Assad Continues Crackdown While World Watches

Bashar al Assad continues to put his own spin on his father's Hama rules guide to dealing with insurrection. Assad continues murdering those opposed to his regime at a frightening pace, but it's a slow bleed. A dozen here, a dozen there every few days, with larger massacres interspersed. That compares with his father, who killed tens of thousands in a brutal burst when eliminating the Muslim Brotherhood's presence in the city of Hama.

Hama, both the city and province, continue to be a thorn in Assad the younger's side, as it remains a center of opposition to Assad's regime.

While the world can do little but issue sternly worded letters and UN observers can't intercede and their own safety is put at risk by both sides to the conflict, the US has started to increase its rhetoric against Assad's patron in Russia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Syria was receiving helicopters from Russia, but what wasn't stated is that those helicopters were getting maintenance and refurbishment - they weren't exactly new to Syria's fleet.

What Mrs. Clinton did not say, however, was whether the aircraft were new shipments or, as administration officials say is more likely, helicopters that Syria had sent to Russia a few months ago for routine repairs and refurbishing, and which were now about to be returned.

“She put a little spin on it to put the Russians in a difficult position,” said one senior Defense Department official.

Mrs. Clinton’s claim about the helicopters, administration officials said, is part of a calculated effort to raise the pressure on Russia to abandon President Bashar al-Assad, its main ally in the Middle East. Russia has so far stuck by Mr. Assad’s government, worried that if he were ousted, Moscow would lose its influence in the region.

In response to Mrs. Clinton’s allegations, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused the United States of hypocrisy on Wednesday, saying it had supplied weapons that could be used against demonstrators in other countries in the region. Mr. Lavrov, during a visit to Iran, repeated Russia’s claim that it is not supplying Damascus with any weapons that could be used in a civil war.

It's still a bad situation and the optics don't look good for Russia considering that Assad has been using those helicopters in going after the rebel forces.

Lavrov's criticism is accurate; the US has provided weapons to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Egypt over the years and they were utilized in the crackdowns and suppression of dissent during the course of the Arab Spring.

Yet, the level of violence perpetrated by Assad is on a different scale, and the US wasn't providing those weapons shipments in the middle of what even the UN concedes is a civil war. Amnesty International has reported once again that Assad's forces are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The London-based rights group called for an international response after claiming it had fresh evidence that victims, including children, had been dragged from their homes and shot dead by soldiers, who in some cases then set the remains on fire.

“This disturbing new evidence of an organised pattern of grave abuses highlights the pressing need for decisive international action,” said Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera on the release of the 70-page report entitled Deadly Reprisals.

The advocacy group interviewed people in 23 towns and villages across Syria and concluded that government forces and militias were guilty of “grave human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

UN observers finally reached one of the towns under fire, Haffeh, only to find it battered and deserted.

The diplomatic situation is further complicated by the fact that China is also thwarting actions at the UN alongside Russia.

It's a disturbing pattern of behavior by Assad's backers/patrons, all while the Syrians continue to suffer at the hands of his regime.

New Massacre Reported In Syria; Assad's Goons Thwarting UN Observers; UPDATE: Observers Take Fire

Multiple reports are coming in from Syria that Bashar al Assad's goons have committed yet another massacre near the city of Hama. More than 70 were killed, with at least half that number being women and children. Despite the presence of UN observers in the country, the bloodletting continues and Assad's forces are blocking the observers from seeing the scene of the war crimes for themselves.

The commander of United Nations monitors seeking to gain access to the site of a reported mass killing in central Syria said on Thursday that his forces were being blocked by army checkpoints and civilians in a standoff that seemed to mirror a looming diplomatic stalemate over the crisis.

If verified, the massacre, reported on Wednesday, would be the fourth in less than two weeks, threatening to inject a new surge of angry momentum into the growing international effort to isolate President Bashar al-Assad and remove him from power.

But efforts to establish what happened in the village of Qubeir, the site of the reported mass killing, suffered a severe setback on Thursday as United Nations monitors were “being stopped at Syrian army checkpoints and in some cases turned back,” according to Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the observer team, in a statement issued by the United Nations office in Geneva.

“Some of our patrols are being stopped by civilians in the area,” the statement said, an apparent reference to armed militiamen controlled by the government and known as shabiha.

General Mood also said that, while United Nations observers were still trying to gain access, “we are receiving information from residents of the area that the safety of our observers is at risk” if they seek to enter the village.

The developments on the ground echoed a deepening standoff in international diplomacy, suggesting that hitherto intractable differences over the crisis were likely to endure or worsen.

Assad continues to claim that the reports are baseless all while blaming this and other mass casualty incidents on the rebel groups.

As with the Houla massacre, it appears that the Hama massacre involved multiple executions with knives and close weapons. Many of those killed appeared to be from a single extended family.

Assad continues playing by the Hama rules - conducting massacres and brutal crackdowns in drips and drabs rather than one fell swoop. In the process, he doesn't completely piss off his patrons in China, Russia and Iran who continue backing his regime and thwarting more serious action at the United Nations. However, the body count is piling up and it is an inescapable conclusion that Assad must go - and the rebel forces will need more than just talk to make that happen.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on Assad to go, but unless the US backs those words with military power and/or assistance to the rebel groups, that's all it will be - talk.

UPDATE:
UN observers were shot at while trying to reach the scene of the latest massacre in the Hama province. They don't have the authority or ability to fight (let alone defend themselves) and aren't peacekeepers, so they're in the worst kind of position imaginable. They can only bear witness to the atrocities committed by Assad and his goons, as well as those carried out by the rebel forces.

There's no way to know who fired on the observers, but expect Assad to blame the rebels for this attack, even though the rebels have every reason to want the UN to see this if Assad's forces were behind the massacre. But then, Assad blames all the casualties on the rebel forces, even though there's little evidence that the rebels have the kinds of artillery needed to open fire at a distance (as reported in each of these massacres), when militias then finish the task with execution style murders.

Syrian Protesters Continue To Be Slaughtered By Assad's Regime

Bashar Assad's crackdown continues without end, and the butcher's bill is growing by the day. More protesters have been murdered by the regime, but the protesters continue standing their ground despite coming under attack by the Syrian military.

Meanwhile, Syrian state TV broadcast new images from inside Hama, a city that has become a focal point of the uprising against Assad's regime.

The report showed streets strewn with rubble and wrecked buildings, according to BBC News, which published excerpts.

The Syrian broadcaster claimed that troops had put down an armed rebellion in the city, the BBC reported.

The Syrian TV report showed images of streets blocked by makeshift barricades set up by protesters. A tank was seen removing a large cement barrier as well as a bus that had its windshield shattered.

The report also showed a yellow taxi with a dead man in the driver's seat and bloodstains on the door. A picture carried by state-run news agency SANA showed empty streets with debris and damaged cars.

SANA said the Syrian army was restoring "security and stability" to Hama after it was "taken over by terrorists."

'With you until death'
Hama has been under military siege for six days as Assad tries to crush a growing uprising that has so far claimed the lives of at least 1,700 civilians since March.

Residents of Hama said they feared casualty figures there since military assault began on Sunday were higher than the 135 estimated killed.

It goes without saying that SANA would tout the Assad line and that facts are hard to come by when it comes to what SANA is reporting.

Assad is running SANA stories as propaganda to control the narrative coming out of places like Hama. He wants to portray peaceful protesters as saboteurs and insurgents, rather than civilians calling for freedom and demonstrating against the regime's ongoing brutality.

Assad has tried to combat the image of a slaughter by releasing videos claiming to show Syrians taking up arms against the military and firing on crowds. That's at odds with Syrian activists' reporting that Assad's goons have gone undercover and fired on crowds of protesters. Other groups have claimed that they've remained peaceful and/or that if Syrians had taken up arms against the military, the military casualties would have gone much higher than whatever purported losses have been incurred.

What's lost on Assad's attempts at propaganda is that while many of the protests started out complaining about the economic and political situation, they've morphed into protests about the brutal crackdown itself (the slaughter of people in Hama, at funeral protests, etc.) so that the regime's actions in response to protests are as much a focus as the economic and political conditions.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reports that more than 2,000 Syrians have been killed in Assad's crackdown against protesters and there's no sign of this letting up.

UPDATE:
The NYT reports that Syria is now broadcasting images of Hama after it has been pacified, and it shows a city devastated by artillery and gunfire.

Syria’s state media broadcast stark images of the destruction in the besieged city of Hama for the first time on Friday, showing burnt buildings, makeshift barricades and deserted streets strewn with rubble, in footage that appeared to designed to show that government forces had put down a rebellion in the city.

A photo made available by Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), made from television, shows the rubble of alleged fighting between security forces and armed groups at a street in the city of Hama, Syria, on Friday.
Related

The images were unmistakably Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city and a focal point of the five-month-old uprising that has left President Bashar al-Assad’s leadership isolated and weakened. They suggested the military had retaken control of a city that, for two months, had wrested itself from under government and enjoyed a measure of freedom unprecedented in four decades of authoritarian rule by the Assad family.

The reports by Syrian television and Sana, the official news agency, portrayed the army as Hama’s savior. The news appeared aimed at reinforcing the leadership’s message to internal opponents that they are regarded as armed insurrectionist gangs inspired by hostile foreign powers and will be dealt with accordingly. But the television footage of the wreckage in Hama also implicitly acknowledged that the violence there had been far more serious than Mr. Assad’s regime has until now been willing to publicly admit.

The regime's propaganda is also fast becoming out of touch with reality.

Residents who managed to make contact with outsiders claimed that more than 200 tanks and armored vehicles were in the city and blocking access to mosques. The military was using a divide and conquer strategy to prevent protesters from congregating into larger groups.

Syria's Army Continues Occupation of ... Syria

There's perhaps no better way to describe the situation in Syria other than calling it the Syrian army's occupation of the country.

Military forces are everywhere, particularly in and around cities that have continued to field protesters on a regular basis in opposition to Bashar al Assad. Yet, Assad's forces have backed out of Hama for the moment, ceding control to the protesters themselves:

We saw a country that’s very much in revolt. We saw the army deployment inside Syria, which looked like an army occupation of a country.

In Hama, the revolt has begun to help Syrians imagine life after the father-and-son dictatorship.

We went into the city of Hama. It’s the fourth-largest city in Syria. It was interesting to us because it’s the only city where the security forces decided to withdraw after several deadly clashes with antigovernment protesters. Now, they’re basically outside the city. Inside, there’s no police, no army. It’s under the control of the protesters.

It was very tense — to be honest — and very, very difficult to work. We were taken in by some of the leaders of the protest movement. They were very nervous, especially of us getting seen by people who might be informers.

I mostly had to work at night and mostly from cars. I wasn’t allowed to roam around very much. The only thing I was able to do on the ground was join this protest that happened past midnight, which I hear happened every day. I was able to join the protesters for a half hour. Then I was whisked away in a car. The idea was to not get seen. There are a lot of informers for the regime still in the city. That could have created a huge problem for us and for the people who were taking care of us.

Journalists are unable to freely roam the country, and the reporters/photographers who provided the New York Times with this report put their lives in the hands of strangers and had to constantly worry about informers revealing their whereabouts to Syrian authorities.

Syria continues warning US and French diplomats not to leave Damascus to view the scenes of protests themselves.

Up to 50 people have died in Homs this week alone.



Despite the bloodletting and increased carnage, the US has softened its rhetoric towards Assad's regime and has stopped short of calling for regime change after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ramped up the rhetoric last week following the kerfuffle over Ambassador Robert Ford's visit to Hama.

But Clinton backed off on Saturday, saying the administration still hopes that Assad's regime will stop the violence and work with protesters to carry out political reforms. On Monday, European Union ministers also called on Assad to implement reforms and made it clear they still hoped he would do so.

The change in tone reflects the continuing debate over whether Syria's ruler is likely to survive the current turmoil, and how best to use the limited diplomatic tools available to pressure him.

For now, a State Department official said, it's unclear whether the administration will ramp up the rhetoric and officially call for Assad's departure.

"Whether we take it farther will depend on events on the ground," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities. "We need to think through carefully what we say."

The administration has struggled to send a consistent message since antigovernment protests exploded across the Arab world in January.

I see this as a fundamental mistake as expect Assad to use this opportunity to further engage and eliminate opposition groups and protesters.

Assad's Two-Faced Statements

Bashar al Assad is no different than your typical dictator or despot. When confronted with overwhelming evidence that Syria is in the wrong, he's lashing out at the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for provocations.

Both the U.S. and France strongly criticized Syria after pro-government mobs attacked the American and French embassies in Damascus on Monday, smashing windows and spray-painting obscenities and graffiti on the walls.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned Clinton's statement as "a provocative reaction."

"Syria stresses that the legitimacy of its political leadership is based neither on the United States nor on others, it is exclusively from the will of the Syrian people," the statement said.

President Bashar Assad is facing a four-month-old uprising that has posed the gravest challenge to his family's 40-year dynasty in Syria, one of the most tightly controlled countries in the Middle East.

He has tried to crush the unrest using a mixture of deadly force and promises of reform, but the revolt has only grown more defiant. Enraged by a government crackdown that activists say has killed some 1,600 people, the protest movement is now calling for nothing less than the downfall of the regime.

Syria's deadly government crackdown has led to international condemnation and sanctions.

The US didn't provoke hundreds of thousands of Syrians to take to the streets to protest Assad's brutal regime. Assad's brutality brought that about on its own. Failed economic policies brought about the massive protests. The US had nothing to do with any of that.

What Assad did do was condone the rioters aimed at the US and French embassies where rioters vandalized and attempted to overrun the security posts and cause unspecified damage to the US ambassador's home. Those riots would not have occurred unless Assad bused them in and told security to be elsewhere when it happened.



This is far from the first time that Syrian security has looked the other way when rioters have attacked embassies. During the cartoon jihad, Danish and Norwegian embassies were torched by crowds in Damascus protesting the free speech rights to post cartoons depicting Mohammad. Those were well-planned riots with a death toll, but they were also acts of war against the countries whose embassies were damaged or destroyed.

Just as those were acts of war so too were the attacks against the embassies of the United States and France yesterday. International law provides protections for embassies and diplomatic property as though they were land of the foreign country. An attack on the US embassy is the same as an attack on the United States.

Now, Assad may claim that his regime didn't condone the rioting, but in a country where his regime is brutally cracking down against protests on a daily basis, that they've managed to overlook rioters hell-bent on attacking foreign embassies seems to be a stretch. He might have just enough plausible deniability to avoid direct and immediate consequences, but the war of words has been ratcheted up quite a bit since US Ambassador Ford went to Hama to witness the protests first-hand.

Since then, Assad has been waging an ever louder war of words with the US and sought to intimidate protesters in the US in addition to the actions within Syria. Some might argue that the Syrian ambassador to the US was put in that position by his masters in Damascus, but if he's as truly Westernized as claimed or believed, then he would have known that those actions would have resulted in serious repercussions. Syria Ambassador to the US Imad Moustapha, if those claims are to be believed, would appear to be the kind of individual that the US should be trying to turn against his masters in Damascus, just as other ministers and high ranking officials have fled and turned against the Libyian regime of Mumar Khadafi.

Let's not forget that Syria has been trying to influence the outcome in Lebanon for years, has been caught receiving arms shipments from Iran (and one such shipment that was intercepted and being stored in Cyprus pending a disposition exploded with deadly consequences earlier this week). They've been arming and sheltering terrorist groups throughout the region, including Hamas and Hizbullah.

This is not a regime interested in anything other than remaining in power and using whatever means at its disposal to do so. Assad's following the Hama rules, and it's the only playbook that his regime knows.

The President Comes To NYC To Commemorate Bin Laden's Death

President Barack Obama will be in New York City to make his way to Ground Zero to commemorate the death of Osama bin Laden nearly 10 years after the deadly 9/11 attacks. Walking through the gauntlet around Ground Zero this morning, I noticed something unusual, which was that there were a whole lot fewer people than usual milling about and winding their way through the streets to get to work. I guess quite a few people who normally work in the area are staying home (working from home) rather than deal with the President's visit and all the security cordons/frozen zones it brings). Lots of security present around Ground Zero, particularly along Vesey by the PATH.

Media outlets have been pushed back on Church to Barclay, which makes a whole lot of sense from a crowd control standpoint, but if you're over there - there isn't much point to actually being at a live remote. You aren't able to use Ground Zero as a backdrop, especially when they're on the wrong side of the street to have any chance of a view.

The best views aren't actually along Church, but at the World Financial Center, which is where Fox5 was filming this morning for their morning live show. One other vantage point would be the plaza in front of 7WTC or the park on the south side of Ground Zero near Liberty.

Other networks in NYC were simply reporting from their usual locations. That will probably change once the President is in town and starts making his rounds - first to the Broadway firehouse, then to NYPD Precinct 1, and then to Ground Zero to meet with families and to lay wreaths at the memorial.

Reports indicate that Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senators Kristen Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Bloomberg, George Pataki, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who was a New York Senator at the time of the attacks) will all be in attendance. That necessarily requires a heightened police presence.

UPDATE:
If you're in the NYC metro area today and plan on using PATH to/from WTC, prepare for delays and a suspension of service from about noon onwards. Service is to be suspended for about an hour when the President is in/near Ground Zero, and will resume thereafter. Also expect bus service along Church and Broadway to come to a halt along with other frozen zones around the city as the President moves around Manhattan.

UPDATE:
Still other local leaders joining with the President today include Rep. Peter King (R) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D).

UPDATE:

President Obama is currently visiting FDNY's Broadway firehouse.
On a wall at the firehouse, located at 8th Avenue and 48th Street, are the 15 photos of the brave men who gave their lives to save others on 9/11.
“Every day when I wake up and I see my own family, I think about them. Every day I come to work, I look at the memorial on the wall and I think about them,” Venditto said.
“It’s never far from your thoughts here in this house. I mean, the moment you walk through the door, you see the pictures,” firefighter Andrew Sforza said.
It has been a decade since Maureen Santora buried her son Chris’ remains. That day, she was the very picture of heartbreak, but on Monday she was elated.
“I’m just filled with joy that my son is up in heaven, screaming and yelling and saying ‘we got him, we got him ma,’” she told CBS 2′s Don Dahler.
Firefighter John Fila was more somber, knowing that he could have been killed that day. He was supposed to be working, but switched shifts with Chris Santora.

President Obama to Lay Wreath at Ground Zero, Visit 9/11 Families : MyFoxNY.com

UPDATE:
From Ground Zero:

President Obama Lays Wreath at Ground Zero: MyFoxNY.com

UPDATE:

Crowds on Vesey Street before it was closed to traffic

Security atop the Post Office building

Looking down at the memorial and the crowd gathered for the memorial

Crowds gathered along Church Street in front of the Hilton

UPDATE:
The NY Times liveblogged the President's visit to Ground Zero.

UPDATE:
NJ.com reports that someone in the crowd near Ground Zero was arrested after suspected of pulling a gun out of a backpack near Church and Vesey:

Authorities apprehended a man who witnesses say may have pulled a gun out of a backpack as President Barack Obama's motorcade passed today in New York.

The man, who wore a blue hat, had dark curly hair and appeared to be in his 20s, was wearing a backpack. New York Police Department officers and Secret Service agents shouted, "Get down, get down," and tackled the man at the corner of Church and Vessey Streets in lower Manhattan.

Obama had just left the World Trade Center site and his motorcade was turning from Vessey Street to Church Street when the incident occurred in front of the Church Street Station Post Office.

May turn out to be nothing (like someone getting a camera out of their bag and someone overreacting).

All I can say is that it wasn't me (I was in the crowd, but left before the motorcade went past so I missed out on the commotion). The photo was included in a story by Fox5 NY.

The Pressure Mounts

Pressure continues building in Egypt as the protests show no sign of abating despite Hosni Mubarak's attempts to placate Egyptians by firing his entire cabinet, installing a vice president, and a new prime minister.



Nothing short of Mubarak's removal is going to quell the anger, and the crowds keep coming back to Tahrir Square in Cairo.

The security situation, aside from the protests, is going to get a whole lot worse for the average Egyptian as prisons were attacked, prisoners revolted, and thousands of prisoners were released in the chaos. While some were political prisoners, no one can know for sure how many weren't. Those that escaped included members of Islamic terror groups, including Hamas:

Bodies littered the road outside a Cairo prison and troops with bayonets fixed moved into another facility after thousands of convicts broke out of jails or were abandoned by guards in protest-hit Egypt. Soldiers set up checkpoints along the Nile in the upmarket Maadi district, near the notorious
Tora prison, searching cars for escapees, as protests against President Hosni Mubarak raged into a sixth straight day.

Troops took a man from a car, threw him on the ground and tied his hands with a scarf as they did not have handcuffs. Asked why the man was detained, a soldier told an AFP correspondent: "He's just escaped from prison."

At Tora prison, where many Islamist militants have in the past been detained and tortured according to rights groups, an AFP correspondent said that shots could be heard coming from inside while soldiers with bayonets fixed moved in.

The army blocked access to the prison and an armoured personnel carrier fired its heavy machine gun in the air to clear civilians from the area.

Dozens of bodies were seen lying on a road near Abu Zaabal prison in eastern Cairo after rioting there killed at least eight prisoners, a security source told AFP.

Heavy gunfire was heard overnight at the prison with many prisoners escaping during the rioting.

Eight members of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas also escaped from Abu Zaabal, with at least two of them back in the Gaza Strip via smuggling tunnels on Sunday, a Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity.

At least 34 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were among those that escaped the prisons.

Protesters are dominating central Cairo as Mubarak's security forces and the police are not out and about. The Egyptian army has taken up positions around the city and the country , including around priceless crown jewels of Egyptian history and culture such as the Great Pyramids of Giza, the city of Luxor, and the Cairo Museum, which did suffer some damage from looters that attempted to break in and steal away some priceless artifacts.



Mubarak's regime is also attempting to shut down news outlets that are reporting on the situation in the country, and that includes Al Jazeera's bureau.

Meanwhile, the US has to walk a very delicate path here, as the US has backed the Mubarak regime for 30 years (and Sadat before him), including foreign and military assistance stemming from Egypt's peace deal with Israel. Some Egyptians are blaming the US for the ongoing misery and the Egyptian security forces have been using US military systems to attempt to quell the rioting. While much of the anger is directly solely at Mubarak, there's going to be a spillover effect.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows and she's got to address the situation extremely carefully - and her comments are informative as to what President Obama is thinking as well. Clinton speaks of an orderly transition, which suggests that the Mubarak regime will end. The only question is when and just how much further bloodshed Egyptians will endure.

1419 The full quote from Mrs Clinton to Fox News, reported by Reuters: "We want to see an orderly transition so that no one fills a void, that there not be a void, that there be a well thought-out plan that will bring about a democratic participatory government."


1417 In what appear to be some of the strongest US comments yet on the situation in Egypt, Mrs Clinton has also called for "an orderly transition", according to reports.

1411 As yet, Mrs Clinton tell US network ABC, there has been "no discussion" about cutting off aid to Egypt, stressing that Egypt's rulers need to refrain from violence against protesters.

1407 Meanwhile, in Washington, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken of her concern over events in Egypt. According to extracts of interviews given to US TV networks on Sunday, Mr Mubarak's reforms are the "bare beginning" of a much-needed list of reform.

Some former US officials are calling on President Obama to suspend financial assistance to the Egyptian government and that the President should take a far stronger stand in calling for Mubarak to step down and otherwise prepare new elections and a new political structure that provides for more political and social freedom.

Egyptian protesters are also calling for the US to take a far stronger stand.

There isn't much that the US can or should do here as it has to balance its competing interests and how it can avoid being seen as interfering. If the US acts too strongly to topple Mubarak (including giving too strong a statement in support of the protesters), they will again be seen as meddling in the Middle East, but if they don't give enough support to protesters, they'll be seen as backing a autocratic regime that does not tolerate any dissent.

Clinton's statements are a signal to the Mubarak regime that they're on their last legs and that US support is waning. The Administration is hoping that Mubarak takes the hint and that calls for elections will be heeded. I think that's a step in the right direction.

UPDATE:
The Administration is worried about a power vacuum if Mubarak leaves without a government in place to replace him. That's why they haven't called for his resignation as yet.

UPDATE:
ElBaradei is now openly propagandizing on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. He would have everyone ignore the Brotherhood's connections to terrorist groups that it has spawned over the decades, including al Qaeda.

"I mean, to ask a dictator to implement democratic measure after 30 years in power is an oxymoron," he said. "So they need to let go of [President Hosni] Mubarak. They need to side with the people. They need to go for, you know, transition, smooth transition, through a government of national salvation. This is only way out."

ElBaradei brushed aside the concerns of the administration and many on Capitol Hill that an opening for the banned Muslim Brotherhood to take greater power in the country could result in an Islamist state. One of the Brotherhood's former members, Ayman al-Zawahri, is al-Qaeda's No. 2.

"This is total bogus that the Muslim Brotherhood are religiously conservative," he said. "They are no way extremists. They are no way using violence. They are not a majority of the Egyptian people. They will not be more than maybe 20 percent of the Egyptian people.

"You have to include them like, you know, new evangelical, you know, groups in the U.S., like the orthodox Jews in Jerusalem," ElBaradei said.

He said the Islamists were "not at all" behind the uprising. He advocated that Mubarak leave immediately and that the army be negotiated with on a national unity government.

While I think most everyone would agree that Mubarak leaving would remove a autocrat whose rule has been ruinous, ignoring who might take his place is troublesome.

Reflecting on the Death of Richard Holbrooke

Yesterday, veteran US diplomat Richard Holbrooke died at the age of 69 from a torn aorta. My sympathies go out to his friends and family. He is best known for brokering the Dayton Accords which ended the conflict in Bosnia.

While his family will mourn his loss and are directly affected by his death, so too is the US foreign policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Holbrooke had been on President Obama's vanguard of trying to deal with the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan's longstanding support of the Taliban and ongoing crossborder actions enabling the Taliban to regroup and rearm. Frankly, he had more foreign policy experience than most everyone else around him, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Indeed, Clinton got the job that Holbrooke had sought for himself - primarily because Holbrooke had backed Clinton during the 2008 primary race. However, Clinton took Holbrooke on to her staff and put him in a position to deal with the most intractable problems facing the new Administration - dealing with the situation in Afghanistan.

While Holbrooke's last words were reportedly to his Pakistani doctor telling him to end the fighting, the words of Afghan leader Hamid Karzai are far more troubling and relevant. Despite years of cajoling and propping up Karzai as the leader of the Afghans, Karzai still thinks that the country might be better off with the Taliban.

For more than an hour, Gen. David H. Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry and other top Western officials in Kabul urged Karzai to delay implementing a ban on private security firms. Reconstruction projects worth billions of dollars would have to be shuttered, they maintained, if foreign guards were evicted.

Sitting at the head of a glass-topped, U-shaped table in his conference room, Karzai refused to budge, according to two people with direct knowledge of the late October meeting. He insisted that Afghan police and soldiers could protect the reconstruction workers, and he dismissed pleas for a delay.

As he spoke, he grew agitated, then enraged. He told them that he now has three "main enemies" - the Taliban, the United States and the international community.

"If I had to choose sides today, I'd choose the Taliban," he fumed.

After a few more parting shots, he got up and walked out of the wood-paneled room.

The riposte, and the broader fight over private security contractors, prompted deep alarm among senior U.S. officials in Kabul and Washington. The Obama administration had been trying for the better part of a year to cast aside earlier disputes and make nice with Karzai. But it clearly was not working. Eikenberry told colleagues at the embassy that the relationship had hit its lowest point in years.

As President Obama and his national security team assess the war this week, a central element of the discussion will be their difficulties in building a partnership with Karzai. Despite a concerted effort by top diplomats and commanders, the United States has been unable to achieve more than ephemeral bonhomie with the Afghan leader.

How is it that Karzai has come to view the US as a greater enemy than the Taliban, who routinely murders and butchers Afghans without concern for human rights or remorse? And how is it that relations have declined in the past year. Part of that stems from the approach taken by the White House and its foreign policy objectives - which include withdrawal from the country under a misguided notion of timelines.

Karzai can read the political situation in Afghanistan better than President Obama and his foreign policy staff. Karzai has to live in Afghanistan. The diplomats can go back home to the safety of Foggy Bottom. He knows that the Taliban can reassert themselves the moment the US leaves, and he's not about to signal to the Taliban that he intends to cross paths with them. He will make accommodations so as to remain in power. Instead of showing that the US will commit to a lengthy period of rebuilding and nation-building that would go a long way to assisting the Afghan nation and undermine the Taliban threat, Karzai views the US as another obstacle to his hold on power because aligning with the US as the US withdraws is tantamount to a death sentence.

Wikileaks' Anarchism Continues; Feds Ponder Next Step

Wikileaks, just days after releasing hundreds of thousands of classified State Department documents, is now claiming that they will release a similar number of documents about a major US bank.

Just what is Wikileaks intentions? It clearly seems that they are intent upon causing anarchy and upheaval in the US and world markets, on national security, foreign policy and business and economic grounds. Analysts are concerned that the document dump may lead to the loss of life and putting lives of Americans at greater risk. It further complicates foreign policy and diplomatic efforts on issues ranging from the Middle East to China and North Korea - flashpoints that could boil over into open hostilities in a heartbeat.

Army analyst Bradley Manning, who originally obtained the military and State Department documents had anarchy on his mind when he provided the documents to Wikileaks.

It's an organization that has placed itself just out of reach of US authorities unless the US gets assistance from foreign governments in tracking down and arresting those involved to be extradited to the US to face justice.

So, what is the US to do. They can issue stern warnings and attempt to placate and reassure allies, but the damage has been done. The military and State Department have to revise their methodologies to reduce the chances that a single person could do the kind of damage that Manning did.

Moreover, prosecutions of those who obtained classified documents and transmitted them to unauthorized persons for publication or retransmission must be swift and harsh. Prosecutors are looking at bringing charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his cohorts.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the Justice Department and Pentagon are conducting "an active, ongoing criminal investigation.'' Others familiar with the probe said the FBI is examining everyone who came into possession of the documents, including those who gave the materials to WikiLeaks and also the organization itself. No charges are imminent, the sources said, and it is unclear whether any will be brought.

Former prosecutors cautioned that prosecutions involving leaked classified information are difficult because the Espionage Act is a 1917 statute that preceded Supreme Court cases that expanded First Amendment protections. The government also would have to persuade another country to turn over Assange, who is outside the United States.

But the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is rapidly unfolding, said charges could be filed under the act. The U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria - which in 2005 brought Espionage Act charges, now dropped, against two former pro-Israel lobbyists - is involved in the effort, the sources said.

The Pentagon is leading the investigation and it remains unclear whether any additional charges would be brought in the military or civilian justice systems. Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst suspected of being the source of the WikiLeaks documents, was arrested by the military this year.

Holder was asked Monday how the United States could prosecute Assange, who is an Australian citizen. "Let me be very clear," he replied. "It is not saber rattling.

"To the extent there are gaps in our laws," Holder continued, "we will move to close those gaps, which is not to say . . . that anybody at this point, because of their citizenship or their residence, is not a target or a subject of an investigation that's ongoing." He did not indicate that Assange is being investigated for possible violations of the Espionage Act.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among others, called Assange and Wikileaks terrorists for exposing the hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and documents.

I'm not quite sure that Wikileaks fits that definition. They are anarchists because they are trying to overturn existing geopolitical structures and undermining the US by any means possible. Terrorism has a specific definition for US law: 18 USC 2331. Providing material assistance to terrorist organizations has a specific definition. I'm not so sure that prosecutors can prove that Wikileaks and Assange conforms to the meanings of the statutes. That doesn't mean that prosecutors can't find other relevant statutes to work with.

Julian Assange and the other people working for Wikileaks must be held to account for their supernational effort to undermine US national security. Their actions are fully within the scope of 18 USC 794 and 18 USC 798, which relates to the disclosure of classified information.

I'd also expect prosecutors to take a closer look at Wikileaks as a criminal enterprise/racket and treat it under racketeering statutes (RICO).

As the damage from the document dump fallout continues, US allies may be more than willing to arrest and extradite Assange and his cohorts to the US to stand trial for their activities. Australia is looking into whether Assange broke Australian law (Assange is an Australian citizen).

Hamas Depicts Liberation of Tel Aviv and "Peace Process" Continues

Hamas is busy once again with its revisionist history and indoctrination to hate. Members of the Islamic terrorist group released a video showing an alternative future where Hamas has "liberated" Tel Aviv and set Israeli institutions ablaze and pranced and danced on their ruins.

It shows a graphic simulation of the burning down of the High Court of Justice and the Bank of Israel buildings in Jerusalem, and cars with Palestinian flags driving across Ayalon Highway.

The beginning of the video shows a Palestinian refugee saying "Inshallah, the Jihad will take back the homeland."

The next image is of Palestinian students telling their teacher they want to become part of the resistance; followed by an image of an armed Palestinian outlining the liberation operation.

After Israel is successfully attacked and "liberated," Palestinians are shown walking along the Tel Aviv promenade and on its streets.

Note that the video starts out with Hamas thugs teaching children about Israel's inevitable destruction and not a peaceful coexistence.

Indoctrination and hate spewing videos such as this are prohibited under the Oslo Accords and follow up agreements. The Palestinian Authority is supposed to stop inciting Palestinians to violence, including through the use of videos such as this.

This is the supposed partner in peace that Israel is to make a deal with? Hamas is part of the Palestinian Authority and it has steadfastly refused to recognize Israel's existence or any prior peace agreement or deal. It also brings into question the Palestinian Authority and Fatah's ability to make a peace deal when it isn't exactly a legitimate voice for the Palestinian people.

Meanwhile, the US continues to suggest that this is the last opportunity for peace. That cannot be further from the truth. This peace gambit is perhaps the last opportunity for the Obama Administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but the Israelis and Palestinians will have an opportunity for peace when the Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist and a two-state solution that doesn't overwhelm Israel through demographics and a right of return that eliminates Israel's Jewish heritage.

Israel has repeatedly made concessions and taken steps for peace with its neighbors, but has been rebuffed incessantly. That includes the Gaza disengagement that gave Gaza to the Palestinians. Instead of using that opportunity to build an economy and industry, the Palestinians destroyed greenhouses and opted for Hamas by overwhelming numbers and launched a rocket war when Israel prevented suicide bombers from entering Israel via security fences. The fences and Israeli reprisal attacks would not be necessary if the Palestinians stopped trying to kill Israelis at every opportunity. But with Hamas founded and dedicated to Israel's elimination, that cannot happen.

Only the diplomats like Hillary Clinton seem to think that they can substitute their own reality for the facts on the ground.

UPDATE:
Talks between Palestinians and Israelis at the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh have gotten off to a real rocky start, and we haven't even gotten past the introductions. There was no need to hold public talks when the delicate negotiations could have been handled in private enabling the parties to hash out delicate subjects so that any deal could be done fully formed. That's how Oslo got done, and it is how other peace deals have been undertaken. Public peace process attempts haven't been successful.

The fact that the sides are already talking failure shows the folly of claiming that these are the last chance for talks between the parties - everyone knows that they may come back at some point, but there's no pressure to do so and the Israelis know that the Palestinians aren't serious about peace because they aren't willing to give up terrorism or recognize Israel's rights.

What Kind Of Direct Talks Can These Be?

The Palestinian Authority doesn't speak for all of the Palestinians, and Hamas still seeks nothing less than Israel's destruction all while being in control of Gaza, but yet media reports will breathlessly state that talks between Israel and the Palestinians will resume in September. MSNBC is headlining that this is a breakthrough.

The United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations formally invited them to talks that are to begin Sept. 2 in Washington, NBC News reported.

The breakthrough marks a small but important step toward easing tensions in the Middle East. The goal is to agree on arrangements for two sovereign states, Israel and an independent Palestine.

"As we move forward, it is important that actions by all sides help to advance our effort, not hinder it," Clinton said. "There have been difficulties in the past; there will be difficulties ahead. Without a doubt, we will hit more obstacles. The enemies of peace will keep trying to defeat us and to derail these talks. But I ask the parties to persevere."

Clinton said the face-to-face talks are to begin Sept. 2. She said the hope is that a comprehensive peace agreement can be reached within one year.

I have no expectations for these talks. Israel cannot and will not make an agreement with the Palestinian Authority because Mahmoud Abbas cannot speak for all of the territories, and Hamas will not let Abbas do so for Gaza. What authority does Abbas have to speak for the Palestinians when the Palestinian Authority can't operate in Gaza? Hamas controls Gaza and but for Israel's assistance, Abbas and Fatah would have been tossed from the West Bank as well.

Abbas needs some kind of diplomatic breakthrough in order to maintain support among those living in the West Bank, but if that comes, it will be yet another sign that a 2-state solution is dead and that we're looking towards a 3-state solution, with Gaza and West Bank having separate futures.

This is yet another sign that the diplomats are living in their own fantasy world where they think that they can impose and substitute their own reality for the world around them. The reality is that Hamas and Fatah have no interest in ceding power to the other, and Hamas retains full control in Gaza despite the Israeli blockade and Fatah's own efforts to undermine Hamas. Hamas will not accept any deal that recognizes Israel's rights to any land - whether it is in the West Bank, Jerusalem, or Israel proper. It simply doesn't accept Israel's right to exist.

US Indicates Misguided Need To Stop Israeli Housing Construction For Sake of Peace Process

The continuing inanity of focusing solely on the construction of Israeli housing again shows the power of images. Building houses is a powerful image and one that Palestinians claim thwarts any attempt at a peace process.

A Palestinian source said Saturday that the US's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, promised to provide Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with guarantees that Israel would rescind its plan to construct new housing units in east Jerusalem.

The official told the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Mitchell made the promise because Abbas refused to accept Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apology for declaring the approval of 1,600 new units during US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the region.

Abbas demanded guarantees after Mitchell pressed him to accept the apology as a withdrawal of the construction plan.

According to the source, Mitchell vowed that Israel would halt settlement construction during indirect negotiations with the Palestinians.

He said the special envoy was likely to present the guarantee during his visit to the region next week, in which he is also expected to announce the launching of indirect negotiations between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

At the same time Secretary of State Clinton is busy saying that Israeli moves to announcing the construction of housing was insulting.

It's all so much nonsense when anyone with a functioning neuron would note that Israel has evacuated housing and communities twice in the name of peace - in Sinai as part of the 1979 Camp David Accords, and then unilaterally in 2005 when Israel left Gaza.

Has no one in the diplomatic corps ever bought or sold real property? Apparently not from the way that the diplomats are howling over Israel's plans to build more housing, even as it would mean new and improved infrastructure should those communities be deemed for transfer to the Palestinians as part of a final status negotiation.

Housing isn't the impediment to peace; terrorist groups that are the representatives of the Palestinian people are. Hamas and Fatah have no interest in ending their war against Israel. Neither group is willing to change their founding charters to eliminate their calls to annihilate Israel. Neither is willing to stop the incitement to violence that is a regular occurrence in mosques on Fridays (and which directly leads to violent encounters such as those outside the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem the past several Fridays).

Secretary of State Clinton and other US officials keep talking about confidence building measures and how Israel needs to take actions such as stopping construction projects for housing without noting that there are no measures being demanded of the Palestinians.

Where are the calls for the release of Gilad Shalit from the clutches of Hamas in Gaza? Where are the calls to demand that incitement to violence in mosques be put to an end (even though those calls to incitement were to be ended under Oslo 17 years ago)?

Once again, the US and the rest of the world is content to pressure Israel to stop actions that they think provokes Palestinians to violence, all while ignoring that the Palestinians are provoked merely by Israel's existence. That's the anathema to Palestinians and they aren't going to stop their violence and jihad until Israel ceases to exist - peace process or not.

Terrorists Strike Peshawar As Secretary of State Clinton Visits Pakistan

A terrorist detonated a large car bomb in the middle of a market in Peshawar, killing at least 90 people.

A car packed with 150 kilograms (330 pounds) of explosives detonated at Peshawar's Meena Bazaar Wednesday, killing at least 90 people and injuring more than 200 others, according to a government official.

Most of the dead were women who were shopping in the labyrinth of stores in the Peepal Mandi section of the city, according to North West Frontier Province's information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

The flames from the explosion sparked fires at stores selling highly flammable fabric, causing some of the casualties, Hussain said.

That came at a time when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was visiting Islamabad to discuss foreign relations with the Pakistani government.

This terror attack is no coincidence. The Taliban meant this mass murder to send a message to the Pakistani government and the United States.

The attack is just the latest in a string of mass murder attacks committed by the Taliban against the Pakistani people in retaliation for the Pakistani military's ongoing military campaign in the frontier provinces. The attacks aren't confined to Pakistan either, as a an assault on a UN guest quarters killed six UN workers in Kabul:

Several Taliban fighters wearing police uniforms and suicide bombs stormed the compound. Three of the bombers detonated their vests.

Afghan security forces cleared the compound and discovered six foreign UN workers were killed in the attack.

The Taliban took credit for the attack and said it was part of a campaign to disrupt the run off presidential election scheduled for Nov. 7.

"We have said that we would attack anyone engaged in the process and today's attack is just a start," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters.

Iranian Regime Sentences Iranian-American To 12 Years For Causing Unrest

The Iranian regime continues its crackdown against opposition leaders and those it has deemed to have caused the unrest. They sentenced an Iranian American, Kian Tajbakhsh, to more than 12 years in prison:

Iran has convicted an Iranian-American academic for his alleged role in the post-election unrest in the country and sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison, the state news agency said Tuesday.

Academic Kian Tajbakhsh was arrested July 9 during a violent crackdown by security forces on street protesters and Iranian opposition members rallying against the country's disputed presidential elections. The protesters claimed the June balloting was rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Washington has repeatedly demanded that Tehran free Tajbakhsh, who was the only American who was part of the mass trial of Iranian opposition members. Charges against him reportedly included espionage, contacting foreign elements and acting against national security of Iran.

In August, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed for the release of Tajbakhsh and he was specially named in a call by the British rock star Sting to free all political prisoners in Iran.

This isn't a new strategy, given that the regime has previously detained and sentenced the Alaei brothers on similar charges, and they've now been held for more than a year.

The Obama Administration has been unable to do anything more than make some weak statements in regards to securing the release of the Iranian-Americans held by Iran. The Iranian regime continues playing the Administration for fools.

Democratic Party Fundraiser Sought to Defraud Bank To Repay Fraudulent Loan

The hits keep on coming for Hassan Nemazee, the Democratic party fundraiser who was arrested last week on attempting to defraud Citibank out of $74 million. He's now being implicated in a scheme to defraud another bank in order to raise the funds necessary to repay the fraudulent Citibank loan.

In a letter filed this week in Federal District Court in Manhattan, prosecutors said that Mr. Nemazee borrowed the money to repay Citibank from another bank, using a similar scheme that involved fake documents and forged signatures.

On top of that, they said, Mr. Nemazee defrauded a third bank using “similar false and fraudulent information.” In that case, they said, the outstanding loans to Mr. Nemazee totaled more than $100 million.

In the letter, the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York did not identify the two other banks that it said were defrauded, and no new charges have been filed.

Mr. Nemazee, 59, a New York investor, has been a major player in Democratic fund-raising circles, with ties to President Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. He was one of several national finance chairmen for Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and was a prodigious fund-raiser for her. And the Obama campaign credited him with raising more than $500,000 on its behalf.

In accusing him of lying about his assets to obtain the Citibank loan, prosecutors said he used fake documents to show he had collateral worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mr. Nemazee has not entered a plea to the sole charge against him, bank fraud, and his lawyer, Marc L. Mukasey, had no comment on the new allegations. Mr. Nemazee was released on $25 million bond and ordered to be confined to his apartment and subjected to electronic monitoring.

Democrats Turn Swamp of DC Corruption Into Swimming Pool

The politics of corruption continues and the Democrats are up to their necks in these kinds of arrangements. In fact, as Hot Air notes, Hassan Nemazee makes Norman Hsu look like a small time crook.

Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp. and a fundraiser for President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, was arrested on charges he used phony documents to trick Citigroup Inc. into lending him as much as $74 million.

Nemazee got the loan by telling Citibank he held accounts with hundreds of millions of dollars that could serve as collateral, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said today in a statement. The financier used fake addresses and phone numbers controlled by him to mislead the bank, prosecutors said.

The accounts “either never existed or had been closed years before Nemazee submitted the documents referencing those accounts,” Bharara said in the statement.

Nemazee, 59, repaid the loan to Citibank yesterday, a day after he was interviewed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, prosecutors said. The interview took place at Newark Liberty International Airport as Nemazee was checking in for a flight to Rome.

In an interesting turn of fate, Nemazee is being represented by Marc Mukasey, who is the son of Michael Mukasey, an Attorney General under President Bush.

So, who is Nemazee? He had some key ties to major Democratic party figures, including three candidates for President: John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. He also was involved in the DSCC, which is run by Sen. Chuck Schumer (via Ace of Spades).

For Democrats who claimed that they would drain the swamp of corruption in Washington, we're finding that they haven't so much drained the swamp, but flooded it turning it into a swimming pool for their excess.

In fact, in a related item, Rep. Charles Rangel was caught underreporting assets once again to the tune of $500,000.

US To Extend "Defense Umbrella" Over Mideast If Iran Goes Nuclear?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out with a most intriguing statement today in response to the concern over Iran fulfilling its goal of obtaining nuclear weapons. She said:

We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it's unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer because they won't be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can once they have a nuclear weapon[.]

Considering that President Obama has taken missile defense and used it as a poker chip with the Russians in relation to fielding it for Eastern Europe, this is a most curious statement indeed. The missile defense for Eastern Europe would actually protect Europe from Iranian missiles, which have a range capable of hitting targets in Europe, as well as throughout the Middle East.

So, what would this defense umbrella look like if it is not missile defense?

Almost as quickly as she made those statements, officials were quick to issue qualifiers:

A senior aide to Clinton, speaking to reporters on background while the secretary's traveling party flew from Bangkok to Phuket, said Clinton's comments did not reflect her acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran nor a literal accounting of what the U.S. would do if Tehran did acquire nuclear weapons.

Rather, the aide said, the secretary was only articulating what arguments the Obama administration makes to influence Iran's calculus. The aide also said Clinton's use of the term "defense umbrella" was not synonymous with the term "nuclear umbrella," even though the context of her comments centered on Iran's potential acquisition of nuclear weapons.

So, this isn't exactly missile defense, and it isn't extending the MAD doctrine to deter Iran. What exactly is it other than the empty bluster from an Administration that clearly can't figure out how to deal with Iran in a tangible and concrete fashion that protects US interests in the region. Empty platitudes wont cut it.

It should be little wonder that other Middle Eastern countries are considering nuclear programs of their own to deter Iran, because they see no one having the will to stand up to Iranian aggression.

Carbon Apologies?

President Obama sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to India, where she promptly apologized for the US emitting carbon.

"We acknowledge now with President Obama that we have made mistakes in the United States, and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the problem that we face with climate change," she said. "We are hoping a great country like India will not make the same mistakes."

She was referring to Obama's statement in Italy earlier this month that the U.S. had "sometimes fallen short" of its responsibilities in controlling its carbon emissions.

Speaking at a news conference on the pool side patio of the Taj Mahal Palace & Hotel, which was strewn with bodies after terrorists attacked this coastal city last November, she cast India and the United States as allies in the fight against terrorism.

Never mind that it was carbon emissions that turned the United States into an economic powerhouse and established the arsenal of democracy standing up to the Nazis and then the Communists of the Soviet Union all while creating a high standard for Americans, which many now take for granted. Apparently, all that requires an apology.

India was having none of this though. They know that their future relies on building up a manufacturing and technological base that requires carbon emissions and they're not going to sacrifice their chance to improve the standard of living of hundreds of millions of Indians to placate a bunch of eco-leftists who think that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and must be controlled.

That India is building more energy efficient buildings is besides the point - the sheer number of people and the desire to improve their quality of life means that more carbon will be emitted. Saving money is the name of the game and in a recessionary economic environment, that trumps some claim that the environment must be saved by reducing emissions.

The thing of it is that most people want to live like Americans do. They want a high standard of living and want the creature comforts that we take for granted. That comes at a cost - and the ecoleftists don't want that dream to be for everyone, not even all Americans. They want to restrict energy development, which drives up the costs, requiring people to make choices that they wouldn't otherwise have to make. Energy alternatives that provide zero emissions are available, but are passed over because the eco-left and NIMBY has thwarted new development in the US (see, power, nuclear), which would have a smaller footprint kilowatt v. kilowatt for wind or solar power, which aren't always consistent in their output.

Curiously, the New York Times, the so called paper of record, ignored the Clinton apology, while delving into the fact that both China and India oppose carbon caps because their per capita emissions is far lower than that of the United States. Neither is going to sacrifice their economic development to fulfill this carbon scheme.

UPDATE:
Don Surber links. Thanks!

Hsu Don't Say! Norman Hsu Found Guilty Again

This is just another conviction on Norman Hsu's record, but it's one with a certain political flair. Hsu was convicted on four counts of campaign finance fraud for steering thousands of dollars to politicians like Harold Ford and Hillary Clinton. In fact, nearly all of Hsu's bundling was for Democrat candidates and political groups, including Chuck Schumer's DSCC.

The verdict came after 2 ½ hours of deliberations in the criminal trial of Hsu, 58, in federal court in New York. It follows his guilty plea on May 7 to cheating investors out of more than $20 million in a Ponzi scheme, for which he may face 30 years in prison.

Hsu was convicted of four counts of campaign finance fraud in a trial that lasted six days. Defense attorney Alan Seidler said he would appeal the jury’s verdict that Hsu secretly repaid about $98,000 to political donors from 2004 to 2007.

“He was pretty calm, actually,” Seidler said of Hsu as the jury read the verdict.

Prosecutors said Hsu used campaign donations to win accolades from prominent politicians, which he used to lure new investors into his Ponzi scheme. They offered evidence that he made illegal reimbursements to six of his investors who contributed funds to politicians including then-U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and then-U.S. Representative Harold Ford of Tennessee.

“Norman Hsu is directing where donations are going to go,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Willscher told jurors in closing arguments yesterday.

Didn’t Testify

Hsu didn’t testify at the trial. Seidler said Hsu’s investors made contributions on their own to win admission into an investment pool paying as much as 24 percent returns in 12 weeks. He’ll be sentenced on Aug. 19. Prosecutors contend that Hsu deserves more than 30 years in prison, Seidler said.

The verdict caps a long legal odyssey for Hsu, who is being held in prison. In 1991 he pleaded no contest in California and was convicted of stealing $1 million from investors in a scheme involving latex gloves. He failed to appear for sentencing.

In his 15 years as a fugitive, he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates, including Clinton, and became one of the biggest political donors in the country, prosecutors said.

At the trial, prosecutors said Hsu attracted investors by telling them of his seemingly close connection to politicians they admired. The government presented evidence that Hsu was among Clinton’s top fundraisers and claimed to have flown on a private plane with former President Bill Clinton.

He arranged big donations to political campaigns from people who had no ability to pay such amounts, and he was doing so while as a fugitive from California authorities. In fact, he was operating right under their noses in plain sight as he was busy hobnobbing and rubbing shoulders with the power brokers of the Democratic party, and had even provided funding to then candidate Barack Obama.

Hsu has already been convicted of running a Ponzi scheme, which helps explain how Hsu was able to guarantee those results to his "investors" (aka suckers).

Hsu Wont Fly: Former Clinton Bagman To Plead Guilty

When last we recounted the story of Hillary Clinton's bagman, Norman Hsu, he was awaiting trial. Well, today we learn that he's pleading guilty to 10 charges of wire and mail fraud and operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded people out of $20 million.

Hsu made illegal political contributions to quite a few politicians, including Sen. Hillary Clinton. (HT: Jammie)

Also receiving largesse from Hsu? Bob Kerrey, and the DSCC, Ed Rendell, NYS AG Andy Cuomo, NYS former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, and the TN and MI Democratic Parties.

Last year, Hsu was sentenced to prison in California for jumping bail and being on the lam for years - and turning himself into a major domo within the Democratic party money machine.