Captain’s Quarters has the story – what we all “knew” about Arafat is unequivocally true – and the State Department has had the facts for decades. There is no murdering terrorist, evidently, with whom they will not negotiate.

The State Department had proof all along that Yasser Arafat not only masterminded this attack, but deliberately plotted to kill American diplomats as a means to pressure the US out of the Middle East. In other words, the PLO/Fatah/BSO conducted a terrorist attack on American interests, murdered Americans, and got away with it. They sat on this information while the US insisted on negotiating with Arafat, even though many suspected he had planned the murders all along.

The State Department should have warned successive administrations from dealing with this terrorist and instead recommended that we capture him and try him for the murders of Noel and Moore. These men worked for the State Department themselves. I guess the lesson here is that State won’t lift a finger to bring assassins of diplomats to justice, a lesson that current diplomats may want to consider now. (via It Shines For All)

The State Department’s deliberate policies of appeasement, when there was no doubt whatsoever about the kind of person they were dealing with, are a great example of why the world no longer respects the United States. I don’t particularly care if we are liked, which is fortunate because we never will be unless it is the kind of “liking” we benefited from after 9/11. When we were wounded and bleeding, every country had “goodwill” toward us which was “squandered” the minute the bleeding stopped and we were no longer perceived as vulnerable. We don’t need to be liked, especially when the criteria for being liked is being weak.

We need to be respected, and under the current mindset at the State Department, that will never be permitted to happen. We need John Bolton to go over there and clean house, but that will never, unfortunately, happen. So all we can do, until we lose a city and quite possibly even after that, is look forward to State Department weenies insisting that giving thugs and terrorists all the time extensions they need to build weapons to use against us is the right thing – indeed the only moral thing – to do.

Time gets one thing right, and I was very encouraged to read it:

But what is certain is that the strife-torn Horn is more divided today than ever — and is increasingly the arena for an international war between the forces of radical Islam, and the West and its allies. [emphasis added]

One of the main things I have been so frustrated with about the MSM coverage of the war is the nearly universal failure to see things strategically. No one seems to understand the value of our holding Iraq, for example, in light of the fact that it’s neighbor has been waging war on us for thirty years. All the coverage seems to be “get Bush” or if not “get Bush” at least grinding somebody’s political axe. But Islamist attacks have been occurring all over the world, and for reasons unrelated to either Israel or Iraq. It’s a refreshing change to have a major MSM player acknowledge for once that this is an international war (they don’t dare call it a “world war” yet) and that the opponents are the forces of radical Islam against the West. I hope this is a sign that the propaganda war might be turning, just a bit, in favor of reality.