Day: January 19, 2006

Why? Because Alito wouldn’t confess to being a Bruce Springsteen fan.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate’s second-highest ranking Democrat, said Thursday he will vote against confirmation of Samuel Alito as the nation’s 110th Supreme Court Justice.

Durbin, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he will oppose the nomination of the federal appeals court judge when it comes for a vote next week because Alito has failed to show he would protect privacy rights.

“Based on his record, I’m concerned that Judge Alito will not be willing to stand up to a president who is determined to seize too much power over our personal lives,” Durbin said in a statement.

He also criticized Alito for being guarded at his confirmation hearings, noting that the New Jersey native would not even clearly say whether he is a Bruce Springsteen fan.

Whatever, Dick. You go on back now to your navel gazing and space wasting in DC. Buh bye.

Alive and kickin’.

The CIA has authenticated the voice on the tape as that of bin Laden, an agency official said.

The tape’s release came days after a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan that was targeting bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and reportedly killed four leading al-Qaida figures, including possibly al-Zawahri’s son-in-law. There was no mention of the attack on the segments that were broadcast.

It was the first tape from the al-Qaida leader in more than a year — the longest period without a message since the Sept. 11 2001 suicide hijackings in the United States.

The al-Qaida leader is believed to be hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al-Jazeera said the tape was recorded in the Islamic month that corresponds with December.

Bin Laden refers to an alleged comment by President Bush about bombing the Qatar headquarters of Al-Jazeera, which was first reported in the British press on Nov. 22.

He also refers indirectly to the July 7 bombings in London that killed 56 people and to poll numbers that showed a fall in Bush’s popularity, as occurred in late 2005.

U.S. counterterror officials said Thursday they have seen no specific or credible intelligence to indicate an upcoming al-Qaida attack on the country.

At least none that they’d like to share with the Associated Press, that is.

Hey, I have an idea – let’s post US troops outside the Pakistani bureau office of Al-Jazeera. Let’s find out who is delivering these audio and video tapes.

Or maybe the CIA already knows who the person is?

Whatever. I just think it’s crazy that we haven’t killed bin Laden yet, although I concede that there are groups who want to protect him and see his will through. How else can one explain the fact that a reward for millions of dollars has been on bin Laden’s head ever since the 9/11 attacks, yet no one has publicly reported even a sighting of the man?

As expected, the White House responded to the messages on the reported audio tape by Osama bin Laden by saying the United States does not negotiate with terrorists.

“Clearly the al Qaeda leaders and other terrorists are on the run, they’re under a lot of pressure. We do not negotiate with terrorists, we put them out of business,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

“The terrorists started this war and the president made it clear that we will end it at a time and place of our choosing. We continue to pursue all those who seek to do harm to the American people,” he said.

Arab television station al Jazeera earlier on Thursday aired the audio tape attributed to bin Laden. In the tape, the first purported tape by him since 2004, bin Laden warned al Qaeda was preparing new attacks inside the United States.

McClellan said President George W. Bush was informed about the tape after he returned from making remarks to business leaders in the Washington suburb of Sterling, Va.

McClellan said the U.S. intelligence community is analyzing the tape to see if it is authentic and whether it contains any useful intelligence.

One thing is for sure. This White House is consistent. Here’s what Bush said on November 26, 2001:

“I said a long time ago, one of our objectives is to smoke them out and get them running and bring them to justice,” Bush said.

“We’re smoking them out. They’re running. And now we’re going to bring them to justice. I also said we’ll use whatever means necessary to achieve that objective — and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

It was true then and it’s true now. We are making progress in the war on terror. It’s important now to not let up. There’s still a lot of ‘smokin’ left to do.

Chirac takes his shirt off, attempts to find and flex a muscle, world remains unimpressed.

France said on Thursday it would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent.

Deflecting criticism of France’s costly nuclear arms program, President Jacques Chirac said security came at a price and France must be able to hit back hard at a hostile state’s centers of power and its “capacity to act.”

He said there was no change in France’s overall policy, which rules out the use of nuclear weapons in a military conflict. But his speech pointed to a change of emphasis to underline the growing threat France perceives from terrorism.

“The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and adapted response on our part,” Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in northwestern France.

“This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind.”

Oooh, I’m sure those terrorists are cowering in their well fortified underground uber-caves right now.

Unfortunately for France, it appears that they don’t realize the reputation they have for producing unconvincing tough talk followed by the inevitable wave of the white flag. There’s no ‘there’ there. They suffer from a complete lack of credibility. But maybe they don’t see that as a liability?

I fear that France will someday become a victim of terrorism and commit the unpardonable sin of capitulation toward their attackers, giving the terrorists just enough of a morale boost to further their cause.

All talk and no action by France will not stop the terrorists in Iraq, Iran or anywhere else in the world.

He’s baaaack, and he’s playing a tune loved by liberals.

In an audio tape broadcast on Aljazeera, Osama bin Laden has warned that al-Qaida was preparing an attack very soon, but also offered Americans a “long-term truce”.

“The new operations of al-Qaida has not happened not because we could not penetrate the security measures. It is being prepared and you’ll see it in your homeland very soon,” the voice attributed to bin Laden said, apparently addressing Americans.

But the voice on the tape, which appeared to be aimed at the American public, also offered a truce: “We do not mind establishing a long-term truce between us and you.”

The tape, broadcast on Thursday but dated to December last year, comes after a year of silence from the al-Qaida leader.

“This message is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end those wars,” it began.

“It was not my intention to talk to you about this, because those wars are definitely going our way.

“But what triggered my desire to talk to you is the continuous deliberate misinformation given by your President [George] Bush, when it comes to polls made in your home country which reveal that the majority of your people are willing to withdraw US forces from Iraq.

Americans want peace

“We know that the majority of your people want this war to end and opinion polls show the Americans don’t want to fight the Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their (US) land.

“But Bush does not want this and claims that it’s better to fight his enemies on their land rather than on American land.

“Bush tried to ignore the polls that demanded that he end the war in Iraq.

“We are getting increasingly stronger while your situation is getting from bad to worse,” he told the US, referring to poor US troop morale and the huge economic losses inflicted by the war.

“The war in Iraq is raging and the operations in Afghanistan are increasing.”

Truce offer

“In response to the substance of the polls in the US, which indicate that Americans do not want to fight Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land, we do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to.

“We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war.

“There is no problem in this solution, but it will prevent hundreds of billions from going to influential people and warlords in America – those who supported Bush’s electoral campaign – and from this, we can understand Bush and his gang’s insistence on continuing the war.”

Addressing Americans again, he said: “If your desire for peace, stability and reconciliation was true, here we have given you the answer to your call.”

Bin Laden, who had not been heard of since a 27 December 2004 audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, as al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, also said his network was winning the war against the US.

“I would like to tell you that everything is going to our advantage and the number of your dead is increasing, according to Pentagon figures.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s deputy, said in a September videotape that his leader was still alive and leading the jihad against the West.

Osama is a very smart man. What he’s saying here is that Americans should listen to the anti-war leftists who believe negotiation is the best way to deal with terrorists. He’s in fact offering to end the attacks if the US withdraws from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words – you play nice and we’ll play nice.

Don’t believe it for a second.

While Al-Qaida has been weakened significantly, and even more so recently as a result of the bomb attack which killed key members, they are still a formidable opponent. They haven’t softened their views on Americans. They are still radical murderers. But they’re shrewd politicians as well, and this latest message is clearly a clarion call to the left in this country.

I hope and pray that the Democratic party isn’t stupid enough to fall into Osama’s trap.