Bill’s Blog

“Not for the politically correct.”

Drudge Report | OpinionJournal | FrontPage Magazine | Associated Press
 JewishWorldReview | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | Other Links | Bottom

Top

DrudgeReport.com

• Talk Show Host Could Lose NBC Sitcom for Patriotic Views

• Despicable Hoaxers Make False Death Reports to Sericemen’s Families

• Sean Penn Has California Concealed Weapons Permit

• Man With SARS Took 7 International Flights

• Singapore Uses Surveillance Cameras to Enforce Quarantine

• Media Downplay Castro’s Stalinist Crackdown

• CNN Hides Saddam Regime’s Crimes to Keep “Access”

Bottom

RADIO HOST HENDRIE: MY PRO-WAR VIEWS COULD COST ME TV GIG...

Los Angeles-based talkradio sensation Phil Hendrie Thursday night charged that his passionate pro-war views may cost him a TV sitcom that has been in development at NBC.

Hendrie announced on his nationally-syndicated show that his war stand could result in a liberal Hollywood backlash against him and his current TV pitch.

More G.I. wives get hoax casualty calls ...

One wonders if the “anti-war” types are behind this despicable cruelty.

Wives of Camp Pendleton Marines involved in the war in Iraq have been receiving crank calls from individuals claiming to work for the Red Cross who regretfully, and falsely, inform them that their spouses had been killed in action.

In a statement, Camp Pendleton reminded military families that genuine casualty notifications are not made by telephone or by the Red Cross.

PEACE ACTIVIST PACKIN': Sean Penn's car, two weapons, stolen from Berkeley street...

Penn, 42, told police he had a loaded 9 mm Glock handgun inside his car in addition to an unloaded .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver in the trunk.

It was legal for Penn to have the guns in his car because he has a state concealed weapons permit, Kusmiss said.

Man diagnosed with SARS took 7 international flights...

This is how diseases which used to be local can be quickly spread around the globe.

Surveillance cameras installed in Singapore homes of sick...

Singapore (dpa) - Surveillance cameras have been installed in the homes of people placed under quarantine in Singapore after 12 flouted the orders despite having come into contact with people diagnosed with a deadly pneumonia-like virus, the Health Ministry said Friday.

Those ordered quarantined must report in front of the camera several times a day.

MEDIA BIGS MUM ON CASTRO CRACKDOWN...

Not, though, the Castro Faithful--the media moguls, celebrity journalists, filmmakers and Hollywood glitterati who continue to break bread with the Cuban dictator and idolize him as "one hell of a guy," in Ted Turner's words. No, they were silent. And given protest-happy Hollywood's long love affair with the unelected "President" Fidel--"one of the most mysterious leaders in the world," cooed Barbara Walters on ABC's "20/20" in October, as she puffed up his "personal magnetism" and supposed social triumphs--it's unlikely that there will be any expression of disapproval from these quarters soon.

As Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote this week, Castro can rely on "the unswerving naïveté and obtuseness of the American left, which consistently has managed to overlook what a goon he is." The list of those willing to keep Castro's good company, and remain silent when his actions revert to type, includes rich and famous celebrities who troop to Havana to pay their respects to the rich and famous dictator.

CNN EXEC: The News We Kept to Ourselves...

It looks like CNN had to make a devil’s bargain to keep a presence in Saddam’s Iraq. They had to keep their peace on Saddam’s crimes to stay there.

The big question is whether they will now come clean now that Saddam has been deposed.

We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails).

Top

 OpinionJournal.com

• UN Loses Moral Legitimacy on Iraq

• CNN Saddam Regime Coverup

• Washington Post Fears New Iraqi Regime Will Recognize Israel

• John Kerry’s Flipflops on Iraq Campaign

• Some Arab “Volunteers” in Iraq Not Issued Arms

• Tariq Aziz May Hide in an American University

• Saddam Put Mosaic of Bush on Hotel Floor as Insult

Bottom

This article also mentions the UN’s failures in Bosnia, Cambodia, and Rwanda.

Leftists don’t believe in the consent of the governed; this may be Annan’s problem.

… Yet even in the face of footage from Baghdad that conjures up images of Paris 1944 or Berlin 1989, we're still asked to believe that an America spilling its blood and treasure to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein has less moral credibility than a U.N. that helped prop him up for 12 years.

That much was made plain earlier this week with Mr. Annan's ex cathedra declaration that only the U.N. possessed the moral imprimatur necessary to confer "legitimacy" on postwar Iraq. But legitimacy is not something that can be imposed by the United Nations--or the United States for that matter. Legitimacy derives from the consent of the governed: the people of Iraq.

Top
OpinionJ

Top
OpinionJ

 Top
OpinionJ

Top
OpinionJ

Top
OpinionJ

Top
OpinionJ

Top

FrontPageMag.com

• America As Liberator in Iraq

• “Anti-war” Protestors Immune to Reality in Iraq

• Democrats Glum Over Victory Over Saddam

• Stalin Was One of Saddam’s Role Models

• Dick Morris: Bush Is Restoring Trust in Government

• University of Missouri Columbia Promotes “Anti-War” Activities

• Marines Seize Nuclear Site South of Baghdad

• Top 50 Officials of Saddam Regime Haven’t Been Found

• Syria Claims That It Is Not Harboring Saddam Regime Officials

• Syrian “Volunteers” Fight Coalition Troops in Iraq

• American Troops Camp Out in Saddam’s Palace

• Oil Prices Tumble After Coalition Forces Take Kirkuk

• North Korea Plans to Build 2 Nuclear Weapons Per Year

Bottom

Let America Be America the Liberator Again!
By Stephen Schwartz
The liberation of the Iraqi people - and its inevitable chain reaction.  More>

Good commentary on Wahhabism, which may be a heresy of the Prophet’s Islam.

Schwartz is weak on American history and politics. The basic result of the Civil War was to change the status of the slaves from chattel slaves to debt bondage. The long-term result was to enable a Federal government that was more powerful than the 9th and 10th Amendments allow, making a socialist Amerika possible.

But the menace of Saudi-backed Wahhabism remains. Al-Qaida represents Wahhabism in its purest form. Wahhabism, the official sect in Saudi Arabia, is a fundamentalist, violent movement that rejects all existing Islam as unbelief – especially Islamic spirituality – as well as seeking the ultimate destruction of Shi’a Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism.

Wahhabism is not an old Islamic tradition, and the House of Sa’ud, contrary to Western beliefs, does not enjoy a major historic claim to rulership over Arabia.

…

But there is a higher parallel to September 11th and to the present war, and it is greatly counter-intuitive, and may be rejected out of hand by many people. It is with Fort Sumter and our own Civil War, in which the Republican Party of President Lincoln, and of secretary of state William Henry Seward, who had been governor of the great state of New York, secured the end of human slavery in this country, and preserved our union as a mighty power in the world.

During a private conversation with the group's media coordinator he told me that, even during the meatiest days of the antiwar movement the L.A. chapter of NION attracted only about 50 people to its meetings. …

Judging by the reactions of the party’s leaders, one never would have guessed that the United States had just pulled off the most awesome victory in military history, capturing an entire country in three weeks with a minimum of coalition and civilian casualties, freeing 24 million people from a sadistic despot. There was nary an attaboy, a congratulations, or even an audible sigh of relief at the upper ranks of Democratic officialdom.

…

Worse than the silence or waffling, though, was the utter disdain—in the face of heroic triumph—from the antiwar zealots among the Democratic presidential candidates. They seemed genuinely anguished by the day’s good news.

Bottom
FrontPage

The 50th anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s death was marked on March 5, 2003.

… Indeed, Saddam Hussein has always been a great admirer of the Soviet dictator and modeled himself after Stalin. So now it appears urgent to ask: what is the significance of the adulation that Saddam held for Stalin, and how did that adoration lead to the suffering of millions - in Stalin’s Gulag Archipelago and in the modern day Middle East?

A public conditioned by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton to hearing lies from its president now has begun to develop a trust in government that bridges the most fundamental gap in American politics over the past 30 years - the credibility gap of official Washington.

…

Unaccustomed to hearing the truth from our politicians, we are getting it squarely from our government.

If they’re using Federal funds to promote the demonstrations it raises the question of why Bush hasn’t turned off the money spigot. Now that the Left has shown with Bob Jones University that money can be withheld from colleges which violate Federal policy this concept should be used to counter those who oppose the policy of defeating the terrorists.

A peace studies professor said Friday he authorized a mass e-mail sent across the University of Missouri's flagship campus promoting antiwar activities, including skipping classes in protest if the U.S. attacks Iraq.

The e-mail stirred controversy because it was first sent - to thousands of students and faculty members at the Columbia campus - without the usual signature of a sponsoring campus organization.

…

The university's peace studies program has had a campus presence since 1970. About 300 students a year enroll in its classes.

So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have discovered 14 buildings that betray high levels of radiation. Some of the readings show nuclear residue too deadly for human occupation.

Finding Hussein and the others is "not really important to us," Renuart added.

However, some U.S. intelligence and military analysts said they believe Hussein's capture or death is important to convincing Iraqis that he will never return. "Finding them or their bodies is important to the enterprise," one senior analyst said.

This guy may be the Syrian equivalent of “Baghdad Bob.”

"The United States Army has secured the Iraqi borders with Syria since the early days of this conflict," said Imad Moustapha, Syria's deputy ambassador to United States, in an interview with CNN.

"They are the ones that are controlling those borders. Let them decide who ... they want to go into Syria or stay in Iraq."

One of the many reasons Syria is being warned; this is not the act of a friendly country. Note that the Chinese Communist troops who fought in the Korean War were called “volunteers.”

Volunteer fighters from Syria were among the forces battling US troops in recent days in southern Iraq, say civilian witnesses.

The accounts from the southern city of Samawah contribute to evidence that the US faces a stubborn fight from non-Iraqi Arab volunteers. Unlike Iraqi soldiers, their loyalties lie with militant anti-Western Islam, not the toppled regime of Saddam Hussein.

Oil prices fell nearly 5 percent Thursday, the biggest one-day drop since the start of the war, as Kurdish fighters took control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, easing fears of damage to Iraqi oil fields.

North Korea early last year appeared to have the goal of building a plant that could produce enough uranium for two or more nuclear weapons a year, a CIA report said on Thursday.

Top

Bottom

Top

Jewish World Review.com

• Success of Operation to Depose Saddam Repudiates “Anti-war” Types

• Julia Gorin on Absurdity of “Anti-war” Ideology

• Thomas Sowell on Media’s Misdeeds

• Jeff Jacoby on Castro’s New Repression

• Jubiliation of Freed Iraqis Gives Lie to “Anti-war” Journalists

Bottom

… The communist front group ANSWER is still organizing "Stop the War" rallies, which, practically speaking, is like trying to bail out the Titanic with a spoon 10 minutes before it goes under. They'll say stuff like it's still a war for oil, or that one tyranny is being replaced by another, or something else very silly. And that's fine -- if the anti-war movement really wants to attain permanent parody status.

…

Osama bin Laden attacked us precisely because he perceived Americans as weak in the wake of the first Gulf War, the first World Trade Center bombing, the so-called "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia, the Cole attack, etc. He concluded that we didn't have the intestinal fortitude to stand our ground.

…

And that's fine; distrust of politicians is one of the things that make America great. But dislike for a president shouldn't eclipse love of country or adherence to principle. The anti-warriors claim they aren't anti-American. I believe that's true of the vast majority of them, though some of them clearly think America is a force for evil in the world (and I think these people should be ashamed for being so asinine).

Bottom
JWR

The formerly non-political--those who didn't know where they stood on the issues because they'd never given any of it much thought-have been compelled to admit that it does make a difference who is in the White House. …

Such people were chosen, in a sense: They didn't pick sides. A side picked them. Those among them who were reluctant to see this even after 9/11, and were dragged kicking and screaming into taking a position either for civilization or against it, had to do some reflecting and soul searching. The frequently spouted claim, therefore, that criticizing the Iraq war constitutes critical thinking while supporting it constitutes "conformity" is ludicrous.

Bottom
JWR

There is another aspect to this. The Iraqi Minister of Information known as "Baghdad Bob," who broadcasts big lies to the outside world, has been located in the same hotel as the journalists. Because of American reluctance to blast that hotel, since journalists are known to be there, the reporters are in effect his human shields, permitting his propaganda to continue.

It is easy enough to laugh at Baghdad Bob's denials that American troops are anywhere near Baghdad, even while those troops and their tanks are rolling down the city's highways, but it is no laughing matter. More men are going to die on both sides because of his words.

…

The phrase "the public's right to know" has been used to cover a multitude of media sins. The public also has a right not to know, when they don't want information at the expense of young American soldiers' lives.

Bottom
JWR

Bottom
JWR

Michelle Malkin: Persistent pockets of liberal media resistance

Bottom
JWR

 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
 (Subscription Site)

No articles today

Top | Drudge Report | OpinionJournal | FrontPage Magazine | Associated Press
|  JewishWorldReview | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | Other Links