Posted by: ST on August 11, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Via FoxNews:
LONDON — Police arrested 40 people in cities throughout Italy in raids on Muslim gathering places in a security crackdown after Britain thwarted an alleged terror plot, the Interior Ministry said Friday, as Pakistani intelligence agents claimed there was an Al Qaeda connection with ties to Afghanistan to the group of suspected terrorists arrested Thursday.
The arrests in Italy were made Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence, Naples and other cities on Thursday and Friday “as part of an extraordinary operation that followed the British anti-terrorist operation,” the ministry said in a statement.
Twenty-eight people were arrested for violating rules on residence permits and 12 were arrested for property crimes, the statement said. The raids were made on “Islamic gathering places, including call centers, Internet points and money transfer” offices, the ministry said
The global war on terror rages on, while in the meantime the war on Lieberman here at home continues. Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of the WSJ’s editorial page, explains the consequences for the Democratic party’s knifing Joe Lieberman in the back on the ‘eve of the airliner plot’:
That was unfortunate timing this week for the Lamont Democrats, declaring themselves officially the antiwar party within 24 hours of the Brits foiling an Islamic terror plot to spread thousands of U.S.-bound bodies across the North Atlantic, or perhaps across New York, Boston and Washington as the planes descended. Yes, we know; they support the war on terror but are merely against George Bush’s war in Iraq. How does that work?
Last week before the Lamont victory, 12 members of the congressional Democratic leadership sent President Bush a letter urging that he start a phased pullout from Iraq, euphemized as a “redeployment,” starting before the end of this year. But it is becoming increasingly fantastic to argue that Iraq, with its apparently limitless supply of suicide bombers, hasn’t much to do with the terror threats manifest elsewhere.
Put it this way: From the perspective as of yesterday of getting on a U.S. airliner, who would you rather have in the Senate formulating policy toward this threat–Ned Lamont or Joe Lieberman?
Well, the Democratic Party would rather have Ned Lamont. That commitment was sealed Wednesday when Mr. Lieberman’s longtime colleagues in the Senate, in one of the least edifying spectacles in recent political history, pledged their troth to the one-issue neophyte, Ned Lamont. Sens. Kennedy, Kerry, Clinton, Biden, Reid and, most embarrassing of all, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, participated in what can only be seen as a tragic Shakespearean assassination of a former colleague.
With the knifing of Joe Lieberman, the Democrats have locked in as the antiwar party. No turning back now. You’re in or you’re out. And this will be enforced. Susan Estrich, formerly of Dukakis for President, told the Fox News Channel this week that Hillary Clinton “has got to get herself in a position where she’s for withdrawal of troops in Iraq before the next Democratic primary.”
Running as the antiwar party amid a world obviously vulnerable to pitiless terror will require political suppleness. But the younger generation of Democratic activists–widely praised for their irreverence and antic energy–may not fit the sober public mood now.
This isn’t the moment for a politics based on comics turning the president and vice president into joke material. The national mood may not be right now for extended blogospheric daisy chains of smack-the-enemy or cool wordplays with people’s names. This isn’t a game anymore. Not after yesterday’s news.
[...]
Yesterday brought an Islamic plot to blow up people on airliners. The news cycle before that brought Hezbollah’s Katyusha rockets into Israel and a war in Lebanon. Before that, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would give the West its reply to demands to halt nuclear bomb-making on Aug. 22, the anniversary of Muhammad’s flight to heaven on a winged horse. Before that, in July, North Korea fired ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan (a little-noticed assessment by U.S. and Japanese technicians concluded this week that six of the seven missiles fell within their targets).
And in the past year, Democratic leaders have criticized not just in Iraq but warrantless wiretaps of suspected terrorists, interrogation techniques at Guantanamo, the Swift financial monitoring program, and data-mining phone records. The pull-out-from-Iraq letter was just the culmination.
This is the context in which the post-Lamont Democratic establishment plans to run as an antiwar party. Commencing a phased withdrawal from Iraq, as they suggest, with the mission unfinished, in my view will cause suicide-bomber recruitment to skyrocket in a delirium of victory over the American infidels. And those bombers won’t remain inside the imaginary security line around Iraq but will travel to the capitals of Europe, to Israel and to the U.S.
In a better world, the U.S. war on terror, at its core, would be bipartisan. That world was what Joe Lieberman’s politics represented. That world is dead. Democratic support for the Republican administration’s plans to fight these terrorists is down to about zero. This means the Democrats must have a plan of their own to defeat terror. Every Republican running for office at every level this fall should force his opponent to describe it. And if they aren’t certain about the details, they can call Ned Lamont.
Lawrence O’Donnell, writing at HuffPo, predicts Lieberman will drop out of the CT Senate race next month:
Joe Lieberman will drop out. He probably knows right now that the day will come in late September when he will announce his withdrawal from the race. No one is going to have to talk him into it. By that time, the Democratic Party power structure will be doing its thing for Ned Lamont and Lieberman will be trailing by double digits.
It won’t be a hard decision for Lieberman. He will drop out to avoid career-ending humiliation.
Wishful thinking on his part, I believe. But we shall see.
O’Donnell’s a fool (not that that’s news). Lieberman will win in November, barring Democrat dirty tricks. Either way, Lamont’s win in the primary has greatly increased the chances that the Republicans retain control of Congress this year, and put them well on the way to winning in ’08, too. Enjoy your “Nedrenaline,” fools.
Can’t wait to hear the Campaign slogans and press conferences of the Democratic candidates. This should be fun.
Suicide by the Democratic Party. Good times, good times.
Stop it, yer killin’ me!!!
Cant stand Lawrence O’Donnell, they had to take him off msnbc for awhile last year, he flipped out was yelling and doing weird stuff, guess his meds have kicked in cuz I’m seeing him there with pat, isolationist man, I am having a brain fart, can’t , oh wait, Pat Buchannan, I am seeing them on alot.
If Lieberman chooses to run as an Independent he should win easily over pencil neck lamont. The London deals proves pencil neck has NO CLUE WHAT WE FACE.
- Well Lieberman has already filled as an Independent, so all the yammering of the Kos Kids had exactly the opposite effect than they hoped. Some of the other weinies like Richardson, just lost what little respect I had for him, by folding early and often. The stigma of “cut and run”, has now been branded into all Democratic foreheads, so it would appear the “Permissives” have managed to take a normal out year, where they had good chances for gains, and drive it right over the cliff.
- When you see the vitriolic and brain-twisted way they talk about anything and everything, I think they don’t give a damn if all this anti-war thing backfires on them and sinks the party. they strike me as psople who would sell their mothers for power, and don’t care if it all falls apart. Can’t you just feel the love. Isn’t that just the sort of people you’d want running the show. Particularly when we’re in the middle of a culteral struggle to the death. yeh. Me too. I won’t even say the words.
- In the mean time the Left is all a twitter over the fact that they finally got a win. That it was only 52% of the Dems, never mind the Indpendents and Conservatives, that voted for Nediot, or that they took down one of their own, so desperate for a win, they don’t care. Personally watching this sort of “strategy”, I’m caustiously optimistic.
- Wait till they take on the Clintonista’s and the Clinton political machine. I’ve already seen some comments from the Clinton supporting side of things, and they’re sort of not happy. Should be fun to watch the two sides go at it.
- Bang
Lieberman should drop out. Up until Tuesday he called him self a Democrat and the people of his party decided someone else could represent them better. That’s called democracy folks. That’s what makes this country great!
Sorry Tom, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Lieberman has the support of a large number of the people in his State. It looks like he has the majority if recent polls are accurate. A primary election is nothing more than a party election. It is NOT representative of “the people”, but merely representative of the people belonging to a particular group. That particuylar group has changed. If “the people” of CT want Lieberman and his political philosophy rather than the “new” Dems or the old republicans, then they should support Lieberman regardless of affiliation. THAT is democracy.
The Dems are turning toward 1972 and a “progressive” platform with the direction of a homing pigeon. Lamont bragged his first vote was for McGovern. In WV, almost everyone I know is a Bush-hating Dem. But when I bring up specifics of the “Progressive” philosophy of the Kossites, the same people reject the message. The most liberal party in one of the most liberal states in the US, voted in Lamont by 3%. This party is in total disarray. If the Repubs weren’t such idiots, they would be sitting pretty.
So, Tom, if you’re so enamored of democracy, you should have no problem with Lieberman running as an indendent. After all, keeping him off the ballot just reduces the number of choices the People have, and we wouldn’t want to do that now would we. Unless, as I suspect, your idea of democracy is the old Soviet one candidate system, whoever is ideologically pure and approved by the Party. Da?
I gotta come back to Tom’s inane comment. That’s just typical of the Left. Attempting to force someone off the ballot, to restrict the choices, and then calling it “democracy.” JC on a pogo stick, that’s democracy?!?! WTF? No wonder fascism always comes from the socialist left…all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than other.
Tom, go on back to kos and codie pinkie, they appreicate assinine comments on their blogspots. Sister and us don’t have time for your bs dem talking point and none of us her like or drink kool-aid.
Lieberman should do exactly what he is doing. It is his right, and you all are to stupid to realize the consequences of your stupidity. If someone shouldn’t have run it should of been Ned Lamont. If he cared 1 wit for the Dem party he should of negotiated a way to what he wanted from Lieberman, not this “pre-emptive” strike against Lieberman and the direction he is taking the party. You all have no clue as to what consequences are do you?? Lieberman said if he lost he was going to do this, and now that the very short honeymoon is over for Lamont, you idiots have come to your senses and realized you just lost a senate seat. But somehow I am sure it is all George Bush’s fault. – Lorica
- You guys are not Democrats tom. You’re National Socialists, and we all know what that means, and how well THAT worked the last time. When you put on your Marxist masks, things get even better, like 40+ years of utopia in Cuba, and we all know how well THAT worked.
(Remember Kommrads. We do all the thinking for you, so you don’t have to! – Brought to you by Laika the space dog – beaming truthiness to tinhats everywhere since 1957.)
- Bang
Like Reagan said, ” I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left me.”
It’s time to begin speaking out on how appeasement policies lead to the current situation in the Middle East.
Start with this book by ultraliberal Democrat Alan Dershowitz:
“Why Terrorism Works”
Here’s the tinyurl.com web address redux for the Amazon.com listing of Dershwitz’s book:
http://tinyurl.com/mnuxo