Right Wing Nut House

Foul mouthed, ignorant commenters have once again ruined it for the rest of my readers. It seems every time I get a link from “Sadly No” or “T-Bogg,” the most vile, insulting, obscenity laced comments are left in moderation.

I’m tired of dealing with them, of looking at them. So I have shut down the comment function on this blog.

What is it about obscenities and scatological vulgarity that it becomes a herculean effort for these mouth breathing troglodytes to avoid them in the normal discourse of everyday language? Are they really that limited in their intelligence that every other word has to be a vulgarity? Don’t they realize that this language isn’t “shocking” as much as it’s nauseating?

No matter. Comments will be closed for the time being. At least until they crawl back underneath the rotten logs from which they slithered to get here in the first place.

Well, at least the candidates were probably all Republicans. As for the questioners, that’s a different story.

At least 4 of the questioners from last night’s CNN/YouTube Debate were Democratic party supporters and activists including one gay general who worked for John Kerry’s campaign and is on Hillary Clinton’s LGBT Steering Committee.

The information confirming these facts was ferreted out by Freepers and bloggers within minutes of the debate’s ending.

This raises several interesting questions, not the least of which is who at CNN is going to get fired over this rank stupidity? Or perhaps they plan on promoting the buggers. Here’s how they wash their hands of the gay General Kerr imbroglio:

CNN Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of the debate, David Bohrman, says, “We regret this, and apologize to the Republican candidates. We never would have used the General’s question had we known that he was connected to any presidential candidate.”

Prior to the debate, CNN had verified his military background and that he had not contributed any money to any presidential candidate.

Following the debate, Kerr told CNN that he’s done no work for the Clinton campaign. He says he is a member of the Log Cabin Republicans and was representing no one other than himself.

I would say that’s a crock. The General has lent his name and rank to the campaign of a Democrat. Are we supposed to believe that just because he hasn’t been “working” at outreach for the Clinton campaign (which is basically what steering committees do) that he hasn’t contributed anything? I would say a retired general’s name is worth a helluva lot - especially when we’re talking about gay outreach to the military and national security conscious gays.

Of course, the General is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Democratic supporters and activists who somehow managed to slip by CNN’s army of editors and fact checkers to ask questions of Republican presidential candidates.

Michelle Malkin has the whole story told best in pictures. There’s the Log Cabin Republican, David Cercone, whose YouTube page clearly identifies him as an Obama supporter, asking a question about gay marriage. There’s the petite young girl asking an abortion question whose YouTube profile shows her proudly sporting a “John Edwards ‘08″ T-shirt.

And the mother with two kids asking who’s going to protect her kids from products that contain lead is actually an American Steel Worker union activist - an aide to the union president Leo Gerard and a John Edwards booster.

We were told that there were 5,000 videos submitted for this debate. Are we supposed to believe that CNN couldn’t find actual, like, you know, REPUBLICANS TO ASK THEIR OWN GODDAMN CANDIDATES A QUESTION?

If life were fair and the press unbiased, this would become a huge media scandal - perhaps the biggest in a while. You and I both know that will not happen. So what if Republicans get short changed in a debate by having a shamefully incapable cable news network allow supporters and activists from the other party to ask questions designed not to elicit information from the candidates but to try and trap them and make them look bad?

Of course, the entire affair makes the Democratic Party’s boycott of Fox News look pretty silly - if it wasn’t pretty laughable already. They’re worried about some imagined bias at Fox while CNN provides all the evidence necessary to convict them of being either incompetent boobs or rabid partisans.

For some, it might be easier to believe CNN to have it in for Republicans. But outside of the normal bias found in any large media organization, I believe the CNN debate showed the network to be lazy, unconcerned, and in the end, spectacularly inept.

ONE GREAT BIG IN YOUR FACE, SCREW YOU UPDATE FOR MY CRITICS:

From the Executive Producer of the debate quoted in the NY Times Caucus blog last week:

With only a week to go before the Republican CNN/YouTube debate next Wednesday, voters are lighting up the video site with serious and not-so-serious questions for the eight candidates.

David Bohrman, CNN’s Washington bureau chief and executive producer of the debate, spoke to The Caucus from “an undisclosed location” where he and a team of six others were pouring over the entries.

So far, about 3,000 questions have been posted to YouTube, Mr. Bohrman said, and he expects to have about 5,000 videos at his disposal come Sunday, the contest deadline. That beats July’s Democratic YouTube debate, which pulled in about 3,000 videos.
Most questions online have been pulled from public viewing for review, but many of the remaining posts involve asking the candidates to defend their opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Those kinds of “lobbying grenades” would be disqualified by the CNN selection team, Mr. Bohrman said.

(THEY WEREN’T, OF COURSE)

“There are quite a few things you might describe as Democratic ‘gotchas,’ and we are weeding those out,” Mr. Bohrman said. CNN wants to ensure that next Wednesday’s Republican event is “a debate of their party.”

A “debate of their party.” And now the number of Democrats who asked questions is up to 6.

This was not a debate for Democrats to try and trap Republican candidates. And despite the promises of CNN one has to wonder; what are the odds of putting on a Republican debate where 20% of the questions come from the opposition party?

Most of you have the intellectual honesty of a jackal so I don’t expect you to do anything except ignore the above and pretend it doesn’t exist. That’s the way you people deal with contradictory information - you just keep mouthing your talking points mindlessly.

But I publish the above with IMMENSE satisfaction.

After weeks of fruitless bargaining, the March 14th majority in Lebanon may have finally conceded that expediency is the better part of compromise.

After rejecting a proposal weeks ago to amend the constitution to allow an active duty officer in the military to serve as president, thus clearing the way for the election of General Michel Suleiman, the current commander of the Lebanese army, the March 14th bloc in parliament now says it is ready to take that deal:

Houry, a legislator with the Future Movement of Saad Hariri, said the bloc had reversed its previous stand against amending the constitution to elect a sitting army commander.

“We declare our acceptance to amend the constitution in order to reach consensus on the name of the army commander, Gen. Michel Suleiman,” he said.

Hariri is effectively the leader of Lebanon’s parliamentary majority, and his support is tantamount to the majority’s acceptance.

Houry’s statement described Suleiman as “symbol of the unity of the military establishment which has given martyrs and blood in defense of the nation against the enemy and against those who threatened civil peace.”

Suleiman is also respected by Hizbullah, which is leading the opposition, suggesting that after months of being unable to elect a new leader, the republic may once more have a president.

Suleiman’s stock rose considerably following the army’s painfully slow but successful operation against Fatah al-Islam, the al-Qaeda inspired terrorist group who had barricaded themselves in the Palestinian refugee camp at Nahr al-Abed. He proved himself acceptable to March 14th in 2005 when the Lebanese army sat on the sidelines during the massive demonstrations that eventually led to the ousting of Syrian troops from the country. He has also steadfastly stood by the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, going so far as to protect the Grand Serail from Hizbullah mobs last December when it appeared that they may have been preparing for a coup d’etat.

But Suleiman, like all Lebanese leaders, is full of contradictions. His brother in law was a spokesman for former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, the current Syrian president’s father. He also owes his job as army commander to the Syrians who installed his patron, former President Emil Lahoud into office.

Then there was the Lebanese army’s move into the south of the country when UNIFIL expanded following the Hizbullah-Israeli war. Suleiman made a point of announcing that the army would not be involved in taking away Hizbullah’s weapons, earning him the gratitude of Hassan Nassrallah and the opposition bloc.

The fact that Suleiman is now a leading candidate for president shows that in Lebanon, you don’t get anywhere politically until you’ve played both sides against the middle several times and emerged alive with your reputation relatively unscathed.

The key will be opposition acceptance of both the idea to amend the constitution and Suleiman’s candidacy itself. Even among the ruling coalition, doubts are being expressed about mucking with the constitution:

I am personally opposed to Suleiman’s nomination as it would be against democratic principles,” said Butros Harb, a member of the ruling coalition and a declared presidential candidate now apparently out of the running.

“I have nothing against him personally … but his appointment would amount to prostituting the constitution once again.”

He was referring to a Syrian-inspired constitutional amendment in 2004 that extended Lanoud’s six-year term in office for another three years.

Indeed, opposition to that amendment by former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri cost him his life when he was assassinated by a car bomb on Valentines Day, 2005. The resulting demonstrations kicked Syria out of the country and established the current governing majority.

But the real key to Suleiman’s acceptance will be the reaction by Christian Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun whose own presidential aspirations drove him to abandon other Christian groups who allied themselves with the majority and throw his lot in with Hizbullah and the opposition.

Just a few days ago, Aoun grandiosely offered to settle the crisis by dropping out of the presidential race - as long as he could name the candidate to succeed President Lahoud. No one really took him seriously which shows how far Aoun’s stock has fallen with the majority although he still commands plenty of respect in the Christian community and enjoys the qualified support of Nasrallah’s Hizbullah.

At the moment, Aoun seems to have been taken by surprise. Naharnet is reporting that “Aoun said he will consult legal authorities regarding amending the constitution to elect Gen. Suleiman president and “we’ll comment after that.”

This must be hugely disappointing to the old man. Is he big enough to swallow his ambitions and work to solve this intractable crisis for the good of the country? Once upon a time, Aoun refused to turn the Lebanese government over to Syrian toadies and had the army fight in the streets against vastly superior numbers to prevent that from happening. He lost that battle and went into exile to France, a hero to many Christians.

From there, he organized a resistance to the Syrian occupation earning him the respect of many Lebanese. He returned expecting the presidency as a reward for his services. But Lebanon had changed in his absence and spurned by the forces of democracy, he joined the opposition led by the extremists of Hizbullah - a strange marriage of convenience that now appears to have done him no good whatsoever.

Suleiman on the other hand, seems to have played his cards just about right. He would be an acceptable candidate to both Syria and the United States, obviously for different reasons. Michael Young predicted Suleiman’s ascension back in August:

Suleiman’s presidential ambitions are no longer a secret. On Monday, the former minister Albert Mansour made a statement to this newspaper that the army commander had told him he would accept heading a transitional government if Lebanon’s politicians didn’t agree over a candidate, provided all sides accepted Suleiman’s nomination. More intriguing, Mansour added that if the army commander presided over such a government, this would mean he could dispense with a constitutional amendment necessary for active senior state officials to stand for office.

This is worrying, because if Albert Mansour said what he did, then he almost certainly had a Syrian green light to do so. Far from desiring a vacuum, Syria apparently is seeking to use the threat of a vacuum to push its favorite through. Suleiman is not necessarily the only nominee, but he does seem to be the most likely one, because it’s the army that Syria wants to see win out. Michel Murr’s recent assertion that only the army can maintain security in Lebanon today, combined with Fatah al-Islam’s threats, means the security situation might have to deteriorate first for Suleiman to become more palatable to the parliamentary majority.

That’s not to suggest the army commander would be part of such a ploy. Nor is it to suggest that Suleiman would be rejected outright by the majority. The fact that on Saturday Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem backed France’s initiative in Lebanon was revealing. It indicated that Damascus is focused on bringing European pressure to bear on the majority to accept its candidate of choice. The tactic may well work. France, Spain and Italy, pillars of UNIFIL all, are determined not to allow a void at the top of the state, and if Suleiman is their way to avert that outcome, the March 14 coalition will find it hard to say no.

Suleiman is also on good terms with US Ambassador David Feltman and is seen by some as Washington’s favorite compromise candidate all along. This may be true if only because a Suleiman led government would be preferable to a vacuum.

Despite the fact that one of his biggest boosters in Lebanon is former Defense Minister and Syrian mouthpiece Albert Mansour, filling the position of president as quickly as possible - along with the prospect of negotiations that would give certain guarantees to keep the current makeup of the government, including Siniora as Prime Minister - has apparently swayed the March 14th forces into acquiescing to this less than favorable arrangement.

It is doubtful that a deal can be reached by Friday, the day of the next scheduled vote for president. But almost certainly by the end of the weekend, we will know whether a deal is possible and a vote should follow shortly thereafter.

In a perfect world, Suleiman is a terrible choice for the majority. But with pressure coming from both France and the United States to compromise, March 14th has reluctantly bitten the bullet and, if Hizbullah goes along, will have a president that is at least not totally under the blankets with Syria although he may be sleeping in the same bedroom.

Join me today from 3-4:00 PM Central for the Rick Moran Show on Blog Talk Radio.

My guest today will be Fausta Wertz, BTR host and blogger. We’ll discuss the upcoming Venezuelan referendum on the constitutional changes desired by Hugo Chavez as well as Chavez himself.

To access the stream, click the button below. A pod cast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

If you would like to call in live during the next hour, you can do so by calling (718) 664-9764

UPDATE:

A very interesting show. Fausta was her ever warm, ebullient self. She had some fascinating insights on both Castro and Chavez. I highly recommend this one.

To download the podcast, you can click the button above. To stream the broadcast, click the player below.

Lefty blogs are all over the story involving a gay escort who it was reported had a sexual relationship with Trent Lott and that this was the real reason he was resigning.

The only problem is, the story is categorically false. This from the escort in question:

It looks like a Washington DC-based blog called BigHeadDC is making claim that there was (or, is) a working relationship between myself and Senator Trent Lott. There are falsely pieced-together quotes that serve no purpose other than to sensationalize a completely fabricated scoop.

I will continue to offer a great sense of confidentiality to the people I see. I have not, nor have I ever seen or had contact with Senator Trent Lott. It’s as simple as that. It never happened.

Not surprisingly, wherever there is even a hint of a “sex in Congress” story, out from under the nearest rock crawls Larry Flynt to put his two cents in:

HUSTLER Magazine has received numerous inquiries regarding the involvement of Larry Flynt and HUSTLER in the resignation of Trent Lott. Senator Lott has been the target of an ongoing HUSTLER investigation for some time now, due to confidential information that we have received.

Please note that Flynt does not say he has one scintilla of evidence against Lott - only that he the “target” of an ongoing “investigation.” He confirms nothing of this idiot’s story, despite the blogger’s claims to the contrary.

For Flynt, this is beautiful. He gets to comment on a completely spurious story appearing in some no-name blog and in the process, smear a political enemy without offering one iota of evidence that what appeared on the blog was true.

My liberal friends: This is your First Amendment Champion. Proud of him?

A couple of lefty blogs went with the story - then had to go through a retraction. No problem there since we’ve all had to do that. Of course, the caveats and snide asides probably weren’t necessary:

John Aravosis:

With the past credibility problem of the Trent Lott blogger today, and now the outright blanket denial from the sole source, the same logic applies. I’m just not convinced. I’d love to be convinced, believe me. And trust me, there have been rumors for years about Trent Lott. But until I hear more, you’re not going to read about those rumors here.

Except, we just did read about those scurrilous rumors at your site, John - not that this is anything new. Getting in the gutter to slime people and out them against their will is your M.O. Why should we be surprised?

Suburban Guerrilla

Wide stance? Apparently there’s a good reason why he and Larry Craig are looking so longingly at those microphones. (Keep trying; site’s having trouble handling all the traffic.) The male escort named in the post is denying the whole thing here and here - just keep in mind he’s gone on the record saying he would never out a client, so who knows?

Just keep in mind that the male escort has “gone on record” saying no such thing. He referred vaguely to “confidentiality” for clients. And If Larry Flynt’s million dollar offer can’t entice the escort to make an exception to that rule, it is difficult to imagine the gossip is anything more than a clumsy attempt to smear Lott.

The Group News Blog:

What We Know…

There is no proof Larry Flint has photos of Trent Lott blowing goats behind a Klan rally as a young man.

That is wild speculation.

I also have absolutely no evidence they were black goats.

They don’t even bother with a retraction.

Some enterprising blogger may want to look into how all this started. Did a little birdie whisper in this blogger’s ear? And was that little birdie’s name Larry?

Big Head DC has also received word that Hustler will soon provide more details on why Lott resigned — much more to come. It’s unknown at this point when Flynt will write the $1 million check to Big Head DC.

Funny that Big Head DC has “received word” about Hustler planning to augment this story. Could it be that the blogger is a cats paw for Larry Flynt?

Flynt is no dummy - especially when it comes to libel laws. It is possible that since there is little or no real evidence connecting the gay escort to Lott - perhaps some cloakroom scuttlebutt picked up by a staffer - that Flynt saw a perfect opportunity to get the smear out in the open by leaking it to some eager beaver blogger whose journalistic standards make Weekly World News look like a paragon of reporting virtue.

And now that the smear is out in the open and has received widespread play on blogs, Flynt can write about anything he has on Lott. As long as it’s related to the escort story, he can simply claim he’s commenting on a story already in the public domain.

Any way this came about, it is despicable. Lott’s no paragon of virtue himself but if you’re going to smear someone’s personal life, at least have the common decency to get your facts right.

I used to think that Pat Buchanan was from the paleo-conservative quadrant of the righty universe . Now I’m not so sure. Buchanan might be a charter member of the “Archeo-conservative” school of thought, where his ideological forebearers pre-date western civilization and his ideas reflect the thinking of intellectual giants like Uther Pendragon and Vortigen - two barbarian Celts who knew what to do with uninvited “foreigners” like Saxons and Picts.

Where paleos are simply bizarre throwbacks to the Robert Taft era of conservatism - isolationist, distrustful of foreigners, big government, and the Democratic party, archeo-conservatives take a right turn at the 1950’s and head straight on back to the 4th century where cities used to build sturdy walls to keep out invaders and the homogeneous nature of society was maintained by simply killing anyone who looked a little different than you or your neighbor.

Of course, Buchanan doesn’t want to kill anyone - I think. But listening to him at times you wonder if in some of his darkest fantasies, he sees himself sort of as a “Shield of God” - Pope Leo holding back Attila the Hun and his barbarian hordes at the Gates of Rome with a bible in one hand and a sword in the other.

He is certainly an extremist. And now we can add “old woman” to his resume thanks to his new book, Day of Reckoning, where he wails that “all is lost” and America is finished:

• Pax Americana, the era of U.S. global dominance, is over. A struggle for global hegemony has begun among the United States, China, a resurgent Russia and radical Islam

• Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a product of hubris and of ideology, a secular religion of “democratism,” to which Bush was converted in the days following 9/11

• Torn asunder by a culture war, America has now begun to break down along class, ethnic and racial lines.

• The greatest threat to U.S. sovereignty and independence is the scheme of a global elite to erase America’s borders and merge the USA, Mexico and Canada into a North American Union.

(This is a small sample of Buchanan’s hysterics. Read the blurb at Amazon for a full frontal assault on common sense.)

Every few years, some fruit and nutcase comes forward and boldly proclaims the end of America as we know it and that it’s time to build the bomb shelter or, more prosaically, brush up on your survivalist skills, all the better to ride out the coming race war. Or maybe he thinks liberals are going to collectively grow a pair and drown the rest of us in porn, atheism, and gay rights parades.

Pax Americana” finished? Our era of global dominance over? That might be news to the mullahs in Iran and a few other leaders who don’t lose any sleep over what Russia or China might do to them if they transgress against the world order but lay awake nights wondering if a pack of F-117’s may be on their way to pay them a little visit. The military councils in these countries do not see America as “finished” or “weak” I can guarantee you. They can bluster all they want but their cold hard calculations of power recognize the fact that even with our hands tied in Iraq, we can bring a shattering force to bear against any nation on earth - without using our still superior nuclear arsenal.

Also, we might want to consider the fact that our $13 trillion economy is still 3 times bigger than our closest rival Japan and larger than the next 4 economies combined. We are the 800 pound economic gorilla in the room whose productivity is the envy of the industrialized world.

How this translates into America becoming a third world nation anytime soon simply boggles my mind. You have to deliberately ignore the facts to reach any conclusion other than America maintains a huge advantage economically and militarily over any other nation on earth.

And the idea that America is being torn apart by a “culture war” is ludicrous. There are the forces of secularization and modernization tussling with the forces of traditionalism and religious fundamentalism. There is nothing new in this battle. Substitute “pornography and secular humanism” for “demon rum and race mixing” and you have a snapshot of America a hundred years ago.

In many ways, I sympathize with the right in this struggle in that the denigration of western values and traditions by the forces of secularism and post-modernism have too much influence in our schools and in the culture. But Buchanan, who was one of the coiners of the term “culture war,” (he certainly popularized it), goes too far in portraying these philistines as evil rather than simply wrong. The former Nixon aide is an expert at demonizing his opponents by ascribing sinister motives to their machinations rather than simple wrongheadedness and stupidity - which is bad enough but hardly a reason to start moaning about the end of everything.

And Bush’s push for “democratism” is nothing new in American history. Indeed, the Wilsonian concept of bringing democracy to the heathen has been the one of the major thrusts of American foreign policy for nearly 100 years. And Iraq isn’t the first place the idea has gotten us into trouble. We’ve survived bigger mistakes and come back stronger than ever.

I will not dignify the conspiracy theory about a “North American Union” on this site. The less said about that kind of paranoid delusion, the better.

But Buchanan’s main thrust of his book is apparently that America is finished:

“America is coming apart, decomposing, and…the likelihood of her survival as one nation…is improbable — and impossible if America continues on her current course,” declares Pat Buchanan. “For we are on a path to national suicide.”

It could very well be that the nation state as a political entity is on its way out. Such predictions have been made since I was in books. But what Buchanan and those like him who only see what divides us totally miss are the powerful forces at work in America that keep us united.

Buchanan is rightly worried about the “invasion” of third worlders (mostly Spanish speaking illegals from Mexico and Central America) who are pouring across a border our government refuses to acknowledge much less defend. And there are some worrying signs that many of these illegals are immune to the siren song of the American dream, that they are perfectly content to remain in their “sanctuaries” and maintain a troubling separateness from the rest of America.

But Buchananites always neglect to note that many millions of legal immigrants become enamored with America and the opportunities she offers new arrivals. Those who bother to go through the painstaking effort to come here legally become citizens at just about the same rate as any other immigrant group in American history. They adopt American customs, mixing them as all immigrants in the past have done, with their own. They embrace the American way of life as enthusiastically as any other ethnic group. They work hard, pay taxes, learn English, start businesses, create wealth, and are a great big plus to our society.

Buchanan wants to stop all immigration - legal and illegal - while erecting a Medieval wall to keep out the riff raff.

Buchanan’s loss of faith in America to assimilate newcomers is not justified by history or the facts. There are many steps the government can take to slow the arrival of illegals and force the ones here already to leave voluntarily. But cutting off legal immigration would be a monumental mistake. It would cutting off our nose to spite our face.

The magic of America has always been its ability to absorb newcomers and immerse them into the American compact; work hard, play by the rules, and chances are you too can enjoy the fruits of what this bountiful society has to offer. Put simply, Buchanan doesn’t trust his own country. And I wish to God he would take his loss of faith and not try to foist his Medieval ideas of “homogeneity” on the rest of us in the process of trying to save us.

Yes we have enormous problems - political, economic, cultural. But to get up on a soapbox and announce that the end is nigh is simple hysteria-mongering. It may sell books to his faithful followers and a few curiosity seekers. But is is hardly a basis for political action by either party. Every one of Buchanan’s concerns can and probably will be dealt with eventually. In the meantime, we muddle along, doing our best, trusting that the future will be better than the present as previous generations of Americans did. The fact that they have always been proved right should count for something.

The United States has survived civil war, several horrible depressions, an invasion, two world wars, 120 million immigrants, not to mention various philanderers, crooks, nincompoops, political hacks, and incompetents who served as president. And now we’re supposed to pay any heed to Pat Buchanan’s warnings of imminent destruction just because he thinks the “culture” is being destroyed along with our “homogeneity?”

Get a grip, Pat.

Before my conservative friends get their panties in a twist about my skepticism and before my liberal friends start piling on because I’m just not being gloomy enough about the prospects for success in Iraq, l think we should all take a deep breath, step back, and look at what is happening there not through our partisan political glasses - rose tinted or otherwise - but with the critical eyes of observers who have been watching closely what has been going on for more than 4 years in that tragic, bloody country.

We are all aware of the the progress that has been made these last few months; the welcome drop in civilian deaths, the Sunni “Awakening,” the extraordinary progress made in rooting out al-Qaeda terrorists, and the curious but gratifying pullback in the south by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. All of this has combined to create the most important benefit of all in Iraq - the return of hope among the people.

This has been manifested by a return to old neighborhoods by hundreds of thousands of people who abandoned their homes during the worst of the sectarian violence as well as a cautiously optimistic re-opening of business districts previously shuttered due to the violence. It is apparent in many of the interviews with ordinary Iraqis who have voted on the success or failure of our change in strategy with their feet by venturing out and about to sample the nightlife of Baghdad once again.

All but the most unreconstructed liberal (or partisan Democrat) have cheered these events. The reasons for this success vary depending on which side of the political divide you are on. “No one left to kill” say liberals. “It’s the performance of our military,” say conservatives.

Both are right. Both are wrong. And both left out a few details as well.

There are parts of Baghdad that will never see a Sunni Iraqi again just as there are parts that will never see a Shia again. In many neighborhoods, after homeowners were given 20 minutes to pack and told to leave or forfeit their lives (many being executed anyway), Shias and Sunnis moved in to those houses and occupy them to this day. Prime Minister Maliki has a program that pays the squatters to leave if the neighborhood votes to have the original home owner return. But whole neighborhoods were emptied of Sunnis and Shias in Baghdad and there is no doubt that part of the reason for the drop in sectarian violence has been the simple fact that the sects are no longer in close proximity to each other in most of Baghdad.

Our professional military has done more than its fair share as well in helping tamp down the violence. Showing the Iraqis that we have no intention of leaving a neighborhood after it is swept and cleared has given the people confidence to inform against al-Qaeda and the insurgents. This intel has led to information from interrogations that precipitates more raids, more intel, ultimately making the neighborhood much safer.

Our war against al-Qaeda will someday, according to one officer at the Army War College, become a textbook example of rooting out terrorists and insurgents hiding inside a civilian population. The success of this phase of our counterinsurgency plan has shocked even its planners. If the world were fair and the press unbiased, this would easily be the story of the year - the near destruction of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Is it too early to be touting General Petreaus as Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year?”

Then there’s the Sunni “Awakening.” The reason I put that in quotes is because no one is sure - least of all our commanders on the ground who have made this point abundantly clear - just how this “Awakening” will play out.

It pains me to see a note of triumphalism creeping in to some pro-war blogs and columns. I share their enthusiasm for the good news but not their apparent blindness to the dangers of making allies of former enemies - especially enemies whose goals have not changed; America out of Iraq. Some of these Sheiks have truly changed sides and are working with us eagerly on security issues while being open to reconciliation with the Shias - as long as they are treated fairly.

But there are many more tribal leaders who view this marriage of convenience with our military as a lull in their blood feud with the Shias. This is extraordinarily bad news if we can’t differentiate between who our true friends might be and who are future enemies are certain to be. To these Sheiks, no political reconciliation is possible with the government as long as it is made up of Shias like Maliki and his sectarian gang. What they might do if the Iraqi government would be more to their liking is anyone’s guess. But as StrategyPage.com has pointed out many times, many of these former Baathists are nationalists who will never voluntarily give up power to the Shias and despise the Americans for propping up the Maliki government (who they see as little more than a sectarian thug who has murdered thousands of Iraqi Sunnis).

From all that I’ve read both in media here and overseas, it appears to me that an unknown number of these Sheiks and militia leaders - perhaps less than a majority but that would be a guess - will eventually return to their insurgent ways. In short, we will eventually have to deal with a reconstituted insurgency. Hopefully, we aren’t giving them too many arms that would assist them in being any more formidable than they already are.

I hasten to add that this is not my analysis but has been talked about openly among our commanders as well as other observers around the Middle East. To them, it is not a question of if the Sunnis turn but when.

In the south, there is no other way to describe what is going on but a lull in the violence. The coming war between the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Organization for ultimate control of most of the population centers has been put on hold by Mookie, probably at the behest of his Iranian sponsors.

In fact, one could say we have achieved a kind of victory over the Iranians as we have forced them into what David Ignatius calls a “tactical retreat:”

[T]he recent security gains reflect the fact that Iran is standing down, for the moment. The Iranian-backed Mehdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr has sharply curtailed its operations. The shelling of the Green Zone from Iranian-backed militias in Sadr City has stopped. The flow from Iran of deadly roadside bombs appears to have slowed or stopped. And to make it official, the Iranians announced Tuesday that they will resume security discussions in Baghdad with US Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

I suspect the Iranians’ new policy of accommodation is a tactical shift. They still want to exert leverage over a future Iraq, but they have concluded that the best way to do so is to work with US forces - and speed our eventual exit - rather than continue a policy of confrontation. A genuine US-Iranian understanding about stabilizing Iraq would be a very important development. But we should see it for what it is: The Iranians will contain their proxy forces in Iraq because it’s in their interest to do so.

Of course, there is still infiltration by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They seem to have stopped inciting violence among their cadres as Ignatius points out but there is absolutely no evidence they have left the country.

It seems unlikely that the uneasy peace in the south will remain that way for long. Al-Sadr has been reorganizing his militia while at the same time, reaching out to some unlikely allies in the Sunni and Kurdish communities. He would like to broaden his base, removing the sectarian taint from his militia. So far, he has not had much success but its clear he is seeking allies for when he takes on the Badr Organization.

The Badr Organization is smaller but better trained, and is much more powerful politically, being the military arm of the largest party in Iraq, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (formerly the SCIRI). Both militias received various levels of training and assistance from Iran and still receive support from the mullahs there although the Badr Organization has been sidling away from Tehran since the establishment of the government. Their emphasis has been on infiltrating the Iraqi police and army.

Iran is seeking a Shia enclave in southern Iraq and will, according to some observers of Iran, use the Mahdi Army to achieve that goal once the American drawdown is well underway. The leader of SIIC, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, hates the upstart al-Sadr and will oppose any expansion of his power. Hence, the set up for conflict in the south once al-Sadr gets his act together.

Even what appears to be a permanent reduction in violence by al-Qaeda might be illusory. There is no sign that Syria or Saudi Arabia have much interest in seriously trying to keep their borders secure from terrorist infestation of Iraq. The feeling is apparently because they don’t want them in their countries either. Better they blow themselves up in Baghdad than Riyadh or Damascus.

All this would normally point to exactly the attitude that the Administration has taken relating to the spate of good news coming out of Iraq - cautious optimism.

Not so some commentators and bloggers on the right who have trumpeted the news that we are “winning” in Iraq with all the fervor of a newly baptized convert. The gloating is unseemly by some and is liable to come back and bite them in the butt. We even have Charles Krauthammer comparing what is going on in Iraq with the Inchon Landing during the Korean war and the 1864 turnaround of Union fortunes during the civil war.

That kind of hyperbole is nonsense. We don’t know what the situation is going to be like 6 months from now in Iraq - perhaps not even 6 weeks. There will almost certainly be more spikes in the violence despite the best efforts of the tribes and the US military. Those increases in the body count will not doubt bring equally stupid cries from the left about stupid righties who were “taken in” by the government or some equally nonsensical claptrap.

The situation as it is now in Iraq is just that - the situation now. No more, no less. It would really, really help if the Iraqi government got off its behind and took this extraordinary opportunity that our men and women have bought and paid for with their blood and sweat to get busy with trying to reconcile with those Sunnis willing to join the government. And there are Sunnis out there who wish to reconcile, including the large, diverse National Public Democratic Movement made up of dozens of tribes centered around Ramadi as well as The Iraq Awakening out of Anbar province that enjoys widespread local support among the Sheiks.

What is happening in Iraq now has been referred to by some in the Administration as a “window.” I think they are correct. What must be done is to cement as many of the Sunnis as possible to the fortunes of the government while continuing the fight against al-Qaeda and trying to find a way to neutralize al-Sadr.

How much we accomplish relating to those goals in the next few months will tell the tale about whether the gains we’ve made using our new counterinsurgency strategy, so hard fought and exhilarating though they might be, are to be permanent or not.

I never thought I’d witness it in my lifetime. The paranoid left, aided and abetted by universal access to the internet along with an educational system that has stopped teaching young people the mechanics of thinking rationally, has apparently broken through and gone mainstream.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.

And that’s not the only conspiracy theory with a huge number of true believers in the United States.

The poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe Washington is concealing the truth about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination - and most everyone is sure the rise in gas prices is one vast oil-industry conspiracy.

Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Only 30 percent said the 9/11 theory was “not likely,” according to the Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

While there is certainly enough paranoia on the right about 9/11 and “The New World Order,” black helicopter conspiracies, the driving force behind 9/11 truthers, Kennedy conspiracists, and Area 51 nutcases has been the far left of American politics.

And with the advent of the internet, where their most outrageous conspiracy theories are given the patina of respectability, they have been able to capture the dim witted, the ignorant, and especially the young who have grown up without the benefit of learning how to think critically and rationally about the world around them.

To believe that people in the United States government - specifically Bush and Cheney but anyone for that matter - had advance knowledge of 9/11 and did nothing to prevent it is to believe that there is a monstrous evil abroad in the land - that the President of the United States is as bad as Adolf Hitler, standing by while so many were killed. Variations of that theory have Bush pulling a “Roosevelt” (another, older conspiracy theory) who wanted to get into World War II so he did nothing despite prior knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack. In the expanded theory, Bush wanted to go to war in the Middle East for the oil.

For those with the critical thinking skills of a marmoset, such a formulation makes perfect sense. The only problem is that those who actually think about that idea for more than a few seconds realize the enormous problems for someone actually planning and carrying out such a conspiracy so that it has a chance of success.

Leave aside for a moment the fact that such a conspiracy would involve so many hundreds - perhaps thousands - of people in and out of government that the idea it could be kept secret is idiotic. The number of unknowns in executing such a plan are staggering. To believe in such a conspiracy, one needs to also believe in psychics and soothsayers. That’s because for such a conspiracy to achieve fruition, a series of events - many of which would have been impossible to predict - would have had to occur.

The problem for the truthers is that they are examining 9/11 after it happened so that what appears to be a logical progression of events and actions leading to a specific result is actually a mirage. There are forces and occurrences that no one could have foreseen at work as each step of the con piracy would have taken place thus making such a plan a crapshoot at best.

History does not unfold in nice, neat little vignettes where logic rules and the orderly progression of events can be measured and predicted like a mathematical equation. History is chaos. It is unpredictable because of the human element involved in its revelations. To believe in conspiracy is to suspend belief in reality itself and ignore the impact of randomness on events that is so obviously a huge part of history.

Oswald and Kennedy in Dealy Plaza, Dallas Texas, 44 years ago is so unlikely a happenstance of history that in order to get the two together on that day, in that location, conspiracists have had to extrapolate theories with no facts at hand to buttress them. They guess, they infer, they even just make stuff up. They create an entirely different past for Oswald - one not found in any historical record anywhere. He was CIA, or KGB, or an agent of Cuban intelligence. He was working for the mob, or the FBI, or the Secret Service. He was a patsy or he wasn’t even there.

The point is, they can’t all be right. What is missing is the brutal and boring reality that Oswald was in Dealy Plaza that day because of a random series of coincidences having nothing to do with any conspiracy but having everything to do with the arc of events related to Oswald’s miserable life. Add the random factor of a trip to Texas at exactly that time and that place by Kennedy and you have history in all its confusing, chaotic, glorious best.

An historical anomaly? Not hardly. Consider what happened during a real assassination conspiracy; the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the proximate cause for World War I.

The killing of Ferdinand is so impossible, so unlikely as to be beyond belief. And while there really was a conspiracy involving the Serbian separatist group, The Black Hand, the actual circumstances that led to Ferdinand’s death would have been rejected by a Hollywood studio for being just too fantastical.

The conspiracy had several assassins spread out along a motorcade route where Ferdinand and his wife would be taken to the town hall for a formal welcome. The first two assassins lost heart completely and failed to make an attempt. They were armed with bombs and pistols. Further along the route, another assassin made the first attempt on the Archduke’s life, tossing a bomb that bounced off Ferdinand’s car and landed behind it, exploding when a follow-up car passed over it. The bomb injured 20 people and shook up Ferdinand’s party considerably. The would be assassin swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped in the river - neither of which killed him. He was promptly arrested.

Also failing to act despite being armed with bombs and pistols were several other assassins standing nearby including young Gavrilo Princip. The 20 year old would get another chance shortly.

After a tense greeting by the mayor of Sarajevo, Ferdinand announced his desire to go to the hospital and visit those injured in the failed attack. Additional security for the Archduke was discussed but in the end, it was left up to the Serbian police to protect Ferdinand.

Meanwhile, young Princip, probably disappointed at his failure to carry out the plan, made his way to a deli to grab a sandwich. And here is where coincidence and the rule of randomness unite to make history.

Ferdinand’s driver, unaware of the change in destination and unfamiliar with the winding, confusing streets of the city, made a wrong turn down a street near where the bomb blast occurred. By chance, at the end of the street was the very same deli from which Gavrilo Princip was just now emerging with his sandwich. Realizing his mistake, the driver stopped and began to back up. But before he could get very far, Princip jumped on the running board and pumped two shots into the car, hitting Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. Both died within the hour.

Let us examine this from the perspective of a conspiracy theorist. Obviously, the driver is in on the conspiracy. Are we really supposed to believe that he innocently made a wrong turn down the very street that the assassin was waiting? And surely, the Mayor is part of the plot. If his welcoming speech as been 2 minutes shorter or longer, Princip would have not been near the deli and missed his chance.

How about the security personnel for the Archduke? Guilty! They could have added security along the route and failed to do so - a sure sign they were complicit in the assassination. And let’s not forget the Archduke’s own suicidal participation in this plot. After all, would he been killed if he hadn’t insisted on going to the hospital?

Most historians dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand because of these kind of random occurrences that simply cannot be predicted and would in many cases, scuttle the bud of a conspiracy before it had a chance to flower.

This has not stopped the paranoid left from positing the notion of history as conspiracy especially as it relates to 9/11. Part of this is certainly the way the left sees history in a deterministic fashion:

The conspiracy theory is the bastion of shadows and little or no evidence. It explains a famous or known event by appealing to the leftist dictum of “follow the money” or “look who benefits” as if actual evidence is irrelevant and personal ethics are just a farcical way for the rich and powerful to pull the wool over the eyes of everyone else. Whether it is the Kennedy assassination or the 9/11 attacks, conspiracy theories which pop up to counter the “official” tale of events share common characteristics.

As a historian, I come across conspiracy theories all the time. Progressive historians like Charles and Mary Beard made the conspiracy theory view of history a popular vogue for a while. They contended that the founders plotted the constitution as a way of aggrandizing their power and property at the expense of common folk, the evidence being that nearly all of the men at the convention were wealthy property owners and remained so afterwards, or became richer under the new system. Of course, this case is circumstantial at best and ignores the actual debates which occurred at the convention and afterwards on real political and philosophical issues.

Beard’s assertions inspired other historians to go into other historical episodes and see greedy conspiracies. The War of 1812 is a topic I study quite a bit and a topic with a historiography full of conspiracy theories, whether to steal Canada, Indian land, or whatever else, as opposed to the real issues of free trade and sailor’s rights which actually sparked the conflict. The conspiracy theory today is usually a way to cast the darkest aspersions upon the government in general and certain officers of the government in particular.

The mindset that can take an historical event and glean the truth from “who benefits” is absurd on its face. One need only look at the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, and the examine the make-up of Congress and Bush’s approval ratings today in order to totally debunk the idea. Democrats in control of government (and likely to increase their majorities and win the White House next year) while George Bush is seen as a failure.

If we are to believe that Bush & Company either allowed 9/11 to happen or actually planned and executed that tragedy, then one must look at the political situation today in order to validate those theories. Are we to believe it was part of the plan that George Bush would sink to historic lows of approval by the American people? Are we to believe that the fall of the Republican party was foreseen by the plotters?

Do these facts mean that the conspiracy is now no longer in operation, that it has been closed down? At what point did the plotters see the end of their machinations? After Saddam’s statue fell? After Bush’s re-election? When the first gush of Iraqi oil was stolen by the government (or their proxies, the oil companies)?

These aren’t idle questions. They are questions that must be answered by the conspiracists in order for them to prove their theories. They can’t, of course. For instance, to believe that the conspiracy was over with the 2004 election raises its own set of problems. For if the President knew there were no WMD’s in Iraq prior to the invasion, you would have to carry that idea to its logical conclusion that Bush wanted to lose the war. Otherwise, our victorious troops would find no WMD and expose the plot or at the very least, risk defeat by the Democrats in 2004 who would make the failure to find WMD an issue in the campaign. Or our defeated troops would never get the chance to search for WMD and the plot would remain intact. Of course, there would be such an outcry over our loss of the war that Bush would be defeated for re-election.

Remember, we are not seeing these events after they happen but rather we are planning to invade Iraq for the oil. How can we be sure Bush won’t get slaughtered in the election for not finding any WMD? As it is, the Democrats came within 100,00 votes in Ohio of winning, which would have destroyed the plot right there.

All it takes to dismiss most conspiracy theories is a little skepticism, a little critical thinking. But the skills necessary to examine conspiracies by applying logic and extrapolating outcomes based on reason and common sense rather than deterministic fantasies has been largely lost thanks public schools ignoring the necessity of teaching comprehension and cognition.

This was due to a widespread belief among educators that students are vessels to be filled with information rather than human beings who must be taught how to value and assess that information. There was also a belief that teachers shouldn’t bully students by imposing a specific worldview.

I sympathize with the argument but reject it from experience. The best teachers I had growing up did not tell me what to think. They taught me how to think. Bad teachers can’t tell the difference. But all it takes is one or two teachers who impart more than knowledge but rather habits of thought you carry with you for a lifetime and give a student the basics of approaching information with a rational and reasoned mind. I fear that the de-emphasis on teaching critical thinking skills prevents most younger people from attacking intellectual problems like conspiracy theories armed with the proper intellectual weapons to cull the truth from the nonsense. Couple that incredulity with the viral nature of the internet and you have a potent combination to spread the disease of ignorance with regard to conspiracies.

From believing in creationism to advancing theories about Area 51 and aliens, it is sometimes beyond belief how dumb people can be. Michelle Malkin has it about right; “The fringe is now mainstream.” And it is frightening to consider the idea that if this is so, what other kind of conspiracy theories can gain traction and eventually cause some real mischief.

The left has done a good job the last 30 years smearing our history, denigrating our accomplishments as a nation, ascribing all sorts of evil to our motivations, and generally highlighting America’s numerous shortcomings. Howard Zinn is an extreme example of this school of leftist thought. This is a one dimensional view of America that fails spectacularly in describing the people and events that have shaped America into the imperfect but basically decent vessel that it is today. But at the bottom of most of the left’s critique of America is the belief that powerful, evil, unseen forces are at work to oppress and rule the American people.

The fact that a majority now subscribe basically to that view should not surprise us. But it should nevertheless chill us to our bone marrow. For out of such paranoia arise dictators and tyrants. And with so many enthralled with conspiracies of one kind or another, it wouldn’t take much to see such a man as a savior on a white horse rather than the harbinger of disaster.

As the clock ticks toward midnight, the factions in Lebanon, unable to agree on a consensus candidate for president, have resigned themselves to the fact that they are about ready to enter unknown territory.

A constitutional vacuum is about to open up - if, as he has promised, soon-to-be-ex-president Emil Lahoud resigns as planned. What does it mean in practical terms? No one knows which is why pronouncements like this from Lahoud are not helpful:

Premier Fouad Saniora on Friday rejected a controversial measure by outgoing President Emile Lahoud ordering the army to enforce law and order after claiming that “risks of a state of emergency” prevail over the nation.

A three-article statement signed by Lahoud said: “The risks of a state of emergency prevail over all the territories of the Republic of Lebanon as of Nov. 24.

“The army is assigned the task of maintaining security and all military forces would be placed at the army’s service,” the statement added.

It said that once a “legitimate government is formed” the army command would coordinate its moves with it.

However, a statement issued by Saniora’s press office said the presidential measure is “not factual and not based on constitutional or legal authorities.”

It recalled that, constitutionally, only the government has the authority to declare a state of emergency, subject to revision by parliament in eight days.

The Saniora statement said Lahoud wants to allude that the nation is facing serious threats “at a time security prevails because the army maintains the nation’s security and protects the people’s safety.”

The statement concluded by stressing that the government is both “legal and constitutional.”

Lahoud has maintained for almost a year now that because 6 opposition ministers resigned from the cabinet, subsequent decisions taken by the Siniora government have been illegal and that the government itself is not legitimate.

It is unclear whether Lahoud’s statement is meant to urge the army to carry out a coup although by asking the military to “maintain security” until a “legitimate government is formed” while all but declaring a state of emergency, it is hard to interpret his statement otherwise.

In fact, Abu Kais at From Beirut to the Beltway writes that even if Siniora insists on maintaining his position, the cabinet no longer controls the military:

Although Lahoud did not directly call for state of emergency (post corrected), he handed over all security matters to the Lebanese army, meaning the cabinet would no longer have power over it. AFP quoted an official in the Siniora government as saying Lahoud’s statement “is not valid and is unconstitutional…It is as if the statement was never issued.”

One more unknown in a sea of unknowables.

Meanwhile, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri has rescheduled the presidential vote for November 30. As the majority bends over backward to accommodate the opposition by not taking advantage of the constitutional option open to it and electing a president by simple parliamentary majority, some have taken the government to task for this inaction:

Now that the “opposition”, including Nabih Berri, has adopted Aoun’s “initiative”, March 14 finds itself, yet again, outmaneuvered. After living in the Berri-esque illusion that Bkirki’s list will be respected, March 14 rediscovered the dishonesty of its opponents. Over the past month, the “opposition” successfully managed to prevent the parliament’s majority from electing a president through distraction and deceit. Hours before the constitutional deadline expires, the Syrian-puppet president is preparing to announce measures designed to prevent the Siniora cabinet from assuming power. Lahoud is armed with Hizbullah’s blessing and the complicity of Michel Aoun. March 14 is counting on assurances given by Berri that the “opposition” will not escalate the situation if a president in not elected through a majority vote.

March 14’s Fares Soueid said the movement is waiting for Lahoud’s announcement before taking such a step. Sadly, March 14 deputies came to parliament today and consented to a postponement, forfeiting their constitutional right to holding such a session. Considering that Berri couldn’t hold his end of the French-sponsored bargain, it seems strange to this blogger that so much faith is still being placed in his promises, and in reaching agreement with him.

It should be clear that Lahoud is not bound by any arrangement Berri may have made with the majority. It should also be clear that Hizbullah and Aoun have been using Berri to buy time and keep March 14 from convening its deputies. One wonders if March 14’s current strategy, which is sadly being pushed by Jumblatt and Hariri, will cost them the country.

The feeling is widespread among March 14th supporters that their leaders have not taken advantage of the legal mechanism open to them and simply elected a president by majority vote. The feeling seems to be “Let Hizbullah do their damndest and to hell with Michel Aoun.”

I can understand their frustration but speaking as an outsider and a supporter of the government I sympathize with the majority’s plight. They have been well and truly trapped ever since the opposition ministers walked out of the government almost exactly a year ago. The government of Lebanon - any government - was dependent on the cooperation of Hizbullah both for legitimacy and to get anything done. Once that cooperation was withdrawn (with the realization that Nasrallah has no intention of granting it again unless he gets to call the shots) everything that has happened between then and now could have been foreseen.

The assassinations, the war with Israel, the constant, unyielding pressure on the government to compromise is being cheered on in Damascus if not planned and carried out on President Bashar Assad’s orders. Only Syria benefits from the chaos that threatens the peace in Lebanon. Despite the United Nations moving forward with the Hariri Tribunal - almost certain to implicate Syrian officials in the political violence that has taken place in Lebanon - they are moving glacially. And if the government changes hands, peacefully or otherwise, the chances of that Tribunal getting any cooperation from Lebanon vanishes. In that case, it is very difficult to see how the Tribunal will be able to do its job properly - something devoutly wished by Assad and his henchmen who UN prosecutors are convinced are involved in the assassination of the ex-prime minister.

There are precious few options left for the majority. It seems clear that by next week’s deadline, they will either have resigned themselves to the prospect of civil strife by electing a president themselves or will continue to dither, hoping lightening will strike and the opposition presents a candidate who would be acceptable to them.

The latter prospect is not in the cards which is why it is more than likely that eventually and reluctantly, the elected majority government of Lebanon will take the fateful step of thrusting aside opposition objections and, being constitutionally empowered to do so, will elect a president by simple majority vote. What this action will precipitate is anyone’s guess. Anything from violence in the streets to the opposition setting up their own president and cabinet and calling it the “legitimate” government of Lebanon is possible.

A “sea of unknowables” indeed.

UPDATE

Street celebrations are underway as Emil Lahoud leaves office. What is his legacy?

Emile Lahoud packed the sack and evacuated the hilltop Baabda Republican Palace at midnight Friday, leaving behind a record of two Syrian-sponsored constitutional amendments that placed him in office … and kept him there for nine years.

A cheerful crowd took to the streets of Beirut’s Tarik Jedideh district to celebrate the end of Lahoud’s term in office chanting “Lahoud out.”

Lahoud, 71, also has a long list of leftovers: Four military aides behind bars, 12 unsettled political crimes, a split nation struggling to avoid renewed civil strife and a vacant presidential office waiting for the election of a new head of state who can patch up a people that cannot agree even on one answer to a simple question: Who is the enemy?

Sounds more like an indictment.

Speaking of indictments, when will justice be served?

In 1998, Syrian President Hafez Assad sponsored a constitutional amendment that allowed Army Commander Lahoud to run for Lebanon’s top post.

The Syrian-controlled parliament responded, not only by adopting the Assad-inspired constitutional amendment, but also by unanimously electing his chosen candidate to Lebanon’s top post.

Blessed by “the father”, Lahoud enjoyed another constitutional amendment inspired by the late Syrian President’s son-heir Bashar Assad in 2004 that kept him in office for three years more.

Shortly after Lahoud received the second Assad Blessing, Communications Minister Marwan Hamadeh survived a car-bomb attack on Oct. 1, 2004 and the list of serial killings rolled:

Ex-Premier Rafik Hariri, Minister of Economy Basel Fleihan, columnist Samir Qassir, former leader of the Communist Party George Hawi, TV journalist May Chidiac, Defense Minister Elias Murr, MP Jibran Tueni, Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, MP Walid Eido and MP Antoine Ghanem.

The Assassination of ex-MP Elias Hobeika in 2002 also remains a mystery.

No coincidence, all the victims were prominent opponents Lahoud, or both Lahoud and Syria’s dominance over Lebanon.

I have said it many times but it bears repeating; the similarity between the Syrian regime and a Mafia crime family are striking. Both use intimidation and murder to achieve their ends. Both set up “protection rackets” to soak their victims. Both are made up of a small, vicious cadres of lieutenants who are loyal to a crime boss.

Read the whole article by Mohammed Salam, one of Naharnet’s most insightful writers.

UPDATE: 11/24

Gateway Pundit has a good round up and some telling photos of Lebanese celebrating the end of Lahoud’s presidency.

I know, I know. We simply can’t let a Thanksgiving go by without being made to feel simply awful as a result of rapacious white Europeans betraying and eventually murdering Rousseau’s “noble savage” in bunches. This line of thinking leads to a rather interesting conclusion; Europeans should have stayed in Europe, allowing only Asians to emigrate to North and South America.

If European naval technology had been just a little less advanced, we very well could be speaking some Asian tongue today - or perhaps even Polynesian given the enormous skill and intrepidness of their sailors. The last great migration from Asia may have occurred as recently as 6,000 BC according to some exhaustive yet controversial linguistic studies. But if European ship building improvements had lagged by just a couple of hundred years, North America would have been a ripe target for settlement by any number of Asian cultures. Then, it would have been rapacious yellow men who would have gotten tagged with killing the native population.

That’s because it didn’t matter who came, the clash of civilizations was inevitable. Failing to understand our early history in the context of the history of migrating peoples from the time that Homo Sapiens first moved out of Africa is shallow, stupid, and these days, politically motivated. It doesn’t absolve white people of murder nor does it lessen the tragedy of the destruction of native American culture. But thinking in these terms should animate our total understanding of the history of our continent and our country - something the modern day left, whose guilt-ridden diatribes against our ancestors always sounds such a discordant note on this, the most unique of American holidays, deliberately ignores in order to prove their solidarity with the oppressed.

All of that was in the future when the Pilgrims held the first Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621 in recognition of the help given to them by the Cape Cod Indian tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag. By that time, the Pilgrim’s numbers had been dramatically reduced by disease, losing more than half the number that landed at Plymouth Rock. The Indians had no doubt contributed to the survival of the remainder by showing them how and where to fish as well as introducing them to some native American crops like Maize and beans.

But what we tend to forget about the Pilgrims is that they were not explorers or people inured to hardship. They were country folk from the Midlands of England - most of them were not farmers or possessing the skills necessary to begin a colony. They were simple townsfolk whose separatist ideas about the Church of England landed them in trouble with the authorities - so much so that they were driven out of the country. First to Holland, where their religious views were tolerated but where parents were concerned that the children were losing their essential “Englishness” and pined for the homeland. That’s when William Bradford made a deal with the London Company for a land patent and the crossing was planned.

So here they were, arriving in the waters of the New World in early November, 1620 but not making a landing until nearly a month later. It was then they began to hack a civilization out of the wilderness. Whatever skills they had with the ax or hammer, they were forced to perfect while constructing a few rough hewn buildings over the winter of 1620-21. Only 47 of the original 102 Pilgrims who began the crossing survived to see that first spring.

The Mayflower stuck around until April, 1621, supplying the colonists with whatever food they couldn’t beg, trade for, or steal from the Indians. They were poor hunters, had few firelocks, and were not familiar with the local fauna so were unable to procure food through the gathering of nuts and berries as the native Americans did. The Indians worked diligently to remedy this and by the summer of 1621, the Pilgrims were nearly self-sufficient.

Thanks to Massasoit, Sachem of the Wampanoags who had signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims earlier in the Spring, the new Americans were able to plant, tend, and harvest their first crop with little trouble. It wasn’t much. A peck of corn meal for each family a week (a peck is 8 dry quarts) during the winter along with some salt fish. They supplemented this with wild fowl they hunted and trapped. All in all, barely enough to survive on. But considering their hardships suffered during the previous year, it seemed bountiful enough that they were able to entertain and feed 90 Wampanoags and the entire colony for a week of feasting.

These were hardy, determined people who put up with difficulties almost all of us today would never survive. We tend to forget that these first Pilgrims made something out of absolutely nothing with just a few tools and the sweat of their brow. And a nice assist from the Wampanoags who had their own selfish reasons for helping. A devastating plague - probably an extremely virulent form of smallpox that the Wampanoags caught from French traders - reduced their numbers dramatically leaving them vulnerable to their enemies, the Narragansett tribe. No doubt Massasoit eyed the Pilgrim flintlocks with more than a little envy.

I realize that many native Americans are not celebrating today. More the pity for them. Recognizing the achievement of the Pilgrims, taken by itself as an admirable effort by people regardless of their color to survive and prosper in a hostile and unfamiliar world, should elicit the praise of all who can appreciate their extraordinary accomplishments. What followed may have been a tragedy. But don’t take it out on the original Pilgrims. They lived in peace with the Indians for 50 years, long after the last Mayflower survivor died.

Perhaps we could leave this tiny corner of American history alone this year by allowing us the pleasure of remembering the Pilgrims for what they were; brave souls who conquered their fears and with an indomitable spirit, created a settlement of Godly men and women who were able to express their religious beliefs freely as an example to all.