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

Category: Terror War

  • 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.

  • Democrats discuss unringing the bell

    According to S.A.Miller in today’s Washington Times, Democrats are looking for another way to surrender to Islamofacist terrorism;

    “The 2002 authorization to use force has run its course,” said Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
        He announced the planned legislation jointly with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat who serves alongside Mr. Byrd on the Armed Services Committee.
        “It is time — past time — to decommission this authorization and retire it to the archives,” Mr. Byrd said on the Senate floor. “The president must redefine the goals and submit his plan to achieve them to a thorough and open debate in the Congress and throughout the country. That is the American way.”

    I guess they figured that the President’s veto didn’t absolve them of their 2002 vote for the use of military force against Saddam Hussein like they planned – so they’re just going to unring that bell. 

    Why would they, the day after they pledged to work with the President after he vetoed their first Capitulation Proclamation, decide to take another run at the surrender route? Easy. They climbed in bed with Cindy Sheehan, MoveOn.org, the KosKids, and ignorant oafs like Eugene Robinson and they’ve staked their political futures on being anti-George Bush and because they’re tied to the uneducated, emotion-driven drama queens of the Left and there’s no room for compromise with those emotional, intellectually-vacant freaks.

       “There is nothing off the table — including timetables. Nothing,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.
        His words were directed at peace activists who have unleashed their wrath against Democratic leaders in Congress for indicating that they will back down from Mr. Bush and nix a troop-pullout timetable from the war funding bill.
        “If they prove unable to stand up and do the job they were elected to do, there is no telling what will happen next [election] time,” said Dana Balicki, national organizer for Code Pink, a feminist group opposing the war in Iraq.
        “It’s about what you do, not what you say,” she said. “We will hold them accountable.”
        Cindy Sheehan, the activist who famously picketed the president at his Texas ranch, says her least favorite politician now is Mrs. Clinton because of her “unflinching support of George Bush’s war.”

    What’s that old saw about laying down with dogs? It’s all about holding on to their political cash now – having money for the 2008 election is more impoartant than our National Security.

    Meanwhile, over in the House, they’ve settled in to their own set of schemes, according to Anne Flaherty of AP;

    In a closed-door leadership meeting Thursday, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., suggested that the House guarantee funding of the war only through July. The bill would provide additional money after that point, but give Congress a chance to deny those funds be used if the Iraqi government does not meet certain benchmarks.

    Two months of funding at a time. Good job, nimrods. How brave of you all. And since the terrorists know know they only have to wait a couple of months, or they only have to fight a couple of months and sacrifice a few thousands of their jihadists to make it appear as if they’re stronger than they are, failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    Anyone remember Tet of ’68? The Viet Cong were nearly wiped out – their losses were so bad that they ceased being an effective fighting force for the remainder of the war in Vietnam. But because they’d fought so tenaciously, the media thought they still had fight left in them and declared the war unwinnable – a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

    Elsewhere on the web, Captain’s Quarters’ Ed Morrissey writes about Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari’s plea in the Washington Post that we (Americans) not abandon Iraqis to the terrorists there. Roy Robison, on the American Thinker, accuses the Democrats of going “cowboy”.

  • Me? I’ll vote for any Republican.

    I’ve heard, and read, so many Republicans complain about certain members of the Republican field of candidates and declare “I wouldn’t vote for that guy under any circumstances!” Well, I “feel” the same way sometimes. There are none of the top three or four that excite me to action. But the alternative is frightening.

    Reading the websites of the Democrat candidates is like looking through a tear in time and space.

    Apparently Barack Obama has been busy during his two years as a Senator;

    Reaching across the aisle, Obama has tackled problems such as preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and stopping the genocide in Darfur.

    I’m sure the folks in Darfur are grateful that Obama has stopped the genocide being inflicted on their population. I suppose they all live on peaceful cul de sacs now that the genocide has ended. And I suppose Obama personally went to Libya and disarmed Gaddafi – what a brave soul.

    As far on the war against terror goes, Obama, apparently had intelligence that no one in the federal government had;

    In 2002, then Illinois State Senator Obama said Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the United States and that invasion would lead to an occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

    How did that youngster know about the status of Hussein’s weapons when the entire world thought he had weapons? And President Bush said the same thing about the length of time and the cost, didn’t he?

    Energy? Obama is a “leader”;

    Senator Obama has been a leader in the Senate in pushing for a comprehensive national energy policy and has introduced a number of bills to get us closer to the goal of energy independence.

    Does that mean that he’s for drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf or opening the reserves in Alaska? Of course not;

    By putting aside partisan battles, he has found common ground on CAFE, renewable fuels, and clean coal.

    Yep, that’s the ticket – half-assed, feel good, “progressive” non-solutions. A fine candidate , indeed.

    But, try to find out what Hillary Clinton’s issues are. You have to slog through through her biography to find…nothing;

    Hillary has not wavered in her work to expand quality affordable health care to more Americans…

    Her strong advocacy for children continues in the Senate…

    Hillary has been a powerful advocate for women in the Senate…

    Hillary is strongly committed to making sure that every American has the right to vote in fair, accessible, and credible elections….

    Nothing disagreeable there. So she’s a bland candidate with nothing to offer Americans except bland platitudes – and don’t forget to sign up to have a Hillary Party in your home or hand over some cash – these webs sites ain’t free ya know.

    And my personal favorite, John Edwards – I’d vote for him in a primary because he’s so fricken transparent in his hypocrisy.

    On his web site Edwards claims he wants to end our dependence on foreign oil – no, not by drilling our own oil, by;

    …investing in clean, renewable energies like wind, solar, and biofuels to create a new energy economy, developing a new generation of efficient cars and trucks, and putting new energy-saving technologies to work in buildings, transportation, and industry.

    Of course if we don’t drill our own oil, we’ll still be buying foreign oil for those “efficient cars and trucks”, won’t we? But not to worry, Edwards will be leading us to energy independence because his mega-mansion and his campaign are “energy neutral“. Apparently just by declaring that in public makes it so.

    But that ain’t all! Edwards is going to eliminate poverty;

    Every day, 37 million Americans wake in poverty.

    Yeah, they wake up about noon, roll over and turn on “The View” and grab the “Cheetos” bag next to the bed from the night before. Do any of these 37 million people have families that can start haranguing them about looking for work? Nope, but they’ve got John Edwards;

    We can reach that goal by creating and rewarding work, strengthening families, helping workers save and get ahead, transforming our schools, expanding access to college, breaking up areas of concentrated poverty, reaching overlooked rural areas, and expecting people to help themselves by working whenever they are able.

    It’s just that simple – just expect people to do better, and they will. Why hasn’t anyone else thought of this?

    And on the overarching issue of our time, our war against terrorism? Well, Edwards wants to restore our moral leadership in the world. How you ask? By surrendering and pulling our troops out of the war;

    …immediately withdrawing 40,000-50,000 troops from Iraq, with the complete withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq within 12-18 months — allowing the Iraqis to assume greater responsibility for rebuilding their own country. It also means working to restore our legitimacy by leading on the great challenges before us like the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the genocide in Darfur, extreme poverty, and living up to our ideals in the fight against terrorism.

    I guess Edwards didn’t hear that Obama already ended genocide in Darfur.

    I’ll grant that none of the Republicans look particularly vote-worthy, but compared to what’s on the other side, they look like gems to me. For the best liveblogging of the Republican debate last night, see Sister Toldjah, for the best wrap-up see Rick Moran at the Rightwing Nuthouse.

  • Reality sets in for Dems

    So after a month of posturing and daring the President to veto their pork-laden Capitulation Proclamation, Democrats realized that they can’t even get the weakest version of their surrender passed. According to the Washington Times’ S.A. Miller and Jon Ward;

    The Democrat-led House yesterday failed to override President Bush’s veto of an emergency war-funding bill with a troop-withdrawal timetable for Iraq, after House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Congress should quickly pass a new version without a pullout plan.
        The attempt to reverse Mr. Bush’s veto failed in a 222-203 vote, more than 60 votes short of the needed two-thirds majority, which also would have had to have been mustered in the Senate.

    So now they have to get down to business and craft something the President will sign – like they should have been doing instead of making empty political statements and trying to pass the buck to the President for their own votes back in 2002. The Washington Post reports that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the darling of terrorists everywhere, was still feeling froggy;

    “We made our position clear. He made his position clear. Now it is time for us to try to work together,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said after a White House meeting. “But make no mistake: Democrats are committed to ending this war.”

    Pretty weak, though. The Republicans are committed to ending this war, too, Blinky – Republicans, mostly, want to end it so we don’t have to go back in another decade, as opposed to Democrats who want to end for a year or so and then blame the Republicans when it flares up again – just like they used the first Gulf War and it’s untimely end against Republicans throughout the 90s. 

    Bush said he is “confident that we can reach agreement,” and he assigned three top aides to negotiate. White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and budget director Rob Portman will go to Capitol Hill today to sit down with leaders of both parties.

    Sure they can reach an agreement – the Democrats figured out that Republicans and real Americans aren’t completely taken in by their over-heated rhetoric. And just to be clear, there were Democrats who voted against overriding the veto, too. From Politico;

    Seven Democrats broke ranks and voted with the GOP: Reps. John Barrow of Georgia, Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Lincoln Davis of Tennessee, Jim Marshall of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah, Michael R. McNulty of New York and Gene Taylor of Mississippi.

    Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), a leading war critic and Democratic presidential candidate, voted “present.”

    Brave little Denny Kucinich couldn’t bring himself to vote for the failed bill. Truly the future firt Secretary of Peace.

    I’ve said time and again, the Democrats don’t control this country – except their own tiny, closed minds. They call a coupla seat victory in midterm elections a mandate to end the war, but if that were true, Republicans would be feeling pressure from the constituency – but they’re not. Well, mostly. from the Washington Times piece;

    “This bill is not the last word,” said the Maryland Democrat, who explained that the strategy to deal with the impasse is being developed. He said he expects the House to pass a new war-funding bill within two weeks, leaving the Senate two weeks to approve it before Congress takes a weeklong Memorial Day recess at the end of May.
        “We’re not going to leave our troops there in harm’s way at the point of the spear without the resources they need to achieve success,” he said, signaling that the leadership will fund the troops first and oppose the war later.

    That’s where the American voters are – think Old Finger-in-the-wind Hoyer would’ve made such a statement if he hadn’t done his research about where the majority of Americans stand? Nope. No way. From the Post’s story;

    House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) indicated that the next bill will include benchmarks for Iraq — such as passing a law to share oil revenue, quelling religious violence and disarming sectarian militias — to keep its government on course. Failure to meet benchmarks could cost Baghdad billions of dollars in nonmilitary aid, and the administration would be required to report to Congress every 30 days on the military and political situation in Iraq.

    Benchmarks have emerged as the most likely foundation for bipartisan consensus and were part of yesterday’s White House meeting, participants said. “I believe the president is open to a discussion on benchmarks,” said Senate Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), who attended the session. He added that no terms were discussed. “We didn’t go into any kind of detail,” Durbin said.

    See, that’s what they should have been doing for more than a month now instead of running to a microphone and reminding us that they have a slim majority of the seats in Congress and whining that the President isn’t paying attention to their polling data. Apparently, Americans weren’t paying attention their polling data either.

  • Pelosi’s a hit – with Syrians

    Betsy Pisik writes in the Washington Times about Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s new constituency – in Syria;

       The California Democrat warmed Syrian hearts with her trip last month to Damascus, an event that people still share with visiting Americans as conversational currency.
        “Nancy Pelosi is good, yes?” asked a Damascus laborer who found himself sitting next to an American at a greasy gyro stand this week. “Nancy Pelosi, good American?”

    No, my friend, she’s not a good American. She’s a good Democrat which means, how you say, she talks a good game but she’s an empty suit. For example she made peace overtures to Syria from Israel which were lies and unsolicited. She did it to make nice with your slick-ass President and to embarrass ours as pointed out in this Washington Post editorial;

     Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that “Israel was ready to engage in peace talks” with Syria. What’s more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to “resume the peace process” as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. “We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria,” she said.

    Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. “What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel,” said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister’s office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that “a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel.” In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel’s position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad’s words were mere propaganda.

    She not only took it upon herself to presume to speak for the American people, she also presented herself as a messenger of the Israeli government. If the Syrians like that, they don’t deserve a democracy.

    But back to the Pisik/WashTimes article;

        “She was enormously popular here, a hero,” said one such resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “This is the best thing that has happened here, if it proves [Mr. Assad] was right not to give concessions.” 

      Along with recent visits by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and officials from the European Union, the resident added, Mrs. Pelosi’s trip “bolsters the regime with the Syrian people, and it shows that isolating Syria won’t work.”

    See? By concessions, Syrians mean stopping Hezbollah attacks on Israel and infiltrating support to the anti-government forces in Iraq. In other words, Syrians think Pelosi gave them permission to continue to support terrorists. Pelosi is not a good American. 

    Mrs. Pelosi said she raised substantive issues with Syrian leaders, urging them to stop insurgents from entering Iraq, help win the release of Israeli soldiers thought to be held captive by Lebanese and Palestinian militias, and end Syria’s support for terrorist groups. 

    I’m pretty sure that if Pelosi did bring up those issues in her “private” meeting with Bashur, it was in such convoluted double-speak popular with elitist diplomats that only confuses the intended recipient.

    But this Iraqi woman kind of sums it all up;

      “She is a different face of America, but she does not have ideas, any solutions,” the Iraqi woman said. “I watch TV all day, and I know that only the faces change.” 

    I guess she fooled the Syrians, but the folks who have to bear the brunt of the results of her insolent posturing can see right through her.

     

  • Take THAT Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan

    I don’t usually post more article than commentary, but this story says it all.

    John Ward in the Washington Times writes about the pen President Bush used yesterday to veto the Democrats’ cobbled-together, pork-laden defense spending bill – otherwise known as the Capitulation Proclamation; 

        The pen was a gift from the father of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq, who asked Mr. Bush last month to use it when he vetoed a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.
        Robert Derga, of Uniontown, Ohio, gave Mr. Bush the pen after an April 16 speech by the president at the White House.
        Mr. Bush invited a number of “Gold Star Families” — families who have lost a U.S. military member in Iraq — to the speech, and met with them afterwards in the Oval Office.
    * * * * *

     “I looked the president square in the eye,” Mr. Derga said. “I looked at him and said, ‘Mr. President, if this Iraq supplemental comes down to a veto I want you to use my pen to do it.’”
        Mr. Bush “kind of looked at me funny for a moment and then said, ‘Absolutely,’ and then handed the pen to his assistant,” Mr. Derga said.
        “He assured me he would use it,” Mr. Derga said.
    * * * * *

      Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Derga was shutting off his computer at work, around 5:30, when he received a call from Jared Weinstein, Mr. Bush’s personal aide.
        Mr. Weinstein was calling “to tell me that the president had signed the veto with my pen.”
        “They wanted to again give their heartfelt condolences on our loss of Dustin,” Mr. Derga said. “I was pretty blown away is one way of putting it. I couldn’t believe he actually did it.”

    I thought it was more than appropriate. Please read the rest of the story for more background.

    UPDATE: The Washington Post is running the same story in an Anne Flaherty-written AP story – well sorta. You have to plow through a page-and-a-half of anti-Bush blather until you reach a two-paragraph blurb followed by;

    Minutes after Bush vetoed the bill, an anti-war demonstrator stood outside the White House with a bullhorn: “How many more must die? How many more must die?”

    Then another page-and-a-half of anti-Bush blather. But, there’s no bias in the media.

  • No bias in the media

    Just minding my own business, reading today’s news and I stopped dead at this quote in a Jennifer Loven-written article for the AP in the Washington Examiner;

    Bush’s appearance came exactly four years after his speech on an aircraft carrier decorated with a huge “Mission Accomplished” banner. In that address, a frequent target of Democrats seeking to ridicule the president, he declared that the Iraq front in the global fight against terrorism had been successfully completed.

    “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” the president said from the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, just weeks after the war began. “In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

    At the time, Bush’s approval rating was 63 percent, with the public’s disapproval at 34 percent.

    Four years later, with over 3,300 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and the country gripped by unrelenting violence and political uncertainty, only 35 percent of the public approves of the job the president is doing, while 62 percent disapprove, according to an April 2-4 poll from AP-Ipsos.

    Yup a one-line quote from the President’s speech followed by approval/disapproval ratings. Just reading that quote, you’d think the President had declared the war over. Now, my memory is failing me a bit sometimes, but I’d have sworn that he said more than that.

    Sure enough, from the White House website I found the transcript of the President’s speech that day;

    We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We’re helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people.

    The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

    Funny, sounds to me like the President was warning us that the war isn’t over – that it’d take years for our work in Iraq to end. It almost sounds as if he wasn’t saying “Mission Accomplished” at all.

    From Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post the same line with the same type of commentary;

    Four years ago today, Bush flew aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in “Top Gun” style, stood under a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished,” and proudly declared: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

    The event was initially hailed as a brilliant act of White House stagecraft, showcasing Bush as a powerful and resolute leader.

    But as time passed, the “mission” was exposed as a delusion. There were no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. And there is little sense of accomplishment.

    Funny, but I don’t see the words “Mission Accomplished” in the speech. I know the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln hung a banner on their ship that proclaimed that their mission had been accomplished in Iraq and the President welcomed them home, but I don’t see anyplace where the president was anything except proud of the job this crew and the forces in general had done.

    Froomkin also misses the mark on weapons of mass destruction, too. You’d think he’d not want to show us his ass on such an easily researched point. But the “No WMDs” meme is just spit out reflexively these days. yeah, there is a lot less there than we thought, but it was there nonetheless, Dan. And if you count what we got off the Arab Street from Libya as a reaction to our invasion of Hussein’s Iraq, it starts to add up.

    “We have difficult work to do” and “…will take time” tells me that the President was being nothing short of candid and honest with the American people. But it seems to me that Jennifer Loven and Dan Froomkin are falling short of being candid and honest with their readers. 

  • The Self-fulfilling Prophecy

    I’ve been saying for years that this war in Iraq has dragged on because of the anti-war Democrats incessant yapping and the media’s focus on troops’ injuries instead of their accomplishments. The proof comes this month. While the Washington Post dances a jig over the 100 casualties of the past month, do they for one minute wonder why?

    The deaths of more than 100 American troops in April made it the deadliest month so far this year for U.S. forces in Iraq, underscoring the growing exposure of Americans as thousands of reinforcements arrive for an 11-week-old offensive to tame sectarian violence.

    More than 60 Iraqis also were killed or found dead across Iraq on Monday. Casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces have outstripped those of Americans throughout the war. In March, a total of 2,762 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, down 4 percent from the previous month, when 2,864 were killed. Iraq’s government has yet to release any monthly totals for April.

    Of course, it’s Bush’s fault for sending more troops into the fray. I guess it couldn’t be because the enemy sees an opportunity to influence US policy by making the president look bad while he vetoes the corruption-ridden defense spending bill, could it? I guess it’d be too honest to posit an alternate scenario to the readers instead of the intellectually vacant “more troops=more casualties”.

    Why would I think such a thing?

    Highlighting the vulnerability of American forces, a series of explosions Monday night rocked Baghdad’s Green Zone, the most heavily secured enclave in the capital and home to thousands of U.S. troops, Western diplomats and Iraqi government officials.

    Hmmmm, the night before the President gets the bill from Congress, the Green Zone gets mortared. Just a coincidence? Especially since the enemy knows there are fewer troops in the Green Zone last night than there were a month ago. Naw, it’s just a publicity stunt by the enemy to make the American public think they’re as strong as ever.

    And the media is going along with it – just like they did during the ’68 Tet battle that reduced the Viet Cong to an ineffective fighting force for the remainder of the war in Vietnam, but strengthened them PR-wise when Walter Cronkite and the rest of the press declared the war lost.

    A logical person would notice that al-Sadr came out of hiding in Iran for a moment or two to urge his Mahdi army to attack Americans just as the debate in Congress was starting to go his way just weeks after the surge began and forced al-Sadr to seek refuge in Iran. Think the Washington Post could notice that for a minute?

    The Post isn’t the only one. AP is positively giddy about numbers, too. And they arrive at the same conclusion as the Post;

       All but one of the latest U.S. deaths occurred in Baghdad, where a nearly 11-week security crackdown has put thousands of additional American soldiers on the streets — making them targets for both Shi’ite and Sunni extremists.

    It’s just easier to spew out cause-effect theories supported by shallow interpretations of the numbers rather than admit that the monkey-shines of Pelosi, Murtha, Reid Schumer, et al. are the real cause.

    Monkeyshines like what S.A. Miller is reporting in the Washington Times this morning;

       House Democrats are expected to attempt to override the veto this week, although they likely are at least 70 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to succeed. The failure of the House vote would make a Senate action unnecessary because both chambers are needed to defeat a veto. 

    To me, this means that Democrats are absolutely out of ideas. They could have spent the last month reworking their bill and presenting the new work to the President, but instead they keep beating the same drum knowing it’s a failure. Too bad the Democrats can’t be this persistant when it comes to our national security. 

    That’s OK, because as I’ve said countless times before, the Left and it’s willing accomplices in the media will pay a price eventually for their behavior – just like the price they paid after Vietnam. They’ll all go down in history as the punchline of some hillariouos joke.