IRAQI CHRISTIANS: The Assyrian American National Federation (AANF) is trying to get the word out in the United States about the dangers faced by Christian Assyrians (or Chaldeans) in Iraq. "Since 2002, nearly a year before the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the Christian Assyrians in Iraq have been under threat, due largely to their non-Muslim status," says the group. "Beheadings, kidnappings, and assassinations have escalated in proportion to how vocal the large Diaspora community became in support of its long-persecuted people. On Aug. 1, 2004, the attacks on Christians culminated in the bombing of six churches in Mosul and Baghdad during worship services, and several people including children were killed in the Assyrian town of Baghdeda on the Nineveh Plains on Sept. 10, 2004." AANF claims that 40,000 Assyrians have fled Iraq since July. Says the group, "Iraq, once the center of the earliest Christian churches in the world, may soon be cleared of its Assyrian population, the only indigenous people of that country."
ARNOLD STRIKES AGAIN: Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R.-Calif.) terminated a bill that would have forced five high schools in the state to change the name of their sports teams from the Redskins. Politically correct critics of Schwarzenegger's veto claim that "Redskins" is derogatory-though why any sports team would choose to denigrate itself by calling it something derogatory is a mystery to normal people. "Calaveras High School Principal Mark Campbell said the local American Indian community supported the name," said AP. 'Obviously, we're pleased,' Campbell said. 'It validates the beliefs of our community. Our local Native American communities have endorsed the name, they've expressed in writing their support.' He said the school's use of the name dates to the 1920s."
ANNAN'S TREACHERY: Apparently seeking to undermine efforts to restore Iraq to order and stability, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the BBC on September 15 that the scheduled January elections in that country may not be valid if unrest continues. Annan, who should be using his time trying to clean up the oil-for food scandal at his UN, also declared the joint American-British invasion of Iraq "not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, and from the charter point of view it was illegal." His statement that the war was "illegal" drew quick responses from the governments of Britain, Australia, Poland, Bulgaria and Japan, who all asserted that the war was legal under international law.
THE OTHER MEMOGATE: The scandal over Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee memos that detail Democrats' and liberal groups' efforts to derail judicial nominations for ideological reasons, for campaign gain, and even to influence the outcome of federal court cases hasn't gone away. On September 10, Manny Miranda, the staffer fired by Sen. Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) for reading the memos, filed a lawsuit in D.C. federal court demanding an end to the investigation against him. Miranda says that he obtained them legally and that senators are trying to make him a scapegoat. The complaint alleges, "The published and still unpublished documents of public importance that plaintiff read appeared to show, among other things, that: senators used their power to obstruct judicial confirmations in conjunction with promises of campaign funding and election support in 2002 (this was recorded in the Congressional Record); senators may have used Senate staff and resources to raise campaign funds for themselves and used their rejection of judicial nominees as fund-raising inducements;...senators had...an improper design to block Miguel Estrada in particular because he was a Latino who could someday be elevated to higher service."
FAMILY SAYS NO: Members of the family of late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian have told the media that they don't believe in the authenticity of the CBS memos that Killian supposedly authored. Killian's son Gary told AP (September 9), "It just wouldn't happen.... No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that." Killian's widow, Marjorie Connell, "described the records as 'a farce,' saying she was with her husband until the day he died in 1984 and he did not 'keep files.' She said her husband considered Bush 'an excellent pilot.' 'I don't think there were any documents. He was not a paper person,' she said, adding that she was 'livid' at CBS," reported the Washington Post the next day. And Killian's daughter, Nancy Killian Rodriguez, said, "We have no idea where any of this stuff came out from under," according to the New York Times, September 11.
