The Cool Blue Blog

Iran Deyanat

The Iranian ship Iran Deyanat was captured by Somali pirates on August 21st. Unfortunately, this is not a very unusual happening. Somali Pirates have captured well over 30 ships and held their cargo and crew for ransom. Ransom which most often gets paid.

But with the Iran Deyanat, the pirates seem to have got more than they bargained for according to the World Tribune.

About 40 pirates, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, boarded the Iranian ship, owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in the Horn of Africa, about 130 kilometers southeast of Yemen. Iran Deyanat was registered to carry a sealed cargo of 42,500 tons minerals and industrial products to the Netherlands via Egypt's Suez Canal.

"That ship is unusual," Somali Regional Energy Minister Hassan Allore Osman, who has been investigating the Iranian ship, said. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."

"We cannot inspect the cargo yet," Osman said. "But we are sure that it is weapons."

...Within days, the pirates sustained skin burns, lost hair and became critically ill. Soon after, at least 16 pirates died.

"We don't know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died," Mwangura told the Sunday Times on Sept. 28. "There is something very wrong about that ship."

The speculation is that it's cargo was chemical weapons, or worse, nuclear material. According to The Long War Journal

The MV Iran Deyanat set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July and, according to its manifest, planned to travel to Rotterdam, where it would unload 42,500 tons of iron ore and "industrial products" purchased by a German client. Its arrival in the Gulf of Aden, Somali officials tell The Long War Journal, was suspiciously early. According to a publicly available status report on the IRISL Web site, the ship reached the Gulf on August 20 and was scheduled to reach the Suez Canal on August 27 - a seven day journey. "Depending on the speed of the ship," Puntland Minister of Ports Ahmed Siad Nur said in a phone interview on Saturday, "it should take between 4 and 5 days to reach Suez."

...The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. Within days, pirates who had boarded the ship developed strange health complications, skin burns and loss of hair. Independent sources tell The Long War Journal that a number of pirates have also died. "Yes, some of them have died. I do not know exactly how many but the information that I am getting is that some of them have died," Andrew Mwangura, Director of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, said Friday when reached by phone in Mombasa.

...the pirates told [Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore] Osman that they had attempted to inspect the ship's seven cargo containers after they developed health complications but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the "access codes" and could not open them. The delegation secured contact with the captain and the engineer by cell phone and demanded to know the nature of the cargo, however, Osman says that "they were saying different things to different people." Initially they said that the cargo contained "crude oil" but then claimed it contained "minerals."

...In a strange twist, the Iranian press claims that the U.S. has offered to pay a $7 million bribe to the pirates to "receive entry permission and search the vessel." Officials in the Pentagon and the Department of State approached for this story refused to comment on the situation. Somali officials would also not comment on any direct U.S. involvement but one high-level official in the Puntland government told The Long War Journal "I can say the ship is of interest to a lot of people, including Puntland."

The exact nature of the cargo remains a mystery but officials in Puntland and Baidoa are convinced the ship was carrying weapons to Eritrea for Islamist insurgents. "We cannot inspect the cargo yet," Osman said, "but we are sure that it is weapons."

"Puntland requested the pirates two weeks ago to hand over this Iranian ship, saying that it is carrying weapons to Eritrea," Puntland Fisheries Minister Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf told Reuters. "I have seen food and other odd items on the ship but I do not know what is hidden underneath."

In reporting on this, the Canada Free Press sums things up

So what is the “Iran Deyanat” carrying?  Nobody’s talking.  Where was it headed?  Nobody knows.

I hope somebody is trying to find out...

Lt. Col. Michael A. Manning

Lt. Col. Michael A. Manning’s actions in connection with combat operations involving conflict with an opposing force while serving as the operations officer, Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Jan. 1, 2007, to Jan. 22, 2008, have been marked by an exemplary record of accomplishments. This is directly attributable to his courageous leadership, sound judgment, meticulous planning and consistently superior personal example.

Lt. Col. Manning’s peerless ability to lead and plan is widely recognized throughout Multi-National Force – West. Several samples of his efforts include the planning and executing:

• Operation EIN NESSIR, which rid the city of Hit of insurgents and terrorists, killing an operational enemy 82mm mortar crew and uncovering over 100 weapons caches. The overall success of the operation was evident in the fact that there was not a single hostile incident in the Hit for 54 days after the operation.
  
  
• Operation HARRIS BA'SIL (March to May), designed to hunt al-Qaida in Iraq and insurgents, deny them their caches and safe havens and seize enemy held areas. The operation netted enough explosives and bomb making materials to make over 1,700 improvised explosive devices. Additionally, over 200 known insurgents were detained during this operation.
  
  
• Operation MAWTINI I-III (July to November), which involved numerous clearing and disruption operations across all of the area of operation Denver. The results of MAWTINI included 29 insurgents killed, over 1,200 suspected insurgents detained and 476 caches discovered. Five high-value individuals were captured or killed. This operation kept the enemy on his heels and unable to muster the annual Ramadan offensive.
  
  
• FAJR JADEED (December to January), which focused on continuing security in the vast desert areas of Anbar province, Iraq, and returning the urban population centers to normalcy.

One unique aspect of Lt. Col. Manning’s operational design was his ability to control and secure 500,000 Iraqi citizens. This was accomplished through extensive use of Biometric Automated Tool Sets in every village and city in the area of operation.

Throughout his entire 13-month combat deployment, Lt. Col. Manning, 40, demonstrated exceptional poise under pressure. His combat leadership, professionalism, steady devotion and war-fighting spirit were the foundation for the success and high operational tempo of Regimental Combat Team 2 in the area of operation Denver. These heroic efforts leave a lasting legacy for Iraqis and Americans alike in the fight against global terrorism.

The rules are for others

Senator Obama change you can believe in. But the Democrats promised change in 2006 too and delivered none of it.

If voters do not want to look at Obama's record while a Senator to validate his "change" cred, how about looking at how he has conducted his campaign?

It is now old news that Obama broke his promise to adhere to public financing rules becoming the first candidate to do so since Watergate. But that doesn't seem to bother folks.

Now we have validated that Obama allows and encourages identity theft in order to fund his campaign and get around campaign funding rules according to the Washington Post

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

This story first broke by the Powerline Blog back on October 5th and reports and confirmation contined through the month (here, here, here, here, here, and here)  and only recently did the Institutional media pick up on the story (here, here, and here).

Is that enough to invalidate the message of change?

No? You recall I wrote about Senator Obama's apparant dislike for the First Amendment, but it gets better. In Ohio, where a park bench is going to serve as a valid address for voters, we find that State employees were told to use official state records to dig up dirt on "Joe the Plumber"

Ohio's inspector general is investigating why a state agency director approved checking the state child-support computer system for information on "Joe the Plumber."

Helen Jones-Kelly, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed today that she OK'd the check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher following the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

She said there were no political reasons for the check on the sudden presidential campaign fixture though the Support Enforcement Tracking System.

Amid questions from the media and others about "Joe the Plumber," Jones-Kelley said she approved a check to determine if he was current on any ordered child-support payments.

Such information was not and cannot be publicly shared, she said.

And she's not the only one in Ohio looking at Joe

Toledo Police have confirmed that a TPD records clerk is accused of performing an illegal search of information related to 'Joe the Plumber.'

Julie McConnell, has been charged with Gross Misconduct for allegedly making an improper inquiry into a state database in search of information pertaining to Samuel Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16...

The inquiry into Wurzelbacher's record is a violation of department and state policy governing the use of the Law Enforcement Automated Data System.  The clerk is under fire for making the inquiry for a non-law enforcement purpose.

Now it turns out that Helen Jones-Kelly, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services

just happens to be a maximum $2300 contributor to Barack Obama.

And

Democrat Gov. Ted Strickland is satisfied that there are no political overtures to the check on Wurzelbacher, a spokesman said.  “Based on what we know to this point, we don’t have any reason to believe the information was improperly accessed or disclosed by a state employee,” said Keith Dailey, Strickland’s press secretary.

If Obama is elected, I'm thinking we'll get change that's unbelieveable.

The Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America

Joe the Plumber elicited from Senator Obama the words "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody" a phrase that Obama has been trying desperately to separate himself from ever since.

Over the weekend, an NPR interview from 2001 resurfaced that has Obama striking a very similar tone

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society....

I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.

The Obama campaign similarly tries to discount these seemingly indicting words

"In this interview back in 2001, Obama was talking about the civil rights movement -- and the kind of work that has to be done on the ground to make sure that everyone can live out the promise of equality," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said. "Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Obama’s economic plan or his plan to give the middle class a tax cut. It’s just another distraction from an increasingly desperate McCain campaign."

I don't think so. It seems quite plain to me that Obama is stating that he doesn't see the courts as the way to the redistribution that he plainly sees as being necessary. So if the Court is not the way, then the way must be political power. The type of political power that would be embodied in a Pelosi-Reid-Obama run government.

And lest you buy the spin coming out of the Obama campaign that Joe the Plumber was a mistatement and the 2001 interview was talking about Courts, Ed Morrissey has dug up yet another instance of Obama talking redistribution, this time while addressing the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in 1996:

The current proposals for welfare reform are intended to eliminate welfare but it’s also true that the status quo is not tenable. A true welfare system would provide for medical care, child care and job training. While Barack Obama did not use this term, it sounded very much like the “social wage” approach used by many social democratic labor parties. By “workforce preparation strategy”, Barack Obama simply meant a coordinated, purposeful program of job training instead of the ad hoc, fragmented approach used by the State of Illinois today.

Captain Ed points out that Obama won the endorsement of the CDSA in his bid for State Senator.

To reitierate, Obama's association with Bill Ayers, does not mean that Obama is a terrorist. But it likely means that he does share Ayers economic (and educational) point of view: which is decidedly anti-Capitalist. And it's not just Ayers; it's the whole panopoly of his associations which are all Socialist/Communist in nature.

From Trotskite Ayers, to Black Liberationist Rev Wright, to his mentor the Communist Frank Marshall Davis it is less reasonable to believe that all of a sudden Obama has gone mainstream on the economy.

Capt. Stephen P. Ward

Sgt. 1st Class Drew C. Kimmey, Capt. Stephen P. Ward and Staff Sgt. Carlo A. Alcazar, members of Civil Affairs Team 745, were recently recognized for their performance during an Afghanistan mission last November. The three soldiers were recognized for their efforts in rescuing a Special Forces team leader, who was also the ground forces commander that day.

CA Team 745 was stationed at Firebase Cobra in Oruzgan, Afghanistan, with special operations detachments from the 3rd Special Forces Group, members of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. On Nov. 2, 2007, the teams and their Afghan counterparts left the firebase to visit the village of Sarsina to conduct medical capabilities mission as well as a humanitarian aid drop. Once they arrived at the village, they discovered it had been evacuated and that Taliban fighters were entrenched into several fighting positions in an attempt to ambush forces in the area.

Alcazar reported only three families came in for medical treatment. The families told the soldiers the Taliban made the other people leave the village, but that having nowhere to go. they stayed. “What was alarming,” Ward said later, “was the buildings had locks and barricaded doors, which was a clear indication that the village wasn’t abandoned, but had been turned into a defendable position.”

All three quickly figured it was only a matter of time before the firefight would begin.

The teams were quickly engaged by 300 Taliban fighters. According to Army documents, after an hour of fighting, two vehicles were pulled to the rear of the fight after being disabled. This left the ground forces commander to the front of the coalition lines and in jeopardy of being overrun. At this point, Ward, the team leader for 745, radioed to the ground forces commander, who was pinned down in a vulnerable building, that his was on its way. Ward later said he and Alcazar went because they were the closest truck and the others were busy providing cover. Unfortunately, the team’s vehicle crashed into an enemy fighting position and became immobile, knocking Ward and Alcazar momentarily unconscious.

After they regained consciousness, Alcazar took to reloading ammunition belts, enabling Kimmey, the gunner, to continue to engage enemy forces. Ward exited the vehicle and directed his team to dismount and move to cover. Kimmey remained in the turret, providing cover for the team and allowing them to reach the ground forces commander. He stayed even though he knew the enemy was setting up mortar positions to destroy the truck he was firing from.

Kimmey was able to keep the Taliban from overrunning the soldiers with the .50-caliber gun. In the process, he was drawing a majority of the enemy fire. Ward reported the enemy was about 50 to 100 meters away at this point.

Team 745 moved to the ground commander’s position and helped in the recovery of the commander and the casualties. All of this was done, while under “continual, accurate and effective” enemy fire.
Since the team’s 745’s vehicle was immobile, it was stripped of all sensitive equipment, and its gun was dismantled to prevent the enemy from gaining off of the team’s loss. Once team 745 sterilized their truck, they had no choice but to run beside the Special Forces vehicle, using it as cover, until they reached safety, because there was no room for them on the truck. All three of them ran alongside the truck until they reached a checkpoint and mounted up into another vehicle for the ride back to firebase Cobra.

During the civil affairs award ceremony honoring all three for their heroic acts, Maj. Gen. John F. Mulholland, said, “The words can’t do justice, nor can the medal on your chest convey what they went up against.”

The dividing line

You have to make a fundamental decision about the economy this election season. It is not necessarily a partisan decision as much as it is a philosophical decision. Not a philosophical decision of the naval-gazing kind, but a philosophical decision that will affect the most basic of economic decisions you will make in the future.

The question you have to answer and act on is this:

Do you believe that the tax system is a necessary evil in order to fund government services?

OR

Do you believe the tax system is basically a social services program intended to redistribute wealth: to normalize the gap between rich and poor?

How you answer this question should dictate how you vote in this election, unless of course you don't care which of these philosophies win, in which case you will have to decide on other issues.

I will argue for the former and therefore for McCain.

What Obama is  planning is a direct transfer of wealth from one economic class of people to another by means of the tax system. True, we already have a "progressive" tax code that does this to some extent with the Earned Income Credit. But the Senator is proposing expanding that significantly.

McCain points out that Obama is promising a "tax cut" for 95% of Americans even though 40% of Americans do not pay taxes now. To Obama, a tax credit, giving a person back more than they pay in taxes, is a tax cut.

Senator Obama defends himself by saying that these people are paying other payroll taxes that are in addition to Income Tax so his plan would basically refund that too.

But these payroll taxes are for Social Security and Medicare. So now what the Senator is saying that these people will not be paying into the Social Security System either. So will they get Social Security benefits when they retire? The question remains unasked and unanswered but you know the answer: Of Course.

So not only will those who get taxed be responsible for all of the tax burden for existing programs, but they will be responsible for funding Social Security and Medicare as well as another $800 billion dollars in the new spending Obama has proposed.

People may say "tax cuts for the rich" but it is the people with capital that create jobs. And in a recession, the burden of creating jobs falls mostly, in the initial stages of recovery, on small business.

Clearly, it has been shown time and time again, from the Kennedy tax cuts, to the Reagan tax cuts to the Bush tax cuts, giving business more money to grow creates jobs which creates revenue for government which creates more money for social programs and charity to help people who are left behind for one reason or another.

It not only makes sense, there is empirical evidence to support the theory.

On the other hand, raising taxes slows the growth of business because to a business, a tax looks like a business expense that affects the bottom line: Like the cost of raw material, or the cost of energy to heat the buildings, or the cost of labor. A tax hike will replace some number of workers no question.

Fewer workers on the payroll means more workers collecting unemployment, Obama's tax credits, and other social services which then requires more tax hikes to pay for them. Clearly that's a vicious, downward, cycle.

When Obama and others vilify Capitalists and call for increasing the Capital Gains tax, this then becomes a disincentive for people to invest in business. And if people stop investing in business, where do the jobs come from?

And why should business stay in a country with a high cost of doing business?

What will be the result if US businesses move off-shore? What does America become then?

What is worse, while Obama's plan may sound reasonable to you now, what gaurantee do you have that this is what will be implemented? Let's pretend that what Obama is talking about is a tax cut and not a wealth transfer protocol. With a Democratic Congress in place, one that just may have a filibuster-proof super majority, what assurances do we have that Congress will not pass something even more drastic than what Obama is proposing?

And what is the likelihood that Obama will go against the Democratic leadership and veto what they want?

Well, he's never done it before, why would he do it as President?

The $700 billion "bailout" plan passed in Congress already has reshaped the way Capitalism works in this country. And it is loose enough that the next President could use it to create better Capitalism or a better Welfare state.

Obama will seek to implement a better welfare state.

How do we know? Because of his past associations.

You know, it's not so much that Obama hung around with a former domestic terrorist, it's more what that means about his philosophy.

As I pointed out here, everything about his past is radically Left

Obama's tax plan is designed specifically to increase the Welfare State.

And that's because of his basic political philosophy which he attempts to hide with seemingly centrist rhetoric.

That philosophy is demostrated by the associations he now denies. But going further back, Gateway Pundit shows that Socialist Ideology has been with him from an early age

His first mentor in high school was noted Communist Frank Marshall Davis.
He admitted he attended socialist conferences during his college years in his first book, "Dreams From My Father", page 122:

"Political discussions, the kind that at Occidental had once seemed so intense and purposeful, came to take on the flavor of the socialist conferences that I sometimes attended at Cooper Union or the African cultural fairs that took place in Harlem or Brooklyn during the summers-a few of the many diversions that New York had to offer, like going to a foreign film or ice-skating at the Rockefeller Center."

Obama also wrote that he selected his friends carefully, the more Marxist and radical the better, page 100:

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets."

And, don't forget Obama's pastor, mentor and father figure of 20 years, G-D AmeriKKKa Jeremiah Wright, who brought the black liberation socialist theology to the alter.

This is the dividing line: A better stronger form of Capitalism, or more radical steps towards a European-style Welfare State; or worse outright Socialism.

You decide '08

Blog birth

My friend and co-worker Bryan Ash has started his own blog.

Currently he's fooling with Ruby and SQLite3.

Check it out.

Imagine

I wrote about how Obama and Biden are the most anti-gun anti-self-defense ticket in memory.

And this new ad by the NRA goes right to the heart of the matter.

'nuff said?

(H/T Ed Morrissey)

Sgt Gregory Ruske

Trapped with his unit in an exposed position, Ruske returned fire so most of the platoon could move to protective cover. Ruske then moved to a rooftop and continued laying fire even after taking a bullet to the hip.                   

At that point, Ruske realized that two Afghan National Police officers were still pinned down in the open, taking fire from their Taliban attackers. One ran for cover, but the other officer – one Ruske had worked with at vehicle checkpoints and chatted with through an interpreter – had been shot and was trying to crawl to safety through a hail of bullets.                   

“Seeing that dirt kick up no more than six inches from his head, I said, “Man, this is jacked up,” Ruske said later. “They are still shooting at this guy. He is still bleeding and shot. We have to go get him.” Disregarding his own safety, Ruske “simply reacted to the training” the Army had used to prepare him for combat, he said.                   

Ruske ordered his squad automatic weapon gunner, Army Spc. Walter Reed, to spray the enemy in a Z-shaped pattern, expending a whole box of 200 rounds to give Ruske and his buddy, Army Spc. Eric Seagraves, time to run out to retrieve the officer. The two dodged bullets as they grabbed the Afghan police officer’s arms and dragged him toward a wall that provided protective covering. Only when Ruske and Seagraves went to lift the man behind the wall did they realize that Ruske’s leg had been shattered.
Later that day, after Ruske was taken to Bagram Airfield to receive treatment for his gunshot wound, he checked on the Afghan officer and was relieved to see that he had survived and would keep both legs.

Now back at his civilian job as a juvenile corrections officer in Denver, Ruske is awaiting his reassignment to a new Army Reserve unit, because his former unit was deactivated.                  

Beholden to our enemies

Gas prices have come down dramatically in the last few months following a dramatic decrease in the price of crude oil.

Good for you and good for me.

But not so good for OPEC and the League of Enemies of America. So the cartel which controls 40% of the world's oil supply wants to make oil prices go back up by cutting back production.

Though there is a general agreement on the need for reducing production, there is no agreement on the quantum.

Such talks have already had their effect. Crude rebounded for a second day on Monday, rising by $2.43 a barrel to $74.28 till the report was filed. With several investment banks paring 2009 demand projections and estimating a bottom price at $60/barrel — or lower if economic conditions deteriorate — a production cut of at least a million barrels a day is certain.

If the price of oil goes up, it benefits Iran, Venezuela, and Russia but not us.

In order to mitigate the influence of OPEC, we in the US need to drill everywhere we can and do it now.

You know, the fact that Obama does not want to drill everywhere now is not the only problem. If we elect McCain who does want to drill more, a Democratic-controlled Congress will block any efforts.

You know, you really need to look at the guy or gal you are sending to Congress. If they are an incumbent, and they are against or waffling about doing EVERYTHING possible to move us towards energy independence, including drilling, nukes, and renewable, vote against them.

Just do it.