First, our allies.<\/p>\n
Italy has chosen to dispute the U.S. report<\/a> on the checkpoint incident that cost the life of Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari. The Italians have apparently been heavily influenced by popular support for the “hostage” rescued, communist and anti-American journalist Giuliana Sgrena, she of the ever<\/a>–changing<\/a> story<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, in retrospect, Italy looks brave compared to the Philippines<\/a> and Spain<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite these poor examples of supposed allies, let’s take a look at what’s going on in those nations cold-chillin’ on the sidelines. Chad at In the Bullpen<\/a> brings truly ugly news: countries are paying tribute to al-Quida for temporary local peace<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure which is more disturbing; information that Qatar is paying off Al Qaida to prevent attacks or that a Qatari official says this is happening in other countries as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n No good news on any of these fronts today. No, not really.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in Iraq, the terrorists continue trying for another Tet, the model for a military failure and media succuss that I said<\/a> repeatedly<\/a> was their new goal. Now, they are threatening to get the media play that would enable them to achieve it. Check out these headlines currently on Google News<\/a>:<\/p>\n Iraq Violence Unabated as 23 More Die<\/a> This is certainly bad. However, this ain’t 1968 and, hopefully, the true state of affairs can get past leftist and leftist-leaning media manipulation.<\/p>\n Along with this, while the U.S. may have recruiting issues of its own<\/a>, apparently so do the terrorists in Iraq. Dr. Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report<\/a> blogs on the heinous motivation that may be driving some of these suicide bombers — terrorist blackmail based on kidnapping of wives and children<\/a>.<\/p>\n So, let me get this straight. Zarqawi is now capturing women and children, and then telling the fathers that if they don’t blow themselves and a few infidels up then he’s going to chop their heads off?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well, that certainly makes the American recruiting issue seem like a small matter. The Islamist bastards seem to be running short of volunteering explosive cannon fodder, so they’ll use foul terror to generate their own martyrs. Somehow, I doubt this is within the teachings of the so-called religion of peace.<\/p>\n See if that little sick tidbit gets any ink anytime soon. If any news like this takes hold among the Arab people, all the previous bad news means nothing. The terrorists’ desperation for Tet may just prevent their own Tet as the ways of the evil operations come to light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First, our allies. Italy has chosen to dispute the U.S. report on the checkpoint incident that cost the life of Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari. The Italians have apparently been heavily influenced by popular support for the “hostage” rescued, communist and anti-American journalist Giuliana Sgrena, she of the ever–changing story. Still, in retrospect, Italy looks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-middle-east","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIraqi Leaders Seek Deal Amid Bloodshed<\/a>
\nNew Iraq leaders face violent surge<\/a>
\n2nd Day of Deadly New Iraq Mayhem<\/a>
\nDeath toll rises as Iraq insurgents strike at will<\/a><\/p>\n