Printer Friendly
July
Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press! Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary
The Morning Murmur – Thursday, July 20,
20062, 2006
1. IAF attempts to hit Hizbullah leaders - Jerusalem Post
Israeli aircraft dropped 23 tons of explosives Wednesday nights on a bunker in
Beirut where intelligence indicated Hizbullah leaders had taken refuge. On
Thursday a top Israeli military official said that an offensive in Lebanon
would not end until Israel's security was restored, and vowed to destroy
Hizbollah's arsenal and military capabilities.
2. Cease-fire with Hezbollah wouldn't bring Mideast peace - Chicago Sun-Times Op-ed
Eliminating the Hezbollah missile threat from southern Lebanon won't mean an
end to the implacable war that Middle East dictators foment to direct the
masses of their people away from the failures of their governments. But
neither Israel nor the world can afford to return the border region to
Nasrallah and his gang of terrorists.
3. Iran promises response to nuclear incentive package on August 22 - Associated Press
After acting as a catalyst to a growing war in the Middle East, Iran on
Thursday promised to formally respond to a Western package of incentives
aimed at resolving the standoff over its suspect nuclear program - on Aug.
22.
4. The 'Wal-Mart Tax' Goes Down - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
Capitol Hill could do a lot to help individuals and small businesses by
finally passing legislation to allow smaller firms to band together across
state lines to form Association Health Plans, and another bill that would
allow individuals in over-regulated states to buy cheaper coverage
elsewhere.
5. Why India Was Hit - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
A week after the Mumbai
train blasts, the identity of the terrorists who killed 207 innocents
remains unclear. But it's easy to see why India was targeted -- for its
success in finding its way into the modern world.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. IAF attempts to hit Hizbullah leaders -
Jerusalem Post
IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said
Thursday that an offensive in Lebanon would not end until Israel's security
was restored, and vowed to destroy Hizbollah's arsenal and military
capabilities.
"The fighting in the north ... could last a long time," Halutz said in a
letter to soldiers and officers. "We are being tested at this time. Our
moral strength and value will reflect on the state of Israel and its
residents and on their ability to continue to stand up to the threat on the
front."
"We will operate for as long as necessary until security is returned to the
state of Israel," he added.
Meanwhile, IAF fighter jets dropped 23 tons of explosives late Wednesday
night on a Hizbullah bunker, possibly the hiding place of the group's leader
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp in southeast
Beirut. It was still unclear who was in the bunker at the time and what
their fate was, but IDF sources said the bunker was totally destroyed and
that all that was left was a crater.
The IDF obtained intelligence information late Wednesday night that
Hizbullah leaders possibly including Nasrallah had taken refuge inside the
bunker. A wave of aircraft immediately took to the air and dropped 23 tons
of explosives on the bunker.
IDF sources would not confirm that Nasrallah was in the bunker at the time,
but said that high-ranking Hizbullah leaders were inside, and that it
appeared that the attack was successful.
Hizbullah has said none of its "leaders or members" died in the IAF strike.
"The truth is that the building targeted by the enemy warplanes with 23 tons
of explosives is just a building under construction to be a mosque for
prayers," said the statement, issued on the group's Al-Manar TV and faxed to
The Associated Press.
"It seems that the enemy wants to cover up its military and security
failures with lies and claims of imaginary achievements," it said.
The IDF said the strike occurred between 8 and 9 pm but refused to give
further details. Reporters in Beirut said they heard a huge explosion around
8:30 p.m.
Hizbullah has a headquarters compound in Bourj al-Barajneh that is off
limits to the Lebanese police and army, so security officials could not
confirm the strike.
Despite the airing of Hizbullah's claims that the IAF had hit a mosque under
construction, the IDF Spokesman's office insisted to The Jerusalem Post
early Thursday morning that the IAF had hit a Hizbullah bunker.
Also early Thursday morning, Israel's UN Ambassador Gillerman said in a CNN
interview that "I can assure you that we know exactly what we hit. ... This
was no religious site. This was indeed the headquarters of the Hizbullah
leadership."
Since the IDF went to war with Lebanon last Wednesday, fighter jets have
repeatedly bombed another bunker in the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut, also
said to be the main nerve center and headquarters of Hizbullah.
The IAF has so far carried over 3,000 sorties over Lebanon, and in the past
day attacked 200 targets throughout the country, including Hizbullah
headquarters, cars carrying terrorists, Katyusha launchers and weapons
warehouses.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291951954&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
2. Cease-fire with Hezbollah wouldn't
bring Mideast peace - Chicago Sun-Times Op-ed
July 20, 2006
BY STEVE HUNTLEY
When I visited Israel nearly five years ago, I heard much about the
perversity of suicide bombings, the treachery of Yasser Arafat and the
threats of terrorism from the Gaza Strip and West Bank. But one Western
diplomat turned my attention in another direction.
The Israel-Lebanon border, he told me, "could be a more serious flash point
than the West Bank or Gaza Strip. What happens if Hezbollah, Syria, Iran or
all three decide to stir the pot?"
A few days later as I toured the border region with its Israeli army
outposts, Hezbollah encampments, electronic fences and barbed wire, an
Israeli Defense Forces officer said that Hezbollah had 10,000 missiles in
southern Lebanon. "To get escalation, all you need is for missiles to hit
Haifa," he declared.
This reference to a story I wrote nearly five years ago is not just to note
the prescience of the diplomat and soldier. It also suggests how intolerable
a return to the status quo of just a couple of weeks ago -- when southern
Lebanon was a ticking bomb waiting to explode into regional war -- would be.
A quick, simple cease-fire -- as some are calling for now -- is not the
answer to the war Israel is fighting. A sustained, effective Israeli
offensive that at least drives Hezbollah from the border and takes down the
missile threat is the only answer to the new Middle East war inflicted on
the world by Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
Nor are U.N. peacekeepers the answer. U.N. peacekeepers have been on the
ground in southern Lebanon for years, have failed to stop aggression across
what is an internationally recognized border and have never been completely
absolved of acquiescence in the kidnapping and deaths of three IDF soldiers
six years ago.
The only international force that would be meaningful would have to be
peace-enforcers, not peacekeepers. That means a fighting force committed to
disarming Hezbollah even if that required, as it likely would, going village
to village, house to house, garage to garage to drain the terrorist arsenal.
Even though there already exists a U.N. resolution demanding the disarmament
of Hezbollah, the United Nations that we know is incapable of mustering the
will and troops to do that job, however vital it is to achieving actual
peace.
No, blunting the missile threat must be left to the Israelis. That's why
calls for restraint are also wrong. Worse than wrong when you consider the
source of some of these demands. Russian President Vladimir Putin calls for
balance, but what balance did Russian troops bring in turning Chechnya into
a charnel house?
Israeli and Lebanese civilians are being killed. The difference is that
Hezbollah is deliberately aiming to kill Israeli civilians -- women,
children, the elderly. Israel targets Hezbollah strongholds and
inadvertently kills civilians because the Hezbollah terrorists hide behind
the people for whom they claim to fight.
Using noncombatants as shields is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. By
any measure, authorities at the international criminal court in the Hague
should be issuing an arrest warrant for war crimes against Hassan Nasrallah,
the Hezbollah leader. But who would arrest him? This tribunal is no more
effective than the U.N. in coping with the deadly terrorist threat the world
faces.
Lebanese civilians are dying, not because of Israel, but because of the
aggression of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. To paraphrase something an Egyptian
leader once said about Syria, rest assured that Syrian President Bashar
Assad is willing to fight this battle to the last Lebanese. How long will
the Lebanese people tolerate seeing their lives thrown away as cannon fodder
for the half-century-old war against Israel? Certainly the Palestinians,
when given the choice, have opted not to build a nation for their children
but rather to feed them to the maw of the anti-Israeli war machine. It's
starting to get hard to take as serious or sincere appeals from Palestinians
for their own state.
Give peace a chance is the underlying message in the calls for a cease-fire.
Well, Israel gave peace a chance, and it got war. It withdrew from Lebanon
in 2000 and got a Hezbollah terrorist state within the state of Lebanon
firing missiles at towns in Israel. The Israelis pulled out of Gaza last
year and got a Hamastan in the proto-state of Palestine shooting rockets at
Israeli civilians.
Eliminating the Hezbollah missile threat from southern Lebanon won't mean an
end to the implacable war that Middle East dictators foment to direct the
masses of their people away from the failures of their governments. But
given how the warnings I heard five years ago turned out, neither Israel nor
the world can afford to return the border region to Nasrallah and his gang
of terrorists.
Steve Huntley is editor of the Sun-Times editorial page.
http://suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-hunt20.html#
3. Iran promises response to nuclear
incentive package on August 22 - Associated Press
Posted 7/20/2006 6:53 AM ET
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran on Thursday promised to formally respond on Aug. 22
to a Western package of incentives aimed at resolving the standoff over its
suspect nuclear program.
The Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making
body, also threatened that the country will reconsider its nuclear policies
if sanctions are imposed.
The council didn't elaborate, but Iranian officials repeatedly have
suggested that Tehran may withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
and stop cooperation with the U.N. inspectors.
"The package of incentives requires a logical time to study it ... August 22
has been set for declaring (our) views," the council said in a statement
read on state-run television.
"In case the path of confrontation is chosen instead of the path of dialogue
... and Iran's definite rights are threatened, then there will be no option
for Iran but to reconsider its nuclear policies," it added.
The statement came a day after Russia said the U.N. Security Council is in
no rush to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, striking a more
conciliatory tone than the United States as diplomats began discussing a
resolution to put legal muscle behind demands that Tehran suspend uranium
enrichment.
The United States and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to produce
highly enriched uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons. Tehran says its
nuclear program is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity.
The Western nations offered Iran a package of incentives on June 6 -
including advanced technology and possibly even nuclear research reactors -
if Tehran suspended enrichment.
But the frustrated powers agreed last week to send Tehran back to the U.N.
Security Council for possible punishment, saying it had given no sign it
would bargain in earnest over its nuclear ambitions.
Iran has said the incentives package was an "acceptable basis" for
negotiations.
The council said special committees in key state agencies were still
studying the offer by the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and
Germany, and invited the U.S. and its allies to return to the negotiating
table.
It said it was "surprising" that the U.S. was creating obstacles in the way
of a negotiated settlement while Iran was seriously studying the offer.
"Iran is not after tension, but if others push things toward tension and
create problems, then all will face problems. Iran believes dialogue is the
most logical solution. It is serious in this path. We want the other side to
return to the negotiating table," the statement said.
A senior Iranian lawmaker said Tuesday that the country's parliament was
preparing to debate withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty if the U.N.
Security Council adopts a resolution that would force Tehran to suspend
uranium enrichment.
Withdrawal from the treaty could end all international oversight of Iran's
nuclear program.
In February, Iran for the first time produced its first batch of
low-enriched uranium, using a cascade of 164 centrifuges. The process of
uranium enrichment can be used to generate electricity or in building a
bomb, depending on the level of enrichment.
Iran has said it will never give up its right under the treaty to enrich
uranium and produce nuclear fuel but has indicated it may temporarily
suspend large-scale activities to ease tensions.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the council wants an answer sometime
soon to the incentives package, but he stressed the council is not trying to
push Tehran.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-07-20-iran_x.htm
4. The 'Wal-Mart Tax' Goes Down - Wall
Street Journal Op-ed
July 20, 2006; Page A12
States currently have a lot of leeway in regulating health insurance. But
one thing they can't do is take it upon themselves to create miniature
versions of HillaryCare by imposing coverage mandates on large employers.
That's the upshot of a decision yesterday by federal District Judge J.
Frederick Motz. He ruled that Maryland's Fair Share Health Care Fund Act is
pre-empted by a federal law known by the acronym Erisa, whose purpose is to
allow large companies to have uniform nationwide employee benefit plans.
The Maryland law, which passed earlier this year, was also known as the
"Wal-Mart Tax" because it would have required companies with 10,000 or more
employees to spend at least 8% of their payroll on health care or pay the
state the difference. Wal-Mart happened to be the only company in Maryland
large enough to fit that definition. The trade association representing
Wal-Mart in the suit also argued that a law singling out one employer in
such a fashion violates the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. But
while recognizing this problematic aspect of the law, Judge Motz ultimately
rejected that argument.
His decision in favor of Wal-Mart on Erisa grounds, however, is sweeping and
unequivocal. "The Act violates ERISA's fundamental purpose of permitting
multi-state employers to maintain nationwide health and welfare plans,
providing uniform nationwide benefits and permitting uniform national
administration," he writes.
Everyone who really believes in the welfare of workers -- rather than just
scoring political points by punishing big business -- should cheer the
decision. Obviously, companies that have to meet a multitude of local
requirements would be faced with much higher administrative costs, and as a
consequence have less money left over to spend on actual health care.
The idea of state-level "Fair Share" health-care legislation isn't just a
legal loser, by the way. It's also a political bust. Despite a campaign by
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in more than 30 states, not one has followed
Maryland's lead. New York's Suffolk County, which has passed an employer
mandate, may lose a similar legal challenge.
We sure hope Congress, which created the Erisa law way back in 1974, is
paying attention. Unlike big businesses protected by Erisa, individuals and
small businesses remain hostage to expensive state insurance regulations
that have ballooned over the past 30 years. We don't see why the arguments
in favor of Erisa shouldn't apply equally to them.
Capitol Hill could do a lot to help by finally passing legislation to allow
smaller firms to band together across state lines to form Association Health
Plans, and another bill that would allow individuals in over-regulated
states to buy cheaper coverage elsewhere. State-level insurance regulation
is an expensive anachronism in the Internet age. It's high time Congress
used the same Commerce Clause powers that justify Erisa to fix the problem
for everybody -- not just large employers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115335064489811714.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
5. Why India Was Hit - Wall Street
Journal Op-ed
A week after the Mumbai train blasts, the identity of the terrorists who
killed 207 innocents remains unclear. But it's easy to see why India was
targeted -- for its success in finding its way into the modern world.
Unlike Britain and Spain, both previous victims of terrorist train bombings,
India never had any troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. Even long-standing
tensions with Pakistan over Kashmir have subsided in recent years as
Islamabad, under U.S. pressure, finally began to crack down on the terrorist
cells operating on its side of the disputed border. One of those groups may
have been behind last week's blasts. Indian police are now investigating a
claim of responsibility by Lashkar-e-Qahhar, a likely front for another
Pakistan-based group, Lashkar-e-Taiba. But even if this proves correct, in
the final analysis the bombings were not primarily about Kashmir or ancient
sectarian conflicts.
The real reason India was targeted was because it has transformed itself
from a Third World country into a modern economic power, complete with
Western-style freedoms. This is precisely what radical Islam most loathes
and fears. If the rest of the Third World, especially Muslim countries,
learn how to be like India; if they decide to become part of the global
order, and learn how to produce wealth on a Western scale and enjoy Western
freedoms, including freedom for women, and begin to build pluralist open
societies, then the Islamists' dreams of power and domination are dead.
Freedom is a dangerous thing. It empowers millions. But it also sows
discontent and hatred among those who have a different plan, a different
vision of how things should turn out. It did that in the West for almost 100
years. The proponents of Nazism, communism and fascism all hated their own
societies precisely because of the positive goods these societies promised
and delivered. Those goods made it more difficult to seize power. That was
why Adolf Hitler targeted the prosperous Jews, why Communists targeted the
bourgeoisie, and why they all hated America. In every case, their targets
symbolized the productive, orderly, decent and innovative forces of modern
capitalist society: the same forces that are shaping India today.
This war against the modern world has shifted its ground, but the stakes are
the same, and not just in India. Indonesia, Jordan, Egypt, the Philippines,
and today's Iraq and Afghanistan, are also in the terrorist cross hairs.
These countries are taking their first, sometimes unsteady steps, toward
becoming free and open societies -- something the jihadists can never afford
to see happen. It was the same in Lebanon a generation ago, when that
country became the target of Palestinian wrath. Yasser Arafat and his
henchmen in the Palestinian Liberation Organization set out to destroy its
pluralistic capitalist society. They succeeded in pushing Lebanon into an
anarchy from which it has only recently begun to emerge. Now they are trying
to do the same elsewhere.
Whether they succeed in India and the rest of South Asia remains to be seen.
Although India is emerging as part of the modern world, it is ringed by
troubled neighbors. While Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf,
has proved a reliable ally of the U.S. in the war against terror, and
strongly condemned last week's blast, he is engaged in a struggle to the
death with his country's Islamic extremists. Gen. Musharraf has already
survived at least three assassination attempts in recent years. But, if
another one were to succeed, Pakistan would be plunged into anarchy that
could take generations to overcome. To the east there is Bangladesh, which
has recently been the scene of numerous bombings by al Qaeda-linked radical
Islamic groups. Its government has proved incapable of taking decisive
action against these groups. And to the south there is Sri Lanka, where the
terrorist Tamil Tigers are also engaged in a war with the modern world.
This is a dilemma not just for India, but the whole world. While we worry
about how to give terrorists their Geneva Convention rights, they continue
their dreadful work. Like the victims of 9/11, the victims in Mumbai are
casualties in a fight for the survival of the modern world, and its free
markets and institutions. It's a war that India, in common with the rest of
humanity, cannot afford to lose.
Mr. Herman is the author of, most recently, "To Rule the Waves: How the
British Navy Shaped the Modern World" (HarperCollins/Perennial, 2006).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115334394588611561.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
### |
