April 17, 2004

Mega chemical attack foiled in Jordan

Al-Hayat: Plot to detonate charge at military installation could have killed 20,000 people, experts say. Terror cell connected to al-Qaeda mastermind Zarqawi.

 The terror cell that was apprehended last week in Jordan planned to carry out a large-scale chemical attack, Jordanian officials told the al-Hayat London-based newspaper. According to the officials, the successful prevention of the attack may have saved thousands of lives.

The report added that the terrorists planned to detonate a powerful chemical bomb at a Jordanian Military Intelligence installation. The cell also intended to use poison gas during attacks on the US embassy in Amman and a government building in the country.

Maybe one of the reasons we can't find Saddam's WMDs is because the IslamoNazis moved them to Jordan.
I never figured on Jordan, but it's as close to Iraq as Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Interesting that they would launch an attack on Jordan, too:
With his fond hopes that the "crocodile would eat him last," "King" Abdullah of Jordan has been keeping very, very quiet hoping the jihadis wouldn't notice that, although he's head of an Islamic country, he's very cosy with Western democratic governments.

April 16, 2004

1st Marine Sgt. Dwayne Farr of Detroit, Michigan

ABCNEWS.com : Kilt-Wearing Marine Plays Bagpipes in Iraq
Great way to let them know that the Leathernecks are "in the house," Sgt. Farr!
Thanks for being another great American individual who wanted to do something noone else had done before and making it a reality.
Sgt. Farr also illustrates perfectly the "melting pot" that is America.
Not only that, but Falluja looks as if it could use a Highland fling or two!
So keep piping!

Hat tip to Lucianne.com.

Bush backs Israel's land claim

President Bush yesterday endorsed Israel's claim to a disputed portion of the West Bank and said Palestinian refugees must settle outside Israel, prompting anger from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
    
The shift in Mr. Bush's Middle East policy reflected a growing frustration with Mr. Arafat's support for terrorism. But the president also backed a move by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to placate the Palestinians withdrawal of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and a section of the West Bank.
    
By claiming other land in the West Bank, Mr. Sharon dashed the hopes of Palestinians who had sought a return to borders drawn more than a half-century ago. They wanted those borders incorporated into final peace talks with Israel.
[Not only that; the Paleostinians made East Jerusalem a necessary concession, as well, knowing full well it was asking the impossible!--Jen]
    
"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949," the president said in a joint press conference with Mr. Sharon.
    
The smiling prime minister was clearly pleased to have secured the president's support in keeping at least some of Israel's gains in the 1967 war, when it seized Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
[This doesn't include the gains of the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Israel got even more.--J.T.]

 "I, myself, have been fighting terrorism for many years," Mr. Sharon said in the White House. "In all these years, I have never met a leader as committed as you are, Mr. President, to the struggle for freedom and the need to confront terrorism wherever it exists."
    
Israeli officials expressed deep satisfaction with Mr. Bush's statement, seen as critical to Mr. Sharon's hopes of selling the political plan back home.
    
"Understandings reached today between the prime minister and President Bush gives us the assurance to move forward, to take the risks that go with giving up territory and evacuating established settlements," said Daniel Ayalon, Israeli ambassador to the United States.
    
Officials said that logistically and politically it would take Israel nine months to a year to implement the plan.
    
Mr. Arafat denounced the new U.S.-Israeli agreement.
[BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Araf*rt has seen those terrorist chickens coming home to roost at last!
Looks as if his con game is just about over and high time, too!]
[...]
"The Palestinian leadership warns of the dangers of reaching such an accord, because it means clearly the complete end of the peace process," he said in a statement.
[These Paleos "slay" me! They can't believe their game of "peace for land through jihadi murder" isn't working anymore!]
    
Mr. Arafat added that the pact would prompt a "cycle of violence and end all the signed agreements"[...which were worthless anyway because the Palis never meant to keep their part of the bargains] between Israel and the Palestinians.
   
 A senior administration official acknowledged that U.S.-Israeli talks have "obviously generated a lot of anxiety," but suggested that Mr. Arafat's reaction was unfair.
[...]
"If people will take the time and look at the language and put it in the broader context of the opportunity that is here they will, on reflection, see that there is really an opportunity for peace," the official added.
   
 White House officials said Mr. Bush was trying to "jump-start" the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

But the president risked alienating Arabs by softening his opposition to a security wall Israel is erecting to separate itself from Palestinian territories. Mr. Bush, who once called the wall "a problem," yesterday appeared to endorse it.
   
 "I am strongly committed to the security of Israel," he told Mr. Sharon. "The barrier being erected by Israel as a part of that security effort should, as your government has stated, be a security rather than a political barrier.
    
"It should be temporary, rather than permanent, and therefore not prejudice any final status issues, including final borders," the president added.
    
The deal yesterday, if implemented, means that Mr. Sharon would withdraw all settlements from Gaza, where about 7,000 Israelis have settled among 1.3 million Palestinians. It was not clear how many of the 220,000 Israelis living among the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank would leave.

As for Palestinian refugees who end up behind Israeli borders, Mr. Bush made clear that they would have to move.
    
"It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel," he said.
    
When a reporter pointed out that former President Jimmy Carter had said last week that U.S. Middle East policy is tilted too much toward Israel, Mr. Bush said: "U.S. Middle East policy is tilted toward peace."
[Woohoo! Bush gets off a zinger to that IslamoNazi appeaser Jimmuh "Peanut-Brain" Carter! I love it!]

"I'm the first American president ever to have articulated the creation of a Palestinian state," he said. "Palestinians have got to assume the responsibility of fighting off terror if they want a state which provided a hopeful future for their people.

Yes, therein lies the rub (if you'll forgive my borrowing from Shakespeare!):
to get their own state, the "Palestinians" must stop supporting terror and yet being Islamist terrorists is the very essence of who they are.
Demanding that they "fight off terror" is almost as difficult for them as asking them to stop breathing (which maybe how it turns out for most of them).
It's a New Day in the Middle East.
Many of us knew when President Bush made his historic Rose Garden speech on June 24, 2002 that he had totally changed the conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" forever.
Good thing, too.
It was destined to lead nowhere, except to more dead Israelis.
And Arafat has been getting suicide bombers to commit martyrdom and keeping his people in poverty for decades based on his false promises that he would "get them" Israel's land and push all the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea.
Winning concessions as he did at Camp David in 1979 and Oslo in 1994 for doing nothing for Israel was his way to "feed the beast" and to urge his fellow "Palestinians" on to further murderous acts to coerce Israel, with added pressure from the rest of the Western World, to give them what they demanded but didn't deserve, didn't win, and had no other possibility to get.
Who knows what happens now: we're in untravelled territory (Here, there be monsters?).
I hope that this is the beginning of the end of the Intifada and Israel's 57-year-long struggle with the Muslim world to have their own land in peace.
But what the "Palestinians" will do without Arafish's false promises is anyone's guess!

April 15, 2004

20,000 U.S. Troops to Stay in Iraq Longer

The Pentagon will extend the tour of duty of about 20,000 U.S. troops, requiring them to spend up to three more months in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced Thursday.

"We regret having to extend those individuals," Rumsfeld told reporters. "But the country is at war and we need to do what is necessary to succeed."

Approximately 14,500 soldiers of the 1st Armored Division, which is based in Germany, plus about 3,200 support troops and about 2,800 soldiers of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk, La., have been told that they will remain in Iraq for another three months instead of coming home this month, defense officials told The Associated Press before Rumsfeld made his announcement.

"What they're doing is important, it's noble work and in the end it will be successful," Rumsfeld told reporters.

The normal U.S. military force in Iraq is around 115,000 but because of troop rotations, around 137,000 U.S. military personnel are in the country, Rumsfeld said. What Gen. John Abizaid, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, requested was the chance to keep the force level at the higher number for a few months.
[We simply have to hold the line until that June 30th handover.--Jen]

"We have been and are using emergency powers that were granted by Congress to increase the overall numbers," Rumsfeld said.

Marine Corps. Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said keeping some troops in Iraq longer would not damage U.S. abilities elsewhere.

"We have the capacity with 2.4 million individuals available to us ... to handle this ongoing war and anything I can think of that's on the horizon," Pace said.
[...]

In addition, about 3,000 soldiers in a number of transportation and other support units based in Kuwait will be extended beyond one year, an official said Thursday. Many of them are in the National Guard or Reserve.
[As valuable as our National Guard soldiers have been, the Dimocrats thought nothing about denigrating President Bush's NG service!--J.T.]
They are deemed critical to resupplying the troops based in Iraq.

At a Baghdad news conference Thursday, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked whether the troop extensions indicate plans for large-scale offensive operations. He did not answer directly, saying the move was deemed necessary given "extremist and terrorist acts that must be dealt with."

Myers said it has yet to be determined how long the added combat power will be kept in Iraq.

"It will depend on events here on the ground," he said. "But I think what it shows is our resolve to see this situation through." Myers was in Baghdad for talks with U.S. and coalition commanders and to meet with L. Paul Bremer, Iraq's U.S. administrator.

The advantage of keeping soldiers of the 1st Armored and the 2nd Armored Cavalry in Iraq for an extra three months — rather than bringing in an equivalent number from elsewhere — is that these soldiers have unmatched combat experience in Iraq and familiarity with insurgents' tactics.
[Too right! We need you!]

The Army is so stretched by its commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere that it has few, if any, forces immediately available to substitute in Iraq for the 1st Armored or 2nd Armored Cavalry.

Also, these units have been heavily involved in one of the most important U.S. military missions there: training thousands of Iraqi security forces. Those Iraqi army and civil defense corps members are central to the Pentagon's plan for eventually turning over military control to the Iraqis and pulling out U.S. troops.
[...]
The 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Armored Cavalry recently returned home to Louisiana, but the rest of the unit will remain in Iraq. May did not say how much longer his unit would be in Iraq.

Other defense officials said family members were told the soldiers probably would be back at Fort Polk in about four months. They likely will be in Iraq an extra three months, then take a month to redeploy.

The 1st Armored and the 2nd Armored Cavalry are part of a contingent of about 135,000 U.S. soldiers who were being replaced this spring by a fresh group of soldiers and Marines. The 101st Airborne, the 4th Infantry Division and other units recently left Iraq, with the arrival of the 1st Infantry Division, a brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, the 1st Cavalry Division and the 1st Marine Division. Two brigades of the Army National Guard also are newly arrived.
[...]
"We are being called to end the fight against Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army and we will," [Col. Bradley W.] May said, referring to the militia of the radical Shiite cleric who has incited violence against the U.S.-led occupation forces in southern cities including Najaf.
[And it looks as if we've already turned the corner in that fight: Muqtie's been increasingly more willing to accept peace on our terms!]

Still, the change of plans is bound to take a psychological toll. In a letter to his troops in January, May assured them that their time in Iraq was "fast approaching its conclusion."

Here's a big shout out to all the fine young men and women of those NG brigades, the 1st and the 2nd Armored Cav., and the 1st Armored Div.!
Thank you for your service and for doing us so proud!
I know it's "murder" not to be able to go home to your families when you thought you were going to and it wears on a soldier to remain in harm's way, but as I commented above, if we can secure the peace in Iraq until June 30, when the handover of civil control takes place, we'll have done a very good thing for the democratic future of Iraq.
And thanks to your putting down of al-Sadr's insurgency, there are a lot fewer IslamoFascist terrorists we have to worry about coming over to the homeland to do their jihadi killing!
May God continue to bless you all, give you the victory and protect you from harm.
And may the next 2 or 3 months of duty pass quickly and quietly.
Americans can't begin to repay you for your service and sacrifice, but we'll try!

Italy Closes Ranks Behind Berlusconi After the Killing of Italian Hostage in Iraq

Politicians and citizens closed ranks Thursday behind Premier Silvio Berlusconi's vow to stay the course in Iraq after the slaying of an Italian hostage there, and the government worked frantically to save three other Italian captives.

The horrifying news seemed to unite a country that is < i>traditionally bitterly divided in its politics and was largely opposed to war in Iraq. The reaction was somewhat similar to when 19 Italians were killed Nov. 12 in southern Iraq - Italy's worst single military loss since World War II.

"All of us must express a very firm condemnation and feel morally and civilly committed to do our part against terrorism," opposition leader Piero Fassino said Thursday, adding that withdrawing the troops would make Iraq "more out of control."
[Sounds like they're totally on board with us and with President Bush! Eccellente!--Jen]
[...]
Berlusconi made clear the government had no intention of withdrawing the 3,000 Italian troops in Iraq, the third-largest contingent after the United States and Britain.

"They have cut short a life. They have not damaged our values and our commitment to peace," Berlusconi said.
[...]
Al-Jazeera said it received a video showing the slaying [of the Italian hostage]. The tape was accompanied by a statement from a previously unknown group calling itself the Green Battalion, which threatened to "kill the three remaining Italian hostages one after the other, if their demands are not met," the network said.

The group demanded the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, an apology from Berlusconi, and the release of clerics held in Iraq.
[They don't want much, do they?--J.T.]
[...]
The Italian troops were dispatched to Iraq to help with reconstruction.
[...]
Frattini recounted the contents of the tape, apparently described to him by the ambassador to Qatar, who watched the video and identified the victim.

"This boy, as the assassins were pointing the gun at him, tried to take off his hood and shouted: 'Now I'll show you how an Italian dies,'" Frattini said, adding, "He died as a hero."

Viva L'Italia!
Although it's been 450 years since my family called Italy home, it's wonderful to see this Italian courage and resolve!
I think that the rest of Europe learned a terrible lesson from the Madrid bombings last month and the subsequent disastrous election of the appeaser Zapatero which is that caving in to terrorists never pays, even in the short run.
After winning office, Zapatero immediately vowed to remove Spain's contingent from Iraq and then last week their police and security people foiled 2 more bomb threats.
Now, AQ has upped their demands, insisting that Spain's troops be out of Iraq in 90 days.
(Sadly, it seems that Al Queda has learned a few tricks, too; notice that they demanded the removal of American, not Italian, troops. Which means that we must be really getting to them! Yea!)
I feel real sadness that Signore Quattrocchi was murdered--Damn those jihadi scum!--but hopefully the other 3 Italians will be released, along with the other hostages in the face of this show of force and will.
Bravi, Italiani!

'Bin Laden' Offers Europe Truce, Revenge to Israel

n a recording broadcast on Arab satellite networks Thursday, a man who identified himself as Usama bin Laden offered a "truce" to European countries that do not attack Muslims, saying it would begin when their soldiers leave Islamic nations.

The tape, which ran in full at more than seven minutes, also vowed revenge against America for the Israeli assassination of a militant Palestinian leader and denounced the United States as using the Iraq war for corporate profiteering.
[...even mentioning Halliburton by name. Are they sure that Osama Bin Democrat didn't issue this tape?--Jen]
[...]
The latest message said "the door to a truce is open for three months." This time frame, he said, could be extended. "The truce will begin when the last soldier leaves our countries," he said without elaborating.
[...]
Russians, he said, were only killed after attacking Afghanistan in the 1980s and Chechnya, Europeans after invading Iraq and Afghanistan and the Americans in New York after "supporting the Jews in Palestine and their invasion of the Arabian Peninsula."
[Gee, the U.S. has only been supporting the "Jews in Palestine" since 1947 and as for "invading the Arabian Peninsula," we did that in 1991 at the request of the Saudis to expel Saddam from Kuwait before he got around to Arabia. So how do the 9/11 attacks figure into this "punishment," Usama?]
[...]
This truce, the message said, was to deny "the war mongers" further opportunities and because polls have shown that "most of the European peoples want reconciliation" with the Islamic world.
[Did OBL forget about the French, then German head scarf bans?--J.T.]

The message also vowed revenge for Israel's killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

"We vow before God to take revenge for him from America for this, God willing."
[That's funny: America didn't kill Yassin nor ask the Israelis to do it.
In fact, we condemned it, however equivocatingly.]

The message said that American policy ignores the "real problem," which is "the occupation of all of Palestine."

Boy, Osama will really go nuts when he hears what President Bush and Israeli PM Sharon agreed to at the White House today concerning the "Palestinian areas."
Hope EUrope doesn't fall for this ruse or that at least some of the countries whose support we've so much appreciated like Britain, Italy, Poland and even Spain (so far, they still haven't pulled out their Iraq troops and have sent more to Afghanistan) do not.
I suppose I don't have to tell you that OBL left out the "...or else" part of his message.
We all know only too well by now what the "or else" looks like: pretty much like Madrid on March 11.
Of course, Bin Laden offers and retracts "truces" on a whim, just as he finds compelling "reasons" to issue fatwas and call jihad.
I'd ignore it myself; most of us think that the real Osama's been dead a long time and this is just more terrorist blackmail or a bid for "protection."
Thank you, Drive thru.

Liberal radio stations silenced

After just two weeks of broadcasting, Air America Radio, the fledgling liberal talk-radio network featuring Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, was pulled off the air this morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, in a dispute over payments for airtime.

Arthur Liu, owner of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, which owns Air America affiliates WNTD-950 AM in Chicago and KBLA-1580 AM in Los Angeles, said Air America bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million.

Guess we all know the sound this made...!
We in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy knew this wouldn't last long or do too well, but imploding after only 2 weeks?!
Beyond pitiful.
Evil Republicans (like me) wanted these Dim Libs to stay on the air because their 3-hour Bush hates, whole minutes of empty air and inane commentary were converting more listeners to the GOP than perhaps even Rush Limbaugh!

April 14, 2004

9/11 KIN PRAISE CONDI

A group of 9/11 families has released an open letter thanking National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice for her testimony to the commission probing the attacks and saying it should end "the incredible notion" that President Bush knew 9/11 was coming and did nothing.

The letter signed by 40 relatives also blasts some members of the 9/11 commission for trying to "grandstand for political gain" in hopes of embarrassing Bush and thus politicizing the inquiry.

"I see the commission going partisan and that's not the way it's supposed to be. If it does that, it will be nothing but a political disgrace," said former United Firefighters Association chief Jimmy Boyle, who lost his firefighter son Michael on 9/11. "It's a whole new world as of Sept. 12 and I believe President Bush is the right man."

The letter says: "We believe Dr. Rice when she says that the president 'would have moved heaven and earth' to prevent a terrorist attack had he known such an attack on our homeland was imminent. Any suggestion otherwise is incredible and inflammatory."

This is very decent of these families to do this.'
May God continue to comfort them in the loss of their loved ones.
(And shame on those 4 or so 9/11 victims' family members like Kristin Breitweiser who used the emotional stock of their bereavement as an excuse to engage in guilt-free partisan and gratuitous Bush-bashing.)

Sources: Arafat approved convoy attack

Yasser Arafat reportedly approved, in concept, an attack on a U.S. convoy in the Gaza Strip last year that took the lives of three Americans.

Middle East Newsline said Tuesday it was told by "U.S. diplomatic sources" a U.S. investigation into the attack on the convoy in October revealed a clear role by the Palestinian Authority chairman.

I knew it and said so at the time.
Nothing happens in the "Palestinian areas" without Yasser's nod, especially terror attacks.
Hope we gave Ariel Sharon carte blanche to take Arafat out when we found out this news!

Drudge had the whole ugly story today here:
DRUDGE REPORT 2004

Click here to view the actual "ad:"
View image

If we thought those Floriduh Dims were nuts in 2000, they're truly certifiable now.
Not to mention prosecutable.
If this were the Clintoon Administration, the Secret Service would be ringing a lot of Sunshine State doorbells.
(And don't forget these are the people who call Conservatives and Republicans "intolerant Nazis" and who rant about gun control and "toning down the rhetoric."
Hypocrites all and psychotic crazies to boot!)

Go to this White House link for the full text and/or video of tonight's Presidential press conference on the war in Iraq and preventing 9/11.
Of course, President Bush was the man of resolve and determination that we all love, but he seemed upset when discussing either the troop casualties or the Americans killed on 9/11 and his dislike of the press corps made him kind of cranky!
Who can blame him? They were so obnoxious and disrespectful of Bush, as usual.
I kept thinking about President Reagan and if America weren't at war and the subjects being discussed weren't so serious, I'm sure Bush would have joked with them more just as Reagan used to ("There you go again...")
John Podhoretz hits the high points in today's New York Post:
Bush Hangs Tough

THE purpose of last night's presidential press conference was to show purpose, and rarely has a president seemed quite so purposeful as George W. Bush did last night.

The purpose of the White House press corps was to make the president confess to weakness - to corner him into creating the soundbite of all soundbites, in which Bush would acknowledge his errors as president and thereby give John Kerry all the material he would need for a killer TV ad or two.

The president achieved his purpose. The press corps did not achieve its purpose. He would not fall into their astonishingly blatant trap. He simply refused to offer a satisfactory answer to four - four! - different questions demanding that he either enumerate or apologize for his failures.

No one should be fooled by the way he stumbled through some of his answers about his mistakes as president. Bush knew exactly what he was doing, as he always does.

Rather than apologize to the 9/11 families for the terror strike that day, the president said the responsibility for the attacks rested squarely on the shoulders of Osama bin Laden. And it's a mark of how demented the debate has gotten in the past few weeks that this simple statement of truth seemed bracing and even daring.

The purposeful Bush sought to reassure the American people that the cost and the burden of the mission in Iraq are worth it - and that the sacrifices being borne by our military and their families are noble and valuable.

"One of the things that's very important," he said, "is to never allow our youngsters to die in vain. And I made that pledge to their parents. Withdrawing from the battlefield of Iraq would be just that, and it's not going to happen under my watch."

The sacrifices are being made for freedom - and for American security. He said it plainly and simply: "By helping secure a free Iraq, Americans serving in that country are protecting their fellow citizens. Our nation is grateful to them all and to their families that face hardship and long separation."

The fighting in Iraq is self-evidently part of the War on Terror, he said, because those who are trying to kill soldiers and contractors in Iraq use the same tactics as the terrorists who kill everywhere - and for the same reasons.

"The terrorists who take hostages or plants a roadside bomb near Baghdad," he said, are "serving the same ideology of murder that kills innocent people on trains in Madrid, and murders children on buses in Jerusalem, and blows up a nightclub in Bali and cuts the throat of a young reporter for being a Jew."
[This was the first critical thing the president said. Very powerful.--Jen]

In the president's formulation, the mission in Iraq is not only noble and valuable, but now inescapable. There are only two possible outcomes, he said: "Iraq will either be a peaceful, democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terror and a threat to America and to the world."
[These are the stakes. No more and no less.--J.T.]

As a result, the United States cannot fail in Iraq "because the consequences of failure would be unthinkable." Failure will embolden terrorists and purveyors of violence, who "would celebrate, proclaiming our weakness and decadence, and using that victory to recruit a new generation of killers."
[This was the second important point Bush made, which completely explains why we must fight and why that fight is here and now and in Iraq.]

Bush's purposefulness was also on display in answering those who demand a delay in the sovereignty schedule. There will, he said, be a handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi authority on June 30.

"Were the Coalition to step back from the June 30th pledge, many Iraqis would question our intentions and feel their hopes betrayed," he said. "And those in Iraq who trade in hatred and conspiracy theories would find a larger audience and gain a stronger hand. We will not step back from our pledge."

This is a presidency with a purpose. It will be up to the American people whether this purpose is worth giving George W. Bush a second term. "I look forward to making my case," he said. "I'm looking forward to the campaign."

Judging from his stout rhetoric and surpassingly clever gamesmanship with a scalp-hungry press corps last night, Bush has every reason to.

As his father President Bush 41 did, President Bush 43, the son, asks us to "Stay the course."
I, for one, am with him.
Let's roll and defeat the "Mahdi Army" and get that troublemaking cleric al-Sadr to either surrender or face the music!

April 13, 2004

Iraq War Was Catalyst for Dialogue: PM
Agence France Press

The US-led war in Iraq prodded nuclear rivals India and Pakistan to launch a process to resolve their disputes over Kashmir, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in an interview published yesterday. Vajpayee, however, rejected opposition claims the United States had put direct pressure on the two estranged neighbors to sort out their five decades of hostilities[IOW, they've been fighting since Pakistan split off from India and formed itself into a new nation--Jen].

The premier told the Times of India newspaper that a “circumstantial factor” was linked to his gesture in Kashmir on April 18 last year when he extended a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan to kick off a fresh peace initiative.

“The war in Iraq was a warning to all developing countries (that) we needed to resolve our disputes peacefully and speedily amongst ourselves,”[The unspoken part of this thought is that the alternative is the USA might do it for you with troops!--J.T.] the 79-year-old Vajpayee told the English-language daily.
[...]
India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since independence in 1947, came dangerously close to a fourth war in 2002 following an attack on the Indian Parliament by gunmen New Delhi said were sponsored by Pakistan.

The 10-month standoff, during which a total of 700,000 troops massed on their borders, ended following a series of visits to the two countries by Western leaders, fearful that spiraling tensions could trigger a nuclear holocaust in South Asia.
[...]
“There is realization that fighting more wars is neither a solution nor an option,” Vajpayee said, insisting the initiative was the result of a bilateral consensus rather than international pressure.

“People feel that talks have begun after pressure from the United States,” he said of a dialogue started in February which aims to resolve a raft of regional disputes.

“At the time (April 18) there was no pressure. Of course, whenever they (US) met us, they said we should talk. This time there was no pressure. They did not even know that some talks had begun,” Vajpayee said.

Ah, the Bush Doctrine as exemplified by our initiative to disarm Saddam and effect régime change using military means continues to bear fruit and yet the Left (for obvious reasons) keeps calling the Iraq war a "mistake."
They'll either never get it or they get it only too well that their favorite form of government--transnational progressivism, which is merely a softer form of Communism--will never prevail over Democracy!
If we can eliminate Kashmir altogether as a contested troublespot for Al Queda-linked IslamoNazis to wage jihad, that will make for yet one less place on the planet we have to be concerned with in the WOT and we're working on the Israeli-Paleostian conflict.

April 12, 2004

U.S. President George W Bush's daughter Jenna Bush tiptoes through soggy grass after a rain storm as she leaves an Easter Sunday church service at Fort Hood army base in Texas, April 11, 2004. Jenna Bush, along with her sister Barbara and the rest of their family, attended an Easter Sunday Church service at a chapel within the army base in central Texas.
If the sight of this lovely young lady doesn't raise morale at a difficult time in the war, what will?
How great to see the Bush Twins all grown up and lovely on Easter!
(Hope they're still thinking about campaigning for Dad this summer.)

Over the weekend, the British press has been buzzing with their own breakthroughs in the WOT, revealing British Islamist links to both the current Shiite uprising and the Madrid bombings:
Revealed: militants plotted Iraq anniversary rebellion in London
Madrid Train Bomb Suspects 'Called British Islamic Leader'

I don't suppose that British Islamic Leader was Captain Hook, Abu Hamza, the fanatical IslamoNazi cleric of the Finsbury Park mosque, was it?
Given the fact that British authorities have recently uncovered 2 bomb plots in the last few weeks (one explosives, the other chemical) and early in 2003, 7 suspects were taken into custody when a ricin poisoning plot by Ansar al-Islam was discovered in north London, it's clear that they have one or more terror cells in their borders and have a lot of work to do.
I suppose we can also conclude that Britain is more Islamo-friendly than even Germany or France but I think that's about to change very quickly, as Home Secretary David Blunkett has proposed making it a crime for a person to even associate with terrorists.

The Wider War
If you haven't discovered Belmont Club yet, you must now.
Its author, "Wretchard the Cat," is one of the few sources anywhere for war news and analysis.
(Sadly, the partisan media is too caught up with reporting either that Iraq is the new Vietnam where the U.S. is going to lose or that Operation Iraqi Freedom was a mistake based on a Bush-obsession.)
That being said, do read his take on what we're facing now with the "Shiite uprising."
BC maintains that both Baathist Sunni Syria and Shiite Iran (mainly in the guise of Hezbollah) are sending Islamist guerrillas to fight us there, even though most journalists have portrayed the enemy as hordes of Iraqis who are opposed to the "occupation" on general terms.
IOW, nothing's changed since we forcably disarmed Saddam a year ago.
Iraq is the "flypaper" to draw the terrorist flies.
This showdown was going to happen sooner or later and it may last awhile.
Tragically, some more of our fine young men and women will be killed "draining the terrorist swamp."
But that's what the WOT is all about.
If only it were not so.
That is why President Bush prayed today at Easter services at Ft. Hood that more service men and women wouldn't be killed or hurt in this fight and I pray that myself, but our forces are in for it, no question about that.
As Steven Den Beste put it so aptly and probably prophetically:

But now al-Sadr and his supporters have risen in open rebellion. And that means we no longer have to put up with them. It means more hard fighting, and more casualties. The next couple of months will see the worst fighting in Iraq since the invasion. Once it's over, the situation overall will be immeasurably better.

However, in the short run it's going to be painful. The rate of casualties will rise.

But as I said last year, better for our trained and equipped military to fight the evildoers in Iraq than for we civilians to try and stop them here in the streets, skies and ports of our cities.
Outing the presence of the Iranians in places like Falluja is important because we need to know what we're up against and what the stakes are and if Belmont Club is right--and I think that he is--the stakes are pretty big:

Here are two accounts, one translated contemporaneously from the Arabic press [BC cites a report from MEMRI here.--Jen] and a year-old analysis from the National Review [This by Iranian specialist Michael Ledeen.--J.T.] which agree on almost every single salient point. What we do not know is the extent to which the US Government appreciated the threat, and how this now-manifest Iranian intervention interacted with European efforts to convince Teheran to open their borders to nuclear inspection. In the coming days the public may learn what contingency plans, if any, CENTCOM had poised against this threat. More importantly, we will discover whether these plans were held back or watered down over a desire not to antagonize Teheran, lest the nuclear proliferation issue be entailed. The linkage between the two would establish that the current war in Iraq is far more perilous than it might seem at first glance. What we are witnessing is not a confrontation between the United States and some nationalist "insurgents", but possibly the opening acts of a confrontation with a nuclear armed terrorist state.

Don't know about you, but this made me pretty nervous.
If we thought that our war work was done when we toppled Saddam and took Baghdad, we were wrong.
The fight is here and now, taking place as the "Shiite uprising."
British PM Tony Blair elucidates the Big Reason in Sunday's UKObserver so eloquently why we must win this fight and not abandon the struggle in Iraq.
While the Marines have called a temporary ceasefire in Falluja to get refugees to safety and to move more Marines in, it supposedly is also a pause to allow the Islamist killers the chance to surrender, although the Lying Liberal Left press has tried to make it sound like an American "retreat."
[SkyNews is reporting that the ceasefire is already broken, probably by the Islamists.]
Gen. Kimmit shouldn't offer many more such opportunities or allow time for the guerrillas to hide their guns and "Mahdi Army" uniforms so that they can blend back in with the civilian population, only to strike at us again later.
Now is not the time to show mercy (God knows they haven't shown it to us.), but the military walks a fine line as it tries to root out the bad guys without totally alienating the non-complicit Iraqi population.
We need to surgically clean out the IslamoFascists from Falluja, Sadr City, Najaf and wherever else they turn up.
It will be interesting to see if the Iranian mullahocracy officially acknowledges that their people are there engaging us in combat; as might be expected, Khatami has already disavowed any solidarity with fellow Shiite al-Sadr.
As regards Iranian nuclear proliferation, I'm sure that confrontation will most surely happen in the very near future, particularly given the sit rep in Iraq, only next door.
We are exactly where we need to be and those who talk of Iraq being a "mistake" in the WOT either don't know what they're talking about or are in league with the Islamists and are being disengenous in an attempt to keep us from triumphing over our enemy.
As I said, I join with President Bush and lots of other people who pray that our men and women in uniform will stay safe and unharmed and that they will come home victorious soon.
Til then, I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their bravery, courage and selfless dedication that they would be willing to lay down their life and limb to make my life more secure and safe.
May God bless and keep them all.

Bush defends memo stance

President Bush said yesterday a declassified briefing document on al Qaeda that he received 36 days before the September 11 attacks "was no indication of a terrorist threat."
   
 "I am satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America -- at a time and a place, an attack," the president told reporters after attending church at a military base.
   
 "It said Osama bin Laden had designs on America. Well, I knew that. What I wanted to know was: Is there anything specifically going to take place in America that we needed to react to?"
    
Mr. Bush defended his administration's take on the Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing (PDB) -- a 1½ page document that senior administration officials said Saturday contained mostly already known facts from clandestine operatives, foreign governments and news reports.
    
"That PDB said nothing about an attack on America. It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America -- well, we knew that," he said.
    
"Of course we knew that America was hated by Osama bin Laden. That was obvious. The question was, who was going to attack us, when and where, and with what."
[...]
Mr. Bush also said his administration — as well as that of President Clinton — would have acted immediately if intelligence had provided more specific information about an attack.
   
 "Look, let me just say it again: Had I known there was going to be an attack on America, I would have moved mountains to stop the attack. I would have done everything I can. ... Had there been actionable intelligence, we would have moved on it," he said. "The previous administration would have acted. That's our job."

If you know and love President Bush the way I do, you know that he means what he says about "moving mountains" to have prevented 9/11.
And he was open and above-board all this time with the American people about what he knew and when he knew it.
(I do think he's being overly gracious about what the Clintoon Administration would have done, but that's the Bush way. The Dims and Billary won't return the favor.)
The hue and cry from the Left was loud and long late last week for the Bush Administration to publish this memo, so convinced that it contained the "smoking gun" (Aren't we tired of that expression?!) that would nail Bush for impeachable negligence or some other crime of omission or commission as POTUS.
I knew there would be nothing damning in it: the Bush Team doesn't work like that.
If you'd like to read it for yourself, go to this page at the CNN website for the link to the PDF file: Bush: Memo had no 'actionable intelligence'