In his book "Against All Enemies," Richard Clarke viciously attacks President Bush for failing to take strong action against al-Qaeda in the first eight months of his Presidency, pointing the finger of blame for 9/11 at the Bush administration. A year ago, Richard Clarke was extensively used as a source for Richard Miniter's book "Losing Bin Laden," which pointed the finger of blame for 9/11 at the Clinton administration for not taking action against al-Qaeda in the eight years of his Presidency. It's no coincidence of names... it's the same Richard Clarke. So who does Clarke blame for 9/11, Clinton or Bush? How many fingers are there?

The failed strategy of dealing with terrorism through courts and lawyers rather than military means was pursued all through the nineties. Clarke was the White House terrorism advisor for both Presidents, ever since he was appointed to the National Security Council staff in 1992 by Bill Clinton. Iraq was clearly involved in the 1993 WTC bombing by al-Qaeda operatives, yet was never confronted by the Clinton administration... which only emboldened Saddam to defy the US even more openly as the years passed. Mohammed Salameh, one of the bombers, made 46 phone calls to Iraq. Most of them were to his uncle, a convicted terrorist working in the PLO office in Baghdad. Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ramzi Yousef came to the US from Iraq, and Yousef traveled back to Iraq afterwards using a Kuwaiti passport in the name of Abdul Basit Karim. Karim's file had clearly been tampered with during Iraq's occupation of Kuwait -- Yousef's fingerprints had replaced those of the real Karim. All the evidence of State sponsorship of terrorism was ignored, and a policy of prosecuting individual terrorists as common criminals was followed. Who was the White House's counter-terrorism advisor during this time? Who bears some of the responsibility, at least, for this policy? Right answer: Richard Clarke.

Clarke's book castigates President Bush for his response to the second attack on the World Trade Center in less than a decade. When informed of the attacks, Clarke states that Bush wanted to know whether Iraq -- which had been involved in the attack on the the Twin Towers less than a decade ago -- was involved again. In the course of Clarke's prime-time network infomercial on 60 Minutes (no one saw fit to mention that VIACOM, which owns CBS, also published Clarke's book through Free Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster), Clarke stated that President Bush had a brief conversation with him on the subject. According to Clarke, Bush said,"'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said 'Iraq did this.'" Any objective, intellectually honest person would be forced to wonder at Clarke's vehement reaction -- more than two years delayed -- to this seemingly reasonable question. It would, in my opinion, have been irresponsible NOT to ask whether a country that had declared us their enemy, had been shooting down our planes for years, had been known to support terrorism, and had been involved in the first attack on the WTC was involved in the second attack on the same building. Clarke's personal impressions and prejudices -- which apparently form the bulk his book -- aside, all this tells us is that President Bush pays attention to history while Richard Clarke does not... even to his own. In his resignation letter, dated 20 Jan 2003, Clarke wrote to President Bush, "I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th," and "It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months." A little more than a year later, he seems to have changed his mind. In the 60 minutes interview, he attacked President Bush's handling of 9/11.

CLARKE: I think the way he has responded to al Qaeda, both before 9/11 by doing nothing and by what he's done after 9/11 has made us less safe. Absolutely.
STAHL: Don't you think he handled himself and hit all the right notes after 9/11, showed strength, got us through it, you don't give him credit for that?
CLARKE: He gave a really good speech right after 9/11.
STAHL: You don't give him credit for anything. Nothing.
CLARKE: I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism.

Prior to President Bush, there WAS no war against terrorism. After the 1993 WTC attack, nothing was done to stop al-Qaeda. Nothing was done when al-Qaeda terrorists killed 18 US servicemen in Somalia, also in 1993. Nothing was done after al-Qaeda terrorists blew up the Khobar Towers in 1996 or the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya in 1998. Nothing was done after al-Qaeda blew a hole in the USS Cole in 2000. Clarke claims that he warned President Bush about the terrible danger posed to the US by al-Qaeda and the need for a military response. The entirety of the "military response" to al-Qaeda during the Clinton administration -- under Clarke's leadership as "terrorism czar" -- was limited to missile strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan, both of which proved fruitless. Why was nothing done about al-Qaeda during all the years of Clarke's tenure as head of counter-terrorism, if the danger was so obvious?

Clinton's administration passed up an opportunity to capture Osama bin Laden in 1996 According to a statement by Mansoor Ijaz (one of Clinton's 1996 campaign contributors), "President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas. Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center. The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening." After 9/11, Clinton was heard to call his decision not to take bin Laden "the biggest mistake of my Presidency." A second back-channel offer was made to turn over bin Laden by the United Arab Emirates in the summer of 2000, before the attack on the Cole. Richard Clarke soured the deal by openly referring to it during a meeting with the UAE rulers, who immediately denied any such offer had been made. That fall, a Predator drone spotted Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. The Clinton administration again declined to act.

Richard Clarke -- arguably, the man who actually dropped the ball -- continues to criticise President Bush for not acting swiftly enough to send American military against bin Laden's terror network. It turns out that the Bush administration was, in fact, preparing to launch a worldwide war against al-Qaeda. The day before 9/11, the Bush administration finalised a plan to overthrow the Taliban, capture Osama bin Laden, and crush al-Qaeda around the world. Even had President Bush launched such an attack on Afghanistan the day after he took office, however, it wouldn't have stopped 9/11... which had been in motion since 1998.

Of course, then Liberals would certainly have condemned President Bush as an "imperialist warmonger" for launching a pre-emptive strike against a sovereign nation before they had actually attacked us. Go figure.

The anniversary of the invasion of Iraq has arrived, and Saddam's useful idiots -- Lenin's term for Westerners easily duped into supporting those who should be their worst enemies -- remain on the job, still billing themselves as "anti-war protesters". Don't they realise that we've already invaded, Saddam went from palace to spider hole to jail cell, the UN has recognised the Coalition as the legal authority there, and the Iraqi people are free of his misrule at last?  Don't they realise that Iraq is well on the way to self-government by the will of the people, instead of the will of a dictator? Or do they simply lack the honesty to call themselves what they really are? One cannot separate the cause from the effect. These people are actually protesting the removal of a brutal dictator and the liberation of twenty-five million Iraqis.

It appears that the Democrats are going to run their 2004 campaign on a two-pronged strategy: "hate Bush" and "hate the rich". The latter, at least, is the same old class warfare strategy they've tried and failed with before. Since John Kerry has proposed raising taxes on everyone who earns over $200,000 a year, that seems to be the defining line on who's "rich" and who's not. So, what of it? Why should those of us who make less than $200,000 a year care how much those darned rich people get their taxes raised? How is that going to affect you and me?

The answer is simple. In most cases, they're the people we work for.

People who make over $200,000 a year are the ones who run the business world that keeps most of the 94.4% of Americans that earn a paycheck (as of February 2004) employed. They're the people who own and invest in the large corporations and small companies that the majority of us work for. According to an IRS study done in the year 2000, only 2.8 million people earn over $200,000 per year. Keep in mind, however, that much of that data predates the dot-com bubble collapse that led to the Clinton recession in late 2000, foreshadowed as early as May 2000 by a "turmoil in technology stocks." By March 2001, the economy had clearly been failing for ten months in a row. Today's number of "rich" may still be less that it was before the recession.

Small businesses are the backbone of wealth creation in this country, and their influence on the economy is growing. In fact, the biggest difference between the Democratic meme that "2.3 million jobs have been lost since President Bush took office" and reality lies in that shadowy area between two methods of counting jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll survey always quoted by Democrats only covers people employed by large corporations and established businesses. The household survey, which covers small businesses and startups, not only accounts for those 2.3 million jobs, but actually shows a net gain of 700,000. Small businesses are fast becoming the most important factor in today's economy. According to a 2001 study by the University of Colorado:

Wealth appears to reside primarily in larger U.S. firms and the results herein suggest that this is changing. Smaller firms do create significant wealth and, more importantly, the percentage of wealth increase is significantly larger among small firms. Although further research is needed, it may be, based on the results of our study, that the very large corporate behemoths are wealth destroyers rather than wealth creators. It also appears that the economic impact of smaller firms is significantly increasing over time.

With the overthrow of Jose Maria Aznar's "Popular Party" in the Spanish elections yesterday, al-Qaeda has learned some very important things. By setting off a few bombs with the probable assistance of the Basque separatist group Eta and killing a "mere" two hundred people or so, they have learned that that can cow an entire nation into appeasing them to avoid further attacks. Like any bully or blackmailer, they'll be back when they want more concessions from the socialist Spanish government. Next time, all they have to do is threaten an attack to get their way. In a cave somewhere on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are exchanging high-fives.

Al Qaeda has learned that they have the ability to control elections in supposedly democratic countries with violence.  Does anyone really think that having proven this ability, they won't use it? One thing the Spanish appeasers have done is guarantee a wave of terrorist violence just before the November elections.

Not only have we lost a valuable ally in the War on Terror, we have lost an entire Western nation to the socialists, who lost power in 1996 due to widespread corruption. Middle East expert Mansoor Ijaz said, "This particular election result in Spain is probably the single most important event that has taken place since the attacks on Sept. 11 because it demonstrates that terrorism, in fact, can pay." He added, "And now one of the governments that supported the United States has fallen." 

It's a black day for democracy, freedom, and the fight against worldwide terrorism.

Once again, terrorists have committed mass murder on an unsuspecting people. Once again, the news is flooded with images of horror done to innocents in the name of a political agenda. This time, the murderers have struck in Madrid, Spain, on crowded railroads in the middle of the day, killing 200 people and wounding perhaps 1500. 

DAMN them.

I don't care about the politics or aims of the group that did this thing. The black hats ride together. As far as I'm concerned, all terrorists need to be exterminated like the cockroaches they are. Anyone who deliberately targets innocent men, women and children just to get attention or cause fear for some political reason has no humanity, and has forfeited all claim to human rights.  I felt the same way in the days after 9/11... all two and a half years of them, so far.

The topic of discussion seems to be what political group is behind this atrocity. If it's al-Qaeda or a group linked to them, as it certainly seems to be, then the "talking heads" think that tomorrow's election may go ill for Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. The thinking here is that if Spain was attacked because they joined the Coalition to liberate Iraq, the voters will vote him out of office. If it's "just" a Basque separatist group (members of which recieve training in Iran and Lebanon, by the way -- remember the comment about the black hats), then his party may win re-election. The big question seems to be "Are the Spanish people are going to throw Aznar out of office because of his support for the US and UK in Iraq?" I certainly hope they don't think that appeasing the terrorists will make them go away, because it won't. If the terrorists -- whoever they are -- find that they can force the people of Spain to meet their demands with a few lousy bombs, they'll be back again.. and again... and again.

Wait a second... am I missing something here? Everyone's concerned that al-Qaeda may be behind the attack on Spain because they're angry that Spain was our ally in Iraq? I thought that the Liberals and other anti-liberation groups have been insisting for a year that al-Qaeda may have been in Afghanistan, but had nothing to do with Iraq. Why are they suddenly concerned that al-Qaeda committed an act of terrorism in Spain because of its involvement in Iraq, without mentioning Afghanistan? According to Liberal doctrine, Osama bin Laden hated Saddam and wanted him removed for ideological reasons.

This is no surprise, of course. We've known all along that Iraq is the main front of the war on terror, haven't we? Several months ago, in fact, al-Qaeda shifted its focus from defeating the evils of democracy in Afghanistan to defeating the evils of democracy in Iraq. If we can defeat al-Qaeda and establish a real democracy in Iraq, we will have dealt a mortal blow to terrorism, and the terrorists know it. The signing of Iraq's interim constitution last week -- with its incredibly progressive bill of rights -- was a serious win for our side, though the "mainstream" media reported it with a barely-stifled yawn.

According to Norwegian investigators, a message on an al-Qaeda web site last year said, "We must make maximum use of the proximity to the elections in Spain in March next year. Spain can stand a maximum of two or three attacks before they will withdraw from Iraq." Al-Qaeda has been looking for ways to get the US and our allies to withdraw from Iraq since the minute we went in.

I'm sure that the Left will come up with some tortured logic to explain how al-Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq before poor, innocent Saddam was removed from power, but has since decided to punish the whole world for doing so. (Liberals insist al-Qaeda and Saddam had no contact, despite all the evidence that they had a working relationship for over a decade.) I'm not about to buy such a twisted explanation any more than I'd be willing to buy this attack being Muslim retaliation for El Cid's reconquest of Spain from them in the 11th century. And in either case, does it matter why terrorists murder innocents? It is inexcusable, indefensible, and intolerable that they do so.

The War on Terror goes on, and this proves it. It's a threat to the entire world, not just the US, and this proves it. This war is one we can't afford to stop fighting, proactively, wherever terror groups find support. This proves it.

Presidential hopeful John Kerry has more guts than most people gave him credit for, after all.  It takes unbelievable audacity to attack President Bush for "stonewalling" the 9/11 terrorist attack investigation, when Kerry was personally warned by an FAA agent about the possibility of a terrorist hijacking at Boston's Logan International Airport only months before... and did nothing.

In a letter to Senator John Kerry on 7 May 2001, retired FAA Special Agent Brian Sullivan wrote that the FAA needed to change its focus from hijackings for hostages (the usual purpose until 9/11) to encompass the possibility of terrorists taking over airliners for other, more deadly purposes.  "While the FAA has focused on screening for handguns, new threats have emerged, such as chemical and biological weapons," Sullivan wrote.  "Do you really think a screener could detect a bottle of liquid explosive, a small battery and a detonator in your carry-on baggage?"  Sullivan continued, "And with the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers? The answers to these questions are obvious."

The night before, a local tv station had broadcast a report concerning security vulnerabilities at Logan Airport featuring Sullivan and another former FAA Special Agent named Steve Elson.  The two had waltzed in and out through airport security multiple times with a variety of weapons and gadgets.  Many times, their bags weren't even opened, even when "suspicious items" were inside.  Agent Sullivan sent Kerry a video of the report following his letter.  In a chilling prophecy, he encouraged the Senator to "[t]hink what the result would be of a coordinated attack which took down several domestic flights on the same day."  In the last week of July, Kerry's office finally sent Sullivan a reply saying that the video had been forwarded to the Department of Transportation.  Less than two months later, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were hijacked after taking off from the same Logan International Airport and flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in NYC, killing thousands.

Was this the famous "alarm" John Kerry claims to have "sounded... on terrorism years before 9/11" in his television commercials -- sending a video to the DoT mere months beforehand?  Anyone with money for postage could have done as much.  Isn't it possible that a Senator with a direct warning from a former FAA agent could -- and should -- have done much more?  While it's true that few people would immediately leap into action on a warning alone, most people lack the hypocritical arrogance to criticise others for not doing so when they hadn't themselves.

Kerry has recently attacked President Bush for daring to spend time campaigning for his own re-election instead of answering questions before the 9/11 commission.  "If the President of the United States can find time to go to a rodeo, he can spend more than one hour before the commission," Kerry said.  Why is more than an hour necessary?  It comes as no surprise that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (as it's formally known) would be used as yet another political attack on President Bush before too long.  Senator Kerry apparently needs to be reminded that he's able to find plenty of time to do everything except the job he's still drawing a hefty paycheck to do, having missed 64% of the Senate roll calls last year.  Some might consider that "being AWOL", and call for a minute-by-minute account of his activities while taking money from the public he supposedly serves.  Perhaps the Senator can furnish dental records to go along with that.

When will Kerry take his seat before the Commission to answer for his deliberate disregard of vital information concerning the lack of airport security in his very own Senatorial district, at the very airport from which half of the 9/11 attacks were launched?

Every Presidential candidate needs a running mate to help define his or her campaign, and John Kerry is no exception.  Now that the big primaries are over, the media needs something positive to report about their favored candidate (not that the media would ever take sides).  Expect the next media flurry -- the next one not attacking President Bush, that is -- to be about the burning question of who John Kerry will pick for a running mate. 

Some people are hoping (or fearing) that Kerry will choose Hillary Clinton as his Vice President.  Others think he will ask former Presidential hopeful Senator John Edwards to run with him.  A running mate is normally chosen for one of two things: the positives he or she can bring to a campaign (like energising the base, bringing in funding or helping to win a state or region), or the negatives that he or she doesn't bring.  This is especially true of Democrats, who tend to think of people more as representatives of a racial or economic group than as individual voters.

The huge amount of negative baggage carried by Hillary Clinton completely cancels out any positives she might bring.  Also, Kerry doesn't need to take out "insurance" in New York; there's very little chance the state will go Republican this year.  As for John Edwards, he held his own home state against Kerry, but his presence would be no guarantee that South Carolina or any other Southern state will suddenly vote Democratic.  Another reason to discount Clinton and Edwards is that no President wants a VP who's vastly more charismatic or personally powerful than he or she is.  Keeping all the above in mind, here's my list of probable VP picks for John Kerry.

Representative Dick Gephardt still has a huge amount of pull with the unions, and could (with a little hard-sell campaigning) bring in his home state of Missouri.  He might also have an effect in neighboring states.  Gephardt is more of a centrist than Kerry (for that matter, Ted Kennedy is more of a centrist than John Kerry!) and does not have a record of flip-flopping on every issue.  In my opinion, Gephardt's daughter's inability to stop pushing her gay activist agenda even when stumping for her father in a middle-of-the-road state cost him the primary in Iowa.  In a national campaign, however, it may actually come as something of an asset (if they confine her to more "Liberal" states like New York, California, Massachusetts and Vermont).  On the other hand, those who see Kerry as "Old-Time Washington Establishment" wouldn't find anything different to like about Gephardt.

Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana has many of the positives and few of the negatives of Gephardt. Though he doesn't have quite the amount of support from the unions, he's also younger and more charismatic (though not so much so as to overwhelm Kerry, the way Edwards would).

Senator Bill Nelson could ensure his home state of Florida, a very tightly-contested state.  With the President's own brother campaigning for him there, the Democrats will need every advantage they can get.  Senator Bob Graham is more well-known by far, but much of that notoriety comes from his "quirkiness"... or, if you're not a fan, his obsessive-compulsive madness.

Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante actually made a fairly strong showing in California's 2003 recall election, though he ultimately lost to Arnold Scharzenegger.  He brought in 52 percent of the Hispanic vote and 32.3 percent overall.  Though many people think that Kerry would choose New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson for his influence with Hispanic voters, ensuring California may be considered far more important to the Kerry campaign.  California is considered to be "in play" for the first time in years, and a California VP would help to counteract Arnold's strong support for President Bush there.  However, his former membership in the Hispanic racist/separatist organisation MEChA would weight heavily against him. 

Representative Jane Harman would also help secure California's whopping 55 electoral votes (though not as much as Bustamante), and would have some appeal to women around the country.  At first glance, she doesn't appear to have any serious baggage to weigh her down aside from her pro-abortion, pro-gay "marriage" stances.  If Kerry wants to secure California and gain support with women, Harman might be a good choice.

A good choice for Kerry, that is.  Any of these people would do very little to mitigate the disaster that a Kerry Presidency would be for America.

If this is how far the Democrats have sunk already, with eight months still to go before the election, 2004 is going to be a very dirty Presidential campaign year indeed.

In answer to the vicious attacks constantly being levied at him by the Democrats, President Bush released a series of quiet, thoughtful tv commercials this week.  The ads were designed to remind the viewer that America has been faced with some serious hardships and challenges in the last few years, and that America -- led by President Bush -- has risen to meet them.  As part of a series of photographs that flash by in a montage, there is a brief shot of the American flag flying over the World Trade Center wreckage of 9/11, and an even briefer shot of one of the thousands of flag-draped stretchers that were carried out of the buildings' remains.  Since 9/11 was one of the challenges Bush helped the country survive, the defining moment of his Presidency and our generation, and arguably the greatest disaster this country has ever faced, it's entirely right and proper for him to allude to his leadership in its aftermath.  9/11 redefined this country, and redefined George W. Bush as well.  But the Liberals, as we know, see the worst terrorist attack in history as a hiccup, a fluke, a one-time thing rather than part of an ongoing campaign against us.  They refuse to see that it was an act of war, and that war against terrorists and their supporters was the only appropriate response.  While the rest of us were saying "Remember 9/11", they were -- and still are -- telling us, "remember 9/10".

The media (reduced to being the pets of the Liberals these days) immediately attacked the ads with everything they had, and in the sickest way imaginable.  Within hours of the ads' release, "news" stories began circulating such as "Victims' Families Press Bush to Pull 9/11 Ads" and "9/11 Victims' Kin Angered by Bush Ads" which ran quotes from people mostly identified only as relatives of 9/11 victims.  But the stories somehow neglected to identify nearly every person quoted as someone who has either contributed to John Kerry's campaign, works for John Kerry's campaign, or is a member of an organisation that's either "anti-war"... or just anti-Bush.

"It makes me sick," said Colleen Kelly, who lost her brother Bill Kelly Jr. in the attacks and leads a victims families group called Peaceful Tomorrows. "Would you ever go to someone's grave site and use that as an instrument of politics? That truly is what Ground Zero represents to me."

Ms. Kelly, it turns out, protested the liberation of Iraq in NYC alongside actress and activist Susan Sarandon.  Her group also visited Iraq before the war to stage a protest against the US.  The news story forgot to mention that.  But wait!  There's more!  This Peaceful Tomorrows group (which also opposed the war in Afghanistan), is "a project of the Tides Center" according to their own web site.  The Tides Center, in turn, is funded by the Vira Heinz Endowment and the Howard Heinz Endowment -- both chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry.  Got all that? 

David Potorti, quoted as saying, "It's an insult to use the place where my brother died in an ad," is also a member of Peaceful Tomorrows.  So is Bob McIlvane, who said, "To argue that using footage of the wreckage of the towers to further someone's political career is 'tasteful' really needs to be rejected outright, and I condemn it."  Yet he is allowing the media to use his son's death to further the political career of John Kerry, whose wife's foundations contribute money to his organisation.  The media neglected to report any of this in their "outrage" stories.

Two members of the International Association of Fire Fighters Union are mentioned as being angry about the ads, Jeff Zack and Harold Schaitberger .  The IAFF gave their endorsement to Senator Kerry.  Schaitberger, in September 2003, gave the endorsement speech.  In fact, Harold Schaitberger is "co-chair of the Kerry for President campaign", according to the Firefighters for Kerry website.  The news media must have just forgotten to mention that.

Are you feeling sick yet?

Tom Ryan, who said, "As a firefighter who spent months at Ground Zero, it's deeply offensive to see the Bush campaign use these images to capitalize on the greatest American tragedy of our time," is an active campaigner for gay "marriage" as an officer of FireFLAG.  President Bush recently called for a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Coincidence?  I wonder. I think I hear the scraping sound of an ax grinding.

Kristen Breitweiser, who also attacked President Bush for "using 9/11 as political propaganda," was not identified as the woman who decided "to wage a battle against the United States government" in the "ad" story.  However, that is the way she was introduced in an interview with Phil Donahue in 2002.  In both interviews, she attacked President Bush for not panicking a schoolroom full of children by personally overreacting while preparations were made for his departure.  That meme -- "how dare he react with such calm?" -- seems to be resurfacing again as a Democratic talking point. 

But that's what makes a President a leader, not rushing around in a hysterical panic.

Is the UN Playing Games with American Politics?

You tell me.