I have to agree with Roger Simon: "As we all know, we don't choose our family, but Obama chose this racist demagogue as his pastor for decades. It's not funny." Simon was wondering if Obama will condemn Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor of 20 years, for the outlandish statements ABC News published today.

[ABC News]An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright's sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
What an odd display of paranoia. Actually, strike that, it's exactly the kind of vitriol we've come to expect of the extreme left-wing. If the government wanted to really kill an entire segment of minorities it wouldn't waste its time with some complicated and ridiculous drugs to prisons to legislation scheme -- it would just round them up and kill them, as governments are doing right now in Sudan and North Korea, even as "reverends" such as Wright are notably silent.

It's because Rev. Wright is an American, unfortunately, that he can vocalize such dribble with impunity. It is because of America that two-thirds of our presidential candidates are minorities. How many Pakistanis will make it this far in even a UK prime minister candidacy? Let alone how many women will ever become "president" of Iran.

Rev. Wright's serving of irrationality gets worse:

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda's attacks because of its own terrorism.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation.
Speaking of ignorance, if there's one place where the "everybody hates America" rule isn't true, it's Africa. And if the Palestinians are victims it's because of their enablers in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, who long ago gave up fighting Israeli democracy directly in lieu of using Palestinians as their suicide bombing proxies.

On to the next slur: Never batted an eye over the bomb? I'd say the 418,000 American casualties batted an eye. I'd say the casualty estimates to the alternative of using nukes (invading Japan), between 250,000 to one million men, made Truman bat an eye.

And that wasn't hogwash, either. Indeed, just two months prior to the Hiroshima bombing the US suffered 58,000 casualties in the invasion of Okinawa, which was to be the last step prior to invasion of Japan's mainland. Combine that with 26,000 US casualties three months before, at Iwo Jima, and rational people understand just how bloody that invasion would have been. I guess Truman figured 418,000 was enough. And good thing for the Japanese people we did. Because we would have quintupled or more their dead.

In fact, I'm getting real sick and tired of uber-liberal revisions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "terrorism" or "war crimes."

The Allies warned Japan to surrender in The Potsdam Declaration, saying, "The inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland" was their alternative. The Japanese made their bed. Recall too that Japan continued air strikes on US war ships after the first bomb was dropped! Hardly the acts of "victims" wanting to surrender.

Meanwhile, terms like "Bushido code," "Death March to Bataan," "Rape of Nanking," or "Korean comfort women" never enter the vocabulary of the Wrights of the world when they discuss the demise of Imperial Japan.

That makes Rev. Wright either ignorant or a biased fool, or both.

The question is, what is Obama? Does he share this irrational logic?

Labels: 2008, antiwar loonies, Obama, revisionist history

Victor Davis Hanson takes on historical revisionism of the Iranian proliferation threat.

The latest news from Iran about the supposed abandonment in 2003 of the effort to produce a Bomb — if even remotely accurate — presents somewhat of a dilemma for liberal Democrats.

Are they now to suggest that Republicans have been warmongering over a nonexistent threat for partisan purposes? But to advance that belief is also to concede that, Iran, like Libya, likely came to a conjecture around (say early spring 2003?) that it was not wise for regimes to conceal WMD programs, given the unpredictable, but lethal American military reaction.

After all, what critic would wish now to grant that one result of the 2003 war-aside from the real chance that Iraq can stabilize and function under the only consensual government in the region-might have been the elimination for some time of two growing and potentially nuclear threats to American security, quite apart from Saddam Hussein?

War is unpredictable and instead of "no blood for oil" (oil went from $20 something to $90 something a barrel after the war, enriching Iraq and the Arab Gulf region at our expense), perhaps the cry, post facto, should have been "no blood for the elimination of nukes."

In the meantime, expect a variety of rebuttals to this assurance that for 4 years the Iranians haven't gotten much closer to producing weapons grade materials.

Labels: antiwar loonies, democrats, Iran, media bias

Victor Davis Hanson gives Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams a just deserved history lesson.

I suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams read a little history about the British experience in India before he offers politically-correct but historically laughable sermons like the one he gave to a Muslim "lifestyle" magazine:

[Bishop Williams:] It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British Empire did - in India, for example. It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together - Iraq, for example.
ONE, who is clearing the decks and moving on? And who are the "other people" putting Iraq back together? Iran? Saudi Arabia? China? The British in Basra? First, we read from the anti-war Left that the US is wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of its lives in Iraq, and yet now that we are clearing the decks and not putting it back together? Which is it?

TWO, Williams should read a little about British military campaigns in India, and then count the corpses.

THREE, he should also tally up the amount of money the U.S. has spent for civic and economic development in Iraq over four years, and then compare that to what Britain invested in any four-year period in their centuries-long occupation of India.

FOUR, I don't recall the British, after their second year in India, fostering nation-wide elections.

FIVE, if he is worried about the soul of civilization in general, and the U.S. in particular, he might equally ask his Muslim interviewers about the status of women in the Muslim world, polygamy, female circumcision, the existence of slavery in the Sudan, the status of free expression and dissent, and religious tolerance ( i.e., he should try to visit Mecca on his next goodwill, interfaith tour) .

SIX, all Williams will accomplish is to convince Episcopalians in the U.S. not to follow the Anglican Church, and most Americans in general that, if they need any reminders, many of the loud left-wing British elite, nursed on envy of the US, still petulant over lost power and influence, and scared stiff of the demographic and immigration trends in its own country, are well, unhinged.

Labels: antiwar loonies, appeasement, capitulation, defending liberty, Iraq, white flag

[Wall Street Journal] The Paul campaign has also drawn support from antigovernment fringe groups and 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Since mid-September, a large "Ron Paul for President" banner has flashed at the bottom of white-supremacist Internet forum Stormfront.org. "Really, we haven't seen a candidate like Ron Paul in some time. The closest would have been Pat Buchanan" in 2000, says Don Black of West Palm Beach, Fla., the group's founder and a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, who donated $500 to Mr. Paul's campaign.

The Paul campaign has a hands-off approach when it comes to supporters' activities and political backgrounds. While grateful for the money, aides insist they aren't responsible for what supporters do online. "We don't know who a lot of these people are," says Jesse Benton, a campaign spokesman.

Mr. Benton declined to make Dr. Paul available to comment. "Sometimes, Ron Paul supporters get a little overpassionate and maybe a little more shrill than what some might like," Mr. Benton says. "For the most part, our supporters are polite and mannerly." He has his own conspiracy theory: Some other candidates' supporters may be masquerading as Ron Paul supporters to hurt his campaign.
That's an interesting theory. Here's another: Neo-Nazis, 9-11 "Truthers" and other such nutball fanatics are indeed supporting Ron Paul.

There's a lot of things I like about libertarians, and at a different time I might be inclined to vote for one, but I've got a real problem with the Paul campaign legitimately deriding the expansion of pork barrel politics while accepting money from anyone - and clearly ANYONE. That's the epitome of hypocrisy, and totally irresponsible.

Those who live in glass houses...

Labels: 9-11, antiwar loonies, Moonbats, Ron Paul

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman came down hard on his fellow Democrats (albeit Joe's technically an indy) in a speech at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Here's an excerpt of his comments, all true at that:

"For many Democrats, the guiding conviction in foreign policy isn't pacifism or isolationism, it is distrust and disdain of Republicans in general, and President Bush in particular. In this regard, the Democratic foreign policy worldview has become defined by the same reflexive, blind opposition to the President that defined Republicans in the 1990s — even when it means repudiating the very principles and policies that Democrats as a party have stood for, at our best and strongest."

The Bush administrations post-9/11 ideological conversion confronted Democrats with an awkward choice. Should we welcome the president's foreign policy flip-flop? Or should Democrats match it with a flip-flop of our own?"

"I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework that the president articulated for the War on Terror as our own — because it was our own. It was our legacy ... But that was not the choice most Democrats made. Instead, they flip-flopped."

"Even as evidence has mounted that General Petraeus' new counterinsurgency strategy is succeeding, Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq, reluctant to acknowledge the progress we are now achieving, or even that that progress has enabled us to begin drawing down our troops there."

"There is something profoundly wrong — something that should trouble all of us — when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran's murder of our troops, than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.

"There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyper-partisan sentiment in the Democratic base, even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime."

Call Lieberman the last of a dying breed -- the Truman Democrats. Bolstering Lieberman's point is this statistic. Of 40 Democrat-sponsored bills, according to The Politico, "Only one of those has passed both chambers, even though both are run by Democrats. That one was vetoed by Bush."

Labels: antiwar loonies, Congress, democrats, Iran, Iraq, Lieberman

We've all heard the stories, many true, some apocryphal, of soldiers returning home from Vietnam only to be disrespected and shunned by an ungrateful nation. How many were called war criminals or spat upon is as controversial as it is unknowable. But there's one thing we know our troops never experienced. We never filled the movie theaters during wartime with films calling them war criminals, rapists and, figuratively, spitting on them or on their mission.

Not so today. Hollywood has been churning out antiwar movies at a blistering pace of late, with more to come. We've already had Rendition, a tendentious, plodding assault on the war on terror, seemingly as-told-to by the ACLU, starring Reese Witherspoon, Peter Sarsgaard, Meryl Streep and Jake Gyllenhaal. There's the meandering In the Valley of Elah, written and directed by Paul Haggis, about a family dealing with a cover-up of their soldier-son's death in an unnecessary war. The Kingdom, more exciting than most, deals with an FBI team's attempt to investigate a terrorist attack on Americans in Saudi Arabia. Its antiwar credentials come from suggesting that the sworn lawmen (and women) investigating the slaughter of families playing softball are no better than the murderers.

Coming next month: Lions for Lambs, starring Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep — which gives every indication of being a theatrical version of a loaded question from Helen Thomas at a White House briefing — and Redacted, a fake documentary directed by Brian De Palma, in which U.S. troops are depicted as dehumanized rapists. Next spring comes Stop Loss, starring Ryan Phillippe, the supposedly heroic soldier who refuses to fight. And there are a slew of antiwar books being adapted for the screen as well.

To be sure, many of these films don't attack the troops directly. Some are thoughtful in their critiques, others less so. Regardless, this is still uncharted territory. "These movies certainly are more willing to be critical of the military and misconduct of individual soldiers. Certainly no such feature was made like these during ... the Vietnam War," Charles Ferguson, a political scientist and creator of the anti-Iraq war documentary, No End In Sight, recently told The Philadelphia Inquirer. But here's the interesting part: So far, these movies are tanking. Rendition opened on 2,250 screens, with three Oscar winners in the cast, and it was beaten its opening weekend by a re-release of the 14-year-old A Nightmare Before Christmas. Elah was a bigger bomb than those used in the "shock and awe" campaign. The Kingdom earned less than $50 million, and surely only did that well because it was marketed as an action movie rather than an antiwar one. Jeanine Basinger, a film historian at Wesleyan University, speculates that "these films are coming forward during the progress of a war and questioning it sooner may mean that the general public is rejecting what our leaders are telling us ... and want to know more about the war."

This is an odd, yet unsurprising, interpretation in an age when The Daily Show is a primary news source.

The public doesn't get to decide what movies are made. As President Bush might say, Hollywood is the "decider." The public determines which movies are successful. Perhaps the studios of yesteryear knew something today's moguls don't. Maybe Americans don't like to see America and her troops run down, even during an unpopular war.

When Peter Berg tested The Kingdom on Americans, he was horrified when the audience cheered when the FBI killed the terrorists at the end. "Am I experiencing American bloodlust?" the director agonized. Berg's contemptuous reaction toward American audiences may point to a few of the reasons these movies are faring poorly at American box offices.

First, economics. Hollywood cares less and less about what Americans think of their products because as domestic movie attendance has declined, Hollywood shifted its aim to foreign markets. In America, filmmakers are at pains to insist their antiwar fare isn't anti-American. No such distinctions need be made when these films open at Cannes, Venice and Toronto. Denouncing the war isn't only good marketing in Europe, it's the fastest route to critical acclaim.

Second, Americans may not be as passionately opposed to the war as the polls have led Hollywood to believe. Left-wing bloggers, hyper-rich Democratic donors and antiwar activists hate the war with biblical fury. But many average Americans are depressed by the war because, until recently, it was going so badly. The polls don't capture this distinction very well.

This illuminates an underdiscussed dynamic of our times. Americans are both antiwar and anti-antiwar. Polls show they are disgusted with Republicans and Democrats. Hollywood and the left generally have misread this political discontent thinking there's a mandate for their trite Vietnam-era nostalgia for mass protest and Joan Baez speechifying. But few Americans are eager to spend their money to listen to the Jane Fonda set say, "I told you so!" for two hours. Especially not when we've heard it all before. (Indeed, Redacted is essentially a remake of his Vietnam movie Casualties of War.)

By confusing the public's war-weariness with their own carefully cultivated rage, they've badly overreached. Rage may be a good box office draw; exhaustion isn't. The late film critic Pauline Kael is reported to have said that Nixon couldn't have won because she didn't know anybody who voted for him. Similarly, maybe everyone Paul Haggis knows shares his hatred for the war, but he just doesn't know enough people to make a hit.
-- Jonah Goldberg

Labels: antiwar loonies, capitulation, Hollywood bias, Iraq, white flag

Funny review by John Podhoretz; no doubt he's an evil zionist supporting warmonger.

Streep plays a reporter for a news network who also doubles as a correspondent for Time in her copious spare time. She arrives at the Capitol Hill office of Republican Senator Cruise, who has a scoop for her: There is a new strategy to win the war in Afghanistan. At that very moment in Afghanistan, Special Forces troops are being moved into position to implement Cruise's new strategy. Two of the Special Forces troops are former students of liberal professor Redford, who is in his office having a sit-down with an impressive but unmotivated college student.

And there you have Lions for Lambs. The movie basically consists of three one-act plays, with two characters each, taking place simultaneously: Cruise and Streep in the Senate office, Redford and Unmotivated Student in a campus office, and Redford's two students shot up and bleeding on an Afghan mountain while al Qaeda operatives close in on them. Redford tells Unmotivated the story of his two students, little knowing they are meeting their fate at that very moment. He begged them not to go.

But they decided they had to get involved in order to further their cause of bringing social justice to the ghetto--to join the military and fight in the war on terror to give them unimpeachable political credentials. Redford sees in Unmotivated the same bravery, the same conviction, the same ability to stand up for something.
Because that is what it is all about--standing up for something. "Do something," Redford tells Unmotivated, who replies that politicians tell lies and why shouldn't he just go for the good life where you make money? But this is a Hollywood picture, and we know that Hollywood is far too monastic a place to abide anyone who is just in it for the money.

Cruise, who looks far more like John Edwards than any Republican politician, offers plastic platitudes to Streep. Mistakes were made in the past, he says, but now is the time to look forward. She is old enough to have heard it all before, she says, in the language of Vietnam-era Gen. Creighton Abrams--and besides, people like Cruise lied us into war in Iraq. He points out that her network used to offer serious news reporting and now has a toothy anchorwoman with big hair. She hangs her head in shame.

After Cruise gets a phone call informing him that the new strategy is already a failure because Redford's two students are bleeding on the mountain, he turns to her and speaks the truth. He is tired of America being humiliated, he says. She leaves his office, begins to hyperventilate, and tells her boss that Cruise is going to become the next president and use nuclear weapons on unsuspecting Muslims. Her boss tells her to write up the news without mentioning the whole nuclear-weapons thing. She says she will not be a vehicle for warmongering propaganda the way the entire news media were the last time. He says she'd better, or Streep's sick mother will no longer be able to receive 24-hour care.

The last thing we see is Unmotivated reading the crawl on Streep's cable news channel simply stating that there is a new strategy for winning the war in Afghanistan. Streep has given in. We are left to understand that the only thing standing between America and Armageddon at the hands of Tom Cruise, Evil Republican, is the Unmotivated College Student choosing to "stand up for something."
Will he do it? Never before have we seen such shades of gray! Thank the Lord, we have at last moved past the black-and-white rhetoric of the past six years!

Labels: Afghanistan, antiwar loonies, Hollywood bias, war on terror

[Sarasota Herald Tribune] Just six months ago, this mostly Sunni neighborhood was one of the centers of al-Qaida in Iraq operations. The district in western Baghdad was hit by more than a dozen bombings and shootings some days. Few people dared to venture onto the streets.

On Tuesday, women shopped and men drank tea in sidewalk cafes. Occasionally, U.S. soldiers walking the streets were greeted with salaams and smiles.

What is happening here reflects similar trends across Baghdad and parts of Iraq, where civilian and U.S. military casualties have dropped sharply in the past two months. But the speed of the turnaround in places such as Amariyah has taken almost everyone - including U.S. military forces in the area - by surprise.

"The progress that we made is almost unbelievable," said Capt. Brendan Gallagher, 29, of Columbia, Md., who serves with the Army's 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division.
That's just one of several articles compiled via Pat Dollard. Here's a roundup of more news stories unlikely to see saturation coverage by our agenda-driven mainstream media:

Officials Cite Return Of [46,000] Iraqis to Baghdad As Violence Declines (Wa. Post)

Militant Group Is Out of Baghdad, U.S. Says [NYT]

Villagers Battle Scores Of Al Qaeda In Baaquba [Dollard]

Nonlethal Ray Gun May Be Used In Iraq Next Year [Dollard]

Take note Cindy Sheehan and company, our military is so sinister and wicked that they're coming up with ways to not kill people. If only Islamic terrorists did the same.

And rounding up is this criticism of American antiwar butternuts from IraqPundit.

I know those who are wedded to the idea of a failed Iraq are calling me a deluded idiot and worse. But things are improving slowly. My relatives in Baghdad say there's no comparison; things are much better than they were six months ago. They can visit friends in different areas and walk about the neighbourhood in the evening.

Frankly, I don't understand why so many mock us for wanting a future for Iraq. Is your hatred for George Bush so great that you prefer to see millions of civilians suffer just to prove him wrong?

It really comes down to this: you are determined to see Iraq become a permanent hellhole because you hate Bush. And we are determined to see Iraq become a success, because we want to live.
He has more to say here.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Iraq, media bias, Petraeus

This article should make you sick to your stomach. For all their talk about "spying on Americans" and other such nonsense, at the end of the day, when Democrats are challenging so-called "warrantless wiretaps" or the Patriot Act, all they're really doing is ensuring that another horrible episode, whether 9-11 or the one below, occurs.

[NY Post] U.S. intelligence officials got mired for nearly 10 hours seeking approval to use wiretaps against al Qaeda terrorists suspected of kidnapping Queens soldier Alex Jimenez in Iraq earlier this year, The Post has learned.

This week, Congress plans to vote on a bill that leaves in place the legal hurdles in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - problems that were highlighted during the May search for a group of kidnapped U.S. soldiers.

...A search to rescue the men was quickly launched. But it soon ground to a halt as lawyers - obeying strict U.S. laws about surveillance - cobbled together the legal grounds for wiretapping the suspected kidnappers.

Starting at 10 a.m. on May 15, according to a timeline provided to Congress by the director of national intelligence, lawyers for the National Security Agency met and determined that special approval from the attorney general would be required first.

For an excruciating nine hours and 38 minutes, searchers in Iraq waited as U.S. lawyers discussed legal issues and hammered out the "probable cause" necessary for the attorney general to grant such "emergency" permission.

Finally, approval was granted and, at 7:38 that night, surveillance began.

"The intelligence community was forced to abandon our soldiers because of the law," a senior congressional staffer with access to the classified case told The Post.

"How many lawyers does it take to rescue our soldiers?" he asked. "It should be zero." [emphasis mine]

The FISA law applies even to a cellphone conversation between two people in Iraq, because those communications zip along wires through U.S. hubs, which is where the taps are typically applied.

Labels: antiwar loonies, civil liberties, Congress, Delusional Democrats, rules of engagement, surveillance, TSP, war on terror, wiretap

Jimmy Carter's latest diatribe:

"He's [VP Dick Cheney] a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world," Carter told the BBC World News America in an interview to air later on Wednesday.

"You know he's been a disaster for our country," Carter said. "I think he's been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he's prevailed."
Jimmy Carter is hardly one to be criticizing others for being a "disaster."

It's typical of the extreme left wing of American politics to resort to ad homonym attacks, particularly the Chickenhawk argument -- that those urging military action are never in the military.

Carter uses personal attacks because that's all he has, because it is he who has been the "disaster." The current administration has certainly failed in many ways but at least they didn't allow some two-bit Ayatollah to hold 52 of our citizens as hostages for 444 days. And this former president, so often praised for his peace promotion, has been just as much a disaster since he left office. He's an embarrassment.

One should never confuse "peace" with refusal to take significant action.

Liberals like Carter claim conservatives see only black and white, but fail to acknowledge the "shades of grey." It's not that conservatives don't see the grey, but rather in the end -- and especially as president -- one has to make a damn decision. The world's Carters use shades of grey as an excuse for inaction. The words every murdering dictator loves to hear are: "It's just all so complicated. We need more dialogue."

Carter's reaction to genocide in Sudan was to ignore it for years and then partake in a highly publicized "shouting match" with some low-level security guard. After he called his meeting with Sudan's dictator "constructive," even actress Mia Farrow termed Carter's comments "disappointing, offensive, arrogant and unconscionably ignorant."

You know your foreign policy priorities are out of wack when you make a Hollywood liberal look hawkish. Or is Ms. Farrow a "militant" too?

It shouldn't be a surprise. This is the same guy who recently labeled the Nazi's systematic extermination of 6 million Jews as "the so-called Holocaust," which is straight out of the playbook of an Iranian mullah. Nice, eh?

If promoting peace means coddling dictators who slaughter their own populations then may we all be warmongers.

Intentions do matter. Carter, like so many other liberals, would morally equate a Palestinian suicide bomber who targets a bus stop with an Israeli soldier who misses the Hamas terrorist with an M-16 shot and accidentally hits the kid the terrorist was hiding behind.

Then, as he does above with Cheney, he would label anyone demanding action more substantial than, say, a UN debate, as a "Chickenhawk," one who "avoided any service of his own." Yet, simultaneously Carter and other liberals cut the budget for the military as they did, and would again.

There are currently 2.33 million Americans in both active and reserve military service combined. Yet there are 134 million Americans available for military service. This means that less than two percent of Americans ever serve, while the remaining 98 percent do not.

So by Jimmy Carter's liberal Chickenhawk logic 98 percent of the US population should have no say in military matters.

Carter might want to read some Madison or Jefferson in his spare time, because the military as the sole power over all foreign policy is exactly what the founders chose to avoid.

But I hear Carter's philosophy works wonderfully in Egypt, Burma, Sudan, and a slew of other illegitimate regimes worldwide.

Labels: antiwar loonies, burma, carter, Cheney, Iraq, sudan

Great post by military embed Jeff Emanuel

Seriously? THIS is "a very big deal"?

According to the Associated Press, Josh Gaines is giving back his "Iraq War medals." This, says some "Students for a Democratic Society activist" in Madison, who helped organize some protest at which Gaines will formally "mail [his] Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld," "will be a very big deal" to "many Americans."

Really?

First of all, when I read this story to the group of people I'm sitting with right now -- a Lieutenant, a Sergeant First Class, a Staff Sergeant, a Sergeant, and a Specialist in the active duty US Army -- and in the place I'm sitting right now -- in Samarra, Iraq, with a unit (which these gentlemen are members of) that has served 14 months of its 15-month tour here (and has lost twelve men during that time) -- the result was not horror, but laughter. Genuine, serious laughter that somebody would be such a publicity-seeking idiot as to do something like this at an orchestrated protest.

The laughter -- and scoffing -- grew as the soldiers here heard that the medals that Gaines (who was once an Army Reservist, and who -- according to the AP -- "served a yearlong tour in Iraq between 2004 and 2005" in which he "spent his time guarding two military bases and issuing ammunition to soldiers but never fired a weapon") was returning were, as mentioned above, the "Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal," of which, according to another supposed Army veteran, "most veterans of Iraq have earned at least one."

Here's a minor detail for your consumption (and one which the AP writer, in his utter ignorance of all things military -- typical -- does not have the knowledge to point out): both of those medals are automatically given to every single person who goes to Iraq. In fact, the second one -- the National Defense Service Medal -- is given to every single soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine who serves a single day on active duty in a time of war -- which, in today's military, means since the Global War on Terror started on September 11, 2001. Yep -- the NDSM isn't an Iraq medal; every active serviceman receives it. The GWOT Expeditionary Medal is automatic for every single person who deploys to the combat zone, be it Iraq or Afghanistan, so that one is, at least, related.

The big point here, though, is that those are the automatic medals. Virtually every single serviceman who deploys to Iraq and conducts themselves with a modicum of professionalism while there (in other words, who is not such an utter dirtbag that they are simply awaiting the proper paperwork to be administratively removed from the Army) receives another award for their tour. Depending on what they did, that could range from an Army Commendation Medal to a Bronze Star Medal with Valor, or could be any one of several other things. Either Mr. Gibbons is holding out on his liberal friends (and holding back gifts from his good friend Rummy), or he was such a poor soldier in Iraq that he received no award for his entire tour -- just the automatic medals, which recognize no award-deserving achievement whatsoever.

That's not all, though. According to Mr. Gibbons himself, he "was given an "other than honorable" discharge [from the Army] after failing a drug test." (this fact lit up the room here at the Patrol Base in Iraq with even more derisive laughter, as one of the NCOs sarcastically pointed out that Gaines "sure didn't have an axe to grind for that!")

Further, according to the Associated Press article's quote of a soldier "who served with Gaines in Iraq," he "was always challenging Army superiors."


"[T]hat's the thing that makes him stand out," said the source.

And now we arrive at what we might alternately call the "moment of truth," or the "confirmation of Beauchamping." Once again, the Left, in their quest to find soldiers whom they can use to both delegitimize the war and demonize the American soldier, has grabbed a total loser and is flaunting him not only as the rule among his peers, but as an example to be followed.

A pothead who was so poor at his job that he received no award for service in Iraq, and who was kicked out of the Army for drugs. At least John Kerry had awards -- Silver Star, Bronze Star -- to throw back. This publicity hound has nothing.

The Left really thinks that this is what the US military is made of.

The soldiers in the room with me here -- who, in addition to the automatic NDSM and GWOT Expeditionary Medal, will be taking home awards (three Bronze Stars with Valor, one Bronze Star, and one Army Commendation Medal with Valor among the six of them) -- take strong exception to that.

And so do I.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Iraq, media bias

At first glance, it's shocking that Columbia University is going to allow Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at their campus -- thus, Columbia U will give the Iranian president speech and assembly freedoms he denies to his own people on a daily basis.

At second glance, however, we shouldn't be surprised that academics and officials at our one of our nation's top universities is so hypocritically backwards in their priorities, as noted by Bill Kristol:

As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus.

A perfect synecdoche for too much of American higher education: they are friendlier to Ahmadinejad than to the U.S. military.

Labels: academic bias, antiwar loonies, Iran, Moonbats

Once more, a Western liberal is blinded by their concepts of diversity and multiculturalism and thus assume that all cultures are motivated by the same rewards...

ATLANTA (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that it was almost inconceivable that Iran would "commit suicide" by launching missiles at Israel.
Speaking at Emory University, Carter, who brokered the 1979 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt, said Israel's superior military power and distance from Iran likely are enough to discourage an actual attack.

"Iran is quite distant from Israel," said Carter, 83. "I think it would be almost inconceivable that Iran would commit suicide by launching one or two missiles of any kind against the nation of Israel."
Carter speaks of "suicide" as though Islamic fundamentalists consider it a bad thing. But this is horribly basic misunderstanding of Islamic fundamentalists -- the very opposite is true!

For the Islamic radical there is no greater glory then giving one's life to destroy one's enemy. That which Carter terms "suicide" the Islamic fundamentalist calls "shaheed." Shaheed for the individual means personal glory in heaven, with 72 virgins and the gift of salvation for up to 70 family members (see the Shoebat quote below).

The belief of martyrdom through suicide killings is both powerful and deep, taught to the offspring when they are very young. Islamic fundamentalist rulers champion it, the parents and educators teach it, the television and media constantly propagate it.

Even if just one percent of one billion muslims are fundamentalists, and the remaining 99 percent moderate, you're still talking about 10 million Islamic radicals who believe in suicide-murder as a means to acheive eternal paradise -- and just around 25 of them killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11 using ingeniuity and deception as their weapons. Imagine what they will accomplish should they attain more tangible weapons, like nuclear power.

So it matters not that many or even most of the 71 million persons in Iran are not true believers. It only matters that the ones in charge - 12 mullahs lead by the Ayatollah, and a hand-picked "president" with military control - are.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Delusional Democrats, Iran, Islamic extremism, Israel, Moonbats, proliferation

And the emmy for most out of touch with reality goes to.... Sally Field!

[MRC] Using her Emmy acceptance comments on stage to praise mothers, Sally Field turned political Sunday night as she declared: "Let's face it, if the mothers ruled the world, there would be no Goddamned wars in the first place."
Oh, Reaaaally?



Well, there are countless mothers of suicide bombers whom disprove Field's naive theory. In fact, the culture of Islamic extremism fosters the concept that children are procreated especially for martyrdom.

Just a few examples:

A martyr is a sacrificial lamb, a sacrifice to obtain salvation, which is evident from the cultural term given to terrorists - Fida'e, which literally means 'the sacrifice.' The Islamic argument against blood atonement is somewhat contradicted when it comes to the concept of martyrdom in Islam. Blood atonement is hardly absent in Islam. In fact, blood atonement makes it possible to intercede on the behalf of others, since the Shaheed [suicide bomber] takes on Christ-like abilities, interceding for seventy members of his or her family, who would otherwise have entered hell's fire. So, in order to alleviate the suffering in hell, at least one family member is encouraged to be given as a sacrifice."
-- Walid Shoebat, author of Why We Want To Kill You: The Jihadist Mindset and How to Defeat it.

A new online magazine published by the 'Women's Information Office on the Arabian Peninsula' aims to teach women how to contribute to jihad, or holy war. "Our main mission: push our children to the battlefield, like Al-Khansaa," declares Umm Raad al-Tamimi in the magazine. The monthly publication champions the ideology of Al Qaeda terrorist chief Osama bin Laden: "Drive infidels from the Arabian Peninsula," or Saudi Arabia.
-- Agence France-Presse, Sep 4, 2004

"The mother of the Palestinian suicide bomber who blew himself up in Eilat three days ago also told Agence France-Presse that she was happy her son was martyred. She revealed that she had said goodbye [to him] before he left for his mission and had wished him success, and that she was happy that 'God had heard her prayers.'"
-- Al-Hayat, February 1, 2007

The mother of the first female Palestinian suicide bomber has said she is proud of her daughter and hopes more women will follow her example. ... Body parts found at the scene suggested that an attack on Sunday, which killed an 81-year-old Israeli man and left more than 100 injured, was the first of its kind by a woman. ... "She was happy when martyrdom attacks were carried out against the Israelis and told me she wished she would one day carry out such an attack," another relative, Manal Shaheen, said.

-- BBC, Female bomber's mother speaks out, 30 January, 2002

"Allah be praised, I am a Muslim and I believe in Jihad. Jihad is one of the elements of the faith and this is what encouraged me to sacrifice Muhammad in Jihad for the sake of Allah. My son was not destroyed, he is not dead; he is living a happier life than I. Had my thoughts been limited to this world, I would not sacrifice Muhammad. I am a compassionate mother to my children, and they are compassionate towards me and take care of me. Because I love my son, I encouraged him to die a martyr's death for the sake of Allah… Jihad is a religious obligation incumbent upon us, and we must carry it out. I sacrificed Muhammad as part of my obligation."
-- Umm Nidal, mother of suicide bomber Muhammad Farhat, in an interview with Dream 2 TV (Egypt), December 21, 2005

"I feel the martyr is lucky because the angels usher him to his wedding in heaven. I feel the earth moves under the occupiers' feet… There is no doubt that a child [martyr] suggests that the new generation will carry on the mission with determination. The younger the martyr - the greater and the more I respect him… They [mothers of martyrs] willingly sacrifice their offspring for the sake of freedom. It is a great display of the power of belief. The mother is participating in the great reward of the Jihad to liberate Al-Aqsa… I talked to a young man… [who] said: '… I want to marry the black-eyed [beautiful] women of heaven.' The next day he became a martyr. I am sure his mother was filled with joy about his heavenly marriage. Such a son must have such a mother."
-- Mufti Sheikh Ikrimeh Sabri, Al-Ahram Al-Arabi (Egypt), October 28, 2000

In an interview with Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nuzhah Ziyadeh, also known as Umm Souheil, a 55-year-old woman from the Jebaliya refugee camp who had "sacrificed two of her sons as Shahids for the sake of Allah," expressed "pride and a sense of honor that Allah had honored her with the martyrdom of her two sons Souheil and Muhammad, and made their wish come true." The paper called Umm Souheil " Al-Khansaa" – referring to the mother of Shahids in Islamic history. -- Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), June 7, 2003

The Palestinians are fighting against the Zionists with a lethal weapon - the weapon of the multi-birthing woman. If they kill ["The Engineer" Yahyah] 'Ayyash, or if a Mujaheed is Martyred, the wombs of the women pushed, push, and will continue to push thousands Ayyash's of Mujahideen who suckle with their mothers' milk, the education for Jihad... Ah, If only [former Israeli PM Ariel] Sharon and his angels of destruction knew that the mother of a Shahid [suicide bomber] receives the news of her son's Martyrdom with cries of joy... One of them, so it was reported, took an oath to send the four sons she had left to the battlefield so they would gain Martyrdom as well, just like their brother. We wish that just like the Zionist airports were filled with those vagabond homosexuals on their way in, they will be filled once again on their way out, without anyone feeling sorry for them..."
-- Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 5, 2001.

A large number of summer camps were named after Shahids [suicide bombers], without distinction between whether they were involved in attacks in the Palestinian territories or carried out suicide bombings within the Green Line [Israel]. The following is a partial roundup of some camps that were mentioned in the Palestinian media:

Two summer camps were named after the first female suicide bomber Wafaa Idris, in Qalqiliya and in the Al-Am'ari refugee camp; A summer camp in eastern Gaza, organized by the Fatah Shabiba, was named after female suicide bomber Ayat Al-Akhras ; A summer camp was named after commander of Fatah's military wing Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarem, Ra'id Karmi; A summer camp in Gaza was named after Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Commander in Gaza, Jihad Al-'Amarin; A summer camp was named after the Shahid Mahmoud Al-Jamasi, who blew up an IDF boat in Gaza; A summer camp in the town of 'Azoun in the Qalqiliya district, organized by the National Guidance Administration and named after the Shahid Muhammad Salim, an activist in the Hamas military wing Iz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades who was killed while trying to blow up a tank; A boys' summer camp in Dir Ballah named after Shahids; A boys' summer camp named after "the Shahids of Surif"; The "Loyalty to the Blood of the Martyrs" summer camp; The "Loyalty and Love for Chairman Yasser Arafat" summer camp, which this year was named after Shahids from the Rafah district; The "Independence and [Refugee] Return" summer camp in Nablus; At an Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades summer camp in the Hebron district, the children held a closing ceremony which included a play called "The Shahid's Wedding" – that is, his wedding in Paradise to the 72 black-eyed virgins; The Charity Organization for Aid to Orphans and the Needy in Jericho, which is close to the Hamas movement, concluded its summer camps with an exhibit of handicrafts. The 230 children participating in these camps were divided into groups with names that have Islamic connotations. Some of the names were: Al-Khansaa, Al-Tayyar, and Paradise.
-- Middle East Media Research Institute special report.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Delusional Democrats, Hollywood bias, Islamic extremism, Moonbats, why they hate us

Columnist Mark Steyn reflects on the recent morally equivilant Kumbayah approach to counter-terrorism by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. On the sixth anniversary of 9-11, Patrick told a crowd that the attacks were "a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other." Pass the sick bag.

We should beware anyone who seeks to explain 9/11 by using the words "each other": They posit a grubby equivalence between the perpetrator and the victim – that the "failure to understand" derives from the culpability of both parties. The 9/11 killers were treated very well in the United States: They were ushered into the country on the high-speed visa express program the State Department felt was appropriate for young Saudi males. They were treated cordially everywhere they went. The lap-dancers at the clubs they frequented in the weeks before the Big Day gave them a good time – or good enough, considering what lousy tippers they were. Sept. 11 didn't happen because we were insufficient in our love to Mohamed Atta.

This isn't a theoretical proposition. At some point in the future, some of us will find ourselves on a flight with a chap like Richard Reid, the thwarted shoe-bomber. On that day we'd better hope the guy sitting next to him isn't Gov. Patrick, who sees him bending down to light his sock and responds with a chorus of "All You Need Is Love," but a fellow who "understands" enough to wallop the bejesus out of him before he can strike the match. It was the failure of one group of human beings to understand that the second group of human beings was determined to kill them that led the crew and passengers of those Boston flights to stick with the obsolescent 1970s hijack procedures until it was too late.

Labels: 9-11, antiwar loonies, Delusional Democrats, Islamic extremism, Moonbats, terrorism, war on terror

If I had said in late 2001, with bodies still being pulled from the wreckage, anthrax flying through the mail, pandemonium reigning at the airports, and bombs falling on Kabul, that by '07 leading Democrats [John Edwards] would be ridiculing the idea of the war on terror as a bumper sticker, I'd have been thought mad. If I'd predicted that a third of Democrats would be telling pollsters that Bush knew in advance about 9/11, and that the eleventh of September would become an innocuous date for parental get-togethers to talk about potty-training strategies and phonics for preschoolers, people would have thought I was crazy.

... There are a lot of reasons why the emotional half-life of 9/11 has been so short, many of them good, or at least understandable. We haven't been (successfully) attacked at home since 9/11, for example. But it's important to remember that from the outset, the media took it as their sworn duty to keep Americans from getting too riled up about 9/11. I wrote a column about it back in March of 2002. Back then the news networks especially saw it as imperative that we not let our outrage get out of hand. I can understand the sentiment, but it's worth noting that such sentiments vanished entirely during hurricane Katrina. After 9/11, the press withheld objectively accurate and factual images from the public, lest the rubes get too riled up. After Katrina, the press endlessly recycled inaccurate and exaggerated information in order to keep everyone upset. The difference speaks volumes.
-- Jonah Goldberg, NRO

Labels: 9-11, antiwar loonies, media bias, Moonbats

Terry Trippany and the conservative bloggers discover that the New York Times gave MoveOn.org a $100,000 discount, or 60 percent, to purchase it's smear advertisement against Gen. David Petraeus.

Trippany says, "For a newspaper that pretends to be objective purveyors of news this discount seems a bit steep for the deep pocketed liberal advocacy group. In fact the amount MoveOn paid is less than any rate listed in the New York Times schedule."

Indeed.

Well, the Times is still a good newspaper for wrapping up old fish.

Labels: antiwar loonies, media bias, Petraeus

The amount of ignorance and stupidity in Hollywood is staggering when one considers how the industries of media and entertainment so often promote celebrities as thoughtful and intelligent.

The latest example of this comes from (what else) the HBO show "Real Time with Bill Maher."

This week it was "actor/activist" Mos Def promoting 9-11 conspiracy theories, Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories and, yes, even moon landing conspiracy theories.

MOS DEF: When the Revolutionary War was going on, George Washington and all them dudes was terrorists as far as the Queen was concerned. [The Queen? A King ruled Great Britain at that time.]

DEF: I don't believe it was bin Laden today, I don't believe it was never him. I think it's some dude just standing, I don't even, I can't even believe. I don't even, I'm sorry, I'm from the projects, I know danger. I don't feel no danger from that shit, those mother-fuckers.

BILL MAHER: But you don't think bin Laden knocked down the Word Trade Center?

DEF: Absolutely not.

MAHER: Come on.

DEF: I don't. I don't. You know what, I don't.

MAHER: That's where you lose me, my friend, and I'm so on your side, but you know what.

DEF: In any barbershop I am so not alone, I'm so not alone.

MAHER: That doesn't mean you're right.

DEF: That don't mean it is not valid neither. Highly-educated people in all areas of science have spoken on the fishiness around the whole 9/11 theory. It's like the magic-bullet and all that shit.

MAHER: Then what happened?

DEF: I don't believe these mother-fuckers have been to the moon either, but that's just me.
What an embarrassment.

I suppose it's almost not worth the effort to punch holes in Mr. Def's arguments, but I'll do it anyway.

Idiocy 1: 9/11 not Bin Laden.

Look, even Bin Laden says Bin Laden did it. Popular Mechanics wrote an entire book debunking 9-11 conspiracy theories. Theories, by the way, of which not a single expert in aviation, engineering or building construction is ever offered. It's always some damned Humanities professor, juvenile college kids (like the creators of Loose Change) or the like offering their crackpot expertise. Anyway, read the book.

Idiocy 2: The Brits considered George Washington a terrorist.

Putting aside that there wasn't a queen of England at that time this is just an ignorant misunderstanding and grouping of all revolutionary characters. It's true that the British considered some American revolutionaries as criminals. But Washington was a respected general by both sides. He was a former officer in the British military and renowned hero for fighting the French during the French & Indian war. King George was amazed that the leader of any country would so willingly give up their power. Upon Washington's retirement from politics after two terms as president George stated "if Washington went back to his farm after his public career he would be the greatest character of the age."

Idiocy 3: Magic bullet theory?

There is no magic bullet theory, as the recent documentary "The Kennedy Assassination - Beyond Conspiracy" shows (often replayed on Discovery and History channels). In short, conspiracy theorists neglect to mention that Kennedy and Connally were sitting at different heights. Their analysis always assumes they were at the same heights, which is how they conclude the crazy zigs and zags of the bullet. Meanwhile Vincent Bugliosi (hardly a conservative) has just produced a 1600-page volume debunking the JFK conspiracy theories.

Perhaps when Mr. Def next visits a book store he can pick it up, along with a biography on Washington or a the Revolutionary War.

Idiocy 4: No moon landing.

Too stupid a conspiracy to comment further.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Hollywood bias, Moonbats

Great take on the latest Bin Laden rant by the Brookings Institute and New York Times' David Brooks.

Labels: al qaeda, antiwar loonies, bin Laden, Moonbats

Research from columnist Jack Kelly:

A great moment in journalism it wasn't. At 6:58 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday, Aug. 14, Agence France Presse distributed a photograph by Wissam al-Okaili, an AFP stringer, of an elderly Iraqi woman holding two cartridges in one hand. The caption that accompanied the photo read: "An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she said hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City."

I used the word "cartridges." The caption writer used the word "bullets." Let me explain the difference for the benefit of the photo editors at AFP. A cartridge consists of three elements: the bullet (the pointy thing at one end); the propellant that forces the bullet through the barrel of the gun when the trigger is pulled; and the casing, in which the bullet and the propellant are held together until the cartridge is fired. But once the cartridge is fired, the bullet and the casing go their separate ways.

The casing of the cartridges in the woman's hand is clearly visible, which alone should have told AFP's photo editors that the only way these "bullets" could have hit the woman's house was if they'd been thrown at it. They'd obviously never been fired. There were other tips. Bullets deform when they strike something (like, say, a house in Sadr City). The pointy things don't stay pointy.

Modern firearms have rifling -- grooves in the barrel that cause the bullet to spin, making it more accurate. Rifling leaves striations on bullets which actually have been fired. There are no striations on the bullets in the AFP photograph. But if the editors couldn't grasp the significance of having the bullets still in their casings, I suppose these other clues would be too subtle for them.

Which is too bad, because Wissam has fished in these waters before. On July 10, AFP transmitted a photo by him which shows what seems to be the same old woman holding a larger caliber cartridge. That caption for that photo read: "An elderly Iraqi woman inspects a bullet which she says hit her bed during an alleged overnight raid."

In that photo, the woman had the wit to hold the cartridge so the casing isn't visible, but the bullet is not deformed, and there are no striations. It hadn't been fired, either.

There is no question the photo is a fraud. The question is, whose? Did the old woman fool the AFP photographer? Was the photographer blowing smoke by his photo editor? Were they all in on it?

AFP issued a correction of sorts Aug. 15, adding the word "unspent" before bullets, and deleting from the caption the woman's claim the bullets "hit her house." But AFP should have acknowledged the photo was a fraud, and sent out a kill notice.

Trust and confidence in AFP's accuracy and integrity was not enhanced when it was discovered Aug. 15 that AFP claimed credit a photo of U.S. troops in Afghanistan that actually was taken by Sgt. Brandon Aird of the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

I sent AFP an email asking whether disciplinary action has been taken or is contemplated against Wissam al-Okaili, who pretty obviously is a propagandist for the Mahdi army, or against the photo editor, whoever he or she is. I've received no reply.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Iraq, Journalism scandals, media bias