This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Lining up the sides for a new Cold War

    Last week we were treated to what Frenchmen look like when they’re being nice when M. Sarkozy addressed a joint session of Congress. This week, formerly chilly new prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown was caught “doing the Sarkozy” by the Wall Street Journal Editorial staff;

    So Monday night, in his first major speech on foreign policy since moving into 10 Downing Street, Mr. Brown sought to out-Sarkozy the Frenchman. “It is no secret that I am a lifelong admirer of America,” he said in London. “I have no truck with anti-Americanism in Britain or elsewhere in Europe. I believe that our ties with America — founded on values we share — constitute our most important bilateral relationship.” In noting the recent pro-U.S. tilt across the Channel, Mr. Brown said, “It is good for Britain, for Europe and for the wider world that today France and Germany and the European Union are building strong relationships with America.”

    GI Jane wrote yesterday on this blog, that Denmark elected a center-right govenment with Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a staunch Bush supporter at it’s head, and of course Germany has center-right Andrea merkel calling shots for them. So all of our allies are lining up with us again – that’s good, I suppose. Mike’s America says it’s better than the alternative;

    Meanwhile, both Bill and Hillary Clinton continue to insist that America’s standing in the world has been damaged by President Bush and only THEY can restore it!

    Yeah, that’s what we need to restore America’s image: more Europeans making jokes about a stain on a blue dress!

    Fausta says;

    That’s what happens when George W. Bush squanders the good faith of the EUros…

    But I see all of this good news a bit differently - always the cynic, I see an impending disaster. I wrote back in September about the Axis of Ultimate Evil;

    Well, you’ve got Hugo Chavez buying weapons from Russia, drilling oil with China (who is, by the way, drilling oil off the coast of Florida in cahoots with Cuba) and forming alliances with Iran and Nicaragua (not to mention Chavez coming out against boob jobs), Syria getting weapons technology from North Korea.

    […] 

    I’m starting to see a pattern here. This growing alliance is cartoonishly evil – like some kind of alliance of fiends set against the Justice League or Superfriends. Except there isn’t any Justice League or Superfriends – there’s just us. Well…some of us. 

    Well, now we have friends. China and Russia, who are both running a screen for resource-rich and repressive Myanmar government in the United Nations, are now training their militaries together which completes the circle of the alliance of our political and economic competitors.  In fact the AP writes that a US Panel reports Chinese espionage as one of our biggest threats;

    Chinese spying in America represents the greatest threat to U.S. technology, according to a congressional advisory panel report Thursday that recommended lawmakers consider financing counterintelligence efforts meant to stop China from stealing U.S. manufacturing expertise.

    The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission also said in its annual report to Congress that small- and medium-sized U.S. manufacturers, which represent more than half the manufacturing jobs in America, “face the full brunt of China’s unfair trade practices, including currency manipulation and illegal subsidies for Chinese exports.”

    China’s economic policies create a trade relationship that is “severely out of balance” in China’s favor, said the commission, which Congress set up in 2000 to investigate and report on U.S.-China issues.

    With the war in Iraq winding down, the cartoonishly evil axis probably needs to strike at us while we’re trying to catch our breath, and before our own alliance has any real strength. We know that the French are always the friendliest when they’re in trouble – that probably should have been my first hint.

  • Democrats living in a time warp

    With resounding military successes occurring everyday in Iraq, with more and more areas of Iraq falling under the control of the Iraqi military and Iraqi police, the Democrats are bound and determined that they want credit for pulling the troops out. So they’ve tied funding to the war to a complete withdrawal of US troops by the end of next year. from the Wall Street Journal’s David Rogers;

    The Iraq war debate erupted anew in Congress as the House approved additional military funding but only after Democrats attached conditions that set the goal of ending U.S. combat operations by the end of next year.

    Adopted 218-203, the measure gives the Pentagon $50 billion in emergency funds to sustain military operations until next spring, when a more extensive debate is expected after lawmakers receive a new report from Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus.

    But the White House immediately said it would veto the “bridge” funding unless the House restrictions are removed, and the resulting stalemate will almost certainly run into next month — and possibly next year.
     
    Republicans accused Democrats of pursuing a “fool’s game” that ignores progress made on the ground in Iraq. Democrats countered that the war’s cost and strain on the U.S. military has become a threat to American security, and strong action by Congress is needed to force a change in policy by the president.

    Yea-uh-uh, the Democrats are worried about our security – that’s why they’re coming out against an attack on Iran. The Washington Times’ S.A. Miller and Sara A. Carter reports that Democrats are still living in 2006 when they thought they could control troop deployments (and before President Bush demonstrated to them that they couldn’t);

    The bill mimics Democrats’ previous challenges to Iraq policy and likely will stall emergency funds, which would pay for about three months of warfare while lawmakers debate the rest of the $196.4 billion war-funds request for 2008.

    The top Democrats — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada — say they will withhold troop funds for at least the rest of the year if Mr. Bush does not accept the pullout timetable.

    “There is a growing sense within our caucus that it is time to play hardball,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat and outspoken war critic. “This is George Bush’s war. He started it. He’s got to finish it.”

    Well, then let him finish it, numbnuts. Steny Hoyer still thinks it’s January 2007, according to the Washington Post;

    Democrats know that but say that their efforts to limit the war since taking control of Congress in January are a political — and, some say, moral — necessity. “The American people voted for change,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday. “We ought to extricate American men and women . . . from refereeing a civil war.”

    Seein’s how Sunnis and Shi’ites are both engaged in killing al Qaeda, how’s it a civil war, dumbass? Michael Goldfarb (The Weekly Standard blog) writes the Army credits that cooperation with the decline in IED attacks (which occured at about the same time the Washington Post spent a whole week on IED attacks);

    So what is the explanation? Meigs reels off the numbers for Noah Shachtman:

    What Meigs was able to share, however, were statistics on the number of tips locals gave to coalition forces in Iraq – and number of IED caches found by those troops. As you might expect, there’s a heavy correlation between the two. About 8,500 tips came in September of 2006; by May, the number had peaked at more than 24,000. In August, the figure was approximately 19,200. Similarly, the number caches found – about five per day in September, 2006 – jumped to more than 20 per day in May. After a dip over the early summer, that figure has been steady in recent months, at about 15.

    The Times reports that Hoyer is moving the goal post;

    “What has not happened is what the administration predicted would happen, [that] an environment would be created where political reconciliation would occur,” Mr. Hoyer told reporters on Capitol Hill. 

    As if to answer Hoyer, the Iraqis take up discussing allowing Ba’athists back into the process – one the Left’s prerequisites for success. (h/t Ace of Spades)

    Of course, the recurring theme is that the war is Bush’s fault. The Post quotes Murtha;

    “We want a plan in Iraq. . . . We want stability in the Middle East,” Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said minutes before the vote. “We want to put a plan in place that holds the president accountable.”

    The problem is that when it turns out all rosy, the Democrats will be held accountable for their total disregard for the safety of our troops and the nation.

    Michele Malkin sums up the whole Democrat effort last night in one simple phrase;

    “Stop pestering me, Code Pink! I beg you to stop!”

    Michele also listed the linguine-spined cowards of the Republican party who voted with the Democrats;

    The 4 Republicans who supported the withdrawal bill: English (PA), Jones (NC), Shays (CT), Walsh (NY)

    One voted “present:” Lewis (GA)

    And 11 didn’t vote: Bono, Carson, Cubin, Doyle, Hastert, Jindal, Mack, Oberstar, Pearce, Sessions, Weller

    Gateway Pundit reports that Democrats are bailing on Pelosi in larger numbers;

    Sadly, Speaker Pelosi has failed to pick up any Republican backers to cut and run with the democrats from Iraq since she took over the House in January. And, 5 more democrats bailed on the party since July.

    No matter how hard Democrats try to make it George Bush’s war, it’s still going to cost them in the end for their treasonous waivering which has prolonged the conflict – their treasonous waivering which goes back to 1969.

  • Chavismo dealt another blow and shuts up VZ blogger

    At Babalu Blog, Gusano reports the latest blow to Hugo Chavez’ attempts to spread his own special brand of socialism in the lower hemisphere;

    Chavez, who knows how to buy friends and influence people, has offered to use some of “his” , I mean Venezuelan, oil money to buy, I mean help, Chilean socialist president Michelle Bachalet regain her declining popularity by subsidizing the construction of a new transportation program called Transantiago. The implementation of the system has been botched and overbudget, leading to street demonstrations in Santiago.

    The Bachalet administration emphatically refused Chavez’s offer to make Chile one of his “client states”:

    “We are not used to outsiders telling us what we have to do”

    A slightly more diplomatic, yet just as effective ¿por que no te callas?

    A slightly more diplomatic, yet just as effective ¿por que no te callas?Hugo, you see is the “brains” behind 21st Century Socialism, which seems to be a very close relative of 20th Century Socialism – stealing.

    As far as I can tell, 21st Century Socialism consists of taking your national wealth and packing it in suitcases that are then delivered to other countries to buy , I mean help, foreign politicians who don’t mind prostituting themselves get elected or stay in power.

    Yet while Chavez is spreading his money and promises, folks in Venezuela are still missing staples like milk, according to Daniel in Venezuela News and Views;

    Yes, milk. There are reports also of people fighting for a pound of powder milk; or of the armed forces battling the “buhoneros” to force them to sell milk at the regulated prices. these ones preferred to spill milk on the side walk. As the shelves of Venezuela are slowly lacking more and more items we learned that through the dismal inefficiency of the Venezuelan public administration 1660 cows died in a ship at Puerto Cabello. In a tale worthy of Garcia Marquez tug boats had to push the boat at sea to throw overboard the putrescent meat. No word form the sharks yet though we are sure that the land sharks will keep whatever commission they pocketed to bring missing meat to Venezuela even if that one will never reach the shelves.

    While Katy of the Caracas Chronicles thinks that General Raul Baduel is inciting the Venezuelan military to stand with Venezuelans, and against Chavez, with these words;

    “As soldiers we’ve been professionally prepared to administer the State’s legal and legitimate violence, and therefore, we are experts in the topic of violence and what it entails. Our duty, specially during times like these, is to avoid the unleashing of violent processes and come forward as generators of calm and guides so the country can embark on a true path of development and as promoters and maintainers of peace, remembering the peaceful nature of the Venezuelan people which is expressed in Article 13 of the Constitution.”

    Reading Kate from A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective, her post entitled “You can’t shut us up either, Chavez“, she writes that Martha Colmenaras’ Spanish language Venezuelan blog has been hacked;

    Hartos de ZPorky reports a message from Martha, that her site was hacked immediately after having published a scathing post on Chávez’s behavior toward Don Juan Carlos as well as analyzing the events of 11A and not qualifying them as a golpe de Estado.

    BBC writes that Chavez has busied himself threatening Spanish economic interests in Venezuela;

    However, Mr Chavez said he did not want a political crisis with Spain following the clash – only that Venezuela’s head of state be respected.

    Later, however, he said political, diplomatic and economic ties with Spain were being closely reviewed.

    Spain has said it hopes for a swift return to normal diplomatic relations.

    Mr Chavez’s interview on state television on Wednesday could be seen as fuelling the row. 

    “[The king] disrespected me, and he was laid bare before the world in his arrogance and also his impotence,” Mr Chavez told a news conference on Tuesday, before adding: “We don’t want this to become a political crisis.”

    He went on to say that Spanish commercial interests in Venezuela were not indispensable and hinted that they could be affected if the dispute worsened.

    “Spain has many investments, private companies here and we don’t want to damage that, but if they are damaged, they are damaged… We don’t need it,” he said.

    These are acts of desperation – shutting down internal oppostion and shutting down external opposition from which Venezuela derives some benefit. He funnels money from the people of Venezuela to bribe ther countries for their support, while the people fight over fricken powdered milk. Yeah, great revolution you got going there, Hugo.

  • $30 million DC tax scam; third world-sized scandal

    Democrats want to get a voting seat in Congress for the District of Columbia, but every month, a new scandal erupts in the District’s government. Scandals that are more in line with third world nations than with here in the United States. This month’s scandal is in the DC Office of Tax and Revenue (Washington Post link);

    Federal authorities initially said the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue had lost more than $16 million in a brazen refund scam orchestrated by a mid-level manager. They later upped the figure to $20 million and warned that the damage could be even higher as their investigation continues. Yesterday, law enforcement sources confirmed that taxpayer losses could reach $30 million or more.

    The Post’s analysis showed that the volume and pace of suspicious activity at the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue reached its peak in the past three years. Of all real estate tax refunds issued in that span, about half appeared suspicious.

    And of the $37 million refunded from the start of 2005 to July 2007, the dubious checks total more than $19 million.

    Harriette Walters, the former manager in charge of property tax refunds, was arrested Nov. 7 and is charged with signing off on payments to sham companies controlled by family members and others who were in on the scheme. Six people have been charged, including tax employee Diane Gustus, one of several city workers who prepared or handled paperwork leading to the checks.

    The Washington Examiner describes Walters’ first day in court, yesterday;

    The woman charged with being the mastermind of the largest corruption scandal in the history of the District of Columbia had a plan to escape to the Caribbean and confessed her role in the scam when caught, prosecutors said in court Tuesday.

     

    Citing the “sheer magnitude” of the allegations against former D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue manager Harriette Walters, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay ordered her held indefinitely. Federal prosecutors had argued that the $20 million identified in the probe may be only a fraction of the amount she stole.

    Walters and her ex-colleague, Diane Gustus, stand accused of pilfering tens of millions of dollars from the public in an elaborate fraud conspiracy that cooked up six-figure payments to dummy companies and financed lavish lifestyles that included homes in the Caribbean, multimillion-dollar Nieman Marcus shopping sprees and garages full of high-priced cars from Corvette and Bentley.

    Walters, wearing an oversized denim jacket and with her blond-dyed dreadlocks tied away from her face, spoke softly but clearly in Tuesday’s hearing, answering questions in short, declarative sentences. Authorities acknowledged in court filings that it is unusual for a white-collar criminal defendant to be held without bond, but U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch said that Walters was “a highly sophisticated offender.”

    This is the kind of corruption you usually read about in banana republics south of us, not in the United States – but it’s indicative of the way the DC government treats it’s citizens – and the money they get from the federal government to operate our local third world government surrounding the nation’s Capitol.

    Just a few years ago, the head of the DC teachers’ union pension fund was busted for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the fund and then flaunting her new cash flow in public with a chauffer and a limo while draped in furs.

    Recently, a sex offender was found to be a principal at a district shool. 

    A former fire chief was hired from Augusta, Ga. while he was in the midst of a criminal investigation there, after less than a year in DC, he was caught pilfering fire-fighting funds – surprise!

    DC voters continue to send that criminal racebaiting Marion Berry, crackhead whore monger to elected office. DC city government is rife with corruption and failures, yet we should give them a seat a Congress so they can spread their corrut reach throughout the country?

    Sometimes I feel sorry for Adrian Fenty, DC’s new mayor, because he seems like a decent guy trying to do the right thing for DC, but the voters are too damn stupid to show him any appreciation. DC voters deserve a crackhead whoremonger mayor. 

    Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard wonders when the scandal starts being “material”.

  • Learning the hard way

    After a year of tough talk from the Democrats, and getting steadily pounded by the Republican minority and the President on Iraq (Gateway Pundit link) and on spending, the Democrats have finally decided maybe a little soft shoe instead of a mosh pit is more appropriate, according to the Wall Street Journal’s David Rogers;

    Down in the polls, House Democrats are showing a little more finesse as they try to move their legislative agenda around the wall of veto threats thrown up by President Bush.

    Cute is out; conciliation is in. Late-night talks with Republican moderates intensified last week on the Democrats’ signature health-care initiative — extending coverage to millions of working class children. Staff negotiations continued during the holiday weekend, and Georgia Rep. Nathan Deal, a Democrat-turned-Republican with expertise on health and welfare issues, has been invited in by both sides as a broker.

    Despite this, the Washington Post is hoping for more insanity from the Democrats;

    By signing a military spending bill with a sizeable increase while rejecting a domestic spending bill with a smaller one, Bush set the stage for a bruising battle with Congress over national goals. Democrats immediately denounced him for readily agreeing to spend money on the military while resisting what they call needed investments in programs at home. Bush called it a matter of setting priorities in a time of war.

    “The majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility, but so far it’s acting like a teenager with a new credit card,” Bush said in his speech here. “This year alone, the leadership in Congress has proposed to spend $22 billion more than my budget provides. Now, some of them claim that’s not really much of a difference. The scary part is they seem to mean it.”

    The Post fails to mention, while fanning the flames, that Democrats were really being irresponsible with over 2000 earmarks according to the New York Times (h/t Blue Crab Boulevard);

    But Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said that the vetoed measure exceeded the president’s fiscal target by $10 billion and included 2,000 earmarks, the special projects that lawmakers regularly vow to rein in.

    “We call on Congress to take out the pork and reduce the overall spending levels and return it to the president,” Ms. Perino told reporters traveling with Bush on Air Force One, according to a transcript released by the White House.

    But, the Democrats are having a hard time changing their hyperbolic habits;

    But Ms. Pelosi called the vetoed measure “a bipartisan and fiscally responsible bill that addresses the priorities of the American people,” from cancer research to veterans health care. “At the same time,” she said, “President Bush and his Congressional allies demand hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq — none of it paid for.”

    “Democrats have offered to work cooperatively with the president to address the priorities of our nation; we believe our differences are not so great that compromise cannot be reached,” Ms. Pelosi said. “But the president must work with us finding common ground.”

    From the Post story comes this statement from Jabba the Kennedy;

    “With today’s veto, the president has shown once again how out of touch and out of step he is with the values of America’s families,” he said. “Cancer research, investments in our schools, job training, protecting workers, and many other urgent priorities have all fallen victim to a president who squanders billions of dollars in Iraq but is unwilling to invest in America’s future.”  

    But the Bush Administration shot back (Washington Times’ John Ward);

    The president “will call on Congress to take out the pork and reduce the overall spending level and return it to him quickly,” Mrs. Perino said.

    Mr. Bush, who has made criticizing the Democratic budget one of his primary offensive weapons in recent months, ratcheted up the rhetoric this afternoon in a speech to a business group in New Albany, Ind.

    The president said that Democrats were “elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility,” but that since taking control of Congress they have looked to increase spending by $22 billion this year and raise taxes at every opportunity.

    Ed Morrisey says;

    The only people playing politics here are the Representatives and Senators that treat the Treasury as their re-election funds. Obey, Rangel, Don Young, Ted Stevens, and their porker colleagues provide themselves with lifetime sinecures through the earmarking process, jacking up the cost of government — and doing it all on our dime.

    While their popularity falls to historic lows, they still try to feather their nests with our money.

  • …but they still support the troops

    I caught a quick flash on the news last night about protesters at Denver’s Veterans’ Day events, but it took me until this morning to check the news, because after my own activities yesterday, I just didn’t have the energy to spend on those goofballs. But here’s the story from Denver’s Channel 7 news;

    Hundreds of people lined the streets in downtown Denver Saturday morning to watch the city’s annual Veterans Day Parade but it was not without some conflict.

    One Gulf War veteran, who only goes by the name “Cougar,” lost both of his legs in combat. As he was being pushed down the parade route, he broke into tears.

    “It’s nice … We never got this treatment. Not until now. We deserve it,” he said.

    Supporters waved flags to the beat of the drums, and cheered on the veterans as they marched by.

    At the very end of the parade, though, several anti-war veterans groups were met with mixed emotions.

    They carried signs protesting the Iraq War and President George W. Bush.

    “We support the troops. We’ve been the troops. We believe the best way we can support them is to get them out of there,” said Frank Bessinger, a Vietnam veteran who organized the demonstration.

    Um, Frank, this is about all veterans who’ve served in all wars. I visited the Tomb of the Confederate Unknown Soldiers – a mass grave of more than three hundred soldiers aside Robert E. Lee’s former mansion on Arlington – and paid my respects to people who’d died 90 years before I was born. You and your goofy group of misfits were making it political.

    Denver’s Channel 8 reports they were banned this year for their behavior last year;

    Organizers of the event say Veterans for Peace was not invited because the group staged what they considered an inappropriate protest at last year’s parade.

    Andrew Grieb of the United Veterans Council of Denver says the parade is not a platform for protesting, but rather for honoring veterans of all services.

    But Vietnam vet Frank Bessinger says the exclusion of the group violates freedom of expression.

    Um, Frank, it wasn’t a government function, so you have no freedom of expression to disrupt it – the Bill of Rights protects us from the government not from each other.

    I don’t like the “Veterans for Peace” moniker, either – it implies that I’m a “veteran for war” – and that’s certainly not the case. I’m for peace everywhere, but I’m enough of a realist to recognize that there are times thugs need to be dealt a forcible blow so they understand that peace is more advantageous to them than war. Even that knucklehead Clinton understood that up to a point.

    But the Veterans for Peace were busy yesterday, they also made a splash in Boston. The complete and unvarnished coverage from Boston local Bloodthirsty Liberal and the blotter report from the Boston PD News blog.

    Of course in Maine, they arrested veterans for busting up smelly, ignorant hippies’ anti-war propaganda (Ed. Sorry, I just noticed the date was two years ago);

    “I’m saddened that it has come to this, but I have a responsibility to maintain public safety,” said Police Chief John Morris, a Vietnam veteran. “Veterans don’t behave like that. These people don’t have a right to destroy other people’s property. Legitimate veterans’ organizations don’t commit civil disobedience. Veterans died to allow freedom to exist — whether we like the message or not. ”

    On Oct. 30, the peace group, Waterville Area Bridges for Peace and Justice, placed the white flags at the park, accompanied by signs protesting the Iraq war.

    On Wednesday, with Veterans Day looming, some veterans called the display a “desecration” and a “disgrace,” threatened to forcibly remove the flags, and challenged the police permit that authorized the display.

    On Thursday evening, about eight people — Bridges for Peace members and their sympathizers, among them some veterans — gathered at one side of the park, not far from where about 10 protesters were preparing to yank the flags.

    Veterans’ Day is as much for the living as it is for the dead – we take down Christmas displays, we dismantle all kinds of things that supposedly “offend” certain protected species of Americans – why can’t we do that for the patriots in this country instead of tossing them in jail? I’m sure the left has no problem with what happened in Kansas, though (link to TIME);

    Almost as soon as Ann and Don Bender marked the 4th of July by planting a field of more than 3,500 flags — one for each of the American troops killed in Iraq— the elements began to take a toll. The baking sun and sudden storms of a Great Plains summer left the little flagsticks warped and broken and the fabric bleached and torn.

    But that was nothing compared to the damage done in the dark hours of Sunday morning by vandals who kicked down thousands of the flags and left behind a cardboard sign with a single word splattered in red spray paint: “MURDERERS.”

    “You’ll have to excuse me, sir, for crying,” said a big bear of a man named Andy Enders as he stood by the remains of what had been “the most beautiful memorial ever created by private citizens, in my opinion.”

    Leftist bloggers think Veterans Day means remembering the mewling masses of protesters. Cindy Sheehan thinks Veterans’ Day is an opportunity to explain Jesus’ politics. But then what should we expect from a bunch of emotion-driven, irrational, sexually-frustrated self-serving children who’ve never known a moment’s discomfort, or understand the real meaning of sacrifice. Maybe they should take the time to read this short but elegant blog entry from Debbie Mumford on the subject.

    Veterans’ Day is ABOUT the troops – it’s not about the government. If you can’t take one day off from your irrational emotional outbursts and support the troops on Veterans’ Day, you can’t claim to support them rest of the year, either.

  • Opposing views of Iraq’s future

    Lauren Frayer of the Washington Times reports Al-Maliki’s giddieness at the decline in violence against Iraqis;

    Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday that suicide attacks and other bombings in the Iraqi capital have dropped dramatically since last year’s high, calling it a sign of the end of sectarian violence. A top U.S. general here said he thinks the drop is sustainable, as Iraqis turn away from extremists.

    Mr. al-Maliki said “terrorist acts,” including car bombings and other spectacular, al Qaeda-style attacks, dropped 77 percent. He called it a sign that Sunni-Shi’ite violence was nearly gone from Baghdad.

    “We are all realizing now that what Baghdad was seeing every day — dead bodies in the streets and morgues — is ebbing remarkably,” Mr. al-Maliki told reporters at his office in the U.S.-guarded Green Zone.

    “This is an indication that sectarianism intended as a gate of evil and fire in Iraq is now closed,” he said.

    Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, we can’t have that, can we? So let’s go the Washington Post – we can always depend on the Post to bring us down;

    The U.S. effort to organize nearly 70,000 local fighters to solidify security gains in Iraq is facing severe political and logistical challenges as U.S.-led forces struggle to manage the recruits and the central government resists incorporating them into the Iraqi police and army, according to senior military officials.

    Gen. David H. Petraeus and other top commanders have hailed the initiative to enlist Iraqi tribes and former insurgents in the battle against extremist groups, but leaders of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government have feared that the local fighters known as “volunteers” — more than 80 percent of whom are Sunni — could eventually mount an armed opposition, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.

    “Could eventually”. The Post is more interested in predicting doom and gloom scenarios than actually reporting news. We don’t need analysis, we need facts. Reporters are historically poor analysts.

    All of you goofballs at the Post need to learn something – we want the news, not predictions. Last year you told us that Iraq was mired in a civil war and that turned out to be wrong. The sectarian violence was based on the predictions of the US press that Democrats would prematurely withdraw troops from Iraq and leave the Iraqis high and dry. When the President decided to increase troops levels, that proved to Iraqis that we were there for the long haul despite the mewling of the Left – and they jumped on board instead of fighting for personal bits of Iraq politics. 

  • AP’s editorial shift

    I always know when a headline in the Wall Street Journal leads to an AP wire story. For example, today the blurb on the front page read “U.S.-led troops lobbed a grenade that destroyed a house and killed 15 militants as well as a civilian woman and two children in southern Afghanistan.” AP always has to mention the civilians. But I read the story anyway – because a single grenade that can kill 18 people and destroy a house is of some interest to this aging infantryman;

    A militant ambush in central Afghanistan, meanwhile, left four police officers dead and two others wounded, a police chief said.

    The troops in southern Afghanistan were raiding compounds suspected of housing bomb makers in the Garmser district of Helmand province Sunday when militants attacked them with heavy fire, the statement said. Coalition forces responded with small-arms fire, killing several militants, it added.

    “During one of the engagements, several militants barricaded themselves in a building on the compound and engaged coalition forces with a high volume of gunfire. Coalition forces used a single grenade which killed the attacking militants,” the statement said. “However, the building the militants were fighting from collapsed.”

    Of course, they say US-led coalition troops which means there were no Americans involved, except maybe an advisor – but it just sounds better to add the “US” part to rile up anger at Americans instead of blaming the poor brown people. But the amazing part of the story is yet to come;

    “When militants knowingly engage coalition forces with innocent people in the background, it only shows the extremists’ complete disregard for innocent lives,” Maj. Belcher added in a statement.

    It wasn’t possible to verify the coalition claims. Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said that only three militants were killed during the battle and 15 other victims were civilians. Mr. Ahmadi’s claims aren’t always reliable.

    Whoa, Nelly! The AP has finally admitted that their Taliban sources “aren’t always reliable”? Since when? It would have been nice if they’d said that back six years ago instead of just mentioning that now. Next thing you know, they might admit that maybe all of those beheadings they’ve been reporting from Iraq were all just fantasies of al Qaeda plants in the Iraqi Police like Curt from Flopping Aces has been reporting all along.

    Maybe we’re winning the war against the media as well as the radical Islamists. But, then I’ve always been a dreamer.