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2476
3DHS / Al Qaeda leader target of US airstrike in Somalia
« on: March 04, 2008, 10:34:34 PM »
Al Qaeda leader Saleh target of US airstrike in southern Somalia
By Bill Roggio
March 4, 2008 9:43 AM

 
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.
 
Yesterday's airstrike against an al Qaeda safe house targeted Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a senior operative for al Qaeda's network in eastern Africa. Nabhan was "found, targeted, and killed" along with an unspecified number of al Qaeda operatives in the town of Dhobley along the southern border with Kenya, The Washington Times reported.

The US military has not confirmed Saleh's death. The US military will need to secure the attack site to obtain DNA and other forensic evidence to confirm the identity of those killed in the attack.

Dhobley was reported as having fallen to Hassan al Turki a senior leader in the Islamic Courts and its predecessor al Itihaad al Islamiyah. Turki is running a military and terrorist training camp in Dhobley. There is no word if Turki was among those killed or if he was meeting with Nabhan during the strike.

"Al Qaeda has used this region to spill over into other parts of eastern Africa," a US counterterrorism official told The Washington Times. "Somalia at a minimum is a place of refuge but for some of al Qaeda it is a place to plot and plan future attacks."

Al Qaeda and the Islamic Courts operated at least 17 terror camps throughout Somalia prior to the downfall of the Islamic Courts in December 2006. The terror groups are attempting to re-establish their networks, as the Somali government is unable to assert its control throughout the country.

Nabhan is wanted by the FBI for questioning in connection with the 2002 attacks in Mombasa, Kenya against a hotel and an airliner. Nabhan targeted a hotel frequented by Israelis and an Israeli-chartered airplane in a near-simultaneous attack. Suicide bombers rammed a truck into the lobby of hotel visited by Israelis. Thirteen were killed and 80 wounded in the attack. At the same time as the hotel attack, al Qaeda launched two Strela surface-to-air missiles at an Arkia Airlines jet. The missiles missed their targets.

Nabhan is also wanted for involvement in the 1998 suicide attacks against US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The attack in Nairobi, Kenya resulted in 212 killed and more than 4,000 wounded. The attack in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania resulted 11 killed and 85 wounded. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, al Qaeda's operations chief in East Africa, and Abu Taha al Sudani, the leader of al Qaeda's network in East Africa were also behind the attacks.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/03/al_qaeda_leader_sale.php

2477
3DHS / #1
« on: March 02, 2008, 07:29:18 PM »






2478
3DHS / Obama's Plan To Disarm America
« on: March 02, 2008, 03:49:09 PM »

Barack Hussein Obama's Plan To Disarm America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl32Y7wDVDs


2479
3DHS / Hillary give up, the media as anoited the chosen one
« on: February 29, 2008, 10:52:24 AM »

poor hillary
she gets the first debate questions as the media fawns over Barack Hussein Obama

during a campaign rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio REUTERS runs a headline picture
of Hillary with a devil in the background yeah sure, it's just a complete accident  ::)





2480
3DHS / The Sderot Calculus
« on: February 26, 2008, 05:42:03 PM »
 
The Sderot Calculus
February 26, 2008; Page A18

GLOBAL VIEW
By BRET STEPHENS   

The Israeli town of Sderot lies less than a mile from the Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of the intifada seven years ago, it has borne the brunt of some 2,500 Kassam rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists. Only about a dozen of these Kassams have proved lethal, though earlier this month brothers Osher and Rami Twito were seriously injured by one as they walked down a Sderot street on a Saturday evening. Eight-year-old Osher lost a leg.

It is no stretch to say that life in Sderot has become unendurable. Palestinians and their chorus of supporters -- including the 118 countries of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement, much of Europe, and the panoply of international aid organizations from the World Bank to the United Nations -- typically reply that life in the Gaza Strip is also unendurable, and that Palestinian casualties greatly exceed Israeli ones. But this argument is fatuous: Conditions in Gaza, in so far as they are shaped by Israel, are a function of conditions in Sderot. No Palestinian Kassams (or other forms of terrorism), no Israeli "siege."

The more vexing question, both morally and strategically, is what Israel ought to do about Gaza. The standard answer is that Israel's response to the Kassams ought to be "proportionate." What does that mean? Does the "proportion" apply to the intention of those firing the Kassams -- to wit, indiscriminate terror against civilian populations? In that case, a "proportionate" Israeli response would involve, perhaps, firing 2,500 artillery shells at random against civilian targets in Gaza. Or should proportion apply to the effects of the Kassams -- an exquisitely calibrated, eye-for-eye operation involving the killing of a dozen Palestinians and the deliberate maiming or traumatizing of several hundred more?

Surely this isn't what advocates of proportion have in mind. What they really mean is that Israel ought to respond with moderation. But the criteria for moderation are subjective. Should Israel pick off Hamas leaders who are ordering the rocket attacks? The European Parliament last week passed a resolution denouncing the practice of targeted assassinations. Should Israel adopt purely economic measures to punish Hamas for the Kassams? The same resolution denounced what it called Israel's "collective punishment" of Palestinians. Should Israel seek to dismantle the Kassams through limited military incursions? This, too, has the unpardonable effect of resulting in too many Palestinian casualties, which are said to be "disproportionate" to the number of Israelis injured by the Kassams.

By these lights, Israel's presumptive right to self-defense has no practical application as far as Gaza is concerned. Instead, Israel is counseled to allow goods to flow freely into the Strip, and to negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas.

But here another set of considerations intrudes. Hamas was elected democratically and by overwhelming margins in Gaza. It has never once honored a cease-fire with Israel. Following Israel's withdrawal of its soldiers and settlements from the Strip in 2005 there was a six-fold increase in the number of Kassam strikes on Israel.

Hamas has also made no effort to rewrite its 1988 charter, which calls for Israel's destruction. The charter is explicitly anti-Semitic: "The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!" (Article Seven) "In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad." (Article 15) And so on.

It would seem perverse for Israeli taxpayers, including residents of Sderot, to feed the mouth that bites them. It would seem equally perverse for Israel merely to bide its time for an especially unlucky day -- a Kassam hitting a busload of schoolchildren, for instance -- before striking hard at Gaza. But unless Israel is willing to accept the military, political and diplomatic burdens of occupying all or parts of Gaza indefinitely, the effects of a major military incursion could be relatively short-lived. Israel suffered many more casualties before it withdrew from the Strip than it has since.

Perhaps the answer is to wait for a technological fix and, in the meantime, hope for the best. Israel is at work on a missile-defense program called "Iron Dome" that may be effective against Kassams, though the system won't be in place for at least two years. It could also purchase land-based models of the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System, used by the U.S. to defend the Green Zone in Baghdad.

But technology addresses neither the Islamic fanaticism that animates Hamas nor the moral torpor of Western policy makers and commentators who, on balance, find more to blame in Israel's behavior than in Hamas's. Nor, too, would an Iron Dome or the Phalanx absolve the Israeli government from the necessity of punishing those who seek its destruction. Prudence is an important consideration of statesmanship, but self-respect is vital. And no self-respecting nation can allow the situation in Sderot to continue much longer, a point it is in every civilized country's interest to understand.

On March 9, 1916, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked the border town of Columbus, N.M., killing 18 Americans. President Woodrow Wilson ordered Gen. John J. Pershing and 10,000 soldiers into Mexico for nearly a year to hunt Villa down, in what was explicitly called a "punitive expedition." Pershing never found Villa, making the effort something of a failure. Then again, Villa's raid would be the last significant foreign attack on continental U.S. soil for 85 years, six months and two days.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120398961080492299.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries


2481
3DHS / Oh boy can't wait for Hillary/Obama Care
« on: February 25, 2008, 05:43:29 PM »


Monday February 25 2008
Norway

Hospital emergency rooms in an emergency of their own

State health officials are sounding the sirens themselves over a state of emergency in Norwegian hospitals' emergency rooms, where patients face lengthy delays, inexperienced doctors and often chaotic organization.

Monica Newman had a frightening experience at the emergency room in Fredrikstad's hospital. She has filed a formal complaint after waiting seven hours, even though her own doctor suspected she had a blood clot.

Patients too often have to wait for hours for emergency medical care.

The Norwegian Board of Health Supervision (Helsetilsynet) reports that they found violations of state law and regulations at 19 of 27 emergency rooms that they monitored recently.

Only two emergency rooms (called akutt mottak in Norwegian) avoided any serious criticism from the state health regulators.

In some cases, the regulators claim, it was only the heroic efforts of staff on duty that saved lives.

Health authorities monitored care offered at 27 of Norway's 54 emergency rooms. Patients all too often received inadequate care and treatment.

"We have uncovered a total picture that shows management deficiencies, which affects both the patients and staff," said Lars E Hanssen, director of Helsetilsynet. "This is totally unacceptable."

In one case, a patient suspected of suffering a stroke was kept waiting six hours and 10 minutes before being treated. In another case, a patient who drifted in and out of consciousness didn't get treatment for nearly four hours.

All too often, reported the regulators, the emergency rooms are staffed by inexperienced doctors performing their residency requirements, and they often have to wait for back-up from staff doctors to confirm a diagnosis.

The regulators also found inadequate monitoring of patients who hadn't received a diagnosis, and that there were no clear procedures to determine which patients should receive priority.

Hanssen is demanding that the state, which owns Norwegian hospitals, and hospital administrators "roll up their sleeves" and improve working conditions and procedures in the emergency rooms. "They're operating with a level of risk that's much too high," he said. "They have to start caring about what's happening in the emergency rooms."

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2275900.ece

2482
3DHS / Lady commits suicide over abortion regret
« on: February 24, 2008, 09:18:05 PM »


Artist hanged herself after aborting her twins
12:23pm GMT 24/02/2008

An artist killed herself after aborting her twins when she was eight weeks pregnant, leaving a note saying:
"I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum."
Emma Beck was found hanging at her home in Helston, Cornwall, on Feb 1 2007. She was
declared dead early the following day - her 31st birthday.

Her suicide note read: "I told everyone I didn't want to do it, even at the hospital. I was frightened, now
it is too late. I died when my babies died. I want to be with my babies: they need me, no-one else does."

The inquest at Truro City Hall heard that Miss Beck had split up with her boyfriend, referred to as "Ben"
after he "reacted badly" to the pregnancy.

She saw her GP before the termination, but missed an appointment at a hospital in Penzance. She then
cancelled, but later turned up to an appointment at a clinic at Royal Cornwall Hospital in Treliske. The
counsellor was on holiday so a doctor referred Miss Beck to a pregnancy counselling telephone service
eight days before carrying out the abortion when she was eight weeks pregnant, the inquest heard.

The coroner, Dr Emma Carlyon, ordered that the identities of the doctor who performed the abortion and her lead
consultant be kept secret.

The inquest heard that Sylvia Beck, the victim's mother, wrote to the hospital after her daughter's death, saying:
"I want to know why she was not given the opportunity to see a counsellor.

"She was only going ahead with the abortion because her boyfriend did not want the twins.

"I believe this is what led Emma to take her own life - she could not live with what she had done."

The doctor said: "I discussed Emma's situation with her, and wrote on the form, 'Unsupported, lives alone,
ex-partner aware'.

"It is normal practice to give a woman the number for telephone counselling when a counsellor is not available.

"I am satisfied that everything was done to make sure that Emma consented to the operation.

She added: "We have since appointed more counsellors so there is more holiday cover."

Katie Gibbs, Miss Beck's GP, told the hearing: "She was extremely distressed by the abortion procedure,
and I didn't think she ever came to terms with it.

"She had a long history of anxiety and depression. Despite my best efforts, she was not willing to see a counsellor
after the termination."

Her boss at the clinic, said: "The time that can be given to a woman by a counsellor is limited in a busy hospital.

"I am satisfied everything was done to make sure Emma was consenting to surgery. I don't feel there was any gap
in the counselling service.

"There were lots of individuals who would be alert to any doubts. The comments made by Emma's mother are not
about a doctor I recognise."

Mrs Beck told the court: "Emma was considered a talented artist, and sold a number of paintings.

"She was pleased when she became pregnant, but Ben reacted badly to the news."

Recording a verdict of suicide, Dr Carlyon said: "It is clear that a termination can have a profound
effect on a woman's life.


"But I am reassured by the evidence of the doctors here."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/22/nartist122.xml


2483
3DHS / Dems gotta love this: Nader Joins Presidential Race
« on: February 24, 2008, 01:12:59 PM »


Ralph Nader joins US presidential race
By Megan Levy and agencies
24/02/2008



Independent candidate Ralph Nader has announced that he is entering the US presidential race, a move which many Democrats fear could deprive their party of vital votes.

Mr Nader was accused by supporters of Al Gore of handing the 2000 election to George W Bush by attracting voters who would otherwise have backed their candidate.
   
Mr Nader's run could prove a blow to the Democrats
 
The consumer rights activist announced on NBC television's Meet the Press that he was launching a third-party campaign for the White House because voters were disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties.

The 73-year-old believes none of the presidential contenders are addressing ways to stem corporate crime and Pentagon waste and promote labour rights.

Emerging Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama's "better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself," Mr Nader said, while Republican heir apparent John McCain was "the candidate for perpetual war."

He called Washington "corporate occupied territory" that turns the government against the interest of its own people.

"In that context I have decided to run for president," Mr Nader said.

Mr Nader's run could prove a a further blow to the Democrats' campaign after a bitter fight between Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton. In contrast, John McCain has had a virtually clear run to the Republican nomination.

In 2000, in the tightest presidential race in American history, Mr Nader ruthlessly targeted the liberal activist wing of the Democratic Party, picking up votes from disillusioned environmentalists, opponents of globalisation and radical feminists.

In all, Mr Nader gained 2.78 million votes in a contest that was eventually won by a margin of 537 votes.   
 
In Florida, where a controversial recount gripped the attention of the world, 97,488 votes were punched in his favour.

The trauma of Mr Gore's defeat in 2000 led to the creation of a "Repentant Nader voter" website, on which disconsolate Democrats confessed to voting for a candidate who had no chance of winning.

While Democrats have never forgiven him for splitting the liberal vote, Mr Nader refused to accept that his candidacy may have handed the presidency to George W Bush.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/24/wuspols124.xml

2484
3DHS / Hillary Clinton: "'Shame on you, Barack Obama"
« on: February 23, 2008, 03:46:22 PM »


HRC: 'Shame on you, Barack Obama'

By: Kenneth P. Vogel
Feb 23, 2008
 
CINCINNATI, Ohio  Hillary Rodham Clinton ripped Barack Obama Saturday for mailings his campaign is sending to Ohio voters that Clinton said distorted her record on NAFTA and universal health care.

"Shame on you, Barack Obama," Clinton said angrily when talking to reporters after a rally in a technical college gym here. "It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That's what I expect from you," she said, calling on Obama to repudiate and stop the mailings, which she waved demonstratively.

"Meet me in Ohio. Let's have a debate about your tactics," she said, calling the mailings "tactics that are right out of Karl Rove's playbook."

Her comments about the mailings, coupled with her comparison of Obama and President Bush during the preceding rally, were far sharper than any she has made lately about her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination.

It's unclear whether Saturday's attacks portended a shift to a more negative strategy as the campaign hurtles toward March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas, where Clinton needs big wins to reverse her slide. Obama has won 11 straight contests after the Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, contests. (Rhode Island and Vermont also hold contests Tuesday.)

The comments seemed to signal that Clinton is not resigned to defeat, as some had inferred from her comments at the end of Thursday's televised debate in Austin, Texas, in which she said "whatever happens" in the election, she and Obama are "going to be fine."

Clinton said Saturday that she received the mailings, both of which were paid for by the Obama campaign, from a supporter she met in the rope line after the rally at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.

During her next speech, at a high school in Huber Heights, Ohio, Clinton again blistered Obama over the mailings. Holding them up, she asked the crowd of more than 1,000 people how many had received them. Many in the crowd reacted with puzzlement and relatively few people raised their hands.

One flier alleges Clinton's plan for universal health care "forces everyone to buy health insurance, even if you can?t afford it," while the other says she "believed NAFTA was "a boon" to our economy."

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton defended both mailings, calling them "completely accurate" in a statement. He added, "We look forward to having a debate this Tuesday on the facts," which he said back the mailers' claims.

The candidates health care plans have been a flash point in their race, and they sparred politely over them at a Thursday debate.

But Saturday, Clinton said Obama's mailer on the subject is "not only wrong, but it is undermining core Democratic principles."

The mailing, which pictures a young couple huddling at their kitchen table leafing through brochures and paperwork, touts Obama?s plan as "health care we can afford. Change we can believe in."

She said, "It is exactly the talking point that the health insurance industry and the Republicans use on a daily basis."

On the NAFTA mailing, which features a photo of a "closed" sign on padlocked metal gate, Clinton said that Newsday, the New York newspaper to which the "boon" quote is attributed, retracted the quote.

"We have pointed it out. The newspaper has pointed it out," Clinton said.

In fact, the Long Island-based newspaper did not quote Clinton as saying "boon" but rather paraphrased her comments that way in a chart that compared her stances on a variety of issues with those of her challenger in the 2006 Senate primary election.

Still, Newsday did not issue a correction and, in recently revisiting the issue, it pointed out that Clinton did not contact the paper to question the item after it appeared.

The paper did concede, however, that Obama's use of the citation in this way does strike us as misleading. The quote marks make it look as if Hillary said "boon," not us. It's an example of the kind of slim reeds campaigns use to try to win an office. That said, we should have been clearer.

In her rally speech, Clinton touted her own experience and obliquely compared Obama's to Bush's when he first ran for president in 2000.

She said Bush promised change as a compassionate conservative, and the American people got shafted and we're going to have to make up for it, she said. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Obama's campaign did respond to that attack, pointing out that a Clinton campaign spokesman last year called it "the worst kind of tactical political maneuvering" for one Democrat to compare another to Bush.
 
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8648.html

2485
3DHS / A major war is imminent in the Middle East
« on: February 22, 2008, 01:43:37 PM »
Exposing Iran's Facility B1 Nori-8500
Brings Israel-Iran Clash Near


Iran Speeds up Its Covert Nuclear Program

 
The Iranian exile group's exposure on Feb. 20 of Iran's secret B1 Nori-8500 facility for producing a nuclear warhead at Khojir represented another attempt by France and Israel to shoot down the American National Intelligence Estimate of Dec. 2007.

That document claimed Iran had given up its covert military nuclear program in 2003. In Brussels, Wednesday, Mohammad Mohaddessin, foreign affairs director of the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), presented the media with satellite images, graphic evidence of a functioning Iranian defense ministry missile research site at Khojir on the southeastern edge of Tehran.

There, he reported, Iran is developing a nuclear warhead for delivery by its medium-range missiles.

Mohaddessin also said his clandestine group had identified a guest house on a military compound near the site, which it claimed housed North Korean specialists working at the warhead facility. He stressed that the information had been confirmed in recent weeks and was current.

This classified data, intelligence sources report, was released on the initiative of France and Israel to finally rebut the NIE's conclusions.

It was also timed to pre-empt the report Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei, director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is due to present Friday, Feb. 22, to the UN Security Council on the state of Iran's nuclear program.

Paris and Jerusalem have been reliably informed that the IAEA director will present his usual vapid, inconclusive findings. He will then ask the Council for more time for negotiations with Iran and a further delay before passing harsh punitive measures against the Islamic Republic.

North Koreans shown bussed to work

The NCRI spokesman?s information broke new ground:

1. While his organization first identified Khojir in 2005 as the new site of the B1 Nori 8500 missile facility transferred from Lavizan, its report that a small plant on the site is developing nuclear warheads is new.

2. Also new are the satellite photos depicting a well-fortified villa and a special bus carrying its North Korean occupants every morning under heavy guard to the secret site, and back again at the end of the working-day. Mohaddessin said he was holding back images obtained which identified the North Korean specialists.

Intelligence experts report that such images are withheld because they might give away the covert methods for obtaining them.

According to our sources, the Iranian exile group is first tipped off on the presence of key data by US, Israeli or French intelligence contacts and asked to send its spies and followers inside Iran to check it out.

After confirmation is received, the data is cross-checked.

In the next stage, the NCRI rents a commercial satellite for imagery of the suspect nuclear sites for public consumption. This system worked in 2002, when NCRI was employed by US intelligence to bring the existence of Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz to the world?s attention.

Sensitive photographs, such as the faces of North Korean scientists and technicians at Khojir, can only be obtained by military satellites equipped with sophisticated high resolution cameras, such as those deployed by the secret services cooperating with the Iranian exile group. These images are never released to outsiders, because they would betray ultra-sensitive information about the equipment and angles from which the photographs were taken. Such information would also help targets develop new techniques of concealment.

Therefore, the NCRI and other dissident groups operating in Iran are only given photos which have been smudged to conceal their source. They are handed out among agents in the country to help them find out more about targeted individuals and trace their movements.

Washington sticks to the NIE's clearance of Iran

3. The commercial satellite images displayed at the Brussels news conference depicted a system of heavy security within the Khojir site, and restricted access to the putative nuclear warhead facility, known as "Eight-five hundred".

Visitors to the facility are required to leave their cars and drivers at a car park, Mohaddessin explained. They are then picked up by a car which passes through two checkpoints onto a road that ends at a small group of buildings cut into the hills a couple of kilometers away.

4. The Iranian exile group almost certainly has more secret data which it is holding back for a later date, or when necessary to rebut more negative releases by US intelligence or the nuclear watchdog. This data would back up the charges that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and vehicles for their delivery.

But even before the day was over, Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Washington, said the US intelligence community's view has not changed since the NIE's release.

Clearly, the Bush administration has no intention of checking out the Iranian group's revelations or reopening the discussion on Tehran's nuclear activities.

Intelligence sources comment that Washington?s response did not surprise Nicolas Sarkozy or Ehud Olmert, who were instrumental in bringing the NCRI's disclosures to the world in Brussels on Wednesday.

Convinced that the US intelligence estimate of last December tied President George W. Bush?s hands for a military option against Iran's nuclear sites, the French and Israeli leaders decided to go forward without America towards an Israeli military operation. France intends to take America?s place in providing intelligence and diplomatic backing in the European and international arenas.

Hizballah plans to precipitate the opening for an Iranian attack on Israel

The chronology of events leading up to this ultimate prospect, is instructive:

September 6, 2007: Israeli air and ground forces raided two presumed nuclear sites in Syria. North Koreans were involved in their development.

The information broadcast by these attacks was that Israel is capable of striking nuclear sites similar to Iran's B1 Nori 8500 facility. This capability demonstratively extends to demolition and removing the equipment housed at the facility, lock, stock and barrel, to home base.

The operation also demonstrated that the Russian air defense systems guarding Iran's most sensitive military sites were electronically permeable and therefore not proof against Israel air attack.

January 17, 2008: Israel tested a ballistic missile over the Mediterranean fitted with a powerful new propulsion engine. This told Tehran that the Israel Defense Forces has missiles capable of reaching any point on earth. Before this test, the Iranians had judged large areas of their north and east outside Israeli missile range.

February 4, 2008: Tehran quickly responded by launching its Kavoshgar-1 long-range missile to test its launching systems.

February 12, 2008: Imad Mughniyeh, master of Tehran?s overseas military-terrorist branch, was killed in the heart of Damascus. Iran thus lost the key strategist assigned with charting and commanding its overseas reprisals for a possible Israeli attack.

That day, too, Israel took the precaution of placing its military forces and intelligence services on the ready in case of a comeback from Iran, Syria, or Hizballah.

February 20, 2008: Iran's secret plants for producing nuclear weapons and warheads were identified and exposed at the Brussels news conference.

For the last six months, tensions around Iran and its nuclear activities can be seen by these events to have steadily escalated.

Also on Feb. 20, the Israeli chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi commented dryly at the graduation ceremony of an IDF officers training course: "Unfortunately, I cannot promise that we will not be caught up in a tough ordeal in the near future."

His comment gained little attention.

Military sources report that Ashkenazi was alluding to current predictions of a Hizballah attack on Israel, both to avenge the death of its military commander and to draw Israel into a conflict to precipitate Iran's intervention for a pre-emptive strike against the Jewish state.

Sarkozy's game

Our sources in Paris analyze Sarkozy's rationale for pursuing a proactive course on Iran alongside Israel: He believes an unambiguous and strong French line on Iran's ambition to attain a nuclear bomb could be the vehicle that carries him to European if not world leadership.

Secondly, he is bound by a commitment to Saudi and other Gulf rulers.

During his mid-January tour of their region, Sarkozy informed his hosts that French intelligence had obtained incontrovertible evidence that Iran had begun building nuclear bombs and warheads. The decision to establish a French base in Abu Dhabi was presented as necessary for tracking Iran's nuclear and military activities. He promised to keep Gulf rulers abreast of events with full updates.

At home, the French public had been told repeatedly by officials in the president's bureau and government from the end of last year that Iran is heading for a nuclear bomb. Sarkozy needs to show he is not all talk, but also capable of action.

Saudi-Syria Feud Heats up

Riyadh Arms Syria's Lebanese Foes, Washington Clamps down on Damascus

Syria's most implacable foes in Lebanon were furnished this week with an urgent supply of weapons from an unusual source.

Scenting a new civil war in the air, Saudi Arabia shipped arms by air and ground routes to the Lebanese national army, as well as to three allied militias, without whom the pro-Western government of Fouad Siniora has little chance of survival.

Middle East sources reveal the end-users as being the Maronite Christian Phalange headed by Samir Geagea, the majority leader Saad Hariri's private Sunni army and the Druze militia of Walid Jumblatt.

These forces are steeled for pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian opposition forces, led by the Shiite Hizballah, to launch into violence to break the political impasse in Beirut over the election of a president.

To punish the Assad regime for stirring up trouble in Lebanon, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has reached high into Bashar Assad?s inner circle and placed his kinsman Rami Makhlouf on its sanctions list.

This was a shrewdly aimed move. Makhlouf is one Syria's richest men and the godfather of its national economy.

At home, the Assad regime is in trouble.

This week, several score officers serving in the air force, intelligence and armored brigades were secretly arrested, intelligence sources disclose, after the heads of intelligence laid before the president proofs that they were in mid-preparation to overthrow him.

The conspiracy's brains were named as two of the opposition leaders in exile, former vice president Khalim Haddam, who lives in Brussels, and the president's tycoon uncle, Rifat Assad.

Hearing that his two enemies were royally hosted in Riyadh, the president concluded that the Saudi royal house had aided the conspirators with support, money and intelligence aid.

Damascus accuses Saudi Prince Muqrin of masterminding Mughniyeh hit

This alleged conspiracy marked another stage in the flaming dispute between Saudi King Abdullah and President Assad, and their respective political and military establishments.

It was not the first. After the death of Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus on Feb. 12, Syrian officials threw out hints alleging Saudi intelligence complicity in the planning and execution of his murder. They suggested the purported Israeli Mossad assassins could not have made their hit in the Syrian capital without Saudi confederates.

This week, Syrian intelligence officers, in briefings to local elite politicians and business leaders, said they had proof that the director of Saudi General Intelligence Prince Muqrin had personally run those confederates.

By then, Damascus had embellished its allegations with detail. This Syrian version now goes like this, according to our sources:

Saudi and Jordanian spies picked up Mughniyeh's trail in Lebanon, followed him from Beirut to the point where he crossed over from Lebanon to Syria and trailed him as far as Damascus.

These agents then filed the information to Riyadh, whereupon Prince Muqrin passed it on to US intelligence in Washington knowing it would be bounced to the Mossad.

Damascus contends that the Mughniyeh killing was the work of a joint US-Saudi-Israeli intelligence operation. Without Saudi collaboration, the Mossad could never have pulled it off.

Gulf sources report that when the Syrian allegations were brought to the attention of King Abdullah at the beginning of the week, he ordered all Saudi-Syrian contacts and communications cut off forthwith.

As one Gulf source put it: Abdullah there and then wiped Syria off the map of Arab nations worthy of his recognition.

Assad plans to parody Abdullah at Arab summit

The crisis caught Syrian foreign minister Walid Mualem making the rounds of Middle East and North African capitals, handing out official invitations to the Arab League summit scheduled for the end of March in Damascus.

A sharp note reached him on his travels informing him he had better not try and land in Riyadh.

Abdullah is enraged with Assad on more than one score.

Intelligence sources report that he hit the ceiling when Prince Moqrin told him about the surprise or rather bad shock - the Syrian president was preparing for the forthcoming summit.

According to our sources, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be spirited into the presidential palace in Damascus shortly before the summit opens. He will then be produced with a big flourish at the opening. Assad proposes to walk in hand in hand with his surprise guest.

The Saudis can hardly object; the spectacle would be a parody of King Abdullah's own much photographed and loudly applauded entrance to the GCC summit in Doha, Qatar, on Dec. 4, 2007, hand in hand with the Iranian president.

Assad is scheming not on to ridicule Abdullah?s gesture, but to make one of his own: He believes it will seal the reconciliation between Iran and the Arab governments and mark the failure of American Middle East strategies.

The Syrian president means to force the Arab rulers present in Damascus to acknowledge not only Iran's strategic eminence in the region, but also that of its partner, Syria.

But before Assad achieves his ambition, a number of powder kegs threaten to blow up in the region, notably in Lebanon
 
Iran Is Coiled to Spring

Israeli and Jewish Targets Are on Guard
 
A special emissary from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) special units with the rank of colonel arrived secretly in Beirut on Feb. 20. He assumed his role in the intensive preparations in progress in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut for revenge attacks against Israel, which is accused of killing Imad Mughniyeh.

Intelligence sources identify the Iranian colonel, who goes by the code name of ?Ramadan,? as an outstanding specialist in the planning of terrorist operations.

Tehran is set on staging a spectacular act of violence against an Israel-Jewish target, major enough to spark a world crisis that will distract attention from Iran?s nuclear weapons program.

Iran also intends the attack to be a striking example of Iran's capacity to wreak pain, enough to deter the United States and other Western governments from expanding their sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Some members of Iran's ruling elite would prefer restraint, fearing that an extravagantly brutal operation would be a boomerang; instead of acting as a deterrent, Russia and China might be driven to supporting harsh sanctions. These advocates of moderation have been silenced; supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has forbidden them to voice their views in public. Badly shaken by the loss of Mughniyeh, the Ayatollah feels his death keenly as a home hit to the very survival of the Iran?s Islamic regime.

This week, Iranian leaders resorted to exceptionally vicious language for their threats to Israel.

Wednesday, Feb. 20, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, never one for cultured speech, outdid himself when he declared: "World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region."

?Billions will rejoice over the Zionist entity's destruction"

Monday, the Revolutionary Guards chief Mohammad-Ali (Aziz) Jaafari said the Hizballah Umah (community, people) will soon destroy ?this cancerous microbe Israel.?

He added: "We have overcome all security impediments and the time has come to start exporting the revolution."

The gush of Iranian warnings of Israel?s approaching extinction began Sunday, Feb. 17 at a private memorial ceremony in Tehran for the dead Lebanese terrorist.

Gen. Hassam Firouz-Abadi, supreme commander of all Iranian armed forces, including the Revolutionary Guards, declared that Israel would soon be destroyed by the "strong arm of Hizballah Umah." He sent on to say: "Billions of people the world over will soon rejoice when they hear the news of the Zionist entity's destruction."

The general did not elaborate on how this was to happen, but there were indirect allusions to nuclear or radioactive weapons.

Iran's Vice president Parviz Davoodi, in his message of condolences to Hizballah?s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, vowed that Iran and Hizballah would together teach the "Zionist entity" a lesson so harsh that nothing would remain.

Another general, Yahya Rahim-Safavi, until last year, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, accused Israel of an error that would cost it its very existence.

For Iranian leaders, vicious anti-Israel rhetoric is routine. But experts on Iran find the intensity and frequency of their diatribes unusual. Even when Ahmadinejad last year declared Israel should be wiped of the map, he never committed Iran to executing the threat. But this week, two top generals pointed for the first time to the "Hizballah Umah" as the instrument of Israel?s demise.

This concept encompasses Iranian citizens, the Shiites of Lebanon and all Shiites and other Muslims who follow the precepts of the Iranian Islamic regime.

The most comprehensive threat was published in the Revolutionary Guards weekly publication Sobh-e Sadegh (Dawn of Truth) this week.

Various Israeli-Jewish massacre options bandied

An editorial dedicated to the life and death of Imad Mughniyeh quoted Sura 5 (Repent) which says: After the passing of the Month of Haram (in which belligerent activity is prohibited), you must kill the infidels wherever they may be, trap them, torture them and lay ambushes for them.

The Month of Haram ended Wednesday, Feb. 20. The next day, the month Safar began, during which (from the day of the Prophet) it is permissible to renew attacks on pagans and infidels.

The founder of Iran?s Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini defined infidels for his followers as the Jews and the Christians of this day and age, who falsify the Torah and the New Testament and do not live according to the precepts of Moses or Jesus. It is therefore permitted to kill them.

The Sobh-e Sadegh editorial continues: "Hizballah's eagle of death" has been freed from its cage and is soaring towards its prey. It is seeking out prominent Zionist figures across the world to slaughter them. Nasrallah's words are a message of death for high-placed Zionist personalities around the world. The brave men of Hizballah will soon carry out the prophecy of the Koran.

Intelligence and Tehran sources reveal the following options are being tossed back and forth in the conferences of Iranian and Hizballah terror experts attended by Colonel "Ramadan:"

1. A showpiece operation inside Israel, such as a combined attack on crowd centers. They include bombing attacks in air ports; bombardment from drones of select targets; multiple-casualty hits in population centers, the poisoning of water sources and explosions of office towers.

2. A painful attack outside Israel against a sensitive target, such as a government minister or high-ranking army or police officer on overseas trips.

3. The transfer of unconventional weapons to the Gaza Strip for striking at the heart of Tel Aviv.

4. A long-range Hizballah rocket attack from Lebanon.

5. An attack on Israeli and Jewish locations in Europe and the Persian Gulf. The countries under consideration are Italy, Austria, Spain, Paraguay, Argentina, India, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

[e-mail]

2486
3DHS / It's Official: HILLARY CLINTON HAS LOST WISCONSIN
« on: February 19, 2008, 10:51:52 PM »


Obama Wins Wis. for 9th Straight Triumph
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

(02-19) 18:38 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --


Barack Obama won the Wisconsin primary Tuesday night, his ninth straight triumph over
a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton in their epic struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination.


Obama cut deeply into Clinton's political bedrock, splitting the support of white women almost evenly
with the former first lady and running well among working class voters in a blue collar battleground,
according to polling place interviews.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2008/02/19/politics/p002349S31.DTL&type=printable


Wisconsin Exit Polls:
Obama Won:
Women (51-49)
All age groups under 65
All education levels
All regions of the state -- urban, suburban and rural

2487
3DHS / America's economy risks mother of all meltdowns
« on: February 19, 2008, 05:17:14 PM »

America's economy risks mother of all meltdowns
By Martin Wolf

February 19 2008



"I would tell audiences that we were facing not a bubble but a froth of lots of small, local bubbles that never grew to a scale that could threaten the health of the overall economy." Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence.

That used to be Mr Greenspan's view of the US housing bubble. He was wrong, alas. So how bad might this downturn get? To answer this question we should ask a true bear. My favourite one is Nouriel Roubini of New York University's Stern School of Business, founder of RGE monitor.

Recently, Professor Roubini's scenarios have been dire enough to make the flesh creep. But his thinking deserves to be taken seriously. He first predicted a US recession in July 2006*. At that time, his view was extremely controversial. It is so no longer. Now he states that there is ?a rising probability of a "catastrophic" financial and economic outcome?**. The characteristics of this scenario are, he argues: "A vicious circle where a deep recession makes the financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe."

Prof Roubini is even fonder of lists than I am. Here are his 12 yes, 12 steps to financial disaster.

Step one is the worst housing recession in US history. House prices will, he says, fall by 20 to 30 per cent from their peak, which would wipe out between $4,000bn and $6,000bn in household wealth. Ten million households will end up with negative equity and so with a huge incentive to put the house keys in the post and depart for greener fields. Many more home-builders will be bankrupted.

Step two would be further losses, beyond the $250bn-$300bn now estimated, for subprime mortgages. About 60 per cent of all mortgage origination between 2005 and 2007 had "reckless or toxic features", argues Prof Roubini. Goldman Sachs estimates mortgage losses at $400bn. But if home prices fell by more than 20 per cent, losses would be bigger. That would further impair the banks' ability to offer credit.

Step three would be big losses on unsecured consumer debt: credit cards, auto loans, student loans and so forth. The "credit crunch" would then spread from mortgages to a wide range of consumer credit.

Step four would be the downgrading of the monoline insurers, which do not deserve the AAA rating on which their business depends. A further $150bn writedown of asset-backed securities would then ensue.

Step five would be the meltdown of the commercial property market, while step six would be bankruptcy of a large regional or national bank.

Step seven would be big losses on reckless leveraged buy-outs. Hundreds of billions of dollars of such loans are now stuck on the balance sheets of financial institutions.

Step eight would be a wave of corporate defaults. On average, US companies are in decent shape, but a ?fat tail? of companies has low profitability and heavy debt. Such defaults would spread losses in ?credit default swaps?, which insure such debt. The losses could be $250bn. Some insurers might go bankrupt.

Step nine would be a meltdown in the "shadow financial system". Dealing with the distress of hedge funds, special investment vehicles and so forth will be made more difficult by the fact that they have no direct access to lending from central banks.

Step 10 would be a further collapse in stock prices. Failures of hedge funds, margin calls and shorting could lead to cascading falls in prices.

Step 11 would be a drying-up of liquidity in a range of financial markets, including interbank and money markets. Behind this would be a jump in concerns about solvency.

Step 12 would be a vicious circle of losses, capital reduction, credit contraction, forced liquidation and fire sales of assets at below fundamental prices?.

These, then, are 12 steps to meltdown. In all, argues Prof Roubini: Total losses in the financial system will add up to more than $1,000bn and the economic recession will become deeper more protracted and severe. This, he suggests, is the "nightmare scenario" keeping Ben Bernanke and colleagues at the US Federal Reserve awake. It explains why, having failed to appreciate the dangers for so long, the Fed has lowered rates by 200 basis points this year. This is insurance against a financial meltdown.

Is this kind of scenario at least plausible? It is. Furthermore, we can be confident that it would, if it came to pass, end all stories about "decoupling". If it lasts six quarters, as Prof Roubini warns, offsetting policy action in the rest of the world would be too little, too late.

Can the Fed head this danger off? In a subsequent piece, Prof Roubini gives eight reasons why it cannot***. (He really loves lists!) These are, in brief: US monetary easing is constrained by risks to the dollar and inflation; aggressive easing deals only with illiquidity, not insolvency; the monoline insurers will lose their credit ratings, with dire consequences; overall losses will be too large for sovereign wealth funds to deal with; public intervention is too small to stabilise housing losses; the Fed cannot address the problems of the shadow financial system; regulators cannot find a good middle way between transparency over losses and regulatory forbearance, both of which are needed; and, finally, the transactions-oriented financial system is itself in deep crisis.

The risks are indeed high and the ability of the authorities to deal with them more limited than most people hope. This is not to suggest that there are no ways out. Unfortunately, they are poisonous ones. In the last resort, governments resolve financial crises. This is an iron law. Rescues can occur via overt government assumption of bad debt, inflation, or both. Japan chose the first, much to the distaste of its ministry of finance. But Japan is a creditor country whose savers have complete confidence in the solvency of their government. The US, however, is a debtor. It must keep the trust of foreigners. Should it fail to do so, the inflationary solution becomes probable. This is quite enough to explain why gold costs $920 an ounce.

The connection between the bursting of the housing bubble and the fragility of the financial system has created huge dangers, for the US and the rest of the world. The US public sector is now coming to the rescue, led by the Fed. In the end, they will succeed. But the journey is likely to be wretchedly uncomfortable.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4d19518c-df0d-11dc-91d4-0000779fd2ac.html



2488
3DHS / Pro-Taliban Party routed in Pakistan election
« on: February 19, 2008, 02:09:14 PM »
Musharraf, pro-Taliban party routed in Pakistan's election
By Bill Roggio
February 19, 2008
 
The Pakistan People's Party celebrates after news it is set to win the election. Getty image via the BBC.
 

Pakistan has successfully held elections for the National Assembly and provincial governments, and President Pervez Musharraf and the pro-Taliban Muttahida Majlis-e-Amil, or MMA, have encountered major setbacks. Musharraf has lost his governing coalition, while the MMA lost most of its seats in the National Assembly as well as control of the Northwest Frontier Province. The Pakistan People's Party has won the majority of seats and will form the government, while the Pakistani Muslim League - Nawaz finished a close second. The Awami National Party also won a surprising victory.

Election Results

Election results are available for 240 of the 272 seats for the National Assembly, as well as for the four provincial assemblies. The PPP -- the party of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto -- is in the lead with 87 seats, followed by the PML-N, Nawaz Sharif's party, with 66 seats. The PPP is on track to form the governing coalition.

The PML-Q, the party of Musharraf's party, has won only 38 seats. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (a student's movement based in Sindh province) won 19 seats and the Awami National Party (a secular Pashtun party) won 10. The MMA only won three seats. Thirty-five seats have been distributed to independents, while results are still being counted for 26 of the seats. Elections were postponed in four districts.

Winners and losers

Monday's elections had three clear winners and two losers. The Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif have come out on top in the elections, as did the little-known Awami National Party. President Musharraf and his party, and the MMA suffered clear defeats at the polls.

Musharraf?s political party, the Pakistani Muslim League-Quaid, encountered a major electoral defeat. The PML-Q won a majority and formed the government after the 2002 election, but has seen its political gains dissipated over the past six years. Musharraf's disbanding of the Supreme Court and the imposition of a state of emergency in October 2007 are seen the reason for his party's defeat. Musharraf disbanded the courts, declared a state of emergency, and rounded up political opposition to ensure his election as president was assured. Musharraf defied the constitution by running for president while serving as chief of staff of the military. Many of the PML-Q leaders, including party president Chaudhry Hussain and the former Speaker of the National Assembly Chaudhry Ameer Hussain lost their seats. The PML-Q does appear to be on track to govern in Baluchistan province.

The MMA (Taliban Party) also suffered a major political defeat both the national and provincial elections. The MMA has won only three seats in Pakistan's National Assembly and has lost control over the Northwest Frontier Province. Maualana Fazlur Rahman, the party's president, lost his seat in the national election. The MMA has facilitated the rise of the Taliban in the province and tribal areas by blocking military actions and pressing for negotiations. The MMA has also vocally opposed the US and NATO presence in Afghanistan and has stirred up protests during strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda training camps in the region.

The clear winner is the Pakistan People's Party as it will form the next government, appoint the Prime Minister, and will control the Sindh provincial government. The PPP was widely expected to win the election, but the outcome was by no means certain. The Dec. 27, 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the popular leader of the party, plunged the party into a leadership and identity crisis. The reins of the party were turned over to her husband Asif Ali Zardari, who has faced charges of corruption for embezzling $1.5 billion during Benazir's term as Prime Minister, and her 19-year-old son Bilawal Zardari, a student at Oxford. Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, the former Minister of the Interior and leader of the PPP-Sherpao also is a winner within the PPP. He won his seat in Charsadda, where the Taliban made two attempts on his life during 2007.

Nawaz Sharif and his party, the Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz, were also expected to win big. The PML-N is poised to take second place in the National Assembly polling and will also control the provincial government of Punjab. While Sharif was not allowed to run for political office, he is exercising power through his party. Sharif has opposed military operations against the Taliban and has been accused of accepting bribe money from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

The Awami National Party, with its 10 seats, may serve as an influential coalition partner with the PPP. The ANP will control the Northwest Frontier Province, and has stated it will ally with either the PPP or PML-N to form the provincial government. The ANP is a secular Pashtun party that is opposed to military action against the Taliban and promotes non-violent solutions. The Taliban conducted two major strikes against ANP offices in North Waziristan and Kurram the week before the election, killing and wounding scores of its members.

Security implications

Western watchers have closely followed the election in Pakistan as a transition to a democracy is seen as a key to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgency which threatens to destabilize nuclear Pakistan and the wider region. Numerous attacks against the West and India have been hatched in al Qaeda training camps in the tribal areas. The US government hoped a coalition between Bhutto and Musharraf would provide the needed unity needed between the secular political class and the military to fight the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda in northwestern Pakistan.

But these hopes were shattered when Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution in October 2007, then Bhutto's assassination at the end of December 2007. It is now unclear what action, if any, will be taken by the new Pakistani government. The PPP will need to align with one or more parties to form a government. A coalition with the PML-N makes action against the Taliban less likely as Sharif is opposed to military action. The PPP indicated is is ready to form a coalition with the PML-N, which may push for the impeachment of Musharraf. The MQM and ANP will also oppose military action against the Taliban. A coalition with the PML-N may be possible, but the PPP would face serious political backlash for aligning with the party blamed for the assassination of Bhutto and the usurping of the constitution.

And while the defeat of the MMA (Taliban Party) in the Northwest Frontier Province is a welcome development as the party has facilitated the rise of the Taliban by sponsoring peace deals, there is little reason to believe the ANP will fare better against the rise of extremism. The ANP's platform of non-violence and accommodation play directly into the hands of the Taliban, which seeks "peace" deals that give it time and space to consolidate power. Attacks on ANP political offices, such as the two that occurred just prior to the elections, may change this position over time, but time is on the Taliban's side.


http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/02/musharraf_protaliban.php


2489



Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder predicted riots in the streets
if the Clinton campaign were to overturn an Obama lead through the
use of superdelegates. Photo: AP


Clinton targets pledged delegates

By: Roger Simon
Feb 19, 2008

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

What? Isn't' that impossible? A pledged delegate is pledged to a particular candidate and cannot switch, right?

Wrong.

Pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, not even on the first ballot. This has been an open secret in the party for years, but it has never really mattered because there has almost always been a clear victor by the time the convention convened.

But not this time. This time, one candidate may enter the convention leading by just a few pledged delegates, and those delegates may find themselves being promised the sun, moon and stars to switch sides.

"I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody's delegates," a senior Clinton official told me Monday afternoon. "All the rules will be going out the window."

Rules of good behavior, maybe. But, in fact, the actual rules of the party allow for such switching. The notion that pledged delegates must vote for a certain candidate is, according to the Democratic National Committee, a "myth."

"Delegates are NOT bound to vote for the candidate they are pledged to at the convention or on the first ballot," a recent DNC memo states. "A delegate goes to the convention with a signed pledge of support for a particular presidential candidate. At the convention, while it is assumed that the delegate will cast their vote for the candidate they are publicly pledged to, it is not required."

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer told me Monday he assumes the Obama campaign is going after delegates pledged to Clinton, though a senior Obama aide told me he knew of no such strategy.

But one neutral Democratic operative said to me: "If you are Hillary Clinton, you know you can't get the nomination just with superdelegates without splitting the party. You have to go after the pledged delegates."

Winning with superdelegates is potentially party-splitting because it could mean throwing out the choice of the elected delegates and substituting the choice of 795 party big shots.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned against it. "I think there is a concern when the public speaks and there is a counter-decision made to that," she said. "It would be a problem for the party if the verdict would be something different than the public has decided."

Donna Brazile, who was Al Gore?s campaign manager in 2000 and is a member of the DNC, said recently: "If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit [the DNC]. I feel very strongly about this."

On Sunday, Doug Wilder, the mayor of Richmond and a former governor of Virginia, went even further, predicting riots in the streets if the Clinton campaign were to overturn an Obama lead through the use of superdelegates.

"There will be chaos at the convention," Wilder told Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation."

"If you think 1968 was bad, you watch: In 2008, it will be worse."

But would getting pledged delegates to switch sides be any less controversial? Perhaps not. They were chosen by voters, but they were chosen to back a particular candidate.

And it is unlikely that many people, including the pledged delegates themselves, know that pledged delegates actually can switch.

Nor would it be easy to get them to switch.

If, however, after the April 22 Pennsylvania primary the pledged delegate count looks very close, the Clinton official said, "[both] sides will start working all delegates."

In other words, Clinton and Obama will have to go after every delegate who is alive and breathing.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8583.html

2490
3DHS / Obama's wife has never been proud of the United States. (until now)
« on: February 19, 2008, 11:18:23 AM »
Will Media Ignore Michelle Obama Remark?

By John Stephenson | February 18, 2008 - 19:21 ET

First she said that only Obama can "fix America's broken soul," and now this. If anything
can stop Obama from getting the nomination or eventual Presidency, his wife running her
mouth could be it. 

"For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country," she told a Milwaukee
crowd today, "because it feels like hope is making a comeback."

Doesn't this beg the question, "when did she become an  adult"  Yesterday? 
The question is, will the media pay attention to this gaffe?  Probably not much,
and that is why the bloggers have to.  Will Michelle be this year's Teresa Heinz Kerry?

So her husband's run for President is the only thing she has ever been proud of America for? 
That sounds quite self-centered and arrogant!  Nothing?  Nothing like winning the Cold War,
or feeding poor countries?  Wow!  How selfish is this? 

Did she mean this the way it came out?  Shouldn't the media be asking?

 



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