Either You Are With Us or You Are With the Terrorists

President Bush has taken a lot of flak for making the claim that other countries are either with us or with the terrorists. The liberals try to expand that statement into a claim that other counties must agree with us and follow the US on every foreign policy position or they are our enemy. I did not come away with that interpretation when he said it, and thought it was very clear. The paragraph of the speech this was in is the following:

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

Liberals have chafed and complained about that clear statement for several years now; morphing the meaning into something it is not. The recent developments in Yemen remind us of the reason and meaning behind those words. We all remember:

On October 12, 2000, USS Cole, under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold, set in to Aden harbor for a routine fuel stop. Cole completed mooring at 09:30. Refueling started at 10:30. Around 11:18 local time (08:18 UTC), a small craft approached the port side of the destroyer, and an explosion occurred, putting a 35-by-36-foot gash in the ship's port side. The blast hit the ship's galley, where crew were lining up for lunch.[1] The crew fought flooding in the engineering spaces and had the damage under control by the evening. Divers inspected the hull and determined the keel was not damaged.

The Bomb Monkey behind the plot was captured and imprisoned. According to this World Tribune story:

In 2004, Al Badawi was convicted of plotting and conducting the bombing of the USS Cole. A Yemeni court condemned Al Badawi to death, but the sentence was reduced to 15 years in prison.

As if the sentence reduction were not bad enough, there are reports that the Yemeni government has released the Bomb Monkey and the National Security Council has responded angrily to the report:

The Bush administration expressed disappointment with Yemen's decision to release the man regarded as the mastermind [sic] of the Al Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Aden in 2000.

"The United States is dismayed and deeply disappointed in the government of Yemen's decision not to imprison [Al] Badawi," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "This action is inconsistent with a deepening of our bilateral counterterrorism cooperation."

Two daysafter Johnroe made these statements, the Yemeni government responded that he "...was still in detention. But the Yemeni Interior Ministry would not elaborate." There were reports that Badawi was home and receiving guests.

A follow-up story by CNN now states that the US Embassy confirmed yesterday that the bomb monkey is in a jail cell. According to CNN:

Additionally, an official from the U.S. Embassy in Yemen reported seeing al-Badawi in his jail cell Monday, another official with the State Department told CNN.

The Interior Ministry official said that when Al-Badawi surrendered earlier this month, he asked to meet with his family before going back to prison.

So either the bomb monkey was released temporarily (some kind of house arrest?) and the Yemeni government changed their mind after the US blasted them, or they allowed this scumbag time to visit his family in his home before reporting back to prison after escaping and being recaptured.

The reduction in sentence and later playing footsie with this terrorist leaves the Yemeni government in a position where they might claim to be "with us", yet have a lustful eye toward the "against us" column. The sentence reduction is a slap in the face to our country and the loved ones of our fallen sailors of the USS Cole. I have serious doubts this bomb monkey will even serve the full 15 years. Regardless, the day they let this creep go is the day Yemen will clearly go into the "against us" camp. He has no right to take another breath, much less a free one. We can only hope that the US will have a sniper ready to take him out upon release.

Kudos to Dan Abrams for Amanpour Smackdown

Dan Abrams from MSNBC has given a very direct and firm criticism of the "God's Warriors" piece recently done by CNN's Christiane Amanpour. It has been some time since I gave kudos to anybody (conservative or liberal) and Dan Abrams deserves them. I am not quite sure of his motives, but the directness and clarity of the points he makes are quite at odds with the usual 'grayness' we have come to expect from the liberal media. The firmness of Abrams' rebuttal is nothing short of a smackdown of Amanpour.

I did not see the God's Warriors piece, but the overall theme, promotional segments and quotes I have seen after the fact have convinced me that it was quite abhorrent. The notion the modern day extremists from Islam, Judaism and Christianity are in any way equivalent is nowhere rooted in reality. Every religion has its nut cases, where some express their faith in violent and murderous ways. However, when comparing the occasional murderer of non-Islamic faiths to the volume and embracing of terrorist acts in the Muslim world; there is no comparison whatsoever. Yet Amanpour is not only putting them in the same ballpark, but on equal footing. Dan Abrams not only calls her on making them equivalent, but points out her shameless attempts at defending Islam to the point of painting them as victims. Here are some of Abrams' quotes:

He calls Amanpour's piece "a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worst type of moral relativism," and a "shameful advocacy masked as journalism".

"Christians and Jews, for example, who support Israel's strategy for self-defense are just as much God's warriors, according to Amanpour, as the Islamic radicals who blow themselves and others up in an effort to destroy the world as we know it."

"CNN should have called it what it was: a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worst type of moral relativism"

"She portrays Muslims as victims, while accusing evangelical Christians of playing the victim."

"...the Muslims as the victims, again, throughout this whole piece."

"This series was well-produced and successful, but also shameful advocacy masked as journalism."

Apparently Amanpour brought out the tired myth of Timothy McVeigh as a Christian terrorist. While Abrams does not correct the record on this falsehood, he does point out the falseness of Amanpour's claim that this fits the "warriors" theme because McVeigh was part of a militia. McVeigh 1) Never claimed to be a Christian 2) Claimed to be an agnostic. The fact that Amanpour has to scratch around and play loose with the truth in order to produce a Christian terrorist shows the depth of her bias.

While I praise his response I am not sure why Abrams came out so hard hitting on this. He seems passionate enough for his objection to be genuine. It could also be a business opportunity to take a jab at CNN as a competitor. He ends the piece with:

Well, I can tell you this, CNN is listening to this segment, so maybe they will hear you loud and clear on that and make up for what I think was really well done but ultimately shoddy journalism.

Combined with the fact that Abrams is the General Manager at MSNBC, this response could be a strong attempt to knock off a few points in the credibility of CNN. Nothing wrong with that in a competitive free market; especially when the criticism is spot-on. Whatever his motives, I recognize Dan Abrams today for doing a good job in this response. While Islamic terrorists enjoy hero status in much of the Muslim world, any terrorist act by a Jew or Christian would be strongly and universally denounced on the spot. There is no comparison or parallels to be drawn. Amanpour has done the world a disservice by making the claim that there is; and she deserved the smackdown delivered by Abrams.

(H/T Newsbusters.org - Brad Wilmouth)

Another Yawn For US Hating Leftists in a Field of Dandelions

Soon we will come to the glorious season of .... dandelions. Just one seed blown on the right winds falling onto an open space of dirt on an otherwise beautiful lawn and you have a dandelion weed. This weed grows and has a few yellow blooms that suddenly turn into more seeds. Soon as a result of one seed, there is a lawn of dendelions. All of this from one seed. In recent discussions in the comments section I am reminded how easily US hating leftists have taken a few small real seeds and by placing them in fertile soil in the media and watering them on leftist blogs have attempted to create a field of dandelions.

Some of these seeds are from the renegade actions of a few bad apples at Abu Ghraib. Leftists have tried to convert this disgusting and true crime and convert it into massive torture and mistreatment at Guantanamo. By taking the one seed of a true inhumanity and adding tons of media attention, giving credence to bandwagon detainees, creating illusion by repeatedly hyperventilating over lesser actions the leftists have without evidence succeeded in convincing many already primed and willing to think badly of the US that this country is evil. There is also the terrible story of the rape, murder, burning and burial of the Iraqi girl. Once again the perpetrators were brought to justice, yet this did not stop the leftist from painting a picture that this is the norm and that our soldiers are performing mass rape and murder throughout the countryside. No evidence, just a seed converted into a field of dandelions through massive, repetitive propaganda.

Then comes along story after story of the true monsters of this world. Recently yet another such story has surfaced showing yet another facet of the evil we see festering in the Middle East. The New York Post writes of a new tactic of the terrorist insurgents in Iraq with a story entitled "Cowards Using Baby Bombers". According to the story:

A U.S. general said yesterday that Iraqi terrorists used children in a suicide attack over the weekend, raising worries that the insurgency has adopted a monstrous new tactic to get through security checkpoints with bombs.

Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, said adults in a vehicle with two children in the back seat were allowed through a Baghdad checkpoint Sunday.

The adults then parked next to a market in the Adamiya area of Baghdad, abandoned the vehicle and detonated it with the children still inside, according to the general and another official.

Two innocents children placed in the back seat to lower the suspicion of the guards at the checkpoint. Who are these children? Were they kidnapped? Or did they belong to one or two of the insurgents? What story did they tell the mother of the kids? What story did they tell the kids? Did the kids think they were going to do something fun? Were they sitting in the back seat excited about some promised activity? While waiting did they play games in the back seat like our kids do? "I see something blue". License plate poker. Or were they tickling each other and laughing? What were they told when they were abandoned in the car that would become an execution chamber? "Just sit right there kids. Uncle Mohammed and his friends will be right back." Then they go back home and tell the mother she should be proud of her two "martyrs".

Whether it is killing kids in an exploding cars, by car bombs near children, by roadside bombs, by suicide bombers, by bombs in crowds or other means; these terrorists are child killers of the worst order. Though I feel and express great anger at this senseless and monstrous snuffing out of innocent life, I rarely see any sign of such anger among leftists. Instead they yawn in the face of such soul-less inhumanity. If they speak or write of it, it is in passing and without feeling. Then they move quickly to more bashing of the US and the Bush administration. They look past daily acts of horror to continue working on their field of dandelions.

The best weapon against dandelions in a lawn is to keep seeding the lawn with good grass seed so that all of the small patches of dirt that a seed might fall on no longer exist. Any seed will be choked and never reach the soil. This is what all good bloggers do.