Both houses of the New York State legislature have now passed what some are calling “Rachel’s Law.” It provides protection to American authors against “libel terrorism,” seeking to enforce judgments in New York State that were granted in other countries without our level of free speech protections. The law now just awaits signing by NYS’s new governor, David Paterson.

The press release is in the post below.

One of the co-sponsors of the law, Senator Skelos, says, “The truth is a critically-important component in the War on Terror…This important new law will protect American authors and journalists who expose terrorist networks and their financiers.”

I spoke briefly with Rachel Ehrenfeld tonight. She is, of course, elated at this victory, which she stubbornly waged as an individual transplanted to our shores because of her belief in America’s freedoms. Ehrenfeld agrees, “this is what America is about” when individuals can have this impact.

Now, there remains a long road through the courts to overturn the “libel terrorism” judgment’s enforceability in our courts. Financial help is needed. Click here to help, at the American Center For Democracy.

David Siegel, longtime editor of the New York State Law Digest, wrote in the March 12 New York Law Journal,

[A]ny bill that tries to address any situation as complex as Ehrenfeld is going to pose constitutional issues. If I may be allowed a flippancy, so what! It will boil down to the classic situation in which a statute toils near the border of constitutionality and leaves it to the courts to draw the line.

Far worse than that would be to do nothing in the face of what seems to me an egregious effort, in a forum with libel laws offensive to our own and a dubious venue for the Ehrenfeld case to boot, to let an alleged libel victim pull off a coup in which he makes it too expensive for a New York writer to contest his foreign lawsuit…

For more background, here’s some of my earlier posts about Rachel Ehrenfeld’s heroic fight for free speech.

Publishers Rally For Freedom Of Speech

Rally For Freedom Of Speech

International Libel Threats To US Freedom Of Speech

Terrorism Libel A Growing Business In England

Publishers Beware: NY State Says First Amendment Inapplicable

John Doe, Rachel Ehrenfeld, & Fairness Doctrine

Rachel Ehrenfeld Strikes Back At Libel Tourism

Saudi billionaire Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz, who successfully sued Cambridge University Press last July, has failed in his efforts to silence Rachel Ehrenfeld.

The American Center for Democracy in Defense of Freedom, which Ehrenfeld directs, has just issued the following press release. The New York State legislature today passed the "Libel Tourism Protection Act," which will help protect American writers from the likes of Bin Mahfouz, who uses his millions to silence critics of his own past and of others who work to spread Wahhabi Islam around the world. For the likes of Bin Mahfouz, the inability to convince people of the merits of your arguments leads instead to efforts to sue them into silence. That underhanded assault on our freedom of speech has now become more difficult, as this new legislation corrects holes in New York's law that had left Ehrenfeld, and other authors, open to suits from foreigners like Bin Mahfouz.

Here's the press release:

Legislature Passes Libel Terrorism Protection Act To Protect American Journalists and Authors From

Overseas Defamation Lawsuits

Albany, NY (March 31, 2008) – The New York State Legislature today unanimously passed the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act” (S.6687/A.9652), sponsored by Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos (R-Rockville Centre).

When signed into law by Governor David Paterson, this legislation will protect American journalists and authors from foreign lawsuits that infringe on their First Amendment rights.

In Ehrenfeld v. Mahout, New York State’s highest court held that it would not protect Dr. Ehrenfeld from a British lawsuit filed by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz, where she was ordered to pay over $225,000 in damages and legal fees to Bin Mahfouz, as well as apologize and destroy existing copies of her books.

Dr. Ehrenfeld sought a court order in November of 2006 to protect her constitutional rights, but in a ruling with national First Amendment implications which sent legal shockwaves throughout newsrooms across America, as well as potentially undermining our ability to expose terrorism’s financial and logistical support networks, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that it does not have jurisdiction to protect Americans – on U.S. soil – from foreign defamation judgments, which contradict the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Libel Terrorism Protection Act declares overseas defamation judgments unenforceable in New York unless the foreign defamation law provides, in substance and application, the same free speech protections guaranteed under our own constitution, and it gives New York residents and publishers the opportunity to have their day in court here in New York.

“This is a great day for free speech and freedom of the press, and I urge Governor Paterson to quickly sign this legislation into law. This law will protect our journalists and authors from trumped up libel charges in kangaroo courts in overseas jurisdictions which don’t share our commitment to free speech and freedom of the press,” said Lancman.

“This law will give New York's journalists, authors and press the protection and tools they need to continue to fearlessly expose the truth about terrorism and its enablers, and to maintain New York's place as the free speech capitol of the world,” Lancman concluded. Lancman’s remarks on the Assembly floor are viewable here .

“The truth is a critically-important component in the War on Terror,” said Senator Skelos. “This important new law will protect American authors and journalists who expose terrorist networks and their financiers. In its decision, the Court of Appeals called upon the State Legislature to revise the law. Today, we made clear that New York State will safeguard the First Amendment and these courageous writers.” #####

So what else is new in Hamas-land? Children dress as suicide bombers, rant against America and Jews, have their heads cut by parents so that their blood runs down their faces. It's all in a hate-filled day's work.

The indispensable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) provides a clip, with English subtitles, of a puppet show made for children in which a child stabs to death an obsequious President Bush who begs for his life.

To boot, Bush is told he can't enter the White House because he's impure; you see, it has become "a great mosque for the nation of Islam."

Here's the transcript; go to the site and watch the whole thing for a further taste of what our enemies are up to:

Bush: "Who are you? What brings you to my home? How did they let you in, boy? My guards! My soldiers! Get this boy out of here."

Child: "Nobody will take me out of here."

Bush: "Who are you to come here and threaten me?! You are on my own turf, you little child, you! Get out. My dear, bring your father, your grandfather, or your mother, so I can talk to them. Get somebody older and smarter than you. What, you came here on your own?"

Child: "You killed daddy in the Iraq war. It's true, you killed him in the Iraq war. As for my mom – you and the criminal Zionists killed her in Lebanon. You and the criminal Zionists also killed my younger and older brothers in the Gaza holocaust. I'm an orphan, you criminal!"

Bush: "What are you talking about? Where did you come from? Don't I have enough troubles already? Where did you come from?"

Child: "I have come to take revenge with this sword – revenge for my mother and my sisters. You are a criminal, Bush! You are despicable. You made me an orphan! You took everything from me, Bush! I must take revenge on you, with this sword of Islam, the Prophet's Al-Battar sword."

Bush: "No... No, my dear. I give you my word that this is it. I repent, just don't kill me. Where are my guards? Where is my people? Help! Help! He wants to kill me. Help!"

Child: "There are no guards, and your people has surrendered, Bush. I have not come alone, Bush. I have brought thousands of thousands of children from Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. You have denied all these children their fathers and mothers. That's why I have come to take revenge on you and on all the criminal traitors who collaborated with you."

Bush: "Okay, fine, that's enough. I will give you whatever you want from me."

Child: "What can you give me? All I want is one thing. Bring back my father and mother. I don't want anything from you. I don't want anything from you, just bring back my father and mother. I place my trust in Allah. I need to kill you."

Bush: "No, my dear. Enough. I will give you anything you want. I also... Enough with that. Come with all your friends to the White House. I will give you food and toys. We will sit in the White House and talk. You will get whatever you need."

Child: "You are impure, Bush, so you are not allowed inside the White House."

Bush: "What are you saying?! Why am I not allowed into the White House?"

Child: "Because it has been turned into a great mosque for the nation of Islam. I will kill you just like Mu'az killed Abu Lahab. I will kill you, Bush, because that is your fate."

Child stabs Bush repeatedly

Child: "Ahhh, I killed him."

It’s a wonder to observers that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry so blatantly -- and relatively easily revealed as otherwise -- invented their histories as heroic, exemplary and worthy of leadership.

Their formative education coincides with a post-war radical trend in historiography called leftist revisionism. Although revisions of historical understandings are a commonplace occurrence as new sources come to light, the radical left in post-war America veered into a myth that the causes of the Cold War, and of Vietnam and now Iraq, came from avaricious and racist motives and are furthered by outright mendacity and secret cabals.

The structures, and confusions, of institutional decision-making with naturally murky intelligence, the requirements of national security and alliances, the value or sincerity of Western values, these are treated as excuses that purposely hide the true intents and goals.

This radical leftist revisionism, while allied with and blending easily with Marxist opposition to capitalism, is distinct in its raising of the true enemy to heroic proportions, extra-powerful individuals.

This demonization of our leaders leads to the need for heroic counters. Thus, Obama, Clinton and Kerry needed to re-invent themselves, both to appear as the answer, and to convince themselves they are worthy of being the answer.

Their self-invention is as false as their root interpretation of history and the workings of politics and international affairs.

That’s both why the attention paid to their false personal histories is fundamentally important, and why it is so indicative of their danger to America and the world in their radical delusion.

What a month. America’s college basketball fans have been riveted to their TV screens as the NCAA tournaments roar into the Final Fours during the month of March Madness. But what has recently been inundating the scene in the world of politics, religion, academia, the economy and international call-girls rings should be dubbed March Madness as well.

This March, we’ve seen our share of madness from the pulpit as Barack Obama’s radical pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright vilified America and Israel and cursed the white race in venomous sermons played relentlessly over the internet and cable TV. In March we also witnessed three governor’s sex scandals exposed, leading off with former New York Governor Spitzer’s escapades with hookers which brought him down with such a loud thud that the stock market rallied over 400 points the next day, as brokers on the exchange floor celebrated the fall from grace of the arrogant king with no clothes. Their good cheer soon faded as the sudden collapse of Bear Stearns threatened to spread havoc throughout US and world markets. Professors got into the act as well bringing anti-American and anti-Republican politics and the cult of Obama into the classroom. The content of a business ethics class at Loyola Marymount University recently featured the screening of the Obama recruitment video “Yes I Can,” as the professor likened him to Martin Luther King.

In contrast to the madness and all the hollow rhetoric about change, there was an inspiring message of real change and empowerment from Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, who spoke to a packed room of Queens Village Republicans and friends at the March club meeting at St. Anne’s Post of the Catholic War Veterans. It was a stirring speech to fight for the Republican principles of patriotism, freedom and the American dream, with the faith that the American people can make the change themselves by empowering citizens with more freedom, lower taxes, and keeping the government out of the people’s business.

He used his own example of positive community spirit and activism to fight crime, youth gangs and drug abuse, early on in his career. During the 1970’s when criminals were running rampant in the streets and subways of New York City, Sliwa worked as the manager of a McDonald’s restaurant in the Bronx. When he finished work late at night, he took the “Muggers Express” down to his home in Brooklyn where pickpockets, drug addicts and youth gangs ruled the subways and bullied the riders, while the understaffed New York Police Force seemed to be AWOL. Fed up with the violence, and believing that as an American each person can make a difference, he saw a problem and determined to do something about it. So he began a personal campaign to promote positive civic values and community spirit with likeminded youth that he encountered, encouraging them to act as a positive force to protect citizens in their communities.

The Guardian Angels was born when Sliwa led a group of multi-ethnic teenagers from a Bronx High School, out of a drug and crime ridden environment, down into the subways on safety patrols in order to combat the widespread crime and violence and to make citizen’s arrests. The Angels, dressed in trademark bright red jackets and berets grew into an international volunteer organization with chapters in over 100 cities around the world. With a solid grounding in civics education and community service, which is presently absent from public schools, Sliwa also brought the Angels into the classroom to present drug prevention, civics and safety programs.

Today, while Democrats concentrate on getting our troops out of Iraq, we have real problems and issues here at home. Youth gangs and drug abuse are festering not only in our housing projects and poor communities, but the Bloods and Crips are recruiting in our public schools as well. According to Sliwa, we have a crisis of broken homes and families leading to 70% of black, 36% of hispanic, and 32% of white children born out of wedlock. The three R’s are no longer taught in our schools and the fourth R, respect is no longer taught in the home. Respect for parents, teachers and country is generally lacking in our youthful generations X and Y. Academic campuses try to tear down our country and degrade our military forces in the classroom. They blame America first for all the inequities and conflicts in the world and poison the minds of our youth with ingratitude and contempt for our lofty heritage.

Democrats like Clinton and Obama, employ positive sound bites such as “hope,” “a new America” and “change we can believe in,” to mesmerize young people and sway the gullible among us. In reality they are beseeching us to elect them to fix all the problems with healthcare, education, poverty and the economy by taxing wealthier citizens in order for the state to provide cradle-to-grave care for all Americans since in their minds, we are too faint and frail to take individual responsibility for our own lives. However, increasingly bigger government and an emasculated populous ever more dependent on an elite class to govern all their affairs is not the answer. The best solution is always more freedom, individual liberty and smaller government, and Republicans are the ones who have to carry that message out to citizens in the streets and communities just as Sliwa did in the late 1970’s.

The Times Of India reports, instead of Beijing’s “One World, One Dream” slogan, Tibetans in exile in India are planning a modest counter-Olympics with the slogan “One World, Many Dreams” to emphasize the diversity that stands in contrast to China’s authoritarian repression of its diverse cultures.

It will be held in Dharamshala, the north India Tibetan exile center, often referred to a “Little Lhasa.”

With more world leaders boycotting Beijing’s Olympics, or its opening ceremonies (already declared: Germany’s Angela Merkel, Poland’s Donald Tusk, Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus), and Hollywood in a tizzy, celebrities might want to consider these photos of the healthier environment at Tibet’s counter-Olympics, and visit.

Beijing Smog

Dharamshala Valley

My newspaper column last week featured a paragraph of advice to Barack Obama:

“Obama has his own problems with truth in packaging. We have learned the electrifying candidate of “hope” has a political debt to “hate” – and Chicago’s sleazy political machine. Excusing the videotaped anti-American hate speech of Reverend Jeremiah Wright as hot rhetoric reflecting deep historical suffering may pass muster in the Democratic primaries, but should Obama obtain the nomination, come November he will be running for president of the nation Wright insistently damned. If he really wants to become leader of the Free World he will dump Wright sometime in September and acknowledge embedded bitterness stalls change.”

That column began with a remembrance of campaigns past --specifically John Kerry’s “Christmas in Cambodia” tale and his scrap with the Swiftboat Veterans For Truth. The column then moved on to discuss Hillary Clinton’s “Bosnian sniper’s tale” – a whopper that Hillary had to retract, though instead of owning up she claimed she merely “mis-spoke.” I note my host for this post, Bruce Kesler, also connected the Clinton and Kerry war stories.

This morning while running weekend errands my thoughts returned to Jeremiah Wright and the last phrase in that graf: “..embedded bitterness stalls change.”

Perhaps I should have written “stalls productive change.” Embedded grievance and bitterness can certainly promote “change” in the form of war and terrorism. Dictators and terrorists constantly leverage “embedded bitterness.”

Since early December, when I went on a “blogging hiatus” in order to research and write a new edition of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War (co-authored with James F. Dunnigan, editor of www.strategypage.com ), I’ve spent a lot of time examining the political consequences of politically-leveraged historical grievance and bitterness.

Consider the “historical grievances” of former Yugoslav republics and Albania. The following short survey of border issues is drawn from the draft of the Balkans chapter in the upcoming edition of “A Quick and Dirty Guide to War”:

Serbia: Kosovo is the "old core" of Serbia and must remain so; the Vojvodina belongs to Serbia and possibly the old "Baranya" county around the city of Pecs in Hungary (an area of heterogeneous population occupied by Serbia at the end of World War I). Slices of Romania are inhabited by Serbs. Bosnia, because of "geopolitical realities," is Serbian; if pressed, Serbian nationalists believe Macedonia (including the part currently "occupied" by Bulgaria) should be "Yugoslavian" (Serbian). Finally, those troublesome Croats tend to oppress Serbs. Parts of Croatia are more properly Serbian

Albania: Albanian ethnic extremists claim all ethnic Albanian areas adjacent to Albania (Kosovo, parts of Montenegro, parts of Macedonia, Serbia, etc.) are part of Albania.

Bosnia: Sandzak area of Montenegro (inhabited by Muslims) should not be part of either Serbia or Montenegro

Slovenia: "Segments of the Istrian coast" should belong to Slovenia. There's always the subject of Carinthia, the region around Klagenfurt in Austria. That was a big issue at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Slovenes believe Italy's control of Trieste is not quite proper. US forces had to keep the Yugoslavs and Italians apart after World War II in this area.

Croatia: Bosnia is Croatian. The Montenegrin coastline more properly belongs to Croatia. Slovenes are wrong, actually, Trieste belongs to Croatia.

Macedonia: When Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia, Macedonia claimed "parts of Macedonia now in Bulgaria."

This list is not meant to be complete, just indicative. Greece, for example, worries that the Republic of Macedonia will lay claim to the Greek province of Macedonia, which is why Greece wages a “name war” with Macedonia. Greece insists on calling the Republic of Macedonia the FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). We should note that many leaders and a number of people in each of these countries would just as soon forget the old land claims and ethnic hatreds; don’t mock the European Union, for to future-oriented Balkanites it offers economic liberalization and a mediating political identity.

However, ethnic and ultra-nationalist (fascist) radicals in these countries still benefit politically from stoking the old wounds and igniting violent passions. Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic used those evil tricks in the late 1980s when he “moved from Red to Brown” (from Communist leader to fascist politician). He initially pushed two major “hot button” political issues: (1) assuring Serb domination of Kosovo; and (2) ending the “threat” posed by ethnic Albanians.

The Balkans aren’t quite the ultimate Hell of identity politics; “balkanization” producing bloodshed afflicts hard corners on every continent. Belgium’s language fracas is the farce exception to the usual hideous tragedy.

Which leads back to Reverend Wright. Stipulate that slavery and segregation are deep historical wrongs; their de jure existence in a nation whose founding principles extolled individual liberty is a bitter irony and horrid travesty. Stipulate that significant social dysfunction in some (I stress “some”) contemporary Afro-American communities have roots in the crime of segregated society. I do not think you will find many thoughtful Americans who would disagree with either stipulation – and this agreement precedes the alleged emergence of Barack Obama as great healer and mediator.

I feel very sorry for Obama – I know, a known Republican says that, but I believe at some level Obama is sincere about moving to “post-racial” politics. Unfortunately, Obama is a victim of his own political calculations. As he worked his way through the morass of Illinois Democratic Party politics he yoked himself to a decayed and deeply-racialist spiritual adviser – and benefited politically from that connection.

Wright’s pulpit pounding fits of sustaining anger and embedded bitterness frustrate healing and mediation. If we’re going to criticize the US for the historical irony and travesty of permitting slavery and segregation while exalting freedom, then let’s skewer Jeremiah Wright for the personal, contemporary travesty of promoting racist hooey in the name of civil rights. His slur that the US government created AIDS in order to attack ethnic minorities to a vicious, inexcusable, and racist falsehood. It follows the conspiratorial and ethnic-charged motif of Slobodan Milosevic’s anti-Albanian and anti-Bosniak Muslim rants. No – I am not saying it is the same thing. Wright is no Milosevic. He doesn’t command an army and he is no murderer. As Obama has said when defending him, Wright has a legacy of positive community development and he is a complex, multi-dimensional man. He has, however, danced in the same dangerous rhetorical flames and spit –in calculated fashion-- the venom of relentless bitterness.

Which is why –if he wants to be president-- Obama must dump Wright, without qualification. I’ll conclude with this: Obama has remarkable personal and political gifts and our nation needs political talent. I heard Obama speak in Chicago in September 2004 and he knows how “to work a room.” The only other national politician I’ve ever seen do a better job of close-up, at ease personal politicking is Joe Lieberman. Obama still comes off as just a bit slick; Lieberman is so slick he leaves no perceptible trace. Give Obama time and he’ll master the technique. It has something to do with a twinkling sense of humor.

WideOrbit, HQ’s San Francisco, is one of the largest advertising companies, including managing the placement of approximately $10-billion of ads on over 1000 TV stations across the country.

WideOrbit has launched a new service, called VoterVoter.com, which according to its press release:

...provides an easy way to directly help your candidate or cause through broadcast media. VoterVoter.com empowers you to select or create the advertising message of your choice and have that message air on TV stations around the country without having to know anything about buying media time.

Individuals can avoid the campaign finance law’s restriction on donations:

By purchasing TV broadcast time directly, individuals are not confined by the FEC limit of $4,600 annual campaign contribution to a specific candidate.

How it works:

Step 1
Content selection/creation: VoterVoter.com provides a variety of advertisements that the contributor can select, based on their specific political beliefs. These advertisements are then tailored to include information about the specific sponsor, as required by FEC guidelines. In addition, contributors can submit their own advertisements for review by VoterVoter.com and submission to broadcast television stations.

Step 2
Audience targeting: VoterVoter.com makes it possible for sponsors to target the advertisements as broadly or as narrowly as they like. Users can choose to target by metropolitan area, state, time of day, age group and other demographics.

Step 3
Media Buying: VoterVoter.com media buyers work with each individual to help determine the appropriate mix of advertising placements needed to reach the desired audiences.

Eric Mathewson, Founder and CEO of WideOrbit and VoterVoter.com, says:

VoterVoter.com makes it possible for individuals who truly care about specific candidates, issues, and causes to easily access the power of broadcast television.

Already, the left-leaning Nation is alerting its readers, as is Democrats.org. Politico takes note. A quick Google search didn’t reveal any Republican venues alerting its readers.

Think 2004’s 527 ads set a new tone on campaigning? Ya ain’t seen nuttin yet! George Soros and friends must be licking their chops.

Update Below:

If you haven't already seen the film by Dutch film maker Geert Wilders, Fitna, you may not see it any time soon.

LiveLeak.com, which had posted the film, has now removed it:

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers. This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one. Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture. We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.

And so even a web site dedicated to showing what others refused to show--to going where others feared to tread--has decided that they had no choice but to pull their most controversial offering.

I watched Fitna earlier today, and although it certainly isn't for the faint-hearted, it pales in comparison to the acts it shows.

LiveLeak says the price was too high, and I can't second guess their concern for their staff. Where will freedom of speech take refuge next?

Update: This evening, at least, the film is still available at Google Video.

The London Telegraph reports:

The former Blue Peter [a British TV show] presenter Konnie Huq has admitted she is considering pulling out of the Olympic torch relay in response to China's crackdown on Tibetan protesters.

The presenter is one of a host of celebrities who will be among 80 torch-bearers who will carry the Olympic flame across London on Sunday, April 6.

Konnie Huq has threatened to boycott Olympic torch relay

Miss Huq said that if she did take part she would speak out against China, who will host the games this summer.

The 32-year-old said she was considering wearing a 'Free Tibet' T-shirt if she ran.

If I can’t pin a medal on her, at least a wet T-shirt would be appreciated.

HT for photo to Theo

The major media narrative on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in Medellin vs Texas (pdf of the decision here) has trumpeted a defeat for the Bush administration. The New York Times’ headline: “Justices Rule Against Bush on Death Penalty Case.”

The issue was whether a treaty was “self-enforcing” in overriding states’ legal procedures, and whether the president can order the states to accept the override. Medellin claimed that the U.S.’s adherence to the 1969 Vienna Convention required that he should have been given immediate access to the Mexican consul.

The bigger, real issue is that the Supreme Court has set forth necessary new guidance requiring that the Congress and President – the political arms of our government – must take responsibility for precision in entering into treaties, in an age when assertions are increasingly made that “international law” either supersedes or should influence U.S. law.

The Supreme Court majority have been criticized by those who seek primacy of “international law” over U.S. law, ironically, for not adhering to the literal words of the Constitution’s Article Six:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

As NPR’s legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg, outlines:

Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said that because the treaty did not explicitly say its provisions were binding, and because there was no legislation to make the treaty binding, the president could not on his own force the states to comply.

"There is no reason to believe that the president and the Senate signed up for such a result," he said.

The dissenting justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, said some 70 existing treaties are in jeopardy because of Tuesday's ruling.

Critics of the decision say there is a “self-enforcing” power that overrides the states’ judicial procedures. The Supreme Court’s majority says there isn’t.

[T]he non-self-executing character of a treaty constrains the President’s ability to comply with treaty commitments by unilaterally making the treaty binding on domestic courts. The President may comply with the treaty’s obligations by some other means, so long as they are consistent with the Constitution. But he may not rely upon a non-self executing treaty to “establish binding rules of decision that preempt contrary state law.”

In so deciding, as the Court decision’s syllabus says, a treaty is “not binding domestic law unless Congress has enacted statutes implementing it or the treaty itself conveys an intention that it be “self-executing” and is ratified on that basis.” Further, “neither Medellín nor his amici have identified a single nation that treats ICJ judgments as binding in domestic courts. The lack of any basis for supposing that any other country would treat ICJ judgments as directly enforceable as a matter of its domestic law strongly suggests that the treaty should not be so viewed in our courts. “

Both supporters and critics of an expansive view of “international law” should, actually, take heart from this new clarity of interpretation. As a practical matter, imprecision should not be dumped on the courts, and our politicians do have the primary responsibility for making and executing our laws. Now, they must, and both sides can battle openly, before the people, as they should, instead of rushing to courts.

In a surprise that shouldn’t be one, the prosecution dropped all charges against Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum just as his court martial was about to start this morning. The dismissed charges, for involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment, were a reduction subsequent to his Article 32 hearing on charges of negligent homicide.

The prosecution put its best face on it, “This was done in order to continue to pursue the truth-seeking process into the Haditha incident,” with speculation that Tatum’s testimony against Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich would be damaging to Wuterich. But, Tatum’s attorney says, ''Absolutely, there is no deal,'' with the government for the dismissal and that Tatum would not be a prosecution but a neutral witness at Wuterich’s court martial. The defense attorney continued, “It became clear to the experienced prosecution team that the right thing to do was to dismiss all charges.”

The attorney for the last enlisted Marine standing charges for Haditha, Wuterich, recognizes that the prosecutors know their case is weak, but feels they are determined to hang Wuterich whatever it takes.

Wuterich's attorney, Neal Puckett, said the dismissal is "another indicator of how desperate the government is to win a conviction" in the Haditha killings.

"They have insufficient evidence, and they are hoping Lance Corporal Tatum can deliver a conviction against Staff Sergeant Wuterich," Puckett said in a telephone interview. "We always thought the prosecutors would do whatever (they) thought was necessary to try and convict Staff Sergeant Wuterich because they have always felt that he was the one responsible for everything that happened."

This is natural caution for an attorney, especially when his client and others accused of Haditha crimes have been subjected to unprecedented resources of investigation and prosecution, ordered by then Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, as revealed by Lt Col Chessani’s attorneys’ discovery revealed this week. Of course, Chessani’s attorneys, and Wuterich’s, will claim – with much justification – this constitutes undue command influence, grounds for dismissal.

But, at the same time, critics of the U.S. and Marines cannot claim that every effort hasn’t been made to either find truth or convict.

That still leaves the major media and John Murtha on the hook for their rush to convict the Haditha Marines before the American and world’s onlookers.

Massacre refers to a savage and indiscriminate slaughter. The only ones who have done that are the reckless media and Murtha – of the Marines’ and America’s reputation -- in their drive to destroy the fighting morale of our troops and citizens.

Saturday's Washington Post reports:

Mark Zaid, a civilian lawyer who represents Wuterich, said that he looks forward to hearing Tatum's testimony and that he hopes it will clarify some events.

"The dismissal of Tatum's charges is yet another indication that there was a rush to judgment concerning the events of that day," Zaid said. "I don't know if we're ever going to see or truly know exactly what happened, but I can say that there's an argument to be made that the prosecution of these young Marines has caused more damage to our country's reputation than the event itself."

(In my capacity as vice president of the Delaware Association of Scholars (DAS), I'm posting a new DAS press release regarding the University of Delaware's Office of Residence Life.)

PRESS RELEASE

DAS Welcomes ACTA's Support

March 28, 2008

The Delaware Association of Scholars welcomes the American Council of Trustees and Alumni's letter to the University of Delaware Board of Trustees.

We share ACTA's deep concerns regarding the UD Residence Life's residential "curricular" program.

No Residence Life program, especially at a public university, should attempt to shape the souls of students. Such a program, inculcating beliefs, attitudes and actions, violates the First Amendment, which UD, as a public university, is bound to protect and which it failed to protect in its now-suspended program.

Unfortunately, as far as we have been able to determine, none of the several proposed programs which Residence Life has drafted are significantly different from the discredited program they are intended to replace. The differences are merely superficial and cosmetic. Though the violations are better disguised, the proposed programs are still exercises in ideological "education."

We therefore join ACTA in urging the UD Board of Trustees to ensure that UD's new Residence Life program be a traditional residential program: one respecting the free speech, privacy and freedom of conscience of all students.

Jan H. Blits
President, Delaware Association of Scholars
219A Willard Hall
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
302-831-1649
jblits@udel.edu

Hopefully, Democracy-Project readers will be seeing more of Austin Bay’s posts here. Austin has agreed to be an occasional poster, along with his many other activities and writings.

A sample of Bay’s insight:

While Clinton and Obama tread the political gutter, McCain ought to continue his global trek. McCain ought to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Green Berets training counter-terror cops in West Africa, destroyer sailors in the Strait of Hormuz, Marines on an assault ship in the Mediterranean, a carrier off South Korea.

Can anyone envisage Clinton or Obama bringing even a hint of experience or connectedness to our foreign policy, compared to McCain, especially after Clinton and Obama are so exposed as serial liars, naifs and frauds?

For those, few, not familiar with Austin Bay, he is noted for his writings on military affairs, appearing in a column from Creaters Syndicate, and guesting on NPR, CNN, Fox and ABC. Bay, also, served for four years as a special consultant in war-gaming in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (1989-1993), and knows how to think outside the box.

We at Democracy-Project look forward to seeing you here, as well.

Jules Crittendon calls out the “moron reporters [who] not only don’t know their subject, they apparently don’t know how to use Google,” for calling a form of malaria causing dark brown urine “Blackwater…named after Blackwater Worldwide, the U.S. mercenary company operating in Iraq.” Actually, it's been known by that name since the 1800's. Instapundit wonders if “they [are] that stupid – or do they think that you are?”

They are neither morons or stupid. As their article is bylined, “Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East.”

Dahr Jamail is an accomplished propagandist and fabulist on Iraq. Denis Keohane, of Obiter Dictum blog, has closely followed Dahr Jamail’s fabled career, or more properly a career of fables.

Jamail, with a longstanding record of pushing claims of widespread American atrocities…Almost two years ago Dahr Jamail was the most effective promoter of the fraudulent Jesse MacBeth video that charged the U.S. Army Rangers with mass executions of civilians that never happened.

“Blackwater” articles, brown discharges, are Dahr Jamail’s trademark.

I was the fastest runner in my neighborhood, and competed in track through High School, dreaming – until faster kids dissuaded me – that I could compete in the Olympics. Through each quadrennial, I was glued to the TV. My biggest emotional heartbreak was when my grade school sweetheart’s mother remarried (her husband having been killed in the Korean War) a senior editor at Sports Illustrated, and didn’t invite me along to the 1960 Games in Rome.

So, to say I have a deep attachment to the Olympics is an understatement.

And, so, for me to say now that my dream is over of the Olympics as an international test of the best does not come easily, but is practical.

As an adult, I learned about the gross political abuses of the Olympic spirit in 1936 (see here for an annotated pictorial history of the 1936 Berlin Games); I learned of the doping of atheletes; I learned of the huge profits garnered by commercial sponsors while the sites usually drained their citizens purse.

Most important, I learned that the Olympic Games do not so much represent an opportunity for individual athletes to be the best in the world, as each sport has other competitions that accomplish that. The Olympic Games are, primarily by Western businesses, commercially funded tourism and prestige promoters for the host country.

The Washington Post’s sports columnist Sally Jenkins presents a strong case that the “IOC Needs to Step In Or Perhaps Move On.”

At this point, the Beijing Games are shaping up as a disaster. The violent police action in Tibet and other events of the past two weeks make one wonder if the Chinese government is fundamentally unfit to host an Olympics. Officials there have violated the basic spirit of the event and reneged on every promise they made to the International Olympic Committee about their willingness to accommodate the world….

The centerpiece of China's bid seven years ago was a promise to make progress on human rights and to open the country to world media coverage. Chinese officials practically begged for the Games and made all kinds of assurances. But instead, the direct opposite has happened -- the Games actually have caused a significant pre-Games crackdown, abuses that range from sweeping arrests of dissidents to the strong-arming in Tibet, where as many as 130 may have died, according to the exiled Tibetan government.

The Olympics aren't supposed to be political. But they aren't supposed to be a force of evil, either.

There’s much, much more from Jenkins, ending with,

It's time for the IOC to make the Chinese government live up to its word, and to the Olympic charter and spirit. Otherwise, take the Games away from Beijing.

Actually, everything Jenkins presents and argues call for going further, as the Olympic dream is over, and so should be the Games we’re involved in for the profits of a NBC or GE or host tourism, amateur excellence and freedom be darned in the process along with any care for the rights of participating countries populations. The Olympics is a political event, and thus far from the dream. The 2008 version of 1936 is too dreary a repetition to say its sponsors learned to be a force for good in the intervening 72 years.

It doesn’t take big organizations or big money or a big name to make a difference in this world, especially so in a democracy.

A local San Diego businessman, Brian Dennard, proved that once again last month when he wrote a letter to the mayor and council of Berkeley to protest their vote that the Marine recruiting station “is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay,they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders,” at the same time rolling out a privileged red-carpet (appropriate color) for Code Pink protestors.

Brian Dennard’s letter quickly spread, and its clarity galvanized opinion.

Below, as a guest post for Democracy-Project, Brian Dennard writes how it happened and what it has led to. I spoke with Brian this afternoon. Over the decades, I've often seen similar to his surprise at how America responded to his letter. It isn't special people, but ordinary people with a strong voice who make the difference. They are humbled in gratitude to discovering the depth of patriotism in America.

hey-hey, ho-ho, the Marines in Berkeley have got to go.

That' was the message from Berkeley’s City Council, which voted 6-3 telling the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders." Additionally, the Marines were called "war criminals, assassins, and murderers at the meeting.

On Jan 31, 2008 I wrote a letter to the Mayor of Berkeley stating my position regarding his and the City Counsel's position on the USMC recruiting station. In that letter (posted below), I informed the mayor of my intention to pull all of my business out of Berkeley and the immediate area. I emailed the letter directly to the mayor at the address supplied on the Berkeley City Council's webpage.

I also blind copied a couple of Marine handball buddies. They passed that email/letter to the guys who play in the Semper Fi handball tournament at MCRD, who passed it along to their buddies, who passed it along to their buddies, etc.

In my wildest dreams I never envisioned the response I have received. I spent the first three weeks answering my cell phone acknowledging that yes, I really did write "THE" letter, and receiving personal thank you calls from Generals, Majors, Colonels, SGTs, PVTs, CEOs, COOs, talk show hosts, and everyday American Patriots. I received over 3000 calls in the first three weeks. I am privleged and honored to speak with the finest and best people America has to offer.

Likewise I spent the rest of those first weeks reading emails from the same sort of people. In three weeks, I received over 15,000 emails at my business and over 3000 at my home once my personal email somehow got posted on the web. At this point if you Google my name and Berkeley you have some 13,000 sites to choose from which tell the story of "the" letter.

I am humbled to a degree that is hard to state clearly. I am emotionally overwhelmed with the positive response to my letter and want to thank everyone who has called me or emailed me to state their support.

Subsequent to that overwhelming outpouring of support, I and two friends, Duane Clarridge and Vici Wayne, started up the website www.BrigadeAmerica.com . In response to the huge number of emails suppporting our boycott of Berkeley, I have been doing weekly radio interviews on Intel Radio's Outside The Wire, Stardust Radio, Chandler's Watch, KSFO, Roger Hedgecock, and am scheduled on Laura Ingraham. Vici Wayne and I have been to two of the major rallies in Berkeley, and I am due to be in Washington D.C. with the Gathering of Eagles on April 7th, then by invitation, on to New York for the annual USMC Law Enforcement gala at the Waldorf Astoria on April 10th.

My intention was never to shine the spotlight on me, it was to cause, to whatever degree I could, great fiscal discomfort to the city of Berkeley in retaliation to their un-American, cowardly and despicable stance that the US Marines are unwelcome, and uninvited intruders in their city.

If in my small way I helped light a fire that now appears to be blazing across the nation, I am proud of that, but I am more proud of the fact that I could , at a time when our heroes are fighting against those who would destroy us, help focus some attention to the vast debt, and undying respect, that we as a nation owe to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

Respectfully,

Brian G Dennard

THE Letter

Dear Mayor Bates, Jan 31, 2008
In that you and your city have chosen to gravely insult the brave men and women, who have indeed bought you that right with their blood, I am informing you that my company will no longer do business with any of our current suppliers located in the Berkeley,California metro area.

In that my company is in international resort real estate development, and do business with and am associated with, developers and investors worldwide, I am informing all of my contacts, associates and patrons that we will no longer do any business of any sort with anyone living in the Berkeley area.

In that we/MDG Resorts are currently building a state of the art mega-yacht marina, all of the suppliers of Marina equipment, all owners of Yachts , all suppliers of Yacht materials & supplies, all yacht brokers and all tangential yacht business purveyors will likewise be informed that we will not do any business whatsoever with anyone from the Berkeley area.

Likewise all suppliers of building materials, both interior and exterior, currently associated with any of our several resort developments (Brisamar 300+ villas and 200+ condos: Porto Hussong, www.portohussong.com 500+ condos, 180 slip mega-yacht marina) both of which I might add have international recognition by virtue of glowing reports in Robb Report, Wall Street Journal, Yacht World, Forbes.

I will likewise inform all of our investors, most of whom are very wealthy yacht owners, casino owners, high net worth international businessmen, of our decision to essentially boycott all products and providers located in, or associated with in any way whatsoever, Berkeley, Ca.

Trust me when I say that having been in the real estate development business for over 35 years, our list of contacts and associates is long and very, very impressive. We, and I personally, are going to recomend that they ALL along with us boycott your city, its purveyors, suppliers, and businesses and CHARITIES of every kind.
You have every right to choose to take the obnoxious anti-military stance you have taken, and as stated, that right was bought for you with the blood of better men than you.

I too have every right to do all that I can to insure that your city suffers consequences arising from that obnoxious, sickening stance.
Cordially,
Brian G Dennard
Principal
Director
Meridian Development Group, LLC
619 807 2444
www.mdgresorts.com
www.portohussong.com

When a Democrat comes from the least respected arm of government, the Democrat Congress (now down to 13%, according to Rasmussen poll, with even Democrats only giving it a 17% good rating), he or she might try to glom onto the reputation of the most respected, the military.

With her now evident chutzpah for exaggeration, Hillary Clinton’s past claims are being re-examined, finally, by some in the major media.

ABC’s Senior National Correspondent, Jake Tapper, just had to tap a few keys to find that Hillary Clinton’s 1994 claim that she almost enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1975 is a fabrication. Or, in Hillary-speak, a “misspeak.”

Back in 1994, Hillary’s claim raised even Maureen Dowd’s eyebrows.

But, even given the fact that the nation has become accustomed to Mrs. Clinton's intriguing shape-shifting -- from liberal do-gooder to high-risk commodities trader, from power lawyer to cookie baker, from health care czar to housewife supervising the menu for the state dinner for the Emperor and Empress of Japan -- the latest one is still jarring. Macho Contrast to Clinton

In April 2007, National Review’s “Campaign Spot” dug deeper when New Republic’s feature on Hillary repeated her claim.

ABC’s Tapper doesn’t dig as deep. But, still, Tapper ends: “It’s a story that I don't believe Clinton has repeated since 1994. Why not?”

At least, Hillary doesn’t say the memory is “seared” into her memory, or that she has the recruiter’s hat in her briefcase.

How else to react to the Washington Post’s ombudslady Deborah Howell, when she ends her examination of her paper’s hands-off of Barack Obama’s radical nutcase preacher of 20-years by Howell saying, “This story should bury for good the canard that Obama is a closet Muslim.”

Actually, it doesn’t, as there’s a nexus between radical leftists and anti-Americans, demonstrated by Rev. Wright’s with Black Muslim Farrakhan and by reprinting of Hamas screeds in the church bulletin. If anything, Obama’s adherence to this congregation of enemies of American values unearths that Obama is a closet hater, regardless of his professed faith.

After repeatedly rejecting examination of Obama’s long-term relationship with his reverend of hate, Howell’s corrective is to suggest examining other candidates’ relationship with their reverend or supporters who are reverends. Howell equates the consistent and repeated extremism of Rev. Wright that Obama bathed in with the far lesser and far more occasional utterances of other clergy that may be objectionable to a far smaller number, usually non-service attending liberals.

Howell for ombudsjoke of the week award.

According to China’s official news agency, Xinhua, “near 100 countries had already demonstrated support for China’s action in the Tibet riot.” Given that as of 2006 the United nations had 192 members, China must be feeling fairly confident of its path of repression, with countries like these at its back:
North Korea
Mongolia
Bangladesh
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Georgia
Nepal
Syria
Fiji
Serbia
Zambia
Sierra Leone
Ivory Coast
Benin
Russia
Vietnam
Belarus
Pakistan
Mauritania
Singapore
Lesotho
India

More are listed here, in another Xinhua report.
Cuba
Venezuela
Iraq
Oman

However, that’s only 27 named. In most cases what China takes as support is statements in support of “the rule of law” and such similar empty phrases, most coming from countries that are outlaws to the world and their own people but insist on their tyranny being respected as lawful state privilege.

However, that’s all China needs to continue along its way of crushing dissent, that others look away, mouthing platitudes. The weak response from most countries, including in the West most particularly, are not of much difference from the more supportive despots.

The newspaper ombudsman is "more or less obsolete", says Advertising Age.

Five reasons are listed:
1. Readers are doing it for themselves, through blogs and increased correspondence.
2. Media watchdog sites are larger and quicker.
3. Journalists and editors are reacting quicker to added inputs and correctives.
4. Ombudsmen are boring, “given that newspaper management invariably expects ombudsfolk to be sober, seasoned, borderline-elderly paternal/maternal types. That sort of pedantic sensibility is just dated and tone-deaf -- and at odds with how newspapers should be engaging with their newly empowered readers.”
5. The money’s better spent elsewhere, on news reporting.

I’ve been highly critical of ombudsmen, for being management apologists and for being overly obtuse to their paper’s faults. The source of my deepest concern has been what a valuable opportunity is missed in not being true to the ombudsman’s purpose, to be a reader’s representative.

As I noted here, “In 2001, there were 44 U.S. members of the ombudsman organization. In 2008, there are 36.”

The management at newspapers has noticed what a waste ombudsmen have become, although unfortunately the resources are not being re-routed into better news coverage as they have drastically cut journalist head-count.

If ombudsmen don’t want to become a passing footnote, they’d best become something they’re not now, true reader representatives, bucking the head-office instead of making excuses for it, in the process becoming valued reads. The final obit isn't ready, "more or less," but the time is drawing nigh.

Barack Obama’s chief economics advisor, Austan Goolsbee, recommends that the IRS fill out our tax return for us, since it already has so much information about us.
INDENT And one of the biggest benefits of all from a simple return program, he said, would be renewed trust in government.

This is not a new idea. Here’s an earlier sample:

Rebecca MacKinnon’s blogsite is a frequent must visit for news and views about the impact and evolution of the internet, particularly in China. She brings deep experience and empathy.

However, Ms. MacKinnon also brings her Obama-like relativism to her reporting.

I hope you'll vote for Obama. He can make us proud to be an American once again in ways that I don't think Clinton will be able to do - though I'll take her over McCain any day. Obama's election would prove that despite my country's considerable hypocrisy, the American dream and the values we claim to espouse actually can mean something real.

She values conversation above all, and treats it as the overriding objective, regardless of impotence with tyrants and thugs.

MacKinnon certainly does not excuse despots gross behavior, and is a strong voice for their denunciation. But, when push comes to shove, she backs up.

Her discussion of the current repression in Tibet provides a prime example.

MacKinnon decries the split loyalties of American web portals operating in China, like Yahoo which relies only on the official Peking line in its news. She recognizes they are in effect arms of the Chinese state, in their pursuit of local profits. But, MacKinnon has elsewhere in her blog backed away from Congressional proposals to hold such American companies to account for aiding censorship. That leaves her impotent in the face of repression, just calling it a “lose-lose.”

Yahoo! China and MSN and all the other foreign-branded web businesses in China are caught between a rock and a hard spot in times of crisis such as the Tibet riots. There will be more such tight spots to come. In China, the Internet portals are not allowed to run original news reporting and are required to run news reports from a set of approved sources. That means that on any given story, you aren't going to get any news on any major story that the government didn't want disseminated. These portals receive feeds from approved news sources which they republish without editors giving too much thought to the "news angle" being portrayed, because it's the only angle available. During normal times, this is just a fact of life and is not particularly remarked upon. In times of crisis, when China and the West see things very differently, it becomes much more problematic. Since there's no way to run a web portal without following the rules about news sources, either you follow the rules or you don't bother doing business….

I'm actually starting to think that over the long run it may turn out to be impossible for multinationals to run commercially successful local news and user-generated content portals in local markets other than their home markets, plus markets that are politically similar or sufficiently aligned to the home country geopolitically. If you're in a market whose geopolitical interests and world view are vastly different from the home market, I don't see how you avoid this kind of "lose-lose" situation in inevitable times of crisis.

Similarly, MacKinnon has sympathy for the Tibetans, but starting from a premise of the legitimacy of China’s rule over them again finds herself in a moral dead-end of equating their resistance to oppression and cultural extinction with the police powers of China. A lot of nice and easy platitudes, without any physical or moral fiber.

For a person to kill and injure other human beings who haven't directly endangered one's own life is always wrong. The rioters who committed violent acts have sadly discredited their movement (which has never been unified in its goals and tactics, anyway, which in addition to PRC thuggishness is another reason why it hasn't gotten much of anywhere). Is the Chinese government going to handle the aftermath with sensitivity and fairness? I've seen little precedent for it. If the Chinese government wants to prove it can sort things out with sensitivity and fairness they shouldn't have kicked out the foreign media. Do I think that the Chinese government is manipulating information? Yes, because from my long experience living in China, they always have. Do I think a lot of the Western media are over-simplifying the situation, playing to their audiences' desire for a "freedom fighters vs. communist thugs" story line and getting lots of facts wrong? Also yes. Do I think that the Chinese government's treatment of Tibet created genuine anger which made an eventual violent outburst likely if not inevitable? Yes again. Do I think that the Tibetan people's lives would be better off if outside powers were to support a civil war of independence? No. Do I think that the Tibetan people's lives (and the lives of many other ethnicities who now live in Tibet) would be better off if China granted independence to Tibet tomorrow? It's questionable. Would Tibet be free of human rights problems if it became independent tomorrow? I don't think so either. That's why the Dalai Lama advocated some kind of negotiated autonomy instead of independence as the only realistic solution at this point. The riots have likely killed that possibility. But to say the Chinese government is blameless because ethnic Tibetans committed deplorable violence last week is just as naive as to claim that the Tibetan rioters were heroes.

Again, Rebecca MacKinnon is a valuable voice. But, she also typifies the conversational vacuity and impotence of an Obama-like approach to questions of right and wrong, which leaves those dependent upon the United States deserted when push comes to shove. And, the tyrants laughing up their sleeve at the knowledge they can get away with it.

Just another day at the U.N., as in line with its general and agency-by-agency buckling under to the demands of its allied blocs of thug states, UNESCO pulled its sponsorship of Reporters Without Borders’ Online Free Expression Day.

Reuters reports:

UNESCO responded by saying it supported freedom of expression on the Internet but withdrew its sponsorship because of what it said was misleading use of its logo to indicate support for RSF's views.

"In its communications on the day, RSF published material concerning a number of UNESCO's member states, which UNESCO had not been informed of and could not endorse," it said in a statement.
The countries listed by RSF were: Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

Reporters Without Borders replies:

“We are not fooled,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Several governments on today’s updated list of 15 ‘Internet Enemies’ put direct pressure on the office of the UNESCO director general, and deputy director general Marcio Barbosa caved in. UNESCO’s reputation has not been enhanced by this episode. It has behaved with great cowardice at a time when the governments that got it to stage a U-turn continue to imprison dozens of Internet users.”

The press freedom organisation added: “Unfortunately, it seems we have gone back 20 years, to the time when authoritarian regimes called the shots at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. UNESCO’s grovelling shows the importance of Online Free Expression Day and the need to protest against governments that censor.”

For UNESCO to claim unawareness of the repressions visited upon any not state lackies in the 15 listed countries is increasingly common, however, for the United Nations, increasingly united in repression.

For a handy summary of the wider agenda of repression, led by Islamic states, see this from Britain’s National Secularist Society, opposed to what it sees as the intrusion of any religion into politics, “Muslim plan to stifle free speech moves up a gear”:

The International Humanist and Ethical Union – of which the NSS is an affiliate – has warned that Islamic governments are trying to use the United Nations to shut down free speech. The warning comes as a bloc of Islamic states held a summit to discuss how supposed widespread “Islamophobia” can be legally challenged in Western countries.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) began the meeting in Senegal last week by raising the spectre of the Danish cartoons and the forthcoming film criticising the Koran from Dutch MP Geert Wilders….

The recommendations include monitoring meetings and conferences where criticism of Islam might take place and showing a more positive image of Islam as a peaceful and tolerant religion. But the report reveals its true purpose – the legal suppression of criticism of Islam….

Last year, the OIC succeeded in getting the U.N. General Assembly to pass for the first time ever a resolution on the “defamation of religions.” Islam was the only religion mentioned by name in the text. The OIC has 56 votes at the 192-member General Assembly, but it managed to win sufficient support from non-Muslim nations, mostly in the developing world, to see the resolution pass by 108 votes to 51, with 25 abstentions.

No wonder there’s been nothing heard from the UN condemning the Chinese suppression of Tibetan protests against cultural euthanasia, or of the expulsion of foreign journalists and blocking of Internet communications. As Reporters Without Borders says,

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the methods being used by the Chinese authorities to obstruct foreign journalists trying to cover the situation in the Tibetan regions, and calls for the immediate and unconditional return of the foreign press to Tibet and to nearby provinces with a sizable Tibetan population.

At the same time, the jamming of international radio stations has been stepped up in Tibet and Internet café owners are being forced to increase the surveillance of clients, while government propaganda continues to rage at the "Dalai Lama’s clique" and foreign news media.

"The Chinese authorities are in the process of dealing with the problem of Tibetan demonstrations by means of force and silence," Reporters Without Borders said. "After ridding Tibet and the neighbouring regions of undesirable observers - foreign journalists and tourists - the security forces are crushing the protests without the international community being able to watch."

The press freedom organisation added: "For the repression in Tibet to end, the United Nations must demand the return of foreign journalists and the dispatch of independent observers."

A commenter (I forget where I saw the term) says the approaching China-sited summer Olympics might be renamed the SchizOlympics, as China seeks to raise its prestige abroad and at home and businesses seek broadcast and endorsement profits, but the foreign press is put on guard about reporting outside of scheduled events. It’s indicative of the SchizoWorld Body UN, as well, as its majority of thug states similarly repress freedom, with the aid of international profiteers and lookaway politicians.

John McCain left Hamas little doubt as to what he considers the appropriate response to Hamas’ terror rocketing of Israel. McCain visited Sderot, target of thousands of rockets:

McCain, on what he described as a fact-finding mission to the Middle East, backed Israel's right to respond to rocket fire against Sderot and other southern towns by Palestinian militants just across the frontier in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

"The fact is that I come from a border state, and if people were rocketing my state, I think that the citizens from my state would advocate a very vigorous response," the Arizona senator told reporters.

"When one is attacked, one responds and retaliates. One has to respond to attacks."

Earlier, McCain visited the sacred Western Wall in Jerusalem, placing a note of prayer.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) visits the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City March 19, 2008. McCain came to Israel on Tuesday as part of a fact-finding tour of the Middle East which could also boost his popularity among American Jewish voters.
REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (JERUSALEM)

For those who want Israel to survive in secure peace, with the secure U.S. support it deserves and needs, prayers for McCain to become president are in order.

Judith Klinghoffer adds more reasons.

Every politically conservative Jew has sat in synagogue and heard a liberal Rabbi make partisan statements. But, I challenge any to cite any Rabbi making anywhere remotely near the degree and number of patently insane statements repeatedly made by Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright, not to mention sitting there and lapping it in for 20-years and without demurral or protest.

Increasingly, over the years since the initial street theatre protests during the Vietnam war, the charges and statements made by protestors has degenerated to the crudest and most vile.

The media reports, as they make startling copy. But, the media and public have become themselves coarsened in tolerating such blithering, dangerous idiocy.

Thousands of people march to protest the war in Iraq in Hollywood on March 15, 2008. Opponents of the Iraq war plan to hold marches, sit-ins and other protests on Wednesday in cities across the United States to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion.
(AFP/File/Valerie Macon)

Major media have mostly been kind toward Barack Obama’s speech yesterday about Rev. Wright, out of compassion for real racism that existed or exists but mostly out of either Democrat leanings or sheer inability to tell the difference between right and wrong anymore, not to mention not being capable of discerning hateful and racist nonsense or Obama’s callow excuses and relativism.

“Unity”, “Unify” Obama says. Yes, we all yearn for that. However, Obama has only further lowered the level of public discourse, better and more honest being necessary to bring sane people together.

With my red hair and fair complexion, St. Patrick’s Day was the day for me to visit Irish bars in my half-Jewish, half-Catholic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The beer flowed, and flowed, and flowed. I would hear great tales, everyone figuratively kissing the Blarney Stone (when not the ceramic throne), hear great music and singing. Occasionally, when my Jewish background came up, I would hear with great pride about the Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, Robert Biscoe, who fought against the British with the IRA and helped smuggle guns and refugees to help Israeli independence. Many Irish similarly helped Israel in its most perilous birth, the British not being their favorites.

Here’s a brief background about Jews in Ireland:

On St. Patrick's Day in 1956, Robert Briscoe, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, son of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants, led the annual parade along New York's Fifth Avenue. Two Jews were watching the parade. Said one Jew to the other: "Did you know that Robert Briscoe is Jewish?" " Amazing! Only in America" said his companion.

Although there were never more than 5700 Jews in Ireland, a number of Jews have been elected to high office since the arrival of the first Jews in Ireland in 1079. William Annyas was elected mayor of Youghal, County Cork in 1555. In 1899 Sir Otto Yaffe was Lord Mayor of Belfast. Then in 1956 and 1961 Robert Briscoe, in recognition of his heroic service in the cause of Irish independence, was twice elected Lord Mayor of Dublin. In 1977 Gerald Goldberg became the Lord Mayor of Cork. Ben Briscoe, the son of Robert, became Dublin's Lord Mayor in 1988 after serving in the Irish parliament for more than 35 years.

The former president of Israel, Chaim Herzog, was born in Belfast in 1918. He was president from 1983 to 1993. His father Isaac was the first chief rabbi of the Irish Free State.

Today the number of Jews in Ireland has dwindled to 1700. Of these, 150 live in Northern Ireland and 1550 in the 26 counties of the Irish Republic. There are two synagogues in Dublin. One is Orthodox and the other is Liberal- Progressive (a European phrase).

The title of this post, "Shalom Ireland,” is that of a film about Jews in Ireland.

CBS News Archives
Wearing the official chain of office, Robert Briscoe, the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, visits New York City as seen in "Shalom Ireland," a documentary about Ireland’s remarkable, yet little known, Jewish community.

The sense of celebration is reflected by the film's soundtrack, which features traditional Irish music, klezmer music, and what the documentary's website calls Ceilizemer, a fusion of the two. (Ceili, pronounced "kay-lee," is Irish for a hooley, and zemer, Hebrew for song.) The musicians hail from two Northern California bands, Driving with Fergus, a traditional Irish band from Oakland, and the Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band, a traditional Jewish band from Sacramento.

There’s a small Jewish museum in Dublin. A visitor has this reminiscence.

The overall atmosphere is quiet, relaxed, and friendly. The building itself is old, small, and comforting; it's easy to imagine the gatherings that once took place there. The curators (whose Dublin accents mix interestingly with Jewish intonations) act more like storytellers than gallery supervisors. When I was there, one of them went out of his way to give me a proper introduction to the story of the Irish Jews, reading aloud in Gaelic the passage from the Annals of Innisfallen which record the first arrival of Jews in Ireland (it's common for Irish Jews to be trilingual: English, Gaelic, Hebrew!)

And, here thanks to Maggies Farm, is the ideal dish enjoyed by Irish and Jews alike.

I happen to be one of those people who love that Irish boiled dinner, with lots of potatoes in there. You just cook the heck out of it, for hours, until it all falls apart. Lots of whole peppercorns in the pot.
The carrots are optional, in my view - and the cabbage is the best part.
A pot of mustard on the side, and a pot of beer on the other side. Great peasant eats.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

More prominent Irish Jews.

The Iraq Veterans Against the War’s re-enactment of its mentors’ Vietnam Veterans Against the War’s 1971 spectacle is flopping.

From promising riveting testimony from 200 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, then 100, then 50, the three days presented some hard-luck stories, but didn’t present anything remotely more than assertions that some of the possible misfortunes of war argue that the Iraq war is immoral, illegal and, oh, you know the drill of fiery adjectives.

Reading and listening to some selective transcripts, there’s nothing there re: committing confirmed or confirmable atrocities, mostly just some unsubstantiated and obviously partial and slanted "war stories," or hard-luck stories about readjustment, with many admissions of receiving VA and other help. Exceptions (hard-luck) don't prove a rule (narrative that all or most vets suffer mental and life problems, as result of service), and further there is no investigation of what problems these testifiers (I like that word; sounds like a Tent Meeting!) carried into service.

Unlike 1971, the IVAWers don’t have an Elmer Gantry, er John Kerry, with powerful media and Congressional connections, to capture the friendly major media’s (exception at the Washington Post) imagination and attention. Indeed, even an avid supporter of IVAW listening to podcasts of the hearings complained that leftist radio Pacifica didn’t air the hearings. Perhaps too trite and boring even for Pacifica. There not being a draft, neither do the IVAWers have a mass of protesting college students cheering them on, as in 1971, today’s college students being both more insulated and, perhaps, made more cautious by the documentation of their parents’ foolishness.

Critical bloggers who attended Friday’s hearing were so bored or disgusted, they didn’t even return Saturday. One of the best bloggers, offered an “AAR”, (that’s after-action report).

[T]he testimony lacked context - there were no dates or times or places (other than general references) or even participants in some cases….

Although critical bloggers were restricted, “there were news outlets like the Guardian and al Jazeera wandering around without security and writing what they want.” International leftist coverage of the assertions has been widespread.

But to the testimony; War sucks. It’s sucked since the beginning of the invention of the rock as a weapon. Innocent people die in war, and that sucks, too. But not since the beginning of warfare has any Army taken such care to minimize innocent deaths as the United States armed forces. Never. That’s indisputable.

But, the people who testified Friday glossed over that fact….

The blog post, then, discusses the specific non-specificnous of several testifiers.
Nonetheless,

The point of the whole testimony, for the entire day I spent there was that the war is illegal from the get-go. They offered no evidence that the war is illegal - but when there’s room full of aged bobbleheads nodding on cue - who needs evidence?...

That was one of the problems - I was probably one of the youngest people in the room and I’m nearly 53 years old. The audience were a bunch of old hippies who’d never served in the military and had never seen a war outside of the context of the politics of war. They tch-tched their way through the hearings without understanding the pains the military had to suffer to avoid real atrocities. Their only solution to the war was ending it - today with no real thought of the consequences. The only victory they sought was a victory of Democrats over Republicans regardless of what the nation would be forced to deal with when their solution was enacted.

Although,

Almost everyone testified that they were confused as to the ROE - but then they all testified to a measure of restraint they all knew was present. Um, the ROE. The confusion came when they actually had to apply their own common sense in relation to the ROE and their circumstances.

Still, some IVAWers did manage to re-enact one of the accomplishments of their VVAW elders.

The real atrocity stories were being told out by the ashtray, though. I don’t know how many of the IVAW kids I heard relating their tales to the belly-shirt, hip-hugger wearing college aged chickies while I took my smokebreaks. But I don’t want to c***block on any of those guys who might still be laid up with their airhead honeys today - that’d be a neocon atrocity.

Others are working on detailed dissections of the exaggerated assertions by IVAWers. Our experience with 1971 tells us that we cannot let them go unchallenged or wait a generation to prove their speciousness, (also, see) and we won’t.

UPDATE: Even feminist supporters of the IVAW’s cause are ticked off at the vacuousness of Winter Soldier II.

Saturday's hearings opened with the Divide To Conquer: Gender and Sexuality in the Military. From the title of the panel, we were looking forward to this panel….

The panel was an embarrassment….

A panel at Winter Soldiers promises testimony. Testimony is based on what you saw. A witness in a court of a law attempting to 'testify' to what they themselves didn't witness would be reduced to rubble under cross examination. For this panel, such requirements were largely tossed out….

Earlier, describing “Winter Soldier II Off To A Lying Start,” I concluded by noting that “Bloggers today see the Associated Press and Washington Post in the audience. Let’s see whether the American press has learned anything since 1971.”

Apparently not.

Unless some editor culled out all critical thought, there’s no excuse for the Washington Post’s coverage today. The bald assertions by Iraq Veterans Against the War of atrocities are parroted, without scrutiny.

The only indication of any parallel to the discredited 1971 Winter Soldier propaganda upon which this Winter Soldier II is explicitly modeled is in whomever wrote the WaPo’s headline, “War Stories Echo An Earlier Winter.”

It’s not like the Washington Post was unaware of what happens when it blithely prints scurrilous charges.

In 2004, the Washington Post publicly recognized it accepted the lies by false serviceman Micah Ian Wright, but only after he was exposed by real servicemen.

In the Style section last summer we profiled a Los Angeles writer named Micah Ian Wright, who'd just published a shrill antiwar poster book called "You Back the Attack! We'll Bomb Who We Want!" In his book, he described himself as a veteran of combat, a former Army Ranger whose experiences during the 1989 invasion of Panama turned him into a peacenik. In interviews with The Post and other media, he played up that background.

Wright, it turns out, is a liar. He never served in the military -- and confessed that last week to his publisher, Seven Stories Press, after we insisted on evidence of his service. Pursuing a tip from real Rangers who'd never heard of Wright, we filed three Freedom of Information Act requests with separate Army commands -- and last month finally confirmed that Wright never served.

The sorry record of the 1971 Winter Soldier hearings’ false and unsubstantiated “testimony” is well known, as is the negative effect on the reputations and morale of a generation of Vietnam veterans by the media accepting its lies. For example, see these documented studies which show prominently in any web search about it, here, here, and here. As well, the Washington Post's memory of the many articles during the 2004 presidential campaign delineating the false charges by John Kerry in 1971 might have rung a bell to any conscient reporter.

It’s not like the major media, including the Washington Post, weren’t warned about what to expect at Winter Soldier II, and the basics of fair scrutiny. A Reporters Guide and a backgrounder were published. It was picked up at many other blogs. The Reporters Guide was distributed by PRNewswire, and Google showed it hitting at over 250 media sites. (See here for example.)

Key to the Reporters Guide is D.U.P.E.S.

Journalists should exert due diligence to establish the truth and search for the facts that will verify or refute each allegation.

-- An acronym has been developed as a simple guide to what should reasonably be asked by journalists of those making allegations: DUPES:

D: Date(s) - When did the incident occur?

U: Unit(s) - What military units were involved?

P: Personnel - What are the names of the participants and witnesses?

E: Event(s) - What exactly happened exactly where?

S: Signature(s) - Was this reported at the time or later and were reports, affidavits or depositions signed, or will they now be signed?

Instead, today’s Washington Post just repeats the IVAWers assertions. The only demurral is from a protestor outside, a retired Colonel, demanding,

"This is too important to our nation. The credibility of our nation and the credibility of our soldiers are involved."
Riley said those making allegations against the U.S. military should have to give sworn testimony instead of speaking at an antiwar conference.

The WaPo follows that with this fox guarding the henhouse statement, and moves on to more parroting of IVAWers assertions:

Organizers said they have sought to verify the records of all soldiers speaking, including reviewing their service records and talking to other members of units. Some soldiers had videos and photographs, which were displayed yesterday on a large screen in the auditorium.

However, again, all the Washington Post had to do was see the evaluation of those same assertions and video earlier this week by the major liberal online newsmagazine Salon. “The soldiers were unable to provide Salon with any conclusive evidence of war crimes.” Their video is remote and hazy, of a building; the deaths claimed by the two IVAWers could be not substantiated by anyone, and these IVAWers admitted not seeing them either.

The Washington Post’s reporter, Steve Vogel, cannot claim being a rookie. He reported for WaPo from Iraq and Afghanistan. Either he was wrongfully edited, or he was irresponsibly duped instead of following the elementary rules of evidence in D.U.P.E.S.

I haven’t yet seen the Associated Press coverage. Can we hope its journalism is better?

UPDATE: No Mistake; WaPo Ignored Knowing Better

As far as wanting to get both sides of the story, Steve Vogel did throw in a couple of lines from retired Colonel Harry Riley. But Vogel had an opportunity to interview TSO who was live-blogging WSII and could have given a perspective from a non-IVAW point of view. Here's what TSO wrote about the encounter...

Walking back with the private goon (jk) run into Wash Post reporter (Vogel?) interviewing Vets For Peace guy. So I say hey, just wanted to let you know that the "so called hostile bloggers" are in the back row in case you want to talk to us and provide some balance.

We waves me off and says no.

From the get-go, the BS is flying at the Iraq Veterans Against the War’s Winter Soldier II.

IVAW had promised an open hearing, so all bloggers could be present in the room, take photos, or maybe ask questions. Instead, those bloggers not aligned with IVAW have been segregated in another room and forbidden from taking photos. This blogger “Had to go potty, which necessitates escort.”

The IVAW.org website has been miraculously cleansed of much of its former material, making the job for reporters more difficult to trace what they say now and what they said before.

One indication is the IVAW Chairman, Camilio Mejia. Denis Keohane points out his escalating, wobbly “war story.” Incidentally, Mejia is the son of Sandinista supporters, in Mejia’s own words:

My father is from Nicaragua. My mother is from Costa Rica. Both were really involved in the resistance to overthrow the US-backed dictatorship of Samosa. And that is a background that I have with me…

Mejia was an Army reservist, called up for the initial 2003 operations into Iraq. There, he for 6-hours says he supervised some detainees, who were deprived of sleep (a war crime!), but now Mejia claims he ran a POW camp. Mejia filed for conscientious objector status, was denied, and deserted, being convicted and serving 9 of a 12-month sentence in the brig. Mejia joined IVAW, and wrote a book, of which Publishers Weekly said,

His memoir is a blend of compelling war narrative and dubious soapboxing. Mejía's claim to conscientious objector status, after eight years in the U.S. military, months of combat and a long campaign for a discharge, rings rather hollow. The son of prominent Nicaraguan Sandinistas, he takes a view of the insurgents' "fight for self-determination" that seems naïve ("[t]here seemed to be a unity that spread through the differences among Iraqis") and his prose is laced with clunky rhetoric about "the imperial dragon that devours its own soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike for the sake of profit."

Gerald Nicosia, known for the mysterious robbery of the records he’d obtained from the FBI just before they could be seen to document John Kerry’s mendacity, is a supporter of IVAW, and says that he,

thought that this WSII was different from WS, but after listening to the testimony of the war crimes committed, it "Was the same"

Thomas Lipscomb exposed that John Kerry hid his presence at a VVAW meeting where Scott Camile proposed assassinations of pro-Vietnam politicians. (More investigation by Lipscomb on the plot and cover-up here and here.) Also see here for more, and about Nicosia’s claim that more than 14 boxes of FBI files disappeared from his house which would have shed more light on Camile and Kerry.

The main Leftist alternative media providing coverage of Winter Soldier II calls itself “Democracy Now!” It’s not a minor operation.

Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite television (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Link TV ch. 375); and on the internet. DN!’s podcast is one of the most popular on the web.

Democracy Now’s coverage of WSII leads off with clips from the 1971 VVAWers John Kerry, Joe Bangert (a VVAW supporter of Kerry, who in 1971, traveling with Kerry to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong, proudly sang the Ballad Of Ho Chi Minh for the guests), and Scott Camile.

Though these VVAWers 1971 testimony has been unproven or disproven, and caused a generation of Vietnam veterans to suffer from unfairly tarnished reputations, the IVAW’s Mejia proudly admits that the IVAW’s Winter Soldier II is “borrowing from the first Winter Soldier hearings held in ’71 by Vietnam Veterans Against the War about their eyewitness experiences in that war.” This blogger at WSII sees more old VVAWers there than contemporary vets.

Another blogger is providing constant coverage of the BS. Wild charges, with no evidence, as with its 1971 model.

Many international reporters, according to AFP, are attending WSII, broadcasting its BS about America in Iraq to the world. Bloggers today see the Associated Press and Washington Post in the audience. Let’s see whether the American press has learned anything since 1971.

Michelle Malkin provides more coverage, along with about the Move America Forward and Gathering Of Eagles counterdemonstrations.

Salon asks, “Will American war crimes be revealed?” at the Iraq Veterans Against the War’s sequel to the fraud-filled Winter Soldier theatre offered in 1971 by Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

The event is designed to be another purging of the horrors of war, and another effort to put American military policy on trial in the public eye.

However,

In interviews with Salon, several veterans from the group described incidents in Iraq that they believed constituted wrongdoing by the U.S. military, including disproportionate use of air power resulting in civilian deaths. The soldiers were unable to provide Salon with any conclusive evidence of war crimes.

Not that that stops them from alleging war crimes, anyway.

"I'm pretty sure we saw some pretty fucked-up shit," said Clifton Hicks, who was a private in the 1st Armored Division in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 and will be testifying at the Winter Soldier event.

Gee, that’s surely conclusive evidence!

Salon shows a videotape that Hicks and other IVAWers claim show an aerial attack on innocent civilians. Yet,

Steven Casey, who back then was a scout in the same Army unit, provided Salon with videotape of the strike taken from the roof of a building at Camp Slayer, date-stamped Nov. 13, 2003. While the airstrike can clearly be heard on the tape, darkness and distance render it mostly useless for verification purposes….

But it is not just the darkness on the videotape that makes the story hard to gauge. News clips from that time period claim that the military was evacuating civilians prior to Operation Iron Hammer airstrikes, in an effort to destroy empty buildings that had been used to launch attacks on U.S. forces. Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who commanded the 1st Armored Division at the time, claimed in a Nov. 20, 2003, press conference that "we have had no civilian casualties resulting from Iron Hammer."

Salon also contacted a human rights group, which said they had staff in Iraq at that time, but they could verify no details about the airstrike or its outcome. And the three soldiers interviewed admit that while they saw the heavily damaged buildings after the strike, nobody got out of their vehicles to see if there were, in fact, dead civilians in the rubble.

The IVAwers aren’t concerned with their lack of evidence. They’re on a propaganda mission:

Still, the vast majority of the American public does not have a clear picture of what has gone on for years in Iraq and Afghanistan due to U.S. military operations. In the coming days, the new generation of veterans gathering for the Winter Soldier event hope to make it more clear.

Leftist media make that propaganda mission clear. The Nation implores its readers to “Help IVAW spread these eyewitness accounts across the country and the world…” AlterNet promises “Iraq Vets Will Detail U.S. Atrocities in Winter Soldier Hearings” and “All week, AlterNet will feature special coverage of the hearings.” The IVAW’s pet “journalist” Aaron Glanz hawks " Get ready for the horrible, honest reality of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan like you haven't heard it before,” which Leftist alternative media is set to broadcast around the world.

Meanwhile, awesome Michelle Malkin presents the acknowledged model for WinterSoldier II, John Kerry, being confronted on video about his role in defaming a generation of Vietnam veterans. (Michelle, also, has the transcript.) Gateway Pundit adds to our understanding.

If the IVAW thinks it will get away with defaming another generation of veterans, its has another thing coming, inbound.

I don’t think my generation of highly-sexed males were shaped by this famous Coppertone ad.

Yet, there is considerable upset that today’s ads from some sources are too highly sexed and suggestive of behaviors we wish our children won’t emulate by the ads’ influence.

In Virginia Beach last month, at the Abercrombie & Fitch store,

Police, saying they were responding to citizen complaints, carted away two large promotional photographs from the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Lynnhaven Mall on Saturday and cited the manager on obscenity charges….

Abercrombie & Fitch has earned a reputation for its risqué catalogues and promotional photography featuring scantily clothed models.

In 2003, the company halted publication of its 7-year-old A&F Quarterly catalog because of complaints about sexually suggestiv