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The Second Edition of the National Security Affairs Newstand commenced 1 January 2005. While it will follow a chronological
format for news and analysis, just like the First Edition, it will be easier to follow:
Our news and analysis pieces will now be entered most recent to earliest, instead of the reverse.
We will also be starting staff bylines from time to time.
Opinions expressed in un-bylined articles are those of the Newstand only (and usually will be stated to be such), and
not necessarily officially those of the Association itself, unless explicitly stated to be such.
Opinions expressed in by-lined articles are officially those of the by-lined reporter(s) or editor(s) only, unless expressly
stated to be the opinion of either the Newstand and/or the Association itself.
Only opinions expressly stated to be those of the Association are official opinions or positions of the Association,
as endorsed explicitly by the Association's National Executive Board.
However, opinions expressed by Newstand staff writers or by the Newstand itself are mandated by the Association to reasonably
be reflective of the opinions of at least a majority of the voting membership of the Association, as expressed in e-polling
done by the Association.
 
National Security Affairs Newstand,
2nd Edition
____________________
1/31/2008:
IRAQ WAR: WHERE WE ARE NOW
Gene Furlow
WOT Newstand Middle Eastern Newsdesk
Congress approved the President's budget for the Iraq war in late May 2007 without any concrete timetable for
ending the war. In exchange, President Bush has to ensure that Iraq's government and military are making progress and will
eventually be able to function with a smaller US military presence and less US aid. And, due to increasing political pressure
from Democrats, Republicans and the public, President Bush announced in his 2008 State of the Union Address this month that
20,000 Marines in Iraq will be returning home later this year (read, approximately December, 2008), and will not be replaced.
Meanwhile US Senator John McCain (R-AZ), the current frontrunner for the GOP Presidential nomination, continues to call for
an increased US military presence in Iraq, a position also taken by the Association.
__________________________________
1/30/2008:
IRAQ WAR BY THE NUMBERS
Gene Furlow
WOT Newstand Middle Eastern Newsdesk
10,045: Number of schools Coalition forces still plan to build in Iraq. Coalition forces
are also building hospitals, fire stations, post offices and railway stations. Iraq's first new hospital since 1998 will open
in 2008.
20%: The percentage of U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq who have filed claims for some
form of psychological stress or disorder upon return.
$950 billion to $1.2 trillion: The Association's current estimate of what the
war could end up costing, including military pay and veterans' benefits.
$22 billion: The amount of US provided funds to rebuild Iraq, to date.
3,600: The number of US troop KIA's to date.
66,000: The estimated number of Iraqi civilian casualties to date.
55%: The percentage of Americans who thought the Iraqi war was worth the effort, as
of September 2003, six months after the US invasion.
61%: The percentage of Americans today who believe we should have stayed out of Iraq.
2%: The percentage of Americans who believe today that the war is going very well.
31%: President Bush's current job approval rating, the lowest in polling history for
any American President, as of January 22.
18%: The Democratic controlled Congress' job approval rating, the lowest in history
for any US Congress, as of January 22.
__________________________________
4/21/2007:
"THIS WAR IS LOST"
For the Association
"This war is lost," US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
pronounced on April 19.
This incendiary "finding of fact" as a matter of making policy is not
fit to be expressed by an honorable office-holder.
The American, offensive, active war against fundamentalist Islamic terror
throughout the Islamic third world cannot be lost, will not be lost, is not lost and, if it has setbacks on a given battlefield
due to Senator Reid's and his cohorts' usurpations of the constitutional powers of the Commander-in-Chief, usurpations caused
by their pandering to temporary polls, then, if Iraq becomes "lost, " thanks to Senator Reid's policies, we will just have
to fight "Iraq" again on a different battlefield, just as, when legislative policies in Congress caused us to "lose" Vietnam
in 1975, and almost to "lose" Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980's, we had no choice but to fight the Cold War against
international, anti-American Communism, on a different, and larger, scale.
Senator Reid's expression, to his knowledge, feeds directly into the
murderous and false propaganda of the same people who attacked us on 9/11, Al Quaida. His statement lends support
and succor to their ultimate mission, which is the destruction of the United States as we know it, and is disastrous to the
morale of our troops, and stabs them in the back for the sake of political opportunism.
_____________________________________________
1/12/2007:
TROOP SURGE IN IRAQ;
CHAVEZ GETS SIX MORE YEARS
For the Newstand
President Bush has ordered 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq. The first ones will arrive Monday. Their purpose is to stabilize
the situation in Baghdad by quartering off neighborhoods and then doing house-to-house sweeps for terrorists, something the
Iraqi forces clearly do not have the capability of doing by themselves. As we understand it, the Mahdi Army of Al-Sadr will
not be immune from the sweeps.
Democrats in Congress have vowed to vote no funds for these troops. Others in Congress have vowed to vote no funds for
any troops, period. Polls are showing only 40% approval for the President's surge.
American KIAs in Iraq recently topped 3,100 since the invasion in the spring of 2003, almost four years ago. At the height
of the Vietnam War, by comparison, we were losing approximately 5,200 troops killed in a year.
The President's surge is probably too little, too late.
The Army's Chief of Staff originally thought, in 2003, that we would need at least 300,000 troops in Iraq to fight a
successful counterinsurgency campaign. We were unsuccessful in such a campaign in Vietnam, a country roughly equal in population
size to Iraq at the time, with 500,000 troops on the ground.
Nevertheless, this Newstand supports the surge. We cannot afford to leave behind in Iraq a greater mess than what it
was under Saddam, which is what would occur if we left at this point. Bush's new plan is nothing more than the execution of
Senator John Kerry's statement during the 2004 Presidential Debates that "I will hunt down the terrorists and kill them."
That should be our policy, both in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world. That is the "political" solution, and there isn't
any other. People who say otherwise are speaking political palaver and gobbleygook.
It is something akin to treason to cut off funds for our young servicemen and women after a Commander-in-Chief has
already committed them to combat. Such policy turns the Commander-in-Chief clause of the Constitution on its head and makes
Congress the dominant and pre-eminent branch of American government.
Meanwhile, the anti-American thug Hugo Chavez was just sworn in as Venezuelan president until 2013, taking an oath to
"Christ, socialism or death." This newly self-appointed expert on Christianity then immediately announced he would
submit a demand to his rubber stamp legislature, where his thugs control both chambers, for him to be able to rule by presidential
decree. He's also making plans to run again in 2013. His playbook is straight out of Adolf Hitler's in 1934 Germany, and not
out of anything we could find in the Bible.
He is also the head of a coalition of leftist Latin American leaders whose goal is to destroy the United States. They
include the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia at a minimum, with others leaning toward them in Brazil, Chile
and Argentina. We have no real foreign policy to deal with this threat, other than to ignore them and try to cajole the
ones we think, maybe, who may be cajolable. The last time we had an effective anti-Communist policy in Latin America was when
Ronald Reagan effectively provided support to the Contras' insurgency against the very thug who now is President of Nicaragua,
support Reagan provided despite a Congress which voted to leave the poor anti-American Communists alone.
We have big trouble brewing south of the border. And it's a lot bigger now than anything we faced from the Sandinistas
or in El Salvador in the '70's and '80's. And it's getting bigger every day.
____________________________________________
| Saddam seconds before his execution |
|
|
| His last words: "Down with the Americans, death to the Jews, Palestine is Arab." |
!2/30/2006:
SADDAM HANGED;
ETHIOPIANS TAKE MOGADISHU
For the Newstand
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad before dawn this morning, after being found guilty by an Iraqi
court for crimes against humanity. Saddam was a corrupt, anti-American, anti-Semitic, Islamist tyrant who consorted with
terrorists and used weapons of mass destruction, mustard gas specifically, against innocent Iraqi women and children, his
own people, who opposed him. The world has not seen the likes of him since Adolf Hitler, one of his self-proclaimed
heroes, but we are seeing the likes of him again today, in places like North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. Saddam needed
killing, and he got what he deserved. Sic Semper Tyrannis.
We invaded Iraq in 2003, despite all the nonsense to the contrary, to teach Islamists like Saddam, in the aftermath of
9/11, a lesson they would never forget. This was a lesson most simple, but typically paradoxically American in its combination
of both pacifism and nationalism, a message which can still be read today on the t-shirts of millions of Texans: "Don't
mess with us." We have not made that case sucessfully to date, and, also to date, we are losing that struggle,
not just in Iraq, but throughout the Islamic world. That cause specifically (and concomitantly, but of much lesser
importance, the cause of bringing democracy to people who may not want it,) remains, a noble, and a patriotic, struggle
in our own self-defense, and a struggle that, one way or another, must be won, a struggle that we Americans will rue
the day if we lose.
On a separate but related national security affairs front, a front backburned to insignificance by the anti-American
media worldwide, Ethiopian troops, attached to Somali government forces, the government recognized by the United Nations,
took Mogadishu , the capital of Somalia, away from the pro-Al Quaida Islamist Court fanatics who had held it, forcing the
latter into a minimalist stronghold in southeastern Somalia. The Ethiopians, a Christian nation, had been supported with advisors
and materiel from the Bush Administration, because of the quite accurate belief that if the Islamic Court was permitted to
remain in power they would have turned Somalia into a base for Al Quaida to strike at the U.S., a la the Taliban
did in Afghanistan. The ousting of the Islamic courts from Mogadishu, and the
acquisition of a new-found ally in the horn of Africa, Ethiopia, an ally with a powerful army, constitutes another success
in the Bush Administration's neo-realpolitik in the Arab world, right up there with the forcing of Muammar Gaddafi
to give up his weapons of mass destruction. It will be a success the anti-American media takes little note of, but this Newstand
certainly is, and, for the umpteenth time, we hope it holds.
12/15/2006:
RUMSFELD ADDRESSES THE NATION
ON THE WAR ON TERROR
For the Association:
In his outgoing speech on both the War on Terror and the War in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made
the following remarks today in Washington:
"... Last weekend, I was in Iraq. I wanted to personally express my heartfelt appreciation to the
troops for their service and for their sacrifice. I wanted to leave them a sense of what they have given me -- pride
in mission, and an abiding confidence in our country. It has been the highest honor of my life to serve with them --
these makers of history.
Mr. President, over the past six years, at your request, as you pointed out, this department has been determined to
create a new framework to better defend against the irregular threats of this new era. These folks have had to depart
from the conventional, and, the familiar, to wrestle with the new and the unfamiliar.
And
they do it with no guidebook, no roadmap -- and they do it in full view of the Congress, and the press and the world
– with generous scrutiny from all sides.
Today, I’ll break
with convention one more time, and, instead of the traditional farewell remarks on past achievements, I will focus
squarely on the future.
I say this with the perspective of one, as the
President indicated, who has had the opportunity to lead this department in two different eras, in two different
world conflicts, for two different presidents, and, yes it’s true, in two different centuries.
When
I last departed this post in 1977, I left cautioning that “weakness is provocative.” That weakness inevitably
entices aggressors into acts they otherwise would avoid. Then, our country was engaged in a “long struggle,”
a struggle of uncertain duration, against what seemed, at the time, as an ascendant ideology and clearly an expanding
empire.
Few would have believed that, 15 years later, the Soviet
Union would cease to exist. Or that the dissidents then trapped behind an Iron Curtain would lead people out of the
dustbin of history and into the family of free nations. Which they did.
That
history did not happen by accident. And it most assuredly was not made by people sitting safely on the sidelines.
It occurred only because America and our allies withstood the tough times, the bitter
disagreements, and they
stayed at the task with
conviction that our security was linked to the defense
and the advance of human
freedom.
This is what history asks of us today. And as I leave the
Pentagon for the second, and, I suspect, the odds are the last time, I do feel a sense of urgency about the very
real challenges ahead.
As the President noted seven years ago,
he said, we are living in an era of “barbarism emboldened by technology.” We live at a time when our
enemies mix an extremist ideology with modern weaponry and have the ability to kill thousands -- indeed even hundreds
of thousands -- of our people in a single, swift, deadly stroke. We forget that at our peril.
A
number of us here came in 2001, with that mission and mandate: to prepare this defense establishment, to protect
the American people, from the unconventional, and the irregular threats.
That
mission was given powerful impetus that bright September morning, when that mighty building, just a few yards away
-- shook, burned, and smoked. And 125 members of our Pentagon team did not come home.
The
attacks of September 11th awakened Americans to the global extremist movement -- a movement with networks in nations
all around the world. Even our own. A movement with tens of thousands of adherents who believe it is their calling
to kill Americans and other free people.
Ours is a world of unstable dictators,
weapons
proliferators and rogue regimes. And each of these
enemies seeks out our vulnerabilities. And as
free
people, we have vulnerabilities.
Ours is also a world of many friends
and allies, but sadly, realistically, friends and allies with declining defense investment and declining capabilities,
and, I would add, as a result, with increasing vulnerabilities.
All
of which requires that the United States of America invest more.
Today
it should be clear that not only is weakness provocative, but the perception of weakness on our part can be provocative
as well. A conclusion by our enemies that the United States lacks the will or the resolve to carry out missions
that demand sacrifice and demand patience is every bit as dangerous as an imbalance of conventional military power.
This
is a time of great consequence. Our task is to make the right decisions today, so that future generations will not have
to make much harder decisions tomorrow. It may well be comforting to some to consider graceful exits from the agonies
and indeed the ugliness of combat. But the enemy thinks differently.
Under
the President’s leadership, this country made a decision to confront the extremist ideology of hatred that
spawned a worldwide movement, and to take the fight to the enemy. The alternative was inaction and defense -- a
pattern that history has shown only emboldens the enemy.
Our country has
taken on a bracing and difficult task -- but let there be no doubt, it is neither hopeless nor without purpose.
Leadership is not about doing what is easy. It is about doing what is right, even when it’s hard -- especially
when it’s hard.
President Lincoln once said, “determine that the thing can
and shall be done, and then we shall find the way” – to do it. That remains true today.
We’re
in what will be a long struggle. It’s new, it’s complex and, even after five years, it’s still somewhat unfamiliar.
That we have been successful – I would add -- fortunate to have suffered not one single attack here at home,
since September 11th, 2001, has contributed to a misperception in some quarters that the threat is gone. It is not!
As
I leave, I do feel urgency, but I also feel optimism. I know that the American people can summon that same grit
that helped our founders forge from a wilderness, a new frontier. I know it because I have seen it over my own
lifetime. It’s the same steel that sent our fathers and grandfathers across oceans to defend free nations from
tyrants. That same grit that gave Americans the will to endure 40 years of the Cold War under the specter of nuclear
annihilation.
So it is with confidence that I say that America’s
enemies
should not confuse the American people’s
distaste of war -- which is real and which is
understandable
-- with a reluctance to defend our way of life. Enemy after enemy in our history have made that mistake -- to their
regret.
To those in uniform -- here and abroad -- who proudly serve,
always remember that America’s example is a message of hope for hundreds of millions of people all across
the globe.
America is not what’s wrong with this world. Ours is a message that
was heard and fought for in places like Berlin, Prague, Riga, Tokyo, Seoul, San Salvador,
Vilnius, and Warsaw.
And that message is even now being whispered in the coffee houses and streets of Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang.
The
great sweep of human history is for freedom -- and America is on freedom’s side.
As
I end my time here, some ask what I will remember.
Well, I
will remember all those courageous folks that I have met deployed in the field, and those in military hospitals
that we visit. And I will remember the fallen.
And I
will particularly remember their families, from whom I have drawn inspiration.
And, I will remember how fortunate I have been to know you, to work with you, to have been inspired by your courage
and your love of country.
You will be in my thoughts and prayers.
God bless you all."
As to either subject, the War on Terror or the War in Iraq, we could not have said it better ourselves. And as usual
during his tenure, the Donald, in his outgoing remarks, sounded as if he was quoting directly off this website. True
grit indeed.
This Association, and some of its Newstands, disagreed vociferously with Secretary Rumsfeld over the years
on his policies. For example, although we found great merit in his argument that large American armies of occupation long
term in the Muslim world would only feed anti-American insurgents and terrorists, we nevertheless argued that these people
needed to be taught a swift and effective lesson based on American power: that we will come into your countries fast, kill
everyone who raises his or her voice against the United States, and turn your deserts into glass, and then leave for you to
sort out the mess you, not we, created. And if you install another anti-American government which threatens us or our allies
with mass destruction weapons, we'll do it all over again, regardless of the cost or how long, or how many times, it
takes. Likewise, we opposed Rumsfeld's initial emphasis on technological weapons accompanied by decreases in manpower;
we called for, and call for instead today, in addition to technological superiority, for more more, many more, boots
on the ground infantry capability, even if it takes conscription to achieve that, especailly when it comes to special
and silent warfare, covert action, politically destabilizing our enemies, political warfare, the co-optation politically of
our enemies before they become our enemies (especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds, even if the co-optees are only third-rate
politicians), increases in CIA manpower and a melding of greatly expanded CIA covert action officers with the
military.
And we feel we have hundreds of millions in the Third World who hate the United States, not tens of thousands.
In the insights of his accurate world-view of both the Soviet threat (during his first tenure) and of the nature
of the Islamist threat to the United States (during his second tenure), Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld may turn
out to be one of the greatest Secretaries of Defense, and perhaps the greatest Secretary of Defense, to span the Cold
War-post-Cold War-Islamist terror threat period.
This Association, and its members, wish him the best.
12/5/2006:
GATES CONFIRMED AS
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
IRAQ STUDY GROUP REPORT SUGGESTS
U.S. TROOP WITHDRAWAL BY 2008
NSA Newstand Staff
The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to confirm Robert Gates
as Defense Secretary, with Democrats and Republicans portraying him as the man who will help overhaul President Bush's Iraq
policies.
At the same time, Congress' Iraq Study Group concluded, based primarily on the personal opinions of its co-chairs, former Secretary of State James Baker (a realpolitiker
from the George H. W. Bush Administration) and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, that President Bush's war policies
have failed in almost every regard, and warned of dwindling chances to change course before crisis turns to chaos.
The Newstand believes the Report is both superficial, contradictory and
inaccurate. A fivefold increase in U.S. trainers for Iraqi forces would be acceptable, but goes in the opposite
direction from the Report's statement that all U.S. combat forces "could be" out of Iraq by early 2008, "barring unforseen
circumstances." The latter statement, which apparently is the key "recommendation" of the Report, is blatantly political
gobblygook. U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) immediately criticized this recommendation, saying if U.S. troops come out,
"we lose." He's right, of course: if U.S. troops come out, the situation only gets worse; the only thing that gets better
is that we don't have to look at our own casualty figures each week.
The other major recommendation of the Report, calling for the USG to beg for Iranian and Syrian assistance in solving
the Iraq situation, itself begs the question of how do we deal with Islamist terrorist states which have as their ultimate
and irrevocable objective the destruction of the United States. By appeasing them, apparently. Simple as that. Lickety-split,
Jimmy Crack Corn. Then they'll do what we want.
The Report said almost nothing of importance, in the opinion of the
Newstand staff, and gave no concrete proposals for improvement in the war in Iraq.
The proper place for the planning of USG foreign and military policies lies within the White House, assisted by
advice from CIA, State Department and DoD staff members, because that is what they are elected and paid by the American
people to do, and not with private outside groups appointed for poltical purposes, in the opinion of the Newstand.
Almost every option for changed tactics in Iraq has already been gamed by the U.S. military, and presented to the
President.
11/8/2006:
SHIFT OF POWER IN WASHINGTON
For the Association
As of 4 p.m. Eastern time today, the Democratic Party has picked up 33 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in
yesterday's mid-term elections, a sizable majority, and is poised to seize control of the U.S. Senate by one vote depending
on the outcome in one remaining state, Virginia, where a recount is expected.
The Democrats actually had 48 Senators elected as of that time, but two independents, a Socialist from Vermont, and a
former Democratic Senator, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, are expected to vote with the Democratic caucus in the Senate.
Thus the Republicans would have to carry the Virginia Senate seat to achieve a 50-50 tie, with Republican Vice-President and
President of the Senate Dick Cheney being the tie breaker.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, blamed by many within the Republican Party for its defeat because of his losing
strategy in Iraq, immediately resigned. President Bush will nominate former CIA Director Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld.
Some in U.S. conservative and neo-conservative political circles expect that Democratic Party strategists will try
to take the foreign and national security policies of the United States more in a direction of accomodation of American allies
who seek more accomodation with the forces of Islamism.
Neither the Association nor any of its Newstands endorses, supports or opposes any American political candidate for office.
11/9/2006:
UPDATE
Newstand Staff
Incumbent U.S. Senator George Allen from Virginia graciously conceded his race today, giving
the Democratic party control of both houses of Congress.
Immediately, Democratic Senate leadership announced they would oppose and defeat the re-nomination
this week by President Bush of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., boding a straightforward and animose contest for
the next two years as to whether the Republican White House or the Democratic Congress will control USG foreign and national
security policies.
This Newstand also has a few words to say on the departure of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense:
This Newstand, and our Association, opposed many of the policies of Rumsfeld's Department, especially as they related to not
increasing the numbers, quality and types of forces and equipment in the US Armed Forces, especially as to the applicability
of those increased forces in Iraq.
This Assocation did so as to its warrant under US law to lobby for legislation in the interests of
the United States.
Having said that, Rumsfeld fought and won an initial war in Afghanistan that American leftists said
(and say today) cannot be won, against all odds, by the minimum insertion of US boots on the ground, by an alliance with minimalist
indigenous political and military forces. That war, yet today, remains to be won, but Rumsfeld showed chutzpah, and
that chutpah carried the day for the US in 2001. There is nothing wrong with that bravado, nothing at all. Rumsfeld
and the current Administration applied that same chutzpah to Iraq. It did not, and has not , worked there.
It was a good try, and history suggested that if it worked in Afghanistan, it would work in Iraq. It is time for a change
in strategy in Iraq.
But is a not a time for cut and run. We are in Iraq, for better or worse. If we hand victory
in Iraq over to the anti-American Islamists there, Al Quaida, or the Sunnis, or the people who agree with them, we encourage
those people, or any group within them, to develop an Islamic nuclear weapon or Islamic weapons of mass destruction,
and to use those weapons against the American people, our people, here in the United States, which is exactly what they will
do.
Iraq is unlike Vietnam. We will regret, as a people, much, much more than we regretted defeat in
Vietnam, defeat in Iraq.
*************************************
11/7/2006:
ORTEGA ELECTED IN NICARAQUA; ANOTHER BAD
ELECTION MIGHT FOR THE U.S
Heather Phillips, NSA Newstand Americas Newsdesk
Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandistas, was declared the elction victor of the presidential race in Nicaraqua this night.
Ortega is a violent, dictatorial anti-American thug who led a communistic terrorist group against the freedom forces
of the Contras President Ronald Reagan supported in the 1980s. Ortega's election represents another victory for Latin American
left wing forces spearheaded by the anti-American thug president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, and a reverslal of recent
pro-American electoral presidential results in Mexico, Colombia and Peru, as well as the American victory this week within
the Security Council of the United Nations which saw Panama, as opposed to Venezuela, elected to the Latin American non-veto
seat on the Security Council.
Ortega's victory also represents a defeat for the policies of the Bush Administration both in Latin America and in Nicaraqua.
Anti-American leftists now control the presidencies of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba and, with the
powers inherent in their respective offices, are restructuring and hijacking the educational cultures of all those
countries, as we speak, with regard to their children, to reflect inherently anti-American values. Ortega's electoral
victory is also the result of an unfortunate and mistaken weakening and pullback of the usage of the American intelligence
services in influencing elections in our backyard, a pullback implicitly pushed by current Congressional policies in the U.S.
************************************
11/5/2006:
SADDAM SENTENCED TO DEATH
Gene Furlow, NSA Newstand Middle Eastern Newsdesk
Saddam Hussein, former dictator of Iraq for 24 years, was
sentenced today to death by hanging (pictures later to be posted here on this Newstand) by a special
Iraqi court for crimes against the Iraqi people, specifically mass murder. He appeared somewhat shaken as the verdict
and sentence were read.
President Bush congratulated the Iraqi government on the proceedings of the court.
On a separate but related issue, this Newstand has learned from high level sources within the Bush Administration
that the White House is quietly beginning to plan for the possibility of Iraq being divided into three states: Kurdistan,
Sunnistan and Shiastan, an idea first floated on the Association's Newstands in 2004.
The Kurds in the north are pro-American and have a large supply of crude petroleum around Kirkuk. However, they are hated
by the Sunnis to the southwest, the Turks to the north and the Iranians to the east. They also have no access to the sea for
oil shipments, other than through the Shiite south. The Shia, who have their own source of oil around Basra, would not give
them that access unless they got some of the oil revenue from the Kurds, an idea the White House is working on.
Sunnistan, in southwest Iraq, where the people think that they are smarter than everyone else in Iraq, and where
there is no oil, would be left to drift into a vast wasteland.
The United States of America, despite having the best intelligence services in the world, both civilian and miltary,
cannot prevent what we cannot predict. All the intelligence services in the world combined cannot predict the exact future
in any country, although many people expect them to do so, and although they do their best, which is what they are charged
to do.
Bottom line: don't expect any immediate changes in the situation in Iraq. But changes are coming.
************************************
10/12/2006:
NORTH KOREA TESTS
NUCLEAR WEAPON;
BUSH POLICY IN TATTERS
Don Keough, NSA Newstand East Asia Newsdesk
The North Korean Communist, anti-American government of Kim Jong-Il has tested a one kiloton or less nuclear weapon underground
in northeastern North Korea, in North Hamgyong province, Newstand sources within the international intelligence community confirm.
North Korea has let it be known both that more tests are coming and that it will use nuclear weapons against perceived
enemies if the regime feels it is being threatened by internationals pressures.
The policies of both the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations to prevent Kim, an unhinged dictator with personal
perversions, from "going nuclear" have resulted in total failure, a failure not lost on the command and soldiers of the North
Korean Army.
For reasons why the use of an American military solution to the growing North Korean nuclear threat will probably not
be used, reasons first brought to you over three years ago by this Newstand, see the NSA Newstand 1st Edition's classic analysis piece dated 7/24/2003. We are no longer hearing any noise out of the current White House, as we did during the time of the initial invasion of
Iraq, about how we were first going to take out the likes of Saddam, and then, after we were finished with him, go after Kim
Jong-Il. With or without nuclear weapons, Kim should have been eliminated a long time ago.
The Association's Executive Board has not commented directly on the North Korean nuclear situation. But they have issued a
public resolution over two years ago, appearing on the Association's Homepage, on the issue of modern-day nuclear proliferation in general. Here is what they had to say:
"There is a Non-Proliferation Treaty in the U.N. In simple English, states
which voluntarily have signed it which don't have nuclear weapons, pledge not to develop them.
In simple English, some of those states have violated that Treaty.
What is more important is the spirit of the Treaty, and that spirit,
regardless whether a given country state is a signatory or not, is that if the world has a bunch of small states with half-crazed
governments turning out nuclear weapons, the world itself is in clear and present danger.
There are nine nations today with known nuclear weapons: North Korea,
China, the United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, India, Pakistan and Israel. Most of them understand nuclear deterrence
in a responsible sense, but that is saying nothing, for even one nuclear weapon, including dirty radioactive bombs, in the
hands of one irresponsible man or woman, is one nuclear weapon too many. Nevertheless in the 1960's there were predictions
that at this time at least 30 nations would have nuclear weapons. So nuclear proliferation is a containable problem, and international
cooperation on this issue should be requested.
But if requests for international cooperation are not successful, and
the national security of the United States is at stake, then we as a people should be resolved, despite the loss of lives,
to act in our own self defense without asking anybody's permission first, or listening to their Monday morning quarterbacking
after the fact.
The United States, as the world's only superpower, in the age of terror
in which we live, has a moral obligation to step in in such a case, as necessary, to see that the spirit of Non-Proliferation
which President Kennedy spoke so eloquently about at Georgetown University in 1963, is enforced."
-United States Navy
Veterans Association
Executive Board
Public Resolution
2/12/2004
"The globalization of nuclear weapons is everybody's problem"
- Mohammed al-Baradeh
Chairman, IEAA, United Nations
10/14/2006:
BUSH GETS WHAT HE WANTS
FROM U.N. ON NORTH KOREA
Don Keough, NSA Newstand East Asia Newsdesk
The U.N. Security Council today unanimously passed a resolution (Resolution 1718) on North Korea,
calling for it to eliminate all its nuclear weapons, and imposing an embargo on all nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons material, as well as tanks, warships, combat aircraft and missiles, as well as luxury goods, coming in or out
of the country. The resolution did not address the stoppage of humanitarian aid, which in large measure keeps the
Kim family regime afloat. It did rule out direct military action against North Korea, but the embargo also contained
the USG requested concept, managed by the more-than-able, as a compromiser and negotiator, USG Ambassador to the U.N. John
Bolton, that any member state would be permitted to board or seize any ship coming in or out of North Korean waters,
in or out of international waters, without warning or probable cause, to search for the embargoed weapons. North Korea had
been a provider of these weapons and their technologies to other rogue states and terrorist groups in the past.
The North Korean delgate invited as a guest to observe the passage of the resolution, almost immediately
walked out of the session, calling the resolution "gangsterism". He should know.
The embargo is a quarantine, the kind of quarantine President Frankilin D. Roosevelt first
called for in 1940 against the likes of Nazi Germany and fascist Japan. A quarantine does not work unless somebody actually
enforces the quarantine. Communist China, one of the Secuity Council permanent members, immediately after the passage of the
resolution, announced it would not be boarding any ships, and China (North Korea's major trading partner), unlike Japan,
will not be cutting back on any economic trade with the Kim regime. If anybody does any boarding, it will have to be the United
States Navy.
They should, starting tomorrow.
| Accused of perversions in his past, Kim Jong Il |
|
|
| is believed by many to be an unhinged freak. |
*********************************
8/29/2006:
AMERICA'S RECENT WARS:
IS THE AMERICAN PUBLIC A BUNCH OF 'FAIR
WEATHER FRIENDS'?
For the Newstand:
The following graph, presented by the New York Times, and which is a combination of polling done during the Vietnam war by the Gallup organization, and polling done during the
Iraq War by the Times, the CBS-TV News Division and the Pew Organization, tracks the support of Americans during the respective wars, for the wars:
Our spin on this polling data for these two most recent American "wars" differs in some measure from the spin
of the Times in its news article which accompanied the graph in the newspaper.
When a foreign war is first announced by the President, with lofty American goals enunciated, and accompanied by the
insertion of large numbers, or relatively large numbers, of U.S. Forces, support for the war effort on the home front is,
across the spectrum, big. When the war drags on, without the palpable feeling of a clear-cut achievement of those initial
goals, with the perception that the war is going badly, a point reached in the Vietnam War and, it is fair to say, a point
reached recently also in the Iraq War, the steam goes out of our modern-day populace, and turns into a "let's get out"
attitude.
If this is not the defintion of 'fair weather friends,' this Newstand does not know what is.
But is also fact.
As the Times article also points out, however, the major statistical inconsistency between American attitudes
during the two wars is that, during Vietnam, when that perception of the war going badly set in, both Republicans and Democrats
lost heart and turned against the war. According to the Times data, even though it is fair to say we as a people have
reached that same perception of the Iraq War, Republicans still continue, as of this point in time, to back the war.
********************************
7/9/2006:
U.S. FRIENDLY CANDIDATE WINS MEXICAN
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION BY SLIMMEST OF MARGINS
LEFT WING RIVAL PROMISES TO OVERTURN
BALLOT RESULTS
Heather Phillips, NSA Newstand Americas Newsdesk
Right wing PAN party candidate Felipe Calderon
 has won Mexico’s
presidential election, beating socialistic candidate Manuel Lopez Obrador by the slimmest of margins.
Calderon won Mexico's presidential election not because of who he is, but because of who he
isn't. After peacefully ushering out a one-party state only six years ago, many Mexicans were not ready to shake up the status
quo and flip the country on its head with a leftist leader who promised to put its nearly 50 million poor first.
In the end, those who voted for Calderon
opted to play it safe. Many worried that his main rival, Obrador, would have sent Mexico
down the path of other Latin American countries like Venezuela,
where President Hugo Chavez's socialist policies have driven away foreign investment and caused capital flight.
Obrador had promised new welfare programs
for the poor which might have carried a price tag in the hundreds of billions of dollars, without saying where the money would
come from to pay for the programs. Half of the Mexican population is believed to survive on $5.00 a day. While clearly an anti-free trade socialist demagogue in the Chavez mold, Obrador at the same time maintained
he was not anti-American, and correctly strategized that he could win only by cosmetically distancing himself from Chavez
during the campaign, a tactic obviously disbelieved by vast numbers of middle-class Mexican voters.
President Bush congratulated Calderon on
his victory even before the Mexican electoral tribunal, a judicial body, had declared him the official winner, a
subtle indication whom the White House favored. The tribunal has until early September to officially announce the results.
Obrador has announced he will appeal the count issued by the election commission, a separate body, and ask that
the tribunal declare him the winner because of alleged vote fraud. The commision's count has Calderon beating Obrador
by 240,000 votes out of over 41 million ballots cast.
As president, Obrador would have constituted a clear danger to the United States, just as Chavez does.
Whoever Mexico’s president is, however, regardless of whether he comes from a right
wing or left wing party, eventually runs into problems with the United States over illegal immigration
and, more often than not, drug smuggling, problems which continue to plague our border with Mexico.
Mexico's presidency carries a six
year term, and the new president will be sworn in on December 1.
*****************************
6/4/2006:
PRO-AMERICAN CANDIDATE BEATS ANTI-AMERICAN
CANDIDATE IN PERU'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:
DOS POR DOS EN LATINOAMERICA
Heather Phillips, NSA Newstand Americas Newsdesk
| Chavez (left) and the defeated Humala (right) |
|
|
| They even look alike. |
Former President Alan Garcia, a pro-American centrist and a believer in free enterprise, whose 1985-90 government
left Peru mired in guerrilla violence and economic chaos, defeated communistic anti-American ex-army officer Ollanta
Humala Sunday in Peru's presidential runoff, according to exit polls and a sampling of ballots.
Humala had been strongly endorsed by Venezuela's anti-American President Hugo Chavez, who all but stumped Peru calling
for Humala's election, the overthrowal of American imperialism in Latin America permanently, and the preparation of mass graves
for
U.S. soldiers in Peru on military assistance missions.
Peru's oucome is viewed accurately as a rejection of the scare tactics and radicalism of Chavez and company by even poor
Peruvians, and the accurate perception of the Peruvian voter, regardless of the oil revenue bribes offered them by Chavez, that
more is to be gained economically by a free enterprise system in co-operation with the United States than by waving
Kalashnikovs in the air screaming "death to America," killing all the wealthy entrepreneurs in the country and turning
one's own armed forces into a chapter of the Communist Party.
Chavez spent today in Caracas, knowing he had been defeated politically again, as he was in Colombia last month, opening
a new Venezuelan movie studio replete with beautiful Venezuelan starlets on board, a studio lavishly financed by Chavez with
oil revenue provided him by Americans at our pumps paying this creep almost $3.00 per gallon. Chavez announced that he was
opening the studio because of Hollywood's "imperialistic" stranglehold on the world movie industry. Michael Moore, are you
listening?
The Apoyo polling firm said that a statistical projection based on a sampling of Peruvian ballots nationwide gave Garcia
52.9 percent of the vote compared to 47.1 percent for Humala. The sampling had a margin of error of about 1 percentage point.
As usual, self-appointed critic of the fairness of foreign elections, Jimmy Carter, had nothing whatsoever to say about
Chavez' blatant interference in the domestic affairs and electoral politics of another country. But, what the hay, it's only
Latin America, and that sort of stuff goes down there all the time and, on top of all that, it's one of Jimmy's friends doing
it.
Next up: Mexico's presidential election in July, same story all over again. The bad news is, even though America's side
has won the last two Latin American presidential elections back-to-back, Chavez' side won the previous six, also
back-to-back: his own, Argentina's, Brazil's, Uruguay's, Chile's and Bolivia's.
It remains to be seen whether these six will go down in history as rogue elections, or whether they represent a wave of
the future in Latin America which is leftist, anti-American and against the economic integration of the Western Hemisphere.
Another leftist anti-American dictator still holds power in Havana.
The right of every individual to determine his or her own future on this planet is given to that individual by
nature, and by natures' God. It is not the government's to take away, or to alienate. Nor is it the wealthy person's
to take away from the person born poor. If the revolution of America and the revolutions sponsored by Simon Bolivar stood
for anything, they stand for that. Socialism and Communism are ideologies out of the heart of central Europe, and out of
the heart of militaristic and evil empires built on those ideologies, most of them having failed miserably already. These
ideologies have, and should have, no place in our Americas.
So said President Monroe.
So said President John F. Kennedy at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
So we should say, too.
God Bless America, and God Bless Our New World.
****************************
5/28/2006:
STAUNCH PRO-AMERICAN WINS
RE-ELECTION AS
PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA
Heather Phillips, NSA Newstand Americas Newsdesk
Staunchly pro-American, staunchly right-wing, pro-Bush Administration President Alvaro Uribe, 53, has won re-election
to an unprecedented second term as President of Colombia with 66% of the popular vote. This is a huge victory for the forces
of pro-Americanism in Latin America, cutting against recent electoral victories for anti-American leftists in a number of
Latin American nations. It shows that the impoverished people of at least one Latin American country know the difference between
right and wrong in world and domestic affairs, and are rightfully concerned about left-wing demagogues who promise the world
and bring in their wake moral devastation.
Uribe has stepped up police and army attacks on the country's left-wing guerillas, primarily FARC, who are funded
by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' oil revenues (Venezuela borders Colombia), as well as by the cocaine they grow and sell.
In the past two years, the left-wing guerillas have killed 250,000 people. Uribe promised to make all out war on them.
The threat Chavez and FARC pose to Colombia remains real, however, as does the threat Chavez and company pose to
Latin America at large.
**************************************
5/15/2006:
U.S. TO RENEW DIPLOMATIC TIES
WITH LIBYA
GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press
The Bush administration said Monday it is restoring normal diplomatic relations with Libya for the first time in over a
quarter century after removing Moammar Gadhafi's regime from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.
"We are taking these actions in recognition of Libya's continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism," Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement. She said Tripoli's cooperation in combating international terrorism has been
"excellent."
The United States has not had formal diplomat relations with Libya since 1980, although a thaw in long-standing hostility
enabled Washington to open a diplomatic office in Libya in 2004.
The move announced Monday culminates a process that began three years ago, when Gadhafi surprised the world by agreeing
to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs.
"As a direct result of those decisions we have witnessed the beginning of that country's re-emergence into the mainstream
of the international community. Today marks the opening of a new era in U.S.-Libya relations that will benefit Americans and
Libyans alike," Rice said.
Assistant Secretary of State David Welch said, "This is not a decision that we arrived at without carefully monitoring
and assessing Libya's behavior."
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdurrahman Shalgham told The Associated Press the move was not a surprise.
"It was a result of contacts and negotiations. It is not unilateral. It is a result of mutual interests, agreements and
understandings," he said.
"In politics there is no such thing as a reward but there are interests," Shalgham said when asked if the restoration of
ties was an incentive to Libya to further cooperate with the United States.
Libya was held responsible for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, which claimed 270 lives, most of them American.
"Today's announcement demonstrates that when countries make a decision top adhere to the norms of international behavior
they will reap the benefits," Welch said.
Removing Libya from the list of countries the United States considers to be state sponsors of terrorism means a 45-day
public comment period will begin on Monday, after which Libya would be removed from the list.
The U.S. decision comes as the Bush administration looks for ways to persuade Iran to drop disputed nuclear development
that the West fears could lead to weapons production. The United States has no diplomatic and few economic ties with Iran.
While the United States has not offered to normalize relations with Iran in return for compliance on the nuclear issue, Welch
said the Libya example is not lost on Iran.
A spokesman for the Libyan opposition in exile denounced the move as "unfortunate."
"This doesn't help the Libyan people who are looking for international assistance to achieve their human rights," said
Fayez Jibril of the Libyan National Congress.
"Col. Gadhafi will most certainly use this to tighten his hold on the Libyans who aspire for such simple things such as
freedom of expression and freedom to have a constitution," Jibril said from his exile in neighboring Egypt.
The establishment of normal relations may have come sooner were it not for allegations that Gadhafi's regime was behind
an attempt on the life of Saudi's Arabia's King Adbullah when he was crown prince several years ago.
Hints that a U.S. move was afoot were evident when the State Department decided to summon family members of the victims
of the Pan Am 103 to Washington for a briefing next week on "U.S.-Libyan relations."
The administration's decision also comes at a time when it is attempting to shore up relations with major oil producers
because of high prices and a shortage of supplies. Libya has substantial oil reserves.
Gadhafi was once known here as perhaps the most dangerous man in the Middle East. President Reagan ordered air attacks
against Libya in 1981 and 1986, the latter because of suspected Libyan sponsorship of a terrorist attack at a West Berlin
disco frequented by American soldiers. Two Americans died there.
Since 2003, however, Libya has been held up as a model by the administration for the way aspiring nuclear weapons powers
should behave.
The American attack on Iraq made Gadhafi wonder whether he would be next. In December 2003, he agreed to surrender his
weapons of mass destruction facilities and agreed to allow them to be shipped for storage in the United States.
Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, said the administration's
decisions were fully warranted.
"Libya has thoroughly altered its behavior by abolishing its program to develop weapons of mass destruction and ending
its support for terrorism," Lantos said.
___
Associated Press Diplomatic Writer Anne Gearan contributed to
this story.
*******************************
5/10/2006:
BLAIR SHAKES UP HIS GOVERNMENT
TO A MORE PRO-U.S. STANCE
Jamie Sigmund, NSA Newstand Europe Newsdesk
British Labour Party Prime Minister Tony Blair has shaken up his cabinet.
Demoted, primarily, is Foreign Minister Jack Straw, who was kicked out of that position. Straw had privately
expressed reservations about the war in Iraq (Blair has none) and publicly said that war with Iran was unthinkable, whereas
it is not to Blair. Blair is the most pro-U.S. British Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher. He thinks and acts like an
American. He is loved by his own Labour Party for bringing it into long term power after years of wandering in a Fabian socialist
philosophical wilderness, and is hated, at the same time, by his own Party members, because he is too pro-USA. Many Labourites
would like to see Blair resign right now, to be replaced by his main rival, a more dogmatic, more anti-U.S. man, Gordon Brown.
This writer predicts Blair probably has no intention of doing that any time short of when his term expires in 2010, unless
he is faced with a caucus vote in the meantime he knows he cannot win.
Blair's cabinet shakeup was precipitated by stunning Labour losses in domestic local elections, primarily to the Conservative
Party, who are actually more pro- U.S. than Blair, but are lying very low, very low, as to that issue.
*******************************
5/5/2006:
SOCIALIST PRODI CONFIRMED AS ITALY'S NEXT
PRIME MINISTER
Jamie Sigmund, NSA Newstand Europe Newsdesk
Socialist Romano Prodi was confirmed by the Italian Supreme Court on April 26, as Italy's next Prime Minister, after
a vote count dispute.
Prodi was called a "front man" for the Comunist Party by the man he defeated during the campaign, incumbent conservative
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Prodi claims he is not anti-America or anti-American.
********************************
5/3/2006:
AL-MALIKI APPOINTED
AS NEW IRAQI PRIME MINISTER
Gene Furlow, NSA Newstand Middle Eastern Newsdesk
Jawad al-Maliki, a hard-line Shiite leader with bad things to say about the United States in the past, has been chosen
to replace outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaaferi, after months of wranging over the position in the Iraqi
parliament.
Al-Maliki was endorsed by Iraq's Kurdish President Jalah Talabani, as well as other key Sunni Arab and Kurdish leders.
*********************************
5/3/2006:
CHINA ADDS MORE WEBSITES TO ITS "BANNED"
LIST
Newstand Editorial Staff
On the very day President Hu of the Peoples' Republic of China was being welcomed in the Rose Garden by the President
of the United States, the Politboro of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party added 2,000 more U.S. based
websites to its "Banned in China" list, a list enforced not just by the Communist Party, but also by the American companies
Microsoft and Google (which calls itself GuGe in China). Over 70,000 websites are now on this list, among them
this one, the official website of the U.S. Navy Veterans Association, as well as the official websites of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, the Library of Congress, Wikipedia, the Union Baptist Church,
|
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