Right Wing Nut House

More evidence that this ain’t your daddy’s surge:

A U.S. military spokesman on Thursday hailed a joint American-Iraqi raid on Baghdad’s leading Shiite Muslim mosque as proof of that the Baghdad security plan is being applied evenly against all sides of the country’s sectarian divide.

The raid, which took place Wednesday, angered the mosque’s imam, who took the unusual step of canceling Friday prayer services at the historic Baratha mosque, where, Shiites believe, Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali, converted a Christian missionary to Islam in the seventh century.

Sheik Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a member of parliament from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, denounced the raid, which the U.S. military said had turned up a cache of illegal weapons. The Supreme Council is one of Iraq’s largest political parties and part of its governing coalition.

Searching mosques has been a particularly sensitive issue since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. In delivering the decree that legalized the security plan earlier this week, Iraqi army Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar said soldiers would enter mosques only if they were used “for illegal purposes” or to protect citizens from harm.

Our intelligence is so good that the problem isn’t so much finding the weapons as finding the will to confiscate them. To do this, we are going to have to confront the militias, raid mosques, arrest government officials, purge the army and police, and in the process, try and avoid civilian casualties.

A tall order all of that. And I suspect we will continue to hear complaints from some of the beneficiaries of the sectarian violence:

Al-Saghir said he’d called the defense and interior ministries and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office, demanding to know who’d authorized the search.

“All of them denied any knowledge about the raid,” Saghir said. “One of the Iraqi officials told me that the U.S. officials in Iraq are confused.”

Iraqi government spokesmen didn’t return calls Thursday.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Chris Garver, a spokesman for the coalition forces in Iraq, said American soldiers had entered the mosque only after the search had been completed and then only to help Iraqi special forces haul out the weapons.

The search showed that the security forces would target Shiite militias, even if they had to enter mosques, he said.

Sounds to me like a case of “plausible deniability” on the part of Iraqi authorities. To prevent al-Maliki from throwing a monkey wrench into politically sensitive ops like raiding a mosque, they have been deliberately kept in the dark, only being told of the broad outlines of the plan.

I can see where this might lead to some complaints that al-Maliki is not in control and has zero influence on what happens in his own country. But you don’t need a surge or Baghdad Security Plan for that statement to be true. The whole point of the operation is to give al-Maliki that control - at least in Baghdad. What he does with it will determine how quickly we can draw down our forces.

Will going after the most important Shia mosque in Baghdad allay some of the fears by Sunnis that we will only target their militias and deaths squads? Not until we directly confront the Mahdi Army will the Sunnis believe that the surge will be an equal opportunity destroyer. As if to highlight that point, American aircraft bombed a Sunni-dominated part of southern Baghdad near Dora. The Sunnis in Dora have practiced a little faith-based cleansing by ejecting Shias and Christians who have lived in the area for generations, killing dozens. The use of aircraft is an escalation that we will almost certainly see more of as fighting intensifies around the city.

I wish I could summon up some outrage over this “comic book” that is being distributed to San Francisco high school kids but every time I look at some of the panels and try to think of something serious to write, I break out laughing.

The introduction by the author, Joel Andreas, reveals a member of the paranoid left in good standing:

The September 11 attacks provided an opportunity for George W. Bush to declare a “War on Terrorism,” which in practice turned out to be an endless binge of war-making. The second edition was published in early 2002, following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The Bush Administration then turned to preparing for a new war against Iraq. A thin rhetorical veneer about combating terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction hardly concealed its underlying aim: to impose a new U.S. client regime in the Middle East and assure control over a country that has the world’s second largest known oil reserves. As the present edition goes to press, the U.S. is occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. In an effort to quell armed resistance, the U.S. military is taking harsh punitive measures against the civilian populations of both countries, feeding a spiral of violence that has repercussions around the world and is placing us all in greater danger.

Holy Smokes! It’s like trying to fisk Chomsky! So many exaggerations, misinformed non sequiturs, and out and out falsehoods that all a sane person can do is throw up their hands and laugh at the utter stupidity on display.

As for the comic book itself, the reference notes explain much: Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Peter Wyden, William Blum, Robert Fisk, Charles Bergquist - an honor roll of leftist historians whose writings are colored to this day by a discredited Marxist worldview involving economic determinism (although Marxists reject the idea of determinism ever being a Marxist concept - now that it’s an abject failure), reductionism and other tried and true hyper liberal historical/sociological concepts that survive only in the dusty offices and even dustier heads of leftist academics.

This worldview enjoyed much popularity for more than 100 years because it purported to explain human behavior by looking at class and macro-economic factors. The problem, of course, is that determinism doesn’t do a good job of describing human motivations at all. It has never done a good job of doing so and never will. In fact, if the collapse of Communism proved anything, it showed that leftist scholars who adhere to this worldview have been more wrong in interpreting and commenting on historical events than any similar group of scholars since perhaps the Greeks who ascribed divine intervention to historical occurrences.

But don’t tell leftist academics this. Their heads might explode.

But beyond the author of this comic book and his sources, there is the weird, almost casual disregard for context that makes the book - which is supposed to be used as a supplemental text - little more than the kind of rant you might hear from brainless, uneducated goofs like Cindy Sheehan or Dennis Kucinich. Case in point: Chapter Two “The Cold War:”

Aside from the gross exaggerations and lack of context given regarding those 200 military “interventions” - the overwhelming majority of which were to protect American citizens and property in times of revolution or civil unrest in countries that could not guarantee such protections - I would call your attention to the panel in the upper left of the screen where the young boy is reading what the leftists see as sanitized American history that promotes militarism while keeping our young people ignorant of “the truth.”

Leftists believe that American history is locked in a closet guarded by CIA agents 24 hours a day. If a history textbook somehow fails to show how truly evil the United States is, the obvious reason is that we are suppressing the “true” history of slavery, or depredations carried out against Indians, or oppression of women, or some such arbitrary yardstick of historical accuracy that textbooks deliberately leave out to promote a mindless, patriotic agenda.

I will be the first to take American history textbooks to task for being incomplete, simplistic, and these days, full of politically correct narratives that reflects the desire of textbook companies to sell more books rather than any genuine effort to tell America’s story. But in the end, the kind of “history” promoted by the left is, in fact, anti-history. The schizophrenic nature of our national story - a nation that loves liberty above all else but kept millions in bondage for the first 80 years of its existence among other dichotomies - cannot be illustrated in any single textbook or even series of textbooks and certainly not in a comic book where context is deliberately excluded in order to promote an agenda. In short, the comic book becomes a parody of itself. That panel in the upper left above could show the young man reading the comic book in which his picture appears.

What kind of high school would purchase comic books in the first place, especially when trying to facilitate discussion on such an extraordinarily complex subject? It is apparent that either San Francisco is full of ignorant high school kids who can only learn by being exposed to reading material the level that a kindergartner wouldn’t find challenging or that school authorities themselves have precious little confidence in the cognitive abilities of students under their care.

My guess is the latter. This country is full of clueless school officials who not only fail to challenge students in developing curricula that would give them a fully rounded education, but also seek to promote their own agendas and foist their own ideas upon students with little thought to developing their critical thinking skills - the ability of the student to think and reason for themselves. This includes liberals in San Francisco and conservatives in Kansas.

Stupidity among school boards knows no ideological limits.

Most Americans are familiar with the heroic narrative involving New York city mayor Rudy Guiliani and his actions on 9/11. As the horror unfolded on that tragic day, Rudy was everywhere; walking the streets covered in dust and ash from the fallen towers, before the cameras trying to both assure the citizens of New York while hammering home the fact that casualties from the attack would be “more than we can bear.” His presence - both commanding and calming at the same time - established a public personae of a no-nonsense, take charge guy with compassion and empathy for the victims and a cool, unflappable style that assured Americans far beyond the borders of New York city.

That’s because, for all intents and purposes, Rudy Guiliani was the face of the United States government for those first few hours in the aftermath of the attacks. While the President was being shuttled around by the Secret Service to secure locations across the country, the calm visage of the New York Mayor appearing on television before the press or walking the devastated streets of his beloved city was the only connection the American people watching at home had with someone in charge.

This part of the narrative is what Guiliani and his handlers will want the American people to see and remember once the former mayor announces his candidacy for President of the United States. No one can take this away from Guiliani. By any standard, he performed magnificently in his role as the voice of sanity and reason when everything around him seemed insane and unreal.

But there’s more to the story, of course. And beyond what Guiliani did or didn’t do before and after 9/11 is the question regarding the propriety of using the attacks as a launching pad for a Presidential campaign. Would Guiliani, a high profile mayor of the second largest city in the country, even be considered presidential material if not for his actions on that awful day?

And what about Rudy’s actions in the years prior to 9/11 that some say contributed mightily to the death toll in the towers that day? The antiquated New York emergency services communications system shattered under the city-wide disaster - some say as a consequence of the mayor’s inattentiveness and shortsightedness.

There are also questions swirling around the mayor’s decisions in those first critical minutes after the planes hit the towers. Arriving near the scene of the tragedy, Guiliani, (some believe while using 20/20 hindsight) should have worked harder to establish better coordination of all the first responders. The lack of a unified command structure between police and firefighters at the scene may have contributed to the high death toll say critics.

The 9/11 Commission, cognizant of the political ramifications of being too hard on Guiliani (and the New York authorities in general) ended up glossing over this “two post” command structure where the firefighters and police had separate command centers on scene. But the questions remain. And herein lies Guiliani’s dilemma.

If Rudy makes his 9/11 narrative the centerpiece of his campaign, he opens the door to the kind of scrutiny of his actions that day which will almost certainly tarnish that legend. Questions he has been successfully able to fend off for 6 years will now demand answers. Why were firefighter radios inoperative in the chaos? Why was the emergency service command post set up at the World Trade Centers? Why were there no protocols for responding to a high rise fire or terrorist attack?

These questions were asked in a book by two liberal New York writers for the Village Voice in Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11. Dan Collins and Wayne Barrett, using information from several authorities including the 9/11 Commission, detail nearly a decade of inattention to the threat of a terrorist attack by the Guiliani administration as well as some disturbing actions following that tragic day regarding the safety of workers tasked with cleaning up at Ground Zero. A spokesman for the Mayor countered that more than 25,000 people were evacuated safely on 9/11 due in no small part to Rudy’s leadership.

What, if anything, can Rudy do to both frame his candidacy using 9/11 as a backdrop while avoiding the pitfalls that the inevitable increased scrutiny of his actions would engender?

Apparently, Rudy is going to try and maximize his 9/11 personae to the fullest, even going so far as to recruit families of 9/11 victims as supporters:

Supporters of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani have started discussions with relatives of 9/11 victims about backing him if he runs for president in 2008, some family members told The Post.

The conversations have taken place in recent weeks, according to some victims’ families, who described the talks as “casual.”

Marian Fontana, who lost her firefighter husband on 9/11, said she got an invitation to go to a Giuliani exploratory committee dinner last week from a former firefighter working with Giuliani’s committee. She described the invite as “last-minute.”

Fontana said she was appreciative of what Giuliani did after 9/11, but would want to know a lot more about any candidate’s stand on a variety of issues.

I see nothing inherently wrong with this strategy. Especially since the opposition is already lining up to savage him on the issue:

But some relatives who are anti-Giuliani are already planning “Swiftboat”-type attacks against the ex-mayor - modeled on the negative campaign against John Kerry in 2004 by his fellow Vietnam vets. It seems likely that 9/11 kin could help Giuliani counter that criticism.

Some 9/11 family members have been deeply critical of Giuliani, blaming him for communications failures the day of the attacks.

Others have faulted his administration for allegedly not doing enough to protect rescue and recovery workers from polluted air at Ground Zero.

And it is a dead certainty that the 9/11 “Truthers” - the paranoid nutcases who posit all sorts of conspiracy theories surrounding that terrible day - will be out in full force, piggybacking their crackpot ideas on the opposition to Guiliani wherever and whenever they get a chance. This may actually play into Guiliani’s hands in that the Truthers may discredit some of the opposition to his candidacy.

But the press will almost certainly be relentless in their pursuit of Guiliani - especially in the matter of the post-9/11 health issues of workers at Ground Zero. The question of adequate safeguards for those workers and the subsequent rash of respiratory ailments and deaths was even highlighted by President Bush in his State of the Union Speech. Did Guiliani sacrifice workers’ health in the interest of getting the site cleaned up? This question and others will dog his campaign unless he is willing to address the issues frontally.

And this is something he may be unwilling to do. Rudy will be walking an extremely fine line between exploiting 9/11 and downplaying his role in that day’s drama. Americans don’t like braggarts for president so Guiliani will probably have others touting his positive contributions in the disaster. It is ironic however, that he himself will probably have to deal directly with the criticisms, answering questions early on in order to tamp down any possibility that the criticisms will get in the way of his message. Whether he can use this platform to sharpen his message regarding his leadership and competence as well as his toughness and willingness to make big decisions remains to be seen.

He will also have to deal with the perception that using 9/11 as a catalyst for his campaign may be taken as unseemly. If he goes too far, his opponents will let him have it. If he doesn’t go far enough, he risks having the narrative disappear from the campaign altogether.

The press as referee will collectively decide what is appropriate and what isn’t. Given their penchant for creating controversy and knocking down frontrunners, it wouldn’t surprise me if the attacks on Guiliani’s 9/11 legend started immediately following any formal announcement of his candidacy. As we are seeing with Senator Obama, once you throw your hat in the ring, it’s open season and may the devil take the last reporter who jumps off the bandwagon.

Fair or not, ready or not, Guiliani will be dealing with these issues in the coming weeks. How he responds will not only determine whether he can become President but also what kind of a President he might end up being.

Last June as the Senate was debating various proposals for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, I wrote the following:

Any timetable for withdrawal necessarily obviates any thought of victory. And if you don’t believe that victory is achievable then clearly you believe we have lost already. Trying to split the difference between victory and defeat in war is not possible. One side wins and one side loses. Hence, by offering this “timetable,” the Democrats are saying that we have lost the war and should leave in order to cut our losses.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this position, by the way. It is defeatist. It is cowardly. But there is nothing necessarily incorrect in admitting defeat and pulling out.

But what makes the Democrats position immoral is that they are not advocating this timetable to get our troops out of harms way as fast as possible. In fact, they are terrified of the political consequences of doing so. Instead, they opt for the Viet Nam approach. According to them, the war was a mistake to begin with, it was fought incompetently, it was illegal, and we’ve already lost since there’s no way we’re ever going to say that George Bush won the war. But instead of advocating an immediate withdrawal of all American forces, we are going to advocate that more young men die in a losing cause just so that we don’t appear to be “cutting and running” and thus, lose badly at the polls in November.

If there has been a more cynical, immoral ploy in the last half century of American politics, I can’t think of it.

As House Democrats prepare to open debate on the Iraq war resolution, we have further evidence that when it comes to having the courage of their convictions, the House Democratic leadership has feet of clay:

Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration’s options.

Led by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., and supported by several well-funded anti-war groups, the coalition’s goal is to limit or sharply reduce the number of U.S. troops available for the Iraq conflict, rather than to openly cut off funding for the war itself.

The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.

As described by participants, the goal is crafted to circumvent the biggest political vulnerability of the anti-war movement — the accusation that it is willing to abandon troops in the field. That fear is why many Democrats have remained timid in challenging Bush, even as public support for the president and his Iraq policies have plunged.

A “slow bleed strategy?” Whose blood? I daresay it won’t be any of the Democratic leadership.

There is nothing noble about war. There is nothing uplifting or heroic about fighting one. Individual acts of heroism notwithstanding, war ultimately represents a failure of some kind. For the United States, sleepwalking during the 1990’s while al-Qaeda gathered strength and states like Iraq trained terrorists with utter impunity, it was a failure of intelligence, of diplomacy, of will, and finally a failure of imagination that led to the catastrophe of 9/11.

There is nothing moral about war except its quick and decisive ending. And whether or not you believe Iraq was a war of choice or whether you think it was thrust upon us by the exigencies of the times, the fact of the matter is we either fight to win - and win as quickly as circumstances allow - or we admit defeat and leave, accepting the consequences of our folly while holding harmless the young men and women who sacrificed much in service to the government and the people.

I say to you that whether you believe this war to be moral or immoral, the actions of the Democratic leadership in deliberately drawing out our withdrawal because they lack the political courage to take a stand on what they believe and cut off all funding for the Iraq War to bring the troops home now constitutes a towering act of moral cowardice rarely seen in Congress. Perhaps the debates over the Dyers Anti-Lynching Bill of 1918 would find an echo in today’s craven attempts by Democrats at avoiding responsibility for the moral consequences of their loudly proclaimed position on the war.

Instead of leadership, we get glitz and smoke and mirrors. Instead of a sober, serious approach to this issue of life and death, war and peace, we get the circus of a meaningless, degrading resolution that states opposition to sending more troops. And instead of bold, clear cut, up or down votes on whether we should stay or go, it appears we are going to get the tactics of the saboteur and assassin; cowardly end runs that seek to undermine the military in ways that even an enemy of this country could only dream:

Murtha, the powerful chairman of the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, will seek to attach a provision to an upcoming $93 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. It would restrict the deployment of troops to Iraq unless they meet certain levels adequate manpower, equipment and training to succeed in combat. That’s a standard Murtha believes few of the units Bush intends to use for the surge would be able to meet.

In addition, Murtha, acting with the backing of the House Democratic leadership, will seek to limit the time and number of deployments by soldiers, Marines and National Guard units to Iraq, making it tougher for Pentagon officials to find the troops to replace units that are scheduled to rotate out of the country. Additional funding restrictions are also being considered by Murtha, such as prohibiting the creation of U.S. military bases inside Iraq, dismantling the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and closing the American detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Bush, the lamest of lame ducks, whose approval ratings are in the low 30’s, apparently still frightens cats, little children, and the House Democratic leadership:

Pelosi and other top Democrats are not yet prepared for an open battle with the White House over ending funding for the war, and they are wary of Republican claims that Democratic leaders would endanger the welfare of U.S. troops. The new approach of first reducing the number of troops available for the conflict, while maintaining funding levels for units already in the field, gives political cover to conservative House Democrats who are nervous about appearing “anti-military” while also mollifying the anti-war left, which has long been agitating for Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to be more aggressive.

“What we have staked out is a campaign to stop the war without cutting off funding” for the troops, said Tom Mazzie of Americans Against Escalation of the War in Iraq. “We call it the ‘readiness strategy.’”

Perhaps if Mr. Bush were flat on his back and tied down, the House Democrats would feel up to challenging him over war funding. As it is, they must slink along in the shadows, applying the “slow bleed strategy” while making up clever nomenclature to describe their perfidious behavior.

I hope the Republicans expose this strategy for the immoral cowardice it represents. Because there is very little nuance when it comes to war. This is why I say support the war and fully fund the troops and the surge or oppose the war and seek to defund the conflict. The Democratic strategy in this case gives us the worst of both worlds; no commitment to victory while refusing to acknowledge that their monkey wrench strategy - their “slow bleed the troops” strategy - does nothing except prolong the agony of the war just so that they can avoid the political pain and risk a stand up strategy would entail.

The Democrats say they ran on a platform of bringing new leadership and new ideas on the war. All right then. Lead. Give us new ideas - even if those ideas involve forcing the President to remove the troops from Iraq. Cowering in the face of tough political choices only reinforces the notion that you don’t have the guts to lead this country in its hour of greatest need.

Simply put, this “strategy” is unworthy of a majority party. Perhaps if you start acting like you run the place, you’ll grow a pair and wake up one day national leaders who can stand on two feet rather than sneak your agenda for the war through using legislative tricks and sleight of hand.

For shame, I say. Shame on you.

UPDATE

Bryan at Hot Air:

If they do what they’re apparently planning to do, “slow bleed” will be a very apt description. Those doing the bleeding, slowly, will be US troops.

Got that right.

Hinderaker:

So the Democrats will do their best to make the United States’ effort in Iraq fail, but without taking responsibility for that action, and then try to benefit politically from the country’s defeat. Nice.

Don’t know if I’d go quite so far. After all, there is very little chance anyone will see the loss of the war as anything but the President’s fault. But the political strategy sounds about right.

UPDATE II

Even the netnuts are getting antsy. Matt Stoller:

Is it time to work to run primary campaigns against Democrats who won’t argue for ending the war? There are immense incentives in DC that play into the status quo. Democrats think that Bush is going to be blamed for Iraq, and he will be. But Democrats have power, and that means that Democrats have some responsibility. It’s obvious that no Democrats in DC, with a few exceptions, feel any pull towards withdrawal. So they are screwing over us, who voted them into office to end the war, and we’re enabling them with cheerleading.

We must put incentives in place to stop this madness. And believe me, it’s madness. I live here. This is full of crazy people in suits who think that spending $1 trillion on defense a year is a good thing. And those are the progressives!

More than 300,000 supporters of the Siniora government pack Martyr’s Square on the second anniversary of the assassination of the beloved ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

They came by bus, by car, on foot, even by boat. They came from the north, from the south, east and west. The traffic jams were so bad that many simply abandoned their cars and walked 5 miles or more to Martyrs Square where more than 300,000 Lebanese citizens came to honor the memory of one man and support another.

Two years ago today, a massive car bomb killed 23 people including the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. He is credited with taking the small, war torn, nearly bankrupt country and a tired, dispirited people and injecting hope where there was only despair while rebuilding much of downtown Beirut so that citizens could once again take pride in their capitol city.

To honor the memory of Hariri was one goal of the massive demonstration today. The other was more practical; support Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in his efforts to resist Syrian-backed Hizbullah in their efforts to overturn the government and re-establish Syrian hegemony over the tiny country.

The demonstration comes one day after explosions ripped through two mini-busses carrying people to work in the northern Metn province, killing three and injuring more than 20. The terrorist act was the first such attack targeting civilians in many years and helped ratchet up tensions on the eve of the historic demonstration. Most analysts (and the Lebanese themselves) blame Syria for trying to scare people into not attending the rally.

If that were the case, Assad and his henchmen failed miserably. As of mid afternoon in Beirut, people were still streaming into the square to hear speaker after speaker denounce Syria, denounce Hizbullah, and call for the approval of the International Tribunal to try the assassins who killed Hariri:

Lebanon’s majority leaders told a sea of supporters marking the second anniversary of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination in Beirut that agreeing on the international tribunal to try his murderers is the only gateway to dialogue and unity.
Hundreds of thousands of March 14 supporters streamed from north, east, central and south Lebanon to Martyrs’ Square in cars, buses, and boats raising Lebanese flags and chanting slogans against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The March 14 majority coalition accuses the Assad regime of masterminding the Hariri assassination on Feb. 14 2005 and the serial assassinations, the latest of which killed three civilians and wounded 23 in a twin bombing that targeted commuting buses northeast of Beirut on Tuesday.

Lebanese Forces Leader Samir Geagea said the international tribunal, which Syria reportedly rejects, “will certainly be created.”

He stressed that “whoever fights against what is right will be knocked out … The international tribunal will certainly be created.”

Geagea escalated the confrontation with Hizbullah pledging that “henceforth, we will not accept any weapons outside the Lebanese army’s frame of control…The Lebanese army is the resistance, the Lebanese government is the resistance, the Lebanese people is the resistance.”

Geagea’s words drew thundering chants of support that echoed across the whole of Beirut and reached the ears of protestors taking part in a Hizbullah-led sit in at the nearby Riad Solh Square since Dec. 1 with the declared objective of toppling Premier Fouad Saniora’s majority government.

Perhaps the emotional peak of the rally was when the dead Hariri’s son Saad addressed the crowd:

Parliamentary Majority leader Saad Hariri, son of the slain ex-premier, delivered an emotional speech in which he thanked all those who took part in the ceremony and stressed that the Lebanese are “committed to freedom, independence, the truth, justice and the international tribunal.”

“We adhere to justice to punish the murderers” who committed the Hariri killings and related crimes, he said.

He condemned recent “aggressions on peaceful neighborhoods” by masked followers of the Hizbullah-led opposition on Jan. 23.

“Despite all that, we are in the final phase of the march to create the international tribunal soon, very soon,” Hariri said.

Recognizing perhaps that a gesture toward the wildly popular ex-Prime Minister’s memory was good politics, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah wrote an article for Hizbullah propaganda newspaper as-Safir in which he said that “revealing the truth” about Hariri’s killers was desirable. Nasrallah declined to attend the memorial ceremony however, saying of the Tribunal that “because our sole guilt is that we had refused to make charges lacking evidence,” he could not participate in the event.

No matter. Hizbullah finds itself at an impasse in their campaign to oust Siniora’s government. As long as the Prime Minister holds fast, Nasrallah is stuck. If he tries violence, he will become isolated as there is an almost universal desire among all Lebanese to avoid a resumption of the civil war at all costs. But trying to maintain pressure on the Siniora government without resorting to blood is sapping his coalition while angering his patron in Syria, President Bashar Assad.

Assad has already shot down at least one compromise to end the standoff. That’s because the negotiators for the government - in this case, the Saudis - refuse to budge from their position that the International Tribunal must sit. Assad simply can’t let that happen. As Michael Totten points out in this fascinating interview with the old Druze warlord Walid Jumblatt, even though everyone knows Assad is guilty of ordering the assassination of Hariri, the naming of names by the Tribunal would be devastating:

“Why do you suppose Bashar al-Assad is so afraid of the Hariri tribunal?” I said. “Everybody already knows he’s guilty.”

“Because they killed Hariri,” he said. “If [Assad] wasn’t that nervous and if he wasn’t enhancing his people – Nasrallah and others – to block the process of the tribunal…it means that he’s guilty.”

“Right,” I said. “But we all know he’s guilty anyway.”

“Yes, okay,” he said. “But I mean blocking the tribunal will delay his indictments.”

What most frightens Assad is that an international conviction against him and his government might authorize an American-led regime-change campaign in Damascus. Few Americans actually want that, though, mostly because of what is happening right now in Iraq. Assad’s role in Iraq’s destabilization is an effective life-insurance policy.

A real wild card that may be emerging in the cabinet crisis is Nabih Berri, Speaker of Parliament, who so far has rejected calls to order parliament into session to approve the final form of the Tribunal. While still a member of Nasrallah’s coalition (Berri heads up the Amal Party, a Shia dominated group), Berri has shown flashes of independence since the crisis started in December. Now he may be trying to find a compromise on sitting the Tribunal:

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was reported Sunday to be setting up a “working group” of law experts where rival political parties could discuss the U.N.-Lebanon agreement on an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri and related crimes.

The daily Al Hayat, citing prominent Lebanese political sources, said Sunday that Berri had intensified contacts aimed at creating the working group, where the Hizbullah-led Opposition could “suggest amendments” to the tribunal bylaw.

The paper said the pro-government March 14 coalition has approved Berri’s initiative.

The U.N. on Tuesday signed a treaty creating the international tribunal.

Berri will almost certainly not abandon Nasrallah. But his willingness to at least talk about a compromise on the Tribunal may be significant.

Today, however, belonged to the March 14th Forces and their supporters who flooded downtown Beirut with a sea of humanity to stand up once again and be counted as a free and independent people. By demonstrating their determination to stand with the elected government, they have shown the Syrians and the Iranians that they will not give up their independence easily. And they have put Hizbullah on notice that their patience is not infinite and that a resumption of the violence that tore this country apart for 15 years will not be tolerated.

A good day for freedom in Lebanon. A good day for freedom.

The US says he’s in Iran. Some of his supporters say that he’s still in Iraq. Just where is the butchering sadist?

First, the US view:

While members of the U.S. House of Representatives take turns weighing in on President Bush’s planned troop surge in Iraq, the focus in Iraq is not on the arrival of more U.S. troops, but the departure of one of the country’s most powerful men, Moqtada al Sadr and members of his army.

According to senior military officials, al Sadr left Baghdad two to three weeks ago and fled to Tehran, Iran, where he has family.

Al Sadr commands the Mahdi army, one of the most formidable insurgent militias in Iraq, and his move coincides with the announced U.S. troop surge in Baghdad.

Sources believe al Sadr is worried about an increase of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. One official told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, “He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb] dropped on his house.”

Sources say some of the Mahdi army leadership went with al Sadr.

AP, however, is reporting that Sadr is still in Iraq:

Supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr said Wednesday that the radical Shiite cleric was still in Iraq, denying a report that he fled to Iran ahead of a security crackdown targeting his militia.

An Iraqi government official said al-Sadr was in the Shiite holy city of Najaf Tuesday night, when he received delegates from several government departments. The official, who is familiar with one of those meetings, spoke on condition of anonymity because he has no authority to disclose information on his department’s activities.

The denials came after a senior U.S. official said Tuesday that al-Sadr left his Baghdad stronghold some weeks ago and is believed to be in Tehran, where he has family.

The official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. monitoring activities, said fractures in al-Sadr’s political and militia operations may be part of the reason for his departure. The move is not believed to be permanent, the official said.

Al-Sadr’s militia is blamed for much of the sectarian violence and is widely seen as the main threat to Iraq’s unity and high on the list of targets for the Baghdad security operation.

I wonder if the “anonymous official” is related to Jamil Hussein?

Actually, I think both stories are correct. It is possible that al-Sadr has moved his base of operations to Tehran but could very well make periodic trips back to Iraq. But what is really troubling is the thought that Mookie has lost control of his militia and now fears some of them as much as he fears the Americans.

As long as al-Sadr was the leader of a radical religious militia opposed to the occupation (and any Iraqis who cooperated with us), his followers were united. But once the radical cleric stepped into the political arena, he risked the cohesion of his organization. Indeed, this appears to be what has transpired. Al-Sadr has spoken out frequently the last few months against sectarian violence. While most observers see his denunciations as pro-forma and insincere, some of his commanders apparently went off on their own and formed death squads in order to “cleanse” Iraq of Sunnis. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told Newsweek back in August:

“There are forces that are controlled by Moqtada, but there are commanders that are not controlled by him; there are death squads that are not controlled by him.”

This is what our people saw from the Mahdi Army 6 months ago:

Under the leadership of Sadr, the Mahdi Army was considered a containable force, susceptible to political bargaining. But as Sadr has leaned toward moderation—his party now has 30 seats in the National Assembly—men fighting under his militia’s banner have become more aggressive. In interviews with NEWSWEEK, Mahdi Army members, Iraqi politicians and Western officials describe an organization in which local commanders are increasingly independent from Sadr, splintering into cells of fighters committed to civil war. There are at least four offshoot Mahdi leaders in Sadr City alone; some groups are taking orders from Iran. There’s similar fragmentation in the largely Shiite cities of Najaf and Basra. According to a U.S. military intel official in Najaf, Coalition forces have been attacked by individuals who get their inspiration from the Mahdi Army but are not official members—men with “an AK-47, an RPG and a Sadr poster,” says the official, requesting anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

The situation is so volatile that, according to the U.S. officials, Sadr now fears for his own safety and position.

According to the AP article, Sadr sleeps in a different place every night and rarely appears in public. This could be due to a combination of fear of his own people and fear that the Americans have placed a bullseye on his forehead. Either way, Sadr has limited choices open to him. He can continue to try and work within the political system (where his radical anti-Sunni positions have been a hindrance to the government’s efforts to draw the Sunnis into greater participation in Iraqi political life) or he could become even more radical and begin open warfare against the United States.

In fact, there is some evidence that while many of us here in America have been critical of the Bush Administration for not “going after” al-Sadr, the military may have been trying to draw the Mahdi Army into open conflict with the Americans all along.

Bill Roggio:

While much of the public’s perceptions of the efforts against Sadr are shaped by operations in Sadr City in Baghdad, the Coalition and Iraqi government are chipping away at his power base outside of Baghdad. The series of raids and clashes, often masked as efforts against “criminals,” “thugs,” “death squads,” and “kidnappers,” are being conducted against the extreme elements of Sadr and his Mahdi Army. The goal is to remove Sadr from a position of influence, either by force or his surrender, and split his power base. Sadr’s lieutenants are being systematically targeted, which will drive him to either fight or withdraw.

You may recall the operation carried out by the military in late October following the kidnapping of an American serviceman where all of Sadr City was sealed. Only the intercession of Prime Minister Maliki who ordered a lifting of the blockade saved the Mahdi Army from a confrontation then. At that time, we were targeting known death squad leaders - some of whom had denounced Sadr for joining the political process and for not being radical enough in trying to cleanse Iraq of Sunnis.

Now it appears that we are once again prepared to hunt down and destroy al-Sadr’s creation. But should we target Sadr himself? Ed Morrissey feels that by driving him out of the country and into Iran, the anti-American cleric may have destroyed his own credibility:

And as for Sadr, this will destroy him and his Mahdi Army. ABC reports that Sadr wants to try to run the Mahdis from Tehran, but his credibility as a jihadi just tanked. Who’s going to fight for someone who won’t stand up for himself?

And the Iranians surely have to be thumping their foreheads over his bug-out. The US had just demonstrated that the Iranians had backed the insurgencies, which the Iranians disputed, and the chief of the Shi’ite militias announces that he’s going to become a remote-control general from their turf. It’s going to be very difficult for anyone to pretend that Iran has not actively fueled the insurgencies while Moqtada directs his armies by long-distance telephone calls.

This demonstrates that the US forces have seized the initiative in Baghdad, and that the Maliki government has apparently completely abandoned Sadr. It’s a tremendous victory in the preliminary stages, and it sets the table for an end to the hottest part of the insurgencies in the Iraqi capital.

I’m not in complete agreement with Ed. This “victory” is actually part and parcel of what we’ve been seeing not only from the Mahdi Army but also insurgents and death squad members. They are leaving Baghdad in anticipation of the crackdown. Once a modicum of peace is restored and the Americans begin pulling out, they will probably be back - with a vengeance.

I agree with Ed that this knocks the chocks out from underneath the argument made by war critics that the surge will have no effect on the violence in Baghdad. The fact is, it already has. It is now up to Maliki and the Iraqi government to take advantage of any lull in the violence and reach out to the Sunnis in order to build a truly national government where all Iraqis feel they have a stake in the future.

Since Sadr refuses to change his ways or alter his ultra Shia nationalistic beliefs, he has become a political liability for Maliki. This could be why the Iraqi Prime Minister has abandoned him to the tender mercies of the American military and why Sadr sleeps in a different bed every night.

UPDATE

Did Maliki set up Sadr’s exit to Iraq in order to avoid capture by the Americans?

Alphabet City:

Question: A cowardly act by the Shia Benedict Arnold who fled into Iran because Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki abandoned him?

Or is there more to this story? Maybe.

Letter Said From PM on Plan To Hide Al-Mahdi Leaders in Iran From US Forces

Originally published on 2/1/2007 by Jihadist Websites — OSC Report in Arabic

Terrorism: Website Claims Iraqi PM and Al-Sadr Will Hide Al-Mahdi Leaders in Iran from US Forces

On 1 February, a website posted a letter allegedly from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, marked “Secret, Personal, and Urgent”, in which the prime minister, following consultations with his National Security Adviser and cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, decided “to hide the leaders and commanders of Al-Mahdi Army in Iran to keep them from getting arrested or killed by US forces”. The alleged letter was dated 14 January 2007, and was signed by the prime minister. The letter was posted without comment.

The OSC report says the letter was posted to a jihadist website. Most likely Sunni. If so, it could be an attempt by Sunni jihadist and/or insurgent elements to discredit Maliki’s pledge of religious impartiality in Operation Secure Bagdad. In other words, more fanning of sectarian flames.

The other possibility, the document is genuine and Muqtada has not run with his tail between his legs but has been secreted away in Iran with the blessings of PM Maliki and NSA Mowaffak al-Rubaie. Both belong to the Dawa Party which forged it’s ties to the Khomeinists during Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s exile in Najaf in the late 1970s.

Since it would fully be in keeping with Maliki’s efforts to protect al-Sadr over these last months, I would tend to think that the letter is genuine and represents a sell-out by Maliki of our military and of the man who has sacrificed his personal and political standing with the American people to support him; George Bush.

The extent of this betrayal is too ghastly to comprehend. What it says to me is that Maliki has no intention of seeking a political solution to Iraq’s troubles and has thrown in his lot with the ultra Shia nationalists who want a Sunni-free Iraq. How they get to that point will make Bosnia look like a picnic and Darfur pale in comparison. Tens of thousands of Sunnis killed with millions on the move as refugees. Utter, complete chaos and disaster.

Is there no one in Iraq with the vision and the guts to lead the country to something better?

When I read this on Glenn Reynold’s blog this morning, I could hardly believe it. In response to an Ed Morrissey piece on Austrian weapons sold to Iran ending up with the insurgents in Iraq, the Professor drops his normally mild mannered personae and advocates hitting the Iranians with targeted assassinations:

I don’t understand why the Bush Administration has been so slow to respond. Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy, or an invasion, is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting the mullahs’ expat business interests out of business, etc. Basically, stepping on the Iranians’ toes hard enough to make them reconsider their not-so-covert war against us in Iraq. And we should have been doing this since the summer 2003. But as far as I can tell, we’ve done nothing along these lines.

The outrage from all the usual suspects had to have been anticipated by Reynolds. He’s too experienced in the ways of the blogosphere not to have realized the second he wrote those words about assassinating “radical mullahs” and atomic scientists that a full blown blogswarm wasn’t in the offing. Sure enough, leading the pack of finger waggers and tsk-tskers is the number one hysteric in the blogosphere:

Just think about how extremist and deranged that is. We are not even at war with Iran. Congress has not declared war or authorized military force against that country. Yet Reynolds thinks that the Bush administration, unilaterally, should send people to murder Iranian scientists and religious leaders — just pick out whichever ones we don’t like and slaughter them. No charges. No trial. No accountability. Just roving death squads deployed and commanded by our Leader, slaughtering whomever he wants dead.

How Lambchop managed to wangle a column at Salon is a mystery. They obviously haven’t been reading his shallow, calumnious, hate filled rants toward conservatives and Bush supporters. His generalized assaults on people who disagree with him are wildly beyond the pale of decency and common sense - coarse, exaggerated, full of laughably simplistic analysis coupled with nauseating, moralistic lecturing. Lambchop is a Calvinist without the redeeming belief in God’s mercy.

“Cartoonish,” Goldstein correctly avers:

What I do find repugnant, however, is people like Greenwald(s) who hide their immense contempt for “the values of this country” behind pieties and outrage offered in bad faith, a rhetorical position intended to keep those who are trying to puzzle through difficult issues on the defensive, making them endlessly “prove” they aren’t “rogue” elements in the war against Islamism. And for all of Greenwald’s(’s) constant carping about how Bush supporters “routinely” label the loyal opposition “traitors,” he is fairly quick to insist that those who float the idea of covert warfare tactics are somehow hostile to individual liberty, freedom, representative government, and rule of law.

Lambchop’s absolutist, unyielding, unbending logic when it comes to anything the United States might do to protect itself does not carry over into criticizing the barbarians who violate every known international codicil that relates to establishing comity between nations. Nor does his resolute moral compass allow him to take the enemies of civilization to task for trying to achieve their goal of, if not destroying us, most certainly grievously injuring our interests and killing our citizens.

And we have no acknowledgement from Lambchop about Iran’s declaration of war against the United States on November 4, 1979 when they violated his precious international law, international tradition, and the rules of civilized behavior by attacking United States soil, capturing our diplomats, torturing them, and holding them hostage for more than a year. That, my dear sock puppet, is an act of war as surely as anything that has occurred in the international arena since the end of World War II. The fact that you choose not to recognize it as such is immaterial. For someone who pretends to be “reality based,” Lambchop’s concept of what is real seems to depend entirely on what he believes - which puts him in the same league as the holy rollers, the evangelicals, and other conservative Christians he takes such delight in savaging on a regular basis.

Leaving aside Lambchop’s bloviations, is it ever morally permissible to act like a barbarian to defeat a barbarian?

Conventional wisdom says no, that once started down that road we lose our identity as a nation and become exactly what we are fighting. I don’t know about that. We did some pretty horrific things in World War II to defeat Japan and Germany and managed to maintain our democracy while retaining a certain moral authority in the world left over from the Wilsonian era. The fact that we appear to have lost some of that authority today says more about the rest of the world’s refusal to acknowledge the threat of radical Islamism than it does about any actions we’ve taken to fight that menace.

By its nature, war is barbaric. I find it curious that absolutists like Lambchop somehow believe there is a “civilized” way to fight and win. We don’t target civilians. We don’t bomb cultural or religious symbols. We don’t behead our captives. Torture is a stain on our honor but it is apparently not a widespread problem. How much more “civilized” should we be? Idiots like Lamchop won’t be happy until we start warning the jihadis we’re coming because surprise attacks are barbarous.

From a purely practical standpoint though, Reynold’s proposal won’t work. Mathew Yglesias gets it about right:

I mean, how is this going to work? We’re talking, presumably, about the clandestine branches of the same intelligence agencies who can’t decide what the state of the Iranian nuclear program is, don’t know where Iran’s nuclear facilities are, and are unsure who, if anyone, in the Iranian government is responsible for Iranian weapons winding up in Iraq. Nevertheless, Reynolds believes they have an off-the-shelf plan for placing assassins in close proximity to key Iranian nuclear scientists. But not only for doing this, but for doing it quietly! American agents are infiltrating Iran killing Iranian scientists and religious leaders and none of them get caught. How? Are there really dozens of Farsi-speaking ninjas working for the CIA? I was going to compare this to a fun-but-stupid movie like The Bourne Identity but the point of that movie (and its sequal) is actually that if you somehow did build a hyper-competent utterly secret government agency it would likely become a cesspool of corruption and abuses of power.

Actually, I’m pretty sure our Special Forces boys, if tasked with specific targets, would probably have the capability to carry out a couple of missions. After that, I daresay the Iranians would increase security to the point that the question of assassinations would be moot.

And, at the risk of agreeing with Lambchop, how do you define “radical” mullah? You don’t get to be a mullah in Iran without possessing some fairly radical views like opposing the existence of Israel. How radical is too radical? What factors or beliefs do your base your targeting criteria?

Lamchop highlights the Executive Order outlawing assassination, something every President since Ford has followed. And if you lift that stricture, why target some obscure mullah? Why not go for the gold and kill Khamenei or Ahmadinejad? For the same reason no President has lifted the Executive Order on assassinations; what goes around, comes around. We kill one of theirs, don’t you think they’d do their damndest to kill one of ours?

And I’m not sure targeting atomic scientists is such a good idea either. The Iranians have had help from a number of countries including North Korea, Pakistan, and there is some evidence that former Russian scientists have also worked on the Iranian nuclear program. Besides, would it really do any good? Would it really cause the program any damage? Would it really make the mullahs think twice about helping the insurgents in Iraq? I doubt it.

I understand Reynold’s frustration with our inaction regarding Iran. We’ve dithered for 28 years about working to establish a genuine democratic movement there. It’s not like we haven’t done it before. One need only look at Poland or the former Czechoslovakia where we clandestinely set up a democratic facade for potential reformers that allowed for an indigenous movement to sweep those countries when the time was right. Of course, that type of operation takes patience and a lot of spade work.

The problem has always been that anything we do to Iran will result in counter measures that have the potential of hurting us even more. And anything we do to Iran will enormously complicate if not totally doom our efforts in Iraq. Fighting a Shia insurgency against our occupation along with war against the Sunnis and al-Qaeda would be a disaster. If Professor Reynolds believes that assassinations of the kind he is suggesting won’t set off the Shias in Iraq, he should read some recent speeches from al-Sadr where he warns against any American actions against Iran. And of course, the political situation - already tenuous - would go to hell in a handbasket. Forget about the Shias sharing power with the Sunnis or Kurds at all. In fact, that turn of events would make staying in Iraq a complete exercise in futility.

I too wish to avoid a generalized conflict with the Iranians. But assassination isn’t the way. And I believe that despite the sabre rattling by the Administration in sending 3 carrier battle groups to the Gulf, they too wish to avoid military action because of the consequences domestically and in the Middle East. In fact, it appears to me that the Administration may be willing to allow the Iranians their enrichment program, hoping that the technical problems they have been experiencing will continue while working to undermine the regime from the inside.

Short of war, that’s the best we can do.

UPDATE

Hugh Hewitt applauds Reynold’s idea while drawing a conclusion about Hizbullah:

Note that Hezbollah hasn’t kidnapped any Israeli soldiers lately. There’s a reason.

Nasrallah has his own reasons for not tweaking Israel’s tail at the moment, not the least of which is that he needs his militia to assist him in his efforts to overthrow the Siniora government and not trying to fight off Israel’s retaliation for such an act. For the last several months, Hizbullah has been trying to show that they are good Lebanese citizens who only want what they believe they deserve; increased representation in the Lebanese cabinet. Of course, that’s a crock. But that, plus the UNIFIL force have kept Hizbullah from any confrontations with Israel recently.

Vito Corleone’s advice to his son Michael was exactly the opposite. “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.” In the case of our mushy headed President, however, Assad’s advice that he watch his back rings true.

The “Right Wing Plot To Take Over The Government” gambit is a time honored plot line in Hollywood. And the granddaddy of all right wing conspiracy movies is a film based on the taut, well written thriller Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey (who also collaborated on the political pot boiler Convention).

The equally engrossing movie starred some of Hollywood’s most prominent liberals at the time; Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Frederic March. Lancaster played an Air Force General James Matoon Scott who, angry with the President (played by March) for signing a nuclear arms treaty with the Russians, plots to take over the government with the backing of a shady conservative Senator as well as some other generals. The hero of the movie, Jiggs Casey (Douglas), senior aide to the general, discovers the plot and brings it to the attention of the President who then must counter General Scott, trusting only his Secret Service protection and a drunken Senator marvelously underplayed by Edmond O’Brien.

Complicating matters was General Scott’s mistress, the lovely Ellie Holbrooke, played by the ravishing Ava Gardner. She has in her possession some love letters from Scott that Jiggs is tasked to steal so that the counter-plotters have some ammunition.

Of course, being liberals, they are much too principled to use the damning letters and in the end, the President does what he should have done 5 minutes into the movie; fire General Scott and save the republic. Jiggs, who also thought the President was a loon for trusting the Russkies, ends up getting Ava Gardner in the end so sometimes I guess it pays to be the conservative hero in a liberal movie.

All kidding aside, the film is extremely well written and as suspenseful as any movie you want to see. But if you think about it, 7 Days in May and all the films like it that posit a military (or politically conservative) coup d’etat have one gigantic flaw.

It would never happen in a million years. Only a paranoid lefty could believe that any high ranking military officer would violate their oath and tradition in such a manner. It may say more about the left that they have these fantasies in the first place than it would ever say about the military or conservatives.

And while we’re on the subject, can you think of one movie or TV show that ever showed a left wing plot to take over the government? Of course not. That too would never happen in a million years. The plotters would be too busy sitting around arguing about the make up of the post-coup government and could never come to an agreement. Besides, liberals talk too much. All those angst-ridden soliloquies about what they were about to do would put the audience to sleep in about 15 minutes. There would probably be more action in a movie detailing the mating habits of Three Toed Sloths than in a left wing coup film.

For President Palmer, it appears that all the left wing fantasies about heroically battling the evil conservatives who, like Bush, are seeking to overthrow the Constitution and lock up every Muslim in America in concentration camps, are about to come true. And right in the center of the plot, a man who bridges the two worlds of the terrorists and the conservative plotters - Philip Bauer. What is the end game here? What “shipment” is coming from Las Vegas?

Things are starting to heat up. And Jack is just starting to realize that the price he is paying to save the country may be more than he can personally bear.

SUMMARY:

The hunt is on for poor Morris who has been seized by McCarthy and his Ditzy Blonde girfriend. Bill tasks Chloe with uplinking to the satellite to see if they can’t track McCarthy’s car but something is terribly wrong. Chloe has lost her geek magic! She is no longer Super Geek but a mere shadow of a geek, an ordinary low rent techie who can’t even access a super secret military satellite - something any geek worth their salt could do with their eyes closed.

Chloe insists she’s fine but she is obviously distraught over the kidnapping of her beloved ex husband. When Bill asks what the problem is she snaps, “The only problem is people like you bothering me when I’m trying to do my job.”

Being inured to Chloe’s pungent personality, Bill simply shakes his head and slinks away. It is finally up to Milo to shoo Chloe away and take over after Jack, who is circling the area where Morris was abducted in a helicopter, wonders out loud why the geeks at CTU can’t do something as simple as uplinking to a top secret military satellite.

Right away Milo finds McCarthy’s car proving that Milo is not without some geek gifts himself. He vectors the helicopter toward the vehicle and, after McCarthy realizes the helicopter is after him, a wild chase ensues in suburban Los Angeles with Ditzy Blonde weaving in and out of traffic, crossing the center line, and nearly getting killed several times. What Ditzy Blonde and McCarthy don’t seem to realize is that the helicopter, being several hundred feet up and capable of flying about 4 times as fast as the car, easily stays with their efforts at escape.

That is, until McCarthy ducks under an interchange and pulls off the road. While McCarthy looks for another car so they can ditch the helo, Morris works on Ditzy Blonde. He tells her about McCarthy’s connection to the nukes. This seems to make an impression on the clueless woman - that is until McCarthy makes a much bigger impression. He reminds her of the $7 million Fayed will pay them for Morris. Jack goes to ground too late to ID McCarthy’s new vehicle and once again, the trail goes cold for CTU.

You can almost see those rusty wheels turning in Blondie’s head when Fayed calls and demands to know where his nuclear enabler is. McCarthy assures him they are on the way and Fayed gives him the address of an apartment building nearby to bring him. After punching the address into his TomTom, a light bulb appears above Blondie’s head and she gets a scathingly brilliant idea; why share that $7 mill when it could all be hers? Ditzy may not be smart but she has a gun and uses it. McCarthy will not help set off nukes no more forever.

At the White House, Lennox is having a cow about the President rejecting his plan to scrap the Constitution and replace it with his idea of a “No Muslims Need Apply” America. He figures that since he has no more influence with the President, that he should resign. His aide Reed tries to talk him out of it but Lennox orders the young man to draft a resignation letter for him.

And here, as in past seasons of 24, we are treated to the shocker that the most innocuous of people harbor the deadliest of agendas. In a phonecon with Carson who could be either a lobbyist or bureaucrat, we discover that Reed is part of a dark conspiracy that is about to take “extreme measures” against the President so that Lennox’s plan will be initiated. Reed is ordered to feel Lennox out on joining the conspiracy so that the plotters can maintain their access at the highest levels of the executive branch.

At CTU, Bill is informed of Graem’s death and he immediately tells Jack. Jack appears unmoved by the news, more concerned with Maryiln’s reaction as well as his dad’s. And when Marylin arrives, it is left to Bill to break the news of her husband’s death to her. She takes it rather well all things considered. Josh however (who speculation threads are hot with guesses as to whether or not he is somehow actually Jack’s son) grieves over the loss.

At Fayed’s apartment, the Ditzy Blonde delivers Morris to the terrorist and immediately demands her money or McCarthy will “give him up” to the Feds. Not batting an eyelash, Fayed tells her that she’ll get her money after Morris reprograms the trigger on the nuke. Poor Blondie is totally clueless what she has walked into here. Her lifespan is now measured in minutes.

We’re really beginning to like Morris. He’s a male Chloe only blessed with interpersonal skills and a sense of humor. When Fayed orders him to reprogram the nuke trigger, Morris shoots back, “Not bloody likely, mate.” Of course Fayed socks him one. And each refusal brings more pain, progressively worse while Blondie begins to feel sick realizing for the first time that she is in far over her head.

Meanwhile, picked up by a trailing TAC team near the underpass, Jack and the boys find McCarthy’s body on a quiet suburban street along with his phone. Bill orders Jack to download the phone’s info to the CTU’s computers and let Milo work a little geek magic and retrieve recent phone numbers and locales. But something is wrong. Milo is good. He is wise in the ways of the geek. But he is not a geek warrior, a true Super Geek. Seeing Milo’s distress in being unable to crack the phone’s encryption protocols, it’s Chloe to the rescue. Snapping out of her funk over Morris, Chloe dons her Super Geek cape and tights and begins to work some truly remarkable geek miracles. After telling us about the National Security Agency surreptitiously backing up every cell phone call in the US and relaying it to a satellite (causing civil liberty advocates’ heads to explode all over America), she finds the call from Fayed and immediately gets the address of the building it originated from. Jack races to the address to save Morris.

Back at the White House, Assad shows up for a meeting with the President. Both men look very uncomfortable - the terrorist and the President forced by circumstance to work together and neither one very happy about it. Palmer, as the aggrieved party, demands that Assad prove his bona fides by making a televised address asking for the assistance of radical Muslims around the world and in the United States in getting the nukes and Fayed or there will be war - not just against terrorists but against nations that sponsor them as well.

I don’t know about you but if a nuke went off on American soil, I don’t think any President in their right mind would be having a conversation like this even if a terrorist leader was seeking “peace.” And there is a distinctly unreal quality to this notion that Lennox and the national security apparatus would be more concerned with domestic security than in blowing the terrorists and the nations that enable them to kingdom come. But in service to the storyline about jailing innocent Muslims, reality is sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.

Jack makes it to Fayed’s apartment building and deploys his team. The problem is that there are more than 100 apartments that need searching. A way must be found to narrow their search considerably.

For Morris, rescue can’t come too soon. After giving us a demonstration of “waterboarding,” Fayed still can’t get the snark out of Chloe’s boy toy who continues to refuse to cooperate. The terrorist then decides to use a drill to convince Morris to give in. Truly horrific. And effective. Seeing this is too much for Blondie, she begs Fayed to let her go, foreswearing the money owed her in exchange for her freedom. This obviously disgusts Fayed who doesn’t trust anyone who would so easily give up $7 million and he turns around a drills a hole in Ditzy Blonde’s head with a bullet. For Morris who perhaps finally realizes he is going to die, it only takes one drilling through his shoulder to make him give in and agree to do Fayed’s bidding.

Jack has decided on a course of action to determine which apartment holds the terrorists. When in doubt, use the fire drill gambit. Chloe hacks into the city services computer and sets off the fire alarm for the building.

With the alarm, Fayed realizes that the jig is up but, like any good leader in a crisis, knows there is time before CTU can figure out where they are. He puts Morris to work reprogramming the trigger.

Back at the White House, Lennox can’t believe his eyes. He’s just gotten the memo on Assad’s upcoming speech:

“Not only are we providing free air time to a mass murderer, an avowed enemy of democracy, but we’re proving terrorism works.”

Good points but too late to do anything about it. Reed comes in and feels out Lennox about the plot. He is very cautious and guarded in how he broaches the idea of overthrowing or killing the President but Lennox still bristles at the idea. Simply saying he was “musing out loud,” Reed goes back to his office to write the resignation letter after Lennox appears to reject the conspiracy out of hand.

Back at Fayed’s apartment building, CTU narrows down their options and by process of elimination, hits the jackpot. Morris, goaded on by Fayed, completes his task and watches helplessly as Fayed arms a nuke. Fayed seems satisfied and orders Morris killed. And just when things look blackest for him, CTU TAC springs into action. They blow a hole in the wall, stunning the terrorists inside momentarily. Jack takes the lead pumping a 12 gauge into 2 bad guys while the crack shots with him account for 3 more. The last terrorist, hiding in a doorway, is dispatched when he is flanked by two window crashing TAC team members.

And Fayed? Flown the coop. A ready made escape hatch in the wall leading to the basement and freedom through the sewers allows their nemesis to escape capture. But Fayed was kind enough to leave a little present behind, just a small token of his esteem: an armed and ticking nuke.

Never fear. In CTU’s vast data base are instructions to disarm this particular brand of nuke. Must of been in the file marked “allpurposedisarm.exe.” Chloe pulls up the schematics and talks Jack through the nerve wracking procedure. No clock on the bomb itself so CTU helpfully supplies us one on Chloe’s screen. Working feverishly, Jack does everything that Chloe says but he still can’t access the timing mechanism to shut it off. We then discover that there is an updated disarm file (”fooledya.exe?”) and with Chloe telling him to hurry, Jack successfully disarms the nuke.

And Morris? When Jack finds out that Morris actually built Fayed a trigger, Jack screams into his face “You gave him something that worked?” One of the few times that I’ve seen Jack actually not act solicitously toward someone who had just been through what Morris had to endure. But he has a point. Morris has broken the CTU Code of Heroic Conduct and will have to redeem himself sometime later in the show. Let’s hope he doesn’t have to give his life for that redemption. Morris is one of the more interesting characters on the show.

Lennox gets the update from hell; Fayed escapes, nukes can be armed at will, CTU has no leads on where they are. He reconsiders his opposition to Reed’s poorly disguised “musings” and calls him back to tell him he wants in. The die is cast. And Lennox has crossed his own little Rubicon.

On the run now, Fayed calls his partner in this terrorist enterprise, the Russian General Gredenko. It is here we get the first hint of a wider plot involving a shipment of something from Las Vegas, presumably not poker chips. A hint might be that a lot of nuclear testing has been done in Nevada over the years but who knows? Maybe it’s poker chips after all?

At CTU, the hunt swings toward trying to track Gredenko. The agency’s data wizards spring into action trying to find him. An email fragment found on a hard drive at McCarthy’s gives them a clue that Gredenko is in Los Angeles. Jack (who received some interesting stares from CTU employees when he walked in either because everyone thinks he killed his own brother or because they haven’t seen him for two years) decides to go down to the morgue and talk to his dad about Gredenko.

Philip Bauer is deleting numbers from Graem’s phone. An interesting activity considering that someone - CTU, the police, perhaps the janitor - should have secured Graem’s personal effects as part of the evidence chain of custody as would occur in any criminal case. No matter. Jack is still clueless about dear old dad’s perfidy. Lying through his teeth, Philip denies knowing much about Gredenko, pointing to Graem’s dead body and saying “Whatever you needed to know, died with him.” .

Jack sees Marilyn and apologizes for killing her husband. Marilyn tells him that she’s been trying to leave Graem for years but that he threatened to cut her off from Josh if she did. It’s obvious she is pining for Jack which may set up an interesting conversation between her and Audrey when Jack’s flame makes an appearance later in the show.

And now the parameters of the plot are completely fleshed out when we discover that the nexus of all of this criminal, treasonous activity centers around Philip Bauer. Philip calls Carson about CTU being on to Gredenko. He orders that Gredenko be killed at all costs.

So Philip is not only involved with selling the nukes to Fayed, he is at the center of the plot to get rid of Wayne Palmer. What are the connections between the two? All we know is that Philip has some grand design that will be revealed shortly.

Back at CTU, Bill has a sit down with Jack about the death of Graem. Bravely, Jack takes full responsibility, even going so far as to insist that Bill not alter his report to protect him. Jack will take the consequences of his actions but he assures Bill he didn’t want to kill Graem. This may be true up to a point. Even Jack says he lost control when Graem admitted to killing David Palmer and his friends. But, you know, stuff happens. Jack reminds Bill that he didn’t think he could do the job anymore but Bill once again convinces him to stay on.

At the White House, Palmer reviews Assad’s speech remarking that it appeared to be “too religious.” Assad explained that since that was the worldview of most of the terrorists he would be addressing, he must talk to them in those terms. The President then receives a call from Noah the Veep who is upset that Lennox’s plan for concentration camps and mass roundups of innocent Americans was shot down. Patiently, Palmer starts to explain but the Veep doesn’t want to hear him. He says flat out that the President is weak and that he’s a fool to boot. Referring to Assad’s upcoming speech, the Veep says “The man has murdered countless innocents over the past 20 years and you are putting your hope for the country’s safety on him?”

Well…not exactly. But close enough to the truth to make Palmer uncomfortable. The Veep then reminds the President that the reason he was put on the ticket was because people thought he might be weak on national security. Now that he’s seen him in action, the Veep is forced to agree with that assessment. “Is that all?” asks the President? They hang up and you realize that Palmer has one more major league headache to worry about with the Vice President.

In fact, Assad suggests the President watch his back, that these are men who will stop at nothing in opposing him.”They will come after you,” he tells the President. Palmer doesn’t believe such things could happen in America. He’s right of course. But don’t tell Hollywood that.

Down in the bowels of the White House, in a power maintenance room, Lennox is initiated into the plot by Reed. He has a thousand questions. Reed doesn’t have many answers. He does say that the Vice President is not involved although we can’t quite believe that. When Lennox says exactly what is being proposed, Reed answers “Definitive Action.” A military coup? Assassination? Whatever is going to be done, the Vice President will be in charge before long, that’s the important thing says Reed. He wants Lennox to give him the President’s itinerary relating to Assad’s speech which leads us to believe it will indeed be an assassination attempt of some kind. Lennox agrees to get it but still appears a little wishy washy. Will he jump ship and help the plotters? Or will he stay loyal to the President and the Constitution. Suddenly, Tom’s character is becoming much more interesting.

Back at CTU, After Jack starts asking her about Gredenko, Marilyn tells Jack that one night, when she suspected Graem of cheating on her, she followed him to a house where she heard him speaking to people who talked with a Russian accent. Agreeing to help Jack find the house, Marylin asks Philip to look after Josh. Philip, who finds out that CTU may get to Gredenko before his goons can find and kill him, suggests that Josh come with him back to his house. We realize immediately that young Josh is about to become a pawn in Philip’s game - especially when Philip calls Carson and tells him to find a house in West Los Angeles, presumably to set a trap for Jack.

Chloe sees Morris in the infirmary and tries to snap him out of his self pitying mode. When her pep talks seems to be falling flat, she slaps him across the face. But Morris appears too far gone into feeling sorry for himself, calling himself a coward. Chloe tells him to get back to work because the techies are going to be short handed what with Milo joining Jack in the hunt for Gredenko.

And that hunt takes a bad turn when Philip calls Marilyn who is in Jack’s car trying to remember the route she took following Graem. Telling her to keep Jack in the dark about who is on the line, he calmly informs her that if she doesn’t do exactly as he says, Josh will die. He convinces Marilyn that he will kill his own grandson by telling her that he’s already killed her husband. Shocked, Marilyn agrees to Philips terms. As they pass Gredenko’s house, she almost tells Jack about her troubles but decides against it.

In that house, Gredenko lets on that the nuke plot was really hatched as revenge for America winning the cold war. He says, “Russia lost the cold war because they were afraid to use these weapons. Today, we will use them and the Arabs will take the blame.”

Could this plot now be an international one? Is this an effort to carry out two coups - one in Russia and one here - that would bring back the cold war and make defense contractors like Philip’s company rich and fat again?

This would be hugely disappointing, a real downer. And Gredenko’s ultimate play has not been revealed yet. But the writers have done worse so I wouldn’t put it past them.

Marilyn takes Jack to the address Philip gave her and is given to Milo for safekeeping while Jack and the 5 TAC team members make their way to the house. Bursting in, they find no one. Just in time, Jack sees the bomb and jumps out of a window. The huge blast levels the house. Seeing this, Milo takes off in the van with Marilyn. Cut off by some of Philip’s thugs, Milo blows up the van and makes his escape on foot with the thugs in hot pursuit.

Jack is down but not out. As he takes off after the van on foot by himself, he realizes that Marilyn has betrayed him. He may not want to know the reason why.

BODY COUNT

A grim night for the Grim Reaper.

McCarthy gets his just desserts.
Ditzy Blonde gets a second hole in the head.
6 of Fayed’s men are martyred.
3 CTU agents killed in blast

That last is taken from scenes from next week’s show where Jack says he lost “more than half” of his team. Since he had 5 men with him, we can logically assume 3 bit the dust.

TOTALS:

Jack: 6
Show: 365

Haven’t seen it like this since ‘79. Snow, 40 MPH winds that popped a power line out here in the boonies. Lost power from about 4:00 - 7:00 AM. Also lost heat which put new meaning to the term “drafty house.”

If the weather weren’t bad enough, the two hour episode means double the time to write the post. All of this combined will delay my recap until at least 11:00 AM.

Sorry for the inconvience.

UPDATE

We lost power again at about 9:00 Central causing me to lose about half of what I had written. It came on briefly at about 9:15 and went down again. Called the electric company. The downed line is a “feeder” line and they say to expect outages off and on for the next few hours while they attempt to fix it.

I hope to have the summary posted by sometime this afternoon. Very frustrating situation and I hope you’ll bear with me today as this winter storm works its way through the area.

I realize the incendiary nature of this post but frankly, the candidacy of Barak Obama puts us in unchartered waters with regards to several issues. And one of those issues has to be the realization that black leaders in America have been targets of assassins in the past.

Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King are only the most prominent names on a long list of shameful murders - usually at the hands of extremist whites - that have stained this country’s honor and darkened the pages of our history. From those who sought to teach the recently freed slaves how to read who were hunted down and killed like animals, to martyred pioneers in the struggle for voting rights in the south at the turn of the century, to the devastating murders of civil rights workers in the 1950’s and 60’s, blacks who have stepped forward and offered to serve the cause of freedom in America have been at risk of being slain. And while few deny the steady and resolute progress toward achieving the goal of a truly color blind society, the fact is that there are dozens of groups like the Klan, Skinheads, Nazis, and Aryan Nation whose hate could erupt in a spasm of violence that would have tragic consequences.

Even though there have been serious African American candidates for President before, neither Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton appealed to many Americans outside of the far left of the Democratic party and black Americans in general. In effect, both men were what used to be called “Favorite Son” candidates with limited appeal beyond their relatively small constituencies.

By any measure, Senator Obama’s candidacy is different. He is attracting big time money and picking up big time endorsements while a growing, enthusiastic grass roots movement is propelling him forward. His appeal spans race, region, and party. He has as good a shot of winning the Presidency as any of the front runners in either party.

Does it matter that his race makes him more of a target for assassination? I believe it does indeed but perhaps not in any way that would cost him votes. I think what the increased likelihood of danger for Obama does is change the external dynamic of the campaign for both the Senator’s Democratic challengers and, if it comes to it, the man he will face in the general election.

Not that the extremists need an excuse to murder anybody. But experts who study political assassinations have noted that most of these murders take place in an enabling atmosphere where the assassin actually believes he will be considered a hero for carrying out his deed. The Warren Commission, driven by politics to go easy on Dallas, nevertheless made it clear that the atmosphere of hate in the city found a receptive vessel in Oswald.

Oswald’s Marxism was a mile wide and an inch deep. It is doubtful he understood anything about Communism except that it set him apart from the crowd and gave his attention starved ego a boost. Oswald’s pretense of murdering Kennedy for the world communist revolution masked his real reason. As William Manchester so brutally pointed out in his masterful Death of a President, Oswald “shot the President of the United States in the back to get attention.”

Indeed, the FBI’s profiles of assassins include this singular fact; the assassin seeks a public venue for his murder to validate his need for recognition. It is not hard to imagine the kind of hate directed toward Kennedy in the south as a result of his civil rights proposals. One need only look at the hate directed toward President Bush to get an inkling of the kind of unbalanced, inarticulate rage that was felt toward Kennedy. And driving that rage in Dallas was the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, Ted Dealy.

Dealy printed a poster of Kennedy on the day before the assassination, with the caption “Wanted for Treason.” His vitriolic editorials practically invited someone to take a shot at the President. And for some reason, Dallas seemed to be the capitol city of the unhinged in America at that time. Birchers, Kluxers, radical anti-communists, race baiters, all made Dallas a place that worried many of Kennedy’s close supporters, many of whom strongly urged him not to make the trip at all.

How much of that atmosphere rubbed off on Oswald? According to Ruth Paine, who put up Oswald’s wife Marina following several brutal beatings by her husband, Lee read the News everyday. And Oswald could hardly have been unaware of the Birchers since he took at shot at General Edwin Walker, a notorious extremist just months prior to his killing the President.

But it wasn’t just the Kennedy assassination where we see this hatred explode into violence. Many have pointed to the atmosphere of hate in Memphis when Martin Luther King came to support the garbage workers in their strike for a decent wage and better working conditions. And in 1968, the recent Arab-Israeli conflict and the outrage in the Palestinian community that was felt as a consequence of American support for Israel apparently contributed to the rage of Sirhan Sirhan and his desire to strike back at America by killing Robert Kennedy.

Even John Hinckley, Ronald Reagan’s would be assassin, may have been affected by the unhinged nature of much of the criticism being directed against the President for his budget and tax proposals and most especially for his stated desire to confront the Soviet Union. I distinctly remember commenting to friends at the time that at this rate, Reagan wouldn’t survive; that some nut with a gun would get the idea they were doing the world a favor and kill the President.

And the hate and spite directed at President Clinton resulted in two serious assassination attempts. Francisco Duran fired nearly 30 rounds through the White House gate in 1994. And while he tried to mount an insanity defense, he also claimed that he was inspired by conservative radio talk show hosts who had talked about “cleansing” the government and “armed revolution.” Even if Duran is lying about what actually motivated him, no serious observer could fail to note that for much of Clinton’s presidency, there was an undercurrent of hysteria that animated his extremist critics.

So how does this affect the Presidential campaign? First and foremost, it places a responsibility on candidates, their staffs, and their supporters to be circumspect in their criticisms of Obama. You can lay into a candidate without inviting the public to hate them. One can even personalize their criticism without it degenerating into the kind of mindless hate that is so often directed at Bush. And this challenge will be monitored by a more sensitive press who will probably come down harder and quicker on transgressors.

It also behooves those of us who write for political blogs to be cognizant of the danger. Obama is one of the most liberal candidates ever to seek the Presidency. I doubt whether many conservatives agree with much of anything he espouses. But will it really kill us if we keep our criticisms focused on the issues of the campaign - including personal issues like his lack of experience and an emerging portrait of a mushy headed idealist? I think not.

I’m not telling anyone what to write or to limit themselves in any way except to understand the historic nature of Obama’s candidacy and the very real danger that the same kind of treatment the right gave Clinton could prove tragic. As I said, it isn’t just the odd, angst ridden social deviant armed with an automatic weapon that would feel enabled by such an atmosphere. There are very serious men fully capable of making serious plans who might not need an enabling atmosphere to kill but who might actually be encouraged by it.

In his book In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest, writer-blogger Dave Neiwert paints a startling and disturbing portrait of some of these extremists. Anyone who believes that these people are just a bunch of red necks hiding in the woods needs to be disabused of that notion entirely. And the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project has detailed files on dozens of hate groups, some of them heavily armed and made up of former members of the United States military.

They have the means and the motive (by their lights) to bring unspeakable tragedy once again to this country. It will be up to the dedicated and motivated professionals at the Secret Service to deny them the opportunity.

And it will be up to us to deny them any semblance of an idea that their violent action would be greeted by anything except outraged contempt.