Right Wing Nut House

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

I serve with the memory and pride of those who have gone before me for they loved to fight, fought to win and would rather die than quit.
(From the Creed of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment-Airborne: “The Night Stalkers”)

It’s been called the worst day in the history of the Navy SEALs. It was also a tragic day for “The Night Stalkers,” an elite force of Special Operations soldiers whose grit and courage is legendary even among men where grit and courage are commonplace - our nation’s special forces community. A total of 19 of America’s bravest and best were killed during an operation in Afghanistan that, although shrouded in secrecy, could have been connected to the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar.

The story is one of tragedy for the families of the 19 dead but is also a tale highlighting the remarkable skills and otherwordly courage of America’s secret warriors.

The fact that we hear so little about these men suits them just fine. Carrying out the most secretive and vital missions in the War on Terror, the SEALs and Nightstalkers are just two of the many Special Operations units operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. Others include the Green Berets, Army Rangers, 1st Special Forces Operational Detatchment (Delta Force), and units from the Air Force Special Operations Command and anti-terrorism units from the Marines. The men in all of these units are the most highly trained and lethally effective warriors in the military.

The story begins with the insertion of 4 Navy SEALs from Delivery Vehicle (SDV) Team One into some of the most rugged and hostile terrain imaginable. Part of “Operation Red Wing,” a deployment aimed at an apparent concentration of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in the northern Kunar province of Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan, the SEALs, for reasons not revealed, got into trouble on June 28 and radioed Bagram Air Base for help. Whatever trouble they were in it must have been very bad given that Special Operations warriors take intense pride in not radioing for help except in the most dire of circumstances.

Whatever their mission, whatever the crisis they were in, three SEALs were killed in the ensuing action. One member of the 4 man team escaped and for five days, eluded capture in the mountains until, totally exhausted, he was found by a friendly Afghan villager who got word to Bagram.

In the meantime, after the distress call several MH47E helicopters belonging to the Night Stalkers embarked on an extraordinarily dangerous daylight mission to resuce the SEALs. The MH47E is an all-weather, high flying vehicle capable of both insertion and extraction missions and is armed to the teeth. It’s believed that when close to landing near the SEAL team, the helicopter was the recipient of an unlucky hit from either an RPG or some other weapon, lost control and crashed into a mountain. All sixteen aboard - including 5 SEALs from SEAL Team Ten and 1 from SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two as well as 8 flight crew members of the Night Stalkers were killed.

What drives men to volunteer for these elite units? What manner of man survives the hell of a training regimen with such brutal physical challenges and agonizing psychological pressures that it would make the detainees at Gitmo and their ACLU lawyers scream bloody murder? And who in their right mind would eagerly seek out the most dangerous assignments imaginable with no chance of recieving the public honors and rewards so richly deserved unless you make the ultlimate sacrifice for your comrades and country?

We may have known these kind of men when they were children and young boys. They always seemed to have a group of admirers trailing them around, trying to keep up with their adventurous and audacious spirit. They would have had an easy way with grownups who also liked and admired them. They were good at sports but rarely bragged about their accomplishments. They were fiercely loyal to their friends and were always there if they needed defending.

Later in life, you would probably see a quiet confidence in the young man that was striking in that it made him seem older than his years. He would have a small circle of friends who were fiercely loyal to him. A natural leader, you would have found it easy to take orders from him and delighted when he gave out praise and cresfallen when he would criticize.

At bottom, the young man would have a calling, a desire to serve. It would manifest itself most noticeably by the serious way in which he would approach planning his life. Goal oriented to a fault, you would be hard pressed to remember a goal that he set for himself that he didn’t achieve.

The special forces then takes this raw material and in the crucible of a torturous training program that tests both the physical stamina and mental toughness of the volunteer, they forge a warrior who lives to fight, fights to win, and never quits.

For 11 of the SEALs and 8 of the Night Stalkers, the fight is now over. In a loving tribute to the SEAL’s, Mark Divine of NavySEALs.com and a former SEAL himself, wishes them all Godspeed:

Soon…17 warrior souls are seeing each other for the first time – with questioning eyes…whoa. What now? They see their physical bodies in the wreckage – but they are still here. Is this what death is? They are motionless, unsure, seeking answers. A light shines above them, and an angel comes down to them – beckoning them to come. The angel is dressed in a WWI style infantryman’s uniform. He tells them, without words, not to worry. Warriors take care of their own in Heaven, he says. They have been expected, and there is a big reception planned. He asks if they would like to visit their loved one’s before going to Heaven. They all say yes. The angel takes them instantly to their homes – where word of the tragedy has not yet reached. They see their wives and children sleeping, playing. They see their parents, friends, and teammates. They tell them not to worry, for they are going to a safe place. They pray that their loved ones will understand that life is fleeting, and that death is part of the warrior’s path. Do not grieve us they say…we died an honorable death. Honor our memory. Tell our story. Teach our children how to live with dignity and honor. Teach our teammates how to live well, and die honorably. Mourn us for a time, but then celebrate our lives.

And oh what lives they had to celebrate. For instance, Petty Officer Second Class James Suh, 28, the son of Korean immigrants, who competed on swim and tennis teams in high school, studied statistics in college and dreamed of being in the special forces from the time he was a teenager. Although slight of build, Mr. Suh trained intensely for months prior to taking the qualification course for SEALs. His sister Claudia says that James was surprised when he passed the course while other, stronger candidates washed out.

“He was not ever prepared to be second best. Not just out of a competitive nature. It was all about bettering himself,” she said.

Then there’s the tragic story of Nightstalker SFC Marcus V. Muralles of Shelbyville, IN. Muralles, a medic, was packed and ready to come home to his wife, Diana, and their two children — Anna Elise, 10, and Marcus Dominic, 4 — when he was sent on what would be his last mission. He had hoped to celebrate his daughter’s 10th birthday with her on the Fourth of July. His family left a message on the Night Stalkers website:

“Marcus was a proud soldier, a first-class medic and most of all, a loving husband and devoted father,” the family’s message said. “His family was his life.”

And now that life, along with the lives of 18 other secret warriors, is ended. To a man, each knew the risks of their chosen profession. And each of them died doing exactly what they wanted to be doing.

That’s what they want us to remember. While we sympathize and grieve with the families of the fallen, we should also remember the zest they had for living, for leading a life in their chosen profession where the hazards and challenges of deadly combat were not shirked, but welcomed. It’s what they were trained for. It’s what they lived for.

And God, how they lived.

Here are the names of the fallen SEALs who lost their lives in Operation Red Wing:

Senior Chief Petty Officer Daniel R. Healy, 36, of Exeter, N.H.
Petty Officer 2nd Class James Suh, 28, of Deerfield Beach, Fla.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Eric S. Patton, 22, of Boulder City, Nev.
LT Michael P. Murphy, 29, of Medford, New York.
Lt. Cmdr. Erik S. Kristensen, 33, of San Diego, Calif.
Lt. Michael M. McGreevy, Jr., 30, of Portville, N.Y.
Chief Petty Officer Jacques J. Fontan, 36, of New Orleans, La.
Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffery A. Lucas, 33, of Corbett, Ore.
Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey S. Taylor, 30, of Midway, W.Va.
Petty Office 2nd Class Danny P. Dietz, 25, of Littleton, Colorado.

Here are the names of the Night Stalkers:

Maj. Stephen C. Reich, 34, of Washington Depot, Conn
Chief Warrant Officer Chris J. Scherkenbach, 40, of Jacksonville, Fla.
Chief Warrant Officer Corey J. Goodnature, 35, of Clarks Grove, Minn.
MSgt James W. Ponder III, 36, of Franklin, Tenn.
Sgt. 1st Class Marcus V. Muralles, 33, of Shelbyville, Ind.
Sgt. 1st Class Michael L. Russell, 31, of Stafford, Va.
SSgt. Shamus O. Goare, 29, of Danville, Ohio
Sgt. Kip A. Jacoby, 21, of Pompano Beach, Fla.

One member of Seal Delivery Vehicle Team One has not as yet been identified pending family notification.

Evidently, this report yesterday that the bombs used by the London terrorists were “crude” and not very sophisticated was incorrect.

The report came from someone identified as an explosives expert who “consults” for Jane’s Defense Weekly. The “expert,” Andy Oppenheimer, is a distant relative of brilliant physicist and Father of the atomic bomb Robert Oppenheimer, and is more often identified with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons threat assessment at Jane’s rather than “homeade” explosives analysis. It’s only interesting in light of this statement today by police spokesman Brian Paddock:

Each device is said by the police to have contained less than 10 pounds of “high explosives.” He also said the devices were “not homemade.” He added, “But whether it was military, commercial, plastic, we don’t want to say at this stage.”

Other reports also indicate a degree of sophistication that was previously dismissed:

The new details match the leading theory that is emerging among investigators, analysts said: that the bombings were a technically competent and well-coordinated attack planned and overseen by at least one experienced and well-trained operative using commercially manufactured explosives, and carried out by local people.

Such a pattern would fit previous bomb attacks in Casablanca in May 2003 and Madrid in March 2004. In each case, an operative from outside the country trained in Islamic extremist camps in Afghanistan or Pakistan used local people with no known links to terrorism to carry bombs to their targets. Irish Republican Army guerrillas used similar local helpers — known here as “lily whites” because they had no police record — in their decades-long bombing campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.

Much has been written in the last few days about the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Britain and how radical jihadis are operating with impunity in British society. In fact, London has come to be known as “Londonistan” for the wave of Muslim immigration that is changing the politics of not only England but nations on the continent as well:

Radical Muslims soon learned to ask for asylum for political persecution, to guarantee a long, taxpayer-supported vacation in Britain. London became “Londonistan,” the biggest European haven for Islamist indoctrination and recruitment. The terrorist enablers are the hard Left and its propaganda organs, notably the hallowed British Broadcasting Corporation. British ratepayers recently paid for the BBC to produce a “documentary” to peddle the bug-eyed notion that the terrorist threat was just a right-wing plot to scare people. That was pure disinformation, just one piece of a daily BBC propaganda stream that nurtures, protects, and rationalizes yesterday’s murders.

The question is what, if anything can be done about it. The howls of rage that would result in a crackdown on either immigration or radical Islamists from both Muslim “civil rights” groups and their left wing enablers in the media would seem to make any solution to the problem of inviting terrorists to take up residence in Britain - or the US for that matter - problematic. Richard Fernandez points out the dangers of doing nothing:

A politically correct policy that requires Europe not to know who is in the 5th column will will inevitably force it to assume guilt in those of a certain persuasion in a moment of mortal danger. Internment and mass deportation is what governments resort to when they don’t know who the real spies are. Political correctness is the practice of requiring ignorance indefinitely against the calculation that the moment of moral danger will never come because nobody knows what the hell they are going to do then. It’s at that moment, as Steyn observes, that farce, farce and farce becomes tragedy.

As western Muslims continue their campaign to portray our War on Terror as a war against Islam, it will become more and more difficult to crack down on the radical Imams who are not only actively recruiting for al Qaeda but also poisoning the minds of other Muslims to America and the west. And until the MSM wakes up to the danger and begins to broadcast the truth about these terror apologists and fellow travelers, we’ll continue to experience more numerical nightmares like 9/11, 3/11/ and 7/7.

The bodies strewn in the street at Euston in London as a result of a bus being blasted to smithereens weren’t even cold when the first of the “Blame Bush” threads at Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground appeared. The tone of the commenters was triumphant, cheering each lurid detail of the attacks and speculating about what this dastardly deed, apparently carried out by a European offshoot of al Qaeda, would mean for the President and Prime Minister Blair’s political support for the War in Iraq at home.

There was also an obscenely unhealthy dose of speculation that the attack was planned and carried out by President Bush in order to (wait for it) distract the people from Karl Rove’s supposed outing of Valerie Palme as a CIA agent in the Joe Wilson imbroglio.

After wading through this conspiratorial muck, I felt unclean - almost as if I had crawled on my hands and knees through a dank basement full of cobwebs and roaches. The bile rising in my throat resulted in a post where I highlighted several of the more disgusting comments from the left on the tragedy.

But then last night, I got a comment taking me to task thusly:

Nearly 4 years after 9-11 Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization commits wholesale murder in the capital of a major Western power, and all you can find to talk about is what people are saying on blogs?

It’s a good question and I’d like to respond to it.

The reason it’s important what the left is saying is that their reaction both to the War in Iraq and the terror bombing in London is part and parcel of the overall War on Terror. This is a war fought on many fronts and one of them is right here at home. Not with terrorists, but with the terrorists primary enablers; the far left in Europe and America who are so besodden with defeatism and paranoia that it has deadened their natural instinct for self-preservation and endangered the lives of the rest of us.

What is driving this impulse to self destruction? I believe it to be a self-loathing so profound that it manifests itself as a pathological hatred for the very things that you and I love about America and admire in Western Civilization. It’s isn’t just flush toilets and electric lights. It isn’t the material largess which drives many to strive to better themselves and all of us to enjoy a level of comfort undreamed of since the time mankind crawled out of caves to organize themselves into civilizations. It isn’t even the unbridled freedom - freedom to speak our mind, worship our god, to read, to write, to breathe, to choose, to dream.

At bottom, the left’s hatred reflects a lack of trust in the ability of ordinary human beings to live their lives according to their own lights unencumbered by the dictates of a government or the diktats of an overweening superset of wise men whose self important worldview allows them to believe they can meddle in the lives and life decisions of everyone else.

True, this tendency is not confined to the far left. Many on the far right are also afflicted with the malady of self-righteousness. But I would argue that the culture war being waged between the two is, at its heart, a battle for the human soul. And while the methods and personalities on the right can sometimes grate like a fingernail being run slowly across a blackboard and I violently disagree with many of the the cultural conservative agenda items, I believe that in toto, the right is generally on the side of the angels. Not so much in their desire to legislate a morality or behavior, but in their effort to pull civilization back from the brink the left has pushed us toward.

That said, the left’s compulsion to ally itself with the radical Islamists - either knowingly or through stupidity, unknowingly - is the greatest challenge facing Western Civilization in its War on Terror. The very people who should be leading this fight; the intellectuals, the educators, the editorialists, the journalists, and the literati are absent without leave in this life and death struggle. Instead, we find a an overwhelming majority of the left trying to “explain the root causes” of terrorism instead of getting up on their hind legs and fighting it. And instead of drawing clear, unmistakable intellectual and moral battle lines - a function their ancestors fulfilled more than admirably during World War II and much of the Cold War - we’re treated to an exercise in moral equivalency so profoundly disturbing in its sophistry and intellectual cowardice that our enemies don’t know whether to laugh before they slaughter us or simply shake their heads in bemused silence.

When otherwise reasonably intelligent people can find an intellectual justification for wholesale murder (”We’re killing civilians in Iraq so why shouldn’t we be a target?”) it’s time to start asking some very tough, very pointed questions directed at the purveyors of such twaddle. Who is killing civilians in Iraq? What would have been the consequences of doing nothing about Saddam while he bought off our European “allies” with Oil for Food bribes so that he could reconstitute his WMD programs? What alternative strategy should we follow in the middle east in order to not contain, not lessen, not simply fight, but win the war against the Islamists?

Hard questions these and no answers have been forthcoming nor will any answers be given soon. A gigantic pair of blinders has been placed over the eyes of the western left. And if the obstruction were to be removed, they would find themselves poised precariously on the edge of a moral precipice with nothing with which to hang on to. They have abandoned the traditional anchors of Western Civilization found in religion and reason and instead indulged themselves in a Bacchanal of hatred and loathing for the society that nurtured them. It has left them marooned on a barren wasteland of an island with no rescue in sight and no way out of the intellectual morass they have made for themselves.

The kind of moral equivalency that can blame the United States for the attacks in London yesterday is as much a part of this war as the car bombs and homicide bombers butchering the citizens of a free Iraq or the secretive men hiding among us planning the next attack.

What will it take to clear their heads and awaken them to the mortal danger in which we find ourselves?

WE ARE ALL BRITS TODAY. RULE BRITANIA!
Thanks to Jeff Harrell of Shape of Days for the great idea.

London just got hit…bad.

Early reports, now confirmed, say that a double decker bus was the target of a bomb that witnesses say completely destroyed the vehicle. No word on dead and injured yet.

There were apparently 7 other blasts that hit the subway or “tube” system in London.

This has al Qaeda written all over it although I suppose I should hold off on speculation until more is known. Al Qaeda, you may recall, specializes in multiple attacks carried out in a short period of time. Witnesses on MSNBC are saying that the subway blasts occurred one after another in rapid succession.

One note: while the G8 Summit is being held in Edinburgh, Scotland it is improbable that the anarchists who are protesting there have anything to do with this. This kind of coordinated attack would seem to be beyond the capabilities of the unorganized group of violent mischief makers in the anarchist movement whose very nature precludes any kind of large scale cooperation. That plus I would guess that the anarchists may be one of the most infiltrated groups worldwide when it comes to police and domestic security agencies means that any large scale attack would probably be discovered in the planning stages.

The IRA? It’s a possibility but of late, the nationalist terror group has sought to work within the political system. An ultra-violent off shoot of the group? Again a possibility. Many of the most violent terrorists received their training from al Qaeda back in the 1990’s so it would make some sense that they would adopt some of the jihadists methods. But it would be a radical departure for the IRA to target civilians in their attacks. Their bombs are usually preceeded by warnings so that civilians can clear out of the danger zone. And IRA bombs in the past have been directed against symbols of British authority like police, army, the government, and even the royal family.

I’ll keep this at the top of the page all day so watch for updates.

UPDATE I

First report of “90 casualties” in the blasts. Here’s a AP eyewitness report via Drudge:

LONDON (AP) - An explosion destroyed a double-decker bus in central London during rush hour Thursday, police said, and several blasts also went off on the London subway. There were reports of casualties.

People covered in blood stumbled out of the subway, and a witness said the entire top deck of the bus was destroyed.

“I was on the bus in front and heard an incredible bang, I turned round and half the double decker bus was in the air,” Belinda Seabrook told Press Association, the British news agency.

She said the bus was packed with people.

“It was a massive explosion and there were papers and half a bus flying through the air,” she said.

Another report, now confirmed, states that another explosion rocked the square where the double decker bus exploded.

London is at a standstill as the entire public transportation has been shut down. The London Police Commissioner has just gone on TV and told people to stay home.

I hope that American officials in cities across our country are on a heightened state of alert and are taking measures to protect our public transportation this morning.

UPDATE II

Officials are saying that at least 3 buses have been the target of bombs. Since it was rush hour, the loss of life could prove to be large.

One witness, Darren Hall, said some passengers emerging from an evacuated subway station had soot and blood on their faces. He told BBC TV that he was evacuated along with others near the major King’s Cross station and only afterward heard a blast.

Police confirmed an explosion destroyed a double-decker bus at Russell Square in central London and said they suspected a bomb caused the blast. Dow Jones Newswires reported that police said there were explosions on two others buses.

And more from AP:

Police said incidents were reported at the Aldgate station near the Liverpool Street railway terminal, Edgware Road and King’s Cross in north London, Old Street in the financial district and Russell Square in central London, near the British Museum.

London Ambulance Service said several vehicles had been dispatched to the area near Liverpool Street station.

Also a report from the Israeli’s (unconfirmed) that Scotland Yard approached the Israelis minutes before the explosions and told them that they had received warnings of a terror attack. If true, big trouble for Blair. Depending on what the authorities knew and when they knew it, this kind of thing could bring down Blair’s government.

We’re waiting anxiously for the first posting on the Democratic Underground website blaming Bush/Rove for the attack to gin up his support. Maybe they’re still asleep.

CNN has a Timeline of events and is now reporting that there were 6 blasts at subway stations (some people are apparently still trapped underground) and 3 other attacks on double decker buses.

The communication network is completely overloaded as everyone is using their cell phones at once to call loved ones to assure them that they’re all right. This phenomena is reminiscent of what happened all over America on November 22, 1963 when the telephone system in Washington, D.C. was completely shut down when it was overloaded. This led to some speculation by conspiracy theorists that the assassination was a coup de tat by the military. What happened in London proves that even sophisticated and technologically advanced systems are vulnerable.

Tony Blair confirms that the attacks are in fact, “terrorist attacks.” He’s leaving the G8 summit to return to London.

UPDATE III

Looks like officials here - at least in Washington - are in fact ratcheting up security in anticipation of something similar happening here:

The explosions on London’s transit system are prompting heightened security in the U-S.

Metro riders in Washington, D-C, should expect to see increased patrols. A Metro spokeswoman says officials are “ramping up security immediately.” She says officials will be using bomb sniffing dogs and officers will have a higher visibility and will be carrying machine guns.

The spokeswoman says officers will also be searching buses

I’m going to hold off on more updates until the picture gets clearer. So far, 2 confirmed dead and 90 injuries but that number is sure to rise.

UPDATE IV

Now that more information has been confirmed and some things clarified, here’s what we know.

Four bombs exploded in downtown London. Three devices went off in subway cars and one took out a double decker bus:

LONDON - Four blasts rocked the London subway and tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday, sending bloodied victims fleeing in the worst attack on London since World War II. At least 40 people were killed, U.S. officials said, and more than 360 wounded in the terror attacks.

A clearly shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called the attacks “barbaric” and said they were designed to coincide with the G-8 summit opening in Gleneagles, Scotland. They also came a day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. A group calling itself “The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe” claimed responsibility.

The explosions hit three subway stations and a double-decker bus in rapid succession beginning at 8:51 a.m. (3:51 a.m. EDT) and ended about 40 minutes later when a blast ripped the top off a bus. Implementing an emergency plan, authorities immediately shut down the subway and bus lines that log 8.4 million passenger trips every weekday.

As of now, 40 are dead with hundreds injured. A European offshoot of al Qaeda has claimed responsibility.

What will this do for the war on terror? Hopefully, the major effect of this attack will be in a hardening of positions by the so-called E3 - Germany, France, and Great Britain - who are negotiating with Iran to stop them from enriching uranium so that the radioactive mullahs will be prevented from building a nuclear weapon. If we can put a little spine into Chirac and Schroeder when it comes to our coming showdown with Iran, all the better.

By the end of summer, the mullahs will have a decision to make; confront the west or acquiesce to our demands that they abandon their enrichment program and submit to regular and close inspection of their facilities. It would help when we go before the UN to try and get that body on board for any sanctions regime that would certainly be a first step in any confrontation. And while the probability that both Russia and China would veto any sanctions effort in the Security Council, Germany and France would be valuable allies in any military confrontation with the mullahs.

The Guardian Council of Iran is made up of the truest of true believers in the Islamic revolution that swept that country more than a quarter of a century ago. It’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has powers more suited to a fascist dictator than anything else. He gets to choose other clerical members of the Council as well as nominate the 6 Islamic lawyers who make up the remainder of the body and must be approved by Parliament. The fact that no member of Parliament can run without Khamenei’s blessing should tell you a little something about how much power the “Supreme Leader” holds.

The Council also has absolute veto power over any law passed by the Iranian Parliament as well as total control over who runs for President. These facts make it plain that “Iranian Democracy” that most of the left here and in Europe were celebrating after the recent elections is a total and complete sham. For not only do the Mullahs have total control over who runs for President, they also control the entire electoral process from the printing of ballots to the counting process.

All of this power is backed up by the fanatically ruthless and bloodthirsty Revolutionary Guard. Acting much like a combination of Hitler’s SS and Gestapo, they have been responsible for the executions and outright murders of tens of thousands of Iranians since 1979. They are as loyal to the Supreme Leader as the SS was to Hitler. They are also in control of the Iranian stockpile of WMD, including chemical, biological, and very soon, nuclear weapons.

A special faction of the Revolutionary Guards is also responsible for what they call “extraterritorial” operations. These include the murders and assassinations of exiles and other critics of the regime. The “Qods” or Jeruselem Force have been involved in assassinations in both the middle east and Europe.

Numbering more than 350,000, the Revolutionary Guards insure that any move toward democracy, any dissent, is crushed before it has a chance to get started.

These facts should be kept in mind when trying to analyze what Ayatollah Khamenei has just done in rigging the Presidential election so that the former hostage taker and assassin Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would win. For Ahmandinejad is not just your run of the mill hardliner (think Rudolph Hess) but rather a cold, calculating murderous thug (think Rheinhard Heydrich).

Global Security has an analysis of the election pointing out how Ahmadinejad won:

Some outside observers had great difficult understanding Ahmadinejad’s apparent popularity across the country. They were not able to comprehend his ability to out-poll better-known figures, such as former speaker of parliament Mehdi Karrubi or former national police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. The other candidates had been nationally visible for years, and had campaigned throughout the country. Although Ahmadinejad only became nationally visible after he became Tehran mayor. He did not campaign as extensively as his rivals. Some speculated that electoral interference by the Basij and the Guardians Council was the only explaination of this otherwise inexplicable rise to power.

The Basiijs, or Mobilization Resistance Force - a volunteer paramilitary militia under the Revolutionary Guards - was called upon to vote for Ahmadinejad and get others to do so. There was evidence of vote rigging by Ayatollah Khamenei and his supporters. Reformists charged the Basij, a paramilitary arm of the Revolutionary Guard, with violating prohibitions against military involvement in politics by mobilizing votes for the Tehran mayor. Although the military is supposed to steer clear of politics, it has always had some role, but it has never been as prominent as this.

(HT: Captains Quarters)

The fact that Khamenei interfered so overtly is extremely troubling. To place such a man as Ahmadinejad in charge at this delicate juncture may in fact mean that the Ayatollah has determined that war with either Israel or the United States is now inevitable and that he needed a President to carry out his orders completely and without hesitation; orders that could include everything from a preemptive strike against Israel to the use of WMD against any military action taken by the United States to try and prevent Iran from acquring nuclear weapons.

But who is President Ahmadinejad? Here’s a short bio that’s extremely revealing:

Following the 1979 Islamic revolution he became a member the ultra-conservative faction of the Office for Strengthening Unity [OSU] Between Universities and Theological Seminaries. The OSU was established by Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, one of Khomeini’s key collaborators, to organise Islamist students against the rapidly growing Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK). When the idea of storming the American embassy in Tehran was raised by the OSU, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time.

With the start of the Iraq war in 1980, Ahmadinejad rushed to the western fronts to fight against the enemy and voluntarily joined special forces of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC) in 1986. He served in the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps intelligence and security apparatus.

Ahmadinejad was a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards, stationed at Ramazan Garrison near Kermanshah in western Iran. This was the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards’ “Extra-territorial Operations” — mounting attacks beyond Iran’s borders. His work in the Revolutionary Guards was related to suppression of dissidents in Iran and abroad. He personally participated in covert operations around the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

With the formation of the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force of the IRGC, Ahmadinejad became one of its senior commanders. He directed assassinations in the Middle East and Europe, including the assassination of Iranian Kurdish leader Abdorrahman Qassemlou, who was shot dead by senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards in a Vienna flat in July 1989. Ahmadinejad was a key planner of the attack. He was reported to have been involved in planning an attempt on the life of Salman Rushdie

Five former American hostages have identified Iran’s new President as one of the leaders of the “students” who took over the American embassy in November of 1979. Did Khamenei think that the American government wouldn’t find this out? Did they think we wouldn’t discover his activities as an important commander of the “Qods?”

What kind of signal is the Supreme Leader trying to send us by raising a relatively obscure, ultra-hard line Mayor to the highest “elected” office in the land?

I believe Khamenei has crossed the rubicon and is preparing for war.

From here on out, any negotiations carried out with the so-called E-3 of Germany, France, and Great Britain on slowing down Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must be seen as nothing more than a stalling tactic designed to split the Europeans from the United States so that when the crunch comes, the US will find itself alone both militarily and diplomatically. Any unilateral action we take will be seen as just one more example of American arrogance. In the meantime, Iran gets its nuclear weapons and goes after its primary target: Israel.

Iran’s regional ambitions, which must now be seen in an entirely new light with President Ahmadinejad’s call for once again spreading the Islamic revolution throughout the world, can only be thwarted by Israel and the United States. This puts the state of Israel on the firing line. How far is Khamenei willing to go with Israel? Frankly, all bets are off. It’s impossible to tell if the Supreme Leader of Iran is fanatical enough to try and carry out their oft repeated threat of destroying the Jewish state. But one thing is certain; if they manage to make enough weapons grade plutonium, they will feel emboldened enough to try destabilize the already shaky regimes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

The election in Iran has elevated a fanatical terrorist assassin to the highest elected office in that country. I don’t think we can look at that fact as a coincidence.

It looks like worrying about Iran has now become a full time job if it wasn’t already.

And the President slipped the blue bracelet with the name of her dead husband on his wrist and then went on TV to address 25 million people.

Those who believe George Bush has no guts, should read this chronicle of his meeting with the families of soldiers who have died in Iraq. How do you console the inconsolable? How do you comfort the totally bereft? How can you look people in the eye who have lost so much, knowing in your heart of hearts that somewhere in those tortured eyes is an accusation?

“I know people are pushing you, but please don’t pull the guys out of Iraq too soon,’ ” said Crystal Owen, whose husband, Staff Sgt. Mike Owen, was killed in Iraq last year.

“Don’t let my husband — and 1,700-plus other deaths — be in vain,” she added during a private meeting with Mr. Bush at the North Carolina base. “They were over there, fighting for a democratic nation, and I hope you’ll keep our service members over there until the mission can be accomplished.”

It’s because of people like Mrs. Owen that the President is able to face those whose loved ones gave that “last full measure of devotion.” Yes, we’ve seen family members who have been understandably bitter toward the President, who lash out in their anger and their pain at the man whose orders sent their beloved into harms way. We’ve even had word that these confrontations take place during the little gatherings at military bases the President has with the relatives of the deceased before he goes ahead and speaks to the troops. What can you say to a loved one who holds you personally responsible for the death of their spouse or their child?

You can stand there and take it. You do it because history has reached out and tapped you on the shoulder and whispered in your ear a song you didn’t want to hear but is now too late to shut out. You’ve committed your country to a path, the first steps of which are being taken in a place where it seems all of the evil and hate that led to nearly 3,000 of your fellow countrymen being incinerated on a beautiful September morning is being concentrated and focused.

So much evil. So much hatred.

And the hatred is not confined to your enemies abroad. Demonstrating an unreasonableness bordering on clinical psychosis, your political foes portray you as an uncaring monster, a war lover, a liar, a schemer of Machiavellian proportions whose associations with shadowy, powerful men are the cause of all the nation’s problems. As their conspiracy theories get wilder and more fanciful and their rage grows at you and your supporters, it seems as if all the political furies in the world have been let loose to torment and afflict you.

And then Mrs. Owen slips the blue bracelet with the name of her husband on your wrist and you remember. You remember the other gatherings like this one, at other military bases across the country whose place names evoke the emotions and virtues of the heartland of America: Fort Stewart, Georgia, Fort Polk, Louisiana, Fort Lewis, Washington, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Fort Hood, Texas, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, Camp Pendleton, California.

A river of tears has been cried at these gatherings. And surprisingly, you’ve found yourself awash in an ocean of love. It amazes you that they care deeply about your feelings, about your psyche. They look into your eyes and seek the comfort that only you can give them. And when they connect, their gratitude gives you the strength to go on.

It doesn’t surprise us that you get choked up when talking about these men and their families. The bond between a Commander in Chief and his soldiers is a special one, going back to the earliest civilizations that had armies. The bond is based on trust. You trust them to carry out orders. They trust you to ask them to die only when the cause is worth it. The fact that re-enlistment among Iraq veterans is so high says something about the trust the soldiers hold for you. And that trust extends to the families who, even when they disagree with you and your policies, honor the service of their beloved.

I wonder if you looked at the blue wrist band Mrs. Owen gave to you before you went before the cameras and spoke to 25 million of your fellow citizens. I wonder if you thought of her husbands sacrifice and repeated your vow that he and his fellows will not have died in vain.

For all the Mrs. Owens, I hope you can stay the course until the job is done.

The New York Times is nothing if not consistent. They’re still having trouble with “enemy identification:”

Presidential elections in Iran defy easy categorization. The winner assumes Iran’s highest elective office, but no president to date has been able to defy the wishes of the unelected ayatollahs who rule the country. And while the nomination process is very tightly controlled, the eventual winner often comes as a surprise to many Iranians and most outsiders.

That pattern repeated itself with the landslide victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week. A radically conservative mayor of Tehran and former member of the thuggish Basij militia, Mr. Ahmadinejad little resembles the departing president, Mohammad Khatami, a reformist intellectual. But like Mr. Khatami in his initial upset victory eight years ago, Mr. Ahmadinejad dethroned a better-known establishment candidate, in this case a former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s “landslide victory” is by most neutral accounts (The Times excluded) a sham. Voter turnout, announced at 60% was probably closer to 40%. And even those reduced numbers are the result of the Guardian Council ordering anyone connected with the government to the polls. According to some, the struggle was between the hardliners and the really hard liners:

Please keep two basic facts in mind as this melodrama unfolds: Neither Rafsanjani nor Ahmadinejad has any intention of altering the basic structure of the Islamic Republic, nor of “liberalizing” Iranian society (the Reich was not notably more “moderate” after Hitler crushed the SA, was it?). Both are known murderers; one way of evaluating the outcome of today’s events is that the next Iranian president will be wanted for murder either in two countries (Ahmadinejad — Austria and Germany) or in just one (Rafsanjani — Germany). This is not a fight over the future of the country; it’s a power struggle within the tyrannical elite.

And as leftists the world over hailed the Iranian elections as a triumph of democracy and villified Washintong’s dismissal of them, it appears that Mr. Ahmadinejad has some explaining to do to the United States. Apparently, Iranians new President was a hostage taker:

In 1979, he became the representative of Elm-o Sanaat students in the Office for Strengthening of Unity Between Universities and Theological Seminaries, which later became known as the OSU. The OSU was set up by Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, who was at the time Khomeini’s top confidant and a key figure in the clerical leadership. Beheshti wanted the OSU to organise Islamist students to counter the rapidly rising influence of the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK) among university students.

The OSU played a central role in the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Members of the OSU central council, who included Ahmadinejad as well as Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, Mohsen (Mahmoud) Mirdamadi, Mohsen Kadivar, Mohsen Aghajari, and Abbas Abdi, were regularly received by Khomeini himself.

According to other OSU officials, when the idea of storming the U.S. embassy in Tehran was raised in the OSU central committee by Mirdamadi and Abdi, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time. A decade later, most OSU leaders re-grouped around Khatami but Ahmadinejad remained loyal to the ultra-conservatives.

And what does the Times say about an architects of one of the most humiliating moments in American history?

Mr. Rafsanjani lost because he was too closely associated with the recent economic failures and political inertia. Mr. Ahmadinejad, in contrast, offered a populist economic platform that implicitly challenged the cronyism and corruption of more than a quarter-century of clerical rule. We wish him luck. But it is hard to see how he can deliver on those promises over the objections of the ruling establishment, whose powers greatly exceed his own.

Wish him luck? For what? In his efforts to convert the entire planet to his version of Islam?

“Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world,” he said. “The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world.”

Do ya think he might want to use a shiny new nuclear toy to help him achieve that goal? Here the Times gets serious - sort of:

On the issue of greatest current concern to the United States, Iran’s steady progress toward the ability to produce nuclear bomb fuel, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory is expected to lead to greater intransigence and less interest in compromise. Any acceptable deal would have to include an Iranian commitment to halt efforts to enrich uranium or separate plutonium, which can produce nuclear bomb fuel.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s initial statements on this issue have been ambiguous, favoring continued pursuit of nuclear technology and continued diplomacy. Perhaps, a fiery nationalist like Mr. Ahmadinejad may be just the right man to cut a nuclear deal, just as it took Richard Nixon to reach out to Communist China. But we doubt it; the greater trade and investment that a deal would bring may not mean much to a politician whose greatest political appeal has come from promising a return to the austere, self-reliant ideology of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

First of all, what the Times doesn’t mention is that a “return to the austere, self-reliant ideology” of 1979 would be a catastrophe for the Iranian people. The Mullah’s definition of “austere” is probably quite different from the definition used by New York Times editorial writers. To the religious nutcases who rule Iran, “austere” means lining up against a wall and shooting anyone who looks sideways at the government. They’ve had a lot of practice. Some human rights groups estimated that following the revolution in 1979, upwards of 100,000 Iranians were executed for political reasons.

Furthermore, as the Times recommends later in the editorial, taking the radioactive Mullah’s before the United Nations would be a waste of time. China’s oil deals with Iran will guarantee a veto of any punitive actions contemplated by the Security Council. Which means that once again, the community of nations will be able to sit back and criticize any actions the US takes to make sure that these fanatics don’t get their hands on nuclear weaponry.

What the election of this terrorist has assured is that Israel will have to be restrained from taking unilateral action in order to protect itself. By late summer or early fall, we’ll probably reach a point of no return with Iran. They’ll have enough nuclear fuel to threaten the existence of Israel. At that point, all bets will be off on some kind of military action taken by either Israel or the United States.

The United States military is the most technologically advanced, most lethal, and most mobile armed force in the history of human civilization. The world, quite simply, has never seen anything like it. Able to deploy tens of thousands of troops and their mountains of equipment and support personnel by sea and air to the most distant parts of the globe in a matter of weeks, the US Armed Forces have no equal anywhere on earth.

Then why, more than two years after the War in Iraq broke out, don’t our men and women have properly armed humvees to protect them from the Improvised Explosive Devices (IED’s) that have taken so many of their lives and caused many, many more to suffer horrible, disfiguring wounds?

If I were the parent of a child in Iraq I would be absolutely livid. And if I were the parent of a child killed because of this unconscionable and negligent set of circumstances, I would be homicidal.

The fact is, the Pentagon is lying through its teeth if this report in the New York Times is to be believed. And given the fact that back in the 1980’s I became generally familiar with the Pentagon procurement bureaucracy and recognize the snafus and delays described in the article, I can tell you that there’s about a 100% chance that the New York Times has hit the nail on the head.

Pentagon procurement is where the best and worst of American democracy, American capitalism, American PR, and American bureaucracy come together in a perfect storm of greed, nobility, pettiness, and inertia, the result of which is blundering chaos and crony capitalism at its worst. The procurement process is not specifically set up to protect taxpayer money, promote competitive bidding for contracts, or even make the United States safer. The number one goal of the process is to keep both procurement officials and companies that deal with the military from getting rich through graft and corruption, the opportunities for both being great.

In fact, looking at procurement policies of Third World nations, one can see why the Pentagon works so hard to prevent corruption. It’s estimated that nearly one quarter of all monies spent on weapons and weapons systems in Africa is the result of kickbacks to government officials or some other kind of corruption.

While the concern over corruption is admirable, the result is often ludicrous. Cost overruns, delays, unnecessary expenditures, and equipment that doesn’t perform as advertised are just a few of the problems associated with our current procurement system.

But that doesn’t begin to explain this:

Yet more than two years into the war, efforts by United States military units to obtain large numbers of these stronger vehicles for soldiers have faltered - even as the Pentagon’s program to armor Humvees continues to be plagued by delays, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Many of the problems stem from a 40-year-old procurement system that stymies the acquisition of new equipment quickly enough to adapt to the changing demands of a modern insurgency, interviews and records show.

The Pentagon has repeatedly said no vehicle leaves camp without armor. But according to military records and interviews with officials, about half of the Army’s 20,000 Humvees have improvised shielding that typically leaves the underside unprotected, while only one in six Humvees used by the Marines is armored at the highest level of protection.

The Defense Department continues to rely on just one small company in Ohio to armor Humvees. And the company, O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt, has waged an aggressive campaign to hold onto its exclusive deal even as soaring rush orders from Iraq have been plagued by delays. The Marine Corps, for example, is still awaiting the 498 armored Humvees it sought last fall, officials told The Times.

O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt doesn’t want to lose its “current and future competitive position.” In other words, at the expense of the safety of our men and women, they want to maintain their monopolistic hold on armoring humvees so that they can make more money. In essence, they are profiting from the deaths of our young people in Iraq.

Are you mad yet?

How about this. Suppose you wanted to build an armored vehicle. You’d probably want to incorporate the armor into the design for the vehicle and then add the armor to the chassis as you used old Henry Ford’s assembly method to move the vehicle down the line, right?

Nope:

The Humvee chassis is rapidly made on a vast assembly line near South Bend, Ind., by AM General. But before its vehicles can be rushed to Iraq, they are trucked four and a half hours to O’Gara’s shop in Fairfield, in southern Ohio - which had 94 people armoring one Humvee a day when the war began. There, the Humvees are partly dismantled so the armor can be added.

“Clearly, if you could have started from scratch you wouldn’t be doing it that way,” Mr. Brownlee [Les Brownlee, former Army Secretary] said in a recent interview.

That’s right. They build the vehicle first and then add the armor.

Are you getting madder?

But that’s not all. This is what happened when the Pentagon tried to get more contractors involved in armoring the humvees:

In February 2004, Mr. Brownlee visited the O’Gara plant and asked the company to increase production, gradually pushing its monthly output to 450 from 220 vehicles. The Defense Department also wanted to contract with other companies to make armor.

Determined to hold onto its exclusive contract, O’Gara began lobbying Capitol Hill. Among those it drew to its side was Brian T. Hart, an outspoken father of a soldier who was killed in October 2003 while riding in a Humvee. Early last year, as a guest on a national radio show, Mr. Hart urged the Pentagon to involve more armor makers. Two weeks later a lobbyist for O’Gara approached him.

“He informed me that the company had more than enough capacity,” Mr. Hart says. “There was no need to second-source.”

Mr. Hart then redirected his efforts to help the company push Congress into forcing the Pentagon to buy more armored Humvees. With support from both parties, the company has received more than $1 billion in the past 18 months in military armoring contracts.

First of all, please note the date of February, 2004. This is when the army first approached the contractor to start armoring more humvees. That’s more than 6 months after it became clear that the massive amount of ordinance in Iraq was going to result in the terrorists reliance on IED’s as their weapon of choice.

Why so long? Poor planning is the simple answer:

The Defense Department had assumed that armored Humvees wouldn’t be needed once the invasion of Iraq was over. Original plans called for the Pentagon to pull back most tanks and other armored vehicles to reduce the U.S. military profile as soon as Baghdad fell, because strategists had projected that Iraq would quickly become peaceful. But violent attacks by insurgents, never anticipated by the Pentagon, meant that troops traveling in unarmored Humvees faced grave risks.

How mad are you now?

Something’s got to be done to light a fire under these procurement bureaucrats so that our men and women can get the protection they deserve. Only the Secretary of Defense Mr. Rumsfeld can do that. And given that he’s been part of this “Don’t Panic. All is well” cabal that’s continually said everything possible is being done to armor up the humvees, perhaps its time once again for Rummy to offer his resignation. His credibility, already on shaky ground because of the abuse and torture scandals, has just taken another hit in my mind. And as I’ve done several times, I’d urge him to resign immediately.

This won’t fix the problem. Only a crash program involving both contractors and government will even begin to address the issue. And it’s also time for a little truth telling on the matter. The parents and loved ones of our men and women who are over in Iraq in vehicles that either aren’t armored or have makeshift protection gleaned from scrap metal piles and garbage dumps deserve it.

It’s time to get behind our troops and support them to the fullest. And the best way we can do that at this moment is skewer the Pentagon for their outrageous conduct during this entire affair.

One note: Hats off to our friends on the left who’ve been screaming about this for months. Although I suspect their motives were not so pure in that they were using the issue to embarass the Bush Administration, they were out front and on the side of the angels when it came to this issue.

The joint US-Iraqi Operation “Spear” is rolling and taking a toll on terrorists in Karabila, a town near the Syrian border:

The heaviest fighting was in Karabilah, a desert outpost of low-slung buildings where Marines said insurgents had taken refuge after a U.S.-led assault in early May.

Marines have launched four offensives since early May in restive Anbar province, which military officials have described as a haven for foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria. Most of the region’s residents are Sunni Muslim Arabs, who are believed to make up the bulk of Iraq’s insurgency.

Marine aircraft bombarded Karabilah on June 11 and returned to the town when intelligence showed a strong insurgent presence, said Col. Bob Chase, operations chief for the 2nd Marine Division. The current offensive, dubbed Operation Spear, began with airstrikes and light ground clashes Friday.

In additon to these successful combat operations, the Marines rescued four Iraqi hostages who, unlike the terrorists being detained at Gitmo, were not being “tortured” by turning off the air conditioning or playing rap music. They were instead, being tortured , like ya know, for real:

But inside this complex, they found something even more sinister — four Iraqis who were handcuffed, their hands and feet bound with steel cuffs. They’re now being taken away for medical treatment, one being borne away on a stretcher.

The man in intense pain that they’re trying to get into a vehicle, has been tortured, he says, and has all the marks of being tortured with electricity. His back is crisscrossed with welts. The other man is even … in worse shape. Their crime was to be part of the border police.

One of the other men, the other border police, was too weak, really, to tell us what had happened. But he obviously was in very, very bad shape.

They were rescued this morning as Marines and Iraqi forces came into this complex, which included an underground bunker, weapons stockpiles and other things, and found them here. Their captors have fled.

Are these the same Marines that Dick “The Prick” Durbin is saying routinely abuse prisoners at Gitmo in the manner reminiscent of Nazi thugs and Pol Pot’s Cambodian Genocide and Happy Bottom Riding Club?

You betchya! And, of course, Marines are much more familiar with killing the torturers than they are with doling out torture.

That said, our guys have evidently killed about 50 terrorists and rounded up about 100 others. And I sure hope Baby Assad in Syria can hear the bombs dropping in Damascus. Unless he gets serious about closing the border to these fanatical foreign fighters who are pouring across to help Zarqawi and his al Qaeda fanatics kill Iraqis and Americans, he may get an up close and personal look at the way the Marines perform in combat.

UPDATE

The Captain makes a similar comparison with Durbin’s myopia regarding real torture:

If Senator Durbin wants to get up on the Senate floor and rail against torture, perhaps he could start with these torture houses, where real cruelty took place, not the humiliation tactics at Gitmo that tried to save American lives. What Fathil experienced was the same torture as that given out by Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athists during his decades-long reign, only Fathil had the good fortune to survive his encounter with the Islamofascists outside of Gitmo. Others, as the Times notes, did not fare so well.

Within a few months, some very disturbing pictures will wash across our TV screens. It will not be of innocent civilians killed by car bombs or US soldiers being blown up by IED’s. The pictures will be much more unnerving than that.

They will be pictures of our enemies dancing in the streets.

From the refugee camps in Palestine to the streets of Tehran, the nauseating scenes of supporters of people who want to murder us all dancing and screaming “Death to America” will be dwelt on lovingly by the media as the news that America is retreating in the War on Terror reaches even the benighted savages in that excreable part of the world.

This is only the beginning:

President Bush would have to start bringing home U.S. troops from Iraq by Oct. 1, 2006, under a measure a small bipartisan group of House lawmakers - including a Republican who voted for war - proposed Thursday.

Two Republicans and two Democrats introduced a resolution that would require the president to announce by the end of this year a plan for withdrawing troops and steps for following through on that plan. Other Democrats quickly signed onto the plan.

It is the first such resolution put forth by lawmakers from both parties, although an overwhelming number of Democrats and six House Republicans voted in 2002 against sending troops to Iraq.

Don’t anybody kid themselves. With the constant barrage of negative news from Iraq by the MSM plus the added weight of the torture narrative that’s been pounded into the American people for more than a year, a timetable for withdrawal will strike a resonant chord with the American people and before you can say “Bushitler” there will be more Congressman co-sponsoring that resolution than you can shake a stick at.

As I said in a post just this past Monday, the President had to get out front of this issue and squash it in his own party before it started to gain momentum:

I can smell the panic from here.

Unlike Viet Nam, this country is so wired with wall to wall cable and internet news that this type of Congressional insurgency won’t take years or months to ripen, but rather days. The President has to nip this in the bud now or risk losing Congressional support for the Iraq war.

Nothing less than a clear, unambiguous rejection of this resolution by the President will keep a gaggle of Republicans from joining this effort. Any delay could result in the weak and faint of heart (read politically vulnerable) making common cause with people who have little desire to see Iraq - or any other country in the Middle East - free but rather a deep passion to see the President’s policy fail.

The fat lady ain’t singing yet for the war. But I can hear her warming up in the wings.