Right Wing Nut House

First, the straight take:

A day of hit-and-run horror that started with the death of a Fremont pedestrian and erupted into half an hour of chaos on the streets of San Francisco ended in the arrest of a 29-year-old driver described by some relatives as mentally disturbed but by police as apparently rational and unrepentant.

At least 14 people were hospitalized Tuesday in San Francisco after the driver of a black 2004 Honda Pilot cut a path of destruction from the Tenderloin to Laurel Heights, striking pedestrians and a bicyclist in 13 locations starting at about 12:45 p.m.

Most of the injured were run down along a corridor of roughly 15 blocks starting on the west end of Pacific Heights. Witnesses said the driver sped up one street and down another, sometimes the wrong way, picking off people in crosswalks and on sidewalks. At least one victim was in critical condition Tuesday night; several others were treated and released.

“It was like ‘Death Race 2000,’ ” firefighter Danny Bright said of the cult movie at California and Fillmore streets, where four victims were hit. “Guys were walking down the sidewalk, and the guy just came up and ran them over. The guy went crazy.”

Crazy American? Or crazy Jihadist? Is the press hiding the fact the man could be and probably is a Muslim? Why no mention of a possible terror attack? Are we jumping to conclusions on the right? Is the left’s non-response to this story indicative of the fact they don’t care about terrorism?

There are times like this when I want to haul off and smack my friends both on the right and left upside the head in order to knock some sense into them.

Let’s go through this very carefully and perhaps, when all is said and done, we can have something of a meeting of the minds on this issue rather than using our responses to incidents like this to prove how silly or how evil the other side is.

When a Muslim-American drives a car into a group of college kids admitting afterwards that he was trying to kill them because they are Americans and he is upset at the way he perceives Muslims are being treated by our country - this is, for lack of a better term, an act of terrorism. The students affected are certainly terrorized. And I daresay in this post-9/11 world, the “message” being sent by the driver was amplified considerably. It was by any definition a political act of mayhem. To date, no terrorism-related charges have been filed despite the political implications of his crimes.

When a Muslim-American walks into a Jewish community center and opens fire deliberately trying to kill Jews because he is upset that the state of Israel and Muslims are at war in the Middle East, this is an act of terrorism. The city of Seattle can spin the incident all they want, trying to make the poor benighted jihadist into a victim - sorry, it won’t wash. This was a crime that was committed to send a message to the Jewish community that he was “tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East…” If that isn’t terrorism, then there is no meaning to the word.

It doesn’t really matter if the FBI refuses to label these incidents as terrorism. They can pretend for political, bureaucratic, or legal purposes that such is not the case. Terrorism is hard to prove legally and it may very well be that the FBI doesn’t feel it would be a wise expenditure of time and resources for the federal government to go after a lone terrorist when local and state laws can be used to incarcerate the perpetrator. But it doesn’t alter the facts on the ground at the crime scenes. And if we are going to get caught up in some silly game of semantics about these incidents - surprisingly not as isolated as you might think - then we’ll never get anywhere in achieving the goal that all of us, right and left, desire; the goal of making us all safer here at home.

It is also helpful to understand the bind that local prosecutors are in. There is nothing simple about calling a crime “terrorism.” Doing so sets in motion legal machinery that may or may not be justified and could, in some cases, make prosecution more difficult.

The press has its own agenda in not identifying these violent acts as terrorism. They have to deal with the hypersensitivity of the Muslim community not to mention a feeling of responsibility to their readers - misplaced perhaps - that passions aroused over the terrorism issue could lead to violence against innocents. I find the argument specious but understand it nevertheless.

All of this is not necessarily a denial of reality but rather the consequences of changing times. You and I may recognize these and other acts as terrorism. And perhaps, that is enough. What Dr. Daniel Pipes calls “sudden jihad syndrome” is impossible to anticipate and prevent even with the most sophisticated surveillance and intelligence assets we can deploy. This is because it is impossible to penetrate the workings of the human mind nor peer into the human soul. It is there that we will find the plot and the hatred, and the desire to inflict terror in sympathy with their Muslim brethren elsewhere.

If the official world refuses to acknowledge what we know to be true because of bureaucratic myopia or fear of the consequences to the community it matters little in that the truth is self evident and can plainly be seen by those willing to look. If one wishes to hide behind legalities or semantics by denying that these are indeed acts of terrorism perpetrated against US citizens, they are only hiding the truth from themselves to their own detriment.

The car rampage yesterday in San Francisco may or may not be a case of Sudden Jihad Syndrome. We just don’t know. While there has been much excellent reporting and some intelligent speculation (did the killer know where the Jewish center was?) there have also been some shocking leaps of illogic and even some examples of good old fashioned American bigotry at work in a few of the posts I’ve seen this morning. All Muslims are not terrorists. And even all Muslims who kill are not terrorists. The only hint of a motive we have from the perpetrator is that the reason he did what he did was because he “felt like it.” This is hardly grounds for jumping to the conclusion that his acts were the result of Sudden Jihad Syndrome.

This may change in the days to come as more of this man’s life and motives are revealed. But for now, it is best that we do something that the blogosphere does extremely poorly; wait. In this, I would compliment the lefty bloggers who have played the story pretty straight (with an anti-Semitic exception from a usual suspect) and, like the rest of us, await the results of the investigation. But I would also say to my lefty comrades that speculation about whether this rampage was motivated by an urge to lash out at Americans for perceived slights - in other words, a political act - is perfectly legitimate and in fact, is something the blogosphere does pretty well when it is done intelligently and carefully.

There is much to get used to in a 9/11 + 5 world. And perhaps the biggest adjustment will be in accepting the fact that identifying those who would do us harm for political reasons is not a sign of bigotry or hate but rather a simple acceptance of self-evident truth. We may be taken to task for overreach and over-simplification. But the ultimate truth that we are targets of hatred by one particular group - fanatical jihadists whether acting alone or as part of a terrorist cell - cannot be denied. And that doing so places us in more danger than we should be.

The United States military and the Iraqi government are starting to get a foretaste of what the cost of victory will entail as coalition forces and Iraqi troops begin moving against the two headed monster of Iranian backed militias:

At least 100 people were killed across Iraq yesterday in a day of intense gun battles and suicide bombings, contradicting US military claims that the security situation in the war-torn nation was improving.

A total of 34 bodies, including seven civilians and 25 Iraqi government soldiers, were brought into the central hospital in the town of Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, after fighting between government forces and gunmen of the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Fifty militiamen were also killed in the gunfight, according to the Iraqi defence ministry.

In a separate development, a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the Interior Ministry in Baghdad during the midmorning rush hour, killing 16 people, including 13 policemen, and wounding up to 62.

On Sunday, a further 60 people were killed in attacks across the country from Kirkuk in the Kurdish-held north to Basra in the south.

I understand the need to put the best face on what is going on in Iraq. I understand that the American and Iraqi people are beginning to lose hope that anything like a stable Iraq can emerge from our three year effort there and that keeping a stiff upper lip to bolster their resolve is tempting. I even understand the natural human impulse to engage in wishful thinking in the face of such horrific bloodletting.

What I cannot understand or excuse is statements like this:

Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the lead spokesman for the American military, said Monday that attacks and murders in Baghdad declined in August thanks to the deployment of about 12,000 additional American and Iraqi troops. He said several neighborhoods searched over the past few weeks under a new security plan were reviving, with stores re-opening, and children riding bicycles in the streets.

Yet Mr. Sadr and the Mahdi Army remain an obstacle. Prime Minister Maliki, a Shiite who depends on support from Mr. Sadr’s allies in Parliament, has not confronted Mr. Sadr publicly. Sadr City, a Mahdi bastion, has not been searched or raided in a thorough manner, even though it is one of the capital’s most violent areas.

The Americans have maintained some distance: even as the fighting raged in Diwaniya on Monday, General Caldwell told reporters he had not been briefed on the battle and could not comment.

“Children riding bicycles in the streets…?” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Just a few miles from where those children were riding bikes, an entirely different scene was unfolding:

At least two dozen bodies, many bearing signs of torture, were found dumped in Shiite areas of Baghdad on Tuesday, and the government almost doubled the death toll from clashes this week between militiamen and Iraqi forces, saying 73 people had died.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales met with Iraq’s deputy prime minister in Baghdad in a visit he said was to promote “the rule of law.”

I am happy the situation has improved over the last three weeks or so. But three weeks is hardly a trend. Nor is there any evidence whatsoever that all the patrolling and rousting, and sweeps, can stop the Mehdi Army from killing whomever they wish whenever they want.

And the way al-Maliki is talking, it doesn’t sound like he’s ready to face the consequences of cracking down on the death squads. Al-Sadr will fight back - as he has already started to in Diwaniyah. That battle was sparked by the Iraqi Army arresting a suspected roadside bomber:

General Ghanimi and other Iraqi Army and police officials said several militias were involved, not just the Mahdi Army. But they said the seed of the violence on Monday was planted a week ago when a roadside bomb they believe was planted by the Mahdi Army killed at least two Iraqi soldiers. Two days later, the Iraqi Army arrested a member of the Mahdi Army.

Nasir al-Saadi, a spokesman for the Sadr bloc in Parliament, said the unidentified Sadr militant arrested by the army was tortured and may have been killed. According to Mr. Saadi’s account, the army started attacking a Mahdi-dominated neighborhood late Sunday night. He said the soldiers killed civilians and damaged houses while Sadr militants “did not participate” at first, refusing to return fire.

General Ghanimi, a Sunni, denied torturing the Mahdi detainee, noting that Sadr representatives visited him on Saturday and found him healthy. He said they asked for the accused bomber’s release and when the army refused, fighting broke out as the militias sought to free him from custody.

Sounds almost like al-Saadi’s statement was taken from the Hizbullah Media Playbook. Accuse an enemy of an atrocity in order to shift blame for initiating violence from your side. Nasrallah would be proud of the lessons his student al-Sadr has been absorbing of late.

In the meantime, al-Maliki remains indecisive:

But Mr. Maliki has yet to introduce any new policy, and has refrained from strong condemnations of Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army. Mr. Maliki relies on Mr. Sadr, who is enormously popular among poor Shiites, for political support against rival Shiite politicians. Mr. Sadr controls several ministries and at least 30 seats in Parliament, and he maintains close ties to Mr. Maliki’s political group, the Islamic Dawa Party.

Earlier this month, after the Americans called in air support during a raid with Iraqi forces in a Sadr stronghold in Baghdad, Mr. Maliki denounced the move by the Americans and said he had never given permission for it.

We can appreciate Mr. Maliki’s delicate position but frankly, the time for delicacy has long passed. Al-Sadr’s militia is the primary force behind the murder of thousands of innocent Sunnis. They have admitted as much. Their militia operates outside of the Constitutional justice system and knows no law but the Koran:

In a grungy restaurant with plastic tables in central Baghdad, the young Mahdi Army commander was staring earnestly. His beard was closely cropped around his jaw, his face otherwise cleanshaven. The sleeves of his yellow shirt were rolled down to the wrists despite the intense late-afternoon heat. He spoke matter-of-factly: Sunni Arab fighters suspected of attacking Shiite Muslims had no claim to mercy, no need of a trial.

“These cases do not need to go back to the religious courts,” said the commander, who sat elbow to elbow with a fellow fighter in a short-sleeved, striped shirt. Neither displayed weapons. “Our constitution, the Koran, dictates killing for those who kill.”

His comments offered a rare acknowledgment of the role of the Mahdi Army in the sectarian bloodletting that has killed more than 10,400 Iraqis in recent months.

Maliki has got to decide if he wants to do what is necessary or what is politically possible. Of course this means he’s between a rock and a hard place on the militia issue. But it also means he may have to risk the Mehdi bloc withdrawing from Parliament if he wants to drastically curtail sectarian violence as well as the war between the Badr Brigades and the Mehdi Army which threatens to destroy his government.

The Brigades are the military arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Their leader, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, will probably back Maliki in disarming al-Sadr’s thugs. But what his reaction will be when we start going after his own bully boys is open to question:

In an interview with The Associated Press, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the country’s largest Shiite party, called on the government to expand its efforts to reconcile Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups, but not so far as to include Islamic extremists or Saddam Hussein loyalists.

“It is obvious that Takfiris [Sunni extremists] and Saddamists can never conduct any dialogue and they are not ready for that. They are the real enemies of the Iraqi people,” the soft-spoken Hakim said in an interview in his downtown Baghdad home.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb

“It is our duty and the duty of the government to continue contacts and make efforts to attract as many people as possible. Generally, we are very optimistic about the future,” Hakim added.

Is there a political solution to the militias? We thought so at one time. We encouraged the enlistment of the militias in the Iraqi police. This proved to be a disaster because the militia used their position as law enforcement officers to carry out murders of both insurgents as well as the political enemies of al-Sadr. And the Interior Ministry recruited members of the Badr Brigades into special police squadrons whose sole purpose was to kill their political enemies as well as carry out the worst atrocities against Sunni civilians.

If Maliki believes that a political solution to the problem is still viable, he may turn out to be worse than useless. We’ve already delayed this step for far too long. Any further delay would just make things bloodier and more difficult for our troops. Eventually, Maliki is going to realize that he’s not Prime Minister of anything as long as Muqtada al-Sadr draws breath. Killing him and most of his fighters is going to be the price for a more stable Iraq.

The important thing, obviously, is that Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig have been freed from their captivity. And in an interesting twist that makes one think that their kidnappers knew all too well what Fox News is and what the attitude of the rest of the world media is toward them, they forced the two journalists to “convert” to Islam.

AND JUST LIKE JILL CARROLL, THEY WERE FORCED TO MAKE A PROPAGANDA TAPE CONDEMNING AMERICA:

Fox Television journalists held for 13 days in the Gaza Strip were released Sunday after they were shown on a videotape saying they converted to Islam.

The two journalists, American Steve Centanni, 60, and New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, “have liberated themselves” by converting to Islam, according to the statement accompanying a videotape from a group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades.

Gaza journalists confirmed that Centanni and Wiig arrived at a hotel in Gaza shortly after noon local time.

[snip]

Parts of the latest six-minute tape, aired on al-Jazeera television, showed Centanni and Wiig seated cross-legged. Both read from written statements condemning the American policy in the Middle East. In one scene, both men were shown eating.

“It is Apache helicopters firing Hellfire missiles made in America that kill the residents in Gaza,” Wiig said on the tape.

Their statements were punctuated on the tape with screens of written verse from the Koran, and scenes from Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq that was the site of abuse of Muslim prisoners by American soldiers.

This “conversion” wrinkle is certainly personally humiliating for the two reporters. I say this not disparaging Islam but rather pointing out the obvious; conversion at the point of a gun points up the total control the kidnappers had over the lives of their captives. That is the message the kidnappers were sending. And it appears to me that the kidnappers may also be very aware of the fact that Fox News is seen by most of the western press as a “conservative” news outlet. Since it is no secret where the most vigorous opposition to the agenda of radical Islam comes from, one wonders if these particular jihadists were trying to send a message to conservatives; resistance is futile.

Are they that sophisticated? Think Reuters and then tell me they are not. Radical Islamism is the most media savvy enemy America has ever faced. For whatever reason, the old Soviet Union was clumsy and at times, laughably off target in their attempted media manipulations.

But these guys have studied the western mind, studied western politics, and most importantly, studied the process of how the modern collection and dissemination of news is done. They are aware of news cycles and feeding frenzies. We already knew they were very good at creating irresistible images for the wire services and other independent news sources whose reporting the major nets depend on during a war. What their manipulation of images of these particular hostages may mean is that they are aware of the politics of media coverage as well.

It almost appears as if the kidnappers had been reading the blogs over the last week. If there was one way to embarrass their tormentors in the right wing blogosphere, it would be to show that no one can resist the power of their religion. Whether they realize what the reaction by lefty blogs will be - gratitude for their release followed by a lecture on tolerance and some pointed remarks equating this hostage release with the way righty blogs handled the Jill Carroll imbroglio - is impossible to say but given the sophistication of their media relations as well as how internet savvy their cells have proved to be, I wouldn’t put it past them.

And even if the kidnappers don’t know what blogs are, the lefty blogs would have a point regarding Jill Carroll. If you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest you read her gripping story that will be out in book form soon, excerpts of which have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor. (HT: Bill Roggio). Carroll’s ordeal should remind all of us that no matter what one’s politics, all Americans are held hostage when one of us falls into the hands of these thugs.

Carroll was targeted for kidnapping for the exact same reason the Fox News reporters were taken; to influence and terrorize the American public. This is also the reason both were required to make a tape spewing anti-American propaganda. The thugs are not concerned with our petty political squabbles except as a way to divide us. They didn’t “like” Jill Carroll any more than they were fond of Steve Centanni. Carroll’s alleged sympathy for Islam didn’t do her any more or less good than Centanni’s connection to Fox News denoting hostility to radical jihadism. It just didn’t matter.

Maybe the good that comes out of this incident is that conservatives will realize that it doesn’t matter to our enemies whether reporters write sympathetic pieces about them or whether they do highly critical new stories on their movement. What matters is that they are American. That’s all that matters. The rest is so much chaff.

UPDATE

Michelle has links to all the video as well as her transcription of this from Centanni:

I just hope this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover this story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful, kind-hearted, loving people who the world need to know more about and so do not be discouraged. Come and tell the story. It’s a wonderful story. I’m just happy to be here. Thanks for all your support.

Ed Morrissey thinks the conversion ploy shows that the jihadists are amateurs:

The Holy Jihad Brigade apparently wants to include themselves among the Big Three of Palestinian terrorism. They have a strange way of applying. Besides forcing the conversion of the two to Islam, they made them play dress-up and recorded a degrading video of the pair denouncing the West in Arabic robes. I’m not sure who they thought such a display would convince, but Centanni and Wiig wisely played along with the demands, and now this laughable statement gives evidence of the childish and intellectually stunted nature of Palestinian terrorism. Even Haniyeh will be embarrassed by that show.

This could be. “Holy Jihad Brigade” could be a bunch of guys who hang out together after Friday prayers and who decided to get a little attention by kidnapping some westerners. It’s possible they didn’t know the significance of the Fox News connection nor that their motives in releasing the videos were anything more than, as Ed says, a “childish and laughable” exercise in propaganda.

If so, they sure got lucky picking a journalist with ties to a news organization that is closely identified with an ideology that has given the Islamists the most sustained and unrelenting opposition in the west.

Also, be sure to check out the videos at Ms. Underestimated.

Russell Shaw has made a lot of people angry with this post at HuffPo about his desire for another 9/11, which he believes would show the American people that George Bush can’t protect them and thus cause a Democratic stampede at the polls in November that would bring the left to power.

First of all, I should amend the above statement slightly to reflect the fact that Shaw has made a lot of conservatives angry. The netnuts either agree with him or have yet to catch up to the blogswarm. Their reaction should be interesting. My guess is they will condemn his premise while agreeing with his version of America under Democratic rule.

And that is where Shaw’s real stupidity shows itself. I can’t believe he is actually serious about the premise of this article:

What if another terror attack just before this fall’s elections could save many thousand-times the lives lost?

I start from the premise that there is already a substantial portion of the electorate that tends to vote GOP because they feel that Bush has “kept us safe,” and that the Republicans do a better job combating terrorism.

If an attack occurred just before the elections, I have to think that at least a few of the voters who persist in this “Bush has kept us safe” thinking would realize the fallacy they have been under.

If 5% of the “he’s kept us safe” revise their thinking enough to vote Democrat, well, then, the Dems could recapture the House and the Senate…”

We all know that being provocative in the blogosphere is the quickest way to fame. Shaw used so many qualifiers and caveats in his post fantasizing about rivers of blood flowing in American streets that the poor dear nearly tied himself into intellectual and moral knots. It proves that rather than really wishing for an attack, he wanted the widest possible audience for his vision of mass death leading to an electoral landslide. Shaw simply posits this outrageous premise to highlight what America would look like with the Democrats in charge.

In Shaw’s Utopia, the thousands of deaths in another 9/11 attack would be offset by many times that number “saved” by Democratic policies. In short, Shaw is intimating the jaw dropping idiocy that Republican policies kill people already and that if it takes a terrorist attack that kills thousands more in order to remove the Republican blight, so be it.

One might wonder about the gentleman’s sanity except this is standard fare for the left when it comes to critiquing conservative governance. It isn’t enough that Republican policies might be wrong, or misguided but rather they are unhealthy and are formulated with the idea of deliberately killing people.

Here’s an example of Shaw’s Utopia righting all wrongs with liberals riding to the rescue on a white horse:

Block the next Supreme Court appointment, one which would surely result in the overturning of Roe and the death of hundreds if not thousands of women from abortion-prohibiting states at the hands of back-alley abortionists;

It should be noted that getting rid of Roe V Wade would not end abortion in the United States. States would be free to pass their own laws regarding the right of a women to an abortion. This, of course, is how the issue of abortion should have been settled in the first place - through the democratic expression of voters not the diktats of a judge. In fact, prior to Roe, most states had relaxed their abortion laws and were moving toward the kind of legalization favored by the majority of Americans - abortions permitted in the first trimester with exceptions for the life and health of the mother and in cases of rape or incest.

The problem for abortion advocates is that instead of only having to deal with one entity - the US Supreme Court - to get their way, now they would have to deal with 50 state legislatures and all that messy democracy stuff. This is hugely expensive not to mention fraught with the danger that people might not agree with you and pass an abortion statute that reflects their own thinking on the matter rather than the thinking of their betters.

The world with the Democrats in charge gets even better:

Be in a position to elevate the party’s chances for a regime change in 2008. A regime change that would:

Save hundreds of thousands of American lives by enacting universal health care;

Save untold numbers of lives by pushing for cleaner air standards that would greatly reduce heart and lung diseases;

More enthusiastically address the need for mass transit, the greater availability of which would surely cut highway deaths;

Enact meaningful gun control legislation that would reduce crime and cut fatalities by thousands a year;

Fund stem cell research that could result in cures saving millions of lives;

Boost the minimum wage, helping to cut down on poverty which helps spawn violent crime and the deaths that spring from those acts;

Be less inclined to launch foolish wars, absence of which would save thousands of soldiers’ lives- and quite likely moderate the likelihood of further terror acts.

Would universal health care really save “hundreds of thousands” of American lives? I guess one of the advantages of blogging at Huffpo is that you can throw out any old sh*t about any subject and not have to prove it to anyone.

How about funding stem cell research that would save “millions of lives?” Doesn’t Mr. Shaw know that adult stem cell research is more than adequately funded and that the debate over whether embryonic stem cells would cure anybody of anything is hardly conclusive either way? Again, no need to prove anything. He’s blogging at HuffPo.

Would gun control save thousands of people a year? Cities with the strictest gun control seem to have the highest rates of homicide. But Shaw doesn’t have to prove anything. He’s blogging at HuffPo.

It appears that Mr. Shaw doesn’t have to prove either his critique of conservative governance or that his prescriptions would actually address any shortcomings. After all, he’s blogging at HuffPo.

Be that as it may, this fake controversy generated by Shaw is extremely helpful in exposing the left’s curious detachment from reality regarding the War on Terror. I guess as long as it happens to someone else, as long as someone else is incinerated or drops out of the sky in an airplane that has been blow to kingdom come, the war is only a domestic political battleground and not a life and death struggle with fanatical jihadists.

DEMOCRATS DISCUSS THE THREAT OF TERRORISM AGAINST THE UNITED STATES

I remember the good old days when liberals would place the War on Terror in quotation marks as if the “war” only existed as a political ploy to elect George Bush and Republicans. In this universe, talk of terrorism against the United States was a gigantic trick, a distraction that was used to establish King George’s kingdom while surreptitiously savaging our civil liberties and readying the concentration camps for occupation by regime opponents.

There was something comfortable about this idiotic construct. After all, by denying there was a “war” in the first place, one could blithely go along secure in the knowledge if they were right, liberals had a hook they could use to reel in gullible voters on election day. And if they were wrong and al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group struck, they would simply point out that Bush once again failed to protect us despite their opposition to every single measure the government has taken to do so.

Of course, the left would be banking on the media to help the American people forget that they demeaned the very idea of a War on Terror in the first place. In this, they would probably be successful given the general apathy and short attention span of most voters. But no matter. For the left, it’s “heads I win, tails you lose” when it comes to national security posturing.

Now for reasons having to do with their failure to elicit the proper outrage by the voters against the President’s anti-terrorism efforts - the foolish American people actually support the President’s trying to protect them - the left has switched gears and have taken a “Don’t worry…Be happy” approach to the threat of sudden death from fanatical jihadists:

Most of all, though, we should recall that what’s scary about, say, al-Qaeda isn’t the number of people it has killed, or even the number of people it can kill — it’s the number of people it would like to kill. Terrorists armed with liquid explosives are a problem on a par with lightning strikes or peanut allergies. Terrorists armed with a nuclear bomb is a legitimate nightmare.

I don’t know about you but after reading that I feel much better. I mean, leave aside the fact that dead is dead no matter how the depressing event happens. I would certainly feel worse if I went to the hereafter as a result of eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich than if I met my demise as a passenger on a plane that was blown to smithereens by a liquid bomb planted by some Islamonut. I happen to adore my P & B (Skippy Creamy, of course, with gobs of Concord Grape Jelly) and would be loathe to give it up for anything.

Then again, we don’t ban peanut butter from airplanes. Authorities however, take a rather dim view of liquid bombs being brought on board passenger aircraft, correctly deducing that while peanut butter is sticky and could ruin the upholstery of airplane seats, a liquid bomb might do considerably more damage and should therefore be confiscated before boarding.

According to Mr. Yglesias, however, we should be expending the same amount of resources and attention to terrorism as we do on the pressing problem of overdosing on Skippy. Or perhaps on educating golfers about the fact that the 2 million volts of electricity contained in a bolt of lightening is attracted to an upraised metal golf club the same way that Osama might be attracted to Whitney Houston. If saving lives was the only goal in preventing terrorism, the left could have a point, couldn’t they?

Philip Klein:

Furthermore, terrorism is a different type of threat because in addition to the human carnage it leaves behind, it targets symbols of American power and prosperity (such as the World Trade Center and the Pentagon). Were we to have a nonchalant attitude toward terrorism because it mathematically presents a lower fatality risk relative to other dangers, it would not only put us at risk for attacks worse than Sept. 11, but it would demonstrate weakness to current and potential adversaries. As the 9/11 Commission reported, Osama Bin Laden was inspired by the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1993. How would our enemies and allies view America today were we to brush aside dastardly attacks on prominent symbols of our financial and military might?

Personally, I prefer nonchalance to all this preparedness crap. That way, no one can accuse you of having an “inordinate fear” of terrorism. I’m sure you’ve heard the latest slings and arrows coming from our liberal friends; conservative “bedwetters” and “chicken littles” who quake in their boots about dying in a terrorist attack - as if there was any chance of that happening. Better to brush off the threat and put on macho airs (Do liberals had anything down there that would give them real courage in the first place?). This impresses females and also has a salutary affect on the left’s facial acne eruptions what with all those hormones being released in response to their primal chest thumping and declarations of fearlessness.

And just in case we haven’t quite gotten the message about terrorism being no more of a bother than allergies and thunderstorms, up steps Ron Bailey in that bastion of reasonableness Reason Magazine:

Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.

So do these numbers comfort you? If not, that’s a problem. Already, security measures—pervasive ID checkpoints, metal detectors, and phalanxes of security guards—increasingly clot the pathways of our public lives. It’s easy to overreact when an atrocity takes place—to heed those who promise safety if only we will give the authorities the “tools” they want by surrendering to them some of our liberty. As President Franklin Roosevelt in his first inaugural speech said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself— nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” However, with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our lives as though terrorism doesn’t matter—because it doesn’t really matter. We ultimately vanquish terrorism when we refuse to be terrorized.

For the record, I stink at math so we’re going to have to take Mr. Bailey’s descent into the statistical wilderness at face value. Besides that, Mr. Bailey actually has a point. There are other things besides terrorism to be afraid of in America - and one of them is Bailey and his ideological ilk.

To say that Mr. Bailey gets first prize for sophistry and jaw dropping idiocy is to let him off too easily. I would first make the request that the next terrorist attack that occurs - and we know that one is coming and will be successful - Bailey, Yglesias, and the entire crew of lefty head cases who are advancing this meme should be forced to pay a visit to the families of the dead and comfort them with their statistics, graphs, and the law of averages. And when queried about why their loved one died, they could always say “Stuff happens.”

I’m sure that will ease their pain and suffering.

But the truly dangerous nature of Mr. Bailey’s (and others) statistical approach to national security lies in its deceptive call for a “return to normalcy.” While I shouldn’t make fun of their obvious sincerity and concern over the government’s aggressive anti-terrorism efforts, the point is that enduring terrorist attacks on a regular basis because we failed do everything possible to prevent them due to the low probability that any one American will die is loony. Not only is it politically unsustainable it is a disheartening effort to cheapen individual human lives. The intellectual gymnastics performed by people who think like this are breathtaking. It turns everything about America that we admire and that others have fought and died for on its head; that the individual is and must be supreme over the state.

For when the state begins to think like Bailey et. al., it becomes easier to treat Americans as an amorphous mass of humanity rather than individuals with rights, privileges, and responsibilities. Their admirable concern for the state’s overreach in its anti-terrorism efforts loses any relevance when one can turn their argument around and say less than .01% of 1% of people’s civil rights have been egregiously violated. Thus, the anti-terror programs that they find objectionable can be justified using their own logic against them.

We are closing in on 5 years at war in this country. We have yet to reach any kind of a national consensus on the liberty vs. security issue, a prerequisite for our survival as a free country and national entity. This argument being made by Bailey, Yglesias, and others is extraordinarily unhelpful in this cause and serves only to undermine our efforts both to protect our selves and our rights.

I kind of liked it better when they didn’t think we were at war at all…

Stung by international criticism regarding their paltry offer to add a mere 400 troops to their force serving in the United Nations International Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Jacques Chirac promised to add an additional 1600 men to the French commitment:

In a nationally televised address, Chirac said France will increase its deployment from an already announced 400 troops, and hopes to retain command of the force. He said the United Nations had provided the guarantees France had sought involving the mandate of the force.

“Two extra battalions will go on to the ground to extend our numbers within” the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Chirac said. “Two thousand French soldiers are thus placed under blue helmets in Lebanon,” he added, referring to the colored headgear that members of UN peacekeeping forces wear.

“These 2,000 soldiers include the 400 military personnel already present on the ground,” he added after meeting with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, as well as his foreign and defense ministers and military chiefs.

Italy has agreed to take on the thankless task of commanding the force which will have a mandate to “defend themselves” and civilians” in the likely event they get shot at:

Potential contributors to the force have expressed concern about the lack of a clear and strong mandate, which could hinder troops on the ground and leave them unable to defend themselves if they come under fire, like the existing UNIFIL force in Lebanon.

But the United Nations has now authorized the force to use weapons in self-defense and to defend civilians.

Evidently Bush has been busier than many people realized in pushing the recalcitrant Europeans to fill out the bulk of forces that will be sent to implement Resolution 1701:

In Rome, Prime Minister Romano Prodi said President George. W. Bush had told him by telephone of his “positive” view of Italy’s offer to lead the force. He added Bush was also leaning on allies to offer troops.

“I expect that reluctant or not, smiling or not, there will be an ample European contribution,” Prodi said in an interview with RAI state radio. “Bush is making a strong effort to put pressure on friendly countries in order to broaden the number of participants in the mission.”

The European commitment will become clearer after a meeting tomorrow in Brussels. It appears that the bulk of the 15,000 man force will therefore be made up of real soldiers and not drawn from the armies of nations that believe Israel has no right to exist:

Greece, Finland, Poland and Spain have all indicated that they will contribute, prompting European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso to say Thursday he was “confident that Europe will provide the necessary support to expand UNIFIL.”

In addition, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia have said they will participate, though Israel is resisting the offer from the latter two because of an absence of diplomatic relations.

And someone should tell the Italians that they should get with the program and not try and disarm Hizbullah. Their Foreign Minister didn’t get the memo:

D’Alema said that the international force would “assist” the Lebanese Army in disarming Hizbullah and restoring the government’s sovereignty over the southern region.

He said some form of assistance could also be extended to help Lebanon control its border with Syria and stem the flow of arms destined for Hizbullah, but ruled out deploying the international force along the Lebanon-Syria border. “That would require an enormous number of troops and is not called for in the resolution,” D’Alema told a joint news conference.

Livni said Hizbullah could play a role in Lebanese politics but insisted on the enforcement of 1701 in order for “Hizbullah not to be an armed militia at the end of the process but to take part in Lebanese political life.”

D’Alema said that the disarmament of Hizbullah was “in large part” up to the Lebanese government

Will there come a point where someone, somewhere, insists that UN Resolutions 1559 and 1701 be fully implemented? Both resolutions call for Hizbullah’s disarmament in the clearest language possible. How many times will the UN “insist” the terrorists disarm before someone does it?

And what about the stipulation regarding the interdiction of Syrian and Iranian arms to Hizbullah? Are we just going to let that one drop? Are they hoping that Israel is going to forget that they agreed to a cease fire with that very important stipulation as part of the deal? Will they prevent Israel from doing their job for them?

Many questions and few answers as the new force is deployed. If past history is anything to go by, the force will not be effective at doing anything save hunkering down when the going gets tough. The UN has yet to deploy a force that has been able to stop determined adversaries from killing each other. And given the mandate applied to this one, I don’t expect anything different.

Well, the best I can say is that we’re still here.

The fruit and nut cake President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did not “light up the sky” over Jerusalem as some of our more excitable blog brethren were breathlessly speculating in recent weeks. Perhaps some of us were hoping that rather than light up the sky, he would light up himself and disappear to join the prophet in heaven in a blaze of self-immolated glory.

No such luck.

In fact, it appears judging by the actions of the Iranian government today that it’s just more of the same for a man competing either for “Best Hitler Impersonation in 60 years” or the coveted title of “Most Outrageous Goofball on Planet Earth.” The former making him a dangerous man indeed. The latter still making him a threat but one that we can probably manage without overturning the apple cart in the Middle East.

But that’s the problem with this fellow. Do we take him seriously when he says:

If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender.

(HT: LGF)

Or when he says:

Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved…

How to attain the goal of enjoying a world without America or Zionism? Here’s Hassan Abbassi, a Revolutionary Guards intelligence theoretician who teaches at Al-Hussein University and someone considered to be Ahmadinejad’s strategic guru:

We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization… we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.

Personally, I think that it would take far fewer than 29 targets hit to destroy what we now know as America but maybe the thug just wants to be certain. But I urge you not to mention this to the left. You see, by their way of thinking the fact that we have plans to invade Iran means that we are going to invade, no ifs, ands or buts. However, if the lefties see what Abbassi is planning they will be forced to make a 180 degree flip flop and say “Well of course, all countries have plans. That doesn’t mean anything.”

And they’d probably be right. With at least one of those theories. How long do you think it will take them to catch on that they can’t be right about both?

No matter. It is Ahmadinejad’s jew hating, holocaust denying rhetoric that has the sane world up in arms. That and the small matter of his nuclear program. Are we supposed to take the man at his word when he says it is for peaceful purposes only? If so, we are being asked to take the word of a serial exaggerator and liar. For if, as we are led to believe by some, Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric can safely be ignored since he’s only playing to the home folks, do praytell how one can divine when he’s propagandizing and when he’s telling the truth? In other words, who has insight into the man’s soul in order to tell us when he’s lying and when he’s not?

Our betters on the left, of course, Ye needn’t ask. That’s why any attempt to delay, impede, or otherwise destroy his nuclear enrichment capability is seen as just more of the same from the crazy neocons running our government. The dhimmi left has already decided there’s nothing to be done except believe Ahmadinejad because the alternative would mean that they were wrong and George Bush was right.

Never fear, however. We will keep talking to Iran - fat lot of good it will do. But from Iran’s perspective, it helps them play our useful idiots if they seem sincere about talking:

Iran’s semi-official news agency reported today that Tehran has “rejected suspension of its nuclear activities” as demanded by the United Nations Security Council but has proposed a “new formula for resolving the issue through talks.”

The details of the new formula were not immediately apparent.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator delivered Tehran’s response to the ambassadors of Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Switzerland and was briefing them on the substance, reported Iran’s Fars news agency.

Diplomats in Washington, Tehran and European capitals had said yesterday that the Iranian government is willing to enter negotiations and to consider a freeze of the program, but it will not accept a freeze as a precondition for the talks.

Now we’ll have another ring around the rosy at the United Nations as Britain, France, Germany, and the US struggle to come up with sanctions watered down enough so that China and Russia will accept them. Under discussion are sanctions of the harshest sort like denying Iranian leaders the opportunity to fly on foreign airlines and delaying the mullah’s entry into the WTO.

That’s showing ‘em.

In the meantime, Iran is making it very clear that they have a very good reason for keeping their nuclear program under wraps:

Iran turned away U.N. inspectors from an underground site meant to shelter its uranium enrichment program from attack, diplomats said Monday, while the country’s supreme leader insisted Tehran will not give up its contentious nuclear technology.

Iran’s unprecedented refusal to allow access to its underground facility at Natanz could seriously hamper U.N. attempts to ensure Tehran is not trying to produce nuclear weapons, and might violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, diplomats and U.N. officials told The Associated Press.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, the diplomats and officials from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, described other signs of Iranian defiance.

They said Iran denied entry visas to two IAEA inspectors in the last few weeks after doing the same earlier this summer for Chris Charlier, the expert heading the U.N. agency’s team to Tehran. Additionally, they said, other inspectors were given only single-entry visas during their visits to Iran last week, instead of the customary multiple-entry permits.

And just in case we didn’t get the message to “bow and surrender” to the Iranian regime, they tried a little strong arm action today:

Iran attacked and seized control of a Romanian oil rig working in its Persian Gulf waters this morning one week after the Iranian government accused the European drilling company of “hijacking” another rig.

An Iranian naval vessel fired on the rig owned by Romania’s Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP) in the Salman field and took control of its radio room at about 7:00 a.m. local time, Lulu Tabanesku, Grup’s representative in the United Arab Emirates said in a phone interview from Dubai today.

“The Iranians fired at the rig’s crane with machine guns,” Tabanesku said. “They are in control now and we can’t contact the rig.” The Romanian company has 26 workers on the platform, he said.

Grup had a contract with an Iranian oil firm whose activities were suspended last year due to corruption charges and (lefty tin foil hat alert) for having dealings with Halliburton. Evidently, the Iranians feel the rig is theirs even if they’re not paying for it.

Sounds to me like Haliburton is trying to engineer a confrontation between Iran and the West. If so, they did a lousy job picking Romania as the pigeon. I mean, you think they would have at least tried for a “B-List” European country like Spain or Portugal or maybe Monaco. Hell, Lichtenstein would have been a better choice than Romania for God’s sake!

Seriously, the western media will simply file this incident under “Outrageous Iranian Provocations” and let it go at that. How much longer they can keep pretending that “wiping Israel off the map” and “bow and surrender” is not really worth reporting on remains to be seen. Hopefully they will realize it sooner rather than later.

Otherwise, we’ll be the ones seeing a “light in the sky” someday.

UPDATE

Allah has a nice round up of blog and MSM react to the news that the Iranians want to talk but not if suspending their program is a precondition.

That nuke facility at Natanz shows activity that denotes centrifuge assembly. Talk about speaking out of both sides of your mouth…

I’ve been putting off writing this post for a couple of months. Not out of any fear of blogospheric consequences although it would pain me if my honest opinion drove people away from this site. But I realize many readers who have been following my evolving position on the War in Iraq know how pessimistic I have become over the last six months about the chances of that bloody land achieving anything like a stable, democratic government. For them, it may come as no surprise that I have reached a point where I believe we must make a decision as a nation about whether we want to continue our involvement - which would mean an increase in resources and a direct confrontation with Iran and Syria over their massive support for the terrorists and insurgents - or whether we should pack up and go home. In other words, escalate or leave.

Why now? And why bother writing about it?

Simply put, the reason I have come to this conclusion now is that the enemies of Iraqi democracy have established a clear upper hand in the country and it is uncertain at best whether the situation can be retrieved at this point.

And the reason to write about it is equally simple; to join a growing chorus of conservatives who are becoming very critical of our involvement and try and break through the spin and myopia of the Administration which is making the situation worse by pretending that things are getting better or are not as bad as we think they are.

The ultimate question to be asked is do we make one, final, massive attempt to alter the deteriorating situation by committing more resources to the war while at the same time giving ultimatums to both Syria and Iran to halt their clandestine and outrageously illegal assistance to the terrorists who are murdering thousands of civilians every month.

The risks involved in the latter should be self-evident; a general Middle East war that could drag the world into both economic chaos and a massive regional conflict with uncertain consequences for our friends and allies. And, of course, the risk in committing more resources is that we increase the number of American targets for the terrorists and insurgents as well as face the possibility that all our efforts will be for naught anyway.

The evidence that has been piling up the last three years against this Administration’s management of the war can no longer be dismissed as the rantings of dissatisfied bureaucrats or the partisan attacks of critics. Fiasco by Thomas Ricks, a respected military correspondent for the Washington Post, is an absolutely devastating account of the war and how the civilians (and some Generals) in the Pentagon not only made massive and continued mistakes in Iraq but also when confronted with the facts on the ground that refuted their rosy forecasts of progress, refused to change direction. This not only cost American lives but also helped the insurgency grow.

But perhaps the most damning record of stupidity and spin comes via the book Cobra II by Michael R. Gordon and General (Ret.) Bernard E. Trainor. Much of the book is a heartbreaking recitation of erroneous assumptions, overly optimistic assessments, and finally, a risible refusal to admit mistakes and change course.

Lest one think that these books are the products of left wing loons or authors suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, the one common thread running through both volumes is the massive amount of research and unprecedented access to documents that went into writing them. To deny the reality of all that these authors have uncovered is too much of a stretch, even for a Bush partisan like myself. Facts are facts and if the Administration had confronted many of the problems - insurgency, militias, disenchanted populace, the extent of foreign assistance to the insurgents, and sectarian factionalism to name a few - it may be that a different outcome to the war could have been salvaged.

For as it stands now, we are at a psychological tipping point in Iraq where drastic measures are needed in order to turn the situation around and give the weak Iraqi government a chance to gain control. There are many hands raised against this government and as of right now, they are losing any semblance of legitimacy due to their powerlessness in the face of the massive violence that has been unleashed.

Here’s a short list, by no means comprehensive, of what is happening in Iraq as you read this:

* An Sunni insurgency that despite offers of amnesty and clemency continues apace and if anything, is growing stronger and bolder. Certainly a large part of the insurgents strategy now is to ratchet up the violence in the lead up to the American elections in hopes that the Democrats can gain control of Congress and force the President to withdraw. And in perhaps the most disheartening news imaginable, as we have transferred troops from insurgent strongholds in the central provinces to Baghdad in order to quell the violence there, the insurgents have moved back into areas vacated by departing American troops and have re-established themselves in towns already “swept and cleared” by our men.

* The Iraqi army is not making the kind of progress that would allow us to draw down our forces anytime soon. With the exception of a dozen brigades (around 7500 men), the Iraqis are poorly equipped, poorly trained, poorly led, and are riddled with corruption and infiltrated by militias whose loyalty to the government is at best questionable.

* The end result of the Israeli-Hizbullah war has emboldened both Iran and the militias who are apparently doing Tehran’s bidding by stoking the fires of sectarian conflict. The Shia militia death squads are taking a fearful toll of Sunnis and are even starting to fight amongst themselves. There is ample anecdotal evidence of the Iraqi army turning the other way while the slaughter goes on which calls into question whether the violence can be stopped by American forces alone.

* In the south, Shia on Shia violence is also starting to escalate as militias battle for supremacy in towns and villages that were formerly peaceful. More Iranian meddling here as one of the prime movers behind the violence are the Badr Brigades who, like Hizbullah, were trained in Iran.

* In the north, a confrontation with NATO member Turkey has been avoided for the present as the terrorist arm of the Kurdish independence movement, the PKK, continues it cross-border terrorist activities against Turkish targets. The Turks had threatened to invade Iraq and handle the PKK problem with or without our blessing which has necessitated sending precious assets to the border region in order to deal with the Kurds.

* Also in the north, sporadic fighting is occurring between Kurds and Shias over oil rights. Despite clearly belonging to the Kurds, northern oil centers are under pressure from Shias as they seek to move the Kurds out.

* While weakened, al-Qaeda in Iraq has not gone away and is killing dozens daily with sophisticated car bombs and some suicide bombers. Coordination between the Sunni militias who make up the insurgency and the terrorists in AQI has improved in recent months thanks to the elimination of al-Zarqawi who was generally hated by all Iraqis. So for every step forward, it appears at times that we lose a step in the process.

* There are now more than 250,000 Iraqi refugees (mostly Sunnis) - people driven out of their homes in mixed Shia-Sunni areas by force. The dwindling number who stay in these areas are subject to harassment and ostracism.

* Criminal gangs who kidnap up to 70 Iraqis a week for ransom. They use the money to fund their extortion and shakedown rackets as well as buy guns to sell to insurgents.

* 3400 dead civilians in July alone. Thousands more injured. And no sign of any let up in August.

The government’s plan to combat this escalating violence which was implemented in June has failed miserably. They deployed 60,000 Iraqi troops and policemen in Baghdad in order to stem the violence. All told, the violence worsened. This is the direct result of the machinations of the Iranian backed cleric Muqtada al-Sadr whose Mehdi militia at the moment is engaged in a low level insurgency against Americans.

It is al-Sadr’s thugs who are carrying out the brutal public execution of hundreds of Sunnis with impunity. Only recently has the government given the go ahead to try and take the Mehdi militia down, something long past due. Since the police and army are simply too untrustworthy for this task, it has fallen to Americans with some assistance from the Iraqi army to try and defang the Shia militia. We are suffering increasing casualties as we move through Sadr City and systematically go door to door looking for weapons and members of the death squads. It is uncertain how this campaign will turn out.

But this campaign may be undermined by the government of Prime Minister al-Maliki. The medicine is harsh and some innocents are being killed. Maliki has already severely criticized the operation and it is unclear at this point whether we have scaled back our operations in response. If so, it makes the job of disarming the Mehdis that much more difficult.

But even disarming the militias, while minimizing the violence, won’t help deal with the insurgency. This is a political problem for the Iraqis themselves and one that, so far, they have failed to address in any comprehensive way. Clearly some kind of amnesty program and national reconciliation will be needed. But this will never happen until Shias stop killing Sunnis. Most of the insurgency is made up of Sunni militias whose tribal and clan loyalties require them to protect their own and not depend on the central government to do so. They will never disarm until they can be assured that their participation in the political process will not leave their people open to slaughter.

Given all of these complex and heartbreaking problems, what has our government been telling us about the state of affairs in Iraq?

Here’s Rumsfeld earlier this month:

Q: Is the country closer to a civil war?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I don’t know. You know, I thought about that last night, and just musing over the words, the phrase, and what constitutes it. If you think of our Civil War, this is really very different. If you think of civil wars in other countries, this is really quite different. There is — there is a good deal of violence in Baghdad and two or three other provinces, and yet in 14 other provinces there’s very little violence or numbers of incidents. So it’s a — it’s a highly concentrated thing. It clearly is being stimulated by people who would like to have what could be characterized as a civil war and win it, but I’m not going to be the one to decide if, when or at all.

The “14 other provinces” may not have the violence that Baghdad has but Rumsfeld never mentions the lawlessness that necessitates a constant military presence in the streets. Not does he mention that 75% of the Iraqi people live in the three most violent provinces.

Similar sentiments have been echoed by the President, albeit with a little less nonchalance. What this adds up to is an Administration unwilling or unable to face up to its past blunders and apply the necessary lessons in order to try and win through to victory.

For if there is a victory to be had in Iraq - and one can just barely make one out in the distance amidst the blood and ruin - it will take courage on the part of the President to confront these problems and do what is necessary in order to reverse course. And this will entail both risks and probably a larger casualty count among Americans fighting there.

Yes we need more troops - a lot more at least temporarily. Order must be brought to Baghdad and its environs and to do that we would need, according to General Trainor, is perhaps as many as 50,000 more Americans to both police the area and ferret out insurgents and the death squads.

For that to happen, the President would have to admit he and Donald Rumsfeld have been wrong all along and that in order to achieve stability, the additional troops must be sent. It is of the utmost distress to me that this President has failed to take responsibility for past mistakes and admitted to error in prosecuting the war. The grudging admissions of mistakes just isn’t getting it done. If he is serious about winning in Iraq (and he has called Iraq the “frontline” in the war on terror”) then he is going to have to go before the American people and explain why additional troops are necessary.

Yes I can understand why he has not admitted past mistakes and errors. The political climate wouldn’t give him “credit” for doing so. The situation in Iraq has gone far beyond the politics of the moment and now engages the future security of the United States. If he can’t be a man and take the inevitable finger pointing and name calling, then all hope is lost and we should start bringing the troops home now. The whispers in Washington that the President wishes to simply “hang on” in Iraq and leave the denouement to his successor is possibly the most immoral, cynical thing I’ve ever heard - which leads me to believe that it is not true. But it is equally immoral to simply apply more of the same prescriptions to a war that is now clearly out of control. Drastic changes are necessary. And if the President is not willing to apply them whether out of fear of the political consequences to his presidency or the Republican party, then he doesn’t deserve to sit in the big chair.

In war, rhetoric must match reality or you lose credibility. By constantly reminding us that Iraq is at the forefront of our anti-terror strategy - and then not doing the things necessary to win through to victory - the President takes the risk that our deterrent will lose its edge. And this is no more true than in the actions of Iran and Syria.

Both nations have judged that we will do nothing to stop them from continuing their support for the terrorists and the insurgency. We interdict what supplies and men that we can but it isn’t enough. And Iran and Syria have apparently decided that since there is no downside to their support for our enemies in Iraq, that they can bleed us white while engineering a humiliating defeat for American prestige in the process.

Jawboning hasn’t worked. Clearly some kind of diplomatic demarche is in order. Whether it involves sitting down in formal talks and making clear that our apathy toward their support for terrorists is at an end or we actually threaten force against assets that are supporting the insurgents, peace will not come to Iraq until those two nations stop their meddling. And why we have done so little in the past three years to stop them is, to my mind, one of the biggest mysteries of the war.

Restoring hope to the Iraqi people by radically diminishing the violence will help retrieve a situation that is getting worse by the week. It will take courage, initiative, boldness, and a more humble approach to the problems caused by our presence there. But there really isn’t any viable alternative. If we leave, Iraq will become what we all fear; a haven for radical Shia fundamentalism and terror. And the humanitarian disaster of Sunnis being slaughtered and driven out of the country will be a reality that will echo as painfully as the plight of the Vietnamese boat people a generation ago.

But if we are not willing to do what is necessary to win, then the only sane, moral course of action is to bring the troops home as fast as humanly possible. Such a humiliation should not result in a single additional death or injury to the men and women who have performed so bravely and selflessly in the face of blunder after blunder by their superiors.

To those of you who have taken the trouble to read this piece in its entirety, I thank you.

UPDATE 8/22

The Commissar weighs in with a comprehensive critique of Iraq of his own. He prescriptions are similar and he mentions something that I didn’t make clear.

I still support the policy that led us to invade in the first place. How is that possible given the failures to date? (Yes Dave, our policy will be a success when we are able to draw down the bulk of our troops and we are farther from that today than we were at the beginning of the year).

Those who see the war on terror as a police action fail, in my opinion, to take into account the rogue states that support and facilitate terrorism. Try as you might, you cannot seperate Saddam from Palestinian bombers (who he gave $25,000 to the family of the suicide bombers) or from radical fundamentalists who all evidence points to him getting closer to. It is also clear to any objective observer given the revelations contained in the Saddam papers, that the dictator and al-Qaeda were in close contact and were on the verge of consumating a strategic partnership in order to attack American targets.

This does not mean we attack willy nilly countries like Iran, Syria, Yemen, or Saudi Arabia. It does mean that we need a military as a credible threat and, in extreme cases, to effect regime change. There is a large military component to the War on Terror and I agree with the Commissar that Iraq was a logical target. The fact that the post war environment was botched unconscionably doesn’t obviate that point.

In the first post war maneuvering by the March 14th Forces, both Druse leader Walid Jumblatt and Future Party leader Saad Hariri lambasted Syria for her inaction during the recently concluded conflict between Israel and Hizbullah and for remarks made by Syrian President Bashar Assad that threatened those who criticized Hizbullah for starting the war.

Hariri was blunt:

Saad al-Hariri, the head of the al-Mustaqbal or Future, bloc and son of the slain former prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, said on Thursday that Bashar al-Assad had disdained Arab kindness towards Syria and his speech on Tuesday was like a “heavy strike” against Lebanon.

Al-Hariri was responding to a speech on Tuesday by al-Assad in which he accused Lebanon’s anti-Syrian groups of allying themselves with Israel, which bombarded Lebanon for 34 days.

Al-Assad had also accused the anti-Syrian bloc of wanting to sow discord in Lebanon by demanding that Hezbollah, the Syrian-backed Shia resistance group, disarm.

“Lebanon’s wound [inflicted by Israel] is deep and painful, but today it has faced a deeper one from a friend [Syria],” he said.

Hariri also had praise for the Lebanese people and the “resistance” (Hizbullah) and harsh words for Israel.

“The history of Israel is full of massacres, but our history is marked by its steadiness,” he said.

He applauded the resistance and the Lebanese people, saying that they were “much stronger than the Israeli aggression”.

“The Israeli aggression may be able to destroy Lebanon [physically] but it cannot touch the Lebanese unity, which is what will help to rebuild the country.”

Jumblatt, who has referred to the Syrian President in the past as a “clown,” mocked Assad’s inaction against the IDF by saying that the Syrian regime was “a lion in Lebanon but a bunny rabbit in Golan”. He also had some blunt words for Hizbullah:

Jumblatt hailed the unprecedented army deployment in southern Lebanon, but warned that “dangers could be looming … and Lebanon will remain a battleground” for regional conflicts unless Hezbollah is integrated into the regular army and respects the 1949 armistice agreement with Israel.

“Why can’t instead the army be responsible for holding the balance of power? Why can’t the rockets be under the command of the army?” he said.

He said the army’s deployment south of the Litani river was in line with an “ambiguous and unclear” formula because the military does not have the mandate to disarm Hezbollah fighters there.

Both men expressed outrage at the beginning of the conflict with Hizbullah’s unilateral decision to go to war with Israel. Since then, most of the democrats have kept quiet while Nasrallah took to the airwaves, giving several speeches and appearing to be in charge of the Lebanese government. His dominance over Siniora was made very plain as Nasrallah was clear about his veto power over any cease fire agreement.

During the conflict, both Hariri and Jumblatt concentrated on criticizing Israel and the United States. Hariri went abroad, visiting Arab countries to drum up diplomatic support as well as to ask for rebuilding funds. Both men saw that keeping a low profile during the conflict was their only political option.

But now that the war is over, they and other Lebanese democrats find themselves in something of a quandary. With Nasrallah ascendant and Hizbullah seen by many non-Shia Lebanese as fighters for Lebanese sovereignty, overt criticism of the terrorists for not disarming is both bad politics and could be dangerous to their health. Hence, their dual attacks on Hizbullah’s patron, Assad’s Syria.

Assad considers himself the “protector” of Lebanon although the Lebanese themselves have quite a different feeling about Syria altogether. Most Lebanese believe that if Assad had opened another front in the war by making a stab at the Golan Heights (Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1973), Israel would have been forced to confront Assad and eased up on the air campaign against Lebanon.

But what has Hariri and Jumblatt livid is that Assad’s “victory” speech last Tuesday included veiled threats of retaliation against the March 14th forces:

Assad also said that Israel’s supporters in Lebanon - an allusion to the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority in Beirut - also bears responsibility, accusing them of wanting to sow discord in Lebanon by demanding that Hizbullah be disarmed.

Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra rejected the accusation, saying the March 14 Forces had “nothing to do with this war; on the contrary, we strongly condemned the Israeli aggression.” In an interview with the Central News Agency, Zahra said he didn’t see “any signs of Hizbullah’s victory,” adding that “through the Israeli offensive, Assad fulfilled Syrian interests, as Syria has always benefited from Lebanon’s losses.”

Couple Assad’s words with Nasrallah’s threats to “judge” those who criticized Hizbullah at the outset of the war and it’s no wonder that the March 14th democrats are walking on egg shells when they talk about Hizbullah.

Jumblatt pegged the reason for the conflict as an attempt by Assad to distract attention:

Jumblatt said the Iranians were trying to improve their negotiating position over their nuclear program “on the rubble of the (Lebanese) people.” Assad, he said, wanted “to avoid accountability through an international tribunal” in the Hariri assassination.

“This is the objective convergence between (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad and Bashar Assad,” he said.

An ongoing U.N. investigation has implicated high-level Syrian officials and Lebanese allies in the murder of former PM Rafik Hariri, a charge Damascus denies.

The Brammertz Investigation just received a one year extension to continue to arduous task of identify exactly who it was in the Syrian government that wanted the elder Hariri killed.

Brammertz’s predecessor, Detleve Mehlis implicated top Syrian officials in the assassination including Assef Shawkat, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law and head of Syrian intelligence; Bahjat Suleiman, a high ranking Syrian intelligence officer; and Ghazi Kenaan, the former Syrian Interior Minister and commander of Syria’s intelligence apparatus in Lebanon between 1982 and 2002.

The problem has been that the United Nations has been reluctant to proceed with any prosecutions against these top officials until the Lebanese themselves can decide on a forum. And once again, Hizbullah as at the bottom of a seeming intractable problem.

Most Lebanese support the idea of trying defendants in the Hariri assassination in an international forum independent of the Lebanese justice system. Hizbullah wants a special tribunal of Lebanese judges only. The reasons are probably due to the fact that Assad believes he may be able to control a trial made up of some of his stooges rather than take a chance with an international forum where the outcome would be uncertain. But until the Lebanese decide how they want to proceed and until the UN is finished with its investigations (which have been expanded to include the killing of 21 anti-Syrian politicians and journalists), no action satisfactory to the Lebanese democrats will take place.

If Jumblatt, Hariri, and the rest of the March 14th forces are to survive this period in Lebanese politics, they must be very careful in not being too declaratory in their opposition to Hizbullah. It could be that once the people realize what Hizbullah’s war has cost them that they will turn away from the terrorists. Until then, the democrats will seek to support Prime Minister Siniora’s government as much as possible and bide their time until things turn in their favor.

Judging by what Hizbullah is doing with rebuilding as well as the terrorist’s new found respect in the Arab world, they may have a long wait.

This is a HUGE SURPRISE! The already shaky underpinnings of the Bush dictatorship received a crippling blow that may help collapse the entire, rotten edifice:

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government’s warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency’s program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

“Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution,” Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly listening to conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.

(Bias? What media Bias? “…[S]ecretly listening to conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries” conjures up the men in the black van hunched over their magic decoder machine listening in while Auntie Midge talks to her sister in Budapest. If the judge based her decision on what was known about the program, this description of it is so far off from the truth of the matter as to not even be in the same galaxy.)

I can barely type this through my tears of joy. Lambchop and all the civil libertarian absolutists who have battled to save the soul of America lo these many years by trying to make the world safe for journalists, academics, lawyers, and their terrorist contacts overseas are to receive all the plaudits of a grateful nation.

Do you think a parade for these heroes is enough? Perhaps a laurel wreath of triumph and gratitude to be placed upon their fetid brow? How about (eliminationist rhetoric warning) a rope around their necks?

After all, what do you think the penalty was during World War II if a journalist, or scholar, or lawyer was found to be in contact with a member of the Nazi party in Germany? I can guarantee that the FBI took a very dim view of such contacts. I guess they figured if you couldn’t do your job unless you were talking to the enemy, that kinda made you, ya know, like, the enemy too.

But then, World War II was a real war, not this trumped up, ginned up political sideshow hatched by Evil Karl and Shrub in order to make their buddies in the military industrial complex rich and instill terror in the hearts of Americans so that they would vote for Republicans rather than Democrats in elections. This, after all, is no fair at all. Since Democrats could give a sh*t about national security, elections should avoid this issue at all costs. Better to have elections hinge on Democratic issues of taxing the rich (anyone who makes over $25,000 a year), enslaving the poor, handcuffing businesses, and playing pattycakes with the thugs in Hamas, Hizbullah, and any other dirty necked galoot (especially that radioactive elf in Tehran) who can prove that Shrub is at fault for all the troubles in the world.

There was one bright spot in the judge’s ruling. That other top secret program that liberals say was an impeachable offense and was proof of the President’s march to dictatorship that uses data mining techniques to develop information on terrorist networks was declared “constitutional” after all.

Maybe we could get that gizmo they used in Men in Black and flash the entire world, replacing the memory of people having information on that program with a recipe for my Aunt Donna’s corned beef and cabbage.

Oh, that’s right. No such gizmo exists. I guess we’ll just have to ask for an apology from the press and a great big “never mind” for revealing it in the first place. I await the day that happens with as much anticipation as I await the day that Ned Lamont takes his rightful seat on one of the most influential bodies in the world - the Connecticut Port-o-Potty Authority.

And no, we’re not going to ask liberals to apologize. After all, they were looking out for all of our interests. Even the interests of the terrorists who, after all, are almost human too. Better that 100,000 Americans die than one terrorist suspect in this country have a conversation monitored with his Aunt Beddie Boo in Damascus. (I sympathize. I had an Aunt Beddie Boo in Damascus m’self once).

Leave it to Goldstein to crystallize thinking and reveal the truth of the matter:

Even still, it’s amazing that we’ve reached the nuance point where only by revealing secrets can we show the the secrets in question should not be revealed, lest they damage programs meant to protect us from attacks, which only work while details of how they work remain secret.

But it’s the thought that counts.

And what I’m thinking at this moment (Warning: more eliminationist rhetoric) about the civil liberties absolutists who revealed both these programs would get me 20 years to life in the real world.