British to stop speaking of 'War on Terror'

Are we willing to be as ruthless as Saddam? If not, then what?

The situation is Iraq, according to Greg Richards in American Thinker, is a ...

"Catch-22. This is the Gordian Knot that has been at the center of the Iraq problem from the beginning - the Shia are tasting power for, as the ISGR says, the first time in 1300 years and they are not going to give it up now. And the Sunnis are not going to retire gracefully from their historic position as the ruling class. Controlling this was the political purpose of Saddam's terror, however debased it became in practice. Are we willing to be as ruthless as he was is the real question facing us. And that we will likely have to pick a side. Saddam had picked the Sunni side."

Swiss jounalist interviews Al-Jazeera's top editor, and the result is fireworks

Pierre Heumann of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche spoke with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh in Doha. This revealing interview appears here in English for the first time.

Mr. Sheikh, as the Editor in Chief of Al-Jazeera, you are one of the most important opinion-makers in the Arab world. What do you call suicide bombers?
For what is happening in Palestine, we never use the expression "suicide bombing."
What do you call it then?
In English, I would describe it as "bombings."
And in Arabic? Literally translated, we would speak of "commando attacks." In our culture, it is precisely not suicide.
But instead a praiseworthy act?
When the country is occupied and the people are being killed by the enemy, everyone must take action, even if he sacrifices himself in so doing.
Even if in so doing he kills innocent civilians?
That is not a Palestinian problem, but a problem of the Israelis.
You are avoiding the question.
Not at all. When the Israeli Army attacks, it kills civilians. An army should be able to distinguish between military and civilian targets. But how many innocent people did it kill in Beit Hanoun? And then they justify this in saying that the grenade went astray, that there was a technical problem or something. But who believes that?
There's a difference between Palestinian "commando actions" and Israeli military operations. In the one case, the aim is to kill as many civilians as possible; in the other, it is exclusively a matter of military targets.
Oh really? If the Israelis made such mistakes only once or twice a year, I would agree with you and say that it didn't happen intentionally. But such mistakes happen every week. There are three possible explanations for this: either the military equipment is not up to date or the soldiers are badly trained and do not know how to use their weapons or they do it intentionally. Now, we know that the Israelis get the best weaponry from the American arsenal and that the soldiers are well trained. That leaves, then, only one conclusion: they do it intentionally.

Thursday's guests on "Homeland Security: Inside and Out" are:

• Steve Monblatt, co-Executive Director of the British American Security Information Council, who will present the “inside the Beltway” perspective on the role of information in securing the safety of the United States both at home and abroad

• Ahmad Dhani, leader of the Indonesian rock band Dewa and a former student at an extremist Wahabi school, and Holland Taylor, CEO of the Libforall Foundation, who will discuss the role of popular music in encouraging religious tolerance to million of young fans around the world.

To learn more about Dhani and his band, read these articles in the Washington Post and the Weekly Standard.

"Homeland Security: Inside and Out" begins at 8:30 p.m. EDT, 7:30 CDT every Thursday on KAMU-FM 90.9. It’s available live and online at: http://kamu-fm.tamu.edu/live.php.

To learn more about "Homeland Security: Inside & Out," visit hlsinsideandout.org/. To listen to ICHS' other weekly broadcast, "Just a Minute for Homeland Security," click here.

Blizzard crushes North Dakota and FEMA offers no assistance? Where is the outrage?

I got the following 'viral' message in my email this morning. It purports to be from a county emergency manager in western North Dakota. Take it as you will:

WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event (may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions") with a historic blizzard of up to 44 inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:

• George Bush did not come.
  
  
• FEMA did nothing.
  
  
• No one howled for the government.
  
  
• No one blamed the government.
  
  
• No one even uttered an expletive on TV.
  
  
• Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
  
  
• Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.
  
  
• Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.
  
  
• CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5
  snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.
  
  
• No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.
  
  
• No one looted.
  
  
• Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.
  
  
• Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.
  
  
• No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No
  Geraldo Rivera.
  
  
• No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.
  
  
• Nope, we just melted the snow for water.
  
  
• Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.
  
  
• The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a
  penny.
  
  
• Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments
  delivered it to the snowbound families.
  
  
• Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.
  
  
• We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman
  lanterns.
  
  
• We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".
  
  
• We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out
  of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades
  votes for 'sittin at home' checks.
  
  Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen
  this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
  
  "In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about
  48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."
  
  It does seem that way, at least to me.
  
  I hope this gets passed on.
  
  Maybe SOME people will get the message: The world does Not owe you a
  living. (end of message)
  
  

Chomsky: 'If someone is watching us from Mars, they will think we're insane'

Here's a Dec. 3 radio interview with Noam Chomsky on Media Matters with Bob McChesney, at WILL-AM 580 at the University of Illinois in Urbana.

Chomsky, a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy, discusses (among other hot issues) the American response to the Palestinian elections, and Iran's official position on Israel, and the "misleading comparison" between the wars in Iraq and Vietnam.

Agree or disagree with Chomsky, he makes a compelling case.

Study: 10 percent of world's population control 85 percent of the wealth

I'm an avowed capitalist, but what are the implications for our security when we learn that:

Average wealth in the US was $143,727 a person in 2000, while in India the figure was $1,100, in Indonesia per capita wealth was $1,400, and in Zimbabwe, $1,465. The Democratic Republic of Congo came last with $180. Read about the study here.

In a world of have and have-nots, the have-nots are not always as anxious to make peace as the halves.

Al-Jazeerah reports that the United States and Israel are targeting Gaza with a 'genotoxic weapon'

And claims the US media are "blacking out" the story:

"It’s been almost five months since the first report that Israeli drone aircraft have been dropping a “mystery weapon” on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since then, news media around the world have run stories depicting the strange and “horrific” wounds inflicted by the new bomb. The international press has spoken with Palestinian doctors and medics who say Israel’s new device is a kind of chemical weapon that has significantly increased the fatality rate among the victims of Israeli attacks. (1)(2)

"In mid-October, Italian investigators reported forensic evidence that suggests the new weapon may also represent the near future of US “counterinsurgency warfare”. Combined with photographs of the victims and testimony from attending doctors, this evidence points to the use of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). (3)

"DIME is an LCD (“low collateral damage”) weapon developed at the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Publicly, it is slated for initial deployment in 2008. DIME bombs produce an unusually powerful blast within a relatively small area, spraying a superheated “micro-shrapnel” of powdered Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy (HMTA). Scientific studies have found that HMTA is chemically toxic, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic).(4-11)

"It is unfortunate that the US media have virtually blacked out the story of Israel’s new weapon, not least because our own military may soon be using it in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story might also have told us something about the grossly disproportionate brutality of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people—reason enough for the media to suppress it. (12)"

Read the full story.

Our future graduate program in homeland security is getting attention from the news media

Both the Austin American-Statesman and the Bryan-College Station Eagle published stories this week on our proposed program, which Texas A&M regents approved last week. In short, we're looking to create an interdisciplinary master's program in homeland security within 18 months, followed by a doctoral program.

If you want to know more, here's our news release.

We're getting calls from other outlets. I'll post the results as they arrive.