Right Wing Nut House

One of these days, if I ever get the time and ambition, I’m going to write a history of cluelessness in America.

It will be a multi-volume set, leather bound with embossed letters at the beginning of chapters just like the monks used when they copied the bible. I’ll have publishers lining up to bid on the darn thing, believe me. After all, any publisher that would accept a 1000 page manuscript from Bill Clinton that says absolutely nothing should have no trouble in taking on my literary project. And I won’t even ask for a $5 million advance.

I certainly won’t be lacking for material. One need only reflect on the America that existed at the time of our Declaration of Independence to realize an entire volume could be devoted to the cluelessness of the British in their handling of the American colonies. Or the idiocy of British military commanders like General Cornwallis or General Burgoyne, both of whom allowed the finest armies on the planet to be defeated by a bunch of brave, determined, but still raggedy and disorganized group of farmers, merchants, and laborers.

American General of Artillery Henry Knox was a bookseller by trade. The hero of Saratoga Benedict Arnold was an apothecary at one time. And yet, the British army never had a chance. They could win battle after battle and the more they gloried in their victories, the closer the colonies came to independence. Theirs was the cluelessness of arrogance. They actually thought that because some King had touched a sword to the shoulder of one of their ancestors thus making that worthy a “noble” that this somehow made them better than the free born farmers and merchants who opposed them. That kind of cluelessness cost them an empire.

Thankfully, we have an army of intrepid bloggers who protect us from that kind of cluelessness today. So without further adieu, let’s dig into some genuine, all-American stupidity.
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“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”
(Sir Francis Bacon)
I guess that makes me an imprecise, unprepared, half-assed galoot.”
(Me)
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Red State Rant alerts us to Stephen Spielberg’s latest project that involves the Israeli agents who tracked down and killed the terrorists who murdered Israel’s athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.”Stephen Spielberg: Nuancy Boy” captures the director’s “moral equivalency” perfectly.

Chirac, Schroeder, and Putin. I wonder what analogy you could draw to describe those three cluebats? Kefuffles hits the nail on the head with “The Three Stooges do Europe.”

Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy spanks the left for their yearning to see a Viet Nam redux. If the moonbats had any brains, I’d say they had a death wish. Since they lack the necessary gray matter, we can simply point to their utter cluelessness and shake our heads in collective bewilderment.

Giacomo of Joust the Facts brings us a Carnival favorite. Ted Kennedy has opened his mouth again - this time to warn the President on his selection for Supreme Court Justice - which means he’s automatically entered in the “Cluebat of the Week” sweepstakes. It really isn’t fair, you know. He should really step aside and give someone else a chance some time.

Mr. Satire is at it again. The Master of Cluelessness gives us a piece called “The Supreme Court Relies On Foreign Couture.” Mighty pretty they are too! And this one is self explanatory: “Senator Dick Durbin Tied Pol Pot In Third Place, Vows To Beat Hitler.”

The folks at The Common Room take pity on Nancy Pelosi. To be clueless in private, in the bosom of one’s family is one thing. But to display one’s idiocy with the TV cameras and microphones picking up every clueless word is something totally different.

More on Nancy Pelosi from Going to the Mat. It doesn’t seem to matter what the subject is, the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, the individual who represents the oldest continuously viable political party in existence, is quite simply, a loon.

Possum links us to a transcript of an interview with several clueless Congressmen and Senators regarding the upcoming Supreme Court nomination fight. Check out Lindsey Graham’s weasel words.

Mark Coffey of Decision “08 points his finger at David Corn of The Nation and asks for an air sickness bag. Anyone who uses his children to make a political point is not only clueless, they should be flogged.

Raven at And Rightly So has an excellent rant against Bob Geldof and the moonbats of Live 8. She has a message for the self righteous snots who constantly carp about America’s contributions: “They need to realize that by imploring the G8 governments to DO SOMETHING, they are demanding that I do something. I already have. I’ve given my money.”

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs is baaaaaaack! After braving the perfidious French for the better part of a week, our fearless correspondent shows us that as far as the French are concerned, denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

The Maryhunter of TMH Bacon Bits takes us on a trip into moonbat land and the tiresome and dishonest rants by the anti-war left against the President every time he brings up 9/11. There’s a lesson to be learned there but I don’t think they’re listening.

Van Helsing from Moonbattery brings us words of wisdom from that noted philosopher and towering intellect Woody Allen. No, that’s not a typo. It seems Mr. Allen has taken something of a long view of history with regards to 9/11. Funny how his view of history shortens up quite a bit when it comes to his view of shacking up with his stepdaughter while he was married.

Okay…think real hard and tell me true. Is there anyone more outrageously clueless than Madonna? Northstar of The People’s Republic of Seabrook has the answer.

Two Dogs at Mean ol’ Meany blog has some “splodeydope” links for moonbats like Rep.Sheila Jackson Lee “(Dumbass-TX)” regarding our treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. Ms. Jackson Lee has proven herself clueless on numerous occasions in the past which, of course, makes her easy pickings.

Cao of Cao’s Blog has an excellent and detailed post about Iraq’s ties to terror and WMD that gives a lie to the Democrats sloganeering “If you say a lie often enough you’re a republican.”

Harvey of Bad Example compares and contrasts Dick Durbin’s “apology” with one given by his blogson. It’s not only Durbin that could learn a thing or two from that kind of forthrightness, but also the rest of us and most especially, the MSM.

Josh at Multiple Mentality thinks it’s fantastic that Justice Souter may get his just desserts with the building of the Liberty Hotel on his property. I like the old Klingon saying “Revenge is a dish best served cold…like Gaach.”

Jan Bear at A World of Speculation links to the Sally Jenkins puff piece on “moderate” Howard Dean and what an ordinary guy he truly is. (Just scroll down until you see Howard’s picture). Trying to turn Mr. Dean into a teddy bear must have been a herculean task - much harder than cleaning the horse manure from the Agean Stables.

Finally, my own entry this week is also on Live 8 called “Geldof’s Goofy Gig.”

I was one of the five million or so AOL subscribers who tuned in to the Live 8 concert on Saturday. My interest was purely professional - something akin to the typical NASCAR fan who goes to a racetrack waiting expectantly for the spectacular crack-up.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Technically speaking, the event was great. There I was sitting at my computer a mouse click away from watching live performances in Berlin, London, Tokyo, Toronto, and Phladelphia. After a while, I stopped thinking about the enormous distances involved and just tried to enjoy the show.

Ain’t the internets somethin’ else?

As for enjoying the show, I managed to catch both an ancient looking Paul McCartney and a still defiant Madonna, whose middle finger salute was actually kind of appropriate. It reminded me of what these spoiled, rich, aging, philistines actually think about the rest of us. This Evening Standard gossip columnist fills us in on some really juicy details:

SIR PAUL McCARTNEY, who both opened and closed Live8, made sure every one knew exactly whose show it really was by continually strolling up and down the backstage area with his entourage of six in tow.

And when the McCartneys came face to face with the BECKHAMS it was always going to be interesting to see the result.

After praising Sir Paul on his opening number (which she was not actually there for), VICTORIA managed to infuriate the former Beatle by running off to hug an old friend. There were uncomfortable smiles all round because DAVID did not know how to explain his wife’s disappearing act to Sir Paul. When Victoria finally returned, Sir

Paul told her through gritted teeth: ‘Oh, well, if she’s more important than me …

BRAD PITT, on stage for all of two minutes, was furious that he did not have his own dressing room and RICHARD CURTIS, the director who heads the Make Poverty History campaign, had to vacate his for the actor

Whatever happened to the “We are the World” spirit where all the stars “checked their egos at the door?”

I guess there are some sacrifices stars just won’t make for a good cause.

And Live 8 was in fact, a good cause; if you are a member of a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) who would be partially responsible for divvying up the doubling of aid to Africa proposed by Geldof. The organizers are looking for some $25 billion in aid to the murderous kleptocrats and purloining shysters who make up the bulk of what passes for governments on that long suffering continent. A few weeks back, here’s what I said about that idea:

The problem with Africa, however, isn’t money. And doubling aid to the continent would be something akin to giving a convicted drunk driver his license back with a gift-wrapped bottle of Chivas Regal.

Others agree with that assessment:

As Paul Wolfowitz, the new head of the World Bank, pointed out yesterday: “Giving money to corrupt governments is a formula for ineffective assistance.” Wiping out debt is tantamount to giving money and it has to be done with very tight strings attached. It would also impoverish the World Bank, which should play a pivotal role in helping Africa to help herself. So an essential part of the plan to write off debts will also have to be an agreement to provide additional funding for the World Bank. It seems that the United States has been persuaded to hand over extra cash.

Money, carefully spent, is undoubtedly part of the solution to Africa’s problems. It can provide food and education but, for the long term, it can also fund the micro-banks that, with relatively tiny loans, can help individuals to set up businesses. The money Live Aid raised may not all have reached its planned destination but some did. The lunacy of Live 8 is that, apart from the costs that the marchers will bring, one of the biggest concerts for many a year will not be raising money for a good cause.

The hyperbole from many of the participants was pretty tough to take at times. Coldplay’s Chris Martin get’s the award for most outrageous statement made by a clueless musician when he said the event was “the greatest thing that’s ever been organised probably in the history of the world.”

Wesely Pruden just couldn’t let Martin’s idiocy slide by:

Since “the entire history of the world” includes the extinction of the dinosaurs, the eruption of Krakatoa, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the construction of the pyramids, the Resurrection of Christ and man’s landing on the moon, Live 8 had to be impressive mush.

And the mush certainly wasn’t helped by Geldof’s own outrageous statement after the show that “3 billion people were watching.” Even MTV’s website couldn’t swallow that one:

With millions watching the globe-spanning concerts in person (see “In The Crowds At Live 8: Music, Mud And A Shared Desire To Help”) and an estimated billion or more tuning in to the broadcast for what will likely be the most-watched music event in history, the twin messages of Live 8 were inescapable: “We don’t want your money, we want you” and “Three seconds.”

The latter was the figure given for how often a child dies in Africa of extreme poverty. Will Smith dramatically illustrated the point by repeatedly snapping his fingers and exhorting the estimated million-plus crowd in Philadelphia to do the same, creating an eerie crackling sound that slammed the point home.

One billion humans tuning into a single event is impressive enough. In fact, it’s about the same number of people who tune into the Super Bowl every year. And you can definitely say that the game is a helluva lot more entertaining than watching Will Smith snap his fingers.

For contained in Mr. Smith’s stupid gesture is a perfect illustration of why this event is a futile exercise in sophistry. The idea that “raising awareness” of Africa’s plight will save starving children is absurd. In order to save those children, you don’t have to snap your fingers, what you need is wholesale regime changes in 2 dozen or more countries where governments use starvation as the weapon of choice against rebelious populations. Africa’s problem is not lack of food. It is not a lack of arable land, or water resources, or agricultural know-how (they’ve been farming in Africa since before the Egyptians got themselves organized). At bottom, Africa’s problem is, well, Africans. Embracing the socialist doctrines of the old Soviet Union and Cuba during the 1970’s and 80’s, the grandiose schemes and huge development projects undertaken with some of the $220 billion in western aid that has gone to the continent since the 1960’s proved to be boondoggles of the first magnitude.

Dam building for electricity that nobody needs or can use is just one small example. What isn’t known and probably can never be calculated is the out and out theivery of aid funds by African leaders, their families, their extended families, their cronies, and the western companies who are forced into kickback schemes in order to win contracts with this human daisy chain of graft and corruption.

Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines says that companies that give out bribes and get involved in kickback schemes are partly to blame because they don’t blow the whistle. Who are they going to blow the whistle to? Not only will they lose the contract, their chances of getting another in that country or any one of 2 dozen other countries is about as good as the Cub’s chances of going to the World Series this year.

What’s to be done? US Ambassador to Kenya William Bellamy made the mistake of calling out African leadership on aid saying “Turning on the fire hose of international compassion and asking Kenya and other African nations to drink from it is not a serious strategy for promoting growth or ending poverty.”

Pruden gives us the Kenyan response:

President Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan president, was off at the African Union summit in Libya, helping other despots draw up their gimme list. In his absence, a deputy fired back at Ambassador Bellamy, complaining that Kenya had been singled out for criticism just because it doesn’t take terrorism seriously. Aid for Africa, he told the ambassador, “should not get entangled with the politics of your dissatisfaction with a regime, unless you have decided on a regime change.”

Nobody has, unfortunately, and that’s exactly why aid for Africa is as close to hopeless as anything can be. Regime change all across the continent is sorely needed, even more than another concert by unemployed service-station attendants whanging away on electric guitars and other noisemakers

Precisely. Which makes Live 8 about as relevant to helping solve Africa’s problems as the activities of the masked anarchists who are gleefully running around Edinburgh smashing windows and torching automobiles as if to prove the efficacy of corporal punishment denied them when they were children.

I suppose I shouldn’t criticize an effort with such obvious good intentions. But when that effort is so short sighted and even deliberately blind to the real cause and effect of Africa’s misery, it’s imperative that the millions of impressionable youths worldwide who wouldn’t know a Mugabe from a Mandela not be misled into thinking that singing and dancing for one day with a bunch of over-ripe troubadours will solve anything.

Because of the 4th of July holiday, we’ve pushed back the deadline for submissions to this week’s Carnival of the Clueless to Tuesday night at 10:00 PM.

Last week’s Carnival garnered 22 posts from both the right and left side of the sphere. Here’s what we’re looking for:

Each week, I’ll be calling for posts that highlight the total stupidity of a public figure or organization – either left or right – that demonstrates that special kind of cluelessness that only someone’s mother could defend…and maybe not even their mothers!

Everyone knows what I’m talking about. Whether it’s the latest from Bill Maher or the Reverend Dobson, it doesn’t matter. I will post ALL ENTRIES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER I AGREE WITH THE SENTIMENTS EXPRESSED OR NOT.

It should be another interesting week. Washington has been such a target rich environment lately, trying to decide who or what is the most clueless is getting to be a herculean task - something like cleaning the Aegean Stables - with just as much manure being tossed around.

You can enter by emailing me, leaving a link in the comments section, or by using the handy, easy to use form at Conservative Cat.

“Better Late Than Never” Edition…

Last weeks Watcher’s Council vote was a real nail biter but in the end, The House emerged triumphant with my post entitled The Left’s “Word Deficit.”

Finishing a close second was an excellent piece by Dymphna of Gates of Vienna called Pimping Misery. Is the United Nations salvageable?

The world has gotten smaller and the rate of change has increased exponentially so the last thing we need is central control. It can’t respond quickly enough, as the Tsumani aftermath proved; it has no moral authority, as illustrated in Darfur, and it has no accountability, as Oil for Food demonstrates, continuing to bubble out vast reserves of corruption and downright evil.

The world not only doesn’t need the United Nations, the sad fact is the world would be a better place without the United Nations. If it ever had any usefulness that utility is so long past it’s no longer visible.

Agreed, with one small caveat: If the UN didn’t exist, it would have to be invented. This yearning for one world government is an outgrowth of the socialist impulse that has colored European politics for nearly 150 years and is probably with us to stay. Prior to World War I, the dream of a supranational organization that would prevent war, regulate trade, and generally unite mankind in peace and harmony was pretty much confined to a few philosophers (Immanuel Kant) and nutcases (Hegel). It took liberal saint Woodrow Wilson (and the slaughter of 20 million during World War I) to create the League of Nations. And when that failed, it took another liberal saint in FDR to try again with the UN.

What these efforts have in common is a denial of man’s natural inclinations, i.e. the urge to disobey as many of the ten commandments as possible especially nos. 6 through 10 with a special emphasis on #6 and #7. There may in fact be a formula out there for some kind of worldwide extra-governmental organization. But it will never be invented by a liberal. Only a conservative would recognize the inherent evil of human beings and create a world body accordingly.

I’m kidding of course. No conservative would be so stupid.

Tied for second in the voting with Dymphna was the good Dr. Sanity and a fascinating post on terrorist enablers: (”The Consequences of Enabling Terror”)

Whatever Michael Jackson was or wasn’t doing with those young boys was hardly a mystery to the boys’ mothers and/or families, which had to be complicit and enable Jackson’s behavior (the kids didn’t get to the Ranch on foot, nor did they stay overnight without permission). No, it served the purposes of the parents to enable Jackson’s behavior. It serves the purposes of the Feminists et al, to ignore the brutality of Islam towards women, in favor of demanding that the Harvard President whimper and wallow before them in abject apology for remarks that were scientifically justified.

Yes I am angry. And I’m fed up with such insane moral equivalence.

I’ve decided that it isn’t just a question of moral equivalence as the good Doctor Sanity so rightly points out. It’s also people who have fallen in love with the sound of their own arguments. It must be very sweet sounding to these lickspittles to hear the word “Gulag” or “Hitler” come out of their mouths when they talk about America or George Bush. The endorphins released in the brain when making such analogies must make the comparisons to evil and tyrants irresistable. There is, in fact, a recognized pathology at work here.

It’s called looniness.

Finishing a close third was Council newbie Rhymes with Right. Greg’s post on the SCOTUS Kelo decision is spot on: (SCOTUS: Your Property is not your Own)

Imagine that – these poor dumb citizens believed that they had the right to decide when and if they would sell their homes and property to private developers, and at what price.

Didn’t they know that the government has the right to give them a low-ball price for their homes and turn around and sell them at that sweetheart price to a favored local developer or appealing corporation. After all, why should a homeowner be able to decide that he wants to stay in his house when a multinational corporation worth hundreds of millions of dollars wants the lot for parking at their new offices? And don’t you understand that government should be able to decide that it would be economically beneficial to have a 100-house neighborhood consisting of million dollar homes rather than 500 houses valued at a mere $100,000 – it will bring a better sort of person, too. If the old owners can’t find a house in the town they grew up in – let them buy trailers!

Given the spate of seizures since the decision was handed down, this may be the most disasterous ruling made by the Supreme Court since Plessy v Ferguson which upheld the excreable notion of “seperate but equal” facilities for the races. Not even the made up privacy right granted in Roe v Wade caused as much constitutional mischief as this ruling has the potential to do.

John Hindraker of Powerline (writing in The Weekly Standard) doesn’t agree. But the question of the immediate and dire impact on individual American citizens and their right to be secure in their property is answered with more and more examples of Kelo type seizures that have come to light in the past week.

The impact will be most heavily felt in very small towns and ex-urban areas where the confluence of money, politics, personal relationships, and greed are most in evidence. Part-time politicians who are elected as Trustees or Assemblymen and whose campaigns are bankrolled by developers are wide open to the kind of corruption Kelo invites.

These are real world situations not theoretical constitutional constructs. It remains to be seen whether there will be any protections that can be legislated short of a constitutional amendment re-affirming our property rights.

The winning Non-Council piece was submitted by Maxed out Mama and it’s a doozy. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford, best selling author, winner of numerous academic prizes…and moonbat extraordinaire: (Ehrlich’s Wit and Wisdom)

“We must institute the Chinese Communist system of compulsory abortion in various forms of infanticide so that each couple will have only one child. We must hope that our government doesn’t wait until it, too, decides that coercive measures can solve America’s population problem…. The price of personal freedom in making childbearing decisions may be the destruction of the world.”
[Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University]

You know what’s really cool? The German government is thinking about imposing penalties upon childless people in an attempt to boost their birthrate RIGHT NOW. Europe’s decline and fall basically is rooted in the declining birthrate. One thing I love about these types - no matter what the problem, they can always come up with a reason why the government must to force people to do something for their own good.

Has there ever been an individual more wrong, more often, in the history of popular culture? Because that’s been Ehrlich’s enduring appeal; his dreams of catastrophe have resonated with the scientifically illiterate, the ignorant, and the anti-industrialization crowd ever since his best selling The Population Bomb became the bible a certain segement of the anti-science left. Here’s Ehrlich, writing in 1970, on the world food situation in 1980:

“This vast tragedy, however, is nothing compared to the nutritional disaster that seems likely to overtake humanity in the 1970s (or, at the latest, the 1980s) … A situation has been created that could lead to a billion or more people starving to death.”

Read the entire post if for no other reason than to realize that the very same people who were enthusiastically agreeing with him in the 1970’s and 1980’s are behind the Global Warming scare of today.

If you’d like to participate in this week’s Watcher’s Council, go here and follow instructions.

Welcome to the House!

Here are links to my “Countdown to Gettysburg” series that Hugh was kind enough to mention:

June 27, 1863, June 28, 1863, June 29,1863, June 30, 1863, July 1, 1863, July 2, 1863 and July 3, 1863.

And here’s a link to an essay on the battle:

America’s “Love Battle.”

Okay, I admit it. I’m a grump.

These days, it’s very difficult to see the glass as anything except half empty when it comes to looking toward America’s future.

We are beset by critics all over the world who seek to undermine our interests and, more importantly, our safety. Under the guise of “Internationalism,” countries like France, Germany, China, Russia, and a host of others seek to advance their own interests by claiming that when we look out for our welfare instead of theirs, we are being “arrogant” or “unilateral.” In short, because we refuse to do what these enlightened leaders of the international community say, we are ignorant and backward.

We are beset by critics at home who, quite simply, have lost it. While the left in America has always been unbalanced, they were tolerated because their fantasies and idiocies weren’t really a threat to our safety - kind of like a crazy uncle who visits every Christmas and is okay as long as you keep him away from the liquor cabinet. All this changed following 9/11. At a time when we can least afford the unserious and intellectually vapid pronouncements and activities of the moonbats, we are treated to the most astonishing disconnect from reality imaginable. Blind to the dangers posed by our murderous and implacable enemies, the left is attempting to speed us toward annihilation like a lunatic with a match running toward a gasoline dump.

We are afflicted with a judiciary at all levels that slowly and surely undercuts our traditions, our history, and even the constitution itself in an ever expanding effort to take decisions away from the people’s representatives and place it in their own, unelected hands.

We have are cursed with an epidemic of ignorant politicians - both right and left - whose outrageous statements on politics, religion, foreign policy, the war, and each other has polarized the entire body politic to the point where civil discourse is impossible.

We are besieged by a media whose bias, obvious to everyone but themselves, has made the President of the United States and the Iraq War the target of one-sided, slanted coverage so profoundly misleading that their standing with the American people has dropped to an all time low.

We are infested with denizens of a “New Media” - both right and left - many of whom march in lockstep like obedient little drones echoing the rumors, lies, and spin of the ideological lickspittles who are beholden to one party or another.

We are cursed with a culture whose toxicity and nauseating noxiousness has become the bane of western civilization.

Other than this, things are just peachy.

On this 4th of July, when there is an organized effort to burn as many American flags as possible, when there are American citizens openly cheering on the Iraqi insurgents who are killing our soldiers on the field of battle, when the rhetoric of the left soars to ever more fantastic heights of unreality and fantasy, it’s very difficult to be optimistic about the future.

And the President, now burdened with the coming fight over his nominee for the Supreme Court, will be unable to devote the time and effort necessary to get the American people behind him and his war polices that as I write this, are being undermined by both the MSM and his political opponents to the point where it may become impossible to sustain them.

Am I overstating our problems? Not by much, I think.

So this 4th of July, I’m not even going to think about the present. I’m going to enjoy a couple of the very few patriotic programs on TV (one would think it was Easter Sunday so barren of holiday programming is the schedule) - most notably the PBS series Liberty! The American Revolution and the movie starring James Cagney as George M. Cohan entitled Yankee Doodle Dandy and then top off the day with burgers, brats, and dogs on the grill with potato salad.

As long as I don’t read the news or visit the Democratic Underground, I’ll be able to enjoy my traditional 4th of July repast without getting indigestion. And maybe by watching how that extraordinary group of men defied the most fantastic odds to defeat the most powerful nation on earth to win their independence, I’ll feel a little more optimistic about the future.

Anyway, it couldn’t hurt.

The Guardian Council of Iran is made up of the truest of true believers in the Islamic revolution that swept that country more than a quarter of a century ago. It’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has powers more suited to a fascist dictator than anything else. He gets to choose other clerical members of the Council as well as nominate the 6 Islamic lawyers who make up the remainder of the body and must be approved by Parliament. The fact that no member of Parliament can run without Khamenei’s blessing should tell you a little something about how much power the “Supreme Leader” holds.

The Council also has absolute veto power over any law passed by the Iranian Parliament as well as total control over who runs for President. These facts make it plain that “Iranian Democracy” that most of the left here and in Europe were celebrating after the recent elections is a total and complete sham. For not only do the Mullahs have total control over who runs for President, they also control the entire electoral process from the printing of ballots to the counting process.

All of this power is backed up by the fanatically ruthless and bloodthirsty Revolutionary Guard. Acting much like a combination of Hitler’s SS and Gestapo, they have been responsible for the executions and outright murders of tens of thousands of Iranians since 1979. They are as loyal to the Supreme Leader as the SS was to Hitler. They are also in control of the Iranian stockpile of WMD, including chemical, biological, and very soon, nuclear weapons.

A special faction of the Revolutionary Guards is also responsible for what they call “extraterritorial” operations. These include the murders and assassinations of exiles and other critics of the regime. The “Qods” or Jeruselem Force have been involved in assassinations in both the middle east and Europe.

Numbering more than 350,000, the Revolutionary Guards insure that any move toward democracy, any dissent, is crushed before it has a chance to get started.

These facts should be kept in mind when trying to analyze what Ayatollah Khamenei has just done in rigging the Presidential election so that the former hostage taker and assassin Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would win. For Ahmandinejad is not just your run of the mill hardliner (think Rudolph Hess) but rather a cold, calculating murderous thug (think Rheinhard Heydrich).

Global Security has an analysis of the election pointing out how Ahmadinejad won:

Some outside observers had great difficult understanding Ahmadinejad’s apparent popularity across the country. They were not able to comprehend his ability to out-poll better-known figures, such as former speaker of parliament Mehdi Karrubi or former national police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. The other candidates had been nationally visible for years, and had campaigned throughout the country. Although Ahmadinejad only became nationally visible after he became Tehran mayor. He did not campaign as extensively as his rivals. Some speculated that electoral interference by the Basij and the Guardians Council was the only explaination of this otherwise inexplicable rise to power.

The Basiijs, or Mobilization Resistance Force - a volunteer paramilitary militia under the Revolutionary Guards - was called upon to vote for Ahmadinejad and get others to do so. There was evidence of vote rigging by Ayatollah Khamenei and his supporters. Reformists charged the Basij, a paramilitary arm of the Revolutionary Guard, with violating prohibitions against military involvement in politics by mobilizing votes for the Tehran mayor. Although the military is supposed to steer clear of politics, it has always had some role, but it has never been as prominent as this.

(HT: Captains Quarters)

The fact that Khamenei interfered so overtly is extremely troubling. To place such a man as Ahmadinejad in charge at this delicate juncture may in fact mean that the Ayatollah has determined that war with either Israel or the United States is now inevitable and that he needed a President to carry out his orders completely and without hesitation; orders that could include everything from a preemptive strike against Israel to the use of WMD against any military action taken by the United States to try and prevent Iran from acquring nuclear weapons.

But who is President Ahmadinejad? Here’s a short bio that’s extremely revealing:

Following the 1979 Islamic revolution he became a member the ultra-conservative faction of the Office for Strengthening Unity [OSU] Between Universities and Theological Seminaries. The OSU was established by Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, one of Khomeini’s key collaborators, to organise Islamist students against the rapidly growing Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK). When the idea of storming the American embassy in Tehran was raised by the OSU, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time.

With the start of the Iraq war in 1980, Ahmadinejad rushed to the western fronts to fight against the enemy and voluntarily joined special forces of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC) in 1986. He served in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps intelligence and security apparatus.

Ahmadinejad was a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards, stationed at Ramazan Garrison near Kermanshah in western Iran. This was the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards’ “Extra-territorial Operations” — mounting attacks beyond Iran’s borders. His work in the Revolutionary Guards was related to suppression of dissidents in Iran and abroad. He personally participated in covert operations around the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

With the formation of the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force of the IRGC, Ahmadinejad became one of its senior commanders. He directed assassinations in the Middle East and Europe, including the assassination of Iranian Kurdish leader Abdorrahman Qassemlou, who was shot dead by senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards in a Vienna flat in July 1989. Ahmadinejad was a key planner of the attack. He was reported to have been involved in planning an attempt on the life of Salman Rushdie

Five former American hostages have identified Iran’s new President as one of the leaders of the “students” who took over the American embassy in November of 1979. Did Khamenei think that the American government wouldn’t find this out? Did they think we wouldn’t discover his activities as an important commander of the “Qods?”

What kind of signal is the Supreme Leader trying to send us by raising a relatively obscure, ultra-hard line Mayor to the highest “elected” office in the land?

I believe Khamenei has crossed the rubicon and is preparing for war.

From here on out, any negotiations carried out with the so-called E-3 of Germany, France, and Great Britain on slowing down Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must be seen as nothing more than a stalling tactic designed to split the Europeans from the United States so that when the crunch comes, the US will find itself alone both militarily and diplomatically. Any unilateral action we take will be seen as just one more example of American arrogance. In the meantime, Iran gets its nuclear weapons and goes after its primary target: Israel.

Iran’s regional ambitions, which must now be seen in an entirely new light with President Ahmadinejad’s call for once again spreading the Islamic revolution throughout the world, can only be thwarted by Israel and the United States. This puts the state of Israel on the firing line. How far is Khamenei willing to go with Israel? Frankly, all bets are off. It’s impossible to tell if the Supreme Leader of Iran is fanatical enough to try and carry out their oft repeated threat of destroying the Jewish state. But one thing is certain; if they manage to make enough weapons grade plutonium, they will feel emboldened enough to try destabilize the already shaky regimes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

The election in Iran has elevated a fanatical terrorist assassin to the highest elected office in that country. I don’t think we can look at that fact as a coincidence.

It looks like worrying about Iran has now become a full time job if it wasn’t already.