Right Wing Nut House

Several Republican lawmakers recently have come out and in direct opposition to the view of the White House are saying that it’s time to set a timetable to get out of Iraq.

Congressmen are a lot like teenagers; someone sets a style and the rest of them follow. Here’s Representative Walter Jones (R-N):

“I voted for the resolution to commit the troops, and I feel that we’ve done about as much as we can do,” said Jones, who coined the phrase “freedom fries” to lash out at the French for opposing the Iraq invasion.

Jones, a member of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said “primarily the neoconservatives” in the administration were to blame for flawed war planning.

Senator Lindsey Graham, who only recently saved the Republic by being out front on the judicial compromise, has now also decided to abandon the leader of his party, his President, and I would guess a majority of his constituents:

“The insurgency is alive and well. We underestimated the viability of the insurgency,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said on CBS’ Face the Nation. He said the administration has “been slow to adjust when it comes to troop strength and supporting our troops.”

Graham said the Army is contending with a serious shortfall in recruiting “because this war is going sour in terms of word of mouth from parents and grandparents.” He said “if we don’t adjust, public opinion is going to keep slipping away.”

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.

Notice how Mr. Jones blames the “neocons.” Perhaps he can enlighten us with a few names? Or would that have horned in on his face time on TV?

And did someone ever explain to Lindsey Graham the delicate balance that has to be maintained between a sufficient number of troops to do the job and an overbearing, overwhelming presence that would have complicated matters enormously?

Someone should also tell Graham that the President ran better in South Carolina than his very conservative Senate colleague Jim DeMint. Although the Senator is not up for reelection until 2008, my guess would be conservatives in the Palmetto State have very long memories.

I have absolutely no doubt that post-war planning in Iraq was all wrong, that we should have anticipated some kind of insurgency aided and abetted by foreign powers and that the disbanding or “De-Baathification” of the Iraqi army was a gigantic mistake.

All that being said, these are exactly the kind of things that happen in wars. And I would say to Republican Congressmen “Deal with it.” We’re barely two years into an occupation that appeared to be a 5 year mission the day after Baghdad fell. This is hardly the time to start running away from the President and into the arms of the far left. But that’s what Messrs. Graham and Jones are doing.

Jeff Goldstein has been running his “Overheard in an Insurgent Bunker” series for more than a year. What do you think the insurgents are saying to each other today? I’ll bet you a dollar to navy beans that their “hope” factor just shot up several notches.

With all the talk lately of closing the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo, I had a scathingly brilliant idea.

Look…Jimmy Carter, Nancy Pelosi, Amnesty International, and a host of other moonbats are calling on President Bush to shut down Gitmo and, in Representative Pelosi’s words, “give us a clean slate with the muslim world.” I’ve got a better idea. Why not turn it into a high class resort? Instead of torture, we could be having the detainees given full body massages by a bevy of gorgeous masseuses. Instead of “waterboarding” we could offer the terrorists surfboard lessons. And instead of defiling the Koran, we could offer a full service Islamic library with wi-fi access to all those terrorist websites. Maybe we could even have a web designer on staff to spice up those sites and give ‘em a little pizzazz, a little “ooomph.”

Maybe we could make it so attractive a place that al Qaeda recruits would be clamoring to get in. Just think of the possibilities:

There are places that inspire the soul. Places where your every need is anticipated, and every mood finds fulfillment. Places like Gitmo by the Sea. For holidays, honeymoons or romantic getaways, or just taking a short break from Jihad, book a secluded retreat in one of Gitmo’s intimate cottages. Holy Warriors, suicide bombers, and other guests might prefer rooms in the lodge or a private villa, with fine dining close at hand. The lodge overlooks Guantanamo Bay and each villa and cottage, tucked away among the trees for privacy, has a water view. Gitmo is a wonderful setting for weddings or Cell meetings to plan that next special attack, or a deeply satisfying respite from the everyday world. Come, luxuriate, and satisfy your soul.

That may be overdoing it a bit, but hey! Those jihadists seem to be a pretty picky bunch. Besides, we’re trying to sell what amounts to a prison here for God’s sake. We have to take some liberties.

I’ll tell you this…If this doesn’t “give us a clean slate” with the Muslim world, I don’t know what will. Then again, I doubt if this will satisfy our domestic and international moonbats. They’ll probably complain that the rooms are too small or the food isn’t first class, or maybe that the temperature of the pool is too cold.

Why not? They probably do the same thing at the resorts they visit…

This article originally appears in The American Thinker.

They’ve had the stuffing bombed out of them in Afghanistan. They’ve had their financial resources revealed and weeded out, their money men arrested and thrown in jail, their supporters and enablers cowed by a law enforcement effort involving upward of 80 countries and thousands of investigators. Their leaders are cowering in fear for their lives in caves and holes in the ground. And in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, Indonesia, the Philippines, Iraq, and all across the continent of Europe their soldiers are systematically being hunted down and killed or captured.

And yet…

And yet al Qaeda may be winning this war. Here on this beautiful late spring morning in the Midwest with the promise of summer right around the corner, our enemies have much to celebrate. For the debate in the United States may no longer be what to do about this group of fanatical, murderous thugs who ruthlessly and heartlessly attacked our homeland on September 11, 2001. The debate could revolve around the question of how we can have a “return to normalcy,” a question reflective of a yearning to turn back the clock to a time when we didn’t have dead serious debates about whether or not the accidental splash of urine on a Koran translates as “abuse” or which interrogation methods truly constitute torture.

Our national conversation about the War on Terror is proceeding in a manner very much as our enemies wish. They have seized the psychological initiative by playing our national news organs like a Stradivarius. Admittedly, the military has helped al Qaeda out enormously not only by the occasional breakdown in discipline which has led to isolated but significant incidents of torture, , but by the natural tendency of the military command authorities to not give the enemy a propaganda weapon to use against us. This has resulted in the appearance of cover-up, if not in the intent then certainly in the result of torture allegations.

At bottom, the brouhaha about prisoner abuse, Koran flushing, puppet governments, Bush- lied-and-people-died-no-blood-for-oil-U.S.-out-of-Iraq battle cries reveals a desperate desire on the part of many Americans - perhaps a majority - to wish away the harsh realities that the war in Iraq is exposing and the monumental effort it will take to win this conflict and defeat the forces of ignorance, intolerance, and terror.

President Warren G. Harding used the phrase “return to normalcy” to describe a state of mind that existed in the United States prior to our entry in World War I. There was a reaction to America sullying her hands by taking part in what at the time was seen as part of the endless cycle of European self-immolative conflagrations that flared up every hundred years or so. Harding thought it was high time America returned to a pre-war state of mind where, as his successor, Calvin Coolidge so aptly put it “the chief business of the American people is business” and the only foreign entanglements worthy of our interest was trying to keep Latin America subservient and docile.

Harding and Coolidge succeeded in making America forget its involvement in that war. The League of Nations, President Wilson’s flawed yet valiant attempt to integrate America into the world community was roundly defeated because in their heart of hearts, Americans believed themselves too pure, too righteous to become involved in world affairs. We did emerge briefly from our self-imposed slumber to propose and sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact that idealistically renounced the use of force in solving all international disputes. But that was perfectly in keeping with our belief that the forces of evil could be kept at bay simply by the lucky accident of geography. Separated as we are from the rest of the world by two vast oceans, we believed that the forces of darkness gathering strength during the 1920’s were of no concern to us simply because they couldn’t possibly threaten our well being.

Today the forces of darkness can’t be kept at bay by geography. They can’t be stopped by wishful thinking. They must be confronted, attacked, pursued, captured, and killed. There simply is no other way.

And yet…

And yet the opponents of this war - most of whom are good Americans who love their country as much as any of us- are playing directly into al Qaeda ’s hands. Unable to defeat us on the battlefield, unwilling to confront us directly, al Qaeda is using its battlefield defeats - the capture and detention of its soldiers - to turn our successes upside down and put the United States government on the defensive. And the opponents of the war, seizing upon this sidebar issue with a fervor reminiscent of a revivalist reverend preaching hellfire and damnation, are unwittingly following the game plan of our enemies by excoriating the Bush Administration for its alleged failure to uphold American values.

The anti-war crowd is using traditional grips and handholds in the political mud wrestling going on over the war. This begs the question. Who do they think the enemy is; Bush or al Qaeda? For that matter, when was the last time you heard or read anyone from the anti-war left actually using the pejorative “enemy” to describe our opponent?

In effect, much like their Democratic Party forbearer’s who took Abraham Lincoln to task for a variety of issues not directly related to the Civil War including the suspension of Habeas Corpus and questions about what constitutes free speech in wartime, Bush’s political opponents rarely, if ever, mention the reason we fight. Instead, their constant carping about prisoner abuse seems to be having its desired effect; the American people are losing confidence in the President to bring the war in Iraq to a successful conclusion and are becoming more anxious about our War on Terror in general.

Anyone who doesn’t believe that this is part of our enemies strategic thinking has another thing coming. Despite Michael Moore’s portrayal of Bin Laden and his cohorts as ignorant savages living in caves, many of the top leadership in al Qaeda are college educated - many of them matriculated at some of the finest colleges and universities in the west - and are keen students of both the western media and western attitudes. A translated copy of the al Qaeda Training Manual reveals a deep understanding of not only what makes the American people tick, but how to roil the streets of the Islamic world and bring the masses to their side.

All of this points to the first significant test for American resolve in the War on Terror in 2008. While the election last year could have been considered a referendum on the Iraq conflict and hence of surpassing significance for that reason alone, it’s devoutly hoped that by 2008 the mass of troops currently stationed in that country will be redeployed and American casualties will have virtually ceased. If that’s the case (and I believe the Administration will make it so whether completely warranted or not) then the Democratic candidate will have an interesting decision to make about an overarching theme for the campaign.

Will a “return to normalcy” theme - one that seeks to fulfill John Kerry’s dream of a return to a 9/10 world - be so attractive to the American people that it brings the Democrats the White House in 2008? It’s a seductive approach, one with very little political downside and could resonate with swing voters. But what consequences will flow from a decision to stop doing the things necessary to successfully prosecute the War on Terror and take the battle to where our enemies live rather than fight the war on terms of the enemy’s choosing?

The sad fact is, the constant drumbeat about prisoner abuse has lowered the morale of the American people and made them question not only the tactics, but fundamental tenets about the necessity for the war on terror. And since the next attack on our homeland will not be blamed on terrorists per se but rather on the personal leadership of the President, the anti-war crowd will be able to use any such assault as a political weapon to attack the way we are currently fighting this war and turn the country’s gaze away from fighting terrorists elsewhere to battening down the hatches at home and withdrawing from the fight. In a supremely ironic twist to Harding’s reasons for a “return to normalcy,” they will make the case that America is, in effect, too evil to lead this fight and is better off letting the wiser, more virtuous heads in Europe and the United Nations take the lead.

The enemy knows the only way to win the war in Iraq and elsewhere is if we voluntarily withdraw. In short, if we abjectly surrender. And in a conflict where many of us believe we fight for our existence, this is simply unacceptable.

But the siren song of “normalcy” may prove too tempting to resist. Unlike Odysseus’ sailors, no amount of wax we stuff in our ears will be able to muffle the alluring sound of the birds singing sweetly on a glorious September day in 2001 - September 10th, that is.

Boy, those Iraq’s must be gluttons for punishment.

It isn’t enough that we’ve brutally occupied their country, tortured and flayed their innocent citizens, robbed them of their oil, and tried to ram a puppet government down their throats. Now they want us to become even more involved in their affairs (Thank you sir, may I have another…):

To prevent the breakdown of Iraq’s troubled transition and a potential civil war, Iraq’s new government appealed to the Bush administration yesterday to take a much more assertive role, particularly on four key political and military issues, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

In talks with Vice President Cheney yesterday and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari requested greater U.S. and coalition help in crafting a new constitution. The deadline is now less than three months away, but deliberations have been slowed as Iraq still works on the composition of a constitutional committee.

With time running out for writing the constitution and then holding elections in December for a permanent government, Zebari warned that the United States has withdrawn too much, leaving the new government struggling to cope and endangering the long-term prospects for success.

International help in drafting their constitution would not be without precedent. Following the end of World War I, some of the most idealistic and gifted legal minds of Europe sat down with the new German government that overthrew the Kaiser and drafted what at the time was considered the “perfect” constitution. William L. Shirer describes it in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:

“The constitution which emerged from the Assembly after six months of debate…was on paper the most liberal and democratic document of its kind the 20th century had seen, mechanically well-nigh perfect, full of ingenious and admirable devices which seemed to guarantee the working of an almost flawless democracy. The idea of cabinet government was borrowed from England and France, of a strong, popular President from the United States, of the referendum from Switzerland…”

As Shirer points out, the Weimer constitution also had its flaws not the least of which was voting by lists (as they do currently in Lebanon) which leads to a multiplicity of small, splinter parties and in Germany’s case, made a stable majority in the Reichstag impossible.

While I’m sure the Iraqi’s would be grateful for our help, it’s best that we tread cautiously in helping draft a document that will act as a basic law of the land lest our own preconceptions of “democracy” and “freedom” override what is possible in an Iraqi society racked by sectional and sectarian differences. In short, we may end up making matters worse instead of better.

As for security issues, I don’t see how much more we could be doing. Any major anti-insurgent sweeps need to be carried out by Iraqi forces for the simple reason that we’re not going to be there forever and they may as well gain the experience and self-confidence that comes with succeeding in operations of this nature. If they get into trouble, we’re there to back them up. But we can’t make the same mistake we made in Viet Nam by continuously bearing the brunt of combat operations. Back then, we failed the Vietnamese military by not giving them a chance to prove themselves until it was too late. When they did go out into the field, they were ill-prepared and not well led. Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy was a disaster. It came after 4 years of American led combat ops and failed to adequately train a South Vietnamese army racked with corruption and ambivalence. The result was predictable.

One big help we could give to the Iraqi’s would come from our new Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Unfortunately, although named to replace John Negreponte three months ago, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has failed to hold confirmation hearings. Here’s the Captain’s take:

By the way, expect to see some mild fireworks at Khalilzad’s hearing. The Village Voice already alerted the Left that Khalilzad has — gasp! — worked for an oil company before. The nominee represented Unocal during the Clinton-era negotiations with the Taliban that hoped to establish a pipeline across Afghanistan to gain greater access to oil production in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The Ted Rall/Michael Moore contingent have long claimed that this effort was the true motivation behind the Afghanistan phase of the war on terror. This will give the Democrats an opportunity to show how far they’ve slid to the radical Left. If this thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory plays any role at Khalilzad’s hearing, we’ll know the lunatics have seized control of the asylum.

Sometimes, I think Bush does things like this just to goose the moonbats. Seriously, the clock is ticking on the constitution as the deadline is a little more than 3 months away. The Iraqi’s have made every single deadline we’ve set so far. Let’s hope they keep it that way.

You remember the Iraq WMD? You know, the WMD that doesn’t exist, that’s just a figment of Bushitler and eeeeevil Karl Rove’s imagination who went into Iraq to steal the oil and kill Arabs? Well…according to the UN, it’s gone missing:

U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.

U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.

In the report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said he’s reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.

Previously, we’ve had the non-existent WMD going to Syria in Russian trucks and the phantom weapons being removed and taken to the Bekka Valley in Lebanon.

For imaginary items, they sure get around, don’t they?

To be fair, the UN is talking about so called “dual-use” equipment, especially in the biologic weapons sphere. Fermenters and miles of pipes that could be used to make both pharmaceuticals and bio-weapons are valuable commodities and could have been sold or simply moved out to the desert and buried.

But the fact remains that something was removed from sites that the UN previously determined contained weapons of mass destruction. If they were used for innocent purposes, why move them?

This kind of logic will escape the moonbats who continue to ignore evidence of Saddam’s ties with al Qaida as well as evidence that while not present in the kind of stockpiles thought by western intelligence and the United Nations , Saddam’s WMD programs could have been reconstituted if his oil for food bribery schemes had been allowed to bear fruit and sanctions against him lifted.

UPDATE

Jonathon at GOP Bloggers:

So the stuff that Saddam didn’t have is now missing. At this point, the UN should be kept around for its wonderful sense of humor, if nothing else.

Hee.

And Matt at Blogs for Bush is scratching his head.

Alpha Patriot has an accounting of the missingWMD that doesn’t exist.

By the way, Good Luck to the Patriot as he’s leaving the Watcher’s Council after a long and illustrious stay. If you haven’t already, blogroll his site and visit often for some really good stuff!

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

It’s a shame that the Memorial Day holiday has lost so much of its meaning to many Americans. Graves of veterans go unattended and unadorned in many towns and cities. The day has become little more than a marker for the beginning of summer, or of a long weekend filled with barbeque’s, blockbuster movie openings, and baseball games.

There are some exceptions:

Since the late 50’s on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing.

In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day.

More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye’s Heights (the Luminaria Program).

And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.

In an editorial today, the Washington Post has an excellent suggestion:

And while we’re at it on this formerly somber holiday, we’d like to offer a few words in support of a related movement that seems to be spreading spontaneously, with a little encouragement from people who have access to the public ear. It is the simple practice of saying “thank you” to men and women in armed forces uniform — on the streets, in office buildings, malls and other places.

Granted, this doesn’t come easily to a people who often are too self-conscious even to sing the national anthem at ballgames. This is especially true in our own city, where formality and restraint are more pronounced than in most. But in fact it’s here that gestures would have a special meaning to a lot of people — from service members assigned to the Washington area to traveling soldiers and Marines in airports to the young man in a wheelchair seeing his nation’s capital on a day trip out of Walter Reed. Such acts affirm that no matter what one’s view of the country’s current conflicts, there is a common and widespread appreciation of those who carry the burden of war. They deserve one more word from a city that produces millions of them every day, one that isn’t all that hard to offer: “Thanks.”

Thanks indeed. It’s the very least we can do. And in an op-ed piece in the same paper, John Wheeler has another great idea:

Unfortunately, no Memorial Day ceremony or war memorial that I have seen has explicitly honored the wounded. In fact, under House Concurrent Resolution 587 of Feb. 10, 1966, Memorial Day is simply for paying “tribute to those who gave their lives.”

This oversight needs correction. We need to honor the wounded as well as those who died. Their numbers are growing, and society needs to both acknowledge their sacrifice and understand their situation. And it needs, through this tribute, to give support and encouragement to the families of the wounded — families that bear great anguish, time devoted to care and economic loss.

Wheeler points out that because of improved body armour and medical advances, the wounded to dead ratio for the war in Iraq is at 8 to 1, better than the 5 to 1 during the Viet Nam war. Many of these veterans come back scarred in both mind and body - a living testament to the horrors of war and why we should never commit our men to battle unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Here are some links to where you can donate time or money to help wounded vets:

United Spinal Association
Purple Heart.Org
Military Family Network
Disabled American Veterans

And Operation Hearthfire supports wounded vets and has a couple of dozen links to other organizations.

There isn’t much doubt that former anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles is a terrorist. There also isn’t much doubt that Posada is privy to some of the dirtiest secrets of our intelligence community. Working with the CIA from the early 1960’s on, Posada has been a US intelligence asset until at least the late 1980’s when he apparently assisted Oliver North in running guns and supplies to the Contras in Nicaragua.

Posada’s most spectacular crime was blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976 killing 73 people, including the teenage members of the Cuban National Fencing Team. Recently released documents from the FBI and elsewhere show that not only was Posada responsible for planning and executing the attack, but that the CIA had gotten wind of the plot and that an FBI agent in Caracas had met several times with one of the Venezuelan members of the conspiracy.

Did we know what Posada and his partner Orlando Bosch were up to and not warn the Cuban government of this imminent attack?

No wonder Castro is pissed.

After the attack on the airliner, Posada was arrested by Venezuelan security. Following two trials, both of which ended in his acquittal, Posada escaped custody in1985 by bribing his way out of Venezuela perhaps with American help. He immediately showed up in El Salvador where he went to work for Oliver North in the Contra supply operation. He apparently was also tangentially involved in organizing and training the Salvadoran “Death Squads” that wreaked havoc in that tiny country.

Mr. Carriles wasn’t finished. Posada admitted to a New York Times reporter, that he organized a wave of bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and injured others. Then, in 2002 he was convicted in Panama of plotting to kill Castro. Outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned him. He has ties to the Cuban-American group CANF (Cuban-American National Foundation) members of which went on trial in the United States and were acquitted in 1999 of trying to kill Castro.

The 77 year old recently snuck into the United States and asked the government for asylum. When Fidel Castro and his stooge Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez got wind of this they were furious. Castro’s government organized “spontaneous” demonstrations against the US and blowhard Chavez went on Venezuelan TV and ranted for 4 hours about the US being hypocritical in fighting the war on terror.

He may have a point but 4 hours? I pity the Venezuelan people that they have to put up with this strutting, overblown peacock of a man who in a few short years has taken what was once one of the freest nations in the western hemisphere and turned it into a virtual prison.

Recently arrested on immigration charges, the Venezuelan government has asked that Posada be extradited so that he can stand trial a third time for blowing up the airliner. The initial request was rejected:

The Bush administration on Friday rejected Venezuela’s request for the arrest of Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles so he can be returned to the South American country for trial.

Posada, a foe of Cuban President Fidel Castro, is wanted by Venezuelan authorities for his alleged role in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976 that killed 73 people. The United States and Venezuela have had a strained relationship recently, with disagreements including the U.S. war in Iraq and Venezuela’s decision to buy Russian assault rifles.

Earlier this month, Venezuela asked the United States to arrest Posada as an initial step toward his eventual extradition there. Days after the request was received, U.S. authorities detained Posada on their own and charged him with illegal entry into the United States

The request was evidently denied on technical grounds. But this gambit won’t work forever. Sooner or later, the Bush Administration will have a decision to make. And that decision could have far reaching consequences for not only our standing in Latin America but also profoundly affect the War on Terror.

There’s no doubt this is a lose-lose situation for the American government. There quite simply can be no good outcome to their dilemma. If we hand the old terrorist over to Chavez, his secret police will go to work on him and probably extract some extraordinarily damaging information about his unholy deeds done on behalf of the American government during the last 40 years. The resulting firestorm would ignite protests from Mexico City to Havana and severely damage our already tarnished image in Latin America.

But if we grant Posada asylum or worse, send him to another country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Venezuela, we’ll either be guilty of harboring a terrorist or facilitating the escape of one. Either way, our credibility and ability to fight terrorism will take a huge hit. And if we send him to a third country that does have an extradition agreement with the Venezuelans, we’ll still be seen as hypocrites.

In this case, I think the Bush Administration is going to have to bite the bullet and hand Posada over to Chavez. Better the strutting peacock than the thug in Havana. Before honoring any extradition treaty with regards to Posada however, the Administration should get an assurance from Chavez that the Venezuelans will not hand him over to Castro. That would truly be a disastrous turn of events and must be prevented.

The Venezuelan judiciary is still semi-independent and would at least give Posada a fair trial - something that only a moonbat would think he’d get in Castro’s gulag.

It may be that the government won’t take this option and instead speed Posada on his way to a third country, possibly Panama. The Panamanians have already tried Posada but would probably turn him over to Venezuela themselves. In which case, we’ll only look like hypocrites - not very pleasant but the government may figure its a better alternative than having our dirty laundry hanging out all over Latin America.

Any alternative will do us no good in the short term in either our relations with Latin American countries or in the War on Terror. And while turning Posada over to Venezuela may seem like the worst option, I think in the long run it may do us some good. It will prove that we’re dead serious about terrorism. It will signal an openness that may eventually resonate with the Latin American people once the initial hub-bub dies down. And it may even have a salutatory effect in the middle east with our efforts at peace making and democracy building.

This is definitely a put-up or shut-up moment for the Bush Administration in its War on Terror. What course we choose will determine our credibility on the issue for years to come.

Cross Posted at Blogger New Network

The news of a bomb blast in eastern Indonesia that killed 19 people could mean that we thwarted an attack elsewhere; the U.S. embassy in Jakarta:

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Two bomb blasts ripped through a crowded market in a Christian town in eastern Indonesia on Saturday, killing 19 people in an attack likely to raise fears sectarian bloodshed could again break out in the region.

Police said the attacks occurred in the lakeside town of Tentena, on the eastern island of Sulawesi, part of an area where three years of Muslim-Christian clashes killed 2,000 people until a peace deal was agreed in late 2001.

Just yesterday, a security warning prompted the closing of our embassy in the Indonesian capitol and consulates elsewhere:

The US closed all of its diplomatic facilities in Indonesia today until further notice, citing an unspecified security threat.

The decision comes a week after Australia urged its citizens to avoid traveling to Indonesia because of a warning by police in Jakarta about possible suicide bombings, particularly at embassies, international schools, office buildings and shopping malls.

In an e-mailed statement, US officials said the American embassy in Jakarta would be closed along with the consulates in Surabaya, Medan and the island of Bali. Other American government offices would also be shuttered.

Could one of the terrorists original targets have been the embassy? While the violence in Indonesia is sectarian in nature as Christians battle Muslims, the radical islamists have targeted westerners in the past:

Attacks against Western targets and blamed on Jemaah Islamiah include blasts at Bali nightclubs in October 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners, and one last September outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed 10.

When the history of the War on Terror is written a hundred years from now, historians will rely on information that today is highly classified. Only the terrorists and a select few in our intelligence community know for sure how many attacks have been thwarted. Last year, Representative Katherine Harris (R-FL) made headlines when she claimed that the US government had prevented over 100 terrorist attacks around the world:

On Monday, August 2, speaking at a rally for President Bush in Venice, Florida, Harris told the crowd that the administration had thwarted over 100 terrorist plots. She also claimed that “a plot existed to blow up the power grid in Carmel, Indiana,” the Associated Press reported.

The “Carmel” plot was denied by officials in that small, Indiana town. And to this day its not clear whether Harris was lying, exaggerating, or telling the truth. In the press frenzy that followed her remarks, she seemed genuinely sorry she had revealed something she shouldn’t have. Whether that “something” was information from a classified briefing or rumormongering by some government hack won’t be known for a long time.

These kind of dubious remarks have fueled the impression by some the terrorist threat is at best overblown or at worst, an nefarious plot by the Bush Administration to curtail civil liberties.

However, it seems probable that at least a dozen or more attacks have been thwarted in Europe:

Since 11 September 2001, at least 15 major terrorist attacks have been prevented in Europe, according to a Norwegian research institute.

In an interview with Radio Netherlands, a spokesman for the institute claims that all these attacks would have caused many casualties had they not been foiled.

And then there was the very real, very scary planned chemical attack in Jordan that was foiled at the last moment:

Officials close to the investigation told The Associated Press that several terror suspects arrested in Jordan last month have confessed the plots were hatched by Jordanian militant Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi (search), thought to be a close associate of Al Qaeda boss Usama bin Laden.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the terrorist cell was planning to attack Jordan’s secret service — the General Intelligence Department — with a chemical bomb that would have killed as many as 20,000 people and caused large-scale destruction within a half-mile radius

So the war goes on. A silent, secret war with the highest possible stakes imaginable. It seems very possible that the sharing of intelligence by the Indonesian government with their American counterparts may have saved American lives today. The Bush Administration, as usual, doesn’t receive enough credit for this achievement in the War on Terror; intelligence swapping with dozens of countries around the world. But this may be the most important aspect in the ongoing battle with Islamic extremists.

And the hell of it is, we’ll never know of their successes. Only their failures.

Cross Posted at Blogger New Network

The New York Times article on the Army’s investigation into the “mishandling” of the Koran proves that when the media tries to insert a little perspective, a story can actually be factually correct as well as free from overt bias.

WASHINGTON, May 26 - An American military inquiry has uncovered five instances in which guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba mishandled the Koran, but found “no credible evidence” to substantiate claims that it was ever flushed down a toilet, the chief of the investigation said on Thursday.

All but one of the five incidents appear to have taken place before January 2003. In three cases, the mishandling of the Koran appears to have been deliberate, and in two it was accidental or unintentional, the commander said, adding that four cases involved guards, and one an interrogator. Two service members have been punished for their conduct, one recently.

It’s all there, right up front with no spin and no editorializing. In the first two paragraphs we get the who, what, when, and where that’s usually missing from articles about military abuse stories. The fact that the perpetrators of the deliberate mishandling of the Koran have already been disciplined is also right up front where it should be,

And the article also handles the retraction of the Koran in the toilet scam by the inmate in question:

General Hood said his investigators asked the detainee whether he personally had seen any incidents of Koran abuse, “and he allowed as how he hadn’t, but he had heard guards - that guards at some other point in time had done this.”

The general said he could offer no explanation for any contradiction between the detainee’s statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2002 and the interview conducted by his team on May 14.

Speculation by the reporter, Mr. Shanker, is kept to a minimum.

I wonder if the Times coverage of this issue could have been affected by the Newsweek story? Ya Think?

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin points to the same story in the Washington Post and what happens to the meaning of a story when context is lost:

In this morning’s coverage of Koran abuse allegations at Gitmo, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, Reuters, and Associated Press all mention in their lead paragraph that the Pentagon found no credible evidence that a guard flushed the Koran down a toilet. The Washington Post, on the other hand, does not bother to mention the Koran-flushing incident until its fourth paragraph and does not note until the thirteenth paragraph that the detainee who made that allegation has retracted it.

Follow the link to Michelle’s site for the Post story and then read the Times story. This is a textbook example of how bias can color the perception of a story by the reader.

If true, this is very bad news:

Militants in Iraq today claimed to have executed an American hostage in a statement on the internet, which was accompanied by pictures of the man’s driving license.

The group, headed by al-Qaeda’s frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the victim was a US pilot.

“Your brothers in Al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers got their hands on a US pilot who turned out to have bombarded several mosques and the Sheraton hotel in Baghdad during the invasion of Iraq, as well as several civilian homes,” the statement said.

“After questioning this infidel, the divine verdict was applied to him.”

There’s been no confirmation of this from the Pentagon or the US government.

A while back, the Jawa Report listed several civilian American hostages still being held in Iraq. The hostage in question, one Neenus Y. Khoshaba, was not listed in the Jawa’s report. However, as Rusty points out, that may not mean much:

It is unclear how many other American hostages are still being held or are missing in Iraq. The Pentagon has been tightlipped about non-military casualties leaving it to private companies to choose whether to release information to the public or not.

It’s also possible that an American citizen would be kidnapped and held for ransom by one of the numerous criminal gangs that have sprung up in Iraq following the chaos that ensued after liberation. It’s even possible that one of these gangs could have “sold” the victim to Zarqawi’s group.

The claim that Mr. Khoshaba was a pilot in the military is probably false. It would be pretty hard to keep something like the taking of American military personnel quiet for very long unless he was with the CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency.

We haven’t heard from Mr. Zarqawi and his Merry Band of Beheaders in a while so this may be just a quick grab for cheap publicity. Then again, it may be real which would be very bad news.

Cross Posted at Blogger New Network