Les Jones

Iraqi Opinion Polls

Terrorism has lost in Iraq, and Al-Jazeera and its ilk aren't considered credible news sources, if these latest polls of Iraqis are any indication.

Do you support the severe measures the Iraqi Government is taking against terrorist acts in Iraq?

93.56% = Yes
6.44% = No

How do you think Arabic satellite news companies are covering Iraqi news?

Neutral = 16.75%
Not Neutral = 7.25%
Negatively Biased = 76%

Mary Steyn on Syria and Bashar al-Assad

Mary Steyn is at the top of his analytical and prose game in The Eye Doctor Never Saw it Coming.

I don't suppose Bashar al-Assad has much in common with Eric Clapton - though, come to think of it, "Layla" is a Lebanese name, and there must be a few of them among the smouldering, raven-tressed, black-eyed Beirut babes so fetchingly demanding their nation's freedom on the covers of this week's Economist, Newsweek, Weekly Standard et al. At any rate, Boy Assad has no desire to find himself wailing, "Layla, you got me on my knees."

Nor has he any wish to sing I Shot The Sharif - that would be Khalil Mustafa bin Muhammad Sharif, a prominent Syrian Kurd who got questioned to death in Damascus last year. In any case, the Syrian government's official position remains that, whether or not they shot the Sharif, they did not shoot the Lebanese parliamentary deputy. [...]

It's one thing for Bush to demand Syria gets out of Lebanon, but what's with Crown Prince Abdullah piling on? Not to mention Jacques Chirac, hitherto every dictator's best friend. Clapton-wise, Boy Assad is Derek and everybody else is trying to avoid being one of the Dominoes.

Root Causes of Al Qaeda Terrorism: Wealth and Education?

People who really ought to know better keep trumpeting the line that poverty causes terrorism. As a recent example, San Francisco Theology Professor Sally Vance-Trembath said so when she was on The O'Reilly Factor the other night opposite Nashville blogger Donald Sensing. Video here.

If all countries contain poor people, why don't we see terrorists from all countries? If all countries contain uneducated people, who don't all countries produce terrorists? Bin Laden is a well-educated multimillionaire. Mohammad Atta, the Al Qaeda pilot of one of the planes that attacked the World Trade Center, was an architect. A new study dispels the notion that Al Qaeda terrorists are poor and uneducated. Via Jim Miller.

Dr Marc Sageman of the University of Pennsylvania has conducted an exhaustive study of al-Qa'eda's people. He collected the life histories of 400 individuals either in al-Qa'eda or closely linked to it, and found that traditional theories of what motivates a terrorist � poverty, desperation, ignorance � did not apply in al-Qa'eda's case. Indeed, some of them turned their backs on cushy lives to sign up for bin Laden's fanciful war against the West.

A majority of Sageman's sample were well-to-do: 17.6 per cent were upper class, 54.9 per cent were middle class and 27.5 per cent were lower class. For those individuals whose educational records were available, 16.7 per cent had been educated to a level less than high school; 12.1 per cent had at least a high school education; 28.8 per cent had some college education; 33.3 per cent had a college degree; and 9 per cent had a postgraduate degree. Only 9.4 per cent had a religious education and 90.6 per cent had a secular education.

This good schooling is reflected in their career paths: 42.5 per cent were professionally employed (as doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc.), 32.8 per cent had a semi-skilled job, and 24.6 per cent were unskilled.

The idea that terrorists are poor and uneducated is probably based on Palestinian terrorists. Palestinian groups recruit teenagers to become human bombs and reward their families posthumously, while the average age of Al Qaeda recruits is 26.

Syria Withdraws From Lebanon

This isn't getting much attention, but Syria's 29 year military presence in Lebanon has come to an end.

UN Estimates Number of Iraqi Deaths at 24,000

Tim Worstall and Tim Blair have more. The new number is substantially below the 100,000 deaths claimed by a Lancet study that was based on telephone surveys of 808 Iraqi households in 11 provinces. The UN survey is based on surveys of 21,600 Iraqi households in all 18 provinces. Via InstaPundit.

Iranian Mullahs Making Sham of Elections Again

Opposition candidates blocked from running.

Iran's hard-line constitutional watchdog has rejected all reformists who registered to run in next month's presidential elections, approving only six out of the 1,010 hopefuls, state-run television reported Sunday.

Iranian elections are June 17, but it's hard to imagine a meaningful outcome with 1004 out of 1010 candidates disqualified.

Kuwaiti Women Get the Vote

Good News in Kuwait.

Pakistan Hands Al Qaeda's #3 Man to US

Abu Faraj Farj al Liby is now in US custody.

News from Iran

Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan is breaking his self-imposed exile to return to Iran for the elections.

A few brave women in Iran are attending football games in violation of state orders. Women are apparently forbidden to attend athletic events in the stadium.

On the other side of the world two Iranian women - Farkhondeh Sadegh and Laleh Keshavarz - became the first Muslim women to summit Mt. Everest. Congrats.

Bin Laden Planned to Poison America's Cocaine After 9/11

From the New York Post via Sister Toldjah.

The evil plot failed when the Colombian drug lords bin Laden approached decided it would be bad for their business - and, possibly, for their own health, according to law-enforcement sources familiar with the Drug Enforcement Administration�s probe of the aborted transaction. The feds were told of the scheme earlier this year, but its existence had never been made public. The Post has reviewed a document detailing the DEA�s findings in the matter, in addition to interviewing sources familiar with the case.

What the hell? After the 9/11 attacks OBL looked like an evil genius at first, but it was obvious he mis-judged America's response and just awoke the sleeping giant. But now you're telling me the Great Terrorist Mastermind thought poisoned cocaine would strike fear into the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. American Q Public? And then I guess OBL would blame the poison cocaine on Batman and run for mayor of Gotham City.

Step 1. Poison cocaine.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Bask in the glory of a restored Caliphate!

What a numbnuts.

Go Read Eric Schieie

Eric Schieie can't understand the gay comunity's silence on radical Islam following Iran's hanging of two gay teens.

Sympathy for a Woman Whose Grief Has Driven Her Mad

Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq, has been in the news for her one-woman Iraq War protests near Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. In the best thing written about Cindy Sheehan, Frank Martin remembers his own family's loss and how his mother reacted.

My mom got through it by eventually starting a crusade against the road that my sister drove on, insisting that it had contributed to the death of her daughter. She sued the state and county promising to use the proceeds to fund a swimming pool at our high school, a sport my sister had loved. It was ludicrous, and it was a bit embarrassing, but it didn�t matter. It was good to see mom with fire in her eyes instead of the dark haunted soul she had become for a few bleak months.

Nothing came of it, but it gave her something to do for the next year. It gave her a way to feel that my sister�s life had not been in vain, that others would benefit from her death. By the time the suit had been dismissed, my mother had learned how to live in the world again and today, she hardly remembers the intensity of her temporary mania.

Cindy Sheehan's family finds her current behavior embarassing. Her husband filed for divorce on Friday. The rest of the family wrote a letter in support of Bush and the war in Iraq. James Taranto details the embarassing parts of Sheehan's tirades that aren't being widely reported, and wonders what will happen to this poor woman in a news cycle or two.

The mainstream media have largely ignored Sheehan's crackpot views, and not only--perhaps not even primarily--for ideological reasons. Members of the White House press corps find the annual sojourn to Crawford deathly dull. They need something to do; they want bylines--and "heartbroken everymom" makes for a much more compelling story than "extremist hatemonger."

The journalists will soon move on, and her political allies may do so as well. For them she is a mere instrument. The White House press corps will discard her as soon as they return to Washington where there's real news going on. Serious opponents of the war in Iraq will cast her aside if her foul statements make her an embarrassment. When that happens, we can only hope that someone still cares about Cindy Sheehan--not as a story or a symbol, but as a human being.

Finally, there's Greg Gutfelfd via Ace of Spades:

Sitting here with my can of beer online shopping for a new gardening hat, I can't help but think: what do the thoughtful Huffposters really want out of this media-inflated standoff with President Bush? It must be: The CHIEF BRODY SLAP.

THE CHIEF BRODY SLAP is based on the infamous scene in Jaws when a distraught mom slaps Roy Scheider across the face. Her son was eaten by a shark, but she blames the sheriff. Because he didn't do enough. It's not the shark, it's the sheriff. It's like me blaming Arianna for Christine Lahti's post. But unjustified. And with a shark.

THE CHIEF BRODY SLAP (CBS) is a chief staple in an any liberal diet: a fiery mix of outrage, self-rightious indignation and condemnation delivered from a moral highground so lofty it gives you a nosebleed. The Brody Slap is predicated on the idea that you don't need a solution, only blame. Who needs a real alternative when you're already outraged? It's easy!

[...]

So while the Huff-posters pretend to feel sympathy for the mother, who no doubt deserves it, it's an act. They are using her, and that makes them stink of tripe.

Military Re-enlistment Exceeding Goals

Re-enlistments are ahead of expectations. Now maybe the military had adjusted their expectations down, but this seems like good news. If the guys on the ground in Iraq believe in what they're doing and want to see it through, then it does seem like the talk of withdrawl is overheated.

Microsoft Word to the Rescue - Again

The UN whitewashes its discoveries in the Hariri assassination, but is found out when someone examines the track changes history in the Microsoft Word document. From Best of the Web:

The original Microsoft Word document is here, and MidEastWeb.org has rendered it in HTML form. Here's the key passage, rendered to look like redlined Microsoft Word text (note that this will not appear properly if you're reading this column as a text e-mail):

One witness of Syrian origin but resident in Lebanon, who claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, has stated that approximately two weeks after the adoption of Security Council resolution 1559, Maher Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleyman and Jamil Al-Sayyed senior Lebanese and Syrian officials decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri. He claimed that Sayyed a senior Lebanese security official went several times to Syria to plan the crime, meeting once at the Meridian Hotel in Damascus and several times at the Presidential Place and the office of Shawkat a senior Syrian security official. The last meeting was held in the house of Shawkat the same senior Syrian security official approximately seven to 10 days before the assassination and included Mustapha Hamdan another senior Lebanese security official. The witness had close contact with high ranked Syrian officers posted in Lebanon.

According to the Times, "Mr Annan had pledged repeatedly through his chief spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, that he would not change a word of the report by Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor"

Note to self: when engaged in political intrigue, don't use Microsoft products.

Does Anyone Remember the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998?

VariFrank

The single dumbest statement I have ever heard in regards to the "war in Iraq" was made to me today, and here it is:

“The Bush administration has destabilized the middle east and stopped the "peace process"...”.

He goes on to explain the absurdity of that statement, and it's worth a read all by itself. Along the way he mentions something I had forgotten about: the Iraq Liberation Act. Here's the relevant part of the act (.pdf link):

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

SEC. 6. WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL FOR IRAQ.

Consistent with section 301 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993 (Public Law 102-138), House Concurrent Resolution 137, 105th Congress (approved by the House of Representatives on November 13, 1997), and Senate Concurrent Resolution 78, 105th Congress (approved by the Senate on March 13, 1998), the Congress urges the President to call upon the United Nations to establish an international criminal tribunal for the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide, and other criminal violations of international law.

SEC. 7. ASSISTANCE FOR IRAQ UPON REPLACEMENT OF SADDAM HUSSEIN REGIME.

It is the sense of the Congress that once the Saddam Hussein regime is removed from power in Iraq, the United States should support Iraq's transition to democracy by providing immediate and substantial humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, by providing democracy transition assistance to Iraqi parties and movements with democratic goals, and by convening Iraq's foreign creditors to develop a multilateral response to Iraq's foreign debt incurred by Saddam Hussein's regime.

You know who voted for the Iraq Liberation Act? John Kerry. You know who else voted for it? Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi. You know who else voted for it? Every Democrat and Republican in the Senate. Bill Clinton signed it into law October 31, 1998.

Granted, the act spelling out ways the U.S. could encourage Hussein's violent overthrow by Iraqis with U.S. military advisement, but didn't authorize the involvement of U.S forces, though it didn't rule that out, either.

SEC. 8. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.

The war may have been Bush's, but the law stating that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of democracy in Iraq was U.S. policy was in fact a rare example of bi-partisan agreement. Don't let anyone tell you that what's happened in the last four years was part of some wild neo-con plot. Bush just put his predecessor's policies and intent into action.

Scott Ritter Tries to Have it Both Ways

From Tim Blair:

Scott Ritter last month:

[B]y 1995 there were no more weapons in Iraq, there were no more documents in Iraq, there was no more production capability in Iraq because we were monitoring the totality of Iraq’s industrial infrastructure with the most technologically advanced, the most intrusive arms control regime in the history of arms control.

Scott Ritter in 1999 (extract from Ritter’s Endgame):

In 1995 Unit 2001 conducted tests on live human subjects taken from the Abu Ghraib prison, using BW and binary CW agent. Around fifty prisoners were chosen for these experiments, which took place at a remote testing ground in western Iraq. The purpose of these experiments was to test the toxicity of available agent to ensure that the biological agent remained viable. As a result, all the prisoners died.

Scott Ritter last month:

[T]he whole world knew [in 1995] ... that Iraq represented a threat to no one when it came to weapons of mass destruction.

Scott Ritter in 2002:

I have never given Iraq a clean bill of health! Never! Never!

There's plenty more.

Two Iraq War Veterans in the Press

Anti-war Marine activist Jimmy Massey is a fraud. Soldiers in his unit, along with five reporters embedded with his unit, dispute his account of atrocities, including his claim to have personally killed a six year old girl. Massey has appeared with Cindy Sheehan in the past year at anti-war rallies and speeches. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also catches Massey contradicting himself in the course of re-telling the story to the different audiences, and later admitting that he had only heard stories second-hand, rather than witnessing them as he had claimed.

In other speeches, Massey has said he personally shot a 6-year-old child. In some versions, the child was a boy; at other times, a girl.

"How is a 6-year-old child with a bullet in his head a terrorist, because that is the youngest I killed," Massey told a Cornell University audience in March. In a speech in April in Springfield, Vt., he said: "That's war: a 6-year-old girl with a bullet hole in her head at an American checkpoint."

In a speech in Syracuse in March, the Post Standard newspaper quoted him as saying, "The reason the Marines teach you discipline . . . is so that you can confront the enemy and kill him. . . . Or so you can put a bullet into a 6-year-old, which is what I did. "

In the interview with the Post-Dispatch, Massey said he never personally had shot a child. "I meant that's what my unit did," he said. He could not provide details.

The NY Times, meanwhile, has redacted the final letter of a soldier named Jeffery Starr, killed in Iraq, to erase his idealism about the cause he was fighting for. The Times left out the part in bold:

"Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances. I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark."

Scott Burgess Rebuts the White Phosphorous Story

Over at The Daily Ablution Scott takes apart a story in the Independent accusing the U.S. of using phosphorous weapons against civilians.

So ... most cutaneous injury caused by this commonly used weapon results from "the ignition of clothing". This, along with Mr. Pike's observation, casts grave doubt upon a key basis for the assertions that phosphorus was used.

It's not clear just what the images in the RAI video show, but, based on the intact clothing, this evidence suggests that it something other than charred phosphorus victims. While he hasn't seen the video, and so couldn't comment directly about it, Mr. Pike told me that the Indy's description of "clothes largely intact but skin dissolved, caramelised or turned the consistency of leather" sounded like "generic corpses" that had been exposed to the environment for a couple of weeks.

More on the White Phosphorous Story

Scott Burgess has an update on the white phosphorous story, noting that The Independent's editorial page has been contradicted by its own news page.

As we see, and not for the first time, the Independent's leader writers - and their readers - would be better served by spending more time reading their own paper's articles, and less writing overblown, inaccurate pieces debunked by their own reporters.

White Phosphorous, Round 3

Jeff Goldstein rebuts the latest nonsense from Daily Kos and Think Progress.

In Kos’s world, there is no difference between US military and the regime of Saddam Hussein—between humiliation and rape rooms ; between the sanctioned use of WP against entrenched terrorists and the use of nerve agents and WP on Kurdish civilians; between fighting to free a people and fighting to keep them subjugated.

Such moral relativism is not clever or nuanced, though it likes to pretend to be. Instead, it is obfuscatory for the sake of personal aggrandizement: Kos and his ilk like to play as the conscience of the country, but what they are, really, are the kinds of intellectually feeble brats who have come to take for granted the very system they hope to tear down.

That about sums it up. The debate inside the U.S. is mostly a debate between those who believe in America as a force of good in the world and those whose see the U.S. as the main threat to the world.

John Murtha and Troop Withdrawls

I haven't blogged about Murtha's talk of withdrawal, and the subsequent vote, so I'm putting a couple of things down for future reference. If the whole thing bores you, skip it.

Urban Legends About the Iraq War

From The American Enterprise. Excellent rebuttals to the usual talking points.

Iraq as the Reverse Vietnam

Instapundit is calling Iraq the reverse vietnam: "In Vietnam, the brass talked happy-talk, the press talked to grunts and reported that the war was going worse than we were told. But now it's Americans who are talking to the grunts, and, as StrategyPage noted last year, getting a different picture of how the war is going [compared to what the media is telling them]."

Sounds about right. Vietnam destroyed American faith in the military for a generation. Iraq could do the same to the media's credibility.

Ramsay Clarke to Defend Saddam Hussein

Former U.S. Atorney General Ramsay Clarke, who Kevin Drum calls "a godsend for conservative writers looking for column fodder," is joining Saddam Hussein's legal team. Frank Martin explains why that's a good thing, recalling Clarke's spectacularly failed career defending despots and dictators. Clarke is on the wrong side, but at least he's incompetent!

Murtha Encouraged Clinton's 1993 Withdraw from Somalia

Murtha is portrayed in press releases as a Democratic hawk. For a hawk, he sure is in favor of retreating at the earliest possible date. It turns out he encouraged Clinton to withdraw from Somalia. That, in turn, emboldened Al Qaeda, as Osama bin Laden explained:

“But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the ‘heart’ of every Muslim and a remedy to the ‘chests’ of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu.”

If you've read Black Hawk Down the Somali warlords were battered and out of RPGs by the end of that fateful day. Withdrawing was not strategically necessary. It was just a political calculation. Clinton wasn't the only one. Reagan and Bush, Sr. (as the link makes clear) were quick to cut their losses in Beirut and elsewhere. The sum total of those decisions was to teach terrorists that if they attacked the U.S. that we'd run.

After 9/11 Bush the younger was willing to take the defeats with the victories to prove that the U.S. won't be run out of town by terrorists and warlords to appease the tyranny of short-term polls of U.S voters.

It's a long, hard slog militarily and politically, but this is a fight we have to win. The bin Laden quote above proves Donald Rumsfeld's dictum: weakness is a provocation. If they think you'll run if attacked, they're more likely to attack you. Via AlphaPatriot.

About those Danish Cartoons

I haven't said much about them because I'm not doing a lot of political blogging lately. The riots in response to the Danish cartoons help put the world of radicalized Islam in sharper relief. It's become increasingly obvious that Islamic terrorist groups and the Arab street aren't just violent towards Israel or the United States; they're violent towards anyone that undermines their fundamentalist thinking. People whose comfrotable worldview allowed them to cluck their tongues at Israel and the U.S. are finding it harder to feel comfortable in the wake of the East Timor bombings, the London bombings, the Madrid bombings, the Turkish mosque attacks, the French riots, and the current riots inspired by Dutch cartoons.

I am completely amazed at the American and other media outlets that have backed down from showing the cartoons. They've completely forfeited their journalistic integrity by censoring themselves in the name of political correctness. The next time there's a piece of art along the lines of "Piss Christ" that offends Christians they're going to have ensorcell some fancy rationalizations for why they're being less sensitive to Christians than to Muslims. As it is, it's hard to see this as anything other than a double standard.

Tim Blair:

In 1997, columnist Jill Singer argues for the display of Piss Christ: "We ... need to understand the value of artistic freedom."

In 2006, columnist Jill Singer argues against the display of Prophet toons: "Who wants a totally uncensored media run by those devoid of judgment, taste or social responsibility?"

Jim Treacher:

At the risk of being a bit vulgar, what a huge motherfucking crock of camel shit. "We felt the images... would not hinder our readers from making an informed opinion"? First of all, you mean you thought not publishing the images wouldn't hinder the readers from making an informed opinion.

More Tim Blair:

Journalists can spend entire careers mouthing off about their commitment to free speech without ever having the chance to properly demonstrate it. I once had a theory that the lack of repression in modern democracies drove journalists to invent McCathyesque threats, so much did they crave an opportunity to stare down those who would silence them. Their ideal imagined foes (I’m guessing): brutish religious fundamentalists opposed to progressive notions on women’s rights, homosexuality, art, and education.

Problem is, those imagined foes were always named Falwell or Robertson or Nile (or John Paul II). Faced with fundamentalist religious demands from people bearing less familiar titles, however, the media froze. Missed your chance, journalists!

And one last Tim Blair, contrasting the reluctance of media outlets to show the Danish cartoons with their lack of reluctance or soul-searching in showing new Abu Ghraib photos.

Note again the willingness of the media to excite Muslim anger in cases where none of that anger might be directed towards the media.

The Religion of Peace That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Mark Steyn looks at P.C. media self-censorship in the Chapel Hill terrorist attack.

A fellow called Mohammed mows down a bunch of students? Just one of those things -- like a gran'ma in my neck of the woods a couple of years back who hit the wrong pedal in the parking lot and ploughed through a McDonald's, leaving the place a hideous tangle of crumbled drywall, splattered patties and incendiary hot apple-pie filling. Yet, according to his own statements, Taheri-azar committed an act of ideological domestic terrorism, which he'd planned for two months. He told police he was more disappointed more students in his path weren't struck and that he'd rented the biggest vehicle the agency had in order to do as much damage to as many people as possible. The Persian car pet may have been flooring it, but the media are idling in neutral, if not actively reversing away from the story as fast as they can. Taheri-azar informed the judge he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah," and it was apparently the will of Allah that he get behind the wheel of Allah.

It is odd that the media is downplaying the Islamic terror angle that's very clearly the rationale behind the attacks. I've seen commentators justify it by saying that the media doesn't want to inflame the situation because they don't want to risk a violent backlash against Muslims. It's the same rationale for not showing tapes of the 9/11 attacks. Of course, that backlash hasn't happened in any meaningful way in the past, despite media handwringing over same. So now we're in the situation of the media hiding information about an actually violent Muslim terrorist so that we supposedly violent Americans don't strike back. This seems to be nothing other than reverse (and flawed) P.C. profiling of Americans as ignorant, violent hoodlums.

Prospect: Two Out of Three Teams Said Trailers Were for WMDs

The other day the Washington Post story quoted a supposedly unequivocal report from one team. Now the Spectator says that two of the three inspection teams thought the trailers were mobile WMD labs, and the third team was in fact split, as the NY Times reported in 2003.

Curiously, on June 7, 2003, the New York Times had already described three teams looking over the trailers in Iraq. Two of the teams were in agreement that the trailers were WMD labs, but the third, more senior team was not at all "unequivocal," but "divided sharply over the functions of the trailers." Given that the dissenting experts with "direct access to the evidence" whom the Times quotes were both British and American experts, and the Post also describes the secret team as being made up of "nine civilian U.S. and British experts," the Post's scoop on the "secret" third team is looking less, well, scoopy, and more like a rehash of information mostly in the public domain for nearly three years. (See also George Gooding at Seixon.com, who got the scoop on the Post's non-scoop.)

Press fight!

Bush Offers Nuke Plant to Iran

The Bull Moose on Bush offering a nuclear power plant to Iran if they shut down their uranium enrichment program:

Well, there you have it. After years of conservative claims that the Clinton Administration sold out to the North Koreans with the deal that gave them a nuclear reactor, the Bushies have largely replicated that bargain for the Iranians. Peace in our time!

Let us put this in perspective. If a Kerry Administration had offered this deal, there would be the equivalent of conservative rioting in the streets. An impeachment resolution would be offered. The theme of the day on talk radio would be the betrayal of America.

I'm pretty sure the Bullmoose is correct - conservatives would call this appeasement if a Democrat did it. What's more, the mini-UN or whatever it was called tried this tactic months ago and Iran rejected their proposal. I can't imagine what BushCo is thinking.

French Support for Palestinians Waning

From The Jerusalem Post:

Three years ago, 60 percent of French respondents said they took a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and of that 60%, four out of five backed the Palestinians. Today, by contrast, 60% of French respondents did not take a side in the conflict, and support for the Palestinians had dropped by half among those who did express a preference.

At the root of the change, said Greenberg, was a fundamental remaking in Europe of the "framework" through which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viewed. Three years ago, he said, the conflict was perceived "in a post-colonial framework."

There was a sense "that Europe could cancel out its own colonial history by taking the 'right' side" - the Palestinian side. Yasser Arafat was viewed as "an anti-colonial, liberation leader." The US was seen as a global imperial power, added Greenberg, and the fact that it was backing Israel only added to the "instinctive" sense of the Palestinians as victims.

Today, by contrast, the Europeans "are focused on fundamentalist Islam and its impact on them," he said. The Europeans were now asking themselves "who is the moderate in this conflict, and who is the extremist? And suddenly it is the Palestinians who may be the extremists, or who are allied with extremists who threaten Europe's own society." An increasing proportion of Europeans are concluding that "maybe the Palestinians are not the colonialist victims" after all.

Not to Alarm Anyone, But

Have you noticed that war has broken out between Israel and Hamas over the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier? Lots more today at Drudge. Now that the Palestinians have a government, it looks like Israel is showing them the consequences for a government committing acts of terrorism. It turns out governments are easier to punish than terrorist groups.

Iraq Oil Production Highest Since War Began

Production now at 2.5 million barrels per day.

I Just Realized We're in a Proxy War with Iran and Syria

So this war in Iraq. This confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. I just realized we're in a proxy war with Iran. And Syria, to a lesser degree.

Iran and Syria have armed Hezbollah with some 14,000 rockets. A Hezbollah soldier tells Reuters he trained in Iran and arrived there on a flight from Syria. It's long been said that Iran was supplying and manning the Iraq resistance.

So we're in a proxy war with Iran and probably Syria. It's worth remembering that as news comes out of the Middle East.

Israel TV Station: Iranian Soldiers Found Among Hizbollah

Reuters:

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard have been found among Hizbollah guerrillas slain by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, Israel's Channel 10 television reported on Wednesday citing diplomatic sources.

It said the Iranians were identified by documents found on their bodies, but gave no further details on how many were discovered or when. Neither the Israeli military nor Hizbollah representatives in Beirut had immediate comment on the report.

I'd like to see confirmation from a non-Israeli source. (Israel is engaged to some degree in a progaganda war, even if it is somewhat less cynical and shameless than Hezbollah's propaganda war.) If it is true the story doesn't surprise me.

See also:
- I Just Realized We're in a Proxy War with Iran and Syria

Syrian Missiles Being Fired at Israel

From the UK Telegraph:

Abandoned Hizbollah positions in Lebanon yesterday revealed conclusive evidence that Syria - and almost certainly Iran - provided the anti-tank missiles that have blunted the power of Israel's once invincible armour.

How War, Guerilla Warfare, and Terrorism Work

Steven den Beste explains all.

Industrial war can be summed up this way: God fights on the side which has the biggest pile of ammunition and the fastest rate of replacement of expended ammunition. Like any general principle it's not absolutely unconditionally true, but that's the norm.

In response, two new strategic doctrines of war were developed to make it possible for small logistically-poor forces to contend against large logistically-rich forces without getting instantly crushed: guerrilla warfare and terrorist warfare. Both of them seek to nullify the logistical advantage of their richer opponents by maintaining initiative, so as to control the tempo of the war at a level low enough to not exhaust the logistics of the poorer side. For the rest of this discussion I'll be concentrating on guerrillas.

Guerrillas hide among civilians, and only come out and form up when they choose to fight. The rest of the time they're invisible, which makes it impossible for their rich opponent to find them.

It's possible for guerrillas to win directly, but the doctrine doesn't assume that to be the only way victory can be achieved. The idea is to try to fight a long slow war and to build strength. Guerrillas try to maintain a force-in-being, and concentrate heavily on propaganda. By so doing they try to wear out their opponent, try to rally supporters, and try to find patrons elsewhere to support the fight. When handled ideally all these begin slow but increase in effectiveness as time goes on. As their strength builds, they can make more attacks, and get more headlines. The other side's war weariness grows. Patrons see the guerrillas winning and are more enthusiastic about providing more and better weapons and supplies to help them. Locals see them winning and are more likely to join or otherwise support them.

Anyone recognize Hezbollah in what I just wrote? That's what they've been trying to do in Lebanon.

Conversation in a Food City Checkout Line

JAY: Do you have your Food City card?
ME: I think. Maybe on my keychain.
JAY: Here. You can use mine.
ME: I'm using your Food City card? Cool. In that case I want five enema bottles, a gross of Kotex, and a dozen Trojans size extra-small.
JAY: Why don't you go ahead and get some of that cold medicine they keep behind the counter?
ME: (to the cashier) I'll take a hundred dollars worth of whatever I need to make crystal meth. Put it on his card.

See also:
- Buying Condoms
- Conversation in the Living Room
- Conversation in a Kroger's Checkout Line
- Conversation at a Urinal (Rated R)

Hoder on a Nuclear Iran

I met Hossein Derakshan ("Hoder") last year at BlogNashville and covered his talk there. Hoder is an Iranian expat and critic of the current Iranian regime. He currently lives in Canada.

This week he wrote a Washington Post op-ed titled "Iran Needs Nuclear Weapons."

Hoder fled his native country because of the abuse of power there. He's spoken out against the Iranian mullah's manipulation of elections (such as wiping dozens of opposition party candidates off the ballot). He's fearful of going back because the government may arrest him for his criticism.

Yet he wants that same government to have nuclear weapons. What's wrong with this picture?

This is the same Iranian government that openly gave conventional arms to Hezbollah a few months ago to wage a proxy war with Israel. Why should we believe they wouldn't do the same with nuclear weapons?

Is the Troop Surge for Iraq, or Iran?

I'm starting to wonder if everything is as it appears with the calls for increased troops in Iraq. Ahmadinejad keeps making fierce noises about Iran's nuclear program. It's possible the extra troops are a chess move to intimidate him into concessions on Iran's nuclear program, or at least to be less of a loudmouth. It's easy to know what's said at press conferences and in press releases. It's harder to know what's happening behind the scenes.

Scott Adams Re-thinks the War on Terror/Al Qaeda

He's now in favor of it:

One of the problems is that there is a complete disconnect between reality and what terrorists believe. They think God gave them specific real estate, that a horse can fly, there are virgins waiting for them in heaven, and Jews orchestrated the 9-11 attacks. There’s no reason to believe that reality intrudes on their decisions. Tweaking reality would be a waste of time.

This leads me to Israel. I used to think Israel was making a mistake to occupy disputed land and give their enemies more reasons to attack and fewer reasons to make peace. Again, perhaps if we had a time machine there was a period in history where that was true. But we’re long past that. Now I believe there is sufficient perpetual hatred against Israel that it would be irrational for them to offer any concessions. It makes more sense to grab as much land and water as they can get their hands on. And it makes sense to keep the Palestinians in a permanent state of wretchedness and powerlessness as Israel consolidates its hold on those resources. In five hundred years, they’ll be glad they have more land and water.

While I think Israel’s policies are a dark grey form of evil, I support them because at this point they are being entirely rational. It would be hypocritical to deny any other nation the right to pursue their self-interest.

ABC: "Document: Iran Caught Red-Handed Shipping Arms to Taliban"

From ABC's newsblog:

NATO officials say they have caught Iran red-handed, shipping heavy arms, C4 explosives and advanced roadside bombs to the Taliban for use against NATO forces, in what the officials say is a dramatic escalation of Iran's proxy war against the United States and Great Britain.

"It is inconceivable that it is anyone other than the Iranian government that's doing it," said former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stopped short earlier this week of blaming Iran, saying the U.S. did not have evidence "of the involvement of the Iranian government in support of the Taliban."

But an analysis by a senior coalition official, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, concludes there is clear evidence of Iran's involvement.

Iran gave arms to Hezbollah during last year's proxy war with Isreal. Now it's been caught giving arms to the Taliban. If Iran gets nuclear weapons there's no reason to believe they won't give them to terrorists.

Positive NY Times Op-Ed on the Surge

NY Times Op-ed by Michael E. O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution and Kenneth M. Pollack of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings:

In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.

The additional American military formations brought in as part of the surge, General Petraeus’s determination to hold areas until they are truly secure before redeploying units, and the increasing competence of the Iraqis has had another critical effect: no more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave.

In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.

Muqtada Al-Sadr Calls Off Violence in Iraq

I'm late in linking to this:

BAGHDAD - The powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr publicly ordered his huge militia Wednesday to "freeze" operations for up to six months.

But U.S. and Iraqi officials expressed skepticism of the fiery, anti-American cleric's intentions and his ability to control the fractured network of fighters who kill in his name.

Al-Sadr issued his order following a day of Shiite-against-Shiite gunfire that killed 49 people during a religious ceremony in the holy city of Karbala. In a statement, he said the freeze would apply to his Mahdi Army militia "without exception in order to have it restructured in a way that would retain for this ideological body its prestige."

It's hard not to see this as a turning point and evidence of the success of General Patreus's surge.

Iraq Civil War Averted, Iranian Influence Checked

Washington Post via Confederate Yankee:

Civil war has been averted in Iraq and Iranian intervention there has "ceased to exist," Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday.

"I can't say there is a picture of roses and flowers in Iraq," Maliki told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "However, I can say that the greatest victory, of which I am proud . . . is stopping the explosion of a sectarian war." That possibility, he said, "is now far away."

While political reconciliation is not yet complete, he said, progress is being made. "Reconciliation is not a decision that can be made, but a process that takes continuous efforts and also needs strategic patience," Maliki said.

89,000 Afghanistan Kids Saved This Year

USA Today - Afghan officials: Better care saves 89,000 kids this year:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Close to 90,000 children who would have died before age 5 in Afghanistan during Taliban rule will stay alive this year because of advances in medical care in the country, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

The under-5 child mortality rate in Afghanistan has declined from an estimated 257 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2001 to about 191 per 1,000 in 2006, the Ministry of Public Health said, relying on a new study by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.N. and aid agency Save the Children both hailed the advances in health care in Afghanistan.

"This is certainly very positive news," said the U.N. spokesman in Afghanistan, Adrian Edwards. "To come from such low life expectancy to see this improvement does appear to be an indication that the work on the health sector here is beginning to pay off."

The article goes out of its way to give any credit to the U.S., devoting just one sentence (the last sentence) to the American role: "A U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban militant movement from power."

CNN's Six "Undecided Voters" Were Ringers

Doug Ross:

CNN hits bottom and digs: All six debate questioners appear to be Democratic Party operatives. So much for "ordinary people, undecided voters". To paraphrase Junior Soprano, CNN is so far up the DNC's hind end, Howard Dean can taste hair gel.

In a nutshell, CNN's six "undecided voters" were:

A Democratic Party bigwig
An antiwar activist
A Union official
An Islamic leader
A Harry Reid staffer
A radical Chicano separatist

This is why some people's ears perk up when they see or hear the phrase "undecided voter."

See also:
- John Ridley - NPR's "Undecided Voter"

Does the New Iran NIE Change Anything?

From The Corner:

I worked as a manager for 30 years in the US nuclear weapons program and have been a consultant to places like Los Alamos for the past six years. The NIE, if correct, still is of concern. Making nuclear weapons involves two major initiatives: designing/building the weapon and getting the nuclear material for the weapon. The NIE appears to say that the former has been (temporarily?) suspended, while the latter is proceeding. Getting the nuclear material for a uranium bomb is by far the most difficult and time consuming part of the problem. The US pursued parallel programs (uranium and plutonium) in the Manhattan Project. US physicists were so sure that the uranium bomb would work that they did not even test it before using the uranium bomb on Japan (the one we tested in southern New Mexico was the plutonium bomb). It is likely that the physics and manufacturing challenges for the Iranians are modest at best. (Many of the physics students in my grad school 40 years ago were Iranians that planned to return home.) Again, the difficult job is getting sufficient enriched uranium, and that program continues to be accelerated. So... the NIE says that the Iranians have suspended their weaponization efforts, but in the total critical path to getting a bomb, I am not sure that it matters.

And we have reason to believe that Iran is still refining uranium based on an intelligence report not from the Bush administration but from the IAEA:

A new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's nuclear program highlights Tehran's cooperation with the agency. But the report makes clear that Iran continues to defy international demands for a halt to its uranium enrichment program.

So the news that Iran isn't developing its weapon program - assuming it's even true - doesn't seem like that big of a deal if it's still refining uranium.