2007.08.23 Politics and National Defense Roundup
View from the Tunnel
Greyhawk (H/T: Bookworm)
This NY Times Op/Ed from a group of 82d Airborne NCOs is well written, thought provoking, and worthy of more than a quick read. While I disagree with many of their conclusions, the facts they present in support are indeed fact. The authors are clearly well-informed from personal observation and external sources, but in most cases the therefore that follows many of those facts is where we part company.
We are indeed working to straighten out a hell of a mess in Baghdad, and any number of things can foil our objectives. In fact, failure is easier and quicker than success, our failure can bring success to others (is, in fact, prerequisite to their success as they currently envision it) and not all of these "others" are ready to develop new definitions of personal or group success more compatible with ours. (Or at least, definitions of "success" that can be achieved following our success rather than only after our failure).
But, in fact, that's exactly what's happened in most of al Anbar, and during the bloody campaign to get there such an outcome was far from obvious. (Such an outcome is far from a done deal now, too, but at least it can be mentioned without drawing sneers.) It's entirely possible that all hell may still break lose there. But it seems (at best) that the general population has had enough of al Qaeda and their ilk and are willing to cast their lot with us, or (at worst) have finally realized that the best way to get rid of us is to let us finish and leave - after gaining whatever edge they can against their future rivals from us before our departure. (Said edge being training, money, weapons, and perhaps a bit of thinning of the rival herd before we depart.) One can't rule out some middle ground between those two possibilities. ...
Read the whole thing, then check out Bookworm's post for more worthy links.
Can't afford the sunshine, anymore.
Ty Raddue wanted y'all to know about this one. It's performed by the same singer who recorded Russ Vaughn's You Ain't Gonna Touch This Wall.
Below the fold:
- Iraqi citizen saves the lives of four U.S. soldiers
- Did Clinton Lie About Targeting Bin Laden?
- Clinton lied, people died
- Don't Look Now
- Did the Newark murder suspects benefit from illegal alien amnesty programs?
- New Jersey attorney general orders cops to start reporting illegal alien suspects to feds;
Update: Geraldo smears righty blogs, misstates Linnik suspect's status again
- The Newark massacre: New details of the heinous crime…and how to contact your state attorney general to help stop the criminal alien revolving door
- President Bush's address to the VFW convention
- Surprise: Mexican senate committee protests US sovereignty
- TNR - Changing the Story
- Like a suppository, only a bit stronger
- A New York State of Mind
- Thompson, Giuliani start trading shots
- ...
Quick hits:
- Bush hit over jobs for illegal workers
By Stephen Dinan: If President Bush is serious about getting tough on U.S. employers who hire illegal aliens, he can start with his own administration, which employs thousands of unauthorized workers, says the top Republican on the House immigration subcommittee. ...
- UnCAIRing
Scott Johnson: The ongoing federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation is receiving almost no coverage in the mainstream media, though it has been full of newsworthy revelations. Among the intensely interesting items to come out of the trial is the brief filed by CAIR seeking to strike the government's list of unindicted co-conspirators in the case. This morning NRO has posted "Coming clean about CAIR," a column collecting my thoughts on CAIR's brief. Having read the brief, I was struck, among other things, by how comletely the New York Times missed its newsworthy elements in Neil MacFarquhar's pathetic story on the subject. In any event, please check out the column. ...
Today's must-read: Michael Yon: The Ghosts of Anbar, Part 1
Iraqi citizen saves the lives of four U.S. soldiers
Posted by Cassy Fiano (H/T: John Werntz)
Here's yet another story to show that there are Iraqis who are not terrorists, who are thankful that American soldiers are there, are willing to fight and sacrifice for freedom -- and that they can be heroes, too.
In a truly selfless act, an Iraqi citizen thwarted a suicide bomber, saving the lives on four American soldiers and eight civilians (emphasis mine): ...
Did Clinton Lie About Targeting Bin Laden?
Ed Morrissey
It appears that Bill Clinton may have exaggerated his record when it came to strategizing against Osama bin Laden. Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball take a look at the Inspector General's report of the pre-9/11 intelligence failures at the CIA and find an interesting nugget. Despite Clinton's angry assertion to Chris Wallace in last year's controversial Fox interview, he never gave the CIA an assassination order regarding bin Laden. ...
*** Clinton lied, people died
Don Surber
Michael Isikoff, the reporter who broke the Monica Lewinsky story only to have his editors at Newsweek spike the story, has caught Bill Clinton in another lie: He never authorized the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Citing a recent CIA inspector general report, Isikoff and Mark Hosenball reported: ...
Don't Look Now
James Taranto
We begin today with a public service announcement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation: 
The Seattle FBI and the Washington Joint Analytical Center (WAJAC) are requesting the public's assistance in identifying the two individuals pictured below. These men have been seen aboard Washington State Ferries on several occasions and have exhibited unusual behavior, which was reported by passengers. While this behavior may have been innocuous, the FBI and WAJAC would like to resolve these reports.
If you can identify these individuals, or know their whereabouts, please call: 206 622-0460
The Seattle FBI and the Washington Joint Analytical Center (WAJAC) are requesting the public's assistance in identifying the two individuals pictured [nearby]. These men have been seen aboard Washington State Ferries on several occasions and have exhibited unusual behavior, which was reported by passengers. While this behavior may have been innocuous, the FBI and WAJAC would like to resolve these reports.
You can click on the photos above or the link atop this column to go to the press release, which has the full pictures.
Read the whole thing. It has a lot of new information in it that I didn't know when I mentioned this subject yesterday.
Did the Newark murder suspects benefit from illegal alien amnesty programs?
Michelle Malkin
If you have been following the media coverage of the criminal alien suspects in the Newark execution murders, one thing may have jumped out at you. No, not Geraldo Rivera’s lying hysterics. I’m talking about the ambiguity and confusion surrounding the exact immigration status of two of the suspects. Time to move beyond the obvious debate about sanctuary cities and dig a little deeper. ...
... You may recall that in January 2005, I criticized the Bush administration’s decision to extend a mass amnesty program called the “Temporary Protected Status” program. President Bush renewed the temporary work and residence permits of 248,282 illegal aliens from El Salvador under TPS and justified the renewal in 2005 because El Salvador was still rebuilding after earthquakes that struck the country in January 2001. As I explained at the time: Ostensibly, the TPS program is supposed to allow people from countries experiencing a natural disaster or civil war to come to the U.S. temporarily. Most of the Salvadorans granted TPS status, however, were already living in the U.S. illegally before the earthquake struck. In effect, the TPS designation is amnesty by another name. There is nothing temporary about it. As the Federation for American Immigration Reform noted when the the decision to grant TPS status was announced back in 2001, “based on the track record of TPS authorizations, it is certain that it will be anything but temporary.” ...
*** New Jersey attorney general orders cops to start reporting illegal alien suspects to feds; Update: Geraldo smears righty blogs, misstates Linnik suspect's status again
Allahpundit
Fantastic news. The order applies to all cases involving serious, i.e. indictable, offenses -- and drunk driving. A good thing, too. After a review driven by three brutal slayings, the state attorney general on Wednesday ordered New Jersey law enforcers to notify federal immigration officials whenever someone arrested for an indictable offense or drunken driving is found to be an illegal immigrant…
The policy applies immediately to all state and local law enforcement and to prosecutors. It also specifies that police notify prosecutors and courts when illegal immigrants are arrested…
The directive, however, prohibits officers from checking the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses or people seeking police assistance.
That last bit is there to make sure illegals continue to report crimes. I’d like to call this a victory, but I can’t. The toll is already too high. Back with the Geraldo/Tancredo showdown video in a few minutes.
Update: Here you go ...
See also: Sanctuary City, N.J., is closed
*** The Newark massacre: New details of the heinous crime…and how to contact your state attorney general to help stop the criminal alien revolving door
Michelle Malkin
Local NY/NJ media outlets reported chilling new details about the attack by criminal aliens on young Newark students Iofemi Hightower, Doshen Harvey, Terrance Aeriel, and Natasha Aeriel. From today’s NYPost:
[...]
If this monstrous evil doesn’t motivate you to get off your duff and do something to stop the criminal alien revolving door in your neighborhood, I don’t know what will.
Here’s a transcript I typed up of a radio report aired yesterday on 1010WINS by Steve Sandberg ...
President Bush's address to the VFW convention
I linked to this yesterday without commenting on it but it really is worth a "Don't miss it." History Offers Lessons on Iraq
Pres. George W. Bush
I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack -- and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe.
The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the violence and give up the fight.
If this story sounds familiar, it is -- except for one thing. The enemy I have just described is not al Qaeda, and the attack is not 9/11, and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Osama bin Laden. Instead, what I've described is the war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia. ...
There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we're fighting today. But one important similarity is at their core they're ideological struggles. The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others. Today, the names and places have changed, but the fundamental character of the struggle has not changed. Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own -- a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance, and dissent. ...
Read the whole thing.
See also:
*** Surprise: Mexican senate committee protests US sovereignty
Bryan Preston
They really are tone-deaf to the US illegal immigration debate down in Mexico City, aren’t they. First, there was that whole business with the flags during the marches. Then it was St. Elvira slamming the US for enforcing its own laws, and now the Mexican senate has joined in.
Reconquista attitudes are a lot easier to dismiss when they’re not coming straight from the Mexican government. ...
TNR - Changing the Story
Roger L. Simon
Changing the story when you're under attack is such an overused and obvious technique that you'd think people would be embarrassed to employ it. But not Jonathan Chait at The New Republic who jumps into the fray with a largely ad hominem attack on William Kristol in order to deflect criticism of TNR in the ongoing Scott Beauchamp scandal.
Chait does not respond at all to the many details and questions about TNR and Beauchamp raised in Richard Miniter's Pajamas Media story of a few days ago. It's hard to believe that Chait was unaware of the story since it was linked on the Drudge Report and viewed by over a hundred thousand people. But just to make sure, PJM has arranged for the link to be sent directly to Chait's email. It would be interesting to see how he responds to Miniter's reporting that Beauchamp was married to a fact-checker at The New Republic (among a raft of other uncomfortable truths). ...
Like a suppository, only a bit stronger
The Dissident Frogman (Hat tip: John Werntz)
A New York State of Mind
Fred Dalton Thompson
When I was working in television, I spent quite a bit of time in New York City. There are lots of things about the place I like, but New York gun laws don’t fall in that category.
Anybody who knows me knows I’ve always cared deeply about the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. So I’ve always felt sort of relieved when I flew back home to where that particular civil liberty gets as much respect as the rest of the Bill of Rights.
Unfortunately, New York is trying, again, to force its ways on the rest of us, this time through the courts. First, they went after U.S. gun manufacturers, seeking through a lawsuit not only money but injunctive control over the entire industry. An act of congress in 2005 blocked, but did not end, that effort.
Now, the same activist federal judge from Brooklyn who provided Mayor Giuliani’s administration with the legal ruling it sought to sue gun makers, has done it again. Last week, he created a bizarre justification to allow New York City to sue out-of-state gun stores that sold guns that somehow ended up in criminal hands in the Big Apple. ...
*** Thompson, Giuliani start trading shots
Sam Youngman
Even though former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) has yet to formally enter the presidential race, he is already engaged in a battle with GOP frontrunner and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
The Giuliani campaign hit back hard at Thompson after the presumed candidate posted a blog on his website taking aim at New York City gun control laws and singling out Giuliani by name. ...
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