It May Get Uglier In Iraq

Is Acknowledging a 100 Year Old Crime Worth One Soldier's Life Today?

With this news pushing to the front, the situation in Iraq and the wider region could boil over. Did Turkey commit genocide on Armenians in World War I? Absolutely. Is it necessary for Congress to make an official proclamation about it when we have thousands of our soldiers in harm's way?

The Democrats must know that what they are doing is causing tensions to rise in Turkey, and by extension in Iraq. Where was the fervor to acknowledge this crime in the last nine decades? Assuming that they are aware of the implications, how do they explain the need for such a proclamation nearly 100 years later when our soldiers may experience a direct impact in their theater of operations?

They can't. This petty behavior at such a perilous crossroads causes me to almost lose faith in our system of government. If the Democrats want to behave like petulant jackasses, let them do it with issues that won't get soldiers killed. Or, they could be adults and do their electioneering with the strength of their own alternatives.

The problem with the last sentence is that, if nothing else, the Democrats as a whole have demonstrated that while they have plenty of hot air, they have no ideas. It takes an idea to create an alternative.

A party built on dissent has no vision. Will Americans follow the blind? We'll find out for better or worse in 2008.

Republican Debate: No Runs, No Hits, No Errors

At some point, we'll get to the primaries and this seemingly endless debating will be a distant memory. For the moment, the debates serve as a sort of political batting practice, where home runs aren't scored and whiffs are quickly forgotten. Yesterday's hoorah was little different.

Scanning the headlines this morning, the mish-mash of statements about the candidates show only one clear loser: John McCain. McCain has almost been annointed the official afterthought of the campaign. Some headlines scream Thompson stinks, some say he won, some highlight Rudy and Romney's tax rift, but none include the Arizona Senator.

Only on CNN did he get a mention, and that came when the subject of immigration rolled around. The analysts were saying McCain has changed his tune. He could be singing clear pitch on that one and nobody will listen. McCain's credibility on immigration is about as solid as Hillary Clinton's on ethics in fundraising.

As for the other candidates, nothing was won or lost. No one was injured by a fastball on the knuckles. That's about as good as one can hope to achieve in batting practice.

Thompson on the Hot Seat

Fred Thompson does not want to join the Yankees

Most pundits agree that Fred Thompson must play error-free to even have a chance at the Republican nod. With so many strikes against him (See: McCain-Feingold for reference), Thompson has to be the best candidate on each stage in each city. A gaffe in tonight's debate could be a serious blow to his campaign.

Hugh Hewitt points out that the Thompson campaign may have already made a pre-debate blunder, and his take is an interesting one. Either way, tonight will be a big night for Thompson. If he does well, he can hang around for a while longer. If he does not do well, then the likelihood is that his campaign will be sitting with Joe Torre in the "uncertain future" section of the park.

Romney Holds Margin in Iowa

Mitt Romney is still leading in Iowa, despite the surge from Giuliani and the other competitors' strong campaigns. Thompson has closed to second in Iowa, with Giuliani and Huckabee in a dead heat for third. Few believe that Giuliani would have fared well in Iowa, but many believe he can challenge or win New Hampshire, and Florida is his to lose.

Tuesday night's "debate" should provide some new polling data that will help to better define the race, since it is the debut of Fred Thompson in front of the political lens. If he can perform naturally and hold his ground, he could unseat Romney in the Iowa front-runner position.

France Pressuring for Sanctions Against Iran

France is again calling for sanctions against Iran.

From the article:

"Kouchner told Europe 1 radio that the situation in Iran was dangerous and that a nuclear-armed Iran would make the situation in the Middle East even more complicated.

"While the European dialogue continues...we have to work on sanctions so as to be taken seriously," Kouchner said."

The points may be moot, due in large part to Israeli objections to Western planning. Israel cannot afford to allow a nation that vows to exterminate Jews to own nuclear weapons. We, as Israel's strongest ally, should not allow it either.

The moves by the French are welcome. But until the world begins to recognize how serious this problem truly is, talks are useless.

Fred Thompson Sounding Kerry-esque

He was for gay marriage before he was against it, or something. This is what happens when we let the government control functions that should be religious in nature. The government should have a "one size fits all" civil union document, allowing people to declare themselves publicly attached. "Marriage" should be handled by the individual conscience and religious affiliations. We'd then have equal protection under the law and the problem would be solved.

Setting aside opinions about the issue, Thompson's handling of it is what concerns me. Much the same way that he handled his stance on McCain-Feingold, he's become incomprehensible on this issue. That's bad for the party. When Thompson first began courting the Republican vote, we were receiving hints of Reagan. Since then, I've seen political meandering that reminds me of Kerry. That's a bad fit.

Thompson appears to lack the clarity of his rivals. That should be a factor in the polls.

Christian Conservatives Threaten Third Party Run

James Dobson

This isn't a news flash, but it is probably best stated openly and in the beginning of the primary process. Focus on the Family does not own the Republican party. Neither does any other religious organization. If the word coming from the Christian leaders is accurate, then the Republican party is likely dead in the water in 2008. I don't think it is accurate, but if it is, we deserve another Clinton Presidency.

The news says that religious leaders are considering a third party run if Giuliani gets the Republican nod. This is the lingering stench of the Chafee effect in the party: A vital cog in the wheel threatens to defect if it doesn't get greased. After controlling the senate at political gunpoint for some years, Republicans were happy to see the Senator from Rhode Island cleaning out his office.

They won't be so ready to concede the defection of the Christian right, but if it is necessary, I hold that we should show them the door in a civil fashion, remaining open to reconciliation. For too long, we've been held to a standard that doesn't suit Republican ideals. Our first priorities should be small government, individual liberty, strong national defense and ardent federalism. Instead, we've been a party obsessed with keeping a segment within happy.

Within those ideals, there is room for debate about the issues that animate the Christian right. However, we do not have to allow those discussions to supplant our governmental ideals. Not one person that I know is arguing to stymie their voice and input, and I know few backers of abortion and euthanasia.

Unlike Democrats, who would crawl over broken glass on their knees to beg Ralph Nader not to run, I have many friends who agree that an amicable divorce might be best for the party in the long run, but not in the middle of a war. If Christian conservatives find the ideals of social libertarians unbearable, perhaps they should consider the Malaysian alternative. The fact is, we are in the middle of another great struggle.

A resurgent Russia is back to its bully-boy tactics. China is threatening to expand its vision of global domination. Europe is in ethical shambles and the developing world is spawning new dictators on a regular basis.

This is not the time to split the party. I have a good idea that the people making threats know that. So I say to them with respect: If you think that you need to do so, leave. Go form a third party and I wish you the best with your endeavors.

We'll be back together by necessity soon enough, and if you think the abortion problem is bad, wait until you see the casualty numbers from the world war.

Solution Found for Moveon.org Petraeus Attack Publicity Nightmare: Rush Limbaugh

Senator Harry Reid has to be a fairly intelligent guy, in spite of evidence to the contrary in his remarks about the surge. But he must figure the rest of us are complete dopes, or so he behaves. Not to make too fine a point, but I sometimes wonder if the "undecided" voters frequently cited as the "moderates" aren't a little goofy. Otherwise, why even try to make this play?

Really, I suspect that the Democrats are attempting to drive the debate so low that voter turnout will be surpressed by utter contempt for Washington D.C.. In fact, that's an intelligent play for them. Only the fever swamp could go for the "Wrestling Entertainment" angles this congress is playing. The average person probably finds the "tit for tat" back and forth from the Senate as repulsive as I find it.

Moveon.org presents a slanderous attack (with a discount from the New York Times, of course, which has now been rescinded) on General Petraeus. The Democrats flee the scene when a sense of the Senate is requested, then grudgingly vote to reaffirm support for the general.

In response, rather than distancing themselves from Moveon.org, they find their favorite whipping boy and accuse him of slander. This is blatant, transparent and futile. But nobody ever accused the Democrats of avoiding futility, look at their health plan ideas. Harry Reid and his cohorts think we're idiots. Are they right?

We'll soon see.

What do Al Qaeda and Neo Nazis Have in Common?

Tactics.

From the Full Story in Haaretz:

"The scene is depressingly familiar in the post-9/11 era. Two terrified victims kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs as a masked thug menaces them with a sword. The hostages are forced to spout propaganda, which in the end doesn?t save them from a grisly, on-camera death. But in a video released last month, the killers are not the followers of Al-Qaida, but Russian neo-Nazis taking a page out of the terrorists' handbook.

Entitled 'The Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani,' the video shows neo-Nazis decapitating one man and shooting the other in the back of the head against the backdrop of a large swastika flag. Both victims belong to traditionally Muslim ethnic minority groups from the southern region of what used to be the Soviet Union.

Over the past two decades, millions of predominately dark-skinned and Muslim migrants have come from there to Russia looking for work. Resentment against them is growing as the general public becomes increasingly nationalistic."

We live in a world with ugly, hateful people. We can't let them subject us to their vision of it.

McCain Trying to Battle Back Into Race

From the Full Story at the Washington Post:

"Republican John McCain says talking tough or overseeing a business doesn't always translate into the credentials necessary to be a wartime commander in chief, a clear swipe at his chief presidential rivals.

The Arizona senator and Vietnam veteran planned to discuss his plans for the military in a speech Thursday amid signs of a revival for his candidacy. The latest New Hampshire poll showed improvement for McCain, who was returning to the state this weekend for a busy schedule of events.

More important, a campaign once low on cash planned to run its first ads of the 2008 race - largely biographical spots - in the coming days, also in New Hampshire."

Senator McCain's rise from the scrap heap - after a devastating loss in his partnership with Ted Kennedy on the immigration fiasco - is less a statement about his resilience as it is a lack of faith in his rivals. Instead of being good news for McCain, this is troubling news for Republicans. In a strong electoral field, McCain would have been thrown under the bus in June, after the immigration bill he forwarded was roundly thumped.

Add to that Trent Lott's nose thumbing at the base and the Republicans could have reworked their entire roster for 2008. However, both are back in line and running smoothly, indicating serious issues for the party. Should the Republicans lose the White House in 2008 and the Democrats pick up a bulletproof Senate, the GOP will be helpless, failing to garner even a mandate from the base.

There is much time to correct these problems ahead of the election, but the first step in the process is to get Senator McCain out of the Presidential mix, and that can be done by pounding him down in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. If the party faithful allow him to hang around too long, his candidacy could be a disaster for general election chances.

Having said that, I'll note again that he is right on the war and an honorable man. Perhaps a leadership position in the senate, minus any input on immigration, would be a good fit for him. That will be something to consider, but the top of the ticket can't be even thought about, unless Republicans want to go ahead and concede defeat.

Giuliani Closing Gap with Romney in New Hampshire

Rudy Giuliani has drawn to a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. This is awful news for the Romney camp, who trail in national polls by a significant margin. It appeared obvious to most observers that Romney was playing for a "springboard effect" in Iowa and New Hampshire.

As Howard Dean proved in 2004, Iowa alone isn't enough. Both early return states are needed to capture momentum. On the other hand, if Giuliani can sandwich Fred Thompson's apparent South Carolina stronghold between New Hampshire and Florida wins, he'll be in the driver's seat on Mega Tuesday.

Add to that news that Pete Wilson has endorsed Giuliani in California, and a recipe for powerful momentum is brewing for the Mayor. No doubt Romney will double down and fight for the state in his own back yard. He has time to rebuild there, but the clock is ticking. I suspect that Fred Thompson, seeing no way to win there, would far prefer a Romney win over Giuliani to keep an equilibrium before the South can weigh in.

This should be an interesting developing story.

The Privatization of American Warfare - A Failed Idea

The latest round of rifts between the American military, the Iraqi government and private military contractors (formerly known as mercenaries), prods at the edges of a wider - and more disconcerting - issue: the privatization of American warfare. Setting aside partisan hyperbole and hand wringing, it is easy to see that such a trend is deleterious not only to democracy, but to foreign policy in general. The American tradition of shared risk and reward is being replaced by a monolithic political structure, insulated financially, politically and, perhaps, shielded morally from the electorate it was designed to serve. The trend belies a design for efficiency it seeks to achieve.

The easiest way to dig into the idea is to begin with what the military is designed to achieve. Its sole purpose is to defend the United States of America and its interests abroad. Those interests are - by virtue of democratic fiat - complex and difficult to anticipate from one administration to the next. Some administrations and congresses focus primarily on economic and political interests abroad. Others have a more idealized world view, seeking to export American ideas.

These interests are as fickle as the people who devise them.

The military, responsible for projection and protection of those interests, has a mandate for efficiency. What good is it to say we want nation "x" or dictator "y" contained, if we are unable to act on the idea with speed and real effect? How do we sustain economic growth and prosperity if our military consumes too much of our nation's resources? We don't. So the military is tasked with being efficient, small and technologically superior to achieve maximum effect at minimum cost. - Continues Below


F-22 Raptors

In ideal circumstances, this sort of military force is sufficient. However, we learn nothing from history if we do not learn that the ideal is rarely in any way associated with reality. In reality, political pressure to overachieve often places an unrealistic burden on a overextended military. One of the basic rules of personal economics is to count cost before making expenditures. It would be ideal to own the perfect house, best car and put one's children in the finest schools. The reality is that few can afford the largesse required to achieve that ideal.

If one transfers that analogy to geo-political behavior, the situation in which we are now immersed is too expensive for our budget. This is where the financial insulation I mentioned before becomes evident. Our government, carrying out a specific policy ideal in response to an unprecedented attack on New York and Washington D.C., has overextended. Our military, designed for peacetime efficiency and assymetric warfare, has been placed in a counter-insurgency situation featuring three hostile, heavily armed and foreign supported factions in Iraq.

That overextension has led to decisions to bring in mercenaries to fill gaps left by the depletion of military forces. Enter Blackwater Inc. - Continues Below



Before I go too far, I will concede that in times of national peril, mercenaries could be necessary for survival. However, they should be a last resort, after all other options are exhausted. At present, we haven't come anywhere near last resort options. So why are we employing mercenaries?

They are relatively cheap labor, in many cases even trained by our military.

Mercenaries aren't the only issue in our failure to share the financial risk here, we are. We are because we do not demand accountability for the cost of this war. We cannot rightly demand accountability because we are, collectively, refusing to become involved in the management of it. Instead, congress is debating useless resolutions with no meaningful effects, because we do not hold them accountable.

By we, I mean conservatives, not liberals. Liberals are loud and clear on wanting to leave Iraq now, even though it is only one front in a growing global war. Conservatives, on the other hand, hand wring and complain about failure, but refuse to pressure congress to take necessary steps to enhance the efforts of our military. And we sit idly and demand a win, without pressing for involvement.

Dennis Miller, to his credit, has forwarded the idea of war bonds to finance the war. That is a great idea, allowing the American people to obtain a direct stake and accountability for the effort. A loss is a financial loss for everyone, not a political inconvenience for a party. And with ownership comes oversight. If I'm invested in the outcome, I'll know what my congressman is doing.

The idea of war bonds isn't far-fetched. Why aren't we using them? I suspect that there is a large segment of the public sector that doesn't want the scrutiny. Instead, it would prefer to argue meaningless resolutions.

But we also touch on the second point of political insulation here, and the arguments in this debate span the width of opinions. Consider a draft. Begin with the military and one will find an organization adamantly against the idea. Going back to the purpose of being small and efficient, the military is dead set against conscription. It is a recipe for inefficiency and it costs a small fortune to train a soldier for the modern battlefield. The military attempts to choose the smartest and most adapted applicants, with an eye toward unit effectiveness and keeping costs down.

A draft also crystalizes public involvement. Of all of the ideas about which I am certain, I am most certain that a draft would bring a rapid end to the "Do Nothing" congress. With no choice but to be involved, American public opinion would become educated and involved. Shared risk for everyone lowers political insulation for the government, but is there any concept more uniquely American? We should be in this together, though we are not now.

I'll leave out any discussion of the corporate sector, not because I believe that they are faultless, but because I do not have the time to adequately describe their faults without sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

Which brings us to the final point of the government being somewhat shielded morally by the current arrangement. An all volunteer force makes for a great political argument. It allows for a projection of power with no risk to those who do not wish to be involved. This is dangerous to any democratic system. It encourages a lack of participation in the decision making process by the very people who may have to pay dearly for gross miscalculations. All the while, the government can proceed without the natural moral check of the will of the people, because the people are isolated from the human toll of the war.

Until we become involved as a group financially, personally and politically, we risk grave mistakes made on our behalf without our consent or input. And that's the upside of the analysis. Read Roman history for the downside.

More Clinton Fundraising Trouble

Norman Hsu consults with his attorney

"They have an advantage," the Clinton aide told ABC News about Obama's campaign. "For us, the summer is slow, because we've maxed out far more of our donors than they have."

That, and the old Norman Hsu money express derailed, eh?

One wonders just how massive an impact an unimpeded Norman Hsu might have had on the election. A $10,000,000.00 gap is serious money, even among contenders who are batting around one hundred million dollar campaign estimates. Exactly which party is beholden to special interests?

I suspect that there will be more iffy fundraising issues arising from this race before it is over. That's not inside information; just a hunch.

Haaretz Adds Clarity to Columbia Propaganda Event

Shmuel Rosner

From the Full Story at Rosner's Blog:

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University in New York on Monday resulted in one clear loser: Israel.

In his speech, Ahmadinejad took aim at Israel. If he managed to convince one person of his views on Israel and Zionism, then he has already gained. If he managed to persuade 50, then he has gained even more.

For months, Israel worked fervently to prevent what happened on the podium Monday. For the duration of his speech, Ahmadinejad produced a televised illusion: It is not Iran versus the world, but Iran versus Israel.

If he manages to convince enough people of this, the mirage could become reality and Israel would be isolated, and that is exactly what Ahmadinejad is trying to accomplish."

Today, in the Arab press, Ahmadenijad's words are being played over and over, painting a picture of a reasoned, thoughtful man addressing young Americans. Only a fool grants center stage to the most hateful ideas imagineable. Ahmadenijad belongs in the margin, which is where his ideas exist. Granting him a stage and credibility only serves to expose his thoughts to other fools in the margins.

Columbia granted the stage to a Neo-Fascist. They should be ashamed, but they are likely proud of their open-mindedness. We live in a world where bloody-minded relativism is considered open-minded. That's what is wrong with this picture, and why Rosner is right to voice concern.

Our universities have become an intellectual wasteland.

Lee Bollinger Misses Mark on Ahmadenijad

Lee Bollinger

For those still trying to sort the event at Columbia University featuring Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, Hugh Hewitt has the succinct analysis that defines it. I won't add anything because Hugh hits the nail so squarely that I don't need to add anything:

"The absurd world of the academic left does not seem capable of imagining that skilled propagandists are at work for the other side, and that Ahmadinejad's non-answers to the questions posed to him will benefit him and his regime. They are naive beyond expression."

Hugh's Conclusion?

"Whenever Lee Bollinger steps down as Columbia's president, some poor fool will toast him for his "stirring" speech today, for speaking truth to power, blah blah blah. Nonsense. President Bollinger gave Ahmadinejad a microphone and a stage and then tried to use the underbilling to redeem his university's sorry complicity in the legitimizing of this fanatic's place in the world. Columbia can black out the backdrop and deliver stern lectures that go unheard in the Islamist world, but it won't remove the stain on its own reputation: It played a role of accessory to many lies today, delivered by a killer of our troops."

Perfect pitch and tone from Hugh Hewitt. Well done.

Fred Thompson Eliminated from Consideration

I have never been a single issue voter. That is to say, I was never a single issue voter. I can be flexible with many things. I can appreciate nuanced views on complex issues, and I can tolerate disagreement.

But when a candidate has supported disenfranchisement (which is one way to describe McCain-Feingold), I draw the line. McCain-Feingold wasn't campaign finance reform, it was an effort to make politics inaccessible to individuals and it created a penumbra in which the likes of Norman Hsu could freely move to influence campaigns through back-channel donations outside the light of public scrutiny.

Some will argue that has always happened. They would be right. But in a truly representative world, individuals would be able to place their fortunes in a campaign on the public record. That isn't required now.

Sure, Norman Hsu was caught by some saavy Wall Street Journal reporters. But how many Hsu knock-offs are influencing the 2008 campaigns without being caught? Do you really believe that a bunch of Swiftboat Veterans could mount a multi-million dollar campaign with media saavy on par with presidential candidates? Who supported them? Give a try in finding those details.

The same goes for the "Defenders of Wildlife," who launched attacks about forced abortion and slave labor to oust a congressman. Neither fall within a 501 (c)(4) wildlife education imperative, but thanks to a segregated 527 fund, they could say and do what they liked, and they did. Who funded their efforts? Look it up and tell me.

The fact is that McCain-Feingold has been awful for the American political process and should be repealed before it can do more damage. It is single-handedly pushing the people away from the ability to control their government.

Fred Thompson was instrumental in the passage of, and continues to support McCain-Feingold.

That may not mean much to many, but it is a single issue which removes Senator Thompson from my consideration.

Coattails Matter in 2008 - Rudy Giuliani's Appear Longest

In an election fresh off the 2006 Republican debacle, it will be important for the Republican candidate to be able to bring some new faces into congress should he win. According to a new poll by Democratic Pollster Celinda Lake, Republican Rudy Giuliani has a lead over the Democratic field in 31 house districts thought most vulnerable to the Democrats. 31, in this age of political parity, is a massive number of vulnerable seats. It will be curious to see if the same holds true with senate races.

If an incoming President can pull a new congress along with him, Republicans might be able to avert World War IV. If ever Republicans needed a candidate that had long coattails, this is the election.

U.S. Invites Syrians to Peace Talks

The United States has invited Syria to the new round of Middle East peace negotiations. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice confirmed the invitations over the weekend. While the stated goal is to get the peace talks underway again, it is doubtful that anything will happen with the Syrians, following Israel's successful raid on their nuclear program.

The Syrians are a rogue nation working in concert with North Korea, making it difficult to envision them engaged in a broader peace process.

Israel Siezes Nuclear Material from Syria

North Korean Missiles

The deafening silence from the Arab countries following the Israeli airstrike in Syria is now explained - or so it would seem. Unlike the United States, who by many accounts let tons of WMD slide through to Syria from Iraq prior to the current war, Israel "...seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a raid on a secret military site in Syria before the Israel Air Force allegedly bombed it this month...".

To have siezed the material would have been a coup for Israelis, allowing them to properly address the threat, assess the state of nuclear development on their Northern border and to prepare for appropriate contingencies. The situation in the region is grave, if the transfer of nuclear material to rogue regimes continues unabated.

On the bright side, many North Korean ballistic missile technicians and military scientists were killed in the raid. It can only be hoped that many more of them and many of their friends and collaborators will join them soon. Of particular concern is whether or not the Chinese have any hand in current escalations. If so, things will become complicated before we unravel them.

We may yet witness World War of a scale we've not yet imagined in our lifetime. If we follow Democratic advice and hide our heads in the sand on these issues, the cataclysm could be unthinkable.

Clinton Decides to "Betray Us"

HT: [Generalissimo]



Hillary Clinton can say goodbye to the center. She's decided to run a leftist campaign, comfortably snuggled up to Moveon.org. Or, if I wanted to offer the benefit of the doubt, it isn't that she's close to the leftist organization, it is that she cannot act without the organization's permission. The Senate voted 72 - 25 to condemn the blatant attack on General Petraeus.

Here is the text of the "Sense of Senate On General David Petraeus"

"SEC. 1070. SENSE OF SENATE ON GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS.

(a) Findings.–The Senate makes the following findings:

(1) The Senate unanimously confirmed General David H. Petraeus as Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, by a vote of 81-0 on January 26, 2007.

(2) General Petraeus graduated first in his class at the United States Army Command and General Staff College.

(3) General Petraeus earned Masters of Public Administration and Doctoral degrees in international relations from Princeton University.

(4) General Petraeus has served multiple combat tours in Iraq, including command of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) during combat operations throughout the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which tours included both major combat operations and subsequent stability and support operations.

(5) General Petraeus supervised the development and crafting of the United States Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual based in large measure on his combat experience in Iraq, scholarly study, and other professional experiences.

(6) General Petraeus has taken a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

(7) During his 35-year career, General Petraeus has amassed a distinguished and unvarnished record of military service to the United States as recognized by his receipt of a Defense Distinguished Service Medal, two Distinguished Service Medals, two Defense Superior Service Medals, four Legions of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, the State Department Superior Honor Award, the NATO Meritorious Service Medal, and other awards and medals.

(8) A recent attack through a full-page advertisement in the New York Times by the liberal activist group, Moveon.org, impugns the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces.

(b) Sense of Senate.–It is the sense of the Senate–

(1) to reaffirm its support for all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, including General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq;

(2) to strongly condemn any effort to attack the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces; and

(3) to specifically repudiate the unwarranted personal attack on General Petraeus by the liberal activist group Moveon.org."

72 Senators voted to affirm this position.

Clinton (D-NY), Nay

Senator Obama left the floor when he discovered that the vote was occurring.

Senator Clinton has abandoned the middle and decided to run left. She may be able to pull enough votes from the far left to win a primary, but will she have enough to win an election? History says that the middle is where elections are won.

Ask 10 centrists how they feel about this vote and you'll have a sense of how the election could go. If the vote were tomorrow, Clinton would have probably cast a "Yea" on this. She's counting on short memories. Republicans would be wise to stay in line with their mascot and not let anyone forget the day Clinton decided to short-change Americans in the field fighting a brutal enemy by casting a vote that calls into question the integrity of their leader.

Clinton Donor Hsu Indicted for Ponzi Scheme

Hillary Clinton and Norman Hsu

The case against Norman Hsu sounds like an Al Capone style gangster story, cleaned up a bit for a civilized audience. And on the other hand, it also sounds like a con man story, complete with the "Get politically rich quick" scheme. Whichever may be more likely, Clinton is in up to her neck with this sordid character.

Hsu's indictment covers a wide swath of issues. In summary, Hsu had an "investment scheme that persuaded investors to give Hsu greater and greater amounts of money in exchange for short-term returns that were spotty or nonexistent." The catch for Clinton is that "Hsu made victims believe that failure to make political contributions to candidates he supported would jeopardize their investment relationship with him, and put their money at risk...". And the kicker is that Hsu was employing people to make campaign contributions for him.

The Federal Elections Commission should have the Clinton donor roll under an electron microscope, peeling through each entry with a careful eye toward who is related to whom and who works for whom. If this isn't a cause for an investigation, nothing is. It makes the gaudy campaign finance numbers for the first quarter of 2007 look tainted for the Democrats.

Giuliani Supports Israeli Membership in NATO

Rudy Giuliani

From the "Not a bad idea" File:

Full Story at JTA News:

"Rudy Giuliani called for Israel to be included in an expanded NATO.

Addressing an Anglo-American friendship group in London, the Republican presidential candidate said Wednesday that NATO should be encouraged to press the global war on terror.

"We should open the organization's membership to any willing state that meets basic standards of good governance, military readiness, global responsibility -- regardless of location," Giuliani said. "I think we should consider countries such as Australia, Singapore, India, Israel, Japan."

Could we shortcut the United Nations and actually have a separate, legitimate relationship with Democracies only? Not bad, Mr. Mayor; not a bad way to practically apply the idea of a United Democratic Nations.

Abu Yaqub al-Masri Killed by MNF Iraq

Another Al-Qaeda leader was killed by coalition forces in Iraq.

From the story linked above:

"Coalition forces conducted a precision operation west of Tarmiyah Aug. 31. The assault force followed a vehicle containing two suspected terrorists and attempted to get the driver to stop. When the driver resisted capture, the assault force fired on the vehicle. Both the driver and the passenger were killed in the operation. Coalition forces later identified one of the men as Abu Yaqub al-Masri.

Al-Masri, who is also known as Zakkariya or Doctor, was a military adviser to Al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders in Baghdad and the surrounding belts. He provided guidance and direction for attack planning, coordination and execution.

Intelligence reports indicate al-Masri was directed by senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders to plan attacks that would cultivate sectarian strife. The former al-Qaeda in Iraq military emir of Baghdad, now detained by Coalition forces, described al-Masri as director of the “car bomb division.”

Al Qaeda is being crushed by overwhelming force and a decline in support. As mentioned earlier, their support in Iraq is at 1 in 10 or less. Still too many are supportive, but those numbers are shrinking.

The surge is working.

United Nations Refuses to Acknowledge a Free Taiwan

The United Nations decided to leave Taiwan off the agenda, for the fifteenth time. China, of course, immediately began its next round of intimidation against their indomitable neighbors.

The United Nations is a useless organization.

New Hampshire Polling Good for Romney, Bad for Thompson

The latest polling numbers for New Hampshire show Mitt Romney in a solid first place position with thirty percent of the vote. Rudy Giuliani is within striking distance with twenty-three percent and John McCain has fourteen percent. Fred Thompson, suffering the effects of his late entry, has a paltry eight percent of the votes.

It is safe to say that he isn't going to get a free pass into the race.

The issue for Republicans is to figure out how to mold the party into a winning coalition in 2008. If each candidate carves a regional chunk out of the map, the winner will have to tie everyone back together to battle the Democrats. The concern with Thompson's candidacy is that he will leave a disaffected deep south, long a Republican stronghold, which could lower turnout in '08. If he does that, the party could be on the outs for 8 years or more.

That could be a reality if the winner can't finesse his position. That will take a good, seasoned politician to accomplish.

Giuliani Moving in on Romney Turf Thanks to Moveon.org

Whatever else may be true of the snivelling "Betray Us" ad that Moveon.org ran last week, on thing is certain: Rudy Giuliani is getting massive media exposure out of it and is moving on to the front burner in states that matter. Today's Des Moines Register has a feature about the war between Giuliani and Moveon.org. Giuliani wouldn't have had the campaign funds necessary to buy the goodwill that story will generate among conservative Iowans.

Ultimately, this election will narrow down the issues about which people care, and I suspect that protecting the United States from attacks by Jihadis and their cohorts will rank highly on the agenda. Giuliani, by standing front and center and defending the military, is scoring points on that count.

The other side of the coin is that by taking on Moveon.org, Giuliani is shifting the spotlight from Romney to himself in places like Iowa. It is safe to say that, in spite of the new dates for caucuses and primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire will still play important roles in establishing momentum. If Giuliani can knock off Romney in one or the other, his "Florida Firewall" may well work.

This latest controversy is a step in that direction.

The Clinton Health Care "Plan"

"It would make it mandatory for all Americans to have health insurance, much like drivers are obliged to carry auto insurance. There would also be tax credits to cap the amount of money families pay for coverage.

The proposal includes the expansion of Medicaid, the U.S. government-run health system for low-income Americans, and would require large companies to offer coverage to employees or pay into a government-operated pool of health funds." - Source

The Bill T World Peace "Plan"

"It would make it mandatory for all dictators to hold free and fair elections and to obey the will of their respective peoples."

Great. Now we have universal health care and world peace. Next we can work on getting Notre Dame a victory on the football field. On second thought, let's set reasonable goals and get them an offensive touchdown...

Clinton has no health care plan. She has a wish list.

Al Qaeda Down in the Polls

Karen P. Hughes

U.S. Undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs, Karen P. Hughes, writes a powerful opinion piece for the Washington Post today. In it, she points to a decreasing popularity for Al Qaeda in the Muslim World. Among the facts:

"Polls in the two nations that have suffered some of the worst of al-Qaeda's violence -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- show that more than 90 percent of those populations have unfavorable views of al-Qaeda and of bin Laden himself."

"Support for terrorist tactics has fallen in seven of the eight predominantly Muslim countries polled as part of the Pew Global Attitudes Project since 2002; in most cases, those declines have been dramatic. Five years ago in Lebanon, 74 percent of the population thought suicide bombing could sometimes be justified. Today it's 34 percent -- still too high, but a stark reversal. Similar declines in support have occurred in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Jordan."

Killing and maiming civilians for political goals is bad policy. Not that the nihilistic Al Qaeda follows their place in the polls, but their failure to gather support from the wider public bodes well for their demise.

By way of contrast, MNF Iraq has been first rate in protecting civilians. General David Petraeus has made security his number one priority. After a bloodbath at the hands of Al Qaeda and the sectarian militias, it is not surprising that the people in Iraq are rebelling against the rebellion.

Al Qaeda's views of God, religious standards and personal liberty are not that appealing. Throw in a car bomb and many dead families, and one can easily see that the terrorists days of fighting are numbered. Without public support, they are little more than violent criminals.

Russia Sides With Iran Against France

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner

From the Full Story at the Gaurdian:

"Russia today joined the chorus of concern at the possibility of war in Iran while conflicts continued in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At a news briefing in Moscow, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said: "We are worried by reports that there is serious consideration being given to military action in Iran. That is a threat to a region where there are already grave problems in Iraq and Afghanistan."

His comments, after a meeting with his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, followed a stark warning yesterday from the UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector aimed at the US.

"I would not talk about any use of force," Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."

We can take a couple of facts from the above paragraphs. First, when the heat is on, Russia will come down with terrorists if it serves their agenda. For a country that produced Joseph Stalin, that is no surprise.

Next, the U.N. is obviously so corrupt that it cannot be seen as anything more than a tool of corrupt and tyrannical regimes. Where did ElBaradei get his casualty numbers? Why would he call Iraq a mistake? Was he a fan of Saddam, Qusay and the thugs?

The world is coming close to a full scale conflict.

On a side note, I am really beginning to like the sounds coming from the new French government. After a few years of Jihadi anarchy, I guess they've taken the issues at stake to heart.

Scathing Words About Fred Thompson

Dick Morris

Fox News Political Analysts Dick Morris and Eileen McGann aren't hunting jobs with the Fred Thompson campaign. In their analysis, Thompson is a "Political Light Weight", "Political Insider", has "Questionable Conservative Credentials" and "No Dough." They say all of that in headers, prior to their substantive criticisms.

Here are samples:

"The New York Times reported this week that in 1992, Thompson’s old law firm actually advised the lawyer for the Libyan terrorists who were charged with planting the bomb on Pan Am flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. The firm was paid over $800,000 — that’s a lot of lawyering. The Libyans billed the firm for several hours for conferring with the lead attorney on the case. According to the firm’s lawyers, Thompson advised them on “jurisdictional” issues.

Translation: how to keep the terrorists from being extradited to stand trial.

At the time, Libya was refusing to extradite the suspects and the entire international community was outraged. It was then that the U.S. added Libya to the list of countries where there is state-sponsored terrorism. Ultimately, the suspects were extradited and tried in Scotland. One of them was convicted, while the other was acquitted. In 2003, Libya admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the families of the survivors — no thanks to Fred and his law firm." - Emphasis added.

Or this nugget:

"Former Congressman Michael D. Barnes (D-Md) confirms that Thompson worked for the abortion rights group. He was employed by the same lobbying and law firm that Thompson worked for and he said he talked to Thompson “while he was doing it [lobbying for the group], and I talked to [De Sarno] about the fact that she was very pleased with the work he was doing for her organization.” He added: “I have strong, total recollection of that. This is not something I dreamed up or she dreamed up. This is a fact.” How odd that Thompson would have “no recollection.”

When Thompson first ran for the Senate in 1994, he checked a box on a questionnaire about abortion indicating that he believed that abortion “should be legal in all circumstances for the first three months.”

And when he ran again in 1996, he told the Christian Coalition that he “opposed” a constitutional amendment protecting “the sanctity of human life.” He wrote on the questionnaire “I do not believe that abortion should be criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts and souls of the American people.”

With a Republican field of a pro-choice candidate (Giuliani), a recent convert to pro-life (Mitt Romney) and a former abortion lobbyist (Fred Thompson), the right wing doesn’t have much to choose from." - Read the full analysis here.

The facts don't bode well for Thompson under the withering scrutiny, not of the old media - which could serve as a rallying point - but with the conservative base. And it isn't simply the social conservatives who have trouble with Thompson. Fiscal conservatives don't much care for his spending record and traditional conservatives don't like his work to gag free speech with his unflinching work on McCain-Feingold.

The taint on Thompson is visible and will be hard for him to overcome.

Romney On Point On Iran

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney is on the mark when he suggests that the United Nations should reject Ahmadinejad. Romney doesn't mean that the U.N. should shun the policies of Iran. He means that the United Nations should shun the man himself. That would be a novel, and refreshing change of pace in the United Nations.

Romney must be certain that the world body, which stood aside on Rwanda and is now standing aside as the Janjaweed murder relentlessly in Darfur, will have no problem warmly embracing a man who has advocated for genocide. But this does suggest strongly to the world, that a Romney administration will not toy with, or coddle, the Iranian regime.

This is a smart move and symbolically significant. In an age where the Democratic party has lost all sense of proportion on the significance of symbolic behavior, Romney is siezing a moment to set a tone and draw some distinctions that will matter when the General election rolls around, if he should win the nomination.

No Shocker: Hillary Clinton Endorsed by Wesley Clark

General Wesley Clark

Possibly providing convenient cover for Hillary Clinton, following a week in which she called into question General David Petraeus, Wesley Clark has announced his support for the candidacy of his former boss' wife. Much like the issue with Giuliani yesterday calling Clinton onto the media carpet, this announcement has some points to ponder.

First, Clinton needs some military support after her walk along the precipice of the anti-war left. Having the former general post his support is useful, from an old media perspective.

Next, the timing of the announcement in the dead of a Saturday news cycle, shows that Clinton still has to respect the power of the anti-war left. In most elections, she would want a former general and national political figure to come out on a bright and shiny Monday morning, so the whole world could see a move toward the middle. That the General decided to roll out his support on a Saturday shows that the anti-war left has a firm hold on the imagination of the Democratic primary.

Finally, the General has essentially become the "utility military guy" for the Democrats. His support for Clinton, in spite of the fact that she hasn't strongly denounced her natural enemies - Moveon.org - for a lousy attack on the American commander in Iraq, shows that he has become more Democrat than General.

As an addendum, Hillary might use him for surrogate attacks on the anti-war crowd, or even as a buffer. However, most people won't pay too close attention to him and the Republicans will continue their complaints about the state of the Democrats and their anti-war supporters.

Reports: Israeli Attack Was Based on Suspected Syrian Nuclear Shipment

Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad

The Washington Post has been covering this story well. From Today's Washington Post:

"The White House and the State Department generally have declined to either confirm or deny reports of the Syria-North Korea link, but one top official yesterday seemed to fan the flames. Andrew Semmel, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, told the Associated Press yesterday in Rome that North Koreans were in Syria and that Damascus may have had contacts with "secret suppliers" to obtain nuclear equipment. "There are indicators that they do have something going on there," he said.

State Department officials declined to comment on Semmel's remarks.

Meanwhile, a prominent U.S. expert on the Middle East, who has interviewed Israeli participants in a mysterious raid over Syria last week, reported that the attack appears to have been linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying material from North Korea labeled as cement."

Will keep posting on this as details are available.

Nuts and Bolts: If Attacked, Americans want Giuliani, not Clinton

When it boils down to the basic elements, an attack on America, for instance, Americans would prefer to have Giuliani in the White House.

If one trusts him with one's life, surely one could trust him on taxes and education, right?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sides with Kucinich

Here's the easy way to determine that you're arguing a foolish position:

"Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that US President George W. Bush had been defeated in his Middle East plans and would one day stand trial for "atrocities" committed in Iraq."

Dennis Kucinich has held the above position for quite some time. If you wake up tomorrow and discover an Ayatollah is forwarding your ideas, you might want to rethink them. Kucinich is as relevant to the presidential race as a unicyle is for mass transit, but he is a useful propaganda stooge for Jihadis. Nice to see them publicly embrace his ideas and expose them as the bunk they really are.

Thompson's Position Unclear

Human Events marks the first week of the Thompson candidacy with an essay about how he's positioned in the race. The Thompson supporters have surged him into second place nationally, but the foundation for his campaign is shaky. In the early states, he's not in good position. He's better off in other states, but that may not make much of a difference.

From the Essay:

"Did Thompson’s relatively late start in the race hurt him? It depends on where you are. In Virginia and Mississippi, for example, State Republican Chairmen John Hager and Jim Herring respectively told me that so preoccupied are Republicans in their states with state elections this fall that there is next to no discussion of the presidential race the following year. Indeed, in Virginia, the two likely Republican combatants for the Senate nomination, Rep. Tom Davis and former Gov. Jim Gilmore, have put off their own declaration of candidacies until after the all-important races for the state legislature in November. So a candidate announcing in September for a presidential race the following year has no problem."

On the one hand, Virginia and Mississippi are better hauls electorally than Iowa. On the other hand, position means everything in a Primary, and by the time they come into play, they may not matter. Thompson's "South Carolina Firewall" may not matter if the momentum is built up behind another candidate.

Then, the issues about perception work both for and against him:

"National pundits have also begun to fire barbs at the Thompson balloon as it begins to rise. In his column September 13th, Robert Novak complains that potential Thompson backers across the country “wanted to board the Thompson camapgin but were repelled by his gate-keepers”-- one of whom he identifies as longtime national GOP operative Mary Matalin. The same day, George Will’s Thompson commentary was even more devastating; in echoing liberal columnist Ruth Marcus, Will concluded that the former senator “is unfamiliar with the details of his own positions” and cites a rambling interview with radio hostess Laura Ingraham about his work to enact McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation."

While he has a contingent of "Fredheads" who have been in his corner, how many will be moving away from him if he's painted as THE insider candidate. Matt at Free to Choose has a blow-by-blow of the Will article and it is worth a read.

The point? Thompson has work to do. He may yet re-invent campaigning, but if he does, it may be costly. Does he have the bankroll to pull it off?

Rudy Giuliani: Clinton Should Apologize

Hillary Clinton, who cannot afford to move completely to the center before she locks up her primary bid,left a lengthy track of footprints in the middle of liberal territory as she slammed General David Petraeus during this week's senate hearings. Rudy Giuliani picked up the tracks and is now shining a spotlight on Clinton. This is textbook campaigning by Giuliani, who is running a solid race and doesn't miss many opportunities to contrast himself from his democratic rivals.

Why?

- First, he hits Clinton with an objection to the substance of her position, which can easily be described as opportunistically cynical. She said: "The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief..." Clinton had ample cover for her statements, with Reid and Pelosi grabbing most of the anti-war attention and a host of other leftists fighting for the spotlight. Her statements were not among the worst on the left of this issue. Giuliani, mindful that the story would be easy to bury, crystalized the Clinton position by labelling it "character assassination."

Now, it could be argued that Clinton wasn't assassinating the General's character, but was questioning his judgment. Giuliani has given the public an alternate interpretation and done so in a concise way. That's good work.

- Next, Giuliani has forced Clinton to reposition herself with the center. If she doesn't, that's a win for him in the general election debates, should he get the Republican nomination. If she does reposition herself as a centrist, then she loses support on the left, which helps Obama.

- Finally, Giuliani made his hit on the last active news cycle, forcing Clinton to wait this out for the weekend. That's smart campaigning, practically - if I can be pardoned for the irony, Clintonesque.

Giuliani continues to impress, with a deft understanding of big-time politics. That will matter in 2008.

Al Qaeda Assassinates True U.S. Ally

From the Full Story at the Washington Post:

"Mourners vowed revenge and perseverance Friday at the funeral of the leader of the Sunni Arab revolt against al-Qaida militants who was assassinated just 10 days after meeting with President Bush in Iraq's Anbar province.

More than 1,500 mourners marched along the highway near the home of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who was killed along with two bodyguards and a driver Thursday by a bomb hidden near his house, just west of Ramadi.

Scores of Iraqi police and U.S. military vehicles lined the route to protect the procession as it followed the black SUV carrying the sheik's Iraqi-flag draped coffin.

"We will take our revenge," the mourners chanted along the six-mile route to Risha's family cemetery, many of them crying. "We will continue the march of Abu Risha."

Readers will remember we first mentioned the Sheikh on Monday in a post about the success of the surge.

Most interesting is the reaction of his people. They aren't wondering if they should clam up and start fighting. They aren't rueing the day they helped the Americans. They want Al Qaeda dead.

That's exactly what many Americans want. Continues



While Harry Reid spent his July calling the war a loss, the Sheikh and his followers were fighting Al Qaeda in al Anbar. The death is a loss for Iraq and those who wish to see a stable Middle East, but it isn't the end of the war and it won't affect the coming destruction of Al Qaeda. The Sheikh's followers will make sure of that.

The one serious point to take away from this is that the people of Al Anbar have made Al Qaeda desperate enough to try a stupid, useless assassination. They didn't do it through negotiations, they did it by killing so many in Al Qaeda that the terrorists decided to assassinate the leader in hopes of scaring the people. It didn't work.

Perhaps that is what Reid fears, and thus will capitulate at a moment's notice. Perhaps it isn't greed or ambition that animates Reid and his Democrats, but fear and cowardice drive their decisions. The Sheikh was killed, and that's a loss, but all of us die. On the other hand, his people have a chance to live free of Al Qaeda if they finish the battle now. In his assassination, he leaves a legacy of courage.

That's less than I can say for a half of the United States Senate.

Report: North Korea Outsourcing Mayhem to Syria

Kim Jong Il

From the Full Story at the Washington Post:

"North Korea may be cooperating with Syria on some sort of nuclear facility in Syria, according to new intelligence the United States has gathered over the past six months, sources said. The evidence, said to come primarily from Israel, includes dramatic satellite imagery that led some U.S. officials to believe that the facility could be used to produce material for nuclear weapons.

The new information, particularly images received in the past 30 days, has been restricted to a few senior officials under the instructions of national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, leaving many in the intelligence community unaware of it or uncertain of its significance, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Some cautioned that initial reports of suspicious activity are frequently reevaluated over time and were skeptical that North Korea and Syria, which have cooperated on missile technology, would have a joint venture in the nuclear arena."

If this report is correct, then two other assumptions have merit. First, John Bolton is absolutely correct that North Korea had no intention of ever giving up its nuclear ambitions. Second, the "Axis of Evil" is spreading to include Syria. It is equally plausible that Russia and/or China are facilitating this buildup in the Middle East, for political or economic reasons. China would be more pressed to keep the oil fields on the precipice, fearing U.S. intentions in the region.

Russia would have less worry with energy sources, due to a large oil reserve on Russian soil.

None of this requires expertise in foreign policy to see, however, I'd be curious to see what Washington knows that the rest of us don't. I suspect there will be a war with Iran (or Russia or China as the case may be) using Syria to launch attacks against Israel in a bid to further destabilize the region. China could use the instability to argue for the U.S. to get out.

At any rate, the North Koreans remain a menace and few have advanced plausible solutions to create change in Pyongyang.

IISS: Al Qaeda is Back?

HT: [Drudge]


Ayman al-Zawahiri

From the Full Story at the Guardian:

"Al-Qaida has revived, extended its influence, and has the capacity to carry out a spectacular strike similar to the September 11 attacks on America, one of the world's leading security thinktanks warned yesterday.
There is increasing evidence "that 'core' al-Qaida is proving adaptable and resilient, and has retained an ability to plan and coordinate large-scale attacks in the western world despite the attrition it has suffered", said the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "The threat from Islamist terrorism remains as high as ever, and looks set to get worse," it added.

"The US and its allies have failed to deal a death blow to al-Qaida; the organisation's ideology appears to have taken root to such a degree that it will require decades to eradicate," it continued.

The warning came in the latest annual review of world affairs by the IISS. Its strategic survey paints a bleak picture of global security in the future and warned:

· Iran could have a nuclear weapon by 2009 or 2010, though this remains the "worst-case prediction";

· the US suffered a loss of authority as a result of the failure to impose order in Iraq. "The strategic hole the US found itself in [in 2007] did not have any obvious escape";

· there are serious doubts about the ability of Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, but any replacement would probably come too late to "halt the draining of American willpower to 'stay the course' ".

· that if climate change is allowed to continue unchecked, its affects will be catastrophic "on the level of nuclear war".

The last sentence essentially makes the report null and void from a strategic standpoint. If the writers are equating global warming with Iran toting a nuclear bomb, then the report is likely filled with so many flaws that it isn't worth reading.

The fact is that 500 scientists have challenged the bunk about the "closed" Global Warming debate, and the debate has little to do with national security. As an aside, if you're seeking the most accurate meteorological work on the planet, Accuweather.com is a good start.

Back to the IISS. From their own About Us page:

"The IISS is the primary source of accurate, objective information on international strategic issues for politicians and diplomats, foreign affairs analysts, international business, economists, the military, defence commentators, journalists, academics and the informed public. The Institute owes no allegiance to any government, or to any political or other organisation.

The Institute’s high-profile publications are both timely and authoritative. They are universally regarded as providing the best independent, internationally sourced information and commentary on the main strategic events touching on national, regional and global security.

The Institute's conference activities are considered to be at the forefront of public policy development, especially given that its convening power is such that it can often bring government officials and others together in formats and circumstances that they could not easily manage for themselves." - Emphasis Added

It appears from the text above that the IISS is prone to wild overstatement.

Have a look at their board for more background.

The point? Al Qaeda may have regrouped, but I'll judge that with the NIE, not the IISS report. Drudge should be more careful with his sources sometimes.

Iran Supplying Weapons in Iraq?

Iranian Soldiers Gossestep in Parade Formation

From the Full Story in the Wall Street Journal:

"The U.S. said a fatal attack two days ago against a major U.S. military base in Iraq was carried out using a type of weapon provided to Shiites by Iran.

Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said military exerts had so far determined that the 240 mm rocket's markings and manufacture were "consistent with" Iranian produced munitions. He insisted the U.S. had a "good sense" of the rocket's source. He said Shiite extremist leaders under U.S. detention had acknowledged that Iranian Quds Force operatives were providing 240 mm rockets to Shiite militias." - Emphasis Added

Iran is continuing in its provocations. Syria may have nuclear materials. The situation is tense on all fronts and is difficult to manage. We are one stupid decision on a madman's part away from a widened conflict.

I wonder how the Democratic caucus will deal with the growing threat.

Senate Gets It Right on Mexican Long Haul Trucks

Dozens were killed and over 100 were injured in a truck explosion in Mexico this week.

From the Full Story at the San Jose Mercury News:

"The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to ban Mexican trucks from hauling cargo on American highways.
The 74-24 vote was the latest in a series of roadblocks Congress has erected to thwart a federal pilot program giving Mexican trucking companies full access to U.S. roadways.

"I don't think there's any evidence that we have equivalent standards of safety," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who wrote the ban.

The Mexican truck program has drawn fierce opposition from consumer safety groups and others who contend that Mexican trucks are unregulated, dirty and unsafe."

Setting aside Immigration rifts and NAFTA considerations, the Senate has made the right choice for safety in the United States. The picture above is from a crash this week where a Mexican truck (by some reports not even licensed for the task it was carrying out) exploded on a highway, killing dozens and injuring over 100 people, many critically. The facts I've seen show that the Department of Transportation can barely inspect U.S. Trucks. It is improbable that they would be able to manage Mexican trucks as well.

The idea behind NAFTA was to pull up standards for others, not lower our own. This is a good result and should be applauded.

Happy 5768!

To our friends in Israel and to Jewish people around the world, Happy New Year. We hope that this is finally the year where you will find peace.

Israel Strikes Syrian Targets

The United States has confirmed that Israeli Jets did strike targets in Syria last week.

Why were the Syrians so mum about a "violation of sovereignty?" It is likely that reports of North Korea selling nuclear material to Syria could be playing a role in the Syrian hush-hush. We are engaged in World War IV.

If there were any doubts, all one need do is read the growing list of reports from around the world. The President's "Axis of Evil" speech, derided by the left, is looking like a moment of clarity in the American political machine. The situation in the Middle East is approaching dangerous instability.

Barack Obama Embracing Carter's Foreign Policy

Thanks to Barack Obama, we get a new reminder this week that the stultifying futility of the Carter Era isn't so much a bane to Democrats as it is something that needs to be pulled out and dusted off when the party moves so far left that it can't see the middle anymore. It wasn't bad enough that the Democrats spent two days wavering between Moveon.org's attacks on Petraeus and the Democratic Senate Caucus' sudden military genius. Now Barack Obama has a new solution.

"Hey guys," he might have thought, "Let's do the Carter foreign policy plan again."

Yes, that Carter. The one who brought you the "Days in Captivity" count from Tehran. The one who single-handedly may have ruined Latin America for a decade. The one who brought the price of a barrel of oil up to par with the car it would fuel. The one so weak that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan without running it past the U.N.

Carter, who does much good as a workman for Habitat for Humanity, was an absolute disaster as a president. Of late, he's been working on cementing his legacy by comparing protecting civilians from suicide bombers to apartheid, giving Hugo Chavez a legitimate opportunity to beat protesters to death with a get out of jail free card from the U.N., publicly criticizing the current president (a big no-no) and being a general mouthpiece for every notion of surrender in the war against Jihad.

Now, Obama would like to re-invigorate his ideas with a fresh campaign. From the full story at Politico.com:

"Barack Obama is outlining his views on the Iraq war in a major speech Wednesday in Iowa, and bringing along a gray-haired source of foreign policy gravitas: Zbigniew Brzezinksi, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, who says that Obama offers “a new definition of America's role in the world.”

With the gravity, though, comes a some baggage.

Brzezinski, 79, stepped into the crossfire this summer when he published an essay in the summer issue of the journal Foreign Policy, defending a controversial new book about the power of the “Israel Lobby” in American politics.

The book’s authors, Harvard’s Stephen Walt and the University of Chicago’s John Mearsheimer, thanked him for his “incisive defense.”

But the article inserted him into one of the most heated debates in America-Israel politics, a bitter dispute about whether the authors’ claims smacked of bigotry, whether their critics are – as Brzezsinksi put it — “McCarthyite.”

“It is a tremendous mistake for Barack Obama to select as a foreign policy advisor the one person in public life who has chosen to support a bigoted book,” said Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, one of the most visible critics of the Walt and Mearsheimer volume, titled “The Israel Lobby.” (Dershowitz has contributed to the campaign of Obama’s leading rival, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.)"

The choice says far more about Barack Obama than it does about the has been Brzezinski. And the message is clear. A vote for Obama is a vote for futility.

Hacking the Jihad

Usually, my feelings about hackers range from amusement to resentment. I hate the idea of busting up a perfectly good computer because some 15 year old had nothing better to do than sit around and create a virus. I also don't like the elder statesmen of the cyber underworld having a go at my identity.

Then comes this story in the Washington Post, and I suddenly feel a little better about the digital anarchists who inhabit the world of the internet. Apparently, a hacker going by "Laura Mansfield" is breaking Al Qaeda videos before Al Qaeda can distribute them. Here's a sample of "her" work:



The video originally appeared at lauramansfield.com, which is a URL that doesn't currently function. That was funny, but then I came to the part of the article that warmed my heart.

"A similar event occurred Friday, when another group beat al-Qaeda by nearly a full day with the release of the first video images of bin Laden to appear publicly since 2004. That group, the SITE Institute, provided the tape to government agencies and news organizations at a time when many well-known jihadist Web sites had been shut down in a powerful cyberattack by unknown hackers.

It was the latest round of electronic warfare between al-Qaeda and a small community of individuals and companies that troll the Internet for messages from terrorists -- as a livelihood, a personal obsession or both. Often, the groups compete to be the first to find and post a new video or message. Frequently, they accomplish their goal several steps ahead of government agencies who turn to them for the material.

Since Friday, at least three high-profile video messages have been snatched from al-Qaeda-affiliated Web sites by groups using a combination of computer tricks, personal connections and ingenuity to find and download password-protected content. For some, it is a mission rife with contradictions: They maintain that they are seeking to serve their country while ensuring wide distribution of the words and images of terrorists intent on the destruction of the United States. They said their aim is to undermine support for the cause by disseminating what they consider to be outrageous statements."

Nothing is more dangerous in cyberspace than the ire of a group of angry hackers. No word yet on whether or not Al Qaeda will be sending its stooges back to programming school, but I suspect it won't matter. The boys in Al Qaeda have to take time off to go to the Mosque and get their marching orders. The hackers can work for weeks on end with only energy drinks and microwaveable food.

Trust me, Osama, I run into these guys when they're vacationing in the World of Warcraft. The don't eat much, rarely sleep and they LIVE to win. Al Qaeda would be better off stoking the campfire and going to smoke signals. Once the hackers decide you're done, the net is no longer an option.

God bless these hackers. As for the ones who are constantly breaking stuff, take a cue from these guys and use your dark magic for the good of humanity...

Support Petraeus

Hugh Hewitt brought the Petition to support General Petraeus to my attention last night on his blog. The general was savagely attacked by Moveon.org in a full page ad in the New York Times. You can click the picture below to sign the petition supporting the general.

Is "Freedom of Religion" an Unconditional American Gaurantee?

Osama bin Laden

On this day when we recall the brutal attacks against New York City, Washington D.C. and America, I would like to stop and consider who it is we are fighting, and what our responsibilities are in that fight. To do so, we need to address an underlying assumption of American thought that is misconstrued by many both in America and in the rest of the world.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

*****

"Democracy; hypocrisy" - Principle of Jihadi Philosophy

*****

I remember watching Muslims Against Jihad, and being amused by the effeminate Imam with the chubby little fingers making a slight sweep with his hand as he said "democracy; hypocrisy". I was struck that many of the same accusations that have been levelled against "Neo-cons" - they're chickenhawks, won't fight but get others to do it for them, ad nauseum - could have been levelled against the tinny pitched little hate-monger who avidly recruited young men to blow themselves up, while going home to his wife and kids, and never once contemplating his own demise in Allah's "Jihad." And I was struck that he had taken a principal tenant of some libertarian thought and twisted it around the frame of one of the sickest cults in the world today.

His ignorance of American thought is matched in many corners of America today. Thanks to a shallow and indifferent educational system, many of the founding ideas of American society are brushed onto the minds of kids in broad, messy strokes. The Bill of Rights, a bitterly contested (more about that contest later) document, requires laserlike precision to understand, and it isn't a document set forth as a cover-all, but a foundation for societal function. So when a proponent of mass murder cites an idea that runs contrary to a foundational idea, we should be careful to unpack the idea for all who are equally ignorant of its significance.

It has been understood culturally, and reinforced in the law, that all American freedoms come with requisite social responsibility. The first sentence in the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment to the Constitution, deals directly with the freedom of speech. That has since been expanded to include "expression," such as burning flags or making acts of protest. There are, however, reasonable limits to that expression. One cannot use free speech as a defense when lives are endangered by one's speech. The old cliche of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is useful to understand this.

By equal measures of understanding, freedom to practice a religion is contingent upon that religion functioning within the construct of an open and liberal (in the classical use of the word) society. Few (I only use the word "Few" because I'm certain the ACLU is still open for business and I'm not certain how they'd argue this) Americans would argue for the freedom of Aztecs to perform ritual human sacrifice on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. That sounds like hyperbole, but when one considers that Jihadis are, in fact and in deed, perpetuating ritual human sacrifice in the name of their religion, the analogy makes more sense.

The conclusion that begs to be drawn is that socially unacceptable ideas and thought processes, like committing mass murder and suicide for god, are not protected by the United States' Constitution.

Which brings us to Islam. Is this religion protected under the Bill of Rights? This is where we come back to the original dispute about the Bill of Rights. The founders were torn on adding it. Many felt that explicitly cataloging rights would lead to government excess where other rights were not listed. Other founders felt that a list would lead to confusion.

In the end the Bill of Rights was added, with the ability of future generations to amend the Constituion as necessary, but the Supreme Court - responsible for maintaining the integrity of the Constitution - has often leaned heavily on a tradition of Common Law handed down to us from our English forebears. Under Common Law, societal standards are weighed against individual rights and ambitions to determine whether or not a certain behavior is protected. The decisions that the Court makes often impedes a religion in specific beliefs.

For instance, the Mormon Church, first labelled a cult by more Orthodox thinkers, was forced to abandon polygamy in favor of monogamy, lest the Church run afoul of the law. That's a major example, but I could add many more. David Koresh and his followers were collecting an arsenal for the Apocalypse, but Janet Reno decided that, failing a parting of the clouds and a return of Christ, the Branch Davidians led by Koresh would need to surrender their arms. A bloodbath ensued.

Obviously, a religious expression with an Uzi Mac 10 is not protected by the constitution. Jim Jones took far too many people with him to Guyana, after his religious expression lost its protection under the law. Both could have legitimately argued that they were, in fact and through reams of testimony, expressing their own unique religious beliefs. Neither were ultimately protected by the law.

If Muslims in America allow their mosques to be subverted for use by the messengers of hate that would commit ritual human sacrifice to appease the Jihadis' blood god, will those Muslims be protected under the constitution? Of course not. As has been said many times before, the Constitution, unlike a Jihadi ritual ceremony, is not a suicide pact.

We owe neither protection, nor respect, to those who would allow the sanctuaries of their religions to be turned into bully pulpits for megalomaniacal butchers.

This does not mean that all Muslims embrace Jihad. The world has not, as yet, produced that many embiciles. But Muslims, like any other religion, have a societal responsibility to shun and report those who would subvert their religion for murder and mayhem.

And as for the fat-fingered effeminate Imam who lectures about hipocrisy? I haven't seen him in an airport with a bomb belt on his waist. Who's the hypocrite? He knows, and so do freedom loving people everywhere.

We embrace peaceful people, and we love transcendent religion - more so than any nation in history. But we won't allow schoolyard bullies to highjack a concept in the name of their impotent and meaningless god(s). To do so would dishonor a tradition of religious plurality that we hold sacred.

They may yet accomplish even more brutal attacks, but they can't hide behind religion. We won't let them. We never have.

Clinton-Hsu Connection: Serious Money Now

With all of the attention on the nasty Moveon.org attacks on General Petraeus and the flurry around the Iraq hearings, Hillary Clinton is getting a free pass on a massive scandal. I say massive, because she's returning nearly $1,000,000 dollars in campaign contributions made by donors associated with the now infamous Mr. Hsu.

She's giving back just shy of one million dollars in questionable funds. No matter how deep her pockets are for the election, nearly one million dollars is a serious number. This turn of events should lead to further scrutiny of the Hillary Clinton campaign and should be cause for an investigation of her fundraising policies and her contributors. She now promises to do background checks on future contributors, but through either failure or incompetence, her campaign staff has already allowed nearly one million dollars of questionable money through the door.

The Federal Elections Commission should be investigating her entire operation at this point. It would be good for Senator Clinton, allowing her to clear her name of wrong-doing, and good for the electorate, knowing that the highest office in the land isn't corrupted during the campaign. Senator Clinton should lead the calls for an FEC audit.

Iraq Surge Hearing 9/10/2007

The hearing is still rolling on CSpan. There is much to digest and dissect. I'll be comparing the hearing from today with the next couple of days of activity.

For now, we received what we expected. Iraq is a mixed bag with some big positives and a few drawbacks, some dangerous.

3:15PM Break - Hearing on Schedule

News from the hearing is essentially as expected. The General was succinct and informative. He pointed to success and failure. The Ambassador's report is more painstaking, making it a slog for analysis.

So far, we know that the plan is to draw down troops as Iraqis come online. The member's questions will be coming soon, and that should make for lively exchanges.

General Petraeus: Al Qaeda Off Balance

If you are not listening to the General's report, you should get a copy. See if you can access the video, with the charts he uses. That Video is available on CSpan with Windows Media Player or Real Player.

From Petraeus:

"Al Qaeda off balance... [Al Anbar] Is a model of what happens when local leaders and citizens reject Al Qaeda... Other tribes have been inspired by Al Anbar..."

More protesters have been tossed. Wish I didn't have a job and could go down to Washington to disrupt stuff that I dislike, like ways and means meetings or appropriations.

General Petraeus: Don't rush to failure.

He's calling for security while transitioning. We will be able to draw down forces, but political stability will only occur while security exists.

"I've recommended draw-downs in Iraq."

Force reductions will continue, but "projecting too far into the future can be not just difficult, but misleading..."

He's also discussing Iranian involvement, noting that few could have predicted its extent in Iraq. The bottom line from the General? We must be patient. Things are progressing, be patient.

A fast withdrawal could produce "dangerous results". We must secure the Iraqi people while targeting terrorists, while transitioning control to the Iraqis.

Media Set to Attack General Petraeus' Report

If the morning headlines are any indication, General David Petraeus could report that the war is won and it wouldn't matter to the old media. For nearly four weeks, the media has been attacking and undermining the general. Now, they've shifted to "re-interpreting" the facts, even before the facts have been presented.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has read this blog. I predicted in early August that the facts would not matter to the Democrats, and that the old media would reject the report after spending weeks savaging General Petraeus' credibility.

The facts will begin coming today. We'll have our first glance at the General's report. I suspect we'll see a mixed bag of success and frustration. But we cannot give up on this war, and we can't let the old media call the shots.

Trust Mohamed: Iranian Leaders are Honest and Will Cooperate

Mohamed ElBaradei

I'd like to volunteer my services as a "backseat driver" as well.

From Reuters:

"The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog body on Friday rebuffed Western critics of a cooperation deal it struck with Iran as "back-seat drivers" and accused U.S. media of a campaign to discredit him.

Under the Aug. 21 deal, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency and Tehran agreed on a rough timetable for addressing lingering questions about Iran's nuclear activities.

IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said his agency would scrutinise Iran's promise to cooperate by the end of the year and demand documents and other proof of its good faith.

If Iran reneged, it would jeopardise any grounds for future trust, he said.

This is plain stupidity. If Mohamed ElBaradei thinks that criticism of his deal is out of line, he can appeal to the security council for intervention. They might just be willing to attack civilians and governments of democratic countries.

The point is simple: We are now at an all or nothing juncture with Iran. We cannot allow a country who is openly sworn to destroying another country to possess nuclear power or weaponry. Our continued waffling only heightens the long-term conflict that is, barring a change of course, inevitable.

All of Saddam Hussein's promises and "compliance" ultimately led to a state of confusion so profound that nobody knew how many weapons he had developed, or what kind. Iran can drop nuclear buildup or be forced to drop it against their will. Those are the available options.

And nobody, aside from Mahmoud and a few of the more strident obfuscators, believes Mohamed can do anything one way or the other. So I could care less if the criticism bugs him. He's wrong and we should continue to behave as though he doesn't matter until the Iranians quit their illegal push.

Chris Matthews: Surge Report = Propaganda?

Chris Matthews Interviewed by Children

I took a day or two to allow this to simmer. I didn't want to overreact to a petulant and intellectually dishonest question, without time to completely address it. Chris Matthews, often the mouth-piece for the incoherent brain waves of American leftist thought, asked whether or not General Petraeus' report to congress would be propaganda a couple of nights ago on his show.

That's a curious question for a person who follows a long tradition of American newsmen and women who are willing to overlook sheer brutality and evil if it in any way interferes with a utopian hypothesis derived from collectivism. Few would argue that the American press has been anything less than complicit with some of the most brutal dictators that the world has seen. I'm not referencing CNN's "deal" with Saddam Hussein, though that is an excellent example.

I'm referencing, first, the American press' infatuation with Joseph Stalin. While the Bolsheviks were starving and butchering a helpless population, the American press was alight with "Soviet Progress." Why? I speculate that indecent people were involved with the coverage, but on a grander scale, Stalin represented the hopes and dreams of every leftist on earth. And if there is a bastion of hope for a collectivist and totalitarian control of every individual on earth, it can be found in the easy and certain alliance between the American Academy and the American Press. Both held collectivist ideas and both wanted desperately for the Soviet Union to work.

It didn't and millions (10 million or more) died, while millions more suffered the abject depravity communism had to offer. Now, I'm not asserting that the press is stupid. Even the most fervent among them must certainly have recognized that no equality existed in the Soviet Union. Stalin dealt Cadillacs to his friends and painful death to the peasants.

The "elites" in the press must have been aware of that, which is why I level the charge of intellectual dishonesty.

How does this relate to the press' behavior today? To begin, America has changed for the worse on the socialism front and I suspect the sharks smell blood in the water. On the other hand, that gives many far too much credit. A culture that is quick to criticize the United States has bred an entire generation of mindless drones that will believe anything about the United States, unless it is good. That is the root of this problem.

But even that doesn't explain Matthews. Matthews is an establishment guy to the core. He worked for Jimmy Carter and has been in politics for most of his life, even as a pundit. What explains Matthews is darker.

Unfortunately, intelligence is divorced from character. Intelligence is a genetic gift. Character is acquired. There are non-Harvard guys toting rifles in Iraq that I would trust with my life. The are many smart people I wouldn't allow within fifty yards of children. Still, we haven't completely analyzed Matthews' arrogant and flawed question, but I think the requisite foundation is in place.

The battle for control of the establishment is never ending. Sometimes the battle is between left and right. Sometimes that battle is waged by competing economic interests. On the rarest, and most effective occassions, the battle is between equally noble ideologies for the advancement of the public good.

At the moment, the battle for the establishment is between the courageous and cowards. Matthews' question isn't so much evil as it is cowardly. Jihadis have stated that their goal is to kill us. Iran has promised to destroy Israel and crush the United States. The Russians and Chinese are back to their Cold War thinking and Europe has become an intellectual and ideological morass.

Now is the time for courage and the cowards are doing everything that they can to undermine the courageous. There is a distinct possibility that the argument for cowardice could be a ploy to further the left's ambitions. I believe that it is more a default position on the order of "better Red than dead."

The fact is that the arguments against the surge are becoming more vocal and hysterical the closer we come to General Petraeus' report. No doubt that by the time the General appears before congress, Matthews and his cohorts will question every syllable of his statements and heap further doubt on an exhausted public. Their position is quite easy to achieve. Progress, unlike stagnation, requires commitment and sacrifice.

Neither of those ideas appeal to cowards, or their friends and allies in the American media. So when you consider Matthews' question, consider the source. Matthews, as previously mentioned, is the tool. A policy of cowardice is the hand holding him.

Better a citizen of the Caliphate than dead? Ask the Europeans. They're too painfully familiar with the idea. We could be next if the public answers Matthews' question incorrectly.

Clinton Campaign Plagued by the Appearance of Malfeasance

Compared to the burgeoning Hsu Scandal, few things would register on the radar. But the latest news surrounding the Clinton campaign is disturbing in a different way. The Hsu scandal, which gives the Clinton campaign the appearance of being ethically lax, or potentially worse, incompetent, is an indictment of Hillary Clinton's apparent friendships.

The New Jersey scandal is a potential indictment of her political alliances.

"Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera, 60, allegedly accepted $5,000 at a secret restaurant meet, offering to use his influence to name the dummy company Passaic's official insurance broker.

Rivera, a former cop with a checkered history, was also a featured member of Clinton's long list of campaign endorsements. He was on Clinton's Mayor's Council and her National Hispanic Leadership Council.

Clinton's camp, still red-faced from the embarrassing runner taken by fugitive fund-raiser Norman Hsu a day earlier, quickly booted Rivera from the campaign's committees.

"These are serious charges," campaign spokesman Blake Zeff said." - Emphasis Added

The charges against Rivera are serious. The charges that could potentially levelled at Clinton are equally serious. If it turns out that she is not involved in selecting with whom she allies, then she is negligent in keeping a smooth running and clean machine. If she is responsible, do we want a person in the White House that would readily associate with people like this?

Republican Debate: The Winner Is...

If you listen to Fox News, John McCain. Bunk. There was no winner because the debate is barely memorable, 2 hours after the fact. Mike Huckabee, an honorable guy himself, was making the name McCain synonymous with honor.

We are well aware of Senator McCain's military record, and those of us who value that sort of service and sacrifice are proud of him. But as has been covered too many times to recount, that service record doesn't translate into presidential material. In his defense, he's RIGHT ON THE SURGE. Romney did himself no favors hemming and hawing on the surge. Republicans, unlike wrong-headed Democrats, should be "all-in" on the surge. If Petraeus says it isn't working, our response should be: How many more troops do you need, General? Not, "Gee, it seemed to have been working, now it apparently isn't.

McCain's got that. Then again, so does Rudy Giuliani. He's all over it. And unlike McCain, Giuliani's right on Fiscal Discipline. McCain, for all of his laborious discussion of his record, is still a part of the problem in D.C.

Huckabee took the red meat of Ron Paul's war stance and went "pit bull" with it, but that's been done, so he didn't get high marks for it. Duncan Hunter is becoming more wonk-ish with each passing debate. Hunter knows his stuff and many would love to see him shaping up the Pentagon.

Tancredo is Tancredo, Brownback is, well, I'd prefer to use language befitting a general audience. Sure, he says the right things to get the social conservative vote, but he rings hollow.

So, the winner of the Republican Debate of September 5 is...

The bed. It was a sleeper. We've seen too many of these. Let's get the voting started and get moving. There are Democrats to defeat next November.

Ron Paul: Official Republican Punching Bag, or Laughing Stock?

The old saying goes, if you turn around and nobody is following, you're not leading. Ron Paul is a first rate Libertarian, and by many accounts, an excellent representative for the constituents in his district. But throughout the Republican debate of September 5, he was laughed at, and scorned by his fellow Republicans on stage.

Is that an indictment of his policy by Republicans? Yes. Republicans didn't give him a strong show of support at Ames and haven't shown much support in the polls. More than that, on the other hand, it is an indictment of his choice to be a Republican. The Republican party of 100 or 150 years ago is nothing like the Republican Party of today, and with good reason.

The United States isn't a nation on the far side of the Earth, removed by communication and travel barriers from its European roots. The United States of today is a nation immersed in the woes and good fortunes of the world. The trade and political structures of the modern world are complex and demanding. An isolationist plan is a plan for economic deprivation and political malaise.

If we don't lead, I don't know of another country that will. I've said repeatedly that Ron Paul's ideas on small government are appealing. But the price for them - abject defeat at the hands of Jihad - is prohibitively expensive. We will get killed with an isolationist policy.

That isn't hyperbole.

It's time for Ron Paul to pack the crates and head back to the Libertarian Party. He'd be well suited to lead them and the Quixotic crusade against the inevitable. He's not suited at all to lead a party who doesn't know whether it should mock him or shun him. The Libertarians will embrace him and he won't be missed on the Republican ballot.

Fiction Contest: The 2nd Annual Per Contra Prize

FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 U.S. dollars.

Top ten stories will be published in Per Contra in our 2008 editorial calendar year, with the authors paid our regular professional publication rates. Per Contra purchases first rights, right to archive and right to broadcast spoken word versions and right to reprint in an anthology. Copyright to work remains with the author.

All entries will be considered for publication. (Currently we are not accepting unsolicited submissions in poetry or fiction.)

Winners will be announced on March 1st in Per Contra. Additionally, winners will be notified by email. - Click Here for Complete Guidelines.

Per Contra has featured work by winners of prestigious literary awards like The Caine Prize, The Macarthur Award, The Walt Whitman Award, The Orange Prize, The Pushcart Prize and has featured a former Poet Laureatte of the United States of America.

This is your chance to be a part of a journal that is committed to getting your work in front of a Global Audience.

See the contents for this issue of Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas.



Take the chance to get your fiction published with the best.

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007: Molara Wood

From "Gani's Fall"

"Our wall enclosure saved my husband from neighbours' eyes when he fell. He bumped into a clothesline pole in the backyard and it gave. Clothes, still heavy with water, flopped down over him. The baby's cotton nappies were almost dry; they drifted down last and settled upon the heap. The family cat, ever sluggish, rediscovered speed and tore away. And the mother-hen plumed its wings and feathers and oscillated around Gani, clucking threateningly, ready to defend its chicks from what it perceived as danger. My mouth opened and refused to close for the shock.

Ah, Clara, it has come to this!" The lament issued from under clothes which Gani picked off himself. He removed them slowly, like a humiliation ritual to which he was resigned. The wildness had left Clara’s eyes and she backed away. I watched as she edged closer to the tree at the far end of the backyard, by the kitchen whose arched entrance was darkened by smoke from the stoves. "Ah, it has come to this!" Gani said once more, his voice rising.

Amina, my eldest daughter, came out with her sisters. In her arms was Clara’s baby girl, from whom she had become almost inseparable. Wise beyond her fifteen years, Amina handed the baby to me so she could help her father up. The ground on which he fell was wet from dripping clothes, muddying his trousers. I turned to the baby. The seven-month old gnawed her fingers between her gums to relieve teething irritation.

"Ah, this child needs bonjela," I said out loud. I went inside the house to search for the jel. I could not bear to hear my husband lament once more about how it had come to this. I said that to myself before, not so long ago. It had come to this. It was the day I first knew of Clara. The day my in-laws arrived unannounced, so many of them that they filled up my parlour. Amina rushed to my room to tell me.

“Even Baba is here,” she said, then retreated from my curtained doorway." - Click Here to Read Full Story

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007.

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007: Maryanne Stahl

Ever heard of Flash Fiction? Miriam N. Kotzin explains it in detail in this thorough essay about the form:

"If you like short stories that begin something like, "Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, in a land where…" and then meander to their conclusion, or if you want to hunker in on a snowy night with The Recognitions for light reading, flash fiction is probably not for you. But if you want a jolt, then you might have found your form. Sudden fiction, flash fiction, micro fiction, smoke-long fiction, postcard fiction--all are names for the short short fiction, seemingly designed especially for online reading. Mark Budman, whose elegant quarterly Vestal Review publishes a half-dozen flashes of 500 words or under in each issue, says, "I love flash's intensity, its ability to say much in little space, and, let's face it, its instant gratification."

Like good poetry, good flash provides not only gratification in the moment, but as a result of its intensity, an emotional experience that persists. It's analogous to what happens when you stare directly into a flash bulb: an after-image floats for a while in your field of vision."

Maryanne Stahl provides a poignant story in the form in the Fall 2007 Issue of Per Contra. From "Your Hair, Your Weight":

""Your mother has problems," he told the kids." - Click Here to Read the Flash

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007.

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007: John Martin

From "Centerpiece"

"The party was scheduled to start around three. Henry waited till four to begin getting ready, bracing himself with a Long Island Iced Tea that he mixed in a sports bottle and carried around with him as he put on his clothes. On his way out the door, he suddenly remembered a way Laurie had looked at him once after he’d said something rude, and the pain of those feelings seemed a sentence of sorts, a judgment for crimes that no amount of penance could ever undo. With fanfare, she was saying goodbye—not to return for a year, perhaps even longer—and this was to be the party that would make it official.

How should he behave at such an event? Even to be gracious seemed a deception, an insult in fact—but if he sulked the whole night, he would never forgive himself." - Click Here to Read Full Story

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007.

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007: Petina Gappah

From "The Annexe Shuffle"

"Emily sees Ezekiel shake his arms and hands around his head. This can only mean that the mosquitoes are back. Ezekiel is haunted by the buzzing of a thousand phantom mosquitoes. They fly close to his ear; it is always the same ear, the right ear. He swipes at them, but this only increases their agitation. He longs to hit one, just one, and see the satisfying streak of blood across the wall. Sometimes he slaps a hand against one, again, again, but he hits nothing but the wall, and more often, himself.

He has to be bandaged often, Ezekiel.

In between the buzzing mosquitoes, Ezekiel says that he hears other sounds: shouting men dressed as soldiers, the dry crackle of the straw on burning huts, screaming children, crying women. More frequent and disturbing than that is this, the high intermittent buzz of the thousand mosquitoes. To keep their noise out of his head, Ezekiel sings a song that Emily remembers from Sunday School:

‘Father Abraham, please send Lazarus

To rescue me, I am burning in this fire.

Yuwi maiwe yuwi,Yuwi maiwe yuwi.

Please send Lazarus, to rescue me

I am dying in this heat.’

And when he screams ‘Abraham, Abraham’ at least twenty times, the mosquitoes are still.

His shouting puts him in conflict with Sister Emilia. She raps him sharply on the head with her knuckles. He stops screaming, and whispers ‘Abraham, Abraham’ near the window close to where Emily stands. She sees him trembling, and instinctively, puts a hand on his shoulder. They stand in silence looking out at Second Street Extension, at the embassy houses of Belgravia and the golf course across the road. Through the metal grille and the mesh wire, through the reinforced windows that separate them from the outside, they can see small figures on the eighteenth green." - Click Here to Read Full Story

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007.

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007: Jennifer Byrne

From "Semi-Permanent Red"

"The worst part was, she'd been a real redhead once, without the aid of rubber gloves or sassy male stylists or rust-colored dye that stained her cheap tee-shirts to look like forensic evidence. As a kid and teenager, she'd had hair the exact color of cigarette embers right before they crumbled into ash, right before her father's index finger tapped them into a glass of dirty water, creating a hiss as they hit the shock of an opposing element. She'd loved that hiss -- trashy, really, but comforting somehow. It was the sound of resistance, of refusal to be extinguished.

Her color wasn't quite right anymore. She had handled swatch after swatch of unnervingly straight hair samples, perfect like the horsehair of paintbrushes, but the color never, ever, looked the same. Not on her own coarse, thick hair, neither straight nor curly, and never, ever sleek and shiny. On her hair, the color was either a sickly burgundy like a glass of merlot regurgitated after a hard night, or a laughable strawberry-blonde, the frothy color of a pre-teen’s lip gloss. Both she experienced with sad resignation, trying them out in different lights in hopes that they might by some alchemy combine to recreate that old truth. But hair products are not sentimental, and the chemicals did only what their particular molecules and polymers bade them when confronted with the fact of her hair. It was nothing personal: that was the good and the bad news." - Click Here to Read Full Story

Per Contra Fiction Fall 2007.

Per Contra: The Fascinating Thomas Chimes

From the Per Contra Interview with Miriam N. Kotzin:

"MK: You’ve discussed your dreams in a number of previous interviews. Do you think your dreams influence your current work? If so, how?

TC: Yes, they do because my current work has to do with a consciousness of entropy. In my dreams now there’s a constant shifting from one scene to another, with no structured plot. I feel as though I’m searching for a place, but I don’t know what it is. So the dreams are the essence of entropy, with their disorder that comes through indecision and searching.

In my most recent phase of work, I write the word entropy on each painting. When I started this series, I wrote out the entire word, and then I started abbreviating. I wrote “ntrop.” Then I shortened it even further to “n t p.” When you read “n t p” aloud letter by letter, it echoes the whole word “entropy,” while embodying the concept of entropy itself because several letters have vanished.

I’ve given thought to how entropy works in the universe. All the matter was compressed—enormous weight, then came the explosion. Something begins small, and it grows to its appropriate maximum size. But as a result of entropy, it breaks down. It returns to the all-pervasive condition of the original soup, i.e., chaos, from which everything comes.

In a way, entropy creates a cycle. I think of it as analogous to what Joyce did with Finnegan’s Wake. The last words of the novel would be perfect iambic pentameter except for the final word. The final words are: “A way a lone a last a loved a long the.” And that one little word at the end, “the,” seems to break the rhythm, to be unfinished. But what “the” does is to send us to the beginning of the novel, where the first word is “riverrun.” What we’ve been given is the connection of the end to the beginning, in a cycle. We finish the novel, but its structure invites us, almost forces us to begin reading it again." - Read the Complete Interview

Per Contra Visual Arts Fall 2007

Per Contra: Larry Silver on Jewish Painters in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Larry Silver covers a cultural phenomena in the Fall 2007 Issue of Per Contra:

"The seemingly contradictory concept of the “Jewish painter” could only emerge out of the larger historical phenomenon of Jewish Emancipation over the course of the nineteenth century. In terms of numbers and public successes, the careers of Jewish painters surely climaxed later, during the twentieth century—on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet the pioneering efforts of these ambitious outsiders to the dominant artistic culture merit closer scrutiny. Their roster includes celebrated, even surprising, names, including as Jozef Israëls in The Hague, Camille Pissarro in Paris, and Max Liebermann in Berlin. These painters had to make serious choices about how much to assert or embrace their religious and ethnic heritage, and whether they defined their Jewish identity as primarily religious or ethnic—even as they followed individual pathways within a labyrinthine complex of contested cultural terrain. Even the art world was shifting during the nineteenth century among contemporary artistic movements, played out in public exhibitions as well as private galleries in an increasingly international European arena." - Read the Complete Essay

Per Contra Visual Arts Fall 2007

Per Contra: Kuspit on Louise Bourgeois’s Sculpture

Per Contra Contributing Editor Donald Kuspit explores the sculpture of Louise Bourgeois in the Fall 2007 issue, with an essay that places the work in an analytical context:

"More signficantly, at least to me, Bourgeois’s sculptures have the aura of uncanniness that abstract art had when it was new and unfamiliar, an uncanniness it inevitably lost when it became à la mode establishment art. It lost its soul--what Kandinsky called its inner necessity--as it became matter-of-fact: “positivist,” as Clement Greenberg called it, that is, simply a “statement” of the “formal facts” (line, color, shape). More pointedly, it lost what G. Albert Aurier, the great Symbolist critic and theorist, called “the transcendental emotivity, so grand and precious, that makes the soul tremble before the pulsing drama of the abstractions.”(3) I think Bourgeois restores inner necessity--inner grandeur—to abstraction, by way of what I want to call her “transcendental viscerality.” She distills the body to its organic essence, focuses bodiliness in pure abstract form, concentrates it so that it seems ultra-autonomous." - Read the Complete Essay

Per Contra Visual Arts Fall 2007

Per Contra Visual Arts: Peter Groesbeck Stuns Again

We've had the good fortune of having Peter Groesbeck working with Per Contra for seven issues now, and each time he produces work for us, we are amazed at the quality. Fall 2007 is no different. Here is the largest cover image I can place here:



You can find the full image on the cover of Per Contra

Per Contra: Charting the Beginning of the Information Revolution

The Blogfather: Hugh Hewitt

Since Hugh Hewitt first inspired my foray into the blogosphere (a foray which ended with multiple failed attempts due to various factors prior to success here), I've watched the advent of blogs as the new force in information and public discussion. Far from being a hobby for tech-heads, blogging has become the average person's access to the public debate. Don't think so? Ask John McCain what a dedicated group of individuals using a viral string of links and downloads can do to an immigration bill. The fact is that blogs are reshaping the world in which we live.

I've taken on the subject in a special blogging section of Per Contra Fall 2007:

"The world of coats and ties and microfilm is gone. The shady character in some parking garage, passing out information to city beat journalists is as obsolete as a television antenna. Single source news, whether the local newspaper or trusty old Walter Cronkite, makes for quaint memories or historical studies, but it, too, is gone. And so, too, at least for this skeptic, is the somewhat disingenuous clamor for objectivity. Few possess a true to form judicial temperament and fewer still would argue that any media outlet, save a few bastions of the well-intentioned, hold to a rigid objective standard. Some would argue that the standard still exists, but the Old Media's circulations or ratings, much like their fantastic notions of journalistic integrity, are drowning in a tsunami of digital data transfer.

Now, bathrobes and Boolean searches dominate news. There are no shady characters in parking garages because any malcontent – or decent person wanting to right a grievous wrong – armed with an email account, has access to a universe of outlets for whatever information he’s willing to share. The evening news and daily fish-wrapper are out in favor of blogrolls, and forthright subjectivity with an acknowledgement of fact." Read the complete essay.

Per Contra Non-Fiction Fall 2007

Internet Journalism as Fast as You Can Say Tinkerty Tonk

Rachel Sawyer, blogger of record at Tinkerty Tonk, makes her debut in Per Contra with two essays that outline the basics of Internet Journalism. Looking for excellent tips to save time and get to the bottom of the facts? Sawyer has you covered.

On journalism:

"If you stumble upon a suspect web site in the course of your personal research, you'll probably just discard it and move on. But a journalist needs to dig deeper. As a wise man once said, "Trust but verify." - Read the complete essay.

On research:

"Ever play a hidden object game? The premise is simple: You’re shown a picture crowded with objects and you’re asked to find certain items that are hidden in plain sight. Some objects are obvious while others are camouflaged. A giant clown, for instance, in a picture of a library will stand out, but a pencil placed along the edges of a wooden bookshelf can be hard to find." - Read the complete essay.

Per Contra Non-Fiction Fall 2007

Kierkegaard: M.G. Piety on Translating the Philosopher People Should Love to Read

Per Contra Fall 2007 features an essay by M.G. Piety that elaborates on Søren Kierkegaard, and covers translation. As Piety describes in the beginning of her essay, Kierkegaard is "supremely readable." The good news for us is that the same could be said for Piety's essay:

"Søren Kierkegaard is one of the few philosophers often found on the shelves of shopping mall bookstores. Why is Kierkegaard so popular? The answer is not simply that he addresses perennial human questions, like the meaning of life, the nature of ethical and religious truth, and the debilitating nature of guilt. The answer is that he does this in a supremely readable manner. He is one of the great Danish prose stylists. He deals with serious issues, but often with humor and sometimes with devastating sarcasm. His style is closer to Mark Twain’s or H.L. Menken’s than to Heidegger’s, with whom he is often compared.

Kierkegaard loved language, particularly the Danish language. He petitioned to be allowed to submit his dissertation in Danish rather than the then requisite Latin, and, although many of his Danish contemporaries sometimes wrote in French or German to insure their works a wider audience, Kierkegaard insisted on writing exclusively in Danish. He particularly despised neologisms and the pedantic obscurity of academic writing. One should not, he cautioned, “get out of touch with everyday speech and usage. . . as sometimes happens to a scholar. . . with the result that he continually collides with the everyday and, without really being aware of it, offends against the genius of the language and the legitimate shareholders in the common property of the language.”

So how does someone who reveres the everyday usage of language end up sounding so awkward and wooden as Kierkegaard does in most English translations? The fault is not Kierkegaard’s–it’s the translators’. The problem, for the most part, has not been a failure of the translators to appreciate the substance of his works, but a misguided commitment to fidelity to the language of the original texts...." - Read the complete essay.

You can find other essays at Per Contra Non-Fiction Fall 2007.

Per Contra Fall 2007 is Live!

We have an issue packed with fiction, poetry, translation, non-fiction and a special section on blogging and the information revolution. You can get the complete lineup by Clicking Here. We search the planet for the best writers and visual artists we can find.

Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas.

Petraeus: Surge Working

From the full story at the Australian:

"THE US troop surge in Iraq has thrown al-Qa'ida off balance and produced a dramatic reduction in sectarian killings and a drop in roadside bombings.

David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said the build-up of American forces in Baghdad since late January had produced positive outcomes. These included the killing or capture of al-Qa'ida fighters, causing the terrorist group to lose influence with local Sunnis.

The strategic gains against insurgents would lead to a changed and possibly longer-term role for Australian troops, shifting from security operations to a focus on training Iraqi soldiers and police.

General Petraeus told The Australian during a face-to-face interview at his Baghdad headquarters there had been a 75 per cent reduction in religious and ethnic killings since last year, a doubling in the seizure of insurgents' weapons caches between January and August, a rise in the number of al-Qa'ida "kills and captures" and a fall in the number of coalition deaths from roadside bombings.

"We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al-Qa'ida is off balance at the very least," he said."

We can listen to the man everyone agreed was the right man for the job, or we can listen to congressional partisans who have been unusually forthright with their desire to lose the war for political gains. The choice on this is clear, and that is the best we can hope to achieve.

The naysayers are in abundance, but the chief on the ground is resolute. We cannot let the old media spin this into something it is not. The surge is working.

Craig's Guilty Plea Closes Case

The details of Senator Larry Craig's arrest are flowing like sewage in the old media. The debate is on about whether or not he should resign. Senator Craig feels besieged and rightfully so. I say rightfully because he pled guilty.

Of the ten thousand or so ways that one could frame the discussion based on the facts, the guilty plea stands in the center of the picture. Did he really want to just make the problem go away? That's irrelevant. He pled guilty.

That plea will probably haunt him for a long time, but he made it and he'll have to live with it. Part of living with it means to recognize that he let the team down. In a war, we don't have time for a Larry Craig sideshow and a hostile debate about a trivial matter in the party supporting the war. Yes, the Senator should know, right now Americans are in harm's way and his political future is a petty trifle compared to the danger they face.

And we should remember that we can always discard the Senator while helping the man. In fact, should he resign and do the right thing - meaning face what must be a horrible personal struggle shared by his wife, family and close friends - we should be quick to forgive the man. He has the opportunity to turn a potential legacy of shame into a rebirth of human decency and hope for others.

But the Senator should be gone. People are laying their lives on the line in support of their principles and freedom. This is not a time for a Washington D.C. Circus.

Less Than Half of Scientists in Survey Believe Global Warming Man-Made

HT: [Drudge]

From the EPW Press Blog:

"An abundance of new peer-reviewed studies, analysis, and data error discoveries in the last several months has prompted scientists to declare that fear of catastrophic man-made global warming “bites the dust” and the scientific underpinnings for alarm may be “falling apart.” The latest study to cast doubt on climate fears finds that even a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would not have the previously predicted dire impacts on global temperatures. This new study is not unique, as a host of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast a chill on global warming fears.

“Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust,” declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing the new study which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Another scientist said the peer-reviewed study overturned “in one fell swoop” the climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore. The study entitled “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz.

A PDF with details of the study can be found HERE.

What are the odds that the old media is even aware of this story? The "global warming deniers" are beginning to add up. It won't be long until this myth is busted, but by then the hysterics will have found a new "threat to our existence" to scream about.

Until the environmental movement separates itself from the socialists who use it as an agenda for government control of private property, real problems will continue to be ignored in favor of pet projects of dubious facts and little import to public health and safety.

Pentagon Questions Congress' Iraq Report

Apparently, the Democratically controlled Congress sanctioned an Iraq progress report that produced a dire picture. Not surprisingly, The Pentagon would like to have a word with the authors. Few would be shocked to see a dour report slip into the hands of a Congress almost desperate, by the admission of some of its Democratic members, for a loss in Iraq. But many are surprised by the extent of pessimism emenating from Capitol Hill.

According to the Pentagon:

""We have provided the GAO with information which we believe will lead them to conclude that a few of the benchmark grades should be upgraded from `not met' to `met,'" Morrell said. He declined to elaborate or to spell out which of the benchmark grades the Pentagon was disputing."

Another problem may be that the Democrats in congress set the benchmarks to unreachable standards. Iraq isn't going to be releasing doves in a celebration of peace anytime soon, but that doesn't mean the situation on the ground isn't improving. To the contrary, most accounts have the surge succeeding.

Skye at Midnight Blue is reporting about more success in Baghdad.

As we get closer to General Petraeus' report, I suspect we'll hear more dire predictions about Iraq from the forces in congress who need the United States to lose the war to advance their own narrow and selfish agendas.

Hillary Clinton and Norman Hsu: Echoes of a Culture of Corruption

Hillary Clinton's campaign has been strong and error free, but recent troubles may bring her into a defensive mode. By now, most people are familiar with the long history of Democrats and questionable campaign finance ideas. The fact is, many funding issues arise on the left, and thanks to McCain-Feingold, the waters are murkier than ever.

Ask someone about a 527 organization and he or she may know what it is, but that is unlikely. Ask someone who "Swiftboated" whom in the last election, and you'll likely hear about the travails of poor John Kerry. But how many more would know that Howard Dean was a "Frankenstein" created by Moveon.org, who are also a creation of McCain-Feingold?

George Soros must be laughing all the way to the next bankrupted country.

Harry Reid brought to the front the howls about a culture of corruption, but he must certainly have been staring into a mirror as he recited and practiced his delivery of the speech. Some would claim that's vanity, I call it divination and prophecy.

All of which brings us back to Hillary Clinton and the Questionable Mr. Hsu. Thanks to McCain-Feingold, the evidence is building that instead of America's politics "becoming accessible for the average person," we've opened the door to foreign investment in the Presidential campaign. Hsu is probably one cog in a filthy wheel of corruption and shady tactics. If the Democrats want to "clean up Washington," they can start with Mrs. Clinton's doorstep and "Moveon" to repeal McCain-Feingold. Otherwise the corruption will keep occuring.

I doubt the Democrats will rank it as a priority. Apparently their front-runner is benefitting greatly from the maze of regulation that shields contributions. That or maybe they're comfortable with the culture they wanted to cure. Mrs. Clinton may be giving the money back, but that doesn't solve this problem.

Perhaps she could lead the charge to repeal the awful regulations of McCain-Feingold and bring intelligible and meaningful reporting back to campaign finance. It is the least she could do.

Republican Primary Not a Horse Race: Giuliani Tops the Polls

In honor of Holy Week, a time when people sit back and reflect on last year and the coming of new hope and opportunity (except for Buckeyes, who have to sit in the corner and memorize the phrase: "The Big 10 is not the SEC and we wouldn't even finish fourth in that conference"), I offer an insight into the presidential primaries.

First, pundits everywhere refer to a primary as a horse race. Bunk. Nobody voted for Seabiscuit to win, he outran the competition. A primary is all about the votes. So, I think a horse race analogy is all wrong.

The Primary is like a college football poll. That's right, it is a popularity contest to some degree, and it adds in on field performance to create a mystifying (or stupifying when your favorite team should be in the BCS but isn't) set of results. Ultimately, the team that plays best and has a high enough favorable rating with the voters will wind up number one.

And as the race unfolds, it looks like a college football poll. Take a look at the Republican Numbers from Real Clear Politics. You can see how candidates are trending. If it were to be matched up with a college football season, it would read something like this.

Rudy Giuliani: He begins the season in the spot reserved for USC/Michigan. Everyone is chattering about him, he has a powerful team, it has depth and he should run the table if he plays error free to the end. Rudy Fans should hope he's USC. Michigan usually chokes.

John McCain is Ohio State. He started with a load of fanfare and hoopla, but like Ohio State, he can't play with the Big Boys. One tough opponent and the gag reflex kicks in. He's DOA at game one, but he'll get to stick around long enough to get pounded into Mush on the National Stage.

Mitt Romney: He looks like a Gator. His team is well prepared. His playbook is full and his defense is bone-jarring. He's lean and hungry and he's fast. He gets his share of scandalous accusations and he has a loss on his schedule somewhere because he only plays against powerhouse teams. He has the look of a BCS champion waiting to happen.

Some Guy from Tennessee is exactly like Tennessee. He's the down home favorite, but he can't talk, he staggers from play to play and he thinks that this is like a Tennessee high school game. His team is in disarray and his hopes are usually crushed by Mid-October, right after he hits the big Florida game.

Mike Huckabee: He screams Boise State. He's the team you root for because he doesn't have a prayer. He'll do well, finish strong and everybody will admire the effort, but he won't win it all because everyone knows the Gators' beat down of the Buckeyes was National Championship material (oops, threw that one in).

Sam Brownback: Welcome to St. Mary of the Plains, The school in the NAIA who plays a powerhouse schedule featuring other schools you've never heard of. Yep, he thinks he's Notre Dame, but he's not even Division III material.

The rest are Mid-Majors (I only included Brownback because he needs a jab once a week).

Who will be number one at the end? Tough to say. There's a bunch of games to be played and the Voting only counts at the end. But my point is that unlike a horse race, perception matters in this game. Let's keep the analogies accurate. And, of course, keep in mind that the season doesn't end at the point where everyone in Ohio thinks a team is unbeatable. Got that Buckeyes?

Go Gators.

Operation Lightning Hammer Making Progress in Iraq Surge

From Centcom:

"Residents of most villages welcomed the security forces, providing tips and intelligence about recent activities in their towns, and were interested in joining the Iraqi Security Forces. Following clearing operations, the Iraqi Army provided medical assistance and humanitarian aid to the local citizens, many of whom said their villages were recently influenced by al-Qaeda.

More importantly, more than 80 tribal leaders and representatives, some of whom had not spoken in over a year, met Aug. 19 to discuss their grievances and swore on the Quran to unite in their fight against terrorists and become one tribe of Diyala.

“As I conducted my battlefield circulation and talked with many of the citizens, they repeatedly thanked our Soldiers, but more importantly, their security forces, for liberating their towns from the terrorists – specifically al-Qaeda,” Sutherland said. “Because their villages have been cleared, the local and central governments will now be able to provide those essential services al-Qaeda destroyed, and the people feel a sense of security they have not known for some time.”

Throughout the operation, the Task Force Lightning Soldiers also discovered 22 improvised explosive devices, 11 of which were discovered based on tips from a police chief in the river valley, and reduced three house-borne IEDs and six vehicle-borne IEDs, all of which could have been used to harm a large portion of the population or security forces.

Additionally, an al-Qaeda command post was discovered in the village of Shadia, and an al-Qaeda medical clinic was located in Qaryat Sunayjiyah.

The command post, which was surrounded by fighting positions, contained bed space for 20 individuals, supply requests, records of munitions, a list of families supporting the element, a list of al-Qaeda members detained by Coalition forces and other terrorist propaganda."

The success of the military operation is not in question. The United States Military is performing well under the worst of circumstances politically, and they are stabilizing a situation that would have been uncontrollable 2 years ago. The surge may well bring a stable and peaceful Iraq yet, if we give it enough time.

Surge Clarity from Krauthammer

If you're searching for a clear picture of the surge and Maliki, Charles Krauthammer's piece today is just what you need.

Giuliani has "A" Team in Media

Whatever else may be said of Rudy Giuliani's prospects for the '08 election, one thing is now certain: He will be well equiped with media advice and using solid tactics. Already the howls from the left are piercing the discussion. His consultants have a knack for hitting the right buttons. Here's an example of the dander and huff already blowing in the old media:

"Last year, an ad made by Thompson's firm for Tennessee's U.S. Senate race was criticized for what the NAACP and others called racial overtones.

Run by the Republican National Committee against Democrat Harold Ford, who is black, the ad showed a white woman saying she had met Ford at a Playboy-sponsored party. As the ad ended, the woman, her shoulders bared, whispered into the camera, "Harold, call me."

The NAACP said the ad played to prejudices about black men and white women, and Republican Bob Corker, who won the Senate seat, called the ad tacky. The RNC denied any racial subtext but asked TV stations to stop running the ad.

The firm's client roster has included Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas."

The last paragraph is telling - all of them are winners. The fact is that Giuliani and Romney have the serious players on their teams. Other candidates are grousing around for a primary strategy and these two are already playing in a general election mode. Before long, the curtains will be drawn on the understudies and the stars will be on the stage.

Don't be surprised to see Mitt and Rudy in the spotlight. They seem to be the only two geared up to beat Hillary.

John Edwards on Popular Decisions

From Boston.com:

""Although they haven't done squat yet, I would give (Iraq prime minister Nouri al-Maliki) and the Sunnis at least few months to reach a compromise. But they've got to know there's a deadline," he said.

He repeated his stance that Congress should not submit any Iraq funding bill to President Bush unless it includes a timetable for withdrawing troops.

"All the Democrats have to do is what America wants them to do," he said later in Hampton. "It's not like they're taking some unpopular decision. I think we ought to be willing to take an unpopular position if it's the right thing to do, but this is not an unpopular position, this is what America actually wants to have done."

At all his stops, Edwards emphasized that Democrats should use every tool available, including filibusters, to push for a timetable for withdrawal.

"George Bush is not going to do anything different unless he's made to do something. He's bull headed. He thinks he's incapable of making mistakes, and he's made some very serious mistakes," he said."

First, he should make references to President Bush. The office still matters.

Next, Edwards should know a bit about popularity. Popularity is what his opponent in North Carolina enjoyed as he was drubbing Edwards out of the Senate. In America, one can lose one's senate seat and still take high paying jobs with financial firms and later run for president. In the larger picture, a loss in Iraq doesn't bode well for the losers. Al-Qaeda understands that well.

Edwards has a right to say foolish things. And the voters, as demonstrated in many polls, have the right to select his opponents as the Democratic nominee. The only question at this point is how long can Edwards milk the exposure he's receiving as a candidate. We can only hope that it won't be much longer. It is hard enough getting our enemies to take our leadership seriously when our leaders are constantly under attacks. Add to that a couple of bufoons, one who wants to attack Pakistan and another who wants to surrender as we are winning, and we have a hard time ahead.

Maliki: The Weakest Link

From BBC News:

"But the Iraqi prime minister hit back during a news conference in Baghdad, saying: "Leaders like Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin have not experienced in their political lives the kind of differences we have in Iraq.

"When they give their judgment they have no knowledge of what reconciliation means."

He also rebuffed French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner who, in an interview with a US news magazine, apparently also suggested Mr Maliki step down.

"... we were surprised that the minister made a statement which can't be called in any way diplomacy, when he called for replacing the government," Mr Maliki said.

The introduction of some 30,000 US troops - the "surge" strategy - was supposed to buy time for the Iraqi government to make political progress.

But, our correspondents say, far from making progress, Mr Maliki's government is visibly falling apart.

US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and US ambassador Ryan Crocker are soon expected to report to the US Congress on progress in Iraq since the surge began.

Mr Maliki said a negative report by Gen Petraeus would not cause him to change course, but he expected the general to "be supportive of the government".

Maliki doesn't have the luxury of swatting at American politicians. He's effectively caused a split in his own government and has little power left. He should be focused on solutions to his own problems.

Perhaps his government's collapse is best for the surge. With greater security, now is the time for Iraq to build up a new, more effective government structure, one without a sectarian knife to its throat.

Special Note For MSN and Yahoo Supporters

I almost never apply the Nazi comparison. When I do, I'm careful to make sure that the comparison is accurate. I stand by my Gestapo analogy.

MSN and Yahoo Facilitate Chinese Tyranny

From Breitbart.com:

"US Internet giants Yahoo and MSN confirmed Friday they had signed a code of conduct for their blogging operations in China that committed them to protecting the interests of the Chinese state.
Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and other blog providers in China this week signed the "self-discipline" pact, under which they pledged to "safeguard state and public interests," according to a statement from the China Internet Society.

The pact "encourages" the Internet firms to register the real names, addresses and other personal details of the bloggers, and then keep this information.

The firms also committed to delete any "illegal or bad messages", according to a copy of the pact posted on the society's website.

Along with sex and violence, China's communist rulers have also deemed that opinions critical of it or the spreading of democratic ideology are not allowed."

The Bill T Blog Response

In honor of this decision, I will post a few fun facts about China.

First, almost any discussion of China these days (at least in the democratic world) will involve a mention of Tiananmen Square. This is an important place in China.

You can find a tourist's oververview of Tiananmen Square by clicking here. In China, this is about all one "needs" to know about Tiananmen Square. At least, that's the Chinese Government's view of it.

In the United States, we have a document called the Constitution, which includes a Bill of Rights. Tyrannical regimes view this document as an arogant usurpation of a tyrant's power by a bunch of "common people." At any rate, the First Amendment contained in the Bill of Rights is quoted below:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

This small paragraph ensures that citizens of the United States may say what they wish about a variety of subjects, including tyrants and tyranny. So, whereas a Chinese citizen may only discuss how beautiful Tiananmen Square is in the Spring, or other related propaganda, a citizen of the United States may take in the complete cultural history of the space and discuss it in detail.

We could, for instance, take a look at the history of Tiananmen Square, focusing on the beginnings of Beijing, or we could have a look at recent history in Tiananmen Square:

"The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 were a series of demonstrations led by students, intellectuals, and labor activists in the People's Republic of China (PRC) between April 15, 1989 and June 4, 1989. While the protests lacked a unified cause or leadership, participants were generally critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and voiced complaints ranging from minor criticisms to calls for full-fledged democracy and the establishment of broader freedoms. The demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, but large-scale protests also occurred in cities throughout China, including Shanghai, which stayed peaceful throughout the protests. In Beijing, the resulting military crackdown on the protesters by the PRC government left many civilians dead or injured. The toll ranges from 200–300 (PRC government figures), to 400–800 by The New York Times, and to 2,000–3,000 (Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross).

Following the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress protestors and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the PRC press. Members of the Party who had publicly sympathized with the protesters were purged, with several high-ranking members placed under house arrest, such as General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. The violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protest caused widespread international condemnation of the PRC government.[1]" - You can find the footnotes by following the link above to the Wikipedia article.

You can find another perspective (from a Chinese artist with great skill) on Tiananmen Square by clicking here.

Next, we can have a look at how China has been a Revolutionary force in cultural evolution. After all, 9th Century Chinese Alchemists are credited with inventing Gunpowder. This was a radical step forward in the democratization of warfare. From this point forward, any peasant with a boomstick was the equal of a heavily armored noble.

But China has given the world so much more. Consider Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, which led to great personal struggles for "common people" and a nearly complete destruction of ancient Chinese traditions and philosophical advances.

Aside from being megalomaniacal, Chairman Mao lacked a great deal of the requisite intelligence necessary to fuse Chinese culture with the ideologies he held. Either that or communism is just so backward and socially retarded that it isn't compatible with any real intellectual advance and solely thrives in the authoritarian impulse of the bullying and cowardly small-minded thugs who use it to get what they want. Either way, China gave the world the "Cultural Revolution" and we're worse for the trouble.

Finally, China is a nation in a state of retrograde at best, or the death throws of a Communist last second power grab at worst. They are exporting poisons, counterfeit health supplies and a little violence and bloodshed on the side, in an effort to suck the last life out of the few poor souls who cannot resist.

Bear in mind that MSN and Yahoo will swear that they are only trying to make a buck and live in peace with their friends in the Chinese halls of power. They'll assure us that all they are doing is trying to follow the law.

Funny, many in the Gestapo said the same thing at Nuremburg.

U.S. General: Pullback Before Christmas a "Giant Step Backward"

From the Full Story at CNN:

"Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Multi-National Division-Center, was asked to comment on Republican Sen. John Warner's recommendation that President Bush start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by Christmas.

Speaking to Pentagon reporters on Friday via teleconference from Iraq, Lynch said, "Only when the Iraqi security forces come forward and say 'OK, here I am, I'm trained and equipped, I'm ready, I'm the Iraqi Army or I'm the Iraqi police,' can I turn those sanctuaries over, and that's not going to happen between now and Christmas."

Lynch, whose operations cover the central part of Iraq, south of Baghdad, said soldiers have been helped by the surge, or additional troops, and have made strides against militants. But, he said, "If we were to lose that capability, the enemy would come back."

So we can either believe a commander on the ground, or an elderly Senator on his way out. That may sound harsh, but it is the reality of the situation. Weak knees and gelatinous wills don't win wars.

We need to let the troops stabilize the situation on the ground before we go.

Surge Opposition from Warner Nothing New

Much ado has been made about Senator John Warner's recent statements about the surge. He has opposed the surge from the earliest stages of planning, so his ideas are nothing new. The old media, on the other hand, will rarely miss a chance to make something of a Republican questioning the President's plans.

As Hugh Hewitt consistently points out, we can't let "Round Heeled" Republicans dominate the discussion. If they do, we lose.

Obama Would Bomb Pakistan, but he Doesn't Support Working Surge

From MLive Via Associated Press:

"Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday the recent increase in American troops in Iraq may well have helped tamp down violence, but he insisted there is no military solution to the country's problems and U.S. forces should be redeployed soon.

Obama spoke a day after his main Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, made similar comments. She said the tactics of the short-term troop increase were working but political progress did not seem to be in sight and the U.S. should begin bringing some troops home."

The simple solution is to invade Pakistan, then Obama will be arguing to bomb Iraq. The naked contrarian prayers for loss, masked as political strategy, make the Democrats look childish. They wanted a new commander, now they want a new war. The surge is working and the unanimous choice to lead it, General Petraeus, will report soon.

We should get the facts before we draw conclusions. That's what adults do.

Skye at Midnight Blue is also reporting about ambulances transporting weapons for terrorists. Again.

Jed Babbin Asks Who do we Trust?

My answer is General David Petraeus. I said in May that I thought he'd brought his "A" game to Iraq, and it looks as though he gets stronger each day. Jed Babbin is on point and correct in his analysis.

From Human Events:

"Democrats and their allies in the political activist media are working hard to pre-empt the September report on Iraq by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. They live in fear of the facts that, if delivered without political spin, could be fatal to their party’s lose-the-war-at-all-costs White House strategy.

They are also fearful that General Petraeus himself may become a powerful public symbol untarnished by partisan politics. So they are doing the only thing they know how: slinging mud at Petraeus himself.

Petraeus was confirmed by the Senate in January. Three months later, on April 19th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that the war in Iraq was lost. Five days after that Reid had the following exchange with a CNN reporter:

CNN reporter: [The President] said Gen. Petraeus is going to come to the Hill and make it clear to you that there is progress going on in Iraq, that the so-called surge is working…will you believe him when he says that?

Reid: (laughs) No…I don’t believe him because it’s not happening. All you have to do is look at the facts…

In June, when Petraeus said that there were new “astonishing signs of normalcy” in Baghdad -- citing open markets, soccer leagues playing in open-field stadiums and such, Reid said Petraeus, “…isn’t in touch with what’s going on in Baghdad,” and implied that Petraeus hadn’t been honest in prior testimony to Congress.

On August 15, former Clinton functionary and head of the Democratic Congressional Caucus Cong. Rahm Emanuel chummed for the media sharks. He said, "After years of slogans and soundbites Americans deserve an even-handed assessment of conditions in Iraq. Sadly, we will only receive a snapshot from the same people who told us the mission was accomplished and the insurgency was in its last throes. We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars and lost thousands of lives in Iraq. An honest report from our generals and diplomats about the status of the war isn’t too much to ask."

The Dems media assault on Petraeus may be beginning to work. CNN reported a new survey supposedly proving that 53% of Americans didn’t trust Petraeus to report the truth on Iraq."

We in the blogosphere who have been paying close attention need to be pounding on the points that the entire attack against General Petraeus 1) Just began, 2) is a ruse to change the subject from the success on the ground in Iraq and 3) is entirely partisan in nature. If we do not, the Democratic party may well get the defeat in Iraq that they so desperately covet. A win for the Democrats on this subject is a loss for America.

Unlike other losses, this one could be catastrophic.

Surge Working

From the Full Story at the Boston Herald:

"The debate over the war in Iraq is shifting, though more slowly than is the war in Iraq, thanks to a well-funded anti-war movement and too many in the media for whom good news is no news.

A few days ago, CNN’s Kyra Phillips interviewed Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, Petraeus’ top deputy. She might have asked whether his troops now have both the will and a way to defeat al-Qaeda suicide bombers and Iranian-backed death squads. Instead, her inquiring mind wanted to know: “Do you think that this job that you’ve taken on could be career suicide?”

Most Americans don’t even realize that the so-called surge is a new strategy, implemented by Petraeus because the approach of his predecessors - not least former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - failed." - Continues below

MORE SURGE NEWS: Skye has the inside on how commanders are working to bring security on the ground in Iraq.

The fact is that the enemy knows what the surge is capable of producing in Iraq and is fighting hard to give the left-leaning dinosaurs of the old media the blood and body bags they need to declare failure. Those attacks aren't happening on the surge turf, they're happening on the fringes of Iraq.

We need to keep pressing our representatives to allow General Petraeus and our trrops to do their jobs.

Socialized Medicine Anyone?

Things are so much better with health care in Canada, that a Canadian couple drove 325 miles to Montana to have their children delivered. The identical quadruplets are healthy (thanks to the U.S. Medical system). The punchline from the article comes here:

"The Jepps drove 325 miles (523 kilometers) to Great Falls for the births because hospitals in Calgary were at capacity, Key said.

Two of the girls were to be transferred to a Calgary hospital later Thursday. The other two could be moved Friday if their conditions remain favorable, Key said."

Glad we could be of assistance. Please reform your healthcare system Canada. Ours is under enough pressure already.

Iran Seeking Bargaining Chips?

With the news of the United States placing the Revolutionary Guard on the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Iran is becoming predictably unstable. It would make sense for them to attempt to drive a wedge in the International community, playing the fears of conflict on one side against the resolve to prevent nuclear holocaust on the other. It appears that they may be making such an attempt.

Iranian authorities have arrested 2 Chinese citizens, charging them with spying on Iranian facilities. The quote from the New York Times reads:

"“The Chinese nationals were detained while photographing and recording video of a military complex in Arak city,” said the spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, according to the news agency ISNA. Mr. Jamshidi said the two had entered the country at Kish Island, a resort island in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf.

Mr. Jamshidi said their case was under initial investigation at a court in Arak, but he would not give further details about the arrest or the suspects’ identities."

Iran could not have a much better business partner than China, owing a great deal of missile technology and small arms to the Red Government of Beijing. This could be a naked attempt to strain Sino-American relations as the noose tightens around the government of the mullahs. It could also be an attempt to gain leverage in securing uninterrupted trade with China, a country not known for ethical business practices.

This is a developing story worth watching.

Old Media Attempting to Raise False Expectations

From the Full Story at Threats Watch:

"The headline, “Petraeus Says He Will Propose Troop Cuts”, while technically accurate, is misleading considering the current tenor and debate in the United States. Hurried news consumers will read that and conclude that General Petraeus is considering drawing down the surge when he briefs Congress in September. The full quote (and principal context) regarding a reduction in troop strength does appear until the end of the article.

Petraeus, who wrote the Army’s book on counterinsurgency, said he and his staff were “trying to do the battlefield geometry right now” as he prepared [Ed Note: Or rather, ‘prepares’] his troop-level recommendations.

“We know that the surge has to come to an end, there’s no question about that. I think everyone understands that by about a year or so from now we’ve got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now.

“The question is how do you do that … so that you can retain the gains we have fought so hard to achieve and so you can keep going. Again we are not at all satisfied where we are right now. We have made some progress but again there’s still a lot of hard work to be done against the different extremist elements that do threaten the new Iraq.”

When General Petraeus says “by about a year or so from now we’ve got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now,” he is speaking to the current troop rotation policy and the desire leave them relatively unaltered. This is a topic General Casey addressed as well recently."

The idea of force reduction in secure areas could easily become the straw man the left will attack to press the agenda of defeat in Iraq. With sources like Jason Blair and Scott Beauchamp muddying the waters around the reputation of the dinosaurs, the old media doesn't have the force of credibility it once had. The days of the journalist as objective observer are gone (they never really existed, but the myth persisted). So, no one source can declare the war is lost. They require a cacophony of misstatements to confuse the subject.

Checking my news aggregator, I see over 300 stories blaring the news that Petraeus will cut the size of U.S. Forces in Iraq. This looks to be the first stage in the all out assault on the General's credibility. First they will claim he promised to bring the troops home, then they will say he's "flip-flopping" on bringing the troops home when he clarifies the story.

We need to be blasting the news that the surge is working, but we should also publish the ful extent of General Petraeus' statements on issues as his report approaches. On this count, he's making no promises, only stating that the security issue is getting better and that local involvement in that security will allow for force reductions where security is established.

Again, he has made no promise to bring the troops home. Spread the word, before the lie becomes entrenched.

Al Qaeda Manipulating Videos

Leave it to the hackers to do the grunt work on exposing fraud in the mass murder movement within Totalitarian Islam. From the Full Story at C/Net News:

"In a presentation at the Black Hat conference here Tuesday, Neal Krawetz of Hacker Factor showed how basic manipulations to images can be revealed through digital analysis.

After presenting on the specific techniques he used, Krawetz launched into what he called the case of "Dr. Z," who happens to be Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 man in al-Qaida.

Using a photo that originally appeared on December 20, 2006, in USA Today, al-Zawahiri appears to be seated before a large banner with a desk underneath. On the desk, in the photo, is a tiny cannon. Yet in the text, al-Zawahiri is described as sitting with "a rifle behind his shoulder that was leaning against a plain brown backdrop."

Using the techniques demonstrated earlier in the talk, Krawetz deconstructed the image to show a halo around al-Zawahiri that suggests that he was likely sitting in front of a monochromatic screen. Even the letters on the banner had been altered. Further, the overall image had been cropped from the original.

Krawetz showed another image of al-Zawahiri from July 27, 2006, showing him seated in what appears to be a television studio. Krawetz said many people who saw this video were outraged that he could sitting in a television studio somewhere, yet the U.S. government couldn't find him.

Image analysis suggests that the studio and the various pictures positioned in the studio around him were added later. Again, a halo around al-Zawahiri suggests that he was shot in front of a monochromatic screen and pasted into a new background."

So al Qaeda, aside from being some of the worst criminals in history, are full of propagandistic crap. Great. So much for the fight against the evils of Hollywood and degenerate ideas of the west; al Qaeda now fancies itself as the new Lucasfilm of the terrorist world.

It wasn't so bad for me, until I realized how crafty Ayman al-Zawahiri had become with his postmodern ambitions. He's making moves in the blogosphere. If you look closely at Lasso of Truth's Pinup Post, you'll see "Dr. Z." sending the secret code for Canadian members of Al Qaeda to get in touch with their feminine sides and "doll up" for the trip to paradise. In the event you can't see it through the clever special effects, I've blown the image up here so that it can be seen clearly by anyone who looks closely:



The attack on the Martha Stewart collection must soon follow. Oh those crafty terrorists and their slick marketing through special effects. I would have never noticed, save for the hard work of dedicated geeks and hackers. Maybe we should turn the geek squad loose in Tora Bora. They're on a roll.

Iraqi Citizens Making a Difference in Surge

From the Full Report at Centcom:

""Cooperation by citizens and their volunteer security roles is what will turn the tide in securing Iraq," said the Austin native. "We have the largest reconciliation and volunteer movement in Multi-National Division-Baghdad. We fully support Iraqis taking an active role in securing their neighborhoods, towns and villages to stop the violence which hinders the government's delivery of essential services and an environment that enables small business opportunities and growth."

Local Iraqis have grown tired of the al-Qaeda stranglehold and they are taking back their communities and their lives, according to Andrysiak.

"Their efforts, along with that of the Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces, may prove to be the turning point," he added."

The Grizzly Mama is also reporting on Operation Phantom Thunder and Skye at Ancora Imparo is following up on how General Petraeus and his strategy can succeed in Iraq.

What the Iraqi National Government cannot accomplish, local Iraqis are accomplishing: Unity against terrorism and violence. The key to our success on the ground is having Iraqis help to build communities that can coexist and work together for security. This appears to be happening now, one piece at a time.

General Petraeus understands this and so do the Iraqis, little by little.

New Report Points to Homegrown Terror Cell Threat

HT: [Drudge]

From WABC New York:

"More than two dozen "clusters" of young Muslim men in the northeast United States pose the most serious threat to homeland security, but they are not the type of terrorists behind the September 11th attacks, which the NYPD labels an "anomaly" in a report released Wednesday."

Newsweek recently reported that Muslims in America are "vulnerable as never before." That type of reporting is the problem. Muslims aren't "victims" in America, they're citizens in many cases and have been provided with extraordinary protection and courtesy, given that a radical portion of their religion is committing acts of atrocities against Americans.

If we do not begin to identify this problem at home, it could spiral out of control. I will try to get the report and post much of it here in coming days.

Potential Troop Pullback Could Happen Soon

From the Los Angeles Times:

"Intent on demonstrating progress in Iraq, the top U.S. general there is expected by Bush administration officials to recommend removing American troops soon from several areas where commanders believe security has improved, possibly including Al Anbar province.

According to the officials, Gen. David H. Petraeus is expected to propose the partial pullback in his September status report to Congress, when both the war's critics and supporters plan to reassess its course. Administration officials who support the current troop levels hope Petraeus' recommendations will persuade Congress to reject pressure for a major U.S. withdrawal.

The expected recommendation would authorize U.S. commanders to withdraw troops from places that have become less violent and turn over security responsibilities to Iraqi forces."

If General Petraeus could call for partial pullbacks, that would be a good sign that the surge is having the exact effect we are seeking. However, we should be careful to temper our expectations on the general's report. We could set our expectations beyond the realities on the ground.

We need to be careful to be optimistic, but with realistic expectations. Any other view would be imprudent.

United States Can Sustain Surge

From Voice of America:

"General George Casey told the National Press Club he wants to ease the strain on the U.S. army by ending the extended 15-month deployments to combat zones. But he says he will not be able to do that until the U.S. troop commitment to Iraq comes down.

There are currently about 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, most of them from the army. General Casey noted that the number will come down automatically in the spring when the deployments of the extra forces sent earlier this year expire, unless there is an order to send more troops to replace them.

"The surge was and remains a temporary function," said General Casey. "I think we're on record here as saying the surge can be sustained through the spring without changes to the existing mobilization and deployment policies. And that's where we are. And we're going to wait and see here what happens, what our commanders on the ground recommend in the coming months."

The General also says that the United States needs the will to carry out a winning strategy, which could take years to implement. Again, the surge is a temporary fix to gain stability. With the new designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, the military may now extend the cover for Iraq's fledgling government and place stern pressure on the out of control regime in Tehran.

It appears that the surge is working, and with perserverance, the war for the soul of Iraq could end with a victory for decency and democracy in the end.

General Petraeus Enjoys 2 to 1 Favorable to Unfavorable Rating

The attack on the surge by the old media will focus on General David Petraeus. Why? Their focus will be on the General because he is viewed favorably by 47 percent of Americans, while only 21 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him. Per usual, the other 32 percent are either blissfully unaware that he holds a significant role in protecting the country or have no opinion.

From Editor and Publisher:

"These results help explain why a majority of Americans, 56%, say Congress should not develop a new policy on Iraq until September when Petraeus reports on the progress of the U.S. troop surge."

Americans understand that General Petraeus will give a reliable and accurate accounting of what is happening in Iraq. His report could likely lead to an extended commitment based on measurable military progress, but could also (with his extensive knowledge of the Iraqi political process) present Democrats with a picture of a sustainable Iraq within our reach.

As pointed out in July, Democrats appear to be worried that the news from Iraq will be positive. The only way to mute that success now seems to be to destroy the messenger, General Petraeus. The old media will fail in pressing this agenda because Americans understand that 1) General Petraeus has enjoyed military success and success in communicating and collaborating with Iraqi leadership at a local level and 2) the Democrats have little credibility of their own left, after their leadership (specifically Harry Reid) declared the surge a failure before it even began.

September is coming, and the news is beginning to look good for America. Unfortunately, for Democrats like Clyburn and Reid, that's a bad thing. I think that in the end, we will receive a mixed review, but good enough to encourage us to finish the job. That's a win for all of us, regardless of how the dinosaurs spin it.

Dinosaur Media Targeting Petraeus

NewsBusters has a great story about the newest spin from the New York Times on America's commander in Iraq. General David Petraeus is an extraordinary man, not only in Military matters, but he also holds a PhD. from the Woodrow Wilson School of International Relations at Princeton University. He understands political process as well.

The media will target Petraeus in an attempt to undermine his credibility prior to his report in September. Start counting the attacks now (muted though they may be) and compare the number in 3 weeks. The surge is working, so the dinosaurs will start looking to attack the architect in the hopes of creating a doubt around his report.

Whether or not it works will depend on how the public reacts. It will take a ton of attacks to lower his favorability, since he was universally endorsed by Democrats and Republicans alike. That doesn't mean the dinosaurs won't try. They've demonstrated time and again that the facts don't matter much, where the elite leftist opinion is concerned.