I haven’t posted the last few days due to a mad scramble to get my affairs in order as I’m leaving on a lengthy, multistate trip tomorrow morning, my itinerary including, among other places, Washington DC, 6 - 9 September, to support Judge Roberts at a rally/counter rally(left wingnuts and other undesirables vs Right Thinkers).

Here’s how we handle these things on the right:                

The left, however, is more inclined to do battle thus:   

Anyone wanting to know details about the rally should go to http://rightmarch.com/

I’ll be posting again as of tomorrow night or the following morning from Chicago.

If there was ever a reason for a government to indulge in what the KGB used to call mokri dela(wet affairs), the Israelis need to arrange an “accident” for this son of a bitch before he gets comfortable in the Gaza Strip.

He confers often with terrorist groups and regimes and called the attacks of September 11, 2001, “a lesson to the U.S.” saying it “was the first time that Arabic names entered every American household.”

The PLO charter calling for the destruction of Israel was reportedly amended in 1996, but on an appearance on ANB TV on April 25, 2005, Mr. Qaddumi said that he “does not accept any amendment.” Furthermore, in an interview with an Israeli-Arab weekly on January 3, 2003, he openly stated that there is no difference between Hamas and the PLO vis-a-vis calling for the destruction of Israel. He said, “strategically we are no different from it.”

The Israelis definitely don’t need an asshat like that coming to town.

Some funny stuff to get our Wednesday off to a cheerful start includes the great fisking of one of Bob Herbert’s uniformly inane, too liberal to be believed NYT columns at Vince Aut Morire  and gua-run-teed lotta laughs in a lookalikes gallery at Cosmic Tribune, hat tip there to Sister Toldjah

Enjoy!

The Israeli Defense Force and police involved in the “Disengagement” have completed the job of evacuating residents of the Jewish settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank, experiencing resistance only in the two West Bank settlements of Sanur and Homesh, resistance they overwhelmed quickly.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said Israel’s withdrawal from all 21 Gaza Strip settlements and four isolated communities in the northern West Bank will improve Israel’s security by reducing friction with the Palestinians.

Right, Ariel, you just keep dreaming.

In the Arab-biased Middle East Online, the opinion is that Sharon has made a sound political move.
Right.

Again, there are some snags in the general game plan, such as evacuees not going with the program.

I tend to agree here with Bibi Netanyahu, as anyone who’s spent any time at this blog will know, that the evacuation is only going to embolden the terrorist factions among the Palestinians, who already have expressed their gleeful belief that the evictions of Jewish settlers were a direct result of their terrorism, and have stated their intention to increase those murderous operations, knowing now that they work. The end result, if they are successful, will be to realize the late Gamel Nasser’s intention of pushing all the Jews into the sea.

Netanyahu, however, said the pullout would only bring more terror. “Even the chief of IDF intelligence told MKs last week that terrorism would likely resume in force around springtime. The head of the Shin Bet concurred, saying terrorism will originate in the Gaza Strip.”

“The prime minister is tearing the nation apart and setting a precedent for further withdrawals. The pullout is a tragedy and completely superfluous, a giving in to terror in return for nothing. Sharon has created an Islamic terror state in Israel,” the Likud MK added.

The end of Israel ain’t happening, friends, the Israelis just happen to possess the most powerful war machine in the Middle East, but ceding the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians will result in an exponential increase in Israeli civilian deaths from terrorist attacks as Gaza becomes the terrorism equivalent of the old American west outlaws’ haven called ‘Hole In The Wall.’

The evacuation was much easier, even given the pockets of resistance encountered at a few of the settlements in Gaza, Sanur and Homesh, than many had anticipated, and the IDF expects to have all their assets and equipment out of Gaza by mid September.

Mahmoud Abbas expects to take over at that time. He’s another dreamer, that one. Hamas has other plans, and they answer to no one, including the Palestinian Authority{PA}, except themselves. In their incarnation as a Palestinian political party, they have their sights set on replacing Fatah(the party that is the PA, the party of the thankfully late Yassir Arafat) as the leaders of the Palestinians.

Abbas may well be out of his depth here: He inherited his position from Arafat, a seasoned terrorist leader who was wanted by the Israelis as far back as the early 1960s as a major player in Palestinian terror. Arafat was a master of the game, a brilliant strategist and a survivor who built the corruption known as the PA in his own image. Abbas is like the son of a seat-of-the-pants businessman who forged a business empire out of a hand-to-mouth existence, who inherits the business and then loses control, eventually ending up in bankruptcy court. Within a year or two, Hamas will eat him alive, one way or the other.

That’s when the Gaza Giveaway will really come back to kick the Knesset in the touchas.

According to the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, there’s more coming out of Africa than stories of starvation, AIDS, oppressive governments and insurrection. 

Although the Bush administration has succeeded in reducing international sources of terrorist financing since 9/11, the Lebanese Hezbollah movement is still flush with cash these days. Over the past three years, the militant Shiite organization has managed to strengthen its military apparatus, greatly augment its strategic rocket arsenal, start up Palestinian terrorist cells, and establish a presence in Iraq, while continuing to develop its extensive social welfare network in Lebanon.

….A glimpse into the scale of Hezbollah profits from the diamond trade came in December 2003, when a Union des Transports Africains (UTA) airliner loaded with Lebanese passengers crashed off the coast of Benin - on board, according to news reports and Western diplomats in Sierra Leone, was a Hezbollah courier carrying $2 million.[5]

Whereas Hezbollah derives revenue in Sierra Leone primarily through extortion of Lebanese merchants, in the Congo, which has been wracked by civil war since 1998, Hezbollah operatives “muscled their way into the business” and began purchasing diamonds directly from miners and local middlemen at a fraction of their market value.[6] The highest quality stones are sold in the Belgian diamond marketing hub of Antwerp, while the bulk are sold in emerging diamond markets where the organization can operate more freely, such as Bombay and Dubai.

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, Belgian intelligence discovered that al-Qaeda had bought up to $20 million worth of diamonds from Samih Osailly, who shipped the gems from RUF-held areas of Sierra Leone through Liberia.[7] Although al-Qaeda and Hezbollah are usually mentioned in the same breath when terrorist links to the diamond trade are discussed, the two organizations have been involved in very different capacities. Al-Qaeda buys diamonds as a way of hiding money (there is no inexpensive and reliable method of tracing their source), while Hezbollah is involved to make money.

Another leak that needs plugging, as it were. Definitely read the entire article, it’s profoundly interesting.

This came in another email from Brenda the Democrat, bless her heart .

Talk radio host Michael Graham, who was recently suspended from his job at WMAL radio, a subsidiary of ABC for making comments linking Islam with terrorism due to complaints from CAIR{Council on American-Islamic Relations} has now been fired.

It seems CAIR, not content with his suspension, kept up the pressure and the network gave in, axing one of their most popular hosts. CAIR, like many other Islamic organizations, does not make a policy of condemning terrorism. In fact, these folks even help arrested Muslim terrorists obtain legal counsel.

It appears that ABC Radio has caved to an organization that condemns talk radio hosts like me, but has never condemned Hamas, Hezbollah, and one that wouldn’t specifically condemn Al Qaeda for three months after 9/11.

Read the article, there are links therein that can be used to submit comments both to ABC and WMAL.  

AT & T paid the price for becoming top dawg in telecommunications — they got broken up into a bunch of Baby Bells. Didn’t someone name a cheese or something after those?

Microsoft is forever paying a price, legal fees not the least as someone, somewhere always seems to be litigating something at them.

So, now here’s Mom and Pop, sitting out in their backyard in Harvard, Illinois, Mom sipping coffee while Pop reads the paper.

Pop glances up and says, “Well, they’re goin’ after Wal Mart now.”

What price, success?

The Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip continues, but not without its problems as evidenced by the fierce resistance of anti-disengagement “activists” in Kfar Darom and elsewhere. As much as I believe that this entire evacuation is a colossal error of judgement on Israel’s part and personally side completely with the settlers who are losing their homes, I don’t for a second condone the actions of the resisters in Kfar Darom; the soldiers and police they assaulted in what they had to know was ultimately a futile attempt at avoiding eviction weren’t the enemy, they were civil and military personnel doing their jobs, as dubious as the nature of the assignment may have been. As I opined in a previous post, such behavior only serves to provide the real enemy with entertainment while demonstrating a divided Jewish population(remember the phrase, “divide and conquer?”). The arson episodes were no better than the terrorism of Hamas, and one would have thought well beneath the dignity of anyone raised in the traditions of Jewish belief. Those responsible should be prosecuted as criminals, not given any leeway due to enheightened passions.

Sunday’s evacuations include the last three Gush Katif settlements, during which the IDF anticipates more resistance.

With laundered clothes hanging to dry outside some of the homes and the sprinklers watering the manicured, neatly-cut grass, anti-disengagement activists piled up haystacks, wooden planks, garbage cans and a burnt-out car at the entrance to the settlement, which they planned to light up in an almost festive bonfire once the security forces arrive and try to enter the community.

Michael Matza has a column in Jewish World Review about a settler family’s last Sabbath in Gaza.

While Mahmoud Abbas{Abu Mazen} works to shore up the PA’s (his) authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas assures one and all that pullout or not, nothing has changed.

But in a new challenge to Abbas, dozens of Hamas gunmen held a press conference in one of the main squares of Gaza City on Saturday, where they announced that they would continue to launch terror attacks on Israel even after the disengagement. PA policemen who arrived at the scene did not intervene.

“This retreat does not mean the end of our battle, but it is the beginning,” said one of the Hamas gunmen, who identified himself as Abu Obaidah. “Our battle with the enemy is long and will continue.”

And the greatest government blunder in the history of the State of Israel continues….

Mike at Your Republic provides some very serious reasons why any early withdrawal from Iraq would be a disastrous error.

Of course, the bloody not-so-long-term results would elicit cackling glee from the liberals as the MSM would be claiming it was all Bush’s fault and, spittle dripping down their quivering chins, the libs would, given their perverse worldview, consider it a victory.

Go have a read…