Justice, Closure and a Message

Austin Bay has appropriate thought on Saddam's execution. (bold my emphasis)

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The next to last thing Saddam ever expected was a hangman’s noose. The last thing he expected, of course, was a fair trial.

The Strong Man expects to die in one of two ways — with a nine millimeter ballot (ie, assassination) — or old age. That has certainly been the case in the Middle East. A public, legal trial followed by court-sentenced execution? That isn’t going to happen unless…unless a democracy replaces a tyranny. This is astonishing news — history altering news. For centuries the terrible yin-yang of tyrant and terrorist has trapped the Middle East. In 2003 the US-led coalition began the difficult but worthy effort of breaking that tyrant’s and terrorist’s trap, and offering another choice in the politically dysfunctional Arab Muslim Middle East.

...
In Spring 2005 the democratic project in the Middle East had momentum — and we (the US) didn’t follow through by sufficiently supporting Lebanese democrats. But let’s not draw arcs on canvas. History is fits and starts and often three point nine steps back for four forwards. It’s a fight. “War is a series of catastrophes that results in victory” (Georges Clemenceau great line).

...
I don’t like capital punishment but I support it. (I do believe all life is sacred.) I think war is wrong but I’ve waged it. To say the least, this world isn’t an easy place. That obvious case stipulated, in my opinion dictators like Saddam don’t understand mercy. (For the megalomaniac it’s all about me.) Tyrants like Saddam are self-absorbed and narcissistic. Show them mercy and at best they interpet mercy as a recognition of their own superiority– a reinforcement of their ability to survive. Mass murderers like Saddam are the men who have earned execution. Execution is their one moment of enlightenment. Read the Newsweek article. Saddam quaked. And the whim of another Strong Man didn’t do him in; he went through a legal process, where he had his say.
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That's right. He quaked. He was scared. He was helpless. He was powerless. And nothing can be more foreign or more freighting to a dictator.

Signals

At Iraq The Model, Iraqi blogger Mohammed discusses the talk in Iraq about the "policy change" pending in Iraq.

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"Oh Iraqis, just listen to what your American enemies are saying these days and you'll know that victory is close…" this is a slogan among many others we hear everyday on one of the terrorists' mouthpieces. ...

It's neither new nor unexpected from our region's leaders and politicians ... to misread signals coming from American or western statements. We'd always lacked clear strategic vision in our region ... because it's rare to see intellectuals or reasonable thinkers given a real role in governance. ...

... Apparently here, the leaders got it this way: that the change in strategy would be from one of victory to one of exit.

To put it simply; saying that a policy that aims at ridding the world of regimes and criminals such as Saddam, al-Qaeda, Ahmadinejad or Assad is a wrong policy that breeds extremism is utterly stupid.
I personally do not think that America changed its policy from victory to exit but I see that it hasn't been good at expressing its intentions nor sending the right signals, and when I say right I mean clear even to those who have a problem understanding things.
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Of coarse the enemy will translate "change" into "surrender". That's how they fight - misinformation, propaganda. That's how they stay motivated. That's how they keep fear in the eyes of the population. But they were going to say that from whatever information they are getting. Of coarse, if there wasn't a deluge of this information, they wouldn't be able to use it as a weapon. If there wasn't a steady stream of "cut-and-run", it would be harder for them to claim victory, or at least progress. If "cut-and-run" were a minor view-point, their claim of victory would be hollow. But seeing as the established media has proclaimed that the "cut-and-run" crowd has taken control of the county, what other conclusion can the enemy come to?

The policy change will be harsh on the enemy. But the message will not be clear to those that are mislead by the mainstream media. Watch the blogs for information from the ground. And make up your own mind.

Gruesome

Iraqi soldiers eat frogs, rabbit at handover ceremony

What's far more disgusting about this article is that, for a story that should have headlined progress toward victory in Iraq (handing over control of a former "triangle of death city", the media could only shock it's audience by headlining a gruesome tradition.

HT: BA

Iraq News

At Winds of Change, there is a wrap up of news over the last week from Iraq. It's not all roses. It's a broad spectrum of good and bad. It's a little slice of real. (HT: Winds of War)

From this article, you can link to Bill Roggio, whom I a have blogged about before. He is reporting on patrol with the Iraqi Army:

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Lt Cortez, Cpl Curcell, Amir and I joined 14 jundis from 3 Company for today's morning patrol in southwestern Fallujah. The patrol kicked off after a 7:30 briefing, and started through the tall reeds, date palm groves and small farms running along the banks of the Euphrates. Insurgents have planted bombs along the path in the past, we walked by the location where one was detonated just last week. Also, in the past sniper fire has been encountered from the east. There were no such problems today.

...

The patrol was largely uneventful from the jundi's perspective. Several Fallujans called the lieutenant over to provide information. The Iraqi soldier's ability to develop local intelligence networks, understand the language and culture and know the lay of the land far outweighs any tactical deficiencies they may have. “They can tell who's not from the area – who's from Mosul, or Tikrit or Ramadi – just by their accent, and they can tell when someone's lying,” said Cpl Burcell.

But Fallujah wasn't quiet during the patrol...

Justification

From James Lileks (via. Instapundit)

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It was about Iran and Israel, I gathered; another day, another speech threatening to wipe Israel off the map. It’s interesting: if the Holocaust “conference” decides that the Holocaust didn’t happen, well, then the justification for Israel is specious and founded on lies, and the mullahs are justified in redressing a mistake. I have the awful feeling that terms, conditions and justifications are being set right before our eyes, and the putative leaders seem unwilling to acknowledge what most canny observers infer.

It’ll all make horrible sense. In retrospect.

I'm not one for conspiracies

And usually Charles Krauthammer is not either...

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The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, renegade Russian spy and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin's government, is everywhere being called a mystery. There is dark speculation about unnamed "rogue elements" either in the Russian secret services or among ultranationalists acting independently of the government. There are whispers about the indeterminacy of things in the shadowy netherworld of Russian exile politics, crime and espionage.
...

Some say that the Litvinenko murder was so obvious, so bold, so messy -- five airplanes contaminated, 30,000 people alerted, dozens of places in London radioactive -- that it could not possibly have been the KGB.

But that's the beauty of it. Do it obvious, do it brazen, and count on those too-clever-by-half Westerners to find that exonerating. ...

The other reason for making it obvious and brazen is to send a message. This is a warning to all the future Litvinenkos of what awaits them if they continue to go after the Russian government. They'll get you even in London, where there is the rule of law. And they'll get you even if it makes negative headlines for a month.
...

But even Litvinenko's personal smallness serves the KGB's purposes precisely. If they go to such lengths and such messiness and such risk to kill someone as small as Litvinenko, then no critic of the Putin dictatorship is safe. It is the ultimate in deterrence.

A Bad Spell

Any more references to Victor Davis Hanson, here and I'm going to have to buy a tee shirt. Read the whole thing.

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We, deliberately or inadvertently, have empowered our enemies this last month or so by the Rumsfeld departure, the grandstanding comments about failure in the Gates confirmation hearing, the Bolton resignation, and now the Iraq Study Group, all of which conspired to convey the image of an overripe, juicy American plum easy to be picked off by assorted enemies. Which brings us back to …

The Baker Commission…

Upate: Bits I found relevent:

There is the obviously accurate diagnosis of the problem that a weak elected government in Iraq has been able neither to provide enough basic services to the people to ensure their support, nor to marshal the will to kill the jihadists—given various Shiite and Sunni militias’ infection of the government itself.

But while accurately describing symptoms and forming a diagnosis, most of its other recommended therapy and prognosis are surreal. ...

Does anyone really believe that Syria and Iran, at least in the short-term, abhor chaos in Iraq?... Only a perceived mess in Iraq keeps the attention of the United States and, indeed, the world community away from Teheran...

why are there not terrorists attacks originating from Syria on the Golan Heights? ... The answer probably is deterrence; that is, Syria knows that a single Israel plane might in response take out the power grid of Damascus for a year or so.

...the Assad regime use surrogates in Lebanon or the West Bank that offer deniability of culpability of sorts. After all, hit back at the West Bank and you only add to the “misery” of the poor “refugees” and end up on CNN. ...

We forget that the jihadist websites are still worried about Iraq, both the losses suffered there, and the emergence of a democratic government. We think we are not winning, but so do they think they aren’t either.
...

..pouring in more manpower will only exacerbate the situation. Right now with all coalition troops and Iraqi security forces combined, we must be nearing 450,000-500,000 soldiers pitted against perhaps 10,000 terrorists. Thus the problem is not numbers per se, but the conditions of engagement under which the enemy finds advantage regardless of numerical inferiority.

I've said it before

"They're in it for the ratings."

I can't say as I can disagree. Why don't I read MSM? Because I don't trust them. Their facts don't check (alt media tells me). Their logic is flawed. But I do watch Fox News, and one reason is that I agree with most of what they are saying. So am I watch because they are telling me what I already agree with so it feels good, or is it because I feel like I'm getting the truth, from which I can make my own decisions. "You decide."

Blame biased readers, not biased journalists

Judge not on today, but on history

If you follow the alternative media (which you may if you ended up here), you will start to see stories like this about Donald Rumsfeld (Exit Rumsfeld, Smiling). You won't be surprised to see such stories because in this media you will find those who look beyond tomorrow and yesterday. Those that get their news (like it or not) from the mainstream media won't appreciate such broad sweeping analysis - they won't remember when their source for the "truth" was wrong because they were rushing to judgment for a story and a rating.

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... accomplishments ranging from bringing ballistic missile defense from theory to reality to transformation of the military from a Cold War garrison force to the flexible forces needed to fight the war we're in. Add to that the rapid overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam regimes, positioning America to deal with the rise of China, subtract Bush's unwillingness to take the battle to the enemy's centers of gravity, and Rumsfeld's record will be seen as imperfect, but one that may prove him to have been our best Secretary of Defense. ...

After 9-11, the president wanted to hit the Taliban hard, fast and decisively. But Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki insisted that almost the entire army had to be deployed to do it, and that would take several months. Rumsfeld and the other military leaders crafted a plan to take us to war - and to victory -- in weeks. America attacked the Taliban in early October 2001 and the Shinseki army - except for Army Special Forces and helo forces -- stayed home. By December the regime was toppled. Then began the media's contrivance of stories - possibly in collusion with congressional Democrats - about Rumsfeld's supposed failures that have led to everything from Usama bin Laden's escape to the mess in Mesopotamia.

The media suffered a panic attack at the beginning of the Afghan and Iraq wars. When our forces paused in the advance toward Baghdad, the media panicked. Reports said we're pausing, so we must be in trouble, we're running out of ammo, food and even water. There aren't enough troops. The war plan was wrong, and we have to stop, we're in Vietnam, another quagmire. The media were proven so wrong so quickly and so decisively that even they were embarrassed and they've never forgiven Rumsfeld for it. Their revenge is in the contrivance of fables about him.

WWII and WoT

Writing at Real Clear Politics, Victor Davis Hanson discusses Pearl Harbor and WWII with 9-11 and the War on Terror.

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So far the United States has encouraged its citizens to shop rather than sacrifice. The subtext is that we can defeat the terrorists and their autocratic sponsors with just a fraction of our available manpower - ensuring no real disruption in our lifestyles. That certainly wasn't the case with the Depression-era generation who fought World War II.

And in those days, peace and reconstruction followed rather than preceded victory. In tough-minded fashion, we offered ample aid to, and imposed democracy on, war-torn nations only after the enemy was utterly defeated and humiliated. Today, to avoid such carnage, we try to help and reform countries before our enemies have been vanquished -putting the cart of aid before the horse of victory.

...

A stronger, far more affluent United States believes it can use less of its power against the terrorists than a much poorer America did against the formidable Japanese and Germans.

World War II, which saw more than 400,000 Americans killed, was not nearly as controversial or frustrating as one that has so far taken less than one-hundredth of that terrible toll.

And after Pearl Harbor, Americans believed they had no margin of error in an elemental war for survival. Today, we are apparently convinced that we can lose ground, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, and still not lose either the war or our civilization.

The F-lying Imams

If you haven't heard, the 6 imams who were thrown of the plate for "praying" staged the event in order to make headlines.

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As we first suspected, the six imams bounced from a US Airways flight misled the public about the incident and likely staged the whole thing as a scheme to weaken security.
...

The imams acted more like provocateurs than victims. At the gate before boarding, they angrily cursed the U.S. Then they bowed to Mecca and prayed "very loud," chanting "Allah, Allah, Allah," according to the gate agent and another witness.

On the plane, they didn't take their assigned seats and instead fanned out to the front, middle and rear of the plane. One even "pretended to be blind" to gain access to another passenger's seat, according to a flight attendant.

Some ran back and forth speaking to each other in Arabic. Adding to suspicions, most of them asked for seat belt extensions even though they didn't need them — or even use them.

Yet the ringleader, Omar Shahin, claimed before the police report was released that they "did nothing" unusual. "It's obvious discrimination," he insisted

...

If it were an orchestrated stunt to create public sympathy and force airports to look the other way when groups of Muslim men fly, it's working. The Minneapolis airport plans to add a prayer room for Muslims, and Democrats plan to hold hearings on Muslim profiling. This could have a chilling effect on efforts to investigate terror suspects in the Muslim community.

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Happy flying.

You want to support the troops?

If you really supported the troops, you'd at least acknowlegde their input. Bill Roggio has been embedding with the troops for years, and was previously in the war as a soldier. He has done some of the very best report of the war. As in independent reporter, he puts the words he hears on paper so you and I can decide. No spin. This report is a good example. It's about the soldiers he met or was in the presence of while on his way to Fallujah, Iraqi.

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At the transient tent (where you get to sleep and store your gear while waiting), I spoke to an Explosive Ordinance and Demolitions (EOD) contractor. These are the guys that blow up the leftover explosives and munitions from the Saddam era. He told me about how the media isn't telling the full story about the nature of the enemy, and specifically complained about the manipulation and distortion of the Kay report. He said he's run across bunkers and the equipment and chemical precursors to WMD buried in the deserts of western Iraq.

During a smoke break, an Army private discussed his time in Balad. He said mortars (which are blind-fired) are the greatest threat his unit faces. Not IEDs, I asked? Nope. While waiting to board the flight to BIAP, a Marine Major complained about how the progress in western Iraq has virtually gone unnoticed, and was furious over the characterization of the Devlin report on Anbar province...

...

In nearly every conversation, the soldiers, Marines and contractors expressed they were upset with the coverage of the war in Iraq in general, and the public perception of the daily situation on the ground. The felt the media was there to sensationalize the news, and several stated some reporters were only interested in “blood and guts.” They freely admitted the obstacles in front of them in Iraq. Most recognized that while we are winning the war on the battlefield, albeit with difficulties in some areas, we are losing the information war. They felt the media had abandoned them.
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I don't believe Iraq is close to being stable or safe. But I do put faith in this type of report. I put more faith in this report than I do a CNN report. Bill is not being paid to put his life on the line to tell us what he's experiencing. And we have seen several instances of the big news operations being inaccurate in their reporting, and (as with 90% of their reporting) it always sheds a bad light on the war. War is bad, but losing this war would be far worse. It wouldn't be the soldier who lose this war. It's up to you and I back home.

It couldn't be more clear?

Victor Davis Hanson is shouting "Fire" in a burning theater. But people are hoping it's not really buring, cuz the movie they are watching is really cool.

He notes a quote from the immenet leader of despotic Cuba
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If anyone wishes to understand the ripples of an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq, try reading Raul Castro’s public address in Havana, in which he announces the end of American global influence as evidenced by our inability to defeat the terrorists (e.g., “In the eyes of the world, the so-called “crusade on terrorism” is unavoidably heading down the path to a humiliating defeat.”). My favorite line is the enforcer of the Cuban Gulag sermonizing on Americans’ “secret prisons.”

....
But don’t we need some perspective on this new assessment of “lost”? What would these same critics say to Abraham Lincoln in May-June 1864 (“Each hour is but sinking us deeper into bankruptcy and desolation.”) when Grant’s Army of the Potomac tottered at the brink (Spotsylvania [ca. 18,000 casualties]; Cold Harbor [ca. 13,000 casualties]; Petersburg [ca. 12,000 casualties), prompting calls for an armistice on the basis of a status ante bellum, and the real prospect not just of Lincoln not winning the election of 1864, but perhaps not even receiving the Republican nomination? Or what would the pundits of the Kennedy School of Government or the Council on Foreign Relations have said about retreat from the Yalu River in November 1950 (ca. 14,000 casualties)? Korea is lost? We destabilized the Korean peninsula? We only empowered the real enemy Russia in Europe?

Lies become truth when they support your cause.

Another example of media incompetence. The rush for a sensational headline that doubles as "evidence" for their cause. In reality, it is a blow to the US in a war of information verses propaganda. Who's side is our media on?

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...six Iraqi Sunnis were dragged from a mosque in Baghdad last week, doused with kerosene, and burned to death by a Shia mob.
...

The Associated Press ran the dousing story on November 24 and the story was repeated world-wide....

Sensational, "headline-generating" elements absolutely jam the story: gruesome savagery, mob action, chaos in Iraq.

The AP identified "Police Captain Jamil Hussein" as its source for the story, with a second source identified as "a Sunni elder."

On November 25, the press office of Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNCI) published press release... stated that investigation showed only one mosque had been attacked and found no evidence to support the story of the six immolated Sunnis.

an email from MNCI to the AP that states "...neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the storyWe can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee."

...the AP has quoted "Jamil Hussein" in at least eight stories since April 2006.

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Before you read a story, know who's side they are on.

Victor Davis Hanson is writing regularly at PajamaMedia. Here he continues to state the obvious that a majority cannot see.

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The problems in Iraq, in the radical Middle East at large—with democratization, with nuclearization, with Islamism—are not, repeat not, a lack of dialogue with Syria and Iran.

We know what both rogue states wish and it is our exit from the Middle East and thus a free hand to undermine the newly established democracies of Lebanon and Iraq—in the manner that all autocracies must destroy their antitheses.

They both sponsor and harbor terrorists for a reason—to undermine anything Western: a Western-leaning Lebanese democracy, a Western-style democracy in Iraq, a Westernized Israel, or soldiers of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.

...democracy is as destabilizing to them as jihadism is to us...

...millions of us still out there who, Jacksonian in spirit, close ranks and will support our troops wherever they are. But we simply cannot ask Americans to die in Anbar province while talking to the Iranians and Syrians who are doing their best through surrogates in killing them.

Becuz the Jew taste gud

Yesterday, a member of the Lebanese cabinet was assassinated. This is part of the process by which Syria will retake control of the Lebanese government. And you can follow along at home with Michael Totten:

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UPDATE: ...The Hezbollah/Syrian axis has been trying to bring down the government by pressuring three more members to resign. One down, two to go. Looks like the coup d'etat is in progress.

UPDATE: Another member of Lebanon's political cabinet, Michel Pharaon was targetted with assassination today. He survived. But if the bastards had gotten him, the government would have fallen and stage one of the coup would be over.

UPDATE: Hezbollah is planning massive street "protests" on Thursday. Tony Badran notes: "This assassination will likely ensure that if such street rallies do take place, clashes would erupt, as it's clear that the Syrians are set on that. (Just another reminder for the idiots who believe Syria is a force of "stability.") Syria has a primary objective that outweighs everything else: kill the Hariri tribunal, and redominate Lebanon at any cost..."


UPDATE: Mary Madigan is frustrated with fools who want to sit down and "talk" (in other words, cut deals) with Syria and Iran:

Discussions about Middle East politics remind me of a bit from a comic, Pearls Before Swine. One of the characters is a Zebra, who can't understand why the lions keep eating his fellow Zebras. So, he writes a letter to the lions filled with philosophical questions about peace, understanding and the nature of being, asking why can't they all get along, why can't they be friends..

The answer comes back from the lions "we eat Zebras becuz you taste gud."

UPDATE: The UN Security Council approved the tribunal that will put the Assad regime and its Lebanese tools on trial.

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Oh, Great. The UN to the rescue. Isn't that how we got here? To those who wanted Israel to stop fighting, this is what it has become. The wound is festering, again, and soon it will be time for the painful task of cleaning out the wound, again, or risk losing the leg.

AD

I was directed to Jules Crittenden via Instapundit. Jules references MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction):

"It's a policy I call Assured Destruction, because unlike the Cold War, there doesn't have to be anything mutual about it. "

When I read this, I though, "He's probably right. Iran will nuke Israel, and we won't have the stone to "destroy" back. We'll fight our PC war in retaliation for the annihilation of a people."

But, as they say, "read the whole thing". Jules's policy is in the preceding paragraph:

"If in fact we find an actual nuclear weapon, or one explodes anywhere in the world, the Iranians -- and the North Koreans as well -- need to know that we will assume it was theirs, and act accordingly."

Funny (or sad) how the mind works....

It's how it ends that counts.

We're in Iraq so that it doesn't become an Afghanistan, an Iraq (under Saddam) or Iran or Syria or Hezbollah or Gaza....

From Investor's Business Daily:

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A nation that's defended Europe from aggression in the 60 years since World War II is asking why Iraq can't defend itself.
...

Yes, we should demand more of the Iraqis. But those who ask whether we can or should stop Iraqis from killing themselves forget that we're in this to stop others from killing us and using Iraq as a base camp from which to do it.

We've been Europe's security blanket for six decades. We are Japan's security blanket. We are South Korea's.

... We forget that this war really began when a truck bomb went off in the parking garage of the World Trade Center in 1993, nearly killing tens of thousands.

Iraqis — civilians, military and police — are risking their lives for their country every day, from the millions who proudly held up their purple fingers to the young police applicants who are murdered as they line up to serve their country. Then more line up in their place.

Are the Arabs ready for democracy or are they doomed by an ingrained tribalism? We need only to look at Lebanon, where a multicultural democracy once flourished. Beirut was called the Paris of the Middle East until the country became a human shield for the PLO and then Hezbollah terrorists supported by Syria and Iran.

The Lebanese might have sustained their multicultural democracy had we not cut and run after Hezbollah killed 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983, deciding we could no longer afford to be Lebanon's security blanket. Sometimes democracies need a little help from their friends.
...

Democracy is a fragile and rare commodity. We forget how close this government of the people and by the people actually came to perishing from the earth. It might not ever have come into being if a French fleet hadn't provided a security blanket at Yorktown.

Well, it didn't take long.

More Evidence that the Democrats are threatening to give in to the terrorists, from Andrew Olmsted. And if he's right, they want out, now, so that they don't have to deal with it in '08. And the mess pulling out creates can all be blamed on Bush.

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I see that the Democrats are now ready to start pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq. While I suppose this is no surprise, I'm disappointed to see it. The Democrats have rightly pointed out that Republicans acted without gathering all appropriate data, leading to problems like Iraq. Yet now they're poised to do precisely the same thing.

With all due respect to the Democratic leadership, I'd be impressed to learn that this move was being made on the basis of extensive discussion with military and political leaders from the U.S. and Iraq. I suspect instead that the Democrats have pretty much always wanted to be out of Iraq and want to get the question of Iraq off the table.
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Combine this with Pelosi's endorsement of Murtha for Majority Leader, and you see the new face of the US. A face I believe most of America does not want.

After Reflection, It's Time to Carry-on

Ok, so the republicans lost the majority. But we're still here. And we need to speak louder than before since we are not the balance.

As we feared, and as was stated by the conservative media, the Democrats have started to take steps and to indicate that they are going to surrender. They may not, still. They may not be able to with slim margins in the House and Senate. There are still many democrats who believe that we need to be victorious in Iraq. But the new leadership is sending out messages that they want hand victory to the enemy. A victory that will be far more painful that 9/11 some day.

Josh Treviño at The Claremont Institute writes:

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Kaplan's essay, reprinted here, invokes two military debacles of the recent past: Beirut in 1983, and Mogadishu in 1993. Each featured a shocking toll of Americans killed in spectacular fashion, and each saw a swift American withdrawal thereafter. The respective retreats were justified by the political leadership on the grounds that the American people had thereby turned against the mission. Kaplan demolishes this rationale, noting that in each case, American popular support for decisive action rose in the aftermath of the respective tragedies, collapsing only after the political leadership decided to withdraw. This pattern is shown to hold true even against the mythos of Vietnam: Americans turned away from that cause not because of the toll in young men, but because they lost their belief in the political leadership's will or ability to win.
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Don't let this history be repeated again. We know all too well what happened on 9/11.

Democracy Rules

As usual, there are plenty of people out there that can summarize how I feel about the election better than I. Below is just a couple at random. Bottom-line: Democracy at work. The country will benefit in the end. I have faith in our system.

Dean Barnett (Hugh Hewitt)
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Most importantly, we didn’t lose because our countrymen suddenly misplaced the virtues that make America great. It is a distinctly liberal trait to blame “the people” when they don’t vote as one would dictate. I’ll brook none of that from our side. The fact is, we thought our country would be better off with a Republican congress. We made a case to the American people. They didn’t buy it because they thought it was a weak case.

And you know what? They were right. In the closing weeks of the campaign season, I felt like I was a lawyer who had a bad client while writing this blog. That client was the Republican Party which had broken its Contract with America from 1994 and had become unmoored from its conservative principles. As its advocate, I couldn’t make a more compelling case for Republicans staying in power than the fact that the Democrats would be worse. I believed in that case, but when that’s all the party gave its advocates to work with, you can honestly conclude that Republicans got this drubbing the old fashioned way – we earned it.


And Bill Quick via Instapundit
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Remember: what happened last Tuesday wasn't a disaster. It was Democracy. It was a disaster only for those who believe that there should be one permanent ruling party, no matter how decadent, treacherous, and sleazy that party is.

Be of good cheer. The Republicans will be back in 2008, and much better for what happened to them in 2006.

Finally a couple quotes at Eject!Eject!Eject!
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"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." -- Teddy Roosevelt

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." -- Winston Churchill

Take 2: Israel vs. Lebanon (Hezbollah-Syria-Iran)

The Belmont Club refers to a Michael Totten article reporting on Lebanon. Michael sees war breaking out again in this region. And, as stated by Wretchard at the Belmont Club:

"Most people knew this would happen, including some I think, who called most loudly for a ceasefire. Not because they were malevolent but because of a deep-seated human desire to avoid a present unpleasantness even if it means worse in the future."

From Michael Totten:

Most Lebanese fear and loathe Hezbollah precisely because they fear Nasrallah points his guns at Beirut and Tel Aviv at the same time. NasrallahÂ’s current belligerence proves theyÂ’re correct.

The Israelis may have temporarily depleted HezbollahÂ’s arsenal stock, but it makes little difference. Syria and Iran are arming them all over again.

Charles Malik says sectarian clashes are a routine occurrence and are rarely mentioned in local or international media.

ThereÂ’s a case to be made that Lebanon is at war even now, not only with Israel and Syria but with itself. As Bart Hall put it at Winds of Change: “"Peace is the absence of threat not the absence of conflict."”

It's not Worth the Risk?

The Examiner quotes Senator Rick Santorum on the eve of his reelection:

"The war is at our doorsteps and it is fueled, figuratively and literally, by Islamic fascism nurtured and bred in Iran,"“ Santorum warned. "… Many Americans are sleepwalking, just as they did before the world wars of the last century. They pretend it is not happening, that it all has to do with the errors of a single American administration, even of a single American president. … It'’s time to wake up."

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This is a perfect example for tomorrow's election. A Senator who believes that there is a war going on and that there are armies that want to destroy America and everyone in it. And an opposition that has "not yet demonstrated that they recognize our peril."

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We know only that they have urged withdrawal from Iraq, but are always vague about what happens after that. And they have consistently opposed every means of intelligence-gathering that has clearly prevented new terrorist attacks and thus saved countless lives.

The Damage is Done

It's unfortunate that as we get further from events, details become more clear. Someday we will see that the Bush Administration (and Congress, and Britain and the UN) was a lot closer to being right than wrong about WMD in Iraq. But that won't change the minds of those who have already been convinced that "Bush lied". What a shame that people have been mislead my the political system and a biased mainstream media.

Captain's Quarters, 11/03/2006
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...The Times has just authenticated the entire collection of memos, some of which give very detailed accounts of Iraqi ties to terrorist organizations. Just this past Monday, I posted a memo which showed that the Saddam regime actively coordinated with Palestinian terrorists in the PFLP as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. On September 20th, I reposted a translation of an IIS memo written four days after 9/11 that worried the US would discover Iraq's ties to Osama bin Laden.

It doesn't end there with the Times, either. In a revelation buried far beneath the jump, the Times acknowledges that the UN also believed Saddam to be nearing development of nuclear weapons. . . . The Times wanted readers to cluck their tongues at the Bush administration for releasing the documents, although Congress actually did that. However, the net result should be a complete re-evaluation of the threat Saddam posed by critics of the war. Let's see if the Times figures this out

A Solution to Suicide Bombers?

This is an article with a theory around the "death squads" that are being reported in Baghdad.

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In a sense, the great new weapon, the suicide bomber—which had seemed to all the world to be irresistible—has, like all weapons, shown its fatal flaw. ...If civil society finds itself threatened by utter chaos, it may resort to free-enterprise war against its enemy. By definition what it does then cannot be law-abiding or approved by its own government; it is in Hobbes' state of nature; but it can be a kind of savage rationality that might precede law.

...

The change is radical. Whereas the Wahhabi/Baathist killers are indiscriminate in whom they kill, as long as their victims may include Shiites or at least people who might have voted in the elections, the death squads are quite focused in their aim. There is all the difference in the world between bombing a marketplace and shooting a man you have identified and chosen. Reason—even a vile and brutal reason—can be found in the second, where it was absent in the first.

...

But death squads are rational, in their own horrible way. They may prove, as they did in Latin America, to be a pretty effective method of wiping out implacable enemies of social order and preparing the way for democratic and law-abiding government. In living memory almost every decent and legal regime in Latin America was preceded by a chaotic period in which ordinary men armed themselves with guns, said goodnight to their families, and went out in groups to kill some local dissident. That period was a bit further back in the past for the French, the English, and the Americans. But no nation can be shown to have reached the rule of democratic law without it. The work of the vigilantes is the hideous and dark crime that Socrates and the Greek tragic dramatists hinted must underlie all civilization. That crime is indeed a crime, and its perpetrators must stand trial for it, whether before God or some human tribunal. But it is possible that true civil self-government can only be established with its aid.
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I don't condone the vigilante death squads, but I can see where it comes from. I don't see where it ends. It's flirting with the devil. Hopefully the squads can refrain from the possible next step in this game of power - the step of gaining control of government. If this is a good Samaritan act, then it should vanish when the bad guys are gone. If not, the government will have a newly trained enemy to fight when the former bad guys are gone.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

Here is a short article by Victor Davis Hanson about how the US won't act in Darfur because of the state of the American people after Iraq. Action in Dafur would be far more difficult to justify. The only reason to go in would be to stop a genocide. There's no immediate danger to the US. You cold argue that letting Darfur/Sudan turn into a terrorist state is a reason to stop this situation. But after having multiple sources for information that Iraq could, at any moment, or already have, passed WMD to terrorists, then discovering that they were not there when we arrived, there's no chance we can justify an invasion of Darfur.

Darfur -— the Good Iraq

don't give up on them....

... it's going to take time. Follow Iraq the Model for an honest view from inside Baghdad.

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There is one video I wish I can find on the web. It's a short video that was shown on al-Iraqiya last Friday evening and was replayed several times that night.
...
It's about a police station somewhere in Iraq, the place was about to be hit by a suicide bomber riding a vehicle laden with explosives.
The driver approaches the entrance to the station which is surrounded by concrete walls. Several police officers open fire from their ak-47's on the incoming suicide bomber but he keeps closing in.

As the vehicle passes through the gate and past the last barricade all of the officers run away seeking shelterÂ…except for one extraordinary man.
One police officer held his position and was still standing in the way of the terrorist and kept on firing his rifle at the windshield until the vehicle was just meters from the officer, thenÂ…BOOM.
End of videoÂ….

I watched the video over and over again and my amazement grew with every time I watched itÂ…this is incredibleÂ…this is heroicÂ…this is happening.

The "uncommon valor" of Today

This post at In From the Cold begins by discussing a NY Times report on the latest casualty count in Iraq. Then it moves on to a little perspective. I feel very strongly that the sacrifices being made in Iraq are leading to a brighter future, just as those who died in WWII died for the our present. The casualty comparison to previous wars is astronomic. This is a different war, but yet, it is still war. And soldier will die. We are grateful for their sacrifice. And will never forget what they have died for.

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Obviously, the loss of 3,000 military personnel since the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom is a tragedy for a society that values (or should value) all human life. But those casualties should also be weighed in the context of history, and our own, collective sense of what constitutes an appropriate level of sacrifice in defense of our freedoms.

That's why Clint Eastwood's new film, Flags of Our Fathers, is being released at exactly the right moment for American audiences. Based on James Bradley's best-selling book, Flags recounts the historic flag-raising during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. According to early reviews, Mr. Eastwood's film is hardly a paean to war; in fact, it is unflinching in its depiction of the carnage of battle, and the long-term effects of the Iwo campaign on the men who made it through, most notably, the three surviving flag-raisers. It's also worth noting that the current total of combat deaths in Iraq (2300) represents less than half the number of Marines and sailors who died in a single month on Iwo Jima. Marines on Iwo accounted for half of the Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to the USMC during World War II. After the battle, Admiral Chester Nimitz observed that "uncommon valor was a common virture" among the Marines who took that island.

Six decades later, the same could be said of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines now battling terrorists in Iraq. As they carry the fight to the enemy, we should remember their sacrifice, just as we remember the courage of the men who liberated the Pacific during World War II. We should also remember one of the enduring lessons of Iwo Jima and other past campaigns: valor, sacrifice and progress cannot be quantified in terms of a casualty counts, no matter what the NYT might believe.

Legend or Reality in North Korea

I have a friend who traveled south-east Asia about 3 years ago. He told me that there are parts of his area who truly believe that Americans kill babies and drink their blood. Could the following story be a similar example of urban legend, or is this the truth about the North Koreans? There is enough doubt to believe it. (HT: Austin Bay)

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THE North Korean refugee had one request for her captors before the young Chinese soldiers led her back across the steel-girdered bridge on the Yalu River that divides two "socialist allies".

"She asked for a comb and some water because she said that if she was going to die she could not face going to heaven looking as dirty and dishevelled as this," recounted a relative of one soldier who was there.
...

The soldiers, who later told family members of the incident, marched the woman, who was about 30, to the mid-point of the bridge. North Korean guards were waiting. They signed papers for receipt of the woman, who kept her dignity until that moment. Then, in front of the Chinese troops, one seized her and another speared her hand " the soft part between thumb and forefinger " with the point of a sharpened steel cable, which he twisted into a leash.

"She screamed just like a pig when we kill it at home in the village," the soldier later told his relative. "Then they dragged her away."

...“I’ve heard it a hundred times over that when we send back a group they stab each one with steel cable, loop it under the collarbone and out again, and yoke them together like animals,” said an army veteran with relatives in service.

Selective Analysis: The NYT and the leaked NIE

Recently the NYT reported on an leaked National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), highlighting that the Iraq war has increased the Islamic terrorist threat. To clarify this document, and to shed light on the selective analysis by the NYT for politcal/commercial gain, President Bush released to the public, some of this NIE. I frequent The Belmont Club because I like his analysis style. Here is his review of the released National Intelligence Estimate. I note 2 things:

1. Yes, Iraq is a rallying call for Islamic extremists. But they did not need Iraq for this. They were already rallying against the west for decades. Prior to 9/11 they were rallying in Afghanistan, readying for the fight. Iraq is just the location of the current fight.
2. Not reported in the NYT piece, the same NIE that says Iraq is causing more terrorists states the Jihadi's view a victory of a democratic Islamic nation in Iraq will be a great loss to their Islamic extremist future. (So winning in Iraq will ultimately reduce terrorists even though, prior to victory, it has increased it)

"Iraq was not necessary at all to provoke the attack of September the 11th."
- The Belmont Club

Condi responds to Clintons Out-burst

Comments from Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice in the NY Post:

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday accused Bill Clinton of making "flatly false" claims that the Bush administration didn't lift a finger to stop terrorism before the 9/11 attacks.

"The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," Rice said...

"What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice added.

The secretary of state also sharply disputed Clinton's claim that he "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy" for the incoming Bush team during the presidential transition in 2001.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," Rice responded...

In her pointed rebuttal of Clinton's inflammatory claims about the war on terror, Rice maintained the Bush White House did the best it could to defend against an attack - and expanded on the tools and intelligence it inherited.

"I would just suggest that you go back and read the 9/11 commission report on the efforts of the Bush administration in the eight months - things like working to get an armed Predator [drone] that actually turned out to be extraordinarily important," Rice added.

She also said Clinton's claims that Richard Clarke - the White House anti-terror guru hyped by Clinton as the country's "best guy" - had been demoted by Bush were bogus.

"Richard Clarke was the counterterrorism czar when 9/11 happened. And he left when he did not become deputy director of homeland security, some several months later," she said.

Interesting analogy

Here's a short piece from Powerline. The punch-line is:

Remember when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, and liberal commentators immediately blamed Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives, who, to put it mildly, had never advocated blowing up government buildings? We can only wonder what these same liberals will say if someone makes a serious effort to assassinate President Bush.

The best line, though is:

Chris Matthews is so far around the bend that the only explanation for his continued tenure on MSNBC is that MSNBC executives don't watch their channel, either.

What if the boy cried wolf and we came running every time?

Will we ever learn? Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post documents for history the latest Media frenzy involving the alleged JonBenet murderer.

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This is what produces 25-hour-a-day cable coverage, causes the network morning shows to go nuts and even tops the nightly news two days straight? Aren't the TV types who pumped up this empty balloon just a little bit ashamed?

Oh, and does the New York Daily News run a retraction for its banner headline "SOLVED"?

Of course, you will now hear that it was all the fault of the Boulder D.A., Mary Lacy, for arresting Karr in the first place. And maybe that was a dumb move. But the last time I checked, she didn't own any television stations. Of course you would report that some wack job had claimed to have killed JonBenet, but the resulting frenzy suggests that many journalists either didn't know or didn't care that strange people sometimes make false confessions in high-profile cases.

And yet things got so crazed that reporters jumped on the flight that brought Karr to the U.S., and the morning shows were interviewing fellow passengers about what he ate and so on.
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Did we not suspect this from the beginning? Did the "experts" on the news tell us they were skeptical from the first moment? Yet we say every second of John Karr's trip to Colorado, including live phone conversation from the plane. It sounded something like. "He is sitting, talking to the FBI agent. He eat a peanut. He looks guilty."

Commitment

An excellent article at by Wretchard and The Belmont Club regarding legend and commitment.

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Wretchard:
Hassan Nasrallah is that they probably agree with Keyser Soze

From The Usual Suspects:
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
(Soze shoots two Hungarians, then shoots his children and his wife as the last Hungarian watches in surprised horror) He tells him he would rather see his family dead than live another day after this.

About Schelling:
...the basic notion of commitment, which communicates to the enemy that you will do what you undertake.
"The most difficult part is communicating your intentions to your enemies. They must believe that you are committed to fighting them in order to defend" what you say you will defend for them to take you seriously. As Verbal Kint put it "to be in power, you didn't need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn't." To accomplish it no matter what.

From Die Welt:
"Hezbollah's barbarism is legendary. Gen. Effe Eytam, an Israeli veteran of that first Lebanon war, tells of how--after Israel had helped bring "Doctors without Borders" into a village in the 1980s to treat children--local villagers lined up 50 kids the next day to show Eytam the price they pay for cooperating with the West. Each of the children had had their pinky finger cut off."

For those who were for the war, but are now against it:
The cost of escaping one commitment "is the discrediting of other commitments that one would still like to be credited".

Risk Analysis

In risk analysis, you consider the consequences of being wrong. The consequences of being wrong that Islamic Terror is over-blown, or a Bush plot, will be catastrophic - World War III with 30,000,000 American soldiers required to stop it's spread. The risk of being defensive, or preemptive, will cost lives, and will be a tremendous economic burden. We have to take one of these approaches. Which are you willing to take?

The following are excerpts from Michael Barone

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What we are looking at here is cognitive dissonance. The mindset of the Left blogosphere is that there's no real terrorist threat out there.

The Iranian mullahs and the Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad want to destroy Israel and inflict as much damage to the United States as they can. They say so over and over again. They hate our way of life, our freedoms and our tolerance. Unfortunately, there's no obvious and easy way to handle the Iranian regime, just as there was no obvious and easy way to handle Hitler in the late 1930s.

Neville Chamberlain was made of sterner stuff. His ("victory") was the Munich agreement in September 1938, when he and the French persuaded Czechoslovakia to give up its borderlands to Hitler. He was cheered by vast crowds eager to avoid the horrors of war. His ("lesson") came in March 1939, when Nazi troops marched into Prague.

Joseph Lieberman is being criticized for saying, "I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us -- more evil, or as evil, as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet communists we fought during the long Cold War. We cannot deceive ourselves that we live in safety today and the war is over, and it's why we have to stay strong and vigilant."

Delicious

I've started using a service called del.icio.us (pronounced "delicious"). I have added a link to My del.icio.us site on the right.

del.icio.us is a public place to keep bookmarks online. I am using it as "blog-light". If I find an article interesting, but either I don't have time, or it doesn't warrant a full Geoffosphere blog post (complete with my wit and charm (and spelling/grammar errors)), I post it there. If you come here and don't see anything new or of interest, you may find an interesting article over there. Hope this is of interest to you. And maybe you'll like it enough to start your own. IT'S FREE!

What if... Is it Worth the Risk?

Here is an interesting article at MSNBC. I’ve pasted a couple quotes that I find relevant. My accent in Bold.

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Michael Gerson
The View From the Top - A former Bush adviser on 9/11, Iraq and the lessons of five tumultuous years—for the president and the public.

From those events (9/11), President Bush drew a fixed conclusion: as long as the Middle East remains a bitter and backward mess, America will not be secure.

In the traditional diplomatic view, this chaos can be contained through the skillful management of "favorable" dictators. But what if the status quo in the Middle East that produced Muhammad Atta and his friends and successors cannot be contained, or boxed up, or bought off? What if the false and shallow stability of tyranny is actually producing people and movements that make the whole world less stable? And what if the problem is getting dramatically worse as the technology of weapons of mass destruction becomes more democratically distributed?

Every element of the Bush doctrine was directed toward a vision: a reformed Middle East that joins the world instead of resenting and assaulting it. (ed. In the end, is it not resentment that drives them?)

…the nation may be tired, but history doesn't care.

…presidential decisions on national security are not primarily made by the divination of public sentiments; they are made by the determination of national interests. (ed. This is the mistake made by Ehud Olmert. A tentative President can lose an opportunity that can take years and many lives to correct.)

…inaction might bring the harshest verdict of history: they knew much, and they did nothing.
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Ok, work calls. I’ll have to read the rest later. Hope you find this story interesting.

Rock Chuckers

The missiles coming from Lebanon into Israel are similar to the videos you see of people throwing rocks at tanks. They just go a lot further and hurt a lot more. They are less accurate than a rock, though.

Here is video that gives you a sense of the what it must be like to live in Haifa, Israel, today. Chilling. Warning: This video contains images of someone severely hurt. No blood is seen, but it is still very disturbing.

Israelity

Censorship

I find it interesting that I have not heard any talk about the Israeli, Hezbollah and now British censorship. If you watch Fox News, you have seen the correspondents talk about not showing images that the enemy could use like where a rocket landed. And their correspondent in Tyre, Lebanon cannot show details of where rocket launches take place presumably because they don't want Israel to use it to drop a bomb on them. Hezbollah rules of censorship. Israeli rules of censorship. Hey NYT, don't you think the public has a right to know???

Let's Say Thanks

I heard about this website on the radio but forgot the link. My sister sent it to me today. It is a site that sends a real postcard to a soldier overseas and lets you add a personalized message - FREE. The post cards are hand-drawn, patriotic, children's art. It only takes a minute to send along support that will last for forever.

Let's Say Thanks

Like a talk show, only quiter

I don't frequently read the comments on blogs, but I found this post from Roger Simon very interesting. It's a conversation initiated about the terror shooting in Seattle (which will not be know as a terror shooting, but is). The conversation turns to the current state of the Hezbollah war. I particularly like the comment by John Moore.

“They have failed to have any dramatic victories in a war where appearances may be more important than substance. The apparently idiotic prime minister wants a 2 km buffer zone, as if that will do anything
…
Unless the Israeli government wakes up, RIGHT NOW, they (and hence we) have lost a major battle in the war on terror.”

I'm not quite as pessimistic as John, but I do believe Israel flinched and missed it's opportunity. The flinch was cause by the momentary influence of caution. When Israel decided to act, they needed to go in strong, which I believe they did. But when the going got tough, the PM flinched instead of pressing harder. And now the moment is lost. They won't be able to finish Hezbollah off. It's going to be determined by the international community. And this has never worked before, so I don't expect it to work this time. Hopefully, in 3, 5, or 10 years when Israel has to do it again, the man in charge doesn't flinch. And hopefully Hezbollah doesn't have any much bigger surprises than they did this time.

Why is the UN still in Hezbollahistan?

This was my first thought when I heard that 4 UN “observers” were killed by Israeli fire, yesterday. And, as so often happens, Wretchard, at The Belmont Club, answered my question. This article uses the UN’s own press releases make the obvious case that the IDF did not intentionally target the UN as UN President Kofi Annan claims.

“Considering the fact that UNIFIL peacekeeping mission was a dead-letter it should naturally be asked why Kofi Annan, as their ultimate commander has seen fit to keep them in a position of danger where their only chance of safety actually depends on accurate targeting by the IDF. Their positions are manifestly so close to the Hezbollah; their convoys so at risk at being confused with mobile Hezbollah forces that only by the grace of God and the accuracy of the IDF have fatalities been avoided until now. They were willing to take the risk. Annan was willing to make the hay. You be the judge of Kofi Annan's competence both in the care of his men and with respect to the accusation he has made against the IDF.”

Any of this sounds familiar?

These clips are from Wikipedia’s Entry on Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990)

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PLO attacks from Lebanon into Israel in 1977 and 1978 escalated tensions between the countries. On 11 March 1978, eleven Fatah militants landed on a beach in northern Israel and proceeded to hijack two buses full of passengers on Haifa - Tel-Aviv road, shooting at passing vehicles. They killed 37 and wounded 76 Israelis before being killed in the firefight with the Israeli forces. [1] Israel invaded Lebanon four days later in Operation Litani. The Israeli Army occupied most of the area south of the Litani River, resulting in the evacuation of at least 100,000 Lebanese (Smith, op. cit., 356), as well as approximately 2,000 deaths (Newsweek, 27 March 1978; Time, 3 April 1978; cited in Chomsky, Towards a New Cold War, p. 485 n115). The UN Security Council passed Resolution 425 calling for immediate Israeli withdrawal and creating the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), charged with maintaining peace.

Israeli forces withdrew later in 1978, but retained control of the southern region by managing a 12-mile wide "security zone" along the border. To hold these positions, Israel installed the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a Christian-Shi'a proxy militia under the leadership of Major Saad Haddad. Israel liberally supplied the SLA with arms and resources, and posted "advisors" to strengthen and direct the militia.

Violent exchanges resumed between the PLO, Israel, and the SLA, with the PLO attacking SLA positions and firing rockets into northern Israel, Israel conducting air raids against PLO positions, and the SLA continuing its efforts to consolidate power in the border region.

In August (1981), Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin was re-elected, and in September, Begin and his defense minister Ariel Sharon began to lay plans for a second invasion of Lebanon for the purpose of driving out the PLO. Sharon's intention was to "destroy the PLO military infrastructure and, if possible, the PLO leadership itself; this would mean attacking West Beirut, where the PLO headquarters and command bunkers were located"
srael launched Operation Peace for Galilee on June 6, 1982, attacking PLO bases in Lebanon… Sharon described it as a plan to advance 40 kilometers into Lebanon, demolish PLO strongholds, and establish an expanded security zone that would put northern Israel out of range of PLO rockets.

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UN resolutions:

After the invasion had begun, the UN Security Council passed a further resolution on 6 June 1982, UNSCR 509, which reaffirms UNSCR 508 and "demands that Israel withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally to the internationally recognized boundaries of Lebanon" [3]. Thus far the US had not used its veto. However, on 8 June 1982, the US vetoed a proposed resolution that "reiterates [the] demand that Israel withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally to the internationally recognized boundaries of Lebanon" [4], thereby giving implicit assent to the Israeli invasion.

On 26 June, a UN Security Council resolution was proposed that "demands the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli forces engaged round Beirut, to a distance of 10 kilometres from the periphery of that city, as a first step towards the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, and the simultaneous withdrawal of the Palestinian armed forces from Beirut, which shall retire to the existing camps" [7]; the United States vetoed the resolution because it was "a transparent attempt to preserve the P.L.O. as a viable political force"

By September,… Israeli forces had pulled out from all but the southern security zone. The IDF would remain in this zone, in violation of UN Security Council resolution 425, until the 2000.

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And this sounds like Harriri Lebanese Prime Minister recently assasinated by Syria)

The Taif Agreement of 1989 marked the beginning of the end of the fighting… The agreement provided a large role for Syria in Lebanese affairs. Returning to Lebanon, they ratified the agreement on November 4 and elected Rene Mouawad as President the following day. Military leader Michel Aoun in East Beirut refused to accept Mouawad, and denounced the Taif Agreement.

Mouawad was assassinated 16 days later in a car bombing…

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Are we heading here, again? Not if the Israeli's get their way, and if they go all the way this time, regardless of UN resolutions. Why not ignore the UN? Everyone else does. And what has happens to them???

Haven’t we been here before?

This seems like a really bad idea:

“BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on Tuesday for establishing a strong international force in Lebanon…”

This will not work. It didn’t work back in 1978, culminating in the attack on the US Marine Barracks in Beirut. And it wasn’t working up until the hostilities started 6 days ago:

“Annan underscored Tuesday that the new force would have to be larger and stronger than a long-established U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, which currently numbers some 2,000 troops and which has long been viewed by all sides in the Middle East as ineffectual and lacking a strong mandate.”

Did you know there was already a UN force in Hezbollah country? A "international force" will not work because they will not have the permission to be in control. Hezbollah will not negotiate. They will kill the UN force if the UN force gets in their way. Their motto is “you are with us or you are against us.” Sound familiar? The only way to solve this is the ugly way – the way Israel is handling it now – the way we are handling Iraq. Elimination of those who have sworn to the eradication of the Jews and installation of a democratic government is the only solution. It’s Iraq all over again. It will be hard. It will be bloody. It will be long. But it is the only way to put an end to regions like southern Lebanon. There should be no cease-fire for years. Help Lebanon get control of their southern state. But no cease-fire. Hezbollah has never abided by a cease-fire, and never will. Placing troops in harms way will only get them killed. Send them in with a mission like Iraq, and they have a fighting chance.

It's getting ugly....

There is definitely a surge of scary stuff happening right now. The latest is that Israel, who had to make a stand against Hamas, in now headed for war with Hezbollah. (Hezbollah captures two Israeli soldiers).

This along with:
North Korean missiles and Japan discussing preemptive attacks
Iranian nuclear weapons program
Difficulties in Afghanistan
Terror in India
Hard times in Baghdad
Another terror plot on Manhattan following the Miami cell bust

Things are looking bleak. Time to get tough and remember that we are at war with evil.

Evil:
North Korean - Starving a million of its citizens
Iran - Wants to wipe Israel from the face of the earth
Afghanistan - mired in the Stone Age
Baghdad - Civil war
Manhattan/Miami - They still want to kill us

I don't think President Bush has gone soft, though. There's a lot of talk about how he is pushing negotiations when The Bush Doctrine says that we don't wait if there is a threat. I believe he will still act if there is a threat. He will not hesitate even though he has been lambasted over Iraq. He is true to the belief that his #1 job is to protect America. If/When he believes we are in danger from North Korea or Iran, he will take action. Until then, he will pursue a peaceful solution as we did with Iraq. The short-term memory society (STMS) forgets that we negotiated with Saddam for 11 years before we had to act. We are doing the same with North Korea and Iran. If we do have to act, I don't expect this STMS to remember his efforts to negotiate. The bottom line is that he doesn't care what the STMS thinks. He is doing what is right. He's trying to solve is peacefully. And he's trying to make regional parties take responsibility for their neighbors so that the US doesn't have to play the role of World Police. Give him credit. Give him time. He will protect.

Still Winning: Miami Terror Cell Busted

Another success by our Department of Homeland Security. DHS gets a lot of criticism and much of it is due. We always want to be improving. But we also have to praise and acknowledge that DHS has been very successful. It would be naive to say that DHS has not had a hand in keeping the homeland safe from a major attack since 9/11. And this Miami bust is another success. I hope to see some praise out there for the men and women who are putting their lives on the line to keep our homeland safe. And a counter to the NYT continuing to leak stories that aide the terrorists, we should be shouting from the roof-tops to the terrorists, "WE CAN INFILTRATE YOU!" Nothing will slow an organization like paranoia.

Blogs of War has a great round-up of this story:

"The group has been under surveillance for some time and was infilitrated by a government informant who allegedly led them to believe he was an Islamic radical."

Thank you DHS. Keep up the good Work.

PS. Anyone here what these terrorist's motives were? Oh, They were Muslim? Who wold have guessed? CNN

"Named in the indictment is Narseal Batiste, who allegedly told a federal undercover agent who he thought was a member of al Qaeda that he was organizing a mission to build an Islamic army to wage a jihad in the United States."

What many are thinking but are afraid to say

These quotes are from a Front Page article. It basically describes how I see the opposition to the war.

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As the fall elections approach, the Democrats have formally unveiled their platform for the war in Iraq: snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
...
For the first time in American history, a major political party wants America to run from a war we are winning.
...
Democrat leaders would have us believe that their present defeatism, which they labor cynically to present as statecraft, is a rueful acknowledgement of facts on the ground in Iraq. They wanted the U.S. to succeed, but because of Bush’s bellicose mendacity they were forced to reconsider their support.
...
Given such views as these—the Democrats’ version of bedrock principles—the difficulties the U.S. has experienced in Iraq have been for them a wish fulfilling fantasy. Their present position—America was foredoomed to fail—is just one short step away from Noam Chomsky’s position—America had it coming.
...
For the Bush administration and the coalition troops in Iraq the battles have been for Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul and Basra, all engagements with the enemy in the field. For the Democrats and their media allies it has been Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Haditha and Niger, all behind-the-lines battles against our troops and their commander-in-chief.
...
It is hard not to conclude that the Democrats want America to be defeated in Iraq and that it is not only their electoral opportunism but their worldview that demands it. This shows how different the Democratic Party is from what it was a generation ago when its stalwarts assumed the moral leadership in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. The current Democrats bear no kinship to the John F. Kennedys, Hubert Humphreys and Scoop Jacksons who saw this prior conflict in the same black and white terms as Bush does the present conflict, and whose disheartening moments were far bleaker than the setbacks the U.S. has experienced in Iraq. Such men would be read out of the Democratic Party today and reviled as yahoos for their patriotism.
...
From the beginning of this war they have waited impatiently – if not eagerly -- for U.S. troops to sink in a desert “quagmire.”
...
Hanoi’s General Nguyen Giap, the Democrats’ Clausewtiz, famously said that his country could not win on the field of battle but would win in the streets of America. Divide politically and conquer militarily. That is what happened then; that is what the Democrats’ leaders are working to make happen now.

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GO read the rest....

Overcoming

Michael Barone at Opinion Journal:

It has been a tough 10 days for those who see current events through the prisms of Vietnam and Watergate. First, the Democrats failed to win a breakthrough victory in the California 50th District special election--a breakthrough that would have summoned up memories of Democrats winning Gerald Ford's old congressional district in a special election in 1974. Instead the Democratic nominee got 45% of the vote, just 1% more than John Kerry did in the district in 2004.

Second, U.S. forces with a precision air strike killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on the same day that Iraqis finished forming a government. Zarqawi will not be available to gloat over American setbacks or our allies' defeat, as the leaders of the Viet Cong and North Vietnam did.

Third, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald announced that he would not seek an indictment of Karl Rove. The leftward blogosphere had Mr. Rove pegged for the role of Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. Theories were spun about plea bargains that would implicate Vice President Dick Cheney. Talk of impeachment was in the air. But it turns out that history doesn't repeat itself. George W. Bush, whether you like it or not, is not a second Richard Nixon.

....
Historians may regard it as a curious thing that the left and the press have been so determined to fit current events into templates based on events that occurred 30 to 40 years ago. The people who effectively framed the issues raised by Vietnam and Watergate did something like the opposite; they insisted that Vietnam was not a reprise of World War II or Korea and that Watergate was something different from the operations J. Edgar Hoover conducted for Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy. Journalists in the 1940s, '50s and early '60s tended to believe they had a duty to buttress Americans' faith in their leaders and their government. Journalists since Vietnam and Watergate have tended to believe that they have a duty to undermine such faith, especially when the wrong party is in office.

That belief has its perils for journalism, as the Fitzgerald investigation has shown. The peril that the press may find itself in the hot seat, but even more the peril that it will get the story wrong. The visible slavering over the prospect of a Rove indictment is just another item in the list of reasons why the credibility of the "mainstream media" has been plunging. There's also a peril for the political left. Vietnam and Watergate were arguably triumphs for honest reporting. But they were also defeats for America--and for millions of freedom-loving people in the world. They ushered in an era when the political opposition and much of the press have sought not just to defeat administrations but to delegitimize them. The pursuit of Karl Rove by the left and the press has been just the latest episode in the attempted criminalization of political differences. Is there any hope that it might turn out to be the last?

(accent mine)
(via Instapundit)

GLOBAL War on Terror

The Canadian terror cell recently eliminated seems to have global connections. Canadian cell with 3 tons of fertilizer, London chemical weapons factory, Georgia and NYC terrorist arrested, all in a few days. Powerline quotes National Post:

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A Canadian counter-terrorism investigation that led to the arrests of 17 people accused of plotting bombings in Ontario is linked to probes in a half-dozen countries, the National Post has learned.

Well before police tactical teams began their sweeps around Toronto on Friday, at least 18 related arrests had already taken place in Canada, the United States, Britain, Bosnia, Denmark, Sweden, and Bangladesh.

The six-month RCMP investigation, called Project OSage, is one of several overlapping probes that include an FBI case called Operation Northern Exposure and a British probe known as Operation Mazhar.

The Toronto busts are linked to arrests that began last August at a Canadian border post near Niagara Falls and continued in October in Sarajevo, London and Scandinavia, and earlier this year in New York and Georgia.

The FBI confirmed Saturday the arrests were related to the recent indictments in the U.S. of Ehsanul Sadequee and Syed Ahmed, who are accused of meeting with extremists in Toronto last March to discuss terrorist training and plots.

The intricate web of connections between Toronto, London, Atlanta, Sarajevo, Dhaka, and elsewhere illustrates the challenge confronting counter-terrorism investigators almost five years after 9/11.
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This is a reminder of how global the war on terror is, and it is far from over. We should also take from this story, the excellent communication and global coordination of the authorities in these free nations to work together to eliminate these threats.. Nice work, and Thank You for your vigilance.

Foundation for Victory

I haven't read President Bush's speech that he gave at West Point, this year, but I've heard several inferences to it. I have read this piece at The Belmont Club and it has encouraged me to make time to read the president's speech. We need more history lessons like the one Bush gave. And we need more debate about such lessons. Unfortunately, it seems as thought, when a relevant lesson is presented, it often get buried under more important stories like The Bikini Strangler

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President Bush's May 27 commencement address at West Point lays out, maybe not for the first time but more clearly than previously, his understanding and proposed roadmap to today's "long war" (hat tip: Austin Bay). The metaphor he invokes to describe what's been called the War on Terror is the Cold War. The Cold War is the last "Big One" of which large numbers of people still have a first hand memory. Only a slowly shrinking number of old people can actually remember the Second World War. But Vietnam, Checkpoint Charlie, Chrome Dome and Cuban Missile crisis are within living memory and it is on this that Bush hangs his rhetorical hook by recalling the first five years after World War 2.

"In 1947, communist forces were threatening Greece and Turkey, the reconstruction of Germany was faltering, mass starvation was setting in across Europe. In 1948, Czechoslovakia fell to communism; France and Italy appeared to be headed for the same fate, and Berlin was blockaded on the orders of Josef Stalin. In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear weapon, giving our new enemy the ability to bring catastrophic destruction to our homeland. And weeks later, communist forces won their revolution in China, and claimed the world's most populous nation for communism. And in the summer of 1950, seven North Korean divisions poured across the border into South Korea, marking the start of the first direct military clash of the Cold War. All of this took place in just the first five years following World War II."

It's hard now, in the first years of the 21st century to even imagine the succession of foreign policy disasters which appeared to engulf the US a few short years after its triumph over Nazi Germany and Japan's surrender in Tokyo Bay. The "fall of China"; the Soviet sweep across Eastern Europe punctuated by the annihilation of a US task force in Korea -- Task Force Smith -- were a succession of catastrophes orders of magnitude greater than any debacle facing GWB today. And they swept over Harry Truman's administration like an evil and apparently unstoppable tide. But Bush went on to describe how Harry Truman found in it not defeat but the framework of victory.

"Fortunately, we had a President named Harry Truman, who recognized the threat, took bold action to confront it, and laid the foundation for freedom's victory in the Cold War. President Truman set a clear doctrine. In a speech to Congress, he called for military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey, and announced a new doctrine that would guide American policy throughout the Cold War. He told the Congress: "It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." With this new doctrine, and with the aid to back it up, Greece and Turkey were saved from communism, and the Soviet expansion into Southern Europe and the Middle East was stopped."

The implication, though it will be a hard act to follow, is that the time is ripe to create a new version of the doctrine which guided the Cold War and GWB says this bluntly. "Today, at the start of a new century, we are again engaged in a war unlike any our nation has fought before -- and like Americans in Truman's day, we are laying the foundations for victory."

Haditha

Executing women and children? I don't believe it. Killed by accident, maybe. Killed by terrorists and blamed on the US, most likely. The values of the Marines, the values of Americans, the values of civilized nations, would not allow this to happen. Let's wait for the whole story to come out. As usual, we have one side of the story. And a sizable portion of this story seems to be from questionable sources.

"the doctor who certified the civilians as having been shot is, shall we say, not exactly objective. "

Here's a somber article about where the war could be going based on it's length and the media coverage. Basically, "stop the war because we have .01% bad troops." How about prosecute the bad troops, and stay to coarse to rid the world of terrorist intento in killing men, women and children because they don't follow a certain religion?

And on a similar note:

"As Peter Beinart noted... , the difference between the United States and most other countries isn't that we're perfect, but that we follow up stuff like this. That tends to get missed in the coverage."

This is the last straw

That's it! I've had it! I've tried to back the president. I've tried to understand the difficulties this country faces. I've tried to listen to both size and not jump into hysterics at each media inflamed "scandal". I thought the Dubai deal was not an issues. I believe Katina was handled fairly well given the circumstances. Harriet Myers? Didn't agree, but, hey every makes tough choices. Iraq, I'm 100% behind the president. It's going well, and at this pace, this will be remembered as a total victory when history is written. Immigration? Well, it's not all Bush's fault, and there's no silver bullet, so choices have to be made.

But the Republican congressional response to the Jefferson investigation is last straw. This is absurd. It's foolish. It's incomprehensible. Literally! I don't get it! Even IF there is a constitutional discussion necessary, it shouldn't be the first, only and LOUDEST point being made by the Republican leadershit! (Freudian Slip) You have got to be kidding me. The Republicans are in the tank. They're being pounded for "corruption" and, finally, FINALLY, there is an opportunity to show that there are corrupt people on both sides, and that there is media bias, and there is blame to share. And what does Hastert do? He puts his arm around Pelosi and says that they are united in the premise that they are above the law, you lowly, dirty, peasants." Nice job, Hastert. Good luck in '06. I'll be watching from the sidelines.

Please is you live in Tennessee, or know someone in Tennessee, Vote for Bob Krumm. He's feels the same way I do.

P.S. And, friends, don't give me this, "They're still better than the alternative." Cuz they ain't. That's the sad fact.

How little me know

It's time that I post again about media incompetence. This is a case to highlight the damage the media has done. In a rush for viewer ratings, the media's sensationalization of an event became lore. Katrina was a devistating event all across the gulf coast of American. But what was communicated to us was not the facts. And now the facts a lost in history. And the legends of Katrina live on.

This is an eye opening article about the mainstream media's coverage of Katrina (via. Instapundit).

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As I’ve written before, virtually all of the gripping stories from Katrina were untrue. All of those stories about, in Paula Zahn’s words, “bands of rapists, going block to block”? Not true. The tales of snipers firing on medevac helicopters? Bogus. The yarns, peddled on Oprah by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the New Orleans police chief, that “little babies” were getting raped in the Superdome and that the bodies of the murdered were piling up? Completely false. The stories about poor blacks dying in comparatively huge numbers because American society “left them behind”? Nah-ah. While most outlets limited themselves to taking Nagin’s estimate of 10,000 dead at face value, Editor and Publisher—the watchdog of the media—ran the headline, “Mortuary Director Tells Local Paper 40,000 Could Be Lost in Hurricane.”

...
This barely captures how badly the press bungled Katrina coverage. Keep in mind that the most horrifying tales of woe that captivated the press and prompted news anchors to scream—quite literally—at federal officials occurred within the safe zone around the Superdome where the press was operating. Shame on local officials for fomenting fear and passing along newly minted urban legends, but double shame on the press for recycling this stuff uncritically. Members of the press had access to the Superdome. Why not just run in and look for the bodies? Interview the rape victims? Couldn’t be bothered? The major networks had hundreds of people in New Orleans. Was there not a single intern available to fact-check? The coverage actually cost lives. Helicopters were grounded for 24 hours in response to media reports of sniper attacks. At least two patients died waiting to be evacuated.

... in the race to prove the federal response incompetent, the “real journalists” missed some important details. As Lou Dolinar exhaustively documents, the National Guard did amazing work in New Orleans. From the Superdome, the Guard managed some 2,500 troops, a dozen emergency shelters, more than 200 boats, 150 helicopters (which flew more than 10,000 sorties moving 88,181 passengers, 18,834 tons of cargo, and saved 17,411 survivors), and an enormous M*A*S*H operation that, among other things, delivered seven babies.

How to handle terrorists, Russian Style

This comes via Rantburg, an excellent site for the latest news on the War of Terror (WoT) and more.

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Russian special forces kill latest Khasavyurt emir in Dagestan

Special forces killed two rebels on Sunday in the southern Russian region of Dagestan after a firefight lasting several hours, police said.

Three policemen were injured in an attack on the house in the town of Khasavyurt in western Dagestan, in which the gunmen had blockaded themselves earlier on Sunday, said Sergei Solodovnikov, deputy police chief of southern Russia.

"One of the two gunmen were killed included Bulat Abdullayev, who was recently proclaimed the amir (warlord) of the Khasavyurt district," he told reporters in the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala.

"This amir is responsible for at least 10 grave crimes."

Police used an armoured personnel carrier to quell the rebels' fire, Solodovnikov said. The two had been killed after the private two-storey house in which they had barricaded themselves was set ablaze. Blasts were heard inside, he said.

NSA History

Here's a short video report by Michelle Malkin about the NSA. She tours the National cryptography Museum and teaches us about the founding of the NSA, It's mission and several example of NSA victories over our enemies in WWII. Just another example of the scare-mongering of the anti-Bush movement. And let me clarify that "anti-Bush movement" is aimed at all for the parties (Dems and Reps) exposing, publicizing and trying to politically capitalize on secret programs aimed at saving American lives.

Iraq by the numbers

Here are a couple posts about the data reported from Iraq. Yes, data. Numbers that can be use to evaluate a situation; trends and progress. All Things Conservative has a post summarizing the data. A couple notable to me (with my comments) are:

3. Actionable tips from Iraqis have increased every month this year. In January, 4,025 tips were received; February, 4,235; and March, 4,578.
5. Crude oil production reached 2.14 million barrels a day (MBD) in April of this year. It had dropped to 0.3 MBD in May of 2003. (Remember when this was a metric in the media?)
6. Revenues from oil export have only slightly increased from pre-war levels of $0.2 billion, to $0.62 billion in April. (Only slightly? That's a 200% increase. If you were the mainstream media, and this was bad information, you would phrase it, "Revenue has risen by 200% from $200M to $620M." That's an annual increase of 67%! Exxon/Mobil is called a criminal for a 16% increase.)
7. Electrical output is almost at the pre-war level of 3,958 megawatts. April's production was 3,600 megawatts. In May of 2003, production was only 500 megawatts. The goal is to reach 6,000 megawatts. (This was also an early media metric, which has lost favor)
8. The unemployment rate in June of 2003 was 50-60%, and in April of this year it had dropped to 25-40%.
13. As of January 2006, 64% of Iraqis polled said that the country was headed in the right direction.
14. Also as of January 2006, 77% said that removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do.
15. In May of 2003, Iraqi Security Forces were estimated at between 7,000-9,000. They numbered 250,500 in March of this year.
16. The breakdown of foreign terrorists by country of origin is interesting. The largest number come from Algeria, at 20%. The next two countries are Syria and Yemen, at 18% and 17%, respectively. (Where is Saudi Arabia?)
17. The number of foreign terrorists fighting in Iraq was estimated at between 300 and 500 in January 2004. That number increased in April of this year, to between 700 and 2,000. (Lest we forget where the front line of the war on terror is.)
18. From May 2003 and April 2006, between 1,000 and 3,000 anti-Iraqi forces have been killed each month.(Nominally, that's 72,000 defenders of tyranny dead)

The Futurist says the situation in Iraq will be close to complete by 2008 (November, to be exact).

(All via Instapundit)

And don't forgot to check in at Iraq The Model and Healing Iraq for up-to-date views of Iraq from citizens of Baghdad.

Update: IraqPundit says:

To me, these are indications that Iraqis are using their freedom to improve their personal lives and, in the process, to build their country. One of the most infuriating aspects of the Western media's presentation of Iraq is that Iraqis themselves are reduced to being the bleeding, mourning victims of terror; they are bit players in a narrative that is about Bush wrecking the country. The material in the Brookings report not only credits Iraqis with initiative, it restores to them the dignity that the Western media's one-dimensional presentation denies them.