See previous: 2007.04.22 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

“Your words are killing us. Your statements make the Iraqis afraid to help us for fear we’ll leave them unprotected in the future.” -- Lt. Jason Nichols, USN

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We’re seeing a complete abdication by the party in power on the seminal issue of our time. They’re running toward defeat now and running on defeat for 2008. We’re seeing a gradual abandonment of the Iraqi people, of American troops in the field, and ultimately of America’s place in the world. The Democrats are making a monumental error that will change the world for the worse. Defeat in Iraq, which is how the Democrats are casting the effort even while they dodge reports from the architect of the American strategy there, will echo for decades to come. -- Bryan Preston

Bryan, I could have searched for days and not found the words to put it more succinctly than that. How can people like Reid and Pelosi and Murtha stand to look at themselves in the mirror every morning, knowing they've placed personal power and privilege above doing what's best for this country, our troops, the Iraqi people, and ultimately the world? I've often wondered if Heaven and Hell aren't just alike, a quiet place where we spend eternity with the memories of how we lived our lives, or maybe a big-screen TV running constant video clips of the actions that defined us. If I'm right it won't be a particularly pleasant experience for me but it won't even come close to being as terrible as it is for them.

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Below the fold:

• Baghdad Calling
• "Not Responsible for Advice Not Taken"
• Losing the War in Congress: Not in Iraq
• Al-Qaeda ‘planning big British attack’
• Who's in Denial?
• Democrats Blunder On Iraq - Avoid Briefings By Pentagon
• Afghan forces have “Taliban Zarqawi” surrounded in village?
• Democrats skipping briefings on Iraq
• "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war."
• Will the Dems disavow Loser Harry?
• Marine in Ramadi: “I got a quote…for Harry Reid.” (with video of Marines in Fallujah)
• MP: Iran buying off Iraqi parliamentarians
• The Iranian Parliament vs. Ahmadinejad, Round Two
• Road to Nowhere
• The Dog Ate The Imam's Homework

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Baghdad Calling
U.S. troops make the case for courage.
By W. Thomas Smith Jr. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Last Thursday, hours after Sen. Harry Reid (D., NV) proclaimed the Iraq War “lost,” U.S. Navy Lt. Jason Nichols was e-mailing Michelle Malkin from his office in Baghdad with a message for Reid.

“Your [Reid’s] words are killing us,” Nichols writes. “Your statements make the Iraqis afraid to help us for fear we’ll leave them unprotected in the future.”

Earlier that day — before Reid’s infamous declaration of defeat — I was on the phone with Nichols, who told me, “We are winning,” explained to me how he knows we are winning, why the troops actually doing the fighting continue to support the war effort, and what he and others are doing to get the facts in front of the American people. ...

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"Not Responsible for Advice Not Taken"
Hatched by Dafydd

The title, of course, is a wonderful aphorism by science-fiction writer Larry Niven that I have used (with attribution) many times. But it is particularly poignant in this case.

When Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 95%) declared that the Iraq war was "lost" -- and even presumed to read the minds of the Secretaries of State and Defense to pronounce that they agreed with him -- Reid cited, as his only evidence, the multiple suicide and car bombings that occurred on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007. Those five bombings on one day proved that the counterinsurgency strategy was a "failure," Reid pronounced.

On that day, nearly 200 Iraqi civilians died (hat tip to milblogger IraqSlogger). Within hours, Sen. Reid rushed to the microphone in palpable glee at being able to declare defeat and squirt insults, like a squid squirts ink (and for the same reason), at President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus is commander of Multinational Force - Iraq (MNF-I) and architect of the 60%-implemented counterinsurgency that Reid, with his solid history in military studies, has dismissed as doomed.

Most of the deaths that occurred on Wednesday came from a single suicide truck bombing in the parking lot of the Sadriya market in Sadr City, a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. That explosion alone killed at least 140 people; the other four bombs together killed about 50 more (the exact death toll is subject to some dispute). The Sadriya market bombing accounts for more than 70% of Wednesday's fatalities. ...

So what about the Sadriya bombing? It turns out it was only successful because of exactly the kind of idiocy in the analogy above; the explosives-laden truck could not even have gotten into the parking lot -- except that Iraqis removed the concrete barriers that would have forced it to pass through a guarded gate and be searched:

As part of the new Baghdad security plan -- which Petraeus helped design and is in charge of implementing -- large concrete barriers were brought in to restrict access to the parking area after a military "red team" determined that area too was vulnerable. But on April 15, three days before the deadly attack, Iraqi officials ordered the 12-foot "Texas barriers" pulled away after local residents complained about the obstruction.

Clearly, then, the problem the led to the massive death toll last Wednesday was not systemic to Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy; it was neither implicit nor implicate... unless one assumes that Iraqis will always rebel against security measures, though it means their own suicide, and will never be able to learn the routine caution that Western nations pracice. The suggestion seems terribly bigoted to me.

The flaw was in individual and local Iraqi officials, who listened to the immediate complaints of Sadr City merchants about inconvenience instead of explaining the long-term value of security to their constituents. But that lesson was made, with brutal emphasis, by al-Qaeda itself last Wednesday. Perhaps it will now sink in. ...

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Losing the War in Congress: Not in Iraq 
Walid Phares (H/T: Jules C.)

A simple statement made by a national legislative leader in Washington this week indicates that a war is being lost, but it is not the war in Iraq.  It is the defeat of the War of Ideas taking place nowadays in the US Congress.

One striking example is a declaration by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that "the United States had lost the war in Iraq", a conclusion he said he’d communicated to President Bush at a meeting last Wednesday.  "This war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday", Mr. Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said at a Capitol Hill press conference with anti-war state legislators.

To Senator Reid, his conclusion is very simple and to me, it is overly simplistic.  Reid believes the war is lost because there is "extreme violence in Iraq."  I contemplated this statement and was about to conclude sociologically that this irrational logic happens only in America, but I refrained from doing so because most Americans - when informed accurately and not dis-informed by their elite - think otherwise. ... 

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Al-Qaeda ‘planning big British attack’
Dipesh Gadher

AL-QAEDA leaders in Iraq are planning the first “large-scale” terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets with the help of supporters in Iran, according to a leaked intelligence report.

Spy chiefs warn that one operative had said he was planning an attack on “a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki” in an attempt to “shake the Roman throne”, a reference to the West.

Another plot could be timed to coincide with Tony Blair stepping down as prime minister, an event described by Al-Qaeda planners as a “change in the head of the company”.

The report, produced earlier this month and seen by The Sunday Times, appears to provide evidence that Al-Qaeda is active in Iran and has ambitions far beyond the improvised attacks it has been waging against British and American soldiers in Iraq.

There is no evidence of a formal relationship between Al-Qaeda, a Sunni group, and the Shi’ite regime of President Mah-moud Ahmadinejad, but experts suggest that Iran’s leaders may be turning a blind eye to the terrorist organisation’s activities.

The intelligence report also makes it clear that senior Al-Qaeda figures in the region have been in recent contact with operatives in Britain. ...

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Who's in Denial?
John Hinderaker

Last week, Harry Reid was widely criticized for saying that the Iraq war "is lost." On Power Line, I explained why I thought Reid's comment was both incorrect and politically misguided. Today, Reid backed off his claim, and, almost as though he were taking my advice, couched his criticisms in terms of a "failed policy" rather than a "lost war:"

The Senate majority leader drew criticism from Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost. He did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."

There is an irony here; Reid is echoing the "mission accomplished" banner for which President Bush has long been abused. But news accounts haven't focused on this point, instead, they have emphasized Reid's claim that the President is in "denial" on Iraq: ...

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Democrats Blunder On Iraq - Avoid Briefings By Pentagon
A.J.Strata

This article is the top read at Real Clear Politics, and for good reason. The article is from someone who advised Bill Clinton when the Rep Congress tried to strong-arm him on the budget. That turned out to be a political disaster for the Reps. The author notes something about the theory of action and the reality:

But the GOP had misread the polls. Theoretical reductions in federal spending were one thing — of course the public supported that — but real cuts in spending on Medicare, education, and the environment were quite another.

Does the American people want to lose to al Qaeda now that the we have come this far and the new Surge Strategy is starting to bear fruit? Hell no they don’t. They wanted a new direction towards success when they voted for the Dems. Senator Surrender’s (Reid) new tone (we must find a successful end in Iraq) is a clear indication the Dems see the polls on Reid’s comments and realize they cannot be for failure. And that is the essence of the debate and it is unavoidable and no amount of PR lipstick is going to pretty up this pig. Dems have laid everything on the line for one idea - hopelessness. There policy proposal is “we failed and we give it a year of more death and mayhem before we start getting serious”.

Their stance is political suicide - and I for one am glad they finally went all-in and will be brushed from the political table once and for all. I grew up as a Democrat and had a Democrat Grandfather in Congress and in many administrations. But his party is not what is out there now. The party has degenerated to the liberal malcontents which now make up 2/3rds of ‘the base’. Moderates were elected last year to gain majorities, but moderates are, by and large, not being listened to by the liberal leadership. The Dems are going to pay a severe price since the game of chicken is now on and there is no backing out anymore. One side will stand. Will it be the Dems and their lose at any cost mantra? Or will it be the President and his optimism in Americans to pull this thing out. As long as Bush is in the White House there is not contest and Dems are looking like stubborn idealogues: ...

Read the whole thing, follow the links. Hat tip: Lorie Byrd, who comments:

This is nothing new. Earlier this month Senator Levin was the lone Democrat to attend a briefing by Gen. Petraeus. Why should they attend briefings? They have already decided the war is lost. Better not to complicate that belief with current information from the field. But then Nancy Pelosi is getting her own information from the region -- from Syria anyway. ...

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Afghan forces have “Taliban Zarqawi” surrounded in village?
Allahpundit

Yowza:

Afghan forces have trapped up to 200 Taliban fighters in a southern village, possibly including the militia’s military commander, demanding they surrender or come under attack, Afghan officials said Monday…

Khan told The Associated Press that Mullah Dadullah, a close aide to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, and other regional Taliban commanders were at the meeting when the village was surrounded. The security forces were still positioned around the village on Monday, he said.

“We are trying to get him to surrender and to arrest these Taliban without fighting,” he said.

Abdul Hadi Khalid, the deputy interior minister for security, told a security commission in parliament on Monday that it was “possible that Mullah Dadullah is among” those who were attending the meeting. He said Afghan officials had demanded that the Taliban surrender or face military action. He did not mention any deadline for negotiations.

Dadullah’s a hugely important figure, not only the de facto operational leader of the Taliban but a key recruiter of new jihadis in western Pakistan. Last year Newsweek called him the “Taliban Zarqawi,” which is a sound analogy in at least three ways: both are notoriously sadistic, both have a fondness for video propaganda (I remember reading recently somewhere that Dadullah’s tapes are all the rage these days in Quetta), and both operate essentially autonomously while swearing/feigning loyalty to some more prominent jihadi figurehead. He’s so important, in fact, that I wonder if Mullah Omar, the official leader of the Taliban, isn’t actually a Keyser Soze figure for Dadullah at this point. All of which helps answer Ace’s question about why NATO is giving them the option to surrender instead of going in there and blasting them to pieces. The guy’s an intelligence goldmine; in fact, he’s claimed more than once to have had recent contact with Osama. If there’s any way to take him alive, which there probably isn’t, that’s what they want to do.

They’ve had him surrounded since Saturday, apparently; ...

So all we have to do is sit back and wait, then be shocked, shocked!, when no one realizes that’s Dadullah on the motorbike leaving town at 1 AM. There’s a solution to problems like that. It’s spelled B-0-0-0-0-M. I understand San Fran Nan's on her way to smoke a peace joint with the dude even as we speak. Maybe with a little luck ...

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Democrats skipping briefings on Iraq
Bryan Preston

Sen. Harry Reid says that the war is lost, then backtracks.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi declares that the road to peace is through Damascus, and offers to meet with Iran’s apocalyptic pirate president but declines to meet with the President of the United States.

Together, these two and their allies are doing all that they can to de-fund the war in Iraq through the Jack Murtha “slow bleed” strategy.

Call all of that what you want, but it doesn’t amount to supporting the troops. It amounts to supporting the enemy.

Ignoring briefings on the war by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander whom Congress recently approved and whose strategy is now governing ground action in Iraq, doesn’t amount to supporting the troops either. But that’s just what the Democrats are doing: ...

The Democrats wanted power but didn’t want any responsibility, but in winning power they have also earned responsibility. This war is being fought on their watch now, too. If they support the troops as they always say that they do, the least that they could do is treat the war as a priority worth studying and understanding, and worth hearing about from the man most responsible for its execution. They shouldn’t rely on media reports or groups like Iraq Body Count, but that’s apparently just what they’re doing.

AJ Strata calls the Democrat’s lack of attention to Petraeus’ briefings “criminal.” He’s right but it’s even worse than that. We’re seeing a complete abdication by the party in power on the seminal issue of our time. They’re running toward defeat now and running on defeat for 2008. We’re seeing a gradual abandonment of the Iraqi people, of American troops in the field, and ultimately of America’s place in the world. The Democrats are making a monumental error that will change the world for the worse. Defeat in Iraq, which is how the Democrats are casting the effort even while they dodge reports from the architect of the American strategy there, will echo for decades to come. ....

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"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war." 
Jay Tea

I know it's wrong to overgeneralize, but I think I've noticed something odd.

The same people who say that we should "talk with" nations and organizations that are absolutely committed to destroying us and our allies are, often, the same ones who will not talk to those with whom they have less fundamental disagreements.

You want examples? No problem. Find how many commenters who say that we should be talking with Hamas and Iran who also support Democrats blowing off briefings with the US commanders in Iraq and refusing to debate each other on Fox News.

I guess I'm not properly "nuanced" enough to understand the principles and distinctions and theories underlying these seemingly contradictory positions, so I'll simply spell out how I think things ought to be: ...

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Will the Dems disavow Loser Harry?
Michelle Malkin

Joe Lieberman spanked Harry Reid over the weekend. Will any other Democrat do the same? The NRSC calls on Sen. Mary Landrieu to disavow Sen. Reid’s defeatist comments regarding the war in Iraq: ...

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Marine in Ramadi: “I got a quote…for Harry Reid.” (with video of Marines in Fallujah)   Update: Dollard gets more Marine email
Bryan Preston

Cpl Tyler Rock sent the email to Pat Dollard, whose site is now down, and that’s probably due to the Drudge link that the email attracted.

these families need us here. obviously he has never been in iraq. or atleast the area worth seeing. the parts where insurgency is rampant and the buildings are blown to pieces. we need to stay here and help rebuild. if iraq didnt want us here then why do we have IP’s voluntering everyday to rebuild their cities. and working directly with us too. same with the IA’s. it sucks that iraqi’s have more patriotism for a country that has turned to complete shit more than the people in america who drink starbucks everyday. we could leave this place and say we are sorry to the terrorists. and then we could wait for 3,000 more american civilians to die before we say “hey thats not nice” again. and the sad thing is after we WIN this war. people like him will say he was there for us the whole time.

That part comes after Cpl Rock, who belongs to the 1/6 in Ramadi, details quite a bit of progress he has seen over the year he has been living in an outpost in downtown Ramadi.

i spent my christmas holidays covered in ash from the mortar fire and the IED’s, sleeping under a dirty rug i found in the house. everyone was sleeping way to close for comfort just to stay warm. anyways. a family was there and they obviously didnt want us there. atleast at first. the daughters were very sick so our corpsman treated them. they didnt have electricity so we got them a generator for power, they were cold so we got them gas heaters, we got them food and water and then we gave them $500. by the end of the week long visit with them we were drinking tea with them. when we left we cleaned their house better than it was when we got there. i even have pictures with the family. they told us that they liked marines and they would help us as much as they could and they gave us some information on the insurgents in the area. we ended up catching a HUGE target down the road from there house because of it.

Cpl Rock sounds like the Marines we featured in Vent a couple of weeks ago. They’re in Fallujah, but they’re reporting similar progress. Click to play the videos. ...

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MP: Iran buying off Iraqi parliamentarians 
Allahpundit

In a perfect world, Mithal al-Alusi would lead the biggest Sunni party in Iraq and hold either a top cabinet position or the presidency itself. (The position of prime minister belongs to Shiites forevermore.) He’s a secularist, a stalwart friend of the United States, and one of the few Iraqi politicians ever to visit Israel. As it is, his party holds one seat and he’s being pressured by the cancer to the east to take their money and play ball. Not only has he refused, he’s gone public about the bribe. Which I guess means he’s made his peace with fate and is willing to accept the consequences for doing one last good deed for his country:

Like most of the members of the Iraqi parliament, both Sunni and Shiite, Mithal al-Alusi has been offered cash by the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi. But unlike most of his colleagues in the parliament, Mr. al-Alusi has made the bribe public by telling the story to this journalist…

A meeting was arranged through the interlocutor with Mr. Qomi, who brought to Mr. al-Alusi’s office a fine red Persian carpet. “I told the ambassador,” Mr. al-Alusi said, “I have a problem. You are involved in the terrorist problems of Iraq.” The ambassador replied that Iran had no connection to terrorism, but Mr. al-Alusi continued: “I said, ‘You cannot yet attack London or New York with the atom bomb you build, but I am your neighbor. You could attack us.’”…

A senior Iraqi minister here last week, who asked to speak anonymously, said that it is well known that Iranians are paying off both Sunni and Shiite legislators. “Any Iraqi who takes this money should be ashamed, but many are taking it,” the minister said.

American officials also say that Iranian influenced corruption is a problem, though they refused to say so on the record because of a general policy of not publicly undercutting the Iraqi government. But a National Security Council strategy released in January to coincide with the president’s announcement of the military surge said bluntly that Iranian agents had “burrowed” into the Iraqi national security structures. Indeed one criticism of the new national security ministry, created as a Shiite counterweight to the CIA-created and largely Sunni Iraqi Intelligence agency, is that its membership is effectively vetted by Iran’s revolutionary guard.

Why would Iran care about small potatoes like al-Alusi? The only answer I can think of is that they want him as a trophy. They know he’s famously pro-western, so to have him flip would be a finger in Bush’s eye and hugely demoralizing for the cause of political progress. They’re working their propaganda on all fronts pretty outrageously lately, too, and this would be of a piece with that. He deserves much greater renown than he has in America for saying no. ...

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The Iranian Parliament vs. Ahmadinejad, Round Two
In a bold move last year, Iranian legislative body, known as the Majles, made a failed attempt to cut their President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s term in office. Now they are trying to do it again — and this time they just might have a shot.
by Meir Javendafar

Even in as secretive a government as Iran, it is anything but confidential that the members of the country’s parliament are not big fans of President Ahmadinejad.

If anyone had doubts, they were removed last year when the Iranian legislative body, known as the Majles, voted to reduce the president’s term by eighteen months. They failed that first time, but now, still determined, they are making another attempt. (link in Farsi)

The official reason given at the time of their first try was that because parliamentary elections usually take place one year before the presidential elections. This, the Majiles argued, creates unnecessary expenses for the country - if both elections were held on the same day, time and money could be saved.

Furthermore, the Majles elections usually cause plans and policies under consideration to be suspended for six months before the elections, due to campaigning needs, and the usual uncertainty which surround upcoming elections. This also happens six months before the presidential polling.

Despite the validity of its arguments, and the approval of the bill by majority of parliamentarians, the Majles failed in its attempt to move the presidential elections forward — because the Guardian Council, did not approve the bill. The Guardian Council, composed of 12 powerful members, has the authority to review all bills passed by the Majles, and approve or reject them on the basis of whether they are in accordance to Islamic law and the Iranian constitution.

Most observers thought that after the Council issued the veto the first time, the parliamentarians would abandon their attempt to cut Ahmadinejad’s term short. They were wrong.

The reason – the Majles’s considerations aren’t really practical or budgetary — they’re personal. ...

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Road to Nowhere
Jules Crittenden

Reid: Bush in denial.  This from a member of the Democratic leadership that is pushing a symbolic retreat plan he knows won’t survive a veto, simply to make the petulant point.  This from the bearers of a mandate who have so far managed to enact exactly one meaningless non-binding, self-negating resolution.    

Broder: Reid a “bumbling” “embarrassment.” (thanks Think Progress!  Good catch!)

Michael Barone with the sausage-making, in a House and Senate divided against themselves.

Hotair sums it up thusly:

[...]

I’d say Bryan at Hotair is giving them too much credit.  As you’ll recall, al-Zawahiri was chiding the Dems a couple of months ago for failing to live up to their campaign promises.  He wanted the Dem Cong to get on with it.  I can’t imagine their cavedwelling fellow travellers are very pleased with them and their futile gestures. 

Details of this non-plan that is going nowhere: ...

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Too short to excerpt; just read it: The Dog Ate The Imam's Homework