Bill's Bites: Dem Dumbness

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

2007.07.18 Long War // Dhimm Perfidy Roundup

After All-Night Debate, Senate Rejects
Measure to Bring Troops Home From Iraq

WASHINGTON — The Senate rejected a plan Wednesday to bring home U.S. troops from Iraq by early next year after spending an all-night session debating whether to demand President Bush change the mission.

The 52-47 vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and move toward passage. Four Republicans voted with the Democrats, ...

Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman voted against the troop withdrawal plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who strongly supports the withdrawal approach, voted no as a technical move that allows him, under Senate rules, to bring the troop withdrawal plan back to a vote at a later date. ...

Below the fold:

Senate Democrats Lack Support From G.O.P. on Pullout

See also:

Defeatocrats Desperate To Lose Despite US Success
Dems want to surrender what the troops are winning
Worst. Congress. Ever.
Don Surber: The new Reuters poll is out and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have pulled an upset: They have managed to make George Walker Bush twice as popular as Congress. ...
US Captures Top AQI Figure
U.S.: Bin Laden's Iraq go-between caught
A Big Catch in Iraq
About Last Night
John Hinderaker: In my view, the most noteworthy event that took place in Washington yesterday was Vets For Freedom's appearance at the Capitol to argue for victory in Iraq. Others apparently didn't share that opinion, however. The Washington Post made no mention of VFF in today's paper. One might have thought that the Minneapolis Star Tribune would be interested, since Lt. Pete Hegseth, the group's executive director, is a Minnesotan. No article there, either. And the Associated Press didn't do a story. We got a transcript of the press conference in which Lt. Hegseth participated. Here are his remarks:
'I Will Stand Where I Stand'
Ed Morrissey: Harry Reid wanted a debate, and he got one, especially from John McCain, during last night's stunt -- which Reid himself mostly skipped. It didn't change a single vote, and more importantly, Reid didn't get what he wanted -- a Republican refusal to engage. Instead, Republicans made it clear that they had no intention of allowing Congress to usurp the role of the executive, and McCain made it clear why. Here's his entire statement from the debate early this morning:
Republicans Call Reid's Bluff
The Senate slumber party–Open thread
Update: 10:10pm Stunts and snoozes…now Lieberman speaks
Update: Dems in the majority whine, “Let us vote”…
11:54pm Menendez screams about “tyranny of the minority;” mocking Democrat placards
Update: 12:30am Reid wants an 11:00am cloture vote, plus another procedural vote not to occur earlier than 5am
Update: Snoozers and sparkplugs; Thune/Webb spar; Durbin’s toothpaste stunt
Senate in round-the-clock Iraq debate
Harry Reid- I'm surrendering as fast as I can

Senate Democrats Lack Support From G.O.P. on Pullout
Carl Hulse

WASHINGTON, July 17 — A handful of Republicans who have distanced themselves from President Bush on the war in Iraq refused Tuesday to back a plan to withdraw American troops from the conflict, leaving Senate Democrats short of the support needed to force a vote on their proposal.

As the Senate headed into an all-night session complete with cots in Capitol meeting rooms and an antiwar vigil across the street, some Republicans who have gone public with their complaints about the war strategy also weighed in against the Democratic withdrawal plan as ill advised and driven mainly by partisan considerations. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on July 18, 2007 at 12:33 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 17 July 2007

2007.07.17 Long War // Dhimm Perfidy Roundup

Below the fold:

Mitch McConnell: Dark Night of the Senate
Pace: US Weighs Larger 'Surge' in Iraq

See also:

Dark Night of the Senate; Stunting debate growth.
Mitch McConnell

While Republicans focus on the dangers posed by al Qaeda in Iraq, our long-term national-security interests in the Persian Gulf, and the warnings that the United Nations and the Baker-Hamilton Commission are issuing on the potential consequences of withdrawal, Democrats will spend the next 24 hours acting out what their staffers have referred to as a “publicity stunt.” They are staging a modern-day version of Jimmy Stewart’s round-the-clock filibuster from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to wear down opponents of a firm deadline for withdrawal. The only problem: They are, in effect, filibustering their own bill. ...

Pace: US Weighs Larger 'Surge' in Iraq
Robert Burns

BAGHDAD (AP) - The U.S. military is weighing new directions in Iraq, including an even bigger troop buildup if President Bush thinks his "surge" strategy needs a further boost, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace revealed that he and the chiefs of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force are developing their own assessment of the situation in Iraq, to be presented to Bush in September. That will be separate from the highly anticipated report to Congress that month by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander for Iraq.

The Joint Chiefs are considering a range of actions, including another troop buildup, Pace said without making any predictions. He called it prudent planning to enable the services to be ready for Bush's decision.

The military must "be prepared for whatever it's going to look like two months from now," Pace said in an interview with two reporters traveling with him to Iraq from Washington.

"That way, if we need to plus up or come down" in numbers of troops in Iraq, the details will have been studied, he said. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on July 17, 2007 at 12:35 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 14 July 2007

2007.07.14 Long War // Dhimm Perfidy Roundup

A Crossroads For The Surge
Ed Morrissey

The Times of London reports on a crossroads in Jabour that demonstrates the successes and the dangers of the surge in Iraq. While the soldiers would prefer to be elsewhere, the efforts to close down lines of communication for al-Qaeda and other terrorists has created an "Iraqi surge" in the area -- the creation of a new police unit from tribal volunteers who want the momentum to stay against the terrorists. The tribal leaders remain cautious about cooperating too much with the Americans, however, because they are afraid we're leaving:

Below the fold:

Bush beats back another mutiny over Iraq

See also:

Bush beats back another mutiny over Iraq
By: John Bresnahan

For all the hearings and dramatic speeches, for all the votes and news conferences by House and Senate Democrats -- and some anti-war Republicans -- President Bush is still getting his way on the war in Iraq and will likely continue to, at least until September.

Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, summed up the stalemate in Congress over Iraq this way at a news conference Thursday:

“The story is that after all of the bluff and bluster and after all of the political machinations and the efforts to use the [2008] defense authorization bill for the political purposes that have been described here and the purpose of undermining the mission of our troops, at the end of the week, we're left where we were at the beginning – namely, we support the president's policy, we support [Army] Gen. [David] Petraeus' mission and we support the efforts of our troops.”

Contributed by Bill Faith on July 14, 2007 at 03:04 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 14 June 2007

2007.06.14 Iraq/Iran Roundup
-- Special "Incompetence they name is Harry" editon

Harry Reid Calls Military Commanders Incompetent
Ed Morrissey

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid showed his support for the American military by calling two of its top leaders "incompetent". Pandering to liberal bloggers, Reid made the comments in explaining his strategy to make Republican Senators sick of voting on the Iraq war and bludgeoning them into declaring defeat:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "incompetent" during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview. ...
So Harry Reid, the man who couldn't get a supplemental spending bill completed in less than 108 days, is calling Pace and Petraeus incompetent.

That's the same Harry Reid who couldn't get the Democrats' "100 Hours" pledges to fruition in over 120 days and counting. In fact, this is the same Majority Leader that has led the least-accomplished session of Congress in a generation. ...

Scott Johnson: What label for Harry Reid?

Bill Frist: More Solutions, Less Name Calling

Don Surber: Perspective

Uncle Jimbo: Harry Reid, real men, and last nerves

Sabotage in Samarra
Michelle Malkin

Bill Roggio rounds up news and analysis of the twin bombings of the al-Askaria mosque's remaining minarets this morning in Samarra. John Burns at the NYTimes reports on efforts to avert sectarian reprisals:
[A]fter Wednesday’s renewed attack on the shrine at Samarra, 75 miles north of Baghdad, appeals for calm by Shiite political and religious leaders, as well as by moderate Sunni politicians and the top two American officials in Iraq, appeared to have headed off the risk of a new sectarian convulsion, at least for now.

By nightfall, with emergency curfews in Baghdad and several other cities, and Iraqi forces moving in to protect mosques across the country, there were only scattered reports of reprisal attacks.
Roggio warns aptly: ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 14, 2007 at 03:42 PM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iran, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 16 May 2007

2007.05.16 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.05.15 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Below the fold, newest items at the top:

LTG Doug Lute Appointed War Czar
Getting the War Wrong... Again
Iraq withdrawal move thwarted in Senate
Obama and Clinton: Cut Off Funds for the Troops

*** *** Fold (but please don't spindle or mutilate) *** ***

LTG Doug Lute Appointed War Czar
By James Joyner

After a long search in which he was reportedly turned down by several four star generals, President Bush has found his war czar in the J3’s office: Army LTG Douglas E. Lute. Presuming he is confirmed by the Senate, “Lute would have the rank of assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser, and would report directly to the president. His job, which is part of a broader reorganization of the National Security Council staff responsible for Iraq and Afghanistan, would be to brief Mr. Bush every day on the two conflicts, and work with other government agencies — including the Pentagon and the State Department — to carry out policy.”

I expressed dubiousness about the whole idea of a war czar when it was first floated and the appointment of a 3-star who is currently running operations for the Joint Staff doesn’t win me over. ...

Jules Crittenden: Assume the Position

Phillip Carter: Doug Lute: Dream The Impossible Dream

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Getting the War Wrong... Again
Confederate Yankee

A chronic problem of news agencies reporting from Iraq is their apparent inability to separate sectarian violence--violence committed by one sect on another, typically Sunni to Shia, or Shia to Sunni--with the terrorist attacks instigated by al Qaeda and aligned groups.

al Qaeda will attack against anyone and everyone else, including their Sunni co-religionists. It is this propensity towards terrorism for terrorism's sake that has spurred both the Anbar and Diyala Awakening movements.

AFP today provides a prime example of the media mislabeling an act of violence, turning a terrorist attack into a sectarian attack, even when their own report indicates they got it wrong: ...

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Iraq withdrawal move thwarted in Senate

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Wednesday rejected legislation that would cut off money for combat operations in Iraq after March 31, 2008.

The vote was a loss for Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and other Democrats who want to end the war. But the effort picked up support from members, including presidential hopefuls previously reluctant to limit war funding — an indication of the conflict's unpopularity among voters.

The proposal lost 29-67 on a procedural vote, falling 31 votes short of the necessary votes to advance.

The Senate also narrowly rejected a proposal by Republican moderates intended to restrict U.S. aid for Iraq, after Democratic leaders lashed out against the proposal as too weak. The 52-44 vote was widely supported by Republicans, but fell eight votes shy of the required 60.

The Senate agreed only on a nonbinding resolution expressing the need to pass a war spending bill by Memorial Day. That proposal passed by an 87-9 vote. ...

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Obama and Clinton: Cut Off Funds for the Troops
Kim Priestap

I can't think of anything that undermines or disheartens our troops in harms way more than to hear two presidential candidates stand up and publicly declare that all funds that support the troops in Iraq should be cut off:
Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton separately declared their support Tuesday for a March 31, 2008, cutoff in funds for the Iraq war, two Democratic presidential front-runners abruptly shifting positions on a key issue.

The twin announcements came on the eve of the largely symbolic Senate vote on the cutoff and as Obama and Clinton compete for the support of anti-war activists.
Obama and Clinton are selling out our troops in exchange for support from anti-war activists. ...

That was yesterday. Today Clinton & Obama Vote To Cut Off Funds For Troops In Iraq (H/T: MM)

Contributed by Bill Faith on May 16, 2007 at 12:37 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 09 May 2007

2007.05.09 Decision '08 // Dem Stupidity Roundup
(And assorted other "Let's give 'em a country to run" topics)

See previous: 2007.05.08 Decision '08 // Dem Stupidity Roundup ...

Below the fold, newest items at the top:

F. Thompson sharpens strategy
The inarticulate Barack Obama, pt. 2
Some other good early AM reads
Obama Overstates Kansas Tornado Deaths

Video: Mitt Romney’s second campaign ad
Ian Schwartz

Mitt Romney is the first top-tier Republican presidential candidate to run a national ad. The ad started in early April, but I haven’t seen it on television until recently:

Bryan adds: The ad deftly distances Romney from President Bush–who has spent money like mad and only used the veto twice–while coming across as positive and reformist and a conservative Republican. It gets Romney to Bush’s right on fiscal issues, where there is a lot of space and where any GOP hopeful needs to be. I can’t say I’m a Romney guy, but this is a solid ad imho. Not flashy or original, but it does the job.

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F. Thompson sharpens strategy
By: Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson acknowledges his coming-out speech in California last weekend didn't live up to expectations, advisers say, and he is planning a tighter and sharper message dubbed "Stump Speech 2.0" for a Saturday night event to be attended by key conservative leaders.

Friends working on the speech say it will include more of a call to arms than the entertaining but unfocused after-dinner address Thompson gave to an eagerly expectant audience Friday night at the Balboa Bay Club and Resort in Newport Beach, Calif. ...

Friends helping Thompson with the speech say it will have more of a discussion of values issues than the Orange County outing and will emphasize the importance of confirming conservative judges....

***

The inarticulate Barack Obama, pt. 2
Michelle Malkin
[video link]

He's tiiiired.

When there's a crisis, you can count on Barack Obama...to say just the wrong thing. First, there was his bizarre rant tying the VTech massacre to Don Imus, Iraq, Darfur, and the kitchen sink.

Now, this:
Barack Obama caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.

The death toll was 12.

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.
At the end of the speech, he recognized the flub:
As he concluded his remarks a few minutes later, he appeared to realize his gaffe.

"There are going to be times when I get tired," he said. "There are going to be times when I get weary. There are going to be times when I make mistakes."
Noted. ...

Confederate Yankee Bob Owens comments "He was just using a Lancet estimate."

See also:

KS Gov tries her hand at disaster chasing
Video added: Dingy Harry joins in after gov is debunked

Contributed by Bill Faith on May 9, 2007 at 01:24 AM in Caring about our troops, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 08 May 2007

2007.05.08 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.05.07 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Justice: Islamist Plot To Attack Fort Dix
Ed Morrissey

The US Attorney's office in New Jersey says that a raid yesterday netted six radical Islamists in the Garden State before they had a chance to conduct a terrorist attack. Their target -- Fort Dix (via Hot Air):
Six people were arrested on Monday in connection with an alleged plot to murder soldiers at Fort Dix, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey, said the men are from the former Yugoslavia and were planning to "kill as many soldiers as possible." Five of them lived in Cherry Hill, he said. ...

Michelle Malkin has more here, Allahpundit's tracking the case here, PJM has coverage here. Unsurprisingly, Bob Owens has some of the best coverage you're going to find here. Kim Priestap also has good coverage. Dan Riehl: Duka, Duka, Duka, Mohamad Jihad.

***

Jules Crittenden points out:

Another good reason to round up and deport all illegals, “immigrant” and otherwise, wherever we find them. An illegal immigrant who has been detained and/or deported is one who won’t be driving drunk, committing sexual assaults, murders and burglaries, or planning jihad here.

***

Michelle has lots more here. Don't miss Dan's Riehl's update here.

Below the fold, newest items at the top:

Should We Deal With the (Lesser) Devil?
Iranian Weapons. American Lives.
House Democrats Unveil New Iraq Proposal
Ditch The Accordion
White House, Kansas governor argue over storm response
Signed, signed, everything is signed...
Kansas Governor: Iraq War Slowed Response to Tornado
Kathleen Sebelius' Political Disaster

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Should We Deal With the (Lesser) Devil?
Hatched by Dafydd ab Hugh

AP raises a fascinating question: Should we allow members of the Mahdi Militia to guard a very important Shiite mosque from al-Qaeda attack? (They overtly phrase it as a "dilemma," turning a question into a covert attack on the counterinsurgency strategy, in my opinion.)
In Kazimiyah, a densely packed [northern Baghdad] neighborhood of wooden shops and cheap hotels for Shiite pilgrims, the Americans and their Iraqi partners have opted for militia help to protect the shimmering, blue-domed shrine [of "the mosque of Imam Kadhim"].

With tacit American approval, plainclothes militiamen loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr set up impromptu checkpoints and patrol alleys day and night near the mosque.

The Americans believe that tolerating a discreet role for the Mahdi Army, which U.S. officers refer to by its Arabic acronym JAM [for Jaish al Mahdi, army of the rightly-guided one, or of the 12th Imam -- probably the latter], is better than either picking a fight with the militia or taking the blame if Sunni extremists manage a repeat of the February 2006 bombing of another Shiite shrine in Samarra.
Note that in areas like Kazimiyah and Sadr City, it's virtually impossible to wield any community influence without joining either the Mahdi Militia or the Badr Organization... just as in Germany in the 1930s, there were many civilians who joined the Nazi Party because it was the only way to get ahead (think Oskar Schindler).

Thus we must carefully distinguish between militia members who are actually bloody assassins -- and those who are just "go along to get along" businessmen with no overarching violent agenda.

That caveat accepted, I say it's a very close call... but in these particuar circumstances, with the horrific response that the destruction of that mosque would generate, I must side with the commanders on the ground and say Yes.

Let me convince you...

***

Iranian Weapons. American Lives.
By Richard Miniter

BAGHDAD—Maj. Martin Weber, an explosives expert, is trying to walk through a political mine field with me.

As with an ordinary mine field, you have to be very careful where you put your emphasis. Stress the wrong truth and either the left or the right wants to blow you up.

Here at Camp Victory, a sprawling concrete and razor wire American base that wraps around Baghdad International Airport, Maj. Weber was trying to explain how to negotiate that mine field. On the one side he wanted me to know me that the captured weapons on the table before us were — definitely, no doubt about it, absolutely — from Iran. On the other hand, he avoided drawing the obvious conclusion that Iran is supplying America’s enemies inside Iraq.

That simple and obvious conclusion would anger the Democratic leadership in Congress, much of the press corp, and a large swarth of the antiwar set.

Bear this is mind, when you watch this exclusive Pajamas Media video shot in Iraq. The video offers startling new evidence of Iran’s involvement in the insurgency. It is the first up-close, online video showing captured Iranian weapons. These particular weapons have not been shown to the public before. ...

***

House Democrats Unveil New Iraq Proposal

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democratic leaders planned to brief party members Tuesday on new legislation that would fund the Iraq war through July, then give Congress the option of cutting off money after that if conditions do not improve.

If members agree to back the plan as expected, a vote on the new war spending bill could come as early as this week. The proposal, pitched last week by Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., was first disclosed Thursday by The Associated Press.

Republicans immediately dismissed the Democratic proposal as unfairly rationing funds needed in combat and said their members would not support it.

Democrats "should not treat our men and women in uniform like they are children who are getting a monthly allowance," said Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, his party's leader.

Added Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., after a GOP caucus meeting Tuesday: "It's a irresponsible approach. You do not fund wars 60 days at a time." ...

The new version is likely to meet resistance in the Senate. Several Senate Democrats said they would oppose a short-term funding bill because it leaves open the question of whether troops will get the resources they need after July.

"There's the question of why it wasn't fully funded," said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. ...

***

Kinda sorta related to this post if you consider how big a part of Sarko's time is going to have to be invested in trying to pacify Paristan. Jules also raises some good questions about whether France will finally step up to the plat in the global war on islamism:

Ditch The Accordion
A word of unsolicited advice to Nicolas Sarkozy.
Jules Crittenden (H/T: JC)

There’s a great deal of justified excitement about your election, Mr. Sarkozy.

For starters, the French people have shown themselves not to be completely enamored by flash and false promises by rejecting Ségolène Royal, and they’ve chosen by a comfortable margin to elect you, someone who’s being called a French Thatcher, a French Reagan, who wants to reassert France in the world and restore a reality-based economy.

I don’t particularly give a damn about your economy. But it is an important issue for us, for Europe and for the world. France’s deeply entrenched socialism and its fearfulness about alienating the Muslim immigrant masses risk making it a third-world nation, ultimately a failed state we may need invade (again) someday. You have shown you are interested in taking on French labor and willing to stand up against extremism in France’s Muslim immigrant community. ...

***

White House, Kansas governor argue over storm response

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House fought back Tuesday against criticism from Kansas' governor that National Guard deployments to Iraq are slowing the response to last week's devastating tornado.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the fault was Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius'.

In a spat reminiscent of White House finger-pointing at Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco after the federal government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, Snow rapped Sebelius for not following procedure to find gaps and then asking the federal government to fill them.

"If you don't request it, you're not going to get it," he said. ...

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback also disputed Sebelius after visiting the destroyed town on Monday. Brownback, a Republican candidate for president, said local officials and the Kansas National Guard commander all told him they have the resources needed to respond.

"That's what really got me, is her saying that," Brownback said of Sebelius. ...

***

Signed, signed, everything is signed...
By Jay Tea

Yesterday Captain Ed discussed the possibility of Congress repealing its Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq, essentially un-declaring the war and forcing an end to our involvement. The question the good captain brings up is an interesting one: can Congress do this on its own, or must it submit it to President Bush for his approval (or, more realistically, his veto)?

This sort of thing was the crux of a couple of technothrillers I read a few years ago, "Balance Of Power" and "The Price Of Power." I know it's an odd place to get information, but several very fascinating Constitutional issues were raised and explored -- including the issue of declaring war.

The Constitution is very clear: Congress has the sole power to declare war. Since it is an exclusive power of Congress, like impeachment, it can be argued that it does not need presidential approval.

That argument falls on two points, however. The first is Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution: ...

Seems to me we should all be writing our congresscritters encouraging them to vote for deauthorization. Then in the months or years it take the courts to sort things out W can go ahead and run the war however he pleases.

***

Kansas Governor: Iraq War Slowed Response to Tornado

GREENSBURG, Kansas — The government's response to a tornado that destroyed a Kansas town and claimed the lives of at least nine people was undermined by ongoing National Guard deployments to Iraq, Kansas' governor said.

The massive tornado — a Category F-5 with wind estimated at 205 mph — was part of a weekend of violent storms across the Plains that killed at least 11 people across Kansas and demolished 95 percent of Greensburg, a town of 1,500 residents.

"I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower," Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said. "The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace."

Sebelius said she would address the issue with President George W. Bush when he arrives in Greensburg to tour the damage on Wednesday. White House spokesman Tony Snow rejected the criticism, saying the National Guard had equipment positioned around the country to respond to disasters when requested by states. ...

Yeah, and ... and, besides that, if Chimpy McHitlerburton hadn't repealed that there Kyoto treaty there wouldn't even have been a tornado. Ain't that right, Kathleen.

***

Kathleen Sebelius' Political Disaster
Confederate Yankee

wonder just how accurate this headline is: Iraq War Hampers Kansas Cleanup.
The rebuilding effort in tornado-ravaged Greensburg, Kansas, likely will be hampered because some much-needed equipment is in Iraq, said that state’s governor.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius said much of the National Guard equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies is gone. She said not having immediate access to things like tents, trucks and semitrailers will really handicap the rebuilding effort.

The Greensburg administrator estimated that 95 percent of the town of 1500 was destroyed by Friday's tornado.

The Kansas National Guard has about 40 percent of the equipment it is allotted because much of it has been sent to Iraq.
It is true, as Marc Danziger notes, that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said just weeks ago that:
...she fears deployments of Kansas National Guard troops and equipment could hurt the state’s ability to react to disasters on the homefront.
In the same KCBS article cited above, Kansas Rep. Lee Tafanelli (R), a member of the Kansas National Guard, notes that that Kansas Army National Guard still retained 70-80 percent of its manpower. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on May 8, 2007 at 12:27 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iran, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

2007.05.08 Decision '08 // Dem Stupidity Roundup
(And assorted other "Let's give 'em a country to run" topics)

See previous: 2007.05.07 Decision '08 // Dem Stupidity Roundup ...

Below the fold, newest items at the top:

Quayle season?
The Flight To Flyover Country
All profile, no courage
Rudy donated repeatedly to Planned Parenthood in the 1990s
Giuliani the Insincere
Pro-choice Giuliani called acceptable

Does America Elect Defeatists?
Hatched by Dafydd ab Hugh

I just received a very pessimistic e-mail from a close friend of mine (not Friend Lee) who is utterly convinced that the Democrats will win the presidency in 2008, even if the Iraq war is going much better. My correspondent is a libertarian-conservative who is obsessed with the "neo-cons," whom he hates with a passion and blames for "hijacking" the Reagan legacy and the Bush presidency (he even wrote a book about it, Post-Nationalism).

But why is he so despondent, utterly convinced that Hillary Clinton will be our next president? First, because he's not naturally an optimistic person; but more important, because my friend truly believes that the American people despise "neo-cons" as much as he does.

This is actually quite a common belief, that the entire country shares one's own burning, heart-felt principles (or obsessions). But I assured him, it's a delusion: The vast majority of Americans have no idea who or what the neo-cons are, and honestly couldn't care less. However, my friend, a political junky (as am I), cannot seem to understand the depths of ennui that most Americans have for the "inside baseball" of politics. As I wrote him: ...

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Quayle season?
Don Surber

As Republicans kick the tires on the various candidates offered for 2008, they find themselves wondering if there is one once-married candidate who has never waffled on abortion, has stood tall on tax cuts and who has stood four-square for family values.

There is one name out on there that isn’t being mentioned: Dan Quayle.

I dunno, Don. You say potato, I say potatoe. It might make for an interesting campaign, anyhoo.

***

The Flight To Flyover Country
Ed Morrissey

Political analysts sometimes refer to the space between the two coasts as "flyover country," a space so uninteresting and unimportant that it bears little consideration until someone needs votes. The Midwest, with the exceptions of Chicago and perhaps the Twin Cities, get little credit for sophistication or intellectual interest. For the most part, people make jokes about cows and corn and consider the coastal megalopolises the center of American thought.

Michael Barone, writing in today's OpinionJournal, says that has changed in practice, if not yet in thought. More native-born Americans have left the coastal megalopolises for flyover country, stratifying the big American cities on the coasts and in effect abandoning them to immigrants: ...

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All profile, no courage
Paul Mirengoff

The Washington Post has a good piece about John Edwards' plans to combat poverty. Edwards has made his program to "end poverty in 30 years" in this country his signature domestic issue. The Post story, by Alec MacGillis, provides insight into both Edwards and the issue.

The centerpiece of the Edwards plan is to do away with public housing projects and replace them with one million rental vouchers through which to disperse the poor into better neighborhoods, closer to good schools and jobs. However, as the Post explains, a major federal experiment started during the Clinton administration shows that dispersing poor families in this fashion does not improve earnings or school performance. When this inconvenient truth was brought to Edwards' attention during his November 2005 symposium on poverty, he apparently had no answer. ...

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Rudy donated repeatedly to Planned Parenthood in the 1990s
Allahpundit

At least six times, maybe more, according to copies of his tax returns provided to Politico “by aides to a rival campaign, who insisted on not being identified.” The obvious (if unpersuasive) spin would be to insist that the money was meant for lobbying, to defend the right of privacy, not for the actual performance of abortions, which of course Rudy deeply, personally opposes. Instead his camp offered this non-answer:
“Mayor Giuliani has been consistent in his position — he is personally opposed to abortion, but at the same time he understands it is a personal and emotional decision that should ultimately be left up to the woman,” said Maria Comella.

Comella added that, “from the start, Mayor Giuliani has been straight with the American people about where he stands on the issues and saying exactly what he thinks.

“Ultimately, this election is about leadership, and it’s a sign of leadership to stand by your position in the face of political expediency.”
It’s a sign of leadership to insist that you despise abortion after having donated six times to America’s most notorious abortion provider? ...

***

Giuliani the Insincere
On abortion, the former mayor lacks both clarity and conviction.
By Rich Lowry

Rudy Giuliani is supposed to be the candidate of authenticity, the tough-talking former New York City mayor who sticks to his beliefs no matter what. But he is repeating a line that is so flagrantly insincere, it makes any of Hillary Clinton’s canned talking points seem free and natural by comparison.

Giuliani claims he “hates abortion.” Oddly, this hatred didn’t manifest itself until Giuliani realized he had to have something to say to pro-lifers besides that he supported abortion on demand in any circumstance.

Giuliani has been pounded by pundits for his answers on abortion at the first GOP debate. But he didn’t commit a gaffe. He only suffered from the contradictions of a position that appears to be the product of poorly thought-out political calculation. ...

***

Pro-choice Giuliani called acceptable
By Eric Pfeiffer

Two leading Republican lawmakers said yesterday that former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's pro-choice stance on abortion should not disqualify him from becoming their party's presidential nominee or from receiving the support of conservative voters.

Making the comments were House Majority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, one of Mr. Giuliani's rivals for the nomination. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a social conservative also running for the party's nomination, said during the Republican presidential debate last week that he could accept a candidate with differing views on abortion.

"I think it's an uphill fight on that issue," Mr. Boehner said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." "But I think a lot of Republican voters see Rudy Giuliani as competent and able to do the job."

Mr. Boehner has not endorsed the Giuliani campaign. He noted the large delegation of House Republicans who met with former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee two weeks ago and said voters are open to a range of primary candidates.

Contributed by Bill Faith on May 8, 2007 at 12:06 AM in Dem Dumbness, Politics, Rudy Giuliani | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 07 May 2007

2007.05.07 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.05.06 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

What Mandate?
Tom Maguire

I was actually reading Frank Rich this morning, which is a clear indicator of the depths to which my morale has sunk, and I stumbled across this claim that the election was a mandate for the cut and run crowd:
Unlike Vietnam, Iraq is not in the past: the war escalates even as all this finger-pointing continues. Very little has changed between the fourth anniversary of “Mission Accomplished” this year and the last. Back then, President Bush cheered an Iraqi “turning point” precipitated by “the emergence of a unity government.” Since then, what’s emerged is more Iraqi disunity and a major leap in the death toll. That’s why Americans voted in November to get out.
This claim that the November election result was a call to disarm has been made elsewhere - I noticed it in a recent Times story and heard it at a recent dinner party, but I can't find links to either one.

But not so fast! Back before the ballots were cast, the Dem leadership was quite clear in their strategy - their pre-election plan was to refrain from offering a plan on Iraq, ...

While you're in the neighborhood, don't miss A Babbling Brook Called "Hillary".

Below the fold, newest items at the top:

French Riots, Right On Cue
Report: Saudis, US sponsoring covert action against Iran
Update: How Many Cars Torched? (Media Lies)
Iraqis vs al Qaeda in Anbar

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

French Riots, Right On Cue
Ed Morrissey

After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, many analysts expected unrest in the banlieus, the Muslim ghettoes that have percolated with unrest for the last several years. Overnight, the French have seen hundreds of cars burnt and hundreds of rioters arrested (via Memeorandum):
French police have arrested a total of 592 people across the country as bands of rioters protested conservative Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential election victory Sunday, French media reported.

The police said a total of 730 vehicles were torched and 28 police officers were injured in violent incidents from Sunday night to Monday morning. Police fought stone-throwing rioters with tear gas, but it was not clear how many rioters were injured, according to Radio France.
Segolene Royal deserves some blame for this. She tried playing the fear card in the week before the runoff that made Sarkozy the new president, and signalled the would-be rioters that the expected response would be chaos and destruction. The French do not need much of a push to demonstrate in passionate terms, and the warning of Royal that Sarkozy's election would lead to riots could also be seen as expert analysis -- but one might think that a person vying for national leadership would have shown more discretion. ...

***

Report: Saudis, US sponsoring covert action against Iran
Michael Roston

The governments of Saudi Arabia and the United States are working with other states in the Middle East to sponsor covert action against Iran, according to a report in this month's edition of The Atlantic. The report also suggests that covert attacks may occur against Iran's oil sector.

David Samuels, in a lengthy article on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East, reports that the US is promoting a campaign against Iran that includes covert action. ...

***

Update: How Many Cars Torched? (Media Lies)
Charles Johnson (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

Not only did the Associated Press bury their report that 367 cars had been torched in France, now it turns out that the media have been lying about the violence.

Because the actual number of cars destroyed by “youths” last night was 730—about twice the number reported by the AP.

This Reuters article also says 78 policemen were injured by the “youths,” and the violence was much more widespread than we’ve been told: Police hurt in French election violence.

[...]

This comes as no surprise, because French media have openly stated that they will cover up the true extent of the violence. And the French Constitutional Council recently passed a law criminalizing the reporting of acts of violence by anyone other than professional journalists.

***

Contributed by Bill Faith on May 7, 2007 at 01:19 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, France, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 04 May 2007

2007.05.04 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.05.03 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Below the fold, newest items at the top:

Investigative report: Iraqi PM tied to Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Mahdi Army
Don't Abandon Us
Iran's ad should send shivers
Commander in Chief Kennedy
The real Dana Milbank resurfaces

Clinton Proposes Vote to Reverse Authorizing War

WASHINGTON, May 3 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed Thursday that Congress repeal the authority it gave President Bush in 2002 to invade Iraq, injecting presidential politics into the Congressional debate over financing the war.

Mrs. Clinton’s proposal brings her full circle on Iraq — she supported the war measure five years ago — and it sharpens her own political positioning at a time when Democrats are vying to confront the White House.

“It is time to reverse the failed policies of President Bush and to end this war as soon as possible,” Mrs. Clinton said as she joined Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, in calling for a vote to end the authority as of Oct. 11, the fifth anniversary of the original vote.

Her stance emerged just as Congressional leaders and the White House opened delicate negotiations over a new war-financing measure to replace the one that Mr. Bush vetoed Tuesday.

Even if Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Byrd succeed in their effort, it is not clear whether President Bush would have to withdraw troops, or if he could resist by claiming that Congress cannot withdraw its earlier authorization but instead has to deny money for the war to achieve that result. ...

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Investigative report: Iraqi PM tied to
Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Mahdi Army
Bryan Preston

The invaluable MEMRI has translated a report in the Egyptian press that contends that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has direct operational ties to the Mahdi Army and, through them, to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. If it’s true, he would be tied to the forces who are directly responsible for killing approximately 170 US troops via EFP IEDs.
The first document, labeled “secret, personal, and urgent,” is a January 2007 letter from Al-Maliki’s office to the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, with copies to the presidency of the [Shi’ite party] Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and to the Al-Shahid Al-Sadr organization.” [2] In it, Al-Maliki requests that the commanders of the Mahdi Army, who have ties with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, be pulled off the Iraqi frontlines, in order to protect them from being arrested or killed. The following is a translation of the document: ...
Connections between Maliki and Sadr have been rumored to exist for a while now. Maliki’s exile time during the Saddam years lends weight to the possibility that he would be connected to the Iranians, since he was connected to them then. But to be connected to them now, when they’re driving much of the violence in Baghdad and elsewhere? When Iran’s short-term goals are to ramp up the pressure on the US via terrorist attacks, so the Democrats will force a retreat from Iraq, and its long-term goals are to become the regional power?

Yeah, it’s still plausible. All too plausible.

***

Don't Abandon Us
By Hoshyar Zebari (H/T: Kim Priestap)

Last weekend a traffic jam several miles long snaked out of the Mansour district in western Baghdad. The delay stemmed not from a car bomb closing the road but from a queue to enter the city's central amusement park. The line became so long some families left their cars and walked to enjoy picnics, fairground rides and soccer, the Iraqi national obsession.

Across the city, restaurants are slowly filling and shops are reopening. The streets are busy. Iraqis are not cowering indoors. The appalling death tolls from suicide attacks are often high because of crowding at markets. These days you are as likely to hear complaints about traffic congestion as about the security situation. Across Baghdad there is a cacophony of sirens from ambulances, firefighters and police providing public services. You cannot even escape the curse of traffic wardens ticketing illegally parked cars.

These small but significant snippets of normality are overshadowed by acts of gross violence, which fuel the opinion of some that Iraq is in a downward spiral. The Iraqi people are indeed suffering tremendous hardships and making grave sacrifices -- but daily life goes on for 7 million Baghdadis struggling to take back their capital and country.

Today, at an international summit on the future of Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, my government will ask the international community to maintain its engagement in our country to help us achieve our goals of security and stability. We recognize that our request conflicts with a plethora of voices decrying the situation in Iraq and those in the British and American publics who seek an expeditious withdrawal from a war they claim is all but lost.

So why should the world remain engaged in Iraq? ...

***

Iran's ad should send shivers
The notice, appearing worldwide, sought bids for constructing two nuclear power plants.
Claudia Rosett (H/T: Scott Johnson)

Among the surreal events becoming ever more frequent in the nuclear showdown with Iran was the appearance of an ad last week in the International Herald Tribune, inviting bids to build "Two Large Scale Nuclear Power Plants in Iran."

The ad ran in all editions of the paper, which is owned by the New York Times, and reaches more than 240,000 readers in more than 180 countries. Somehow this outrageous solicitation escaped the notice of major world media. That's remarkable, at a time when Iran has been flagrantly defying United Nations Security Council resolutions calling on Tehran to halt its nuclear bomb program - with both the U.N. and U.S. Treasury calling for a freeze on the assets worldwide of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, on behalf of which the ad was placed.

The ad did get noticed in Israel, a country that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he would like to see wiped off the map. Bloggers picked up the story, and a scanned version of the ad began circulating, with commentary, on the Internet. It smacked of Iranian nose-thumbing so extreme one had to wonder if it was a spoof.

It's no joke. ...

***

Commander in Chief Kennedy
James Taranto

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed Thursday that Congress repeal the authority it gave President Bush in 2002 to invade Iraq," the New York Times reports:
Mrs. Clinton's proposal brings her full circle on Iraq--she supported the war measure five years ago--and it sharpens her own political positioning at a time when Democrats are vying to confront the White House. ...

The question could prompt a constitutional debate over war powers that only the federal courts could resolve.

Mostly, Mrs. Clinton appeared to be trying to claim a new leadership position among the Democratic presidential candidates against the war in Iraq.
So let's see. Mrs. Clinton supported the war when it was popular, then changed her position after public opinion shifted. She is now pretending Congress can put the toothpaste back into the tube by "repealing" the authority for an intervention that has already occurred. The legislation she is proposing has little chance of passing, since significant Republican support would be needed to override a veto. If it did pass, no one has any clue what practical effect it would have. It would be left to federal judges to sort that out.

Mrs. Clinton is seeking the presidency, so maybe the idea here is to make the job easier by delegating her commander-in-chief duties to Justice Anthony Kennedy. It's hard to see how the Times can keep a straight face while calling this "leadership," though.

***

The real Dana Milbank resurfaces
Paul Mirengoff

When I cancelled my subsription to the Washington Post in 2004, the woman on the other end of the phone asked me, as she was required to do, what my reason was. I responded, "Dana Milbank." Milbank's abominable coverage of President Bush wasn't my only reason, of course, but it pretty much captured the problem.

These days, I wouldn't cite Milbank. He's left the Whtie House beat and set up shop on page 2 where he produces "human comedy" style reporting in which he takes mostly deft shots at politicians from both parties, though more Republicans than Democrats.

Evidently, though, Milbank's hatred of President Bush has not abated, and today he produced a disgraceful column in which he attacks Bush for once again playing the al Qaeda card in Iraq. Milbank declares: "The man who four years ago admitted 'no evidence' of an Iraqi role in the Sept. 11 attacks now finds solid evidence of a role in Iraq by the Sept. 11 hijackers." Milbank goes on to suggest that Bush's argument flies in the face of the Pentagon inspector general's conclusion that al Qaeda had no ties to Iraq before the U.S. invasion. He thus engages in the absurd pretense that there's a contradiction between the view (which itself isn't quite true) that al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq in 2002 and the view that it's there today.

But surely Milbank understands that the level of contact between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to our invasion tells us nothing about the extent of al Qaeda's presence in Iraq today. Bush's argument, as reported by Milbank, is that we should remain in Iraq and "fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11." It's a pretty good argument, good enough that Milbank wants to change the subject and talk about whether al Qaeda was in Iraq before 9/11. But whatever was true pre-invasion, no one seems to dispute that al Qaeda is there now. The question is whether we will remain to take it on, or give up that fight.

Milbank makes a second argument which is as bad as the first. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on May 4, 2007 at 02:32 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 02 May 2007

2007.05.02 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.05.01 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Below the fold:

No safe way for U.S. to leave Iraq, experts warn
Debutantes of Defeat
House Fails to Override Bush Veto of Iraq War Spending Bill
Even A Liberal Notices: Democrats Are
"Illiterate" And Willfully, Cynically Blind About Iraq
The mask slips in Palestine
Now What?
Freed UK sailors back in the Persian Gulf
If It’s Not Lost, How Can We Win?
If Entering Iraq Was a Mistake, Leaving Is Worse
Bush Keeps Vow to Veto War Funding Bill
The 'new' Democrats and the war
They Are Not Serious. They Are Not Patriotic.

***

Another Grunt’s Rant on Iraq
Jules Crittenden

George Bush vetoed the surrender bill with a pen given to him by the father of Marine Cpl. Dustin Derga, killed in Anbar May 8, 2005. Robert Derga wanted him to use the pen to veto that bill, and called to make sure he was going to do it.

Larry Gwin, former XO of 2/7 Cav, veteran of the Ia Drang battles of 1965 and author of “Baptism, A Vietnam Memoir,” is very familiar with death in war. He has not been a great fan of this war but has stated all along that once troops are committed, the nation must be behind them to the end. He circulated the following among some friends the other day and said I could run it. The Democratic-controlled Congress is giving Gwin a flashback. I’m guessing he’s not the only one:
Another Grunt’s Rant on Iraq

Am I wrong, or am I wrong? It looks like there’s going to be a Constitutional crisis on the war in Iraq – a showdown between Congress and the President. Congress has voted to tie military funding to a timetable for withdrawal, and the President has vowed to veto their bill. That will put the burden back on Congress to reconsider legislation that will fund the war, i.e. support the troops, and if they refuse, the Defense Department’s budget is going to take a hit.

The Democrats insist that what they’re doing is obeying the will of the people, as demonstrated by the November elections that gave them a majority in both houses. What a crock that is! There never was any referendum on the war– just a straight election for representatives in the House and Senate, some of whom supported the war, and some of whom didn’t. It seems to me that the Democrats, who have a majority in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1994, now think they can ram a surrender down our throats in the name of the people, even though there has never been a specific referendum on making a stand or withdrawing in Iraq. So, who is right?

We’ll see. ...

What the Democrats are doing is akin to what we did in Vietnam by signing a peace agreement with the North Vietnamese, tantamount to bailing out on our allies’ without their concurrence, then departing with absolutely no intention of ever coming back, no matter what the North Vietnamese did. Congress also cut off financial support for South Vietnam after our departure. And sure as hell, as soon as we left, the North Vietnamese attacked south in full force, and for two more years, the two sides pounded each other until the more determined North, supported by Russia and China, won the war. And we veterans here at home who had fought and seen so many of our buddies die over there, had to keep our mouths shut and just take it.

And we felt the shame of defeat. Not a defeat we’d suffered, but a defeat of our national will. And that enraged me and made me feel ashamed. It took me more than forty years to get over it, and I still simmer when I think about it.

And we’re going to do it again, thanks to the Democrats in Congress. ...

Read the whole thing and don't forget to follow the links to learn more about the gentleman who wrote it.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

(I've moved an item that I originally posted here to my 5/3 roundup.)

Debutantes of Defeat
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

In 2003 they came to the Ball,
For some merry martial dancing;
Girlishly giggling in the Capitol hall,
Finding chords of war music entrancing.
Filled with excitement, throwing care to the wind,
DebiDems wanted Bush to be tough,
So the ladies signed on for a Ball with no end,
Without thinking it just might get rough. ...

***

House Fails to Override Bush Veto of Iraq War Spending Bill

WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled House failed Wednesday to override President Bush's veto of an Iraqi war spending bill with timetables for troop withdrawals. Lawmakers went directly to the White House to talk about a new version.

"Yesterday was a day that highlighted differences," Bush said. "Today is the day where we can work together to find common ground."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat on either side of the president. The Democratic leaders were stone-faced as Bush made his brief statement. The White House meeting started late, apparently delayed by the failed override attempt.

"I'm confident we can reach agreement," Bush said.

The 222-203 vote, far short of the two-thirds majority needed for a veto override, occurred just ahead of a White House meeting that Bush called to begin compromise talks with congressional leaders of both parties on new legislation to finance the war, now in its fifth year.

Voting to override Bush's veto were 220 Democrats and two Republicans. Voting to sustain the veto were 196 Republicans and seven Democrats. ...

***

Even A Liberal Notices: Democrats Are
"Illiterate" And Willfully, Cynically Blind About Iraq
Ace of Spades

... Maybe it was a slip of the tongue. But, when Nancy Pelosi confessed last year that she felt "sad" about President Bush's claims that Al Qaeda operates in Iraq, she seemed to be disputing what every American soldier in Iraq, every Al Qaeda operative, and anyone who reads a newspaper already knew to be true. (When I questioned him about Pelosi's assertion, a U.S. officer in Ramadi responded, incredulously, that Al Qaeda had just held a parade in his sector.) Perhaps the House speaker was alluding to the discredited claim that Al Qaeda operated in Iraq before the war. Perhaps. But the insinuation that Al Qaeda's depredations in Iraq might be something other than what they appear to be has become a staple of the congressional debate over Iraq. Thus, to buttress his own case for withdrawal, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "We have to change course [away from Iraq] and turn our attention back to the war on Al Qaeda and their allies"--the clear message being that neither plays much of a role there.

What is going on here? There are two possibilities: First, Reid and Pelosi could be purposefully minimizing the stakes in Iraq. Or, second, they don't know what they're talking about. My guess is some combination of the two. Political maneuvering certainly contributes to the everyday pollution of Iraq discourse. But a lot of the pollution derives from legislators being functionally illiterate about the war over which Congress now intends to preside....

***

The mask slips in Palestine
By TigerHawk (H/T: Jules C.)

I missed this story the first time around, but it has longer shelf life than most news these days. And besides, we should all know what our enemies say when they think we aren't paying attention.

The "Nancy Pelosi" of the Palestinian Arabs had this to say Friday before last:
Sheik Ahmad Bahr, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, declared during a Friday sermon at a Sudan mosque that America and Israel will be annihilated and called upon Allah to kill Jews and Americans "to the very Last One."
The United States has given the Palestinian Authority more than a billion dollars in aid since 1993. We are the only country on Earth that sends massive amounts of aid to governments whose elected leaders then bend over backwards to insult us or, in the case of the Palestinians, call for our annihilation. Presumably, we only gave this money to the Palestinians to suck up to Muslims with oil and mollify European politicians and American transnational progressives. Even so, it's pretty damned degrading. ...

***

Now What?
Ed Morrissey

With George Bush delivering only the second veto of his presidency, the question of funding the mission in Iraq became even more acute. Eighty-six days after the start of the 110th Congress, the military still has not received funding for operations in Iraq this year, and the process has to start from Square One while the Pentagon has to start juggling the books:

[...]

At some point, a compromise has to be reached -- but it cannot take the form of mandated timetables for withdrawal. The British did that in Basra, and the result has been the formation of militias and internecine fighting in a region homogenous to Shi'ites. Imagine what would happen in the melting pot of Baghdad, let alone the al-Qaeda theater of operations in Baghdad. Announcing withdrawal dates only emboldens those who oppose the democratically-elected government of Iraq and encourages the rest to choose the least-egregious warlord to obey.

***

Freed UK sailors back in the Persian Gulf
Bryan Preston

Because, you know, it worked so well the last time.
Seven of the 15 British Royal Navy personnel held captive by Iran are back in the Persian Gulf searching for smugglers, Britain’s military said Tuesday.

The seven returned to duty on the frigate HMS Cornwall, the Defense Ministry said. Another seven of the Royal Marines have returned to duty at a naval base in Scotland. No decision has been made on whether to send those marines back to the Persian Gulf, the Defense Ministry said.

The seven sailors back in the Gulf include the group’s only woman, Leading Seaman Faye Turney. They are again working in small boats boarding ships in Iraqi waters to check for contraband goods, the ministry said. It was during one such operation that the sailors and marines were captured by naval forces of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on March 23.
The Littlest Sailor isn’t among his mates in the Gulf. ...

***

If It’s Not Lost, How Can We Win?
War buzz from Lt. Col. Patterson

Retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson is author of the upcoming book War Crimes: The Left’s Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror (Crown Forum, June). As the president prepares to veto Congress’s timetabled war-funding bill, Lt. Col. Patterson took some questions from NRO editor Kathryn Lopez about the Democratic congressional majority, war reporting, and more.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Your upcoming book begins with a quote from Cicero about how a nation “cannot survive treason from within.” Surely you’re not calling Democrats traitors. Or are you?

“Buzz” Patterson: I am. They certainly are if their behavior during our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is held up to the light of the U.S. Constitution. Article III, Section 3 defines treason against the United States as “adhering to (our) enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, and John Murtha, amongst others, are guilty of exactly that. When a government official stands on the floor of Congress and declares the war lost; or travels to Syria, a state-sponsor of terror, and meets with the leadership that is funneling insurgents into Iraq to kill Americans; or, publicly compares our military men and women to Nazis, Soviets in gulags, and Pol Pot; or refers to our Marines as “cold blooded killers” before an ongoing investigation is completed and charges filed, they have crossed the line and have taken their politics to the battlefield. These are behaviors that give aid and comfort to our enemy.

It’s not just the Democrats though but many on the Left — its faculties and administrations on college campuses, big media, Hollywood, and left-wing organizations such as the Ford Foundation, Moveon.org, United for Peace and Justice, etc. What is particularly disturbing to me is that these Americans are doing it while their fellow citizens are fighting and dying in combat. The best ally that al Qaeda has these days is the Democrat Party leadership. It’s reprehensible.

Lopez: Is it fair even to say “The Left has declared war on the U.S. military and the global War on Terror”? ...

***

If Entering Iraq Was a Mistake, Leaving Is Worse
By Dennis Prager

In arriving at their decision that America should withdraw its forces from Iraq, the Democratic Party and the Left around the world regularly make reference to what they regard as America's initial error -- invading Iraq.

Perhaps the Left is correct in its contentions that bringing freedom to a Muslim Arab country at this time in history is impossible and that an Iraq under Saddam Hussein would be better for American and world security.

But even if the war was a major blunder and even if everything the Left charges -- including "Bush lied" -- were true, none of these contentions has any bearing on the question of what should be done now.

The preoccupation of the Left with the alleged wrongness of the war and the alleged deceit of President Bush is another example of passion rather than reason determining a leftist position on a major issue.

A responsible, rational opponent of the war in Iraq and of George W. Bush would say, "I am appalled by the disastrous war in Iraq, appalled by the wasted American lives, appalled by the moral wasteland of Iraq, and I loathe this president. But we are in Iraq. And as much as I loathe supporting anything this president does and as much as I oppose this war, I know what is likely to happen if we leave Iraq. So I cannot in good conscience advocate an American withdrawal or fixing a specific date to do so." ...

***

Bush Keeps Vow to Veto War Funding Bill

President Says Pullout Deadline Is 'Date for Failure'
By Michael Abramowitz and Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writers

President Bush vetoed a $124 billion measure yesterday that would have funded overseas military operations but required him to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq as early as July, escalating the most serious confrontation between the White House and Congress over war policy in a generation.

Bush carried through on his veto threat just after the legislation arrived at the White House, calling the timetable a "prescription for chaos and confusion" that would undercut generals. "Setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments," he said last night. "Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure." ...

***

The 'new' Democrats and the war

With President Bush meeting today with congressional leaders on the war-funding bill, the administration continues to be hammered by Democrats who are never at a loss for words when it comes to professing their admiration for our troops or browbeating the Iraqis to "do more" to defend their own country. But these talking points from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bear little resemblance to the actual behavior of House and Senate Democrats, who have undercut the ability of U.S. and Iraqi forces to carry out their missions. ...

***

I Question
They Are Not Serious. They Are Not Patriotic.
By Erick (at Redstate)

I question the seriousness of the Democratic Party. They have been so intent to cut off funding to the troops in Iraq, they passed the bill and then held it for a week so Nancy Pelosi could read it. Or was that to print it on parchment. Their unserious excuses have been all over the map for the past week.

Witness the seriousness of the President who vetoed the bill upon receipt versus the unseriousness of the Congressional Democrats who wanted to time the delivery to the anniversary of President Bush's speech aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, only to deny that today and tell NPR that the timing was a "coincidence." ...

I question the Democrats' seriousness. I question the Democrats' patriotism too. ...

The Democrats say they support the troops, but they have consistently sought since 2002, to undermine the efforts of the troops, the military leadership, the cause, and protective measures the Bush Administration has implemented to keep this nation safe -- from terrorist surveillance to unionization of the Department of Homeland Security to the Patriot Act.

You're damn right I question their patriotism. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on May 2, 2007 at 12:37 AM in Caring about our troops, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 30 April 2007

Did we learn anything?

April 30, 1975: Two Different Wars, One Destructive Parallel
Bruce Kesler

Hoi Tran, refugee from North Vietnam after the 1954 partition, became a South Vietnam Air Force fighter pilot, flying thousands of missions, his last to escape in 1975 to the U.S. Hoi Tran blogs at VietAmericanVets. He is the author of this guest post below.

Before, a quick review of history:

April 30, 1975: Before dawn, the last American helicopter lifted from the U.S. embassy’s roof, with the ambassador aboard.

[...]

Having gone through this in the Vietnam War and ended up being a victim of a political defeat over 30 years ago, this writer is concerned watching the same scenario unfolding in America. I strongly believe it is time for America to do what is necessary to win the war on terror rather than to appease the defeatist members of Congress or to fear criticism from the extreme liberal left media. I do not like war because I had lived and fought in the war in Vietnam for freedom almost my entire adolescent and adult life. However, in defense of freedom and our way of life, I will not hesitate to fight again if my health and age permit. This is a war we must fight and cannot afford to lose. If we lost, global terrorist will bring war and destruction to our own soil and our next generation will suffer. It is time to wake up America!

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 30, 2007 at 04:38 PM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Viet Nam | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

2007.04.30 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup
-- Breaking: Bush to veto Oink and Run bill tomorrow

See previous: 2007.04.29 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Below the fold (newest items at the top):

Ledeen Responds To Tenet
Broder Sticks To His Guns
The Consequences Of The Democrats' Iraq Policy
A Loser's History
Democrats’ Blood II
Bush Plans to Veto Iraq War Spending Bill on Tuesday
Former CIA Boss Out of Loop on Parts of His New Book
But I won't question his patriotism
Video: Tenet says Iraq wouldn’t have had nukes until 2007 or 2009
Tenet Does 60 Minutes
Afghan Infant Deaths Fall 40,000 Per Year After Eviction of Taliban
A basic tenet of public life, part 2

Who Won Harry?
J D Pendry, CSM, USA (Ret.)

You don't mind if I call you Harry do you? I'm just an Average American and since you preface every statement you make by portending what I want, I thought we would be comfortable using first names. I could call you Senator if you like, but understand that I get a searing pain in my right temple each time I think about that. As you know me so well and seem so concerned about my desires, I'm sure that you don't wish me any discomfort. My faith tells me I should not succumb to fits of rage, but I have simmered a bit about this one Harry. I'll try to be civil, but I may need to ask forgiveness afterwards.

So, if we have lost this war, who won it? You haven't exactly explained that for me or the rest of the Average Americans out here. As the twitch returns above my right temple, allow me to speculate:
"Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al Qaeda's global campaign and we devote considerable resources to the fight against al Qaeda Iraq.

They [Qazali network responsible for the deaths of five Soldiers in Karbala] were provided substantial funding, training on Iranian soil, advanced explosive munitions and technologies as well as run of the mill arms and ammunition, in some cases advice and in some cases even a degree of direction. ...

And there's no question, again, that Iranian financing is taking place through the Quds force of the Iranian Republican Guards Corps. ..." -- General David Petraeus
Does that clear if up for you Harry?

Harry, I think you are a loser and what's more, real Americans don't care for losers -- losers at anything much less war. You see in war, I do not recall there being a second place trophy. ...

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Ledeen Responds To Tenet
Ed Morrissey

Michael Ledeen found himself in the middle of a controversy regarding the new book by former CIA chief George Tenet, and unexpectedly so. According to Ledeen, he had not been contacted by Tenet or his co-author for the book for his input. Nevertheless, Ledeen found Tenet's scorn for him and his efforts to assist the intel community on Iran on the front page of the New York Times this past weekend. Now Ledeen responds at National Review Online, and he accuses Tenet of misrepresenting Ledeen's efforts:
In December, 2001, I participated in discussions between two Pentagon officials and Iranians who claimed knowledge of Iranian-sponsored efforts to kill Americans in Afghanistan. We met in Rome, Italy over several days. The discussions were approved by Stephen Hadley, the deputy national-security adviser, and the two Defense department officials’ travel was approved by their superiors. The American ambassador in Rome was fully informed in advance, and fully briefed afterwards. The conversations produced detailed information about the identities, locations, and plans of Iranian-trained terrorists in Afghanistan. This was passed on to the proper authorities at the DoD, and I was later told by military officers that the information likely saved American lives.

Now comes the former director of central intelligence, George Tenet, with several pages about the meeting in his new book. He does not mention that American lives were saved, nor does he seem at all interested to learn that there were well-informed sources who were willing to help the American government. Nor, for that matter, is he much interested in the facts at all. ...

***

Broder Sticks To His Guns
Ed Morrissey

David Broder took Democrats to task for allowing an incompetent like Harry Reid to rise to party leadership, pointing out several of the Senator's foolish foibles as examples. This column sent the netroots into a tizzy, with many of them declaring Broder as irrelevant and past his expiration date. The Senate Democratic caucus even sent him a letter, signed by all 50 members, extolling the virtues of Reid and lauding his "straight talk" -- apparently all endorsing the notion that we have lost the war in Iraq.

Today, Editor & Publisher caught up Broder, who has no intention of retracting his remarks:
David Broder said he wouldn't change anything in his April 26 column, which angered many readers and caused 50 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus to write a letter criticizing Broder in Friday's Washington Post. ...

"I still think the Democrats can do better, and should do better," said Broder, when reached today by E&P. ... Broder told E&P that he was "astonished and delighted" that 50 Democratic senators "spontaneously" came up with the letter (adding that he was being "tongue-in-cheek").
The letter was something of a non-sequitur. His criticism wasn't that Reid spoke his mind, but that he put his foot in his mouth when he did. Declaring a war "lost" while American troops are still fighting -- and making progress -- reveals a hysterical streak that doesn't reflect well on leadership. As Broder pointed out in the column, not even the people who signed the letter would defend what Reid said, instead trying to use Clintonian word parsing to make it appear that Harry Reid had not just capitulated to terrorists in Anbar and Baghdad. Calling the President a "loser" may make the netroots swoon with delight, but it hardly makes for a professional atmosphere between Congress and the White House.

***

The Consequences Of The Democrats' Iraq Policy
John Hawkins (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

I detest a lot of things about the way that Democrats argue about the war in Iraq...

* The dishonest way that so many of them voted for the war when it was popular and turned on it when public opinion went the other way.

* The way they criticize Bush, but have never offered up a plan for victory.

* The fact that they've encouraged the terrorists to murder our soldiers and the Iraqi civilians by convincing them that all they have to do is hold out a little longer and the Democrats will hand them victory.

* Their claim that "Bush lied" about weapons of mass destruction when countless Democrats looked at the same evidence and came to the same conclusions that Bush did.

You could go on and on with these examples. But, here's what I really dislike the most about the way the Democrats argue about the war: the fact that they are, for political reasons, advocating that we leave Iraq before the Iraqi military can defend the country while studiously avoiding a discussion of the horrific consequences that may result from that action.

Some of those consequences could be, but are not limited to...

* The end of democracy in Iraq.
* Millions of Iraqis killed in a real "civil war."
* The invasion of Iraq by Iran and/or Turkey.
* Iraq becoming a satellite state of Iran.
* A regional Shia on Sunni civil war that could begin as all sides pour in money and weapons.
* A terrorist "state within a state" controlled by Al-Qaeda.
* Al-Qaeda switching its focus from Iraq to the United States which could lead to more attacks here.
* A massive surge in recruiting by terrorist groups bolstered by Al-Qaeda's "victory" over the US.
* A massive spike in worldwide oil prices if all the oil from Iraq is cut off in the fighting.

We don't see Democrats in Congress or liberal bloggers saying, "Sure, those are things that could happen, but we think that's a fair trade off if we can leave right now." Instead, if you listened to the anti-war crowd, you'd think that there were no consequences to THE DEMOCRATIC DESIRE -- not, Bush's desire -- to leave Iraq before its military is ready to defend the country. ...

***

A Loser's History
George Tenet's sniveling, self-justifying new book is a disgrace.
By Christopher Hitchens (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

It's difficult to see why George Tenet would be so incautious as to write his own self-justifying apologia, let alone give it the portentous title At the Center of the Storm. There is already a perfectly good pro-Tenet book written by a man who knows how to employ the overworked term storm. Bob Woodward's 2002 effort, Bush at War, was, in many of its aspects, almost dictated by George Tenet. How do we know this? Well, Tenet is described on the opening page as "a hefty, outgoing son of Greek immigrants," which means that he talked to Woodward on background. Further compliments are showered upon him. We discover that his main protector on Capitol Hill, Sen. David Boren, who represented Oklahoma until 1994, had implored President-elect Bush to retain this Clinton-era head of the CIA and if he had any doubts, to "ask your father":
When the younger Bush did, the former President George H.W. Bush said: "From what I hear, he's a good fellow," one of the highest accolades in the Bush family lexicon. Tenet … later led the effort to rename CIA headquarters for Bush, himself a former DCI.
No need to draw a very complex picture here: Tenet knows how the kiss-up and kiss-down game is played. And, for a rather mediocre man, he did well enough out of the arrangement while it lasted.

***

Democrats’ Blood II
A J Strata

The Democrats better stop playing games and get the money and material flowing to our troops. Their partisan greed has already sent signals to al Qaeda and others to ramp up the killings - which they gleefully did. But now protective vehicles are being held up ONLY because the money is not flowing.

[...]

Addendum: The hypocrisy of the Surrendercrats is stunning. Check out this statement from Dorgan (D-ND):
Senators pressed for more. “We’re buying far too few of them,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat. “If we have that capability, why would we not do everything to mobilize, to move as many of them into the field as is possible?
Why Senator? Because, you fool, you did not give Bush the funds he needed? Even when you knew a veto was imminent you took politics over lives? How many will die because of your crass partisanship?

I left out part of A J's post that duplicates my related post here.

***

Bush Plans to Veto Iraq War Spending Bill on Tuesday

WASHINGTON — President Bush plans to veto legislation to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Tuesday, but vowed to work with Democrats on the next step to craft a compromise supplemental spending bill that would be free of an Iraq pullout timetable.

"I made my position very clear, the Congress chose to ignore it, so I will veto the bill," Bush said in a press conference in the White House Rose Garden on Monday. "That's not to say that I'm not interested in their opinions — I am. I look forward to working with members of both parties to get a bill that doesn’t set artificial timetables and doesn't micromanage and get some money to our troops."

Senior White House officials told FOX News that Bush will veto the bill late Tuesday after he returns from a trip to Tampa, Fla., to visit the United States Central Command. The schedule is based on Congress delivering the legislation to his desk by then. The veto will not take place in a ceremony, but the president will make short remarks or release a statement.

Bush has repeatedly signaled his opposition to setting a timetable to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and the veto comes as no surprise to Democratic lawmakers and others who want to pull out of Iraq. ...

***

Former CIA Boss Out of Loop on Parts of His New Book
Scott Ott

(2007-04-30) — Former CIA Director George Tenet said today that he was not included in discussions about key portions of his book that have been called into question by eyewitnesses to the events recounted.

“There was no serious debate at the publisher’s office, at least none that included me, about whether to retain certain questionable assertions in my book,” Mr. Tenet told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. “And yet, as usual, it looks like I’m going to take the heat for what appears in those pages just because I happen to be the author.” ...

***

But I won't question his patriotism
By Jay Tea

Yesterday, Kim had a good piece on John Murtha's latest stroke of genius: to use the impeachment process as "leverage" against President Bush over the Iraq war. This may come as no great surprise to people, but I think that is a very, very bad idea.

I will not question Murtha's patriotism.

I will question his integrity. In the now-legendary Abscam sting, Murtha was not indicted. He met with the bogus Arabs, discussed how their bribe money could best be used in his district, but deferred actually accepting cash "for now."

But I will not question his patriotism.

I will question his intelligence. Murtha, it is worth noting, was a proponent of of pulling US forces out of Iraq and redeploying them to Okinawa, where they could quickly return to the region if necessary. Murtha didn't bother to mention that 1) the Japanese are growing more and more dissatisfied with our presence there, and wouldn't exactly embrace a massive infusion of new forces, and B) Okinawa is practically next door to Iraq only on a celestial scale -- to everyone else, it's a third of the globe away, with China and Russia being in the way of direct transit.

But I will not question his patriotism.

I will question his judgment. ...

***

Video: Tenet says Iraq wouldn’t have had nukes until 2007 or 2009
Ian Schwartz (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

Well, I guess we should have waited to invade until last year:

Transcript:

SCOTT PELLEY, CBS’ “60 MINUTES”: January ‘03, the President, again: “imagine those 19 hijackers this time armed by Saddam’s Hussein,” is that what you’re telling the President?

GEORGE TENET: No.

[narrating voice]

The Vice President up the ante, claiming Saddam had nuclear weapons when the CIA was saying he didn’t.

PELLEY: What’s happening here?

TENET: I don’t know what’s happening here. The intelligence community’s judgemnet is he will not have a nuclear weapon until the year 2007, 2009.

PELLEY: That’s not what the Vice President is saying.

TENET: Well I can’t explain it.

Lorie comments:

Here is the problem I have with those who say the administration lied because they cherry picked information, or faulting them for acting on information indicating the earliest estimates of the threat. If you are being told that the guy next door is building a bomb and he is going to blow you and your family up, and you have lots of differing opinions about how long it is going to take to build the bomb, do you take all the different assessments and choose to believe the ones that say it will take a year, rather than the ones that say it will take a month? Or do you take all the estimates and average them? Or do you, right after 9/11 caught you by surprise, decide that you will no longer give a terrorist the benefit of the doubt and decide to act on the information that says he could have the bomb built in the least amount of time, out of an over abundance of caution? If you and your family were in the house next door, what would you hope would be done? I realize that is an oversimplification, but when looking at the decision to invade Iraq it is necessary to look at what was known at the time, and that the President was deeply impacted by 9/11 and vowed we would never again ignore or treat lightly the terrorist threat. The fact that some in the intelligence community believed Saddam was a loveable little fuzzball, does not make it okay for the President to ignore those in the intelligence community who believed (as Tenet said in the 60 Minutes interview) that he would have nukes today.

***

Tenet Does 60 Minutes
No wonder we’re in dire straits.
By Andrew C. McCarthy (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

Hawking his new book, At the Eye of the Storm, former CIA Director George Tenet bared his soul Sunday night to Scott Pelley of the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes. Some preliminary thoughts about his jaw-dropping performance are in order.

1. Tenet met every morning with President Bush. Indeed, he was the point person at the national-security briefing — the daily session Bush, from the beginning of his presidency, has made a point of taking more seriously than his predecessor did. Tenet now claims that in the summer of 2001, he was convinced al Qaeda was on the verge of launching a spectacular, multiple-site attack against the United States. He was convinced the United States should take action against the terror network in its Afghanistan safe haven. But, he maintains he shared this information only with (then) National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, not the president.

Why, day after day after day, didn’t he advise the president of his suspicions? “Because,” Tenet says, “the United States government doesn’t work that way. The president is not the action officer. You bring the action to the national-security adviser and people who set the table for the president to decide on policies they’re gonna implement.”

Sure, Mr. Director. Just one question: What the hell goes on at the daily briefings?

2. Immediately after 9/11, ...

***

Afghan Infant Deaths Fall 40,000 Per Year After Eviction of Taliban
Ace of Spades (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

Did America buy itself a big, verifiable pile of Collateral Damage Offsets?
INFANT mortality in Afghanistan has fallen dramatically since the demise of the Taleban, according to a new study, with 40,000 fewer babies dying every year.

Improvements in women's access to medical care since the Taleban were ousted from power five years ago was cited as the main reason for the death rate becoming significantly lower.

Grim infant and maternal mortality rates have been regularly cited as evidence of Afghanistan's backwardness after decades of war.

They were also seen as a sign of the slow progress of the internationally funded reconstruction effort. ...
It's a point that seems glib but isn't -- how do 40,000 fewer infant deaths per year factor into the left's "war never solved anything" and "war is bad for the health of puppies and flowers and other living things" slogans?

***

A basic tenet of public life, part 2
Scott Johnson

Bill Kristol notes George Tenet's imaginary encounter with the "neocon" for all seasons:
SCOTT SHANE REPORTED in Saturday's New York Times that former CIA chief George Tenet's dramatic description in his book, At the Center of the Storm, of an August 2002 presentation at the CIA by defense undersecretary Douglas Feith and his staff, is at the very least misleading. In order to suggest that Feith's staff was utterly out of its depth, Tenet characterized the main briefer, Tina Shelton, as a "naval reservist." In fact, she had been a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst for almost two decades. Tenet also claimed that Shelton said in her presentation of Iraq-al Qaeda contacts, "It is an open-and-shut case." Shelton and Feith both deny she said that. One person who served in government with Shelton told THE WEEKLY STANDARD today he finds it "inconceivable" that Shelton, an experienced analyst, would have made such an unequivocal assertion.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has now learned of a second, more stunning error in Tenet's book (which is due to appear in bookstores tomorrow). According to Michiko Kakutani's review in Saturday's Times,
On the day after 9/11, he [Tenet] adds, he ran into Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and the head of the Defense Policy Board, coming out of the White House. He says Mr. Perle turned to him and said: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility."
Here's the problem: Richard Perle was in France on that day, unable to fly back after September 11. In fact Perle did not return to the United State until September 15. Did Tenet perhaps merely get the date of this encounter wrong? Well, the quote Tenet ascribes to Perle hinges on the encounter taking place September 12: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday." And Perle in any case categorically denies to THE WEEKLY STANDARD ever having said any such thing to Tenet, while coming out of the White House or anywhere else. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 30, 2007 at 01:42 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, J D Pendry, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 29 April 2007

2007.04.29 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.04.28 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Deadlocked War Funding Bill May Halt Troop Carriers

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq — The armored carrier has a grim black slash across its side, burn marks on the door and a web of cracks along the window.

Like most of the Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Anbar province, this one has been hit as many as three times by enemy fire and bomb blasts. Yet, to date, no American troops have died while riding in one.

But efforts to buy thousands more carriers — each costing about $1 million — could be delayed if the White House and Congress do not resolve their deadlock over a $124.2 billion war spending bill.

About $3 billion for the vehicles is tied up in the legislation. The spending plan has stalled because of a dispute over provisions that would set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. ...

Joe Katzman has an excellent related post here.

Bottom line: Replacing HMMWVs with MRAP's saves American lives. The Army and Marines are waiting for money to replace a bunch of 'em. They don't have it yet because the Surrendercrats are playing political games instead of taking care of the troops.

It is my fervent and heartfelt hope that when the jihadis finally manage to nuke DC Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Mad Jack Murtha are just far enough from Ground Zero to see the flash and have a split second to realize what happened before the shock front arrives and liquefies their bodies. Catching the three of them somewhere on the left coast for a moonbat convention would be even better, of course.

Update after a night's sleep and some time to surf the web a little: I don't really want the Three Ratateers to die in the initial blast. I'd much prefer they die slow lingering deaths trapped in the rubble, preferably under the same rubble pile so they have time to congratulate each other on how well they managed the war. (No, Bill isn't "off his meds again." I'm not wishing any worse fate for the Ratateers than will be suffered by thousands of others if they succeed in implementing their proposed policies.)

Below the fold (newest items at the top):

Rice: 'Slam dunk' comment didn't lead to war
Officers: Ex-CIA chief Tenet a 'failed' leader
Scheuer: Don't Buy Tenet
A Basic Tenet of Public Life...
Meet the Press: Harry Reid's Plan for America
Top general: U.S. needs a bigger Army faster
Video: Murtha suggests impeachment
if President doesn’t “compromise”
Good News In Anbar
Saudi’d Straight
And then what?
Terrorists Ecstatic With Democrats' Debate
1st Assault Accordians, Advance to Rear!
"If Osama bin Laden stood up and said 'Here's my timetable for withdrawing from Iraq'...
"I'm ready for my fatwa"
US aircrews show Taliban no mercy
Certified Madness
Winners And Losers
Forgive My Unstiff Upper Lip
Another big fish in Iraq?

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Rice: 'Slam dunk' comment didn't lead to war

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday said the administration did not use former CIA Director George Tenet's "slam dunk" comment as the reason to invade Iraq, disputing his complaints.

"We all thought that the intelligence case was strong." Rice said, speaking to CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," just hours before an interview with Tenet was set to air on CBS News' "60 Minutes."

The "slam dunk" issue arose last September, the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC's "Meet the Press" that before the U.S.-led invasion, President Bush asked Tenet how good the case was against Saddam Hussein involving weapons of mass destruction.

"It's a slam dunk, Mr. President," Tenet responded. ...

***

Officers: Ex-CIA chief Tenet a 'failed' leader

(CNN) -- In a letter written Saturday to former CIA Director George Tenet, six former CIA officers described their former boss as "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community," and called his book "an admission of failed leadership."

The writers said Tenet has "a moral obligation" to return the Medal of Freedom he received from President Bush.

They also called on him to give more than half the royalties he gets from book, "At the Center of the Storm," to U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and families of the dead. ...

The letter, signed by Phil Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Jim Marcinkowski, Vince Cannistraro and David MacMichael, said Tenet should have resigned in protest rather than take part in the administration's buildup to the war. ...

Johnson is a former CIA intelligence official and registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000. McGovern is a former CIA analyst.

Cannistraro is former head of the CIA's counterterrorism division and was head of intelligence for the National Security Council in the late 1980s.

The writers said they agree that Bush administration officials took the nation to war "for flimsy reasons," and that it has proved "ill-advised and wrong-headed."

But, they added, "your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership.

"You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq." ...

***

Scheuer: Don't Buy Tenet
Ed Morrissey

Michael Scheuer, the CIA chief of the now-defunct Osama bin Laden unit, wrote a book recounting his frustrations spanning more than a decade of counterterrorism work for Langley. The author of such books as Imperial Hubris and Through Our Enemies' Eyes has spent the last few years detailing how senior intelligence officials have failed several administrations and the nation. Now he responds to George Tenet and his new memoirs, and warns Americans that Tenet has not told the truth:
At a time when clear direction and moral courage were needed, Tenet shifted course to follow the prevailing winds, under President Bill Clinton and then President Bush -- and he provided distraught officers at Langley a shoulder to cry on when his politically expedient tacking sailed the United States into disaster.

At the CIA, Tenet will be remembered for some badly needed morale-building. But he will also be recalled for fudging the central role he played in the decline of America's clandestine service -- the brave field officers who run covert missions that make us all safer. The decline began in the late 1980s, when the impending end of the Cold War meant smaller budgets and fewer hires, and it continued through Sept. 11, 2001. When Tenet and his bungling operations chief, James Pavitt, described this slow-motion disaster in testimony after the terrorist attacks, they tried to blame the clandestine service's weaknesses on congressional cuts. But Tenet had helped preside over every step of the service's decline during three consecutive administrations -- Bush, Clinton, Bush -- in a series of key intelligence jobs for the Senate, the National Security Council and the CIA. Only 9/11, it seems, convinced Tenet of the importance of a large, aggressive clandestine service to U.S. security. ...
In fact, what Scheuer describes here is only a hair short of cowardice. Tenet willingly went along with the flow, regardless of who was in charge. With Clinton, he was only too happy to undermine the intelligence for a pre-emptive strike on bin Laden, because he sensed that Clinton didn't want to take any risks. With Bush, he went along with the strongest possible analysis of the intelligence because he sensed that Bush would take action anyway. And if Tenet really means what he says in this book -- Scheuer gives examples of his accusations against Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and the "neocon" cabal -- Tenet never bothered to mention it to Congress or the 9/11 Commission, years after the fact.

Scheuer says that Tenet wants to get back into the good graces of the Democrats, his first political home. He well might. Some in Congress have already mentioned Tenet's name on witness lists for their investigation, and Scheuer sees that as a rehabilitation opportunity that Tenet will not allow to pass. Tenet apparently lets Bush off the hook, as well as Colin Powell, but seems willing to throw everyone else under the bus to protect himself.

Don't think that Scheuer is defending the decision to go into Iraq: far from it. ...

***

A Basic Tenet of Public Life...
John Hinderaker

...should be that, if you are given a vitally important responsibility and screw it up badly, you should thereafter maintain a discreet and humble silence.

Someone forgot to tell George Tenet. He's now written a book, which I haven't read and won't, in which he apparently whines about all the other people who are to blame for whatever has gone wrong in Iraq, while "taking responsibility" for the CIA's abysmal performance in the usual modern way: that is, by changing the subject.

Tenet apparently admits, as he must, that the CIA misadvised the White House and Congress about Iraq's WMD programs. Still, the war wasn't his fault. He blames the administration, and Dick Cheney in particular, for going to war without a proper debate about the need to do so. He premises this conclusion, apparently, on the fact that "those debates did not happen in the presence of Tenet or other senior CIA officials." What's too bad, really, is that discussion of intelligence matters did take place in the presence of Tenet and other CIA officials. We might all have been better off if they had been excluded from the process entirely.

As for Tenet's claim that there was no debate about whether the war was really necessary, it is ridiculous. The decision to go to war was debated in the White House; it was debated in the U.N.; it was debated in Congress; it was debated on Sunday morning talk shows; it was debated in every tavern in North America. If the decision was wrong, as Tenet apparently believes with the benefit of four years of hindsight, it wasn't for lack of debate. ...

***

Meet the Press: Harry Reid's Plan for America
Doug Ross (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

Tim Russert: Senator Reid, many on the right side of the aisle took you to task for saying the war is 'lost'. How do you respond to your critics?

Harry Reid: No one wants to succeed in Iraq more than I do, but this war cannot be won militarily. It must be won diplomatically, via earmarks, and backroom political corner-cutting.

TR: But can negotiation be expected to dampen the ever-growing threat of global extremism?

HR: We on the left side of the aisle believe war never solved anything.

TR: You mean 'war never solved anything' except for ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism?

HR: Don't be a smart-ass, Tim. You know what I mean.

TR: Not sure that I do, Senator. How does calling the war 'lost' help anyone but Al Qaeda?

HR: The truth will set you free, Tim. How can our military possibly stand up to the terr-- uhm, insurgents' -- awful weapons of AK-47s, suicide bomb-belts, and old artillery shells? Their weapons are too powerful, their tactics too sophisticated, and their goals too evil for us to prevail! ...

[Read the whole thing.]

***

Top general: U.S. needs a bigger Army faster

SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii (AP) -- The Army's new chief of staff said he wants to accelerate by two years a plan to increase the nation's active-duty soldiers by 65,000.

The Army has set 2012 as its target date for a force expansion to 547,000 troops, but Gen. George Casey said he told his staff to have the soldiers ready earlier.

"I said that's too long. Go back and tell me what it would take to get it done faster," he said in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press during a stop in Hawaii.

Casey became the Army chief of staff April 12 after serving as the top U.S. commander in Iraq for more than two years. ...

Casey said his staff has submitted a proposal for the accelerated timeline but that he has yet to approve the plan. He said the Army was stretched and would remain that way until the additional troops were trained and equipped.

Casey told a group of soldiers' spouses that one of his tasks is to try to limit the impact of the strain on soldiers and their families.

"We live in a difficult period for the Army because the demand for our forces exceeds the supply," he said. ...

***

Video: Murtha suggests impeachment
if President doesn’t “compromise”
Ian Schwartz

Rep. John Murtha suggested the possibility of impeachment to “influence” the President to “compromise” over funding for Iraq. Is it just me or does John Murtha sound like Vito Corleone? Does Murtha not know he is talking about impeaching the President of the United States because he is not compromising with the will of the far-left of Congress? That’s neither a high crime nor even a misdemeanor, which are the behaviors that are supposed to trigger impeachment. Murtha’s suggestion is outside the bounds of what Congress is supposed to do to influence the behavior of a sitting president, to say the least. ...

Transcript:
BOB SCHIEFFER: Are you seriously talking about contemplating an impeachment of this President?

MURTHA: What I’m saying is there are four ways to influence a President.

SCHIEFFER: — and that’s one of them?

MURTHA: [unintelligible] and the fourth one is –

SCHIEFFER: — that’s an option that’s on the table?

MURTHA: I’m just saying that’s one way to influence the President

Aww gee whiz, Ian. You mean to say having the audacity to refuse to march to Congress's kazoo isn't a firing offense? Dang! There oughta be a law! [/snark] Actually, there really should be a law, against continuing to serve in Congress after the onset of senility.

Kim Priestap comments here.

***

Good News In Anbar
Ed Morrissey

Just as the Democrats have raised the white flag on Iraq, the New York Times reports that the surge strategy has started paying off in Anbar. Shops have reopened, people have moved back, and everyone's challenging the insurgents except Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi:
Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat.

“Many people are challenging the insurgents,” said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, “We know we haven’t eliminated the threat 100 percent.”

Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.
Life has not yet returned to normal, nor even close to it. Infrastructure still has yet to be rebuilt, and the loyalty of America's new allies still remains uncertain. What does appear certain is that this former stronghold of Ba'athist resentment no longer wants to exist in a cycle of oppression, liberation, and destruction. They want to end the fighting by eliminating the insurgents.

The question will be whether they stick with that in the face of an imminent American withdrawal. It has taken four years for Anbar to understand that Sunni domination in Iraq has ended and will not return, neither in the guise of Saddam Hussein nor in a military junta ruled by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the chief Ba'athist dead-ender. Now that they have finally pulled together with the US to oppose the increasingly lunatic al-Qaeda terrorists, we have lost the will to fight the insurgents ourselves -- or at least Congress has. ...

***

Saudi’d Straight
Jules Crittenden (H/T: Don Surber)

Saudi program pays radical youth to stay on the straight and narrow:
The Saudi daily Al-Watan reported, citing an anonymous security source, that the Saudi interior ministry has spent over 115 million riyals over the last three years in financial aid for eligible prisoners and their families. The source stated that the aid given to the prisoners goes towards payment of debts, assisting family members in housing and health care, financing prisoners’ weddings, and purchasing cars after they complete the program and are released. He added that prisoners’ families that are needy receive monthly payments of 2,000-3,000 riyals. ...
So they’re claiming 80-90 percent success rate. That’s if none of the participants have their fingers crossed. Be interesting to know that their real re-Islamist rate is. Sounds like a great program. But I’d be happier if they’d just stop paying them to be terrorists in the first place. You know, stop the flow of $$$ to radical imams and mosques, madrassas, Iraqi car bomb factories, that kind of thing.

***

And then what?
By Jay Tea

... So, just what would happen if the United States withdrew from Iraq?

Initially, I think it would be fairly calm. There would be some attacks against our forces, as the various and sundry factions would each try to get the "final" attack on us that gives them the bragging rights for "driving out the infidels."

After that, though, there would be a brief calm period, as the factions work out their strategies.

It would be the calm before the storm - or, as a certain French monarch said, "le deluge."

"Bloodbath" would be a bit of an understatement.

The first victims of the carnage would be those people who had the foolish audacity to trust in the United States, who were a part of the current government and cooperated with us. I'm just pulling numbers out of the air here, but I'd speculate that 80% would be executed - probably in as grisly a way as possible. Another 10% would flee the nation, but 10% or so would be kept as figureheads and tokens to provide a "beard" or "fig leaf" for whatever form of government emerges.

The next thing that would happen would be a withdrawal of nearly all the Kurds into their home region for self-defense. This would be merely the latest in a long, long string of betrayals, abandonments, and blind eyes that the West has given the Kurds. ...

***

Terrorists Ecstatic With Democrats' Debate
Posted by Abdul (Hat tip: Jim Addison)

Let there be no doubt that the Democrat's debate encouraged terrorists:

... Abu Jihad said he believes if elected to the White House, the Democrats will immediately order a withdrawal from Iraq. He warned if a retreat is not carried out, the U.S. will likely be attacked on the home front.

... "The (Democrat) debate showed that like in Vietnam the American people needed these thousands of soldiers killed to see that invading other people will always result in a failure. ... I think the Democrats will win and apply an immediate withdrawal, but if they don't (withdraw), the revolutionary movements in Iraq will intensify attacks, and I think you should prepare for another big attack in the U.S." ...

Let's not forget that Al Qaeda's happiness with the election results that put the Democrats in power was confirmed by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

***

1st Assault Accordians, Advance to Rear!
Jules Crittenden

The question is, what is the relationship between this* and this.** Oh yeah, and this.***

*French hostage released.

** French foreign minister sees no long-term French troop presence in Afghanistan.

Stratfor suggests harmonic convergence. News summary: “France does not plan to keep troops in Afghanistan, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said. Douste-Blazy’s announcement came hours before a deadline to pull French troops out of Afghanistan in exchange for the release of two French hostages.”

*** Sarkosy vows to pull French troops from Afghanistan.

But, mes amis, how can we hunt the deer without the accordian? Can’t be easy to be French. But they can take solace in the news that they hate themselves more than everyone else hates them. ...

***

"If Osama bin Laden stood up and said 'Here's my timetable for withdrawing from Iraq'...
By AcademicElephant (Hat tip: Kim Priestap)

...it would be of significant benefit to us both tactically and strategically."

In our second interview, Jeff and I sat down with Colonel Michael Everett, who works on strategic effects for MNF-I. What this means is that he advises General Bill Caldwell and General David Petraeus on the development of the Iraqi parliament. So while Colonel Everett may not be a household name, he is deeply involved in encouraging the Iraqis to develop legislative tools to resolve their differences and advance their new nation. Colonel Everett has served 23 years in the army as an Infantry officer, as secretary to the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and with the NATO training mission in Iraq. He then taught at the Army War College and returned to Iraq in May, 2006. ...

I asked the Colonel about the response of Iraqi politicians to the bill mandating a withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq beginning October 1 and ending no later than March 1.

They have not made an official response, but I would say that the Prime Minister is opposed to it because once again it plays into the hands of the insurgents. If Osama bin Laden stood up and said "Here's my timetable for withdrawing from Iraq" it would be of significant benefit to us both tactically and strategically.

In other words, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are playing into the hands of the insurgents, both tactically and strategically.

Lovely.

Colonel Everett went on to say that establishing a timeline is also the goal of the Sadrists: ...

***

"I'm ready for my fatwa"
Michelle Malkin

I've blogged previously about graphic novelist/illustrator Frank Miller's renegade commentary on patriotism and al Qaeda's jihad. The L.A. Times has a new profile of Miller today with news of his latest projects--and more fodder that will set the 9/10 Hollyweirdos' teeth on edge:
MUCH has been made of Miller's politics in the wake of "300." The deliriously violent and stylized sword film is based on a Spartan battle in 480 B.C., and although Miller wrote and drew the story for Dark Horse comics a decade ago, in film form it was received by many as a grotesque parody of the ancient Persians and a fetish piece for a war on Islam. Miller scoffs at those notions. "I think it's ridiculous that we set aside certain groups and say that we can't risk offending their ancestors. Please. I'd like to say, as an American, I was deeply offended by 'The Last of the Mohicans.' "

Still, Miller gets stirred up about any criticism of the war in Iraq or the hunt for terrorists, which he views as the front in a war between the civilized Western world and bloodthirsty Islamic fundamentalists.

"What people are not dealing with is the fact that we're going up against a culture that finds it acceptable to do things that the rest of the world left behind with the barbarians in the 6th century," Miller said. "I'm a little tired of people worrying about being polite. We are fighting in the face of fascists." ...
Apparently, Miller's Batman vs. al Qaeda comic book has stalled in the face of "squeamishness by executives at DC Comics and its parent, Warner Bros. Entertainment, in sending a franchise character on a blood-quest after terrorists." No surprise there.

Miller describes the plot and assails the lack of pro-American, anti-jihad backing in his industry: ...

***

[It looks like I'm getting a little smidgen of traffic from people wondering what that Apache/French business in Captain Ed's comments was about. SeeDubya explains that here.]

US aircrews show Taliban no mercy

Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life.

Smoke from the ambush they had just sprung on American special forces still hung in the air, but their attention was fixed on the two helicopter gunships that had appeared above them as their leader, the tallest man in the group, struggled to pull what appeared to be a burqa over his head.

As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley's gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.

By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand.

The mission is typical of a new, aggressive, approach adopted by American forces in southern Afghanistan and particularly in Helmand, where British troops last year bore the brunt of some of the heaviest fighting since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

American commanders believe that the uncompromising use of airpower in recent weeks has been a key factor in preventing the Taliban from launching their expected full-scale spring offensive against coalition forces and forcing them to rethink their tactics.

Aircrews say they have been told to show no mercy, but to press home their advantage until all their targets have been destroyed. ...

SeeDubya, Ed Morrissey and Dan Riehl all have worthy related posts.

***

Certified Madness
America might not have beaten the Japanese if Jack Murtha had been around.
By Bruce Berkowitz

One of the more interesting sections of the war funding bill Congress will soon send President Bush is its provision for "readiness." The bill prohibits spending funds "to deploy any unit of the Armed Forces to Iraq unless the chief of the military department concerned has certified in writing . . . that the unit is fully mission capable."

Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.), chairman of the House subcommittee on defense appropriations, is mainly responsible for the clause. Mr. Murtha is a Marine Vietnam combat veteran and he's concerned that U.S. forces don't have all the resources they need to complete their missions.

U.S. Navy Ensign George Gay would have been bemused.

Ensign Gay became famous in World War II as the sole survivor of Torpedo Eight, a squadron flying off of the USS Hornet in the pivotal Battle of Midway. If ever there was a unit of the armed forces that wasn't "mission capable," it was Torpedo Eight.

In June 1942, the Navy's new torpedo bomber, the Grumman TBF Avenger, wasn't ready. So Ensign Gay and the other Americans had to fly old Douglas TBD Devastators, an aircraft that was inadequate for the task of taking on Japanese fighters.

A Devastator's top speed was about 200 mph. The Japanese interceptors--Zeros--could do around 350 mph. That's correct, the Japanese pilots had an advantage of about 150 miles per hour.

But Ensign Gay's bigger problem was training. "When we finally got up to the Battle of Midway it was the first time I had ever carried a torpedo on an aircraft," he later told a Navy interviewer, "and was the first time I had ever taken a torpedo off of a ship, had never even seen it done. None of the other ensigns in the squadron had either."

Ensign Gay and the others got the attack plan in "chalk talks" and then rehearsed the attack by walking through the steps on the flight deck.

Not a single TBD flying that day from the Hornet made it back. Ensign Gay was the only one of the 30 men in his squadron who survived the attack and he had to be fished from the sea a day after the battle. The TBDs from the other two American carriers suffered similar losses.

But by drawing the Zeros to themselves, the slow, low-flying Devastators gave U.S. dive bombers a clear shot to strike from above. The dive bombers sank three of the four Japanese carriers, a loss that decided the outcome of a battle that proved to be turning point in the war in the Pacific.

Which gets us back to Mr. Murtha's readiness provision. ...

***

Winners And Losers
Dan Riehl

Thus sayeth The Moderate Voice

Iraq Bloodbath: ‘Imminent US Defeat,’ Says A Serving Army Officer

And below sayeth a blogger in Iraq

Just as we began to see signs of progress in my country the Democrats come and say ‘well, it’s not worth it, so it’s time to leave’. Evidently to them my life and the lives of twenty five million Iraqis are not worth trying for and they shouldn’t expect us to be grateful for this.

I'n not ignorant of the tragic errors and even more tragic circumstances in Iraq. But I am also mindful that, given any particular challenge, you will find both losers and winners aligned on opposite sides with more than enough rhetoric to justify their view.

I got lazy and put off saying anything about LTC Ying~~dinga~~ling's column and it's probably just as well I did. Greyhawk's related post here is a worthy read.

***

Forgive My Unstiff Upper Lip
Hatched by Dafydd ab Hugh

There is a fascinating, little back-story concerning that top al-Qaeda agent that we just announced having captured, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, and our closest ally for the last, oh, 192 years. First, let's dress the stage a bit. From the Times of London:
Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba.
Oh dear. I hope he wasn't inconvenienced, not being able to hide behind his barrister.

So who was Abd al-Hadi anyway? Here's part of his c.v.:
Abd al-Hadi recognised the potential for turning young Muslim radicals from Britain who wanted to become mujahidin in Afghanistan or Iraq into terrorists who could carry out attacks in their home country. He realised that their knowledge of Britain, possession of British passports and natural command of English made them ideal recruits. After al-Qaeda restructured its operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas he sought out young Britons for instruction at training camps. In late 2004 Abd al-Hadi met Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, from Leeds, at a militant camp in Pakistan and, in the words of a senior investigator, “retasked them” to become suicide bombers.

They were sent back to Britain where they led the terrorist cell that carried out the 7/7 bombings, killing 52 Tube and bus passengers.
Oh... you mean that Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi! The mastermind behind the horrific attack in Great Britain, carried out by British subjects who happened to be Moslem jihadists.

But here is the part that is just delicious, in a bitter-sweet, black-comedy sort of way: ...

***

Another big fish in Iraq? UPDATE: Another one gaffed, cleaned, fried
See-Dubya

John from Verum Serum sends along a nice catch, so to speak: He’s been reading carefully over General Petraeus’ public comments about conditions in Iraq and noticed he dropped a name no one has yet seized upon: Abu Mustafa Al-Sheibani. Petraeus said:
As you know, there are seven Quds Force members in detention as well. This involvement, again, we learned more about with the detention of an individual named Sheibani, who is one of the heads of the Sheibani network, which brings explosively formed projectiles into Iraq from Iran. His brother is the Iranian connection. He is — was in Iraq. And that has been the conduit that then distributes these among the extremist elements again of these secret cells and so forth.
Sheibani is on the Iraqi Government’s “41 most wanted” list. Not only does this guy work for and with Iran, John notes, but he’s also thought to be the first guy to bring in the Explosively Formed Projectiles. From Time, August 2005 (and that’s a good article.):
The U.S. Military’s new nemesis in Iraq is named Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, and he is not a Baathist or a member of al-Qaeda. He is working for Iran. According to a U.S. military-intelligence document obtained by TIME, al-Sheibani heads a network of insurgents created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the express purpose of committing violence against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Over the past eight months, his group has introduced a new breed of roadside bomb more lethal than any seen before; based on a design from the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hizballah, the weapon employs “shaped” explosive charges that can punch through a battle tank’s armor like a fist through the wall.
The MSM hasn’t picked up on his capture yet. One wonders when and if they will…

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 29, 2007 at 12:09 AM in Caring about our troops, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 28 April 2007

2007.04.28 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.04.27 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Omar Has A Question
By haystack

Our great friends Omar and Mohammed want to know just exactly WHY the Democrats (and SOME Republicans) think:

My life and the lives of twenty-five other million Iraqis are evidently not worth trying for.

The full text of his article is over at Pajamas Media, and he genuinely wants to understand how it is our anti-war crowd has come to the conclusion that:

It’s not worth it.Time to leave. ....

Below the fold (newest items at the top):

Get ready for "failure day"
The White Feather Postcard Campaign
Jack Murtha says: United States soldiers are liars!
"Who Controls the Past Controls the Future..."

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Get ready for "failure day"
Greyhawk

"News" from the New York Times:
The White House Scales Back Talk of Iraq Progress

WASHINGTON, April 27 — The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.
Now I looked, but I can't find any news there.

But then again, I was paying attention in the early days of the surge. (January, within days of the announcement.) Back then reporters wanted to know from (then-MNF-I commander) General Casey exactly when they could call the operation a failure. Short version:

"What's your thinking about how long these additional troops will need to stay here?"

"It will be late summer before we see some results to cause us to make decisions."

But the headlines the next day read: "General: Some Troops Heading To Iraq Could Be Home In Months"

In reality (if not in the "reality based community") in spite of the passage of time Casey's comments are consistent with General Petraeus' this week: ...

***

The White Feather Postcard Campaign
Gateway Pundit (Hat tips: Michelle, Lorie)

In the words of a Great American Thinker:

We live in a time of great moronitude. Morons, everywhere, rising from their morasses, massing and moving forward. In their multitudes, the morons march inexorably to the moronocy...

March, morons. March on...

Keeping this in mind... Reader Cornhusker thought that the best and easiest way to share your disgust for the moronocy of defeatists on the Left is to send each and everyone of them a White Feather postcard like the one below: ...

***

Jack Murtha says: United States soldiers are liars!
It is time, now, for him to resign.
By Mark Kilmer (Hat tip: Dan Riehl)

As Erick pointed out yesterday, Congressman John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, has becom[e] his antithesis. In 1974, he felt the wounds of Congress' slander and micromanagement of his fellow soldiers in Vietnam:
"I felt that the criticism at home, in and outside Congress, hurt the war effort. I still believe that very strongly."
He no longer believes this, of course. (At least we hope he doesn't) But, as Erick reported, he has added a new twist: the troops lie. Yes, John Kerry has called them stupid, and now Okinawa Jack has called them liars:
“There was a time when I had confidence in the military, but these guys have lied to us so much. They’re so intimidated by the White House.”
Murtha was blabbering about the supplemental the Democrats will send the President once he vetoes the current Pelosi-Murtha measure. (It was passed only as part of political game, of course, because they were very aware that it would not be signed.) Murtha said that the supplemental will be for either two months or five months. Because the military are all a bunch of liars, Murtha suggested, they are likely to go for the shorter appropriation. ...

***

"Who Controls the Past Controls the Future..."
Hatched by Dafydd ab Hugh

"...Who controls the present controls the past."

I'm getting angrier and angrier about the brazen attempt by the elite media -- all of them -- to rewrite history... history that is so recent, the ink has barely dried. I was perusing the New York Times article on George Tenet's spit-and-tell biography, and I stumbled across this paragraph:
Mr. Tenet hints at some score-settling in the book. He describes in particular the extraordinary tension between him and Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, in internal debate over how the president came to say erroneously in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.
"Erroneously?"

Just in case anybody here missed it the last time, here is the quotation from the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the pre-war intelligence, released in 2004. As before, scroll to page 8 on the pdf:

[...]

I have now seen the same pugnaciously ignorant pronouncement of falsity from AP, Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and several other newspapers; and it has become clear that this is no accident: I am now convinced that the elite media editors have literally conspired with each other to rewrite the past. They pretend that the Intel Committee report said that Bush lied and Joe Wilson was right about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa -- when in fact, it was the other way 'round.

The media rely upon the fact that the vast, vast majority of their readers no not remember that the Senate Intelligence Committee conducted a lengthy, extensive, detailed, and bipartisan examination of pre-war intelligence; and that the readers would not have access to the report even if they should vaguely recall it. The drive-by writers and editors know they won't be called on their deliberate disinformation campaign... so they have no check of conscience to stop them.

This is utterly despicable. They will do more damage to the First Amendment by their thuggish, irresponsible lying than a hundred McCain-Feingold bills and a thousand Patriot Acts could ever do. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 28, 2007 at 01:53 AM in Caring about our troops, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iran, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Speaking frankly about Abu Carter -- Update 13

See all of my "Speaking Frankly About Abu Carter" posts in one place here.

Jimmy Carter, Arab Front Man
Ed Morrissey

Alan Dershowitz has often infuriated conservatives with his liberal ideology and sharp-witted speech. He drew insults by the bucketload for defending OJ Simpson in the mid-90s, when it appeared OJ would require a strong team for an appeal-- before a Los Angeles jury proved that celebrities don't need Dershowitz's services. However, Dershowitz has always remained strong in the war against radical Islam and a stalwart defender of Israel, and as such he has come increasingly into conflict with a man he once admired, Jimmy Carter.

Now Dershowitz has discovered that Carter gets his funding for his pro-Palestinian, pro-Arab positions from very suspect sources:

***

The Real Jimmy Carter
By Alan M. Dershowitz

I have known Jimmy Carter for years. I first met him in the spring of 1976 when, as a relatively unknown candidate for president, he sent me a handwritten letter asking for my help in his campaign on issues of crime and justice. I had just published an article in The New York Times Magazine on sentencing reform, and he expressed interest in my ideas and asked me to come up with additional ones for his campaign. Shortly thereafter, my former student, Stuart Eisenstadt, brought Carter to Harvard to meet with some faculty members, me among them. I immediately liked Jimmy Carter and saw him as a man of integrity and principle. I signed on to his campaign and worked very hard for his election.

When Newsweek magazine asked his campaign for the names of people on whom Carter relied for advice, my name was among those given out. I continued to work for Carter over the years, most recently I met him in Jerusalem a year ago, and we briefly discussed the Mid-East. Though I disagreed with some of his points, I continued to believe that he was making them out of a deep commitment to principle and to human rights.

Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?

And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source. Initially, I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School, Rachael Lea Fish showed me the facts.

They were staggering. I was amazed that in the twenty-first century there were still foundations that espoused these views. ...

***

My Problem with Jimmy Carter's Book
by Kenneth W. Stein

Jimmy Carter's engagement in foreign affairs as a former president is unprecedented in U.S. history. Because he regards the Arab-Israeli conflict as among Washington's most important foreign policy topics, he has written more than two dozen articles and commentaries about the conflict, eight in the past year alone. In these publications, Carter uses his credibility as a former president, Nobel laureate, and key player in the September 1978 Camp David accords and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty to unfold his set of truths and often to criticize U.S. policy. He relishes the role of elder statesman and believes that with his accrued wisdom and experience, he can contribute to solutions.

But Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Carter's twenty-first book and his second to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict, is deficient. He does what no non-fiction author should ever do: He allows ideology or opinion to get in the way of facts. While Carter says that he wrote the book to educate and provoke debate, the narrative aims its attack toward Israel, Israeli politicians, and Israel's supporters. It contains egregious errors of both commission and omission. To suit his desired ends, he manipulates information, redefines facts, and exaggerates conclusions. Falsehoods, when repeated and backed by the prestige of Carter's credentials, can comprise an erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and policymaking. Rather than bring peace, they can further fuel hostilities, encourage retrenchment, and hamper peacemaking. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 28, 2007 at 12:36 AM in Abu Jimmy, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Dhimmitude, Islamism Delenda Est, Israel, Moonbat Madness | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 27 April 2007

2007.04.27 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.04.26 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

General Petraeus's Briefing
John Hinderaker

General David Petraeus gave a press briefing in Washington this morning. You may have seen news accounts of it; the headline generally was along the lines of "Petraeus Says Things May Get Worse." If you want to see the whole thing--it's a little over an hour--here it is. Needless to say, there is a great deal more information than can be conveyed in any news story.

Below the fold (newest items at the top):

Thompson: Iran Helping Kill U.S. Troops
7/7 ‘mastermind’ is seized in Iraq
Saudis bust seven terror cells, arrest 172
172 Militants Planning Attack on Oil Fields Arrested in Saudi Arabia
Saudis say they've busted massive terror plot
Iraq vs. Saddam: Behind the scenes
US Nabs Iranian Smuggling Ring In Baghdad
Senior AQ commander Abdul Hadi al Iraqi captured
Go, Joe!
Is the War on Terror Over?
Bill O’Reilly, defeatist?
How do you know when you’ve lost?
Iran May Be Closer To Nukes Than Thought

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Thompson: Iran Helping Kill U.S. Troops

IRVING, Texas (AP) - Fred Thompson, the politician and actor considering a White House bid, said Friday he favors helping the Iranian people overthrow the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if the chance arises.

***
7/7 ‘mastermind’ is seized in Iraq
Sean O’Neill, Tim Reid and Michael Evans (H/T: A J Strata)

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba.

Abd al-Hadi, 45, was regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s most experienced, most intelligent and most ruthless commanders. Senior counter-terrorism sources told The Times that he was the man who, in 2003, identified Britain as the key battleground for exporting al-Qaeda’s holy war to Europe.

Abd al-Hadi recognised the potential for turning young Muslim radicals from Britain who wanted to become mujahidin in Afghanistan or Iraq into terrorists who could carry out attacks in their home country. He realised that their knowledge of Britain, possession of British passports and natural command of English made them ideal recruits. After al-Qaeda restructured its operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas he sought out young Britons for instruction at training camps. In late 2004 Abd al-Hadi met Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, from Leeds, at a militant camp in Pakistan and, in the words of a senior investigator, “retasked them” to become suicide bombers.

They were sent back to Britain where they led the terrorist cell that carried out the 7/7 bombings, killing 52 Tube and bus passengers.

Pakistani intelligence sources said that Abd al-Hadi was also in contact with Rachid Rauf, a Birmingham man now in prison in Pakistan and alleged to be a key figure in last summer’s alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-flight. ...
***
Al Qaeda-Cowed Nation Indicts U.S. Soldiers
Jules Crittenden

It was only a matter of time. Charges of homicide and “crimes against the international community” from a Spanish court against LTC deCamp, Maj. Philip Wolford and Sgt. Shawn Gibson in the death of Jose Cuoso in the Hotel Palestine in Baghdad, April 8, 2003.

This is absurd, and shows a gross disregard for the facts. Unfriendly investigations by Reuters, Reporters Sans Frontieres and the Committee to Protect Journalists, in addition to the U.S. military’s own investigation, failed to turn up evidence of murder. Despite RSF’s sensational claim and CPJ’s insinuations to the contrary, none were able to demonstrate anything but an accident of war. There was a negligence on the part of U.S. military planners to mark the Hotel Palestine as a sensitive site, but that hardly makes these three soldiers guilty of murder.

Like every non-Iraqi in Baghdad that day, Cuoso chose to put himself in harm’s way. He may have thought he was safe in the Hotel Palestine. He learned otherwise. There is no safe place in a war zone. Just ask Julio Anguito Parrado. The day before Cuoso was killed, Parrado and German newsman Christian Liebig stayed behind when our armored column left to attack Baghdad. They thought it would be too dangerous. They were killed when an Iraqi anti-tank missile hit the brigade’s tactical operations center in the rear assembly area. For some reason, there doesn’t seem to be an investigation into Parrado’s death.

In the Hotel Palestine incident, the fault lies with Iraqi soldiers and irregulars who chose to use civilian buildings, civilian vehicles and civilian clothes, who were swarming on the east bank of the Tigris and firing from there all morning. Those of us who were on the ground had never heard of the Hotel Palestine, unlike everyone else who had access to TV. It was not marked on Wolford’s maps. The entire city was a free-fire zone, and U.S. soldiers were at liberty to put rifle bullets, tank rounds, artillery or aerial bombs into any structure that presented a threat. ...

CPJ makes a big deal about how visible the Hotel Palestine sign is from the Jumhuriya bridge. Everything was covered with dirt from heavy dust storms when we were there, and it was a hazy day. In any case, we had been fired on from a number of high-rise civilian buildings that day. ...
Read the whole thing. Jules was imbedded with the U. S. unit involved during the invasion and knows the Soldiers involved personally.

***
Saudis bust seven terror cells, arrest 172
Allahpundit

I’ve read the AP, BBC, and Reuters reports on this story and nowhere does it say the cells were linked, so this may have been a sort of “Five Families” operation to hit a bunch of different people simultaneously while their guard was down. Come to think of it, none of them specify when the arrests were made, either. It could be that they’ve been busting people continuously over the past six months and only chose to go public today.

172 people, though. That’s a lotta jihad. From Reuters:

[...]

Just thinking out loud here — just “airing” a theory, as our pal Sully might say — but most of the Saudi oil fields are in areas populated by the country’s Shiite minority. If Iran’s worried about a U.S. or Israeli attack and looking to lash back at the Sunnis, Saudi oil would be a prime target, with some of the local Shiites perhaps being willing to shelter Iranian saboteurs who have already infiltrated the area. The Beeb and the AP note Al Qaeda’s jihad against the Saudis but notably don’t draw the inference Reuters did about which group was meant by the reference to “the deviant ideology.” It’s worth keeping an eye on this to see if any news trickles out about some of the suspects being Shiite or linked to Hezbollah. ...
***
172 Militants Planning Attack on Oil Fields Arrested in Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi police arrested 172 Islamic militants who were on the verge of carrying out a series of terror attacks on oil facilities, military zones and public figures, the Interior Ministry said Friday. A spokesman said all that remained in the plot "was to set the zero hour."

An Interior ministry statement said police seized weapons and more than 20 million riyals ($5.33 million) in cash, from seven armed cells.

"Some had been training on the use of weapons, and some were sent to other countries to study aviation in preparation to use them to carry out terrorist operations inside the kingdom," the statement said.

U.S. officials characterized the plot as "extremely serious" and said a connection to senior Al Qaeda leadership — Usama bin Laden or Ayman Al-Zawahiri — had not been ruled out.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that the plot was very similar to Sept. 11, by having militants train as pilots to use planes in the attacks and hitting several targets simultaneously.

"They had reached an advance stage of readiness and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks," Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour al-Turki told the Associated Press in a phone call. "They had the personnel, the money, the arms. Almost all the elements for terror attacks were complete." ...
***
Saudis say they've busted massive terror plot

(CNN) -- Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry has confirmed the arrests of scores of suspects in an anti-terror sweep related to a terror plot involving attacks on senior officials and government oil, military and security installations, according to a statement posted on the state-run Saudi Press Agency Web site.

A Saudi intelligence official said Friday that the nine months-long terror sweep by Saudi security forces netted 172 militants -- members of cells that make up the al Qaeda network the Saudis have been tracking for years.

The operation was launched with intelligence gleaned from the interrogations of suspects arrested in the unsuccessful February 2006 strike on an oil processing facility in the desert kingdom, an official told CNN.

Some of those arrested had trained abroad as pilots so they could fly aircraft in attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil fields, the Interior Ministry said Friday, according to The Associated Press.

The intelligence official said some of those arrested in the latest roundup had flight manuals, but "they have no real flight training capabilities."

The Interior Ministry did not say the militants would fly aircraft into oil refineries, but it said in a statement that some detainees had been "sent to other countries to study flying in preparation for using them to carry out terrorist attacks inside the kingdom," according to AP. ...
***
Iraq vs. Saddam: Behind the scenes
Michelle Malkin

Ed Adams at the ABA Journal e-mailed me an interesting story from the May issue about conversations behind the scenes between the judges on the Iraqi High Tribunal and the American legal advisers to the court. "Contrary to the view held by many in the international community that the proceedings were merely a show trial," Adams notes, "the Iraqi judges seriously debated a wide range of legal issues, according to the American advisers to the court:"
During training sessions for the judges in London, the judges questioned even the legality of their own tribunal.

They pressed their instructors about how history would judge their efforts, including asking what the reaction would be if they acquitted one or more defendants. (One of the eight defendants in Saddam’s trial was eventually acquitted.)

And far from being a rubber stamp for occupying forces, the Iraqi judges rejected a number of requests from their American legal advisers.
The article also scrutinizes Ramsey Clark and the clown anti-war lawyers who exploited the case: ...
***
US Nabs Iranian Smuggling Ring In Baghdad
A J Strata

This is another indication that Iran is basically at war with America (and has declared so themselves):
US forces on Friday detained four members of a gang suspected of smuggling armour-piercing bombs from Iran to Iraq and sending back militants for “terrorist training”, the military said.

A statement from US command in Iraq said the suspects were picked up in an early morning raid on the east Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, a known stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.

“The individuals targeted during the raid are suspected members of a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq,” it said.

The EFP is a form of roadside bomb in which the detonation of an explosive charge inside a steel tube causes a copper disk to deform into a fist-sized chunk of supersonic molten metal that can scythe through armoured vehicles.

American commanders say the design is exclusively Iranian and in January alleged that at least 170 US troops had been killed by EFPs since May 2004.
No word form Senator Surrender (Reid) how deploying troops out of Baghdad would help stop this kind of international recognized war crime (you think landmines are bad!). Senator Surrender is also doubtful to have any explanation on how Iran could be included in the concept of “sectarian civil war”, which he and other Surrendercrats claim all that is going on right now in Iraq. Someone might suggest to Speaker Squeaker she head back to Damascus right away and ask her good buddy Assad what he thinks this is all about.

More here on how the cell was sending those in the ‘civil war’ to Iran for training. This is clearly an act of war which needs to be addressed forcefully so as to put an end to the risk to our troops in Iraq. And while Bush deals with Iran maybe the Dems should start working on their surrender plans for Ahmedinejad….
***
Big fish: Senior AQ commander Abdul Hadi al Iraqi captured
Allahpundit (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

Biiiiig fish. Not only did he operate both in Iraq and Afghanistan, he’s been in the crosshairs since the very beginning — or even before the beginning, actually. Click and scroll down towards the bottom and you’ll find him listed just a few lines below Osama himself in Executive Order 13224, executed by Bush on September 23, 2001 to block assets held by certain groups and persons in connection with 9/11. Or click and scroll just a bit and you’ll find him named, again a few lines below Osama, in a UN document posted a month before 9/11 regarding terrorists operating in Afghanistan. Newsweek published a blockbuster article about him last April that claimed he was dispatched to Iraq, where he was born, along with Saif al-Adel by Osama himself to set up AQ’s organization there after the homegrown insurgency had already broken out. ...
Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was captured by the CIA as he was attempting to travel back to his native country, Iraq. He was going to Iraq, officials say, to “manage” al Qaeda’s operations, including plots on Western interests outside of Iraq.

He was captured by the CIA in late 2006…

During his time with the CIA, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was interrogated and revealed useful information about al Qaeda plots, which, officials say, have been disrupted as a result.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi had met with al Qaeda members in Iran, officials also said.
The left’s not going to like those boldfaced parts given their obvious implications for where the “real” war on terror is and Iran’s role in it. Expect some Pretty Vicious Rants questioning not only the timing but the whole damned storyline, notwithstanding Newsweek’s well sourced report from a year ago. It stands to reason that al-Iraqi would be traveling through Iran given that it’s the shortest route between Iraq and Afghanistan; it also stands to reason that if we know he’s been there, so do the Iranians and they’re letting it happen. (Which isn’t a surprise given the reports lately of Iran helping Sunni jihadis in Iraq, of which this is only the latest.) ...
Read the whole thing. Ed Morrissey has more here.

***
Go, Joe!
Dafydd ab Hugh

I've been reading the speech that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT, 75%D) gave on the Senate floor, passionately arguing against the surrender bill that the fatuous Democratic majority in Senate and House have just passed (Power Line has the complete transcript). And I came across this passage that quite literally made my mouth fall open.

It's so obvious once Lieberman points it out... but I must confess, I never realized it until I read Lieberman saying it. You will be as stunned as I, I predict (all emphasis added):
In his speech Monday, the Majority Leader described the several steps that this new strategy for Iraq would entail. Its first step, he said, is to "transition the U.S. mission away from policing a civil war -- to training and equipping Iraqi security forces, protecting U.S. forces, and conducting targeted counter-terror operations...."

There is another irony here as well. For most of the past four years, under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the United States did not try to establish basic security in Iraq. Rather than deploying enough troops necessary to protect the Iraqi people, the focus of our military has been on training and equipping Iraqi forces, protecting our own forces, and conducting targeted sweeps and raids -- in other words, the very same missions proposed by the proponents of the legislation before us.

That strategy failed -- and we know why it failed. It failed because we didn't have enough troops to ensure security, which in turn created an opening for Al Qaeda and its allies to exploit. They stepped into this security vacuum and, through horrific violence, created a climate of fear and insecurity in which political and economic progress became impossible.

For years, many members of Congress recognized this. We talked about this. We called for more troops, and a new strategy, and -- for that matter -- a new secretary of defense. And yet, now, just as President Bush has come around -- just as he has recognized the mistakes his administration has made, and the need to focus on basic security in Iraq, and to install a new secretary of defense and a new commander in Iraq -- now his critics in Congress have changed their minds and decided that the old, failed strategy wasn't so bad after all.

What is going on here? What has changed so that the strategy that we criticized and rejected in 2006 suddenly makes sense in 2007?
Uh... yeah. What?

What has changed, of course, is that President George W. Bush has changed! He was finally persuaded that we could not win a "war of attrition" (to use a term that might resonate with older readers); it failed under Gen. William Westmoreland, and it was failing under Gens. George Casey and John Abizaid. Rather, Bush was finally convinced by Fred Kagan, Gen. Jack Keane, and Gen. David Petraeus that we needed a true counterinsurgency strategy, one that focused on restoring basic security to Iraq area by area... that is, turning red to pink and pink to white.

And -- like a weathercock with its arrow reversed -- the Democrats in Congress instantly and automatically point the opposite direction from the prevailing winds from the White House. ...
***
Is the War on Terror Over?
By Victor Davis Hanson

Do we still need to fight a war on terror?

The answer seems to be no for an increasing number in the West who are weary over Afghanistan and Iraq or complacent from the absence of a major attack on the scale of 9/11.

The British Foreign Office has scrapped the phrase "war on terror" as inexact, inflammatory and counterproductive. U.S. Central Command has just dropped the term "long war" to describe the fight against radical Islam.

An influential book making the rounds - "Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them" - argues that the threat from al-Qaida is vastly exaggerated.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, goes further, assuring us that we are terrorized mostly by the false idea of a war on terror - not the jihadists themselves.

Even onetime neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama, who in 1998 called for the preemptive removal of Saddam Hussein, believes "war" is the "wrong metaphor" for our struggle against the terrorists.

Others point out that motley Islamic terrorists lack the resources of the Nazi Wehrmacht or the Soviet Union.

This thinking may seem understandable given the ineffectiveness of al-Qaida to kill many Americans after 9/11. Or it may also reflect hopes that if we only leave Iraq, radical Islam will wither away. But it is dead wrong for a number of reasons. ...
Hat tip: Dan Riehl, who offers his thoughts here.

***
Video: Bill O’Reilly, defeatist?
Bryan Preston (H/T: Dan Riehl)

Bill O’Reilly talked Iraq withdrawal with Rend al-Rahim, a former Iraqi ambassador to the US, and to many ears O’R comes off as defeatist on the war. I’ve watched it a couple of times and I’m not sure what I think about it. He definitely seems to advocate “retreating and regrouping” at the end, though in the strategic context of Iraq that doesn’t make a lot of sense–when we retreat, it will be the Iranians and Syrians who do the regrouping and the marauding while we descend into recriminations over What Went Wrong. Iraq after a hasty US retreat would become a Somalia writ large. Getting out prematurely won’t unify us, won’t heal anything and will end up leaving Iraq in total chaos. I doubt that that’s what O’Reilly has in mind, though I’m sure he is fed up with the war. That much came through loud and clear. So as I said, I’m just not sure what to think about it. So I thought I’d post it and let you all chew on it.a

***
How do you know when you’ve lost?
Bruce Kesler (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

How do you know when you've lost? When you're dead or you've surrendered. Otherwise, you're in the fight.

How do you know that you're going to lose? When your death or surrender are certain.

If you're not certain, and the stakes are worth it, you continue to fight.

If you don't believe the stakes are worth it, then quit.

If those on your side don't recognize who the enemy is, they'll walk away or fritter away possibilities by turning on each other.

The Democrat leadership is certain that the United States, and those in Iraq who struggle to build, will fail. The Democrats don't believe the stakes there and consequent are worth having either an open mind or perseverance.

There is no one knowledgeable who agrees with the Democrats. Regardless of whether a critic or supporter of U.S. strategy and tactics, all those knowledgeable recognize that the consequences of bugging out would be even worse than what's there now. The Democrat leaders seek to cloak their irresponsibility in formulas for a small residual force -- that would be overwhelmed by the challenges -- or regional states' cooperation -- by sworn adversaries and accommodators with little record of being or incentive to be constructive. ...
***
Iran May Be Closer To Nukes Than Thought
U.S. Intelligence Moves Up Worst-Case Scenario Date To 2010, But Says Iran Will Likely Take Longer

(CBS) CBS News has learned that a new intelligence report says Iran has overcome technical difficulties in enriching uranium and could have enough bomb-grade material for a single nuclear weapon in less than three years.

U.S. intelligence officials caution that before Iran could meet or beat that 2010 date, it would have to make further technical progress in operating a uranium enrichment plant now under construction, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.
Hat tip: Allahpundit, who comments here.

The former Tennessee senator accused Tehran of "playing a larger part in killing our soldiers" in neighboring Iraq.

Many Iranians don't like their government, "and I think we ought to capitalize on that," Thompson told The Associated Press. "There is a chance they may mobilize themselves, and we need to assist them if that happens." ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 27, 2007 at 01:25 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iran, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 26 April 2007

2007.04.26 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup
-- Breaking: Senate passes Iraq bugout bill

See previous: 2007.04.25 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Today an American Army takes the field of battle while bleeding from a knife wound, having been stabbed deeply in the back by a Democrat Party that warms to terrorists in Syria and the broader Middle East.

-- Dan Riehl

The Reid/Pelosi/Murtha Iraq plan in simplified form:

Predict failure
Do whatever it takes to make the prediction come true
Blame it on George Bush

What we are watching, people, is absolute moral bankruptcy in action. Reid and Pelosi are contributing to American deaths in Iraq just as surely as Kerry and Fonda did in Viet Nam. May they all four suffer the eternal fate they richly deserve.

We never did find out who Tokyo Rose was, but we know who Harry Reid is.

-- Bryan Preston

Below the fold:

Petraeus: “No question” that Karbala attackers were linked to Quds Force
Well, There You Go
Cheney’s more popular than Reid
Senate Passes Military Spending Bill Now Headed for Veto
It’s time for Bush to fight — and use his veto power
Senate passes Iraq spending bill
Joe Lieberman Sends A Warning
Today's Democrats: Championing Genocide
The People Have Spoken!
House Disregards Petraeus, Votes For Withdrawal
The Mything Link
Just Maybe, She Might Show Up
Joe Lieberman: One Choice in Iraq
Nutroots launch preemptive attack on...David Broder

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Newer items are added at the top. Please treat this post as a blog within a blog, come back often, and scroll down till you see something that was here on your last visit.

***

Petraeus: “No question” that Karbala
attackers were linked to Quds Force
Allahpundit

Remember the Karbala attack? Men dressed as American troops, speaking English and driving SUVs like the ones U.S. diplomats do, bypassed an Iraqi checkpoint in January and raided the governor’s office, killing one American soldier and kidnapping four more. All four were later found murdered, shot through the head. The theory was that it was a reprisal attack for the capture of the five Quds Force officers in Irbil by U.S. troops a few weeks earlier, and that it was carried out by a squad with unusually professional training — far beyond what the typical Shiite goon squad would be capable of.

Last month the military announced that it had busted a network led by Qais Khazali, a former Sadr spokesman who had allegedly become the leader of a breakaway wing of the Mahdi Army whose allegiance was to Iran. I wrote about Khazali and his network last month, theorizing that he and his boys must have been among those Shiites who are allegedly being trained in camps outside Tehran by the Revolutionary Guard for paramilitary operations against U.S. troops. ...

***

Well, There You Go
Dan Riehl

That didn't take long: Liberal surrender-crats should be pleased.
By Ubaidah Al-Saif, Jihad Unspun | Arabic Source: Al-Fajr Media

The Islamic State of Iraq has issued a statement that speaks to the utter collapse of America’s so-called “new security plan” and the upheaval that is taking place in the US Congress over how to extract itself from the Iraqi quagmire.

In this address, the State makes clear that regardless of whatever new “plan” the occupiers come up with, be it additional forces, fortified bases or its latest tactic of separation walls, the Mujahideen remain charged for the battle, hungry for the fight and prepared for whatever it takes to expel the intruders from Islamic Iraq.

Here is their statement, published uncut and uncensored, as translated by JUS. ...

***

Cheney’s more popular than Reid
Don Surber

Senate Plurality Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said: “I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with the administration’s chief attack dog (VP Cheney). … I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating.”

This just in: Cheney is more popular than Reid.

Reported the Wall Street Journal: “Among other individuals included in the poll, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) saw her approval rating fall to 30% in April from 38% in February, shortly after her swearing-in as the first female House speaker. Approval for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) slipped to 22%, from 23% in February but up from 19% a year ago.”

Cheney’s approval rate? 25% ....

***

Senate Passes Military Spending Bill Now Headed for Veto
Lorie Byrd

Hot Air has a report with lots of updates. Chuck Hagel and Gordon Smith crossed over to vote with Democrats. Joe Lieberman voted with Republicans.

Text of Joe Lieberman's speech is posted below.

Update: Iraq reacts to the vote.
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi government spokesman criticized the U.S. Senate vote to begin withdrawing U.S. troops by Oct. 1.

"We see some negative signs in the decision because it sends wrong signals to some sides that might think of alternatives to the political process," Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press...

"Coalition forces gave lots of sacrifices and they should continue their mission, which is building Iraqi security forces to take over," al-Dabbagh said. "We see (it) as a loss of four years of sacrifices."
Update II: ...

***

It’s time for Bush to fight — and use his veto power
Examiner.com editorial (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin)

WASHINGTON - President Bush should go to Fort Bragg, gather around him the brave men and women serving in the U.S. military and stand with them as he vetoes the Iraq emergency supplemental funding bill congressional Democrats send him. Then he should challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to come to Bragg and explain to our troops why the Democratic leaders want to repeat the greatest mistake of the Vietnam War.

More than any other factor, the U.S. war effort in Southeast Asia was harmed by micromanaging politicians in Washington who continually subordinated common sense and military strategy to artificial timetables, public-relations spin and diplomatic initiatives. The communist tyrants of North Vietnam continually used these intervals to rearm, resupply and recoup their immense losses, while patiently waiting for the clearly superior U.S. military forces to be withdrawn under mounting domestic political pressure. It was thus almost anti-climatic when in 1975, Congress permanently ended U.S. military aid to South Vietnam, even as that sad nation’s last defenders were being mowed down by the victorious North Vietnamese forces.

A disturbingly familiar process is now shaping the U.S. war effort in Iraq, ...

***

Stupefying
Greyhawk (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

Ladies and gentlemen, the United States Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid:

[...]

Video here - you really need to see the man in action to fully appreciate this.

I'm reminded of an event from 2nd grade:

Teacher: Harry, why did you say that?
Harry: David said it too!
Teacher: No Harry, David did not say that .
Harry: Uh huh. Did so.
Teacher: I don't think..
Harry: We meant the same thing! Everybody hearded it!
Teacher: No, you didn't mean the same thing - but clearly you aren't listening to me. What if David says he didn't mean what you meant?
Harry: Then David is a big fat liar!

One more time, for the record - here's what people really said (in as short a form as I can make it - follow the link for the full grown up talk): ...

***

Senate passes Iraq spending bill
Allahpundit. (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

Just across on Fox News. On to the White House now for the promised veto, although that won’t come until next week. Standby for the roll; it’ll probably look almost exactly like this, the roll from the vote a few weeks ago in which the Senate passed its own version of the spending bill.

Update: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on the Democrats’ “plan”:
Mr Zebari said the bill was “part of the politicking, basically, in Washington, and this has been damaging in fact to the security, political development, not only in Iraq, but in the entire region”.

He said a decision to withdraw US troops “should depend on conditions on the ground”.

“The moment that Iraqi forces, security, military, are self-reliant, capable of standing on their own, defending their own country, providing security, then definitely there would be a way for the troops to leave.”
Update: Lieberman’s speech before the vote is making the rounds right now. The money bit:
My colleague from Nevada, in other words, is suggesting that the insurgency is being provoked by the very presence of American troops. By diminishing that presence, then, he believes the insurgency will diminish.

But I ask my colleagues—where is the evidence to support this theory? Since 2003, and before General Petraeus took command, U.S. forces were ordered on several occasions to pull back from Iraqi cities and regions, including Mosul and Fallujah and Tel’Afar and Baghdad. And what happened in these places? Did they stabilize when American troops left? Did the insurgency go away?

On the contrary—in each of these places where U.S. forces pulled back, Al Qaeda rushed in. Rather than becoming islands of peace, they became safe havens for terrorists, islands of fear and violence.

So I ask advocates of withdrawal: on what evidence, on what data, have you concluded that pulling U.S. troops out will weaken the insurgency, when every single experience we have had since 2003 suggests that this legislation will strengthen it? ...

***

Joe Lieberman Sends A Warning
Ed Morrissey

Joe Lieberman delivered a speech today warning of the consequences that will arise from the passage of the troop-withdrawal bill that the House sent over to the Senate this morning. The Tank has the whole speech, and it should be read all of the way through, but here are a few highlights:
When we say that U.S. troops shouldn’t be “policing a civil war,” that their operations should be restricted to this narrow list of missions, what does this actually mean?

To begin with, it means that our troops will not be allowed to protect the Iraqi people from the insurgents and militias who are trying to terrorize and kill them. Instead of restoring basic security, which General Petraeus has argued should be the central focus of any counterinsurgency campaign, it means our soldiers would instead be ordered, by force of this proposed law, not to stop the sectarian violence happening all around them—no matter how vicious or horrific it becomes.

In short, it means telling our troops to deliberately and consciously turn their backs on ethnic cleansing, to turn their backs on the slaughter of innocent civilians—men, women, and children singled out and killed on the basis of their religion alone. It means turning our backs on the policies that led us to intervene in the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the principles that today lead many of us to call for intervention in Darfur.

This makes no moral sense at all....

***

Today's Democrats: Championing Genocide
Confederate Yankee

Via Newsbusters, CNN's Michael Ware and Kyra Phillips blast Democrat plans to abandon Iraq (my bold):
...[Kiran] Chetry asked the pair "would all of us, all the American troops pulling out, help the situation?"

Phillips and Ware both loudly protested: "Oh, no! No. No way!"

Phillips zeroed in on the problems a U.S. withdrawal would cause for the Iraqis: "It would be a disaster. I mean, I had a chance to sit down with the Minister of Defense, to General Petraeus, to Admiral Fallon, head of CENTCOM. I asked them all the question whether Iraqi or U.S. military — there is no way U.S. troops could pull out. It would be a disaster. They're doing too much training, they’re helping the Iraqis not only with security, but trying to get the government up and running. I mean, this is a country of 'Let's Make a Deal,' there's so much corruption still. If the U.S. military left — they have rules of engagement, they have an idea, a focus. It would be a disaster."

Ware agreed, but argued that winning the war was in America's best interest: "Well, even more than that, if you just wanted to look at it purely in terms of American national interest, if U.S. troops leave now, you're giving Iraq to Iran, a member of President Bush's 'Axis of Evil,' and al Qaeda. That's who will own it. And so, coming back now, I'm struck by the nature of the debate on Capitol Hill, how delusional it is. Whether you're for this war, or against it; whether you've supported the way it's been executed, or not; it doesn't matter. You've broke it, you've got to fix it now. You can't leave, or it's going to come and blow back on America."
The comments made by Ware and Phillips echo those of New York Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns in an interview with Matt Lauer on Today from March 30 (bold in original): ....

I was brought up believing that the United States was a champion for liberty and freedom around the world.

Today's Democrats obviously disagree, and instead, advocate a disasterous failed state, potential regional war, and possible genocide. ...

***

The People Have Spoken!
Jules Crittenden

After 100-and-I-don’t-care-how-many days of pointless posturing, the House passes a meaningless surrender bill 218-208. The mandate, the will of the American people and their enthusiasm for surrender, failure and genocide in Iraq, etc., expressed here turns out to be a margin of 10 votes, or about 2.3 percent of those voting.

The 110th Congress has been intensely interested in symbolism, as it seems to be incapable of acting in a substantive manner. The AP, much impressed by all this impotent posturing, breaks left of the New York Times to exult in the possibility that Bush’s veto could fall on 4th anniversary of his “Mission Accomplished!” speech.

The AP’s failure to get what is at stake in Iraq and on Capitol Hill is helpfully pointed out by leftie blog ambitiously self-described as the Horse’s Mouth, which was shocked the other day that the New York Post would dare to rewrite a typically myopic and biased AP report on the surrender bill negotiations.

The AP’s David Espo strived mightily to make ”Lost” Harry Reid look heroically statesmanlike and the Dems reasonable, while burying the fact that his go-nowhere plan is, as WH flak Dana Perino put it, a “death sentence” for million of Iraqis … or would be if Reid and Pelosi actually had the power to make it happen.

AP’s “original” version*: ...

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House Disregards Petraeus, Votes For Withdrawal
Ed Morrissey

The House rejected the message from General David Petraeus, the man the Senate sent just three months ago to command the American forces in Iraq, and voted for a supplemental spending bill that will require the start of an American withdrawal by October 1. It passed on the barest of majorities and has no hope of surviving a veto, but the Democrats insist that they will play this game of chicken all the way to its conclusion:

[...]

The Democrats want to send the bill to the White House on Monday, April 30th, one day before the fourth anniversary of his appearance on an aircraft carrier flying a banner that read, "Mission Accomplished". Never mind that the banner referred to the carrier group's mission; the Democrats want to use the bill to score a few more political points, on top of declaring defeat and funding some of their pet pork projects. They have even coordinated with outside groups to use the anniversary for television advertisements.

All that's missing is the ringmaster.

The President will likely oblige them by publicly vetoing the bill. The White House has already called on the Senate to rush the bill onto his desk for the purpose of casting the second deep-six of his presidency. Dana Perino, the president's acting press secretary, said that the nation needs to see how President Bush deals with this legislation, and they likely will get a chance to do that before the Democrats' political-action groups get much airplay from the commercials they have already made. ..

The same party leaders that scolded Bush during the election last year for listening to Donald Rumsfeld rather than his field commanders now won't even bother to attend a briefing with Petraeus before setting out on this course. They set the vote up in order to coordinate campaign commercials while declaring defeat from Capitol Hill. They have made themselves into a disgrace in less than four months in power, reminding the nation why they locked them out of power for the previous six years. ...

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The Mything Link
Dafydd ab Hugh

So the Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in a snit, have subpoenaed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: They demand she some and testify about pre-Iraq war intelligence -- and about one element in particular:
Republicans accused Democrats of a "fishing expedition." But Democrats said they want Rice to explain what she knew about administration's warnings, later proven false, that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger for nuclear arms.
Ah, we come around once more, in the fullness of time, to arguing over President Bush's famous "sixteen words" from his 2003 State of the Union address:
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
But in the meanwhile (since the last go-round) -- did I miss some huge revelation? Has the claim that Iraq "sought" yellowcake from Niger been "proven false?" Did I miss some great and powerful bombshell that was dropped subsequent to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's report of July 7th, 2004?

Perhaps my memory fails, but I was under the distinct impression that that massive report on pre-war intelligence in fact found that those words were true -- not just literally (the Brits were reporting such), but in the deeper sense as well... that Iraq really had tried to obtain uranium from Africa. Oh yes, here is it... page 43 (page 8 on the pdf): ...

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Just Maybe, She Might Show Up
John Hinderaker

Henry Waxman's Orwellian-named Oversight and Government Reform Committee served Condoleezza Rice with a subpoena today, to testify on "what she knew about administration's warnings, later proven false, that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger for nuclear arms."

Where to begin. Actually, as we've pointed out many times, the weight of the evidence is that Iraq did, in fact, try to buy uranium from Niger. Beyond that, what President Bush actually said in his State of the Union speech--the famous "sixteen words"--was indisputably true. And beyond that, who cares?

This is another instance of the Democrats' crazed attempt to govern by subpoena. They are determined to dredge up and re-fight every battle of the last six years; this, apparently, is what they think the voters elected them to do. I think they're wrong, and that most people have little interest in seeing these hoary arguments resurrected one last--we hope--time. It is hard to imagine a less productive use of Henry Waxman's time. Well, let me rephrase that; it's hard to imagine a less productive use of Rice's time, which is actually valuable.

I don't know much about the ins and outs of executive privilege, but I wouldn't think Rice will agree to testify. Maybe that's the Dems' plan. Still, it's hard not to wish that, just once, a representative of the Bush administration would stand up to the Democrat bullies and make some coherent points.

Like, in this case, ...

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One Choice in Iraq
Joe Lieberman

Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians -- innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.

If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.

Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus's security strategy has failed and that the war is "lost."

And today, perversely, the Senate is likely to vote on a binding timeline of withdrawal from Iraq.

This reaction is dangerously wrong. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both the reality in Iraq and the nature of the enemy we are fighting there. ...

The challenge before us is whether we respond to al-Qaeda's barbarism by running away, as it hopes we do -- abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East and ultimately our own security to the very people responsible for last week's atrocities -- or whether we stand and fight.

To me, there is only one choice that protects America's security -- and that is to stand, and fight, and win.

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Nutroots launch preemptive attack on...David Broder
Michelle Malkin

Since "Important Action Alert" is trademarked by MyDD, a TPM blogger has issued a "BLOGSWARM ALERT!" rousing the nutroots over a column by diehard liberal David Broder that hasn't even appeared in print yet:
Blogswarm alert!

It looks as if David Broder's column tomorrow may be making the rather creative case that Harry Reid is as inept as...Alberto Gonzales.

How do I know this? Over at the Dallas Morning News, which prints Broder's column from time to time, they've done a teaser on the paper's blog previewing the Op-ed columns the paper is running tomorrow...Okay -- we should absolutely reserve judgment until we see what the man actually wrote, of course...
So, um, why the "BLOGSWARM ALERT!"? The preemptive rage bubbles and the frenzy has been whipped:
Yesterday Broder bashed Reid during a radio interview for saying the war is "lost," insisting that "about every six weeks or so there's another episode where he has to apologize for the way in which he has bungled the Democratic case." Fine, Reid's line was clumsy and could have been more artfully done. But Broder's assertion that Reid has had to apologize "every six weeks" is flat-out false.

Will Broder repeat it? And if so, when do we get to stop calling him the "Dean" and start calling him inept?
If the comments at the TPM blog are any indication, the Washington Post is in for another nutroots avalanche: ...

Click here to read the Broder piece in question.

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 26, 2007 at 12:22 AM in Caring about our troops, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Harry Reid, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Mad Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 25 April 2007

2007.04.25 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup
-- Breaking: House passes Iraq bugout bill

See previous: 2007.04.24 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

I don't think that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi objectively want Al Qaeda to win. I'm sure that they have succeeded in deluding themselves that we are the problem in Iraq. I'm also sure that they believe that this is in the near term a political winner for them, and sadly, they may be right. But they're playing a dangerous game. What if they're wrong, and the people actually reporting success in Iraq are right? They're so heavily invested in defeat now that it could actually be an electoral disaster for them next year. I certainly hope that will be the case. For me, it would be win-win--we'd have won in Iraq, and the Dems would have lost precisely because they did everything they could to prevent it from happening. ...

[P]olitics aside, like it or not, and deny it or not, they are objectively providing aid and comfort to the enemy. The problem is that they won't start acting in the national interest until, to paraphrase Golda Meir, they start loving their country more than they hunger for power and hate George Bush.

-- Rand Simberg

Let's put it in even simpler terms: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and a number of other powerful Democrats have bet the future of the Democratic party, and with it their own futures, on an American failure in Iraq. Having done so it's only natural and to be expected that they'll do everything in their power to make their dire predictions come true. Am I questioning their patriotism? Not at all; there's nothing there to question.

It may be plainly said that the Democrats seriously intend to bring about U.S. casualties in Iraq by encouraging terrorist resistance, in the hope that they can use the slaughter for their personal political gain. The voice from the Left has gone full course from supporting the war and the men fighting it, to spiteful hate against everyone trying to win in Iraq or finish the job begun in 2003. There is no honorable debate among Democrats anymore on this point - they have established the defeat of the United States as their primary objective. What Democrats of honor remain, such as Senator Joe Lieberman, are silenced and suppressed, made outcasts and warned not to interfere with party objectives. Scarcely in human history has a major political party hoped such vile desires against its soldiers, and schemed such traitorous plots against the nation of their birth and heritage.

-- D J Drummond

Below the fold:

The Five Myths of Harry...plus calls for Reid to resign;
Breaking: House passes Iraq surrender bill
More: White House and GOP respond
Rep. Hunter Calls on Harry Reid to Step Down as Senate Majority Leader
House OKs War Bill With Iraq Pullout Date
Harvard: How the Media Partnered With Hezbollah
Rudy: Democrats Want A 9/10 World
White Flag Democrats or Fifth Columnists. Or Both.
Why No One Wants An American Withdrawal
Petraeus to Pols: Enemy is Listening
Kirkuk cops go upside drive-by suspect’s head
Haditha: Is McGirk the New Mary Mapes?
Any way the wind blows...
Bombshell Cripples Case Against Haditha Marines
The Pelosi-trich
Washington Times: Sen. Reid is lost
Dems fail to back Reid's 'Iraq war lost'
Ruminations On the State of Things In Iraq
Nancy No-Show
Burns of NYT: Insurgents Know U.S. Politics Moving in Direction Favorable to Them
Harry's War

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Newer items are added at the top. Please treat this post as a blog within a blog, come back often, and scroll down till you see something that was here on your last visit.

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The Five Myths of Harry...plus calls for Reid to resign;
Breaking: House passes Iraq surrender bill
More: White House and GOP respond
Michelle Malkin

The Five Myths of Harry: Debunked in one handy guide.

Update 930pm Eastern: FNC reporting that House has passed the Iraq surrender deadline bill.

Here's the AP story:

[...]

Update 946pm Eastern: Statement from the White House...
Statement By Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino

April 25, 2007

"Seventy-nine days after President Bush sent Congress a request for emergency war funding for our troops, the House of Representatives has passed disappointing legislation that insists on a surrender date, handcuffs our generals, and contains billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war.

"Last November, the American people voted for a change in strategy in Iraq – and the President listened. Tonight, the House of Representatives voted for failure in Iraq – and the President will veto its bill.

"Democrats have forced this process to continue for too long. The President calls on the Senate to quickly pass this legislation so the President can veto it and then work with the Congressional leadership on a clean bill that funds our troops while respecting the judgment of our military commanders and helping ensure the safety of the American people."
Hill statements arriving in my e-mail box...
U.S. Congressman Mike Pence issued the following statement today opposing the Democrat Iraq War Supplemental Spending Bill:

"The Democrat emergency supplemental appropriations bill is fiscally irresponsible and constitutionally flawed and I cannot support it.

"What the Democrat Congress has produced is a bill that violates the budget resolution that passed the House and puts forth a prescription for retreat and defeat in Iraq by tying war spending to congressionally mandated benchmarks and deadlines for withdrawal from Iraq.

"While I am opposed to this bill based on its fiscal irresponsibility, the real problem with this bill is that it contains the Democrats' blatantly unconstitutional attempt to manage-and lose-the Iraq War. ...
And:
U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, today voted against the emergency supplemental bill citing its defeatist, artificial timelines and pork-barrel spending. He issued the following statement after the vote:

"Providing full funding for our troops in combat should be simple and straightforward. Any bill passed by Congress should not hinder their ability to successfully complete their mission, nor should it provide any signal to our enemies that our nation's resolve is weakening.
More:
House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) issued the following statement this evening after House Democrats sent to their colleagues in the Senate a final conference report designed to push through pork-barrel spending and tie the hands of our commanders on the ground.

"It's my hope that tonight's vote will mark the end of the Democrats' protracted campaign to undercut our mission by undermining the authority of our commanders in the field. It's now incumbent upon Senate Democrats to send this conference report to the president as soon as possible - so that a veto can be issued, and we can finally get back to work on passing a clean and responsible package of funds for our troops.
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Meanwhile, here's a reality-check report from Iraq filed by RedState blogger/embed Jeff Emmanuel.

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Audio: Sen. James Inhofe on Harry Reid...
Asked if the Nevada Democrat should resign from his leadership position because of his comments, Inhofe said: "I think it’s more serious than that. I think there should be a recall . . . for saying something as un-American as that.”
Rep. Duncan Hunter: ...

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Rep. Hunter Calls on Harry Reid to Step Down as Senate Majority Leader

WASHINGTON — The ranking Republican in the House Armed Services Committee called on House Majority Leader Harry Reid to resign Wednesday over his declaration that the Iraq war is "lost."

Rep. Duncan Hunter — a 2008 presidential candidate — wrote in a letter that Reid's comments "can have no effect but to demoralize the brave men and women, who are honorably fulfilling their mission in Iraq, and to encourage our adversaries."

"Even if you sincerely believe it to be true, your pronouncement of failure will undoubtedly be used by terrorist leaders to rally their followers — inevitably leading to increased attacks on U.S. and coalition forces," Hunter wrote. ...

In his letter, Hunter said that lawmakers need to give the surge of troops a chance.

"Currently, there are about 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. When the reinforcement operation is at full strength, this number will stand at approximately 157,000. How can anyone, including a United States Senator, possibly declare as a failure a reinforcement operation that is less than fifty percent complete?" ...

The ranking Republican wrote that he has always considered Reid a friend, but that "my highest obligation is, like yours, owed to our forces in uniform, especially during this time of war."

"Given your position of leadership within the United States Government, I find your pronouncement of failure irresponsible and disserving to America's armed forces. In light of the fact that this statement has both been used by our adversaries and has exhibited a marked lack of leadership to U.S. troops, I call on you to resign your leadership position," concluded Hunter. ...

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House Passes War Spending Bill That Includes Iraq Pullout Timeline

WASHINGTON — A sharply divided House brushed aside a veto threat Wednesday and passed legislation that would order President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by Oct. 1.

The 218-208 vote came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq told lawmakers the country remained gripped by violence but was showing some signs of improvement.

Passage puts the bill on track to clear Congress by week's end and arrive on the president's desk in coming days as the first binding congressional challenge to Bush's handling of the conflict now in its fifth year.

"Our troops are mired in a civil war with no clear enemy and no clear strategy for success," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Republicans promised to stand squarely behind the president in rejecting what they called a "surrender date" handed to the enemy. ...

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Harvard: How the Media Partnered With Hezbollah
Charles Johnson (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

During Israel’s war against Hizballah, at LGF we were continually outraged by the media’s uncritical promulgation of terrorist propaganda, and their overwhelming bias against Israel. The barrage of staged and manipulated disinformation culminated in the infamous Adnan Hajj fauxtography incident; and it can be argued that the culture of tacit cooperation with terrorists was at least partly responsible for that stunning case of phony news.

How could Reuters’ experienced editors miss a fake picture that was so bleeding obvious, at every step of the way toward publication? Answer: because they just didn’t care. ...

Now the Harvard Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, hardly a bastion of neocon wingnut thinking, has issued a paper that absolutely skewers the media for their outrageously biased and terrorist-enabling behavior. Maybe this will be a little harder for them to ignore: How the Media Partnered With Hezbollah: Harvard’s Cautionary Report. ...

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Rudy: Democrats Want A 9/10 World
Ed Morrissey

Of all the candidates running for president, Rudy Giuliani knows best what a 9/10 mentality means in an age of radical Islamist terror. He had to deal with the aftermath of bureaucratic confusion and politically-correct counterterrorism on 9/11 and the weeks afterward as the mayor of a city who saw almost 3,000 of his citizens killed by terrorists. So when Giuliani talks about the folly of returning to the defense against terrorists, he knows of what he speaks:
Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani wrapped up a day of campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday night by issuing a stark warning that Democrats would put the country on defense in the campaign against terrorism and needlessly prolong a conflict that he said America can and must win. ...

"If one of them gets elected, it sounds to me like we're going on the defense," he said. "We've got a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. We're going to wave the white flag there. We're going to try to cut back on the Patriot Act. We're going to cut back on electronic surveillance. We're going to cut back on interrogation. We're going to cut back, cut back, cut back, and we'll be back in our pre-September 11 mentality of being on defense." ...
Giuliani called the war on terror "the defining conflict of our time," and that cuts many ways. The conflict will define political parties and movements based on how they approach it; it will define nations based on whom they support; and it will define an era based on who eventually prevails. Rudy wants to continue the forward strategy of engaging terrorists and their sponsors abroad with the American military, rather than allow terrorists to gather their strength abroad for an attack on the US, with law-enforcement resources as our only defense. ...

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White Flag Democrats or Fifth Columnists. Or Both.
Tom Heard (H/T: Dan Riehl)

Unlike the "fifth column" of old, there is nothing clandestine about this movement. Wikipedia defines fifth column thus "A fifth column is a group of people which clandestinely undermines a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal, such as a nation." The leaders of this group, Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, and many more including a few Republicans like Chuck Hagel are not only willing to raise the white flag of surrender but are openly and actively doing everything in their power to guarantee defeat and take us back to a 9/10 status.Are they doing this because they feel that it is best for the country? In a word, no. They are doing it for their own political/personal gain.They are so heavily invested in defeat that rational thought has no place in their agenda.

Harry Reid has gone so far as to declare the war lost, the surge a failure even though it has just started and is showing signs of progress, and then goes on the malign Gen.David Petraeus, whose report he dismisses as valueless. Here is the video at Hot Air. Unlike some Democrats, he’ll hear Petraeus out; he’ll just simply refuse to believe anything he says that doesn’t fit the left’s narrative.
Neville Nancy won't even deign to meet the the field commander. ...

***

Why No One Wants An American Withdrawal
Ed Morrissey

The Guardian (UK) has relentlessly opposed the war in Iraq for the past four years and more, giving its readers on the Left a steady diet of bad news and angry opinion based on its editorial policy. British newspapers have an open editorial bias, and readers expect news from a point of view. Guardian readers may find themselves surprised today, however, to find a detailed explanation of all the reasons why the nations in the Middle East do not want an American withdrawal from Iraq -- and the catastrophes that would follow one:
The so-called axis of moderate Arab states - comprising Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - dreads an early US withdrawal. First, because it would be widely interpreted as an American defeat, which would weaken these pro-American regimes while both energising and radicalising their populations.

Second, if the US leaves, the emergence of a Shia regime in Iraq - in itself an offensive prospect to them - would only be a matter of time. ...

Third, ...
The fallout of a withdrawal would not be contained within Iraq, either. An Iranian hegemony in Iraq would allow the radical Shi'a of both nations to export their destabilizing influence to other nations with restive Shi'ite populations, most notably Bahrain. From there, it could spread to the other smaller emirates in the region, destabilizing the power structure that the Sunnis have built in the last century -- a power structure based on oppression and religious fanatacism of their own, to be sure. Without American forces based in the region, we would have no ability to control or shape the outcome of such a collapse.

A partition of Iraq could prove even worse for the region. ...

***

Petraeus to Pols: Enemy is Listening

WASHINGTON — A Wednesday briefing by Army Gen. David Petraeus did not appear to quell concerns of House Democrats who are set to pass a veto-ready supplemental war spending bill that includes a timeline for withdrawal.

But the top commander in Iraq did warn lawmakers that their volatile rhetoric is being heard by the enemy.

"One thing that he reminded us was, this is a test of wills and he admonished us, reminded us that what we say to the world, to our adversaries and our allies, is listened to by the other side," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

Hunter said Petraeus "didn't try to sugarcoat the issues and the problems" that American forces face in Iraq, but noted that comments like that by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who last week said the war is lost, provide incentive for U.S. adversaries.

"It must come as a shock to Al Qaeda leaders to have an aide come into their safe house and tell them that Senator Reid has declared that, in fact, they are winning and the war is lost," Hunter said. "I think it's highly irresponsible for the leader of the U.S. Senate to have said that and, just speaking for myself as the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, I think that the leader of the Senate should step down from that position."

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Extreme heart-ache: Kirkuk cops go upside drive-by suspect’s head
Allahpundit

Gooood stuff here from Totten and Lasswell, fresh off their trip to the crucible of Kirkuk. You can watch the clip at either site but I recommend reading both posts. Totten is a tad more Sullivan-esque, shall we say, in his reaction to the violence, but he’s also got the better quotes:
“His teeth were still intact,” Patrick said.

Mam Rostam laughed again. “Those slaps were advice,” he said. “Because the city is unstable, we have to be a little bit violent with people to stop them. Otherwise they won’t be afraid to do many other evil actions. We have to be a little bit severe.”
It’s the broken-lip theory of Iraqi crimefighting: break his lip now so you don’t have to break his head later. There’s also a great passage about Rostam, a Pesh Merga general, explaining the consequences for Afghanistan if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq. But as I say, you need to read Lasswell too; otherwise you won’t find out who the suspect was and why he was riding around with his pal popping off shots oh-so-impressively.

Rostam also explicitly blames Iran for most terrorism in the regime. A fellow Kurdish security chief tells the New York Sun the same thing, emphasizing that Tehran’s support isn’t limited to Shiite groups and implicating the Irbil Five — whom Condi Rice, you might remember, wanted returned to Iran — in jihad: ...

***

Haditha: Is McGirk the New Mary Mapes?
By Clarice Feldman

Evidence accumulates of a hoax in Haditha. The weblog Sweetness & Light has done an estimable service gathering together the articles which cast substantial doubt on the charge of a massacre of civilians at Haditha . Because the blog is too busy gathering and fisking the news, I offered and the publisher accepted my offer to put what he has uncovered in a narrative form.

Having done so, I can tell you that the story has a whiff of yet another mediagenic scandal like the TANG memos or the Plame 'outing.' While the Marines quite correctly will not comment on the case pending the outcome of their investigation, I am not bound by those rules, and I will sum up the story for you. ...

***

Any way the wind blows...
Jay Tea

One of the defining moments of the 2004 presidential campaign was John Kerry's explanation that we wasn't a waffler, wasn't a flip-flopper, wasn't indecisive. The killer quote, to many was his infamous "I actually did vote for the $87 billion -- before I voted against it" explanation of his two seemingly conflicting votes on funding for the Iraq war.

It seems that attitude is contagious, and has infected House Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Harry Reid yesterday called General David Petraeus a liar in saying that progress has been made in Iraq. On January 27, the United States Senate voted unanimously to confirm Petraeus as commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq.

In other words, Reid was for General Petraeus before he was against him.

As commenter and blogger marc pointed out, last November Reid said "We're not going to do anything to limit funding or cut off funds." Reid then said, in February, that he will try to cut off funding for the Iraq war if President Bush rejects Congress' proposal to set a deadline for ending combat. Reid also said that "as far as setting a timeline, as we learned in the Balkans, that`s not a wise decision, because it only empowers those who don`t want us there. It doesn`t work well to do that."

In other words, Reid was against deadlines and funding cuts before he was for them. ...

***

Bombshell Cripples Case Against Haditha Marines
Philip V. Brennan

Convincing evidence that corroborates NewsMax.com's accounts of the Haditha insurgent ambush has compelled the prosecution to take extraordinary steps to bolster their crumbling case.

The stunning announcement that all charges are being dropped against Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz, formerly accused of murder in the Haditha incident where 24 Iraqis were killed during an insurgent ambush against the Marines, is indication that the prosecutors have a very weak case against all the defendants, lawyers for the some of the accused say.

~~Murtha~~Allaphundit comments here.

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The Pelosi-trich
Don Surber

Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi skipped a briefing on the Iraq War? Outrageous.

Republican Geoff Davis of Kentucky gave Pelosi the old what-for, saying:
Some in the Democratic leadership have declared it the job of Congress to micromanage the war in Iraq, yet we learn today that the Speaker of the House has refused to even be seen face to face with the very military commanders whose hands will be tied by the Democrat war funding bill.

This latest insult to our troops should come as no surprise since others in the Democrat leadership have declared the war lost despite our military commanders’ statements to the contrary and before General Petreaus has even gotten the additional resources he’s requested.

His reinforcement hasn’t even been fully implemented before congressional leaders have called it a failure. ...
A Democratic Senate and a Republican House authorized this war. Congress has a moral duty to allow the troops we sent in to harm’s way to have the time and the tools necessary to win. ...

***

Sen. Reid is lost
2007.04.25 Washington Time Editorial (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to take a shot last week at the president's Iraq policies, he missed, wide left: "This war is lost," he said. The remark prompted outrage in Washington -- how it was received by soldiers deployed in Iraq, or by those who would see America defeated in the region, is another matter. Democrats were quick to put their leader back on message. "As long as we follow the president's path in Iraq, the war is lost," Mr. Reid hedged later that day on the floor of the Senate.

That wasn't the first time Mr. Reid needed to be put back in line. In December he appeared on ABC's "This Week" and said, twice, that he supported a surge in troop levels that was temporary and a part of a larger plan, drawing the ire of the anti-war left. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Reid pulled a maladroit about-face. "The surge is a bad idea," he concluded in a Jan. 5 letter to President Bush.

Senate Democrats can rest assured that at least their leader has an eye on the bottom line, although they may be disappointed with his willingness to gab about it with the press. Mr. Reid told reporters this month that "we're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war. Sen. [Chuck] Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding." Talking out of one side of his mouth, Mr. Reid claims not to follow polls but to hew only to his own sense of what is right. Out of the other, ongoing problems in Iraq mean electoral success. Political duplicity doesn't get any more transparent than that.

***

Dems fail to back Reid's 'Iraq war lost'
By: John Bresnahan and Carrie Budoff (H/T: Dan Riehl)

Several leading Democrats said this week that they did not agree with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's recent statement that "the war is lost" in Iraq, even while they support his broader message.

But they did agree that Reid's wording was clumsy and potentially damaging. Even the Nevada Democrat himself appeared to be backing away from his remark.

Jim Manley, Reid's spokesman, said earlier that the "war is lost" comment was not in Reid's prepared text for the news conference last Thursday. But from now on, Manley said, the senator will "couch it more": The mission in Iraq is not working and must be changed.

Democrats have long tried to shed their image of being soft on national defense. Recent polls suggest they are making strides, showing that more voters trust congressional Democrats than they do the president to handle the situation in Iraq.

But statements such as Reid's -- while delighting those who have turned against the war -- provided Republicans an opportunity to shift focus from the merits of President Bush's Iraq war strategy to the level of support from Democrats for the troops. ...

***

Dafydd ab Hugh: Ruminations On the State of Things In Iraq

Just go read it; it's excellent from top to bottom and covers too much ground for me to make any attempt to summarize it or pull a representative excerpt.

***

Nancy No-Show
Ed Morrissey

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have insisted that the American military has done nothing to improve the situation in Iraq. Reid has gone so far as to declare the war lost and to malign the character of General David Petraeus, whose report he dismisses as valueless. Pelosi has a simpler way of dealing with Petraeus and his briefing for Capitol Hill -- avoid him:
As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion troop funding bill — which would also mandate that U.S. combat troops begin withdrawing from Iraq on Oct. 1 at the latest — Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to come to the Hill tomorrow to brief lawmakers on the progress of the recent troop escalation.

ABC News has learned, however, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will not attend the briefing.

"She can't make the briefing tomorrow," a Democratic aide told ABC News Tuesday evening. "But she spoke with the general via phone today at some length."

A Pelosi aide said the speaker on Tuesday requested a one-on-one meeting with Petraeus but that could not be worked out. He said their phone conversation lasted 30 minutes.
So what was so important that Pelosi could not attend a briefing on the progress of the war? It does not appear to be an emergency, since no one has suggested that she has left Washington in the middle of a work week. Is there another more pressing matter than the war in Iraq? Certainly the Democrats have not thought so to this point; they have made it their most pressing issue in attempting to force Petraeus into a retreat in the face of terrorists and gangsters. ...

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Burns of NYT: Insurgents Know U.S. Politics
Moving in Direction Favorable to Them
Posted by Mark Finkelstein

Does it give the Dem leaders of Congress pause to realize that the enemies of the United States in Iraq, the people killing our troops, are banking on their political success? Reid and Pelosi might be tempted to dismiss this as the raving of a right-wing blogger. They shouldn't. It is in fact the considered view of someone they surely see as a respected, nay, an authoritative source: no less than the Baghdad bureau chief of the New York Times, John Burns.

Burns was a guest on this morning's "Today." In the set-up piece, NBC White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell rolled a clip of precisely the kind of politics to which Burns later alluded, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV] fumed: "No more will the Congress turn a blind eye to the Bush administration's incompetence and dishonesty." When's the last time Reid spoke with such vitriol about al-Qaeda? Just wondering.

View video here.

***

Harry's War
Democrats are taking ownership of a defeat in Iraq.
WSJ Review & Outlook

Gen. David Petraeus is in Washington this week, where on Monday he briefed President Bush on the progress of the new military strategy in Iraq. Today he will give similar briefings on Capitol Hill, but maybe he should save his breath. As fellow four-star Harry Reid recently informed America, the war Gen. Petraeus is fighting and trying to win is already "lost."

Mr. Reid has since tried to "clarify" that remark, and in a speech Monday he laid out his own strategy for Iraq. But perhaps we ought to be grateful for his earlier candor in laying out the strategic judgment--and nakedly political rationale--that underlies the latest Congressional bid to force a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq starting this fall. By doing so, he and the Democrats are taking ownership of whatever ugly outcome follows a U.S. defeat in Iraq.

This isn't to say that the Administration hasn't made its share of major blunders in this war. But at least Mr. Bush and his commanders are now trying to make up for these mistakes with a strategy to put Prime Minister Maliki's government on a stronger footing, secure Baghdad and the Sunni provinces against al Qaeda and allow for an eventual, honorable, U.S. withdrawal. That's more than can be said for Mr. Reid and the Democratic left, who are making the job for our troops more difficult by undermining U.S. morale and Iraqi confidence in American support. ...

The stakes in Iraq are about the future of the entire Middle East--and of our inevitable involvement in it. In calling for withdrawal, Mr. Reid and his allies, just as with Vietnam, may think they are merely following polls that show the public is unhappy with the war. Yet Americans will come to dislike a humiliation and its aftermath even more, especially as they realize that a withdrawal from Iraq now will only make it harder to stabilize the region and defeat Islamist radicals. And they will like it even less should we be required to re-enter the country someday under far worse circumstances.

This is the outcome toward which the "lost" Democrats and Harry Reid are heading, and for which they will be responsible if it occurs. The alternative is to fight for a stable Iraqi government that can control the country and keep it together in a federal, democratic system. As long as such an outcome is within reach, it is our responsibility to achieve it.

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 25, 2007 at 01:04 AM in Caring about our troops, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Harry Reid, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Nancy Pelosi | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 24 April 2007

2007.04.24 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.04.23 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

"In less than six months time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding with conditions, and then a cut-off of funding. Three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops. Indeed last week, he said the war is already lost, and the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat." -- Vice President Dick Cheney

Below the fold:

Baghdad Dispatch: The Wall
9 KIA and Other Developments -- The Rest of the Story
Video: Dick Cheney vs. Harry Reid
Video: Reid sez Bush’s “attack dog” Dick Cheney out to get him, Democratic congress
Cheney: Democrats Are Defeatists About Iraq
Reid Has No Honesty at All
Harry Reid, Please Phone Home
War Supplemental Now Includes Minimum-Wage Increase?
Video: Reid vows not to believe Petraeus if he reports progress in Iraq
Reid's bloody hands
Mullah Dadullah and hundreds of Taliban 'surrounded in southern Afghanistan'
We'll only lose in Iraq if the Democrats inflict the defeat
What Would It Take for Joe Lieberman to Fire Harry Reid?

*** ***

Newer items are added at the top. Please treat this post as a blog within a blog, come back often, and scroll down till you see something that was here on your last visit.

***

Baghdad Dispatch: The Wall
The decision to build security walls around some Baghdad districts is getting a lot of attention in the local and world media. It’s creating many questions and even more rumors. Here’s some background straight from Baghdad, just as protests may be making both Iraqi and American officials reconsider the plan, according to some press reports.
by Omar Fadhil, PJM Baghdad editor (H/T: Jules Crittenden)

First and foremost, I don’t know why “The Wall” is becoming such an issue now. Work to construct similar walls started weeks ago in the Amiriya and Ghazaliyah districts. The “news” went utterly unnoticed then.

But that’s not what matters. What does matter is effectiveness versus side-effects. Neither should be neglected.

Yesterday leaflets were distributed in the streets of Adhamiya (or Azamiya, English doesn’t have the exact sound anyway). The leaflets — printed and distributed by persons unknown — called on residents to protest the building of the wall. Knowing that the only organized entity capable of such quick response to events in Adhamiya are either the insurgents or al-Qaeda strongly indicates that they were behind the planned protest. More important still is that it indicates they see the wall as a threat to their movement and ability to carry out their actions.

From a tactical point of view these walls can be very useful in reducing the levels of violence in targeted areas. Militants will have to stay in their home areas to avoid passing through the controlled gates. This reduces their ability to transport weapons and munitions for storage or operations in other districts. Failing that they will have to relocate to a district where it would be easier for them to operate. In either case the capacity of the militants to sustain their current level of operations would be impaired. ...

There are definitely downsides that come from surrounding communities with walls, mostly psychological and social. It’s sad to watch the capital of your country become the only city in the world that resembles a compartmentalized fortress where you need tall concrete walls to slightly improve the margin of safety.

But this is war and we can’t afford living in denial of the seriousness of threats. Emotions must not be allowed to disrupt taking practical steps that can save lives. So while I understand where PM Maliki is coming from in his opposition to the wall I have to disagree with him. The other thing I don’t like about Maliki’s move is that he broke the promise he made when he announced the security plan: he said he would not allow political interference in the work of the military. So his opposition to this particular plan is purely political in nature with disregard to the facts on the ground, and an obvious result of pressure from some politicians around him. However from his tone I suspect that he will eventually change his mind and deal practically with the issue.

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9 KIA and Other Developments
Jules Crittenden

Nine from the 82nd killed, 20 wounded in Diyala. Exactly the kinds of news people like Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., are looking for. In war, people die, and those who don’t think anything is worth fighting for will easily find what they need to declare a war lost and wrong.

Turns out al-Qaeda wanted these soldiers dead for a reason.

The AP’s reporting on Diyala appears to have overlooked other news of the same unit* the day of this attack, instead focusing intensely on other unrelated high casualty days elsehwere. Here’s AP’s background to what’s going on in Diyala:
“… an area that has seen a spike in violence since American troops surged into the capital to halt violence there … Sunni militants are believed to have withdrawn to surrounding areas such as Diyala where they have safe haven.”
Here’s MNF-Iraq’s press release released yesterday prior to the attack, citing progress in Diyala. Locals cooperating with 5th Squadron, 73rd Cav, with payoff: ...

The Rest of the Story
Lorie Byrd

Read Jules Crittenden on the deaths of the nine members of the 82nd Airborne. (Hat tip to Ace) He has the rest of the story the mainstream media ignored. I seriously wonder how the battles of past wars, battles that we count as major victories, would be reported today. Hundreds, and even thousands, were killed in battles that we count major successes.

The television reports of today consist almost completely of casualty figures, and often soundbites of politicians, with no context of the battle whatsoever. The written press reports are usually somewhat better -- they are longer with more space to fill so they generally provide more context and some information about our military successes, but still are lacking. There is an entire generation of reporters that evidently believe that if anyone is killed in battle, then it by definition cannot be counted a success. I think that some of the problem is that these are not conventional battles with two sides shooting at each other and one side advancing to take territory. Instead, the battles being fought in Iraq are often back and forth action/reaction situations. We round up or kill the enemy, or otherwise disrupt their activities, then some of them come back and attack with a car bomb or other method. Unfortunately one of the ways the enemy fights is by using the media and they know that it doesn't really matter how many of them are caught or killed or how seriously their operations are disrupted, as long as they can shoot or bomb a half dozen or more Americans they know what news the people in the U.S. will hear that evening. ...

***

Cheney vs. Harry Reid
Kathryn Jean Lopez

From earlier today:

Here's the full text:
I usually avoid press comment when I’m up here, but I felt so strongly about what Senator Reid said in the last couple of days, that I thought it was appropriate that I come out today and make a statement that I think needs to be made.

I thought his speech yesterday was unfortunate, that his comments were uninformed and misleading. Senator Reid has taken many positions on Iraq. He has threatened that if the President vetoes the current pending supplemental legislation, that he will send up Senator Russ Feingold's bill to de-fund Iraq operations altogether. ...

***

Video: Reid sez Bush’s “attack dog” Dick
Cheney out to get him, Democratic congress
Ian Schwartz

Dingy Harry whined at a press conference today about President Bush’s “attack dog” Dick Cheney, whom the rest of us call “the Vice President.” And he says the President is in a state of denial. This coming from a man who refuses to believe it when the general commanding our troops in Iraq tells him that there’s progress. What a tool.

Transcript:
The President sends out his attack dog often, that’s also known as Dick Cheney and he was here again today. Attacking not only me, but the Democratic congress. The President is in a state of denial.
Who is Reid to call anyone an “attack dog?” He called President Bush a “loser” in front of a bunch of school kids once. And now he’s getting snippy over a little pushback? ...

***

Cheney: Democrats Are Defeatists About Iraq

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney, on Capitol Hill Tuesday for a regular Republican leadership meeting, lashed out against Democrats adding a timetable for withdrawal into the Iraq war supplemental spending bill.

Rarely commenting to the press after congressional visits, the vice president came before cameras to call a speech by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "uninformed and misleading." He accused Reid and Democrats of pursuing their Iraq plans for the sake of political advantage, and he criticized Reid over conflicting statements he has made, from pledging not to cut funding to troops in Iraq while pushing for withdrawal to supporting a bill proposed by Sen. Russ Feingold that would defund the war should President Bush veto the withdrawal plan.

"In less than six months time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding with conditions, and then a cut-off of funding. Three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops," Cheney said.

"Indeed last week, he said the war is already lost, and the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat," Cheney said. ...

***

Reid Has No Honesty at All
Dan Riehl

This quote is taken from, of all places, Media Matters:
Fox News White House correspondent Wendell Goler: "The president admitted the short-term impact of the troop surge and going after Iraqi militias is likely to be an increase in U.S. casualties."
Now watch Harry Reid basically lie to CNN via this video at Hot Air, using that predicted short-term result to negate the statements from General Patraeus, the commander on the ground in Iraq. ...

***

Harry Reid, Please Phone Home
Greyhawk (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

As Harry Reid declares the effort "lost", soldier's in his home state are preparing for Iraq :
Las Vegas reserves disagree with Reid

"We're not losing this war."

That's how a Las Vegas Army Reserve sergeant and Iraq war veteran who is heading out again for Operation Iraqi Freedom reacted Friday to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid's assessment that the war in Iraq is "lost."

"I don't believe the war is lost," Sgt. George Turkovich, 24, said as he stood with other soldiers near a shipping container that had been packed for their deployment to Kuwait.

The soldiers leave today for a six-week training stint at Camp Atterbury, Ind., before heading overseas to run a camp in support of the war effort. It is uncertain if their yearlong tour will take them to Iraq.

"Unfortunately, politics has taken a huge role in this war affecting our rules of engagement," said Turkovich, a 2001 Palo Verde High School graduate. "This is a guerrilla war that we're fighting, and they're going to tie our hands.

"So it does make it a lot harder for us to fight the enemy, but we're not losing this war," he said. ...

***

War Supplemental Now Includes Minimum-Wage Increase?
Ed Morrissey

House and Senate conferees have reached agreement on the supplemental funding bill for the war in Iraq, the Washington Post reports. It maintains the timetables for withdrawal that could get initiated as early as July 1 and maintains a few of the pork-barrel items that raised such ire during the debates in both chambers. Democrats have also added their minimum-wage increase to the bill, an odd addition to war funding: ...

***

Video: Reid vows not to believe Petraeus if he reports progress in Iraq
Allahpundit

He’s willing to compromise. Unlike some Democrats, he’ll hear Petraeus out; he’ll just simply refuse to believe anything he says that doesn’t fit the left’s narrative. If that “reasoning” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s exactly what Eric Boehlert and various nutroots morons accused the right of doing during the Jamil Hussein episode. Allegedly we couldn’t accept that conditions in Iraq were dire so we concocted a sourcing scandal to explain away a dubious AP report about Shiites lighting Sunnis on fire, which, once discredited, would call into question the totality of reporting from the country. Sheer, unadulterated horseshinola, but that’s What Warbloggers Believe according to non-warbloggers Boehlert et al. Now here’s the Senate majority leader doing precisely the opposite, willfully turning a blind eye to any signs of progress, however “modest,” to protect his own quasi-religious conviction that nothing but nothing good has ever come from the war and nothing ever will. Wouldn’t be the first time the left has done that, either.

I included a bit at the beginning of the clip to show how absurd are the Clintonian semantics he’s resorted to in order to spin his recent declaration of defeat. Petraeus doesn’t believe, as Reid apparently does, that “the war is lost”; he believes that military force alone can’t win it at this point. Reid says he doesn’t grasp the distinction, but of course he does — he’s just worried about losing some of those extra Senate seats he expects to pick up from an American defeat. All other consequences be damned. ...

***

Reid's bloody hands
NY Post Editorial. H/T: Michelle Malkin

April 24, 2007 -- Fresh from his declaration that "this war [in Iraq] is lost," Senate Demo cratic leader Harry Reid is moving quickly to hasten America's unilateral surrender.

And to cast the Middle East into murderous chaos.

Reid yesterday promised that the Democratic-controlled Congress will within days pass legislation requiring U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq over the six months starting Oct. 1. ...

From the start, Reid and the Democrats have seen the war in Iraq as a partisan opportunity.

They refuse to present a unified front to the rest of the world - especially to America's enemies - because, in their pinched view, to do so would be to weaken their own prospects for retaking the White House in 2008.

No, Reid didn't repeat his declaration of defeat during yesterday's speech from the Senate floor.

It probably has dawned on him just how big a political blunder he committed - witness Sen. Chuck Schumer's gentle contradiction of the majority leader over the weekend, insisting that "the war is not lost."

Then again, Reid didn't have to repeat his original remarks - because the imposed timetable he announced, if enacted, would bring about precisely the same result.

That is, a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from the region - if Reid thinks the bug-out would stop at Iraq, he's dumber than he sounds - followed by:

* A rapid, al Qaeda/Iranian-driven descent into regional chaos.

* Most likely, a general war.

* And, almost certainly, a Mideast nuclear-arms race as Saudi Arabia, Eygpt and (probably) Turkey rush to arm themselves in anticipation of an Iranian bomb.

At the very least, Reid has to understand that his rhetoric can only encourage short-run insurgent attacks on Americans in Iraq.

Their blood stands to be on his hands. ...

***

Mullah Dadullah and hundreds of Taliban 'surrounded in southern Afghanistan'

Initial reports indicate up to 200 Taliban, including top Taliban commanders such as Mullah Dadullah, are surrounded by Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.

On Saturday, the militants arranged a meeting in the village of Keshay* in central Uruzgan province when they were subsequently surrounded by Afghan security personnel. Provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Qasim Khan told the AP that top Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah is among those surrounded. There is conflicting reports whether or not ISAF soldiers are currently at the battle site. ...

200 Taliban fighters surrounded
Noor Khan, Associated Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — 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.

Afghan police and government officials said the suspected Taliban fighters were surrounded as they gathered for a meeting in the mountain village of Keshay in Uruzgan province on Saturday.

Provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Qasim Khan said NATO troops were also involved in the siege, but NATO spokeswoman Lt. Col. Angela Billings said she had no such information.

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.

Hat tip: Jules Crittenden

***

We'll only lose in Iraq if the Democrats inflict the defeat
Paul Mirengoff

Harry Reid claims that Iraq is lost. If one defines "lost" in terms of failure to achieve a major objective then Reid may be correct. We have thus far failed to bring stability to certain parts of the country, and may not be able to do so. Even using this definition, though, Reid's assessment may be premature. We have significantly increased stability in key neighborhoods in Baghdad without having yet completed the troop surge. A less partisan, more sober Senate Majority Leader might wait for the surge to be completed before declaring defeat.

But the more important point is that Reid's implicit definition of "lost" is misguided. A loss doesn't occur just because you fail to succeed with respect to one important objective -- a loss occurs when the enemy achieves its major objectives. And that clearly hasn't happened it Iraq.

Al-Qaeda's objective is to drive the U.S. out of Iraq in order to gain ascendancy in Anbar province and/or elsewhere. That hasn't happened. Indeed, the best evidence is that Al Qaeda is losing ground in Anbar province, as local tribal chiefs, with our support, turn increasing against the terrorists.

The Baathist objective is to ...

***

What Would It Take for Joe Lieberman to Fire Harry Reid?
Lorie Byrd

Townhall has an online petition you can participate in to let Harry Reid know that you don't think the war in Iraq is lost, while others are asking Joe Lieberman to fire Reid. There was a time, not so long ago, that Lieberman expressed concern about the Democrats' position on Iraq. Now that so much has happened, including his majority leader declaring the war lost and congressional threats to defund the mission, what will he do? Is this going to be another case of Lieberman speaking out, but taking no action, as he did in the Clinton impeachment? This is a much more important matter, with not only many lives at stake, but also the security of the country and our place in the world. What would it take for Joe Lieberman to break ranks with the Democrats in the Senate and fire Harry Reid?

Lieberman on Iraq: ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 24, 2007 at 12:58 AM in Caring about our troops, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 23 April 2007

2007.04.23 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

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

***

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.

***

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

*** ***

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. ...

***

"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. ...

***

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. ...

***

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. ...

***

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: ...

***

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. ...

***

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 ...

***

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. ....

***

"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: ...

***

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: ...

***

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. ...

***

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. ...

***

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. ...

***

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: ...

***

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

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 23, 2007 at 12:59 AM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Great Britain, Iran, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 22 April 2007

2007.04.22 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

See previous: 2007.04.21 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work

BAGHDAD, April 21 — Out here in what the soldiers call Baghdad’s wild west, sometimes the choices are all bad.

In one of the new joint American-Iraqi security stations in the capital this month, in the volatile Ghazaliya neighborhood, Capt. Darren Fowler was heaping praise on his Iraqi counterparts for helping capture three insurgent suspects who had provided information he believed would save American lives.

“The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,” Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. “He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.’s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.’s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.”

The Iraqi officers beamed. What the Americans did not know and what the Iraqis had not told them was that before handing over the detainees to the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in front of the other two, the Iraqis said. ...

See-Dubya and Ed Morrissey have worthy comments here and here.

***

Below the fold:

Edwards: Iraq war is a "bleeding sore"
End the war: Right message sent to the wrong address.
Dems To Stop All Highway Funding

*** ***

Edwards: Iraq war is a "bleeding sore"
Michelle Malkin

Well, this will get people to forget about his $400 Beverly Hills haircuts...
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards told Michigan Democrats Saturday night that the United States must quickly get out of Iraq, which he called a "bleeding sore."

"America needs to be leaving Iraq, this is very, very simple," said Edwards, a 53-year-old former U.S. senator from North Carolina, making his second bid for the White House.

Edwards was the keynote speaker at the Michigan Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. More than 2,000 Democrats packed a ballroom at Detroit's Cobo Center. They each paid $150. The proceeds go to the state party.

Edwards said that the war has already cost this country more than $500 billion. He also said President Bush's plan to increase troop levels won't work.

"We have had multiple surges, none of them worked," he said.
First, Harry. Now, Silky. The Middle Eastern media sends its thanks and praise. ...

Don Surber: Edwards raises money for 750 more haircuts

***

End the war: Right message sent to the wrong address.
Posted by Mohammed

What did the last wave of terror attacks and the many crimes committed against our people all this time reveal?

If we look at how the media handles the situation we'll find something like this almost everywhere;

Dozens killed, scores wounded in attacks suggest failure of security measures…

It's as if the speaker here wants to only emphasize the defect in security measures in a way that honestly angers and disgusts me.

When shall they realize, if ever, that we are dealing with brutal crimes against humanity, a genocide against the people of Iraq? Why don't people talk about the cruelty of the crimes and expose the obvious goals of the terrorists behind the crimes?

Isn't it everyone's duty to expose the criminals, describe their sick ways and purposes and alert the world about the danger?

Where are the media when terrorists use chlorine poisonous gas, acids, and ball bearings to kill and hurt more and more civilians in utter disregard to all written and unwritten laws, ethics and values?

I understand it's the duty of the media to practice scrutiny over the work of governments but isn't it equally their duty to expose criminals and their evil deeds? ...

***

Dems To Stop All Highway Funding
Dan Riehl

With an average fatality rate of over 1,000 per year, upon realizing that more Americans have died building and maintaining the US highway system than in Iraq during the course of the Iraq War, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pronounced the Federal Highway system as lost. He went on to suggest it's simply another sign of Bush administration incompetence, though the fatality rate is down from that under former President Clinton.

"The cost is too great," said Reid. "It's time for American drivers to step up", he went on, suggesting that American drivers begin carrying shovels and containers of asphalt to effect their own repairs as they make their way.

Representative Jack Murtha (D) is said to be crafting legislation to re-deploy all American highway workers to golf courses, hedgerows and ...

***

"Not Responsible for Advice Not Taken"
[I've moved the excerpt and link that were here to my 4/23 roundup where they're less likely to be overlooked -- BF]

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 22, 2007 at 01:23 PM in Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, John Edwards | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 21 April 2007

2007.04.21 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

Below the fold:

Lieberman slaps Reid: "We should not surrender in the face of barbarism"
Sunni sheikhs in Anbar form anti-jihadi political party
The Axis Of Embarrassment (Updated ... BS?)
Democrats wage Information Warfare against U.S. forces
Haditha Prosecution Acknowledges Weak Case

***

Fairy Harry
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

Cornering Harry

It occurs to me that Senator Harry,
Sounds not like a boxer but something more airy;
Soft-spoken, slender, thin as a Reid,
Methinks hitten Harry might politically bleed.
Bullshit he’s a boxer, that’s strictly PR,
To make him look tough, a political star.
So do tell us, Senator, tough man about town,
How many toughs have you ever knocked down? ...

***

Lieberman slaps Reid:
"We should not surrender in the face of barbarism"
Michelle Malkin

Statement from Sen. Joe Lieberman:

WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) today made the following statement in response to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comment that the Iraq War is "lost:"

"This week witnessed horrific terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists in Iraq, killing hundreds of innocent civilians and leading Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to declare that the war is 'lost.'

With all due respect, I strongly disagree. Senator Reid's statement is not based on military facts on the ground in Iraq and does not advance our cause there.

Al Qaeda's strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. They are trying to murder as many innocent civilians as possible in an effort to reignite sectarian fighting and drive us to retreat from Iraq.

The question now before us is whether we respond to these terrorist attacks by running away as Al Qaeda hopes - abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East, and ultimately our own security to the very same people responsible for this week's atrocities - or whether we stand united to fight them.

This is exactly the wrong time to conclude that we have lost the war in Iraq, or that our new strategy has failed. Instead, we should provide General Petraeus and his troops with the time and the resources to succeed. We should not surrender in the face of barbarism."

***

Now, get a load of Reid's response to Lieberman. Make sure you are not drinking or eating anything. And if you have high blood pressure, do not read any further: ...

***

Sunni sheikhs in Anbar form anti-jihadi political party
Allahpundit

It’s not often you get undiluted good news from Iraq. Enjoy it.
A group of Sunni tribal leaders in beleaguered Al Anbar province said Thursday that it intended to form a national party to oppose insurgents such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and reengage with Iraq’s political process.

The announcement came after 200 sheiks said to represent 50 tribes met here and agreed to form a provincial sheiks council and hold the first convention in May of their new party, called Iraq Awakening. Sheiks from three other provinces will attend, organizers said.

The driving force behind the new party, Sheik Abdul-Sattar abu Risha, said in an interview that the tribal leaders would be pushing a slate of candidates in Al Anbar provincial elections later this year, as well as in the next round of national parliamentary balloting, scheduled for 2009.

One purpose of the party, Sattar said, is to promote a better image of American-led forces “to the Iraqis here.” He added that the tribes also would participate in a U.S.-backed effort to reestablish a court system in Ramadi, the provincial capital.
American KIAs in Anbar as a total percentage of American KIAs in country have dropped from 45% between December to February to 12% from February to April. Combat deaths are way up in Baghdad over the same period, though, due no doubt in part to the fact that jihadis are trying to spoil the surge in the capital but surely also because Anbar has become increasingly hostile terrain for them. And not just because of the sheikhs, either: ...

Ed Morrissey comments:

The Los Angeles Times reports that the security situation in Anbar has shown real improvement. Some of that improvement comes from the efforts of the local tribes, but that wouldn't be possible if the US hadn't started its new strategy of clearing and holding territory and establishing credibility in its commitment. The Marines that have boosted their numbers in Anbar have made believers out of the locals.

Now the sheikhs have given their blessings to recruitment for the Iraqi Army, which has up to now been a mainly Shi'ite force. The Sunni recruits will help to balance the security forces and bolster that group's credibility in Iraq as a whole. It's the only way that Iraq in the long run can hold itself together.

***

The Axis Of Embarrassment (Updated ... BS?)
Ed Morrissey

See update below -- not very credible.

Bloggers today have been linking to an article in The Spectator, a well-regarded British magazine, written by Daily Mail columnist Melanie Philips regarding Iraqi WMDs. According to the man assigned to look for them, the WMDs were there -- before the Bush Administration apparently botched security at the sites and his classified reports went missing. Meet David Garbautz, who served as an Air Force agent in Special Investigations for 12 years before his most important assignment: ...

Ed's skeptical, Allah's skeptical, I guess I'd better be too.

***

Democrats wage Information Warfare against U.S. forces
Doug Ross (H/T: Lorie Byrd)

In Military Review, Lt. Col. Timothy Thomas (Ret.) lists strategems of information warfare (IW), which include:
Direct [enemy] commanders' thinking and force them to make errors by attacking cognitive and belief systems.
* Generate heavy psychological pressure by using intimidation to signal inevitable [enemy loss] concentrating forces and coordinating information networks [such as mainstream media].
* Hide reality by creating a fictitious reality.
* Mislead the enemy by pretending to follow his wishes.

These strategies are designed to force cognitive errors in the enemy and create a multidimensional threat with which the enemy must contend...
Let's take each in turn and determine whether the Democrats and their public relations arm -- the mainstream media (MSM) -- qualify.

Direct [enemy] commanders' thinking and force them to make errors by attacking cognitive and belief systems: In declaring the war 'lost', Democrat Harry Reid has attacked U.S. commanders' belief systems. Reid has plainly stated that commanders are waging a pointless war and -- in the words of military blogger COB -- has thereby placed a very real stake in the ground:
If Senator Reid, based on the information that the Senate Majority Leader has, has determined that this war is lost; there is nothing left to do but come home. The way I see it, if you were to vote for anything less; you would be personally liable for any future wounded or God-Forbid dead soldiers...

...You, a person in high authority in the US government, have made a definitive statement that an action is occurring with no redeeming value. Said action is causing harm and death to US citizens. You have the unique power to stop said action and thusly stop the harm...
Generate heavy psychological pressure by using intimidation to signal inevitable [enemy loss] concentrating forces and coordinating information networks [such as mainstream media]: The mainstream media has, for the last several years, rallied around the meme that "Iraq is Vietnam" and various calls for retreat and surrender (see Murtha, Reid, et. al.). ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and other major print and broadcast outlets have studiously ignored the facts surrounding the Iraq War and the rise of global Islamofascism. Instead, the MSM has called attention to car bombings and -- by historical standards -- a very low death rate among U.S. forces. ...

***

Haditha Prosecution Acknowledges Weak Case
Bruce Kesler

Of course, the prosecutors of the Haditha Marines wouldn’t put it that way, but their actions reveal the weakness of their case. One knowledgeable participant in military law calls the prosecutors wide-scale granting of immunity unprecedented and indicative.

Aside from the immunity granted to one of the previously charged Marines, discussed here, and previously here and here with respect to the entire case, it’s now been revealed that another 7 Marines have been granted immunity.
A legal expert said by giving so many people immunity, prosecutors are taking a "conservative" approach to the case.

"These are legitimate moves by the prosecutor, who is very cautious," said Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge who teaches law of war at Georgetown University Law Center.
In other words, the prosecutors are trying to bolster their weak evidence.

The local newspapers to Camp Pendleton add information missing from the Washington Post treatment.

The San Diego Union Tribune adds:
However, not all the Haditha immunity deals are guaranteed to boost the prosecution's chances. The testimony of Lt. William T. Kallop, the sole officer at the killing scene, could support defendants' contention that they were following lawful orders.

Contributed by Bill Faith on April 21, 2007 at 02:31 AM in Caring about our troops, Dem Dumbness, Dem Perfidy, Harry Reid, Joementum | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Friday, 20 April 2007

Born Loser

Thin as a Reid
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

I’ve wondered who’d do the evil deed;
Not surprisingly, it’s Harry Reid.
It was Cronkite stabbed us in the back;
This time it’s a pol not a media hack.
Uncle Walter used his powerful podium
To betray me and mine with nightly odium;
America’s avuncular pontificator,
Now an admitted, liberal, media traitor. ...

***

Losers
Contributed by J D Pendry

Scary Harry Reid announced to the world that the war is lost. It is hopeless. Terror wins, America loses. Put that image into your mind along side the picture of the headscarf wearing Granny Nan Pelosi and one becomes convinced that the leaders of America’s Axis of Idiots will not quit until the Islamic lunatics vaporize thousands more of us.

Read the rest:

***

More letters for Harry "Lost It" Reid
Michelle Malkin

Here's a second batch of messages from my military readers for Harry Reid and the White Flag Dems:

From milblogger Dadmanly: ...

***

Reid Supports the Troops Who Lost the War
by Scott Ott

(2007-04-20) — Attempting to clarify yesterday’s statement that the war in Iraq is “lost“, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today that he “supports the troops who lost the war.”

In an audiotape recorded from an undisclosed location and released through Al-Jazeera TV, Sen. Reid said, “The troops who lost the war should hold their heads high, because not everyone can be a winner, and they gave it a good try.”

CIA analysis of the tape indicates the voice is “almost certainly” Sen. Reid’s and that references to recent events show that the Democrat leader may still be at large, in good health and “substantially in charge” of his network of Democrat senators. ...

***

Our Dark Hours
Dan Riehl

As optimistic as I tend to always be when it comes to America, I can't help but think that we are now facing some of the darkest hours we have known since the Civil War and the founding revolution itself. More dark even than 9/11, by far.

When I think that during a time of war we have a feckless traitor like Senator Harry Reid leading the Senate, the America I've known and have valued since my days as a young boy just can't seem the same, somehow. Make no mistake, during their day, had the Founding Fathers been saddled with an alleged leader like a Harry Reid, I suspect they would have tried and convicted him of treason before dragging him out behind some courthouse to stretch his treacherous neck.

Then there's Pelosi, a clueless, moneyed quisling unqualified to hold any position in Federal Government, but elected time and time again by a bunch of mostly anti-American losers out in San Fran. And Murtha? What a useless tub of stupefied lard is that unintelligent un-indicted ABSCAM co-conspirator. ...

This next election may be the most important in our history. And we must turn these neo-socialist, utterly defeatist un-American losers out. The future of the world's greatest nation, if not the free world itself, may well depend upon it.

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