How the French say NO

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109873983580655070,00.html?mod=opinion

The Economist recently asked the French foreign minister, Michel Barnier, whether French troops might go to Iraq if Mr. Kerry were president. "Never," he said flatly.

QOTD: Joe Biden on the French

What Would Kerry Do in Iraq?

As for our other cherished European allies, Mr. [Senator Joe] Biden had this to say: "In the 30 years I've been a senator, there is very seldom an initiative that is generated from the European community to take action on almost anything."

THE FACES OF DENIAL

RALPH PETERS

EUROPEANS insist that the United States overreacted to 9/11. Condescendingly, they observe that they've been dealing with terrorism successfully for three decades, that it can be managed, that life goes on.

They're wrong.

What Europeans fail to grasp -- what they willfully refuse to face -- is that the nature of terrorism has changed.

The alphabet-soup terrorists of the past -- the IRA, ETA, PLO, RAF and the rest -- were essentially political organizations with political goals. No matter how brutal their actions or unrealistic their hopes, their common intent was to change a system of government, either to gain a people's independence or to force their ideology on society.

The old-school terrorists that Europe survived did not seek death, although they were sometimes willing to die for their causes. None were suicide bombers, although a few committed suicide in prison to make a political statement.

Crucially, their goals were of this earth. All would have preferred to survive to rule in a government that they controlled.

Now we face terrorists who regard death as a promotion Â? who reject secular ideologies and believe themselves to be instruments of their god's will.

Indeed, they hope to nudge their god along, to convince him through their actions that the final struggle between faith and infidelity is at hand. While they'd like to see certain changes here on earth -- the destruction of Israel, of the United States, of the West, of unbelievers and heretics everywhere -- their longed-for destination is paradise beyond the grave.

THE new terrorists are vastly more dangerous, more implacable and crueler than the old models. The political terrorists of the 1970s and '80s used bloodshed to gain their goals. Religious terrorists see mass murder as an end in itself, as a purifying act that cleanses the world of infidels. They don't place their bombs for political leverage, but to kill as many innocent human beings as
possible.

Yesteryear's murderers of European politicians and businessmen by the old crowd seem almost mannerly compared to today's religion-fueled terrorists, who openly rejoice in decapitating their living victims in front of cameras.

When political terrorists hijacked airplanes, they hoped to draw attention to their cause. When Islamic terrorists seize passenger jets, they do it to kill as many people as possible.

The old terrorists were sometimes so rabid that they had to be killed or imprisoned. But others became negotiating partners for governments. From Yasser Arafat to Gerry Adams, some gained international respectability. (It even may be argued that Adams became part of the solution, rather than simply remaining part of the problem.)

For today's apocalyptic terrorists, negotiations are no more than a tool to be used in extreme situations, to allow them to live to kill again another day. And no promises made to infidels need be honored.

The Islamic terrorists we now face will never become statesmen. They wish to shed our blood to fortify their faith, to impose their beliefs upon the world, to placate a vengeful god.

That doesn't offer much room for polite diplomacy. Islamic terrorists have reverted to the most primitive of religious practices: human sacrifice. Their brand of Islam is no "religion of peace." They're Aztecs without the art. And it takes a Cortez to deal with them.

Europeans' experience of negotiating with political terrorists has allowed them to deceive themselves into a false sense of security. Forgetting the pain inflicted on their societies by tiny bands of assassins (whether the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Red Brigades or the IRA-Provos), Europeans refuse to imagine what tens of thousands of fanatics bent on destruction might do if not faced down with courage and resolution.

It wasn't the United States that didn't "get" 9/11. It was the Europeans, anxious that their comfortable slumber not be disturbed. They insist that terrorism remains a law-enforcement problem, refusing even to consider that we might face a broad, complex, psychotic threat spawned by a failed civilization.


EUROPE will pay. And the price in the coming years will be much higher than any paid by the United States. Europe, not North America, is the vulnerable continent. Our homeland-security efforts, unfairly derided at home and abroad, are making our country markedly safer. Yes, we will be struck again. But "Old
Europe" is going to be hit again, and again, and again.

American Muslims not only become citizens -- they become good citizens. Despite the assimilation hurdles that face every new group of immigrants, our Muslims have opportunity and hope. A disaffected few may make headlines, but American Muslims overwhelmingly support their new country and do not wish it harm. They see no contradiction between faith in their god and faith in America. Our worries are their worries, and their dreams are our dreams.

Europe is another, grimmer story. Not a single European state Â? not even the United Kingdom -- has successfully integrated its Muslim minority into mainstream society.

While the United Kingdom has done the best job, countries such as France and Germany have time-bombs in their midst, large, excluded Muslim populations that the native majority regard as hopelessly inferior. If you want to see bigotry alive and well, visit "Old Europe."

It wasn't a random choice on the part of the 9/11 terrorists that led them to do so much of their preparation in Europe. They know that American-Muslim communities won't offer hospitality to terrorists. But Germany, France, Spain and neighboring states contain embittered Islamic communities glad to see any part of the West get the punishment it "deserves."

As the United States becomes ever harder to strike -- and as we respond so fiercely to those attacks that succeed -- soft Europe, with its proximity to the Muslim world, its indigestible Muslim communities and its moral fecklessness, is likely to become the key Western battleground in the Islamic extremists' war against civilization.

Europeans don't want it to be so. But they are not going to get a choice.

Europeans are simply in denial. They've lived so well for so long that they don't want the siesta from reality to end. One of the many reasons that continental Europeans reacted so angrily to our liberation of Iraq was that it made it harder than ever for them to sustain their myth of a benign world in which peace could be purchased and the government welfare checks would never stop coming.

America's crime was to acknowledge reality. It will be a long time before Europeans forgive us.

IN many ways, the civilizations of North America and Europe are diverging. Europe has a crisis of values behind its failure of will. Their anxiety to tell everyone else what to do reflects their own uncertainty. Corrupt, selfish and cowardly, old Europe has fallen to moral lows not seen since 1945.

The one factor that will finally bring us closer again is terrorism.

In this horrid election year, we've heard endless complaints that Washington needs allies. Of course, we already have many allies. The old-thinkers just mean France and Germany. But the truth is that France and Germany -- weak, blind, duplicitous and inept -- will need us far more than we could ever need them.

The nature of terrorism has changed profoundly. It's no longer about ideology, but about slaughter for its own sake. Nothing we could do would placate these terrorists. They must be fought and destroyed, no matter how many decades that requires. For Europe to pretend otherwise harms the general counter-terror effort. But, above all, it sets Europe up for calamity.

Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."

Surprise, Surprise

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20041026-100139-5203r.htm

The Iranian opposition group that exposed the nation's covert nuclear weapons program two years ago said yesterday that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered the effort to continue in secret.

The opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), also disclosed the existence of what it said is a new uranium enrichment facility in central Iran that is nearing completion.

Speaking to reporters in Paris yesterday, Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the NCRI's Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Iranian regime is "playing a double game" with Europe.

"Khamenei has ordered his regime to not only continue the enrichment of uranium, but to buy time and accelerate the project in order to make the bomb as quickly as possible," Mr. Mohaddessin said.

"Khamenei has ordered his diplomats and his negotiators to prolong the negotiations as much as possible, possibly by between eight and 12 months, which is exactly the time needed to complete the bomb," he said...

...A spokesman at the British Foreign Office, reached by telephone, declined to comment on Mr. Mohaddessin's charges but said there was "nothing to lose" by continuing to negotiate.

Analogies for Bush versus Kerry

Pete Du Pont
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110005810

One historical analogy might be the two British prime ministers at the outset of World War II: Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill.

Chamberlain advocated a policy of appeasement, giving Hitler the benefit of the doubt, and returned from Munich waving an agreement and declaring "peace for our time" had been achieved. Churchill perceived the evil and threat of Nazi Germany, opposed appeasement, and led England to the military strength and action needed to save his country.

The presidential analogies would be Harry Truman and Woodrow Wilson. Truman dropped the atomic bomb to end World War II, gave aid to Greece and Turkey to stop the expansion of communism, established the Marshall plan to rebuild Europe, launched an enormous airlift to keep Berlin free, and had a sign on his desk saying "The Buck Stops Here." Truman was a strong man; like Bush, he
believed in things.

Mr. Kerry, on the other hand, thought "communism was not a threat to our country," probably would not have used the atomic bomb without international approval, and would likely have thought the Berlin airlift too threatening to the Soviet Union. He is more like Woodrow Wilson, who after the Germans sank the Lusitania, killing 128 Americans, did not respond, saying he was "too proud to fight." He committed U.S. troops to World War I, but through his 14 Point Plan and League of Nations proposal sought "peace without victory." And of course Wilson imposed America's first income tax after the ratification of the 16th Amendment. The Kerry analogies abound.

Sanhedrin to be re-established in Tiberius

Ma'ariv - Uri Glickman and Avishai Ben-Haim
http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=printArticle&articleID=11302

The Jewish "Supreme Court" that operated 1,500 years ago to resume operation. However, new institution not supported by most important rabbis.

For the first time since the days of the Mishna and the Talmud in the fifth century, the Sanhedrin will be re-established in Tiberius.

After secretive preparations that lasted for over a year, the Sanhedrin -- the Jewish "Supreme Court" that consisted of 71 Torah sages -- will resume its operation after 1,500 years. The modern council will consist of dozens of rabbis who are to rule on Halachaic issues and draft new Jewish rules.

According to the organizers, the event will be an historic occasion and it will change the map of the Halacha and religion in Israel. They added that the council would also debate political issues.

However, sources in the religious sector said that the new initiative should be treated with skepticism, since the most important rabbis, such as Rabbi Ovadia Yossef and Rabbi Yossef Elyashiv, do not support it.

Other religious sources said that the influence the new Sanhedrin will have all depends on the makeup of its rabbis. If important rabbis would support it or be part of it, the new institution could very well, according to the sources, revolutionize religious life in Israel.

Attempts to re-establish a Sanhedrin had been made in the past, for instance after the establishment of the state. However, that initiative was rejected by the ultra-Orthodox.

Gaza plan should be the first step in wider pullout

As I said, Sharon and Weisglass are delusional if they think (and have said) that the Gaza withdrawal will buy them a reprieve from further territorial concessions or even to "freeze" the peace process post-withdrawal (as they have also said). The UN and EU will simply pocket this concession and move on to the next one. Via Daily Times

BERLIN: Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip should be the first step in a wider pullout from Palestinian territories, the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in an interview with a German magazine to be published on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "wants to begin (to follow the
international peace plan known as the roadmap) with a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip," Solana told Der Spiegel. "But he must also commit to making the withdrawal the first step in a process that leads to the pullout from all the occupied areas." "If he thinks that withdrawal from Gaza alone is enough and that peace will automatically return, we will not back that idea. It would not be a dream but a nightmare."

Europhile delusions

Mark Steyn wants Bush to win in November
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1004/steyn.html

I want Bush to win on Election Day because he's committed to this war and, as the novelist and Internet maestro Roger L. Simon says, "the more committed we are to it, the shorter it will be.'' The longer it gets, the harder it will be, because it's a race against time, against lengthening demographic, economic and geopolitical odds. By "demographic," I mean the Muslim world's high birth rate, which by mid-century will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia. By "economic," I mean the perfect
storm the Europeans will face within this decade, because their lavish welfare states are unsustainable on their shriveled post-Christian birth rates. By "geopolitical," I mean that, if you think the United Nations and other international organizations are antipathetic to America now, wait a few years and see what kind of support you get from a semi-Islamified Europe.

Deter Iran? HAH!

Iran ran away with the bomb
By Arnold Beichman
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20041018-093515-7883r.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. in talks with Europeans on a nuclear deal with Iran
-- New York Times, Oct. 12.
G-8 nations to meet on Iran
-- The Washington Post, Oct. 15.

Well, the talks and meetings will go on and on to the next Ramadan and the
Ramadan after that and Iran will go on working on its nuclear arms program
until it has the Bomb. There will be no deal with Iran no matter how costly
nuclear bomb manufacture might be. With oil prices going through the roof,
money is not a problem now nor in the foreseeable future.

The Washington Post report said the Group of Eight countries -- the United
States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia and Canada -- would
threaten punitive measures if Iran refused to abandon its nuclear arms program.
The New York Times reported the U.S. was talking with its European allies on "a
possible package of economic incentives for Iran" if only Iran would suspend
its uranium enrichment activities.

Incentives? Hah. Iran is the second-largest producer in the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and holds 10 percent of the world's proven
oil reserves and the second-largest (after Russia) natural gas reserves.

Incentives? Hah. Iran earns an estimated $900 million for every $1 per
barrel increase in the price of its oil. And with oil up in the $50+ per barrel
range, Iran is awash in cash and can do what it wants as bomb maker and bomb
supplier.

Incentives? The only incentives that might matter would be the threat of
sanctions. Who has the will to push for sanctions? France, Germany? Hah. Who
has the power, let alone the will, to enforce sanctions if they ever came to a
Security Council vote?

There will be no deal with Iran no matter how much they talk the talk and
promise the promise. Iran is awash in money that Western Europe, particularly
France, covets.

As far as I can see, it's all going Iran's way. Iran is stronger today than
a decade ago. Iran emerged bloody and very unbowed in 1988 from its eight-year
war with Iraq, a war that cost 1 million lives. Henry Kissinger supposedly said
during that war "too bad they can't both lose." It didn't work out that way.
Iraq lost and Iran won right up to this very minute.

Iran is today the dominant land power in the Middle East militarily and
economically. As leader of Shi'ite Islam, Iran must be delighted at the war in
Iraq, which is killing off the rival Sunnis. With its new missiles, Iran has
shown it could project its power far from home, and not only by financing the
Hezbollah terror squads. The Iranian people may be unhappy with the clerical
dictatorship but there is little they can now do about it.

Far more serious, Iran undertook its nuclear program in September 2002
under a decree of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and is on its way to being a nuclear
power if not one already. And as far as I can see, nobody can stop Iran despite
a resolution by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted last
September which called upon Iran "immediately [to] suspend all
enrichment-related activities."

According to an Iranian exile resistance group, Iran has secret sites all
over the country engaged in nuclear activity. One secret site at Arak, about
154 miles southwest of Tehran, produces heavy water and plutonium. A
sufficiently powerful heavy water reactor can be used to turn uranium into
bomb-usable plutonium without requiring enrichment facilities. In Isfahan,
there is the Center of Nuclear Research. There are other sites about which
little is known. These plants are capable of producing three nuclear weapons a
year.

Iran seems unstoppable. It has lots of scientific talent at home and abroad
for hire, lots of theological-imperial ambitions, lots of money, lots of eager
sellers and money lenders in the European Union and in Russia.

And that's how wars begin.


Arnold Beichman, a Hoover Institution research fellow, is a columnist for
The Washington Times.

Why al-Qaeda Will Dominate the European Union

Why al-Qaeda Will Dominate the European Union

By Pavel Kohout
http://www.techcentralstation.com/100704G.html

In a few decades, radical Islam will ultimately dominate the European Union,
and perhaps most of the world. It has already become a dominant force in the
UN, which is reflected in the results of voting against Israel's anti-terrorist
barrier. In this respect, we should note that the widespread usage of the word
"wall" is itself a small victory of anti-Israeli propaganda, since 93 percent
of the barrier consists of a fence that can be quickly removed once the
Palestinian authorities manage to restrain the terrorists' activity.

The first reason extreme Islam will prevail is the intellectual advantage that
al-Qaeda leaders have over western European politicians. The latter want to
believe that there is no clash of civilizations; that terrorism is just a
product of misery and lack of education; that the solution lies in a
multicultural, tolerant society; and that the stubbornness of the Americans and
Israelis is to blame for all the problems.

What naïveté. An editorial in the March issue of Mu'askar al-Battar (an
al-Qaeda newsletter) sets these fantasies right: "The war of cultures had begun
long before the 9/11 attacks, before Huntington and Fukuyama. This war has been
going on since there first were the faithful and the unfaithful." We might cite
dozens of similar statements. The European leaders who still doubt the validity
of Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory are kidding themselves. The
leaders of Islamic radicals are fanatics, but they are intelligent fanatics.

The second reason is the unification of foreign policy in the EU. In the UN,
all member states of the European Union dutifully voted against Israel as a
flock of sheep under the leadership of France. France is home to millions of
Muslims, who are a decisive factor in its domestic politics. Their opinions,
strongly influenced by radical Islamic propaganda, shape the French, and
consequently also European foreign policy. The growth in the Muslim population
makes French policy visibly more and more pro-Arab, pro-Islam, and anti-Israel.
Also weighing heavily in European (not just French) politics is oil. The
corrupt relationships between governments and oil companies are a well-known
fact. Take the story of Elf Aquitaine, for instance. This is why European
leaders literally lick the boots of Arab dictators. Just remember Romano Prodi
kowtowing before Muammar Quadafi. But only the common foreign policy together
with the adoption of the European Constitution will allow radical Islamists to
pull the strings of all European foreign ministers at once.

France is capable of arranging a new 1938 Munich Agreement not just for Israel
but also for itself. Its policy is a combination of servility towards the
strong and ruthlessness towards the weak. France is capable of leading a brave
attack against schoolgirls wearing headscarves, but never against Hamas or the
Islamic Jihad. The Palais d'Elysée probably judges that it is better to be on
friendly terms with those movements. But a perverse tolerance of terrorists can
be traced elsewhere. Belgium, for instance, offered a generous asylum to Khalil
al-Nawawreh, the murderer of several Israelis who was a member of the gang
occupying the Nativity Church in the spring 2002. The terrorist received a
monthly payment of Â?4,000, free housing and a complete liberty. He paid Belgium
back by robbing a post office using an explosive.

The third reason is an advantage of the Islamic society in terms of evolution:
a high birthrate. This is typical for all Islamic territories from Albania to
Zanzibar. The Darwinian advantage lies in the absence of feminism and respect
for family values. One of the incontestable Islamic virtues is the duty to take
care of the old and sick in the family. Muslims hold the Europeans -- who send
their elderly to institutions -- in contempt.

The welfare state in the EU nourishes the illusion in people that the state
will take care of them when they retire. Thus, people do not try to have
children to look after them in the old age. The European welfare state is
immensely expensive. Europeans are now obliged to pay higher taxes than they
have ever had in the past 1,500 years or so. And where does the collected money
go? In some European countries, the amount of farming subsidies per calf
exceeds the amount of social benefits distributed per child. What are the
chances of survival of a civilization which values calves more than children?

This particular clash of two civilizations -- the West and radical Islam --
cannot be resolved the "European" way: through negotiations, efforts to reach
consensus, and tolerance. The only consensus acceptable for radical Islam is
its dominance in Europe. The word "Islam" means "surrender", literally
translated. Any tolerance towards terrorism actually means surrender. The best
option for a peaceful co-existence of civilizations is mutual respect. But if
the respect cannot be mutual, is it respect or surrender?

The author is an associate of the Center for Economics and Politics (CEP), Prague.

Facts are stubborn things

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -A.L. Huxley

Islam

William Durant in his "The Story of Civilization" succinctly stated, [Islam is] "probably the bloodiest story in history." He called it a "discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within." The bitter lesson, Durant concluded, was that "eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry."

Belief in the UN

The Washington Post on Kerry's deep-seated belief in the UN

Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no."

Ahh, the French...

Claudia Rosett on corruption in the UN Oil for Food Program

...in the modern world, the notion that Russia and China in no way qualify as banana republics might be news to the state-muffled media of both countries. It might also surprise readers of the Berlin-based Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks 133 countries by levels of corruption, from best to worst. On that list, China ranks about halfway down, worse than Colombia or Peru and tied for 66th place with Panama, Sri Lanka and Syria. Russia does worse yet, ranked between Romania and Algeria, and tied for 86th place with Mozambique.

France does much better. Though it ranks as more corrupt than the U.S., Israel or Japan, it ties with Spain for a still respectable 23rd place. That makes France one of the most corrupt countries not in the entire world, but merely in Western Europe.

Anti-Semites for Kerry

Two more of the foreign leaders Kerry says support him.

The Palestinian Authority made its first open statement Monday expressing support for US democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

PA Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath said that the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is unsure if George W. Bush is re-elected to office.

Malaysia's former prime minister has also urged Muslims in America to vote for US Senator John Kerry in an open letter dated October 15 to America's Muslim community saying President George W. Bush has been "the cause of the tragedies" across the Muslim world.

Mahathir Mohamad retired last October mired in a controversy after telling a summit of Muslim leaders that "Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them."

Terrorists for Kerry

CNN: Putin urges voters to back Bush

"Any unbiased observer understands that attacks of international terrorist organizations in Iraq, especially nowadays, are targeted not only and not so much against the international coalition as against President Bush," Putin said.

"International terrorists have set as their goal inflicting the maximum damage to Bush, to prevent his election to a second term.

"If they succeed in doing that, they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire anti-terror coalition," Putin said.

"In that case, this would give an additional impulse to international terrorists and to their activities, and could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world."

Kerry as Neville

War Blog By FrontPage Magazine

John Kerry has decisively defined himself as the Neville Chamberlain of the new century, the candidate of summits and sanctions, of Kyoto and the International Criminal Court, of appeasement of North Korea. He is supported, not by one Geoffrey Dawson --editor of The Times of London during the era of Baldwin and Chamberlain-- but many, from Rather and Halperin to The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and scores of Beltway talking heads and aging rockers.

And Bush has surely defined himself as the Churchill of this new war, though his flaws are the reverse of Churchill's. The latter was always eloquent and never passed by an opportunity to wound a political opponent with words, while W's great strengths are too often obscured by his mangled syntax.

In the past eight days, John Kerry has:

*announced to a national audience that American actions in defense of national security must pass a "global test";

*announced that he would sell nuclear fuel to Iran;

*could not answer, and badly filibustered a question on what he would do if Iran continued to push towards nuclear weapons acquisition;

*denounced as unilateralism the coalition that George Bush put together to overthrow Iraq, and called for unilateral appeasement of North Korea;

*compared Iraq to Lebanon, but insisted a summit could entice other countries to join the effort in Iraq, even after the French and the Germans announced they would not do so even if Kerry was elected;

*twice identified the most pressing proliferation problem as the American effort to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons capable of destroying deep bunkers, thus equating the United States with rogue states like North Korea and Iran and proclaiming hostility to modernization of the American arsenal --vintage Kerry defense thinking;

*announced plan after plan for which no details exist;

*"absolutely" pledged not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $200,000 annually, a pledge that even his most ardent admirers know is either a bald lie or a repudiation of most of his spending plans (e-mailer LL suggests a new Kerry slogan: "Read my flips: no new taxes!);

*ignored the creation of 1.9 million jobs over the past 13 months and ignored the economic consequences of the Clinton recession and 9/11 attacks while attacking Bush's tax cuts;

*while calling attention to his Catholic status, defended his vote against banning partial birth abortion, called for taxpayer support for abortion, argued that "parental notification" was connected to dads raping daughters and defended the wholesale harvesting of frozen embryos for research purposes --four positions completely opposite of Catholic Church teaching and far outside the American consensus opinion on abortion;

*actually said "John Edwards and I are for tort reform," and then told the American people that lawsuits against doctors are 1% of the health care problem;

*defensively denied being "wishy washy," a "flip flopper," and a "liberal," while complaining about being branded such by the president;

*embraced the Kyoto Treaty and called for its resuscitation with amendments;

*told America that General Shinseki had been fired by Bush and that the firing had a "chilling" effect on all generals, and one day later said Shinseki had been "retired" --not fired-- and left off the "chilling effect" argument --a record one day flip flop;

*saw his running mate get woodshedded and his campaign try to reverse that blow by arguing that the Vice President should have remembered meeting Edwards;

*heard his wife assert that American troops were fighting for oil and many other stunning things;

*watched as Bush did not make a single memorable error in two debates while effectively underscoring Kerry's "global test" pratfall, focusing on Kerry's did-nothing time-serving two decades in the Senate, wrestle the ISG report to its appropriate place in the discussion of the Iraq War, persuade by repeated argument (which the Vice President also helped along) that coalitions can not be led or maintain by derision or democracies built by indecision;

*watched as Bush effectively and accurately branded KerryCare as an expanded form of HillaryCare;

*watched as Bush simply and devastatingly branded Kerry as not credible on taxes, spending and most important of all, defending the United States.

Kwasniewski on Kerry

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski on John Kerry.

Regarding John Kerry's claim that he can do a better job of building alliances, the Senator may want to have a chat with the Poles. After he listened to the first U.S. Presidential debate, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski had this to say to an interviewer from the Polish network TVN on October 1:

"It is really sad that a Senator with 20 years of experience does not notice the Polish input into the coalition and the Polish sacrifice. It is immoral.

"I don't think it's because of the lack of knowledge. But we have to set the record straight. The coalition consists not only of the United States, Great Britain and Australia. It is also about the participation of Polish, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Spanish troops who died in Iraq. It is something immoral not to note the commitment which we embarked upon. We accepted this challenge convinced that terrorism had to be fought, that we had to show international solidarity and that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world.

"In this sense we can talk about our disillusionment with the fact that the attitude and sacrifice of these soldiers is being marginalized to such an extent. But I think it is all due to the campaign and the certain message that Senator Kerry, although not officially, tries to convey that he thinks of a coalition locating the U.S. alongside Germany and France. That is to say, countries opposing the current American stance on Iraq."

WSJ: Albright: Clinton Lied

Albright: Clinton Lied via Opinion Journal: Best of the Web, 10/12/04

The Associated Press has a story about a bizarre political rally in Portland, Maine, featuring Madeleine Albright, President Clinton's secretary of state:

"Its a very simple issue. Bill Clinton lied, but nobody died," Albright said when asked, during a rally for Democratic candidate John Kerry, about her support for Clinton during his impeachment.

No one died in Watergate either; does Albright think Richard Nixon should not have been forced to resign as president? And what does it say about the Democratic Party that its members are proud to declare their erstwhile leader a liar?

Kerry's flip-flop on global warming

Henry Lamb on global warming a la Kerry (emphasis mine)

What people fail to understand is that the Kyoto Protocol is simply the first step toward a multi-step procedure to eventually eliminate all use of fossil fuel on a timetable set by the U.N. What's worse, no credible scientist can say for sure that were the protocol fully implemented, it would have any detectable effect on global temperatures.

To achieve the protocol's objective — to stop the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — all nations would have to reduce emission by nearly 80 percent below 1990 levels. The reduction of energy use required to meet this objective would change the way we live beyond recognition.

China and India, on the other hand, as well as about 150 other nations, are not bound by Kyoto energy restrictions and will remain free to use as much fossil-fuel energy as they wish. Their economies are free to expand as rapidly as possible, while the United States would be at the mercy of the U.N. to allocate how much energy could be consumed here.

The Kyoto Protocol is not, never has been, nor will it ever be, about global warming. It is, instead, an ingenious mechanism to centralize the control of energy availability and consumption. It is the perfect mechanism to enforce the redistribution and equalization of wealth, while eliminating the principle of free markets in the energy industry.