Target Centermass

Category: Middle East

  • UN Wants to Question More Syrians in Hariri Probe

    The investigation into a murder that spurred a series of surpising changes in Lebanon continued, as the U.N. sought to question even more Syrians.

    A U.N. inquiry into the murder of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri will summon more Syrian witnesses in the next few days, its chief investigator Detlev Mehlis was quoted on Saturday as saying.

    In an interview published in Lebanon’s al-Mustaqbal newspaper, which was owned by the murdered ex-premier, Mehlis said he would ask Syria in the next few days if U.N. investigators could question new Syrian witnesses in Vienna, but did not identify them.

    International investigators questioned five Syrian officials in the Austrian capital this week in connection with the Feb. 14 truck bomb that killed Hariri and 22 other people in Beirut.

    Neither Syria nor the United Nations has identified the five but diplomatic sources say they included senior Syrian security officials, including Lieutenant-General Rustom Ghazali, Syria’s former intelligence chief in Lebanon, and his aide Jamae Jamae.

    […]

    In an interim report in October, Mehlis implicated senior Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies in the murder and requested more cooperation from Damascus.

    Syria has strongly denied any role in the murder but the report prompted a unanimous Security Council resolution threatening Damascus with unspecified action if it failed to cooperate with the investigation.

    That is the U.N. Security Council in a nutshell — it can unanimously agree to threaten, but it is rare that it can agree to act. Indeed, Russia has already hinted that it will veto any sanctions against Syria, despite the years of Lebanese blood on Syrian hands.

  • Aussie Troops Likely to Stay in Iraq Past May

    With the contributions of supposed allies remaining at nonexistant or token, true friends like Australia continue to step up to the plate.

    Australian troops guarding Japanese engineers in Iraq are likely to remain beyond their May deadline, Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday after Japan extended the mandate for its non-combat troops for up to a year.

    Australia, a strong ally of the United States, has about 1,300 military personnel in and around Iraq, including forces training the Iraqi military and 450 troops providing security for the Japanese military engineers in southern Al Muthanna province.

    Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Thursday the country’s non-combat troops in Iraq would remain there for up to a year after their current mandate expires on December 14.

    “That doesn’t mean automatically that the Japanese unit will stay there the entire 12 months. They will certainly stay until May and could well stay beyond May,” Howard told local radio.

    “I think it’s unlikely that we will be out by May, it’s far more likely that — and this will depend a great deal on how things unfold — that we will be there for a longer period.”

    While seemingly a small commitment, it is actually a sizable gesture as Australia, along with Britain and other members of the Commonwealth, are prepping to expand their role in Afghanistan (see here).

    The move will probably not play well on the Australian homefront, especially politically.

    Australia’s main opposition Labor has repeatedly called for the government to adopt an exit strategy for Iraq and Labor’s defense spokesman Robert McClelland said on Friday that Australia should be focusing on fighting terrorism in its own region.

    “Coalition forces must not be perceived in Iraq as an open-ended security safety net,” McClelland said in a statement.

    When Howard decided in March to send the extra 450 troops to Iraq to protect the Japanese engineers, an opinion poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper found 55 percent of Australians were opposed, while only 37 percent were in favor.

    A www.ninemsn.com.au poll in August showed that almost 80 percent of Australians believed the country’s troops should be withdrawn from Iraq by next year.

    Australia was among the first to join the Iraq war and has promised to keep forces there until Iraq can manage its own security.

    “I see no point in flagging withdrawal at the very time when the government and the people of Iraq need reassurances of support,” said Howard, but adding that he does not want Australia’s troops to stay in Iraq any longer than necessary.

    Despite any lingering or enhanced unpopularity, I do not see this as having a lasting effect against Prime Minister Howard. I have always felt the Aussies to be kindred spirits to Texans, and I think this spirit is ideally exemplified by an Australian rescued from captivity by thugs in Iraq, Douglas Wood.

    Is this a bad time to remind readers that the Democratic presidential campaign of John Kerry, through the candidate’s sister, tried to undermine our relations with our Australian allies?

  • Iran President: Israel Should Move to Europe

    The new Iranian president quickly showed himself to be a hardliner true to the spirit of the radical 1979 takeover by calling for the destruction of Israel. Now, he is showing himself to be as deluded as too many in the Moslem world are by denying the Holocaust, one of the cornerstones for Israel’s creation.

    Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reignited the controversy provoked by his recent calls for Israel to be “wiped off the map” yesterday by casting doubt on the historical authenticity of the Holocaust and demanding that an alternative Jewish homeland be established in Europe.

    In remarks that sparked outrage in Washington and Jerusalem, Mr Ahmadinejad rejected the “claim” that millions of Jews were murdered by the Nazis, but called on those who believe to set up a Jewish state in countries such as Germany and Austria.

    He told journalists at an international Islamic conference in Mecca: “Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail. Although we don’t accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: ‘Is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?’

    “If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe – like in Germany, Austria or other countries – to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it.”

    Okay, let’s get this straight: the Holocaust didn’t happen so Israel shouldn’t exist but, if it did happen, Israel shouldn’t exist in the Middle East. Well, apparently this guy could find a sad way to twist the statement “water is wet” into a reason for Israel to not exist.

    Under Ahmadinejad, Iran is pushing at breakneck speed towards two goals — becoming a power with nuclear weapons and positioning itself as the key opponent to Israel in the eyes of the Moslem world.

    Israel quickly responded to the Holocaust-denying, move-Israel claptrap.

    Last night an Israeli government spokesman, Raanan Gissin, decried “the consensus that exists in many circles in the Arab world that the Jewish people … do not have the right to establish a Jewish, democratic state in their ancestral homeland”. He added: “Just to remind Mr Ahmadinejad, we’ve been here long before his ancestors were here.”

    Had this Israeli spokesman been typing up his response on an internet forum, the previous statement would have been closed with the following:

    Osiraq, beotch!

    Perhaps unfortunately, while appropriate, such a closing is not yet welcome in diplospeak. Also, definitely unfortunate is the fact that a repeat of Osiraq, Iranian-style, would be rather difficult for the Israelis.

  • Iraq: Unwinnable Nam … or Maybe Not

    Howard Dean, failed presidential candidate and the chair of the DNC, has declared that the Americans have been defeated in Iraq.

    Saying the “idea that we’re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong,” Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

    […]

    “I’ve seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, ‘just another year, just stay the course, we’ll have a victory.’ Well, we didn’t have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening.”

    Dean says the Democrat position on the war is ‘coalescing,’ and is likely to include several proposals.

    “I think we need a strategic redeployment over a period of two years,” Dean said. “Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately. They don’t belong in a conflict like this anyway. We ought to have a redeployment to Afghanistan of 20,000 troops, we don’t have enough troops to do the job there and its a place where we are welcome. And we need a force in the Middle East, not in Iraq but in a friendly neighboring country to fight (terrorist leader Musab) Zarqawi, who came to Iraq after this invasion. We’ve got to get the target off the backs of American troops.

    Well, I’d like to respond to four aspects of this. First, as John Hinderaker at Power Line points out, defeatism was once frowned upon in American society, not trumpeted by the head of a major party. Second, I would really like an explanation of how a withdrawn force in a neighboring country is expected to combat the terrorist bastard Zarqawi while he wreaks mayhem in our wake in Iraq. This is nothing but a complete lack of a developed line of thought, thrown out for political expediency that deserves to backfire more that a gutteral Iowa scream. Third, as a former Guardsman and close buddy of a Guardsman currently returning from Iraq, I am disgusted by Dean’s patronizing characterization of the reserve components. I’d like to hear Dean try to sell that tripe to Lt. Col. Jeffrey Breor of the Texas Army National Guard’s 56th Brigade, returning from Iraq with tales of both the unit’s fine performance and progress on the ground. The Guard and Reserve don’t belong in a conflict like Iraq?!! I’ve got a little newsflash for the DNC chair: the Guard and Reserve go through the same training as members of the active service and are held to the same standards; the key difference in proficiency stems from training time after new troops return from their initial training and the accompanying unit cohesiveness. This is overcome to a large degree already, as the reserve units spend a substantial period uptraining before rotating to the sandbox. There is one substantial difference in National Guard training, and that is the one day a year spent on spent on riot control procedures, as the true base of former Governor Dean cannot be trusted to behave civilly in the political sphere. Oh yeah, before I forget, let’s not miss a chance to praise the brave troopers of the Kentucky Army National Guard’s 617th MP Company, who kicked ass while in Iraq.

    My fourth point with Dean’s bold stance of being decidedly meek is that, while in line with the established mythologies of both Viet Nam and Iraq, it stands in stark contrast to the true lessons of history and the reality of the nature of the current Iraqi situation. Frederick W. Kagan addresses this painstakingly in his “Iraq Is Not Vietnam” piece (hat tip to Jeff Goldstein).

    When american ground forces paused briefly during the march to Baghdad in 2003, critics of the war were quick to warn of a quagmire; an oblique reference to the Vietnam War. Virtually as soon as it became clear that the conflict in Iraq had become an insurgency, analogies to Vietnam began to proliferate. This development is not surprising. Critics have equated every significant American military undertaking since 1975 to Vietnam, and the fear of being trapped in a Vietnam-like war has led to the frequent demand that U.S. leaders develop not plans to win wars, but exit strategies, plans to get out of messes.

    There is no question that the Vietnam War scarred the American psyche deeply, nor that it continues to influence American foreign policy and military strategy profoundly. CENTCOM’s strategy for the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq is an attempt to avoid making Vietnam-like mistakes. Proponents of other strategies, like combined action platoons or oil spot approaches, most frequently derive those programs from what they believe are the right lessons of Vietnam. It is becoming increasingly an article of faith that the insurgency in Vietnam is similar enough to the insurgency in Iraq that we can draw useful lessons from the one to apply to the other. This is not the case. The only thing the insurgencies in Iraq and Vietnam have in common is that in both cases American forces have fought revolutionaries. To make comparisons or draw lessons beyond that basic point misunderstands not only the particular historical cases, but also the value of studying history to draw lessons for the present.

    Kagan goes on to look at the historical roots, composition, support and capabilities of the insurgencies we face in both Viet Nam and Iraq. The stark differences give lie to the supposedly authoritative but defeatist talk of Howard Dean. Kagan’s effort is somewhat lengthy, but pretty much worth every word. As an aside, my thoughts on exit strategies can be found here. I challenge anyone to provide a successfully executed war where an exit strategy was the guiding force and was followed to fruition.

    Howard Dean has accepted defeat. The American military has achieved success after success. The Bush administration has remained steadfast in its policy that Iraq is a key piece in the war against radical Islamic terror and that we are succeeding and progressing on the ground, though they’ve done a poor job of propagating the news.

    The American people will have to decide whether to move forward or find defeat after unprecedented success, a defeat that will reinforce unto our enemies the lessons they learned from Saigon ’75, Beirut ’84 and Somalia ’93 — bloody the Americans and they will cowardly run away, tail between the legs. And our children will have to live or die with that decision.

    Yes, it is in the hands of the American people. However, it is only fair that they are given the full story to make that decision. Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked the all-too-negative media to present the full story that the American people haven’t been given, opened schools and not just exploding cars.

    As the United States wages its first war with widespread 24/7 news coverage, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged the media to ensure it’s telling the whole story about Iraq, not just focusing on events that make dramatic headlines.

    Rumsfeld, speaking at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s campus here Dec. 5, said troops frequently ask him why the American people aren’t getting a more accurate picture of what’s happening in Iraq. They question why violence seems to get the heaviest coverage, while “good news” stories about successes tend to go unreported.

    The secretary noted the media’s indispensable role in keeping people informed and holding the government to account. Many in the media have done “excellent reporting” in Iraq, and some have been killed in the process, he said.

    “But it’s important also for the media to hold itself to account,” Rumsfeld told the group.

    “We’ve arrived at a strange time in this country, where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world,” the secretary said. Often this reporting occurs with little or no context or scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability, even after the fact, he said. Speed appears to be more important than accuracy or context to some reporters, he said, and their reports can spread around the globe, regardless of their validity.

    […]

    In May, rioting and several deaths resulted from what Rumsfeld called “a false and damaging” news story about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In yet another instance, a recent New York Times editorial implied that the U.S. armed forces were using tactics Rumsfeld called “reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.”

    Similarly, news reports that focus simply on terror attacks and bombings don’t paint an accurate picture or tell the whole story of what’s happening in Iraq, the secretary said.

    “You couldn’t tell the full story of Iwo Jima simply by listing the nearly 26,000 Americans that were casualties over about 40 days … or explain the importance of (Gen. Ulysses S.) Grant’s push to Virginia just by noting the savagery of the battles, and they were savage,” Rumsfeld said.

    Similarly, the secretary said, telling the story of what’s happening in Iraq by focusing only on how many Americans have died leaves much of the story untold. Just as important, he said, is the story of what those troops died for and what they lived for.

    It is the resposibility of the American populace to decide between possible success and Dean’s failure. Rumsfeld is correct — it is only fair, both for my future children and the honor of our military’s courageous efforts and sacrifices, that the supposed American media paint a fair, full and accurate picture to provide Americans the information needed for their monumental decision.

  • Looking Around the Blogroll

    I just thought I’d stall on any possible blogging tonight by throwing up a few links from some of the fine folk on my blogroll.

    War on Islamic Terror Updates

    First, the campaign in Iraq graphically compared to Viet Nam, courtesy Bastard Sword. No comparison. I may have to swipe … err … borrow this chart.

    Second, Jay Tea at Wizbang! examines the bankruptcy of strategy in Iraq, but he isn’t talking about the good guys or President Bush. Instead, he’s nailing the insurgents and terrorists. Okay, yeah, there’s a swipe or two at the Democrats.

    Third, In the Bullpen‘s Chad Evans points to a story that Iran may only be months away from atomic weapons. Well, that’s comforting.

    Fourth, Mrs. Greyhawk at the Mudville Gazette is asking for Christmastime support for our wounded soldiers via the very worthy Soldiers’ Angels.

    2005 Weblog Awards

    Finalists for the Wizbang‘s Bloggies, 2005 style, have been named and voting is open. No, Target Centermass is neither a finalist nor even a nominee (as far as I bothered to notice), and that’s quite understandable given the worthy blogs on the ballot.

    Unsurprisingly, my favorite category is the Best Military Blog. John at finalist Argghhh!!! pays a brief, humble tribute to the competition and a few not on the ballot.

    Eric of Eric’s Grumbles Before the Grave, founder of the Life, Liberty, Property community, almost sounds like a proud father listing the six members of the community that have been named finalists.

    Also, the Llama Butchers, finalists for Best Culture/Gossip Blog, have started a rather interesting campaign.

    Miscellaneous

    Protein Wisdom‘s Jeff Goldstein waxes poetic, doing that haiku voodoo that only Jeff can do so well.

  • Mass Grave Discoveries Shock Lebanese

    The loosening of the Syrian hold on Lebanon has led to grisly findings.

    Mass graves which were dug up in Lebanon over the weekend are believed to hold the bodies of Lebanese soldiers killed during the Civil War. The number of bodies is expected to reach a total of 40 as the Lebanese authorities continue to dig in the third and largest mass grave to be exhumed within a month. “Some of the bones in the graves are more than 20 years old,” said forensic expert Fouad Ayoub, who has been designated by the public prosecutor to officially investigate the latest mass grave in an onion farm on the Nabi Azir hilltop in Anjar. The graves are about one kilometer from the former headquarters of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon and are located in territory formerly occupied by Syrian troops.

    Lebanese troops have been working since Friday using bulldozers and a team of forensic experts to exhume the remains of 28 human skeletons. The bodies, which were exhumed from two mass graves beside each other, had traces of underwear, clothes and military uniforms still attached to the bones.

    Ayoub said DNA tests will be conducted on the remains and the results will be compared with a list of missing civilians and soldiers.

    […]

    Some security officials have said that they could be Lebanese soldiers killed during an October 1990 Syrian military offensive against Lebanese Army units led by then interim-President Michel Aoun.

    There has been no official response from the Syrian government. However, a statement on Syrian News Web site quoted an “informed Syrian source” as saying “the victims were part of 400 Lebanese and Palestinians whom Abu Nidal’s Fatah-Revolutionary Council had summarily executed in the Bekaa in the latter years of the Civil War between 1986 and 1991.”

    Abu Nidal was then fighting with late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah mainstream faction and victims of their clashes were said “to have been buried in several locations in the Bekaa.”

    This may be feasible, and the dirtnap-taking terrorist Nidal would be a great fall guy, but there are signs reported that point back to Syria.

    The mayor of the nearby town of Majdel Anjar, who helped lead security forces to the graves, said he believed up to 40 bodies were buried in the area.

    “These bodies have been buried near the shrine of Nabi Uzeir since 1993. I have known since 1999 but kept silent,” Shaaban al-Ajami told reports. He said he kept quiet out of “fear” of prosecution by the Syrian intelligence, which had a tight grip on Lebanon during its 29 years of tutelage.

    “One of the skulls had the remains of a sock in it, which is proof of the torture tactics used by Syrian intelligence,” he said.

    […]

    “This is the biggest proof that the crime is very big and touches the lives of hundreds of Lebanese families,” said Ghazi Aad, head of Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE).

    Aad, who has been calling for an international probe into the case of the Lebanese detainees in Syrian jails, demanded a thorough international investigation into the mass graves and other killings allegedly carried out by Syrian occupation troops.

    “This is a serious crime against humanity and hence I call upon the Lebanese government to react and hold an immediate session in Cabinet to discuss the discovery,” said Aad.

    Human rights groups and families have said that they have evidence of more than 176 Lebanese detained in Syrian jails, many of whom have been there for more than a decade. Another 17,000 Lebanese remain unaccounted for since the 1975-90 Civil War.

    Well, that certainly makes Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo seem like a blip at worst on the inhumane radar screen. I await, trembling in anticipation, for the weeks of screaming coverage from the New York Times.

  • Blue on Blue: Dems’ Split Surfaces

    Back in June, I blogged about red on red. That’s American military jargon for enemy fighting, intentional or incidental, among and between our opposing forces. In that post, I mentioned the obvious fact that colors play key roles in other areas, specifically naming gangs and American political demarcations. Well, digging into the latter, lets take a little look at some developing blue on blue.

    First, I want to point out that the Democrats, as the party in opposition, have had two tremendous political advantages to date in their stances on the campaign in Iraq. Those advantages are as follows:

    • A generally all-too-friendly mainstream media, both to the Dems and to our enemies — a media that long allowed has allowed the Dems to oppose President Bush without offering alternatives, that exalts Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan with exposing the extremism of her beliefs or her attention addiction
    • An administration and military that has done a poor job (unfortunate assist to that same mainstream media) in terms of communicating our military successes and progress in rebuilding an Iraq devastated chiefly long before the invasion

    Unfortunately for the Democrat party, they have had some sizable hurdles to clear, hurdles that insist on cropping up again and again:

    • A far-left base comprised of elements that root for defeat, will accept defeat, wish to redefine defeat from how the Islamic world would define defeat, or want to pretend there would be no defeat from early withdrawal based on the fact that fighting Islamic terrorists in Iraq does not make the campaign part of the war against Islamist terror
    • A large portion of Americans who are ashamed of the way we have, in our recent history, cut and run, be it from Viet Nam, from Beirut or from Somalia, and recognize that these abandonments did not result in recognitions of supposed mistakes and good will when viewed through the eyes of our enemies, but rather clear signs of weakness — bloody America and America will run
    • A stubborn majority-party president that seems certain of his course of action
    • A military that has succeeded at every turn with casualties below most predictions, dominant when needed (the initial conquest of Iraq was amazing by military history standards but should be overshadowed by the amazing November 2004 urban assault on Fallujah, an offensive that redefined urban-warfare success) while maintaining an unprecedented degree of professionalism (despite the occasional bad apples, a card that has been way overplayed by the mainstream media [see the approximately 43 consecutive frontpage Abu Ghraib headlines in the NYT for example] without any historical context)

    Those are certainly some complexities to overcome for a group that wishes to be viewed as pro-American, pro-military and pro-War on Terror. Those hurdles can only be managed if the advantages that I stated earlier carry the day.

    Unfortunately for the Democrats, the GOP in the Senate decided to show a little spine and force the Dems to lay down their cards. Then, the administration decided to get just a little vocal about both plan and progress.

    With just this slightest provocation, the Dems were forced on the defensive and the media was forced to cover the great big blue crawdad move, as Dem pols scattered in different directions and their weaknesses were exposed. Here’s some media coverage of the anarchy currently under the Dem banner.

    Democrats divided over Iraq timetable

    Democrats nationwide generally say that the United States should withdraw its troops from Iraq but remain divided over how and when.

    Like their party leaders in Washington, members of the Democratic National Committee offered a range of opinions Friday about the recent call from Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a Vietnam War veteran and strong military ally, for a complete pullout within six months.

    “I think the presence of American troops are incendiary to all parties in Iraq,” said Robert Bell, who agreed with Murtha’s proposal. “I think eventually there’s going to be a civil war. It’s time for the Iraqis to take care of their own problems.”

    The DNC was holding a three-day meeting in Phoenix.

    […]

    Democrats seemed split over whether the party has been able to capitalize on problems nagging the administration, including the war in Iraq and federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

    […]

    Gaetan DiGangi, a committee member from New Hampshire, said the Democrats shouldn’t take a mean-spirited approach in pointing out Bush’s failings.

    “We are looking to offer something that’s an alternative, and I think we are moving towards that,” DiGangi said.

    Democratic Lawmakers Splinter on Iraq (hat tip to Captain’s Quarters and its coverage of the article)

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s embrace Wednesday of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq highlighted the Democratic Party’s fissures on war policy, putting the House’s top Democrat at odds with her second in command while upsetting a consensus developing in the Senate.

    For months now, Democratic leaders have grown increasingly aggressive in their critiques of President Bush’s policies in Iraq but have been largely content to keep their own war strategies vague or under wraps. That ended Wednesday when Pelosi (D-Calif.) aggressively endorsed a proposal by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, leaving only a much smaller rapid-reaction force in the region.

    The move caught some in the party by surprise. It threw a wrench into a carefully calibrated Democratic theme emerging in the Senate that called for 2006 to be a “significant year of progress” in Iraq, with Iraqi security forces making measurable progress toward relieving U.S. troops of combat duties. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last month that “it’s time to take the training wheels off the Iraqi government.”

    What’s more, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) issued a statement Wednesday that was in marked contrast to Pelosi’s. “I believe that a precipitous withdrawal of American forces in Iraq could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation’s security and credibility,” he said.

    Catering to all is a losing strategy

    DEMOCRATS, especially those with presidential ambitions, think they’re being so clever. They have devised a line of argument they believe will help them benefit politically from President Bush’s troubles in Iraq.

    But it turns out they aren’t so clever after all. What they’ve come up with stands a good chance of backfiring and doing Democratic candidates more harm than good. Even though Iraq seems to be a huge liability for the president and the Republicans, it’s possible that the war will eventually hurt the Democrats as much as anyone.

    That’s a shame. The Bush administration has made plenty of mistakes in Iraq — starting with the fact that it didn’t send enough troops, and didn’t provide adequate supervision for some of the troops it did send. Remember Abu Ghraib? This country could stand an honest and vigorous debate, not about how we got to this point but about where we go from here.

    But this much is certain: If a debate comes, it’ll be no thanks to Democrats. The best they could dream up goes something like this: “We were hustled. Sure, we voted to authorize President Bush to use military force to invade Iraq, but we were misled. Not that we regret toppling Saddam Hussein. We only regret that we weren’t given all the necessary information to make a more informed decision.”

    The “we were hustled” approach offers something for everyone. If you support the war, you can applaud Democrats for backing the president. If you oppose the war, you sympathize with them for being conned by what you’ve probably already decided is a devious bunch.

    But Democrats are forgetting one crucial detail, something they should have learned from recent presidential defeats: Americans hate politicians who duck responsibility for their actions by relying on parsed phrasing and other word games.

    Dems Split on Iraq War Approach

    A day after his latest speech detailing progress in Iraq, Bush stood next to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who wants U.S. troop withdrawals to begin before the end of this year.

    “You don’t need 160,000 people to be doing what we are doing in Iraq today. This is not World War II, this is not Korea, this is not Vietnam,” Kerry said after the White House ceremony commemorating the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

    Kerry is using his Web site and billboards in New Hampshire and Indiana to push his proposal to bring 20,000 troops home before Christmas and “bring home most of our combat troops in 2006.” He seemed to contradict himself, however, when speaking with reporters Thursday at the White House.

    “The truth is, yes, it is going to take a lot longer and many of us believe that, in fact, that goal is not the most realistic one in the short term, that you’re going to have a longer-term struggle in that regard. Now, what we need to do is provide a sufficient level of security and stability so that American forces can begin to come home,” Kerry said.

    That is in essence what the president argued Wednesday and for the last two years. Reinforcing that the White House already had that in mind, spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday that some troop withdrawals could come after the Dec. 15 election in Iraq.

    “We fully expect, as the Pentagon has indicated, that we’re going to be able to reduce some of the troop levels that we increased heading into the elections after the elections take place,” McClellan said. “I think some have talked about how next year could be a period of significant transition.”

    While that might seem to be what Kerry wants, the Massachusetts senator said he and his fellow Democrats are largely united in their opposition to Bush strategy.

    “There is much greater agreement between all of the Democrats, then there is a difference between all of us,” Kerry said.

    But Kerry’s assertion doesn’t follow the recent call for troop withdrawal in six months by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa

    White flag Democrats

    And the Democrats wonder why they are considered weak on national security? It’s not because anyone doubts their patriotism. It’s because a lot of people doubt their judgment and toughness.

    As if to prove the skeptics right, Democrats have been stepping forth to renounce their previous support for the liberation of Iraq even as Iraqis prepare to vote in a general election. Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards, John Murtha — that’s quite a list of heavyweight flip-floppers.

    […]

    There are some honorable exceptions to this defeatism — Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton and Wesley Clark have remained stalwart supporters of the war effort — but they are clearly in the minority of a party steadily drifting toward Howard Dean-George McGovern territory.

    Just a few years ago, it seemed as if the Democrats had finally kicked the post-Vietnam, peace-at-any-price syndrome. Before the invasion of Iraq, leading Democrats sounded hawkish in demanding action to deal with what Kerry called the “particularly grievous threat” posed by Saddam Hussein. But it seems that they only wanted to do something if the cost would be minuscule. Now that the war has turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated, the Democrats want to run up the white flag.

    They are offering two excuses for their loss of will. First, they claim they were “misled into war” by a duplicitous administration. But it wasn’t George W. Bush who said, “I have no doubt today that, left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons [of mass destruction] again.” It was Bill Clinton on Dec. 16, 1998. As this example indicates, the warnings issued by Bush were virtually identical to those of his Democratic predecessor.

    The Democrats’ other excuse is that they never imagined that Bush would bollix up post-invasion planning as badly as he did. It’s true that the president blundered, but it’s not as if things usually go smoothly in the chaos of conflict. In any case, it’s doubtful that the war would have been a cakewalk even if we had been better prepared. The Baathists and their jihadist allies were planning a ruthless terrorist campaign even before U.S. troops entered Iraq. Their calculation was that if they killed enough American soldiers, the American public would demand a pullout.

    So far the terrorists’ plan seems to be working. Even most Republican senators are demanding a withdrawal strategy. But it is the Democrats who are stampeding toward the exits. Apparently the death of about 2,100 soldiers over the course of almost three years is more than they can bear. Good thing these were not the same Democrats who were running the country in 1944, or else they would have pulled out of France after the loss of 5,000 Allied servicemen on D-day.

    Even as a self-proclaimed Reagan revolutionary, I voted for the Libertarian Party candidate in every presidential election I was able to until 9/11. Yes, I voted Libertarian in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000.

    I voted for George Bush in 2004.

    I cannot respect the Libertarian Party’s view of international realities, and I cannot believe for a moment that the bulk of today’s Democrats care more about the future hopes I hold for my possible children and grandchildren and the state of our republic than they do about their own temporary political gain.

  • Attack on Marines Worst in Iraq Since Aug.

    There was bad, bloody news out of Iraq today.

    A roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 while they were on a foot patrol near Fallujah, the Marine Corps said Friday, in the deadliest attack on American troops in nearly four months.

    Thursday’s bomb, which was made from several large artillery shells, struck members of Regimental Combat Team 8 of the 2nd Marine Division near the city about 30 miles west of Baghdad, the Marine Corps said.

    […]

    Of the 11 who were wounded, seven have returned to duty, the Marine Corps said. It added that Marines from the same unit continue to conduct counterinsurgency operations throughout Fallujah and surrounding areas.

    My best wishes and condolences for the families and comrades of these fallen Marines.

  • Pager-forced Link Dump

    I have been owned by the oncall pager, but here’s some reading for y’all.

    ‘This is our Belgian kamikaze’

    Belgians were trying to come to terms Thursday with the news that a working class woman from an industrial southern city had turned from a “nice” shop assistant into a suicide bomber who blew herself up in Iraq.

    “This is our Belgian kamikaze killed in Iraq,” headlined the newspaper La Derniere Heure on Thursday over a picture of a thoroughly normal-looking, smiling girl looking into the camera.

    When her mother, Liliane Degauque, saw police coming to her doorstep on Wednesday, she immediately knew what it was about. The evening before, she had heard the reports there had been a terrorist attack on Nov. 9 by a Belgian woman.

    “When I saw the first pictures, I said to myself, ‘it is my girl.’ For three weeks already I tried to contact her by telephone but I got the answering machine,” she told the RTBF network on Thursday.

    Authorities on Thursday formally arrested 5 of the 14 suspects they detained in dawn raids the day before and charged them with involvement in a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including Degauque’s daughter Muriel, who died at 38.

    Nine were released. Those placed under arrest were a Tunisian and four Belgians, three of whom had foreign roots.

    “This action shows how international terrorism tries to set up networks in western European nations, recruit for terror attacks in conflict areas and look for funds to finance terrorism,” said Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

    In her younger years, Muriel lived a conventional life in the Charleroi area. Media reports said she finished high school before taking on several jobs, including selling bread in a bakery. “She was so nice,” said her mother. The picture in the paper dated from that time.

    She told media, however, that her daughter could easily be influenced.

    Muriel changed first when she married an Algerian man and later one with Moroccan roots. She was increasingly drawn into fundamentalist religion.

    “It is the first time that we see that a Western woman, a Belgian, marries a radical Muslim, and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter,” said federal police director Glenn Audenaert.

    Belgium. France. The Netherlands. All have been served notice of the Islamist danger in their midst. None yet have taken their individual national wake-up calls seriously enough yet. This is not just a condemnation of these three countries but also of all around them. After all, to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, any fool can learn from his own mistakes, but it is preferable to learn from the mistakes of others, as well.

    Ramadi Insurgents Flaunt Threat

    Armed fighters claiming allegiance to Abu Musab Zarqawi took to the streets of a western Iraqi provincial capital Thursday in a fleeting show aimed at intimidating Iraqi Sunni Arab leaders taking part in dialogue with U.S. Marines in a stronghold of the insurgency, provincial officials, residents and other witnesses said.

    The scene — lean figures, many in masks and dark tracksuits lugging shoulder-mounted rocket launchers or wielding AK-47 assault rifles — reinforced what the U.S. military has acknowledged is the strong insurgent presence in the Euphrates River cities and towns of Anbar province, an overwhelmingly Sunni area near the Syrian border. The appearance of the fighters dismayed many of the residents of Ramadi, the war-blighted provincial capital.

    […]

    The armed fighters on the streets left statements in the name of Zarqawi’s group, saying their show of force was in response to negotiations between the “Sunni midgets and the stooges of the occupation forces.” The statements contained pledges to kill each Sunni leader participating.

    The U.S. military, which maintains Marine bases and thousands of troops on the outskirts of Ramadi, denied the accounts of unrest, saying that the city was largely calm Thursday and that insurgents were manipulating the news media. “Today I witnessed inaccurate reporting, use of unreliable sources, media using other media as sources, an active insurgent propaganda machine, and the pack journalism at its worse,” Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division, said in an e-mail to news organizations.

    Witnesses in Ramadi said they saw some of the armed fighters instruct a journalist for an Arabic-language news outlet to report that Zarqawi’s group, al Qaeda in Iraq, had taken over the entire city. The Arabic outlet by late Thursday was reporting only that the fighters had held some streets of the city center — a description of events in line with the eyewitness accounts and reports from other news organizations. News directors for the organization did not respond to requests for comment. The news organization is not being identified for security reasons.

    This is about as clear evidence as you can have that there are two wars being conducted — on the battlefield and in the media. The terrorists know this and, unfortunately for them, showed themselves to be truly crippled if little stunts like their assaulting and briefly holding a couple of city blocks comprise their current hope to pull of a Tet offensive-type media success.

    Germany: No ransom for Iraq kidnappers

    German leaders said Thursday they still have had no contact with the kidnappers of a German woman seized in Iraq and Chancellor Angela Merkel said considering paying a ransom was “not up for discussion” at this time.

    Susanne Osthoff and her Iraqi driver were taken last Friday, and were pictured in a videotape blindfolded on a floor, with militants – one armed with a rocket propelled grenade – standing beside them.

    The militants are reportedly demanding that Germany cease its dealings with Iraq’s government or they will kill the hostages. Germany was an ardent opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has refused to send troops there, but has been training Iraqi soldiers and police outside the country.

    Merkel indicated in a speech Wednesday that Germany will not change its Iraq policy, stressing that the country “will not let ourselves be blackmailed” over Osthoff’s abduction.

    On Thursday, Merkel told reporters that the government was “doing all its can to save her life and that of her companion.”

    Asked if Germany would consider paying a ransom, Merkel said that was “not up for discussion at all now.”

    “At the moment it is about very elementary questions … First of all, we are interested in finding out how to make contact” with the kidnappers, Merkel said.

    Well, that’s not actually a very strong stance. Hopefully, Merkel will prove to have more of a spine than to cave in to terror and help finance future bloodshed for short-term political gain. You know, like the Philippines. Or allegedly the Italians and French.

    Finally, two blog must-reads:

    The Telegraph’s Nose Just Grew Ten Feet

    Should we hold newspapers accountable for exagerating or just lying? No, I do not mean legally, but as consumers we do drive their paychecks to print out blatent lies and mischaracterizations. Take for instance the following article in The Telegraph [headlined US ‘paid journalists to lie about war’]

    […]

    As a member of the free press, that is unless George Soros has purchased The Telegraph, the rag should know how the same press they operate under works. Apparently they do not. First things first though in this abysmal piece of journalism. Even though The Telegraph cites the Los Angeles Times for breaking the story, no where in the LA Times piece is there any information regarding the United States “paid journalists to lie about war” as stated in the title. I urge everyone to read the original LA Times piece to verify.

    Read it all. This story is growing and needs to be seen for its absurdity as early as possible.

    Picturing Polls, Red vs. Blue

    Here are recent (already outdated) poll numbers put into picture form of President George W. Bush’s approval ratings as seen on numerous Leftist websites.

    Not a good show for Chimpy-Bushitler, that is for sure!

    Too bad their data is no longer accurate. The current and respected Rasmussen Report has his approval rating back to 46%.

    These earlier polls do make you assume that if “W” is having such a hard time, then surely his democratic opponents are reaping the benefits. Right?

    But, looking at Congressional Democratic approval ratings you get this…

    Go see Gateway Pundit’s collection of red-blue maps. Interesting and unheralded, though not surprising.

  • 14 Terror Suspects Detained In Belgium

    The war in Iraq continues, and Europe continues to be a front despite the distance.

    Belgian police raided homes in four cities Wednesday and detained 14 people suspected of involvement in a terrorist network that sent fighters to Iraq, including a Belgian woman reported to have carried out a suicide bombing in Baghdad.

    Belgian authorities “want to dismantle this network, which we knew was on our territory and which aimed to send volunteers” to fight in Iraq, Glenn Audenaert, the federal police director, told reporters.

    More than 200 police officers took part in raids at dawn in Brussels and three other cities following media reports that a Belgian woman had blown herself up in a Nov. 9 attack in Baghdad. The woman reportedly carried out a car bombing against an American patrol. U.S. officials said she was the only person killed.

    The woman was 38, her first name was Mireille and she came from a middle-class background in Charleroi, about 30 miles south of Brussels, an official close to the investigation said on condition of anonymity.

    The woman converted to Islam after she married a man from Morocco, officials said. “This is how she came into contact with the organization which allowed her to become a fighter,” Audenaert said.

    Her husband was killed in Iraq in a separate incident, officials said.

    Nine of the 14 suspects detained Wednesday were Belgian. Three were Moroccan and two were Tunisian.

    Europe’s longstanding immigration policies, poisonously too generous to the north of Africa and its included radical elements, and its willingness for years to overlook a growing militant threat are now bearing fruit. Unfortunately, the Euro nations, while seemingly willing to play hardball and police up the symptoms after the fact, refuse to address the disease of the radical and growing Islamist elements in their societies.