Our World: The joke's on us

Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST, JULY 16, 2007

'It's all a joke. It's just a joke." That's how the Palestinian terror commanders in Judea and Samaria explained the show they made of handing in their weapons to Fatah commander Mahmoud Abbas's official militias over the weekend.

"This is all a big joke," they told reporters while posing for pictures. "Abbas asked us to sign a declaration saying we won't attack Israel and so we are." And why not? The Palestinian Authority Chairman agreed to pay them thousands of dollars in exchange for the photo opportunities. There is also the non-financial incentive. In exchange for their propaganda photos and their signatures on declarations not to engage in terror anymore, Israel has pledged to take these murderers off of its wanted list. So just for participating in a satire, these men get to walk without fear for the first time in years.

The deal between Prime Minister Olmert and Abbas claims that 178 members of Fatah's Aksa Martyrs' Brigades terror organization will hand in their weapons and pledge to stop being terrorists. From now on the only Palestinians in Judea and Samaria who will bear arms will be members of Abbas's "official" security forces. But since most of these men are already members of those official militias, and the rest are set to be commissioned in short order, the deal has no impact on any of them.

In anticipation of the formalization of the agreement at the Olmert-Abbas meeting yesterday, the IDF ended its nightly raids in Judea and Samaria for the first time in five years. Those raids, in which thousands of terrorists were apprehended in their sleep and their networks disrupted, were the main reason that Israelis in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Netanya and Hadera have been able to sleep in a modicum of safety for the past three years.

It is these raids, rather than Abbas's vaunted efforts to strengthen the so-called peace camp in Palestinian society or the security fence that have prevented suicide bombers from entering Israeli cities with any frequency.

SATURDAY the IDF's General Staff ordered Central Command to receive prior General Staff approval for any such raids in the future. By taking the ability to fight terrorists away from the commanders in the field, the General Staff essentially made fighting terrorists off limits for IDF forces in Judea and Samaria . That is, without officially announcing it, Israel has agreed to Abbas's demand that it extend its "unilateral cease-fire" in Gaza (which existed until Hamas rose to power last month), to Judea and Samaria .

It should be recalled that the Hamas takeover of Gaza was abetted by Israel 's decision to declare a unilateral cease-fire there. Israel stood down in Gaza in an effort to strengthen Abbas's control over that area. Since Abbas refused to use his US and Egyptian supplied arsenal to take on Hamas , Israel 's decision to stand down in Gaza played a central role in enabling Hamas to raise its Iranian-trained terror army in the area to which Abbas's forces abjectly surrendered.

Now, in the interest of strengthening Abbas and his terrorists-turned peace activists in Fatah in Judea and Samaria , Israel is extending the policy to the outskirts of its major population centers.

While disturbing, the General Staff cannot be blamed for ordering its forces to stand down in Judea and Samaria . The 178 terrorists who Olmert just took off the wanted list are themselves the IDF's main targets.

TAKE Daoud Hajj for example. On February 19, 2002 Hajj commanded an Aksa Brigade's attack on an IDF roadblock near Ramallah. The terrorists killed three off-duty soldiers in their sleep and another three soldiers who came to their rescue. After the attack, Hajj was given an officer's commission in the Palestinian security forces and moved into Arafat's presidential compound in Ramallah. He still lives in what has become Abbas's compound.

On Monday, Aaron Klein in World Net Daily released several other names on the list of pardoned murderers. These include the commanders and deputy commanders of the Aksa Brigades in Nablus , Ramallah and Jenin. Ala Senakreh and Nasser Abu Azziz in Nablus were the masterminds of all the suicide bombings in Israel in 2005 and 2006 that emanated from Judea and Samaria .

Kamal Ranam, from Ramallah commanded scores of shooting attacks against Israeli motorists in Judea and Samaria last year. In one such attack, against a school bus carrying middle-school girls, Ranam and his men boasted that they used US weapons that had just been shipped to Abbas to carry out the attack.

Zacharia Zudbeidi, the Aksa Brigades commander in Jenin is the darling of the Israeli Left due in large part to his well-developed propaganda skills and gutter Hebrew. Zubeidi has directed at least two suicide bombings and overseen scores of shooting attacks that have claimed the lives of dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers.

And now, all of these men are free to go about their business in the open.

THE GOVERNMENT'S decision to grant immunity to these terror-masters represents a complete breakdown of Israeli strategic thinking. This cognitive break with reality is all the more disconcerting as it comes at a time when Iran , Syria , Hizbullah and the Palestinians remain firmly on war-footing.

The conference of Lebanese factions being held this week outside of Paris , which includes Hizbullah representatives, is a major victory for Hizbullah and Iran . In light of the clear Hizbullah and Iranian intention of dominating Lebanon and opening a new round of war with Israel , the Sarkozy government's decision to treat Hizbullah as a legitimate political force in Lebanon is both misguided and dangerous - especially to Israel .

But then, it is nearly impossible to pin the blame on the French since Israel too is strengthening its enemies. The Aksa Brigades have deep and abiding ties to Syria , Iran and Hizbullah. Since 2001, much of the Aksa Brigades terror activity has been financed and directed by all three. Indeed, since 2000, there has been little distinction between the Aksa Brigades and Islamic Jihad, which is an overtly Iranian organization. Given this, it was no surprise when the Palestinian Authority offered to acquire Israeli clemency for Islamic Jihad terrorists as well.

The fact that Abbas himself is interested in strengthening Fatah ties with Iran , Syria and Hizbullah is made clear by his insistence that Olmert permit Fatah leader Farouk Kadoumi and DFLP leader Naif Hawatmeh to enter Judea and Samaria . Kadoumi, who has never accepted the so-called peace process with Israel , is a frequent visitor to Iran . In a visit there last November, Kadoumi met with Iran 's Foreign Minister Manoucher Mouttaki. There he attacked the US for its refusal to recognize Hamas and applauded Iran for its plan to destroy Israel . Kadoumi said, "With the grace of Almighty God and firm determination of our youths and brotherly stands adopted by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its leadership we will liberate Palestine and will say our prayers in Holy Jerusalem."

As for Hawatmeh, the unrepentant murderer of 22 Israeli children at the Ma'alot massacre in 1974 has been living in Damascus for the past generation. He is widely seen as an agent of Syria 's intelligence services.

But, Abbas claims that these men are necessary to fight Hamas and so Israel has let them in.

FROM THE Palestinian perspective, there is no reason to suffice with Israel 's military capitulation. After all, if Israel is willing to accept Fatah's lies, then why limit them? And so, ahead of Olmert's meeting with Abbas, Fatah Prime Minister Salam Fayad said that it would be "pathological" for Israel to believe that military capitulation is all that is required of it. Israel , Fayad said, must renew negotiations toward its withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem as well. Otherwise, he said, Fatah will never be strong enough to fight Hamas.

It is not coincidental that this entire exercise in national suicide has taken place this week. It is a fitting backdrop to the ascension of Israel 's high priest of national delusion - Shimon Peres - to the presidency. Peres is the architect of Israel 's decision to embrace lies and reject truth as a national strategy.

Israel 's new head of state is the man who, as Israel 's foreign minister in 2001 traveled to the US in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and told the UN General Assembly that the proper response to the attacks on Washington and New York was Palestinian statehood and nanotechnology.

This is the man who demands an end to the study of history which he deems counterproductive to looking toward the nanotechnological future.

This is the man who in 1993 forced Israel 's Zionist establishment to its knees by insisting that Yasser Arafat was a man of peace.

This is the man who in 2002 oversaw US President George W. Bush's abandonment of his demand that the Palestinians fight terror as a condition for US support of Palestinian statehood.

The role of Israel 's president is by law restricted to ceremonial functions. But Peres didn't even wait to be sworn in before he announced his intention to ignore both the letter and spirit of the law in his single-minded quest to realize his dream of peace through Israeli capitulation to terror.

And really, why should he care what the law says? Peres is arguably the strongest man in Israeli politics since David Ben Gurion. He controls Kadima and Labor. He enjoys the complete backing of the print and broadcast media and the legal establishment. He enjoys massive support from Israel 's plutocrats. And so, as he enters his 85th year, Peres is right to feel unfettered in backing the Palestinians against Israel in the name of peace.

For the Palestinians this is a joke. For Peres this is a dream. And for the Olmert government this is national policy.

The Israeli people must remember to laugh when the bombs begin to drop.

Iranian Preident  Mahmoud Hitler Threatens Israel yet again, read the commentary by Hugh Hewitt

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/2fd52134-100a-4813-8e48-ff08db717283

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Los Angeles Getting Attention in Campaign to Free Israeli Soldiers, Bumper Stickers a Big Hit

 

Blog Posting from Mere Rhetoric.com

Anne from Boker Tov, Boulder is pushing a campaign by Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Los Angeles to raise awareness about Hamas and Hezbollah's acts of war:

They've got bumper stickers, and it seems like a worthy cause.

Previously: Guardian Lede: Palestinians are Against Hostage Taking, Israelis are For Violence, AFP Anti-Israel Bias Reaches Sublime Proportions, International Media: "Israel" is "Gaza"

By Audrey Hudson

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

December 6, 2006

Three parallel investigations into the removal of six imams from a US Airways flight last month have so far concluded that the airline acted properly, that the imams' claims they were merely praying and their eviction was racially inspired are without foundation.
   
An internal investigation by the airline found that air and ground crews "acted correctly" when they requested that the Muslim men be removed from a Minneapolis-to-Phoenix flight on Nov. 20.
  
 "We believe the ground crew and employees acted correctly and did what they are supposed to do," US Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader said.
  
Omar Shahin -- one of the imams and the group's spokesman -- said the men did not behave out of the ordinary while on the plane, and that passengers overreacted because some of the imams conducted prayers in the concourse before boarding.
  
 US Airways' investigation is "substantially complete" but Miss Rader said airline officials still want to meet with the imams to review the situation. "We're looking at it as a security issue and as a customer-service issue and where we might need to do outreach," she said.
   
Airline officials have had several discussions with Mr. Shahin, but a meeting scheduled for Monday with all six men was canceled at the imams' request.
   
"We talked with crew members and passengers and those on the ground. We've done what we typically do in a situation where there is a removal or some kind of customer service at issue," Miss Rader said. "We found out the facts are substantially the same, and the imams were detained because of the concerns crew members had based on the behavior they observed, and from reports by the customers."
   
The Minneapolis airport police department's report on the incident said the imams' behavior warranted their removal. The imams were not accused of breaking any laws.
   
The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is reviewing the actions of department members who were involved in the incident.
   
Secret Service agents questioned the imams, who are accused of making negative comments about President Bush and the Iraq war. Officials of the Transportation Security Administration were involved in screening the imams and their baggage.
   
"There is no indication there is any inappropriate activity, at least no indication at this time," DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said. "To my knowledge, we are only doing a review, and that is a fairly routine practice with incidents like this."
   
The Air Carrier Security Committee of the Air Line Pilots Association investigated the incident and said, "The crew's actions were strictly in compliance with procedures and demonstrated overall good judgment in the care and concern for their passengers, fellow crew members, and the company."
  
 "The decisions made by all the parties were made as a result of the behavior of the passengers and not as a result of their ethnicity," the report concluded.
   
The suspicious behavior cited in the report included "changing seats, stating anti-war, anti U.S.-Iraq involvement, negative comments concerning the president of the United States." The report noted that "two of the passengers requesting seat-belt extensions when their body size did not appear to warrant their use."
   
Mr. Shahin told television reporters that he needed the seat-belt extension because he weighs 280 pounds. However, the police report lists his weight as 201 pounds. Weights listed for the other imams ranged from 170 pounds to 250 pounds.
   
The imams have retained the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as their legal counsel. CAIR officials said yesterday that initial claims by the airline contradict the official police report.
  
 "The imams are obviously concerned about a number of false and distorted representation of the facts and events, and one example is initial reports that all suggested they refused to get off the plane when personnel asked them to, and the police report said they all got off and cooperated," a CAIR spokesman said.

In an age of multimillion-dollar high-tech weapons systems, sometimes it's the simplest ideas that can save lives. Which is why a New Jersey mother is organizing a drive to send cans of Silly String to Iraq. American troops use the stuff to detect trip wires around bombs, as Marcelle Shriver learned from her son, a soldier in Iraq. Before entering a building, troops squirt the plastic goo, which can shoot strands about 10 to 12 feet, across the room. If it falls to the ground, no trip wires. If it hangs in the air, they know they have a problem. The wires are otherwise nearly invisible. Now, 1,000 cans of the neon-colored plastic goop are packed into Shriver's one-car garage in this town outside Philadelphia, ready to be shipped to the Middle East thanks to two churches and a pilot who heard about the drive. "If I turn on the TV and see a soldier with a can of this on his vest, that would make this all worth it," said Shriver, 57, an office manager. The maker of the Silly String brand, Just for Kicks Inc. of Watertown, N.Y., has contacted the Shrivers about donating some. Other manufacturers make the stuff, too, and call their products "party string" or "crazy string." "Everyone in the entire corporation is very pleased that we can be involved in something like this," said Rob Oram, Just for Kicks product marketing manager. He called the troops' use of Silly String innovative. The military is reluctant to talk about the use of Silly String, saying that discussing specific tactics will tip off insurgents. But Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Army soldiers and Marines are not forbidden to come up with new ways to do their jobs, especially in Iraq's ever-evolving battlefield. And he said commanders are given money to buy nonstandard supplies as needed. In other cases of battlefield improvisation in Iraq, U.S. soldiers have bolted scrap metal to Humvees in what has come to be known as "Hillybilly Armor." Medics use tampons to plug bullet holes in the wounded until they can be patched up. Also, soldiers put condoms and rubber bands around their rifle muzzles to keep out sand. And troops have welded old bulletproof windshields to the tops of Humvees to give gunners extra protection. They have dubbed it "Pope's glass" _ a reference to the barriers that protect the pontiff. In an October call to his mother, Army Spc. Todd Shriver explained how his unit in the insurgent hotbed of Ramadi learned from Marines to use Silly String on patrol to detect boobytraps. After sending some cans to her 28-year-old son, Shriver enlisted the help of two priests and posted notices in her church and its newsletter. From there, the effort took off, with money and Silly String flowing in. Parishioners have been dropping cans into donation baskets. "There's so much that they can't do, and they're frustrated, but this is something they can do," said the Rev. Joseph Capella of St. Luke's Church in Stratford. The Shrivers said they would not mind seeing the string as standard-issue equipment, but they don't blame the military for not supplying it. "I don't think that they can think of everything," said Ronald Shriver, 59, a retired salesman. "They're taught to improvise, and this is something that they've thought of." Marcelle Shriver said that since the string comes in an aerosol can, it is considered a hazardous material, meaning the Postal Service will not ship it by air. But a private pilot who heard about her campaign has agreed to fly the cans to Kuwait _ most likely in January _ where they will then be taken to Iraq. Shriver said she will continue her campaign as long as her son is overseas and she has Silly String to send. "I know that he's going come through this. I hope they all do," she said.

Will  We Ever Win Another War
Ben Shapiro, Townhall Blogger

Read a fascinating article with historical perspecitve abou how the United States has fought wars since World War II.  Simiilar to article by Shelby Steele from Wall Stl Journal Opinion page, downloadable from my website at  http://www.politicallyexposed.net

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2006/12/06/will_we_ever_win_another_war

Bill Sinclair
bsinclair@politicallyexposed.net

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PHOTONETDAILY
'ACLU Solstice Barn'
substitutes for Nativity
Students' display on university campus features
Marx, Lenin, Stalin as Wise Men, Pelosi angel

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Posted: December 5, 2006
5:08 p.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

University of Texas students set up an "ACLU Solstice Barn" on campus

In tongue-in-cheek deference to the American Civil Liberties Union, students at the University of Texas displayed an "ACLU Solstice Barn" on campus, featuring politically correct figures.

"We've got Gary and Joseph instead of Mary and Joseph in order to symbolize ACLU support for homosexual marriage, and of course there isn't a Jesus in the manger," said Tony McDonald, chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas branch on the Austin campus.

The group, whose plans WND had reported earlier, installed the "cr?che" on the West Mall of the campus for display yesterday and today.

(Story continues below)

McDonald told WND today the reaction by students to the display was overwhelmingly positive.

"Even some liberals got the humor in it and conceded certain positions the ACLU takes are out of touch with the mainstream of Americans," he said.

One visitor turned out to be the ACLU's top official in Texas, who, according to McDonald, "had to admit that it was humorous."

McDonald said quite a number of students aren't even aware of the ACLU, and members of his group that manned the display throughout the day had to explain the acronym.

The three Wise Men in the display were Lenin, Marx and Stalin, McDonald told WND, because ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, while director of the organization, was a backer of Soviet-style communism.

As director of the ACLU in 1934, Baldwin wrote an article entitled "Freedom in the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R." in which he said "the Soviet Union has already created liberties far greater than exist elsewhere in the world." He later moderated his views but maintained a commitment to socialism.

The scene also featured a "terrorist shepherd" and an angel with Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi's face, using a photograph of the soon-to-be speaker of the House from San Francisco

"The ACLU and other left-wing extremist groups are working diligently to destroy Americans' rights to the free expression of religion," said the Young Conservatives' Executive Director Joseph Wyly.

Wyly pointed to the city of Chicago's decision this week to ban advertisements for "The Nativity Story" movie from a local Christmas festival, fearing they might offend non-Christians.

"It's just more evidence that there is a war on Christmas being waged by the far-left in this country," he said.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

As I'm thumbing through the newspapers and browsing online to get ready for my radio show, with Fox News Channel on the TV in my office, I hear news anchor Lauren Green report that some Islamic activist group is "targeting" fellow radio host and friend Dennis Prager.  His offense?  He dared to say out loud what most Americans are thinking, that it's outrageous for incoming Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison to even consider using the Koran instead of a Bible when he takes his oath of office in January.

I'm intrigued by just what it is that this activist group means by "targeting" Dennis.  Just how, precisely, do they "target" a radio host?  During this war on terror, that's a pretty loaded word, eh?  My producer says that they want Dennis removed from the governing board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Wow.  A group of Muslims wants Dennis Prager, a Jew, removed from his leadership post with a memorial to the millions of Jews slain during WWII because he believes an incoming U.S Congressman should refrain from swearing on the Koran as he begins his U.S. post as a congressman.

You gotta hand it to some of these groups:  they have some nerve.  After all, it takes a lot of gall for a Muslim to try and dictate to a Jewish organization who they should and shouldn't have on their governing board. 

Like the thousands of illegal immigrants waving Mexican flags in the streets of America this summer demanding "rights", there seems to be no shortage of "hutzpuh" on the part of some Muslim activists in our country.

What they capture, they keep. When they lose, they complain to the U.N.

IN THE DAYS before Pope Benedict XVI's visit last Thursday to the Hagia Sophia complex in Istanbul, Muslims and Turks expressed fear, apprehension and rage. "The risk," according to Turkey's independent newspaper Vatan, "is that Benedict will send Turkey's Muslims and much of the Islamic world into paroxysms of fury if there is any perception that the pope is trying to re-appropriate a Christian center that fell to Muslims." Apparently making the sign of the cross or any other gesture of Christian worship in Hagia Sophia constitutes such a sacrilege.

Built in the 6th century, Hagia Sophia — Greek for "Holy Wisdom" — was Christendom's greatest and most celebrated church. After parrying centuries of jihadi thrusts from Arabs, Constantinople — now Istanbul — was finally sacked by Turks in 1453, and Hagia Sophia's crosses were desecrated, its icons defaced. Along with thousands of other churches in the Byzantine Empire, it was immediately converted into a mosque, the tall minarets of Islam surrounding it in triumph. Nearly 500 years later, in 1935, as part of reformer Kemal Ataturk's drive to modernize Turkey, Hagia Sophia was secularized and transformed into a museum.

Protests aimed at keeping the pope out of Hagia Sophia rocked Istanbul right up to the morning of his visit to the site. Contrast that intolerance with the tolerance granted Muslims in regard to the Al Aqsa mosque — this time, an Islamic site in Jerusalem annexed by Judaism. Unlike the permanent Muslim desecration of Hagia Sophia, after Israel's victory in the 1967 war, the Jews did not deface or convert the mosque into a Jewish synagogue or temple, even though the Al Aqsa mosque is deliberately built atop the remains of the Temple Mount, the holiest site of Judaism and, by extension, an important site for Christians. Moreover, since reclaiming the Temple Mount, Israel has granted Muslims control over the Al Aqsa mosque (except during times of crises).

All this illustrates the privileged status that many Muslims expect in the international arena. When Muslims conquer non-Muslim territories — such as Constantinople, not to mention all of North Africa, Spain and southwest Asia — those whom they have conquered as well as their descendants are not to expect any apologies, let alone political or territorial concessions.

The 'Obfuscation Agenda'
The letter to ExxonMobil.

BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV AND OLYMPIA SNOWE
Monday, December 4, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Editor's note: This is the text of a letter Sens. Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) and Snowe (R., Maine) sent to ExxonMobil's CEO. A related editorial appears here.

Mr. Rex W. Tillerson
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
ExxonMobil Corporation
5959 Las Colinas Boulevard
Irving, TX 75039

Dear Mr. Tillerson:

Allow us to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your first year as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the ExxonMobil Corporation. You will become the public face of an undisputed leader in the world energy industry, and a company that plays a vital role in our national economy. As that public face, you will have the ability and responsibility to lead ExxonMobil toward its rightful place as a good corporate and global citizen.

We are writing to appeal to your sense of stewardship of that corporate citizenship as U.S. Senators concerned about the credibility of the United States in the international community, and as Americans concerned that one of our most prestigious corporations has done much in the past to adversely affect that credibility. We are convinced that ExxonMobil's longstanding support of a small cadre of global climate change skeptics, and those skeptics access to and influence on government policymakers, have made it increasingly difficult for the United States to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs across all facets of its diplomacy.

Obviously, other factors complicate our foreign policy. However, we are persuaded that the climate change denial strategy carried out by and for ExxonMobil has helped foster the perception that the United States is insensitive to a matter of great urgency for all of mankind, and has thus damaged the stature of our nation internationally. It is our hope that under your leadership, ExxonMobil would end its dangerous support of the "deniers." Likewise, we look to you to guide ExxonMobil to capitalize on its significant resources and prominent industry position to assist this country in taking its appropriate leadership role in promoting the technological innovation necessary to address climate change and in fashioning a truly global solution to what is undeniably a global problem.

While ExxonMobil's activity in this area is well-documented, we are somewhat encouraged by developments that have come to light during your brief tenure. We fervently hope that reports that ExxonMobil intends to end its funding of the climate change denial campaign of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) are true. Similarly, we have seen press reports that your British subsidiary has told the Royal Society, Great Britain's foremost scientific academy, that ExxonMobil will stop funding other organizations with similar purposes. However, a casual review of available literature, as performed by personnel for the Royal Society reveals that ExxonMobil is or has been the primary funding source for the "skepticism" of not only CEI, but for dozens of other overlapping and interlocking front groups sharing the same obfuscation agenda. For this reason, we share the goal of the Royal Society that ExxonMobil "come clean" about its past denial activities, and that the corporation take positive steps by a date certain toward a new and more responsible corporate citizenship.

ExxonMobil is not alone in jeopardizing the credibility and stature of the United States. Large corporations in related industries have joined ExxonMobil to provide significant and consistent financial support of this pseudo-scientific, non-peer reviewed echo chamber. The goal has not been to prevail in the scientific debate, but to obscure it. This climate change denial confederacy has exerted an influence out of all proportion to its size or relative scientific credibility. Through relentless pressure on the media to present the issue "objectively," and by challenging the consensus on climate change science by misstating both the nature of what "consensus" means and what this particular consensus is, ExxonMobil and its allies have confused the public and given cover to a few senior elected and appointed government officials whose positions and opinions enable them to damage U.S. credibility abroad.

Climate change denial has been so effective because the "denial community" has mischaracterized the necessarily guarded language of serious scientific dialogue as vagueness and uncertainty. Mainstream media outlets, attacked for being biased, help lend credence to skeptics' views, regardless of their scientific integrity, by giving them relatively equal standing with legitimate scientists. ExxonMobil is responsible for much of this bogus scientific "debate" and the demand for what the deniers cynically refer to as "sound science."

A study to be released in November by an American scientific group will expose ExxonMobil as the primary funder of no fewer than 29 climate change denial front groups in 2004 alone. Besides a shared goal, these groups often featured common staffs and board members. The study will estimate that ExxonMobil has spent more than $19 million since the late 1990s on a strategy of "information laundering," or enabling a small number of professional skeptics working through scientific-sounding organizations to funnel their viewpoints through non-peer-reviewed websites such as Tech Central Station. The Internet has provided ExxonMobil the means to wreak its havoc on U.S. credibility, while avoiding the rigors of refereed journals. While deniers can easily post something calling into question the scientific consensus on climate change, not a single refereed article in more than a decade has sought to refute it.

Indeed, while the group of outliers funded by ExxonMobil has had some success in the court of public opinion, it has failed miserably in confusing, much less convincing, the legitimate scientific community. Rather, what has emerged and continues to withstand the carefully crafted denial strategy is an insurmountable scientific consensus on both the problem and causation of climate change. Instead of the narrow and inward-looking universe of the deniers, the legitimate scientific community has developed its views on climate change through rigorous peer-reviewed research and writing across all climate-related disciplines and in virtually every country on the globe.

Where most scientists dispassionate review of the facts has moved past acknowledgement to mitigation strategies, ExxonMobil's contribution the overall politicization of science has merely bolstered the views of U.S. government officials satisfied to do nothing. Rather than investing in the development of technologies that might see us through this crisis--and which may rival the computer as a wellspring of near-term economic growth around the world--ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years. The net result of this unfortunate campaign has been a diminution of this nation's ability to act internationally, and not only in environmental matters.

In light of the adverse impacts still resulting from your corporations activities, we must request that ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth. Further, we believe ExxonMobil should take additional steps to improve the public debate, and consequently the reputation of the United States. We would recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it. Second, ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history. Finally, we believe that there would be a benefit to the United States if one of the world's largest carbon emitters headquartered here devoted at least some of the money it has invested in climate change denial pseudo-science to global remediation efforts. We believe this would be especially important in the developing world, where the disastrous effects of global climate change are likely to have their most immediate and calamitous impacts.

Each of us is committed to seeing the United States officially reengage and demonstrate leadership on the issue of global climate change. We are ready to work with you and any other past corporate sponsor of the denial campaign on proactive strategies to promote energy efficiency, to expand the use of clean, alternative, and renewable fuels, to accelerate innovation to responsibly extend the useful life of our fossil fuel reserves, and to foster greater understanding of the necessity of action on a truly global scale before it is too late.

John D. Rockefeller IV

Olympia Snowe

Cc:

Military mockery Democrats harbor outdated, outlandish views of those who serve our nation Sunday, December 03, 2006 "Making mock o' uniforms what guards you while you sleep is cheaper than them uniforms, and they're starvation cheap." --Rudyard Kipling, (Tommy) 1892       Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).     Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who will be chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means committee in the next Congress, raised eyebrows and ruffled feathers when, on Fox News Sunday Nov. 26, he declared: "I want to make it abundantly clear: If there's anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment. If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq." Mr. Rangel is not the first Democrat to express such sentiments. In a speech at a California college the week before the election, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., famously said: "You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't you get stuck in Iraq." The first thing to note is how stuck in Vietnam Sen. Kerry and Rep. Rangel are. The draft Army that fought that war was comprised chiefly of young men unable to obtain college deferments. Soldiers then had less education and lower intelligence than the youth population as a whole. But this hasn't been true since Ronald Reagan became president. The average service member today has more education and a higher IQ than do his or her civilian counterparts. Currently, about 98 percent of enlisted personnel have high school diplomas, compared to about 75 percent of 18- to 24-year olds as a whole. In 2005, more than 70 percent of recruits scored in the upper half on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, the military equivalent of an IQ test. Only half of the youth population, of course, scores in the upper half. About 92 percent of officers have college degrees, and a higher proportion of military officers have advanced degrees than do college graduates as a whole. (Between 2000 and 2005, the proportion of officers with advanced degrees ranged between 35 and 45 percent.) Those who volunteer to serve are more rural and southern than the youth population as a whole. But, according to a study by Dr. Tim Kane of the Heritage Foundation, they come from wealthier neighborhoods than do their civilian counterparts. Another liberal shibboleth demolished by the data is the notion that the military is made up disproportionately of racial minorities. According to the 2000 Census American Community Survey, 75.6 percent of the adult population self-identifies as white. In 2004 and 2005, 73.1 percent of recruits were white. Since whites are, on average, older than blacks or hispanics, whites probably are slightly overrepresented compared to the entire military-age population. They definitely are overrepresented in combat units, the reverse of what was true of the draft Army in Vietnam. I agree with Rep. Rangel that "no young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits." Basic pay for a private E1 is $15,282. For a second lieutenant, it's $28,994. Not many are enlisting for the money. But many bright young people have enlisted to fight and have re-enlisted after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. That the reason is a mystery to Rep. Rangel, Sen. Kerry and many other Democratic leaders is troubling for the future of our country. I know something about the reason. My draft number was 363. I'd have gone after women and children. But in 1970, I dropped out of law school to join the Marines as a private. I had reasons both noble and base. I was bored with school, tired of cold Wisconsin winters. I wondered if I were man enough to be a Marine. But mostly, it was because my country was at war. Our country is again at war. Yet it does not occur to Charlie Rangel or John Kerry that bright young people today enlist in the Armed Forces to protect their homes, their families, our freedoms. For many Democrats, being an American is all about rights, not duties. Though the rights they demand would not exist were it not for the dwindling number of Americans willing to perform the duties of citizenship, they regard with barely concealed contempt those Americans whose sense of duty causes them to go in harm's way. If America's "leaders" have such attitudes, can the nation long survive? E-mail this story  Print this story

 

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AP: Making Up Massacres?

Posted by: Mary Katharine Ham at 5:16 PM

This has been the big story of the day, and I haven't been able to sit down and think about it until now. First, for anyone who thinks I wish to allege that there is no violence in Iraq, that everyth