Predator: 12 13, Al Qaeda: 0

I wrote earlier this week about militants killed in a missile strike in Pakistan. At the time, I speculated that they were going after "high-value targets" (HVTs), and speculated that the attack may have been a U.S. Predator drone strike like the one that targeted al Qaeda's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2006.

According to Michelle Malkin, It looks like they may have targeting someone else, as noted in this Reuters article:

A leading al Qaeda member in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi, has been killed, a Web site often used by the group and other Islamists said on Thursday.

A banner on the Ekhlaas.org site said Libi had fallen as a martyr, without giving further details.

It was not immediately clear if Libi's death was linked to a suspected U.S. missile strike that killed up to 13 foreign militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan region this week.

The attack had targeted second or third tier al Qaeda leaders, according to residents in the tribal area.

Tribesmen in the area had said a deputy of Libi, a senior al Qaeda leader, had been staying there and was among the dead, according to an intelligence official.

It remains to be seen if any other high-ranking al Qaeda figures were among the 12 killed, and whether or not it was, in fact, a U.S. drone operating well inside Pakistan. An earlier AP report seems to suggest that possibility:

A resident said an armed drone may have carried out the strike.

"We could see a small, white plane flying over the village for the past several days," villager Dildar Khan said.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said he had no information about any missile strike.

The government often uses airstrikes to attack militants in areas that its ground forces and artillery cannot reach, but some of the aerial attacks near the border in recent years are believed to have been launched by missile-armed U.S. drones flying from Afghanistan.

Authorities in both the U.S. and Afghanistan have denied knowledge of such operations.

Sure they do. It doesn't make the terrorists any less dead.

More from Reuters, which also leans towards a predator strike in Pakistan:

An intelligence official, however, told Reuters on Thursday that based on information gleaned from tribal contacts there were seven Arabs and six Central Asians killed.

He said the attack was believed to have been carried out by a pilotless U.S. Predator aircraft flown across the nearby border with Afghanistan.

"The missile appeared to have been fired by a drone," the intelligence official said.

The Pakistani authorities have not confirmed the attack, and the Pentagon has denied taking any action, but the Defense Department does not speak for the Central Intelligence Agency, which operates Predators that the tribesmen say carried out the attack late on Monday.

Villagers saw two drones flying over the area before the attack. They didn't see the missile being fired but one heard a plane's engine before the explosion.

The same report states that in addition to Abu Laith al Libi, Obaidah al Masri may have been another target of the attack. al Masri was reportedly the leader of the 2006 UK-based plot to bomb transatlantic airliners.

Silence of the Media Lambs

A current employee of the Department of Homeland Security, who spoke to Pajamas Media on the condition of anonymity, had this to say: "It is mind-boggling. I've sent personal emails to my contacts at ABC, at CBS, at the New York Times, and the Washington Times. No one is even responding to my emails. They call me back about other things, but as far as Sibel [Edmonds] is concerned, anything touching on that subject gets overlooked, gets ignored."

"Why?" this reporter asked.

"Reporters are terrified of the State Secrets Privilege and being subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. No one wants to wind up like Judy Miller — in jail."

What are they covering up? If Annie Jacobsen is correct, nuclear treason at the State Department.

Why?

NY Times Sets Up Hillary For A Fall

In 2005, Bill Clinton accompanied mining financier Frank Giustra to Kazakhstan, provided dictator Nursultan A. Nazarbayev with a propaganda coup that undermined American foreign policy and glossed over Kazakhstan's dismal human rights record. For Clinton's trouble, Giustra walked away with shared mining rights to 1/5 of the world's known uranium reserves.

Clinton subsequently picked up $131 million dollars in donations and pledges from Giustra for the William J. Clinton Foundation as a result, including a donation of $31.3 million within months of the mining deal being finalized.

On the surface, this sounds like peddling influence for cash—and truth be told, I can't easily come up with any other rational explanation.

This is rather a bizarre time to be publishing an accusation of an incident that occurred several years ago, with only days left before Hillary Clinton engages Barack Obama in the Super Tuesday Democratic presidential primaries, and occurring just days after the New York Times publicly endorsed Clinton as their candidate of choice.

Are we to believe that the Times editors were unaware of the pending article on Bill Clinton's apparent influence peddling when they gave Hillary their endorsement less than one full week ago?

In a large news organization it is indeed possible that the editorial staff who wrote Clinton's endorsement was unaware of the pending Bill Clinton/Giustra article... but I doubt it. And it is the Times editors that chose when to publish an article that was not locked into a specific time-sensitive news cycle, but was, as they say, "evergreen." This could have waited until after Super Tuesday, without a loss of importance... but then it would lack the colossal political influence that this story now may have.

Publishing the Clinton/Giustra article on this day, so close to Super Tuesday, seems indicative of ill intent on behalf of the Times.

Perhaps Hillary isn't their real choice for President after all.

It's Your Fault That You Hate Us

Via Ace and a sarcastic review by Kevin D. Williamson on NRO's Media Blog, comes an article by Poynter Institute Senior Scholar Roy Peter Clark, entitled The Public Bias against the Press.

And yes, he's quite sincere.

He begins:

The public bias against the press is a more serious problem for American democracy that the bias (real or perceived) of the press itself.

This is a fascinating claim. Clark argues that a healthy degree of skepticism in the American public for (real or perceived) media bias is greater than the actual damage caused by biases held by journalists and promulgated in their reporting.

Let's look at a hypothetical example to test Clark's theory.

The War in Iraq is very much a divisive subject in our culture, and is ripe for the introduction of bias by both those reporting a given story on the war, and those reading it.

Featured on Google News this afternoon is an article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Thom Shanker of the New York Times, entitled, White House Shows Signs of Rethinking Cut in Troops. The lede of the article begins:

Four months after announcing troop reductions in Iraq, President Bush is now sending signals that the cuts may not continue past this summer, a development likely to infuriate Democrats and renew concerns among military planners about strains on the force.

In that one sentence there are two examples of unsupported editorializing caused by the bias of the reporters:

• that if the cuts don't continue past this summer, that Democrats are likely to be "infuriated," and;
• that concerns among military planners would be "renewed."

Neither author supports the contention that a further reduction in force beyond pre-surge levels would cause Democrats to be "infuriated," and an objective accounting would have noted that, time and again, civilian and military leadership have stated that they would determine troops levels in Iraq based upon conditions on the ground. All Senators and Congressmen, knew this from the very beginning of the troops build-up. Quite simply, there s nothing for them to be infuriated about [note: For a more honest look at what this actually means, William Arkin has a much more even-keeled entry on the subject at the Washington Post blog, Early Warning.

Second, there is no evidence that concerns would be "renewed" among military planners, as they knew before the first surge soldier's boots hit Iraqi sand that the size of the force on the ground after the surge was contingent upon conditions. There concerns are no doubt real, but the biased lede and the implicated that this something "renewed" or unexpected, is rank editorialism featured in a news outlet that has, by the way, taken a quite public editorial stance against the war.

According to Clark, my long-held distrust of the media—honed over years of finding factual inaccuracies and demonstrable hidden biases in their reporting, and doing so again here—is a serious threat to American democracy.

He would have you think that an informed public is a threat to democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth. What he is actually lamenting—and is either (amusingly) too biased, too inarticulate, or too dishonest to share—is the demise of the media's role as gatekeeper.

It has become increasingly difficult for a self-selected group (in this case, journalists) to alter or shape public discourse by the selective filtering and dissemination of knowledge. We live in a newly wired world, with a much wider flow of information to be be shared, compared, and analyzed by almost anyone, not just editors and journalists.

Mr. Clark does not lament a threat to democracy.

He resents that his profession must now take part in it.

AFP Revises History

In an article previewing the possible damage to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as a result of the Winograd Report into Israel's 34-day war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, AFP's Ron Bousso echoes a questionable claim about the 2006 Israeli War against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon:

It is expected to focus on Olmert's controversial decision to order a massive ground offensive in south Lebanon 60 hours before a UN-brokered ceasefire agreement was due to take effect on August 14.

Thirty-three Israeli soldiers were killed in the offensive launched just one hour after the final version of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 was presented to Israel.

Major Tomer Buhadana was one of those wounded during the last 48 hours of war, which in all killed 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

The Lebanese killed were "mostly civilians?"

The Daily Telegraph noted during the conflict:

Although Hizbollah has refused to make public the extent of the casualties it has suffered, Lebanese officials estimate that up to 500 fighters have been killed in the past three weeks of hostilities with Israel, and another 1,500 injured.

Lebanese officials have also disclosed that many of Hizbollah's wounded are being treated in hospitals in Syria to conceal the true extent of the casualties. They are said to have been taken through al-Arissa border crossing with the help of Syrian security forces.

A UPI account noted that:

Israel failed to kill Hezbollah's top members, and the organization continued to function throughout the war.

But Hezbollah lost more than 500 men, even though it confirmed only some 60-odd killed. Israel identified 440 dead guerrillas by name and address, and experience shows that Israeli figures are half to two-thirds of the enemy's real casualties. Therefore, Amidror estimated, Hezbollah's death toll might be as high as 700.

Both of those links were pulled from a media analysis by Steven Stotsky of The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) which sought to provide an actual account of the Hezbollah and civilan dead, arriving at a rough estimate of 500-600 Hezbollah fighters among the roughly 1,000-1,200 Lebanese killed—roughly half of the total.

A December 2006 review of the July 12-August 14 conflict by the Boston Globe cited a total of "More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and combatants" killed, and of those, Hezbollah fighters comprised between 250 and 600 of that figure, depending on the source. The same Globe account also notes that the Lebanese government does not differentiate between civilians and Hezbollah fighters in their official toll of 1,086 dead, as it "can be difficult to tell a Hezbollah fighter because many do not wear military uniforms."

StrategyPage reported:

Hizbollah suffered a defeat. Their rocket attacks on Israel, while appearing spectacular (nearly 4,000 rockets launched), were unimpressive (39 Israelis killed, half of them Arabs). On the ground, Hizbollah lost nearly 600 of its own personnel, and billions of dollars worth of assets and weapons. Israeli losses were far less.

Instead of "mostly civilians," the conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 created roughly 1,000-1,200 fatalities in Lebanon, and clearly a significant number of them, roughly half, were Hezbollah fighters.

Bousso's claim for AFP that "mostly civilians" perished as a result of the war is both technically inaccurate and editorially deceptive.

Update: Reports indicate that Bousso was wrong on the main contention of his article as well, that the report was likely to be "a damning indictment of his [Prime Minister's Olmert's] role in the 2006 war in Lebanon."

AP:

The final report into Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon concluded that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not fail in his handling of a key battle and that his decisions were reasonable, defense officials said Wednesday.

It doesn't seem that AFP gets much of anything right, does it?

Tears for Johnny

You can almost hear the tears hitting Nedra Pickler's keyboard:

Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voter's sympathies but never diverted his campaign, The Associated Press has learned.

Be strong, Nedra. You've still got Barack, even if his hair isn't nearly as pretty. That said, I wonder to which of the two Americas Edwards will retire...

Will his chose his $6 million, 102-acre estate in Chapel Hill, or his million-dollar beach estate on gated Figure Eight Island?

Courage, Johnny.

Courage.

Thanks, Florida

Media Still Trying to Martyr Obama

We've covered this ground before. For reasons they will not openly disclose, media worldwide are hooked on the possibility that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama will be assassinated.

As noted by Mark Finkelstein this morning on Newsbusters, Early Show anchor Harry Smith broached the subject again in a conversation with Senator Ted Kennedy:

HARRY SMITH: When you see that enthusiasm [for Obama] though, and when you see the generational change that seems to be taking place before our eyes, does it make you at all fearful?

Kennedy understandably had no idea what Smith was driving at, and gave an innocuous answer about people's desire for "a new day and a new generation." But Smith's follow-up left no real doubt as to what he had in mind.

SMITH: I just, I think what I was trying to say is, sometimes agents of change end of being targets, as you well know, and that was why I was asking if you were at all fearful of that.

When you tell a man with Ted Kennedy's family history that "you well know" about politicians becoming "targets," the implication is unmistakable.

I'll send you over to the Newsbusters post to see how Kennedy responded, but after you read that, ask yourself this: What basis did Harry Smith have for making his remarks?

Such vague media assertions of a possible targeting of Obama have been occurring for over a year, and yet, when we actually look for evidence of such claims, they seem to have little or no merit other than other media accounts.

I've no doubt that somewhere in the world there are those that would rather see Barack Obama dead than President, but the media has failed, in each an every instance, to provide support for this apparently evergreen claim. They recycle the charge, again and again, merely by "knowing" that someone must hate him.

I know that I am certainly getting tired of their attempts to assert a mortal threat against one of the more likable people (politics aside) in this race, and wonder why more bloggers have not yet castigated the media for recycling the possibility of a threat again and again, perhaps goading an unstable person to act upon them.

This needs to stop.

Targeting Zawahiri?

Interesting...

Twelve suspected militants died in a missile strike on a home in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said.

The attack occurred after midnight in Khushali Torikhel, a village in North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, an intelligence and a government official in the region said.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the attack. The two officials who spoke did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make media comments.

Pakistan has been trying to tamp down on militancy in its border regions, where elements of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are believed to operate.

Technically, the Pakistani military has the capability to launch guided missiles from both ground platforms (given the terrain and effective range, unlikely) and from aircraft (more likely), but considering the proximity to the Afghan border and the fact that the strike happened at nighttime, I would hardly be surprised to find out that a U.S. Predator armed with Hellfire missiles made the strike. If that was the case, I would not be surprised to see that leaked out over coming days.

Of course, if this was a U.S. strike, the next logical question is to ask if they were after any high value targets (HVTs) in particular.

In January of 2006, a Predator fired missiles into a compound on the Pakistan border in hopes of taking out al Qaeda's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's chief deputy. The 2006 strike missed Zawahiri.

Could we have been more fortunate this time?

Grits Between His Ears

Would Mike Huckabee please do us all a favor and simply drop out?

Mitt Romney's failure to eat fried chicken with the skin on is nothing short of blasphemy here in the South, according to GOP rival Mike Huckabee.

[snip]

"I can tell you this," he said, "any Southerner knows if you don’t eat the skin don’t bother calling it fried chicken."

"So that's good. I'm glad that he did that, because that means I'm going to win Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma … all these great Southern states that understand the best part of fried chicken is the skin, if you're going to eat it that way."

Huckabee continues to be a disgracefully shallow candidate, who seems to feel that voters are equally as vacuous as he has shown himself to be.

Does Huckabee honestly think that his own preference for fried squirrel and Romney's desire to eat a more healthy meal are the foremost issues on voter's minds?

Implying—even in jest—that a region's primaries will be decided because of cuisine preferences is just the latest example of his inherent obnoxiousness.

The sooner we send him packing, the better.

Ted

For reasons I'll never know, author Toni Morrison's endorsement of Barack Obama for President is the top article on Memeorandum right now. I typically put very little weight behind the endorsements of authors or actors or sports figures, but obviously, people think this is important enough to talk about.

The version of the story linked at Memeorandum is from the ABC News blog Political Radar, and includes this quote explaining Morrison's endorsement:

"In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.

"Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

"There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time," she concludes.

When I read the effusive "That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom," I gagged reflexively at the sugary nothingness of what Morrison said.

"That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom."

I can hardly think of a more hollow, nonsensical statement, which a simple comparison destroys.

I can think of someone far more creative, and quantitatively far more brilliant than Barack Obama.

Would you vote for this guy?

Brilliant, with an eye for the future, and certainly creative, why isn't Ted Kaczynski Morrison's choice for president? Was it the sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole that ruled him out?

Brilliance and imagination are great things to have, but they do not in any way add up to equal wisdom. Taken with other factors, these God-given gifts can contribute to someone growing up to be a talented surgeon, a gifted teacher, or a national leader.

These gifts can also lead to abject madness... or horridly purple prose.

The do not, in and of themselves, equal wisdom.

Truth in Gaza

Hard to find. Harder to get printed.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Certain progressive bloggers in their natural state of paranoia are amusing to behold, and the conspiracy du jour is no different, as one of the more excitable ones interprets an event during last night's Republican debate as evidence that candidate Mitt Romney was cheating.

Allahpundit has the video over at Hot Air of NBC's Tim Russert asking Mitt Romney a vaguely-worded question, and then someone whispering "raise taxes," to which Romney replied, "I'm not going to raise taxes."

Romney obviously heard the whisper and responded to it, but the origin of the whisper seems to be found at the network, as an MSNBC blog posted on the subject, and then mysteriously pulled down the blog entry without explanation.

As Allah notes, Dan Riehl is probably correct that the whisper was from an NBC staffer attempting to coach Russert into explaining his poorly worded question, and that Romney, hearing the question as well, responded to it. It is also quite possible that feed simply could have been picked up from another candidate's mike. Other than being a minor gaffe for NBC's technical crew, this should be a non-story.

Things, of course, are never quite that simple for those who see a conspiracy behind every, err, bush.

At democrats.com, Bob Fertik wails "Romney cheats with an Earpiece!" despite, of course, having no such evidence of said claim, and the slightly troubling fact that if there was an earpiece, nobody else would have heard it.

Of course, Fertik and fellow conspiracy theorists still insist that President Bush was wearing an earpiece during a 2004 debate because of a bulge in the back of his jacket. They can't quite seem to grasp that the most logical explanation is that the bulge would been caused by body armor, not an obsolete transmitter the size of a deck of playing cards paired with an earpiece equipped with a futuristic Predator-type cloaking device that leaves the ear canal exposed.

Fun guy, Bob Fertik. You'll know him when you see him, franticly searching the sky for black helicopters and Denny Kucinich's UFO.

Update: Rolling Stone seems to be watching the skies as well.

"The Final Battle"

Iraqi military forces are closing in on the northern Iraqi city of Mosul following a massive HBIED (home or structural improvised explosive device) killed 40 and wounded 220 on Wednesday, and a smaller blast by a suicide bomber dressed as a policeman killed the Nineveh province police director and tour others as they inspected the blast site.

"We have set up an operations room in Nineveh to complete the final battle with al Qaeda along with guerrillas and members of the previous regime,"militants the government says remain loyal to former leader Saddam Hussein.

"Today our forces started moving to Mosul. What we are planning in Nineveh will be decisive," he said during a ceremony for victims of violence in the holy Shi'ite southern city of Kerbala, broadcast on state television.

Maliki gave no details of the number of Iraqi troops involved or the scale of the operation. Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari did not have details but said it had been launched at Maliki's request.

"Security is very weak there and the security forces need to be reinforced," Askari said.

As noted above in the article by Reuters' Aws Qusay, there have not been any details provided about the composition of the Iraqi forces or their numbers, but what Maliki and Askari state seems to indicate that the offensive may be entirely Iraq in nature, a claim I'm attempting to verify with U.S. military public affairs in Iraq.

Iraqi forces are "in the lead" in 9 of 18 Iraqi provinces with other province hand-overs expected in 2008, and during Ashura, Iraqi security forces led security operations that successfully protected over 2 million pilgrims. But outside of Iraq, "taking the lead" for security in 9 provinces and securing Ashura events simply isn't the kind of security success easily grasped by either journalists or the public at large.

If—and it is an "if"—they do indeed engage in a large urban clearing operation carried out exclusively by Iraqi forces, however, it would seem to be a "Virginia Slims" moment that the American public can grasp on to as a a tangible success.

For an Iraqi military that has been disparaged for so long, it would be nice to say, "You've come a long way, baby."

Saddam Lied, People Died

Don't expect this to penetrate to consciousness of those who bought the CPI report unapologetically and uncritically, they won't let George Bush off the hook, no matter the reality:

Saddam Hussein initially didn't think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture...

..."He told me he initially miscalculated... President Bush's intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack," says Piro. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." "He didn't believe the U.S. would invade?" asks Pelley, "No, not initially," answers Piro.

Once the invasion was certain, says Piro, Saddam asked his generals if they could hold the invaders for two weeks. "And at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war," Piro tells Pelley. But Piro isn't convinced that the insurgency was Saddam's plan. "Well, he would like to take credit for the insurgency," says Piro.

Saddam still wouldn't admit he had no weapons of mass destruction, even when it was obvious there would be military action against him because of the perception he did. Because, says Piro, "For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that [faking having the weapons] would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," he tells Pelley.

He also intended and had the wherewithal to restart the weapons program. "Saddam] still had the engineers. The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there," says Piro. "He wanted to pursue all of WMD…to reconstitute his entire WMD program." This included chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, Piro says.

It seems like The Center for Public Integrity and The Fund for Independence in Journalism have some explaining to do...

Fred's Not Dead?

Despite dropping out of the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, Fred Thompson could still presumably become the eventual nominee, according to Steven Stark in his article on Real clear Politics, Who Said Freddy's Dead?

The Republican race is coming into focus. Well, sort of. If John McCain can win the Florida primary on January 29, he'll be the clear front-runner heading into Super Tuesday a week later.

But Florida is hardly a sure thing for McCain. Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney are contesting the state heartily. Plus, Florida is a closed primary, meaning Independents can't participate -- and McCain polls far worse in contests where only Republicans can vote.

If McCain loses in Florida, the Republicans may well be headed to a deadlocked race and convention. And history teaches us that the likeliest candidate to emerge in that scenario is someone like Warren G. Harding: the prototypical, less-than-stellar candidate to which conventions turn when the going gets rough.

This year's Harding? Believe it or not (are you sitting down?), despite the fact that he's withdrawn from the race, is Fred Thompson.

Stark does make an interesting point about the Florida race—McCain and Romney are presently in a virtual dead heat at 22-percent of the vote— and if Florida tips for Romney, it would seem to blunt McCain's momentum running into Super Tuesday and just about anything could be possible. If Super Tuesday does not result in a clear winner, Republicans could indeed end up with a brokered convention where Thompson's lack of negatives may very well turn into a positive.

Is the brokered convention scenario likely to happen?

I wouldn't plan on it, but for Fredheads, it is nice to dream.

"John Wayne of the Blogosphere"

Stacey McCain has a neat profile of Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon up at the Washington Times.

At PJM: Study on Bush's Iraq Deception and Lies: Full of Deception and Lies

I finally got a chance to look at CPI/FIJ's Iraq: The War Card—Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War, and was greatly underwhelmed.

In fact, I'd go so far as to label it naked advocacy by a political group posing as neutral authorities.

Oh wait, I did: Study on Bush's Iraq Deception and Lies: Full of Deception and Lies

Thanks to Bryan for finding Dr. Jim Kuypers in this post at Hot Air.

Suicide Attacks Thwarted in Spain

Must be those pesky Methodists:

The Spanish judge overseeing the arraignment of 10 terrorism suspects said Wednesday that they had "planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks" last weekend on public transportation in Barcelona.

In a sequence of six-page rulings, one for each of the 10 suspects he ordered to be held in jail after their arraignments.

"Judge Ismael Moreno wrote that the suspects "had achieved human operational capacity and were very close to achieving full technical capacity with explosives, with the aim of using the those explosives for a jihadi terrorist attack, and it can be deduced that the members of the terrorist cell now broken up planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks last weekend, January 18 to 20, against public transport in the city of Barcelona."

You Get What You Pay For?

There is quite the buzz being generated in the blogosphere about a web report issued by The Center for Public Integrity and its sister organization, The Fund for Independence in Journalism.

It is entitled Iraq: The War Card—Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War.

As you may imagine, bloggers on the political left (and the media) are claiming the report is evidence of the long-running meme, "Bush lied, people died."

Critics on the right have been quick to point out that The Center for Public Integrity and The Fund for Independence in Journalism draw their financing heavily, if not exclusively, from left-leaning foundations and individuals, and that the criteria established for the study seems to indicate that the data is loaded and crafted to achieve a desired result.

I've not yet had a chance to read the report and get any sense of the validity of the claims made, but it promises to be an interesting read.

Thompson Withdraws

Via email:

Statement from Sen. Fred Thompson

McLean, VA - Senator Fred Thompson today issued the following statement about his campaign for President:

"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."

Scott Thomas Beauchamp's "Shock Troops" Statements

After the article "Shock Troops" in The New Republic had been challenged by critics , a documentary filmmaker/blogger by the name of JD Johannes narrowed down the search of the author to Alpha Company, 1-18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division on July21.

Three days after that on July 24, the military began a formal investigation, which included taking statements from soldiers in Alpha/1-18IN.

Scott Beauchamp gave his initial statement on July 26, published here for the first time.

Later, Beauchamp returned and filed another statement. For reasons as yet unexplained, he backdated the time of the second statement to 1700, an hour an 40 minutes before his original statement at 1840, and yet he directly refers to his statement made at 1840. [Update: perhaps the original statement was made at 15:40 and his penmanship is just bad? That would make a lot more sense...]

At no point during these two statements does Beauchamp directly recant.

He does not provide any support to the claims made in his article, "Shock Troops." There does not appear to ever have been any documentary evidence to support this story, nor the author's two previous stories.

Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic, penned a retraction of these stories five months later. Foer has yet to issue an apology to his critics or the military he maligned during the course of this story.

Update: Thanks to Jon Ham at The John Locke Foundation for enhancing the contrast of these images.

Yes, They Said It

Among the documents provided by FOIA requests to U.S. Central Command was this FOIA request from Peter Scoblic of The New Republic.

This particular paragraph is rich with... well, you know.

TNR's senior editorial staff, particularly Franklin Foer, has been the primary if not exclusive source for attacks against the integrity and credibility of the U.S. military investigation from the very beginning of the criticism over "Shock Troops," all the way through Foer's belated, unapologetic retraction.

The Scott Thomas Beauchamp " Shock Troops" Military Investigation, Statements 1-6, 8-12.

Documents released by the Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base Florida, in relation to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests files for documents relating to the military investigation into the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock Troops" article in The New Republic magazine.

The following are the never-before published statements of soldiers interviewed in the course of the investigation. Names are redacted per federal privacy laws.

Statement 1 (click image to enlarge)

More documents follow. Check back in later.

The Scott Thomas Beauchamp " Shock Troops" Military Investigation, Statements 13-24

Documents released by the Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base Florida, in relation to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests files for documents relating to the military investigation into the Scott Thomas Beauchamp "Shock Troops" article in The New Republic magazine.

The following are the never-before published statements of soldiers interviewed in the course of the investigation. Names are redacted per federal privacy laws.

Statement 13

More documents following throughout the day. Check back in later.

Marine Hero's Widow Scammed, But Not Forgotten

1st Lt. Dustin Shumney with Conner, Jordan, Mallory, and Julie Shumney.

[text and images via patdollard.com.]

1st Lt. Dustin Shumney was a devout Catholic, dedicated officer, family man, and Iraq War hero.

His widow Julie, and their three children Jordan, 15; Mallory, 11; Conner, 6 were awarded the Bronze Star with the Combat ‘V’ device on August 4, 2005 as a result of his heroic actions in Fallujah, Iraq while serving as the commander of 2nd platoon, Charlie Company, Battalion Landing Team for Hawaii based 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force.

He led his men fearlessly into Fallujah in November of 2004. Shumney’s confidence, proficiency and warfighting spirit made a positive impact on his platoon’s ability to fight.

And fight they did. Few men have ever exercised the type of bravery exhibited by Shumney and his men. From throwing live enemy grenades that landed at his feet back at the enemy, to leading his men through dangerous minefields, to clearing houses filled with suicidal insurgents, all the while under sporadic mortar, RPG, and small arms fire.

Articles have been written. Heroes have been recognized. Medals have been awarded.

Many posthumously.

Lt. Shumney died on Jan. 26, 2005, when the CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopter he and his men were using for transport crashed due to a sandstorm about 200 miles from Baghdad near Ar Rutbah, Iraq killing all on board. Approximately 30 Marines and one sailor perished in the crash making it one of the deadliest days for U.S. troops since the initial invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

On that day, Julie Shumney became a widow, and the three children she and Dustin had lovingly brought into the world, Jordan, Mallory, and Conner, became fatherless.

One of the most noble things a person can do, is to help widows and orphans during their “time of trouble.“

The harshness of the reality that her soulmate would never walk through their front door again and take her in his arms, the emptiness that Daddy would never again tuck them into their beds, kiss them goodnight and chase away the boogeymen; the knowledge that he would never be there to lead, guide, play with, and love their children again, is a time of trouble no decent person would ever wish upon any other.

In times like those, friends and family should come together, band around the widow and the fatherless, and give them aid and comfort.

This is the tale of two men who preyed upon this widow and her fatherless children, in their time of trouble, and bilked them out of $57,000.

Arguably, one of the best ways a person can work through grief is to give oneself to a charitable cause. This is what Julie Shumney did. She held a Bible study at her house with people from her church, and through the course of those weekly meetings she came up with the idea to raise money to give to various Christian outreach programs around the country.

More specifically, a program that would give money to Iraq War widows and orphans. This was especially dear to her. She wanted to help those who would go through what she had been going through.

This is where Julie Shumney’s heart is, to help those truly in need.

“I just was wanting to give back,” Julie said.

Enter Jeff, an evangelist from her church, who also led the weekly Bible study in Julie’s house, he seemed like a nice enough guy. And when the idea to help Iraq War widows and orphans came about, Jeff told Julie about a friend of his named Ken.

Jeff explained that Ken had had some success in an eBay business that revolved around buying truckloads of returned electronics merchandise from national chain stores like Circuit City and Wal-Mart at a greatly reduced price. They go through the items, salvaging what they can and putting them up for sale on eBay.

According to Jeff and Ken, their first investor, a man named Hencer, had fronted them the money needed to get that business going, and Hencer claimed he had received his initial investment back with no problem.

What could go wrong? The nice evangelist guy has a friend with a tried and true method that could help them raise lots of money to give to Iraq War widows and orphans. Her idea was that they would recoup the initial investment and give the profits to the widows and orphans charity, then take that initial investment and buy another truckload of reduced electronics, etc etc…and continue the cycle of charitable giving.

Sounded like a good plan for a good cause.

They drew up a contract. Julie gave them a Cashier’s Check for $40,000 with the stipulation that $5,000 be used to help “start up” the business, and that nobody made any profit off of the venture, that the profits would go to the charities. Contract signed, check handed over, Julie felt good. She felt that she might be able to help make a difference in the lives of those who would be going through one of the worst times of their lives.

Both Jeff and Kenneth had said that the project would be a side thing for them, that they would be volunteering their time with the project in the spirit of giving, and helping the Iraq war widows and orphans.

But soon afterward, things started to go bad. The contract they had signed had mysteriously disappeared. Whenever Julie would call Ken or Jeff to check on how things were going, she would get conflicting stories.

Things weren’t adding up.

But Julie, being a good Christian, believed that because they were also Christians, brothers in the faith, she should give them the benefit of the doubt.

Then one day, Jeff the evangelist came to Julie in tears. He said he was unable to live with himself knowing what he knew and that he was losing sleep, and his conscience was eating away at him.

He told her that Ken had been pocketing the money. That Ken had bought a car for his wife with it, that he had been making his own house payments with it, that he had been simply spending it as if it were his own money. Jeff went on to tell Julie that he himself had been unfaithful with the funds, paying for an expensive school for his own son, as well as numerous other personal bills.

Julie said “Well, let’s go get my electronics from your garage then. They belong to me.”

Jeff agreed. But Jeff said that Ken was a dangerous person with a criminal background. That there was no telling what he would do if he was confronted with his wrongdoing. So they decided initially, to not tell Ken that Jeff had informed Julie of the deception. Instead they took the merchandise, rented a warehouse, and moved it there. Then, Jeff told Ken that he was no longer part of the project.

Jeff then told Julie they needed to buy another smaller truckload of electronics to try and help recoup her losses, and Julie reluctantly agreed on the condition that she send the money directly to the company that was selling the truckload of electronics, and she did that.

Jeff brought in a man named Brandon, who was supposedly an honest guy, to help.

Soon after they started operating, Jeff said that Paypal kept shutting them down and they didn’t know why. Jeff gave Julie some excuse about eBay, which she found hard to believe. Julie knew it was time to just shut it down. Brandon came to her and told her that things with Jeff were “not as they seemed.”

Julie ended recouping only $7,000 of her $57,000 investment. Ken had threatened her if she tried to come after him for her money back. Apparently these two guys run some ministry called John G. Lake.org.

I talked to Julie on the phone this afternoon. Her income, which was supposed to be from an annuity is gone because she had to liquidate the annuity. She is having a hard time making ends meet.

She wants to pursue the matter legally, but that also takes money that she doesn’t have.

An Iraq War Hero’s widow and fatherless children need your help.

Click above to donate directly to Julie Shumney’s Paypal account.

Chicago Lawyer Jay R. Grodner's Day in Court

The anti-war lawyer that defaced a Marine's car had his day in court.

Justice was served, and though the case is over, Google will remember him forever.

Gun Control Legislation Fails in Virginia

Though that isn't quite the spin put on it by Larry O'Dell of the Associated Press:

Emotional pleas by relatives of Virginia Tech shooting victims failed Friday to persuade a legislative committee to close a loophole that allows criminals and the mentally ill to buy firearms at gun shows.

The House Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee voted 13-9 to kill legislation that would require unlicensed sellers at gun shows to conduct criminal background checks on buyers. Such checks now are required only on transactions by federally licensed gun dealers.

Thirty-two people were killed at Virginia Tech on April 16 by a mentally disturbed student who committed suicide as police closed in.

The Committee made the right choice, as the proposed legislation was ignorant, irrelevant and unworkable, just as this article's lede is prejudicial and purposefully misleading.

The "gun show loophole" is mostly a fable, and always has been, with only 2% of guns used in crimes being tracked back to gun shows. Most criminals obtain their firearms from family or friends who obtained firearms legally or illegally from another source.

This proposed legislation would have forced private individuals to conduct background checks on perspective buyers at gun shows, an idea not very well thought out, as it would mean that private individuals would have to turn over sensitive personal information —name, date of birth, address, driver's license number or other form of picture ID, social security numbers (optional, but many buyers don't know that), etc—to other private individuals they don't know and would probably never see again to run though the background check. In this day of increasing identity theft, what could possibly go wrong?

Real criminals, lazy, but not stupid, would certainly be willing to sell a firearm at a gun show for several hundred dollars in exchange for personal information to which they could fraudulently charge thousands. The background check would be done through FFL holders, for an additional fee.

In addition, the background check and associated hassles would only would only be applicable at the gun show, and nowhere else.

Citizens who didn't want to go through the hassle of paperwork would simply complete the transaction at another location, entirely legally. Be honest, would you drive five minutes to save 20-30 minutes of paperwork, and a processing fee?

So would most other people.

It was bad legislation borne of emotionalism, exploited by the cynical, creating serious problems and accomplishing little or nothing.

Gun control forces tried to exploit the still-fresh tragedy of the Virginia Tech massacre to force this legislation through, and went so far as to bring family members of those wounded and killed to plead their case in from of the committee.

The proposed law would not have had any effect on Seung-Hui Cho. None. It would not have saved one life at Virgina Tech.

Cho passed criminal background checks and purchased his pistols from licensed dealers who followed the letter of the law, as O'Dell finally brings himself to mentions in the very last paragraph of his article.

As for O'Dell, his inability to research the critical flaws in this legislation before posting his article is childishly irresponsible. It's too bad the Associated Press couldn't have had a serious, thoughtful journalist write this article, where people might have actually learned something useful.

Homeland Under Fire From Raging Veterans

David Burge is typically known for his satirical efforts at Iowahawk, but like many great satirists before him, his work is often merely a cover for a razor-sharp wit addressing pressing social ills in a more palatable form.

In light of recent developments in the media, I've broken cover regarding my day job, which I've rarely discussed until this point, in an in-depth interview with Mr. Burge featured in his latest article, Bylines of Brutality.

Read it all, and wonder how we've allowed the problem to go on for as long as it has without getting these veterans the psychological care they so desperately need.

An Ayatollah from Arkansas

A day before the South Carolina Republican Primary, David Limbaugh has cast his support behind Fred Thompson:

Commentators are citing the unpredictability of the Republican primary contests as proof that Reagan conservatism is dead when precisely the opposite conclusion is warranted.

The main reason the conventional wisdom is being shattered in the primaries is that conservative voters, so far, have not been persuaded there is an electable, reliable conservative in the race.

But as I've stated before, I believe Fred Thompson is a reliable, consistent conservative. There are others in the field I could support, but not without some reservations. The more I learn about Fred and observe him in action, the more convinced I become that he's the right choice...

...Supporters have asked Fred to step up, and he has -- he has shone brilliantly in the last month, setting himself head and shoulders above the pack in many cases. Now it's time for conservative voters to step up and quit placing artificial limitations on Fred, and on themselves.

Fred has answered the conservatives' call. Shouldn't we answer his?

For those of you who don't know, David Limbaugh is the brother of talk radio powerhouse Rush Limbaugh, who refuses to endorse any Republican candidate during the primaries as a matter of policy—a policy, I may add, that has not kept Rush from slamming many (if not all) of the other Republican candidates—while singing Thompson's praises on more than one occasion.

The "conventional wisdom" (which I think is batting "O-fer" this primary season, so take it FWIW) is that South Carolina will knock either Thompson or Mike Huckabee out of the race with a poor showing.

I've made no secret that as an evangelical Christian myself, Mike Huckabee makes me cringe, and that of the candidates we have, I think Thompson is certainly the best choice.

If South Carolina is a "race for survival" between Thompson and Huckabee, I hope that South Carolina Republicans who generally support the other candidates—Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, and Paul— would instead consider casting their vote for Thompson tomorrow.

Why?

I have to tell my fellow conservative Christians that Mike Huckabee is the worst possible representative of our faith and our conservative principles in the race.

His stated intentions to change the Constitution to follow his interpretation of the Bible will only earn us distrust among the vast majority of Americans who aren't Southern Baptists, and his unsolicited support for the Confederate flag is politically tone-deaf and will alienate many voters not already turned off by his desire to ban political free speech—except when his supporters use it to tar other candidates, that is.

We deserve better than an ayatollah from Arkansas.

I'd like for you to consider casting your vote for Fred Thompson if you want a Southerner to continue in the race, but I'd ask that whatever you do, you vote against Mike Huckabee.

Our religion, our region, our party, and our country deserves better.

One Rag To Smear Them All

Ralph Peters of the NY Post has dropped his second editor bomb on the New York Times for their smear of American veterans in a column titled "The New 'Lepers.'"

A taste:

The purpose of Sunday's instantly notorious feature "alerting" the American people that our Iraq and Afghanistan vets are all potential murderers when they move in next door was to mark those defenders of freedom as "unclean" - as the new lepers who can't be trusted amid uninfected Americans.

In the more than six years since 9/11, the Times has never run a feature story half as long on any of the hundreds of heroes who've served our country - those who've won medals of honor, distinguished service crosses, Navy crosses, silver stars or bronze stars with a V device (for valor).

But the Times put a major investigative effort into the "sensational" story that 121 returning vets had committed capital offenses (of course, 20 percent of the cases cited involved manslaughter charges stemming from drunken driving, not first- or second-degree murder . . . ).

Well, a quick statistics check let the air out of the Times' bid to make us dread the veteran down the block - who the Times implies has a machine gun under his bathrobe when he steps out front to fetch the morning paper. In fact, the capital-crimes rate ballyhooed by the Gray Lady demonstrates that our returning troops are far less likely to commit such an offense.

His previous editorial on the subject generated a huge response as well.

Why?

The Times article—the first in a series of vet-bashing articles that the Times has prepped to smear our soldiers—is fundamentally dishonest.

Out of all veterans that have been to Iraq and Afghanistan—estimates are that there are 1.5 million them, with roughly half still serving and half (749,932) discharged—the Times was able to compile just 121 deaths.

Read the Times article, and you are treated to five vignettes culled from those 121. The first four encompassing the majority of the article, telling the stories of Matthew Sepi, Archie O'Neil, Stephen Sherwood, and Seth Strasburg, are all about men who "snapped" and shot people to death.

What the Times did not print were those stories that didn't fit their template, and indeed, perhaps should not have been included in their count of 121 at all.

As I noted in my Pajamas Media article published yesterday:

Of those 121 summaries, 40 do not show direct ties between the stresses of deploying to combat zones and the homicides for which these veterans were charged, and of those, 14 were of highly dubious nature.

• The appropriately named Travis D. Beer, an Army reservist deployed to Iraq, pleaded no contest to motor vehicle homicide, and had two prior arrests for driving under the influence. The Times does not note if those prior arrests occurred before he deployed to Iraq.
• Jonathan Braham, a Marine veteran of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, shot a man whom he thought had sexually abused his stepson. According to the Times’ own reporting, he was adamant that his service in Iraq did not play a role in his decision to shoot the alleged abuser.
• Brian Epting was sentenced to six years for vehicular homicide when he lost control of his car while drag racing in 2005 and killed Robert Duffy, a World War II veteran. Is the Times seriously implying that his deployment to Iraq in 2003 is to blame for a drag racing death?
• Michael Gwinn Jr. has a history of domestic violence.
• Robert G. Jackson was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, as was Johnny Williams Jr., which cannot readily be tied to military deployments. Likewise, James Pitts has psychiatric problems predating his deployment to Iraq.
• Michael Antonio Jordan had a juvenile criminal record and was involved in gang activity.
• Christian Mariano was acquitted for acting in self-defense, and yet the Times still included him on this list.
• Jason R. Smith, a National Guard veteran and Atlanta narcotics officer, shot elderly Kathryn Johnston in an infamous no-knock raid, and is currently being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, but his attorney cannot say what the proximate cause of his PTSD may have been.
• Aaron Stanley's sideline occupation as an alleged methamphetamine and marijuana dealer may have had more to do with his homicides than his deployment to Iraq. Vernon Walker killed two fellow soldiers while dealing drugs.
• Larry Jaimall West was a member of the Crips street gang.
• Jared Terrasas had a conviction for misdemeanor spousal abuse prior to his deployment to Iraq
• Jessie L. Ullom had already been charged with abusing his infant son before he saw combat.

The only criteria the Times seems to have followed was to list all veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have killed someone upon returning to the United States, and they included those with mental illnesses that could not be attributed to military service (schizophrenia), vehicular homicides involving alcohol or drugs (manslaughter, not murder), cases where the veterans have not even had trials, and even one case where a soldier was tried and acquitted on the grounds of self defense.

Obviously, the would have preferred that this veteran, Christian Mariano, had not gone to picked up a female friend that had been beaten up by her boyfriend. They would have preferred that when he was attacked by a group, that he had not defended himself with his pocketknife. The would have rather that Khyle Dittrich had succeeded in strangling Mariano.

Then he would have been a veteran that they could support in death, the only kind of veteran the Times seems to like, other than those that join their favorite discount customer, MoveOn.Org, and similar groups.

Bu the New York Times has no interest in telling the true tale of a veteran who only wanted to help a battered woman.

Better to make him part of a dishonest statistic.

They have no interest in telling the story of the 1.5 million veterans of this nation's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who lead productive lives, and save lives, and contribute to our communities, and freedom. Instead, they highlight four atypical veterans out of 1.5 million to smear the all.

Once again, the New York Times engages in the vilest kind of yellow journalism.

Walter Duranty would be proud.

Family Politics

Should the exploits of relatives harm the chances of a Presidential candidate? (h/t Gateway Pundit)

Jimmy Carter wasn't responsible for the actions of his brother Billy, and it could hardly be said that Roger Clinton's problems are in any way the fault of brother Bill. Likewise, Hillary isn't to blame for Hugh Rodham's cash-for-pardons scandal.

So would it be fair to hold Barack Obama's feet to the fire for the Kenyan government's claim that his cousin Raila Odinga is behind ethnic cleansing in Kenya that has so far taken 600 lives?

Odinga is having to defend himself and his supporters from charges brought by the Kenyan government of ethnic cleansing following disputed Presidential elections in that African nation. He has condemned one of the most shocking incidents, where his supporters—reputedly Odinga's fellow Luo tribesmen—blocked the doors of a Christian church and burned dozens of Kikuyu men, women, and children alive inside.

Odinga's father led the communist opposition party during the Cold War and he was educated in East Germany. His brother is named after Fidel Castro. Far more troubling than his past, however, is Mr. Odinga's current pact with the National Muslim Leader's Forum, an hardline Islamist organization. Odinga has promised to institute harsh Sharia courts throughout the country if he was elected, and to ban Christian preaching.

But what does this have to do with Obama?

Daniel Johnson had this to say in a recent article in the NY Sun:

In August 2006, Mr. Obama visited Kenya and spoke in support of Mr. Odinga's candidacy at rallies in Nairobi. The Web site Atlas Shrugs has even posted a photograph of the two men side by side. More recently, Mr. Odinga says that Mr. Obama interrupted his campaigning in New Hampshire to have a telephone conversation with his African cousin about the constitutional crisis in Kenya.

What should Americans make of Mr. Obama's Kenyan connection? If he has been putting tribal or family considerations above America's national interest by supporting Mr. Odinga's anti-Western candidacy, it raises serious questions about his judgement.

At the time of his visit in 2006, President Kibaki's spokesman complained that Mr. Obama was behaving like a "stooge" of Mr. Odinga—which was at best undignified for a visiting American senator, and at worst unwarranted interference in the internal politics of another country.

Even more serious are the doubts raised by Mr. Obama's attitude toward Islam, which has so far received much less scrutiny than might be expected in a post-September 11 presidential election.

If Mr. Obama did not know about Mr. Odinga's electoral deal with the Kenyan Islamists when he offered his support, then he should have known. If he did know, then he is guilty of lending the prestige of his office to America's enemies in the global war on terror. We need to know exactly what Mr. Obama knew about Mr. Odinga, and precisely when he knew it.

To be fair to Barack Obama, he has no direct control over Mr. Odinga or the actions of his party or their fellow Luo tribesmen in a country on another continent.

Nor do I think he is putting distant tribal ties ahead of those of his own country, and I find the insinuation about his "attitude toward Islam" a bit much, considering Obama's well-known membership in a Chicago congregation of the Church of Christ (yes, even though Obama's pastor is a fan of racist Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan).

It simply isn't fair to judge Obama on any merits but his own.

But his judgement is part his own merits, and associating with an anti-western political leader, even when that leader is a relative—and perhaps precisely because that leader is a relative—brings up issues that Obama would do well to tamp down now, before another candidate seizes upon the issue.

Bill and Hillary Clinton can only distance themselves from their brothers but so much. They are, after all, brothers.

Obama, however, is not even on the same continent as Odinga, and would do well to let people know that their views are thousands of miles apart, as well.

At PJM: The New York Times Hits Veterans Yet Again

Did you read the article at the New York Times this past Sunday about the astronomical homicide rates among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan?

If you didn't, Samantha Sault captured a nice roundup of earlier blog reaction, which discovered that the Times left out key statistics in order to complete their smear.

It only gets worse from there.

Huckabee Supporters Caught Push-Polling Fred Thompson

Supporters of the budding theocrat who would like to change the U.S. Constitution to bend to his idea of God's will, are the obvious suspects.

The more I see of Mike Huckabee, his temper, ever-changing positions, and his sweet-as-sugar deceptiveness, the more I think he damages the image of Christians in the eyes of other Americans.

Harper's Defaults on Horton's Credibility

It appears that Roger Hodge, Editor of Harper's, Ellen Rosenbush, Managing Editor of Harper's, and Vice President of Public Relations Giulia Melluci, will not support claims made by Harper's contributor Scott Horton, who made the claim on August 24, 2007 that an unnamed "thuggish neocon" journalist fabricated a story while Horton was in Iraq.

Horton has refused to provide evidence of the story in question, as have his editors and Harper's Public Relations. We can only conclude at this time that such a story never existed, and that Horton's claim was fraudulent.

Mr. Hodge, Ms. Rosenbush, and Ms. Melucci were contacted to provide support for Horton's article on August 29 and December 29, 2007, in addition to previous docuemented attempts to Mr. Hodge and Ms. Rosenbush on August 27 and Ms. Melucci in a separate August 27 email, with a follow-up email to Ms. Rosenbush and Ms. Melucci on August 28. All of these followed an unsuccessful attempt to get Scott Horton to provide support for his claim on August 24.

This apparently fraudulent claim is not Horton's only ethical lapse; in a Pajama's Media article posted on January 4, I revealed that Horton's clear conflict of interest in writing about Associated Press photographer and terrorism suspect Bilal Hussein. Horton had been a member of Hussein's defense team, and his former legal partner is Hussein's present counsel.

Ironically, Horton's most recent post quotes Nietzsche:

He who does battle with monsters needs to watch out lest he in the process become a monster himself. And if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare right back at you.

If Harper's had any remaining pride, ethics, or editorial judgment, that quote would be his epitaph.

Birds of a Feather

Glenn Reynolds notes this from the Detroit Free Press:

The Michigan Democratic ballot is a sham that was rigged by Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband and her supporters to give the nation the impression that she's the leading candidate in Michigan, an angry former Sen. Don Riegle said Monday.

Riegle appeared at a rally in Detroit today to encourage would-be supporters of Barack Obama and John Edwards to vote uncommitted in Tuesday's primary. Riegle said he supports one of the two, but wouldn't say which.

"What happened in Michigan is not very different from what used to happen in the old Soviet Union," Riegle said. "The Clinton machine manipulated the ballot. They don’t care how they win, only that they do. It's wrong and people need to know that."

I wonder... where would Hillary have learned such a vile trick?

Perhaps from one of Barack Obama's previous campaigns:

The day after New Year's 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city's South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.

I presume former Sen. Don Riegle would support Edwards, then?

(Note: I vaguely recall another blogger brought up Obama's prior history earlier today, but I can't recall who it was to give them credit).

Murderous Marine's Vehicle Found

In Morrisville, NC... my wife works nearby and says the helicopters are still overhead:

Morrisville police are at a Microtel hotel were they believe they have found the vehicle belonging to the killer of a pregnant Marine.

A nationwide manhunt is under way for Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, who is wanted for killing Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, 20. She was 8 ½ months pregnant at the time.

Video shows that license plates on the truck at the hotel matched those on a black Dodge pick up that police said belonged to Laurean. The hotel is off Airport Boulevard near Interstate 40.

Though near RDU International Airport, there is no indication he attempted to get a flight out of North Carolina, and the last suspected sighting of Laurean placed him in Louisiana.

SockPuppet Super Lawyer

For a reputed legal scholar, Glenn Greenwald has an awfully poor understanding of the law that even this layman can poke gaping holes in.

In his typical long-winded, tedious style, he bloviates in support of Dennis Kucinich's attempt to sue his way into the Nevada Democratic debate:

The complaint (.pdf) filed by Kucinich is simple and straightforward. He alleges that he had a binding contract with MSNBC once they offered and he accepted the terms of his participation in the debate, and that MSNBC's refusal to allow him to participate constitutes a breach of that contract. He also alleges that his exclusion violates the mandates of Section 315 of the Communications Act, which requires broadcasters -- who operate the public airways, i.e., airways which are public, not private, property -- "to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance."

Nobody can opine meaningfully on the propriety of the court decision here without first knowing about, and then analyzing and resolving, those legal claims.

So according to Greenwald, Kucinich's claim rests upon two points:

• that he has a binding contract with MSNBC.
• That his exclusion violates Section 315 of the Communications Act.

Is either claim valid?

As The Liberal Journal points out, MSNBC's lawyers argue (.pdf) that the Federal Communications Act does not apply to a debate being broadcast on cable television, as the Act applies only to broadcast television (Section 315 [47 U.S.C. §315] (c)(1): "the term "broadcasting station" includes a community antenna television system").

The MSNBC lawyer's also claim that Kucinich failed to exhaust his adminstrative remedies by not filing his claim first with the Federal Communications Commission. Kucinich, essentially, attempted to short-circuit the process.

Second, MSNBC claims that an invitation does not constitute a contract.

And then there is the question brought up by Political Machine of whether or not a state judge even has the jurisdiction in a national cable broadcast.

There is no Constitutional right to free airtime on cable television, nor a Constitutional right to participate in a debate, nor even anything like a valid contract here.

Kuncinich has no case, and as is often the case, Greenwald has no credibility.

But then, Glenn Greenwald's credibility was never very high to begin with.

Update: Kucinich gets tossed by the Nevada Supreme Court. The lower court "manifestly abused its discretion in determining tha a contract existed between the parties," and they tossed the Section 315 claim as well.

Send in the Emoting Clown

Oh, Erica Jong, could you be any more of an argument against Hillary Clinton if you tried?

I am so tired of pink men bombing brown children and rationalizing it as fighting terrorism. I am so tired of pink men telling women (of all colors) what to do with their wombs--which connect with their brains--in case you forgot. I am so tired of pink men telling us we should stay in Iraq for generations. I am so tired of pink men buying bombs and cheating schools. I am so tired of pink men having wives who stand behind them and nod sagely on television. I am so tired of pink men expecting that someone--a brown, black, yellow or white woman--will trail behind them changing light bulbs, taking out garbage, washing laundry, keeping food in the house, taking care of kids of all ages, of parents of all ages. I am so tired of pink men whose wives double or triple the family income thinking they can spend it without doing a damn thing at home. I am so tired...

This not so-subtle plaintive wail in support of Hillary Clinton, full of high drama and lacking in substance, is perhaps precisely the reason we shouldn't elect a feminist of Jong's generation President. Unable to rationally argue from an intellectual position on why the former First Lady has the experience, integrity, or policy positions to warrant her ascension, Jong instead insists that merely being female is reason enough to be President.

Is this the best argument that she can put forth, that a woman should be elected because of her gender, not because she has superior talents or ideas?

"Most of the these people are not rational"

Oh, you've just got to love the fruits, nuts, and flakes attracted to one Ronald Ernest Paul:

The voices came from everywhere. California. Ohio. Florida. Michigan. Very few were from New Hampshire.

A man from Texas e-mailed that he was "contacting, by certified mail, the Attorney General of New Hampshire . . . and requesting a complete investigation and prosecution of any and all parties involved."

A police dispatcher in New London said yesterday she'd received inquiries about the clerk's office phone.

Call got a handful of calls that night at home, refusing to pick up whenever an out-of-state number appeared on her screen.

She got about five more the next day in her office. She tried to get work done. She called the Massachusetts company that makes the licenses for dog owners in her area. The guy had heard of her.

"Wow," the man said. "This is the second time this week I've seen your name."

"Where?" Call asked.

"I've gotten a dozen e-mails about how you've destroyed the New Hampshire primary."

"Why?"

"We make voting machines."

"The problem is," Call said yesterday, "we don't use voting machines."

She went home and locked her doors. She called her mother in North Carolina. She cried. The calls kept coming. She unhooked her answering machine and requested an unlisted number.

"I was drained emotionally and physically," Call said. "That's when I really started to freak out. Thursday it hit me, that most of these people are not rational. That's when I became scared."

He actually got 31.

Out of 920.

For this, irate and unhinged Paul supporters from around the nation have bombarded her office and home phone with cries of fraud and treason, and even a death threat.

Over a human error in transcribing results, an error that was corrected the next morning.

Let it be known far and wide that Ron Paul got a whopping 3.37% of the primary vote in Sutton, New Hampshire.

And leave this poor woman alone.

Prayers for "Big Country"

Long-time CY commenter William "Big Country" Coughlin is recovering in the United States from wounds sustained in the Middle East theater of operations (most likely Iraq, but I cannot yet confirm that detail).

The wounds are not life-threatening but have him confined to a wheelchair since late December. He hopes to make a full recovery and return to duty in Iraq providing logistical support within five weeks.

If you will, say a prayer for him and other contractors killed or wounded in the line of duty while supporting our military.

Is Mike Huckabee Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

As an evangelical Christian, I've long been bothered by Mike Huckabee's attempts to use his Christianity as a "holier than thou" political weapon against other candidates for President, even as he has lied about everything from his support of scholarships for illegal aliens (he wanted them), to his desire to raise taxes(he asked for them), to claims he has a theology degree (he didn't complete it).

This lack of honesty we generally associate with a previous Man From Hope has also been compounded by Huckabee's legendary problems with his temper, which have occasionally led to juvenile personal attacks (PDF) against his critics.

Huckabee exposed his childish side again this morning in a scatalogical reference directed at Fred Thompson. Thompson had ripped Huckabee's big government liberal tendencies during last night's Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

This morning in an interview with Joe Scarborough, Huckabee snapped:

Well, I think Fred needs some Metamucil. I think it would help a lot if he gets some.

Mike Huckabee, who almost has a theology degree, may be smarter than a fifth grader, but betrays yet again that he could only hope to be that mature.

Kos Revises History

Over at the Daily Kos, himself posts Let's have some fun in Michigan, an appeal for Democrats to vote from Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Michigan on Tuesday, January 15th, hoping to keep him in the race because:

...the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us.

Kos justifies this tactic by pointing out that Michigan Republicans pulled a similar dirty trick in 1972 to vote for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, noting that Republicans' made up a third of Wallace's vote total.

In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state's Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters (PDF) in the Democratic primary were Republican crossover votes.

But that isn't the whole story, and Kos purposefully leaves out the nasty truth: even without a single Republican vote, segregationist Wallace would have still won handily in 1972 Michigan, by more than 111,000 votes.

Michigan's apparently segregationist Democratic mainstream gave him at least 538,953 votes (I subtracted 1/3 of Wallace' total, as if all Republicans added to Wallace's vote total to arrive at that figure, even though 1/3 of the Republican cross-overs actually voted for McGovern. This figure is heavily biased in favor of his flawed argument, and he still loses), 111,259 more than also-ran George McGovern's 425,694 according to Kos' own source.

Kos can rightly claim that Republicans crossed over in 1972. He just can't credibly claim they affected the outcome.

At PJM: Assassinating Obama?

There have been quite a few articles written in the past week speculating that Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama might be assassinated by a shadowy cabal of gun-toting racists (or Halliburton and Blackwater).

In my latest Pajamas Media article, I trace that rumor back to it's true source, and find that that paranoia stems from the media's own stilted views of the American people.

Thompson Takes South Carolina

The Republican debate in Myrtle Beach was a clear win for Fred Thompson, and that seems to be the building prevailing sentiment. Everyone else seemed content to play defense and just attempt to hold ground. They failed.

As for Ron Paul... it was hard for both the moderating team and the candidates to hide their mix of pity and disgust. I almost expected to see a note with his home address pinned to his jacket.

Liberal Math

I don't often go after individual bloggers, but statements made yesterday by "dday" at Hullabaloo warrant direct comment.

Discussing a new report that places the number of Iraqi's killed since the start of the war until June of 2006 at roughly 151,000, "dday" wrote:

NPR was trying to spin this as somehow a LOW number of Iraqi civilian casualties in the last three and a half years, because it comes in lower than the Lancet study. But it remains 150,000 human lives, dead, senselessly, for an unnecessary war of choice. And that only goes up to June 2006, and the authors of the study admitted they were unable to reach certain areas that were "too violent."

Not to mention the 3,900-plus soldiers, including 9 in the last two days. And the numbers of wounded are incalculable.

All to remove a dictator who wasn't nearly as efficient at killing Iraqis.

Saddam Hussein "wasn't nearly as efficient at killing Iraqis"? Only in his community-based reality.

Between 70-125 Iraqi civilians were killed per day during Saddam Hussein's reign.

Along with other human rights organizations, The Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled documentation on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq. Human Rights Watch reports that in one operation alone, the Anfal, Saddam killed 100,000 Kurdish Iraqis. Another 500,000 are estimated to have died in Saddam's needless war with Iran. Coldly taken as a daily average for the 24 years of Saddam's reign, these numbers give us a horrifying picture of between 70 and 125 civilian deaths per day for every one of Saddam's 8,000-odd days in power.

That gives us a range of 600,000-1,000,000 civilians killed during Saddam's stewardship, with a median average of 97.5 Iraqi civilians killed per day during his reign, or 780,000. Over 24 years, that is a median average of 32,500 Iraqi civilians per year...

But this isn't a true "apples to apples" comparison, is it?

This does not include military deaths that occurred during Saddam's "unnecessary war of choice" with Iran from 1980-88, which which accounts for roughly one million more lives on both sides, nor casualties sustained as a result of his other "unnecessary war of choice" that resulted from his invasion of Kuwait, where an estimated 100,000+ died during the first Gulf War in 1990-91.

Combining the number of civilians killed by Saddam and number of soldiers killed on all sides during his two "unnecessary wars of choice," and we find a median estimate of 1.88 million killed during his 24-year reign, or 235 people a day.

The Iraq War started on March 20, 2003, and this study ran through June of 2006. In that time, 151,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, or 126.04 per day.

Add in 10,000 estimated terrorist/insurgent/militia dead and roughly 2762 through that time period Coalition military deaths, and you arrive at a rough total of 163762 total violent deaths, or 136.7 total violent deaths per day through June 2006.

235 violent deaths per day over Saddam's reign including his wars.

137 violent deaths per day in Iraq over the first three years of the present war.

You do the math, and try to paint Saddam's continued reign as a preferable state of affairs.

Air Strikes Hit 40 Targets in Iraqi Offensive

From 2nd BCT, 3rd Inf. Div. PAO, via email press release:

More than 40 targets were hit Jan. 10 after precision air strikes destroyed reported al-Qaeda safe havens in Arab Jabour. Thirty-eight bombs were dropped within the first 10 minutes, with a total tonnage of 40,000 pounds.

The precision air strikes supported Operation Phantom Phoenix, the overarching operation that includes Operation Marne Thunderbolt.

[snip]

Two B-1 Bombers and four F-16 fighter jets, directed bombs at three large target areas. Each bomber made two passes and the F-16s followed to complete the set.

Citi Merchant and First Data Corp's Backdoor Gun Control

Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp has decided to implement their own form of gun control, refusing to process credit card transactions between firearms retailers, distributors, and manufacturers, according to a press release issued by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry (h/t Hot Air).

CDNN Sports, Inc, a Texas-based firearms distributor, provided a copy of the notice of termination in which states in part:

We discussed with Mr. Crawford [of CDNN Sports Inc] said termination due to the sale of firearms in a non-face-to-face environment. Keep in mind that a violation of the Gun Control Act occurs when a gun offered online is sold to an individual in another State; the act prohibits selling a handgun to a resident of another state. Shipping across state lines is also banned, yet guns for sale online reach people across the country. We at Citi Merchant Services are unable to monitor or track adherence to these Gun Control laws.

A charitable explanation of this decision would be to state Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp lawyers are grossly incompetent. Online retailers do not sell firearms to individuals, and to suggest otherwise is ignorant, if not duplicitous.

Firearms "purchased" online are shipped from a distributor to a local Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder who has authority to sell firearms from the federal government. Once this FFL holder—typically retail establishments— receive the firearm, all individuals must complete a FBI NICS background check via Form 4473 and/or comply with state and local firearms regulations regarding retail firearms purchase. It is only after these background checks are satisfied that the local retail purchase actually occurs, face-to-face. There is never a direct sale from the online site to a non-FFL holding retail customer, as the termination notice incorrectly states, and does not in any way violate GCA '68.

At worst, this is an attempt at backdoor gun control, preventing manufacturers from shipping firearms to distributors, and from distributors to retailers. In doing so, Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp seem to assert that it is their responsibility to enforce laws, which is a patently absurd position. They are not the FBI nor the BATF, the two federal agencies tasked with enforcing these laws.

The firearms industry, of course, can easily voice their displeasure with their wallets by changing to other credit card transaction processing services that actually employ lawyers capable of understanding the applicable law.

I hope the company or companies that profit from this send Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp lawyers a nice gift basket.

Update: I'll send you over to SayUncle for a response from Citi Merchant Services and First Data, showing that they are, indeed, completely ignorant of the law and how firearms sales are conducted.

Ron Paul: Just Go Away

Ron Paul needs to simply go away.

Long-simmering rumors about his ties to bigots of many stripes have lurked in the background for years, only explode yesterday with well-documented examples of racism, hatred towards gays, and murky associations with conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis, and secessionists.

Some seem satisfied with Paul's weak claim that myriad examples of this inflammatory rhetoric went out under his name for over a decade without his knowledge or blessing. This requires a willing suspension of disbelief and an avoidance of reality only too typical of the paranoid fringe that have flocked to his campaign.

If he has any sense of decency, Paul should withdraw from the 2008 Presidential race, and should also consider vacating his Congressional seat. The voters of Texas' 22nd 14th District deserves better representation than this.

We all do.

Update: CNN gets in the action with a feature story called Ron Paul '90s newsletters rant against blacks, gays.

Dear Network and Cable News Outlets

Not to point out the obvious to the oblivious, but at a time when newsrooms are loss-leaders at best, you might be financially better off in getting your wildly inaccurate pre-primary punditry from bloggers.

I'm pretty sure I could be every bit as wrong as Zogby, Rasmussen, etc for $50K-$100K less per state.

Uh-oh

Curtains for Ron Paul?

...whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

I doubt this is the last we'll see of this kind of article targeting the company Paul keeps, either.

Update: More on this via Daniel Koffler at Pajamas Media, starting with this (dis)taste of pull-quotes from "Ron Paul's Political Report" newsletter from the 1980s and early 1990s.

"[O]ur country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists—and they can be identified by the color of their skin."

"I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city [Washington, D.C.] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

"We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational."

"The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics."

"The criminals who terrorize our cities—in riots and on every non-riot day—are not exclusively young black males, but they largely are. As children, they are trained to hate whites, to believe that white oppression is responsible for all black ills, to "fight the power," and to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as possible. Anything is justified against 'The Man.' And 'The Woman.'"

This looks bad for Paul...very bad. That hasn't kept his true believers from bombarding PJM's comment thread.

Huckabee's Radical Immigration Shift

Break out the shovel:

Mike Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to prevent children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens from automatically becoming American citizens, according to his top immigration surrogate — a radical step no other major presidential candidate has embraced.

Mr. Huckabee, who won last week's Republican Iowa caucuses, promised Minuteman Project founder James Gilchrist that he would force a test case to the Supreme Court to challenge birthright citizenship, and would push Congress to pass a 28th Amendment to the Constitution to remove any doubt.

This is a radical shift from an immigration position of just a little over a month ago as reported in the same newspaper, where his position as governor of Arkansas was labeled "an absolute disaster."

"Every time there was any enforcement in his state, he took the side of the illegal aliens."

As Mark Levin notes, this is a massive flip-flop from Huckabee, who supported making the children of illegal aliens eligible for college scholarships and called legislation to crack down on illegal immigration in Arkansas "inflammatory and race-baiting" while governor just two years ago, a fact he did not dispute in the GOP debate in New Hampshire on September 5, 2007.

Issues2000.org has much, much more on Huckabee's shifting positions.

Update: Hmmm... backing down on a previous pander? Perhaps his moral compass needs to be re-magnitized.

Obama's Damaged Foreign Policy

Over at Hot Air, Bryan notes that Barack Obama's foreign policy plan doesn't exist.

I wish I could agree with him, but as I read the page now and click the "Read the Plan" link, that isn't true.

It isn't non-existent. Its just damaged and unreadable.

But then, we knew that, didn't we?

The New Hampshire Primary Begins...

...with a route in the tiny hamlet of Dixville Notch, where Hillary Clinton didn't pick up a single vote among the 17 voters. Barack Obama got seven votes, John Edwards picked up two, and Bill Richardson picked up one. On the Republican side, John McCain picked up four vtoes, ?Mitt Romney two, and Rudy Giuliani picked up one.

As noted in the Fox News article, the small towns that opened door to voters at midnight are far too small to be seen as reflective of the state's trends.

Scott Elliott of Election Projection is predicting a very narrow 34% to 33% win for Republican candidate John McCain over Mitt Romney, and a significant 41% to 34% victory for Obama over Clinton, the once-favored Democratic candidate once seen by many as the inevitable Democratic winner.

Independent voters are the key to this primary, with the ability to vote in Democratic or Republicans. Mitt Romney's campaign is said to be hoping for enough independent voters to cast votes for Barack Obama and possibly siphon votes from John McCain to give him a victory. I think that is exactly what will happen.

My guesses are just that (guesses), but here they go.

I didn't include Duncan Hunter on the Republican side because I don't think he'll make even 1% after his hissy fit yesterday.

Update: So, how do we read the latest at Drudge that the New Hampshire Secretary of State is rushing to bring ballots to "Seacoast – Hampton, Portsmouth – and Southern Hillsborough – Pelham, Nashua" and other cities running low on Democratic ballots?

If you run with the theory that independents are choosing between Obama and McCain, we could be looking at the seeds of a mild McCain upset by Mitt Romney due to the independents crowding onto Democrat ballots.

This would seem to all but end John McCain's presidential aspirations.

I Wouldn't Get Too Excited...

...over news that Osma Bin Laden's security coordinator was captured in Lahore, Pakistan.

Not because it couldn't happen, but because the source is Pakistan's The Nation, the same news organization that reported the claim last week that Benazir Bhutto was killed by a laser.

As a result, I'd consider their credibility just a wee bit suspect.

Iran Pushes Its Luck

Iranian Revolutionary Guard fast-attack boats came with 200 yards of American Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz Saturday, almost provoking American forces to open fire:

Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats harassed and provoked three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route off the Iranian coast, over the weekend, CNN reported on Monday.

Citing unidentified U.S. officials, CNN said the Iranian vessels came within 200 yards (metres) of the U.S. ships in international waters in the strait on Saturday, and U.S. sailors came close to opening fire.

Oil prices rose about 30 cents to over $98 a barrel after the CNN report, with traders citing increased risk of disruptions to oil shipments along the key shipping route.

U.S. military officials told CNN the boats were "attack craft" that they believed were operated by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard.

The Iranian boats made threatening maneuvers against the U.S. warships and threatening radio transmissions, the officials told CNN.

The captain of one U.S. vessel was in the process of giving the order to shoot when the Iranian ships began turning away, CNN said.

A radio transmission from one of the Iranian ships said, "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes," CNN reported, citing a U.S. official.

After the threatening radio communication, U.S. sailors manned their ships' guns and were very close to opening fire, it said.

There was no immediate U.S. comment.

If this account is accurate, these Iranian craft were literally within seconds of being destroyed. The order to fire was on the lips of the U.S. Navy captain as the Iranian boats threatened a suicide attack as they came in, only to turn away at the last second.

Occurring on the eve of President Bush's trip to the region which hoped to spur on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, the apparent attempt was to force American forces to defend themselves and trigger a new crisis between the United States and Iran.

As we look to tomorrow's primary in New Hampshire, I'm forced to consider how the various presidential candidate's would have responded if such a provocation had occurred on their watch.

I think it goes without saying that on the Democratic side the candidates are less than inspiring in this kind of crisis, with only Hillary giving me the slightest hope of anything less than a Carteresque response. I think the same holds true for Huckabee and Paul on the Republican side of the equation, and with his foreign policy "experience," I imagine Huckabee's first response would be to wonder why the Irish were mad at us in the first place, and reflexively issuing an executive order raising import taxes on Guinness in retaliation.

Romney may do okay in such a situation, but I know I'd rather have McCain or Thompson in office if it ever "hit the fan" with Iran, as indeed it may on the next President's watch.

We were apparently just seconds away from a shooting war this past Saturday.

Who would you want in office if when they try this again?

Pajamas Media War on Terror Conversations

Claudia Rosett and Roger L. Simon braved the freezing New Hampshire temperatures last week to talk to Republican Presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and John McCain about the War on Terror, in the latest of Pajamas Media's War on Terror Conversation series.

The Rudy Giuliani conversation is here.

The John McCain conversation is here.

An earlier conversation with Fred Thompson is here.

DaybyDay Fundraiser

Chris Muir of DaybyDay—one of the best online cartoon series going—is raising funds, and could certainly use your support.

Like most bloggers, Chris is not a full-time cartoonist, and DaybyDay takes up a tremendous amount of time to write, well, day by day.

Drop on over and toss him a couple of bucks, will you?

A Blogger Dies at War

Blogger and soldier Andrew Olmsted, who often posted as G-Kar at Obsidian Wings, was killed in combat yesterday in Iraq. As far as you know, he was killed defending a village composed solely of innocent women and children from hundreds of insurgents.

Knowing the risks he took as a soldier, he composed a moving, reflective final post to be published in the event of his death.

In Major Olmstead's last paragraph he expressed doubts in an afterlife. I sincerely hope he finds himself today in Heaven, pleasantly surprised.

His writing is archived at http://www.andrewolmsted.com/

Harper's Horton Scandals Heat Up

Horton Hears a Boo: Journalistic Hijinks at Harper's Exposed is now up at Pajamas Media and has already been linked by both Instapundit and Powerline.

It turns out that Harper's writer Scott Horton, who has been a leading cheerleader for imprisoned Associated Press photographer and terrorism suspect Bilal Hussein, was a former investigator for Hussein's defense team, a disclosure that he has failed to make in his recent attacks against the U.S. military's handling of the Hussein case.

This particular bit of journalistic malpractice is unrelated to another budding scandal surrounding Horton's still unsupported August 24 claim that an unnamed "thuggish neocon" journalist fabricated a story while Horton was in Iraq.

Repeatedly pressed for comment and proof of the anonymous article Horton alludes to, Harper's Editor Roger D. Hodge, Managing Editor Ellen Rosenbush, Vice President of Public Relations Giulia Melucci and Horton have thus far refused to support or retract his claim. Hodge, Rosenbush, and Melucci were contacted as recently as December 30, but remain mute, apparently hoping to stonewall their way through this scandal.

In light of these developments, perhaps Andrew Sullivan may want to reconsider his statement that, "Scott Horton has as much integrity as anyone I know."

Stunning Iowa Prediction from Election Projection: Huckabee by 11%, Thompson within 1% of Romney

Specifically, Scott Elliott is predicting the Republican race in Iowa at Huckabee 30%, Romney 19%, Thompson 18%, Paul at 14%, and McCain at 13%.

On the Democratic side, he has Obama blowing away the rest of the field with 38%, Edwards picking up 29%, and Clinton finishing third with just 25%.

Coming from anyone else I'd not give these numbers a second look, but Elliott's track record speaks for itself when using his formulas.

He is however, using his intuition instead of a formula for this particular prediction, so keep that in consideration.

Update: Hmm...

Positive ID On Bhutto Assassination Gun

Abid Jan of dictatorshipwatch.com has posted a link to another image of the firearm used in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the comments of this earlier post that identified the weapon as a Steyr M.

Here is the new photo.

This is a much better photo the the grainy picture originally released by the Associated Press, and because of this, the sidearm's distinctive characteristics a a definitive match for the Steyr M-A1 variant, proving the earlier supposition by "karlJ" beyond a reasonable doubt.

Her is a Steyr M-A1 as pulled from the Steyr web site, with three distinguishing characteristics highlighted.

Here is a rotated and magnified version of the picture submitted by Abid Jan, with those same distinguishing characteristics highlighted.

Why would the assassin use a a Steyr M-A1?

Availability is typically a prime concern, as an assassin will use the weapon he has access to, but online research suggests that there is little indication that the M-A1 is normally exported to Pakistan in any numbers, suggesting that this was a purpose-specific acquisition.

The M-A1 is touted by Steyr for its relatively unique trapezoid sighting system, which the company touts as "a new and innovative stepping stone towards quicker target acquisition." The 111-degree grip angle is also said to put the shooter's hand more in-line with the bore of the pistol, reducing upward muzzle movement and enabling faster follow-up shots, and the guns relatively light weight (27oz. empty) theoretically enhances control, allowing faster follow-up shots.

Sadly, at the bottom of the Steyr site in red text are the words NO AUSTRIAN WEAPONS FOUND WITH TERRORISTS!, and a link to a story from last year, where an irresponsible British journalist claimed Steyr HS 50 sniper rifles purchased by Iran were being supplied to terrorists in Iraq, a claim I also debunked.

This time, through no obvious fault of the company, they cannot make that claim.

Late Thompson Surge in Iowa

According to Zogby. Adds Peter Robinson at NRO's The Corner:

Iowa Republicans, in other words, have wanted Thompson to do them the courtesy of actually campaigning—and now they’re beginning to realize that he has. First Thompson conducted a two-week bus tour of Iowa at which he campaigned in more than 50 towns and cities. Then he taped a 17-minute video in which he makes his case more calmly, deliberately, and and with incomparably greater respect for the issues than has any of his opponents. And? For a lot of Iowa Republicans, that’s all they needed.

Over at Hot Air, Allah is soliciting predictions of what percentage of the vote Thompson takes in Iowa.

I'm keeping my prediction to myself, but you're welcome to drop yours in the comments.

PPP-Nuts: Dr. Evil Killed Bhutto...

...with a "la-ser."

Former prime minister and PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto was targeted with the latest laser beam technology, being used by the American forces in Iraq, PPP sources told TheNation Tuesday.

Baitullah Mahsud and Taliban don't have such technology. After bomb blasts in Karachi on Oct 18, Mahsud sent two messages to Benazir in which he said that they have neither any hostility against her, nor would make any attempt to kill her.

"When Benazir was admitted to Rawalpindi General Hospital, Dr M Musaddiq Khan told a PPP leader that he saw such a case for the first time in his life. These wounds were not of bullets, Dr said and added that she had expired before shifting to the hospital and a part of her brain and blood had spilled over from her head," the sources unveiled.

Believe it or not, quasi-respectable news agencies are also picking the story up, including The Australian. Even blogs, including The Moderate Voice, are running this at face value.

Truly, we have lost the War on Drugs.

There are indeed man-portable and vehicle mounted laser units in the world's militaries, but all of those smaller than a locomotive are "dazzler"-type non-lethal weapons, meant to blind people or sensors... they cannot kill someone.

Those military lasers powerful enough to kill missiles—or anything else—are so large that the have to be mounted on ships or multi-engine aircraft. One of the smallest versions ( and few actually close to production use; most others are still experimental) the MTHEL, or Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser, is "mobile" is that it can be carried by three tractor-trailers before being assembled into a fixed weapons system.

The beam created by these huge and very expensive lasers is not small, either. The MRACL tested at White Sands New Mexico had a beam 5.5" square.

In that regard, A.J. Strata is wrong when he states:

But if a high powered laser were to be used it would leave just as much of a signature as a bullet. A nice clean, cauterized path would be clearly evident.

In actuality, locomotive-sized laser weapons would work on human beings the same way they work in shooting down missiles and artillery shells. It superheats them until they blow apart. As Bhutto's head did not burst like Jiffy-Pop, this stupid theory should quickly be put to rest. Unfortunately, as soon as some nutter figures out who owns such defense weapons systems the conspiracy theorizing is only likely to get worse.

Too Little, Too Late: Scotland Yard to Probe Bhutto Assassination

For what little it is worth:

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday that British investigators are heading to Pakistan to help clear up the confusion surrounding Thursday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

"I am very thankful to [British] Prime Minister Gordon Brown that when I made this request he accepted that," Musharraf said in a nationally televised address.

The Scotland Yard team, he said, "will solve all the confusion" surrounding how Bhutto died last week.

Musharraf expressed his condolences about the killing of Bhutto, who he said "has been martyred by terrorists."

Frankly, I have my doubts on what good this investigation will do, and that is not meant as a slight against Scotland Yard, but instead against what little evidence they will have on hand.

The crime scene where Bhutto was apparently shot and a suicide bomber detonated had been cleared within hours; the debris, blood, and any remaining evidence washed away. Benazir Bhutto has been interred, as have the bodies of the victims of the suicide blast, and it remains to be seen if Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, will allow Scotland Yard to exume Bhutto's remains for an autopsy.

The remaining evidence seems to include:

• part of the head of the suicide bomber
• forensic evidence in the two vehicles that transported Bhutto
• the assassin's pistol, tentatively identified as a Steyr M
• several video tapes of the attack
• still photos
• eyewitness accounts
• X-rays
• doctor's notes

The documentary evidence will presumably add little to the investigation. The media-provided X-rays seem to show little, and a formal autopsy was never performed. Both pundits and professionals have examined the video, and it would be surprising if they hold much in the way of substantial new information, outside of audio recorded on the videotapes which may prove or disprove the theory of additional gunshots being fired. The eyewitness accounts are very conflicted, and as a rule, are typically unreliable.

If positively identified, the suicide bomber may provide some clues as to his associations, but that is far from a certainty.

Then there are the two vehicles in the attack, if they have not been compromised.

The first was the vehicle that Bhutto was riding in at the time of the attack, and it could presumably tell us quite a bit about the blast itself, and may account for any bullets fired low that hit the vehicle. An examination of the right rear sunroof lever may be able to account for the blood on the lever, and if bent or stressed, may give some insight into how hard Bhutto hit the lever, if at all. Bhutto's supporters transferred the former prime minster to a second vehicle on the way to the hospital as the first had suffered significant damage as a result of the blast, but I would expect it to have less useful forensic evidence.

The pistol's serial number should give investigators an idea of the firearm's origins, and if bullets or shell casings are recovered from the crime scene or the vehicle (or less likely, Bhutto) that match those cartridges presumably still in the recovered pistol's magazine, it could verify that the weapon was that used in the assassination attempt.

Scotland Yard's entry will provide the appearance of something being done, but it comes long after the most useful evidence has been literally washed away.

There They Go Again

Stop me if you've heard this before, but the Associated Press has run yet another exaggerated massacre story in Iraq based upon questionable sources they claim are Iraqi police officers.

On Monday, AP ran the claim:

A suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint manned by a group fighting against al-Qaida in Iraq, killing 12 people in one of a series of strikes Monday against the largely Sunni movement singled out by Osama bin Laden as a "disgrace and shame."

[snip]

In the most serious attack against one of the groups Monday, a suicide bomber drove a minibus rigged with explosives into a checkpoint in Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad, police and a member of the local awakening council said.

The explosion killed 12 people, said Adil al-Mishhadani, a member of the council. The council commander, who gave his name only as Abu Arkan for security reasons, said later that the dead included three children on their way to school and nine council members.

Three people were missing, Abu Arkan said.

Not so fast. MNC-I states that only two civilians (not 12) were killed in the attack, two were injured, and two civilians (not three) were missing.

Once again in this article, the Associated Press used anonymous Iraqi Police officers of dubious credibility to make up the bulk of their sourcing, with journalists apparently being nowhere near the scene.

As a result, the number of false reports of massacres and exaggerated reports of attacks in Iraq by the media seems to be on the rise.

Perhaps we should consider this trend the media's "surge?"