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

Category: Terror War

  • A pro-Democrat post

    A TaH reader (thanks, Brad) emailed me a link to RealClear Politics that, after considering a few hours (remembering the price that Joe Lieberman and Ellen Taucher have paid), I’ve decided to share with other readers. Probably one of the few times you’ll ever see me praise a Democrat. Behold! Ed Koch speaks;

    When the U.S. leaves Iraq, as the Democrats promise they will force President Bush to do, will we face the prospect of emboldened Jihadists, with the cry of “God is Great” on their lips, blowing Americans up here in the States? If terrorists explode radioactive bombs and tank trucks of chlorine gas in American cities, or worse still, full-fledged nuclear weapons, what will our reaction be? Will we be like the English and Spanish who, when their commuter trains were blown up in London and Madrid, rolled over and surrendered to terrorist demands?

    That should be the question that American voters should be asking. Along with;

    Why won’t we take those who threaten us at their word? Why do we continue to make excuses for their threatening behavior until finally we will be forced to act because they have exploded the dirty bomb or the real nuclear bomb in our homeland?

    And the words of warning you’ll never hear from another registered Democrat;

    Wake up, America! This war is not only taking place in Iraq. The struggle is for the future of the world. Our enemies intend to conquer us, and they say so openly. The time to resist is now.

    Of course no entry in praise of Democrats would be complete without mentioning Joe Lieberman’s (I know he’s an Independent, but he’s still a Democrat) piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday entitled The Choice on Iraq. He chastized Democrats for being so overwhelmed by the Bush Derangement Syndrome to admit that Iraq’s outcome will determine our own future;

    But the fact is that we are in a different place in Iraq today from even just a month ago — with a new strategy, a new commander, and more troops on the ground. We are now in a stronger position to ensure basic security — and with that, we are in a stronger position to marginalize the extremists and strengthen the moderates; a stronger position to foster the economic activity that will drain the insurgency and militias of public support; and a stronger position to press the Iraqi government to make the tough decisions that everyone acknowledges are necessary for progress.

    Unfortunately, for many congressional opponents of the war, none of this seems to matter. As the battle of Baghdad just gets underway, they have already made up their minds about America’s cause in Iraq, declaring their intention to put an end to the mission before we have had the time to see whether our new plan will work.

    Lieberman’s final paragraph was equally as powerful as Koch’s, but  a bit less dramatic;

    We are at a critical moment in Iraq — at the beginning of a key battle, in the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, global struggle against the totalitarian ideology of radical Islamism. However tired, however frustrated, however angry we may feel, we must remember that our forces in Iraq carry America’s cause — the cause of freedom — which we abandon at our peril.

    So at least two get it. When can we expect the remainder to follow?

    Just giving up on their “slow-bleed” policy isn’t enough. If Democrats would abandon the moonbat wing, the moonbat wing would go away. If Democrats would abandon that vocal minority of Americans who think that simply bringing home the troops would solve all of our problems and get behind our troops for a few months, they’d triumph. The jihadists and the flakes thrive on attenton. Just ignore them for a few months, for Pete’s sake. 

  • Let’s watch this productive moment in time

    According to AP, (by way of the Wall Street Journal) the US and Iraq will hold a conference with Syria and Iran;

    Envoys from the West and Islamic nations — including Iran, Syria and the U.S. — are expected to attend a conference next month on efforts to stabilize Iraq, a diplomatic adviser said Tuesday.

    Earlier, U.S. and Iraqi forces staged raids in Baghdad’s main Shiite militant stronghold as part of politically sensitive forays into areas loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr.

    The multination conference, planned for mid-March in Baghdad, is an attempt by the government to seek greater regional assistance and study ways to fight insurgents and tensions between Iraq’s majority Shiites and Sunnis. No firm date has been set.

    Talk about mental masturbation. The Iranians and Syrians will take just the event all by itself as an indication that they’ve got us over a barrel and they’ll make all kinds of moronic demands.

    Some nations had expressed reservations about taking part in the conference because of security concerns and political sensitivities.

    I think I’d be more wary of presenting an image of weakness when we’re winning the war than I’d be wary of political sensitivities. Maybe a couple of air strikes on those smugglers on the Iran border would help.

  • Whistling past Iran

    The AP (by way of the Wall Street Journal) is telling us that Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said that the US is in no position to invade Iran;

    “We do not see America in a position to impose another crisis on its tax payers inside America by starting another war in the region,” Mr. Mottaki told reporters.

    Hey, I got news for ya, Junior, it’s all the same war. Yeah, the war began over Hussein, but he’s gone now. Because Iranians couldn’t resist killing Americans, they’ve created their own war in the Middle East post-Hussein. 

    The International Tribune reports that in a raid in Hilla, US troops found more evidence of Iran’s involvement;

    The new evidence includes infrared sensors, electronic triggering devices, and information about plastic explosives used in bombs that the Americans say leads directly back to Iran. The explosive material, triggering devices, other components, and the method of assembly all produce weapons with an Iranian signature that has never been found outside Iraq or southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is believed to have used weapons supplied by Iran, the Americans say.

    This is just phase two of the war. It’s been suspected for years that most of the Taliban leaders went to Iran after the US-backed attack drove them from power, and now weapons and explosives designed particularly to kill US troops are believed to be coming from there. And they’re apparently shielding Mookie al-Sadr from his inevitable demise.

    Of course the International Tribune throws in some doubt that it’s really Iran that’s involved;

    But critics assert that nearly all the bomb components could have been produced in Iraq or somewhere else in the region. Even if the evidence were to establish that Iran is the source, they add, that does not necessarily mean that the Iranian leadership is responsible.

    But an expert says of the copper disc components of some of the devices;

    Could copper discs be manufactured with the required precision in Iraq? “You can never be certain,” Weber said. But he said that “having studied all these groups, I’ve only seen EFPs used in two areas of the world: The Levant and here,” meaning Hezbollah areas of Lebanon and in Iraq. Hezbollah is thought to be directly armed and trained by Iran.

    The Iranian government has brought this inevitable war on themselves.

  • Mookey al-Sadr feeling the “surge”

    According to an AP story in the Washington Times, lovable butterball, al-Sadr sent a message to his followers that he had read by an aide;

    “I’m certain, just like all oppressed Iraqis are certain, that no security plan will work, and no good will come of any occupier,” Sheik al-Sadr said in the statement.
        “Here we are, watching booby-trapped cars exploding to harvest thousands of innocent lives from our beloved people in the middle of a security plan that is controlled by an occupier who does as he pleases.”

    Back in January, al Sadr said the same thing, and then started feeling the heat and dashed off to Iran this month – I guess giving your life for islam is a priviege that’s reserved for the rank-and-file dregs. Now that he’s safely in Iran, he feels his oats enough to flex his lips and, through an aide, incite his troops back into the streets. The only reason he took his militia off the street was to keep them from being irradicated by the US forces. And keep them around to consolidate his own power after the US left.

    I hope US commanders just surge the living shit out of the Mahdi Army and don’t stop this time. It’s a pretty good guess that they’re running out of time and equipment. The AP reports that another weapons cache suspected to be derived from Iran has been discovered outside of Baghdad which brings the total to 63 caches found since February 15th.

    Curt at Flopping Aces discusses the AP’s beclowning of the al-Sadr story.

  • Albright; Iraq policy worst disaster in US foreign policy history

    The ugliest, and arguably the most worthless Secretary of State in history, Madeleine Albright, claims that Iraq may be the greatest US foreign policy failure in history;

    “I think that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy,” Albright said, with former President Jimmy Carter at her side in one of a series of “Conversations at the Carter Center.”

    “We have lost the element of goodness in American power, and we have lost our moral authority,” she said. “The job of the next president will be to restore the goodness of American power.”

    I guess she didn’t hear that Haiti is still going badly, the Somalis just now rid themselves, for however briefly, of the al Qaida influeces in their country after the Klintoons bailed on them nearly 13 years ago. How’s that Bosnia thing going, Maddy? Remember the one that you and the guys promised we’d be out of 11 years ago?

    And do you remember that Yassir Arafat was begging for a peace deal with Israel under President Bush 41, but by the end of your administration, he was strutting around rejecting the sweetheart deals you and your boss were offering?

    Since you had Jimmy Carter next to you, ask him how the hostage crisis went in Iran. Ask him about the 9,000 Soviet combat soldiers that were stationed in Cuba to prevent us from responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (as if Carter would have responded anyway). And I guess a reasonable person could draw a straight line from the policy failures of Carter and Clintoon to the troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan today, couldn’t they?

    Let’s talk about the “goodness” of American power. The truth is, Maddy, most Americans could give a tiny rat’s ass what the rest of the world thinks of us as long as we have food on the table, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. And we’re not worried that we might get blown to pieces on the way to the supermarket this morning. 

    Regardless of what you might think, the “goodness” of American power is in the eyes of the beholder. Countries who don’t see the goodness of America’s power today aren’t acting in the best interests of their own people, and they certainly don’t care a whit whether you, an American (I’m guessing you’re an American this week) are still breathing in the morning.

    Oh, and then, all pumped by Maddy, Jimmy Carter (my favorite pointer-outer of American failures) started yapping;

    Carter said all previous presidents have said the United States would go to war only if its security was endangered, but that President Bush made it clear that there is a new policy of pre-emptive war.

    Um, Jimmy, do you remember the Carter Doctrine? Do you remember that you pre-emptively stationed a couple of US warships in the Persian Gulf to protect the free flow of Gulf oil at market prices? Apparently not.

    This what is killing the Democrat Party. The people who claim to be the voice of the Democrat Party just act like they’re so damn smart – and there are enough syncophantic lunkheads out there who want to be thought of as smart, too. So they just nod and smile like a class full of college freshmen who just heard the first paragraph of The Odessey read to them in Greek.Then the lunkheads go forth and regurgitate this baseless, vile stuff everywhere across the internet on discussion boards – then they link to mierda like this as if it’s some sort of evidence of their towering intellect. And other lunkheads join the choir.

    Someone prove me wrong and tell me about one enduring foreign policy triumph of either Carter or Albright. Just one. Successfully forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1988 by boycotting the Moscow Olympics in 1980 doesn’t count, however.

  • I guess ya hafta be there to understand

    After Tony Blair announced that the UK was drawing down 1/3 of it’s presence in Iraq, the whiteflag Republicans started freaking out according to the Washington Post’s Jonathan Weisman and Peter Baker;

    “What I’m worried about is that the American public will be quite perplexed by the president adding forces while our principal ally is subtracting forces,” said Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), a longtime war supporter who opposes Bush’s troop increase. “That is the burden we are being left with here.”

    The notion that the British pullback actually signals success sounds like bad spin, added Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). “I think it’s Alice in Wonderland looking through the looking glass,” he said.

    It’s almost as if they didn’t believe the President when he said we wouldn’t be in Iraq one more minute than we needed to be there. Blair is only pulling 1/3 fewer troops than he has now because THEY’RE NOT NEEDED. When was the last time we heard of a major assault in predominantly Shi’ite Basra?

    In fact on the second internet page of the WaPo story cooler heads are quoted;

    “What the British are doing, and what we really need to do, is to tease out the cultural complexities of this thing,” said Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.). “On the one hand, they are signaling to all the Iraqi people, whatever sect they are — Sunnis, Shias, Kurds — they are not going to be an occupying force. That’s a powerful signal to send. And the other signal is that they are passing the torch to the Iraqis, who are the only ones who can handle this ancient — I’d say primitive — sectarian dispute.”

    The White House argued that comparing the British situation in Basra and the U.S. position in Baghdad fundamentally distorts reality. The south, where the British have been in charge, has no Sunni insurgency and far less violence than Baghdad or Anbar. The coalition plan all along has been to pull out foreign troops when an area is ready for Iraqi control, the White House said.

    The announcement was hardly a surprise to Bush Administration despite the WaPo’s opinion posited as a headline that it was awkward timing. Sharon Behn of the Washington Times quotes Secretary of State Rice;

    “The coalition remains intact,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a visit to Berlin. “It is the plan that — as it is possible to transfer responsibilities to the Iraqis — coalition forces would no longer be needed.”

    And the Brits aren’t withdrawing completely. Apparently Prince Harry is being deployed to Iraq in the Spring;

    Harry – a second lieutenant – has expressed his desire to serve alongside his comrades in Iraq, saying that there was “no way” he was going to undergo rigorous training and then stay away from the battlefield. He graduated last year from Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.

    Good on him! That might help the British understand why soldiers go to war. Might.

    According to BBC News, Tony Blair insists that he’s not opposed to sending more troops if they’re needed in Iraq again;

    However, when he was asked about reversing that decision on the Today programme, he said: “I don’t want to get into speculating about that because we have the full combat capability that’s there.

    “So, if we’re needed to go back in any special set of circumstances we can, but that’s not the same as then increasing back the number.” 

    So how the Washington Post considers this “awkward”, I have no idea.

    UPDATE; By way of Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, I discovered that Reihl World View has a link up to a January 11, 2007 BBC article announcing Blair’s plan to withdraw some troops from Iraq.

  • General Murtha pretends to care about the troops

    According to Fox News‘ Greg Simmons, Murtha used an internet-broadcast interview with MoveCongress.org, a far-Left, anti-war website, to try to get his message out. His message? Screw the troops who are currently engaged in Iraq.

    According to his interview, Murtha claims;

    The Bush administration “won’t be able to continue. They won’t be able to do the deployment. They won’t have the equipment. They don’t have the training and they won’t be able to do the work,” Murtha said in the post on the Democrat-friendly Web site MoveCongress.org. “This vote will limit the options of the president and should stop this surge.”

    So with Sadr on the run, US troops in theater shifted around and pressing the enemy, Murtha wants to stop reinforcments and supplies from reaching those under fire at the moment.

    Murtha said the legislation would not necessarily deprive the administration of money but would redirect it, and it would be crafted to protect the troops, not harm them.

    “We need to make sure that everybody understands we’re going to support the troops. We’re going to give the troops everything they need. We’re not going to .. make any of them vulnerable,” Murtha said. “But we’re going to make darn sure that they have what they need before they go over.”

    By crafting legislation with those goals in mind, Murtha said, “that stops the surge for all intents and purposes.”

    What a juvenile, half-assed approach to war. How many more of our troops will be spilling their blood to feed John Murtha’s gagantuan ego while he hides behind troops yet to be deployed while sniping at the folks in theater?

    Murtha tones down the insane, threatening rhetoric for the mainstream media (more specifically the Washington Times’ Jon Ward);

    “This legislation will force the administration to consider alternatives rather than escalating,” said Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, describing limitations he intends to place on an appropriations bill next month.

    Of course, Dennis Kuscinich, the Emporer of Peace is a little more extreme;

     “The American people want us to get out of Iraq,” Mr. Kucinich said. “They expect Democrats to move quickly to end our involvement in Iraq. If Congress approves the supplemental appropriation, President Bush will have the money he needs to keep the war going through the end of his term.”

    Not only does Kuscinich not understand how to fight wars, he also doesn’t understand what the American people want. But then, which Democrat does. They constantly invoke the “American people” in their insane blather, but when was the last time they really listened to the American people?

    In the Senate, Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports that Dingy Harry Reid has called for a Saturday vote on the Iraq War resolution;

    “Time is of the essence,” Reid told a rapt audience in the Senate television studio yesterday afternoon. “That’s why the Senate will have another Iraq vote on Saturday.”

    I guess he thinks that pressuring the Senators to work a full week will frighten them into submission. Little Chuckie Schumer pipes in;

    The “vote on Saturday is a crucial vote not just for the moment or for the week, but for the history of America,” added an overwrought Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “We’re calling their bluff. We’re staying here. Now vote yes or no.”

    The Post also points out that he’s caused more of a distraction to Democrat presidential hopefuls than to Republicans, though. So who cares. I guess it’s too hopeful to wish that they’d drown in a river of their tears.

    And, according to the Washington Post, Joe Biden has a time machine;

    Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he will seek to repeal the 2002 congressional authorization for Bush to wage war in Iraq and substitute legislation that would narrow the mission of troops there and begin to bring some home.

    Haven’t the American people already been heard on that 2002 authorization? How does Biden think he can unfire that revolver? The only thing he can possible do is give aid and comfort to our enemies. But, I guess that’s Joe Biden’s way. Between Biden and Murtha, our enemies must pleased as pigs in clover. 

    And the President gets in his licks;

    But Bush, who has challenged lawmakers not to cut off funds for the troops, took a swipe at his critics during the day.

    “This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle,” the president said.

    And at least some Republicans have something valuable to contribute;

    “The enemy wants our men and women in uniform to think their Congress doesn’t care about them,” said Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, who was a prisoner of war during Vietnam. “We must learn from our mistakes. We cannot leave a job undone like we left in Korea, like we left in Vietnam, like we left in Somalia,” Johnson said.

    Added Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky., a West Point graduate who was a flight commander with the Army’s 82nd Airborne: “This nonbinding resolution serves no purpose other than pacifying the Democrats’ political base and lowering morale in our military.”

    Unlike some others.

  • Iranians supply insurgents

    Both the Washington Times and Washington Post lead their news with stories about Iranians supplying insurgents in Iraq with their most deadly weapons against our troops. the difference in the stories is the degree to which the authors belive the information;

    From Bill Gertz’ Washington Times story;

    Iran is supplying deadly shoulder-fired missiles and armor-piercing bombs to Iraqi insurgents, along with TNT, triggering devices, rockets and other weapons that are killing and injuring hundreds of U.S. and allied troops, a U.S. military intelligence report made public yesterday says.
        The detailed briefing report, titled “Iranian Support for Lethal Activity in Iraq,” stated that Iranian Misagh-1 portable anti-aircraft missiles were found after a failed attempt to shoot down a plane at Baghdad’s airport in 2004.  

    From Joshua Partlow’s Washington Post story;

    Senior U.S. military officials in Iraq sought Sunday to link Iran to deadly armor-piercing explosives and other weapons that they said are being used to kill U.S. and Iraqi troops with increasing regularity.

    See the difference? Gertz says “is supplying” and “the report stated”, while Partlow uses the weak “military officials sought to link”. So I guess Partlow wants this to be a legal case not a military operation. Careful not to make the Iranians look guilty before it’s proven in some as-yet-to-be decided court case, I guess.

    And the Associated Press rushes Iran’s denial to the web;

    In a rare interview with the US media given amid mounting tensions with the Islamic republic’s arch-enemy in Washington, Ahmadinejad told ABC television that that he did not fear a US attack.

    “Fear? Why should we be afraid? First, the possibility is very low,” he said the day after the United States accused Iranian agents of smuggling armour-piercing bombs into war-torn Iraq.

    “Our nation has made it clear that anyone who wants to attack our country will be severely punished,” Ahmadinejad added Monday.

    While the Iranian leader sidestepped US accusations that Iran is supplying potent weapons to Iraq insurgents, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini categorically rejected the charge.

    From Milblogs we read the Iranian threats to our Navy with their “suicide drones”. And Putin denies he gave missile technology to Iran despite evidence to the contrary.

    The Washington Post also warns us that the Shi’ite/Sunni “civil war” is spreading to Egypt;

    Fought in speeches, newspaper columns, rumors swirling through cafes and the Internet, and occasional bursts of strife, the conflict is predominantly shaped by politics: a disintegrating Iraq, an ascendant Iran, a sense of Arab powerlessness and a persistent suspicion of American intentions.

    Of course it’s the US fault. Did you think the WaPo could write one story that didn’t decribe us as “suspicious”?

    No one fears us anymore because the Left has made it clear that we’re ready to surrender. The Iranians will continue to fight us in this proxy war because we’ve lost our stomach to rid the world of evil. And the reason we’ve lost our stomach is the weasel words of Murtha, Kerry, Webb, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, etcetera, ad nauseum.

    The Left is preempting any effective attempt to blunt Iranian power in the region by making this ideological fight about politics.

    “Every leader in the region and every observer, every expert here in our country, tells us that Iran does not want a complete and total implosion in Iraq,” Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said Sunday.

    And no leader in the Arab World has ever lied to us have they, Kerry?

    But Democratic Sen. Jack Reed wondered whether the influx of Iranian armaments was a plan by the Islamic regime in Tehran or just “rogue elements” within it.

    Rogue elements, Mr Reed? Have you been paying attention the last few months? The government of Iran is rogue.  Sometimes I wonder if they’ve been on the same planet as the rest of us for the last few centuries.

    The Iranians know we’ve become gutless because of Democrats – why would they be using the Democrats’s same weasel words? The Democrats know that they are causing our decline in world stature, too, but they hide behind their false-patriotism. While American blood is spilled by the barrels-full at the alter of Leftism.