Blue Star Chronicles

Barack Obama’s transitional team has announced that they will work to bring Iran into the Afghanistan front of the Global War on Terrorism. Unbelievable. Read about it below.

Ahmadinejad

The Obama team say they are looking at a ‘regional’ solution to the war in Afghanistan. Of course, the ‘war’ in Afghanistan is a front in the larger Global War on Terrorism, but I’m not at all sure that the Obama people understand that.

There are a couple of clues in this administrations statements that give us a clue about what we are in for during the next couple of years. Here’s some of the clues:

• They want to initiate talks between “reconcilable” members of the Taliban and Hamid Karzai, the elected representative of the Afghan government. What I wonder is how they will fit in the ‘talks’ with the Taliban. Would that be before or after they finish their daily executions of villagers who don’t help the kill American Soldiers?
• They are slamming the Bush administration for allowing ‘ideological constraints’ and an ‘unrealistic’ goal of building a democracy in Afghanistan from dealing with the war effectively. Would that be the ‘ideological constraint’ of having a problem with women being hung and/or shot in the back of the head if the wind blows their burka up over their ankles? I’m just wondering.
• Obama’s people believe they can REASON with the Afghan people to reject the islamic extremism. I guess he forgot that if they reject them they get killed, their families get killed and their neighbors get killed. They might be willing to reject islamic extremism the very minute they know an American Marine will stand guard over them.
• They are putting the focus on ‘catching’ Osama bin Laden. He has become pretty much irrelevant and powerless, but having the President of the United States uttering his name all the time and committing the LIVES of U.S. Soldiers to find him will give him renewed clout and power in the islamic jihadist world.

Okay. Are you sitting down? I’m asking because here’s the big one.

• Obama’s people want to bring in regional help in the war. They are looking to Iran for HELP in the war! They say they will work with Iran to bring peace to the area. They say we have a common goal with Iran which is to make the Sunnis disappear from the area.

I have a news flash for Obama’s people. Iran is already involved in the war. If you think they are sitting behind their borders wringing their hands then you are even more naive than previously proven.

An empowered Iran is a nightmare for us all. If Obama and his people actually listen to what Iranian President Ahmadinejad keeps telling us it might help. Obama says he wants better communication with Iran. Then I say PLEASE listen to them. They want to kill us. That’s what he says and what he appears to be making every effort to do.

People say they voted for Obama because they were bored with Bush. Well. We might just get what everyone wanted. We might just have more excitement than we can stand here shortly.

For that, I hope and pray that God will continue to look favorably on us in spite of our misguided, dangerous and self centered choices.

Earlier today, Iran claimed they had forced down a U.S. jet that had flown into their airspace. They’ve now said that, well, no they didn’t after all. Read about it below.

Falcon 50 Aircraft

The Iranians got a little carried away with bragging that they had brought down a U.S. Falcon aircraft that had flown into their airspace. The initial account was that the U.S. jet had flown low in order to avoid radar detection and into their airspace. They reported that they had brought down the jet and detained the civilians and military personnel who were in the plane.

The initial report on Fars (Iranian news agency) reported that the U.S. Falcon jet crossed into their airspace from Turkey ‘in spite of repeated warnings’.

Well, the U.S. government said, ‘No you didn’t’. Then Ahmadinejad’s government tried to save face from their attempt to tell the Iranian people they had brought down an American jet and said that they did but started backtracking and editing their story.

The Pentagon came out saying that there were no American military jets missing and the Iran report must be mistaken. :rolleyes:

Finally, after some silly back and forth, the Iranians admitted that it wasn’t a military jet after all and, gee whiz, guess it wasn’t American either. It was a Hungarian aircraft carrying humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Apparently, the jet unintentionally crossed over into Iranian airspace enroute, was brought down by the Iranian Air Force, questioned and released. Also, apparently this all happened on September 30th.

This report was erroneous and was apparently a blatant propaganda ploy. Still, it underlines the fact that Iran views the U.S. as an enemy and continues to make attempts to show themselves as having superior military capabilities to the Americans.

Sarah Palin was uninvited to speak at a rally that was scheduled for today at the U.N. in New York to protest Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. Here is the full text of the speech she would have given had political game playing not kept her from speaking.

Sarah Palin Speech

As you probably know, there has been a real messy situation connected with an attempt of Jewish groups to hold an anti-Ahmadinejad rally in conjunction with his planned appearance at the United Nations. The rally was set to be at noon Eastern Time today. The Jewish groups attempted to have a non-partisan rally and had invited prominent politicians from both parties.

Unfortunately, when Hillary Clinton heard that Sarah Palin had been invited to speak at the event, she pulled out, refusing to attend the same event as Palin. Then all of the sudden we find out that the Jewish groups organizing the event un-invited Sarah Palin. However, Clinton still didn’t agree to attend. Another group stepped in to try to host the event, but it still didn’t come together. So the group decided to make it a non-political event and no politicians were invited.

But there was more to it all than a complete change of their plans.

New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind, (D-Brooklyn) has reported that the reasons for abrupt change of plans had to do with petty politics and threats from the Obama democrats. He reports that the Conference of Presidents was threatened with losing their tax exempt status if they did not withdraw their invitation to Palin.

“It’s an absolute shame that this has happened,” Hikind said. “To threaten organizations … to threaten the Conference of Presidents that if you don’t withdraw the invitation to Gov. Palin we’re going to look into your tax exempt status … that’s McCarthyism.”

Its very sad that the Obama democrats are willing to use a dangerous enemy of the United States as a wedge between political parties. Apparently, the party is more important than the safety of the country. This is a time for us all to be Americans rather than members of one party or the other. But apparently we all don’t feel that way.

Here’s what Sarah Palin would have said about Ahmadinejad, had the rally organizers not been forced to un-invite her to the rally.

Full Text of Sarah Palin’s Speech

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Wife

Finally, a photo of the Islamic Republic of Iran President Ahmadinejad’s wife!!! We still don’t know her name, but we finally have a picture of the woman who actually married the Aha-mama-jihad!! We do know that she has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and teaches in a university. We know that she likes traveling with her husband in the official presidential airplane all over the world and that she has influenced her husband on women’s rights in Iran. I’ve noticed how open-minded he is in regards to women’s rights - haven’t you?

So here she is. Isn’t she lovely?

One of John McCain’s strengths is his strong grasp on the conflicts that our country is currently faced with and his understanding of how to deal with conflict. He certainly knows that pretending conflict is not there doesn’t make it go away.

While John McCain has been touring the Middle East this week he has visited King Abdullah II of Jordan and Israel. He has voiced his support of Israel as well as hope for peace in the Middle East as a whole.

The Jerusalem Post

“If Hamas/Hizbullah succeeds here, they are going to succeed everywhere, not only in the Middle East, but everywhere. Israel isn’t the only enemy,” Arizona Sen. McCain said, in the only interview he is giving to the Israeli media during his visit here.

“They are dedicated to the extinction of everything that the US, Israel and the West believe and stand for. So America does have an interest in what happens here, far above and beyond our alliance with the State of Israel.”

McCain calls Israel a partner, not a client. He says as partners it is not our place to tell Israel how to handle the conflicts they have with their neighbors. While he would not recommend that Israel not talk to Hamas he said that he is personally against it.

“Someone is going to have to answer me the question of how you are going to negotiate with an organization that is dedicated to your extinction,” McCain said in a lounge in Jerusalem’s David Citadel Hotel, as Lieberman and Graham listened.

~ clip ~

“I really think that we should understand that the US and Israel are partners. Israel is not a client of the United States,” he said. “If you are partners, then you don’t dictate what you think the terms of the survival of a nation should be.”

Asked whether Israel was using the right tactics in trying to quell the rocket fire on Sderot and the western Negev, McCain praised Defense Minister Ehud Barak - terming him “one of the great military people” he has met - and added, “I can’t give you a good answer as to how you respond to these rocket attacks.”

But, he then said dryly, “I can tell you that I believe that if rocket attacks came across the border of the United States of America, that the American people would probably demand pretty vigorous actions in response. I think I know my constituency in the state of Arizona, and they would be pretty exercised if rockets came across our southern border.”

And what did he have to say about Iran ….

“I think Iran is a threat to the region,” McCain said, adding that not only were the Iranians “obviously pursuing nuclear weapons,” they were also arming and training extremists to send into Iraq, supporting Hizbullah and influencing Syria.

“At the end of the day, we can still not afford to have Iran with nuclear weapons,” he said. “We know they have ambitions that are not just aimed at the State of Israel.”

These ambitions included “destabilization of the entire region upon which the United States’ national security interests rest,” he said.

McCain is in the region with his close friends, fellow Senators, Joe Lieberman and Lesley Graham. Here are some photos from their trip. You can click on the photos to make them larger.

John McCain has consistently been an ardent supporter of Israel. He has reiterated his support of Israel during his current trip to the Middle East by verbalizing his support of Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as the Capital of the Jewish State.

Haaretz

Before his arrival in Israel on Tuesday, McCain said he supports Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. He told reporters in Jordan: “I support Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”

Later, speaking at a meeting with President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, McCain said he was concerned by Iran’s negative influence on the region - namely, the fact that it trains, finances and otherwise assists radical groups - and that his concern had merely been heightened by his current tour of the region.

Of course, the Arab News took exception to McCain’s stance. They emphasize the importance of McCain continuing work on the Middle East peace process. However, it appears from their view the only cause of conflict there is because of the Jews and that they only resolution has to do with the Jewish community giving in the every demand made by the Palestinians.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam Hadad has warned that the “countdown to Israel’s destruction has begun,” in an interview published Thursday in an Iranian newspaper. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday called Israel a “filthy germ” and “savage beast” established by Western states in their bid to dominate Middle East…

read more | digg story

TEHRAN — A young Iranian man has been sentenced to hang for repeatedly drinking alcohol which is strictly banned in the Islamic republic, the Etemad newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The 22-year-old, identified only as Mohsen, was handed down the death penalty by a criminal court after being found guilty of drinking alcohol for a fourth time, the daily said.

“The defendant in this case has been sentenced to death and the official notification will be given soon,” it quoted Judge Jalil Jalili as saying.

“According to article 179 of the Islamic penal code, if someone drinks twice and is punished for it on each occasion he should be executed on the third offence,” Jalili said.

Mohsen was punished for drinking alcohol three times in May, June and October 2006. In the latest case, he was arrested for drunken and disorderly behavior on the street, the daily said.

The young man had expressed his repentance in a letter, but the judges of Branch 72 of Tehran penal court sentenced him to death.

The usual punishment for a single drinking offence is 80 lashes, according to Iran’s penal code which is based in Islamic sharia law.

His execution still needs to be confirmed by Iran’s supreme court before being carried out, as with all executions in the country. There are no recent records of any people being hanged in Iran for drinking alcohol.

The consumption of alcohol has been strictly forbidden since the 1979 Islamic revolution, although some Iranians flout the rules and the police regularly announce major alcohol seizures.

Only recognized Christian minorities in Iran, such as the Armenians, are allowed to produce and consume alcohol, discreetly and behind closed doors in order not to offend Islamic sensibilities.

Iran has seen an upsurge in executions — mostly of rapists, murderers and drug-traffickers — in recent months as the authorities implement a campaign which they say is aimed at improving security in society.

Apparently, the Iranian government has been lenient on this young man as he was supposed to have been executed on the third offense of drinking alcohol.

The last sentence in this article is chilling. Where have I heard that before? The part about cleansing society of undesirables? Oh. I remember. Nazi Germany.

You may remember the big uproar created last fall when Columbia University invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak there. The university apparently takes some pride in their willingness to embrace psychotic dictators and enemies of our country. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger attempted to redeem himself a little bit by giving Ahmadinejad a bit of a hard time during his introduction, but it was really too little too late. Ahmadinejad was able to use the situation to his benefit in the propaganda he put out upon his return to Iran.

All of that happened last fall and everyone has moved on. Except the liberal professors at Columbia who are still stinging from the incident. Ahmadinejad got what he wanted from the incident and went home quite satisfied. He’s still carrying on about how he’s going to destroy the US and Israel and even sends his little speed boats to try to evoke an incident with US Warships. But these professors are projecting their own feelings on Ahmadinnerjacket and think they have to go apologize to him on behalf of Columbia University and the United States.

From Dhimmi Watch

NEW YORK (MNA) – An academic delegation of Columbia University professors and deans of faculties plans to visit Tehran to officially apologize to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The delegation plans to express regret for the insulting remarks Columbia University President Lee Bollinger directed at Ahmadinejad on September 24 in his introductory speech, the Mehr News Agency correspondent in New York reported.

Since the incident, the deans and professors from the faculties of history, anthropology, Middle Eastern studies, philosophy, and Islamic studies have criticized Bollinger’s behavior toward Ahmadinejad.

A member of the delegation, who requested anonymity, said the main goal of the visit is to meet the Iranian president and officially apologize to him.

These guys are pathetic. Don’t you just know that Ahmadinejad is loving every minute of this.

The U.S. Navy releases video of the Iranian boats that swarmed US Warships a couple of days ago.

video thanks to 123Beta

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, The Random Yak, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, The Amboy Times, Big Dog’s Weblog, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Pirate’s Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, Wake Up America, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

A little tidbit of news that has been lost in all the media covers of politics and the New Hampshire caucuses is the fact that Iran made aggressive gestures towards the United States over the weekend. Five Iranian speed boats with mounted guns swarmed three US Warships. They were seen tossing boxes into the path of the warships, presumably explosives. They messaged the ships in English that they were coming and would blow them up ‘in a couple of minutes’. The speed boats came within 200 yards of the US Warships on at least two occasions.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Armed Iranian speedboats swarmed three US warships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, radioing a threat to blow them up and sending tensions flaring ahead of President George W. Bush’s trip to the Mideast, US officials said Monday.

“I’m coming at you and you will blow up in a couple of minutes,” a Defense Department official quoted the radio transmission as saying.

Crew aboard two of the five speedboats also dumped floating boxes into the path of one of the vessels during the incident Sunday morning, but it passed them without incident, officials said.

The US government accused Iran of engaging in provocative and potentially hostile behavior and vowed “to confront Iranian behavior where it seeks to do harm to either us or our friends and allies in the region.”

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the incident was “quite troubling actually and a matter of real concern.”

“This is a very volatile area and the risk of an incident and of an incident escalating is real. I can’t imagine what was on their minds,” he told reporters in San Diego, California.

But Iran played down the encounter, which came just days before Bush travels to the region to boost the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and assure allies that Washington continues to view Iran as a threat.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini called it “an ordinary occurrence which happens every now and then for both sides.”

Gates said there had been two or three such incidents — “maybe not quite as dramatic as this one” — over the past year.

Pentagon officials said the Iranian speedboats swarmed the US ships in international waters in the strait on Sunday at around 0400 GMT, peeling off into two groups as they approached.

The cruiser USS Port Royal, the destroyer USS Hopper, and the frigate USS Ingraham received a radio call threatening to blow them up and saw two of the speedboats drop floating boxes into the path of the Ingraham, officials said.

“They were called on radio, ship’s whistles were sounded — those sorts of things — to draw attention to the fact that their maneuvers were a cause of concern to the commanding officers,” said Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the US Fifth Fleet.

He said the warnings went unheeded, and that the speedboats came within less than 500 meters (yards) of the US boats on a couple of occasions. Other defense officials put the distance at a couple of hundred meters.

Ship commanders responded by increasing their vessels’ “onboard readiness,” but no shots were fired, the admiral said. “In this case, the commanding officers did not believe they needed to fire warning shots.”

Cosgriff said the incident lasted less than 30 minutes, ending when the speedboats turned and headed back to Iranian waters.

I wonder how enemy boats can come that close to US warships and be able to speed off when the warships prepare to fire on them. That’s how Sailors get killed. I suppose I understand why the ships Captains showed restraint, but that takes me really trying to understand. What if those boats had delivered on their threats. Its not like they can’t or wouldn’t. Remember the USS Cole? Those boats should have been in pieces at the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz. But they’re not. They are getting bolder as they get a pass on their increasingly aggressive behaviors.

Get more details at AubreyJ

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, The Random Yak, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, The Amboy Times, Big Dog’s Weblog, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Pirate’s Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, Wake Up America, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

During an interview on IsraelNationalRadio’s with Tovia Singer about the recent Bush Administration intelligence report on Iran’s nuclear capabilities Bolton and Singer had this interesting exchange about BDS in the State Department..

When Singer said he wanted to bring up the recent American intelligence report that downplayed the Iranian nuclear capabilities and brought great joy to Iran and to the left, Bolton said, “I don’t think we should call it an intelligence report, but rather a document of the Executive Branch. It was a highly-politicized document, written by some who are not even intelligence community professionals, but rather from the State Department… In theory, they all work for the President, but they don’t like his policies and they think that he’s too belligerent towards Iran - though my own personal view is that the President was not tough enough - and this paper was intended to undercut the Bush position. This report has put Bush’s policy on the bottom of the ocean.” (source)

This report has succeeded in exactly that. There is no way President Bush can effectively lobby the United Nations to deal with Iran and its nuclear program. Thanks to someone’s shortsighted, politically motivated actions, no action will be made against Iran for non-compliance with multiple United Nations resolutions.

Crossposted at Conservative Thoughts