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

Category: Terror War

  • Re: The recent comments of LTG Sanchez

    Not surprisingly, the Mainstream Media latched right on to his comment:

    “There is no question America is living a nightmare with no end in sight,”

    Sadly, that is NOT all General Sanchez had to say. Army Times published an article on General Sanchez’s comments Army Times managed to note a few things the MSM didn’t:

    Jaws dropped as Sanchez glared out at the room, and then eyes rolled as he spent an hour blaming everyone but himself.

    and

    He said some poor strategic decisions in Iraq had become “defeats because of the media,” and that some reporters feed from a “pigs’ trough.”

    He lamented the media’s treatment of Federal Emergency Management chief Michael Brown during Hurricane Katrina. Brown resigned from FEMA after accusations that he had mishandled the hurricane.

    and

    He said the partisan politics of Congress are “killing soldiers,” and that the focus needs to be not at Capitol Hill, but in Iraq. And, he said, the media’s coverage of partisan politics was driving a wedge in democracy. He called for newspapers to run corrections more prominently and noted that television and Internet outlets often don’t run corrections at all.

    The Bush administration, he said, failed to plan economically and politically for Iraq, and has continued to fail in expressing its plans and strategies to the American people. The best the administration could hope for with the current approach is to “stave off defeat.”

    When asked for specific names involved in failures he cited, he said, “I’m not into second-guessing decisions of our political leadership.”

    This sounds like a bitter guy who feels he got the stinky end of the stick and is now interested in seeing others dragged through the mud he feels he was unjustly drug through. Come on, now, invoking Katrina should be a clue, shouldn’t it?

  • So who hung those posters at GWU?

    Monday morning while the rest of America was sleeping in enjoying their Columbus Day, nefarious forces were afoot on the George Washington University. The Washington Post article “Poster Was Aimed At Racism Authors Say” this morning explains the event;

    Fliers that appeared on the George Washington University campus carrying an apparently anti-Islamic message were produced by students who were attempting to mock those they thought were trying to stir fear of Muslims, a campus newspaper was told.

    The GW Hatchet, an independent campus paper, posted a story on its Web site late last night saying it had heard from those behind the fliers, who said they had been misunderstood. According to the Hatchet, an e-mail that it received from the students said the flier was not an attack on Islam but an effort “at exposing Islamophobic racism.”

    Yep, but who did people who were outraged about this attack initially? The Young Americans Foundation conservative group on campus. As if any serious political organization would use hate as a tool to recruit in this day and age – well except radical Leftists and Islamists.

    So who were the people behind it? Well, the Post declines to name them, but the GW Hatchet has no problem naming names;

    The students – Adam Kokesh, freshman Yong Kwon, senior Brian Tierney, freshman Ned Goodwin, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri and Amal Rammah – said their motives were misinterpreted.

    Yep, Adam Kokesh – the little weasel to whom I’ve dedicated a whole category on this blog. And what was their intent? Squelching the free speech of conservatives, of course;

    Students for Conservativo-Facism Awareness hung the posters in opposition to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, an event being held beginning Oct. 22.

    Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a David Horowitz event. Just like the KKK leaflets in Manasas were intended to paint the anti-immigration movement there as a racist movement, this Kokesh-led abortion was meant to fan the flames of  hate against conservatives and those of us who are wary of Islamofacism. And it worked initially (from the WaPo, yesterday);

    “I was just really shocked that this sort of hatred exists on our campus,” said Najah El Bash, a sophomore from New York who is one of the leaders of the GWU Muslim Students Association. “You never think this would come so close to home, from people you’re in classes with. . . . It’s scary.” It had to be well-planned, she said, for so many posters to go up so quickly.

    Yeah, scary. It’s scary that people who who were cautious about blaming radical Islam for the 9-11 attacks is quick to point fingers at conservatives for this kind of childish rhetoric. I would hope that the George Washington University faculty will give Kokesh exactly what they would have intended for YAF if they’d found them responsible. But, fat chance. In fact, the local TV stations, after their initial reports of facists on the loose in the city, have dropped the story. Here’s a Fox 5 report that hasn’t been updated to reflect the solved crime since yesterday at noon. The local Telemundo news broadcast hasn’t changed either. I guess it’s too good a story when it’s sheet-wearing racists instead of non-sheet-wearing racists.

    By the way, those posters that Kokesh and his bunch got arrested for posting nearly a month ago that they claimed were an expression of their free speech? Well, they’re still all over the city – no one has taken them down. In fact, I saw a poster the other day from the March 17th protest. I wonder if the city has collected on their $20,000 fine yet.

    Hat tip to Kate for the early morning email on a slow news day. Michele Malkin has more, and Little Green Footballs was on it here and here. David Horowitz calls it a hate crime. LGF and Gateway Pundit write that YAF is being asked by the assistant director of student activities to apologize for the fake posters from YAF’s fake members.

    Samantha Sault of The Weekly Standard Blogs says colleges hate conservatives – I say colleges hate everyone equally. Why else would colleges so readily fill skulls of mush with inacurate and incomplete information?

  • The rush to press

    I read and watched incredulously the CNN broadcast of the “Reliable Sources” bit on why the media isn’t reporting lower casualties and successes in Iraq. Noel Sheppard from Newsbusters transcribes;

    After introducing the subject, Kurtz asked, “Robin Wright, should that decline in Iraq casualties have gotten more media attention?”

    This was Wright’s amazing answer:

    Not necessarily. The fact is we’re at the beginning of a trend — and it’s not even sure that it is a trend yet. There is also an enormous dispute over how to count the numbers. There are different kinds of deaths in Iraq.

    That’s funny because two days into the invasion of Saddam’s Iraq, our troops ran headlong into a sandstorm – immediately the media called Iraq a quagmire and wondered if we’d ever remove the Hussein regime from power because of one little sand storm.

    The media had no problem trotting out the Hadditha story before the facts were known in order to smear the American soldiers, and now according to Little Green Footballs, Gateway Pundit and Michele Malkin, it might have been an al Qaeda plot – because they knew the media would pounce all over it without any real investigation.

    al Qaeda used the treacherous media against our struggle for national security with articles entitled “The Shame of Kilo Company” and “Did Marines Kill In Cold Blood?”. The New York Times even ferreted out a law professor who allowed them to quote that even though there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute the Marines, it doesn’t mean they’re innocent. Despite the fact that our Bill of Rights guarantees us the right of being innocent until the government proves otherwise; 

    “We can’t say those guys didn’t commit a crime,” said Michael F. Noone Jr., a retired Air Force lawyer and law professor at Catholic University of America. “We can only say that after an investigation, there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute.” 

    And still there’s no apparent shame from the media.

    Here’s another example; Abdul Sattar Abu Risha met with President Bush after he led the Sunni effort to run al Qaeda out of his little fiefdom – nary a word about the meeting in the press. Two weeks later the sheik was killed and it was in headlines across every newspaper as proof that al Qaeda was unbeatable in Iraq. Then we saw the pictures of the sheik and Bush. Apparently the media was wrong – it only reinforced efforts in Iraq against al Qaeda among the Sunnis – that’s not being reported either.

    Need more? The Washington Post has avoided reporting on increased security and the lessening lethality of terrorists in Iraq by running a four part series on the front page last week on IEDs – typical act of avoidance. Today the Washington Post runs the headline that “Top Iraqis Pull Back From Key US Goal“;

    For much of this year, the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal.

    Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

    Nevermind that broad leaps have been made in the last few weeks towards Iraqi unity – nevermind that Iraqis rejected Joe Biden’s plan to divide their nation into pieces nearly unanimously.

    Sister Toldjah writes that Omar from Iraq the Model – an Iraqi on the ground in Baghdad – has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal detailing the signs that al Qaeda is losing in Iraq. Wonder why it’s not in the Washington Post. Oh, because today, they’re predicting political defeat for the Iraqis. That would be inconvenient to provide competing opinions, wouldn’t it?

    Who does the Washington Post, Robin Wright and the rest of the ignoramouses that claim to be the guardians of our freedoms think we are? They deride the blogs, just like they derided talk radio – but the mainstream press created the alternate news sources – by pompously deciding what we need to know and when we need to know it.

    Curt of Flopping Aces sums up;

    They struggle to explain why this news isn’t being reported but we all know why.  If it doesn’t fit their narrative, that being the “we’re losing in Iraq” storyline, then they want nothing to do with it.  If they were true reporters they would report this stuff because it IS news.

    Well, given that CNN never reported Hussein’s atrocities and continues to ignore atrocities in Cuba to save their precious access to propaganda, who can be surprised that they’ll continue to focus on the US shortcomings since Constitutionally we can’t restrict their access. CNN is just taking the route of least resistance. I don’t what is eating the Washington Post, besides a bad case of the dumbass – playing to these goofballs.

  • Sorry state of the Left; the politics of bad taste

    I’m tired of the “phony soldiers” story and that seems all that’s on the blogs this weekend. Even EJ Dionne at the Washington Post blogs that (surprise!) he’d take the word of Media Matters over that of the cacophonous opposition of those of us who’ve listened to Rush for decades.

    Wes Clark (h/t Hot Air) has decided that Rush shouldn’t be on Armed Forces Radio – but it was because of the popular demand of the troops that Rush was added to AFRTS broadcasts back in 1994 (when they were abandoned by the then-current administration). Shouldn’t it be by popular demand that Rush is removed by the line-up or is Wes Clarke the sole arbiter of what the troops should have for entertainment?

    But regardless, Kos diarist dlawbailey has taken Rush’s “phony soldier” controversy as a signal that the Left can bash troops at will now (h/t to LGF, Uncle Jimbo and Sparta. dlawbailey even takes potshots at Pete Hegseth’s wife’s appearance in an attempt to undermine the good works of Vets for Freedom. And spouting off about stuff he doesn’t understand (like ROTC training and military service) including the one glaring point that Uncle Jimbo caught the weasel on – the 101st hasn’t been a parachute unit since the early 70s. When I was stationed in Panama, they used to show up for the unit training at Jungle Operations Training Center in their blue berets instead of the maroon berets of every parachute unit in the Army. I was stationed there 1976-1978, so it’s been that long that the 101st has been “dopes on a rope” (a derisive phrase used only by paratroopers when referring to the 101st and their special training requiring them to slide down a rope to arrive at the cutting of battle by air. I’ll add that it’s not acceptable for non-airborne personnel to use the term and my use of the phrase is not a signal for Leftist diarists to begin referring to the noble troopers of the 101st Airborne Division as “dopes”).

    Since I also spent a few years teaching ROTC (at the University of Vermont), I can also add that not every cadet gets to go to Airborne School – the detachment is assigned a number of slots and there aren’t ever enough slots for everyone. Participation in political organizations while in an ROTC detachment isn’t limited by Army regulations – so cadets can join any organization to which they are drawn just like any other college student. Cadets aren’t confined by the UCMJ – dlawbailey should do a little research before wrapping himself/herself in minutae he/she doesn’t understand.

    Peckerwood dlawbailey complains about Hogseth’s lack of training – anyone who has spent a month in a TO&E unit knows that a bright and shiney new El-Tee has already had a few years of training at whatever college they attended, six weeks at Advanced Camp (if they’re ROTC), six months of their Basic Officers’ Course and ancillary training (Ranger School, Airborne, etc.).

    It’s not unusual for someone in a National Guard unit (like Hegseth) to not be Airborne or Ranger because of the rare times those particular officers get a slot at school. Unlike the idiots at Kos, the Army puts more stock in experience than schooling. The Basic Airborne Course – although it’s a great honor to be among the finest soldiers in the history of the world – isn’t a leadership school. Aside from being physically and mentally rigorous, the main prerequisite for the course is the student’s ability to obey the Law of Gravity at varying heights – nothing about leading troops in combat. I’ve even had leg Ranger LTs; they’d graduated from Ranger School, but not the Basic Airborne Course. Just the luck of getting school slots – that’s all.

    It seems that the “phony soldier” phony signal has turned loose the moonbats everywhere. Newsbusters reports that one-in-five Democrats thinks it’s a good thing if the US loses the war in Iraq. Wha??? Unless one-in-five Democrats are al Qaeda sleeper operatives, that should make the DNC think whether they want the votes of that constituency or not.

    Newsbusters also reports that members of the mis-named “Think Progress” have taken to praying – that the President and Vice-President die. In the words of a member named ‘Uncle Ho’ (clearly a misinformed person just for chosing that nom de plum); “I pray for Bush, and Cheney too. I pray that both die suddenly to free us from their neo-Nazi rule”. Yep, neo-nazi rule. Even after viewing the repression of the monks in Burma, the Left still thinks we’re ruled by nazis here.

    Speaking of which, Kate took pics of the latest Buddist protests in DC at the Myanmar, Chinese and Indian embassies yesterday. Why aren’t more of the Left getting involved against REAL injustice instead of this manufactured phony soldiers crap?

    But that’s not it. Crotchety Old Bastard (who tells us his son is still kickin’ ass in Iraq as a member of the Red Falcons – best wishes to him from this old trooper, too) writes that Medea Benjamin, the head shriveled up, barren old bag of Code Pink has made the brave decision to forego the protections she recieves from the Constitution. Who does she think she’s kidding? Does she think we’re going to put her on a raft in the Pacific Ocean and tie it off with a 12-mile rope on the Santa Monica pier? Dumbass.

    And Code Pink has taken to bravely assaulting recruiters who, generally can’t defend themselves the way they’ve been trained according to Marooned in Marin. And those goofballs in front of Walter Reed every Friday night protesting the war? Well, it turns out that because we’re winning the war in Iraq, their voluntary participation has waned and according to Chickenhawk Express, Michele Malkin and the Free Republic, protesters are being drafted by the unions and forced to participate – even though they’re not exactly sure why they’re there.

    As I predicted three months ago, the Left and their anti-war politics are failing and they’ve succumbed to the same tactics of al Qaeda – attacking innocent people who can’t defend themselves (apparently, according to Crotchety Old Bastard, al Qaeda is even adopting the tactics of Democrats and attacking the dead, too). Just like the tactic isn’t working for al Qaeda, it’ll bring a ugly end to the anti-war screwballs, too, but not before there are a bunch more casualties – on both sides.

    UPDATED: It seems Uncle Jimbo, a retired special warfare operator of some reknown, started a diary on Kos and has been banned for – get this – being a pedophile. All he did was bust on the Koskommies for the aforementioned diarist’s post busting on an honest-to-goodness bronze star awardee’s career (and wife, by the way). The comments on Jimbo’s diary post are really beyond the pale. The closest comment to anything supporting the troops is when one commenter called Markos a “a f*king veteran”. Like I said – the politics of bad taste.

  • FARC, Chavez, Soros and Rice

    I just got this emailed from Kate;

    The US State Department is gifting the FARC a massive propaganda win-win by granting propaganda caravans for the FARC operatives to tour and visit their poor boys inside a US prison. Speaker of the US Congress Nancy Pelosi thinks this is a good idea. Her staffers, led by counsel to Pelosi and to the pro drugs funding George Soros insist that this is a good idea, never mind what U.S. and UN counternarcotics agreements and laws detail. So too, apparently, does Assistant Sec of State Tom Shannon. We do not know what, if anything.

    I’d read earlier that the talks with FARC had been delayed – because FARC demands the release of their members held in US jails. So, in effect they’re asking for a prisoner exchange in the middle of their war. According to El Universal, FARC puts the blame for failure of the talks on Uribe while the success will fall to Chavez;

    FARC, senior member “Iván Márquez” put the blame on Uribe for the failure to swap the people kidnapped for imprisoned guerrillas.

    “If no swap has been made and continues causing suffering, it has been because of the president’s wild intransigency and stubbornness,” said Iván Márquez, whose actual name is Luciano Marín Arango.

    “All of us really want the success of President Chávez’ important mediation for this to be possible,” he added.

    Commie bros keepin’ it real, I suppose. But eCrisis ties Pelosi and Soros to FARC;

    While we are aware that Pelosi’s legal counsel is a Soros man whose commitments to bringing down Plan Colombia and aiding and abetting the pro drugs agenda is well known, we are not aware that State Department must roll over and treat the FARC as if this is a legal state group of actors. For it is not. The FARC is a non state subset of narco terrorists whose legitimacy does not exist.

    BBC calls Columbian Senator Cordoba an “opposition senator” but she’s actually FARC’s representation in the legislature. She wants 500 FARC terrorists released in exchange for hostages;

    Colombian opposition Senator Piedad Cordoba, who has been acting as a mediator in the process, confirmed that elements were lacking to “complete the circle” and reach a deal.

    The proposed deal would see the 500 rebel prisoners exchanged for politicians, members of the armed forces, and three US citizens.

    The Miami Herald writes;

    Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba told reporters she expects to meet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday and travel to a federal penitentiary in Texas to meet with Nayibe Rojas, a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

    Rojas is serving a 16-year jail term on drug trafficking charges.

    A meeting with Rice would signal that the Bush administration approves of the mediation effort launched by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Córdoba to secure the release of 45 high-profile hostages held by the FARC in exchange for about 500 FARC rebels in Colombian jails. The Colombian government has blessed the effort.

    Three Pentagon civilian contractors — Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Tom Howes — have been held by the FARC since 2003.

    Córdoba said the State Department told her it is awaiting an offer by the FARC before deciding on a U.S. position.

    Córdoba met Wednesday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. ”This gives us a sense of the importance that the United States has given to this process,” Córdoba said.

    ”The first thing we want to achieve is trust — trust among the FARC, but also the Colombian government and the U.S. government,” she said, adding that a meeting between Chávez and FARC leaders set for Monday in Caracas has been postponed until more details can be worked out. 

    If there’s any truth to this deal, the US Air Force should send in a J-DAM to the meeting and end the whole process. FARC is no less a terrorist enemy of the US than al Qaeda.

  • Obey: War tax to end the war

    David Obey, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee has decided since the Democrats can’t get a draft started, they’ll charge Americans a tax to fan anti-war flames (Washington Times);

    Rep. David R. Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, yesterday threatened unilaterally to block President Bush’s $189 billion emergency war-funding bill to force a U.S. pullout from Iraq and called for levying a surtax to cover the war’s costs.

    Mr. Obey, breaking with the Democratic leadership that has failed repeatedly to end the Iraq war, said unless Mr. Bush establishes a goal to abort combat operations in Iraq by January, he would act alone to cut off war spending.

    “Future generations should not be saddled with paying for an ill-advised war in Iraq that seems to be never-ending,” said the Wisconsin Democrat, who could use his powerful post to lock up the funding bill in committee. “If this war is important enough to fight, then it ought to be important enough to pay for.”

    The proposed income-tax surcharge — a progressive tax ranging from 2 percent to about 15 percent — would net $150 billion a year to cover the cost of the war in Iraq, said Mr. Obey.

    That’s the solution to every problem, I suppose – tax stuff you disagree with.

    Mr. Obey’s proposals did not target the war in Afghanistan, which he said was a justifiable war because the Taliban supported al Qaeda before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

    “It is to draw a meaningful line in the sand,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat and an outspoken war critic. Mr. McGovern and Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, were at Mr. Obey’s side when he announced the surtax plan.

    Yep, the war in Afghanistan is justifiable as long as you look at the war as pure revenge (an emotional response, not a rational response) instead of considering the fact that those 19,000 jihadists we’ve killed in Iraq could’ve been running all over the planet blowing themselves up along with innocent people. But the Democrats can’t just get past the fact that war is not a legal action – it’s a defensive action. All war has a preemptive nature.

    The Wall Street Journal’s David Rogers writes;

    House rules permit Republicans and prowar Democrats to try to go around Mr. Obey and force action on spending. But the chairman’s stand, blessed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), represents a significant escalation of the conflict with the administration.

    It came as moderates in the war debate enjoyed a rare triumph on the House floor. By 377-46, members approved requiring the Pentagon to report regularly to Congress on the status of planning for the redeployment of troops from Iraq.

    Supporters argued it was a first step to end partisan sniping, but many House Democrats remain frustrated by the pace of change in Iraq policy.

    In the past, they have approved Iraq funding with restrictions, only to see these amendments watered down in the Senate because of White House veto threats and Republican filibusters. Ms. Pelosi doesn’t hide her impatience: “We can’t go as slow as that ship” she said of the Senate last week.

    Mr. Obey gives her more leverage. Choosing not to move legislation is “our strongest card at this point,” he said.

    So, not surprisingly, Murtha (Mr. Pink Badge of Courage) and Pelosi are behind this latest end run around the Administration’s honest attempts at winning this war in our favor – as opposed to the Democrats who want to lose this war so they can win the presidency next year. All of this despite the fact that the war in Iraq is being won (as reported by Gateway Pundit and Bill Roggio and Bill Roggio again)

    So why would Democrats try these end runs around the administration? Because it’s their last chance to make splash – it’s their last chance to look like they’ve done something in this war against terror – even though it helps the terrorists. Just to stroke their critics on the extreme left wing.

    Democrats’ spinlessness gives hope to every jihadist in the world – especially those arrayed against our troops in Iraq. I’m sure Pelosi, et al. hope to spark courage in the Mahdi Army again so Democrats can point and call it a civil war – since it hasn’t been a civil war for months and the Iraqis are helping US forces to drive al Qaeda out.

  • Negotiating with terrorists

    By all accounts, the Taliban are getting ther rears waxed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, so in order to stop the killing, Hamed Karzai, the Afghan president, humanely gave the Taliban an opportunity to save themselves from extermination. And their answer? According to the Associated Press;

    Karzai said Saturday he would be willing to meet personally with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and give militants a position in government in exchange for peace. But Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi repeated a position he announced earlier this month, saying there would be no negotiations until U.S. and NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

    “The Taliban will never negotiate with the Afghan government in the presence of foreign forces,” Ahmadi told The Associated Press. “Even if Karzai gives up his presidency, it’s not possible that Mullah Omar would agree to negotiations. The foreign forces don’t have the authority to talk about Afghanistan.”

    I guess it doesn’t matter that “foreign forces” are prevalent in the Taliban, and the Taliban figures they have the authority to talk about Afghanistan. They act like they’re negotiating from a position of strength, don’t they? Actually, they’re just sealing their fate. Terrorist organizations don’t negotitate – they only die.

    Kate from A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective emailed me a Gateway Pundit story about Islamists finally succeeding in damaging the Buddha statue in Swat, Pakistan. GP quotes a Times of India story;

    A seventh-century Buddhist relic in Pakistan was damaged when Islamic militants blasted it with dynamite, police said on Saturday.

    They said that the militants used home-made bombs to try to blow up the mountainside engraving, a Buddhist pilgrimage site, and fired at it using automatic weapons.

    “Late on Friday, militants attempted to blow up the engraving but they could only damage it partially,” local police official Masood Khan said, adding it was the second attempt to destroy the relic, in Swat in northwest Pakistan.  

    Kate sent the story because I mentioned the Arafat-scarf-wearing ANSWER creep at the Burma protest in DC yesterday, but I was thinking of the Buddhist shrine in Afghanistan when I mentioned it.

    I guess there’s no making these little thugs happy – so kill them all. And if the ANSWER creeps want to throw their support behind the Taliban, then maybe they should all enlist in the Taliban.

  • The Nation; Neocons provoke Iran

    I reall don’t think Leftists are much paying attention to the world and it’s dung like this from The Nation’s blogs that reinforce that notion of mine;

    Listen up. Can you hear the drums beating for a third war?

    The neocons are in a bubbling rage over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University. The pro-surge propagandists at Freedom Watch labeled the Iranian leader a “terrorist” in–of all places–a New York Times ad. Neocon godfather, Giuliani advisor and “World War IV” author Norman Podharetz went to the White House recently to urge President Bush to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.

    The title of the piece is in the title of this post – NeoCons provoke Iran. Um, I think Iran has been provoked well before George W. Bush ever became President, in fact before you pinheaded leftists ever thought of using the name “neocon” to describe everyone who thinks that the US is at war. Lemme see – the Iranian government is disregarding international protocols and steaming ahead with a nuclear weapon program. They’re arming their own enemies with weapons to fight against our troops in Iraq, when we’ve done nothing to provoke the Iranians up to this point. They’ve abducted British Marines in international water, for pete’s sake – the British.

    This particular Nation writer, Ari Berman, is upset because of the Senate vote the other day (Wall Street Journal);

    …a symbolic amendment offered by Connecticut maverick Joe Lieberman and Republicans Jon Kyl and Norm Coleman. After marshaling the evidence of Iran’s terrorist activities in Iraq, the amendment stated that “it is a critical national interest of the United States to prevent [Iran] from turning Shi’a militia into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq.” Twenty-one Democrats, including Joe Biden and John Kerry, apparently found this too shocking to support and voted nay, as did Republicans Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar.

    In fact according to the Wall Street Journal, the sponsors had to change the language to get Democrats on board;

    …Democrats only agreed to the amendment after demanding that its language be edited to remove a statement that “it should be the policy of the United States to stop inside Iraq the violent activities and destabilizing influence” of Iran. Also left on the cutting-room floor, under Democratic duress, was a call “to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq” with respect to Iran and its proxies.

    Amazing. We can’t provoke the Iranians, can we?

    The Left has learned nothing from the Viet Nam War. When the North Vietnamese were supplying the Viet Cong and it’s regulars in the south by moving arms and food down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia, Congress forbade both Presidents Johnson and nixon from attacking that supply line because that would be “expanding the war”. The North Vietnamese “expanded the war” when they began moving supplies through Cambodia to further their war efforts.

    Now, without provocation, Iran is supplying their own ideological enemies to fight our troops, and the Democrats want to tie our hands – again.

    I’ll defer to the WSJ editorial board for the final word;

    These are men who seem to fear the Netroots more than the mullahs.