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

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • How do we win?

    Exactly how do Democrats think that playing politics with funding for the war will end well for this country? S.A.Miller and Jon Curl of the Washington Times write today;

    The House last night ignored a veto threat and passed a bill to ration war funds, hours after President Bush for the first time offered to negotiate Iraq benchmarks with the Democrat-led Congress.
        The bill, which would fund the war in two-month installments and sets up a possible troop withdrawal in August, passed in a 221-205 vote, with Democrats backing the bill by 219-10 and Republicans opposed by 195-2.

    With incremental funding, how do the Iraqis know they can depend on us to protect them while they build a fledgling government? How can Democrats think this helps?
    Elsewhere in the Times, Sharon Behn writes that the troops are working hard to convince Iraqis that giving US forces information on terrorists is a safe practice;

     “We’ve seen a small increase of individuals willing to talk to us on what they perceive as terrorists. That has led to a couple of people being captured or put into Camp Cropper,” he said, referring to a detention center located on one of the U.S. bases. “The tips we’ve been getting seem better.”
        In one instance, during a several-hour-long patrol in a largely Shi’ite community, U.S. soldiers were called back to a house down a side alley to speak to a man who said he had been beaten by members of the Mahdi Army militia. Deep purple bruises covered his legs, and he said they had tortured him with electricity on his feet.
        After a lot of reassurance, the man gave the soldiers the location of a Mahdi militia member, although it was clear he was terrified.

    How long can the Iraqis trust our troops to stay when they’ve watched us pull out before? We left the Iraqi Shi’ites to Saddam’s henchment in 1991, the Somalis in 1993, the Haitians in 1996 and on-and-on. Why should the iraqis trust to stay and help them when the Left is so bound and determined to surrender to Code Pink and the jihadists? Why would an Iraqi stick his mortal neck out to provide the troops with vital information when we might not be around in a few months and the guys he rats out come back for revenge? Why should they trust us to stay when we’ve given the world no reason to believe we’ll see a war through?

    The Washington Post reports today that Democrats are still under the mispreception that they’re doing the work of the American people;

    “The president has brought us to this point by vetoing the first Iraq Accountability Act and refusing to pay for this war responsibly,” declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “He has grown accustomed to the free hand on Iraq he had before January 4. Those days are over.”

    The final tally came just an hour after antiwar Democrats mustered 171 votes for far tougher legislation that would all but end U.S. military involvement in Iraq within nine months. The 255 to 171 vote against that measure meant that nowhere close to a majority backed it, but the fact that 169 Democrats and two Republicans voted for it surprised opponents and proponents alike.

    “I didn’t think I was going to get anywhere near 171 votes,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the withdrawal bill’s chief author. “This is proof that the United States Congress is getting closer to where the American people already are.”

    If the American people were ready to surrender, the President couldn’t veto – there’d be throngs of everyday guys like me outside the White House. We ain’t out there, Jimbo, so you’re delusioned into believing that all of America thinks like your idiot constituents. If that were true, if we thought like your idiot constituents, we’d be talking about President Kerry right now. 

    I understand the old saw that the “squeaky wheel gets the oil”, but in this case the squeaky wheel is a bunch of morons in pink feather boas – shouldn’t we take that into account when our legislature tries to formulate half-baked foreign policy?

  • Diplomacy by other means

    Some Republicans warned President Bush that they don’t have the testicular fortitude to defeat terrorists, according to the Washington Post this morning;

    House Republican moderates, in a remarkably blunt White House meeting, warned President Bush this week that his pursuit of the war in Iraq is risking the future of the Republican Party and that he cannot count on GOP support for many more months.

    But the meeting between 11 House Republicans, Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, White House political adviser Karl Rove and presidential press secretary Tony Snow was perhaps the clearest sign yet that patience in the party is running out. The meeting, organized by Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.), one of the co-chairs of the moderate “Tuesday Group,” included Reps. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), Michael N. Castle (Del.), Todd R. Platts (Pa.), Jim Ramstad (Minn.) and Jo Ann Emerson (Mo.).

    “It was a very remarkable, candid conversation,” Davis said. “People are always saying President Bush is in a bubble. Well, this was our chance, and we took it.”

    A bubble? The President lives in a bubble? After the grillings he gets from the press corps and the media’s 24/7 coverage of every malcontent in the country protesting Bushitler? Well, I could tell these linguini-spined Republicans were RINOs as soon as they placed the Party before our national security. That’s what Democrats have been doing for the last five years. It only stands to reason that RINOs would begin caving soon. Gutless cowards.

    Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports that Defense Secretary Gates told Congress that the debate over Iraq is aiding al Qaida (as if Congress didn’t know that already);

    Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday told Congress that al Qaeda will establish a stronghold in Iraq’s Anbar province if U.S. troops pull out prematurely and that the group is reacting to the war debate in Washington by stepping up attacks.
        Furthermore, the entire war effort will be disrupted unless Congress quickly passes an emergency funding bill acceptable to President Bush, he said.
        Mr. Gates’ testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee preceded today’s scheduled House vote on a bill that the White House promises to veto because it rations war spending and sets up a July vote to cut off funds if progress in Iraq is inadequate.
        “If we were to withdraw, leaving Iraq in chaos, al Qaeda almost certainly would use Anbar province as another base from which to plan operations not only inside Iraq, but first of all in the neighborhood and then potentially against the United States,” Mr. Gates told the committee.

    But Congress is only concerned about it’s members job security.

    The Washington Times also tells us that Bahrain is warning against our withdrawal from Iraq;

    The U.S.-led war in Iraq has damaged America’s image in the Arab Middle East, but a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would make the situation worse, Bahrain’s information minister, Muhammad Abdul Ghaffar, said yesterday.
        “We all know the situation is not easy, but militarily speaking it is not wise now simply to withdraw from Iraq,” Mr. Abdul Ghaffar said during a luncheon with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.
        He acknowledged growing questions over the U.S. commitment in Iraq after the Democratic takeover of Congress in November, but said Iraq’s various factions and ethnic groups still need time to create a workable national government.
        “There is still much work to do on real national reconciliation, and without reconciliation we will not have a stable Iraq,” he added.

    If a third world backwater country can recognize the importance of staying the course in Iraq, why can’t the over-educated members of Congress? It’s also a view that Mohammed of Iraq the Model shares;

    We must keep fighting those criminals and tyrants until they realize that the freedom-loving peoples of the region are not alone. Freedom and living in dignity are the aspirations of all mankind and that’s what unites us; not death and suicide. When freedom-lovers in other countries reach out for us they are working for the future of everyone tyrants and murderers like Ahmedinejad, Nesrallah, Assad and Qaddafi must realize that we are not their possessions to pass on to their sons or henchmen. We belong to the human civilization and that was the day we gave what we gave to our land and other civilizations. They can’t take out our humanity with their ugly crimes and they can’t force us to back off. The world should ask them to leave our land before asking the soldiers of freedom to do so.

    Meanwhile Hugo Chavez, the self-proclaimed new Simon Bolivar, is urging the Latin world to support Iran;

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is encouraging his Latin American allies to expand ties with Iran, which is offering trade concessions and financial incentives and winning influence in the region.
        During two recent visits to Venezuela, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed more than $17 billion worth of economic agreements with Mr. Chavez.
        Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega last month received Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki while Bolivian President Evo Morales announced a new trade deal with Iran.
        “The struggle for justice and truth in the framework of economic development is the principle objective of the government in Nicaragua and of our friends in Iran,” said Mr. Ortega when Mr. Mottaki arrived after stopping in Venezuela for talks with Mr. Chavez.
        Mr. Ortega called Iran a “victim” of the U.S., which he accused of “supporting terrorism.”

    Hezbollah in Paraguay, anyone?

    So weak-kneed Republicans who put party before our national survival, pick this point to start looking to jump ship. The Administration has stopped several attacks on our soil mainly because the terrorists are disjointed and not able to coordinate support for cells abroad due to al Qaida’s focus on Iraq and Afghanistan. Terrorists have had a decade to build their support structure from Afghanistan unhindered and it’s crumbling into a few weak attempts like a guy trying to light a bomb in his shoes with wet matches.

    We are provably winning worldwide with small steps forward, but apparently the politicians don’t have the wherewithall to see it through to the end. They don’t have the guts to write our future like the politicians in our past have had. Can you imagine today’s RINOs during the years of steady losses during our Revolution? I doubt they’d have the courage to even sign the Declaration of Independence.

  • There is no terrorist threat

    In Michael Moore’s latest “book”, Dude, Where’s My Country, Moore writes this paragraph;

    There is no terrorist threat.You need to calm down, relax, listen very carefully, and repeat after me:
    There is no terrorist threat.
    There is no terrorist threat!
    There… is… no… terrorist… threat!     

    Well, yesterday we all became aware, if some of us hadn’t already, that isn’t entirely true. According to the Washington Post;

    A group of would-be terrorists, allegedly undone after attempting to have jihad training videos copied onto a DVD, has been charged with conspiring to attack Fort Dix and kill soldiers there with assault rifles and grenades, authorities said Tuesday.

    Five men — all foreign-born and described as “radical Islamists” by federal authorities — allegedly trained at a shooting range in Pennsylvania‘s Pocono Mountains to kill “as many soldiers as possible” at the historic Army base 25 miles east of Philadelphia. A sixth man was charged with helping them obtain illegal weapons.

    Sounds like a terrorist plot to me – no matter how whacky it sounds.

    The Wall Street Journal also reported that the Brits arrested four more suspects in the 7-7-05 bombing yesterday;

    British police arrested four people Wednesday in connection with the suicide bombings that killed 52 bus and subway passengers in London in 2005.

    Two men and a woman were arrested in West Yorkshire, Metropolitan Police said, and West Midlands Police said a 22-year-old man was arrested in Birmingham. All were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism and were being taken to London for interrogation, police said.

    Searches were under way at two flats in Birmingham, and at five addresses in West Yorkshire — two houses in Dewsbury, two houses in the Beeston neighborhood of Leeds and one house in Batley, police said. Mohammed Sidique Khan, identified as one of the four London bombers, was a resident of Dewsbury and had grown up in Beeston.

    And if you think the reason that these suspects were planning attacks only against nations who are at war in Iraq, the Wall Street Journal also ran a story this morning about German police raiding offices of more suspected terrorists;

    Prosecutors said they were investigating more than 18 people suspected of organizing what they called a terrorist group that planned to carry out firebombings and other violent attacks. Some 900 federal and local police officers in cities including Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen searched about 40 premises used by several anti-globalist groups, they said.

    “The militant extreme left groups and their members are suspected of having founded a terrorist group, or of being members of such an organization, with the specific goal of staging fire bombings and other violent attacks in order to disrupt or prevent the upcoming G-8 summit in Heiligendamm,” federal prosecutors said in a statement.

    Last I checked Germany wasn’t a combatant nation involved in Iraq. Need another example? How about this report from the Washington Post of Islamic youths rioting in France;

    Though violence continued late Tuesday and early Wednesday, the third night after the election was much calmer than the previous two, Interior Minister Francois Baroin said.

    About 730 cars were burned nationwide Sunday night and 592 people were arrested. The following night, 373 vehicles were torched and 160 people were taken in for questioning across France.

    If mayhem committed against the civilian population of France isn’t terrorism, I don’t know what is terrorism.

    Bill Gertz, in today’s Washington Times, claims that the Balkans are islamist’s latest recruiting and training grounds;

       “When it comes to extremists, we’re talking about very, very small pockets in Albania, as well as among the ethnic Albanian populations in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and other parts of the Balkans,” said one official with access to intelligence reports.
        The official pointed out that the Albanian government has been supportive of U.S. efforts to counter Islamic terrorist activities, including curbing logistics and financial aid, and working to prevent terrorists from receiving training and weapons.
        But a Congressional Research Service report produced in 2005 said instability in Albania during the 1990s gave al Qaeda a “foothold” there.
        “Poor internal security, lax border controls, and high rates of crime produced an environment conducive to terrorist activity,” said the report by CRS specialist Steven Woehrel. “Some foreign Islamic extremists used Albania as a safe haven and gained Albanian citizenship.”
        Balkan Muslims also have been targets of al Qaeda recruitment efforts because they have an easier time blending in or evading U.S. and European security measures and border controls, which often are geared to identifying Middle Eastern extremists.

    Don’t forget the post I wrote back in March about the ETA operating in Bolivia;

    Members of the Basque terrorist group ETA have been conducting financial and propaganda activities in Bolivia with the knowledge of President Evo Morales, according to Spanish intelligence reports cited by the Madrid newspaper El Pais and the local press.
        Officials in Bolivia have confirmed that six members of the Basque separatist organization traveled to Bolivia and met with high-level officials of the Morales government during the past year.
        According to these officials, Mr. Morales and his vice president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, have had relations with ETA members since 2005, predating Mr. Morales’ 2006 inauguration.
        ”Members of ETA have been purchasing homes and creating a new refuge for the organization in Cochabamba, where they move like fish in water,” according to El Pais.  

    What’s that about not calling it a global war against terror?

    How can Moore say, with a straight face, there is no terrorist threat? How can Congress not see the straight line between the war in Iraq and terrorist activities worldwide? How is it possible that Democrats don’t see a looming threat and ignore the fact that winning in Iraq is essential to our national security?

    Purely politics. Just because the American people elected Republicans instead of the mealy-mouthed, insolent children in the Democrat party.

    Moonbattery (h/t Curt at Flopping Aces) writes that the HuffPo crowd still thinks there’s no terrorist threat.

    Michele Malkin writes today about the Jersey jihadists and “the thanks we get”.

    Crotchety Old Bastard disputes the Jersey jihadists’ “homegrown” label.

  • Best stock market climb since Coolidge

    According to the Wall Street Journal, if today’s Dow Jones Industrials close higher than Friday, it’ll be the longest winning streak for the market since Calvin Coolidge;

    The Dow has closed higher 23 of the past 26 sessions, a feat not accomplished since 1944. If it finishes in the black Monday, it would tie the longest streak of its kind in the index’s history, achieved in 1927.

    Isn’t that just the opposite of what the Left meant in the 2004 election when they said that this economy is the worst since Hoover and when John Kerry said we had the biggest job loss since the Depression? I guess this is why Lawrence O’Donnell is the worst stock-picking guest on Kudlow’s show. The left wouldn’t know a good stock market if it hit them in their collective stupid face. 

    If we can’t trust them to judge the economy, how can we trust them to tell us that the Iraq War will be a failure?

  • Congratulations, France

    I’m glad France has decided to live in the community of nations again and in the 21st century (as opposed to living in the mid-19th century). But, as of nearly 11:00 am, only European and African news services are being halfway honest and reporting the anti-Sarkozi riots there. Neither Reuters nor AP are saying a word. A Yahoo search of news “France+riots” turned up this.

    367 evil cars were burned by “youths” in Paris according to the Daily Mail. So, I guess we should admire their restraint since nearly everything is a reason to burn the evil parked cars in Paris these days. I hope they begin cleaning up France by deporting the youths they catch burning private property.

    From USAToday;

    French president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy plans to waste no time making France a friendlier place for business — and a less inviting place for criminals and would-be immigrants….

    And I hope they let their wealthy people live in the country again and provide job opportunities to deserving workers. 

    In related news, the newly conservative government of Germany rejected clemency for Red Army Faction leader Christian Klar according to the AP;

    The office of President Horst Koehler did not say why he had rejected Klar’s bid for early release. Mr. Koehler, who met with Klar last week, considered the positions of courts, prosecutors and others, and had held talks with relatives of the victims, his office said.
        The request from Klar, 54, had met with fierce opposition from many German conservatives, who argued that a former terrorist who had shown no public remorse did not deserve mercy.
        Their stance hardened after he sent a message to a left-wing conference earlier this year that seemed to indicate he had not lost his revolutionary fervor. Klar talked of “completing the defeat” of capitalism “and opening the door for a different future.”

    Funny how conservatives don’t like terrorists very much.

  • Spy funds to be spent on manbearpig research

    I remember recently that Democrats were campaigning on the fact that we had faulty intelligence on Iraq which is why they were mislead into voting for the use of force in Iraq. Now, according to Christina Bellantoni of the Washington Times, Democrats want to divert intelligence funding into climate change research;

    Senior House Republicans are complaining about Democrats’ plans to divert “scarce” intelligence funds to study global warming.
        The House next week will consider the Democrat-crafted Intelligence Authorization bill, which includes a provision directing an assessment of the effects that climate change has on national security.
        “Our job is to steal secrets,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
        “There are all kinds of people analyzing global warming, the Democrats even have a special committee on this,” he told The Washington Times. “There’s no value added by the intelligence community here; they have no special expertise, and this takes money and resources away from other threats.”

    With the growing influence of radical Islam, the proliferation of weapons worldwide, does it make any sense to spend intelligence funds to analyze the effect of a degree of temperature change? It seems to me that since the immediate threat are large bands of global thugs running around with bombs strapped to their undernourished toros we should probably do something about that for the time being. But what do I know – I don’t depend on wealthy contributors and PACs for my livelihood. 

    Update: Reading the WashTimes story gave American Thinker’s Clarice Feldman nightmares.

  • Be. Know. Do.

    The United States is not a democracy – we are a representative republic. If we were a democracy, our days would be filled with voting on various issues – everyday would see a new round of referendum votes between reading about the issues of the day. Instead, we elect representatives to keep up on legislation and do our voting for us and make our laws.

    We also elect a leader of our government to execute our laws. So every two years we have a voice in who we want to write and choose our laws, and every four years we choose a leader to execute those laws. That’s about the only real voice we have in our government. In between those two, four and six year intervals, the government is on autopilot – our autopilot controls are in the Constitution. The Constitution keeps those electees on track and protects us from them.

    Pretty easy to understand isn’t it? But it ain’t happening these days. The whole key is that we elect a leader – but too many of our two dozen Presidential candidates on both sides don’t understand the concept of leadership. They stick their fingers in the air, check the wind direction and charge off in the direction of the prevalent breeze. And that’s the real reason American stature has suffered over the last few decades.

    In the Army, we all learned basic leadership from the Army Regulation 6-22 (AR 6-22), which was built around the simple phrase “Be. Know. Do.” which the 6-22 describes like this;

    Army leadership begins with what the leader must BE, the values and attributes that shape a leader’s character. Your skills are those things you KNOW how to do, your competence in everything from the technical side of your job to the people skills a leader requires. But character and knowledge while absolutely necessary are not enough. You cannot be effective, you cannot be a leader, until you apply what you know, until you act and DO what you must.

    Get that? Can you apply that simple concept to any of the current crop of Presidential-wannbes? More than likely not. Too many want to BE whatever they think the majority of the voters want them to be, not themselves. They only want to KNOW what people think are important, and they only want to DO what the majority of people want them to do.

    Lyndon Johnson started his presidency as a leader – he decided that we had to roll back communism and he decided to begin roll it back in Vietnam. But then the politician in him took over and when the war became unpopular, he decided that he was a political liability to his party and chose not to run in the ’68 election – admitting that defeat was more politically expedient than actually fighting the communists and turning back the lesion on mankind. Johnson fell back on his experience as a politician making decisons based on the well-being of his party instead of the well-being of his country.

    Ronald Reagan was a leader. He decided to roll back communism and stuck to his guns for the entire eight years of his term – despite his detractors. The whole world called him a cowboy, protesters worldwide make caricatures of him and called him a jackbooted Nazi. The press called him “Rambo” and a drooling idiot, but despite all of the pressure against him, President kept doing what he thought was right. He embodied the values he wanted the world to see in our nation, he knew the issues, he knew the enemy, he knew our strengths and weaknesses, and he did what he knew had to be done – and kept doing it in the face of criticism. And he knew how to pick his fights – even fights with the people on his own side of the aisle.

    George W. Bush is a leader. He’s continued to carry the fight to the Islamists despite the massive criticism of him and his policies. He embodies our values, he’s a perfect representative of this country. He knows that our enemy won’t surrender, so he hasn’t surrendered. And he’s always done what’s best for the country despite the fact that only 30% of the people still support him. He’s doing the right thing as a leader with little regard what’s being said about him, or the party. He’s doing the right thing for the country. You may not agree with every decision he makes, but you pretty much know how he’s going to decide on any issue put before him – he’s consistent and dependable.

    Contrast that to Bill Clinton’s presidency; Clinton didn’t lead, he stuck his unclean finger in the air and said the things people wanted to hear. He was wildly popular (if you can believe the polls) but he accomplished nothing. By the end of his term, Al Gore was running on Clinton “accomplishments” that the administration had to be dragged towards by the Republicans. To this day, you can still hear Democrats talking about their “fiscal responsibility” and Clinton’s successful welfare reforms. Hell, he refused to sign two previous welfare reform bills, but finally was forced to sign before the 1996 and became the only campaign promise he kept.

    But, back to the present; look at the presidential wanna-bes. Hillary Clinton has decided that the best thing for her campaign is to call for rescinding the vote for force against Hussein – a political decision based on the cacophonous cry from the Left for Clinton to surrender to Islamists, not on our national security. That’s not what a leader would do. She is definitely not what I would call sterling as far as her character goes, either. Where were those FBI files all of those years?

    Rudy Giuliani is no different. His answer to the abortion question in the Republican debates the other night wasn’t the answer a leader would give. He came down firmly on both sides of the issues in one sentence – instead of making a clear statement that didn’t require an analyst to tell us what he meant. He gave a politician’s answer – not a leader’s answer. And someone who’d cheat on their wife while he was supposed to be doing the people’s business isn’t my idea of a leader, either. If he’d cheat on a woman to whom he’ made a solemn vow, what would make him keep his word to the People to whom he’s made a solemn vow?

    The last time we elected someone directly from Congress to the White House was Lyndon Johnson – a career politician who ended his career by throwing himself on his sword for purely political reasons. Since then, we’ve mostly elected governors who’ve had EXECUTIVE experience, not political experience. People who have experience making decisions, not people who’ve only cast votes. People who lead.

    The Army says leadership is;

    …influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization.

    That’s how I’ll make my decision. Be. Know. Do. Politicians aren’t leaders.

  • I’m heading out

    The MilBlog Conference starts this afternoon so I’ll be off line for the next two days. In the interim, don’t forget to sign this petition;

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