WORLD NEWS TREND

Salena Zito
Sunday, October 26, 2008

Share the wealth.
Those three words should send shudders down the spine of any hardworking, over-taxed, get-government-out-of-my-pocketbook American.
Yet the image and rhetoric of Barack Obama has buried his progressive government-knows-best philosophy.
Obama’s eloquence and his propensity to rarely make a mistake have made him the candidate that more Americans trust with the economy, according to many opinion polls.
Allan Meltzer, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, says that when it comes to the economy, the other guy is better for the country.
Meltzer says John McCain “has a better health plan in several respects. It promotes competition, provides choice, and avoids nationalizing health care.”
On taxes, he says, McCain’s plan to reduce corporate tax rates is a much-needed reform. “That’s much better than pumping up spending for a few quarters by giving away $1,000 per taxpayer,” he explains.
McCain’s plans are responsible populism, a good fit across party lines, especially during unsettling economic times. Too bad no one is picking up what he is putting down.
This country is generally an optimistic nation. People want to move up the economic ladder. That’s been an American credo since our creation, and anything that sounds as if it will stifle America’s entrepreneurial spirit runs contrary to who we are.
So it stands to reason that it is truly extraordinary that voters would consider Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress as the best team to fix today’s economic crisis — because, the fact is, they created it.
Columnist Orson Scott Card, himself a Democrat, put it in perspective last week when he wrote that the financial crisis was completely preventable. Card pointed out that congressional Democrats blocked any attempt to prevent it; when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and congressional Republicans of enacting financial deregulation that caused the crisis, no one in the media called her on that lie, Card complained.
Absent in the daily-news narrative is that, as a senator, McCain tried to avert this mess and to get others in Congress to regulate lending responsibly.
Once again, the McCain message is buried, either by the daily political sideshows or by the brilliant way Obama’s campaign has “flooded the zone” with its message: A vote for McCain is a vote for four more years of failed Bush policies.
Some of the blame goes to McCain, too; he has been ineffective on the national stage at explaining his plan.
In a phone interview last week with the Trib’s David M. Brown, McCain was asked to explain some of the fundamentals of what he would do to fix this mess. He emphasized job creation, making sure that people do not lose their homes so that their neighborhoods’ values continue to grow, and investing in our own natural resources, especially coal.
He proposed doubling the federal tax exemption of every child and family. He said his fundamentals also include keeping taxes low and stopping Washington’s spending spree.
All of it is a very appealing yet responsible populist message — the polar opposite of Obama’s “spread the wealth” message.
McCain’s plans are about equal opportunity, not equal outcomes; he does not propose that politicians have some inherent right to confiscate our hard-earned incomes and to give those to others. Individual effort should be rewarded, not penalized.
That’s the essence of the “American dream” — it’s why millions of people around the globe fight to become citizens of this country. Anyone who works hard enough can make it. We’re not a country bound by bloodlines or centuries of tradition; we’re a country that is bound by an ideal.
Yet the Obama-Biden way is all about equal distribution. That much was evident in one of Obama’s presidential-debate responses: Asked why he supports increasing capital-gains taxes, when cutting them has been shown to increase revenue, he replied that it is a “fairness” question.
McCain has become “John the Populist.”
Too bad too few hear him.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

The duty of Jihad has to be defined accurately, but also in a way that can easily be grasped by auditors, so that it does not exclude, but clearly includes, all of the current instruments that Muslims employ to further Jihad. The initial smokescreen, or deception, offered both by Muslims and by such non-Muslim apologists as Karen Armstrong and John Esposito, was to suggest, or even insist, that the very recent, and most secondary, definition of “Jihad,” formulated primarily by some “reforming” Muslims in the last century (at a time when Muslims were weak, and in apparent disarray), was the widely-accepted one. But this has been impossible to sustain, given the widespread use by Muslims themselves – now copiously quoted at such sites as MEMRI, and in newspaper and radio and television accounts – of the real meaning of Jihad.

And what is that meaning? To repeat: Jihad is a duty, incumbent on all Muslims, to strive to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam, all over the world. In the earliest days of Islam, those obstacles would be military in nature: Muslims invade a land possessed by non-Muslims, fight to conquer them, and then to impose Muslim rule over them, and to offer them the choice of death, conversion, or life as dhimmis under such rule. But in the modern world, when non-Muslims still possess overwhelming military superiority, it is not “qitaal” or combat in the traditional sense that is the main instrument of Jihad. Rather, even when it comes to the use of violence, the preferred method is the kind of attack on non-military targets, designed to instill terror, that we have no difficulty calling terrorism. Such attacks — on airplanes, on busses, on schools, on subways, on office-buildings, on hospitals – are explained away or justified by Muslims, as perfectly acceptable variants on traditional “qitaal” or combat. And since Infidels have more powerful armies, terrorism is seen as merely a way of equalizing things, and not itself morally unacceptable. Still other Muslims, while feigning to denounce a vague “terrorism,” always leave open, in their failure to define what constitutes “innocents” or “civilians,” the acceptance of terrorism as a method. And indeed those very infrequent and pro-forma “denunciations” no longer fool as many as they once did, so often have those loopholes been pointed out – and too many Muslims among those denouncing terrorism have been found to support it in one way or another.

But the definition of Jihad must be ample enough to include all the other instruments, aside from qitaal or terrorism, that are used with such effectiveness today. These instruments of Jihad include the deployment of the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa (the Call To Islam, which means the attempt to convert as many susceptible Infidels, among the economically and psychically marginal, as possible), and demographic conquest, which consists of both the deliberate, and the non-deliberate (but just as effective and dangerous) overbreeding of Muslims in Infidel lands. That increase in numbers leads, as Boumedienne of Algeria said in 1974 at the U.N., to a conquest “through the wombs of Muslim women.” The generous benefits of Infidel nation-states allows Muslim women not to work (though non-Muslim women do), to have large families, and to take full advantage, and then some, of all the benefits – free and excellent medical care, free education, free or heavily-subsidized housing, and generous family allowances – that appear tailor-made for the large Muslim families who are busy, in their own way, increasing inexorably the Muslim presence, and therefore perceived and real power, all over the Bilad al-kufr, the Lands of the Infidels. This is accompanied by continued large-scale immigration of Muslims. And instead of halting this immigration and constructing policies designed to limit the size of Muslim families, or at least not to be so generous with support, and even to promote policies that may make it more difficult, or at least not quite so easy, to conduct Muslim life in a non-Muslim environment, the Western world so far, now that it recognizes a problem, appears incapable of soberly drawing up the measures that it has every right to employ to protect its own legal and political institutions, the conduct of art and science, and the development of individual liberties so threatened by the collectivism of that Total Belief-System that some, too easily call a “religion,” which is to say – Islam.

So, if you are asked to provide an intelligible and comprehensive definition of the word “Jihad” provide this:

Jihad is the duty incumbent upon all Muslims, to participate, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, to engage in the “struggle” (which is what “Jihad” means) to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then to the dominance, of Islam. It can take the form of combat, or qitaal. It can take the form of terrorism, It can take the form of the Money Weapon, which Saudi Arabia alone has supplied, or distributed, to the troubling tune of nearly one hundred billion dollars over the past few decades, to support mosques, madrasas, armies of Western hirelings, and every sort of pro-Islam propaganda, from textbooks in the schools, to those interfaith-healing racketeers who ply their smiling trade, some of them naïve, and some of them knowing exactly what they are doing. It can take the form of carefully-targeted campaigns of Da’wa, especially in prisons or among the psychically marginal. These people go off on their Spiritual Searches and finally allow their personal mental Greyhound to stop at the station marked Islam, where they got off that bus, never to get on again.

And finally there is demographic conquest, which has to be halted and then reversed, through measures that are perfectly acceptable ethically and morally, and that, in a rightly-ordered world, and among Infidels less willfully determined not to recognize the dangers that are daily mounting, would have been undertaken long ago.

“We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”

-Barack Hussein Obama on how he’ll pick Supreme Court Justices.
Nothing in there about correct interpretation of the Constitution or actually being qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

This is one of the top three reasons we need to vote for John McCain. Obama truly believes in, and will pursue, legislation from the bench. Not to mention the fact that he is the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate, his Justice picks will no doubt be extreme, unqualified leftists.

I don’t know what’s more idiotic, attempting this stunt, or the comment at the end of the video.

Pretty bad down south.

Execution of a Police Chief, his wife and a uniformed officer (bodyguard) in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico while shopping at a jewelry store. The chief sees it coming, but is unable to draw in time against AK47 Automatic rifle fire.

Link:

Yeah, here’s what we should say:

here’s the story from WSJ and a video interview with Col. Cowan:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is actively considering talks with elements of the Taliban, the armed Islamist group that once ruled Afghanistan and sheltered al Qaeda, in a major policy shift that would have been unthinkable a few months ago.

[See post to watch Flash video]

Senior White House and military officials believe that engaging some levels of the Taliban — while excluding top leaders — could help reverse a pronounced downward spiral in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Both countries have been destabilized by a recent wave of violence.

The outreach is a draft recommendation in a classified White House assessment of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, according to senior Bush administration officials. The officials said that the recommendation calls for the talks to be led by the Afghan central government, but with the active participation of the U.S.

The idea is supported by Gen. David Petraeus, who will assume responsibility this week for U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Gen. Petraeus used a similar approach in Iraq, where a U.S. push to enlist Sunni tribes in the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq helped sharply reduce the country’s violence. Gen. Petraeus earlier this month publicly endorsed talks with less extreme Taliban elements.

The final White House recommendations, which could differ from the draft, are not expected until after next month’s elections. The next administration wouldn’t be compelled to implement them. But the support of Gen. Petraeus, the highly regarded incoming head of the U.S. Central Command, could help ensure that the policy is put in place regardless of who wins next month’s elections.

The proposed policy appears to strike rare common ground with both presidential candidates. Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama has said he thinks talks with the Taliban should be considered and has advocated shifting more military forces to Afghanistan. Republican contender Sen. John McCain supports, as part of his strategy, reaching out to tribal leaders in an effort to separate “the reconcilable elements of the insurgency from the irreconcilable elements of the insurgency,” Randy Scheunemann, the campaign’s top foreign-policy adviser, said Monday.

The U.S. policy review is taking place against the backdrop of ongoing talks between Taliban sympathizers and Afghan government officials. The negotiations, which have been held in recent weeks in Saudi Arabia and moderated by Saudi officials, have primarily involved former Taliban members who have since left the armed group. But a U.S. official said some of the discussions have included current Taliban members and others with close ties to the group’s leadership.

Mutual Distrust
U.S. talks would have to overcome years of mutual distrust, a U.S. policy that has favored arrest rather than outreach, and some doubts over whether participants on the Taliban side would be credible. But the possibility of U.S. talks with Taliban officials comes amid a wholesale restructuring of American policy in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The U.S. has endorsed a Pakistani move to arm thousands of anti-Taliban fighters along the country’s porous border with Afghanistan, and senior American officials say they are considering creating similar local militias in Afghanistan as well.

With violence worsening, the U.S. is also taking some harsher measures. The Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Special Operations Command have stepped up a campaign of missile strikes against militant targets inside Pakistan, a source of mounting casualties and growing public anger there. The U.S. is planning to deploy at least 12,000 more troops to Afghanistan next year.

Few of the new measures would carry as much political and emotional weight as talking with members of the Taliban, an armed group that has been an American foe since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that followed the attacks was designed to oust the Taliban over its harboring of al Qaeda, and U.S. troops have spent the past seven years trying to capture or kill as many of its members as possible.

U.S. officials stress that they would play a supporting role in any future talks with the Taliban, which they say would be led by the Afghan central government and powerful Afghan tribal figures. The talks would primarily include lower-ranking and mid-level Taliban figures, not top officials from the group’s ruling body.

“We’ll never be at the table with Mullah Omar,” one U.S. official said, referring to the fugitive leader of the Taliban.

The prospective talks would have two main goals, according to senior American officials: extending the Kabul government’s authority across Afghanistan and persuading some Taliban figures to cease their attacks against U.S. and Afghan targets.

“We all agree on the need for the people of Afghanistan to come together if they are going to succeed in creating a lasting and viable state,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said by email. “It remains to be seen if some in the Taliban will really renounce violence and extremism and play a constructive role in Afghanistan.”

U.S. opposition to talks with the Taliban has been dissolving as the security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to deteriorate. The number of attacks across Afghanistan has skyrocketed, and more U.S. troops are dying there than in Iraq. Pakistan has been rocked by a wave of attacks, including a massive bombing at a Marriott hotel in the capital of Islamabad and the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

War Negotiations
“Most wars don’t end on the basis of complete capitulation,” said Kara Bue, a former State Department official who recently was co-chairwoman of an outside working group on Pakistan policy. “They’re ended in many cases on the basis of negotiations.”

It’s far from clear that Taliban members with real control over the group’s operations will want to take part in talks with the U.S. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has long supported reconciling with Taliban leaders who are willing to accept Kabul’s authority and cut any links to al Qaeda, but U.S. and Afghan officials acknowledge that few Taliban figures were willing to make those commitments.

The two sides would also have to bridge a turbulent history of efforts at contact. Former Taliban Foreign Minister Maulvi Wakil Ahmad Mutawakkil approached U.S. officials in early 2002 about working together, but the U.S. responded by arresting him. He was held at Guantanamo Bay for four years and has since returned in Kabul.

In subsequent years, some U.S. officials quietly conducted informal outreach to Taliban leaders, but the military was more interested in taking them into custody, said a former senior U.S. intelligence official. “There were instances where Taliban [leaders] were willing to work with us, and we didn’t want to deal with them at all,” the former official said.

Talking to the Taliban has been a sensitive issue for the Afghan government as well. Last year, Mr. Karzai expelled a United Nations diplomat, plus a second who worked for the European Union, for conducting negotiations with Taliban leaders without Kabul’s specific consent.

Senior U.S. officials who are working on the White House review said the recommendations may not explicitly call for joining the Afghan government’s talks with the Taliban, but may instead refer to greater interaction with local Afghan leaders in unstable parts of the country. In restive eastern and southeastern Afghanistan, where many Pashtun tribal leaders are Taliban or Taliban sympathizers, this strategy would effectively amount to dealing with the Taliban, these U.S. officials said.

“We and the Afghans negotiate with the tribes every day on the district level,” said a senior State Department official working on the review. “Sometimes they’re Taliban or their supporters. Often they say: ‘If we get what we want, we’ll lay down our arms.’”

Another senior American official said that talks with the Taliban will force the U.S. to make hard decisions about how much to offer the armed group for its support.

The U.S. would certainly be willing to pay moderate Taliban members to lay down their weapons and join the political process, these official said. But Taliban demands for amnesty and formal political authority over remote parts of the country might be harder to stomach, he said.

“The question always comes down to price,” he said. “How much should be willing to offer guys like this?”

Current and former officials attributed the White House’s policy shift to the influence of Gen. Petraeus. “I do think you have to talk to enemies,” he said Oct. 8 during a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “You want to try to reconcile with as many of those as possible while then identifying those who truly are irreconcilable.”

Not everything that worked in Iraq will work in Afghanistan, Gen. Petraeus cautioned. Still, he said that engaging some members of the Taliban would be “a positive step.”

Ms. Bue, the former State Department official, said U.S. officials would at a minimum want Afghan militants to help U.S. and Afghan forces root out the foreign fighters who have been responsible for most of the bloodiest attacks in Afghanistan.

Mapping Tribal Areas
U.S. officials from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the U.S. military’s Special Operations Command have been mapping the key tribal areas of Afghanistan, said one person familiar with the planning. The goal is to look at the tribes, sub-tribes and clans in each province and understand whom they’re aligned with. Targeting lower-level leaders is likely to be more fruitful than focusing on senior figures, said Seth Jones, a Middle Eastern analyst at the Rand Corp. think tank who travels regularly to Afghanistan.

The leadership of the Taliban may have no incentive to negotiate because they view themselves as winning the conflict and because “their vision of the country is so diametrically opposed” to that of the central Afghan government, he said.

(Wall Street Journal)

There are either two things at play in this story of a bi-weekly paper…

Oh, and then there’s a number 3. But you tell me what it is…

Cancel the vote, it is over. The New Mexico Sun News has declared, Obama wins! Is this the newspaper John McCain will hold if he pulls off the big upset in what would be a modern day Dewey Beats Truman moment? Perhaps the paper will be a collector’s item as the Chicago Tribune was after their premature deceleration in the Dewey vs. Truman race.

Dewey Defeats Truman was a famously incorrect banner headline on the front page of the first edition of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948. President Harry S. Truman, who had been expected to lose to Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 presidential race, won the election, according to a Wiki entry.

[See post to watch Flash video]

(National Ledger)

Politicker, MA:

By JEREMY P. JACOBS, PolitickerMA.com Reporter

In his second ad of the election cycle, Congressman Barney Frank criticizes Republicans for being at the root of the current financial crisis.

“The right wing is losing control,” the narrator says, as footage of Frank’s recent appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor plays. “For 12 years the Republic majority refused to regulate the financial system. Last year, Barney Frank became chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and started working on the subprime mortgage crisis, outrageous CEO compensation and other Wall Street abuses.”

Frank also signs off the ad with an implicit swipe at Bill O’Reilly, the host of The O’Reilly Factor.

“I’m Barney Frank, I approve this message and the chance to be on TV without interruption,” he says.

This is Frank’s second ad in his re-election campaign. He is currently facing challenges from Republican Earl Sholley and Independent Susan Allen.

This ad, like the first one, was produced by local Democratic strategist Dan Payne’s media shop.

Idiot…