Target Centermass

Category: War on Terror

  • Court of Public Opinion has Saddam’s Fate Set

    From the mouths of Baghdad:

    Most residents of Iraq’s biggest city don’t mince words when it comes to their former leader.

    The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven of his associates — charged with killing more than 150 residents of the northern city of Dujail in 1982 — is scheduled to resume Monday.

    A random sampling of Iraqis in and around the capital, a city that still bears numerous relics from Saddam’s 24-year rule, were asked what message they would like to give to the former dictator, if given the chance.

    “I hope I see you in hell,” said tomato seller Radi Abd al-Hussein, 30, a Baghdad resident who has sold vegetables at an east Baghdad marketplace for five years.

    “I want to cut his head off,” he elaborated, through a translator. “He’s a tyrant. He hurt all of the Iraqi people. All of us. In times before, we couldn’t stand here and do what we want.”

    Go read for other choice quotes.

    In related stories, Saddam’s trial is set to resume as an alleged plot to kill the chief judge is foiled.

  • Anti-War Protesters Unveil Monument In Crawford

    As if the story of Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan in Crawford wasn’t beat down enough, it has resurfaced with “news” of a big, heavy tribute to Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan waiting for her on her recent return to the site of Camp Casey for a little Thanksgiving shindig.

    Anti-war demonstrators unveiled a stone monument in Crawford, Texas today that honors the California mother who inspired their efforts.

    Cindy Sheehan, who staged a 26-day protest outside Bush’s ranch in August, cried when she saw the two-foot-high sandstone marker with the words “Sheehan’s Stand.”

    Sheehan and other protesters are back in Crawford to protest during President Bush’s holiday vacation,

    The 12-hundred pound rectangular slab lists the names of more than two dozen soldiers whose families were part of the vigil.

    Several Bush supporters also gathered in Crawford today with a sign reading: “The price of freedom is not free.”

    Anti-war and pro-Bush rallies were planned for tomorrow in Crawford.

    Folks, I just happened to be there at Camp Casey when this “monument” was delivered in August. I blogged that day with pictures of the memorial and its hippie-leftover creator. This is all as sadly silly now at it was then. And Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan supposedly cried when she saw it? That woman can apparently cry at the drop of a hat or, to be more accurate, the sight of a camera.

    Other photos of my August trip to Crawford can be found here.

  • The War Hangs in the Balance

    By that, I don’t mean on the battlefield, where we have nothing but achievement and progress, both unheralded and under-reported. Unfortunately, once again the danger of defeat lies in the political arena. The only way to lose is to choose to lose (it helps to be blinded from success). Some are cool with that. Some have done so in the past.

    Here are three columns that look at how we are currently on the knife’s edge, victorious in every way in the field and yet pulled towards defeat at home (hat tip for all to Power Line).

    First, Ralph Peters wants the reader to think about that very thing the critics of the Iraq war want to sweep under the carpet — the consequences of defeat, which is how an early withdrawal would be trumpeted by our radical Islamist enemies.

    How to Lose a War

    QUIT. It’s that simple. There are plenty of more complex ways to lose a war, but none as reliable as just giving up.

    Increasingly, quitting looks like the new American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can’t win the game if you walk off the field at half-time. That’s precisely what the Democratic Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we’ve made remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw the game just to embarrass the Bush administration.

    […]

    The irresponsibility of the Democrats on Capitol Hill is breathtaking. (How can an honorable man such as Joe Lieberman stay in that party?) Not one of the critics of our efforts in Iraq — not one — has described his or her vision for Iraq and the Middle East in the wake of a troop withdrawal. Not one has offered any analysis of what the terrorists would gain and what they might do. Not one has shown respect for our war dead by arguing that we must put aside our partisan differences and win.

    There’s plenty I don’t like about the Bush administration. Its domestic policies disgust me, and the Bushies got plenty wrong in Iraq. But at least they’ll fight. The Dems are ready to betray our troops, our allies and our country’s future security for a few House seats.

    Surrender is never a winning strategy.

    Yes, we’ve been told lies about Iraq — by Dems and their media groupies. About conditions on the ground. About our troops. About what’s at stake. About the consequences of running away from the great struggle of our time. About the continuing threat from terrorism. And about the consequences for you and your family.

    What do the Democrats fear? An American success in Iraq. They need us to fail, and they’re going to make us fail, no matter the cost. They need to declare defeat before the 2006 mid-term elections and ensure a real debacle before 2008 — a bloody mess they’ll blame on Bush, even though they made it themselves.

    I’ve never wanted to cut-and-paste and entire column like this one. I’ve previously expressed my long–standing respect for Mr. Peters, but he’s dead on the money here — one side is fighting a war and fighting for our troops; for the other, it’s sheer politics and gestures for the troops.

    Second, a history lesson for those rallying around Democrat and erstwhile hawk Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania about the effects of premature withdrawal and the undercutting of an ally.

    Defeated by Defeatism: Why Jack Murtha is wrong

    But if the United States were to take Murtha’s advice, the outcome would be precisely the opposite of what he desires. He only needs to recall what happened in Vietnam.

    After 1968, the situation in Vietnam was very similar to the one that prevails in Iraq today. Trends were moving in the right direction for the Americans and South Vietnamese. The United States had changed its strategy after Tet 1968, scoring significant military successes against the North Vietnamese while advancing “Vietnamization.” These successes helped stabilize the political and economic situation in South Vietnam, solidifying the attachment of the rural population to the South Vietnamese government and resulting in the establishment of the conditions necessary for South Vietnam’s survival as a viable political entity.

    The new strategy was vindicated during the 1972 Easter Offensive. This was the biggest offensive push of the war, greater in magnitude than either the 1968 Tet offensive or the final assault of 1975. While the U.S. provided massive air and naval support and while there were inevitable failures on the part of some South Vietnamese units, all in all, the South Vietnamese fought well. Then, having blunted the communist thrust, they recaptured territory that had been lost to Hanoi. So effective was the combination of the South Vietnamese army’s performance during the Easter Offensive, an enhanced counterinsurgency effort, and LINEBACKER II — the so-called Christmas bombing of 1972 later that year — that the British counterinsurgency expert, Sir Robert Thompson concluded US-ARVN forces “had won the war. It was over.”

    But as Bob Sorley has observed, while the war in Vietnam “was being won on the ground… it was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress.

    If one does away with the unfortunately popular mythology of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, one could see that there are actually very few similarities. After Tet and the accompanying decimation of the Viet Cong, we were not facing a true insurgency threat; rather, the bulk of the rest of the war was carried by outside regulars, the North Vietnamese Army. Second, the enemy’s efforts then were strongly and rather openly supported, supplied and fortified by our formidable rival superpower, the Soviet Union. That is not the case in Iraq. The true parallels are that it’s an engagement that can be won, is in the process of being won, and domestic forces are working to keep it from being won.

    The third piece takes a look at the effect of the current and unfortunate political games upon our boots on the ground, those supposedly so heartily supported by the anti-war movement.

    Military fears critics will hurt morale

    Pentagon officials say they are increasingly worried that Washington’s political fight over the Iraq war will dampen what has been high morale among troops fighting a tenacious and deadly enemy.

    Commanders are telling Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that ground troops do not understand the generally negative press that their missions receive, despite what they consider significant achievements in rebuilding Iraq and instilling democracy.

    The commanders also worry about the public’s declining support for the mission and what may be a growing movement inside the Democratic Party to advocate troop withdrawal from Iraq.

    “They say morale is very high,” said a senior Pentagon official of reports filed by commanders with Washington. “But they relate comments from troops asking, ‘What the heck is going on back here’ and why America isn’t seeing the progress they are making or appreciating the mission the way those on the ground there do. My take is that they are wondering if America is still behind them.”

    This one falls equally upon those politically cutblocking the efforts today and the media, which has spent the entire war focusing upon the burning building and ignoring the opening school. Progress has been shunted for bloody headlines, and generations of blood may be the result.

    The war and the world our children and grandchildren will inherit hang in the balance.

  • Iraq Awaits Verdict of DNA Test on Zarqawi ‘Corpse’

    Folks, don’t get your hopes up yet about the possibility of the bastard Zarqawi being offed this weekend.

    Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in the Middle East, may have been killed in a firefight in Iraq, according to the country’s Foreign Minister.

    Hoshyar Zebari said yesterday that urgent DNA tests were being carried out on the bodies of several people who died when US and Iraqi forces stormed a house in the northern city of Mosul.

    The US administration, which had offered a $25m (£15m) reward for the leader of al-Qa’ida in Iraq, played down the reports. But Mr Zebari, during a visit to Moscow, said: “American and Iraqi forces are investigating the possibility that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s corpse is among the bodies of some terrorists who died in the special military operation in Mosul.”

    State television in Jordan, where 59 people died in a series of hotel bombings for which Zarqawi’s group has claimed responsibility, carried the alleged death as “urgent news” in a scrolling newsbar at the bottom of the screen, suggesting that Jordanian officials believe the report to be credible.

    Eight fighters, supposedly senior members of the group al-Qa’ida in Iraq, died after special forces and other soldiers surrounded a house following a surveillance operation. Four of them were killed during a three-hour assault on the two-storey building. The rest blew themselves up.

    If indeed Zarqawi was present, the assault must have truly been a surprise — after all, we’re talking about a coward who sent thousands to martyr themselves in Fallujah while he slipped out before the fight. I guess it’s that slimy nature that leaves me to doubt that the punk actually would go out in a blaze of glory, and the U.S. attempts to tone down hopes further lead me to believe that Zarqawi is not yet taking that long dirtnap.

  • Robitussin-based Link Dump

    I’m a little under the weather, but here’s a little bit of what I’ve been reading.

    Zarqawi’s family disown him after bombings

    Iraq’s most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been disowned by members of his family in Jordan who have pledged to “sever links with him until doomsday” and proclaimed their loyalty to Jordan’s king, Abdullah II.

    The statement, which also removed “protection” from Zarqawi, came amid further protests in Jordan at the suicide bombings at three hotels on November 9 in Amman , the capital, that killed 59 people, including revellers at a wedding party.

    Zarqawi’s organisation al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the blasts and subsequently threatened to kill the king. But yesterday, 57 members of his al-Khalayleh clan, including his brother and first cousin, took half-page advertisements in Jordan’s leading newspapers to revile the militant leader.

    “We denounce in the clearest terms all the terrorist actions claimed by the so-called Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, who calls himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi”, wrote the family members who proclaimed “homage” to the Hashemite throne and “to our precious Jordan”.

    “We announce, and all the people are our witnesses, that we – the sons of the al-Khalayleh tribe – are innocent of him and all that emanates from him, whether action, assertion or decision.”

    The statement effectively declared open season on Zarqawi, saying that anyone who carried out acts of terrorism in the kingdom would not be protected.

    Al-Zarqawi May Be Among Dead in Iraq Fight

    U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

    Interesting timing between those two stories. Meanwhile, the U.S. is playing down stories that Zarqawi is taking the dirtnap. Chad and Mac at In the Bullpen have been posting updates.

    UK will embrace ‘voluntary’ Kyoto targets

    Interest groups on both sides of the Kyoto divide are calling remarks by Margaret Beckett, Prime Minster Tony Blair’s Environment Secretary, the death of the protocol.

    Ms Beckett told The Observer that future work on climate change could involve “voluntary” targets rather than the compulsory targets that are Kyoto’s engine.

    Like Mr Blair before her, she said that achieving consensus on compulsory targets would be impossible in the present political environment.

    But where Mr Blair appears ready to embrace the approach advanced by the US-led Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, Ms Beckett appears to be engaged in seasoning an apparently unpalatable stew in order to help reluctant international partners consume what’s really on their plates.

    And that dish is, essentially, the end of Kyoto.

    Davids Medienkritik takes a look at why Kyoto is failing.

    One of the few causes behind which the Left still can unite is the Kyoto treaty on the reduction of greenhouse gases. After all, the refusal of the U.S. to sign “Kyoto” makes a good reason to kick off anti-American campaigns.

    […]

    Anyway, casual observation tells me that the front line of the “Sign Kyoto” movement is beginning to fall apart, in Europe as well as in the U.S.. The “consensus science” approach comes under increasing fire[.]

    Meanwhile, Protein Wisdom‘s Jeff Goldstein points out the beneficial irony of any failure of the treaty.

  • House Rejects Iraq Pullout

    Overwhelmingly.

    Bravo, and here’s hoping they shut up about it through the pending holiday week. I don’t want to have to give thanks for further discussion of the need for our military to abandon another mission.

    In a maneuver to strike at Iraq war critics, the Republican-led House of Representatives engineered a vote on Friday on a resolution to pull U.S. troops immediately from Iraq, which was defeated nearly unanimously.

    Republicans, who introduced the surprise resolution hours before lawmakers were to start a Thanksgiving holiday recess, said the vote was intended to show support for U.S. forces.

    Democrats denounced it as a political stunt and an attack on Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a leading Democratic military hawk who stunned his colleagues on Thursday by calling for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq as quickly as possible.

    The problem is not the “as quickly as possible” portion. Rep. Murtha crossed the line in a variety of areas. First, he said the following:

    Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency.

    It’s quite obvious from terrorist bombing efforts over the last several months that the American forces, while a desired target, have been too efficient in the conduct of their business. The fact that the suicide bombs and car bombs have, for quite a while now, predominantly targeted Iraqi civilians should have quashed this statement.

    Meanwhile, Murtha was far from being above playing politics himself:

    Underscoring the rising emotions of the war debate, Murtha uncharacteristically responded to Vice-President Dick Cheney’s comments this week that Democrats were spouting “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges” about the Bush administration’s use of intelligence before the war.

    “I like guys who’ve never been there that criticize us who’ve been there,” said Murtha, a former Marine. “I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done.”

    Referring to Bush, Murtha added, “I resent the fact, on Veterans Day, he criticized Democrats for criticizing them.”

    Look, I’ll put it quite simply. Murtha’s ploy was most assuredly political, just like his slam on Cheney. Did he ever denounce his colleague John Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts and recently-defeated presidential candidate, for seeking a deferment? The betterment of our efforts against radical Islamist terror was not a consideration in Murtha’s manuever. To then turn around and whine when politics are thrown back at you is childish. You started the game, play it. To whine about a factual response to criticism, especially one based upon the words of those attacking, is simply pathetic.

    Here’s a few editorial responses the Murtha’s cut-and-run stance. I recommend them both.

    Democrats Display A Muddled Vision

    Despite their relentless rhetoric that the Bush Administration took America to war in Iraq under false pretenses and their nonstop criticism of the war, Democrats said that by calling for the vote Republicans were engaging in a political stunt. The fact is, Democrats have had a free ride for too long. They have simultaneously said they supported the troops in the field but opposed the war. They cannot have it both ways and it is time for them to back up their oratory with a vote. If Bush is wrong and the war is unjust then let the Democrats stop complaining and vote to bring the troops home and put an end to it.

    Murtha’s resolution would compel Bush to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq at the “earliest practicable date” and maintain a nearby U.S. presence. Bush has already said he wants to bring U.S. forces home as soon as possible but without setting a date for withdrawal.
    […]

    Democrat objections indicate they prefer using Iraq as a convenient political battering ram rather then actually having to commit their vilification of the president’s policy to a vote.

    America stands at the threshold of a dark doorway and the Democrats are turning the handle.

    Cut and run in Iraq isn’t a real policy

    But added to the anti-war chorus this past week was the voice of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), ex-Marine, Vietnam vet and long-time supporter of the war on terror generally and its Iraq phase. But this past week, as Congress prepares to adjourn for its Thanksgiving break and as Murtha prepares to return to a district which has suffered the loss of 13 of its native sons in Iraq, he went before his colleagues to urge the pullout of American troops within the next six months.

    “Our military has done everything that has been asked of them,” he said. “It is time to bring them home.”

    Now we have no reason to question the sincerity of Murtha’s change of heart. Vietnam did indeed leave scars on the psyche of a generation – Murtha’s generation – that simply won’t go away. But did we learn nothing from that tragic war about pulling the rug out from under our own troops, about denigrating the job they have been given and about setting a timetable for surrender?

    And while Murtha’s timing might have made sense to him, as he prepared to face the losses of his constituents, it couldn’t have been worse on the ground in Iraq with elections scheduled next month.

  • En Fuego: Eric’s Grumbles

    Having made my position our media repeatedly clear, I’ll let Eric hammer on them for their current sins of omission.

    First, he tags them with a left hook for some blatant amnesia about Clinton-era concerns about Iraq:

    For more than two years now we have continuously had it pounded into our heads that there was no real linkage between al-Qaeda and Iraq, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, that Osama bin Laden detested secular Iraq and would never work with them. What you may not know, even though it is in the 9/11 Commission’s report, is that Richard Clarke, the top counter-terrorism official in the later years of the Clinton Administration, didn’t agree with that point of view. And that there is reasonable evidence to support Clarke’s point of view.

    Read it. Then Eric throws a right cross at poll-number coverage:

    So, why isn’t the media, generally, telling the story that has existed at least since August? Yes, the President’s poll numbers are low, but so is the entire mainstream political structure. Now, why do you suppose the media isn’t pointing that out every time they run a story on the poll numbers? The fact is, people are disgusted with everybody in Washington. But, interestingly, they aren’t as disgusted with the President as the Congress and the political parties. That, of course, doesn’t fit the meme being pushed by certain quarters.

    Go let Eric grumble at ya.

  • Zarqawi: Amman Bombs Weren’t Aimed at Muslims

    Hey, just because he’s a bloodthirsty, murderous terrorist, that doesn’t make him a bad Moslem, right?

    The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, said in an Internet audiotape on Friday the group had not meant to blow up Muslims in their deadly bomb attacks in Jordan.

    Suicide bombings killed 54 people in Amman hotels last week, provoking outrage in Jordan despite the high level of support in the country for the activities of the Jordanian-born Zarqawi in Iraq. Most victims were Muslim Jordanians at wedding parties.

    In the tape, posted on an Islamist Web site often used by insurgent groups in Iraq, Zarqawi defended the suicide blasts on three hotels saying al Qaeda had inside information that they were used by U.S., Israeli and Jordanian intelligence agencies.

    “We ask God to have mercy on the Muslims, who we did not intend to target, even if they were in hotels which are centers of immorality,” the voice on the tape said.

    “The idea that they blew up inside wedding ceremonies is a lie by the Jordanian regime … the target was a meeting of intelligence agencies, but a roof collapsed on a wedding party from the blast,” he said.

    […]

    Al Qaeda in Iraq had already claimed responsibility for the blasts and named the attackers as four Iraqis including a woman. She failed to blow herself up, confessing on Jordanian television last week that she had tried.

    […]

    Indicating there might be further attacks, Zarqawi warned ordinary Jordanians to avoid large hotels, military installations and embassies of countries involved in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

    Dear Jordanian hotel employees,
    As you are being blown to shreds, please realize you are not targets.
    Love,
    Abu

    Of course, you believe Zarqawi, right? But we already know that Zarqawi has stated that the murder of innocent Moslems is okay in attacks on infidels, even if no infidels are present. One should note, the absence of infidels is quite commonly the case in the murder of an individual Moslem or bombings at mosques.

  • 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.

  • 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.