The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line’s John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I hit the airwaves for the second shift from 1-3 pm CT, and King Banaian and Michael Broadkorb have The Final Word from 3-5. If you’re in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot, or on the station’s Internet stream if you’re outside of the broadcast area.
Today, Mitch and I will discuss Peggy Noonan’s column about her disillusionment with the Bush administration. We’ll also talk about my trip to Iowa and interview with Mitt Romney and also with John McCain. We’ll keep an eye on the developing story in New York about the thwarted terror plot at JFK, and we’ll want to debate the immigration bill, too, plus other topics.
Be sure to call and join the conversation today at 651-289-4488. You don’t even need a Z-visa to get on the air …
Month: June 2007
JFK Terror Plot Foiled
The FBI has three people in custody in the fourth domestic terror conspiracy stopped in less than a year, and are seeking a fourth suspect. The quartet planned to use a jet-fuel line to attack John F Kennedy Airport in New York, according to sources close to the investigation:
Three people were arrested and one other was being sought Saturday in connection to a plan to set off explosives in a fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy International Airport and runs through residential neighborhoods, officials close to the investigation said.
The plot, which never got past the planning stages, did not involve airplanes or passenger terminals, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the arrests had not yet been announced. …
According to sources, the suspects have been identified as: Russell Defreitas, Abdul Nur, Kareem Ibrihim and Abdul Kadir.
Last summer, the FBI rounded up a group of home-grown terrorist wannabes in Miami, who planned to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago. Just a month later, they arrested another group that wanted to bomb train tunnels in New York City in order to flood them. Earlier this month, authorities stopped six men from conducting an attack on Fort Dix in New Jersey, at least three of whom lived in the US illegally.
The plot came to light after one conspirator, a Guyanese cargo worker at JFK, looked for outside assistance for the attack. He contacted an FBI informant last summer, and the agency kept tabs on the group while apparently checking for connections to other terrorist groups. The intent of the attack was not to kill people, but to disrupt one of the main supplies for jet fuel to New York’s airports, all of which use the same pipleine, and therefore to disrupt travel in and out of the US.
The arrests and announcement apparently means that the FBI has satisfied itself that it either knows all of the connections made by this cell, or that none exist. One suspect remains at large, and the FBI may believe that public awareness can help catch him.
I’ll have more as this develops.
UPDATE: It doesn’t appear that this is a home-grown plot, either:
Two additional arrestes were made in Trinidad, a law enforcement source said. A source identified the suspect arrested in the United States as Russell Defreitas.
The plotters had “indirect” links to overseas terror elements and the plot had links to Guyana, Trinidad and possibly Germany, a source said.
Terrorist ties in Germany. Hmm. Where have we heard that before?
UPDATE II: The FBI thought that a well-known terrorist may have had a part in this plot:
FBI agents feared but never confirmed the three men accused of plotting to attack John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York were linked to one of the most wanted al Qaeda leaders, Adnan Shukrijumah, known to have operated out of Guyana and Trinidad.
Officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com that they heard repeated references to “Adnan” during the extensive wiretaps conducted on the suspects’ telephone conversations, including calls to Guyana and Trinidad.
There is a $5 million reward for information on Shukrijumah, who officials consider extremely dangerous because of the years he spent living in the Miami area and his known ties to al Qaeda. Some of the 9/ll hijackers attended a south Florida mosque run by Shukrijumah’s now deceased father.
UPDATE III: The ambition for this attack was pretty high, according to the indictment, which Michelle Malkin reproduces:
28. During the return drive from JFK, Defreitas discussed the extent of the damage they could cause. In particular, Defreitas predicted that the plot would result in the destruction of “the whole of Kennedy,” that only a few people would escape and that, due to underground piping, part of Queens would explode.
They wanted to take out a good portion of a borough that houses more than 2.2 million people, according to the 2000 Census. In fact, it’s among the most diverse populations in the United States; 46% of residents were born outside the US. That’s what these four wanted to destroy.
Did We Send Mixed Signals To China On Taiwan?
According to Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein, the Department of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld may have aggravated China’s paranoia over Taiwan by deliberately undermining the long-standing US policy on relations between the two. Colin Powell’s chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, claims that the Pentagon encouraged Taiwan to declare independence against the policy of the Bush administration — a move that would have touched off a military confrontation with Beijing (via Memeorandum):
The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington’s foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential of a nuclear war over Taiwan, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says.
Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the U.S. Army colonel who was Powell’s chief of staff through two administrations, said in little-noted remarks early last month that “neocons” in the top rungs of the administration quietly encouraged Taiwanese politicians to move toward a declaration of independence from mainland China — an act that the communist regime has repeatedly warned would provoke a military strike.
The top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan at the time, Douglas Paal, backs up Wilkerson’s account, which is being hotly disputed by key former defense officials.
During the Nixon effort to “open up” Red China, the US agreed to a formulation which recognized only one China, with its capital in Beijing. In return, China agreed to consider Taiwan an autonomous entity outside of its direct control. The US guaranteed Taiwan’s security as long as the status quo remained.
Three years ago, however, Taiwan began making noises about declaring independence. During most of 2004, a crisis mentality prevailed after an assassination attempt on President Chen Shui-bian and VP Annette Lu failed in March of that year. Many blamed China, as Chen had been talking up independence. Only after the failure of Chen’s party to hold the parliament in December did tempers cool.
Wilkerson accuses Therese Shaheen of manipulating Chen into pushing for independence. Shaheen ran the American Institute in Taipei at the time, which took over the diplomatic functions of the embassy after the US closed it in 1979. Shaheen openly endorsed Chen, and since Shaheen is the wife of Lawrence DiRita, a close aid of Donald Rumsfeld, the Chinese took that endorsement as an official position change for the US — and began acting accordingly.
Stein notes that the people Wilkerson accuses of this shadow diplomacy all deny it in very strong terms. Douglas Feith says that the accusations are too fuzzy to refute in detail, but that the “remarks are not even close to being accurate.” DiRita calls them “completely ridiculous … absurd.” However, Shaheen worked for Douglas Paal at the Institute, and Paal corroborates Wilkerson’s account. In the end, the White House put its foot down and stamped out the effort, according to both men.
The sudden crisis of 2004 in Taiwan has always seemed odd. Wilkerson’s story could explain why Taiwan changed course so abruptly and pushed for a challenge to Beijing so openly. If so, then it calls into question the judgment of some DoD officials, especially considering the fact that we already have a war on our hands against radical Islamist terrorists, in and out of Iraq. We hardly needed to provoke a military engagement over Taiwan.
Carbon Credits Lead To Increased Greenhouse-Gas Emissions
Do you like your irony so thick that it drips? The Guardian has a nice, juicy slice of it for you today. The main organization used by Europe to trade carbon credits has mismanaged the process so badly that they have created an increase in greenhouse-gas emissions as a result:
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which is supposed to offset greenhouse gases emitted in the developed world by selling carbon credits from elsewhere, has been contaminated by gross incompetence, rule-breaking and possible fraud by companies in the developing world, according to UN paperwork, an unpublished expert report and alarming feedback from projects on the ground.
Possible fraud in the developing world? Who’d have ever thought that might happen? It gets better:
One senior figure suggested there may be faults with up to 20% of the carbon credits – known as certified emissions reductions – already sold. Since these are used by European governments and corporations to justify increases in emissions, the effect is that in some cases malpractice at the CDM has added to the net amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. …
There are only 17 of these validating and verifying companies. Most of them have a clean track record and will have approved reliable emissions reductions, but three of them have been performing so poorly that the CDM’s executive board ordered spot checks – and all three companies failed on multiple grounds. The findings on one company, which is believed to have validated dozens of projects and verified millions of tonnes of carbon reductions, were so bad that the board considered suspending its right to work.
The entire system rests on a couple of major assumptions. The first and most laughable is that the system of carbon trades can be reliable based on spot audits. Billions of dollars are at stake in this enterprise. Without constant monitoring and checking, firms will cheat all day long — especially since the metering of greenhouse-gas emissions relies on estimates more than precise measurements.
The second is that one can improve the environment by trading carbon credits. All that does is penalize the efficient and enable the inefficient. For instance, in this situation, companies that invested in efficiencies expected to recoup that investment by selling their carbon credits. If others cheat the system, the reliability of those credits gets damaged, and they will find that the credits are worth considerably less than they imagined. On the other hand, purchasers of credits will find it less expensive in that market to continue to emit the gases and pay less for the cut-rate credits. Eventually, no one will seriously consider investing in technology that actually reduces emissions.
If environmental improvement is desired, one has to move away from systems that support a status quo, which is what the credit market does, even when it works correctly. That means technological innovation and a realistic expectation of time and investment.
Slowly The World Turns
The move by Hugo Chavez to shutter a television broadcaster that has criticized him and his dictatorial rule over Venezuela has apparently alerted more than just the Venezuelans to his megalomania. Nations that didn’t get the clues from his bizarre behavior at the UN or when he demanded and received dictatorial powers have suddenly awoken to the fact that Chavez is an imbalanced dictator who means to quash all opposition to his aspirations of Castro-like rule:
While condemnation from the Bush administration, an ideological foe of Venezuela, was expected, criticism has come from many quarters around the world, some of them surprising.
Spain’s Socialist government, in a joint declaration with the United States, called Friday for Chávez to renew RCTV’s license. The European Parliament voiced concern, and Brazil’s Senate passed a resolution calling on Chávez to reconsider, drawing a sharp rebuke from the Venezuelan leader.
“A head of state who doesn’t know how to live with democratic manifestation, such as that of the Brazilian Senate, is probably against democracy,” the president of that body, Renan Calheiros, said in response.
The previous cluelessness didn’t just apply to nations, either. Some NGOs have suddenly found themselves on the Damascus road, albeit reluctantly:
Reporters Without Borders, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chilean Senate and the Atlanta-based Carter Center have said freedom of expression could be in peril in Venezuela. “I think this weakens the Chávez government’s argument that it furthers free expression,” said Carlos Lauria, who has studied the case for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “It debilitates that argument.”
Note the weasel words Lauria uses in this statement. He thinks that using government force to shut down critics in the media weakens the argument that Chavez supports free speech. It debilitates that argument. Well, what would it take for Lauria to say that it negates it entirely? Does Chavez have to line journalists up against the wall and shoot them before Lauria will admit that Chavez is a tyrant?
It’s not as if Chavez has any subtlety to his position at all. The last independent broadcaster, Globovision, got the word from Hugo yesterday in this warning: “I recommend that you take a tranquilizer, that you take it easy, because if not, I’m going to make you take it easy.” And yet, all that Reporters Without Borders, the CPJ, and the Carter Center can do is issue mealy-mouthed statements about how this course of action could possiblymaybeperhapsundercertaincircumstances be construed as an attack on free speech.
Unbelievable.
Meanwhile, thousands of university students bravely take to the streets to fight for their freedom. They show courage and defiance. The nations of the West have finally noticed the danger in Venezuela, no thanks to Hugo’s pals in the media and the NGO community.
US Navy Sends Message To Somali Islamists
A small group of Islamists suddenly appeared in a remote Somali village, attempting to set up a new base of operations. Local authorities assume they escaped from the trap at Ras Kamboni, bringing guns and small boats, and almost immediately picking fights. They thought the dense foliage around their position made them safe from concentrated attack. The US Navy has disabused them of that notion:
At least one U.S. warship bombarded a remote, mountainous village in Somalia where Islamic militants had set up a base, officials in the northern region of Puntland said Saturday. …
A local radio station quoted Puntland’s leader, Ade Muse, as saying that his forces had battled with the extremists for hours before U.S. ships arrived and used their cannons. Muse said five of his troops were wounded, but that he had no information about casualties among the extremists.
A task force of coalition ships, called CTF-150, is permanently based in the northern Indian Ocean and patrols the Somali coast in hopes of intercepting international terrorists. U.S. destroyers are normally assigned to the task force and patrol in pairs.
As many as 35 fighters may have arrived in Puntland. It’s not a large force, but likely an advance group sent to find some toehold in the northern part of Somalia, in order to assist in the escape of the remaining forces in the south, where the Ethiopians and the Kenyans have them in a vise. More probes will follow, but it appears that all of the Islamists’ opponents have prepared themselves for that contingency.
The US Navy has sent a message, too. We have not forgotten that the UIC hid the perpetrators of the 1998 African embassy bombings, and we consider them partners with al-Qaeda. They may think dense forests offer them protection from serious attack, but in truth it makes it easier for us to hit them, as their remote positions remove the worries of collateral damage.
In other words, they can run … but they can’t hide.
Exploitation Squared
Yesterday, I wrote about the Dutch television show that was to air today, where a dying woman would select the person who would receive her kidney for a transplant. The show created a firestorm of controversy, as people around the world accused the producers of exploiting the sick and dying for entertainment. Now it looks like they have exploited the contestants for an elaborate hoax (h/t: CQ reader David B):
A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney was revealed as an elaborate hoax on Friday.
The show, which the broadcaster had said aimed to focus attention on a shortage of donor organs in the Netherlands, was condemned by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende before broadcast Friday night and sparked controversy worldwide.
Identified only as “Lisa,” the 37-year-old woman who had been said to be suffering from a brain tumor was to base her selection on the person’s history and conversations with the candidates’ families and friends.
In the last minutes of the program, she was revealed as a healthy actress and producers stunned viewers by saying “The Big Donorshow” was a hoax.
The contestants were also part of the deception, although all three are genuine kidney patients.
I’m not sure which scenario was worse, but both are pretty repulsive and exploitative. The producers claim that they wanted to make a statement about the lack of organs for transplant patients, and at least the topic got some attention. However, they used real ESRD patients for the roles of the contestants, which seems rather cruel, considering that they had to pretend to abase themselves to seem the most pathetic — and the most worthy — of the transplant.
I share the hope of the producers that this will convince more people to donate their organs for transplant. I also hope that no one pulls this kind of stunt again.
Palestinians Pine For Israeli Security
How bad has life in Gaza become? Palestinians have begun to recognize that they cannot govern themselves — and that life under Israeli authority was preferable. Not only are they saying this out loud, but as MEMRI reports, they’re writing it in their newspapers (via QandO):
Papers reported that some people in Gaza even want the Israelis to return to the Strip. Faiz Abbas and Muhammad Awwad, journalists for the Israeli-Arab weekly Al-Sinara, wrote: “People in Gaza are hoping that Israel will reenter the Gaza Strip, wipe out both Hamas and Fatah, and then withdraw again… They also say that, since the [start of the] massacres, they [have begun to] miss the Israelis, since Israel is more merciful than [the Palestinian gunmen] who do not even know why they are fighting and killing one another. It’s like organized crime, [they said]. Once, we resisted Israel together, but now we call for the return of the Israeli army to Gaza.” [20]
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida columnist Yahya Rabah wrote: “When the national unity government was formed, I thought, ‘This will be a government of national salvation.’ If a government that includes Fatah, Hamas, other factions and independents associated with [various] factions has not been able to save the day, it means that no one can, unless Israel decides that its army should intervene. Then it will invade [the Gaza Strip], kill and arrest [people] – but this time not as an occupying [force] but as an international peace-keeping force. Look what we have come to, how far we have deteriorated, and what we have done to ourselves.” [21]
Palestinian journalist Majed Azzam wrote: “We should have the courage to acknowledge the truth… The [only] thing that prevents the chaos and turmoil in Gaza from spreading to the West Bank is the presence of the Israeli occupation [in the West Bank]… [as opposed to] its absence from the Gaza Strip.” [22]
It doesn’t end there. One former newspaper chief called on Mahmoud Abbas to resign and for Arab nations to withdraw recognition of the Palestinian Authority. He called both Hamas and Fatah “agents of Israel”, a laughable proposition, and one which shows the irrational demonization of Israel — but also that shows the disaffection the Palestinians have from both major political organizations/terrorist groups. He also demanded that Abbas declare a state of emergency to clear out the gunmen from the streets, but since Fatah has plenty of gunmen themselves, it sounds more like a call for open civil war.
And, in fact, some are calling for that as well. Three columnists have called for a new intifada, but this time against Hamas and Fatah. Ali al-Khalili, who is also a senior PA official, wrote in Al-Ayyam: “Our only option is to [go out] on the streets and announce that we refuse to take leave of our senses, of our reason and of our determination to deal with the mother of all nakbas [catastrophes] before it is too late, and before history sweeps us all into the void of oblivion and death.”
The two-state solution is dead until the Palestinians prove they can govern themselves. Even the Palestinians know this, and dread the thought of governance by Hamas and Fatah. Perhaps the rest of the world should listen to them.
CQ Radio: Chris Cillizza, Mark Tapscott
Today on CQ Radio (2 pm CT), I’ll talk with the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, who writes prolifically for their political blog, The Fix. We’ll talk about the impact of the immigration bill on the McCain campaign, and the impact of Fred Thompson’s toe-dipping on the entire GOP primary field.
In the second half of the show, Mark Tapscott joins us to talk about the warnings of a Republican meltdown. Mark is the editorial page editor for the Examiner series of newspapers and a well-known conservative essayist and thinker. We’ll talk about the Peggy Noonan piece in the Wall Street Journal and the secret hold by Jon Kyl on FOIA expansion.
Be sure to call and join the conversation at 646-652-4889!
Addendum: My boss talks about BlogTalkRadio on CBS’s Wallstrip. And Heading Left’s James Boyce will appear on MS-NBC today to provide the liberal point of view on the immigration bill.
Why Aren’t We Arguing For Liberty?
Fred Thompson continues his virtual campaign today by asking an important question about our efforts to spread democracy and liberty. Why have we neglected the most powerful weapon in our arsenal — the truth? Thompson argues that our Radio Free broadcasts helped bring down the Soviet empire, and their neglect has allowed socialism to surge again in Latin America:
Well, he’s done it. Hugo Chavez was already systematically silencing criticism of his autocratic rule through threats and intimidation. Journalists have been threatened, beaten and even killed. Now he’s shut down the last opposition television networks in Venezuela and arrested nearly 200 protesters – mostly students. It’s a monumental tragedy and the Venezuelan people will pay the price for decades to come. Americans are also at risk as he funds anti-American candidates and radicals all over Latin America.
It’s equally tragic that the U.S. is in no position to provide the victims of this emerging dictator with the truth. There was a time, though, when Americans were on the front lines of pro-freedom movements all over the world. I’m talking about the “surrogate” broadcast network that included Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, often called “the Radios.” …
The Radios were not some bland public relations effort, attracting audiences only with American pop music. They engaged the intellectual and influential populations behind the Iron Curtain with accurate news and smart programming about freedom and democracy. They had sources and networks within those countries that sometimes outperformed the CIA. When Soviet hardliners and reformers were facing off, and crowds and tanks were on the streets of Moscow and Bucharest, the radios were sending real-time information to the people, including the military, and reminding them of what was at stake.
Then we won the Cold War. The USSR collapsed in 1991, and America relaxed. Military downsizing began and the Radios began to reduce broadcast air time to target countries.
How badly do Venezuelans need an independent source of news? They’re marching in the streets in defiance of newly-minted dictator Hugo Chavez after he shut down the last major independent broadcaster for its criticisms of his leadership. Not that Venezuelans can know this through Chavez’ state-controlled media:
While almost 40 percent of voters in last year’s election opted for Mr. Chávez’s opponent, the president’s support topped 60 percent and he still enjoys wide popular backing. This level of support is expected to be on display Saturday, when Mr. Chávez has called for large demonstrations in support of the RCTV decision.
Until then, however, the message from students is still being heard, if not widely broadcast, in Venezuela. “They are taking our free speech away,” said Sandra Bellizzia, a marketing student at Alejandro Humboldt University who had “RCTV” painted in black on her face at a protest here on Thursday. “If they closed any channel, it would mean the same thing.”
Had we presented a continual and sustained effort to supply the people of Venezuela and the rest of Latin America with unbiased, truthful reporting, they could be relying on that information now. As Thompson notes, democracy activists knew they could rely on our communications channels during the Cold War. We helped people free themselves, not with weapons or surgical bombing strikes, but with reliable information that allowed them to see around the propaganda of their governments.
What happened? Too many people bought into the “peace dividend” mentality. Mitt Romney acknowledged this in my interview with him on Wednesday specifically regarding Chavez and Latin America. After the Soviet collapse, we stopped worrying about Latin America, not understanding that tinpolt dictators will still arise, even without Russian financing. We let our guard down, and more importantly, we let the agents of freedom down in the region.
Dictatorships and oppression will afflict mankind for ages to come, and we have to be prepared to fight against it, using the most effective weapons in our arsenal. Fred reminds us that simple communication of truth, and the establishment of our credibility from that effort, is perhaps the most powerful and effective weapon against tyranny that we possess. It’s high time that we start using it again.