May 15, 2004

Surveys: More Iraqis Want Democracy

Iraqis are likely to say they want to live in a democracy, though they don't necessarily understand how it works.

Some pollsters who have done nationwide surveys of Iraq in recent months talked about their findings at a meeting this week of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

One barrier to democracy is that many in the country need more information about how it would work, their research suggests.

"There's the sense that people in Iraq know they want democracy, but they don't know how to get there," said Christoph Sahm, director of Oxford Research International.

Sahm's firm conducted its first nationwide poll of Iraq last fall, and conducted another in February for ABC News, the British Broadcasting Corp., the German broadcasting network ARD and the Japanese network NHK. Oxford is continuing to poll in Iraq.

Richard Burkholder, director of international polling for Gallup, said the type of government Iraqis preferred was a multiparty democracy like those in many Western European countries.

"Very low down the list is an Islamic theocracy, in which mullahs and religious leaders have a lot of influence, such as in Iran," said Burkholder, who polled in Baghdad in August and nationwide in late March and early April for CNN and USA Today.

In the most recent Gallup poll, four in 10 said they preferred a multiparty parliamentary democracy -- that was the form of government most often mentioned.

When Oxford Research International asked Iraqis in a separate poll to name the party they favored or the candidate they backed, the majority offered no preference on either question.
[This is real progress! Don't you imagine that, in the past, they would have named a Muslim sect or a clerical leader like al-Sistani or al-Sadr?--Jen]

For Sahm, the inability or unwillingness to answer those questions indicates Iraqis have much to learn about how democracies and political parties work after decades living in a country ruled by a dictator.

Sahm and Burkholder said they've found Iraqis have a sense of optimism about the future of their country. But they understand that nothing can be achieved until the nation is more secure.
[This must be why Bremer, SecState Powell and other Coalition leaders expressed their willingness to leave after June 30...because they're pretty confident they won't be asked!--J.T.]

Both pollsters found Iraqis very willing to share their feelings.

Burkholder recounted how a transitional Iraqi government minister initially told his team Iraqis would not talk to pollsters. But as soon as the minister left the room, another Iraqi laughed and told the Gallup pollster: "Don't pay any attention to him, he's been in Minneapolis for the last 19 years."

Added Sahm, "The response has been tremendous. We go into 100 households and only four or five refuse. It's unheard of."

A recent Pew Research Center study of response levels in the United States found that only about one in four people contacted agreed to participate in a survey conducted over several days.

Both pollsters found Iraqis growing more impatient with the presence of coalition troops, even before the prison abuse controversy emerged. However, most favored getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
Iraqis have identified some successful areas in post-Saddam Iraq, the pollsters found.
"One of the things that comes up again and again as a success in the transition so far is education," Sahm said. He also mentioned increasing trust in the Iraqi police and the new Iraqi army.

"When we see the images of war and terror on the TV screen," Sahm said, "it's hard to believe that behind all of this, many Iraqis are leading normal lives and going about their business."

This is just terrific news!
If education there is going well, then we can teach them about democracy.
And someone (Bush, Bremer, Abizaid, Kimmitt?) was a genius to use newly constituted Iraqi troops (ex-Baathist or no) to keep the peace in Iraq, rather than exclude them and have U.S. troops exclusively do it and incur resentment.
All in all, I'd say that the "march up" to the handover on 30 June is going rather well, in spite of the Abu Ghraib scandal and the casualties we've incurred in the seiges of Najaf and Falluja.
If we can hang on for another 6 weeks, I truly think that the Coalition will be home free and that Iraq will be well and truly on her way to being a secular democracy!

May 13, 2004

European Union disregards US sanctions on Syria

The European Union has chosen to ignore US sanctions on Syria, and an EU economic delegation is scheduled to travel to Beirut and Damascus next week, reported IBA news Wednesday.

President George Bush approved sanctions due to Syria's continued aspiration to develop weapons of mass destruction, its support for terrorism, its enabling militants to cross its border into Iraq, and its continued occupation of Lebanon.

The EU delegation will include officials responsible for energy and transport, and its declared objective is to deepen EU – Syria cooperation.

British prime minister Tony Blair, however, said Britain was partner to the US anxiousness over Syrian intent to develop nuclear weapons and its support for terror.

This, as SecDef Rumsfeld would say, is not "helpful;" what the U.S. tries to do on one hand, the EU undoes on the other hand.
I don't want to say that the Franco-German-led EU is our "enemy," but they often come close and we can't include them as an effective bloc of Allies until they stop doing things like this!
Happily, when America puts sanctions on your country, it smarts quite a bit in today's economic world and favorable treatment from the EU won't ease that pain completely.

And Tony Blair had better rethink having Britain sign that EU Constitution.
If they did and the federal changes that France and Germany want went through, the British PM wouldn't be able to speak up in contradiction to the rest of the group as he's done here.
Syria is in the 2nd tier of Axis of Evil countries and will have to be dealt with sooner or later.
That the EU would throw Assad a bone is only putting off that day by a little but they've got to look as if they're an opposing force to us, at all costs.
Stupid jerks!

We let our allies down, say Spanish troops back from Iraq

[...]
Yet soldiers now regret leaving Iraq so hastily following Mr Zapatero's election victory on March 11, three days after the terrorist train bombs in Madrid that killed 190 people and wounded 1,900. They also expressed disappointment over a lack of official recognition on their return and the public's seeming willingness to forget them and their mission.

Cpl José Francisco García Casteñeda, who previously completed three tours in Bosnia, said: "We left our coalition colleagues behind and abandoned the local people, who are living in wretched conditions."

Sitting at the same cafe table, Sgt Manuel García, 31, went further in his criticism of the withdrawal. "We felt used and let down by the politicians. Zapatero made the move purely for his own popularity," he said.

I'll say it now if the Spanish people won't: Bravo and Muchas Gracias to the Spanish Brigade!
You all served honorably and bravely while you were in OIF and some made the ultimate sacrifice.
It's not your fault that the Zapatero vote went against your participation and Spain will reap the whirlwind of bowing to Al Queda's wishes by withdrawing their troops from Iraq as "requested" by the Madrid bombings.
The Coalition is grateful for what you did and we'll always remember that under Aznar, you served well in the battle for Freedom, Justice and Peace.
Let's look for the day when Spain returns to her senses.

May 12, 2004

Cleric ready to disband militia in security deal

Moqtada al-Sadr, the rebel Shia cleric who has led uprisings across Iraq, said yesterday he was ready to disband his militia although he still opposed the US occupation.
[Of course, the al-Guardian has to stick this anti-American tripe somewhere!--Jen]

His comments came after US troops attacked his gunmen in the holy city of Kerbala, killing up to 25 near a mosque they had been using to store weapons.
[Par for the course for a place of "worship" of the Religion of Pieces.--J.T.]

Mr Sadr, 30, has come under intense political pressure as the US military has moved against his fighters in Kerbala and Najaf, further south. Iraq's mainstream Shia parties have tried to convince the young cleric to disband his militia, the Jaish al-Mahdi.

An apparent deal is being struck under which many of the gunmen would be absorbed into a legal Iraqi force which will take over security of the two holy cities and allow the US military to withdraw. A similar agreement was reached last month to end the fighting in the troubled Sunni city of Falluja, west of Baghdad.
[...]
"Look at what your army has done at the behest of its leaders - torture of all kinds," he said. "Are those who came to remove Saddam becoming just the same as Saddam?"
[Do ya think Muqtada has Teddy Kennedy's cell phone number, because this sounds virtually identical to what Uncle Oldsmobile said on the floor of the Senate.--Jen]

American officials still want the cleric to face murder charges related to the killing of a moderate cleric in Najaf in April last year.

Yesterday American tanks surrounded a mosque in Kerbala where gunmen from the militia have been holed up for several days. Half of the Mukhaiyam mosque was destroyed
[Hooah!]
and seven hotels nearby were on fire after tanks attacked the area. The area is just a mile from the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the most important sites in Shia Islam.

[...]
A month ago Mr Sadr led uprisings across southern Iraq, but his popularity has faded dramatically.

Earlier this week there were protests by Iraqis in Najaf demanding he pull his gunmen out of the city, one of the holiest sites in the Shia faith.

After hearing of (and watching, if you have the stomach) the horrible slaughter and decapitation of Nick Berg by the IslamoNazis, it's hard not to advocate a policy of brutal military response to al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army's insurgency, but apparently, the policy they adopted of restraint, patience and cooperation with local leaders has really paid off.
Maybe we won't have to "get tough" with the jihadi Shiites there after all.
Let's hope and pray that this is so.

Moscow and Paris get tough on Iraq handover

France and Russia have raised the stakes on a new United Nations resolution on Iraq, warning they will only back a proposal that gives Iraqis genuine control over their political future.
[Yeah, IOW, they want the U.S. to give over all their power and just leave whimpering, like the French have done and would do again.--Jen]

With seven weeks to go before the handover, Washington is eager to secure a new UN resolution that combines demands for genuine Iraqi sovereignty with US insistence on control of security operations.

But in an interview with the FT, Jean-Marc de la Sablière, France's ambassador to the UN, said the transfer of sovereignty should be "real and visible". "We are not in a mood
[This is how the French do everything, by their emotional moods.--J.T.]
to support a resolution we do not consider a good one," he said. "We think the credibility of the UN should be taken into account."
[...]
Mr Trubnikov [Russia's First Deputy Foreign AssClown] said any resolution should be designed to help "the Americans get out of the impasse without loss of face".
[Damned Russians! I'm not ashamed of anything we've done in Iraq and I'll bet you aren't either!
The nerve!]

Bwahahahahahaha! Pardon me while I burst out laughing!
"The credibility of the U.N."--Teeheeheehee!
These two powers made out like bandits on the "credible" U.N. Oil-for-Palaces program when Saddam was in charge and it looks as if they're trying to worm their way back into the good graces of whomever is governing Iraq after July 1 so that they can get back on the payrolls.
It's not going to happen.
We never forget that the United States has spent it's blood and treasure to topple Saddam and to establish and preserve democracy in Iraq and neither should the Frogs and the Russkis.

Ensign blasts Kennedy over Iraq comments

Nevada Senator John Ensign blasted Democrat Ted Kennedy for his "shameful" statements likening US soldiers to Saddam Hussein's torturous regime.

The Nevada Republican was commenting on a statement credited to Senator Kennedy Tuesday. Kennedy is quoted as saying, "Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management."

Ensign believes Kennedy crossed the line with his comments and called on Kennedy to retract them immediately. "To express disappointment or anger over what has occurred at Abu Ghraib prison is one thing. To put American servicemen and women in the same category as one of the most evil and bloodthirsty regimes in modern history is reprehensible."

Ensign said it is appalling that anyone would make those kind of comparisons, let alone a US Senator. "I'm disgusted and ashamed that such a comment would be made by anyone, in any setting. For it to be uttered by a United States Senator is especially shameful."

He believes Kennedy owes US service members an apology. "Senator Kennedy needs to retract that statement and apologize immediately to the men and women risking their lives in Iraq."

Quite right, Sen. Ensign!
You are a patriot, a gentleman and a statesman, quite unlike Uncle Teddy.
While Sen. Kennedy has been the font of quite a lot of mean-spirited and unnecessary obstructionism and opposition during the last two and one-half years of President Bush's Administration, his remarks yesterday about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal went beyond the pale even for him.
If this is the way he really feels about America and its military, it makes you wonder why he doesn't leave this country and move to France!
I hope Sen. Ensign gets his apology for our troops.
They deserve one.
It's clear that if Kennedy had any shame (which he doesn't or he wouldn't be walking around without a care in the world these last 30 years without answering for the death of Mary Jo Kopeckne), he'd resign from the Senate, but he'll probably be there until his liver explodes.
Another disgraceful, base moment of the Left/Dimocrat Party noted, however.

May 11, 2004

Senator 'Outraged at Outrage' in Iraq Prison Case

As others condemned the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe expressed outrage at the outcry over the scandal and took aim at "humanitarian do-gooders" investigating American troops.
[Thank you very much!-Jen]
[...]
"I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment," Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and an outspoken conservative,[Typical editorializing by al-Reuters!--J.T.]
told a U.S. Senate hearing probing the case.
[...]
"I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying," he said.

"These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations," said Inhofe, whose senatorial Web site describes him as an advocate of "Oklahoma values."

"If they're in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."
[...]
On Tuesday, Rumsfeld defended the U.S. military's role in Iraq and suggested that Iraq's expected reconstruction was no more deadly that the building of the United States after the Revolutionary War.

"The building of a free state in Iraq has proceeded probably with fewer lives lost and certainly no more mayhem that we endured here in the United States 228 years ago when we were going through it, or than occurred in Japan or Germany after World War II," Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon.

How meaningful Sen. Inhofe's words were to be were made clear not long after he uttered them when news came in of the beheading of civilian Nick Berg by Al Queda on Al-Jazeera which the IslamoNazis proclaimed to be "vengeance" for our alleged prison abuses:
Killers: Beheading Avenges Prison Abuse

A video posted Tuesday on an al-Qaida-linked Web site showed the beheading of an American civilian in Iraq and said the execution was carried out to avenge abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

In a grisly gesture, the executioners held up the man's head for the camera.

The American identified himself on the video as Nick Berg, a 26-year-old Philadelphia native. His body was found near a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday, the same day he was beheaded, a U.S. official said.

The video bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American." It was unclear whether al-Zarqawi — an associate of Osama bin Laden believed behind the wave of suicide bombings in Iraq — was shown in the video or simply ordered the execution. Al-Zarqawi also is sought in the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan in 2002.
[Do you think Laurence Foley committed any sexual humiliations of Iraqi Muslim prisoners for which his slaughter would be "revenge?"--Jen]
[...]
The decapitation recalled the kidnapping and videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan.
[This story broke a day after the grisly revelation yesterday that poor Pearl had refused sedation before he was butchered.--J.T.]
Four Islamic militants have been convicted of kidnapping Pearl, but seven suspects — including those who allegedly slit his throat — remain at large.

Last month, Iraqi militants videotaped the killing of Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi, but the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera refused to air it because it was too graphic.

In the video of Berg, the executioners said they had tried to trade him for prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

"For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the U.S. administration to exchange this hostage for some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib and they refused," one of the men read from a statement.
[You're damn right they refused! Why should we have let those killers out so that we'd have to go out and get them again? Plus, you should never negotiate with terrorists! Ever. Ask the Israelis!]

"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."

To be honest, I am still so upset, outraged, and angry about the murder of Mr. Berg that I can barely blog this.
Once again, the Enemy has shown its true face: even the sympathetic Reuters labels them "Killers."
Berg was a civilian, not a soldier and dare I say it?
He was Jewish.
And while our military guards are alleged to have committed acts of sexual humiliation on their terrorist captives, none of those people died or even suffered any significant injury.
But Nick Berg is very dead.
And damn those Islamist killers to hell, using the prison abuse scandal as an excuse to slaughter!
As I told you when this story first broke, they don't need "excuses" or "reasons."
They're cold-blooded killers.
And they must be stopped from killing again.
If that means that our forces kill them first, so be it.
And events like the TV beheading of Nick Berg makes it at least understandable that the soldiers guarding the IslamoNazi prisoners might have been seeking some "vigiliante justice" of their own for the terrorists' criminality like the physical abuse of Private Jessica Lynch when (and if) they humiliated their jihadi wards.
(And Berg's father, who's crazed with grief, is blaming the Bush Administration, which is very wrong.
The blame goes on the Islamist terrorists.
And secondarily on the Leftist media for leading the Enemy to think we're soft and vulnerable.)

At the same time, over in Gaza, the same breed of IslamoFacicst killers were committing more barbaric murder on Israeli soldiers:
Hamas Displays Israeli Soldiers' Remains

Hamas militants triumphantly displayed remains of some of the six Israeli soldiers killed in a roadside bombing in Gaza City on Tuesday, prompting Israeli threats of punishing reprisals if body parts are not returned.
[...]
Through the day and into the night, hundreds of troops searched Zeitoun for the remains of their comrades, which were scattered across a 300-yard radius.

"We are checking every roof and every balcony in order to locate the remnants of the armored personnel carrier and the bodies of our soldiers," army Maj. Gen. Dan Harel said.

Israeli security sources said the search could take days, creating an unprecedented situation in which many Israeli troops would remain in Gaza City - a militant stronghold - for an extended period. Israeli soldiers have raided Gaza neighborhoods before but usually withdrew after a few hours.
Al-Jazeera, an Arabic-language TV channel, broadcast a video it said showed two masked Islamic Jihad activists taking responsibility and displaying what they said was the head of an Israeli soldier on a table in front of them. Israel TV carried the footage but electronically obscured the head.

"We are not conducting any negotiations," Israeli military commander Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon said. "We will show no forgiveness toward those who are responsible for (what happened to) the bodies."

Whether they claim to be Al Queda or Islamic Jihad or Hamas or the Mecca branch of the Mickey Mouse club, these are our enemies, the Islamofacist jihadis.
They want to kill us and kill us horribly, brutally and barbarically.
And we must do whatever it takes (short of losing our own humanity) to stop them from doing it!
Islamofacism delenda est.
Either they go or we go.

 

Swiss bank fined $100 million for sending US money to prohibited countries

The Federal Reserve fined Switzerland's largest bank, UBS AG, $100 million for allegedly sending dollars to Cuba, Libya, Iran and the former Yugoslavia in violation of US sanctions against those countries.

Switzerland has been hiding behind that "neutrality" façade long enough!
Not only did they bankroll the Third Reich and keep WWII going longer, but they actively participated in keeping the art, jewels and cash of Jews that were either confiscated by the Nazis and parked in Swiss banks or that were left there by Jews trying to protect themselves and their money when the Nuremberg laws went into effect in Nazi Germany (In the mid-to-late 1930's the Swiss gave German Jews the false impression that they would take them in as refugees from the Reich.)
In recent years, when Holocaust victims' family members have tried to reclaim at least part of their loved ones' fortunes, the Swiss have made this conditional on them providing a death certificate, knowing full well that none were issued or kept at the death camps.
Seems the only thing that stays the same is Swiss anti-Semitism.
Surely, they are now funding the terrorists, too.
Hopefully, this crackdown on UBS won't be the last.
Drying up Al Queda's money and that of the other Islamist terror groups (like Arafat's, for instance) is one vital battle we must win in the WOT.
The smackdown reported here is the only way to get the Swiss, which is to put a hurt on their wallets.

North Korea's Kim Said Won't Abandon Nukes -Report

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told Chinese President Hu Jintao last month that Pyongyang was willing to freeze some of its nuclear programs but would not completely scrap them, a Japanese newspaper said on Monday.

If even the Leftist al-Reuters is reduced to filing stories that are a month old about Kim Jung-Il...well, who are we to assume the best worst, that maybe the Chinese set up that train blast last month to take him out?
There have been no confirmed sightings or utterances from him since then, so what are we to think?
Keep your eyes and ears pealed--if "Dear Leader" is gone, it would be the dawn of new day in North Korea and all of us in the West would breath alot easier, too.

Marine Corps News> Civil Affairs Marines visit villages near Fallujah

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Marcos A. Figueroa, a hospital corpsman with Regimental Combat Team 1 and from Los Angeles, takes a moment to blow soap-bubbles for children in a village just outside Fallujah, Iraq, May 6. Figueroa joined the Marines of 3rd Civil Affairs Group as they assisted villagers outside Fallujah and began developments to enhance the rural area. The village is expected to have a two-kilometer paved road that will run through two villages and was given 50 tons of fertilizer for planting crops.






Children gather for a moment to show off their stuffed animals given to them by Marines and sailors of Regimental Combat Team 1 during a visit by the 3rd Civil Affairs Group detachment under RCT-1. The 3rd CAG began projects to enhance the rural area such as paving a two-kilometer road and providing 50 tons of fertilizer as the planting season nears for farmers.


Today's Marines (and soldiers from our other Armed Forces) do a whole lot more than just "kill bad guys and break things."
In fact, it looks as if they spend a good deal of their time deployed in Iraq doing humanitarian work and winning hearts and minds by helping out Iraqi farmers with their planting needs, building paved roads and making sure the children play and have toys.
While a few badly behaving soldiers are getting all the media attention and will soon be under the bar of military justice for their apparent abuse of Iraqi prisoners, stories like these about the Marines performing "random acts of kindness" even as the siege of Falluja was ongoing, are unjustly ignored.
We should certainly avoid tarring all of our troops with the brush of the alleged humiliaters in Abu Ghraib prison.
I am proud and grateful to our troops (the other 99% of them) for representing all that is good and fine about America to the Iraqi people and I hope and pray that the majority of Iraqis (and Americans) know that there are far, far more good and decent GIs than there are bad.

U.S. Bombs Al-Sadr's Baghdad Office

A U.S. aircraft destroyed a Baghdad office of a radical Shiite cleric and his followers said two people were killed and six injured. In Fallujah, U.S. Marines began joint patrols with Iraqi forces Monday under an agreement that ended the siege of that city.

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond confirmed that U.S. aircraft had bombed the office of Muqtada al-Sadr, who has led an insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation and is wanted by coalition forces.

Hammond, deputy commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, said the building was used to stockpile weapons and was destroyed by fire from M-1 tanks and aircraft.
[...]
Hammond said 35 militiamen were killed in gunbattles throughout the area that lasted from midday Saturday until 4 a.m Sunday.

The fighting began after Sadr's forces set up checkpoints throughout the area. Al-Sadr has taken refuge in his Najaf office, surrounded by gunmen.

Some "holy man," huh?
Al-Sadr will be brought to justice, but in the meantime his fellow Shiite clerics, led by Coalition-friendly Al-Sistani, and local tribal leaders are trying to work out a deal for his arrest whereby he'd surrender to tribal authorities in Najaf and not American forces.
Works for me!
Just so we take this troublemaker out of circulation and make him answer for blowing up his rival!

White House to impose sanctions on Syria

President Bush will order economic sanctions against Syria this week for supporting terrorism and not doing enough to prevent militant fighters from entering neighboring Iraq, congressional and administration sources said Monday.

The sanctions, which the White House will impose as early as Tuesday, are being ordered because the administration believes Syria has aggravated tensions in the Middle East by supporting militant groups.

"We have talked previously about our concerns when it comes to Syria's continued development of weapons of mass destruction, when it comes to their support for terrorism and when it comes to their failure to adequately police its border with Iraq," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
[...]
Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act in December, one month after Congress overwhelmingly approved it. It bars U.S. exports to Syria of dual-use items that could have military applications. It also requires Bush to choose at least two of six possible economic or diplomatic sanctions.
[...]
Syria has been on the State Department's list of terror-sponsoring nations for its support of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah that attack Israel. U.S. officials have also said that Syria hasn't done enough to prevent anti-American fighters and arms from crossing its border with Iraq. They have also criticized its domination of Lebanon, where it has based thousands of soldiers.

This very much needed to happen, so I'm glad it will.
Syria's been playing the WOT pretty fast and loose, even staging a terror attack against themselves a few weeks ago so that they could claim that they were "against terrorism, too."
Noone was really fooled, except poor well-meaning Mansoor Ijaz.
But the U.S. has given Syria a lot of time and many opportunities in the 2 and 1/2 years since 9/11 to mend her ways and not much has been forthcoming.
I doubt these sanctions will bring Syria and Baby Assad to heel, but it's a start.
(And I still think Saddam rolled most of his WMDs into Baathist Syria, as well.)

Tribals 'to act against al-Qaeda'

Tribesmen in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan say they will raise a force of 1,800 armed men to capture suspected al-Qaeda militants.

The force would be the biggest armed militia - or Lashkar - so far raised for such a purpose.

The decision to form it was made by the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe in the main town of Wana, 400 km southwest of Peshawar.

It is the first time that all the clans and sub-clans of the region have unified against al-Qaeda.

Great news!
Since this may very well be the area where OBL (or what's left of him) and his inner circle are hiding, the help of these tribal men in going after the bad guys is indispensible!
This also shows good handling by President Musharraf once again.

May 09, 2004

Soldier's Family Set in Motion Chain of Events on Disclosure

Ivan Frederick was distraught. His son, an Army reservist turned prison guard in Iraq, was under investigation earlier this year for mistreating prisoners, and photographs of the abuse were beginning to circulate among soldiers and military investigators.

So the father went to his brother-in-law, William Lawson, who was afraid that reservists like his nephew would end up taking the fall for what he considered command lapses, Mr. Lawson recounted in an interview on Friday. He knew whom to turn to: David Hackworth, a retired colonel and a muckraker who was always willing to take on the military establishment. Mr. Lawson sent an e-mail message in March to Mr. Hackworth's Web site and got a call back from an associate there in minutes, he said.
[Isn't that special? Called back within minutes so eager was he.--Jen]
That e-mail message would put Mr. Lawson in touch with the CBS News program "60 Minutes II" and help set in motion events that led to the public disclosure of the graphic photographs and an international crisis for the Bush administration.

It is still not entirely clear who leaked the photos and how they got into the hands of a "60 Minutes II" producer.
[Oh, "Hack" knows all about getting this stuff to the Media.--]
What is clear, however, is that the furor over the photos is unlikely to dissipate any time soon.

Don't know who Hack is?
Lucky you.
He did 5 tours of duty in Vietnam, then quit the armed forces and began to oppose that war, the WOT and anything involving the Pentagon ever since.
(Remind you of anyone that's currently running for President?)
In fact, he even wrote a book about how he felt about the Vietnam War called "About Face" in which he criticized the military for the way the war was being "run."
(Word has it that Hack was bitter he'd never been promoted to General--that's because he was a grandstander and a hot dog--and left to complain.)
And the Colonel's had a hate on for Donald Rumsfeld for a long time and has lately taken to calling Rummy an "asshole" in Slate Magazine interview and on TV.
The Abu Ghraib scandal isn't his first time to his dance with the media, however.
When CNN/Time's star reporter Peter Arnett broke a "story" about an alleged war atrocity that took place in Laos in 1970 during the Vietnam war, it was Hackworth, curiously, who came forward to defend the soldiers' side of the story.
Arnett reported that he had "proof" that U.S. soldiers in Laos in 1970 had used poison gas on American "defectors", and Laotian noncombatants (of which the report maintained there were "many" which of course later proved to be false) during Operation Tailwind.
The story got lots of airplay on CNN.
More anguish, which Vietnam tales of alleged war crimes always seem to bring, followed until the story was finally and inevitably disproven and dismissed.
Arnett, who had put CNN in the forefront of American TV with his "Live from Baghdad" coverage for them during the onset of Gulf War I and who was considered a "star," was fired from CNN for peddling the story.*
(*Why would CNN run with such an inflammatory, but unsubstantiated, story about Vietnam "war crimes?" Well, at the time, Ted Turner was married to anti-war activist "Hanoi" Jane Fonda.)
Baghdad Peter was not to turn up on America's radar again until the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, reporting the war from Baghdad again for MSNBC, when it became clear that his bias was all-too-biased in favor of Saddam Hussein.
Arnett was summarily fired again in the middle of the invasion and turned up briefly still reporting from Baghad for London's lurid tabloid "The Daily Mirror," which not coincidentally was one of the first "papers" to carry the Abu Ghraib pictures and which is still peddling the story today, an attempt to suck in British soldiers in Iraq into the scandal.
[Don't forget to click on the link for Arnett's Daily Mirror op ed "This war is not working," datelined Baghdad on April 1,2003, 8 days before Saddam's statue was pulled down!--J.T.]
The blogosphere should recall that the Daily Mirror is also the press home of Mr. "I'd beat me up, too, if I were you," John Pilger.

I'm sure that while many of you were reading this, bells of remembrance were going off.
Yes, when it comes to the attacks of the Fifth Column in this war, it seems there are no new players.
Attacks from the Left on our war effort, on President Bush and his Administration, and on America itself all come from the now AARP-aged "Flower children" and "people of conscience" who either protested the Vietnam War in a big way or were active in the bloodless coup that brought President Nixon down called Watergate or both: Robert McNamara, John Dean, Bob Woodward, Jane Fonda, Col. Hackworth, John Kerry, Ramsey Clark, Seymour Hersh--all blasts from the past circa the "Summer of Love."
If these people have a problem with this country and what she stands for, why don't they shut up and leave for one that suits them better...like North Korea or China?
I, for one, have had it with them.
And they've yanked my chain for the last time!
I suppose some of our soldiers guarding POWs in Iraq were out of line in their treatment of those criminals, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the lion's share of this scandal were manufactured purposefully to discredit the WOT, President Bush and SecDef Rumsfeld.
The aim of these--dare we say it?--traitors is to regain political power, but it matters not one whit to them what damage they do to the image of Americans and the soldiers of the Coalition in our own eyes, those of our families and loved ones and those of people living in other countries (particularly in the Middle East, Asia and Africa) with whom we are trying to establish the moral and ethical highground in our stand for equal rights, liberty and democracy.
That's because this group of enemies of our country think Marxism (or their "Third Way" of Transnational Progressivism as they dub it now) is preferable.
Stop listening to them, America!
To put it plainly, they lie and want power.
Don't let this "story" have anymore "legs" than it's already had!