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

Category: Terror War

  • Gateway Pundit: MSM Officially flips sides

    Jim at Gateway Pundit elegantly and precisely lays out the case that the Mainstream Media has boldly and officially become part of the enemy in Iraq.

    It’s always been a little iffy on who the media was rooting for with the Haditha and Abu Ghraib “scandals” compared to the Al-Qaeda atrocities, but this month’s reporting put those questions to rest.

    Not only did the media embed with the terrorists in Iraq this month but they also grossly misreported on the death tolls in Iraq.

    But you have to read the whole thing and I’m not going to pirate any of his work – it’s real apparent that he put a lot of time into it. Excellent job, GP.

    They were probably pretty pissed that the Iraqi government didn’t explode this last weekend and that al-Sadr collapsed so quickly. The media just figured it’s time to build up al Qaeda’s morale again.

    Meanwhile, the media we can trust, Bill Roggio writes that President Maliki will continue operations in Basra, irrespective of the agreement al-Sadr thinks he has with the Iraqi government;

    One day after Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, called for his fighters to abandon combat, the fighting in Basrah has come to a near-halt, and the Iraqi security forces are patrolling the streets. While Sadr spokesman said the Iraqi government agreed to Sadr’s terms for the cease-fire, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has said the security forces will continue operations in Basrah in the South. Meanwhile, the Mahdi Army took heavy casualties in Basrah, Nasiriyah, Babil, and Baghdad over the weekend, despite Sadr’s call for the end of fighting.

    Maliki was clear that operations would continue in the South. “The armed groups who refuse al Sadr’s announcement and the pardon we offered will be targets, especially those in possession of heavy weapons,” Maliki said, referring to the 10-day amnesty period for militias to turn in heavy and medium weapons. “Security operations in Basra will continue to stop all the terrorist and criminal activities along with the organized gangs targeting people.”

  • Specters from the Carter dark days

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    We all remember all of the amazingly successful foreign policies that came out of the Carter Administration, don’t we? Um, don’t we? Well, we’re treated to a stream of opinions from these unmitigated failures – the latest being Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Washington Post yesterday morning entitled “The Smart Way Out of a Foolish War“.

    Claiming that the best way to end the conflict in Iraq is to withdraw all of the US forces, “Biggy”, as he was known in those heady years of the Carter fiasco, makes predictions without the knowledge of yesterday’s events;

    Contrary to Republican claims that our departure will mean calamity, a sensibly conducted disengagement will actually make Iraq more stable over the long term. The impasse in Shiite-Sunni relations is in large part the sour byproduct of the destructive U.S. occupation, which breeds Iraqi dependency even as it shatters Iraqi society. In this context, so highly reminiscent of the British colonial era, the longer we stay in Iraq, the less incentive various contending groups will have to compromise and the more reason simply to sit back. A serious dialogue with the Iraqi leaders about the forthcoming U.S. disengagement would shake them out of their stupor.

    You can tell he’s just been holding on to that piece waiting for a flare up like what happened in Basra last week to rush it to an editor at the Post.

    But the flare up in Basra proves just the opposite – the vacuum created by the British withdrawal in the city was the impetus of the fighting last week. Brzezinski completely ignores that.

    And the proof that the US forces are holding Iraq together is what happened yesterday while the Post’s readers were just opening their copy – after US air power was applied to the situation, Mookey al-Sadr scrambled to save the remnants of his fighters. Save them for what? Well, for when the US pulls out and he can use them to seize the reins of government. Or to wait and see if there’ll be a Democrat President so Mookie can run the Americans out of Iraq and be the Great Savior of the New Islamic Republic Part II.

    See, Carter and Brzezinski brought us to this point in our history. Their indifference to early events in Iran brought about the Islamic Revolution and installed the mullahs. Their weak responses (like boycotting the Olympics when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan), encouraged the mullah, in fact, encouraged terrorists worldwide. Protecting the Shah openly enraged the mullahs.

    Pronouncing as the Carter Doctrine (the free flow of Persian Gulf oil at market prices) without having any intention of enforcing it made us a paper tiger. Allowing our military to deteriorate to the point that a few broken helicopters caused an operation to be canceled and cost the lives of eight military members deep inside Iran – giving us an even greater appearance of a paper tiger.

    I don’t know which is more disgusting; Brzezinski thinking he has something valuable to lend to the discussion, or the Washington Post for allowing into print this gomer’s opinion.

  • What I’m reading today

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    Stolen from The Jungle Hut

    I must be getting old – I’m only reading other people’s brilliant thoughts today from the blogs that link here.

    People like Van at Kesher Talk who is convinced that McCain will tap Lieberman for VP.

    People like my friend Kamangir the Archer – the most visible moderate Iranian I know – who rationally opposes Wilder’s Fitna. As opposed to the irrational Dutch moonbats who apologize for Fitna as reported by Gateway Pundit and Weasel Zippers. If you’re like the two or three people on the planet who haven’t see it yet, Moonbattery and Say Anything have it up on their servers. The Jawa Report writes that the Islamic Republic has summoned the Dutch ambassador – I wonder what they want now?

    Folks like my buddy Skye from Midnight Blue who climbed back up on the horse yesterday after being attacked last weekend by an irrational moonbat in Chester County.

    I got an email tip from the Milblogs this morning about the upcoming Bad Voodoo’s War from PBS and Andi’s got the teaser video.

    If you’re wondering what I think about the recent uptick in violence in Iraq, it’s best described at Neptunus Lex. The Iranians are trying to upend our elections with total disregard for Iraqi lives. al Sadr finally realized it this morning. Rick Moran at the Right Wing Nut House questions Maliki’s judgement. McQ at Q&O dissects the events leading up to the Basra battle and provides links. Haystack at Redstate catches the LA Times painting al Sadr as a poor victim in the latest flare up. The Lonely Sandpiper blames the Brits. I think it’s just Maliki’s version of the Whiskey Rebellion.
    The only woman with whom I agree all of the time (except my wife and my Mom), Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy posts John McCain’s first national campaign ad.

    Marooned in Marin (who is actually marooned in Northern Virginia these days) examines the rumor that while super-delegates decide between two candidates, the Democrats are plotting to throw all of the primary voters under the bus and just pick their favorite loser of all time. So much for the democratic part of their party. Mike Tippet at Wake Up America is thankful for the democrats’ biggest loser.

    Bob Parks at Outside the Wire examines a survey that declares there’s no indoctrination at our schools.

    In case anyone is wondering, Snapped Shot is still behaving himself.

    Solomon reviews and dissects the play “My Name is Rachel Corrie” at Solomonia.

    Spanish Pundit writes that Palestinian Christians are being harrassed by a fundamentalist Islamic mafia in the Holy Land.

    Wordsmith at Sparks From the Anvil writes about an Iraqi translator who was denied resident alien status.

    The Avid Editor claims (and rightly so) that we’re already at war with Iran.

    Wolf Howling has more links to other blogs for something different.

    Chicagoan Marathon Pundit, who seems to have something against an Obama Presidency, writes about Obama’s latest embellishment.

    And just go visit The Jungle Hut and Don Surber because they both exhibited exceptionally clear judgment by adding me to their blogrolls last night.

  • Why the PhD won’t vote McCain

    Doing my evening patrolling around the internet, I stumbled over a post by Deebow at Blackfive entitled “One Reason I Will Vote For McCain“. Deebow links to an opinion piece on Military.com entitled “Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain“, written by Phillip Butler, a former Naval Academy classmate and fellow POW of John McCain’s.

    Now, Deebow did an admirable job critiquing Mr. Butler’s piece, but I’d like to pile on – seein’s how I’ve recently become a “Blog for McCain“.

    Mr. Butler begins by telling us what a piss-poor student and cadet John McCain was. I’m sure he wasn’t the first and as an ROTC instructor, I can tell you he wasn’t the last. The worst story he could recite was the time McCain took Butler, an underclassman, off of the campus grounds to a bar seven miles away and wouldn’t let Butler have a beer. GASP!

    Now Butler goes on to say “I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year…” but he doesn’t, because that’s the worst one he could tell – if he had worse stories to tell he certainly would have given the title of his article. (Emphasis is my own throughout)

    Then Butler writes;

    [H]e barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

    Ah! Speculation – not proof, just a bunch of post-pubescent boys making guesses about their elders’ judgement. Hardly evidence.

    Butler begins to veer off into the absurd;

    People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always “No – John McCain was a POW with me.” The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years. And we have our own seniority system, based on time as a POW.

    More of the same crap I’ve run into from the VVAW and IVAW people recently – an intellectually vacant discussion over whose service has the most worth. Funny how they always slip into that mode of superiority. But Butler continues along that line of reasoning;

    Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969. After September of 1969 the Vietnamese stopped the torture and gave us increased food and rudimentary health care. Several hundred of us were captured much earlier. I got there April 20, 1965 so my bad treatment period lasted 4 1/2 years.

    I’m not demeaning Butler’s service, but splitting hairs like that is ridiculous. It borders on being a crybaby.

    But my point here is that John allows the media to make him out to be THE hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals.

    The media makes him out to be a hero, he hasn’t contributed to that not a whit. He’s always said he’s no different than from any other POW. His book is very clear on that point.

    John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection. Unfortunately this was often the case….But it must be known that many POW’s suffered similarly, not just John.

    Who has said differently? I’ve never seen any media stories, books or movies that ever said McCain’s treatment and condition was different from anyone else’s.

    John was offered, and refused, “early release.” Many of us were given this offer.

    That’s not a reason to not vote for him, Mr. Butler.

    John certainly performed courageously and well. But it must be remembered that he was one hero among many – not uniquely so as his campaigns would have people believe.

    Again, no one has ever made that distinction.

    He was not an individual POW hero. He was a POW who surmounted the odds with the help of many comrades, as all of us did.

    McCain has admitted that thousands of times, so where is Butler going with this?

    We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John’s age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

    So now Butler can see into the future? It’s the same thing they said about President Reagan in his 1984 campaign – not very original.

    I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

    I agree completely. If that was the only thing McCain was campaigning on as his experience I probably wouldn’t vote for him either. In fact, I voted against a guy in the 2004 election who campaigned solely on his medals and his three months in Vietnam. But John McCain isn’t even talking about his time as a POW during the campaign, is he? John Kerry, on the other hand ended each sentence with a reference to his three months service in Vietnam.

    I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

    I’m known as a hothead, too, but see we hotheads know when to turn it off. The “finger next to that red button” was just scare mongering and hyperbole, wasn’t it, Mr. Butler?

    I’m disappointed to see John represent himself politically in ways that are not accurate. He is not a moderate Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right.

    I’ll bet Dennis Kuchinich is too far right for Mr. Butler. Now he’s completely outside his area of expertise since this whole thing is about how well he knows John McCain from their days in the Navy together.

    …he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist ministers lately.

    “Some”? Or did Butler mean “one”? Please.

    I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he hates that man.

    How does Butler “know” John McCain hates President Bush? Did McCain tell Butler, or is this just more guesswork on his part?

    Senator John Sidney McCain, III is a remarkable man who has made enormous personal achievements. And he is a man that I am proud to call a fellow POW who “Returned With Honor.”[…]I think John Sidney McCain, III is a good man, but not someone I will vote for in the upcoming election to be our President of the United States.

    Those two sentences are at odds…well until you read Mr. Butler’s bio and get to the last line;

    He is now a peace and justice activist with Veterans for Peace.

    So all of the previous blather and speculation can all be boiled down to it’s essence; Mr. Butler won’t vote for a Republican president. Pure and simple. He could have saved us all the time and trouble if he’d just said that upfront.

  • 5 ex-State secretaries blather on

    Five former secretaries of State gathered in Georgia yesterday to do what secretaries of State do best – use a lot of words, point fingers and offer no real solutions (Washington Times link);

    Five former U.S. secretaries of state today urged the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran.

    […]

    Each of them said shuttering the prison camp in Cuba would bolster America’s image abroad.

    “It says to the world: ‘We are now going back to our traditional respective forms of dealing with people who potentially committed crimes,’” said Colin Powell, who served as President Bush’s first secretary of state.

    Powell was joined by Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, who sat in a round-table discussion sponsored by the University of Georgia at a sold-out conference center in downtown Athens.

    OK, that’s all well and good – close Guantanamo. So what do we do these cretins we have locked up there? (insert chirping sounds here) Diplomats are always so good at telling us what “looks bad” but they can’t offer solutions. And where were they all when Bill Clinton stashed thousands of Haitian refugees in Guantanamo under worse conditions than the terrorist thugs living there now?

    Henry Kissinger got a little testy when the topic changed to China;

    “We should not look at China as a military adversary,” said Kissinger, adding that a military confrontation is unlikely. “We should see where we could cooperate.”

    Has Henry paid any attention to what’s happening in the world and seen the evidence that China is behind nearly every bad thing? China has it’s fingers in Hugo Chavez’ pie, Ahmadinejad’s business, they hold sway over North Korea and the Myanmar government. There’s evidence that China and North Korea were helping Syria build nuclear weapons. they knocked our plane out of the sky over international waters, for pete’s sake. China sold both India and Pakistan their nuclear technology. How would you describe a military adversary, Henry?

  • Albright: troops are the problem

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    Aaron Daye/The Gainesville Sun

    From Gateway Pundit, a view of our war against terrorism from Madelaine Albright – who has never seen the war against terror;

    …”The American forces are both the solution and the problem,” she said. “They are like fly paper that attracts everybody who hates us.”

    No, you cow, the problem is that you did nothing in the Clinton Administration to stem terrorism. You ignored them when they bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, the Khobar Towers, the African embassies and the USS Cole. When Haitians ran off the US Navy from the pier with machetes. When there was no retaliation for dead Rangers and Delta operators in Mogadishu.

    Apparently she’s right about one thing – the troops are like flypaper that attract everyone who hates the US – domestic haters like Albright, too.

    But that probably wasn’t the most convoluted thing she said;

    Albright said. “Now that’s quite a statement, because it means I think it’s worse than Vietnam – not in the number of Americans who died or Vietnamese versus Iraqis, but in terms of those unintended consequences. And the biggest unintended consequence in Iraq is Iran. I think one might say that Iran has actually won the war in Iraq.”

    Yeah, ’cause  Vietnam had “intended consequences” – the communists in this country wanted the North Vietnamese to win and take over the entire southeast Asia. The Islamic Republic has been one of the main causes of violence in the world since Jimmy Carter tried to look the other way. What did Albright and Clinton do to stem their influence in their eight years?

    How about since Maddy has already conceded defeat to Iran we just give her up to them. Funny how she doesn’t offer any solutions her candidate (Hillary Clinton) might bring us – just criticism.

  • “Oh, Hell no!”

    Jason Mattera of Young America’s Foundation and Hot Air went to Winter Soldier II and asked folks who testified if they’d swear to their allegations of atrocities. Jason recorded for posterity the results;

    [youtube f_6gNY6S5HE nolink]

    Of course, without hesitation the consensus is “No!”, and Clifton Hicks, who was on this blog last night calling “Bullshit” said “Oh, Hell no!” I don’t blame you, Clifton – your stories are so full of holes I could fly a C-17 through them.

    Jason Hurd who slung snot all over the panel while he tearfully recounted the time he ALMOST shot a woman carrying groceries also said he wouldn’t.

    Of course, many of the IVAW members didn’t even want Rurik, TSO and myself at the event – probably one of the reasons it resulted in what one commenter here called a “wet firecracker”.

    Michele Malkin declares, “The apples don’t fall far from the Ghengis Khan-invoking tree”.

    So, a rational person might ask “What was the point?”

  • See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil

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    Photo from CNN

    The images of the three monkeys leapt into my mind as we’re all treated to a replay of the three Congressmen standing on the roof of Saddam Hussein’s palace and preaching to us ignorant Americans that Hussein was more trustworthy than our own president. from the Weekly Standard;

    The controversy ignited on September 29 when Bonior and McDermott appeared from Baghdad on ABC’s “This Week.” Host George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott about his recent comment that “the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.”

    In an interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn, Bonior was asked if he trusts Saddam Hussein;

    ZAHN: Representative Bonior, do you trust Saddam Hussein?

    BONIOR: Well, of course, Saddam Hussein has committed some very bad atrocities while he has been in public office, and we all know that. The question is not whether or not I trust Saddam Hussein. The question is whether I trust impartial observers, like Mr. Blix from the United Nations, to come in and make a good judgment.  

    So we shouldn’t have questioned the trustworthiness of Saddam Hussein, but it was fine to mistrust the US President. Sweet. Apparently, Hussein’s money for propaganda was well spent. I’d remind the reader that the actual invasion of Hussein’s Iraq wouldn’t happen for another five months after this trip – in the “rush to war”.

    Well, now it turns out that the trip was financed with profits from Hussein’s corrupt manipulation of the Oil For Food program – meant to feed Iraqis affected by the UN’s 1991 sanctions against the country. The money from the Hussein regime flowed through his agent in the US, Muthanna Al-Hanooti. Ed Morrisey of Hot Air writes;

    Bonior, Thompson, and McDermott apparently didn’t know about Al-Hanooti’s connection — but they don’t appear to have asked, either. Instead, they got snookered into a ploy by Saddam to buy some American dissent at a time when our nation still reeled from the deaths of 3,000 people in a terrorist attack. Wouldn’t the possibility of exploitation have crossed their minds — and shouldn’t the three Congressmen have asked the FBI to check out Al-Hanooti at the time?

    Al-Hanooti appears to be an official of CAIR, according to Debbie Schlussel and Michele Malkin. From Ms. Schlussel;

    Today, Al-Hanooti, a former chief of CAIR-Michigan was indicted for acting as a spy for Saddam Hussein in America. (And–shocker–he has a second wife and family in Iraq.) To me and anyone who followed the story and read a newspaper, that isn’t news. In fact, the indictment is far too little, far too late. The indictment says that a trip taken by three Congressmen–liberal Democrats Jim McDermott, David Bonior, and Mike Thompson–to Iraq in 2002, was funded by Saddam Hussein, using a third party to arrange the financing, and Al-Hanooti to put the trip together. Again, not news, since I wrote about it repeatedly on this site and also in The New York Post as far back as 2003.

    Baldilocks says this explains why George Galloway was in an extra-pricky mood when he was being questioned by Norm Coleman about the Oil-for-Food Program – he knew he wasn’t the only dirty politician who’d benefitted from Iraq’s new-found largesse. I’ll bet that if anyone ever shakes that fig tree, we’ll be up to our necks in corrupt politicians who benefitted from that “humanitarian program” administered by the UN.