The New York Times has declined to publish an op-ed by Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, Drudge reports. Why? According to the explanation by the NYT Op-Ed editor, David "Chicken" Shipley, it just wasn't Obama enough. Chicken Shipley said that if McCain would rewrite it so that it "mirrors Senator Obama's piece" - yes, no joke, he actually wrote that - the NYT would be pleased to run it.

Why refuse to run it? Because in the marketplace of free ideas the left routinely gets it's collective butt kicked. And they know it.

This egregious case of leftward media slant, denying any evidence of victory in Iraq which McCain cites in his op-ed, is proof of that. They simply can't compete. Worse, the NYT and their Copperhead ilk spent so much ink and whining promoting defeatism in Iraq for 5 years that rather then admit wrong and premature commitment to defeat they just avoid the facts on the ground in Iraq. Period.

They redefine diversity, inclusiveness, open-mindedness, enlightenment, intellectualism, all the other leftist buzzwords, etc., to mean that they'll just refuse to acknowledge any opinion that doesn't neatly fit their "progressive" point of view. Well, I'm laughing at their superior intellect.

Because, for conservatives, having the New York Times refuse to publish your opinion is a badge of honor. Shipley, such the schmuck that he is, will probably help McCain by promoting his op-ed, and getting more people to read it, than would have happened had they just run the piece. What a moron.

Here's the McCain op-ed which the NYT was too scared to run.

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless." Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there," he said on January 10, 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that "our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence." But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress." Even more heartening has been progress that's not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama's determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his "plan for Iraq" in advance of his first "fact finding" trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five "surge" brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his "plan for Iraq." Perhaps that's because he doesn't want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be "very dangerous."

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we've had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the "Mission Accomplished" banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, media bias, NYT, Obama

Barack Obama purges Web site critique of surge in Iraq
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Monday, July 14th 2008, 8:10 PM

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

It praises G.I.s' "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice."

Campaign aide Wendy Morigi said Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

GOP rival John McCain zinged Obama as a flip-flopper. "The major point here is that Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong," said McCain, adding that Obama "refuses to acknowledge that it [the surge] is succeeding."

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, Obama, Petraeus

The following regards Barack Obama's argument that Iraq is not the central front on the war on terror, rather that Afghanistan/Pakistan is (more to that in a moment).

Of course, the very first problem with this is that Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leadership have plainly stated on several occasions prior to this that Iraq is indeed the central front on the war on terror.

The next problem for Obama, is that those experts on the subject, including those experts who are endorsing Obama, likewise believe that Iraq is the central front for the war on terror.

The following I took from the blogger Mad Irish:

All: Please note that Lee Hamilton, who introduced Sen. Obama at his speech in Washington today, disagrees with Sen. Obama on at least two central issues addressed in his speech today. Specifically, Sen. Obama today denied that Iraq has ever been a “central front in the war on terror,” despite the fact that Hamilton described Iraq as “a central front in the war on terror” in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee while he was co-chairing the Iraq Study Group. Further, three months ago in April 2008, Hamilton said he opposes “target dates” for withdrawal in Iraq -- something Obama is clearly continuing to embrace today with his 16-month timetable:


Obama vs. Hamilton On Iraq As “A Central Front In The War On Terror”

Obama Today: "In fact – as should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain – the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was." (Barack Obama, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/15/08)

In December 2006, Hamilton Told The Senate Armed Services Committee That Iraq Was “A Central Front In The War On Terror.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “If you asked the 10 members of the commission the question: “Is Iraq the central battlefront in the war on terror,” what answer would you have received?” … Hamilton: ‘I would strike the word “the” and use “a.” It is a central front. Look, al Qaeda today is a important part of the violence, but not as important as sectarian violence. It is a central front in the war on terror, but to make it THE central front overstates it.” (Lee Hamilton, Committee On The Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Testimony, 12/7/06)

Obama vs. Hamilton On Timetables For Iraq Withdrawal

Obama Today Attacked Those Who Oppose Timetables, And Offered His Own 16-Month Timetable: “We Can Safely Redeploy Our Combat Brigades At A Pace That Would Remove Them In 16 Months.” “George Bush and John McCain don’t have a strategy for success in Iraq – they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn’t leave when violence was up, they say we can’t leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government – not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq’s borders. … We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months.” (Barack Obama, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 7/15/08)

Hamilton In April 2008: "I'm not a great fan, incidentally, of target dates in foreign policy as a rule and in Iraq specifically." (MSNBC's "MSNBC Live," 4/11/08)
It's bad enough Barack Obama is attempting to revise history by acting as though he's always been an advocate of the Petraeus Surge (he has, for instance, now scrubbed his campaign website of all comments that were negative regarding the Surge), but that he's dictating policy and offering a plan on Iraq before actually traveling to Iraq and talking to General Petraeus is not just counterproductive but a foolish campaign move too.

A final point regarding the Obama camp's claim that Iraq is not the central front on terror, or only became the central front on terror after the US invaded Iraq -- FLYPAPER.

It was smart strategy to lure our enemies into the open from out of the shadows of Saudi Arabia or the caves of Afghanistan, or mosques in Europe for that matter.

If Democrats are going to get all queasy about 4,000 dead in Iraq, where the terrain is flat and far more friendly to US technology, how would they ever stomach a war in the miserable terrain of the Hindu Kush mountains, where our advantages like helicopter warfare would become neutralized due to climate and terrain?

Labels: 2008, Afghanistan, Iraq, mccain, Obama, Petraeus, war on terror

The fatal defeatists of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc., may all believe we're losing in Iraq, but apparently Iraq's neighbors do not:

[WSJ] The Prime Minister is also making it clear to his Arab neighbors that his government is not about to collapse. Apparently, they believe him: Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have announced plans to break the Arab diplomatic embargo of Iraq and return their ambassadors to Baghdad; the UAE has also forgiven $7 billion of Iraqi debt. Perhaps Saudi Arabia and Egypt will follow.
Ho-hum, more just desserts from the Petraeus surge and not a word from our mainstream media regarding it. Indeed, antiwar liberals as a whole have invested so much in our defeat in Iraq that they choose to ignore any facts of success, especially since good news in Iraq translates to a more competitive campaign from John McCain. And the mainstream media certainly can't have anyone ruining the promotion of their favorate rock-star-in-chief, Barack Obama.

Example: what hardball toics did NBC Today Show co-anchor Meredith Vieira press upon Obama? His shopping habits and that he liked pie over candy and junk food. Tough stuff.

The, ahem, hard-hitting program spent 20 minutes on the Obama family. Can the McCain family expect equal time from NBC? Of course, that might be more difficult since McCain's two sons are both serving in our armed forces, one having served in Iraq.

But back to the lecture at hand, the MSM's obvious antiwar slant in its Iraq coverage.

Gerard Baker of the UK Times explains:

the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: "Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!"

... Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it's worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few years.

Afghanistan has been a signal success. There has been much focus on the latest counter-offensive by the Taleban in the southeast of the country and it would be churlish to minimise the ferocity with which the terrorists are fighting, but it would be much more foolish to understate the scale of the continuing Nato achievement. Establishing a stable government for the whole nation is painstaking work, years in the making. It might never be completed. But that was not the principal objective of the war there.

Until the US-led invasion in 2001, Afghanistan was the cockpit of ascendant Islamist terrorism. Consider the bigger picture. Between 1998 and 2005 there were five big terrorist attacks against Western targets - the bombings of the US embassies in Africa in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, 9/11, and the Madrid and London bombings in 2004 and 2005. All owed their success either exclusively or largely to Afghanistan's status as a training and planning base for al-Qaeda.

In the past three years there has been no attack on anything like that scale. Al-Qaeda has been driven into a state of permanent flight. Its ability to train jihadists has been severely compromised; its financial networks have been ripped apart. Thousands of its activists and enablers have been killed. It's true that Osama bin Laden's forces have been regrouping in the border areas of Pakistan but their ability to orchestrate mass terrorism there is severely attenuated. And there are encouraging signs that Pakistanis are starting to take to the offensive against them.

Next time you hear someone say that the war in Afghanistan is an exercise in futility ask them this: do they seriously think that if the US and its allies had not ousted the Taleban and sustained an offensive against them for six years that there would have been no more terrorist attacks in the West? What characterised Islamist terrorism before the Afghan war was increasing sophistication, boldness and terrifying efficiency. What has characterised the terrorist attacks in the past few years has been their crudeness, insignificance and a faintly comical ineptitude (remember Glasgow airport?)

The second great advance in the War on Terror has been in Iraq. There's no need to recapitulate the disasters of the US-led war from the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 to his execution at the end of 2006. We may never fully make up for three and a half lost years of hubris and incompetence but in the last 18 months the change has been startling.

The "surge", despite all the doubts and derision at the time, has been a triumph of US military planning and execution. Political progress was slower in coming but is now evident too. The Iraqi leadership has shown great courage and dispatch in extirpating extremists and a growing willingness even to turn on Shia militias.

Basra is more peaceful and safer than it has been since before the British moved in. Despite setbacks such as yesterday's bombings, the streets of Iraq's cities are calmer and safer than they have been in years. Seventy companies have bid for oil contracts from the Iraqi Government. There are signs of a real political reconciliation that may reach fruition in the election later this year.

The third and perhaps most significant advance of all in the War on Terror is the discrediting of the Islamist creed and its appeal.

This was first of all evident in Iraq, where the head-hacking frenzy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates so alienated the majority of Muslims that it gave rise to the so-called Sunni Awakening that enabled the surge to be so effective.

But it has spread way beyond Iraq. As Lawrence Wright described in an important piece in The New Yorker last month, there is growing disgust not just among moderate Muslims but even among other jihadists at the extremism of the terrorists.

Deeply encouraging has been the widespread revulsion in Muslim communities in Europe - especially in Britain after the 7/7 attacks of three years ago. Some of the biggest intelligence breakthroughs in the past few years have been achieved from former al-Qaeda supporters who have turned against the movement.

There ought to be no surprise here. It's only their apologists in the Western media who really failed to see the intrinsic evil of Islamists. Those who have had to live with it have never been in much doubt about what it represents. Ask the people of Iran. Or those who fled the horrors of Afghanistan under the Taleban.

This is why we fight. Primarily, of course, to protect ourselves from the immediate threat of terrorist carnage, but also because we know that extending the embrace of a civilisation that liberates everyone makes us all safer.

Every death is an unspeakable tragedy. It's right that each time a soldier is killed in action we ask why. Was it really worth it?

The right response to the loss of brave souls such as Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first British woman to die in Afghanistan, is not an immediate call for retreat. It is, first of all, pride; a great, deep conviction that it is on such sacrifice that our own freedoms have always rested. Then, defiance. How foolish is the enemy that it might think our grief is really some prelude to their victory? Finally, confidence. We are prevailing in this struggle. We know it. And everywhere: in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and among Muslims around the world, the enemy knows it too.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, media bias, Obama, Petraeus

This is a great op-ed from Investors Business Daily. The McCain camp needs to memorize the whole thing and rattle it off at every opportunity.

• "We can't drill our way out of our energy crisis."

Actually, we can. As we've noted before, conservative estimates put the total amount of recoverable oil in conventional deposits at about 39 billion barrels. Offshore, we have another 89 billion barrels or so. In ANWR, 10 billion barrels.

In oil shale deposits, we have more than 1 trillion barrels of oil. In perspective, that's about four times the total reserves of Saudi Arabia. And if estimates of shale reserves as high as 2 trillion barrels prove true, we'll have about a 300-year supply of oil just from shale. This compares with current estimated total U.S. oil reserves of about 21 billion barrels.

ANWR alone is expected to yield 1 million barrels of oil a day. Now make the highly conservative assumption that we're able to get a like amount of oil from the other sources — for a total increase of 3 million to 4 million barrels of oil a day.

That's an enormous rise in oil output. Today, we produce just under 8 million barrels of oil a day from domestic sources. So we could, in effect, boost our energy output 50%, and thus our energy independence, by bringing an additional 4 million barrels of oil to thirsty world markets each and every day.

By the way, those calculations don't include the trillions and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas found in the same locations, which, along with nuclear power, could be used to fire our power plants.

By 2030, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we will need at least 30% more energy to fuel our economy. Nearly 85% of that increase will come from oil and gas, even with expected gains for alternative energy. Can't drill our way out? In fact, it's the only way out of our energy crisis.

• "Oil companies are sitting on 68 million acres of oil leases and refuse to drill."

This is yet another slander of "Big Oil" by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — one that has become a major talking point for Democrats in Congress. It's completely dishonest.

Oil companies have spent billions of dollars for those leases. Drilling has increased by more than 66% since 2000. They are searching for oil even as you read this. Some parts of those 68 million acres will have oil, some won't. But at $145 a barrel, you can bet oil companies have plenty of incentive to find it.

That said, 68 million acres is in fact a minuscule amount. Some 94% of federal lands — 658 million acres — remains off-limits to exploration. Another 97% — or 1.7 billion acres — of federal offshore properties likewise remains off-limits. These lands contain tens of billions of barrels of recoverable oil. It's there for the taking, now.

How much energy is there? Federal lands, according to the American Petroleum Institute, hold 651 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to fuel 60 million households for 160 years. They hold at least 116 billion barrels of oil, maybe more. That's enough to fuel 65 million cars and provide fuel oil for 3.2 million homes for 60 years.

As such, it's the height of irresponsibility for Congress to leave these lands off the table. It ensures we remain vulnerable to pariah petrostates like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran and others who wish us ill.

• "Even if drilling works, it'll take a decade or more for the oil to flow."

This is quite an argument coming from the Democratic Party, which has made keeping oil off the market a linchpin of its energy policy for decades.

If President Clinton hadn't vetoed the idea of drilling in ANWR back in 1995, we'd have that oil on the market today. Ditto if Congress had approved ANWR drilling in 2002, when President Bush requested it.

Even so, the larger point is false anyway. New oil will be flowing in some cases within three to four years, according to industry estimates. But the impact on prices will be immediate. Why? Because markets would suddenly have to discount future oil prices for the expected gain in oil supply. That would cause oil prices, especially in futures markets, to drop.

By the way, this isn't just conjecture. President Reagan, within a week of his inaugural in 1981, removed domestic controls on oil. Energy prices began tumbling almost immediately, with oil falling from $34 a barrel in early 1981 to just $11 by 1986.

It worked before, and it'll work again.

• "Record profits by big oil companies are the reason for soaring prices."

It's true that oil company profits have never been higher. But put into perspective, oil company profits are high because the price is high. As a share of revenue, profits aren't so high.

The average profit, as we've noted before, is around 8 to 9 cents to the dollar. That compares with about 7 cents to the dollar for manufacturers and more than 15 cents to the dollar for computer makers.

In short, oil profits aren't out of whack with the rest of industry.

What doesn't get said is that while oil companies have profit margins of about 8%, about 12% of the price of a gallon of gas goes to the government in the form of taxes. When indirect taxes are included, the share is even higher.

So who are the real price-gougers?

From 1981 to 2006, the oil industry made $867 billion in profits. Yes, that's a lot. But over that same time, they paid total taxes of $1.2 trillion, Energy Department data show. And that doesn't include taxes of $519 billion paid to foreign countries.

Please remember that the next time a politician vows to hit "Big Oil" with a windfall profits tax or some other idea. The tax won't be paid by the oil company; it will be paid by you, the consumer.

In coming weeks, we'll try to look at some of the other myths surrounding America's energy. The problem is, there are so many that dispelling the falsehoods about energy can become a full-time occupation for a newspaper.

In the meantime, let us suggest that if you think more oil will help, you should tell your local members of Congress. They're easy to find at the government Web site thomas.loc.gov. The only problem is, on this topic, many won't want to be found.
Here's a quick additional point for bullet #1, whereby the opponents claim we can't drill our way out of the problem. Let's suppose that the crew at IBD isn't right (they are), that still leaves the fact that this isn't an all or nothing proposition. We can't drill our way out of the problem? Well, okay, how about drilling most of the way out of the problem? How about half the way out of it? How about even a quarter of the way?

I'll tell you this, doing nothing, which is what we've been doing -- not drilling our own proven oil reserves, not building a refinery in 30 years, not building nuclear power plants as even France, Japan and Sweden do (which amazingly puts our energy policy to the left of those countries), heck even liberals in the northeast blocked, yes blocked, a proposed windmill farm in Cape Cod -- has proven to be absurd and deeply expensive. Moreover, it's essentially a tax on the poor. Those who couldn't afford gas prices last year are doubly screwed this year.

Remember that fact the next time you hear one of these self-proclaimed champion of the working man claim that high gas prices are ultimately a good thing.

No, it's not.

Labels: 2008, democrats, energy, mccain, Oil

Great editorial by Bret Stephens:

However it turns out for John McCain this fall -- and so far he's running his general election campaign the way Gen. Ricardo Sanchez ran counterinsurgency ops -- the Arizona Republican is sure to carry at least one battleground state by a landslide. That state is called Iraq.

Last week, the Pew Research Center released the results of a survey of more than 24,000 people in 24 countries. Result: From Japan to Tanzania to Germany to Russia, the world has "more confidence" in Barack Obama than in his Republican rival to "do the right thing regarding world affairs."

But Pew did not poll Iraqis, whose opinions about the choice America makes should weigh at least as heavily with us as the collective wisdom of, say, Brazil. Whom would they prefer as the next U.S. president?

Constraints of time and money being what they are, I have not gotten round to phoning 1,000 Iraqis to get their views on Obama-McCain. But I did sit down last week with four key provincial Iraqi leaders, Sunnis and Shiites, who -- without actually endorsing Mr. McCain -- made their views abundantly clear.

"The Iraqis are really fearful about some of the positions the Democratic Party has adopted," says Sheik Ahmed Abu Rishah. "If the Democrats win, they will be withdrawing their forces in a very rapid manner."

Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Awani, the governor of Anbar province, agrees. "We have over a million casualties, thousands of houses destroyed," he says. "Are we going to tell [Iraqis] that the game is over? That the Americans are pulling out?"

Messrs. Abu Rishah and Awani, both Sunni, have possibly the toughest political jobs on the planet. Sheik Abu Rishah inherited the leadership of the Iraq Awakening movement when his brother was killed by al Qaeda last September. Gov. Awani's immediate predecessor was kidnapped and killed by insurgents, and he has survived more than a score of assassination attempts.

Today, the governor speaks with a mixture of confidence and foreboding. He insists al Qaeda has been vanquished. But, he adds, "Iraq is in a strategic location and has huge resources. There are a lot of eyes on Iraq." Later in the conversation, he makes his point more precisely. "Liberating Iraq is a very good dish. And now you are going to hand it over to Iran?"

A sense of incredulity hangs over the way Iraqis see the U.S. political debate taking shape. The governor tells a moving story about their visit to Walter Reed hospital, where they were surprised to find smiles on the faces of GIs who had lost limbs. "The smile is because they feel they have accomplished something for the American people."

But the Iraqis came away with a different impression in Chicago, where they had hoped to meet with Mr. Obama but ended up talking to a staff aide. "We noticed there was a concentration on the negatives," the governor recalls. "The Democrat kept saying that Americans have committed a lot of mistakes. Yes, that's true, but why don't you concentrate on what the Americans have achieved in Iraq?"

The Iraqis are even more incredulous about Mr. Obama's willingness to negotiate with Iran, which they see as a predatory regime. "Do you Americans forget what the Iranians did to your embassy?" asks the governor. "Don't you know that Ahmadinejad was one of [the hostage takers]?"

Here Hussein Ali al-Shalan, a Shiite from Diwaniyah in southern Iraq, offers a view. "For a long time, Iran has felt like Iraq is theirs. Our fear [about U.S. negotiations with Iran] is, you will be giving them something that we believe would prolong our agony. We are not against Iran. We have to coexist and work toward our mutual interests. The question is, is this possible at this stage? That's why we need the army to give a final push so the Iraqis can feel the fruits of our democracy."

It's not just Iran. "There is no other country that supports us," says Gov. Awani. "What is happening in Iraq scares everyone," by which he means the neighboring autocracies that have something to fear from a successful democratic model in their midst.

That only makes America's ambivalence toward its democratic creation that much stranger to the Iraqis. Will the next administration abandon both its principles and its friends in the region? For what?

The administration and the Iraqi government are now wrangling over a status-of-forces agreement -- evidence that Iraq has reached a point where it can once again act like a sovereign nation. But the Iraqis leave no doubt that they want a deal, not least "so Iraq would be able to protect U.S. interests in the region," as Sheik Abu Rishah puts it. Having lost 4,100 Americans for Iraq, the Iraqis are offering to return the sacrifice -- assuming only that the alliance endures.

Throughout our interview, the men did not stop fingering their prayer beads, as if their future hinges on their ability to make their case to the American public. They're right: It does. Which is why Iraq, all but alone among the nations, will be praying for a McCain victory on the first Tuesday in November.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain

Economist Larry Kudlow notes that one never knows what John McCain one is going to get.

A few days ago McCain delivered a Reaganesque speech on economic policy, which included tributes to growth through low taxes, supply-side philosophy and credit to private business as the backbone of the country.

But this morning on NBC's Today Show , McCain talks of evil oil, cartels, finite oil (huh!?), and "obscene profits.

[Kudlow] When asked about gas prices at the pump, and whether they could go any lower, Sen. McCain said he didn't think so because "You've got a finite supply, basically, and a cartel controlling it."

This is exactly wrong. There is no finite supply, or if there is we are 100 years away from it. I don't know who has put this thought into the senator's mind, but it is a bad thought in terms of energy and a bad thought in terms of the politics of this campaign.

Look, we have the Bakken fields, the outer continental shelf and all the offshore drilling opportunities, ANWR, and so forth. There's probably over a trillion barrels worth of reserves out there. And Republicans in the Senate are trying to move a deregulated drilling bill through the process. McCain should be backing this and talking about it.

Democrats are out there pushing cap-and-trade, which would jack up gasoline and oil energy prices, damage the economy, and create a massive central-planning exercise. The Democratic Congress has done nothing to alleviate the oil shortage. They're captured by the greenies. They should be blamed.

This is a real turnaround issue for the Republicans and Mr. McCain. But McCain's not going there.
This is what angers me so much about Republicans today. With the exception of a few, most Republicans (1) don't recognize opportunity when it bites them on the rear, and (2) are absolutely terrible at communicating conservative ideals [perhaps because (3) so many of them are not conservatives but just average ideologically expedient politicians].

As Kudlow says, more domestic drilling, and creating refineries to turn the oil into fuel (and plastics for that matter) should be a slam-dunk issue for McCain and Republicans.

The WSJ summarizes the heart of the problem -- obstructionism.

Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" – everything except expanding domestic energy supplies.

Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.

There are two separate moratoria on offshore drilling: One is a ban that Congress has attached to every budget since 1982, and the other is a 1990 executive order that President Bush has waived in only a few cases. Republicans made failing attempts to overcome both when they ran Congress, but current Democratic leaders and their green masters remain adamantly opposed. The new political opportunity amid record prices is to convince enough rank-and-file Democrats that they'll suffer at the polls if they don't break with this antiexploration ideology.

While energy "independence" is an impossible dream, there's no doubt the U.S. has vast undeveloped fossil-fuel deposits. A tiny corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge contains an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil and would be the largest producing oil field in the Northern Hemisphere. Yet the Senate blocked that development as recently as last month. The Outer Continental Shelf is estimated to contain some 86 billion barrels of oil, plus 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Yet of the shelf's 1.76 billion acres, 85% is off-limits and 97% is undeveloped.

Engineers recently perfected refining solid shale rock into diesel or gas, which may amount to the largest oil supply in the world – perhaps as much as 1.8 trillion barrels in the American West. That's enough to meet current U.S. oil demand for more than two centuries. Yet as late as 2007, Democrats attached a rider to the energy bill that prohibits leasing the federal interior lands that contain at least 80% of America's oil shale. The key vote was cast by liberal Senator Ken Salazar from Colorado, of all places.

These supply guesses are probably conservative, because the only way to know for sure is to drill exploratory wells. Yet most of Alaska and offshore are cut off even from modern seismic testing. Many areas haven't been examined since the 1960s, when exploration technology was far more primitive. This has led to the believe-it-or-not situation in which the Chinese are prepping to drill in Cuban waters less than 60 miles off the Florida coast. American companies are banned from drilling in American waters nearby.

Yes, we know, increased drilling is no energy cure-all; new projects take about a decade to come on line. Then again, more than a few experts say that new production could affect price as the market perceives a new U.S. seriousness to increase supplies. Part of today's futures speculation is based on the assumption that supplies will remain tight for years to come, even as Chinese and Indian demand surges.

Nor would merely repealing the exploration bans be enough. Between 2000 and 2007, the drilling of exploratory oil wells climbed 138%, but over the same period domestic crude oil production decreased 12.4% and fell to the lowest levels since 1947. Refineries for gasoline are stretched to the limit, but multiple regulatory barriers impede new construction or even expansions at existing facilities. Then there is the inevitable lawsuit downpour from the environmental lobby.

Democrats are going to have to grow up. The oil-rich areas they want to leave untouched are accessible with minimal environmental disturbance, thanks to modern technology. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn't cause a single oil spill. As for anticarbon theology, oil will be indispensable over the next half-century and probably longer, like it or not. Airplanes will never fly on woodchips, and you won't be able to charge your car with a windmill for some time, if ever.

Public anger over fuel prices could hardly come at a worse time for the GOP, since voters tend to blame a flagging economy on the party that occupies the White House. But the opportunity is to offer a reform alternative to Barack Obama and the high-price energy status quo he embraces. It looks like the public is increasingly ready for . . . change. In a May Gallup poll, 57% favored "allowing drilling in U.S. coastal and wilderness areas now off limits." Just 20% blamed the increase in gas prices on Big Oil, like Mr. Obama does.

Recent weeks have seen some GOP stirrings on Capitol Hill, but John McCain has so far refused to jettison his green posturings, such as his belief in carbon caps and his animus against offshore development. A good reason for a rethink would be $4 gas. At present, it is charitable to call Mr. McCain's energy ideas incoherent, and it may cost him the election.

Labels: climate, democrats, Economics, energy, global warming, mccain, Oil, taxes

Here's a rather odd splitting of hairs -- Time Magazine's "objective" reporter Joe Klein takes John McCain to task because Barack Obama has never said he'd talk with Ahmadinejad specifically, just Iran's leaders, which is to say Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Um, Joe, how is that better than talking to Ahmadinejad?

[From Joe Klein's Time.com blog] At a press conference here, I just asked John McCain about why he keeps talking about Obama's alleged willingness to talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has no power over Iranian foreign policy, rather than Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who does. He said that Ahmadinejad is the guy who represents Iran in international forums like the United Nations, which is a fair point. When I followed with the observation that the Supreme Leader is, uh, the Supreme Leader, McCain responded that the "average American" thinks Ahmadinejad is the boss. Didn't get a chance to follow up to that, but I would have asked, "But isn't it your job to correct those sorts of mistaken impressions on the part of the American public?" Oh well... As I said below, there is a real debate lurking beneath all this bluster--whether we directly engage our adversaries, as we did during the cold war. McCain says no. Obama says yes. They should have it out in debate.
Again, nonsensical hair splitting.

Sure, technically, the Ayatollah and his Supreme Council (i.e., the Ayatollah and 11 mullahs) call all the shots. But Ahmadinejad, as McCain pointed out, is their boy, and he's hardly powerless.

In any event, this is irrelevant.

What is relevant is Klein's second point - that we "engaged" our adversaries during the Cold War. The thing is, Klein is backwards on his conclusions. Then again, reporters are often ignorant of history.

Many key points:

* Iran is not the Soviet Union. It is nowhere near as powerful or influential and thus it's a mistake to elevate them as such.

* We didn't have direct talks with the Soviets and Chinese because we wanted to. We did so because we had to. See point one.

* This isn't the Cold War. Under Nixon, we talked with China in large part to leverage them off of the Soviets. We correctly identified a weakness in their supposed Communist alliance. Thus, we didn't talk with our enemies out of anything but a strategy to undermine them, not because of some highbrow liberalism like Obama and company propose.

* Finally, Reagan didn't get elected, pick up the telephone and start talking to the Soviets, as our misinformed revisionist-history liberal friends keep stating. Indeed, Gorbachev wasn't even leader of the USSR when Reagan took office, Leonid Brezhnev was. Reagan met with Brezhnev with preconditions (namely, the US brazenly placed scores of Pershing II missiles in Europe), not without preconditions, as Barack Obama's own website claims he'd do with Iran (Obama's website: "Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.")

* It wasn't until Gorbachev took office that Reagan got anywhere with the Soviets, because the West recognized that Gorby was someone we could reason with. So even if one wants to elevate Iran to the status of the USSR (folly #1), neither the Ayatollah nor Ahmadinejad are anywhere near the reasonable guy that Gorby was (folly #2).

* At bare minimum, Reagan only talked with his enemies from a position of strength (did I mention the Pershing II missiles parked in Russia's back yard?). He likewise didn't fail to call a spade a spade. He reminded the Soviets at every turn of their cruelty - calling them the "Evil Empire," or telling them that "the march of freedom and democracy" would "leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history." I don't see any strength like that from Obama or Democrats in general. In fact, they go out of their multi-cultural, diversity-lovin', kumbayah way NOT to dare insult the Iranians. With the exception of far left Kool-Aid drinkers, the Obama camp looks whimpy to everyone, espeically to the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad.

In summary: Joe Klein needs to open up a frakin' history book, because his knowledge has been found lacking.

Labels: 2008, folly, foreign policy, mccain, media bias, Obama, Reagan, Russia

Candidates Vie to Be The Anti-Lobbyist
Obama Cites Conflicts in McCain Camp

BILLINGS, Mont., May 19 -- Sen. Barack Obama accused Sen. John McCain on Monday of running a presidential campaign bought and paid for by lobbyists and criticized the presumptive Republican nominee for waiting more than a year to address the conflicts of several key advisers.

During a speech at a high school here, Obama said voters should be concerned that "after nearly three decades in Washington, John McCain can't see or won't acknowledge what's obvious to all of us here today -- that lobbyists aren't just part of the system in Washington, they're part of the problem."

McCain's campaign shot back quickly, challenging Obama to "shed light on the long list of federal lobbyists advising him on policy issues" and accusing him of diverting attention from more serious matters.
There are two important points to make regarding demonization of lobbying.

Point #1: Whether you philosophically agree with it or not, and whether you like it or not, the US constitution protects lobbying. Period. There's no debate on this, and so race to see which politician lobbys the least is a collossal waste of time. The First Amendment gives the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Petition the government for a redress of grievances is what we today call "lobbying."

Point #2: We don't need more regulation because of lobbying. Rather the reverse is true: We have a lobbying juggernaut exactly because the government interferes so much and so often in the private sector. The day that government butts out of commerce is the day that companies and businesses don't find it necessary to spend so much of their precious resources "petitioning the government"!

You don't like lobbying, Sens. McCain and Obama? Then get the heck out of our lives!

Labels: Congress, government, mccain, Obama

The ineptness of Republicans never ceases to amaze me. The past few weeks John McCain had a perfect opportunity to capitalize on the Democratic Party infighting between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

So, what did McCain do with this moment in the spotlight? He mimicked Democrats and delivered a speech in Portland, Oregon, on how he would combat climate change...

... say again, John?

McCain does realize he's the Republican candidate, right?

His speech will do one of two things for his intended audience - that is, Republicans: Bore the hell out of them, or (in my case) infuriate them by offering a costly government-intrusive solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist.

It's hasn't gone over too hot with Republican audiences:

[From the Wall Street Journal editors] The problem is that once government creates an artificial scarcity of carbon, how the credits are allocated creates a huge new venue for political rent-seeking and more subsidies for favored industries. Some businesses will benefit more than others, in proportion to their lobbying influence and how well they're able to game the Beltway. Congress itself will probably take the largest revenue grab, offering itself a few more bites out of the economy and soaking politically unpopular businesses.

Then there's the question of whether any of this will even reduce greenhouse gasses. The McCain plan would allow businesses unlimited use of domestic and international offsets to comply with the carbon cap. So a chemical manufacturer, say, would pay an industry not covered by the program – most notably, agriculture – to reduce its emissions. Or it could pay a coal plant in China for plucking low-hanging efficiency fruit, like installing smokestack scrubbers. In other words, U.S. consumers would be paying higher prices for energy in return for making Chinese industries more efficient and competitive. Europe is in the midst of that experience now under the Kyoto Protocol, and most of its reductions so far have been illusory.

The compliance bookkeeping for this new "market" is vastly complex, and a McCain Administration would create a public-private "Climate Change Credit Corporation" to oversee it all.
And here's the take from NRO.
The Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) estimates that a U.S. cap-and-trade regime like the one discussed in this speech would cause about a one-percent reduction in GDP within five years. In less abstract terms, under that projection, by 2014 something like 1 million people would lose their jobs and the average American family would have about $150 less to spend every month. The costs would ramp up dramatically from there. In short, it would cost a lot. The U.N. IPCC estimates that unconstrained global warming is expected to cause damages equal to about 1-5 percent of global economic output about a century from now. William Nordhaus of Yale has estimated that the net benefit that would be created for the world by a perfectly implemented, globally harmonized carbon tax would be just under 0.2 percent of the present value of future global consumption. That presents a painfully thin margin for error, ignores the fact that costs will be disproportionately borne by the U.S., and does not bear much resemblance to the rhetoric of crisis that Sen. McCain uses in his speech.

It is highly unlikely that we could ever realize this theoretical benefit. Nobody has any realistic plan to get China and India to reduce emissions, and without doing so the costs of cap-and-trade to the U.S. would be dramatically greater than the benefits. Even if we could get the developing world to go along, the theoretical benefits that such a regulatory regime might create would, in the real world, be more than offset by the economic drag that would be created by the side deals required to get China, India, and the U.S. ethanol lobby, among many others, to go along with it.
It's like I've said before... every time I concede for McCain, or even warm up to him, or find myself defending him, he goes and does something to really tick me off.

Labels: 2008, climate, global warming, mccain

Krauthammer hits one out of the park.

'A Rank Falsehood'

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, March 28, 2008; A19

Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted -- "Make it a hundred" -- then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned: "We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so." Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: "That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner: "It's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world."

There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous "presence" McCain was suggesting for postwar Iraq: Kuwait. The United States (with allies) occupied Kuwait in 1991 and has remained there with a major military presence for 17 years. We debate dozens of foreign policy issues in this country. I've yet to hear any serious person of either party call for a pullout from Kuwait.

Why? Because our presence projects power and provides stability for the entire Gulf and for the vulnerable U.S. allies that line its shores.

The desirability of a similar presence in Iraq was obvious as long as five years ago to retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, one of Barack Obama's leading military advisers and his campaign co-chairman. During the first week of the Iraq war, McPeak (an Iraq war critic) suggested in an interview that "we'll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right." (Meaning, if we win.)

Why is that a hopeful outcome? Because maintaining a U.S. military presence in Iraq would provide regional stability, as well as cement a long-term allied relationship with the most important Arab country in the region.

As McPeak himself said about our long stay in Europe, Japan and Korea, "This is the way great powers operate." One can argue that such a presence in Iraq might not be worth the financial expense. A legitimate point -- it might require working out the kind of relations we have with Japan, which picks up about 75 percent of the cost of U.S. forces stationed there.

Alternatively, one might advocate simply bolstering our presence in Kuwait, a choice that would minimize risk, albeit at the sacrifice of some power projection. Such a debate would be fruitful and help inform our current negotiations with Baghdad over the future status of American forces.

But a serious argument is not what Democrats are seeking. They want the killer sound bite, the silver bullet to take down McCain. According to Politico, they have found it: "Dems to hammer McCain for '100 years.' "

The device? Charge that McCain is calling for a hundred years of war. Hence:

• "He says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" (Barack Obama, Feb. 19).

• "We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years" (Obama, Feb. 26).

• "He's willing to keep this war going for 100 years" (Hillary Clinton, March 17).

• "What date between now and the election in November will he drop this promise of a 100-year war in Iraq?" (Chris Matthews, March 4).

Why, even a CNN anchor (Rick Sanchez) buys it: "John McCain is telling us . . . that we need to win even if it takes 100 years" (March 16).

As Lenin is said to have said, "A lie told often enough becomes truth." And as this lie passes into truth, the Democrats are ready to deploy it "as the linchpin of an effort to turn McCain's national security credentials against him," reports David Paul Kuhn of Politico.

Hence: A Howard Dean fundraising letter charging McCain with seeking "an endless war in Iraq." And a Democratic National Committee news release in which Dean asserts: "McCain's strategy is a war without end. . . . Elect John McCain and get 100 years in Iraq."

The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonprofit and nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, says: "It's a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage 'endless war' based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea."

The Democrats are undeterred. "It's seldom you get such a clean shot," a senior Obama adviser told Politico. It's seldom that you see such a dirty lie.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, media bias

Democrats twisting the facts and words of John McCain? Imagine that. Nice reporting by the Washington Post :

A Century-Long War? Not Exactly.
Thursday, April 3, 2008; Page A06

The charge that Republican Sen. John McCain wants the Iraq conflict to become a "100-year war" has become a recurring theme in Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The Democrat has made the claim several times on the campaign trail, as has Susan Rice, one of his top foreign policy advisers. McCain has never talked about wanting a 100-year war in Iraq. But he has talked about a prolonged U.S. military presence there, similar to the stationing of U.S. troops in Germany after World War II or in South Korea after the Korean War.

THE FACTS

Take a look at what McCain actually said in Derry, N.H., in January. Cutting off a questioner who talked about the Bush administration's willingness to keep troops in Iraq for 50 years, the Republican senator said: "Make it a hundred." He then mentioned that U.S. troops have been in Germany for 60 years and in South Korea for 50 years, and added, "That's fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

Democrats seized on McCain's remarks. At one time or another, both Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have said that the presumptive Republican nominee is willing to fight a 100-year war in Iraq. When challenged about this assertion on Monday, Obama referred journalists to the YouTube version of the Derry meeting. But the YouTube clip does not back up his case.

Whether the conflict is winnable is a separate question. But there is a difference between fighting a war and occupying a country. World War II lasted nearly six years (3 1/2 years in the case of the United States), but a significant U.S. troop presence still remains in Germany.

McCain has also not been entirely consistent about his thoughts on a long-term U.S. military occupation of Iraq. Interviewed on "The Charlie Rose Show" last November, he rejected the Korea/Germany analogy:

ROSE: Do you think that this -- Korea, South Korea -- is an analogy of where Iraq might be, not in terms of their economic success but in terms of an American presence over the next, say, 20, 25 years, that we will have a significant amount of troops there?

McCAIN: I don't think so.

ROSE: Even if there are no casualties?

McCAIN: No. But I can see an American presence for a while. But eventually I think because of the nature of the society in Iraq and the religious aspects of it that America eventually withdraws.
THE PINOCCHIO TEST

A more honest line of attack for the Democrats would be against McCain's support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, whether he has a clear strategy for winning the war, and against the feasibility of a long-term U.S. occupation of a Muslim country. Instead of attacking him on these grounds, they have twisted his words by claiming that he "wants" to fight a 100-year war.

Labels: democrats, Iraq, mccain

Here's a continuation of a post below regarding Democrat's odd and inaccurate insistence that we differentiate between al Qaeda versus other Islamic terror groups, differentiate between Sunni versus Shiite jihadists. When it comes to us, Amir Taheri explains, they make no differentiation in their hatred of Western civilization... nor do their bombs.

For more than a quarter century, Tehran has been host to the offices of more than three dozen terrorists organizations, from the Colombian FARC to the Palestinian Hamas and passing by half a dozen Trotskyite and Leninist outfits. It also finances many anti-American groups and parties of both extreme right and extreme left in Europe and the Americas. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has bestowed the Muslim title of "brother" on Cuba's Fidel Castro, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. Communist North Korea is the only country with which the Islamic Republic maintains close military-industrial ties and holds joint annual staff sessions.

George Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese maverick who led a campaign of terror in Paris in the 1980s on behalf of Tehran, was a Christian. So was Anis Naqqache, who led several hit-teams sent to kill Iranian exile opposition leaders. For years, and until a recent change of policy, Tehran financed and offered shelter to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Marxist movement fighting to overthrow the Turkish Republic. Why? Tehran's displeasure with Turkish membership of NATO and friendship with the U.S.

Yes, Mr. Obama might ask, but what about Sunni-Shiite cooperation?

The Islamic Republic has financed and armed the Afghan Sunni Hizb Islami (Islamic Party) since the 1990s. It's also financed the Front for Islamic Salvation (FIS), a Sunni political-terrorist outfit in Algeria between 1992 and 2005.

In 1993, a senior Iranian delegation, led by the then Islamic Parliament Speaker Ayatollah Mehdi Karrubi, attended the Arab-Muslim Popular Congress organized by Hassan al-Turabi, nicknamed "The Pope of Islamist Terror," in Khartoum. At the end of this anti-American jamboree a nine-man "Coordinating Committee" was announced. Karrubi was a member, along with such Sunni eminences as Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mr. Turabi and the Algerian Abdallah Jaballah. The fact that Karrubi was a Shiite mullah did not prevent him from sitting alongside Sunni sheikhs.

In 1996, a suicide attack claimed the lives of 19 American servicemen in Al Khobar, eastern Saudi Arabia. The operation was carried out by the Hezbollah in Hejaz, an Iranian-financed outfit, with the help of the Sunni militant group "Sword of the Peninsula."

In 2000, Sunni groups linked to al Qaeda killed 17 U.S. servicemen in a suicide attack on USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. This time, a Shiite militant group led by Sheikh al-Houti, Tehran's man in Yemen, played second fiddle in the operation.

In Central Asia's Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Tehran has for years supported two Sunni movements, the Rastakhiz Islami (Islamic Awakening) and Hizb Tahrir Islami (Islamic Liberation Party). In Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, Tehran supports the Sunni Taleshi groups against the Azeri Shiite majority. The reason? The Taleshi Sunnis are pro-Russian and anti-American, while the Shiite Azeris are pro-American and anti-Russian.

There are no Palestinian Shiites, yet Tehran has become the principal source of funding for radical Palestinian Sunni groups, notably Hamas, Islamic Jihad and half a dozen leftist-atheist minigroups. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh refuses to pray alongside his Iranian hosts during his visits to Tehran. But when it comes to joining Khomeinist crowds in shouting "Death to America" he is in the forefront.

With Arab oil kingdoms no longer as generous as before, Iran has emerged as the chief source of funding for Hamas. The new Iranian budget, coming into effect on March 21, allocates over $2 billion to the promotion of "revolutionary causes." Much of the money will go to Hamas and the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah.

In Pakistan, the Iran-financed Shiite Tehrik Jaafari joined a coalition of Sunni parties to govern the Northwest Frontier Province, until they all suffered a crushing defeat at last month's parliamentary elections.

The fact that the Sunnis and Shiites in other provinces of Pakistan continued to kill each other did not prevent them from developing a joint, anti-U.S. strategy that included the revival of the Afghan Taliban and protection for the remnants of al Qaeda. Almost all self-styled "holy warriors" who go to Iraq on a mission of murder and mayhem are Sunnis. And, yet most pass through Syria, a country that, as already noted, is dominated by a sect with a militant anti-Sunni religious doctrine.

Next month, Tehran will host what is billed as "The Islamic Convergence Conference," bringing together hundreds of Shiite and Sunni militants from all over the world. The man in charge, Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Taskhiri, has described the goal of the gathering to be delivering "a punch in the face of the American Great Satan."

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Islamic extremism, mccain, terrorism, war on terror

Every once in a while - okay, every one to two years - President Bush can actually hit one out of the park. Here's a great comment from his address today:

The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around -- it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror. For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al Qaeda rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al Qaeda out. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his murderous network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated.
The rest of the speech is good too. The opportunity still exists, in the long run, to do with Iraq and through Iraq exactly what we set out to do with it in 2003 - overturn 60 years of promoting stability over liberty.

Of course, the problem for Bush is that he's so hated that even when he speaks reason people close their ears.

That's an advantage McCain still has for now. He's become not just the last choice for conservatives, but the only choice.

Labels: 2008, Iraq, mccain, Petraeus

Update by Thomas Joscelyn here.
***

So John McCain committed a political gaffe this week because he seemed to confuse Sunni with Shiite extremists in Iraq, and also which one or the other is receiving support from the government of Iran?

The criticism is ignorant on several counts:

First, if true that Iran is sponsoring and training *only* Shiite extremists but not Sunni, how is that a good thing? And why isn't the scandal that liberals seem to have no issue with this rather than a supposed mix-up by McCain?

Second, Obama pounced and further belittled McCain as one who "[claims he] will follow Osama bin Laden to 'the gates of hell' but refuse to follow him where he actually goes." This opens the door to attack on Obama -- Is Obama (once again) claiming he'll invade the Afghan-Pak border? And, if he feels Iraq is lost, how does Obama think we could ever win in the Afghan-Pak border where the terrain is twice as formidable?

Finally, there are many examples of Shiite and Sunni collaboration.

Khobar Towers, 1996: 13 Sunni Saudis helped Shiite Hezbollah, the Iranian backed terror group, detonate explosives to kill 19 U.S. servicemen.

Saif al-Adel, the Sunni Muslim and Egyptian mastermind of the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, was trained by Shiite Hezbollah. Indeed, the late Imad Mugniyah, a Shiite Muslim, of Hezbollah personally tutored Osama bin Laden, a Sunni Muslim. Thus, Sunni-Shiite relations have no issue with cooperation when murdering Americans is the topic.

And, one wonders, have the media critics and members of the Obama campaign ever bothered to read the 9-11 Commission report?

[The 9-11 Commission Report, p61] In late 1991 or 1992, discussions in Sudan between al Qaeda and Iranian operatives led to an informal agreement to cooperate in providing support-even if only training-for actions carried out primarily against Israel and the United States. Not long afterward, senior al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives. In the fall of 1993, another such delegation went to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon for further training in explosives as well as in intelligence and security. Bin Ladin reportedly showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that had killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983.The relationship between al Qaeda and Iran demonstrated that Sunni-Shia divisions did not necessarily pose an insurmountable barrier to cooperation in terrorist operations. As will be described in chapter 7, al Qaeda contacts with Iran continued in ensuing years.
I guess not. But who needs facts when one has saturation coverage. Iran will cooperate with anyone so long as it undermines the US.

And while we split hairs on which extremist is which they just kill us.

Labels: al qaeda, Iran, Iraq, mccain, media bias, Obama, terrorism, war on terror

Meanwhile, we are watching the American elections closely along with the rest of the world. The Russian ruling elite is rooting for Hillary Clinton, who represents a known and predictable entity compared to Barack Obama. John McCain has been outspoken on behalf of democratic rights abroad, including Russia. Regardless of the doubts about Mr. McCain's conservative credentials at home, the thought of him in the White House strikes fear into authoritarian leaders everywhere.
-- Garry Kasparov

Labels: 2008, mccain, war on terror

McCain is already aping Hillary Clinton's (unsuccessful) attacks on Barack Obama's speechifying over substance. He'd be wise to read this editorial by Stephen Hayes, who warns, we've seen this before:

These are words that move and uplift, that give hope to the hopeless. These words inspired millions of voters nationwide to join the grand experiment called democracy, casting votes for their candidate, their country, their destiny:

"More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of this community of shared values . . . For those who have abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!"

So Ronald Reagan proclaimed on July 17, 1980, as he accepted his party's nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in Detroit, Mich.

Earlier that day, the New York Times ran a long profile of Reagan on its front page. The author, Howell Raines, lamented that the news media had been unsuccessful in getting Reagan to speak in anything other than "sweeping generalities about economic and military policy." Mr. Raines further noted: "political critics who characterize him as banal and shallow, a mouther of right-wing platitudes, delight in recalling that he co-starred with a chimpanzee in 'Bedtime for Bonzo.'"

Throughout his campaign, Reagan fought off charges that his candidacy was built more on optimism than policies. The charges came from reporters and opponents. John Anderson, a rival in the Republican primary who ran as an independent in the general election, complained that Reagan offered little more than "old platitudes and old generalities."

Conservatives understood that this Reagan-as-a-simpleton view was a caricature (something made even clearer in several recent books, particularly Reagan's own diaries). That his opponents never got this is what led to their undoing. Those critics who giggled about his turn alongside a chimp were considerably less delighted when Reagan won 44 states and 489 electoral votes in November.

One Reagan adviser had predicted such a win shortly after Reagan had become the de facto nominee the previous spring. In a memo about the coming general election contest with Jimmy Carter, Richard Whalen wrote Reagan's "secret weapon" was that "Democrats fail to take him very seriously."

Are Republicans making the same mistake with Barack Obama?
Read the rest.

Labels: 2008, Clinton, mccain, Obama

The NY Times has published an article alleging that Sen. John McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, in the late 1990s.

The NY Times alleges corruption without using the word. The story is short on new facts and old news to those who have been following politics. The Keating Five scandal is far dead and buried and everyone who has paid even a little attention to the subject understands that McCain's self-imposed penance for his involvement in that warped into a severe over-reactive legislative attempt to "reform" money in politics via the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance law. McCain-Feingold, in turn, became nothing more than an obscene infringement of the First Amendment.

Indeed, were McCain corrupt he's a cheap date. According to the Washington Post, "Iseman clients have given nearly $85,000 to McCain campaigns since 2000, according to records at the Federal Election Commission." Best put (via David Freddoso): "Eighty-five grand? Over eight years? That's it? He was the chairman of the [Senate Commerce] committee! If McCain is an extortionist, he's a pathetic excuse for one."

McCain's legal council, Bob Bennett (brother of Bill Bennet, by the way), pointed out to the NBC today show that the Times (nor the Wa. Post for that matter) didn't bother adding facts that support McCain's defense:

A Washington attorney representing Mr. McCain, Robert Bennett, told NBC's "Today" show that Mr. McCain's staff provided the Times with "approximately 12 instances where Senator McCain took positions adverse to this lobbyist's clients and her public relations firm's clients," but none of the examples were included in the paper's story.
We'll see where this all goes, but so far, it could actually work to McCain's advantage. After all, this digging up of old bones is the best gift that the NY Times could have given to McCain -- for nothing can rally conservatives to McCain harder or faster than a traditional slimy and slanted NY Times hit piece!

Meanwhile, Gabriel Sherman of The New Republic (warning: the same magazine who tried to sell Beauchamp) has an interesting report on the internal politics at the NY Times and their decision to run the story:

The publication of the article capped three months of intense internal deliberations at the Times over whether to publish the negative piece and its most explosive charge about the affair. It pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn't. It likely cost the paper one investigative reporter, who decided to leave in frustration. And the Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable.
Read the rest.

Beyond all this is some notable commentary regarding McCain's apparent "disappointment" that the NY Times - which had often published positive views on McCain - would turn on him.

Andrew McCarthy summarized thusly:

Senator McCain appears to have been smeared by the Times. I'm sorry that happened, but if indignation is the order of the day, count me out. You see, I also feel sorry — really sorry — for the intelligence officers who've been maligned as torturers, for those who want the immigration laws enforced and are libeled as racists, for those who doubt the wisdom of campaign finance reform and are glibly scandalized as promoters of public corruption, and so on. Each of these Gray Lady smears has a common thread: John McCain has been only too happy to help, and to bask in the resulting glow: the Times' very own favorite Republican.

The Senator's reaction says it all: he's "disappointed in the New York Times." Of course, we can only be disappointed by those from whom we expect better. McCain expects better from the Times because he's accustomed to getting it, and he's accustomed to getting it because he's been very good about holding up his end of the bargain — especially when it comes to demagoguing the Right. The Times is a politicized rag and no one should take satisfaction in seeing McCain subjected to its journalistic version of waterboarding. I only wish I were convinced the Senator would learn the right lesson from this experience. I'm not.
Well, okay, so it appears that McCain will still have to do some wooing before conservatives rally to McCain, NY Times hitpiece or not.

Labels: 2008, campaign finance, mccain, media bias, NYT

I don't know if it's for real or if he's just swinging right for the rest of the primary race, but John McCain had some encouraging words regarding today's remarkably bi-partisan 68 to 29 vote to reauthorize the warrantless international wiretap laws and protections for companies that assisted the government in that surveillance. In a blog-call, McCain also commented on recent news that six 9-11 conspirators would be tried by military tribunal at Guantanamo.

Jennifer Rubin asked about Obama's vote against telecom immunity in the FISA bill, specifically whether this raised doubts about Obama's judgment. McCain said he wouldn't judge Obama's judgment, and then pointed out all the things he'd been wrong about, with specific attention to Iraq:

I don't know if he has the judgment or not, but I can tell you that he was wrong. He was wrong when he called for immediate timetables and withdrawal from Iraq. He was wrong when he said we couldn't win militarily, he was wrong when he said the Iraqi government couldn't function politically, which they are beginning to do. I won't make a comment as to whether he has the judgment, all I can say is we will all be responsible for our record, particularly on national security issues.
On telecom immunity he said simply, "look, when the federal government goes to a corporation or an enterprise and says 'we want you to help us in the war on terror'...should it astonish anyone that they cooperated?"

Ed Morrissey got a good laugh out of McCain by suggesting George Romero--the man responsible for Night of the Living Dead--should do the documentary on McCain's campaign. He also asked if McCain had met with Governor Romney, to which McCain responded that the two staffs were trying to coordinate a meeting. Further, McCain said he believes he is "gradually improving" his ties with the party's conservative base, that he wants a united party, and that everyone will have a seat at the table in a McCain administration.

I asked the Senator whether he would have any reservations about the execution of the six detainees on trial at Guantanamo Bay for their role in the 9/11 attacks, whether he is comfortable with the current legal regime for trying detainees, and whether the interrogation techniques used there cast doubt on the fairness of the trials. His response:

No. I would not have concerns. I rely to a large degree on my friend Lindsey Graham, who is a JAG lawyer and who has been intimately involved in this whole process. These are not individuals who deserve the protections of the kind of judicial process that a citizen of the United States would have. We did not give those rights and privileges in the Nuremberg tribunals...these tribunals as far as I can tell...are appropriate and they are the way to address these particular cases...and there's nothing in the Geneva Conventions or any other rule of law that I've ever seen that said that the same rights and privileges apply to them as apply to American citizens.
That will be music to conservatives ears.
This is encouraging. My only warning is that previously McCain has made comments that seemed to imply that he did believe that Geneva Conventions could apply to illegal combatants (i.e., terrorists).

But we'll see if the music is consistant assuming he's the nominee.

Labels: 2008, 9-11, geneva, guantanamo, interrogation, mccain