Scoopster News

American Exceptionalism: Hokie Nation

The true spirit of America.

At a candlelight vigil, the Virginia Tech community begins the healing process.

During the vigil, Trey Perkins spoke with CNN's Paula Zahn:

    

ZAHN:  How is it that your life was spared?  How were you able to get away?

PERKINS: I have no idea. I mean, I think it's by grace of God. I just lay down. I put a couple desks on their side. I just laid there and thought about my family, prayed and just hoped that he would leave.

     ZAHN:  Then you see this response here tonight.  As a student here, what does that mean to you?

PERKINS: It's incredible. I mean, I knew it would be like this just because this community and how close everyone is. And how supportive we are of each other as Hokies.

Anglosphere reports Shooter's Ethnicity

NZ & UK News Outlets report Gunman is Asian.

The New Zealand Herald compiled eyewitness accounts of the Virginia Tech shooting and buried the references to the gunman's ethnicity halfway down the page as does the BBC:

Virginia Tech student Erin Sheehan said she survived an attack on her German class and described the gunman.

She said: "He was, I would say, about a little bit under six feet tall, young looking, Asian, dressed sort of strangely, almost like a boy scout, very short-sleeved light, tan shirt and some sort of ammo vest with black over it."

But at least it gets reported. It's a legitmate line of enquiry.

WAR ON JIHAD: Basra Violence reveals Breakdown of Law.

British Soldier, engulfed in flames, escapes his tank while attacked by an Iraqi mob.

Disturbing footage coming out of Basra in the British-occupied zone of southern Iraq points to a breakdown in the rule of law in that city.

Recently, the relatively quite southern zone has seen an upsurge in violence.  An Al-Qaida group operating in the area has referred to the British soldiers as "crusaders". With an al-Qaida presence and bomb material coming in from neighboring Iran, Iraq is clearly the frontline in the War on Terror (War on Jihad). It is no longer tenable for partisan pundits to claim that Iraq is somehow disconnected from the War on Terror.

Senior British sources have commented in recent weeks that they have not excluded the possibility of a rise in violence in southern Iraq during the campaigning for the constitutional referendum.

They will now be trying to ascertain whether recent attacks are the start of that trouble. They are also concerned that the insurgents may be changing their tactics.

Better explosives and detonators are thought to have been coming over the border from neighboring Iran.They are not just enabling more numerous attacks, but also ensuring greater effectiveness.

British forces have been used to patrolling Basra without helmets, projecting an image of friendliness, believing that will win over the local population. Surely, this 'kindler gentler' waging of war favored by Tony Blair's New Labour government must end given the mob attacks on British patrols.

Earlier, two white Britons wearing Arab clothing shot at an Iraqi Police group in Basra.  It is suspected that the Britons are special forces officers on a covert operation.  London-based Iraq watchers have confirmed that the Iraqi security forces in Basra have been infiltrated by Ba'athist elements, supportive of Sadaam Hussein, and by agents of the Shia Mehdi Army, loyal to Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr.  It is possible that the British operatives may have pinpointed insurgents within the Iraqi police force.

Reports from the ground are conflicting, but the two Britons were arrested and detained by the Iraqi police in Basra.  While the British Ministry of Defence claims that negotiations secured the transfer of the British citizens to UK custody, eyewitness accounts state that several British tanks attacked the Iraqi police station and bulldozed a wall in order to rescue them. 

The viciousness of the Shi'ite mobs rioting upon news of the arrest of the two Britons coupled with the Basra Governor's hostility and lack of cooperation with the British Army points to a complete breakdown in the relationship between the Coalition and the local Iraqi authorities in southern Iraq. This disturbing development shows that the Coalition cannot rely on the Iraqi security forces in the foreseeable future. 

Perhaps the best Exit Strategy is for the United Kingdom and the United States to crush the insurgency and then get out.  It would behoove the supporters of the Coalition operation in Iraq to now drop the "nation-building" rhetoric.

In other developments:

• Iraq's Finance Minister, Ali Allawi, tells the UK's Independent newspaper that large-scale corruption in Iraq's ministries, particularly the defence ministry, has led to the theft of more than $1bn;
• The Iraqi government says a nephew of Saddam Hussein, Ayman Sabawi, has been sentenced to life in prison for funding Iraq's insurgency;
• Al-Qaida says it was behind the 7 July bombings in London, in which 52 people were killed.

9/11: LEST WE FORGET: ITV News to honour Rescorla

Many of our readers will know the story of Lt Col Rick Rescorla, the British-American dual citizen who dedicated his life to serving the US.  He is credited with saving nearly 3,000 lives on 9/11 as the Chief of Security for Morgan Stanley at WTC.

We recommend OurWayofLife Blog for a fitting post on Rescorla.

ITV, the UK's largest commercial news outlet, is tonight airing a documentary about Rescorla entitled as "The Man Who Predicted 9/11"  on Britain's Channel Four:

The story of Rick Rescorla, the British security chief of Morgan Stanley's offices in the World Trade Centre in New York. After realising a terrorist attack using planes was a possibility, he made sure his co-workers were prepared for the eventuality. His foresight would ultimately save 2,700 lives when his nightmare scenario became a reality on 9/11

The California Legion Post 149 pays tribute online to Rescorla, flying both Old Glory and the Union Jack in his honor, calling him "An American Hero."  Indeed, during the evacuation of WTC, the English-born Rescorla lead his colleagues in singing "God Bless America" (as well as traditional 'Cornish' folk songs from his English county of birth).

Of particular interest is Rescorla's prediction of 9/11 which is the central theme of the ITN documentary.  The film "Voice of the Prophet" by Bob Edwards contains an interview with Rick Rescorla made in his office at the WTC in 1998 in which he discussed the plans he had made for a nightmare scenario in which the Twin Towers would be hit by airplanes.

On this the fourth anniversary of 9/11, we believe it is fitting to honor Rick Rescorla as a symbol of Anglo-American solidarity in the face of the Jihadist War on the West.  Unfortunately, Britain's New Labour government did not initially think that Rescorla was eligible for a British Gallantry medal. They yielded under public pressure.

KATRINA HITS UK POLITICS: PM Blair Apologises.

Tony Blair apologises to Britain's hurricane survivors Times of London, 5 Sept 2005

Tony Blair today apologised to British survivors of Hurricane Katrina who have criticised the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for what they described as a disorganised response to the disaster.

"It’s been really tough for people, I know that, but it’s been tough for our officials on the ground," said Mr Blair soon after he arrived in Beijing for trade talks.

"I’m really sorry if there has been difficulties about this but I can assure you some of these staff have been working round the clock and because it’s been a very difficult and confused situation it’s been difficult for them, the staff, as well as the people for whom this has been a catastrophe," he said.

As the first stranded Britons returned home last night, some said they felt let down by the absence of British officials in the disaster zone. Adam Friend, 21, of Exeter, said that he was met by friends rather than embassy officials when he arrived in Dallas after a 15-hour bus journey out of the disaster zone.

"I have never known a more useless bunch of people in my life. The press managed to gain access to the Superdome but they couldn’t," he said.

Neil Coppey, 35, from Horsham said: "I’ve tried calling Washington but they keep saying we have to contact the consulate in New Orleans, which everyone must realise doesn’t exist anymore."

Britons who had been trapped inside the New Orleans Superdome said that British consular officials, who met them in Dallas, were ill-informed and told survivors they would have to pay for their own accommodation.

HITTING HOME: British Cop flew to the US to find his son.

'I want my boy out of that Superdome'  Times of London, 3 Sept 2005

A BRITISH police inspector flew out to America yesterday to track down his son who is missing in New Orleans. Inspector Wayne Henry was last night trying to trace Peter, 20, among the tens of thousands of survivors trapped in the city’s Superdome. Four days ago, Peter sent a text message to his family in Epsom, Surrey, saying that he was petrified but alive. On Thursday they received a voice message saying he was experiencing the worst days of his life, but planned to continue his tour. Yesterday Mr Henry, with the Metropolitan Police for nearly thirty years and based in Hammersmith, West London, flew to Houston with photographs of his son. Speaking minutes before he boarded his Heathrow flight, Mr Henry, 48, said: “It is the frustration of being absolutely helpless and not being able to do anything at all to help. I have got to make sure that he is there . . . I need to do it.” The Foreign and Commonwealth Office hotline for concerned relatives is 020-7008 0000. The 24-hour contact number at the Houston British Consulate is 001-713 659 6270.

Battle of New Orleans: Uncomfortable Implications.

US Department of Justice | Office of Justice Programs | Bureau of Justice Statistics:

Homicide Trends in the US: Trends by Race

• Blacks were 6 times more likely to be murdered than whites in 2002;
• Blacks were 7 times more lkely to commit murder than whites in 2002;
• Black victims are greatly over represented in homicides involving drugs. Compared with the overall involvement of blacks as victims, blacks are less often the victims of sex-related homicides, workplace killings, and homicide by poison.

Although slightly less true now than before, most murders are intraracial: [From 1976 to 2002]

• 86% of white victims were killed by whites ;
• 94% of black victims were killed by blacks .

BBC World: Journalistic Sham.

[LONDON: 5 September 2005] BBC WORLD SERVICE conducted an interview about the Katrina Disaster with Margo Miller [email her], contact for Democrats Abroad, London Chapter.  Why ask a Democrat living in London? The presenter provided Margo with plenty of cues so that she could put the blame squarely on the Bush Administration.  She obliged:

We have seen a series of mistakes here that wouldn't have happened if a Democrat was [sic: were] in charge [Editor: of the federal response to Katrina].

How could she say that with a straight face?  How could the BBC set up a blatant propaganda piece? The BBC does not routinely transcribe programmes.

Angry Left compares Battle of New Orleans to Rodney King.

The 'Information Clearing House' - News You Won't Find on CNN - reports that:

New Orleans adds a new chapter to the Bush digest of calculated bigotry. While the wealthy white families were able to beat a hasty retreat out of doomed city, the poor and black were left to sink in the toxic stew unleashed by America's greatest natural disaster.

No one who saw the televised footage of the Convention center and the Superdome had any misgivings about what they were seeing. America's long-lost companion, racial-hatred, had stuck its ugly head up into the camera lens and was pouring out onto living rooms across the land.

What we all saw last week on national TV was the moral equivalent of the Rodney King beating multiplied times 30,000; that's the number of people locked away in the feces-infected Superdome. It gave us a good look into America's dark-heart, where the evil secret we keep tucked-away in a vault can always be denied; racism.

Abandoning those people during a national tragedy was the most blatant, despicable act of racism I've seen in my 53 years of life. The beating of Rodney King pales by comparison.

[Editor: Who beat whom, in the Superdome? ]

'White Tourists were picked on.'

A young girl's corpse floats in the street.

Our Death Dome Hell  News of the World, London

Dozens of Brits stranded by the floods endured an even greater terror as New Orleans descended into total anarchy.

Young British holidaymakers MARISA HAIGH and CLAIRE WATKINS were among those who took refuge in the Louisiana Superdome. The terrified girls went through "a living hell" as mob rule swept the stadium.

Marisa, from Guildford, Surrey, said: "White tourists were getting picked on by the locals."

On Thursday, amid fears for their safety, all the white girls were moved to a nearby medical centre.

Marisa said: "We saw bodies coming into from the dome. One person had six or seven stab wounds."

Claire added: "I saw the body of a soldier. The mob had shot him with his own gun." The girls and the other foreign tourists were finally evacuated to Dallas' Holiday Inn in buses.

Another terrified British couple still stranded in New Orleans have sent desperate messages home begging for help.

ADAM FRIEND texted his mum on Thursday. Gill Friend, of Exeter, Devon, revealed: "It said, ‘I'm in the Superdome. There are dead people all around and I have seen people kill each other'."