Right Wing Nut House

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech in Utah at the American Legion Convention on Tuesday that appears to have brought out the very best of lefty hypocrisy, hand wringing, and faux outrage. For that, perhaps the DoD can mint a new kind of medal for Rummy and award it in lieu of any of his rosy Iraq scenarios coming true. At the very least, the Secretary’s speech proved that his usefulness to the cause of victory in Iraq and the War on Terror is not entirely at an end.

Despite his numerous shortcomings - pointed out here and elsewhere - Rumsfeld has always fulfilled his duty as spokesman for American military policy by supplying an excellent intellectual/historical framework for our actions. My beef has never been with his general defense of the war but rather with his Pollyanish responses to what has specifically been happening on the ground in Iraq. In this, he is no different than any other administration spokesman whose overly optimistic assumptions and scenarios about Iraq have been proven wrong time and time again.

But the Secretary has, according to the left and their fair-haired boy Keith Olberman, committed the cardinal sin of using historical analogy to critique their utter blindness about the consequences of leaving Iraq before some kind of stability is achieved as well as their continuing disbelief that the War on Terror is anything except some kind of gigantic political game being used by Republicans to win elections.

Rummy’s choice of 1930’s England was, in my judgment, a poor one (as was Olberman’s laughable choice of the same time period to respond to the Secretary’s criticism). Poor Neville Chamberlain’s corpse has been dug up and displayed so much recently that the damn thing is falling apart already. In essence, Rummy’s analogy using 1930’s Britain and comparing the appeasement policies of the Democratic left with Chamberlain’s kowtowing to Hitler was, if nothing else, eloquently put:

Over the next decades, a sentiment took root that contended that if only the growing threats that had begun to emerge in Europe and Asia could be accommodated, then the carnage and the destruction of then-recent memory of World War I could be avoided.

It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among Western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored. Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated or that it was someone else’s problem. Some nations tried to negotiate a separate peace, even as the enemy made its deadly ambitions crystal clear. It was, as Winston Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.

One could write volumes about why Churchill was in the political wilderness, how his imperial ambitions regarding India had come a cropper of political reality and how he had angered his own party to the point that he had been stripped of his leadership positions. And people suspected - rightly so - that Churchill’s anti-Nazism while obviously heartfelt, was also a convenient way to tweak first the government of Stanley Baldwin and then Chamberlain. He may indeed have been a prophet but hardly pure of heart or without an agenda of his own. This made his critique of appeasement policy ring very hollow with most MP’s and caused a vicious push back by Baldwin especially who despised Churchill personally.

But please observe Keith Olberman’s towering rant against Rumsfeld last night and how he jumped on both the historical analogy with the 1930’s and this Rumsfeld observation:

And in every army, there are occasional bad actors, the ones who dominate the headlines today, who don’t live up to the standards of the oath and of our country. But you also know that they are a very, very small percentage of the literally hundreds of thousands of honorable men and women in all theaters in this struggle who are serving our country with humanity, with decency, with professionalism, and with courage in the face of continuous provocation. (Applause.)

And that is important in any long struggle or long war, where any kind of moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong, can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere.

Our enemies know this well. They frequently invoke the names of Beirut or Somalia — places they see as examples of American retreat and American weakness. And as we’ve seen — even this month — in Lebanon, they design attacks and manipulate the media to try to demoralize public opinion. They doctor photographs of casualties. They use civilians as human shields. And then they try to provoke an outcry when civilians are killed in their midst, which of course was their intent.

Rumsfeld is saying that America is right and our enemies are wrong and that anyone who doesn’t agree with that is “morally and intellectually” confused. But Olberman took that phrase and ran with it, positing the outrageous notion that Rumsfeld was saying that lefties who disagree with the Administration about Iraq are disloyal” and immoral:

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence — indeed, the loyalty — of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants — our employees — with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

How we get from Rummy accusing the left of being “morally and intellectually confused” to being “disloyal” is quite a stretch, except for those like Olberman who bristle at the notion probably as a result of a guilty conscience. How else to explain their reaction?

And being “morally confused” is not the same as “impugning” someone’s morality. If Rumsfeld wanted to say that, I suspect that he would have come out and said that war opponents were immoral. It appears that Olberman is having trouble understanding the English language, not surprising for the former Sportscenter anchor who once thought that a gay Republican journalist with a White House press pass would bring down the President.

Leaping to conclusions is the least of Olberman’s problems in his little speech. His laughable description of the Baldwin/Chamberlain analogy to Bush would have made great stand up material:

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s — questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience — needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

In the immortal words of that famous movie Defense Secretary Albert Nimzicki in Independence Day, “That’s not entirely accurate.”

Confusing myopia with conspiracy is just about par for the course for Olberman, whose paranoia becomes much clearer later in his screed. The facts are a little more prosaic in that Chamberlain, while knowing of Germany’s many violations of Versailles also had other fish on the griddle in Europe at the time including having to deal with the clear and unmistakable designs of the Soviet Union on the Baltic states as well as his having to deal with the fact of French weakness and defeatism.

Chamberlain’s myopia lay in his belief - exploited by Hitler to the fullest - that Germany as a buffer against Soviet aggression in Eastern Europe was an absolute necessity. The French were weak, divided, and willing to avoid war at all costs. Sacrificing the Czechs was unconscionably cynical but, by Chamberlain’s lights, necessary. The later excuse that Munich gave England time to rearm doesn’t wash as much as his cold, calculations of power politics, realizing that without the Czech betrayal, Chamberlain would have to go to war and destroy the only military that could stop Soviet expansion which was wrongly seen as the true threat to the continent at that time.

The fact that there was almost universal support for this policy in Great Britain sort of gives the lie to Olberman’s contention that Chamberlain’s government “…[D]ismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s — questioning their intellect and their morality.” There simply were no critics outside of Churchill and a few cronies. There was no political opposition to speak of in Parliament. Churchill, for all intents and purposes, was alone. First Baldwin and then Chamberlain’s undermining of Churchill had as much to do with their personal dislike for him and his overweening ambitions as it did with any concern they had that the future Prime Minister’s critique would damage them politically.

But the guts of Olberman’s criticism is very basic; that dissent does not equal disloyalty. The fact that Rumsefeld never mentions the word “disloyal” or “patriotism” explodes Olberman’s basic premise. If being “confused” is the same as being “disloyal” 95% of the Congress could be placed in that category.

What makes Olberman’s rant even more problematic is his belief that any critique by the left of the Administration must not be answered at all. The very act of the Administration defending itself is a way to stifle dissent and put liberty in jeopardy. So despite being called a liar, a fascist, Hitler, a dictator, and any number of other charges made by liberals, the very act of answering their inanities proves their point.

Convenient, no?

And what happens when critics like Olberman put on their tin foil hats and go on national TV to spout nonsense like this:

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

That’s right. Olberman is saying that the President and Vice President of the United States may have personally profited from the war in Iraq. In other words, the President of the United States went to war to personally enrich himself.

Note that he doesn’t say that, but only hints at it. Indeed, as with all the loony left conspiracy theories, they practice a technique used by salesmen to lead the customer to the “right” conclusion. Instead of saying “We went to war because Bush/Cheney are greedy, heartless bastards who wanted to personally get rich off the profits of Haliburton” they instead add a caveat (”inadvertently”) and leave the conclusion (Bush + War + Personal fortune) for the listener to finish. This has the virtue of making them sound almost reasonable - except when you take their logic to its obvious conclusion.

Finally, Olberman uses an Edward R. Murrow quote to ostensibly prove his point about dissent. What he inadvertently ends up doing is proving that he is a certified idiot:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Perhaps Olberman should practice what he preaches:

“Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically” (from the war)…

There is not one iota of proof that Bush has personally profited from the war. But according to Murrow (Keith’s hero), we must remember that “accusation is not proof.” So why the accusation?

One must conclude that Olberman is either a blundering idiot or, like most lefties, so blinded by speaking truth to power that he simply can’t make the connection between Murrow’s words and his own off base, unproven, ridiculous charges.

I suppose we better get used to this idea that criticizing liberals for their stupidity on Iraq or the War on Terror is proof that we are slipping into a dictatorship. Of course, the criticism will continue which means that someday, liberals are going to have to declare that either they were wrong or that we actually live in full blown banana republic style dictatorship. Since the chances of liberals ever admitting they were wrong are about as good as bringing the dinosaurs back to life and the idea that we will ever slip into a dictatorship under Bush almost as far fetched, we can expect this meme, like so many others advanced by the left over the years, will fall by the wayside once they discover another avenue of attack.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today, we’ll look at what’s going in Iraq. And we’ll have an extended look at the remarks made by Secretary Rumsfeld to the American Legion in Utah and the lefty reaction to it.

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When the government of a free people is flush with almost two trillion dollars of its citizen’s monies, the very smell of all that largess draws the hucksters, the flim flam men, the fakes and phonies in addition to the virtuous to Washington.

The city is awash with cash money. Cash for campaigns. Cash for lobbying. Cash for fat federal contracts. Cash for government consulting. Cash for consulting with businesses doing business with the government. Cash for showing businesses how to get fat federal contracts in the first place. Cash for the native guides who, like the Himalayan Sherpas assisting climbers of Mount Everest, shepherd the bewildered yokel through the maze of federal regulations and the dizzying array of alphabet soup monikered bureaucracies, all manned by self important little people with an agenda and a fiefdom to protect so that their clients can reach Nirvana; the federal teat.

Like some kind of out of control pyramid scheme, the cash moves up the chain from bottom to top with the most lucrative business going to the small cadre of lobbyists who can grab the brass ring - your very own, personal earmark or tax exemption, or legislatively friendly line hastily written in the dead of night into some innocuous bill worth millions of dollars to your company.

Whose keeping track? A few million here. Several hundred thousand there. Since no one sweats the small stuff, the game continues and it adds up somehow to billions coursing through the cracks in the system opened by greed, apathy, and a cynical belief that no one cares because no one is really paying attention.

And the physical manifestation of this rape and sodomy of the taxpayer is on display in the conspicuous consumption of the inhabitants who live, work, play, and spend their money in the surrounding suburbs of Sodom:

The three most prosperous large counties in the United States are in the Washington suburbs, according to census figures released yesterday, which show that the region has the second-highest income and the least poverty of any major metropolitan area in the country.

Rapidly growing Loudoun County has emerged as the wealthiest jurisdiction in the nation, with its households last year having a median income of more than $98,000. It is followed by Fairfax and Howard counties, with Montgomery County not far behind.

That accumulation of suburban wealth, local economists said, is a side effect of the enormous flow of federal money into the region through contracts for defense and homeland security work in the five years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, coming after the local technology boom of the 1990s. “When you put that together . . . you have a recipe for heightened prosperity,” said Anirban Basu, an economist at a Baltimore consulting firm.

The result is that the Washington area’s households rank second in income only to those in San Jose, eclipsing such well-heeled places as San Francisco and the bedroom suburbs of New York.

Of course, not all of this is the result of ill gotten or undeserved wealth. In fact, I would hope that the overwhelming portion of it was skimmed legitimately from the government. It’s just that it should be very distressing to anyone who loves liberty and its necessary companion of honest government to stand on a hill and look down on this scene feeling absolute horror and frustration at the place that the American government has come to rest in the early 21st century. Viewed from afar, one feels helpless, almost catatonic when contemplating the enormous effort that goes into devising ever more elaborate and inventive ways to separate the taxpayer’s money from government.

Certainly there are necessary and vital expenditures and businesses that cater to government in a variety of ways and serve the nation honorably in that respect. But then there are the shysters, the gimlet eyed lobbyists like Abramoff who, given enough money, can work miracles with politicians and bureaucrats. Those miracles can take the form of tax breaks geared specifically to your industry or even your individual business; earmarks that crowd legislation with unnecessary expenditures; and even re-arranging a few words or sentences in bills that could spell the difference of millions for a wealthy contributor or golfing buddy.

But the Ambramoffs of Washington are unimportant in the larger scheme of things. It’s the Duke Cunninghams with their reach into the bureaucracies where the real moneychangers operate. The discreet call from a hometown Congressman to the government contracts bureaucrat. Perhaps an invite to lunch or dinner. The shuffling of a few papers. And voila! Not quite illegal. Not entirely unethical. But the deed is done and the constituent is served.

They call it “taking care of the home folks.” What the taxpayers would call it if given the chance is unknown.

I am very happy for the people who live in those three counties around Washington that have now been declared 3 of the wealthiest places to live in the United States. And like good little capitalists, the denizens of those counties have recognized opportunity and grabbed for it. The overwhelming majority of them are blameless, only wanting success and to take care of their families the best way they know how.

But who do you blame? The system? Jesus Christ himself may have thrown up his hands in frustration at doing anything about these defilers of the temple of liberty.

Too much money. Too many compromises with ethics. Too much skirting on the edge of legality. Too many with their hands out and too many with their hands in the cookie jar.

Something has got to change. And the depressing thing is, I don’t even know where to begin.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today we’ll examine the car rampage in San Francisco and what it tells us about where we are in the War on Terror. We’ll also look at Iran and their ally Hizbullah. Did Nasrallah screw the pooch? Finally, Hitchens on Plamegate - don’t miss it.

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First, the straight take:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I cannot understand or excuse is statements like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the meantime, al-Maliki remains indecisive:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today we’ll have a little bit of this and a little bit of that…Iraq, the midterms, Hizbullah, and Russia. A potpouri of information I’m sure you’ll find interesting.

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What are your main sources for news and information?

I can tell you now that you and I are not typical in our preferences. The fact that you are reading this means you are one of about 13 million Americans who read blogs. And I’ll wager that you also get a lot of your straight news from sources on the internet as well.

But what of the rest of America? The most recent Pew survey finds that fully one third of us get most of our news online. This is actually a decline from their last survey done in 2004. The rest of America gets some of their news online but still rely on newspapers (40%) and broadcast TV to become informed with the old “Big Three” nets of ABC, CBS, and NBC still able to gather 28% of us in front of the tube on any given night.

The Pew Survey linked above gives a graphic and shocking picture of the changing information gathering habits of Americans over the last decade and a half. Perhaps most troubling is that nearly 20% of us apparently don’t bother to inform ourselves at all. Broken down by age group, it boggles the mind to think that 27% of 18-29 year olds don’t find it important enough - despite the dizzying number of news sources available - to watch or read hardly any news at all.

Should we worry about this? Every generation I’m aware of has looked at the generation coming behind it and wailed about how the republic will go to hell and a handbasket when the goofballs are old enough to run things. In the end, the goofballs grow up and things continue as they always have - somewhere between crisis and disaster. The world ain’t peaches and cream now and to posit the notion that it will get much better or much worse based on what somebody is like in their late teens or early 20’s usually comes a cropper of reality. The kids fall in love, marry, have kids of their own, and by sheer force of necessity, become responsible (or nearly so) citizens of the American republic. Some of them even remain liberal Democrats and the country survives although most become rabid Republicans after receiving their first paycheck and seeing how much the government takes out in taxes.

So the lack of interest by the current generation in the world around them should not be taken to heart. Times change, no more so than for the media business. After 50 years of concentration, a gigantic revolution is underway that presages a period where massive changes in not only the way we get our news but in the kinds of companies that deliver the news product will alter lifetsyles as well as our lives.

It is newspapers that are suffering the most in this revolutionary period. And, as this piece in the New York Times about the demise of news giant Knight Ridder makes clear, the reason is the same thing that killed the dinosaurs; utter and complete befuddlement as to what is killing them:

Today, many people in the newspaper industry are still scratching their heads over how and why a company with relatively high profit margins and a trophy case of 85 Pulitzer Prizes allowed itself to be wiped off the media landscape.

“Could anyone imagine 10 years ago saying that in 10 years, Knight Ridder would not exist?” asked Jay T. Harris, a former publisher for Knight Ridder at The San Jose Mercury News who quit in 2001 rather than make cuts that the company sought. “It was one of the strongest newspaper companies in America. How could you have a hand like that and play it in such a way that you would end up losing everything?”

The dismantling of Knight Ridder is a study of the hurdles facing publicly traded newspaper companies in a time of seismic change in the industry. The migration of readers and advertisers to the Internet, as well as rising costs and falling revenue, are threatening the financial well-being — even the very existence — of some of the industry’s most storied brand names.

Jeff Jarvis has been singing this song longer than almost anyone. His analysis - so simple yet so devastating - makes one wonder if there is any hope at all for “dead tree” publications who continue to lumber toward their own apocalypse:

1. Value: You have to provide value or, obviously, you’re worthless. And today in news and media, value is redefined. Value no longer includes delivering the commodity news everyone already told me. But value does now include listening to me and helping me create media alongside you. And value always equates to credibility.

3. Efficiency: There is no rule of journalism that says newsrooms and newspapers should operate as they always have. As I’ve said often, they must shed inefficiencies and resources put to commodities and ego and must find their true value. Return to No. 1.

It’s all about eyeballs. Wherever enough of them gather, the hucksters aren’t far behind. But as Jarvis points out, the eyeballs are not only getting harder to count, they’re also becoming rather demanding and selective in where they wander to. They want more than “news everyone already told me.” The value of the news is now shared between the actual information imparted and the way in which it is delivered. Is it easy to access? Do I have to wait 15 minutes until the network news sees fit to tell me about the Jon Benet story? Or can I just search and click to satisfy my aching eyeballs?

And what of a medium where customers are as important as advertisers? Who woulda thunk it? And just because you have the latest gew gaws and gizmos in the newsroom, does that mean that you’ve “modernized” and made “efficiencies?”

Knight Ridder just didn’t get it. In fact, the very process of their destruction reveals that not only didn’t they get it, it was depressing them that they didn’t even know what questions to ask:

When the sale was announced in March, Mr. Ridder said that Mr. Sherman had backed him into a corner. He said he was “upset” and “depressed,” and when the sale became final in June, he pronounced the day a sad one.

Nearly three dozen potential buyers were contacted when Knight Ridder went on the block, and 21 responded. All but two took a pass. (In addition to McClatchy, a consortium of private-equity firms stepped forward but never made a final offer.)

Analysts concluded that the paucity of bidders suggested there was no longer a market for big newspaper groups as a whole. But McClatchy’s ability to sell a dozen of the Knight Ridder papers after the sale indicated that individual newspapers had value. “No one would have anticipated that a year ago,” said Lauren Rich Fine, an analyst at Merrill Lynch. “A year ago there was a presumption that Gannett and Tribune were still buyers of groups of newspapers and that private equity would be very interested, too.”

I personally haven’t read a Chicago Tribune or Sun Times since last October when I bought a copy of both papers the day after the Sox won the World Series. I didn’t buy them to read but to save as historical curiosities. I had long since gotten most of the information on the game that I wanted to from on line sources. I had long since digested the replays over and over again on Sportscenter. I had already read the celebratory columns appearing in the newspapers in their on line editions.

Is this the future of newspapers? I certainly hope not. I know I am missing a lot by not buying the dead tree editions of both of those estimable news sources. And I hope that after this current shakedown in the business is done, what emerges will be a more consumer oriented, reliable, and yes less biased source for information.

The nation needs newspapers - in whatever form they take. Let’s hope that we can save something of this tradition so that the kind of in-depth look at issues and people we have come to expect on a daily basis from journalists will have an outlet that is as widely available as it is today.

TO ARMS! TO ARMS! The forces of darkness are gathering to strike a blow against liberty, justice, the American way, and…and…THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE!

The Electoral college?

Yes, it’s true. Not content to simply posit conspiracy theories about how Republicans steal elections, liberals have now set their sights on stripping America of one of her oldest and most cherished institutions. Now, gentle reader, before you scratch your head and ask the obvious question of who cares if we give the Electoral College the heave-ho, perhaps a little history lesson is in order. And who better to give it than I, Professor Moran, BFA, MS, and VAH (Very Amateur Historian).

WHAT IS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND DO THEY HAVE A FOOTBALL TEAM?

I’ll take the second question first, Mr. Trebek. Not that I’m aware of although I understand they’ve had some pretty wild keggers over the last 217 years. And starting in 1920 when the college went co-ed, it’s rumored that Toga Parties became all the rage.

Notwithstanding such juvenile shenanigans, the Electoral College is a product of one of the more divisive debates that took place during the Constitutional Convention. For a very educational and thorough examination of this history, I recommend you go here since I’ll be dealing with only the bare bones of what the institution is all about.

The College consists of electors, chosen by the states in various ways, that (ideally) reflect the outcome of the popular vote for President in that particular state. The number of electors is what’s important. That number is determined by how many Senators (2) and Congressmen (proportionally awarded based on most recent census) the state has. So Pennsylvania has 21 electoral votes because they have 2 Senators and how many Congressmen? Class? CLASS? WAAAAAKE UUUUP!. Thank you. Nineteen Congressmen is the correct answer.

The kicker is that it’s a winner take all competition. Whoever wins the popular vote gets all the electors from that state.

ISN’T THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE KIND OF ARCHAIC?

Depends what you mean by archaic. Given that liberals have voted against every major weapons system currently in use by the military (an exaggeration, but hey! We don’t call this site the RIGHT WING Nuthouse because we’re impartial!), perhaps they wants us to fight terrorism using bows and arrows…or spears. Do you mean archaic in THAT sense?

The answer is no. And like my sainted father used to say “Old things are best.” Many of the reasons for the electoral college are still valid today. Look at the election of 2000. Al Gore would have been President if he had carried one more state. That would have given him a grand total of 18 states voting Democratic. George Bush would have won 32 states and gotten nothing, nada, zip-i-dee-doo-da. This is exactly what the electoral college was set up to prevent. Al Gore, if he had won Florida, would have captured 8 of the 10 largest states and won the election by appealing mostly to urban and coastal constituencies. George Bush demonstrated broader support in the electoral college appealing to states in the north, south, east, and west. Bush, even though narrowly losing the popular vote, proved himself a much more national candidate.

And there are other issues to consider when thinking of ditching the electoral college:

First, the direct election of presidents would lead to geographically narrower campaigns, for election efforts would be largely urban. In 2000 Al Gore won 677 counties and George Bush 2,434, but Mr. Gore received more total votes. Circumvent the Electoral College and move to a direct national vote, and those 677 largely urban counties would become the focus of presidential campaigns.

Rural states like Maine, with its 740,000 votes in 2004, wouldn’t matter much compared with New York’s 7.4 million or California’s 12.4 million votes. Rural states’ issues wouldn’t matter much either; big-city populations and urban issues would become the focus of presidential campaigns. America would be holding urban elections, and that would change the character of campaigns and presidents.

Recently, California passed a law that would award the state’s 55 electoral votes to the winner of the most popular votes nationally rather than the winner of the state’s individual race for President. This is apparently part of a national movement to marginalize the electoral college and give the larger states (mostly liberal and Democratic) a bigger say in who is President.

To say this would be catastrophic to American democracy would not be overstating the case one bit. Done under the guise of the “one man, one vote” battle cry which is largely responsible for the permanent incumbency found today in the House of Representatives, the so-called “direct election” of the President would radically alter not only the way we choose a President but the presidency itself.

WHAT WOULD BE THE PROBLEM WITH DIRECT ELECTIONS FOR PRESIDENT?

Pete Du Pont sums up a couple of the major arguments:

Second, in any direct national election there would be significant election-fraud concerns. In the 2000 Bush-Gore race, Mr. Gore’s 540,000-vote margin amounted to 3.1 votes in each of the country’s 175,000 precincts. “Finding” three votes per precinct in urban areas is not a difficult thing, or as former presidential scholar and Kennedy advisor Theodore White testified before the Congress in 1970, “There is an almost unprecedented chaos that comes in the system where the change of one or two votes per precinct can switch the national election of the United States.”

[snip]

Third, direct election would lead to a multicandidate, multiparty system instead of the two-party system we have. Many candidates would run on narrow issues: anti-immigration, pro-gun, environment, national security, antiwar, socialist or labor candidates, for they would have a microphone for their issues. Then there would be political power seekers–Al Sharpton or Michael Moore–and Hollywood pols like Barbra Streisand or Warren Beatty. Even Paris Hilton could advance her career through a presidential campaign.

If we were to simply go by the popular vote to decide who’s elected President, several other major alterations would occur that would permanently change the landscape of our political culture.

* Candidates would concentrate on big states in their campaigns. Whoever the party nominees were, they would move to California, set up residence, and try to shake 40 million hands. An exaggeration of course. But a politician who already lived in California - say a Governor or Senator - would have an enormous advantage in any race for the Presidency. If such a candidate could run up a huge majority in California the task of getting 50.1% of the vote would become much easier. This begs the question; should one state have such an enormous say in who gets elected President? The state already supplies fully 20% of the electoral votes necessary to get to the magic number of 270. Can you imagine what a 5 million vote lead would mean coming out of California to a national candidate based on directly electing a President?

* Minorities would become marginalized. If you think candidates ignore the concerns of minorities now, you’ll love direct elections for President. More than ever, Democrats would take the minority vote for granted and Republicans would continue their half-hearted attempts at outreach. the rationale being, why spend time and money preaching to (or begging from)) the converted?

* Small states and rural areas would be slighted in national elections. Would a campaign that never visited Bucktooth PA or Watchoutforthatcroc FL be any fun at all? I doubt it. I think that we’d lose something if Presidential candidates only visited big states and big state TV markets. Somehow, watching a candidate interact with these simple folk gives you a handle on what kind of person they are, hence what kind of leader they’d make.

Finally, there is this to consider:

Finally, direct election would also lead to weaker presidents. There are no run-offs in the Interstate Compact–that would require either a constitutional amendment or the agreement of all 50 states and the District of Columbia–so the highest percentage winner, no matter how small (perhaps 25% or 30% in a six- or eight-candidate field) would become president. Such a winner would not have an Electoral College majority and therefore not be seen as a legitimate president.

So rather that trying to eviscerate the Electoral College, we should be embracing it. It was put in the Constitution to allow states to choose presidents, for we are a republic based on the separation of powers, not a direct democracy. And the Electoral College–just like the Senate–was intended to protect the residents of small states. As James Madison said, the Electoral College included the will of the nation–every congressional district gets an electoral vote–and “the will of the states in their distinct and independent capacities” since every state gets two additional electors.

What Mr. Du Pont doesn’t say and what the proponents of abandoning the Electoral College never tire of pointing out is that the Electoral College was put in place because our Founding Fathers didn’t trust Jefferson’s yeoman farmers any further than they could throw them - literally. They saw us common folk as rabble, a dangerous mob and in great need of guidance by men better suited to the task of governing by virtue of their superior breeding and education. The Electoral College was originally seen as a brake on popular passions and allowed for the wisest men in the country to gather once every four years to pick our national leader.

How the Electoral College has evolved over the years to reflect the will of the people in the various states in Presidential elections is one of the more fascinating aspects in studying the American government. In fact, since the choosing of electors is up to each individual state, the system is a hodge-podge of processes and procedures that functions largely out of respect for tradition:

Here is a list of how the different states have political parties choose who will be their electors. It also shows whether or not the electors’ names appear on the ballot in November. Finally, it indicates which states have passed laws to bind their electors. Not too many do, and even fewer have defined penalties for an unfaithful elector. Yet, of more than 16,000 electors in U.S. history, less than a dozen have ever voted contrary to the wishes of the people who elected them. Don’t you wish we could say the same about our other elected officials?

The evolution of the College from something akin to the College of Cardinals to a body that reflected the democratic will of the people didn’t take long. Electors running in each district usually made it clear who they would vote for President when the College convened. But the federalist impulse behind the invention of the college remains to this day, a demonstration of the recognition that we are indeed a federal republic. And getting rid of the Electoral College would go a long way towards destroying that idea.

WILL WE TOSS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ANY TIME SOON?

Not as long as the current political party situation remains unchanged. Republicans would be at enormous logistical disadvantage under such a system. Think of it like a war. Republicans have a lot more territory to defend than Democrats and thus, their resources would be stretched much thinner. To get to the magic number of 50.1% of the popular vote, Democrats would be able to expend a lot less energy and money to defend their own turf thus freeing them up to raid Republican strongholds. Republicans would have to fight off Democratic insurgencies in red states while carrying on an expensive battle in blue states to pick off a few voters here and there.

No wonder the idea is popular with liberals. It would maximize the influence of their strategic assets while diminishing the power of most of the people who disagree with them.

But hey! All for a good cause, right?

UPDATE

Good Lt. blogging a the Jawas:

Yes. The Democrats want the dense inner-city populations and their infinitely successful approaches to problems like education, crime and corruption to run the national government without regard to what anybody else outside of the large population centers might think.

Times have changed so much under the long dark night of Bushiburton fascism that the very democracy that was perfectly acceptable a decade ago has collapsed entirely and needs to be replaced with procedures favorable to urban liberal constituencies.

Du Pont puts the issue correctly. Mucking with the electoral college will basically disenfracnchise rural voters. Campaigns will not only ignore them but it is likely that Administrations will also give their concerns short shrift.

If Jimmy Carter didn’t exist, our enemies would have to invent him.

How the world avoided unmitigated catastrophe on this man’s watch is one of the great mysteries of the universe, on a par with finding proof that dark matter exists and how in God’s name Britney and Kevin are still married. His stewardship of our government in the late 1970’s will go down as one of the more curious episodes in the history of the American experiment, made all the more surreal today by his status as global nag and international defender of thuggish brutes.

How this man found himself on January 20, 1977 sitting in the oval office rather than the back porch of his peanut farm has to be considered one of the biggest accidents of history of all time.

It was Watergate, of course. And Gerald Ford’s perceived clumsiness. And the sour end to Viet Nam. And a turning inward by the “Me” Generation - all of which created a perfect storm of stupidity and a feel-good self righteousness that allowed a one term governor of Georgia (whose style over substance campaign entranced a media ready to be entranced by an “outsider”) to ascend to the highest rung of power in our democracy.

It wasn’t just incompetence, although he and his befuddled advisors never could get a handle on inflation, the economy, and most especially, the dirty necked galoots who ousted the Shah of Iran. And thankfully, the Soviet Union at the time had their own leadership problems with an old, infirm, and nearly senile Brezhnev, thus moving cautiously until they were absolutely sure they could get away with murder in Cuba, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and other points on the globe that were subsumed by the March of History.

In fact, it wasn’t until the last two years of this mountebank’s presidency that the Russians got rolling. If they had begun their assault on western interests a year or two earlier, God knows what the result would have been.

In this, we can look at Jimmy Carter whose very existence is the answer to the age old riddle “Is there a God?” This atheist is almost convinced that the only reason the United States and indeed the world survived the Carter presidency was because of the intercession of a Supreme Being who took pity on the American people and directed events in such a way as to mitigate this living representation of the Peter Principle’s ignorance and incompetence.

Since his ignominious landslide defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan in 1980 (that Carter never acknowledged as a rejection of his policies or personae), this strange and curiously myopic man, who flits and scurries around the world like a fruit fly in search of a rotting banana, has turned down the covers of his bed for some of the most unattractive and tyrannical despots on the planet. Arafat, Mugabe, the mullahs in Iran, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il - the list includes dictators with the blood of hundreds of thousands on their hands. It is almost as if, unable to purge the demons of his past in America, he is attracted to and defends those who have proven perfectly capable of some real life purges - men who are leaving a bloody trail in history and who owe much of whatever legitimacy they have to the need for this fakir to dance in the international limelight.

The most recent evidence showing how lucky the world was that this man was not vouchsafed 4 more years by the voters, thus saving the denizens of planet earth the nightmare of having to deal with a potential Superpower confrontation thanks to an emboldened Soviet Union challenging a hesitant and weak United States comes to us via an interview Carter gave to the Daily Telegraph.

His words drip with self righteousness when he talks about Britain’s Tony Blair:

Tony Blair’s lack of leadership and timid subservience to George W Bush lie behind the ongoing crisis in Iraq and the worldwide threat of terrorism, according to the former American president Jimmy Carter.

“I have been surprised and extremely disappointed by Tony Blair’s behaviour,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.

“I think that more than any other person in the world the Prime Minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington - and he has not. I really thought that Tony Blair, who I know personally to some degree, would be a constraint on President Bush’s policies towards Iraq.”

Projecting Carter’s own weaknesses onto Blair by accusing him of not “moderating” American policies is the heighth of hubris. Could it be that Blair was not interested in “moderating” Bush’s policies and, in fact, agreed wholeheartedly with them? This thought evidently never crossed Carter’s mind. This could be why most of his contemporaries in Europe held him in such complete and utter contempt.

And that contempt felt by European leaders was the result of Carter’s failure to understand the nature of a threatening world - especially when it came to countering Soviet moves all over the globe. The Europeans saw Carter’s hesitancy, his inconstancy and made their own decisions about American power. Their was a general softening of support for the US as European leaders like Helmudt Schmidt of Germany moved perceptively away from America and Mitterand of France openly courted the Russian bear by making favorable trade deals with the Soviets. Carter’s paralysis in the face of Soviet aggression was altering the balance of power in favor of Russia.

Has he learned anything since then?

But had he still been president, he says that he would never have considered invading Iraq in 2003.

“No,” he said, “I would never have ordered it. However, I wouldn’t have excluded going into Afghanistan, because I think we had to strike at al-Qaeda and its leadership. But then, to a major degree, we abandoned the anti-terrorist effort and went almost unilaterally with Great Britain into Iraq.”

This, Mr Carter believes, subverted the effectiveness of anti-terrorist efforts. Far from achieving peace and stability, the result has been a disaster on all fronts. “My own personal opinion is that the Iraqi people are not better off as a result of the invasion and people in America and Great Britain are not safer.”

It is very generous of Mr. Carter to inform us had he been President on 9/11 that he “wouldn’t have excluded going into Afghanistan” to go after al-Qaeda. The problem is in what he isn’t saying. Please note he does not mention regime change nor does he mention rousting the Taliban so that they would be unable to grant sanctuary to the remnants of al-Qaeda or any other terror group. Presumably, the terrorist training sites would still have been in operation as would the Taliban’s Sharia law which would have continued to treat women as dirt and the modern world generally as a plague. One might ask what the point would have been to attack al-Qaeda without attacking the Taliban but why make the poor fellow tie himself in knots trying to justify the unjustifiable?

And while it may be his opinion that the Iraqi people aren’t better off with Saddam gone, 80% of the Iraqi people themselves disagree which goes to prove that Carter has lost none of the minuscule amount of political acumen he was born with.

As for whether Britain and America are safer as a result of the Iraq liberation, it is impossible to answer that question. It is fashionable to say we are in greater danger but I would posit the notion that thanks to Iraq, we have greater awareness of the dangers we face hence are better prepared to meet them. In a world where Islamists are trying to kill as many of us as possible, there is no such thing as “safe” with or without the Iraq invasion. In the end, the question is irrelevant except as a political construct by the President and his opponents. And how you measure “safety” is completely subjective and hence irrelevant except in this political context.

Finally, we get this outrageous bias from the Telegraph along with some more Carter lunacy:

Asked why he thinks Mr Blair has behaved in the way that he has with President Bush’s belligerent regime, Mr Carter said he could only put it down to timidity. Yet he confessed that he remains baffled by the apparent contrast between Mr Blair’s private remarks and his public utterances.

“I really believe the reports of former leaders who were present in conversations between Blair and Bush that Blair has expressed private opinions contrary to some of the public policies that he has adopted in subservience.”

Bush’s “belligerent regime?” Freeing 50 million people from tyranny in Iraq and Afghanistan is hardly the actions of a “belligerent” administration. The term was deliberately used by the reporters and the depiction of the Bush administration as a “regime” which is more descriptive of a dictatorship than a democracy is outrageous. Only lefty loons believe the US has descended into dictatorship and to have it appear on the pages of a supposedly respected newspaper is despicable.

And so are Carter’s remarks about Blair. The British Prime Minister timid? In what universe? And Blair has disagreed with the Administration privately but not gone public with those disagreements which is the sign of a loyal ally, something Carter would know nothing about since his betrayal of the Shah of Iran (and others) which threatens to haunt is all for a long while and is indicative of the messianic streak in his personality. The man’s self righteousness knows no bounds which is why his lecturing of foreign leaders became so tiresome.

I just wish the world itself would tire of this jackanape. His performances have become parodies of themselves because with each appearance, he must become ever more strident and hateful to the President and to American policies. And as a genuine danger to human liberty, he should be denied a platform from which to spout his inanities.

Don’t hold your breath, though. He is a godsend to the anti-American European press and will always find a ready audience here as well for his rants. In that, as with other indignities we are forced to suffer with - like hang nails and crotch rot - we will not easily find a cure.