Story Jam: Osama Video, The Dark Knight, Margaret Thatcher, John Conyers And Keith Olbermann - Something For Everyone!

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Expected to be more popular and only slightly less comprehensible than George Clooney's latest film OBL is expected to release a new video in the next 72 hours or so. It is to be titled "The Causes of Conflict on the 60th Anniversary of the Establishment of the State of Israeli Occupation," I don't usually like to give away the endings to movies but I'm going to make an exception here: The causes of conflict? Yeah, that'll be us. Sorry for blowing it for you.

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Hillsdale College unveiled the first US statue of Lady Margaret Thatcher last weekend. Sadly, Lady Thatcher was too ill to attend the unveiling.

Sculpted by Bruce Wolfe, the statue is over six feet in height and depicts Thatcher sitting in a pensive posture. A plaque on its base includes a quote from a 1990 Thatcher speech:

"The new world of freedom into which the dazzled Socialists have stumbled is not new to us. What to them is uncharted territory is to us familiar and well loved ground. For Britain has returned to those basic truths and principles which made her great—personal liberty, private property and the rule of law, on which democratic freedoms everywhere are based. Ours is a creed which travels and endures. Its truths are written in the human heart."

Excellent. Where are today's Thatcher's, anyway?

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Just a few minutes ago I saw the first Batman, The Dark Knight trailer on TV. Dark Knight looks to be seriously cool.

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I think I just may have found Barack Obama's running mate...


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While John McCain is running around the country dissing Republicans and kvelling at the idea of "reaching across the aisle" to sing Kumbaya with Dems, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers was heard saying:

“We’re closing in on Rove. Someone’s got to kick his ass.”

Conyers said the committee wants Rove to testify about his role in the imprisonment of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, among other things.

“We want him for so many things, it’s hard to keep track,” Conyers said.

Good luck with the reaching, Senator McCain.

You Gotta Believe

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Al Jazeera, the the Pan-Arabic TV network today carried parts of a new audio tape by the lately very chatty Mr. Osama bin Laden in which he called for cessation of all Palestinian peace negotiations with Israel in favor of "holy war".

In what will surely come as a shock of monumental proportions to Democrats bin Laden also called for

"... our brothers in Palestine who could not join the jihad in the land of Al-Quds, to get rid of illusions of political parties and groups which are mired in trickery of the blasphemous democracy and to take their positions among the ranks of the mujahideen in Iraq."

Now Dems should be taken aback by this request because they really don't think Iraq is all that important to worldwide Al Qaeda. According to their own statements, Iraq is a sideline issue which is occupying our attention at the expense of the main event, bin Laden's Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Late last year Dem Senator Jay Rockefeller wished that the US would,

"...change the mission away from deep involvement in Iraq’s civil war and toward
a more narrow focus on fighting Al-Qaeda.”

Dem Senator Robert Byrd said in August of last year,

"When the President of the United States took his eye off the ball, and diverted
our national attention from Osama bin Laden and his terrorist training operation
in Afghanistan, the President dealt the security of the American people a major
blow.”

The fact is Al Qaeda sees Iraq as a central front in their jihad against the West. This latest statement of bin Laden's only buttresses the increasing evidence of that fact. Last month's seized letter written by Abu-Tariqa, a local al-Qaeda leader near Bala, spoke about how badly Al Qaeda's forces are faring in Iraq currently and another recently seized letter written by an unnamed emir said, Al-Qaeda's

“Islamic State of Iraq is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar”.

Iraq's importance to Al Qaeda isn't really much of a secret any more. Except, of course to the Democratic Party.

Don't Know Much About History

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If you were to ask the average American where Al-Qaeda came from you'd probably be met with a blank stare; not surprising considering the current quality of American education. If you were to ask a slightly better informed American the same question there's a pretty good likelihood that you'd hear that the US helped create them in Afghanistan in the 1980's. This would be just another example of the success of liberal opinion as propaganda and failure as fact. There's another story out there, a far more inspiring and instructive story and it has the benefit of being true.

Former White House speech writer and 9/11 Commission senior aid Michael Johns has posted a terrific piece, Charlie Wilson's War Was Really America's War, on his blog that clears away much of the fog that has blown in of late, covering the unlikely accomplishments of a relatively small number of visionaries (Charlie Wilson, Ronald Reagan, et al.) in bringing down the Soviet Empire and also in attempting to stop the growth of Al-Qaeda. Using the recent movie, Charlie Wilson's War (based on the eponymous book) as a frame of reference, Johns sets the record straight on the singular importance of US assistance to the Afghan freedom fighters following the 1970's invasion of that country, in the endgame of the Cold War. He also highlights how despite active US concern and intervention Osama bin-Laden and other non-Afghan forces began to emerge. Contrary to the Left's reinvention of this particular historical event, bin-Laden was not a creation of the CIA or the US at all . In fact, the Reagan Administration was aware of and sensitive to the mujahideen's concern over bin-Laden and his nascent movement, often taking direct, if covert action to mitigate its influence.

History often echoes to us here in the present and the events of that time sound eerily familiar to us as we hear the struggles of our current war. Like today, the Democrats of the 80's and 90's did all in their power to block a Republican president's long-range and ambitious plan to confront an implacable enemy. There was nothing sure and certain about the positive result of the final days of the Soviet Union just as there is nothing sure and certain about the results of our current conflict. In retrospect it is easy to see that our failure then would have been a continuing catastrophe for millions of people world-wide. What awful consequences might our failure now bring upon the world? Without remembering the past as it actually happened and learning its lessons it is possible we might just find out to our deep regret.