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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Free phone cards for the troops

    Mike at Lamplighter just emailed me what he says is a risk-free way of getting phone cards to the troops. Everyone should be doing this.

  • Mud Season in Vermont

    I lived in Vermont almost 20 years ago – in the good old days when there was a Republican governor (who always rebated tax money because the government hardly spent any revenue), a Republican Senator and the only Congressman was a Republican. It was said there were more cows in Vermont than Vermonters, and that might have been true. When I went to get my driver license in the town where I lived, they told me that if I wanted my photo on my license, I’d have to go to the State capitol in Montpelier because Vermont DMV only had one camera.

    State legislators only made about $6000/year because they were only a part-time legislature. Most had other jobs in their home districts that they needed while they nearly voluntarily served as legislators.

    Burlington, the most populous city in Vermont was run by a whacky Socialist named Bernie Sanders that no one paid much attention. The local joke was “The nicest thing about Burlington is that it’s so close to Vermont” meaning that Burlington couldn’t really be called a Vermont city because it was populated by college students (in one of the five colleges in the Burlington area) and flatlanders from New York (like Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean).

    Well, the joke is on Vermont now. The one Republican Senator they had twenty years ago, Jim Jeffords became a turncoat, Bernie Sanders is now their Senator, they haven’t had a Republican governor (or a tax rebate) since 1990. Flatlanders are running the state.

    There was a tiny faction of people in Vermont who used to, once every year, make the papers by pushing Vermont secession. Everyone chuckled, and agreed “Yeah, we should”. But now, ABC reported the other day;

    In 2005, about 300 people turned out for a secession convention in the Statehouse, and plans for a second one are in the works. A poll this year by the University of Vermont’s Center for Rural Studies found that 13 percent of those surveyed support secession, up from 8 percent a year before.

    “The argument for secession is that the U.S. has become an empire that is essentially ungovernable it’s too big, it’s too corrupt and it no longer serves the needs of its citizens,” said Rob Williams, editor of Vermont Commons, a quarterly newspaper dedicated to secession.

    “We have electoral fraud, rampant corporate corruption, a culture of militarism and war,” Williams said. “If you care about democracy and self-governance and any kind of representative system, the only constitutional way to preserve what’s left of the Republic is to peaceably take apart the empire.”

    Doesn’t sound like a bunch of dairy farmers to me – sounds like flatlanders hijacking an entire state. Newbusters’ Ken Shepard did a longer more complete piece on the Vermont Secession movement on Monday, if you’re interested in a hearty laugh.

    James Taranto did a bit on Vermont secession yesterday – I usually don’t pilfer Taranto’s stuff, but it’s so good;

    Some people “want Vermont to secede from the United States,” the Associated Press reports from Montpelier:

    Disillusioned by what they call an empire about to fall, a small cadre of writers and academics is plotting political strategy and planting the seeds of separatism.

    They’ve published a “Green Mountain Manifesto” subtitled “Why and How Tiny Vermont Might Help Save America From Itself by Seceding from the Union.” They hope to put the question before citizens at Town Meeting Day next March.

    Among those urging secession, as blogger Charles Johnson points out, is one Thomas Naylor, who in March issued a list of 20 tenets titled “Radical Nonviolence and the Power of Powerlessness.”

    Anyway, we think Vermont secession is a good idea, if for no other reason than that it’d be a nice morale boost for the U.S., which is weary of the long struggle in Iraq. Vermont has only a few thousand people, and most of them are hippies. It should be easier to pacify than Grenada.

    After all, as Naylor’s second tenet has it, “Violence begets more violence, not the other way around.”

    I also tripped over this article from the Burlington Free Press that the State is looking to end “racial profiling” – regardless of the fact that there are hardly any other races but white people there;

    Close to 50 people crowded into a small conference room at Burlington College on Wednesday evening to begin a dialogue on racial profiling in Burlington.The meeting was called by Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan, who described racial issues in Burlington and Vermont — one of the country’s two whitest state — as “complex, emotional and sensitive. I don’t have all the answers,” he said. “I have to listen and learn.”The exchanges Wednesday, though sometimes angry, resembled a conversation more than a typical public meeting, and a central frustration emerged early and often: Few data exist in the city or state about how often blacks are stopped by the police, let alone whether those stops are justified. 

     

    Well I checked on the racial make up of Vermont;

    Whites; 96.9%

    Blacks 0.6%

    That’s out of a population of 623,000 (that’s about a 20% increase over the population when I lived there) – that means there are 3743 blacks (about the same as when I lived there, give or take a coupla hundred) in the entire state. How big of a problem can racial profiling be?

    And alot of people think that Vermonters are racist just because there are so few minorities in Vermont – that’s not the case at all. When I was teaching at UVM, there was a national search for Black professors to teach there. They were paying huge signing bonuses and big benefit packages to attract them – but nary a bite.

    Vermont is cold in the winter – one December morning I got up to drive to work and it was minus-30 degrees. And from November thru March, there was only one thing to do in Vermont – ski. Or go to hockey games. Not to be racist or anything, but there are probably very few Blacks who ski or enjoy hockey, or have any tolerance for cold weather.

    The first thing our new Black clerk from rural Virginia asked after his first weekend in Vermont was “Where are the jazz stations on the radio dial? I can’t find any”. Cuz jazz wasn’t very popular in Vermont – that may have changed like everything else, but I doubt it.

    The point is; Vermont is not a racist community, but the climate and culture just aren’t what most Blacks are looking for.

    The real problem is that Vermont now has a full-time legislature and legislators make about $30,000/year these days. Now they’ve got plenty of time to sit around and make stupid rules and support stupid secession movements.

  • What the Hell is a bipartisan strategy for war?

    Just doing my daily perusal of the local newspapers, I ran across this beautiful headline in the Washington Examiner (in another Anne Flaherty AP story);

    GOP: Bush Should Adopt Bipartisan Plan

    Actually, Flaherty or her editor got the line from a Lamar Alexander quote;

    “The president needs bipartisan support if the United States is to sustain a long-term position in Iraq,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

    Yep, he does. He needs to find both Democrats and Republicans that support our strategy in Iraq. But, of course that’s not what Alexander (or the AP) is talking about.

    The message that must be sent to the president is, “Let’s see if we can agree on an entire approach so you can have the kind of support you need,” he said.

    Alexander and Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., introduced legislation that would make most of the [Iraq Study Group’s] 79 recommendations official U.S. policy. At least six other senators, including three Republicans, signed on as co-sponsors.

    So the same people that gave us airbag legislation that was rushed into a mandatory-use law which started killing small children want to legislate a strategy for war.  The same people who mandated low-flow toilets, the people responsible for the administration of Washington, DC. The people who thought that midnight basketball would solve our inner-city ills.

    Never in our history have we had a legislative body who thought they were tacticians – and with good reason. You can’t fight a war by committee. Our strategy in Viet Nam was developed by political committee – see how well that one turned out?

    There’s a story in Tzun Tzu that I call the concubine story and I’ll try to relate it here in my own humble words;

    Tzun Tzu offered his services to a local warlord to train the warlord’s army to battle another warlord. The warlord told him, “OK, but to show me know what you’re doing first train my stable of concubines to be soldiers. If you can make warriors of them, you can make warriors of anyone – and you’ll get the job.”

    Tzun Tzu agreed and immediately went to work. With the warlord watching, Tzun Tzu started training the concubines in front of the palace. Well, the warlord’s favorite concubine wasn’t too interested in the training and was a smart-ass and only half-assed went through the drills, knowing that the warlord would protect her from tzun Tzu’s wrath.

    Well, after a couple of hours of putting up with this particular concubine’s antics, Tzun Tzu walked up to her in the middle of the formation and chopped her head off. Well, the warlord went supersonic and angrily confronted his new employee about killing his favorite concubine.

    Tzun Tzu replied that the warlord had told him to train the concubines, it was not the warlord’s place to comment or tell Tzun Tzu how to train or or how to deploy the concubines in war. The lesson was that politicians provide the military with the assets to train and fight the army, that it wasn’t politicians’ place to tell the army how to train or how to fight. The same lesson is repeated throughout history, it’s repeated in Clauswitz’ “On War”, the comparison of Viet Nam and Desert Storm was supposed to drive the point home – but apparently the lessons of history are lost on some politicians.

    Alexander and those other three Republicans need to wake up to the realization that no matter how the President handles this war, the Democrats are going to complain and criticize. Why Alexander thinks he can get bipartisan support for anything this administration does is beyond reason – has he been asleep since Novemeber 2000?

    He is right that the President needs the Democrats’ support, but it’s up to the Democrats to cross the aisle and accept the current strategy, then sit down, shut up and let our military finish wiping the floor with al Qaida, et al.

  • Whiney Kokesh whines to the whiney press

    Â

    The Washington Examiner publishes a poorly researched AP article about poor little Adam Kokesh, the sociopath, childish war protester who thinks he had a discharge;

    Marine Corps officials argue they are enforcing military codes in the case of Cpl. Adam Kokesh.

    Kokesh, 25, participated in an anti-war demonstration in Washington in March. When he was identified in a photo caption in The Washington Post, a superior officer sent him an e-mail saying he might have violated a rule prohibiting troops from wearing uniforms without authorization. Kokesh responded with a letter that contained an obscenity.

    Kokesh, a graduate student at George Washington University, is a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, which consists mainly of those who have left active duty but still have time remaining on their eight-year military obligations. His service is due to end June 18, but the Marine Corps is seeking to let him go two weeks early with a less-than-honorable discharge.

    That could cut some of his health benefits and force him to repay about $10,800 he received to obtain his undergraduate degree on the GI Bill.

    Kokesh’s attorney, Lt. Jeremy Melaragno, said Monday during an administrative separation board hearing that his client’s free-speech rights are at stake.

    “It has everything to do with freedom of speech,” Melaragno said. “Ask yourself, would we be here if he was advocating for the Bush administration?”

    During a break in the hearing, Kokesh told reporters that the case appears to be punitive.

    So the media just goes right ahead and publishes whatever Kokesh and his lawyer tell them. And then they tell the big lie at the center of the whole debate;

    Kokesh was honorably discharged after a combat tour in Iraq.

    His attorneys said Kokesh was not subject to military rules during the protest because he was not on active duty. They said the protest was a theatrical performance, which meant wearing a uniform was a not a violation of military rules. The military considered it a political event, at which personnel are not allowed to wear their uniforms without authorization.

    As I and many others established this weekend, Kokesh has not been discharged. If he had been discharged, he wouldn’t have been at that hearing yesterday – the Marines couldn’t force him to report if they had no legal authority over him. Yet – there he was arguing to save his discharge status. Anyone with at least half-a-brain could figure that out. Well, not Heather Hollingsworth of the Associated Press, apparently.

    But, anyway, the panel recommended a general (an other-than-honorable) discharge according to the today’s Examiner;

    A military panel recommended that an Iraq war veteran who wore his uniform during an anti-war protest should lose his honorable discharge status, brushing away his claims that he was exercising his right to free speech.

    “This is a nonpunitive discharge,” said Col. Patrick McCarthy, chief of staff for the mobilization command. “The most stringent discharge that could have been received is other than honorable, and the board chose to raise that up to a general discharge.”

    Disappointing, indeed. But our little sociopath crybaby can’t leave well-enough alone;

    After the hearing, Kokesh criticized the panel for not taking a stronger stand on the issue. He said he might appeal the board’s ruling.

    “I do not think it was in the Marine Corps spirit to take the easy road or to not take a stand. In the words of Dante, the hottest layers of hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis maintain their neutrality, and I think that’s what happened here today.”

    Well, for once we agree, Kokesh, the Marine Corps should have taken a stronger stand and tossed your little crybaby ass in jail. Of course, since you’re a criminal and sociopath, there’s still a chance that they might since you don’t want to drop it.

    I hope you accost me on one of your hippie-patrols someday that I happen to be on the National Mall – you’ll find out which of the hotter layers of Hell are reserved for your tired, punk ass sooner than you may have expected. That’s not a threat, by the way. Just a warning to play with children your own age.

    More reasoned words from my new battle buddy, Robin, at Chickenhawk Express.

  • Condie vs. Hugo

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra) 

    In my favorite city in the world (Panama, RP), my favorite Secretary of State dueled with my favorite villains, the Venezuelan government according to Carmen Gentile in the Washington Times;

      Miss Rice hurled the first salvo, saying freedom of speech is not a “thorn in the side of democracy,” a direct reference to the shutdown of RCTV by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez because of critical reports about his government.
        “Freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of conscience are not a thorn in the side of government. They are the beginning of justice in every society,” Miss Rice said during her opening remarks to OAS foreign ministers.
        “Disagreeing with your government is not unpatriotic and most certainly should not be a crime in any country, especially in a democracy,” she said.
        Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro struck back, saying, “Venezuela demands respect for its sovereignty.”
        He sought to turn a critical eye on the United States, saying the OAS should conduct an investigation of how the United States treats detainees at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of concerning itself with the closure of a Venezuelan TV station.
        After his address to OAS leaders, Miss Rice asked for and received an opportunity to rebut the Venezuelan minister’s remarks.
        “As to issues in the United States of human rights, of how we fight the war on terror, the detention of unlawful combatants at Guantanamo, on immigration policy, on any issue, I am quite certain that it would be difficult for any commission to debate more fully, to investigate more fully, to criticize the policies of the United States government then is done every night on CNN, on ABC, on CBS, on NBC and on any number of smaller channels in the United States,” Miss Rice said.

    Now, Ms. Rice should’ve mentioned Chavez’ prisons and the conditions there as compared to the facility at Guantanamo and she shouldn’t have walked out so that the Venezuelan could describe Guantanamo unchallenged;

    The Venezuelan foreign minister said Guantanamo was akin to”something monstrous, only comparable to the Hitler era.”

    I’m pretty sure that any of Chavez’ political enemies aren’t as well-treated as the monsters in Guantanamo. I’d like Chavez to prove otherwise – like where are the 200 demonstrators he arrested last week being held and in what condition?

    According to the Associated Press (via Washington Post), Rice called for the OAS to get involved;

    At the meeting, she urged the OAS to send its secretary-general, Jose Miguel Insulza, to Venezuela to look into the closing of the station and deliver a full report on his findings.

    Maduro struck back, waving a couple of red herrings, like the Left tends to do;

    Maduro, speaking after Rice, reacted angrily, saying her comments were an “unacceptable intervention is the internal affairs of a nation, and that is why we reject it.”

    “Venezuela is asking for respect,” he said. “We demand respect for our sovereignty.”

    Maduro defended the decision not to renew RCTV’s license as “democratic, legal and fair” and accused the United States of repeated violations of human rights, including at the U.S.-Mexico border where immigrants “are chased and hunted like animals” and at Guantanamo Bay, where he said terrorism suspects are being “held hostage.” 

    Too bad Nancy Pelosi was busy trying to decide how to keep her fellow Democrats out of jail or she could’ve taken the opportunity to support Venezuelans.  

    In the meantime, I learned from Pheistyblog that RCTV has three daily news broadcasts on YouTube. It’s the #1 subscription on YouTube for the week – #2 for the month at this writing.

    In the meantime Daniel at Venezuela News and Views reports that Chavez’ forces are denying entry into Caracas of bus loads of young people, while students have taken to the High Court to defend their right to protest Chavez. from Daniel’s link to El Universal;

    Thousand university students walked Monday up to the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) to file a petition in the collective interest, on behalf of their rights to demonstrate.The students planned to request TSJ to ensure their right to hold demonstrations across the whole city. Last Friday they were not allowed to go to the National Assembly (AN), downtown Caracas.”The idea is to secure the right to protest. And we asked also the opportunity to take the floor at the Parliament. Sovereignty resides in people and people delegate it to the National Assembly,” said Stalin González, the president of the Federation of University Student Councils (FCU) at Central University of Venezuela (UCV), AFP quoted.

    Unfortunately, the courts have no power over Chavez since the Venezuela Legislature gave him unlimited power to rule by decree back in January as we were warned by Fausta Wertz.

    In other news from Latin America, the Today Show is broadcasting from Havanna this week and the Babalu Blog has a Blog Burst going on for questions Matt Lauer should be asking the Cuban government while he’s there. Henry “Conductor” Gomez also critiques Wolf Blitzer’s interview with Ricardo Alarcon, Cuba’s president of the National Assembly pronouncing Wolf Blitzer a dolt. So I guess it’s unanimous now.

  • WaPo’s Cohen: Thompson is no Reagan

    I have nothing good to write for almost all of Washington Post’s columnists, well except maybe Novak and Krauthammer, but this clown Richard Cohen really writes some stupid crap sometimes. Take today’s column for instance; Can He Find His Motivation?

    Cohen, who also wrote “Wasted Lives“, in which he said our troops were dying for nothing in Iraq and I criticized back in March, claims in this piece that Thompson shouldn’t be allowed to be President for this reason;

    If Thompson’s name came up in some sort of free-association game, he would be a genuine stumper: Thompson and what? There is no Thompson Act, Thompson Compromise, Thompson Hearing, Thompson Speech or Thompson Anything that comes to mind. No living man can call himself a Thompsonite. Instead, Thompson came and went from the Senate as if he were never there, leaving only the faint scent of ennui. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life up here,” he once said. “I don’t like spending 14- and 16-hour days voting on ‘sense of the Senate’ resolutions on irrelevant matters.” As a call to action, this lacks a certain something.

    So because a man doesn’t want to be a career politician, he shouldn’t be allowed to be president, apparently. Cohen loves Obama, the man who has just two years in the Senate and doesn’t have any bills or compromises named for him, either. In fact, the only reason Cohen likes Obama, according to his column back on March 6th;

    …it’s that he had something very important to say to black America. It has to do, I think, with the extraordinary promise of his candidacy.

    Extraordinary promise. Thompson doesn’t have extraordinary promise, apparently. Only people who’ve been in the Senate two years have extraordinary promise.

    Cohen continues on about Thompson;

    Yet he indisputably lacks the passion, the concern, the fire-in-the-bellydom that Reagan had — not just for winning but about issues themselves. Thompson never showed that he was out to change matters, to right some major wrong, to fix the god-awful mess the country is in. I contrast him with a senator I recently chatted with who took virtually childlike delight in being a senator — being able, as he said, to be a player. He savored his power — as one of only 100. What a difference he could make!

    The presidency is where a person can make the most difference. But the emergence of Thompson shows that a fatigued Republican Party is not interested in making any difference at all — just in hanging on. What commends Thompson to the presidency — the only thing anyone ever mentions — is his TV fame. If that’s all it takes, Thompson can look forward to being more than a president. He’ll be an American Idol.

    I know this is a foreign concept to Democrats and Liberals who are looking for the “drama” of politics – Democrats who are always “fighting for” me, the little guy, the working man. Democrats who promise that they’ll “do the People’s work”. But maybe America is tired of all of those empty promises the Democrats are selling.

    George W. Bush was elected because he was a leader, in the military, in business all before we went into politics – and given any situation, his reaction is fairly predictable because he has told us what he believes – and he does what he says he’ll do. That’s why Conservatives get mad everytime the president starts talking about something they oppose – they know he’ll do what he says he’ll do.

    That’s what America needs – a leader – not some ridiculous figurehead who we can lift up as the First Black President or the First Woman President or the First Peace President. Yeah, I know how important empty symbols are to the Democrats – empty symbols of empty promises. But to the majority of Americans, we’re tired of the drama – we want a president who can lead the country effectively, not a symbol of our diversity or whatever idiotic platitude we’re regurgitating this election season.

    That’s all Ronald Reagan did – he led the country effectively. The only time the actor in him came out was when he had to deal with partisan idiots like Cohen.

    Another point in Thompson’s “plus column” is that he’ll probably never cheat on his wife;

  • Scam targeting military spouses

    Mike at Lamplighter emailed me this notice from the Red Cross last night;

    The American Red Cross has learned about a new scam targeting military families. This scam takes the form of false information to military families as described below:

    The caller (young-sounding, American accent) calls a military spouse and identifies herself as a representative from the Red Cross. The caller states that the spouse’s husband (not identified by name) was hurt while on duty in Iraq and was med-evacuated to a hospital in Germany. The caller stated they couldn’t start treatment until paperwork was accomplished, and that in order to start the paperwork they needed the spouse to verify her husband’s social security number and date of birth. In this case, the spouse was quick to catch on and she did not provide any information to the caller.

    The American Red Cross representatives typically do not contact military members/dependents directly and almost always go through a commander or first sergeant channels. Military family members are urged not to give out any personal information over the phone if contacted by unknown/unverified individuals, to include confirmation that your spouse is deployed.

    It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 5 years in prison, for a person to falsely or fraudulently pretend to be a member of, or an agent for, the American National Red Cross for the purpose of soliciting, collecting, or receiving money or material.

    In addition, American Red Cross representatives will contact military members/dependents directly only in response to an emergency message initiated by your family. The Red Cross does not report any type of casualty information to family members. The Department of Defense will contact families directly if their military member has been injured. Should any military family member receive such a call, they are urged to report it to their local Family Readiness Group or Military Personnel Flight.

    The American Red Cross ensures that the American people are in touch with their family members serving in the United States military by operating a communications network that is open 24-hours, 7 days-a-week, 365 days-a-year. Through a network of employees and volunteers at Red Cross national that link families during emergencies, access to emergency financial assistance, confidential counseling, community support headquarters, local chapters, on military installations, and deployed with troops, the Red Cross offers a broad range of services. Among these services, the Red Cross provides communications for families left behind, assistance to veterans, and preparedness courses for military personnel and their families

    The American Red Cross helps people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies. Last year, almost a million volunteers and 35,000 employees helped victims of almost 75,000 disasters; taught lifesaving skills to millions; and helped U.S. service members separated from their families stay connected. Almost 4 million people gave blood through the Red Cross, the largest supplier of blood and blood products in the United States. The American Red Cross is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. An average of 91 cents of every dollar the Red Cross spends is invested in humanitarian services and programs. The Red Cross is not a government agency; it relies on donations of time, money, and blood to do its work.

    So if you know somebody who might potentially be a target of this, you need to let them know – and everyone else you know, too. Who let these screwy folks loose?

  • Washington Post: Americans dissatisfied with country’s direction

    Today’s Washington Post analyzes it’s latest poll on Americans’ perception of the direction of the country. Of course, by direction of the country, the Washington Post means what Joe Sixpack thinks our strategy in Iraq should be;

    Growing frustration with the performance of the Democratic Congress combined with widespread public pessimism over President Bush’s temporary troop buildup in Iraq has left satisfaction with the overall direction of the country at its lowest point in more than a decade, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

    Almost six in 10 Americans said they do not think the additional troops sent to Iraq since the beginning of the year will help restore civil order in that country, and 53 percent — a new high in Post-ABC News polls — said they do not believe the Iraq war has contributed to the long-term security of the United States.

    Of course, this decision is asked from the public an entire weekend after US forces arrived in theater to complete the “surge” as reported in the World Tribune Friday;

    The U.S. military has completed its troop surge for the new counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq.

    Officials said the fifth and final brigade of the troop surge has arrived in Baghdad. They said the brigade would be fully operational by mid-July for the counter-insurgency mission in the Iraqi capital.

    “We are starting to see a shift in momentum that comes with having additional forces on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins, deputy operations director at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said according to Middle East Newsline.

    So, since all of the troops have arrived in Baghdad, the Post expects an immediate improvement in operations in Baghdad that would be reflected in an opinion poll from a public that has listened to the media call iraq a quagmire since the first sandstorm on the second day of operations there. I wonder if the Post thought aboout running a story like this one from the Boston Globe;

    US troops battled Al Qaeda in west Baghdad yesterday after Sunni residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors.

    Backed by helicopter gunships, American forces joined the two-day battle in the Amariyah district, according to a councilman and other residents of the Sunni district.

    The fight reflects a trend that US and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province, once considered the headquarters of the Sunni insurgency. Many Sunni tribes in the province have banded together to fight Al Qaeda, asserting the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces.

    Lieutenant Colonel Dale C. Kuehl, commander of First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry Regiment, who is responsible for the Amariyah area of the capital, confirmed the US military’s role in the fighting. He said the battles raged Wednesday and yesterday but died off at night.

    Although Al Qaeda is a Sunni organization opposed to the Shi’ite-dominated government, its ruthlessness and reliance on foreign fighters have alienated many Sunnis in Iraq.

    Maybe if the Post took a moment and wrote about the real results of the surge, they wouldn’t have to bother reporting on lowered morale in the country. If they’d join the fight against Islamofacists instead of enabling and enboldening them, we wouldn’t need their stupid polls and their stupid advice what to do after the surge.