What Part of the War on Terrorism Do They Support? By Ann Coulter Wednesday, August 23, 2006 This year's Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security. To wit, they're claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they're all for the war against terror -- absolutely in favor of that war -- they are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as "Iraqi civilians," even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war. As Howard Dean put it this week, "The occupation in Iraq is costing American lives and hampering our ability to fight the real global war on terror." This would be like complaining that Roosevelt's war in Germany was hampering our ability to fight the real global war on fascism. Or anti-discrimination laws were hampering our ability to fight the real war on racism. Or dusting is hampering our ability to fight the real war on dust. Maybe Dean is referring to a different globe, like Mars or Saturn, or one of those new planets they haven't named yet. Assuming against all logic and reason that the Democrats have some serious objection to the war in Iraq, perhaps they could tell us which part of the war on terrorism they do support. That would be easier than rattling off the long list of counterterrorism measures they vehemently oppose. They oppose the National Security Agency listening to people who are calling specific phone numbers found on al-Qaida cell phones and computers. Spying on al-Qaida terrorists is hampering our ability to fight the global war on terror! Enraged that the Bush administration deferred to the safety of the American people rather than the obstructionist Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, one Clinton-appointed judge, James Robertson, resigned from the FISA court in protest over the NSA spying program. Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold called for a formal Senate censure of President Bush when he found out the president was rude enough to be listening in on al-Qaida phone calls. (Wait until Feingold finds out the White House has been visiting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "MySpace" page!) Last week a federal judge appointed by Jimmy Carter ruled the NSA program to surveil phone calls to al-Qaida members in other counties unconstitutional. Democrats oppose the detainment of Taliban and al-Qaida soldiers at our military base in Guantanamo, Cuba. Democrats such as Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, have called for Guantanamo to be shut down. The Guantanamo detainees are not innocent insurance salesmen imprisoned in some horrible mix-up like something out of a Perry Mason movie. The detainees were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan. You remember -- the war liberals pretended to support right up until approximately one nanosecond after John Kerry conceded the 2004 election to President Bush. But apparently, imprisoning al-Qaida warriors we catch on the battlefield is hampering our ability to fight the global war on terror. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin has compared Guantanamo to Nazi concentration camps and Soviet gulags, based on a report that some detainees were held in temperatures so cold that they shivered and others were forced to listen to loud rap music -- more or less approximating the conditions in the green room at "The Tyra Banks Show." Also, one of the detainees was given a badminton racket that was warped. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert complained this week that detainees in Guantanamo have "no hope of being allowed to prove their innocence." (I guess that's excluding the hundreds who have been given administrative hearings or released already.) Of course all the usual "human rights" groups are carping about how brutally our servicemen in Guantanamo are treating the little darlings who are throwing feces at them. Democrats oppose the Patriot Act, the most important piece of legislation passed since 9/11, designed to make the United States less of a theme park for would-be terrorists. The vast majority of Senate Democrats (43-2) voted against renewing the Patriot Act last December, whereupon their minority leader, Sen. Harry Reid, boasted: "We killed the Patriot Act" -- a rather unusual sentiment for a party so testy about killing terrorists. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry -- the man they wanted to be president -- called the Patriot Act "an assault on our basic rights." At least all "basic rights" other than the one about not dying a horrible death at the hand of Islamic fascists. Yes, it was as if Congress had deliberately flown two commercial airliners into the twin towers of our Constitution. They oppose profiling Muslims at airports. They oppose every bust of a terrorist cell, sneering that the cells in Lackawanna, New York City, Miami, Chicago and London weren't a real threat like, say, a nondenominational prayer before a high school football game. Now that's a threat.
Are videotaped beheading covered by Geneva? By Ann Coulter Wednesday, September 20, 2006 Sen. John McCain has been carrying so much water for his friends in the mainstream media that he now has to state for the record to Republican audiences: "I hold no brief for al-Qaida." Well, that's a relief. It turns out, the only reason McCain is demanding that prisoners like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl and other atrocities -- be treated like Martha Stewart facing an insider trading charge is this: "It's all about the United States of America and what is going to happen to Americans who are taken prisoner in future wars." McCain, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. John Warner -- or, as the Times now calls him, the "courtly Virginian" ("fag-hag by proxy to Elizabeth Taylor" being beneath his dignity these days) -- want terrorists treated like Americans accused of crimes, with full access to classified information against them and a list of the undercover agents involved in their capture. Liberals' interest in protecting classified information started and ended with Valerie Plame. As Graham explained, he doesn't want procedures used against terrorists at Guantanamo "to become clubs to be used against our people." Actually, clubs would be a step up from videotaped beheadings. Or as The New York Times wrote in the original weasel talking points earlier this summer: "The Geneva Conventions protect Americans. If this country changes the rules, it's changing the rules for Americans taken prisoner abroad. That is far too high a price to pay so this administration can hang on to its misbegotten policies." There hasn't been this much railing about the mistreatment of a hostage since Monica Lewinsky was served canapes at the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton Hotel while being detained by the FBI. The belief that we can impress the enemy with our magnanimity is an idea that just won't die. It's worse than the idea that paying welfare recipients benefits won't discourage them from working. (Some tiny minority might still seek work.) It's worse than the idea that taxes can be raised endlessly without reducing tax receipts. (As the Laffer Curve illustrates, at some point -- a point this country will never reach -- taxes could theoretically be cut so much that tax revenues would decline.) But being nice to enemies is an idea that has never worked, no matter how many times liberals make us do it. It didn't work with the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, Hitler or the North Vietnamese -- enemies notable for being more civilized than the Islamic savages we are at war with today. By the way, how did the Geneva Conventions work out for McCain at the Hanoi Hilton? It doesn't even work with the Democrats, whom Bush kept sucking up to his first year in office. No more movie nights at the White House with Teddy Kennedy these days, I'm guessing. It was this idea (Be nice!) that fueled liberals' rage at Reagan when he vanquished the Soviet Union with his macho "cowboy diplomacy" that was going to get us all blown up. As the Times editorial page hysterically described Reagan's first year in office: "Mr. Reagan looked at the world through gun sights." Yes, he did! And now the Evil Empire is no more. It was this idiotic idea of being nice to predators that drove liberal crime policies in the '60s and '70s -- leading like night into day to unprecedented crime rates. Now these same liberal ninnies want to extend their tender mercies not just to rapists and murderers, but to Islamic terrorists. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill had a different idea: Instead of rewarding bad behavior, punish bad behavior. How many times does punishment have to work and coddling have to fail before we never have to hear again that if we treat terrorists well, the terrorists will treat our prisoners well? Fortunately, history always begins this morning for liberals, so they can keep flogging the same idiotic idea that has never, ever worked: Be nice to our enemies and they will reward us with good behavior. Never mind trusting liberals with national security. Never mind trusting them with raising kids. These people shouldn't even be allowed to own pets. If the Democrats and the four pathetic Republicans angling to be called "mavericks" by The New York Times really believe we need to treat captured terrorists nicely in order to ensure that the next American they capture will be well-treated, then why stop at 600-thread-count sheets for the Guantanamo detainees? We must adopt Sharia law. As McCain might put it, I hold no brief for al-Qaida, but what would better protect Americans they take prisoner than if America went whole hog and became an Islamic republic? On the plus side, we can finally put Rosie O'Donnell in a burka.
Told ya... the neocons are cowards and shit in their pants in the first sign of trouble. They are ready to sacrifice their freedom and liberty, for a pretense of security. Reminds me of the dog with the chain marks around its neck and the wolf... freedom or a chain around your neck? Gosh by supporting renditions, torture and other miscellaneous machosistic crap, these neocons have lowered themselves to the demons like saddam, idi amin etc. I guess it sucks to be a neocon, living a life of fear of the islamic boogieman.
More prattle from the World of Denial... What freedom and liberty are we sacrificing? The right not to be checked if we're getting phone calls from the friendly Al Qaeda representative overseas? The acts of a few rogue soldiers makes us the equivalent of Idi Amin and Saddam? Good grief but you're a lost soul... You claim the "neocons" live in fear, yet your fear of them is greater than that of the real Islamofascist threat. Question: Who do you think would remove your head from your neck if given the opportunity? I know this question will test your cognitive thinking faculties, such as they are, but here's a hint: it's not the guy sitting in the Oval Office.
It's scary that McCain has a realistic shot at becoming President. He has made a name for himself by endlessly sucking up to the media and backstabbing fellow republicans in the process. That is a sure-fire way to get on all the Sunday morning shows. The media has reciprocated by labelling him "principled", meaning he agrees with them. What about his "principles?" We know he's against tax cuts. We know he thinks evangelical Christians are dangerous extremeists, although he has now tried to weasle away from that "principle." HIs one great legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance "Reform" act, basically turned the First Amendment into toilet paper and vastly increased the power of the media as opposed to ordinary citizens. Now he opposes "torture." He acts like his opponents favor it and are just too dumb to understnad why it's a bad idea. Like radical cancer surgery, torture is not something you welcome but coercive questioning of terrorists under limited circumstances can save lives. What he and his fellow weasels, Graham, Warner, Collins, Snowe et al, would do is prevent the CIA from coercively questioning an al qaeda terrorist who knew where a nuclear bomb was planted in a major city. Or more likely, they would sit back and let some Jack Bauer do the dirty work, then let them get prosecuted. The Supreme Court created this problem by an Alice In Wonderland interpretation of the Geneva Convention, turning an article designed to govern purely internal rebellions into something that somehow applies to our troops in afghanistan and iraq fighting foreign terrorists. Instead of supporting his President and cleaning up the Court's mess, McCain went straight into his media grandstand act again. He's proved yet again why he is no more ready than the democrats to be in charge of national security.
Ann's concept of morality is that whatever the other side does, makes it okay for her side to do the same back to them. So childish... Maybe the most unprincipled woman ever...
Z, Ann really rattles your cage, doesn't she? I think you got a thing for her. Is it her "man hands"?
STANDTALL writes: Thursday, September, 21, 2006 6:14 AM THE GENEVA CONVENTION started and convened in the wake of the the bloody First World War held high ideals. The 14 points of the charter were written with the most altrusitc ideals one can imagine. However, when confronted by their invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Japanese just chastised the League and up and left. They went on to terrorize China as a whole including the well remembered Rape of Nanking in which 300,000 were murdered. The League did nothing. Italy, another signatory of the League went on to invade what was then Abyssinia. They used mustard gas to subdue it's populace. The League did nothing. The newly mobilized Nazi Germany marched into the Rhineland in clear violation of Versailles. The League did nothing. Franco seized power in Spain and allowed his fascist counterparts to use Spain as a testing ground for their new technologies of war. And other incidents clearly come to mind before the Second World War broke out. How about that roll call of atrocities following Hitlers invasion of Poland: The Bataan Death March. The Holocaust. The Matthausan death camp where thousands of allied pilots were worked to death.The wanton murder of almost 4 million Soviet prisoners of war. These atrocities were carried out by signatories of the 14 points. A lot of good it did it's victims. Since the formation of the tower of hypocrisy, the United Nations, like the French say, the more things change.... Anyway,all the coddling in the world has not and will not protect our citizens anywhere they are taken hostage by these savages. All this high mindedness about us 'having our principles' and 'we are better than that' should go the way of horse riding and covered wagons. IT WON'T WORK. Too bad these liberal pinheads are to too blind, too stupid and ingeneous to see this. Too bad for the rest of us.