From those champions of justice at the Associated Press:

Man arrested in mugging of woman, 101

By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer Sat Apr 28

NEW YORK – She was brutally mugged in a crime that outraged New Yorkers, but the 101-year-old victim said the attack hasn’t intimidated her.

“I’m not fearful at all,” Rose Morat said Friday as police made an arrest in the case. “Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”

Jack Rhodes, 44, was arrested on charges of robbery, grand larceny, burglary and assault, police said. They did not have an address for Rhodes, who was also accused of robbing an 85-year-old woman the same day Morat was attacked, police said.

“I am so sorry for what happened,” Rhodes said as he was led out of a police station, the New York Post reported Saturday.

Police began questioning Rhodes after noticing he matched a photo of a person wanted for questioning in robberies of women in Queens. He was initially held on a charge of possession of a crack pipe.

There was no telephone listing for Rhodes in the New York metropolitan area, and police did not know whether he was represented by a lawyer.

“If it’s the right man, it’s wonderful,” Morat told The Associated Press when reached Friday by phone.

Morat’s March 4 holdup was captured on a surveillance tape. It shows Morat, who was using a walker, trying to leave her apartment building to go to church.

The mugger, who looms over her and is holding onto a bicycle, pretends to help her get through the vestibule. Then he turns to grab Morat’s head, delivers three hard punches to her face and swipes her purse. The dazed victim tries to reach for her purse when the mugger hits her again, pushing her and her walker to the ground.

He got away with $33 and Morat’s house keys. She suffered a fractured cheekbone and spent time in the hospital.

Morat told the AP on Friday that she’s feeling better, though her doctor has told her to try to slow down.

She previously declared that if she’d been just a bit younger, she’d have gone after the guy…

Just another tile in the gorgeous mosaic.

From the oh so ”PC” PC Magazine:

Dan Rather Issues Warning About the Future of News

04.26.07

By Kyle Monson

We sat down with veteran news anchor Dan Rather, formerly of CBS News and now with HDNet, to chat about technology, blogs versus mainstream media outlets, and the value of reporting (and watching) wars in high-definition. Rather also tells us what it’s like to have Mark Cuban for a boss.

Q: The trend in news right now is to shrink it down, to put it in smaller clips, and we’re watching it in smaller windows on small computer screens. And yet you’re broadcasting long-form journalism in high-definition on huge displays for people to watch. Do you feel like this gives the audience a chance to get more emotionally involved?

A: First of all, I think your analysis is correct. One thing that’s happening in journalism is that there are pressures to keep it short—as in KISS (Keep It Short, Stupid). There’s certainly a place for that. But it’s gone too far. I’ve always believed there’s a place for the longer form. I think the advantage to the viewer is when we do a story saying, for example, we want you to know what the war is—what it really is—as opposed to what someone wants you to believe it to be. And we’re going to spend an hour showing you in high definition, which is more detailed, more vivid, more in-depth than any pictorial war coverage in history. When we’re able to wed good reporting and good writing with the best pictures that have ever been on television, then there is added value for the viewer. For the first time in my career, I can spend every moment of every day concerning myself with the quality of the program, not the quantity of the audience. That’s been more liberating than I ever imagined it could be.

Q: Do you see a difference in reporting between TV news and newspapers, newsweekly magazines, or even blogs that don’t get into the field as much?

A: Some bloggers do get into the field, and I hope that tribe increases. Good journalism finds a way, whether it’s blogging or some other form on the Internet, as opposed to radio, TV, print, and so on. The fundamentals don’t change.

Q: Do you agree that new technologies make it easy for bloggers to capture reality and throw it in the face of those who would want to distort it?

A: New technologies can be used to our advantage to speak truth, expose corruption, and increase people’s knowledge. But we have to be careful on this new frontier—the Internet, iPods, pictures on phones, and so on—to be ever alert to the potential for propaganda.

Oh, my sides.

No, Mr. Rather, we can’t have that.

(This is just an excerpt. But if you are a glutton for comedy, go to the link for the full 27 minute video interview.)

From her undying fans at the Associated Press:

Clinton says her Southern twang a virtue

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she sees her sometimes Southern accent as a virtue.

“I think America is ready for a multilingual president,” Clinton said during a campaign stop at a charter school in Greenville, S.C.

The New York senator — who said she’s been thinking about critics who’ve suggested that she tried to put on a fake Southern accent in Selma, Ala. — noted that she’s split her life between Arkansas, Illinois and the East Coast.

Clinton added a Southern lilt to her voice last week when addressing a civil rights group in New York City headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton. On Monday, dealing with a microphone glitch at a fundraiser for young donors, she quoted former slave and underground railroad leader Harriet Tubman…

Clinton is a linguistic polyglot — a Chicago native turned New York resident who works in Washington and spent two decades living in Arkansas when her husband, Bill Clinton, was governor.

But observers have long noted her tendency to speak Southern primarily in front of black audiences, as she did with Sharpton last week and at a civil rights commemoration in Selma in March…

Hillary’s southern twang is about as authentic as her fan-dom for the New York Yankees.

But who knew that “talking black” constituted speaking another language?

From those lovers of beauty at Reuters:

Saudi tribe holds camel beauty pageant

By Andrew Hammond Fri Apr 27

GUWEI’IYYA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – The legs are long, the eyes are big, the bodies curvaceous.

Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference — the competitors are camels.

This week, the Qahtani tribe of western Saudi Arabia has been welcoming entrants to its Mazayen al-Ibl competition, a parade of the “most beautiful camels” in the desolate desert region of Guwei’iyya, 120 km (75 miles) west of Riyadh.

“In Lebanon they have Miss Lebanon,” jokes Walid, moderator of the competition’s Web site. “Here we have Miss Camel.” …

Camels are also big business in a country where strict Islamic laws and tribal customs would make it impossible for women to take part in their own beauty contest.

Delicate females or strapping males who attract the right attention during this week’s show could sell for a million or more riyals. Sponsors have provided 10 million riyals ($2.7 million) for the contest, cash that also covers the 72 sports utility vehicles to be will be awarded as prizes.

“Bedouin Arabs are intimately connected to camels and they want to preserve this heritage. The importance of this competition is that it helps preserve the pure-breds,” said Sheikh Omair, one of the tribe’s leaders…

Camel-drivers sing songs of praise to their prized possessions as they try to calm the animals down.

“Beautiful, beautiful!” the judge mutters quietly to himself, inspecting the group. Finalists have been decorated with silver bands and body covers.

“The nose should be long and droop down, that’s more beautiful,” explains Sultan al-Qahtani, one of the organizers. “The ears should stand back, and the neck should be long. The hump should be high, but slightly to the back.”

The camels are divided into four categories according to breed — the black majaheem, white maghateer, dark brown shi’l and the sufur, which are beige with black shoulders. Arabic famously has over 40 terms for different types of camel.

Some females have harnesses strapped around their genitalia to thwart any efforts by the males to mount them. One repeat offender called Marjaa has been moved away.

“This one would fetch a million!” says Hamad al-Sudani, a camel-driver, admiring the heavy stud, or fahl.

Chacun à son goat — er, goût.

From those hard-headed scientists at the New York Times:

Public Remains Split on Response to Warming

By JOHN M. BRODER and MARJORIE CONNELLY

April 27, 2007

Americans in large bipartisan numbers say the heating of the earth’s atmosphere is having serious effects on the environment now or will soon and think that it is necessary to take immediate steps to reduce its effects, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds.

Ninety percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said immediate action was required to curb the warming of the atmosphere and deal with its effects on the global climate. Nineteen percent said it was not necessary to act now, and 1 percent said no steps were needed.

Recent international reports have said with near certainty that human activities are the main cause of global warming since 1950. The poll found that 84 percent of Americans see human activity as at least contributing to warming.

The poll also found that Americans want the United States to support conservation and to be a global leader in addressing environmental problems and developing alternative energy sources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels like oil and coal…

Respondents expressed little confidence in President Bush’s handling of environmental or energy issues, and a majority of those polled, including many Republicans, said Democrats were more likely than Republicans to protect the environment and foster energy independence.

One-third approved Mr. Bush’s handling of the environment and 27 percent approved his approach to energy questions. Democrats have criticized Mr. Bush’s policies on energy and the environment almost from the day he took office. Those policies have also cost him some Republican support, the poll showed.

“I think the Republicans have slashed the funds for cleanup of the environment, and if it comes down to whether or not it will cost big business, forget about the cleanup,” said Ron Gellerman, 65, a respondent from Maple Grove, Minn., who said he was a Republican.

“The Democrats are more willing to spend dollars on pure research,” Mr. Gellerman added in a follow-up interview after the poll was completed. “They’re open to alternative sources of energy, like wind. We could save more energy by increasing the efficiency of our electrical system and our automobiles. And the Democrats would be more willing to look at that sort of thing because they’re not so beholden to Big Oil.” …

Americans broadly support using renewable energy sources like solar and wind power and say fueling vehicles with ethanol, which is now made largely from corn, is a good idea, the survey found.

They also are nearly evenly split on building nuclear power plants to reduce reliance on imported energy sources. When asked whether they would accept a nuclear plan in their community, they said no, 59 percent to 36 percent.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Friday to Tuesday with 1,052 adults. The margin-of-sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points…

A big majority, 75 percent, said recent weather had been stranger than usual, an increase of almost 10 percentage points from 1997. Of those who said the weather had turned weird, 43 percent attributed it to global warming and 15 percent to pollution or other environmental damage. Four percent cited the coming end of the world or biblical prophecy, and 2 percent blamed space junk.

Ten years ago, 5 percent of respondents blamed global warming for changes in the weather.

It just goes to show that if you repeat a lie long enough some people will come to believe it.

Recent international reports have said with near certainty that human activities are the main cause of global warming since 1950.

Which is pretty interesting in view of the “global cooling” that occured from 1940 through the late 1970s.

“I think the Republicans have slashed the funds for cleanup of the environment, and if it comes down to whether or not it will cost big business, forget about the cleanup,” said Ron Gellerman, 65, a respondent from Maple Grove, Minn., who said he was a Republican.

It wouldn’t be an official New York Times article if they hadn’t managed to drag out a purported lifelong “Republican” to bash the GOP.

Just to give you an idea of what a rock-ribbed Republican Mr. Ron Gellerman is, here is his views on a local politician from four years ago.

First the politician’s crime, via the homosexual agit-prop paper the Advocate:

Minn. Kampf – Politics – Minnesota state representative Arlon Lindner

Advocate, The, April 15, 2003

It was bad enough when Minnesota state representative Arlon Lindner introduced a bill that would repeal the state’s pro-gay human rights amendment and remove sexual orientation from its hate-crimes law. But then the Republican went on to suggest that the Nazis did not persecute gay people during World War II.

In an attempt to explain himself March 10, Lindner offended even more people. “What I am trying to prevent is the holocaust of our children getting STDs, AIDS, and various other diseases that are going to affect their lives,” he said on the house floor. “If you want to sit around here and wait until America becomes another African continent, well, then, you do that, but I’m going to do something about it.”

He may have trouble doing anything about it in the state legislature, though. Several of Lindner’s colleagues have filed ethics complaints against him previously, and house speaker Steve Sviggum said he had considered stripping him of his leadership position but decided against it.

“Republican” Ron Gellerman’s response, via the Minnesota State Fair Blog:

Update on Rep. Arlon Lindner:

Hometown doesn’t seem to reflect his views.”He’s got to be a complete idiot,” said Ron Gellerman, a 61-year-old cement contractor who was having lunch Tuesday in the 10-50 Club in “downtown” Corcoran, a formerly Irish and French hamlet consisting of a couple of bars, a Catholic church and a handful of shops.

There’s a job for a mayor of a Scottish town that Lindner might be better suited for. Last year football club mascot H’Angus the Monkey caused a sensation by being elected as Mayor of Hartlepool.

Isn’t it amazing how the New York Times is always able to find such characters to represent typical Republicans in their articles?

When asked whether they would accept a nuclear plan in their community, they said no, 59 percent to 36 percent.

Yes, we are supposed to believe that close to 40% of the citizenry would accept a nuclear power plant in their backyard.

This figure is about as plausible as the rest of the poll.

But how can you argue with “science”?

From a deeply saddened Reuters:

Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oil field at Shaybah in Saudi Arabia’s Rub al-Khali desert.

Saudi arrests suspects planning oil attacks

By Andrew Hammond

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia said on Friday it foiled an al Qaeda-linked plot to attack oil facilities and military bases, arresting more than 170 suspects, including some trainee pilots preparing for suicide operations.

The Interior Ministry, in a statement read on state television, also said police seized weapons and more than 20 million riyals ($5.33 million) in cash, from seven armed cells.

“Some had begun training on the use of weapons, and some were sent to other countries to study aviation in preparation to use them to carry out terrorist operations inside the kingdom,” the statement said.

“One of their main targets was to carry out suicide attacks against public figures and oil installations and to target military bases inside and outside (the country),” it added…

The ministry said the suspects had been “influenced by the deviant ideology,” a reference used by Saudi officials to refer to al Qaeda, led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden…

“It is obvious that the deviant group is still trying to revive its criminal activities in the kingdom,” Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said.

He said that a total of 172 suspects from seven cells have been arrested, mostly Saudis but including some foreigners, who had trained abroad.

“They are linked to foreign elements and had benefited from restive areas to recruit, plan and train (for attacks),” he added, in an apparent reference to Iraq, where up to 3,000 Saudi militants joined Iraqi insurgents to fight the U.S.-led forces.

The television showed police digging in desert areas and searching buildings, seizing weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, computers and bundles of money…

Of course they will all be given legal representation.

By the way, are we sure these worthies aren’t simply Gore-inspired “environmentalists”?

From Netherland Info Services:

School Scraps Nature Course As Pigs Enrage Muslim Pupils

AMSTERDAM, 27/04/07 – A school in Amsterdam has halted lessons on rural life because the Islamic children refused to talk about pigs. Reporting this, Alderman Lodewijk Asscher said he wants to take “tough measures.” Subsidies for all kinds of dubious groups must stop and parents of unruly children penalised financially.

Asscher told newspaper De Volkskrant: “A primary school in Amsterdam-Noord has decided no longer to teach about living on a farm. Various pupils began to demolish the classroom when the pig came up for discussion. Apparently it has gone that far. These children, 9, 10 years old, have not been given even the most elementary rules at home about why they must go to school.”

Asscher, who is also the Labour (PvdA) leader in Amsterdam, wants to subject the parents to an ‘upbringing requirement,’ enforced with negative financial spurs. He is thinking of cuts in the children’s allowance or lower welfare payments. In the Lower House, Youth and Family Minister Rouvoet recently rejected a plea for this from Party for Freedom (PVV).

Asscher also wants to prune the forest of subsidies for all kinds of foundations and organisations that say they work for multicultural goals. They receive 160 million euros annually from Amsterdam. Asscher wants to work out for each of these organisations in the “welfare industry” whether they do useful work and if not, halt the subsidy.

Asscher gave an example of abuse: “A Moroccan man took 50 youths off the streets, who were really an enormous nuisance. Now they collect wheelchairs for the handicapped in Surinam, Morocco and Turkey. Suddenly, a welfare body was set up alongside him, which is now trying to take the boys over from him, because they would then receive subsidies of 4,000 to 6,000 euros per kid. They are too timid to take these lads of the street themselves and now want them in their card-index because of the subsidy. Our Moroccan volunteer does not want to do it any more. I understand him.”

Asscher is also shocked by the powerlessness of welfare bodies who try to talk criminal youngsters back onto the right track. In Slotervaart district, a mother of 10 children, of whom half have a criminal record, is guided by 35 different social workers, the alderman discovered. They have little or no idea of what each other is doing, according to Asscher.

Sheer insanity.

From the terrorists’ friend Reuters:

Iraqis welcome U.S. Congress vote but fear vacuum

By Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqis are glad U.S. soldiers could soon depart but fearful of what they might leave behind, after the U.S. Congress approved a bill linking troop withdrawals to war funding.

“U.S. forces have to leave Iraq but not now,” said Abu Ali, a 47-year-old trader from the southern city of Basra, on Friday.

“The Iraqi government and its security forces are unable to control security, especially in Baghdad and its neighborhoods.”

Like many, he said tying funding to a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops over the next 11 months would force Iraq’s police and army units to shape up quicker.

“We demand a withdrawal but not in one go, so that there is no vacuum,” said Tarek Qader, a 55-year-old retiree from the northern city of Kirkuk.

Added Baghdad student Ali Adel: “The exit of the occupation has to be preceded by the building of Iraqi forces and national reconciliation.” …

“I’m glad some Americans have finally realized they are no longer welcome here,” said Hakim, a 25-year-old army officer in Baghdad who declined to give his last name…

Some Iraqis said a quick withdrawal would be dangerous. “I would expect a power struggle and the increase of violence,” said Mohammed Younis, a 43-year-old engineer.

Fellow Baghdadi Bassim Abdulla agreed. “Differences in Washington will encourage militants to increase their attacks after they realize Bush has lost domestic support for the war.”

“The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq without ensuring Iraqi troops can provide and maintain security will result in massacres and a humanitarian disaster,” said Omar al-Dulaimi, from Ramadi, in the volatile western Anbar province.

Others felt the presence of U.S. troops was fuelling the insurgency and their departure could only help.

“If the occupation leaves, all acts of violence in Iraq will end due to less suicide bombers, and the interference of neighboring countries will be unjustified,” said Qassim Uthman, a 51-year-old teacher…

Something tells me Reuters cherry-picked their interviews.

Once the US leaves Iraq, there will almost certainly be bloodshed. And the Iraqis — and of course the media — will howl endlessly about how we have abandoned Iraq to slaughter.

After all, we heard the same thing when we withdrew after Gulf War I.

From a News Release:

Statement by Senator Lieberman on Iraq Withdrawal Provision in Supplemental Appropriations Bill

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 26, 2007

WASHINGTON – Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) today addressed the Iraq withdrawal provision in the supplemental appropriations bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Below is the full text of Senator Lieberman’s speech, as prepared for delivery:

“Mr. President, the supplemental appropriations bill we are debating today contains language that would have Congress take control of the direction of our military strategy in Iraq.

Earlier this week the Senate Majority Leader spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center and laid out the case for why he believes we must do this—why the bill now before this chamber, in his view, offers a viable alternative strategy for Iraq.

I have great respect for my friend from Nevada. I believe he has offered this proposal in good faith, and therefore want to take it up in good faith, and examine its arguments and ideas carefully and in depth, for this is a very serious discussion for our country.

In his speech Monday, the Majority Leader described the several steps that this new strategy for Iraq would entail. Its first step, he said, is to “transition the U.S. mission away from policing a civil war—to training and equipping Iraqi security forces, protecting U.S. forces, and conducting targeted counter-terror operations.”

I ask my colleagues to take a step back for a moment and consider this plan.

When we say that U.S. troops shouldn’t be “policing a civil war,” that their operations should be restricted to this narrow list of missions, what does this actually mean?

To begin with, it means that our troops will not be allowed to protect the Iraqi people from the insurgents and militias who are trying to terrorize and kill them. Instead of restoring basic security, which General Petraeus has argued should be the central focus of any counterinsurgency campaign, it means our soldiers would instead be ordered, by force of this proposed law, not to stop the sectarian violence happening all around them—no matter how vicious or horrific it becomes.

In short, it means telling our troops to deliberately and consciously turn their backs on ethnic cleansing, to turn their backs on the slaughter of innocent civilians—men, women, and children singled out and killed on the basis of their religion alone. It means turning our backs on the policies that led us to intervene in the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the principles that today lead many of us to call for intervention in Darfur.

This makes no moral sense at all.

It also makes no strategic or military sense either.

Al Qaeda’s own leaders have repeatedly said that one of the ways they intend to achieve victory in Iraq is to provoke civil war. They are trying to kill as many people as possible today, precisely in the hope of igniting sectarian violence, because they know that this is their best way to collapse Iraq’s political center, overthrow Iraq’s elected government, radicalize its population, and create a failed state in the heart of the Middle East that they can use as a base.

That is why Al Qaeda blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra last year. And that is why we are seeing mass casualty suicide bombings by Al Qaeda in Baghdad now.

The sectarian violence that the Majority Leader says he wants to order American troops to stop policing, in other words, is the very same sectarian violence that Al Qaeda hopes to ride to victory. The suggestion that we can draw a bright legislative line between stopping terrorists in Iraq and stopping civil war in Iraq flies in the face of this reality.

I do not know how to say it more plainly: it is Al Qaeda that is trying to cause a full-fledged civil war in Iraq.

The Majority Leader said on Monday that he believes U.S. troops will still be able to conduct “targeted counter-terror operations” under his plan. Even if we stop trying to protect civilians in Iraq, in other words, we can still go after the bad guys.

But again, I ask my colleagues, how would this translate into military reality on the ground? How would we find these terrorists, who do not gather on conventional military bases or fight in conventional formations?

By definition, targeted counterterrorism requires our forces to know where, when, and against whom to strike—and that in turn requires accurate, actionable, real-time intelligence.

This is the kind of intelligence that can only come from ordinary Iraqis, the sea of people among whom the terrorists hide. And that, in turn, requires interacting with the Iraqi people on a close, personal, daily basis. It requires winning individual Iraqis to our side, gaining their trust, convincing them that they can count on us to keep them safe from the terrorists if they share valuable information about them. This is no great secret. This is at the heart of the new strategy that General Petraeus and his troops are carrying out.

And yet, if we pass this legislation, according to the Majority Leader, U.S. forces will no longer be permitted to patrol Iraq’s neighborhoods or protect Iraqi civilians. They won’t, in his words, be “interjecting themselves between warring factions” or “trying to sort friend from foe.”

Therefore, I ask the supporters of this legislation: How, exactly, are U.S. forces to gather intelligence about where, when, and against whom to strike, after you have ordered them walled off from the Iraqi population? How, exactly, are U.S. forces to carry out targeted counter-terror operations, after you have ordered them cut off from the very source of intelligence that drives these operations?

This is precisely why the congressional micromanagement of life-and-death decisions about how, where, and when our troops can fight is such a bad idea, especially on a complex and changing battlefield.

In sum, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t withdraw combat troops from Iraq and still fight Al Qaeda there. If you believe there is no hope of winning in Iraq, or that the costs of victory there are not worth it, then you should be for complete withdrawal as soon as possible.

There is another irony here as well.

For most of the past four years, under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the United States did not try to establish basic security in Iraq. Rather than deploying enough troops necessary to protect the Iraqi people, the focus of our military has been on training and equipping Iraqi forces, protecting our own forces, and conducting targeted sweeps and raids—in other words, the very same missions proposed by the proponents of the legislation before us.

That strategy failed—and we know why it failed. It failed because we didn’t have enough troops to ensure security, which in turn created an opening for Al Qaeda and its allies to exploit. They stepped into this security vacuum and, through horrific violence, created a climate of fear and insecurity in which political and economic progress became impossible.

For years, many members of Congress recognized this. We talked about this. We called for more troops, and a new strategy, and—for that matter—a new secretary of defense.

And yet, now, just as President Bush has come around—just as he has recognized the mistakes his administration has made, and the need to focus on basic security in Iraq, and to install a new secretary of defense and a new commander in Iraq—now his critics in Congress have changed their minds and decided that the old, failed strategy wasn’t so bad after all.

What is going on here? What has changed so that the strategy that we criticized and rejected in 2006 suddenly makes sense in 2007?

The second element in the plan outlined by the Majority Leader on Monday is “the phased redeployment of our troops no later than October 1, 2007.”

Let us be absolutely clear what this means. This legislation would impose a binding deadline for U.S. troops to begin retreating from Iraq. This withdrawal would happen regardless of conditions on the ground, regardless of the recommendations of General Petraeus, in short regardless of reality on October 1, 2007.

As far as I can tell, none of the supporters of withdrawal have attempted to explain why October 1 is the magic date—what strategic or military significance this holds. Why not September 1? Or January 1? This is a date as arbitrary as it is inflexible—a deadline for defeat.

How do proponents of this deadline defend it? On Monday, Senator Reid gave several reasons. First, he said, a date for withdrawal puts “pressure on the Iraqis to make the desperately needed political compromises.”

But will it? According to the legislation now before us, the withdrawal will happen regardless of what the Iraqi government does.

How, then, if you are an Iraqi government official, does this give you any incentive to make the right choices?

On the contrary, there is compelling reason to think a legislatively directed withdrawal of American troops will have exactly the opposite effect than its Senate sponsors intend.

This, in fact, is exactly what the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq predicted. A withdrawal of U.S. troops in the months ahead, it said, would “almost certainly lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict, intensify Sunni resistance, and have adverse effects on national reconciliation.”

Second, the Majority Leader said that withdrawing our troops, and again I quote, will “reduce the specter of the U.S. occupation which gives fuel to the insurgency.”

My colleague from Nevada, in other words, is suggesting that the insurgency is being provoked by the very presence of American troops. By diminishing that presence, then, he believes the insurgency will diminish.

But I ask my colleagues—where is the evidence to support this theory? Since 2003, and before General Petraeus took command, U.S. forces were ordered on several occasions to pull back from Iraqi cities and regions, including Mosul and Fallujah and Tel’Afar and Baghdad. And what happened in these places? Did they stabilize when American troops left? Did the insurgency go away?

On the contrary—in each of these places where U.S. forces pulled back, Al Qaeda rushed in. Rather than becoming islands of peace, they became safe havens for terrorists, islands of fear and violence.

So I ask advocates of withdrawal: on what evidence, on what data, have you concluded that pulling U.S. troops out will weaken the insurgency, when every single experience we have had since 2003 suggests that this legislation will strengthen it?

Consider the words of Sheikh Abdul Sattar, one of the leading Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province who is now fighting on our side against Al Qaeda. This is what he told the New York Times when asked last month what would happen if U.S. troops withdraw. “In my personal opinion, and in the opinion of most of the wise men of Anbar,” he said, “if the American forces leave right now, there will be civil war and the area will fall into total chaos.”

This is a man whose father was killed by Al Qaeda, who is risking his life every day to work with us—a man who was described by one Army officer as “the most effective local leader in Ramadi I believe the coalition has worked with… in Anbar [since] 2003.”

In his remarks earlier this week, the Majority Leader observed that there is “a large and growing population of millions—who sit precariously on the fence. They will either condemn or contribute to terrorism in the years ahead. We must convince them of the goodness of America and Americans. We must win them over.”

On this, I completely agree with my friend from Nevada. My question to him, however, and to the supporters of this legislation, is this: how does the strategy you propose in this bill possibly help win over this population of millions in Iraq, who sit precariously on the fence?

What message, I ask, does this legislation announce to those people in Iraq? How will they respond when we tell them that we will no longer make any effort to protect them against insurgents and death squads? How will they respond when we declare that we will be withdrawing our forces—regardless of whether they make progress in the next six months towards political reconciliation? Where will their hopes for a better life be when we withdraw the troops that are the necessary precondition for the security and stability they yearn for?

Do my friends really believe that this is the way to convince Iraqis, and the world, of the goodness of America and Americans? Does anyone in this chamber really believe that, by announcing a date certain for withdrawal, we will empower Iraqi moderates, or enable Iraq’s reconstruction, or open more schools for their children, or more hospitals for their families, or freedom for everyone?

Mr. President, with all due respect, this is fantasy.

The third step the Majority Leader proposes is to impose “tangible, measurable, and achievable benchmarks on the Iraqi government.”

I am all for such benchmarks. In fact, Senator McCain and I were among the first to propose legislation to apply such benchmarks on the Iraqi government.

But I don’t see how this plan will encourage Iraqis to meet these or any other benchmarks, given its ironclad commitment to abandon them—regardless of how they behave.

We should of course be making every effort to encourage reconciliation in Iraq and the development of a decent political order that Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds can agree on.

But even if today that political solution was found, we cannot rationally think that our terrorist enemies like Al Qaeda in Iraq will simply vanish.

Al Qaeda is not mass murdering civilians on the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenues. Its aim in Iraq is not to get a seat at the political table.

It wants to blow up the table—along with everyone seated at it. Al Qaeda wants to destroy any prospect for democracy in Iraq, and it will not be negotiated or reasoned out of existence. It must be fought and defeated through force of arms. And there can be no withdrawal, no redeployment from this reality.

The fourth step that the Majority Leader proposed on Monday is a “diplomatic, economic, and political offensive… starting with a regional conference working toward a long-term framework for stability in the region.”

I understand why we are tempted by these ideas. All of us are aware of the justified frustration, fatigue, and disappointment of the American people. And all of us would like to believe that there is a quick and easy solution to the challenges we face in Iraq.

But none of this gives us an excuse to paper over hard truths. We delude ourselves if we think we can wave a legislative wand and suddenly our troops in the field will be able to distinguish between Al Qaeda terrorism and sectarian violence, or that Iraqis will suddenly settle their political differences because our troops are leaving, or that sweet reason alone will suddenly convince Iran and Syria to stop destabilizing Iraq.

Mr. President, what we need now is a sober assessment of the progress we have made and a recognition of the challenges we face. There are still many uncertainties before us, many complexities. Barely half of the new troops that General Petraeus has requested have even arrived in Iraq, and, as we heard from him yesterday, it will still be months before we will know just how effective his new strategy is.

In following General Petraeus’ path, there is no guarantee of success—but there is hope, and a new plan, for success.

The plan embedded in this legislation, on the other hand, contains no such hope. It is a strategy of catchphrases and bromides, rather than military realities in Iraq. It does not learn from the many mistakes we have made in Iraq. Rather, it promises to repeat them.

Let me be absolutely clear: In my opinion, Iraq is not yet lost—but if we follow this plan, it will be. And so, I fear, much of our hope for stability in the Middle East and security from terrorism here at home.

I yield the floor.”

Of course the Democrats refused to listen.

They hate this country too much to listen to reason.

From those defenders of justice at the Washington Post:

Survivors of Tulsa Race Riots Seek Help From Congress for a Wrong Never Righted

By Lois Romano
Thursday, April 26, 2007; A27

Legendary black historian John Hope Franklin captivated a congressional hearing this week when he eloquently urged members to pass legislation that would clear the way for survivors of the nation’s worst race riots to sue for reparations.

The federal courts have ruled that the statute of limitations has expired for the victims and heirs to sue the city of Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma over losses during 1921 race riots that left more than 200 blacks dead and 400 businesses and countless homes in a prosperous black neighborhood torched. At the time, the legal system did not allow the black community any legal remedies.

“There was a code of silence that settled” over Tulsa, said Franklin, in explaining why legal action was not brought sooner. Those who survived, he said, “suffered most of their lives through the trauma.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said the issue merits congressional attention because of evidence suggesting that governmental officials deputized and armed the mob. Harvard legal scholar Charles J. Ogletree, who has been representing the victims, noted that “no one has ever been held responsible criminally or civilly for destroying a 42-block area.”

Ogletree introduced 104-year-old Otis Clark, a survivor of the riots, and asked the committee to provide justice to the remaining survivors before they die. University of Alabama law professor Alfred L. Brophy called the riots a way of keeping the blacks “in their place.” Olivia J. Hooker, six years old during the riots, said her mother told her “your country is shooting at you.”

“This was devastating to me,” she said at the hearing.

Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary subcommittee for civil rights seemed sympathetic to the arguments. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) arrived at the hearing with her cab driver, who told her he was interested in the legislation. He got an ovation.

Some members asked whether it would be enough to simply pledge that this would never happen again.

Franklin, 92, who was born in Oklahoma and whose father was in Tulsa at the time of the riots, argued that had the riots not occurred, many descendants might be further “along the road of prosperity.”

The prolific and revered educator told of a colossal slight at a private club where he had been celebrating his 1995 White House Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

“A white woman came up to me and said, ‘Here, you get my coat,’ ” he recalled. “What was I doing there except to serve her?

“‘No more’ is not good enough.” …

Read up on the 1921 Tulsa riots.

From a pro-reparations site:

The Riot began on May, 31,1921 because of an incident the day before. A black man named Dick Rowland, stepped into an elevator in the Drexel Building operated by a woman named Sarah Page. Suddenly, a scream was heard and Rowland got nervous and ran out. Rowland was accused of a sexual attack against Page. One version of the incident holds that Rowland stepped on Page’s foot, throwing her off balance. When Rowland reached out to keep her from falling, she screamed. The next day, Rowland was arrested and held in the courthouse lockup. Headlines in the local newspapers inflamed public opinion and there was talk in the white community of lynch justice. The black community, equally incensed, prepared to defend him. Outside the courthouse, 75 armed black men mustered, offering their services to protect Rowland The Sheriff refused the offer.

A white man then tried to disarm one of the black men. While they were wrestling over the gun, it discharged. That was the spark the turned the incident into a massive racial conflict. Fighting broke out and continued through the night. Homes were looted and burned.

Though they were outnumbered 10 to 1, Black’s, many of whom were veterans of WWI, started to form battles lines and dig trenches. The conflict shifted to the northern part of Tulsa in the Frisco tracks area. The Tulsa police force was too small to stop the rioters, so the mayor, T. D. Evans, asked the governor to send in the National Guard. While the National Guard was on its way to Tulsa, whites set fire to houses and stores. Fire companies could not fight the fire because rioters drove them away.

On June 1, 1921, a big cloud of smoke covered The northern region of Tulsa. Later that morning, the last stand of the conflict occurred at foot of Standpipe Hill. According to the Tulsa Tribune, the National Guard mounted two machine guns and fired into the area. The black groups surrendered and were disarmed. They were taken in columns to Convention hall, the McNulty Baseball Park, the Fairgrounds and to a flying field. Some survivors later alleged that planes were involved in the destruction of Greenwood City.

Many black residents left Tulsa to the Osage Hills and its surrounding towns. According to an official estimate 10 whites and 26 blacks were killed. However, later reports, never verified, raised that number to 300 killed. After, the Riot had ended, relief started to come the survivors, especially from The Red Cross. Hospitals were set up to treat the wounded. Food and clothes were given out. People received temporally shelters to live in while their houses were rebuilt…

Why should anyone be given reparations?

From his fans at Al Jazeera:

Putin to freeze Nato arms treaty

Thursday April 26

The Russian president has said he was suspending Moscow’s obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.

Vladimir Putin, in an annual speech to the Russian parliament, said the Nato signatories to the 1990 treaty were not respecting it, and the US plan to put missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic made matters worse.

He said Russia would look at withdrawing from the treaty altogether if negotiations he proposed with Nato countries failed to resolve Russia’s grievances.

Russia says the missile shield plan, which Washington says is intended to protect from attacks by so-called “rogue states”, is a threat to its national security.

In what was effectively his last state of the nation speech, Putin said foreign money was being used to meddle in Russia’s internal affairs and called for tougher laws to fight “extremism”.

Putin did not cite specific countries as sources of foreign funding, but the comments echoed recent Russian official complaints against US funding of democracy-promoting organisations in Russia.

Officials have repeatedly alleged that such funding aims to provoke mass opposition protests such as those that helped propel pro-Western leaders into power in neighbouring Georgia and Ukraine in recent years.

Police harshly cracked down on a series of opposition protest marches this year, beating some demonstrators and detaining hundreds.

Opposition forces charge Putin is strangling democracy through an array of measures to centralise power and increase the influence of large political parties such as his allied United Russia party, which dominates the Russian parliament.

But Putin, in his speech, said it was part of “a revolutionary step modernising the elections system … [it will] help the opposition widen its representation”. …

Ever since the US helped Russia gain entrance to the World Trade Organization Mr. Putin has let the mask slip.

From his colleagues at Reuters:

Iraqi prisoners walk through a Baghdad parking lot after their release from Camp Cropper prison, on the outskirts of Baghdad, in 2006. The US military has accused Lieutenant Colonel William Steele, who before his arrest was in charge of Camp Cropper, of aiding the “enemy by providing an unmonitored cellular phone to detainees”, the military said.

Top U.S. officer at Iraq prison detained, charged

By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A top officer at a key U.S. military detention centre in Iraq has been charged with “aiding the enemy” and having improper relationships including one with the daughter of a detainee, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

Lieutenant-Colonel William Steele, the commander of the 451st Military Police Detachment, was in charge of the detention facilities at Camp Cropper near Baghdad international airport.

“He has been in detention in Kuwait since last month pending an Article 32 hearing, which is a preliminary hearing where evidence will be presented to determine whether this should go to court-martial,” said U.S. military spokeswoman Lieutenant- Colonel Josslyn Aberle.

Saddam Hussein spent his final days at Cropper, which holds more than 3,000 detainees, before being executed last December.

Steele was accused of “aiding the enemy” by providing detainees with unmonitored mobile phones between October 2005 and October 2006, a U.S. military said in a statement.

He was also charged with having an improper relationship with a translator and with the daughter of a detainee, as well as violating an order against keeping pornographic videos. The offences were alleged to have occurred between October 2005 and February 2007.

“These charges are merely an accusation of wrongdoing. Lieutenant-Colonel Steele is presumed innocent unless and until he is proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of any alleged offence,” the military statement said…

Now if they would only go after John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid…