Ultimate Gun Blogger

If it ever makes it as a Weblog Awards category, John Donovan of Argghhh! wins, without a doubt.

Were the Qana Bodies Staged?

These questions and others are beginning to mount as the discrepancies in Hezbollah's versions of events start to fall apart:

On the morning of July 30, according to the IDF, the air force came in three waves. In the first, between midnight and one in the morning, there was a strike at or near the building that eventually collapsed. There was a second strike at other targets far from the collapse building several hours later, and a third strike at around 7:30 in the morning. There too the nearest hit was some 460 meters away, according to the IDF. But first reports of a building collapse came only around 8 am.

Thus there was an unexplained 7 to 8 hour gap between the time of the helicopter strike and the building collapse. Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters, in a press briefing, told journalists that "the attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear."

Gen. Eshel appeared genuinely mystified by the gap in time. He "I'm saying this very carefully, because at this time I don't have a clue as to what the explanation could be for this gap," he added.

The army's only explanation was that somehow there was unexploded Hezbollah ordnance in the building that only detonated much later.
"It could be that inside the building, things that could eventually cause an explosion were being housed, things that we could not blow up in the attack, and maybe remained there, Brigadier General Eshel said.

Eshel reported that as recently as two days ago, military intelligence reported the building area had been used by the terrorists for storage or firing of weapons. It was a bad place to cram dozens of women and children.

There are other mysteries. The roof of the building was intact. Journalist Ben Wedeman of CNN noted that there was a larger crater next to the building, but observed that the building appeared not to have collapsed as a result of the Israeli strike.

Why would the civilians who had supposedly taken shelter in the basement of the building not leave after the post-midnight attack? They just went back to sleep and had the bad luck to wait for the building to collapse in the morning?

What we do know is that sometime after dawn a call went hour to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. And come they did.

While Hezbollah and its apologists have been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there.

Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until the morning and only after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted.

There was little blood, CNN's Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping — sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building.

Rescue workers filmed as they went carried the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead.

But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. Their limbs appeared to have stiffened, from rigor mortis. Neither were effects that would have resulted from an Israeli attack hours before. These were bodies that looked like they had been dead for days.

Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting — reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue — place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.

The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage — from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on — have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood."

Assuredly, Hezbollah's supporters will accuse those questioning the Qana attacks as conspiracy theorists, so I simply advise that viewers view the evidence with their own eyes, and draw their own conclusions from there.

The photographic evidence below the fold includes images of the dead, and is not for the squeamish.

The child in the photo reputedly died when a concrete building weighting thousands of pounds collapsed upon her. There no visible blood or abrasions consistent with a building collapse. Neither the child nor the man carrying her show any signs of dust or debris one would expect in a building collapse. As a nation that watched the World Trade Center towers fall, beleive me, we know something about concrete dust.

The child in this photo also shows no signs of injuries—no blood, no disfigurement or crushing wounds consistent with a building collapse. The two men, one of which has been thoroughly reported on—show no signs of having been digging in rubble. Their clothes are unbelievably clean, especially the black fatigues that would so easily shown concrete dust. The sole role of the second man, "The Baby Carrier" in other photos captured by the assembled media has been to hold up dead children for the television cameras over a multi-hour period.

In a picture that hits the wires just one hour (9:06 AM) after the building collapse, a Lebanese Red cross member sits with bodies already displaying significant rigor mortis. According to Wikipedia:

Assuming mild temperatures, rigour usually sets in about 3-4 hours after clinical death, with full rigour being in effect at about 12 hours, and eventually subsiding to relaxation at about 36 hours.

About.com puts the timing of maximum stiffness at about 12-24 hours after death. These people were supposed to have died with one hour of these photos being taken.

A later photo of the bodies above, now under sheets. Again, no blood seeps through the sheets as one might expect from the crushing wounds of a building collapse, and the exposed bodies show no signs of appreciable dust. Note in particular the body on the far left, which has its hands thrust in the air, presumably because of the severe rigor mortis mentioned above.

Perhaps the most damning evidence of Hezbollah staging this event with bodies from a morgue. This young victim is again relatively clean and displays no evidence of the expected crush injuries. In fact, he displays no injuries at all, and no blood. Note there is no sign of dust whatsoever in his hair. Note the discoloration of the lower face and arm. This would seem to be consistent with the natural affect of decomposition on a body several days after death. Once more, the rescuers are clean as a whistle, not even having dust on their gloves.

"The Baby Carrier" with the only victim that actually appears authentic. Not that the child is heavily coated in concrete dust, unlike all the other victims shown. He is also the only victim in any photo that has concrete dust in his hair.

So, who do you trust? Do you trust the accounts of what happened as journalists parrot them from Hezbollah's statement of what happened, or do your eyes tell you something different.

I, for one, see clear evidence of a most revolting Hezbollah fraud.

Update: Followed up with Qana's Unanswered Questions.

Qana Media Coverup?

The more I see about the timeline in Qana, the more I doubt the story being told to us by the world's media.

Katherine Shrader and Kathy Gannon of AP make the strike and its effect seem immediate:

A three-story house on the outskirts of Qana was leveled when a missile crashed into it at 1 a.m. Red Cross officials said 56 were killed and police said 34 children and 12 adult women were among the dead. It was worst single strike since Israel's campaign in Lebanon began on July 12 when Hezbollah militants crossed the border into Israel and abducted two soldiers.

But we know that the immediacy of the collapse given in this timeline to be a false construct. Many hours before this AP story was released, the IDF had already reported that the building did not collapse until 8 A.M.

Shrader and Gannon did not question the rather unique makeup of the families hardest hit in the attack (my bold):

Israel suspended air attacks on south Lebanon for 48 hours starting early Monday in the face of widespread outrage over an airstrike on a house that killed 56 Lebanese, almost all of them women and children.

[jump to page 2]

Red Cross officials said 56 were killed and police said 34 children and 12 adult women were among the dead.

[snip]

In Qana, workers pulled dirt-covered bodies of young boys and girls dressed in the shorts and T-shirts they had been sleeping in out of the mangled wreckage of the building. Bodies were carried in blankets.

Two extended families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, had gathered in the house for shelter from another night of Israeli bombardment in the border area when the strike brought the building down.

"I was so afraid. There was dirt and rocks and I couldn't see. Everything was black," said 13-year-old Noor Hashem, who survived, although her five siblings did not. She was pulled out of the ruins by her uncle, whose wife and five children also died.

34 children. 12 adult women. Not a single adult male officially listed among them. How strangely asexual these "civilian" families seem to be.

The men were elsewhere as under-reported elsewhere:

In Qana this morning, the Katyusha squads took their rocket launchers and rockets from inside the buildings, fired off the rockets at Israel and then rushed back inside.

It seems increasingly probable that the Shalhoub and Hashem men were likely members of Hezbollah, involved in launching the very rockets at Israel that called in the counter-battery fire that killed their families that were hiding deeper in the building.

It also seems possible that the deaths of the Shalhoub and Hashem women and children came not as a result of the initial Israeli air strike, but because of secondary explosions more than seven hours later, explosions that would seem to be consistent with ammunition and rockets "cooking off."

Based upon the evidence emerging, it seems more plausible than not that Hezbollah men were responsible for the deaths of Hezbollah women and children, and over-exploited that fact for media consumption.

Somehow, this more plausible scenario gets little play from Shrader and Gannon and the rest of the media.

It must be the CNN effect.

Mel's Apocalyptic Statement

"F*****g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

There Are No Civilians Here

At least 56 Lebanese, including 34 children, died in an Israeli air strike on a neighborhood that Hezbollah had been using to launch rockets. The errant air strike killed 56.

Some were innocents. None were civilians.

Since 1982, Hezbollah—"The Party of God"—has spread throughout the Lebanese Shiite culture. Inspired by Ayatollah Ruhollah Sayed Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran, it is far more than just a terrorist group. Hezbollah sponsors social programs, runs hospitals, schools, and newspapers, and its political arm holds seats in the Lebanese Parliament and Cabinet. Hezbollah is involved in every facet of Shia life in Lebanon. A July 26 poll by the "Beirut Center for Research and Information" purports to show that 87% of Lebanese support Hezbollah's current war against Israel. For all intents and purposes Hezbollah is Shiite Lebanon, from cradle to grave.

This is Hezbollah.

So is this.

As is this.

As is this.

Hezbollah seeks to set up an Islamic government in Lebanon modeled after the one in Iran. Hezbollah officially supports the destruction of the state of Israel; the eradication of Jews from the Mediterranean. From birth, Hezbollah trains Lebanese Shiite to hate and desire to kill Israelis. It trains man, woman and child to do what they can to drive Israel into the sea and end the Jewish state. That is why Lebanese Shiites accept Hezbollah rockets, barracks, and weapons depots in their neighborhoods, and why those killed today will be celebrated as martyrs.

The 34 children who died in this Israeli strike were innocent in that they know no other way of life than to hate Jews. But they were not civilians.

Not in any way we'd recognize at all.

Update: The building collapsed almost eight hours after the Israeli air strike. The IDF thinks that Hezbollah explosives stored in the building may have detonated, causing the collapse.

Update 2: A.J. Strata has been following this story very closely. It seems Hezbollah was firing rockets from this neighborhood, and then running inside the building hit and others nearby for cover. They knew Israel would track the rockets back to their location and engage in counterbattery fire.

Hezbollah purposefully put children in a building in a combat zone and launched rockets from outside their location, knowing the Israeli response. Hezbollah targeted Lebanese children with Israeli missiles.

They served their purpose. They're martyrs, you see.

There are no civilians here.

Update 3: Staged.

Turtle Eggs and Cannons

"Abbey Road, Mexico." (l to r) Sean Quigley, John Donovan, Ward Brewer, and John Nowakowski, half of "Brewer's Bandits" on the DD-574/E-01 in Lazaro Cardenas. Mk4 20mm cannon in the foreground. Photo filched from Rob Harshbarger.

John Donovan of Argghhh! and the rest of Ward Brewer's crew are getting a lot of work done on the John Rodgers/Cúitlahuac as they continue to prep the destroyer to take the long trip from Mexico's west coast to Mobile Bay. The Mexican Navy is taking great care of them... perhaps too good of care of them. I'm jealous.

Read the latest posts at Argghhh! here and here to find out why.

Another "Deranged" Muslim Attacks

Another violent attack carried out because of religion, and once more, it isn't carried out by Methodists.

Six women were shot - one fatally - this afternoon at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by a man who told a witness he was upset about "what was going on in Israel."

Police spokesman Rich Pruitt said there was one shooter, who was apprehended without incident outside the Jewish Federation building at the corner of Third Avenue and Virginia Street.

"We believe it's a lone individual acting out his antagonism," said David Gomez, who heads the FBI's counterterrorism efforts in Seattle.

Authorities did not release many details, but the FBI said the alleged shooter was between 30 and 40 and agents were investigating the incident as a hate crime. When asked at a news conference if that meant the alleged shooter was Muslim, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said: "You could infer that."

Steve at Hog on Ice captures my frustration with this and other attacks from Muslims on civilian targets nearly perfectly:

Congratulations, Brave Muslim Warriors
Seattle is Safe From Pregnant Jewish Women

When will the political left figure out the difference between Israel and the Muslims? Notice I don't say "Muslim extremists." That's because the "extremists" have the moral and financial support of Muslims everywhere, and because the Islam we call "moderate" is more intolerant than the Klan.

The left excoriates Israel constantly for its "brutality," complaining that Israel kills civilians. Yes, Israel kills civilians. So does every country that engages in military action. Like all civilized (i.e. "non-Muslim") nations, and to a greater degree than most, Israel strives to avoid civilian casualties, but they still happen. As a result of Muslim provocation, of course. No one bothers to point that out.

Muslims, on the other hand, target civilians deliberately. The USUAL goal of armed Muslims is to kill civilians. Partly because they're barbarians, and partly because they generally lack the guts to take on soldiers.

Israel attacks a missile battery. The Muslims shell a suburb. Israel destroys an ammunition dump. The Muslims shoot up a playground. This is the way it has always worked. Yet the poltical left squeals in outrage when a Muslim civilian dies, and they accept dead Jewish civilians as though being a Jew justifies murder.

The left wets itself when anyone dares suggest that Muslim immigrants and resident aliens need special scrutiny, or that they might turn out to be disloyal. But the left isn't around to pick up the pieces when British Muslims or American Muslims who have never been oppressed in their lives blow up a subway train or kill random citizens with a sniper rifle. Actually, they ARE around. To tell us we brought it on ourselves.

Steve (read the whole thing, it's an impressive rant) goes on to advocate the conquering of Muslim countries and forcing them into submission, which I do not advocate.

Yet.

Ask me again after the next 9/11-scale terrorist attack on this nation.

Until then, these pinprick attacks by "unstable" Muslims make me view the rest of their co-religionists with deep suspicion and mistrust

They've earned every bit of it.

Inside the Sandbox

A soldier/son's wise perspective on Iraq at Blue Crab Boulevard.

Cindy Lied, SAGEBRUSH DIED!

Hot Air has a breaking story that Cindy Sheehan arranged a strawman purchase of five acres of land in Crawford, TX, on a concocted sob-story that the real buyer was a Hurricane Katrina victim trying to start over.

Oops. I bet that little detail wasn't supposed to slip out.

On the bright side, she couldn't loose any more credibility...

Update: Cindy's new themepark, Stalkerland.

Frog-Marching Tice?

This press release by the so-called "National Security Whistleblowers Coalition" is sure to get the progressive netroots in a tizzy (via Stop the ACLU):

On Wednesday, July 26, Russell Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and a member of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), was approached outside his home by two FBI agents who served him with a subpoena to testify in front of a federal grand jury. NSWBC has obtained a copy of the subpoena issued for Mr. Tice's testimony and is releasing it to the public for the first time. The subpoena directs Mr. Tice to appear before the jury on August 2, 2006 at 1:00 p.m. in the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr. Tice “will be asked to testify and answer questions concerning possible violations of federal criminal law." [To view the subpoena click here].

In response to the subpoena, Mr. Tice issued the following statement: “This latest action by the government is designed only for one purpose: to ensure that people who witness criminal action being committed by the government are intimidated into remaining silent.” He continued: “To this date I have pursued all the appropriate channels to report unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted [by the government] while I served as an intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA. It was with my oath as a US intelligence officer to protect and preserve the U.S. Constitution weighing heavy on my mind that I reported acts that I know to be unlawful and unconstitutional. The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state.”

Uh, yeah.

Are we to believe that the purpose of the NSWC is to protect those that illegally leak classified information to the media? I'm only asking, because that is what not only what Russell Tice did, but publicly admitted to doing.

The NSWC is calling this a "witch hunt," but when someone commits a crime, and acknowledges doing so publicly, what responsible authority can decide not to investigate the charges? This is akin to an arsonist standing outside of a burning abandoned, shouting "I DID IT!" and then expressing incredulity when he is taken down to the local precinct for questioning.

To cry foul when the government takes your admission seriously is perhaps even more deranged than stalking a fellow employee and acting surprised when you get disciplined for it.

Perhaps Tice is the only person that may be facing a subpoena at this time, but I strongly suspect that the NSWC is making so much noise because they are concerned that others in their merry little band of leakers might also wind up in front of a federal grand jury.

It appears Tice and his ilk are willing to be patriots only up until the point that they might have to deal with the legal consequences of their actions.

Chickensquawks.

What You Need To Know

The editors of Pajamas Media are providing by far the most comprehensive news and opinion round-up on the on-going war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, featuring frequently-updated news breaks from the world's media outlets, along with opinion and blog reporting.

N.Z. Bear is providing the eyes-on-the-ground, first-hand reporting from civilian bloggers in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Israel, in addition to round-up of bloggers around the world covering the conflict.

No news organization in the world is providing as comprehensive reporting as these two sites.

Period.

"Thank you from the bottom of my heart"

Listen to a gripping call to Pat Dollard from Susan, and Army wife and mother, on Pundit Review.

Hezbollah's White Phosphorus Lies

It was only a matter of time before Hezbollah and their gullible dupes in the media began applying the Terrorist Propaganda Cook Book to the present war in Lebanon, accusing Israel forces of using chemical and other "illegal weapons" against civilians.

The Sydney Morning Herald was all too willing to print these suspiciously vague allegations:

Killed by Israeli air raids, the Lebanese dead are charred in a way local doctors, who have lived through years of civil war and Israeli occupation, say they have not seen before.

Bachir Cham, a Belgian-Lebanese doctor at the Southern Medical Centre in Sidon, received eight bodies after an Israeli air raid on nearby Rmeili which he said exhibited such wounds.

He has taken 24 samples from the bodies to test what killed them. He believes it is a chemical.
Cham said the bodies of some victims were "black as shoes, so they are definitely using chemical weapons. They are all black but their hair and skin is intact so they are not really burnt. It is something else."
"If you burnt someone with petrol their hair would burn and their skin would burn down to the bone. The Israelis are 100 per cent using chemical weapons."

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has repeatedly accused Israel of using phosphorus bombs in its offensive.

Human Rights Watch, which has accused the Israeli army of using cluster bombs in populated areas of southern Lebanon, said it had not verified claims that Israel had used phosphorus.

"We are investigating but we haven't confirmed anything yet. We have seen phosphorus used before and we have seen it in the artillery stocks of the Israeli army in the north," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.

"Phosphorus shells do have a legitimate use in illuminating the battlefield at night. The offensive use of phosphorus would be a violation of international conventions."

If these charges seem to be familiar, it is because they are an echo of the exact same kind of charges popularized in a fraudulent documentary called Fallujah, the Hidden Massacre, from Italian Rai News24, an offshoot of communist-dominated channel Rai 3, directed by Sigfrido Ranucci.

I thoroughly debunked the half-truths and lies of this film back in November in a series of posts:

Rai's White Phosphorus Fraud

The Lies of Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, Part 1

The Lies of Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, Part 2

The Lies of Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, Part 3

The well-documented and irrefutable lies in Ranucci's film begin in the opening credits and do not stop until the final credits are over.

Hezbollah seeks to use these same dark libels without a shred of any evidence supporting their allegations, other than claims made by Lebanese doctors and government officials. Let's look at the claims made by the Lebanese doctor in the Sydney Morning Herald article again:

Bachir Cham, a Belgian-Lebanese doctor at the Southern Medical Centre in Sidon, received eight bodies after an Israeli air raid on nearby Rmeili which he said exhibited such wounds.

He has taken 24 samples from the bodies to test what killed them. He believes it is a chemical.

Cham said the bodies of some victims were "black as shoes, so they are definitely using chemical weapons. They are all black but their hair and skin is intact so they are not really burnt. It is something else."

Almost these exact same descriptions are used to describe many of the bodies shown in Fallujah, the Hidden Massacre. Chris Milroy, professor of forensic pathology at the University of Sheffield (England), had this to say about those bodies:

He reported that "nothing indicates to me that the bodies have been burnt". They had turned black and lost their skin "through decomposition. "

The simple fact of the matter is that the war in Lebanon has been going on for 16 days, and those people killed more than a few days ago would quickly begin to decompose in the summer heat. Conditions vary from place to place, but it is quite possible and perhaps even probably that those killed by primary blast efects from bombs or artillery fire and left in the streets would be black through decomposition, not the affects of some sort of "mystery weapon."

The classification of injuries caused by an explosive blast fall into four classifications:

• primary
• secondary
• tertiary
• quaternary

A thorough description of these kinds of injuries is available here.

Primary blast injuries—those caused by the pressure wave of a conventional military explosives, typically affecting soft tissues within the body but leaving little or no visible wound on the body—are highly consistent with the bodies described by the Lebanese doctor, providing that as ABC alluded to, bodies are often unrecovered for days.

This is the exact same kind of injury that killed Jordanian terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Had he not been recovered immediately—say, a major conflict was erupting around his body and it could not easily be recovered for days or even weeks—there is a quite distinct chance that if the environmental condition in his area were favorable, then his body would have been recovered, "all black but... hair and skin... intact," precisely as Dr Cham saw in Lebanon.

Now, let us look again at the specific white phosphorus comments made in this SMH article:

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has repeatedly accused Israel of using phosphorus bombs in its offensive.

Human Rights Watch, which has accused the Israeli army of using cluster bombs in populated areas of southern Lebanon, said it had not verified claims that Israel had used phosphorus.

"We are investigating but we haven't confirmed anything yet. We have seen phosphorus used before and we have seen it in the artillery stocks of the Israeli army in the north," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.

"Phosphorus shells do have a legitimate use in illuminating the battlefield at night. The offensive use of phosphorus would be a violation of international conventions."

White phosphorus munitions, despite the way they are described in this article, are not illegal, are not banned by any international treaty, and have perfectly legitimate military uses.

They are primarily used for smoke screens, but because of their incendiary nature, they are also useful against flammable targets. Hezbollah's rockets—more than 2,000 of which have been fired into Israel with up to an estimated 8,000 more remaining in Lebanon—are highly flammable, and a viable target for WP munitions.

White phosphorus shells are also useful as a psychological weapon against entrenched position. The U.S. forces in Fallujah used a combination of white phosphorus and proximity-fused high explosive shells to clear terrorist positions, as described here:

In a tactical trick called a "shake 'n bake," American mortars or howitzers would drop several white phosphorus shells as close as possible to an entrenched enemy position. The white phosphorus-saturated felt wedges would then deploy and fall to the ground, where some could potentially burn terrorists hiding in trenches and spider holes, but it would almost certainly obscure their vision, no matter what kind of cover they were under.

The terrorists, knowing that American forces preferred to use the dense smoke of white phosphorus to screen attacks, would panic, fearing they were about to be overrun. As the evacuated their entrenched ambush positions, high explosive shells were the fired to kill the insurgents flushed out in the open.

White phosphorus munitions are a normal part of the inventory for NATO forces, among others, and there is nothing illegal in their use. Some have complained that white phosphorus weapons are illegally being used against civilians. Would it be more palatable of these civilians were killed with other munitions?

The simple fact of the matter is that Hezbollah, by purposefully integrating their positions into civilian neighborhoods, place the lives of Lebanon's civilians in danger. Lebanese Shiites that support Hezbollah and allow Hezbollah to build bunkers, storehouses, and sniper nests in their homes should not be surprised or appalled when the Israeli military targets that position.

The arguments are recycled, the evidence contrived; there is no credible evidence that chemical or white phosphorus weapons are being used to target Lebanese civilians, and it is telling that the media are all too willing to be led down this same path of lies again.

Bringing the Rogers Home-Day 1

Ward Brewer and his team from Beauchamp Tower Corporation (Operation Enduring Service web site, blog) have arrived in Mexico City on the first leg of their trip to bring home the DD-574 John Rogers/E-01 Cuitlahuac (photos from NavSource Online), the longest-serving of the World War II-era Fletcher-class destroyers.

AA Action view from CVA-8 Hornet 14 May 1945 of kamikaze exploding over John Rogers (John Chiquoine via NavSource Online)

They will push on today to Lázaro Cárdenas, a Mexican port city in the state of Michoacán, where the John Rogers is currently berthed.

The blogging community is very lucky to have an exclusive on the repatriation of the Rogers, with milblogger John Donovan reporting in on Argghh!, and his first post form Mexico is already online.

Read it here.

I'll hope to have some additional commentary posted here on Confederate Yankee, and my brother phin will be chiming in as well, which isn't necessarily a good thing. He promised to reveal "deep, dark secrets" about me to Ward and John in exchange for the recipe for the Avocado Ranch dressing they use to lace the fish tacos he got addicted to on his business trips to the southwest.

Whatever the charge, I maintain my innocence, and will remind my dear brother that that particular street runs both ways.

Update: John has another post here, and the first pic.

The Illustrated Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald's fans will continue to deny his fraudulent nature as he wanders the golf courses of Florida looking for the real killers bed & breakfasts of Brazil looking for the "real puppeteers."

That said, Patterico's thoroughly damning Annotated WuzzaDem makes it very unlikely that ardent Greenwald supporters Ryan, Wilson, Ellison, Thomas Ellers, and Rick Ellensburg (who all disappeared when Greenwald was accused of sock puppetry, and who have not resurfaced since) will ever be heard from again.

"You're a Dead Man"

Those were the words uttered to George at Seixon this morning on his cell phone, from a person he believes to be none other than disgraced lefty journalist Jason Leopold.

This was after Larry Johnson's alleged threats against George and his family yesterday.

Several weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald—the official one, not one of his many assumed names we've since learned of—made the following statement in the comments to the post A Proud Member of the Toddler-Threatening Community:

There are random anonymous commenters who make repugnant comments all the time on blog. LGF linked to a post I wrote yesterday and I had people coming to my blog telling me to do the world a favor and end my life with an honor suicide just as my Muslim terrorist allies would do.

There is a big difference between comments of this sort coming from people who have influence and are known opinion leaders (like David Horowitz, Michelle Malkin, StopTheACLU, etc.) and some random individual who starts commenting on a blog. Trying to build up her importance in order to make her somehow representative of the "Left" is rather misleading.

So tell me now Mr Greenwald: does Jason Leopold constitute "a known opinion maker," as a "regular contributor" to CNBC and National Public Radio? Is he "representative of the 'Left'" as a writer for Alternet, CounterPunch, Common Dreams, Raw Story, and Truthout?

What of Larry Johnson, who gave the weekly radio address on July 23, 2005 for the Democratic Party, and wrote a July, 2001 NY Times editorial claiming a declining terrorist threat, and has appeared on many of the major news channels? I think he qualifies as well.

Larisa Alexandrovna, the managing editor of progressive news site Raw Story seems to be the most likely person to have given Seixon's name to Leopold, and she is certainly regarded as a representative of the "Left."

This is Glenn Greenwald's chance to go after three "known opinion makers" that most reasonable people would agree have likely conspired to go far over the line. this would seem to present Greenwald with the fight he seems to be clamoring for in the excerpted comment cited above.

What course of battle, then, does Greenwald choose today?

Why, attacking the exact same "random anonymous commenters" at LGF that he seemed to think were unimportant less than a month ago.

Perhaps with Wilson, Ryan, Ellison and Thomas also using that same computer, Glenn simply couldn't get online long enough to post a condemnation about the kind of people he personally states he thought were worthwhile condemning.

He'll get to it tomorrow, I'm sure.

"Everybody Gets Blown Up"

Patt Dollard has a new trailer posted for Young Americans. It's something over six minutes long, interviewing the survivor's of an IED attack on what appears to be a LAV-25.

As always, Dollard doesn't pull punches or attempt to script what the Marines say, so the language is raw, and perhaps not safe for work. In addition, there is some mild gore, with blood shown on the LAV-25 after the IED attack.

Pat is also collecting donations for an injured Marine Lance Corporal Benjamin Hardgrove:

Well, the very first night we got back to California from Iraq, Hardgrove was hit by a car and has suffered extensive injuries including severe brain damage. He is 20 years old. His mother is a fighter who has done everything she can to secure the best medical treatment possible. Half of all donations to Young Americans Media this week will go to Hardgrove's medical fund, and I am beginning to work with his mother, Jaime, to have another fund set up exclusively for him by week's end.

If you're able to help out, the PayPal link is at the bottom of Dollard's main page.

Update: More about Hardgrove here.

House of Cards

I've long held, as you see above, that "liberalism is a persistent vegetative state," but at no point could I ever have predicted that it was as inbred and corrupt as the story unfolding around Sexion, an American blogger living Norway, seems to indicate.

The entire sordid situation is too bizarre for me to accurately replicate, so I'll send you to Matthew Sheffield's explanation of events as they are currently understood.

Read it.

Seriously.

Because if you don't, the rest of this post won't make any sense.

Apparently, disgraced journalistic fraud and technorati-addicted freak Jason Leopold (hi Jason, yes I see you, go stalk someone else), several of Leopold's sockpuppet identities, ex-CIA Joe Wilson defender (man what a bad time for that) and former media darling Larry Johnson, and Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story (the liberal "Drudge Report") are all involved in a bizarre web of... well, I'm not exactly sure. But it involves fake sock puppet identities, attempts to discredit a Daily Kos diarist and Seixon, allegations of a conspiracy theory, and what appear to be threats against Seixon and his family by Johnson.

Read this post by Ace, and follow the whole bizarre thing at Seixon's blog.

Jason Leopold, a disgraced journalist with a history of admitted mental illness and drug addiction, allegedly created (and seems to presently create) false identities and false emails to attempt to discredit critics on the Internet. His former colleague at Raw Story, Larisa Alexandrovna, jumps in supporting these attempts to discredit at least one of these critics. A former CIA and State Department Counter-terrorism official, Larry Johnson, loyal to all things Joe Wilson, is apparently threatening bloggers and their families across international borders.

"crosspatch" offers a plausible explanation for these attacks in the comments of Sexion's latest post:

What it seems to be is that their whole community is based on faith. For example, that Bush "stole" the elections in 2000 and 2004 is a fundamental principle in their world. Now they have no actual proof of this and this is all based on a plausible scenario. When you begin to expose people like Jason as liars or catch them making thigs up or spreading falsehoods, it risks bringing down their entire community they have so carefully built and nurtured. In other words, what you are doing is speaking heresey. You must be attacked and run off so that you don't "poison the minds" of other believers. But unlike the rank and file "believers" people like Larry are in the college of cardinals on their religion. They have a great deal to lose. People like Johnson, Wilson, Dean, Kos, et al have much to lose if people don't believe their scenarios anymore. If people stop believing that Rove controls the world and that Rumsfeld is dictating Israeli military strategy, then their entire little empire is lost and they are no longer celebrities as their own status is reduced.

[snip]

You are being treated this way because you are a threat to Larry's status and all the "plausible scenarios" that have been trotted out to support the community that shares those beliefs. Fact is their enemy when it is at odds with their beliefs.

An interesting hypothesis.

Not surprisingly, this same comment would describe the motive for Glenn Greenwald's alleged sock puppetry and his reputed recent, after-the-fact "evidence tampering."

What do these liberal luminaries—Jason Leopold, Glenn Greenwald, Larry Johnson, Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame—and the rest of the "reality-based" machine have to lose if their house of cards falls apart?

Quite a lot, from several angles.

Financially, Greenwald, Wilson, and Plame all have current or future books whose success obviously hinges on the credibility of author.

Larry Johnson has quite the media career going for himself, with many appearances in major international media, but if his credibility is damaged or he is shown to be unstable(which seems to be a developing story), his media spotlight would quickly dim, and his value to BERG Associates would certainly diminish.

Likewise, (writer) Leopold's Truthout and (editor) Alexandrovna's Raw Story, leftists news sites with already questionable credibility, have much to loose if their writers and editors are caught as frauds, or show that they can be easily duped.

Of course, the much larger picture, which "crosspatch" correctly identified, is that if these and other central figures in the "reality-based" community are exposed as charlatans and dupes, then an entire series of allegations that form the potential base of growth for the progressive moment falls apart.

This is going to be fun to watch.

The Longest Trip Home

Long-time readers of this site know that one of my pet interests is Operation Enduring Service, an effort of not-for-profit Beauchamp Tower Corporation to make the best practical use of retired U.S naval vessels currently facing the cutting torches of scrapyards.

Most of my focus has been on one aspect of OES, the creation of a disaster response fleet I long ago dubbed the "Salvation Navy." Negotiations for that part of the program are currently being worked out at the highest levels of state and federal government, but another part of the program hasn't received as much attention, and that is the restoration of World War II-era warships, beginning with the DD-574 John Rogers, the last of the serving Fletcher-class destroyers.

DD-574 John Rogers served in the Pacific theater of World War II, serving in raids and amphibious landings in places with names like Tarawa, Wake Island, Bougainville, Kwajalein Atoll, and Guam, where Rogers fired more than 3,600 shells to knock out Japanense defenses. Rogers also served of Iwo Jima and the invasion of Okinawa, and in July of 1945, participated in what was the deepest naval penetration of the war. Destroyer Division 25's anti-shipping sweep that came within 1½ miles of the Japanese shoreline. John Rogers steamed into Toyko Bay in September of 1945, having fought in almost every major offensive campaign of the Pacific theater.

John Rogers was decommissioned after the war like many destroyers, and was transferred to Mexico in 1968. The destroyer was renamed the E-01 Cuitlahuac in honor of the Aztec emperor. On July 16, 2002, more than 60 years after being launched, the longest-serving Fletcher was retired by the Mexican Navy.

But that was not to be the end of the story.

On December 7, 2005, 65 years to the day that the Japanese launched an attack on Pearl Harbor plunging America into World War II, CEO Ward Brewer of Beauchamp Tower Corporation signed a transfer agreement to return the ship to American hands.

Tomorrow, Ward Brewer's team from BTC, milblogger John Donovan of Argghhh!, and documentary film crew will fly to Mexico to tow John Rogers from the Mexican Pacific coast to the shipyard in Mobile, Alabama where the last serving Fletcher-class destroyer will be restored for future genrations.

In the coming days, follow the story of the Rogers repatriation at Argghhh!, starting with John's first post, A Series of Fortuitous Events. I'll also have commentary here at Confederate Yankee.

It has been 63 years since the DD-574 was launched on the Texas Gulf Coast, but the John Rogers is finally beginning the longest trip home.

Update: The Operation Enduring Service Weblog is back up and running at a new address: http://www.btconline.us/mt.

Odd Man In

I haven't been paying too much attention to the Joe Liebermann/Ned Lamont Democratic primary battle in Connecticut, other than to read blog commentary from the progressive "Nedheads" and smirk, but this post has me thinking it could get a lot more interesting:

The most interesting question about the possibility that Connecticut Democrats could deny Joseph Lieberman renomination is whether that would help or hurt the senator's political prospects. Or, for that matter, the Democratic Party's.

That's because even if Lieberman loses the Aug. 8 Democratic primary - and the newest polling data says that is a real possibility - he would be a huge favorite for re-election as an independent come November.
And if that is the case, it would not be hard to write a scenario in which the real loser from a Lieberman defeat to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont might be the Democratic Party itself

That would especially be the case if Lieberman's good friend Sen. John McCain of Arizona becomes the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and picks Joe as his running mate.

There are a couple of good nuggets to mull over in just those few paragraphs.

First, what would a Lamont primary victory really mean?

It would be a huge victory for the Kossaks and their ilk, beating an incumbent with a progressive political newcomer (who is leading 51%-47%, barely within the margin of error, in the latest Quinnipiac University poll). But that moral victory aside, would the primary election cement a win for Lamont in "blue" Connecticut?

Probably not.

Primary voters in Connecticut, (or so I've read here and there) tend to be far more liberal than their fellow Nutmeg State voters, which seems be be true when you consider the state's electoral map in the 2004 Presidential elections. True, John Kerry trounced Bush in Connecticut 55% to 44%, but the county-by-county map shows a state that while Democratic in makeup, was hardly a progressive monolith. The state itself is solidly Democrat, but there doesn't seem to be an overarching affinity among Connecticut voters for the rabid netroots politics favored by Lamont's most vocal supporters. It is quite possible—perhaps even probable—that Lamont could win the primary battle, but lose the war for the Senate seat in a state that is Democratic, but moderately so.

And how Paul Brown think that this battle in Connecticut may affect '08?

If Lieberman were to win as an independent it would give him great influence, not just in the Senate, but as the face of a new politics that transcends party labels.

Although he has pledged to caucus with the Democrats if elected as an independent, he would be a bigger player than even today as the party's former vice presidential candidate.

And he would be an awfully attractive running mate for McCain, not to mention other potential Republican
White House hopefuls.

A fusion ticket with a Republican Presidential candidate (please not McCain) and Lieberman as a Vice Presidential candidate would be even more competitive than the Cheney/Perazzi ticket I've secretly been holding out hope for. Cheney/Lieberman, anyone?

Quite frankly, the Lamont primary challenge is tough to view as anything other than a liability for the overall Democratic Party's long-term chances, even if the Frothing Few think that a Lamont primary victory would be a long-term triumph for the netroots.

Look for the wailing and knashing of teeth to continue.

Prepare the Virgins

The U.S. military has churned through the Taliban over the past month, killing more than 600 terrorists during Operation Mountain Thrust.

Why isn't this on the front page at CNN.com?

Don't be silly. That "800-lb marlin spears fisherman" story is so much more a pressing world event...

Maryland Democrat Rapes Mail Order Bride

In Maryland, Democratic Senate candidate David Dickerson has just been charged with beating and raping his 19-year-old mail order bride.

The response from the nutroots was immediate and predictable.

Why Does This Seem Like Some Sort Of Set-Up??? Is He really a Democrat or just someone "posing" as a Democrat! You see, I've become way over the line "cynical" these days. I wouldn't put it past the Repukes to have someone out there stating he's a Dem, but all the while a Repuke.

I need MUCH MORE information & background on this one. I don't doubt that some Democrats can be THIS stupid, but right now??? Right before an election where the Dems seem to be gaining some ground?? I wonder.

Or shorter, "ROOOOOOOOVE!!!

This message brought to you by the Democratic Underground, where the nuts never fall far from the tree.

The Toddler-Threatening Community Rides Again

Not content to attack the individual children of Cheif Justice John Roberts and blogger Jeff Goldstein, they now wish to kill Alan Dershowitz's children:

Forgive me for this but Alan Dershowitz's children should be hit by a 5000 lb. bomb made by an American military-industrial corporation, sold to Israel, and misfired into his home. Then he can talk to me. I will offer my sincere condolences. Then we will get drunk and talk about relative culpability. I'm sorry Alan. You're scum. Among the people in history that would gladly bitch-slap you are Jesus, Buddha, Zoroaster, Socrates, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Nelson Mendala, Bishop Tutu, Pope John Paul II, and me. We'd all like to smack you for being a prick.

In Booman's defense, at least he didn't state that he wanted to molest them first.

h/t Protein Wisdom

Yo ho, yo ho...

... the pirate's life for me.

Err, well, not me, but I did have a tiny role to play in it.

John of Castle Argghhh! is going on a little boat ride that you have to read to believe.

The Silence of the Informed

Arlen Specter has written an Op-Ed in the Washington Post that is apparently giving the left side of the blogosphere convulsions this morning, entitled, Surveillance We Can Live With.

The section of Specter's editorial that seems to be giving most liberals fits is where Specter (according to them) misunderstands the Youngstown decision:

Critics complain that the bill acknowledges the president's inherent Article II power and does not insist on FISA's being the exclusive procedure for the authorization of wiretapping. They are wrong. The president's constitutional power either exists or does not exist, no matter what any statute may say. If the appellate court precedents cited above are correct, FISA is not the exclusive procedure. If the president's assertion of inherent executive authority meets the Fourth Amendment's "reasonableness" test, it provides an alternative legal basis for surveillance, however FISA may purport to limit presidential power. The bill does not accede to the president's claims of inherent presidential power; that is for the courts either to affirm or reject. It merely acknowledges them, to whatever extent they may exist.

Anonymous Liberal writes:

Good lord. Can someone please get Senator Specter a copy of Youngstown?

[snip]

Seriously, if Specter had written the above-quoted paragraph on a constitutional law exam, his professor would have flunked him. His description of the interplay between statutes and the president's article II authority runs contrary to the long-established Youngstown framework, which--as the Court's various opinions in Hamdan demonstrate--all nine of the current Supreme Court justices accept as controlling.

As Specter should know, there is a world of difference between what a president has the power to do in the absence of a statute and what he has the power to do in the face of a statutory prohibition. That's constitutional law 101.

Much has been made of Specter's willingness to legislate in the dark. He has, after all, agreed to sponsor legislation legalizing a program about which he has not even been briefed. But far more disturbing to me is his apparent inability to get his head around a basic principle of constitutional law. As I noted last week, the very wording and structure of his bill--like his op-ed--reflects a fundamental misconception of presidential authority. And there's really no excuse for that. Someone on Specter's staff really does need to sit him down and force him to read Youngstown. Or if he doesn't have time, footnote 23 of the Hamdan decision will suffice:

Whether or not the President has independent power, absent congressional authorization, to convene military commissions, he may not disregard limitations that Congress has, in proper exercise of its own war powers, placed on his powers.

Senator Specter, please pay special attention to the phrase "whether or not." That's the key. It doesn't matter whether the pre-FISA cases you cite in your op-ed held that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless surveillance. A duly enacted statute, like FISA, may nevertheless place enforceable limits on the president's authority. This is not controversial.

If this as not controversial as Mr. Liberal and Marty Lederman state, then why is this issue still being debated at all?

Surely, if the issue is as cut-and-dried as these folks seem to suggest, then the army of NSA staff lawyers that specialize is this area of law and have reviewed the details and legality of the program would have condemned the program before it was implemented.

And yet, in the years before the program was exposed by the New York Times, not one patriotic NSA lawyer has "leaked" the damning details of the story to defend the nation.

Nor has the program been a concern for the man in charge of implementing it, General Michael Hayden, who knew its details. Nor has it apparently been a concern for the NSA team in charge of the program's implementation and monitoring. If the program was so clearly out of bounds as all of these expert pontificators suggest with their thorough lack of knowledge of the program, certainly some of the incriminating details of the program would have found their way to the Times. And yet, the literally dozens of people who know the program best, including the NSA lawyers that specialize in this are of law and the professionals that implemented it, a bevy of White House Counsel, and career Justice Department lawyers, have kept mum.

For that matter, the ten FISA Court judges that were briefed on the program have also kept quiet; surely if they had objections, they could have resigned from the court with no penalty, sending a very loud message. And yet, they have refused to do so.

Are we to assume, then, that all of these federal employees, many of which have public service dating back to prior Administrations, are so willing to give up essential liberties and are such Bush sycophants that they would willing engage in the undercutting of the U.S. Constitution?

This seems to be at the root of the libertarian and liberal allegation, in my non-legally-educated mind. In their ever-present desire to condemn the Administration, they presume that those who do know the program best are willing accomplices to the undermining of the nation. I could perhaps accept this explanation if so many people were not involved, but that is not the reality of the situation.

Uninformed doubters are of course free to object to the program quite strenuously as they have and certainly will continue to do, but from where I sit, the silence of the informed speaks volumes.

"We are all Hezbollah now"

No, not this demonstration in London, but this equally shameless CNN reporting in Lebanon:

Politics creeps into the ward like the blood that runs on the floors. "Clearly he is Hezbollah," says one of the doctors outside the room -- sarcastically referring to 8-year-old Mahmood, whose screams can be heard from the hallway. His screams now blend with the wails of his mother, matching the baby's cries.

The hospital ward begins to teem with members of the international press. They all have blue flak jackets that say "press" on the front. They carry microphones, cameras, radios and satellite phones, and have local guides to translate.

Today, as I finish I am sitting in the same spot and the shells are still falling. Hezbollah rockets are firing toward northern Israel. I can imagine another reporter, in another flak jacket, standing over an 8-year old Israeli boy.

I'll finish by asking another question: Are any of us making a difference?

Certainly these "journalists" are trying to make a difference. CNN reports on this conflict have been reliably biased, and this is no exception, which becomes apparent if you read the rest of this article.

Focussing on the always sympathic victims, the women and young children killed and injured by Israeli bombs, the CNN reporter studiously avoids questioning the Lebanese Shia culture that supports and lionizes Hezbollah even now.

That would be too much like real, unbiased reporting, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

The Red-Faced League

As of late, Gaius seems to be channeling Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as he "finds" Sherlock Holmes comments on not one, but two unrelated instances of blogosphere sock-puppetry.

Among liberal bloggers, it's spreading like the avian flu.

Why Liberals Can't Win Wars

Ive seen some stupid posts reading liberal blogs, but with the exception of anything from Oliver Willis, this faux "we care about the troops" post from Billmon piggy-backing on Christian Science Monitor excretion (currently now offline—were they embarrassed of it?) might be the new gold standard:

Earlier this week I linked to a commentary from William S. Lind in which he warned that war with Iran could result in the loss of the 140,000 man army America currently has bogged down in Iraq. This may have seemed far-fetched, given the enormous military disparity between the two sides. But Col. Pat Lang, a former intelligence officer, explains how and why it could happen:

American troops all over central and northern Iraq are supplied with fuel, food, and ammunition by truck convoy from a supply base hundreds of miles away in Kuwait. All but a small amount of our soldiers' supplies come into the country over roads that pass through the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq . . . Southern Iraq is thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian special operations forces working with Shiite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades. Hostilities between Iran and the United States or a change in attitude toward US forces on the part of the Baghdad government could quickly turn the supply roads into a "shooting gallery" 400 to 800 miles long. (Christian Science Monitor, via No Quarter)

There's a saying: Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics. And in the case of the U.S. Army, they talk it about a lot. This has been true almost as long as there's been a U.S. Army. During the 1944-45 campaign in Europe, for example, each U.S. division consumed 650 tons of food, gas, ammo and other supplies per day -- roughly three times what the German Army managed to get by on. Logistical requirements have only exploded since then. Those lobster tails they're eating at Camp Victory don't grow on the trees.

If the supply lines back to Kuwait were to be cut -- or even seriously interdicted -- the U.S. military presence in Iraq would quickly become untenable. I'm not even sure the Army could scrounge enough gas to keep the tanks and Humvees moving, given that Iraq already suffers from a severe refining capacity shortage and must import most of its gasoline from Kuwait.

He then breathlessly (and no doubt hopefully) adds:

In other words, in the event of a real world war -- as opposed to the kind that pundits pontificate about on Fox News -- Centcom would either have to "pacify" the transportation routes through southern Iraq quickly and ruthlessly (which might not be possible, given the troops available and the possibility some Iraqi units might turn on their putative allies) or try to evacuate some or most U.S. forces from Iraq, either by air or ground.

We're talking, on other words, about a potential debacle -- the worst U.S. military defeat since Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor? Err, no. Laughably, no.

Billmon, thank you for once again proving why when it comes to discussing military matters, liberals aren't ready to move up from the kid's table.

Here is the reality of the situation.

According to credible sources Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army may number as many as 10,000 Iraqi Shia militiamen possessing mainly small arms (AK-47, light machine guns, RPGs). Only perhaps a tenth of that force has even minimal military training. Even with Iranian Revolutionary Guards providing some more modern weaponry and training, the Madhi Army has decisively lost every conflict it has engaged in against coalition forces in the past two years, including recent raids carried out by Iraqi government forces. A Madhi Army of lightly armed, poorly trained, and poorly led militiamen cannot hope to perform the feats required to fulfill the sick fantasy shared by Billmon and the CSM. Presently, it is a bit more occupied with not getting erradicated like crabgrass.

But what if they had help?

The quote Billmon pulls from the CSM article speaks of the "Badr Brigades."

I see that the crack staff of the CSM and Billmon are really up with current events, as the Badr Brigades haven't been called that for three years now, restyling themselves the Badr Organization and joining in the political process as part of the United Iraqi Alliance coalition.

They've played a lead role in fighting the insurgency around Karbala, and while occasionally at odds with the British forces in southern Iraq and seen as a sectarian militia by most, it has neither the manpower nor the weaponry (even with covert Iranian Revolutionary Guards support) to pose a military threat should it suddenly decide to forego the gains it has made as part of the political process. The several thousand man organization is even more lightly armed than the Madhi Army.

So who, praytell, will supply the OPFOR in "a 'shooting gallery' 400 to 800 miles long" that Billmon so fears?

The only discernible force left is Iran proper, and indeed, Pentagon planners have envisioned and planned for a multiple responses to the scenario of Iranian forces made a stab across the southern tip of Iraq in an attempt to cut off U.S. forces.

Sadly, the loss of life would be tremendous in such a campaign, but the victor of such a struggle has never been in doubt.

The Iranian Army numbers 350,000 with 200,000 being poorly trained and equipped (by U.S. standards) conscripts. It has only one true armored division and two mechanized infantry divisions, with no real air force or Navy to speak of, and air defenses severely outmoded even with the recent addition of Soviet TOR-1 batteries.

Iranian tanks—mostly T-72 variants that originated in the 1970s and T-54/55s that were originally designed at the end of WWII—would be the tip of the Iranian spear. Along with the hundreds of mostly-outdated infantry fighting vehicles they can bring to bear, these would all be inviting targets for allied air forces that unquestioningly own the airspace in the region.

Any southern invasion by Iran would be a replay of the Highway of Death on a massive, tragic scale.

This wuld be nothing like another Pearl Harbor as Billmon so hysterically intones, and would far more likely be another highway 80 in the first Gulf War, or the closing of the Falaise pocket Todesgang, or "death road" of World War II that sealed the German defeat in Normandy.

Start to finish, such an invasion would last less than a week, causing a discernable wrinkle to the supply lines (which would simply reroute westward for a short time) but fail miserably in its primary aim, while losing the bulk of the military force projected into Iraq in the process.

Of course were the Iranian invasion and massacre to come to pass, rest assured Billmon to be among the first to call for war crimes trials against the United States for crushing the Iranian invasion.

Of course, he'd probably screw that up as well.

Stealth Retraction

Baghdad Bob works for Al-Reuters... or maybe Yahoo!

"Look at these pictures! These are the pictures you are not supposed to see!"

Nothing like a screaming red border around the frame and PICTURE KILL in all caps to get people to ignore the pictures you don't want them to see. And just in case people aren't sure which pictures, reshow all four, and post them on a major internet news site.

[note: content of all four images were digitally airbrushed out by me -- ed.]

Enough

Pajamas Media blogger Eugene writes amid the air raid sirens in Haifa:

A few minutes ago the sirens started again in the distance; they were so faint that we were only made aware of them by watching Haifa on TV. Like Pavlov's dogs we react to the stimuli dutifully, almost mindlessly. It's a second nature now. But this time it was different.

On the way down we heard a large boom, my neighbor phoned his daughter across town as soon as the radio announced that Haifa was hit. Up until now he seemed to me the calmest person down there, but his expression changed. "It hit near you? The windows exploded?" His arm unknowingly touches the wall to support himself, "don't cry, don't cry.. Are you ok?". He hangs up and with resolve says that he's going down there, no tears but he's already changed. With shaking fingers he calls somebody else about the car...

There is something in the American psyche that resulted from never having been on the receiving end of enemy fire. Our veterans of course knew that feeling. It haunts some, and filled others with a resolve to live each day to the fullest, as they knew how fleeting and precious each and every individual minute on this earth is. On September 11, 2001, we were jolted out of the false calm we had created for ourselves in this world.

For many, if not most, that feeling of immediacy slipped away when more attacks ceased to occur, and we mentally retreated to that safe place, that false illusion, that we held before.

"It" is something that happens "over there."

A 17-year-old Israeli listening to air raid sirens and not-so-distant explosions, the war is immediate for Eugene. "Over there" is across town, as people try to kill him for simply being born who and where he is.

We have no concept of that here, not really. Try as I might, I can't relate to rockets raining in from above, death hanging in the air on a contrail, wondering if those I care about—laugh with, love—are dead or dying.

And so we expect that despite all the signs of escalation—the reservists being called up, the troops massing at the border, the intensifying bombardment—that somehow, there will be someone who finds a reason to stop, to halt the madness, to call it all off before it is Too Late.

But it is too late. It has been for quite a while.

Hezbollah, backed by Iran and their puppet Syria, have passed some sort of a breaking point not easily defined where Israelis seem to have said enough.

As so the bombardment of Lebanon continues, and the troops mass, waiting for that moment when they surge over the border. They go rifle in hand, knowing that any moment could be their last, hoping their sacrifice will buy lives back home from an enemy that wishes to drive them into the sea.

They should show no quarter, take no prisoners, but be filled with a terrible resolve that there will be no "next time."

As Onkar Gate stated Wednesday from the Ayn Rand Institute (h/t Cox & Forkum):

To achieve peace in the Middle East, as in any region, there is a necessary principle that every party must learn: the initiation of force is evil. And the indispensable means of teaching it is to ensure that the initiating side is defeated and punished. Decisive retaliatory force must be wielded against the aggressor.

[snip]

If we truly seek peace, we must reverse this perverse lesson. We must proclaim the objective conditions of peace. This means declaring to Arab nations that Israel, as a free country, has a moral right to exist, that the Arabs and Palestinians are the initiators of the conflict and that aggression on their part is evil and will not be tolerated. And it means encouraging Israel not to negotiate and compromise with its current assailants, but to destroy them.
Only when the initiators of force learn that their actions lead not to world sympathy and political power, but to their own deaths, will peace be possible in the Middle East.

Eugene will never know peace a long as Hezbollah remains. Israel must crush Hezbollah, and Lebanon too, if it refuses to evict these terrorists in their midst. Many Lebanese will die in coming days, and many of them will be civilians, but only through that terrible lesson will they learn that allowing terrorism is supporting terrorism.

I simply hope that the survivors on both sides learn, so that this lesson does not have to be taught again soon.

Master of Puppets

Roughly 24 hours after the Glenn Greenwald sock puppetry scandal broke, it appears folks on both sides have already firmed up their positions, floating all sorts of theories. Let me see if I can separate the wheat from the chaff.

Greenwald's detractors (for any of you new to this blog, I count myself among them) have found no less than four alternative identities for Greenwald, that can be traced back to the same two unique IP addresses in Brazil, posting comments to no less than four different center-right blogs. Greenwald, for his part, does not deny that these messages came from his home, and seeks to deflect his attention to others in his Brazilian household:

A new accusation is that I've been engaging in so-called "sock puppetry" by leaving comments in response to posts that attack me under other names., i.e., that I use multiple names to comment and the same comment was left at several blogs by the same IP address under different names.

Not frequently, I leave comments at blogs which criticize or respond to something I have written. I always, in every single instance, use my own name when doing so. I have never left a single comment at any other blog using any name other than my own, at least not since I began blogging. IP addresses signify the Internet account one uses, not any one individual. Those in the same household have the same IP address. In response to the personal attacks that have been oozing forth these last couple of weeks, others have left comments responding to them and correcting the factual inaccuracies, as have I. In each case when I did, I have used my own name.

In all fairness to Mr. Greenwald, in the two comments he left at this site on June 8th and 9th, he used his real name and email address, exactly as he claims to do in this passage.

But the problem with his explanation is that while individuals can and do share the same IP address if the cohabitate, they rarely, if ever:

• write with the same style
• visit the same web sites and blogs

People seem to forget that the blogger who broke this story, Shawn at The Sky is Red, stated nothing about IP addressing, and that was never part of the original charge. What he discovered were posts under the names of two people calling themselves "Ellison" and "Wilson" posted Ace of Spades and Protein Wisdom, respectively, that were almost identical in writing style and content. It was only after this connection was made that the story began to develop.

People began looking at their blogs, and noticed that other posts, nearly identical in writing style to Greenwald's writing on his own blog, were appearing at center-right blogs critical of Greenwald and were written in Greenwald's defense.

As I stated earlier, Mr. Greenwald did not attempt to hide his identity, using both his correct name and email address when commenting here at Confederate Yankee. But someone writing in the same style, posted in Greenwald's defense on Protein Wisdom as "Wilson" from the exact same IP address.

Similar phenomena have been noted on other sites, with a total of no less than four differently named authors posting comments with strikingly similar—if not identical—writing styles from what Greenwald admits as his house.

What would a reasonable person believe has happened here, and how serious is it, if true?

Mr. Greenwald does not in any way deny that the comments were posted from his house:

IP addresses signify the Internet account one uses, not any one individual. Those in the same household have the same IP address.

Instead he attempts to deftly shift the blame for these comments to someone else in his home. Barring repeated break-ins, supporters and detractors alike have made the assumption that Greenwald is attempting to shift the blame to a Brazilian housemate or housemates. Greenwald, in his own blog, has not sought to correct that assumption. Until he claims otherwise, I will work from the premise that is precisely what he meant for supporters and detractors alike to infer.

This brings us full circle, back to Shawn's original observation.

The writing style is the same, or so similar that it has been mimicked precisely enough that educated readers among them—at least one with a Master's in English and who has taught a writing class on the collegiate level (myself) —cannot discern any notable differences in the writing style.

Greenwald has self-isolated the "suspects" in this series of blog comments down to location he admits is his own home in Brazil.

Are reasonable people to assume that a Greenwald himself posted these comments under false identities?

Or is it likely that someone in his Brazilian home happens to know the exact center-right American political blogs that are criticizing him, and can write defenses so strikingly similar in writing style to Greenwald's as to be undifferentiated to any discernable degree?

I'll let you be the judge, but as you consider these charges, first look inward, and ask yourself these questions:

• Who are your housemates?
• How interested is your housemate in your blogging?
• Does your housemate make it a habit to know who is criticizing your blog, and how to find these sites—and the specific posts on these sites—on the Internet?
• Does your housemate make it a habit to defend you on blogs?
• Wold he use multiple aliases to do so, and to what end?
• Can your housemate imitate your writing style precisely?

I applied these questions to my own housemate (my spouse).

I know that while she knows that I care about blogs and blogging, she could personally care less. She is more computer savvy than most, but she is still part of supermajority of people who would have no idea how to track who was writing posts linking to and criticizing my blog entries.

Even if she did want to defend me, she would have no thought of the subterfuge of making up various aliases to do so. Nor would she be able to get into my head, take my knowledge of a particular subject, and replicate how I would respond with such precision.

Simply put, there is no plausible way, under any circumstances, that I could this alternative scenario as being viable.

Occam's Razor is quite sharp, and in this particular case, the direction it cuts seems abundantly clear.

There are only a finite number of people in Glenn Greenwald's home, and I strongly doubt any of the others in his home can mimic him so precisely.

As to whether or not sock puppetry is serious, Some of Greenwald's supporters would like to suggest it is not:

IS SOCKPUPPETRY A PRIORI A BAD THING OR IS IT SOMETIMES A SIMPLE MATTER OF SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT?

[snip]

Everyone seems to be willing to accept a priori that what is called "sockpuppetry" is a tactic that is deserving of condemnation, strong or mild.

Therefore his critics attack Glenn and his defenders offer various "explanations" for this charge of "sockpuppetry" and all the while it subtly gets established that the sockpuppetry charge is something which requires a defense.

I submit that sockpuppetry is neither good nor bad. It's morally neutral and becomes good or bad depending on the particular facts concerning each case of "sockpuppetry."

The obvious answer, of course, is that sock-puppetry is a form of fraud.

Our criminal American justice system, and every other than I have even a passing familiarity with, seems to think fraud is a Very Bad Thing, as there are many laws criminalizing it, in its various forms, in every jurisdiction, criminal and civil, on multiple levels.

Wikipedia has a fairly informative entry on fraud worth noting:

In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain, although it has a more specific legal meaning, the exact details varying between jurisdictions. Many hoaxes are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not best described in this way. Not all frauds are hoaxes - electoral fraud, for example. Fraud permeates many areas of life, including art, archaeology and science. In the broad legal sense a fraud is any crime or civil wrong for gain that utilises some deception practiced on the victim as its principal method.

In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them — usually, to obtain property or services from him or her unjustly. [1]. Fraud can be accomplished through the aid of forged objects. In the criminal law of common law jurisdictions it may be called "theft by deception," "larceny by trick," "larceny by fraud and deception" or something similar.

In academia and science, fraud can refer to academic fraud - the falsifying of research findings which is a form of scientific misconduct - and in common use intellectual fraud signifies falsification of a position taken or implied by an author or speaker, within a book, controversy or debate, or an idea deceptively presented to hide known logical weaknesses. Journalistic fraud implies a similar notion, the falsification of journalistic findings.

There is also a rather interesting definition of wire fraud at Wikipedia. It could prove to be quite interesting if sock-puppeting is viewed as a criminally fraudulent act. It is a federal crime instead of a state crime, and carries with in an enhanced penalty.

I'll let the legal eagles figure out the exact charges that might be applicable to these kind of situations and which country or countries would have jurisdiction, but I hold it self-evident that blatant dishonesty occurred by someone in Greenwald's home and that it was conducted to further the interests of Glenn Greenwald.

The only question that seems to remain is who in Greenwald's house is guilty of this fraud of sock puppetry, and how seriously this fraud should be taken. Is it a matter for the legal system, or should we be content with "policing our own" as it were, laying out the case and letting people determine the penalty to Greenwald's credibility in light of the circumstantial evidence against him?

I find it highly improbable that anyone else in Glenn Greenwald's house could have posted these "sock puppet" comments other than Glenn Greenwald. The damage to his credibility appears a self-inflicted wound, and I am content that the mortal wound to his credibility is enough.

Others that are more directly impacted by this subterfuge may feel otherwise.

Babe

Michelle Malkin digs up a picture of a young Helen Thomas.

Smokin'.

Deadly Harvest

As you sow, so shall you reap:

Israeli troops met fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas Thursday as they crossed into Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion. Israeli warplanes also launched new airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, shortly after daybreak, followed by strikes in the guerrillas' heartland in the south and eastern Bekaa Valley. The strikes followed bombings Wednesday that killed as many as 70 people, according to Lebanese television, making it the deadliest day since the fighting began July 12.

Russia sharply criticized Israel over its onslaught against Lebanon, now in its ninth day, sparked when Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Israel's actions have gone "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" and repeating calls for an immediate cease-fire.

Russia is somewhat correct; this is "far beyond the boundaries of an anti-terrorist operation" as they claim. This is not an anti-terrorist operation, but a quite conventional war.

Would the Russian Foreign Ministry be so kind as to answer what their response would be Hezbollah launched over 1,600 rocket and mortar attacks deliberately targeting Russian civilians? What if Hezbollah had fired these same 1,600 missiles and mortar shells into France?

We know their answer in advance. Beirut would already resemble another Dresden or Hiroshima, and the few hundredShia dead now would number in the thousands.

I can find very little sympathy for the Lebanese Shia who have so closely embraced Hezbollah and their tactics over the past decades. Every suffering Shia child you see in a Lebanese hospital is there because Israel was forced to respond against Hezbollah's incessant attacks.

I have very little sympathy for so-called "civilian" populations that willingly support terrorist groups, whether that population are Lebanese Shias south of Beirut, Palestinians in Gaza, or Pashtun villages in the tribal areas of Pakistan. They accept and often celebrate the terrorists in their midst, accept their philosophies, share their goals, and their successes. The flip side of this is that they must embrace the repercussions against terrorism as well.

Terrorism cannot be eradicated as a tactic if the populations that support it do not pay the price for that support. Terrorism will die when the civilian breeding grounds of terrorist support shares in the pain that terrorism causes.

Lebanon's Hezbollah-supporting Shia are now feeling some of that pain both physically and politically. Whether or not it is enough for them to change their ways remains to be seen.

An Army of Greenwalds

Sock-puppeting is the dishonest and unethical practice of posting on web sites and blogs under assumed identities, often to praise or defend yourself.

L.A.Times columnist Michael Hiltzik lost his blog over it, as this practice clearly violated the Times ethics guidelines.

Now liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald stands accused of posting under at least three four five different identities other than his own, using the aliases "Ellison," "Wilson," "Sam Matthews," "Ryan," and "Thomas Ellers" to either flatter or defend himself across a host of conservative political blogs.

All of these identities are apparently tracked back to the same unique IP address in Montevideo, Brazil, where the best selling author of How Would a Patriot Act? lives as an apparent expatriate, fraud, and master sock-puppeteer .

For the details:

Shawn at The Sky is Red can take credit for noting that something was fishy, while Patterico (the man who caught Hiltzik) and Ace of Spades bring the pain.

Update: Greenwald denies the charges, saying in part:

I have never left a single comment at any other blog using any name other than my own, at least not since I began blogging. IP addresses signify the Internet account one uses, not any one individual. Those in the same household have the same IP address.

It must be a very large house.

Update 2: It seems Greenwald's sycophants aren't real big fans of these allegations being revealed.

Instead they'd rather change the subject by attacking the messenger with false charges of pedophilia, and international sources, and even pictures!

Classy.

Update 3: Greenwald, as evidenced in the quote above, seems to be trying to lay the groundwork for the claim that someone else in his house left the comments, with the obvious insinuation that this boyfriend did so. How loyal.

But "Birkel," posting in the comments at Ace of Spades, seems to torpedo that avenue of retreat as well:

According to Patterico one of the comments including the allegation that the poster/puppet had E-mailed Gleen for his point of view.

If you live in the same house why would you E-mail somebody for their opinion? Does that make any sense?

No it doesn't.

It would make perfect sense, however, for someone building sock puppet identities.

Bush Vetoes Cancer

As he promised he would do, President Bush vetoed a bill that would have lifted restrictions on federally funded human embryonic stem cell research:

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," Bush, speaking at the White House, said after he followed through on his promise to veto the bill. "It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it."

In it's reporting, the Washington Post couldn't help but jump at the chance to make a charge it couldn't actually support:

Such research is controversial because it holds the promise of finding cures for major diseases, such as Parkinson's, but requires destroying human embryos to extract the cells.

The reality of the matter is that embryonic stem cell research hasn't been able to get past a single fundamental hurdle that of unrestricted cell division, so that "promise" is nothing but a pipe dream.

Wikipedia reminds of what many of us forgot since high school:

Cell division is the biological basis of life. For simple unicellular organisms such as the Amoeba, one cell division reproduces an entire organism. On a larger scale, cell division can create progeny from multicellular organisms, such as plants that grow from cuttings. But most importantly, cell division enables sexually reproducing organisms to develop from the one-celled zygote, which itself was produced by cell division from gametes. And after growth, cell division allows for continual renewal and repair of the organism.

But cell division must be regulated by the body, and a great deal of the genetic code we carry makes sure that growth is regulated and eventually terminated.

Embryonic stem cells, as I stated before, have a problem with unrestricted cell division.

There is another name for that problem, and many scientists seem to agree that it could take a decade or longer to fix that problem in embryonic stem cell research, if it is ever fixed at all.

Frankly, I'm with the President on this one: I'm against killing human embryos to create cancer, when adult stems cells are already clinically proven to work.

Update: As if cued up for a comic relief, the reliably clueless Oliver Willis writes a breathless post, The Republican Culture of Ignorance and Death, where he repeatedly accuses the president of banning "stem cell research," conflating the two quite different lines of research into one. Of course, this is simply not the case.

In addition, Bush didn't ban any research whatsoever, he merely banned the federal funding of dubious embryonic research. Bush actually increased federal funding of stem cells obtained from adults, umbilical cords, placentas and animals during his presidency.

Once again, Willis shows that the culture of "ignorance and death" is assuredly his own.

The Toddler-Threatening, Sniper-Watching Community

And the spiral downwards towards terminal madness continues among the liberal elite:

I am still beyond anger at a recently published photo from New York Times Photographer Joao Silva of a Mahdi Militia sniper about to fire on American Soldiers. Only by coincidence searching Memeorandum for other topics of the day did I come across this post by Glenn Greenwald. I felt compelled to ask him a question. Again I am stunned. Here is my question:

Would you stand there and watch a terrorist shoot at Americans and take a picture?

Here was his answer:

Personally, I would not, because I'm not a jouranlist. But if I were a photographer assigned to that region and to cover the insurgency, of course I would. I'd want Americans to see the reality of the forces we are fighting, rather than suppressing their images...

Glenn Greenwald, ladies and gentlemen, stating in his own words that he would sit there and take pictures as a sniper tries to kill fellow Americans because it's just part of his job.

But don't question his...

Yeah. Whatever.

Hearts and Minds

Hezbollah might be trying to claim the title of "The World's Dumbest Terrorist Group."

Already decimated and mocked in continuous air and artillery strikes from the Israeli Defense Forces, roundly condemned by the international community and abandoned by prominent Arab nations in the region, Hezbollah seems intent on inflaming sentiment among the world's Christians and Israeli Arabs, killing several in rocket attacks on Nazareth.

Via Fox News:

A Hezbollah rocket slammed into a building Wednesday in the mainly Arab town of Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus, killing three people, including two children, Israeli authorities said.

Smoke billowed from the damaged a building and its roof appeared mostly destroyed, television footage showed. Local residents ran to the building and helped fire fighters unwind their water houses.
It was not immediately clear if any of the holy sites in the town were damaged.
Mohammed Assawi, who saw the attack, told Israel's Channel 10 that the rocket that killed the two children struck in the middle of a downtown street.

"It's a vacation and it's afternoon so where will they go if not to play in the streets?" he said. "It is unpleasant to say what we saw."

Police later said that a third person was killed and two other people were wounded.

Hezbollah has only two true friends remaining in Syria and Iran, and quite frankly, Syria's support could be made to waiver rather easily with targeted air strikes, destabilizing Assad's precarious regime.

I think Krauthammer is correct: the only correct exit strategy in Lebanon is over the grave of Hezbollah, and there are those that see this as a distinct possibility.

Get Along, Little Debbie

Via The Jawa Report, I came across a story this morning so mind-numbingly unsupported that I was certain it had to be written by the Lord of the Dunce himself.

Unfortunately, the post in question, one accusing most Americans in Lebanon of being Hezbollah supporters, comes from one Debbie Schlussel.

She states:

One thing is lost in all the press coverage of the whining Americans who went to Lebanon of their own accord and now want us to pick up the tab to get them out.

THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS IN LEBANON ARE HEZBOLLAH SUPPORTERS.
Most of them are Shi'ite Muslims, many of whom hold dual U.S. and Lebanese citizenship. Many are anchor babies born here to Muslims in the U.S. illegally. Some are illegal aliens who became citizens through rubber-stamping Citizenship and Immigration Services (and its INS predecessor) coupled with political pressure by spineless politicians.
Of the 25,000 American citizens and green-card holders in Lebanon, at least 7,000 are from Dearborn, Michigan, the heart of Islamic America, and especially Shia Islam America. These 7,000 are mostly Shi'ite Muslims who openly and strongly support Hezbollah. Ditto for many of the rest of the 25,000 that are there.

If these allegations are supportable, it would be a major bombshell of a story.

So where is Schlussel's proof?

There isn't any. Schlussel's "proof" seems to consist mainly of blind assertion and links back to her own site.

It would be nice—not to mention customary—for someone making a factual claim to provide some sort of a link to credible sources to support her contentions.

For example, what proof does Schlussel have that 7,000 Dearborn residents are in Lebanon? Does the U.S. State Department or the Dearborn Chamber of Commerce provide her with those numbers?

If there are Dearborn 7,000 residents, what is her evidence showing that the Dearborn residents in Lebanon are Muslims? Lebanon doesn't even know what percentage of their population is Muslim—they haven't done a census since 1932—and Debbie somehow knows? I doubt it.

What evidence is there that they are Shia Muslims? Shia Muslims only make up 30%-40% of the Lebanese population, and they are among the poorest of the religious groups, meaning they are less likely to have the funds to immigrate to other nations at all. Christians and Sunni Muslims—not huge fans of Hezbollah, for those of you keeping score at home—make up the bulk of the rest of Lebanon's population, a nation which has no less than 18 recognized sects of varying religions.

What evidence does Debbie Schlussel have that if there are Dearborn Shia Muslims in Lebanon, that they "openly and strongly support Hezbollah" as she charges?

Mere assertion that they belong to a Dearborn Lebanese cultural center. These are serious charges, seemingly implicating an entire community of what is essentially treason in a time of war, and Schlussel provides no credible evidence at all of her charges. None.

By her incredibly loose standards, it appears one could label every Irish American in Chicago that ever bothered to travel to Ireland as a member of the Irish Republican Army.

Please forgive me if I find it nearly impossible to take any slanderous thing she says seriously.

Sadly, Pwned!

What happens when an assistant DA catches a nazi sympathizer's lawyer and his sycophants in the act of propagating the same kind of "hate speech" they so noisy condemned, and then catches them trying to cover it up?

Absolute carnage.

The Deploravity Must Stop

I've simply had enough of the deplorable personal attacks... the depravity, the blogosphere brawl war profiteering... have simply gone along too far, and I must speciously condemn, forthwith, this deploravity that has taken hold.

I condemn it all.

Update: I also happen to hold the view, unlike Misha, Patterico and Xrlq, that liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald is not a "douche" as so many have rudely pronounced. A douche reportedly brings a fresh feeling according to Summer's Eve advertisements that have plagued the airwaves over the years, and the stench emanating from Glenn Greenwald can hardly be considering sanitary in nature.

Rather, Greenwald is more like the colostomy bag of the liberal blogosphere as any simple perusal of his dishonest commentary readily reveals.

The Cussing, Spitting, Open-Mouth Chewing Bush

They forgot to call him a "stinky poopyhead."

Even Better the Second Time

I like this Rowan Scarborough article, though I liked it better when I wrote it almost seven months ago.

Groped?

"Groped."

In a word overwrought with sexual harrassment dogma and victimization, that word has a very distinct social context. Most would agree to a contextual definition of groping as unwanted touching of a sexual nature, a context provided in no small part by our most recent ex-president.

Taylor Marsh is therefore quite dishonest in her hyperbolic headline, Bush Gropes Germany's Merkel.

Ever taking things out of context and folding them into a "reality-based" worldview, the four still images she includes on her site of President Bush giving German Chancellor Angela Merkel's shoulders an affectionate squeeze as he passes by on the way to his seat at the G8 summit.

Merkel does appear startled, but the lightweight outrage of American liberals who attempt to blow this into an international incident, or worse, some sort of transferred Oedipal complex is amusing to the extreme.

It betrays the mindset of a group of ersatz political bloggers with so little real substance that they are reduced to Page Six hissyfits of feigned indignation over a shoulder touch.

It becomes increasingly harder to take Taylor Marsh and her Fellow Travelers seriously on any subject of real importance.

Will Misfires

Over at The Corner this morning, John Podhoretz announced:

George Will Goes Nuclear

This may prove to be the most discussed op-ed of the year.

Actually, it isn't even the most discussed post of the day from Washington Post columnists, with Richard Cohen's "curl up and die" op-ed targeting Israel taking that dishonor.

Still, I read Will's column in the New York Post as J-Pod urged, and even after a re-reading, I wasn't duly impressed with any of this:

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Rice called it "short-sighted" to judge the success of the administration's transformational ambitions by a "snapshot" of progress "some couple of years" into the transformation. She seems to consider today's turmoil preferable to the Middle East's "false stability" of the last 60 years, during which U.S. policy "turned a blind eye to the absence of democratic forces."

There is, however, a sense in which that argument creates a blind eye: It makes instability, no matter how pandemic or lethal, necessarily a sign of progress. Violence is vindication: Hamas and Hezbollah have, Rice says, "determined that it is time now to try and arrest the move toward moderate democratic forces in the Middle East."

But there also is democratic movement toward extremism. America's intervention was supposed to democratize Iraq which, by benign infection, would transform the region. Early on in the Iraq occupation, Rice argued that democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable political culture, they also can help create such a culture. Perhaps.

But elections have transformed Hamas into the government of the Palestinian territories, and elections have turned Hezbollah into a significant faction in Lebanon's parliament, from which it operates as a state within the state. And as a possible harbinger of future horrors, last year's elections gave the Muslim Brotherhood 19 percent of the seats in Egypt's parliament.

For a region cycling through periods of high intensity, short-duration wars, and low intensity, long duration slugfests, is the "false stability" Will speaks of worth maintaining? I suggest not, and I think that the turmoil would exist, triggered by Hamas and Hezbollah and the regimes in Syria and Iran that back them, whether or not we ever invaded Iraq at all in 2003.

Certainly, America wasn't invading any Arab or Persian nations in the 1948 War for Israeli Independence, The Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, or any of the other conflicts Israel has been engaged in during it's nearly 60 year modern history, and so Will's argument seems to fall short of the facts.

Will makes the false argument that instability is not required for progress in the region, an absurd position in science and politics. Whether we are discussing physical materials or a region in political stasis, a catalyst is needed to create change, and as that change occurred instability is a certainly. There is only stability in the inert and the dead, and quite frankly, I don't see Israel as willing to be either.

Yes, democracy can have bad results. People can elect bad leaders as easily as bad leaders can seize power on their own, but that does not invalidate the concept democracy, and in fact reinforced the importance of the vote. People can choose to make bad decisions and they must learn to live with the consequences of that decision. Hopefully, the Palestinians will learn that lesson over time, as will the Lebanese that helped Hezbollah into power, only to undo the progress of the past 15 years in less than a week.

Wil'ls column brings us nothing new, nothing astute, and rehashes arguments I've seen better written elsewhere by writers with far less renown.

Perhaps Will has attempted to go nuclear, but like a North Korean missile, he has fallen apart shortly after launch.

Cohen Blames Israel

You are an abomination. You are a mistake. You should have been aborted before birth, and now that you have been born, you deserve every beating you've gotten since, merely for daring to exist.

Or at least that seems to summarize Richard Cohen's feelings toward the Jews of Israel, while he can scarcely find a word to condemn Hezbollah, Hamas, or the other Islamists intent on Israeli genocide. Of course, don't take my word for it, when his will do:

The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.

This is why the Israeli-Arab war, now transformed into the Israeli-Muslim war (Iran is not an Arab state), persists and widens. It is why the conflict mutates and festers. It is why Israel is now fighting an organization, Hezbollah, that did not exist 30 years ago and why Hezbollah is being supported by a nation, Iran, that was once a tacit ally of Israel's. The underlying, subterranean hatred of the Jewish state in the Islamic world just keeps bubbling to the surface. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and some other Arab countries may condemn Hezbollah, but I doubt the proverbial man in their street shares that view.

There is no point in condemning Hezbollah. Zealots are not amenable to reason. And there's not much point, either, in condemning Hamas. It is a fetid, anti-Semitic outfit whose organizing principle is hatred of Israel. There is, though, a point in cautioning Israel to exercise restraint -- not for the sake of its enemies but for itself. Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose...

That is as much of Cohen's "curl up and die" message to Israel as I felt like holding forth, though you are certainly well within your rights to read the whole thing if you must.

Sadly, Cohen's grasp of history is shown to be almost as weak as that of Iran's Holocaust-denying President Ahmadinejad.

Cohen rails against "the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims," in a land where Jews predated the very existence of Islam by more than two millennia. It was only during the first two centuries AD that the Jews were forced from their ancestral homes in Israel and into slavery around the world, and it wasn't until after then that Muslims usurped Israeli lands.

Cohen makes another asinine statement unsupported by the history he claims to be on the side of, when he states, "Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose..."

Poppycock.

If history has taught us anything about Islam, it is that Islam—a religion that dutifully separates the world into Dar al Islam (the House of Submission [to Allah]) and Dar al Harb (the House of War)—the only thing Muslim culture understands or respects is brute force. From Vienna to Tours to modern day wars along Islam's current borders, this lesson is repeated down through history to the present day.

Only overwhelming force and the crushing defeats it has visited upon its enemies have kept Israel alive thus far. Every retreat, every pullback, has led to more aggression from its neighbors.

Displaying a most selective grasp of history, he excretes a post almost Greenwaldian in its dishonesty.

"It is best," Cohen concludes, "for Israel to hunker down."

Forces that hunker down can never win wars, and at best they may merely survive. Israel deserves something far more than the mere survival Cohen is willing to grant them.

Politics Central Goes Beta

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, Pajamas Media has a beta version of a new sister site up called Politics Central that bears watching. We're shooting for a post-Labor Day launch (no exact date set), and I think that I'll personally be most interested in the Media Central and X21Central subsites.

Check it out, and let the design team know what you think.

Language Barriers

In a moment of candor during the supposedly private G8 luncheon, President Bush was caught on an open mike discussing Hezbollah's recent attacks against Israel to British Prime Minster Tony Blair:

"See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over," Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.

It is a probably valid assessment of the situation, but the liberals at Firedoglake actually have the temerity to snip at the President for his choice of words.

Christy Hardin Smith huffed:

It seems that the President of the United States needs a visit from Emily Post.

While munching on a roll, George Bush had a conversation with Tony Blair about Hizbollah cutting out their "shit." So much for that born-again veneer…this deciderating and Presidenting is hard work. (And the fact that the curtain gets lifted from the "moral majority" act for public consumption is just a side bonus, I suppose, since neither Bush nor Blair knew the microphone was on. And we continue now in the "do as I say, not as I do" Administration…)

I'm sorry, but did Christy Smith forget which web site she writes for?

Firedoglake is riddled with profanity (most of it from the denizens that comment there, some from the authors), and in the comments to this very post, Christy had to edit out an apparent threat made about poisoning the President's food.

To hear a poster at Firedoglake lecture about profanity is to hear Kennedy lecturing us about sobriety. Quite frankly, you don't know whether to be embarrassed for them, or of them.

Christians curse sometimes, Christy. Even ministers. Even Presidents. That you feign surprise at that, to score some petty points among your sycophants, is perhaps not all that surprising (low hanging fruits, and all), but don't expect anyone outside of your clique to think you are very clever for doing so.

The President of the United States said shit because Hezbollah terrorists—supported and supplied by Syria and Iran—are firing rocket after rocket at Israeli cities in order to kill Israeli civilians. This is something that is—interestingly enough—not profane enough for her to find the words to condemn Hezbollah for in this post.

And she thinks President Bush has the language problem...

Israel Must Escalate

Writing in Haaretz, Ze'ev Schiff makes what I think is a pretty good analysis when he says the Israel-Hezbollah War has not reached its peak:

The fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has still not reached its zenith. The Israel Defense Forces' operational plans against the Shi'ite organizations have not yet been carried out. The next two days are the most critical and a lot depends on whether Tehran decides to take a chance and authorize Hezbollah to launch long-range missiles with more powerful warheads. This is a capability Hezbollah still retains, despite the heavy blows it has suffered in the IDF air strikes.

On Sunday, Israel bore witness to the use of more powerful rockets against Haifa, which killed eight people and injured dozens more. The Syrian-made 220 mm rocket has a warhead weighing more than 50 kilograms. Hezbollah was supplied with these rockets as the Syrian armed forces were receiving them off the production lines. The decision to give Hezbollah the rockets was made when it was concluded that the group would be considered part of the Syrian army's overall emergency preparedness.

The risk to Iran is not military, but rather that Hezbollah would suffer such damage that it would no longer be counted as the sole external element of Iran's Islamic Revolution. It is difficult to assess what the Iranian leadership will decide. If it does opt for aggravating the situation, it will certainly encourage the Syrians to become involved in the confrontation, but all indications suggest that Damascus is not eager to get dragged into war.

Israel is also not interested in a third front, so long as Syria does not intervene in the fighting on the side of Hezbollah.

As the Counterterrorism Blog also noted, Hezbollah also has used the Iranian made and supplied 333 mm Raad missile. A Chinese-designed weapon the Raad is based upon the Silkworm, and can carry a 1100 lb warhead of conventional, chemical or nuclear design. It is not to be confused with the Iranian ATGM (antitank guided missile) of the same name that the Hezbollah may also try to use against Israeli Merkava tanks.

Israel is fighting Iran and Syria in the most thinly veiled proxy war of this young century, and Israel must decimate Hezbollah's rocket program if it is to survive.

More than six months ago analysts were predicting that apocalyptic sect running Iran may be trying to create an End Times conflagration to mesh with their 12th Imam eschatology. Much of the analysis and -speculation I've read since then has focused on the threat of long-range nuclear missiles fired from Iran, but it becomes increasingly more clear on a daily basis that Iranian forces and the most advanced Iranian weaponry are being deployed with Hezbollah on Israel's doorstep.

The nuclear deterrence theory of MAD (mutual assured destruction) was predicated upon the thought that bot sides would be able to get nuclear weapons airborne in the event of an attack, assuring both sides would suffer catastrophic losses. This theory was already turned on its head by those who theorize that the Iranian leadership is hoping precisely for that sort of exchange to bring about their hoped for End of Days.

But an Iran that has nuclear-capable missiles in southern Lebanon is another matter entirely, as it is an entirely more practical and worldly extension of Iran's hatred for Israel.

A well-timed and executed Iranian nuclear weapon first strike could easily be disguised as just another conventional Raad rocket attack like the ones that have already been fired on Israeli cities. Iran could conceivably and rather easily hide a crippling nuclear first strike in a barrage of Hezbollah missiles, incinerating the majority of the country before Israel even suspected it was under a nuclear attack.

For these reasons, Israel must not only beat Hezbollah back and rearrange another stalemate, it must continue on until Hezbollah in Lebanon is destroyed. To not follow through is to endanger the very existence of the nation, and to potentially invite an Iranian nuclear attack.

"All the Troops That Are Fit To Kill"

A terrorist sniper is trying to kill U.S. soldiers, and the New York Times is literally right their with them.

Taking pictures.

Probably spotting.

But don't question their patriotism.

(h/t Protein Wisdom)

Frisch Fries

The nutty professor just won't stop... but if I don't miss my guess, she's about to:

Guess Deb isn't quite done milking her 15 minutes.

This time, however, I've contacted the authorities.

Presumably, the responsible authorities here happen to reside at 1961 Stout Street, Suite 1823 in Denver.

The Left has a long and storied history in America of creating homicidally-minded psychopaths.

As I noted on another (now defunct) blog over a year ago and chronicled for posterity here:

As a matter of fact, the majority of political assassinations in America have come from the left or other variations of the mentally ill (as you will see below, many are both, liberalism and mental illness apparently run hand-in-hand), with the exception of RFK, who was killed by a long-standing lefty friend, the Jew-hating Muslim, in this instance Sirhan Sirhan.

The list goes on: John Wilkes Booth was a cross between Robert Byrd and Alec Baldwin, Charles J. Guiteau was a John Edwards-type lawyer who was told by the great beyond (perhaps channelling?) to murder President Garfield, Leon F. Czolgosz, who shot William McKinley was a lefty anarchist. Guiseppe Zangara who tried to kill FDR was a whacked-out anti-capitalist, and we all know Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist sympathizer.

Wannabe white Black Panther Sam Byck got himself killed trying to take out Nixon, and a year later, loonie lefty cultist Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme tried to take out President Ford, who was the target of lefty counterculture loser Sarah Jane Moore just 17 days later.

The evidence is pretty convincing Sara, that if there is a political assassination attempt in America, that either the left or the mentally ill are behind it (I'm not sure I see the distinction between the two, but some do).

One of those discussed in that post was Andrew Mickel, another liberal assassin who was an Indymedia contributor and an Evergreen State College student, who murdered a cop. Why?

"Hello Everyone, my name's Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country. Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility."

"...the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country."

"…an action against corporate irresponsibility."

Sounds like it was cut out of Michael Moore.com, doesn't it? Or maybe Talk Left, or a Daily Kos diary, or Firedog Lake or many other mainstream liberal sites, with the not-as-mainstream sites such as IndyMedia or the Democratic Underground providing far worse fodder to feed the crazed masses.

Mickel was a Leftist. His parents say he was mentally ill. Again, I question the difference, and wonder why it took Jeff Goldstein so long to turn someone as potentially dangerous as Debbie Frisch over to the responsible authorities.

Bullying Old Soldiers...

...into blogging isn't necessarily a habit, but Old Soldier is the second CY regular in olive drab to hang out his own blogging shingle in the past few months (Ray Robinson was the first).

Please stop over and welcome Old Soldier to his new blogosphere home, now officially open for business.

Have a Nice Day

At least one strategic operations think tank that reports to the Pentagon thinks that our near-term future may be found in the Bible:

For in my jealousy [and] in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;

So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that [are] upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother.

And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that [are] with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I [am] the LORD.

Ezekiel 38:19-23

From Israel to India, nations with the power of the sun teeter on the brink of full engagement in the Fourth World War.

VII Inc. is a strategic planning company that in a January report, "Iranian President Ahmadinejad, Islamic Eschatology, and Near Term Implications," imagined an "Ezekiel 38" scenario in a where Syrian/Iranian missile attacks supported by Russia would rain "great hailstones, fire, and brimstone," upon Israel with such ferocity that Israel was forced into the nuclear response wanted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad, VII contends, is attempting to create a war that would be perceived as a major sign of the Mahdaviat, the Second Coming of the 12th Iman. He is, quite literally in a eschatological sense, attempting to bring about Armegeddon, and an Islamic version of the Rapture. Ahmadinejad wants to bring about the end of the world.

As Ahmadinejad said Sept 17, 2005 in front of the United Nations:

Dear Friends and Colleagues, from the beginning of time, humanity has longed for the day when justice, peace, equality and compassion envelop the world. All of us can contribute to the establishment of such a world. When that day comes, the ultimate promise of all Divine religions will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being who is heir to all prophets and pious men. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace.

O mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.

As Iranian forces fire long-range rockets on Israel it seems quite apparent Ahmadinejad is willing to do all he can to hasten that emergence, and begin the end of man.

So do we call it, "Phone by Phone?"

Day by Day is now available on your cell phone.

It's the perfect way to spend your time until the cops arrive.

Well that, or hiding the bodies.

Culture of Corruption

In November of 2005, I became aware of a non-profit called Beauchamp Tower Corporation. BTC was focused on a project they called Operation Enduring Service.

The premise for the program was really quite simple and broken down into several easily understood parts.

Start with mothballed ships that were no longer of use to the Navy.

Convert those of historical significance to floating museums.

Take others in good shape, and turn them into disaster response ships.

The rest—those that had no historical significance or were too worn or obsolete and destined for a scrapyard—would be salvaged to help pay to restore the museum ships worth restoring. Like most truly good ideas, it was simple and direct.

On many occasions on this blog I wrote of the proposed "Salvation Navy," an idea so good it simply had to occur.

How many lives could we have saved in Hurricane Katrina with these ships bringing in food, water, and emergency workers just hours after the storm's landfall? How many lives would be saved in future hurricanes?

In the event of another 9/11-type terrorist attack, how much support could a ship such as this provide to aid in recovery?

This is what Ward Brewer, CEO of Beauchamp Tower envisioned.

But that was before Enduring Service and the "Salvation Navy" it would create ran into the buzzsaw of incompetence, corruption, and criminality that may eventually implicate officials within the U.S Maritime Administration, the Department of Transportation, and other members of the Executive and Legislative branches.

* * *

The Tip of the Iceberg

Let's start with illegal access of Beauchamp's servers by the U.S. Maritime Administration. Most would simply call it hacking, but password theft and false identity use will do as well.

According to documents obtained from Ward Brewer, CEO of Beauchamp Tower Corporation. BTC has a strict User Agreement for their server and web site. The server was used as a medium to provide partners and vendors of the project with internal corporate information—which was and is copyright protected

Item 5 C-F of the User Agreement explicitly states:

c) User agrees that he or she is not an employee of or contracted by the United States Department of Transportation and or the United States department of justice, or any agency within the structure of these departments, such as, but not limited to, the Maritime Administration. user agrees to, acknowledges, and hereby testifies that he or she is not an employee of the afore mentioned agencies.

(d) User agrees to and permits BTIS access to ISP identities, other internet information, and data deemed necessary by BTIS to confirm user identity and verify user is not an employee of the afore mention federal agencies. User also grants the user's internet service provider permission to identify the user's identity to btis for verification that user is not an employee of the afore mentioned federal agencies. BTIS agrees to maintain the privacy of such information, provided user is not an employee of the afore mentioned federal agencies. BTIS reserves the right to deny or terminate, at BTIS's sole discretion, access to this site by any user that BTIS cannot verify user's identity or where user's identity is not known to BTIS.

(e) Any person employed by or contracted by the United States Department of Transportation and or the United States Department of Justice, or any agency within the structure of these departments, is hereby denied any and all access to this website without the expressed written permission of BTIS. Any person employed by or contracted by the afore mentioned agencies that attempts to enter this site will be in violation of state and federal laws, which may include, but not be limited to, laws pertaining to false identity, internet website use, and software user agreements. BTIS reserves the right, at BTIS's sole discretion, to prosecute any violation of this agreement. written agreements may be obtain, at BTIS's sole discretion, by contacting info@btcorp.us and requesting written permission. Written permission to enter this site must be dated after January 30, 2004. Written permission dated prior to this date is not valid.

(f) User understands that he or she may not, and agrees that he or she will not knowingly communicate to any employee of the Department of Justice or Department of Transportation the passcodes to enter this site or disclose the contents of this website with out the express written permission of BTIS.

Brewer states that Maritime Administration officials actively sought the password to access the protected portion of the BT Corp site, and were eventually successful, obtaining it from an accidental posting to a veteran's group web site. Brewer states further:

MARAD officials were told a number of times that they were not allowed on the website, yet they continued to search the Internet to try and find the password every time we changed it. Once they obtained the password (which we were forced to continually change, agency officials electronically signed in under false identities—violating the our End License User Agreement.

And there is indeed proof that Maritime did indeed successfully "hack" into Beauchamp's site no less than 15 times.

What evidence is there? There are server logs, as shown in this screen capture (click to enlarge):

There are the logs of the Maritime Administration's illegal access time and IP addresses, including:

And there is much, much more, which has been turned over to the FBI for investigation, evidence of such obvious weight that agents declared felony charges were “quite possible” when discussing it with Brewer. Of course, once the case went to the US Attorney General's office in Washington for permission to investigate, it has since stalled...

While we've been debating and defending legitimate programs by the NSA and CIA, other elements of the government haven't even attempted to find a legal excuse for their accessing of private information. They've simply broken in.

Of course, the million dollar question is: "Why?"

Why would a federal agency illegally hack into the web server of a not-for-profit organization working in emergency response?? What were they hoping to find, and why were they willing to risk it?

The answer appears to be a simple combination of political corruption and revenge, but that is a story for another post...

Feeling the Tip of the Spear

As you've likely heard by now Israel has destroyed the runways at Beirut International Airport as part of a rapidly-evolving campaign against various Palestinian terrorist organizations. Some reports cited bombs, some rockets, some naval gunfire for the destruction of the runways, but nobody bothered to do a simple Google search to turn up this interesting purpose-built munition, the BLU-107 Durandal.

According to Wikipedia, it works like this:

Durandal is designed to be dropped from low altitudes. The fall of the bomb is retarded by a parachute. When, due to the parachute action, the bomb is vertical, it fires a rocket booster that accelerates it into the runway surface. The bomb explodes after it has penetrated below the surface. This results in a large and difficult to repair crater in the runway.

Israel has used it to great effect before.

A predecessor to Durandal was developed jointly by France and Israel during the 1960s to destroy air base runways. The weapon was used to devastating effect by the Israelis during the Six Day War.

One of these days, the Arab nations surrounding Israel are going to realize that they are still militarily no match for the IDF. As the situation in Lebanon continues to escalate and Syria becomes a more likely target, they might find out sooner rather than later.

Lord of the Dunce

Poor Glenn Greenwald.

He tries hard. He really, really does. But no matter how he tries to rationalize it, hyperbole against public figures does not come close to equating to terroristic threats uttered against children.

Nevertheless, Greenwald, tries to make that exact case in this post, attempting to equivilate comments made by Misha of the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler with those made in the past week by Counterpunch-published liberal academic Deborah Frisch.

Gleenwald offers up this quote from Misha as evidence of equivalence as Misha talks about the Hamdan decision granting Geneva Convention rights to terrorists after the release of an al Qaeda video showing the bodies of two American soldiers captured, tortured, and murdered by terrorists:

Of course, this is the same Supreme Court that earlier decided in Kelo that private property rights only matter as long as a private company doesn't offer a better deal, above or below the table, to local authorities, so one shouldn't really be surprised. The unelected, black-robed tyrants have a long history of not giving a fig about the Constitution if they don't like what it says, not to mention a long tradition of usurping the powers of the legislative and executive branch by ruling by judicial fiat. . . .

Try doing anything to those mutilating darlings of the Supremes in order to extract life-saving intel from them, and then wait for the Supreme Whores to decide that you were "humiliating" them in doing so.

Five ropes, five robes, five trees.

Some assembly required.

Greenwald misrepresents the quoted section, as Greenwald bolded this text, not Misha, adding emphasis that was not there in the original. In his commentary immediately following, Greenwald goes on to state:

He's advocating that the five Supreme Court Justices in the Hamdan majority be hanged from the neck until they're dead. His homicidal formulation is a play on the more standard call of the Right for American journalists to be hanged -- "Journalists. Rope. Tree. Some assembly required" -- another death call which, it just so happens, Misha also issued just a few days ago.

Now, does Greenwald, in his wildest delusion, seriously think that Misha is advocating for the lynching of Supreme Court justices and journalists? What would a reasonable person determine? A reasonable person—which I've given up on Greenwald attempting to be—would realize that Misha has a long-running infatuation with the rhetorical device known as hyperbole.

Most adults understand that hyperbole is the deliberate overstatement or exaggeration, and yet, Greenwald exposes himself as the Amelia Bedelia of the American Left, unable to understand that Misha's use of language is anything but literal.

That is the only rational explanation for this graph:

What happened? They all seemed to find such disturbing rhetoric so upsetting, such cause for great alarm this weekend, when it came from an obscure person in some comment section, but they have not said a word of condemnation about these death calls from a prominent blogger on the Right. Nor have any of them condemned the calls by Misha's readers for Islamic countries to be turned into radioactive parking lots or for the death of the towel heads by other means. Why not?

Greenwald cannot differentiate between Misha's hyperbole, and Deb Frisch's physical and sexual threats made against a minor. How sad.

I'd tell him to take a long walk off a short pier, but I don't know that the poor man would survive the rhetorical drop.

Note:via Instapundit, Dan Riehl wasn't quite as pleasant in his criticism.

Update: It becomes even harder to take Greenwald seriously. He's written a follow-up post to the one discussed above where he flatly lies about things written by conservative bloggers. Patrick Frey demands a retraction, but I don't think he's going to get one. Greenwald doesn't seem to have that much integrity. I flatly called Greenwald a liar in his comments, and when I checked hours later, he had no response. I'll let that stand on its own. Notice I didn't link to Greenwald again. I got the memo from Rove, and I concur. He really isn't worth it anymore, even if he is a willing patsy.

Joe Wilson Outed Plame's Name

When all is said and done, all the hyperbole has been set aside, and all the conspiracy theories debunked, it comes down to this little tidbit written by Bob Novak:

I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in Who's Who in America

Joe Wilson's Who's Who bio outed his wife's name after an unnamed primary source accidentally revealed information about her role. Karl Rove and the CIA's own Public Information Officer Bill Harlow merely confirmed what Novak already knew.

I don't care too much about the whole Plamegate/Fitzmas bit, though I have read along with it, and this anti-climax is simply hilarious in its non-scandal.

No laws were broken in Plame's name going to press. Not even a tiny one. An inadvertent slip of a position was cross-referenced with publicly available information that Wilson and Plame were stupid and vain enough to volunteer.

This wasn't a grand conspiracy. This was Spies Like Us.

Dollard on Mancow

For those of you in the midwest who've liked what you've seen of the Young Americans trailers I've linked to over the past weeks, you can now get a chance to listen to the man himself. Pat Dollard will be on Mancow's morning radio show this Friday, July 14, at 7:10 AM (CST).

Brain Freeze

After her third Wendy's Frosty of the day, Cindy Sheehan wondered why some people thought hunger strikes were so hard. *

Like her poor, starving fellow travelers in isolation at Guantanamo Bay, Sheehan is expected to gain 13 pounds on her ice cream-laced "fast."

Echoes of London

CNN reports at least six blasts during the evening rush hour on commuter trains in India's financial capital of Mumbai:

At least six blasts have rocked commuter trains at rush hour in and around India's financial capital of Mumbai, with at least 15 deaths reported.

Dozens of people were injured in the blasts, which took place around 6:30 p.m. (1300 GMT) on Tuesday when the trains were packed with commuters making their way home.

A correspondent for CNN's sister network, CNN-IBN, reported seeing 15 bodies at the Matunga train station.

Video from one station showed people with blood on them being treated, other commuters carrying victims and some people lying motionless near train tracks.

At least one train was split in half by the explosion.

A major terrorist attack on a democracy's financial hub... must be those damn Methodists again.

Fox News is reporting seven bomb blasts.

The Bangkok Post is reporting that all the explosions took place in the first-class compartments of the trains.

Forbes, citing Indian television reports, states that dozens have been killed.

Based upon these breaking preliminary reports, I suspect the Mumbai bombers may have used similar explosives to the ten-pound TATP backpack bombs that hit London just over a year ago.

Pajamas Media is providing information as it comes in from Indian blogs and news reports, and seems to be ahead of the wire services. An Indian blogger, Deep Ganatra, is reporting at least 63 dead and 400 injured according to local television media reports.

As of 11:00 AM, CAIR remains focused on a Koran that someone shot up in Tennessee and then threw at a mosque.

Glad to see they have their priorities straight.

Update: A fleeting moment of honesty at the Democratic Underground:

Silence on this board stems from difficulty blaming this on George W. Bush.

That's the fact.

I'll pass on that $20 bet BTW, but I still think we should invade Canada.

Have faith, little liberal.

Your fellow DUers were able to blame Bush for the terror attacks in London, so I'm sure you'll be able to get your thought together long enough find an excuse to blame him for these attacks as well.

Update: Deaths now reported as 130+, and is likely to climb with more than 300 injured. Indian Islamists have been arrested.

CNN-IBN reports another bomb has been found and defused.

Military Recruiting Exceeds Goals

Military recruiting for June once again met or exceeded goals across all four branches (h/t Paul at Adventurepan:

• Marines: 105%
• Army: 102%
• Air Force:101%
• Navy: 100%

You'll note that the Marine Corps and Army, responsible for fielding most of the forces on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, have exceeded their goals by the largest margins, despite having higher target numbers than the other branches. They achieved this in the face of a mainstream media attempting to portray the military as rapists, racists, and murderers based up the alleged actions of a handful of men.

Since October 1, all four branches have met or exceed their goals:

• Army: 104%
• Marines: 101%
• Air Force: 101%
• Navy: 100%

Reserve forces recruiting has not been as even, but interesting enough, the Reserve and Guard forces most likely to be called upon for ground combat overseas (Army National Guard, Army Reserves, Marine Corps Reserves) have been the most successful in recruiting.

Who are the recruits?

Despite myths to the contrary, today's military is a far cry from the Vietnam-era draftees. Today's volunteers (PDF) are better educated than their peers, come from middle-class or upper middle-class homes, and tend to come from suburban and rural areas.

Certain areas of the country are somewhat under over and underrepresented geographically according to recruiting data, with the southern and rural states over-represented, the urban northeast, north central and west coast states are under-represented. Interestingly enough, their seems to be a rough correlation to this map.

Make of it what you will.

Soldier Beheading Video Released

If you can stand to watch it, The Jawa Report has obtained graphic footage of the bodies of two U.S. soldiers captured, tortured and killed in Iraq several weeks ago, as released in an al Qaeda video.

Sadly, if the terrorists can be beleived, the attack was in response to the rape and murder of a nearby Iraqi girl as I theorized on July 3:

On March 12, five soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Division allegedly raped a 15-year-old Iraqi girl killed her and her family, and then burned her body in an apparent attempt to hide the evidence of their crime.

Roughly three months later, on June 23, one of those soldiers confessed after soldiers from the same platoon were ambushed, and two GIs captured in the ambush were horrifically tortured and killed. Was there a cause-and-effect, tit-for-tat exchange of atrocities south of Baghdad?

Claims made in the video to this effect only bolster my theory.

Update:

Via Fox News:

According to the SITE Institute, the statement by the insurgents said that as soon as fighters heard of the rape-slaying, "they kept their anger to themselves and didn't spread the news."

"They decided to take revenge for their sister's honor," the statement said. "With Allah's help, they captured two soldiers of the same brigade as this dirty crusader."

The Mujahedeen Shura Council is an umbrella organization of several Islamic extremist groups, including al Qaeda in Iraq. It claimed responsibility for shooting down a U.S. Apache helicopter in the Youssifiyah area in April.

U.S. investigators had said there was no evidence linking the deaths of the three soldiers last month to the alleged rape-slaying.

No physical evidence, perhaps, but the terrorists did cite the rape as their excuse, and they used what to my knowledge are new tactics to carry out the kidnapping. Time will tell.

Circling the Wackos

As if the refusal of many liberal bloggers to condemn the terroristic threats of Deb Frisch weren't bad enough, it now seems that the academy is closing ranks around her, as evidenced by Scott Jaschik's less than forthright Inside Higher Ed article amply demonstrates:

“I enjoy writing things that inflame, mock and infuriate the right,” Deborah Frisch said in an e-mail interview Sunday in response to a question about her online activities. By any measure, she's achieving her goals — and she's also out of a job.

Frisch posted a comment last week on Protein Wisdom, a Web site known for its no holding back conservative commentary, frequently with considerable mocking of liberal academics and ideas. Frisch, an adjunct lecturer at the University of Arizona until this weekend, said in the posting that she would not be sad if the 2-year old child of the site's founder, Jeff Goldstein, was “Jon Benet Ramseyed,” and she reportedly posted other questions of the sort a Ramsey-inspired attacker might ask.

Jaschik glosses over Frisch's threats of sexually abusing a toddler and murdering him, and instead, attempts to paint a sympathetic portrait of a someone who was wrongly forced to resign her position.

Jaschik's article sets up Deb Frisch as a martyr, and at no point does he even attempt to quote in context the threats Frisch made against Goldstein and his young son.

The threats included threats against the toddler's life:

[...] as I said elsewhere, if I woke up tomorrow and learned that someone else had shot you and your “tyke” it wouldn't slow me down one iota. You aren't “human” to me.

Ooh. Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby.

Are you still married to the woman you humped to produce the toddler?

I reiterate: If some nutcase kidnapped your child tomorrow and did to her what was done to your fellow Coloradan, Jon-Benet Ramsey, I wouldn't give a damn.

The threats also included disturbing images of sexual assault:

Give your pathetic progeny (I sure hope that mofo got good genes from his mama!) a big fat tongue-filled kiss from me! LOTS AND LOTS OF SALIVA from Auntie MOONBAT, if you don't mind!

According to a conversation I just had with a very nice agent of the Phoenix Field Office of the FBI, Frisch's comments would appear to be crime within the FBI's jurisdiction.

It's interesting how Scott Jaschik and Inside Higher Ed couldn't make that same very simple phone call before writing this story, but then, that isn't the story of academic victimhood they'd like to report.

"No Tears or Regrets"

A video message to America's liberals, from the U.S. Marine Corps and Hollywood agent turned combat filmmaker, Pat Dollard.

Not safe for work. Click the first video link.

Bonus: Pat on Hannity & Colmes.

A Proud Member of the Toddler-Threatening Community

It was disgusting a year ago when Daily Kos posters were all for attacking the sexual orientation of four-year-old Jack Roberts, the son of then Supreme Court nominee (and now Chief Justice) John Roberts. I thought it was disgusting, abhorrent behavior by deranged individuals, and I thought I'd seen the lowest of the low.

Then came University of Arizona psychology professor instructor Deborah Frisch.

Deb Frisch is living proof of my tagline, that "liberalism is a persistent vegetative state."

What did she do that was so horrible? Unable to compete rhetorically with conservative blogger Jeff Goldstein, she repeatedly threatened the life of his two-year-old son with comments such as these:

I'd like to hear more about your “tyke” by the way. Girl? Boy? Toddler? Teen? Are you still married to the woman you ephed to give birth to the tyke?

Tell all, bro!

. . .

as I said elsewhere, if I woke up tomorrow and learned that someone else had shot you and your “tyke” it wouldn't slow me down one iota. You aren't “human” to me.

. . .

So if you could just tell me the AGE and SEX of your "tyke," I'd be stoked!

Thanx!

. . .

Ooh. Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby.

. . .

If some nutcase kidnapped your child tomorrow and did to her what was done to your fellow Coloradan, Jon-Benet Ramsey, I wouldn't give a damn.

According to Blackfive, (from whom I copied these comments) Goldstein's site is currently under two Denial of Service attacks. Froggy says:

Apparently, some elements of the psychotic left are closing ranks around Dr. Frisch and seemingly approve of her tactics of threatening children with death and sexual abuse. Nice going.

Those tactics did work so well for Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Che, so at least they're being consistent in their behavior.

When conservative bloggers go over the line and publish personal information, they are condemned by their own. When a liberal blogger threaten child sex abuse and murder, what response do we get from prominent liberal blogs?

*crickets*

Not one post.

Nothing from Kos, or Atrios, silence from Raw Story, AMERICAblog, and MyDD.

But two sites did write about how horrific personal attacks can be.

Glenn Greenwald found the time to condemn conservative bloggers who post personal contact information as a form of intimidation... yet he couldn't quite seem to find so much as a single word to condemn a fellow liberal who threatens the murder of a child.

Pamela Troy's front page post at the Democratic Underground found plenty of time to attack "aw-dropping right-wing venom," yet could spare no words for one of her own apparently advocating the sexual assault of a toddler.

Such sudden silence...

One might be tempted to think this absolute lack of condemnation was a tacit acceptance of these tactics.

Welcome to the new face of the most deranged members of our political opposition, "the toddler-threatening community."

Update: Not as many crickets, but a lot of pathetic behavior.

Raw Story links ot this post, and its readers (in the comments) seem to think linking this post is a condemnation. Not quite. In the comments, Glenn Greenwald can't quite seem to leave it alone with a simple "this is wrong," and spends the majority of his time blaming --who else?-- conservatives for repulsive behavior. Barbara O'Brien can't quite seem to really denounce Frisch, and instead, tells me to go to hell. Shrek's Mom doesn't seem quite ready to believe that Frisch actually said such vile things, stating:

...it's all too easy to distort and misrepresent what others have said when you take snips of quotes out of context."

Antiwisdom lives up to its title, saying Goldstein lied and made this entire episode up, and probably edited Frisch's comments to make them sounds worse.

Among others who can't quite bring themselves to condemn Frisch for threats of molesting or killing toddlers are TBogg and Unfogged, who seems to think that their are so many better ways to attack Goldstein that to make such "unpleasant" comments.

On the other hand, NewsHog offers a condemnation, and Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft show it's really easy to simply say that:

What Deborah Frisch wrote is inexcusable behavior for a blogger of any kind, liberal or conservative. Her comments about Jeff Goldstein's son and wife are indeed unhinged. I cannot imagine any provocation that could justify them.

Bingo. Too bad they and other smaller liberal bloggers with similar sentiments made up 50% or less of those commenting from their side.

"Russ" offers sound advice in the comments:

Far too many liberals on here, while denouncing the woman's threats, always offer qualification to their remarks. Something like - "Yeah, that's bad, but what about this?" Stop trying to be morally superior. Acknowledge that threatening someone's child is waaaaaaaaay over the line and be done with it. That, more than anything else, would help establish that she doesn't represent the mainstream left. Get back on message on another topic, but I am sickened that some folks' partisan leanings cannot even overcome the revulsion most people should feel over this woman's comments.

Frisch, meanwhile (h/t BCB), desires to paint herself as the victim.

Why, she'd have you believe she's as innocent and as helpless as a baby.

Deadly But Dumb

That short statement seems to be an accurate description of the terrorists in the latest reported terrorist plot against New York City, where an al Qaeda member captured in Lebanon and his cohorts planned to detonate vehicle-borne explosives in an attempt to breach tunnels into New York City. Their goal was flooding lower Manhattan.

What idiots.

For starters, it is quite doubtful that Allah's brain surgeons could have managed to construct the kind of bomb that could breach the Holland or any other tunnel into New York City. I won't bother explaining all the multiple reasons (and there are many) that their plot would fail to breach the tunnel walls, but lets just for a second look at what would happen to the rest of lower Manhattan in the event of a tunnel detonation.

…

…

…

Did you see what happened?

Nothing.

Certainly, there would be panic and injuries and deaths inside the tunnel and I do not in any way want to minimize that. There would smoke from the blast from the bomb, and the noise and commotion of the emergency response from New York's Finest and Bravest, but there would be no measurable physical damage outside the tunnel, as lower Manhattan is above sea level.

The brain trust that came up with this cockamamie plan was hoping a blast under the riverbed—at a point lower than the bottom of the river—would somehow cause a Hurricane Katrina-like deluge that would flood the Financial District and collapse the U.S. economy. It would be laughable if they weren't planning this with such deadly earnest.

This is the latest al Qaeda plan to attack the United States, but there have been others.

A couple of homegrown Miami jihadi wannabes wanted to detonate an ANFO bomb to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago, but only managed to enlist the FBI in their support. They're in jail. More than a dozen Canadian hopefuls had a similar plot Up North, but they were also quickly detained.

Just for the record, this plot was foiled by the NSA monitoring Internet communications between would-be jihadists. Funny. but I didn't feel my civil rights were trampled at all.

The simple fact of the matter seems to be that the best minds al Qaeda have long since been killed or have gone to ground, leaving us with thankfully incompetent terrorists to plan most of the attacks against us. Most are no seasoned terrorists. Most are committing their first attacks.

This makes them harder to find in some ways, and easier to foil in others.

They're pitting their "B" team against our best and brightest, the same men and women that put the vast majority of their "A" Team in the ground, and it shows.

They may still get lucky—we often heard say that they "only have to be right once"—but as each passing terrorist generation is ground to mulch in southwest Asia or sent packing for a federal prison, the odds of them getting everything right as they did on 9/11 grows increasingly remote.

Remembering 7/7

One year later, Pajamas Media has a roundup of bloggers remembering the 52 people murdered by Islamists in London.

Red Face

I see via columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin that North Face has decided to sell "vintage" jackets celebrating the memory of the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (CCCP), or at the rest of us like to call it, the USSR.

Quite a country, the USSR.

It started via a revolution in 1917 where Czar Nicolas and his family were murdered by thugs loyal to Lenin. Stalin came to power after Lenin's death, and in 1939, signed a non-aggression pact with the Nazis. It didn't last long, however, and in 1941 they were in a war that saw tens of millions of Soviet boys and girls forced into combat, sometimes unarmed, often with an officer's pistol aimed at the back of their heads. Millions of them were cut down by either German machine guns or their own officers.

Before, During, and after the Second World War, the CCCP killed tens of millions in Joseph Stalin's gulags, and when Nikita Kruschev ran the country, he spoke to each and every American, "we will bury you."

How lovely a sentiment to promote to America's youth.

Tens of millions of more people in eastern European countries were crushed under the weight of the Iron Curtain, their human rights stripped away as mass graves filled in periodic purges. Unknown thousands died over the decades trying to flee this tyranny, gunned down by their own soldiers for trying to escape to the west and freedom. You celebrate it with a "trendy" jacket.

The jackets features "comfortable, easy-care fabric." I bet it would have been welcomed in the frozen forced labor concentration camps known as gulags, where those who desired the freedom to shop at western department stores were worked to death alongside criminals.

North Face—or perhaps we should call it "Red Face" for the embarrassing pimping of totalitarian regimes as fashion chic—is one of many brands of VF Corporation, the same publicly held capitalist corporation that owns the brands Wrangler, Lee, Vanity Fair, JanSport, Eastpak, Vans, and Nautica, just to name a few.

I wonder, does VF Investor Relations know that their subsidiaries are promoting a communist regime that killed millions of people, including hundreds of Americans in gulags?

This same regime that VF corporation seeks to market and capitalize on, developed and supplied weaponry that killed more than 33,000 American servicemen in the Korean war, and took another 58,191 American lives in Vietnam.

This the legacy of mass murder, political oppression and war with America can be yours for just $78 American, courtesy of North Face and VF Corporation.

Do let them know what you think:

VF Corporation

VF Corporation
105 Corporate Center Blvd.
Greensboro, NC 27420-1488
Phone: 336.424.6000
Fax: 336.424.7668

Investor Relations
Cindy Knoebel
VP, Financial and Corporate Communications
VF Services
P: 336.424.6189
F: 336.424.7668

Media Inquiries
Paul Mason
P: 336.424.6192
F: 336.424.7668

North Face
Phone:(866) 715-3223, prompt 7.
Monday-Friday, 8:00am-4:00pm
Pacific time

Address:
The North Face, Inc.
Customer Service
2013 Farallon Dr.
San Leandro, CA 94577
USA

Like the fallen totalitarian regime they seek to profit from promoting, I'm sure they would just kill to hear from you.

Ann-ihilated?

"Those that live by the sword, die by the sword," goes the saying. If this Editor & Publisher article is correct, Ann Coulter, master conservative provocateur-wordsmith, has managed to deliver herself a serious wound:

Universal Press Syndicate has requested a copy of a report about Ann Coulter's alleged plagiarism, according to a post on the TPMmuckraker.com blog. Meanwhile, in her latest column, Coulter has hit back at the newspaper that aired the latest plagiarism charges -- but did not refute them.

The report was conducted by John Barrie, creator of the iThenticate plagiarism-probing system. A New York Post story this Sunday said Barrie found several examples of alleged plagiarism in Coulter's new "Godless" book as well as in her Universal column.

Universal Director of Communications Kathie Kerr, when contacted by E&P, said she called Barrie on Wednesday morning and left him a message asking him for a copy of his report. "Once we see a copy of the report, we'll be happy to comment on the findings," she added. "We take allegations of plagiarism very seriously." E&P has also left a message for Barrie, who appeared on MSNBC late Wesnesday.

There he explained that the Post had asked his company to put Coulter's book and the past 12 months of columns through his program. But his staffers stopped before completing the task--"we gave up after awhile, we'd seen enough," he explained. The many examples added up to "advanced plagiarism," he said, the kind of stuff that would "flunk any English student."

I firmly believe that all of us who read and write a great deal plagiarize at least some material from time-to–time, simply because we are information sponges. Right, left, or apolitical, we read constantly, absorbing data and delicately-turned phrases, and occasionally, despite our best intentions, we end up writing something suspiciously similar to someone else, presenting echoes of thoughts that stuck with us sometimes days, months, or even years later.

I'd like to see the examples that Barrie—a UC-Berkley graduate—claims his team has produced. Just because he was more than likely delighted to target Coulter does not mean he was incorrect.

If Barrie is right, Coulter has done far more than accidentally internalize and regurgitate the work of others. She has apparently engaged in willful, serial—here they call it "advanced"—plagiarism, and she owes all of her readers an explanation.

You Learn Something New Every Day

Strangely enough, I always assumed that the folks who ran the most widely read political blog on the Internet has a better understanding of domain names than Ted Stevens.

Update: I wrote this post simply because I found it amusing that the Kossacks were initially directing their attack at wrong web site. I still find that amusing, but the underlying story, which I've missed until now, is an unsettling betrayal of values not conservative or liberal, but American. I expect better than this, from all of us.

Via Kershertalk, I've read deeper into this issue, and found that the behavior of both Nedd, who published the names, addresses and phone numbers of private citizens for no other possible reason than to expose them to abuse, and Jay, who refuses to come out against it, as deplorable.

Let's make this painfully clear:

Providing the public professional contact information of elected officials and appointees, of journalists, and news organizations so that blog readers can provide (hopefully) constructive feedback is acceptable. I am personally against providing the private addresses and private phone numbers of public figures as well with out their express permission.

But providing the private addresses and work and private phone numbers of private citizens—even those that are thrust into the public by circumstance—is a disgusting tactic by desperate, small-minded people, and should always be condemned.

New Docs Sugest Saddam May Have Trained/Equipped Taliban and Al Qaeda

Ray Robinson has been busy with his translators over at the Saddam Dossier, and has unearthed documents that an Arab regime—most likely Saddam's Iraq as these documents were found in Iraqi computers—supplied training manuals and military assistance to both al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. Among the instructions passed along to the terrorists are personal security instructions:

Respected brother,

Know that one of the main causes of information leaks is from personnel (translator's note: personnel talking), this is why we try to cooperate with you so that neither you or one of your brothers becomes the cause of a catastrophe that might hit one of the brothers or all of them.

Please follow these instructions:

1- Know as much as you need. (translator's note: don't ask too many questions)
2- Don't talk too much; it is said that "silence is wisdom."
3- It is recommended that all personnel wear Afghan clothing so they do not stand out from other people.
4- All the brothers should go to the market by themselves, alone.
5- It is not advised to move alone at night. (At night, walk the streets on foot)
6- As much as possible do not disclose your identity as an Arab.
7- Avoid excitement whether by glorifying or bashing.
8- Avoid being observed (translator's note: being followed and observed) and always notice who is walking behind you or following you from a distance; review the observation manual.
9- All brothers should be always armed even if with a small knife in their pockets.
10- Check your pockets and never leave important papers in them when moving around.
11- Always be careful in personal relations with Afghans or Pakistanis.
12- Avoid giving any information about the locations of your brothers.
13- It is forbidden to discuss work issues with the women.
14- It is forbidden to take children to parks and offices.
15- It is forbidden to talk about your work or the nature of your mission with anybody who is not related to it.
16- Beware of habit in your daily routine because the rule says, "Routine is the enemy of security."
17- If you are moving and have a large amount of money, beware of showing it in the market so you do not attract robbers.
18- Always beware when you are talking about the work because somebody not related to your work, the women or the children, might hear you.
19- Beware of rapid and spontaneous friendships with Afghans who speak Arabic.
20- In public places beware of talking about work issues because some Afghans know Arabic but you cannot notice this.
21- Always be forgiving when you are buying from, selling to or dealing with Afghans and avoid trouble.
22- Children are not allowed to go out by themselves whether to buy stuff or play.
23- Always make sure about the identity of your neighbors and classify them as regular people, opponents or allies.

While Robinson notes that it is not certain while Arab regime wrote these instructions along with the others contained in this translated document, he also states:

This document supports a few strong conclusions. It clearly proves that an Arab country was providing professional military assistance to Arab operatives in Afghanistan. While the document does not identify the country of origin of these Arab men, it's a logical omission since it wouldn't make sense to name the country in a memo whose purpose is to instruct how to hide one's nationality.

It is important to note, however, that in 1999, Iraq — along with Syria — was again identified by the U.S. Department of State as a government sponsor of terrorism, the only two Arab nations classified as state sponsors of terrorism at that time.

This document, of course, will be contested by those who refuse to believe that Saddam supported terrorism. These are the same people who refuse to acknowledge the fact that Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal, two of the preeminent terrorist masterminds prior to the emergence of Osama bin Laden, lived in Baghdad as Saddam's guest for many years. These are the same people who refuse to acknowledge the fact that the 1993 World Trade Center attack was made possible by an Iraqi-American bomb-builder, Abdul Rahman Yasin, who returned to Baghdad and continued to live in Iraq for a decade following his mission.

For people so deeply and philosophically invested in denial, Robinson's work can never openly be acknowledged as being correct. To do so would mean that Bush didn't lie, and that Saddam's ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations was real.

For the rest of us, however, every document that Ray Robinson's team translates helps to build a picture of a Baathist regime every bit as dangerous as we thought it was.

Note: Mr. Robinson let me know he also taped an interview on Fox News television about these findings that will air every hour this morning.

If It Makes You Happy...

Vai K-Lo on NRO's The Corner, this little bit from America's favorite anti-American, anti-war mom:

Activist Cindy Sheehan, who is leading a hunger strike [ed. -- not really] against the war in Iraq, tells Norah O'Donnell that she would rather live under Hugo Chavez than George W. Bush.

I'm tired and sore from my own move to a new residence, but I find that I can dig deep and help load just one more truck if that is really what she wants. I'll even throw in my extra cardboard boxes and packing tape.

And just to make it easier, I even found a web site where she can get international moving quotes. Guess what? At least six moving companies are willing to take her to Venezuela, even though Hugo isn't likely to be there to help her unpack, as he's working on a oil-for-arms deal with North Korea.

All the same, I'd be willing to bet millions here are ready to help her pack.

Navy Recovers North Korean Missile Nearly Intact

While the word community is in an uproar over how to respond to North Korea's firing of multiple missiles yesterday and today, deepwater U.S. Navy salvage operations in the Sea of Japan have already located and brought to the surface one of the missiles fired.

It was missing only the nosecone and plastic parachute.

Farewell

When it's my turn, I stride slowly, execute a right face, and bring my hand slowly to my brow. As I bring my hand back to my side I'm aware of the moisture in my eyes, which turn down as I execute a left face and leave the platform. I see for the first time how full the room really is, as there are many soldiers standing along the back wall. It's all I can do not to run outside, into daylight, away from that monument that means that my friend will never see his dreams of becoming a drill sergeant, an underwater welder, a husband or a father come to life. Run away from the fear that one day my own picture will be in front of that monument, that I'll never see my fiancée or my parents or my brothers and sisters again. Run away from the fear that I'll never become a teacher and raise a family. But I don't run. I walk as quickly as discipline allows outside, where my friends wait and share my grief.

A fallen soldier is remembered by another in Iraq, at Blue Crab Boulevard.

Been There. Didn't Care For It.

The BBC's Gerry Anderson in Belfast told President Bush he could "rot in hell" on his July Forth birthday during a broadcast yesterday. He has since apologized.

Mr. Anderson, like many BBC reporters, has a problem getting his facts right.

Not only is the President's birthday not on July 4th (it is tomorrow, July 6th), he has already been to Belfast.

Update: As Republican Babe notes in the comments, the BBC apologized, not Anderson.

Ken Lay Sentenced Early

Judegement came from a Court Most High:

Enron founder Kenneth Lay died early Wednesday in Aspen, Colo., a family spokeswoman said.

Lay, 64, was awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of conspiracy and fraud in the Enron trial in May.

In a statement, spokeswoman Kelly Kimberly said, "The Lays have a very large family with whom they need to communicate, and out of respect for the family we will release further details at a later time."

CNN affiliate KPRC in Houston said Lay was admitted to the Aspen Valley Hospital overnight with a massive coronary.

On May 25, Lay was found guilty of 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of Enron, the energy company he founded that eventually grew into the nation's seventh largest company before it imploded after an accounting scandal.

The sentence cannot be appealed.

Turning On Al Qaeda

Via Captain's Quarters, one of the oddest requests so far of the Long War shows that the President is winning the War on Terror:

Iraq's government is studying a request from some local insurgent leaders to supply them with weapons so they can turn on the heavily armed foreign fighters who were once their allies, according to two Iraqi lawmakers.

Leaders claiming to represent about 11 insurgent groups asked for weapons to fight foreign al-Qaeda elements in Iraq, said Haider al-Ibadi, a Shiite lawmaker and member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party.

"They want to take part in the war against terrorists," said al-Ibadi, who supports the proposal. "They claim they could wipe out the terrorists and work with the government."

Many of us understood months or years ago that as the Iraqi Army matured, it would eventually force the various insurgent groups to the bargaining table. The Iraqi Army is better trained and better equipped than insurgent groups, in what is essentially a war of attrition that insurgent groups cannot realistically hope to win.

At the same time, "red on red" violence has been growing in Iraq for soem time, as native insurgents have increasingly turned upon foreign-led terrorist cells that often target Iraqi civilians.

The Iraqi government should, of course, refuse to arm the insurgents. Arms that target al Qaeda on day could easily be turned back on Iraqi forces the next. Better armed militias are not in the nation's best interests, no matter who they claim to support.

But the request tells us two things:

1. The native insurgents feel they lack appropriate arms and ammunition. Desert conditions take a toll on even rugged Russian-designed arms, and tend to degrade ammunition. Coalition missions to dry up "rat lines" bring fresh weaponry from neighboring countries may be working.
2. Foreign fighters and those loyal to them have worn out their welcome among native Iraqis. Even the mostly Sunni insurgency seems intent on driving out al Qaeda. The fact that this new willingness to publicly engage al Qaeda occurred after Musab al-Zarqawi's death is perhaps not accidental.

If talks between the Iraqi government and the various Sunni insurgent groups can reach an agreement and maintain that agreement, the Army can then turn its attention to the sectarian violence in Iraq, and assist in cleaning out and disarming the various militias.

Iraq may not be free of sectarian violence for some time to come, but the fact that the insurgency seems to be losing its desire to fight a losing war is a step in the right direction that even the most diehard liberal will find hard to ignore.

What You've Heard About His Weapons Is True

From the AP:

North Korea tests 7th missile amid furor

North Korea test-fired another missile Wednesday, intensifying the furor ignited when the reclusive regime launched at least six missiles, including a long-range Taepodong, earlier in the day.

Seven firings, none apparently lasting longer than six minutes, and the keystone was a spectacular failure that expired 40 seconds after launch.

Is this an impoverished Asisan dictatorship trying to project power, or Ron Jeremy's comeback tour?

The More Things Change...

...the more they stay the same.

"What July Fourth Means to Me"

For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia about the Fourth of July.

I remember it as a day almost as long-anticipated as Christmas. This was helped along by the appearance in store windows of all kinds of fireworks and colorful posters advertising them with vivid pictures.

No later than the third of July – sometimes earlier – Dad would bring home what he felt he could afford to see go up in smoke and flame. We'd count and recount the number of firecrackers, display pieces and other things and go to bed determined to be up with the sun so as to offer the first, thunderous notice of the Fourth of July.

I'm afraid we didn't give too much thought to the meaning of the day. And, yes, there were tragic accidents to mar it, resulting from careless handling of the fireworks. I'm sure we're better off today with fireworks largely handled by professionals. Yet there was a thrill never to be forgotten in seeing a tin can blown 30 feet in the air by a giant "cracker" – giant meaning it was about 4 inches long.

But enough of nostalgia. Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth.

There is a legend about the day of our nation's birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and the issue remained in doubt.

The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, "They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever."

He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.

John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.

Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton.

Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.

But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world.

In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.

It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.

Happy Fourth of July.

Ronald Reagan
President of the United States
1981

Mount Misery Mind Games

Liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald is having a grand old time pointing fingers at some conservative bloggers who blasted the New York Times from running a fairly detailed puff piece about the St. Michaels, MD area that is home to Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld:

As I documented at length this weekend, Michelle Malkin, John Hinderaker, Red State, David Horowitz and many others of that sort spent the weekend engaged in the most vicious and self-evidently misguided attacks on The New York Times based on a puff piece in this weekend's "Escapes" section. Because the article contained a photograph of Don Rumsfeld's vacation home, they insisted that this was reckless and even retaliatory-- i.e., done with the intent to enable Al Qaeda operatives and other assassins to murder Rumsfeld (as well as Dick Cheney), and that it was further evidence of the war being waged by the NYT and its employees on the Bush administration and the U.S.

For so many obvious reasons, based on easily obtainable information -- including the fact that multiple right-wing news outlets such as NewsMax and Fox and others had previously disclosed this same information months earlier, that this information is commonly reported about government leaders in both parties, and the fact that we always know where our top government officials live and spend their weekends because they have Secret Service protection -- these accusations were as false as they were hysterical.

And let's face it—Greenwald knows hysterical, so I bow to his expertise. Unfortunately, I was too busy moving into my own country estate this weekend to comment at the time, but I still have some Monday morning quarterbacking to do all the same.

A large part of the controversy seems to revolve around the fact that Times artile not only spoke of the two homes, it actually provided a partial picture of the Rumsfeld home "Mount Misery" as shot from the street.

Here it is a bit closer, magnified as much as the JPG format will allow.

It is interesting to see how the house has changed over time. The photo of the home below was take back when Mount Misery was a bed and breakfast.

Here it is a bit closer, once again magnified as much as the JPG format will allow.

Interesting how things change over time, isn't it? The red brick Rumsfeld home (top photo) has taken on a new window over the front door since its days as a B&B (below).

Certainly, red brick federal homes all certainly look an aweful lot a like... you don't think that the Rumsfeld's might have used a "decoy house" to prevent the Times from revealing more "classified information," do you?

Iraq War Rape/Murder Suspect Arrested in Western NC

Via the News & Observer:

Federal prosecutors charged a veteran of the Iraq war with murder and rape Monday following an investigation into the killing of an Iraqi woman and members of her family. Steven D. Green, a 21-year-old former private first class who was discharged from the Army, appeared in a federal magistrate's courtroom in Charlotte Monday. Prosecutors said Green and other soldiers entered the home of a family of Iraqi civilians, where he and others raped a member of the family before Green shot her and three of her relatives to death.

The FBI said its agents arrested Green on Friday in Marion, N.C., and he is being held without bond pending a transfer to Louisville, Ky. Green had served with the 101st Airborne, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.

The case is being handled by federal prosecutors because Green has been discharged from the Army. According to an affidavit filed along with the criminal complaint, Green was discharged "before this incident came to light. Green was discharged due to a personality disorder."

Green was alleged to have killed three of the four family members, and participated in the rape. He could face the death penalty if convicted. He is the only soldier beign investigated in the Mahmudiyah rape/murder case to have been discharged.

Marion, NC is a small town near Lake James, west of Morganton.

This Sounds Familiar Somehow...

It's a regular Bush vs. Gordita:

Mexico's presidential election was too close to call Sunday, with a leftist offering himself as a savior to the poor and a conservative free-trader both declaring themselves the winner. Officials said they won't know who won for days.

Electoral officials said they could not release the results of Sunday night's quick count of the votes, which they previously said would happen only if the leading candidates were within one percentage point of each other. Luis Carlos Ugalde, president of the Federal Electoral Institute, said an official count would begin Wednesday, and a winner will be declared once it's complete.

As Dafydd notes at Big Lizards, the leftist candidate says that according to his figures he won, while the more conservative candidate notes the official preliminary count is showing him with a slim but important lead.

Under Mexican law, in the event of a tie, a winner is selected based upon the best human sacrifice to Aztec god of civilization Quetzalcoatl.*

* Not actually true, but it would be considered by most international observers to be a more humane way to settle a presidential election that the U.S. court system.

The Amontillado Option

It was an affront to common sense, a willful and undermining misreading of the Geneva Conventions, and a blatantly unconstitutional stab at grabbing power from both the Legislative and Executive branches, but the Supreme Court's much disputed and reviled Hamdan decision—which some have stated is on par with Dredd Scott and Pessy vs. Ferguson as "a great 'self-inflicted wound'"—might actually have a silver lining after all, as pointed out briefly by Captain Ed:

The ruling from the Supreme Court that essentially grants terrorists Geneva Convention protections needs to get reversed as quickly as possible. The court's majority decision declared that the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) issued by Congress in 2001 somehow did not cover the establishment of military tribunals for unlawful combatants, which leaves Congress the opening to fill the gap.

I actually prefer the method that Justice Stevens explicitly left open to the Bush administration in his opinion: leave them detained until hostilities cease in the war on terror. Radical Islam does not leave many deterrents to its lunatic pawns. Death in combat or a summary execution suits them fine. Public trials give them the opportunity to exploit our civil justice system as platforms for their screeds, as Zacarias Moussaoui showed. However, the perpetual and anonymous detention offered by Stevens does give the terrorists the one situation they find most repellent -- and that could persuade at least a few of them that taking on the US holds nothing but a miserable stretch of decades in an iron cage, with no public outlet for their hatred.

I've mentioned in the past that if we are going to extend Geneva Protections to terrorists (who are disbarred from Geneva Protections due to Article 4.1.2, no matter what Justice Stevens says), then we should specifically use the portion of the Geneva Conventions that favors us the most.

The world has been at war with Islamic fundementalists at shifting borders for almost 1,400 years. More than millennia of precedent indicates that Islam—which divides the world into the House of War and House of Submission—will be at war with the rest of the world as long as it exists.

While President Bush was taking steps with the tribunals struck down by Hamdan to provide some sort of attempt at providing trials, perhaps he shouldn't have bothered.

Ironically, the Supreme Court now gives us a containment option straight out of a horror story.

Edgar Alan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado is perhaps one of the most classic horror stories; a man repeatedly wronged by another lures his victim into a dank catacombs where he first chains him, and then proceeds to wall him up alive.

Justice John Paul Stevens and the four other prevailing members of the Court have now set the stage for the terrorists we've captured to remain under U.S. custody without any sort of trial whatsoever for decades to come. They may conceivably be confined as prisoners of war—in good health, not bound in catacombs, mind you—until either they expire or jihad against the West ceases.

The Court has created the chance for the perpetual internment of captured terrorists without the mess of a jury trial. Somehow, I doubt liberals will be as happy with the Hamdan decision as they once were if this or following Administrations uses this option.

Frankly, I prefer tribunals, but I could force myself to live with this.

In pace requiescat!

Fly Like a Butterfly...

...sting like General Ali.

Via the Real Ugly American.

Random Acts?

On March 12, five soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Division allegedly raped a 15-year-old Iraqi girl killed her and her family, and then burned her body in an apparent attempt to hide the evidence of their crime.

Roughly three months later, on June 23, one of those soldiers confessed after soldiers from the same platoon were ambushed, and two GIs captured in the ambush were horrifically tortured and killed. Was there a cause-and-effect, tit-for-tat exchange of atrocities south of Baghdad? At least one key player seems to think so:

The official in Iraq whom the wire service quoted said the mutilation of the slain soldiers stirred feelings of guilt and led at least one of them to reveal the rape and slaying on June 22.

Would "feelings of guilt" mean that this soldier felt the torture and murder of men from his platoon was in retaliation for his own acts? Absent any other explanation, it seems a plausible assumption.

It is, of course, quite possible and even probable that the ambush and capture of Menchaca and Tucker at their Yusifiyah checkpoint was an act completely unassociated with the rape and murders down the road at Mahmudiyah. It seems that most of the neighbors were willing to believe this was a sectarian killing performed by Shiite militiamen.

But there was at least one notable exception.

Omar Janabi, a neighbor of the slain family, seems to be the star witness of this case, not only having conversations with the mother about here fears of a potential assault before the incident, but was also among the first to see the bodies.:

Janabi was one of the first people to arrive at the house after the attack, he said Saturday, speaking to a Washington Post special correspondent at the home of local tribal leaders. He said he found Abeer sprawled dead in a corner, her hair and a pillow next to her consumed by fire, and her dress pushed up to her neck. "I was sure from the first glance that she had been raped," he said. Despite the reassurances he had given the girl's mother earlier, Janabi said, "I wasn't surprised what had happened, when I found that the suspicion of the mother was correct."

And yet, three months passed without any indication that Janabi went to the Iraqi military or police to report his suspicions. Perhaps it was a cultural difference; perhaps it was fear of possible retribution, but in any event he believed U.S. soldiers from this unit was responsible for the capital crimes against his neighbors.

A Sunni in the heart of the Sunni insurgency, Janabi most likely "knew somebody who knew somebody" who would be capable of a retaliatory strike—perhaps a strike that took three months to reconnoiter, plan, and execute—that might send a message to the soldiers who committed these rapes.

Perhaps the tortuous deaths of men from Company B, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment weren't quite a random act of barbarity after all.

Bloodthirsty Knave Gets Unmarked Grave

He's worm food now:

Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told The Associated Press that al-Zarqawi had been buried in a "secret location" in Baghdad.

The U.S. military confirmed the burial but declined to give more details.

"The remains of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi were turned over to the appropriate government of Iraq officials and buried in accordance with Muslim customs and traditions," the military said in an e-mailed statement. "Anything further than that would be addressed by the Iraqi government."

al-Zarqawi died approximately an hour after sustaining catastrophic injuries in a June 7 airstrike. The cause of death was listed as a primary (blast) injury to the lung.

The last thing he saw on this earthly plain was American and Iraqi soldiers standing over him, side-by-side. I take some small satisfaction in that.