They start lining up before the sun rises. Men from all walks of Iraqi life. Older men in their forties and young men who look like they come straight from the playing fields of their schools. They come for two reasons; money and pride.

They come to serve the new Iraq.

They come even though they’re targets in an extraordinarily bloody war where their enemies routinely cut off the heads of their friends and neighbors. They are targets and they know it. The terrorists drive car bombs into the long lines waiting to sign up for the police and security services and dozens of their friends and relatives are killed or injured.

And still they come to line up before the sun rises to serve the new Iraq.

More than 700 Iraqi police have been killed since the fall of Saddam. The training is hard but the pay is good. An Iraqi policeman can earn $165 a month, which is above average for the country. And with unemployment running near 50%, one would think that getting recruits would be easy.

It is. But not because of the money. And they don’t enlist to help the Americans. They do it because they love their country and want to fight for the chance to have a say in what goes on in their lives. Even though the terrorists target them. Even though they recieve threats either left on their doors or whispered to them by neighbors. Even though they worry about what would happen to their families of they got killed in the line of duty.

Still, they come. They come for pride and patriotism. And they come because they want to serve.

The USA Today article can be found here.


Great article here by John O’Sullivan about American policy in Iraq. Very thoughtful, very clear. Wish Bush could say it like this.

President Bush and I sat down at the table to study for our debate thursday night with John Kerry. As usual, George took the seat against the wall-the one where you could BOTH study and watch TV. And since Monday Night Footbal was on (Redskins-Cowboys no less) I envied both his nimbleness and foresight which gave him such an advantage in our friendship.

“This debate’s on foreign policy? I asked incredulously? “How the hell did you get Kerry to come in the same room with you and debate something he doesn’t know anything about?”

“I’m just gonna let ‘im debate himself.’ said George with a self satisfied smile. “No need to say anything I haven’t been saying for the last few months, no sir.” George looked up from his pad of yellow legal paper and briefly watched the Redskins score another touchdown. “Kerry’s had more positions on Iraq than a west Texas prarie dog has holes.” he said. “Gonna be as easy as sweatin’ on a summer sunday.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a strategy.” I said. “He sounds mad on TV. Maybe he’ll try to come over and beat you up.”

George laughed a little. “That’s where I had my daddy’s good buddy Jimmah Baker outfox those eastern liberal fancy pants. Ole John can’t come out from behind his lectern and approach me like internet boy tried to 4 years ago.”

“Gonna be like shootin’ crappies in a can.”

The following is a list, by no means complete, of questions that still remain to be answered about Rathergate:

1. Who gave Burkett the documents?

This one’s a toughie. There’s been a lot of speculation in the blogosphere that the documents were created as early as February. A PDF stamp on one of the docs uses Feb. 6 as a creation date. Others point out that, if the docs were created on a general use computer like those found at Kinkos, the PDF stamp could be in error due to technical issues that involve not resetting the date/time stamp after a meltdown. What we know for sure is suspicious. Newsmax reports that an April 27 Kerry press release mentions “verbal orders” to suspend Bush for missing the flight physical dated Aug. 1 as a “fact.” One of the memos cites Killians “verbal orders” of Aug 1 to suspend Bush and includes the relevant AF Manual provision. So does the Kerry press release!The Kerry release did not cite news sources for these “facts” but rather “Aeronautical orders”...”

Perhaps the Kerry press release references a Bush TANG document dump that occurred in Mid-February. Efforts to secure any relevant material from White House documents that were released then have not been successful. At the very least, this connection is very curious. More than 4 months before Rathergate, the Kerry campaign had chapter and verse of Bush’s failure to obey “verbal orders.” It is therefore possible that the documents were fabricated between the time Bush’s TANG records came out in Februrary and the April 27th Kerry press release. This brings us to another question…

2. How did the fabricator have such detailed knowledge of Bush’s TANG records?

It isn’t just the terminology, font, typefacce etc. that’s suspicious it’s the fact that SOMEONE HAD DETAILED KNOWLEDGE OF BUSH’S TANG RECORDS TO MAKE THE FABRICATIONS BELIEVEALBE!

Bill Burkett isn’t this smart or clever. Whoever fabricated the documents would have had to pore over Bush’s TANG records and come up with the appropriate dates, personnel, situations, and perhaps most importantly, the tone and tenor of the memos that would match what’s known of Killian. (Remember, both granny Knox and General Strong said the memos “sounded” like Killian.) I’ve tried my limited best to search for these docs on the net and can’t find them. I’ve searched both candidates web sites as well as the White House site…no go. We know that the easiest way to get these documents (if they’re not on the net) was through 1 of 2 places: either someone from the press who was researching these docs or one of the campaigns. I may be wrong on this but if this would be true, it sure would be a curious coincidence.

3. What did the Democrats know and when did they know it?

Former Gore campaign aid Tony Coehlo claims that he heard of these docs floating around as far back as 2000. He even hinted that the docs were offered to the Gore campaign but were turned down (not likely but sure makes a good story!) Then all of a sudden, the docs resurface and it becomes general knowledge among press people pursuing the story that the docs exist and Bill Burkett has them.

“The American Spectator” article of 9/10 says that an oppo resarcher at the DNC had the memos 6 weeks before the CBS broadcast and that they had been seen by “senior staff members of both the DNC and the Kerry campaign.” Six weeks before the CBS broadcast would have been mid-July, right before the Democratic convention. If you’ve never been to a political convention, you wouldn’t believe the kooks, crazies, and political groupies that come out of the woodwork. They mill around hotel lobbys and coffee shops. It would not be beyond imagination to think that the DNC was able to get a hold of the memos at the convention…especially if Burkett was NOT the fabricator in the first place.

I think we can narrow down the time period to when the Democrats got a hold of these memos: sometime between April and July. They certainly had them before September. What’s unclear is did CBS force their hand? Recall that 5 days before the 2000 election the Gore campaign dumped the Bush DUI story on the press. Were they looking for a repeat performance only to be stymied by CBS’s rush to get the story out?

4. Why would Mary Mapes put Lockhart in touch with Burkett?

Conventional wisdom points to a desire to coordinate the attack with the DNC “Fortunate Son” campaign. But what if its something else? What if Burkett had access to other more “damaging” documents? One of the authenticators of the CBS documents told “The National Review” that there were many more documents that CBS wanted him to sign off on. Was Lockhart, who probably had the CBS memos already, digging for additional dirt by asking Burkett what else he had on Bush? Pure speculation but fun nonetheless.

5. Will we ever get to the bottom of all this?

Three things have to happen for the whole story to come out. First, someone with subpoena power and the ability to convene a grand jury would have to investigate. Since the crime occurred in Texas, one would think that some enterprising Texas prosecutor would jump at the chance for such a high profile case. Not so. Since the originals have either been lost or destroyed, these documents are FABRICATIONS not FORGERIES. If one takes a document and alters it, that’s forgery. If one makes up a document that never existed, that’s a fabrication. And since no monetary loss was involved, no felony was committed.

A federal prosecutor may have a case for fabricating military documents. But sinec these documents are purported to hvae come from the personal files of Killian, such a scenario is unlikely.

Congress may want to investigate but, again, don’t hold your breath. Judging from reaction to Rep. Cox’s letter asking for such an investigation, it probably won’t fly.

The second thing that’s got to happen if we’re going to find out the truth is that Mr. Burkett has to roll. Since it won’t happen in the context of any legal investigation, Burkett will have to tell his story to the press. Since he’s totally discredited with the MSM, watch for Bill Burkett’s story coming to a tabloid near you! Like Donna Rice, anything Burkett says after selling his story will be viewed as suspect and we’ll be left to ponder how much of what we read is the truth and how much is part of Mr. Burkett’s troubled imagination.

The third thing that has to happen is that the CBS external investigation headed up by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh will find out anything relevant. What most may not be aware of is Thornburgh’s animus towards Karl Rove. Rove sued Thornburgh back in the 1980’s over a campaign debt owed to him and won. How much does Thornburgh want to help Rove out by revealing CBS collusion with the Kerry campaign? Not too damn much. Put this one down as a blind alley.

The answer to #5 is probably not…unless the person who originally fabricated the memos comes forward. I suspect like Watergate’s “Deep Throat” that individual’s identity will remain a mystery.

UPDATE: One more question occurred to me…in fact, it was the first thing I thought of when I’d heard that Burkett had called Max Cleland on his cell phone in his car…

6. How did Burkett get the private cell phone number of an ex-U.S. Senator?

Clearly, you don’t get the phone number of Max Cleland (or, if Burkett can be believed Howard Dean) by looking it up in the Yahoo white pages. Burkett had been meeting with Mary Mapes throughout the month of August. Could Burkett have asked for those numbers in return for the first two documents that were turned over on Aug. 21? That would make the subsequent quid pro quo with Joe Lockhart more understandable.

THe “Spectator” article can be found here.

It was late August 1864 and President Lincoln was in deep trouble.

For nearly 3 1/2 years, civil war had raged across the continent. From Maine to Texas, brother bled brother as 1.5 million men marched across an increasingly desolate landscape as war took its ugly toll on the country.

In fact, much more than Iraq is today, the war had degenerated into a hopeless quagmire with no end in sight.

The Democratic party was licking its political chops. General Sherman’s army was stalled in front of Atlanta by confederate General Joe Johnstons’ guerilla tactics. Johnston used his cavalry expertly to cut Sherman’s long supply lines while manuevering his army to keep Sherman out of the Georgia capitol. Result: stalemate.

Farther north outside of Richmond in Petersburg, VA, Grant and Lee were giving an enormously bloody preview of World War l as their two massive armies squared off in trenches inflicting hundreds of casualties every day. Every move Grant made to break the stalemate was matched by a Lee countermove. In the process, Grant had lost more than 120,000 union soldiers killed or wounded just since April (at Cold Harbor in June, Grant lost 15,000 men in 20 minutes).

At their convention, the Democrats nominated war hero General George McClellan. Their platform was simple: The war is a failure and the north must negotiate with the south to end it. The Democrats wanted to use the good offices of the French and British to “mediate” the dispute. Everyone knew that the practical result of such “negotiations” would be two separate nations.

Republican operatives across the North told Lincoln that all was lost. They said that people in the north were tired of the war and that the President stood little chance of winning. Lincoln himself despaired. He had his cabinet sign a statement (a statement he wouldn’t let them read) saying “...it seems exceedingly probable that this administrtaion will not be reelected. Then it will be my duty to cooperate with the President-elect as to save the union between the election and innauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground as he cannot possibly save it afterward.”

Of course, Lincoln went on to victory. But what the election of 1864 showed, and why it’s relevant today, is that we should never underestimate the courage and determination of the American people to see something through to the end.

John Kerry has miscalculated. He believes he can bring up the spectre of the draft, of Viet Nam, of QUAGMIRE into the campaign and that he will ride this anti-war wave into the White House. But being a liberal elitist, he is out of touch with most Americans on the Iraq war. No matter that most Americans believe it might not be “worth it” in the limited sense that the pollsters have asked; no matter that a majority of Americans think the war might be going badly at the moment; it doesn’t even matter whether or not Americans think Bush “misled” them on Iraq.

It doesn’t matter because elections are not about the past, they are about the future. John Kerry will lose because Americans don’t really care much HOW we got where we are in Iraq, they only care how a candidate will take us to victory. Flip flops aside, Kerry’s “plan” to win the war is no different than the President’s-except, of course, Kerry will wave his magic wand and 100,000 Frenchmen will magically appear in Bagdhad.

There will be ups and downs over the next few weeks. Bush may stumble in the debates (more likely the MSM will SAY that he stumbled). Things could really start to go badly in Iraq. We could be hit with a very bad terrorist attack (that the loons of the left will probably blame on Bush). The point is, don’t get too down. Have faith in the American people.

Lincoln did…and won in a landslide.

_________________
You can always tell who’s a liberal: If it stands still, they want to regulate it. If it moves, they want to tax it. If it attacks America, they coddle it. If it disagrees with them, they destroy it.

It would appear that John Kerry has finally found his voice. His critique of Bush has sharpened noticeably and maybe…just maybe he has FINALLY settled on ONE position when it comes to the war.

Thank God it’s too late.

John Kerry may be the most dangerous man in the history of this republic, although Huey Long would give him a good run for his money. Unlike old Kingfish, Kerry’s potential for harm comes not from any confiscatory tax policies or tearing up the Bill of Rights; if John Kerry is elected his multilateral approach to both Iraq and the general war on Terror would fail utterly and miserably.

The problem is that failure means death for a great many americans.

Already, the europeans are making noises that they want to “negotiate.” With whom it’s not clear but the Spainish PM wants to convene a summitt of western and Islamic states for some kind of “reconciliation.” I take that to mean “we in the west apologize for trying to take your benighted people from the 15th century to the 21st century…after all you’re better off with lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, and believing that America and the West are the Great Satan.”

The UN is a joke and “old europe” is tired and pathetic. As an ally, I’ll take Poland over France any day of the week.

No one is quite sure how memory really works. The mysteries of how the mind processes information, stores it, and then retrieves it either deliberately or when prompted is, we’re being told by scientists, slowly being unravelled. Perhaps someday soon, we’ll know the exact sequence of electro-chemical reactions that lead us to remember,

For now, it’s enough just to say the words “9/11.”

*”Have you forgotten how it felt that day
to see your homeland under fire
and her people blown away?”

Early on in the coverage of the attack, networks made several decisions that to me, remain inexplicable. First, they decided, after a while, to stop showing footage of the planes hitting the towers, people jumping out of windows, and the towers collapsing. The reason for this decision was not just that it would be too “upsetting” for viewers but that it would cause Americans to get angry. For similar reasons, the networks refused to show images from ITV (Britains independent TV network) of Palestiniens and arabs dancing in the streets from the west bank to Baghdad. Our self appointed guardians of good taste and morals (whose highest rated shows are starting to resemble outtakes from the Playboy channel) took it upon themselves to try to quell the rage burning in each and every one of us as we watched, transfixed in absolute horror as those buidlings came down.

“Have you forgotten when those towers fell
we had neighbors still inside
going through a living hell.”

I personally believe they should play those damn tapes everyday. I don’t want NOT to be angry. I want to remember how it felt seeing those towers falling. I want to remember that I had to remind myself-so unbelievable were the images-that there were people…AMERICANS…in those towers…thousands of our fellow citizens…being crushed into powder as millions of tons of steel and concrete pancaked mercilessly, relentlessly to the ground. I want to remember how after a while I wondered why my voice was hoarse only to discover that I had been screaming in horror at the top of my lungs at the TV set without even realizing it.

And I want to remember the tears…tears of sorrow, tears of helplessness, and finally tears of rage.

“”I’ve been there with the solders
As they’ve gone way to war
And you can bet that they remember
Just what they’re fighting for.”

There is nothing wrong with anger. Some of us are old enough to have parents and grandparents who lived through Pearl Harbor. They’ll tell you where they were and what they were doing when the radio flashed the news of “this dastardly attack” as FDR put it. But 9/11 was different. As angry as our parents were the full extent of the damage was withheld from the American people for months. Casualty figures were lowballed and the damage to our armed forces was hidden-partly to keep information from the enemy but also to keep the American people in the dark as to just how naked and exposed the West Coast was to a Japanese attack.

No such cover-up was possible on 9/11. The entire attack was brought to us in living color into our living rooms and family rooms, the kitchen tables and bedrooms, at work, at play, anywhere we happened to be thanks to the all encompassing overwhelming presence of our national media. We’re wired…wall to wall, end to end, coast to coast. And because of that, 9/11 was truly a shared event. Not only did we share the images, we also shared the emotions of that day. And because of that sharing, we became one people…moreso, I believe, than at any time in the history of the United States.

“They say we don’t realize the mess we’re gettin in
Before you start your preaching
Let me ask you this my friend
Have you forgotten?”

Of course, it couldn’t last. The things that divide us; politics, race, religion, region, etc….are too powerful to be kept at bay for long. We are once again, riven with factions. Only this time, as Zell Miller pointed out, we have the uneasy feeling that the divisions have been created artificially…that the debate is not about direction the country is taking but about WHO is going to direct. It’s impossible to overstate how dangerous the game the Democratic party and their misbegotten minions on the far left are playing. In their zeal to bring down George Bush, they seem willing to risk the very existence of the United States as a nation in order to achieve power. That is why this election is so important. It is an election between those who see 9/11 as a cause, a rallying cry, a wake up call to protect our homeland from destruction and those who see 9/11 as simply a horrible tradgedy or worse, a dark plot by the President to seize power, tear up the constitution, and create a police state.

“Have you forgotten all the people killed
Yes some went down like heroes
In that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon
All the loved ones that we lost
And those left to carry on”

All of us are left to carry on…and remember.



*”Have You Forgotten” by Daryl Worley

Once upon a time, there was an anchorman named Danny. He lived far, far, away in a mythical land called “Bias.” In this land he had many friends, all of whom thought and acted exactly the same as he did. This made Danny very comfortable. As long as everyone thought and acted exactly the way he did, Danny didn’t have any worries at all.

Then, one day, a youngster from the land of Blogs showed up in Bias. And ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE! You see, this lad had DIFFERENT IDEAS! HE BELIEVED IN TRUTH! He believed in saying whatever was on his mind…even if that meant disagreeing with what Danny and his friends said was the truth. So Danny and his friends decided that, in order to protect Bias land they had to resort to extreme measures.

They had to kill the lad from Blogs.

Oh they felt bad about it. At cocktail parties and charity events they all said what a shame it was but that in order to protect Bias land, the lad from Blogs must be eliminated (they also felt not a little smugness and self satisfaction at the prospect…but that’s another story.)

The grisly task fell to Danny. He thought that, if he forged some documents showing that the lad was a shirker and a liar, that everyone else in Bias land would fall upon the hapless youth and eat him alive. It would be easy…after all, Danny had done it before. He was experienced in such matters. And since everyone in Bias land would believe whatever Danny said, there was no doubt that he would be successful.

Danny got in touch with his allies from the Province of Democ. He needed help if the assasination were to be carried out efficiently. Both Danny and the Democs set the date and time of the hit and waited.

At first, everything went smoothly. The documents were dumped on the people of Bias land and sure enough, there was an immediate outcry. “Liar, Liar” they all cried and surrounded the poor lad from Blogs. They made ready to destroy him when, all of a sudden, something miraculous happened. One tiny voice, a youngster named Buckhead, spoke up and said “Wait a minute…these documents don’t look…real…”

And the people stopped dead in their tracks. They had never heard of anyone questioning ANYTHING Danny said. It was heresey! How dare he! He must be from the Province of Partisan Political Operatives…the “evil empire”...the Death Star!

But Buckhead was persistent. With a brilliance never before seen or even contemplated in Bias land, he patiently showed the crowd that yes, the documents couldn’t be real, they had to be fakes. He showed that any 8 year old with a computer could have created documents that Danny said were more than 30 years old.
He also showed it was very possible that the forgeries were created with the help of the Democs who, for reasons too many and varied to go into here, were becoming increasingly unpopular amongst the people of Bias land.

To make a long story short, gentle readers (because I can see your very tired and want to go to bed) the lad from Blogs prevailed and Danny was totally discredited. And what of the people of Bias land?

They were never able to watch the news quite the same way again.

THE END