Public Secrets: from the files of the Irishspy

All politics is local

Tip O'Neill's famous dictum isn't just for American politics. Writing on the arrest a couple of days ago of Radovan Karadzic, Jonathan Davis explores three possible reasons for Karadzic's sudden capture, all related to Serbian internal politics:

• Poetic Justice: Political rivals set up the Interior Minister, Dacic, with the hope that Dacic would then be killed by the organized-crime and security-service elements that had been protecting Karadzic. The "poetry" comes from the suspicion that Dacic's Socialist Party was involved in the assassination of then-Prime Minister Djindjic in 2003, and that Karadzic's arrest was arranged as "payback." Davis notes that Dacic quickly issued a statement saying he had nothing to do with the arrest.
• Backlash: Former Prime Minister Kostunica or elements in the Radical Party used their influence with the security services to create a nationalist backlash against President Tadic of the Democratic Party (Serbia). As Davis thinks the majority of Serbians actually welcome Karadzic's arrest, he doesn't give this one much credit, in spite of legitimate Serbian anger at the ICTY's failure to punish war criminals who committed crimes against Serbs.
• Tadic Transformed: This is the explanation Davis thinks most likely, or at least hopes is true. In this scenario, President Boris Tadic waited for the right time to move against Karadzic (and those protecting him) to enhance Serbia's chances for entry into the EU -- and his own power in Serbia, of course. The decision of the Serbian Socialist Party to become a mainstream social-democratic party and support Tadic's coalition (and this bringing with them their secret influence in the security services) made it the right time for this move, which weakens Tadic's nationalist rivals and brings Serbia much closer to EU membership, though much is left to be done.

Davis lives in Belgrade and is thus much closer to the situation, so, for the sake of justice for the victims Karadzic and Mladic, and for stability overall in SE Europe, I hope he's right.

Oh, and Karadzic still deserves to hang.

 

Technorati tags: Karadzic, Dacic, Tadic, Kostunica, Serbia, power struggles, EU membership, Mladic, some damn thing in the Balkans

Accolades for the Prophet

Barack Obama, the Harbinger of Hope, Change, and Waffles, has won the Dorwin Award. No, not "Darwin," but "Dorwin."

Fans of Asimov will be amused. 

(hat tip: Instapundit)

 

Technorati tags: Dorwin, Darwin, Barack Obama, satire, Isaac Asimov, Foundation, awards

In this modern, wired age...

We expect politicians to stretch the truth occasionally; it's part and parcel of a mass democratic process. The system encourages them to slant things to put themselves in the best possible light.

But, in an age when one's every utterance can be fact-checked within seconds, why would a candidate for president lie about his committee memberships to impress his hosts, when it's a certainty the lie will be exposed?

Forget for a moment what this says about the candidate's character. Just what does it say about his intelligence?

UPDATE: And why, oh why, do they lie when it can be captured for eternity on YouTube? (hat tip: Ed Morrissey)

Good news

Serbian police have arrested Radovan Karadzic, former leader of the breakaway "Republika Srpska" during the 1990s Bosnian, and a man guilty of some of the worst atrocities in Europe since the Nazis.

Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian war crimes suspect, worked in a medical clinic under a false name and had tried to conceal his identity with a white beard before his arrest, a Serbian minister has revealed.

"Karadzic used false documents with the name Dragan Dabic," said Rasim Ljajic, the minister in charge of cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

He had been posing as a doctor of alternative medicine, sporting long hair, a beard and glasses to hide his face.

A picture shown to reporters showed an unrecognisable Karadzic, markedly thin, with a long white beard and flowing hair. Serbian officials said he was walking freely around town and earned money from practising medicine.

They said they could not divulge more details because it might jeopardise efforts to arrest two other war crime suspects on the run.

Karadzic was arrested late on Monday night in Belgrade by the Serbian security services, the office of Serb president Boris Tadic said. The 63-year-old former war leader is accused of orchestrating the worst acts of brutality Europe has seen since the Nazi campaigns of the Second World War.

Some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed in and around the town of Srebrenica in 1995, while more than 10,000 others died during the Serb siege of Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

A swine such as Karadzic deserves hanging for his crimes. If he's handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, however, I'm sure they'll screw it up just as they embarrassed themselves during the Milosevic trial. And given the perverse nationalism that runs strong in Serbia, it may well be that a large portion of the Serbian public thinks of Karadzic as a hero.

Real justice would have him turned over to the survivors of Srebenica for trial and execution, but we can't have that in this civilized age, can we?

Still, one can hope.

 

Technorati tags: Srebenica, Radovan Karadzic, Bosnia, Serbia, Yugoslavia, atrocities, war crimes, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY

Obama love

Anyone who's been paying attention and who isn't, well, blinded by love knows that the media is deeply, deeply in the tank for Senator Barack Obama, to the point where all pretense of objectivity is forgotten.

The McCain campaign decided to have some fun with this. They've come up with a great satirical commercial. They're letting the public vote for which song goes with the commercial best; this was my choice:

 

At least the Republicans have a sense of humor. 

 

Technorati tags: John McCain, Barack Obama, media bias, satire, political commercial

The Democrats' oil policy

Over at Coyote Blog, Warren Meyer takes a look at the reality of the Democrats' opposition to new drilling for oil, a set of self-contradictions so twisted that they wind up looking like a pretzel:

Here is the problem that smart Democrats like Drum face, and the reason behind this confusing logic:  They have adopted environmental goals, particularly the drastic reduction of CO2 in relatively short time frames, that they KNOW, like they know the sun rises in the east, will require fuel and energy prices substantially higher than they are today.  They know these goals require substantially increased pain and lifestyle dislocation from consumers who are already fed up with fuel-cost-related pain.  This is not because the Democrats are necessarily cruel, but because they are making the [faulty] assumption that the pain and dislocation some day from CO2-driven global warming outweighs the pain from higher priced, scarcer energy.

So, knowing that their policy goal is to have less oil at higher prices, and knowing that the average consumer would castrate them for espousing such a goal, smart Democrats like Drum find themselves twisted into pretzels when they oppose oil development.  They end up opposing oil development projects because in their hearts they want less oil around at higher prices, but (at least until their guy gets elected in November) they justify it with this bizarre logic that they oppose the plan because it would not get us oil fast enough.  The same folks who have criticized capitalism for years for being too short-term focused are now opposing plans that don't have a payoff for a decade or so.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

This new ad from the McCain campaign hits the mark:

 

(hat tip: Tigerhawk)

Technorati tags: oil, drilling, climate change, CO2, fuel prices, energy policy

"Islam is not a victim"

Another gem from Pat Condell, taking the crap spewed by Islamists and their multiculturalist appeasers and shoving back in their faces. Go, Pat.

 

 

By the way, the incident Pat mentions with the police poster of the Dread Puppy of Blasphemy is detailed here.

(hat tip: LGF)

 

Technorati tags: Pat Condell, video

And speaking of media bias...

According to Drudge*, The New York Times has rejected an editorial by John McCain, just one week after printing one from Barack Obama.

Fair and balanced?

*(Yeah, I know. Take with a large grain of salt.)

(hat tip: LGF)

LINKS: Allahpundit comments. As does Power Line. Jonathan Martin of Politico discusses the ridiculous changes the Times wanted. Rick Moran sees it as another example of why the Times is dying.

UPDATE: A quote from Senator McCain's editorial that The New York Times, which bills itself as the "paper of record," refused to publish:

 I am also dismayed that [Senator Obama] never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

It's for this clear-sightedness, as opposed banal slogans, that I'm voting for the Grumpy Old Guy.

Technorati tags: John McCain, New York Times, op-eds, media bias

The public finally starts to wake up?

According to Rasmussen, half of the country believes the mainstream media is trying to win the election for Obama.

Is the other half just blind?

(hat tip: Sister Toldjah)

 

Technorati tags: polls, Barack Obama, media bias

Do as Al says, not as Al does

Following up on yesterdays inconvenient facts, Canada's National Post carries an article by Lorne Gunter revealing Al Gore for the fatuous hypocrite he is:

On Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from "renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources," he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to "please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means" to reach the lecture hall.

So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the Gore party was inside.

It was 34 C in Washington. Al Gore can't be expected to get into an overheated vehicle after he's worked up a sweat telling others how to save the planet.

Remember, too, the Nobel prizewinning environmentalist lives in a Tennessee mansion that produces a carbon footprint 20 times that of the average American home. A sizeable chunk of his personal fortune comes from royalties on a zinc mine which had to be temporarily closed five years ago in part because the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled it one of the worst-polluting mine sites in America. Illegal toxins were frequently discharged into nearby rivers.

Mr. Gore's Live Earth benefit concert last summer flew scores of rock bands to stages around the world in carbon-spewing private jets. To cover the emissions from his own frequent use of private jets, Mr. Gore set up a company that buys carbon offsets, so that in effect he is paying himself for his carbon indulgences, writing off the expense on one hand, while pocketing the proceeds on the other.

Apparently if the world is ever to reach the carbon-free future Mr. Gore dreams of, it will have to get there without Al's help.

Gunter then goes on to list many of the same reasons I noted to show that perhaps, just perhaps, the world will do just fine without Al Gore's healing touch.

Given the growing number of skeptics in the press and the scientific community who are willing to speak out, often in the face of catcalls and derision, I'm growing slightly more hopeful we'll get through this latest mass hysteria with only minimal damage.

(hat tip: RCP)

Technorati tags: Al Gore, Goracle, junk science, climate change, Lorne Gunter, hypocrisy, environmentalism

Inconvenient truths

I haven't picked on the Cult of Anthropogenic Global Warming and its Goracle recently, but some recent information --inconvenient facts, if you will-- are worth sharing.

At Blue Crab Boulevard, Gaius, an engineer with utilities in real life, points out a glaring example of Al Gore not knowing what he's talking about. In another entry, Gaius notes a Daily Mail article on people suffering depression from the cold, dreary summer in Britain.

Hey, wasn't it supposed to be getting hotter?

Well, not according to these seven graphs (PDF). According to Andrew Bolt, these graphs give pretty hard evidence that not only has warming stopped, the world is no warmer than it was 1,000 years ago, the polar ice is spreading, and the seas are receding. (via Tigerhawk)

And all that was before Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination.

Finally, and again from Australia, there's David Evans. A scientist and former global warming alarmist, he comes flat-out and says there's no evidence for manmade global warming:

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.

Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.

3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

Be sure to read the whole thing. It's a treat. (hat tip: Power Line)

For everyone except for the Goracle:

 

Technorati tags: climate change, Al Gore, Goracle, junk science, greenhouse effect, David Evans, Andrew Bolt

A sign of hope and change in Iraq

No, not waffles, but the opening of a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Fallujah.

I wonder if one of the sides is tabbouleh?

(hat tip: LGF)

 

Technorati tags: Fallujah, KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken, economic recovery

Oh, those tricky Jews...

First, it was their power over earthquakes. Then, they deployed squirrels as spies! But now those devious Jews have unleashed their most fiendish weapon yet against the poor, always victimized Muslims: Zionist-Crusader rats!

The Palestinian Authority's official news agency Wafa says Israel is using rats to drive Arab families out of their homes in the Old City of Jerusalem.

In the past the news agency, which is controlled and funded by PA President Mahmoud Abbas's office, has accused Israel of using wild pigs to drive Palestinians out of their homes and fields in the West Bank. In the reports, Palestinians were quoted by the agency as saying that they had seen Israelis release herds of wild pigs, which later attacked them.

But this is the first time that Palestinians have spoken of rats being used against them.

And, being super Zionist rats, they're immune to poison, too.

Just another example of why Palestinians deserve their own state.

(hat tip: Jihad Watch)

 

Technorati tags: rats, Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, conspiracy theories

Obama Road

Cute!

(via Lundesigns)

 

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Abbey Road, satire, media bias, sycophants, Beatles

How well-informed are you?

Take the Pew News Quiz to see how on top of world events you are. It's short, and what makes it interesting is to then compare your results against the averages of various demographic groups.

I missed one, dagnabbit.

(hat tip: LGF)

 

Technorati tags: Pew Research Center, current events, quiz

Why bother skewering Obama?

When Charles Krauthammer strikes straight to the heart?

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself.

There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.

Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.

Read the whole thing and enjoy.

 

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Charles Krauthammer, mockery, arrogance, ego

An embarrassment of riches

Three hundred foreign policy advisors, and he still can't get it right.

Maybe they're there for his next foreign trip -- to Thermopylae?

 

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, entourage, foreign policy, 300

Bear this in mind

As Senator President Prophet Savior Obama prepares to (finally) go to Iraq, here's a reminder of just where he stands on national security:

 

Keep these firm promises in mind, the next time you hear him waffle over Iraq or Iran or Korea or....

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, disarmament, national security policy, missile defense

Of all the dumb things

In the wake of the Colombian Army's rescue of prisoners held by the drugs & terror group FARC, some international legal experts are claiming that Colombia may have committed a war crime:

Colombian military intelligence used the Red Cross emblem in a rescue operation in which leftist guerrillas were duped into handing over 15 hostages, according to unpublished photographs and video viewed by CNN.

Photographs of the Colombian military intelligence-led team that spearheaded the rescue, shown to CNN by a confidential military source, show one man wearing a bib with the Red Cross symbol. The military source said the three photos were taken moments before the mission took off to persuade the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels to release the hostages to a supposed international aid group for transport to another rebel area.

Such a use of the Red Cross emblem could constitute a "war crime" under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law and could endanger humanitarian workers in the future, according to international legal expert Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association.

"It is clear that the conventions are very strict regarding use of the symbol because of what it represents: impartiality, neutrality. The fear is that any misuse of the symbol would weaken that neutrality and would weaken the [Red Cross]," Ellis said.

While the Colombian government and military deny using the Red Cross symbol, you know what? I don't care if they did. Too many times in recent years I've seen proof of terrorist groups in Latin America or the Palestinian Authority using Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) facilities, uniforms, and equipment for cover when trying to kill people, and rarely if ever do "Human rights" groups make a peep. But a government pulls off a brilliant deception to save lives, and it's a war crime.

Bah. The Colombians did what they had to do to rescue hostages, and they did it without firing a shot. Should they instead have left the hostages to rot? Give me a break. Instead of Mr. Ellis' sanctimonious whinging, the Colombians should be receiving his praise or at least his silence.

(hat tip: LGF)

 

Technorati tags: Betancourt, FARC, Colombia, terrorism, counterterrorism, hostages, rescue, Red Cross, international humanitarian law, Additional Protocol One, Geneva Convention

About that crocodile

Yesterday, Israel released four Hizbullah prisoners in return for the bodies of two soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah in 2006, the incident that provoked the 2006 Hizbullah-Israel war. The exchanges are bad policy overall, because they only encourage the Islamic fascists of Hizbullah and Hamas to do it again. (In fact, the kidnapping of the two IDF soldiers by Hizbullah inspired Hamas to pull the same trick a few days later when they kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit)

Hot Air has coverage of the heroes' welcome the four terrorists received in Lebanon, but I want to draw your attention to something in particular: notice the second photo in this article. That's Samir Kuntar, the Hizbullah wretch who, on a terrorist operation, shot a four-year old girl's father in the back before her eyes, then killed her by smashing her head open with his rifle butt. Now we see this pig after his release from an Israeli prison: fat, proud, and giving the Nazi salute over the grave of his terrorist hero, Imad Mugniyah.

This is just another example of the ideological sympathy between jihadist Islam and fascism.

So, I have to ask: Why bother negotiating with fascists, whether they're religious or secular? Either way, you inevitably either have to choose between surrender or fighting. Any negotiation is a sign of weakness on our part, and any "peace agreement" is just a waiting period the fascists use to get stronger. The same is true with jihadist Islam. Examine the concept of hudna, or "temporary cease fire," for example. The Olmert government in Israel once again proved the worth of this to the Islamofascists of the region: far from being an act of mutual mercy, the deal for Kuntar is a sign of weakness and abasement. And that's just the latest in a long line of examples stretching over centuries of the futility of negotiating with jihadists unless it is from a position of strength and with the certainty in their minds that they will receive crushing blows in return for any attacks.

What Olmert should have done, but what is apparently beyond his weak character, is to have refused to release Kuntar: "He committed an unforgivable atrocity and was justly convicted in a fair trial. He stays in jail. Any further attacks on Israel will mean not only retaliation against Hamas and Hizbullah, but direct, personal targeting of those groups' leaders. We will kill them." And then he should have followed through.

Churchill understood the dangers of "being reasonable" with fascists.

UPDATE: I need to point out this quote from the IDF's former chief rabbi, in case you didn't follow the links:

Rabbi Yisrael Weiss, former Chief Rabbi of the IDF, who was present during the transfer of the fallen soldiers yesterday, said that "the verification process yesterday was very slow, because, if we thought the enemy was cruel to the living and the dead, we were surprised, when we opened the caskets, to discover just how cruel. And I'll leave it at that."

Tell me again why Israel or anyone should negotiate with these savages?

Technorati tags: Samir Kuntar, hudna, Hizbullah, Hamas, Gilad Shalit, appeasement, Olmert, Islamofascism, crocodiles, Churchill

The best campaign humor

The best satire skewers everyone, and this JibJab video does just that. I'm still laughing. Enjoy.

 

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

 

(hat tip: Jennifer Rubin, who thinks the Prophet Barack could use a sense of humor)

 

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, George W. Bush, JibJab, satire

Dear Harry Reid: We've won

I've just read the following email broadcast from Michael Yon:

We have won the war in Iraq.  By "we" I mean the Coalition and the Iraqis.  Unless there is some unexpected reversal, what lays ahead is the challenge of building a better Iraq.  There is still violence.  We have lost four soldiers to combat this month, but there were times when we lost that many on an average day.  There still are attacks, though we have finally reached the point where all that's left are truly "dead-enders."  Al Qaeda is still a problem, but their numbers are decreasing in Iraq.  The Iraqi people are sick of the violence.  The Iraqi Army is filled with courageous soldiers who can fight.  It is possible that by the end of the year we can really say, "Mission Accomplished," except for the continued support that Iraq will need.

Personally, my optimism has never been higher for Iraq.

And, personally, I'll take Michael Yon's word anytime over the prattling of a dimwitted senator anxious to declare his own country's defeat, or a Presidential candidate who hasn't bothered to tour Iraq in over 900 days and still, before ever speaking with the commanders in the field, insists on doing the very things that would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

UPDATE: Michael Totten roughly agrees.

Technorati tags: Michael Yon, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, defeatism

We knew he would, but, still....

Just how stupid does Big Brother Barack Obama think we are?

 

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, flip flops, waffles, Iraq, Orwellian, memory hole, suckers, surge

Prophet speak with forked tongue

I had planned to write a long post dismantling Barack Obama's disingenuous, indeed, deceitful editorial about his position on Iraq in today's New York Times, but John Hinderaker and Max Boot have beaten me to it. And done a much better job than I ever could.

Read the Harbinger of Hope, Change, and Waffle's piece first, then check out the latter two to see what a b