Do More than Remember

Today is the 9 year anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City.

We should remember it, and more.

The best way to honor the fallen is to investigate further the Mideast connections to the attack.

I bought an advance copy of "The Third Terrorist" by Jayna Davis, which documents the Mideast connections and the involvement, at the very minimum, of an Iraqi army intelligence soldier who has been identified as "John Doe #2" seen in the vehicle with Tim McVeigh. I'm about 1/2 way through. Her evidence, which has been vetted by David Schippers who I trust, is compelling.

I was encouraged that the topic came up at the 9-11 hearings. We won't fully understand 9-11 until we understand how fully we have been under attack since 1992.

Honor the victims by following all the leads. Give them justice.

Speaking Up - My email to the 9-11 Commission

Honorable Chairman Kean and co-Chairman Hamilton,

I am a resident of xxxxx, Illinois. I am a registered Republican voter with no further political or activist affiliations.

As a private citizen I have been watching the televised 9-11 hearings with interest. I believe the Commission has done impressive work and has heard in the last few weeks from an impressive roster of national policy makers. I believe the Commission's work is valuable if you will follow the facts and avoid partisanship.

However, I am disturbed by the events of this week regarding Commissioner Gorelick's conflict of interest exposed by the Justice Department's declassification of the "wall" memo that she authored. I have 3 comments:

1. Commissioner Gorelick clearly has a conflict of interest and must not be allowed to remain on the Commission if your report is to be valid. Congressman Sensenbrenner has delineated the clear language of your recusal statute and Commissioner Gorelick clearly meets that standard. It is unfathomable that she would be allowed to vote on the final report in light of her conflict. She should, in fact, be a witness before the Commission and not a member.

2. Commissioner Gorelick has indicated that she will not resign. You must do your duty as chairman and remove her. To fail to do so will taint your final report fatally.

Circling the wagons here is the wrong thing to do. Defending the indefensible leads to silly public statements like your recent statement that "people should stay out of our business". The work of the Commission is the public's business and your statement was ill advised and arrogant. Make a clear evaluation of the conflict, which is inarguable, and act.

3. It is, to me, the height of irony that your Commission, some members of which have been engaged in a public "gotcha" game of asking "How could they not know", suffers the same fate. I ask you:

How could you not know when she was selected for the Commission that Commissioner Gorelick's work as a policy maker in both the Justice Department and the Department of Defense during the time period in question put her in direct conflict of interest with the stated mission of the Commission?

I understand that replacing a Commissioner at this late stage is problematic. However, how could you not know that it would eventually be required and let it go this long?

You must do your duty and remove Commissioner Gorelick from the 9-11 Commission.

Best Regards,

Soundbites

I saw bits and pieces of the 9/11 hearings today, with the Justice Department lineup. Here some tidbits:

1. Louis Freeh. Looked and sounded credible. Sharp command of the facts. Hammered by Democrats. Took an interesting shot at Richard Clarke. "By the way, Richard Clarke wasn't at any of those meetings. I don't know why Sandy Berger didn't want him there".

2. Janet Reno. A mess. Incoherent. Not credible.

3. Jim Thompson. Republican - former governor of Illinois. Totally kissed up to Janet Reno, gushing praise and asking softball questions. Ridiculous. Reminded me why I didn't vote for him.

4. John Ashcroft. Didn't see him, but saw a soundbite of him trashing the rules prior to 2001 that the Clinton adminstration imposed in 1995. Reminded the commission that one of it's members, Jamie Gorelick authored the rules.

5. Jamie Gorelick. Why is she on the commission, when she as Deputy Attorney General obstructed a lot of the anti-terrorism activities. She should be in the witness chair answering tough questions.

Keep to the timetable

Mr. President - some unsolicited advice:

Given that:

1. You've met your objective. You've de-fanged Iraq from their capacity to harm us or cause much mischief in the Mideast. You've verified for the feckless UN that there are not stockpiles of WMD's.

2. They're not our friends. Not the murdering Baathists you deposed and killed or imprisoned with Sadaam. Not the Sunni minority who were on the side of Sadaam. Not the Shia majority who should be grateful for their liberation and instead take up arms against thier liberator. They're Islamic fanatics. All of them. And we should be shed of them.

My recommendation is -

1. Pacify the country. Hard. Right now in April and May. Whatever it takes - gunships, missiles, MOAB's. Establish, as George Will put it this week as the responsibility of government, "a monopoly on violence".

2. Hand the country over to Iraq as promised on June 30.

3. Withdraw. And warn the other terror sponsors on the way out that we'll be back if they didn't learn the lesson.

Return from occupier to liberator and get out. It's the right thing to do. Plus, it will throw the Democrats for a loop and they won't know how to attack you anymore.

Keep your date with history on June 30th.

I see Richard Clark everywhere!

I know I'm writing a lot about Richard Clarke lately. But he really ticked me off with his ubquitous appearances promoting his Bush bashing book just in time to grandstand before the 9-11 hearings.

I'd never heard of Richard Clarke, former White House Chief of Counter-Terrorism, before last week. Now I see him everywhere. It' like when you're buying a car and you're looking at a new model you hadn't thought of before and suddenly you're seeing that car everywhere you drive. Only worse.

Example. I was up late one night this week in insomnia mode. I was flipping on the remote when I settled in on a PBS Frontline special called the Ghosts of Rawanda. It recounted the genocide there in the early 90's and the world's failure to stop it. Including the Clinton administration. One storyline involved why the U.S. pulled troops out of the UN peacekeeping mission. Apparently Belgium wanted to pull out after loosing 6 soldiers in an attack. Not wanting to look weak, although not fearing being weak, they wanted cover and they pressured the US to pull out too. For political reasons, the US granted cover. Madeline Albright was instructed to support UN pullout at the General Assembly. After listening to an impassioned plea from the Nigerian ambassador rebutting the pullout, Albright decided against the plan. She called Washington and "screamed into the phone" that it was the wrong thing to do. Who was on the other end of the phone screaming back demanding the pullout - Richard Clarke. Never mind that 800,000 people were slaughtered. We, via Richard Clarke and Bill Clinton, gave Belgium cover.

Example: After TWA Flight 800 exploded over Long Island there was immediate evidence, including more than 100 eyewitnesses, indicating that the jet was brought down by a missle. I personally believe that evidence. However, a terrorist attack was an inconvenient fact to the Clinton administration. They didn't know who to blame, did not want to get into a war, and were trying to get Clinton re-elected. So the official story became a fuel tank explosion. Who was at the center of the story change? From pressuring the FBI, to twisting eyewitness accounts, to involving the CIA to dummy up an animation supporting the official version (source: Newsmax.com). Richard Clarke, of course.

That's why Clarke bashing the Bush administration for being weak on terrorism is more than I can stomach.

Is Clarke's 15 minutes up yet?

Please tell me that Richard Clarke's 15 minutes of fame is up. I can't bear to hear him say even one more time that the Clinton administration's #1 priority was anti-terrorism and that Bush did nothing. It's the most outrageous blatant falsehood I've heard on the public stage in years.

Please tell me that the American electorate is not that misguided that they believe him.

Please tell me that at least one journalist on mainstream TV is going to ask him a hard question.

There is ample rebuttal out there in the electronic media, but only us junkies see it. Here's a couple of great examples:

Ann Coulter with a blistering timeline and rebuke of Clarke/Clinton, on How 9-11 happened.

Charles Krauthammer, on Clarke's Blabbering.

Finally, a Newsmax article on, Clinton's real attention span for terrorism.

And for some good news from the Iraq front, that you don't hear on mainstream media:

Jeff Jacoby, on What has gone right in Iraq..

Thanks to Town Hall and Newsmax, stalwarts of the electronic media, for keeping it real.

On our terms

Yes, it was outrageous. The bombing, burning, and killing of 4 American contract workers in Fallujah, Iraq yesterday. And the dragging of the bodies through the streets was barbaric, defining of a barbaric belief system.

We have options:

1. Pack up and leave. Decide that we have no business there and that no more soldiers should be in harm's way. The Somalia solution.

2. Massive retribution. Make them all pay.

3. Capture those responsible and keep to our plan for Iraq.

The problem with the 1st and 2nd options is that it shifts attention to their agenda, not ours.

I know some people want to pull out. Both people of good intent and misguided people. But to pull out only emboldens the terrorists. That was the lesson of Somalia. They interpreted our pullout there as weakness and as encouragement to strike again. All you have to do is drag bodies in the street and America will run.

Solution 2 is tempting. Strike back hard. Devastatinly so. But it puts us on their terms.

Solution 3 is correct. Stay the course. Rebuild Iraq's infrastructure on our terms. Then hand it over. Then leave. President Bush has the core strength to do that.