Month: January 2006

This is very nearly getting out of hand.

Israel said today that they are getting ready to take military action against Iran to stop their nuclear program.

“Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability and it must have the capability to defend itself, with all that that implies, and this we are preparing,” Shaul Mofaz said.

His comments at an academic conference stopped short of overtly threatening a military strike but were likely to add to growing tensions with Iran.

They have good reason to be worried, given the anti-Israeli rhetoric being thrown about by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who’s proving to be a serious lunatic.

Sure, everyone hopes and believes that this standoff will be solved by diplomacy, but one shouldn’t underestimate the intentions of Ahmadinejad. If he is indeed capable of building nuclear weapons and threatens to use them, the USA will on him like white on rice. And a war like that would make Iraq look like romper room.

Another coal mine tragedy claims two more miners.

Rescuers on Saturday found the bodies of two miners who disappeared after a conveyor belt caught fire deep inside a coal mine, bringing to 14 the number of West Virginia miners killed on the job in less than a month.

The bodies were found in an area of the mine where rescue teams had been battling the intense blaze for more than 40 hours. Rescuers could not enter that portion of the mine until the flames had been mostly extinguished and the tunnels cooled down.

“We have found the two miners we were looking for,” said Doug Conaway, director of the state Office of Miners’ Health Training and Safety. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a positive outcome.”

The miners became separated Thursday evening as their 12-member crew tried to escape a conveyor belt fire at Aracoma Coal’s Alma No. 1 mine in Melville, about 60 miles southwest of Charleston. The rest of the crew and nine other miners working in a different section of the mine escaped unharmed.

“We have two brave miners that have perished,” Gov. Joe Manchin told reporters.

Conaway said it appeared the two miners made a “valiant effort” to escape, but were blocked by high temperatures and thick smoke.

As far as I’m concerned, coal miners go beyond bravery. Not many of us go to work each day and live with the idea that we might not come home. Yet that’s what these guys do. Just like cops. Just like fire fighters. Each one of them should be honored, not just during a tragic moment like this, but every day.

Harry Belafonte, who recently called Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world”, has now compared the Department of Homeland Security to the Nazi Gestapo.

“We’ve come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended,” Belafonte said in a speech to the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference.

“You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel,” said Belafonte.

And if you can believe it, he got a roaring standing ovation. But then again, when you consider the fact that audience members included Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, you’d quickly understand that there was an overabundance of moonbats present.

Oh, and he also called Bush a liar, and claimed that he rose to power “somewhat dubiously…”

And still, no prominent Democrats have come out to condemn Belafonte, but then again, why should they? Deep down, they believe the same thing he does.

Moonbat comments force the WaPo blog to close it’s comment section.

MORE: Editor defends pulling comments.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews of Hardball compares Osama bin Laden to Michael Moore, confirming once and for all that moonbats of a feather flock together.

Today’s award goes to Star Jones (who?) and her VIEW of the war on terror.

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.