Ambassador Pelosi

The Daily Colonial paper of George Washington University has a scathing editorial by Nick Miller on what Pelosi has accomplished in a mere four months as Speaker of the House.

Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker of the House for less than four months, yet in that short time she has already managed to prove herself incapable of responsible leadership. Embracing her new position of power, Pelosi seems determined to meddle in areas where she is least needed, most notably in the realm of diplomacy and foreign policy.

Coming on the heels of her possibly felonious diplomatic excursion to Syria last month, Pelosi is apparently continuing to pursue her misguided and backwards attempts at diplomacy. According to a report from The American Spectator last week, Pelosi has refused to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (an American ally), but is planning a visit to Venezuela to meet with Hugo Chavez — one of the world’s most outspoken enemies of the United States.

In other words, in continued disregard for the Constitution of the United States, Pelosi has taken it upon herself to ignore U.S. diplomatic policies and attempt to engage in her own personal diplomacy with America’s enemies.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution explicitly states that that President is the one who “shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers” and that the President “shall have the power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties.”

In addition, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the President and his authorized agents have the sole authority to negotiate with foreign governments, and the Logan Act specifically forbids unauthorized Americans from negotiating with foreign governments with the intent to impact relations between that government and the U.S.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Constitution and U.S. laws are of little significance for Pelosi, who would rather win cheap political points with moveon.org than obey those pesky things known as “laws.”..

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At a stage in American history where foreign policy issues reign supreme, it is even more important than usual that the United States present a united diplomatic front. Legal issues notwithstanding, it is both sad and disturbing that Nancy Pelosi is using her position as Speaker to undermine American foreign policy for her own political purposes. Not only is she potentially hindering American diplomatic efforts, but she is also proving herself unfit for the job of Speaker.

Get this: Nancy Pelosi won’t meet with Presdient Uribe of Columbia, perhaps the most pro-US leader in South America, despite his going out of his way to make the meeting happen.

According to sources within the House Democratic leadership, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has denied the request for a meeting with Uribe when he comes to Washington next week. Uribe’s staff has attempted to set up a meeting with Pelosi, offering to come to her offices with Uribe if necessary. Pelosi has refused the meeting.

“She has third parties who have encouraged her not to take the meeting,” says a leadership aide, who said a coalition of labor organizations and MoveOn.org had been pressuring her to not meet with Uribe. “We’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not like we’re talking about some family from San Francisco who stopped by her office unannounced. This is the president of a country.”

In Colombia, Uribe has been struggling against communist terrorist groups financed by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, as well as leftist political pressure internally. All while attempting to work with the U.S. against narco-trafficking. “He’s a friend and an ally,” says a State Department source, who was unaware of Pelosi’s snub. “I’d be surprised that one of our national leaders would not meet with a strategic partner of the United States of America.”

But guess who Nancy will meet with? Uribe’s socialist, anti-America, anti-free trade, anti-human-rights enemy Hugo Chavez.

According to leadership staff, [Pelosi] has members of her personal staff working on initial plans for a trip to Venezuela, perhaps in the fall, to meet with Chavez.

So let’s review:

Pelosi won’t meet with General Petraeus, the commander of the most important conflict in the middle east. But she will meet with Syrian dictator Bassar Assad, one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism in the middle east.

Pelosi snubs one of our most important allies in South America, but will make time for our biggest enemy in South America in the person of Hugo Chavez.

Anyone else seeing a pattern here?
UPDATE: The beat goes on.

Democtrats Continue to Broaden Base.

(H/T Gateway Pundit ) Go to Gateway Pundit to enlarge. The story above was published in the official Iranian Fars News on Friday.
They must have been impressed with the democratic presidential candidates, especially since only 4 of the 8 democrats think their is a global War on Terror.


MEHR News reported:

Vietnam flashback

TEHRAN, April 27 (MNA) -- The U.S. Senate recently passed a bill according to which U.S. military forces would have to leave Iraq by March 2008. However, President George W. Bush has repeatedly stated that he would veto the bill.
But it appears likely the U.S. will be forced to leave Iraq in a far more humiliating way than the Soviet Union left Afghanistan.

This would be a major defeat for the United States almost as bad as the Vietnam debacle.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have cited the increasing unrest in Iraq as the main reason why U.S. forces should be withdrawn from the country.

The Democrats in Congress believe that stability can only be established in Iraq through a political solution, although such views seem overly optimistic, like the White House’s claim four years ago that U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators. However, U.S. citizens are worried about the White House’s mismanagement of the war since it has become evident that maintaining stability in Iraq is almost impossible.

Many U.S. officials have even admitted that the implementation of Bush’s ambitious policies in Iraq over the past four years has been a miserable failure. Iraq has become a smoldering ruin while Bush is trying to prevent a total collapse by calling for the deployment of even more troops to the region.

Yet, after a meeting with Bush, Reid told journalists that the United States had lost the war and that a troop surge would not help. He went on to say that success in Iraq would only be possible through political and economic means, not war and bloodshed.

The Iranians have found their party!

White Flag Democrats or Fifth Columnists. Or Both.

Unlike the "fifth column" of old, there is nothing clandestine about this movement. Wikipedia defines fifth column thus "A fifth column is a group of people which clandestinely undermines a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal, such as a nation." The leaders of this group, Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, and many more including a few Republicans like Chuck Hagel are not only willing to raise the white flag of surrender but are openly and actively doing everything in their power to guarantee defeat and take us back to a 9/10 status.Are they doing this because they feel that it is best for the country? In a word, no. They are doing it for their own political/personal gain.They are so heavily invested in defeat that rational thought has no place in their agenda.
Harry Reid has gone so far as to declare the war lost, the surge a failure even though it has just started and is showing signs of progress, and then goes on the malign Gen.David Petraeus, whose report he dismisses as valueless. Here is the video at Hot Air. Unlike some Democrats, he’ll hear Petraeus out; he’ll just simply refuse to believe anything he says that doesn’t fit the left’s narrative.
Neville Nancy won't even deign to meet the the field commander.

As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion troop funding bill — which would also mandate that U.S. combat troops begin withdrawing from Iraq on Oct. 1 at the latest — Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to come to the Hill tomorrow to brief lawmakers on the progress of the recent troop escalation.

ABC News has learned, however, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will not attend the briefing.

"She can't make the briefing tomorrow," a Democratic aide told ABC News Tuesday evening. "But she spoke with the general via phone today at some length."

A Pelosi aide said the speaker on Tuesday requested a one-on-one meeting with Petraeus but that could not be worked out. He said their phone conversation lasted 30 minutes.

So what was so important that Pelosi could not attend a briefing on the progress of the war? Another trip to Syria perhaps? And what does John Murtha say about the Republicans accusing Congress of micromanaging the war? From CNN:

CNN's John Roberts: "Joining me now is one of the most vocal advocates of a pullout from Iraq, Democratic Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania. ... You heard what President Bush said, that Congress shouldn't be micromanaging the war. What do you say?" Rep. John Murtha: "That's our job, John." (CNN's "American Morning," 4/24/07)

Click here for that video.

Nevada Soldiers have responded to their Senator here. And Michele Malkin has posted several letters from our troops in Iraq as well. Here, here, here and here.

I guess Reid would call those comments more of Cheney being an "attack dog," when Cheney is really giving a point by point refutation of all of Reid's positions. Will Reid have the intellectually honesty to address Cheney's points or will he just resort back to complaining that Cheney is attacking him?
Somehow, it's being an "attack dog" to go out and defend his administration from the allegations leveled at it daily. Cheney responded with these comments today pointing out all of Senator Reid's twists and turns on Iraq.

I usually avoid press comment when I’m up here, but I felt so strongly about what Senator Reid said in the last couple of days, that I thought it was appropriate that I come out today and make a statement that I think needs to be made.

I thought his speech yesterday was unfortunate, that his comments were uninformed and misleading. Senator Reid has taken many positions on Iraq. He has threatened that if the President vetoes the current pending supplemental legislation, that he will send up Senator Russ Feingold's bill to de-fund Iraq operations altogether.

Yet only last November, Senator Reid said there would be no cutoff of funds for the military in Iraq. So in less than six months' time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding but with conditions, and then a cutoff of funding — three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops.

Yesterday, Senator Reid said the troop surge was against the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. That is plainly false. The Iraq Study Group report was explicitly favorable toward a troop surge to secure Baghdad. Senator Reid said there should be a regional conference on Iraq. Apparently, he doesn't know that there is going to be one next week. Senator Reid said he doesn't have real substantive meetings with the President. Yet immediately following last week's meeting at the White House, he said, "It was a good exchange; everyone voiced their considered opinion about the war in Iraq."

What's most troubling about Senator Reid's comments yesterday is his defeatism. Indeed, last week, he said the war is already lost. And the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat.

Maybe it's a political calculation. Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics. Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election. It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage. Leaders should make decisions based on the security interests of our country, not on the interests of their political party.

Or will he call him a liar like he just implied in this CNN interview that General Petraeus is?

BASH: You talked several times about General Petraeus. You know that he is here in town. He was at the White House today, sitting with the president in the Oval Office and the president said that he wants to make it clear that Washington should not be telling him, General Petraeus, a commander on the ground in Iraq, what to do, particularly, the president was talking about Democrats in Congress. He also said that General Petraeus is going to come to the Hill and make it clear to you that there is progress going on in Iraq, that the so-called surge is working. Will you believe him when he says that?

REID: No, I don't believe him, because it's not happening.

Yup, because Reid knows so much more than the general on the ground that he doesn't even need to listen to what he has to say. Hat tip Betsy Newmark at Betsy's Page

The newest Comedy From the UN

This from Anne Bayefsky at NRO

On April 9, 2007 there was a United Nations believe-it-or-not moment extraordinaire. At the same time that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad declared his country was now capable of industrial-scale uranium enrichment, the U.N. reelected Iran as a vice chairman of the U.N. Disarmament Commission.

Yes Ripley, the very U.N. body charged with promoting nuclear nonproliferation installed in a senior position the state that the Security Council recently declared violated its nonproliferation resolutions.

So in Iran at the Natanz nuclear facility Ahmadinejad gloated: “With great pride, I announce as of today our dear country is among the countries of the world that produces nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.” And in New York, courtesy of his U.N. platform, Iranian Disarmament Vice-Chairman Seyed Mohammad Ali Robatjazi railed against “noncompliance with the NPT [nuclear nonproliferation treaty] by the United States” and “the Zionist lobby.”

It took the U.N. a mere five days to rehabilitate Iran after the British kidnap victims made it home alive. Just the night before on April 8, Faye Turney, the only female victim, revealed her Iranian abductors stripped her to her underwear, caged her in a tiny, freezing cell, and subjected her to mental torture such as leading her to believe that her death was imminent.

But while this was actually happening to Faye Turney, Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, the president of the U.N.’s lead human-rights body — the U.N. Human Rights Council — was making this announcement, March 26, 2006:

I would like to make the following statement adopted by the Council. One,…the Human Rights Council has in closed meetings examined the human rights situation in…the Islamic Republic of Iran…Two, the Human Rights Council has decided to discontinue the consideration of the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran…Three,…members of the Human Rights Council should make no reference in the public debate to the confidential decisions and material concerning [the Islamic Republic of Iran]…

And it just keeps getting better.

This is not simply a very bad joke. The U.N. is feted by many as the go-to address for international progress in the world today. Congressman Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, declared at a hearing on U.N. reform in February that “the U.N. provides vital support to core U.S. foreign-policy initiatives” including on Iran and the way forward is to “ratchet up our level of diplomacy there.”

“Ratchet up” suffers from some elementary numerical challenges — not to mention the netherworld where that ratcheting is headed. Congressman Lantos and his close friend former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have long been drinking from the same well. The “reformed” Human Rights Council was Annan’s creation. Lantos is the leading advocate of the United States joining the Human Rights Council — where presumably we could jump up and down while exercising one vote out of 47. Annan, of his own volition, went to Tehran last September and urged the world not to isolate Iran immediately after the Iranian president had ignored a Security Council deadline to suspend its nuclear activities. Lantos confessed to the House Committee at the end of February that he has been begging for a visa to go to Iran for the past ten years and “will be among the first ones to do so once this visa is granted.”

Lantos was pleased with his recent trip, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to Syria. The U.N. shares his view that one of the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism ought to be a welcome player on the world stage. Following the election on Monday of Iran as vice chairman, the U.N. Disarmament Commission elected Syria as its rapporteur.

The line between U.N. diplomacy and farce has been crossed. The real tragedy is that the defensible border between our freedom-loving rights-respecting world and the cave of our enemies is fading along with it

And we get this from The Canada Free Press;

Pelosi and the Peter Principle

By Alan Caruba

Thursday, April 12, 2007

"Everyone rises to their level of incompetence," wrote Laurence J. Peter, the author of 'The Peter Principle', a book that enshrined that wonderful insight in American culture ever since its publication in 1969. Watching Nancy Pelosi since she ascended Constitutionally as Speaker of the House within Dick Cheney's heartbeat of the Presidency, I was reminded of that.

When the Washington Post takes you to task, as it did on April 5 in an editorial, "Pratfall in Damascus", you have to know that Nancy is in way over her head. Her trip to the Holy Land of Israel and the unholy one of Syria was a complete debacle. "We come in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," said Speaker Pelosi. The Post editorial dismissed that as "ludicrous."...

Presumably, one does not achieve such success by being stupid. Yet, as Speaker, everyone has witnessed her saying and doing some astonishingly stupid things. The Washington Post admonished her, saying that, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad."

While being villified by the GOP and the Post and USA Today at home however, she is being praised and even given the title of Alternate President in other parts of the world. In an editorial in the Saudi Gazette dated April 6 we find this kudos from the Kingdom.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reminds us of the ambitious office worker who is surrounded by dunderheads who can't or won't get the job done. So she rolls up her sleeves and says for all the world to hear: "Well, it looks like I'll have to do it myself."

Pelosi, the rabble-rousing Democratic leader - or better yet the Alternate President - has apparently decided that President George Bush's refusal to sit down and negotiate with Syria and Iran is just plain silly. If we are going to inch closer toward peace in Iraq, slow down Iran's nuclear ambitions and create a stable region, perhaps folding our arms across our chests and frowning is not the right approach.

Bold added.

I have a plethora of praises from our "friends" in the ME for our Alternate President.Iran is looking forward to her possible visit.

Palestine, Pelosi and Perfidy

As expected, the Pelosi and Company trip to Syria and Israel has been met with a blogospheric firestorm. I have my own thought to add to this kerfuffle but that will have to be postponed a bit. It has been well covered by the blog world and I can't add much. I would like to draw your attention to this article written in The American Thinker. It is an eyeopening piece to anyone who has not been following the Palestinian problems. An Excerpt:

According to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) tens of billions of dollars (one-third from US taxpayers, the rest mostly from Canada and European countries) have been spent over the last 50 years providing "Palestinian refugees" and their descendents. An estimated half million people 60 years ago, that number is now over four million and increasing daily.

UNRWA's purpose: to insure the "Palestinian Right of Return" - the destruction of Israel.

No Arab country except Jordan -- where they constitute more than two-thirds of the population - accepts them as citizens. Saudi Arabia, for example, recently passed a law allowing all foreigner workers in the country to apply for Saudi citizenship next year - except Palestinians.

More than 400,000 "Palestinian refugees" living in UNWRA-supported "camps" in Lebanon cannot work or even go to school outside their designated areas. Ditto for Syria.

Most "Palestinian refugees" listed by UNRWA (which includes Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Gaza) in 2002, don't even live in the camps, but in nearby villages and towns. All receive free assistance and services for the rest of their life, including their children, their grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, ad infinitum.

According to UNRWA's rules, anyone who applied for relief, claiming they lived in Palestine for at least two years prior to 1948 (when Israel was attacked) and claimed to have lost property and livelihood was entitled to assistance, regardless of where they came from, or where they live today. Once a "Palestinian refugee," always a "Palestinian refugee."

That is not all the writer has to say:

UNRWA openly admits that they don't monitor programs that support terrorism, or payments to families of terrorists by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hezb'allah and (until recently) Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

In fact, nearly all teachers employed by UNRWA are members of terrorist-controlled unions. Funding these teachers and the curriculum of hatred and bigotry, supports terrorism and terrorist organizations. This may explain why so many children are willing to blow themselves up, carry weapons and explosives and place themselves as shields for terrorists.

Although responsible for what goes on in the areas it administers, UNRWA ignores the fact that terrorists are being trained there, including the next generation of homicide bombers, that bomb-making factories flourish inside the camps, and that arms and ammunition are stockpiled there.

UNRWA ignores the launching of thousands of rocket attacks against Israel from within territory under its responsibility.

And most outrageous, UNRWA is accountable only to the UN General Assembly, dominated by the 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference which is also part of the 115-member Non-Aligned Movement -- an automatic majority in the 191-member U.N.

UNRWA violates its own UN mandate (Resolution 302), which states (Paragraph 5): "constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief."

UNRWA (Paragraph 7) indicates only two responsibilities: to work with Arab governments to provide jobs for the refugees and to help Arab governments end (not perpetuate) international assistance. UNRWA has been doing the exact opposite.

The "Palestinian Right of Return" (to Israel) -- their basic, non-negotiable demand - encourages the refusal to accept Israel's existence and fuels Palestinian terrorism. It reinforces Palestinians' belief in their victimization, promotes a culture of denial and self-destruction, and sabotages any hope for change. UNRWA facilitates this mess.

And we pay for it. Had enough? Stop the funding, now.

As always, read the whole thing.