Sep 15, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
The local paper ran an AP story with this headline: "Israel ignores outrage at its threat to remove Palestinian leader." It should have read: "Media ignore outrages committed against Israel by Palestinian leader." As usual, Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs is on top of things, compiling these stories this weekend:
Here is a sample of what Arafat's Palestinian Authority is teaching its children ... 'I'm prepared to kill Jews wherever they are' says Palestinian schoolgirl.
"I came here to defend President Arafat against the occupiers who are killing us every day. I'm prepared to make a big sacrifice. I'm prepared to go to the Jews myself and to kill them wherever they are just as they killed us and destroyed us," she said.
For more, be sure to check out Charles' Palestinian Child Abuse Slideshow. To deal with this threat, an Israeli authority naturally mentioned that killing Arafat is definitely one of the options. This is exactly the option we, the United States, chose for Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and everyone directly associated with them. But as the same article indicates, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Israel should not be allowed that option.
He said that if Arafat was either exiled or killed, "I think you can anticipate that there would be rage throughout the Arab world, the Muslim world and in many other parts of the world. The United States does not support either the elimination of him or the exile of Mr Arafat...the Israeli government knows that," Powell said.
In other words, do as we say, not as we do.
Not surprisingly, we have this news today: Palestinians Demand U.N. Protect Arafat.
UPDATE: FoxNews reports: Israel Backs Off Killing Arafat Option.
Israel backed off Monday from threats to kill Yasser Arafat, while the incoming Palestinian prime minister ceded control over many Cabinet appointments to Arafat's Fatah party despite Israeli demands that the veteran Palestinian leader be stripped of authority.
Sep 14, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg at the Ayn Rand Institute:After listening to the debate between the Democratic presidential candidates, one conclusion is inescapable: they couldn't care less about America's security.
If they did, they would have criticized Bush--not for attacking Iraq, but for not also attacking Saudi Arabia and Iran. Not for failing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but for failing to identify militant Islam as our ideological enemy. Not for going to war against the wishes of the United Nations, but for even considering U.N. approval. Not for spending too much on the war on terror, but for spending too little. Not for failing to prevent the September 11 terrorist attacks, but for failing to act forcefully enough to prevent the next ones.
But if Democrats changed their rhetoric and criticized Bush for all the above they would have to embrace self-interest as the basis for American foreign policy. But then they wouldn't be proper leftists, would they?
Sep 14, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg at the Ayn Rand Institute:The Jerusalem Post's editorial calling for killing--not expelling--Arafat is right on target, even if years too late. Arafat has been a terrorist murderer for decades and deserves exactly the same fate as bin Laden deserves.
While there has been no shortage of excuses and rationalizations to leave Arafat alone, the fact remains that no solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is possible with Arafat alive. Exiling him would be a mockery of justice and would not stop him from inciting further terrorism against Israel.
Taking him out would not only advance the prospects for peace in the region but would show to every Palestinian terrorist that Israel means business and that the days of moral cowardice and appeasement towards its enemies are over; it would show that Israel will no longer cave in to "world opinion" or to pressure from American presidents.
It is a shame that the Sharon and the Bush Administrations have still not decided to kill the murderer. As long as they remain oblivious to the need to carry out justice, the blood of innocent Israelis will not stop flowing.
Sep 14, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
The Pentagon Memorial campaign is trying to raise money for a memorial.
The goal [...] is to construct a memorial commemorating the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon and the 184 lives lost in the Pentagon and on American Airlines Flight 77.
The Pentagon Victims
The Flight 77 Victims
Earlier this year, a Department of Defense news release featured some technical facts regarding how well the Pentagon withstood the impact of the hijacked airliner: Engineer Study Reports Pentagon Was Built Tough.
But this article reveals just how far off the deep end some have gone to deny such basic facts about the Pentagon attack:
[The Zayed International Centre] hosted Thierry Meyssan, the French author of "9-11, The Big Lie," which seeks to implicate U.S. military officials in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.Meyssan's book suggests that the Pentagon was hit by an American missile, and not a hijacked airliner and that the attacks were plotted to promote a U.S. military agenda that included waging war in Afghanistan.
The French press ridiculed the book, but it became a best seller in France for three months. The Pentagon has called the allegations in the book "more than insulting."
News from Afghanistan has been overwhemled by news from Iraq, but our troops are still bravely meting out justice there: U.S. General Sees Taliban in Afghanistan.
Taliban fighters, paid and trained by al-Qaida, are pouring into Afghanistan from Pakistan, the top American commander in Afghanistan said Sunday.Lt. Gen. John Vines said the Taliban were trying to regroup and regain control of the country they ruled until ousted by the United States in late 2001. His comments to reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were the first confirmation from a top U.S. military official of reports of a Taliban resurgence out of Pakistan into Afghanistan.
American, Afghan and coalition forces have responded with military operations against the radical Islamic fighters. As many as 200 Taliban have been killed this week alone, Vines said.
Thank you, men and women of the armed forces, for keeping up the fight. (Click here for ways to support the troops.)
Sep 13, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Comments Allen Forkum:
A FoxNews poll this week found Americans Split on Bush Request for $87 Billion.
"Helping the economy recover" barely bests "protecting the country from terrorism" when the two priorities are pitted directly against each other (32 percent to 29 percent respectively), but a plurality (37 percent) says "both" are important priorities for the government to work on right now. This is a shift from almost a year ago, when only 22 percent said "helping the economy," 24 percent said "protecting" from terrorism and 51 percent put them on equal footing (December 2002).
This cartoon was actually created last year during the run-up to the Iraq war. It was never posted or published and perhaps is even more appropriate on this day.
