Will Obama Address The Issue Of WMD In Libya?

Here we go again: West anxious over Libya's chemical weapons cashes:

End of Gaddafi regime leaves US, Europe deeply concerned over future of Libya's massive chemical weapons arsenal; with steps already being taken to ensure WMDs don’t fall into wrong hands

As the world watches deposed Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi's forces take their last stand in Tripoli, western intelligence officials are trying to follow the trail of Libya's chemical weapons arsenal, and especially its mustard gas caches.

Another Bloggers' Dozen for Tuesday Morning

An assortment of posts, featuring a new mail list, what Cindy Sheehan has in common with Saddam and Barghouti, Alaa's release, a new blog listing with a twist, news that Churchill has something to fear after all, and a discussion about bloggers who turn pro...Israel.

And please keep in mind the kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad ben Aviva

And now the links:

Heichal HaNegina has started a new Modzitzer mail list on Yahoo to provide "a full range of the Torah, Negina/Music, Heritage and News of Modzitz, past and present"

Psycho Toddler writes about dealing with his professional musical career while in aveilus for his father.

WestBankBlog shares her thoughts on our attitude toward Israel's recent bad PR and the importance of seeing the bigger picture.

A Simple Jew looks into the connection between his daughters' day of birth and the 2 Luchos.

AbbaGav has thoughts about Cindy Sheehan's planned "open-ended" fast

Adloyada wonders whether bloggers campaingns helped to free blogger Alaa from an Egyptian prison.

IsraelForum.com introduces Blog Central, which not only lists your posts, but also provides feedback on each entry.

The Astute Blogger had an early post on the Al-Aksa claim to have WMD, and has some updates as well.

At Level Ground recalls that the Palestinian chemical weapon threat is nothing new. And don't forget to check out his podcasts.

The Colossus of Rhodey reports that the University of Colorado Boulder intends to fire Ward "Little Hitlers" Churchill

Soccer Dad has a post, with some insightful feedback, on the question of what Pro-Israel blogging is all about

Technorati Tag: Israel and Judaism and Blogs and Politics.

Real Freedom Fighters Don't Use WMD

At least that's how it use to be. But now, the media whitewashes Palestinian terrorists when they use suicide belts and fire Kassams and now Katyushas. What's more--Al Aksa is now claiming to have WMD: chemical and biological weapons, and who in the media is reporting it so far?

• Jerusalem Post
• Arutz Sheva
• The Hindu News Update Service (see paragraph 8)

Reliapundit was on the story early and sees this claim, following on the heels of the kidnapping of an IDF soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, as an attempt--backed by Iran--to provoke war and divert attention from Iraq and Afghanistan on the one hand and Iran's nuclear program on the other.

According to Haaretz, Israel is asking Kofi Annan and Secretary of State Rice to apply pressure on Abbas to secure Shalit's release, the idea being that the abduction is a test of Abbas' leadership and he should stay in Gaza to see that the crisis is resolved.

Even if Abbas is able to pull this off, that still leaves the WMD claim. What are the chances that the West will then expect Israel to sit still with such a threat, even unverified, on its doorstep and rely once again on negotiations.

Captain's Quarters makes two interesting points:

1. Either Al Aksa is bluffing--big mistake, or they really have the weapons--in which case "they have just signed the death warrants of both Hamas and Fatah and quite possibly the Palestinian Authority," the idea being that faced with real Genocide, Israel has no option but to defend herself to the full extent possible. In such a case, according to the Captain, even the West will not stand in Israel's way.

2. According to Al Aksa, these weapons were 3 years in the making. Since they do not have the wherewithal to manufacture this stuff, it must have been acquired. That would point to Syria, rumored to having acquired stockpiles of WMD from Iraq prior to the American invasion. In that case:

The Palestinians have just tipped us off to where the WMD went, and now we know where at least some it may have ended up. The Israelis may not be alone in marching through Gaza and the West Bank.

A Blog For All notes that the various International Laws the Palestinian terrorists have broken don't seem to matter to them very much. Of course, for that matter, no one in the West seems to be making much of that point either--though Justice Minister Ramon's comments this past Thursday come to mind.

A different reaction comes from Riehl World View:

I wouldn't be surprised if the group claims this isn't their doing and it's actually an Israeli intelligence operation meant to justify any possible incursion into Gaza. In any event, I fail to see the wisdom in announcing one has such weaponry if you haven't or aren't intending to use it. It doesn't make sense.

Back in December 2003, in an article for Frontpage, Emanuel Winston wrote about the various possible consequences of the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state on the other side of the Security Fence:

6. WMD, Weapons of Mass Destruction. Since the territory abandoned by Sharon will now be free of Israelis patrols or the IDF's snap raids, the Arab Palestinians can import WMD - including NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical). Hezb-Allah, Al Qaeda, PFLP, PLO, Tanzim, Al Aksa Brigades, Hamas, et al will have no problem in acquiring NBC - WMD (Weapons of Mass Death) from Iran and Syria which would easily pass into Arab Palestinian hands - and may already have. Israeli intelligence definitely knows that of the 10,000 missiles on the Lebanese border in the zone abandoned by Barak, a substantial number have chemical warheads.

Didn't take long. The Palestinians don't even have a state yet and not only have they been recognized by the Red Cross, they also now claim to have the ability to destroy life en masse as well.

See also Jerusalem Post: Al-Aksa claims biological, chemical capabilities

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinians and Al-Aksa and WMD and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Jerusalem Post: Al-Aksa claims biological, chemical capabilities

Either this is another empty boast or we have just turned a corner, sharply. It puts the ball simultaneously in both Israel's and Abbas' court.

Al-Aksa claims biological, chemical capabilities
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

The Aksa Martyrs' Brigades group announced on Sunday that it its members have succeeded in manufacturing chemical and biological weapons to be used against Israel.

In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group, which belongs to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, said the weapons were the result of an effort that has lasted for three years.

The statment was a response to an Israeli Security Cabinet decision to give the IDF the green light to prepare all the forces necessary for a military operation against Gaza terror cells.

As of 9:00 p.m. a large contingency of Golani and Givati Brigade infantry troops, along with elite units, were amassing on the Israeli side of the Gaza security fence for a possible ground operation there to rescue kidnapped soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

According to the statement, the first of its kind, the group managed to manufacture and develop at least 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons.

The group said its members would not hesitate to add the new weapons to long-range rockets that are being fired at Israeli communities almost every day. It also threatened to use the weapons against IDF soldiers if Israel carried out its threats to invade the Gaza Strip.

"We want to tell [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz that your threats don't frighten us," the leaflet said. "We will surprise you with our new weapons the moment the first soldier sets his foot in the Gaza Strip."

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinians and Al-Aksa and WMD and Weapons of Mass Destruction

See also: Real Freedom Fighters Don't Use WMD

The Israeli Airstrike On Iran

Over at The National Review's The Corner, Jonah Goldberg has a number of posts and email responses from readers about the odds for a successful Israeli preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Some of the emails posted are from people with a military background.

For instance, a reader with background in military research claims:

The Israelis have a deep strike capability with their Dolphin-class (Germany Type 212) submarines. They have a demonstrated land-attack capability with cruise missiles. Of course, they are pretty secretive, but you can bet they have some sort of deep-strike capability that hasn’t been broadly announced yet.

This is rebutted by Airforce Pundit who counters:

Unfortunately, as a military planner for Air Force tactical and strategic strikes the effects of an Israeli attack will not be conducive to success.

Can they actually send a squadron or two of F-16 I and F-15 E over Iran? Probably they can. But they have to deal with the Iranian air defense system, the Iranian Air Force, and a round trip covering 3,000 miles. They would have to ingress and egress over at least three Arab countries- including one which is occupied by Americans (meaning they would need IFF codes to avoid being shot down by OUR aircraft). They would have to strike over 40 WMD targets- carrying extra fuel in drop tanks.

At the same time, the Iranian WMD encompasses dozens of production facilities, with buildings underground heavily protected (probably our Bunker Buster or JDAM ammunition will not suffice in one strike). A pinprick attack on Iran will lead to Hezbollah firing of ten thousand katyushas, terror attacks by Hamas/Islamic Jihad, and Iranian terror attacks on Jewish facilities around the world.

Unfortunately, ONLY the US Air Force has the number of appropriate strike craft as well as advantageous airfields to seriously degrade the Iranian WMD program.

According to Goldberg, the majority of readers who emailed in response to Airforce Pundit's point agree with him. However there were some who did not. On the one hand, Confederate Yankee refers to a post where he researched the issue of Israel's military capabilities and comes to the conclusion that Israel has the capability to take out the reactors--though his post was written in December last year and anticipated an Israeli response by March.

The other response is from someone with first-hand knowledge of the Israeli pilots themselves. He writes:

It was my privilege in the 70’s to help train the first pilots for the Israeli AF in the F-15. In the mid 60’s I had some Iranian pilots in my Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) Class. The contrast between the Arab and Israeli was more than dramatic. The Israeli’s were in a class by themselves. One of the conversations I had in a debriefing with an Israeli pilot was illuminating. He had used up all of his airspeed/energy trying to get a shot on me (I was the Instructor) and I was able to reverse the tables and get a shot on him. I remarked in the debrief that he just needed to be a bit more patient, maintain his energy and he would have been able to get a shot in a minute or two. As it was, he had pissed away his energy and I was able to take advantage. His response was illuminating and a light bulb came on. He said: “George, you must understand we fight the man, not the machine and the Arab isn’t capable of doing what you did!” A light bulb went on and I have never forgotten that mission. The Israeli’s fly two to three times a day. They are young, aggressive and extremely skilled. They are smart and they will not be beaten by the Iranian Air Force, as they have also never been beaten by the Syrian/Egyptian/Iraqi Air Forces. The Iranian’s don’t fly often and their aviating skills are less than stellar!

As far as can the Israelis attack Iran with success the answer is yes. There are significant obstacles but if the survival of Israel is at stake, they will find a way, and I do not believe any weapon the Israelis have will be off limits!

Even assuming that Israel has the potential to carry something like this off, the longer the delay in doing it, the more time Iran has to fortify it's nuclear facilities. Iran has already established fortified control towers for Hizbollah on the Israeli-Lebanese border less than 100 yards from Israeli positions and has provided them with heavy mortars and rockets--effectively openning a second front with Israel.

With the element of surprise long gone and the tension building, if Israeli was going to do something--wouldn't they have done it already?

Update:
Soccer Dad points out 2 interesting posts on the subject:

VolkaPundit has a post back in February pointing to a post at The Officer's Club that examines how daunting a task would face Israel in terms of the logistics vis-a-vis Israel's assumed capabilities.

Professor Bainbridge has a post from December on the limitations on what even a successful Israeli--or American--strike could accomplish. He quotes American Thinker on reports that Israel actually has bases in northern Iraq, and on the possible repurcussions.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Iran and Hizbollah.

In Iraq and Israel, The Fix Is In

One of the things that Iraq and Israel have in common is a sizeable group that charges that there is a consistent bias in the way events are being reported in the media. Another thing that Iraq and Israel have in common--which may in part explain the first--are stringers.

In Myths of Iraq, retired US army officer Ralph Peters writes about what he sees as one of the reasons for the media bias in their reporting on Iraq regarding claims of civil war, Iraqi disunity, expanding terrorism, and hatred of the US military:

The dangerous nature of journalism in Iraq has created a new phenomenon, the all-powerful local stringer. Unwilling to stray too far from secure facilities and their bodyguards, reporters rely heavily on Iraqi assistance in gathering news. And Iraqi stringers, some of whom have their own political agendas, long ago figured out that Americans prefer bad news to good news. The Iraqi leg-men earn blood money for unbalanced, often-hysterical claims, while the Journalism 101 rule of seeking confirmation from a second source has been discarded in the pathetic race for headlines.

Peters does not go into detail about the background of these stringers, but Richard Miniter, author of Disinformation, Shadow War, and Losing Bin Laden, does--in an interview with Roger Simon for Pajama Media. (available in Quicktime or Windows Media) Mudville Gazette has a transcript of a piece of the interview, in which Miniter points to stringers, whom he refers to as fixers, as a reason behind the slant in the reporting on Iraq:

Who does CNN have working for them now covering the Iraq war?

The same people, the same Iraqi fixers.

So lets see, it's 1946, it's Germany, I need to understand German. Why don't I hire some Nazis to interview some Jewish survivors and explain post-war Germany by hiring Nazis?

They're hiring Ba'athist Sunnis, that's why the coverage is so bad. They went from imbedded with the US troops and just reporting what they saw, and the effect was marvelous. It was accurate, it was up to date, it was interesting, it changed all the time.

And now it's formulaic and idealogical.

Why?

Because their fixers, their intermediaries between their safe little lives in the Palestine or al Rashid Hotels and the outside world are former members of
the regime.

Peters sums up the problem of the reporters' reliance on the fixers:

Dependence on the unverified reports of local hires has become the dirty secret of semi-celebrity journalism in Iraq as Western journalists succumb to a version of Stockholm Syndrome in which they convince themselves that their Iraqi sources and stringers are exceptions to every failing and foible in the Middle East. The mindset resembles the old colonialist conviction that, while other "boys" might lie and steal, our house-boy's a faithful servant.

The information for which the reporters rely on their Iraqi fixers to provide is both biased and unreliable--a claim made about the reporters reliance on similarly biased fixers in Israel. In Israel's Media Problem, Hillel Halkin refers to the new book, The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for Media Supremacy by Stephanie Gutmann. He writes about the fixer, who in contrast to the institutionalized bureaucracy of the Israeli government is

a person, generally young, educated, and with a good command of English, who accompanies correspondents in the territories, informs them of interesting subjects and possible scoops, arranges appointments and interviews for them, translates for them from the Arabic, explains to them nuances of scenes or conversations that they may have missed, knows the back roads and streets that will get them around military checkpoints, and acts as a guarantor of their safety, assuring local residents that they are not Israeli secret agents and negotiating their way into and out of potentially difficult situations. "Fixers" are not cheap, but a good one is an indispensable asset, and just about all foreign correspondents in Israel have their regular or regulars on whom they depend.

Just like in Iraq, it is not hard to see where simple reliance becomes complete dependency--and empathy.

Since one's "fixer" is generally an intelligent and articulate expounder of the Palestinian point of view, this puts Israel at a disadvantage—all the more so because, whereas the correspondent's dealings with Israelis take place mostly in offices, at press conferences, and at army roadblocks, the "fixer" often brings him to Palestinian homes, where he is introduced to families, treated graciously, and told the stories of the people he meets and their complaints against the Israeli occupation. He is thus far more likely to encounter Palestinians who have suffered from Israeli military action than Israelis who have suffered from Palestinian terror—and if he does get to know Israeli families, they are likely to live in his own upper-class neighborhood and belong to the socio-economic group that least frequently rides the buses, shops in the markets, or resides in the places where terror commonly strikes, and that is also the most liberal, dovish, and pro-Palestinian of any in Israel.

It is not surprising, then, that even if they do not take up their posts with a
bias against Israel, many journalists develop one during their stay there.

Unfortunately, in the case of reporters stationed in Israel, this reliance often sinks into absurd intellectual and professional laziness. As is the case in Iraq, the Palestinian fixers have their own agenda, and as Honest Reporting notes, the extent of the biased reliance on fixers just widens and deepens:

the Jerusalem Post reported that two of the largest wire services ― Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Associated Press (AP) ― have employed journalists with inappropriately close ties to the Palestinian Authority. Majida al-Batsh was a Palestinian affairs correspondent for AFP for many years, while simultaneously being on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority as a reporter for the PA's official organ, Al-Ayyam.

If this is not evidence enough of impropriety at AFP, last year Batsh announced she would actually run for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. The Post reports:

Her colleagues claim that shortly before she joined the race [for PA president], Batsh resigned from the news agency, saying she wanted to devote her time to the election campaign. However, they add, this did not prevent her from seeking the agency's help in her campaign.

"One day she showed up and asked to use the fax machine to send some documents," reports one coworker. "The agency did not object."

Batsh isn't the only AFP reporter receiving a PA salary on the side:

One of the agency's correspondents in the Gaza Strip is Adel Zanoun, who also happens to be the chief reporter in the area for the PA's Voice of Palestine radio station.

The AFP bureau chief in Jerusalem, Patrick Anidjar, refuses to discuss the issue, saying, "I don't understand why you have to have the name of our correspondents." Pressed to give a specific answer, he says: "I don't want our correspondents' names to go into print. I don't want to answer the question. What is this, a police investigation?"

Meanwhile, Muhammad Daraghmeh ― who turns out near-daily reports from Ramallah or Jerusalem for the Associated Press ― also works for the PA's Al-Ayyam, according to the Jerusalem Post (and a pro-Palestinian site).

The claim has often been made that Israel has failed abominably in hasbarah and in properly presenting its side and seeing that it is covered by the media. The same might be said of President and the White House in failing to see to it that its version of the situation in Iraq is presented in the media--both at home and abroad. Both the US and Israel find themselves isolated among the West, a situation intensified by a persistant media bias based on a constant stream of unreliable information. Both need to realize the extent and source of the media bias--and if it's 'fixed', break it.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Iraq and USA and Bush and Media Bias.

Jay Bennish: Anti-Bush...and Anti-Israel

Many have come out both supportive and critical of Jay Bennish and the lesson (considering everything he said, it was much more than just comments) to his geography class.

There is a transcript of the tape made of Bennish's comments written by Michelle Malkin and she has a link to comments from a former student on a talk show.
You can hear the audio of the class here.

Bennish does more than make comments critical of Bush and the US, he also makes comments about Israel:

So, why does Mr. Bush think that other countries that are democracies won't wanna be like us? Why does he think they'll just wanna be at peace with each other?! What makes him think that when the Palestinians get their own state that they won't wanna preemptively invade Israel to eliminate a potential threat to their security just like we supposedly did in Iraq?! Do you see the dangerous precedent that we have set by illegally invading another country and violating their sovereignty in the name of protecting us against a potential future--sorry--attack? [Unintelligible.]

An odd comparison--considering the Palestinian Arab attacks, bombings, and murders contrasted with Israel's apparently neverending concessions, the Disengagment, and release of murderers--with a country like Iraq that in the past has been aggressive towards fellow Moslem countries, attacking Kuwait and being in a long war with Iran.

Of course Iraq and the Palestinians do have one clear thing in common--the murder of their own people.

...We told--Condoleezza Rice said--that now that Hamas got elected to lead the Palestianians that they have to renounce their desire to eliminate Israel. And then Condoleezza Rice also went on to say that you can't be for peace and support armed struggle at the same time. You can't do that. Either you're for peace or war. But you can't be for both.

What is the problem with her saying this? That's the same thing we say. That is exactly the same thing this current administration says. We're gonna make the world safe by invading and killing and making war. So, if we can be for peace and for war, well, why can't the Palestinians be for peace and for war?!

"We're gonna make the world safe by invading and killing and making war"--I don't recall hearing this as the official US motto. It's not clear whether Bennish is referring to Afghanistan where Bin Laden was hiding or Iraq, which both the New York Post and Investors Business Daily report had, under Saddam Hussein, lied about their WMD program?

His student has a question too...

*Student Sean Allen, who is taping Bennish's rant, speaks up:*

Allen: Isn't there a difference of, of, having Hamas being like, we wanna attack Israelis because they're Israelis, and having us say we want to attack people who are known terrorists? Isn't there a difference between saying we're going to attack innocents and we're going to attack people who are not innocent?

1007

Bennish: I think that's a good point. But you have to remember who's doing the defining of a terrorist. And what is a terrorist?

Allen: Well, when people attack us on our own soil and are actually attempting to take American lives and want to take American lives, whereas, Israelies in this situation, aren't saying we want to blow up Palestine...

Bennish: How did Israel and the modern Israeli state even come into existence in the first place?

Allen: We gave it to them.

Neither the student, nor apparently Mr. Bennish, is aware of the continued Jewish presence in cities such as Safed and Jerusalem and the Jewish immigration into Palestine that started in the latter part of the 19th century.

Bennish: Sort of. Why? After the Israel-Zionist movement conducted what? Terrorist acts. They assassinated the British prime minster in Palestine. They blew up buildings. They stole military equipment. Assassinated hundreds of people. Car bombings, you name it. That's how the modern state of Israel was made. Was through violence and terrorism. Eventually we did allow them to have the land. Why? Not because we really care, but because we wanted a strategic ally. We saw a way to us to get a hook into the Middle East.

If we create a modern nation of Israel, then, and we make them dependent on us for military aid and financial aid, then we can control a part of the Middle East. We will have a country in the Middle East that will be indebted to us.

Dignan's 75 Year Plan blog notes, among numerous other errors and mis-statements of fact by Bennish:

Statement: They [Israel] assassinated the British prime minister in Palestine.

Fact: I assume he's talking about Lord Moyne, Minister Resident for the Middle East, who was assassinated in Cairo, Egypt in 1944.

Statement: Israeli terrorists used "Car bombings, you name it".

Fact: One truck bomb, actually (1/4/1948).

I would also be curious about where Bennish gets his "assassinations of hundreds of people" and who they were.

Of course there is the issue of distinguishing between the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi. It was Ben Gurion who said at the outset of WWII, "We shall fight the war against Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war" and the Irgun that agreed to help the British by sending a group to Iraq to blow up their refineries in 1941. While the issue is not black and white, it was only Lehi that could be described as a "self described terrorist group." The murder of Lord Moyne resulted in The Hunting Season, where close to a thousand people were turned over to the British--which stands in sharp contrast to the failure of the PLA to keep its obligation to disarm Palestinian terrorists as required by the Road Map. By lumping the 3 groups together, Bennish glosses over an important issue and misleads his students.

Allen: But is it ok to say it's just to attack Israel? If it's ok to attack known terrorists, it's ok to attack Israel?

Bennish: If you were Palestinians, who are the real terrorists? The Israelis, who fire missiles that they purchased from the United States government into Palestinian neighborhoods and refugees and maybe kill a terrorist, but also kill innocent women and children. And when you shoot a missile into Pakistan to quote-unquote kill a known terrorist, and we just killed 75 people that have nothing to do with al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, we're the terrorists. We've attacked them on their soil with the intention of killing their innocent people.

Besides the issue of Palestinian terrorists purposely hiding among civilians and the extent to which Israel has tried to minimize casualties in these cases, is the simple fact that Palestinian terrorists are purposely trying to kill civilians while Israel is not.

Bennish certainly did not make racist claims about Israel, and he saved comparisons with Hitler for his comments about Bush. To fully appreciate what Bennish's class was like, you should listen to the audio and form your own opinion.

I had a teacher in High School who also taught about US history and policy and discussed American Imperialism. However he used textbooks and homework to make his points--he did not use the classroom as a soapbox for comments that reveal an ignorance of the topics he is supposedly teaching to his class.

In that class, there was never an interchange like this from Bennish's class:

Bennish: Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?!
Student: We are.
Bennish: The United States of America! And we're a democracy. Quote-unquote.

The syllabus for his Accelerated World Geography course does not indicate which textbook he used or what readings would be assigned. The father of the student who taped the class said on a talk show that other students from past years will also come forward to describe what Mr. Bennish's class was like.

Some of Bennish's defenders claim that this is a free speech issue. There are, however, some questions to consider:

1. Was this a lesson or a rant.
2. Was the information he gave to the class actually factually correct
3. Was there an opportunity for rebuttal from the students
4. Was the teacher egged on by the student who taped him (The Lauer defense)

1. If this was all just a rant, then perhaps the worst that can be said is that Bennish lost control and a slap on the wrist may be sufficient.

2. If what he said was factually incorrect--and Dignan's blog goes to great length to point out and substantiate numerous factual errors made by Bennish--then the consequences that Bennish faces should be far more severe. This is more than just free speech--Bennish is a teacher who, unlike a letter to the editor, is expected to maintain a certain level of accuracy.

3. The opportunity for student rebuttal is a point that really does not carry much weight, seeing that we are dealing here with high school students, who generally are very likely to accept whatever a teacher says, as truth--and the more radical the better. It's not clear that Bennish has any better grasp of the facts than his students.

4. Considering that the student does not speak up on the tape until a little less than half way into Bennish's taped remarks, after Bennish's Bush/Hitler comparison, it makes no sense to say he was egged on (assuming the student's question can even be interpreted that way), unless there is some comment the student made previous to the taping. Of course, it also odd for a teacher to say provocative things to his students and then whine when they follow his example.

Why is it that people who try to be provocative get so upset when they are successful?

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Bush and Bennish and Free Speech and Terrorism.

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq I: "Imminent Threat"

Last week President Bush took the offensive in responding to the negative attacks of the Democrats on his handling of the war in Iraq--in his Veterans Day speech, Then the White House website posted a response to Senator Ted Kennedy's answer to Bush's speech. Today, the White House has a response to an article in the Washington Post.

I wanted to take a crack at this myself, so based on an interview Senator Kennedy did with Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room, I want to take 5 points made by Senator Kennedy and see some of what the blogosphere offers in terms of a response.

I'm going to break the post into 5 pieces so it's easier to read.


1. Kennedy mentions "imminent threat":

The fact is, we have known that Saddam Hussein was a -- a tyrant. We know he was a threat. The real issue, was he an imminent threat to the United States? The president never could have carried the vote in the United States Senate unless he represented that there was an imminent threat to the United States, because Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons or he was right in the proximity of developing it, and, secondly, that he had close associations with al Qaeda. [emphasis added]

But Bush did not say there was an imminent threat. In his State of Union message, Bush said:

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

Bush says very clearly that he does not think the threat is imminent. He says explicitly the very opposite, that the threat is not imminent but we cannot afford to wait.

So who has said the threat is imminent?

John Edwards said it. According to the National Review, February 24, 2002, John Edwards said, "I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country."

There is even audio of John Edwards telling CNN's Late Edition in 2002:

"I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country. And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat."

Who else said there was an imminent threat? Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller. Powerline has a transcript from an interview Senator Rockefeller hadwith Chris Wallace just yesterday:

WALLACE: Now, the President never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. The – I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq – that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11. Now, the intelligence that they had and the intelligence that we had were probably different. We didn't get the Presidential Daily Briefs. We got only a finished product, a finished product, a consensual view of the intelligence community, which does not allow for agencies like in the case of the aluminum tubes, the Department of Energy said these aren't thick enough to handle nuclear power. They left that out and went ahead with they have aluminum tubes and they're going to develop nuclear power.

WALLACE: Senator, you're quite right. You didn't get the Presidential Daily Brief or the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief. You got the National Intelligence Estimate. But the Silberman Commission, a Presidential commission that looked into this, did get copies of those briefs, and they say that they were, if anything, even more alarmist, even less nuanced than the intelligence you saw, and yet you, not the President, said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. [emphasis added]

See also:

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq II: "The Rush to War"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq III: "Iraq & Al Qaeda"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq IV: "WMD"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq V: "Niger"

Technorati Tag: Iraq War.

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq II: "The Rush to War"

2. The "rush to war"

Kennedy says:

There's no question this was the administration that rushed to war.

What constitutes a rush to war? The phrase itself has become commonly used.

James Taranto in OpinionJournal has a piece tracing the use of the phrase. The earliest example that he gives is from a headline in The Nation
on August 7, 2002.

After giving a few more examples, Taranto writes:

You get the idea. By the time the liberation of Iraq begins in earnest, perhaps a month from now, critics of the Bush administration will have spent at least six months complaining about the "rush to war." But half a year's preparation is no rush; it's more of a saunter. (In comparison, it was less than four weeks after Sept. 11 that the first bombs fell on Afghanistan.)

In actuality, the war began on March 20, 2003--about 8 months later.

At the time of Taranto's piece, there were "6,570 pages containing the phrase and the word Iraq." If you do a search today, you'll find about 252,000.

Taranto notes, "'Rush to war' is not an argument; it is a slogan, a substitute for thought"

See also:

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq I: "Imminent Threat"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq III: "Iraq & Al Qaeda"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq IV: "WMD"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq V: "Niger"

Technorati Tag: Iraq War.

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq III: "Iraq & Al Qaeda"

3. Al Qaeda and Iraq

Kennedy said, "The 9/11 Commission has dismissed the al Qaeda connection"

"Dismissed" implies that according to the commission there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq--but that is not what the report says.

In an article in the National Review, Andrew McCarthy quotes the commission's report, Statement No. 15:

Bin Laden also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Laden had in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Laden to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.

McCarthy points out:

Just taken on its own terms, this paragraph is both internally inconsistent and ambiguously worded. First, it cannot be true both that the Sudanese arranged contacts between Iraq and bin Laden and that no "ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq." If the first proposition is so, then the "[t]wo senior Bin Laden associates" who are the sources of the second are either lying or misinformed.

The argument that the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda is stronger and more formal than what the committee concludes can be found in the article "Case Closed:
From the November 24, 2003 issue: The U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden"

See also:

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq I: "Imminent Threat"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq II: "The Rush to War"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq IV: "WMD"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq V: "Niger"

Technorati Tag: Iraq War.

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq IV: "WMD"

4. Weapons of Mass Destruction

Kennedy said, "and the various weapons inspectors have dismissed the -- the other claim ("Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons or he was right in the proximity of developing it")"

First of all, Hans Blix--in an address to the UN Security Council on January 27, 2003--said the following:

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.

The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

Another issue regarding the WMD that has not been fully resolved is whether any components could have been moved from Iraq to Syria before the war.

David Kay, the former head of the coalition's hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, believed that some comonents were moved:

"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."

A side point to this is the claim that the only reason given for the war was the existence of the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Apparently even the New York Times was confused by this--Andrew Sullivan shows that in less than 12 months the Times forgot the reasons Bush gave:

BAIT AND SWITCH:

"President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night [at his American Enterprise Institute speech] of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. Instead of focusing on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, or reducing the threat of terror to the United States, Mr. Bush talked about establishing a 'free and peaceful Iraq' that would serve as a 'dramatic and inspiring example' to the entire Arab and Muslim world, provide a stabilizing influence in the Middle East and even help end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time." -- New York Times editorial, February 27, 2003.

"The White House recently began shifting its case for the Iraq war from the embarrassing unconventional weapons issue to the lofty vision of creating an exemplary democracy in Iraq." -- New York Times editorial, today [November 13, 2003].

See also:

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq I: "Imminent Threat"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq II: "The Rush to War"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq III: "Iraq & Al Qaeda"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq V: "Niger"

Technorati Tag: Iraq War.

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq V: "Niger"

5. Niger

Kenndy says:

In spite of that, we find out, of course now, that the president gave assurances to the American people that Saddam Hussein was searching for nuclear materials in Africa, even though at the very time he was making that statement, the Central Intelligence Agency knew that to be false

But the source for claiming that Iraq was not looking for nuclear material in Niger is Joe Wilson, about whom the Washington Post wrote in July 2004:

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

Bottom line, there is plenty of room for debate and finally clearing the air on what was thought, known, and said prior to invading Iraq. But for certain Democrats to come out and make claims that are either demonstrably false or questionable belies a a level of partisan politics that undermines us all.

Part of the blame falls on the White House for not taking the lead in hammering out the reasons for war before the invasion and repeating those reasons all along.

Maybe now the White House will go on the offensive clarifying and disseminating the facts and engaging in a healthy debate with those who have doubts and in so doing serve the best interests of the country.

(Thank you to Biur Chametz for correcting my geography: Niger is not Nigeria)

See also:

Responding to Kennedy on Iraq I: "Imminent Threat"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq II: "The Rush to War"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq III: "Iraq & Al Qaeda"
Responding to Kennedy on Iraq IV: "WMD"

Technorati Tag: Iraq War.