Do You Need A "Smoking Gun?"

See: Evidence Mounts for Taliban Role in Car Bomb Plot

One senior Obama administration official cautioned that “there are no smoking guns yet” that the Pakistani Taliban had directed the Times Square bombing. But others said that there were strong indications that Mr. Shahzad knew some members of the group and that they probably had a role in training him.

In a video on Sunday, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing.

Before 911, there was a problem with connecting the dots.

After 911, there was an outcry of rage over the fact that the dots were not connected.

Smoking guns and connecting the dots.

In the world of 910, we thought like lawyers, needing rock solid irrefutable evidence in order to "Connect the Dots."

Is it 910 all over again?

Hizb'Allah, Syria And The Forces Of War.

This may be a hot summer in the middle east.

See: Israel warns Syria over Hezbollah attacks

Israel has delivered a secret warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad that it will respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese-based Islamist group, by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself.

If Syria delivered SCUD Missiles to Hizb'Allah in Lebanon as reports in the media indicate, then we may be looking at a summer war, with Israel going up against Hizb'Allah in Lebanon and the Syrian Government itself.

Peace between Israel and its neighbors now hinges on the restraint of Hizb'Allah. Can Hizb'Allah sit there with their new SCUDs and not fire them into Israel?

What will Obama do when the shooting starts? Who will he support? Who will he condemn?

Gelb on Islam

There is an important article posted up at The Daily Beast by Leslie H. Gelb . The Daily Beast is notably left of center so the publication of Gelb's article there is all the more notable.

Of the terrorist killings and maimings that have taken place over the last three years, over 90 percent have been Muslim on Muslim, Shiite on Sunni, Sunni on Sunni, or Shiite on Shiite, with rare exceptions. Most of these slaughters have religious, cultural, and historical causes. But wherever the fanatics lodge themselves firmly in power, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan, they will try to practice the totalitarianism of Hitler and Stalin. Their rule is the end of hope for women, the end of freedom for all, except themselves—and the institutionalization of corruption and cruelty, which they rationalize with their interpretation of the Koran. They’ve tried to impose totalitarianism in Iran, but haven’t succeeded so far—because the Iranian people have fought back. And if you listen to the fanatics’ rhetoric, they plan to move on to the rest of the world and apply the same principles. They are Muslim fanatics. The culprits are not Hasidic Jews running amok around the world or Tea-baggers bent on replanting Christianity among the heathen.

I think that Gelb still has a few misconceptions about Islam to work through, but he is looking at the problem of Islam with more thought than is usually found on the political left. For that he deserves our respect.

Gelb correctly takes American Political leaders on both the left and the right to task for their counterproductive avoidance of specifically identifying Muslims or Islam as the source of most terror attacks in the present world. He correctly blames "Political Correctness" for their failure to speak honestly about the problem.

Go to the link.

Read the whole article.

The Price Of Obama's Weakness

Iran smells weakness in Washington. They have been playing Obama and the EU states for idiots and cowards over their Nuclear Weapons development. Obama and the rest of the West have done nothing but whimper and whine.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to up the stakes. Iranian troops have marched into Iraq and have siezed an Oil Well in Iraqi Territory.

This is an act of war.

The Iranians are betting that Obama has no balls.

An official of the state-owned South Oil Co in the southeastern city of Amara, and west of the field, said: "An Iranian force arrived at the field early this morning (Friday).

"It took control of Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag even though the well lies in Iraqi territory," the official added.

What will Obama do?

Will he do anything more than just whimper and whine?

Lula's Unserious And Infantile Response To The Iranian Nuclear Weapons Problem.

While it might be breathtakingly stupid, it is all too commonplace on the left to argue that nations that have nuclear weapons should just crumple them up and toss them away in order to achieve a moral high ground when dealing with other nations that have or are attempting to develop Nuclear Weapons.

I suppose it is possible for someone to be so naive as to really believe that such a strategy is anything more than madness.

From the Chinese Xinhua News Agency

Brazilian president: only countries without nuclear weapons can criticize Iran

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Thursday that the countries which criticize Iran's nuclear program should get rid of their own nuclear weapons as well, according to news reaching here from Berlin.

In order to have the moral authority to criticize Iran, "It is important that those which have a (nuclear) arsenal let go of it, so that we will not have any more arguments," he said during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had said that negotiations with Iran were not progressing.

Lula, if the world was run only by Gandhi's, such a strategy might even work. Gandhi is dead. There was only one of him and he only had the success he had because the British did not have it in them to fight and kill several million Indians in order to maintain an expensive and unprofitable empire.

Either Lula is a fool of the first order or he is just bloviating out of his gaseous ass to make himself a figure on the world stage. Dangerous loons like Lula end up provoking wars that other people have to fight and die in.

If Lula is not willing to commit Brazilian troops to a land war in Iran, he should not be allowed anywhere near the discussions on Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program.

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Hat tip to Correspondence Committee: C2 Saturday A.M. Bulldog Edition

Living In The Land Of Make Believe And Wishful Thinking

In the wake of the Fort Hood Massacre, our nations leadership will try to make us all ignore the obvious.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Homeland Security secretary says she is working to prevent a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas.

Janet Napolitano says her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday's rampage by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim who reportedly expressed growing dismay over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think that we have to come to an honest consensus about what Islam is and is not.

Is Islam what the Qur'an and the Haddith describe? Or is it something else?

Massacre In Texas

Is this a Jihadi attack?

Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base by what officials believe was possibly carried out by an Army officer.

The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.

The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.

Later in the article

Cone said the motive for the attack, which took place just after 1:30 p.m. CT, is unclear.

Some things come to mind.

Who wants to play the Iranian Nuclear Inspection Game?

The UN does.

TEHRAN, Iran - A team of U.N. inspectors prepared Sunday for their first look inside a formerly secret — though still unfinished — uranium enrichment facility that has raised Western suspicions about the extent of Iran's nuclear program.

The inspection tour will provide the world's first independent details of the heavily protected site, carved into a mountainside near the holy city of Qom south of Tehran. It also coincides with the countdown to Iran's expected decision on whether to accept a U.N.-brokered plan to process its nuclear fuel abroad.

Iran promised to respond later this week on the proposal, which seeks to ease international worries that Iranian labs could push the uranium enrichment to higher levels for weapons-grade material. Iran claims it only seeks peaceful reactors for research and energy.

What does the UN propose to do if they find that Iran is making nuclear weapons?

What do they think should be the consequences for the UN if the inspectors find nothing, only to discover that Iran has been playing a nuclear 3-card-monte game with them up to the day that Iran announces that they have the bomb?

I would like to be able to look at this inspections plan as a positive development that will help bring the Iranian crises to a peaceful resolution. I have some doubts.

NATO Backs McChrystal In Afghanistan

Thom Shanker at the New York Times Reports that Nato backs General McChrystal’s strategy in Afghanistan.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia - NATO defense ministers gave their broad endorsement Friday to the counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan laid out by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, increasing pressure on the Obama administration and on their own governments to commit more military and civilian resources for the mission to succeed.

General McChrystal, the senior American and allied commander in Afghanistan, landed here early Friday to brief NATO defense ministers on his strategic review of an 8-year-old war in which the American-led effort has lost momentum to a tenacious insurgency. The closed-door session — which had not been disclosed in advance — added a note of drama to the sort of NATO ministerial meeting that is often mundane.

“What we did today was to discuss General McChrystal’s overall assessment, his overall approach, and I have noted a broad support from all ministers of this overall counterinsurgency approach,” said NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

We can hope that NATO will give Obama the needed courage to work towards winning in Afghanistan over choosing to lose.

Obama Dithers On Afganistan

Timesonline has an article up that discusses Obama's lack of leadership in Afghanistan.

IN Afghanistan they would call it a shura, the traditional tribal way of listening to elders’ views before reaching a consensus. In Washington, where President Barack Obama has now held five war councils, they are starting to call it dithering.

With another council on the Afghan war scheduled for this week, US officials admit it could be November before a decision is finally taken on whether to agree to General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops. One participant revealed that the protagonists have not yet discussed troop numbers.

Latest polls show a majority of Americans now disapprove of Obama’s handling of a war which may come to define his presidency. Many senior members of his own party are in open revolt.

Afghanistan seems to have transitioned in the mind of Democrats from "The Right War" to the "What War?"

These are dangerous times, made all the more dangerous by an indecisive, weak, and vacillating leader in Washington D.C. But then again, Obama is a Democrat, so it may silly to expect anything different from him.

The Middle East's Gulfnews.com Notes Clinton's Failure With Russia.

The following is from an Opinion piece posted at Gulfnews.com

Clinton's main task in Russia was to get the government to agree to prepare for effective sanctions, but she was rebuffed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was very clear that any talk of sanctions was counter-productive. Clinton pointed out that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expects Iran to implement its promises on its nuclear programme. But this was undermined later in the week by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who warned against intimidating Iran.

Russia is playing its very weak hand well. Its economic position is dire as the oil price has collapsed from its previous record highs. However, Russia is a former superpower and still has nuclear weapons and so it is shown more respect by the Americans than what any other country in such a state would have got.

Weakness is a terrible thing to project. This will not be good for us.