Bloodthirsty Liberal

[Via 5′ o’ Fury]

No wonder they couldn’t find the damn WMDs. They were down their own pants the whole time!

A former chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq has been charged in Pennsylvania with engaging in online sexual exchanges with a minor.

The former inspector, Scott Ritter, was charged in November after the police said he exchanged messages last February with a police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl. The Pocono Record reported the arrest on Thursday.

In an affidavit of probable cause, Monroe County authorities said Officer Ryan Venneman was posing as 15-year-old girl named Emily in an online chat room when he was contacted by someone using the name “Delmarm4fun.” Mr. Ritter lives in Delmar, N.Y., an Albany suburb.

This person, whom the authorities identified as Mr. Ritter, told “Emily” that he was a 44-year-old man from Albany. Mr. Ritter asked the girl for a photograph of herself, and an image of a girl was provided, according to the affidavit. Mr. Ritter then sent the girl a link to his Web camera and masturbated on camera, the affidavit said. In the online exchanges, “Emily” twice wrote that she was 15.

The police said they traced the exchanges to Mr. Ritter through various means, including the cellphone number he provided.

Neither Mr. Ritter, 48, nor his lawyer, Todd Henry, responded to requests for comment. Mr. Ritter waived his right last month to a preliminary hearing and is free on $25,000 unsecured bail.

It is not the first time Mr. Ritter has been in trouble.

In 2001, he was caught in a similar Internet sex-sting operation when he was accused of trying to lure a 16-year-old girl to a Burger King in Menands, N.Y. The girl was actually an undercover investigator posing online as a minor.

Prosecutors later agreed to drop the charges in that case if Mr. Ritter stayed out of trouble for a period of time. The case was later sealed, so the terms of the deal have not been made public.

Ritter… Ritter… don’t I know that name? The guy from Three’s Company is dead (tragically). So, who is this guy?

Mr. Ritter was the chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission from 1991 to 1998, when he resigned. He has been an outspoken critic of American policy in the Middle East.

Oh, ri-i-i-ght. The guy who spent all his time bashing Bush (in more ways than one, evidently—did you think I could resist?).

Knowing how young and plentiful they marry over there, he was probably looking for brides, not bombs; cheesecake, not yellowcake.

But they were all a little pervy in the UN then (plus ça change). I mean, Hans Blix—how long before we find him asphyxiated in an auto-erotic pose with a satsuma up his heinie?

I pick next Thursday.

UN doctors and nurses left their patients to suffer in Haiti

Critically injured earthquake victims watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after United Nations officials ordered a medical team to evacuate the area out of security concerns.

There have been scattered reports of violence throughout the capital.

The only doctor left at the U.N. field hospital was CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta, who assessed the needs of the 25 patients but with no supplies, there was little he could do.

Gupta monitored patients’ vital signs, administered painkillers and continued intravenous drips. He stabilized three new patients in critical condition.

And more people, some in critical condition, were trickling in late Friday.

“I’ve never been in a situation like this. This is quite ridiculous,” Gupta said.

I am trying to come up with words but have only one image: Limp. The UN is limp. The entire Left is spineless as well as, well, limp. They can’t provide security for the hospital tents? Really? They are heartless, spineless, unethical creeps.

Incidentally, where is the US? Barack was supposed to do such a magnificent job in Haiti, unlike the problems with Katrina, much better than his predecessor. How’s that working out?

Sandra Pierre, a Haitian who has been helping at the makeshift hospital, said the medical staff took most of the supplies with them.

Your tax dollars at work.

Sorry, I can’t let go of this:

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic’s medical staff was unforgivable.

“Search and rescue must trump security,” Honoré said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there.”

Honoré drew parallels between the tragedy in New Orleans and in Port-au-Prince. But even in the chaos of Katrina, he said, he had never seen medical staff walk away.

“I find this astonishing these doctors left,” he said. “People are scared of the poor.”

- Aggie

The silence you hear is the Left doing nothing

Go to the link to see the video. Disclaimer: I didn’t watch it. I wouldn’t put myself through that.

United Nations (CNN) — A video purportedly showing Sri Lankan soldiers executing bound, blindfolded and naked Tamils appears to be authentic, a U.N. investigator said Thursday.

Philip Alston, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, based his findings on a three month, U.N.-backed investigation conducted by three independent forensic experts.

Alston is calling anew for a “genuine and independent investigation” by the Sri Lankan government into war crimes violations allegedly committed by Sri Lankan soldiers against Tamils.

Sri Lanka has previously rejected all calls for independent investigations of alleged war crimes committed during its conflict with Tamil separatists.

Isn’t it interesting that no one says much about this? The usual suspects - Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the UN, the “peace groups” - are speaking barely above a whisper. I don’t think Obama has said much of anything, has he? Where is everyone?

- Aggie

Let me edify my pharaonic friends: it’s called Christmas. C-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-s. Season of giving, peace on earth, goodwill toward all, that sort of thing. Never hear of it? Google it.

What’s that? Google. G-o-o-g-l-e.

Egypt refused permission on Thursday for a Gaza-bound aid convoy in led by British MP George Galloway to enter the country through the Red Sea port of Nuweiba.

There will be “no entry from Nuweiba. Entry can only be through Al-Arish,” on the Mediterranean coast, Hossam Zaki told the French news agency AFP.

The Viva Palestina convoy of 250 trucks and ambulances laden with European, Turkish and Arab donations of food and medical supplies arrived in Jordan from Syria on Wednesday and was headed to the Red Sea port of Aqaba for the ferry journey across to the Egyptian Sinai port of Nuweiba.

Entering through the port of Al-Arish would mean going around the Sinai Peninsula and through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean.

…

Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza is the only access point into the Palestinian territory that bypasses Israel.

British MP George Galloway, said the convoy would not be deterred by the Egyptian decision.

“We feel very sad that Egypt has turned us away on Christmas Day, but we hope they will reconsider. This is a very determined convoy and we’re not going anywhere except to Gaza.”

Then I’d suggest you sail that scow back out into open water, George, and make a series of right turns until you get to the Mediterranean. Here’s a map to help you find your way:

Or maybe you could just go through Israel.

They’re pretty understanding about helping the Palestinians—if the help is humanitarian and not homicidal:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lauded Thursday Israel’s decision to comply with his request and allow glass to be transferred into the Gaza Strip.

The UN chief’s request was made in his meeting with President Shimon Peres at the margins of the recent climate control conference in Copenhagen.

Ban asked that glass be allowed into the Strip in order to facilitate Gaza’s reconstruction in the wake of Operation Cast Lead.

During the conversation, Peres promised to look into the possibility of easing the tough restrictions on bringing construction materials into the area.

Upon his return to Israel, the president delivered on his pledge, and on Thursday Israel’s UN officials forwarded a letter from Peres to the UN chief informing him of the decision.

The UN chief was said to have also expressed his hope for other vital materials to be allowed into the Strip so they can be used in its reconstruction.

Don’t push your luck, Ban. Let’s see how they do with glass. Last time they were given a great supply—in the form of greenhouses—they smashed and trashed the stuff until it wasn’t good for anything. Maybe they’ll do better this time.

Some call for the UN to intercede in war-torn regions like Darfur.

I say such evil cannot be allowed to happen:

A U.N.-backed Congolese military operation to oust rebels from eastern Congo has caused more civilian casualties than damage to rebels, with more than 1,400 people deliberately killed over a nine-month period, human rights groups said Monday.

Human Rights Watch said it had documented “vicious and widespread” attacks against civilians by soldiers and rebels between January and September. Soldiers being fed and supplied with ammunition by the United Nations have killed civilians, gang-raped girls and cut the heads off some young men they accuse of being rebels or supporting the enemy, groups said.

“For every rebel combatant disarmed, one civilian has been killed, seven women and girls have been raped, six houses have been burned and destroyed and 900 people have been forced to flee their homes,” British-based organization Oxfam said.

Human Rights Watch said it documented the killings of 732 civilians between January and September by the Congolese army and troops from neighboring Rwanda fighting alongside it. In the same period, it counted 701 civilians killed by the rebels they are fighting.

“Some victims were tied together before their throats were, according to one witness, ’slit like chickens.’ The majority of the victims were women, children, and the elderly,” the group said.

More than 7,500 cases of sexual violence against women and girls were registered at health centers during that nine-month period, nearly double that of 2008 and likely representing only a fraction of the total.

…

“The U.N. peacekeepers are being put in an appalling situation where they are supporting an army that is attacking its own population,” it said.

What an excuse this might have made for Tiger Woods: “honey, I did it for the UN!” Except Tiger didn’t sleep with any black women. Oh well.

But it would seem that the UN is a great place to get laid—if you’re male:

The United Nations, which aspires to protect human rights around the world, is struggling to deal with an embarrassing string of sexual-harassment complaints within its own ranks.

Many U.N. workers who have made or faced accusations of sexual harassment say the current system for handling complaints is arbitrary, unfair and mired in bureaucracy. One employee’s complaint that she was sexually harassed for years by her supervisor in Gaza, for example, was investigated by one of her boss’s colleagues, who cleared him.

Cases can take years to adjudicate. Accusers have no access to investigative reports. Several women who complained of harassment say their employment contracts weren’t renewed, and the men they accused retired or resigned, putting them out of reach of the U.N. justice system.

And if you like to read about the sexual exploitation of the poor and war-ravaged by their supposed protectors, enjoy.

The media is alarmed!

London, England (CNN) — A secret document that appears to show that Iran was working on building nuclear weapons as recently as 2007 is “alarming” and “part of a body of evidence backing up deep concerns over Iran’s nuclear program,” a Western diplomatic source with knowledge of the papers told CNN on Monday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, has a copy of the secret papers, which were also obtained by the Times of London, the source said.

IAEA officials confirm they are investigating the document, but said they have not formally asked Iran for more information about it.

Never ask a question if you can’t stand the answer.

President Nuance and Ambiguity is all over this one, so relax. And don’t forget our Intelligence Community:

United States intelligence concluded in 2007 that Iran had suspended work on its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

In the National Intelligence Estimate released in December 2007, the U.S. intelligence community dramatically reversed course from its 2005 evaluation. It expressed “high confidence” in 2005 that the Islamic Republic was working toward nuclear weapons, then two years later said — also with “high confidence” — that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003.

That’s encouraging.

The revelation “means, essentially … that the Iranians have been lying to everybody” when they said they were not seeking to build nuclear weapons, said Mehrdad Khonsari, a former Iranian diplomat.

Let’s hope that Mr. Khonsari has found a new place to live.

- Aggie

Egypt is building an iron wall

And every Friday we can expect protesters, right? Rock throwing, hip American and European college students, that kind of thing.

No?

Egypt has begun the construction of a massive iron wall along its border with the Gaza Strip, in a bid to shut down smuggling tunnels into the territory. The wall will be nine to 10 kilometers long, and will go 20 to 30 meters into the ground, Egyptian sources said. It will be impossible to cut or melt.

The new plan is the latest move by Egypt to step up its counter-smuggling efforts. Although some progress had been made, the smuggling market in Gaza still flourishes.

Egyptian forces demolish tunnels or fill them with gas almost every week, often with people still inside them, and Palestinian casualties in the tunnels have been steadily rising.

Recently, Egypt examined several possibilities of blocking the tunnels, and joint American-Egyptian patrols have been seen in Rafah attempting to detect tunnels using underground sensors.

Egypt is gassing the Palestinians? Where in the heck is Amnesty International? Human Rights Watch? The EU? The UN? Are BTL and I the only ones discussing this? Where is the NY Times? Oh Profession of Journalism, wake up!! I have a story for you…

My heavens, it is beginning to look like no one cares.

- Aggie

BTL and the Sheik of Araby: now there’s an unlikely couple.

Saudi Arabia called for an independent investigation into “climategate” Monday, warning that the scandal over stolen e-mails threatened to undermine the global-warming negotiations beginning here.

“We believe this scandal — or what has been referred to as the ‘climategate’ scandal — we think this is definitely going to affect the nature of what could be trusted in our deliberations,” the Saudi Arabian negotiator said.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has promised to investigate the scandals, although its chairman said Monday that it provided no basis for questioning the science behind global warming.

But the Saudi negotiator told delegates that “the level of confidence is certainty shaken.”

Regardless of its selfish, terrorist-sponsoring motives, Saudi Arabia is more honest, more respectful of the truth than the UN. I’m not saying I’m surprised, mind you, just mindful.

Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the Saudis brought down this asinine summit the same way they brought down the twin towers? Well, not a hoot…

China makes money the old fashioned way: they scam green energy initiatives to the tune of a billion dollars:

The United Nations body in charge of managing carbon trading has suspended approvals for dozens of Chinese wind farms amid questions over the country’s use of industrial policy to obtain money under the scheme.

China has been by far the biggest beneficiary of the so-called Clean Development Mechanism, a carbon trading system designed to direct funds from wealthy countries to developing nations to cut greenhouse gases.

China has earned 153m carbon credits, worth more than $1bn and making up almost half of the total issued under the UN-run programme in the past five years, according to a Financial Times analysis. The credits are currently trading at about $10-$15 each.

Swe-e-e-e-t.

China-based consultants said the CDM’s board in Bonn began refusing approval for Chinese wind power projects in the middle of 2009, over concerns Beijing had deliberately lowered subsidies to make them eligible for funding.

Well, of course: it’s like welfare. If you make too much money, you’re not eligible. So-o-o-o…

Come on, I can hear China saying, we followed the rules—now you’re going to change them? What’s up with that?

China bilking the UN for a cool billion—I have to tip my cap.

Ann Bayevsky of UN Watch thrown out; UN lies about it to media

What a weird, weird organization.

The United Nations detained an outspoken critic and booted her from its New York headquarters in what the woman, a human rights watchdog, is calling an effort to silence her opposition to the world body.

Anne Bayefsky claims that as retaliation for giving a two-minute impromptu speech defending Israel, her 25-year career of monitoring the U.N. is now in jeopardy — likely to be placed in the hands of a committee chaired by the genocidal regime in Sudan.

Bayefsky gets special access to U.N. meetings in her capacity as the director of a non-governmental organization, the Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at New York’s Touro College.

But the longtime U.N. observer has found herself in what she calls a “Kafkaesque” gray zone, where the U.N. confiscated her credentials, then denied to reporters that her access had been blocked.

“This is no accident,” she told FoxNews.com, arguing that she is being denied access to vital meetings concerning her prime focus: defending Israel. “This is keeping [the U.N.’s] major critic absent during the heart of the year.”

Following a vote Nov. 5 at the U.N. General Assembly, a microphone was set up outside the UNGA chamber for delegates to tout their endorsement of the controversial Goldstone Report, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes during its invasion of Gaza last winter.

Without an invitation, Bayefsky approached the empty podium to offer what she thought would be a counter-balance to speeches from the Libyan president of the UNGA and the Palestinian observer, who both supported the resolution.

“I didn’t expect that there would be a problem at all,” said Bayefsky, who noted that she and other NGOs have spoken there in the past without incident. (Archived U.N. video shows an official from the NGO Human Rights Watch speaking in praise of the U.N. at the same podium in May 2007.)

Bayefsky blasted the Goldstone Report and called the U.N. a “laughingstock” for singling out Israel and ignoring human rights violations committed by the terrorist organization Hamas against Israeli and Palestinian civilians during the three-week campaign in December and January.

“This is a resolution that purports to be evenhanded; it is anything but,” she said of the document approved by the UNGA. “It is a travesty — it calls for accountability, and in fact what we see instead is impunity for the Palestinian side.”

Soon after she finished speaking, Bayefsky was swarmed by four U.N. security guards, who brought her to their security office, confiscated her NGO pass and kicked her out of the building, she said.

But the U.N. told reporters a different story at a press conference Tuesday — claiming that there has been no change in status for Bayefsky, even as she continues to sit in limbo.

“The credentials of her organization are not changed at this stage,” said Farhan Haq, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “It’s possible in the future that there could be a review, but at this stage there’s been no removal of credentials from that NGO or from Ms. Bayefsky.”

U.N. security officials became angered with Bayefsky after they realized she had brought an assistant to the U.N. proceedings without getting him a personal pass — a breach of protocol that led to a full-fledged investigation by the security office.

But Bayefsky says that the content of her speech is what rubbed U.N. officials the wrong way. She says supporters of the Goldstone report “are going to do everything in their power to silence anyone who gets in their way.”

Following her speech, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, was informed that a pro-Israel NGO had spoken after him, and reportedly asked a member of the press, “Did we capture them?”

Later, as she pleaded her case before being forcibly removed from the General Assembly building, a security official told Bayefsky that “the Palestinian ambassador is very upset at the statement you made,” she told FoxNews.com.

U.N. officials denied that politics had anything to do with their handling of Bayefsky, and said it was purely an issue of protocol.

“She came to the microphone unannounced, unauthorized and unwarranted. It’s so simple,” said Jean-Victor Nkolo, a spokesman for the president of the General Assembly. “It’s nothing personal against Ms. Bayefsky at all. But it’s just that this cannot be allowed.”

Though her speech was broadcast live online, the footage was removed from the main proceedings made available by the U.N. on its Web site. Video of Bayefsky’s two-minute talk, which first streamed live, has been posted online on YouTube.

I deeply resent my tax dollars going to fund that wacko organization.

- Aggie