Help! Iraq is Improving. We Need More Sabotage!

Despite what one may think about George W. Bush getting into the Iraq war mess, one must concede that his objectives are noble. The American military has only ever been in Iraq until such time as the Iraqis are ready for us to leave. We might have already been home had it not been for several half-witted stunts by the Democrats in congress.

The US Military today turned security over to the Iraqis in Karbala, only 40 miles south of my old stomping grounds, making that the eighth of eighteen provinces that now provide indigenous security. That's cool. We're making progress.

Although it's too early to be sure if it's a trend, the number of American military deaths is the lowest in two years. That's cool. We're making progress.

Despite the death of Abu Risha last month, Ramadi is trending toward peace. A recent parade was held in honor of Abu Risha. Troop and civilian deaths are way down. That's cool. We're making progress.

Which has me confused. Why aren't the Democrats in full overdrive--as they usually are at junctures such as this--trying to sabotage the effort? Careful...maybe they are...

My observation, albeit unscientific, while I was in Iraq was this: something goes good, like an election, and then the American media finds something negative to say about George W. Bush, and then, boom! Roadside bomb, car bomb, and rocket attacks suddenly increase. (Terrorists have satellite television.) That used to just piss me off.

Then John Murtha came along and made all sorts of brazen and baseless allegations, and the whole country went to crap. We're just recovering. That really sucked, and it still does.

I guess a few days ago, the Democrats did attempt a bit of sabotage, but it didn't seem to work. A recently tabled resolution before congress to censure Turkey for genocide that occurred nearly a century ago makes no sense unless one realizes its geopolitical ramifications.

Having failed miserably to force a US retreat in Iraq, House Democrats and their skittish Republican counterparts have now resorted to asymmetrical political warfare against President Bush, his administration and US military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.

About 70% of all supplies supporting current US combat operations flow through Turkey. Its strategic location has made the air base at Incirlik a vital lifeline to the US military. It doesn't take a legal scholar to articulate the implications to Iraq or Afghanistan if Turkey denied access to Incirlik.

I'm all for being finished in Iraq. We should have never been there. But we can't just sabotage every good effort to achieve liberty among the Iraqi people.

I don't think we should rest on our laurels just yet, though. The enemy may still be combining in an attempt to scuttle the liberty process there. Al Qaeda, you think? Heck no! The Democrats in Congress!

Very Amanpoor Reporting on Jihad

The left screams that the media has a rightist slant. Well, I've got at least one instance where that is not true. Christiane Amanpour did essentially everything she could to misrepresent the truth in a recent CNN program entitled God's Warriors

Prior to its airing on CNN, it was said of God's Warriors by the Associated Press that

Understanding is what Amanpour is trying to promote in "God's Warriors," which takes up six prime-time hours on CNN this week.

Please...don't insult our intelligence. When someone tries to promote understanding, they try to get their facts straight. Not only did she create a great deal of misunderstanding, she caused a great deal of unneeded animosity.

One can dispute why radical Islam is so violent, but it is beyond dispute that

It is "deeply false," to equate "Jewish (and Christian) religious fervency with that of Muslims heard endorsing 'martyrdom,' or suicide-killing. There is, of course, no counterpart among Jews and Christians to the violent jihadist Muslim campaigns underway across the globe...

I wrote about this several months ago in The First Jewish Suicide Bomber. My point: there is yet to be one.

Jews and Christians, as compared to radical Muslims, almost never resort to violence to get their points across.

Much of the segment God's Christian Warriors deals with a man named Ron Luce, depicting him as representative of Christians. Ron who? I've been a Christian (Mormon) for 44 years, and I've never heard of him. I didn't check, but perhaps one of Ms. Amanpour's "fact checkers" was Rosie O'Donnell.

But much of the rest of "God's Christian Warriors" depicts the ministry of Ron Luce. His priority is battling what he views as an amoral popular culture. There's footage of one of Luce's "Battle Cry" youth rallies, which took place in San Francisco in March; in an understated and effective way, the documentary depicts how the two-day event used all the trappings of an extravagant rock concert to condemn most aspects of modern culture (of which rock concerts are part).

Amanpour made more than a few factually incorrect statements on the program, which can't do well to soften the angered feelings between Christians and Muslims and well as Jews and Muslims. For example, HonestReporting notes the following inaccuracy:

Amanpour does not hesitate to inject her own views, demonstrating occasional lack of knowledge. For example when an Israeli settler said God says Jews must live in Hebron, Amanpour interjected that the West Bank was designated by the UN to be the largest part of an Arab state. Not only is this statement factually incorrect, it is out of context. Amanpour is evidently unaware that all Arab states rejected UN partition resolution 181, to which she evidently referred and that the West Bank was included in the area designated for encouragement of Jewish settlement by the Balfour Declaration and even endorsed in article 6 of the British mandate.

The program also tended to be historically very out of context.

One of the most misleading aspects of the program, was the use of the very few isolated incidents of Jewish terror attempts over the past 15 years, to create the false impression that a Jewish terror movement exists on a par with the violent worldwide jihadist phenomenon of indiscriminate death and destruction.

I'm not sure whether Christiane Amanpour had a motive for the plethora of inaccuracies in her series, God's Warriors, nor if she did, what that motive would be. She's married to a former Clinton Administration official, but I'm not sure how that would play into the factual bias, except that Bill Clinton made a somewhat applicable statement at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, claiming that right-wing Christian fundamentalism and talk-show hosts had created the environment in which such a bombing could have occurred.

But at least, if Christiane Amanpour does not have a motive for her inaccuracies, her professionalism calls on her to recognize those untruths and apologize for them.

Especially in issues so volatile, factuality is critical. False statements purported as fact can have the same effect as swords, rockets, and bombs.

PBS: "See No Islamism, Hear No Islamism, Speak No Islamism"

Before watching Muslims vs Jihad, the companion to the supposed-to-be-on-PBS-but-now-isn’t documentary Islam vs Islamists, I thought PBS didn’t want to show Islam vs Islamists because the show did not do a good job of depicting that large segment of the Muslim population that does not support Islamism and terror. I was wrong. The thing which ultimately gives PBS pause about Islam vs. Islamists is that the moderates actually do such an excellent job of pointing out the debaucheries of the Muslim radicals.


Now I know why they won’t show it. Because the truth hurts those who don’t want to admit or let it be known that an enormous chasm exists between moderate Muslims and hate-filled Islamists. PBS claimed not to see the moderate Muslims as representative of mainstream Islam. It’s a subtle play on words, but moderate Muslims are Muslims just the same.

Radical members of any society will get more print and airtime that their moderate members. That's the sad fact of an American media who wants whatever is salacious as opposed to whatever is true. Real Clear Politics explains why a cursory glance at our world makes it seem like there are very few moderate Muslims:

Are there moderate Muslims? And if there are, why aren't they speaking out against the beheaders and the suicide bombers?

A lot of people ask those questions. Canadian filmmaker Martyn Burke set out to answer them. He made a documentary. "Islam vs. Islamist," which was financed in part by a $675,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Mr. Burke hired journalists who reported from Denmark, France, Canada and the United States. There are a great many moderate Muslims, they found, but they don't speak out because they are intimidated by threats of coercion, ostracism and physical violence from the Islamists in their communities.

It’s no wonder that very few moderate Muslims speak out. Have you ever been threatened with violence if you speak out about a certain issue? Many of these people have. It takes great guts to stand up and speak out in the violent face of Islamists, let alone when you find they have their sycophants, such as the “See No Islamism, Hear No Islamism, Speak No Islamism” PBS.

According to a Fox News broadcast, in which several segments from the film were shown and discussed, PBS said the film was alarmist and overreaching, and that the producers of the film had demonized the Islamists. The film did no such thing; it simply allowed those who themselves had been demonized to speak the truth. I can’t help but wonder if PBS is afraid of the screechings of such groups as the Council on American Islamic Relations, who don’t want Islam vs. Islamists to be shown. It is clear to anyone watching the video that moderate Muslims blame Saudi Arabia for financing the bulk world Jihad. The Saudis, therefore, who have a great influence on America and many friends in American high places, will by no means be flattered by this film, and they have a great interest in its not being shown.

Nahid Riazy is one who dares to stand up against the excesses of Islam, such as the mistreatment of women. Many such still-Muslim women, including her, fear for their lives. Some are afraid to have their faces on camera, but she is not. She and others have had obscenities shouted at them and eggs thrown at them as they walk down the street. Others have been killed. Leaders of the Islamists, such as Said Mansour, claim that these women are not really Muslims (a spurious charge often made even by non-Muslims against those who do not follow the Islamist variety of Islam), and that in their struggle for democracy and liberty, they are actually limiting themselves.

Many crisis centers are being created to help these women.

Mansour said that Muslims must be God’s slaves--which apparently gives him and others like him the authority to be God’s taskmasters. They are doing a fine job of it! “You don’t ask questions about the religion. You are either a total Muslim, or you are not [a Muslim],” he said in an interview during the film.

Frank Gaffney, who helped with the film, said that PBS wanted them to change the story, to illustrate a moral equivalence between the Islamists and those who opposed their violent form of Islam. The producers of Islam vs. Islamists made several changes over the course of six months, but they refused to subvert the truth about the controversy inside the Muslim religion. They brought in several consultants from Paris, Scandinavia, and Canada, who agreed that the show was accurate, and who came to the conclusion that PBS must have already decided that it would never be satisfied with the end result.

Abd al Malik of France was in earlier years being drawn in by the thuggery of fundamentalist Islam. Then 9/11 happened. He is now a popular rap star (and is still a Muslim) in France. One of his most popular pieces is called “September the 12th”. Here are some of the words:

I already knew a flow of whackos when the twin towers went down
I already knew a flow of crazies when the twin towers were blown out
I was profoundly shocked. And let me tell you
If I hadn’t had my faith, I would have felt guilty for being a Muslim.

After that the eyes of the world were on us
And we had to show the world that we were human to
That if some of us were crazies
Most of us would never mix our politics with our faith

Previously, when al Malik joined the Islamist gangs of France, looking for and threatening those Muslims who did not seem as Muslim as they were. When he was assigned to plant a bomb in a French police station, he decided that Islamism was wrong, and he left. When he decided to go into the music industry, his break with the Islamists—who felt any kind of music was bad—was complete. Since then he has discovered that the correct--the real--Islam is peace.

The rise of this poisonous version of Islam is being funded by Saudi Arabia. Ahmed Amiruddin, a Muslim sheihk living in Canada, who has been threatened for his view, thinks the attraction of fundamentalist Islam is the glory of a past that was lost. Faheem Bukhari of Canada agrees that the tenets of the radical version of Islam that are being perpetuated in North America are exclusively of a Saudi variety.

Are the movies Muslims vs. Jihad and Islam vs Islamists worth your time? Not only are they, you can’t afford not to watch them. The DVD of Islam vs Islamists is in the pre-production stages, and will hopefully be available later this month. For now, you can watch segments of Muslims vs Jihad by clicking here.

At the very least you can make your own decision about what is really happening in the Muslim world. Unfortunately, PBS doesn't want you to do that.

How Many Muslims are there in the US?

For a while now, we've been under the impression that there were 6 or 7 million Muslims in the United States. A scientific survey can only identify 2.35 million. What implications does this have?

I recent study by the Pew Research Center found out that there are far fewer Muslims in America than the Council on American Islamic Relations has alleged. Does this mean less threat of terrorism? Why would CAIR inflate the numbers? Investor's Business Daily has an opinion:

But it's a wildly inflated guess manufactured by CAIR, something the media could have easily refuted all these years if they dared — simply by deconstructing CAIR's unscientific methodology.

Until now, finding reliable data for Muslims in America has been hard because the Census Bureau does not survey creed. So CAIR's fuzzy math went unchallenged, even though the "respected scholar" it hired to lead its "study" wasn't a trained demographer. In fact, as a CAIR board member, he wasn't even independent.

Worse, the Muslim professor admitted the number he arrived at for CAIR was a "guesstimation" that magically and conveniently matched the size — and potential political clout — of the Jewish population in the country, also estimated at 6 million.

Until now, the perception was that CAIR spoke for several million Muslims and could rally them to boycott a company or to vote as a bloc to swing an election if it didn't get its way. Officials feared the group because they thought it could marshal an Islamic juggernaut. The threat alone has caused many to back down from criticism or policies CAIR didn't like.

I don't understand CAIR's motives well enough. Looks like I have found a new focus of study. Their web site seems pretty friendly, but I guess we'll see.

Learning to Hate from an Interesting Source

It is interesting that hatred between various religious sects in Iraq has gotten worse since the US arrived in 2003. Interestingly enough, western influence seems to have caused similar problems in India.

I am in Chicago this week, attending a computer conference. On this trip, I have had the good fortune of meeting two Indian men--one who is a Muslim, and one who belongs to the Hindu religion. Their similarity of social perspective is very striking.

I met Zaqardi while flying from Salt Lake City to Chicago. I asked him if there is a great deal of animosity and bloodshed between Muslims and Hindu followers in India. he said that it was not as bad as people in the west think it is. Interestingly, though, he pointed out that animosity does flare up regularly around elections, when--rather than accentuate their own strengths--the various candidates begin speaking epithets against their opponents in order to gain votes. I wonder where they learned that from?

Today at lunch, I had a fascinating conversation with Devdatt. I asked him the same questions. He agreed that the problems between Islam and Hindu are very exaggerated in the western press, but that there was a time when little if any animosity existed between the two great faiths. From his perspective, it was when the Brits came to India to exercise their benevolence, that a hatred between Muslim and Hindu was struck. Hmmm. Didn't they do that in Iraq once, as well?

We pause now for this message: Ron Paul is right.

I suggested to Devdatt that America and the west would do better off if we would mind our own business. He agreed so readily that he could not contain his laughter, which had the effect of dislodging a portion of his partially-chewed sandwich from his mouth. He also agreed that if America would stop tilting at every windmill in the world, the world would actually be better off simply observing and learning from America's example.

P.S. -- Vote for Ron Paul!

The Outcome of Collective Guilt Trips

As examples from America and Israel show, the result of national guilt trips is not good. If we'd stop feeling guilty for everything--by the way, stop and look at who's making us feel guilty in the first place (!)--and stand up for our principles, there'd be a lot less violence in the world.


In his column today, Thomas Sowell had this interesting observation.

During the 1960s, the idea spread like wildfire that whatever you were lacking was someone else's fault — society's fault. If you were poor, whether at home or in some Third World country, you were one of the "dispossessed" — even if you had never possessed anything to dispossess you of.

The urban ghetto riots that swept across the country during the 1960s were all blamed on society. This view was formalized in a much-hailed report on urban violence by a national "blue ribbon" commission headed by Gov. Otto Kerner of Illinois.

This sweeping and heady vision made it unnecessary to stoop to anything so mundane as hard facts — which would have included the fact that urban riots struck most often and most violently when and where this collective guilt vision prevailed.

Southern cities, where at that time discrimination and poverty were more pronounced than in the rest of the country, were not nearly as often or as hard-hit as cities outside the South.

Dore Gold made the following note on page 5 of his recent book, The Fight for Jerusalem.

The Palestinians claimed the violence bgan as a spontaneous reaction to Sharon's visit to the temple mount. But Arafat's minister of communications...freely admitted the planned, organized nature of the campaign... "Whoever thinks the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong," he explained. "The intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations."

Palestinians aren't stupid. They can see someone's weakness when they intend on giving away the farm.

Israel in the summer of 2006 fell victim to public opinion, fueled by bought-and-paid-for Islamists like Juan Cole and al Jazeera. Israelis felt not nearly as much guilt as did the Americans, but the minor Israeli and major American guilt was milked for all its propaganda value by the anti-freemen in cheering the Hizballah troops.

Bullies do this. Packs of wolves exhibit this behavior. People who are in the wrong are emboldened by weak behavior from people who are right. My goodness we have a lot of guilty people in this country. It's ironic that when we stop being able to feel guilt for things that are really wrong, we have a craving to replace it with guilt that is misplaced. Another sad thing is that a lot of the rest of Americans, including such organizations as the Council on American Islamic Relations, are preying on our guilt. Is it any wonder poor excuses for human beings continue to target innocent Iraqi civilians? They salivate at our guilt. And we continue to exhibit it. It is not Bush's fault that people are killing each other in Iraq. Nor is it yours!

It's time to get our butts off our stinky couches, turn off our boob tubes, and start finding out what's really going on in the world today. We need to stop feeling guilty for the things we're doing right, especially when those who have destroyed in their own countries everything we hold dear are the ones making the accusations.

There are things to feel guilty for. Supporting a fledgling democracy is not one of them.

The Mistakes that Were, and the Mistakes that Weren't

I don't like the Bush administration. I never voted for him, for which I feel proud and vindicated. There were several mistakes made by the Bush administration with regard to the war in Iraq. But we shouldn't let liberals have a pass on reality when they make some outlandish, unproven allegations.

I think I finally support Rocky Anderson and Dennis Kucinich and everyone else who wants an impeachment of Vice President Cheney to proceed. Because I'm sick and tired of all the innuendo, and it would be good to know what the facts are. Plus, it would stop congress from causing any more damage for a while.

The Bush Administration has made its share of mistakes--no question. I have pointed them out here on this site. But just for good measure, let me list them, along with some that don't relate to Iraq, including some that I haven't listed before.

1. Standing by his attorney general when his attorney general is a schmuck. The Clinton's had enough of the same kinds of personnel problems as Bush, by the way. I think that the Republicans (Specter doesn't count) don't generally play the part of good vultures. Democrats, on the other hand...

2. Not sending enough troops to Iraq. His generals told him that there needed to be more troops. But many of his advisors told him that it would be a cake walk. Wrong.

3. Disbanding the Iraqi military and government ministries from top to bottom. I wrote about this as being the greatest mistake in the Iraq war.

4. Not bowing to Democratic power when it comes to the obvious truths of global warming. Just kidding--I had to throw that one in! This is one thing he's actually doing a good job on.

5. Not explaining to the Iraqi people, and the American people for that matter, what our end goals are. Just not being a very good communicator overall.

6. Not pardoning border Agents Ramos and Compean, who did a magnificent job on the US-Mexican border, and who are currently being unjustly imprisoned. Not being a stronger advocate of keeping illegal immigrants from our country. Being an advocate of the North American Union superhighway.

7. Not planning for contingencies in Iraq. Not understanding (much less having and implementing) counter-insurgency tactics. Such as what happens after we get there? What if we don't find any weapons of mass destruction? What if suicide bombers start killing throngs of innocent Iraqi civilians?

That's definitely not a litany of his mistakes, but it highlights some of the worst. Now, on to the other part. Let's talk about what mistakes were not made, in light of the fact that allegations have been made that such mistakes were made.

I wish to reply to a letter to the Deseret News by BYU professor Warner Woodworth. One of the best classes I ever had at BYU was from Mr. Woodworth. Let's just say, however, that we don't necessarily agree politically. I include below one applicable paragraph from his opinion piece in DesNews, to which both of my barrels will respond.

Let me count a few ways Cheney has diminished our American ideals: using false premises for war, condoning illegal wiretaps on citizens, justifying Abu Ghraib, managing Halliburton unethically, continuing use of vulgarities, firing federal prosecutors who weren't "Bushie" enough, and on ad nauseam.

1. Using false premises for war. The claim that the Bush administration knew that Iraq possessed no WMD is the bedrock upon which nearly every other allegation against the war is made. What happens if the bedrock is shifting sand. We often think we knew a lot about something before it happened, when in reality, what we know now is what we came to know only after it happened. David Kaye, a United States lead inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency, was sent to Iraq to seek out the WMD that the Bush administration claimed was there. Kaye went, because he was convinced that he would find something. He was shocked when he did not. Regardless of what might have happened to them or whether they were ever there, the fact that experts expected to find WMD shoots the 'Bush-lied' theory down.

2. Condoning illegal wiretaps. It is interesting to note that the Council on American Islamic relations initially raised concern about Bush administration wiretapping, before it caught on like wildfire in the liberal and media (woops, same thing) communities. Whether it's wrong or not (which hasn't been proven), it is important to remember that democratic administrations have used the same techniques. The Bush eavesdrops on conversations between Americans and suspected al Qaeda operatives. If he exceeds this mandate, he should be removed from office, but prove to me that he has rather than just making a boatload of claims.

3. Justifying abu Ghraib. Maybe what Mr. Woodworth is referring to is an allegation by Newsweek magazine that new tactics to fight the war on terror turned into a de facto justification for the tortures at abu Ghraib. The reality is so much more complicated that I don't know where to start. Let me just say that abu Ghraib happened because (1) there was not a clear counter-insurgency plan, and far too many Iraqi men found their way into prison than should have, and (2) there was a much smaller contingent of military police at abu Ghraib than should have been to handle the influx of prisoners.

4. Managing Halliburton Unethically. I saw how efficient Halliburton was when I served in Iraq. I cannot think of too many companies that could have done the job that Halliburton has done there. Can you? Halliburton got the contract because they were deemed by the government to be the most qualified.

5. Continuing use of vulgarities. Did Mr. Woodworth think this about President Clinton and members of his administration? Vulgarities are vulgar, for sure, but football coaches use them all the time, for pete's sake. We shouldn't use them, I agree, but I am not qualified to cast the first stone. Maybe Mr. Woodworth is, but isn't this just litany-padding to add such a charge?

6. Firing Attorneys. He had more right to fire them than the Clinton administration had a right to fire the people in the travel office!

I assume "ad nauseam" includes the standard "blood for oil" claim, as well as the "Guantanamo is eeevviilll" claim as well. But I've seen no proof of these either.

So let's get these impeachment proceedings proceeding! I want to know what the truth is. Somehow, I don't think the liberals really want too, though. Because they already have their minds made up. And to think that perhaps they are being led by a ring in their nose which was installed by the truly patriotic Council on American Islamic Relations.

It cannot be a matter of us hating someone so bad that we expense our own military members simply because we want to win a political battle. If these things are true, then let's find them out in impeachment proceedings. But otherwise, let's keep our yaps shut. The terrorists are listening. Our politics are their "CSI", "Survivor", and "Simpsons" all rolled into one.

Climate Change and Ethnic Cleansing in Darfur

Quiz question: Why are so many people being killed in Darfur of the Sudan? Answer: Global Warming. Of course. Global warming is the cause of everything!

Climate change is behind the effort to eradicate non-Muslims from Darfur, according to this story.

A violent conflict that has claimed more than 300,000 lives in Darfur is one of the early signs of threats to global security prompted by climate change, a senior representative of the British government warned Monday on the eve of a special United Nations debate.

“Like most conflicts, it’s complex. It results from an interplay of a lot of social and political and possibly ethnic factors,” said John Ashton, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s special ambassador on climate change.

“But there is absolutely no doubt that it’s a more difficult conflict to deal with, because on top of all that, you’ve had a 40 per cent fall in the rain fall in northern Darfur over the last 25 to 30 years again in a way that’s entirely consistent with what the climate models would have told you to expect.”

Calling the issue "complex" not only waters down the clear reason for the cleansing, but is a brazen attempt to inject man-made global warming into a debate where it has no business being.

But whatever. It seems, then, that global warming has caused Islamic radicals to be just a bit more radical. Because the reason for the ethnic cleansing in Darfur, which, by the way, is far worse than anything in the former Yugoslavia, is Islamism.

According to the book Future Jihad by Walid Phares, Islamism took the upper hand in the Sudan due to a 1989 coup. That was one year before the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. With the coup, Sudan became only the second Sunni Islamist state in the Middle East, preceded by Saudi Arabia.

And then, with no warming, global warming struck with a vengeance! Or something.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, entitled "The Truth".

Desiring a smoke screen for the Islamists' attempt to eradicate non-Muslims, Hassan Turabi invented an enemy, named John Garang, who was a Marxist and who could easily be believed to have been an ally of the former Soviet Union, whom the Islamists had defeated in Afghanistan.

On the smoky pretext, Mr. Turabi called leading Islamists from around the world to the 1st annual Islamic Conference on Global Warming. Or something...

According to Dr. Phares, there actually was a large conference of Islamists in Khartoum, Sudan in 1992. The PLO was there. The Baathists were there. The Iranians were there. Hizballah was there.

Based on Turabi's propaganda, Islamists came from everywhere to take part in the slaughter ordained of Allah. Since then hundreds of thousands of non-Muslims have been killed. Tens of thousands more have been sold into slavery across the Levant and beyond.

And to think that it was all because of global warming.

Iranian Lunacy and the Counterattack Options Available to Us

It is now becoming clear that the Iranian government is a pariah among nations. What's important to remember is that the Iranian people aren't. If, in reaction to the latest smooth move by the Iranian government, we attack Iran with guns and bombs, we will be taking exactly the wrong action.

Kenneth Timmerman was a guest commentator on The Right Balance with Greg Allen this morning, and he reminded us of this looming fact. Timmerman's sources inside Iran state that the kidnapping of the Brits was a carefully planned and coordinated effort. He reports that they are also "trolling" for any Americans they can find in Iran to hold as pawns as well. He also reminded us that many economic options exist for Britain and the world to put the thumb screws to Iran.

For example, forty percent of Iran's gasoline needs are provided from outside the country. Iran has very little refining capacity. It would not be difficult to shut of a significant portion of their resources.

The Iranian people are very pro-American. To attack Iran with military materiel would very likely cause them to turn against us.

Accent Radio Network News reported this morning the reaction of several Iranians to the kidnapping of the British Marines and sailors. Several Iranians were baffled by their government's decision to kidnap the Brits as Iran was not at war with them. Many rank and file Iranians wish their government would release the hostages posthaste.

As it stands, many Iranians are on our side. I hope the Bush administration doesn't go off half cocked again and give them something to hate us for.