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The indomitable human spirit, part 2

Posted by Richard on March 11, 2007

There are people in this world whose courage and character and strength are so remarkable and profound that it moves me to tears. Several of them are named Killion (HT: Michelle Malkin), and Michael Fumento told their story:

After Sept. 11, when most of us were utterly horrified and then went back to business as usual, the Killions felt the pull of history. Rob enlisted in the active Army in July 2003 at age 18. "I joined the infantry," he says, "because they're the best." Douglas enlisted in the Indiana National Guard in 2003 at age 24 as a communications specialist. Even Rob's wife, Anya Kormanos Killion, is an Iraq vet. She served there before Rob enlisted. They met at the 101st's home in Fort Campbell, Kentucky and she is now a civilian.

Now it was Rick's turn. At 46, he was well past prime fighting age and was comfortable in his job. But he knew where his boys were headed and he wanted to be there with them. So "OMK" as they call him, short for "Old Man Killion," once again raised his right hand and rejoined the National Guard. Because of the length of his absence, he had to give up a stripe and enter as a sergeant E-5. But he made sure that if Doug deployed, so would he.

 Read. The. Whole. Thing. And take a moment to salute the Fighting Killions of Indiana. 

 

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Lancet study looks more and more bogus

Posted by Richard on March 5, 2007

Remember the Johns Hopkins study published in Lancet last October? The researchers claimed that our invasion of Iraq had led to more than 650,000 "excess" deaths (one in 40 Iraqis) since March 2003. I thought the number was absurd and suspected fraud for political purposes. Quite a few bloggers looked at the study and found it wanting, as did the Prez. But defenders argued that we critics simply lacked the in-depth knowledge of statistics needed to understand the sophisticated methodology employed.

Well, according to The Times of London, a number of people who do have an in-depth knowledge of statistics don’t think much of the study, either (emphasis added):

… The controversy has deepened rather than evaporated. Several academics have tried to find out how the Lancet study was conducted; none regards their queries as having been addressed satisfactorily. Researchers contacted by The Times talk of unreturned e-mails or phone calls, or of being sent information that raises fresh doubts.
…

“The authors ignore contrary evidence, cherry-pick and manipulate supporting evidence and evade inconvenient questions,” contends Professor Spagat, who believes the paper was poorly reviewed. “They published a sampling methodology that can overestimate deaths by a wide margin but respond to criticism by claiming that they did not actually follow the procedures that they stated.” The paper had “no scientific standing”. Did he rule out the possibility of fraud? “No.”

Some of the information about how the survey was conducted was new to me. Burnham, Roberts, et al — the Johns Hopkins "researchers" — never set foot in Iraq, did no research themselves, and apparently can’t actually vouch for how the survey was conducted:

They drafted in Professor Riyadh Lafta, at Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, as a co-author of the Lancet paper. Professor Lafta supervised eight doctors in 47 different towns across the country. In each town, says the paper, a main street was randomly selected, and a residential street crossing that main street was picked at random.

The doctors knocked on doors and asked residents how many people in that household had died. … Out of 1,849 households contacted, only 15 refused to participate.

A claimed participation rate of over 99%? Gee, there’s nothing suspicious about that!

One of the critics of the study is a former associate, Dr. Richard Garfield. Of course, his complaint seems to be that there was underreporting:

Together with Professor Hans Rosling and Dr Johan Von Schreeb at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Dr Garfield wrote to The Lancet to insist there must be a “substantial reporting error” because Burnham et al suggest that child deaths had dropped by two thirds since the invasion. The idea that war prevents children dying, Dr Garfield implies, points to something amiss.

Professor Rosling was one of several academics who complained about stonewalling:

Professor Rosling says that, despite e-mails, “the authors haven’t provided us with the information needed to validate what they did”. He would like to see a live blog set up for the authors and their critics so that the matter can be clarified.

Another critic is Dr Madelyn Hsaio-Rei Hicks, of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, who specialises in surveying communities in conflict. In her letter to The Lancet, she pointed out that it was unfeasible for the Iraqi interviewing team to have covered 40 households in a day, as claimed. She wrote: “Assuming continuous interviewing for ten hours despite 55C heat, this allows 15 minutes per interview, including walking between households, obtaining informed consent and death certificates.”

I’d say that Hicks has totally destroyed the credibility of this study with one simple little calculation involving only the most basic math. No advanced statistics knowledge required.

Does she think the interviews were done at all? Dr Hicks responds: “I’m sure some interviews have been done but until they can prove it I don’t see how they could have done the study in the way they describe.”

Professor Burnham says the doctors worked in pairs and that interviews “took about 20 minutes”. The journal Nature, however, alleged last week that one of the Iraqi interviewers contradicts this. Dr Hicks says: : “I have started to suspect that they [the American researchers] don’t actually know what the interviewing team did. The fact that they can’t rattle off basic information suggests they either don’t know or they don’t care.”  

Burnham told The Times he had "“full confidence in Professor Lafta and full faith in his interviewers.” Well, that settles it. No need to wonder about how those interviews were done. No need to validate the data or clarify the methodology.

Dr. Burnham has assured us that he has "full faith." That’s how they’re doing science at Johns Hopkins these days.
 

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A milestone worth reporting

Posted by Richard on February 26, 2007

I’ve been pretty disgusted in the past with the hyping of various casualty "milestones" in Iraq, such as when the number of U.S. military deaths hit 2,000, 3,000, or most contemptibly of all, when the toll in Iraq surpassed the 2,973 killed on 9/11. But on Sunday, Gateway Pundit posted some stunning information about an upcoming milestone that I’d like to see widely reported (emphasis in original):

US losses in Iraq and Afghanistan today (3525) are approaching the half way mark (3750) of the military losses during the Clinton years.

During the Clinton years, the US military lost an average of 939 soldiers each year and a total of 7500 military personnel. During the War in Iraq the US has lost an average of 800 soldiers each year- down each of the last two years and a total of 3525 military personnel in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This grim milestone is nearly half of the total military losses as during the Clinton years.

I won’t be holding my breath waiting for that comparison to be made on the evening news.
 

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A Sadr farewell

Posted by Richard on February 14, 2007

Many members of Congress doubt that the U.S. troop increase will be effective or that the Iraqi government can quell the sectarian strife. Apparently, their skepticism wasn’t shared by Muqtada al Sadr, the pudgy, rodent-like, radical Shi’ite cleric. He scurried away shortly after the new plan was announced (emphasis added):

According to senior military officials, al Sadr left Baghdad two to three weeks ago and fled to Tehran, Iran, where he has family.

Al Sadr commands the Mahdi army, one of the most formidable insurgent militias in Iraq, and his move coincides with the announced U.S. troop surge in Baghdad.

Sources believe al Sadr is worried about an increase of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. One official told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, "He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb] dropped on his house."

According to Allahpundit, it isn’t really news:

No surprises here, though: the Times of London reported on January 27th that Mahdi Army capos had slipped across the border — on Maliki’s advice — and were planning to ride out the surge in Iran while U.S. troops hammer Sunni jihadis in Baghdad. Bob Owens wrote a post just yesterday, in fact, about the sudden conspicuous absence of JAM on the streets in the capital. They’re just lying low until we’re gone, when they’ll come home and reemerge to reclaim power. It wasn’t hard to see it coming; even an idiot like me has been calling it for months.

It doesn’t matter why Mookie and his pals left or when they’re planning to return. What matters is making sure his Mahdi army gets seriously degraded, if not dismantled, during his absence. Might even make him think twice about returning.

And then there’s this novel concept called border security — admittedly, not the U.S. government’s strong suit, but what better place to learn how to do it right than the Iraq-Iran border? What if al Sadr can’t just come strolling back into Najaf whenever he feels like it?
 

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Democrats support the troops

Posted by Richard on February 13, 2007

The House of Representatives has begun debating (if you can call 5 minutes of pointless posturing per member a debate) the Democrats’ non-binding resolution opposing the troop increase in Iraq. Pelosi plans to have the vote on Friday. It’s expected to pass easily, with the invertebrate wing of the Republican Party joining the Democrats.

But this toothless timewaster is only the opening round — what the WaPo subhead called a "Precursor to Binding Legislation on Funding." In anticipation of a continuing struggle against the forces of retreat and defeat, the folks who brought you the NRSC Pledge have now begun the Victory Caucus. It’s for people who agree with Ronald Reagan that there is only one acceptable outcome in a struggle against the enemies of freedom: "We win. They lose." Drop by and check it out for the latest news and opinion regarding the war, along with tools and ideas for making a difference.

I’ll grant the House Dems this much — their resolution is commendably brief compared to the bilge introduced in the Senate. The meat of the resolution is just two sentences:

(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and

(2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

N.Z. Bear thinks points 1 and 2 are contradictory, but I think that depends on what you mean by "support and protect." (And isn’t "protect" an odd choice of verbs? Who is protecting whom, really?)

The qualifying phrase, "who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq," is subject to interpretation, too. I’m sure some Democrats would use that qualifier only to withhold their support from Lynndie England and the Haditha Marines. But there are plenty of people on the left who subscribe to the John Effin’ Kerry view that our military is and always has been full of murderers, rapists, cowards, and war criminals. "Yeah, I support the troops who served honorably," theyll sneer, "if you can find any."

I’ve uncovered a previously unpublished photo from a recent anti-war demonstration that sheds additional light on how Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha support our troops:

 

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Trying to shut up the troops

Posted by Richard on February 2, 2007

The "chicken hawk" meme that’s long been popular with the left is bad enough. It’s the contemptible claim that only those who’ve been in combat are entitled to support the war, and that those of us who support the war and haven’t served either need to enlist or shut up. But now we have a new anti-war meme — courtesy of Bill Arkin, a journalist and "military analyst" for NBC News who blogs at The Washington Post — that’s stunningly vile and disgusting.

Apparently, Arkin noticed that the vast majority of military people do support the war (we Fighting Keyboardists pointed this out a long time ago). He’s sick of listening to them and thinks they should shut up. He cited a few examples —  soldiers in Iraq speaking out in a recent NBC Nightly News report — and responded with ill-concealed contempt and loathing (emphasis added):

These soldiers should be grateful that the American public, which by all polls overwhelmingly disapproves of the Iraq war and the President’s handling of it, do still offer their support to them, and their respect.

Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order.
…

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?

I can imagine some post-9/11 moment, when the American people say enough already with the wars against terrorism and those in the national security establishment feel these same frustrations. In my little parable, those in leadership positions shake their heads that the people don’t get it, that they don’t understand that the threat from terrorism, while difficult to defeat, demands commitment and sacrifice and is very real because it is so shadowy, that the very survival of the United States is at stake. Those Hoovers and Nixons will use these kids in uniform as their soldiers. If it weren’t about the United States, I’d say the story would end with a military coup where those in the know, and those with fire in their bellies, would save the nation from the people.

But it is the United States, and the recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary – oops sorry, volunteer – force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

First of all, only a postmodern leftist worshipping at the feet of Chomsky and Said would interpret a soldier’s simple criticism of his viewpoint as a demand that "we should … roll over and play dead, … and give up our rights …"

It’s clear that Arkin despises people in the military and suspects that many of them are bloodthirsty goons who enjoy murdering and raping civilians and would be happy to turn the U.S. into a military dictatorship. His hatred has become so intense that he can no longer heed the advice he gave himself when he began the blog (emphasis added):

My basic philosophy is that government is more incompetent than diabolical, that the military gets way too much of a free ride (memo to self: Don’t say anything bad about the troops), and that official secrecy is the greatest threat citizens actually face today.

Mind you, I think he was off to a bad start with that philosopy. It starts out all right, but "official secrecy" (whatever that means) is our biggest threat? Not the people who want to blow up our airplanes, trains, and buildings? Not the movement that wants to subjugate us all under its 7th-century laws, turn women into chattel, and stone homosexuals and adulterers to death? Interesting perspective you have there, Arkin.

So, according to Arkin and his leftist friends, who has moral standing to comment on the war? Those of us who haven’t served have no right to speak out because we’re chicken hawks, hypocritically asking others to do what we haven’t done ourselves. The troops have no right to speak out because they’re mercenaries lusting for blood and ready to institute a fascist dictatorship. The people who served in the past and support the war have no right to speak out because … well, I’m not sure, exactly, but I think it’s because they’re still mercenaries at heart, lusting for blood and dictatorship.

Apparently, Arkin and his friends think that only those who’ve served in the past, but who now oppose war, are entitled to voice their opinions — people like Jack Murtha and John Effin’ Kerry.

And he has the gall to worry about us silencing him?
 

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Relentless negativity

Posted by Richard on February 1, 2007

Since the Democrats have hitched their future to failure and retreat in Iraq, it’s not surprising that their PR operatives in the mainstream media have committed themselves to reporting the news from Iraq with a relentless negativity. In practice, this has mostly meant ignoring positive developments, battlefield victories, and enemy losses and setbacks, while providing a steady stream of stories about IEDs, American and civilian deaths, and Iraqi failures and shortcomings.

Occasionally, something positve is too big to ignore, such as the recent battle near Najaf, the largest since the U.S. invasion. A radical religious sect, mostly Shia, apparently intended to attack Najaf and massacre the Shia clergy supportive of the government, starting with Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. Iraqi forces, backed up by U.S. troops and air support, killed between two and three hundred and captured hundreds more. Eleven Iraqi soldiers and two Americans were killed. A horrible and bloody act of terrorism was prevented, and a dangerous religious militia organization was destroyed — that’s a pretty positive story, right? Well, not if you’re determined to portray everything negatively (emphases added here and there):

Analysis: Najaf battle raises questions

By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Accounts of the bloody battle near Najaf have produced more questions than answers, raising doubts about Iraqi security forces’ performance and concern over tensions within the majority Shiite community.

Missteps by Iraqi forces in battle raise questions
By Marc Santora
Published: January 30, 2007

BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity of an obscure renegade militia in a weekend battle near the holy city of Najaf and needed far more help from American forces than previously disclosed, American and Iraqi officials said Monday.
…

The Iraqis and Americans eventually prevailed in the battle. But the Iraqi security forces’ miscalculations about the group’s strength and intentions raised troubling questions about their ability to recognize and deal with a threat.

A victory, of sorts
…
… Across Iraq, many called for an end to Iraq’s bloodshed. Not least among them was Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of a powerful Shia party, who said “I condemn the killing of Sunnis just as I do Shia and any other Iraqi”. But the events in Najaf show how quickly a hitherto unnoticed group that threatens to bring further violence to Iraq can spring up. Worse still the emergence of this mainly Shia splinter group suggests that on top of Shia-Sunni enmity, power struggles among Shia are yet another problem that Iraq’s leaders must counter. And elsewhere in the country, the mindless small-scale killings that plague Iraq carried on. But the near-disaster at Ashura shows that, for a day at least, it could have been much worse.

Militias on rise in Iraq
Burst of splinter groups stiffens challenge for US

By Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | January 31, 2007

WASHINGTON — The messianic Soldiers of Heaven militia that fought US and Iraqi troops in one of the fiercest battles of the war Sunday is among the more than two dozen extremist militias operating across Iraq that are fast becoming a powerful, and hidden, new enemy.

Ashura pilgrims attacked in Iraq, 40 killed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Bombers killed 36 people in two attacks on majority Shi’ite worshippers marking the religious ritual of Ashura on Tuesday amid heightened tensions between Iraq’s Shi’ites and once politically dominant minority Sunnis.
…

Fearing a possible strike by insurgents, Iraqi authorities had deployed 11,000 police and soldiers to the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala, focus of the commemoration that marks the death in battle of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson there 1,300 years ago.

The fears were fuelled [sic] by the discovery of what Iraqi officials said was a plot by a messianic Muslim cult to target senior Shi’ite clerics in the holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad at the climax of Ashura this week.

Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. tanks, helicopters and jet fighters fought a fierce day-long battle with the "Soldiers of Heaven" near the city on Sunday in which one U.S. helicopter crashed. Iraqi officials said the cult’s leader was killed.

Mideast tensions dominate Ashura ritual

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Attackers killed 40 Shi’ite Muslim pilgrims in Iraq on Tuesday and Hezbollah’s leader warned of the threat of civil war in Lebanon as tensions across the Middle East overshadowed the annual rite of Ashura.

In most of the Arab world the climax of the ritual, in which Shi’ites mourn the slaying over 13 centuries ago of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Imam Hussein, went off peacefully.

But the talk from worshippers and preachers alike was of impending struggle and conflict.

None of this negativity was enough for the rabidly leftist "media critics" at Media Matters, though. They’re angry that the reporting wasn’t negative enough:

Media uncritically reported Bush’s statement touting Iraqi success in Najaf

Summary: Numerous media outlets reported — as President Bush claimed in an interview on National Public Radio — that Iraqi troops took the lead in the battle near Najaf against religious militia the Soldiers of Heaven, without noting that the Iraqis were reportedly "overwhelmed" until U.S. forces joined them.

The barking moonbat outlets, quoting "authoritative" Iraqi and Arab sources, have already begun spinning this as an atrocity and cover-up — just simple, peaceful tribesmen on a pilgrimage attacked without provocation by the Iraqi army and then massacred by American planes and helicopters.

Almost none of the news stories mentioned, and none analyzed, what struck me as some rather important information about this "Soldiers of Heaven" cult: They’re a messianic group that wants to hasten the return of the mahdi, or 12th imam, and thought killing the Najaf clerics would help bring this about. The group’s presence in the area expanded greatly in recent months, and they set up sizable compound. There were some interesting discoveries at the compound:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The ruins of the Soldiers of Heaven compound in Najaf yielded evidence Tuesday that the group had amassed huge wealth and weapons storehouses virtually under the noses of the Iraqi and U.S. militaries.
…

McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Qassim Zein entered the compound Tuesday afternoon, more than 24 hours after the battle ended.

He found a beauty salon for the women who lived there. New air conditioners kept the building cool, and outside was a large swimming pool. Expensive furniture was everywhere.

Zein said a police official told him a search of the compound uncovered $8 million to $10 million in U.S. currency. U.S. Army officials took the money, along with computers and documents, he told Zein.

A spokesman for U.S. forces referred questions to the Iraqi government. A State Department spokesman had no comment.

Zein counted more than 60 vehicles, including pickups and sedans. Another four large trucks were thought to have hauled weapons.

So this small, messianic cult somehow suddenly obtained vast weapons stockpiles, luxurious facilities, and mountains of U.S. currency (maybe counterfeit hundreds like those that Hezbollah passes out?). And their goal is to bring about the apocalypse by hastening the return of the mahdi. I can’t imagine where they got all these resources — maybe it was someone *cough*Ahmadinejad*cough* who shares their goal.
 

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Curious pledge demographics

Posted by Richard on January 30, 2007

Last Thursday, I wrote about The NRSC Pledge, a grass-roots online protest — with teeth! — against the vertebrae-challenged Senate Republicans. The pledge is a promise not to contribute to any Republican senator who votes for a resolution disapproving the Iraq "troop surge" plan and not to contribute to the NRSC if it supports such a senator. Over 30,000 people have electronically signed it in the past five days, and this nice map shows the number of signers in each state. I’m amazed by some of the numbers.

California (population 36 million*) has by far the largest number of signers — over 6,000. Second is Texas (pop. 23 million) with about 2,500. Colorado (pop. 4.5 million) takes third place with over 2,200. Arizona (6 million), Florida (18 million), and Minnesota (5 million) all have around 1,300 signers — and no other state has over 1,000!

Look at some of the other big states — Illinois (13 million) has under 1,000, New York (20 million) and Pennsylvania (12.5 million) have fewer than 800 each, and New Jersey (8.7 million) has just over 400.

It’s not just a red state / blue state thing, either. Alabama is a decidedly red state with about the same population as Colorado, but one-tenth as many signers. North Carolina has twice Colorado’s population, but one-fourth the signers. The numbers for the smaller-population western states are pitiful: Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas have about 50 signers each, Idaho about 100, and Utah about 200.

So, how does Colorado end up hot on the heels of Texas, which has over five times our population, and far ahead of any comparable-population state? Are we that much more internet-oriented? That much more politically aware? That much less tolerant of hypocrisy and self-serving posturing? You got me.

And, yes, I most certainly do think these resolutions are self-serving posturing. The Senate just unanimously approved Gen. Petraeus. That so many senators are eager to go on record against what ought to be called the Petraeus Plan (he helped formulate it and strongly endorsed it in his Senate testimony) is an indication of how unserious and inconsistent they are. That they’re ignoring warnings by Petraeus and others about the harm their posturing does is an indication of how craven and contemptible they are.

So, have you signed the pledge yet? Why not do it right now? Oh, and if you have any theories about the participation rate differences, especially Colorado’s stand-out performance, drop them in the comments.

* All population numbers are rounded off from the 2005 figures at Infoplease.com.
 

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A sorry spectacle

Posted by Richard on January 27, 2007

Yesterday, as I skimmed through the posts at Hugh Hewitt’s blog looking for updates on The NRSC Pledge, I skipped Dean Barnett’s post, Being Norm. That was a mistake I’ve since rectified — it’s a must-read. Barnett wrote about Sen. Norm Coleman, a solid conservative Republican whom Barnett really, really liked. Coleman, apparently with one eye on his 2008 re-election campaign, is supporting the Warner resolution.

Barnett expressed his displeasure and described how a politician who aspires to be a statesman ought to behave — and how he ought not:

Winston Churchill, after seeing to Great Britain’s survival, was unceremoniously dumped by the British electorate in favor of the supremely mediocre Clement Atlee in July of 1945. Lord knows I’m not comparing Coleman to Churchill; my point is sometimes outstanding public service is not rewarded at the ballot box.

If you enter the political arena, perhaps an understanding of that fact should be a personal prerequisite. At some point, in the course of doing what’s right, the voters may reject you. And lord knows if Great Britain could survive in 1945 without Churchill at the helm, the United States could weather the absence of Norm Coleman in the Senate.

Yesterday saw the sorry spectacle of John Kerry tearing up on the floor of the Senate as he announced he would not seek the presidency in 2008. As Roger Simon pointed out, it’s worth asking who the tears were for. Certainly Kerry wasn’t crying about the death of a Kerry agenda. Beyond his personal ambitions, there has never been a Kerry agenda.

John Kerry was crying for himself and the dashing of those ambitions. What a pathetic display. …

… The fact that he chose to cry tears of self-pity from the Senate floor because he would not achieve his dreams speaks eloquently to what drove him, what consumed him and where his priorities have always been.

Contact Sen. Coleman and ask him if he wants to emulate Winston Churchill or John Kerry.

You have signed the pledge, haven’t you? Over 20,000 25,000 people have.
 

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Take the pledge

Posted by Richard on January 26, 2007

On Tuesday, Gen. Petraeus testified that the Biden-Warner resolution opposing the Bush plan for Iraq, or any other similar resolution, would encourage the enemy and demoralize our troops. By all accounts, Gen. Petraeus is a highly competent, honorable, and intelligent military leader, and his opinion on this subject should carry considerable weight.

But it doesn’t take an expert in military strategy and tactics to understand the consequences of the cowardliness in the Capitol. The Islamofascists have long maintained that the West lacks the will for a sustained fight, and will run away when things get too difficult or bloody. And we already know from seized al Qaeda in Iraq documents that if we abandon Iraq, our enemies will eagerly follow us back here.

Iraq is not an isolated war, it’s one front in a much larger war. At this moment, Lebanon is on the brink of civil war, and an emboldened Hezbollah seems to be preparing to seize control. Do you suppose this is unrelated to the growing evidence of America’s wavering resolve?

ln the long run, retreat from Iraq will likely lead to at least hundreds of thousands and probably millions of deaths in Iraq, and to thousands or tens of thousands of deaths in the United States — maybe more. Who knows how many more will die at the hands of emboldened and strengthened Islamofascists in Lebanon, Israel, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Britain, France, the Netherlands, …

The more that spineless Republicans and Democrats appear eager to run away from Iraq, the more al Qaeda in Iraq and Iran’s proxies must think that they’re just a few horrific IED blasts and another handful of American deaths from achieving politically what they can’t achieve militarily. Set aside for the moment the terrible long-term consequences of retreat — right now, today, this very moment, the Biden and Warner resolutions and their colleagues’ related hand-wringing and posturing are directly responsible for encouraging more violence and killing more Americans and Iraqis. It’s disgusting and contemptible and unforgivable.

This morning I joined 6100 other people (that number has since more than doubled tripled quadrupled) in signing The NRSC Pledge, which says:

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

Hugh Hewitt, the quintessential Republican Party loyalist, helped start this effort, and he explained why tonight with four little words: "The war trumps party." I couldn’t agree more.

I also won’t contribute to any organization or PAC — such as the Club for Growth or the GOA PVF — that funnels money to any such senator. Gaius of Blue Crab Boulevard, who has a son serving in Iraq, made this additional promise:

… I’ll go one better on the pledge. I WILL actively work against any Republican up for reelection who votes for a resolution – like Chucky "Dead to me" Hagel did. If our politicians are too stupid to see what kind of message they are sending to the world with their grandstanding, then they do not have the best interests of this country in mind and do not deserve to stay in office. …

Good idea. I’m not a big-bucks contributor — I’m guessing all my campaign contributions last year amounted to not much over two grand. But I will be contributing to the primary opponents of Republicans who don’t stand with their president on this issue — and I’ll start with a contribution to anyone who challenges Sen. Warner. I’ll give a pass to a few GOP representatives (Ron Paul comes to mind) who opposed the war on principle from the beginning — they’ve followed their conscience all along.

But these gutless GOP wonders with their fingers in the wind who pander to a fickle public on this life-or-death matter (but don’t have the integrity or fortitude to actually prohibit appropriations from being used to increase troop levels)? They deserve to be punished. Please join me — sign the pledge. Then contact senators on Hewitt’s hit list and tell them to grow a spine or else.
 

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Saddam and terror

Posted by Richard on December 30, 2006

According to LGF, Saddam will be hanged at dawn, which is rapidly approaching in Baghdad. I’m eager to toast his demise. The world will be a better place when this truly evil man assumes room temperature. [It’s done! See update at bottom.]

Sadly, although most people know he was a mass murderer and torturer, they still believe that the "secular" Saddam never had anything to do with terrorism, Islamists, or al Qaeda. Nothing could be further from the truth. For a good, brief overview of just a little of the evidence to the contrary, read "Saddam’s Iraq and Islamic Terrorism: What We Know Now" by Stephen F. Hayes in the December issue of Hillsdale College’s Imprimis (if you prefer, it’s also available as a PDF). Here’s one example (emphasis added):

On October 2, 2002, a young Filipino man rode his Honda motorcycle up a dusty road to a shanty strip mall just outside Camp Enrile Malagutay in Zamboanga City, Philippines. The camp was host to American troops stationed in the south of the country to train with Filipino soldiers fighting terrorists. The man parked his bike and began to examine its gas tank. Seconds later, the tank exploded, sending nails in all directions and killing the rider almost instantly.

The blast damaged six nearby stores and ripped the front off of a café that doubled as a karaoke bar. The café was popular with American soldiers. And on this day, SFC Mark Wayne Jackson was killed there and a fellow soldier was severely wounded. Eyewitnesses immediately identified the bomber as a known Abu Sayyaf terrorist.

One week before the attack, Abu Sayyaf leaders had promised a campaign of terror directed at the “enemies of Islam”—Westerners and the non-Muslim Filipino majority. And one week after the attack, Abu Sayyaf attempted to strike again, this time with a bomb placed on the playground of the San Roque Elementary School. It did not detonate. Authorities recovered the cell phone that was to have set it off and analyzed incoming and outgoing calls.

As they might have expected, they discovered several calls to and from Abu Sayyaf leaders. But another call got their attention. Seventeen hours after the attack that took the life of SFC Jackson, the cell phone was used to place a call to a top official in the Iraqi embassy in Manila, Hisham Hussein. It was not Hussein’s only contact with Abu Sayyaf.

One Philippine government source told me: “He was surveilled, and we found out he was in contact with Abu Sayyaf and also pro-Iraqi demonstrators. [Philippine Intelligence] was able to monitor their cell phone calls. [Abu Sayyaf leaders] called him right after the bombing. They were always talking.”

A subsequent analysis of Iraqi embassy phone records by Philippine authorities showed that Hussein had been in regular contact with Abu Sayyaf leaders both before and after the attack that killed SFC Jackson. Andrea Domingo, immigration commissioner for the Philippines, said Hussein ran an “established network” of terrorists in the country. Hisham Hussein and two other Iraqi embassy employees were ordered out of the Philippines on February 14, 2003.

Interestingly, if the Iraqi regime had wanted to keep its support for Abu Sayyaf secret, the al Qaeda-linked group did not. Twice in two years, Abu Sayyaf leaders boasted about receiving funding from Iraq—the second time just two weeks after Hisham Hussein was expelled. The U.S. intelligence community discounted the claims.

This is one of hundreds of things we knew before the war connecting Saddam’s regime with Islamist terrorists. Since the war, we’ve learned even more from the small percentage of records found in Baghdad that have been translated. But the intelligence community has fought tooth and nail to prevent even that small glimpse into the regime’s records:

… As of March, three years after the war began, the U.S. intelligence community had fully translated and analyzed less than five percent of the documents captured in postwar Iraq. In some cases, they actually fought efforts to increase their budgets—something that is unheard of in the intelligence bureaucracies. At one point, a little more than a year into the document exploitation project, senior intelligence officials tried to have the project shut down altogether.

Hayes seems to think our snoops didn’t want it to become known how utterly they’d botched the job before the war. I guess that could be part of it. But I’m also convinced that large portions of the career foreign service and intelligence staffs are adamently opposed to the "neo-con agenda" and despise the "cowboy" in the White House — and they’ve done everything in their power to undermine and discredit the Bush policies.

Read Hayes’ brief examples of things we’ve learned from those translated documents. And then read his astonishing story of the Iraqi Intelligence Director’s "blueprint for insurgency" dated a month before the war began, which was discovered and turned over to the CIA immediately after the invasion — where it promptly disappeared. Read about the lists of jihadists from Saudi Arabia and other countries who came to Iraq before the war to fight that insurgency. Read the whole thing. Then read Hayes’ book, too.

UPDATE: Arab news sources report Saddam has been hanged. Good riddance. Now, please excuse me, I have to go pour a toast.

Bottoms up! And now, with a bow to John Cleese: ‘E’s passed on! The Butcher of Baghdad is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-DICTATOR!!

Or, on a more serious note, Mark Humphrys’ The end of tyrants, commenting on the capture of Saddam, seems highly appropriate:

For me, the worst thing on earth is the existence of dictators. The existence of dictators and unfree regimes is the cause of all war, all genocide, all famine, and almost all poverty on earth.

For me, the best thing on earth is the toppling of dictators. Those rare, glorious moments when good triumphs, and evil is humiliated, just like in the movies.

In real life, evil normally wins. Evil normally stays in power for years, sits at the UN, is never punished, grows fat and rich, and retires to the South of France. But sometimes – all too rarely – evil loses, and is forced to face justice on earth. The killing of Ceausescu in 1989 was one such moment.

The capture of Saddam in 2003 is another. This is the greatest moment on earth since 1989.

And the swinging of Saddam from a rope is yet another.

UPDATE 2: Saddam died clutching a Koran, and his last words were "Allahu akbar! (God is great) [Following translated by media] The nation will be victorious. Palestine is Arab." So much for the "secularist" meme.
 

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“Grim milestone” hyped

Posted by Richard on December 26, 2006

A couple of weeks ago, I warned you that the 90% of American media outlets that give the rest a bad name were preparing to hype another Iraq death toll milestone — "the momentous occasion when the number of Americans killed by al Qaeda is eclipsed by the number killed because of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Halliburton/oil." Editor and Publisher had predicted it would happen by Dec. 19, and I’m sure many in the MSM were chagrined as Christmas approached, and the toll in Iraq remained short of the 9/11 toll of 2,973.

On Christmas Day, it happened. Within minutes of learning about death number 2,974, AP had a story out, updated several times since as the toll climbed further:

NEW YORK (AP) – In a span of a few hours, 2,973 people were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In a span of 45 months, the number of American troops killed in Iraq exceeded that grim toll as the war continues.

The milestone in Iraq came on Christmas, nearly four years after the war began, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Based on a quick check with Google News, I’m guessing the story has appeared over a thousand times on media websites alone. The latest AP rewrites have buried the "grim milestone" aspects deeper in the story, maybe in response to criticism. Charles Johnson called the first version "disgusting and ghoulish beyond belief," and suggested:

Write to the Associated Press and tell them what you think about this.

I suspect I was correct in predicting that no one would mention how long it took for the number of combat deaths in World War II to eclipse the number killed at Pearl Harbor (2,403). I actually did a bit of research on this, but with not much success. I found casualty numbers for specific major combat operations, and a Navy document showing casualties by year, but that’s too coarse. My best guess is that U.S. combat deaths in the Pacific theater surpassed the December 7 toll some time between the Battle of the Java Sea in late February and the fall of Bataan in early April — so, roughly 3 or 4 months.

I doubt if anyone noticed at the time. In 1942, American journalists were too busy reporting actual war news. Plus, they were on our side.
 

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Preparing to hype the death toll again

Posted by Richard on December 15, 2006

Editor and Publisher is a trade publication for the newspaper industry. Describing their editorial viewpoint as liberal is something of an understatement. The other day, one of their columnists recalled "the last soldier to die for a mistake" in Vietnam and speculated about who’d be the last to die for the Iraq mistake, closing with "How many more years of torment and wasted lives remain in Iraq?"

On Tuesday, E&P provided a heads-up for journalists, basically telling them, "There’s another symbolically important milestone approaching in Iraq, so all you ink-stained wretches get ready to crank up the hype machine." Except they put it this way:

U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Hits 2,940 — Within 33 of 9/11 Total



By E&P Staff



Published: December 12, 2006 9:45 PM ET updted Wednesday


NEW YORK With five more deaths reported today, at least 2,940 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to the Associated Press count. The AP count is six higher than the Defense Department’s tally, which often gets updated.

The most often cited number for those killed in America on Sept. 11, 2001, is 2,973, leaving the Iraq tally just 33 short.

At the current rate, the 9/11 number will be eclipsed within a week.

I imagine that a fair number of reporters, columnists, and editors almost immediately began work on news stories, human interest stories, analyses, and opinion pieces addressing the momentous occasion when the number of Americans killed by al Qaeda is eclipsed by the number killed because of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Halliburton/oil.

I predict that virtually none of these articles, analyses, and opinion pieces will mention how long it took for the number of combat deaths in World War II to eclipse the number killed at Pearl Harbor.

UPDATE: The toll in Iraq reached the number they were waiting for on Dec. 25. The MSM celebrated commemorated the milestone without drawing any comparisons to WWII and Pearl Harbor.
 

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Alternate reality

Posted by Richard on December 8, 2006

One little excerpt from the Iraq Surrender Group report told me everything I needed to know about it and confirmed the fears and suspicions I had: "No country in the region wants a chaotic Iraq." Ahem. In what alternate reality do these tired old political reprobates reside? In this reality, Iran absolutely, positively does want a chaotic Iraq, and is working 24/7 to create one! And it’s client, Syria, is doing its share!

There is more wisdom, insight, judgment, and sense of history in the head of one young American soldier than in the entire preening, self-congratulatory, self-aggrandizing Baker-Hamilton commission — as evidence, consider the reaction of T.F. Boggs, a 24-year-old Sergeant in the Army Reserve who returned from his second tour in Iraq just last month (emphasis added):

The Iraq Survey Group’s findings or rather, recommendations are a joke and could have only come from a group of old people who have been stuck in Washington for too long. The brainpower of the ISG has come up with a new direction for our country and that includes negotiating with countries whose people chant “Death to America” and whose leaders deny the Holocaust and call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. Baker and Hamilton want us to get terrorists supporting countries involved in fighting terrorism! …
…

What the group desperately needed was at least one their members to have been in the military and had recent experience in Iraq. The problem with having an entire panel with no one under the age of 67 is that none of them could possibly know what the situation is actually like on the ground in Iraq. …

We cannot appease our enemies and we cannot continue to cut and run when the going gets tough. As it stands in the world right now our enemies view America as a country full of queasy people who are inclined to cut and run when things take a turn for the worse. Just as the Tet Offensive was the victory that led to our failure in Vietnam our victories in Iraq now are leading to our failure in the Middle East. How many more times must we fight to fail? I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24 year old but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans. Iraq isn’t fast food-you can’t have what you want and have it now. To completely change a country for the first time in it’s entire history takes time, and when I say time I don’t mean 4 years.

Talking doesn’t solve anything with a crazed people, bullets do and we need to be given a chance to work our military magic. Like I told a reporter buddy of mine: War sucks but a world run by Islamofacists sucks more.

HT: Hugh Hewitt, whose assessment of the report is spot-on, including an apt historical comparison:

The report combines an almost limitless condescension towards the "Iraqi sovereign government," even going so far as to lay out a timetable for its exact legislative program for the next six months, with a cavalier indifference to the Syrian death squads operating in Lebanon, and the certain nature of the Iranian regime –still, on this very day, hosting the anti-Holocaust conference.

It is a wonder, this bit of appeasement virtuosity, and I think it will gain for its authors all the lasting fame that has attached itself to the name Samuel Hoare, and his brainchild, the Hoare-Laval Agreement.

I think Dean Barnett may have correctly identified the mindset of these morons:

Yesterday, the self-esteem movement reached its zenith. A nation and a government, eager to feel better about themselves, rounded up a passel of political has-beens to offer policy prescriptions that we could all support. And, other than the brain-dead nature of its policy prescriptions, what’s there not to love about the Iraq Study Group’s report? It’s the foreign policy equivalent of “a chicken in every pot.”

If this vacuous and venal piece of tripe isn’t dismissed and ignored — if its policy recommendations are actually followed, and the United States commits itself to appeasing terror states into being a bit nicer — then a few short years from now, when the nuke takes out Tel Aviv, we should refer to it as the Baker-Hamilton Holocaust.
 

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Baker’s blunders

Posted by Richard on December 5, 2006

I’ve made no secret of my dislike for James Baker, Bob Gates, and their pals from the Bush 41 administration — see Baker, Bush, and the loss of vision and It’s not realism, it’s capitulation. In his latest column, Jeff Jacoby cited some of the specific Bush 41 foreign policy blunders in which Baker had a hand as secretary of state (1989-1992):

One such blunder was the administration’s stubborn refusal to support independence for the long-subjugated republics of the Soviet Union, culminating in the president’s notorious "Chicken Kiev" speech of August 1991, when he urged Ukrainians to stay in their Soviet cage. Another was the appeasement of Syrian dictator Hafez Assad during the run-up to the Gulf War in 1990, when Bush and Baker blessed Syria’s brutal occupation of Lebanon in exchange for Assad’s acquiescence in the campaign to roll back the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

When Chinese tanks massacred students in Tiananmen Square, Bush expressed more concern for the troops than for their victims: "I don’t think we ought to judge the whole People’s Liberation Army by that terrible incident," he said. When Bosnia was torn apart by violence in 1992, the Bush-Baker reaction was to shrug it off as "a hiccup."

Worst of all was the betrayal of the Iraqi Shi’ites and Kurds who in the spring of 1991 heeded Bush’s call to "take matters into their own hands" and overthrow Saddam Hussein — only to be slaughtered by Saddam’s helicopter gunships and napalm while the Bush administration stood by. Baker blithely announced that the administration was "not in the process now of assisting . . . these groups that are in uprising against the current government." To Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell’s plea that some of the 400,000 US troops in the area put a halt to the massacre, Bush dismissively replied, "Always glad to have his opinion. Glad to hear from him." Then he went fishing in Florida.

If Bush the Elder is remembered for a rather heartless and cynical foreign policy, then much of the credit must go to Baker. And what Baker did for the father, he is now poised to do for the son.

Jacoby went on to argue for adding more troops in Iraq, and he made the best argument for doing so I’ve seen yet. In particular, with the impending Baker report reminding many of us — and doubtless many Iraqis — of the past Baker-Bush betrayal, there’s this (emphasis added):

Sending in significant reinforcements would not only make it possible to kill more of the terrorists, thugs, and assassins who are responsible for Iraq’s chaos. It would also help reassure Iraqis that the Washington is not planning to leave them in the lurch, as it did so ignominiously in 1991. The violence in Iraq is surging precisely because Iraqis fear that the Americans are getting ready to throw in the towel. That is why "they have turned to their own sectarian armed groups for the protection the Bush administration has failed to provide," Robert Kagan and William Kristol write in The Weekly Standard. "That, and not historical inevitability or the alleged failings of the Iraqi people, is what has brought Iraq closer to civil war."

I think that’s about right. I also think he’s on to something regarding why people have become so negative about Iraq: it’s not the casualties or the length of the conflict — "It is *losing* that Americans have no patience for." Of course, three years of relentless media negativity, disinformation, and outright lying have something to do with it, too.
 

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