September 11, 2008  President Rafael Correa is busy selling anything he can to promote his new narco state, including free passes for anyone and any vermin that can crawl to Ecuador. He maintains that an open door policy to Iran and Russian narcoterrorists is called Direct Foreign Investment. We call it a new penal colony for scum of the Earth. By caveat, today's Ecuador is no different from Venezuela which is fully part and parcel of the Russo-Iranian nexus.
 
Although the United States of America refuses to count how much Chavez is spending to align his three axis partners in Crime- Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia or to review the actual state of their communist governments, the USA can no longer pretend that these three nations are even remotely to be called democracies. They are indeed narcostates and now proxies of the Russo-Iranian axis. And if you do not believe this is so- just look around.
 
The AP reports, "The Russian Defense Ministry said the bombers flew to Venezuela on a training mission and would conduct training flights over neutral waters in the next few days before returning to Russia, according to a statement carried by Russian news wires. Ministry spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky refused to say how long the deployment would last or say whether the planes were carrying any weapons. Military officers in the past have said Russian strategic bombers do not carry live weapons on patrol flights. NATO fighters escorted the two Russian bombers on their 13-hour trip to Venezuela over the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, the Defense Ministry said." Although the AP story is clearly wrong to repeat the patently false claim that the USA needs Chavez's oil when it does not nor does it retain or use much of any of Chavez's heavy crude at all any more, the AP goes on to say that, " `The United States continuously strives for positive and productive relations with Venezuela,' U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Robin Holzhauer said. `Unfortunately, the Venezuelan government often responds to these open overtures with name-calling and storytelling. These Venezuelan actions are unfortunate for both of our countries.' Chavez has called the U.S. Navy’s newly re-established Fourth Fleet a threat. On Wednesday, he said he’s sure `nuclear submarines pass under our noses' off Venezuela’s coast. He said Venezuela is aiming to strengthen its “defensive capability with our strategic allies, and Russia is one of them.”

Later, Chavez called the U.S. the “empire” as he addressed troops at the christening of a newly built coast guard patrol ship. `Every day, relations between Venezuela and Russia will continue to deepen.' " Hugo Chavez does not reveal just whose nuclear subs are under the region's waterways and he should. But Chavez, like Rafael Correa likes to lie a lot because he is a liar. The US Embassy in Caracas calls this “story telling." We call it pathological lying. However, we do believe Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa when they say, as they do all the time, that they are card carrying members of the Russo-Iranian alliance. Why Ecuadoreans and Venezuelans seem to think this expands their freedom to be more criminally-minded and thus manipulate their universe more for fun and profit evades our cognition. What is really means is that all Ecuadoreans today are precisely like Lebanese today: a failed state inside an evil axis with no way out.

Take a good strong look at Iranians and Russians today and reject this so called strategic alliance while you can. Vote NO! on September 28!
 
Russia Supporting Jihadi Terrorism?
by W. Thomas Smith, Jr. HUMAN EVENTS
Posted 09/11/2008 ET

Vice President Dick Cheney recently blasted the Russians for supporting state-sponsors of terrorism.

"Russia has sold advanced weapons to the regimes in Syria and Iran,” Cheney said in remarks to the Ambrosetti Forum, a European security conference in Cernobbio, Italy, on Sept. 6. “Some of the Russian weapons sold to Damascus have been channeled to terrorist fighters in Lebanon and Iraq."

We have to connect the dots from Russia and its ongoing arms sales (from assault rifles to air-defense systems) to both Syria and Iran; to the relationships between sometimes-unlikely allies like Syria, Iran, Lebanon-based Shia Hizballah even Gaza-based Sunni Hamas; to the ongoing weapons and cash smuggling operations between the Islamists allies; and finally to the various Russian-made weapons in the arsenals of Hizballah and others in order to appreciate the “channel” Cheney speaks of. 

Russia’s support of terrorists may run much deeper, and if we connect more dots we begin to see Russia’s direct and indirect support of international terrorism coming full circle in both Eastern and Western Hemispheres. And the beginnings of a Russian Naval exercise off Venezuela may well play into the broader picture.

First we have Russia's recent military aggressiveness: Russia’s resumption of long-range bomber patrols far beyond its airspace, Russia’s aircraft buzzing U.S. warships on the high seas, Russia’s threats made to European nations which agree to allow U.S. missile defense systems on their soil, Russia’s increased military buildup, and Russia’s recent invasion of Georgia. These actions would not necessarily fall under the definitions or descriptions of acts of terrorism or terrorist-supporting, but they certainly speak to Russia’s willingness to defy international convention. And this is a dot we connect to Syria.

In August, Syrian President Bashar Assad publicly expressed his support for Russia’s invasion of Georgia, reaffirmed his defense pact with Moscow and agreed to increased military cooperation between the two countries. Discussions since have suggested the Russian Navy may soon gain full access to Syrian ports. After all, as Igor Belyaev, the Russian charge d'affaires in Damascus, says, "[Russia’s] Navy presence in the Mediterranean will increase."  

Meanwhile, Syria has reportedly stepped up its intelligence operations in Lebanon in the wake of Hizballah’s attacks against pro-government forces in May. The attacks, which were operationally supported by Syrian intelligence operatives and Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fighters, resulted in Hizballah’s acquisition of far-greater political and military power in Lebanon than the terrorist group had previously held.

And this past week, reports from Arabic open sources have indicated that senior leaders from the Quds force (the IRGC’s special operations arm) were in Beirut reminding Hizballah leaders that Iran was calling the shots. Moreover, Syrian special forces have reportedly crossed into Lebanon from the north in support of pro-Hizballah Alawites in-and-around the city of Tripoli. 
 
Though based in Lebanon, Hizballah has increased its global reach since the summer 2006 war with Israel. Hizballah and Quds force fighters have been heavily involved in Iraq and to a limited degree in Afghanistan. Hizballah is in Africa, Europe, North America (cells and supporting communities in the U.S. and Canada), and South America, which brings us to Venezuela.

On Wednesday, two Russian Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers landed in Venezuela, kicking off what will be the first major Russian Naval exercise near the continental United States since the end of the Cold War. The joint maneuvers between the Russian and Venezuelan navies will include the nuclear-powered cruiser, "Peter the Great", a destroyer, "Admiral Chabanenko", other combat and combat-support ships, and aircraft.

"Russia is returning to the stage in its power and international relations which it, regrettably, lost at the end of the last century,” Adm. Eduard Baltin, former commander of Russia's Black Sea fleet, told Russia's Interfax news agency. “No one loves the weak.”

Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez, who -- like his staunch ally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- has called for the elimination of the U.S. and suggested a defense pact between Iran and Venezuela, says he welcomes Russian ships and planes. Chavez has already purchased billions of dollars worth of Russian weapons over the past few years and is seeking to buy more.

Chavez also welcomes Iran’s proxy army, Hizballah, which according to human and open sources, is actively involved in Venezuela, developing cells, and facilitating movement of terrorists transiting through the Americas. Additionally, young Venezuelan Arabs have reportedly been recruited by Hizballah and shipped to training camps in south Lebanon. And senior officials within the Chavez government have reportedly assisted in the coordination of these operations.

Of course, Russia has dealt with terrorism on its own turf, and former Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to express support for America in our fight against terrorism in the wake of the attacks of 9/11. But it has become apparent that Russia believes it can regain some semblance of strategic leverage lost after the Cold War by cozying up to terrorists and state sponsors or terrorism. Let’s not forget many of Russia’s senior political leaders -- Putin included -- hail from backgrounds in that country’s infamous intelligence services like the KGB and FSB: organizations that have not shied away from employing degrees of terrorism as a means to an end. And as my late father was fond of saying, “Son, you can’t perfume a hog.”

Russia is a state sponsor of terror. So too is Iran, Venezuela and Ecuador. Seven years ago, a visible terror made a shocking affront:
 
The Election and September 11
September 11, 2008;Wall Street Journal
On this, the seventh time the United States has observed the events of September 11, 2001, one may say with confidence: Forget national unity.

AP 
That John McCain and Barack Obama had to set aside their differences over the war on terror to stand together this morning at the grim hole that was the Twin Towers testifies to the political divide that emerged after September 11.

While the government has broken up several terrorist plots in Buffalo, Los Angeles, New Jersey and Miami, these real-world events have been overwhelmed by the political battles over the Bush antiterror policies -- the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, warrantless wiretaps, military commissions, CIA interrogations of terror suspects.

Lest we forget, as someone said, let's revisit the bare details of that day. This presumably is the reason for anyone's post-9/11 antiterror policies.

On that morning, 19 Islamic terrorists took control of four U.S. airliners. They flew two of them, with their passengers, into the upper floors of the World Trade Center towers. A third plane flew into the side of the Pentagon. Passengers on a fourth plane, United 93, fought the terrorists, and it crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

The first plane disappeared entirely inside the WTC's north tower and began to burn. The second airliner slammed into the east side of the other tower. Some workers jumped off the top floors of the 110-story buildings.

About 10 a.m., the south tower collapsed. Then, 28 minutes later, the north tower collapsed. The second building's fall created the rolling storm of debris and dust often shown on television. For weeks, New York City was a half-closed city of human ruin. Terror killed some 2,974 people that day.

Americans must pay attention to the candidates' strategies against Islamic terror, says Wonder Land columnist Daniel Henninger. (Sept. 11)

On Sept. 20, President Bush delivered a speech before Congress, whose recurring theme was, "We will come together." That coming together would include giving law enforcement "additional tools . . . to track down terror here at home."

The first tool, the Patriot Act, passed the Senate in late October 2001 by a vote of 98 to 1. After that, the unity of September 11 started to fall apart.

Many Democrats, Barack Obama among them, break this subject into what they say are distinct issues -- the war in Iraq, which they oppose, and the war on terror, which "everyone" supports. Democrats also said the partisan divide was about civil liberties and "who we are."

However, this blurs the timeline and nature of their opposition. To be sure, the unpopularity of the Bush presidency and much Democratic opposition rhetoric grew out of the war's worst years from 2004 into 2007. But the war didn't start until March 2003. The most substantive political opposition started earlier, with the war on terror, not Iraq.

In November 2002, after judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ruled in support of the Justice department's policy on wiretapping suspected terrorists, the dams of anti-Bush opposition burst. Soon-to-be House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers said, "Piece by piece, this Administration is dismantling the basic rights afforded to every American under the Constitution." The ACLU railed against "intrusive surveillance warrants."

The story and fury of this fight are familiar, but bear in mind that in 2002 Barack Obama was off in Springfield, Ill., chairing the state's Senate Health and Human Services Committee. He arrived to the Beltway terror battles in early 2005. Two years later, he announced for president.

Freshman Sen. Obama's role in the opposition to the Bush antiterror policies is hard to pin down. In his Feb. 2006 floor statement on reauthorizing the Patriot Act, he said, "This is a complex issue." Indeed. It would take a grammarian three blackboards to diagram the senator's qualifying statements to vote for the bill. Indeed, after staging a massive bonfire of Bush-centric opposition the previous year, most Democrats voted in February to reauthorize the Patriot Act. For all senators, this was a self-defining vote.

Which side was Sen. Obama on? Early this year, amid the primaries, he was among 31 senators who voted to deny telecom companies immunity for lawsuits against them for allowing taps on overseas terrorists. In July, he voted for a failed amendment to strip telecom immunity, then voted for the final bill, which included immunity.

A cynic would argue that the Democratic opposition was mainly about jamming the Bush presidency into a hole, and that they'd let a pragmatic President Obama run an antiterror policy reasonably close to George Bush's. Really? It could as easily go the other way, toward increasing the margin of national risk. The Democratic case against presidential authority over combating terror was intense.

We will listen closely in the debates to what Sens. Obama and McCain say about Islamic terror. To vote for Sen. Obama is to also vote for a Democratic Party that consumed most of the political system's available oxygen for seven years fighting a U.S. president harder than they did the perpetrators of September 11.

Political struggle is ever with us, but given the realities that 9/11 revealed (as did the terror bombings in Europe), the relentless scale of the Democratic opposition to the Bush administration's antiterror policies is hard to square.

But the brave students in Quito here, knowing well that Ecuador has had no legitimate government or Congress for over a year [ and should have been booted from the OAS for this] walk peacefully toward the old seat of democracy- their now empty Congress building....with sheep wearing Correa's puce green communist party colors, also at times quite Red. This is to show that the Ecuadorian government- the Asambleistas- are sheep...which also means willfully ignorant and dishonest.
 
Cada uno de los animales fue bautizado con el nombre de los asambleístas de Acuerdo País. Al más gordito lo llamaron "Corcho"

Uno a uno desembarcaron de un camión 20 borregos en el sector del parque El Arbolito, en Quito, para ser guiados hacia el Congreso, en un acto simbólico organizado ayer por el movimiento Discordia No, y al que también asistieron otros grupos juveniles que apoyan el No en el referendo del 28 de septiembre.

But the real lambs are the people of Ecuador as lambs being led to slaughter - communist tyranny- because they are even, by choice, even more stupid than sheep because....they want to be stupid. So make your choice- vote YES to be a communist in Quito or vote no for freedom.
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis