Mexico criticizes Georgia's newly approved anti-immigrant law

Here's a good story of Mexico once again trying to interfere in our internal politics

IOAN GRILLO
Associated Press

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government slammed a newly approved immigrant enforcement law in the U.S. state of Georgia, saying the legislation discriminates against Mexicans while failing to resolve the migration issue.
Ruben Aguilar, the spokesman for President Vicente Fox, told a news conference Tuesday that Mexican consular officials will closely watch the application of the law, which gives Georgia some of the toughest measures against illegal immigrants in the United States.
"The referred legislation incurs discriminatory acts against the Mexican population and those of Mexican origin," Aguilar said. "It is a partial measure that fails to resolve the complex phenomenon of immigration between Mexico and the United States in an integral manner."
The law requires verification of the legal status of people seeking many state-administered benefits. It sanctions employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and mandates that companies with state contracts check the immigration status of employees.
It also requires police to check the immigration status of people they arrest.
Georgia Gov. Sunny Perdue signed the bill Monday, after protests for and against it, and a daylong work stoppage by thousands of immigrants.
"I want to make this clear: we are not, Georgia's government is not, and this bill is not, anti-immigrant," Perdue said at the signing in Atlanta. "We simply believe that everyone who lives in our state needs to abide by our laws."
The Georgia move comes as lawmakers in Washington wrestle with competing proposals to strengthen security on the southern border, create a guest worker program and allow a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the United States.
Since he came to power in 2000, Fox has lobbied relentlessly for a U.S. immigration reform that would allow more Mexicans to work legally in the United States.
However, the Mexican government has discouraged consular officials from any involvement in a wave of demonstrations in favor of reform that have swept U.S. cities during the last month.
Furthermore, Aguilar announced Tuesday that Mexican consular officials have been prohibited from taking part in a one-day walkout planned by migrant activists in the United States for May 1. They also cannot in a simultaneous boycott of U.S. goods being organized by activists south of the border.

Cox & Forkum

Raytheon's Project Athena Completes Successful Department of Homeland Security Border Control Effort

This sounds like a good tool, but I just have to notice that no mention of how many Illegals or Drug Runners were captured. Not to mention that monitoring is one thing but enforcement is still another. In the current climate in the Senate all this system would be good for is dispatching representatives to the monitored areas with voter registration cards.

JUST BUILD THE DAMN WALL

Press Release
Source: Raytheon Company

TEWKSBURY, Mass., April 18, 2006 /PRNewswire/ --

Raytheon Company's Project Athena successfully completed an operational demonstration along the southwest border of Texas to provide persistent multi-domain surveillance and "actionable intelligence" to a joint interagency task force in support of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) law enforcement agencies.

The Athena integrated C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and sensor system was rapidly fielded to support the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Rio Grande Sector and 14 other interagency partners. During the six-week mission, Athena and CBP successfully detected, intercepted and deterred transnational threats, drugs, and alien smuggling across the U.S.-Mexican border over a large joint operations area including 160 miles of coastline, 120 miles of land border, and nine ports of entry.
"We're pleased to deliver demonstrated capability to secure our nation's borders today," said Mary Petryszyn, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) Joint Battlespace Integration vice president. "Project Athena continues to successfully provide our Homeland Security agencies the power of knowledge to help defend our freedom and to act with assurance within the Joint Battlespace environment -- sea, air and land."
During the DHS effort named "Operation Gulfview," Raytheon IDS' Project Athena integrated multi-sensor and multi-source information to enable efficient and improved detection, identification, tracking, fusion and dissemination of actionable intelligence to DHS security law enforcement agencies.
From the mission's tactical operations center, CBP and joint interagency operators used Athena's shared situational awareness picture to coordinate, synchronize and execute simultaneous air, ground and maritime operations to more efficiently task the best interdiction assets for the situation.
Athena surveillance sensors enhanced homeland security efforts by filling coverage gaps while maximizing operational security. Athena also improved knowledge regarding illicit narcotics trafficking on North Padre Island and the Gulf of Mexico waters and coastal areas. Results included identifying previously unknown activity, focusing enforcement efforts instead of arbitrarily patrolling areas with unknown traffic (chasing ghosts), and tracking vessels that crossed the U.S.-Mexican border.
The operational agility demonstrated by Athena was essential to mission success. For Operation Gulfview, Athena was installed, training was completed, and the system was operational within three weeks of the award. This included the deployment of 200 miles of secure, high capacity/availability wireless networks, integrated air-ground surveillance sensors, computing and communications (C2) equipment, and improved C2 and processing services.
Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in Joint Battlespace Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a strong international and domestic customer base, including the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. armed forces.
Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN - News), with 2005 sales of $21.9 billion, is an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 80,000 people worldwide.

DITHERING WON'T STOP IRAN'S NUKES

NY Post
by Amir Taheri
April 18, 2006 --

'UNHELPFUL": So British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described Iran's announcement that it has now joined "the nuclear club." Straw's French and German colleagues did no better. One saw Iran's provocative move as "regrettable the other preferred "disappointing." The European trio was echoing earlier comments from Washington that had chosen "unacceptable."
Well, as the late Raymond Aaron liked to say, when you say that something is "unacceptable," you have already accepted it as a reality. As for "unhelpful," that adjective is normally used in conjugal disputes when the aggrieved spouse wishes to say something without causing further aggravation.
Any thought that such moaning might make the mullahs shake in their sandals, let alone abandon their strategic quest for a nuclear surge capacity, would be naive to say the least. It's "so far, so good" for Tehran. The Islamic Republic has thumbed its nose at the "international community" at no cost to itself. Why should it stop when the going is so good?
Let us return to the central question in all this: Why does the Islamic Republic want a nuclear arsenal?
Anyone familiar with the history of proliferation would know that all of the seven confirmed nuclear powers decided to go nuclear in the context of conflict, actual or potential, with a clearly designated adversary. The United States developed nuclear weapons during World War II. Later, the Soviets developed their own bomb as a deterrent against the Americans. Britain and France, and later China, each sought an independent deterrent against the USSR. Then India, as a deterrent against China - and Pakistan as a deterrent against India.
No nation allocates huge resources to building a bomb and the means to deliver it without some real or perceived strategic imperative. So what is that imperative for Iran?
The shah's regime sought a nuclear surge capacity with an eye on making the Soviets deem it too risky to attack Iran. Sometime in the early '90s, the Islamic Republic decided to revive that program as a counter to the United States.
The Islamic Republic, as the embodiment of the Khomeinist revolution, had assumed a messianic mission to conquer the Middle East and, later, the whole Muslim world, in the name of its brand of Islam. By the mid '80s, Khomeinist groups were active in 30-plus Muslim countries, while the Islamic Republic was engaged in a brutal war with Iraq.
The leadership in Tehran realized that there was one power that would not allow it to "export revolution" and dominate the Middle East. That power was, and remains, the United States.
In 1986-87, it was U.S. intervention that prevented Iran from breaking the Arab front by attacking Kuwaiti and Saudi oil tankers. It was also partly thanks to U.S. intervention that the Khomeinists weren't allowed to seize control of Lebanon and launch a long, low-intensity war against Israel.
With the fall of the Taliban in Kabul and the Ba'ath in Iraq, the old balance of power in the region has been shattered. President Bush wants to create a new Middle East that is democratic and pro-West. In such a Middle East, there would be no place for a regime like the one now in place in Tehran. The Islamic Republic is determined to sabotage Bush's plan and, instead, create a new Middle East that is anti-American, Islamist and controlled by Tehran. These conflicting ambitions make war a theoretical, if not an immediate, inevitability.
The Khomeinist leadership believes that it could hope to win in any prolonged conventional conflict if only because U.S. public opinion, as the Iraq experience has shown, lacks patience and is unprepared to accept even low casualty rates. That leaves tactical nuclear weapons as the only way for the United States to break the will of the Islamic Republic in any war. Thus the mullahs' move to develop their own deterrent.
A United States that is unable to fight on the ground for any length of time and deterred from using nuclear weapons for fear of retaliation would, so the mullahs hope, do what it has often done: run away, leaving Iran to emerge as the regional superpower.
The Middle East is passing through the most decisive moment in is history since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. The options are clear. One is to let the Khomeinist regime dominate the region and use it as the nucleus of an Islamic superpower which would then seek global domination. The other is to go for regime change in Tehran as a strategic goal. (A third option - creating an Irano-American co-dominium in the region - might not be acceptable to the Arabs and Turkey, let alone Israel.)
All three options are hard to contemplate, especially for the United States and its European allies - powers that wish to set the global agenda but are reluctant to fight for it. The problem is that by refusing to stand up against the Khomeinist regime now, the Americans and Europeans (and their allies in the Arab world) may later have to fight an even bigger and costlier war against a nuclear-armed foe.
Amir Taheri is the former executive editor of Kayhan, Iran's largest daily newspaper. He is a member of Benador Associates.

Thinking of joining another Blogburst

I participate in the Jack Idema Blogburst, Now there is another Blogburst about THE BORDER. This has always been one of my issues. I am going to write to the people who do it and feel them out, but I would also appreciate some feedback from those that visit My site. Here is a sample of their Burst.
Thanks
The Troll

April 10, 2006
A Welfare State With Illegal Immigration Offers Companies a Better Deal Than Slavery
by IndependentConservative @ 1:24 pm. Filed under Illegal Aliens
Let me start by saying I don’t endorse either slavery or illegal immigration. But looking at things from the economic standpoint of a company that hires illegals today versus the use of slave labor in the 18th and 19th centuries, illegal immigration offers companies a better deal than any slave owner ever had. The reason is the modern day welfare state that is known as America.
During American slavery, the slave owner was responsible for the total care of the slave. Although slave masters did this “on the cheap” they had to provide housing, food, clothing and medical care for the slave and their entire family. This resulted in the institution of slavery being more of a loss than gain over time. The only other option was to grant freedom to slaves who were a great expense, but that involved the strain of possibly breaking a family. Separating families often resulted in the other slaves trying harder to escape to be with loved ones. Non-profitable slaves were not sellable, because nobody else wanted the burden. This was the slave master’s dilemma, that people like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin figured out. They realized that slavery was not financially good over time. Because the “free labor” was not really “free”, given the need to provide full care to the slave labor force. This in addition to the expense of buying a slave in the first place.
Today’s employer of illegal immigrants does not have any of the hassles experienced by slave owners. The employer of illegals offers them a very small salary and no benefits. Which means such an employer never runs the risk of going cash-flow-negative on labor costs. They can adjust wages at will, because they will always find an illegal that is willing to accept the rate. This is the reason Cesar Chavez once disliked illegal immigration. If one set of illegals tried to “strike” for better wages, the company would simply replace them with new illegals that were willing to accept the pay rate offered to them.
So the employer of illegals has no direct issues with having to fund housing, medical or the expense of educating the children of illegal immigrants. These are are expenses that American taxpayers have been funding. Government (funded by taxpayers) helps illegals secure home loans and encourages banks to give them out. Government (funded by taxpayers) is picking up the medical expenses of illegals. Government (funded by taxpayers) is educating the children of illegal aliens.
You may have seen the CNN Special “Immigrant Nation: Divided Nation”. If you did, you saw profiles of illegals who live in my county of Gwinnett Georgia. The show often tried to make granting amnesty to illegals look like a good thing, but like the slave master’s dilemma, even the tax paying illegals do not come close to covering the expenses involved in caring for them.
Excerpts from, Transcript of CNN Special Report - Immigrant Nation: Divided Nation

…HINOJOSA: Ten years ago when I first came to Georgia, I asked people if there
was a Latino neighborhood, or barrio. I got a lot of strange looks.
Now I’m
here in the heart of just one of the many Latino barrios in Georgia. I can get
some of the best tacos outside of Mexico right here 24 hours a day. The home of
Martin Luther King, the state that gave us the civil rights movement, is now
home to half a million Latinos, a 300 percent increase in a decade.…HINOJOSA:
Estimates vary, but somewhere between 7 and 20 million people are living in this
country illegally, one of the largest populations of undocumented immigrants in
the world. Most of them come across this border. According to the U.S.
government, over 1 million were caught last year alone.
This latest wave of
immigrants has spread far beyond the southwest and the West Coast. Latino
immigrant communities are now fixtures across the nation, especially in the
south, in places like Gwinnett County, Georgia.…HINOJOSA: Rosa first came to
Georgia two years ago, all alone.
Last year, unable to bear the separation
any longer, Rosa paid a smuggler $5,000 to wade her children across the river at
night, but they were caught at a checkpoint and immediately deported. Rosa faced
a difficult decision.
ROSA (through translator): I told my daughter, you have
two options. I either stay in Mexico with you, or I will leave for the States
for another year in preparation to bring the two of you. Then my daughter told
me to return to the States so I could bring them eventually.…HERCHEK: I’m afraid
that America could become a third world country. We’re importing poverty by
millions every year.…HINOJOSA (on camera): The numbers say it all. Ten years
ago, these schools served very few Spanish-speaking students. In 2003, one out
of 10 students listed Spanish as their primary language, $26 million will be
spent in Gwinnett County in English language services.…HINOJOSA: Federal law
says people are entitled to emergency medical care, whether or not they’re in
this country legally. In one year Georgia paid $58 million in emergency Medicaid
reimbursement for undocumented immigrants.…The smugglers will be paid almost
$6,000 by Rosa if they were successful, would show border agents false papers
for the children. They didn’t make it.
Despite their fake papers, Junior and
Rosita were detained. The smugglers were arrested. The children were returned to
Mexico and reunited with their grandmother. Despite the set back, Rosa vows to
try again.
ROSA (through translator): I will keep trying to bring them. The
sooner the better. If in 15 days I find someone to bring them here, then we will
try again with them.…

Unlike slavery, with illegal immigration the burden of expenses is carried by the entire nation. So instead of individual plantation owners having to endure the expenses of supposedly cheap labor, it is a burden carried by taxpaying Americans. It is my family that endures pain, while waiting behind illegals for medical care. It is my tax dollars that pay for education of illegals, that by school rules have 6 years to learn English and many drop out before ever finishing school. So they take up much space and expense, while not even learning much during the process. While school time is spent on illegals, it diverts resources and teaching time away from children in a legal family. And I’m not even going to get into the issues with gangs. (That would require it’s own post.) The issues I see here in Gwinnett County, Georgia will only get worse with anything that encourages illegal immigration or makes them feel they will be rewarded. And the issues will get worse for America. The nation will not be able to sustain the expense of this dilemma for much longer. It is causing the nation to engage in a race to the bottom and then we all lose.
This is why we here in Georgia hope governor Sonny Purdue will stop stalling and sign the bill that will take some of the welfare state benefits away from illegals. This will discourage them from staying.
America’s borders need to be secured and the only means made for immigration should be via the current legalization process. What employers of illegals see as a “resource” is really a great expense. Immigration requires regulation to prevent this nation’s collapse.

Rush Interviews Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

RUSH: We are thrilled and honored to have with us the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, for a few minutes. Mr. Secretary, thank you for making some time available for us.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, thank you! I'm delighted to do it. RUSH: Well, let me ask you... I've got to remind you of something. You probably won't remember the phone call to this program. It was the first time I spoke to you and it was early on in the first term of President Bush, and at the time, I forget the subject. It might have been the artillery weapon that you had voted down, but --
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: (Laughing.) I remember it well. The Crusader!
RUSH: The Crusader, but at the time it was shortly after a couple of very successful operations militarily. You were being hailed as a sex symbol in Washington, and I asked you about that. You were clearly embarrassed. You laughed and so forth.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: (Laughing.)
RUSH: Today it's a far different circumstance, and it's a great illustration of just how things work inside the Beltway. What does it feel like to you to go through these ups and downs and to have practically the entire media jump on the case of these six generals demanding your ouster?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, you know, "This, too, will pass." I think about it, and I must say, there's always two sides to these things, and the sharper the criticism comes, sometimes the sharper the defense comes from people who don't agree with the critics, and I've been very pleased to see General Dick Myers and General Tommy Franks and General Mike DeLong and so many others -- Admiral Vern Clark -- step up, and people who I have worked very closely with, and they've been terrific. So I'm here at the Pentagon doing my job, working on transformation and seeing that we manage the force in a successful way, and working on things involving Iraq. For example, they just transferred over some important real estate to the Iraqi security forces today, had a ceremony which is a sign of progress there. Now what we need to see is a new government formed in Iraq.

RUSH: Let me ask you about -- before I get to that, you mentioned General Myers and Mike DeLong and others that have come to your defense. They seem to be contradicting point by point the criticism. The criticism of you is that you're autocratic, that you don't listen, that you're inflexible, that you're stubborn, and the details that they're all providing counter that specifically. So why are these guys doing it now? What do you think?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, I just don't know. I can't climb into other people's minds. I was amused that Admiral Vern Clark said, "Yes, he is tough and these are tough times and we need people in government who are tough-minded and feel a sense of urgency." So I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
RUSH: Iraq. Your assessment, obviously, with the news that you just gave us is it's much better there than it's being reported, and I assume that you're optimistic about the final outcome. You say we've just got to get them to create a government. Some people think that it might be better just to launch an all-out assault on the enemy and defeat the enemy and then set up the government so you wouldn't have so many distractions and attempts to oppose that effort.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, of course it would be wonderful if there were an enemy that was in reasonable clusters of people that you could go after them. The problem is that you don't have a big army, navy or air force that you can go after. These are terrorists. These are insurgents. These are people that hide in the shadows. These are people that kill innocent men, women and children. They are not people that confront anybody in a formal way that you could go after. So what you have to do is create a presence, have a lot of tip lines so calls can come in and people who are supportive of the country and the progress that's being made can phone into the Iraqi security forces or our forces and tell them where the bad people are and then you just have to go root 'em out one or two at a time.
RUSH: How would you describe the process and the progress there?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, the progress has been good. I mean, we are now up to a quarter of a million Iraqi security forces and they're, as I say, taking over more and more bases and real estate all the time -- and we're able to transfer responsibility to them. The biggest problem we've got right now is that the people that were the people who voted in the last election, on December 15th, are now waiting for the results of that election to be manifested in a new government, and the politicians over there are struggling with that. They're trying to figure out who should be prime minister and who should be the president and who should be the various ministers, and it's taken from December 15th until today, and we're hopeful that in the next period of days, they'll pull it together. More and more, the leadership in the Kurdish community, the Sunni community and now in the Shi'a community are saying, "Let's get it done." I think it's important that the security forces that we've trained and equip have a government that they can report to and look up to and receive guidance and leadership from. RUSH: So is there an organized opposition within those three groups to prevent this government from being formed that has a chance of succeeding?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, I mean, there's no question. You're quite right. The insurgents do not want the government formed, and there are elements in the country that are actively trying to prevent that, just as they tried to prevent the election last, a year ago January. They've tried to prevent the referendum on the constitution, and they tried to prevent the December elections -- and now they're trying to prevent the government from being formed. But they failed the first three times, and they're going to fail this time. We're going to get it done.
RUSH: Let me ask you this question. You've been in the private sector and you've had plenty of public service in various positions in our government, and you've devoted your life largely to public service, and you're very much aware of our representative republic and democratic process here. We have people in the country who have been attempting, ever since shortly after the war with Iraq commenced, that are trying to gin up as many anti-war support amongst the American population as possible. Yet here you are as a member of this administration with a stated goal where Iraq and the war on terror is concerned. You have to be aware of it anti-war opinion of those in the country who have it and you're aware of the people who are trying to foment it and make it larger. How do you as a public servant square the attitude of the anti-war people if you think it's a large group of people with what are your stated goals and what the president stated goals are? How do you put those two together and end up formulating a policy and sticking to it?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: That's a very important question, and I guess only someone who's rooted in the history of our country, I think, could accept the kinds of comments that are being made -- and if we recognize that the same kinds of criticism that occurred in the Revolutionary War and World War I and World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, it's not new. There have always been people who have opposed wars. Wars are terrible things. On the other hand, if every time there were critics and opponents to war, we wouldn't have won the Revolutionary War and we wouldn't have been involved in World War I or II, and if we had we would have failed, and our country would be a totally different place if it existed at all, if every time there were some critics that we tossed in the towel. I think we just have to accept it, that people have a right to say what they want to say, and to have an acceptance of that and recognize that the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees.
They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States. They are very good at it. They're much better at (laughing) managing those kinds of things than we are, and we have to recognize that we're not going to lose any battles out in the global war on terror out in Iraq or Afghanistan. The center of gravity of that war is right here, and in the capital of the United States of America and other Western capitals, in London, they're trying. It's a test of wills, and what's at stake for our country is our way of life. They want to strike at the very essence what we are. We're free people, and our task in government, by golly, is to help protect the American people from people who killed 3,000 people here on September 11th and killed people in London and Madrid and Bali, and country after country around the world who have no problems beheading people and murdering innocent men, women and children.

RUSH: Well, it's gotta be tough, I would imagine, because I'm aware of it and I try to share with my audience as often as possible that people like you and the president know far more than the public knows about any number of events simply because it's not possible for the information that you learn to be shared nor should most of it, and yet that would have to force you at some point to say, "You know, we do have an anti-war crowd and they're loud and they're being affected by our enemy. But the American people, some of them, just don't know what we know," and you have to stick with what you think is right, and that's where the whole democratic process I would think becomes challenging for you because you have to make a judgment: Do what's right or we listen to the people?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Yeah. Of course if you started chasing, running around chasing public opinion polls or a handful of people who are critics of this or critics on that, you wouldn't get anywhere in this world. We need people like President Bush who are serious people, who spend a great deal of time thinking through direction for our country, set us on that course and then have the courage and the perseverance to stay on that course.
RUSH: Before you go -- and I know time is short and I've got to break, too -- but I know you're very supportive of a website that DOD has put up, "America Supports You" dot military, dot mil. What does that website help people do?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: You know we've got such wonderful men and women out there, troops out there serving our country. They're all volunteers. So what we did is we put together a website whereby anyone who wants to can get on it and find out what other people are doing to be supportive of the troops and their families, and you can learn what school groups are doing, what corporations are doing, families, nongovernmental organizations. They are just hundreds of people who are out there doing things that are supportive of the troops and letting them know that we appreciate their service, their noble service, for our country.
RUSH: Okay, terrific. Well, we'll continue to plug that here. Let me amend it. Let me ask you one final question. Somebody on my staff is curious to know what your opinion is of embedding reporters with the military. Has that worked? Has that worked as you had hoped?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, it has. It worked during the Iraq conflict, and a lot of people who are reporters and journalists were able to work with our troops and see precisely how terrific they are, the wonderful job they do, the kinds of people they are, how professional they are -- and the rest of their lives they're going to have an impression of the American military that will be good for journalism, in my view. Furthermore, they were able, because they were embedded, to see and then give the world and the people of the United States a slice of what was actually happening, real reality, and it was a good thing. More recently, very few people had been being embedded. We're still offering that opportunity, but there have been far fewer journalists who have stepped up to become embedded. RUSH: Why do you think that is (story)?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, it's a funny thing. I asked one reporter about that, and there was kind of the impression left that, "Well, if you got embedded then you were really part of the problem instead of part of the solution and you were almost going over to the other side," argument. I think that's an inexcusable thought, and I don't know if that's the case.
RUSH: That's outrageous.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: It is. (Laughing.)
RUSH: It's outrageous. I'll say it.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: (Laughing.)
RUSH: I can't believe that. Well, look, I thank you so much for your time. I don't want to cause your schedule to get backlogged anymore. We always appreciate whatever time you have for us. I met you a couple weeks ago in New York and I forgot to tell you something. I had so many people -- as I mentioned I was going to be at the Marine dinner, and I had so many people -- in my audience tell me to be sure to tell you how much they love and respect what you're doing. So let me do it now.
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: That means a lot to me and I thank you so much, and I thank you for what you do.
RUSH: Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. That's Secretary -- It embarrasses me when I get thanked.
That's Secretary Rumsfeld, at the Pentagon, the Department of Defense.
END TRANSCRIPT

Background Material Regarding Rumsfeld's Answer on Embedded Reporters... (Weekly Standard: The Know-Nothing Press)

James Taranto on the Suicide Bombing in Tel Aviv Today (CM)

A Great post from FDD a great opinion site that does not know how to promote itself.

"A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a fast-food restaurant in a bustling area of Tel Aviv during the Passover holiday Monday, killing eight other people and wounding at least 49 in the deadliest Palestinian attack in more than a year," the Associated Press reports. This is in Tel Aviv, not the disputed territories:
The Palestinians' new Hamas leaders called the attack a legitimate response to Israeli "aggression." Israel said it held Hamas ultimately responsible--even though a different militant group, Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility--and would respond "as necessary." . . .
Witness Israel Yaakov said the blast killed a woman standing near her husband and children.
"The father was traumatized. He went into shock. He ran to the children to gather them up and the children were screaming, 'Mom! Mom!' and she wasn't answering, she was dead already . . . it's a shocking scene," Yaakov said.
Another witness, 62-year-old Sonya Levy, said she had just finished shopping when the blast occurred.
"I was about to get into my car, and boom! There was an explosion. A bit of human flesh landed on my car and I started to scream," she said.
Are you inclined to sympathize with Israel when you read about something like this? If so, leading scholars say you're wrong. According to a paper by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, "The Palestinian resort to terrorism is wrong but it isn't surprising. The Palestinians believe they have no other way to force Israeli concessions." Furthermore, there is no "compelling moral case for US backing" of Israel.
Last month we dissected the argument by which Mearsheimer and Walt purported to discredit Israel morally. Far from an evenhanded consideration of the facts on both sides of the issue, it turns out to be radically biased. Mearsheimer and Walt admit only evidence depicting the Jewish state as wicked, ignoring both mitigating factors and the evils committed by Israel's adversaries. This, we submitted, is an anti-Semitic argument, for it is constructed in such a way that Israel cannot win, even if the facts are on its side.
As far as we know, neither Mearsheimer nor Walt nor any of their supporters have offered any substantive defense of their moral condemnation of Israel. Our criticism of it appears to stand unrebutted. This is not to say there have not been efforts to defend Mearsheimer and Walt's work. As we noted Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published an op-ed piece by Edward Peck, a former ambassador now affiliated with the California-based Independent Institute (not the Colorado-based Independence Institute), titled "Of Course There Is an Israel Lobby." On Friday David Theroux, head of the Independent Institute, emailed us a response to our item from Peck, which you can read in its entirety here.
Peck's latest response adds little to his Post-Gazette piece. He claims that our criticism, along with that of law professor David Bernstein, further demonstrates the truth of Mearsheimer and Walt's claim that there exists an "Israel Lobby." But this is an evasion. Mearsheimer and Walt's argument can be summarized as follows:
Premise: "Neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America's support for Israel."
Conclusion: "The explanation is the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby."
What is controversial about the Mearsheimer-Walt paper is the premise: that U.S. support for Israel is strategically and morally unjustified. Peck, however, pretends that the argument is something like this:
Premise: Many Americans are strong supporters of Israel.
Conclusion: The "Israel Lobby" exists.
Whether this conclusion follows from the premise is a question of semantics; one could dispute whether it makes sense to characterize a journalist who has never lobbied an elected official in his life (i.e., this columnist) as part of a "lobby." But for the sake of argument, let's accept the widest possible definition of the "Israel Lobby": all Americans who strongly support the Jewish state. By that definition, we certainly qualify--and proudly so.
But also by that definition, Peck's version of the Mearsheimer-Walt argument is a truism. In other words, rather than defend the argument they actually made, Peck has recast it as a trivial truth.
Peck claims in his response to us that "those with differing views [from those of the 'Israel Lobby'] encounter highly restricted opportunities to express them in the media"--this, in case you missed it, in a response we have published in full, here. He complains of a lack of "open public discussion," when in fact the Mearsheimer-Walt paper has prompted a great deal of discussion.
If that discussion has been one-sided, it is because Mearsheimer, Walt and their supporters--including Peck--have not, in the face of serious, substantive criticism, defended the claim that support for Israel is strategically and morally unjustified. In our estimation, this is because that claim is indefensible.

Read Taranto (interesting on many issues) on Opinion Journal.

Christ has Died, Christ has Risen, Christ shall come again.

Today we give thoughts and thanks to Jesus. Over 2000 years since he walked the Earth in his physicle form, the Impression he made has outlasted all others.

Jesus says: "I am the light which is on them all. I am the All, and the All has gone out from me and the All has come back to me. Cleave the wood: I am there; lift the stone and thou shalt find me there!"

Jesus says: "Let him who seeks cease not to seek until he finds: when he finds he will be astonished; and when he is astonished he will wonder, and will reign over the universe!"

Jesus says: "If those who seek to attract you say to you: 'See, the Kingdom is in heaven!' then the birds of heaven will be there before you. If they say to you: 'It is in the sea!' then the fish will be there before you. But the kingdom is within you and it is outside of you!"

"When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you will be in a state of poverty, and it is you the poverty!"

The disciples said to him: "Thy brethren and thy mother are there outside." He said to them: "You and (?) those (?) who do the will of my Father, they are my brethren and my mother; it is they who will enter the Kingdom of my Father."

His disciples said to him: "On what day will the kingdom come?" "It will not come when it is expected. No one will say: 'See, it is here!' or: 'Look, it is there!' but the Kingdom of the Father is spread over the earth and men do not see it."

Gingrich warns Republicans Americans want change

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican Party is in serious danger of losing political ground in November elections if it does not enact reforms that eliminate waste and hold the federal bureaucracy to higher standards, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Sunday.

"I think they're in very serious danger of having a very bad election this fall," Gingrich said on Fox News Sunday.

"You have to respect the right of the American people to say they want change," he said, criticizing the federal government's bungled efforts to cope with Hurricane Katrina and the Republican-led Congress' failure to enact immigration reforms.

"Are they going to learn some lessons and get their act together?" Gingrich asked.

Republicans currently outnumber Democrats 231-201 in the House and have a 55-44 advantage in the Senate.

The former representative from Georgia said the "debacle" over measures to strengthen U.S. borders and create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants "was one more piece of the puzzle" for many voters who have lost faith in Republican leadership.

"The country absolutely wants control of the borders," Gingrich said. "The country absolutely wants us to insist that becoming an American citizen requires that you passed a test in English."

A well-designed guest worker program would have the support of 75 percent to 80 percent of the American people, he said.

With the federal budget deficit at record levels, Gingrich said Americans are losing patience with "pork," the discretionary spending earmarked to benefit local political constituencies.

"We were sent here to reform Washington, not to be co-opted by Washington," he said.

Another Good Read for those of You Who Just Don't Get It

The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb
By Amir Taheri
(Filed: 16/04/2006)

Last Monday, just before he announced that Iran had gatecrashed "the nuclear club", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disappeared for several hours. He was having a khalvat (tête-à-tête) with the Hidden Imam, the 12th and last of the imams of Shiism who went into "grand occultation" in 941.

According to Shia lore, the Imam is a messianic figure who, although in hiding, remains the true Sovereign of the World. In every generation, the Imam chooses 36 men, (and, for obvious reasons, no women) naming them the owtad or "nails", whose presence, hammered into mankind's existence, prevents the universe from "falling off". Although the "nails" are not known to common mortals, it is, at times, possible to identify one thanks to his deeds. It is on that basis that some of Ahmad-inejad's more passionate admirers insist that he is a "nail", a claim he has not discouraged. For example, he has claimed that last September, as he addressed the United Nations' General Assembly in New York, the "Hidden Imam drenched the place in a sweet light".

Last year, it was after another khalvat that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a "clash of civilisations" in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the "infidel" West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.

In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations.

According to this analysis, spelled out in commentaries by Ahmadinejad's strategic guru, Hassan Abassi, known as the "Dr Kissinger of Islam", President George W Bush is an aberration, an exception to a rule under which all American presidents since Truman, when faced with serious setbacks abroad, have "run away". Iran's current strategy, therefore, is to wait Bush out. And that, by "divine coincidence", corresponds to the time Iran needs to develop its nuclear arsenal, thus matching the only advantage that the infidel enjoys.

Moments after Ahmadinejad announced "the atomic miracle", the head of the Iranian nuclear project, Ghulamreza Aghazadeh, unveiled plans for manufacturing 54,000 centrifuges, to enrich enough uranium for hundreds of nuclear warheads. "We are going into mass production," he boasted.

The Iranian plan is simple: playing the diplomatic game for another two years until Bush becomes a "lame-duck", unable to take military action against the mullahs, while continuing to develop nuclear weapons.

Thus do not be surprised if, by the end of the 12 days still left of the United Nations' Security Council "deadline", Ahmadinejad announces a "temporary suspension" of uranium enrichment as a "confidence building measure". Also, don't be surprised if some time in June he agrees to ask the Majlis (the Islamic parliament) to consider signing the additional protocols of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Such manoeuvres would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director, Muhammad El-Baradei, and Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to congratulate Iran for its "positive gestures" and denounce talk of sanctions, let alone military action. The confidence building measures would never amount to anything, but their announcement would be enough to prevent the G8 summit, hosted by Russia in July, from moving against Iran.

While waiting Bush out, the Islamic Republic is intent on doing all it can to consolidate its gains in the region. Regime changes in Kabul and Baghdad have altered the status quo in the Middle East. While Bush is determined to create a Middle East that is democratic and pro-Western, Ahmadinejad is equally determined that the region should remain Islamic but pro-Iranian. Iran is now the strongest presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the US. It has turned Syria and Lebanon into its outer defences, which means that, for the first time since the 7th century, Iran is militarily present on the coast of the Mediterranean. In a massive political jamboree in Teheran last week, Ahmadinejad also assumed control of the "Jerusalem Cause", which includes annihilating Israel "in one storm", while launching a take-over bid for the cash-starved Hamas government in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ahmadinejad has also reactivated Iran's network of Shia organisations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, while resuming contact with Sunni fundamentalist groups in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. From childhood, Shia boys are told to cultivate two qualities. The first is entezar, the capacity patiently to wait for the Imam to return. The second is taajil, the actions needed to hasten the return. For the Imam's return will coincide with an apocalyptic battle between the forces of evil and righteousness, with evil ultimately routed. If the infidel loses its nuclear advantage, it could be worn down in a long, low-intensity war at the end of which surrender to Islam would appear the least bad of options. And that could be a signal for the Imam to reappear.

At the same time, not to forget the task of hastening the Mahdi's second coming, Ahamdinejad will pursue his provocations. On Monday, he was as candid as ever: "To those who are angry with us, we have one thing to say: be angry until you die of anger!"

His adviser, Hassan Abassi, is rather more eloquent. "The Americans are impatient," he says, "at the first sight of a setback, they run away. We, however, know how to be patient. We have been weaving carpets for thousands of years."

• Amir Taheri is a former Executive Editor of Kayhan, Iran's largest daily newspaper, but now lives in Europe