Target Centermass

Category: Middle East

  • England Convicted, Awaiting Sentence

    As if the overly-publicisized photos weren’t enough, there’s finally a guilty verdict to the case of the Abu Ghraib scandal’s poster girl.

    Army Pfc. Lynndie England, whose smiling poses in photos of detainee abuse at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison made her the face of the scandal, was convicted Monday by a military jury on six of seven counts.

    England, 22, was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of committing an indecent act. She was acquitted on a second conspiracy count.

    The jury of five male Army officers took about two hours to reach its verdict. Her case now moves to the sentencing phase, which will be heard by the same jury beginning Tuesday.

    England tried to plead guilty in May to the same counts she faced this month in exchange for an undisclosed sentencing cap, but a judge threw out the plea deal. She now faces a maximum 10 years in prison.

    I’m glad the smitten-moron defense didn’t carry the day. Now, I hope for the maximum penalty for a woman who did everything she certainly knew was wrong. Granted, she had no clue what the impact on global affairs would be, but she certainly knew the UCMJ and her lawful orders.

  • D.C. Protests: Associated Press Picks Side

    In straight news reporting, the lede is everything. The opening paragraph should carry the gist of the entire article and answer all of the fundamental questions of who, what, when, where and how. Why is questionable, as it can paint a bias on the story or be immediately undetermined.

    This weekend, the American capital of Washington, D.C. saw back-to-back gatherings of anti-war and pro-troop rallies. The Associated Press’ lede paragraph for today’s rally in support of the U.S. efforts in Iraq is as follows:

    Support for U.S. troops fighting abroad mixed with anger toward anti-war demonstrators at home as hundreds of people, far fewer than organizers had expected, rallied Sunday on the National Mall just a day after a massive protest against the war in Iraq.

    My attention is immediately drawn towards the mention of anger. Actually, my first reaction is that I dare you to diagram that rather poorly written sentence. Past that, I’m taken by the mention of anger in the lede. Why? Well, let’s look at the lede from the AP’s coverage of Saturday’s rally.

    Opponents of the war in Iraq rallied by the thousands Saturday to demand the return of U.S. troops, staging a day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead in marches through Washington and other American and European cities.

    What? Song and remembrance? No anger?

    Well, judging by photoblogging by Michelle Malkin and Davids Medienkritik, I would beg to differ. There seems to have been a great deal of unreported anger at Saturday’s shin dig. Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit followed Saturday’s speeches and seems to have identified a great deal of anger, as well as a great deal of failed leftist talking points.

    So why no mention of anger Saturday while it made the lede Sunday? Well, I’ll leave it to one of the best bloggers out there, Jeff Goldstein, to absolutely rip the puff piece that was Saturday’s “news” story by the A.P. Suffice it to say that the A.P. has happily allowed the slant of their writers to overwhelm their supposed straight news reporting.

    As the Indepundit allows a Marine in Iraq to point out, this weekend was critical for the home front of the war against the radical Islamist movement and our efforts in Iraq.

    Thanks for doing this. The battlefield this weekend will be on the homefront. The only thing that truly concerns me is that the seditionist groups will succeed in causing the American people to lose their will and the enemy will win politically the victory we have denied them militarily.

    Let there be no mistake: we are winning here. Morale is outstanding and we are successfully taking the fight to the enemy. You will see a successful referendum in less than 3 weeks and a successfull election in less than 3 months. I see the positive resuts of our actions everyday. The MSM ignores or denigrates almost every piece of positive news, exaggerates every negative and makes the enemy and his actions out to be more than they are.

    They absolutely cannot defeat us militarily and have no strategic vision except the destruction of all who oppose them. A strategy based on such a negative is doomed to fail, unless we cut and run. That is the enemy’s only chance to win. The biggest threat we face is a determined enemy who will not quit because, like the Vietnamese they see the possibility of victory because of a perceived willingness to quit at home.

    Folks, in the war the Marine describes, the A.P. has long since chosen sides. This weekend, they made it very freakin’ obvious.

  • Gaza Erupts as 40 Rockets Hit Israel

    Well, so much for belief that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would immediately lead to a greater peace in the region as Palestinian terrorists launched a slew of missiles into Israel. I should note, of course, that I would seriously question anyone foolish enough to have ever harbored such hopes.

    Barely two weeks after Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip, the area erupted into violence over the weekend as Islamic militias launched 40 missiles into Israel, which responded by resuming assassinations, as the two sides sought to set new ground rules in the wake of the pullout.

    Four alleged Hamas operatives were killed on Saturday when helicopters fired missiles at two cars in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the area from which missiles aimed at the Israeli town of Sderot had been launched. In this and other Israeli air attacks against weapons facilities and other Hamas targets, 17 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were wounded. Six Israeli civilians were lightly wounded in the Palestinian attacks.

    For the first time, Israel moved artillery into position at the edge of the Gaza Strip and warned that it would use it if necessary.

    “We are undertaking a continuing series of attacks on Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said Israeli General Yisrael Ziv. “Our time framework is open-ended.”

    […]

    The weekend flare-up was triggered by two incidents, one on the West Bank and one in Gaza.

    The first took place before dawn on Friday, local time, when Israeli security forces killed three alleged Islamic Jihad operatives near the West Bank town of Tulkarm. Israeli officials said the three had organised several suicide bombings and were drawing up plans to make rockets to be fired from the West Bank at Israel’s heartland. The officials said the three, after being surrounded, had started the exchange of fire that killed them.

    Hours later, three Palestinian-made Kassem rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip by Islamic Jihad into Israel in retaliation for the Tulkarm killings. There were no casualties.

    In the second incident, on Friday evening, an explosion occurred during a military parade staged by Hamas in the Jabaliya refugee camp celebrating the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza after 38 years. Fifteen people were killed and 80 wounded in the blast. Hamas accused Israel of being behind the explosion and unleashed dozens of rockets at Sderot and other Israeli targets.

    Israel denied involvement and, surprisingly, was supported by the Palestinian Authority. “The explosion occurred when a Hamas vehicle loaded with locally made rockets blew up during the rally,” said the authority’s Interior Ministry spokesman, Tawkif Abu Khoussa. He noted that a similar explosion during a Hamas rally last month had killed five onlookers. “We urge our brothers in Hamas to assume their responsibilities instead of levelling charges against others,” Mr Khoussa said.

    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement issued a statement condemning Hamas for staging paramilitary rallies in residential areas. “This rally was held despite our warnings to refrain from displaying and storing weapons in residential areas,” he said. “The Fatah Central Committee holds Hamas fully responsible for the deaths.”

    My problem with the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from an unstable Gaza was that it inevitably would be trumpeted as a triumph by the terrorists. Never an inch given without an inch deserved. Perhaps there is a silver lining to the maneuver, however, as a shift in Israeli strategy would seem to indicate.

    In this first military confrontation with Palestinian militants since the pullout, Israel is intent on establishing new rules of combat that will permit it greater freedom of action against the Palestinians than it allowed itself when it was an occupying power. Officials have warned that there would be “zero tolerance” after the withdrawal and that Israel would regard an attack upon it from Gaza as an attack on its sovereignty by a foreign entity.

    Israel also wants to undo the attempt by Palestinian militants to create a deterrent balance, by which Israeli activity against militants in the West Bank will be met by retaliatory fire from the Gaza Strip, as occurred on Friday with Islamic Jihad. By employing wide-ranging strikes against militant targets Israel hopes to discourage such linkage.

    Ah, at least the battlefield has lines that are far more clearly drawn now than during the age of the settlements and occupation. Though there is still a great political need for restraint and judicious use of force, the Israelis once again have a defined an area where they can go “weapons free” as needed.

  • Non-Rita Quick Hits

    Defense says Lynndie England easily influenced by lover

    Army Pfc. Lynndie England’s attorneys, marshaling their defense for the first time Wednesday, laid blame for her participation in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal on her blind love for and trust of soldier Charles Graner Jr., whom the Army put in charge of part of the dangerous Iraqi facility.

    England, who attended special-education classes for much of her childhood, has learned to rely on strong authority figures, her lead attorney said, and that left her vulnerable to Graner in Abu Ghraib, where their unit took dozens of photos and videos of naked prisoners in humiliating positions in late 2003. Graner has already been convicted.

    “He’s older than I am. He’s been around. He’s experienced,” her attorney, Capt. Jonathan Crisp, said of England’s feelings. “He’s a corrections officer in the civilian world. He must know what’s going on. I love him; he loves me. Everybody looks up to him.”

    England, 22, a reservist from West Virginia, stands accused of two counts of conspiracy, four counts of mistreatment of prisoners and one count of indecent acts in connection with the photos. If convicted of all counts, she could face an 11-year prison sentence.

    I doubt strongly that this defense will stand up, as England, like every soldier, was well versed in the Universal Code of Military Justice. Peer pressure or love or stupidity ain’t an out. The poster child for the anti-war left’s (read New York Time’s) Abu Ghraib campaign has to pay her due.

    Pelosi willing to give up S.F. funds for recovery

    House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said Tuesday she was willing to return to the federal Treasury $70 million designated for San Francisco projects in the new highway and transportation bill and use the money to help pay for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

    Well, obviously that portion of federal spending was expendable. If only we could find some other places to cut spending.

    Sheehan’s Anti-War Campaign Now in D.C.

    Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan pledged Wednesday to “force change to happen” during protest speeches outside the White House and Capitol.

    Sheehan arrived in Washington after a three-week cross-country bus tour that began near President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. She is expected to participate in an anti-Iraq war rally Saturday that organizers hope could draw tens of thousands of people.

    Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed last year in Iraq, wants Bush to explain why he sent the United States to war and say what steps he will take to end the conflict.

    “This is where we will force change to happen because we the people of America are the checks and balances on this government,” she said. “And we will end this war.”

    […]

    Sheehan’s one-woman protest in Texas this August re-energized the anti-war movement as well as supporters of the U.S.-led invasion and of American troops serving in Iraq. Rallies in opposition to the anti-war protesters also are set for this weekend in the capital.

    I’ve already given my thoughts on Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan. I’ll leave it to Confederate Yankee to nail what is missing from WaPo’s story:

    The AP, Washington Post, and other news sources gleefully mentioned Cindy Sheehan’s march on the White House this afternoon. With the exception of Reuters, however, they were all more than willing to forego this little tidbit of information:

    “Mrs Sheehan was joined by about 30 supporters in her march down Pennsylvania Avenue to deliver a letter to Bush urging him to pull the troops out of Iraq.”

    That’s all, folks. I count 29 people. This is her entire protest party. Including Cindy.

    Hamas chief hints at compromise

    THE militant Islamic group Hamas could one day accept the existence of the state of Israel and negotiate, one of its political leaders said yesterday in an unprecedented sign of compromise.

    For years, Hamas has criticised the ruling Fatah movement of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, for allegedly selling out claims to all of historic Palestine by recognising Israel and confining the Palestinian struggle to the West Bank and Gaza Strip areas occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

    But Mohammed Ghazal, a respected figure within the movement from the West Bank city of Nablus, said yesterday: “The [Hamas] charter is not the Koran.

    “Historically, we believe all of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, but we’re talking now about reality, about political solutions. The realities are different.”

    Hamas is about to join the Palestinian Authority’s political system by participating in January’s legislative elections.

    Analysts differed over whether Mr Ghazal’s comments suggested Hamas might take a more moderate approach.

    The movement has made it clear it will not disarm its military wing, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings against civilian and military targets, even after the election.

    Mr Ghazal’s remarks were described as “unusual” and “a new language” by Ziyad Abu Amr, a Palestinian MP who is also an expert on the movement. But they elicited cool reactions from other leading figures within Hamas and from Israel.

    The new language is a reaction to a possible line in the sand by Israel about Hamas’ role in upcoming PA elections. Israel, which has already willingly and unilaterally withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, has certainly earned a little cooperation from the Palestinian side, though I have no faith in Hamas actually making any serious steps toward a mutually beneficial future. I expect this development to be little more than a reactive twitch on the face of a terrorist organization that once claimed it was politically ready to rule Palestine but currently sees the Palestinians as ungovernable.

  • Bishops Suggest Apology for War

    A group of bishops from the Church of England have issued a report suggesting the need for a chorus of mea culpas and heart-tugging regrets over the Iraqi theater in the war against Islamist terror. They also want to top that off with a possible group hug.

    Church of England bishops have suggested Christian leaders apologise to Muslim leaders for the war in Iraq.

    A report from a working group of bishops says the war was one of a “long litany of errors” relating to Iraq.

    As the government is unlikely to offer an apology, a meeting of religious leaders would provide a “public act of institutional repentance”, it said.

    It urges a “truth and reconciliation” meeting, but acknowledges that arranging it could be difficult.

    The report, entitled Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11, was written by a working group of the Church of England’s House of Bishops.

    It suggests the meeting would be an opportunity to apologise for the way the West has contributed to the situation in Iraq, including the war.

    The Church of England has criticised the war, saying it was not a “just war”.

    But a dilemma now exists for those within the Church – to pull out of Iraq without a stable democracy in place would be irresponsible, but to stay suggests collusion with a “gravely mistaken” war, the bishops said.

    But if collusion was a necessary evil, the report says, there needs to be a degree of public recognition of the West’s responsibility for the present situation.

    “It might be possible for there to be a public gathering…at which Christian leaders meet with religious leaders of other, mainly Muslim, traditions, on the basis of truth and reconciliation, at which there would be a public recognition of at least some of the factors mentioned [in the report].”

    One of the co-authors of the report, Bishop Richard Harries, explains his thoughts on the report in this column. Sifting through, I found the following gem:

    Our report deals not only with the threat of terrorism but with American power, perceived by many Muslims and others to be the major threat to world order today. While US power is a reality that has to be frankly faced, its mixture of deluded self-righteousness and genuine altruism make it ambiguous.

    As is well known, President Bush gets much of his support from a particular Christian constituency with a distinctive slant on what’s happening in the world today, based on biblical prophecy.

    I support President Bush in our anti-Islamist efforts. I am also an atheist with strong libertarian leanings who did not vote for Bush in 2000. I wonder what broad brush the dear bishop would choose to paint over my stance of the Iraqi theater, as I’m obviously harboring no hopes for Crusade or Judgement Day.

    Normally, I would love to fisk this piece and the article on the bishops’ report. Bishop Harries’ thoughts on Just War and wars of intervention are just ripe for the picking. However, in this particular case, I’ll leave it to the Brits themselves. First, here’s a Daily Telegraph editorial.

    A sorry body of bishops

    Western Christians should show “institutional repentance” – should apologise – for the Iraq war, according to a working group of Church of England bishops led by the Rt Rev Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford. Just to make it clear what they mean, the bishops suggest a public meeting where Christian leaders would acknowledge, in front of “mainly Muslim” leaders, the wrongs done by the West.

    The bishops predict that such an event will be “dismissed as a cheap gesture”. In reality it would be a very expensive gesture, for a reason that seems to have escaped the bishops in their 101-page document, called without conscious irony Countering Terrorism. First, no one – a zero percentage in statistical terms – in the Muslim world is going to read the 101 pages of nuanced, Englishly civilised, but mostly political rumination. So that would leave Muslims with the impression conveyed by a public act of apology.

    The impression given to the Islamic world by such an act, or even its proposal, is that the bishops of England had confirmed that the war against Iraq was a Christian crusade against Muslims. That is not what the bishops mean to say. They opposed the war. They think it was mostly about oil and American power. The inflammatory consequences of reinforcing the erroneous notion of a war against Islam could be far more horrific than anything yet seen, even in Iraq.

    Meanwhile, Stephen Pollard comes out with guns blazing in defense of Americans.

    Sorry we liberated you guys

    Forget all the sophistic arguments about the war acting as a recruiting ground for terror or concern about the terrorists’ victims. The real problem is the very fact of “deeply flawed” Western democracies (as they put it) taking action against tyranny.

    Worse still — yes, you knew it was coming, and here it is — it was America that led the way. So consumed are they with hatred for America that they consider Saddam to be preferable to democracy, if it has been facilitated by America. In a passage of breathtakingly blinkered bigotry, we are told that “what distinguishes it (the US) from many other empires in history is its strong sense of moral righteousness”.

    No. What distinguishes America is that when it fights it does so not to impose tyranny but to promote freedom and the stable democracy of which the bishops are so contemptuous. Without America sending its sons to fight for liberty, we would be speaking German.

    While I like the gist of Pollard’s column, I don’t want anyone to think I support the American government in any attempt to spread or defend democracy from a purely altruistic position. In fact, I don’t want the U.S. government ever doing anything out of altruism — that is not its role. The actions of the U.S. government and military should always be directly or indirectly of benefit to the people of the United States. Let private entities, such as religious bodies, caring groups or heartfelt individuals, act out of selflessness. I do not support our military’s efforts in Iraq for the sheer good of the Iraqi people and the hope for their self-determination. Rather, I view those as aims that may eventually contribute towards the security of my own civilization. Bully for them, bully for us. But I won’t lie, it’s the “bully for us” portion that matters first and foremost to me.

  • War on Terror Update, 18 SEP 05

    I just wanted to take a moment to highlight three stories from today that deserve far more attention than they are receiving from our wonderful media.

    First, there was an absolutely gigantic story in the Afghani theater, as terrorists and Taliban holdouts again failed to keep the Afghan people from the polls.

    Polls close in Afghanistan parliament elections

    Polls closed in Afghanistan’s first parliament elections in more than 30 years, with millions of people casting their ballots in defiance of last-ditch attempts by Taliban rebels to derail the vote.

    Violence marred the start of polling, with nine people killed including a French soldier, while rockets were fired on a UN warehouse in Kabul and two would-be suicide bombers were wounded as they tried to attack a voting centre.

    But as the polls closed officials said a high proportion of the nearly 12.5 mln eligible voters had cast their ballots, signaling another step on a difficult path to democracy launched after the Taliban regime fell in 2001.

    ‘The voting started relatively slowly but after the morning it has seriously picked up all over Afghanistan,’ Peter Erben of the UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Board told reporters.

    ‘I believe a high number of Afghans have turned out to vote.’

    I wish I could tell you why this monumental occurrence isn’t being trumpeted as loudly as any single car bomb in Baghdad.

    Speaking of Iraq, I’m certain my readers know of the troubled writing of the proposed constitution. Did you know that the version to be voted on had been finalized? Probably not, especially if you relied on the televised media to bring you the goings-on of the world.

    Iraq approves definitive draft of new constitution

    Iraq’s parliament approved a final draft of a new constitution on Sunday and submitted it to the United Nations, which will print five million copies and distribute it around the country.

    Hussain al-Shahristani, the deputy speaker of parliament, told reporters it was an absolute final draft of the constitution before it is put to a referendum on Oct. 15.

    The document has been held up repeatedly in recent weeks by several last-minute amendments, mainly due to objections by the country’s Sunni Arab minority.

    “There is no way there will be any changes now,” Shahristani said. “The draft is being submitted to the United Nations and will be presented to the Iraqi people soon.”

    Speaking of Iraq, it’s nice to know that some allies aren’t willing to cut and run. In fact, some even express a willingness to prolong or increase missions as needed. Developments don’t quite gather the number of international headlines as announced withdrawals, but such is the media our military and diplomatic efforts must overcome.

    UK says to boost troop numbers in Iraq if needed

    Britain said on Sunday it would if necessary increase the number of troops in Iraq as fears mount that the country is sliding toward civil war.

    Britain, the main ally of the United States in Iraq, has about 8,500 soldiers deployed there and has frequently said its soldiers will stay until the Iraqi government asks them to leave.

    “We don’t need them (more troops) at the moment, if that’s necessary, of course we would do that,” British Defense Minister John Reid told ITV’s Jonathan Dimbleby’s show.

    “There’s no quitting and running, we’re there until the job is done.

    I first started blogging because of my life-long love of journalism and my disgust with today’s media. I may be enduring a little bit of “hobby burnout” lately, but at least the latter motivation is still there, constant and appalling.

  • Post-Occupation Gaza: a First Look

    First, a very solid column about how the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank have an unprecedented opportunity — control of their own destiny.

    Now, it’s the Palestinians’ turn

    But now, after the last Israeli has come home, the disengagement has ceased to be an Israeli event. Now, after the gate of the Kissufim checkpoint has been locked, the disengagement has become a Palestinian event. The exclamation point that Ariel Sharon placed at the gates of Gaza has been replaced by an unprecedented Palestinian question mark. The Israeli withdrawal vacated an arena in which a fateful Palestinian drama is about to be played out.

    The Palestinians are trying to blur this decisive fact. They are behaving as if nothing has happened. They continue to use the old, anachronistic rhetoric that has become so nauseatingly familiar. They continue to claim that the Israeli withdrawal is incomplete and insufficient. They continue to declare that the struggle will continue until every bit of Palestinian land has been liberated. And even worse: by torching the synagogues and storming the Philadelphi route, they are signaling that they do not intend to behave as a responsible state.

    […]

    Freedom creates obligations – even when it is only partial. Now, when the Palestinians have been given freedom such as they have never known before, they also bear responsibility such as they have never known before. Their relationship with Israel is changing. It is no longer just that of occupier and occupied. It is no longer just that of master and servant. That is why the spotlight of history is now focused on those very Palestinians who have begun to be masters of their own fate. That is why all eyes are now fixed on liberated Gaza. Because now, the decisive question is what the Palestinians’ choice will be.

    Go give it a gander. It’s certainly true that the onus has been squarely placed upon Palestinian society, and it’s certainly true that I have little faith in that being a good thing, at least until major reforms are in place and allowed to take root over a couple of decades. Unfortunately, I have yet to see serious signs of those reforms even beginning.

    Speaking of beginnings, de-occupied Gaza is certainly off to a shaky start.

    Palestinians’ pullout celebration ends in disorder

    Gunmen firing in the air disrupted a Palestinian Authority rally celebrating Israel’s pullout from Gaza and the gathering ended in chaos on Wednesday when traditional Muslims stoned the stage in protest.

    Abbas, struggling to impose order to win backing for Palestinian statehood, cancelled plans to address the rally, reflecting concern about militant rivals within his fractured Fatah movement and opposition Islamists led by Hamas.

    A speech by an Abbas aide calling for an end to armed chaos was marred by Fatah gunmen parading across the stage and firing assault rifles in the air. This prompted Hamas activists to walk out from what had been billed as a show of Palestinian unity.

    The rally ended in disorder when devoutly Muslim refugees dominating the crowd of several thousand stoned the stage in protest at a rap music band’s failure to stick to nationalist songs. The performers fled, gunmen firing over their heads.

    Palestinian security forces took charge in abandoned Jewish settlements earlier in the day, ending looting and destruction following Monday’s withdrawal. But the messy rally suggested they had a way to go to rein in lawlessness.

    It’s not a good sign for the rule of law when a government’s staged rally cannot even be controlled. Sure, the madness and looting was stopped at the empty settlements but, after two days of banditry, I expect satiation and exhaustion had as much a role in the cessation as did security forces.

    Meanwhile, hopes for an outbreak of peace upon Israeli withdrawal, hopes which I never held, took a hit from an Egyptian revelation.

    Arms cache found in 4km Gaza tunnel

    Egyptian security forces have discovered a tunnel filled with weapons underneath the border with the Gaza Strip.

    The arms cache was found just days after Israeli troops pulled out of the border zone.

    An Egyptian official says dozens of machine guns and 2,800 rocket-propelled grenades were found inside the tunnel.

    Stretching four kilometres under the Egypt-Gaza border, the tunnel was discovered by newly deployed Egyptian soldiers.

    News flash: those weapons were not headed to the supposedly-ruling Palestinian Authority, nor were they intended to promote peaceful stability. The Israelis are the obvious targets, but the P.A. may soon also find itself on the wrong end of other smuggled weaponry.

  • Iraq Government Addresses Fears from Offensive

    The political fallout in Iraq from the Tal Afar offensive, now wrapping up, is just beginning. The issue remains as to whether the questioning will carry any weight with a populace growing sick of terror in its midst.

    Sunni Arab leaders in Iraq are criticizing the Iraqi government’s three day-old military operation against Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar.

    Since the military operation in the predominantly Sunni city of Tal Afar began on Saturday, the government has been reassuring the Iraqi public that the offensive, near the Syrian border, was launched only after residents there begged the government to rid Tal Afar of Iraqi Sunni extremists and foreign fighters, who had turned the city into a terrorist haven.

    Still, several prominent Sunni Arab groups and leaders on Tuesday said that they deplored the use of force in Tal Afar.

    Contrary to the beliefs of some, terrorists do not respond positively to group hugs.

    Former interim Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib criticized what he said was the government’s failure to seek a political dialogue with Sunni leaders in Tal Afar before opting for a military solution.

    “Definitely, there should have been a better solution than a major military operation,” he said. “I don’t encourage any military operations against civilians. I’ve been told that there are quite a number of innocent people being killed during this operation. I’ve been told that the humanitarian situation is very bad in Tal Afar.”

    Yeah? Well, I’ve been told of 10K dead in N’awlins. First reports have a tendency towards exaggeration, but that obvious truth holds little value when political interests are at stake. The Iraqi government must immediately and persuasively address any such issues in the local rumor mill.

    Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated interim government says those reports are not true. It insists most residents had already fled Tal Afar before the offensive began and those who remained were evacuated and given tents, food, water and medical care. Iraqi leaders add that millions of dollars have been put aside to fund the rebuilding of the city.

    The government says that all Iraqis should be proud of the Tal Afar operation because it marked the first time that U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces had taken the lead in a major military sweep. Eleven battalions of the Iraqi army, three battalions of Iraqi police force and one special police commando unit are said to have taken part in the fight in Tal Afar, with a much smaller number of U.S. troops providing back-up support.

    Here’s the true story of the Tal Afar campaign — Iraqi forces overwhelmingly carried the water. This is the first step towards an actually viable and sustainable self-determination for the peoples of Iraq.

    Meanwhile, as Tal Afar winds down for now, Chad at In the Bullpen talks of a new sweep in the town of Haditha and includes some of the disgusting, though not unbelievable, tactics of our terrorist enemies.

  • Doctors Disagree on Death of Arafat

    Well, that’s not the best of headlines. Technically, all doctors agree on the death of the terrorist Yasser Arafat. He is most assuredly and thankfully dead. The disagreement comes into play when the cause of his death is the issue.

    The publication of Yasser Arafat’s medical records yesterday failed to offer a clear reason for the cause of his death.

    The records, compiled by French doctors who treated the Palestinian leader in the final days of his life last November, say he died from a stroke resulting from a bleeding disorder that was caused by an unknown infection.

    Many Palestinians believe Arafat’s death was unnatural and that he was probably poisoned by the Israelis. There has also been speculation that his illness shared characteristics with Aids.

    Doctors who examined the records – which have remained private until now – on behalf of the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz and the New York Times come to contradictory conclusions.

    Some point out that the French medical team found no traces of any known poison. Others say a poison could have been excreted, masked by something else or not be known to the doctors.

    Could’ve been excreted, could’ve been masked. Any doctor who ignores the fact that zero evidence of poison was found is either disgustingly politically motivated or deluded. However, it should be noted that delusion about Israeli conspiracies and poisonings is certainly nothing new among the Palestinians.

  • Iraq News o’ the Day

    As a tribute to this weekend’s start of 2005 college football season, despite a not-so-pretty start for my Aggies, I’d like to look at two stories from Iraq in football terms. Specifically, we’ve had a couple of hard hits and a handoff.

    U.S. jets attack bridges near Syria to halt Iraqi insurgents

    U.S. marine jets attacked two bridges across the Euphrates River near the Syrian border on Tuesday to prevent insurgents from moving foreign fighters and munitions toward Baghdad and other cities, the U.S. command said.

    A marine statement also said U.S. and Iraqi forces destroyed a “foreign fighter safe house,” killed two foreigners and arrested three others during a Tuesday raid in the same area as the bridge attack.

    […]

    A marine statement said F/A-18 jets dropped bombs shortly after midnight on two light bridges near Karabilah, about 300 kilometres west of Baghdad.

    “The purpose of the strike was to prevent ‘al-Qaida in Iraq’ terrorists from using the structures for vehicular traffic to conduct attacks,” the U.S. statement said. “The munitions used in the strike were designed to crater the bridges, rendering them inoperable but not destroying them.”

    The clash at the safe house occurred when U.S. and Iraqi troops came under fire by foreign fighters occupying the building, the marines said.

    “Multinational forces personnel returned fire and assaulted the building, suffering one friendly casualty when a Multinational Force soldier was wounded,” the statement said without citing the soldier’s nationality.

    Troops called in aircraft to destroy the building, which was being used as an operational headquarters, the statement added.

    Karabilah is one of a cluster of towns near the Syrian border, a major infiltration route for foreign fighters heading for Baghdad and other major cities. Iraqi officials say “al-Qaida in Iraq,” led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has taken over parts of the area after residents fled fighting between tribes supporting and opposing the insurgents.

    If I was asked to name items that I felt were legitimate issues concerning the Iraqi campaign, the failure to move more quickly to adequately control the nation’s borders with Syria and Iran would be very high on the list. I understand the extensive borders cannot realistically be sealed; however, I feel that much more could have been done to reduce outside influence among our enemies.

    Holy city handed to Iraqi forces

    US troops have officially handed over military control of the southern city of Najaf to Iraqi forces.

    It is the first of a planned series of security transfers across Iraq, paving the way for an eventual withdrawal of foreign forces from the country.

    Iraq’s army is “capable of responding to all security needs… we are now here in a strictly advisory mode,” said US commander Lt-Col James Oliver.

    This is good news, though some aspects are somewhat disturbing.

    Iraqi troops chanted slogans in support of local Shia Muslim religious leaders.

    “Long live Sistani,” the 1,500 soldiers shouted, referring to Najaf-based cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

    Still, it’s a handoff, a small step that will hopefully prove to be one of many steps as Iraqi forces increase their numbers and abilities. Any area where the Iraqis have control of their security is a building block for the fledgling democracy. Meanwhile, the more that American forces are reduced from day-to-day security roles is the more that they can focus on trouble spots and the borders. Each step towards eventual stability is a step closer to a diminishing need for a heavy presence of coalition forces.

    As an added bonus, I received a letter from Iraq this weekend. It seems my ol’ tank crewmate and dear friend Bill, who I’ve written about here and here, is doing well, despite a recent IED close call. The letter also included 355 dinar, though the Saddam portraits on the bills lead me to think that I am not suddenly a wealthy man. Interestingly, when last I heard of Bill, his unit was operating in the vicinity of Najaf. I do hope that today’s handoff bodes well for him and his safe return. After all, his presence is expected at a pending wedding.