You'd think someone would have figured out before:
Nobel Peace Prize winner and internationalsymbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watchlists and needs special permission to visit the USA. Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice calls the situation "embarrassing," and some membersof Congress vow to fix it.
The requirement applies to former South Africanleader Mandela and other members of South Africa's governing AfricanNational Congress (ANC), the once-banned anti-Apartheid organization.In the 1970s and '80s, the ANC was officially designated a terroristgroup by the country's ruling white minority. Other countries,including the United States, followed suit.
Because of this, Rice told a Senate committeerecently, her department has to issue waivers for ANC members to travelto the USA.
It like both Condoleezza Rice and Democratic members in Congress will change his status. The real question is why, following a situation like that, would Mandela even want to come here?
This morning, White House spokesman said it himself:
"The reasons we went to Iraq are well understood and had to do with[weapons of mass destruction], enforcing U.N. sanctions. To the extentthat oil has anything to do with our engagement in Iraq today, it isthe danger that al Qaeda could obtain control of oil assets and usethem to threaten our interests.â€
said roughly the same thing:
"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
So the White House really thinks al Qaeda is going to take over the oil in Iraq? The terrorist organization neither has the capacity nor the force to seize and hold Iraqi oil installations. What Tony Fratto said was a miscalculation at best, and a deliberate lie at worst.
Al Qaeda is still amassing along the Afghan-Pakistani border. No wonder the terrorist organization wants us to remain in Iraq.
What many of us are looking for is new ideas. Old, ideological ideas got us into this current foreign policy mess. During a speech today in New York City, John Edwards gave a speech on counter-terrorism. Stressing the importance of multilateralism, Edwards called for the creation of a :
CITO would be made up of nations committed to sharing financial,police, customs and immigration intelligence that would enableauthorities to track and shut down terrorist cells, he said.
“We saw the promise of a new multilateral approach just a couple ofdays ago in Germany,†Mr. Edwards said, referring to the arrests ofthree men there who were suspected of plotting attacks on Americaninterests. The arrests were made possible through close cooperationbetween American and German authorities.
“We must be able to coordinate similar operations throughout theworld—in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and anywhere in the world theterrorists may attack,†Mr. Edwards said. He clarified that membershipin CITO would be contingent upon the willingness of each nation toactively combat terrorism.
Mr. Edwards also spoke of the need for a new “foreign policy ofconviction.†He used the example of U.S. relations with Pakistan tocriticize the Bush administration for what he had earlier described asa “foreign policy of convenience†that “regularly turns a blind eyewhen our allies wrongly fail to cooperate.â€
Great idea! And not only do we need intelligence-sharing between countries, but between federal agencies right in this country. Six years after the attacks on 9/11, and the Administration has chosen not to engage in serious intelligence-sharing with other countries. The only intelligence-sharing that exists is done on back channels. If we had an infrastructure set up that could enable this kind of shared cooperation, then that added communication could plug some of the current security holes.
This is really what it has come down to. All the and that were supposed to go towards fighting the organization that attacked us on 9/11 are being diverted to create what is becoming a 21st century medieval society in Iraq. As the points out this morning in an editorial, Iraq is a feudal system:
There may be temporary lulls and truces, but no end can be expectedany time soon to the many-sided fight for power - a fight not onlybetween Sunni Arabs and Shi'ites but among the disparate factions,tribes, and gangs in each sectarian camp.
Because Iraq has beensundered into separate fiefdoms and has descended into Somalia-stylewarlordism, there is no identifiable enemy over whom President Bush mayclaim victory. There are now many different wars in Iraq, but none thatAmerica can win.
Definition of the word "":
The estate or domain of a feudal lord.
There is not a central government that is seen by the rest of Iraq as legitimate. The country is controlled by warlords that are spread throughout Iraq. Each of them controls their own locality, collects taxes and polices its citizens.
We are in for a hard-fought war debate in the month of September. Before Labor Day weekend, the nonpartisan CBO will release its analysis on the situation. Less than two weeks later, General David Petraeus will read the . A number of Republicans up for reelection in 2008 will need to decide whether to jump ship and support the Democrats' proposal of withdrawing troops, or follow in lockstep with the President's . A conservative group is trying to prevent the former from happening.
The group Freedom's Watch is unveiling television ads in certain television markets in hope of preventing Republicans who are on the fence from backing troop redeployment. They invoke 9/11, and state unequivocally that the US will get attacked if we leave Iraq. There are four ads. Let's go through each one:
1) "They attacked us, and they will again."
2) "We're dealing with the safety of our country, of our sacred United States of America."
3) "We've already had one 9/11, we don't need another."
4) "Switching their votes now for political reasons, it will mean more attacks in America."
This strategy is nearly identical to the one that the swift boat group implemented in 2004 against John Kerry. Get experienced DC-based political operatives, and parade soldiers in front of the camera to tout whatever message across. It's quite effective, in that it will probably cause at least a few Republicans to buckle.
And because soldiers are the ones saying it, the lines that these PR people are feeding them can go farther than the most right-wing lawmakers. They tell us that we will get hit again if we pull out. Kind of like what in 2004 about what would happen if Kerry got elected:
"If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hitagain -- that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from thestandpoint of the United States," Cheney said.
This Freedom's Watch group has Ari Fleischer, the former White House Press Secretary, as its PR person. So you can see why Cheney-like tactics are being used.
Please , and tell them not to let Washington insiders like Freedom's Watch fool them into supporting the President on what has been a failed policy from the beginning.
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) and the have had a dismal relationship over the years. It all boiled over this week when he sat down for an interview with the editors of that Alaska newspaper. He slammed the editors for conspiring against him. But that was not the most jaw-dropping moment of the interview.
When asked about the al Qaeda organization, Stevens was not convinced they were Sunni:
Q. What do you see as the way forward (in Iraq)?
A. Patience, which the pressdoesn't seem to have much of. (U.S. military commander in Iraq Gen.David) Petraeus has all the qualification of Eisenhower. As a matter offact I think if he succeeds he will be an Eisenhower.
The great difficulty is people who say "Pullout" don't have an answer when you ask, "What will you do with a newIraq that's really al-Qaida with the oil production? ... What's youranswer going to be to what they want to do to the United States?
Q. Isn't al-Qaida a Sunniorganization in a Shiite country? Are you suggesting the Sunnis aregoing to end up back in charge of Iraq?
A.I'm not exactly certainwho's going to be in charge of Iraq. I don't know if we pull out. And,by the way, I don't think it's necessarily a Sunni organization. It hasstrength in so many countries now. It's getting a lot of its money fromportions of the Saudi and other oil producers. That's really sort of apayment to them to avoid the trouble they're causing elsewhere, such asin Iraq. ...
What a head-scratching statement, if I ever heard one. In arguing that al Qaeda isn't Sunni, he cited that Saudi Arabia gave them money. One problem there, Ted. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni monarchy. You just disproved yourself.
And just when you thought Stevens might stop talking and call it a day, he blamed Bill Clinton for Bush's inability to establish security in Iraq:
(Someone) was quoted as saying we ought havesent 300,000 people instead of 30,000 people (in the surge). You're notgoing to like this, but Clinton kept cutting down the numbers of ourpeople in the Army and the Air Force. Cutting, cutting, cutting,cutting. We ended up with fewer wings, fewer divisions. We don't countdivisions any more; we count brigades because we don't have manydivisions. Anyone who says (we should have sent) 300,000 people justdoesn't know the statistics.
So it was because of Bill Clinton that President Bush could not send even more troops to Iraq? I don't think so. But if that was the case, then thank you Bill!
Over the past few months, the American people have seentheir government go into lockdown mode regarding information on their past andpresent activities. Frustrated by incessant stonewalling, one group has taken adifferent approach to breaking through and obtaining the information they need;namely, the Airline Industry.
In response to the 41 lawsuits filed by victims of theSeptember 11th attacks against the Airline Industry, American Airlines Inc.,United Airlines Inc., US Airways Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., ContinentalAirlines Inc. and The Boeing Co. haverepeatedly requested interviews with FBI and CIA investigators of the attack. Afterfailing to obtain information vital to their defense, they have now decided tosue.
In the , the companies asked to interview a"limited number of former and current FBI employees" who hadparticipated in investigations of al-Qaida and al-Qaida operatives before andafter Sept. 11, 2001.
Maybe this is the only approach left? Asking politicians totell the truth doesn’t work. Subpoenaing them to testify doesn’t work. Maybe weneed to start suing government agencies to compel them to come forward and tellthe truth!
For the last year, two issues have dominated opinion polls: the war and immigration. Now for the first time, the two areas of concern are affecting one another. Mexican rings are bringing the Iraq war onto our soil:
The FBI is investigating an alleged human smuggling operation based inChaparral, N.M., that agents say is bringing "Iraqis and other MiddleEastern" individuals across the Rio Grande from Mexico.
An FBI intelligence report distributed by the Washington, D.C. JointTerrorism Task Force, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, says theillegal ring has been bringing Iraqis across the border illegally formore than a year.
Smuggling organizations are making a boatload of money as a result:
The FBI report, issued last week, says the smuggling organization "usedto smuggle Mexicans, but decided to smuggle Iraqi or other MiddleEastern individuals because it was more lucrative." Each individualwould be charged a fee of $20,000 to $25,000, according to the report.
So this probably answers the question of whether these are refugees or terrorists being smuggled in. It is highly unlikely that refugees have the resources to pay the $20,000 per person fee.
Yet another example of how the war in Iraq has made our country less safe.
Many of us were left scratching our heads when Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff said he had "" that where would be a terror attack on US soil this summer. Just days after the comment, became the first Homeland Security official to denounce Chertoff's fear-mongering:
"The statement of the secretary, "a gutfeeling," and putting that out to unnecessarily concern people, isirresponsible," he told Channel 3. "We want to make timely, accurateinformed, reasonable decisions about protecting our citizens in thiscountry."
Kerry Sleeper is the Public Safety Commissioner in Vermont -- the highest ranking Homeland Security official in that state. Sleeper and other local officials nationwide have had a difficult time coming up with the budget money to pay for all the unfunded federal mandates.
Tip of the cap to Sleeper for standing up to Chertoff. It takes a lot of courage for a sitting department official to publicly challenge his national superior. I would like to see that kind of courage in the Justice Department.
During last week's at JFK Airport, only a handful of news agencies reported that the plot never even made it past the and did not pose a threat to anyone. For that reason, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is with the media obsession about this non-story:
"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of aheart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry abouteverything. Get a life," he said.
"You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist," he added.
The threat of terrorism has increased since 9/11. But still, the odds of being involved in an international terrorist incident is . The odds of being killed in a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, is . Nearly two years after hurricane Katrina, the levees are still not ready. Yet, we are more than willing to in order to feel safer from terrorism. Something is wrong here.
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