Blogging helps you not forget...

This is an old post, from 2003. Frivolous souls may forget the pain and sacrifice and nobility of that time, but I don't forget...

I was just thrilled by this story by a 9/11 widow who went to Iraq on a USO tour...

by Christy Ferer
6/30/2003 - NEW YORK (AFPN) -- When I told friends about my pilgrimage to Iraq to thank the U.S. troops, reaction was underwhelming at best.
Some were blunt. "Why are you going there?" They could not understand why it was important for me, a 9/11 widow, to express my support for the men and women stationed today in the Gulf...

...As we were choppered over deserts that looked like bleached bread crumbs, I wondered if I'd feel like a street hawker, passing out Port Authority pins and baseball caps as I said "thank you" to the troops. Would a hug from me mean anything at all in the presence of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and a Victoria’s Secret model?

The first "meet and greet" made me weep. Why? Soldiers, armed with M16s and saddlebags of water in 120-degree heat, swarmed over the stars for photos and autographs. When it was announced that a trio of Sept. 11 family members was also in the tent it was as if a psychic cork on an emotional dam was popped.

Soldiers from all over our great country rushed toward us to express their condolences. Some wanted to touch us, as if they needed a physical connection to our sorrow and for some living proof for why they were there.

One mother of two from Montana told me she enlisted because of Sept. 11. Dozens of others told us the same thing. One young soldier showed me his metal bracelet engraved with the name of a victim he never knew and that awful date none of us will ever forget...

...One particular soldier, Capt. Vargas from the Bronx, told me he enlisted in the Army after some of his wife's best friends were lost at the World Trade Center.

When he glimpsed the piece of recovered metal from the Towers that I had been showing to a group of soldiers he grasped for it as if it were the Holy Grail. Then he handed it to Kid Rock who passed the precious metal through the 5000 troops in the audience. They lunged at the opportunity to touch the steel that symbolized what so many of them felt was the purpose of their mission -- which puts them at risk every day in the 116 degree heat, not knowing all the while if a sniper was going to strike at anytime...

Wasn't something like this... Predicted?

This is from a few days ago, but still right on target...Kathryn Jean Lopez - The Corner on National Review Online:

...Reading items like the piece you excerpted from the New Republic reminds me of the strategic opportunities that Obama has squandered by demonizing Bush and the Iraq war for years.

Imagine how powerful it would be for Obama (or, more likely, a surrogate) to be able to stand up and say to the Iranian protesters, "Under the USA, your neighbor Iraq held free and fair elections. The government of Iran went out of its way to demonize the US and undermine those elections. We are now seeing the results of that mindset come home to Iran as you are denied a voice by your government in your own elections. The US government stands behind all who seek free and fair elections."

Of course, he can't say that with any legitimacy because he has spent years putting down Bush and Iraq. This is a classic example of why partisan bickering needs to be toned down; it hamstrings the new Administration. So frustrating to watch....

I'm remembering all the chomskies who scoffed and sneered when people like me said that liberating Iraq could lead to the start of a wave of democracy across the Middle East. Of course you cowardly dogs will pretend it never happened, but I remember. I was right, and my pal George W Bush was right.

Remember this?

Tuning out what doesn't fit the template...

I am, most of the time, a fan of David P. Goldman (Spengler). But I think this, from The Torture Debate Shows Our Vulnerability to Radical Evil, at First Things, is just malarky, and comes from his internal movie, not from reality...

...The scandal over torture is the perverse result of the previous administration's exercise in nation-building, that is, an attempt to bring the benefits of democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. When Justice Department lawyers write memos to set ground rules for "enhanced interrogation," something has gone woefully wrong. In the case of Iraq, the American military got up to its neck in the septic-tank of Iraqi civil society without the means to engage it. Apart from first-generation immigrants, few Americans speak Arabic, let alone Persian or Pashtun. Iraq's welter of resistant organizations was entirely opaque to American intelligence, which proposed to beat the required information out of a large pool of Iraqi prisoner. In retrospect it seems delusional to believe that the United States could shape a civil society without even the ability to communicate with it...

1. Unless I've missed something (correct me please!) the "torture" scandal has little to do with supporting operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. The (very few) cases of water-boarding were about threats by al-Qaeda to the US or Europe. (Abu Ghraib was not about interrogation.) I think Goldman is simply making stuff up.

2. The "septic-tank of Iraqi civil society" is a false description. I would say that Iraqi civil society is surprisingly healthy considering the decades of totalitarian misrule, and the general state of Arab culture. The violence we experienced was deliberately ginned-up by several murderous groups, but does not seem to have ever been what Iraqis in general wanted.

3. "...entirely opaque to American intelligence" Even if true, where are the Iraqi Defense Forces in this analysis? Turned to zombies? This is a bizarre variant on the liberal tendency I've written about to only consider America "real." The picture Goldman is painting, with only America able to act, is simply crazy.

4. I've been following accounts by our guys in Iraq since 2003, and it is very clear that they do in fact communicate effectively with Iraqis. There are lots of English-speaking Iraqi interpreters, and many of our troops have learned at least some basic Arabic.

5. Though we provide lots of advice and aid, we are not "shaping a civil society," nor trying to. The Iraqis are clearly doing that themselves.

6. We seem to be succeeding. (See quote below by Nibras Kazimi.) Iraq is now safer than a lot of US cities. Therefore, it looks like "delusional" describes Goldman much better than it does American efforts in Iraq.

(Here are a few links to reports from Iraq, stuff I think Goldman just tunes out or ignores: Link, link, link, link. There is lots more where those came from.)

One of Goldman's schticks is that America is "arrogant," and will surely come a cropper. Maybe so, but I think in the case of Iraq he's seeing his own mental picture of the world, not what's there. (By the way, my list of reasons for invading Iraq is here. I don't just assert things, I back them up.)

I'd recommend Nibras Kazimi as a useful antidote to Goldman's fantasies. This is from an article of his, Dodging 'Democracy' in Iraq:

...It seems that U.S. policy views the words 'democracy' and 'Iraq' as mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, if it is policy then it was one begun by Clinton's predecessor, Condoleeza Rice, who in the latter years of the Bush administration began to shy away from the term.

Iraq is democratic. It has a noisy political process whereby politicians are always mindful of how their constituencies will react to their actions come election time. It managed to pass a constitution by referendum, and for the first time in the Middle East, the thorniest of issues such as sectarianism, minority rights and women's empowerment are being debated, and voted on, by the Iraqi electorate. A vocal parliamentary opposition assails a coalition cabinet on anything from budgetary pitfalls to the abuse of prisoners. Heck, even prisoners and ex-felons are allowed to vote in Iraq, something that can't be said about America.

Right before the last provincial elections, teams from the country's Electoral Commission visited prisons and hospitals to explain to voter their rights, and the procedures by which their votes would be collected and counted. That's not only a stark contrast to Iraq's brutal totalitarian past, but a stark contrast to Iraq's immediate neighborhood, where elections are 'managed' to produce the results the ruling establishment decrees...

Goldman is a great thinker, and I admire him very much, but in this case I think I'm seeing things more clearly than he. Why? Because I care about Iraqis, and like them. I'm not sure why—I ind neither other Arabs nor Afghans interesting—but I glom onto Iraqi news avidly, and have been for years now. I don't think Iraq is real to him. Just something useful for his arguments.

Democracies, by the way, are always uglier the lower the per capita income. Therefore, a reasonable level of success for Iraqi democracy would still be more flawed than even Mexico or Turkey.

Update: Actually, I'd say that Iraq is evidence that America is NOT arrogant. We said we could do the job, and even though it turned out to be ten times a hard as expected, we pulled it off! Sounds like clear-minded confidence in our abilities and in the attractiveness of our ideas to me. Not arrogance.

Emma Sky

Nibras Kazimi, at his blog Talisman Gate:

...The "Sky" I'm referring to is Emma Sky. I've been watching her rise for some time, and couldn't tell whether this was a remarkably deft penetration of the American decision-making process courtesy of the 'cousins' across the pond, or that it was just an accident of history when mediocre characters, thrust into the eye of history, begin making irresponsible and ill-conceived choices. I'm still wavering between the two.

Sky has maneuvered herself into becoming General Ray Odierno's brain.

Sky has been recently quoted as saying:

"It is a fascinating society," she said of Iraq. "They have got things here that we have totally lost in the West: the appreciation of each other, whether it is the family, the clan or the tribe; values that aren't capitalist."

How foolish is that? What toxic mix of cluelessness and self-righteousness is necessary to allow someone to string together these words? Is Emma Sky arguing for a pre-capitalistic society for Iraq? Wheres the sense of irony here?

But I'll hand it to her, she has been quite clever in rallying the ranks of her fellow travelers among the western media (think Tom Ricks), as well as the left-leaning think-tankers. She's managed to manipulate them into adhering to a disciplined message about Iraq, one that is heavily colored by her politics....

"..Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class," Parrington insisted, referring to both democracy and capitalism, "and the artist and the scientist will erect in America a civilization that may become, what civilization was in earlier days, a thing to be respected..."

Sky doesn't really care about "the family, the clan or the tribe;" what's important is that these people are still poor and unsophisticated (and "colorful"), and therefore may be amenable to being guided by people like Ms. Sky. As soon as they start to attain self-confident middle-class status she will drop them.

(Much like our own intelligentsia used to dote on poor wretches in Appalachia, and gourmandised on their folk music and folk art. And congratulated themselves on being caring (with the taxpayers' $'s) and on being cool and "genuine" while listening to recordings of some old granny singing hymns of a faith they in fact despise. And of course once those people managed to escape from dire poverty, they were "rednecks," they were "spoiled by capitalism," and deserved to be sneered-at or ignored.)

It goes without saying that Sky hates "Zionists," and is not fond of Kurds. "..toxic mix of cluelessness and self-righteousness..." Well put.

Atrocity!!!

AFP: Iraqi detainees refusing to go home:

BAGHDAD -- An increasing number of Iraqi detainees are refusing to leave detention centres despite being eligible for release because they want to complete studies begun behind bars, a US general said on Sunday.

"In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies," Major General Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.

The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the 23,000 or so detainees -- adults and juveniles -- being held at its two detention facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad's international airport and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.

Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling, said Stone, the commanding general for US detainee operations in Iraq....

Actually, they only want to stay because they are captivated by Mr Obama. That must be it.

Former enemies

Mike Plaiss sent me a link to this Bloomberg piece, Former Iraq Enemies Share Raids as America Prepares to Withdraw. It's interesting to me for several reasons. One is that I think this is the analog, on the level of nations, of the Christian command to love ones enemy. Our contemporary fake-pacifists try to play Christianity as justifying their appeasement of tyrants. But the problem is, they are loving someone else's enemy--and looking on with ice-hearted indifference as the poor someone-else gets shredded like a piñata..

Another piece of crap that stories like this give the lie to is the despicable falsehood spread by America-hating toads that we are fighting the War on Terror for revenge.

Feb. 24 -- Capt. John Bradley, patrol leader of a U.S. field-artillery unit, sat with Col. Mohammed, an Iraqi Army officer, sharing tea and ambitions to wipe out rebels.

Mohammed explained how they would raid a roadside-bomb factory together in Mosul. Bradley offered computer discs of city maps to help.

It was a military love-in a long time coming. After the U.S. led an invasion of Iraq in 2003, American administrators disbanded Saddam Hussein's troops as an incorrigible remnant of dictatorship. Now, Mohammed, a Hussein-era vet who asked that only his first name be used for security, was planning forays with a solicitous American counterpart. "We’re here to back you up," Bradley said.

The performance of Iraq's army, rebuilt in the past five years into a force of 210,000 strong, is fundamental to the country's stability. U.S. soldiers, which number 140,000, are scheduled to withdraw from cities by the end of June and from the whole country by late 2011. President Barack Obama is pondering Pentagon proposals to pull out earlier: perhaps 23 months from now or even by mid-2010.

As the clock runs down, the U.S. is shifting responsibility for counterinsurgency to Iraqis, replacing Americans with recent enemies as the vanguard of pacification.

Officers who served under Hussein have quietly enlisted in the army, and on Feb. 15, Iraqi leaders invited more to return from exile and join up. Former Sunni Muslim rebels have been recruited to police troubled neighborhoods in Baghdad and towns in western Iraq. Desert tribes that once blew up oil pipelines to undermine the American occupation now guard them....

"We can run from our moral duty but we can't hide"

Bush's Greatness, by David Gelernter, in the Weekly Standard:

...Bush's greatness is often misunderstood. He is great not because he showed America how to react to 9/11 but because he showed us how to deal with a still bigger event--the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 left us facing two related problems, one moral and one practical. Neither President Clinton nor the first Bush found solutions--but it's not surprising that the right answers took time to discover, and an event like 9/11 to bring them into focus.

In moral terms: If you are the biggest boy on the playground and there are no adults around, the playground is your responsibility. It is your duty to prevent outrages--because your moral code demands that outrages be prevented, and (for now) you are the only one who can prevent them.

If you are one of the two biggest boys, and the other one orders you not to protect the weak lest he bash you and everyone else he can grab--then your position is more complicated. Your duty depends on the nature of the outrage that ought to be stopped, and on other circumstances. This was America's position during the Cold War: Our moral obligation to overthrow tyrants was limited by the Soviet threat of hot war, maybe nuclear war.

But things are different today. We are the one and only biggest boy. We can run from our moral duty but we can't hide. If there is to be justice in the world, we must create it. No one else will act if the biggest boy won't. Some of us turn to the United Nations the way we wish we could turn to our parents. It's not easy to say, "The responsibility is mine and I must wield it." But that's what the United States has to say. No U.N. agency or fairy godmother will bail us out.

Of course our moral duty remains complicated. We must pursue justice, help the suffering, and overthrow tyrants. But there are limits to our power. We must pick our tyrants carefully, keeping in mind not only justice but our practical interests and the worldwide consequences of what we intend. Our duty in this area is like our obligation to show charity. We have no power to help everyone and no right to help no one. In the event, we chose to act in Afghanistan and Iraq to begin with--good choices from many viewpoints....

"If you are the biggest boy on the playground and there are no adults around, the playground is your responsibility." That's simply the way it is. We didn't ask the job, it just fell to us.

The complaints that we are oppressors amassing an empire because we are oil-stealing bullies are just stupid crap from nihilists who are desperate to avoid all moral duties. Including the duty of patriotism and love for this greatest of all countries.

They all laughed when I said Charlene and I hope to be tourists in Iraq soon...

Iraq: Basra is less dangerous than Manchester, British general says - Telegraph:

...Maj Gen Andy Salmon told The Daily Telegraph that following months of steady improvements in the security situation in Iraq's second city, the rate of violent crime and murder in Basra has fallen below some major British cities.

"On a per capita basis, if you look at the violence statistics, it is less dangerous than Manchester," he said, hailing a "radical transformation" in Iraq's prospects.

Since an Iraqi government offensive largely routed violent insurgent groups in Basra last May, British officials in Iraq say that the city has become ever more secure and stable and the Iraqi security forces increasingly competent. In the latest sign of progress after years of insurgent attacks on British and Iraqi forces, local elections last month passed off without significant violence.

"In a nutshell, Basra is stable," said Maj Gen Salmon.

The general, a Royal Marine Commando, also jokingly compared Basra and Stockwell in south London where he once lived. Asked where he would rather spend a Saturday night, he replied: "Downtown Basra, in the restaurants, enjoying myself."...

Saddam Hussein was a fascist dictator--in some ways more cruel and evil than Hitler. It is a mark of the utter insanity of our times that "liberals" and "pacifists" were determined to keep him in power, and then determined to allow al-Qaeda and Saddam's Ba'athist thugs to rule Iraq with terror and torture. All the while reviling the President of the United States for being "nazi," and a "Hitler!"

I'm probably boring everyone by repeating myself, but the utter moral bankruptcy of the left is a continual astonishment to me. And even more surprising is that people don't see it. Leftists can continue to present themselves as "anti-fascist," even though none of them would lift a finger to save people from real living breathing Hitlers.

These seven Iraqi men had their hands chopped off on orders of Saddam Hussein. We brought them here to receive the latest in prosthetic limbs.

Thise is what "Democrats" were (and are) against...

BBC NEWS, Iraqis vote in landmark elections:

...The turnout is expected to be strong even in Sunni areas. The head of the Iraqi electoral commission in Anbar province - a centre of the Sunni resistance to the US occupation - said he was expecting a 60% turnout.

Fewer than 2% voted in the 2005 election, with the result that Shia and Kurdish parties took control of parliament. Some Sunnis, like Khaled al-Azemi, said the boycott last time had been a mistake. "We lost a lot because we didn't vote and we saw the result - sectarian violence" he told the BBC. "That's why we want to vote now to avoid the mistakes of the past." The drawing of alienated Sunnis back into the political arena is one of the big changes these elections will crystallise, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from Baghdad.

On the Shia side, the results will also be closely watched amid signs that many voters intend to turn away from the big religious factions and towards nationalist or secular ones....

Thank you President Bush, for standing up for freedom and democracy, even for the "inferior races" that leftists despise. Democracy in Iraq may fail in the future, and it will certainly be more rough and trouble-plagued than ours. (But that's true of all of the poorer democracies.)

But it is still a million times better than what life was like under Saddam. Or under al-Qaeda, as they discovered in places like al Anbar. It was and is something worth fighting for.

They hate him for being right...

William McGurn: Bush's Real Sin Was Winning in Iraq - WSJ.com:

...In a few hours, George W. Bush will walk out of the Oval Office for the last time as president. As he leaves, he carries with him the near-universal opprobrium of the permanent class that inhabits our nation's capital. Yet perhaps the most important reason for this unpopularity is the one least commented on.

Here's a hint: It's not because of his failures. To the contrary, Mr. Bush's disfavor in Washington owes more to his greatest success. Simply put, there are those who will never forgive Mr. Bush for not losing a war they had all declared unwinnable.

Here in the afterglow of the turnaround led by Gen. David Petraeus, it's easy to forget what the smart set was saying two years ago -- and how categorical they all were in their certainty. The president was a simpleton, it was agreed. Didn't he know that Iraq was a civil war, and the only answer was to get out as fast as we could?

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- the man who will be sworn in as vice president today -- didn't limit himself to his own opinion. Days before the president announced the surge, Joe Biden suggested to the Washington Post he knew the president's people had also concluded the war was lost. They were, he said, just trying to "keep it from totally collapsing" until they could "hand it off to the next guy."...

But it is far more than just being right about not surrendering to al Qaeda. The implications concern the Democrats surrendering of Southeast Asia to Stalinist tyranny and genocide...

...This is Vietnam thinking. And the president never accepted it. That was why his critics went ape when, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he touched on the killing fields and exodus of boat people that followed America's humiliating exit off an embassy rooftop. As the Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti noted, Mr. Bush had appropriated one of their most cherished analogies -- only he drew very different lessons from it...

Well, they were right to go ape over it. If the numbers could all be known it is likely that the Democrat Party has killed more people than Hitler.

Analysis of President Bush must ultimately be literary..

This, by Orrin Judd, is right-on about President Bush...

...To that last point, one of the great ironies of George W. Bush's career is that while even his most devoted supporters--among whom we include ourselves--would not argue that he is eloquent, nearly every major set piece speech he has given rewards later reading. Of few modern politicians can it be said that they laid out as consistent, direct, and predictive a philosophy and policy program as the current president. For example, go back and read his 2000 acceptance speech at the Republican convention and you see the template for nearly everything he's done in domestic policy. What you saw then was exactly what you got. And, recall, that was just the first time that bewildered pundits puzzled over how far he'd outperformed expectations [their own, of course], how beautifully he'd expressed himself, and how moved they were despite themselves. The analysis of this not especially literary man's presidency must ultimately depend be literary, because he has explained himself so thoroughly to us as he's gone along.

This is particularly true of the decision to regime change Iraq, about which so much subsequent confusion arose, some of it Mr. Bush's own fault, much of it driven by his enemies (sadly, not just opponents). All of the contemporaneous accounts by participants in and reporters upon this decision confirm that as soon as 9-11 occurred the President determined to remove Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath from power in Iraq. His personal preference even seems to have been to do so prior to taking on the Taliban--which would have been the better tactic politically, the Afghan War being inarguable even for the Left. Nor did he have any apparent concern about whether we had any allies along with us nor UN approval. However, during the period when the US military was getting the attacking forces into place, he acceded to Tony Blair's attempt to sell the war to Great Britain and to Colin Powell's attempt to get a new UN Resolution. Whatever those two good men may have known or believed about Saddam's Iraq, they chose to use the threat of WMD as the basis for their respective sales pitches. President Bush graciously backed them up and the public focus did shift to this raison de guerre.

However, in his seminal speech, before the UN on September 12, 2002, George W. Bush himself treated WMD as a somewhat peripheral and based his own case for regime change on holding Saddam Hussein accountable for violations of the UN Resolutions that had ended the Iraq War his father and General Powell fought and upon the ongoing human rights violations in Iraq. He challenged both Saddam Hussein to adhere to the Resolutions he'd agreed to--which actually required the dictator to regime change himself--and the UN to enforce its own edicts, or we'd do so for them....

There's never been a president who has so openly and clearly said what he wants to do...and then did it. My guess is that Leftists--including almost all journalists and historians--are incapable of seeing this, because it is a state of mind they cannot even imagine. Their very existence is about hiding the emptiness inside them. Think of all those loopy theories about Bush as secretive devious mastermind. (Or as moron manipulated by masterminds.) Yet he's been open all along about what he wants to do. My guess is that they can only interpret that as idiocy or a subtlety unfathomably deep...

Now us reality-based conservatives get to laugh at you...

This is NOT an important post--just my chance to "answer back" to a poor fellow who has enough sense to dimly percieve that something's wrong, but can't connect the dots...

Why the anti-war movement is lost, By John Bruhns:

AS INAUGURATION Day approaches, the anti-war movement is working hard to stay politically relevant. President-elect Barack Obama, the anti-war candidate [Nope. Obama is the Obama candidate.] has been empowered by a frustrated electorate demanding exactly what he promised in his campaign: change. [There were all sorts of "changes" hoped for, and each group of suckers lied to itself and "hoped" Obama agreed with them. Now us reality-based conservatives get to laugh at you.]

But the anti-war movement isn't buying the "change" Obama is selling. [Actually, we still don't know what he's selling.] Instead, they've crafted unrealistic demands for the next president, and should he not kowtow, they'll undoubtedly convince themselves he's no different from George W. Bush. Perhaps they already have. [And nobody will care.]

Most Americans agree that the war in Iraq has been a catastrophe financially and militarily. [In fact, compared to other occasions when America has liberated people from fascist tyranny, this one's been cheap and easy.] Some have strictly advocated against the war from a position of philanthropy for the Iraqi people and our service-people killed in action. Whatever the gripe, all aspects have legitimacy. [They are all just covers for nihilism.]

But many fail to realize that the war isn't something that can be easily corrected, because it's festered for far too long. [Festered? Wake up, mush-brain. The Iraq Campaign's been WON, and you are irrelevant.] And since day one, a bipartisan majority of Congress has repeatedly voted to give the Bush administration every tool needed to continue the war - even members of Congress who receive the anti-war vote. [As they say, never give a sucker an even break.]

In the summer of 2007, I had a meeting with Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and his senior military adviser. Davis, former chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, struck me as a concerned moderate looking for a practical and realistic solution to the mess in Iraq. [We found one. It's called "victory." Your al-Qaeda pals have been crushed in battle, and the poor people of Iraq have at least a chance at the freedom you despise.]

DAVIS UNDERSTOOD my frustration with the war and said, "We have to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in." I would hear Obama echo the exact same sentiment repeatedly on the campaign trail. [Ya can't be too careful. We're still in Germany and Japan 60 years later. Why don't we round the number up, and plan for a hundred years?]

Later, I and two other vets met with Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.). He listened for more than an hour. At the end, Castle agreed we needed to get out of Iraq. But he had no concrete solution - and neither did we. [How unfair. Al-Qaeda and the Ba'athists slaughtered tens-of-thousands of civilians for YOU, but some days you just can't get a break.]

As you can see, Republicans are not so different from Democrats on the war issue. [Nah, we're a million miles apart. Republicans love America and work for democracy and freedom. Democrats........]

The main contrast I saw in my years of anti-Iraq war advocacy was that while members of both parties voted the same way, the Democrats griped about their votes. They acknowledge that they were against what they were voting for. [Just when talking to you, sucker.] So what's the alternative? Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney aren't getting elected to anything anytime soon.

And here's what we have to look forward to. On March 19, many anti-war groups will assemble a tumultuous crowd at the post-Bush Pentagon. They'll scream for the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq while jumping up and down in opposition to the military industrial complex. [It's all about making themselves feel good.]

They'll demand that legal action be taken against Bush for ordering the invasion of Iraq. [They hate Bush because he's a liberal, in the old sense of Truman and JFK. He shows what phonies they are.]

But the Defense Department doesn't decide whether or not we go to war - that's up to the president and Congress. The military HQ is the wrong venue. [They hate our military because it is symbolic of believing in something enough to fight for it---nihilists hate belief.]

Some Iraq vets will join this protest out of a feeling of nostalgia for a time before they were even born. But it's no longer the Vietnam war, civil-rights, military draft '60s. Sporting a grungy military uniform is a tactic that the real policymakers can dismiss as a non-threat to their political viability. Even John Kerry quit that gig more than 30 years ago. [Well put. It was phony all along.]

Over the life of the recent anti-war movement, the attempted revival of the '60s was destined for failure from the beginning. [The 60's were a stupid tacky failure from the beginning--except for the birth of the conservative movement. That was the one success.]

Too many other issues were dragged into the effort. What middle-of-the-road Americans would attend a demonstration against the war if they knew they'd be standing in a mob of Che Guevara T-shirts listening to chants of 'Free Mumia!'? [A tautology. If they are comfortable with leftist lunacy, they are not "middle-of-the-road."]

I support people protesting what they think are injustices, but all issues aren't linked. It's not a good tactic to force people to stand under an umbrella of issues, all of which that they may not support. [Clue-up, dolt. The "anti-war" movement was always and only about the internal psycho-drama of nihilist whack-jobs. They hate America and Israel, and anything else that is symbolic of allegiance to a higher cause.]

In a democracy, strength is in numbers. This anti-establishment and absolutist view of the political process is likely to be the real cause of their implosion. [Kooks are kooks. Can't get around that.]

As someone who's been fighting for years for an end to the war in Iraq, I find this tragic because we need the voices of millions to put pressure on our elected officials to end the conflict and fix the many problems facing our country. But those voices have to be credible to be taken seriously, and circus acts never are. [A question for you, friend. Suppose America pulls out of Iraq. Would you define that as "the end of the conflict," even if fighting goes on for years and millions die subsequently? Hmmm? That's what the Vietnam protestors did. They "ended" the war, and then patted themselves on the back even as MILLIONS were being killed, or put into concentration camps. Is that OK with you? Look at yourself in the mirror when you shave, and ask yourself if you are that kind of person.]

But the truth is that the 'real' anti-war movement has become far too radical to be effective. [It never cared about actual people.]

They've pushed themselves into a corner where there's no possibility of meeting an opposing side halfway. If they ever hope to regroup into a force capable of generating a strong political will, they'll need to accept that it's 2009, not 1969 - and be more tolerant of other opinions. [I beg you, friend, re-think. You take notice of all this craziness and futility--now ask yourself some questions. You are working with people who would flush the entire population of Iraq down the toilet just to feel self-rightous. You are complicit in their evil. Do you think the same way? If America leaves Iraq, will Iraq drop off your radar? Or do you actually care about that land?]

Iraq?

James S. Robbins - The Corner:

The number of daily attacks in Iraq has fallen almost 95% from levels a year ago. Also of note, the murder rate in Iraq in November was 0.9 per 100,000 people. That is lower than the rate from before Saddam was overthrown. For those keeping score, the 2007 murder rate in the US was 5.9 per 100,000. Can we declare victory yet?

Iraq? Somphin happnin' in Iraq? Impossible, we would hear about it on the news...

We all criticize McCain, but keep this in mind...

This is important to keep in mind. From Now it's our turn to hope, by William Kristol...

...In politics, as one suspects in life, no good deed goes unpunished. John McCain staked everything on success in Iraq. He advocated the surge publicly and made the case for it privately. He defended it passionately and intelligently, and was indispensable in beating back critics, shoring up nervous supporters, and keeping enough public support for the surge so the Democratic party's repeated efforts to abort it failed.

The surge worked. It worked better than even its proponents expected. The strategic and moral calamity of an American withdrawal in defeat from the central front in the war on Islamic jihadism was averted. The positive outcome of a reasonably stable, democratic, and friendly Iraq is now in sight. Thanks in large part to John McCain, we did not have a second Vietnam-like humiliation. Thanks in large part to John McCain, the United States is on the verge of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

And as a result of the remarkable progress in Iraq over the past two years--progress whose possibility was scoffed at and whose reality was then denied by all leading Democrats except Joe Lieberman--Iraq faded as an issue in the presidential race. And with it, the critical question of who should be commander in chief also receded. By the fall of 2008, McCain got no credit for one of the great acts of statesmanship by a senator--let alone a senator who was also a presidential candidate--in American history...

And it is important to realize that when he mentions a "Vietnam-like humiliation," it is precisely because of such that we are now fighting a global war. Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, Beirut, Somalia... We have repeatedly flinched away from war and casualties, and the result was something far worse. We TOLD the terrorists in no uncertain terms that we could be safely attacked. We TOLD the world that we were afraid to fight for our civilization, and the bad guys took note. And so we have to fight.

The success of the "Surge" will make future wars less likely. John McCain is a true Christian pacifist.

The people who label themselves "pacifists" and "anti-war activists" are warmongers. They are making future wars much more likely. What they are doing is profoundly twisted and evil. It is the opposite of Christianity. (And if any lefties and "Democrats" reading this are offended, well, the comments are open. Don't snivel and whine, you cowards. Make a case! Show how I'm I'm wrong.)

Boring is good...

Nibris Kazimi:

....But here's a quick note on all that's happening in Iraq concerning the Provincial Elections Law, the Oil Law, and Kirkuk: the question that everyone should be asking is "Will this political turmoil lead to violence?" and answer is that the potential for increased violence is minimal.

It's politics, folks. Why should Americans involve themselves in the nitty-gritty details of Iraqi politics? It is all being sorted out in heated bargaining and deal-making. Should Iraqis concern themselves with the pork-barreling and congressional re-districting of the U.S. Congress? No, they shouldn't.

The Iraq story is getting boring, and that's a good thing. The 'analysts' and 'experts' who staked their reputations on the idea that Iraq is a failed state are feverishly hoping that the embers of violence would catch fire anew so that a certain presidential candidate may win and they'd get to keep their fake status of self-styled 'expertise'. My own reading of the situation is that is futile to go delving into the ashes of a failed insurgency that hasn't got the wherewithal to burst aflame again....

It's hardly more than hunch, but I've had a certain confidence in the Iraqis since we started getting educated about them back in 2002. A confidence I certainly don't feel about certain other Arab Middle East nations and groups. Bloggers pass around stories, and the stories about Iraqis are often like meeting people one would like to know. My bet is that the Iraqis will keep their democracy, although it will be a rough-edged thing.

I worry however about Iraq having so much oil. That seems to be a curse on nations. When the government gets a lot of it's income from selling oil or other natural resources, it doesn't have much reason to encourage its people to be the sort of free and enterprising population that creates real wealth, and thus yields tax revenues. It doesn't need to serve the people, so as to dispose them to be willing to pay taxes. To some extant, it doesn't need the people at all, and can hurt them with impunity. A temptation few politicians can resist over the long run...

My advice to Iraq might be to give its oil profits directly to the people, and then support the government by taxing them.

It's the fighter who can make peace...

I recommend thus post by Greyhawk, The British Invasion, about the British occupation of Basra in Iraq. I won't quote from it, since it is itself just a long series of news quotes. Starting out with the Brits very disdainful of the crude Americans who know so little, and ending up with the Brits crawling off in disgrace while we and the Iraqis clean up the bloody mess and bring PEACE.

Short version: You whop the bad guys with the big stick first, then you speak softly.

Short version of underlying British problem: It's hard to whop the bad guys if you have lost the belief that you are the good guys.

Short version of application to Christian practice: Those Jews that Jesus told to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile? They were dangerous men! In fact they were berserks who repeatedly rebelled against Rome, fighting to the death for what they believed. And every Roman knew it.

If they had been like today's pink-t-shirt nihilists, like our fake-Quakers and hippy-dippy peaceniks, Jesus would NOT have given them that advice, since it would have just encouraged evil. It's the fighter who can make peace.

More lies from our "intellectual elites"

Remember all theose sob-stories about how America is responsible for the destruction of Iraq's treasures? They've mostly turned out to be dirty lies. Now another one bites the dust....

So Much for the 'Looted Sites' By MELIK KAYLAN, Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2008; Page D9
A recent mission to Iraq headed by top archaeologists from the U.S. and U.K. who specialize in Mesopotamia found that, contrary to received wisdom, southern Iraq's most important historic sites -- eight of them -- had neither been seriously damaged nor looted after the American invasion. This, according to a report by staff writer Martin Bailey in the July issue of the Art Newspaper. The article has caused confusion, not to say consternation, among archaeologists and has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Not surprising perhaps, since reports by experts blaming the U.S. for the postinvasion destruction of Iraq's heritage have been regular fixtures of the news.

Up to now, it had seemed a clear-cut case. It stood to reason that a chaotic land rich with artifacts would be easy to loot and plunder. Ergo, the accusations against the U.S., the de facto governing authority, had been taken on faith. No one had bothered to challenge the reports, the evidence or the logic, not least because many ancient sites were in hostile terrain and couldn't be double-checked. By implication, the U.S. had been blamed for that too: After all, the presiding authority is effectively responsible for allowing no-go areas to exist where such things can occur.

Yet, paradoxically, there always was thought to be enough evidence to adduce blame. "We believe that every major site in Southern Iraq is in serious danger," Donny George, the former head of the Baghdad Museum, was quoted as saying in the New York Times in 2003. A recent book by Lawrence Rothfield of the University of Chicago's Cultural Policy Institute carried the estimate that, every year, roughly 10% of Iraq's heritage was being destroyed.

One of the foremost specialists who went on the trip, Elizabeth Stone from Stony Brook University, actually quantified the damage with the help of satellite images -- just before going. Alarmingly, and prematurely it seems, she concluded that nearly 10 miles of land had been looted and hundreds of thousands of objects had been taken. Confident statistics of this kind have been regularly tossed around, yet one wonders how such calculations can be made, not least by viewing the remains of illicit digs from satellite pictures. When looters attacked the Baghdad Museum in 2003, the news media put the number of destroyed and looted objects at 170,000 -- a figure equal to the entire collection. It emerged later that most of the important pieces had been successfully hidden away. Others were soon found. The number of missing objects that is cited has since fluctuated between 3,000 and 15,000, with the figure never taking into account the systematic semiofficial looting and frequent substituting with fakes that occurred in Saddam's time.

Considering the political impact of such data, one would expect the experts to approach the subject with scientific circumspection, using numbers sparingly and conservatively. Too often they seem to have done the reverse. So now, as a matter of course, their method, their probity in sifting the evidence -- do they have a political agenda? -- has come into question...

OF COURSE they have a political agenda. They are America-hating Bush-hating lefty liars. Like a lot of academics, they are dishonorable scoundrels who will bend the evidence to fit the political agenda.

How to lie like a journalist #2338

Here's an interesting article on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's claim that terrorism has been defeated in his country.

But, slipped into the second half of the article is something that seems newsworthy enough for its own article: AP Exclusive: U.S. Removes Uranium From Iraq. It's about how Iraq is shipping Saddam's yellowcake Uranium to Canada, where a company has purchased it for peaceful use.

That's sneaky. And typical. Leftists really really need to downplay the simple fact that Saddam was indeed pursuing nuclear weapons, and had said openly that they were intended for use against Jews. This obvious truth puts those who opposed his overthrow in the same moral position as anyone who tried to prevent us from stopping Hitler from killing Jews.

But what I found especially interesting were the last two sentences, because they are an example of lying without saying anything that is factually untrue. A Satanic skill...

....And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger - and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims - led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.

Factually true but totally misleading. In fact, a sneaky dirty lie. You would never guess from reading this that the 9/11 Report showed that the "former U.S. ambassador" lied in that very article, and had previously told the CIA exactly the opposite; that he thought Saddam HAD tried to buy Yellowcake from Niger. You would never guess that that "wide-ranging probe" found that the leak was not in the White House, as had been eagerly hoped, but in the State Department, done by a person who was not friendly to the Administration.

You would never guess that huge numbers of leftists demonstrated that they were despicable frauds when their torrents of faux outrage over the unspeakable crime of "outing a CIA agent" evaporated the instant it was found that the culprit wasn't someone whose fall might hurt the Bush administration. It's also misleading because it is presented in the form of commonly-accepted background information that needn't be scrutinized.

And mostly it is a form of lie because it is deliberate smoke and mirrors to distract us from what we should be pondering. Which is that the Iraq Campaign is pretty much justified by the facts in this article: That a mad and violent dictator was stockpiling Yellowcake with plans to make nuclear weapons.

However, slipped into the second half of the article is something that seems newsworthy enough for its own article: AP Exclusive: U.S. Removes Uranium From Iraq. It's about how Iraq is shipping Saddam's yellowcake Uranium to Canada, where a company has purchased it for peaceful use...

...But what I found even more interesting were the last two sentences, because they are an example of lying without saying anything that is factually untrue. A Satanic skill...

Curs...

Christopher Hitchens on Douglas Feith's War and Decision

....Bertrand Russell's principle of evidence against interest—if the pope has doubts about Jesus, his doubts are by definition more newsworthy than the next person's—doesn't really justify the ocean of coverage in which the talentless McClellan is currently so far out of his depth. For one thing, he doesn't supply anything that can really be called evidence. For another, having not noticed any "propaganda machine" at the time he was perspiring his way through his simple job, he has a clear mercenary interest in discovering one in retrospect.

If you want to read a serious book about the origins and consequences of the intervention in Iraq in 2003, you owe it to yourself to get hold of a copy of Douglas Feith's War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. As undersecretary of defense for policy, Feith was one of those most intimately involved in the argument about whether to and, if so, how to put an end to the regime of Saddam Hussein. His book contains notes made in real time at the National Security Council, a trove of declassified documentation, and a thoroughly well-organized catalog of sources and papers and memos. Feith has also done us the service of establishing a Web site where you can go and follow up all his sources and check them for yourself against his analysis and explanation. There is more of value in any chapter of this archive than in any of the ramblings of McClellan. As I write this on the first day of June, about a book that was published in the first week of April, the books pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe have not seen fit to give Feith a review. An article on his book, written by the excellent James Risen for the news pages of the New York Times, has not run. This all might seem less questionable if it were not for the still-ballooning acreage awarded to Scott McClellan...

Read it all.

What cowardly dogs liberals are. At least those who run those newspapers. They have heaped invective upon Douglas Feith, mentioned him thousands of times, and then, when he tells his side of the story, they do their best to make sure no one gets to hear it. They pretend he isn't "newsworthy." Scrubs.

A lull.......in the news coverage.

From the WaPo. Kudos to them for noticing, even if they are more than a year late...

The Iraqi Upturn: Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war.

THERE'S BEEN a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks -- which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. [Not odd at all. Predictable. The news media's side is losing, so there's a news blackout.] While Washington's [meaning trendy-leftoid Washington] attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have "never been closer to defeat than they are now." [The US and her allies traditionally keep fighting until we hit on a war-winning strategy. Then we WIN. The good guys, that is. So how can it be so surprising when we do it again?]

Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing both rival militias and the Iranian-trained "special groups" that have used them as cover to wage war against Americans. [They are "waging war against Americans." The Post has said it. So where are the anti-war activists? Where are the pacifists?] It is -- of course -- too early to celebrate; though now in disarray, the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr could still regroup, and Iran will almost certainly seek to stir up new violence before the U.S. and Iraqi elections this fall. Still, the rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments -- and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama....[Many people (those not blinded by hatred of Bush and America) were noticing a shift in the wind in EARLY 2007. So how stupid is it that the press is just now STARTING to wise up? And your brain-dead Dem politicians are still clueless? Do they all deserve to be fired? Yes.]

...Gen. David H. Petraeus signaled one adjustment in recent testimony to Congress, saying that he would probably recommend troop reductions in the fall going beyond the ongoing pullback of the five "surge" brigades deployed last year. [Let's all hold our breath waiting for the "anti-war" Left to thank him.] Gen. Petraeus pointed out that attacks in Iraq hit a four-year low in mid-May and that Iraqi forces were finally taking the lead in combat and on multiple fronts at once -- something that was inconceivable a year ago. As a result the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki now has "unparalleled" public support, as Gen. Petraeus put it, and U.S. casualties are dropping sharply....

...When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success. [Sullen silence, peevish carping, or re-writing history are the usual plan for lefties in these situations. See: Cold War, End of.]

More BS from AP...

Nibras Kazimi deconstructs the AP story about Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issuing fatwas against the American "occupation." (Of course we are not really "occupiers," since we remain there at the invitation of Iraq's elected constitutional government.) It's worth reading the whole post.

Red Herring Fatwas
So what happens if the western media can’t spin or sensationalize events in Iraq when not much is happening? Why, they make it up!

The Associated Press put out a wire report yesterday hinting that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is about to declare jihad against the Americans. Whhhhhaaaaaat???....

....If we’ve learned anything from the recent events in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul—by the way, these are Iraq’s three largest population reservoirs—it should be that the reporters and commentators who are tasked to describe Iraq to American and western audiences are at worst dishonest and duplicious, at best some string puller’s chorus of useful idiots.

It is in this vein that this AP story is released; to distract from other things that could be reported in Iraq, such as how things are dramatically improving and how this war has been decisively won.....

....UPDATE: A source close to Sistani denied today (Arabic link) that the Grand Ayotallah's about to announce jihad, saying that Sistani believes that occupation (...in a general sense) must be resisted by peaceful, not military, means under a given set of circumstances.

Don't expect AP to release a retraction, though. Plus, don't expect the punditeers who feverishly linked to the AP fairytale to update their posts either.

That's you, Orrin...

We're the good guys. Of course we win...

Ralph Peters:

May 20, 2008 -- DO we still have troops in Iraq? Is there still a conflict over there?

If you rely on the so-called mainstream media, you may have difficulty answering those questions these days. As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, Iraq has magically vanished from the headlines.

Want a real "inconvenient truth?" Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating.

But that fact isn't helpful to elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops are winning. Daily.

You won't see that above the fold in The New York Times. And forget the Obama-intoxicated news networks - they've adopted his story line that the clock stopped back in 2003.....

...And Obama, the NYT, and al-Qaeda are the bad guys. They want America and the free people of Iraq to lose. They are on the other side.

Oh well. So what else is new...

You knew this, but it's nice to have them admit it...

Nibras Kazimi writes:

Fascinating: The Jihadists Admit Defeat in Iraq

A prolific jihadist sympathizer has posted an ‘explosive’ study on one of the main jihadist websites in which he laments the dire situation that the mujaheddin find themselves in Iraq by citing the steep drop in the number of insurgent operations conducted by the various jihadist groups, most notably Al-Qaeda’s 94 percent decline in operational ability over the last 12 months when only a year and half ago Al-Qaeda accounted for 60 percent of all jihadist activity!

The author, writing under the pseudonym ‘Dir’a limen wehhed’ [‘A Shield for the Monotheist’], posted his ‘Brief Study on the Consequences of the Division [Among] the [Jihadist] Groups on the Cause of Jihad in Iraq’ on May 12 and it is being displayed by the administration of the Al-Ekhlaas website—one of Al-Qaeda’s chief media outlets—among its more prominent recent posts. He's considered one of Al-Ekhlaas's "esteemed" writers....

Worth reading. Charts and all. They are in Arabic, but even so the picture is dramatic...

I'll bet this is right

From a 5/12/08 NY Sun column by Nibras Kazimi...

Iran’s Shifting Strategy

The healing in Iraq and the deterioration in Lebanon are not unrelated. In fact, Iraq will serve as both cause and effect to Lebanon’s misfortunes. Iran, eclipsed in Sadr City, had decided to allow its sectarian acolytes to put on a show of strength in Beirut. And the jihadists of Al Qaeda’s ilk, soon to be eclipsed in Mosul, will migrate to Beirut to meet Iran’s challenge.

Five years ago, there was a hope that held Iraq as a would-be beacon for democracy throughout the Middle East, but that vision had too many determined enemies both inside and outside Iraq. Yet as the situation there darkened through the actions of these regressive forces, the spontaneous outpouring of liberty demonstrated by the Lebanese people seemed to validate the notion that democracy and liberty would take in the region, and that the hope for what Iraq may portend was not misplaced. But the Cedar Revolution, as the March 2005 events of Beirut are remembered, also had too many internal and external enemies determined to spoil the elation.

Two countries that were dead-set against Iraq succeeding were Syria and Iran. These are also the two countries most responsible for fomenting political paralysis and chaos in Lebanon....

good job...

When casualties were high in Iraq, Democrat leaders deplored them loudly. Pretended they gave a damn about Americans and Iraqis dying. And SO, when casualty-rates dropped 80 or 90%, did they express pleasure? Satisfaction? Of course not, the liars.

They just changed the subject, and deplored that Iraq was not making political progress, and not hitting the "benchmarks." Pretended they cared about that. So, now that Iraq has been hitting one benchmark after another, do they say thank you? Do they say "Well done?"

Of course not. They are all black-hearted liars.

Iraq just achieved another one of those benchmarks, with a mass-release of prisoners, mostly Sunni, not accused of serious crimes. Shall I hold my breath waiting for the Ried's and Pelosis and Obama's and Clinton's to acknowledge that goals they said they considered important are being met? Of course not. They were lying. They are America-hating liars, and the magnificent feats-of-arms of our troops and our Iraqi allies are the last thing they want to happen.

They are on the other side.

Well, I'll say it. Congratulations, to Prime Minister al-Maliki, and to the free people of Iraq.

Liberation Day....

Nibras Kazimi:

For me, April 9th will forever be Liberation Day.

Last year, I expressed my feeling about this time of year in column titled Absolutely Worth It.

This piece continues to express how I feel. Yet, five years on, the sum of anniversaries has an added personal symmetry for me.

It was on this day, in 1998, that I formally joined the Iraqi opposition to Saddam at a young age a few days shy of 22. I had dabbled before here and there, but it was then that I took the plunge to do this for real. At first, my family thought that it was a waste of life, but they eventually came around after I made this argument: I won't do this forever, no way, but I'll do it for a maximum of five years or until whenever Saddam is overthrown within that time period. My paternal grandfather, my parents, and my uncles had all be badly bruised by their forays into politics, and those experiences had left them with broken hearts, surrounded by broken things. Another generation trying to fix things, especially after the bleak horrors of Saddam, was a fool's errand, a waste of youth, a despairing venture.

I sold my own stint in this field to my folks as a form of mandatory military service that I'd have to go through before I did the proper middle class thing of finding a real, paying job. Their attitude turned from one of initial hesitation to an outpouring of unconditional support. My brother, especially, took it upon himself to help me get by throughout the years I worked as a volunteer. I could tell too, as the years advanced and liberation was within sight, that my father and mother had started to look upon me with something beyond pride, closer to awe. This sustained me with immeasurable power, and clarity of mind. It kept me centered when I was scared or despondent or vengeful for I always had a point of reference to the values I was brought up with...

Awesome. It's no wonder that nihilists hate the liberation of Iraq with such intensity...

Just have the decency to shut up...

Orrin Judd, commenting on an article about how "realists" are trying to get the ear of John McCain...

...Given that the Iraq war is a function of their failure to remove Saddam in '91, the pragmatists ought to have the decency to shut up. Maintaining dictatorships so that we won't be bothered by messy new situations is a policy that is beneath the contempt of any decent party and should be left to the Democrats.

The “Fighting rages” dodge...

Nibras Kazimi is still, it seems to me, making sense of Maliki's offensive in Iraq...

...For how can one not pity those miserable journalists as they scramble to find new narratives to define the last 48 hours in Iraq?

Not only has Maliki not backed down, but newly emboldened with wide political backing he’s begun to smash through Sadr City itself and is threatening to banish the Sadrists to a political Siberia. Muqtada al-Sadr, the guy the media has us thinking had won, has prostrated himself at the feet of Grand Ayotallah Sistani, promising Maliki that he would indeed demobilize his militia if the wise old men of Shi’ism would have it so. Gone are the millenarian certainties of taking orders from the Mahdi, the messiah. Gone is all that bluster of al-Sadr’s virile, confident ‘Outspoken hawza’ contrasted with Sistani’s supposedly feeble and retro ‘Silent hawza’. And he sends out his plea for clemency from Iran. FROM IRAN?!! From a place of chosen exile with which he had often derided the Hakims for seeking sanctuary and shelter there after Saddam has nearly eradicated their lineage. The place too, towards which his father’s confidants still point their accusing fingers for the murder that had befallen the old man and that of Muqtada’s two older, more worthy brothers.

Sadr surrendering his fate to Sistani and submissively muttering, “Do as you please, Sir.” Who would have imagined?

It is almost as baffling as Maliki’s abrupt transformation from an incompetent administrator into a wartime commander-in-chief!....

and...

...Well, it now seems that the rumor is official according to this press report (Arabic): Muqtada al-Sadr has cancelled his 'March of the Millions' anti-American demonstration set for tomorrow to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Baghdad.

In retaliation for whimping out, Code Pink has formally revoked al-Sadr's membership and expelled him from its ranks. Furthermore, Barack Obama has withdrawn his offer of a cabinet post that he had offered to Muqtada. Going yet further, Nancy Pelosi has cast off her Mahdi Army bandanna. Dozens of western journalists were seen protesting the cancellation outside Sadr's HQ in Sadr City, angry over the time and effort they had lavished while pre-writing tomorrow's story and the waste of all those flashy headlines and headcounts that they won't get to use. Ha!....

I like this guy! And this for our fraudulent journalists, is perfect:

...Yes, you miserable souls: keep writing in that passive tense, that “Fighting rages” dodge. Never mind that Maliki and the Iraqi Army are actively picking a fight with the outlaws, a fight that the government is winning, and that’s the reason why the bullets are whooshing by...

There are times when fighting is supposed to "rage." Like, uh, when you are attacking somebody! That's good. That's a good sign. It's a war, you dolts. (I don't actually think that "war" is the correct term to describe the "Global War on Terror," but it will have to do until I think of a better one.)

Alternate views...

Nibras Kazimi is a Visiting Scholar at the Hudson Institute, who writes a weekly column on the Middle East for the New York Sun, and a monthly column for the Prospect Magazine (UK).

His blog is Talisman Gate, and he's been writing fascinating posts on what's been happening in Basra. I don't know enough to judge his accuracy, but he's a lot more convincing than what we've been getting from the Western media, and Western bloggers.

A sample: Monday, March 31, 2008 The ‘Intifada’ That Wasn’t

...The western media operating in Iraq regurgitated the Mahdi Army’s bravado as fact thereby serving as useful propaganda tools for the criminal cartels. I’d single out the New York Times, the Associated Press, McClatchy and CNN as the worst transgressors. Many journalists were positively orgasmic in anticipation of another ‘intifada’ or uprising to crease Bush’s message of hope and regeneration. But as the dust began to clear and the real scope of the battle was revealed, these journalists were reduced to alarmism of the “What if Martians decide to invade Basra too?” variety. Understandably, some of these journalists wanted the Iraq scene to heat up so that the public back in America would pay attention to Iraq and consequently to the careers of those reporting on Iraq for their once-glamorous war zone beat that was sure to land one a book deal a couple of years back had gone dull and dreary.

What then did these journalists do when they didn’t get their ‘intifada’? They couldn’t further imperil their careers by admitting that they were wrong—hell no!—so they’ve decided to brand Maliki and the Iraqi Army as the losers....

...Operation Cavalry Charge was a reality warp for all those who’ve internalized the rhetoric that Iraq is a failed state. Instead of being dismissed as a ‘Green Zone politician’, Maliki took his war cabinet to Basra and went all Untouchables on the Al Capones of Iraq’s oil-rich south; plenty of journalists and ‘experts’ simply could not grasp these dramatic changes to the political topography of Iraq.

Maliki won, pure and simple. The western media invented the narrative that Maliki was at war with the Sadrist movement, even though no such declaration was ever made. No one was interested in turning the Sadrists into martyrs when their stocks are sinking faster than Bear Stearns' anyway. Why turn the Sadrists into desperadoes with nothing to loose? Maliki’s approach is piece-meal: he’s taken out the intimidation factor that kept much of the Sadrist sway in place and he’s done that by showing them that they are no armed match for a better-disciplined, better-supplied Iraqi Army with plenty of stamina. The Sadrists are left with some political gains that they’ve accrued from joining the political process, such as government posts and lucrative contracts that they’d be loathe to part with and that’s their collateral for good behavior from now on....

Some other posts to read: The Great Green Zone Freak-Out of ‘08, and As the haze clears, and More Media Distortions...

Curveball...

From WSJ, Curveball Revisited, March 29, 2008; Page A8

In the long history of U.S. intelligence fiascos, few have been as minutely examined as the "Curveball" episode – the source whose fraudulent claims were largely responsible for the pre-Iraq War view that Saddam Hussein possessed biological weapons. So it's worth noting what a new, remarkable report from the German magazine Der Spiegel tells us about the spy who lied...

....But Curveball was nobody's stooge. On the contrary, he is Rafid Ahmed Alwan, an opportunistic Iraqi asylum-seeker who came to Germany in 1999. His claims to having inside knowledge of Saddam's illicit weapons program quickly made him a prized asset of Germany's intelligence service, the BND. So convinced were the Germans of the reliability of his information that in the fall of 2001 they purchased 35 million doses of smallpox vaccine for fear of what Saddam might be cooking up.

More remarkable is that even after September 11 – when then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder promised "infinite solidarity" with the U.S. – the German government refused to allow the CIA to interview Curveball in person. Often, the Germans resorted to dishonest pretexts for their lack of cooperation, such as that Curveball didn't speak English, when in fact he spoke it fluently (and as if nobody in the CIA spoke German or Arabic). "It was a blockade that made it impossible for any other service to validate his information," David Kay, who ran the Iraq Survey Group that looked for WMD after the war, told Der Spiegel.

BND nonetheless sent some 100 reports about Curveball's information to the CIA. And while doubts about Curveball's credibility began to emerge on both sides of the Atlantic as early as 2000, the Germans persisted in believing him. In November 2002, according to Der Spiegel, Curveball's disclosures formed the centerpiece of a top secret briefing by the BND to the foreign affairs committee of the German parliament. This caused one of those who were briefed to note the "enormous discrepancy between the public statements made by the government" – which opposed the war and downplayed the Iraq threat – "and the knowledge it had in its possession."...

I don't really care about this in regards to our decisions--I think we had plentiful reasons both moral and practical to liberate Iraq. But it is very interesting as a psychological window into the nihilism of most of Europe. Germany believed that Saddam posed a huge danger to them and the world---believed it enough to purchase 25 million doses of smallpox vaccine. And yet, amazingly, at the same time, Germany was eager to prevent us from doing anything about it! That seems insane.

(Regular readers already know where I'm going here...feel free to skip.)

But it's not actually insane if you follow my thinking about these things. (And I'd be happy to entertain alternate theories, or critiques of my logic.) My theory is that the amorphous leftism (what we Americans usually call "liberalism") that is the norm in Europe's governing classes and much of its population, is now being worn as a disguise, to cover up the complete lack of any real beliefs. To conceal nihilism.

It was precisely because they believed or suspected that Iraq was a real threat that the bulk of the world's leftists hated the idea of taking any military action. (And regardless of how things turned out, it looked in 2002 like Iraq was a big threat, with a large well-equipped military, active WMD programs, and active sponsorship of many terrorist groups.)

The invasion of Iraq posed a huge existential threat to the left, because it was implicitly a blow in defense of Western civilization, and our own interests. It was saying that we believe that our world is worth fighting for. It said that we believe in our Western and liberal values, such as the value of liberating people from a hideous fascist tyranny. It is belief that is a threat to the nihilist.

A less-than-accurate description of the situation in Baghdad...

Michael Goldfarb gives a quote from a book I'm going to be reading soon, Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President

...In 2002, the vice president had been briefed on fresh intelligence that members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad had made their way to Iraq and had begun setting up safe houses in Baghdad. Cheney found the report interesting, but odd. He had understood that Egyptian Islamic Jihad had merged with al Qaeda several years earlier. Ayman al Zawahiri, the group’s longtime leader, was now Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy. Cheney wanted to know why the report did not simply conclude that al Qaeda was setting up safe houses in Baghdad.

He returned the report to the CIA with a question: Would it be accurate to substitute “al Qaeda” for every mention of “Egyptian Islamic Jihad?” The answer did not come immediately, but when it did, the CIA finally acknowledged that members of al Qaeda were operating in Baghdad.

To Cheney, the episode was one example of many that demonstrated the unwillingness of some CIA analysts to take an objective look at Iraq and its support for radical Islamic terrorists, al Qaeda in particular. In this case, analysts were so determined to avoid reporting the presence of al Qaeda members in Iraq that they presented Cheney with a less-than-accurate description of the situation in Baghdad...

To me it is one of the most interesting things of our time, the way liberals (and the CIA is very liberal; it's not a place you will find any Republicans) are repelled, as if by some invisible magnetic field, from looking straight at Iraq. They know, and they knew then, back in 2002, that it was the biggest danger to them. That it would unmask them.

They'd been decrying fascism forever, and preening themselves on their anti-Hitler credentials, and then......comes George W Bush who says, "Bully! Let's all go together and overthrow a fascist dictator who makes Adolph Hitler look like a moderate." Ha ha. He got them, the vile phonies.

If President Bush (along with Vice-President Cheney) never accomplished anything else (in fact the list of his accomplishments is a long one) he would be a great president just because he exposed "liberals" and "pacifists" for the nihilists most of them are.

Just routine air-transport....

This is interesting to me. The V-22 was mired in controversy and problems for so long, that I kind of assumed it would never be operational. And yet here it is, working away, hardly even being mentioned. Cool.

I wonder how well it is actually working out? The concept is awesome, and I've always tended to think that even if cost a mint, and failed to meet expectations, we should be pushing ahead with it in order to learn enough to build better models later. And of course it fits well with "small wars," which is all we have now.

Iraqi army soldiers from the 27th Iraqi Infantry Brigade, 7th Iraqi Infantry Division, prepare to go on a patrol March 18 in the Hawron Wadi, which is just east of Baghdad, after exiting a MV-22 Osprey. The Iraqi army has been training with Marines and Navy SEALS to conduct helo-borne operations such as patrols and cache sweeps. While on patrol, the soldiers looked for any signs of insurgent activity and talked to locals to see if they had seen anything unusual. GUNNERY SGT. JASON J. BORTZ / MARINE CORPS. From Frontline Photos, 3-19-08

Question for "Democrats"

In Mr Obama's speech, he said:

...To succeed in Afghanistan, we also need to fundamentally rethink our Pakistan policy. For years, we have supported stability over democracy in Pakistan, and gotten neither. The core leadership of al Qaeda has a safe-haven in Pakistan. The Taliban are able to strike inside Afghanistan and then return to the mountains of the Pakistani border. Throughout Pakistan, domestic unrest has been rising. The full democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people have been too long denied. A child growing up in Pakistan, more often than not, is taught to see America as a source of hate – not hope...

So, question for Dems, for liberals: WHY are you so disdainful of democracy in Iraq?

WHY did you prefer "stability over democracy" in Iraq? Even to the point of supporting the cruelest fascist tyrant ever?

Iraq just passed its provincial election law, one of the" benchmarks" leftists have been complaining about. WHY is no leftish person expressing happiness?

What is it about Iraq?

My theory is that Iraq is not only the central front of the War on Terror, it is at this moment the "central front" in the much larger struggle for the soul of the Western World.

President Bush, with a wicked cleverness we never dreamed he possessed, has posed, in the form of the Iraq Campaign, the perfect "put up or shut up" test for that vast part of the West that can be labeled "liberal."

• You claim to be anti-fascist, so here's your chance to prove it.
• You claim to be pro-democracy, so here's your chance to prove it.
• You claim to oppose genocide, so here's your chance to prove it.
• You claim to care about people who have no "homeland," here's the biggest bunch of all, the Kurds...

I could write a much longer list. Almost everything "liberals" claim to be for, Saddam was against. And when President Bush posed the question, "liberals" (most of them) failed on every count.

The test has been repeated, and "liberals" have failed, repeatedly. Not only did they fail to support, for Iraqis, things like a free press, women's rights, gay rights, worker's rights, the right to travel........they failed even to express pleasure when Iraqis gained any of those rights!

And when al Qaeda and many of the Sunni tried to destroy the new Iraqi democracy by a campaign of savage terror, "liberals" failed again. They were almost all of them in favor of handing the Iraqis over to the butchers. And now that Iraqis have turned strongly against terrorism, and American and Iraqi forces are working together to achieve a stunning victory over al Qaeda, "liberals" have failed yet again. They are not happy with our success at all.

From Obama's speech: "...And that is why Senator McCain can argue – as he did last year – that we couldn’t leave Iraq because violence was up, and then argue this year that we can’t leave Iraq because violence is down..."

Well, I would turn that sentence around. Mr O, whether violence is up or violence is down, you are desperate to get out of Iraq. Why? Whether things are going good, or going bad, whether we are winning or losing, you are desperate to get out of Iraq. Why? Some liberals, like you Mr O, claim they want to get tough in places like Iran, Afghanistan, or Pakistan.....other liberals don't want to get tough anywhere......but you are ALL of you desperate to get out of Iraq. WHY?

I think most liberals are writhing in agony because they are being put to the test over and over again. I bet Obama could have come out in favor of conquering Pakistan and making it an Imperial Protectorate, and no lefties would have minded, as long as he promised to get out of Iraq.

That's what that speech was really about.

"work together in pursuit of shared goals "

Here's the News Report from those foul lying traitors honest patriots you see on TV...

March 13, 2008 2:44 PM

ABC News has requested and obtained a copy of the Pentagon study which shows Saddam Hussein had no links to Al Qaeda.

It's government report the White House didn't want you to read: yesterday the Pentagon canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's availability and didn't make the report available via email or online.

Based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion and thousands of hours of interrogations of former officials in Saddam's government now in US custody, the government report is the first official acknowledgment from the US military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to al Qaeda.....

And, here's the first paragraph of the Executive Summary of the actual report...(Thanks to Steven Hayes):

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist-operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam's security organizations and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some way, a "de facto" link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime...(my emphasis)

That's all you need to know. Saddam's was a terror-supporting regime. We are engaged in a global struggle against terrorism. For that reason alone we were perfectly justified in taking out Iraq. In fact there was no need to ask permission of Congress, just as FDR needed no special permission to invade French Morocco, (or Iceland, for that matter). The President could have just picked up the phone and told Rumsfeld to do it. And informed the public after the fact.

Wars are to fight. In a war you attack your enemies. Duh.

"A fatal threat to the terrorist organization..."

From Al-Qaida's Fading Victory: The Madrid Precedent, By Austin Bay

...Al-Qaida needed a Madrid Precedent. The "9-11 Precedent" hadn't worked as planned. Rather than perishing like a fire-struck Sodom or becoming "quagmired" in Afghanistan like the lurching Soviet military, the United States responded aggressively and creatively, and with an unexpected agility.

Moreover, America had chosen not merely to topple al-Qaida's Taliban allies, but had made the bold decision to go to "the heart of the matter" and wage a war for the terms of modernity in the center of the politically dysfunctional Arab Muslim Middle East. [Well put!]

Don't think that al-Qaida's leaders didn't know that stroke -- establishing a democracy in Iraq -- represented a fatal threat to the terrorist organization.

Al-Qaida's dark genius had been to connect the Muslim world's angry, humiliated and isolated young men with a utopian fantasy preaching the virtue of violence. That utopian fantasy sought to explain and then redress roughly 800 years of Muslim decline. The rage energizing al-Qaida's ideological cadres certainly predated the post-Desert Storm presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia.

In February 2004, al-Qaida's "emir in Iraq," Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, bluntly noted he faced defeat. Islamist radicals were "failing to enlist support" and had "been unable to scare the Americans into leaving." Once the Iraqis established their own democracy, Zarqawi opined, al-Qaida was lost. Moreover, a predominantly Arab Muslim democracy offered the Muslim world an alternative to al-Qaida's liturgy of embedded grievance. Zarqawi's solution to looming failure was to murder Iraqi Shias and ignite a "sectarian war."...

And "sectarian war" was itself a disastrous policy. When it failed, as it has in Iraq, the result was a whole nation waking up and realizing who the realbad guys are. Iraq is now immunized against al Qaeda and similar groups. (And, despite what some silly people say, they are probably immunized against friendliness to the world's #1 terror-supporting nation, right next door.)

It's pleasant for me to read this, confirming what I've been arguing for so long. (See #'s 1 and 2 on my list of reasons for invading Iraq.)

And one thing that has amazed me is how blind people are to the simple fact that the result of the Iraq campaign has been that our enemies have been forced to react to our moves, rather than us reacting to theirs. This is something that has been stunningly obvious for years now, but most people refuse to see it.

In any war, seizing the initiative gives you a big advantage. But it's much more important in irregular warfare, against a shadowy and elusive foe. The normal pattern in terrorist campaigns is that something goes ka-boom!, and then we scramble around looking for clues. Wouldn't it be good if we could somehow choose a place to fight, far from our own civilians, garrison it with our troops, plus lots of potential allies, and then force al Qaeda to come there and fight us!

WE are always weak, THEY are always strong...

If you are peeved by that certain sort of pundit who opines endlessly that Iran is becoming preeminent and unstoppable in its region, and that Iraq is falling under Iranian sway—or maybe is already an Iranian client state....well, you must read A'jad's Endless Iraq Debacle, by Amir Taheri.

I found it grimly hilarious.

March 8, 2008 -- IT had been billed as a "triumph" for the Islamic Republic and "a slap in the face of the American Great Satan." However, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two-day state visit to Iraq last weekend showed the limits of Iranian influence in the newly liberated country.

Weeks of hard work by Iranian emissaries and pro-Iran elements in Iraq were supposed to ensure massive crowds thronging the streets of Baghdad and throwing flowers on the path of the visiting Iranian leader. Instead, no more than a handful of Iraqis turned up for the occasion. The numbers were so low that the state-owned TV channels in Iran decided not to use the footage at all. Instead, much larger crowds gathered to protest Ahmadinejad's visit....

...The visit's highlight was supposed to be a pilgrimage to Karbala and Najaf, the "holiest" of Shiite cities in Iraq. There, Ahmadinejad was supposed to become the first Iranian government leader since 1976 to pray at the mausoleums of Imam Hussein and Imam Ali.

In the end, however, the tour was canceled amid reports that Shiite pilgrims, including thousands from Iran, were planning to demonstrate against his presence at the "holy" cities.

A more important reason motivated Ahmadinejad to drop his planned visits to Najaf - his failure to arrange an encounter with the leading ayatollahs of the "holy" city, especially Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the leading Shiite clergyman. For a president who claims that he's the standard-bearer of a global Shiite revolution, that was one photo-op to die for....[There's plenty more].

Perfect.

Actually, the idea that Iran is destined to hold sway over Iraq has always been really stupid. The Iranian government is only tenuously in charge of Iran. There's a certain mind-set that always assumes that WE have problems and weaknesses, but our enemies don't. Perhaps it's just because they don't believe in anything they can't actually see.

And the same people always assume that Iraq must be weaker than Iran, since Iraq is our ally. Actually, over the long haul elected governments are always stronger than tyrannies. They take much longer to decide to act, but when they do they can act decisively. And they are normally stronger economically. Democracies tend to be peace-loving, but when they are roused to war they are very dangerous.

Below the ‘irreducible minimum’

Stuff well worth reading:

Monday, 03 March 2008
By Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service

BAGHDAD — The top military commander in Iraq gave some insight yesterday into what he will consider as he prepares to report to the president and Congress in April on the way ahead.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force - Iraq, spoke with reporters accompanying Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is visiting the country.

The security trend lines all are favorable, the general said. “Attacks have continued to go down. We’ve had a five-month period consistently of a level of attacks we’ve not seen since spring of 2005,” he said. “This past week was the fourth-lowest since October 2004.”

Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker will explain why they believe attacks have come down when they report to President Bush and Congress.

The general said he is encouraged by the statistics and what he sees around the country. “In fact, the level of attacks has come down in recent weeks below a level we thought might be the ‘irreducible minimum,’” he said....

I wonder if Hillary will come out with her stuff about "a willing suspension of disbelief" again. What an evil America-hating creature she is, like all leftists. Fortunately, her side is losing in Iraq.

Give it a read...

Alternate title: "George W. Bush was Right"

Mike Plaiss sent me a link to this article in the NYT, Violence Leaves Young Iraqis Doubting Clerics.

...When Muath was arrested last year, the police found two hostages, Shiite brothers, in a safe house that Muath told them about. Photographs showed the men looking wide-eyed into the camera; dark welts covered their bodies.

Violent struggle against the United States was easy to romanticize at a distance.

“I used to love Osama bin Laden,” proclaimed a 24-year-old Iraqi college student. She was referring to how she felt before the war took hold in her native Baghdad. The Sept. 11, 2001, strike at American supremacy was satisfying, and the deaths abstract.

Now, the student recites the familiar complaints: Her college has segregated the security checks; guards told her to stop wearing a revealing skirt; she covers her head for safety.

“Now I hate Islam,” she said, sitting in her family’s unadorned living room in central Baghdad. “Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading hatred. People are being killed for nothing.”...

Well, there you go. Bush was right, and I was right. I've been saying for a long time that the violence of al Qaeda in Iraq would immunize people against radical Islam. I doubt if the administration intended for things to work out just as they have, but you might call it unconscious genius.

Some people claim that if we nurture democracy in the Middle East, the populations will just elect radical Islamists. No doubt some of them would do just that. But, there's nothing like having your fingers chopped off for smoking a cigarette to concentrate the mind.

And while I'm glad to see young Iraqis rejecting violence-preaching clerics, my advice to them would be to not discard their faith. The combination of peace, prosperity and secularism is deadly, as we see currently in Europe. Shi'ism at least is probably compatible with democracy, since it generally advocates a separation of church and state, at least until the Mahdi comes. The Iranian regime is an exception to the general trend of Shia theology.

Making bricks without straw...

This is very interesting. By Major John Tammes, in Iraq...

Last night we had a bit of a surprise. We were paid a visit by Sergeant Major of the (Iraqi) Army Adel. He has possibly the hardest job I can imagine; build the NCO corps of the new Iraqi Army. The old Iraqi Army paid no heed to it's NCOs, it was a very Officer-centric/Soviet model force. So SGMA Adel has to fight not only to get his NCO corp built from almost scratch, he has to overcome an old and entrenched cultural problem. Training, doctrine, logistics and organization are all problems that he is facing. Oh, and all this during a war. I don't envy him his job one little bit.

SGMA Adel is probably the best of the old Iraqi Army's NCOs, and he joined the new Iraqi security forces as soon as possible in 2003. It is clear that he wants to serve his country and her army....

Arab military culture with an admixture of Soviet military culture. What a witches brew! Most people haven't a clue what makes armies work, and so they have no idea what an astonishing and audacious project the United States (and the Iraqi government) has undertaken, nurturing what we hope will be the first functional arab army in modern times. What's that old Seabees saying, "The difficult we do right away, the impossible takes a little longer?"

That useless dork Obama is prating about change (having never actually, like, done anything in his life that changed anything) and meanwhile the Bush administration is actually changing the world in numerous ways, and getting no credit from our fake press and fake liberals.

And the things that Bush is doing are liberal projects. At least as "liberal" was defined when I was young. They are Trumanesque. It continues to astonish me that (my one contribution to human knowledge as a blogger) "liberals" are not liberals anymore---they have become nihilists....

Here's a train I'd like to ride....

The green-domed Baghdad Central station. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz

Reuters: [Link] The service between Baghdad and Basra resumed with little fanfare in December after a hiatus of 18 months. Few dared use it at first, but word has spread of a safe and cheap journey, and railway officials are scrambling for funds for more carriages.

"There's been a great acceptance of the service ... People do not feel anxious. They're coming with their families," said Abdul-Ameen Mahmoud, the railway company's head of passenger transport.

The Iraqi General Railways Company halted the service in 2006 after killings, bombings and kidnappings intensified in the infamous "Triangle of Death", an area south of the capital through which the line passes.

Built by imperial German and British engineers in the first two decades of the 20th century in a race between Berlin and London to control the region, Iraq's railways were once a vital link between Europe and the Middle East....

I think the President should make another trip to Iraq. Oh, say, maybe in.........October. And ride the train from Baghdad to Basra. Just to show America which party wins wars....

Toxic to his cause...

This article in Weekly Standard, A New Middle East, After All, is worth reading . This is just a little part that grabbed me...

....Although Senators Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joseph Biden would rather burn in oil than give George Bush credit for his insistence on linking the war in Iraq to the battle against Islamic extremism, the president has damaged al Qaeda--and al Qaeda has damaged itself--more in Mesopotamia than on any other battlefield. Al Qaeda will live on in the forbidding mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and from there it may do horrendous harm to the United States and its European allies. But if al Qaeda is ever to evanesce, it will be because its jihadism lost its ethical appeal in the Arab heartland where it was born. American and Pakistani paramilitary successes against al Qaeda will never be sufficient to demonstrate the organization's evil to Muslims worldwide. Indeed, Pakistan's ineffectual attempts to assert control over tribal border areas have been counterproductive, giving bin Laden a fillip of hope at a time when his jihad is facing decided difficulty in Iraq.

By contrast, it is democracy in Iraq, as bin Laden correctly foresaw, that would be toxic to his cause: Few ideas elicit from him more venom. It is one of the great ironies of the war that President Bush, a man not known for perusing much primary material, actually did read bin Laden's declarations about Iraq and did consider his ideas. It is by no means clear Bush's antiwar critics ever have. We have not been able to counter the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian intellectual engines of jihadism against the United States; this would be difficult even if Bush's State Department actually tried it. But what we have done is help Iraqis grope their way toward democracy, even as al Qaeda's cruelty has rallied Iraqis to fight at our side....

"al Qaeda's cruelty has rallied Iraqis to fight at our side.." Exactly. WE can't defeat al Qaeda. It's impossible. It's like, we're gonna try to sort wheat from chaff from amongst a billion Muslims? No way. But, the Moslem world is as divided as any, and so any enemy of ours implies that there are allies we can work with.

Still, it's pretty amazing what George W. Bush has accomplished. He didn't nibble around the periphery, or futz around with half-measures. He flung us right into the Arab heartland, took one of the most populous and advanced Arab countries, and in a very short time (as cultural transformations go) and at a very small cost (as wars go) has converted 25 million people into al Qaeda-haters!

And what fills me with glee is that is is probably too late for our fake-pacifsts and fake-liberals to reverse the decision. Conservatives are still wringing their hands over the possibility that we might pull out and and a Cambodia-type bloodbath would ensue. But there's no need to worry, I believe. It's too late for the Democrat Party's al Qaeda allies. The game's over. We could leave Iraq tomorrow, and Iraq's government would still muddle through. (There are of curse, huge advantages to keeping some forces in Iraq, and we will certainly negotiate a long-term security agreement with Iraq before Bush leaves office. And President Obama will just have to lump it.)

"revenues declined 22.4%"

Charlene noticed this Bizzyblog post, about how the news media ignored or downplayed the fact that the two recent bombings in Baghdad we done using mentally retarded women. That's the sort of detail that might make almost anyone realize that surrendering to these monsters is madness. And realize also that al Qaeda is possibly scraping the bottom of the barrel for "single-use activists."

So of course the terrorist-allies in the news media slanted the story to “the new Baghdad feels a lot like the old Baghdad.”

The Bombings were not done to influence Iraqi opinion--it's long past obvious that the Iraqis are not going to be cowed by terror-bombings. Those women and children in the pet markets in Baghdad were killed for the New York Times. And CNN, and CBS, and the rest. They were killed BY our news-media, who have demonstrated a thousand times that they will spread the terrorist story-line. That they will reward al Qaeda for bloody slaughters.

Those poor people were slaughtered to give propaganda ammunition to our "anti-war" activists. They were killed for our "pacifists." They were killed for Barack and Hillary. They were killed for the Democrat Party. They were killed for Ron Paul. they were killed for the Quakers...

But there was a tiny crumb of comfort in the last line of the post:

...In totally related news, the New York Times Company (symbol NYT) reported Thursday that, though it turned a profit in its fourth quarter, December revenues declined a heart-stopping 22.4%.

Do not miss...

Do not miss How Bush Decided on the Surge, by Fred Barnes.

It is a fascinating article, and very important. Important especially because most of us have no idea how difficult a task it was to change our tactics, and persuade the leaders in government and the military to go along with the surge.

I hear people now claiming that Bush was a poor leader because our tactics should have been changed much earlier. Or that he should have dumped Rumsfeld earlier.(Rumsfeld does not seem to have been the main obstacle.) In fact, the turnaround was a long slow process, with many obstacles to be overcome. Bush was pushing for change long before anything could be seen on the surface.

....Inside his own administration, Bush had few allies on a surge in Iraq aside from the vice president and a coterie of National Security Council (NSC) staffers. The Joint Chiefs were disinclined to send more troops to Iraq or adopt a new strategy. So were General George Casey, the American commander in Iraq, and Centcom commander John Abizaid. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice favored a troop pullback. A week earlier, the Iraq Study Group, better known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission, had recommended a graceful exit from Iraq.

The presence of former secretary of state James Baker, a longtime Bush family friend, on the commission was viewed in Washington and around the world as significant. It was assumed, correctly in this instance, that Baker wouldn't have taken the post if the president had objected. (At least one top Bush adviser faulted Rice for not blocking the amendment by Republican representative Frank Wolf of Virginia that created the commission in the first place.) Baker was seen as providing cover for Bush to order a gradual retreat from Iraq.

But retreat was the furthest thing from Bush's mind. "This is very trite," he told me. "Failure was no option .  .  . I never thought I had to give up the goal of winning." He wanted one more chance to win.

At the Pentagon, Bush listened sympathetically to the complaints and worries of the chiefs. He promised to ease the strain the war had put on the military. Bush knew the idea of deploying more troops and changing the strategy would be a tough sell. It had been hatched outside the Pentagon. Co-opting the chiefs was "tricky business," an aide said. It "would be the most demanding civil-military challenge the president would face."....

If you subscribe to the NYT, you are "embedded" with the Father of Lies

John at PowerLine demolishes that vile NYT story about how returning vets are committing murders....

...Now put yourself in the place of a newspaper editor. Suppose you are asked to evaluate whether your paper should run a long article on a nationwide epidemic of murders committed by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan--a crime wave that, your reporter suggests, constitutes a "cross-country trail of death and heartbreak." Suppose that the reporter who proposes to write the article says it will be a searing indictment of the U.S. military's inadequate attention to post-traumatic stress disorder. Suppose further that you are not a complete idiot.

Given that last assumption, I'm pretty sure your first question will be: "How does the murder rate among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan compare to the murder rate for young American men generally?" Remarkably, this is a question the New York Times did not think to ask. Or, if the Times asked the question and figured out the answer, the paper preferred not to report it...

The evidence presented clearly says that the murder rate among returning vets is much lower than the national average for their age group!

But watch, this lie will not go away. It will probably become part of folklore. Like the despicable lie that Vietnam vets were more likely to have psychological problems than average.

The sort of people who work for the New York Times hate this country, and hate our military. They hate both for exactly the same reason--because both represent the idea that there are things worth fighting for. Things that are bigger and more important than "me." For nihilists, this is poison.

Legacy...

Salim Mansur, on Bush's current trip to the Middle East...

....George Bush could have remained indifferent to the Arab-Muslim world's malignancy, mouthing pieties as members of the ever fashionable lib-left political class in the West endlessly does, while watching the Arabs sink deeper into the political squalor of their making.

Instead, Bush struck directly at the most rotten core of the Middle East -- Iraq, the land of two rivers, choked to death by the vilest of Arab tyrants in recent memory, Saddam Hussein -- to give the Arabs an opportunity one more time to make a better future.

Regime change in Baghdad has brought a new Iraq to emerge with American support despite the fanatical opposition of the most backward tribal warriors of the Arab-Muslim world.

Iraqis -- Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- now bear responsibility that comes with freedom to write a new history for Arabs as, for instance, the far more populous and ethnically diverse people of India are doing.

The Arab leaders greeting Bush remain frozen in their hypocrisy, unable to say publicly what they will say privately, being relieved in knowing the United States remains committed to maintaining order and security in the Persian Gulf region.

But free Iraq looms large in the capitals of the Arab states, and if Iraqis keep progressing in freedom their example will be an irresistible attraction for the Arab-Muslim world spread between the Atlantic and the Persian Gulf.

A democratic Iraq is George Bush's formidable legacy, and the Arabs will be talking about him long after his contemporary critics bite the dust and are forgotten.

The Bush-haters are pygmies. Moral and intellectual pygmies. They will not be remembered. If you delve into history, you quickly discover that 99% of what is happening at any particular time is just noise--static. It is soon forgotten. And as soon as a bit of distance allows us to ignore the static, then the very few things that are of real importance start to stand out.

The big project for us today is dealing with Islam. Bringing it into the global "Core." The problem has been festering for decades, and no one, no country, has grappled with it. Until now. Until GW Bush and America and our Anglosphere allies smashed right into the nasty heart of Arab despotism, and started on some radical surgery.

And I doubt if our course will change, even if one of the current horrid Democrat candidates becomes president. I suspect the logic of war won't let them change our course now even if they want to.

"the most important public health response -- is ending the war."

Remember the Lancet study that claimed that more than 600,000 Iraqis had died since the US invasion? It was not even close to any other mortality estimates, and was widely condemned as bad science motivated by politics. Now National Journal has an article suggesting that actual scientific fraud may have been involved!

I found this part on the politics of those involved very interesting. My guess, from watching such people closely since 2001, is that that they are deranged enough that they could jigger the figures and then sincerely believe that they were telling the "real truth," and not committing fraud.

...In fact, the funding came from the Open Society Institute created by Soros, a top Democratic donor, and from three other foundations, according to Tirman. The money was channeled through Tirman's Persian Gulf Initiative. Soros's group gave $46,000, and the Samuel Rubin Foundation gave $5,000. An anonymous donor, and another donor whose identity he does not know, provided the balance, Tirman said. The Lancet II study cost about $100,000, according to Tirman, including about $45,000 for publicity and travel. That means that nearly half of the study's funding came from an outspoken billionaire who has repeatedly criticized the Iraq campaign and who spent $30 million trying to defeat Bush in 2004.

Partisan considerations. Soros is not the only person associated with the Lancet studies who had one eye on the data and the other on the U.S. political calendar. In 2004, Roberts conceded that he opposed the Iraq invasion from the outset, and -- in a much more troubling admission -- said that he had e-mailed the first study to The Lancet on September 30, 2004, "under the condition that it come out before the election." Burnham admitted that he set the same condition for Lancet II. "We wanted to get the survey out before the election, if at all possible," he said.

"Les and Gil put themselves in position to be criticized on the basis of their views," Garfield concedes, before adding, "But you can have an opinion and still do good science." Perhaps, but the Lancet editor who agreed to rush their study into print, with an expedited peer-review process and without seeing the surveyors' original data, also makes no secret of his leftist politics. At a September 2006 rally in Manchester, England, Horton declared, "This axis of Anglo-American imperialism extends its influence through war and conflict, gathering power and wealth as it goes, so millions of people are left to die in poverty and disease." His speech can be viewed on YouTube.

Mr. Roberts tries to go to Washington. Roberts, who opposed removing Saddam from power, is the most politically outspoken of the authors. He initiated the first Lancet study and repeatedly used its conclusions to criticize Bush. "I consider myself an advocate," Roberts told an interviewer in early 2007. "When you start working documenting events in war, the public health response -- the most important public health response -- is ending the war."..

When he says "ending the war," he is telling a lie. He really means ending American involvement in the war. If the US pulled out of Iraq, and a million people died subsequently, that would not be "war." That would be "peace," and these animals would be preening themselves on "ending the war." (And you can bet your last nickel that there would never be any "Lancet studies" of those deaths!)

One would need a heart of stone not to jeer and mock....

This morning I posted about the extraordinary turnaround in Iraq. This afternoon I was at the library, and saw a book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End.

Ahh, life is good. Think of all those America-hating lefty poison-worms suffering because Iraqis are not suffering. [Obligatory boilerplate: Yes, I know, Iraq could still go off the rails again.] Think of all the fake-pacifists gritting their teeth because peace is breaking out. Think of seeing that shit-stupid book on the bargain tables for 50 cents....Ha!

Best of all, think of millions of lefties clamping-off the nerve pathways to yet another section of their brains! They won't dare to think of the implications of what has happened. Of course they will seize hungrily on everything that goes wrong in Iraq (in a place like that there will always be problems) BUT STILL, they will have to NOT THINK about the "end of Iraq" that wasn't.

They made predictions of disaster, and they don't dare to re-think! What miserable creatures they are, living in fear.

Good news to wake up to...

Lovely morning! Bad news for lots of bad people. Good news for the good guys. From Gatewaypundit:

With 24 hours remaining...
The US military is on track to see the lowest number of monthly fatalities in Iraq since the war began in March, 2003.

In February 2004 the US lost 20 soldiers in the 29 day period.This month the US has lost 21 soldiers in the 31 day period.

The Bush Surge continues to show amazing results.

This follows the news yesterday that 75% of the Al-Qaeda network has been eliminated in Iraq.

I don't think most people understand what has happened here. In war you always try to choose to fight where the situation is advantageous for you. It's very hard to do—you enemy is trying his best to make just the opposite happen.

And in fighting against a guerilla enemy it's harder yet. In fact it's common to put ones forces in a bad position just so the enemy will be tempted to come out and fight!

And we've all been learning a little bit about Pakistan lately, right? (As the old saying goes, war is God's way of teaching Americans geography.) That would be the worst place to fight al Qaeda. We may have to do just that one of these days, but if we do we will wish we were still fighting in Iraq.

President Bush chose to fight in Iraq, and forced al Queda to come and attack us there. In a country where we automatically had some natural allies—if one group is against us, their old enemies would tend to be for us. And where the population was advanced enough to be immune to most of al Qaeda's blandishments. (For instance, creating alliances by forcing local daughters into marriage with al Queda bosses did not work at all with proud Sunni tribes.) There are many other reasons why Iraq was a smart move. (Here are a few.)

Obviously the administration did not anticipate what a scrap it was getting into. Perhaps that's good; it might have been paralyzed if it had. The historical comparison I keep thinking of is the Guadalcanal Campaign in WWII.

In mid 1942 we were NOT ready to fight Japan head on. Seizing the island of Guadalcanal was very rash, and we were several times close to being defeated there. But, this situation was tactically advantageous for us because we held the airfield, while Japanese air support had to fly hundreds of miles to support their troops. They had better planes and pilots, but we usually knew they were coming, and they arrived with almost no reserves of fuel. Even a little bit of damage or bad luck would mean that the Japs lost a plane and pilot, while our guys had their planes (and wounds) patched-up time and again. The attrition of skilled Japanese pilots over six months of fighting was devastating to their long-term hopes. Everything else—thousands of soldiers killed, dozens of ships sunk—was secondary to that fact.

It was very easy at the time (or later) to perceive the fighting in the Solomon Islands as a pointless stalemate, and as military incompetence. Blood was being shed copiously, but the lines on the map did not move at all! But the real battle was almost invisible. In the Pacific War, air power trumped everything else.

I think Iraq is something similar. The arhabi have poured men and resources into Iraq, and their defeat will be a devastating blow, especially for future recruiting. Bin Laden boasted that Americans would not fight, that we would run away like we did from Somalia. (And our lefty nihilists have done their damnedest to prove him right.) That boast is not going to work any more.

It was decades of weakness and appeasement—pacifism—that caused the global war we are in. And it is only toughness and lots of bloody fighting that will end it. The real pacifists, the real Christians of our time are serving in the United States military.

Good news is bad news for certain people....

Michelle Malkin writes in NRO...

There should be no question what the top story of the year was: America’s counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, the Democrats’ hapless efforts to sabotage it, and the Western mainstream media’s stubborn refusal to own up to military progress.

What happened in January defined the rest of the year. We rang in 2007 with vehement liberal opposition to the “surge” of 21,000 added U.S. troops and tactical changes to secure Baghdad. In the ensuing 12 months, Democrats tried and failed repeatedly to undermine this military strategy and starve the war of funding. Their poisonously partisan allies at MoveOn.org attempted to smear surge architect and patriot Gen. David Petraeus as a traitor. The New York Times and Associated Press fought tooth and nail to obscure the successes of the surge with their relentless “grim milestone” drumbeat. But by year’s end, with Shiites and Sunnis marching and praying together for peace, even anti-war Democrats and adversarial media outlets alike were forced to acknowledge that undeniable military progress and security improvements had been made....


....There’s a reason the magazine and newspaper editors are naming everything but the surge as their top story of the year. (Putin? The Virginia Tech massacre? Come on.) Good news in the war on terror is bad news for those rooting for failure. Far easier to play up casualties and sectarian strife, sensationalize accusations of atrocities, and demonize the men and women in uniform to indulge Bush Derangement Syndrome, as Washington Post staffer and NBC military analyst William Arkin did on Jan. 30 when he lambasted troops for enjoying “obscene amenities” and serving as a “mercenary” force...

Nothing shows what frauds and worms our peaceniks are, than their utter indifference to the enormous drop in casualty rates in Iraq, both military and civilian. That kind of peace they don't like one little bit. You can bet that if America had blundered somehow in Iraq, that would be the "story of the year."

An abu Ghraib gets 10,000 headlines. But the countless acts of courage and decency that are the daily routine of our forces in Iraq, and their many successes--those the poisonous reptiles of our press are not interested in. We would know almost nothing of them if it were not for the Internet.

(Thanks to Ed)

Trends...

Michael Yon has posted another part of his Ghosts of Anbar series: Part III of IV, A Model for Success...As always, he is worth reading (and supporting, if you happen to have any extra shekels)...

...Now I started to understand why the Army officers had been telling me the Marines are more advanced in counterinsurgency. Normal Marines have morphed into doing vintage Special Forces work. Many of our Army units are excellent at this work, but the Marines, at least these particular Marines, did seem to have an edge for it.They were even studying Arabic in their filthy little compound. Lightweight study, but they were showing the Iraqis they were making the effort. The Iraqis appreciated it. I have yet to see an Army unit undertake such a clear effort to learn Arabic...

...Iraqis in every province I have traveled all respond to strong leadership. It’s a cultural touchstone. A man like SSG Rakene Lee is not someone they would overlook. Physically, the man is amazingly strong. But what is most amazing is the strength of his moral fiber. Whatever the man talked, he walked. After all of al Qaeda’s false promises, the people here have learned a hard lesson about the true value of character...

...Over the next several days, I saw how much the Iraqis respected Rakene Lee and the other Marines who were all courageous, tactically competent, measured, and collectively and constantly telling even the Iraqis to go easy on the Iraqis. It’s people like Rakene Lee who are winning the moral high ground in Iraq. It is people like this who are devastating al Qaeda just by being themselves. Over those same several days, I would also see the Iraqi Lieutenant Hamid treat prisoners with respect and going out of his way to treat other Iraqis the way he saw Americans treating them. Lieutenant Hamid, in his young twenties, seemed to watch every move of the Marines and try to emulate them...

Naturally I'm thinking today about Pakistan, a nation of 160 million people, + nukes, that just may be sliding into Islamist madness. How little there is we can do, directly, to influence Pakistan. How clumsy our tools are.

It makes me think once again that the invasion of Iraq was the best move we have made in the War on Terror. Why? Because we are sowing the seeds of change in the very heart of the Muslim world. Change in the direction of freedom, democracy and economic growth. Of course it is a risky and difficult operation. Big ambitious moves always are. But with a bit of luck we are starting another trend in the Middle East, one that will compete with the trend towards jihadism.

All the world's nihilists and America-haters leapt at the chance to declare Iraq an failure and a catastrophe. But that was always a pretty stupid idea. The "insurgency" could probably have been stopped at any time if the Iraqi government decided to go in for some serious slaughter. In fact that is sort of what happened, since the brutality of the Shia militias probably had a lot to do with the Sunni getting realistic about their chances of success as rebels. And it was pretty clear early on that the mass of ordinary Iraqis were not keen on al Qaeda's terrorism, and were going to be even less keen after a couple of years of murder.

A quote for today...

Would it kill... Time or Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi or any on the left to say: "Well done, American soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine?" -- Hugh Hewitt

Ha ha, what a kidder that Hewitt guy is. Of course, actually, it would kill them. Politically at least. And probably psychologically as well. They are on the other side. They are, to put it simply and bluntly, anti-American.

For instance, the obvious person to be Time's "Man of the Year" was General David Petraeus. But who did Time pick? Vladimir Putin!!! Is that sick, or what?

Pacifism kills, #389

Oliver North, writing in Human Events...

....The Iraqi military and police that we have seen on this, our 9th trip to Iraq since 2003, are now remarkably well trained and equipped. Though many of the personnel in these units have been on “active duty” for less than a year, they are, according to what we have seen and documented, ready, willing and able to fight for their country. Their motives for “signing on” are also important. In the town of Maderiya, east of Bagdad toward the Iranian border, I asked Captain Fawaz Nazzir, why he joined the new Iraqi Army eleven months ago. His reply was a testament to American resolve in prosecuting this campaign: “I waited,” replied Captain Nazzir, “to see which side was going to win.”

To some Americans that may sound like a cynical response -- but not to those who have spent years campaigning in Mesopotamia. “What would you expect given how uncertain our commitment was at home?” commented one U.S. officer on his third tour of duty here. He continued: “Until ‘the surge’ nobody in Iraq knew whether we were going to finish this fight. AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) and the Shiite militias were all telling their followers that we were going to cut and run. ‘The surge’ proved that we weren't going to abandon them.”

Not only did we not abandon them -- we upped the ante...

We spent many decades TEACHING the world that terrorism works. We TAUGHT Osama bin Laden that we would retreat from the possibility of military casualties. He openly boasted that our pulling out of Somalia after 18 deaths proved that he could win. and the cost to us is now in the thousands (and of course tens-of-thousands of poor Iraqis, who none of our fake pacifists care about in the slightest.)

(And what is etra maddening and stupid about our unwillingness to incur casualties is that our military suffers about 800 deaths a year from non-combat causes. That's the price of having a military doing nothing.)

Terrorism violates all the rules of our civilization. If we had enforced those rules 4 or 5 or 6 decades ago, we could have nipped radical islamic terrorism in the bud. But Noooo, we were too "peaceful" and "civilized" to take violent action. And the result is the necessity for a hundred times as much violence. Appeasement kills. Pacifism kills. Quakerism is murder.

(And if any pacifists or "anti-war" activists or "Democrats" happen to be reading this, and you don't like what I say, don't sneer or whine. Refute my arguments, you gutless nihilists.)

Strongest in the Gulf....

By LAUREN FRAYER (AP) — Nearly 6,000 Sunni Arab residents joined a security pact with American forces Wednesday in what U.S. officers described as a critical step in plugging the remaining escape routes for extremists flushed from former strongholds.The new alliance — called the single largest single volunteer mobilization since the war began — covers the "last gateway" for groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq seeking new havens in northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said.

U.S. commanders have tried to build a ring around insurgents who fled military offensives launched earlier this year in the western Anbar province and later into Baghdad and surrounding areas. In many places, the U.S.-led battles were given key help from tribal militias — mainly Sunnis — that had turned again al-Qaida and other groups...

Fascinating news. There are lots of stories like this right now. I wonder if any of it gets onto the TV news? I don't watch TV, so I really have no idea.

I hope Republicans campaign next year as the party that brought us victory. A victory in our struggle with al Qaeda. One fears they may fall victim to the leftyist assumption that our country is something to be ashamed of, and that a hard-fought victory is a "mistake." As if only easy fights were worth fighting. Which is the shit-stupid idea that got us into the War on Terror in the first place. Pacifism kills.

I read someone's complaint recently, that the Iraq Campaign was a disaster because it has made Iran the strongest power on the Persian Gulf. I don't think so. First of all, the strongest power on the Gulf is the United States of America. And, regardless of who is President, we will have our forces in Iraq for a long time. Not to provide security within Iraq--that problem is shrinking fast, and is soon going to be handled by the ISF. But we are now negotiating a long-term security agreement with the Iraqi government, that will keep American troops on bases in Iraq. (Which tacitly insures that Iraq will not have any military coups.) And one of the many reasons for the Iraq Campaign was to bring this about. We will have an army right next to.........fill in the blanks. Ha ha ha.

But also, Iraq itself is on the path to becoming the strongest power on the Gulf. The Iraqi Army is of course growing steadily, it's up to about 15 divisions now. And with all that American training those divisions will be worth more than those of other ME countries. But MUCH more important, Iraq is a democracy. If it continues to be so, it will be able, in a crisis, to draw on the whole strength of its people. Democracies can be feckless in the short run, but over the long haul they are much stronger and more dangerous than tyrannies.

"Our dead and wounded have not bled in vain"

Good piece by Ralph Peters in the NY Post, IRAQ: WHAT WENT RIGHT

....Attacks of every kind are down by at least half - in some cases by more than three-quarters. A wounded country's struggling back to health. And our mortal enemies, al Qaeda's terrorists, have suffered a defeat from which they may never fully recover: They've lost street cred.

Our dead and wounded have not bled in vain.What happened? How did this startling turnabout come to pass? Why does the good news continue to compound?

Some of the reasons are widely known, but others have been missed. Here are the "big five" reasons for the shift from near-failure to growing success:

We didn't quit: Even as some of us began to suspect that Iraqi society was hopelessly sick, our troops stood to and did their duty bravely. The tenacity of our soldiers and Marines in the face of mortal enemies in Iraq and blithe traitors at home is the No. 1 reason why Iraq has turned around.

Without their valor and sacrifice, nothing else would've mattered. Key leaders were courageous, too - men such as now-Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno. Big Ray was pilloried in our media for being too warlike, too aggressive and just too damned tough on our enemies.

Well, the Ray Odiernos, not the hearts-and-minds crowd, held the line against evil. Only by hammering our enemies year after year were we able to convince them that we couldn't - and wouldn't - be beaten. If the press wronged any single man or woman in uniform, it was Odierno - thank God he was promoted and stayed in the fight....

....The surge: While the increase in troop numbers was important, allowing us to consolidate gains in neighborhoods we'd rid of terrorists and insurgents, the psychological effect of the surge was crucial.

Pre-surge, our enemies were convinced they were winning - they monitored our media, which assured them that America would quit. Sorry, Muqtada - that's what you get for believing The New York Times. The message sent by the surge was that we not only wouldn't quit, but also were upping the ante. It stunned our enemies - while giving Sunni Arabs disenchanted with al Qaeda the confidence to flip to our side without fear of abandonment.....

You don't have to read much history to see that wars and battles tend to be most ferocious and deadly just before the end. The fact that casualties are rising and things are becoming more difficult does NOT mean that you are losing! Unfortunately it has been impossible to debate the Iraq Campaign rationally with peace-niks because (along with 999 other reasons), they won't make their position explicit on this point.

I also get especially infuriated by the notion—never expressed clearly enough so one can debate it—that if in battle we seize a position, and then the enemy counter-attacks furiously, it means we've done something wrong! That's just so stupid. The opposite is almost always true. If we piss off our enemies, we are probably on the right track.

Remember Little Round Top, at the Battle of Gettysburg? A few men seizing that pile of rocks, and then both sides throwing more and more more men into the struggle for the hill. Hey, you Lefties out there, that was stupid, right? That was a "totally mismanaged" battle, right? I mean, what could be more mistaken, thousands dying over a hillock you wouldn't even notice as you drove by? Right?

things to be thankful for...

We can all be thankful for our peerless military, and for the sight of happy schoolchildren in the Dora neighborhood. Thankful that Americans and the Iraqi Security Forces are even now delivering a crushing defeat to the murderous animals of al Qaeda. These children can smile because good and brave men took on the forces of evil.

A schoolboy waves at a U.S. soldier on foot patrol in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood on Wednesday.

HADI MIZBAN / ASSOCIATED PRESS Army Times Frontline Photos 11-21-07

— — — — — — — — — — —

Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division celebrate Thanksgiving in their tent at Firebase Wilderness in the Afghanistan Paktia Province. The soldiers had saved up cheeses, sausages, pretzels and other treats from home, which were sent out in care packages.

John D. McHugh / AFP /Getty Images. Army Times Frontline Photos 11-24-06

"Come home"

From Michael Yon's latest dispatch, on the re-opening of a Christian church in Baghdad....

....A Bishop came to St John’s Church in Baghdad today, 15 November, where a crowd of locals welcomed him home. They were joined at the service by soldiers from the 2-12 infantry battalion, many of whom had fought hard to secure these neighborhood streets. Members of the hard-fighting Iraqi Army 3rd Division were also here for this special day...

....LTC Michael told me today that when al Qaeda came to Dora, they began harassing Christians first, charging them “rent.” It was the local Muslims, according to LTC Michael, who first came to him for help to protect the Christians in his area. That’s right. LTC Michael told me more than once that the Muslims reached out to him to protect the Christians from al Qaeda. Real Muslims here are quick to say that al Qaeda members are not true Muslims. From charging “rent,” al Qaeda’s harassment escalated to killing Christians, and also Muslims. Untold thousands of Christians and Muslims fled Baghdad in the wake of the darkness of civil war. Most of the Christians are gone now; having fled to Syria, Jordan or Northern Iraq.....

....Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”....

I don't know how many of those Christians will return. ALL the Christian communities of the Middle East are shrinking, even disappearing. Or rather, they've moved--nobody disappeared, they've moved to Australia or Britain or the US. One thing is for sure, the America-hating Leftists who used the flight of Baghdad's Christians as a club to bash the Bush Administration and our nation will not take any notice if they do.

And of course they will never criticize the real villains--the vile murderers of al Qaeda. You can't criticize your allies! And anyway, only the United States does bad things to the world.

In 1900 Istanbul was about 50% Christian--Now there are only a few thousand Christians left there. Iraq is actually more hospitable to it's old Christian communities than most Moslem countries.

"Come home"

From Michael Yon's latest dispatch, on the re-opening of a Christian church in Baghdad....

....A Bishop came to St John’s Church in Baghdad today, 15 November, where a crowd of locals welcomed him home. They were joined at the service by soldiers from the 2-12 infantry battalion, many of whom had fought hard to secure these neighborhood streets. Members of the hard-fighting Iraqi Army 3rd Division were also here for this special day...

....LTC Michael told me today that when al Qaeda came to Dora, they began harassing Christians first, charging them “rent.” It was the local Muslims, according to LTC Michael, who first came to him for help to protect the Christians in his area. That’s right. LTC Michael told me more than once that the Muslims reached out to him to protect the Christians from al Qaeda. Real Muslims here are quick to say that al Qaeda members are not true Muslims. From charging “rent,” al Qaeda’s harassment escalated to killing Christians, and also Muslims. Untold thousands of Christians and Muslims fled Baghdad in the wake of the darkness of civil war. Most of the Christians are gone now; having fled to Syria, Jordan or Northern Iraq.....

....Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”....

I don't know how many of those Christians will return. ALL the Christian communities of the Middle East are shrinking, even disappearing. Or rather, they've moved--nobody disappeared, they've moved to Australia or Britain or the US. One thing is for sure, the America-hating Leftists who used the flight of Baghdad's Christians as a club to bash the Bush Administration and our nation will not take any notice if they do.

And of course they will never criticize the real villains--the vile murderers of al Qaeda. You can't criticize your allies! And anyway, only the United States does bad things to the world.

In 1900 Istanbul was about 50% Christian--Now there are only a few thousand Christians left there. Iraq is actually more hospitable to it's old Christian communities than most Moslem countries.

This is just SO 2006...

From AlterNet, (thanks to Dean) a paranoid rant about how Bush is, like the German military in 1918, preparing a "stabbed in the back legend" to shift blame for losing the Iraq Campaign...

....It may seem farfetched to compare a Prussian military dictatorship and its self-serving lies to the current Bush administration. Yet I'm not the first person to express concern about the emergence of our very own Iraqi Dolchstoßlegende. Back in 2004, Matthew Yglesias first brought up the possibility. Last year, in Harper's Magazine, Kevin Baker detailed the history of the stab-in-the-back, suggesting that Bush's Iraqi version was already beginning to germinate early in 2005, when news from Iraq turned definitively sour. And this October, in The Nation, Eric Alterman warned that the Bush administration was already busily sowing the seeds of this myth. Other Iraqi myth-trackers have included Gary Kamiya at Salon.com, and Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith at Commondreams.org. Just this August, Thomas Ricks, Washington Post columnist and author of the bestselling book, Fiasco, worried publicly about whether the military itself wasn't already embracing elements of the myth whose specific betrayers would include "weasely politicians" (are there any other kind?) and a "media who undercut us by focusing on the negative."

Is an American version of this myth really emerging then? Let's listen in on a recent Jim Lehrer interview with Senator John McCain, who, while officially convinced that the President's surge plan in Iraq was working, couldn't seem to help talking about how we might yet lose. His remarks quickly took a disturbing turn as he pointed out that our Achilles' heel in Iraq is... well, we the people of the United States and our growing impatience with the war. And the historical analogy he employed was Vietnam, the catalyst for the deployment of the previous American Dolchstoßlegende...

Of course the big problem here is that it looks like we are now winning in Iraq (and unlike Vietnam this will not be easy to conceal from the American people) and so there isn't going to be a need for defeatists to argue against a "Dolchstoßlegende." What they will need to be arguing is that the victory is a fluke, and does not validate the idea of fighting for our civilization and our traditional values. That's what's in store for Lefty nihilists everywhere.

Another problem with the piece is that what McCain was saying is the simple truth. In Vietnam we were "stabbed in the back," and the author, weirdly, includes the evidence, the smoking gun...

...It's a myth we ourselves are familiar with. As South Vietnam was collapsing in 1975, Army Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr., speaking to a North Vietnamese counterpart, claimed the U.S. military had never lost a battle in Vietnam. Perhaps so, the NVA colonel replied, "but it is also irrelevant." Summers recounts his conversation approvingly, without irony, in his book On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. For him, even if we lost the war, our Army proved itself "unbeatable."

Though Summers' premise was -- and remains -- dangerously misleading, it reassured the true believers who ran, and continue to run, our military....

The thing is, that quote about how military victory was "irrelevant" was itself testimony of a stab in the back. What the colonel said was that our military victory was made irrelevant by a political defeat. And where did that that defeat happen? Was he saying that communists were winning elections or supporters in Southeast Asia? No, he is saying that the political defeat was here in America. And "stab in the back" is a perfectly reasonable description of that defeat...

"It's becoming almost bizarre..."

From Michael Yon's recent article in the NY Post, Inside The Surge:

....Today, I'm staying at a small outpost called JSS (Joint Security Station) “Black Lions" with the 1-18th Infantry battalion. Al Qaeda are so diminished in this area, according to the commander here, LTC Patrick Frank, that they are maybe 3 percent of the problem. But JAM (the Madhi Army created by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr) is the big problem around JSS Black Lion.

A soldier was blown up and killed about 400 meters away on Thursday evening. LTC Frank told me the other day that his best weapon system is his cell phone. Calls come to him (through his interpreter) every day and into the night, with information from locals about the whereabouts of wanted JAM members. Many local people are clearly fed up with the violence. Some even send e-mails with Google Earth maps showing exactly where suspects are, and they are doing it in real time.

We'll be sitting there in the TOC (tactical operations center or HQ) and an e-mail comes in and it's literally a map (or a photo of one) with detailed descriptions of wanted men and/or caches. And the information is turning out to be true. I have never seen anything like this before.

It's becoming almost bizarre how specific the informants are becoming. Informants have called up saying they are with bad guys right now and giving their location. Our guys show up and arrest everyone. Hours later, the U.S. soldiers let the informants go. JAM and AQI are getting slammed in many areas because local people are sick of the violence and local people trust Americans to help them end it.

Where all this can end was suggested to me on Wednesday, when I was at a large Sunni-Shia reconciliation meeting where more than 80 local leaders attended and signed an agreement....[Thanks to Dave Price]

Google maps...I love it.

See the world...

From Victor Davis Hansen's blog...

....I spent some time in Iraq accompanying Col. HR McMaster who was on an inspection tour of the forward operating bases. He is a UNC PhD, former Hoover Security fellow, and author of an acclaimed book, Dereliction of Duty, on (the lack of) military leadership during Vietnam, as well as one of Gen. Petraeus’s top counter-insurgency thinkers.

I could not imagine a tour (some 30-40 days I think he is on) that would pose more risks—humveeing and coptering into all sorts of places, regardless of the recent 24-hour conditions. Over the years, in Gulf War I, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, he has seen a number of close calls, and walks with a limp from an injured hip (probably will have to be replaced). Full body armor, pistol, and M-16 to lug around can’t help the pain.

I would watch him negotiate with Sunni governors, police chiefs, and generals, then be debriefed by Marine and Army officers, then go on tour in Humvees or foot patrols. This would start at 7 am and end at 8pm. Then after the long helicopter trip back to Camp Victory, HR would eat and join discussion with fellow Colonels until after 11 PM.

We often talk loosely of the idea of a renaissance man, but colonels like McMaster come closest—I would add another Colonel Chris Gibson—to the idea that I have ever come across.

Something is going on in Iraq entirely missed by media. It’s not just that things are turning around, but rather Gen. Petraeus has assembled perhaps the most gifted group of Army officers seen in a generation—who feel they are going to snatch victory from the jaws of political defeat. I think they will pull it off and the entire political landscape here at home will have to readjust to it by early next year. The smarter Democrats will take credit by claiming their anti-Bush efforts forced needed change, the denser ones will just continue to deny, like Sens. Reid and Schumer, that any good is occurring at all.....

Life has many frustrations, but there are also some sweet moments. The thought of what a bitter pill victory in Iraq is going to be to fraudulent liberals gives me a warm feeling in my tummy like a shot of whiskey!

Another charming thing is that there are so many things that are not what the received liberal wisdom says they are. I suspect that guys like Col. McMaster are not just gifted in relation to army officers of the past, but also in relation to certain people who imagine themselves as the highly-gifted elite....academics especially. The academic world is not looking very impressive these days, and I don't expect history to be kind to it. Same with the realms of journalism, the arts, and the whole bi-coastal arts-and-croissants crowd.

Related to this, one of the oddities of contemporary American life is that liberals preen themselves on being well-travelled because they've been trekking in Nepal or have gone on a photo-safari in Tanzania. But people who are really well-travelled, who know intimately some place you've never even heard of, are much more likely to be found in rural or small-town America! Those people join the military, or thye oil companies, or do missionary work, and they really "see the world."

Second chances...

Michael Yon has a great piece on Private Beauchamp...

...The story of General Petraeus getting accidentally shot in the chest is a case in point. One of his own soldiers had pulled the trigger. Normally, something very bad would have happened to that soldier and his commander. Instead Petraeus sent that soldier to Ranger School, and his Captain (Fred Johnson) was promoted early. In June, I witnessed LTC Fred Johnson helping to restore security and rebuild Baqubah. Fred Johnson is a believer in second chances....

[...]

...It can be pretty tough over here. The soldiers in Beauchamp’s unit have seen a lot of combat. Often times soldiers are working in long stretches of urban guerrilla combat dogged by fatigue and sleep deprivation. This is likely one of the most stressful jobs in the world, especially when millions of people are screaming at you for failures that happened three years or more ago, and for decisions to invade Iraq that were made when you were still a teenager. Just as bad is the silence from the untold millions who have already written off your effort as hopeless. Add that to the fact that buddies are getting killed in front of you. (More than 70 killed in Beauchamp’s brigade.) I see what these young men and women go through, and the extraordinary professionalism they nearly always manage to exude awes me on a daily basis.

Lapses of judgment are bound to happen, and accountability is critical, but that’s not the same thing as pulling out the hanging rope every time a soldier makes a mistake.

Beauchamp is young; under pressure he made a dumb mistake. In fact, he has not always been an ideal soldier. But to his credit, the young soldier decided to stay, and he is serving tonight in a dangerous part of Baghdad. He might well be seriously injured or killed here, and he knows it. He could have quit, but he did not. He faced his peers. I can only imagine the cold shoulders, and worse, he must have gotten. He could have left the unit, but LTC Glaze told me that Beauchamp wanted to stay and make it right. Whatever price he has to pay, he is paying it....

Poor Iraqi's suffer in Bush's War...

UN ReliefWeb:

....Taxi driver Ahmed Khalil Baqir used to station himself outside Baghdad's main morgue, waiting for grieving families who went there to claim their relatives’ dead bodies.

"I was totally dependent on them for my living," Baqir, a 44-year-old father of four, said." I never thought about picking up people in the street as I was being hired five to eight times a day by these families. But now it is a waste of time to wait there and these days I wait only for about three hours in the morning and I continue my work picking up passengers in the street.” (Thanks to Belmont Club)

You'd think this stuff would be news, wouldn't you?

...."Violence-related deaths in September dropped remarkably to levels not seen in more than a year as the number [of violence-related deaths] stood at 290 while in September 2006 the number was about 1,400," Adel Muhsin, the health ministry's inspector-general, told IRIN in a phone interview.

According to the ministry’s statistics, between January and the end of September 2007, the number of violent deaths involving civilian, police and military in all of Iraq was about 7,100, against 27,000 in the same period of 2006.

According to Muhsin, the average number of dead bodies sent to Baghdad’s main morgue just over a year ago was between 100 and 150 a day. Now, it is no more than 10 bodies a day, and about 50 percent of them are dying in normal circumstances.

There have been days this year when no dead bodies were sent to the morgue and this gave the morgue employees a chance to refurbish it, something they couldn't do in the past....

In the old days of the Soviet Union, airplane crashes were not reported. People knew that an Aeroflot plane had gone down when they read in Pravda stories about air crashes in the United States! We have a remarkably similar situation with our news-media today. If there's no news about Iraq, you can guess that the news is good. (And if a Congressman is indicted for corruption, and there's no mention of party affiliation, you know he's a Democrat.)

There's one subject that's never in "all the news that's fit to print"

Bruce Kesler:

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez’ speech and Q&A session at the Military Reporters & Editors convention has unleashed a whirl of major media coverage and commentary. (See Memeorandum, for examples.) All are focused on his criticism of the Bush administration for inadequate strategy and prosecution of the war.

However, neither the New York Times or Associated Press mention that over 40% of Sanchez’ speech severely took the major media to task. The Washington Post merely mentions it, and then underplays it at the end of its report, giving it 67 out of about 850 words in its coverage:....

What frauds...

At least they are honest about their dishonesty...

From NewsBusters.org, ‘Journalists’ Tell Howard Kurtz Why Good News from Iraq Shouldn’t Get Reported:

....KURTZ: Joining us now to put this into perspective, Robin Wright, who covers national security for The Washington Post. And CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

Robin Wright, should that decline in Iraq casualties have gotten more media attention?

ROBIN WRIGHT, THE WASHINGTON POST: Not necessarily. The fact is we're at the beginning of a trend -- and it's not even sure that it is a trend yet. There is also an enormous dispute over how to count the numbers. There are different kinds of deaths in Iraq.

There are combat deaths. There are sectarian deaths. And there are the deaths of criminal -- from criminal acts. There are also a lot of numbers that the U.S. frankly is not counting. For example, in southern Iraq, there is Shiite upon Shiite violence, which is not sectarian in the Shiite versus Sunni. And the U.S. also doesn't have much of a capability in the south.

So the numbers themselves are tricky. Long-term, General Odierno, who was in town this week, said he is looking for irreversible momentum, and that, after two months, has not yet been reached.

KURTZ: Barbara Starr, CNN did mostly quick reads by anchors of these numbers. There was a taped report on "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT." Do you think this story deserved more attention? We don't know whether it is a trend or not but those are intriguing numbers.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: But that's the problem, we don't know whether it is a trend about specifically the decline in the number of U.S. troops being killed in Iraq. This is not enduring progress. This is a very positive step on that potential road to progress.

KURTZ: But let's say that the figures had shown that casualties were going up for U.S. soldiers and going up for Iraqi civilians. I think that would have made some front pages.

STARR: Oh, I think inevitably it would have. I mean, that's certainly -- that, by any definition, is news. Look, nobody more than a Pentagon correspondent would like to stop reporting the number of deaths, interviewing grieving families, talking to soldiers who have lost their arms and their legs in the war. But, is this really enduring progress?

We've had five years of the Pentagon telling us there is progress, there is progress. Forgive me for being skeptical, I need to see a little bit more than one month before I get too excited about all of this....

It would be hopeless to try to argue with such people. We can only be thankful that the Internet routes around them...

Only Americans commit atrocities...

From Gateway Pundit..

From The New York Times October 6, 2007
Last year, when accounts of the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha by a group of marines came to light, it seemed that the Iraq war had produced its defining atrocity, just as the conflict in Vietnam had spawned the My Lai massacre a generation ago.

But on Thursday, a senior military investigator recommended dropping murder charges against the ranking enlisted marine accused in the 2005 killings, just as he had done earlier in the cases of two other marines charged in the case. The recommendation may well have ended prosecutors’ chances of winning any murder convictions in the killings of the apparently unarmed men, women and children.

That's The New York Times special way of saying "I'm sorry" for condemning the Haditha Marines to hell for the "apparent" cold-blooded murder of innocents before their trial even started.

And, isn't it interesting how The New York Times is still searching for an atrocity to define the War in Iraq?

An Al-Qaeda atrocity like the Yazidi bombings, the murder of a brave young Sunni Sheik, torture chamber drawings, or dismembering and booby-trapping dead soldier's bodies just won't do.

It must be an American atrocity...

That's exactly right. An American war, especially when led by Republicans, must be "defined" by an atrocity. It cannot be "defined" by unimportant trifles, like, say, millions of people risking their lives to vote in free elections. That's worthless to the "Democrats" at the NYT. And worthless to (most at least) of the tens-of-thousands who subscribe to the NYT, or the many local papers and stations who let the NYT decide what's "news." And of those incidents like blowing up hundreds of people in a marketplace were not an atrocities at all...because they weren't done by Americans.

This is a very minor blog I have here, and so I really don't have to be tactful and pussy-foot around. I'll just say what I think: If you subscribe to the New York times, it's about 95% likely that you are anti-American. You hate this nation. Of course you won't admit it, but if I had you hooked up to some sort of emotion-detector, and I said: "I believe that this is the freest and best country ever, and when she is attacked YOU owe her a DUTY of generous warm-hearted loyalty and service, even at the risk of your life," the dial would go right over to "Oh Yecchhh!"

Hey, New York Times animals, how about a "defining moment" of courage or virtue or self-sacrifice? Hmmm? There have been thousands of candidates, though a person would never know it from reading the Paper Formerly Known As The Paper Of Record. Or how about thinking for a moment (That's not politically correct, but I won't tell anyone) about the implications of how you've been lusting after a "defining (American) atrocity" since March of 2003, and you haven't found one yet! What could that possibly mean?

Game over...

I recommend an essay by Bartle Bull in Prospect Magazine: Mission accomplished:

....Since 2004 I have pointed out that al-Sadr, as leader of the country's largest popular movement, has more to win from a functioning electoral politics than from fighting the Americans who guaranteed the polls that liberated his people, or from fighting the Iraqi government of which he is himself the joint largest part.

As we have noted, the real al-Sadr ceasefire began three years ago. But by saying publicly, again, that his men are putting down their guns, al-Sadr is declaring in the most unequivocal way that the violence in Iraq is not in his name.

Iranian-made rockets will continue to kill British and American soldiers. Saudi Wahhabis will continue to blow up marketplaces, employment queues and Shia mosques when they can. Iraqi criminals will continue to bully their neighbourhoods into homogeneities that will give the strongest more leverage, although even this tide is turning in most places where Petraeus's surge has reached. Bodies will continue to pile up in the ditches of Doura and east Baghdad as the country goes through the final spasm of the reckoning that was always going to attend the end of 35 years of brutal Sunni rule.

But in terms of national politics, there is nothing left to fight for. The only Iraqis still fighting for more than local factional advantage and criminal dominance are the irrational actors: the Sunni fundamentalists, who number but a thousand or two men-at-arms, most of them not Iraqi. Like other Wahhabi attacks on Iraq in 1805 and 1925, the current one will end soon enough. As the maturing Iraqi state gets control of its borders, and as Iraq's Sunni neighbours recognise that a Shia Iraq must be dealt with, the flow of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into Iraq from Syria will start to dry up. Even today, for all the bloodshed it causes, the violence hardly affects the bigger picture: suicide bombs go off, dozens of innocents die, the Shias mostly hold back and Iraq's tough life goes on.

In early September, Nouri al-Maliki said, "We may differ with our American friends about tactics… But my message to them is one of appreciation and gratitude. To them I say, you have liberated a people, brought them into the modern world… We used to be decimated and killed like locusts in Saddam's endless wars, and we have now come into the light." Here is an eloquent answer to the question of when American troops will leave Iraq. They will leave Iraq when the Iraqis, through their elected leadership, tell them to. According to a September poll, 47 per cent of Iraqis would prefer the Americans to leave. The surprise is that it's not 100 per cent. Who, after all, would not want his country rid of foreign troops? But if Iraqis had wanted government by opinion poll, they would have written their constitution that way. Instead, they chose, as do most people when given the choice, representative government....

There's a lot in the piece to think about. One thing that should have been clear all along if people would bother to think, is that an insurrection that consists of bombings and small scale violence can only win if the other side is unwilling to accept the pain and keep fighting. In addition, in Iraq, once the Shia had control of the government they could at any time "win" by escalating the violence. As soon as they had tanks and artillery they could simply obliterate any Fallujas or Ramadis if necessary. That's not what anyone wanted, but it was always a possibility.

The insurgency was testing both the Iraqi government and the American government. Neither has flinched, and so the game is basically over. The weakest point was never the Iraqis, because they have not yet been corrupted by prosperity, and still think it normal to fight for what they believe is right.

The weak point has always been the US, and especially the truly insane level of childishness and nihilism that is today's Democrat Party.

More of "No news is good news"

This from Investor's Business Daily:

That the media are no longer much interested in Iraq is a sure sign things are going well there. Instead, they're talking about the presidential campaign, or Burma, or global warming, or . . . whatever.

Why? Simply put, the news from Iraq has been quite positive, as Petraeus related in his report to Congress. Consider:

• On Monday came news that U.S. military deaths in Iraq fell to 64 in September, the fourth straight drop since peaking at 121 in May and driving the toll to a 14-month low.
• Civilian deaths also have plunged, dropping by more than half from August to 884. Remember just six months ago all the talk of an Iraqi "civil war"? That seems to be fading.
• The just-ended holy month of Ramadan in Iraq was accompanied by a 40% drop in violence, even though al-Qaida had vowed to step up attacks.
• Speaking of al-Qaida, the terrorist group appears to be on the run, and possibly on the verge of collapse — despite making Iraq the center of its war for global hegemony and a new world order based on precepts of fundamentalist Islam.....

They are Traitors. They are on the other side. The news media that is. Well, one of the pleasures of our time is enjoying the decline of the "press." Every month brings stories of falling circulation and declining revenues. Well deserved.

It is especially pleasant when I think of the frauds who weren't content to just be "reporters." Oh no, We are a "profession," not a trade. We are....Journalists! We go to a University to get an advanced degree in journalism, and thereby obtain mastery of a science that ordinary people can hardly understand, and should not be allowed to practice!

And we have, as befits a professsssionnn, ethics classes and "ethicists." Who occasionally tiptoe around the fact that journalism is about 95% liberal Democrat (and 90% trendy urbanite) and who could not report the news even-handedly if they tried, because they are not even interested in most of what makes up America. But the ethicists and "ombudsmen" never, to my knowledge, touch on the question of the duty an employee owes to his employer.

If I work for a company, I have a duty to the stockholders or owners to try to make that company profitable. If I worked for your company and I drove away your customers because they were not Republicans and I personally did not care for them, I would be stealing from you! I would be indulging a personal pleasure at your expense, just as much as if I took money from the till to buy ice cream. That's exactly what most "journalists" do.

Here's a good piece on the decline of, as Rand Simberg likes to put it, the Paper Formerly Know As The Paper Of Record,: Black and White and in the Red All Over...

....So, if the problem isn’t the global environment, the local environment, the labor environment, technology, the subscription model or regional conditions, perhaps it’s the newspaper. Could the problem be that the New York Times has a liberal bias? Perhaps. Circulation declines tend to support that idea. If I were an investor, I’d wonder whether general readers are nearly as interested in endless hyper-detailed reporting about Abu Grahib or the alleged Valerie Plame ‘outing’ as the editors seem to be. One wonders whether obsessing over such stories is the best way to separate Mr. and Mrs. America from their dollar and 25 cents Monday through Friday. Or a gusher of gushing praise over "Brokeback Mountain" the way to get four dollars from them every Sunday...

...The New York Times built its reputation by being America’s newspaper of record. If something big happened, it was in the Times. But that’s the Old New York Times. The new New York Times routinely ignores UN corruption stories and Democratic scandals far longer than other publications...

I feel an extra amount of venom for the NYT, because I grew up with the idea that they were the very acme and pinnacle of whatever it was that they were the acme and pinnacle of. It was all kind of vague, but the NYT was definitely tops, and was supposed to be looked upon with a special sort of reverence. In jr high and high school there were a couple of teachers I liked because they were bookish and intellectual (what a concept, an intellectual teacher!) and they always spoke highly of the Times.

Talking back...

Many big-name bloggers have already deconstructed Katie Couric's remarks at the National Press Club a few days ago...so I'm just doing the same for my own fun. It's my only way to "talk-back" to lefties...

“The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying ‘we’ when referring to the United States [if she were in a room with some flag-wearing gun-toting Americans, and terrorists were coming in through the windows, she'd discover the word "we" real fast] and, even the ‘shock and awe’ of the initial stages, [the term she means but won't use is "winning"] it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable [uncomfortable for YOU, liberal girl] . And I remember feeling, when I was anchoring the ‘Today’ show, this inevitable march towards war and kind of feeling like, ‘Will anybody put the brakes on this?’ [the Iraq Campaign was debated for a whole year. You lost.] And is this really being properly challenged by the right people? [how dare those horrid Americans not agree with their betters!] And I think, at the time, anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic [no, we said you were wrong...it's true that you are unpatriotic, but that wasn't the argument made.] and it was a very difficult position to be in.” [THAT'S the part that REALLY interests me...see below.]

In some ways the fighting part of the War on Terror is a bit of a bore. If we can entice them into a real fight, we win. Every time. The really compelling question for me is all those Americans (and our putative allies within Western Civilization) who don't include themselves in the "we."

And especially, why has the Iraq Campaign aroused such lunatic excesses of opposition? (You regular readers have already heard this from me.) You would think that removing Saddam, one of the cruelest fascist tyrants ever, would have at least a partial appeal for people who call themselves "liberal?" (Or "progressive," or whatever this month's term is.) Fascist dictators are what they are against, right?

But the Katies of our world hated the idea from the start. They did NOT express themselves as "torn" between wanting to free Iraq and worrying that we might get into difficulties. And they still don't.

They hated it because it exposed them. Their liberalism is a fake. Not all liberals perhaps, but a lot of them. That's why I can never pin them down in arguments. There's no there there. There's nothing inside, no liberal philosophy or core values. Or any sort of philosophy. They are nihilists.

Same with "pacifists." The funny thing is that aggressive wars of conquest between nation-states are pretty much extinct. No Hitlers send their armies across neighboring borders. The only two exceptions in recent decades were both launched by....Saddam. The Iraq-Iran War, which may have killed a million people, and the invasion of Kuwait. So how come "pacifists" are not torn about the removal from power of this war-monger? Hmmm?

It's official, the surge is a success...

The UNITED NATIONS says so, and what could be more authoritative than that? They scooted once it got dangerous in Iraq, and now they want to come back. "To help," you know.

UNITED NATIONS -- Iraq's prime minister said his government would provide any necessary security for an expanded United Nations presence in his country...

That's good. We wouldn't want the UN to have to try to protect itself....with those, uh, "peacekeeping forces" I think they call them. I mean, those are very useful in the sex-trafficking and gold-smuggling line. And if you need a crew to extract sex from starving teenage refugee girls in exchange for food, well, the Blue Helmets have been doing that job happily for decades now.

But when it comes to using savage violence to kill terrorists and protect the innocent......well, you gotta understand which side those guys are on. They are "peacekeepers" like Quakers are peacekeepers.....that is, go ahead and kill anybody, as long as you don't help Republicans get elected.

These are the people Democrats want us to surrender to...

....Because, of course, if we horrid Americans leave Iraq, then there will be "peace."

Iraqi National Police Break Up al-Qaeda Rape, Terror Cell in Samarra - HUMAN EVENTS :

...Upon being taken into custody, Medhi openly declared himself to be a member of al Qaeda, and freely admitted (and signed a written confession stating) that he had helped orchestrate and execute these attacks on Iraqi Security and Coalition Forces. Perhaps wishing to escape the punishing clutches of the NPs, and knowing full well -- as do all fighters in Iraq and elsewhere – how strict the rules are that Americans must abide by with regard to the humane treatment of prisoners and detainees, Medhi asked to be handed over to the coalition forces from Charlie Company 2-505 PIR (82nd Airborne) at Patrol Base Olson, in northwestern Samarra. In exchange for the transfer of custody, he had more information (and more confessions) that he was willing to provide.

What it was that he confessed to once in American custody shocked and outraged even his seasoned coalition captors, who had been facing ISI in this city for over a year.

Without a bit of pressure -- indeed, without the appearance of a care in the world -- Medhi, described in graphic detail the other half of his ISI cell’s operations: running an organized al Qaeda Rape ring in Samarra. With a modus operandi of breaking into various houses and either raping women on the spot or threatening the family with death while taking their daughter away to become a hostage and a sex slave, Medhi, a self-described homosexual who engaged in intercourse (via rape) with women “because other members of this group” did, confessed to his cell’s penchant for abducing girls and “holding them [hostage] just for their pleasure.” Most recently, he said, he had taken part in the rape, kidnapping, and/or killing of five women, three of whom were supposedly still alive....

"Support the Troops, Bring Them Home." That's the bumper sticker one sees around town. Because you see, Iraqis aren't human beings, and in fact nothing exists except when Americans (or Jews) are present. So if we leave there will be "peace."

It drives me nuts, the way leftists just assume that nothing goes on except what's done by the USA. And you can't argue with them, because they will never make their position explicit. It's taken for granted that Iraq was at peace before 2003 (despite hundreds of thousands disappearing into mass graves). And that we angry Americans decided to "solve problems using violence and war." Just out of the blue, you know, "bombing" where all was peaceful and happy before, and children were flying kites.

And it's just assumed that when we leave there will be peace. The war will be over. Just like Vietnam, where the "the war was over" when we pulled out, even though millions were yet to die.

Regular readers know that I believe that many of the ideas held by leftists and pacifists are evil and sick. But what actually makes me spitting angry is mostly that they are unwilling or unable to write or speak or argue clearly for their positions. Debate with them is always like punching a blob of Jello. And there's probably a liberal or two who is going to read this. And if he catch me in some factual error he will pounce on me instantly. But he will never even consider engaging me in principled argument, and probably don't even know what I mean. Hey! You there, visualize me grabbing your collar and slapping your face and demanding that you defend your ideas or change them!

"not just pretending to be friendly "

Don't miss Michael Totten's latest. Even if you are becoming bored with good news from Iraq, this is just too cool. The pictures of the people...awesome. It's not just that al Anbar province as a whole is peaceful, it's this one special place. Ar Ramadi! Al Qaeda central!

....Ramadi has changed so drastically from the terrorist-infested pit that it was as recently as April 2007 that I could hardly believe what I saw was real. The sheer joy on the faces of these Iraqis was unmistakable. They weren’t sullen in the least, and it was pretty obvious that they were not just pretending to be friendly or going through the hospitality motions.

“It was nothing we did,” said Marine Lieutenant Colonel Drew Crane who was visiting for the day from Fallujah. “The people here just couldn’t take it anymore.”

What he said next surprised me even more than what I was seeing.

“You know what I like most about this place?” he said.

“What’s that?” I said.

“We don’t need to wear body armor or helmets,” he said.

I was poleaxed. Without even realizing it, I had taken off my body armor and helmet. I took my gear off as casually as I do when I take it off after returning to the safety of the base after patrolling. We were not in the safety of the base and the wire. We were safe because we were in Ramadi.

Only then did I notice that Lieutenant Colonel Crane was no longer wearing his helmet. Neither were most of the others.

I saw no violence in Baghdad, but I would never have taken off my body armor and helmet outside the wire. I certainly wouldn’t have done it casually without noticing it. If I had I would have been sternly upbraided for reckless behavior by every Soldier anywhere near me.....

You know, nobody's saying that all of Iraq is like Ramadi, or necessarily will be like Ramadi, or that Iraq's ten-thousand problems are solved. But I read things like this, and I remember the times I've written about the tremendous potential Iraq has...and all I can say is, Ha! I was right.

.....I asked Captain McGee the same question. I have no plans to do this. [live in Ramadi] The question is purely theoretical.

“You would probably be okay downtown,” he said, “but you would definitely be fine just north of town. If you tried that in February you would not have lasted four hours.”

“You trust the locals that much?” I said.

“I do,” he said.

“The only people I trust with my life in this country are the Kurds,” I said.

“I trust these people almost as much,” he said. “Are they petty? Yes. Are they tribal? Yes. Are they Arabs?” He rolled his eyes. “Yes. Do they believe in conspiracy theories? Yes. But they have their act together now.”....

Sounds like life at Random Jottings...

This is SO like my experiences for the last few years—gee how many years has it been? Since 11-01— trying and always failing to engage our phony liberals in debate....

From a good piece by Fred Kagan and Bill Kristol, Men at Work, Children at Play...

....The congressional critics provided quite a contrast with Petraeus and Crocker. If the general and the ambassador were men at work, the congressmen and senators were--with a few notable exceptions--children at play. They spoke almost entirely in generalizations--often months, sometimes years, out of date. They used selective quotations and cherry-picked facts to play "gotcha." They offered no meaningful proposals of their own. Petraeus and Crocker live and breathe Iraq, dealing with life-and-death problems seven days a week. Congress bloviates Tuesday through Thursday. That's one of the reasons to listen to the general and the ambassador rather than the congressional pontificators.

The contrast between those who know something about Iraq and those who don't continued with the president's speech on September 13. Bush described America's objectives in Iraq clearly, explained the strategy he is pursuing, outlined the progress that it has made in detail and in specific areas of Iraq, explained why he intends to continue that strategy with minor adjustments, and announced a conditions-based reduction of forces, which General Petraeus had recommended. In response, Senator Jack Reed spoke in the vaguest terms....

Gee Andrew, you may be wiser than I thought. I think you have a real future in Democrat Party politics. Your instincts were true...

Tells you all you need to know...

I caught a moment of Rush Limbaugh while running around this morning, and he made one really good point.

In all the news we've seen about the reception of Gen. Petraeus' testimony, not one Democrat, not one liberal has said, "What can we do to help you? What can we do to help the troops?"

Best book on the subject...

I finally got a perk for being a blogger. Free Press sent me a copy of a new book, House to House by Staff Sergeant David Bellavia.

It centers on the the bloody craziness of the second battle of Falluja, where Bellavia's army unit was one of the first to penetrate deep into the town... I'm a bookworm, and I've read lots of books on war. This is the best account of combat I've ever encountered.

I'm not going to even try to quote the wild stuff, you won't believe it unless you read the whole build-up. In fact you gotta just read the book. (All I'll say editorially is that anyone who thinks we should walk away and leave the jihadis to tyrannize over Iraq, or any other place, is insane. We have created monsters by decades of pacifism and appeasement and liberalism and nihilism, and now we must fight. There isn't a choice.)

....Inside the house, I start to move to the door. Before I can take a full step, I see a trip wire. It runs across the door and up along the doorjamb. Dangling from the wire is an orange-red pineapple grenade the size of a Nerf football. The pin is missing and the spoon is held on by the wire. If we open the door, the spoon will fly off and detonate the grenade in our faces.

"Knapp!" I shout.

He comes over and peers through the window.

"Check this shit out," I tell him.

He fingers the trip wire and sighs. "You know what? I've told my guys not to check for booby traps. This is high-intensity MOUT." Military Operations in Urban Terrain. "We're looking for bad guys. We don't have time for precision MOUT."

"No, you're right we don't. We could have dudes in the house ready to kill us. We've got to be ready for them, not heads-down searching for trip wires."

Knapp nods. We've got a serious tactical dilemma on our hands. If we're to treat each house as if it is booby trapped, we'll go in cautiously. In house-clearing, confidence and quickness are absolutely vital. If we hesitate, if we methodically search for booby traps, we hand the initiative to any insurgents who may be in the house. We'll get lit the fuck up. Moving swiftly and decisively from room to room is the only way to surprise the enemy and minimize our exposure to their fire.

So far, we haven't seen anyone inside these houses. Yet if we continue to move this quickly, we're likely to trip a booby trap. Right now, I can't see how we're going to get through this without anyone getting hurt. Either we move fast and hit a trip wire, or we move slowly and get shot at.

"Okay, Knapp, let's keep this to ourselves."

"Yeah, alright. We don't wanna fucking freak the guys out any more than they already are. I don't want them going into houses with this shit at the back of their heads."....

[There's a short video interview of Bellavia here.]

Destabilizing...

Penraker has some interesting quotes from Brookings Institute (no friend to Republicans) scholars on Iraq. This one is by Peter Rodman (I didn't find a link to the original)...

...I think it would have a stabilizing effect in Iraq, in the sense that the people of Iraq see staying power. One of the most destabilizing factors in Iraq - the whole Iraqi equation - the whole internal Iraqi equation - has been the fear of American withdrawal...it's very hard to counter this perception.

The election, the Baker-Hamiilton report, public opinion polls, there were plenty of reasons for Iraqis to believe that the Americans are someday going to leave. But this compounds the problems we have - it demoralizes moderates, it encourages people to resort to hedging strategies. I mean, if you think the Americans are heading for the exits, you're not going to take risks. You are not going to make concessions. You're going to husband your assets. You're going to hunker down and prepare for the great free-for all that's going to come.

And neighboring countries, by the same token are going to pick sides, and everything gets worse...

"One of the most destabilizing factors in Iraq....has been the fear of American withdrawal" Well, that's obvious. It's just like our everyday life--are people going to stand up to crooks if they are not sure that the cops are going to back them up? Are going to be there when called?

By not supporting their country, Leftists and pacifists and Democrats are actively (and probably knowingly) destabilizing Iraq, and many other parts of the world, and thereby causing the deaths of large numbers of people, including American soldiers.

It was in fact the only sensible option...

This is a question I've argued a number of times, so I was glad to see this piece by Paul Bremer, detailing why we dealt as we did with the Iraqi army... (Actually the people who claim we made a mistake never argue the point--they just assert it as if it were self-evident. Poltroons.)

How I Didn’t Dismantle Iraq’s Army - New York Times:

IT has become conventional wisdom that the decision to disband Saddam Hussein’s army was a mistake, was contrary to American prewar planning and was a decision I made on my own. In fact the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government. And it was the right decision.

By the time Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, the Iraqi Army had simply dissolved. On April 17 Gen. John Abizaid, the deputy commander of the Army’s Central Command, reported in a video briefing to officials in Washington that “there are no organized Iraqi military units left.” The disappearance of Saddam Hussein’s old army rendered irrelevant any prewar plans to use that army. So the question was whether the Coalition Provisional Authority should try to recall it or to build a new one open to both vetted members of the old army and new recruits. General Abizaid favored the second approach....

"The slaying of a beautiful deduction by an ugly fact..."

Peter Wehner on Iraq:

General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, testifying before the House and the Senate during the last two days, did what many people thought was impossible: They reset the Washington clock. These good men, by what they have achieved in Iraq and by the force and power of their testimonies, have recast the terms of the debate. They will now have until next summer to build on their successes, which in turn could eventually lead to a decent outcome in Iraq. To appreciate how extraordinary this is, it’s worth recalling how far we have come....

* * * *

...The effort to besmirch the good name of David Petraeus is politically insane. The claim by anti-war critics that they oppose the war but support the troops is a lot harder to make when those in their ranks maliciously attack the commander of the troops, who happens to be succeeding.

And for those of us who have watched much of the hearings on television, one could not help but be struck by this contrast: Petraeus and Crocker in command, unflappable, professional, radiating competence and confidence, respectful but never allowing themselves to be intimidated. Many Democrats, on the other hand, appeared angry, agitated, long-winded, and out of their depth. General David Petraeus is the military analogue of Justice John Roberts, and their critics looked equally foolish going after both men.

* * * *

“If ever (Herbert) Spencer wrote a tragedy, its plot would be the slaying of a beautiful deduction by an ugly fact,” Thomas Huxley wrote. It is an odd situation indeed to find members of America’s political class greeting demonstrable evidence of progress in Iraq as ugly and inconvenient facts. But fortunately we seem to be past the danger point, when Members of Congress can recklessly undo what General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, and the remarkable men and women of our armed forces have achieved. Now Members of the House and Senate are simply left to posture, rage against the wind, and passionately insist, against a growing body of evidence, that a war that might be won is hopelessly lost.

I can understand people opposing the Iraq Campaign because it seems to be going badly, but when certain people clearly hate the thought of getting good news, or hearing that it is going well....I say they are insane. Evil and insane.

(Opposing a military campaign because it seems to be going badly is not insane. It is however really STUPID. If you bother to read history you know that every war we have ever fought has had periods where things are going badly. And most wars and campaigns tend to look their ugliest and most brutal just before the end, just before one side collapses. This is reason #387 why liberals oppose the study of history.)

The big loser...

From the Belmont Club...

Here's a link to the transcript of Osama Bin Laden's message to the American people. Two things stand out. The first is his claim to victory in a theater (Iraq) where by all accounts his forces have been worsted and the only insurgent force with a plausible claim to victory is not al-Qaeda's but Iran's.

Secondly, his talking points, with their references to the Global Warming, taxes, Noam Chomsky, etc. almost seem to suggest an inversion. It's almost as if Osama the Muslim, not the infidel, has converted. From the tone of his remarks, Osama no longer speaks to the American people as the potentate of an unstoppable international apocalyptic movement, but rather as someone, who if you were ignorant of his true identity, might just as well be a spokesman for the Muslim wing of a Western political party....

As I've often pointed out, we had a number of different reasons and goals for the Iraq Campaign. So it's possible to both win and lose there. (Something most people seem weirdly incapable of processing.) For instance, we hope that sponsoring freedom and democracy in Iraq will start to break the grip of despotism and cruelty that plagues the Middle East. BUT, planting democracy in the heart of the Caliphate is ALSO waving a red flag in front of al Qaeda! They hate the idea. We forced them to fight on ground of our choosing! (I suspect this was unconscious genius on the part of the administration.)

And if one is fighting an elusive enemy who uses guerilla tactics, then almost any fight is good news for us. (Another obvious thing most people can't process.) We want a fight. We DON'T want al Qaeda free to plot and strike at its leisure. So the bloodshed in Iraq is both bad, for goal number one, and really really good for goal number two!

And lordy, what is Osama saying now? He's admitting he's lost!!!!! He's whining that his representatives in the Democrat Party have failed to win his war for him! What a loser. I am just SO trembling with fear. And quoting Noam Chomsky! Ha. Ha. Ha. And Ha. Don't they deserve each other. And this is really an information war we are fighting. The perception of al Qaeda driven from Iraq is far more important than us killing a bunch of them.

Losers! The next thing to expect is that he'll be bragging about how he gives his people free health care! And angling for a slot as Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at San Francisco State. Give him tenure guys, he's worked hard for it!

Ignore the facts, just listen to us Dems...

From the Washington Times: Dems already dismissing Iraq war report:

What Dems in Congress are doing is utterly loathsome and disgusting, and against all American tradition....but, on the bright side, think about how they placed their big bet on America losing.....and now....they suffer and squirm and lie....It gives me a keen pleasure similar to that time icky Warren Buffet put his chips on the Euro, against the dollar, and lost a few billion bucks....

Congressional Democrats are trying to undermine U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus' credibility before he delivers a report on the Iraq war next week, saying the general is a mouthpiece for President Bush and his findings can't be trusted. [Remember, these dogs criticized Bush for not following the advice of his generals...]

"The Bush report?" Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said when asked about the upcoming report from Gen. Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq.

"We know what is going to be in it. It's clear. I think the president's trip over to Iraq makes it very obvious," the Illinois Democrat said. "I expect the Bush report to say, 'The surge is working. Let's have more of the same.' " [Notice they present no evidence to the contrary. They can't, the surge is obviously working.]

The top Democrats — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California — also referred to the general's briefing as the "Bush report." [They think it's clever, calling Gen, Petraeus' report the "Bush Report." Like they call the Iraq Campaign—which they voted for—"Bush's War." But the WOT is America's war, and what they are saying is that they are NOT Americans.]

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Gen. Petraeus' report was potentially compromised by the White House's involvement in drafting it. [The President is also the Commander in Chief. That's his job.]

"If the same people who were so wrong about this war from the start are writing substantial portions of this report, that raises credibility questions," he said. [The bitter pill for the Dems is that it looks more and more like we were right about the Iraq Campaign. American success is their worst nightmare.]

Republicans bristled at the pre-emptive strike against the report.

"Are these leaders asking the American people to believe that the testimony of a commanding four-star general in the U.S. Army should be discarded before it's even delivered?" said Brian Kennedy, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. [Of course they do. They are traitors and nihilists. The most important thing to notice is that they have given any indication that they would be GLAD to hear of American success in battle. None.]

Update: I keep being amazed by all this. I'm filled with wonder. Congress, including Dems, voted unanimously to confirm Gen. Petraeus, and the strategy and tactics he advocated. And there was to be a report in September.

SO, what the heck were they thinking? Did they imagine September would never come? Like schoolchildren thinking the summer vacation will never end?

Or did they believe their own propaganda about the US military, and our Iraqi allies? That we are incompetent brutes who are bound to fail? I myself am "embedded" in the liberal world, and I'd guess that's what happened. Leftists despise our military, and they only talk to each other, and read the same poison in the NYT. I could have told them a LOT about what's going on in Iraq, but never once has any leftist engaged in honest debate or an exchange of info with me...

From the President's speech...

President Bush Visits and Thanks Troops in Anbar Province:

As you know, today is Labor Day back home so I thought I'd come by to thank you for all your hard work. Every day -- every day -- you show bravery under incredibly difficult circumstances. Every day you're doing work on the sands of Anbar that is making it safer in the streets of America. And every day the United States of America is grateful for what you're doing. I want you to tell your families the Commander-in-Chief stopped by to say hello, and he said, I'm incredibly proud to be the Commander-in-Chief of such a great group of men and women.

I'm keeping pretty good company, as you can see. I brought out the A Team so they could be with the folks who are making a significant difference in this war against these radicals and extremists. In Anbar you're seeing firsthand the dramatic differences that can come when the Iraqis are more secure. In other words, you're seeing success.

You see Sunnis who once fought side by side with al Qaeda against coalition troops now fighting side by side with coalition troops against al Qaeda. Anbar is a huge province. It was once written off as lost. It is now one of the safest places in Iraq. (Hooah.) Because of your hard work, because of your bravery and sacrifice, you are denying al Qaeda a safe haven from which to plot and plan and carry out attacks against the United States of America. What you're doing here is making this country safer, and I thank you for your hard work...

....ut I want to tell you this about the decision -- about my decision about troop levels. Those decisions will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground -- not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media. In other words, when we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure. To do otherwise would embolden our enemies and make it more likely that they would attack us at home. If we let our enemies back us out of Iraq, we will more likely face them in America. If we don't want to hear their footsteps back home, we have to keep them on their heels over here. And that's exactly what you're doing, and America is safer for it.....

I

Today's BS...

Desperation rules in the appeasement camp! From Weekly Standard:

The Washington Post, working hand-in-glove with Democrats in Congress, has gotten out front in preparing the domestic battlefield for September's fight over the war in Iraq. The Post led today's paper with an account of a leaked draft report from the Congressionally-controlled Government Accountability Office (the GAO's final report is due next Tuesday). The headline: "Report Finds Little Progress on Iraq Goals; GAO Draft at Odds with White House." Here's the good news: If this is the best war opponents have to offer, the administration is in amazingly good shape going into September.

The Post reporters--both strongly anti-Iraq war--characterize the GAO judgments as "strikingly negative." But there's nothing striking about them. The Democratic Congress ensured that the report would deliver negative "grades" for the Iraqi government by asking the GAO to evaluate whether or not the benchmarks have been met now--just two months after the major combat operations of the surge began. For the report from the White House, Congress asked the administration to detail if the Iraqis are making "sufficient progress." But Congress asked the GAO, by contrast, to report if the Iraqis had "completed" the benchmarks. This ridiculous standard was a Congressional trap that forced the GAO to waste time and taxpayer money to come out with a pre-ordained and meaningless judgment, since no one ever promised or expected that the Iraqis would have met the benchmarks by now. And the GAO report doesn't really shed light on the key question: Are the Iraqis making progress?....

This phony report will probably be made much of by the fake anti-war types.

Whether or not Iraq makes domestic political progress (my prediction is that over time it will do better then most expect) we are clearly on the verge of inflicting a huge defeat on AL QAEDA there. They have given Iraq their best shot, butchering thousands of innocent people for the benefit of CBS and the NYT. Their goal has been to (1) defeat the project of democracy and freedom in the heart of the Caliphate, (2) to drive the US to another humiliating withdrawal, giving them enormous prestige in the Muslim world, and (3) aiding the ongoing decline of Western Civilization, by throwing power in the US to nihilists and lefty anti-Americans...

And they are about to lose on all three goals! God speed our peerless troops, and the brave Iraqi Defense Forces.

to as few as nine...

From Protein Wisdom:

....I cannot speak for everyone who supports the mission in Iraq, but I would submit that Beauchamp’s apparent fables and embellishments are not a “weak link” to be attacked, but simply an egregious example of the establishment media’s flawed coverage of the conflict. Accordingly, what follows is an over view of the establishment media coverage of the conflict in Iraq.

Though public opinion polls consistently show that Americans consider Iraq to be the most important issue facing the country, establishment media has slashed the resources and time devoted to Iraq. The number of embedded reporters plunged from somewhere between 570 and 750 when the invasion began in March 2003 to as few as nine by October 2006. The result was the rise of what journalists themselves call “hotel journalism” and “journalism by remote control.” Janet Reitman, reporting for Rolling Stone, described the state of the media in early 2004:

When I arrive in Baghdad in April, most American journalists are holed up in their rooms, reporting the war by remote: scanning the wires, working their cell phones, watching broadcasts of Al Jazeera. In many cases, they’ve been reduced to relying on sources available to anyone with an Internet connection… While Arabic and European media such as The Guardian and Le Monde manage to cover the war on the ground, American reporters seldom interview actual Iraqis. Instead, they talk to U.S. officials who are every bit as isolated as they are, or rely on local stringers and fixers, several of whom have been killed while working for Americans. “We live in a bubble,” grumbles one AP reporter. “If we know one percent of what’s going on in Iraq, we’re lucky.”

There are exceptions of course, though the number of establishment embeds shows they are literally exceptions. I do not discount the very real danger to Western journos in Iraq, though independent bloggers like Michael Yon, Bill Roggio, Bill Ardolino, and Michael J. Totten seem to have been able to embed outside Baghdad with nothing like the institutional support available to journalists from the establishment media… and that the number of such bloggers is growing. Moreover, I cannot ignore the consequences of “journalism by remote control.”

Noah D. Oppenheim, who visited Baghdad for MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” noted that “The consequence of this system is that, on television, the story in Iraq is no more than the sum of basic facts, like casualties, crashes, and official pronouncements.” The data back Oppenheim. The television airtime devoted to coverage of Iraq has plunged dramatically. Television networks devoted 4,162 minutes to Iraq in 2003, 3,053 minutes in 2004, 1,534 minutes in 2005 and 1,122 minutes in 2006. The amount of time and space devoted to Iraq coverage has continued to decline through the first half of 2007...

Bad news stories, especially the daily death tolls, consumed an ever-larger share of this dwindling coverage. In 2003, it consumed 38% of the networks’ Iraq newshole. In 2004 and 2005, it consumed 44%. In 2006, it rose to 56%....

One of the ironies of the situation is that the really interesting story is not the terrorist violence, which is repetitive, but the story of a democraic nation struggling to be born amidst frightful difficulties. Reading Michael Yon or the other independent bloggers in Iraq is especially fascinating because they put us in contact with ordinary Iraqis, good and bad.

If anyone who still believes that their TV is giving them the real Iraq is reading this post, read This as an example, one of many...

If your read the NYT or WaPo or LAT...

...you are drinking from poisoned wells. From Captain Ed:

Let's say we're at war, and we're waiting for some specific action to take place to show us that our efforts are succeeding. Add in that the war itself would be rather controversial and that our political class is split as to whether we will ever see that specific action take place. Imagine that Congress and the White House have scheduled a showdown in the next couple of weeks to determine how much longer we will wait for that development.

Now imagine that the specific action for which we've waited actually occurs. Where would you think that story appear in Washington's biggest newspaper? The front page, one might assume. Would you believe ... page 9?...

Unbelievable. And apparently the news was not even in the NYT or LAT!

The news of course, is the announcement of wide political agreement within Iraq's government for changes in the de-Baathification law. For our major "news"papers to ignore the story is a sign of desperation within the al Qaeda/Democrat alliance, and a really indicator of progress for the forces of freedom...

Update: And this certainly gives the lie to the claims of Leftists that they hate the Iraq Campaign BECAUSE it is not militarily winnable, or now, BECAUSE the Iraqi government can't make any political progress. Those are all lies.

They hate this campaign for the reason I explained here

"a final storm before breaking the enemy"

Victor Davis Hansen, from An NRO Symposium on Iraq :

...In a wider sense, the war is as most wars: an evolution from blunders to wisdom, the side that makes the fewest and learns from them the most eventually winning. Al Qaeda and the insurgents in 2004-6 developed the means, both tactical and strategic, to thwart the reconstruction, but we, not they, have since learned the more and evolved.

As in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII, the present American military — which has committed far less mistakes than past American forces — has shifted tactics, redefined strategy, and found the right field commanders. We forget that the U.S. Army and Marines, far from being broken, now have the most experienced and wizened officers in the world. Like Summer 1864, Summer 1918, and in the Pacific 1944-5, the key is the support of a weary public for an ever improving military that must nevertheless endure a final storm before breaking the enemy.

The irony is that should President Bush endure the hysteria and furor and prove able to give the gifted Gen. Petraeus the necessary time — and I think he will — his presidency could still turn out to be Trumanesque, once we digest the changes in Europe, the progress on North Korea, the end of both the Taliban and Saddam, and the prevention of another 9/11 attack. How odd that all the insider advice to triangulate — big spending, new programs, uninspired appointments, liberal immigration reform — have nearly wrecked the administration, and what were once considered its liabilities — foreign policy, the war on terror and Iraq — may still save it....

I actually have a much more positive view of the Administration's domestic accomplishments, but I think Bush will indeed be considered "Trumanesqe" by history because he got the big one right on the field of battle. The Korean War was a bloody shambles, with 40,000 dead merely to preserve the status quo ante bellum. It seemed pointless to many. Lots of people at the time thought Truman was a failure. But history says otherwise, because the simple fact is, he saw that we had to fight the Cold War, and he fought it (in both its hot and cold aspects). The mistakes made were beyond counting, but it was ever thus...

Beauchamp, Again...

Shakey Pete:

Okay, now TNR is offering as proof of Beauchamp's truthiness that his story of how his horrible treatment of a woman wounded in an IED accident happened in Kuwait. Yes, the war is so horrible that it robbed him of his decency before he even set foot in the country.

We have a new problem, PTSD to watch out for. Yes, friends, Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder. Please write your Congresscritter, we'll need to spend a few billion studying this disease. Since it affected Beauchamp before he ever set foot in Iraq I volunteer to take a few million to study this new form of PTSD, I'm qualified because I haven't been to Iraq, either.

That's pretty good. I myself was just thinking idly today about joining up and going to Iraq, and now I find myself dreaming of tossing babies up to impale on my bayonet. And running over dogs, of course, I can't wait to do that.

I wonder if TNR will pay ME to expose the brute savagery of war, and the way it turns innocent lads into sociopathic killers. I can do it, and I don't even need to go to Kuwait!

Actually, what poor Beauchamp was doing was getting a start on writing this generation's All Quiet on the Western Front. That's the model for all literary and journalistic views of war, and I'm sure Random House has a stack of hundred-dollar bills waiting for whoever can provide the product for this go-round. Just fill in the blanks for your particular conflict.

Great book by the way, unforgettable. Impressed the heck out of me when I was about 15. Of course, since I'm not a brain-dead lefty, I am aware that its applicability to the Fourth-Generation Warfare we are engaged in today is about zero.

"Watchmen on the walls of world freedom"

From the story of a Catholic chaplain in Iraq...

We rolled into Forward Operating Base, Rivera, the center of operations for 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment in the town of Saqlawiyah. The Civil Affairs Group and the 2/7 chaplain were transporting me so that I could make Catholic Sacramental and Pastoral visits to all their Battle Positions.

There is no separate space to set apart for Mass or a religious service, so I set up in the area where they eat and recreate which is also used as the triage area for the wounded. Foot patrols were returning after an eight hour shift through the night and others were departing on their shift. Marines and Corpsmen were rushing about trying to get a bite to eat and get ready to sleep for a few hours. Despite the intense operational tempo and grueling schedule, a group of Marines led by their Company Commanding Officer gathered in the corner for the Mass. Mass in these settings emerges from a kit smaller than a shoe box that I carry on my back. I am set up in minutes — drab olive colored Altar Linen are set down and a crucifix, chalice and paten made of brushed steel are assembled from their small compact parts and easily set in place. A copy of The Word Among Us is passed between them and me for the prayers and readings. The Altar is a wooden bench — the best piece of furniture in the room.

There is no singing, no stained glass, no pews or kneelers — just intense fervor reflected in their eyes and the bare floor beneath their knees. No one ever leaves anyone else out of the Sign of Peace. From the senior officer to the lowest enlisted Marine, embraces are exchanged and sincere wishes of peace are authentic and heart-felt! Holy Communion! I have never experienced communion like that among men who know that this could be their last! The Mass is brief but its effects are enduring...

—  —  —  —  —  —  —  —

....The next part of their story however, was quite tragic and very painful for them to relate. They had grown close to the Iraqi family that had lived in the house. The family would often cook them a hot meal and share their table with them. Their five year old son had grown very fond of the Marines and they of him. He would stop by every day to see them. That day he was arriving outside just as the bomb detonated. With tears in their eyes they described how they tried to save him, using all their combat medical skills but there was nothing that they could do. Their grief is palpable and their sadness deep. We gathered for Mass in the small yard where they once listened to the laughter of a little boy. We celebrated Holy Communion with God, with each other and, in our hearts, with a young Muslim boy — may he rest in peace!... (Thanks to Argent)

I suspect there's a special deep circle of Hell for the scoundrel dogs who are heaping lies and abuse on our troops, and those of our allies. And a extra sub-basement for those who pretend that their scurrility has anything to do with Christian hopes for peace.

Stories of the decency and great-heartedness of our soldiers and Marines, and the ways they risk their own lives to save and protect people in distant lands are extremely common, if one bothers to look. These are the true Christians of our time. They are not passing on the other side of the road. They are not eager to abandon the wretched of the earth to the savagery of terrorists and tyrants. I just wish I could be with them.

“We in this country, in this generation, are, by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of ‘peace on earth, goodwill toward men.’ That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago, ‘except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’”

John F. Kennedy
Undelivered luncheon speech
Dallas, Texas
Nov. 22, 1963

Good news is no news...

A good example, by Noel Sheppard, of how to dissect a bit of typical media bias. this one from—surprise—AP...

....In fact, in an article that, from the title, one would think would be about the declining death toll, and how things from a military standpoint might be improving in Iraq, the piece devoted seven of the first nine paragraphs, and more than 50 percent of the total print space, on political problems in the embattled nation.

And, when Salaheddin finally elaborated on the reduced death toll in July, it was curiously pessimistic....

—  —  —  —  —  —

....Hmmm. So, this was the lowest death toll since November, and since before the surge began. You couldn't find someone to quote who thought this was really good news, Sinan? Or that it was proof that the surge was working?

Oh. That's right. The surge wasn't even addressed in this piece. Instead, it was referred to as a "five-month-old security crackdown."

And, of course, Salaheddin nicely avoided any reference to President Bush having orchestrated this "five-month-old security crackdown" against the wishes of the left and their media minions.

I guess it's verboten at the AP to connect the president with good news in Iraq regardless of how much your article downplays it.....

"Five-month-old security crackdown." Sheeesh. Even if we had no other news about the shift in strategy and tactics labeled "the Surge," (which, by the way, started June 15) we would know it was working well just by the reluctance to name it. Sort of the opposite of news articles about politicians caught in wrong-doing: If the party affiliation is not mentioned, you know it's a Dem.

Dispatches...

Don't miss Michael Yon's latest dispatch. We should always keep in mind how damn lucky we are that Information Age technology allows information to bypass the old gatekeepers, and gives us alternative sources besides the lies and dirt we get from the Gasping Media.

He never tries to paint a rosier picture than he sees, and he takes you there like nobody else...

...The foodstuffs are handled through the Ministry of Trade. LTC Fred Johnson was using force of will to get a frightened and inertia-laden local civil leadership to mount a convoy to Baghdad. He brought along an Iraqi journalist because he knew food distribution was a critical battle, and any victory could be hugely accentuated by getting it into the Iraqi media. Most of the Western press was now leaving Baqubah just when the real story began unfolding. Western media mostly missed the initial fight because they missed the signs, and then left immediately after seeing there was no brawl. 3-2 SBCT made no pretension of hiding their motivations for inviting me: they knew I was apt to stay around even if there was no fighting. They are a smart lot....

If you happen to have a few extra bucks, you might just give him a donation. He's supported by readers, and by some sales of his famous photographs....

News from the Front...

Too busy, so I'll quote another blogger...

Dave Price at Dean's World...

So, as has been widely reported, new Pew polling finds Muslim support for suicide bombings has fallen dramatically.

Hmmm, how could that have happened? Where has the world media's attention been focused the last few years, where lots and lots of suicide bombings have been killing Muslims? Must be that place the NYT has taken to calling Mesopotamia.

But weren't we told American invasions of Khorasan and Iraq were radicalizing Muslims and creating terrorists? Seems instead they've actually been de-radicalized, especially by events in Babylonia.

By now it's obvious to all but the most thick-headed or information-deprived observers that not only are Americans not looting and pillaging either country, they're the ones driving the effort to make them decent places to live (and spending lots of blood and treasure to do so).

Meanwhile, the splodeydopes are just killing Muslims as best they can. Apparently they're not winning many hearts and minds with that strategy...

A bit of a follow-up on a old story...

From Michelle Malkin...

One of the most useful roles of the blogosphere is its service as an open-source intelligence-gathering medium. You can draw on the expertise of people around the world at the touch of a button. We saw this with typography experts during the Rathergate scandal; Photoshop experts during the Reutersgate debacle; and military experts during the Jesse Macbeth unmasking.

Now, it’s the statisticians and math geeks’ turn. Remember that massively-publicized 2004 Lancet Iraq death toll study? It was cited in nearly 100 scholarly journals and reported by news outlets around the world. “100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq” blared the Washington Post in a typical headline.

There were attempts made by lay journalists to debunk the 2004 study (as well as the 2006 follow-up study that purported to back up the first). But none of those dissections comes close to a damning new statistical analysis of the 2004 study authored by David Kane, Institute Fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. I read of Kane’s new paper at this science blog and e-mailed him for permission to reprint his analysis in its entirety here so that a wider blog readership could have a look. He has given me his permission and adds that he welcomes comments and feedback....

....An interesting side note: as Kane observes in his paper, the Lancet authors “refuse to provide anyone with the underlying data (or even a precise description of the actual methodology).” The researchers did release some high-level summary data in highly aggregated form (see here), but they released neither the detailed interviewee-level data nor the programming code that would be necessary to replicate their results.....

I've written about this BS before.

...It's the same with that widely disseminated figure of 100,000 killed in the American occupation of Iraq. Statisticians have thoroughly debunked the number, though liars are still pushing it. But common sense tells us it's bogus. 100,000 bodies are hard to hide. There would be big piles of them lying around for significant periods of time. You can be sure Kevin Sites would have snapped pictures, and the MSM would have given them all possible publicity.

And 100,000 dead means at least a quarter of a million wounded! In a place the size of California. Where are they? I doubt if Iraq has even 10,000 hospital beds. There would be wounded people scattered everywhere...

I'm sure the fake-pacifists will still be pushing the fake numbers long after I'm dead and gone.

Lies, damn lies, and the New Republic...

From Powerline...

Last night we noted the New Republic's "Shock troops" article by the pseudonymous "Scott Thomas" portraying the disgraceful behavior of American troops in Baghdad. Michael Goldfarb has called for help from readers who can shed light on the veracity of the New Republic article. Goldfarb has already updated his post to include messages that tend to undermine the New Republic article. One is from Stuart Koehl, who addresses the story of the crazed Bradley driver running over a dog...

These lefties are not only liars, they are STUPID liars. EVIL stupid liars. There is no way a Bradley Fighting Vehicle could run over a dog. It's a tracked vehicle, similar to a tank. Or a bulldozer. Have you ever stood next to a big bulldozer in operation? It's very noisy, loud enough that you would have to shout to be heard. No dog is going to go close to one. And a Bradley is even noisier, with 20 tons of armor to move. On a quiet day you could hear one a mile away. So what dog is going to just stand there and let this roaring, and rather slow and clumsy, machine run over him? Or many different dogs, according to the story. Including a dog who was sleeping and didn't have time to get away! Bullshitters. I spit upon them.

The other horror stories about our sociopath soldiers are equally unlikely. check them out, you will see.

Hugh Hewitt:

...Aside from the manifest implausibilities in these accounts, the story seems a little too perfectly calculated to tug at our hearts and provoke outrage. Note that the victims are women, the disabled, children and house pets. Perfect. Or certainly too perfect to fact check. And given the fact that the soldier/author needs anonymity to tell his tales out of school, fact checking would be impossible anyway....

"To tug at our hearts and provoke outrage" This all reminds me of that shit-stupid lie that brain-damaged (by political correctness) lefties were circulating a year or two ago, about how female US soldiers were so afraid of being raped that they wouldn't use the latrines at night, and so were not drinking water, and ended up dying of dehydration! (Needless to say no names or evidence ever surfaced.) How they hate our military! NihilistsI Our troops are the real Christians of our time, risking their lives to help the helpless and bring peace and order to war-torn hell-holes. They are the Good Samaritans of our time, and lefty nihilists, whose whole lives are a "passing on the other side of the road," hate them because they hate and fear belief above all things.

Put up or shut up...

Remember how all the leftists condemned Bush for being a "unilateralist," and not respecting the wishes of the UN? And International law? and the International Community?" Remember? Any "Democrats" reading this, do you remember? Well, are you gonna respect these guys?

By Betsy Pisik - Washington Times — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged U.S. policy-makers yesterday to exercise "great caution" in considering any rapid withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq.

"It is not my place to inject myself into this discussion taking place between the American people, government and Congress," said Mr. Ban, who was expected to repeat the message during meetings on Capitol Hill today.

"But I'd like to tell you that a great caution should be taken for the sake of the Iraqi people," he said at a U.N. press conference. "Any abrupt withdrawal or decision may lead to a further deterioration."...

...Other international critics of the war are also warning that a premature U.S. departure from Iraq could have devastating consequences.

"I hated the Iraq war, [but] a hasty withdrawal would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for U.S. interests," International Crisis Group analyst Joost Hiltermann said in Washington yesterday. He argued in favor of a regional approach to Iraq's problems.

Several Arab diplomats and leaders of relief agencies also have warned that Iraq would devolve into chaos with massive casualties if the American troops left too soon...(Thanks to Betsy N).

Of course our fake-leftists won't care a fig about the "Internationals" if it means doing what they don't like. It was always a foul lie. for them the only purpose of all the "international" crap (and likewise Just War theory) is to attack and hinder the US and Israel, and anything else they feel free to ignore.

A lunatic air...

Hugh Hewitt:

Against the backdrop of stories like this one, Harry Reid's surrender sleep-over takes on an almost lunatic air --a rushing about by the lefties to legislate defeat before the clear facts of progress leading to victory become widely known and lastingly illustrative of the Dems' inability to be trusted with the country's national security.

What pathetic creatures. And our Republicans aren't much better. If they were they'd be having bedspreads PRINTED for the slumber-party with all the recent good news from Iraq which our pathetic news-media don't want you to know about...

Nasty surprises coming...

Dr Sanity writes:

...Ledeen [link] is also absolutely correct about the surrender monkey part of the post. Al Qaeda's secret weapon; the Jihadi's "aces-in-the-hole," are none other than the pathetic leadership of the Democratic Party and their dysfunctional puppet-masters on the left, who are absolutely desperate to make sure that America officially loses; because in America's defeat and humiliation, they sense victory for their petty political agenda. They hope to finally succeed (they think) in discrediting George W. Bush, their hated enemy, for all time.

But I think Bush has several nasty (at least for them) surprises in store before the end of his term of office. Whatever you think about the President, he is a man who means what he says; and he acts on what he says. You can disagree vehemently with his agenda, but he will not be deflected by negative polls or lack of popularity...

All true. And the general pattern of the Bush Presidency has been to deliver the "nasty surprises" sometime around September. (Some thoughts here.) Andy Card once drew a ton of flack for saying, in regards to Bush's apparent inactivity in August 2002, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.'' Which was, in fact, a sensible thing to say, since the president is not a dictator, ruling by decree. He has to "market" his policies. And he's done very well at it.

I was very disappointed last year, 2006, when nothing of the sort happened. Although, in fact, something was cooking. It was labeled "the Surge." And it's going to be a very nasty surprise for our terror-supporters if the President gets up in the Bully Pulpit and explains convincingly that violence in Iraq is on the road to extinction, and we've basically won. Peace is the last thing the pacifists want.

I would only disagree with Dr Sanity in that I think lefty hatred of Bush and the Iraq Campaign has much deeper roots than just politics. The WoT is hated because it's based on the idea that what we have and are is worth fighting for. To the nihilist, that's the ultimate reproach and irritation—they have nothing they would fight and die for. And Bush himself is the symbol of that.

More from the good doctor:

...When it comes to Iraq and the war on terror, Like Kristol, I will go out on a limb and say that this Presidency will be judged well by history for his actions--however imperfect--in the war against Islamic fascism. It is amazing what he has been able to accomplish militarily with so little loss of life (despite all the hysteria, troop fatalities are historically low in this war). And, perhaps even more significant, Bush has significantly changed the status quo in the Middle East. He has set forces in motion that had been static and perpetually stalled on the side of despotism. Some will argue that the stasis was a good thing, but I don't see it that way. If nothing else, the world has now had a good taste of what the jihadis have been plotting for the last few decades and have begun to appreciate the potential danger to freedom and Western civilization inherent in Islamic political ideology.

Thus, I will continue to support this imperfect President (and what President, pray tell, has been even close to perfect?); the troops fighting the war; and America...

My sentiments, exactly.

This week's sham....

Hearing that the House had voted for a retreat in Iraq was very depressing. BUT, Amanda Carpenter looks at the details, and discovers—this will astonish you—that the Democrats are cowards and frauds, and the bill is yet another meaningless sham...

...Pelosi is publicizing that the Responsible Redeployment from Iraq Act would force President Bush to dramatically change his Iraq strategy. The fine print, however, states that Bush must first agree to it.

The first few lines of the bill demand that the administration redeploy troops from Iraq within 120 days and “complete the reduction and transition to a limited presence” by April 1, 2008.

Later, the language in the bill weakens. On page three, the bill calls only for a “reduction.” The next page specifies that the Armed Forces’ presence be reduced to “minimum force levels required to protect United States national security interests” by the April deadline.

How many troops would remain after this reduction?

In an email, Pelosi spokeswoman Nadeam Elshami said, “The bill requires that number and purpose to be justified by the President. It would then be up to Congress to decide whether to fund the deployment.”...

Congress could, of course, stop funding the Iraq Campaign at any moment. but that would require them to take responsibility for the results. The ice-hearted animals could care less if another Cambodia occurs, if millions of brown-skinned foreigners die, as long as the responsibility is diffused. Cowardly dogs, I spit upon you!

Signs of desperation...

I just noticed that Penraker has a long string of posts on how the WaPo is spinning the news from Iraq. See here, here, here, here, here, and here. They are really getting desperate!

An example is this one: Iraqi Military's Readiness Slips. Report Says That Since January, Fewer Units Can Operate Independently. They make a headline and a big deal about a slight drop in the number of units that are at Level One, glossing over the fact that if you are rapidly expanding your forces that is to be expected. It is not a bad sign. Officers, NCO's, specialists and equipment are being spread over much larger forces, so it takes time to catch up.

And more importantly, Level One is not important right now. (We've been through this crap before.) What's important is the number of units at Level Two, and that is steadily expanding. Level Two units can can operate independently except for American logistical and air support. And that's fine for our purposes at this point.

The deal, when the Senate unanimously confirmed General Petraeus, was that the results of the "surge in operations" (which only started 4 weeks ago) would be evaluated in September. Yet we are seeing a relentless drumbeat to declare it a failure right now. A curious thing! I'd say that leftists are getting very sweaty about what September might bring. Which makes me feel good.

Reports of his death perhaps exaggerated...

President Bush gave an interview to 10 conservative writers recently. Kate O'Biern and Rich Lowry have a report in NRO, He’s Not for Turning. Bush makes his case on Iraq.. Bush is not, perhaps, exactly Churchillian, but it's pretty good...

Forget the leaks and the speculation, President George W. Bush is not looking for a way out of the surge and the Iraq war. In a session with about ten conservative journalists Friday afternoon, a confident and determined president made it clear that he is going to see the surge through, and will rely on General David Petraeus’s advice on how to proceed come September, regardless of the political climate in Washington...Excellent. And I suspect all this may work out better than the pessimists expect.

...Pressed on whether the surge can be sustained despite all the difficulties, he said, “That’s the challenge, but I’m optimistic about it.” He said that back in January, “I suspect you’d be asked the same question, particularly since the outcry was quite significant.” But he went with the surge.

“How can he possibly do this,” he said, characterizing what critics of the war were thinking. “Can’t he see? Can’t he hear?” (At one point he acknowledged that these decisions aren’t easy — “You don’t know what it’s like to be commander-in-chief until you’re commander-in-chief,” he said.)

He explained “that last fall, if I had been part of this polling, if they had called upstairs and said, do you approve of Iraq I would have been on the 66 percent who said, `No I don’t approve.’ That’s why I made the decision I made. To get in a position where I would be able to say ‘Yes, I approve.’...

....He says he has four audiences when he broadcasts his commitment to the mission in Iraq: the American public; the American military and their families; the Iraqis (“because there are a lot of people who doubt America’s resolve”); and the enemy (“the enemy thinks that we are weak — they’re sophisticated people, and they listen to the debate”). As for that last audience, “I really think the additional forces into Iraq surprised them—a lot.”....I hadn't thought of it that way. Poor al Qaeda, they slaughter thousands of innocent men women and children, and then their newsmedia/Democrat/pacifist wing fails to carry out its part of the bargain, and there's MORE Americans coming! Suuuprise! I bet they were flummoxed!

....The president made his intentions clear Friday afternoon. He’s not going to abandon the surge, despite all the talk of his administration being willing to move to the Iraq Study Group model of the Iraq war. He views “this period as fundamental for deciding whether or not this nation is going to be secure throughout a lot of the 21st century. And therefore when it comes to the war in Iraq, as you know, I made a decision not to leave but to put more in, and I will support our troops and support Gen. Petraeus, his plan.”....Thank you. I'll depend on it.

Worst nightmares...

I highly recommend (no doubt everyone else will too) Victor Davis Hanson's The New York Times Surrenders: A monument to defeatism on the editorial page...

...We promised General Petraeus a hearing in September; it would be the height of folly to preempt that agreement by giving in to our summer of panic and despair. Critics called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a change in command in Iraq and at Centcom, new strategies, and more troops. But now that we have a new secretary, a new command in Iraq and at Centcom, new strategies, and more troops, suddenly we have a renewed demand for withdrawal before the agreed-upon September accounting—suggesting that the only constant in such harping was the assumption that Iraq was either hopeless or not worth the effort.

The truth is that Iraq has upped the ante in the war against terrorists. Our enemies’ worst nightmare is a constitutional government in the heart of the ancient caliphate, surrounded by consensual rule in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Turkey; ours is a new terror heaven, but with oil, a strategic location, and the zeal born of a humiliating defeat of the United States on a theater scale. The Islamists believe we can’t win; so does the New York Times. But it falls to the American people to decide the issue...

And the left's worst nightmare is US victory in Iraq. The Iraq Campaign has exposed their pretensions to being "liberal" as a total sham. They are nihilists and reactionaries. And the only way to escape the harsh spotlight that is shining on them is for our liberation of Iraq to be discredited...

No news is...

Charlene mentioned that there doesn't seem to be much news from Iraq in the "mainstream" news media these last couple of weeks. Good news is usually no news, when it comes to Iraq.

I imagine the "journalists" standing around their Teletype machines, crumpling the little sheets of paper in disgust, and muttering, "Whatsa matter with our guys? How hard can it be to blow up a mosque or a school, for pity's sake!"

Just torn apart, animals and people...

You've probably already seen Michael Yon's photo essay on the discovery of a whole village slaughtered by al Qaeda. I can't better Michael Ledeen's words:

Yon's latest provides a clear picture of the terrorists' savage methods. Literally, because it's mostly photographs of what happened to a village that fell into the claws of al Qaeda. They just tore apart the villagers, their livestock, their children and women, and then boobytrapped the area to try to kill our guys, knowing that they would honor the dead...

It's grim stuff. You want to see evil? Just take a look. Makes me really angry.

And "Democrats" are people who want us to surrender to those animals!!! "Anti-war" activists are those who want to hand the poor people of Iraq over to them to be tortured and slaughtered. Just like they did for the wretches of South Vietnam and Cambodia.

And if we pull out, and the Iraqi's are being crushed and massacred, or possibly fighting back successfully, but with with much more bloodshed than there would be with our presence......then the fake-pacifists will define the ongoing carnage as "peace!" PEACE! And congratulate themselves on "ending the war." Just like those vile frauds preened themselves on "ending" the Vietnam War, even as millions were dying or being sent to concentration camps. They will blithely flush millions of brown-skinned people down the toilet if it helps elect Democrats and hurt America. God, how I hate them. Or rather, I try not to hate them personally, but I hate their ideas unreservedly.

And what a torment it is to be able to do nothing, except spit out my disgust in the blog. (And pray for peace. REAL peace, not appeasement and self-hatred leading to a bigger war down the line.) If I could transform myself to young-and-childless, I'd be SO totally in Iraq. So would Charlene, probably. I remember when we heard that a friend had been offered a job in Iraq. We just looked at each other and thought "that would be so cool."

But why, exactly, do we all obsess over the Iraq Campaign?

But why, exactly, do we all obsess over the Iraq Campaign? As wars go it's not even that big a deal. In past wars we've suffered similar numbers of casualties in single days! If human deaths are an issue, Darfur is much worse. If suffering bothers you, North Korea is much worse. The War on Terror is economically trifling, with our tax rates lowered yet government receipts steadily rising. And nobody's being drafted...

I'll tell you why I care. Iraq is the fulcrum of our world right now, and so it calls to us. The second-largest challenge of our time is the Islamic world. (No, I don't think we are "at war with Islam.") That misguided world is being racked over the space of a generation or two by changes that the Christian West worked through, with lots of bloodshed, over many centuries. And Iraq is the fracture-point where we have to hit them, to make progress in dealing with the problem. It's a center-point where change is possible, and from which change can radiate outward. (The astonishing transformation of Kurdish northern Iraq exemplifies the possibilities.)

And as for the the leftists and fake-Quakers? It is not the slightest bit odd that leftists everywhere hate the Iraq Campaign to something near the point of insanity. They hate it for many reasons (see this post) but I think the single biggest one is that, by taking on this momentous and very difficult project, we Americans are declaring our belief in ourselves and the rightness of our cause. And leftists are nihilists (as I've bored you by writing many times) and belief is what they are allergic to. Belief makes a claim on me, it says that there is something bigger than me me me, something I must serve. If, like all nihilists, your only creed is non servum, then you must make war on anything that makes a claim on you. Whether it's God, country, Truth, or unborn babies....

"We played the enemy’s game for too long..."

Not everyone realizes that "the Surge" is not primarily a matter of increased troop levels, but is mainly a change in tactics. This discussion by Dave Kilcullen in the Small Wars Journal blog (Thanks to InstaPundit) is very good.

....The "terrain" we are clearing is human terrain, not physical terrain. It is about marginalizing al Qa’ida, Shi’a extremist militias, and the other terrorist groups from the population they prey on. This is why claims that “80% of AQ leadership have fled” don’t overly disturb us: the aim is not to kill every last AQ leader, but rather to drive them off the population and keep them off, so that we can work with the community to prevent their return.

This is not some sort of kind-hearted, soft approach, as some fire-breathing polemicists have claimed (funnily enough, those who urge us to “just kill more bad guys” usually do so from a safe distance). It is not about being “nice” to the population and hoping they will somehow see us as the “good guys” and stop supporting insurgents. On the contrary, it is based on a hard-headed recognition of certain basic facts, to wit:

(a) The enemy needs the people to act in certain ways (sympathy, acquiescence, silence, reaction to provocation) in order to survive and further his strategy. Unless the population acts in these ways, both insurgents and terrorists will wither, and the cycle of provocation and backlash that drives the sectarian conflict in Iraq will fail.

(b) The enemy is fluid, but the population is fixed. (The enemy is fluid because he has no permanent installations he needs to defend, and can always run away to fight another day. But the population is fixed, because people are tied to their homes, businesses, farms, tribal areas, relatives etc). Therefore—and this is the major change in our strategy this year—protecting and controlling the population is do-able, but destroying the enemy is not. We can drive him off from the population, then introduce local security forces, population control, and economic and political development, and thereby "hard-wire" the enemy out of the environment, preventing his return. But chasing enemy cells around the countryside is not only a waste of time, it is precisely the sort of action he wants to provoke us into. That’s why AQ cells leaving an area are not the main game—they are a distraction. We played the enemy’s game for too long: not any more. Now it is time for him to play our game....

Things are getting very interesting. And this is actually a fascinating confirmation of the wisdom of the men who wrote our Constitution. The Democrat/News-Media/al Qaeda Alliance has to provide the illusion of defeat and hopelessness not just right now, but over several election cycles. In a parliamentary system we might already be sunk. But our Constitution delays and attenuates the effects of popular hysteria. The founders wanted a republic, but were rightly distrustful of democracy. So the House changes on a two-year cycle, the presidency every four years, the Senate every six...

A day to be proud of...

Chemical Ali will hang for his lead role in the death of 180,000 Kurds murdered during the "Anfal" campaign, mounted between February and September 1988 by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein...

GatewayPundit has the story, and some heartrending pictures...

That we have brought some of those monsters to justice is as good and noble and Christian a deed as trying the Nazis at Nuremberg. Better in several ways; this is not just conquerer's justice, but done by the elected leadership of the Iraqi people. And without the necessity of cooperating with the Soviets, who murdered even more people than the Germans did.

What really galls me is the utter ice-heartedness of our fake anti-war crowd. 180,000 civilians killed in one campaign, but they don't want to know. They don't want it talked about, because it might hurt them in elections. (Which is what they really care about, not "peace.") They claim to be against genocide...well, here's the real item. And if the fake peaceniks had their way, it would still be going on.

Read smart...

You have no doubt heard by now about our major offensive in Baquba, the capitol of Diyala Province, which is where al Qaida has set up shop after they stimulated the production of local "antibodies" in al Anbar. I won't presume to discuss the combat—Do NOT miss Michaels Yon's latest dispatch. But I do know the lie of the land locally, and can say that this is bad news for the al Qaeda/Democrat/News-Media Alliance, and we can expect a vicious counter-attack.

I liked this post, by Confederate Yankee...

....Read that again, "Baquba alone might be as intense as Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah in late 2004."

The "Mahogany Ridge" media is tied up in the latest suicide bombing in Baghdad (simply look at the title, lede, and focus of the CNN article cited above as an example), and even those who chose to feature the Baquba assault clearly don't understand the magnitude of the just-joined battle.

Once reality slowly dawns on the media that they are misunderestimating the scope and scale of the assault, steel yourself for a rush of inaccuracies as they seek to get something, anything published, much of it based upon rumor, some of it based upon outright propaganda and lies.

We saw the same during and after Fallujah, when the U.S. military was accused of using napalm on civilians. We don't even have napalm.

The ignorati claimed that white phosphorus was a "chemical weapon," of a "poison gas" and ascribed horrible wounds to it. These claims turned out to be completely untrue.

There may also once again be claims that using .50-caliber machine guns and the cannons of Bradley IFVs and helicopter gunships against terrorist personnel somehow violates the Geneva Conventions. It doesn't.


We'll be hearing and seeing much more from Diyala Province, Baquba proper, and other areas surrounding Baghdad as full-scale surge operations seek to envelop and destroy al Qaeda.

Read smart....

Also, the phrase "We don't even have napalm" is disingenuous, since we do have similar incendiaries. But we didn't use any such in Falluja, and won't I'm sure in Baquba.

Do a Good Turn Daily...

Via the Anchoress, a nice piece in TimesOnline on the revival of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in Iraq.

Iraq actually has a long tradition of scouting, which was introduced by the Brits in the 1920's. It was corrupted and eventually destroyed by Saddam, but has sprung up again from the ashes.

I love to collect these stories. This won't get much attention from our news-media, you can be sure. It doesn't fit the anti-Bush Iraq-is-hopeless story line. And it won't be much noticed by those who think we are "at war with Islam." Nor, since the US military is helping out, by the fake-pacifists who claim we are "bombing Iraq."

Iraq is an odd and fascinating place, that never seems to quite fit the many stereotypes we try to impose on it. My belief continues to be that, notwithstanding the deep wells of evil and violence there, it is a place of great potential. And that it was and is the fracture-point where a blow to the sick realm of Arab despotism could be split open and changed...

You won't see it on the news....

...But we pass the word from blog to blog, like samizdat in days of yore. GatewayPundit writes on Iraq's observance of Mass Graves Day...

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Iraqis Observe Moment of Silence to Mark "Mass Graves Day"

What if you had a mass grave day and no Western media noticed?
Wednesday marked the day back in 2003 when the first mass grave was uncovered in Mahaweel after the US & Allied Forces liberated Iraq.

The US didn't find 300,000 warheads.
The US found the remains of 300,000 Iraqis in mass graves instead.

Iraqi-American Haider Ajina wrote to tell about the moment of silence held Wednesday in Iraq commemorating those who died at the hands of the Baathists and especially during Saddam's years in power...

There's lots more, lots of pictures.

The simple fact is that the "War in Iraq" ended when the good guys invaded in 2003, and stopped Saddam's internal war against his own people. We were and are the peacemakers. And we immediately allied ourselves with the ordinary Iraqi people to try to stop the Ba'athists and al Qaeda who began waging a terror campaign against democracy and against the little people of Iraq.

And Western leftists, news-media, and fake-pacifists immediately allied themselves with the terrorists, and have worked tirelessly for their victory, because Iraq is a skirmish in the real war, for the souls of mankind, and in particular, at this moment, for the souls of Americans and Europeans.

And they hated and opposed the Iraq Campaign even before it was proposed by the administration. Why? Because of things like this...

When people see the victims, it is hard to go along with the twisted fake-Quaker crap about how "war" is something done only by America and her allies, and "peace" is what Iraq had, and will have again if we pull out. (Just as the ghastly stories of the Boat People, and the millions of dead in Cambodia, give the lie to the crap about how the "peace movement" brought "peace" to Vietnam when the Americans pulled out.)

Of course the news media aren't going to mention Mass Graves Day. Their whole leftist world-view is based on lies, and the ugly truth will destroy them if it can get out.

"But influence is a two-way street..."

One of the reasons I placed on my list of reasons to invade Iraq was...Iran. Right now we are focused on how the Iranian regime is fomenting violence in Iraq. But we hardly stop to wonder what Iraq is fomenting in Iran. And exactly why Iran might wish to make trouble for a majority Shi'ite state. I found this article very interesting..

.....Traditionally, Shiites have believed that clerics should stay out of politics until the return of the Mahdi, the last of the revered early Shiite imams, who disappeared in the ninth century. Shiites believe he went into hiding and will someday reveal himself.

Only he can establish a perfect Islamic state, according to traditional believers -- including some in the Tehran bazaar, whose influential religious merchant class backed the revolution but has since grown more skeptical of the ruling clerics.

"Only the Mahdi is the genuine leader," said Ghaie's brother Mohammad, 45, whose family, like many Iranian merchants, has lived in both Iran and Iraq over generations.

Expressing such opinions is dangerous: Several prominent religious scholars -- chief among them Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- are under house arrest or other official sanctions for opposing clerical rule or proposing limits on it.

The quietist philosophy suited disempowered Shiites, who through most of their history lived under Sunni powers. Shiites are a minority among Muslims and within all modern Middle Eastern states except Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain.

But now, in Iraq, Shiites are witnessing a new alternative: They can defend their rights at the ballot box, without establishing a religious state.

"We believe that politics is separate from religion," said Iraq's ambassador to Iran, Mohammed Majid al-Sheikh. "Of course there are debates about this. If Iran wants to take on these debates, it will benefit. And I could say that the experiment of Iraq will ripple throughout the Middle East."

Iran has worked hard to influence Iraq. US officials have accused it of fomenting violence there. Analysts say Iran welcomes low-grade chaos in Iraq in part to prevent the emergence of a democratic Shiite alternative that could embolden Iranian reformists, while at the same time courting Shiite Iraqis by presenting itself as a stable and benign neighbor.

But influence is a two-way street, especially between two countries whose shrine cities and capitals have been tied by trade and pilgrimage for centuries. About 1,500 Iranians go to Iraq on pilgrimage every day, Sheikh said. The Ghaie brothers went recently and were impressed to see the parade of Iraqi politicians visiting Sistani's modest house in Najaf -- voluntarily -- for advice.

Last month, the Iranian press reported, Jalaluddin Taheri, a dissident cleric who resigned as Isfahan's Friday prayer leader in 2002 after criticizing the regime as corrupt and autocratic, went to Najaf to pay respects to Sistani.

The representative of Iraq's most pro-Iran political party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, touted Iraq's freer system.

Majid Ghamas contended in an interview in his Tehran office that Iranians, because of their country's somewhat competitive elections, have more freedom than Saudis, Jordanians, or Egyptians.

"But not as much as in Iraq," he said, "now that we have a government that respects Islam and the rituals of Islam but does not impose Islam by force so that it becomes a rigid Islam."

But persuading the Iranian masses that their country should emulate Iraq would be an uphill battle.

"If there were security there, these changes [in Iraq] could be appreciated" by Iranians, he said. "But without security you cannot appreciate anything else."

The evil alliance of Democrats and despots and terrorists has, for the moment, derailed our efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East and other Islamic trouble spots. (The tyrants and terrorists at least have the excuse of not knowing any better.) BUT, ideas spread. No one can really hide the fact that Iraqis are voting for their leaders. And that Sistani is not setting himself up as a power.

Al Queda has succeeded in giving the Dems a congressional majority, and so Condi is no longer jetting about and leaning on the Mubarraks and Assads. But there is more to globalization than just McDonald's and KFC.

Ugly stuff...

Excuse me for ranting a bit, you've already heard me on this, but it's therapeutic to vent ones feelings...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- American soldiers discovered a girls school being built north of Baghdad had become an explosives-rigged "death trap," the U.S. military said Thursday.

The plot at the Huda Girls' school in Tarmiya was a "sophisticated and premeditated attempt to inflict massive casualties on our most innocent victims," military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said.

The military suspects the plot was the work of al Qaeda, because of its nature and sophistication, Caldwell said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

The plot was uncovered Saturday, when troopers in the Salaheddin province found detonating wire across the street from the school. They picked up the wire and followed its trail, which led to the school. Once inside, they found an explosive-filled propane tank buried beneath the floor. There were artillery shells built into the ceiling and floor, and another propane tank was found, the military said.

The wire was concealed with mortar and concrete, and the propane tanks had been covered with brick and hidden underneath the floor, according to a military statement. Soldiers were able to clear the building.

"It was truly just an incredibly ugly, dirty kind of vicious killing that would have gone on here," Caldwell said...

Actually, it's late, I'm drinking some excellent scotch, and I just deleted a buncha venomous clever rants I had written this morning. Do they do any good? Naah. Can you fill in the blanks from your imagination? Of course you can! RJ readers are smart.

But spreading the truth around is a good thing, or so I surmise. Here's a healthy dose of it. Those who have ears, will hear. And oh my brothers and sisters, THINK about this stuff. A school for little girls. All in their little uniforms, all to be shredded like hamburger. And think about the state of mind of people who can IGNORE this. Who want "business as usual." Who want the illusion of "peace," and will sacrifice those children...

Here are some old Random Jottings images....

Good, by Hitch...

Christopher Hitchins on George Tenet's disgraceful new book...

...A highly irritating expression in Washington has it that "hindsight is always 20-20." Would that it were so. History is not a matter of hindsight and is not, in fact, always written by the victors. In this case, a bogus history is being offered by a real loser whose hindsight is cockeyed and who had no foresight at all.

Another good read...

Along with Yon's piece you might want to read one by Rocco DiPippo in American Thinker: Hypocrisy has a Human Price on the Streets of Baghdad:

....There were other stunning differences between that trip, and the one I'd taken in December.

On the December trip I had seen abandoned shops and frightened people. On the latest one I saw many shops opened and people going about their business in what appeared to be a relaxed manner. On the first trip I saw cars and trucks in gas lines that stretched for miles. On the latest trip, though gas lines existed, they were far shorter, and looked about as long as those experienced by Americans at the height of the 1970s oil crisis. On the first trip I saw nothing but ruin: houses and other buildings in derelict condition, most appearing unfit for human habitation. On the latest trip I still saw many houses in poor condition, but I also saw homes being built, and a good number of existing houses and storefronts being repaired

As the miles clicked by and I viewed the passing scenes and the people in them, I realized I was seeing widespread signs of something I hadn't seen much of four months ago: I was seeing Hope. I saw that Iraqis had not yet given up on their lives or their country. I saw widespread evidence they are rebuilding both.

A simple thing is kindling that hope, and it is a thing being affected by the new security plan: the just imposition of basic law and order...

Of course it's hard to get the big picture from tiny slices seen by a few writers. Iraq is a big confusing place. That's why the gross failure of our mainstream media to cover the War on Terror honestly is such a terrible evil. And why the rise of the new media is so desperately important. Without it the Old Media can tell any lie, and ordinary Americans have no way to check. (Personally, I think President Bush should be asking Americans to sacrifice for the war effort---by investing time in reading blogs!) The classic example of such a lie was Walter Cronkite and the press telling the American people that the Tet Offensive was a defeat. In simple fact it was a huge victory for American and South Vietnamese forces, and the Viet Cong were never a significant factor in the war afterwards.

But the lie created a political defeat that ended in millions of deaths, and tens-of-mmilions of people being sold into communist slavery. And that's exactly what the the Left, the Democrat Party, the media and the "pacifists' are trying to do again.

Latest from Yon

Don't miss the latest photo essay from Michael Yon, embedded in Iraq...

...Combat soldiers can sleep anywhere: leaning curled in hallway steps , with bricks as pillows. With practically nobody here to tell the stories of their hard work, sacrifice and heartening professionalism, we have left our soldiers behind in this war...

...When we came back into the library, a soldier was awake and up on a ladder. A company commander, maybe it was Captain Cook, asked something like, “What are you doing?”
“Looking for something to read, Sir.”
“Nope. This doesn’t belong to us. Get down from there and leave the books alone.”
“Yes Sir,” and the young soldier crawled down...

...Standing in the dark library, I wondered if the people of who studied and taught at this place had said a prayer before they left, beseeching God to protect their school, their books, their sanctuary.

On the roof one night, American artillery boomed through darkness and distance, and then after long pause, far in a different direction, an orange flash appeared, and finally a small rumble, and then more.

Car bombs that folks at home can see on the news, and read about in the papers —‘More than 50 killed in Baghdad attack today,’ ‘32 killed in Baghdad Car Bombing,’ ‘At least 40 Victims in Latest Iraq Bombing’—can be heard from the college.

Some soldiers wonder how many booms of death they hear over the course of a year—it’s next to impossible to keep an accurate count; explosions come from so many places here. Drifting into the smell of fine books in that library, there might have been a shudder from those shelves. Over the course of the war, the rumbles and crackles of thousands of human deaths must have coursed through these books. On the first night, after the raid, a chill from sweaty clothes caused me to shiver as I fell asleep hungry on the library floor....

Cynical, indeed...

The Vice President's remarks today at Congress...

VPOTUS: I usually avoid press comment when i'm up here, but I felt so strongly about what senator Reid said in the last couple of days that I thought it was appropriate that I come out today and make a statement that I think needs to be made. I thought his speech yesterday was unfortunate, that his comments were uninformed and misleading. Senator Reid has taken many positions on iraq. He has threatened that if the president vetoes the current pending supplemental legislation that he will send up Senator Russ Feingold's bill to defund iraq operations altogether. Yet only last november, Senator Reid said there would be no cut-off of funds for the military in Iraq. So in less than six months time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding with conditions, and then a cut-off of funding. Three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops.

Yesterday, Senator Reid said the troop surge was against the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. That is plainly false. The Iraq Study Group report was explicitly favorable toward a troop surge to secure Baghdad. Senator Reid said there should be a regional conference on Iraq. Apparently he didn't know that there is going to be one next week. Senator Reid said he doesn't have real substantive meetings with the president. Yet immediately following last week's meeting at the White House, he said it was a good exchange. Everyone voiced their considered opinion about the war in Iraq, end quote. What's most troubling about Senator Reid's comments yesterday is his defeatism. Indeed, last week he said the war is already lost. And the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat. Maybe it's a political calculation. Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics. Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election. It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage. Leaders should make decisions based on the security interest of our country, not on the interest of their political party. Thank you.

Good. Stick it to them, Mr Vice President, they richly deserve it.

In the midst of the rivers...

Alaa, The Mesopotamian, is back. He's worth reading, and this post is especially interesting...

....Regarding the situation in Iraq, again, events are unfolding in a way that I fully anticipated before. Remember how I emphasized the importance of two things. The first was the Zarqawi document. I proclaimed it to be the single most important and prophetic document in this whole Third Gulf War affair. Remember how little confidence he had in the Sunnis, and his final prophetic derisive remark: "after all they are Iraqis, too". Yes the Sunnis are proving to be finally Iraqi above all, and the end of the Al Qaeda-Wahabi scourge is going to be at the hand of these very Sunnis on whom they counted to base their Taliban-like Caliphate. The second thing: my emphasis on the "Anbar Slavation Council", and the necessity to promote and support this movement. The Al-Qaeda terrorists are defeating themselves by their blind brutality against all who oppose them. Also their stifling ideology simply cannot be tolerated long by the Iraqis that I know from any sect and ethnicity. Well the snow-ball effect has started and it would be very stupid not to invest in this natural movement which has already proved its tremendous effectiveness, having almost already cleaned the Anbar, with very modest numbers of poorly armed tribesmen. But these tribesmen know exactly where to find the enemy. Besides, this is a very good antidote to sectarianism. Sectarian civil war is receding now, as most Shiaas and Sunnis have both a common enemy now.

As the Iraqis have surprised the World before during events such as elections and the like, I expect the World has a very big surprise in store in the not too distant future. The haters, doubters, defeatists, anti-Amrica psychopaths etc. are going to have some very nasty surprises. This apparently endless and unresovable conflict is going to be suddenly and incredibly concluded in an abrupt and rather anticlimatic manner, and that before the end of the Bush term, too. This is my prophesy, and also my fervent hope. Despite all the errors, sacrifices, bloodshed and suffering, Iraq, our beloved Mesopotamia is going to emerge more united than ever and Sunni, Shiaa , Kurd and all other ingredients of Iraqi society are going to live in a harmony unknown in all their long history. This is my prediction and my dream. Have I ever told you anything before that has not been vindicated by the unfolding events ?

Best regards to all my friends.

I for one would not be completely astonished...

(Thanks to Penraker)

Good news (won't be seen on your TV)

Here's some good news, via Rand...

...The restoration of southern Iraq's Mesopotamian marshes is now a giant ecosystem-level experiment. Uncontrolled release of water in many areas is resulting in the return of native plants and animals, including rare and endangered species of birds, mammals, and plants. The rate of restoration is remarkable, considering that reflooding occurred only about two years ago. Although recovery is not so pronounced in some areas because of elevated salinity and toxicity, many locations seem to be functioning at levels close to those of the natural Al-Hawizeh marsh, and even at historic levels in some areas....

You know, since I've told you already, that the Iraq Campaign does not really have a military purpose. We just did it to test leftists. To test whether "liberals are really liberal. Test 'em to destruction; show them up for the evil horrid frauds they are.

I wrote here:

...Iraq was (and is) the big test. To propose regime-change in Iraq is really to say to the Left: , "OK wise guys, you claim to be anti-fascist. Help us remove the worst fascist tyrant of our times. You claim to be humanitarian; here's one of the most brutalized countries of the earth needing our help. You claim you are not anti-Semitic; stand with us against against a monster who was paying bounties to Jew-killers. You claim to care about a certain group that's been denied a homeland; here in the Kurds we have a far bigger group denied a homeland..." (I could go on for a long while with these. You get the picture.)...

Now I see there is another test. A test for the fake-environmentalists commonly known as "Greens." The deliberate destruction of the Iraqi Marshes was the biggest environmental crime of our time. Any real environmentalist would be thrilled by the possibility of bringing back to life this vast wetland, and succoring the simple people who lived in harmony with it for at least 5,000 years....

Real environmentalists would be eager to help out. So where are they?

In the dock...

John Byrnes notes a good cause, the defense fund for that American soldier who has been indicted by an Italian court for the crime of (quite properly and legally) shooting an Italian journalist whose car tried to run through a checkpoint in Iraq.

He won't actually be in any danger, unless he travels to Italy. But we should be squashing this sort of nonsense directly.

Of course we can't do much about the underlying problem here, which is that Italy is a dying country terminally afflicted with lefty nihilism. A condition that invariably leads to anti-Americanism. The Italian court isn't really interested in Specialist Mario Lozano, it's America they are putting in the dock.

NOT a "civil war"

The blog Back Talk (thanks to Glenn Reynolds) has a lot of interesting graphs and figures on the "surge" and Iraq. Well worth looking at. Some conclusions:

...My latest analysis shows that there is good news and bad news from Iraq concerning the troop surge. The good news is that casualties in Baghdad have come down very substantially. The bad news is that casualties elsewhere in Iraq have increased substantially. And, no, it's not because the civil war spilled over to the rest of the country. It's because al Qaeda started targeting innocent Shiite civilians where it was easier to do so. And, no, such attackes do not represent "sectarian violence" between Shiites and Sunnis. Only Democratic Senators and Representatives and mainstream media reporters believe that nonsense. The violence expanded beyond Baghdad because Sunni al Qaeda jihadists are doing everything in their power to get Shiites to kill Sunnis. Civil war is al Qaeda's goal (because it suits their jihadist objectives), and that's how this differs from the civil war schema that Democrats and reporters simply cannot get out of their heads. ....

...It is not a civil war. Instead, it is al Qaeda fighting against the people of Iraq. Yes, the Sunni insurgents initially allied themselves with al Qaeda in their fight against the hated Americans, but even they are finally coming to realize that the civil war that al Qaeda is trying to provoke is not helpful to them in any way...

...I know how much liberals treasure the idea that this is just a civil war in Iraq, the very civil war they predicted would happen if George Bush launched his "misbegotten adventure" in Iraq. Because they predicted civil war, all information from Iraq is processed through that obsolete schema. That's why Democrats have adopted an eerie code of silence about al Qaeda in Iraq. In terms of their sacred schema, al Qaeda in Iraq does not compute, therefore it does not exist.

But it does exist, and it killed nearly 400 innocent Iraqis in the last two weeks alone....

Leftists, the press, Democrat politicians, are all in a conspiracy to present what's happening in Iraq as meaningless violence. In fact it is an orchestrated production. It's a show put on for American TV cameras, and to influence American elections and Congressional votes. and of course to cause freedom and democracy to fail in Iraq.

Another quote from the same post:

...Americans don't realize that we are in a fight with al Qaeda and their affiliated jihadists in Iraq. And they don't know because the media equates attacks by al Qaeda with the phrase "sectarian violence." Look at this MSNBC headline again:

Tal Afar bomb toll hits 152, deadliest of Iraq war
Tally arrives during week in which more than 500 died in sectarian violence

Wrong. More than 400 of those deaths were caused by al Qaeda, not because they are Sunnis who hate Shiites but because they want Shiites to start killing Sunnis. It is wrong to call that "sectarian violence," and doing so just reinforces the obsolete schema that governs the thinking of Democratic leaders and mainstream media reporters, all of whom are sure they see a civil war spontaneously erupting before their very eyes. What they are seeing instead is al Qaeda fighting against Iraq and, more to the point, against America. We either stay in Iraq and defeat them, or we leave on a timetable and lose to them. That's your choice, take your pick. There are no other choices.

"rubble, smoke and chlorine gas, hard to see what was what..."

Awesome stuff! Here's part of a letter about the recent poison-gas and explosive attack on the Fallujah Government Center. By Lt. Col. Clayton Fisher...

...As for the IAs, they proved themselves. The jundi did a great job and pretty much stopped the initial attack as the insurgents were trying to shoot/ram their way inside. The IA and IP [Iraqi Police] figured it out and opened up on them, causing them to set off at the gates or just outside the buildings, vice inside where it would have been worse. Still too close than most would like, but it will do. After all "shook it off," we got most of us out of the rubble and the gas, did a head-count, realized there were still some back in. All rubble, smoke and chlorine gas, hard to see what was what, and of course you can't breathe. So of course, we ran back in it. Got to find those guys. It was not pretty but, we got them all out, to include a few guys you know. They are good now. We then got a US/IA triage and casualty system working. The chlorine thing is a whole other conversation.

And then those of us still standing, most wounded and gassed, ran back in again, slugged it out and fended off the counter attacks and any exploitation the insurgents were trying to get started. Many refused to be medevac'd during the fight. The USMC/Iraqi team was sluggin' it out side by side. Something to see. US Marines and Jundi still gasping for air, fighting side by side. Some jundi still in their sleeping sweats or shower sandals refusing to be evacuated, fighting back with their AKs and PKCs into enemy positions. Yes, some of these jundi got what it takes...

You maybe think heroes are something out of history books, at least if you get your news from the Gasping Media. Fortunately we have the Internet, so these bravos will not be totally ignored. These are the guys the Democrats are stabbing in the back. And those hostiles using poison gas on people—they are the ones Nancy Pelosi wants us to surrender to. In the interests of "peace," y'unnerstand.

Thanks to InstaPundit and Bill Ardolino.

Fides punica

I saw yesterday on Best of the Web something that's really disgusting. Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel wrote a Washington Post op-ed in 2002, saying that "we need to disarm Saddam Hussein and set the stage for a stable Iraq..." and that Iraq would be a tough challenge that might last a decade!

Now, out of scoundrel political calculation, they are betraying our troops and our country and our elected leaders in the very time of difficulties they predicted, and that they said it would be necessary to prevail in. And, of course, in the military campaign they voted to commit our forces to.

...Although no one doubts our forces will prevail over Saddam Hussein's, key regional leaders confirm what the Foreign Relations Committee emphasized in its Iraq hearings last summer: The most challenging phase will likely be the day after -- or, more accurately, the decade after -- Saddam Hussein.

Once he is gone, expectations are high that coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support a civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill. Various experts have testified that as many as 75,000 troops may be necessary, at a cost of up to $ 20 billion a year. That does not include the cost of the war itself, or the effort to rebuild Iraq.

Americans are largely unprepared for such an undertaking. President Bush must make clear to the American people the scale of the commitment...

I agree with the last two sentences, although I would not quite generalize it to all Americans. My own thoughts chime a bit with this, by Alan:

Military historian William Hawkins provides a precis on why wars are won or lost. I think he’s too hard on Donald Rumsfeld, who surely knew these things, but who was trying to work within political and bureaucratic parameters that he could not alter. Otherwise, I agree with everything Hawkins has to say. The West is in jeopardy for want of will, without which weaponry means nothing. We are wasting vast sums of taxpayer money on military hardware that will never be used, if the nation’s ruling Boomers wet their Depends every time some Third World thug says “boo.” My generation will ruin the nation. It’s a sad thing to contemplate as my own life approaches a premature close.

I'll just sit here with my stopwatch...

...With my little stopwatch, waiting to time the rush of activists and "Quakers" and leftists and "Democrats" and who are surely going to condemn these poison gas attacks, which are war-crimes that escalate the fighting to a new level of savagery...

Al Qaeda in Iraq is conducting a full fledged chemical war in Anbar province. Today, Al Qaeda conducted yet another chlorine gas suicide bombing, this time directed at the Fallujah government center, in the very heart of the city of Fallujah. The attack was coordinated; Multinational Forces West described it as “complex.” The two suicide truck bombs and small arms fire was preceded by mortar fire, which likely was designed to distract the guards at the gates...[link].

OK, I've clicked the button. The seconds are ticking by. Any time now.............

Any minute now. The TV news programs are going to be all over this—it's surely as newsworthy as, oh, say, abu Ghraib...

And the UN. Any hour now. And the Bishop of Bormenia, and other liberal churchmen. We will be hearing from them soon...

We''ll start negotiations by giving you what you want.

This was a recent interesting bit of news...

Exclusive to PJM by Richard Miniter, PJM Washington Editor
American forces in Iraq now hold some 300 prisoners tied to Iran’s intelligence agencies, Pajamas Media learned from both diplomatic and military sources.

This is believed, by both sources, to be a record number of prisoners tied to Iran. Virtually all were captured in the past two months...

Now I don't know to enough to comment on the Iran situation in general. But the following seems to cast light in a general way on WHY we are in a war on terror, and WHY we are likely to stay that way for a while...

...The Pentagon received “considerable pressure” from officials in the State department and CIA to release some or all of the Iran-linked prisoners to facilitate discussions between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian officials...

So, we are supposed to give the other guys something they want before we start negotiations! That's smart. And of course there's no suggestion that Iranians should do anything to facilitate anything. And no mention of the fact that the Iranians are sending terrorist murderers into Iraq to "facilitate" the slaughter of innocent people. Noooo. That would be impossible, because it would suggest that the US and her allies are in the right, that we are the good guys here. That we are trying to protect innocent people. That would not be "liberal." Not "progressive." Actually believing in America is not done at State or CIA.

But the good news is that our soldiers are not—at least the ones who actually fight—infected with lefty sickness...

...Apparently, Gen. Petraeus sharply disagreed, saying that he intends to hold the prisoners “until they run out of information or we run out of food,” according to our sources who heard these remarks through channels...

The captives are thugs sent by a brutal tyranny to kill Americans and to kill Iraqi civilians and foment civil war in Iraq. We have no reason to apologize for holding them, in fact it would be perfectly legal and just to simply put them in front of a firing squad. (No, I'm not saying we should do so.) They are clearly war criminals, and, though this never gets mentioned by our lefty press, the Geneva Conventions only apply only to those who respect the rules themselves.

"Pork and defeat"

Hugh writes:

House Democrats vote for pork and defeat, with the supplemental demanding defeat by March of 2008 passing on a vote of 218 to 212.

It won't get through the Senate. And even if it did, the president will veto it. The Democrats are denying timely funding to troops in the field, troops that in fact winning, and massaging the enemy that half the Congress wants to surrender.

Republican Leader Boehner has wisely decided not to allow any reconsideration motions or other procedural gimmicks that could give the 218 cover. They voted for retreat and defeat plus a mountain of pork. The McGovern-San Francisco Democrats are back....

I've avoided commenting on all this, because everybody else is, and because you all can guess what I think about it. But really, just thinking about Dems running for office on their criticism of Republican pork spending, and then using billions of dollars in pork projects to buy the votes to undermine their own country in time of war....I gotta vent a bit.

Democrats got America into ALL the bloody wars of the 20th Century, and in every one of them the Republicans loyally supported our troops and our war efforts no matter the political cost. And now the Democrats repay us with treason. (You think I'm putting this too strong? Yes, you. I'm talking to you, Mr. Lefty Q. Sap reading this and sneering. I'm happy to debate the issue. Show me I'm wrong.)

One thing that really burns me up is the endless ankle-biting about how the Bush Administration made mistakes in Iraq. Every war we've ever fought has been filled with mistakes!

Including ALL those 20th Century Democrat wars. They all involved calamitous Democrat mistakes that make Iraq look like a picnic for the poor orphan children. Belleau Wood, Peleliu, Anzio, LZ Bitch, Slapton Sands, Chosin. I could go on. Did you know that, right before North Korean Army smashed into South Korea and drove US and ROK forces almost into the sea, our Democrat overlords ordered hundreds of P-38's stored in S Korea to be destroyed? Because they might be "too provocative" in the hands of the ROK?

Sainted Democrat Franklin Roosevelt pissed away 25,000 American casualties to seize a rock called Iwo Jima. Which never yielded any strategic or tactical advantage. And now his pigmy descendants have the nerve to criticize Bush? What a bunch of useless hippie nihilists...

Korean War: 36,516 dead (33,686 combat, 2,830 non-combat), 103,000 wounded, 8,142 MIA. And what exactly was accomplished with these casualties? Hmmm?

Then and Now

You have all seen, I'm sure, those lists of what Democrat leaders said then, about Iraq and Saddam, and what they say now, when they see political advantage in betraying their country and stabbing our troops in the back and undercutting a military campaign that they voted for..

But written documents lack a certain punch. A certain sort of impact.

Now there's a splendid YouTube, Democrat Hypocrisy on Iraq, with video clips collected of a LOT of famous Dems saying publicly...well, just take a look and see.

I won't say what I think about them, because I would be tempted to use language such as is not fit for publication.

Thanks To Rand Simberg

List, revised, yet again...

I've posted before my List of Reasons to Invade Iraq. (Most recently here.) I stand by them, they still look good to me. And, as always, one of the purposes of posting them is to invite debate. I may be wrong. If so, show me. (I mean, show me with logic and facts. I'm not impressed with, "Wahhh, You can't SAY those horrible things. It's not allowed.")

But I think I need to add one more reason. One that is shaping up to be the most important of all. (My underlying thinking, if you are not a regular reader, is that the actual fight against Islamic terrorists is a secondary issue, mostly a by-product of the decay of our own civilization. Which is the BIG problem.)

I wrote here:

It is really interesting to remember that, in early 2002, Bush was already getting hostile probing questions from the press (who are almost all on the Left) about Iraq. Before anyone in the administration had even brought the subject up. I'm thinking that, unconsciously, they knew that this was the rotting log that was going to be turned over. And they were very worried, because they were the bugs that were going to be suddenly scurrying to get out of the bright light!

That's just the way it has been. And we need that light shining on the strange evils of our day. So, I propose one more reason Iraq was the correct second move of the War on Terror (which I don't think is really a war—but that's another issue).

14. Test to destruction the idea that "Liberals" are liberal. Iraq was (and is) the big test. To propose regime-change in Iraq is really to say to the Left: , "OK wise guys, you claim to be anti-fascist. Help us remove the worst fascist tyrant of our times. You claim to be humanitarian; here's one of the most brutalized countries of the earth needing our help. You claim you are not anti-Semitic; stand with us against against a monster who was paying bounties to Jew-killers. You claim to care about a certain group that's been denied a homeland; here in the Kurds we have a far bigger group denied a homeland..." (I could go on for a long while with these. You get the picture.)

The other 13 reasons are listed below, if you are interested...

1. Avoid fizzle-out. The big danger of a war against shadowy terror groups is that they can destroy our resolve to fight by pretending to negotiate or change their ways. By attacking the very heartland of the Arab world, we will avoid the cycle of truces and negotiations that have crippled Israel's war on its terrorists. The jihadis MUST fight for Iraq, the stakes will be too high. They won't be able to just lie low for a few years and then strike again. We will be forcing them to react to our moves, instead of us always reacting to theirs. (This could really be a reason by itself.)

2. Until the culture of despotism and backwardness of the Arab world is changed, new terrorist groups will continue to arise. Iraq is the best choice for starting the process of change, with a well-educated population that has suffered terribly from tyranny. Changing Iraq will change the dialog in the region. Deposing tyrants is a start, but there are good reasons to believe that democracy might take hold in Iraq—That would really change the region.

3.Terror-supporting nations. We can't make progress in changing them, until we take out ONE of them. Iraq is a good choice because we already have a good legal case, with many binding UN Resolutions, plus Iraq's failure to comply with peace-terms from the Gulf War. And also because Saddam is the most considerable of the terror-supporting dictators, so his fall will have the biggest effect on the others.

4. Iran: The most important instance of the above is Iran (which is the worst of the terror-supporting countries). The Mullahs can't close off their border with Iraq, because their Shi'ite Holy Places are there. Invasion of Iraq puts an army right on Iran's border. And Iraqi Shi'ism, impotent under Saddam, does not agree with theocratic Iranian Shi'ism. We need its ideas to flourish.

5. The humanitarian reasons are compelling. Tens-of-thousands of people are being tortured and murdered in Iraq each year. This is an internal war--to end it is to be on the side of peace. The UN sanctions regime has left children dying without food and medicine, while Saddam builds palaces and funds terror groups and corrupts Western governments with kickbacks. And we are INVOLVED in the sanctions perversion--we have a responsibility to end it. Saddam is waging an internal war against his people. Pacifists are enablers of Saddam's war and want it to go on forever—America should end it.

6. Similarly, we bear responsibility for encouraging the Shi'ite revolt against Saddam after the Gulf War. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were slaughtered because of our mistakes. We should have moved against Saddam years ago for that reason alone.

7. WMD's: a danger that must be eliminated. (Note from the perspective of 2006: While it's true we haven't found large stockpiles, we've found weapons programs that could have quickly rebuilt stockpiles. And more importantly, this is a war. A global war against islamic terrorism. Not a case at law. The mere appearance of plans to attack us or our allies is justification for an attack. In a war, it is our responsibility to attack an enemy nation if feasable. The burden is on those who oppose war-like attacks during war time to provide reasons why we should not.)

8. We have partly created the terrorists, by consistent weakness and vacillation over several decades. We have taught the terrorists to attack us! Withdrawing from Lebanon taught Hezbollah that suicide bombs work. Failure to respond in the Iran hostage crises taught a generation of terrorists that we are weak and vulnerable. Withdrawal from Somalia taught bin Laden that we can't take casualties. We have waited so long to respond, that only a long bloody struggle will teach them a new lesson. If Iraq becomes a quagmire, that's good. Assuming we stick it out and win.

9. Diplomacy. Obviously it is best to solve problems peacefully by diplomacy and negotiations. But our diplomacy has been crippled by lack of a credible threat of violence as an alternative. This dates from our betrayal of South Vietnam, and is exacerbated by the decline of most other Western powers into military impotence. Diplomacy works as the "good cop" alternative to a military "bad cop." Our failure in this has been so great that it could only be redeemed by some seriously crazy violence. Iraq--perfect! Now Colin Powell's "good cop" will be contrasted with a really scary "bad cop" named Donald Rumsfeld. Expect big diplomatic payoffs.

10. Consensus of elected leaders. President Bush has requested approval for the invasion of Iraq from Congress. The Senate debated the question and voted overwhelmingly in favor. Our nation made this decision. We made the decision. That's a powerful reason in favor. [Note from 2006: For various people, including some of the Senators who voted for this campaign, to now sit on the sidelines and whine, "I don't know anything about this and nobody told me anything and it has nothing to do with me" is despicable.]

11. To learn how to fight this new kind of war. There has never been a war like this before. We need to learn how to fight it, and keep learning as enemy tactics evolve. There's no other way to learn than just plunging in and fighting. Armchair strategists are not much help. And Iraq is big enough to blood the entire US Army and Marine Corps, without being very dangerous (by historical standards, that is. Think Shiloh, or the Meuse-Argonne Campaign).

12. Revenge. Saddam and al Qaeda have been responsible for the terror-killings of American citizens, including American diplomats. These murders have gone unpunished. It was wrong for us not to avenge them violently. (I'm using the term "revenge" provocatively, to irritate appeasers. But feel free to toss out the concept of vengeance. it is still wrong, both morally and logically, to allow criminals to flourish and prosper through their crimes, and to prey on the weak. It is a sin.)

13. Archives. Totalitarian regimes always keep good records. We are going to learn a lot about what's really been going on in the world once we get into the files. (Me, I'd scan everything and put it on the Web.)

Life in the big city...

I recommend, for the stimulating of clear thought, this TechCentral piece, By Lee Harris, So, Did America Overreact to 9/11?:

...The inmates of any jailhouse know that even mildest acts of aggression must be instantly and firmly challenged. If you are a newcomer and another inmate demands that you give him your candy bar, the worst thing you could possibly do would be to try to put the incident into perspective. You cannot say, "Well, it's only a candy bar, after all. No big deal," because, in this context, your candy bar is a big deal. It means everything. If you hand it over on demand, then you have also handled over your dignity. You have thereby informed not only the inmate making the demand, but all the other inmates watching you give into his demand that they too can all walk on you at any time. They too can take from you anything you have. They too can make you their flunkey or slave.

Of course, in defending your candy-bar, you may have to risk your life. But it is absurd to say that you are risking your life "only" for a candy bar when you are in fact risking it to maintain your autonomy and independence. The danger in such a situation is not overreaction, but, paradoxically, the failure to overreact.

The same principle applies to groups, tribes, and nations. If any group wishes to preserve its dignity and autonomy, there will be times when it is forced to act like the inmate defending his candy bar. In terms of a cost analysis, this kind of "overreaction" will seem utterly irrational. Is the candy bar really worth risking your life over? But to you, the refusal to take this risk involves a loss that cannot be measured by statistics—namely, the loss of your status as an independent moral agent that others will be careful not to push around or walk over...(Thanks to SeeDubya)

The blunt fact is, the Planet Earth is currently a rough neighborhood. So, simply because of the way things are, we have to act like people in a bad neighborhood do, just to keep trouble to a minimum. The rule is, if you let yourself be bullied or pushed around, you will bring on yourself much more trouble. If you do not allow small slights to pass unchallenged, then you will be respected and left alone.

(It's a normal fact of life in the big city, that you don't want to brush against people on the street as if you don't see them. That's how to get in a fight fast. Because that's how people test others in the rough parts of town. A friend of mine once got in a fight because his newspaper touched another guy's head on a crowded bus. And I once almost had a fight when I paused on the sidewalk in someone's path.)

We in the developed West have caused the War on Terror, by consistently doing the wrong things. By allowing ourselves to be bullied without responding strongly. We have taught the terrorists that terror tactics work. We have taught them that we are weak and indecisive. We have taught them that they will be rewarded if they hurt us—that we will give them things they want.

So, am I saying that Christian Charity does not work in the real world? No, not at all. What I am saying is that giving the other inmate the candy bar is NOT Charity...because in fact you are teaching him that extortion works, and teaching him to despise you. It would be far better to fight—beat him up if you can—and then reach out to him and try to make him a friend.

And, by the way, this is in general what America stands for. We were at our best and smartest when we flattened our enemies in WWII, and then helped them to rebuild and form free democratic polities. Germany, Japan, Italy...anybody been attacked by those guys lately? (And also applicable here is that France and Britain had iniated the war by giving up various candy bars to Hitler—that "pacifism" killed 50 million or so people.)

And that is exactly what we are attempting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is exactly analogous, on the political plane, to Christian love.

And the fascinating thing to me, the question of questions, is why this has aroused so much hatred. Such instant opposition. Particularly on the left.

It is really interesting to remember that, in early 2002, Bush was already getting hostile probing questions from the press (who are almost all on the Left) about Iraq. Before anyone in the administration had even brought the subject up. I'm thinking that, unconsciously, they knew that this was the rotting log that was going to be turned over. And they were very worried, because they were the bugs that were going to be suddenly scurrying to get out of the bright light!

Iraq was (and is) the big test. Bush was going to say, "OK wise guys, you claim to be anti-fascist. Help us remove the worst fascist tyrant of our times. You claim to be humanitarian; here's one of the most brutalized countries of the earth needing our help. You claim you are not anti-Semitic; stand with us against against a monster who was paying bounties to Jew-killers. You claim to care about a certain group that's been denied a homeland; here in the Kurds we have a far bigger group denied a homeland..." (I could go on for a long while with these. You get the picture.)

And the fact that Iraq has been more difficult then anticipated does not in the slightest bit mitigate or excuse the fact that our leftists and fake-pacifists have failed their big test.

Swatting flies. Since 2001

I seem to be encountering a lot of, well, let's be tactful and call it "unchecked data," about Iraq and the War of Terror lately. Today I heard "the war" associated with 600,000 deaths (of exactly who or where was not specified). Hey, what's an Order of Magnitude between friends...

And even the Washington Post felt moved to criticize the falsehoods of Congressman Murtha!

...Mr. Murtha's cynicism is matched by an alarming ignorance about conditions in Iraq. He continues to insist that Iraq "would be more stable with us out of there," in spite of the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies that early withdrawal would produce "massive civilian casualties." He says he wants to force the administration to "bulldoze" the Abu Ghraib prison, even though it was emptied of prisoners and turned over to the Iraqi government last year. He wants to "get our troops out of the Green Zone" because "they are living in Saddam Hussein's palace"; could he be unaware that the zone's primary occupants are the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy?

It would be nice to believe that Mr. Murtha does not represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party or the thinking of its leadership. Yet when asked about Mr. Murtha's remarks Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered her support...

I doubt if I will get around to doing much more swatting of flies than I already have been for the last five years. But it's on my mind. But as a small bit of fighting back, I'm going to re-post this quote, which I originally posted here, almost a year ago. As far as I know, it NEVER was reported as news; I found it in a book. From The Faith of the American Soldier by Stephen Mansfield, page 156:

....It worked. Both through the reforms that the military enacted to correct the scandals, and through the proactive ministries of the new chaplains, Abu Ghraib has been transformed. Chaplain Taylor explained that there have been no further abuses and that, in fact, the prison has become a model success story. Attendence at chapel services reaches into the hundreds. Now, many of the soldiers stationed at Abu Ghraib with the 391st [Military Police Battalion, from Columbus, Ohio] carry medallions in their pockets that express their pride in the opportunity to live down the negative stigma of the prison. The slogan on the coin defines their newfound sense of mission. It says simply, "Restoring America's Honor."....

America's honor, and the Christian decency of our soldiers, are, of course, not newsworthy... Leftists continue to claim that abu Ghraib is the real face of America at war. They are right; you see the true America in the above quote.

Compass lost..

There's another good one from Nick Cohen, Liberals are now the appeasers of hate:

....Five years ago, if you could have asked journalists, diplomats, academics and the victims of oppression themselves who they would have trusted above all others to stay sober in a crisis, my guess is that they would have nominated Amnesty International. Peter Benenson, one of the great Englishmen of the 20th century, set it up as a rigorously, almost ascetically, impartial body.

At first, Amnesty dealt only with prisoners of conscience who espoused non-violence. It didn't matter which side they were on in the Cold War, or any other war, because Amnesty didn't concern itself with politics.

Its reputation couldn't survive the aftermath of 9/11. The first sign that it was losing its compass came when Blair cited Amnesty International's reports on Iraq in a dossier on his reasons for going to war. In September 2002, he urged MPs to "read about the routine butchering of political opponents; the prison 'cleansing' regimes in which thousands die; the torture chambers and hideous penalties supervised by him and his family and detailed by Amnesty International. Read it all again and again. I defy anyone to say that this cruel and sadistic dictator should be allowed any possibility of getting his hands on more chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons."

Faced with the prospect of Blair removing the regime it had denounced for 34 of its 41 years, Amnesty cracked.

Blair's description of the terror in Iraq was "opportunistic and selective", it snapped. Strictly speaking, Amnesty should have kept its mouth shut. All that should have mattered to its leaders was whether Blair was quoting their reports accurately - which he was: Blair was "selective" only in that he underplayed the scale of the terror. Amnesty couldn't admit that because the crisis was pushing it away from the necessary impartiality of any human rights worker or judge into a sly political posturing with echoes of the '30s. If it took sides in the war, Amnesty's history would have forced it to come out for a democratic Iraq.

But support for Bush, however limited, would have appalled its members. Equally, it couldn't support the Saddamists and Islamists. So in true Virginia Woolf style, Amnesty, along with a large segment of liberal opinion, pretended that both sides were equally bad and the US and Britain were moral equivalents of totalitarian movements and states.

Human Rights Watch, which had made its name as a rival to Amnesty with its investigations into Saddam's Iraq, tied its tongue in knots as it tried to find a way to oppose the war to overthrow him. Kenneth Roth, its director, came up with a canting formula that there was no humanitarian purpose to the war because, although there had been mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing and environmental destruction over 35 years, "no such slaughter was then ongoing or imminent" at the precise moment in 2003 when the war began. His lawyerly point was that although the Baathists were still killing, they were killing at a slower rate than in the past; the numbers of rapes and the intensity of the persecution of ethnic minorities were not up to their previous speed and nothing could be done until Saddam pulled his socks up and improved the strike rate....

A "don't miss"

An awesome little tale, The Hands of God, by Michael Yon. One that will stick in my mind for a long time. (Much like a certain unforgettable picture snapped by the same guy.)

...The closer a counterfeit comes to the genuine article, the more obvious the deceit. As the murderer dressed in women’s clothes walked purposefully toward his target, there was a village man ahead. But under the guise of a simple villager was a true Martyr, and he, too, had his target in sight. The Martyr had seen through the disguise, but he had no gun. No bomb. No rocket. No stone. No time.

The Martyr walked up to the murderer and lunged into a bear hug, on the spot where we were now standing.

The blast ripped the Martyr to pieces which fell along with pieces of the enemy. Ball-bearings shot through the alley and wounded two children, but the people in the mosque were saved. The man lay in pieces on the ground, his own children having seen how his last embrace saved the people of the village...

These are the human beings that our "pacifists" want to flush down the toilet.

(Thanks to Dean Barnett)

"How hard was it for opponents of the war to be against that?"

I highly recommend this piece by English journalist Nick Cohen, about being raised "on the Left,"...

In the early Seventies, my mother searched the supermarkets for politically reputable citrus fruit. She couldn't buy Seville oranges without indirectly subsidising General Francisco Franco, Spain's fascist dictator. Algarve oranges were no good either, because the slightly less gruesome but equally right-wing dictatorship of Antonio Salazar ruled Portugal. She boycotted the piles of Outspan from South Africa as a protest against apartheid, and although neither America nor Israel was a dictatorship, she wouldn't have Florida or Jaffa oranges in the house because she had no time for then President Richard Nixon or the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

My sisters and I did not know it, but when Franco fell ill in 1975, we were in a race to the death. Either he died of Parkinson's disease or we died of scurvy...

and being forced to re-think some things...

....Journalists wondered whether the Americans were puffing up Zarqawi's role in the violence - as a foreigner he was a convenient enemy - but they couldn't deny the ferocity of the terror. Like Stalin, Pol Pot and Slobodan Milosevic, they went for the professors and technicians who could make a democratic Iraq work. They murdered Sergio Vieira de Mello, one of the United Nations's bravest officials, and his colleagues; Red Cross workers, politicians, journalists and thousands upon thousands of Iraqis who happened to be in the wrong church or Shia mosque.

How hard was it for opponents of the war to be against that? Unbelievably hard, it turned out. The anti-war movement disgraced itself not because it was against the war in Iraq, but because it could not oppose the counter-revolution once the war was over. A principled left that still had life in it and a liberalism that meant what it said might have remained ferociously critical of the American and British governments while offering support to Iraqis who wanted the freedoms they enjoyed.

It is a generalisation to say that everyone refused to commit themselves. The best of the old left in the trade unions and parliamentary Labour party supported an anti-fascist struggle, regardless of whether they were for or against the war, and American Democrats went to fight in Iraq and returned to fight the Republicans. But again, no one who looked at the liberal left from the outside could pretend that such principled stands were commonplace. The British Liberal Democrats, the continental social democratic parties, the African National Congress and virtually every leftish newspaper and journal on the planet were unable to accept that the struggle of Arabs and Kurds had anything to do with them. Mainstream Muslim organisations were as indifferent to the murder of Muslims by other Muslims in Iraq as in Darfur. For the majority of world opinion, Blair's hopes of 'giving people oppressed, almost enslaved, the prospect of democracy and liberty' counted for nothing....

(Thanks to Orrin.) Cohen has a book coming out, which ought to be good! One more snippet...

In short, why is the world upside down? In the past conservatives made excuses for fascism because they mistakenly saw it as a continuation of their democratic rightwing ideas. Now, overwhelmingly and every where, liberals and leftists are far more likely than conservatives to excuse fascistic governments and movements, with the exception of their native far-right parties. As long as local racists are white, they have no difficulty in opposing them in a manner that would have been recognisable to the traditional left. But give them a foreign far-right movement that is anti-Western and they treat it as at best a distraction and at worst an ally.

A part of the answer is that it isn't at all clear what it means to be on the left at the moment. I doubt if anyone can tell you what a society significantly more left wing than ours would look like and how its economy and government would work (let alone whether a majority of their fellow citizens would want to live there). Socialism, which provided the definition of what it meant to be on the left from the 1880s to the 1980s, is gone. Disgraced by the communists' atrocities and floored by the success of market-based economies, it no longer exists as a coherent programme for government. Even the modest and humane social democratic systems of Europe are under strain and look dreadfully vulnerable.

It is not novel to say that socialism is dead. My argument is that its failure has brought a dark liberation to people who consider themselves to be on the liberal left. It has freed them to go along with any movement however far to the right it may be, as long as it is against the status quo in general and, specifically, America. I hate to repeat the overused quote that 'when a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything', but there is no escaping it. Because it is very hard to imagine a radical leftwing alternative, or even mildly radical alternative, intellectuals in particular are ready to excuse the movements of the far right as long as they are anti-Western...

Ramadi...

A reader wrote and asked me to mention this article, Fighting Back, by Martin Fletcher, on the struggle for Ramadi. Happy to oblige. I won't even try to comment on the confused situation there. But, as ever, we see that the al-Qaeda are monsters, and those who think we should give up fighting them and retreat to "safety" are utter fools.

....Sheikh Sittar is a wealthy man. He owns homes in Oman and Dubai and several luxury cars. He and the other tribal leaders unquestionably prospered under Saddam Hussein, as did Ramadi’s many Baathists. Few cities had more cause to lament the dictator’s downfall, US troops made matters worse with their insensitive early conduct and al-Qaeda skillfully exploited the people’s anger with its promise to expel the infidel.

As al-Qaeda’s fighters tightened their grip on Ramadi, they became increasingly repressive and challenged the tribal leaders’ power. Soon they were kidnapping and beheading innocent people as part of a campaign of extortion and intimidation.

Some sheikhs fled to Jordan and Syria. Sheikh Sittar’s father and three brothers were killed, his father during the holy month of Ramadan, and he says he has himself survived several kidnap attempts. This summer a fellow sheikh was ambushed and beheaded by al-Qaeda supporters, who piled insult on injury by keeping his body so it could not be buried immediately, as demanded by custom.

“We began to see what they were actually doing in Anbar province. They were not respecting us or honouring us in any way, said Sheikh Sittar, speaking through an interpreter.” Their tactics were not acceptable.”

During the late summer he began enlisting his fellow sheikhs in a movement called the Sahawat or Awakening, whose goal is to drive al-Qaeda from Anbar province.

The US military wooed the sheikhs over what one US officer described as “hundreds of cups of chai and thousands of cigarettes”. They agreed that their chosen instrument should be the police force, which was practically defunct thanks to al-Qaeda death threats against anyone who dared to sign up. In June there were only 35 recruits; in July Sheikh Sittar sent 300 members of his 30,000-strong Resha tribe for training....

Here's another good piece by Fletcher...

“He scaaaares me,”

Dean Barnett shares some of my frustration with a certain American irresolution and fuzzyness in the War on Terror in recent times. But, he also sees the other side of the question...

...But President Bush has his strengths. The weak-kneed among us, like the NewYork Times editorial board and the president’s father, never knew what to do with Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush did – kill him. At his best, Bush shows a focus and a harshness that scares the stuffing out of the rest of the world.

Our enemies were watching last night. I bet Bashir Assad was picturing his neck in that noose, knowing full well that George W. Bush’s ire would be something that John Kerry, Arlen Specter and any other sympathetic Senatorial dhimmis would be unable to save him from. Kim Jong Il and a host of loonies in Iran probably took notice as well. For them, the sad fact is that they remain alive only at the pleasure of George W. Bush. I doubt that thought gives them much comfort.

I’VE NEVER OFFERED THE FOLLOWING SPECULATION in print, primarily because I didn’t want to jinx things. But I think the main reason we haven’t had a repeat of 9/11 or something worse in over five years is because George W. Bush scares the s**t out of his enemies. When domestic liberals whine, “He scaaaares me,” they really mean it. The world’s bad people feel the same way. The American reprisals to a terror attack that took place under George W. Bush’s watch would likely be swift, brutal and disproportionate....

"Swift, brutal and disproportionate.." That describes our response to 9/11. And it was exactly the right thing to do. We didn't just pursue al Qaeda, we invaded and deconstructed TWO terror-supporting Muslim countries. One of them in the very heartland of Arab culture and history. There's not the slightest doubt that we freaked-out our enemies (and we got to fight a lot of al Qaeda thugs to boot). And that's what we are supposed to do. This is a WAR.

Our actions are supposed to be "swift, brutal and disproportionate..." In fact, this is traditional, and there's even a old-fashioned locution to refer to this concept. The term (and this is a very specialized and technical word; you Democrats and fake-pacifists will probably be in over your heads here) is: WINNING.

Many of you have probably been taught that war is a thing to be cherished and coddled, like an endangered species. Pacifists for instance. But war is very destructive, in fact it is harmful to children and other living things, and it is better to bring them to an end. Dean mentions in his piece several little-known techniques to get to the condition called "winning." Such as "focus," "harshness," and scaring the bejeezus out of terrorist animals and genocidal tyrants...

Killing a strawman is like killing a zombie...

Dafydd has a good post, where he lights into Dean Barnett for saying that Iraq doesn't have "an Islamic Jeffersonian democracy..." Aside from the points that nobody claimed we going to have any such thing, and the the USA itself is not a "Jeffersonian Democracy", he writes...

....It's just about the biggest straw-man argument lobbed against Bush's Iraq policy, used only by right-wingers and libertarians who want to heap scorn upon the very idea that non-Europeans could possibly have a functioning democracy... and I sincerely believe it to be racist in its very essence....

....It's violent and bloody; but so was Greece during their civil war from 1946 to 1949, during which they finally crushed the Communist insurgency. The Britannica says that more than 50,000 combatants were killed during those three years, plus many tens of thousands of non-combatants who got in the way -- and that may not even count those who died in the first phase, 1942-1944....That is, more Greeks were butchered during that war than all but the most hysterical estimates of Iraqis killed since the liberation. Yet nobody today says that Greeks are incapable of governing as a democracy.....

....hus, Dean Barnett's sarcasm notwithstanding, the Iraq democracy is faring far better than the pessimists (like Barnett) could have imagined. Iraq is not even in a civil war; yet Barnett has the bizarre idea that a functioning democracy somehow doesn't count if there are a lot of deaths... but only when we're talking about non-Europeans. When countries whose citizens are of European extraction experience years of violent bloodshed, we still allow them to be called democracies -- whether it's Greece, the United States, or Northern Ireland.

I suspect that Dean is not even aware of his double standard; he's a nice guy, with his head well-screwed-on anent other topics. But he just reacts viscerally (via the reptilian part of his brain) to the very idea of democracy in an Arab country.....

And also, the idea that our campaign in Iraq has "failed" because of casualties is just stupid. The WoT has averaged 620 US military deaths a year. But our military loses over 500 a year just from accidents! And around 300 a year from suicide and disease. Our current casualties are light. Especially compared to past wars!

(And NO, I am not going to insert the usual boilerplate line: "of course every death is a tragedy blah blah blah.") That's become an absurd bit of political correctness, with anyone who advocates vigorous prosecution of the War on Terror feeling the need to grovel and snivel about how much they care about casualties. Well, we do care, but it's totally beside the point.

Every major decision, political, public, private, involves accepting casualties or the risk of them. As voters and Americans, it is our job to make decisions that are going have the side-effect of killing people. About 40,000 Americans die every year in automobile accidents. (Do Cindy Sheehan and the fake-pacifists weep over that slaughter? Of course not, not a tear.) If I vote for bonds for a new highway, I'm voting to kill a certain number of people in exchange for benefits to the community as a whole. That's life. We should be very careful and responsible about such things, but also we should be tough! That's what life is about. We are all going to die. (Tomorrow, on a cosmic time-scale.) Get tough and get serious!

I'm really thinking that all this sniveling about casualties in Iraq is because we don't want to face our mortality, and life's grim responsibilities. Wake up, world. Every week 10,000 pickaninnies die in Darfur. And you are claiming the a hundred dead in Baghdad is unendurable? What nonsense.

It's good to have an authoritative answer on what it means...

The report of the Iraq Surrender Group, that is...

...In his weekly radio broadcast, Bush said the bipartisan group's report presented a straightforward picture of the "grave situation we face in Iraq." He said he was pleased the panel supported his goal of an Iraq that can govern, sustain and defend itself, even though that will take time. And he said he was glad the bipartisan panel did not suggest a hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

"The group declared that such a withdrawal would `almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence' and lead to `a significant power vacuum, greater human suffering, regional destabilization and a threat to the global economy,"' Bush said, quoting the report, which was issued Thursday.

"The report went on to say, `If we leave and Iraq descends into chaos, the long-range consequences could eventually require the United States to return,"' Bush noted....[Link. Thanks to Orrin]

As Dean Barnett recently pointed out, the only time a "bi-partisan committee" is useful is when there is a consensus on what needs to be done, for which politicians need cover. Military base-closings are a good example. Everybody knew we had far too many bases, but no politician dared agree to cutting the one in his district. So the bi-partisan committee makes the choices, and every politician "puts up a fight to save Fort Comanche," and then accepts the inevitable.

If there is no consensus, then the results of a committee are going to be mush. Pure mush. Just like the 9/11 commission...

Suck-up to dictators, throw trouble-making Jews under the bus...

That's what the Iraq Surrender Group is all about. I'm too busy tired and pissed to write about it--Hugh Hewitt is worth reading.

The far right and the left both like this thing, so I spit upon it. And I think I hate "Blue-blazer Republicans" more than I hate the chomskies.

UPDATE: Dafydd has a lot of good thoughts. [Part one. Part two.] Worth reading. Short version: The dicta were written by the Democrats, but the holdings (ie: the actual recommendations) were written by the Republicans of the group...

Thinking about Mike's comment, I suspect that the Dems needed a paper defeat. Remember the old Vietnam line, "Let's declare victory and leave?" The Dems want to declare defeat and stay! They don't want the political hot-potato of cut-and-run, they just need something to give to their drooling fake-pacifist supporters. Hopefully this will satisfy the peaceniks, and they'll now let the grown-ups get on with the War on Terror.

"It was not naive idealism"

If you haven't already read it, this Fouad Ajami column is worth reading...

...It was not naive idealism, it should be recalled, that gave birth to Bush's diplomacy of freedom. That diplomacy issued out of a reading of the Arab-Muslim political condition and of America's vulnerability to the disorder of Arab politics. The ruling regimes in the region had displaced their troubles onto America; their stability had come at America's expense, as the scapegoating and the anti-Americanism had poisoned Arab political life. Iraq and the struggle for a decent polity in it had been America's way of trying to extirpate these Arab troubles. The American project in Iraq has been unimaginably difficult, its heartbreak a grim daily affair. But the impulse that gave rise to the war was shrewd and justified....

That's what I've argued all along. Democracy is a weapon. (And the terrorists seem to agree.) Also, no one has another plan. The "realist" and appeasement nostrums being currently floated have all been tried and found wanting. In fact, they got us into this war. And they are not plans—not plans on how to conduct the War on Terror in general. They pretend that Iraq is the whole war, or a separate war from the greater war on Islamic fascism.

Also, it should always be kept in mind that the opposition to the Iraq Campaign by leftists and fake-pacifists has never been due to disillusionment. They've hated and opposed all American military action from the beginning. They gave only the most grudging support to even our campaign against the Taliban, and were calling it a quagmire within days. And even the happiest moments of the Iraq campaign, with millions of Iraqis risking their lives to vote, pleased them not in the slightest. They don't give a damn about Iraqis, and they don't care if American soldiers die. It's America they hate.

And especially, they hate the idea of Americans fighting, risking their lives, in defense of our freedom and our land. This strikes right at the heart of their nihilist hearts, for they have nothing in themselves they believe in enough to fight for,

Important info---pass it on

That big story about the people being burned alive in Iraq, while Iraqi troops stood by?

IT'S A TOTAL FABRICATION!

IT'S A LIE!

It's a clear and blatant lie fabricated by our country's enemies, and propagated by our internal enemies and traitors in the news media.

LINK (if you have trouble with that link, as I did, go to FloppingAces' main blog page and scroll down to 11-25, at 8:54)

Thanks to Lorie Byrd

Surprise, surprise...

violence declines after terrorist assistance to the Copperhead Party is no longer needed, and after appeasers have been elected as planned...

American Forces Press Service – As expected, violence in Iraq has dropped following the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a coalition spokesman said in Baghdad today.

Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said civilian and Iraqi security force casualties were at the lowest levels since the government was formed in May.

So far this month, the civilian casualty count is well below the casualty count in October and below the six-month average. The security force casualties reduced 21 percent over the past four weeks, and are at the lowest level in 25 weeks, he said.

“In Baghdad, there was a 22 percentage drop in casualties related to sectarian violence and executions,” Caldwell said during a televised news conference. “Coalition forces will continue to work closely with the Iraqi government and Iraqi security forces to control the sectarian violence and terrorist attacks.”...(Thanks to Greyhawk)

"As expected."

Now they tell us...

Our friend Frank sent this NYT editorial, writing: "See 7th Paragraph. Amazing what a difference responsibility makes. They are covering their asses. ..."

The Democrats will not be able to savor their victory for long. Americans are waiting to hear if they have any good ideas for how to get out of Iraq without creating even wider chaos and terrorism. [NOW you let us know that you know that your party has no policy. AFTER you pull out all the stops to get them into office]

Criticizing President Bush’s gross mismanagement of the war was a winning electoral strategy. But criticism will not extricate the United States from this mess, nor will it persuade voters that the Democrats are ready to take back the White House.

Let us be clear. The responsibility for all that has gone wrong lies squarely with Mr. Bush. [Likewise with what's gone RIGHT---too bad there's a news black-out on that part] Even with control of the Congress, the Democrats’ role in changing things will be hortatory. And while we too are eager to hear the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group — better known as the (James) Baker commission — it should be the start, and not the end, of a bipartisan discussion on Iraq strategy. The Democrats need to be ready to play a full role. [Gee, maybe they should start a think-tank! I've only said about a thousand times that Dems have no policy. Nor principles, nor values. Nor morality, nor honesty.]

Under Republican control, Congress has exercised virtually no oversight of the administration’s misconduct of the war, and the new Democratic leadership is eager to hold extensive hearings. The public deserves a full accounting (backed by subpoenas, if necessary) of how prewar intelligence was cooked, why American troops were sent to war without adequate armor, and where billions of dollars in reconstruction aid disappeared to. [Who needs hearings, you've obviously convicted already.]

The Democrats will also need to look forward — and quickly. So far they have shared slogans, but no real policy. [So Random Jottings was right all along? Thanks, I appreciate you admitting it!] During the campaign, their most common call was for a “phased redeployment” — a euphemism for withdrawal — of American troops starting before the end of this year.

Threatening to pull out may be the only way to get cooperation from Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, who is thwarting even the most limited American efforts to disarm militias and set timetables for genuine political compromise on the most fundamental issues, like protecting minority rights and fairly apportioning the country’s oil wealth. [Threatening to pull out also tells the bad guys that their political/media strategy has worked and that they would be fools to compromise, or let to up on the killing.]

Unless America’s exit plans are coupled with a more serious effort to build up Iraq’s security forces and mediate its sectarian divisions, a phased withdrawal will only hasten Iraq’s descent into civil war — while placing American soldiers who remain behind in even greater danger. We also fear that Iraqis will have no interest in anything but retribution, until they see that security and rebuilding are possible. For that reason we have suggested one last push to stabilize Baghdad. That would require at least a temporary increase in American and Iraqi troops on Baghdad streets. [So, now that the election is over the NYT favors doing the sort of stuff the Bush Administration has been doing all along! But "more serious," of course, in some unspecified ways. Vile.]

We are skeptical of calls, by some Democrats, to divide the country into three ethnically based regions. Most Iraqis — except for the Kurds — show little enthusiasm for the idea. And while there has been horrific ethnic cleansing, it hasn’t yet got to the point that boundaries could be drawn without driving many more people from their homes. [Skeptical, eh. But not a word of your skepticism did we hear until your party got into power.]

Such ideas deserve a full discussion, something the United States has not had since its troops first rolled into Iraq. [Bullshit. We've been wrangling about Iraq since at least early 2002. But perhaps the NYT itself has not "discussed" Iraq? Perhaps they've been intimidate by people wrapped in flags, and have kept mum? I should look in their archives and find out.] We are not sure that any shift in strategy can contain the disaster. But we are sure that even a few weeks more of drift and confusion will guarantee more chaos and suffering once American troops leave. Voters gave the Democrats the floor — and are now waiting to hear what they have to say. [Insanity. The NYT sees nothing wrong with (Democrats) getting elected and THEN telling the voters what they stand for.]

Revised list of reasons to invade Iraq.

I'm re-doing my list of reasons to invade Iraq.—I've been keeping notes for possible revisions for a while now. And I've put it back into the present tense as of 2003, which eliminates reasons like our discovery of the UN Oil-For-Food Scandal, and any unexpected successes we've had since then. (Note: The redoutable Dean Esmay long ago posted Seven Reasons, which formed the origins of this list. And Wretchard blogged reason #1. I didn't just think this stuff up myself. Here's another good list, by TM Lutas.)

1. Avoid fizzle-out. The big danger of a war against shadowy terror groups is that they can destroy our resolve to fight by pretending to negotiate or change their ways. By attacking the very heartland of the Arab world, we will avoid the cycle of truces and negotiations that have crippled Israel's war on its terrorists. The jihadis MUST fight for Iraq, the stakes will be too high. They won't be able to just lie low for a few years and then strike again. We will be forcing them to react to our moves, instead of us always reacting to theirs—this should really be a reason by itself.

2. Until the culture of despotism and backwardness of the Arab world is changed, new terrorist groups will continue to arise. Iraq is the best choice for starting the process of change, with a well-educated population that has suffered terribly from tyranny. Changing Iraq will change the dialog in the region. Deposing tyrants is a start, but there are good reasons to believe that democracy might take hold in Iraq—That would really change the region.

3.Terror-supporting nations. We can't make progress in changing them, until we take out ONE of them. Iraq is a good choice because we already have a good legal case, with many binding UN Resolutions, plus Iraq's failure to comply with peace-terms from the Gulf War. And also because Saddam is the most considerable of the terror-supporting dictators, so his fall will have the biggest effect on the others.

4. Iran: The most important instance of the above is Iran (which is the worst of the terror-supporting countries). The Mullahs can't close off their border with Ira, because their Shi'ite Holy Places are there. Invasion of Iraq puts an army right on Iran's border. And Iraqi Shi'ism, impotent under Saddam, does not agree with theocratic Iranian Shi'ism. We need its ideas to flourish.

5. The humanitarian reasons are compelling. Tens-of-thousands of people are being tortured and murdered in Iraq each year. This is an internal war--to end it is to be on the side of peace. The UN sanctions regime has left children dying without food and medicine, while Saddam builds palaces and funds terror groups and corrupts Western governments with kickbacks. And we are INVOLVED in the sanctions perversion--we have a responsibility to end it. Saddam is waging an internal war against his people. Pacifists are enablers of Saddam's war and want it to go on forever—America should end it.

6. Similarly, we bear responsibility for encouraging the Shi'ite revolt against Saddam after the Gulf War. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were slaughtered because of our mistakes. We should have moved against Saddam years ago for that reason alone.

7. WMD's: a danger that must be eliminated. (Note from the perspective of 2006: While it's true we haven't found large stockpiles, we've found weapons programs that could have quickly rebuilt stockpiles. And more importantly, this is a war. A global war against islamic terrorism. Not a case at law. The mere appearance of plans to attack us or our allies is justification for an attack. In a war, it is our responsibility to attack an enemy nation if feasable. It is those who oppose war-like attacks during war time who bear the responsibility of providing reasons why we should not.)

8. We have partly created the terrorists, by consistent weakness and vacillation over several decades. We have taught the terrorists to attack us! Withdrawing from Lebanon taught Hezbollah that suicide bombs work. Failure to respond in the Iran hostage crises taught a generation of terrorists that we are weak and vulnerable. Withdrawal from Somalia taught bin Laden that we can't take casualties. We have waited so long to respond, that only a long bloody struggle will teach them a new lesson. If Iraq becomes a quagmire, that's good. Assuming we stick it out and win.

9. Diplomacy. Obviously it is best to solve problems peacefully by diplomacy and negotiations. But our diplomacy has been crippled by lack of a credible threat of violence as an alternative. This dates from our betrayal of South Vietnam, and is exacerbated by the decline of most other Western powers into military impotence. Diplomacy works as the "good cop" alternative to a military "bad cop." Our failure in this has been so great that it could only be redeemed by some seriously crazy violence. Iraq--perfect! Now Colin Powell's "good cop" will be contrasted with a really scary "bad cop" named Donald Rumsfeld. Expect big diplomatic payoffs.

10. Consensus of elected leaders. President Bush has requested approval for the invasion of Iraq from Congress. The Senate debated the question and voted overwhelmingly in favor. Our nation made this decision. We made the decision. That's a powerful reason in favor. [Note from 2006: For various people, including some of the Senators who voted for this campaign, to now sit on the sidelines and whine, "I don't know anything about this and nobody told me anything and it has nothing to do with me" is despicable.]

11. To learn how to fight this new kind of war. There has never been a war like this before. We need to learn how to fight it, and keep learning as enemy tactics evolve. There's no other way to learn than just plunging in and fighting. Armchair strategists are not much help. And Iraq is big enough to blood the entire US Army and Marine Corps, without being very dangerous (by historical standards, that is. Think Shiloh, or the Meuse-Argonne Campaign).

12. Revenge. Saddam and al Qaeda have been responsible for the terror-killings of American citizens, including American diplomats. These murders have gone unpunished. It was wrong for us not to avenge them violently. (I'm using the term "revenge" provocatively, to irritate appeasers. But feel free to toss out the concept of vengeance. it is still wrong, both morally and logically, to allow criminals to flourish and prosper through their crimes, and to prey on the weak. It is a sin.)

13. Archives. Totalitarian regimes always keep good records. We are going to learn a lot about what's really been going on in the world once we get into the files. (Me, I'd scan everything and put it on the Web.)

fog of war...

A friend e-mailed and asked about how I thought Iraq was going.

I've always seen the Iraq Campaign as working on several levels, and having various goals. (I've posted lists from time to time. None of my drive-by lefty critics has ever dared to debate them one-by-one.) So it's not simply a win or lose thing.

We've already won on many of those levels:

• show resolve--undo disasterous reputation for caving...√
• Ending Saddam's hideous internal war against his own people. √
• Ending Saddam's supporting terrorists and the threat of WMD's...√
• Lured al Qaeda into a fight and hurt them...√
• Turned a bunch of Arabs against al Qaeda types...√
• "De-stabilized" the ME in some possibly good ways...√
• Got us past the "No peace in ME until Palestinian question solved" nonsense...√
• Stirred up some hopes of democratic reform in region...√
• Placed armies on both sides of Iran...√
• Uncovered the Oil-for-Food scandal...√

But of course we are hoping to transform the whole game, not just take some pawns and rooks. In that sense I'm worried and disappointed. We'll see.

And we hoped to have the other terror-supporting tyrants quaking in their boots, not just feeling a bit nervous. They were for a while there, but that hope has been sabotaged by our own domestic traitors, who have refused, for vile partisan reasons, to support their country (and Western Civilization) in its hour of need.

And It's hard to judge things while one of the big battles of the War on Terror is being fought. I refer to the US election. All the despots and terror groups have their heels dug in, hoping for a Copperhead victory. And it's no accident that attacks in Baghdad have been ramped up just now.

We are in the fog and smoke of battle. We onlookers just can't know how it is going. Look at this, for instance:

AFP najaf • Radical cleric Muqtada Al Sadr gave the go-ahead to a US-led raid on the bastion of his Mahdi Army militia in Baghdad and plans to purge his movement of violent elements, an aide said yesterday.

Sheikh Abdel Razzaq Al Naddawi, a senior assistant to the firebrand Shi’ite preacher, said Sadr had given the green light to last week’s action by US and Iraqi forces after meeting Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki.

“It was meant to pinpoint the bad elements and hold them accountable before the law,” Naddawi said here. “This movement does not protect those who abuse people and the innocent.”

Last week Iraqi special forces and US advisers raided an address in Sadr City hunting what they described as a death squad leader. A subsequent battle left 10 militants and four civilians dead.

Previous raids by US forces in Shi’ite districts have drawn criticism from Sadr supporters, but the powerful young cleric is trying to reposition himself as an ally of Maliki’s struggle to halt a wave of sectarian violence. (Thanks to Orrin Judd)

Don't ask me what it means...

"Without incident"

Right now Democrat Party symbiotes are ramping up the usual pre-election slaughter in Baghdad. And Democrat Party surrogates in the "news" media are playing this for all it's worth.

But there are other things happening that I bet you won't see on your evening news. (Just a guess, I don't watch it myself.)

The second mass pilgrimage in a month was held this past weekend without incident of violence in Iraq.

This past weekend Iraqi security forces successfully provided security for nearly one million Shia pilgrims who thronged to Najaf, Iraq in a peaceful commemoration of the death of the first imam. The pilgrimage concluded without incident...

...In September, nearly 4 million Shia pilgrims flocked to the holy city of Karbala without incident....

Just thought you might find that interesting.

(Thanks to GatewayPundit.)

"We believe in what we’re struggling for and we are proud of our sacrifices"

The vile Lancet is at it again. Another absurd exaggeration-of-Iraq-deaths study, released, once more, right before a US election.

(You don't need to be a statistician to shred this "study." For instance, modern warfare usually produces 3 or 4 wounded for each fatality. So according to this study, about 1 out of 10 Iraqis should have been wounded in the past 3 years. Uh huh, right. So where are they? The thing is clearly bogus, so we can expect the "pacifists" to repeat this figure as gospel.)

Please don't miss this post by Omar, of Iraq the Model....

...Among the things I cannot accept is exploiting the suffering of people to make gains that are not the least related to easing the suffering of those people. I’m talking here about those researchers who used the transparency and open doors of the new Iraq to come and count the drops of blood we shed.

Human flesh is abundant and all they have to do is call this hospital or that office to get the count of casualties, even more they can knock on doors and ask us one by one and we would answer because we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.

We believe in what we’re struggling for and we are proud of our sacrifices.

I wonder if that research team was willing to go to North Korea or Libya and I think they wouldn’t have the guts to dare ask Saddam to let them in and investigate deaths under his regime.

No, they would’ve shit their pants the moment they set foot in Iraq and they would find themselves surrounded by the Mukhabarat men counting their breaths. However, maybe they would have the chance to receive a gift from the tyrant in exchange for painting a rosy picture about his rule.

They shamelessly made an auction of our blood, and it didn’t make a difference if the blood was shed by a bomb or a bullet or a heart attack because the bigger the count the more useful it becomes to attack this or that policy in a political race and the more useful it becomes in cheerleading for murderous tyrannical regimes....

I despise these liars. But far more, I reject with the utmost contempt the unspoken sub-text of this "study," which is that there is nothing worth fighting and dying for.

Tough love...

Glenn Reynolds posted an e-mail from a reader. An excerpt...

We're not losing momentum in Iraq. The Pentagon strategy is a very deliberate form of tough love that is forcing the Iraqis to defend their own country.

Arabs are culturally the most passive, fence-sitting people on the planet. By their own admission they follow the strongest leader out there. If we had sent 500,000 troops to Iraq and fought a Soviet-style counterinsurgency, the end result would have been an Iraq with no incentive to do the very hard work of creating viable fighting forces from scratch. We would've been their new masters in perpetuity....

That's what I've been saying for a long time, but not expressing it as well. When we talk of bringing democracy to the Arab world, we are really talking about forcing them to grow up. And there's no way for people to do that except by trying things and making mistakes. Your children won't grow up if you map out their lives and protect them from having to make choices or face difficulties. Same with countries.

One of the lefty lines I've encountered goes something like: "Shi'ite death squads are killing people in Iraq. Look what a horrible evil we Americans have created." This is stupid on the face of it, since there was no possibility that Shi'ites would not take some revenge for generations of oppression and murder and torture by Sunni's. (Of course leftists are especially upset because they wanted Saddam to keep killing Shi'ites and Kurds by the hundreds-of-thousands. That's called "peace," folks, and is a blessed thing.)

But it is stupid on another level, because this is a problem that the Iraqis themselves must confront and solve. Or fail to solve. If there were some way we could have squelched all Shi'te militia activity, it would, I suspect, have been a bad thing.

Who would have dreamed...

A new poll of Iraqis shows that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are rejected by overwhelming majorities of Shias and Kurds and large majorities of Sunnis.

Shias have mildly positive views of Iran and its President, while Kurds and Sunnis have strongly negative views. Shias and Kurds have mostly negative views of Syria, while Sunnis are mildly positive. Shias have overwhelmingly positive views of Hezbollah, while Kurds and Sunnis have negative views.

The poll was conducted for WorldPublicOpinion.org by conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and was fielded by KA Research Ltd. / D3 Systems, Inc. Polling was conducted September 1-4 with a nationwide representative sample of 1,150 Iraqi adults.

It may be easy to assume that as the Iraqi people become more supportive of attacks on US-led forces (see LINK TO WPO ARTICLE 1), they may grow warmer toward al Qaeda—the probable source of a significant number of attacks on US forces. However, this does not appear to be the case. Al Qaeda is exceedingly unpopular among the Iraqi people.

Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view.....
(LINK. Thanks to Orrin)

Who would have thought, who would have dreamed five years ago that we would be scrying the tea-leaves of opinion polls taken right in the very heart of the Arab World! Taking them seriously!

This is a stupefying fact, and what is even more astonishing is that we live in an age where it can just be taken for granted. (Reason #1826 why Leftists discourage the study of history.) FDR led us in similar transformations of Japan and Germany and Italy, but at the hideous cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths—millions if you include the other side—and cities turned to ash and rubble as far as the eye could see.

George W Bush does the same thing at a trifling cost (Yeah, yeah, call me insensitive. But our Iraq combat death rate is not much higher than our usual non-combat death rate for our military as a whole. And minor compared to 40,000 Americans dying each year in automobile accident.)

And FDR left millions of hungry children picking through oceans of rubble for scraps, and forced tens of thousands of their mothers into prostitution to feed them, or themselves. And he's called a hero!

President Bush is excoriated because he didn't fix Iraq's sewers fast enough!

and one from Polish Radio...

Pajamas Media:

Given the tsunami of news coming out of Iraq in the papers and on television, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the media organizations of the world must have a battalion or more of reporters assigned to cover the war. But if you guessed “one or two battalions,” you’d be far off the mark. If you guessed “several squads” you’d still be wrong....

....If you guessed 9 reporters, you guessed right.
Here’s the chart (CLICK HERE TO VIEW) showing who the nine embedded reporters were covering all of Iraq on 9/19/2006. You’ll see that of those 9 reporters, 3 were from the Armed Forces’ Stars & Stripes, 1 from AFN (Armed Force Network), 1 from the Charlotte Observer, 1 from the BBC, 1 from the AP, 1 from RAI, and 1 from Polish Radio. All the rest of the “coverage” of the Iraq war on that day came from reporters hunkered down in the hotels and other locations under the rubric “Baghdad News Bureaus.”...

Being embedded is VERY dangerous. Not especially physically dangerous, but something much worse--dangerous to the lefty world-views and hate-America Bobo prejudices of the reporters.

"winning a big talent contest, but your parents weren’t there to see...."

Callimachus at Winds of Change has an excellent interview with a woman who spent several years working in Iraq, for a company that oversees the contractors who are working on the many reconstruction projects. It's fascinating stuff, and I recommend it.

She's bitter about how our press so-called covered the stories...

...The press missed something vital about Iraq, and as a result the American and world public never really understood. Nobody ever got it. Iraq wasn’t just another city in the US or in Europe.

And as a result US and European citizens can share no connection to and no pride whatsoever in what those of us in Iraq have accomplished. You can’t feel it, because you’ve never seen it. And those of us who have experienced it have few ways to convey it to you so you can relate to it and share it with us. There’s a pretty hollow feeling that comes with that. It’s like being a sixteen year old and winning a big talent contest, but your parents weren’t there to see....

And I'm bitter too. I've been following the scraps of these stories that surface, and knowing all along there's a lot more going on...

....Most of us took our risks because we had to to complete our jobs. Others did so because we sincerely believed in what we were doing. For many if not most, we ultimately did so for both reasons. So it is difficult for us to watch or read much of what is reported here in the States. It is even harder to watch that same media mention their own "bravery and dedication" on those rare occasions when reporters would actually leave the safety of their burrows and venture out in clean flak jackets to cover some well-secured scene.

This didn’t go completely unnoticed by others who mentioned it on returning to the States. The media’s excuse has been that they are prime targets for armed thugs that routinely look for westerners to kidnap or kill. These people do exist and they are truly deadly. But far more contractors or Iraqi and third-nation workers employed by them have been killed, wounded, kidnapped, or raped, than journalists.

More international aid workers have been killed, wounded, or kidnapped, than journalists. More Iraqi doctors, police, government workers, social aid workers, teachers, government leaders, lawyers, businessmen and religious leaders have been individually targeted, killed, wounded, raped, or kidnapped than journalists. So as it works out, journalists aren't as high up on the hit list as they claim to be. But that hasn't moved them to go out and actually do their jobs, nor has it stopped them from trumpeting their own bravery, dedication, and ... uhhh ... integrity. ...

The news producers are only interested in the reconstruction projects if there's a hint that Halliburton has screwed up, and then only so they can tell lies about the Vice-President. Same for lefty-bloggers and left-politicians. The toads are not worthy to clean the boots of the brave men and women who serve our country around the globe in the messy dangerous work that actually accomplishes things and helps people.

Come to think, we never did find Lucy...

As you are probably already aware, the Haditha story is starting to get some interesting critical scrutiny. A good piece to read is: Haditha: Is McGirk the New Mary Mapes?

....The sum and substance of this thumbnail sketch on the Haditha claims is that it follows so closely the template for the TANG and Plame stories. Take a reporter with an anti-Administration agenda, an interested group (think of the Mashhadanis as the VIPS in the Plame case or Burkett and Lucy Ramirez in the TANG case) and a story too good to be checked and circumstances where the people attacked are limited in what they can quickly respond to and you get a story which smells to me like it will soon be unraveled.

This time, I’m betting the consequences to the press which rushed to judgment will be more disastrous than it was to Dan Rather. I surely hope so....

Me too. Oh Please please please. Even if the Marines are guilty, the actions of our press (with a few honorable exceptions) have been utterly foul and treasonous. They have already convicted, and are already gloating about how this will help put their party into power. And even worse, they are hungry to convict America, and ever eager to minimize the crimes of terrorists and Islamists. They are on the other side.

It makes me want to just spit with fury to see how eager they are to defame our troops, who have acted with more restraint and care than probably any army in history, and suffered many deaths by being careful not to harm civilians. Our guys in WWII would have flattened Haditha with hardly a moment's hesitation. Called in the artillery, or gone in behind tanks, tossing dynamite into basements.

Lafayette Baker, come back, come back, come back. Your country needs you.

Update: TIME is issuing retractions on various details of their big "scoop." The retractions, of course, are buried where no one is likely to see them...except that, these days, there are these things called "weblogs"...Too bad, suckers.

Marshes destroyed by thoughtlessness...

Wretchard points to this invitation to a conference by the Harvard Design School, MESOPOTAMIAN MARSHES & MODERN DEVELOPMENT: Practical Approaches for Sustaining Restored Ecological & Cultural Landscapes

...The Mesopotamian Marshes, located between the Tigres and Euphrates Rivers in southern Iraq, were historically one of the world's most important wetland environments. The area of once over 20,000 square kilometers—thought by some to be the original Garden of Eden—provided habitat for millions of migrating birds and has been inhabited since the time of the Sumerians by thousands of people living on artificial islands of mud and reeds and depending on sustainable fishing and farming. Since the early 1990s, however, this important ecological and unique cultural jewel has been devastated by a series of thoughtless dam constructions and deliberate water diversions that has led to what many have come to regard as one of the most severe “ecocides” in human history...

I guess I'm glad to see anyone helping on this matter, which is near to my heart. And I guess the price we have to pay to enlist the help of the superior beings at Harvard is to never mention Saddam Hussein! No no, the Marshes were spoiled by "thoughtless dam constructions." It's funny how absent-minded people can be, especially when building dams.

I know how to re-build the marshes! We will declare that they were destroyed by a fascist-Republican conspiracy led by George W Bush. The the environmentalist organizations and the Europeans and Al Gore will then fling themselves into a spirited effort at restoration. (The Marsh Arabs would have to give up cigarettes, of course, but that's a small price to pay.)

Wretchard also links to this article which indicates that recovery of those areas that have been re-flooded is better than expected. Fascinating. And it's maddening how little information we get. One of the biggest environmental stories of our time, but news? No way. Our vile news media is on the other side, and the only "enemy" to be fought is the President of the USA. The crimes of Saddam go into the Memory Hole.

The real American crime in Iraq...

Actually, if you want an American crime, this is the real thing. From an NYT article on those investigating the mass graves of Iraq:

....What happened here is not only a macabre marker in the history of Iraq under Mr. Hussein, but a harrowing footnote in American politics. The victims here, American and Iraqi officials say, died in Mr. Hussein's suppression of the Shiite uprising across southern Iraq in early 1991. It was a rebellion that survivors — and American critics of the President George H. W. Bush — say that the president encouraged after halting American troops at Iraq's southern border with Kuwait at the end of the Persian Gulf war.

For years, Middle East experts have debated Mr. Bush's role in encouraging Iraq's Shiites and Kurds to mount a challenge to Mr. Hussein after the war over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait ended, before ruling out American military action to halt the mass killings of Shiites that Mr. Hussein initiated to crush the uprising. Mr. Bush himself has said that what happened to the Shiites was one of the deepest regrets of his presidency.

For the American forensic experts who came to Iraq after the 2003 invasion, the desert camp is a way station toward holding Mr. Hussein accountable for what many Iraqi human rights experts say was the most merciless passage in his 24 years in power.

Raid Juhi, chief investigative judge for the Iraqi court now trying Mr. Hussein in another case, said during a visit here on Saturday that the court had documentary evidence, and statements from witnesses, showing that at least 100,000 Shiites, and possibly 180,000, died in the 1991 repression....

I have blogged often about why the Iraq Campaign was a smart move, the best second step of the War. I should have emphasized more that it was also a moral necessity.

Neither sort of argument would, of course, make any dent upon the frauds of the "anti-war" movement. Nor do the mass-graves, no matter how many are excavated.

The unreported story...

The incident at Haditha is still being investigated. If the marines did murder civilians, it was a terrible thing, and they should and will be punished.

But the press and the anti-American Left is already drooling over the story, and has already convicted, and is already telling lies. (See this by Hugh Hewitt, where he interviews Gen Bahms, whose words were misrepresented by the WaPo.)

But incidents like this, or Abu Ghraib, or My Lai, always have another story that they cast like a shadow, a sort of anti-story. And that story is NEVER REPORTED.

There are two parts to the unreported story.

One is that the tactics of the Viet Cong, or the "insurgents" in Iraq, are intended to provoke atrocities. The My Lai Massacre story is still being told--my son learned about it in school--but it's never mentioned that the Viet Cong routinely used civilians to cover their attacks, and routinely pretended to be civilians. These are war crimes, they were committed daily, but get no attention from the sort of people who are eager to find American war crimes. And the explicit intention of these war crimes, taught by the Soviets, was to provoke attacks on civilians.

Similarly, there is very little mention of the terrorists in Iraq or Afghanistan using schools and mosques and civilian crowds for their attacks. It is virtually unreported that Abu Ghraib prison was under frequent mortar and rocket attack by the terrorists, and at the same time we were humiliating some prisoners, they were killing and maiming them by the hundreds! Kinda spoils the artistic effect of the story to put in those extraneous details...

Second, the other part of the unreported story is that, for every My Lai (or Haditha, or Abu Ghraib) there were tens of thousands of My Lais that didn't happen. Daily incidents that didn't result in any massacres. Another tiresome detail best left out, so as not to spoil ones Pulitzer possibilities.

And you know what's going to make me really furious, if this works out the way these things have in the past? Not the blatant Left who will be crowing and high-fiving over this, but the hypocritical Left, who will pretend to be "heartbroken," and to be "devastated" that the "American they love could have fallen so low," and "our military's honor be so besmirched." Foul liars. They never show the slightest interest in the (infinitely greater numbers of) good deeds our soldiers do, so they have not the slightest right to pretend that they care.

Oh, and Third. It occurs to me that there is another part to the unreported story. The tactics of our enemies (and similarly the enemies of Israel, or Britain or Australia) testify to the simple fact that we are the good guys. They only work because we care. We would never try to provoke the terrorists into massacring civilians--why bother, they do it voluntarily all the time, and the press and the Left don't care about those civilians anyway.

This whole story is based on the fact that we are the good guys, and the Left and the press is allied with our enemies to use this against us.

Correction: The interview with General Bahms was by Mary Katherine Ham. She co-blogs at Hugh Hewitt's blog.

Anomaly...

OK, whatever your theory of life and the Cosmos is, I'm guessing this data point doesn't fit your template. (Which pleases me. There are still mysteries!)

JOHN BERMAN, ABCNews, May 19, 2006 — I have been to Iraq nine times since the American invasion three years ago, for a total of about 10 solid months. (My wife is counting.) During that time, I have seen bombs and blood, I have seen rebuilding and restructuring, and I have seen death and democracy. So what have I heard? That's easy: Lionel Richie.

Grown Iraqi men get misty-eyed by the mere mention of his name. "I love Lionel Richie," they say. Iraqis who do not understand a word of English can sing an entire Lionel Richie song....

....I decided I had to investigate, and not just investigate, I decided I had to ask Lionel Richie himself. So I called him from Baghdad. Actually it was a formal interview. It was the first interview with Lionel Richie ever on the subject of Iraq and Iraqis.

I asked Richie if he knows just how big he is here. He said, "The answer is, I'm huge, huge in the Arab world. The answer as to why is, I don't have the slightest idea."

He has performed in Morocco, Dubai, Qatar and Libya. There is obviously something up there. The more we talked, the more he theorized as to the reasons his music might be so popular here. He thinks it is because of the simple message in his music: Love.

Richie says he was told Iraqis were playing "All Night Long," on the streets the night U.S. tanks rolled into the country in 2003.....

It was indeed a true tale...

Last February I blogged the letter from the Mayor of Tal Afar, Iraq, thanking the people of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment for saving his city from terrorists.

But I wondered at the time whether I could trust its authenticity. Perhaps it was just an Internet fake? I've been burned before. I concluded, rightly, that it was too widespread, and so, if it were a fake, someone would have called it, and that news would also be spreading across the blogosphere (though not so fast as a good lie does.)

Here's a better confirmation. The mayor is visiting Fort Carson, to thank 3d ACR in person!

...."Thank you."

It was a telling gesture from Tal Afar Mayor Najim Al Jibouri, who spoke for about 20 minutes in his native tongue praising the 3rd Armored Cavalry for saving his city from certain ruin.

It was his first trip to the United States, arriving via Washington, D.C., then coming to Colorado Springs with his wife and son.

The mayor was invited as a part of a welcoming ceremony at Fort Carson for those who had just finished another tour in Iraq.

Al Jibouri, dressed in a black suit with a lavender tie, said he was glad to be back among them.

"Are you truly my friends?" he asked through a translator. "Yes. I walk a happier man because you are my friends. You are the world to me. I smell the sweet perfume that emanates from your flower of your strength, honor and greatness in every corner of Tal Afar. The nightmares of terror fled when the lion of your bravery entered our city."...(From Rocky Mountain News. Thanks to Orrin Judd)

Rocky Mountain News, OK. I bet the story doesn't spread to the big papers. Now if the mayor criticized the USA, that would be "news." If not, not.

Triumph!

Washington Post: Iraqi Parliament Approves New Cabinet: May 20--Iraq's parliament swore in its full-term prime minister and his cabinet Saturday, a political milestone U.S. leaders hope will allow a new government to begin solving the country's problems and lead to the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops...

This is a splendid moment folks! As has happened many times in the past few years, the nay-sayers have been proved wrong, and George W Bush and his supporters have been vindicated. And the people of Iraq have once again repudiated the sneering democracy-hating leftists who said, wishfully, that their hopes of freedom were doomed.

<obligatory disclaimer>Of course Iraq will hit many rough patches in the years to come, and might even fail </obligatory disclaimer> But I predict that Iraq will continue to justify our faith,and there will be more moments like this to look forward to.

And it is also easy to predict that our despicable America-hating news media will continue to underplay any American triumph, especially if it might help Republicans. If you think I'm exaggerating, just read the article. One sentence of good news, "balanced" by the entire rest of the article being filled with any bad news that they could scrape up, with almost no positive information about the new Government. They've done their duty for their bosses at the DNC.

Even the one picture that accompanies the article is not of the new Prime Minister, but of a funeral some some guy in the Al-Mahdi Army, killed by police (Good for them).

And even that one sentence is stupidly snarky and negative. "a political milestone U.S. leaders hope will allow a new government to begin solving the country's problems" What crap. the Iraqis have already made enormous strides in solving their problems. Read this, if you doubt me.

Oh well, the annoyance is a small matter compared to knowing that I'm on the winning side, and the terrorist/news-media/Democrat Alliance is losing.

Vee haf VAYS of teaching you to bicycle...

You must read--you've probably already read--Amir Taheri's assessment of Iraq. this is one interesting point (out of many)...

....Their critique can be summarized in the aphorism that democracy cannot be imposed by force. It is a view that can be found among the more sophisticated elements on the Left and, increasingly, among dissenters on the Right, from Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska to the ex-neoconservative Francis Fukuyama. As Senator Hagel puts it, You cannot in my opinion just impose a democratic form of government on a country with no history and no culture and no tradition of democracy.

I would tend to agree. But is Iraq such a place? In point of fact, before the 1958 pro-Soviet military coup detat that established a leftist dictatorship, Iraq did have its modest but nevertheless significant share of democratic history, culture, and tradition. The country came into being through a popular referendum held in 1921. A constitutional monarchy modeled on the United Kingdom, it had a bicameral parliament, several political parties (including the Ba'ath and the Communists), and periodic elections that led to changes of policy and government. At the time, Iraq also enjoyed the freest press in the Arab world, plus the widest space for debate and dissent in the Muslim Middle East.

To be sure, Baghdad in those days was no Westminster, and, as the 1958 coup proved, Iraqi democracy was fragile. But every serious student of contemporary Iraq knows that substantial segments of the population, from all ethnic and religious communities, had more than a taste of the modern world's democratic aspirations. As evidence, one need only consult the immense literary and artistic production of Iraqis both before and after the 1958 coup. Under successor dictatorial regimes, it is true, the conviction took hold that democratic principles had no future in Iraq, a conviction that was responsible in large part for driving almost five million Iraqis, a quarter of the population, into exile between 1958 and 2003, just as the opposite conviction is attracting so many of them and their children back to Iraq today...

Actually, I think the argument "democracy cannot be imposed by force" is fallacious. It's an example of a "strawman argument." Nobody is, in fact, imposing democracy by force--it's always invitational. The voters can always stay home, or vote for the most anti-democratic party. But they never do.

Not only is this a strawman, but the truism is itself, I think, false. All humans "get" democracy; it's part of our natures. We can all do it. The argument is like saying "you can't impose bicycle-riding by force." In fact, you could, and if you did, almost all able-bodied people would learn to ride bicycles. What you can't do by force is keep people from falling down while learning.

Keep in mind...

You've probably noticed the people who are saying that, if we attack Iran, the Iranian-led terror groups will attack our troops in Iraq? Keep in mind that these are the same people who have been insisting that the "insurgency" is a purely domestic Iraqi movement, that arose only because of our horrid blunders...

(Of course, even if it is true that we face attacks in Iraq---I suspect it is a lot of wishful thinking---that's a reason to favor an attack, not avoid it. The idea that in a war you should avoid attacking because you might be counter-attacked is suicidal idiocy.)

They carry medallions in their pockets...

One of the things that pisses me off most, when I think of the Abu Ghraib scandal, is all the phonies and liars who claimed to be "heartbroken," or "So disappointed in America," or "I'm so sad our military has lost its honor" or "this country is not what it used to be."

How do I know they are phonies and liars? Am I just making wild accusations, or do I have evidence? (OF COURSE I have evidence! I ALWAYS have evidence. You read Random J, you get the straight dope, with no BS.)

IF, if if if, those people did, as they claimed, care about America, and about the honor of our military, etc etc., then they would also be looking for the GOOD in America, and the GOOD in our military, and stories like this would recieve wide publicity. This is from The Faith of the American Soldier, by Stephen Mansfield, page 156:

....It worked. Both through the reforms that the military enacted to correct the scandals, and through the proactive ministries of the new chaplains, Abu Ghraib has been transformed. Chaplain Taylor explained that there have been no further abuses and that, in fact, the prison has become a model success story. Attendence at chapel services reaches into the hundreds. Now, many of the soldiers stationed at Abu Ghraib with the 391st [Military Police Battalion, from Columbus, Ohio] carry medallions in their pockets that express their pride in the opportunity to live down the negative stigma of the prison. The slogan on the coin defines their newfound sense of mission. It says simply, "Restoring America's Honor."....

"Restoring America's Honor." Well, you could have predicted it. But they won't get any praise from media or leftiests or "pacifists", because this story doesn't fit the Party Line. And the harpies who gorged on Abu Ghraib don't want America's honor restored. They hate America. When Abu Ghraib hit the news, they swelled up to twice their size, and their eyes glowed, and they made little smacking noises with their lips (metaphorically speaking).

And, by the way, they were also liars and hypocrites when they claimed to feel sorry for the poor prisoners. At the same time the scandal was happening, hundreds of those prisoners were being killed or maimed by mortar attacks on the prison by terrorists. None of the sob-sisters ever mentioned that, or gave the slightest bit of criticism to the terrorists. They never do.

The raft of state...

From an article bout Secretary of State Rice's trip to England, 'Tactical Errors' Made In Iraq, Rice Concedes:

...But in response to a question about whether the administration had learned from its mistakes over the past three years, she said officials would be "brain-dead" if they did not recognize where they had erred.

"I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them I'm sure," Rice said. "But when you look back in history, what will be judged is, did you make the right strategic decisions."...

This is so right, so smart, that it makes my head spin to think that brain-dead lefties will probably seize on it as an admission of something being wrong.

• Every big difficult undertaking will involve lots of mistakes.
• Every war America has ever fought started with lots of mistakes.
• Doing anything in this new millennium is likely to include mistakes, because we are all of us groping our way through a trackless and shifting landscape.
• In almost anything you attempt, it is better to get the strategic decisions right, as opposed to the tactical ones. A drunk weaving his way down the right street to get home is better off than an intrepid hiker taking the wrong street.
• In the long run, those who leap into problems and experiment and learn from failures are going to get farther than those masterminds who devise perfect plans to avoid all mistakes. To borrow a metaphor, the first group is like a raft that moves slowly and unglamorously. The second is like a ship that moves with speed. Until it hits a rock. Then it sinks.

"We could have been living in a different world"

Mike Plaiss sent a link to this piece by Christopher Hitchins, and wrote, "Skip to the very last line if you want - its beautiful, and sounds like something you may have written..." Well, he's too kind about my writing, to compare it to Hitchins. But the ideas expressed are just right...

.....So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.

Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations' secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.

Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.

do read it all..

Worth noting...

Ralph Peters of the NY Post, is in Iraq, and writes:

AMONG the many positive stories you aren't being told about Iraq, the media ignored another big one last week: In the wake of the terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, it was the Iraqi army that kept the peace in the streets.

It's routinely declared a failure by those who yearn for the new Iraq to fail. But an increasingly capable Iraqi military has been developing while reporters (who never really investigated the issue) wrote it off as hopeless.

What actually happened last week, as the prophets of doom in the media prematurely declared civil war?

* The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets.

* Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.

* Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war.

* Forty-seven battalions drawn from all 10 of Iraq's army divisions took part in an operation that, above all, aimed at reassuring the public. The effort worked - from the luxury districts to the slums, the Iraqis were proud of their army.....

If you've studied much military history, you will know that creating an army is extremely difficult. Creating an Arab army that can come close to Western standards, especially US and Israeli standards has never been done. This is actually a huge rebuke to those who think that the Arab world is incapable of change, and are doomed to be our enemies, all of them.

And yes, yes, I know that lots of things can still go wrong. But if I had said a couple of years ago that a major upheaval in Iraq in early 2006 would be dealt with without the need for US intervention, and without any (that I've heard of) failures or mistakes by the Iraqi Army, most people would have called me a crazy dreamer.

Bush did not lie...

Here's a good editorial in Investor's Business Daily, on the Saddam tapes:

...Inconveniently for critics of the war, Saddam made tapes in his version of the Oval Office. These tapes landed in the hands of American intelligence and were recently aired publicly.

The first 12 hours of the tapes — there are hundreds more waiting to be translated — are damning, to say the least. They show conclusively that Bush didn't lie when he cited Saddam's WMD plans as one of the big reasons for taking the dictator out.

Nobody disputes the tapes' authenticity. On them, Saddam talks openly of programs involving biological, chemical and, yes, nuclear weapons.

War foes have long asserted that Saddam halted his WMD programs in the wake of his defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991. Saddam's abandonment of WMD programs was confirmed by subsequent U.N. inspections.

Again, not true. In a tape dating to April 1995, Saddam and several aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq's biological weapons program. On the tape, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors.

"We did not reveal all that we have," he says. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct."

There's more. Indeed, as late as 2000, Saddam can be heard in his office talking with Iraqi scientists about his ongoing plans to build a nuclear device. At one point, he discusses Iraq's plasma uranium program — something that was missed entirely by U.N. weapons inspectors combing Iraq for WMD.

This is particularly troubling, since it indicates an active, ongoing attempt by Saddam to build an Iraqi nuclear bomb. "What was most disturbing," said John Tierney, the ex- FBI agent who translated the tapes, "was the fact that the individuals briefing Saddam were totally unknown to the U.N. Special Commission (or UNSCOM, the group set up to look into Iraq's WMD programs)."

Perhaps most chillingly, the tapes record Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz talking about how easy it would be to set off a WMD in Washington. The comments come shortly after Saddam muses about using "proxies" in a terror attack.... (my emphasis)

The idea that Saddam had lost interest in WMD's, and was not a danger, was always a shit-stupid one. Now all sorts of information is oozing to the surface. The people pushing the "Bush lied" line were either liars themselves, or people who desperately didn't want to know. The truth is painful, and all sorts of pacifist fairy-tale castles and bureaucratic empires are endangered by it.

"those who felt like doing something have done what they've done"

Interesting, from Omar at Iraq the Model:

Curfew extended in Baghdad and three other provinces.
The defense minister in a press conference currently on Iraqi TV gave statistics to correct what he described as "exaggerated media reports" about civilian casualties and attacks on mosques since the attack on the Samarra shrine:

Mosques attacked/shot at without damage: 21 not 51
Moderately damaged: