Fast Cars, Women, and Cash for Iran

If you drive a DaimlerChrysler vehicle and fuel it at Shell gas stations, you are supporting pornography, terrorism, and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

That may sound like a harsh accusation, and you likely were not aware that your purchases were benefiting pornographers and terrorists, but the sad truth is that DaimlerChrysler and Shell Oil Company are engaged in profitable business contracts with purveyors of lurid magazines and the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, Iran.

Let’s start with the double offender, Shell Oil. Shell’s cozy business relationship with Iran is well documented, and has grown in scope despite U.S.-led international efforts to isolate the radical Iranian government through anti-terror sanctions. Shell thumbed its nose once more at President Bush in January when it completed a multi-billion dollar deal with Iran to develop a massive natural gas field in that country, which the American government views as the world’s primary sponsor of global terrorism. While financial analysts applauded Shell’s pluck in forging ahead with the deal despite political pressure not to financially aid the mullahs, it should be noted that Shell’s fiercest competitor, BP, made the morally correct decision to not bid for the Iranian contract. If you have a choice between Shell or BP stations in your area, remember that the IEDs and suicide bombs killing Iraqi and American troops in Iraq are funded and manufactured by Iran, from oil money flowing into its coffers from Shell.

Ignoring international sanctions and doing business with terrorists would be reason enough to withhold your patronage of Shell. However, Shell appears to suffer significant moral bankruptcy fueled (no pun intended) by profit greed, and contracting with unsavory elements to increase already record revenues is a price Shell is willing to pay. Shell’s decisions may have given it the decidedly dubious honor of being the world’s only corporate joint sponsor of Islamic terrorism and pornography.

Major oil companies in the U.S. have long supported the policy of not selling pornography, including Playboy and Penthouse magazines, at branded gas stations. These oil companies have strict contractual arrangements with third party operators such as Circle K that prohibit the convenience stores at branded stations from selling pornography or face costly fines or breach of contract proceedings. As reported by World Net Daily, when the Florida Family Association contacted Shell to complain about the sale of Playboy and Penthouse magazines at Shell branded Circle K stores in the Southeast, Shell responded to the family organization by declaring that Playboy and similar magazines are not pornography. WND interviewed David Caton, Executive Director of the Florida Family Association:

The request, Caton told WND, has been made to more than a dozen major oil companies supplying fuel to nearly 150,000 outlets in the United States. And until now, Caton said, there has been virtually a 100 percent positive response.

"However, Shell Oil Company has decided instead to change their definition of pornography, unlike all other major oil companies, to exclude Penthouse and Playboy magazines which are sold by Circle K Stores," he said.

The confirmation came in an e-mail from Otto O. Meyers III, a Shell executive, who told the Florida Family Association those stores selling "Penthouse" are not selling pornography.

"In regard to your inquiry about specific Circle K locations, our investigation has concluded that these stores are not selling pornography as one would think the general public defines it, but rather 'adult sophisticate' magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse," Meyers wrote.

Caton said that puts Shell in a crowd of one among companies who "no longer consider the hardcore content of Penthouse and explicit nudity in Playboy to be pornographic. No other major oil company has taken this position". . . .

Caton said the new policy by Shell probably had been influenced by Circle K Store's recent purchase of 240 Shell branded retail locations.

After receiving this surprising rejection from Shell, Caton initiated an email campaign to encourage Shell to abandon its new liberal magazine policy:

"The e-mail calls on Shell Oil Company to follow the standards and definitions established and enforced by all other major oil companies regarding the sale of pornographic materials by strictly prohibiting the sale of Playboy, Penthouse and other magazines that feature full nudity and explicit sexual conduct at all Shell branded stations including Circle K Stores," Caton said.

The Florida Family Association previously has had positive responses from Amoco, Chevron, BP, Citgo, ConocoPhillips, Mobil, Murphy, Sunoco, and Texaco in its requests to ban pornography. An estimated 35,000 7-Eleven stores also have cooperated, as have another 20,000 locations run by Albertsons, Cumberland Farms, Eckerd Drugs, Farm Stores, Kash n Karry, Swifty mart, Tom Thumb and other companies.

Take note of these names of oil companies who are helping maintain community standards, make sure they are complying with their own policies, and give them your business. Most importantly, communicate to them why they are receiving your patronage rather than Shell. Pornography, in all its forms, has eroded the moral values of America for decades, and in today’s era of Internet subscriptions there is no reason for such products to be available or on display in convenience stores or any establishment often frequented by children and families. Circle K would be well advised to get on the values bandwagon and act unilaterally to remove these magazines regardless of whether Shell allows them or not.

Ironically, Islamic terrorists, according to Dinesh D’Souza’s book, allegedly want to kill us because of our decadent culture, yet they are gladly pocketing money from the only American oil company that offers pornographic magazines (which it does not consider pornography at all) to customers. I suspect that Ahmadinejad would accept money from Hugh Hefner himself and spend a weekend at the Playboy Mansion if it would help get more centrifuges online.

Now that you have decided to fuel your vehicle somewhere other than Shell, you may want to drive that DaimlerChrysler to your favorite dealer and trade it in for a truly American car, i.e. one whose maker does not provide Iran with vehicles and heavy machinery used to intimidate pro-western demonstrators.

Last month, FrontPage Magazine’s Ken Timmerman linked to some excellent photos of DaimlerChrysler’s investments in Iran that clearly demonstrate the uses to which the mullahs are putting this prized equipment. Timmerman wrote:

DaimlerChrysler has been expanding its operations in Iran in recent years, and recently opened an assembly line to build E-class vehicles in Iran. It also owns a factory that builds Mercedes-Benz diesel engines for trucks and buses under license.

In 2004, DaimlerChyrsler sold through a Saudi affiliate 270 Mercedes Benz commercial vehicles to Iran in a $22 million contract. Those vehicles have since been used by law enforcement authorities in Iran for riot control. A German prosecutor in Stuttgart opened an investigation into the sale.

DaimlerChrysler AG is the parent corporation of what used to be Chrysler Corporation here in the United States. The U.S. company has no legal or corporate responsibility for the sales of its parent to Iran.

Those sales are perfectly legal. But they are wrong.

Indeed, companies willing to ignore currently imposed sanctions against Iran are wrong to do so and are actively increasing the capabilities and resolve of a terror sponsoring nation, all in the name of profit margin. In December I wrote about “Terror-Free Investing,” and Timmerman recently encouraged readers to look into “Divest Terror,” a similar effort to demand that mutual fund managers, private industry 401k plans, and government retirement funds stop investing in companies doing business with terror sponsors. If you have not checked with your fund manager about whether your funds are invested in Iran or other state sponsors of terror, let this be your call to action.

You can start small by not buying gas from Shell or buying DaimlerChrysler products. Lest these companies not associate their declining sales with their ill-advised partnerships with Iran or pornography, make it clear to them through email, letters, or telephone calls why you are no longer a customer and how they can win back your patronage.

Virginia Tech Blame Game

Who is to blame for the shooting massacre of 32 Virginia Tech students yesterday? At last count, the following had been blamed for the tragedy:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney - Although both were hard at work in D.C. battling Congress over funding Operation Iraqi Freedom when the shootings occurred, they were nonetheless blamed for using the incident for political points, and for not supporting nationwide gun control laws.

Charles Steger, President of Virginia Tech – Blamed for not “locking down” an entire sprawling university campus the size of a small city after the initial 2 murders were committed in a VaTech dormitory on one side of campus. Blamed for not cancelling all classes after the dormitory shooting, despite his being advised by law enforcement that it appeared to be a domestic incident between the shooter and an ex-girlfriend. VaTech parents are calling for him to be fired.

Commonwealth of Virginia’s Gun Control Laws – Blamed for being too liberal, making it easier for citizens to keep and bear arms.

Commonwealth of Virginia’s Gun Control Laws – Blamed for being too restrictive, making VaTech a gun free zone where students and faculty could not protect themselves.

VaTech PD, Blacksburg PD, Montgomery County Sheriffs – Blamed for sealing off a small perimeter around the dormitory where the initial 2 killings took place, but not ordering a campus-wide lockdown because they believed the first incident to be a domestic incident.

VaTech PD, Blacksburg PD, Montgomery County Sheriffs – Blamed for not immediately rushing, with guns blazing, into the classroom building where gunfire could be heard on the opposite side of campus from where the domestic shooting occurred earlier that morning.

VaTech PD, Blacksburg PD, Montgomery County Sheriffs – Blamed for not capturing the shooter alive so that he could explain his motives and help society prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Notice that someone is conspicuously absent from the blame list: the shooter. Much like the urge to blame America for terrorism in the wake of 9/11, broadcasters yesterday could not resist the urge to spend most of their air time speculating about how society needs to be kinder to outcasts (like the allegedly picked on Columbine killers) to prevent such massacres.

A Washington Post article addressed the issue of why, after the initial dormitory shootings, warnings were not issued:

Although the gunman in the dorm was at large, no warning was issued to the tens of thousands of students and staff at Virginia Tech until 9:26 a.m., more than two hours later.

"We concluded it was domestic in nature," Flinchum [VaTech PD Chief] said. "We had reason to believe the shooter had left campus and may have left the state." He declined to elaborate. But several law enforcement sources said investigators thought the shooter might have intended to kill a girl and her boyfriend Monday in what one of them described as a "lover's dispute." It was unclear whether the girl killed at the dorm was the intended target, they said.

The sources said police initially focused on the female student's boyfriend, a student at nearby Radford University, as a suspect. Police questioned the boyfriend, later termed "a person of interest," and were questioning him when they learned of the subsequent shootings at Norris Hall. A family friend of the boyfriend's said the boyfriend was stopped by police alongside Route 460 in Blacksburg, handcuffed and interrogated on the side of the road and later released.

However, VaTech students, affected by the emotional incident, were outraged over what they perceived as a failure by the university to warn them of a pending disaster no one knew was going to occur. Students interviewed by CNN expressed their initial observations:

Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.

Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time.

"What happened today this was ridiculous," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "While they send out that e-mail, 20 more people got killed."

Students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.

The e-mail had few details. It said: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.

Student Maurice Hiller said he went to a 9 a.m. class two buildings away from the engineering building, and no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.

Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: "I'm trying to figure that out. Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that."

"We were kept in the dark a lot about exactly what was going on," said Andrew Capers Thompson, a 22-year-old graduate student from Walhalla, S.C.

Clearly law enforcement and university officials had investigative leads pointing to an off campus suspect, and given the nature of domestic disputes, the decision not to lock down an entire university based on what they knew was appropriate. There was no investigative information that could have predicted that the dormitory shooter possessed multiple firearms, was a VaTech student, and had laid plans to massacre students on the opposite side of campus, carrying chains to lock students in, intending to execute them with no apparent emotion. Such behavior would have been incompatible with a domestic incident, which usually diffuses once action has been taken against the girlfriend/spouse.

The campus lockdown that occurred at VaTech on the first day of classes last fall was ordered because intelligence then indicated the escaped felon was at large on campus and had shot a sheriff’s deputy. That was not the case yesterday, as the initial domestic shooting at the dormitory pointed to an off-campus suspect. Comparisons of the handling of these two very different situations are not productive and lead to unfair conclusions about the decisions made yesterday.

The university administration and police department deserve the prayers and support of the community rather than finger pointing. When they responded to the first 911 call about the classroom shootings, they rushed to the scene, secured as many students as possible and then risked their lives entering the building to confront the gunman. After witnessing the shooter commit suicide, the responding officers swept the area, still without knowledge of the motive for the attack or whether there were multiple suspects. They rescued the barricaded students, provided first responder medical assessments and care, carried the wounded to safety, and witnessed a horrible scene of carnage while feeling helpless. There is no feeling more disturbing to someone who has worked in law enforcement than the helplessness when you cannot protect someone from harm. Yet for these brave officers there appears to be only insult added to injury with each criticism.

The Virginia Tech webmaster, tasked with updating the university’s web site throughout the ordeal and with a police scanner at his desk, shared the following assessment of emergency response with friends on the blog Wired:

This was a multiple-agency response and there is little interoperability -- but the police still got the job done. Virginia Tech Police Department was and is lead agency in the whole event, with Blacksburg PD right there with them. The Montgomery County Sheriff's Department is also involved and the Virginia State Police. Give all the various dispatchers credit for a great job, as they were the linchpins that kept all the communications straight between all the agencies. There was a massive response from all the local rescue squads, let by the student-run Virginia Tech Rescue Squad. A triage area was set up adjacent to Norris Hall and ambulances shuttled in and out of the area to transport victims to Montgomery Regional Hospital, the Carillion New River Valley Medical Center, and to hospitals in the Roanoke Valley. Carillion's helicopters and the State Police helicopters were unable to be used for transport due to the high winds we are experiencing.

The campus (and surrounding public schools) were locked down, since no one really knew what the situation was, how many shooters there might be, and where any more might be. The incident ended after 11 a.m. and people on that side of campus were released to go home. Other parts of the campus were released at 12:30. SWAT teams from various police agencies in the region are doing a sweep of campus and the crime scenes are being processed.

Without imposing martial law and a complete police state, college campuses cannot be protected from a shooting rampage like this one. Steps can be taken to reduce the possibility, but prevention is not possible. Gun control has never kept guns out of the hands of criminals. The university reportedly did not have a campus-wide surveillance camera system, and perhaps the Commonwealth of Virginia will include funding to install one in the next university budget. However, the absence of cameras cannot be blamed on the university president, and the initial decision not to lock down the campus was made in good faith based on available information.

To blame is human, to sympathize divine.

Putin Checkmates Pro-Democracy Chess Champ

Recent news out of Russia indicates that in its continued efforts to consolidate power and silence critics, President Vladimir Putin’s government is rapidly developing decidedly anti-democratic and anti-American policies, and shows little fear of international criticism for its crackdown on democracy advocates critical of Putin. Last Friday, CNSNews reported that both houses of Russia’s parliament passed resolutions that accuse America of interfering with Russia’s internal political processes. The Russian government is bristling at current U.S. State Department assessments of the status of human rights and democracy in Russia, assessments that the Russians believe are intentionally exaggerated.

The State Department’s goal, according to the Russians, is to unite international opposition to the Putin government and to impose sanctions against Russia that would interfere with Russia’s upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections this year and in 2008. Recommending a preliminary strike, Russia’s parliament rattled its sabers about imposing economic sanctions on American interests in that country if America attempted to impose sanctions stemming from human rights violations.

Almost as if on cue, the Russian government could not restrain itself from violating human rights when an opportunity arose for promoting a positive international image. Pro-democracy rallies held in St. Petersburg and Moscow this weekend met with violent riot police tactics and numerous arrests, including Former international chess champion Garry Kasparov, who is now a prominent political activist giving name recognition and credibility to groups opposing Putin’s high-handed quashing of democracy. Kasparov, who has also contributed to the Wall Street Journal since 1990, spent 10 hours in jail before being released after paying a fine. According to Kasparov, the arresting authorities did not identify themselves and several demonstrators were badly beaten.

Incidents like this are becoming par for the course with Putin, and the behavior of the riot police demonstrated that the Russian government’s complaints about the State Department’s Russian human rights assessment are without merit, as Russian democracy appears to be in only slightly less mortal peril than Putin’s turncoat KGB colleagues and personal critics.

Kasparov, contributing to Newsweek in 2005, wrote the following assessment of Putin’s Russia:

The Russian people are ready for democracy—no less so than Iraqis. It's the Putin government that finds democracy unsuitable for its ends. The freedoms gained after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. have been steadily eroded until little remains. Putin is clamping the lid down so tight, in fact, that an explosion is inevitable. Stable? Not Russia.

. . . Nor is Russia an ally on terror outside its borders. Nuclear and missile technology flow to Iran, and Syria's dictatorship is shielded from U.N. investigation of its terror activities, all while the Kremlin says it is trying to help by exploiting its "special relationship" with these rogue states.

That was Kasparov's bleak outlook in 2005. Nothing that has transpired in Russia in the past two years suggests that any improvement will occur under the Putin administration. Those who demonstrate for democracy in Russia are incredibly courageous and careful international scrutiny should be given to Russia’s handling of internal political dissent. I wrote previously of Putin’s thin skin, and Kasparov has worked his way underneath it.