Radio Free Dar al Harb July 5 Show Announcement

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Big show, bigger guest, tune in to hear the famous Andrew Bostom.

High Noon EST, 60 minutes

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–
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If you can stomach reading the scum propaganda, this is what the Iranians
are saying about Syria, Israel and the US.

Several articles, with URLs, are featured.

Ron

==========================
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=62507

&sectionid=351020104

Iran: Attacking our N-sites means war
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:38:05

Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari
The top Islamic Revolution Guards Corps commander warns that any attack on
Iran’s nuclear facilities would lead to the outbreak of war.
"Any action against Iran will be interpreted as the start of a war," Major
General Mohammad-Ali Jafari told reporters Thursday.
He made the remarks when asked about increasing rumors of a potential US or
Israeli attack on Iran, IRNA reported.
The IRGC commander warned that Iran’s response to any act of aggression
would make the invaders ‘regret’ their decision.
Washington has never ruled out the possibility of resorting to the use of
force against Iran over its nuclear program and reports suggest that the
Israeli regime is preparing for a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

This is while Washington and Tel Aviv, which accuse Tehran of seeking a
military nuclear program, claim they favor a diplomatic solution to the
standoff.
Refusing to give up its nuclear drive, Iran insists as a signatory to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the country is entitled to a civilian nuclear
program.
In its most recent report, the UN nuclear watchdog conceded that there is no
link between the use of nuclear material and the ‘alleged studies’ of
weaponization in Iran’s nuclear facilities.
MD/HGH

Related News
Iran: Nuclear compromise can be reached

Russia: Waging war on Iran, catastrophic

US: Oil blockade constitutes an act of war

Israel prods Americans into war with Iran

======================
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=62499

&sectionid=351020101
Iran: Our Syria ties will remain strong
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:01:40

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says no power can adversely
affect the age-old strategic relations between Tehran and Damascus.
In an exclusive interview with Arabic-language Alalam TV channel, Mottaki
said Iran supports Syria’s efforts to take back the Golan Heights.
The Golan was seized by Israel in 1967 and annexed in 1981 in a move, which
has not been recognized by the international community.
Turning to the issue of the package of incentives presented to Iran by the
five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (G5+1),
Mottaki asserted that dialogue will continue in hopes of finding a solution
to Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West.
He added that Iranian officials are evaluating the G5+1 proposal.
The Western package of incentives was delivered to Iran by EU foreign policy
chief Javier Solana on June 14. The package requires Tehran to stop uranium
enrichment in exchange for political and economic benefits.
The US and its allies accuse Iran of making efforts to develop nuclear arms.
Tehran, however, asserts that it has not diverted from uranium enrichment
for peaceful purposes.
The UN Security Council has so far imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran
to force the country to suspend its uranium enrichment work.
HRF/AA

=================================
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=62413

&sectionid=3510303
Israel prods Americans into war with Iran
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:45:03
By Dex A. Eastman, Press TV, Tehran

The 5th Fleet’s USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group
As the clash between the US and Israel on the one hand and Iran on the other
reaches a critical level, the powers that be have been desperately at work
spinning a web of deception that may take the already war-exhausted
Americans into the military conflict of the century, a confrontation that
could eventually escalate into World War III.
"They will not close it… They will not be allowed to close it," declared
Vice Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff at a Monday press conference in Bahrain.
The closure by Iranians of the Strait of Hormuz constitutes an "act of war"
and would "not be an action against the United States but against the
international community", continued the commander of the US Navy 5th Fleet.
But little did the respected Vice Admiral know that the morally bankrupt
echelons in Washington and the siege-mentality-enduring people of means had
plans for him and his fleet.
PAX AMERICANA
The scheme gained momentum, perhaps, on May 21, when Haaretz reported that
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suggested in an over-lunch conversation
with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Israel that a naval blockade be
imposed on Iran.
"The present economic sanctions on Iran have exhausted themselves," an
under-fire Olmert tol

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Bloggers take aim at Google

Was Google’s network of online services manipulated to silence critics
of Barack Obama? That was the question buzzing on a corner of the
blogosphere over the past few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers
were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger
service.

The bloggers, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton and all
of whom are critical of Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential
nominee, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites
had been identified as potential spam blogs.

"You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your
site and confirm that it is not a spam blog," the Google e-mail read.

Many of the bloggers were affiliated with JustSayNoDeal.com, a Web site
opposed to an Obama presidency.

In an article that appeared on Bloggasm.com, the reporter Simon Owens
spoke with some of the affected bloggers, who said they believed that
Google had fallen prey to a campaign by Obama advocates. According to
the bloggers, Obama supporters clicked on a "flag" on the anti-Obama
blogs to make Google believe that they were spam.

Should that be the case, it would be an embarrassment for Google.

On its Web page explaining the "flag" feature, Google says that "it
can’t be manipulated by angry mobs. Political dissent? Incendiary
opinions? Just plain crazy? Bring it on."

On Monday, Google did not explicitly rebut the idea that it had been
tricked but said that the cause of the temporary blockage appeared to be
elsewhere.

"It appears that our anti-spam filters caused some Blogger accounts to
be blocked from creating new posts," a Google spokesman, Adam
Kovacevich, said in a statement. "While we are still investigating, we
believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the
‘Just Say No Deal’ network of blogs, which in turn caused our system to
classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam."

Kovacevich said that Google had restored posting rights to the affected
blogs and that it was "very important" to Google "that Blogger remain a
tool for political debate and free expression." He gave no further
details about Google’s spam-monitoring techniques or how they relate to
the Blogger service.

Some of the blocked bloggers have reported that their sites have since
become unblocked. But some of them had already moved their blogs to
WordPress, a rival blogging service, and remain angry about what they
call Google’s "guilty until proven innocent" policy.

"Without any notice, apology, or explanation, my posting privilege has
been reinstated," wrote the author of the blog Come a Long Way, who
identifies herself as GeekLove. "As bloggers, it is a good thing we
still have choices, and I have exercised my choice to leave Blogger and
establish a new home at WordPress."

Carissa Snedeker, of Silver Springs, Nevada, whose Blue Lyon blog was
affected by the temporary freeze, said she did not believe Google’s
explanation and that she was still convinced that Obama supporters
"flagged" her blog. Yet she is mostly upset at Google.

"What frustrated me was that Blogger didn’t give us the benefit of the
doubt," Snedeker said, adding that she had been publishing her blog on
the site for three years. "It would have taken a human five seconds to
figure out we are not spam," she said.

Her blog is now hosted on WordPress.

Wall Street Journal
July 3, 2008
Pg. 10

The Enemy Detainee Mess

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has departed for summer vacation, but
what a mess he’s left behind, especially for the U.S. military. His
5-4 decision requiring habeas corpus review for foreign terrorists is
already creating confusion and problems about how to handle these dangerous
enemies.

The Bush Administration is currently debating how to respond to Mr.
Kennedy’s war-fighting ukase in Boumediene v. Bush, with President Bush set
to make a decision soon. Some in the Administration want Mr. Bush to abolish
not merely Guantanamo but even military commissions, the special tribunals
set up to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others for their war crimes. This
would compound the mistake of Boumediene, and do away with what has long
been a useful tool of military justice.

It is already clear to nearly everyone in the Administration that it will be
impossible for the U.S. to hold most detainees from now on.
That’s true not merely at Gitmo, but even in Afghanistan, Iraq and other
foreign battlefields. Earlier this month, lawyers filed a lawsuit on behalf
of a detainee held at the U.S. military prison at Bagram air base near
Kabul. It’s only a matter of time before suits are filed demanding habeas
writs for anyone captured and held by GIs for any length of time anywhere in
the world.

Regrettably, the Administration will now have to let most enemy fighters go.
The burden of gathering enough evidence to meet the habeas standards of U.S.
federal courts is simply too great under battlefield conditions
- and in any case is far too dangerous. This week a panel of the D.C.
Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the enemy combatant status of a Gitmo
detainee captured after training in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. The press
has reported this as if the Bush Administration had invented a case against
an innocent shepherd. But the truth is that in the fog of battle it is
impossible to gather evidence the way a Manhattan cop can.
There’s no "CSI: Kandahar."

While GIs gathered shell casings or interviewed witnesses to meet a U.S.
judge’s habeas standard, they would leave themselves open to counterattack
or sniper fire. No commander - and no Commander in Chief - can ask his
troops to put themselves in danger to satisfy Justice Kennedy’s legal
afflatus. This is what Justice Antonin Scalia meant when he wrote that
Americans will die as a result of Boumediene.

Justice Kennedy won’t want to hear this, but this means that some enemy
combatants will be shot on the battlefield rather than captured. Most who
are captured will be interrogated for a brief time and released.
Some will be set free entirely, while others will be handed over to the
tender mercies of our allies on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The U.S. will still require some kind of detention for the worst combatants
- such as KSM, and others we will want to put on trial. But if Gitmo is no
longer a prison, some U.S. domestic prison will have to house these men
while they await a habeas hearing and trial. If a habeas court finds the
evidence against them unpersuasive, they can then be held only for six
months under immigration law before they are deported.
If no country will accept them, the possibility exists that they will be
released here. It will be fascinating to watch the Congressfolk who cheered
Boumediene now saying "not in my backyard." What does Pat Leahy think about
a Vermont destination?

That still leaves the issue of trials for those who are found to be enemy
combatants. The State Department is arguing that Mr. Bush should now cashier
the entire post-9/11 system, including Gitmo and military commissions. The
argument is that the U.S. will get no diplomatic benefit from refusing to
hold future detainees as long as the commissions continue. In any case,
State’s legal sages say, the Supreme Court will eventually declare military
commissions unconstitutional too.

But we doubt even Justice Kennedy would disallow commissions, which have
existed throughout American history. After the Civil War, they were even
used against the KKK’s attempts to defeat Reconstruction of the South.
After six long years, about 20 enemy combatants (including KSM) are now set
for the tribunals, and multiple trials are under way. If Mr. Bush shuts down
the commissions at this late date, the military justice process would have
to start over.

It would insult the 9/11 families if justice for KSM and the others who
planned those attacks is delayed once again. Assuming they are convicted,
they will have the right of appeal. But would five Supreme Court Justices
really set free the men who plotted the murders of 3,000 Americans? As for
diplomacy, those who dislike America won’t bother to distinguish between
military commissions and courts martial. They’ll find any military trials
unfair.

The killers of 9/11 need to be put o

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Wounded Nation

AFTER bathing in the warm, fuzzy glow of the Mandela years, South
Africans today are deeply demoralised people. The lights are going out
in homes, mines, factories and shopping malls as the national power
authority, Eskom - suffering from mismanagement, lack of foresight, a
failure to maintain power stations and a flight of skilled engineers to
other countries - implements rolling power cuts that plunge towns and cities
into daily chaos.

Major industrial projects are on hold. The only healthy enterprise now
worth being involved in is the sale of small diesel generators to
powerless households but even this business has run out of supplies and
spare parts from China.

The currency, the rand, has entered freefall. Crime, much of it
gratuitously violent, is rampant, and the national police chief faces
trial for corruption and defeating the ends of justice as a result of
his alleged deals with a local mafia kingpin and dealer in hard drugs.

Newly elected African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma, the
state president-in-waiting, narrowly escaped being jailed for raping an
HIV-positive woman last year, and faces trial later this year for
soliciting and accepting bribes in connection with South Africa’s shady
multi-billion-pound arms deal with British, German and French weapons
manufacturers.

One local newspaper columnist suggests that Zuma has done for South
Africa’s international image what Borat has done for Kazakhstan. ANC
leaders in 2008 still speak in the spiritually dead jargon they learned
in exile in pre-1989 Moscow, East Berlin and Sofia while promiscuously
embracing capitalist icons
- Mercedes 4×4s, Hugo Boss suits, Bruno Magli shoes and Louis Vuitton
bags which they swing, packed with money passed to them under countless
tables - as they wing their way to their houses in the south of France.

It all adds up to a hydra-headed crisis of huge proportions - a perfect
storm as the Rainbow Nation slides off the end of the rainbow and
descends in the direction of the massed ranks of failed African states.
Eskom has warned foreign investors with millions to sink into big
industrial and mining projects: we don’t want you here until at least
2013, when new power stations will be built.

In the first month of this year, the rand fell 12% against the world’s
major currencies and foreign investors sold off more than £600 million
worth of South African stocks, the biggest sell-off for more than seven
years.

"There will be further outflows this month, because there won’t be any
news that will convince investors the local growth picture is going to
change for the better," said Rudi van der Merwe, a fund manager at
South Africa’s Standard Bank.

Commenting on the massive power cuts, Trevor Gaunt, professor of
electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town, who warned the
government eight years ago of the impending crisis, said: "The damage
is huge, and now South Africa looks just like the rest of Africa. Maybe
it will take 20 years to recover."

The power cuts have hit the country’s platinum, gold, manganese and
high-quality export coal mines particularly hard, with no production on
some days and only 40% to 60% on others.

"The shutdown of the mining industry is an extraordinary, unprecedented
event," said Anton Eberhard, a leading energy expert and professor of
business studies at the University of Cape Town.

"That’s a powerful message, massively damaging to South Africa’s
reputation for new investment. Our country was built on the mines."

To examine how the country, widely hailed as Africa’s last best chance,
arrived at this parlous state, the particular troubles engulfing the
Scorpions (the popular name of the National Prosecuting Authority)
offers a useful starting point.

The elite unit, modelled on America’s FBI and operating in close
co-operation with Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), is one of the
big successes of post-apartheid South Africa. An independent
institution, separate from the slipshod South African Police Service,
the Scorpions enjoy massive public support.

The unit’s edict is to focus on people "who commit and profit from
organised crime", and it has been hugely successful in carrying out its
mandate. It has pursued and pinned down thousands of high-profile and
complex networks of national and international corporate and public
fraudsters.

Drug kingpins, smugglers and racketeers have felt the Scorpions’ sting.
A major gang that smuggle platinum, South Africa’s biggest foreign
exchange earner, to a corrupt English smelting plant has been bust as
the result of a huge joint operation between the SFO and the Scorpions.
But the Scorpions, whose top men were trained by Scotland Yard, have
been too successful for their own good.

The ANC government never anticipated the crack crimebusters would take
their constitutional indep

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Why America Is The Greatest Country On Earth
By Ben Shapiro
CNSNews.com Commentary
July 02, 2008

I was sitting at lunch with a colleague a few weeks back, and he mentioned
that he did not understand the general media hubbub over Michelle Obama’s
unpatriotic statements.

"So she said that she hadn’t been proud of America in her adult life," he
said. "So what?"

I answered that many Americans, rightly, were offended at the idea that a
prospective First Lady of the United States was not proud of her country.
"If you don’t believe this is the best country on earth, don’t live here," I
said.

"That’s ‘love it or leave it,’" he answered. "I don’t have to love
everything about this country."

"That’s right, you don’t," I stated. "But if you don’t believe in the
essential goodness of America’s founding principles — if you don’t believe
that those principles constitute the greatest set of essential values ever
instituted on a national scale — then you don’t belong here."

He was insulted. The typical liberal talking point states that patriotism is
jingoism because America’s founding principles are so much claptrap — that
modern values trump those old-fashioned ideas. But that should be an
automatic disqualifier for political victory in this country. Disavowing the
thoughts underlying the Declaration of Independence and Constitution is a
tragic surrender to nihilism, a surrender to the barbarism of the French
Revolution.

Liberals often ask for a definition of American values.

Let’s begin with what such values are not. They are not the "evolving
standards of decency" of Justice Anthony Kennedy. And they are certainly not
the vague prescriptions of Barack Obama, who preaches unity but never
explains precisely which Americans values are supposed to unify us.

They are the values held in common by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They
are the values shared by James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and George
Washington. Here are some of those values:

Free enterprise allows every American the opportunity to succeed.
Encroachment on free enterprise by government violates the basic right to
pursuit of happiness.

Freedom of political speech is a vital component for a functioning republic.
Such freedom must not be disturbed by complaints about fairness or whining
about the "tenor" of modern campaigning. The hurly-burly of politics allows
truth to rise to the surface.

Traditional moral values must be the basis of the republic. Freedom without
any societal moral compass leaves the nation adrift in a relativistic sea.
The same sea that swamps traditional morality sinks the ship of state.

America must be defended and her liberties spread abroad when possible.
Kowtowing to international multiculturalism promotes tyranny.

The left disagrees with these values. Free enterprise is to be opposed in
order to rectify inequality. Free speech is to be contained to quash the
extremism of political discourse. Traditional morality is intolerant and
therefore to be jettisoned. And defending American values demonstrates
bigoted ethnocentrism.

There are certain countries in which the founding philosophy is deeply
flawed. America is not one of them. There are certain countries for which
patriotism should be a sin. America is not one of them.

American history, in all of its most glorious permutations, represents the
outgrowth of our founding philosophy. Only by accepting the greatness of
America’s founding philosophy can we hope to ensure that freedom flourishes
at home and around the globe.

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Lots of Questions, Little Agreement at D.C. Hearing on Gun Laws

By Nikita Stewart and Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 3, 2008; B01

A D.C. Council
hearing on the Supreme Court’s historic rejection
of the 32-year-old District handgun ban drew relatively few witnesses
yesterday but generated plenty of questions about what it means and how the
city will comply with it.

How does a trigger lock work? Does it take three seconds to prepare a gun to
fire or 30 minutes? And what is the definition of "immediate self-defense"?

The high court ruled, 5 to 4, that requiring gun owners to keep their
weapons unloaded and disassembled or disabled by a trigger lock violates the
Second Amendment because a firearm is not at the ready for immediate
self-defense.

Council member Phil Mendelson
(D-At Large) has proposed legislation that would essentially keep the
D.C. law but insert a broad "exception" for gun owners who keep their
firearms at home for "immediate self-defense." It also would repeal the
handgun ban.

The council probably will not vote on the bill until fall, Mendelson said.
But Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D)
is expected to offer an emergency measure July 15, at the last
legislative meeting before the council’s summer recess, that would put the
city in compliance.

But some witnesses said yesterday that the city would still be violating the
Constitution if it implemented the "exception" and kept a ban on
semiautomatic weapons. Other witnesses disagreed.

It was a relatively short four-hour hearing, with about 20 witnesses and a
sparse audience, given the issues of gun control and gun violence in the
District and the national debate prompted by last week’s ruling.

Ricardo Royal, a firearms educator from Edgewater, offered to train council
members in handling a gun so they would have firsthand knowledge about it,
an offer declined in the past.

"I am here as Ricardo, the gun-safety man," he told the three members at the
Public Safety and Judiciary Committee
hearing. "A training program that includes
mandatory handling exercises and a section on the specifics of the D.C. law
would be a good start."

When questioned by council member Mary M. Cheh
(D-Ward 3), he recommended 10 hours of training.

Cheh asked whether there were "trigger locks that can be disengaged in three
seconds." Royal and other gun rights witnesses said that would be
impossible.

Police Lt. Jon Shelton testified that lawyer Walter E. Dellinger III, who
argued the city’s case before the Supreme Court, was provided a trigger lock
with a number code. "He was able to pull it off in a matter of a second or
two," Shelton said.

Shelton testified alongside Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham, who
stepped in for Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier
, who was attending the wake of a Prince George’s County
officer. Newsham said the D.C. police department is drafting
emergency regulations to address specifics about the registration of
handguns, including an amnesty program for current owners of illegal
handguns.

Mendelson had been upset about the absence of anyone from the city attorney
general’s office at the meeting. Interim Attorney General Peter Nickles sent
Mendelson a letter requesting that the council delay action until the
administration can draft regulations and legislation to be considered at the
July 15 session.

The most fiery speeches came from two District residents on opposite sides:
community activist Absalom Jordan, a member of the National Rifle
Association
, and Ronald L. Moten, an ex-offender and co-founder of the
anti-violence group Peaceoholics.

Moten recalled getting guns from Virginia and Maryland as a youth and urged
the council to institute a 20-year sentence for dealers who sell firearms to
minors. He also said semiautomatic weapons should remain banned.

Jordan said, "I’ve waited 32 years for my constitutional rights to be
validated."

He said he worked as a council aide in the 1970s and wrote gun registration
legislation that was never put on the table. "He threw it out the window,"
Jordan said, referring to then-council Chairman David A. Clarke, who
shepherded the city’s law.

Josh Horwitz, executive director of the

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The Troop Surge Was a Success
By Terence P. Jeffrey
CNSNews.com Editor in Chief
July 02, 2008

Page 12 of a Government Accountability Office report published on June 23
features data about the war in Iraq — drawn from the Defense Intelligence
Agency — that must be central to the debate about what the United States
does next in that country.

It indicates we have started to win a war we cannot afford to lose.

The GAO report is titled, "Securing, Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq;
Progress Report: Some Gains Made, Updated Strategy Needed."

The key DIA data is presented as a chart, titled "Enemy Initiated Attacks by
Month, May 2003 to May 2008."

The chart itself is comprised of color-coded vertical bars that illustrate
the overall number of enemy attacks that took place in Iraq in each month
from May 2003 to May 2008. Part of each bar is colored dark gray to
represent the number of attacks on coalition forces, part is colored light
gray to represent the attacks on civilians, and part is colored white to
represent the attacks on Iraqi security forces.

The first fact the chart reveals: We are now almost two years past the point
where overall enemy attacks in Iraq (the combined number of attacks against
civilians, Iraqi forces and coalition forces) peaked.

The second fact the chart reveals: The peak in overall enemy attacks was
reached in October 2006 — the month leading up to the 2006 U.S.
congressional elections.

The third fact the chart reveals: Attacks against coalition forces (not
counting the attacks against Iraqi civilians and Iraqi forces) continued to
rise after the overall number of attacks peaked, reaching their own peak in
June 2007 — the month that the U.S. troop surge went full-force.

The fourth fact the chart reveals: Since the troop surge went full-force in
June 2007, enemy attacks in Iraq have dropped dramatically.

"(T)he overall levels of violence in Iraq — as measured by enemy-initiated
attacks — decreased about 70 percent from June 2007 to February 2008," says
the GAO report, "a significant reduction from the high levels of violence in
2006 and the first half of 2007."

While attacks increased somewhat in March and April of this year, they
dropped again in May, falling to a level even lower than they had in
February.

Meanwhile, al-Qaida in Iraq has been delivered a staggering blow — although
not a knockout punch

"According to MNF-I, DOD and State reports, rejection of al-Qaida in Iraq by
significant portions of the population and operations to disrupt AQI
networks have helped decrease violence in Iraq," says GAO. "However, AQI is
not defeated and maintains the ability to carry out high-profile attacks."

What caused these good things to happen?

The GAO attributes them to: "(1) the increase in U.S. combat forces, (2) the
creation of nongovernmental security forces such as Sons of Iraq and (3) the
Mahdi Army’s declaration of a ceasefire."

But would Nos. 2 and 3 have happened had the United States not done No. 1?

Surely, the Sunni insurgents who made the political decision to stop
fighting the United States and start defending their own communities were
informed by the surge, as, no doubt, was the Mahdi Army.

And that is not the only political progress the surge inspired. The Iraqi
government has also enacted laws liberalizing the de-Baathification measures
taken earlier in the war, providing amnesty to some insurgents and setting a
deadline for provincial elections.

It is true that other major reforms have not been accomplished. These
include enacting laws setting the actual procedures for provincial
elections, distributing Iraq’s vast oil resources, disarming militias and
amending Iraq’s constitution to facilitate sustainable reconciliation
between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds.

So, the question now is, which strategic decision by our own politicians is
more likely to bring victory? Should we continue the strategy that delivered
the security and political progress of the past year? Or should we abandon
it and begin withdrawing from the country?

In truth, the most important sign of progress in Iraq was not included in
the GAO report: Our casualties have declined.

Using a database of U.S. casualties constructed by Cybercast News Service
from Defense Department information, my Cybercast News Service colleague
Kevin Mooney has reported that in the first five months of 2008, the United
States suffered 14 casualties in Anbar Province, down 89 percent from the
124 suffered in the first five months of last year. U.S. casualties in the
province are now the lowest since 2003.

Comparing May 2007 to May 2008, IED-caused casualties across all of Iraq
also declined 89 percent (from 84 to 9).

President Bush’s decision to send more troops and Gen. David Petraeus plan
for using them, resulted in more security in Iraq, more political progress
and fewer American dead. The Battle

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Police Investigate Bomb Threat at LAX
Wednesday, July 02, 2008

LOS ANGELES -

A man was detained Wednesday after allegedly making a bomb threat to police
at Los Angeles International Airport, prompting authorities to ground
several flights and halt traffic into the area.

The man, whose name was not released, walked up to an officer, dropped a
backpack at his feet outside the international terminal and made threats,
said police spokesman Jim Holcomb.

No explosives were found on the man or in his backpack, FBI spokeswoman
Laura Eimiller said.

"He said, ‘I’m a terrorist, I’ve got a bomb in the bag and I’m going to blow
it up now,"’ Holcomb told The Associated Press. Holcomb described the man as
between 25 and 30 years old.

The bag was seized for inspection. Holcomb said a police bomb squad squirted
the bag with a water cannon and the bag did not explode.

Authorities shut down traffic near the airport’s terminal 3 while the threat
was investigated. Holcomb said flights at several terminals were also
grounded but that normal operations would likely resume by early afternoon.

Airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles said no one was evacuated from inside the
terminals but the upper and lower roadways near terminal 3 were closed.

Holcomb said the man was taken to the police station for questioning.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,375462,00.html
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July 2, 2008

Airport’s Ban on Guns Is Disputed in Atlanta

By
JOHN SULLIVAN

New York Times

A decision by Georgia legislators to relax the state’s gun laws has led to a
dispute over whether people can legally carry concealed firearms in the
nation’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International.

A Georgia gun rights group filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in
Atlanta on Tuesday after airport officials said they would continue to
enforce a ban on concealed weapons in the terminal despite the changes to
the state law. The changes, which were approved by the Georgia legislature
in the spring and took effect on Tuesday, relax the state’s prohibition on
carrying weapons on public transportation and in some other areas, including
restaurants serving alcohol.

Benjamin R. DeCosta, the airport director, said the changes applied only to
public transportation like buses and the city subway and were not intended
to allow people to carry guns at the airport. He said allowing civilians to
carry concealed weapons in the terminal, which serves millions of travelers
each year, would pose severe problems for the police and airport security
workers.

"We want to make sure the airport is safe and secure," Mr. DeCosta said. He
added that airports had previously been the targets of terrorists and that
"there should be no ambiguity to law enforcement as to whether people should
be carrying weapons here."

Mr. DeCosta said lawyers for the city of Atlanta, which owns the airport,
had determined that the changes to the law did not change the airport’s ban
on guns.

"Our view is that the law yesterday was the same as it is today," Mr.
DeCosta said Tuesday. "If somebody comes through here tomorrow or the next
day with guns, they will be handled in the appropriate manner."

The argument concerns only whether people with gun permits can carry
concealed firearms in the public areas of the terminal. Restricted areas,
including spaces beyond security checkpoints, are governed by federal law,
which forbids unauthorized firearms in those areas.

The dispute in Atlanta comes at a time when the regulation of firearms
across the country is changing. In a decision last month, the
United States Supreme Court supported the
individual right to own a gun for personal use. In a 5-to-4 decision
striking down the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns, the court rejected
the view that the Second Amendment protected the right to keep arms only as
part of a "well regulated militia."

The airport’s position was challenged by
GeorgiaCarry.Org, a gun rights group that has previously challenged the city
over its ban on concealed firearms in Atlanta parks. Bill Weeks, the group’s
spokesman, said the legislature clearly meant to relax a longstanding ban on
carrying firearms on all public transportation, including at the airport.

Mr. Weeks said the old version of the law specifically forbade carrying
weapons in airport terminals, but the new version struck down that
provision. He said the law continued to restrict guns in other areas, but
not at the airport terminal.

"That was done so intentionally," Mr. Weeks said. He said Ken Beardon, a
state legislator who drafted the change to the state law, was one of the
plaintiffs in the group’s lawsuit against Atlanta over the airport ruling.

Mr. DeCosta said the city would defend the airport’s policy by arguing that
concealed firearms continued to be banned by state law in areas of public
gathering, and that the terminal should not be considered public
transportation.

"My belief is if the legislature believed this would allow people to bring
guns to the busiest airport in the world, they never would have passed it,"
he said.

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