How not to welcome your son-in-law into the family...

If he didn't want this guy bagging his daughter wouldn't Necrotizing fasciitis or some other flesh eating bacteria have been quicker?

From Fox News:

The father-in-law of the 31-year-old man under federal quarantine with a rare and dangerous form of tuberculosis is one of the leading TB researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, FOX News has learned.

Dr. Robert Cooksey, who works in the CDC's Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, confirmed to FOX News that he is the father-in-law of Andrew Speaker, a personal-injury lawyer who practices in his father's law firm in Atlanta.

Asked by FOX News whether it was possible that he had passed along the dangerous strain to his son-in-law, Cooksey said, "Absolutely not." He added that he "works in the lab" and "is not authorized to talk about that."

I've heard about fathers being overprotective of their daughters and all, but this guy has taken it to a new level.

Overheard in the halls of the CDC Atlanta Office just moments ago: What do you call a personal injury lawyer with a rare and dangerous form of tuberculosis? A good start.

Too soon?

Ex-FBI director endorses Giuliani ...

... they used to enjoy long fireside chats while dressed as Thelma and Louise.

Wait, wrong FBI Director.

Freeh endorses Giuliani and will serve Saint Andie's cabana boy as his campaign's senior homeland security adviser.

Freeh's endorsement is viewed by supporters as a boost to Giuliani's image as a strong leader against terrorism and crime in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On the campaign trail, Giuliani has asserted that he and his fellow Republicans have the best approach to deterring terrorism.

"Rudy Giuliani's optimistic leadership is responsible for making the city of New York what it is today, one of the safest largest cities in the country and a place where the world feels safe to visit," Freeh said in a statement prior to a news conference.

"No one knows better than Louie Freeh what it takes to fight crime," said Giuliani.

Freeh, whose eight year-tenure as FBI director was marked by a long-running feud with
President Clinton, also will serve as senior homeland security adviser for Giuliani's campaign and will head the candidate's Delaware campaign. Freeh lives in Wilmington, Del.

Edwards wants probe of high gas prices...

...and that's not the only probe he's hoping for.

In a word pandering.

Apparently teh Silk Pony doesn't realize he's become, or doesn't have a problem with being, a whore.

Many of Edwards' proposals — from cutting greenhouse gas emissions to investigating oil industry consolidation — have been the subject of numerous hearings in Congress this years*, as has* calls by Democrats to make automobiles more fuel efficient.

I'm guessing this is news because Silky is spewing it. Which is why I'm voting for Fred!. After he annexes Mexico we can go ahead and pick up Venezuela. See, I've just laid out a plan for petroleum independence, I could be a contender!

* The AP are has do be English majors.

Saint Andie isn't calling the Bush Administration Hitler...

...because the phrase War Criminals and Nazis is much more fitting.

Let's begin at the end of Andie "Patron Saint of the Man Pooter" Sullivan's article.

Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I'm not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture - "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.

Of course calls for the death of the Bush Administration is nothing new from the party of Love, Peace and Patriotism. If a few thousand more Americans have to die while they're at work in their offices, just so we can ensure the Freedom Fighters are comfortable in their cells, so be it and who the hell are you to question their Patriotism, you nazi bastard.

The part of the document Andie's hoping you didn't read or given the typical Neocon's lack of reading comprehension hoping you wouldn't understand:

1. The sharpened interrogation may only be applied if, on the strength of the preliminary interrogation, it has been ascertained that the prisoner can give information about facts, connections or plans hostile to the state or legal system, but does not want to reveal his knowledge and the latter cannot be obtained by way of inquiries.
2. Under this circumstance, the sharpened interrogation may be applied only against Communists, Marxists, members of the Bible-researcher sect, saboteurs, terrorists, members of the resistance movement,...
3. The sharpened interrogation may not be applied in order to induce confessions about a prisoner's own criminal acts...

Personally, I place the value of human life above my concerns of safety for a terrorist. But maybe I'm being unrealistic and we should just follow Saint Andie's lead and push for a kinder gentler form of questioning:

I guess Pablo the bikini-clad-pool-boy should question Saint Andie.

A whore or a prude, either path leads to sexual enlightenment...

... there is no middle ground.

via ace:

Crying Over Spilled Semen
Why women who don't use condoms feel happier [ed: an so do their herpes laden partners].
The finding that women who do not use condoms during sex are less depressed and less likely to attempt suicide than are women who have sex with condoms and women who are not sexually active, leads one researcher to conclude that semen contains powerful—and potentially ddictive—mood-altering chemicals.

Study author Gordon G. Gallup, Ph.D., a psychologist at the State University of New York in Albany, also found that women who routinely had intercourse without condoms became increasingly depressed as more time elapsed since their last sexual encounter. There was no such correlation for women whose partners regularly used condoms.

Gallup's survey of 293 college women also found that those who did not use condoms were most likely to initiate sex and to seek out new partners as soon as a relationship ended. "These women are more vulnerable to the rebound effect, which suggests that there is a chemical dependency," says Gallup.

Semen contains hormones including testosterone, estrogen, prolactin, luteinizing hormone and prostaglandins, and some of these are absorbed through the walls of the vagina and are known to elevate mood.

...

Gallup says he has since replicated the findings with a sample of 700 women and will examine whether "semen withdrawal" places women at an increased risk for depression...

Really, she said they were going to examine whether "semen withdrawal" places women at an increased risk for depression. Rise up men! No longer do women control the only bedroom commodity. Okay, sure they're still in control, and they get half your stuff, but at least we have a bit more bargaining power, maybe, if we weren't such suckers.

and from Dan Collins posting at protein wisdom.

The Porn Myth
...I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf. I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”

When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

ITS.FOR.YOUR.OWN.GOOD.YOU.IGNORANT.HUSSY.

Sorry, where was I, oh yeah, because nothing says the sexy at the beach like a burkini clad woman:

Double D to make a go of it...

...and Fred!'s making a run for the White House.

If your political adviser looked like that you'd listen too.

The Politico is reporting that Fred! is going to announce his bid for the Presidency over the Fourth of July Holiday, and that his wife, Jeri, will wear a star spangled bikini throughout the race.

Fred Dalton Thompson is planning to enter the presidential race over the Fourth of July holiday, announcing that week that he has already raised several million dollars and is being backed by insiders from the past three Republican administrations, Thompson advisers told The Politico.

Thompson, the "Law and Order" star and former U.S. senator from Tennessee, has been publicly coy, even as people close to him have been furiously preparing for a late entry into the wide-open contest. But the advisers said Thompson dropped all pretenses on Tuesday afternoon during a conference call with more than 100 potential donors, each of whom was urged to raise about $50,000.

Thompson's formal announcement is planned for Nashville. Organizers say the red pickup truck that was a hallmark of Thompson's first Senate race will begin showing up in Iowa and New Hampshire as an emblem of what they consider his folksy, populist appeal.

Okay, Jeri might not be in the bikini, but it'd be a whole lot cooler if she was. Plus, they'd have the 18 - 32 year old male and LUG (lesbian until graduation) vote nailed down.

Think about it: Double D or Shillary: Who's significant other would you prefer to check out during the State of the Union addresses? If they could even get Billy Jeff to show up.

When asked about his platform Fred! said instead of amnesty he'll annex Mexico and send the ingrates who booed Rachel Smith packing for Venezuela. Okay, he's not admitting to the annexation part, but he know he's got a way with the pretty ladies, so we could count on him to at least send in a couple of special ops teams to deal with the unruly mobs when they taunt our wimminfolk.

Really why the hell would you boo a young lady who looks like this in a bikini:

Wondertwin powers activate!

The only logical explanation for the booing. They're pissed a majority of American women still have most of their teeth and weigh less than 200 pounds after the age of 40. Side question and yes I realize its stereotypical and probably bigoted, but here goes anyway. What is it about the Mexican diet that keeps the men relatively fit as they age while the women, um, expand exponentially?

Go ahead, call me a bigot and remember to insult my southern heritage while you're at it, but don't forget to answer the question.

Dirty Scandi Trips Miss USA, Miss Japan becomes Miss Universe

Miss America proves something that very few Miss Universe hopefuls knew, that they're subject to the laws of gravity. Damn you Sir Isaac Newton...

A 20-year-old dancer from Japan was crowned Miss Universe 2007 on Monday night, marking only the second time her country has won the world beauty title.

Dressed in a black, red and purple Japanese-style gown, Riyo Mori nervously grabbed the hands of first runner-up, Natalia Guimaraes of Brazil, just before the winner was announced. Then she threw her hands up and covered her mouth, overcome with emotion...

Riyo Mori hypnotizes unsuspecting judges into thinking she can fly like an eagle.

...Miss USA Rachel Smith, who slipped and fell to the floor during the evening gown competition and was jeered by the Mexican audience during the interview phase, was the contest's fourth runner-up...

...Smith was booed during her interview and several audience members chanted "Mexico! Mexico!" until she spoke in Spanish, saying "Buenas noches Mexico. Muchas gracias!" which earned her applause. Mexico has a fierce rivalry with its northern neighbor.

Apparently the "fierce rivalry" doesn't apply if you want to sneak across the border. Which if all Mexicans are as easily distracted as the crowd in attendance instead of a fence we should just have recordings of President Jorje Bush and Teddy K. blairing Buenas noches Mexico. Muchas gracias!". Now that would be a sooper-dooper virtual fence and couldn't be any less affective than the border protection we have now.

Missing from this year's contest was Miss Sweden, whose country is one of the few to win the crown three times. Isabel Lestapier Winqvist, 20, dropped out because many Swedes say the competition does not represent the modern woman.

Thus the trap and alibi had been planned out. I keep telling you guys, you just can't trust an Ice Wop. Next year they'll probably kidnap Miss USA and replace her with some drunken hobo like Parasite Hilton.

Saint Cindy to quit stalking George Bush

The underwear gnomes have left Crawford Texas.

At least she's finally admitting to being an Attention Whore.

I have spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times. ...

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Let's just hope that she's gone through "the change" so we don't end up with any little peace warriors running around as Saint Cindy and Father Hugo continue to nurture their relationship.

The cabby said he recognized my girly by the back of her head.

Hummelgate, a food shortage in Iraq?

Alternatively Titled: How can Bobby Flay challenge troops to a throwdown in the Mojave Desert when the US Military can't get civilians in Iraq the ingredients they need to "toss salad". Brevity is key, and all that.

While you were lounging around sipping mojitos and dreaming of replacing the Rosie "Patron Saint of Truther Conspiracy Theorists" O'Donnell on the view ace was all over the fake, but real, but accurate food shortage memo reported by our friends and neighbors at the WaPo. The Flopped Aced one has a pretty good synopsis of the entire escapade.

Being the good little storm troopers that we are we're wondering why the ever military friendly main stream media reporters aren't receiving their daily allotments of syrup or jelly. Which, if you're a deviant and I know you probably are, you'd know is critical for tossing salad (a search not safe for work, easily sickened or pure of heart, but if you're kinky go for it).

There really are lots of questions that go unanswered here.

• What type of knucklehead uses Flappy the flag waving wonder eagle instead of the official emblem / seal / logo of the US Embassy in Iraq.
• Who put the bomp in the bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp? Who put the ram in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong? Who put the bop in the bop sh-bop sh-bop?
• Why did Parvaz Khan a Human Resources Officer create a PDF of the "document"?
• Is Gleen Ellers Thomas Francis Nancy Greenwald behind this whole shenanigan? He was quoted by congress or the senate or something

I guess it is kind of hard to find a decent US Embassy Logo to use, I mean it was on the second page google's image search.

On the upside we've got Romentum and if anybody will get to the truth behind this whole fire melting steel thingy Ron Paul will and damn it, he'll get put an end to this illegal war we're waging, pronto.

This message was approved by Flappy the salad tossing wonder eagle.

He likes syrup.

And don't blame me or Flappy if you're disturbed after googling "toss my salad", you were warned.

In desperate woman news. It looks like Jessica Simpson and that no talent hack John Mayer are done, over, fineto. If you're not familiar with John Mayer, he's the guy that sang a song about my body being a wonderland. If you're not familiar with Jessica Simpson:

For those of you upset by the lack of "hard-hitting" "serious" reporting around here, well, I'll start as soon as the WaPo and ABC do. Which means you'll all be welcoming CY's return week's wend.

This Memorial Day... (Bumped)

Enjoy your vacation, but always, remember them.

Also: The lyrics from Trace Atkins' tribute, Arlington (Video available here).

I never thought that this is where I'd settle down.
I thought I'd die an old man back in my hometown.
They gave me this plot of land,
Me and some other men, for a job well done.

There's a big White House sits on a hill just up the road.
The man inside, he cried the day they brought me home.
They folded up a flag and told my Mom and Dad:
"We're proud of your son."

And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property.
I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company.
I'm thankful for those thankful for the things I've done.
I can rest in peace;
I'm one of the chosen ones:
I made it to Arlington.

I remember Daddy brought me here when I was eight.
We searched all day to find out where my grand-dad lay.
And when we finally found that cross,
He said: "Son, this is what it cost to keep us free."

Now here I am, a thousand stones away from him.
He recognized me on the first day I came in.
And it gave me a chill when he clicked his heels,
And saluted me.

And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property.
I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company.
I'm thankful for those thankful for the things I've done.
I can rest in peace;
I'm one of the chosen ones:
I made it to Arlington.

And everytime I hear twenty-one guns,
I know they brought another hero home to us.

And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property.
I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company.
We're thankful for those thankful for the things we've done.
We can rest in peace;
'Cause we are the chosen ones:
We made it to Arlington.

Yeah, dust to dust,
Don't cry for us:
We made it to Arlington.

who i are and what this blog needs

I'm still not quite sure why CY volunteered to let me guest blog, unless he's looking for ace type posting, without teh funny, snide remarks and esoteric wit. Which if you're familiar with ace's site leaves us with poking fun at Andy "Patron Saint of the Man Pooter" Sullivan, a mutual hatred of Ice-Wops and pr0n.

If you're unfamiliar with my work, which you almost assuredly are, most recently I've been posting at agent bedhead, who was nice enough to take me in when I got too lazy busy to post at my own site. I'm also as CY mentioned part of the team at apothegm designs and responsible for the design of this site, which to those ever cleaver and uniquely refreshing liberal commenters means I'm a bigot hoping to enslave brown people so they'll pick my vast nonexistent fields of cotton and call me masta.

Anyhoo, enough about me and on with what this blog needs.

Since I've already numbed your minds enough and posted a link to an Snow Porker getting his, I'll bring on teh pr0n.

How's this news? Well the Australian lass pictured above, Kylie Minogue, is according to the bosh desperate for a man. She was engaged to a French(man?), so more than likely she's still as pure as the driven snow. Me, I'd take care of her, but I'm happily married, so I figured I'd let you guys have the first, um, crack at her. Consider yourselves warned, she's a naughty little minx, so you'd best be, "up" to the challenge, so to speak.

More of what this blog needs, food pr0n, is on the way, with pictures, just as soon as I get the ham, ribs and sausage off the smoker.

Since absolutely none of this interests 99.92735% if CY's normal readers I'll have analysis of what blind hogs, sadly no and the democratic underground have in common and how they've changed my life for the better. But first, pork.

See You Later, Alligator...

I'll be offline (and outdoors) in sunny southern Florida for the next week, so I'm turning over the keys of CY to my brother "phin" of Apothegm Designs to do with as he will.

Frankly, I'm scared. He's been known to be a little... warped.

I'll be back to inspect the damage and resume posting on June 4.

McCain Aide Blasts Obama

"Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."

That's going to leave a mark.

What They Don't Let You See

Stare at this.

Now look back again.

I want this seared, seared into your memory.

This is an image from an al Qaeda torture manual captured in Iraq.

They use this and other techniques to torture Iraqi men and women, Shia, Sunni, and Kurd. They also use them when they can capture American and Iraqi soldiers and police.

I'd love to provide you with a link to the Washington Post or New York Times article detailing the atrocities contained, but they haven't been written yet. Nor can these articles be found in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, or the Philadelphia Daily News, and you won't see these images on the network nightly news, either.

While we are locked in wars against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq and other obscure places you couldn't find on a map, the American press has decided that you, the American citizen, don't need to see these images.

You don't deserve to see these images.

The near orgasmic contentment on the face of the torturer as he burns his victim with an iron is too inflammatory, and the American press wouldn't want you to become inflamed towards our enemy during a time of war, now would they?

I can completely understand where these media organizations are coming from.

They've spent years writing and buying into their own narrative that America is to blame for the problems in Iraq and that the threat of al Qaeda is over-hyped... and did I mention, over-hyped?

If they were to actually show, in stark terms, what al Qaeda truly is and what it is capable of, then the American people might start viewing them as Very. Bad. People. Such a thing could complicate the defeat of Chimperor Bush withdrawal plans. It is better to act like such things doesn't exist, and make sure most people miss it.

At the very least, they deserve a hand for staying "on message."

If these (and other) graphic images hadn't been picked up by The Smoking Gun and the Austrialian Press (Fox News posted, then retracted a story) you probably wouldn't have seen them at all.

Now consider that most people probably still won't see these images on the television news, or see them in print. They won't because the various news organizations in this and other countries either don't consider them newsworthy, or they consider the images too inflammatory.

Then wonder how much else you aren't seeing and hearing.

Our soldiers tell us time and time and time again that the war they are fighting in Iraq is not the war being reported by our media.

Do you believe them now?

Paging Quality Control

You've got to love those diligent AFP photo editors.

If this is what gets through to publication, it make you wonder what slips through the cracks...

Murtha: I Feel a Direction Change in the Air

And here it is.

Murtha is just one of many Democrats attempting to regain the support of a Democratic base that feels betrayed by the Congressional Democrats surrender on their, uh, bid to surrender.

I suppose I should be amused by the sectarian infighting between the Democrats who want us the surrender soon and the Democrats who want us to surrender sooner, but instead I find myself feeling sorry for them, the Iraqi people, and our soldiers, who are telling Democrats that they don't want their kind of "help."

Iranian EFP Proxy Captured In Sadr City

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

US and Iraqi forces captured an Iraqi militant accused of "acting as a proxy for an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officer" on Friday after a fierce gunbattle, the military said.

The joint snatch squad called in an air strike after coming under fire during a raid on the hideout of an alleged weapons smuggling gang in the notorious Sadr City district, a Shiite militia bastion in east Baghdad.

[snip]

EFPs are roadside bombs designed to fire a chunk of molten metal through the toughest armour plating. The United States accuses Tehran of smuggling hundreds of the devices to Iraq, where they have killed scores of US troops.

"Intelligence reports indicate the individual targeted is suspected of having direct ties to the leader of the EFP network as well as acting as a proxy for an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officer," the statement said.

American forces previously captured a suspect in the Iranian EFP smuggling network in late March. I wonder how much longer it will be until we capture known Iranian Quds Force or Revolutionary Guard Corps officers... other than the ones we've already captured, of course.

The Iranian EFPs are the most deadly threat to U.S. heavy vehicles; indigenously-made Iraqi EFPs consistently fail against U.S. armor.

Blame It On Cheney, And Those Evil, Evil Joos

At least when Andrew Sullivan spins off into the more paranoid recesses of his mind, he retains the minimal sense to claim he's just "airing a theory."

Not so with Steve Clemons, who wants full credit for his recent meltdown:

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

A fascinating hypothesis, isn't it?

Unfortunately, the "logic" of Clemons claim has a few small—almost imperceptible, so tiny that you wouldn't hardly notice—flaws.

One of those infinitesimal flaws is the theory that Israel would have spent 6.5 billion dollars to procure 25 F-15I "Ra'am" and 102 F-16I "Sufa" long range strike fighters and easily another couple of billion on munitions, training, maintenance, etc, in beginning to prepare for strike on Iran's nuclear program in the past decade, only to decide to lob a few anemic cruise missiles instead.

I get the mental image of Baseball Bugs winding up in a frenetic and convoluted windup only to deliver an impossibly slow slowball against the Gashouse Gorillas.

Does Clemons honestly think that Israel has been preparing for this possibility for well over a decade—well in advance of their decade-long procurement and training operations—just to launch an attack that would almost certainly fail to seriously disrupt Natanz, and would not even touch the other underground sites where Iranian nuclear weapon development is thought to be occurring? Obviously, he does.

He is also flatly wrong about cruise missiles not needing overflight rights—the need to acquire overflight rights exists as much for missiles as they do for aircraft, and ours were suspended by both Saudi Arabia and Turkey in March of 2003, just as an example—and conducting such an overflight without permission could be viewed as an act of war by Israel's neighbors.

Israel will also obviously be bombarded by Hezbollah (And possibly Iran and Syria) for any strike on Iran, so to set themselves up to suffer massive rocket attacks like those of less than a year ago hoping that Iran would target U.S. forces in Iraq for retaliation is, well, a bit daft.

Why, precisely, would Iran choose to attack formidable American forces in Iraq in retaliation for an Israeli attack? American Air Force, Marine, and naval airpower completely own air superiority in the Persian Gulf and over Iraq, and so any attempt of Iran to physically venture into Iraq would amount to a rewrite of the Highway of Death on an epic scale, leaving the Iranian mullacracy in a severely weakened state. What would Iran have to gain?

Or is Clemons implying—merely "floating a theory"—that Cheney, the Joos, and Ahmadinejad are all in cahoots, and want a war in which all sides suffer losses for no real gain? Who benefits from such lunacy?

Halliburton.

Of course.

Sniff: I should leave the snark to Ace. The man is a master.

Update: I should have seen this coming, huh?

Funk You

Joe Klein, Keith Olbermann, Brian Ross, etc., I think this is directed at you:

"Hello media, do you know you indirectly kill American soldiers every day? You inspire and report the enemy's objective every day. You are the enemy's greatest weapon. The enemy cannot beat us on the battlefield so all he does is try to wreak enough havoc and have you report it every day. With you and the enemy using each other, you continually break the will of the American public and American government.

"We go out daily and bust and kill the enemy, uncover and destroy huge weapons caches and continue to establish infrastructure. So daily we put a whoopin on the enemy, but all the enemy has to do is turn on the TV and get re-inspired. He gets to see his daily roadside bomb, truck bomb, suicide bomber or mortar attack. He doesn't see any accomplishments of the U.S. military (FOX, you're not exempt, you suck also).

[snip]

"Media, we know you hate the George Bush administration, but report both sides, not just your one-sided agenda. You have got to realize how you are continually motivating every extremist, jihadist and terrorist to continue their resolve to kill American soldiers."

That refrain should be familiar to you by now, as similar thoughts are echoed across the blogosphere and in conversations with active-duty American servicemen almost universally.

But Funk isn't done. He doesn't leave out those of you who say you "support the troops, but not the war."

"We're treading water," the Ames man told the people closest to him. "We continue to kick butt on missions and take care of each other, even though we know the American public and government DOES NOT stand behind us.

Ohhhh, they all say they support us, but how can you support me (the soldier) if you don't support my mission or my objectives. We watch the news over here. Every time we turn it on we see the American public and Hollywood conducting protests and rallies against our 'illegal occupation' of Iraq."

Feel ashamed yet? Probably not. After all, he's just one soldier, and he's no Jesse MacBeth.

(H/T Blackfive)

Bush's Wars are Safer For the Military that Clinton's Peace?

It sure sounds odd but that is what the numbers seem to show in regard to military fatalities during the current and most recent administrations.

I'd be interested in countering arguments, should anyone feel like making them, though the figures provided may make a certain amount of sense in one context.

Anecdotally speaking, I recall that the various sports teams at my high school seemed to take more injuries in scrimmages than in games. Coaches often attributed such injuries to a lack of focus and less than full intensity on the part of the injured when other athletes were scrimmaging at "game speed."

Could it be that like athletes, soldiers take their "games"--real combat--more seriously than they do their practices, and are therefore perhaps more prone towards dangerous mistakes during peacetime drills and exercises than in combat?

David Petraeus, our commanding general in Iraq, could be a microcosm of these phenomena in his own right. Never wounded in war, he was shot in the chest in 1991 during a training exercise when a soldier tripped and his weapon discharged, nearly costing Petraeus his life.

I’ve got no easy answers here, and would love to get your opinions in the comments.

At It Again

The Associated Press got their facts wrong on yet another firearms-related story today, something I know that readers will find absolutely shocking.

In this story about Moscow, Idaho gunman Jason Hamilton, they made two glaring fact errors regarding the firearms used in Hamilton's deadly Sunday rampage.

They waste no time, blowing the facts in the lede.

A man who went on a deadly shooting rampage with two high-powered assault rifles was supposed to have surrendered his firearms after being convicted of domestic assault, authorities said Wednesday.

By definition, "assault rifles" are not high-powered.

Further, they are selective-fire, meaning they can be fired semi-automatically (one bullet at a time for each trigger pull) or automatically (multiple shots per trigger pull), with the mode of fire determined by a selector switch on the weapon. Neither of these firearms had that capability.

And what were the firearms used?

Hamilton used an AK-47 assault rifle and a Springfield M-1A rifle, both bought legally before he was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend in 2006, Duke said.

I'll state that the Associated Press flatly blew it here.

AK-47s are heavily regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (requiring an extensive, nearly prohibitive background check), and none have been imported or manufactured for civilian sale in the United States since 1986. Because demand among collectors is much higher than supply, a true AK-pattern rifle would probably cost between $16,500-$20,000, using this site as a guide.

A janitor, Hamilton would not likely be able to afford such a firearm.

He carried out his attacks with a rifle that looked like an AK-47, but it is no more an AK-47 than this 1987 Pontiac is a Ferrari.

New let's refer back to the lead for one second.

If you recall, it said two "assault rifles" were used. We've already established the fact that neither weapon fit the definition, and that one of those firearms could only be termed an assault rifle based upon how it looked. The other firearm doesn't even look like one.

This is the Springfield Armory M-1A.

Even by the most tortured media definition, the M-1A is no assault rifle or assault weapon. It is most properly categorized as a battle rifle, and it is typically valued in both military and civilian shooting circles for it's long-range precision. As such, it is very popular in target competitions.

Once again, the media blew the facts in a firearms-related story.

Surprising, I know.

Support Amnesty Through Ignorance

I was listening to local talk radio North Carolina's Morning News with Jack Boston this morning when I got in the car, and they were talking to Larry Wooten from the North Carolina Farm Bureau and another supporter of the Kennedy-Kyl pro-amnesty immigration "reform" bill, and I have never heard so much blatant, purposeful deception on the public airwaves since our former President delved into the deeper meaning of the word "is."

These two men attempted to say that the illegal aliens working on North Carolina farms contributed enormous amounts of money into social welfare programs when they used fake Social Security numbers, since they could not collect on the money they put in. They purposefully skated around the fact that illegals take far more out of social welfare programs than they put into them in taxes, and the dirty little fact that many farmers pay at least part of their illegal workforce "under the table" so that they do not contribute any taxes at all.

They claimed that North Carolina's agriculture industry would collapse without the amnesty bill... a blatant lie. What a tough immigration law would do is raise wages for the 75% of natives and legal immigrants, by decreasing the number of illegal immigrants that are willing to take "under the table," tax-dodging rates of pay below minimum wage.

After listening to their purposeful deceptions for several minutes, I called into the radio show, and afer several busy signals, asked the screener if it was even worth trying to hang around long enough to ask these men a couple of questions. He said it depended on my my comment; they were slammed with calls, most of them on one side of the issue.

I told him I wanted to ask a simple "yes/no" question on whether or not either of the men had actually read the entire bill they were supporting.

The screener laughed a little and stated that the calls coming in were overwhelmingly for the amnesty bill, which surprised both of us, as the general population of North Carolina, like the general population of the rest of the country, is against the amnesty bill. He said he thought that the guests may have "loaded the deck" by having their constituents lined up to call in, a supposition supported by the fact that the overwhelming of the callers were in the agriculture industry. He moved me to the front of the call line.

And so I asked my question: "Have either of you read the entire bill you are asking us to support?"

I don't recall which one answered, but it didn't matter: the guy who did hemmed and hawed about how he read the North Carolina-related provisions. In other words, "no." The other guy didn't attempt answer the question at all.

They haven't read the amnesty bill, but they want you to support it.

That should tell you something.

The Most Ethical Congress Ever

Meet the new boss, yadda, yadda, yadda:

A bitter legislative quarrel in the House, played out in the parliamentary vocabulary of reprimands and motions to table, raged on yesterday as the Democrats pushed back a Republican attempt to officially chastise Rep. John Murtha, the combative Pennsylvanian whom Speaker Nancy Pelosi unsuccessfully backed for majority leader after the Democrats won control of the House in November.

Murtha had threatened Mike Rogers of Michigan for attempting to kill one of Murtha's pork barrel projects for a failing government agency in his district in front of a group of Republican representatives. Even thought Murtha was caught dead to rights in front of multiple witnesses, Democrats voted along party lines to table to motion, effectively killing the reprimand.

Nancy Pelosi supported Murtha, a fact too hard to swallow even for reliably left wing sites such as Capitol Hill Blue, who described Murtha in its headline as a "bully" while attacking his "unethical" past.

For his part, Murtha sat in a darkened corner of the House floor with cronies, laughing as the reprimand was defeated along party lines.

They All Look Alike to CNN

You would hope that after being in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, that a major news organization such as CNN might be able to tell the difference between U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi counterparts.

You would hope.

The uniform is clearly Iraqi (this is what our Army's uniform looks like), and the weapon is obviously a Soviet-designed variant of the RPD squad automatic weapon (SAW) carried by Iraqi security forces and insurgents alike, but never issued to regular U.S. military forces.

Refusing to identify the nationality of the soldier isn't "wrong," but it is certainly imprecise, and by saying that he "searches for missing comrades," most people would logically infer that he was a U.S. soldier, as it is indeed U.S. soldiers that are missing. He is our ally, but he is clearly not a member of the U.S. Army. CNN is sloppy, but at least they aren't running enemy propaganda as news today.

Meanwhile, AFP has no problem identifying the soldier as Iraqi, but I guess they're simply paying more attention.

Forcing War: Brian Ross, ABC News Undermine Non-Military Plan Against Iran

And here I thought the media were against war with Iran.

I'll be very interested to see whether or not the Justice Department will attempt to prosecute anyone in the intelligence community who leaked this information, as they obviously should. I doubt that Brain Ross or the staff of ABC News will be tried for criminal offenses (including treason), though the majority of comments posted on the Blotter's comment thread clearly favor that action... at least those they haven't yet deleted.

Ross and ABC News have purposefully undermined the non-military removal of a government that is a proud state sponsor of terrorism. If Ross and ABC News are successful in derailing covert non-military attempts to replace the Iranian government, then a military option may very well end up being our last remaining option.

If we are forced into a war because ABC News torpedoed our last, best hope at a non-military solution to the problem of Iran's militant, expansionist, Shia Islamist government, then the resulting deaths on both sides will belong in part to ABC News executives and Brian Ross.

Should that eventuality come to pass, the Federal Communications Commission should seriously consider suspending or removing ABC's broadcasting license as a warm up, and move on to more serious legal remedies from there.

Update: As is their pattern, the staff of the Blotter quickly removed my comment to their post that echoed the sentiments expressed in this blog entry.

ABC News gleefully exposes classified national security information, but apparently cannot tolerate some criticism of their own dubious operations. I can only wonder how many other criticizing comments they have deleted.

Also, The Sun Came Up Today

Allegations in today's Guardian that Iran may be supporting Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda in Iraq in anti-surge operations may come as a shock to some, but I can't imagine why:

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.

"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]."

The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat. "We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements]," the official said.

"Certainly it [the violence] is going to pick up from their side. There is significant latent capability in Iraq, especially Iranian-sponsored capability. They can turn it up whenever they want. You can see that from the pre-positioning that's been going on and the huge stockpiles of Iranian weapons that we've turned up in the last couple of months. The relationships between Iran and groups like al-Qaida are very fluid," the official said.

Iran is not "secretly forging ties" with al Qaeda; they've had them all along, possibly as far back as the 1996 Khobar Towers attack. al Qaeda operatives, including the 9/11 plotters have long used Iran as a gateway to Afghanistan, and al Qaeda operatives have lived in Iran since the fall of the Taliban.

That Iran would use "their" al Qaeda to hook up with al Qaeda operatives and other Sunni insurgents in Iraq to pursue their shared goal of forcing the United States out of Iraq is not only unsurprising, it is tediously predictable.

Virginia Tech Shooter Had Plenty More Ammo

Seung-Hui Cho fired less than half of the 377 rounds of ammunition he brought with him into Norris Hall on April 16 before commiting suicide after killing 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech:

The gunman who killed 30 people at a Virginia Tech building was "well-prepared" to continue his shooting spree with more than 200 additional rounds of ammunition, a state panel was told Monday.

Police found 203 live rounds in Norris Hall, where Seung-Hui Cho killed 25 students and five faculty members before committing suicide on April 16, State Police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty told a panel investigating the massacre. Cho also shot two other students elsewhere.

"He was well-prepared to continue on," Flaherty said.

Cho fired 174 shots from two handguns on the second floor in a span of nine minutes, taking his own life at 9:51 a.m. as police on the stairwell approached the floor, Flaherty said.

I suspect, but certainly cannot prove, that Cho chose to take his life when he did because he heard the sounds of police shooting through the locks on the first-floor doors he had chained shut, and he did not want to risk of being wounded by police and captured.

McLiar

The Iraq War claims another veteran who was against it... sorta:

Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, formerly of Phoenix, garnered attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocents in a Fallujah mosque. His story was contradicted by his discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his "entry level performance and conduct."

A complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle charged him with one count of using or possessing a forged or altered military discharge certificate, and one count of making false statements in seeking benefits from the Veterans Administration.

Macbeth's public defender, Jay Stansell, declined to comment.

Organizations that opposed the war, including Iraq Veterans Against the War, posted videos or statements containing Macbeth's claims on their Web sites. In one videotaped interview, a skinny, stuttering Macbeth, dressed in a camouflage jacket, described slaughtering hundreds of people in a mosque: "We would burn their bodies ... hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque," he said.

On the upside, we've finally found MacBeth a uniform that fits him.

Fore!

File this under "not a PhotoShop, but it should be."

You can clearly see three Lebanese soldiers in combat fatigues (and the helmet of a fourth) as they cover their ears while firing a mortar against the Fatah Islam militant group outside of Tripoli, Lebanon.

But who is the forth guy in the phone, apparently wearing a brown polo shirt, seemingly obvious to the mortar firing at his feet, smiling as he talks on a cell phone? He looks more like an executive on a golf course than a soldier on the battlefield.

This is odd, even for Lebanon...

Note: The inset is my own, and is not in the original.

I See Vague Dead People: The New Best Way to Lie

Knowing the intense scrutiny that their photographers face following last summer's Adnan Hajj incident, most news organizations are carefully reviewing photos taken by journalists in the Middle East before publication, to make sure they havne't been modified. They are, however, still failing to question the captions they use to describe photos, which can also be used to deceive news consumers.

The two photos shown below have been published in the past 24 hours, and are a prime example.

AFP ran the following photo and caption yesterday:

Palestinian mourners carry the body of Hatem Hmeid, 15, during his funeral in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip. Eight people were killed in a new Israeli air raid in Gaza on Sunday just hours after Israel's security cabinet gave the army the go-ahead to ramp up operations against Palestinian militants.(AFP/Mohammed Abed)

Reuters ran this photo and caption today:

Palestinians pray near the bodies of nine Palestinians killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza May 21, 2007. Israel launched more strikes against Gaza militants on Sunday, killing nine Palestinians in two aerial assaults, including one that struck the home of a prominent Hamas politician, security officials said. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA)

View the pictures and the captions that these news organizations provided with them, and you're looking on what may appear in your local, regional, national, or international news outlet of choice.

What you will probably take away from these photos is that once again, those dastardly Israelis are once again slaughtering defenseless Palestinians while targeting militants. Both captions mentioned that Israel was targetting militants, but both avoided mention that the dead pictured were apparently those same militants, and not innocent bystanders. Considering the names of the photographers, I wouldn't be too surprised if that vagueness was by intent.

The pictures, however, tell us a bit more than the captions would indicate.

Look closely at the photos above, and then take a gander at this photo in the Guardian Newsblog.

Hamas supporters on the left, with the green flags, Fateh on the right with yellow flags. Photograph: Laila el-Haddad

If seeing is believing, the dead in the pictures in the AFP and Reuters photos were militants wrapped in the flags of Fatah and Hamas.

Palestinians?

Yes, they most were.

Civilian victims?

I suspect not.

They'll Stand Up, But We Won't Report It

MNF-I has issued a press release detailing the repelling of a large-scale terrorist attack by Iraqi Security Forces this past Wednesday:

Iraqi Security Forces countered several terrorists who targeted bridges, transition jails, police stations and a combat outpost with vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, sporadic small-arms fire and indirect mortar attacks throughout the evening.

"This was a total team effort on the part of the Iraqi Security Forces and emergency responders," said U.S. Army Col. Stephen Twitty, commander of 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. "This Iraqi team showed the people of Mosul that they are resolute in their efforts to defeat this very cowardly, desperate enemy while protecting innocent civilians."

The first wave of attacks consisted of three VBIEDs, which targeted the Badush Bridge northwest of Mosul at 5:15 p.m., and was followed by another VBIED attack at the Aski-Mosul Bridge west of the city at 5:45 p.m.

Two more VBIEDs exploded outside a police station and a transition jail during the first wave. The first VBIED was a dump truck, which detonated upon reaching the entrance to the station. The driver of the second VBIED attempted to enter the compound but was killed by Iraqi Security Forces.

As the driver of the second VBIED was killed, terrorists attempted to breach the transition jail to release prisoners by using small-arms fire. However, Iraqi Security Forces quelled the attempt and kept the facility secured.

The second wave of attacks involved another dump truck VBIED parked outside a southeast police station at approximately 7 p.m. As the driver abandoned the vehicle, he was seen by Iraqi Police and was killed as he was fleeing the area. The Iraqi Police immediately cordoned the vicinity before detonation. No casualties resulted.

Small-arms fire erupted during the second wave at seven police stations throughout the city and one combat outpost. In all cases, Iraqi Army and Police repelled the enemy and killed at least 15 terrorists and turned back the remaining opposition.

"The Iraqi Security Forces are in the lead, and they are certainly a capable force," said Twitty. "Their reactions to the attacks [on Wednesday] only serve to prove their ability to destroy and remove terrorists. Their actions demonstrate their commitment to this city and its people. I am extremely proud to serve beside them."

Stars and Stripes indicates that up to 200 insurgents may have been involved in the May 16 attacks.

If these accounts are close to being accurate (and there have not been any conflicting accounts that I am aware of), the Iraqi Security Forces in Mosul performed extremely well, repelling a large scale (company-sized ), multi-wave attack with no outside support from U.S. forces.

CNN covered the story, adding:

Mosul police spokesman Gen. Saied al-Jabouri said intelligence reports suggested the attacks were coordinated by al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq -- which he said were "two sides of the same coin" -- and were an effort to free at least 300 inmates from the al-Faisaliya prison in Mosul.

Al-Jabouri said seven of the 10 vehicle-borne bombs were suicide car bombings and that a key bridge, many buildings, shops and homes were destroyed during a six-hour period starting late Wednesday afternoon.

A U.S. military source said the bombs killed 10 Iraqi police officers, one Iraqi soldier and two civilians. He credited the Iraqi security forces for these "minimal casualties," saying it "could have been much worse if they were not doing their job."

"The ISF dealt with it, showing the people they are trained and ready," the U.S. military official said.

Al-Jabouri said Iraqi troops, backed by the U.S. military, fought with insurgents for two hours across Mosul, killing 15 of them and one Saudi national.

You would hope that the major news organizations would report the successful repulsion of such an attack as the victory it was, and as an example of success that can be won by Iraqi military and police units. al Qaeda and the ISI are the insurgency's "varsity" in Iraq, and when placed head-to-head against Iraq's best, they lost a battle in which they had apparent advantages in surprise and firepower.

This should be regarded as significant news.

But it is very difficult to find many major western news outlets carrying a report of the events in Mosul on that day, quite an odd development considering the size of the attack. This is especially odd when you consider that these same news outlets were able to print dozens of stories about a pair of ABC journalists killed in Mosul on May 18, just two days later.

I understand that the deaths of two journalists in Iraq is very important to those in news-gathering industry, but I don't think I'd be wrong in state that a rare and sophisticated company-sized attack by al Qaeda and the ISI being repelled by Iraqi security forces is a far more important news story than the deaths of two reporters, both for those in the news business, and those new consumers around the world.

The Iraqi security forces thwarted a major assault and an attempt to free 300 prisoners, and suffered minimal casualties in a serious engagement.

That's news.

It's too bad there seems so little interest among professional news organizations in reporting it.

Update: Heh:

Is there any way we can get Al Qaeda on record as supporting carbon dioxide production? Seems like the only way to get the MSM's interest.

Progress?

Jules Crittenden takes a look behind the headlines to note that the intensive search operations for our missing soldiers in Iraq have led to a dramatic decease in al Qaeda activity in the so-called "Triangle of Death." He's got a dozen links, al worth reading.

Meanwhile, my buddy Michael Yon is in al Anbar, once al Qaeda's base of operations and the heart of the Sunni insurgency, and is bored out of his mind. This is the second time he's mentioned a lack of action there (here's the first) in as many days. He could get used to this. I think we all could, American and Iraqi alike.

Other parts of Iraq were not as quiet.

Sheikh Azhar al-Dulaymi, the Iranian-trained mastermind of the Karbala raid that killed five American soldiers killed in late January, was killed in Sadr City by U.S. forces.

Elsewhere in Iraq, seven U.S. soldiers were killed over the weekend, along with dozens of Iraqi civilians. Eight insurgents were killed and almost three dozen more were captured in a series of raids on Karmah, south of Baghdad.

Elsewhere in the War on Terror, Lebanese Army units fought intense battles with an al Qaeda-aligned group outside Tripoli. Speculation is that the group is backed by Syrian military intelligence at the behest of Syrian dictator Bashir Assad. The group is apparently led by Shaker al-Absi, a Syrian Air Force veteran that is thought to have fought against U.S. forces in Iraq and who is believed to have had links to al Qaeda in Iraq's former leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. According to a Washington Post report, on the terrorists killed, Saddam El-Hajdib , was a suspect in a failed train bombing in Germany.

Meanwhile, the McCain-Kennedy Illegal Alien Exploitation and Terrorist Proliferation Bill is under debate in the U.S. Senate. The bill would offer official documentation to illegal aliens without being able to verify who they actually are or where they come from, and would allow terrorists like the three illegal alien brothers who crossed over the Mexican border at Brownsville and were recently arrested plotting a terrorist attack on Fort Dix to continue to penetrate this country, now with the added bonus of being able to get legal status.

McCain and Republicans in the House and Senate want cheap labor at indentured servitude prices, while Democrats, knowing that illegals tend to break Democrat roughly 5:1 because of the Marxist/socialist politics of their home nations, hope to use illegals to establish an overwhelming permanent Democratic majority.

In the end, we're looking at a Congress that is willing to pass a law that would enable Osama bin Laden himself to get legal status here in the United States.

That is not a comment I'm making up; it comes directly from Mike Cutler, a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Immigration Service, who thinks the Senate bill should be referred to as the Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007.

I hate Mondays.

A Few Words on Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, Etc.

I don't agree with the threats, but I certainly share the frustrations.

Vogue: Strike a Pose

Q: Who doesn't wipe away small trickle of blood running from their hairline, down between their eyes, off the end of their nose, and around their mouth?

A: A car-swarming Palestinian, when a Reuters cameraman is nearby.

The photo appears to be a cropped version of this wider image, which shows the carswarm in progress, and the remains of the mangled militant van hit by Israeli aircraft.

Perhaps I'm too jaded to be objective after last year's Pallywood antics, but I'd guess there's a more than decent shot that his wound came from being jostled in the crowd swarming around the sharp, twisted metal of the bombed van, and not from injuries from the blast itself.

Desperate Non-Wives

Perhaps its just my perception, but perhaps the reason that there are so few men taking wine-tasting and tennis classes in New York City is not that they are uninterested in the subject, but that the men who have these interests are already dating each other.

I'm kidding. Mostly.

Ann Althouse takes another stab at answering the question:

Men prefer to look at something they have decided to do and figure it out on their own. They like to observe, analyze, and discover. They accept the risks and enjoy the excitement of trial and error. They don't like sitting around having someone tell them what to do, and they aren't intrigued by the prospect of meeting women who spend so much time doing something they loathe.

Now, I just made that up, but it was no more made up than the explanation in the article.

Althouse is a lot closer to reality than the loopy NY Times reporter.

I don't know any of my male friends who would sign up for a class to learn how to do anything; typically if they're interested in a subject, they'll ask a buddy for pointers or just dive right in. The trial and error is part of what makes new experiences worthwhile.

Of course, the choice of activity matters a great deal as well.

Look at the list of classes chosen by these desperate women: "tennis, running, sailing, horseback riding, fitness boot camp and scuba diving classes" and "golf, cooking or music class," and "Thai kickboxing or jazz appreciation."

Now honestly... how men of these activities are of interest to most single straight men in the age groups these women are targeting? Cooking and music classes? Thai kickboxing and jazz appreciation? These might appeal to men when they get older, but most younger single men have very little interest in these subjects, and even if they did, as Althouse correctly observed, they'd just do it.

If these women wanted to meet men, they'll find out what men like and where they hang out, and go there.

Somehow, I doubt that advice will lead them back to a jazz appreciation class.

Palestinian Plot to Assassinate Olmert Foiled

The accused plotter worked for Doctors Without Borders. I'm guessing "first do no harm" principle of Doctors without Borders slipped by him in orientation.

The Israeli intelligence services say they have foiled a plot to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other senior Israeli political figures. Details of the story were released yesterday after Israeli authorities lifted a media blackout.

The plot allegedly centered on Mazab Bashir, a 25-year-old Palestinian from Gaza who worked for the international medical relief organization Doctors Without Borders. According to the Israelis, Bashir was arrested in Jerusalem while he was gathering intelligence for future terrorist attacks.

It is not uncommon for Palestinians from Gaza to be granted travel permits by the Israeli security agencies if they work for recognized nongovernmental organizations. Bashir held such a permit, which allowed him to travel regularly from the Gaza Strip to Jerusalem, officials said.

The indictment said Bashir made several surveillance tours of the area surrounding Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Jerusalem residence but decided that the building was too well protected. Working with the Palestinian militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, he allegedly received hand to hand combat training and used the Internet to find alternative Israeli personalities to target.

Forbes was able to provide details of the alternative target list:

Once he deemed that the assassination of the prime minister was impossible, Bashir began collecting information on other top Israeli politicians, including Cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman, deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh and Labor Party lawmaker Ophir Pines-Paz.

Politico: Murtha Accused of Rules Violation

Don't mess with John Murtha's pork:

According to the draft resolution, Murtha shouted at Rogers on the House floor Thursday for offering a motion last week to expose $23 million Murtha requested in an intelligence bill.

Murtha had requested the money to prevent the administration from shuttering the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, Pa.. in Murtha's district.

"I hope you don't have any earmarks in the defense appropriations bills because they are gone, and you will not get any earmarks now and forever," Murtha told Rogers on the House floor, according to the draft transcript given Politico.

"This is not the way we do things here -- and is that supposed to make me afraid of you?" Rogers replied.

"That's the way I do it," Murtha said.

According to the article, the National Drug Intelligence Center, "has received repeated low marks from several federal review boards."

If true, it seems that Murtha was trying to support a failed government outpost in his district to shore up his political support at home, at the expense of federal taxpayers... classic "business as usual" politics.

I'd suspect nothing will come of the reprimand attempt. The accusation will likely be entered into the Congressional Record, the reprimand voted upon, and probably fail along party lines. I think the purpose of Roger's filing the accusation was to document the stupidity of Murtha making such a thread in front of multiple Republican congressional witnesses, and to ensure that if Murtha does attempt to make good on his threat, that more serious ethics charges could be on the table.

Goodbye, GOP

Ace's suggestion sounds about right to me:

Write, call, and fax your Congressmen and Senators -- especially Republican ones -- and let them know you will never vote for them or their party again should the immigration bill actually pass.

And let them know that you don't particularly trust them on national security, spending, or taxes either, so they won't wrongly believe those trump cards will still win the hand for them. Let them know if this isn't scuttled -- if the border isn't secured first, verifiably, before any amnesty legislation passes -- you will no longer vote for, volunteer for, or donate to any Republican candidate for any office ever again.

Not a dime, not a vote.

It's time to let them know they're walking into the abyss. Inform them in no uncertain terms that they are attempting to purchase the votes of new "Americans" who split 5:1 Democratic by losing your reliably conservative vote forever.

I've never felt I owed anything to the Republican party.

I told my Senators Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr last night:

Senator, my name is Bob Owens. I run a conservative political blog called Confederate Yankee (http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/) that 90,000-100,000 opinionmakers visit each month.

Tonight, I will tell my readers, conservative Republicans, fence-sitting conservative Democrats and moderates, that if the Senate passes the pending illegal alien amnesty bill, that I will formally abandon the Republican party, as it has abandoned me. I will then ask them to do the same. I will ask that they refuse to contribute to Republican campaigns. I will ask them to stay at home and refuse to vote for Republican candidates, or even consider voting for Democrats in protest in 2008.

I am not alone.

Kill this amnesty bill

But you know what? I lied.

There is no "if, then" here. There are no longer any conditionals left. I'm simple done with today's iteration of the "Grand Old Party." This amnesty bill was merely the straw that broke the camel's back.

I've just downloaded and printed my North Carolina Voter Registration Application/Update form.

I'm re-registering as "unaffiliated."

Goodbye, GOP.

AG Gone?

If the Paper Chase is correct, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez may soon be on his way out:

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, predicted Thursday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will resign from his post at the conclusion of current investigations into the allegedly-political firings of federal prosecutors. Specter's comments followed others made by Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) Wednesday, who suggested that by remaining in his position, Gonzales was harming the Justice Department. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) concurred, telling the Associated Press that it was noteworthy that Gonzales is spending more time on Capitol Hill defending himself than working as the Attorney General.

I'll be depressed when this happens.

Really.

Waiting for Sderot

Did you hear about the high school hit yesterday by a pair of missiles?

Of course you didn't. It was an Israeli school in Sderot that was struck, and the missiles were fired by Hamas.

A quick Google search of news outlets shows that this kind of school violence is apparently not newsworthy by the standards of our gatekeeper media.

To be fair, Google News did not capture all mentions of the story (NOTE: see update below).

The New York Times mentioned the attack in passing in the ninth paragraph of this story, which was focused almost exclusively on Israel's retaliatory air strike against Hamas commanders.

CNN followed a similar pattern, kindly donating a few words about the high school attack in the tenth paragraph of a story focused on Israel's air strike and the Hamas-Fatah not-civil war.

Only CBN covered the attack on the high school with any depth at all:

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza launched at least 11 Kassam rockets at the besieged Israeli city of Sderot Thursday, hitting a high school and a greenhouse in another Israeli community in the western Negev. Scores of rockets have fallen in the area this week, forcing thousands of residents to seek shelter elsewhere.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has promised a "harsh and severe" response to the rocket attacks, which could include the renewal of targeted assassinations of terrorist groups in Gaza or eventually even a military reinvasion of the Gaza Strip.

Two rockets hit the high school in the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council as students met in fortified classrooms to take their matriculation exams in mathematics.

The Kassams damaged an unfortified section of the building and lightly injured two people. Several others suffered shock.

Rueters' Nidal al-Mughrabi completely neglected to mention the attack on the high school, even though his story was side-barred by these pictures of the attack.

Caption: An Israeli firefighter surveys the scene after a rocket, fired by Palestinian militants, landed in a high school classroom in the southern town of Sderot May 17, 2007. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen

Caption: Israeli students embrace during a rocket attack at their high school in the southern town of Sderot May 17, 2007. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen

Caption: Israeli students hold their hands up to their faces on the scene of a rocket attack at their high school in the southern town of Sderot May 17, 2007. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen

The news outlets of the world apparently have little interest in the attack on an Israeli school, but instead bend over backwards to write more than 2,500 3,000 stories about the results of the Israeli air force targeting Hamas leaders who are blamed for ordering the attacks on Sderot.

Update: A reader at Wizbang! noted that the Google search I ran for "Sderot high school missile" was incorrect, as a rocket, not a missile, was used by Hamas. I then ran a Google News search on "Sderot high school rocket," and the search hits jumped dramatically... no, not really.

Back to the Grassy Knoll

Take this for what it's worth:

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald alone shot the two bullets that struck and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

The researchers' re-analysis involved new statistical calculations and a modern chemical analysis of bullets from the same batch Oswald is purported to have used. They reached no conclusion about whether more than one gunman was involved, but urged that authorities conduct a new and complete forensic re-analysis of the five bullet fragments left from the assassination in Dallas.

[snip]

Tobin, Spiegelman and James said they bought the same brand and lot of bullets used by Oswald and analyzed their lead using the new standards. The bullets from that batch are still on the market as collectors' items.

They found that the scientific and statistical assumptions Guinn used -- and the government accepted at the time -- to conclude that the fragments came from just two bullets fired from Oswald's gun were wrong.

"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets," the researchers said. "If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely," the researchers said. If the five fragments came from three or more bullets, that would mean a second gunman's bullet would have had to strike the president, the researchers explained.

If I'm reading this right, there is no new evidence of a second shooter, just a criticism of the bullet analysis used at the time.

How they can jump from questioning the methodology, to postulating that there may have been three or more bullets and a second gunman, should be a red flag. They have no data to support their third bullet/second gunman theories.

Retro-Trutherism. How chic.

When Does the Gaza Conflict Become a Civil War?

This sure sounds like one to me:

Gaza City was shuttered on Wednesday as gunmen took over rooftops and top-floor apartments. Most everyone else huddled fearfully indoors on the fourth day of factional Palestinian fighting that is drawing in the Israeli military.

At least 19 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday — more than 40 have been killed over the past four days — in fighting between Fatah and Hamas as their unity government fractures and rage rises on both sides.

"We want this to end, because what's happening endangers not just the unity government, but the Palestinian nation and cause," said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator and an aide to President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas attacked symbols of Fatah power in Gaza, including the home of the chief security commander. He was not there, but six bodyguards were killed.

The Los Angeles Times report is equally dire:

Rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah wage battles in the streets of the Gaza Strip. Three truces have come and gone. In four days, at least 40 people have been killed, including 14 on Wednesday, as an increasingly violent struggle threatens to bring down what had been touted as a Palestinian "unity" government.

When their new political power-sharing coalition was unveiled in March, amid smiles and congratulations, leaders of Fatah and Hamas pledged to put an end to their fighting. But the ferocious violence shredding the Gaza Strip this week has made a mockery of the agreement. Rank-and-file members of the two factions are once again battling for supremacy on the streets, as ordinary residents, worn down by years of economic and social chaos, remain trapped in their homes.

Are Palestinians in a civil war?

Wikipedia defines a "civil war" as:

A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight against each other for the control of political power.

Some civil wars are categorized as revolutions when major societal restructuring is a possible outcome of the conflict. An insurgency, whether successful or not, is likely to be classified as a civil war by some historians if, and only if, organized armies fight conventional battles. Other historians state the criterion for a civil war is that there must be prolonged violence between organized factions or defined regions of a country (conventionally fought or not).

The definition provided by Wikipedia is interesting when applied to the quite different conflicts in Iraq and Gaza.

The conflict in Iraq is routinely referred to as a civil war by politicians and journalists, even though doing so relies on the debated insurgency definition above. Clearly, the Iraqi conflict, while certainly involving an insurgency and intertwined sectarian conflicts, have never seen the widespread use of organized armies fighting conventional battles. Most of the sectarian violence is typically composed of guerillas (Sunni or Shia) attacking primarily civilian targets with mortar fire, IEDs and bombs, along with kidnappings, murders, and ambushes.

Calling the Iraqi sectarian conflict a civil war thus relies upon a debated definition.

The conflict in Gaza, however, seems too far more closely fit the agreed upon definition of a civil war. Fatah and Hamas are well organized, typically wear something of a uniform (if not consistently), fight small scale but typically intense conventional battles, and clearly fight for political power as their primary goal, and usually against recognized targets such as enemy units, commanders, and positions.

Shouldn't the Palestinian "factional fighting" thus easily earn the definition of a "civil war?"

If politicians and the media can used a debated definition to declare that Iraq is in a civil war, then they should certainly consider the near letter-perfect and undisputed definition of a "civil war" to describe the battle between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza.

The Palestinians in Gaza seem to be clearly involved in a bloody civil war. I'm curious as to why politicians and the media won't provide the proper definition for this conflict that it so clearly deserves.

American Legion to John Edwards: Don't Politicize Memorial Day

I think this one stands on its own.

Getting the War Wrong... Again

A chronic problem of news agencies reporting from Iraq is their apparent inability to separate sectarian violence--violence committed by one sect on another, typically Sunni to Shia, or Shia to Sunni--with the terrorist attacks instigated by al Qaeda and aligned groups.

al Qaeda will attack against anyone and everyone else, including their Sunni co-religionists. It is this propensity towards terrorism for terrorism's sake that has spurred both the Anbar and Diyala Awakening movements.

AFP today provides a prime example of the media mislabeling an act of violence, turning a terrorist attack into a sectarian attack, even when their own report indicates they got it wrong:

Insurgent bombers detonated a van bomb in a crowded Iraqi market, police said on Wednesday, as Shiite militiamen clashed with police and the US military hunted for three kidnapped comrades.

The latest apparently sectarian attack ripped through a Shiite enclave northeast of Baghdad late on Tuesday, killing at least 32 civilians and wounding 65 more, according to local security and municipal officials.

Iraqi officials said the bomb had been packed with tanks of chlorine gas, but the US military said a team sent to the scene could not confirm this.

Other news organizations are also reporting on this story, and all are mentioning the still unconfirmed reports that chlorine gas canisters were used in the attack.

Now, if true, who has a M.O. of using chlorine-laced conventional bombs against civilians?

Why, I just don't know.

/sarcasm

If you click through the links, you'll notice that al Qaeda and it's umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq, have detonated these weapons against Sunni and Shia civilians, and government forces alike.

While disputed, the claims of chlorine in the explosives would actually point away from a sectarian attack, towards a terrorist attack by al Qaeda or its terrorist allies.

You would hope AFP and other news organizations would pick up on things like that, and yet here they go, arguing against their own reporting, getting it wrong... again.

The Storm Builds

Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.

That will be the take-away for most on this Telegraph article published today, and while that is an extreme bastardization of what former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolten actually said--he actually advocated an escalating course of significant economic sanctions, regime change, and the use of force only if nothing else works--the headline of "We must attack Iran before it gets the bomb" does accurately describe what appears at this point to be the probable end game.

Melanie Phillips does an admirable job of almost describing the stakes:

The choice is not between a negotiated peace with Iran and a war with appalling risks. It is a choice between a war with appalling risks and an Iran that will hold the world to nuclear ransom, having destroyed Israel as a throat-clearing exercise. It is a choice between war with Iran, and war with a nuclear Iran; war on our terms, and war on Iran’s terms; war in which we take the initiative and thus have every prospect of winning, and war in which Iran holds the trump card, which means we have a near certainty of losing.

At the same time, as Bolton also emphasised, making such a grim choice must be a last resort. All-out war with Iran is a prospect fraught with appalling perils and uncertainties. Only a fool would embark upon such a war precipitately. But only a fool would rule it out as a possibly inevitable last resort. The problem is that the EU — and parts of the US government — are behaving as if such a last resort is totally unthinkable. This has powerfully undermined the diplomacy, since Iran clearly believes — and with good reason — that the west simply isn’t serious about enforcing its will and will never go to war against Iran in any circumstances.

I this Phillips is right on the generalities of her statement, but would disagree with her comment that, "Iran that will hold the world to nuclear ransom, having destroyed Israel as a throat-clearing exercise."

Israel has developed an air force over the past decade with the express purpose of targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, which explains their purchase of long-range F-15I "Ra'am" and F-16I "Sufa" strike fighters. Israel has purchased 25 of the F-15I "Ra'am" strike fighters and 102 F-16I "Sufa" strike fighters, the last of which will be delivered in 2008. These aircraft have the capability of hitting Iranian targets without in-flight refueling, and with in-flight refueling, could target any location in that country. Both aircraft are capable of carrying "bunkerbuster" bombs thought to have been purchased from the United States, and would almost certainly be designed to carry the 60-85 nuclear weapons (according to the DIA) thought to be in Israeli inventories.

A U.S. Army paper cites the data of a fired Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, who went public with his information in 1985, which seems to indicate:

...a sophisticated nuclear program, over 200 bombs, with boosted devices, neutron bombs, F-16 deliverable warheads, and Jericho warheads.

The same paper also indicates that Israel's military may already have official government authorization for a retaliatory nuclear strike if Israel was struck first with nuclear weapons.

Iran may very well destroy Israel as a nation in a nuclear first strike, but Israel's nuclear arsenal would answer holocaust with a holocaust, and as noted yesterday, the Hojjatieh cult running Iran may very well be depending on an Israel response to force a messianic return.

Iran will either be stripped of its nuclear weapons program, or Iran (and other countries) will be stripped of life.

While the headline was perhaps a bit misleading, it was nonetheless true: if economic sanctions and regime change efforts fail, we must attack Iran before it gets the bomb to avoid the deaths of tens of millions.

An Accidental Interview

I had an interesting twenty-minute face-to-face conversation with a Spec Ops soldier named "K.C." last night.

K.C. first jumped into Iraq on March 26, 2003 with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, in the largest combat air drop since WWII. He most recently served in a six-man Long Range Surveillance (LRS) unit. The LRS are direct descendents of the famed LRRP "A-teams" of the Vietnam War era.

He was careful not to mention assignments or duty locations, but based upon some of the things he stated in our conversation, I gather that he has served extensively in Iraq, and perhaps in Afghanistan as well. He is presently on leave.

During the course of our conversation, K.C. told me the same things I've heard time and again from soldiers at nearby Fort Bragg, airmen from Pope AFB, and the occasion Marines from Camp Lejune and MCAS Cherry Point.

Stop me if you've heard these before.

"The war you see in the media is not the war we are fighting."

If he has his way, K.C. would boot all media out of Iraq. Like others soldiers and Marines before him, he noted to problem of news organizations basing many of their stories based upon anecdotal conversations from locals with their own agendas, while ignoring the testimony of U.S. soldiers, or sometimes cherry-picking comments and dowdifying them to the point that they no longer reflected what the soldier actually said, reflected the battles they've fought, or the experiences they've had. Reporters have alsoeither ignored the physical evidence supporting soldiers contentions, or have been too ignorant or biased to assimilate the information.

K.C.'s observation reminds me of a conversation I had with a soldier who fought in Ramadi some months ago, who spoke of an attack in his area that left civilians dead. The media blamed the deaths on a firefight involving U.S. forces, even though it was 7.62x39mm shell casings (the cartridge used almost universally by Arab militaries, militias, and insurgent groups) and expended RPG fragments found at the scene of the attack, and no signs of American involvement were present.

K.C. related one particular story that obviously still bothered him, that of a school hit by insurgents during the early days of the war. The insurgents killed a number of children, and the media accounts he later saw attributed it to a U.S. airstrike.

I guess that even though the AP has stopped using his name since he was exposed as a fraud, Jamil Not-Hussein still really gets around.

I told him about milblogs, maintained by the active duty soldiers and veterans, and how I thought that if the military was smart, they'd make an effort to channel more information through them to bypass the media that he and other soldiers distrust so much, enabling soldiers to directly tell their stories and experiences to the world. He liked the concept quite a bit, even though he stated he couldn't write about what he personally did.

I hope any military brass that happen to be reading this listens.

"G--D--- Democrats"

Like every single soldier, airman and Marine I've talked to, K.C. is disgusted with Democrat politicians. He pulls no punches: he considers them supporters of terrorism. Period.

This is a sentiment I've also heard before, and interestingly enough, it seems, at least among those I've talked with, that the infantry soldiers and Marines who have spent the most time on the ground feel this the strongest.

Of course, this could have several reasons. The frontline soldiers have more personally invested blood, sweat and tears in the war, have lost friends, and have killed men in Iraq. They also interact with the Iraqi people, and would presumably know them and the culture better than support troops or the airmen I've spoken with. Some seemed to like the Iraqi people, some did not, but to a man, they all wanted to continue the mission and were visibly, coldly (and sometimes not so coldly) angry with Democratic attempts to lose the war.

I shook hands with K.C., wished him well, and told him to keep his head down as he prepares for his next deployment in Our Children's Children's War.

Little Love For the Departed: A Roundup of Liberal Reaction to Jerry Falwell's Passing

I'm not a fan of Jerry Falwell, who died today shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University at the age of 73. That said, I am quite disgusted with the pathological hatred displayed by liberal bloggers in their reactions to his death.

Wonkette:

Jerry Falwell collapsed in his office this morning, and he’s in the hospital, and he’s “gravely unresponsive.”

At a time like this, people deserve sympathy and good wishes ... except for Falwell, who is an evil sonofabitch.

John Edward's former campaign blogger Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon:

The gates of hell swing open and Satan welcomes his beloved son

No word yet on whether or not that position is shared by John and Elizabeth Edwards campaign, or how Edward's staff will spin this into a fundraising opportunity.

Tapped goes for a "twofer" slam:

I'm waiting for Pat Robertson to find a way to blame his rival's death on either feminists or witchcraft.

Daily Kos:

The hagiography to cover up a history of hate and bigotry has officially begun.

A litany of hate at the Democratic Underground.

The "Blog of the Moderate Left" is surprisingly immoderate:

I wish I believed in Hell, so I could imagine Falwell enduring the eternal torment he wished on so many.

Technorati is tracking far more venom than I even want to contemplate, and as always, Allahpundit and Newsbuckit have running updates to capture the full flavor of the Democratic hatefest.

Perhaps I'm just blind by my own biases, but I don't recall similar widespread, triumphant glee and gloating from conservatives the last time a prominent liberal activist or politician died.

Liberal Anti-Gun Hysteria on Parade

In New Jersey:

New Jersey moved yesterday toward becoming the second state to outlaw the powerful .50-caliber rifle that critics contend could potentially be used in terrorist attacks. The guns, which resemble large hunting rifles, are accurate up to 11/2 miles, and opponents contend that they could be used to penetrate an airliner or ignite chemical plants, rail tank cars and refineries.

California is the only state with a similar law.

Legislation that would make New Jersey follow suit was released yesterday by an Assembly committee and can now be considered by the full Assembly.

The proposed ban is getting renewed attention after federal investigators announced this week that they had foiled an alleged terrorist plot by six men who were planning to attack Fort Dix.

"As unnerving as the Fort Dix terrorism plot was, it could have been all the more worse if the weapons of choice for alleged assailants had been .50-caliber assault guns instead of AK-47s," said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D., Mercer).

This is a man holding a .50-caliber rifle (source).

You'll note that the rifle in question is a Steyr HS50, a 28.5-pound, single-shot rifle that weighs roughly 30 pounds with a scope and one cartridge in the chamber. Because of its weight, I assure you he did not hold this pose for very long.

This is what that rifle looks like with a scope.

Let's fisk this anti-gun tirade on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis.

New Jersey moved yesterday toward becoming the second state to outlaw the powerful .50-caliber rifle that critics contend could potentially be used in terrorist attacks.

Lets go past things that "could potentially be used in terrorist attacks," and actually look at thinks that have been used in terrorist attacks:

• shoes
• electrical tape
• fertilizer
• all fuels
• hydrogen peroxide
• and on, and on, and on...

There has never been any sort of documented crime committed in the United States with a .50 BMG rifle.

The guns, which resemble large hunting rifles, are accurate up to 11/2 miles, and opponents contend that they could be used to penetrate an airliner or ignite chemical plants, rail tank cars and refineries.

Actually, they are large hunting rifles, as this Field and Stream article attests. Mechanically, they are no different than any other rifles, other than scaling to match size of the cartridge they use.

Yes, opponents do contend that .50 BMG rifles could be used to penetrate an airliner, but the simple fact of the matter is that virtually any bullet, from the lowly .22 long rifle to all handgun and rifle cartridges will penetrate the very thin aluminum skill of an airliner.

As for the size of the hole such a bullet would cause, here is a high-tech rendering of the size of the hole a .50-caliber rifle would make (left) versus the extremely common .30-caliber rifle (right).

You'll note that if you hold your thumb up next to the .50 "hole" that it is roughly the size of your thumbnail. By comparison, most broadhead arrows have a cutting diameter of more than one inch.

.50 BMG bullets carry far more energy than most rifle bullets, but commercially available bullets are not explosive, and military API (armor-piercing incendiary) cartridges do not function well in these precision rifles. Combine those facts that with the near impossibility of being able to hit a distant moving aircraft with a single bullet from a 30-pound single shot rifle, and the case made by hysterical and ignorant gun control advocates is laughable.

Chemical plants and rail cars?

Not a chance:

When asked about the alleged threat of .50cal rifles to his railcars, Mr. Darymple said that they have long tested their cars against almost every form of firearm, to include .50BMG and larger. When asked what happens when a .50 hits one of his tanks he said with a shrug "It bounces off." He went on to point out that railcars are designed to survive the force of derailing, and collision with other railcars at travel speeds. By comparison the impact of a bullet, any bullet, is like a mosquito bite.

Refineries? Perhaps possible, but nearly any other form of weapon would be far more concealable, far cheaper, and far more effective.

California is the only state with a similar law.

Legislation that would make New Jersey follow suit was released yesterday by an Assembly committee and can now be considered by the full Assembly.

And how well is that law working?

To date, both the .416 Barrett and .510 DTC Europ have been developed to completely invalidate the ban California passed and New Jersey is trying to implement. There is an upside: these cartridges are said by some to be even more accurate than the .50 BMG they replace.

The proposed ban is getting renewed attention after federal investigators announced this week that they had foiled an alleged terrorist plot by six men who were planning to attack Fort Dix.

Irrelevant, anyone?

New Jersey is also overrun by the mentally ill. Quick, ban moose hunting!

And the closing quote from the article, provided by one of New Jersey's mentally ill:

"As unnerving as the Fort Dix terrorism plot was, it could have been all the more worse if the weapons of choice for alleged assailants had been .50-caliber assault guns instead of AK-47s," said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D., Mercer).

Mr. Gusciora, most .50 rifles sold in the United States are single-shot rifles, and because of their excessive weight, are almost always fired prone. Perhaps a New Jersey Democrat would rather our soldiers be attacked with a lightweight, far more concealable fully-automatic weapon capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute as the terrorists intended, but I promise, that to a man, any knowledgeable soldier would rather be attacked with a ponderous .50-caliber single-shot rifle than an AK-47.

Thus ends today's lesson.

Remembering a Fallen Soldier

I sincerely hope that I'm readying Steve Clemons wrong (my bold):

But this young man did serve his nation -- but his death is so incredibly tragic, like the others -- but his even more because his well-respected father has been working hard to end this horrible, self-damaging crusade. It's incredibly sad.

Is Clemon's really saying that this son's loss is more tragic than others, because the father shares Clemon's anti-war beliefs?

Jules Crittenden, who knew Professor Bacevich, offers a much more fitting tribute.

The Eschatology of the Coming Nuclear War

U.S. News and World Report has a short post up concerning the simulation of nuclear detonations in the Middle East:

A simulation has determined that any major use of nuclear forces in the Middle East in the next decade would most likely be "existential," meaning that an attack would amount to an effort to destroy a nation and the ability of its people to ever recover from a nuclear exchange. The briefers determined that Israel would be vulnerable to such attacks--and so would any Iranian attacker. The simulation was developed by the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., to examine the nuclear dynamics likely to develop in the Middle East between 2010 and 2020.

"In fact," noted a Center for Strategic and International Studies summary of the briefing released today, "a nation like Iran--with so much of its economy, culture, and government concentrated in Tehran and a few other cities, might prove to be far more vulnerable to the forces Israel could develop than Israel would be to the forces Iran could hope to deploy" until the end of the 2010-2020 time period. The briefing covers the use of nuclear ground bursts, fallout, longer-term death rates, and population-killing strikes. Other targets will likely include oil and gas distribution and loading facilities, desalination and water purification plants, electric power plants, and refineries--targets likely to affect the general population.

First, is there ever a "minor" use of nuclear forces?

But that isn't my main focus here.

The writer of this piece seems to imply that Iran's vulnerability to a nuclear exchange would keep it from starting a nuclear exchange with Israel. To make such an assumption, if this is the writer's intent, is a failure of cultural understanding.

It would perhaps be fair to apply Western standards and values to the state of Israel, as so much of the Israeli population emigrated to Israel from western nations, and their society and government hold with Westernized cultural values, but to attempt to apply those same cultural values to an Iranian government run by this mullacracy is to avoid the plain fact that Iran's leaders have values shaped by a radical theology all their own.

The Iranian government--and hence its rapidly expanding nuclear weapons program, is slaved to the beliefs of a radical Shia sect called the Hojjatieh, a cult within Shia Islam so radical that it was outlawed in 1983 by Ayatollah Khomeini.

As notes the Persian Journal:

According to Shi'ite Muslim teaching, Abul-Qassem Mohammad, the 12th leader whom Shi'ites consider descended from the Prophet Mohammed, disappeared in 941 but will return at the end of time to lead an era of Islamic justice.

"Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi," Ahmadinejad said in the speech to Friday Prayers leaders from across the country.

"Therefore, Iran should become a powerful, developed and model Islamic society."

"Today, we should define our economic, cultural and political policies based on the policy of Imam Mahdi's return. We should avoid copying the West's policies and systems," he added, newspapers and local news agencies reported.

Ahmadinejad refers to the return of the 12th Imam, also known as the Mahdi, in almost all his major speeches since he took office in August.

A September address to the U.N. General Assembly contained long passages on the Mahdi which confused Western diplomats and irked those from Sunni Muslim countries who believe in a different line of succession from Mohammed.

This fascination has prompted wild stories to circulate.

Presidential aides have denied a popular rumor that he ordered his cabinet to write a letter to the 12th Imam and throw it down a well near the holy city of Qom where thousands of pilgrims come each week to pray and drop messages to the Imam.

But what really has tongues wagging is the possibility that Ahmadinejad's belief in the 12th Imam's return may be linked to the supposed growing influence of a secretive society devoted to the Mahdi which was banned in the early 1980s.

Founded in 1953 and used by the Shah of Iran to try to eradicate followers of the Bahai faith, the Hojjatieh Society is governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by the creation of chaos on earth.

How seriously should we take the ruling Hojjatieh sect?

The executive summary of one study provided to the U.S. military by a strategic planning contractor stated:

Ultra-religious Shia clerics and Ahmadinejad are dedicated to the near-term messianic return of the 12th Imam via the creation of an apocalypse.

I don't think it gets much clearer than that.

The contention is that not only do the Hojjatieh anticipate the "creation of chaos on earth," they actively seek to create an apocalypse. Based upon their public pronoucements and nuclear weapons research, it seems quite clear that their preferred method is to instigate a nuclear attack against Israel. They know that Israel will respond with a retaliatory nuclear strike of their own, and are in fact, are more than likely counting on it.

It is this Israeli return nuclear strike on Tehran that Ahmadinejad and the Hojjatieh are counting upon to trigger the Madhi's return.

Iran and Ahmadinejad have been very clear in their desire to see Israel "wiped off the map," with multiple threatening pronouncements, and Ahmadinejad himself seems quite convinced that he is on a mission from Allah.

Mortal concerns and fears have little importance for an Iranian leadership seemingly bent on using a nuclear war to force a messianic return. Tens of millions may perish because a once-outlawed cult thinks a nuclear war will convince a four-year-old messiah to crawl out of a well in which he's been hiding 1,066 years.

I sadly fear that Democratic Party principles of avoidance will force our government to continue to discount the Iranian nuclear threat until after Iranian missiles are already arcing in towards Tel Aviv, at which point any further action against Iran will be addressed to a relative handful of survivors.

Pour Another Glass

Your unhinged Democratic leadership in action.

I don't know if McDermott actually believes that 500 American soldiers were killed or wounded in a single attack and that those mass casualties were covered up by the government, but the fact remains that he is obviously quite willing to float such a bizarre, unfounded allegation and actually push for an investigation.

Clearly, trutherism hysteria of various sorts has taken over a substantial portion of the Democratic/progressive political movement, from young activists all the way up to senior legislators.

Perhaps we can add McDermott to the Kool Aid campaign.

Bittersweet: A Nightmare Over

Last night, Vernon Pardue fulfilled a promise he made to me in late 2005. Shortly before 10:00PM, I got an email from him:

Hello Bob

Can you give e a call ASAP
I need to talk to you.

On October 19, 2005, I wrote one of the most difficult blog entries I've ever had to write, Torn.

I wrote then:

Law enforcement officers, like members of the military, firefighters, paramedics and other first responders are the sheepdogs that keep the wolves at bay. These men and women and their families make sacrifices every day that those of us they protect will never fully understand.

Because of all that these families do for us, when I find myself squaring off against the bereaved widow of a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty, I do not enter into such opposition lightly.

On February 12, 2004, Wake County Sheriff's investigator Mark Tucker was gunned down by Matthew Charles Grant, a felon who didn't want to go back to prison for being the possession of a weapon. Deputy Tucker's widow, backed by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, filed suit against Cary Jewelry & Pawn in October of 2005, alleging that:

...Cary Jewelry & Pawn, of Cary, North Carolina, negligently and illegally sold the murder weapon to an obviously dangerous person.

In November 2003, Van McQueen and Matthew Grant went to Cary Jewelry & Pawn to buy a firearm. McQueen planned to purchase a firearm as a straw buyer for Grant, because Grant was a felon prohibited from buying guns, and in return Grant promised to buy McQueen a beer. McQueen was mentally deficient and was obviously intoxicated, and the shop's clerk refused to sell him a gun. Three days later, McQueen returned to the pawn shop with Grant, again wanting to buy a firearm. Although his home address was a local mission, McQueen had $120 in cash to buy the weapon. This time, even though the same clerk who had seen McQueen intoxicated three days earlier was on duty, the shop completed the all-cash sale. McQueen then transferred the shotgun to Grant, who used it to shoot Investigator Tucker in the face, killing him. Grant was arrested, convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Investigator Tucker.

"The evidence in this case clearly shows that the gun dealer irresponsibly and illegally sold a shotgun to a man it knew to be dangerous," said Daniel R. Vice, Staff Attorney with the Brady Center. "The gun dealer chose to make a quick buck rather than protect public safety; greed and recklessness caused the death of a brave law enforcement officer."

That was according to the Brady Press release.

I questioned the Brady Center's claim, and then did a bit of investigative journalism, publishing my findings several weeks later in a post called Lawyers, Guns, and Money. My investigation showed that several of the allegations made by the Brady Center against Cary Jewelry and Pawn and its owner, Vernon Pardue, in their civil case, were falsified.

Vandorance McQueen was not mentally deficient, did not live in a mission, and did not buy the firearms three days after being turned down.

After I spoke with Pardue about this case in November of 2005, he promised he'd get back in touch with me with any major developments. He made good on his promise.

Last night, Mr. Pardue let me know that Brady has decided to drop its civil suit against him. He perhaps gives me too much credit in thanking me for my writing on the case. It was the blatant falsehoods of the Brady Center case, and the opposition of Sherrif Tucker's blood relatives, that probably had far more influence on the decision to drop the case, as Dan Tucker, Sheriff Tucker's youngest brother, noted in a comment on November 22, 2005:

Hello CY, I am really glad I finally found a website that has been following this nonsense and has made sense from it. I am the youngest brother of Mark Tucker. I would like to publicize the fact that Mark's immediate famiy (by that I mean blood family) have absolutely nothing to with this frivilous law suit against Cary Jewelry and Pawn. We found out about it the same way most of Wake County did, via the local news. I was in the courtroom last year everyday of the trial. I know for a fact that if the pawn shop had done anything wrong, the DA's office would have charged them with criminal charges. I have personally been to see Vernan Pardue to apologize for what he is going to go through and to let him know that I hold no grudges. I would stop this if I could and believe me I've tried. And I am sure Mark would not go along with what is happening in this case. In my opinion this lawsuit is purely for publicity and exposure.

I held then, and still believe now, that the Brady Center was not interested in anything remotely like justice for the murder of Sheriff's Investigator Tucker. Justice was served by a court of law. Matthew Charles Grant is in prison. I strongly suspect that the Brady Center and its lawyers were cynically using the death of a brave law enforcement officer and the grief of his family to push a political agenda. It is a cruel, callous organization that would pursue such a manipulative course of action.

My heart goes out to the Tucker family. They will never be whole again. But I am thankful that Vernon Pardue can finally put this politically-generated nightmare behind him. If I did indeed play a small role in stopping this frivolous case, I'm thankful. Creating more misery and destroying more lives because of tragedy is not justice.

John Edwards: Support the Troops By Undermining Their Mission

On a day set aside to honor those who have fallen defending liberty, Democrat John Edwards is determined to undermine the mission of those currently at war:

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is calling on his supporters to turn this year's Memorial Day into a day of antiwar activism, saying that the best way to honor the troops is to demand an end to the Iraq war.

"Each of us has a responsibility as Americans, a duty to our troops and to each other, to do all we can to support the troops and end this war," the former senator from North Carolina said yesterday during a commencement address at New England College in Henniker, N.H.

"This Memorial Day weekend, that means more than just getting in your car, driving to the beach, or a parade, or a picnic and saying the words, 'We support our troops,' " Edwards said.

"We must take responsibility and take action together -- as citizens, as Americans, as patriots. To support the troops. To end the war."

The new token patriotism extends to Edward's new web site Support the Troops. End the War, when they issue this advice:

Gather in public. On Memorial Day, get your friends, kids, co-workers, neighbors, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, and anyone and everyone you know together to publicly support the troops and end the war. Be sure to check with your local authority for any permits you need for public gatherings. Contact local media to publicize your event. Before you get started, please take a moment of silence to honor the fallen. And during your event, make sure you conduct yourself respectfully—both for those serving in Iraq and the memory of the brave servicemen and women that Memorial Day honors.

It says a lot about his base that Edwards feels compelled to remind his supporters to honor the fallen and conduct themselves respectfully, something most Americans have known since childhood.

Edwards also reminds visitors that contributions to his campaign aren't tax deductible.

Even heroic Edwards supporters must be willing to make sacrifices, it seems.

Al Qaeda Warns U.S. To Stop Search For Missing Soldiers

On Saturday, a U.S. patrol was ambushed near Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi soldier acting as their interpreter was killed in the ambush, and three soldiers are missing. The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an al Qaeda front group, is claiming responsibility for the attack, and has warned the thousands of coalition forces in the area to stop looking for the missing soldiers.

While we all obviously hope that the three missing soldiers will be recovered alive, I suspect that they were never captured alive to begin with, a sad suspicion shared at Hot Air. Knowing the fate in store for them if they did surrender--brutal torture followed by a YouTubed beheading--our soldiers would most likely fight to the death.

Because of this, I suspect al Qaeda managed a successful ambush and body thievery, but captured no living prisoners.

The al Qaeda cry to quit looking for the captured soldiers was likely issued from fears that the on-going search would further disrupt al Qaeda terrorist cells and turn up weapons caches. Thus far, two terrorists have been killed, four others wounded, and 100 people have been detained as the military sweep south of Baghdad continues.

Edu-Terrorism

A question for parents: how would you feel if your child's teacher terrorized your child?

Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

"We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.

But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.

"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

The children in this incident emerged physically unscathed, but that outcome was not guaranteed. The students could have just as easily panicked and attempted to escape, at which point the 69 student could have trampled one another, causing serious injuries.

The school principal, Catherine Stephens, in a hidious understatement, said that the staff members involved exhibited "poor judgment." The school Web site says the teachers involved considered the act of edu-terrorism a "prank."

Poor judgement? A prank? A teacher berating a child in front of their class for getting an answer wrong exhibits poor judgment. A camp prank is "short-sheeting" a bed.

The staff and teachers of Scales Elementary School premeditated and carried out a plot in which almost six dozen children were purposefully convinced they might die. In any other situation, such a threat, serious or not, would and should be viewed as a criminal act.

A real example of poor judgment in this instance would be the continued employment of these sadists as teachers. I hope that Murfreesboro City Schools has better judgement than that.

Banned Aid

How good of an idea is this?

Soldiers serving overseas will lose some of their online links to friends and loved ones back home under a Department of Defense policy that a high-ranking Army official said would take effect Monday.

The Defense Department will begin blocking access "worldwide" to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other popular Web sites on its computers and networks, according to a memo sent Friday by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander.

The policy is being implemented to protect information and reduce drag on the department's networks, according to Bell.

"This recreational traffic impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge," the memo said.

The armed services have long barred members of the military from sharing information that could jeopardize their missions or safety, whether electronically or by other means.

The new policy is different because it creates a blanket ban on several sites used by military personnel to exchange messages, pictures, video and audio with family and friends.

My gut reaction? While I can understand the infrastructure demands that these and similar sites place upon defense networks designed first and foremost with military applications in mind, the ban once again shows a fundamental lack of understanding by military officials the importance online communications can and should play as part of a modern military's communications strategy.

Predictably, users of these sites will simply shift to similar sites that are not banned, and the military will waste more time and resources attempting to keep up in an ever-expanding, cat-and-mouse challenge as our ever-resourceful troops find new ways to keep lines of communication open with their stateside friends and family.

Instead of attempting to muzzle communications between soldiers and their social networks, the military should encourage communications between the troops in the field and their friends and family members back home. Time and again, the most positive messages coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan are those being voiced by our soldiers to friends and relatives in emails transformed into in blog entries and newspaper editorials.

The War on Terror is every bit as much a war of pixels and pictures and mindshare as it is a war of bullets and bravery. al Qaeda and the various insurgent groups know this instinctively, and dominate social networking and file-sharing sites. The Pentagon should engage their own Army of Davids and have our troops counter terrorist propaganda with their own frontline perspectives. Instead, those in senior positions who do not understand the communications battlespace plan to flee the online field, ceding it to the enemy.

There is no other way to address this than to call this flawed policy what it is: military communications shortsightedness of epic proportions.

Dollard: Starving Parasites

Pat Dollard, Hollywood agent turned combat filmmaker and IED magnet, is echoing a sentiment I've been hearing more and more from fellow combat journalists: the war in Iraq is going very badly... for al Qaeda:

Terrorists are parasites. They rely on a host body to support them. Now they can terrorize a host body into providing them support, but that will only go so far. Ultimately, the host body must be somewhat sympathetic to the terrorists, or else, by sheer dint of numbers, the members of the host body will be able to reject the terrorists. These two principles explain the entire history of Al Qaeda’s reign over Al Anbar. Al Anbar, like Al Qaeda, is a Sunni entity. The people of Al Anbar were sympathetic enough to Al Qaeda that they provided them sanctuary, support and even manpower - which is to say, the very lifeblood that this parasite required. Finally, the Sunnis of Al Anbar had enough of the bleak and empty future, and very bloody present, that comprised the entirety of Al Qaeda’s offerings. And so the host body rejected the parasite. The parasite is now in its last possible refuge, the mixed Sunni/Shiite Triangle of Death & Diyala Province areas, just south and northeast of Baghdad, respectively. My time in Iraq started there, and will likely end there. Along with Al Qaeda’s.

There is a reason neither Al Qaeda or the Iranian Shiite Insurgents have no traction in Kurdistan. There is no sympathetic and compliant host body. There is a reason Al Qaeda has no traction in the southern/eastern Shiite areas of Iraq. There is no compliant, sympathetic (which is to say, Sunni) host body. There is only one place left with enough of a sympathetic, compliant host body for Al Qaeda to keep itself alive in. This is the mixed Sunni/Shiite Triangle of Death. An appropriate appellation for the battlefield of Iraq’s Apocalypse with its Public Enemy #1. Iraqis, Al Qaeda, U.S. forces. A triangle of death, indeed.

We're not hearing very much like this from the professional media nor the U.S. military, for very understandable and strikingly similar reasons.

The media staked out their narrative to a doomed war long ago, and will only begin to back off of that position once they are sure that al Qaeda,
and the Sunni insurgency is nearing collapse. The Iraqi government, U.S. government, and Coalition military and police forces are likewise cautious about overstating successes knowing that previous claims of a faltering insurgency have turned out to be false.

But Dollard's comments are part of a low, growing rumble from observers who have seen Iraq firsthand. Bill Roggio, J.D. Johannes, and others have been noting for several months the turnaround in al Anbar province, formerly the heart of the Sunni insurgency, as the Anbar Awakening has seen the overwhelming majority of the Sunni tribes once loyal to al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency reject the terrorists, and accept the U.S. and coalition forces as allies. It is these tribes that are now leading the hunt for al Qaeda, joining the Iraqi police and military in record numbers, and when they cannot get into official government security positions fast enough to hunt the terrorists, using their own ad hoc tribal militias to establish neighborhood security checkpoints and choke al Qaeda off and attack and kill al Qaeda aligned tribes.

This Awakening movement has spread as al Qaeda becomes the hunted in Anbar. al Qaeda continues its flight to Diyala, only to find the Sunni Awakening spreading to Diyala as well.

The media, quick to notice stumbling blocks and setbacks, seems unable to mention the obvious truth that al Qaeda and their Sunni allies, along with similar efforts by Shia militias trained and equipped by Iran, are also in their own version of a surge to counter our own.

Shia death squads will step up attacks against Sunni civilians in an effort to stoke Sunni militancy, just as the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent umbrella group, attempts to goad Sunnis into attacks against Shia, and al Qaeda continues to indiscriminately target Sunni, Shia, and Kurd to increases tensions among all groups.

What the U.S. military is hoping to accomplish with the COIN doctrine will not end the insurgency overnight, nor was that ever the promise. What it does intend, and where it is succeeding, is in engaging the Iraqis and helping civilians tired of war turn on Sunni, Shia, and al Qaeda militants among them.

As Dollard and others have noted, and as the British noted in Mayala, insurgencies are only viable as long as the population will support them. While it typically takes a decade or longer to completely defeat an insurgency, they rarely (never?) succeed once the bulk of the population turns against them. Once that tipping point is reached, much more blood may yet be spilled, but the final outcome all but assured.

Dollard is correct when he states al Qaeda in Iraq may end in Diyala. The tipping point against them seems to have already been reached in al Anbar, with the bulk of their former allies turning against them, and now hunting them down like dogs. As the Diyala Awakening gathers momentum, al Qaeda and aligned insurgents will no doubt mount more spectacular, bloody attacks in an attempt to intimidate the population into compliance. Like in al Anbar, those attacks are only likely to fuel anti-al Qaeda, anti-insurgency sentiment.

It is still very possible, considering the political climate, that we can still lose the war in Iraq because of its unpopularity here in the United States, and a corrupt and incompetent Iraqi government apparently more interested in personal profit than national unity and reconciliation. Our military is stretched close to its limits, and the will of Iran and Syria to continue supporting various militias and insurgent groups does not appear to lack resolve, or any real consequences for their support from either the United Nations or the United States.

The governments of the United States, Great Britain, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and perhaps a dozen other countries near and far are attempting to shape Iraq's future for their own best interests. The various religions, sects, and tribes within Iraq have formed and split alliances over the past four-plus years, attempting to do what they think is best for themselves. With all of these internal and external actors attempting to exert power and influence, it is ultimately up to the Iraqi people to determine which fate will envelope their nation. Perhaps the rise of The Awakening al Anbar and Diyala are an indication that the future they are choosing is one of hope amidst the carnage.

When Antiques are Outlawed, Only Outlaws with Have Antiques

Where did AFP dig this up, the Smithsonian?

While the blurred edges and inadequate lighting make a positive ID very difficult, it certainly appears that AFP might be using a century-old 1903 Colt Hammerless pistol in this obviously and admitted staged photo related to the Virginia Tech massacre.

Update: Speaking of guns lost in time, an eagle-eyed Glennstapundit links to a gun control article at the Huffington Post, noting that the guns in the photo aren't real; they're Airsoft.

You would think that some subtle clues would encourage the HuffPuffers to question the authenticity of the weapons pictured--perhaps the grenade launcher component slung under the barrel of the gun held by the guy in the white shirt might have clued them in, or the fact that the rifle in question was a prototype cancelled in 2005--but apparently these little details slipped through the cracks.

They do give the Associated Press photo credit, however, and I wonder if the AP might have botched it as well.

Update: According to Canada.com, the AP photo shows firearms on display at an NRA convention in Pittsburgh, PA. A quick Google search indicates that the convention was held in April, 2004. The firearms in question appear to be part of a "hands on" display focusing on next-generation military combat rifles.

They are decidedly not for sale in Virginia, as the Huffington Post article seems to imply, and could not be sold to civilians under federal law, as all of the firearms displayed are automatic weapons manufactured after 1986.

The Huffington Post is lying with pictures, just not in the way we originally thought. Thanks to SayUncle's "Quack" for catching the photo's origins.

Mort Kondrake's Final Solution

Writing today at RealClearPolitics, Mort Kondrake's basic solution to the problems poised by the Iraq War is genocidally specific:

Without prejudging whether President Bush's "surge" policy will work, the administration and its critics ought to be seriously thinking about a Plan B, the "80 percent solution" - also known as "winning dirty." Right now, the administration is committed to building a unified, reconciled, multisectarian Iraq - "winning clean." Most Democrats say that's what they want, too. But it may not be possible.

The 80 percent alternative involves accepting rule by Shiites and Kurds, allowing them to violently suppress Sunni resistance and making sure that Shiites friendly to the United States emerge victorious.

There is a certain simple genius to Kondrake's formulation.

If you don't like the problems poised by 20% of the population, simply eliminate the problematic population.

Why would anyone object?

Allah tackles this "solution" as well.

Please Tell Me This In't True (UPDATE: It Isn't)

I've long felt that Democratic leaders (not most Dem voters, who I think are generally good folks) will stoop to any level to achieve their political goals, but if the following conversation relayed to HotAir.com is true (and I have strong doubts, but would like them put to rest), then heads should roll:

XM Radio’s Quinn & Rose made the allegation that DNC Chairman Howard Dean called Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius early Sunday morning and instructed her not to request federal assistance in recovery from the Greensburg tornado, and to lie about the federal response to date, on their show, The War Room, today. After I discussed the story via phone with both Quinn and Rose today, here’s what they sent me.

Quinn & Rose relate specific allegations from an anonymous source that claims to be in a position to know of a conversation between Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback.

I encourage you to read the account in full.

If correct, Sebelius willfully lied when she stated she did not have enough National Guard troops to respond to the Greensburg tornado, and she did so at the direct requests of Democratic National Committee Chairmen Howard Dean and Democratic Senator Dick Durban of Illinois.

I'd typically discount such claims as conspiracy theorizing, except for the fact that several Democratic governors are now voicing the same concerns, from Maryland's Martin O'Malley, to North Carolina's Mike Easley and Arkansas' Mike Beebe, and with equally questionable reasoning.

Easley states that our state's National Guard could handle the largest natural disaster we face, a hurricane, but bases his complaint on the fact that we aren't equipped to handle a pandemic. This is a devastatingly shallow response: in the case of a pandemic, the surge capacity of our medical system would fail far before out National Guard will.

Were other Democratic governors prodded to a response by Dean as Sebelius reportedly was?

Did Sebelius, Chairwoman of the Democratic Governor's Association, make a call to Democratic governors on behalf of Dean? Or did Easley, Beebe, etc merely respond to a media inquiries?

Frankly, I don't know how much "meat" there is to this story, or if it is true, but think that if Howard Dean would disclose his personal home, DNC, and cell phone calls to the 785 area code for May 5, we could potentially rule out this story fairly quickly.

If the story does pan out to be true—and I do have strong reservations, as to date, it is based upon a single anonymous source—Sebelius should be impeached on ethics violations, Dean should step down, and both they and any other government officials that may be involved should be investigated for charges of conspiracy and racketeering under federal RICO statutes.

I sincerely hope that state and national Democrats would not stoop to such a level.

Lets see those phone records, Dean-o, and put these rumors to rest.

Update: Hot Air is now reporting that the DNC has sent cease-and-desist letters to XM Radio and the Free Republic, stating that the claims made were "demonstrably, uneqivically, and absolutely false."

Let's hope so.

Update: Brownbeck denies the call as well.

Stick a fork in this one.

Surrendercrats Threaten War Effort, Military Pay

Once again, Congressional Democrats show which side they support in the Iraq War, and it isn't ours:

The Democratic-controlled House voted Thursday night to pay for military operations in Iraq on an installment plan, defying President Bush's threat of a second straight veto in a fierce test of wills over the unpopular war.

The 221-205 vote was largely along party lines and sent the measure to a cool reception in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is seeking a compromise with the White House and Republicans.

The bill was passed by House Democrats only as an act of political gamesmanship with our soldiers lives, as they that knew it would likely die in the Senate.

The continuing failure of anti-victory House Democrats to deliver a viable war funding bill is already impacting the military:

Delays in getting an emergency supplemental war-funding bill approved are causing disruption within the Defense Department, particularly among programs at home, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today. The Army has slowed spending in numerous areas to free up money to fully fund wartime costs since President Bush vetoed war-spending legislation because it set a date for the return of combat forces from Iraq, Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee.

The bill included $93.4 billion to help fund U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the global war on terror, but stipulated that U.S. combat troops be out of Iraq by Aug. 31, 2008. It also included costs unrelated to the war.

Bush vetoed the bill because he rejects establishing a deadline for troop withdrawals, insisting that such decisions must be based on conditions in the war zone.

Gates told Congress today that delays in getting a spending bill approved are having "a growing impact here at home."

"The Army is already trying to cope with this," he said. Spending in various programs has slowed or stopped altogether, he said. Defense contracts are being withheld; hiring of civilian employees has slowed; and bases have begun resorting to month-to-month service contracts for services and supplies.

The failure of Democrats to fund our military at war has some U.S. Servicemen wondering if their paychecks may stop. It sounds like it's time for an important action alert:

Is it possible airmen might not get paid due to the rising costs of the war?

That's what many airmen have wanted to know since the Pentagon requested to divert $1.6 billion from the Navy and Air Force personnel accounts to the Army.

The Air Force has sent conflicting answers in the past three weeks. Last month, the Air Force hinted in a statement sent to Stars and Stripes that it was possible such a move could affect airmen’s paychecks.

On Monday, an Air Force spokeswoman said that would "never" happen. A day later, Maj. Morshe Araujo said she made a mistake and such a scenario could happen if the money is not returned.

However, the Air Force is optimistic about the money being restored.

"I misspoke," said Araujo, a public affairs officer in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. "If the money is not returned or restored, there is a possibility."

Some might argue that servicemembers are underpaid, but it is not believed there has ever been a time in modern history that troops have not paid, especially while the country is at war.

Chet Curtis, director of Policy and Communications for the Air Force Association, said he couldn't recall off the top of his head whether such a thing has ever happened.

The association, an independent nonprofit Air Force advocate group, is calling upon its members to contact the Bush administration and members of Congress and urge them to boost funding for the Air Force.

The association put out an "Action Alert" on its Website under the headline: Air Force Funding Critical.

Although the Air Force is confident Congress will pass a supplemental bill and restore the funding to the personnel accounts, the service said on Tuesday it needs the money to pay their people.

But just remember...

...they support the troops.

Governor Blanco Slammed for Tornado Response

Did I say Blanco? I meant Sebelius.

Different Kathleen, same self-serving incompetence.

Will the Democrats Fold on War Funding?

The always excitable liberal John Aravosis thinks they might:

It's time to replace some conservative Democrats in Washington, DC. I just heard from an impeccable source that there is serious concern on the Hill that conservative Democrats in the House will vote with the Republicans to strip any and all restrictions from the Iraq supplemental tomorrow, effectively giving Bush all the money he wants with no restrictions and no effort to hold either him or the Iraq government accountable for anything. I.e., they will vote to continue this war along the same disastrous course because they're too afraid to challenge George Bush and his failed leadership.

Let me reiterate: This isn't some idle rumor. The concerns are coming from Hill sources themselves.

I'd point out that Aravosis is hardly a reliable source, so take his hysterics for what they are worth until you see an actual bill passed.

(H/T Instapundit, who notes that without the very conservative Democrats that Aravosis wants deposed, Democrats would still be the minority party.)

Update: Washington Post reporters seem to think Aravosis' hysterics may be off the mark, at least in the House:

ouse Democrats declared yesterday that they will vote on an Iraq spending bill that could cut funding for the war as early as July, defying a threat from President Bush that he would veto the proposal.

Even Senate Democrats called the House proposal, scheduled for a vote today, unrealistic. Senate leaders met with White House officials yesterday to try to find a bipartisan option to fund the war through the summer. But there appeared to be little progress in those negotiations, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers that the debate is beginning to delay Pentagon operations.

The one area of agreement seemed to be that U.S. officials want the Iraqi government to better contain violence there. Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip to Baghdad yesterday to meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other officials. He urged them to help end fighting between rival Sunni and Shiite factions, to make progress on revising their constitution and to better manage their oil revenue.

The House proposal would extend war spending through July, rather than September as Bush has requested. White House spokesman Tony Snow said the president would veto the bill because of its spending restrictions.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, said: "Our bill will fully fund the troops, honor our commitment to our veterans, hold the Iraqi government accountable and end the war."

Pelosi's pronouncement is of course delusional, as Gates states in the same article that the Democratic refusal to issue a viable bill is already beginning to delay military operations, possibly including the purchase of Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles:

The armored carrier has a grim black slash across its side, burn marks on the door and a web of cracks along the window.

Like most of the Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in Anbar province, this one has been hit as many as three times by enemy fire and bomb blasts. Yet, to date, no American troops have died while riding in one.

But efforts to buy thousands more carriers — each costing about $1 million — could be delayed if the White House and Congress do not resolve their deadlock over a $124.2 billion war spending bill.

About $3 billion for the vehicles is tied up in the legislation. The spending plan has stalled because of a dispute over provisions that would set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

At a hearing last month, lawmakers urged the Army to get more of the carriers to the battlefront as quickly as possible. The vehicles, with their unique V-shaped hull that deflects blasts outward and away from passengers, are considered lifesavers against the No. 1 killer in Iraq — roadside bombs.

Military leaders say the carriers have reduced roadside bomb casualties in Iraq by as much as two-thirds.

Milblogger "Teflon Don," who drives an MRAP, says of the vehicles in a recent frontline post:

The operations officer for the cavalry's parent unit came by and mentioned that troops pushing south towards us had hit multiple IEDs, and lost men, but "there wasn't much to be done, because they don't have route clearance". I wished for the hundredth time that there were more of us.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims she wants to, "honor our commitment to our veterans," but as past and former doomed House bill show, all she is actually accomplishing is making sure that our soldiers and Marines don't have the equipment they need, and as a result, more American soldiers are dying.

Now Or Later

They keep telling us we're not at war with Iran:

U.S.-led forces conducted a raid in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City early Thursday, killing three militants as they tried to break up a cell accused of smuggling weapons from Iran to fight U.S. forces, the military said.

The raid was part of the military's 12-week-old Baghdad security plan, meant to tackle the Sunni-led insurgents and Shiite militias and bring order to the violence-wracked Iraqi capital.

Just after midnight, a joint U.S.-Iraqi force on a raid in the southern part of the Shiite slum of Sadr City, came under fire from two buildings, the military said in a statement. After a gunbattle, the soldiers called in an airstrike that killed three armed insurgents, it said.

The force was searching for a cell suspected of smuggling weapons, including the devastating explosively formed penetrators, from Iran, the military said. The group was also accused of sending militants to Iran for training, the military said. The force detained four of the suspected militants during the raid, the military said.

This on-going Iranian involvement in Iraq should force Americans, particularly Congressional Democrats and waffling Republicans, to consider what will happen if American forces precipitously withdraw from Iraq. Iran, accused of training thousands of Shia insurgents and supplying weapons to both Shia and Sunni insurgents, is posing to fill the vacuum left by an American withdrawal.

If Democrats are successful in their neo-copperhead attempts to force an American withdrawal, many experts and long-time journalists expect that the Iranian attempts to take over Iraq by proxy may result in genocide and a clear PR victory for al Qaeda. Others rightly fear that such a threat will draw Saudi Arabia into a regional war based in Iraq, where Shias funded, trained, and equipped by Iran, will square off against Iraqi Sunnis trained, funded, and equipped by Saudi Arabia.

If the proxy war is contained to Iraq, the overwhelming numerical superiority of Shias in Iraq may very well lead to a either a mass exodus of Sunnis, or a mass genocide dwarfing the civilian casualties of the Iraq War thus far. The failed state would presumably fall under Iranian control from Baghdad south.

If the war is not contained to Iraq, and open hostilities break out between Iran and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf States such as Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, we could very well see a more expanded, more violent version of the 1984-87 Tanker War. In that conflict, which resulted from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, Iran and Iraq began targeting merchant shipping in an attempt to cut off each other's oil exports. Seventy-one merchant ships, including oil tankers, were attacked in 1984 alone, forcing Lloyds of London to increase insurance rates on tankers and leading to a twenty-five percent reduction in Gulf shipping. Since the 1980s, advances in military missile technology has made it possible for all sides potentially involved in a regional war to unilaterally stop all Persian Gulf shipping. The result of such a stoppage would threaten global oil supplies, and the economic and national security of many nations.

This is at a minimum. It could get much worse.

A U.S. pullout in 2008 could potentially lead to an economically-necessitated re-invasion of Iraq and a direct conflict with Iran within the next five years.

While Iran's naval and air force assets could be theoretically be reduced with minimal U.S. losses, a scenario predicted by DOD strategic planning contractor VII, Inc. called "Yalu II," in a January 2006 document called "Iranian President-Islamic Eschatology: Near Term Implications," posits that the Iranian military may respond to their air and naval shortcomings by sending up to 350,000 conventional Army forces, supplemented by roughly 1,800 tanks and 2,300 towed and self-propelled artillery pieces, across southern Iraq. This scenario was presented by VII before threats of a wider regional war were being discussed. I would add to VII's assessment that Iran may do more than invade southern Iraq, and may opt to attack Saudi Arabia though Kuwait, threatening, at least on paper, King Khalid Military City, the Saudi Persian Gulf city of Jubail and the Saudi military bases concentrated around Jubail, and the Saudi Capital of Riyahd itself.

Ultimately, such a direct assault on Saudi Arabia would probably lead to an Iranian defeat as their supply lines would be very vulnerable to Saudi Arabian and allied air superiority, but by then, Iran would have either captured or destroyed Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil terminals and wells. Were this scenario to play out, this would mean that Iran would control or would have destroyed 32% of Gulf oil production, based upon 2003 estimates.

This sequence of events is of course speculative.

Iran may very well be content to use their Shia militia allies to overthrow Iraq internally, and confine themselves to isolating Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds instead of eliminating them wholesale. They would then control roughly 20% of Persian Gulf oil exports directly, while still being able to threaten the 90% of Persian Gulf oil exported by supertanker through the Straits of Hormuz as they continue down the path of developing nuclear weapons.

What is the best way to head off either scenario?

The answer is obvious: keep Coalition forces engaged in Iraq targeting Sunni and Shia extremist cells like the one American soldiers attacked today. Force the Iraq government into making progress on unresolved issues, and perhaps consider replacing Prime Minster Maliki if he fails to make progress, by supporting other candidates for the position. Keep engaging Sunni and Shia moderates, while building up Iraqi police and Army forces. While internal Iraqi groups are relying on external forces to build their powerbases, America should continue to support that national cultural, political, and security needs of Iraq. Continue the COIN strategy to root out insurgents and develop regional and national Iraqi unity. Continue to support insurgent movements in Iran to destabilize the mullacracy.

It should be blindingly obvious to all sides concerned that a failure to resolve the political and security needs of Iraq now will only necessitate a later, perhaps larger and longer military reentry into the region, after what many predict will be a large and unnecessary loss of civilian lives.

After four years of muddled strategies, real progress is being made in Iraq. Al Anbar, long the home of the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda's launching ground, has turned against al Qaeda and is joining the political process, developments that have been reported on scarcely in the western media. A similar movement is now emerging in Diyala Province, as Iraqis target, hunt and kill al Qaeda terrorists and the insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq.

You will have a very hard time discovering this through the traditional media, however, as they tend to underestimate the importance of such tectonic cultural shifts which are very hard to translate into a press dominated by "if it bleeds, it leads" philosophy.

The groups primarily active in an opposition to the "surge" of American troops are al Qaeda and their allies in the Islamic State of Iraq, who are staging their own counter-surge, aimed as much at western media as the Iraqi people.

If you note news accounts of the last several months as the surge began, the types of attacks in Iraq shifted.

Sectarian attacks have dropped substantially, as al Qaeda and the ISI have shift to an intensified pattern of often randomized car and truck bombings meant to capture media attention and draw away from the fact that their internal support within Iraq is faltering. The goal of their media campaign is transparent; make it appear that the situation on the ground in Iraq is unchanged or becoming worse, thereby increasing American resistance to remaining in Iraq, even as their own base of support falters and threatens outright collapse.

Indeed, the U.S. military and astute observers predicted this, and so they expect an increase in spectacular media-generating attacks on civilians and Coalition military and police casualties as these forces more forcefully project themselves into areas and increase pressure on anti-government forces.

If you listen to our men in the field—not the Washington politicians who say they will refuse to believe signs of progress, or lie about what they have heard—you will hear many opinions, but the one most common is that they see a real difference in Iraq since the implementation of the COIN strategy. They are even petitioning Congress for courage, and not to give up, even when it is their lives on the line.

We're going to have to finish this war. The only question is whether Democrats lead the cut-and-run now and give al Qaeda and Iran a clear victory setting up a potential genocide, or whether or not we continue the successes now being seen in al Anbar, Baghdad, and Diyala.

The later approach will save for more Iraqi and American lives in the long run. I hope we have strong enough leadership that we only have to fight this war once, but with Democrats still attempting to surrender to al Qaeda and other Islamofascists, and the far left increasingly in bed with Islamofascists, I fear all we may accomplish is a brief, bloody intermission before we refight this war on a larger, bloodier scale.

John Edwards: Working the Nutroots

John Edwards: Personal friend of the paint-chip-eating stepchild of that "other America" known as Truthers.

As Ace notes:

The Democrats' position on physical reality, it seems, is increasingly nuanced.

In Edwards defense, he didn't seem to have a clue what the Truther was referring to, and perhaps we can all rest easy knowing that a Democratic Presidential candidate and former U.S. senator is ignorant about the largest terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Somehow, that isn't making me feel any better.

Insurgent Rocket Misses Cheney in Iraq; Democratic Forum Irate

A rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad depressed one of the largest online Democratic communities today, when members of the Democratic Underground discovered that Vice President Dick Cheney survived the attack:

According to Wikipedia, the Democratic Underground claims more than 101,000 registered users, and the online community has been investigated by the Secret Service for past threats.

Close Enough

If you use bloglines and have the ABC News International feed, you might have seen something like this today:

It you actually clicked the link, however, you'd end up here.

Do you have questions about situation in Darfur? Send your questions and see them answered next week on our 24-hour news network, ABC News Now.

Screen Cap:

I've got a question, Terry: Why can't ABC News tell the difference between Darfur and Iraq?

A Little Early This Year: CY's Hurricane Survival Guide

I'd not planned on reposting this for several more weeks, but Andrea has other ideas.

WARNING: This is not comprehensive hurricane survival guide. I've only been through a few, and hardly consider myself an expert. Anyone who claims to be able to tell you everything you need to do to survive in every situation is lying. Adjust the following accordingly to your circumstances, but remember the only way to beat a hurricane is to not be there when it arrives.

Before the Storm: General

• Listen to the radio, watch television news, or read online news sources to keep abreast of developing tropical systems. Keep close track of storms that may head in your general direction. Don't be caught flat-footed.
• Know the hurricane evacuation routes for your area. By a state map or better yet, an atlas that can provide you with parallel routes away from an impending storm.
• Make sure any vital medical prescriptions are filled in advance of an impending storm.
• Make hotel reservations further inland several days in advance "just in case." Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
  

Before the Storm: Around the House

• Secure any lightweight objects outside the home. Bikes, toys, plants and other outdoor items can be carried away by wind and water, often at unpleasant velocities.
  
• Board up your windows if possible, or tape them with duct tape in an asterisk pattern (*) if that is your only option. This serves to reinforce the glass, and in the event of a window shattering, may keep the shattered glass together so that it falls to the floor instead of spraying.

Before the Storm: Transportation

• Fill your gas tank several days in advance, and keep it topped off.
• Check your vehicle's fluids, and belts, making sure to top off your windshield washer fluid and coolants.
• Make sure your tires are in good shape, and make sure your spare tire is inflated.
• Make sure your tires have adequate tread. See manufacturers guidelines.
• Leave when storm impact seems imminent. Do not wait for the official evacuation order if you can leave earlier.

Before the Storm: Personal

• Create a "bug-out bag."
  This is an emergency evacuation bag of bare essentials you make need in an emergency. In this bag (preferably a backpack) include:
  1. a small battery-operated AM/FM radio, and fresh batteries for same.
  2. two waterproof flashlights and/or battery operated lanterns with fresh batteries for same.
  3. cell phone (and charger).
     
  4. disposable lighter and waterproof matches.
  5. personal toiletries including toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, hand sanitizer, and other personal hygiene products as applicable.
  6. a first aid kit with painkillers, bandages and band aids.
  7. duct tape (min. 2 rolls)
     
  8. sturdy pocket knife
  9. hammer & prybar
  10. box of 8D nails
  11. blankets (multiple)
  12. clothes
  13. socks
  14. raingear
  15. study boots
  16. general-purpose leather gloves
  17. enough non-perishable, ready-to-eat food and water (1 gallon per person per day) for three days.
  18. last but not least, all insurance information, property, vehicle, life, and medical.
• create a contacts list. Include a I.C.E. "in case of emergency" number.
• put an I.C.E. notification with your ID and store it in your cell phone.

Before the Storm: Evacuation

• pack bug-out bag, and supplies including food and water into vehicle.
• make one last check to make sure outdoor items are secured.
• cut off all electrical switches, appliances, televisions, lights, etc.
• before you leave, contact your I.C.E. person and let them know where you are going and when you expect to arrive.
• make sure all windows are closed tightly and locked.
• lock all doors.
• leave.
  
• anticipate high winds and driving rain. Stay calm, drive cautiously. Allow plenty of time to arrive at your destination. Beware of standing water.
• Call your I.C.E. contact when you arrive safely.

During the Storm
Moving away from the hurricane will most likely reduce the effects of a hurricane, but it cannot eliminate risks entirely, even hundred of miles inland.

• Duct tape windows in asterisk or "star" pattern (*). stay away from windows. draw blinds and curtains, if possible, to contain glass in the event of a window breaking.
• stay inside, away from windows and doors especially during the eye of the storm. Winds restart again quickly with extreme velocities as the eyes passes and the wind shifts 180 degrees.
• stay near interior walls. If the winds are very strong move into an interior bathroom where the building is likely to be strongest.
• do not leave unless flooding is imminent or you are instructed to do so by authorities.

After the Storm

• stay off the road and away from affected areas until authorities clear the area for your return.
• watch for downed power lines and other debris in roads.
• be very careful of standing pools of water and especially flowing water. It is ofnte deeper and more powerful than it appears.
• watch for displaced wildlife. poisonous snakes, fireants, and abandoned pets. all can present hazards.
• watch for dangerous debris.
• lookout for injured people and animals. Call authorities if possible.
• do not become a tourist. go home, and stay home.
• secure your property. take stock of any damage. Catalog damage for insurance purposes.

Again, this list is hardly comprehensive, and cannot anticipate special needs or unexpected situations. It is however, a start, and can help you get ready for the 2007 storm season.

Obama Wasn't Wrong

He was just using a Lancet estimate.

A Little Competence Would Be Nice

It should probably come as no small wonder that the majority of the American people are against the War in Iraq; getting faulty misleading or inaccurate or even purposefully biased information does that.

Time and again and again, our soldiers and Marines tell us that the war they are fighting in Iraq is not the one being reported in the professional media.

Karin Brulliard's article in today's Washington Post is a prime example, starting with the headline, "Bombs Kill 20 in Sunni Insurgent Stronghold."

It may come as a bit of a shock to both Brulliard and her WaPo editors, but Ramadi has not been an insurgent "stronghold" by any practical definition for months.

Newly commissioned Iraqi police, tribal militias and Sunni and Shia Army units have been consistently rolling back al Qaeda and aligned insurgents in Ramadi since the founding of the Anbar Salvation Council last year.

The bulk of al Qaeda and its supporters have fled Ramadi, have no bases and control no large swathes of territory, and take to the streets openly at the great risk of being shot by either local citizens, Iraqi Police, Iraqi Army soldiers, American Army soldiers, or Marines. Just a tip to the Washington Post: if they don't control the ground, you can't call it a stronghold.

Even beyond the headline, Brulliard and the Post show an ignorance that is hard to ignore:

Iraqi army Lt. Col. Thamir Ahmed blamed the attacks on the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. He said the body of one of the bombers was found by authorities 300 yards from the car he detonated, still strapped in the driver's seat.

Perhaps in a Harry Turtledove alternative history novel al Qaeda could be considered a "Sunni insurgent group" in Iraq, but not in this world.

al Qaeda was, is, and remains an international terrorist group, and is composed mostly of foreign fighters, even in Iraq. The dead suicide bomber, like up to 90% of suicide bombers before him, was likely a foreign-born, non-Iraqi terrorist crossing into Iraq from Syria.

It makes it difficult for consumers of the Washington Post and other news organizations to make informed decisions about the war when the reporters themselves miss crucial distinctions, misreport facts, and mischaracterize the events and actors of the conflict. I could perhaps understand misstating the nature or character of one of the groups acting in this conflict early in the war, but as the conflict has been on-going since 2003, the media has very little excuse for these kinds of inaccuracies.

A little competence would be nice.

Strict British Gun Laws Fail to Save English Officer

An officer tentatively identified as Pc Richard Gray was killed by a gunman who turned the weapon on himself:

The armed response unit officer has been widely named as Pc Richard Gray.

The gunman is said to have killed himself following Sunday's shooting in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, which was reported to have come after a row.

West Mercia chief Paul West said the PC's family was "understandably devastated". He was reportedly praised recently after tackling a gunman.

As noted above, the dead officer was recently praised for tackling another suspect armed with a semi-automatic pistol.

It has been said thousands of times, but bears repeating: criminals that ignore other laws will also ignore firearm laws. The end result is that only law-abiding citizens will be disarmed.

Four More Arrested in 7/7 London Bombing Plot

Via CNN:

British police arrested the wife of one of the July 7, 2005 suicide bombers as well as three other suspects in early morning terror-related raids Wednesday.

While the identities of the suspects have yet to be officially released, sources told CNN the woman being held is 29-year-old Hasina Patel, the widow of Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the 7/7 suicide bombers.

Patel and two men aged of 30 and 34 were arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command in the West Yorkshire, England area. A fourth man, 22, was arrested in West Midlands.

A statement from Scotland Yard said, the four were arrested under the country's terrorism laws "on suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism."

The arrests were made in a "pre-planned, intelligence-led operation," the statement said, as part of an ongoing investigation into the July 7 attacks on London's transportation system that killed 52 people and injured 700.

The arrests are part of an on-going investigation to help roll-up the support network that enabled four suicide bombers to carry out the series of attacks that occured almost to years ago, and more arrests are possible.

The Iranian Minefield

A Pajamas Media exclusive:

Maj. Martin Weber, an explosives expert, is trying to walk through a political mine field with me.

As with an ordinary mine field, you have to be very careful where you put your emphasis. Stress the wrong truth and either the left or the right wants to blow you up.

Here at Camp Victory, a sprawling concrete and razor wire American base that wraps around Baghdad International Airport, Maj. Weber was trying to explain how to negotiate that mine field. On the one side he wanted me to know me that the captured weapons on the table before us were — definitely, no doubt about it, absolutely — from Iran. On the other hand, he avoided drawing the obvious conclusion that Iran is supplying America’s enemies inside Iraq.

That simple and obvious conclusion would anger the Democratic leadership in Congress, much of the press corp, and a large swarth of the antiwar set.

Bear this is mind, when you watch this exclusive Pajamas Media video shot in Iraq. The video offers startling new evidence of Iran’s involvement in the insurgency. It is the first up-close, online video showing captured Iranian weapons. These particular weapons have not been shown to the public before.

There is video of the interview at the link.

As a side note, I've been attempting to follow-up on the capture of over 12% of Iran's HS50 precision sniper rifle procurement in Iraq first reported in mid-February, without any response thus far from MNF-I PAO.

Child Mortality Discrepancy?

Writing in the UK Independent, Andrew Buncombe states:

Two wars and a decade of sanctions have led to a huge rise in the mortality rate among young children in Iraq, leaving statistics that were once the envy of the Arab world now comparable with those of sub-Saharan Africa.

A new report shows that in the years since 1990, Iraq has seen its child mortality rate soar by 125 per cent, the highest increase of any country in the world. Its rate of deaths of children under five now matches that of Mauritania.

Jeff MacAskey, head of health for the Save the Children charity, which published the report, said: "Iraq, Botswana and Zimbabwe all have different reasons for making the least amount of progress on child mortality. Whether it's the impact of war, HIV/Aids or poverty the consequences are equally devastating. Yet other countries such as Malawi and Nepal have shown that despite conflict and poverty child mortality rates can be reversed."

Figures collated by the charity show that in 1990 Iraq's mortality rate for under-fives was 50 per 1,000 live births. In 2005 it was 125. While many other countries have higher rates - Angola, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, all have rates above 200 - the increase in Iraq is higher than elsewhere.

Is this an apples-to-oranges comparison?

According to figures from the CIA World Factbook there are roughly 864,588 live births in Iraq every year (about 31.44 for every 1,000 citizens). In 2003 there was an infant mortality rate in Iraq of 55.16 per 1,000 births, or about 47,690 infant deaths.

In 2006 that infant mortality rate has dropped to 48.64 deaths per 1,000 births. Or about 42,503 infant deaths/year. Or about 5,187 fewer dead infants every year than in 2003.

So is it safe to say that we’ve saved roughly (and these numbers are, admittedly, very rough) 15,000 infant lives since invading Iraq?

Note that the statistics cited by Buncombe are addressing the death rates of children under five between 1990-today, and Port's information isolates infant mortality from the time period of 2003-2006. Those differences noted, there seems to be a huge possible discrepancy between the rough number of 2005 under-five deaths reported by Save the Children through Buncombe (125) and the infant mortality rate of 55.16-48.64/1,000 determined by Port.

Both numbers could be correct, but for Save the Children's figures to be accurate based upon the CIA estimate of 864,588 live births, it would mean that 12.5% of Iraqi children under five, or 108,074 Iraqi children, died before the age of five in 2005 alone.

Does that figure seem plausible?

If it does, why has the professional media done such a miserable job of reporting the staggering losses of children in Iraq, which would seem to dwarf most total estimates of combat-related deaths?

If it isn't accurate, why hasn't Buncombe done a better job of fact-checking his sources?

One Dead, Two Wounded Near Fresno State

Details are posted on the Fresno State web site.

The shooter, Jonquel Brooks, is a student, as it one of the wounded victims. The person killed and the other injured person are not students according to the University, but KESQ reports that the deceased is a former student. Neither of the two wounded sustained life-threatening injuries in the shooting that occurred late last night. Brooks has been surrounded in an off campus apartment by a Fresno PD SWAT team, and they are attempting to get him to surrender.

The incident is viewed as isolated, and Fresno State remains open.

Though California already has among the most restrictive gun laws in the United States, expect the usual suspects to use this shooting to push for more gun control.

Update: Not such a great perimeter. The shooter slipped away.

Clever Little Weapons

Michael Yon's latest dispatch Rattlesnake, chronicles the nighttime hunting of insurgent IED teams in southern Iraq.

Straightjacket Sales Set to Skyrocket

Needless to say, I find this collective lunacy extremely depressing:

So, according to the Rasmussen poll, 61% of self-described Democratic respondents believed that George Bush either knew about 9/11 in advance or are not sure if he knew. Only 39% said he didn't know.

In other words, a supermajority of self-identified Democrats think that it is possible that the President knew about the 9/11 terror plot, and that he might have let it happen. I knew Bush Derangement Syndrome was running rampant on the far left wing, but this indicates that a massive majority of rank-and-file Democrats are either Truthers, or are open to the idea of being Truthers, and consider it possible that the President of the United States was a co-conspirator in terror attacks on his own country.

I'd love to see Rasmussen poll Democrats to see if they think Karl Rove was actively involved in hatching the plot with KSM and al Qaeda. Then again, I probably wouldn't want to know the results.

Ace sums it up:

The media considers it crazy to believe that Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, had something to do with 9/11, and fights this insanity with every tool at its disposal, including outright deception.

On the other hand, the media does not apparently consider it particularly hard to believe that George Bush, President of the United States, had something to do with 9/11. If they did consider such a notion beyond the pale, one would imagine they'd publicize (and implicity mock) those crazed liberals believing that our own President aided and abetted Osama bin Ladin.

But of course they don't. Because it's simply not possible for a reasonble person to believe a sworn enemy of the US, known to have at least some ties with Al Qaeda, could have had a hand in the attacks, but a reasonable person could, according to the MSM, believe that a US President with no ties to Al Qaeda helped facillitate and perhaps even carry out the attacks.

A "reality-based" community? Decidedly and perhaps dangerously not.

Six Arrested in New Jersey Islamic Terror Plot

Via WNBC.com:

Six men from New Jersey have been arrested in an alleged terror plot against soldiers at Fort Dix, according investigators.

Investigators said the men planned to use automatic weapons to enter Fort Dix and kill as many soldiers as they could at the N.J. base. Fort Dix was just one of several military and security locations allegedly scouted by this group, authorities said.

[snip]

The six suspects arrested Monday night will face terror conspiracy charges. Three of the men are brothers, all believed to be islamic radicals. Authorities have told Newschannel 4 that some of the men were born in Albania and the former Yugoslavia. Investigators said most of the suspects have spent several years here in the U.S.

According to WPVI, the six men attempted to purchase fully automatic AK-47s from an arms dealer working with the FBI. WABC describes the six men as all being ethnic Albanians. Their immigration status was not clear from news accounts. WCAU notes that the men traveled from South Jersey to the Pocano mountains "to practice firing automatic weapons." If accurate, this means that investigators allowed the men to obtain the fully automatic AK-47s before affecting an arrest. CBS News states that this was a "homegrown" terror plot, and that there were no known ties to any international terror organization, including al Qaeda.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger presents perhaps the most comprehensive account to date, which confirms that the attack busted in the planning stages was an intended act of jihad, that the men were arrested while attempting to purchase the AK-47s from the FBI informant dealer, and that the men did not practice with automatic weapons in the Poconos, but instead, used paintball guns and other "real weapons."

The Star-Ledger also shows that while the men may not have been part of an international terror cell, they were certainly inspired by al Qaeda:

The would-be attackers, ethnic Albanians who had been under surveillance by the FBI for months, practiced by shooting paintball guns and real weapons in a rural area of the Poconos, one source said. They also allegedly watched jihadist videos in which Osama bin Laden urged them toward martyrdom.

"They were prepared to die," said the law enforcement source. "We became increasingly convinced this was for real and these guys were ready to roll."

The FBI had the group under surveillance for more than a year, the source said. The men had scouted out Dover Air Force Base and Fort Monmouth before settling on Fort Dix, a base that is used to mobilize troops to Iraq, said the source.

The men - several of whom were in the same family - had videotaped their practice sessions in the Poconos, the source said. That videotape, in which they railed against America, led to their arrests.

The men made the mistake of bringing it to a retail store, seeking to get a copy burned to a DVD, according to one of the sources. A store employee who later watched the tape called the FBI who began immediately investigating.

The one question I have about the above Star-Ledger account is perhaps a quibble, but something I'd like to have cleared up; did they watch a generally addressed martyrdom video extolling Muslims towards jihad, or as this account states, did they watch a video urging them towards martyrdom? I suspect the former, as if the latter is the case, it would seem to prove a direct al Qaeda link.

Note that the Islamists here were anything but intelligent, bringing their homegrown jihadi video to a retail store to burn it to DVD, where a concerned and alert employee contacted the FBI, which launched the investigation.

I hope President Bush will quietly award a Presidential Medal of Freedom to both the video store employee and the gun dealer for their roles in helping break up this attack in the planning stages.

Update: Heh. Did the tip come from Tony Soprano?

Update: Allah is tracking this story at well over at Hot Air.

Update: CNN reports that one of the suspects was Jordanian and another was Turkish, with the rest being Yugoslavian.

The Washington Post adds that the suspects have lived in the United States for "several years."

CBS3 provides more detail on the suspects:

Sources said the suspects included:

- Three brothers from Yugoslavia who came to the country illegally and were living in Cherry Hill.

- A Yugoslavian native who was living legally in Williamstown.

- A Turkey native who was arrested in the 2100 block of Tremont Street in Philadelphia

- A Jordan National living in Pennsauken who was working as a cab driver. He was taken into custody while in his cab at the Philadelphia International Airport.

Officials said the men attempted to purchase AK-47s from an arms dealer secretly cooperating with law enforcement agents.

Sources said the suspects trained for the plot in an area near Routes 30 and 380 in the Poconos. The suspects apparently had maps and had done surveillance on Fort Dix in preparation for the plot.

If the CBS3 account is correct, at least three of the six plotters were here illegally, and all were here for a least a year, if not several years.

Update: I formally move that we call this the "Duka, Duka, Mohammed Jihad."

Update: A total of ten men were seen on the video that launched the investigation, as reported in this document obtained by The Smoking Gun.

Update: A sampling of liberal blog reaction: The Agonist: "...when are these insignificant cases going to stop being blown out of proportion?" Talking Points Memo: "It's always hard for me to see how these aren't as serious as they appear. But there is a record." Middle Earth Journal: "This will probably turn out to be another José Padilla moment but it will be good for a lot of ape like chest pounding by the wingnut islamophobes." Mahablog: "The basic story is that six Islamic radicals were planning to attack Fort Dix and kill soldiers as part of a jihad against America. This is what the Department of Justice is saying, anyhow, so take that with a grain of salt."

Kathleen Sebelius' Political Disaster

Our hearts go out to those in Greensburg, Kansas who have lost family members and friends as a result of this natural disaster. If you know of displaced survivors who have yet to contact their loved ones, or wish to contribute to disaster relief, please contact the American Red Cross.

I wonder just how accurate this headline is: Iraq War Hampers Kansas Cleanup.

The rebuilding effort in tornado-ravaged Greensburg, Kansas, likely will be hampered because some much-needed equipment is in Iraq, said that state’s governor.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius said much of the National Guard equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies is gone. She said not having immediate access to things like tents, trucks and semitrailers will really handicap the rebuilding effort.

The Greensburg administrator estimated that 95 percent of the town of 1500 was destroyed by Friday's tornado.

The Kansas National Guard has about 40 percent of the equipment it is allotted because much of it has been sent to Iraq.

It is true, as Marc Danziger notes, that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said just weeks ago that:

...she fears deployments of Kansas National Guard troops and equipment could hurt the state’s ability to react to disasters on the homefront.

In the same KCBS article cited above, Kansas Rep. Lee Tafanelli (R), a member of the Kansas National Guard, notes that that Kansas Army National Guard still retained 70-80 percent of its manpower.

If the figures provided by the Democratic governor and the Republican State rep and Guardsman are correct, the Army National Guard in Kansas still retains 40%-50% of their heavy equipment and 70%-80% of their manpower, which should be more than adequate to handle geographically narrow and isolated events such as the Greensburg tornado and others that hit Kansas this past Friday.

But please, don't take my word for it. Listen to what the state adjutant general had to say:

"We've been over the town twice now — all of our partners around the state, the experts from cities with technical search-and-rescue," Maj. Gen. Todd Bunting, the state's adjutant general, told CNN Monday morning. "We've done everything we can.

"Some of this rubble is 20, 30 feet deep. That's where we've spent all our efforts, and we'll do it again today."

As Maj. Gen. Bunting notes, they've already been over Greensburg twice, and they are going through the destroyed town of 1,500 again.

While it was no doubt comforting to have the additional manpower and equipment from the National Guard available, it is the state and local emergency personnel with trained search-and-rescue experts that are our best resources for this and similar situations.

Despite an inaccurate claim made by Sebelius on CNN, National Guard soldiers are not first responders, and they never have been. National Guardsmen can only be called to duty in governor-declared states of emergency, or federally, by presidential order.

Our first responders were, and remain, our local and state police, fire, and rescue units. The National Guard is now, and has always been, a reserve force.

Despite the reduction of certain kinds of National Guard equipment in state armories, I suspect that the personnel and equipment that remain at Gov. Sebelius' disposal is more than sufficient to handle the effort at hand. On some level, she seems to agree. Of thousands of National Guardsmen available, she has apparently deployed just 110.

It seems apparent that her anti-war pronouncements and appointments have as much to do with her claims as does any actually shortfall of equipment, and I suspect her words have as much to do with Sebelius' political hopes as it does the reality of Greenburg's battered ground.

Update: Reality bites... for Sebelius, that is:

Pentagon officials are disputing claims that the Iraq war has spread National Guardsmen too thin to respond to a Kansas tornado after the governor and some Democratic lawmakers complained that the Guard are not equipped to help displaced residents.

Kansas has 88 percent of its state Guard forces available, and 83,000 Guardsmen from neighboring states are also on the ready should the state request their assistance, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday, citing National Guard Bureau statistics.

According to Whitman, the Kansas Guard have available 352 Humvees, 94 cargo trucks, 72 dump trucks, 62 five-ton trucks, 13 medium-haul trucks and trailers and 152 2 1/2-ton trucks, a surplus, he noted.

How many of the Kansas National Guard's available 83,000+ men, 393 trucks and 352 Humvees would be required in a town of 1,500?

IED Explodes, Kills One in... Vegas?

Let hope that what happens here, stays here:

One man was killed and another person escaped injury Monday in an explosion of a small device left atop a vehicle outside a Las Vegas Strip resort, authorities said.

Police said the blast was not a terrorist act, but an apparent murder of a hotel employee.

"We believe the victim of this event was the intended target," said Officer Bill Cassell, a Las Vegas police spokesman, who called the victim an employee of the Luxor hotel-casino. The person who narrowly escaped injury was also a hotel employee, Cassell said.

I'm admittedly late to this story, and rather thankful I am, otherwise, I might have erroneously reported with other media and bloggers the apparent pre-mature detonation of a backpack bomber. I don't hold any of the bloggers commenting on this case responsible for the erroneous reporting, which seems to be a case of the professional media once again trying to rush out a story before actually having the facts of the incident verified.

This was, if the second round of reports is accurate (and the second round of reporting is generally more accurate than the first, if still often imperfect), most likely a targeted assassination, and not a terrorist with a case of premature detonation.

Using explosives is a rather rare method of carrying out an assassination, precisely due to the threat of unwanted collateral damage.

The KTLA account of the detonation linked by Allah is particularly frightening if accurate, in that it describes the device detonating as the apparent target attempted to move it.

It could be that the device was command-detonated and that the bomber chose that exact moment to detonate the bomb, but the other possibility is that the bomb had a motion-activated trigger. This means that anyone else who may have attempted to move a device so armed (from a hotel security officer to an opportunistic thief, to a "good Sam") could have been killed.

I've sent in an info request to the ATF Arson and Explosives Division seeking clarification of what kind of trigger they have recovered, but considering that the answer would reveal part of an on-going investigation, I don't anticipate any sort of a response.

Update: Averill P. Graham, US DOJ, writes back this morning to state that the correct way of requesting information is a dead-tree FOIA request. Frankly, I'm not that interested.

Hack L.A. Times Reporter Smears Thompson

It's rather pathetic how Tina Duant of the Los Angeles Times attempted to label Fred Thompson a racist for playing the role of a white supremacist in a handful of episodes of a crappy television series 19 years ago. The concept of "acting" seems to slip her mind.

The Times has been losing readership and credibility for years for junk articles like this. I'm glad their doing their best to help that trend continue.

Because You Never Know When Global Warming Is Going to Fly Into a Building

A ship of fools, if ever there was one:

Senior House Republicans are complaining about Democrats' plans to divert "scarce" intelligence funds to study global warming.

The House next week will consider the Democrat-crafted Intelligence Authorization bill, which includes a provision directing an assessment of the effects that climate change has on national security.

"Our job is to steal secrets," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

"There are all kinds of people analyzing global warming, the Democrats even have a special committee on this," he told The Washington Times. "There's no value added by the intelligence community here; they have no special expertise, and this takes money and resources away from other threats."

Democrats, who outnumber Republicans on the committee, blocked the minority from stripping the warming language from the bill.

Intelligence panel Chairman Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat, said the climate-change study is one of several shifts his party has made to intelligence policy.

"We're concerned that global warming might impact our ability to maintain national security," he told The Times, describing the idea as "cutting edge."

As Ace notes, Reyes, the chairman of Intelligence Panel, is the man that doesn't know the difference between Shia and Sunni, or or which al Qaeda is, and had no clue at all about the nature of Hezbollah.

Of course, he belong to a Democratic House whose Speaker doesn't even know that al Qaeda is in Iraq, so that bit of incompetence is sadly par for the course.

Lost War Updates

A. J. Strata reports that al Qaeda in Iraq has lost its second caliphate capital in recent months, first losing their stronghold in Ramadi, and now, their base in the Tahrir neighborhood of Baqouba.

The U.S. military has confirmed that not one, but two senior al Qaeda commanders were killed north of Baghdad earlier this week.

Bill Roggio notes the continued expansion of the Anbar Salvation Council, and notes that one of the original tribes that supported al Qaeda in Iraq has flipped and joined the war against the terrorists. Ten Sunni tribes have turned to war against al Qaeda in the last month alone.

And last but by no means least, Lawrence Kaplan notes what most of us have long known: Congressional Democrats approach the Iraq War from a position of willful ignorance.

Virus Alert

Vast swathes of the Internet are mysteriously down today, affected by a peculiar virus specifically targeting keyboard drivers at university women's studies programs, academic journals, and certain political Web sites around the world. The virus corrupts specific DLLs and renders keyboards inoperable.

The virus appears to be emanating from a specific CNN.com Web server.

Computer users from these locations loose the ability to use their keyboards after viewing this particular story, where al Qaeda terrorists attempted to turn a all-girls school under construction north of Baghdad into a giant bomb.

The virus, dubbed "Cognitive Diss," does not yet have a patch developed, though antivirus teams are said to be hard at work.

France Once Again Threatened By Vague Violence, People

Via Rueters:

On the last day of official campaigning, opinion polls showed Sarkozy enjoyed a commanding lead over Royal, who accused the former interior minister of lying and polarizing France.

"Choosing Nicolas Sarkozy would be a dangerous choice," Royal told RTL radio.

"It is my responsibility today to alert people to the risk of (his) candidature with regards to the violence and brutality that would be unleashed in the country (if he won)," she said.

Pressed on whether there would be actual violence, Royal said: "I think so, I think so," referring specifically to France's volatile suburbs hit by widespread rioting in 2005.

[snip]

At the start of her campaign, Royal refused to refer to her opponent, but with time running against her she has changed tactics and has relentlessly lambasted him this past week.

On Friday she said he had exacerbated social tensions during his time as interior minister and added that he was unable to enter some neighborhoods for fear of provoking violence. The suburbs were hit by widespread riots in 2005.

Wouldn't it help if we knew which groups Royal thought might riot, and the nature of the social tensions that would cause them to do so?

If they can't confront the problem enough to even mention who was rioting (primarily poorly assimilated North African Muslim youths) and why (economic hopelessness, cultural divides, among others), then they will never solve the underlying problems leading to this kind of behavior.

Get used to the idea of vague people starting riots for vague reasons in France for many years to come.

Iraqi EFPS Prove to Be Duds; Iranian EFPs Still Lethal Threat

Several month's ago, Andrew Cockburn attacked President Bush and the United States military in the Los Angeles Times, for the President saying that the EFPs --explosively-formed penetrators--being used successfully against American military forces in Iraq with a great degree of effect came from Iran:

PRESIDENT BUSH HAS now definitively stated that bombs known as explosively formed penetrators — EFPs, which have proved especially deadly for U.S. troops in Iraq — are made in Iran and exported to Iraq. But in November, U.S. troops raiding a Baghdad machine shop came across a pile of copper disks, 5 inches in diameter, stamped out as part of what was clearly an ongoing order. This ominous discovery, unreported until now, makes it clear that Iraqi insurgents have no need to rely on Iran as the source of EFPs.

The truth is that EFPs are simple to make for anyone who knows how to do it. Far from a sophisticated assembly operation that might require state supervision, all that is required is one of those disks, some high-powered explosive (which is easy to procure in Iraq) and a container, such as a piece of pipe. I asked a Pentagon analyst specializing in such devices how much each one would cost to make. "Twenty bucks," he answered after a brief calculation. "Thirty at most."

Cockburn's venom and naked partisanship were obvious. What wasn't so obvious is that Cockburn didn't know what he was talking about.

While crude Iraqi machine shops can manufacture crude components, the EFPs they can manufacture are no serious threat to American armor.

Iraqi fighters have been making their own versions of the weapons, but so far none has been effective against U.S. forces, Odierno said. The Iraqi-made projectiles, using brass and copper melted on stoves, have failed to fully penetrate U.S. armor and are more likely to be used against Iraqi forces, whose vehicles often have thinner armored protection than U.S. vehicles, U.S. military officials said.

"We have not seen a homemade one yet that's executed properly," Odierno said, adding that such weapons are not a major concern "as of yet."

In short, Cockburn's assertion that "EFPs are simple to make for anyone who knows how to do it," betrays his ignorance of the difference between theory and practice. Theoretically, anyone could presumably find plans to build an EFP, but without the right materials, training, and manufacturing equipment, they could not make an EFP with the capability of defeating advanced armor.

It is not as simple to manufacture a competent EFP as Cockburn and others have mislead. Someone should alert the media, but then again, the majority of the media doesn't really care.

Murtha's Mangled Memory

Is anti-war Democrat Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) beginning to show signs of memory loss?

As reported yesterday on the liberal Think Progress, Murtha said the following in an exchange with Chris Matthews in an exchange with Chris Matthews on MCNBC's Hardball (my bold):

MATTHEWS: Do you think he'd actually sign that bill, or he would consider that hobbling him?

MURTHA: Well, I am not sure. He made up his mind so early, I'm not sure he even read the bill. I mean, this is the problem with this spinning that goes on. They bring Petraeus back, purely a political move. Petraeus comes back here, doesn't talk to any of us. He only talks to the news media, and so forth, trying to sell this program. Bush was 64 percent when his mission — mission possible, and today he's 34 percent, so he's just turned the opposite. And this bill's not going to make any difference, just like what we say here makes little difference. What's going to count is what happens on the ground. The Iraqis are going to have to decide it themselves.

MATTHEWS: You know, when you read Petraeus statements to the press corps — and I know you said he didn't talk to Congress, but they put out this statement. I read it in "The Weekly Standard" this week, which does have Petraeus's remarks in there. He does say that we're fighting the central front against al Qaeda in Iraq. Is that true?

MURTHA: That's absolutely not true. That's an exaggeration...

MATTHEWS: That's Petraeus saying that.

MURTHA: That's Petraeus saying it. I just gave those comments to General Pace. I said, General — just 5, 10 minutes ago I gave them to General Pace. I said, General, these comments that General Petraeus made are absolutely inaccurate, according to the intelligence we have. Now, that's the kind of stuff he's saying, and that's why I say it was purely political.

Now, when I say he didn't talk to Congress, he talked to a group of members. He didn't talk to the committees that have jurisdiction over this legislation.

MATTHEWS: Well, why wouldn't he tell the truth? If his troops are over there getting killed — as you point out, we lost 100 guys this month, one of the worst months — worst month of the year — getting killed by Sunni insurgents and by militia people on the Shia side — why is he blaming it on al Qaeda?

MURTHA: Chris...

MATTHEWS: The people who blew up the World Trade Center. Why's he doing that?

MURTHA: This whole — whole war, ever since it diverted the attention away from where al Qaeda started, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the war in Afghanistan, where we should have stayed, ever since that time, they've been trying to tie this into terrorism. All of us know there's terrorism all over the world...

MATTHEWS: But he's not — but Congressman, he's not a PR man. He's not a flack for the White House. He's a general in the field. Why would he be...

MURTHA: Hey, wait a minute.

MATTHEWS: You're saying he's singing the song of the ideologues.

MURTHA: I'm saying — I'm saying he came back here at the White House's request to purely make political statements. That's what I'm saying. There's no question in my mind about it.

Perhaps there should be a few questions in John Murtha's mind, starting with why he would tell easily checked fabrications to Chris Matthews, Pennsylvania voters, and the American people at large.

Yesterday, I sent an email to Baghdad asking about Murtha's pronouncement that Commanding General David Petraeus "doesn't talk to any of us," and his hastily re-calibrated statement, "Now, when I say he didn't talk to Congress, he talked to a group of members. He didn't talk to the committees that have jurisdiction over this legislation."

I also sent along a link to this CNS News article, that cited a "A senior Defense Department official" as saying that not only did General Petraeus conduct conducted two 90-minute, top-secret level operations intelligence briefings for representatives and senators, but that the meetings were among the most heavily attended in recent memory, and that Petraeus personally provided briefings to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Murtha in conference calls.

Col. Steve Boylan, Public Affairs Officer of Multinational Forces-Iraq Commanding General David Petraeus, sent me back the following in response (my bold):

GEN Petraeus briefed the entire House of Representatives in closed session (so it could be classified) and had a good session with them. I was there to see it. The session was chaired by Cong Ike Skelton, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the committee that oversees the Dept of Defense (in place of Speaker Pelosi). Because Speaker Pelosi was unavailable, GEN Petraeus spoke to her (with Cong Murtha on the phone as well) for 30 minutes the day prior. He also briefed the entire Senate in closed session. The turnouts for both sessions were reportedly among the biggest ever seen. In the House it was over 260 members, many of them standing room only as well as many members sitting on the floor. Cong Murtha was present for the House session.

Not only did John Murtha speak with General Petraeus for half an hour the day prior to the closed session, he also attended the closed session as well.

By this account, consistent with the CNS News account, General Petraeus perhaps spent more time discussing the Iraq War with Congressman John Murtha than any other member of the House of Representatives.

We should also take issue with other comments uttered by Murtha, in this exchange with Matthews from the transcript above:

MATTHEWS: You know, when you read Petraeus statements to the press corps — and I know you said he didn't talk to Congress, but they put out this statement. I read it in "The Weekly Standard" this week, which does have Petraeus's remarks in there. He does say that we're fighting the central front against al Qaeda in Iraq. Is that true?

MURTHA: That's absolutely not true. That's an exaggeration...

MATTHEWS: That's Petraeus saying that.

MURTHA: That's Petraeus saying it. I just gave those comments to General Pace. I said, General — just 5, 10 minutes ago I gave them to General Pace. I said, General, these comments that General Petraeus made are absolutely inaccurate, according to the intelligence we have. Now, that's the kind of stuff he's saying, and that's why I say it was purely political.

To that and other comments made by Murtha denying that Iraq is al Qaeda's central front, Col Boylan issued the following:

The assessment that Al Qaeda's central front is Iraq is not just GEN Petraeus'. It is shared by LTG Stan McCrystal, the Commanding General of the Joint Special Operations Command, the organization that most directly fights Al Qaeda; and, LTG McCrystal spend the vast majority of his time with us in Iraq overseeing that effort. The Director of the CIA shares this assessment too.

Murtha can't remember the meetings he's attended, and somehow has a view of the war that doesn't match up with that of the reality faced by the military commanders most directly involved in fighting the, or that of our nation's intelligence agencies.

Congressman Murtha, it's time to call your physician. Treatment options are available.

The Republican Debate in Ten Words

Romney looks it.
McCain's blinky.
Rudy flounders.
Where is Fred?

Army Blog Gag Order Fact Sheet

A reliable source passed along the following:

Fact Sheet Army Operations Security: Soldier Blogging Unchanged

Summary:

• America's Army respects every Soldier's First Amendment rights
  while also adhering to Operations Security (OPSEC) considerations to
  ensure their safety on the battlefield.
• Soldiers and Army family members agree that safety of ourSoldiers are of utmost importance.
• Soldiers, Civilians, contractors and Family Members all play an integral role in maintaining Operations Security, just as in previous wars.

Details:

• In no way will every blog post/update a Soldier makes on his or
  her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate
  supervisor and Operations Security (OPSEC) officer. After receiving
  guidance and awareness training from the appointed OPSEC officer, that
  Soldier blogger is entrusted to practice OPSEC when posting in a public
  forum.
• Army Regulation 350-1, "Operations Security," was updated April
  17, 2007 - but the wording and policies on blogging remain the same from
  the July 2005 guidance first put out by the U.S. Army in Iraq for
  battlefield blogging. Since not every post/update in a public forum can be monitored, this regulation places trust in the Soldier, Civilian Employee, Family Member and contractor that they will use proper judgment to ensure OPSEC.
• Much of the information contained in the 2007 version of AR530-1 already was included in the 2005 version of AR 530-1. For example, Soldiers have been required since 2005 to report to their immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer about their wishes to publish military-related content in public forums.
• Army Regulation 530-1 simply lays out measures to help ensure operations security issues are not published in public forums (i.e.,blogs) by Army personnel.
• Soldiers do not have to seek permission from a supervisor to send personal E-mails. Personal E-mails are considered private communication. However, AR 530-1 does mention if someone later posts an E-mail in a public forum containing information sensitive to OPSEC considerations, an issue may then arise.
• Soldiers may also have a blog without needing to consult with their immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer if the following conditions are met:
  1. The blog's topic is not military-related (i.e., Sgt. Doe
     publishes a blog about his favorite basketball team).
  2. The Soldier doesn't represent or act on behalf of the Army in any way.
  3. The Soldier doesn't use government equipment when on his or her personal blog.
• Army Family Members are not mandated by commanders to practice OPSEC. Commanders cannot order military Family Members to adhere to OPSEC. AR 530-1 simply says Family Members need to be aware of OPSEC to help safeguard potentially critical and sensitive information. This helps to ensure Soldiers' safety, technologies and present and future operations will not be compromised.
• Just as in 2005 and 2006, a Soldier should inform his or her OPSEC officer and immediate supervisor when establishing a blog for two primary reasons:
  1. To provide the command situational awareness.
  2. To allow the OPSEC officer an opportunity to explain to the Soldier matters to be aware of when posting military-related content in a public, global forum.
• A Soldier who already has a military-related blog that has not yet consulted with his or her immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer should do so.
• Commands have the authority to enact local regulations in addition to what AR 530-1 stipulates on this topic.

The source suggested this was a "climb down" on the part of the Army. I honestly don't know enough about the original set of orders, or how they were enforced within the Army, to comment, but will link those who do when they post.

Just How Educated Are Our Reporters?

Read this, and you'll be asking that question as well.

It isn't rocket science.

al Qaeda in Iraq is the lead element in a coalition of Sunni insurgent groups that now calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

al Qaeda in particular and the ISI in general are becoming increasingly unpopular even within the Sunni insurgency because of al Qaeda's tactic of using foreign suicide bombers to indiscriminately target Iraqi civilians, Sunni and Shia, and their vastly different goals:

...the insistence that homegrown insurgent groups bow down to the Islamic State was insulting to the Iraqi fighters defending their homeland. The fact that the Islamic State's end goal -- the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in Iraq -- was not the end goal for Iraqi insurgent groups, despite their rhetoric in support of an Islamic state, was another obvious source of contention.

The Islamic State's insistence that Iraqi groups subordinate themselves to its hierarchy and vision only increased after November, leading to a number of documented clashes between the Islamic State and homegrown insurgent groups. When the Islamic State began targeting Iraqi insurgent leaders with attacks and assassinations, the Iraqi groups responded with vigor.

There are essentially two conflicts going on in Iraq.

One is the sectarian "civil war" we've heard so much about in the press, which is largely occurring along Sunni and Shia sectarian lines. Sunni and Shia death squads target the opposite sect. This is going to take a long time to quell, and will take primarily a political/social/cultural solution.

The other is a fight between government and coalition forces and an increasing number of Sunni tribes against a dwindling number of Islamist terrorists, primarily al Qaeda and it's remaining supporters. The solution to this particular problem is decidedly far more military in nature, and if recent trends continue, the solution may be coming sooner rather than later.

You would hope that someone as smart as Dana Milbank could figure this out, and perhaps it is still not too late.

Insurgency Declares Intent to Disarm

And to think it only took 41 years.

Murtha Lies, Think Progress Falls For It Hook, Line, and Sinker

From the braintrust at Think Progress:

During an appearance on Hardball, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) slammed the White House for using Petraeus as a political prop. He said the decision to bring Petraeus back to the U.S. for a rare visit last week, days before Congress voted on its Iraq timeline legislation, was "purely a political move," pointing out that Petraeus made numerous media appearances but did not testify before Congress' armed services committees.

And now an injection of reality from CNS News:

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) this week criticized Gen. David Petraeus for not meeting with members of Congress during a recent visit to Washington, D.C., to report on the status of operations in Iraq, but not only did the commander of Multinational Force - Iraq meet with hundreds of lawmakers, he personally briefed Murtha himself.

Murtha told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tuesday, "They bring Petraeus back - purely political move. Petraeus comes back here. He doesn't talk to any of us. He only talks to the news media and so forth trying to sell this program."

But a senior Defense Department official told Cybercast News Service that Petraeus personally briefed Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an April 24 phone conference that lasted 20-30 minutes.

The following day, Petraeus conducted two 90-minute, top-secret level operations intelligence briefings for representatives and senators.

The first, to which all members of the House of Representatives had been invited, was attended by 250 congressmen, and the second was attended by 86 senators. After brief opening statements at the two briefings, Petraeus spent the remaining time answering questions from the congressmen in attendance.

"These were two of the most widely attended operations intelligence briefings in recent memory," the Pentagon official said.

Now, how likely do you think it is that "Nico," Think Progress, or the Congressman himself will admit that he boldly lied to Chris Matthews? Do you think that Think Progress will issue a correction? Do you think Mathews will criticize Murtha for lying to him?

It would be nice, but I wouldn't suggest holding your breath for any of the above to occur.

Update: An attempt to publish the link and an excerpt of the CNS article above to the Think Progress comments thread has apparently failed.

Two Arrested Smuggling Iranian EFPs in Sadr City

Oui?

US forces arrested two Iraqis suspected of smuggling weapons and armour-piercing explosives from Iran in a dawn raid Thursday into Baghdad's Shiite slum Sadr City, the military announced.

The arrests came ahead of a possible first meeting between the foreign ministers of Iran and United States since 1980, at an international conference on the future of Iraq in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"The individuals targeted during the raid are suspected members of a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq," the military said.

The statement said the network was also training Iraqi militants in Iran.

The CENTCOM release this story was based upon is here.

Pressure

The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq has been killed:

US and Iraqi forces have killed the head of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella group of Sunni insurgents which includes Al-Qaeda, Iraq's deputy interior minister said Thursday.

Minister Hussein Ali Kamal said the insurgent leader known as Omar al-Baghdadi was killed in western Baghdad. "His body is under the control of the interior ministry. His body has been identified," he told AFP.

Separately, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver said the military would hold a news conference later on Thursday to announce a "recent success against a senior leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Unlike the claimed but unconfirmed killing of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who was reportedly killed earlier this week in a firefight with one of a number of Sunni tribal militias formerly aligned with al Qaeda, who have now joined with Coalition forces, al-Baghdadi's body has been claimed and apparently identified.

For the roundup of this story, go to Pajamas Media.

al-Baghdadi's death is properly categorized as a "big fish;" al-Masri, as Dan Riehl noted, once declared allegiance to al-Baghdadi.

This news comes as Evan Kohlmann notes that the al Qaeda coalition continues to fracture:

In the wake of the recent and very public rift between the Sunni Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI) and Al-Qaida's "Islamic State", yet more cracks are suddenly beginning to show in the unified jihadist coalition that Al-Qaida has been trying to assemble in Sunni regions of Iraq. Today, the IAI--along with factions from at least two other predominant Sunni militant groups, the Mujahideen Army and the notorious Ansar al-Sunnah Army--have officially announced the formation of their own separate political coalition: "The Reformation and Jihad Front" (RJF). This new front would seem to be a direct challenge to the authority of Al-Qaida's "Islamic State" and is said to enjoy support from Sunni Islamist circles (like Ansar al-Sunnah) which have, in the past, worked closely with Al-Qaida.

Kohlmann goes on to note that while the RJF is no ally of American nor Iraqi democracy, it poses a significant political threat to the future of al Qaeda in Iraq, perhaps even more significant than the formation of the Anbar Salvation Council.

Marc Lynch notes of the RJF that:

While the language is typically religious, the focus is exclusively Iraqi, and says nothing about wider global jihad.

As a result, the group should have more appeal to the various Sunni insurgent factions that are more nationalistic in their goals, and thus lessen support for al Qaeda in Iraq.

"Divide and conquer" was the original aim al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency, as they hoped to capture popular Iraqi support and use that support against the Iraqi government and the Coalition. It will be very interesting to see how the media decides to note the now obvious fact that it is al Qaeda and it's aligned Sunni groups that are fracturing, factionalizing, and turning on one another.

Update: A "Twofer?" Over at Hot Air, Bryan is running with a Washington Post article where General William Caldwell has confirmed that Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, al-Qaida’s information minister, has been killed, a fact confirmed by DNA tests on the body:

Caldwell said the U.S. does not have the bodies of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, or Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, and doesn't know of "anybody that does."

He said the military had conducted numerous operations against al-Qaida in Iraq in the last six days.

Al-Jubouri was killed while trying to resist detention in an operation about four miles west of the Taji air base north of Baghdad early Tuesday, and the body was initially identified by photos, then confirmed by DNA testing Wednesday, he said.

Meanwhile, Bryan notes that Iraqi media sites such as Aswat al Iraq are still claiming al-Baghdadi's death, and even purport to have video of the body.

Who is right?

IraqSlogger isn't sure, but states that CNN is claiming that al-Baghdadi and Al-Jubouri may very well be the same person. I couldn't find that claim at CNN, so the statement only adds to the confusion.

The overall facts remain the same, regardless of which al Qaeda leader specifically died: al Qaeda in Iraq is being hunted, cornered, and killed or captured, and the pace of such operations seems to be increasing.

Silencing the Milbloggers

Over the weekend, milblogger Jim ("Uncle Jimbo") Hanson was asked on CNN:

Let me ask you quickly, Jim, there's been a lot made of the media improvements by the insurgents, that they're doing a great job of getting their message out. What are we going to see from our military as we move forward against that press machine, when they try to balance it?

The military's response, written by an Army Major, borders on incompetence.

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

I certainly understand the military's concerns about operational security, but this order takes us precisely in the wrong direction.

We need a greater flow of information, more firsthand accounts from our frontline soldiers, explaining to us in stark, sometimes vulgar language the exact nature of the war and the enemy we are fighting.

Military blogs, or milblogs, are the only way for frontline soldier to directly relate their experiences to the American public without the filters placed upon them by either the media or their military commanders.

Blog entries from Neil Prakash who formerly wrote at Armor Geddon, provided an irresistible, riveting account of the Battle of Fallujah from the viewpoint of a tank commander involved in the brutal house-to-house fighting. Prakash won a Silver Star during the battle he chronicled, and in writing about his experiences, provided a vivid window into the war that no reporter could emulate, a perspective that no dry MNF-I press release could convey.

At the time, Armor Geddon was perhaps one of the finest of milblogs, and did more to provide a real reflection of the conditions on the ground than any news anchor or wire service report. Armor Geddon became one of the first and most prominent casualties of the OpSec war. Prakash's blog fell silent on October 4, 2005.

One can only imagine what he could have accomplished in communicating the war effort since that time, had the military not decided to silence his voice.

Armor Geddon is just one of a galaxy of milblogs that could envelop the media organizations of the world, organizations that rely upon stringers, bureau reporters, and multiple layers of editors to provide a sterile, detached view of the war and the men fighting it.

Milblogs can and should be among our strongest assets is a war that is as much about perception as execution. Thousands of military bloggers, describing everything from excruciating boredom, to the rush of surviving the shot that just cracks past, milbloggers can serve not only as our first line defenders, but our first line of information.

If we want to win a war that is as much about information as it is about actual counterinsurgency, few can win the American public better than the American soldier or Marine communicating directly to the American people from their hearts.

I hope Army brass realizes this mistake before their concerns over operational security loses the war by not communicating "why we fight" to the American people.

Update: It's purely speculation, of course, but a couple of veterans in emails to Michelle Malkin have raised the possibilty that the new regulations were put in place as a response to harsh criticism of Harry Reid's "war is lost" comments.

The timeline--the order was issued April 19, well in advance of that particular defeatist comment--is wrong on the facts, but it raises an interesting possibility in principle: is it possible that Democratic pressure may be behind the Army's gag order?

Sure, Wonkette and others are quick to jump the gun and predictably "blame Bush" for the order, but like others buying that particular storyline, they obviously don't read milblogs.

Military bloggers are certainly not all fans of George W. Bush, but one thing is for certain, and that is that the overwhelming majority of them are strongly against the "retreat in defeat" plans that Democrats have been pushing since before the 2006 elections.

Who really has more to lose from a vocal military blogosphere? Is it the President, who has supported the military and their shared mission and still fights for it, or the Democrats, who seek to undermine every soldier's sacrifice and the Iraqi lives they are trying to protect?

NOTE: Any no, I don't personally think Democrats are behind this.

Does Digg Founder Kevin Rose Weigh the Same as a Duck?

At social networking news aggregator Digg, someone posted the code to hack encrypted HD-DVDs.

Digg removed the links to the original hack, only to see hundreds of other Diggers repost the hack. Negative reaction by the Digg community eventually crashed the site.

Bryan Preston expressed sympathy for Rose's delimma at Hot Air:

My sympathies lie with Kevin on this. He’s being accused of censorship, a charge that really only ought to be leveled at the government and only when censorship is actually occurring, when all he’s doing is abiding by intellectual property law. The HD-DVD encryption code is a piece of property. Rose couldn’t let Digg become the place where the HD-DVD code got out. Doing so might destroy him and the site he founded and thereby the community that’s rioting against him now.

Later in the day, bowing to community pressure, Digg founder Kevin Rose gave in:

...now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

I feel a certain degree of sympathy for Rose as well, but find his decision to allow his company to be run by the will of an angry mob to be more than little disconcerting.

That approach didn't work too well in Salem several centuries ago, or for Radika Singh last week.

Kevin Rose may have just set himself up to be burned.

(For those that missed the duck reference in the title, click here and scroll)

Al Qaeda Leaders Declare Iraq War Lost

The Air Force officer running Mind in the Qatar has discovered that because of their string of recent and on-going defeats, al Qaeda Sheikh Reidari has called upon bin Laden remove their terrorists from Iraq:

Following the deaths of both Abu Musab Al-zaqawi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the decimation of the ranks of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the growing unpopularity of foreign insurgents among Iraqis, some senior terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda have called upon Usama Bin Laden to withdraw all of his troops from Iraq by October.

The war in Iraq "is lost" and Al Qaeda attacks are failing to bring an Islamic state to the country, spokesman of the Salafist Group for Preching and Combat, Harry Sheikh Reidari, said Thursday. "I believe ... that this war is lost, and continuing attacks are not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme blows to our network in Iraq recently," Reidari told journalists. "Iraq has diverted resources from our greater 'War on Freedom'. It would be best if we withdrew, leaving only a small force to train Iraqi jihadists, and redeployed our other forces to Afghanistan to continue with a Holy War that everyone can support."

Other al Qaeda leaders, such as Abu Jonjalali al-Murthab, Rhadami Hillab Clintonijhad, and Waleed Jo Bidenami echoed Reidari's call. Mohammed Dheniz Khalidinich even called for Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's second-in-command, to be ousted:

Additionally, leading Abu Sayyaf Group terrorist Mohammed Dheniz Khalidinich changed that Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri "purposely manipulated information to deceive the al Qaeda rank and file..." Khalidinich said al-Zawahiri did so "by fabricating the idea the U.S. military forces would fold and run once our jihad against them in Iraq got bloody. But today they are still resisting us and sending even more troops to do so. It is clear now that al-Zawahiri knew that this reaction only would happen with a Democratic American President, and he should have known that Bush would not retreat this way. For this failure, he should be removed from al-Qaeda's leadership."

Somehow, this seems errily familiar...

Risible Tensions

If al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was killed in Iraq in a clash yesterday as reported, it appears that tribes that are part of the Sunni Awakening will get credit for the kill:

A local leader from a village near Taji, Muhammad Fadhil of Nibaie, said he heard explosions and gunfire from Monday night through Tuesday morning. He believed the sounds came from clashes between al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and men from the Falahat tribe and a tribal coalition known as the Anbar Salvation Council. Fadhil also said U.S. and Iraqi forces eventually cordoned off the area.

The Anbar Salvation Council is a Sunni group formerly loyal to al Qaeda and the insurgency that has since joined forces with the Iraqi government and coalition forces. The tribal militias have fought pitched battles against al Qaeda, and has killed or captured hundreds of terrorists over the course of the past few months.

CNN, as befitting their political bias, arrives to the party late:

Reports of fighting between al Qaeda in Iraq and Sunni militants surfaced Tuesday, the latest hints of rising tensions between the two allied groups.

Other reports have emerged this year of tensions between Sunni fighters and the Sunni-dominated al Qaeda in Iraq, particularly from Anbar province, long a favored turf for indigenous Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq from Syria.

The Awakening has been fighting tooth and claw against al Qaeda for months in battles involving hundreds of men at a time, (see the Roggio links above, and feel free to Google others), and CNN sees "hints of rising tensions?"

One can only wonder what maelstrom would force them to actually use the word "combat."

Yon: Desires of the Human Heart

A two-part photo essay from embed Mike Yon, embedded with I-4 Cavalry (Fort Riley, Kansas) at COP Amanche, Baghdad:

Part I

Part II

Mike writes of this photo, taken from Part II:

"I asked the woman above if she was the mom, but the camera had already captured the answer."

Cute Kid. Beaming Mom. These are among the people I worry about when I see Harry Reid declare the war "lost." If Reid and others are allowed to force a loss, what kind of future can this mother and child have?

No photo touches me more than these Iraqi children, particularly the girl in red, that Yon photographed last year in Iraq near the Iranian border.

Something about her haunts me. Perhaps it is her strength and sadness, or her passing resemblance to my niece.

I want these children to have a future that is better than their nation's horrific past decades or bloody present. I simply don't understand how we can help provide anything like that by declaring they aren't worth it, and running away.

Illusions of Safety

As many of you know, I work part-time at a sporting goods store behind the gun counter. This past Saturday, a rather frail couple I'd estimate to be in their early fifties--a local man, and his sister visiting from Florida, they said--stopped me to ask where they could find a whistle.

An orange whistle; they were very adamant about that.

We didn't happen to have any orange whistles in stock, and I inquired as to why they were so intent on getting a whistle in that particular color. The brother informed me that they had had a rash of recent muggings in the community in Florida where the sister lived, and they thought that whistle was the best way to protect her against a possible mugging.

My eyebrows went up with that. I asked where she intended to keep the whistle, and she stated quickly, as if I was daft, that she'd keep it in her purse.

I just looked at them for a few seconds, hoping they'd make the connection.

They didn't.

"You mean the same purse that a mugger would likely grab?" I offered, trying to point out their obviously flawed logic. Instead of realizing their Carlos Mencia "dee dee dee!" moment, they shifted gears.

"What about pepper spray?"

"And where would you keep that?"

She started to answer, "In my pu-"

The brother, starting to get agitated, cut her off.

"Do you have it, or not?" he said tersely.

I replied that we didn't, and then I took the conversation where they didn't want to go.

"Ma'am, you live in Florida, correct?"

She did.

"You are aware that Florida have one of the most liberal concealed carry laws in the United States?"

I may as well have suggested raping a chicken. The looks of horror and disgust should have been comical, but all I felt was sad.

At that point I gave up and directed them to the closest place that I was aware of that had pepper spray for sale. They left, very quickly. I never did find out why they were so adamant about having an orange whistle. Perhaps they thought muggers were afraid of that particular color.

A whistle has not, as far as I am aware, stopped a determined assailant, as often as I've heard them recommended as a form of self defense by one un-serious group or another. All an assailant has to do it pluck it from your lips, or more likely, attempt to use his fist to smash it down your throat.

Whistles only provide the illusion of safety, which is all these people and others like them actually want. They want to think they're taking steps to protect themselves or others, even when they aren't.

I almost never have to time to take these customers down the logical path, as they typically eject themselves from the conversation once their illusion is challenged.

I'd love to ask them what they expect to happen if they are able to actually blow their whistle, but rarely get the chance.

Do they expect that a police officer will just happen to be within the hundred-yard or so range of such a whistle, with his radio off and his squad car windows down so that he can hear their single, brief bleat?

Do they expect other citizens to come running to their rescue and potentially place their lives in jeopardy, when the victims themselves would not?

Whistlers, however you cut it, are sheep... and self-important, arrogant sheep at that.

Whatever their physical gifts, they are psychologically unwilling to defend themselves, and yet expect others to come running to their rescue when things get predatory. They don't want the responsibility of protecting their own lives, and expect others to do it for them.

Bring on more unarmed victim zones. Buy more whistles. Expect others to come to your defense, even though you wouldn't come to theirs.

Baaaaa...

I hope orange whistle lady wises up, but I'm rather sadly confident that she won't. Some illusions are just too comforting for some people to let go of them, not matter how useless and stupid they are.

al-Masri's Rumored Death Shows Fruits of Sunni Awakening

The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was reportedly killed in a firefight today between al Qaeda and what has been described as a battle between insurgent groups by the Guardian, or by local Sunni tribesmen according to CNN. The account remains to be confirmed, and it must be noted that similar accounts in the past have been incorrect.

Both claims of who carried out the attack could be accurate, but the CNN account, which describes the site of the conflict as "a bridge in an area under Sunni tribal control," sounds like a description consistent with the Sunni tribal militias aligned with the al-Anbar "Awakening" movement, as described by combat filmmaker and blogger JD Johannes in this recent entry to his blog at Outside the Wire:

Driving along the four-lane highway from Habbaniyah to Ramadi there are the usual coalition check points, Iraqi Army Outposts, markets, black market gas stations and Police Stations.

But, off the main highway, on the access roads leading back into the Euphrates canal country, every half mile, gun men wearing Keyfahs and wielding AK-47s man road blocks--and they are the best allies we can have against the jihadists.

[snip]

Last Summer few Sheiks, notably around Ramadi flipped to the coalition and government side of the conflict.

The tribes sent levies to the Police Academies in Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. They have also started taking matters into their own hands with some men from each clan and tribe defending their villages.

What I saw in Husabayah Jawal was not the Iraqi Police or the Iraqi Army, but the beginings of the end of the insurgency in Iraq.

Whether they are the Sons of Al Anbar, Sawa, TAA, the militia or the Tribal Neighborhood Watch, tribes and clans across the Euphrates river valley are taking charge of their own security with back up from the Marines.

[snip]

The Iraq variant of the Home Guard emerged last year as many of the top sheiks, some who had opposed the coalition and some who had a foot in both camps saw that AQIZ was not following through on their promises and that the coalition was following through on their promises.

The other point that flipped the Sheiks is the simple fact that no one except for the hard core jihadists want to live under Sharia law--which is all the jihadists have to offer.

The Sheiks, sub-sheiks, former military leaders including a hero of the Iran/Iraq war who lived in the Khalidiayah area began the process of standing up neighborhood watch check points.

The neighborhood watch is supported by the Police District and Mayor. The Marines keep a close eye on the volunteers who man the check points but have no official involvement in their activities.

The Anbar Awakening is allowing one of the key aspects of counter insurgency operations to begin--population control and control of movement in and out of areas.

This firefight may have either been "red-on-red" fighting between an insurgent group and al Qaeda, or it could be the action of a tribal militia loyal to the "Awakening" and the Iraqi government.

If the former is correct and the firefight was a "red-on red" between insurgent groups, then it shows more evidence of a widening, lethal rift between various elements of a Sunni insurgency, an insurgency that has been showing increasing signs of fragmentation for months.

If the firefight was between al Qaeda and local Sunni militiamen loyal to the Awakening, then this battle is part of a trend that shows the vulnerability of al Qaeda and mobile insurgents to the "Home Guard" militias, local groups loyal to Sheiks aligning with the Iraqi government and coalition forces that know on sight whether or not people belong to a certain area. It is also worth mentionthat both accounts could very well be true, as these are not exclusive states of being with Sunni tribes in a state of flux.

This battle is one of many that has occurred in Iraq in the past few months as the Sunni Awakening that started last summer continues to bear fruit, further fracturing the insurgency as they turn on al Qaeda and the increasingly fewer number of Sunni tribes that see fighting the Iraqi government and coalition forces as a viable strategy.

While civilian and military casualties continue to mount in Iraq, the essential nature of the conflict has radically evolved, a fact under-reported in a world press that can understand simple concepts like body counts, but cannot or will not understand the underlying motivations and actors.

The original Sunni insurgency in Iraq that fought to overthrow or undermine the fledgling Iraqi government is not dead, but it is certainly, unequivocally, in the process of dying.

Today, the body counts continue to be high, but those dying in the string of horrific string of car and truck bomb attacks over the past few months are not being killed by popularly-supported Sunni insurgents, but instead, are being attacked by elements of al Qaeda. 80 to 90-percent of those carrying out suicide bombing in Iraq are not Iraqis, just as so many of the lethal EFP attacks being carried out against Coalition forces are the work of Shias that receive training and weaponry in Iran. Foreign actors are increasing taking the lead from the locals in the war against the Iraqi government.

Why does this matter?

Native-borne insurgencies are among the toughest of conflicts to bring to a successful resolution. The French learned this hard lesson in Vietnam and Algeria, as we learned that lesson in Vietnam. But native insurgencies can be defeated, as French Lt. Col. David Galula demonstrated in the areas under his control in Algeria, and as the British showed in the Malaysian Emergency.

Insurgencies that receive more external support than internal support are far more vulnerable to be defeated, for obvious reasons. Without internal support, foreign fighters and insurgent groups run a far greater risk of being identified, fixed, and destroyed. As a result, the current situation in Iraq is more winnable than it was a year ago.

Those critics that maintain that the war in Iraq is "lost," or that refuse to admit that al Qaeda or Iran are the key, driving forces behind the remaining Sunni and Shia militias and insurgent groups, are deluding themselves. Saying that "nothing has changed" is not only an abdication of responsibility, it is an abdication of reality.

Sunnis tribesmen engaged with al Qaeda this morning, as they have time and again and with increasing frequency over the past year as the Awakening grows. Allah's important influence aside, they are also undoubtedly switching sides because Iraq is their home, and they want to be on the winning side when this war concludes. Many have determined that the Iraqi government and their coalition allies must and will be that winning side.

Much as changed in Iraq since the Sunni Awakening began last summer.

We have a radically new strategy for fighting the war, being implemented by a new commanding general, under a new Secretary of Defense. We have crucial new allies, as tribes that formerly supported the insurgency have rebelled against it to form a new political party and re-engage in the political process, even as they hunt and kill al Qaeda. These Sunni tribes have engaged the Iraqi government and coalition troops as allies, declaring:

"We have decided that by helping you," he said, "we are helping God."

The war, it seems may be in the process of being won in Iraq in mid-2007, even as war critics declaring this war "lost" are stuck in time, in a much different Iraq War of early 2006.