Thor’s Hall

Clever and Cute.

Change you can keep.

Several months ago I referenced a post that detailed the acceptance and safe basing of Irain covert operators in Nicaragua, and the potential pipeline that this established through our southern border, directly into the United States.

Recently broader facts have been made public, regarding the role the Hezzbolah is playing in Latin America.  The fact the Hezzbolah is a proxy organization for the Iranin theocracy has been well established.  So, this news while not surprising is alarming.

The profits from the sales of drugs went to finance Hezbollah,” said Gladys Sanchez, lead investigator for the special prosecutor’s office in Bogota, in an interview. “This is an example of how narco-trafficking is a theme of interest to all criminal organizations, the FARC, the paramilitaries and terrorists.”

Ms. Sanchez is exactly right. The contours of the pipeline are easy to identify. The regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has allowed Iranian banks to operate, brought in flights whose passengers are not registered, and issued multiple identification cards to Iranian and Syrian individuals.

The FARC, in Colombia, in turn, exporting some 250 tons of cocaine through Venezuela, who allows the rebels to pay off generals in charge of specific ports. Chavez has to do this, in part, to buy peace in the military, who have grown tired of his antics and his inability to fulfill his promises.

So, Iran sponsors Hezbollah and allies with Chavez. Chavez sponsors the FARC and allies with Iran. The FARC has the dope, Hezbollah has the international distribution network, having been involved in heroin traffic and organized criminal activities for years.

What is alarming to me is that, despite Hezbollah’s stated intention to attack the United States and Iran’s evident interest in having the ability to strike at the United States, this alliance (and the Chavez-Iran alliance) attract very little attention at senior policy levels.

The potential for the establishment of long term cels with in the US, or the evolution of the drug trade to the use of tactics and strategies common to the actions that we see in the middle east should be a major focus of the United States.  Whether that focus is through a continued struggle to support friendly Latin American governments, or an escalation of the “War on Drugs” or some covert middle ground is a decision for the next POTUS and his administration.

In the interim do not be surprised if nasty things start to pop out of the wood work in Central and Southern America, beyond what we already see in Mexico.

A more in depth analysis of this issue is presented by Douglas Farrah here.  The basis for the article is found in the LA TImes, here

This has been floating around for a bit.  It still is worth the post, and the air time.

Well now, isn’t this interesting:

The Second Bill of Rights [Mark Steyn]

Re Sunstein, Obama and Euro-style rights, they may be here sooner than you think:

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D. Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.

[UPDATE: A reader writes:

I think adding "The right to an attractive and compatible mate who satisfies one's physical desires" to the list would generate a lot of enthusiasm for socialism among unattractive people. If Paul is entitled to some or all of Peter's earnings, why shouldn't he be entitled to some or all of Paula's assets as well?

Almost right. To be truly "redistributive", it should read "the right to attractive and compatible mate(s)." Another reader felt the US Second Bill of Rights rang a vague bell:

Article 40. Citizens of the USSR have the right to work (that is, to guaranteed employment and pay in accordance wit the quantity and quality of their work, and not below the state-established minimum), including the right to choose their trade or profession, type of job and work in accordance with their inclinations, abilities, training and education, with due account of the needs of society...

Article 41. Citizens of the USSR have the right to rest and leisure...

The length of collective farmers' working and leisure time is established by their collective farms.

Article 42. Citizens of the USSR have the right to health protection.

Etc.]

For your musical entertainment…

Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Post of all places brings us his view of the race for POTUS.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who’s been cramming on these issues for the past year, who’s never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of “a world that stands as one“), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as “the tragedy of 9/11,” a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

There’s just no comparison. Obama’s own running mate warned this week that Obama’s youth and inexperience will invite a crisis — indeed a crisis “generated” precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?

And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he’s been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.

The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.

Today’s economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I’m for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.