Patterico's Pontifications

12/8/2007

An Eye-Witness to the Omaha Mall Shooting

Filed under: Second Amendment — DRJ @ 7:39 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

JoeMerchant24 at Joe’s Crabby Shack posted a blog entry from a person he identifies as an eye-witness to the Westroads Mall shooting in Omaha, Nebraska. The eye-witness makes a good argument that public places like malls, where these kinds of incidents are becoming more common, should rethink whether to prohibit guns.

However, the main reason to read this account is that it is a compelling and dramatic story. Here’s the conclusion:

“I do want to say that when I talk about that I could of stopped the killer, I am not trying to make a political statement. I am simply saying if I were allowed to carry a gun, I would have and I would have used it.

That is a hard fact. I am not trying to be a hero and say that I would have tried to save lives. I am saying that I was trying to save my life, and if my family was there, their lives as well. There is nothing “hero” about what I am saying, it’s about survival.

I feel that I am alive today because of luck. I chose to run, but it was not a choice. I was forced to run. Many will say that is the right choice. I say it is the choice that requires luck. ALOT of luck with the position I was in.

Use of deadly force at times may also require luck. But, it also depends upon skill, awareness, and practice. These are things I can control, and these are things I trust far more than luck.”

Now go read the rest.

— DRJ

The Agenda Behind the Iranian NIE Report

Filed under: Government,Terrorism — DRJ @ 6:00 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

There is growing criticism of the recent NIE report that claims Iran stopped its nuclear program in 2003. One criticism is that the report may have been based on a single source, a retired Iranian Guard General who may have been part of an Iranian disinformation campaign:

“Recent reports, by Kenneth Timmerman and others, indicate that a single human source may be responsible for the conclusions of the NIE. This would probably be a former aide to the Iranian defense minister and a retired general with long service in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (recently categorized as a terrorist entity) who disappeared in Europe earlier in the year.

One should recall the notorious Curveball — also a human source — whose “stories” led the CIA to conclude that Iraq had an active WMD program. Curveball lied and our use of him for intelligence has been widely castigated. Are we relying now on an Iranian with a long history of service to the Iran Revolutionary Guard for our intelligence? Could he be a plant to distort our intelligence? Has history repeated itself as a farce and as a tragedy?”

The report has also been criticized because its apparent authors are three former State Department officials who reportedly advocate anti-Bush and anti-war agendas:

“The three main authors of this report are former State Department officials with previous reputations that should lead one to doubt their conclusions. All three are ex-bureaucrats who, as is generally true of State Department types, favor endless rounds of negotiation and “diplomacy” and oppose confrontation. These three officials, according to the Wall Street Journal, have “reputations as hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials”.

They are Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Tom Fingar was a State Department employee who was an expert on China and Germany — he has no notable experience, according to his bio in the Middle East and its geopolitics.

Vann Van Diepen is also a career State Department bureaucrat who, according to the New York Sun, is one of the State Department bureaucrats who want “revenge” for having their views regarding Iran ignored by the Bush Administration. He is now seeking to further his own agenda. As the Sun wrote in their editorial yesterday:

Vann Van Diepen, one of the estimate’s main authors, has spent the last five years trying to get America to accept Iran’s right to enrich uranium. Mr. Van Diepen no doubt reckons that in helping push the estimate through the system, he has succeeded in influencing the policy debate in Washington. The bureaucrats may even think they are stopping another war.

Vann Diepen also shares a lack of experience in dealing with Iran or the region.

The third main author comes in for particular criticism in the Wall Street Journal editorial. Kenneth Brill served as the US Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA). This is an agency that has served to enable Iranian’s quest for nuclear weapons. The head of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, has even been called a friend by the Iranian regime. As he should be, for he has been an enabler of its nuclear weapons program and has stiff-armed European Union diplomats who have worked to restrain Iran.

Elbaredei and the IAEA have over-reached and now seek to control diplomatic negotiations with Iran — a function that is beyond its mandate. Brill was apparently unwilling to stop this mission creep and put an end to Elbaradei’s efforts to help Iran. Or, as the Wall Street Journal hints, maybe he was just incompetent. This hint comes from former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton’s (who headed counter-proliferation efforts in the State Department previous to his UN posting) new book:

For a flavor of their political outlook, former Bush Administration antiproliferation official John Bolton recalls in his recent memoir that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage “described Brill’s efforts in Vienna, or lack thereof, as ‘bull — .'” Mr. Brill was “retired” from the State Department by Colin Powell before being rehired, over considerable internal and public protest, as head of the National Counter-Proliferation Center by then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Brill also has no previous history of experience dealing with Iran. (He graduated from Business School at Berkeley in 1973!).”

Dafyyd at Big Lizards adds more information and his thoughts in this excellent post that analyzes a recent LA Times’ article on the subject.

— DRJ

Tancredo Won’t Participate in Spanish Language Debate

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 2:14 pm



Via Hot Air, it appears that Tom Tancredo won’t be participating in the Spanish language debate:

I declined the invitation to participate in the Spanish-language Republican presidential debate on Sunday because I do not want to endorse the further Balkanization of American political life…

I do not believe it is proper to appeal to the ‘‘Hispanic vote” or the “Asian vote” or the “Black vote.” I believe we must appeal only for American votes.

Any political debate is aimed at citizens. It is about issues of concern to the entire community, not a segment of the community. It is vital that all political debates and discussions take place in the public square, not in separate enclaves. Our democracy does not need different messages broadcast to different audiences in different languages that are not heard or understood by other groups.

There goes his shot at the Hispanic vote.

Tancredo also says:

Our children learn in school that all registered voters are either native-born citizens or naturalized citizens, and all applicants for citizenship must pass an English-proficiency test. This test is included in the naturalization exam for a good reason.

Conducting political debates in any language other than English, whether Korean, French, Farsi or Spanish, is telling new immigrants that they need not take that particular requirement for naturalization seriously. The United States has a special need to have a common language because of the very diversity of its immigrants. Our parents and ancestors who were immigrants spoke many different languages on arrival. But they came here to become Americans, and as Americans, we conduct our political affairs in English.

This argument ignores the fact that some native-born citizens don’t speak English. Puerto Ricans are an obvious example, but residents of Los Angeles know that there are many enclaves where people can spend their whole lives living and working while speaking another language.

Whether this is a good thing is an entirely different question.

A Conversation with My Five-Year-Old Son Matthew in the Car

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:34 am



This happened Wednesday night:

Me: (in full-throated song) Love me, love me, love me, love me, say you do
Let me fly away with you
For my love is like the wind, and wild is the wind
Wild is the wind

Matthew: (reproachfully) The wind’s not wild, Daddy.

Well, right then it wasn’t. So he had a point.

UPDATE: Not Rhetorical notes that I appear to be raising a sort of wind expert.


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