Our Business Now Is North

Iraq Today

From Ralph Peters:

"We all recall the delighted leftist claims that Iraq had entered a hopeless civil war. Wrong. That Iraqis preferred al Qaeda to us. Wrong. That Shia militias represented the people. Wrong. And that Iran would seize control. Wrong again.

Looking back over six years of good intentions, tragic errors, generosity, arrogance, partisan vituperation, painful deaths and ultimate vindication, two things strike me: the ever-resisted lesson that human affairs are more complex than academic theories claim, and the simple truth that most human beings prefer a measure of freedom to immeasurable repression."

Currahee!

Spend a few minutes and watch this tale of heroism. And check your cynicism at the door.

P.S. Note to CBS - get with the program guys. Putting an auto start on an embedded clip that activates every time the page is loaded or refreshed is as annoying as it is stupid.

Thanks, But No Thanks

Andy McCarthy passes on a chance to sing "Kumbaya" with Eric Holder:

May 1, 2009

By email (to the Counterterrorism Division) and by regular mail:

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.

The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.

Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities. This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case. Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America’s “commitment to the rule of law.” Indeed, you elaborated, “Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration’s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay…. President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]” (Emphasis added.)

Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.
For what it may be worth, I will say this much. For eight years, we have had a robust debate in the United States about how to handle alien terrorists captured during a defensive war authorized by Congress after nearly 3000 of our fellow Americans were annihilated. Essentially, there have been two camps. One calls for prosecution in the civilian criminal justice system, the strategy used throughout the 1990s. The other calls for a military justice approach of combatant detention and war-crimes prosecutions by military commission. Because each theory has its downsides, many commentators, myself included, have proposed a third way: a hybrid system, designed for the realities of modern international terrorism—a new system that would address the needs to protect our classified defense secrets and to assure Americans, as well as our allies, that we are detaining the right people.

There are differences in these various proposals. But their proponents, and adherents to both the military and civilian justice approaches, have all agreed on at least one thing: Foreign terrorists trained to execute mass-murder attacks cannot simply be released while the war ensues and Americans are still being targeted. We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans. Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces.
The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight. Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year. The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules. Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.

Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities—like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance. I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.

I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade.

Finally, let me repeat that I respect and admire the dedication of Justice Department lawyers, whom I have tirelessly defended since I retired in 2003 as a chief assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. It was a unique honor to serve for nearly twenty years as a federal prosecutor, under administrations of both parties. It was as proud a day as I have ever had when the trial team I led was awarded the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award in 1996, after we secured the convictions of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his underlings for waging a terrorist war against the United States. I particularly appreciated receiving the award from Attorney General Reno—as I recounted in Willful Blindness, my book about the case, without her steadfastness against opposition from short-sighted government officials who wanted to release him, the “blind sheikh” would never have been indicted, much less convicted and so deservedly sentenced to life-imprisonment. In any event, I’ve always believed defending our nation is a duty of citizenship, not ideology. Thus, my conservative political views aside, I’ve made myself available to liberal and conservative groups, to Democrats and Republicans, who’ve thought tapping my experience would be beneficial. It pains me to decline your invitation, but the attendant circumstances leave no other option.

Very truly yours,

/S/

Andrew C. McCarthy

cc: Sylvia T. Kaser and John DePue
National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section

Pick A Side

From The Return Of Scipio:

"You see two sides preparing for war. One side has politicians, vegetarians, environmentalists, professors, sodomites, school teachers, welfare recipients, newspapers and Hollywood. The other side has a battle hardened military, most of the nation’s policemen and 70,000,000 Americans with guns."

We Won

You heard it here first....

This Is What Victory Looks Like

From Armed and Curious:

"This is a different Iraq then the one I left two years ago in so many ways. I am constantly surprised this trip when something subtle points to such an obvious change. It is often only much later that you recognize the measure of what you have witnessed and often it’s the absence of things such as explosions and small arms fire in the distance that point to the progress having been made.

Then there are times when the change hits you across the forehead like a 2x4. Yesterday I found inspiration in the tears of joy on hundreds of faces at the graduation for the Iraqi Military Academy at Rustimiyah as 252 young men graduated from the one year course of instruction and were commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in the Iraqi Army and Air Force.

From the moment we arrived with a herd of media to assist the Iraqi’s in handling the event you could feel an electric air of anticipation in the atmosphere of the gymnasium. The cadets patiently stood in formation while subtly itching and squirming to get it over with. The stands were overflowing with their families and friends frantically waving as they spotted their sons, brothers and friends in the formation.

No one complained as the gym heated up in the desert afternoon as we awaited the arrival of the Minister of Defense and General Petraeus. Their helicopters hit the helipad and the ceremony kicked off with a bang as the entire corps of cadets sang the Iraqi national anthem, which on its own is a powerful song, but when sung by almost a thousand young soldiers at the tops of their lungs with joy and pride you can’t help but feel a chill along the back of your neck without needing to understanding a single word.

As soon as the formation marched forward to the graduation line the candy started raining down. It is an Arabic tradition to give sweets at joyous occasions and at the military academy graduations this has taken the form of handfuls of candy being flung from the stands by women at the cadets and all of us gathered on the floor. I have never seen such huge smiles on Iraqi faces in my five years here. One wonderful older woman had a huge purse which she emptied at all of us on the floor before giving me a wink and transitioning to a basket at her side with another barrage.

Everyone waited patiently through the speeches where Minister of Defense Abdul Qadir told the young men that the most important medal they will ever wear on their chests was the trust of all of the Iraqi people and General Petraeus exhorted them to lead the new democratic Iraq with their proud example.But with the last note of the second playing of the national anthem absolute mayhem broke out. The crowd poured out of the stands as my team and I desperately tried to extract the media from the crush. Everywhere around us men and women alike were crying and grabbing their sons before pulling their cadet epaulets off their shoulders to put the single star of an Iraqi Army or Air Force 2nd Lieutenant in its place.

The Iraqi Army band played a series of songs which were often no more than a pounding of drums while families danced in circles around their boys or the graduates hoisted their buddies on their shoulders to bounce and cheer in unison. I watched a poor little four year old boy in the tiniest suit being held aloft as at least 20 new officers danced and cheered “Victory for Baghdad” over and over and handed him from one to another wet faced man.

We all just sort of stood there and soaked up the energy and passion. This is where Iraq is today. These families, rich and poor, Sunni and Shia, young and old were overcome with pride for their sons becoming officers of the new Iraq.

It wasn’t because they would be getting a regular pay check. Not because there is nothing else to do. These men have committed themselves to building a new democratic Iraq and the sheer joy and pride of their families tells even the most jaded observer, including a couple of veteran western journalists in my group, that something has shifted here that can’t be ignored.

You could not stand on that hot gymnasium floor covered with crushed candy and dancing Iraqis and not be inspired.

I haven’t shaken the chill up my spine even today."

CWCID: InstaPundit

A Supreme Error

Fred Thompson writing over at Townhall has this to say about the recent Supreme Court Guantanamo habeas corpus ruling:

"In reading the majority opinion I am struck by the utter waste that is involved here. No, not the waste of military resources and human life, although such a result is tragically obvious. I refer to the waste of all those years these justices spent in law school studying how adherence to legal precedent is the bedrock of the rule of law, when it turns out, all they really needed was a Pew poll, a subscription to the New York Times, and the latest edition of “How to Make War for Dummies.”

It is truly stunning that this court has seen fit to arrogate unto itself a role in the most important issue facing any country, self-defense, in a case in which Congress has in fact repeatedly acted. This was not a case where Congress did not set the rules; it did. But the court still decided – in the face of overwhelming precedent to the contrary – to intervene. This decision, or course, will allow for "President Bush Is Rebuffed” headlines, the implication being that the Administration was caught red-handed violating clearly established Constitutional rights when in fact the Administration, and the Congress for that matter, followed guidelines established by the Supreme Court itself in prior cases.

People can disagree over whether Congress got it right, but at least members have to face the voters. What remedy do people have now if they don’t like the court’s decision? None. If that thought is not enough to cause concerned citizens to turn out on Election Day to elect a new president, then I don’t know what will be.

I also find it just a tad ironic that in a case involving habeas corpus, which literally means that one must produce a body (or person) before a court to explain the basis on which that person is being detained, the decision of this court may mean more fallen bodies in the defense of a Constitution some of these justices ignored."

Five Years In

This is a simply amazing, at times almost biblical post from Gerard Van der Leun at American Digest:

"Five Years In
[Republished from last year at this time.]

Five years in. An inch of time. Five years in and the foolish and credulous among us yearn to get out. Their feelings require it. The power of their Holy Gospel of "Imagine" compels them. Their overflowing pools of compassion for the enslavers of women, the killers of homosexuals, the beheaders of reporters, and the incinerators of men and women working quietly at their desks, rise and flood their minds until their eyes flow with crocodile tears while their mouths emit slogans made of cardboard. They believe the world is run on wishes and that they will always have three more.

Like savages shambling about some campfire where all there is to eat are a few singed tubers, they paint their faces with the tatterdemalion symbols of a summer long sent down to riot with the worms. They clasp hands and sing songs whose lyrics are ash. "We shall... over... come." Overcome what, overcome who? Overcome their nation? Is that their dream? It is the lifelong dream of those that lead them that much is certain.

Five years in and we see these old rotting rituals trotted out in the streets like some pagan procession of idols and shibboleths, like some furred and feathered fetish shaken against the sky by hunkering witch-doctors, to hold back the dark, to frighten off the evil spirits and graven images that trouble the sleep of the dreamers.

Five years into the most gentle war ever fought, a war fought on the cheap at every level, a war fought to avoid civilian harm rather than maximize it. Picnic on the grass at Shiloh. Walk the Western Front. Speak to the smoke of Dresden. Kneel down and peek into the ovens of Auschwitz. Sit on the stones near ground zero at Hiroshima and converse with the shadows singed into the wall. Listen to those ghost whisperers of war.

Five years in and the people of the Perfect World ramble through the avenues of Washington, stamping their feet and holding their breath, having their tantrums, and telling all who cannot avoid listening that "War is bad for children and other living things." They have flowers painted on their cheeks. For emphasis. Just in case you thought that war was good for children and other living things.

There were children and other living things on the planes that flew into the towers. They all went into the fire and the ash just the same. But they, now, are not important. Nor is the message their deaths still send us when we listen. That message is to be silenced. The rising brand new message is "All we are say-ing is give...." And it is always off-key.

Five years in and they are upset that their party of the 90s has been so long interrupted; that their raves are foreshortened; that their sleep is persistently shaken by car bombs beyond the far horizon; that their time at the mall can not be entirely, completely, and utterly without guilt.

Five years in and the clear and present danger to the nation must be closeted in favor of the unclear and distant end of the world if we insist on exuding, as all life does, carbon dioxide. Send the nation and its armies and its wards and protectorates to the block, but keep the polar bears cold.

"Can't you see that worldwide wall of water sweeping in to inundate all life in 30, 50, 100, 500 years?"

"No. I cannot see it from here."

"Ah well, you are a warmonger, an evil person, a vile Christian, a shameless, shameless American.

"You must have shame. Shame is what we have when we look around us. We are ashamed of what was given us. You must join us; share in our shame at being Americans, at being the last best hope of earth.

"Join us and join the rising despair of people who, believing in nothing, believe only in the self, the life of the senses, the mollifying of guilt, of 'the expense of reason in a waste of shame.'"

Five years in and the fools in the streets multiply. They are tired of the war, but full of themselves.

Hear me now. This is my answer to you. This is my answer and this is my prophecy.

It is taking too long. It will be with you, blowing hot and cold, for decades yet to come.

It is costing too much. How much will it cost to rebuild a burned and irradiated Los Angeles?

Too many soldiers have died. Even one soldier's death is too much. What is the nature and duty of a soldier? Is a soldier there only to come in and sandbag a flooded New Orleans? Bring you a Red Cross sandwich and a cup of weak coffee after a tidal wave?

We shall overcome. Overcome who? Your fellow citizens? Certainly not the enemy. You'll not get over on this one with your Ghandiesque platitudes, unless you are ready to all go like lemmings over the cliff and onto the spikes. You don't strike me as the kind of people with that level of commitment. You strike me as the kind of people who like to prance, rant, and chant, and then go home for a nice chilled Chardonnay and a slab of grilled tofu. Then you spend an hour bitching about Bush before taking a bong hit and sucking up some MTV. I know you well. I was you.

We shall take our no balls and go home. You will return when your children are slaughtered in their schools. You will return when one of our cities burns. You will return when your cities freeze in the winter, your drinks warm without ice in the summer, your iPods go flat as you walk streets with few lights, when your electricity is rationed, and the shelves of your store are bare. You will return when the crops fail and the trucks cannot run.

Look around you. Everything you have, everything, is there because of oil. The brute fact of the planet right now and into the next few decades is that without oil, the machine that enables you to be you runs on oil. If that oil runs out, your nation, any nation, will do all that it can to get it back. And you will be back not "with peace, but with a sword" of a terrible fire. In your name. In all our names.

It will not be our fault because we marched and spoke up. We moved on. You have made a festival out of your foolishness if you are young, and, if you are old, out of a yearning for a lost youth you left behind on the last day of 1969. You have carried that yearning forward all your life. You re-enact that foolishness again because you know no other, and you know no better.

"We shall not/ We shall not be blamed." If we leave because of your pouting and pique, we will return because of your stupidity. There will be blood after and blood later and fire to follow. That war will not take Five years. It will take an afternoon at best, but decades of digging out will follow. A million may die here but many millions will die there.

What follows will make the Great Depression seem a mild recession. History will unfold in ways we cannot now fathom. The American experiment, still young, may falter -- may fail.

Should America falter or fail other forces, not so sweetly congenial to freedom, shall rise. The utopian world you seek will be set back a century at the least. We will all have to bear the brand of that fire, but on your foreheads the mark will be sharp and deep. And we will know you for what you are. Worse still, you will know.

Five years in and the only way out and out now would be to quit. Capitulation is not a policy. It is procrastination. There is a way out, but it is years away and many people, people who swoon easily in the sunlight of this "war lite," do not have the ability to endure any war; even so tepid a war as this. They do not have the simple patience.

It is in patience alone that our enemies outstrip us. After all, when you look at what they have made of their "civilization" what indeed do they have to lose?

Five years in and what do we have to lose should you force us to lose?

In time, everything."

Heroic?

"The Palestinian Hamas movement hailed a deadly attack on a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem on Thursday night as "heroic," without claiming responsibility for the strike that killed eight.

"This heroic attack in Jerusalem is a normal response to the crimes of the occupier and its murder of civilians," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Another spokesman, Taher al-Nunu, blamed the attack on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and the Israeli government.

"We have warned before about the responsibility of the escalation in Gaza and warned of Palestinian anger," Nunu said.

Hundreds of Palestinians poured into the streets of Gaza City as news of the attack at a west Jerusalem yeshiva spread, firing automatic rifles into the air in celebration."

This will never be over until someone "wins". From American Digest:

To: The Palestinian People
From: The People of Israel
Re: Final Notice Before the Termination of Our Relationship
Date: "To Be Determined"
(To be filed in your "Permanent Conduct Record")

AS YOU KNOW from our repeated meetings over many years, we have repeatedly done our best to accommodate your incessant demands regarding employment, compensation, housing allowances, health benefits, and other items of mutual interest as we have endeavored to work together on "Project Peace in the Middle East."

We have, with your agreement and assurances of a better performance, given you time, money, professional help, medication and a more than reasonable offer of land for you to live in while you work out "your issues." In the course of these meetings we feel we have been more than forthcoming in our attendance to your "special needs."

From time to time we have accepted your written word that, given adequate resources, you would be working internally to resolve "your issues." We note, for the record, that at no time has your word proven to be worth the paper which we both so ceremoniously signed. Indeed, it has been our bitter experience that the working out of "your issues" most often involves explosive episodes on the streets of our country.

It has come to our attention, through a continuing rain of the body parts of our citizens onto our streets, that "your issues" do not seem to be resolvable through considered and mutually agreeable negotiations. The outcome of these 'negotiations' in the recent past seems to us to be one of we give and you take and then you kill us. We have decided that this is not a peace project that we wish to continue.

Indeed, it would seem to be the case that your "central issue," although internally generated within your institutions and religion, seems to be the eradication of the state of Israel and the extermination of the Jewish people here and abroad.

We mention 'abroad' since it would seem to us that your goal is to first create a base that includes the entire state of Israel, kill the Jews within those borders, and then use that land as a base to kill Jews throughout the world. Perhaps we are wrong in this but we find that a people is best known by the company they keep.

As Jews we have had a similar experience with this "central issue" as a "final solution" towards the middle of the last century. We discovered, after millions of us had been slaughtered, that mollification, negotiation, and submission was not a successful policy. Indeed, we created the state of Israel around the central concept of 'Never again.'

Please note that after no little reflection and soul searching, we have decided to return Israel to this concept as the foundation of our internal and international policy from this moment forward.
Because we are a reasonable people we have decided to issue this memorandum in order to give you one chance to reform yourselves and become fit to be included in the human race. Should you choose not to pursue this path, we will at least have a record that you were notified in a fair and timely manner before termination.

"Never Again" was our first principle and is now our final position. This memo serves to note the end of all negotiations with the Palestinian People.

Your problems and your issues as of this date are yours and yours alone. You must solve whatever bipolar instability and manic-depressive disappointment and psychotic tendencies towards homicidal violence plague your society among yourselves. You will not, from this date forward, use the People of Israel as targets for your own internal demons.

Your "issues" will no longer be allowed to become our "episodes."

Should you choose "act out," even once, we, the People of Israel, hereby notify you that we are prepared to and shall, without any further notice, over-react towards all Palestinian people and interests within our sphere of influence.

Bear in mind that we have not in recent memory over-reacted against your unremitting efforts to exterminate us. We have been patient and measured in our responses, cognizant of a watching world and not wanting to seem, even for a moment, to be as savage and violent as those who have been waging a coward's war against us for decades. We have, at all points, been as honorable in war as possible -- even when the wars in which we were engaged were not fought by honorable adversaries but by cowards and murderers.

As you know, our military power, both conventional and nuclear, is immense. We won't detail here the helicopters, missiles, tanks, aircraft, and troops which we can mobilize and move to the west as far as the shores of the ocean if we wish.

Mere mention of these items has not gotten your attention.

The restrained use of these items has not gotten your attention.

Because we are weary of having our streets used as your martyr's mausoleums, because we are extremely angered when we must place the shredded bodies of our children into body bags, because we would feel a lot better getting up in the morning if we knew we'd be coming home at night, we have decided we must, regretfully, engage in methods which will, finally, either get your attention or leave you without the capacity for attention in the first place.

This then is your single choice:

If you know of those among you who seek to kill even one of us by any means, you would be well advised to render them incapable of killing anyone immediately. Should you wish to ever have a bit of land to call your own and you are aware of an organization of any kind that seeks to take our land outright, you would be well advised to render them powerless forthwith.

Should you fail to do so and, as we stated above, even one more of our citizens should be killed by the cowardly methods you have perfected over the years, we will conclude that your entire society values martyrdom more than life and peace and will endeavor, to the utmost limits of our ability, to supply you with same.

We will begin our program of over-reaction without delay and without reference to our allies or world opinion. We will deal with that in the days that follow the completion of our strategic exercises in what you quaintly term "the occupied territories." Please notify those whom you consider your allies that, should they chance to intervene, we have sufficient resources to deal with them expeditiously.

Should individual Palestinians feel that these terms are unrealistic, we would advise them personally to seek an exit visa and to remove themselves as far from 'the occupied territories' as is feasible and as quickly as possible. When we over-react to the west we will not be checking ID cards.

Please reflect upon these conditions as seriously as we have in drafting them.

Remember, in the final analysis, we are a people with no little experience in stunning victories.

Sincerely,The People of Israel

CC: USA, EU, UN and others whom it may concern"
====

I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy....

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is really not much of a surprise to me, I am sorry to say. But now that it is an accomplished fact and Pakistan is in turmoil we will have to monitor events there more closely than ever.

Andrew McCarthy has this to say:

"The transformation from Islamic society to true democracy is a long-term project. It would take decades if it can happen at all. Meanwhile, our obsessive insistence on popular referenda is naturally strengthening — and legitimizing — the people who are popular: the jihadists. Popular elections have not reformed Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon. Neither will they reform a place (Pakistan) where Osama bin Laden wins popular opinion polls and where the would-be reformers are bombed and shot at until they die.

But we should at least stop fooling ourselves. Jihadists are not going to be wished away, rule-of-lawed into submission, or democratized out of existence. If you really want democracy and the rule of law in places like Pakistan, you need to kill the jihadists first. Or they’ll kill you, just like, today, they killed Benazir Bhutto."

Call Me Crazy

Ouch. This is going to leave a mark. From NRO:

Graveless in Gaza [Lisa Schiffren]

Is this a great Alarabiya headline or what:

Israeli blockade leads to humanitarian disaster
Gaza runs out of cement to build graves

Two humanitarian suggestions:
1 — Gazans could stop killing each other so enthusiastically, so the annual supply of 1000 government provided graves doesn't get used up so fast.
2— Gazans could stop killing Israelis, giving Israel a reason to relax the blockade.
3— (This one is practical, not humanitarian) — Gazans could build a cement factory of their own — since their primary, or perhaps only, natural resource is SAND. That way they could continue murder and mayhem at the rate they are comfortable with — and be able to build all the graves they need. And, an unintended though beneficial side affect might be that they begin to build an economy, too.

The MSM In One Easy Lesson

Helen Thomas is a fool. And her day, if she ever had one, has long since passed.

As proof, I offer the exchange she had with Dana Perino at the White House press briefing yesterday. The "him" she refers to is General Petraeus:

Q Why should we depend on him?

MS. PERINO: Because he is the commander on the ground, Helen. He's the one who is making sure that the situation is moving —

Q You mean how many more people we kill?

MS. PERINO: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position, bestowed upon you by your colleagues, to make such statements. This is a — it is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.

Q Do you know how many we have since the start of this war?

MS. PERINO: How many — we are going after the enemy, Helen. To the extent that any innocent Iraqis have been killed, we have expressed regret for it.

Q Oh, regret. It doesn't bring back a life.

MS. PERINO: Helen, we are in a war zone, and our military works extremely hard to make sure that everyone has the opportunity for liberty and freedom and democracy, and that is exactly what they are doing.

I'm going to move on.

CWCID: NRO.

The Real Surge

This post by Wretchard at The Belmont Club makes an appropriate bookend to my previous post about Chris Hedges. Wretchard discusses an article by DJ Elliott at The Long War Journal (emphasis added):

"The Real Surge DJ Elliott describes is really a relief in place of US Forces by a newly generated Iraqi Army. The difference between a relief in place and a rout disguised as a redeployment is very significant.

Even if the US never takes any military action against Iran the creation of a new and modern Iraqi Army, well supplied with artillery and logistics (as appears to be the case) will create a threat in being for the Ayatollahs. From a situation in which the Teheran could contemplate virtually annexing southern Iraq (as would have occurred if the US had admitted defeat in early 2007 and left) the Ayatolahs now face the prospect of having to maintain large permanent standing forces on their border with Iraq. Nor is this all. If most US ground forces are freed up by the Real Surge the Iranians will suddenly face the prospect of dangerous mobile US reserve. All in all it would be a nightmarish burden for Teheran to shoulder.

Does this mean war in the Middle East? Ironically the Real Surge may actually reduce the prospect of war considerably, while at the same time improving the prospects for the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear problem. While it is possible that Iran, watching its window of opportunity closing, may become suddenly reckless and launch an all-out attack to destabilize Iraq, it is probably too late for banzai measures. The odds are that Iran has been strategically beaten, first by the American Surge and worse, by the follow-on Iraqi resurgence.

The intolerable burden of maintaining a war-footing against the new Iraq, guarding against possible American action, Western sanctions and the need to refurbish its collapsing oil industry while maintaining a nuclear program may collapse the theocrats in Teheran in the same way it did the old Soviet Union.

That might be a good thing. For Iran, Iraq, America and the whole world."

CWCID: TigerHawk

Ralph Peters Rules

Ralph Peters rebuts the "12 Myths of 21st Century War":

1. War doesn’t change anything.
2. Victory is impossible today.
3. Insurgencies can never be defeated.
4. There’s no military solution; only negotiations can solve our problems.
5. When we fight back, we only provoke our enemies.
6. Killing terrorists only turns them into martyrs.
7. If we fight as fiercely as our enemies, we’re no better than them.
8. The United States is more hated today than ever before.
9. Our invasion of Iraq created our terrorist problems.
10. If we just leave, the Iraqis will patch up their differences on their own.
11. It’s all Israel’s fault. Or the popular Washington corollary: “The Saudis are our friends.”
12. The Middle East’s problems are all America’s fault.

CWCID: The Belmont Club.

Why I Don't Go To The Movies Anymore

I think JD Johannes pretty well summarizes my feelings about the recent spate of Iraq war films - as well as why I won't be in the audience:

"Every morning I go to the gym and run on the treadmill.

Every morning I am subjected to at least a dozen commercials for the new anti-war movie 'Lions for Lambs.'

Despite spending several million dollars on advertising and marketing, 'Lions for Lambs' will flop--just like 'Rendition' & and 'Valley of Elah.'

They will flop because the human psyche, especially the American variety, prefers real heroes--like the original hero of the Valley of Elah, a young shepherd named David who killed Goliath then cut off the giant's head.

In the latest round of war movies the heroes are not the Soldiers and Marines who every day fight and defeat a vicious and barbaric enemy--the heroes are reporters, lawyers and activists.

And since every story requires a villain, the real enemy--Mohammedan Jihadists--are replaced by neo-cons, politicians, Soldiers and Marines.

This substitution of the traditional mono-myth away from a hero who faces physical danger and conquers an enemy is a result of cowardice of the modern story tellers."

There May Be Hope For Congress After All

I have to admit that I am a bit behind on listening to my podcasts. However, I was awestruck by one I heard earlier today which was recorded at The Heritage Foundation on August 1 entitled "When Do You Know You're Winning? Combating Insurgencies - Past, Present and Future". Congressional Representative Thadeus McCotter (R-Michigan) was the guest speaker and I particularly liked this exchange (emphasis added):

Question - "How do you gauge your caucus’s temperature on Iraq? Do you think it is going to stay together in September?"

Answer - "I earlier advocated and I continue to advocate that this is not a political matter for our party. That if we descend to the level where national security and elemental questions of right and wrong become an issue where we can be coursed or cajoled then we have not done our jobs as the representatives of the sovereign American people and we will descend to the level of those that view everything as a political matter in relation to your national security.

When your nation is engaged in warfare overseas you retain your right to descent. But you also have the responsibility to put forward constructive solutions to further the cause of victory. If you do not like what the President is doing then you should tell the President how we can best achieve our goal, be victorious and allow our troops to come home to their loved ones. I think that when you treat this as political matter you stray from that fundamental principle and you get into all sorts of trouble.

So we have not whipped our caucus on this and we will not. It is a matter of conscience and we believe that, in the end, this is the best way to approach this because it is the right way to approach this. I know how I will be voting; my constituents will know how I will be voting; and I think that is right and proper and anyone that asks me will be told. But if they do not ask, I will not force it upon them."

Just when I began to think Congress was nothing more than a collection of blithering idiots this man comes out and very concisely articulates my very feelings about how the liberals have come perilously close to treasonous behavior regarding the war. All I want to know is if/when he will consider running for higher office. I think he just might have a future.

The Definitive Word

In their editorial on September 11th The Wall Street Journal provided the definitive word on the MoveOn.Org/New York Times tactics (emphasis added):

"Important as was yesterday's appearance before Congress by General David Petraeus, the events leading up to his testimony may have been more significant. Members of the Democratic leadership and their supporters have now normalized the practice of accusing their opponents of lying. If other members of the Democratic Party don't move quickly to repudiate this turn, the ability of the U.S. political system to function will be impaired in a way no one would wish for. "

"MoveOn.org calls itself a "progressive" political group, but it is in fact drawn from the hard left of American politics and a pedigree that sees politics as not so much an ongoing struggle but a final competition. Their Web-based group is new to the political scene, but its politics are not so new. More surprising and troubling are the formerly liberal institutions and politicians who now share this political ethos."

"In an editorial on Sunday, the New York Times, after saying that President Bush "isn't looking for the truth, only for ways to confound the public," asserted that "General Petraeus has his own credibility problems." We read this as an elision from George Bush, the oft-accused liar on WMD and all the rest, to David Petraeus, also a liar merely for serving in the chain of command. With this editorial, the Times establishes that the party line is no longer just "Bush lied," but anyone who says anything good about Iraq or our effort there is also lying. As such, the Times enables and ratifies MoveOn.org's rhetoric as common usage for Democrats."

Be sure to read the entire editorial.

What If MoveOn.Org Existed 65 Years Ago?

The answer:


CWCID: Red State

I Guess We Will Have To Agree To Disagree

The New York Times editorial today apparently provides the bookend to the full page MoveOn.org ad in yesterdays issue which attacked General Petraeus.

I can no longer find the words to express my disgust with "the newspaper of record" - so I am not even going to try.