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

Category: Terror War

  • Annapolis is Pointless

    The upcoming US brokered mid east peace conference in Annapolis is going to be nothing more than political theater. The Bush administration thought they had scored a coup by getting the Saudis to agree to participate. Yeah, not so much. The Saudis have preemptively refused to even shake hands with the Israelis.

    Sooner or later we’ll have to face the fact that the Israeli/Palestinian problem wouldn’t exist if the Arabs weren’t the leading exporters of terrorism in the world. When the stated goal of one group is the extinction of the other, expecting reasonable, honest discourse from them is a waste of time and energy.

    The US expends far too much energy walking on egg shells to not offend our supposed allies the Saudis. May I remind you, that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on 9-11 were Saudis, and that Osama bin Laden just happens to be a Saudi his badself. Saudi funded madrassas teach hatred of the Jews and hatred of Western ideals, and you know, hatred of that GREAT SATAN, America.

    The US government keeps counseling Israel to not fight the terrorists that send suicide bombers and rockets exploding into Israeli neighborhoods. Would Americans demonstrate the same forbearance if people were exploding in Memphis or Boulder or Fresno? Of course not, we’d be out to kick someone’s ass, and we would be right to do so.

    So why is it that we counsel Israel to not fight? They are the only ally we have in the region, they are surrounded by enemies whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel, and yet, we tell them NOT to fight?

    Let’s try something new, because, we’ve done this for well over twenty years and it clearly isn’t effective. Let’s counsel ass kicking as foreign policy. When terrorists come and blow up busses, find out where they came from, and kick their asses. When rockets fly into suburban neighborhoods, bomb those who launched them back to the stone age.

    Israel is used to being reviled and under the constant threat of terrorism, how friggin’ horrid is that?

    Israel has fought several wars with their neighboring countries, and they have won, decisively, in each engagement. So, lets not counsel the Israelis to bear this burden of terrorism any longer. In his speech September 20th, 2001 President Bush said:
    Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. and: Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

    I submit that Israel made it’s choice in this regard long ago, and we haven’t backed them up. The House of Saud has also made it’s choice, but, because of this insane need we have to be seen as “Nice” to everyone, and the fact that our environmentalists don’t want us drilling our own oil, we coddle the Saudis and ignore the insane hatred of Jews, Christians and the west in general taught in the madrassas and mosques they fund.

    The Bush administration should apply pressure, that is tell the Saudis in no uncertain terms that their support of these radical madrassas and mosques is unacceptable and will not be tolerated a second longer. If that causes an increase in the price of oil, so be it. Righteousness has a price.

    Alcoholics Anonymous defines insanity as doing the same thing, over and over and expecting a different result. That is exactly what we demand from Israel, in forcing them to negotiate with those who fund and support the very terrorists we are supposed to be fighting.

  • Pelosi/Sanchez; bedfellows of defeat

    Jonathan Weissman of the Washington Post writes the page one story entitled “Politics Creates Odd Pair; Sanchez and Democrats“ ;

    It may be among the strangest of political alliances: a former commanding general in Iraq, blocked from a fourth star and forced into retirement partly for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and the speaker of the House, desperate to end a war that the general helped start.

    But in partisan Washington, the enemy of one’s enemy can quickly become a friend, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the new marriage of convenience between Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez.

    On Saturday, Sanchez delivered the Democrats’ weekly radio address. He excoriated what he called the Bush administration’s “failure to devise a strategy for victory in Iraq,” then embraced Democratic legislation linking continued war funding with a timeline aimed at ending U.S. combat operations by December 2008.

    Hmmmm. No agenda there, huh? The Democrats want the war ended on their terms…rather than an actual victory. Sanchez wants to clear his name (the name that Democrats sullied, by the way).

    For Democratic leaders, Sanchez’s address has been a triumph, covered by the media nationwide. It interrupted a stream of stories about declining violence, which had stalled efforts to force a shift of war policy.

    A triumph? Today is the first I’ve heard of it. I’ve been on all of the right’s blogs all weekend (fighting off this stupid flu) – unless it’s a triumph among the nattering nabobs of negativity (to borrow Spiro Agnew’s phrase) at Code Pink and the DailyKos. And I guess this pretty much proves that Democrats aren’t interested in winning the war against terror since they’re looking for some distraction from the good news to put the focus back on Sanchez’ tenure. Democrats are trying to recall the past – leadership is about the future.

    “I’m beyond perplexed,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who criticized Sanchez at Senate Armed Services Committee hearings in 2004. “He’s chosen to play politics here. He’s opened himself up to what happened on his watch. He’s made himself a political figure, and I hope he understands that those of us who were on the ground watching at that time are going to push back.”

    Graham said that he repeatedly asked Sanchez in private whether he needed more troops to pacify the fledgling insurgency, and that Sanchez always said no. “He never said any of these things when it could have made a difference,” Graham said of Sanchez’s criticism.

    So I guess Sanchez’ complaint is that the Bush Administration is culpable for the situation on the ground in Iraq during Sanchez’ stint because they hired an incompetent…Sanchez.

    Wolf Howling astutely observes an apt comparison of Sanchez to “Little Mac”;

    While the Democrats of today may be enamored of General Sanchez and his message, history should provide them a cautionary note. Despite McClellan’s outspoken criticism of Lincoln for his poor prosecution of the war, the rhetoric failed once it became apparent that Union forces were succeeding and that victory was possible. In the end, the American electorate punished the Democrats for their anti-war stance in the 1864 election and for several decades afterward.

    Prairie Pundit doubts his expertise;

    He has already demonstrated a lack of understanding of counterinsurgency operations when he had the opportunity so there is little reason to think has acquired expertise since leaving.

    Even the Left doubts the wisdom of linking their cause (such as it is) to a former target;

    I can understand the cold political calculus that leads one to believe that getting a news cycle out of this is a benefit, but I think the long-term implications of this will prove much more harmful.

    My guess is that the Democrat “leadership” is getting real bad advice from a Karl Rove wannabe.

  • Verdict first; trial afterwards

    The Democrats are scurrying trying to squeeze some bad news out of Iraq, but it doesn’t seem to be working for them. They’ve painted themselves in a corner that they can’t escape. George Bush proved to the Democrats and to al Qaeda that he won’t back down from them, but the autopsy of the anti-democracy movement in the US has begun. In the December 3rd edition of The Weekly Standard, Noemie Emery begins recounting quotes from last November in The Stab That Failed;

    “Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried, and that has already failed.” The surge was “a sad, ominous echo of something we’ve lived through in this country,” according to Illinois senator Richard Durbin. “I’m confident it will not work,” said John Kerry at a Senate hearing, a sentiment echoed by Barack Obama.

    Having Kerry’s seal of disapproval, coupled with Barack Obama, was almost like adding another 20,000 troops on the field, I suppose. Neither has been right about anything in the whole time they’ve been in the Senate.

    Gaius from Blue Crab Boulevard quotes the Financial Times’ Clive Crook calling the current Democrat situation a “trap”;

    Opposition to the war has been [Democrats’] chief theme. This still commands broad and strong support, of course, but the intensity could continue to fade. Republicans will seek opportunities to accuse Democrats of wanting the US to fail, or of wishing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory – and those charges will acquire some force if the view that the surge has worked takes hold. For Democrats, even putting the recent fall in violence in its correct context poses a political risk, because it can be portrayed as failing to recognise the military’s efforts and achievements. If the Republican presidential contenders have any sense, they will tread very carefully here – while hoping that Democrats fall into the trap and helping them to if the opportunity presents itself.

    On cue, LauraW at Ace of Spades records the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum hand-wringing opinion piece about our stature in the world;

    Though I don’t especially want to perpetuate any stereotypes about the mainstream media, I have to say that this optimism is totally unwarranted. Not because things aren’t improving in Iraq — it seems they are, at least for the moment — but because the collateral damage inflicted by the war on America’s relationships with the rest of the world is a lot deeper and broader than most Americans have realized. It isn’t just that the Iraq war invigorated the anti-Americanism that has always been latent pretty much everywhere. What’s worse is the fact that — however it all comes out in the end, however successful Iraqi democracy is a decade from now — our conduct of the war has disillusioned our natural friends and supporters and thrown a lasting shadow over our military and political competence. However it all comes out, the price we’ve paid is too high.

    Probably not as high a price as we’ve paid for foreign policy failures like Somalia and Viet Nam, though. The reason we paid such a high price in Iraq is because everyone expected us to cut and run from Iraq like we’ve done nearly everywhere else in the last 60 years. the fact that there’s a peace conference scheduled in Annapolis with all of the major players would have been impossible last year at this time. President Bush has shown a determination to see the process in the Middle East continue – regardless of the chatter from the left…and the Right , by the way.

    And our “image” in the world is just that – our cosmetic appearance. However, it’s clear that our “image” is backed by stalwart military power and a decisive, unwaivering commander (for the time being). From Curt at Flopping Aces;

    Problem is, we have always been hated, and loved.  It was the same 50 years ago and will be the same 50 years in the future.  Some hate how successful we are.  Some hate Democracy.  Some hate our ideals.  You can count al-Qaeda in that group and the question is, should we care?

    Crotchety Old Bastard writes that the Democrat candidates are cutting and running from the cut and run strategy;

    This is not at all surprising to anyone with a brain.  Of course that eliminates almost all Democrats who constitute the most mindlessly uninformed voting block in history.  But they have decided to surrender from surrendering.  From no less than the New York Times:

    That’s not leadership – that’s politics. The two major candidates for leader of the free world are sticking their finger in the air to determine what they think. COB sums up;

    These people are so pathetic that it is beyond comprehension.  Having championed the cause of defeat while pandering to their leftist base, they now face the very real possibility that we (America) may actually win.  Win in spite of their treasonous undermining.

    The Daily Kooks and so on will raise all kinds of hell and then vote for them anyway.  Why?  Because they have the same level of principles as their socialist candidates.

    Don Surber writes what I’ve been saying all along – they refuse to compromise and still they don’t understand why Republicans want them to fail;

    It is the line of the day from Carolyn Lochhead of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington Bureau. Writing about the inability of a Democratic Congress to do anything this year, Lochhead wrote: “Bewildered Democrats have concluded that Republicans simply want them to fail.”

    Just like Democrats want our soldiers to fail in Iraq.

    Unlike our soldiers, Congressional Democrats have poor leaders. Instead of legislating and compromising, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi bull forward.

    At Western Hemisphere Policy Watch, the anonomous author detects leftist lip-licking among our allies’ diplomatic missions here in DC at the prospect of being able to once again fleece the American taxpayers when Democrats take over both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue next year;

    The international left can barely contain itself. The prospects of a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House too good to pass up or wait for the election results to confirm the outcome in November 2008. WHPW Editors have yet to notice too much of this sentiment in and about town with the locals (i.e., Washingtonians), but the foreign diplomatic corp is buzzing even in Europe.

    Take for example the following program being hosted by the leftist Chatham House in the U.K. (i.e., Royal Institute for International Affairs, uncle of the Council on Foreign Relations based in New York City) next month: America and Europe: From 9/11 to the 2008 Presidential Election with Guest Speaker James P. Rubin, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Chief Spokesman for the State Department and senior policy adviser to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright (1997-2000). The program is described thusly:

    The speaker will reflect on European attitudes towards American foreign policy, the loss of American prestige in recent years, the role of foreign policy in the 2008 elections, and what a Democratic foreign policy would mean for the transatlantic partnership.

    And, in the meantime, since they can’t attack the war, they can’t attack the troops, they have no effect on our foreign policy so they still pursue impeachment of the policy maker, according to Michele Malkin;

    Democrat leaders might have thought they put the impeachment circus to rest on November 6. But as I noted, the nutroots are gearing up for a stage production of a Beltway impeachment play that’ll open after New Year’s–and over this Thanksgiving holiday, Denny K’s peeps have been pounding the I-drum and hounding Democrats over their reluctance to go with the impeachment flow.

    I guess they don’t figure that this little drama doesn’t hurt our “image” in the world a bit – or they don’t care.

  • MSN: More bad news from Iraq

    Earlier in the month we were shocked to find that Iraq’s gravediggers were in danger of being unemployed with the sharp decline in violence in Iraq. While we barely recovered from that news, we soon discovered that emergency workers’ jobs in Baghdad were being threatened by the same events (or, rather the lack thereof) as the poor grave diggers. While this is terrible news indeed, prepare yourself for, perhaps the worst news of all.

    Refugees returning to Iraq are clogging border checkpoints from Syria and Jordan according to Agence France-Presse;

    Iraqi generals say refugees are streaming back to their homeland from Jordan and Syria in such large numbers that frontier guards are struggling to prevent the smuggling of insurgents and arms.

    “We are receiving tremendous numbers of displaced families at the borders of Syria and Jordan,” said Maj. Gen. Mohsen Abdul Hassan, head of Iraq’s department of border enforcement.

    Border crossings are becoming congested with returning refugees waiting to re-enter Iraq, Gen. Hassan said at a press conference.

    “We have difficulties dealing with the large numbers. There are long lines of vehicles,” Gen. Mohsen said, adding that his guards were already hard-pressed trying to intercept arms smugglers and insurgents attempting to cross into Iraq using forged passports.  

    Yes, terible news indeed. Hasn’t the most recent complaint of the Left, since they can’t seem to agree on a number of dead Iraqis, been that millions have been displaced? So this should be more good news for them, right? They’ll be celebrating and clapping our troops on the back any minute now.

  • How the world looks from an insane asylum

    According to the Associated Press, Hamas is shocked that Arab countries would want to attend a peace conference;

    Hamas said Saturday it was shocked Arab countries have decided to attend next week’s U.S.-backed Mideast peace summit and underlined its opposition with a threat to launch deadlier rocket attacks on Israel.

    Hamas argues the time is not right for talks with Israel because the Palestinians are divided. With the Islamic militant group in control of Gaza, Hamas says moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not have a mandate to negotiate.

    “The announcement of the Arabs that they would participate in the Annapolis conference was a great shock for the Palestinian people,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, said in a statement. “Participation opens doors for normalization of relations with the Israeli occupiers.”

    Another Hamas official said the group was on the brink of developing a more lethal type of warhead for the rockets it regularly lobs from Gaza into Israel.

    “They can be developed in a short period to create sufficient terror and fear and make the Israelis live in pain no less than what our people live through because of the repeated incursions into our villages and cities in the West Bank and Gaza,” said Ahmed Yousef, an adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister in Gaza.

    Israel, which warmly welcomed the Arab League decision Friday to go to the Mideast conference in Annapolis, Md., has repeatedly said it expects Hamas to try and thwart peace efforts.

    Why couldn’t Arabs just enjoy the bombings and rocketings and killings like Hamas enjoys it all? When the Israelis penned up the Gaza Strip and stopped the marauding murderers from crossing into Israel, Hamas turned on their allies – just to keep their edge. Maybe those Hamas guys don’t have as firm a grasp on reality as some in the world would like us to think.

    Wall Street Journal writes that the US and Israel are making overtures to Syria to isolate Iran (Like Nixon used China to isolate the USSR thirty five years ago);

    Underscoring that effort, the Bush administration is even courting a long-time pariah, Syria. Syria’s bitter enemy, Israel, is going even further, indicating that its arms are open wide to Damascus. Talks with Syria could go some way in weakening Tehran’s strongest alliance in the region.

    “This is one of those moments in history where the Syrians have been given an opportunity to jump,” a senior Israeli official said this past week. “If they do jump, they will be embraced.”

    I wouldn’t dismantle the metal detectors at Annapolis yet, though. Jumping back to the AP story, apparently Hamas’ policy is being handled by hormone-driven 15-year-old boys;

    “We tell those going to Annapolis, we will not forgive you, and we will not forget if you give up any of our rights,” said one of the speakers, 15-year-old Uthman Abdullah. “History will curse you and your people will curse you.”

    Speaking of insanity, those people over there in that part of the world look mighty insane protesting US aid to cyclone victims in Bangledesh as reported by Gateway Pundit.

  • Whatever Happened to the Stalwart Brits of Fame and Legend?

    Stiff upper lip and all that? Not so much anymore… The sun has set on the mighty British Empire and out of the ashes rises not a phoenix, but rather a whiny, politically correct weasel.
    This from the Guardian:

    Counter-terrorism officials are rethinking their approach to tackling the radicalisation of Muslim youth, abandoning what they admit has been offensive and inappropriate language. They say the term “war on terror” will no longer be heard from ministers. Instead, they will use less emotive language, emphasising the criminal nature of the plots and conspiracies. The government in future, they add, will talk of a “struggle” against extremist ideology, rather than a “battle”.
    A “struggle”? What? Do these people not remember the London Tube Bombings?
    Why not call it a Jihad, maybe that will win “Hearts and Minds”…

    Well, it is sadly obvious that the England of Churchill is dead. These Brits have flagged and failed. They no longer have the heart to “go on to the end” to “Fight them on the beaches”. Rather than the beacon of courage and of leadership that Churchill provided, today we are left with a UK that is sadly, apparently, just not up to the fight.The change in approach by counter-terrorism officials is part of plans by the government’s Research, Information, and Communications Unit to counter al-Qaida propaganda and win hearts and minds. In WWII, the British understood that, “When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” But, then I guess it isn’t merely a British problem… Far too many American politicians don’t understand, either.

    They think that this is a problem that can be bested in conference rooms, by negotiations with reasonable men. That, would we just give “a little”, there really could be “Peace in our time.” Folks, I’m here to tell you, Chamberlain was dead wrong. There will not be peace in our time if we negotiate rather than fight. We don’t have time for a second “Phony War”, we need leaders with the guts, the intestinal fortitude, hell, the balls to fight these terrorists abroad before anymore buildings fall in this country, before something worse happens.

    We cannot allow border security to be laughed off as anti-Mexican bias, as bad as illegal immigration is, terrorism is much worse. We don’t want suicide bombers in our clubs and malls. But, I am increasingly afraid it will take another terrorist attack on American soil for some to grasp the simple fact that the terrorists will remain at war with us until one of two things happen; we can either capitulate to their abhorrent demands, or we can treat them as the enemy they are and wipe them out.

    One of the greatest missteps in the Vietnam War, was the gross underestimation of the enemy’s capabilities, the idea that people without the vast technological prowess of the US, were no danger to us was disproved time and again, and yet, some still won’t see it.
    HatTip: Dhimmi Watch

  • Democrat wistful dreams vs. reality

    In an interview yesterday, General David Petraeus sketched the reality on the ground for the news media, as reported in the Wall Street Journal;

    Gen. David Petraeus, in an interview yesterday, cautioned that it was too soon to conclude that al Qaeda in Iraq, which has focused its attacks on Shiite Muslim targets, has been defeated. But he said the group had been weakened by a U.S. and Iraqi campaign to kill or detain its leaders and cut off its supplies of weapons and ammunition.

    “At some point there has to be a sign to the people that security is enabling the beginnings of a better life, which obviously garners their support for the security effort. I do think there has been a pretty substantial recognition among Sunni Arabs, in particular, that al Qaeda Iraq is not for them.”
    Another factor, he said, has been unexpected, “robust” measures by Syria to reduce the number of foreign militants crossing into Iraq to carry out suicide attacks. Gen. Petraeus estimated that the number of foreign fighters coming into Iraq through Syria has fallen by at least one-third.

    “Al Qaeda has been dealt substantial blows,” Gen. Petraeus said. “It certainly still remains dangerous…but it is a threat that has been diminished.”

    Despite these real and significant gains the Democrats are mired in their political morass (Wall Street Journal);

    Last week, the House agreed to provide $50 billion for the war, but also insisted Mr. Bush embrace the goal of ending combat operations in Iraq by the end of next year. On a 231-192 vote, Republicans failed to strip out these conditions, but Senate Republicans blocked the bill Friday.

    Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D., Wis.) sought to shift the blame to Senate Republicans. But hours after the Senate votes last week, influential House Democrats with large military bases in their states were already meeting privately with Tina Jonas, the Pentagon’s comptroller, to assess the problems ahead.

    “We’re going to have to do something in December to reconcile this, or else we have a real crisis,” a House Democrat said.

    The goal is to open a window to press for a change in policy, even if it means risking being criticized for capitulating later. To buy time, Mr. Murtha joined Mr. Obey at a Capitol news conference in which they appealed again for the administration to reach some compromise with Democrats. The weeks before Christmas will be decisive, and the important numbers to watch are the operations accounts for the Army and Marines, which bear the brunt of the fighting in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.

    So, to summarize, the Democrats, who promised bipartisanship before the November election last year, are holding up funding of combat operations in a war zone because they refuse to compromise. But what worries Democrats worse? (Washington Post);

    The Defense Department warned yesterday that as many as 200,000 contractors and civilian employees will begin receiving layoff warnings by Christmas unless Congress acts on President Bush’s $196 billion war request, but senior Democrats said no war funds will be approved until Bush accepts a shift in his Iraq policy.

    Not the troops who face the emboldened enemies of our country, but the civilian employees in their home districts. From the aforementioned WSJ story;

    But hours after the Senate votes last week, influential House Democrats with large military bases in their states were already meeting privately with Tina Jonas, the Pentagon’s comptroller, to assess the problems ahead.

    And, oh, yeah, Murtha wants a Job Corps program for terrorists;

    Mr. Murtha’s trip to Iraq includes meetings with U.S. commanders about a strategy to win over and provide future employment opportunities for Iraqi detainees held by the U.S.

    And even though he admits violence is down, Murtha won’t admit it’ll last very long – yet he wants our troops pulled out;

    He said there is “no question” the level of violence has fallen in Iraq but argues that the administration should do more to take advantage of “this lull” to improve the lot of Iraqi civilians and accelerate the departure of U.S. combat troops.

    Murtha doesn’t even understand the concept of military operations and their relationship to the political realities (S.A.Miller, Washington Times);

    “To change the political law, it doesn’t seem to me you need the military stability,” Mr. Murtha told reporters on Capitol Hill.

    So, I guess Murtha would’ve expected a new allied-installed German or Japanese government in 1944. Doofus. 

    There’s your “combat veteran”, Democrats. This is the guy you’re holding up as the voice of reason in Congress. Robin from Chickenhawk Express is still sifting through mounds of research on Murtha and the money that connects him to the Haditha incident. You can read her latest posts here and here.

  • An Exception to Every Rule.

    Once a Marine, always a Marine, or so the saying goes. Congressman Murtha is the exception to that rule. Marines have an awesome Esprit de Corps, they think there is nothing that they can’t do, just because they are Marines and you aren’t. They say “Gung Ho” and mean it, they are hard chargers.

    Jack Murtha, on the other hand is not, he isn’t a hard charger at all. Here he is AGAIN saying the US cannot win in Iraq militarily. “Look at all the people that have been displaced, all the [lost] oil production, unemployment, all those type of things,” said Rep. John P. Murtha, chairman of Appropriations defense subcommittee. “We can’t win militarily.” It is that old self-fulfilling prophecy thing again, no, you can’t win if you don’t try to, and it is clearly harder to win when the congressional “leaders” keep spouting off in the press that it is impossible for you to win.

    How is it, that in 2000 Al Gore and Company accused George W Bush of “Talking down the economy” and that was supposed to be some kind of horrific thing to do, but when Murtha and his congressional Dopes (er Doves) tell us the US military cannot win, that is not supposed to have any impact on the morale of the troops or the people of the US.

    The one thing Americans have always excelled at is exceeding the expectations of others. I am sure the court of King George III thought “They can’t beat us…” But, they did, and soundly. There were those who said man would never fly, but, the Wright brothers did that. Americans can do anything we set our minds to do, and no number of pantywaist ex-Marine congressmen will change that, no matter how much they try. But, he supports the troops! (Like a rubber crutch…)