CARACAS, Venezuela -- On Monday afternoon, August 16, dozens of people assembled in the Altamira Plaza, a public square in a residential neighborhood here that has come to symbolize nonviolent dissent in Venezuela. The crowd was there to question the accuracy of the results that announced a triumph for President Hugo Chávez in Sunday's recall referendum.

Within one hour of the gathering, just over 100 of Lt. Col. Chávez's supporters, many of them brandishing his trademark army parachutist beret, began moving down the main avenue towards the crowd in the square. Encouraged by their leader's victory, this bully-boy group had been marching through opposition neighborhoods all day. They were led by men on motorcycles with two-way radios. From afar they began to taunt the crowd in the square, chanting, "We own this country now," and ordering the people in the opposition crowd to return to their homes.

All of this was transmitted live by the local news station. The Chávez group threw bottles and rocks at the crowd. Moments later a young woman in the square screamed for the crowd to get down as three of the men with walkie-talkies, wearing red T-shirts with the insignia of the government-funded "Bolivarian Circle," revealed their firearms. They began shooting indiscriminately into the multitude.

A 61-year-old grandmother was shot in the back as she ran for cover. The bullet ripped through her aorta, kidney and stomach. She later bled to death in the emergency room. An opposition congressman was shot in the shoulder and remains in critical care. Eight others suffered severe gunshot wounds. Hilda Mendoza Denham, a British subject visiting Caracas for her mother's 80th birthday, was shot at close range with hollow-point bullets from a high-caliber pistol. She now lies sedated in a hospital bed after a long and complicated operation. She is my mother.

A useful update to TTP’s “Gresham and the Currency of Islam” last week. Let’s see if the Voices of Peace claimed by this essay in Singapore’s main newspaper gain strength or will soon be muffled. -JW

Moslems around the world are increasingly speaking out against the Islamist militants behind the recent terrorist attacks in Russia and Indonesia. In the wake of these recent attacks, there has been a chorus of condemnation of extremism.

From Jakarta to London, Cairo to Paris, Moslems have been calling radio talk shows, writing newspaper columns and firing off letters to the media condemning terrorist acts in the name of Islam. These voices are crying out against the hatred and intolerance towards the West that remains widespread in Moslem communities. The violence of those who claim to be defenders of the faith, they argue, only tarnishes Islam's reputation.

[A review of Hugh Hewitt's book, If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat , originally posted on Amazon.]


The results of this year's presidential election boil down to one simple question: does America want to win the war against terrorism? The choice between the two political parties will determine the answer. All other issues are beside the point if we cannot defend ourselves. If America votes Republican, it chooses to keep up the fight and America will win. Should it vote Democrat, America will suffer unspeakable loss of life and liberty because the Democrats won't take the fight to our terrorist enemies.

Given the high stakes involved, everyone who cares about the country's defense should get this book. This reviewer ex-Democrat turned Republican reviewer strongly recommends it. Consider this book the serious voter's guide to the 2004 elections.

The United Nations' global warming bureaucracy is meeting (vacationing?) in Milan this week pondering how to revive the beleaguered international global warming treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol. This week's news that Russia might say "nyet" to the treaty all but seals its doom.

Enders Wimbush has been a good friend of mine since he was Director of Radio Liberty under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. He played a pivotal role in bringing freedom to the subject peoples of the Soviet Union. He possesses one of the sharpest geostrategic minds not just in Washington, but in the world. I encourage you to read his analysis of America’s stakes in Asia carefully. -JW

Asia, more than the Middle East, will compete for the attention of America's next president. It is in Asia that America's most vexing security challenges will likely emerge in the next few decades.

The shape of New Asia will be formed in large part from three powerful interactive forces: America's resolve, or lack of it, to play the key role in creating a new security architecture for Asia; the specter of an unmanageable rising China; and the deterioration of security in the "Crescent of Crisis" stretching from the southern Philippines to the Persian Gulf.

It is ironic that as America's presidential candidates debate how the U.S. can achieve its goals in Iraq and get out, for most Asian strategists the post-Iraq world has already begun.

Back in 1984, if you had bet Bulgaria would in 2004 host a convention of European free market think tanks including many from what were then communist countries, you probably would have been given very good odds.

Yet during the last days of October, a remarkable conference -- the First European Resource Bank -- was held in the pleasant ski resort of Borovets, Bulgaria. This "Resource Bank" essentially was a convention of European free market think tanks. Representatives from organizations in 20 countries came together for mutual support, communication and cooperation.

How do you think the sanctimonious people at TV's "60 Minutes" would portray a company charged by the FCC with "serious indecency violations," that made expensive settlements with employees and others because of injuries related to asbestos and other hazardous material exposures, underfunded its employee pension, is legally accused of securities violations, employs those who widely distributed forged documents in an effort to destroy political opponents, failed to dismiss or discipline employees who violated the company code of conduct, owned offshore enterprises that paid little or no U.S. corporate tax, and operated in and/or dealt with countries harboring terrorists?

The company that engaged in all of these practices is Viacom, parent company of CBS, which produces "60 Minutes."

The folks at "60 Minutes" remind me of the preacher who damns the sinners every Sunday, but then is caught in the brothel.

This is a letter to his friends from Ray Reynolds, a medic in the Iowa Army National Guard, serving in Iraq. To The Point has determined its authenticity and updated its factual claims, verifying them with USAID and the Pentagon:

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home.

And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently: