Being American in T.O.

Terror Watch

June 23 - CTV reports that Saudi Arabia shootout kills 6 'militants' (another was arrested) after security forces "stormed a suspected al Qaeda hide-out":

One policeman was also killed in the clashes, it said.

The statement, carried by the official Saudi news agency, said security forces chased seven members with "deviant thoughts" who "belong to the astray bunch" to a house in Riyadh's al-Nakheel district. The Saudi government often refers to al Qaeda members as individuals with "deviant thoughts."

The house was "a hideout for crime, corruption, and a base for the plots of aggression and outrage," the statement said.

Why do the pronouncements from these guys always make me groan as much as did those incessant quotes from Chairman Mao's Red Book back in the day?

June 24 - 19:01 CTV reports that 17 were wounded in the attack and over 40 suspects have been arrested in sweeps after the raid.

Maybe the Saudis were feeling a bit left out what with all the arrests in Toronto, Britain, heavy action in Afghanistan and the recent U.S. arrests of 7 plotters:

Five of the suspects were arrested Thursday in Miami, after authorities swarmed a warehouse in Miami's poor Liberty City area, a federal law enforcement official said.

One person was arrested in Atlanta on Thursday, and another person was arrested before yesterday, according to CNN. (Bolding added)

(That last sentence made me giggle because I was expected a place, not a date, but it can't be that funny if I have to explain it.)

Most of the chatter on Fox is actually worth listening to because they are doing a great job of speculating about things that can only make wanna-be terrorists nervous -- like the rumour that the head of the terror cell was an FBI agent.

Our guys in Iraq continue to rack 'em up: on Monday a senior Al Qaeda operative and 3 others were detained (no names released.)

Sorry, I shouldn't be happy. I should be sombre, and Weighted With The Enormity Of It All, but I'm not. Maybe it's because it's Friday, maybe it's because we ducked another bullet, but more likely it's because Ace is hot on the story:

You will not be surprised that the "timing" of these "arrests" of "terrorists" is being "questioned."

His link to Allah is, as always, beyond funny.

Here's your CanCon and a return to seriousness: when I read the CNN headline (on the World page) "Rights boss: Stop terror abuse" I actually thought ... but no, alas, it was just

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, taking aim at the war on terrorism, reminded all states on Friday of their duty to ban torture and give all security detainees a fair trial.

In a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Arbour also voiced concern at the alleged existence of secret detention centres, saying they facilitate abusive treatment.

Although she mentioned no names, her remarks were clearly aimed at the United States and its allies in their "war on terror" launched after the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001.

"It is vital that at all times governments anchor in law their response to terrorism," Arbour told the 47-member state body ahead of the U.N.'s International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, being observed next Monday. (bolding added)

Your timing sucks, bitch. Consider

The torture and murders of two soldiers who, by all legal definitions, qualified for protection under the Geneva Convention: Private Thomas Tucker and Private Kristian Menchaca.

A government worthy of condemnation: Sudanese militias kill hundreds in Chad
Car bomb in Philippine market place kill 5, wounds 10 in a probable attempt to kill the governor of the southern province;
Tamil Tigers Caught Laying Sea Mines:

A POWERFUL explosion occurred off the coast north of the Sri Lankan capital Colombo today, with police saying it was probably a sea mine planted last week by Tamil Tiger rebels.

The explosion was heard about 15km from Colombo, near the site where police on Saturday arrested five Tigers in diving gear who were laying sea mines, Sri Lanka's police chief Chandra Fernando said.

"There are no reports of casualties. We are investigating," Fernando said.

"Last week we had information that there were eight sea mines. Seven were accounted for but we had not found one. The blast today is probably that mine."

Officials said sea mines were similar to limpet mines but magnetically attached to a ship's hull and could be triggered to explode by a time-delay fuse or by remote control.

One of the five arrested divers had swallowed cyanide and committed suicide to prevent being questioned, and another two who took cyanide were taken to hospital.

The terror attack links are in fact relevant to Arbour's admonition to "governments" as these terror attacks were undertaken by groups that intend to take state power. This one, howerver isn't because it relates to a man who, pre-Spider Hole, actually held state power and lied to the U.N.: Hundreds of WMDs found in Iraq.

And the NY Times continues their normal job of assisting the terrorists by revealing a clandestine program intended to follow the money:

WASHINGTON, June 22 — Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

Data provided by the program helped identify Uzair Paracha, a Brooklyn man who was convicted on terrorism-related charges in 2005, officials said.
The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

Viewed by the Bush administration as a vital tool, the program has played a hidden role in domestic and foreign terrorism investigations since 2001 and helped in the capture of the most wanted Qaeda figure in Southeast Asia, the officials said.

I wonder if they are referring to Hambali. who provided the money, or to Canadian Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, who paid the bombers directly for the Bali bombing. *

The program, run out of the Central Intelligence Agency and overseen by the Treasury Department, "has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks and is, without doubt, a legal and proper use of our authorities," Stuart Levey, an under secretary at the Treasury Department, said in an interview on Thursday.

Maybe liberals are so shrill about the rights of terrorist because they also enable terrorists.

(Louise Arbour is a Canadian, if that needed clarification.)

*09:46 - FoxNews TV says it was probably Hambali.

12:23 - Newsbeat1 has a nice list of terrorists killed or captured since Zarqawi's death.

Privates Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca

June 21 - It was probably as well that I couldn't post this morning. I'm no less angry this evening, but the best steel is tempered and going white-hot in the moment diverts us from the aims of the war.

Anyone who, after Sept. 11, still believed we were dealing with a rational enemy, should have been disabused of that notion after the kidnapping and execution of Daniel Pearl. The video-raped beheading of Nick Berg and the triumphant circulation of that vicious act on the internet was yet another blow to individuals who, and I say this with respect, wanted peace instead of war.

Who the hell doesn’t prefer peace? But when the cost of peace means turning Iraqis and Afghans (and that's just for starters) over to the kind of monsters that murdered Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, and countless others, then excuse me for a second so I can grab my gun compose myself.

Bless today's uncompromising New York Post editorial (may require free registration) Barbarians

Thuggish, depraved butchers - that's what America is up against.

And John Podhoretz, who cautions that this latest barbarity may exploit our divisions and alter not only our strategy but also our principles:

But the kidnapping and apparent torture/murder of Privates Tucker and Menchaca may represent a new strategy. If similar kidnap efforts are successful, if this event was not a fluke but an ambitious new tactic to throw Coalition forces off-balance, then things are going to change in Iraq.

Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq likely hopes to make service personnel believe themselves at risk of death by torture from any band of Iraqis they encounter - so that they'll act differently: cautious, suspicious, with the hypervigilance of someone in the midst of a battle. If it works, civilians who mean our armed forces no harm may find themselves shot or killed by mistake as a result of the hair-trigger posture our forces will have to assume to keep themselves safe.

Could anyone blame them?

The answer, of course, is yes. If this is a new strategy, it exists not only to terrorize American and Coalition forces but also to divide them from Iraqis - to sow fear and hostility that will go both ways, to cause an upsurge in resentment and anger toward U.S. forces.

Our soldiers already know this.

There is a further reason for cooler heads to prevail. I think it likely that this recent barbarity was an al Qaeda public relations stunt intended to shift focus from brutalizing Iraqis back to brutalizing coalition forces.

Al Qaeda's recruitment posters proclaim "Kill Americans, See the World." Their Iraq chapter has graphically demonstrated that they are returning to that basic theme in an effort to restore their reputations after Zarqawi's indiscriminate murder of Muslims revealed too much about the true nature of al Qaeda.

This isn't the first time we've been outrageously provoked (remember the bridge in Fallujah?) and it likely won't be the last, but we are not children, we are not to be diverted, and we will pursue this war to victory.

19:38 - Bombing an ice cream shop? Not exactly a high-value target, unless you are targeting kill civilians (or children.) The so-called insurgency is all about bloodletting, not politics. No matter their banner, all the anti-Iraqi forces have been unmasked and I think Zarqawi's legacy will be impossible for any of them to overcome.

20:00 - The Boston Herald drives home the point that the Silence deafening when U.S. is torture target (via Newsbeat1.)

Of course, torture is wrong yet if the inmates at Gitmo don't like rock music we can always alter our tactics. How about playing them some Gershwin? or Bernstein? Some Tiny Tim would be nice, but that's probably going too far.

Zarqawi is still dead

June 9 - I'm slowly moving from the giddiness occasioned by the elimination of the monsterous Zarqawi but the process, as they say, is far from complete and besides, I'm not really in any hurry.

I am kind of relieved that I'm not the only relic person who sang "Ding dong the witch is dead" upon first hearing the news.

I won't comment on the revelation that Zarqawi was still alive when Iraqi police and U.S. forces arrived on the scene because we all have, um, imaginations.

Okay, maybe a little sobriety. Christopher Hitchins writes Why Zarqawi's death matters:

Zarqawi contributed enormously to the wrecking of Iraq's experiment in democratic federalism. He was able to help ensure that the Iraqi people did not have one single day of respite between 35 years of war and fascism, and the last three-and-a-half years of misery and sabotage. He chose his targets with an almost diabolical cunning, destroying the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad (and murdering the heroic envoy Sérgio Vieira de Melo) almost before it could begin operations, and killing the leading Shiite Ayatollah Hakim outside his place of worship in Najaf. His decision to declare a jihad against the Shiite population in general ... has been the key innovation of the insurgency: applying lethal pressure to the most vulnerable aspect of Iraqi society. And it has had the intended effect, by undermining Grand Ayatollah Sistani and helping empower Iranian-backed Shiite death squads.

Read the whole thing, because Hitchins also revisits former Sec. of State Colin Powell's 2002 address to the U.N. in which he cited Zarqawi's presence in Iraq.

Abu al-Masri has been mentioned as the probable successor to Zarqawi. So an Egyptian is likely to replace a Jordanian to head al Qaeda in Iraq? It seems to me that this rather bolsters claims that there are a number of foreign fighters in Iraq, and certainly the inability to name an Iraqi to head the terror group there implies a degree of isolation that I find hopeful.

It hardly needs be said that the biggest challenge for the Iraqi government will be to take aggressive steps to contain the sectarian and criminal violence.

Let Zarqawi's epitaph be that, in the end, he failed.

Zarqawi is Dead. Dead. Dead. (Updated)

July 8 - (Updating continuously and time stamp intentionally keeps this on top.)

06:29 - The no-good, m-f'ing, murderous pscyopath is dead: Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Killed in Bombing Raid. I wonder how he likes it in Hell?

My son called me at work at 4 a.m. this morning and said "You want to hear some good news?" Heh. I hope my, um, enthusiastic response doesn't get me fired. The downer: I told the other people, and none of them knew him by name and I had to list some of his crimes.

And it looks as though they used my fav-ou-rite weapon: Predator and Hellfire.

This is huge, and I mean huger than capturing Saddam Hussein or killing Udai and Kusai, and in terms of the immediate strategy for Iraq, this may well be the turning point. More later, perhaps, when I settle down.

One last word: I can never think of Zarqawi without thinking of Nick Berg. Well, he has been avenged at long last. Rest in Peace, Nick, and all those who fell victim to that monster.

07:32 - I'm still blushing over the language that I used when I first heard the news. I so need to wash my mouth out with soap.

How wonderful and appropriate that Iraqi police made the identification! He has orchestrated the murders of so many of them -- as well as those who stood in lines to join the police (and army) -- that I can easily imagine their grim satisfaction that a vicious foe has been "eliminated."

Pres. Bush is speaking on this, and although he is far more cautiously optimistic than I, I do echo his closing: God Bless the Iraqi People, and God Bless America.

Okay, so now U.S. officials are being cautious. Lord give me strength: I was not convinced that capturing Saddam was going to stifle the insurgency but they thought such was the case however, as I stated at the outset, I think this is bigger than they are saying (maybe because their own optimism has led them astray before? They really need to read more blogs.)

Now Dan Senor is speaking, and he is hitting the nail on the head: this latest instance of "blasting the bastard to Kingdom Come" shows that it take time and patience, but the days of people like Zarwawi are numbered.

I haven't heard anyone say it yet but I just know some wanker is going to try to throw cold water on this and prattle "but Bin Laden is still loose" to which I will pre-emptively respond "what's your point?" I don't care about Bin Laden, I want the strategists and the architects of terror like Zarqawi and al-Zawahiri. I want bin Laden to watch helplessly as his followers fall one by one because more and more people choose to stand up to those who try to rule them by terror, and finally for him to die a lonely, disillusioned man with only bitter dreams of glory to comfort him. I want him to know utter despair before he dies.

8:03 - Rats. Not Predator/Hellfire. Oh well, he's still dead.

08:09 - Australian PM John Howard is more enthusiastic:

"The reported death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is great news for the people of Iraq, the real victims of his murderous behaviour," he said.

"He has been the principal architect of terrorism in that country.

"Not only does his death remove a cruel terrorist, but it's also a huge boost for anti-terrorist forces in Iraq."

The Prime Minister said the Iraqi Government's determination to destroy terrorism should be supported.

"The determination of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and his new Government to confront terrorism and the insurgency is something that everyone should support," he said.

I love that guy.

Tony Blair was concise as always:

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said al-Zarqawi's death "was very good news because a blow against al Qaeda in Iraq was a blow against al Qaeda everywhere."

Properly his words should be up on the BBC website but I couldn't find his comments there and I haven't seen any comments yet from Canadian PM Harper. The CTV does quote "terrorism expert" Eric Margolis, though, at that link. They just can't help themselves.

08:39 - Michael Yon's post is aptly titled Death Finds the Devil's Second Most Favored Serpent and concludes:

His death will not likely fracture the terror campaign in Iraq because of the disparity of the insurgency itself, comprised of many distinct and disjointed elements, not all of whom were following al-Zarqawi.

Nevertheless, this is an important victory in the GWOT showing that persistent effort can and will produce definitive results. But al-Zarqawi was largely a media-produced terror hero, now that he is gone, let us not produce another.

08:47 - In the press briefing, Caldwell is calling the information collected at the site "a treasure trove" and confirming that they were 100% convinced they were hitting Zarqawi at the "safe house." Heh. Another humourous concept is that Zarqawi's "spiritual advisor" was also killed.

I may as well admit it: I really, really wish that the kill had gone to the Iraqis. It would have been appropriate given how many of them he has killed as well as a tremendous confidence booster for the police and army. Again, though, I think that being the ones to identify his body parts was a great source of satisfaction.

The press briefing showed Zarqawi's head. Of course there was no intentional irony.

One dead Zarqawi
Courtesy of FoxNews.

11:47 - A good round-up of reactions here at Pajama's Media (link via Newsbeat1.)

I want to extend a hearty congratulations to the people of Iraq, who have endured more than their share of monsters. This may not be the end of their road but I hope this represents a significant turning point for them.

I need to get some sleep, and it occurs to me that a great many mothers in Iraq are settling their kids down for bed about now. None of us can predict what tomorrow will bring, but is it really too much to hope that tonight, if only this night, all of Iraq's children can sleep without fear?

On Haditha

May 30 - Yes, I remember My Lai. In fact, I'm old enough to actually remember My Lai -- as well as the subsequent court-martials and sentences that were handed down because following orders then, as now, were not grounds upon which U.S. military personnel can base their defense.

But I also remember Jenin. After much of the media and pundits denounced Israel, the U.N. reported the following:

Palestinians had claimed that between 400 and 500 people had been killed, fighters and civilians together. They had also claimed a number of summary executions and the transfer of corpses to an unknown place outside the city of Jenin.

The number of Palestinian fatalities, on the basis of bodies recovered to date, in Jenin and the refugee camp in this military operation can be estimated at around 55. Of those, a number were civilians, four were women and two children. There were 23 Israeli fatalities in the fighting operations in Jenin.

There's a lesson there, people.

However tempting it may be to denounce unproven allegations, I'm willing to wait because, just as happened with My Lai, the Ongoing Probes Will Yield Facts About Haditha Incident.

Not speculation, allegations and rumours but facts.

As a sidenote, many of those in the media (ahem, Haroon Siddiqui and Toronto Star) did not apologize to Israel for their hysterical condemnations after the Jenin fraud was exposed. That failure, by any reasonable yardstick, is what separates propaganda from honest news reporting.

No points for subtlety

May 30 - Anti-Iraq forces aren't even trying to be subtle: Future City Hall Bombed in Lutafiyah.

Fortunately neither are we, as the same article also notes that "coalition forces killed three terrorists and detained 10 more suspects in three incidents May 28."

Keep those letters coming in ...

May 11 - The translation of the letter recovered in a raid on a terror house in Samarra is available here and is well worth reading despite the length.

The writer's evaluation of the limited tactics al Qaeda can employ are chilling:

1. ... The only power the mujahidin have is what they have already demonstrated in hunting down drifted patrols and taking sniper shots at those patrol members who stray far from their patrols, or planting booby traps among the citizens and hiding among them in the hope that the explosions will injure an American or members of the government. In other words, these activities could be understood as hitting the scared and the hiding ones, which is an image that requires a concerted effort to change, as well as Allah’s wisdom.
2. The strength of the brothers in Baghdad is built mainly on booby trapped cars, and most of the mujahidin groups in Baghdad are generally groups of assassin without any organized military capabilities.
3. There is a clear absence of organization among the groups of the brothers in Baghdad, whether at the leadership level in Baghdad, the brigade leaders, or their groups therein. Coordination among them is very difficult, which appears clearly when the group undertake a join operations
4. The policy followed by the brothers in Baghdad is a media oriented policy without a clear comprehensive plan to capture an area or an enemy center. Other word, the significance of the strategy of their work is to show in the media that the American and the government do not control the situation and there is resistance against them. This policy dragged us to the type of operations that are attracted to the media, and we go to the streets from time to time for more possible noisy operations which follow the same direction.

This direction has large positive effects; however, being preoccupied with it alone delays more important operations such as taking control of some areas, preserving it and assuming power in Baghdad (for example, taking control of a university, a hospital, or a Sunni religious site).

Investor's Business Daily has an excellent analysis of the letter, noting that it laments the sucess of U.S. efforts to build Sunni political organizations that will participate in rather than try to destroy the new Iraq government and has some great commentary on the aspects of the document that connect the terror bombings to how they understand the manner in which the U.S. media is likely to portray them yet overlook the political gains in Iraq. The analysis concludes with an all-too familiar question:

But there's also a question just screaming to be asked: When al-Qaida itself knows we're winning this war, how come Democratic politicians and the media elite in America want us to declare defeat?

The answer is both self-evident and elusive. Clearly the terror attacks, especially in Baghdad, are made-to-order for a news media that thrives on spectacular events and too often seeks to prove their compassion by portraying the Iraqis as helpless victims, yet that is precisely what they failed to do when Saddam was ruthlessly murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and dumping them in in mass graves (new mass graves are still being found but when did that last make the front page?)

Yet why does the news media seemingly protect the images of both the Iraqi insurgents and al Qaeda? It is as though the mindset of CNN, which confessed it had repressed news about atrocities in Saddam-era Iraq in order to maintain their offices in Baghdad, still operates on the part of too many in the media. Most of us recognize that those responsible for the bombs are those who planted them, but it is hard to keep that focus when the media relentlessly blames the U.S. and President Bush for the actions of a cruel and vicious organization.

Actually, I do understand the U.S. mainstream news media. Their problem is that they balance their eagerness to expose American real and imagined wrongdoing by downplaying the wrongs of others; in other words, they seek balance through imbalance. Oh well, no one said they were capable of self awareness or there would have been more red faces onscreen when they covered the significant turnout for Iraq elections -- the same elections which they had solemnly predicted would not even take place.

Back to the letter, read this part again:

The only power the mujahidin have ... is planting booby traps among the citizens and hiding among them in the hope that the explosions will injure an American or members of the government. In other words, these activities could be understood as hitting the scared and the hiding ones ...

2. ... most of the mujahidin groups in Baghdad are generally groups of assassin without any organized military capabilities.

That's fraking cold. How many Americans or members of the government do they think go to markets? How many children are they willing to kill in the forlorn hope of getting one American? I don't think I'm bloodthirsty but damned straight I rejoice when one of those miserable bastards is sent to Hell.

(Investor's Business Daily link via Newsbeat1)

I love April (but hate tax time)

Apr. 20 - Mark's youth team (he's a lowly coach) had some exhibition games on Saturday. They seemed to field and pitch okay, but don't have game sense, i.e., they don't seem to know what to do with the ball when they field it.

It ought to be simple. Before the ball is put into play, fielders need to have a notion as to what they will do if the ball is hit to them and what they will do if it's not hit to them, i.e., what position they will back up. It's not exactly hard to figure; after all, a 3-1 play is fairly routine (that's the first baseman tossing the ball to the pitcher for the out at first) and I know the kids have seen it several times.

And relay. It's a baseball fundamental, but kids don't get it - they want to be the hero who throws it into home from left field. They also don't get why trying to hit a legitimate home run (as opposed to a single and 3 errors) is selfish. The sorriest statistic in the world is "runners left on base."

And deeking out a baserunner? Dude, we call that a balk.

Strikes are fascist, ground balls are democratic. The truth and implications of that statement is crystal clear to me but very difficult to explain to those who don't already know it. Luckily I don't have to; Mark does. Heh.

I hate the way the concept "team work" has been bastardized. In a sports setting, team work is the magic that happens when the players have a winning attitude and bust their asses to win the game. The fielders do their utmost to retire batters and "passed ball" is regarded by catchers as grounds to commit suicide. Everything comes together and the bang-bang plays create an intensity and excitement that drives the entire team. Who doesn't love a clutch hitter?

Team work is that intangible thing that cannot be artificially created but comes straight from the heart - a stubborness and perseverance that marks those who strive to win.

In a work setting, though, team work seems to be code for "some people need to work harder to cover up for those who refuse to perform." If a company really wants team work they need to do as sports teams are supposed to do: bench or release players that won't or can't strive to win in order to keep that winning edge.

It's going to be an interesting season.

I managed to get a few consecutive days off work before Easter and resolved to do those things most easily deferred: my taxes, and washing the windows and curtains.

The windows and curtains really do need to be done. I haven't done them since Sept. 11 despite my earnest intentions. Somehow it always seemed more important to surf the news channels and internet to see if there had been another terror attack - and, too often, there had indeed been one.

But I found we had only a tad of window-washing solution, so I did my taxes - sort of. Mind, I was very well prepared. I had sharp pencils, the correct forms, my adding machine, scratch paper, all my receipts, and some cold beer in the fridge to celebrate the successful conclusion of this annual ritual. When I went to get my T-4, though, it wasn't where I had seen it less than 24-fraking-hours earlier.

I began to search, and boy did I search. I found all sorts of papers and mailers and stuff I meant to look at (some of it went back to the beginning of Gulf War II, which I guess is a commentary as to how long I've been shutting out everyday stuff) and, because I still suffered with a mild variety of the spring cleaning bug, I began to toss or file. Then I went through the newly bulging files; I'm not sure why I had baseball registration lists from 1997, but I can honestly say that now I no longer have them. Was I still procrastinating? Yes, because all the figures I needed were on my final pay voucher of 2005 so I finally bit the bullet and did my stupid taxes (and called work Monday morning to humbly request a replacement T-4.)

Then I noticed this weird smudge on a wall. You know what happens when you wash a smallish section of a wall, right? Right.

If anyone next to you has just fallen off their chair you are undoubtably sitting beside someone who knows me and how much I hate housework. It was all very well and good when the kids were little (and, come to think of it, spending most of my time trying to up clean the dirt they and the dog brought in from outside) but that was the in the pre-Internet era as well as those days when all history ended and life is much more exciting now - and considerably more dangerous.

Solutions seem harder to come by now (maybe because the Cold War strategy was conceived before I was even born.) Except for Iraq: that one is as simple as A-B-C. We keep faith with the people of Iraq. We don't flinch. We stick it out.

Iran, though, is hard. Those who discount the messages coming out of Iran as simple rhetoric simply haven't been paying attention. Bin Laden used to be dismissed too, until we learned to our shock that he meant business.

We can't go back to 1979 (which is why a long vacation would look good on President Carter right now) and have to deal with what is happening today. The U.N. will likely be useless - will there likely be a new Oil-for-Food program for Iran after sanctions prove to be a burden on the Iranian people? Puh-leeze.

And then there are those voices that are carefully implying that if we abandon Israel we'll end the "root causes" that caused Sept. 11 and the threat from Iran. But let's get serious: the root cause of barbarism is, you know, barbarism, and even the barbarians didn't occupy Rome until the Romans had lost the will to fight -- most clearly evidenced in that they had sub-contracted their fighting out to others.

Come to think of it, one of Bin Laden's grievances was on behalf of dead infants in Iraq which he attributed to the sanctions. Has he lifted the jihad now that the sanctions have been lifted? Or directed one to Saddam for diverting money from health care for his own personal gain? Of course not. There will always be grievances because there will always be those who will justify unbelievable acts of savagery for their own ends. But do we have to play along?

I would be willing to go on a bit of faith that the cartoon controversy was viewed by many national leaders as a skirmish and the feckless response was simply a feint, but something very precious was seen to be surrendered: the right to be irreverent, and without irreverence we lose our joy. No South Park? No Simpson's? Or, and this is really scary, no Monty Python?

Those who take themselves too seriously run the risk of ulcers and migraines, but I doubt waiting for the dour mullahs to develop life-style health problems is a useful strategy.

So the spectre of nuclear weapons in Iran - a country that has absolutely neither reverence for international relations much less a sense of humour - continues to pose a problem that challenges us all. I do feel certain we need to come up with a strategy that differs from those employed in both Afghanistan and Iraq and the best one I've heard thus far is to give more tangible support to the pro-democracy forces within Iran. It's a long shot, and I guess that even though I never would have characterized myself as a gambler I do remain, at heart, a liberal (in the classic sense) and I'm willing to gamble on my belief that the yearning for freedom remains the most compelling urge in the history of humanity.

Relying on the choice less hopeful is straight out of Tolkien - the quest to destroy the ring was one such choice, and Arvedui's claim of the kingship in Gondor was another. [That's an admittedly obscure reference; my fellow explorers in the the History of Middle Earth will undoubtably recognize it and others can find it in the Appendix of Return of the King where Earnil's ascension to the throne is discussed.]

Oh well, I'll do the stupid windows and curtains over the weekend but place the responsibility on Mark to remember to buy window cleaner. That might work, but I know I'll have to keep reminding him. And if it rains, maybe he'll have to cancel practice and then can help me take the curtains down!

Yeah, sometimes team work means cursing obstinate household fixtures together.

Sometimes they get it right

Apr. 6 - I must be a very bad person because this headline made me laugh: Saddam-era judge insists 148 Shiites sentenced to death all confessed. Right. I'm sure they did. Torture has that kind of effect.

Worthington on Saddam's trial

Apr. 5 - Peter Worthington reprints a column he wrote in 1959 about another trial during Baghdad's bad old days.

It's pretty illuminating and, through the comparison, indirectly chastizes those who may be unhappy with the way Saddam's trial has been proceeding. One could say that Saddam is getting far better than he deserves or swing the other way and call it a travesty, but this column refutes both extremes.

Predator gets 3

Mar. 30 - The Predator silently watched while three wannabes planted a homemade bomb near Balad Air Base in Iraq and then let them have it:

The Predator monitored the three terrorists for about a half hour while they used a pick ax to dig a hole in the road, placed an explosive round in the hole, and strung wires from the hole to a ditch on the side of the road. When it was clear the individuals were placing a bomb, the Predator launched the 100-pound Hellfire missile, killing all three insurgents.

The article also notes the weapons piles that have been located by tips from civilians. I call them patriots.

This has been a growing trend and further evidence of the growing sense of responsibility Iraqis feel for what happens there, and I find it so thrilling to watch as Iraqis assume more and more control over their country. The base assumption of the war in Iraq was our belief that their capabilities would render our presence unnecessary once the clean-up was done, and the continued line-ups for both the police forces and the military -- despite the attacks on the aspirants -- argue that this willinginess to take responsibility for themselves is neither a figment of anyone's imagination nor political spin but a real manifestation of energy and optimism.

Three years in and there's a lot more to do, but it's worth it. Indeed it is.

Rooting out the corrupt

Nov. 18 - Background checks didn't work in this instance: Issuing Contracts, Ex-Convict Took Bribes in Iraq, U.S. Says:

A North Carolina man who was charged yesterday with accepting kickbacks and bribes as a comptroller and financial officer for the American occupation authority in Iraq was hired despite having served prison time for felony fraud in the 1990's.

The job gave the man, Robert J. Stein, control over $82 million in cash earmarked for Iraqi rebuilding projects.

Along with a web of other conspirators who have not yet been named, Mr. Stein and his wife received "bribes, kickbacks and gratuities amounting to at least $200,000 per month" to steer lucrative construction contracts to companies run by another American, Philip H. Bloom, an affidavit outlining the criminal complaint says. Mr. Stein's wife, who was not named, has not been charged with wrongdoing in the case; Mr. Bloom was charged with a range of crimes on Wednesday.

[...]

The charges against Mr. Stein and Mr. Bloom have emerged from a sweeping probe of rebuilding contracts by a task force led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and including investigators from the criminal investigations division of the Internal Revenue Service, the immigration and customs enforcement section of the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department's inspector general.

"Nobody was beheaded or killed."

Nov. 17 - Can you imagine another country in the Mid-East (excluding Israel) in which allegations of torture would receive such media attention?

CNN's title is extremely misleading (Iraq official defends 'torture' facility) as Bayan Jabrm, Iraq's interior minister, didn't state there was a 'torture' facility nor was he defending the legitimacy of 'torture.'

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's interior minister has defended a government facility that was found to be holding dozens of prisoners, including some showing signs of torture, saying it held "the most criminal terrorists."

"Nobody was beheaded or killed," a defiant Bayan Jabr told a news conference Thursday, saying that only seven of 170 detainees showed marks of torture.

"Those detainees, those criminal killers inside the bunker were not Indians or Pakistanis or Iranians," he said, waving a stack of passports in the air. "Those are your Arab brothers that came here to kill your sons."

He said one detainee who had been reported as paralyzed was afflicted before his arrival at the facility and had been used "by one of the terrorists" to set off bombs.

"They gave the handicapped $1,000, and he was just a beggar," Jabr said. (Emphasis added.)

The minister said a judge was in charge at the facility and was dealing with each case. Jabr pledged to hold anyone who has tortured a detainee accountable.

"I will punish them if (the investigation) proves they are responsible for any violations," he said.

It is easy to be skeptical of Jabr's account of a handicapped man being used as a homicide bomber, but the revelations that mentally handicaped children were being used to launch terrorist attacks against Israel lends some credibility, no?

However, if the media are really interested in this kind of story there are thousands of mass graves in Iraq and I understand a great many people have stories of torture under the loving gazes of Saddam & Sons. They could investigate the treatment of prisoners in Egypt or Iran. They could even interview Bill Sampson as to the treatment he received from the Saudis.

Please believe that I'm not downplaying how serious these allegations are nor pretending that I am not dismayed by them, but merely pointing out that torture in many prisons (or holding facilities) is sadly common in many non-democratic nations. Zahra Kazemi was tortured in Iran and Bill Sampson was tortured in Saudia Arabia, yet Iraq is the likliest to actually take the allegations seriously, undertake an earnest investigation into the matter, and find out who is responsible.

This is a regrettable but not surprising bump along the road as Iraq attempts to rebuild her nation from one terrorized by a madman into one that respects human rights and is willing to protect those rights. (Heck, European and North American nations are still working on that human rights thing.)

I still have faith in the Iraqi people, and I wonder if future generations will talk about Iraqi "exceptionalism" or regard them as pioneers on uncharted terrain?

The Media got it wrong? Surely you jest.

Oct. 23 - John B. was right on the money. From Newsbusters, Stephen Dupont, the Australian Journalist Who Filmed Burning Taliban Bodies Suggests Media Got it All Wrong and that "the bodies were burned purely for reasons of hygiene when the local villagers refused to retrieve them, and that the American soldiers didn't do anything wrong." (My bolding.)

I sympathize with the villagers who refused to pay any honour to the dead Taliban. I doubt somehow that they are among those who are expressing how shocked, appalled, offended and humiliated they feel - at least now that the Taliban has been removed from power.

There is also some discussion about the psy-ops strategy which I like to call "Come out and play if you have a pair."

Am I take this too lightly? Maybe it's just my way of establishing a defensive perimeter so as to better withstand the expected battery of vapidly moralizing journalists who won't be able to refrain from running and re-running this story into the ground.

Do members of the news media actually fail to grasp what happens when terrorists detonate bombs? The blackening of the body parts is not due to the intense cold.

(Via Neale News.)

Michael Yon on the Iraq referendum

Oct. 23 - Michael Yon's eagerly awaited article on the Iraqi referendum vote All Quiet on the Baghdad Front in online.

Great read. Michael Yon has the uncommon ability to speak to us - not around, through, over, or beyond us - and reflect those private doubts and fears we allow ourselves to experience only after the fact. He begins by writing about the January elections:

There were bombs exploding, mortars falling, and hot machine guns. The fact that the voting was going great despite the violence was something few people expected. Until that day, I'd been skeptical about Iraq. Not fashionably cynical, merely skeptical. ..But nobody really knew what the Iraqi people had in mind, and the Iraqis were the people who counted most.

The millions who voted sent a message: Serpentine lines of ebullient Iraqis risked their lives--dozens died--to have a say in their futures. ..

The courage of the Iraqi people that January day planted a seed of confidence. These were not timid or cowering souls. ..The voice of the Iraqi people had risen above the clamor of insurgent violence.

Aw, hell. I am so tired of myself crying when I read these things. I may as well accept the fact that I'm incurable and just sniff away as I write.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I expect that everyone will read this article and I don't intend to do much more than highly recommend it, but I must note the honesty about uncertainty as to "numbers" with which Yon concludes:

Next morning, I got information from the Army that there had been 19 attacks on polling sites throughout Iraq, and in January there had been 108. There may be some garble in the numbers (there usually is). There had actually been somewhere between 300 and 350 total attacks on the January election day. And the army would later say that there were 89 total attacks during the voting last week. Who knows? I know that it was quiet from my perch, and that the guns had been silenced long enough that we could hear the Iraqi voice speak for a second time. The voice was louder, stronger, and prouder than it had been in January.

Some of Mr. Yon's best-known photos and the compelling story of his journey in Iraq are here, and, with all deference to UNICEF and the Smurfs, the following declaration must be placed on the balance scales as to why we are in Iraq and why we give battle:

I've been criticized for using terms like terrorist and enemy in my dispatches. Most critics are a safe distance from the battleground. Up close, its more than a matter of taking sides. There's no value in using imprecise language in a futile attempt to appear objective. There is a difference between Coalition soldiers and Iraqi police officers and the terrorists and criminals they confront. Whether you call them insurgents or resistance fighters or terrorists, the people who wake up in the morning plotting how to drive explosives-laden cars into crowds of children have to be confronted.

That is the reality in Iraq and thus the banner under which we fight. That many do not like the fact that the U.S.A. is in the forefront of this war is a damning reflection on the morally impovershed state of those who would take refuge in their acquiescence to evil; the fact that the proud British, Australians, Italians, Polish, Danes and other those of other Coalition nations are capable of seeing beyond narrow confines of immediate gain today and keep their aspirations fixed to the world they envision tomorrow still fills me with awe and breathless gratitude. The Spanish who fled and those who still stand aloof - and I must include Canada among them,

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

I vote we name Michael Yon as the "Most Trusted Name in News."

Don't forget that you can listen to Michael Yon This Sunday, 9 p.m. ET, on Pundit Review Radio.

"Do these people not feel the shame and disgrace that shroud them?"

Oct. 21 - Lots of people should feel shame these days for things that have been done, things that have not been done or said, and things that should be done but most likely will not be done.

'Omran Salman has written about the continuing extermination of Shi'ites in Iraq and attacks the silence of Sunnis there and that of Arab journalists and statesmen throughout the Mideast: "Aren't the Arabs Ashamed When Some of Them Massacre Iraqi Citizens?":

"What can we say in light of the attitude of the Arab media [in general] and the Arab satellite channels in particular, which report the killings, the slaughters, and the suicide bombings among Iraqi citizens coolly, treating them as routine events [and] as part of what has been termed 'the series of [acts of] violence in Iraq?'

"The war being waged by the Al-Qaeda organization and the terrorists against the Shi'ites in Iraq is among the acts of collective extermination, which is rare in modern history. There has been no case in the past in which somebody has declared a similar war against a race or a group as a whole, except [for the case of] Nazi Germany against the Jews...

"The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq and similar [bodies] in Arab countries have issued dozens of fatwas about current political issues, but have not issued even a single fatwa declaring bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, or Al-Zarqawi to be infidels because of their killing of the Shi'ites."

Salman could have included much of the Western media in his denunciation because they too have failed to place the targeted murders in the context of al Zarqawi's stated purpose, preferring to pretend that the bombings of civilians is part of the "insurgency."

Since we're on the subject of shame, the media silence about the recent Iraq referendum has been deafening, and Oliver North does some sharpshooting in The purple finger effect:

The same potentates of the press who focused for weeks on hanging chads in Florida five years ago widely ignored one of the most dramatic political events of our time. In the midst of a bloody war, politicians in an Islamic country spent seven months drafting their own constitution and then sent it to their people for ratification.

More shame: the U.N. report on the assassination of Rafik Hariri has concluded that Syrian officials were behind the bomb that killed Hariri and

CNN was able to obtain a copy of the report given Thursday to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Security Council members, which lists the names of the men accused of planning the February 14, 2005, bombing that killed Hariri and 22 other people.

The names were not in copies of the report released for general distribution.

In addition to Maher Assad, the Syrian president's brother, those investigating Hariri's death accused Assef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law; Jamil al-Sayyed, head of Lebanese intelligence; Hassan Khalil, former head of Syrian intelligence; and Bahjat Suleyman, a personal friend of the Syrian president, as participating in planning the assassination.

A witness, who is Syrian but lives in Lebanon, and who claims to have worked for Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, told investigators that about two weeks before Security Council Resolution 1559 was passed, the officials decided to assassinate Hariri.

President Bush spoke about the report today:

"Today, a serious report came out that requires the world to look at it very carefully and respond accordingly," he said. "The report is deeply disturbing."

Bush said he instructed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "call upon the United Nations to convene a session as quickly as possible to deal with this very serious matter."

The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, will be meeting with the author of the report, German prosecutor Detleve Mehlis, Friday morning, and will urge the U.N. Security Council to meet and "consider options." That's all very nice, but the U.N.'s options are extremely limited. They can't ignore their own report, but would the General Assembly pass a resolution condemning Syria? and then ... what?

Lebanon is a member of the agency of "francophonie" as are France, Romania and Benin, nations which currently sit on the UNSC, and thus one would expect them to exhibit some degree of solidarity, right? [As an aside, Canada, New Brunswick and Quebec are also members of the agency of francophonie.]

One group that realistically might be able to exert pressure on Syria is the EU. They were quick to make overtures for increased trade with Syria after the U.S. Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act in 2004 and are thus in a position wherein they could at minimum impose sanctions. Right.

(Memri link via Newsbeat1)

A burning body maybe, but where's the evidence?

Oct. 21 - Okay, I've watched the footage of what appear to be U.S. soldiers standing on a rock under which boots and maybe a human body are burning (available by link at story at CNN.com U.S. State Dept: Video 'very troubling') but what I haven't seen is any evidence that U.S. soldiers set the boots or any body alight.

I heard a U.S. soldier - in a separate shot - reading a statement in which he taunts members of the Taliban to come out and fight like men, but that's nothing new. (I've done it myself.)

I'm trying to think through a lot of possible possibilities, and another thing I can't say I saw was any indication that the purported burning body was that of a Muslim. What if it was that of a Hindu, many of whom are our allies in Afghanistan?

Burning bodies is supposed to be a major no-no for Muslims, yet we didn't hear the same level of aghast horror last year at a bridge in Fallujah so spare me the angst now.

It's hard to burn a human body (but not harder than it is to flush a Koran down a toilet) and I have to wonder why, if this reporter could film a burning body, he wasn't able to film the steps leading up to the burning of said body. Something easy, like tossing a burning match. Something that would be evidence.

There's something very off here.

Oct. 23 - John B. had it right as to hygiene being the reason why the bodies were burned. Read Journalist Who Filmed Burning Taliban Bodies Suggests Media Got it All Wrong.

What don't get they about "when the mission is completed?"

Oct. 21 - The Washingto Post had an un-insightful item yesterday: Rice Declines to Give Senators Timeline for Germany South Korea Iraq Withdrawal.

I could have included Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa in the strike-outs, but it was already getting a tad long! (Feel free to add your own favourite "quagmire," but Los Angeles is off-limits!)

I hate to disappoint the Post, but most Americans understood going in that it would be a long-term committment. We also understood that sticking this through would meet our long-term objectives far more than cutting and running.

Having said that, it also grieves me that some of our best men and women are being killed and maimed over there. It just seems wrong that the intelligent idiots in their ivory towers babble on while those who many - including me - consider their betters are on the front lines.

Where are all those human shields, anyway? They would protect hospitals and electrical stations under Saddam's rule but not under Iraq home rule? Couldn't they at least protect the defense lawyers for Saddam's trial? (No link yet, but word has it that he has been found dead.) [07:45 - link now available here.

Referendum results surprise Iraqis

Oct. 18 - Ballots from Saturday's referendum in Iraq are being scrutinized amidst allegations of tampering by many who are suspicious of the strong "yes" vote (Iraqis Continue Checking Referendum Results.)

It's too early to rule anything out, but I wonder if the answer is far simpler. Maybe Iraqis - Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds - are sick and tired of the "insurgency." They are tired of the electrical failures, they are tired of worrying that a visit to the local market will turn into bloodshed, they are sickened by the atrocities being visited in the name of Islam, and they are tired of being linked to monsters.

There is a further consideration. Although many of the stories after the take down in Fallujah were anecdotal, they bore striking similarities (especially of the restrictions placed upon women) and the grisly discovery of bodies and butcher rooms were horrifying. The Sunnis were probably more distressed by al Qaeda rule than has been credited and that too could account for a strong "yes" vote.

Enter the often overlooked brilliance of the "secret ballot." No matter what you say, what poster you carry or what button you wear, once you're in that booth you can vote as you please and it's strictly between you and your conscience.

It's possible that many saw approving a new Constitution - with provisions for later improvements - as a chance to begin to lead normal lives.

Just my $ .02.

On the Iraq referendum

Oct. 17 - From "Debate on al Qaida's losses in Iraq" by Walid Phares in the World Defense Review.

There is some solid analysis of the dynamics of the vote and how the gradual realization that they are one country had shaped the debate about the referendum as well as the growing competency of the Iraqi army and police units.

I'm only going to quote from what I see as the critical component: getting the Sunnis involved in the process. After boycotting the vote last January, Sunnis began to revisit their rationale and

... Seeing a new parliament acting, media flourishing, and political life developing, many Sunni groups, cadres and leaders crossed the line from boycott to engagement in the political process: First by adhering to the constitutional discussion; second by participating in the referendum, even with a "no" cast.

By August 2005, there was a Sunni "position" toward the constitutional debate. Many among them distanced themselves from the Zarqawi "refusal of all constitutions" to a "criticism of this constitution." The integration was slow, and will remain so, but it is happening. The national consensus is not total, but it is widening and strengthening, by bits.

Now an overwhelming majority of Iraqis have put an end to the dictatorial past and rejected the terrorist agenda. The differences are nevertheless wide, but the country wants political "treatments."

The essay also deals with the wider implications of Saturday's vote which makes clear why this was an Iraqi victory.

Do I need to repeat that? The vote wasn't about us. The vote was not a referendum on us but a referendum in which Iraqis cast ballots to decide on the political structure of their country.

Mr. Phares generously calls it an "American achievement" but I think even that overstates it a bit; we created the conditions that made it possible, but the Iraqis made it happen.

David Adesnik at Oxblog looks at the Sunni vote and makes some astute observations. He concludes:

In contrast, I think the Sunnis have decided that they should give the political process a chance in order to see whether it produces better results than the insurgency -- while using the insurgency to improve their position at the bargaining table, just as Arafat used suicide bombings as an adjunct to the negotiating process rather than a substitute for it.

Of course, Arafat was never willing to abandon violence no matter how many concessions he secured. .. Arafat was also able to draw on a major reserve of international support, both political and financial.

In contrast, the Sunnis control nothing and get only few shreds of support from Syria, et al. They have a lot more to gain from peace.

As the president has said many times, we will leave Iraq when the job is done. This vote brings us closer to that day, but neither the referendum nor the results are going to end the insurgency. Other means will continue to be employed. [Fox changed the story so I'm changing the link to a more reliable one.]

(Walid Pharas link via Instapundit.)

Collaborationists by any other name still stink

Oct. 17 - It's so hard not to make writing about significant al Qaeda captures a cause for personal celebration. Therefore, I won't try: Al Qaeda 'propagandist caught',

Yasir Khudr Muhammad Jasim al-Karbali, also known as Abu Dijana, was apprehended in the September 25 raid, the military said.

He was the senior Al Qaeda in Iraq propaganda cell leader for Karabilah, Al Qaim and Husaybah, the statement said.

"Abu Dijana's cell consisted of photographers who used video and still photograph images to document insurgent attacks against Iraqi citizens and Iraqi and Coalition Forces," according to the statement.

"Local Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders notified Abu Dijana of impending attacks in the area, at which time he would contact his terrorist cell members and provide them with equipment and supplies needed to record the attacks."

Abu Dijana later collected the photographs and video and forwarded them to other Al Qaeda in Iraq propaganda officials for their use, the military said, and the images were made into terrorist propaganda products for distribution through print and Web sites.

Don't expect me to rationalize why CNN felt it appropriate to include "caught" in their death quotes, but given the degree of propaganda we endure in North America, maybe it requires no explanation.

I guess not only al CNN but also al AP, al Reuters, al BBC, al CBC and al Jazeera will have to find another news tipster. (If you think that's harsh, I'll send you what I deleted.)

Also, well said, Damian. Too many are so anxious so see the U.S.A. fail in her efforts to bring democracy to certain nations that they have forgotten those principles which once impelled those of us who are, and in some rather significant ways remain, liberals.

What madness pits damning US foreign policy against cheering for human rights? Only the wankers can answer that.

For me, truth remains in these immortal words:

That all men [insert "and women"] are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

The racial superiority that lies in the assertion that Muslims are incapable of living under consensual governance is becoming increasing odious and I am finding it harder and harder to contain my rage.

Tell me this: if Muslims cannot abide consensual governance, then why do we welcome them to our countries? and why do they immigrate here? You can't have it both ways! My worldview believes that all people thirst for freedom and that's why they come here and that's why Iraqis hit the polls despite the real threats to life and limb. The apologists for al Qaeda evidently have another worldview and they need to state clearly and unequivocally why they believe Muslims are racially or ethnically unwilling to embrace democracy yet why we welcome them to countries that are governed by consensus.

My worldview takes facts into account. What about the worldview of the wankers terror apologists? They've moved the goal posts so far that they're situated beyond even the bleachers and still moving and headed for what? Lake Ontario? The Pacific Ocean? (I'm indulging in a bit of drowning imagery here. Feels good.)

Yes, I'm angry. I'm actually furious. I'm willing to die for freedom. People I care deeply about are putting their lives on the line in the cause of freedom, yet too many others are willing to applaud those who murder to stifle freedom. Yet they are the "liberals" and I'm the "conservative."

You know what? Bite me! or, to be less polite, FOAD. Like, soon. Either come up with a plausible explanation or crawl in the hell-hole you dug and just shut up. I won't really miss you.

Vote in Iraq

Oct. 15 - Today's vote went off smoothly, and the few disruptions were handled by Iraqi security forces. Overall turnout is about 61% and whichever way the vote goes, the result will be determined solely by the will of the Iraqis.

Mohammed reports that coalition presence was limited to helicopter patrols and has photos of today's events.

The big bad terrorists went all out to spread mayhem and fear before today's vote on the proposed Constitution in Iraq: they disrupted the electricity service in Baghdad. Yawn. The most newsworthy aspect of that story is reporters were so desperate for bad news that they actually bothered to report it.

Whenever I read about "the struggle for hearts and minds" I wonder what the heck they're talking about. Seems to me that the flame of liberty is already pretty firmly in Iraqi hearts and they clearly have their own minds!

I'm off for the night, but Instapundit has links analyzing today's events in Iraq.

Bring on the purple finger!

Oct. 14 - How many times and in how many countries have Constitutions been submitted to the electorate for ratification? Five years ago, who would have believed such an event - a free vote - could take place in Iraq, of all places?

From IRAQ THE MODEL: Iraqis preparing to decide:

People on the street, TV and radio are all talking about the coming historic event while papers went on hiatus since yesterday but many of them published the document on Wednesday to ensure that more people get to read it.
Although the distribution didn’t go perfectly, I doubt there are many who didn’t get the chance to take a look as the document was published many times on different outlets including websites and there were many discussions on TV where articles were discusses thoroughly. Add to this the thousands of workshops and lectures organized by NGOs. So I think it’s fair to say that only those who weren’t interested in the subject would say that they didn’t have the chance to read the document.

Those who have bewailed the disagreements, compromises and threats to boycott have kind of missed the point of democracy: the intensity of the political debates in public forums - and I cannot overly stress the word public - is the ultimate counter-argument to those who have tried to persuade the world that Muslims don't have the democracy gene, for what is democracy if not people publicly debating public issues without fear?

Mohammed recalls a different kind of discussion over another vote in the recent past:

I am so excited but a flashback from Saddam’s referendum three years ago still hurts; he wanted a 100% as the 99.96% of the previous one shocked the dictator. I was depressed that way and I decided not to go to the voting office and so did the rest of the family but my father was afraid that not going could be dangerous.
He said that maybe one member of the family could go alone and cast votes for the rest of us. We looked at each other thinking who’s going to volunteer to do this ugly job to protect the family. At that moment my father said “it was my generation that caused the misery we’re living in so I’m the one who should do this”.
I couldn’t stop him and I couldn’t utter a word but I felt sad for him; his sacrifice was big and I had teary eyes when I watched him taking our papers and heading out.

We take so much for granted over here! The purple fingers humble we who casually accept our liberty so let loose! Loudly cheer the steadfast Iraqis (and the Iraqi army, police and security forces) who have braved bombings, kidnappings and assassinations to pursue this freedom thing.

Have doubts about the success of those Iraqis dedicated to protect Iraq? Read this, via Newsbeat1:

While languishing in prison under the Saddam regime, General Rasheed and his superior, General Adnon, formulated the idea of a commando style unit.

Their idea, to say the least, has been highly successful!

I'm off to work but can hardly wait to turn on the news when I get home tomorrow morning. It's going to be a long, exciting night.

Let freedom ring!

Zawahiri: Send money!

Oct. 7 - (Sorry about the silly title, but I'm on my sixth day/night with little sleep and I couldn't help thinking that Zawahiri's reqeusts for funds sounds like the stereotypical college student writing home.)

Nevertheless, the request for money is astonishing. The general impression had been that al Qaeda seemingly had limitless funds, but if the letter accurately represents al Qaeda's financial state I have to wonder if maybe we have indeed been successful in cutting off their funding - including that which many of us suspect came from Saudi Arabia.

The rest of the letter (ahem, treatise) is perhaps less surprising. Zawahiri evidently realizes that Zarqawi is as much a psychopath as Saddam & Sons but he's trying to reason with him. Maybe he should have received the Nobel Peace Prize instead of elBaradei ...

Silliness aside, the implications of this 13-page comminque are deadly serious (U.S. Obtains Treatise By Bin Laden Deputy) and confirms the reasons why the U.S. is hanging tough in Iraq.

These days leading up to the October 15 referendum in Iraq are likely to continue to be bloody but the treatise makes clear how vitally important that vote is. The results are somewhat secondary to the fact that there will be a vote and that the people of Iraq will have the final voice in the destiny of their country.

On the plans to extend jihad, is it just me or would not taking Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Israel effectively tighten a noose around Jordan and Saudi Arabia? And no mention of the Palestinians? That is a glaring omission given the civil war taking place there.

Iran is also left out. Or is it counted as "mission accomplished?"

I still haven't had a chance to do more than scan the transcript of President Bush's speech at the National Endowment for Democracy (and like the passion of what I've read) but hot damn! releasing the treatise at the same time as that speech was well-executed.

Please, Mr. President, do it more often! Let's stay focused on the aims of this war and the horrific consequences of appeasement or, unthinkably, failure.

Is it "sectarian civil strife" if only one side is attacking?

Oct. 5 - Hillah: A bomb kills 25 and wounds 87. Inside a mosque. During the funeral service of a victim of a previous homicide attack. Part of the mosque is destroyed.

CNN notes that Iraqi police were at the funeral and might have been the targets. Riiight.

CNN offers the usual analysis that this is all sectarian civil strife, but is that accurate?

Doesn't "civil strife" imply that both sides are attacking one another and setting off bombs in mosques? Yet bombs have been going on in Shiite mosques, not Sunni mosques. Shiites have been targets of terrorist attacks, not Sunnis - unless they are Sunni Kurds. Non-Kurdish Sunnis are only 20% of Iraq's population, and, despite political overtures from Shiites and Kurds that have been extremely generous, they have been obstructionists to establishing consensual government in Iraq.

Although Shiites are the majority in Iraq, they are not the majority of Muslims, and that may explain why many Muslims are seemingly indifferent to desecrations of Shiite mosques and the murders of Shiite civilians and why the U.N. and Saudis are more concerned about the Sunnis than the Shiites that are being slaughtered.

The religious tensions between Shiites and Sunnis casts a different light on the rebuke delivered by Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr to Prince Saud al-Faisal, foreign minister of Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia:

Prince Saud al-Faisal, foreign minister of Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, had expressed concern about growing Shi'ite influence in Iraq during a visit to Washington last month.

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, a member of the Shi'ite Islamist Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, fired back during a press conference in Amman yesterday, saying, "We will not allow anyone to interfere in our internal issues, regardless of their political status. ...

"This Iraq is the cradle of civilization that taught humanity reading and writing, and some Bedouin riding a camel wants to teach us. This talk is totally rejected," he said.

He could have gone much further. He could have accused the Saudis of exporting the cult of terrorism through the religious schools they've established throughout the Muslim world. He could have pointed out that many suspect that Saudi money is financing the wave of terror aimed at Shiites in Iraq. He did point out that the suppression of political freedoms in Saudi Arabia hardly make them authorities on establishing consensual government:

He also took a swipe at the Saudi monarchy.

"There are regimes that are dictatorships. They have one God. He is the king, he is God of heaven and earth, and he rules as he likes," Mr. Jabr said.

"A whole country is named after a family. If we open these topics without inhibitions, it is neither to our benefit, nor to theirs."

The exchange between the two ministers reflects wider tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites that divide the Arab world and are behind many of the problems in Iraq, including a stubborn insurgency and the failure of the country to unite in support of a new constitution.

I have to admit that the Shiites and Kurds have been far more patient with Sunni intransigence that I would be, but maybe that is changing:

Iraq's National Assembly voted on Wednesday to reverse last-minute changes it had made to rules for next week's referendum on a new constitution.

The United Nations had criticized the change as unfair to Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, which had threatened to boycott the vote.

After a brief debate, the Assembly voted 119 to 28 to restore the original voting rules for the referendum, which will take place October 15. Only about half of the 275-member legislative body turned up for the vote.

[...]

U.S. and U.N. officials hope that restoring the original rules will avert a boycott of the referendum by the Sunni minority, would have deeply undermined the credibility of the vote and wreck efforts to bring Sunnis into the political process.

To Western minds, those who don't vote have no right to complain about the outcome. The Sunnis boycotted the January elections but were still appointed to government positions in an effort to unite the country (which is something we understand fully as "going the extra mile") but the Sunni insurgents have exploited that sentiment by continuing to attack Shiite targets.

Maybe - just maybe - restoring the original rules will be interpreted as a sign that the 80% of Iraqis who aren't Sunnis are losing patience and want to get on with ratifying a constitution, electing a government, and rebuilding the country.

I'm with the 80%. The Sunnis once ruled Iraq and, hard as it may be to relinquish total power, at some point they must be made to realize that if they are to have any power it will have to within the framework of a power-sharing government.

(Washington Times link via Newsbeat1)

Terrorists criticized by Human Rights Watch

Oct. 3 - Maybe I was too pessimistic on Saturday when I despaired that there was sufficient tinder to feed Muslim outrage over terrorist attacks.

Human Rights Watch has condemned terror attacks by anti-Iraqi forces (whom they call insurgents) and accuse them of committing war crimes. They also say that the attacks are backfiring and reducing popular support for the anti-Iraq forces. (Link via Mudville Gazette.)

In Afghanistan, the assassination of candidate Mohammed Ashraf Ramazan sparked protest demonstrations by nearly 4,000 in Mazar-e-Sharif. Ramazan was a Hazara, an ethnic group that is about 10% of Afghanistan's population, and the protesters accused international peacekeeping forces and the Karzai government of discrimination which led to the lack of security which enabled the killing. (Link via Jack's Newswatch.)

Captain Ed reports that the Balinese are going from shock to anger and asking Why us?. He also points out the the usual excuses given for attacks on Western targets simply don't apply to Bali or Indonesia as a whole.

It should be remembered that some of the largest demonstrations against U.S. intervention in Iraq took place in Indonesia yet bombs still went off in Jakarta and Bali.

Pieter focuses on some of the reasons why the Balinese are targets and draws a parallel between the challenge fundamentalist forces pose to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Instinctive anti-Americanism once sufficed as an excuse for the apologists of terrorism but the instict for survival may yet prove more persuasive.

Airman 1st Class Elizabeth Jacobson

Oct. 3 - As women we demand equal rights and accept that, with those rights, come responsibilities. One young woman who accepted those responsibilities was Airman 1st Class Elizabeth Jacobson, and on Sept. 28 she became the Air Force's first female casualty in Iraq.

The Cult of the Victim is one side of feminism but I prefer the side that women like Airman Jacobson represent. They let their deeds - not their grievances - speak.

Godspeed though that wild blue yonder, Airman Jacobson. And thank you.

Her story is here and a more personal account is here.

New offensive near Syrian border

Oct. 1 - Offensive launched in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) - About 1,000 U.S. service members launched an offensive in western Iraq near the Syrian border on Saturday aimed insurgents from this country's most feared militant group, Al-Qaida in Iraq, the military said.

The operation against "a known terrorist sanctuary" began early Saturday in the town of Sadah in the western province of Anbar, about 12 kilometres from the Iraq-Syrian border, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The offensive also was aimed at stopping foreign insurgents from entering the country from Syria and at improving security in the area before Iraq's Oct. 15 national referendum on the country's draft constitution, the military said.

[...]

On Thursday and Friday, Sunni insurgents hit two Shiite towns - Balad and Hillah - with brutal bombings that killed more than 110 people, apparently aiming at scaring Shiites away from the crucial constitutional vote. The car bomb attacks seemed staged to kill or maim as many civilians as possible, tearing through busy markets and commercial streets.

Insurgents have vowed to derail the referendum, and the recent surge of violence has killed at least 200 people - including 13 U.S. service members - in the past six days.

The Sunni-led al-Qaida in Iraq, the most feared insurgent group, has declared "all-out war" on Shiites, and since a Shiite-majority government took power April 28, suicide bombers have killed at least 1,345 people, according to an Associated Press count. (Emphasis added

That last figure should give pause to even the most virulent opponent to the war.

But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

The success of the January elections was a serious blow to al Qaeda and the forces that oppose consensual government in Iraq (and, indeed, in the Mid-East.) Hence the vicious wave of terrorist attacks during the recent period.

Sometimes when I read about the terror attacks I find myself full of wonder that the Shiites in Iraqi can remain steadfast and withstand the temptation to retaliate. I don't know if I could rise to their example.

The Oct. 15 referendum is important - both in terms of who votes and who boycotts - and, as was the vote last January, it has transcended what we in the West think of as "election day." The press continues to be full of commentary as to how important this referendum will be to the USA, which overlooks the rather obvious fact that it is far more important to the Iraqis. But I suspect that the Iraqis are resigned to the stupidity of our journalists and, if that higher power which dictates such things allow, we may be able to sit down some day and laugh at those wankers.

Victor Davis Hanson

Sept. 23 - One last thing before I head out. Friday is VDH day at the National Review, and he manages to bring freshness to the old debate over keeping Iraq one, intact nation (Strategy, Strategy Everywhere ....)

I haven't intentionally quit making the case for the war in Iraq, but I find it hard to keep re-cycling the same arguments (besides, it makes me cranky to keep saying the same thng over and over and, you know. Over. Blame it on my kids.)

I can't excerpt from Hanson. The narrative is too tight. Just read it.

Terrorism and world poverty

Sept. 15 - The U. N. continues to dither over defining terrorism and taking a firm stand for freedom. Iraq President Talabani had no difficulty in identifying it during his response (scroll down) to Bush's welcome speech to the White House on Tuesday:

We have also people who are in -- (inaudible) -- who are cooperating with Iraqi forces, and with American forces against terrorism. It is a good signal that our people start to understand that terrorism is the enemy of Iraqi people before becoming enemy of Americans. They are killing our civilians, or innocent children. They are destroying our mosques -- church, everywhere, regardless of what may happen to the people.

Yesterday's terror attacks in Baghdad continued the sad connection with the dead of Sept. 11 in New York, March 11 in Madrid, and July 7 in London: those whose only crime was going to work were murdered by the same merciless group as took the lives of those seeking employment. And what is employment if not a means to secure income to meet the necessities of yourself and your family?

Those who were killed because they have or seek jobs join the fallen of Beslan who were guilty of no more than attending school and the many victims of terror attacks who were guilty of no more than shopping at a local market, enjoying a vacation in Bali, or working in the tourist industries of Bali, Egypt and Kenya.

There is much truth to assertions that poverty plays a role in recruiting to terrorist organizations, but doesn't that beg the question as to why many terrorist actions seem to be intended to further poverty?

Member countries of the United Nations may be unwilling unable to define terrorism, but most of us can see that one of terrorism's goals is to defeat the hopes of people who want to better their lives.

I never thought it probable that the U.N., in which a majority of the member nations are dictatorships, would actually stand up for freedom and human rights anyway but it is interesting to note that terrorism is - properly, in my view - being framed as being a major obstacle to ending world poverty. It seems to me that the British proposal to the U.N. is aimed not only at the bureaucrats, rock stars and NGOs but also to everyday people, most of whom can connect dots and who rely on their common sense more than deconstructionist obfuscations.

Given today's attacks in Iraq in which at least 30 were killed, President Talabani's address to the U.N. in which he asked that the world help defeat terrorism resound all the more eloquently.

On a related note, for those who find it hard to believe that al Qaeda attacks people simply because they want to be free today's roadside bombing in Kabul and the timing of yesterday's attacks in Iraq as well as the threats leading up to last January's elections there should at least be suggestive:

The wave of bombings, which began shortly after dawn and continued until about 4 p.m., coincided with Iraqi lawmakers announcing the country's draft constitution was in its final form and would be sent to the United Nations for printing and distribution ahead of an Oct. 15 national referendum. Sunni Muslims, who form up the core of the insurgency, have vowed to defeat the basic law.

A final thought: the leadership of Iraq continues to impress me with their steadfast refusal to be goaded into a civil war. An old Civil Rights song urged we "keep our eyes on the prize / hold on" and today's Iraqis are exhibiting that kind of resolve. They are truly heroes.

Let Freedom Ring!

[FYI: President Bush's speech to the UNSC is here. British PM Tony Blair's address to the U.N. summit is here (with thanks to Robert for the latter link.) Also, President Bush is not impressed with the UNHRC and blasts them (link via Neale News.)]

For those who walk and hold the line, I thank you

July 4 - I tried to post this last night before I went to work, but Munu was kinda wonky and it wouldn't take.

Anyway, before I catch some sleep I want to be sure to thank the men and women in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Korea, Guatamala and around the world who are defending those freedoms that we will be celebrating today.

Three years ago, when many of us were considering whether to encourage proposing action in Iraq, I thought about the stories I had been told about Vietnam, both the trivial and the grand, and fully understood that the risky enterprise of ending first Gulf War would lay a burden of responsibility on us all (as indeed do all weighty national decisions.)

The generals report that the troops ask if we still support them; the short answer is Yes! and a longer answer is abso-freaking-lutely!

I'm a blogger, not a reporter, and so I can elect not to post about our losses especially as I write from a foreign country, but I do grieve for the fine men and women we've lost in this operation even as I renew my resolve that their sacrifice not be in vain.

A little known character trait of many Americans is that we often don't talk about those things that lie deep within our core. We made the decision to go to Iraq, we made that decision with our eyes wide open, and nobody lied to us or misled us. We knew on September 11 that we would have to deal with Iraq sooner rather than later and, as the President laid out our goals in Afghanistan in his address to Congress, we understood that the promise he made to drive out the Taliban and bring consensual rule to Afghanistan was the opening shot in a battle that would save the people of the Mid-east as well as ourselves.

We understood these things as only a free people can understand them: instinctively, intuitively, and in every fibre of our being because Sept. 11 reconnected us with our national charcter as well as our values and love for freedom in ways that - and I say this with complete humility - transcended all other experiences in my lifetime.

The real question is not why millions of Americans recognize the connection between Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein but rather why others do not. Us ignorant folks seemingly have a better grasp of how lives that stagnate under repression and lack of meaningful ways to express the aspirations and ambitions of the individual person can spawn the desperation of terrorism than all the nuanced fools who proclaim themselves to be our intellectual betters.

So yes, we support America's sons and daughters in the military utterly, completely and with the full weight of our hopes for a free future and we ask your forgiveness for the sacrifices we have asked of you.

Yes, we support you; yes, we support your mission and, yes, we can hardly wait until you come home.

Godspeed, and Happy July 4th!

Walking the line

July 4 - Michael Yon continues to deliver some of the best commentary from a non-military source in Iraq. For those who have been reading his entries "Walking the Line," part IV is up and I highly recommend it even though it's hard - even traumatic - reading.

(If you haven't been reading Yon regularly,, be sure and read Part I, Part II and Part III.)

The president's speech

June 29 - Not much to add on the President's address last night, although the irritation by some that Sept. 11 was mentioned would seem to affirm Rove's observations on the reaction of the left to that infamous day.

Root causes, people. Remember them?

They [the enemy] know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty, as well. And when the Middle East grows in democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits, and lose their hopes for turning that region into a base for attacks on America and our allies around the world.

As we inch toward success, those who chose to express their opposition to the war by characterizing it as President Bush's personal war it might do well to remember that the Civil War at one time was referred to as "Mr. Lincoln's War" and he ended up being known as the Great Emancipator.

It almost makes me glad that journalists don't take history courses.

One perhaps original thought: as I read the speech, it struck me that media focus on the presidential election of 2008 might inadvertantly be sending a different message to the anti-Iraqi terrorists, who may be believe that they need only hold on for another 3-1/2 years until an appeasement president is elected. (Please note that is not an accusation, but merely an observation with a vague speculation.)

Nice joke in this email which I got from a friend who got it from a friend who's brother sent it to him. Need I mention the brother lives in Alberta?

A popular bar had a new robotic bartender installed.

A fellow came in for a drink and the robot asked him, "What's your I.Q.?"

The man replied, "150."

The robot then proceeded to make conversation about Quantum physics, string theory, atomic chemistry and so on.

The man listened intently and thought, "This is really cool." The man decided to test the robot. He walked out of the bar, turned around, and came back in for another drink.

Again the robot asked him, "What's your I.Q.?"

The man responded, "100." So the robot started talking about football, baseball, and so on. The man thought to himself, "Wow, this is really cool."

The man went out and came back in a third time. As before the robot asked him, "What's your I.Q.?"

The man replied, "50."

The robot then said, "So, you gonna vote Liberal again?"

I will be working two shifts tomorrow (mostly so than I won't feel guilty when I book off on July 4) so want to take the opportunity now to wish those of you getting out of town a happy Canada Day and Independence Day! Camping, barbecues, baseball games, hot dogs and beer. What's not to like?

I wish I had me a Democrat to vote against!

June 28 - Sorry for the non-posting; I've been trying to get to sleep before the full heat of the day sets in but that means I wake up when the family starts drifting home and using the computer.

I have to work tonight so will miss the president's message, but there are some things I wish he would say in addition to those he is expected to say.

I wish he would start by reminding us of the feared casualty figures in the taking of Baghdad at the start of Iraqi Operation Freedom. You'll remember, I'm sure, the urban house-to-house fighting scenario that was envisioned; I don't remember exactly how many casualties were anticipated but it was in the five digit range.

We were prepared to accept those losses. What does it say about us that we were prepared to accept a huge number of casualties in the early days of the war but can't handle what are undeniably lower figures over a longer period?

I wish he would say that the anti-Iraqi forces too understand Vietnam Syndrome and that they know that the steady drip-drip of casualties sap at our will and fortitude. The only issue is if we will capitulate to it or, recognizing their strategy, remain implacable.

Nothing has changed in our reasons for trying to change the unchallenged rule by despots in the mid-east. The mission remains the same. It takes effort and will to endure in any long-term struggle, and we have those qualities within us and need only to marshall them.

I wish he would say that "everything" didn't change on Sept. 11; that day was simply one event in a series of attacks on the U.S. What did change is that we had a president who responded with more than words.

I wish he would then remind those indignant over Rove's remarks about the response of many liberals to Sept. 11 that those recollections were accurate, and that perhaps they doth protest too much and that should we revert to pre-Sept. 11 policies we would be making ourselves more, not less, vulnerable.

I wish he would explain to Barbara Boxer that the reason he is unable to get European allies to assist in Iraq is because they are more anxious to appease the Islamofascists than confront them. It's not a failure in American leadership but rather the timidity of a European leadership that has yet again failed to confront fascism.

I wish he would remind Sen. Clinton that she had her chance to influence American response to terror attacks during her eight years in the White House and that, given the abject failure of the Clinton administration to adequately respond to those attacks, shutting up might be a good plan.

I wish he would go off-topic and state that it is deeply stupid to start the 2008 presidential campaign now, and remind Democrats that they would be wiser to worry over the mid-term elections.

I wish he would tell the US media to lay off the round the clock coverage of the missing girl in Aruba.

Lastly, I wish he would denounce the "no trans fat" Oreo and urge legislation that declares the original Oreo to be a national treasure and forbid tampering with or altering it.

Douglas Wood's rescue

June 16 - Wretchard makes some very shrewd observations about the rescue of Australian Douglas Wood in Iraq in The Six Weeks.

The fork in the road

June 15 - Even though I don't often post about Iraq, it is never far from my mind. It is painful to read that bombs kill 28 but it reminds us of what kind of people are held at Gitmo: monsters who deliberately target and murder civilians. Such acts are clearly outside the rules of engagement and that is why the Geneva Convention, which sought to protect civilians, takes a harsh view of "illegal combatants."

It is beyond my comprehension that so much sympathy is wasted on those of their ilk rather than on their victims, who are guilty of nothing more than going to work or shopping (much as were the victims of Sept. 11.)

At some point the high road taken by left wingers came to an abrupt end and the road forked. Their ideals were confronted by their anti-anything-American, and they found themselves confronted by the same philosophical, moral and ethical dilemma that has challenged us all since Sept. 11.

The failure of the left is that they thus far refuse to recongize that there is a challenge which requires they think through their ideology and adapt. Rather, they remain frozen at the fork, seemingly unable but perhaps incapable of departing from their traditional anti-Americanism to offer ideas and solutions in this new war with an enemy which, they shouldn't need reminding, implacably opposes all our beliefs in tolerance and human rights.

One curious item in the report from Iraq is on the arrest of Jassim Hazan Hamadi al-Bazi, also known as Abu Ahmed:

In announcing the arrest of al-Bazi, the government said he built and sold remote-controlled bombs used in roadside attacks from an electronic repair shop in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

He sold the bombs for about $18,000 each "and was involved in building suicide vehicle" bombs and land mines that were used in Balad and Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the statement said.

I would like to take that to mean that they are worried about funding, but I suspect that al-Bazi was feathering his own nest.

Paradoxically, his rights will be protected only because the Iraqi government he is trying to destroy adheres to the sanctity of those rights, whereas the government he wishes to impose does not. Had he been caught under the reign of the Islamofascists or the Ba'athists, he would have endured torture and a painful death.

And the left would have been silent.

04:49 - Dr. Sanity charts La Belle Indifference of the mainstream press and, were I not inherently tech-challenged, I would try to devise a similar one for the Canadian media and the current political crisis.

Tables may defy me, but I can make a list!

Item #1 - PM Martin said he was mad as hell over Adscam, but Opposition Leader Stephen Harper is faulted for appearing angry.

Those who adhere to a double-standard cannot be considered impartial or objective.

Further down that road

June 7 - Michael Yon continues the narrative of his travels in Iraq. After leaving Dohuk (his visit was recounted here,) he travels a bit further afield to a Yezdina village inhabited by a people who practice an unusual and ancient religion and his visit with Mr. Qatou Samou Haji Aldanani, the Headman of the village, is to relive the past 25 years of Iraq's history.

Future possbilities and memories of the past merge in Michael Yon's Lost in Translation.

Got a hammer?

June 5 - Greyhawk's Dawn Patrol reports against a sobering backdrop:

Insurgent violence has claimed the lives of 12,000 Iraqis over the past 18 months, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Thursday, giving the first official count for the largest category of victims of bombings, ambushes and other increasingly deadly attacks.

The WaPo article then reports some news in Operation Lightening and thus tacitly acknowledges that there is just cause to hunt down the "insurgent" bastards.

This item actually appears a quarter through the Patrol, though, because Greyhawk prefaces today's entry with something he wrote last January after the Iraqi elections:

So amidst the triumph, I saw yesterday as a Memorial Day, of a sort, for those many who fell to make it possible. Some might try and use those deaths for their own ends, or to justify their belief that we should never have walked this path. Such people don't believe in heroes. They can't even comprehend this simple fact; no one is more opposed to war than the soldier. He knows the cost and has seen the carnage. But as I wrote at the top of the sidebar long ago: The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior, who prefers to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day he stands fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.

Today we re-build broken things. Grab a hammer or get out of the way. (Italics in original)

Read the whole thing, follow the links, then grab a hammer. There's lots to rebuild here, too.

Operation Lightening

June 5 - Marines Find 'Insurgent Lair' Outside Baghdad.

Air conditioning? I guess it is one thing to detonate bombs that will tear the limbs off of children in a marketplace but an entirely different thing altogether to be uncomfortable while planning those attacks.

A road less well traveled

June 3 - One last link before I try to get some sleep, and it's about something that I for one really need: a smile.

Michael Yon, who is embedded with the historic Deuce Four, has a post and some photos from his stay in the Iraqi city of Dohuk outside of Mosul:

A visit to this place affords more than a break from the rugged routine of war; it also provides a postcard of a possible future for all of Iraq.

We can get so lost in operations, terrorist bombings in mosques and casualty figures that we feel as if all of Iraq is in turmoil and forget that most of Iraq's people are busily building, working and thriving because they have faith in their futures.

Many thanks to Mrs. Greyhawk's Dawn Patrol for linking us up to this all too rare look at what's happening in the sections of Iraq that few reporters see fit to visit.

Another bit of news: Jason Van Steenwyck re-upped. He was thinking of hanging up his spurs but, as he put it,

... my government is asking me to stay on one more year in command. And how can an officer turn down command?

I don't know!

From the field: an embed speaks

May 25 - Michael Yon, who's photo "Little Girl" spread across the internet and became part of the American historical record, writes about how information is dissiminated among journalists in Iraq And now, for the rest of the story.....

Interesting read, and very discomforting. If the U.S. military is reporters' main source they ought to admit it instead of trashing the military. Maybe they feel guilty because they aren't doing their jobs properly? (I don't exactly blame them - I'd fear for my safety too were I there - but they should be more honest about how they collect the news.)

(Link via Newsbeat 1

May 29 - I hope I didn't give the impression that I was criticizing Mr. Yon. He is doing what a true reporter does - getting the facts himself in the first-person-singular manner we once assumed all reporters did.

Two Operation Squeeze Plays

May 23 - That's right, two, and they both are taking place in Baghdad.

The first is military: Iraqi, U.S. troops launch offensive:

Seven Iraqi battalions backed by U.S. forces launched an offensive in the capital Sunday in an effort to stanch the violence that has killed more than 550 people in less than a month.

From the D.O.D., Operation Squeeze Play Aims to Crack Down on Terrorists:

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2005 – Local commanders from the Iraqi Interior and Defense ministries and coalition forces met May 21 to discuss Operation Squeeze Play, which is designed to deal with terrorist actions in Baghdad's Rusafa neighborhood.

"This is just the beginning of a new era of cooperation between the Iraqi police, public-order brigades and the Iraqi army. From now on, forces from the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense and coalition forces will work together to defeat the terrorists in Baghdad," U.S. Army Col. Joseph DiSalvo, commander of coalition forces in the eastern Baghdad area, said to open the meeting.

An Iraqi commander said it was important to note this was the first time all the different Iraqi ministry units were meeting to talk about an operation. "This will go a long way toward making all of our groups more effective and unified," he said. (Emhasis added)

It was not without price: the price must be endured:

Four U.S. soldiers were killed May 22 in operations in Iraq, while coalition and Iraqi forces continue to round up weapons and suspected terrorists.

Three soldiers attached to Task Force Freedom were killed and one was injured in two separate terrorist attacks in Mosul, military officials in Baghdad reported. The injured soldier was taken to a combat hospital for treatment.

One Task Force Liberty soldier died of his wounds after a car bomb exploded near a combat patrol in Tikrit, officials said.

But we must maintain our focus on the big picture:

In other operations, coalition and Iraqi forces in Baghdad detained 285 suspected terrorists in less than 24 hours, officials said today. The action was part of Operation Squeeze Play, a "massive joint combat operation," which is still under way, to hunt down, kill or capture terrorists who have been staging attacks in the Iraqi capital.

[...]

"The majority of Iraqis are fed up with terrorism and terrorists, and they're doing something about it by turning them in," Kent said.

Iraqi and coalition forces have realized some recent successes in thwarting attacks. (Emphasis added)

Freedom isn't free, an old axiom yet one nonethless true, although the ongoing attacks on civilians wasn't supposed to be part of the deal.

Zarqawi has tried to alter the conditions of war, and although he may believe it is acceptable to murder innocent men, women and children in his bloodlust, we most vehemently disagree and will forge on and conduct this war under our terms and true to our moral convictions.

And as for second squeeze play, we have this not terribly surprising story from the NY Times: Sunni Arabs Are Uniting To Compete with Shiites, a somewhat misleading headline which reports something that was hoped for:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 21 - In a stark reversal from earlier this year, when Sunni Arabs boycotted national elections here, a broad gathering of Sunni sheiks, clerics and political leaders formed a political alliance on Saturday, seeking to win back the political ground they had lost to Shiites.

The meeting was the first wide-scale effort by Iraq's embittered and increasingly isolated Sunnis to band together politically, and was broadly attended by what organizers said was about 2,000 Sunni Arabs from Baghdad and nearby cities. The gathering was an implicit acknowledgment that it had been a mistake to turn away from the political process and allow Shiites to control the government for the first time in modern Iraqi history. (Emphasis added.)

Let Freedom Ring! Iraq belong to the Iraqi people - Sunni, Kurd, and Shiite - not us, and most certainly not to a deranged Jordanian psychopath.

There's a bit more in the article about feigned outrage over posting the photos of Saddam in his undies, which of course was wrong (and besides, gave my cats nightmares) but I'll always have this:

Saddam's Russian friends

May 16 - Taha Yasin Ramadan, Saddam's vice-president, told a U.S. Senate committee that oil vouchers were "compensation for support" in efforts to lift sanctions against the former regime.

A report issued by the investigation sub-committee for Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has named highly placed Russian political figures as recipients of the oil vouchers: Alexander Voloshin, former chief of staff to President Vladimir Putin, and Russian lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Russia's foreign ministry said it would be unethical to comment before the final release of the U.N.'s own internal commission report, an investigation with which Russia says it is cooperating.

The Senate committee will hold hearings on this matter tomorrow.

Operation Matador concludes

May 15 - The NY Post concludes that Operation Matador was a success:

A weeklong U.S. offensive near Iraq's border with Syria was pronounced a success yesterday, with military officials saying soldiers had "neutralized" a rebel sanctuary and killed more than 125 militants.

Many more guerrillas were injured and 39 with "intelligence value" were captured, the military said in a statement. It provided no details about the detainees.

Nine U.S. Marines were killed and 40 injured during the campaign known as Operation Matador, during which American forces searched the Euphrates River villages of Karabilah, Rommana and Obeidi for followers of Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The capture of people of "intelligence value" cannot be underestimated - it allows cover to pursue leads without endangering sources who could have been outed otherwise.

The DoD has more.

It's difficult not to look for a sub-text in the names of operations as this one, and I found my own interpretaiton in the nature of bull-fighting itself: the use of a diversionary cape to keep the bull distracted and the "moment of truth" each matador faces when he must allow the bull to come very, very close in order to kill it.

(The closest I can come to describing the intricate beauty of bull-fighting is to refer you here.)

11:00 - Belmont Club has two posts from Thursday: one here with analysis and one here which quotes from an AP dispatch sent from the other side of the Syrian border.

Operation Matador - Day 6

May 12 - retro-posting (again!) noting the final steps as this operation winds down Suspected Insurgent Hideout Flattened in Iraq:

The U.S. offensive — one of the largest since militants were forces from Fallujah six months ago — came amid a surge of militant attacks that have killed more than 420 people in just over two weeks since Iraq's first democratically elected government was announced.

Snipers opened fire on the motorcade of Interior Ministry undersecretary Maj. Gen. Hikmat Moussa Hussein in western Baghdad on Friday, killing one of his guards and wounding three, police Maj. Moussa Abdul Karim said. Hussein escaped unharmed.

Elsewhere in western Baghdad, insurgents fired on Iraqi soldiers who were searching the area, prompting a 30-minute gunbattle, said police Maj. Abdul Karim. There was no immediate word on casualties

Ralph Peters makes this observation:

Terrorism revealed its soul: merciless, vindictive and in love with death itself. There's no strategic plan behind the slaughter of Iraqi workers in a marketplace in Tikrit or the butchering of other Sunni Arabs in Hawija. Suicide bombings in a Baghdad bazaar don't have cunning goals.

The terror attacks are no longer about changing Iraq. They're about punishment.

[...]

Zarqawi isn't hopeful. He's outraged. And humiliated. Now he's out to make Iraqis pay for choosing freedom and peace over brutalized religion and ethnic fascism.

Consider the locations of recent bombings. Tikrit was Saddam's hometown. Hawija had been a hotbed of fanaticism and resistance. A year ago, terrorists and insurgents had the run of the house at both locations, to say nothing of Fallujah. Today? Tikrit has turned from terror. Hawija wants the foreign Islamists out. Fallujah's finished.

The terrorists feel betrayed.

So they kill. Poor laborers gathered to beg for part-time work. Women and children. Police recruits. Low-level officials. Students. And any passers-by who get in the way. Simple Muslims slain by "holy martyrs of Islam" in suicide vests. By the fountains of paradise, Mohammed must be weeping.

Operation Matador, Day 5

May 12 - (This is just a bit of retro-posting for the sake of continuity) Bombs and assassinations in Bagdad Bombings Kill Two Iraqi Security Officers, Three U.S. Soldiers

Operation Cobweb

May 11 - Operation Matador is not an isolated offensive; 'Operation Cobweb' Targets Enemy in Iraq's Wasit Province:

Coalition soldiers from Multinational Division Central-South conducted Operation Cobweb from May 6 to 10 to find and capture terrorists in the northern part of Iraq's Wasit province, military officials in Baghdad reported today.
The 1st Polish Brigade Combat Team, the 8th Iraqi Division and the 19th Iraqi Brigade participated in the operation, officials said.

A written statement from Multinational Force Iraq said the operation had "liquidated" the terrorist group that had been operating in southern Baghdad.

Twenty-nine suspects were detained; 40 kinds of guns were confiscated; and explosive materials and clockwork time fuses were found along with films of the murders of Iraqi Interior Ministry officials and other materials concerning anti-coalition and anti-Iraqi government activities, officials said. Uniforms that were used during executions also were found.

Sorry for the laziness of just quoting from the news release; I'm in a rush (see above post.)

Operation Matador - pouring it on

May 11 - The DoD news release makes some very interesting observations about the enemy in Operation Matador: Helping Flush Insurgents From Western Iraq:

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2005 – Troops fighting in Iraq's northwestern Anbar province are facing a sizable and skilled insurgency, with some members seen fighting in military uniforms and protective vests, the Joint Staff's director of operations told Pentagon reporters here today.

[...]

Conway said the region has witnessed a buildup of insurgents since the fall of Fallujah, when they began moving west. (Emphasis added)

The use of protective vests isn't a surprise, but uniforms? (Those who read Belmont Club already knew that the insurgency headed closer to the Syrian border when Fallujah was taken.) The DoD report continues:

Conway said he's not surprised by the strength and capability of the insurgency being encountered. "We know this is a determined enemy, that he has the skill and ordnance (and) the weapons to be able to resist fiercely, as we are seeing here," he said.

Attacks on Iraqis who want to be part of their country's future continue, but much as the Battle of the Bulge was fierce precisely because it was the beginning of the end, the intensity of both the defense and the high number of attacks on Iraqis signals not optimism but desperation as Iraqis continue to reject and be intimidated by them.

The Washington Times article by Rowan Scarborough on the operation makes a critical point which in part affirms the value of the January elections:

The war's changing nature is also illustrated by the list of the high-ranking enemy announced as captured by the new Baghdad government. Virtually all of those caught since December have been identified as lieutenants of the Jordanian-born Zarqawi, not operatives for Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein.

David Warren put forth a hypothesis early on that the war in Iraq was "carefully hung flypaper" intended to lure terrorists to Iraq, and although I don't think it was so much pre-planned (one would think the Afghan campaign would have been the battleground more than Iraq had there been such a strategy) I do believe it a confirmation of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Belmont Club's post today (which also notes his past analysis of the westward movement from Fallujah and thus saved me a lot of time searching for the older link) looks at a trap between hammer and anvil in which the enemy is caught and why this operation is so critical:

However, the fact that Operation Matador is taking place at all and is being fiercely resisted strongly suggests that both the Coalition and the insurgents regard controlling access to the Syrian border important. That it is contested is an empirical fact, but the really fascinating question is why should this be so. My own belief (speculation alert) is that the single most important requirement of the insurgency is not vast quantities of weapons but a supply of trained fighters and money. There is very little prospect of moving very large quantities of munitions and materiel into Iraq from Syria. Camp Gannon at Qusabayah has closed the road for some time now. But this is unimportant because there are huge amounts of loose explosive and weaponry lying around Iraq and the absolute quantities of these needed to wage a terrorist war is very low. But what is needed, above all, is a steady supply of trainers who will teach locals to build ever more sophisticated weapons from any available material; men who are absolutely committed, unwavering and ruthless; and who are well supplied with money to pay their way. It may be impossible to infiltrate trucks of materiel through the Syrian border, but it is perfectly feasible to trickle in terrorist technicians and pedagogues.

Wretchard believes this is the beginning of a new campaign, and that in the coming period "both sides will probably attack and counterattack not only in geographical breadth, but in along the depth of each other's echelons."

Barbers targeted in Iraq

May 10 - The Telegraph (UK) describes recent actions in Operation Matador, the current military offensive near the Syrian border to stop the inflow of jihadists from Syria into Iraq. Seems that they are not content to murder Iraqis but also demand a stricter adherence to Islamic law:

... This is most clearly shown in a campaign of violence against barbers.

Since the start of the year 41 have been murdered in the capital, all believed to have been killed for their willingness to cut off a man's beard, in a clear sign that the insurgency is taking a more fundamentalist edge, a shift that is believed to reflect the growing influence of foreign jihadists.

Mohammed Karim, a barber in Baghdad, arrived at his shop last week to find an envelope stuck in the entrance shutter. Inside was a bullet and a note telling him to stop providing shaves and cutting people's hair in the "French style", an Iraqi term for Western cuts.

Mr. Karim put up a sign apologizing for beard cutting and promised to discontinue the service. I don't recall the Minuteman having a facial hair code.

13:27 - More information from the DoD:

Acting on intelligence reports indicating the enemy's location, soldiers from the Army's 814th Multi-Role Bridge Company constructed a pontoon bridge across the Euphrates River.

"Marines crossed over from the southern banks to the north and are now operating in the northern Jazirah Desert and are in pursuit of the enemy," a Multinational Force Iraq news release stated.

Terrorists attacked a Marine convoy near Qaim with small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs, and two suicide car bombs. A Marine M1A1 Abrams tank destroyed one suicide car bomb. The second car bomb damaged an armored Humvee.

No Marines were killed in the attack. Both car bombers died in the engagement, and 10 terrorists surrendered to Marines. Officials said the 10 are being held at a nearby detention center. Coalition and Marine Corps aircraft also participated in the operation.

The news article also reports on more discoveries of munitions caches.

75 anti-Iraqi forces killed in Iraq

May 9 - A new offensive has begun in the northwestern Anbar province and FoxNews reports indicate that up to 75 anti-Iraqi forces were killed in the first 24 hours of fighting.

There has also been an increase in activity in Afghanistan of late, and yesterday two Marines were killed during a 5-hour firefight. 23 anti-Afghan forces are believed to be dead.

It has been one year since Nick Berg was murdered and his vicious killing was posted on the internet.

I've never regretted watching or linking to it, feeling that it was not so much a punishment or chastisement for supporting the war but an obligation to try and remain honest ... acknowledging that whatever gain might come from this risky undertaking there would be men, women and children lost who could never be returned to this life.

The Fox article quotes from Nick's father: "Forgiveness was something I had been wrestling with since the moment I got the phone call that Nick was dead," he said. "I had this huge burning fire within me, and I wanted to get rid of it."

I don't think we were prepared for the bloodlust of the enemy. We thought we had seen evil on Sept. 11, but what we really saw was a brief glimpse of that evil as the 4 planes went down within 2 hours of one another.

Now we've seen over two years of evil in the present tense and the thousands of mass graves in Iraq bespeak of evil in the recent past tense.

One last thought. Pray for Douglas Wood tonight, if you can.

109 captured or killed in Iraq

May 8 - It has been an active couple of days in Iraq: a key Zarqawi aide, Ammar Adnan Mohammed Hamza al-Zubaydi, also known as Abul Abbas, was captured three days ago.

Seven service members were killed over the week-end including three Marines and a sailor in a Haditha fire-fight in which we fought insurgents from their fortifications within a hospital. (Haditha is the city in which 19 men were found executed in a stadium.)

We hit back, capturing or killing 109 terrorists and sizeable caches of weapons and explosives in a series of operations.

In simultaneous operations conducted early today north of the town of Al Qaim, 54 terrorists within the circle of known terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were captured or killed, according to Multinational Force Iraq officials today. Coalition forces also destroyed car bombs, bomb-making material and two buildings that contained large weapons caches to include hand- and rocket-propelled grenades.

Al Qaim is near the Syrian border. Yesterday in Bagdad,

... Task Force Baghdad raids snared 38 terror suspects in the Baghdad area, including two high-value targets in a series of early morning raids May 7.

The raids included getting 29 suspected terrorists in the largest strike of the day in south Baghdad. And a separate operation detained five more suspected terrorists, one thought to be the leader of a terror cell in southwest Baghdad. There, troops also found 1,000 rounds of assault-rifle ammunition in a burlap bag covered with mud.

The other members of the coalition were also busy:

In Babil province May 7, Multinational Division Central South forces detained 17 terror suspects during cordon-and-search operations. Iraqi, Polish, Salvadoran and U.S. troops conducted the combined operation in an area of Al Mashru, capturing anti-Iraqi and anti-coalition forces, illegal weapons and ammunition. (Emphasis added.)

We are keeping the pressure on and hitting them in a number of places.

I fear time is running out for Australian hostage Douglas Wood. I haven't commented before mostly because, well, what could I possibly say? We've been though this too many times and I will never be able to pretend that we've gotten used to it.

Hard as it must be for Australian PM Howard and the Australian people, they have taken the right stand. But it still burns.

A "sinister nexus"

May 7 - Shaken, Occasionally Stirred has a breathtaking series of posts on connections between the Oil-for-Food Program encompassing the recent revelations of how money from the U.N. Oil-For-Food program was funneled to financiers of terrorists and research has led to threads that may tie into the Abu Nidal Organization. Abu Nidal left a long, bloody trail behind him, including the 1985 Christmastime attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports (another event in the category of things that people don't talk about but haven't forgotten.) He died in extremely odd circumstances in Iraq in August, 2002.

Shaken has put all the links together in this post and connecting the dots has led to either a startling coincidence or something that demands a great deal of explaining by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (or jail time. I'm easy.)

How chilling: the name I found listed in Montreal is Albanna, the same name I found that linked to alleged Oil For Food fund redirection by BNP Paribas.

When I did some background research on "Abu Nidal Organization" (ANO), I saw many references to close ties to Iraq, and routing funding through Lebanon. Perhaps a total co-incidence. But it is chilling to find a telephone listing in Montreal for an Albanna that is renting a furnished executive suite, and shares the same name as an executive for a company in Lebanon linked to Oil For Food contracts placed on hold by the US. Very chilling indeed. Scroll down to my earlier posts to see how the dots connect.

Do as he says. I'm heading back for my second read-through.

Bringing it back home

May 7 - Wonderful post from Stuff I Think You Should Know that connects the the war on terror in chilling, close-to-home terms:

And now, for today's Random Thought (TM)
Israel has been a nation for 57 years now. In that time they have suffered through three all-out invasions. At least three times they have been in a life-or-death struggle for independence. In between, there have been smaller conflicts, and of course, nearly continuous terrorist strikes.

[...]

... how about this. The terror bombings we see daily on TV [in Iraq], here at home. Not just one isolated (horrible, yes- massive, yes- four planes, yes- but still just one) incident. Bombings every day. Your local police department, blown up. Your grocery store, blown up. The train you take to get to work, blown up. The car in front of you on the highway, blown up.

D'ya think maybe then we'd get the hint?

People think the War on Terror started for America on September 11. Well, it started for the Israelis the day they became a country- and it hasn't stopped yet.

There is so much more to the post and my excerpts don't really capture the simple power of the piece. I hope you'll read it all and take something from it because sometimes we (or at least I) can use a good, bracing reminder as to why the U.S.A. finally resolved to confront those who wage "war" by using terror as a weapon against civilians and therefore nations which supported terror and harboured terrorists - two of which were Afghanistan and Iraq.

1. Iraq was a strong supporter of anti-Israeli terror. Saddam Hussein provided a financial incentive to successful suicide bombers by gifting their families with US $ 25,000 - the money for which, if it needs to be pointed out, came from his ill-gotten gains from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program.

The corruption of the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program demonized the USA because billions of people held us responsible for deaths attributed to the sanctions, and the corruption of that same program financed murderous terrorism against Israeli citizens. Those who want to believe the U.N. can be reformed must first figure out how the U.N. can wash the blood from its hands.

On September 11 the bond between Israelis and us was strengthened rather than weakened - after all, how many of us chose to view Israelis as role models that day? To draw from their example by forcing ourselves to carry on with our lives despite the burning in our hearts?

Of course, when all the "root causes" were explored, one, pragmatic solution was clearly stated: if we withdrew our support for Israel, we would be in less peril. The cowardly nature of appeasement was thus fully exposed and the offer rejected.

Our reaction to Sept. 11 was decisive yet humane. Although our past half-hearted resignation to those evil things we called the Taliban, Yassar Arafat and Saddam Hussein reproached our consciences, we gave each of them one last chance to behave honourably - and we even told them it was their last chance. That generosity was rebuffed because they had foolishly failed to learn something every school kid knows: the difference between someone who is beside themselves with frustration and someone who is calm with white hot anger.

Thinking Americans, however, also understood one simple fact: the events of September 11 liberated us because our minds were no longer clouded by those Wormtongue-like whisperers of appeasement and self-hatred. The skies of New York may have been darkened with smoke and ash but we knew the sun still shone overhead and, with a staunch great-heartedness that would have gladdened Tolkien, Great Britain and Australia stood tall and proud as true friends and allies.

2. Iraq was a haven for terrorists fleeing from, among others, us. We knew, for example, that Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Abu Musab Zarqawi had received sanctuary in Iraq (some may remember that Zarqawi was prominently mentioned during Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. in February, 2003.)

When President Bush declared war on terror, he reminded us that we are a patient people. It's one of those things that the media and the rest of the world largely dismissed as rhetoric, but Americans understood fully what he meant and a confirmation of a kind was the instantaneous name recognition of Abu Abbas when his capture in Iraq was announced. The names Leon Klinghoffer and Achille Lauro were burned in our collective memory just as surely as Lockerbie and the Munich Olympics.

You see, one of the qualities of patience is that you need not talk incessantly about a certain category of things because with patience comes another admirable trait: perseverance. So we accept that there will be delays, setbacks, detours and that the kids in the back seat will ask "are we there yet?" every 5 minutes - yet we keep the destination in sharp focus, scout and search for the best routes and finally reach journey's end because we actually know the difference between the trip and the destination.

We've endured much death and bloodshed, but there have also been triumphs, the most celebrated ones being the purple forefingers of January, the rising up of the people of Lebanon and the dominating theme of freedom during the president's Inaugural Address. Less well-recognized but just as important have been the debates and squabbling on the new Iraqi council - none of which ended in arrests, gunshots, or the imposition of martial law.

Israel is still standing and the Taliban, Yassar Arafat and Saddam Hussein aren't.

No, we aren't "there" yet but so long as we check our maps, oil and tires regularly we will arrive - tired, disheveled and in need of a hot shower - but we will arrive.

Because we must.

A tale of two pictures

May 5 - There's a picture in Canada's new War Museum that has stirred some controversy. Peter Worthington writes:

Prominently displayed in the new Canadian War Museum, which opens to the public next week, is a 10-foot painting of a Canadian soldier choking a young and bloodied Somali prisoner with a baton.

[...]

Why is this painting in the War Museum?

While the purpose of the new War Museum is not to glorify war, surely its intent isn't to belittle and depict Canadian soldiers as murderers?

Read the whole thing. Peter is admirably restrained in it.

The CBC is also covering the dismay of Veterans groups over the inclusion of the infamous picture and has a response from the artist:

The artist, Gertrude Kearns, said these two paintings deal with the theme of how Canadian soldiers deal with the psychological toll of modern warfare.

She said a committee, which included several veterans, approved her concept.

"These particular works, the ones in the museum, are about conscience. They're also about complexity," said Kearns.

She wants conscience and complexity? If the horrors of Nazi Germany are too simple, she might try this:

Michael Yon

Eager to get to and kill U.S. soldiers, Michael Moore's "Minutemen" plowed through a crowd of children who were playing in the street.

They "got to them" all right, and gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "human shields."

Is that "complex" enough?

Amy Bieger, wife of Maj. Mark Bieger (the soldier in the above photo) is interviewed here.

(NY Post and CBC links and photo via Neale News.)

11:59 - Paul has a lot more to say on the Canadian War Museum's choice of pictures and connects this fiasco to the cheapening of the English language.

14:11 From this post by Michelle Malkin I've learned that the photographer, Michael Yon, has a blog and he has a very moving post titled simply Little Girl. His final line on the eager murderers is "Their day will come."

So say we all.

Saddam, Martin and Strong

Apr. 22 - Adscam may be the least of Paul Martin's worries. Canada Free Press has uncovered damaging information that ties Martin, Maurice Strong, Tongsun Park, Saddam Hussein, and the U.N. Oil for Food project: Hussein invested one million dollars in Paul Martin-owned Cordex.

The Canadian company that Saddam Hussein invested a million dollars in belonged to the Prime Minister of Canada, canadafreepress.com has discovered.

Cordex Petroleum Inc., launched with Saddam’s million by Prime Minister Paul Martin’s mentor Maurice Strong’s son Fred Strong, is listed among Martin’s assets to the Federal Ethics committee on November 4, 2003.

Among Martin’s Public Declaration of Declarable Assets are: "The Canada Steamship Lines Group Inc. (Montreal, Canada) 100 percent owned"; "Canada Steamship Lines Inc. (Montreal, Canada) 100 percent owned"–Cordex Petroleums Inc. (Alberta, Canada) 4.6 percent owned by the CSL Group Inc."

Yesterday, Strong admitted that Tongsun Park, the Korean man accused by U.S. federal authorities of illegally acting as an Iraqi agent, invested in Cordex, the company he owned with his son, in 1997.

In that admission, Strong describes Cordex as a Denver-based company. Cordex Petroleum Inc. is listed among Martin’s assets as an Alberta-based company.Read the whole thing.

Posted by Debbye at 09:26 PM | Comments (2)

Things that keep me awake

Apr. 20 - Over 60 Bodies Found in Iraq.

Story developing.

To think I once fancied myself a pacifist.

20:30: It's bad. Over 50 bodies have been pulled from the Tigris and another 19, believed to be soldiers on leave, were found executed in a stadium in Haditha.

Murdoc has much more.

Australian troops head for Iraq

Apr. 17 - PM Howard of Australia told the soldiers departing for Iraq "You go with our support, our prayers and our good wishes for a safe mission and a return home for all of you."

Members of the Al Muthanna Task Group have already begun departing for southern Iraq, with the navy's heavy-lift ship HMAS Tobruk setting sail from Darwin with 200 crew and 20 Australian light armoured vehicles with little fanfare yesterday.

The troops, mainly from Darwin's 1st Brigade, will be deployed by sea and air during the month.

Mr Howard, joined by Defence Minister Robert Hill, and Defence chief General Peter Cosgrove, attended a barbecue to formally farewell the bulk of the troops at Darwin's Robertson Barracks.

Thank you, Mr. Howard, for being a 100% ally.

Apr. 20 - 04:25: The DoD press release is here.

More mass graves in Iraq

Apr. 16 - From yesterday's New York Times, more pieces of a nightmare from which we can never awaken and a mistake for which we can only try to atone: Iraqis Find Graves Thought to Hold Hussein's Victims:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 14 - Investigators have discovered several mass graves in southern Iraq that are believed to contain the bodies of people killed by Saddam Hussein's government, including one estimated to hold 5,000 bodies, Iraqi officials say.

[...]

At least 290 grave sites containing the remains of some 300,000 people have been found since the American invasion two years ago, Iraqi officials say.

[...]

One of the [newly discovered] graves, near Basra, in the south, appears to contain about 5,000 bodies of Iraqi soldiers who joined a failed uprising against Mr. Hussein's government after the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Another, near Samawa, is believed to contain the bodies of 2,000 members of the Kurdish clad led by Massoud Barzani.

As many as 8,000 men and boys from the clan disappeared in 1983 after being rounded up in northern Iraq by security forces at the command of Ali Hassan al-Majid, widely known as Chemical Ali. It remains unclear, however, how the victims ended up in the south.

Investigators have also discovered the remains of 58 Kuwaitis spread across several sites, including what appears to be a family of two adults and five children who were crushed by a tank, Mr. Amin said. At least 605 Kuwaitis disappeared at the time of the first gulf war, and before the latest graves were discovered, fewer than 200 had been accounted for, he added.

Jalal Talabani chosen as Iraq's intermin president

Apr. 6 - Iraq took another step toward consensual government: the Iraqi Parliament has elected Jalal Talabani as Iraq's Interim President (see BBC profile.)

Two vice-presidents were also elected: a Shiite, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and current interim President Ghazi al-Yawera, a Sunni Arab.

Talabani is to be sworn into office on Thursday.

Aside from electing the prime minister, the president's post is largely ceremonial. Talabani and his two vice presidents — known collectively as the presidential council — are supposed to "represent the sovereignty of Iraq and oversee the higher affairs of the country," according to the interim constitution.

[...]

The Kurdish-led coalition in parliament won 75 of the 275 seats in the Jan. 30 elections. Kurds make up 20 percent of the country's 26 million people; Shiites make up 60 percent and the Sunni Arabs are roughly 15 percent to 20 percent.

Human Rights Minister Bakhtiyar Amin told The Associated Press that lawmakers had asked that Saddam and other jailed members of his former government be shown the process.

"There will be televisions there, and they will be seeing it today," he said.

(Sorry, I just had to include that last bit. It makes me grin.)

The Iraq government has a lot of work to do. I see the advantages and disadvantages of living in a country with sharp, distinctive ethnic sensibilities, but the biggest disadvantage might be the ease with which one ethnic group can be made the scapegoats by another ethnic group when something like a corruption scandal erupts. I guess the real test is if they can make common cause to deal with the issues or get distracted with accusations and counter-accusations that don't really touch on the problems.

(I'm channeling a bit, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong!)

Dealing with anti-Iraqi forces will also be a huge, on-going concern. On Tuesday, an Iraqi soldier was beheaded (timing, anyone?) and the video was put up on the internet. Dr. Rusty covers the horror on behalf of all of us who can still be enraged by these atrocities.

Hope Trumps Despair - 2 years in

Mar. 19 - There have been a series of terrorist attacks in Asia today:

27 Killed in Pakistan Bombing at a Shiite shrine located about 210 miles south of Quetta. Two other bombs went off further south wounding four people.

A car bomb in Beirut wounded nine. Pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud said he won't attend an upcoming summit of Arab leaders in Algeria due to security concerns in Lebanon.

A bomb in a Qatar theater killed a Briton and wounded 12.

Five police officers were killed in Iraq.

On Thursday, a bomb killed 5 and wounded 32 in Kandahar. A suspect has been arrested.

Mar. 20 - 00:37 Australian News is reporting that Scotland Yard has issued an alert for a new campaign by "rogue Irish republican groups." /end update

Today in Europe, tens of thousands of people protested the ongoing violence intended to derail Iraq's steps toward consensual government after Iraqi voters defied terrorists and voted in the historic elections there Jan. 30. Oh wait, that's wrong. They were protesting against the war that removed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"I think it's important to show that we still care about this," said Linn Majuri, 15, a member of the environmental organization Green Youth, who held a banner reading "Drop Bush, not bombs!"

"People have become apathetic about this, it's no longer something they walk around thinking about every day," she said.

Didn't millions of Iraqis disprove her assertion that "people have become apathetic about this" only last January?

Okay, I'll behave. They were actually protesting non-U.N. sanctioned American action (because the U.N. represents corruption international law, you know) against Iraq, and what they perceive as the unleashing of America's military might.

Silly rabbit, Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched in order to avoid unleashing America's full military might. In terms of air power alone, we conducted that war with one arm tied behind our backs.

Sept. 11 represented an escalation of on-going attacks and our counter-attack could have taken many forms (and don't imagine for a minute that there weren't plenty of people agitating for the nuclear option) but the best, albeit most risky, response was to try to avoid the ultimate confrontation by offering the people in the Mid-east a different future: one of hope and realized aspirations. Wicked, huh?

There were small demonstrations in Canada, the largest of about 3,000 being in Montreal. There were also demonstrations in the U.S.A., but, again, they were sparsely attended.

President Bush said

America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women, and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a, Sunnis and others will be lifted. The long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin.

Iraq is a land rich in culture, resources, and talent. Freed from the weight of oppression, Iraq's people will be able to share in the progress and prosperity of our time. If military action is necessary, the United States and our allies will help the Iraqi people rebuild their economy, and create the institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq at peace with its neighbors.

No, wait, that was in October, 2002. His message today was

On this day two years ago, we launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to disarm a brutal regime, free its people, and defend the world from a grave danger.

Before coalition forces arrived, Iraq was ruled by a dictatorship that murdered its own citizens, threatened its neighbors, and defied the world. We knew of Saddam Hussein's record of aggression and support for terror. We knew of his long history of pursuing, even using, weapons of mass destruction, and we know that September the 11th requires our country to think differently. We must, and we will, confront threats to America before they fully materialize.

Now, because we acted, Iraq's government is no longer a threat to the world or its own people. Today the Iraqi people are taking charge of their own destiny. In January, over eight million Iraqis defied the car bombers and assassins to vote in free elections. This week, Iraq's Transitional National Assembly convened for the first time. These elected leaders broadly represent Iraq's people and include more than 85 women. They will now draft a new constitution for a free and democratic Iraq. In October, that document will be presented to the Iraqi people in a national referendum. Another election is planned for December to choose a permanent constitutional government.

Free governments reflect the culture of the citizens they serve, and that is happening in Iraq. Today, Iraqis can take pride in building a government that answers to its people and honors their country's unique heritage.

On the current political landscape in the Mid-east:

Today we're seeing hopeful signs across the broader Middle East. The victory of freedom in Iraq is strengthening a new ally in the war on terror, and inspiring democratic reformers from Beirut to Tehran. Today, women can vote in Afghanistan, Palestinians are breaking the old patterns of violence, and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese are rising up to demand their sovereignty and democratic rights. These are landmark events in the history of freedom. Only the fire of liberty can purge the ideologies of murder by offering hope to those who yearn to live free.

The experience of recent years has taught us an important lesson: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. Because of our actions, freedom is taking root in Iraq, and the American people are more secure.

Yes, I know, the new meme is that bringing freedom to the Mid-east would have a domino effect was an afterthought when locating WMD didn't pan out, but if that is so, why has so much bandwidth been used these past two years with arguments over the feasibility of functional consensual governments in Muslim countries?

Iraqi Assembly Sworn In

Mar. 16 - This is a history day for three reason.

Today marked the anniversary of the 1988 gas attack on Halajba which killed 5,000 people.

Second, Iraqi Assembly Sworn In:

"In the name of God, I swear to carry out my duties and legal responsibilities diligently. I swear to protect the sovereignty of Iraq and the interests of its people and to protects its land and air, its natural resources and its federal democratic system. I also swear to protect public and private liberties and the independence of the judiciary system and to carry out the country's laws, so help me God."

Third, the swearing in ceremony was televised.

(Not historic but nonetheless notable: Iraq forces now number over 14,000.)

The Road to Damascus

Mar. 4 - Charles Krauthammer on the cedar revolution in The Road to Damascus

Revolution is in the air. What to do? We are already hearing voices for restraint about liberating Lebanon. Flynt Leverett, your usual Middle East expert, took to the New York Times to oppose the immediate end of Syria's occupation of Lebanon. Instead, we should be trying to "engage and empower" the tyranny in Damascus.

These people never learn. Here we are on the threshold of what Arabs in the region are calling the fall of their own Berlin Wall and our "realists" want us to go back to making deals with dictators. It would be not just a blunder but a tragedy. It would betray our principles. And it would betray the people in Lebanon who have been encouraged by those principles.

I need to sleep, but on behalf of those of us who have to work Friday night, please, please enjoy the opening night of your weekend!

Things that horrify, things that really horrify

Mar. 2 - Greyhawk's post begins with the murder of a judge in Iraq assigned to Saddam's trial. Then he takes a brief look at Ramsey Clark's posturing about joining Saddam's defense team.

And then what the sands reveal about Saddam's crimes.

"Rush to war" indeed.

Mar 3 - Welcome Mudville Gazette readers! I almost wish this post was longer, but the first comment under this post actually says it all and far better than any elaboration I could have added.

Ya mean that was the plan all along?

Mar. 2 - Sorry, the site went down for awhile.

It all seemed very simple. The Iraqi elections, despite the nay-sayers, were held. As promised. When they were promised. The Iraqis -voters and security personnel -did the rest.

A columnist with a Chicago paper wrote that maybe he'd have to admit that Bush was right all along.

And then the Lebanese people responded to the murder of Rafik Hariri with peaceful solidarity and determination. Those of who who understood and supported the aim of bringing consensual government and respect for human rights to the Mid-east applauded them.

Thomas Friedman wrote a column, and the NY Times wrote an editorial.

But now the rush onto the bandwagon is downright getting out of hand. (Ace is calling it a stampede.) Respected liberals are admitting that Iraq was a good place to start. Others are even going so far as to admit that maybe Bush was right. Even the BBC and Arab media is beginning to catch on.

But then there are others, and Jon Stewart is messing with a guest and suggesting that nobody knew that Operation Iraqi Freedom was all about bringing democracy to the Mid-east! It was a secret! It was a secret plan hatched by Karl Rove and nobody knew (except for the millions of Americans who voted for Bush - they knew!)

18:30: Ace has been on a roll keeping up with all this, and he's got a round-up of his "stampede" posts here. (Of course he would do that after I've been patiently linking every time a new post popped up on his site and me doing all that hard work.)

Mark Steyn

Mar. 1 - New column up at the Telegraph (UK) by Mark Steyn, The Arabs' Berlin Wall has crumbled, in which he looks at the rapid shifts in policies in Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the displeasure of Palestinians over the latest terrorist attack in Israel and asks:

Why is all this happening? Answer: January 30. Don't take my word for it, listen to Walid Jumblatt, big-time Lebanese Druze leader and a man of impeccable anti-American credentials: "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Berlin Wall has fallen."

... In the space of a month, the Iraq election has become the prism through which all other events in the region are seen.

No, I can't condense Steyn. Just read it.

2,000 Iraqis say "No" to terrorism

Mar. 1 - One reaction to the car bomb in Hillah that killed over 125 and wounded nearly 150:

More than 2,000 people demonstrated Tuesday at the site of a car bombing south of Baghdad that killed 125 people, chanting "No to terrorism!"

[...]

The Internet statement by al-Qaida in Iraq said that the attack targeted a registration center for Iraqi police and National Guardsmen. It made no mention of the medical clinic or a nearby market where a number of people were also killed.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the statement, which was posted on the Web site that has previously carried al-Qaida material. The statement was also posted under the name of Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the designated media coordinator of al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

More than 2,000 people held the impromptu demonstration on front of the clinic, chanting "No to terrorism!" and "No to Baathism and Wahhabism!"

Wahhabism is a reference to adherents of the strict form of Sunni Islam preached by Osama bin Laden, while the Baath party was the political organization that ran Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

The demonstrators also demanded that interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi step down.

Police prevented people from parking cars in front of the clinic or the hospital, where authorities blocked hospital gates with barbed wire to stave off hundreds of victims' relatives desperate for information on loved ones.

Provincial Gov. Walid al-Janabi said no funeral procession would be held in Hillah due to "security reasons." He did not elaborate, but police said they feared new attacks. (Bolding added)
From AP

Iraqi voters deserve Nobel Peace Prize

Mar. 1 - Peter Worthington supports an idea raised by Daniel Henninger of the WSJ that the Iraqi voters deserve Nobel Peace Prize:

As Henninger notes, the voters demonstrated "in a single day a commitment not seen in our lifetime to peace, self-determination and human rights -- the goals for which the Nobel Peace Prize began in 1901."

I need to get some sleep. More later.

Saddam's brother arrested in Syria

Feb. 28 - This could be titled "Look what we found" as Syria tries to placate Iraq and the USA with the capture of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan (Syria captures Saddam's brother) by suddenly locating someone on the "Wanted" list:

Iraqi officials yesterday said Syria had captured and handed over Saddam Hussein's half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency.

The action was described by Iraqi authorities as a goodwill gesture by Damascus, but it followed months of Syrian denials that fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime were hiding on their territory.

Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who shared a mother with Saddam, was nabbed with 29 other fugitive members of the former dictator's Ba'ath Party in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, 30 miles from the Iraqi border, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The U.S. military in Iraq had no immediate comment.

What could the U.S. military possibly say? You mean he was in Syria all this time? Who knew?

Mass murder in Iraq

Feb. 28 - True, somewhat grim title but I feel an anger at the pit of my stomach that has no words over this latest outrage (Car Bomb Kills at Least 115 in Iraq.)

I realize that the death cultists have little recourse but to murder and spread mayhem; after all, what else to they have to offer? On my better days I try to pity them for their failure to embrace the gift of life, but most days I just hate them.

FoxNews reports (at least on the televised coverage) that those present worked together to load the wounded onto ambulances and gather body parts of the dead. It's some comfort to see that solidarity and humanity in the middle of the wreckage, and not a day goes by that I don't see new reasons to respect the courage of those trying to build a new nation.

Courage. What a small, pitiful word for such a breathtaking concept.

Iraqi Confidence

Feb. 23 - Despite the murders, bombs and kidnappings, Iraqi men keep enlisting in the security forces (Iraqi police defy danger.)

"The danger is everywhere, but to serve your country is much better than to be afraid and do nothing"

Courageous words with which a nation is being built.

Fallujah - The Movie

Feb. 20 - This 6+ minutes film is worth watching: ARMOR GEDDON: Fallujah THE Movie.

There's a bit of tech involved, so I recommend reading this if the word Torrent in compu-speak means little to nothing to you.

(Via One Hand Clapping)

Possible action in Ramadi

Feb. 20 - From an Australian news agency, Marines aim to secure city of Ramadi:

US and Iraqi troops launched a large-scale operation around the rebellious city of Ramadi today, as part of a nationwide effort to restore order in the wake of last month's election.

Troops from the 1st Marine expeditionary force, supported by Iraqi soldiers, set up a ring of checkpoints around the city, 110km west of Baghdad, and imposed an 8pm to 6am curfew under Operation River Blitz.

[...]

It was not clear if today's operation was a prelude to a larger offensive on Ramadi, which has essentially been in guerrilla hands for most of the past year.

Designated River Blitz, the offensive seems in part to be a response to the attacks on Shiite mosques during Ashura observances.

CNN reports the arrests of some persons including one linked to Zarqawi:

Iraqi police arrested Haidar Mulaqatah during a raid in the Maffaraq area of western Baquba, about 30 miles north of Baghdad in Diyala province. The area has been a frequent site for insurgent attacks against coalition troops and Iraqi security forces.

Police said they also found weapons, including mortars, and equipment used to make counterfeit identification during the raid.

In another raid near Mosul on Saturday, Iraqi security forces captured another suspected insurgent.

Harbi Abdul Khudier Hammudi, who served as a colonel in the old Iraqi air force, is a leader of the Salafist Jihadist terrorist group and is believed to have been involved in several attacks against coalition forces, including the bombing of an Iraqi national guard convoy last year, police said.

And so it continues.

Feb. 21: Canoe News reports

The new operation was under way in several other Euphrates River cities in Anbar, including Heet, Baghdadi, Hadithah and the provincial capital Ramadi, the military said. Hadithah residents reported parts of the city were bombarded by coalition aircraft overnight. There was no word on casualties.

Ashura 2005

Feb. 18 - Religious observances of Ashura in Iraq were again attacked by terrorists leaving at least 27 dead in Iraq blasts. By all accounts, security and police performed well and their efforts - some at the cost of their own lives - reduced the potential death toll of civilians.

I remember the shock of the Ashura terrorist attacks last year only too well. We held our breath, grieved for the dead and wounded, and wondered if a match had been lit. But there was then hope: a march in which Shi'ite and Sunni clerics disavowed sectarian strife:

In an attempt to play down sectarian divisions, Shi'ite Muslim clerics and Sunni preachers led thousands in a march from a Shi'ite suburb in eastern Baghdad to the Kazimiya district where the bombings in the capital occurred.

"We and our Sunni countrymen are, have been and always will be brothers," said Shi'ite preacher Amer al-Hussein, a senior aide to firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an outspoken opponent of the U.S.-led occupation.

Members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council also stressed the need for unity between Shi'ites and Sunnis.

"It was a crime directed not only against Shi'ites, or Islam, but against humanity," said Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a prominent Shi'ite council member. "Anyone who kills a Sunni is against the spirit of Shi'ism. And anyone who kills a Shi'ite is against the spirit of Sunnism," he said.

I continue to be impressed by the will and resilience of the Iraqi people. They are truly amazing.

Feb. 21: The current death toll has risen to 50 dead in 8 attacks. How incredibly sad.

Reprisals in Iraq

Feb. 6 - This story (Policeman who tackled bomber is election hero) begins with the funeral and story of an heroic Iraqi policeman but concludes with some accounts of reprisals against Iraqi voters including the violent removal of purple-stained fingers.

One need only examine their deeds to reconsider the label "insurgent" and replace it with "cowardly bastard" or what may be closer to the mark: counter-revolutionary.

Meet our demands or the toy gets it!

Feb. 2 - So-called U.S. hostage appears to be toy. Is it possible that these would-be terrorists have a sense of humour? I can't help thinking that, on some level, that prospect contains a grain of hope.

15:55: Ace is also covering the story. Be sure and read the comments!

16:23 From Best of the Web Today, Douglas Kern at Tech Central reports that it was The Slinky who betrayed Cody and led him into the ambush where they encountered (shudder) Eeeevil Bert.

I really meant to do some serious posting today, but between Toy Story and coping with the "comments" left by spambots I'm tapped out. (Die, You Worthless Parasites, Die!) More tomorrow.

20:14: Looks like the poker site dude wasted Nicholas's day also.

20:55: My oh my, the spammers have been busy. Wish I had thought of issuing this.

A Reluctant Warrior

Feb. 1 - I meant to cruise around blogs a bit (I'm shamefully behind on my reading) but I stumbled over something that I think readers will enjoy: Revising History is easy from Blather Review.

Guaranteed to bolster the faltering heart, this thoughtful essay calls on us "to reclaim the very human nature of moral clarity from the circular doubt of a cynical academic approach."

I wish I had said that!

Mark Steyn

Feb. 1 - Mark Steyn comments on the recent elections in Iraq, a demonstration in Spain which protested those elections and makes other trenchant observations in his Telegraph (UK) column Iraq is now the home of the brave - and soon the free. He draws a brilliant picture of one of the many ways ripples of freedom spread:

... The most fascinating detail in the big picture was this: Iraqi expats weren't voting just in Sydney and London and Los Angeles, but also in Syria. Think about that. If you're an Iraqi in Syria, you can vote for the political party of your choice. If you're a Syrian in Syria, you have no choice at all. Which of those arrangements is the one with a future?

Want more Steyn? He officially announces the addition of election fiasco in Iraq to "post-9/11 Western media fictions" alongside the brutal Afghan winters, seething Arab street, etc., in his column The 'civil war' that wasn't in The Australian (latter link via Tim Blair.)

10:40: Hmm. Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day, so I suggest that all reflexively anti-American negativists and nay-sayers look for their shadows tomorrow and if they don't see a civil war and if we haven't begun construction of an oil pipeline across Afghanistan and if we aren't stealing Iraqi oil then they'll just shut up for the next 6 weeks!

Bonus points if they just stay in their holes for the next 6 weeks.

Let Freedom Ring!

Jan. 31 - Greetings to anyone who is still checking this blog to see if I've got any new ramblings besides my folks!

The Washington Times headline says it best: Joy explodes across Iraq. And I think a lot of us shared in that joy.

I watched the coverage of the Iraq elections from 2 a.m. Sunday morning until 6 p.m. Sunday evening -- I just couldn't turn FoxNews (heh!) off. Although I wanted to post I was just too overcome by my feelings of humility and thanksgiving. I feel so privileged to be a witness to the courage and determination of the Iraqi people, and more than a little embarrassed because I noted that they were voting in numbers that rival our percentages in tranquil times and I really don't know how we might perform if faced with similar threats of mayhem from people who have a track record of carrying out those threats.

I guess the Iraqi people didn't get that memo about the incompatibility of civil liberties, democracy, Arabs, tribal cultures and Islam, because they certainly exercised their franchise without noticing that it isn't supposed to be in their cultural makeup.

Among those celebrating -- and rightfully so -- are the members of the Iraq Naitonal Guard and Army. I guess they did get the memo about having confidence because they did a spectacular job and are the heroes of Iraq. I was saddened by the reports of those who lost their lives proving themselves to be be true human shields.

I can't even imagine how gratified the men and women of the armed forces serving in Iraq (and those who served and have returned stateside) must feel today. I guess it's at minimum a tangible reassurance that we are on the right path and at maximum that the sacrifices have not been in vain, and perhaps more that any debt the Iraqis may owe us has been paid in full.

Quick detour: I stumbled across FoxNews on Rogers Cable up here in mid-December (which proves that channel surfing is good!) and, although I really, really miss the faint tone of disapproval that permeates far too many CNN reports, I think I'll stick with Fox as my major TV news source for all things American and Iraqi.

I do miss another thing about CNN: I used to yell out some fairly brilliant and insightful things during their news broadcasts because their analysis was so superficial, but Fox seems to have all the context bases covered and I am thus defused. I guess the result is a calmer Debbye, but never fear: the Rant Factor has not left the household because Mark is a dedicated O'Reilly Factor fan. He doesn't miss a single night and when I hear him yell Because they're a bunch of snively whiney rat bastards I know that a) O'Reilly is reporting on something a liberal said and, b) it's past eight and I have to get up to go to work.

I am extremely comfortable with this role reversal. Let someone else get steamed about the John Kerrys and Ted Kennedys (Mark made some really terrific shots about Teddy's wanting to cut and run from Iraq - the mildest was Yeah, Ted, stick with what you know best.

Okay, I lied. I shot out of my chair yesterday when I heard John Kerry's (I won't even use the title of Senator this day) comments on the wonderful election turnout in Iraq. He would have conceded to international opinion and postponed (read cancelled) those elections, and I'm not up on my Dante but I'm pretty sure one of those circles of hell is his destination. Isn't the presidential campaign over? Can't Kerry finally shut up? Americans have been happy to ignore him for over 30 years. Can't we return to normalcy?

The same nagging about the need to bring the international community together? On exactly what basis would he have us come together anyway?

When it came time to be counted, Americans remember who came forward and who lagged in the rear, and we may be a forgiving nation but we aren't a forgetful nation. We are already brought together on those things in which they are willing to participate, i.e., protecting their nations from internal threats, and thus apprehending those in their nations who may pose a threat to our and other nations, and those efforts are appreciated but not misinterpreted -- they are only capable of taking a short view of history, and we need to take a long view. Let's not mistake enlightenment for anaemia and just agree to accept the help from each nation in accorance with what they are willing to offer.

Taking the fight to the enemy takes a special kind of steel, and we thankfully have real allies who can see the danger of mistaking the Ardennes Forest for the trees.

Okay, cheap shot aside, the international community does seem to be brought together somewhat in their reaction to yesterday's elections. Jacques Freakin' Chirac was more upbeat than John Kerry, for crying out loud. This day it's Kerry and Kennedy who are out of step if only because others are realists and cannot deny the immense and irrevocable nature of yesterday's vote in Iraq.

I was further incensed that Kerry should make his comments on the very day that our staunchest allies suffered severe and painful losses. An Australian serving with the RAF, Flt-Lt Paul Pardoel and up to ten British airmen were killed when the Hercules C-130 came down in Iraq, yet he couldn't stop fretting about disapproval from those who oppose us long enough to acknowledge the loss, express his condolences and thank our allies for their sacrifice. What a graceless man.

Sigh. It's becoming very hard for me to keep in mind how totally we defied expectations after Sept. 11. (Maybe because it's been over 3 years and they should have figured it out by now.) Those who don't know us might be forgiven for having assumed that we would react as they would: become consumed with negativity and turn that into cynical passivity, or turn into murderous mobs intent on extracting revenge on the innocent and guilty alike. Instead we looked at those oft-recited root causes and recognized that maybe we could realistically address one of them and chose to take an enormous gamble and offer the twin values of tolerance and government by consent of the governed (necessarily twinned because you can't have one without the other.)

We've stated our aims countless times, and shown the truth of our words by our deeds. Stop looking for what isn't there and deal with what is visible. Maybe then we can talk and the international community can be brought together by a new practice: honesty.

Yesterday's elections were only the first step (like you haven't read and heard that elsewhere!) but that is hardly the point. What is significant is that the first step was taken, and I heartily wish the Iraqis and all those who yearn for freedom to take heart and keep their eyes on the prize. The socialists have one thing right: you have nothing to lose but your chains.

A different message for Bush

Dec. 1 - Among the many protesters of yesterday, Ottawa Sun columnist Earl McRae found one with a different message:

John Al-Hassani is Canadian, too. He's 48. He drove to Ottawa from Oshawa where he's an engineer. He stands on the fringe. His sign says: "Support President Bush."

"I came to this country from Iraq," he shouts in staccato bursts. "I have family there. I talk to them all the time. Look at these fools. They have no idea. They are idiots. They are simple babies. The majority of Iraqis are glad Bush liberated them from Saddam Hussein. But, you don't see that on TV, only the terrorist gangsters blowing people up. They don't speak for the people of Iraq.

Good read.

Black Watch in "Triangle of Death"

Nov. 23 - A report in today's Telegraph (UK) on British troops in Iraq which have blocked escape routes out of Fallujah:

Hundreds of Iraqi insurgents are trapped inside the "Triangle of Death" following the American assault on Fallujah and the blocking of key escape routes by the Black Watch, according to a British military intelligence officer.

He said a "hornet's nest" of insurgents had been stirred by the arrival of the Black Watch and the Queen's Dragoon Guards three weeks ago.

"British troops and US forces have sealed off the insurgents' escape routes and they have nowhere to go," he said. "They are fixed in that area and they are angry.

[...]

The Black Watch base has been hit by rockets and mortars almost every day since the troops arrived. Four British soldiers have been killed and 14 injured. There have been no casualties in the past two weeks, however, and this has led to a growing feeling that the Black Watch is gaining control in a key area.

There are 850 troops at Camp Dogwood, including 550 Black Watch, 105 Queen's Dragoon Guards, a small unit of Marines, plus Engineers and Signals.

There are other Brits in Iraq as well, including the two who were arrested after a gunfight with men guarding the home of the Iraqi Minister of the Interior, Falah al-Naqib.

They have been turned over to the British embassy in Baghdad.

The true Iraqi warriors

Nov. 22 - An assessment of the willingness of Iraqi soldiers to fight for their country is in today's Washington Times in Iraqi forces stick to their guns in battle. Room for improvement? Always. Stronger hope for the future of Iraqi? Absolutely.

(Link via Neale News.)

Death in Fallujah

Nov. 22 - U.S. officials in Iraq believe they may have found the Kenneth Bigley death site in Fallujah:

Details of the house match videos Bigley appeared in during his captivity, including writing on the walls and being held in a chicken-wire cage.

The house also contained shackles and handcuffs.

Based on the evidence, "U.S. intelligence experts believe it is the house, but are not 100 percent sure," Arraf reported.

The Islamic militant group Unification and Jihad claimed to have kidnapped the men. It claims allegiance to terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda.

The discovery of these houses (estimated to be as many as twenty) is almost too horrible to contemplate, and although their connection to Westerners who were held captive and beheaded is well-known what is overlooked is the number of Iraqis who were also caged and beheaded as well as the brutalization of the residents of Fallujah under the rule of the anti-Iraqi forces.

Some of these stories defy our current Western notions about the world, which may be why there is an attempt to romanticize those who held sway in Fallujah and to compare them to Minutemen, but that is naive at best and criminal at worst.

Iraqpundit lays it out squarely in the post Cunning, Resolute, and Tenacious?:

America's agenda-setting press has been quite impressed by the thugs who have been targeting, kidnapping, and murdering defenseless Iraqi civilians. A front-page headline out of Iraq in Friday's New York Times, for example, reads, "Showing Their Resolve, Rebels Mount Attacks in Northern and Central Iraq."

Got that? These murderers have been demonstrating "resolve." Indeed, throughout the battle of Fallujah and in the battles that have followed, American journalists have discovered many impressive attributes in these criminals. According to a week of major-press stories, the "insurgents" are a cunning and courageous band who have been putting up a tenacious struggle.

Here's an alternative headline the Times' staff might have considered: "Showing Their Resolve, Rebels Terrorize Families, Target Children, Disembowel Women, Behead the Elderly."

Iraqpundit cites this London Times as a "reality check" for those who claim to worry about innocent lives yet who would allow those "rebels" of Fallujah free rein to wreak their perverted "resolve" on the residents of Fallujah.

(Iraqpundit link via Instapundit)

Salim Mansur

Nov. 22 - Salim Mansur has another column in which his gift of restoring order to the tumult of individual news stories and thus providing a focus proves invaluable. In A scandal even bigger than (lack of) WMD he pulls together the threads in Dr. Mahdi Obeidi's book The Bomb in My Garden, the Duelfer Report, the Oil-for-Food scandal, Rwanda, the pre-war bickering in the U.N. Security Council and "inverse proportion of rage":

From the killing fields of Rwanda to the killing fields of Iraq, the UN was not an innocent bystander, and Kofi Annan, the man who runs it, has much to answer for.

The great irony in all of this is the inverse proportion of rage against America's liberation of Iraq by non-Iraqi Arabs and Muslims and the Michael Moore crowd in the West, to the rage of Iraqis, as Obeidi narrates, against those who kissed and danced with the devil incarnate in Baghdad.

Reflexive reverence for the U.N. and automatic dismissal of anything said by U.S. officials may be responsible for more deaths than otherwise humane people can stomach.

The legacy of Arafat

Nov. 11 - The news is all about Yassar Arafat and the departure of the helicopter carrying his remains, but I find this more indicative of Arafat's legacy: Troops find captive chained to wall in Iraq.

11:15: Australian PM Howard's candour is refreshing: "History will judge [Araftat] very harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barack, which involved the Israelis agreeing to 90 per cent of what the Palestinians had wanted." (link via Daimnation.)

From the ground in Iraq

Nov. 10 - Mudville Gazette is back up and even though Greyhawk says The Forecast calls for Fog (of War) he cuts through some of that fog decisively with reports on the kind of "insurgent" attacks on Iraqi civilians that go unreported in our own news media and scores a direct hit on Kofi Annan's interference and posturing (with more on that here, including a report from the NY Times that the registration of voters in Iraq is ahead of schedule. Take that, Kofi.)

Fox reports that 70% of Fallujah is under control, and the discovery of a hostage slaughterhouse in combination with the abduction of two members of President Allawi's family and Greyhawks report should suffice to remind us (and Annan) that taking Fallujah and tracking down those who escaped will do more to protect innocent Iraqis than Kofi's pious sentiments.

Tomorrow is Veterans down south of the border and Remembrance Day up here. Is it so much to ask that at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month that people stand at attention and pay honour to the millions of brave men and women who made the struggle for freedom their personal responsibilities? I don't think so.

Nov. 11 - Timbre reminded me that Nov. 10 is the 229th birthday of the US Marine Corp. Semper fi!

Fallujah Update (and bumped)

Nov. 9 - From David Frum:

For days before the U.S. election, Marines and Iraqi troops massed around the city of Fallujah. As the voters arrived at the booths, they knew that their ballots would determine the whole future course of the war in Iraq. With everything at stake, they cast those ballots for George Bush.

Now the battle has begun. What is to come we cannot know. But we can know this: Fully aware of the stakes, American voters massively rejected the candidate who promised to put an end to battles like Fallujah--and massively voted in the candidate who pledged to do whatever was necessary to win these battles.

It is a hard thing to read of casualties and know them to have been in obedience to our wishes. We owe it to them to stay the course and give meaning to their sacrifice. Godspeed to our troops and Allah bless their Iraqi comrades.

For analysis and insights read Belmont Club (read this, this and this sheesh he's fast and, this latest.)

The contributors at The Command Post comb the internet and get information online faster than CNN. Go to their Iraq page and check back often for updates on Fallujah as well as the rest of Iraq.

I just can't take any more of CNN. Is it just me, or is it as plain as daylight that for the Iraqi army to work with us to take Fallujah is in many significant ways more important for them than for us? CNN's main talking point continues to be that having the Iraqi army fight is part of our exit strategy, which overlooks the rather obvious fact that the Iraqi army is taking responsibility for the future stability of Iraq on behalf of and for the Iraqi people and, if you will, this is a major part of their entrance strategy as a sovereign nation.

Is it me, or are the people at CNN racists? They simply refuse to give the Iraqis the respect they have so completely earned.

I really hate don't like CNN.

12:36: Instapundit recommends this war coverage media viewing guide. (What liberal media?)

Murdoc recommends The Fourth Rail, and rightly so. (Murdoc is always right.) I recommend Murdoc's post here (I'm a sucker for aerial shots.)

Chester is doing live-blogging over there, and ACE is reading between the lines of the news and profiles the new Pumpkin-Hurler, but I haven't been able to get Greyhawk since last night.

15:05: Spot on from Lileks:

This is one of the big battles of the Iraq campaign; this is where the loop that began in Somalia is closed and welded shut.

Remember those who serve in our names.

Chrenkoff's Good News from Iraq

Nov. 9 - Many good features in this Arthur Chrenkoff article, including a look at how the flourishing Iraqi news media is reporting on and encouraging participation in the upcoming elections, procedures for registering voters for the January 27 elections, and a poll on how the Iraqis view the terrorism and "insurgents."

Who could have envisioned such events only four short years ago?

I think it proper to reflect that Iraqis and Americans alike know fully for what their and our brave men and women are fighting in Fallujah.

Election and Good Advice

Nov. 2 - I predict that a lot of you won't get much more sleep tonight than I did today and that, whatever the outcome, we will survive.

I feel a sense of relief that it's over, and both sides know they have done their best. [Update Nov. 3: I spoke too soon! It isn't over yet ...] It will be interesting to see if there are any observable after-effects of the unprecedented voter turnout and renewed political activism of so many citizens.

Greyhawk is giving some Free Advice, which I think is one of his finest pieces yet.

Until tomorrow.

Transcript of Osama tape

Oct. 30 - I still haven't seen the tape (and am unlikely to, as I'd have to, like, tune on CNN and pay attention in order to view the tape ... yeech!) but the Fox website has what appear to be most of the words and Matt Druge has the transcript.

Is he actually suing for peace? I think we've gone way, way beyond that, although it will please those who are openly in favour of appeasement.

So long, Osama. Nice to hear from you again, but we're a bit busy these days hunting down your friends and dispatching them to the lower regions of Hell.

If you let us know where you can be reached, we'll drop a daisy cutter by for tea someday.

11:23: Some different views on the tape from Wretchard (who says "Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out,") Beldar (who believes he is making "an invitation to Pres. Kerry to negotiate a truce,") Donald Sensing calls it a "yawner" and notes "the tape is the best al Qaeda can do. A videotape is their pre-election surprise" and although he cautions against letting our guard down thinks "... the new OBL tape should encourage us that we are winning. Before 9/11, bin Laden acted, not blustered. Now bluster is about all he's got against America, though al Qaeda sadly still kills abroad." Roger Simon reluctantly admits OBL seems alive, and links to a commenter with more than the usual credentials who makes some interesting observations that suggest OBL really is dead (a must read!)

It struck me that OBL is suing for a separate peace. That would mean that, having initiated and take the leadership in the war on terror, we could just abandon it and save our skins, but what of our allies? What of Iraq?

Another thing: he focuses solely on the Mideast, but doesn't mention other hot spots, such as Indonesia. Australia has her own just grievances against OBL, but unless something has occurred in the past few hours, a similar offer hasn't been made to her or any of our other allies (the real ones, I mean, not the "traditional" ones, as an offer was allegedly made to France in exchange for rescinding the headdress ban.)

There have been a variety of opinions as to whether this helps President Bush or Senator Kerry, and we should see a lot of spin from the media and their trained seals experts as to which. As though we haven't already had plenty of that in the course of this campaign.

To more important matters: it appears the assault on Fallujah is underway, and eight good Marines have died.

Semper fi.

Oct. 31 - 18:01 - I'm wrong about the campaign in Fallujah. Iraqi interim Prime Minister Allawai is warning that patience is wearing thin:

Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's warning, delivered in a nationally televised news conference, occurred as U.S. forces prepare for a showdown with thousands of militants holed up in Fallujah - the city that has become the focal point of armed resistance to the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

Allawi appeared to be aiming to prepare the Iraqi public for an onslaught likely to unleash strong passions, especially among the country's Sunni Muslim minority.

[...]

U.S. officials say Allawi will personally issue the final order to launch any all-out assault on Fallujah and other Sunni insurgent strongholds north and west of the capital.

Allawi gave no deadline for talks with Fallujah city leaders to bear fruit, but he insisted they must hand over foreign fighters and allow Iraqi security forces to take control of the city.

"We have now entered the final phase of attempts to solve Fallujah without a major military confrontation. I hope we can achieve this, but if we cannot, I have no choice but to secure a military solution," he added.

It's easy for me to sit over here and wish for faster action, but Allawi has to think of Iraq's future and the difficult task of knitting together the different factions to create a strong, unified country.

What is in those boxes?

Oct. 29 - The issue from beginning of this story was when did they go missing.

A news video might be of the missing explosives or they might show another explosive material classified 1.1D.. (I didn't see ABC News last night so can't comment to the video shown in that broadcast, but Deacon at Power Line says its useless.)

By the way, Fox has the IAEA report of January 14, 2003, online here in .pdf form for anyone who is interested (it's about 11 pages long in Adobe Acrobat.)

CNN has what may be the best description of the affair: Two more bits of possible evidence have surfaced in the mystery of the missing Iraqi explosives, but they appear to bolster two different scenarios as to what may have happened to the cache.

Maj. Austin Pearson with the 3rd ID has stated that they removed and destroyed about 250 tons of explosives from Al Qaqaa in April, 2003 but doesn't know if they were the ones said to be under IAEA seal.

I turned CNN on in time to hear commentators express incredulity that the Pentagon cannot yet state which explosives were destroyed by the 3rd ID, which reinforces the fact that none of them have ever served in the armed forces. Sen. Kerry is pounding the same theme, though, which is odd because we all know that he did serve so he should know fully that backtracking events in the military is laborious and time-consuming. They don't call it "the army way" for nothing.

The stickers said to be on the boxes in the video released by ABC evidently are of a substance that is mixed with water (or did ABC use stock footage of boxes that were not at Al Qaqaa?) I've had some small experience with Hazmat designation numbers up here in Canada, and all I know for sure is that the classification numbers are intended to tell emergency crews what they are dealing with - corrosives, explosives, etc. - rather than identify any specific substance. If I'm following this correctly, the IAEA numbers have the same degree of specificity.

But now the debate has shifted over to things that make my eyes glaze over as the last chemistry class I took was long ago.

Wretchard does his best to clarify matters for even a science-challenged person like me here and looks at the possible content of those boxes here.

Sometimes one just has to rely on their common sense. Power Line notes drily "I'm not sure how you would "specifically search for" seven hundred fifty-four thousand pounds of explosives, but somehow, I suspect that if you saw them, you'd notice." The supposition that two different military units failed to notice that many boxes under IAEA seal just doesn't hold water.

A woman of courage

Oct. 29 - Be sure and read Humalia Akrawy: An Iraqi Woman Speaks Out.

I tried to excerpt it to give you a taste of how passionately the post vibrates with her love of freedom, and couldn't. You will have to read it for yourself.

(Link via One Hand Clapping.)

Those missing explosives III

Oct. 28 - This is going to be one of those crescendo posts, so if you're in a hurry, skip to the last two links.

The NY Times reports today that President Bush responded to the charge that US forces were negligent and allowed 380 tons of explosives to fall into terrorist hands:

"Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site," Mr. Bush told thousands of Republicans at an airport rally in Lancaster County, Pa., his first stop of a day that took him through three states.

"This investigation is important and it's ongoing," he said, "and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief."

The exact timing of the disappearance of the explosives is critical to the political arguments of each campaign. Mr. Kerry's contention that the administration did not adequately secure the country and was unprepared for the war's aftermath presumes that the explosives disappeared after the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003, as officials of the interim Iraqi government say.

If the explosives disappeared before Mr. Hussein fell, as Mr. Bush now says is possible, that would undercut Mr. Kerry's argument and bolster Mr. Bush's contention that his opponent is making charges without all the facts.

[...]

The last time that international inspectors saw the explosives was in early March 2003, days before the American-led invasion. It is possible, inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency say, that Saddam Hussein's forces may have tried to move the material out of the 10 huge bunkers at the Al Qaqaa facility where it was stored to save it if the facility was bombed.

If so, that would partly support Mr. Bush's contention that the Iraqis could have moved 380 tons of material very far without being detected.

But Mr. Bush on Thursday did not address a critical issue raised by the discovery of the missed explosives: why American forces were not alerted to the existence of a huge cache of explosives, even though the atomic energy agency and American officials had publicly discussed the threat it posed, and knew its exact location.

The commander of the troops that went into the Al Qaqaa facility on the way to Baghdad in early April, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, has said he was never told the site was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began.

I'm not necessarily knocking the Times, but if I'm following this story properly, what the inspectors saw in early March were seals, not explosives, and they only verified that the seals had not been broken. A small detail, but one which may be significant.

Another article in the NYT, 4 Iraqis Tell of Looting at Munitions Site in "03, revisits the looting (perhaps because it's the only leg this story has left to it?) and still can't answer when the explosives went missing:

Agency [IAEA] officials examined the explosives in January 2003 and noted in early March that their seals were still in place. On April 3, the Third Infantry Division arrived with the first American troops.

Chris Anderson, a photographer for U.S. News and World Report who was with the division's Second Brigade, recalled that the area was jammed with American armor on April 3 and 4, which he believed made the removal of the explosives unlikely. "It would be quite improbable for this amount of weapons to be looted at that time because of the traffic jam of armor," he said.

The brigade blew up numerous caches of arms throughout the area, he said. Mr. Anderson said he did not enter the munitions compound.

The Second Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division arrived outside the site on April 10, under the command of Col. Joseph Anderson. The brigade had been ordered to move quickly to Baghdad because of civil disorder there after Mr. Hussein's government fell on April 9.

They gathered at Al Qaqaa, about 30 miles south, simply as a matter of convenience, Colonel Anderson said in an interview this week. He said that when he arrived at the site - unaware of its significance - he saw no signs of looting, but was not paying close attention.

Because he thought the brigade would be moving on to Baghdad within hours, Al Qaqaa was of no importance to his mission, he said, and he was unaware of the explosives that international inspectors said were hidden inside.

Pentagon officials said Wednesday that analysts were examining surveillance photographs of the munitions site. But they expressed doubts that the photographs, which showed vehicles at the location on several occasions early in the conflict, before American troops moved through the area, would be able to indicate conclusively when the explosives were removed.

Col. David Perkins, who commanded the Second Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, called it "very highly improbable" that 380 tons of explosives could have been trucked out of Al Qaqaa in the weeks after American troops arrived.

Moving that much material, said Colonel Perkins, who spoke Wednesday to news agencies and cable television, "would have required dozens of heavy trucks and equipment moving along the same roadways as U.S. combat divisions occupied continually for weeks."

He conceded that some looting of the site had taken place. But a chemical engineer who worked at Al Qaqaa and identified himself only as Khalid said that once troops left the base itself, people streamed in to steal computers and anything else of value from the offices. They also took munitions like artillery shells, he said.

Mr. Mezher, the mechanic, said it took the looters about two weeks to disassemble heavy machinery at the site and carry that off after the smaller items were gone. [Emphasis added.]

Again with examining the explosives and determining the seals were still in place, which is be a contradiction.

What the NY Times story doesn't tell you is that there was a major battle in the area before the 3 ID entered the facility on April 3.

[Army Col. David] Perkins commanded 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division. A unit under his command, the 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry, entered the depot on April 3, 2003, and defeated the enemy forces there in a two-day battle.

[...]

Perkins, now assigned to the Joint Staff, said it is "highly improbable" that the enemy was able to take the explosives out any time after U.S. forces arrived in the area. It would require "that the enemy sneaks a convoy of 10-ton trucks in and loads them up in the dark of night and infiltrates them in your convoy and moves out," he said. "That's kind of a stretch too far."

When his battalion arrived at Al Qaqaa April 3, it engaged several hundred enemy soldiers and the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam in the area. The unit killed or captured all who were there, with the battle lasting through April 5.

[...]

At the same time, Perkins said, the soldiers of the unit did an initial assessment of the depot. "The concern was what's the capability of the munitions, rather than how much was there," he said

His soldiers concentrated on looking for weapons of mass destruction, especially chemical weapons. They found suspicious white powder and reported that through the chain of command. A chemical unit arrived, tested the powder and determined it was safe. The soldiers did not find the IAEA- sealed explosives.

Iraq was one of the most heavily armed countries on Earth. Perkins said it is important to remember that in its push to Baghdad, the brigade passed many depots containing thousands upon thousands of tons of arms and armaments. The brigade had no indication that the Al Qaqaa depot was anything special. "It was just another cache of weapons like the dozens we had passed," Perkins said.

The unit left the area April 5. "The mission was to quickly defeat the enemy and cause the collapse of the regime," Perkins said. "So what we did then was continue to push down the east side of the Euphrates because there was a whole brigade of the Medina division facing them."

After the 3rd Infantry Division left the area, the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, took up residence through April 11.

The 75th Exploitation Task Force visited the facility May 7, May 11 and May 27. They found no IAEA material during any of these visits. [Emphasis added]

No, that isn't the final word, but maybe this is:

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.

John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

But I think this may be the final word:

Iraqi officials may be overstating the amount of explosives reported to have disappeared from a weapons depot, documents obtained by ABC News show.

The Iraqi interim government has told the United States and international weapons inspectors that 377 tons of conventional explosives are missing from the Al-Qaqaa installation, which was supposed to be under U.S. military control.

But International Atomic Energy Agency documents obtained by ABC News and first reported on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" indicate the amount of missing explosives may be substantially less than the Iraqis reported.

The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.

But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.

The IAEA documents could mean that 138 tons of explosives were removed from the facility long before the start of the United States launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in March 2003.

[...]

The IAEA documents from January 2003 found no discrepancy in the amount of the more dangerous HMX explosives thought to be stored at Al-Qaqaa, but they do raise another disturbing possibility.

The documents show IAEA inspectors looked at nine bunkers containing more than 194 tons of HMX at the facility. Although these bunkers were still under IAEA seal, the inspectors said the seals may be potentially ineffective because they had ventilation slats on the sides. These slats could be easily removed to remove the materials inside the bunkers without breaking the seals, the inspectors noted. [Emphasis added]

(ABC link via Michael Totten at Instapundit.

Those missing explosives II

Oct. 27 - There still hasn't been anything definitive as to when the explosives were taken, but everyone has pointed out that a cache that large would have required 40 trucks to move, and since there seems to have been a lack of IAEA seal sightings, the implications are that they were moved before US troops arrived.

Almost time to go to work, but here are some links on Bombgate (or NYTrogate as Captain's Quarters is calling it, or Qaqaagate from Powerline) starting with the CBS report filed April 4, 2003, which indicates that

a) CBS doesn't believe their own stories, and/or
b) CBS doesn't read their own stories, and/or
c) they still don't both to fact check their stories in their rush to impugn the president, and/or
d) all of the above.

From the CBS story:

U.S. troops found thousands of boxes of white powder, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare at an industrial site south of Baghdad. But a senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the materials were believed to be explosives.

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said the materials were found Friday at the Latifiyah industrial complex just south of Baghdad.

"It is clearly a suspicious site," Peabody said.

It seems that the 3rd ID visited the site before and after the 101st Airborne, and indications are that the 3rd ID didn't find anything with IAEA seals on their first visit.

It would have been nice had they destroyed the explosives then, I guess, but since suspicions were high that there were chemical and biological agents hidden in the facility, maybe that wouldn't have been such a good move, hmm?

Good old 20/20 highsight. It never comes in time to actually inform decisions.

Super good links to follow are Captain's Quarters which was first with the CBS story about the 3rd ID visit to Al Qaaqa in April, 2003. (Link via Instapundit post by Michael Totten.)

Wretchard clarifies matters best. Excellent post as always.

The NY Sun says UN inspectors were urged to destroy the explosives in 1995.

N.Z. Bear wonders why the explosives haven't been used and has a comprehensive link round-up including this one which wonders about Mohammed Al Baradei's motives.

Power Line covers the President's response to the issue.

I have to get ready for work, but am taking a moment to reflect on the way things were in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

You remember the March and April days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, don't you? When the troops kept their gas masks close at hand, and we were braced for an attack of sarin or mustard gas. When we prayed it wouldn't happen because even though the troops had personal protective equipment the Iraqi people didn't and the death toll of civilians would have been staggering.

We weren't looking for conventional weapons. Those we found. We were looking for the unconventional ones. We didn't find them, and that has been a campaign issue.

We found conventional ones, and that has become a campaign issue too.

6 more days. Please let the country stay sane.

I was in media post when the server went down, and regret I don't have time to respond to some comments in earlier posts, but I'll miss my bus if I don't get the heck out of here. Please excuse poor grammar, spelling errors and incorrect syntax.

NBC Embed confirms material already gone in April, 2003

Oct. 26 - [Update: The Third ID was at the facility a week before the 101st. Scroll down for more.]

An NBC crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division accompanied the soldiers to the Al Qaqaa weapon storage facility on April 10, 2003, and found the powerful explosives already gone. (Note that the fall of Baghdad occurred April 9, 2003.)

The last IAEA verification that the material was at the facility was in January, 2003.

Aside: Joe Lockhart, Kerry's senior advisor, is an ass. After the story went Pop! there was a somewhat petulant exchange:

"John Kerry's attacks today were baseless," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said. "He said American troops did not secure the explosives, when the explosives were already missing."

Schmidt also said that Kerry "neglects to mention the 400,000 tons of weapons and explosives that are either destroyed or in the process of being destroyed" in Iraq.

But Kerry senior adviser Joe Lockhart fired back with a statement of his own, accusing the Bush campaign of "distorting" the NBC News report.

"In a shameless attempt to cover up its failure to secure 380 tons of highly explosive material in Iraq, the White House is desperately flailing in an effort to escape blame," Lockhart said. "It is the latest pathetic excuse from an administration that never admits a mistake, no matter how disastrous."

I think CNN got the last word here:

Lockhart did not elaborate on how the Bush campaign was distorting the NBC report.

8:06: The CBC is sticking with the original story as of this time.

UNITED NATIONS - Hundreds of tonnes of high explosives are missing and probably looted from a former Iraqi military facility, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

[...]

The Al Qaqaa facility, a large military installation located 45 kilometres south of Baghdad, has been under U.S. military control since the war, but has repeatedly been looted.

Some wonder whether the missing explosives are now being used in insurgent attacks against the forces of the U.S.-led coalition. (Bolding added)

I'm certain they'll update the story soon.

10:58: The National Review has the transcript of the story from last night on NBC News:

Here's the MSNBC report of this story. (Update: It seems to have been expanded at my second viewing at 8:51 p.m.)

12:01: The CBC still hasn't updated the story, and the Toronto Star is carrying the original account, or yesterday's discredited news today. I almost feel sorry for them, they're having such fun over an already discredited story.

By the way, today's account in the NY Times is Iraq Explosives Become Issue in Campaign. Yep, you might say that.

Wretchard ties in the removal of the explosives some time between January and April, 2003, with the "global test" so many promote:

Although it is both desirable and necessary to criticize the mistakes attendant to OIF, much of the really "criminal" neglect may be laid on the diplomatic failure which gave the wily enemy this invaluable opportunity. The price of passing the "Global Test" was very high; and having been gypped once, there are some who are still eager to be taken to the cleaners again.

[I first posted this at 7:40 but am bumping it to the top.]

21:00: It appears the Third Infantry Division arrived at al Qa Qaa a week earlier on April 3, 2003 (google search here - you need a paid subscription to read old articles on The Straits Times.) I haven't seen anything on what explosives the Third ID found but this reprint of an AP story is extremely interesting:

Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq's largest military industrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives.

U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex - most recently on March 8 - but found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 25 miles south of Baghdad.

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said troops found thousands of 2-inch by 5-inch boxes, each containing three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

A senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the powder was believed to be explosives. The finding would be consistent with the plant's stated production capabilities in the field of basic raw materials for explosives and propellants.

(Drumbeat may be on hiatus, but the archives endure.)

Remember: in the first months of OIF, we were more concerned about stockpiles of chemical weapons.

The MSNBC has expanded their earlier article on this including the recollections of the embed who was with the 101st Airborne on April 10 which are that the 101st was only there 24 hours and didn't conduct a thorough search.

The Toronto Star reports on the NBC embed's recollections but that aspect has lost traction after the report that the 3rd ID had been there a week earlier.

From Drudge, Elizabeth Jensen of the LA Times reports:

CBS News' "60 Minutes" landed a major story last week: the disappearance in Iraq of a large cache of explosives supposed to be under guard by the U.S. military. But the network nevertheless found itself in the journalistically awkward position of playing catch-up when it wasn't able to get the piece on the air as soon as its reporting partner, the New York Times, which made the report its lead story Monday.

A number of questions are being raised by this story, the biggest of which has to be if the "insurgents" have those weapons, why haven't they used them? The other should be why didn't the U.N. destroy those explosives but we already know they chose to let Saddam keep them for "construction" uses.

Tangentially, Roger L. Simon urging that the possibility that Mohammed El Baradei is the source of this story - and the timing - be explored further. If the UN is attempting to influence the US elections it is a major scandal, although after UNSCAM I guess I'm prepared to believe the worst.

CBS and the NY Times really should consider putting on their 'jamies occasionally and researching articles more fully. Unfortunately, I have to change out of mine and dash off to work.

More coalition casualties in Iraq

Oct. 25 - From an AP story, Convoys bombed, 8 killed:

BOMBINGS STRUCK four coalition and Iraqi military convoys and a provincial government office yesterday, killing at least eight people, including an American soldier and an Estonian trooper in the Baghdad area. Coming a day after the bodies of nearly 50 Iraqi military recruits were found massacred, the bombings occurred as a UN agency confirmed that several hundred tonnes of explosives were missing from a former Iraqi military depot in an insurgent hotspot south of Baghdad. [Note: explosives story has been discredited]

The revelation raised concerns the explosives fell into the hands of insurgents who have staged a spate of bloody car bombings, although there was no evidence to link the missing explosives directly to the attacks.

Estonia, another country Kerry dismisses. Oh well, he was dismissive of Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War too.

Thank you for your support and sacrifice, Estonia.

Yesterday, a roadside bomb in western Baghdad killed one U.S. soldier and wounded five, the U.S. military said. An Estonian soldier died when a roadside bomb exploded at a market just outside Baghdad as his patrol went by, the Estonian military said. Five other Estonian soldiers were wounded.

[...]

Insurgent attacks across Iraq have increased by 25% since the holy month of Ramadan began two weeks ago.

Do you suppose AP would get upset if I put death quotes around "insurgents?"

[Note that the paper editions of, er, newspapers were printed before they realized that the missing explosives story was wrong.]

Those missing explosives

Oct. 25 - I've been trying to think of something to say about the Tons of Iraq explosives missing but I've developed a severe headache from banging my head on the desk.

Our real allies

Oct. 25 - The news that 50 unarmed Iraqi soldiers were waylaid and murdered is perhaps the grimmest in several acts of violence in Iraq yesterday which also saw the death of a U.S. diplomat, Edward Seitz, and has been more than adequately covered everywhere, but I wanted to bring attention to the death of a Bulgarian coalition soldier which may have been overlooked:

A Bulgarian soldier was killed and two others were injured in a car-bombing near Karbala, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry said. Karbala, a Shi'ite holy city south of Baghdad, had been quiet since U.S. troops routed Shi'ite militia there last spring.

We don't often remember to thank the soldiers from other nations that are actively supporting the efforts in Iraq. My condolences to this man's family and hopes for a speedy recovery for the two injured soldiers.

11:56: 3 Australian diggers have been injured in the first ever attack on an Australian convoy:

The three-vehicle convoy, which protects Australia's diplomats, was hit when a bomber drove a car laden with explosives into it at about 8am Baghdad time, also killing several Iraqi civilians.

The attack happened 350m from the Australian embassy, which is outside the city's fortified Green Zone.

The convoy was believed to be on routine patrol or having returned from dropping off a diplomat. There were no diplomats with it at the time.

Defence Force spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan said one of the soldiers was undergoing surgery last night for facial injuries, another was concussed and the third was treated for minor abrasions and released.

He said the injured were taken to a US medical facility and their families were being contacted.

What can one say about the valiant Australians? (Not enough, quite frankly.) Thank you, mates.

The most arrogant aspect of the Kerry campaign has been his disregard for the real allies who are fighting and dying in Iraq in favour of promoting his phantom allies:

U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

An investigation by The Washington Times reveals that while the candidate did talk for an unspecified period to at least a few members of the panel, no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred.

Kerry probably got the year wrong, having meant that they all chatted that Christmas they spent together in Cambodia.

It's likely there will be a sustained campaign against American, Iraqi and coalition forces this coming week as the increase in violence is clearly intended to influence the U.S. elections, but it is my belief that knowing we are being manipulated will stiffen, not weaken, our spines.

The sanctions worked, hmm?

Oct. 25 - More on UNSCAM: AP EXCLUSIVE: Iraqis reveal in secret interviews how Saddam manipulated oil-for-food program. In addition to the information already contained in the Duelfer Report about the use oil vouchers to enlist support for the lifting of sanctions, a Congressional committee has gathered evidence of further corruption:

One investigator described the exempt list as the equivalent of the list in Duelfer's report of oil voucher recipients, but in this case for goods imported under the U.N. program.

"Until now, it had been thought that only vouchers for oil were handed out, but due to disclosures by Iraqi officials from the Ministry of Trade, we now understand that the practice was spread even further," said the investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Companies on Saddam's special lists got vouchers giving them priority for deals in humanitarian goods under oil-for-food, or to act as middlemen for companies providing goods.

Some Iraqi officials confirmed the lists were crafted to reward companies from countries supporting Iraqi political goals, especially the lifting of U.N. sanctions, investigators said.

"These lists illustrate how Saddam Hussein cynically manipulated and corrupted the oil-for-food program," said Hyde [Chair of the House International Relations Committee Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill.] "The fact, disclosed in the Duelfer report, that some countries based their Iraq policies on these corrupt practices is shameful."

The exempt list came from an official at the Iraqi Ministry of Trade and was authenticated separately by over a dozen current and former Iraqi officials, investigators said.

There were also companies black-listed:

Over 250 companies appear on Saddam's blacklist, obtained from an Iraqi Health Ministry official, according to congressional investigators. The document also details reasons the companies lost favor with the Iraqi government. Dozens of the companies are blasted for "dealing with the Zionist entity," apparently referring to Israel.

One contract in English obtained by AP from investigators required companies given deals with the Iraqi government to sign a pledge that says, "We hereby confirm our commitment and pledge not to deal with Israel."

American companies Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett-Packard Co., and Eli Lilly and Co., make the list for this reason and Agilent Technologies Inc. -- which was spun off from Hewlett-Packard -- is accused by Vice President Ramadan of changing its name from Hewlett-Packard to "enter into Israel," according to the document.

The Russian oil company Lukoil seemingly scored a hat trick:

Lukoil, which reportedly clashed with Baghdad after refusing to break sanctions to begin development of an Iraqi oil field, is the only company to make the oil voucher list, the exempt list and the blacklist. Its entry onto the blacklist is dated October 2002. In December 2002, Iraq announced the cancelation of a $3.7 billion contract with Lukoil to develop the oil field.

(Link via Instapundit.)

The AP story is also up at the ABC News website.

Good news from Iraq

Oct. 25 - Long but well worth the time to read and digest: Arthur Chrenkoff has written a comprehensive review of the good news from Iraq:

In truth, of course, there is only one Iraq. Even if we don't see it too often reflected in the news coverage, we instinctively know that Iraq of violence and Iraq of recovery can, and do, coexist with each other within the same physical borders. We know that there is nothing mutually exclusive about tragedy and hope, horror and promise, frustration and exuberance. This is true in our own lives; and so it is just as true in lives of whole nations.

This article is also available at the Opinion Journal online as Two Nations as One if the demand makes the first link inaccessible.

I'm not going to comment further; I want to re-read the article.

The spectre of Halliburton

Oct. 24 - Halliburton. That name has become a byword to invoke images of Evil Corporate America yet few actually know what it is and what function it performs.

I have come to learn one thing about Halliburton: When other agencies fled Iraq, Halliburton and its employees stayed and continued to perform their duties in the best tradition.

FoxNews looks at Halliburton's subsidiary KBR, which supplies food and supplies to US troops in Iraq, and calls those employees America's Unsung Heroes. It looks to me that the KBR employees have found a higher calling in Iraq other than the high pay, and it's time they were recognized and applauded.

Hassan pleads for her life

Oct. 22 - There is often something horrible about how events can become predictable, and when I saw the following item on the CNN website I hated how unsurprised I was but I hated more how these monsters use our compassion against us. We understand the stakes, yet know we must remain stern and unflinching. And I feel rotten about it.

CARE worker pleads for her life:

In the video aired Friday by the Arabic-language TV channel, Hassan is speaking to the camera, sobbing and crying.

"Please help me, please help me, these might be my last hours.... Please help me, please British people ask Mr. (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair to pull the troops from Iraq and not bring them to Baghdad.

"Please, please I beg of you, the British people, to help me. I don't want to die like (Kenneth) Bigley. I beg of you, I beg of you."

Many of us were awestruck with the bravery of Italian Fabrizio Quattrocchi, the man who defied his murderers and denied them the triumph of using his death to frighten and intimidate others, and I'm not the only person who thought of Fabrizio while we witnessed Ken Bigley's desperate pleas to Tony Blair.

As we feared, the Kenneth Bigley saga has resulted in an upping of the ante: they've kidnapped a woman.

It is a harsh and cruel thing to be held in captivity by people who have proven their capacity for brutality, and no one can pretend to know what Margaret Hassan has endured.

I pray her captors let her go. I hope she returns to her home and husband safely and will be able to reclaim her life and resume her humanitarian activities.

But make no mistake: Ms. Hassan's life is not in Tony Blair's hands, but in the hands of her captors.

And I hope she understands that the very barbarity of her captors is precisely why we cannot, must not, surrender to them even for her. Or me.

Update: A video was discovered which seemed to show Margaret Hassan's execution, mercifully (?) by a bullet to the head. Bastards.

Courage in the face of world indifference

Oct. 21 - Opinion Journal argues that there has been substantial progress in Iraq, citing in particular in the latest offensive in Fallujah.

At the heart of this - and any - progress lies the single most important component: the will and determination of the Iraqi people:

Which brings us to another point that deserves more attention: the courage of the Iraqis. Young men continue to line up by the thousands outside the police and National Guard recruiting stations that have so often been targets of terrorist attack. On Tuesday a mortar struck the ING headquarters in Mushahidah, killing four. But recruit Qusay Hassan was quoted saying, "If I don't join the army, who is going to defend the country from the terrorists?"

Who indeed? Those brave, courageous human shields who were so anxious to prove their bravery by going to Iraq yet who left before the going even got tough and failed to return when they were actually needed?

Or the U.N., which arrogantly failed to acknowledge the dangers and, rather than admit to and rectify its error, fled?

Or maybe Western liberals, who should be thrilled at the blossoming of freedom in Iraq but who cannot abide the notion that the USA has done something right, thereby allowing their hatred for America overshadow their oft-proclaimed love for their fellow men and women?

The contempt I feel for those who would diminish people like Qusay Hassan cannot find words. We are witnessing mighty deeds and heroes from which songs are made, and even as I rejoice that there is still such in this world I am pained to see a portion of our civilization, aided and abetted by main stream media, try so hard to prove itself frivolous.

When our children and grandchildren ask about "our day," it won't be curiousity about Michael Jackson, Teresa Heinz-Kerry or even the curse of the Bambino: it will be about the struggle of freedom vs. tyranny in the Mid-east. However shall we answer them?

Ramadan Begins

Oct. 17 - Violence mars start of Ramadan in Iraq - Oct 16, 2004. We have come to a sad state of affairs when honest Muslims, Jews and Christians regard the beginning of Ramadam with trepidation rather than joy.

I'm certain I'm not the first person to wonder how the world would respond if Christmas was celebrated by bombing mosques.

File this under "how depressing."

Their coaltion is collapsing

Oct. 13 - I have to get ready for work, but read and ponder this: Insurgent Alliance Is Fraying In Fallujah at the Washington Post (free registration may be required):

BAGHDAD, Oct. 12 -- Local insurgents in the city of Fallujah are turning against the foreign fighters who have been their allies in the rebellion that has held the U.S. military at bay in parts of Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, according to Fallujah residents, insurgent leaders and Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Relations are deteriorating as local fighters negotiate to avoid a U.S.-led military offensive against Fallujah, while foreign fighters press to attack Americans and their Iraqi supporters. The disputes have spilled over into harsh words and sporadic violence, with Fallujans killing at least five foreign Arabs in recent weeks, according to witnesses.

"If the Arabs will not leave willingly, we will make them leave by force," said Jamal Adnan, a taxi driver who left his house in Fallujah's Shurta neighborhood a month ago after the house next door was bombed by U.S. aircraft targeting foreign insurgents.

Sometimes common sense can leap ahead of history to make fairly accurate pronouncements, so there are a couple of snap possibilities I can offer:

The Iraqi insurgents who target coalition forces have been lumped with those terrorists who deliberately target civilians, and it has damaged the Ba'athist cause.

The infrastructure in Fallujah is collapsing, and life ain't easy without electricity and running water.

Those damned US warplanes keep pounding at them.

The elections are looming, and Def. Sec. Rumsfeld has already allowed for the possibility that the Ba'athist strongholds may not participate. In what many thought a faux pas I saw Classic Rumsfeld: by pointing out that elections could still be held without Fallujah and other insurgent hotspots, he made it clear that the January elections would go forward with or without them. They clearly understood the implications of this even if the NY Times didn't.

I suspect the last one is the final straw that has caused them to re-examine their strategy. The olive branch and prospect of sharing power is still on the table: they simply have to accept that they must share, not dominate.

So will they chose to die for a past that will never return or live for a future that may be different than they had anticipated under Saddam but will still not be altogether unrewarding?

Some things I'm not willing to forget: there's a bridge in Fallujah that needs to be obliterated before this chapter is finally closed.

The burden of history

Oct. 13 - Another Mass grave unearthed in Iraq:

Many of the bodies found at the site near al-Hatra are believed to be the bodies of Kurdish women and children thought slaughtered by the Saddam Hussein regime.

As I read this it struck me that I have lost count of the number of mass graves that have been unearthed, not because they are unimportant but because there are so damned many.

There has been so much focus on the failure to find stockpiles of WMD that it has been easy to forget that there were also human rights requirements included in the flouted U.N. resolutions that formed the cause for resumption of hostilities against Iraq.

After Saddam fled Baghdad, TV crews filmed people digging and clawing through tunnels in the hopes of finding loved one who had been arrested and never heard from again. Our forces found mass graves filled with those who had been hastily killed within two weeks of the opening assault in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I still can't forget images of those people who, when mass graves were found, dug with their bare hands in hopes of finding an identity card, bit of clothing or other trace indicating they had finally located the remains of a loved one.

There were many reasons to support this war, but the decision to leave Saddam in power after 1991 still forms the bedrock for those reasons and I remain proud that we rectified that error even as we grieve those who have been lost in this endeavour.

The president's answer during the last debate about mistakes he may have made was the only possible one: history will determine what was a mistake and what was not.

Responsible leaders make decisions every day knowing that they cannot forsee all possible outcomes and knowing that, in the end, they can only judge themselves as to whether they did their best to do what was right with the information available at the time. History not only has the advantage of hindsight but also the advantage of not bearing the burdens of the decision makers it presumes to judge.

One thing history may judge is the degree to which the stated intention to force a regime change in Iraq kept many countries from joining the Coalition and, for those who bewail the lack of France, Germany, Russia (and Canada,) it would do well to consider if the war would have been worth the cost had the butcher Saddam and his psychotic, homicidal sons remained in power.

I think not.

The highlighted section from this passage in President Bush's speech to the Joint Houses of Congress on Sept. 21, 2001, was prescient of today's state of affairs:

... Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom -- the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time -- now depends on us. Our nation -- this generation -- will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. (Emphasis added)

The unfortunate truth is that we had to convince others - and especially Iraqis - that we wouldn't turn tail and run this time as we had in Lebanon, Iraq, and Somalia. We had to prove that we were willing to get down and dirty and fight a real war on the ground instead of from the skies as we had in Kosovo.

I hate the fact that we had to sacrifice coalition and Iraqi lives in this endeavour. I would have much preferred that we could have gathered together with some of Saddam's friends, family and associates, had a barbeque at one of his palaces, and then confronted him with his failings in some kind of intervention and through those means have persuaded him to change his killin' ways.

But that wouldn't have been reality, it would have been a dream sequence on "Friends."

So we sacrificed blood and treasure, a neat little phrase that obscures the painful truth that we sacrificed the futures of some fine men and women - American, Iraqi, British, Polish, Ukranian, Bulgarian, Italian, Spanish and others, and, although no Australians have been lost, they too were willing to die.

There are lessons in our own past that point to how we can redeem the blood debt we owe to the fallen. In the immortal words of President Abraham Lincoln:

It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

Or this crisp admonition from Tom Hank's character in the movie "Saving Private Ryan"

"Earn this."

This post at Tim Blair's site and especially the commenters' discussion about the historical evaluation of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies is very thought-provoking.

New Vatican postion on Iraq

Oct. 11 - Who would have figured the Vatican to jump aboard a band wagon? (Vatican buries the hatchet with Blair and Bush over Iraq):

Now, in light of the post-war chaos, Cardinal Sodano has announced a newly hawkish line on Iraq from Rome. "The child has been born," he declared recently on behalf of the Vatican. "It may be illegitimate, but it's here, and it must be reared and educated."

Interesting and probably intentional analogy.

In a trenchant interview in the Italian newspaper, La Stampa, Cardinal Sodano said that as the crisis in Iraq deepened, the time had come to forget past differences over the decision to invade.

His comments appear to be part of an orchestrated campaign to galvanise military and financial support for a democratic Iraq among critics of the war such as France and Germany.

Inasmuch as both Germany and France have declared they won't send troops to Iraq whatever the outcome of the US presidential election in November, I somehow doubt that words from the Vatican are going to sway them, but does it confer a belated legitimacy to the actions of our Italian allies and a back-hand slap at the Spanish and Philippine decisions to withdraw?

I seem to recall a member of the Vatican on Saddam's list of oil voucher recipients. Any connection?

Militia threatens Zarqawi

July 6 - A new group in Iraq calls itself the Rescue Group and threatens death for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi if he doesn't leave the country:

The Arabic-language TV network Al-Arabiya said it received a taped statement from an organization that calls itself the Rescue Group warning al-Zarqawi and his followers to leave Iraq or face the consequences.

One masked militant read a stamen denouncing the actions by al-Zarqawi and his followers as hurtful to Iraq, particularly the kidnapping of foreigners.

The group has called for the killing of the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi if he doesn't leave Iraq.

Fix Bayonets

July 5 - Article in the Sun (UK) about the stirring bayonet charge by British sodliers in Iraq (Army's fearless five:

THE staggering heroism of five British soldiers as they helped rout more than a HUNDRED Iraqi rebels is revealed for the first time today by The Sun.

The men came to the rescue of ambushed comrades — saving their lives with the Army’s first bayonet charge since the Falklands War 22 years ago.

After a bloody battle which raged for four hours at least 28 of the enemy lay dead. Fleeing cohorts are thought to have dragged away at least the same number of bodies.

Just two of Our Boys were slightly wounded. Last night the brave troops — members of the same regiment as the private tipped for a Victoria Cross — told of the desperate fight.

Private Anthony Rushforth, 23, said: “We were pumped up on adrenaline — proper angry. It’s only afterwards you think, ‘Jesus, I actually did that’.”

The terrifying bayonet charge by the members of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment — nicknamed The Tigers — saw trench after trench taken from the enemy.

It was led by Sgt Major Dave Falconer, 36. He said of his men: “I am very proud of them.”

The other heroes were Sgt Chris Broome, 35, and privates John-Claude Fowler, 19 and Matthew Tatawaqa, 23. The men, from C Company, raced to the rescue in Warrior armoured vehicles after an ambush by rebels loyal to rogue Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Two Land Rovers transporting Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had been pinned down by heavy fire south of Al Amarah, 150 miles from Basra.

As the Warriors arrived, they too were targeted by machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

Sgt Major Falconer, from Portsmouth, said: “Our Warriors were vulnerable to attack from the side by the enemy hiding in ditches.

“The only way you can hold ground in that situation is by having boots on it — so that’s what we did.”

That is military-speak for sending in infantry. Private Rushforth, from Southampton, said: “When the order came to dismount and attack, it was just like what we’ve done dozens of times in training.

“We sprinted in ten-metre bursts, then hit the ground to put down some rounds, and then carried on again for the last 30 metres. We broke into pairs and finished off the trench.”

The fight was dubbed the Battle for Danny Boy — after the name of the remote checkpoint where it took place.

FIRST Sgt Maj Falconer’s men defied enemy fire to charge 200 metres across open land.

They leapt into the first trench, killing three enemy with SA80 rifle bullets and “cold steel”. Four were taken prisoner.

THEN they took two further trenches as the Warriors provided covering fire from chain guns and 30mm cannon.

Eight more enemy were killed and four surrendered.

Diehard rebels continued to hold out. FINALLY a Challenger II tank was summoned to blitz their bunker. The five were hailed heroes along with a sixth soldier Lance Corporal Brian Wood. He has since been posted back in Britain.

The last time the Army used bayonets in action was when Scots Guards assaulted Argentinian positions in 1982. Sgt Maj Falconer said: “The lads performed excellently and with the highest professionalism.”

Australian digger awarded Bronze Star

July 5 - Australian Colonel Peter (Ted) Acutt was awarded the Bronze Star for exceptionally meritorious service (Digger awarded US war medal).

"He was instrumental in maintaining effective coordination between various coalition military elements, the Coalition Provisional Authority and emerging Iraqi ministries," Mr Brough [Asst. Def. Min. Mal Brough] said in a statement.

"In particular, Colonel Acutt was a strong advocate of cooperative planning for security matters and some of his initiatives have assisted the transition to Iraqi sovereignty."

Well done, Colonel. Deepest respects and gratitude to you and the other valiant Australians.

Iraqi Official investigating UNSCAM killed

July 3 - Followed a link from Instapundit to a Washington Times article in which Paul Bremer denies trying to block the investigation into the UN Oil-for-Food (Bremer says charge of blocking oil-for-food probe 'nonsense'):

In April, Mr. Bremer cut short a probe begun by Mr. Chalabi, who was chairman of the council's finance committee, and the international accounting firm KPMG. He said in the interview he wanted the investigation to be run by the Board of Supreme Audit, an independent body of auditors which had operated during Saddam's reign.

The audit board then held its own expedited bid process, awarding the bulk of the investigation work to Ernst & Young, another major international accounting firm, on May 13.

Then over over to Friends of Saddam to read their analysis but was hit broadside with this:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi official heading the investigation into alleged corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program was killed in a bomb attack earlier this week, officials familiar with the probe said on Saturday.

Ihsan Karim, head of the Board of Supreme Audit, died in hospital after a bomb placed under one of the cars in his convoy exploded on Thursday, the officials said.

The real Minutemen of Iraq

July 2 - I saw the interview with Scott Erwin early this morning on CNN and am pleased to note that much of it is available at the CNN website (American forever indebted to Iraqi friend.)

Key quote:

While in a state of shock, Erwin said he remembered feeling deep disappointment and sadness for the loss of Col. Mohammed's life, because he had a family -- a wife and two children.

He said he thought about how Col. Mohammed "would never get to see a prosperous Iraq, which he always talked about and he always dreamed about."

That's the real outrage: that the terrorists are determined to kill those who want to build a free and prosperous Iraq. It's also the true mark of heroism: that so many Iraqis persist despite the real and present danger to themselves for the terrible crime of having hope and optimism.

It's not often I recommend anyone read an entire CNN item, but this is a worth while read.

A good companion piece is this entry from Army Specialist Joe Roche of the 16th Engineering Battalion of the lst Armored Division here. An excerpt:

The 1st Armored Division, of which the 16th Engineers are a part, led the charge against Muqtada Al-Sadr's uprising. The 16th was in the front in all this in Karbala, Najaf, Kufa and Baghdad. And contrary to the negative news coverage, the reality is that we have won some major victories that are having dramatic impact region-wide. I don't think most Americans are aware of the seriousness of the threats we confronted and defeated.

Sadr's Mahdi Army was backed by extensive foreign fighters and a huge amount support. Iran's formidable Al-Quds Army (named for the conquest of Jerusalem, Israel) directly assisted their attacks against us. They trained some 1,200 of Sadr's fighters at three camps they ran along the Iran-Iraq border at Qasr Shireen, 'Ilam, and Hamid. This was backed by what one Iranian defector to us has said was $70 million dollars a month given by Iranian agents to our enemies -- from which Sadr's forces were directly funded in just the past few months by up to $80 million more. The Iranian Embassy distributed some 400 satellite phones in Baghdad to Sadr's forces, while 2,700 apartments and rooms were rented in Karbala and Najaf as safe houses. Sadr's ability to influence the Iraqi people was further enhanced by 300 "reporters" and "technicians" working for his newspaper, radio and television networks -- persons who are actually members of the Al-Quds Army and Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

We also faced Chechen snipers in Sadr's forces who were being paid anywhere from $500 to $10,000, depending on differing accounts, for each American soldier they hit. One sniper hit five soldiers in less then a minute-and-a-half, killing one with a shot in the neck. These mercenaries were sending this money back to Al-Qaeda-allied guerrillas in Chechnya to fight the Russians.

Hit the pause button. Replay that last paragraph. It's going to be very easy for some to dismiss Spc. Roche's statement, but I can help wondering if it's yet another manifestation of what State Sec. Powell termed a nexus of terrorism.

There are some who will never be convinced that our best course was to take the fight to the enemy. They whine that they are in more danger now than before, but they have already been proven to be poor students of history, as this list makes clear.

Personally, I never felt safer. I'm going to die someday, and only the how and the when are questionable. But there is something so uplifting about fighting back instead of cowering under the bed that I just wish I was one of those "old soldiers" being recalled to duty.

Hmm, there is a Tolkien reference in there. It's from The Silmarillion, and addresses how the Numenorean civilization began to decay because it became motivated by the fear of death rather than the joy of life.

Saddam's hearing and the U.N. in Sudan (updated)

July 2 - The Toronto Sun isn't overlooking the ugly nature of Saddam on the cover of today's online edition although they do seem to favour the insanity explanation: Iraq's Mad Man on Trial. The AP story they've printed on Saddam's appearance before the court , Madman gives a piece of his mind, is definitely not sympathetic and reminds us that Saddam was pulled out of a hole. (I, for one, never get tired of remembering that!) Today's Sun also carries the AP story Hang him, Iraqis urge, which indicates that Iraqis are fully aware that he is getting the open trial he denied to so many others and are gratified to see him before a court for his crimes.

I feel the lack of the word "high" from that last title. I'm not sure why: hanging is hanging and elevation shouldn't be all that relevant, but all the same I want them to hang him high.

Is it too much to hope that the drumbeats of those who declare the Iraqis are incapable of trying Saddam will die down? (Probably.) At least this hearing has re-focused attention on the mass graves and years of torture that was, for many of us, a primary cause for the forcible removal of Saddam.

Is Saddam Hussein a mad man? Or was he power mad? The simplest explanation for those who abuse power is probably the correct one: they do so because they can. Our forefathers certainly understood that danger when they placed so many checks and balances onto our political system. [One article of interest in today's NY Times is by Simon Sebag Montefiore, Tyrants on Trial, which draws some interesting parallels between Saddam and Stalin, although he delves into the psychology of the two men more than to my liking.]

[Update July 3 - 00:40: Totally whacky Captioned Saddam pics! Rock, Paper, Scissors ... (thanks to Rocket Jones for the link.)]

The best read in today's NY Times is another excellent article by John Burns. He writes:

At the start, the young Iraqi investigative judge, his identity shielded from disclosure by Iraqi and American officials fearful of his assassination, stared straight back at Mr. Hussein, barely 10 feet away, and said plainly, "former president."

"No, present," Mr. Hussein said. "Current. It's the will of the people."

"Write down, in brackets, `former president,' " the judge told the court clerk.

This debate over his status is not just defiance on Saddam's part, but essential to his defense in some countries:

Mr. Hussein's point, repeatedly, was that it was unthinkable for him to be charged for his actions as Iraq's leader, since that gave him immunity, and, he implied, the defense that even murder or military aggression was justified if he deemed it in Iraq's interest.

In some countries, as the USA, presidents are accountable before the law. In others, such as France, they aren't accountable during their times in office although they can be prosecuted after they step down.

As I surmised yesterday, Saddam has been watching enitrely too much CNN:

He told the judge, "You know that this is all a theater by Bush, to help him win his election."

Expect this to become a constant accusation from the left as they will undoubtably spin all gains in Iraq as being about our election rather than Iraq's future.

The alternative explanations are much simpler: we honour our committments, and we genuinely believe in liberty.

Burns makes the connection that many of us make and must not be lost during the election spin that will accompany much of the analysis not only of this preliminary hearing but of the handover as well:

There were echoes of past war crimes trials at Nuremberg after World War II, and at The Hague after the wars of the 1990's that ravaged the former Yugoslavia, when one after another of the men argued that he could not be held personally accountable for actions ordered by others, or carried out in the name of the "leadership," meaning Mr. Hussein and a handful of men in his innermost circle. All they had done, several defendants argued, was to follow orders or assent to actions they had no power to halt, even as high-ranking military or intelligence officials or as members of the Revolutionary Command Council, the country's most powerful and feared political body.

One who took this approach was Tariq Aziz, the 68-year-old former deputy prime minister, a Chaldean Christian who conducted many of Iraq's foreign negotiations, including the failed efforts to head off the Persian Gulf war after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Mr. Aziz cut a figure of unshakable self-confidence in power, stalking the marble halls of Baghdad's palaces pulling on a cigar, boasting until the last weeks before the American attack in March last year that he and other government leaders would be "shadows" by the time American troops arrived in Baghdad, uncatchable. In fact, he gave himself up shortly after Mr. Hussein's government was toppled.

At Thursday's hearing, he, like many others, was a shadow, in another sense, of his former self. His shoulders bowed, his head forward, he mopped his brow, bit his lip, blew his nose, and wrung his hands. He sat through the hearing with the chain used to manacle him dangling at his waist. Once a man who prided himself on his well-cut suits, he seemed not to notice the chain nestling against his ill-fitting, American-bought suit.

The swaggering thugs that looted and terrorized the Iraqi people are now revealed to be mere mortals who, having lost their lionized status, are being treated like the criminals they are and being held to account for their crimes. One has to wonder what people in countries like Iran and Zimbabwe think as they witness a murderous dictator and his once-merry band brought before the people they once terrorized and are forced to face justice.

Don't underestimate the value of broadcasting Saddam's trial to the world. It's going to give a lot of people ideas and maybe even hope.

Citing the precedent of Nuremburg invokes many principles: that genocidal murderers will not be given free passes just because they delegated murder to subordinates, that "following orders" is no defense (note that it wasn't an acceptable defense for the Abu Ghraib defendents), and that the world must not stand by while genocide occurs.

Contrary to the song, two out of three is bad. The U.N. has become an after-the-fact prosecutor of war criminals, thus glossing over it's feckless inability (or unwillingness) to prevent war crimes.

The situation in the Darfur region of Sudan is finally gaining widespread attention and the vanity that accompanies the U.N. as an internationally recognized font of legitimacy has been exposed for the facade that it is.

Again, from the NY Times an article by Marc Lacey

EL FASHER, Sudan, July 1 - There were only donkeys milling around in a soggy, trash-strewn lot on Thursday afternoon when the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, and his entourage arrived at what was supposed to be a crowded squatter camp here in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan.

Gone were the more than 1,000 residents of the Meshtel settlement. Gone as well were their makeshift dwellings. Hours before Mr. Annan's arrival, the local authorities had loaded the camp's inhabitants aboard trucks and moved them.

"Where are the people?" Mr. Annan was overheard asking a Sudanese official who was accompanying his tour of Darfur, the region in western Sudan where the government has been accused of unleashing armed militias on the local population to quell a rebel uprising.

Al Noor Muhammad Ibrahim, minister of social affairs for the state of North Darfur, explained that the camp on Mr. Annan's itinerary no longer existed. He said the government had relocated its residents the evening before, sometime after United Nations officials had paid a visit at 5 p.m. on Wednesday in preparation for a stop by Mr. Annan.

"It's not because the secretary general of the United Nations is here that we moved them," Mr. Ibrahim insisted as incredulous United Nations officials looked on. Mr. Ibrahim said the conditions were too grim for the people there and that humanitarianism, not public relations, had motivated him to act. "We did not like seeing people living like that," he said.

Mr. Annan, who did not leave his vehicle, stayed silent as visibly agitated aides argued with the Sudanese authorities about the sudden relocation. The government urged Mr. Annan to visit another settlement, a nearby camp with far better conditions which Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had toured Wednesday during his brief stop in Darfur.

"Of course, it is of concern," that the government had moved so many people so suddenly, Mr. Annan said later in an interview. "We are trying to sort it out."

It is impossible for me to read this story and not have a snarky reaction, but that diminishes the real human tragedy of the situation in Darfur.

[Update 18:08: Ouch! Michelle Malkin is calling the relocations the Sudanese Shuffle.]

I think the USA has her hands full right now with Iraq, the nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, and the missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, etc. It's time for the enlightened international community to prove it's mettle by stepping up to the plate in Sudan (and no, I don't see that happening.)

Sadly, this would have been a perfect opportunity for Canada to assert herself as the world's foremost peacekeeping nation, but the years of neglect for the military up here have taken their toll and the true victims are people like those in Darfur.

21:23: This links to the Annan story at the Washington Post for anyone searching for the story past the NY Times's miserly expiration date.

Saddam behaved like Saddam (updated)

July 1 - First, Happy Canada Day to us up here in the Great White North. It's pretty warm in Toronto, and summer has officially begun. (Updated) Or, as Paul insists: Happy Dominion Day.

What is Canada Day? (I'm a bit jaundiced by the election results, so I'm letting this one go.)

I gave up watching the CBC coverage of Canada Day events when their military angle focused on tombstones. I get it, already. CBC doesn't think freedom is worth fighting and possibly dying for. Check.

In the news: Saddam was defiant during his court appearance. Lord knows he's watched enough CNN to know how to perform in court, so don't colour me surprised.

The internationalists are out in force whining that this trial will lack legitimacy. Let me see if I have this straight: those nations, some of which refused to oust Saddam in 1991, some of which harbour those who paid kickbacks to Saddam in order to profit in the UN Oil-for-Food program, many of which shipped expired medicines and hospital equipment that didn't work along with limousines, sports stadiums and plastic shredders, and most of which turned a blind eye to his crimes against his own people, and even those who acted within the U.N. to keep Saddam in power ... those people have the audacity to utter words like justice and legitimacy?

Why are they attempting to deprive Iraqis of their right to their day in court? Because they are anxious to give the International Criminal Court legitimacy, perhaps?

Sorry, International Community, but organizations and people gain respect by their deeds, not by their words. If you want to try a genocidal dictator, consider being aligned with those who stopped his evil regime and apprehended him.

Just a thought.

More to the point, who freaking cares what a bunch of wankers and self-appointed elitists think? We heard the same stuff from the same nations back around 225+ years ago; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now. (Kind of poor timing on their part, given the promixity of the Fourth of July, to cast doubt upon the capability of the Iraqi people to build a free and prosperous nation. I'm just saying ...)

Final thought on Saddam: Wolverines!!! (I just watched Laredo (a show I loved as a kid and which bears up well even today) on the Lonestar channel and William Smith was a regular on Laredo, and he was the eeevil Col. Strelnikov in Red Dawn. That's only three degrees of separation! Eat your heart out, Kevil Bacon.)

On a more sober note, it's not really a surprise that there would be more terrorist attacks on this day but it serves to remind us that freedom isn't free.

I don't have that much to say about the handover except Hurrah! As have many, I've been irritated beyond patience by the unending ominous pronouncements from CNN that every firefight in Fallujah "threatened the handover" because I felt every dead "insurgent" strengthened the ability of the incoming Iraqi government to organize elections and lead Iraq on a new path.

21:19: Spinkiller has an eloquent post over at The Shotgun Iraqis embrace their freedom... that is a must-read.

Peggy Noonan in today's Opinion Journal says

The early transfer of sovereignty to Iraq has hit everyone here, friend of the invasion and foe, as a brilliant stroke. Leaving early, and with such modesty--it was a pleasure to be here, let us know if there's anything we can do--tends to undermine charges of U.S. imperialism. President Bush is feeling triumphant--one can tell even from here--and the Western press is looking very irritable indeed. They don't like to be surprised, they don't like it when Mr. Bush scores one, and they don't like it when the troublemakers they've been so banking on to prove their point that Iraq was a fiasco don't even get a chance to stop the turnover.

She then goes on to worry that, with successes under our belts, the American electorate will want to vote in Kerry to serve as an "emollient" just to feel there's a chance to return to "normalcy."

That expresses a fear many of us have, that having addressed one root cause of terrorism, i.e., the lack of human rights and opportunities for self-advancement in the Mideast, and having done so with loss of American lives, the temptation to run and hide will translate into a belief that having friends who won't watch our backs but will spout all the correct sentiments is more important than being right, and that could lead to a Kerry victory in November.

I live in one of those countries which have strained relations with the USA because of Sept. 11 and the Iraq War, and I can assure Americans of one thing: they want us to fail because it will make them look less inadequate, not because we are wrong.

For proof, read Saddam was defiant again, and note that CNN is acting as though this monster has any credibility or respectability.

Noonan asks what President Bush can do about it, and I suspect that it is a rhetorical question, because most of us have expressed the wish that the president would be more vigorous in reminding us why we are fighting terrorism and why Iraq was key to turning the Mid-east to a new course.

He faces stiff opposition (mostly with alphabet names like CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, CBC, BBC, and the other ABC) but I'm convinced the American people themselves just need a bit of encouragement and bolstering.

Those who want to retreat have to ask themselves very seriously: what will you expect from the American President when the next terrorist attack occurs? Sadly, Pres. Clinton's response was to investigate fundamentalist Christians, which lead to the Waco disaster. Is that what we want?

Call me a warmonger, but I prefer the Republican president's track record to the Democrat's candidate.

Quick hits

June 24 - Sorry for the light posting. I have some excuses ...

I woke up to Wolf Blitzer talking about Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's apology for saying that reporters in Iraq spend their time in luxurious hotels. M'kay. I guess he had to apologize, because that's the 3rd American pastime (after baseball and lawsuits) but saying that reporters are in a dangerous profession doesn't change the fact that far too many of them are pontificating, lazy and smug.

But then Wolf brings in Christianne Amanpour, and I comment to Mark (who is hogging the computer) that Amanpour is mad at Wolfowitz.

"He's my hero," announced Mark.

"Mine too," I replied. "Are you through with the computer?" (He wasn't.)

I got some quick posts in before I ran into this at Let It Bleed, in which Bob is quoting Toronto Star's Harron Siddiqui asserting that Bill Graham is inspirational. I kid you not.

I just naturally had to share that with the family, so we spent an enjoyable hour thinking of ways in which Graham inspires us. (Those ways are not suitable for printing.)

By the way, I neglected to link to an unforgettable item from Sunday's post, Laughing in the Cheap Seats:

Presumably any woman who dares to disagree with Mallick's assessment of impending "disaster" is not a "real" woman. Sort of like how, for the left, Clarence Thomas or Colin Powell aren't "really" black. Again, though, let's focus on Mallick's contention that Canada would be a "lan[d] of women slapped down".

This really is the level of debate up in Ontario, by the way. It would be laughable if it wasn't so damned effective.

Now, to be fair, Mallick is actually doing Canadians a great service, by pointing this out. Because not a lot of people know that one of the most important elements of the Conservative plan is to replace the national anthem: out with "O Canada", and in with The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up". True story. It's on page 14 of their platform. Okay, I made that last bit up: the new anthem will actually be Al-D's "Bitches and Hoes".

Everyone who doesn't live in Ontario will quickly recognize the last section is satire, but I'm going to mention that fact just in case ...

It's raining, which has come to signal my departure for work. I'm a regular rain-magnet these days (and cursed by minor baseball coaches everywhere) but it is my Friday.

I have some unanswered mail, so apologize to those who have kindly written me and will answer tomorrow morning.

Terror attacks in Iraq

June 24 - The death and injury toll in Iraq continues to climb as those who oppose Iraq self-rule target the men and women who would provide security for their own country (92 killed in multiple attacks in Iraq.)

If the media (and Michael Moore) weren't so obsessed with their Bush-hatred, maybe they would see, as I do, that those Iraqis who are signing up to become part of and defend the new Iraq are the true inheritors of the Minutemen legacy.

Rumsfeld memo on "torture"

June 23 - Via Instapundit, it seems that Rumsfeld has been vindicated, but will this receive as much coverage as the accusations? This post at Captain's Quarters links to a CNN report which, after giving full coverage to those who cannot conceive that the wrongdoers at Abu Ghraib prison might have exercised free will in their misconduct, admits that their unnamed informant has changed the story as to what was and what was not approved by the Pentagon:

Meanwhile, a source told CNN that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld never approved a controversial interrogation technique called "water boarding." That source had told CNN the opposite Monday.

Once again, I have to go on trust that there ever was a source who had access to actual information as opposed to scuttlebutt.

The senior defense official who provided the original information to CNN now says Rumsfeld only approved "mild, noninjurious physical contact" with a high-level al Qaeda detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and specifically did not approve a request to use water boarding.

The tactic involves strapping a prisoner down and immersing him in water to make the subject feel as though he is drowning.

The documents released Tuesday, as described by administration officials, help to show what ideas were discussed versus what was actually rubber-stamped by the White House in terms of the legal limits of interrogation.

"We want to drive home what was approved and what was speculated about. It is a distinction that has been lost," one official told CNN.

There has long been discussion on the internet about the use of torture should a pending terrorist attack involve biological or radioactive agencies, and it shouldn't be startling that people in the Pentagon have had similar discussions. We expect them to explore all options even when the decision is likely to be negative on most of them.

Senior administration officials say there were a lot of "academic" musings or "opinion" memos written after the terrorist attacks about how to apply interrogation laws and rules to the war on terrorism.

One official said it was "uncharted territory," and people at various agencies were trying to figure out how to deal with its legalities.

So what was approved?

Mild, noninjurious physical contact such as grabbing someone's arm, poking them in the chest or light shoving.

Read the post at Captain's Quarters, and follow the links.

Kim Sun-il beheaded

June 22 - Heartbreaking news: South Korean hostage beheaded.

One question: have we come to the point where we can be as anguished about this young man as we were about American hostages who have met the same fate?

I hope so. Terrorism is an attack on all free people, and until we realize that, we won't be truly engaged in fighting it.

Airstrike in Fallujah

June 19 - CNN Breaking News Alert atop the page at this moment reads Coalition says it destroyed a safehouse used by alleged terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network in Fallujah, Iraq. Details soon.

Do you suppose the breaking news has any connection to this story: Hospital: 17 Iraqis killed in Fallujah airstrike?

Iraq terror ties in Canada?

June 18 - This is interesting: 3 in Iraq smuggle scam: RCMP concerns the smuggling of car parts into Iraq that were said to be meant for use by Saddamites. Three men from southern Ontario, Salah Abdul Sahib, 44, of Leamington, Munther Yacoub, 55, of Windsor, and Vincent Lewis, 56, of Waterloo, have been charged with smuggling money, car tires and car batteries to Iraq via third countries.

Three southern Ontario men face 296 charges of violating 100 Customs regulations and UN statutes. Three trading companies were also charged.

The Mounties said from 2000 to 2003 some 29,000 tires, worth $800,000, were placed in containers and shipped from Toronto to Baghdad, via Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

Large sums of U.S. currency were allegedly transferred from Canada to Iraq, in contravention of United Nations regulations, Yen said.

The math is definitely off:

Eleven containers of household goods and foods worth about $118,000 were imported for sale here, police said.

The sale to Iraq of 13 containers of tires from China, worth $444,000, and one of batteries from South Korea, worth $26,000, were arranged from Canada, Yen said.

RCMP Const. Annette Bernardon said most of the tires were shipped to Iraq through Toronto's port. "We don't know where they went once they ended up in Iraq. They could have gone anywhere."

It's unclear from the article if the accused men were running a black market operation for the money or because they actively support Saddam (or, as he's in jail, something else? The Ba'athists in Fallujah, or al Zarqawi, maybe?) but if they imported $118,00 worth of goods and exported over $470,000 worth of goods plus $800,000 worth of tires in addition to the "large sums of" US dollars said to be transferred from Canada to Iraq then there is much more going on than is being stated.

Since the hunt is ongoing for Saddam's pilfered Oil-for-Food funds, though, the operation could well have been conducted on his behalf.

The three trading companies that were also charged are Leamington International Foods and Salco Import and Export, co-owned by Sahib and Yacoub, and Treadway Exports.

Russian advised USA of terror attack plans by Saddam

June 18 - Russia 'warned U.S. about Saddam' - admittedly slightly old news to most people but it suggests so many things without much in the way of clues. Roger L. Simon's analytical skills make his post on the subject far more interesting than my idle speculation, though.

There's also a persistent refrain running in my head ... Chechnya, Chechnya which must factor in somehow.

Towards a sovereign Iraq

June 15 - I'm a pretty patient person (although it's more an acquired skill learnt from child raising than innate) so the setbacks in turning Iraq into Connecticut (per Mark Steyn) haven't given me the vapours or anything.

On the other hand, given the concerns as to when the Iraqi army will be ready to assert itself have been nicely countered with this article in National Review by W. Thomas Smith Jr., Iraq Soldiers Save U.S. Marine:

On the evening of May 30, 2004, Jassim and his fellow members of 4th Platoon, India Company, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) were jointly patrolling the streets of Al Karmah, near Fallujah, with leathernecks from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. All at once, the patrol was ambushed from the rear by enemy insurgents. A U.S. Marine was instantly struck down with a gunshot wound to the leg.

Reacting as they had been trained to do by their U.S. counterparts, the Iraqis swung into action.

Jassim, who was standing closest to the Marine when the latter was hit, immediately returned fire.

Read the whole thing. As is noted, this was not as isolated incident.

I've used the term "Iraqi confidence" over the last year to define the one, essential ingredient that the Iraqis will need to build a nation of their people, by their people and for their people. That won't be accomplished by empty flattery or patronizing NY Times editorials but by deeds: Iraqis seeing on a daily basis their energy and creativity released to reveal the truly astonishing people that dictatorships try so vainly to repress.

Never doubt the mission. It's Operation: Iraqi Freedom and we are only the midwives.

The feckless UN in Iraq, Serbia and Iran

June 12 - From the Daily Telegraph (UK) comes a report on Danish UN aid worker Michael Soussan who, in his testimony before a US Congressional probe into UNSCAM, blasted the UN's 'shameful silence' over the evils of Saddam:

To Mr Soussan's dismay, the most vocal critics worked alongside him at the UN. The genocide charge was levelled by an assistant secretary general in charge of humanitarian work in Iraq.

His colleagues blamed the Security Council - especially the United States and Britain - for the suffering of Iraqis, ignoring evidence that Saddam was stealing food from his own people's mouths.

They could hardly ignore the wickedness of Saddam's regime. Foreign UN staff could sense the terror in Iraqis they met, and saw for themselves the gilded excesses of the Ba'athist elite.

But somehow that wickedness was taken as a given, then promptly smothered in a warm soup of moral relativism.

"We have a notion of sovereignty at the UN that doesn't distinguish between governments that deserve sovereignty and those that do not. And that really skews our moral compass," Mr Soussan told The Telegraph.

"[My colleagues] devoted most of their moral outrage towards the United States and the UK," he said. (Emphasis added)

Can we say "easy targets?" Of course we can. And anyone who defends the USA will be accused of being brainwashed, bought-off, racist, or, worst of all, defying the international community. Small wonder these bureaucrats took the easy road even if they knew it was a lie. But that's not moral equivalence, that's just plain immoral.

Mr Soussan does not deny the pain caused by sanctions from the first Gulf war in 1991 to 1996, before oil-for-food sales began. A quarter of a million children died, by conservative estimates.

But during those five years, it was Saddam who refused offers to sell his oil and import humanitarian goods under UN supervision. "[He was] banking that images of dying babies would eventually force the international community to lift the sanctions altogether," Mr Soussan told Congress.

By 2000, there was no limit on the amount of oil Saddam was allowed to sell, and few limits on the civilian goods he was allowed to buy.

Iraq was under sanctions only "to the extent that they couldn't import military goods", he said.

Yet still Saddam claimed sanctions were killing 5,000 infants a month, parading tiny coffins in the streets to ram the point home. "The UN did not stand up to this propaganda. It cowered in the face of this notion that the sanctions were killing Iraqi babies," Mr Soussan said. (Emphasis added)

One of Osama bin Laden's justifications for declaring jihad on the USA was that we were responsible for the murder of Iraqi babies, something that has yet to be properly refuted in the international, and, more importantly, the Arab press.

The failure of the U.N. to take responsiblilty and tell the truth is responsible for much of the hatred of the world towards the USA, but we are supposed to "take it" for the good of an international community which has no values, no morals, but does have some dandy committees.

Iraqi babies no longer die due to malnutrition, watered-down drugs, expired pharmaceuticals and lack of equipment in medical facilities, but that fact has nothing to do with the U.N. and everything to do with action that was condemned by the U.N.

UN staff did not speak out when Saddam refused to buy high protein foods recommended by UN experts, or spent oil-for-food millions on sports stadiums, or broadcasting equipment for his propaganda machine.

The UN turned a blind eye to signs that Saddam was bribing cronies at home and abroad with black market oil vouchers, and was skimming billions from funds meant for food and medicine, demanding secret, 10 per cent "kickbacks" on humanitarian contracts.

The UN recently claimed it "learned of the 10 per cent kickback scheme only after the end of major combat operations" in 2003.

A lie, said Mr Soussan, recalling the hapless Swedish company that called in 2000, seeking UN help after being asked to pay kickbacks. The Swedes' plea was quickly lost in red tape and inter-office turf wars. After a "Kafka-esque" flurry of internal memos, the Swedes were told to complain to their own government.

So much for that which some call international law which is used as a club to beat upon democratic countries like the USA but not Ghana, Sudan or Congo.

Now top UN officials are under investigation. Mr Soussan hopes the shock will force a major debate on how to deal with rogue regimes.

"The oil-for-food programme was a deal with the devil. The problem is, that we didn't act as if this was the devil, we acted as if this was a legitimate regime," he said.

Again, that's not moral equivalence, that's outright immorality. At long last, the USA, Great Britain and other members of the coalition didn't deal with the devil, we removed him from power. Isn't that what moral people do when they confront evil?

If such major questions have to wait, a little more transparency would help, for starters.

"If the UN had just stood up once, held a high-level press conference, and said, 'We think the Iraqi government is cheating its people', then the UN would not be in the mess it is now," he said. "It would then be an accuser, rather than the accused." (Emphasis added)

The U.N. just can't catch a break this week, as it's failure in Serbia has been pushed back to the fore with the admission by Serbian officials that the Srebrenica massacre was carried out by Serbian security officials which in turn stimulated the memory of the failure of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers to protect those who appealed to them for help at the U.N. compound, a failure for which the Dutch government at the time apologized and then resigned.

Iran is piling on: they have rejected any further restrictions on their weapon programs and demands to be recognized as a nuclear power:

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi accused France, Britain and Germany -- who have drawn up a tough new document that accuses Iran of not cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency -- of bowing to pressure from the United States.

See what I mean? Iran, which is known for its violation of human rights and a known sponsor of terror, need only pull the anti-US card and millions of progressive, peaceloving people will line up to defend Iran's right to terrorize the world - and Israel - with a nuclear holocaust.

Some of those nuts live in the United States. One of those nuts in running for president: Senator John Kerry, who actually believes that we can pursue detente with North Korea and Iran as we attempted with the Soviet Union.

President Reagan's final gift to the USA may have been the timing of his death which not only coincided with D-Day, a major military offensive in the fight against fascism, but also led to the recollection that he defeated communism by his firm resolve to stand up to the Soviet Union and match them missile for missile rather than meekly pretending they were anything less than evil.

Detente failed. Unyielding principles won, and we were dealing with comparatively sane people in the Soviet Union. Would anyone dare to make the same claims about the North Korean or Iranian governments?

Canadians who are pretending to be terrified of social conservatives coming to power in Canada would, if they were honest, be lying prostrate on the floor in a cold faint at the mere thought of Iranian social conservatives but they aren't because it's all about the propaganda, not the reality.

Bassam Salih Kubba assassinated

June 12 - One of Iraq's four deputy deputy ministers, Bassam Salih Kubba, has been assassinated.

The Russian and American presidents

June 11 - It seems like a lifetime ago when President Bush said that he had looked into Russian President Putin's eyes and "seen his soul." The press mocked that assessment (of course) but one of the things we've learnt about President Bush that when he tosses out comments like that one it is wise to shut up, pay attention, and see what transpires over the long run.

Russia was opposed to the Iraq War, but at least they were consistent: they also opposed the NATO bombing of Kosovo. (Consistency may be the mark of small minds, but inconsistency is often an indication of opportunism.)

There are still some open questions about Russian involvement in Saddamite Iraq including the final days before the fall of Baghdad, but if the Bush administration chose to see how much rope the Russians might require, it seemed that the length was short the amount they needed to hang themselves and we have been able to maintain cordial relations with Russia.

Actually, relations between the USA and Russia seem the best possible between two sovereign nations: we disagree, but do so agreeably; Russia pursues courses in her best interests, we pursue ours; we didn't ratify Kyoto, and neither did they.

In short, both countries are behaving like adults without the burden of control freakery that seems to consume some of our other allies.

Whereas the foreign leaders who are said to prefer a Kerry presidency choose to remain hidden, the Russian leader has come as close as is proper to publicly taking a stand and does so consistent with his opposition to the war in Iraq: Putin Takes Bush's Side Against Democrats on Iraq saying

"I am deeply convinced that President Bush's political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same.

"It suffices to recall Yugoslavia. Now look at them. They don't like what President Bush is doing in Iraq."

He could have openly criticized the French, Germans and Belgians for the same cause, but I'll do that for him by pointing out that they (and Canada under Chretien) also supported military intervention in Kosovo despite the lack of a U.N. mandate.

(Link via Let It Bleed. I found while my post fermented that Kate at the Western Standard blog, the Shotgun, has also picked up the story from the Reuters link from which the Yahoo article was taken.)

Six coalition soldiers KIA

June 9 - The deaths of 6 coaltion soliders, which yesterday had been thought to be accidental, have turned out to have been caused by mortar attacks (6 European soldiers were killed in Iraq attack):

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An attack by insurgents caused the deaths of the six eastern European soldiers working in a demining operation, officials said Wednesday.

Officials initially had said the deaths were caused by an accidental explosion.

Three Slovaks, two Poles and one Latvian died in Tuesday's attack, according to Polish Maj. Slawomir Walenczykowski. The soldiers were killed near As Suwayrah, south of Baghdad.

Lt. Col. Robert Strzlecki said four mortar rounds were fired, including one that struck an ammunition depot the coalition forces used for demining purposes. Artillery shells and other ammunition exploded in the attack.

Remember that we are not alone in Iraq and are supported by countries for whom liberty is new and sweet, and that their freedom, in an odd twist of historical timing, is part of Reagan's legacy.

Iraq sovereignty a fait accompli II

June 8 - I'm torn between being thrilled for the Iraqi people and wanting to say "duh" (Unanimous U.N. Approval of Iraq Plan.)

There are a few wrinkles according to some of the quotes from member nations of the UNSC in the article, yet none of those wrinkles seem to have been supported by modifications to the resolution and can be dismissed as empty rhetoric.

Despite the victory, four members of the G-8 summit -- France, Germany, Russia and Canada -- have said they won't send troops.

Canada has no troops she can commit, and given the Russian deployment in Chechnya I doubt it would be advisable to bring Russian troops in. As for France, well, there's that accordian on a deer hunt meme ...

I saw a clip on MSNBC with Pres. Bush and PM Martin in which the President mentioned soft wood lumber and Canada's contribution to the war on terror. Martin reiterated Canadian support of the US war on terror.

The President also said that Canada is strongly cooperating on finding ways to cooperate, which I read to mean that Canada continues to prefer cooperating quietly and without public awareness. The Liberal Party has put themselves in an increasingly awkward situation. Lord help them if there should be a terrorist attack here before the elections. The mood has changed, the Tories have pulled ahead in the polls, and Paul Martin may be the only Canadian who remains oblivious to that fact.

Hubris. Martin and the Liberal Party can look it up.

The original draft is here (heh, with "spelling appearing to follow British usage." Sometimes Fox coverage is somewhat embarrassing.)

Hostages in Iraq rescued

June 8 - Some more good news: Four Foreign Hostages Freed in Iraq. Three Italians and a Pole held captive in Iraq by the Green Brigade have been rescued by US Special Forces. Individuals have been detained but there is no information on their identities or nationalities.

The DoD release states the rescued men were Salvatore Stefio, Umberto Cupertino and Maurizio Agliana of Italy, and Jerzy Kos of Poland.

The three Italians had been kidnapped April 12 along with Fabrizio Quattrocchi, who's incredible display of courage and defiance toward his murderers remains a source of inspiration.

Zarqawi associate captured

June 4 - Umar Baziyani, described as an associate of Zarqawi, was been captured by Iraqi police forces. He has been in custody since May 30.

Bush at the Air Force Academy

June 3 - The text of the President's speech yesterday to the graduates of the Air Force Academy is here.

Just as events in Europe determined the outcome of the Cold War, events in the Middle East will set the course of our current struggle. If that region is abandoned to dictators and terrorists, it will be a constant source of violence andd alarm, exporting killers of increasing destructive power to attack America and other free nations. If that region grows in democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorist movement will lose its sponsors, lose its recruits, and lose the festering grievances that keep terrorists in business. The stakes of this struggle are high. The security and peace of our country are at stake, and success in this struggle is our only option.

Those who believe Operation Iraqi Freedom is not connected to the War on Terror overlook the fact that there is one root cause of terrorism which we can address and help change, that being the repression and tyranny of Arab states which stifle the creative energy of millions of men and women who, like most of us, desire nothing more than to live, work and raise their families without fear and with hopes of a better tomorrow.

Lest we forget, the Iraqi people have also suffered from the bombs of Zarqawi and his associates as have our soldiers and civilian contractors, and our partnership with the Iraqi people has been forged in blood and perseverence.

Read the whole speech. There's been a lot of events in Iraq since the war first began, but the mission remains the same: Iraqi Freedom.

Iraq sovereignty a fait accompli

June 3 - From David Warren, A sovereign Iraq. I'm not going to reiterate the points he makes indicating that the transfer of power has already taken place because my joy is contained herein:

Real praise ought to be showered on the Iraqis. This new political class -- consisting of returned Sunni and Shia exiles, Kurds, tribal lords, Shia clerical henchmen, and the odd, semi-halal, Baath-party "technocrat", has proved capable of forming workable coalitions whenever something has had to be achieved. If you read your history of American constitutional wranglings in the 18th-century, you will appreciate how far they came in how little time.

Is all this very fragile and tentative? Yes, but ... Can a lot go wrong? Yes, but ... To all doubters and naysayers, yes and yes, but and but!

Those of us who supported Operation Iraqi Freedom chose to believe that there was no logical reason Iraq could not be a country run by consensual government that respected human rights.

There will be a great many twists and turns during the implementation of this new style of Mid-east rule, but I'm willing to go on faith rather than cynicism.

Back home, the upcoming presidential election in the USA will, sadly, produce more politicking than honest evaluation of this incredible leap, but in the long term, that won't detract from the victory which rightly belongs to Iraqis.

As always, read Zeyad, Omar, Sam for their insights.

19:15: Grand Ayatollah Sistani has endorsed the new Iraqi government.

Mark Steyn on Memorial Day

May 30 - The great one marks Memorial Day by pointing to the ubiquitous victimology that dominates our senile Old Media and elites in Recalling a time when setbacks didn't deter us recalling the turmoil of the Civil War:

But that's the difference between then and now: the loss of proportion. They had victims galore back in 1863, but they weren't a victim culture. They had a lot of crummy decisions and bureaucratic screwups worth re-examining, but they weren't a nation that prioritized retroactive pseudo-legalistic self-flagellating vaudeville over all else. They had hellish setbacks but they didn't lose sight of the forest in order to obsess week after week on one tiny twig of one weedy little tree.

There is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites -- from the deranged former vice president down -- want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it's pain-free, squeaky clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we're supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day.

There's another difference too: after the Civil War, it was the victors who "waved the bloody shirt" in order to justify the imposition of harsh conditions on the defeated South. It became as tiresome and a sure sign of hypocrisy as, well, "it's for the children."

Today it's those opposed to the war who wave the bloody shirt, presumably to prove they support the troops although they oppose the mission, and they too have become tiresome.

I'm a little out of the newsloop. Every time I turned on CNN we were back to old photos out of Abu Ghraib with a brief foray which tried to depict disgraced Gen. Kapinski as a victim or attempts to paint the situation in Najaf as failed negotiations even as they report the numbers of more dead al Mehdi thugs. Evidently Old Media failed to draw some lessons about strategy from events at Fallujah. As for Fallujah, it's off the map now, which tells me things are going according to plan.

CNN dutifully reported on the discovery of more sarin and mustard gas but the commentator (David Ensor, I think?) said that they were old, pre-Gulf War I, but still "technically" WMD. Usually the death-quoted "technically" is followed by an explanation of what something "really" is, but the pundit left it there. Nice spin. Do "old" WMD not indicate the violation of the ceasefire agreement that halted Gulf War I and several subsequent UN resolutions? Do "old" WMD not kill?

The goal posts were moved after Dr. Kay's report which said that although they had not found stockpiles of WMD they had found active weapons programs and numerous violations of the ceasefire and UN resolutions.

Now it seems nothing will do but finding a huge cache of WMD with a sign that says "Saddam's Personal Stash."

I'm still an unreconstructed optimist: every dead Medhi fighter is one more reason to be optimistic about the June 30 handover. Iran's withdrawal of support for Muqtada al Sadr is another reason to be optimistic.

The question in November is becoming, increasingly, the extent to which the American public can read past the propaganda and spin put out by Old Media and use their common sense.

Fix Bayonets

May 26 - Ghost of a Flea sent me this link to a Steyn column in the Chicago Sun-Times, Don't give Iraqis self-rule all at once.

Mark refers to events from a Sun (UK) leader (since expired) (UPDATE: link to article in the Scotsman on the engagement here) which Flea had referred to here about a group of Argyll and Sutherland highlanders who fixed bayonets and charged after coming under fire in Amara.

As always, Mark gets it:

If you're used to smart bombs, unmanned drones and doing it all by computer back at HQ, you're probably wondering why a modern Western army is still running around with bayonets at the end of their rifles. The answer is that it's a very basic form of psychological warfare.

''If you're defending a position and you see someone advancing with a bayonet, you may be more inclined to surrender,'' Col. Ed Brown told the British newspaper the Guardian. ''I've never been bayoneted, but I can imagine it's pretty gruesome.''

Resolve in battle and politics means using all the tools in your box.

Of course, the column is about more than the use of a bayonet charge in modern warfare (it is Steyn, after all) and looks at something very basic to the future of Iraq:

There are some 8,000 towns and villages in the country. How many do you hear about on the news? For a week, it's all Fallujah all the time. Then it's Najaf, and nada for anywhere else. Currently, 90 percent of Iraqi coverage is about one lousy building: Abu Ghraib. So what's going on in the other 7,997 dots on the map?

The "news we trust" is curiously silent on that point, but probably because it's hard to report much news when one's views are filtered through a poolside perch in the Palestine Hotel.

In the Shia province of Dhi Qar, a couple hundred miles southeast of Baghdad, 16 of the biggest 20 cities plus many smaller towns will have elected councils by June. These were the first free elections in Dhi Qar's history and ''in almost every case, secular independents and representatives of nonreligious parties did better than the Islamists.'' That assessment is from the anti-war anti-Bush anti-Blair Euro-lefties at the Guardian, by the way.

President Bush made much the same point in his speech Monday night (see Towards a Free Iraq below) and the theme is the same: grass roots democracy is the well-spring from which consensual government is nourished and protected.

The best bulwark against tyranny is a population that knows the benefits of freedom, as the Iraqi Kurds do. Don't make the mistake of turning Iraq into a dysfunctional American public school, where the smart guys get held down to the low standards of the misfits and in the end they all get the same social promotion anyway. Let's get on with giving the Kurdish and Shia areas elected governors and practical sovereignty, province by province.

And then fix bayonets and stick it to the holdouts.

Towards a free Iraq

May 26 - Monday night, President Bush made the first in a series of speeches in which he will lay out plans for implementing the goals of Operation Iraq Freedom, the role we are playing, and the steps to transfer power to the Iraqi people (Troops Are in Iraq to Make It Free.) The text of the speech is available here.

Our coalition has a clear goal, understood by all -- to see the Iraqi people in charge of Iraq for the first time in generations. America's task in Iraq is not only to defeat an enemy, it is to give strength to a friend — a free, representative government that serves its people and fights on their behalf. And the sooner this goal is achieved, the sooner our job will be done.

The president laid out five steps for achieving this goal. The first is the transfer of power to Iraqis. U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi will be working with Iraqis to set up an interim council including a President, two Vice-Presidents, a Prime Minister, and 26 Ministers. 12 government ministries are already under the control of Iraqis.

All along, some have questioned whether the Iraqi people are ready for self-government, or even want it. And all along, the Iraqi people have given their answer. In settings where Iraqis have met to discuss their country's future, they have endorsed representative government. And they are practicing representative government. Many of Iraq's cities and towns now have elected town councils or city governments - and beyond the violence, a civil society is emerging.

The foundation for a free society comes from the bottom - grass roots democracy - and establishing Iraqi control over local, day-to-day government is what will build the confidence of Iraqis that they can take control of their country and build it for the betterment of their and their children's futures.

The second step is to establish security and stability. I think that is the most difficult and most exciting of the tasks at hand, because implementing that step will ultimately involve a transfer of power as well, although it now takes the shape of partnership, itself a signficant if risky endeavour. Referring to the steps taken in response to events at Fallujah:

We want Iraqi forces to gain experience and confidence in dealing with their country's enemies. We want the Iraqi people to know that we trust their growing capabilities, even as we help build them. At the same time, Fallujah must cease to be a sanctuary for the enemy, and those responsible for terrorism will be held to account.

Somebody referred to the failed uprisings fomented by the Sunnis and Muqtada al-Sadr as "the dog that didn't bark," referring to the things that haven't happened as more indicative of the state of affairs in Iraq than those things that have happened and which have been reported.

The Sunnis have not revolted in significant numbers. Shi'as have not joined Muqtada al-Sadr. The indignation over Abu Ghraib has been exploited everywhere but with noticeable silence from Iraq itself.

Only the future will be able to adequately judge the steps taken by the US and her allies to establish consensual government in a Mid-east country. I doubt the debate will end soon, but I remain committed to the cause.

Read the president's speech and judge for yourself. As we have said so often, the ability to read the documents ourselves rather than rely on the filter of others is one of the most exciting gifts of the internet.

Strength

May 22

Honor and shame trump everything in that world. A pithy sentence, eh? So instead, think about what it would take for you to kill your own daughter with a knife, with your bare hands, because she was seen in the company of a man not her husband or a relative? Think about that. Think long and hard.

Moreover,

What would it take for you to murder your daughter with a knife, or a knotted cord – with your own two hands and against her pleading, her protestations, and her begging for her life? If your response wasn’t “there is nothing that could make me do that,” then stop reading right here and get the hell off my property.

From Bill Whittle's latest essay, Strength, (part 1). (part 2 is here.)

The New Reactionaries

May 21 - Roger Simon, in The New Reactionaries, comments on his conclusions after reading Congress, Media Could Talk U.S. Into Iraq Defeat

Meanwhile, the Zarqawis of the world are winning this war. And I can promise you one thing -- it's a lot more important than George W. Bush, John Kerry, anybody in Congress and the Media and any one single person. It's about civilization versus a death cult. Make a choice!

RTWT.

More on the role of the media: this Glenn Reynolds post on some poll results which indicate dissatisfaction with Old Media is becoming more widespread, and Donald Sensing has Duelling Biases and some fed-up Marine Moms who I wouldn't want to tangle with.

Raid on Chalabi's House

May 21 - Much has been made of the raid on Chalabi's house yesterday (U.S. mililtary raids Chalabi's home, with more here and here) but there was also this CPA briefing.

People will believe what they chose to believe, but I have more faith in real people (with names) than the all too prevalent "sources" that dominate much of reporting these days. An excerpt from that CPA briefing:

Q: Owen Fay, Fox News. Dan, Ahmed Chalabi has just given a press conference in which he said that at least some of the documents seized today were related to the oil-for-food investigation. Could you tell us the primary thrust of the reason behind this raid and how significant a role the oil-for-food is playing?

MR. SENOR: I would refer you to the Iraqi police on that issue. My understanding is they are the ones who seized any documents. It was an Iraqi-led investigation, it was an Iraqi-led raid. It was the result of Iraqi arrest warrants.

The briefing also explains the relationship between the Iraqi police, investigations, and at what point Bremer takes a role.

In today's CPA briefing, Senor said

There was some news reporting last night that in the Iraqi police investigation -- sorry, in the Iraqi police operation yesterday morning, there were officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency involved in the operation. I just want to categorically deny that that occurred. There were no officials from the CIA, there were no officials from the FBI involved in the Iraqi police investigation. I just was hoping to clear that up today. I don't know if it was misreporting or misinformation, but whatever it was, it was incorrect.

And during the questions, this:

Q: Dan, which government agency or which government contract did the American plainclothes civilians, who were armed, who accompanied the soldiers, work for -- in the Chalabi raid?

MR. SENOR: They were -- sure. Well, first, let me say that there were no officials from the Central Intelligence Agency. There were no officials there from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. There were no Defense Intelligence Agency officials there. There were private contractors who work for the Ministry of Interior. And their job is primarily -- my understanding is, their job is the professionalization of the Iraqi police service. So they were there to observe and advise the Iraqi police during this operation, as they do on numerous operations. They are the only non-Iraqis, to my understanding, that were there.

There was one woman, an -- who was American, who identified herself as an employee of the Iraqi National Congress, who was there when the police service arrived on the scene.

GEN. KIMMITT: And Dexter, you said, escorted the "soldiers." I know you meant the Iraqi police.

There were U.S. soldiers that were involved in the outer cordon. The only purpose in this operation was that if there was any collateral violence that was associated with this, with their responsibility to maintain a safe and secure environment throughout Baghdad, that's what they were there for. But, however, the actual police operation was one conducted by the Iraqi police.

David Frum has an post on the Chalabi raid and, in fact, Chalabi himself here.

He nails the underlying issue:

It is puzzling to me that the same people who refuse to believe the US government when it says its forces hit a terrorist safe house, not a wedding partner, are all credulity when anonymous sources inside that same government declare that Ahmed Chalabi is the center of a vast sinister conspiracy.

David Frum makes a number of sensible points about all the rumours and unknowns that dominate this story, including those that the raid was connected to seizing documents that related to the Oil-for-Food (UNSCAM) investigation.

I think I'll wait until I actually know something before I pa