Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc, July 2006

1. Hezbollah. Last week, Iranian and Syrian backed terrorist organization Hezbollah decided they wanted to join the festivities, and in doing so, may have sealed their fate. They conducted a raid into northern Israel and kidnapped a pair of Israeli soldiers. Instead of st arting negotiations, the Israelis responded with significant military force – almost like they were expecting this to happen. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) st arted preparing the battlefield with a series of air and artillery strikes against known Hezbollah positions. At weeks end, it appeared that they had nicely cut all lines of communication; resupply and escape from Hezbollah controlled southern Lebanon. The Israelis are preparing Hezbollah in southern Lebanon for destruction. Hezbollah responded by unleashing a rocket barrage into northern Israel, targeting, as usual not military forces, but cities. What a surprise. Hezbollah has been storing their rockets in homes and are using those homes and residential areas for firing locations, expecting not to get shot back at. Some military observers believe that this is the opening phases of our war with Iran, as Hezbollah is Iranian funded, trained and supplied. Iran’s client state, Syria is also closely tied with Hamas and Hezbollah. Should this battle widen, it will be interesting to see if Assad chooses to follow his toadies into the abyss. The Arab world reacted nicely to the paired attacks against Israel, surprisingly blaming Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah for the war. Egypt bluntly told Syria to stop Hamas. Saudi Arabia blamed the war not on Israel as they usually do, but on Hezbolah and those that back it – meaning Iran. The Arab world doesn’t much like Israel, but may have finally figured out that if they leave Israel alone, Israel will leave them alone. But they have come to view Iran as a growing threat to their future who won’t leave them alone. When Iran st arts a war against the biggest gorilla on the block using its Islamist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, it becomes a large threat to their existence than Israel. I think that Syria and Iran will come regret their poor lifestyle choices.

2. Al Jazzera. Israelis arrested an Al Jazzera camera crew outside a refinery in Haifa for broadcasting live feed to the network. Apparently the reporters are acting as real time Forward Observers, essentially spotters, correcting live fire into the refinery for Hezbollah under the guise of a live network feed. We will hope that the Israelis treat them with all the respect and honor afforded by those who make war against them while not wearing uniforms – with summary executions on the battlefield per the Geneva Conventions.

3. Bigelow. Robert Bigelow, who made his fortune with the Budget Motel companies, wants to expand his business into space. He formed an aerospace company, Bigelow Aerospace, with the goal of providing habitable volume to paying customers. Their first goal is a modest facility in low e arth orbit. They launched their first test article last week from Russia. It was a 9 X 14 foot long inflatable module that will inflate to about double that size. An AP article Weds noted that Bigelow has committed $500 million into the construction of a commercial space platform intended for paying customers to visit. This module is the basic building block of that facility. So far, the flight has been successful and everyone is happy. Note the costs involved here. They are at least an order of magnitude lower than those of NASA and the current aerospace industry. This is the marketplace at work immediately cutting costs and eventually opening space to all. Bigelow is the first entrepreneur to actually orbit an object intended for human visitation and habitation. He won’t be the last. And with every successful (and unsuccessful) entrepreneurial commercial flight, costs will drop, access to space will improve, and NASA’s taxpayer-supported monopoly on manned spaceflight will be yet another step closer to ending.

4. Plame. The funniest news of the week was a lawsuit for defamation of character and damage at employment filed by Valery Plame and Joe Wilson against VP Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove. Most conservative observers believe that it will be thrown out immediately, as it is little more than democrat talking points dressed up in legal language of a lawsuit. But if you look a little deeper, the lawsuit may be a tarbaby that will take the remaining CIA weasels out by the kneecaps. We have always known that leftists in the CIA (CIA weasels) were systematically undermining the war via a series of leaks to the NYT and other papers outing a series of classified programs. We know that Plame used her influence in the CIA to send her virulently anti-Bush husband Joe Wilson on a trip to Niger to supposedly gather information about Saddam’s effort to procure yellowcake uranium for his nuclear program. We know that when Wilson returned, he told the CIA and the NYT two completely different stories about what he found. We know that the decision makers at the CIA did not put any limits on what he could say to the press following the trip, correctly assuming that Wilson would lie his head off and use his position as an ambassador to blast away and hopefully do damage to the Bush administration. Now that these two grandstanding rock stars of the left have filed their lawsuit, the next step is discovery. They will seek to find evidence of conspiracy between Cheney, Libby and Rove smearing them. On the other hand, Cheney, Libby and Rove can use the very same vehicle to find all the leftist weasels in the CIA who p articipated in the approval and post-action of Wilson’s trip. That same discovery process can also be used to get notes, phone calls, and other information from the CIA. When the weasels hide behind classification arguments, the President can declassify all of it with a simple signature. The administration can then simply release all the names, e-mails, letters and phone conversations to the general public and let the bloggers do what they do best – ferret out who was connected to who. I hope this lawsuit continues for a very long time. It will be great, great fun and a huge personal and professional embarrassment to the CIA weasels who concocted the entire Plame-Wilson affair.

5. Weasels. While we are on the subject of CIA weasels, House Intel Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra sent a letter to the WH detailing a number of concerns. The drive-by media chose their favorite excerpt to publicize, complaints that there were intelligence operations going on that the WH had not briefed congress on. After congress expressed their concern, the WH immediately briefed them on the programs. If the drive-by media can pick and choose portions from the letter, so can I. Here is another excerpt from the same letter, describing Hoekstra’s concern with the appointment of a CIA weasel into the Deputy Director for Operations position (from Captain’s Qu arters, Weds):

Kappes was one of the weasels that former CIA Director Porter Goss ran off early in his tenure at the CIA. Now he is back. Goss was well liked by his former colleagues in the House. I expect that he has a list of disloyal, dishonest and dishonorable CIA weasels remaining in the CIA. I expect he still talks with his former colleagues on the Hill on a regular basis. And I expect that information has been or will be transmitted to people in the House that can make the necessary changes at the CIA – whether Hayden and Negroponte want those changes or not. While the weasels won this round, the people who hold the purse strings on Capitol Hill know who they are; know what they are doing; and know where they hide. Hoekstra’s letter was an opening shot across their bow. It won’t be the last exchange.

1. Calderon
2. DeLay
3. NK Missiles
4. Hamas
5. Sonar
6. Zarq’s Cellphone
7. SD Cross

1. Calderon. It appears that Felipe Calderon, one of the more conservative candidates running for Mexico’s President, won a closely contested election last week by around 200,000 votes. His leftist opponent, Lopez Obrador, decided to go algore on the entire episode, took his mobs to the streets and st arted demanding a complete, nationwide recount. It appears that Mexico has a red-blue split growing, with the northern p art of the country being more conservative and the southern p art of the country being more liberal. Calderon may end up being a bit more help than Fox was with the immigration problem. During the campaign, he talked a bit about the enormous drain of people, expertise, and family by Mexico sending all their young and middle class to America. Nobody will be left to build an economy in Mexico. And the 100 or so rich families that control most everything in Mexico will not have a lot left to give to their kids if the sm art people leave and there is nothing left but radical leftist politicians pandering to the poor. This is likely just campaign rhetoric, but then, again it may not be. It is long past time that Mexico clean up its economic act. It is a nation blessed with natural resources and wonderful geography. There is no reason that it should be a corrupt, dirt-poor, sponge on the United States. Here’s hoping that they st art moving toward the free market.

2. Delay. Texas democrats may have overplayed their hand in House District 22 in Sugarland, Tx. They found a Clinton appointee in the federal bench in Texas that will not allow Tom DeLay to withdraw from the race for the House seat he used to occupy and the state Republican p arty to replace him with a candidate who wants to run. They are attempting to simply steal a seat by running unopposed in November. Alternately, they hope that DeLay will run for the seat so they can use the “Culture of Corruption” as a vehicle to win the election. The Texas Republican P arty will appeal the decision to the Fifth Circuit. Meanwhile, DeLay is readying a knock-down, drag out campaign against the national democrat p arty, the courts, and his carpetbagging opponent (Lamont moved in from 90 miles outside the district because democrats couldn’t find a viable candidate living there). His silver bullet against both the democrats and their tool Ronnie Earle is the observation that if what he did was so bad, and given the fact that he resigned his seat in the House over the charges, and for the good of his district, why then, did the state democrat p arty go to federal court in an attempt to keep him on the ballot. Maybe this is not about the culture of corruption at all. Maybe this is simply old fashioned politics. Ought to be a fun campaign in District 22 this summer and fall.

3. NK Missiles. The North Koreans (NK) wasted seven missiles in a series of launches over the Fourth of July. The launches were spaced no closer than 30 minutes ap art. Everything that didn’t explode shortly after launch splashed down in the Japan Sea. The Japanese weren’t amused. Neither were the Americans. We wonder that they intended to demonstrate – perhaps defiance – which is fine if you can get your missiles to actually get close to hitting something. From an economic standpoint, the surge was a disaster. This is because the only thing NK has to export these days (other than violence and mayhem) is military equipment to like-minded and wannabee members of the Axis of Evil. They sandwiched the launch of their ICBM, the Taepeodong-2 between launches of ground-mobile Scud knock-offs, perhaps to hide it; perhaps as advertising. Ranges of the Scuds are around 1,000 miles. Range of the ICBM is in the 3,000 – 9,000 range. Unfortunately for NK, the missile failed some 35 – 40 seconds after leaving the pad. Declassified post-launch flightpath analysis of the rocket led to the observation that it was pointed at the Hawaiian Islands, where the US Navy, in the midst of a weeks-long RIMPAC exercise was waiting for it with ABM equipped Aegis cruisers. Diplomatically, this was also a disaster, for they managed to get the Japanese talking about preemption. The series of launches also lit a fire under international efforts to place sanctions on NK. China is fighting those efforts, but NK provocations again China itself (theft of trains delivering food and supplies) is trying its patience. Still, China is not rolling against their client state yet, for it serves too valuable a function against the US to rein in entirely. We will see how badly NK has miscalculated in the weeks and months to come. Those of us with a logistics perspective in warfare have yet another observation – which is: So they can launch seven missiles over a day and a half. Great. How quickly can they reconstitute and do it again?

4. Hamas. Hamas responded to Israel’s attempt to shut down their rocket launching operation into Israel the only way they know how to do – by deliberately targeting a school in Haifa. They spent the week running, hiding behind women and children, whining and complaining, all the while plotting and carrying out more attacks against innocents. It is always a great sadness to see an entire people self-select out of the gene pool, but this appears to be what they are doing. The other positive outcome of the current fight with Islamist terrorists is an end to the notion of a clean war, one that will exclusively target enemy combatants. For if the enemy if completely embedded in the surrounding community, with their tacit or active support, eventually that community will pay a price for their complicity in and support for enemy combat operations. Expect this war to continue a while.

5. Sonar. Big Lizards Tuesday reported that yet another Clinton judicial appointee, federal Judge Florence – Marie Cooper, issued a temporary stay against the US Navy’s use of a mid-range sonar during testing and naval exercises. The lawsuit was brought by the usual environmentalist suspects, alleging that the sonar would hurt whales, dolphins and other undersea mammals. The activist judge, deciding that she knew more about defending the nation than the duly elected Commander in Chief, st arted meddling in naval operations, training and testing. The Navy is expected to appeal the ruling. Most interesting, given that we are in the midst of a declared war against a vicious enemy, one that is completely unbound by accepted rules of conduct during war, and both the greens and Clinton-appointed federal judges act like peacetime rules are in place.

6. Zarq’s Cellphone. US and Iraqi forces recovered a cellphone from Zarqawi’s body and took a look at numbers stored in it. Interestingly enough, it had a number of high ranking Iraqi government officials including Ministry officials and Members of Parliament listed. Captain’s Qu arters, Tuesday noted that the US has long suspected that leaders of some of the political p arties were using those p arties as fronts for the insurgency. Given the current mood inside Iraq, don’t expect those discovered in league with Zarqawi to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention by their non-insurgent countrymen.

7. SD Cross. A SCOTUS Justice issued a temporary stay on the removal of the Mount Soledad Cross from the Memorial Park. The presiding federal judge had tossed both the will of over 70% of the people in San Diego who voted in an ballot initiative to transfer the park into federal hands so it could remain a memorial park – complete with cross – and the property rights associated with the park. Given that the makeup of the SCOTUS has changed a bit over the last couple of years, I expect the outcome to be a little different this time around, for the court has been less friendly to this sort of overzealous, hypersensitivity to Christianity in recent months than it was before Sandra Day O’Connor left the Bench.

1. Smoking. Limbaugh early last week did a great bit on smoking. He teed off after the Senate refused to pass the Flag-Burning Amendment. As an aside, the Amendment only gave Congress the power to make laws governing flag-burning, a power unconstitutionally usurped by the SCOTUS nearly 20 years ago. Congress could then pass legislation that would allow the many states the ability to regulate flag burning. But I digress…. Given that the SCOTUS has defined burning the American flag in protest as protected speech, perhaps we could use the same logic when other things burn. So smokers, light up in your offices, in your schools, in the courtrooms and in the hospitals. Then say you are burning that cigarette, that cigar or that pipe in protest to the overbearing and intrusive Nanny State, shove that argument into the courts and down the throats of the tobacco Nazis, demand the ACLU assist in your defense, and have at it in the courts. See if you can maximize the contradictions among leftists sitting on the federal Bench while they define the many forms of free speech here in America.

2. Hamdan. A 5-3 SCOTUS majority (Chief Justice Roberts, who heard the case when sitting on the DC Circuit abstained) decided that the elected branches of the federal government were not sufficiently competent prosecuting World War III and needed their help. The court, ruling in the Hamdan v Rumsfeld case had a field day with their 9opinions. They ignored a 2005 Act of Congress limiting their jurisdiction in all matters dealing with detainees. They ruled that the military tribunals used for over 150 years in times of war were unconstitutional because they did not allow the same evidentiary rules (discovery) as civil, criminal or military Courts M artial. They intentionally misread the Geneva Conventions and laws of armed conflict, applying the Geneva conventions to the Islamists that skulk around, hiding among the populace, wearing no uniforms, hiding behind women and children and noncombatants, planning murder and mayhem in the name of their god. They tossed out over 150 years of SCOTUS precedent on dealing with non-uniformed people fighting wars against the United States. The opinions were a mess, with the only clear concurrence being their ignoring the 2005 statute, shutting down the military tribunals, and ignoring SCOTUS precedent. Their attempt to apply Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which cover civil wars exclusively to Al Qaida, Islamists and jihadis may or may not have sufficient votes to take effect (if it doesn’t have at least four votes in concurrence, it does not yet apply). The only glimmer of good news from this outrage is the opinion that the military can keep detainees in custody for the duration of hostilities – regardless of the length of those hostilities – without trial. Members of the Senate immediately st arted discussing modifying the 2005 law to spell out rules for the military tribunals and reiterating the court’s lack of authority in this area. Also expect the senate to clarify what they think Articles 2 and 3 of the Geneva Conventions actually apply to. At worst, there may even be some discussion about withdrawing from p arts of the Geneva Conventions. This opinion was the height of judicial arrogance and usurpation of the powers and authority of the other two branches of government. It should not be allowed to stand. The liberals on the court have chosen to create a constitutional crisis. They are playing in an area that they have no constitutional responsibility or authority. If they get away with this, there will be no stopping them. I expect the elected branches of this government to st art pushing back against this activist and unconstitutional court.

3. Earle. Captain’s Qu arters last Sunday ran an item about Travis County democrat prosecutor Ronnie Earle’s ongoing prosecution against Tom DeLay. A Texas District Judge threw out a felony indictment Earle slapped against a state business organization for campaign ads they ran in the 2002 campaigns. The judge called Earle’s theory of the case “innovative.” There are similar charges filed by Earle against another two groups that will likely get tossed. These charges stand at the he art of his conspiracy case against Tom DeLay, and if they go away, so does the case against DeLay.

4. Hamas. Well the terrorist government of Palestine finally got the Israeli reaction they so desperately have been angling for, as the Israeli government responded to an attack inside Israel that killed two soldiers and kidnapped another. The Hamas terrorists tunneled under the barriers and popped up inside Israel. They immediately began demanding the Israelis release 1,000 captured terrorist women and young Muslim men under the age of 18, whom Hamas referred to as children. The Israelis responded by rolling the tanks and began a sustained an incursion into Gaza. By weeks’ end they had reportedly captured up to 60 members of the Palestinian government including legislators and cabinet ministers. They sent a four-ship of jets over Bashir Assad’s summer home in Syria (Assad was reportedly there at the time). The overflight was a message for Assad to expel the head of Hamas’ terror operations he had been shielding in Damascus for years. The Israelis systematically st arted crushing the homes and businesses of everyone p articipating in an ongoing series of rocket attacks against Israel since Hamas took power. The assault halted for a bit as the Egyptian government (who does not want the Palestinian infestation to spill out of the Gaza and into the Sinai) worked to broker a deal for the release of the captured soldier. Egypt also bluntly told Assad that he needed to expel Hamas terrorists from Syria. This is not going to end well for the Palestinians, who are rapidly approaching Monty Python status in their inability to understand they have been beaten and that they need to immediately stop hostilities with an unconditional surrender. If they keep this up, there will be nothing – nothing – left standing in Gaza, and nobody will care.

5. Dutch. Captain’s Qu arters Thursday reported that the Dutch government had fallen over its treatment of former Muslim member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi. Ms. Hirsi became a target of Islamists in Holland and elsewhere over her direct attack on the ongoing brutality and evil of Wahhabis in the name of their god. She is an effective voice for sanity and may help the religion regain some small portion of rationality. As a result of her speaking out on the subject, she has been forced out of her seat in Parliament, forced out of her home by neighbors and building owners (they don’t want any Muslim death squads showing up), and the Dutch government itself was trying to get her deported for entering the country under false pretenses years ago. One of the governing coalition members finally had enough of this awful treatment and resigned the government. Being a parliamentary system, when there are no longer sufficient members of parliament to support a majority, the rest of the government also falls. New elections will be held later this year.

6. Iraq. Iraq was busy this last month. The new government has st arted consolidating their power, this time via targeting the various Shiite militias. Last week, they fought several battles with Al Sadr’s Mahdi militia. During those battles, they captured several Iranian provocateurs in country, stirring up trouble and fighting along side the Shiite militias. The fact that the Iraqi government is going after Shiite militias is important also, for the government has no trouble going after the Sunni insurgents with gusto. They have allowed several Shiite militias and death squads to operate in country meting out anti-Sunni retribution with impunity. The fact that they are publicly going after ALL bad guys, regardless of religious sect is important and st arts demonstrating to everyone that the notion of equal rights under the law is something more than hot air. As for the Iranians in country, I expect these guys will be interrogated using less than kind and gentle techniques. And I expect they will either die or tell the Iraqis everything they know. Big Lizards, Fri.

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations:
Debate USA, http://www.debateusa.com/ ;
MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com
and the home page: http://home.gci.net/~agimarc
Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. You can find it at: http://www.thevanguard.org/

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