact that continued toleration of the sanctuaries -- or continued impotence with respect to them -- will draw their country ever deeper into an international maelstrom. If the jihadists were to prevail in Afghanistan, Pakistan would surely be the next target -- as is observable by activity already taking place along the existing borders and in the Swat Valley close to Islamabad. If that were to happen, the affected countries would need to consult each other about the implications of the nuclear arsenal of a Pakistan being engulfed or even threatened by jihadists. Like every country engaged in Afghanistan, Pakistan has to make decisions that will affect its international position for decades.

Other countries, especially our NATO allies, face comparable choices. Symbolically, the participation of NATO partners is significant. But save for some notable exceptions, public support for military operations is negligible in almost all NATO countries. It is possible, of course, that Obama's popularity in Europe can modify these attitudes -- but probably to only a limited extent. The president would have to decide how far he will carry the inevitable differences and face the reality that disagreements concern fundamental questions of NATO's future and reach. Improved consultation would ease this process. It is likely to turn out, however, that the differences are not procedural. We may then conclude that an enhanced NATO contribution to Afghanistan's reconstruction is more useful than a marginal military effort constrained by caveats. But if NATO turns into an alliance a la carte in this manner, a precedent that can cut both ways would be set. Those who tempt a U.S. withdrawal by their indifference or irresolution evade the prospect that it would be the prelude to a long series of accelerating and escalating crises.

President Obama said Tuesday night that he "will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world." Whatever strategy his team selects needs to be pursued with determination. It is not possible to hedge against failure by half-hearted execution.

Carlos the Jackal to Obama: Help me find terrorist pal

(Compiler's note: Here we have a small window into the mind of a terrorist)

By Jay Baggett

Letter: 'As your grandfather would have said, Mr. President, Allahu akbar – God is great!'

Carlos the Jackal

Emboldened by President Barack Obama's announcement he will close the Guantanamo facility housing suspected terrorists, one of the most notorious leftist terrorists of the 1970s and 1980s has written the president, asking him for help in finding a "former comrade-in-arms" missing for 14 years, and closing his letter with "Allahu akbar! ... yours in revolution."

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez – aka Carlos the Jackal – penned his letter to Obama from the Paris prison where he is serving a life sentence for the murder of two French agents and an informer, and for a series of deadly bomb attacks in Paris and on French trains, the Glasgow Sunday Herald reported today.

"Mister President, Your decision to close secret CIA jails, honors you," Carlos began before raising the issue of Bruno Breguet, a Swiss national who served as his right-hand man.

The letter continued:

Our comrade Bruno Breguet, a Swiss citizen, was abducted on 11th November 1995 from a ferry-boat between Italy and Greece, in a special operation with NATO naval support.

We pray you to have Bruno released.

We were informed, unofficially, that Bruno died accidentally during interrogation at a U.S. base in the south of Hungary.

Breguet, born in 1950, served 7 years of a 15-year sentence in the 1970s for bringing explosives into Israel to blow up a high rise in Tel Aviv on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. While Israel refused to release him in response to PFLP demands during the hijacking of several airliners to Jordan in September 1970, the Jewish state pardoned him in 1977 following a "humanitarian campaign" led by numerous intellectuals, including Jean-Paul Sarte, Simone de Beauvoir and Noam Chomsky.

In 1982, Breguet was arrested by Paris police, along with Carlos' wife, for transporting explosives and attempting to shoot a police officer. The gun misfired. The arrests and subsequent prosecution were met with a reign of terror orchestrated by the Venezuela-born Carlos, who was supported by the Soviet KGB and other Eastern European communist secret services.

In the months that followed, eight deadly attacks were launched on French targets after France refused to release his wife and Breguet. Twenty people were killed and many more injured.

Bruno Breguet

Breguet, who was convicted, received early release in 1985 and returned to Switzerland where, by all accounts, he lived a quiet life. Carlos was sentenced to life in absentia in 1992 by France for his terror attacks and captured in Sudan in 1994. He was returned to Paris and has been in prison since.

Breguet disappeared in November 1995 after traveling from Greece to Italy by ferry. Italian authorities refused him entry and returned him on the same boat. He was not seen again.

Rumors of Breguet's fate abound: He was taken by NATO naval commandos from the ferry and moved to Hungary where he died during interrogation. Hungary denies any rendition occured on its soil. He was arrested by Greek authorities, a claim denied by Greece's interior minister three months after the disappearance. A Hungarian paper reported rumors that Breguet was killed by Carlos' associates after he expressed his intention to break all ties to his former comrades. A body found partially encased in concrete in a Greek village near Albania and Italy in 2001 raised false hopes among authorities they had solved the mystery.

Carlos the Jackal ... captured

Carlos' 2003 book, "Revolutionary Islam" called on "all revolutionaries, including those of the left, even atheists," to accept the leadership of Islamists such as Osama bin Laden in order to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into "graveyards of American imperialism."

"Only a coalition of Marxists and Islamists can destroy the United States," the communist revolutionary and convert to Islam wrote in his book.

His Islamic worldview was reflected in the letter to Obama, where he referred to Breguet as a "martyr":

If Bruno truly is dead, we need his body back, so his relatives, friends and comrades, may mourn in neutral Switzerland, this hero of the Palestinian cause, and his eternal soul join our martyrs in heaven.

Carlos concluded by reminding the president of his own Muslim grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, who converted to Islam in the 1950s after having been imprisoned and tortured in Kenya by the British during the Mau Mau rebellion.

I pray God Almighty that one day the peoples of our continent, free at last, may shout with one voice: "God bless our America! And as your Luo grandfather would say: ALLAHU AKBAR!

I remain, Mister President, yours in revolution, "Carlos".

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