Target Centermass

Month: November 2005

  • Smoke ’em if You’ve Got ’em

    I worried, but the Cigar Factory New Orleans is most assuredly still around and in business, thanks to the following update on its website:

    WE SURVIVED KATRINA AND ARE ACCEPTING PHONE ORDERS. PLEASE CALL 1-800-550-0775

    100% Hand Rolled

    Personnally, I’m fond of the Churchills.

    Also, since I’m discussing N’Awlins businesses that survived Katrina and are worth your hard-earned buck, the pralines at Aunt Sally’s are amazing. Hey, I don’t get a single shiny penny for these endorsements — they’re from the heart. Enjoy.

  • Send in the Clowns

    In case you hadn’t noticed, Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities is back to blogging. The cause of his absence has been unexplained in any believable manner, but I suspect some sort of secretive martial training, a la Batman Begins, was involved.

    I highly recommend this or this as an intro to all that is atrocious.

  • Minister: Minorities Key to France Terror Fight

    At least one member of the French government is wide awake to the danger his country faces.

    France must better integrate its minorities and combat religious extremism if it is to foil the threat of terrorist attacks by Islamist militants, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday.

    France must fight the root cause of frustrations which Islamist fundamentalists have already exploited to recruit French nationals, he told a conference on “France and Terrorism”.

    […]

    “The threat that weighs on us comes from movements or groups based abroad … but we must not hide from the fact that it also comes from people living here, recruited by Salafist groups, trained in schools in the Middle and Far East and who, when they return here, pose a threat,” Sarkozy said.

    He pointed out Salafists.

    International cooperation was important, but robust action at home was also essential, he said.

    “Communities turning inwards, problems integrating into society and religious excesses must be tackled,” he said. “Our immediate operational priority remains the administrative and judicial neutralisation of Islamist networks and activists.”

    He pointed out Islamists. Look, this man, a French politician, is speaking more bluntly than our media is generally willing to report. Sarkozy is making a list and checking it twice, and we’re talking about the naughty here.

    French intelligence says six French nationals have been killed fighting in Iraq since 2003 and around 10 others are believed to be currently fighting alongside rebels.

    Officials say Iraq veterans would pose a real threat to domestic security if they returned to France.

    Okay, the problem is legitimate, it’s gone abroad and will almost certainly try to bring the bloodshed home to France. Sarkozy knows and is willing to name the threat within his own society — good, one Frenchie down, 60.5 million to go.

    Still, does Sarkozy know the solution?

    Sarkozy has led a lone fight for a measure of positive discrimination in favour of France’s ethnic minorities, arguing their exclusion from mainstream society only feeds extremism and the frustrations that helped spark recent rioting.

    But he has coupled that with a tough law and order message.

    Yeah, the tough law and order part is right, but that’s easy. That’s like being given eleven bunnies, being told to count them and then teach them to run the wishbone. Well, the counting part’s pretty easy. A precisely-executed triple option … well … not so much.

    I’m not willing to say that governmentally-enforced reverse discrimination is a good long-term policy. Though it may have a healthy effect in the short run, a government social program is a rather insidious beast, once in place. As a D.C. saying goes, there’s nothing so permanent as a temporary government agency. In this case, we’re also talking about one that could have a popular backlash that could actually impair assimilation. Other less-intrusive ideas might include regulations enforcing non-discrimination, which the libertarian in me would still chafe at, and a stab at assimilating the youth with forced bussing to integrated public schools, but one must note that militant Islamists and busses aren’t always a good mix unless one is fond of twisted, smoking, bloody wreckage.

    Yes, France has allowed itself to manuever into quite a conundrum. Besides the law and order aspect, the steps that are absolutely obvious and long overdue to be addressed are the nation’s immigration policies and labor policies, long perverted by a willingness to knuckle under to French unions and French society’s demands for the easy life. Well, life can be rough and this is war, folks.

    In related news, the French are saying that, after three weeks of Moslem rioting, violence has fallen to “normal” levels.

  • Blogging

    Visually explained.

  • A Must-Read 2

    A week ago, I tried to steer y’all toward this insightful essay by Vodkapundit‘s Stephen Green on the decisive role the media will play in maintaining or defeating our efforts against expansionsionist radical Islam. I still heartily recommend the piece, though I cannot say it leaves one exacty in the whistling-cheerful-tunes mode.

    Steven Den Beste, formerly of USS Clueless and one of my inspirations to begin blogging, has posted a follow-on piece to Mr. Green’s essay over at Red State.org. In it, he agrees that the decisive arm of our global battle is the media, but that is also a double-edged sword for the terrorists.

    But for the terrorists and Islamists, there’s a distinct drawback in this kind of war: headline fatigue. Even given that the western press tends to be more sympathetic to the terrorists than to western governments in the war, an ongoing campaign of car bombings in Iraq eventually becomes boring and gets consigned to the rear pages of the newspaper.

    That means that the terrorists have to come up with increasingly spectacular escapades in order to maintain the attention of the western press. A couple of years ago the new innovation was video decapitations, but eventually the novelty wore off.

    But the other side of the coin of headline fatigue is revulsion. Increasingly spectacular escapades become increasingly vile atrocities. They get the headlines, alright, but repel more people than they attract.

    Go. Read. It’s a bit tighter in scope than the Martini Guy’s, and a bit more hopeful as well, but all in all an essential companion piece. Together, they make a solid one-two combination from two of the best in the blogging business.

  • The Commonwealth Preps for Afghan Burden

    They are the scum of the earth. English soldiers are fellows who have enlisted for drink, that is the plain fact; they have all enlisted for drink.

    —Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

    Well, that may have once been the case, but it looks like they’re headed for a dry and dangerous place.

    After NATO refused to participate in an plan to engage the alliance in counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, Britain is preparing to step up to the plate.

    Questions the Army must ask before going into Afghanistan

    Small Army reconnaissance teams have already deployed to Helmand, Afghanistan’s most dangerous province in the south to study the situation before a major deployment of an estimated 2,000 British troops takes place there in the spring. Another 1,500-2,000 troops will be deployed elsewhere.

    Although the British deployment is fraught with risks, it is deemed necessary to stem a growing Taliban insurgency now spreading to urban areas and to deal with a burgeoning drugs trade that is providing new funds and resources to al-Qa’eda and the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, before any deployment, it is essential that the British high command demand and receive certain binding assurances from Whitehall and the Afghan government.

    Next spring, more than 1,000 British troops, backed by civilian engineers and other experts and diplomats, will form a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) under Nato command to speed up reconstruction efforts and combat the opium trade from a base in Lashkagarh, capital of Helmand.

    Another 1,000 troops, backed by Apache helicopters, will deploy at a separate base in Helmand as a fighting force under the American-led coalition to combat the Taliban insurgency in the south. Another 500-800 troops will deploy at Kandahar to beef up the main command centre of coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, while roughly the same number will deploy to Kabul as Britain takes over command of the Nato lead peacekeeping force in the capital.

    The British deployment has now become much more serious and critical to stability in Afghanistan, after the US Defence Department announced that it would be withdrawing 4,000 troops from southern Afghanistan next spring. The 20,000-strong US force that does the bulk of the fighting against the Taliban is preparing more withdrawals later in the year and Washington is insisting that Nato take over more responsibility for fighting the Taliban – something few countries are prepared to do.

    The American withdrawal has now forced London to seek a wider coalition with other Commonwealth countries to plug the gap left by the Americans, after European countries refused to join either the British-led PRT or the fighting force in Helmand.

    Britain is the first country since the American deployment after the defeat of the Taliban to be both providing a PRT as well as a fighting force in the same region. Britain will also have the single largest PRT in the country. Almost all of the 22 PRTs scattered around the country are 100-150 strong and their effectiveness has been seriously questioned: each country sets its own rules.

    No PRT is combating the drugs trade or doing large scale reconstruction work. Other caveats set by individual governments have been crippling. The Spanish PRT has not left its compound after six months in the country, while the German PRT allows only German troops to travel in its helicopters.

    An ambitious Britain is trying to kill two birds with stone. Establish a PRT large enough to provide real security for aid agencies and the Afghan government to do long-term reconstruction projects and provide alternative crops to farmers to help eradicate opium, while also providing a fighting force to take on the Taliban and glean better intelligence about al-Qa’eda leadership.

    Heading into the deployment, the Telegraph is properly asking for clear lines in what is expected of British troops. Tranparent rules of conduct and engagement are indeed reasonable ground to cover.

    However British troops must have an unequivocal mandate for what they will do and not do. Downing Street is adamant that the Army help Kabul interdict drug convoys and traffickers, even if British troops do not actually get involved in eradication of the poppy crop on the ground.

    The Army has been resisting, saying even interdiction could create enormous resentment among the Afghan population. A similar battle is being waged in Washington, where the US army has been resisting the State Department’s overtures to carry out interdiction. Helmand is the centre of the opium trade in Afghanistan. Helmand’s drug mafia exports farmers, poppy seed and expertise to warlords in other Afghan provinces.

    It is also vital that Britain establish clear ground rules with President Hamid Karzai’s government. The British PRT is expected to work with the local governor, police chief, administration and militia forces in Helmand, but they are deeply corrupt and also involved in the drugs trade. Karzai has to be forcefully told to get rid of several leading Afghan figures in Helmand who are drugs-tainted.

    A major role for the PRT would be to train local Afghan security forces and help build a local bureaucracy that could sustain reconstruction in the future. It would be an exercise in futility if British troops captured drugs traffickers and then handed them over to Afghan officials who were themselves drug traffickers.

    British troops also have to be clear as to how far they can operate. Helmand is the gateway for Taliban and al-Qa’eda leaders travelling between Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, and is also the main exit point for the new line of communication with Iraq. Several Taliban commanders have trained with Iraqi insurgents and have brought their new skills home.

    It is expected that the Brits will turn to the Commonwealth to assist where NATO feared to tread, and at least Australia is readying for the mission.

    Aussie troops in line for Afghanistan

    Britain is expected to hold talks with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other countries early next month about forming a force to replace the reducing United States presence early next year.

    A commitment by Australia would put Australian troops amidst a volatile situation in Afghanistan as it seeks to stabilise the nation in the post-Taliban period.

    “The debate is not whether, but to what extent these troops will get into counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics,” a British military source was quoted to say in The Guardian.

    “We are not talking war fighting.

    “But there is potential for armed conflict in some areas.

    “The reality is that there are warlords, drug traffickers, al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda wannabes and Taliban.

    “It could take longer to crack than Iraq. It could take ten years.”

    Australia was already involved in talks with Britain about committing some troops to southern Afghanistan, pending cabinet approval.

    Are there any doubts that America’s strongest allies in the war against radical Islamist terror and, to be honest, just about any other threat, are the Brits and Aussies? Oh, don’t get me wrong, other countries are extremely deserving of consideration, especially Poland. It’s also long past due that we realize that Russia is facing the same foe, radical and expansionist Islamic scum, that we are currently squaring off against.

    Oh yeah, maybe, just maybe, the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has run its course. If France can militarily bow out during the heart of the Cold War and the remaining bulk of its membership is happily willing to duck any serious danger in the one country the U.S. supposedly went into non-unilaterally post-9/11, does the alliance really serve any current purpose other than sustaining a rotating presence in Bosnia? Bosnia — talk about your previously-checked countries on the needing-an-exit-strategy list.

  • UN Reverses Oil-for-Food Firing

    The scandal-plagued United Nations continues to trip over its own feet.

    The only United Nations official sacked over the Iraq oil-for-food scandal has been reinstated after a UN appeals panel ruled he had done nothing wrong.

    Joseph Stephanides was fired in May for allegedly interfering in the competitive bidding process.

    Investigators said he had divulged bidding information but did not suggest he had personally benefited.

    While accepting his punishment was too harsh, the UN still insists he violated staff rules, and he plans a new appeal.

    The BBC’s Susannah Price says the decision to reverse the dismissal of Mr Stephanides will obviously be embarrassing for the UN.

    Obviously embarrassing? You betcha. When Stephanides was first canned, I blogged that it was a start. I was wrong, and we’re all back to square one in a game that very well may go absolutely nowhere despite billions of dollars of wrong-doing.

  • Carnival of Liberty XX

    This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community’s Carnival of Liberty is up over at the site of the community’s founding father, Eric’s Grumbles Before the Grave. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.

  • War on Terror Update, 14 NOV 05

    Jordanians turning against terrorism

    Less than a week ago – before suicide bombers killed 57 people at Amman hotels – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was seen by many Jordanians as a homegrown holy warrior battling U.S. troops in occupied Iraq.

    After the bombings, claimed by al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets throughout the kingdom, shouting: “Burn in hell, al-Zarqawi.”

    “All Jordanians – even fanatic Muslims – are changing their minds (toward Islamic extremist attacks) because of what they saw happen to innocent people” in Amman, said Ibrahim Hreish, a jeweler in the Jordanian capital.

    In Jordan, a close U.S. ally heralded in the West for its moderation, there has been strong support for militant attacks against what Islamist and independent newspapers described as legitimate targets – Israeli soldiers or U.S. troops in Iraq.

    […]

    But amid a spiraling of violence in neighboring Iraq and numerous foiled terror plots here in Jordan before Wednesday’s strikes, views toward terrorism have started to change.

    Most of those killed in the triple hotel bombings were Arabs and Muslims – and the targets included a Jordanian-Palestinian wedding reception.

    TV talk shows and newspaper columnists have been focussing on the suicide attacks and whether Muslims should condone them in part or total.

    “There has (long) been empathy among Jordanians for insurgent strikes against military targets in Iraq, particularly against U.S. forces,” said Mustafa Hamarneh, a researcher who has conducted surveys on domestic attitudes toward suicide bombings.

    “I believe we will now begin to see a change in how the country’s press reports events in Iraq, such as suicide bombings and in public attitudes,” he said.

    Jordanians, along with the rest of the world, need to realize that the Islamists terrorists have already sorted humanity into two classifications: in one category, those who will help them destroy and then reign in a bloody and fascist fury of extremist Islam; in the other, potential victims. It’s that simple for the radical Islamists. It should be that simple for us.

    No escape from al-Qaeda for Jordan

    Jordan is one of the United States’ staunchest allies in the region, and it is also the “new” Iraq’s closest Arab ally, having done more than any other Arab state to help facilitate Iraq’s transition in the post-Saddam Hussein era.

    This and the global “war on terror” have left Jordan in a precarious position, highlighted by last week’s bombing of three hotels in Amman, the capital, in which nearly 60 people died.

    Such generous use of quotation marks. The “article” goes on to “detail” Jordan’s efforts so far against the Islamist threat and to “question” the Jordanian mindset.

    U.S. Widens Offensive In Far Western Iraq

    The U.S. military broadened its offensive in western Iraq on Monday, launching a major attack on insurgent positions in the town of Ubaydi near the Syrian border and killing about 50 insurgents in precision airstrikes and house-to-house street fighting, according to news reports and the U.S. military.

    U.S. and Iraqi troops reportedly faced stiff resistance from machine-gun and small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

    […]

    “This is a fight all the way through the city,” said Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, describing the fighting, according to CNN, which had a producer embedded with U.S. troops. Davis said that his forces were encountering “significant resistance” and that they had found three buildings wired with explosives and numerous roadside bombs and car bombs. U.S. officials said about two dozen insurgents had been captured.

    “Insurgent fighters have been battling with Iraqi and Coalition Forces since the operation began at dawn,” a military statement said. “A suspected car bomb placed in the advance of Iraqi Forces was engaged with a round from an M1A1 tank. The blast from the tank initiated a secondary explosion powerful enough to throw the car onto the roof of a nearby building.”

    Happy hunting, troops, and best wishes.

    By the way, it must have been fun to have been in that gunner’s seat, squeeze the cadillacs, and then put a round into a bomb-laden car and watch the fireworks through the thermals. Most of you folks wouldn’t understand the feeling of staring into a scope, firing a 120mm and having the awesome machinery rock and roll about a foot to the left of your head as your powerful effort screams destructively exactly where you wish to put it. Eric could tell you more about it.

    Blair Says a Troop Cut in Iraq Is a ‘Possibility’ Next Year

    British officials have begun to talk, however gingerly, about withdrawing their troops from Iraq.

    On Monday, Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was “entirely reasonable” to “talk about the possibility” that the troops could begin leaving by the end of next year. The discussion, he added, “has got to be always conditioned by the fact that we withdraw when the job is done.”

    His comments came a day after the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said in a television interview that Iraqi soldiers could replace British troops in southern Iraq by the end of 2006. “We don’t want British forces forever in Iraq,” Mr. Talabani said on ITV1. “Within one year, I think at the end of 2006, Iraqi troops will be ready to replace British forces in the south.”

    Let’s not be so hasty. Please see the next story.

    Iraq wants pull-out even later

    Talks on the withdrawal of United States-led foreign troops from Iraq can begin at the end of next year, said Iraq’s president on Monday.

    President Jalal Talabani, in Austria to attend a three-day conference on Islam, gave no timetable for the full pull-out of troops, but said Britain probably could start a “step by step” exit in 2007.

    […]

    On Friday, Iraqi deputy prime minister Ahmad Chalabi said US troops could begin leaving in significant numbers some time next year.

    But US President George W Bush has refused to set a timetable, saying that would play into the hands of insurgents.

    See my thoughts on exit strategies and time tables here. In short, they bring a short-term political gain with the danger of an actual loss in true national goals. No war effort has ever been successfully carried out with the foolishness of an exit strategy or a timetable for withdrawal. Oh yeah, exactly when are we leaving Bosnia?

    To counter Iraq war critics, Bush quotes Democrats

    U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday sought to counter Democratic critics of the Iraq war by turning their own past words of warning about Saddam Hussein against them.

    “Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war — but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people,” Bush said in a campaign-style speech accusing Democrats of playing politics with the issue and trying to rewrite the past.

    He spoke to U.S. troops in an air base hangar in Alaska, a refueling spot for Air Force One carrying him on a week-long Asia trip that Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said would be long on conversations about top priorities but not likely to include any breakthrough agreements on simmering trade issues.

    […]

    He quoted statements made in 2001 and 2002 by three Senate Democrats, though he did not quote them by name.

    While I may not agree with the decision for the prez to come out swinging (mildly) on Veterans Day, the swinging had to be done sooner rather than later. The Democrats have played nothing but obstruction on every domestic effort put forth by the administration — and make no mistake, the administration and the Republicans have been the only ones trying to move anything forward — but also have viciously savaged the administration over the prelude to the Iraqi campaign, falsely twisting the Scooter Libby indictments as a statement againt pre-invasion intelligence manipulation and utilizing an all-too-willing and gullible press to curtail public support for our military efforts.

    Did I say Bush had to start fighting back sooner rather than later? I meant that it is well past time that the public hear more of the duplicity of those who have been oh-so-freakin’-publicly undermining our efforts, hoping to grab defeat from the jaws of victory in the Viet Nam mode, only for their personal and party gain at the expense of the possible future security of our republic.

  • Chirac Admits Riots Reveal French Malaise

    I don’t necessarily agree with the ol’ saying that there’ s nothing new under the sun, but I will admit history has a great tendency to repeat itself — tyrants will rise up and oppress again and again, hero after hero will stand forth and face adversity, and a spineless one can always be found presenting meekness as leadership.

    Jacques Chirac acknowledged last night that France’s 18 nights of urban violence had revealed a “profound malaise” in society and launched an appeal to combat the “poison” of racial discrimination.

    In his first formal address to the nation since the unrest started on October 27, the French president said the problem had to be tackled firmly but justly. “Those who attack … must know that in a republic, one cannot break the law without being caught, judged and punished,” he said.

    Mr Chirac said the rioting reflected a “crisis of … identity”, but added that “we can accomplish nothing if we do not respect the rules”. Parental authority was critical, and parents who did not “accept their responsibilities” would be punished. The president confirmed that the government would today put a bill before parliament recommending that the state of emergency be extended for three months until mid-February if necessary.

    Everyone should have the chance to share in the benefits of French society, Mr Chirac said, but “discrimination saps the foundations of the republic”. The French media and political class must “better reflect the reality of French society today”, he insisted. At present, the ethnic minority faces on French television can be counted on the fingers of one hand and mainland France has not a single MP of north African or black African origin.

    Companies and trades unions must actively encourage diversity and support employment for immigrant youths from depressed suburbs, he said. He also announced the formation of a national volunteer corps that would offer training for 50,000 youths by 2007 and help them to get jobs. “Everyone must commit themselves, companies too – how many applications end up in the bin because of the applicant’s name or address?” he asked. But he ruled out positive discrimination or quotas, saying the country must remain true to its republican values.

    Jacques presents little, pointing a finger more at French society than at the Islamic radicals refusing to assimilate into that same society. Ah, Jacques, more than two weeks after the levees figuratively gave way and your country found itself awash with flame and violence, you come sallying forth with wooden sword and stage-prop shield.

    Where have heard such words before, why do they sound so familiar? Ah yes, the echoes of inept, defeatist history.