No Surpise At All

And I'm not talking about a Halloween prank gone bad, but that Saddam offered his help to get French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac elected.

Photo of the Day

A touch of whimsy 

New Suite101.com Article Up

The new article is up. If you're running low on ideas, always count on the UN and the media to provide an easy target.

This particular article debunks the notion that things are worse in Iraq now than when Saddam was in power, which is clearly implicated in the various graphs and pie charts utilized in the article.

The Funniest Blog I've Come Across In A Long Time

Your lack of faith is disturbing. And not following my links is even moreso.

Darth might crush your trachea just for the fun of it.

Resistance Is Futile

The Boston Globe is reporting that whatever resistance the US was facing all but disappeared after the first two days of the battle, which commenced last Sunday. The majority of casualties taken by the US in this latest round occurred in the first two days, and six of the deaths were from one company.

Terrorists have fled from whatever safe havens they found along the way, although there are still pockets where US forces are concentrating their attentions. Chester has more.

Photo of the Day

The Cardo. This is a remnant of the Roman influence on ancient Jerusalem and this ruin is found in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City near the Hurva Synogogue.  

Much Ado Over Bolton?

... anyone on the left who thinks that Bolton is going to go in there and ruin the UN hasn't been paying much attention, either. Pardon me if I also think that claims Bolton is going to destroy the UN are a touch, shall we say, overwrought. The UN is flawed, but any changes Bolton might institute will be minor. You want to change the UN- tell Congress. They pay the damned bills.

So, to sum things up, I really don't care other than that I think a President should have his nominees confirmed. I would rather he nominate someone else, but it won't matter. In six months this will not even be an issue other than in hysterical MoveOn.Org fund-raising e-mails. I have complete faith in the capacity of the United Nations to chew up and spit out whoever we send there.

And while we are on the topic, I have mentioned that I think the UN is flawed. Absolutely. Part of the problem is structural and a reflection of the member's self-interest, as I mentioned above.

It's an interesting point to suggest that it doesn't matter who the US sends to the UN as its ambassador because of the structural and procedural problems with the UN itself. However, the US needs someone who is strong enough to reflect the US view at the UN and to demand change from within.

Congress can and should act to force reform from the outside - it does pay more than 20% of the bills at the UN - but reform has to come from within as well. In other words, the UN needs all the reform that the US can muster, and getting someone who will have the willpower to see that task through is a necessary component. Bolton appears to have that ability.

Stopping Terrorists Before They Strike

The radio still pressed to my ear, I peered into the machine gun's television monitor. LTC Kurilla was standing about two feet away from me, holding his rifle and scanning from the Vehicle Commander's position, when he gave the driver directions over the intercom.

"Head down past that garage where we got the VBIED yesterday."
"Roger."

As we passed the garage, five terrorists happened to be standing there. The Strykers are large, but quiet, and we managed to surprise the enemy.

Kurilla yelled into the intercom: "There's four suspicious cats, block left!" [Turn left]

"Stop!" Kurilla yelled at the men who had started to scatter. I could see one of them on the screen, pulling out a pistol just as he started running . . . bam! bam! bam! bam! bam! "Shoot him Munch, he's running for the trailer!" Kurilla commanded, but Munch did not have time to shoot. I saw dust splash, as Kurilla kept firing his rifle at the man, who disappeared between some parked trucks.

The terrorists were all captured, and the injured terrorist was treated for his injuries in a military hospital. They will not be able to kill anyone else.

This Is What Passes As Border Control?

Have Border Patrol officers been told to stand down and not arrest as many illegal immigrants in areas where the Minutemen operated in the past few weeks? If so, what purpose is being served and whose interests are served by this breach of duty?

It certainly appears to be a breach of national security - unless you subscribe to a political theory that borders and national interests are insigificant and are subsumed by transnational or supranational interests. The problem with that theory is that it simply isn't how the world works. Nation-states continue to be the primary entity for geopolitical and sociopolitical action. The failure to recognize borders is a threat to the sovreignty of the nations whose borders are being trespassed.

Yet, there are many in Congress, and even in the White House, that are not taking this issue seriously.

Ring My Bell

This case begins with South Plainfield's police getting new cell phones with new numbers.

That's when Capt. Paul Brembt started getting repeated calls from people speaking Spanish. Over and over.

"At first I thought somebody was playing a joke after I just got the phone," Brembt said.

Brembt wanted to get to the bottom of the annoying calls, so he enlisted the help of Officer Antonio Grasso, who speaks Spanish, to answer his cell and tell people to stop calling.

But when Grasso got the gist of the calls, the police no longer wanted people to stop calling. Instead, they set up a sting.

It seems Brembt's new number was the old number for a man named "Jorge" who was selling fraudulent licenses for $1,500 to illegals using fictitious Social Security numbers.

This is one of the most bizarre situations I can recall. Serendipity has allowed cops to track down a player in the trade of illegal and forged documents, as well as catch illegal immigrants seeking out those documents.

It's a twofer!

Now, if only the cops can manage to track down the ringleader. Sadly there are many people willing to trade in phony and forged ids, as well as ids procured under false pretenses. Local law enforcement is always slow to deal with this crime, but this incident has allowed local cops to get the jump on a major national security issue.

British and French Politicians On UNSCAM Dole? Zut Alors!

UNITED NATIONS — A U.S. Senate committee probing corruption in the U.N. Oil-for-Food program released new evidence purporting to show that two prominent politicians from Britain and France received millions of barrels of Iraqi oil in exchange for their support of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Citing contracts, letters and interviews with former Iraqi leaders, the probe set out evidence Wednesday to back the claim that British lawmaker George Galloway (search) and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (search) accepted oil allocations under the scheme.

Galloway and Pasqua have denied any wrongdoing in the Oil-for-Food program.

Galloway has a rather checkered past, which includes being closely associated with Saddam Hussein before Saddam was deposed. He was a strident opponent to Tony Blair's actions to side with the US in invading Iraq.

As I've said in the past, one has to follow the money to see and understand why some people act the way they do. Galloway appears to have been following orders from Saddam based on the oil money purported to have been sent his way.

Will the Iraqi government call for restitution to reclaim the money that should have been theirs?

Pasqua is in a similar position; and given that the French government opposed the US invasion to their utmost abilities, new revelations about Pasqua aren't particularly surprising.

Iranian Submarine Update

It seems that the AP did overvalue the Iranian submarine unveiling. While the AP breathlessly claimed that the submarine could lob missiles and field a crew of divers, the BBC actually produced a picture online that shows that this submarine is probably not much more than a torpedo that could sit someone on board. The Confederate Submarine Hunley, which was the first submarine to sink another ship carried a larger crew, and the strategic goals that resulted in their production are very similar.

The Hunley carried a crew of nine, while this Iranian sub has a crew of two, with space for three divers. That gives you some sense of the size of the craft. However, we should not underestimate the capabilities of the new subs such as they are.

The Iranian submarine is not designed to take on an aircraft carrier group per se, but is more likely designed to take out unsuspecting oil tankers. It is an area denial weapon, or more precisely, the kind of weapon that terrorists would love to have their hands on. A suicidial crew of jihadis could use the sub to take out unsuspecting cruise ships, cargo ships, or oil platforms/tankers in the Persian Gulf. It could be used to permit terrorists to infiltrate other countries.

Their small size and low cost per unit would make this an attractive weapons system for trying to control littoral waters (that's coastal waters, not deep oceans). This is a calculated smart play on the part of the Iranians. It's a cost effective way to project power.

Hat Tip: Chapomatic

Photo of the Day #2

Cornice on building in SoHo 

Photo of the Day

April flowers in bloom 

Does AP Overstate Iranian Sub Case?

The AP is reporting that the Iranians are building a new submarine that has missile and torpedo capabilities. This definitely sounds ominous, considering that the Iranians are working towards developing their own nuclear weapons program (they're at the step where they may have sufficient enriched uranium to make several weapons within months).

However, a closer examination of the story, indeed from the Tehran Times itself, shows that the AP story overstates the capabilities.

A closer reading of the Newsday article would not find the following statement made in the Tehran Times article:

Iran has started to manufacture midget submarines that can land troops and fire rockets, state media reported on Tuesday.

That's right - midget submarines that could land troops and fire rockets. Scary stuff. Not entirely. The subs would only work in littoral waters, not in open water, and their size would indicate that their primary use would be terrorist missions or covert operations.

Once again, local papers cite wire stories without any regard for fact checking or doing any legwork necessary to confirm stories. I can understand that there is significant pressure to get stories run, but blindly running stories on military issues seems to be a habit with the AP. Few, if any, people in the newsroom appear to know anything about military issues, weapons, capabilities, or strategic issues. So, that ignorance and lack of knowledge translates to the stories run by papers.

And the general public wouldn't know any better because most people use the news as their primary source of information.

Here's a memo to the AP. Hire more fact checkers to make sure that the stories run are accurate, and not assertions without basis in fact. Local papers should demand better accountability from the wire reports. Their credibility demands it.

Hat Tip: Bubblehead

They Came Here To Die

Terrorists continue to try and make a last stand against US forces along the Syrian border. They are fighting to the last man, because that's all that they have left. They have no choice. Giving up is not an option because it would betray all that the terrorists claim that they stand for. Of course, these are battle hardened terrorists who have fled from elsewhere in the country to make a last stand, plus reinforcements that appear to have come in from Syria.

In fact, there are reports that some of the individuals that the US is fighting in this region have uniforms and sophisticated arms, which would mean that the US might be engaging the Syrians.

According to Hurley and others who recounted the fighting that followed, Lima Company's Marines searched each house they passed. They turned up weapons cache after weapons cache: bombs made to be dropped from airplanes, a bicycle with a seat made of explosives and an antenna for remote-control triggering, a vest rigged with explosives, a car rigged with bombs, mortar tubes, rocket launchers with new backpacks full of rockets, artillery shells.

The costly equipment, as well as body armor later recovered from the bodies of dead insurgents, suggested that the fighters were foreigners, the military said. Though the level of foreigners' involvement in the insurgency has been disputed for nearly two years, Muslim men have come to Iraq from neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and from as far away as Chechnya and Indonesia to fight the United States and its allies.

The Marines also found Soviet-designed PKM machine guns and belts of armor-piercing ammunition. In contrast, Lima Company was armed with M-16 assault rifles and carried nothing comparable -- nothing that could penetrate walls and floors and still pack enough force to kill.

Captain Ed seems to think that al Qaeda has no choice but to engage in the fight in Iraq. It's a reasonable conclusion when you look at the 2+ years of rhetoric that al Qaeda has foisted on the world, talking about its struggle to topple the US and an al Qaeda loss in Iraq would mean a loss of credibility. Indeed, after the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist group has been on the defensive far more than conducting attacks on its own timetable.

Mrs. Greyhawk's Dawn Patrol roundup of news concurs with other reports that the US is up against a contingent of foreign fighters along the Syrian border. While the fighting was stiff over the last few days, it would appear to be waning as of today.

The fighting along the border area raises several questions that still demand answers:

1) Who are these terrorists and insurgents?
2) Where are these foreign fighters coming from?
3) Are the foreign fighters actually coming from Syria and are they receiving Syrian aid to attack US and Iraqi forces to destabilize the region?
4) If the fighters are indeed Syrian soldiers, is this part of the official Syrian government strategy or some rogue soldiers intent on causing mayhem. Considering that Bashar hasn't had the tight grip that his dad did on the government, it is possible that hardliners in the government may be acting on their own. In any case, if Syria's government is behind the foreign fighters, the US could make the case for attacking Syria directly.

UPDATE 10:51AM EDT 5/11/2005:
Chester is liveblogging Operation Matador, which is the continuing battle along the Syrian border.

Bad Decisions Abound At NJ Transit

The $28 million complex at Montclair State University in Little Falls has been drawing about 130 cars per day at its 1,500-space deck.

The $27.5 million garage and station in Ramsey gets about 200 commuter cars daily for the 1,250 spaces available.

The 2,400 empty spaces at the two new garages provide a stunning contrast to the situation at other stations in Essex, Union, Middlesex, Morris and Monmouth counties, where the waiting lists for parking spots stretch for years.

"NJ Transit took a chance and they put a lot of capital into these two projects," said Martin Robins, executive director of Rutgers University's Voorhees Transportation Policy Institute. "I can't say it's a mistake, but it was a risk. My guess is that in five years, these facilities will be well-used."

In the meantime, NJ Transit is renting out 350 spaces in Ramsey for $7,000 per month to a Bergen County auto dealership that stores BMWs and Mini Coopers on the top two levels of the five-story deck. The agency also is negotiating with another dealership to lease space at Montclair State University.

The expenditure of almost $60 million on two new train stations comes at a time when the state is facing a transportation funding crisis that is forcing officials to reassess what to do in coming years.

Transit officials insist the investment at Montclair State University on the Montclair-Boonton Line and Ramsey on the Main-Bergen Line will pay off in the long run. But they acknowledge the new stations and garages may not reach full capacity until after a second rail tunnel gets built to Midtown Manhattan -- a $5 billion job that won't get done for another eight years, at the earliest.

The parking garages are not in places that will see the most growth, nor are underutilized stations nearby closed and consolidated to maximize the potential of the new stations.

We saw a similar problem with the Secaucus Junction station, which cost NJ Transit nearly $500 million, and sees a fraction of the people necessary to truly justify the cost overruns that more than doubled the cost. And Secaucus Junction doesn't have parking lots built, which would alleviate the traffic heading into Manhattan with a park-and-ride station minutes from both Downtown and Midtown. The Turnpike Authority is building a new interchange at Secaucus Junction, which will probably be open some time next year. A park and ride with more than 1,000 spots would have been a logical accompanyment to the station, but it was dropped.

What NJ Transit excells at is projects that suffer from huge cost overruns and see minimal rates of return on investment - parking lots that are underutilized all while there are dozens of other stations in the system that need the parking and demand but no way to improve capacity.

Depending on wishful thinking to reach capacity at the new parking lots is another sign that things aren't right in the capital plan.

A solid capital plan for NJ Transit would address several key issues:
~parking at several stations, including Edison, which has a multi-year waiting list to get a spot. That demand alone should have signalled the need for new parking, yet there is no sign of additional parking capacity added there.
~consolidating and closing underutilized stations in the system. If you build a major facility, like Rt. 17, closing the Mahwah or Ramsey station makes sense.
~rebuilding stations to lessen dwell time (raised platforms)
~adding track capacity on the Pascack Valley line, an area where there has been tremendous growth, and high vehicle traffic congestion rates.
~purchasing train cars that maintain at least current capacity (an old four-car passenger car set has more seats than a new four-car set because of seating configurations and center-door openings. The proposed bilevel car will remediate some of the problem, but people are less likely to board trains currently when they know that the cars appear full - that there aren't seats, and/or that the parking for the trains is non-existent).
~getting projects completed on time and under budget.

The current plans do not do a good job of meeting the needs for today, tomorrow, or 10 years from now, when based on wishful thinking and projections that are woefully inadequate. People need safe, reliable, and useful mass transit. In light of the current situation, one has to ask whether NJ Transit is meeting those needs.

Get Me A Rewrite

The headline reads that "Insurgents Fight Back in Western Iraq," but the text of the article indicates that more than 100 insurgents have been killed in fighting, and that while the US has suffered casualties, the bulk of those killed and wounded are the terrorists, not the US or Iraqi forces.

So, how about a rewrite of the headline stating:
US Forces On Offensive; Border Towns Cleared of Terrorists In Heavy Fighting

Marines fought house-to-house Monday against dozens of well-armed insurgents firing at them from balconies, rooftops and sandbagged bunkers in the border town of Obeidi and surrounding villages, the Los Angeles Times reported.

My headline would be accurate, fair, and properly state the facts. The insurgents aren't fighting back; they're fighting for their very lives. The US has tracked them down and the terrorists' only choice is to fight or die (they can't well give up as they've vowed to never be captured alive according to their own press releases).

Perhaps the media is hoping for another Fallujah? Except the result will be the same - hundreds of terrorists dead, and an area of Iraq cleared of the enemy element.

Fun With Numbers - The Congressional Travel Debate

Impress your colleagues and friends with this one. Ask a basic question: Which party in Congress spent more money on trips, Republicans or Democrats.

Watch the stammered reply when you inform them that the Democrats, who are the minority party, actually spent more on trips than Republicans.

Why is this important? Well, in politics, keeping score is everything, and spending on junkets is one thing that the politicans love to hammer each other about. Tom Delay is only the latest high profile Republican to get skewered for his trip-taking, yet he's not even the worst offender. That title belongs to any number of Democrats, including Maurice Hinchey (D-NY).

100 Days

It is now 100 days since Senator John Kerry announced that he would sign and release his Form 180. That form would have enabled the public to know what his military record really was. Considering that the Senator made his military service a centerpiece of his Presidential campaign, one would think that he would have been honored to share his impeccable record with the public.

The fact is that the Senator has skeletons in his closet that he would rather not share with the public over his military record and that there were serious questions about his character and fitness. If the Senator is even contemplating another run for President, signing this Form is the least he could do to inform the public of his record.

How the New York Times Diminishes Downtown

In many ways, of all the pieces of the developing World Trade Center site, none of them - not the Freedom Tower, the memorial or the other proposed buildings - are as important right now as the project that was supposed to go up across the street: a gleaming new $2 billion headquarters for Goldman Sachs, one of downtown's largest and most prominent employers.

The 40-story tower, the first significant new investment by a financial firm anywhere near the site since Sept. 11, would have signaled to the world that not only had Lower Manhattan recovered from its psychic wounds but also that it remained an international symbol of capitalism, rebuilding officials, real estate executives and financial industry experts said.

But the investment bank pulled the plug on its plans last month, citing security concerns and general confusion over plans at the trade center site, and has begun a furious search for alternative sites, possibly in Midtown.

The final straw in Goldman's decision to pull out was a state plan to bury West Street-Route 9A in a tunnel that would have ended at its headquarters' front door. The state has since abandoned the plan. Now, the city and state are scrambling to lure the investment bank back downtown.

But with the future home of Goldman in doubt, downtown executives, real estate executives and some city officials say, so is Lower Manhattan's primacy as a vibrant financial and commercial center.

As the New York Stock Exchange moves toward an electronic trading system - reducing its role as the anchor financial tenant in Lower Manhattan - and after decisions by other firms to leave, Goldman's commitment was the most pronounced and important signal that the precinct was here to stay. That message, some fear, is now deeply in question.

"It would be devastating for Goldman to leave downtown," said Michael T. Cohen, chairman of the executive committee at GVA Williams, a real estate company based downtown. "The large employers who occupy millions of square feet downtown are almost impossible to replace. You can chip away at it with Bowne or HIP, but you would lose not only what's there, but also Goldman's prospective growth."

In interviews, more than a dozen people directly involved in the process made clear that a lack of coordination among agencies and governments as well as a failure to take Goldman's concerns seriously were the principal contributors to Goldman's decision to look elsewhere. Although those interviewed, including state, city and police officials, would not speak by name because of the delicacy of the talks surrounding ground zero, they all agreed on the core issues that they said led to the unraveling.

Considering that the Times completely overlooks the brand new 7 WTC, which is nearing completion at the North end of the WTC site, the Times is prematurely signalling the end of the downtown financial district.

Of course, downplaying the role of Lower Manhattan, it is a subtle prop to the Times' Midtown property, which is in need of tenants. Luring Goldman Sachs from downtown would be a major coup and allow the Times to reach their financial goals.

There are serious problems associated with the rebuilding efforts, and the 9A roadway/tunnel situation was a clumsy effort on the part of all involved. There was serious community resistence to the tunnel, which would have meant longer construction than a roadway at grade. The problem is that a tunnel would have meant expanded parks and linkages between Battery Park City and the East Side of 9A (West Side Highway). However, since the tunnel proposal was killed (along with practically everything else relating to the WTC project), the chief priority for the City should be in getting Goldman Sachs to reconsider and build on the site it had originally proposed.

In the meantime, the Governor and Mayor must stop the squabbling and get down to brass tacks about what to do with Fiterman Hall, which is still in need of a rebuilding plan, and what the new Ground Zero master plan will look like.

Time is a wasting away.

You Knew This Was Coming

With the UN, the IAEA, and the EU on the case, you knew that this was bound to happen.

This happens to be the continuing indications that the mullahs in Iran have gotten way too close to the product and are readily advancing on killing far more brain cells than they are in possession of.

Iran confirmed for the first time Monday that it converted 37 tons of raw uranium into gas, a key step ahead of enrichment, before it suspended all such activities in November under international pressure.

That's right folks. If you believe the international observers, you would be wishfully thinking that the Iranians weren't busy trying to make enriched uranium for their nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, the Iranians are going full steam ahead with the program, because they know that the only country that has any ability to force Iran to stop can be kept busy in the halls of Turtle Bay, and in the fields of Iraq. Iran knows that the US is busy with all kinds of military committments and there are no other countries willing to do the heavy lifting to stop the mullahs. So, the Iranians proceed at full speed.

The article claims that if the enrichment continues, the Iranians would have more than enough uranium to make five crude nuclear weapons.

All it takes is one nuclear weapon in the hands of a terrorist to ruin the day of an entire city (or country), not to mention the global economy, and the lives of millions to come.

Meanwhile, the international observers and pundits wring their hands and complain that the US isn't bending over backwards to meet the Iranians halfway on their demands, etc.

Draining the Swamp

Lots of insurgents have been killed and captured in the last few days in the region adjacent to the Syrian border. There's got to be a good reason for that.

Lots of intel coming from terrorists captured in the last few weeks have been bearing fruit, and stepped up counter-terrorism actions along the road from Syria to Baghdad has netted many terrorists before they can act.

Denial of safe havens is crucial to stopping the continuing terrorism campaign throughout Iraq. Cutting off the terrorist resupply routes from Syria is a tipping point in the current battle.

Photo of the Day

The flying arch in the midground of the photo is a rebuild remnant of the Hurva synogogue, which was destroyed by the Arab armies when they captured the Jewish Quarter in the 1948 War of Israeli Independence.