Readers will notice a new feature we introduced on New Year's Day.  There's a box under each article marked SHARE.  If you run your mouse over it a menu comes up letting you share the piece with a friend, through e-mail, or send it to your home page on whatever social network site (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) you prefer.  There's another SHARE box just above this paragraph.  You can use that to share our entire main page. 

I hope you'll use the SHARE feature, as it's very convenient, and allows us to spread the word about Urgent Agenda. 

TUESDAY,  JANUARY 5,  2010

RARE COMMON SENSE IN ACADEMIA – AT 8:29 P.M. ET:  How often do you read a story of mature common sense in the academic world?  The rhetoric is nonsense, but this is history:

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts pharmacy college instituted a ban on clothing that obscures the face, including face veils and burqas, weeks after a Muslim alumnus who is also the son of a professor was charged with plotting terror strikes.

The policy change at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services, announced in a campus-wide e-mail last month, went into effect Friday.

Well, it's pharmacy and health.  If they taught anthropology, they could never do this.

Michael Ratty, a college spokesman, said the policy was developed in the fall during the school's annual review of its public safety procedures and was unrelated to the arrest of 2008 graduate Tarek Mehanna.

Oh come on.  All right, we'll give them this little fib since they're doing the right thing.

"It is not directed to any group or individual. It applies to all students and faculty," Ratty said.

Okay, we'll include that fib, too. 

Ratty said the school believed everyone entering the small Boston campus should be able to be properly identified. He said the college discussed the policy with Muslim students and officials at the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, and all understood the need for the change.

If it isn't directed at "any group or individual," why check it out with the Muslims and Saudis?

Not all Muslims are sanguine:

Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said he has contacted school officials about providing a religious exemption, and said it's required because the policy makes a medical exemption.

He said the revision was aimed at two female Muslim students who wear face veils due to their religious beliefs. Hooper said a minority of Muslims believe that covering the face is required, but that stopping them from practicing their faith is "un-American."

Hooper said strong security can be maintained at a college without sacrificing religious freedom.

I love it when a front man for Arab countries talks about religious freedom.

The college is right.

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

CSPAN CHALLENGES DEMS – AT 7:05 P.M. ET:  Reader Claire Weber-Klein alerts us to a challenge by CSPAN to congressional Democrats:  Go transparent on health care.  From Fox News:

The head of C-SPAN has implored Congress to open up the last leg of health care reform negotiations to the public, as top Democrats lay plans to hash out the final product among themselves.

C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open "all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings," to televised coverage on his network.

"The C-SPAN networks will commit the necessary resources to covering all of the sessions LIVE and in their entirety," he wrote.

This didn't sit well with Nancy Pelosi:

In a Tuesday afternoon press conference on health legislation negotiations, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to object to the premise behind the request.

"There has never been a more open process for any legislation in anyone who’s served here’s experience," she said.

Is she serious?  The Dems have just made plans to finalize the health-care "reform" bill behind closed doors, in sessions closed to both Republicans and the public.

President Obama made transparency on health-care legislation a point in his campaign for president:

"That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are," Obama said at a debate against Hillary Clinton in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2008.

Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi missed that debate.  I guess "Desperate Housewives" was on.

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

OUR IRAN POLICY A SHAMBLES – AT 5:48 P.M. ET:  The only way we can get tough sanctions on Iran is to bring China and Russia on board.  Both have veto power in the UN Security Council.  China has given its answer.  From AP:

China does not plan to hold debates on more sanctions on Iran's nuclear program during its Security Council presidency this month, despite US demands for tougher sanctions, the Chinese ambassador to the UN said on Tuesday.

Ambassador Zhang Yesui told reporters Tuesday "this is not the right time or moment for sanctions" and that diplomats need "more time and patience" to try to bridge differences.

He said his January agenda will focus on Afghanistan, Somalia, Nepal, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Sudan and the Middle East.

The Obama administration and its international partners had imposed an end-of-2009 deadline for Teheran to accept a UN-drafted deal to swap most of its enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. Iran dismissed the deadline.

COMMENT:  What precisely is our Iran policy?  Is anything left of it?  The deadline passed, we ignored it, and our rhetoric got dramatically softer.  If Iran gets the nuclear bomb, it will make our current terrorism concerns seem trivial.  And Iran is moving toward the bomb.  Nothing serious is being done about it.

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS UP – AT 5:44 P.M. ET:  Just read this, please:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department says it has revoked the U.S. visa of the Nigerian man suspected of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day.

Spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's visa was one of several the agency has revoked since the Dec. 25 incident as the result of a review into security procedures ordered by President Barack Obama. Crowley would not say when the decision on Abdulmutallab's visa was made or how many others had been withdrawn.

There are no words.

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

THE PRESIDENT SPEAKS – AT 5:01 P.M. ET:  President Obama has just addressed the nation on the failed Christmas day airline bombing, and its aftermath.

It was a pretty good statement.  The president, as TV pundits pointed out, sounded angry.  Whether he was or not is an open question.  He conceded that we had all the information needed to block the guy who got on the plane with a bomb, but did not use the information skillfully.  In effect, he contracted his own terrorism adviser, John Brennan, who'd said on Sunday that there was no "smoking gun."  There were several guns that were smoking.

The president promised greater effectiveness and accountability.  There were no details and no questions were allowed.  Of course, Mr. Obama had to get in one dig at President Bush – that's required in all Obama speeches – by asserting that Guantanamo was one of the reasons that Al Qaeda got started on the Arabian peninsula.  And, of course, there was no specific mention of who we're fighting.  Words like "jihadism" or "Islamo-fascism" were missing.  It would be like President Roosevelt, in 1944, refusing to name the country we were fighting when we landed at Normandy.  Just anonymous hostiles.

Some pundits felt that there now has to be a personnel shakeup in the administration.  We'll see.  Terror incidents tend to outrage us, but they're quickly forgotten, as we're advised to "move on."   However, Mr. Obama had praise for no one.

The sheer number of terror incidents recently, including the successful attack at Fort Hood, certainly suggests that there will be more in 2010.  The president, and his people, are surely aware of the political costs.  And they must surely be aware of the perception that this is an administration weak on national security.  The president's angry statement today was a good first step.  The question, as always with the Obamans, is whether there'll be a second.

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

STUNNING - AT 9:34 A.M. ET:  I believe this is the first poll among likely voters for the special election in Massachusetts on January 19th to fill the Senate seat vacated by the death of Edward M. Kennedy. 

State Attorney General Martha Coakley holds a nine-point lead over her Republican rival, state Senator Scott Brown, in Massachusetts’s special U.S. Senate election to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Coakley ahead of Brown 50% to 41%. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

That is stunningly close in Massachusetts, a very, very blue state.  The national Republican Party, in another fit of imagination, is giving no help to Brown, having written off the seat. And it is unlikely that Brown can pull it off.  But even a close loss would be a dramatic political statement. 

The special Senate election will be held on January 19 and special elections typically feature low turnout. That’s one reason the race appears to be a bit closer than might typically be expected for a Senate race in Massachusetts. Kennedy carried 69% of the vote when he was reelected in 2006.

There are still two weeks to go.  Brown should pour it on.  The GOP, from around the country, should start writing some checks.  Concede nothing this year.

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

ONE SIXTH OF THE ECONOMY – AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  The Democratic health "reform" plan will take over one sixth of the nation's economy.  Nothing this large has been adopted without bipartisan support since the 19th century.  And how are the Dems proceeding?  It's hard to accept this.  From AP:

WASHINGTON - House and Senate Democrats intend to bypass the traditional joint conference committee when they negotiate a final compromise on health care legislation, officials said yesterday, a move that will exclude Republican lawmakers and limit their ability to force votes that might delay action.

Democratic aides said the final compromise talks would essentially be a three-way negotiation involving top Democrats in the House and Senate and the White House, giving unusual latitude to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

Those officials said there are no plans to appoint a formal House-Senate conference committee, the method Congress most often uses to reconcile differing bills. The plan is to skip the formal meetings, reach an agreement, then have the two bodies vote. A 60-vote Senate majority would be required for final passage.

This is pretty outrageous.  It's machine politics at its worst.  It tends to confirm the theory discussed in a previous post today, that the Democrats are obsessed with ramming through as much left-wing legislation as they can before taking losses in the November election. 

The unofficial timetable calls for final passage of the measure to remake the nation’s health care system by the time President Obama delivers his State of the Union address, probably in early February. GOP leaders have vowed to try to block a final bill from reaching Obama.

COMMENT:  I doubt if this bill can be defeated.  The "moderate" Democrats have all but collapsed, although they could put up a fight on public funding for abortion in the House.  In the end, though, the moderates tend to fold and vote with the liberals, to keep their ability to function in Congress. 

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

A MYSTERY IN YEMEN – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  I don't think we'll be adopting "In Yemen We Trust" as a motto anytime soon.  From Britain's Telegraph: 

Fears of a terrorist strike against Western embassies in Yemen have grown amid claims a convoy of lorries laden with explosives had been smuggled into the country's capital city, Sana'a.

In an apparently botched surveillance operation, militants driving six trucks filled with weapons and ordnance succeeded in giving security forces the slip as they entered the city, according to local media.

And yet, the Washington Post is reporting this:

SANAA (Reuters) - The American embassy in Yemen reopened on Tuesday after a raid near Sanaa that killed two al Qaeda militants dealt with specific security concerns which had forced U.S. and European missions to close, the embassy said.

Violence flared in the Yemen-Saudi border area, where Shi'ite rebels waging a revolt against the central government said a series of Saudi air strikes on a market had flattened shops and homes, killing two people and wounding three more.

Not a good move.  If you're going to close your embassy, keep it closed for a time and beef it up.  If the embassy now gets hit, we will have shown irresponsibility in protecting our people, and we will look like fools.  Of course, in the Obama administration, looking like a fool seems to be a noble goal.

WaPo is also reporting this:

SANAA, YEMEN -- As the United States ramps up its counterterrorism role here, senior Yemeni officials are publicly playing down the partnership, fearing that the government could pay a heavy political price for aligning with the United States and appearing too weak to control al-Qaeda on its own.

The head of Yemen's national security agency declared over the weekend that the threat posed by al-Qaeda had been exaggerated and that Yemen is not a haven for militants, the state news agency Saba reported. The comments by Ali Muhammad al-Anisi came a day after Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, promised increased U.S. support for Yemen on a visit here. Since Anisi's statement, al-Qaeda threats have forced the U.S., British, German, French and Japanese embassies to close.

While playing down the U.S. role seems designed to prevent a domestic backlash, it also raises questions about the government's long-term commitment and will to fight al-Qaeda in the wake of the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, analysts say.

COMMENT:  Hey, no kidding.  There are questions.  Yemen has always been a problem.  It was in Yemen that the USS Cole was attacked in 2000.  But our State Department has always underplayed the danger.

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY – THE SPEAKER STUMBLES – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  Reader Susana Kohan alerts us to Wes Pruden's terrific column in today's Washington Times, in which he ridicules Obama's tendency to define national security in petty, legalistic terms:

Presidents have never before been so reticent on occasions of national peril. FDR knew no better than to say it straight and plain in the wake of Pearl Harbor. He could have, but didn't, tell Congress and the nation that "… yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941, a date that will live in controversial memory, the respected empire of Japan, following the dictates of Shinto, a religion of peace, allegedly attacked our naval base at Pearl Harbor …" Other revered figures of history offered no useful precedent, either. John Paul Jones, wreathed in smoke and fire on the deck of Bon Homme Richard, could have, but didn't, rally his men with a cry that "I have not yet begun to see what kind of deal we can get."

There were no apt examples from our friends across the sea. Winston Churchill could have, but didn't, promise England in the grim summer of 1940 that "we shall negotiate on the seas and oceans, we shall parley to defend our island as long as there is no cost attached, we shall bargain on the beaches, we shall dicker on the landing grounds, we shall beg in the fields and streets, we shall make speeches in the hills — we shall never, ever, cease to seek better terms."

COMMENT:  The tragedy of Barack Obama isn't that he's no Churchill, but that he doesn't want to be a Churchill. 

January 5, 2010   Permalink

 

ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton's stunning statement yesterday that there are no hard and fast deadlines with Iran, a complete contradiction of stated American policy, has won applause from one source:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran said Tuesday it welcomes Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's comments that there is no hard-and-fast deadline for starting nuclear dialogue.

On Monday, Clinton said the Obama administration remained open to negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, though it will move toward tougher sanctions if Iran does not respond positively. She stressed there was no hard-and-fast deadline for Iran.

Responding Tuesday, Iran's foreign ministry welcomed the comments

''We share the same idea with her. Deadlines are meaningless. We hope other countries return to their natural path, too,'' said Ramin Mehmanparast, a foreign ministry spokesman.

The remarks were a rare positive response by the Iranians to U.S. comments on its nuclear program.

Well of course they were.  We've basically just done a Neville Chamberlain.  The deadline, widely advertised, had been December 31st.  Now that's been cancelled, as earlier deadlines had been.

The sound you hear is the laughter from the mullahs of Iran.  The other sound you hear is the hissing from Iran's democracy demonstrators. 

We had hoped that the president would come back from Hawaii chastened by the backlash against his lax security policies.  Instead, the administration seems to be reaffirming the leftist pattern of its first ten months, including the absurd decision to immediately turn the airline bomber over to the civilian court system, allowing him to lawyer up and shut up.

There is a theory circulating that Obama knows the Dems will lose seats in the midterm elections, now ten months away, and that he wants to get as many leftist policies in place as he can before then.  Makes sense, but no one, of course, is confirming that plan openly.

January 5,  2010   Permalink

 

 

 

MONDAY,  JANUARY 4,  2010

MORE ON THE AIRLINE BOMBER – AT 9:30 P.M. ET:  Apparently, we knew more about him than Janet "the system worked" Napolitano is willing to admit.  From London's Telegraph:

Britain told American intelligence agents more than a year ago that the Detroit bomber had links to extremists, Downing Street has announced.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was named in a file of people based in Britain who had made contact with radical Muslim preachers. The file was sent to the US authorities in 2008.

The disclosure will embarrass President Barack Obama, who is already under pressure after failures by US intelligence to identify the bomber.

I'm not so sure he's capable of being embarrassed.  He'll simply pass the buck to someone else.

It will also add to concern over the state of the “special relationship” between Downing Street and the White House following last year’s dispute over the early release of the Lockerbie bomber.

It is extremely unusual for the Prime Minister’s office to comment on intelligence matters. The move could be seen as an attempt to rebuff criticism from senior American figures who claimed that Britain had nurtured Islamic extremism.

COMMENT:  There should be a Congressional investigation of the entire matter.  But Congress is controlled by the Democrats, and they might just crush any inquiry.  After all, it's time to "move on."  Isn't that the standard war cry of the left?  Excuse me, peace cry.

January 4, 2010   Permalink

DAMNED GLOBAL WARMING! – AT 7:58 P.M. ET:  Reader Michael Smith alerts us to this weather report from Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States experienced its coldest winter in nine years in December as snow storms swept across the country, private weather forecaster Planalytics said on Monday.

Every region in the United States trended colder than normal, Planalytics said, which helped boost energy prices as consumers nationwide turned up their heating.

"Following the warmest November since 2001, the month of December 2009 ended the coldest since 2000," Planalytics said on Monday.

COMMENT:  White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said, about the time of Obama's inauguration, that you should never waste a crisis.  He was referring to the financial crisis, and the Obamans used it as a springboard for all kinds of legislation that the people of America never asked for or favored. 

Okay, let's follow Rahm's advice.  Let's take the extraordinary weather we're experiencing and use it as a springboard to demand a full inquiry, by the best and most trusted scientific panels, into the subject of global warming.  Let us determine how much "science" there is in the global warming issue, and how much "political science." 

Oh, by the way, we learned today that former Secretary of State Condi Rice is on the board of a company that stands to profit from cap and trade legislation, which is being pushed by the Democrats in response to "global warming."  Just thought you'd like to have that.  Follow the money and you may learn more about "global warming" than the Al Gore battalions would like you to know.

January 4, 2010   Permalink

 

MORE SWEET INNOCENTS – AT 7:33 P.M. ET:  It is remarkable to witness what we are expected to believe.  From the Washington Post:

Five Northern Virginia men arrested in Pakistan indicated Monday that they plan to fight terrorism charges that Pakistani police are recommending by using a strategy seen in U.S. courtrooms: that they were preparing for jihad but not planning any terror attacks.

The men told a Pakistani court that they had neither sought nor established contact with extremist groups, and traveled to the region only "to help the helpless Muslims," according to their Pakistani attorney. As they entered the courtroom, one of the men, Ramy Zamzam, told reporters: "We are not terrorists. We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism."

Oh sure.  They showed up in Pakistan "to help the helpless Muslims."  I'm sure their help meant a great deal. 

By the way, has any reporter ever asked where five young guys got the money to make these flights to Pakistan?  We're talking thousands of dollars.  Why do I think they weren't helped by the United Way?

The men, all from the Alexandria area, left the United States shortly after Thanksgiving without telling their parents, who alerted the FBI.

Good for the parents.  Give them credit.  But why would they go to Pakistan and not tell their parents if they were on some kind of humanitarian mission?  Hmm.

Of course, the airline bomber's father also alerted American authorities, but we didn't take it seriously, as we all now know.

Pakistani police say the men were in contact with a Taliban recruiter, were seeking to join al-Qaeda and came to Pakistan to carry out terrorist acts.

That's probably more like it.

The FBI is also investigating the men, and officials have said the Justice Department is likely to consider charges in the United States.

Of course, they'll be read their Miranda rights.  It's the least we can do.

January 4, 2010   Permalink

 

HILLARY CLINTON FOUND! – AT 7:09 P.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton, whose face was about to be put on organic milk cartons, has been found.

She showed up at the State Department today to speak out on Iran and Yemen.  The New York Times reports her profound comments:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday the Obama administration remains open to negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, despite intransigence from Tehran.

That will really inspire the democracy demonstrators in Tehran.  It must be fun for Hillary to be working for Jimmah Carter.

Clinton said the administration is consulting with other nations about new sanctions, but she stressed that this does not mean the administration is abandoning its effort to start a dialogue with Iran.

There is no hard-and-fast deadline for Iran to respond, she said.

That is disgraceful.  A deadline of December 31st had been set.  Is she now telling us it was all a joke?

''We've avoided using the term `deadline' ourselves,'' she said. ''That's not a term we have used because we want to keep the door to dialogue open. But we've also made it clear we can't continue to wait and we cannot continue to stand by when the Iranians themselves talk about increasing their production of highly enriched uranium'' and taking other steps toward possible production of nuclear weapons.

It's pretty clear that we can't get China and Russia to agree to meaningful sanctions.  We have wasted a year.  Iran has not wasted a year.

''I can't appropriately comment on the details of those discussions now, except to say that our goal is to pressure the Iranian government, particularly the Revolutionary Guard elements, without contributing to the suffering of the ordinary Iraqis, who deserve better than what they currently are receiving.''

Iraqis?  I believe the discussion was about Iran.

''We are deeply disturbed by the mounting signs of ruthless repression that they are exercising against those who assemble and express viewpoints that are at variance with what the leadership of Iran wants to hear,'' Clinton said.

Take that, mullahs!  I'm sure they're deeply disturbed because we're deeply disturbed.

This is no way to begin the new year.  Apparently, the boss of bosses, just returning from a happy Hawaiian vacation, is going back to his old ways.

January 4, 2010   Permalink

 

NO APPLAUSE FOR EITHER PARTY – AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen reports that Democratic Party affiliation has sunk to its lowest level since Ras started polling, but the news is really no better for the GOP:

In December, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell to the lowest level recorded in more than seven years of monthly tracking by Rasmussen Reports.

Currently, 35.5% of American adults view themselves as Democrats. That’s down from 36.0 a month ago and from 37.8% in October. Prior to December, the lowest total ever recorded for Democrats was 35.9%, a figure that was reached twice in 2005. See the History of Party Trends from January 2004 to the present.

The number of Republicans inched up by a point in December to 34.0%. That’s the highest total for Republicans since December 2007, just before the 2008 presidential campaign season began.

However, the number of Republicans in the country is essentially no different today than it was in November 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president.

The change since Obama’s election is that the number of Democrats has fallen by six percentage points and the number of voters not affiliated with either major party has grown by six. The number of adults not affiliated with either party is currently at 30.6%, up from 24.7% in November 2008.

COMMENT:  So Republicans have a chance, but they haven't sealed the deal.  The GOP remains unpopular, and must turn that around unless it simply wants to be the party of "no."

January 4, 2010   Permalink

PENTAGON PUSHBACK – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  It was only a matter of time before elements of the Pentagon would start to push back against Obama's dicey nuclear disarmament dreams.  From the Los Angeles Times:

Pentagon officials have pushed back against the president's goals to shrink the U.S. stockpile and reduce the role of such weapons in foreign policy, sources say.

I would certainly hope so.  Reagan, ironically, was an arms controller.  The difference, of course, is that Reagan's theme, derived from a Russian proverb, was "trust, but verify."  I'm not so sure the Obama crowd caught the last two words.

President Obama's ambitious plan to begin phasing out nuclear weapons has run up against powerful resistance from officials in the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies, posing a threat to one of his most important foreign policy initiatives.

Obama laid out his vision of a nuclear-free world in a speech in Prague, Czech Republic, last April, pledging that the U.S. would take dramatic steps to lead the way. Nine months later, the administration is locked in internal debate over a top-secret policy blueprint for shrinking the U.S. nuclear arsenal and reducing the role of such weapons in America's military strategy and foreign policy.

Officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere have pushed back against Obama administration proposals to cut the number of weapons and narrow their mission, according to U.S. officials and outsiders who have been briefed on the process.

COMMENT:  The first step in any arms reduction program would be for the president to authorize the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which would replace our current arsenal with modern, more reliable nuclear warheads.  We are the only nuclear power, according to press reports, that has not recently modernized its arsenal.  Congress has been the impediment, and Obama has no enthusiasm for the program.

Once we have a modernized, reliable arsenal, we can consider some mutual reductions, as Reagan did, with verification every step of the way.  We could also work to reduce or eliminate entirely the chance of a nuclear war starting by accident, through a technical error or misunderstanding.

But the bottom line is that no arms control agreement will be worth much if rogue nations, like Iran, get the bomb.  Even if they signed some kind of reduction agreement, it's unlikely that they'd abide by it.  It is proliferation that is our greatest threat.  Iran is a test case.  If we can't stop Iran, there'll be a massive nuclear arms race in the Middle East, a region where rationality doesn't always rule the day.

January 4, 2010   Permalink 

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY – ONCE AGAIN THE BRITS NAIL IT – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  The current, urgent discussion about the increase in terror attacks will no doubt soon draw in the trendies from the universities, with their bag of "root causes."  But British columnist Matthew d’Ancona, in London's Telegraph, cuts through the haze:

More than eight years after the destruction of the World Trade Centre, there are two competing narratives in the West. The first is frightening, difficult and poses a host of deeply unwelcome questions. According to this version of events, we face a global struggle against a new mutation of militant Islamism ready to use all and any means at its disposal, bonded by anti-semitism, hatred of America and a desire to enforce sharia law and to restore the Caliphate. This network plots globally and kills locally. The merit of this is that it happens to be true.

The second narrative dismisses the whole notion of the "war on terror" as an aberration of the Bush-Blair era. According to this version of events, Islamist terror is mostly the consequence of "Western foreign policy" (for example, the Iraq War was directly responsible for 7/7). With Bush and Blair gone, and al-Qaeda supposedly scattered to the winds, it follows that the winding up of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will bring the whole sorry chapter to an end, and we can all get on with life as normal. The only flaw in this comforting narrative is that it happens to be complete nonsense.

COMMENT:  On the button.  Does the White House know?  Someone please send a note.  You can make it anonymous.

January 4, 2010   Permalink

 

AND THE BEAT GOES ON – AT 8:10 A.M. ET:  The terror attack launched against that Danish cartoonist who dared to draw a sketch of the prophet Muhammad gets a new angle this morning.  From The Christian Science Monitor:

Now a Danish newspaper is reporting that Denmark's security and intelligence agency, PET, knew that the young Somali man who on Friday tried to kill a Danish cartoonist was held in Kenya in September for allegedly helping to plot an attack against US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Mrs. Clinton stopped in Kenya during an 11-day-tour of Africa in August.)

The man who burst into Kurt Westergaard's house on New Year's Day wielding an axe and a knife and shouting "revenge" for Mr. Westergaard's controversial 2005 depiction of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban was released earlier this fall by Kenyan authorities due to lack of evidence, reports the Politiken.

And apparently, as was the case with the airline bomber, there were no alerts sent out about this dedicated chap.

Denmark's ambassador to Kenya told the news agency Ritzau, however, that the Somali man was arrested in Kenya for incomplete travel documents, adding that Kenyan authorities never told the embassy that he was suspected in a terror plot.

Still, the PET did admit in a statement that Westergaard's attacker - who cannot be named due to Danish privacy laws – has "close ties to the Somali terror organization Al Shabab as well as to Al Qaeda leaders in East Africa."

COMMENT:  The cartoonist survived only because he'd planned for the possibility of an attack.  As soon as his home was broken into, he and his five-year-old granddaughter rushed to a "panic room" that had been prepared.  An alarm summoned the police.

Once again, it was quick action by a citizen that foiled an attack.  But, like the airline bombing over Detroit, the plot should never have gone that far.

January 4, 2010   Permalink

 

THE YEAR AHEAD – AT 7:31 A.M. ET:  This is the first business day of the new year.  By definition, the year will be momentous.

The midterm elections alone will make it so.  These will be the most significant midterms of our time, determining whether the buyer's remorse that voters seem to be expressing in polls will last until November, giving Republicans a clear shot at cutting into Democratic majorities, or even taking control of the House. 

There are no guarantees.  Already we see that the Dems, who now draw a good chunk of their financing from the wealthiest classes of Americans, are well ahead in fundraising.  If that is not reversed, the Republican effort may simply run out of resources.  And while there's been some thoughtful criticism of Obama and the Democratic Congress in the mainstream media, by November the press will probably be back in full 2008 mode, making it doubly hard for the GOP to get out its message.

The midterms are only part of the story.  Iran will move closer to a bomb.  Pakistan may become destabilized, putting its nuclear arsenal at risk of being dispersed to some of the lovelies around the world.  China, whose brazen behavior at the Copenhagen let's-cool-the-world conference shocked many diplomats, can easily become increasingly hostile.  And terror groups, who increased their attacks dramatically in 2009, are certainly not going on vacation, even if the president of the United States goes on many.

At the center of the news is that very president, a man who seems overwhelmed by his job, and at times not that interested in it.  Has he handled anything particularly well?  Has this most inspirational of candidates inspired anyone as president? 

I was thinking last night of the difference between a giant in the White House, and Barack Obama.  You may recall that the space shuttle Challenger went down the day, in 1986, that Ronald Reagan was scheduled to deliver his State of the Union message.  The question was whether he would give the speech, put it off, or do something else.  I remember someone quite close to me, a lifelong New Deal Democrat, saying, "He knows what to do."

Those five words encapsulate something that is beyond precious to a president:  the people's trust.  People trusted Reagan, when the national interest was involved, to do the right thing.  They would have trusted John McCain.  But have you ever heard those words spoken, even by a liberal Democrat, about Barack Obama?  Obama has simply failed to win the public's trust.  If he cannot reverse that catastrophe, he will be known as the nation's first African-American president, and little more.

Jack Kennedy's first year in office was also a major disappointment - the Bay of Pigs, a humiliating summit with Nikita Khrushchev, the defiant building of the Berlin Wall, a Congress indifferent to Kennedy's legislative program.  But Kennedy understood what had gone wrong, and worked to correct it in his second year, culminating in his successful handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Does Mr. Obama know there's a problem?  If so, can he solve it?

He'd better solve it.  The airline bomber told the FBI after his arrest that there were many like him in Yemen.  They're heading our way.  And the man at the top is responsible for stopping them.

January 4,  2010   Permalink