FUNGAZI.COM

The first of the 29 Russian made Tor-M1 missile systems in a $700 million dollar deal between Iran and Russia, have been delivered to Iran despite US opposition to the sale of a weapon that is widely regarded as the most advanced of its kind in the world.  Iranian and Russian air defense experts say that the full deployment at Iran’s nuclear installations will render them invulnerable to American or Israeli attack at any time in the near future.
The Iranian experts are saying that they will have the Russian Tor-M1 systems are in place by May of next year if not sooner.

In the meantime, Iran’s military and Revolutionary Guards units are on red alert for the second straight month. Their fighters and bombers are sitting on the runways ready for takeoff, their surface-air missiles are poised for firing while their war ships and submarines cruise the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea in a determined effort to show the world that Tehran will not to be caught napping by any hostile surprises.

Once again Nancy Pelosi, who will be Speaker of the House when the Democrats take charge in Janauary,is faced with dissapointment and division amongst her Democratic brethern. It now appears that she had to tell her bribe taking buddy Alcee Hastings that he wasn’t getting the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee. Hastings has been making a case for the sensitive position and had the support of the Congressional Black Caucus.  He also received Pelosi’s nod of approval right after the election dust settled. In a statement, Pelosi, D-Calif., stated, “He has served our country well, and I have full confidence that he will continue to do so.”  The Black Caucus had no immediate comment.  Jane Harman, D-Calif. the logical and most qualified Democrat for the job is not being considered for it because of previous conflicts with the petulant Pelosi.  Rumor has it that Pelosi is now considering Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas for the position. 

Superman Returns – The latest rendition of “Superman” directed by Bryan Singer and currently scheduled to be released sometime in the summer of 2006 will contain one very noticeable alteration not contained in any previous Superman movie or comic book.  The screenwriters of this, yet to be released Superman movie, have decided in the spirit of political correctness that Superman will no longer fight for “the

.”  The screenwriters felt that the need for the artistic expression of their political statement was best served by removing the link between Superman and his previously held patriotic feelings towards the United States of America.
In their version of the story, Superman will fight for “truth, justice, and whatever” 

What sort of response can anyone possibly muster to a display of Liberal stupidity this great? 

Sattar al-Buzayi, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, an umbrella group of tribes in Anbar, a vast Sunni province in the west of Iraq, said tribal fighters had raided an al Qaeda stronghold and killed 55 militants and arrested 25. He said nine tribal fighters were killed in the clash.

The U.S. military said in a statement it launched air strikes and fired artillery to help a tribe in the town of Sofia after an attack by al Qaeda.

“Al Qaeda burned homes and killed members of the tribe using small arms fire and mortars,” the military said in a statement. It gave no casualty figures.

Source

There is genocide going on in Chad and Darfur;
Angola, Colombia, Lebanon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda are forcing children as young as twelve years old into the military for use in combat;
AIDS has already claimed 25 million lives and an additional 40 million people in the world today are now carrying the disease;
There are 22 million internally displaced persons (aka Refugees) wandering the planet after being uprooted by the numerous ongoing wars;
There are prison massacres, dramatic protests, and violent abuse by prison guards along with deplorable living conditions in the prisons and detention centers of many countries;
There is rampant corruption in the Congolese government;
The government of Angola is trying to silence their press prior to an election;
Peru has failed to respond to charges of human rights violations;
A combination of discriminatory laws and the absence of policies to assist victims of abuse leaves Palestinian females of all ages without protection in the face of increasing human rights violations;
Torture in both official and secret detention facilities is widespread and systematic in Chechnya;
There is the conflict between Pakistan and India, the Darfur conflict in the Sudan, the Iraq war, the rebellion in Hati, the Central African Republic Civil War, the Waziristan War, the Chad-Sudan Conflict, the Israel-Lebanon conflict and the Western Sahara Independence Intifilda to name a few

We got rape, child abuse, slavery, torture, genocide, corruption and we got war coming out of our pores till it drips off of the end of our noses and puddles up around our feet.  Every conceivable sort of depravity that can be imagined is being practiced on a daily basis in the wretched hellholes and corporate boardrooms of this planet while death and destruction rains down on the face of the planet like a cold winter’s rain.

With all of this wretchedness and ruin, war, famine and pestilence world-wide, you might believe that the United Nations, el numero uno peace keeper and powerful do-gooder organization that they are, would find something more worthy of their awesome powers of concentration than whether or not the freaking baggage screeners working in the U.S. airports had the right to be represented by a labor union.  For Christ’s sake people, we have serious world problems going on right this minute.  I am not talking about Britney Spears being unhappy or Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock getting a divorce but things like people being set on fire in the streets of Baghdad for going to the wrong mosque and one of the big concerns the United Nations wants to discuss at length among the powers of the world is whether or not the baggage screeners should be able to organize.  Is there something wrong with this picture?

Where in the hell does the UN get off telling the United States how to comply with U.S. labor laws anyway?  What business is it of their’s?  This country already has enough corrupt labor unions wielding way too much power as it is.  Why would we want to add to the problem?  The UN doesn’t seem too concerned about the American citizens that are forced to pay labor unions for representation they never get.  The UN is not concerned that millions of American citizens are forced to pay union dues that union officials spend on corrupt Democratic politicians the union members would never support.  The UN is not concerned that Americans who own small shops and stores are pressured out of business and into poverty daily by union thugs demanding unreasonable pay and benefits for lazy slobs that aren’t worth the money they are already getting paid.  The UN is not concerned with the millions of dollars every year that are stolen by corrupt union officials.  The UN is not concerned with the thousands of Americans who reach retirement age only to find that their guaranteed union pension isn’t worth anything because some greedy union bastard ran off with the funds.  The UN isn’t concerned with any of these things but they have a major hard-on about 56,000 baggage screeners employed by the United States government being denied collective bargaining rights so they can turn around and demand higher wages and pensions, go on strike and exercise their union right to become as lazy, shiftless and non-productive as their other 15 million union brothers and sisters across the nation.

Is it any wonder why nobody takes the United Nations seriously?

In the President’s Radio Address of March 22, 2003 he stated that the mission behind the U.S./Coalition invasion of Iraq was to “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.”  There is no denial that he made these statements; it is a matter of public record.  In later addresses he alluded to intelligence information that substantiated the credibility of the claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein supported terrorist activities around the Middle East directed at American allies and interests.  This is also a part of the public record and I will make no attempt to deny any of these statements in this document.    

To begin with, let’s examine what information he might have had available to him that would lead him to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

In 1977 Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as the President of the United States.  One of his primary campaign stances was his desire to make post-Vietnam American power and foreign policy more benevolent.  To initiate this goal he created a special Office of Human Rights that immediately began to involve itself in human rights issues around the globe.  One location this group came to focus on was the country of Iran and the administration of that country by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi otherwise known as the Shah of Iran.  At the time, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the United States staunchest ally in the Middle East and, in an otherwise unstable region, the country of Iran was a bedrock of stability.   The Iranian Islamic revolutionary movement led by the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini opposed the Shah’s autocratic pro-Western rule.  This revolutionary movement gained significant ground as Carter increased the pressure on the Shah through the newly formed Office of Human Rights and to make a long story short, the Shah was overthrown and left the country on January 16, 1979.  The United States tried to mitigate Jimmy Carter’s damage to our relationship with Iran but on 22 October 1979, when the former Shah was admitted to the U.S. for treatment of lymphatic cancer the Ayatollah Khomeini became furious and denounced the U.S. as the “Great Satan.”  On 4 November 1979, during an Iranian student demonstrations encouraged by the Ayatollah, the U.S Embassy in Tehran was targeted and the embassy staff were taken hostage with the intent to exchange them for the property and money of the deposed Shah.   Eleven months later, on 22 September 1980, Iraq invaded Iran under the mistaken belief that Iran’s state of disarray would lead to a quick victory.  The American people, dissatisfied with Carter’s inability to stabilize the oil crisis and secure the release of the hostages taken from the Tehran embassy, overwhelmingly voted to replace him with Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The Presidential office into which Reagan was inaugurated in 1981 was laden with Carter’s mistakes as well as a host of other problems.  The American economy demanded stabilization of the oil crisis and the people demanded an end to the hostage crisis.  One of Reagan’s first executive orders resolved the hostage situation by releasing the 8 billion dollars in Iranian funds secured in American banks and the hostage crisis was over.  The oil crisis was more problematic and Regan’s advisors counseled that the United States needed to regain the foothold in the Middle East that we lost with the downfall of the Shah.  Inasmuch as the U.S. relations with Iran were, for the most part, in the toilet, the only available alternative was to deal with Saddam and figure out a way to get past the hostility that resulted from the U.S. support of Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Initially, Iraq advanced far into Iranian territory, but was driven back within months. By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism.  In December of that same year Hughes Aircraft shipped 60 Defender helicopters to Iraq and 11 months later the United States issued a National Security Directive stating that the U.S would do “whatever was necessary and legal” to prevent Iraq from losing its war with Iran.  Within mere days following that directive Banca Nazionale del Lavoro of Italy and its Branch in Atlanta begin to funnel $5 billion in unreported loans to Iraq.  Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of the US government, purchased computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods for Iraq’s missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.  Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt began to transfer weapons purchased from the U.S. to Iraq. These shipments included Howitzers, Huey helicopters, and bombs.  Between 1982 and 1988 when the Iraq/Iran war ended the United States used methods both legal and illegal to help build Saddam’s army into the most powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel.  The US supplied chemical and biological agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians. The US supplied the materials and technology for these weapons of mass destruction to Iraq at a time when it was know that Saddam was using this technology to kill his Kurdish citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning information to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide, mustard gas and nerve agents. The United States blocked UN censure of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. The United States did not act alone in this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but England, France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms and technology.
German firms such as Karl Kobe helped build Iraqi chemical weapons facilities such as laboratories, bunkers, an administrative building, and first production buildings in the early 1980s under the cover of a pesticide plant. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade. Five other German firms supplied equipment to manfacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin for germ warfare. In 1988, German engineers presented centrifuge data that helped Iraq expand its nuclear weapons program.
France built Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in the late 1970s. Israel claimed that Iraq was getting close to building nuclear weapons, and so bombed it in 1981. Later, a French company built a turnkey factory which helped make nuclear fuel. France also provided glass-lined reactors, tanks, vessels, and columns used for the production of chemical weapons. Around 21% of Iraq’s international chemical weapon equipment was French. Strains of dual-use biological material also helped advance Iraq’s biological warfare program.

Italy gave Iraq plutonium extraction facilities that advanced Iraq’s nuclear weapon program. 75,000 shells and rockets designed for chemical weapon use also came from Italy. Between 1979 and 1982 Italy gave depleted, natural, and low-enriched uranium.

Swiss companies aided in Iraq’s nuclear weapons development in the form of specialized presses, milling machines, grinding machines, electrical discharge machines, and equipment for processing uranium to nuclear weapon grade.

Brazil secretly aided the Iraqi nuclear weapon program by supplying natural uranium dioxide between 1981 and 1982 without notifying the IAEA. About 100 tons of mustard gas also came from Brazil.
The United Kingdom paid for a chlorine factory that was intended to be used for manufacturing mustard gas. The government secretly gave the arms company Matrix Churchill permission to supply parts for the Iraqi supergun.
An Austrian company gave Iraq calutrons for enriching uranium. The nation also provided heat exchangers, tanks, condensers, and columns for the Iraqi chemical weapons infrastructure, 16% of the international sales.
Singapore gave 4,515 tons of precursors for VX, sarin, tabun, and mustard gasses to Iraq.
The Dutch gave 4,261 tons of precursors for sarin, tabun, mustard, and tear gasses to Iraq.
Egypt gave 2,400 tons of tabun and sarin precursors to Iraq and 28,500 tons of weapons designed for carrying chemical munitions.
India gave 2,343 tons of precursors to VX, tabun, Sarin, and mustard gasses.
Luxembourg gave Iraq 650 tons of mustard gas precursors.
Spain gave Iraq 57,500 munitions designed for carrying chemical weapons. In addition, they provided reactors, condensers, columns and tanks for Iraq’s chemical warfare program, 4.4% of the international sales.
China provided 45,000 munitions designed for chemical warfare.
Portugal provided yellowcake between 1980 and 1982.
Niger provided yellowcake in 1981.
If you piled all of the chemicals and equipment that flowed into Iraq between 1982 and 1988, from virtually every country on the planet for the purpose of manufacturing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction, you would have a toxic mountain higher than Mt. Everest.  Furthermore, the end of the Iraq/Iran war not the conclusion of Saddam Hussein’s accumulation of equipment and chemicals for the manufacture and production of  chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.  If anything, he accelerated his efforts.  When George W. Bush initiated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 he knew beyond any reasonable doubt that Saddam Hussein not only had weapons of mass destruction, he had used them in the past.  He knew this for the same reason that Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Russia, China, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Egypt, India and a host of other countries knew about it.  Every single one of them had dumped their stockpiles of materials used for the manufacture of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on Saddam during the eight year war.  Furthermore, George Bush had access to the same intelligence briefings that Bill Clinton had before him when in 1998 Clinton ordered the cruise missile strike against Iraq’s more uninhabited regions with the same justification that Bush used in 2003. 

“Earlier today I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces, their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors,” said Clinton.
Clinton also stated that, while other countries also had weapons of mass destruction, Hussein is in a different category because he has used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/16/clinton.iraq.speech/

It is unfortunate that despite Clinton’s insight into the development of WMD’s by Saddam Hussein, he couldn’t muster anything but a half-baked effort.  The 20 cruise missiles Clinton ordered to be launched into Iraq hit nothing of significance (unless you’re talking to the spouse of one of the civilians killed) and merely served to strengthen Saddam’s resolve to increase both his production and the level of secrecy surrounding it.

Furthermore –

In December 2002, Iraq’s 1,200 page “Weapons Declaration” revealed a list of Eastern and Western corporations and countries, as well as individuals, that exported a total of 17,602 tons of chemical precursors to Iraq in the past two decades. By far, the largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and Federal Republic of Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.

So, with regard to the allegation that George W. Bush faked the intelligence information to show that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, that allegation could not be more false.  Did George Bush lie about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs?  Absolutely not

If there anything people should be asking with respect to all of this, it is not about the quality and credibility of Bush’s intelligence information, but what happened to the world’s single largest stockpile of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons ever amassed?  Where are they?

On March 9, 2004 the US military discovered a numerous Russian-made R-60 and AA-8 Aphid air-to-air missiles with radioactive uranium wrapped around a high explosive warhead in a design that could only be conceived of for its value as a “dirty bomb.”  The uranium was not pure enough or in sufficiently large enough quantities to be considered a nuclear warhead and the only other purpose these devices could possible have would be to contaminate a small area with nuclear radiation. 

On June 29, 2006, 500 chemical munitions found in Iraq by the U.S. military.  These were primarily missiles with explosive warheads filled with the nerve agent Sarin.  By US military standards the missiles attached to these warheads are considered fairly obsolete.  Because they had been exposed to the elements they were rusty and many of their engines were packed with sand, rendering them unworkable (without cleaning).  The Sarin inside the warheads was probably manufactured around 1991, however, the nerve agent was contained in hermetically sealed chambers shielded from any potentially damaging source of ultraviolet / infrared light.  Despite the rust, sand and the dents in the fins of these missiles, the explosive warhead and the sarin core is as deadly today as it was the day it was manufactured.  One such device was dismantled and used to construct a roadside bomb that put two Americans in the hospital with sarin poisoning.

Indications of the chemical precursors used to manufacture WMDs have been found in many locations but the large stockpiles of equipment and weapons have not been discovered.  Intelligence gathered since the invasion of March 2003 has led U.S. officials to surmise that Saddam dismantled the majority of his production facilities and either shipped the equipment and materials out of the country prior to the invasion or hid it somewhere in Iraq where it may never be found.  A good deal of substantiation exists to warrant the belief that Syria may have been the recipient of Saddam’s going out of business give-a-way.

Supporting Terrorist Activities
The justifications given by George W. Bush prior to the American invasion of Iraq were based largely on intelligence data handed down to him directly from former President Clinton.  This is as true for Saddam’s active support of world-wide terrorist groups as it was for Saddam’s weapons program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

During President Clinton’s eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton’s defense secretary when he cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.  The second pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department indictment on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
The indictment disclosed a close relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam’s regime, which included specialists on chemical weapons and all types of bombs, including truck bombs, a favorite weapon of terrorists.

The 1998 indictment stated: “Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States.  In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq.”
Shortly after the embassy bombings, Mr. Clinton ordered air strikes on al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on the Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.  To justify the Sudanese plant as a target, Clinton aides said it was involved in the production of deadly VX nerve gas. Officials further determined that bin Laden owned a stake in the operation and that its manager had traveled to Baghdad to learn bomb-making techniques from Saddam’s weapons scientists.

In an Iraqi televised speech by Saddam Hussein on March 4, 2002 he stated, “We are glad of the Istishhadiyyah [suicide] and heroic spirit of the Palestinian people. By Allah, what the Palestinian people does is beyond my expectations…”

On 11 March 2002, Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz announced at a Baghdad meeting of Arab politicians and businessmen “President Saddam Hussein has recently told the head of the Palestinian political office, Faroq al-Kaddoumi, his decision to raise the sum granted to each family of the martyrs of the Palestinian uprising to $25,000 instead of $10,000.”  Reuters released the story of the meeting including the statement of Aziz on 12 March 2002.

Saddam Hussein’s vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, is the man who Israeli intelligence believes was directly involved in funneling money from Baghdad into the hands of the families of homicide bombers. Documents that the Israeli Defense Force captured in the Palestinian town of Ramallah indicate that Vice President Ramadan used the Arab Liberation Front, the Palestinian Liberation Front, and the Palestinian branch of the Iraqi Baathist party to pass these funds into the hands of terrorists’ families.

Abu Abbas, the terrorist scum that shot Leon Klinghoffer to death while he sat helpless in his wheelchair abord the Achille Lauro and then rolled him, wheelchair and all, into the Mediterranean on 9 October 1985 was the holder of an Iraqi diplomatic passport.  The source of this information is Bettino Craxi, who, at the time of the hijacking, was Italy’s prime minister. 

The hijackers of the Achille Lauro surrendered to Egyptian authorities in exchange for safe passage to Tunisia. Abu Abbas then joined them on a flight aboard an Egypt Air jet. However, four U.S. fighter planes forced the airliner to land at a NATO base in Sicily. Italian officials took the hijackers into custody but because of the diplomatic passport and the fact that the plane was on an official mission, considered covered by diplomatic immunity and extra-territorial status in the air and on the ground Italian authorities felt they had no choice but to release it and the hijackers.  Abu Abbas finally ended up in Baghdad in 1994, where he lived comfortably as one of Saddam Hussein’s guests. U.S. soldiers caught Abbas in Iraq in April 2003. This time, he did not get away. He died on 9 March 2004 , in American custody, reportedly of natural causes.

Abu Nidal lived comfortably in Iraq between 1999 and August 2002. As the Associated Press reported on August 21, 2002, Nidal’s Beirut office said he entered Iraq “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities.”  Prior to his relocation, he ran the Abu Nidal Organization, a Palestinian terror network behind attacks in 20 countries, at least 407 confirmed murders, and some 788 other terror-related injuries. Nidal’s group used guns and grenades to attack a ticket counter at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport on December 27, 1985. Another cell in Austria simultaneously assaulted Vienna’s airport, killing 19 people.  Among the five Americans that Abu Nidal murdered that day was John Buonocore III, a 20-year-old Fairleigh Dickinson College student who had studied in Rome that fall semester. Buonocore was shot in the back while checking in for his flight home. He had hoped to return to Wilmington, Delaware to help his father celebrate his 50th birthday.  If there is any justice here, perhaps it is the fact that Abu Nidal died in August 2002. Saddam Hussein’s government claimed that he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head — four times. 

Hisham al Hussein, the former second secretary at Iraq’s embassy in Manila was expelled from the Phillipines on 13 February 2003, just five weeks before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Cell phone records indicated he had spoken with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, two leaders of Abu Sayyaf, al-Qaeda’s de facto franchise for the Philippines. The timing was particularly suspicious, as he had been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf terrorists just before and after they conducted an attack in Zamboanga City.

The incidents and individuals described above represent only a partial listing of known terrorists and terrorist activities supported by Saddam.  With that partial listing and with the knowledge of the two Clinton pronouncements and the indictment filed in 1998 by the Clinton administration in mind, you have to ask yourself , “Who is the liar in this specific situation?”

“I never believed in the link between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism.”

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
Essay published in Australia’s Melbourne Herald Sun on 21 October 2003
 
“Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one.  We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from al Qaeda. It was not.”
Senator Ted Kennedy on 16 October 2003

“As we all know by now there was never a proven link between Saddam, al-Qaida or even the Crips.”
Richard Cohen, one of the few Washinton Times colunnists who possesses the ability to whine in print    

“The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all.”
Al Gore 2003

“Iraq was not a terrorist haven before the invasion”
John F. Kerry – Philadelphia 24 September 2004

“Iraq was not even close to the center of the War on Terror before the president invaded it.”
John F. Kerry – Presidential Debate 30 September 2004 

Clearly the Democratic National Party felt that George W. Bush was a bigger threat to their continued existence that either Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden because every single individual quoted above had full access to the same information that I am giving here.  However, with that said I must not underestimate the tenacity with which a good Democrat clings to the party line regardless of how false that line may be, so, in conclusion (and with respect to Saddam’s support for radical Islamic terrorists) I will add the following.      

The link between the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and many of the world’s radical Islamic fundamentalist terror organizations has been irrefutably verified through the some of the more than 2 million exploitable items of intelligence value recovered in postwar Iraq.  In the ongoing effort to complete the translation and analyses of the entire collection that includes photographs, handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives, American intelligence officials have reportedly discovered a wealth of information directly related to Saddam Hussein’s terrorist training programs.  Recently released information resulting from this ongoing effort indicate that Saddam trained  thousands of radical Islamic terrorists including fighters who were drawn from terrorist groups such as Algeria’s GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda.  Between 1999 and 2002, elite Iraqi military units took in and provided training for some 2000 terrorists every year at three primary locations in Iraq, Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak.  This information was further substantiated in statements taken by U.S. government interrogators from Iraqi regime officials and military leaders detained by the U.S.

One article published on the discovery of this information is available online at,
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/10/4/141421.shtml

Most dedicated readers of American newspapers can be excused for their misconception that absolutely nothing of any benefit has resulted from America’s invasion of Iraq.  After all, this is the primary headline carried on the front of newspapers all across the country and the American public has had few opportunities to read about anything good that has been accomplished.  I won’t even begin to attempt to analyze the reasons behind this because I believe those reasons are very evident and, unfortunately, I cannot give a comprehensive list of everything beneficial that has been accomplished since March 2003 because that is a very long list.  I will, however, provide a partial listing of some of the highlights.

Chief among the benefits to the American people as well as to the people of both Iraq and Afghanistan is the fact that the Taliban government of Afghanistan has been deposed and Saddam Hussein has been toppled from power.  The perpetrators of 9-11 that may or may not remain alive are hiding in some dank cave afraid to show their faces.  The strength of their former terrorist network is in tatters and still unraveling and the vast majority of the groups 2001 leaders are either dead or in prison while their replacements are characteristically subject to a high turnover rate and their life expectancy is extremely short.  The dream of Saddam Hussein, to gain the iron-fisted control of two thirds of the world’s oil supply and build an arsenal of weapons so vast and deadly that no one would ever dare to provoke him, has been completely destroyed.   Saddam now sits in a small jail cell in Baghdad awaiting his own inevitable execution at the hands of the people he once oppressed so ruthlessly.

Since March 2003 when the United State first invaded Iraq over 240 hospitals and 2400 primary health care clinics have been brought up to American standards and made fully operational; there are an additional 57 healthcare centers and 12 hospitals currently being renovated and brought up to standards.  Nursing and hospital staff are being trained by the hundreds.

For the first time in over thirty years children are being vaccinated against smallpox and inoculated against other common childhood diseases.  Pediatricians have become available to examine and treat thousands of children that have never seen a doctor in the past.

More than 2500 schools have been renovated and an additional 1500 schools are slated for renovation.  School attendance is up 60% across the country.  For the first time in thirty years Iraqi students are reading textbooks that do not attribute most of the West’s technological advancements made in the last fifty years to the brilliant mind of Saddam Hussein. 

The massive dams built at Saddam Hussein’s direction resulted in the destruction of 90 percent of the southern wetlands where Marsh Arabs had lived for more than 5,000 years. These dams have been destroyed and the water they contained has been allowed to once again flow into the area many call the cradle of Western Civilization where it formerly provided homes and sustenance to hundreds of thousands of marshland inhabitants.  While it make take years to rectify the massive environmental damage created by Saddam the process of healing has at least been started and, further damage to this region has been stopped. 

Water treatment facilities have been built and service restored to thousands of people. 

Roads have been repaired as well as railroad stations and airports. 

Twelve new police stations and 120 border posts have been constructed. 

The port at Umm Qasar, Iraq’s largest, is modern and fully functioning for the first time in 20 years. 

The electrical generation of power has been restored and improved and there are more people taking advantage of the electricity today that there were prior to the US invasion.

Free elections have been held throughout Iraq and thousands of Iraqi citizens have braved the threat of insurgent violence to participate in Iraq’s democratic process.

There are also numerous problems ongoing. 

Iran and Syria have dedicated much effort and great expense to ensure the failure of the United States effort in Iraq.  They have trained, armed and equipped large numbers of terrorist insurgents recruited from numerous Muslim countries to go into Iraq and further the cause of Islamic revolution.  This has resulted in a dramatic increase in civilian deaths inside Iraq and created widespread disfavor with the Iraqi people regarding their own government and the coalition troops struggling to contain the violence.

Restoring the infrastructure of Iraq to the point where all services can become dependable and available to all is a costly and time consuming effort.  It is an effort that will not be completed by the United States and its coalition partners but, hopefully by the Iraqi citizens who will gain the knowledge and confidence in their own abilities through the educational processes opened for them as a direct result of American intervention.

Whether or not the concept of freedom planted by our efforts in this distant country will someday take root and grow is, at this point, a matter of speculation.  The ongoing effort of America’s more liberal political faction appears inclined to destroy the work already completed for the sole benefit realized by bringing discredit to the current president responsible for initiating that work.  The American people have been carefully spoon fed nothing but the negative events and developments resulting from their military’s Iraqi intervention while the benefit and extreme gratitude felt by the Iraqi people for the sacrifices made on their behalf is denied publication.  This constant diet of bad news has taken its toll and the pressure is constantly building to withdraw American involvement without regard for the tragically destructive consequences that would quickly result or the very real threat to our own national security that would certainly develop as a direct result of giving Iran the chance to achieve Saddam’s lost dream of controlling the majority of the world’s oil supply and a massive arsenal of dangerous weapons to threaten or destroy any who provoked their wrath.

In closing this extended document, I will add that the actions of President George W. Bush, while not perfect in every regard, are courageous in comparison to those of most past American presidents.  Whether or not this level of courage is required in order to call oneself a man is not a question that I would entertain because I do not believe that it is either logical or relevant.  That being said, the courage to do what he felt was right and the tenacity to continue what he started despite the political repercussions he has suffered as a result are, without question, admirable.  Courage is a quality that is entirely independent of gender.  It is the demonstration of willingness to place oneself between the impending threat of evil and humanity’s desire for good.  The history of the human race presents many demonstrations of courageous behavior covering a wide spectrum from the quietly peaceful refusal to comply with ignorant laws to the ultimate sacrifice of a human life in the hope that mankind will somehow benefit.  The sacrifices made by the men and women that have served in Iraq as well as the progress they have achieved is not something that the American people should forget and it is certainly not something that we should allow to be thrown away for the benefit of self-serving politicians who think less of the American people and nation than they do of their own self-inflated sense of importance.

Back in 1989 when the House voted to impeach federal judge Alcee Hastings over the 16 of 17 counts related to allegations of bribery, the one count that was dropped may now be viewed as being a lot more relevant than the ones that got him heaved out of his courtroom.  The seventeenth count had to do with an accusation that Alcee Hastings leaked secret government information that scuttled three FBI probes that were going on in 1985.
 

That seventh count was referred to as Article XVI and the house voted to impeach Hastings on it but when the matter went before the Senate, they voted to acquit on the grounds that the evidence was weak.  Allegedly (as they say in the PC newspapers), the leak occurred in Miami in 1985 while the FBI was running wiretaps in the effort to catch cops on the take to drug dealers; longshoremen extorting money from potential union members; and a group of zoning officials taking bribes for favors.  One of the Zoning Officials whose phone had been tapped was a guy named “Waxy” Gordon who also happened to be a drug dealer as well as a close personal friend of Steve Clark, the mayor of Miami-Dade County at the time. Alcee Hastings didn’t know Mayor Clark and he probably didn’t know Waxy Gordon either but he had certainly heard of both of them because the FBI wiretap required that Alcee get weekly updates regarding the conversations overheard and one of those updates included the information that Waxy had been yakking about his buddy Mayor Clark. 
 

At the Miami Hyatt Regency on the morning of September 6, 1985, Mayor Clark attended an event held in honor of Judge Hastings where, as one would normally expect, Alcee gave the keynote speech.  Steve Clark’s sworn testimony before the grand jury and the U.S. Congress has it that after Alcee finished basking in his limelight and concluded his speech, he walked down the center aisle of the room, stopped to shake the good mayor’s hand and then leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Stay away from Kevin Gordon. He’s hot. He is using your name in Hialeah.”
 

The House prosecutors never identified Hastings’ motive for sharing these secrets and there seems to be some variation regarding the times involved as well as debate over the accuracy of Clark’s memory but, the one thing on which there is no debate is that Alcee Hastings was apprised of the fact that Waxy had mentioned Mayor Clark and subsequently Mayor Clark became aware of Waxy’s comments and Waxy became aware of the wiretap.  The FBI had to drop the investigation into Waxy but he was popped for drug related charges and conveniently fell over dead from a heart attack two weeks later.  Now here we are 21 years later and Alcee is within a whisper of being placed in one of the most sensitive jobs in the entire United States government which only goes to show you that America is truly the land of great opportunists.

The simple fact of the matter and the real bottom line of this entire subject is that the American people have stood idle with their collective heads firmly entrenched in the sand while their government, the government that we elected to office for the purpose of protecting our rights and our national security, has done little to resolve the threat that radical Islamic fundamentalists pose not just to us but to the entire world.
George W. Bush has certainly tried to do something about it but he is only one person.  Without the full support of the other politicians we have elected, there is only so much one person can do.

If you look back through recent history you can clearly see that numerous really stupid decisions have been made by American leaders with respect to the Middle East.  Jimmy Carter’s failure to support the Shah of Iran directly resulted in his downfall.  He was the strongest and the most influential leader in the Middle East at the time to say nothing of the fact that he was one of the most loyal allies we had in that region.  His downfall didn’t simply send the scales out of balance, it tipped them over completely.  Now here we are years later, fumbling around in the dark while Iran is poised to become the worlds next nuclear power and it is a nation of fanatics who are willing to destroy themselves if that is what it takes to erase us from history.

Bill Clinton did nothing while the radical Islamic fundamentalists attacked American targets throughout the 1990s.  We didn’t realize it when it started but by the time 1996 rolled around and brought us the bombing of the Khobar towers in Dhahran and the deaths of 16 U.S. military men, we should have known that these attacks were just the preliminary strikes of what would later become a full blown war.

The example given to us by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is one that should be branded deep in our hearts and our minds; appeasement does not prevent wars; it only forestalls the inevitable and results in larger conflicts, greater destruction and more death.  Carter demonstrated this and Bill Clinton confirmed it in 1993 with his refusal to confront al Qaeda when they first tried to bring down the World Trade Center; the same al Qaeda that came back nine years later and finished the job leaving thousands dead in the rubble.  

George Bush has done his best but you can see what it has earned him when you hear the words of the liberal sheep who are still entirely blind to the fact that they’re standing knee deep in the blood of terrorist victims with the burnt and broken bodies of innocents stacked up around them while saying that the problem isn’t that bad, the threat’s not that real, our response is not proportional – blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  Like a gaggle of insanely stupid parrots, they have all the words memorized but they just can’t seem to relate to the reality of the growing wall of mangled human remains stacked hip deep from the back alleys of Palestine to the large crater in the ground where the World Trade Center once stood.  The idea that some psychopath using a dull butcher knife would slowly saw off the head of a helpless, wire-bound prisoner doesn’t make much of an impression at all but, the idea that an American soldier would force a prisoner to stand on a wooden box and go without sleep – well, that’s an unacceptable abuse of power, it’s unconscionable, it’s degrading, it’s torture!  At what point do these people begin to realize that dead Americans being dragged through the streets and the smoldering bodies hanging from makeshift gallows represent the negative intent of a group that is so filled with hate and the thirst for blood that all of their peaceful overtures and attempts at appeasement amount to nothing?  Where under the stacked up bodies of the Trade Center dead is the line we have to cross before the non-confrontational appeasers grasp the fact that, regardless of what we do now or have done in the past, there is no way to contain the continued attacks against us and we can run like panic stricken children but there is no place to hide?  If we, as Americans, continue to allow the partisan bickering to undermine the national security of our country what will our children and their children see if they are alive to look back at this time from some point in the not so distant future?  Will they see the spirit of the American people standing in opposition to the onslaught of religious fanatics killing everything in their path to world domination or, will they see only the fleeing backsides of panicked sheep still mouthing their pandering platitudes as they are cut down in the cross fire of third-world religious zealots on one side and the shrewdly manipulative despots who control them on the other? 

The demonstrations of intent, by the radical forces of Islamic fundamentalists, can not possibly be made any more clear.  We can read their words, we can listen to their plans for our deaths and the destruction of everything we have ever done with our own ears and, we can see the savagery of their bloody carnage with our own eyes.  When will we wake up and realize that if we don’t stand together against this threat now we will not have that option later?  When we we see that it doesn’t matter as much which party run this country as long as we have someone with the common sense to see the danger we face and the fortitude to face it head on instead of trying to talk it death?

I can understand the apparent position that American actions in the Middle East somehow stimulated the attacks against us and that by doing little or nothing in the way of response to these acts of aggression, those who would perpetrate such acts against us might, hopefully go away and leave us alone.  If I am not mistaken, there is a term for this sort of behavior but at this moment I don’t seem to be able to remember it.  At any rate, I disagree with it.  The United States military’s invasion of Iraq did not initiate acts of terrorism by radical Islamic fundamentalists, acts of terrorism by radical Islamic fundamentalists were taking place long before the first American soldier stepped foot in that country.  Additionally, acts of terrorism by radical Islamic fundamentalists have not been directed at American targets exclusively but at every nation and people that have opposed, by word or deed, the continued spread of their domination.  In fact, the majority of casualties in Iraq is not the direct result of American military action but is, in fact, the result of insurgent bombings and other acts of violence directly aimed at the Iraqi people.

The collision between the Western world and the Islam has resulted in the world-wide exposure of Muslim culture and law.  By comparison, many in the west have developed viewpoints, with respect to Muslim people, that are far from flattering.   Media portrayals of women and children being caned or stoned to death for seemingly minor religious offences, punishments imposed on female rape victims, death sentences imposed for listening to a radio, female circumcisions, intense religious indoctrination, suicidal martyrs blowing themselves and others apart in public places and numerous other events and customs are so far removed from modern Western culture that we will never understand the justification behind them.  The abject state of shock and horror instilled in Western eyes by events such as these is seen by many in the predominantly Muslim areas of the planet as both grossly insulting and deeply humiliating.  Resentment and anger by these people are the inevitable result.

The idea that radical Islamic fundamentalists would attack Westerners because they are jealous of our freedoms is entirely ludicrous.  They do not want our freedoms nor do they desire the technological trappings of Western society.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there because they do not want us to have the freedoms and the technology either.   We are locked into this struggle not because of what we have done or not done to these people in the past but because we are a technologically advanced nation predominantly made up of secular individuals who can rightfully be expected to stand in direct opposition the spread of religious domination regardless of its origin.  If we had never invaded Iraq we would still be a target because we will always oppose that sort of domination.  If we left tomorrow or if we had left last year it would make no difference because we are still an obstacle and we will always be an obstacle in the path of religious domination.    The radical Islamic fundamentalists point to our freedoms and our technology as being symptomatic of our affiliation with the evil neo-pagan force that is responsible for devaluing their traditional beliefs and loyalties, robbed them of their culture, their aspirations, their dignity, and even their livelihood.  Radical Islamic fundamentalism has personified this force of evil, they have given it a name and a face and they attribute it variously to the Jews, the Western World or the United States.  What we see as actions taken against us as Americans or as Jews or as Westerners are, in reality, demonstrations of  formless anger and resentment directed at the whole process of change that has taken place in the Islamic world in the past century or more and has transformed the political, economic, social, and even cultural structures of Muslim countries.  

Islam is one of the world’s great religions. Islam has brought comfort and peace of mind to millions of men and women. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught people of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. But Islam, like other any other religion, can be used, by manipulative individuals, to further their own political agenda.  For this reason, Islam is not immune to the same type of manipulative control history has repeatedly demonstrated with other religions.   Feelings of humiliation and long-standing resentments are forged in the rhetorical fires of fanaticism to produce hatred so deep and abiding that bloodshed, violence, death and destruction become the only acceptable response.  It is not about what we have done so much as it is about what we are, how we live, the values and principles we practice and the beliefs we profess.  These are the things that are seen as being innately evil and, because we, as Americans or Westerners, promote and accept these innately evil things without question or complaint, the only assumption one can make is that we are the enemies of God and by extension the enemies of all righteous men.  It is a deep religious conviction that obligates righteous Muslims to fight evil in all its forms.  It is a twisted perversity of illogical progression that personifies that evil as American and Western secularism and the modern technology that symbolizes that secularism.  Additionally, it is the same twisted perversity of illogical progression that regulates and directs the religious obligation to fight evil at all things American and Western.

Of the approximate 5,771,939,007 people on this planet, 26% or around 1,482,596,925 of these people are Muslims.  They are the majority in nearly 50 countries world-wide.  If the radical Islamic fundamentalist’s are a mere 1% of the total number of Muslims world-wide we can estimate that there are approximately 15 million people possessed with the deeply religious conviction that all Americans and the majority of all Westerners are the agents of Satan and must be destroyed at any cost.  I would certainly characterize this as a significant threat to the American way of life.  Furthermore, I contend that this threat is not something as vague and illusory as the philosophical concepts you want to verbally dance around.  We are dealing with an enemy that is completely and irrefutably convinced that they are the instruments of God’s vengeance and that if they lay down their lives in the pursuit of God’s will, they die with the sure and certain conviction that great rewards will be lavished upon them in the afterlife.  Joyfully they blow themselves to pieces in Israeli marketplaces, pride infuses those whose children express the desire to become suicide bombers and parents consciously and willingly send their children out to die in the name of God because they know that they will be rewarded in heaven.  There are few in America who can relate to this sort of deep religious conviction, most of us cannot even begin to comprehend of such a thing.  It has resisted change for more than a thousand years and there is little compelling reason to believe that it will change now or at any time in the future.  The threat is both real and tangible.  Running away from it will not make it go away.  Ignoring it will not make it disappear.  History has clearly demonstrated the futility of placating it and all attempts at mitigation have resulted in scorn.  There is honestly nothing we can possibly do or quit doing that will enable us with the ability to avoid forever the inevitable confrontation with the single exception of mass conversion and the renunciation of all things perceived as being heretical, anything short of that merely forestalls the inevitable. 

If we have a choice it is the choice between confronting this threat today, with our allies beside us, on our own terms and on a battlefield of our choice where he have the strategic advantage and our enemy is logistically disadvantaged by lack of advanced weaponry, communications and manpower, or we can avoid this confrontation until our enemy is larger, better organized and far better equipped.  By forestalling the inevitable clash we risk facing an enemy that has overcome and eliminated those who would stand with us in the fight, the civilian casualties incurred will be our friends and our family members and the battlefield will be the streets of America.

Former President Carter did not confront this threat and neither did former President Clinton.  From all appearances, the majority of Democratic politicians now in Washington appear more inclined to minimize this threat than face it.  Some of these Democratic politicians have proposed ideas that would increase the strength and power of the radical Islamic fundamentalists at the expense of our nation’s continued security.  George W. Bush has stood up to this threat where others have kept their heads buried in the sand.  You can ridicule his willingness to stand in opposition to this threat all that you want and you can add your voice to the ranks of those who dismiss the inevitable and disregard the obvious truth that is demonstrated with bloodshed and violence in every corner of the planet on an hourly basis.  That is your right.  It is right that has been guaranteed to you as a result of the hundreds of thousands of American men and women who have willingly stood in opposition to those who would take that right from you.

By the way . . . the term I was looking for earlier and couldn’t seem to remember – it is called cowardice. 

Democrats fought for control of the Senate and House of Representatives in part by complaining about what they called a “culture of corruption” in congressional Republicans.  On election night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats would lead “the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.”

Shortly after the dust began to settle Pelosi endorsed John Murtha’s bid for House Majority Leader and proposed putting Alan Mollohan in charge of the appropriations panel and Alcee Lamar Hastings in charge of the House Permanent Standing Committee on Intelligence.  As fate would have it, Steny Hoyer was elected to the position of House Majority Leader on 16 November 2006 over John Murtha and Murtha is now slated to take charge of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee.  For all the raucous grandstanding and finger pointing by the donkey party one fact is becoming clearer with each passing second; the Republican “Culture of Corruption” vehemently vocalized by the braying liberals, is on its way out the door and soon will be replaced by the Democratic Party’s very own “Culture of Corruption.”   

Alcee Lamar Hastings was a United States District Court judge for the Southern District of Florida when, in 1989, he became the sixth Judge in the history of the U.S. to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.  In this instance Hastings was blasted out of the Florida courtroom for bribery and perjury for accepting a $150,000 bribe in 1981 in exchange for light sentences and the return of their seized assets in the matter of Frank and Thomas Romano who were convicted of 21 counts of criminal racketeering. Despite his impeachment, Hastings avoided both prosecution and prison and ended up being elected to the House of Representatives in 1992 where he has remained to this day.  Pelosi may feel the need to fulfill earlier promises made or perhaps it is just a matter of compensation earned for favor granted but at this point the consensus of opinion seems to incline toward the understanding that the decision to put Alcee Hastings in control of the House Permanent Standing Committee on Intelligence was a determination made on the basis of skin color and the need to appease the Congressional Black Caucus while the normal standards such as prior experience, job qualifications, personal integrity or benefit to the American people were not given any weight in the matter.  In reaching the determination to put Hastings in this position, Pelosi openly demonstrated a spectacular degree of personal animosity for Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.).  Jane Harman is currently the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee and was, by many Democrats, the expected shoe-in for the job.

Pelosi kicked off an inter-party fracas by giving John Murtha her personal endorsement for House Majority Leader.  In a battle that came down to Murtha Vs Steny Hoyer, many had expected Pelosi to sit quietly on the sidelines but, since Pelosi is someone who is obviously given to view things emotionally rather than intelligently, she gave her endorsement to Murtha who faithfully managed her winning campaign for the post of House minority whip in 2001. Steny Hoyer ran against Pelosi in the 2001 race for House minority whip and has seemingly gone out of his way to cause her as much grief as possible since then.  As conciliation, John Murtha is now slated to chair the Defense Appropriations subcommittee.  With Hoyer’s victory over Murtha Pelosi has not only fumbled her first attempt to lead the new Democratic majority but, her actions have earned her the enmity of he future second in command – not precisely a good way to begin. 

Neither Hoyer or Murtha can be viewed as any sort of shining example when it comes to honesty and integrity.  Steny Hoyer who voted against every one of Congressman Jeff Flake’s 19 anti-pork amendments has been characterized as one of the most notorious tax-and-spend Democrats in Congress. To put it simply, he approves wholeheartedly of maintaining his ability to spend the taxpayer’s hard-earned money with no oversight, no debate, no committee vote and few, if any rules to get in his way.  The fact that this sort of spending amounted to an overall expenditure of $34,759,000 in 2006 alone doesn’t even begin to raise a blush of embarrassment on the new House Majority Leader’s brow.  I suppose this is to be expected from a politician that uses his web site to brag about using his position as a senior member of the powerful Appropriations Committee to secured millions of federal dollars to replenish the oyster population of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, talk about fiscal responsibility.  Increased literacy, better educational standards and an end to the growing problem of homelessness be damned, what this country really needs is more flipping oysters growing in Chesapeake Bay!

John Murtha, on the other hand has nearly achieved the status of film celebrity on the basis his Oscar contending portrayal of a greedily corrupt politician in one of the greatest reality shows ever – The Abscam tapes.  The one thirteen second portion of this great American film where Murtha tells the undercover FBI agent that he is not interested in the $50,000 bribe money – just yet, is the most succinct summation of personal character imaginable.  Unfortunately for the American people now shackled to this un-redeeming piece of Democratic trash, it is not fiction.  John Murtha should not have been allowed to escape prosecution for his part in Abscam.  He was clearly inclined to cut a deal with the undercover agent regardless of illegality; he never reported his anything about his involvement with the attempted bribery prior to being advised that his indictment was being considered and, he was as blatantly guilty in his actions as were his friends, John Murphy and Frank Thompson, who Murtha agreed to testify against as a means to save his own sorry hide.  Ironically, Murtha was on the House ethics committee at the time and he has managed to be re-elected 13 times in the twenty-six years since Abscam.

Least I forget, Alan Mollohan as the chair of the appropriations panel.  Starting in the 1990s, Alan Mollohan used his seat on the House Appropriations Committee to secure more than $150 million for five nonprofit groups he had set up as a network to administer the money that he directed to them.  While this was going on his assets grew from no more than $565,000 to at least $6.3 million between 2000 and 2004. The partners in his real estate empire included the head of one of the nonprofit groups and the owner of a local company to which he arranged federal aid.  A federal probe into these shady dealings cost Mollohan his position on the House ethics committee and could have undermined the Democrats’ effort to portray the GOP as the party of corruption had the liberally inclined news media given the situation any room for coverage.  A growing federal investigation may cut short any celebratory plans currently being entertained by Mollohan and the chair of the House Appropriations Committee may be emptied before Mollohan’s butt even has a chance to get it warm.

The American voter’s may have thought they were voting for change but what they really voted for was an educational experience that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want the American public to have and that is the lesson that clearly and irrefutably demonstrates the simple fact that the current American government exists, not to represent the American citizens, but to enrich and empower the rapidly growing numbers of this country’s political elite, who, as it so happens, could care less what is good or what is bad for the welfare of the United States of America or the citizens who are forced to shoulder the increasing burden that is the byproduct of the corruption of both parties.