Ethical Problems In Our Military?

The Washington Post has a front page article titled "Troops At Odds With Ethical Standards." I challenge you to read this and then decide which is the ethically challenged party here, our soldiers or the Washington Post that ran the story on their front page under that headline:

More than one-third of U.S. soldiers in Iraq surveyed by the Army said they believe torture should be allowed if it helps gather important information about insurgents, the Pentagon disclosed yesterday. Four in 10 said they approve of such illegal abuse if it would save the life of a fellow soldier.

How is holding that belief the failure of an ethical standard? Acting on it would be a failure of a standard under current U.S. policy, but that is a different animal entirely. Wanting to do harm to someone and actually doing it are two widely different situations.

Further, given what our soldiers have been exposed to in Iraq - the utter lack of any morality on the part of an enemy who revels in civilian carnage, makes use of human shields, and has on several occasions used children to effect suicide bombings - it is no surprise whatsoever that many a soldier feels that torturing these bastards is appropriate to save an American life or to stop such future acts of mindless carnage. That is not the failure of an ethical standard, its simply a different standard then one finds being bandied about several thousand miles away in the safety of the ACLU headquarters, or in a speech being given by Ted Kennedy or Dick Durbin.

In addition, about two-thirds of Marines and half the Army troops surveyed said they would not report a team member for mistreating a civilian or for destroying civilian property unnecessarily.

That is part of building a team that has to rely on one another for their own life on a 24/7 basis. Its not desirable, but it is not surprising either. I would like to know similar results from major police departments in high crime areas to assess whether this is unusual. I am willing to bet it is not.

"Less than half of Soldiers and Marines believed that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect," the Army report stated.

I wonder how the question was framed and what were the reasons given for the answers? To the extent that it means soldiers are just pissed because of the difficulty distinguishing enemy from non-combatants, that is one thing. Acting out on that frustration is something else entirely. But the Washington Post again does not answer that question - yet. We are left to contemplate how evil and unethical our soldiers are for a bit longer.

About 10 percent of the 1,767 troops in the official survey -- conducted in Iraq last fall -- reported that they had mistreated civilians in Iraq, such as kicking them or needlessly damaging their possessions.

That is not surprising in a group as large of the army, that ten percent actually act out their frustrations or sadism. The numbers do not jibe with the answer to the above question on dignity and respect. In any event, insuring that this does not happen is a function of leadership at the platoon and squad level. If isolated incidents occur among ten percent of the soldiers, that would seem just unfortunate reality - again, not a systemic breach of ethics.

Army researchers "looked under every rock, and what they found was not always easy to look at," said S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. The report noted that the troops' statements are at odds with the "soldier's rules" promulgated by the Army, which forbid the torture of enemy prisoners and state that civilians must be treated humanely.

Hmmm, I wonder if the researchers asked the soldiers why they had different rules? Without that answer, it is impossible to evaluate whether the rules are unrealistic for the situation, or whether we need to be doing a better job with our junior NCO's and officers.

Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, the acting Army surgeon general, cast the report as positive news. "What it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts," she said. "They're not torturing the people."

WOW. Finally, after telling us about how bad are our soldiers, the Washington Post finally gets to the meat of it. This is ridiculous. This is should be the lead paragraph, not all this other crap which is just pure insinuation under a misleading headline. Good job Washington Post. Suppose you might be running a post on al Qaeda ethics anytime soon, just for balance?

But human rights activists said the report lends support to their view that the abuse of Iraqi civilians by U.S. military personnel was not isolated to some bad apples at Abu Ghraib and a few other detention facilities but instead is more widespread. "These are distressing results," said Steven R. Shapiro, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. "They highlight a failure to adequately train and supervise our soldiers."

My suggestion, let's embed the ACLU and other human rights activists with units in Iraq so they can get a dose of reality to go along with their utopian ideals and beliefs that the U.S. and its military are the source of all evil. Let them get a different perspective in an embed. Somebody call al Qaeda, let's see if they will accept a delegation.

The study also found that the more often soldiers are deployed, the longer they are deployed each time; and the less time they spend at home, the more likely they are to suffer mental health problems such as combat trauma, anxiety and depression. That result is particularly notable given that the Pentagon has sent soldiers and Marines to Iraq multiple times and recently extended the tours of thousands of soldiers to 15 months from 12 months.

"The Army is spread very thin, and we need it to be a larger force for the number of missions that we were being asked to address for our nation," Pollock said.

Yes. This is precisely why increasing the size of our military needs to be at the top of the list of Congressional priorities. This is a legitimate screw up by Bush and company. It is not, however, a reason to declare surrender.

. . . Overall, 20 percent of the soldiers surveyed and 15 percent of the Marines appeared to suffer from depression, anxiety or stress, the Army reported. That was in keeping with findings of past surveys, as was the conclusion that more than 40 percent of soldiers reported low morale in their units.

The stress and anxiety numbers actually seem low. I wonder how they match up with similar complaints of depression, stress and anxiety in the U.S. population? Will have to ask Dr. Sanity that one. As to the low morale, I wonder which unit types were asked that question, and whether there was any evaluation of the basis for the low morale. It is a different problem entirely if the cooks in Division Headquarters Company have low morale, as opposed to infantry soldiers who are being asked to carry the fight to the enemy. And I would love to know what impact Harry Reid and Jack Murtha have played into the low morale? Wouldn't you?

Read the entire article here. It says alot, tells us next to nothing, and besmirches our troops. Just another day at the Washington Post. I will see if I can get a copy of the report and try to fill in the gaping blanks. There are no systemic ethical problems with our soldiers - just the Washington Post's news desk.

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Iran's Economic Time Bomb

Even as the Supreme Guide and the Supreme Mouth of Iran, Khamenei and Ahmedinejad respectively, seek to go nuclear, it may well be the local Iranians who go nuclear first. The clerics of Tehran and the IRGC have never paid that much attention to the economy, other then to squeeze every last dime from it that they can get. The Iranian economic system is famed for its corruption. But, up to now, subsidy of many everyday products, such as gas, have kept the middle class from joining the many segments of Iranian society ready to go into open revolt. Now as the economics get ever worse, the clerics are seeking to lay all the blame on Ahmedinejad and jettison him in hopes of keeping their skins intact and their bank accounts solvent (Allah be praised):

The play has ended and the 15 British pawns have returned to their families. The verdict is that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad neither enhanced his image as the divinely inspired warrior, who humbled the British lion, nor as the humanitarian, who freed the fifteen helpless prisoners.

The public was not fixated on the television drama that Ahmadinejad presented. Instead, Iranians are watching the prices of tomatoes and other basic necessities rising at between 20% and 40% per annum, while salaries and wages are scarcely moving.

On 21 May, the long awaited next economic blow will strike when gasoline rationing goes into effect. Iranian drivers will be limited to three litres per day at the subsidized cost of 40 cents per gallon. They will be permitted to purchase more than the three litres, but anything beyond the limit will be at a higher price. What that higher price will be has not been announced.

Rationing is the final admission by the Ahmadinejad administration that the program of promised prosperity that began a mere two years ago has failed and has brought only inflation, hardship and unemployment. The president’s preoccupation with verbal warfare with the rest of the world has done nothing to improve the lives of the Iranian public.

. . . [Ahmedinejad's recent] statements to the outside world may reduce the level of tension, but his political survival does not depend upon what foreigners think. His survival will be determined by what Iranians do; and they have spoken already. President Ahmadinejad’s days are numbered. His failed policies have alienated the lower income portion of the population that had been is strongest supporters.

He ignored in December the discontent of the public when his faction was defeated in the local elections. In spite of the severe losses, he continued his confrontations with the U.S. and the U.N.

Although he failed to heed the warning from the disenchanted voters, the conservative clergy that had elevated him from obscurity as the mayor of Tehran to the prominence of the presidency, were aware of his falling star. In January, while Ahmadinejad was visiting Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and other leaders with an anti-American view, the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei withdrew his support. Since then, the Supreme Leader has retreated into the safety of the shadows, while Ahmadinejad remains exposed to the public scorn.

Blame for everything that has gone wrong with the economy is being placed directly upon Ahmadinejad. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that “economics is for donkeys,” but he is demonstrating by his silence that he understands just how hard a hungry donkey can kick.

Ahmadinejad is learning that his former supporters have abandoned him and that is personal connections with the divine world will not protect him from the angry public. For that, he is relying upon the police and brute force. Any demonstration is being met with police batons and arrests. Opposing newspapers have been shut down; bloggers are being required to register. Once ignored morality codes are being enforced with a new vigour. Women wearing Western fashions are being warned that they can be flogged and barbers are under orders to provide only Islamic haircuts or face revocation of their business licenses.

The crack down gives signs of a pre emptive strike by a government preparing for worse conditions ahead. The real trouble is expected when the full impact of the rationing regulations is felt. During April, the first sign was an increase in the minimum charge by taxis that are often used for car-pooling. One more squeeze on already stretched home budgets could very easily be the breaking point that could send people into the streets to demand the resignation of the president. Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian economist, believes that rationing will stir social disorder and further economic stresses. His words are given credibility by the open grumbling that is being heard on the streets.

Khamenei and the “Grey Elite,” the conservative clergy that dominates much of Iranian life, seems to be preparing for Ahmadinejad’s departure. When the protesting demonstrators turn into the screaming mobs that want someone to pay for the public misfortune, the clergy will need a scapegoat; and no one fills that role better than Ahmadinejad, who has spent the two years of his administration cultivating the image of the firebrand.

Waiting in the wings to replace Ahmadinejad is Brigadier General Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf. Like Ahmadinejad, he was a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG).

Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf was chief of the national police and succeeded Ahmadinejad to the office of mayor of Tehran. While Ahmadinejad has been portrayed often as a mystic, Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf is described as a “pragmatic conservative,” a man concerned with civic improvements and not with international confrontations.

. . . This is not a change in the essence of the system that gives the clergy its privileges. It is a change only of style in an effort to preserve the status quo, while giving the appearance of substantive change. A brief look at Qalibaf’s credentials reveals a man dedicated to the preservation of the current system.

How quickly the change comes will depend upon the determination of the demonstrators in the streets. When the mob demands blood, the Ayatollah will serve up the head of Ahmadinejad to satisfy the blood lust.

For the outside world, it should bring a respite from the months of threats and bluster. At that point, how much of a risk premium has been built into the price of crude oil should reveal itself. Whatever it is, the oil markets are likely to experience a softening in price, which actions by the George Bush Administration is making a more likely possibility.

. . . Now, we wait. Already, the grumbling in the streets has begun. Somewhere down the road in the near future, as people run out of gas, Ahmadinejad will run out of time. The neglected people will openly express their rage, and the pretence of change will come. It should for a while lower the pressure in the region; and it will all depend upon the anger of the mob.

Read the entire article here. My own personal suggestion to Khamenei and his corrupt and bloody clerics is that they pacify the mobs by suggesting that they eat some cake.

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Girls Gone Wild . . . in Saudi Arabia?

Unless my eyes deceive me . . . Ibn Wahhab must be rolling over in his unmarked grave at the moment. It seems there is an internet sex revolution in Ridyah. See here.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Fred: The Early Days

In 1996, Fred Thompson won election as Senator from Tennessee, coming from a large deficit to outpace his rival. Knox Metropulse tells the story, and how they see it reasonably likely that Fred Thompson can succeed in much the same way in his run for the presidency:

. . . Fred Thompson, on his first campaign appearance in East Tennessee, assumed (not incorrectly) we were a group of local rednecks. We surrounded him like a bear in a ring and started peppering him with questions. The death penalty. Abortion. Taxes. Gun Control. To each question Thompson replied with a long, carefully guarded lawyerly answer. . . .

As I recall it was our consensus opinion that Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper, a pretty good conservative, would eat this guy alive in the upcoming Senate race. Thompson's answers sounded like Belle Meade cocktail party chit-chat, rambling and evasive and politically correct. We were naturally suspicious of him anyway; he was U.S. Sen. Howard Baker's protégé. You know Baker—the guy conservatives say enabled Jimmy Carter to give away the Panama Canal. The Tennessee Conservative Union has a reputation as an anti-income tax group, but the organization was originally formed to fight the Panama Canal decision.

The myth has arisen that Thompson has never had a hard political race. At the beginning of the 1994 Senate campaign he was down 20 points to Cooper, and East Tennessee conservatives were just not that impressed. . . .

. . . As the campaign wore on that spring and summer Thompson seemed to begin to remember that bike plant and the people he worked with and grew up with. He began to set aside the lawyer and Senate staffer persona he had taken on over the years. His speeches became shorter. More to the point. He started to connect with people.

I think the turning point came at Mule Day in Columbia, in the spring of 1994. He put on jeans and boots and got on a horse and rode in the parade. He was a huge success; the crowd went wild. He kept the cowboy boots, and often, the jeans. He famously mounted up in a red pickup truck and toured around the state. The stuffy lawyer disappeared. Instead there as an assured public persona that connected with people on a very personal level.

Given Thompson's movie roles and his role on the current television series Law & Order , his critics might say he was just an actor who finally got into the good old boy role. His friends would point out — he ain't that great an actor.

Lamar Alexander wore a plaid shirt and walked across Tennessee, but no one ever confused him with a good old boy.

The red truck has been derided as a gimmick since Thompson had spent his adult life as a Washington lobbyist and an attorney. The Cooper campaign suggested a limo was more his style. But if the truck had not been authentic it would have been about as successful as Michael Dukakis in a tank—the photo op that came to symbolize a losing 1988 presidential campaign. Fred fit in the truck. Dukakis didn't fit in the tank.

At another political event in early summer 1994 I noticed that the crowds that used to come to cheer on Sundquist were still enthusiastic for him, but the crowds went nuts for “Fred.” He was now the focus of political gatherings, and he got mobbed afterwards.

Major Garrett is now a reporter for the Fox cable news channel. In 1994 he was a political reporter for the Washington Times . He came down and followed Fred on a tour of East Tennessee. After a hard day of campaigning we were sitting on the front porch and I asked him what he thought.

He described an incident from that afternoon. They stopped at a convenience store in Sevier County. They left the red truck in the parking lot; there was no one else there. They got soft drinks and Fred spent some time talking to the store clerk. When they came outside, cars and trucks were pulling into the parking lot and people were gathered around the truck. Fred pulled the tail gate down, got up and gave a short speech, and everyone hooted and hollered.

Garrett said he had covered political campaigns all over the country that summer and the usual problem for politicians was trying to find a crowd and jump in front of it. He was amazed that Fred could conjure one up in an empty parking lot in rural Sevier County.

It was that rock-star quality that led Thompson to win the Senate seat. As a quote from a book about that election had it: “People in Tennessee liked Jim Cooper. But they loved Fred.”

The lawyer we had dismissed the previous summer as hopeless had become a natural. His frustrations with the conventions of political campaigning led him to just cast them aside and do it his way. The question now becomes whether he can cast aside the traditional method of running for president and invent his own way of doing it. The probability now is that Thompson will enter the presidential race, possibly by next month. It is not likely Thompson would put Baker, Bill Frist, Zach Wamp, Jimmy Duncan and Beth Harwell out there on a limb heading a Draft Fred movement were he not serious about running.

. . . But the key to Thompson's hesitation may lie elsewhere: It's what presidential candidates have traditionally had to do to get elected. You go hat in hand and you beg money from people who have had enough success in life to give them a sense of entitlement. If you've had the ability to make millions selling plumbing fixtures, shouldn't you have some input on the next Secretary of State?

It is this sort of system that produces a George Bush as a presidential candidate. I had a conversation with a rich young man, more thoughtful than most, who has had some success in politics. He had been in one of those rooms with Bush, everyone there just like him, just like Bush. He wondered if Bush ever met anyone other than the people just like him—wealthy, confident and privileged. Is this a system that produces a president that has any idea how most of the people in America live?

The worst time running for president is in the early months, going door to door like a condo salesman, asking the guys with check books to invest in your campaign. Mitt Romney is great at it. Thompson hates it. His strategy may be to come in in the middle of this campaign, capitalize on the discomfort Republicans have with the field and gamble on good poll numbers to create excitement. If that happens, the money will come.

. . . Can Thompson win? Since 1976 four out of five presidents have been from the South: Georgia, Arkansas and Texas. Can he win the Republican nomination, with primaries dominated by conservatives?

If Thompson can convince anti-Baker Tennessee conservatives of his conservative credentials, he shouldn't have any trouble with national conservative groups. . . .

National conservative groups gave Thompson high marks during his Senate career, giving him better credentials in Republican primaries than McCain or Giuliani. Business groups gave him 90 to 100 point ratings, the Christian Coalition gave him a 92, the American Conservative Union gave him an 85. The National Taxpayers Union gave him an A rating. The NRA, which has problems with Giuliani, McCain and Romney, has consistently supported Thompson.

. . . Fred Thompson's campaign in Tennessee demonstrated that he does not consider conventional campaigning as a strait-jacket from which he cannot escape. If he chooses to run for president he will do it on his own terms. It is a risky strategy. If he fails he can expect the political establishment to pillory him for his deviation from orthodoxy. The “Fred is lazy” tag will come back. He may lose the nomination. But nine out of 10 of the current GOP candidates, running conventional campaigns, will lose as well.

The problem with our politics is that the people who can get elected president are the people we wouldn't want as president. If there is anybody who can upset the status quo, create a new dynamic and overcome the process it would be Fred Dalton Thompson.

Read the entire article here.

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The Left Goes Off the Deep End

The far left long ago jettisoned the concept of intellectual honesty in favor of partisan attacks whose only measure is one of effect. And that philophy has taken over the discourse of almost the entire left since the expulsion of Joe Lieberman from the Democratic Party last year. It is readilly apparent in much of the MSM journalism coming out of papers today, such as the NYT and from certain writers at the Washington Post. Thus, these observations today from the NRO come as no surprise:

First, in perhaps the cheapest of cheap shots ever, the Los Angeles Times, which really no longer deserves to be taken seriously as a newspaper, suggests Fred Thompson has to answer for playing a [racist]:

So can "Law & Order" actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) become the first presidential candidate with this credit? Thompson played a white supremacist, spewing anti-Semitic comments and fondling an autographed copy of "Mein Kampf" on a television drama 19 years ago.

His colleagues say that he was just an actor putting everything he had into playing the role of a charismatic racist, named Knox Pooley, in three episodes of CBS' hit show "Wiseguy" in 1988. "Do you call Tom Cruise a killer because he played one in a movie?" asked show creator and writer Stephen J. Cannell.

This sounds like an Onion parody of attack journalism, but it's not. They continue:

But in the age of YouTube, this performance could raise an intriguing political question: How does a performer eyeing a presidential run deal with a video history that can be downloaded, taken out of context, chopped into embarrassing pieces and then distributed endlessly though cyberspace? Some conservative political blogs are already considering the problem.

For this, they cite Patterico, who predicted the media would try to use this role as a villain from 1980s television as a ham-handed attack on Thompson. Guess he was right.

They also quote his character's entire diatribe. As if it's in any way relevant to Fred Thompson's potential candidacy.

. . . Also coming my way from Ace of Spades, news of a Rasmussen poll showing that 35 percent of Democrats believe George W. Bush knew the 9/11 attacks were coming and let them happen.

It's tough to be a "uniter, not a divider" when 35 percent of your opposition is insane.

Read the entire post here.

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Saudi Women Given Freedom To Air Their Grievances

Since the attacks in Ridyah by al Qaeda a few years ago, and with the most recent foiled attack, the ruling House of Saud - whose foundational legitimacy is dependent on Wahhabi Islam - is nonetheless allowing ancilary attacks on the religion as they try to figure out how to defang the beast before it eats them. Thus, it appears we are seeing some leeway being given to those who would voice their grievances at odds with the domgma of Wahhabi Islam. These are excepts from articles on the treatment of women appearing this year in major Saudi newspapers:

Preachers Spread Distorted Notions About Women

Columnist Dr. Hasna Al-Quna'ir wrote in the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh: "Women are victims of [the preachers'] discourse... [which is intended to] condemn them and to prove them inferior [to men] in their piety and in their mental [abilities], [based on] a shameless distortion of the Prophet's hadith...

"Our TV channels are full of old and new preachers who convey their views directly to the public... Answering [viewers' questions], they burst with accusations against members of the [female] sex. They excite the viewers' emotions, entreating them to defend the virtues that the women corrupt...

"An example is the answer given by one of the preachers [to a viewer who asked] about consulting with his wife and seeking her advice. [The preacher told him]: Do not consult with her, for she is emotional and her opinions are not valid... As evidence, he cited the Prophet's hadith [which says]: 'a tribe that nominates a woman [as leader] will not succeed'... Many preachers refuse to acknowledge that this hadith... was uttered in [specific] historical circumstances and in a particular context. The Prophet never meant it as a ruling that applies to all women, in every place and at all times...

"Another preacher incited fathers, brothers and husbands against their daughters, sisters and wives, saying that a girl who is not beaten from an early age grows up to be a rebellious woman, difficult to control... This preacher [also] said that a woman who leaves her home without a veil is like [a woman] who goes out naked. He warned the Muslim women against wearing their abayas [a long gown] around their shoulders [instead of covering their heads as well], saying that this was the main reason that women are seduced and fall [into sin]... There was [a preacher] who warned women against shaking a man's hand, saying that, according to one of the sheiks, a woman who shakes the hand of a man that is not her husband is guilty of... 'adultery of the hand'...

"The question is why some Muslims have [developed] this dehumanizing view of women, which does not respect [the women's] humanity and honor. [This situation] stems from disregarding important factors... such as the historical circumstances and the specific context which formed the background for some of the religious laws and rules that [discriminate] against women. It also stems from the failure to distinguish between religious duties pertaining to rituals - which may be subject to absolute principles - and rules of behavior, which are controversial and are not subject to absolute laws, such as [the custom of] covering the face...

"This is what led to these distorted views and to the [development] of rigid thought patterns regarding women which are not open to debate, and which are accepted by the followers and students [of these preachers] who endorse extremist views. The woman is the victim of this insular culture, and her only salvation would be a reorganization of the cultural structure of [our] entire society."


Saudi Women Are Subject to Countless Prohibitions

Saudi columnist Fatima Al-Faqih examined the question of discrimination against women, trying to assess it in a detailed and objective manner. She wrote in the Saudi daily Al-Watan:

"Are Saudi women actually deprived [of their rights]? [They] are forbidden to drive, forbidden to travel without permission, forbidden to stay alone at a hotel without permission, forbidden to name their own children without [a man's] consent... forbidden to take out a passport without permission... forbidden to leave their homes without permission... forbidden to take a job without permission... forbidden to change the color of their abayas, forbidden to go to school or to the university without permission... forbidden to purchase shares or to open to a [bank] account in their children's name without permission.

"[A woman] is not allowed to expose her face in some cities of the kingdom... [She] is not allowed to marry without permission... not allowed to stay married if [one of] her male relatives decides that her husband's [tribal] lineage is inferior to hers... not allowed to sue for divorce without apologizing and paying a fine, not allowed to keep her children after the divorce, unless she gets permission... not allowed to hold a senior position in the private or public sectors, not allowed to vote or run for office... not allowed to travel alone with a chauffeur... not allowed to annoy her husband, and finally, a woman's voice is considered [a form of] defilement, and she is forbidden to speak in public, so that her affairs will remain shrouded in secrecy.

"A researcher [studying the limitations on women] would [probably] stop here, since the list is endless, and since he would conclude that whoever doubts the [injustice] inflicted on women either lacks awareness or derives some benefit from the discrimination. The damage [caused by this discrimination] is obvious, and the solution has been delayed, causing the problem to grow [even] more severe. There is need for immediate intervention in order to stop the deterioration." . . .

Read the entire post here. And if you have not read it, do see this poem by Wujiha al-Huwaider.

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Fredenomics

The day after the GOP presidential hopefuls minus one debated in a horrid format (limited to short sound bite answers) and over some ridiculous questions ("Do you personally believe in evolution?" Who cares?), the minus one spoke. Fred Thompson spoke last night at a function in California. It was carried on C-span. The speech touched on a lot of issues, but the gravitas was on economic, trade and tax policy. And I have to tell you, when a presidential candidate discussing those isues starts referring to Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations penned the same year as The Declaration of Independence, that is a very good thing. Here are some of Mr. Thompson's remarks

A lot of Americans . . . are concerned about the way things are going in our country right now. Some fear we may be in the first stages of decline. We've heard this malaise talk before.

Of course Iraq is a large part of it. Not only is it tough going, but the effort is besieged on all sides. From those playing the most crass kind of politics with it at home to criticism from around the world.

Even at home, as we enjoy the benefits from one of the best economies we've ever had, people seem uncertain; they raise concerns about global competition or a growing economic disparity among our citizens.

These are challenges. But how we react to them is more important than the challenges themselves. Some want us, to the extent possible, to withdraw from the world that presents us with so many problems, in the hope they will go away. Some would push us towards protectionist trade policies. Others see a solution in raising taxes and redistributing the income among our citizens.

Wrong on all counts. These are defensive, defeatist policies that have consistently been proven wrong. They are not what America is all about.

Let's talk about the issues here at home, first. A lot of folks in Washington suffer from a big misconception about our economy. They confuse the well-being of our government with the wealth of our nation. Adam Smith pointed out the same problem in his day, when many governments mixed up how much money the king had with how well-off the country was.

Taxes are necessary. But they don't make the country any better off. At best they simply move money from the private sector to the government. But taxes are also a burden on production, because they discourage people from working, saving, investing, and taking risks. Some economists have calculated that today each additional dollar collected by the government, by raising income-tax rates, makes the private sector as much as two dollars worse off.

To me this means one simple thing: tax rates should be as low as possible. This isn't anything ideological, and it really isn't some great insight. It's common sense arithmetic.

That's why the economy booms when taxes are cut. When the Kennedy tax cuts were passed in the 1960s, the economy boomed. When Reagan cut taxes in 1981, we went from economic malaise to a new morning in America. And when George Bush cut taxes in 2001, he took a declining economy he inherited to an economic expansion -- despite 9-11, the NASDAQ bubble and corporate scandals.

The Democrats, of course, want to raise taxes. They only want to target the rich, they say. A word of advice to anyone in the middle class -- don't stand anywhere near that target. Wouldn't it be great if, instead of worrying so much about how to divide the pie, we could work together on how to make the pie bigger?

On globalization -- we're not afraid of it. It works to our benefit. We innovate more and invest in that innovation better than anywhere else in the world. Same thing goes for services, which are increasingly driving our economy. Free trade and market economies have done more for freedom and prosperity than a central planner could ever dream and we're the world's best example of that. So, why do we want to take investment dollars out of growth, and invest it in government?

I'd say cash flow to the government is already going quite well. Over the past year our current tax structure generated record levels of revenue for Washington. In fact it's time to seriously consider what we're getting for our "investment" in government.

For many years, several functions of the federal government have been descending into a sorry state of mismanagement and lack of accountability. I published a 68-page report on government's waste, duplication and inability to carry out some of its basic responsibilities. That was back in 2001 before 9-11, and it got little attention. Now the government's shortcomings are affecting our national security and are getting a lot of attention.

The growth of government is not solving these problems; it's causing a lot of them. Every level of new bureaucracy that is created develops a level of bureaucracy beneath it, which creates another one. Pretty soon there is no accountability in the system. A new head of a department or agency comes in from out of town and, after a protracted confirmation fight, wants to spend his or her few years in Washington making great policy and solving national problems, not fighting with their own bureaucrats. So they just let well enough alone. Then you start seeing the results. Departments that can't pass an audit, computer systems that don't work, intelligence breakdowns, people in over their heads.

Yet people in both parties continue to try to federalize and regulate at the national level more and more aspects of American society -- things that have traditionally been handled at the state and local level. We must remember that we have states to serve as policy laboratories for innovation and competition. That's how we got welfare reform. Our system also allows for the diversity of our large country. Our attitude should be, let the federal government do what it is supposed to be doing -- competently. Then maybe we will give it something else to do.

The government could start by securing our nation's borders. A sovereign nation that can't do that is not a sovereign nation. This is secondarily an immigration issue. It's primarily a national security issue. . . .

Speaking of reforms and our economy, there is nothing more urgent than the fate that is awaiting our Social Security and Medicare programs. The good news is that we are living longer. However, we don't have enough young working people to finance these programs from their taxes.

People say the programs are going bankrupt. They won't go bankrupt. Even as these programs sap every dime of the government's revenue, the folks in Washington will raise the taxes necessary to cover the problem. At this rate the federal government is going to wind up as nothing more than a transfer agent -- transferring wealth from one generation to another. It will devastate our economy.

. . . So the entitlement problem gets kicked a little further down the road. This action is based on the premise that our generation is too greedy to help the next generation. I believe just the opposite is true. If grandmom and granddad think that a little sacrifice will help their grandchildren when they get married, try to buy a home or have children, they will respond to a credible call to make that sacrifice -- if they don't think that the sacrifice is going down some government black hole.

. . . It's clear with close numbers in the House and the Senate we need bipartisanship to have any chance at real reform in any of these areas. And there are many responsible people who are willing to try to make it happen. But the level of bipartisanship needed for real progress can only be achieved when politicians perceive that the American people are demanding it. That's why leaders of reform and hopefully our next President, will have a mandate to go directly to the American people with truth and clarity.

These days in Washington, there's an awful lot of talk about the need for conversation -- that we should talk more to our nation's enemies; that we should speak "truth to power." However the speakers are usually turned in the wrong direction. Instead of talking to each other, leaders need to be speaking more to the American people.

The message would be simple: "My friends we have entered a new era. We are going to be tested in many ways, possibly under attack and for a long time. It's time to take stock and be honest with ourselves. We're going to have to do a lot of things better. Here's what we need to do and here's why. I know that, now that you're being called upon, you will do whatever is necessary for the sake of our country and for future generations. You always have."

When the American people respond to that, as I know they will, you will have your bipartisanship.

Read the entire remarks here. As to the report Fred Thompson cited on waste in government that he published in 2001, find Volume 1 here and Volume 2 here.

e-Run, Fred, e-Run.

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News From the Surge

Dinah Lord has been collecting the latest reports from Iraq. The U.S. and Iraqi soldiers captured 16 members of an Iranian linked cell in Sadr City:

The US command in Baghdad announced the arrest Friday morning of 16 suspected members of a terror cell with strong ties to Iran in Sadr City, the capital's massive mainly Shiite slum. In a statement, US troops said the cell was in charge of transporting anti-tank mines and weapons from Iran to Iraq and transfering militants fin the opposite direction for training. The US military also said intelligence reports showed that the cell was part of a network carrying out attacks and abductions in Iraq and had ties to criminal groups in both countries.

I do wonder when we are finally going to make the mullahs start paying very dearly for their actions in Iran. The fiction that Khamenei does not know what is going on is getting very difficult to stomach, and refusing to hurt Iran very badly for this meddling will simply encourage ever greater interferenace.

Dinah also posts on a report that U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have taken sucucessfully concluded an offensive to retake the Tahrir neighborhood in Baqouba, northwest of Baghdad. The area had become a stronghold for al Qaeda in Iraq.

And then, in what cannot be considered bad news, there is a report of another major split from inside the insurgent ranks, with at least one group now vowing to target al Qaeda and the U.S. forces, leaving civilians alone. That's fine by me.

Update: And see this from Bill Rogio. Othr then the fighting, by far the most important to come out of Iraq today is the report that the Anbar Salvation Council incrasing its membership to include one of the major tribes who originally welcomed al Qaeda, and the Council is expanding its membership outside Anbrar, including into Diyala Province, where the hardest fighting against al Qaeda and its affiliates is occurring today:

The news of al Jubouri's death comes as the Anbar Salvation Council scored a major victory against al Qaeda in Iraq. Sam Dagher of the Christian Science Monitor reports on how the Anbar Salvation Council, led by Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Rishawi, turned the Albu Fahd tribe against al Qaeda. The Albu Fahd was one of the six original Anbari tribes to support al Qaeda and its Islamic State in Iraq. These six tribes are known in some military intelligence circles as the "Sinister Six". The Albu Fahd [described as the Bu-Fahed] has now joined the Anbar Salvation Council and pledged to throw its weight behind the fight against al Qaeda.

"Winning over the Bu-Fahed tribe was a coup," said Mr. Dagher, who covered the tribal meeting where the Albu Fahd moved into the camp of the Anbar Salvation Council. "It had been one of Al Qaeda's staunchest supporters, and traces its lineage to the birthplace of the puritan form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism in the Saudi Arabian province of Najd. It formally threw its lot behind Sheikh Abdel-Sattar Abu Risha." the pickup of the Albu Fahd comes as the Anbar Salvation Council has made gains outside of its home province and is expanding in Diyala, Salahadin and Baghdad.

In the city of Baqubah in the al Qaeda sanctuary of Diyala province, U.S. forces retook the Tahrir neighborhood after a week of hard fighting. U.S. forces encountered hard fighting and prepared al Qaeda traps and fighting positions. The 1920s Revolution Brigades, a Sunni insurgent group now aligned with the Anbar Salvation Council, fought pitched battles against al Qaeda in Baqubah before being forced to withdrawal after running out of ammunition.

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Of Mid Terms Across the Pond & Hanging Chads in Edinburgh

Drum roll please. The midterm elections were held in the UK yesterday. And the winners are? Well, that's a good question.

We don't know in Scotland yet because about 100,000 of the ballots got invalidated.

Confusing ballot papers were being blamed for as many as 100,000 invalid votes in elections to the Scottish Parliament and councils north of the border, potentially affecting crucial contests in a neck-and-neck fight between Labour and the Scottish National Party for dominance at the devolved Holyrood parliament.

Sound familiar? After our own Florida debacle in 2000, I can say that this is not something I would wish upon any friendly nation. I extend my deepest sympathies to the Brits. You're in for a long and muddy slog on that one.

As to the other results from the British mid-terms, they are a bit clearer. Tories won a fair amount, apparently . . . though I am still not quite sure how much. Labour lost a fair bit, though they are claiming that they didn't lose so bad that its a clear threat to knock them from power at the next general election:

Tony Blair insisted today Labour had "a perfectly good springboard to go on and win the next General Election," despite taking a battering by voters from the South-East to Scotland.

In a night of drama, Labour lost hundreds of English council seats, saw power slip away in the Welsh Assembly and woke to see the totemic fight against the SNP for the Scottish Parliament on a knife-edge.

As to how much of that is spin from TB, I have not a clue. And I think Red Ken is still going to be Mayor of London. That is a real travesty. If anyone from the UK would care to weigh in on all of this, it would be much appreciated. We have not had a good handle on British politics over here since about 1776.

You can find some articles on the election and the Scottish debacle at The Telegraph, The Times, Daily Mail, and the Guardian.

Update: Some questions answered by EU Referendum:

With the Lib-Dems also losing 242 seats and Labour losing 485, the big winners were the Tories with 875 gains, far in excess of expectations.

However, despite desperate attempts to "spin" otherwise, the Tories have not made the breakthrough in the North. In fact, they lost control of Kirkless, they lost councillors in Bradford and Leeds and halved the number of Tories in Sheffield from two down to one.

Although early days, what this seems to be is the resurgence of traditional two-party politics, with a strong element of the North-South divide. The Tories are strong in the South while Labour is still maintaining its grip over the metropolitan Northern councils.

What might be happening is that the Tory deserters, scenting power, are returning to the fold, bolstered by others who detest Blair – and have no love for Gordon Brown. On the other hand, Labour maintains its core vote but is been strengthened by those who hate Cameron, and would not vote for him at any price.

If this is the case, we can expect to see a greater polarisation of politics, as Gordon Brown takes over and the gap to the next general election shrinks. But each side will be recruiting not supporters, but temporary allies who have in common only their detestation of the other side.

Update: And the BBC, Britain's own publicly funded version of the New York Times -its left wing bias is legendary - is caught trying to spin the Labour debacle.

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Krauthammer, Tenet & Revisionst History

Charles Krauthammer weighs in on George Tenet's myopic view of events over the past 16 years, and finds his characterizations a bit more then wanting:

. . . Tenet presents himself as a pathetic victim and scapegoat of an administration that was hell-bent on going to war, slam dunk or not.

Tenet writes as if he assumes no one remembers anything. For example: ``There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat.''

Does he think no one remembers President Bush explicitly rejecting the imminence argument in his 2003 State of the Union address in front of just about the largest possible world audience? Said the president, ``Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent'' -- and he was not one of them. That in a post-9/11 world, we cannot wait for tyrants and terrorists to gentlemanly declare their intentions. Indeed, elsewhere in the book Tenet concedes that very point: ``It was never a question of a known, imminent threat; it was about an unwillingness to risk surprise.''

Tenet also makes what he thinks is the damning and sensational charge that the administration, led by Vice President Cheney, had been focusing on Iraq even before 9/11. In fact, he reports, Cheney asked for a CIA briefing on Iraq for the president even before they had been sworn in.

This is odd? This is news? For the entire decade following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq was the single greatest threat in the region and therefore the most important focus of U.S. policy. U.N. resolutions, congressional debates and foreign policy arguments were seized with the Iraq question and its many post-Gulf War complications -- the WMDs, the inspection regimes, the cease-fire violations, the no-fly zones, the progressive weakening of sanctions.

Iraq was such an obsession of the Clinton administration that Clinton ultimately ordered an air and missile attack on its WMD installations that lasted four days. This was less than two years before Bush won the presidency. Is it odd that the administration following Clinton's should share its extreme concern about Iraq and its weapons?

Tenet is not the only one to assume a generalized amnesia about the recent past. One of the major myths (or, more accurately, conspiracy theories) about the Iraq War -- that it was foisted upon an unsuspecting country by a small band of neoconservatives -- also lives blissfully detached from history.

The decision to go to war was made by a war Cabinet consisting of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld. No one in that room could even remotely be considered a neoconservative. Nor could the most important non-American supporter of the war to this day -- Tony Blair, father of new Labour.

The most powerful case for the war was made at the 2004 Republican convention by John McCain in a speech that was resolutely ``realist.'' On the Democratic side, every presidential candidate running today who was in the Senate when the motion to authorize the use of force came up -- Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd -- voted yes.

Outside of government, the case for war was made not just by the neoconservative Weekly Standard, but -- to select almost randomly -- the traditionally conservative National Review, the liberal New Republic and the center-right Economist. Of course, most neoconservatives supported the war, the case for which was also being made by journalists and scholars from every point on the political spectrum -- from the leftist Christopher Hitchens to the liberal Tom Friedman to the centrist Fareed Zakaria to the center-right Michael Kelly to the Tory Andrew Sullivan. And the most influential tome on behalf of war was written not by any conservative, let alone neoconservative, but by Kenneth Pollack, Clinton's top Near East official on the National Security Council. The title: ``The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq.''

Everyone has the right to renounce past views. But not to make up that past. It is beyond brazen to think that one can get away with inventing not ancient history but what everyone saw and read with their own eyes just a few years ago. And yet sometimes brazenness works.

Read the entire article here.

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An Eloquent Appeal From Iraq

One of the Washington Post's opinion pieces today is written by Iraq's Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari. He makes a simple request - please don't abandon us. And he tells us clearly what is at stake:

Last weekend a traffic jam several miles long snaked out of the Mansour district in western Baghdad. The delay stemmed not from a car bomb closing the road but from a queue to enter the city's central amusement park. The line became so long some families left their cars and walked to enjoy picnics, fairground rides and soccer, the Iraqi national obsession.

Across the city, restaurants are slowly filling and shops are reopening. The streets are busy. Iraqis are not cowering indoors. The appalling death tolls from suicide attacks are often high because of crowding at markets. These days you are as likely to hear complaints about traffic congestion as about the security situation. Across Baghdad there is a cacophony of sirens from ambulances, firefighters and police providing public services. You cannot even escape the curse of traffic wardens ticketing illegally parked cars.

These small but significant snippets of normality are overshadowed by acts of gross violence, which fuel the opinion of some that Iraq is in a downward spiral. The Iraqi people are indeed suffering tremendous hardships and making grave sacrifices -- but daily life goes on for 7 million Baghdadis struggling to take back their capital and country.

. . . So why should the world remain engaged in Iraq?

There is no denying the difficulties Iraq faces, and no amount of good news can obscure the demons of terrorism and sectarianism that have risen in my country. But there is too much at stake to risk failure, and everything to gain by helping us protect our hard-won democratic achievements and emerge as a stable, self-sustaining country.

We remain determined in spite of our losses. Spectacular attacks may dominate foreign headlines, but they cannot change the reality that Iraq has made steady political, economic and social progress over the past four years. We continue to strengthen our nascent democratic institutions, pursue national reconciliation and expand Iraqi security forces. The Baghdad security plan was conceived to give us breathing space to expedite political and economic development by "securing and holding" neighborhoods across the capital. There is no quick fix, but there have been real results: Winning public confidence has led to a spike in intelligence, a disruption of terrorist networks and the capture of key leaders, as well as the discovery of weapons caches. In Anbar province, Sunni sheikhs and insurgents have turned against al-Qaeda and to the side of Iraqi security forces. This would have been unthinkable even six months ago.

. . . Iraqis are standing up every day, and we persevere because there is no other option. We will not surrender our country to terrorists. They have failed to cripple the elected government, and they have failed to intimidate us into submission. Iraqis reject their vision of a future whose hallmarks are bloodshed and hatred.

Those calling for withdrawal may think it is the least painful option, but its benefits would be short-lived. The fate of the region and the world is linked with ours. Leaving a broken Iraq in the Middle East would offer international terrorism a haven and ensure a legacy of chaos for future generations. Furthermore, the sacrifices of all the young men and women who stood up here would have been in vain.

Iraqis, for all our determination and courage, cannot succeed alone. We need a healthy and supportive regional environment. We will not allow our country to be a battleground for settling scores in regional and international conflicts that adversely affect stability inside our borders. Only with continued international commitment and deeper engagement from our neighbors can we establish a stable democratic, federal and united Iraq. The world should not abandon us.

Read the enitre article here. Perhaps it would be beneficial for him to address Congress. Do you think Pelosi and Murtha would schedule him?

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Fred's Take on Women's Rights In The Middle East

Fred will make no friends in Ridyah with these statements. But that is certainly not a bad thing.

Sometimes, you read or hear something, and an image forms in your mind that just won't go away. For me, one of those images comes from the 2002 news stories about religious police in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, who beat young girls trying to escape a burning school. Because they weren’t wearing headscarves and black robes, 15 innocent girls were locked in a blazing building to burn while firemen watched helplessly.

Not all Saudis support this sort of extremism, but many Muslim radicals reject the premise that women should have even the most basic rights. These include the right to vote, to work, to drive, to choose one's own husband, to charge a man with abuse or simply to move about without male escort.

. . . Life for women under the Taliban and similar governments ought to inspire anger and indignation in everybody, especially human rights advocates. I'm constantly surprised, however, by the apparent apathy among many who say they care about the rights of women and other minorities.

I doubt, for example, that our television networks have spent as much time exposing the horrors of life for millions of women in pre-liberation Iraq and Afghanistan as they've spent covering Abu Ghraib. For some reason, everyday atrocities such as the endemic beatings, honor killings and forced marriages of women just don’t seem to be newsworthy.

The other side of that coin is that we also rarely hear about dramatic improvements in the lives of women when they come about due to American actions. So let me take a little of your time to give you some good news that might have slipped through the journalistic cracks.

A new study from Johns Hopkins University indicates that, since the Taliban was ousted five years ago, Afghan infant mortality rates have improved dramatically. Every year, more than 40,000 babies live that would have died under Islamofascist tyranny -- and the statistics are still improving. The main reason, according to the study, is improved women's access to medical care.

. . . In Iraq, the health care and educational statistics are even better. There are, of course, still many areas of life that need to improve in both countries, but we're moving in the right direction. The next time I'm reminded of the suffering women endure in too many radicalized Muslim cultures, or apathy toward their plight back here at home, I'm going to conjure up the image of 40 or 50 thousand Muslim mothers smiling into the faces of healthy babies. You might try the same -- and remember, while you’re doing it, that these babies would not be alive today if it were not for the U.S. and coalition soldiers

Read the entire article here. Fred Thompson will be making a speech tonight that will be broadcast on C-Span. Check your local listings. e-Run, Fred, e-Run.

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Will Any Of Our Leaders Respond To Clueless Jack Murtha?

Congressman Jack Murtha is a walking outrage. Murtha, the unindicted co-conspirator in Abscam who suggested that our soldiers can support Iraq if they redeploy to Okinawa, 5.000 miles away, goes over the top on Hardball with Chris Matthews. His main points, al Qaeda is not involved in Iraq, General Petraeus is lying to the American public, and General Petraues came back to Washington not to brief Congress, but rather purely for political propoganda. Here is the video:



I generally try my best to refrain from profanity, but Murtha is a worthless son of a bitch. How is Murtha possibly claiming that the war in Iraq is unrelated to the al Qaeda threat?

General Petraeus held a press conference last week - in between his closed door briefings to Congress. During that press conference, General Petraeus said flatly "Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al Qaeda's global campaign and we devote considerable resources to the fight against al Qaeda Iraq." You can find both a video and a transcript of the conference here. At the press conference, the very first question General Petraeus was asked was about this statement:

Q: You say that Iraq is now the central focus of al Qaeda's worldwide effort. Are you saying that al Qaeda in Iraq is now the sort of principal enemy of the U.S. forces stationed there? Before it was Shi'a groups. And do you see that al Qaeda in Iraq -- do you see any evidence that it is linked internationally to bin Laden? How many foreign fighters are actually there?

GEN. PETRAEUS: First of all, we do definitely see links to the greater al Qaeda network. I think you know that we have at various times intercepted messages to and from. There is no question but that there is a network that supports the movement of foreign fighters through Syria into Iraq.

. . . It is clearly the element in Iraq that conducts the sensational attacks, these attacks that, as I mentioned, cause not just horrific physical damage -- and which, by the way, have been increasingly indiscriminate. Secretary Gates noted the other day that al Qaeda has declared war on all Iraqis, and I think that that is an accurate statement. They have killed and wounded and maimed countless Iraqi civilians in addition to, certainly, coalition and Iraqi security forces, and they have done that, again, without regard to ethnosectarian identity.

That significance of al Qaeda in the conduct of the sensational attacks, the huge car bomb attacks against which we have been hardening markets, hardening neighborhoods, trying to limit movement and so forth -- those attacks, again, are of extraordinary significance because they can literally drown out anything else that might be happening.

. . . So this is a -- you know, it is a very significant enemy. I think it is probably public enemy number one. It is the enemy whose actions sparked the enormous increase in sectarian violence that did so much damage to Iraq in 2006, the bombing of the Al Askari mosque in Samarra, the gold-domed mosque there, the third holiest Shi'a shrine. And it is the organization that continues to try to reignite not just sectarian violence but ethnic violence, as well, . . .

Clearly either Murtha or Petraeus is lying to America. Let's go to a third source. What about this letter from Ayman al Zawahiri, the second in command of al Qaeda, to Zarqawi, then the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, intercepted in July, 2005, in which al Zawahiri laid out al Qaeda's plans for Iraq:

The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq.

The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas, is in order to fill the void stemming from the departure of the Americans, immediately upon their exit and before un-Islamic forces attempt to fill this void, whether those whom the Americans will leave behind them, or those among the un-Islamic forces who will try to jump at taking power. . . .

The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.

The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity. . . .

D-If we look at the two short-term goals, which are removing the Americans and establishing an Islamic amirate in Iraq, or a caliphate if possible, then, we will see that the strongest weapon which the mujahedeen enjoy - after the help and granting of success by God - is popular support from the Muslim masses in Iraq, and the surrounding Muslim countries.

Does that sound like there might be a relationship between the terrorism of bin Laden and Zawahiri that we seek to fight and the war in Iraq today? You can find the entire text of that letter here. Or see here, discussing at length Al Qaeda's operations in Iraq, including messages from bin Laden, within the context of al Qaeda's fight against their former hosts, the Sunnis in Anbar Province.

For yet more evidence of linkage, consider this, a military press release just days ago on April 27, indicating that a confidant of bin Laden was sent to take over al Qaeda operations in Iraq (emphasis added):

The Defense Department announced today that it has taken a senior al Qaeda operative into custody at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

. . . At the time of his detention, Abd al-Hadi was one of al Qaeda’s highest-ranking and most experienced senior operatives, Whitman said. Abd al-Hadi was one of al Qaeda’s key paramilitary commanders in Afghanistan from the late 1990s, and from 2002 to 2004, was in charge of cross-border attacks in Afghanistan . . .

. . . Before Sept. 11, 2001, Abd al-Hadi was a member of al Qaeda’s ruling Shura council, a now-defunct advisory board to Osama bin Laden, as well as the group’s military committee.

Abd al-Hadi associated with leaders of other extremist groups allied with al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the Taliban, according to Defense Department information. Abd al-Hadi interacted was known and trusted by bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and met with al Qaeda members in Iran.

At the time of his capture, Abd al-Hadi was trying to return to Iraq to manage al Qaeda’s affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against Western targets, Whitman said.

Bottom line, unless every available open source, including Zawahiri and General Petraeus, are false, then Murtha is lying through his teeth to America. I kind of think the latter.

Two, the claims that General Petraeus being brought back to brief Congress before the vote on Iraq funding was purely political and that he did not brief Congress are both outrageous lies. Congress refused to be briefed by Petraeus in March, before the initial vote on the Iraq War bill. When General Petraeus was brought back to brief Congress before the final vote on the bill, Pelosi at first refused to set up a closed door briefing, and then, ultimately, neither she nor Jack Murtha attended the briefing. Murtha and his Democratic cohorts are spewing insanity. Their plan is surrender first, deal with the incalculable costs associated with surrendering after the 2008 election.

As to attacking the veracity of General Petraeus, they are laying the groundwork to claim come September that any reports of success in the ongoing counter-insurgency operations in Iraq are untrue because Petraeus cannot be believed. Murtha is not the first Democrat to take this tack. Both Harry Reid and Carl Levin before him have also repeated that meme. They are completely invested in insuring that America does not succeed in Iraq, and will let no inconvenient facts get in the way of their partisan arguments. Thus the utterly outrageous attacks on the veracity of the very person they voted for to lead our troops in combat in Iraq. If General Petraues cannot be trusted to tell us the truth, how can he be trusted to command an entire Army in combat?

Someone on the side of reason and reality needs to respond and to respond forcefully to Murtha and each and every one of his outrageous claims. Al Qaeda grew strong in the 1990's on the strength of their claim to having defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan. And they grew confident enough to attack America inside America. What will retreat from Iraq do for al Qaeda? I have yet to hear any of the Democrats answer that question, save for the former Democrat, Joe Lieberman. Retreat from Iraq is an invitation to carnage on a grand scale - in Iraq, in the greater Middle East and in America.

You might want to send the above video to your Congressman and Senators as well as the RNC, asking them if they will respond to Murtha - and ask them to take the gloves off when they do. We cannot allow things of this nature to go effectively unanswered or the price we will pay in blood and gold will be incalculable.

And here are some parting thoughts from al Zawahiri:

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The Fog of Virgins & The White Flag of Surrender

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers in the surge are daily sending many al Qaeda men to pick up their 72 virgins in the sky, but figuring out precisely which ones have been sent to cash in on that unique jihadist orgy on any particular day is sometimes difficult. The claim that al Masri, purported leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed by the Anbar Awakening Council is still unconfirmed and has been denied by al Qaeda.

We do have confirmation of the death today of a major al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri, who, along with 15 others, was killed by U.S. and Iraqi forces in operations that also saw the capture of 95 of their radicalized brethern. Al Jubouri was al Qaeda in Iraq's senior minister of information "responsible for crafting propaganda efforts and coordinating the flow of money and foreign fighters." Killing him is "significant blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq." He was also involved in several high profile kidnappings, including the kidnapping of Jill Carrol, the writer for the Christian Science Monitor.

While getting al-Jubori is a major event in itself, I am also struck by the fact that the capture to kill ratio for these al Qaeda men is getting high of late. In consideration of this operation, and the ones cited in the post here, the capture to kill ratio over the last two weeks seems to be running in the neighborhood of 15 to 1. Its not clear how much one can safely read into that, but generally in war, the higher the capture to kill ratio, the lesser the morale of the enemy. Let us hope this trend continues.

Update: More of the Fog of Virgins. Omar at Iraq the Model just posted this:

Early afternoon today news came in that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, chief of the so called Islamic State in Iraq has been killed in Ghazaliya district in western Baghdad.
Uncertainty about the identity of the killed senior terrorist was soon in place, while the Iraqi interior ministry insists it was al-Baghdadi, US officials think otherwise, they confirmed that a senior al-Qaeda operative name Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri was killed though.

So were Jubouri and Baghdadi the same person?

Well, some very bad actor has gone to meet Allah. Hopefully in a few days this fog will lift and we will know who it was.

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Fredicare In The Worker's Carribean Paradise

Fred Thompson, still the un-candidate, writes today on the myth of high quality socialized medicine under El Commandante Fidel. He leads in with his thoughts on that insipid creator (I cannot say catalouger as that would imply an element of veracity) of modern leftist truth, Michael Moore, and his latest jaunt to Cuba for some of that high quality and free communist healthcare.

You might have read the stories about filmmaker Michael Moore taking ailing workers from Ground Zero in Manhattan to Cuba for free medical treatments. According to reports, he filmed the trip for a new movie that bashes America for not having government-provided health care.

Now, I have no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care. I defend his right to do what he does, but Moore's talent for clever falsehoods has been too well documented. Simply calling his movies documentaries rather than works of fiction, I think, may be the biggest fiction of all.

While this PR stunt has obviously been successful -- here I am talking about it -- Moore's a piker compared to Fidel Castro and his regime. Moore just parrots the story they created -- one of the most successful public relations coups in history. This is the story of free, high quality Cuban health care.

The truth is that Cuban medical care has never recovered from Castro's takeover -- when the country’s health care ranked among the world's best. He won the support of the Cuban people by promising to replace Batista’s dictatorship with free elections, and to end corruption. Once in power, though, he made himself dictator and instituted Soviet-style Communism. Cubans not only failed to regain their democratic rights, their economy plunged into centrally planned poverty.

As many as half of Cuba's doctors fled almost immediately -- and defections continue to this day. Castro won't allow observers in to monitor his nation's true state, but defectors tell us that many Cubans live with permanent malnutrition and long waits for even basic medical services. Many treatments we take for granted aren't available at all -- except to the Communist elite or foreigners with dollars.

For them, Castro keeps "show" clinics equipped with the best medicines and technologies available. It was almost certainly one of these that Moore went to, if the stories in the NY Post and The Daily News are true.

Nothing about this story inspires doubt, though. Elements in Hollywood have been infatuated with the Cuban commander for years. It always leaves me shaking my head when I read about some big-time actor or director going to Cuba and gushing all over Castro. And, regular as rain, they bring up the health care myth when they come home.

What is it that leads people to value theoretically "free" health care, even when it's lousy or nonexistent, over a free society that actually delivers health care? You might have to deal with creditors after you go to the emergency ward in America, but no one is denied medical care here. I guarantee even the poorest Americans are getting far better medical services than many Cubans.

According to Forbes magazine, by the way, Castro is now personally worth approximately $900 million. So when he desperately needed medical treatment recently, he could afford to fly a Spanish surgeon, with equipment, on a chartered jet to Cuba. What does that say about free Cuban health care?

The other thing that irks me about Moore and his cohort in Hollywood is their complete lack of sympathy for fellow artists persecuted for opposing the Castro regime. Pro-democracy activists are routinely threatened and imprisoned, but Castro remains a hero to many here. According to human rights organizations, these prisoners of conscience are often beaten and denied medical treatment, sanitation or even adequate nutrition. . . .

Read the whole article here. e-Run, Fred, e-Run.

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Handicapping The Iraq War Funding Negotiations .

Today's Washington Post reports on the initial steps by all parties to come to a conclusion on the badly needed funding for the military in Iraq. The Democrats have agreed to drop their more egrigous positions legislating defeat on dates certain during the next year. That said, it seems pretty clear that the Democrats are far from done trying to poison the well.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who but a little more then a week ago called the Iraq war "lost" and the surge "failed," is making an amorphous demand now that any agreement will have to "effect war policy" and "transition" the mission in Iraq. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, still vociferously clinging to an alternate reality in which the war in Iraq is somehow seperate and apart from the larger war against al Qaeda and radical Islam, reiterated her position that she is committed to "ending the war."

Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer is calling for bench marks with significant reductions in aid if the bench marks are missed. Bush has already indicated a willingness to discuss such benchmarks. In all liklihood, negotitations will center over what bench marks to use, how to quantify them, and what will be the adverse consequences for failing to meet them. And there, the Democratic devil will be in the details.

As to the major political benchmarks that both parties have long discussed - the oil law, the de-baathification law, and the federalism issue - the first two are in various legislative stages, and the latter issue of federalism will likely be rendered substantially moot by resolution of the oil law.

In a very significant development, the oil law has been reported out of the cabinet and will be voted on this month. Actually, if it is approved, it will go a long way to answering the federalism question that is also hanging out there. The oil law would collect the oil profits within the central government and require that they be spent or granted to the provinces on a per capita basis. The Kurds, who dream of a seperate Kurdistan state and want to control the oil and the oil wealth in their provinces, are screaming bloody murder at this. But with less then 60 seats in the 275 member Parliament, it seems certain they will be unable to stop it. Further, I would imagine that the pressure on them from the Bush administration to accept this one as is will be enormous.

The de-baathification law has been submitted by Maliki to the cabinet. This law is still on track. Prior reports claimed that the law would be D.O.A. because Grand Ayatollah Sistani criticized it. Those reports were untrue. Hopefully the law will be reported to Parliament before their proposed summer recess, however truncated that may end up being.

The one benchmark no one is talking about is possibly the most important. It is reconstruction and the provision of services - water, sewage, electricity, health care - into each area that is secured by Coalition Forces. Clean running water and 24/7 electricity will likely do more to bring peace and stability to Iraq then any other single thing the government could do. If anything, that should be the lasar focus of Maliki and the U.S. government. How much do you want to bet it does not get mentioned in the negotiations?

All of the other "bench marks" being tossed out by the Democrats now seem likely to be poison pills designed to force defeat by the back door. Specifically, they are bench marks such as "quelling religious violence and disarming sectarian militias," as suggested by Hoyer.

One, those proposed benchmarks are the whole purpose of the counterinsurgency strategy now being overseen by General Petraeus. Two, both defy anything but the most speculative of quantification. Three, because this is a war and month to month success is not guaranteed -- al Qaeda, Syria and Iran are unwelcome players in this too -- it would make no military sense to use these as benchmarks. To put it in perspective, it would be akin to requiring the Army to retreat from Europe after the D-Day invasion because the Germans launched a significant counter-attack at the Battle of the Bulge.

It is one thing to use as a bench mark whether the Iraqi government is setting up any systemic block in the way of "quelling religious violence and disarming sectarian militias." At this point, there is nothing to indicate that Maliki is doing that. Regardless, looking to those benchmarks from the stanpoint of systemic blocks would make sense. But I seriously doubt that is what Hoyer has in mind. And any attempt to go beyond that would be a gross intrusion into the decision-making arena of the military commanders on the ground.

It is too early to tell just how far the Democrats will go in trying to insure defeat and retreat. Certainly, the increasingly dominant far left of the party - motivated seemingly in toto by varying combinations of generic anti-war sentiment, hatred of all things Bush, and the partisan politcs of electoral victroy in 08 - will be satisfied with nothing less then the defeat that Harry Reid has already proclaimed. Given that the party leadership is so thoroughly in the far left camp, look for the Democrats to do all they can to prevent the surge from succeeding between now and September, and look for them to try and backdoor provisions in these negotiations likely to produce defeat through very ambiguous standards coupled with signficant penalties.

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Of Scotch Smarts & Honey Mead

Protein Wisdom has started up a wave of comments at his site when he posted on his favorite reasonably priced Scotch. Go there and read the post and comments. Its one of those topics where, if you start it up as a conversation with four people in a room, you get five different deeply held opinions.

Scotch is definately an acquired taste, but once acquired, for some reason it almost invariably becomes a passion. My father, strictly a social drinker, absolutely loved it, though he did pay the price for that one night. I saw him drunk only once in my life. And it was falling down power puking drunk - an unenviable state of being that was inevitable conclusion to a night of drinking cowbells - a mix of blended scotch and milk -drunk to excess to celebrate a particularly good night of football for Johnny Unitas against the hated Bears. Actually, that was the only time I ever saw him mix his scotch with milk as I think back on it. A lesson learned.

Besides the taste, the other great benefit of Scotch is that it is the one liquor that your kids will not surreptiously make off with during their teen years. I caught my then fifteen year old son and a friend of his with one of my bottles of Scotch in his room one night. I walked in to the sounds of massive coughing, choking and spitting. My son immediately handed me the bottle, profusely apologized for making off with it, and asked if I had any different liquor in the house. I took that as an attempt at humor and, given his pittiable state, only grounded him for a week.

Scotch gets much of its unique flavor from the peat smoked malt. Flavours vary pretty enormously throughout Scotland, but the best Scotches - the single malts - come from Speyside in the Highlands and from the Isle of Islay in the Hebrides. Islay Scotch is in a class by itself. The whole island is nothing but a peat bog, so not only do you get the peat smoked malt flavor, but the water they use is thoroughly imbued with the taste of peat when it comes from the ground. There is nothing so bold as an Islay Single Malt. My favorite of the Isaly's is Bruichladdich. It is pure heaven. There is but one required ritual before imbibing. Ome must turn in the direction of the Isle of Islay and give thanks to God and to his gift to the world, the brewmaster at the Bruichladdich Distillery, before sitting down to a double shot of that one.

The only other thing I drink is Mead. Mead - the drink of choice for Anglo Saxons of old and made famous in Beowulf - it is the oldest of alcoholic beverages. You make it by fermenting honey, and it can come out anywhere from 5% alcohol to 18% alcohol, depending on the amount of honey and the type of yeast. If you make it low strengh - under 9% - you can make it like a beer, with natural carbonation. Any higher and you have to make it like a still wine.

I have been making it for a few years now. When it comes out good, it is just exquisite. Two hints if you ever want to try your hand at fermenting some. Use a liquid mead yeast, not a wine yeast to ferment your brew. The difference in flavor is night and day, with the former being smooth and slightly sweet, and the latter being so dry and sharp you have to down a glass of water after every sip. I won't give you the science behind that because it will put you to sleep. Just trust me. Two, age it, the longer the better, and if you can lay your hands on some, age it in used charred oak barrels from a whiskey distillery. Ferment the honey with some juices, such as black cherry and asian pear, add some vanilla bean, drop it in the oak barrel to age, and drinking that is damn near better then sex.

Almost.

A suprisingly close second.

And on that note, I shall leave with thoughts of a glass of year old sweet mead at sunset.

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