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2007.05.10 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup
See previous: 2007.05.09 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup
Below the fold, newest items at the top:
- Shock and Awe: a NYT Iraq Article That Gets It Right!
- House Passes War Funding Bill With Provisions Bush Promises to Veto
- Did Howard Dean order KS gov to lie about
FEMA’s response to the Greensburg tornado?
- The American Muslim's Burden
- NBC: Hezbollah building a base in South America
- House Defeats Bill Calling for Quick Departure From Iraq
- Defense Secretary implores Democratic Congress not to
undermine the health and welfare of the U.S. military.
- Leadership, Iraqi Style
- Conservative Democrats to Side with Bush on Iraq Funding?
- Jersey Jihadists' relatives speak: "They shouldn't dare throw a stone at America"
- What about the other four?
- Majority of Iraqi MPs endorse bill demanding timetable for U.S. withdrawal
- Iraqis Appear Poised To Close The Door
- A Baghdad plea: U.S. should stay and fight
- Republicans for Bugout
- Your War, Not Mine
- The surge -- too little too late?
- We Found the "Moslem Methodists!"
- The Last King of Java
- Gen. Caldwell: Iran providing financial support to some Sunni insurgents
- Kowtowing to Kos
GOP Moderates: Iraq War Having Corrosive Effect on Party
WASHINGTON — Nearly a dozen moderate House Republicans went to the White House earlier this week to tell President Bush in no uncertain terms that the war in Iraq was unsustainable without public support and was having a corrosive effect on GOP political fortunes, lawmakers disclosed Wednesday.
The discussion, described by the 11 participating lawmakers as blunt, preceded the president's threat Wednesday to veto a proposed House bill that would pay for the war only through only through July, a limit Defense Secretary Robert Gates said would be disastrous. Gates told reporters that his evaluation of force levels in Iraq in September will not lead to a rapid troop withdrawal, and that at least some U.S. forces are likely to be in Iraq for a protracted period of time.
Gates said he didn't know if it will take 25,000 troops or another number, but it would probably include intelligence officers, logistical support and air power, and they would be needed to maintain stability in the war-wracked country.
"The evaluation in September will not lead to a precipitous decision or actions, but would point us in a new direction ... either because the surge is working, or because the evaluation is that it's not," said Gates. Earlier Wednesday he told senators he would consider reducing U.S. troop levels in Iraq in the fall if the Iraqi government begins to make progress. ...
See related:
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** Shock and Awe: a NYT Iraq Article That Gets It Right!
Hatched by Dafydd ab Hugh
We have reached an epoch of media madness in America; it is the age of insanity when the mere fact that a news analysis story in the New York Times, the Great Gray Lady, is neither irrational nor unpatriotic sends shock waves through the Lizard's nest.
The article simply lays out, in a straightforward manner, the situation between the president and Congress on Iraq: ...
*** House Passes War Spending Bill With
Provisions Bush Promises to Veto
WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives have voted to pay for military operations in Iraq on an installment plan, defying President Bush's threat of a second consecutive veto in a fierce test of wills over the unpopular war.
The 221-205 vote, largely along party lines, sent the measure to a cool reception in the Senate, where Sen. Harry Reid, leader of the Democratic majority, is seeking compromise with the White House and Republicans on a funding bill.
Under increasing political pressure from Republicans, Bush also signaled flexibility, offering to accept a spending bill that sets out standards for the Iraqi government to meet.
"Time's running out, because the longer we wait the more strain we're going to put on the military," said the president, who previously had insisted on what he termed a "clean" war funding bill.
Bush and principal lawmakers have stepped up expressions of frustration with the government in Baghdad in recent weeks, and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh spent his day in a series of meetings with crucial senators appealing for patience. ...
Allahpundit has a good related post here (H/T: MM).
Don't miss Ed Morrissey's take on the situation here.
*** Did Howard Dean order KS gov to lie about
FEMA’s response to the Greensburg tornado?
Bryan Preston
XM Radio’s Quinn & Rose made the allegation that DNC Chairman Howard Dean called Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius early Sunday morning and instructed her not to request federal assistance in recovery from the Greensburg tornado, and to lie about the federal response to date, on their show, The War Room, today. After I discussed the story via phone with both Quinn and Rose today, here’s what they sent me. PLEASE NOTE: The following is information we have received from a reliable source. We have never been misinformed by this person in the past. ...
I asked them to characterize their source, and they replied that she or he would be in a position to have knowledge of the conversation between Sen. Brownback and Gov. Sebelius and has never misinformed them before. Sean Hannity has called Sen. Brownback’s office to either verify or debunk the story, but so far the senator has done neither. There is word that the senator may attempt a “limited hangout” strategy this weekend, in which he acknowledges that the conversation took place but won’t remember the Dean angle. Such a strategy, if that’s what Sen. Brownback does, might be an attempt to maintain comity in what has until now been by all accounts a smooth relationship between the Democratic governor and Republican officials in Kansas. Comity shouldn’t come at the price of truth, however. ...
Dan Riehl has more here.
*** The American Muslim's Burden
By: DJ Drummond
Fifty years ago, the United States enjoyed prominence in the world as the Champion of World War 2, but at home there were questions to resolve. Not least among them, the status of many Japanese-Americans interred during the war. It's intriguing to see how many people, including historians, gloss over the Internment Camps and the slipshod version of Justice handed out to people who committed no offense and who lost years of freedom and a large portion of their property simply because of their race. In these modern times I wonder how well we have learned the lessons from those days, if at all.
By that I not only mean that the United States government has to plan for future conditions where large-scale profiling may be crucially needed to address a threat, but also how a demographic group might plan to prevent suffering the same fate as those citizens from Japan did. We see the conflict coming, and must all of us prepare for what may be delicately put as The Muslim Question. ...
*** NBC: Hezbollah building a base in South America
Allapundit
We hate to say we told you so (well, not really) but we told you so. Rather than fumble around for something cogent to say on the subject, I asked the man who shot two Vents for us on this subject last year to give us his take on NBC’s report. He kindly agreed. Here, without further ado, is our pal Clint Taylor:
***
It’s great to see the MSM waking up to the fact that Hezbollah maintains an active, malignant presence in South America. It’s even better to see them explore this implication of the story: The implications of such lawlessness could be dire, U.S. and Paraguayan officials said. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Hezbollah militiamen would raise no suspicions because they have Latin American passports, speak Spanish and look like Hispanic tourists.
The CIA singles out the Mexican border as an especially inviting target for Hezbollah operatives. “Many alien smuggling networks that facilitate the movement of non-Mexicans have established links to Muslim communities in Mexico,” its Counter Terrorism Center said in a 2004 threat paper.
“Non-Mexicans often are more difficult to intercept because they typically pay high-end smugglers a large sum of money to efficiently assist them across the border, rather than haphazardly traverse it on their own.”
Last summer I reported for Hot Air about a Venezuela-based cell calling themselves “Hezbollah in Venezuela”, or “Hezbollah in Latin America”, which threatened attacks inside the continental United States if Iran were to be attacked. On its website, this group bragged about its connections all across Latin America, including to a “brother” in Mexico City (whom they asked for help in the form of transportation). So the idea that Hezbollah terrorists will be non-Mexican isn’t even a sure bet. They could even be American; after all, they sent me an e-mail. But it may not even matter where they’re from, because another Venezuelan branch of Hezbollah has an expertise in forging passports–Mexican passports–and helped set up the Hezbollah fundraising cell in Charlotte, N.C. ...
*** House Defeats Bill Calling for Quick Departure From Iraq
WASHINGTON — House Republicans defeated a preliminary measure that would have required troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq within 90 days, but a vote on a broader war funding measure was still set for later Thursday.
The measure that was defeated was a bill sponsored by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., a member of the "Out of Iraq" caucus of progressive Democrats. The bill called for pulling out U.S. troops within 90 days and completing the withdrawal within six months. The measure failed by a heavily partisan vote of 255-171.
The broader piece of legislation still awaiting a vote would provide the military $42.8 billion to keep operations going for two-and-a-half more months, buy new equipment and train Iraqi and Afghan security forces. Congress would decide shortly before its August recess whether to release an additional $52.8 billion to fund the war through September.
The House bill faces Republican opposition and lacks support in the Senate. ...
RedState has information on the vote breakdown here. There were actually 59 Dem votes against the bill; "Republicans" Ron Paul and John J. Duncan, Jr. voted for it.
*** Defense Secretary implores Democratic Congress not to
undermine the health and welfare of the U.S. military.
Paul Mirengoff
Secretary of Defense Gates has written a letter to Congress expressing his concern over proposals to fund the Defense Department in three-months increments and to delay the second increment. Here is the text of the Gates letter: I am writing to express my serious concern over proposals to incrementally fund the Fiscal Year 2007 Emergency Supplemental appropriations bill.
I understand that one of the proposals under active consideration would assume the same funding levels as the bill recently vetoed by the President but withhold amounts corresponding with three months worth of funding. This second increment of funds would not be available to the Department of Defense until the Congress passed subsequent legislation sometime in the July timeframe.
In my view, such a proposal would cause significant disruption to the effective and efficient operation of the Department of Defense and the health and welfare of the U.S. military. In submitting the FY07 supplemental request in early February, the Department planned on these funds becoming available by no later than mid-April. Accordingly, starting in mid-April, the Department began a series of actions to mitigate the impact of the delay in the supplemental on our deployed forces by slowing down spending in less critical accounts. In addition, funds budgeted for fourth quarter Army operations and personnel costs have been or are in the process of being moved forward and expended to partially make up the shortfall.
These actions have resulted in the Army having to manage civilian payroll obligations on a week-to-week basis, deferring repair of equipment, restricting the use of government purchase cards, curtailing travel, freezing certain categories of civilian hiring, cancelling non-critical orders and restraining supply purchases. In short, these steps, while necessary to account for the delay in the supplemental, have already caused disruptions within the Department.
Further, ...
It's a disgrace that Congress has acted in a way that necessitates a letter like this. Will the Congressional response be more disgraceful still?
*** Leadership, Iraqi Style
David Axe (H/T: Don Surber)
After three years of training by coalition forces - and nonstop combat with insurgents - Iraqi army and police units are battle-hardened, highly motivated and skilled in battlefield drills. "At the tactical level ... we're doing quite well," says Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, a senior official in the coalition training organization. "They're fighting, dying, being wounded, being moved around country." He says 5,300 Iraqi soldiers from outside of Baghdad have been brought in for the "surge."
That last point - their ability to deploy - is a sure sign that Iraqi army units are improving. "Battalions disintegrated last year when we tried to move them around. Now we have them ready to move," says Major General William Caldwell, top commander in Iraq. ...
*** Conservative Democrats to Side with Bush on Iraq Funding?
Kim Priestap
That's according to John Aravosis at AmericaBlog, so I can't be sure how accurate this is. But this is what John is reporting: It's time to replace some conservative Democrats in Washington, DC. I just heard from an impeccable source that there is serious concern on the Hill that conservative Democrats in the House will vote with the Republicans to strip any and all restrictions from the Iraq supplemental tomorrow, effectively giving Bush all the money he wants with no restrictions and no effort to hold either him or the Iraq government accountable for anything. I.e., they will vote to continue this war along the same disastrous course because they're too afraid to challenge George Bush and his failed leadership. ...
If this post is accurate, then I'm really curious how many of these conservative Democrats are newly elected Democrats from November 2006. As expected, the Left isn't pleased at all with the fact that conservative Democrats actually have minds of their own. Speaker Pelosi and Jack Murtha will lose their minds over this. Only if this is true, of course. ...
Dan Riehl comments here, and don't miss Bob Owens's post here.
*** Jersey Jihadists' relatives speak:
"They shouldn't dare throw a stone at America"
Michelle Malkin (H/T: Lorie Byrd)
The AP sent a reporter to the three illegal alien Jersey Jihadists' hometown of Debar, located on Macedonia's border with Albania. Relatives of the Duka brothers reacted: "They must have been crazy. They shouldn't dare throw a stone at America," said Rrahmi Duka, 70, a distant relative of the brothers, as a loudspeaker blared Muslim prayers in Debar's main square.
"Who saved us? America," he said. "We are in America's hands."
Julia Gorin has a must-read on Balkan Muslim blowback: ...
*** What about the other four?
Michelle Malkin
There were 10 young men in the Fort Dix terror plot videos. Six are in custody. Where are the other four? Haven't seen this elsewhere, but CNSNews.com reports that the FBI knows the identities of the other Jersey Jihadi suspects. There is not enough evidence, however, to charge them. Keep an eye on this. More: ...
Allahpundit has more here.
*** Majority of Iraqi MPs endorse bill
demanding timetable for U.S. withdrawal
Allahpundit
Blair’s gone, centrist Republicans are in revolt, the Iraqi parliament’s planning to take a little summer vay-cay while U.S. troops are busy dodging IEDs, and now this. It’s a perfect storm. I think it’s safe to say we’re at endgame. A majority of Iraqi lawmakers have endorsed a bill calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number of foreign troops already in the country, lawmakers said Thursday…
The Iraqi bill, drafted by a parliamentary bloc loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was signed by 144 members of the 275-member house, according to Nassar al-Rubaie, the leader of the Sadrist bloc.
The Sadrist bloc, which sees the U.S.-led forces as an occupying army, has pushed similar bills before, but this was the first time it had garnered the support of a majority of lawmakers…
Al-Rubaie said he personally handed the Iraqi bill to speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani on Wednesday. ...
See also: Iraqis Appear Poised To Close The Door
Jim Addison comments here. ***
A Baghdad plea: U.S. should stay and fight
By Mohammed Fadhil (H/T: Michelle Malkin)
I wasn't surprised when I saw Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appear on Al Jazeera to announce America's defeat last week, not long after U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did. Zawahiri claims Al Qaeda has won, and Reid claims America has lost.
But from here in Baghdad, I see only a war that's still raging - with no victory in sight for Al Qaeda or any other entity. In fact, I see Al Qaeda on the ropes, losing support among my fellow Iraqis.
In the midst of such a fierce war, sending more wrong messages could only further complicate an already complicated situation. It would only create more of a mess inside Iraq - a mess that would then be exploited by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia for their own purposes: more iron-fisted control of the peoples and treasures of the region, more pushing the Middle East to crises and confrontations, and more spreading of their dark, backward ideologies.
And so, as an Iraqi, I say without hesitation: the American forces should stay here, and further reinforcements should be sent if the situation requires them. Not only that, these forces should be prepared to expand their operations whenever and wherever necessary to strike hard at the nests of evil that not only threaten Iraq and the Middle East, but seek to blackmail the whole world in the ugliest way through pursuing nuclear weapons.
It is up to us to show tyrants and murderers like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, Syria's Bashar Assad, and their would-be imitators who seek to control Iraq's people and wealth that we, the people, are not their possessions. They can't take out our humanity and they can't force us to back down.
The world should ask them to leave our land before asking the soldiers of freedom to do so. ...
*** Republicans for Bugout
Contributed by 72nd TCS
The NYT of Thursday, May 10 ran a story by Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny entitled "G.O.P. Moderates Warn Bush Iraq Must Show Gains ." The lead paragraphs tell the sad tale -- WASHINGTON, May 9 — Moderate Republicans gave President Bush a blunt warning on his Iraq policy at a private White House meeting this week, telling the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war.
The White House session demonstrated the grave unease many Republicans are feeling about the war, even as they continue to stand with the president against Democratic efforts to force a withdrawal of forces through a spending measure that has been a flash point for weeks.
Continue reading "Republicans for Bugout"
*** Your War, Not Mine
By Victor Davis Hanson
"This war is lost," Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid recently proclaimed.
That pessimism about Iraq is now widely shared by his Democratic colleagues. But many of these converted doves aren't being quite honest about why they've radically changed their views of the war.
Most of the serious Democratic presidential candidates -- Sens. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd, and former Sen. Jonathan Edwards -- once voted, along with Reid, to authorize the war. Sen. Barack Obama didn't. But, then, he wasn't in the Senate at the time.
Now these former supporters of Iraq find themselves under assault by a Democratic base that demands apologies. Only Edwards has said he is sorry for his vote of support.
But if the Democratic Party is now almost uniformly anti-war, it is also understandable why it can't field a single major presidential candidate who was in Congress when it counted and tried to stop the invasion. ...
*** The surge -- too little too late?
Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon will begin deploying 35,000 new troops to Iraq in August as replacement forces in order to sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until the end of the year. Moreover, according to the Post, U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that the troop surge will need to last into the spring of 2008.
The Post also provides its analysis of the situation on the ground. It reports that great progress has occurred in Anbar province, where violence has dropped dramatically due to cooperation between local tribes and U.S. forces. As a result, the U.S. may be able to reduce its presence there soon. This is the kind of success that, if replicated elsewhere (especially in Baghdad), could turn the tide and make the war politically sustainable here at home. ...
The question becomes whether this sort of progress -- an end to Shia expansion, significant reductions in sectarian violence, but continued high levels of terrorist attacks and the continued lose of 50 to 100 American lives per month -- will be sufficient to make the war politically sustainable in the U.S. The answer, I believe, is no. Under the scenario I've sketched (which, to be sure, cannot be said at this point to be the only possible outcome), the war will continue to lose support and, except in very red states, so will Republicans who still support it.
***
Two must-reads I'm not even going to try to excerpt:
*** Gen. Caldwell: Iran providing financial
support to some Sunni insurgents
Allahpundit
Maybe weapons too, although he can’t prove that (yet). Iranian EFPs have been found in Sunni stockpiles, according to another general, but it’s possible they were bought on the black market, not directly supplied. Although if they’re buying Iranian weapons with Iranian money, then in practical effect it’s the same thing. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the military had credible intelligence to support the allegation but did not elaborate. He said the support to Sunni insurgents was limited to select groups, which he did not identify.
“It’s not all Sunni insurgents but rather we do know that there is a direct awareness by Iranian intelligence officials that they are providing support to some select Sunni insurgent elements,” Caldwell told reporters…
Caldwell said the weapons issue was still being investigated, but “we do know that they’re providing support in terms of financial support at this point.”
It's hard to draw conclusions about what their game is here without knowing which groups, specifically, they're giving money to. ...
*** Kowtowing to Kos
Rick Moran
Congratulations to the netnuts! They have achieved their goal of capturing a large segment of Congressional Democrats and turning them into a quivering mass of genuflecting cretins, unable to buck the will of their most passionate (and off balance) supporters because they're too frightened of the consequences.
Apparently, House Democrats are prepared to limit funding for the war to two months, answering the call of their online masters to toe the line or risk the disapprobation of the Krazed Kossacks and the rest of the internet ruffians who make up the far left of the party.
For the last couple of weeks, the drumbeat from the netroots regarding the Iraq Supplemental has been about initiating a strategy known as "the short leash." That is, limit the appropriation to two months and load it up with impossible demands on the Iraqi government to get moving on reform (reforms that won't be initiated for two years much less two months) and then when the inevitable failure occurs, try the same gambit again with cutting off funding for the extra troops hoping that panicking Republican lawmakers will desert the President and join the Democrats in an attempt to save their political hides. ...
The fact that House Democrats have apparently become beholden to their most extreme supporters does not bode well for the party heading into 2008. One way or another, the war is going to be winding down by next spring as the Presidential primary season gets underway. And then what? Are Democrats on the Hill simply going to pat the netnuts on the head, thanking them for a job well done, and then expect them to go back to posting cat pictures on their blogs and trading recipes for meatloaf? Not hardly. Kos & Co. have real power now. They can taste it. And they are eager to exercise it. ...
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