Doug Ross @ Journal

Gen. Tommy Franks on Iran

Hugh Hewitt posted a brief interview with General Tommy Franks. I have excerpted the items of special interest: namely, Iran.

HH: "Do you expect a confrontation with Iran in the next couple of years, and if so, any doubt in your mind about how that would go?" TF: "There is no doubt how it would go. I don't know whether to expect it or not. I personally hope not, but on the other hand, hope is not a method, as you and I both know. One thing that I do believe very firmly is that the world is a better place, a safer place, and so is our country, because Saddam Hussein is no longer in Iraq, at least in charge, and the Taliban are no longer in charge in Afghanistan because what happens is, when a sanctuary is created, the bad guys --the terrorists-- can operate out of the sanctuary. If we don't see that happening in Iran, we should be very, very thoughtful before we do something. If we do see that happening in Iran, I am afraid we will have to take care of it, Hugh." ... HH: "But I mean, did you see evidence that Al Qaeda was coming across the border from Afghanistan, after the Afghanistan war?" TF: "You talking about into Iran?" HH: "Yes." TF: "Yes. Yes. But what we have seen is transitory, we have seen transits, but I don't think we have seen the staging of Al Qaeda out of Iran." Hmmm. It doesn't take much guesswork to puzzle out what the opinion of General Franks is about what the automatic reaction to the presence of Al Qaeda in Iran ought to be, which I believe would apply equally to any known terrorist groups found to be operating there. Those are the realities of the post 9/11 world, realities not well suited to a waffler like Kerry.

Hugh Hewitt interviews Tommy Franks

Old Media in Retreat

It is perhaps impolite to note that it took the Times nearly four months to catch up with the reporting Carl Cameron did in the beginning of May. STILL, the baying of the Times and the rest of the old media is a sign of capitulation. Against their will, the best-funded and most prestigious journalists in America have been forced to cover a story they want no part of--or at the very least, they've been compelled to explain why they aren't covering it... ...James O'Shea is right. An informal network--the new media--has arisen that has the power to push stories into the old media. The combination of talk radio, a publishing house, blogs, and Fox News has given conservatives a voice independent of the old media... ...John Hinderaker, one of the bloggers behind Powerline, summed up the mood of the blogosphere by comparing journalism with brain surgery: "A bunch of amateurs, no matter how smart and enthusiastic, could never outperform professional neurosurgeons, because they lack the specialized training and experience necessary for that field," he said. "But what qualifications, exactly, does it take to be a journalist? What can they do that we can't? Nothing."

The No-So-Swift Mainstream Media

POW/MIA

One can only hope Fox picks up this ball and runs with it. This could make the Swiftvets look like a warmup.

Meet Some of the Men that John Kerry betrayed. John Kerry sold out our Prisoners of War and Missing in Action in favor of Trade Relations with Vietnam. Why? "In retrospect, it is clear that John Kerry had but one goal as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. His goal was to remove the issue of Prisoners of War and Missing in Action, as a roadblock to trade and normalization of relations with Vietnam. The question is.... why? ...In June of 1993, as reported in a Boston Herald article by Michael E. Knell, "Colliers International brokered a $905 million dollar deal to develop a deep sea port in Vietnam.." ...At the time the deal was brokered, C. Stewart Forbes was the Chief Executive Officer of Colliers International. ...Did Kerry have an another agenda, beyond the stated goals of the committee? Before you answer that question, there is one other piece of information you need to know. C. Stewart Forbes CEO of Colliers International and John Forbes Kerry are cousins."

POW/MIA Families against John Kerry

A Survivor's Story

Touching story of the fight against Communism.

...As WWII was drawing to a close, my mother was arrested and taken to a Communist prison camp where she spent 5 years as a guest of the Soviet Union. Her crime was being a German farm girl in Poland. The war was still raging and one day a shipment of captured German soldiers arrived. The badly wounded amongst them were separated, and those soldiers still able to walk and work were made to dig a ditch and when that task was completed, the Russians ordered the wounded to be thrown into the ditch and buried alive. Those who balked were shot. The screaming was terrible, and even as the soil was piled on, those boys desperately attempted to save themselves. The earth moved for what seemed like an eternity, but by morning all was still. Those German soldiers were between 12 and 15 years of age. For a teenage farm girl, this horror was almost too much to bear, nevertheless she survived to bear witness, but after her release in 1950, nobody was listening. Fast forward to the 1960's when President Kennedy proclaimed to the world that the United States was willing to "..., pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, ..." so that Liberty and Freedom would prevail. To those who had experienced first hand, the brutality of Communist rule, U.S. involvement in Vietnam was a noble and just cause, and at the onset we did not think that the U.S would lose, and yet, that is precisely what happened. This conflict, in which so many young men gave their lives, was subverted from within, by men such as John Kerry, and this subversion continues even today. It seems that many still describe the Vietnam conflict as a confused mess with no purpose, but for those of us on the outside it was a case of a brutal ideology proclaiming victory over the only country capable of defending freedom in this world. This loss of nerve by the leaders of the free world would have tragic consequences. Despite Kerry's assurances to the contrary, a bloodbath did ensue and upwards of a million people set sail in rickety boats in an attempt to escape the executions, gulags, and slave labour camps of the Workers Paradise of Vietnam. An unknown number lost their lives in the attempt. A further million people were murdered in Cambodia at the hands of the Khmer Rouge as Pol Pot sought to build a Utopia on this earth. John Kerry and others of his ilk are morally responsible for contributing to this colossal tragedy. His lies to the Senate helped divert the United States from a costly but noble struggle against a murderous and vicious ideology. To think that the moral heir to Tokyo Rose and Lord Ha-Ha is now running for President is repugnant to those for whom freedom is a rare and precious commodity. I am not an American and I did not fight in any war, but I am profoundly grateful to the United States of America for being a beacon of light in a very dark world...

A different perspective

The Assassinations

From the John Forbes Kerry Timeline site:

Declassified FBI documents identified John Kerry as having attended a VVAW meeting in Kansas City, Misouri in the house of one of the members. Scot Camil , VVAW Regional Coordinator from Florida was running the meeting. Camil proposed the establishment of "readiness groups" of the "Phoenix type." VVAW secretly voted on a proposal to kill six pro-war senators, including Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Democrat John Stennis of Mississippi. Gerald Nicosia, the historian, told the New York Sun that “Camil was deadly serious, brilliant and highly logical.” In his book he reports that “what Camil sketched was so explosive that the coordinators feared lest government agents even hear of it,” so they moved their meeting to a Mennonite hall. There, according to six eyewitnesses interviewed by the Sun, the plan was discussed and voted down, with Mr. Kerry speaking out against it, although there is disagreement about how narrow the margin of defeat was. On the third day of the meeting, Mr. Kerry and three others resigned from their posts as national coordinators of VVAW. Historian Douglas Brinkley says Mr. Kerry told him he quit because of “personality conflicts and differences in political philosophy.” Mr. Kerry also told Mr. Brinkley that he was a “no show” in Kansas City. Kerry later told two historians, Gerald Nicosia and Douglas Brinkley, that he was not there and that he had resigned from the organization before the meeting was held. In March 2004, reliable witnesses came forward and placed John Kerry at the meeting. In 2004, FBI files emerged establishing Kerry’s presence in Kansas City. His campaign conceded that Kerry somehow must have forgotten his involvement in the plot to assassinate U.S. senators while still on the executive committee of the VVAW.

John Kerry Timeline

Tax Cut Aftermath

Hmmmm... some vindication for President Bush from the Detroit News on the economic front...



Bush fails to get deserved credit for tax cut benefits (via Instapundit)

Quotes of the Day

Heard around the Internet:

"Listening to John Kerry complain about the scrutiny his Vietnam record is getting is like Pamela Anderson complaining about the fact that guys keep staring at her breasts. What the hell did you expect?"

"There are people in American public life for whom Vietnam would be a worse campaign issue than it is for John Kerry. Jane Fonda, former members of the Kent State National Guard, Lt. William Calley of My Lai. That's about it."

"John Kerry actually did fight for his country, before he fought against it."