Click

Jane Galt.

Advancing to the Rear

Now this makes sense:

The U.S. military will withdraw most if its forces from the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea this year, an official announced today.

The withdrawal means the United States will no longer have combat troops anywhere on the DMZ except at Panmunjom, where a U.S.-Korean battalion, commanded by a U.S. army lieutenant colonel, remains on guard in what is known as the Joint Security Area.

Therefore South Korea, which has a 600,000-member military, will face North Korea's armed forces, the world's fifth largest with 1.1 million soldiers, most of whom are concentrated near the DMZ.

The United States will turn over Observation Post Ouellette, which provides a view into North Korea, as part of a force reshuffle, the official said. U.S. forces will no longer guard the border, except except for the troops at the JSA in Panmunjom.

We've been talking about moving south of the DMZ for over a year now, and it's time we did. Should war come, there's no reason for the 2nd Infantry Division to take the first hit, especially since a majority of South Koreans no longer want us there, anyway.

South Korea -- with more than double the population of the North, and more than quadruple the wealth -- can surely defend itself, and only call on American troops as a last resort.

And the further away we are from the DMZ, the less susceptible we are to nuclear blackmail.

Declare Victory and Go Home?

Earlier today, we talked a bit about punitive expeditions, and why they're sometimes all a nation at war needs to accomplish in order to achieve its goals. Daniel Pipes argues that that's all we might be able to accomplish in Iraq:

. . .history suggests that the coalition's grand aspirations for Iraq will not succeed. However constructive its intentions to build democracy, the coalition cannot win the confidence of Muslim Iraq nor win acceptance as its overlord. Even spending $18 billion in one year on economic development does not improve matters.

I therefore counsel the occupying forces quickly to leave Iraqi cities and then, when feasible, to leave Iraq as a whole. They should seek out what I have been calling for since a year ago: a democratically-minded Iraqi strongman, someone who will work with the coalition forces, provide decent government, and move eventually toward a more open political system.

This sounds slow, dull, and unsatisfactory. But at least it will work — in contrast to the ambitious but failing current project.

Read the whole thing.

Sign O' the Times

You've probably seen this already on Drudge:

Campaign 2004 turns extreme in Florida with the placement of a newspaper ad calling for physical retribution against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld!

"We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger," the ad reads.

Is it bad? Of course. But it's a tempest in a teapot. Some local Florida crank (we've got plenty like them in the blogosphere, left and right) went too far. The Kerry campaign will publicly denounce the ad, and privately have a few choice words with the idiots who placed it.

And, properly, that will be that.

Unless, of course, Kerry doesn't distance himself from the damn thing -- but not even he is that politically tone-deaf.

Oh, and here's a really bad photocopy of the ad.

Click

James Joyner is on a roll the last couple days.

Read and scroll until you're into reruns.

That's Gonna Leave a Mark

The Chaos Overlord explains how to prioritize.

It all somehow involves an evil gastroenterologist and the Taliban.

Admissions Standards for Sale

Did you know you have the right to attend Harvard? John Kerry seems to think you do.

Follow Up

In response to this post yesterday, blogger Beth Mauldin promised to forward Andy Rooney's Five Questions to an actual Army supply clerk stationed in Iraq.

Click here for the answers.

Forget Hindsight

Here's the best analysis I've seen yet of the August 6 memo.

Keep It Up

Why are US Navy skippers being releived of command at higher rates than ever?

"Zipper failure."

Required Reading

Jim Dunnigan strips away all the hype -- from both sides -- in and around Fallujah.

Freefall

Does anti-Americanism still pay with German voters?

"If you can see it, you can kill it."

From the NYT:

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology around the world, has told his interrogators that during a trip to North Korea five years ago he was taken to a secret underground nuclear plant and shown what he described as three nuclear devices, according to Asian and American officials who have been briefed by the Pakistanis.

If Dr. Khan's report is true, it would be the first time that any foreigner has reported inspecting an actual North Korean nuclear weapon. Past C.I.A. assessments of North Korea's nuclear capacity have been based on estimates of how much plutonium it could produce and assessments of its technical capability to turn that plutonium into weapons.

All we need is a map grid of the site, and a flight of three B-2 Spirits with bunker-busting mini-nukes. . .

Late Night Rambling

Not even the editorial staff of the Washington Post can find a smoking gun in the recently-declassified August 6 memo. Here's the money graf from today's lede editorial:

Reading the memo in its entirety, it's hard to see it, as some of President Bush's opponents contend, as a smoking gun that proves the administration was asleep at the switch before Sept. 11. To suggest that Mr. Bush, having received the memo, should have rushed back to the White House from Crawford, Tex., is unfair and unrealistic. Only with the benefit of hindsight does the document acquire that level of foreboding and urgency -- and in any event the plans were so far underway at that stage that even a presidential red alert might have made no difference.

Now, we all wish things had gone differently the summer leading up to 9/11. Hell, I wish we'd gotten serious after the USS Cole attack. Or the Khobar Towers bombing. Or the African embassies attacks, or the Beirut Marine Barracks bombing, or the 1978-79 Iranian hostage crisis.

Hell, before Bush took on the al Qaeda and the Taliban in October, 2001, the last really decent response to a terrorist attack was Israel's raid on Entebbe, back in 1976. And look how much the world loved them for it.

In some sad ways, it's easier for Israel. They're already a pariah state, and have been since 1967. The Jews have had a tough, well-earned (but completely undeserved) siege mentality since at least the 1930s, and the Israelis since 1947. They understand that they're going to suffer horrible abuse and casualties, and they know they'll be reviled for taking even the smallest actions in response to the most vile atrocities.

"9/11 changed everything," they tell us. Hell, I've told you that. But it's a mistaken bit of wisdom.

For some, 9/11 changed nothing. America is attacked because we're evil. American response to those attacks is neo-imperialism. We still want the world to like us, really like us. And I'm not talking about the response to Iraq here, I'm talking about Afghanistan. Many of my former comrades over at the Libertarian Party declared that any attack on the Taliban was immoral, racist, and doomed to failure. And that's fine for a minor third party with no chance of electoral success -- but lots of national Democrats agreed with them.

We have yet to fully accept what 9/11 meant -- and the mindset of the 9/11 Commission proves it. When Washington held hearings on our fatal mistakes at Pearl Harbor, they were in the spirit of, "Who do we have to crucify to make sure those dirty Japs don't sucker-punch us again?" The spirit of today's hearings is more about partisan politics than it is about making sure those Islamofascists can't do something worse the next time.

So what's it going to take before we really, truly, deeply get serious? Is it going to take another 9/11? Or a close-run war with high casualties, like Israel's Yom Kippur War? A decade of suicide bombers on American soil?

Is it going to take a Holocaust?

This war has been cheap. We lost 3,000 on 9/11, and less than 1,000 in the two-plus years since. We lost some small number of thousands in the 20 years prior to 9/11, before we took things "seriously," before "everything changed." We haven't paid any war taxes. We haven't swelled the ranks of our armed forces. We have accepted no privations.

We haven't done nothing, however. We killed and imprisoned most of those who aided and abetted the 9/11 masterminds. We're trying, desperately, to plant the seeds of democracy in Iraq. We've liberated millions of people, and frozen more millions of terror dollars.

But we still aren't serious, not Israel-serious.

We've done nothing to punish the Saudis, and little more to encourage reform there. We've squandered much of the Iranian people's goodwill towards us, by ignoring their pleas for something so little as "mere" moral support in their struggle against the mullahs. Instead, we've gone shopping for imports and bitched about outsourcing.

Someday, however, we will be serious enough, and we will have the necessary mindset to do the things we need to do.

It's the day before that happens that scares me.

"...and everybody hates the Jews."

One of the most offensive (to my odd sensibilities, anyway) virtue-mongering schemes out there is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I read about this years ago, and I think the LDS denies it, but they've been posthumously converting Jews to Mormonism.

You know, to get the "good" Jews into Heaven.

Begging to Differ looks at this odd phenomenon, and other examples of modern anti-Semitism, in a really fascinating post.

Greetings and Salutations

I was never a fan of co- or guest-bloggers -- until, you know, I needed Will Collier to save my hit-counter bacon four or five times this year already.

With that in mind, welcome David Andersen to Insults Unpunished. First post in, the guy shows real promise.

Born Loser

Regarding the post below, it's the second time I've fisked John Kerry. The first time was last summer, when he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post on what to do with North Korea. I'm hoping before this summer is over, he'll write something for them on Iran.

Then I can go for the Kerry/Axis of Evil trifecta.

A Fisking

Ladies and gentlemen, John Kerry:

To be successful in Iraq, and in any war for that matter, our use of force must be tied to a political objective more complete than the ouster of a regime. To date, that has not happened in Iraq. It is time it did.

I'm confused. There hasn't been a regime change in Iraq? Saddam is in a cage somewhere, the Sunni Ba'ath Remnant has mostly given way to Shia terrorists, Sunni dead-enders, and a remarkably responsible (and quite autonomous) Kurdish region. Well, them and to CENTCOM.

Or did Kerry mean we have yet to do something more than change the regime? In that case, there's the increasingly reliable electrical supply, the increase in Iraqi oil output, ongoing infrastructure improvements, the end of systematic torture and rape, new schools, the return of water to the Marsh Arabs marshes, etc.

Or did Kerry mean -- as he explicitly said -- that "any war" must have goals beyond regime change? Apparently, Mr. Kerry has never heard of punitive expeditions. Sometimes, the best a nation can do is go in, kick some butt, teach the needed hard lesson, then go home. Now, I hope we don't get to the point where we have to give up on Reconstruction, and limit the goal of the Iraq War to a mere punishment and example-setting. But even if that's all we end up accomplishing, it will still have been worth it.

But to argue, as Kerry does, that such things never have and never will work, is to ignore an awful lot of history. Punitive expeditions -- such as the response to the Boxer Rebellion, the 1986 air raid on Libya, the Grenada invasion, etc. -- have a long history of success.

That was an awful lot of rebuttal for an opening paragraph, I know. But it's rare for a Presidential candidate to demonstrate so much ignorance, of both history and clear writing, in such a small space.

So let's continue:

In the past week the situation in Iraq has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. While we may have differed on how we went to war, Americans of all political persuasions are united in our determination to succeed.

Unless, of course, that American is Kerry's biggest (literally and figuratively) supporter, Ted Kennedy. Kennedy has already called Iraq "Bush's Vietnam," which is less of an accurate description than it is an attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy. This isn't another Vietnam unless we become convinced that we can't win -- and Kennedy is trying to convince us. Clearly, not all Americans want us to succeed. What a shame it is that one of them is so close to Team Kerry.

The extremists attacking our forces should know they will not succeed in dividing America, or in sapping American resolve, or in forcing the premature withdrawal of U.S. troops. Our country is committed to help the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society. No matter who is elected president in November, we will persevere in that mission.

Does this imply that Kerry will soon stop taking advice from a certain Scotch-scented blowhard? If so, then kudos to Kerry -- and he ought to tell the Distinguished Driver from Massachusetts to shut up already, if Kerry wants a shot at winning next Fall.

But to maximize our chances for success, and to minimize the risk of failure, we must make full use of the assets we have. If our military commanders request more troops, we should deploy them.

Unless, of course, the military commander is named Westmoreland. After all, this isn't Vietnam.

Progress is not possible in Iraq if people lack the security to go about the business of daily life. Yet the military alone cannot win the peace in Iraq. We need a political strategy that will work.

If rebuilding a war-ravaged nation from scratch and attempting to give a trampled people a taste of constitutional republicanism isn't a "political strategy that will work," then just what does Kerry think will?

Fact is, we might fail in our attempt to create the Arab world's first decent nation. Would President Kerry be ready for that, since Candidate Kerry has already declared that anything less is a total failure?

Over the past year the Bush administration has advanced several plans for a transition to democratic rule in Iraq. Each of those plans, after proving to be unworkable, was abandoned.

And in the last 200 years, France has had three Empires and five Republics -- yet Kerry considers that nation a worthy role model. Political progress comes in fits and starts; ask any regretful Nader 2000 voter.

The administration has set a date (June 30) for returning authority to an Iraqi entity to run the country, but there is no agreement with the Iraqis on how it will be constituted to make it representative enough to have popular legitimacy.

And to think we fought and won out Revolution without first getting permission, much less a written Constitution. As a further outrage, imagine that the Kurds (driven from their homes by the Sunnis), and the Shias (drained out of their swamps by the Sunnis), and the Sunnis themselves (who would reallt like to get back to kicking around the Kurds and draining out the Shias) don't yet get along!

Kerry has already stated that under his Administration, our military will stay, in whatever numbers they request, to try and keep the peace for as long as needed. As long as needed for what? Why, to give the Sunnis and Shias and Kurds a chance to learn to live together.

If anyone can tell me how that differs from the current Administration, I'll print this fisking out on some really heavy stock paper, and eat it.

Because of the way the White House has run the war, we are left with the United States bearing most of the costs and risks associated with every aspect of the Iraqi transition.

And we were going to get France and Germany on board how? There was no popular support in those countries, and less political support. Sorry, Mr. Kerry -- you might be sauve enough to marry a rich heiress, but she still made you sign a pre-nup. So you think you're going to seduce 145 million overweight Germans and stinky Frenchies into getting off their doles and into a mess like the Middle East? Bill Clinton could barely get them to sign on to Oslo, and that didn't involve putting any troops on the ground.

We have lost lives, time, momentum and credibility. And we are seeing increasing numbers of Iraqis lashing out at the United States to express their frustration over what the Bush administration has and hasn't done.

And millions more who appreciate what the Bush Administration has done. And what you, Mr. Kerry, wouldn't have done. Or did your Yes vote on the Use of Force resolution actually mean Yes this time?

In recent weeks the administration -- in effect acknowledging the failure of its own efforts -- has turned to U.N. representative Lakhdar Brahimi to develop a formula for an interim Iraqi government that each of the major Iraqi factions can accept. It is vital that Brahimi accomplish this mission, but the odds are long, because tensions have been allowed to build and distrust among the various Iraqi groups runs deep.

That's right: One President Kerry is greater than 1,000 years of mutual hostility -- which three years of President Bush created.

This man's knowledge of basic history is incredibly low, even grading on the generous Presidential Candidate Curve. I remember Candidate GWB talking foreign policy during the 2000 race, and all I could think was, "Well, at least he'll have Colin Powell at his ear."

John Kerry has Ted Kennedy.

The United States can bolster Brahimi's limited leverage by saying in advance that we will support any plan he proposes that gains the support of Iraqi leaders.

In other words, John Kerry would give veto power over any plan, no matter how reasonable, to any leading Shia cleric, no matter how unreasonable. How do you spell "nuance?" S-T-U-P-I-D.

Moving forward, the administration must make the United Nations a full partner responsible for developing Iraq's transition to a new constitution and government.

This is the same United Nations which ran from Iraq at the first sign of trouble last summer. The same UN which feathered its nest with Iraqi petrodollars. The same UN which wouldn't support its own resolutions.

If we end up needing to bring in the UN as a bit of cover, to lend "legitimacy" to our actions, then by all means, let's do so. But to make that corrupt body a "full partner" is to destroy any chance we have at building a decent Iraq.

We also need to renew our effort to attract international support in the form of boots on the ground to create a climate of security in Iraq. We need more troops and more people who can train Iraqi troops and assist Iraqi police.

Whose boots, Mr. Kerry, would provide a climate of security? The same French or Danish boots, which ignored ethnic slaughter just a few miles down the road in Bosnia? Spanish boots, which said they'd run home after a single attack? German boots, which we fought two world wars against, exactly so they wouldn't go marching all over the world?

We should urge NATO to create a new out-of-area operation for Iraq under the lead of a U.S. commander. This would help us obtain more troops from major powers.

We might also urge rabbits to start attacking wolves -- we'd have about the same luck, and with about the same effect.

NATO armies -- other than the Anglo-American ones -- have atrophied to the point where they're almost useless for anything more than simple peacekeeping. They can barely keep themselves trained and armed, much less try to train and arm new recruits in an environment like postwar Iraq.

It doesn't matter that the Europeans hate Bush and love Kerry. It doesn't matter which man is President. The sad truth is, NATO won't go, because they can't go -- not without massive American financial and material support. So much for burden-sharing, no matter how you slice it.

The events of the past week will make foreign governments extremely reluctant to put their citizens at risk.

See my last point. NATO is just no damn good at fighting anymore.

That is why international acceptance of responsibility for stabilizing Iraq must be matched by international authority for managing the remainder of the Iraqi transition. The United Nations, not the United States, should be the primary civilian partner in working with Iraqi leaders to hold elections, restore government services, rebuild the economy, and re-create a sense of hope and optimism among the Iraqi people.

When soldiers show up wearing the Stars and Stripes on their shoulders, people know what to expect. And depending on who they are, they will feel either relief or fear. What do people feel when they see UN white helmets, Mr. Kerry? A sense of "hope and optimism?"

Not on this planet.

The primary responsibility for security must remain with the U.S. military, preferably helped by NATO until we have an Iraqi security force fully prepared to take responsibility.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen -- John Kerry's view of foreign relations, wrapped up in a single sentence written by the man himself. And what is that view? Other people get to make the decisions, and Americans get to do the bleeding.

Are we sure Kerry is gunning for W's job, and not for Kofi Annan's?

Finally, we must level with our citizens. Increasingly, the American people are confused about our goals in Iraq, particularly why we are going it almost alone. The president must rally the country around a clear and credible goal. The challenges are significant and the costs are high. But the stakes are too great to lose the support of the American people.

In that case, Kerry should tell every Democrat but Zell Miller, Joe Lieberman, and Sam Nunn to just shut up about Iraq until, one way or another, we're finished there.

Whether you agree or not, Bush has been crystal clear about what we're doing in Iraq -- even if he wasn't completely honest in his justification for getting us there in the first place. If there's confusion in the American people, it's been sown by Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Jimmy Carter, and, yes, by John Kerry.

This morning, as we sit down to read newspapers in the comfort of our homes or offices, we have an obligation to think of our fighting men and women in Iraq who awake each morning to a shooting gallery in which it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish friend from foe, and the death of every innocent creates more enemies.

If they're having trouble telling friend from foe now, just wait until the UN is in charge of the place. And if you think too many innocents are dying now, wait until President Kerry won't let our boys shoot back without authorization first from Chirac, Schroeder, and Annan.

We owe it to our soldiers and Marines to use absolutely every tool we can muster to help them succeed in their mission without exposing them to unnecessary risk. That is not a partisan proposal. It is a matter of national honor and trust.

Kerry is exactly right on that last point. And since trust and our national honor are at stake, I can't vote for a man who would turn such precious assets of ours over to the United Nations.

Frankie Says Relax

Hoo, boy:

Oliver Willis has finally caught moonbat disease.

First he says the President and the Vice President killed 600 troops and then says the President should be impeached.

Why? Because of this article in the Atlantic Monthly. I read it. There's not really much new here. And in the end, Fallows does nothing but compare liberals to conservatives and mentions the supposed coming disaster in Iraq.

That's Jay Caruso, writing for Classless Warfare. In fairness to Oliver, here's what he actually said:

Before I read this story in its entirety, I consistently disagreed with those who said President Bush should be impeached. Unlike the GOP and their ilk, I don't believe you reach for the constitutional switch over stupid dalliances but rather systematic abuses of power that denigrate the very idea of the United States. George Bush's misconduct, his very high level of disinterest in the most important cause a nation can involve itself in, certainly lays the groundwork for why he should be removed from office - either via impeachment or (preferably) this November's election.

And here's the graf (link above) that tipped over into moonbat territory:

This is the place to note that in several months of interviews I never once heard someone say "We took this step because the President indicated ..." or "The President really wanted ..." Instead I heard "Rumsfeld wanted," "Powell thought," "The Vice President pushed," "Bremer asked," and so on. One need only compare this with any discussion of foreign policy in Reagan's or Clinton's Administration-or Nixon's, or Kennedy's, or Johnson's, or most others-to sense how unusual is the absence of the President as prime mover. The other conspicuously absent figure was Condoleezza Rice, even after she was supposedly put in charge of coordinating Administration policy on Iraq, last October. It is possible that the President's confidants are so discreet that they have kept all his decisions and instructions secret. But that would run counter to the fundamental nature of bureaucratic Washington, where people cite a President's authority whenever they possibly can ("The President feels strongly about this, so ...").

Hardly damning stuff. We know how Bush works -- Harvard MBA-style. Set the tone, find the consensus, give the orders. None of what I see here contradicts that. And while it might not be my first choice to run an Administration during war, Willis should think it actually beats the alternative.

That is to say, a less managerial President would have taken us to war in Iraq by the Spring of 2002. Is that the result Willis would have wanted? Hardly -- he just wants Bush out of office. No harm there, it's the nature of the partisan game.

I can't call Oliver a moonbat -- we'll all get a little crazy before this campaign is over. But I can say he's looking a little too hard for something that isn't really there -- and Jay might be a little too eager to damn him for it.

Perverse Incentives

Here's more on last night's big news:

This week, President Bush is expected to wink approval of a plan by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that would start to dictate to Palestinians the land they can have and the land they can't.

Such a move by Mr. Bush would shatter the historic role of the United States as the primary Middle East mediator, as well as the necessary tradition of treating Palestinians as a peace partner.

To be sure, the Palestinians' elected leader, Yasser Arafat, has proven to be an unreliable peace-seeker and negotiator, partly because of his inability, perhaps even his unwillingness, to suppress militant groups such as Hamas that send suicide bombers into Israel. His inaction has left Israel little choice but to take unilateral moves to defend itself.

That's from the Christian Science Monitor. Of course, they can't help themselves, and had throw this in, too:

But even if parts of the plan proposed by Prime Minister Sharon work well, such as a pullout of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, Bush's blessing of it would only leave an impression among Palestinians and Arab nations that the US is all too willing to defer the creation of a Palestinian state.

That's right -- no matter how many suicide bombers the Palestinians launch against Israel, no matter how many tunnels they dig under the desert to smuggle banned weapons, no matter how many children they strap bombs to, no matter how loudly they broadcast anti-Semitic propaganda, no matter how much their once-vibrant culture comes to resemble a death cult. . .

. . .well, we're supposed to just lie there, take it, and let them have their own state, on their timetable, and with their conditions.

Now that is a recipe for losing the Terror War.

Gone Clubbin'

Our neighbor to the north isn't yet completely politically correct:

Canadian sealers have pushed out to sea for the largest cull in 50 years despite protests by environmentalists and animal rights groups. The government is allowing more than 300,000 seals to be killed, arguing that the campaign is both ecologically sound and economically justified.

Protests helped end the hunting of young seals for their pelts off Canada's east coast 25 years ago.

Some activists say their efforts to report this cull are being blocked.

Sealers have been making their way out to ice floes off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador for the annual hunt.

Under new guidelines, most seals are meant to be shot and not clubbed to death in a bid to make the killing more humane.

Now if only they'd make the clubbing a pay-per-view event, maybe Canada could afford to keep more of its hockey players.

One Word

Hitchens.

Required Drinking

I told you people so!

How Low Can You Go?

Andy Rooney has five questions for our soldiers in Iraq:

1. Do you think your country did the right thing sending you into Iraq?

2. Are you doing what America set out to do to make Iraq a democracy, or have we failed so badly that we should pack up and get out before more of you are killed?

3. Do the orders you get handed down from one headquarters to another, all far removed from the fighting, seem sensible, or do you think our highest command is out of touch with the reality of your situation?

4. If you could have a medal or a trip home, which would you take?

5. Are you encouraged by all the talk back home about how brave you are and how everyone supports you?

Andy thinks he's being brave with these questions, because, "there's no Ernie Pyle," to tell us "what our soldiers in Iraq are thinking or doing." Well, you know, except all those interviews on the TV news, when our soldiers answer questions very much like the ones Andy is asking.

But that's not enough for Andy, who thinks it would be better if we just told them they aren't that great:

It's disingenuous of the rest of us to encourage them to fight this war by idolizing them. We pin medals on their chests to keep them going. We speak of them as if they volunteered to risk their lives to save ours but there isn't much voluntary about what most of them have done.

According to Andy, our fighting men and women are actually worse than mercenaries -- they're simply dupes, easily fooled by nice words and shiny medals.

The Dog That Barked All the Time and Quite Loudly

From the Washington Post, via James Taranto, we learn what US Marines found in an abandoned warehouse in Fallujah:

Sacks full of chemical-coated rocks. Leather belts stuffed with explosive putty, and one smeared with dried blood. Boxes of batteries with wires taped to them. Instructions for making bombs.

"This was a 16-man terrorist cell," pronounced a Marine captain, rifling through the mess. "See? All the bags and sneakers are brand new, all the same make. This took money and planning. Someone sponsored them."

Money? Training? Explosives? Suicide bombers? You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to find Terhan's fingerprints in Fallujah.

She Was Asking For It, Wearing That Short Skirt

Reuters:

Seven civilian contractors working for a subsidiary of Halliburton are missing in Iraq after an ambush on a convoy last week, the Texas-based firm and the U.S. military said on Monday. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters in video conference from Baghdad the contractors were working for Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the U.S. oil services firm run until 2000 by Vice President Dick Cheney.

If you have a stronger stomach than I do, try keeping an eye on Democratic Underground or Indymedia (or even Kos?) for some blame-the-victim crap.

Here It Comes

Get ready for distortions in the German media on that declassified August 6 memo.

Not Quite 50 Things

Eden presents "35 Imagined Answers to 'Why Do You Blog?'"

Here's a 36th: Because the voices in my head tell me to.

Click II

Have you seen the Kerry Sloganator™ yet?

Breaking

Just overheard on FNC: Egypt's Hosni Mubarak will endorse Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Discuss.

Spend Wisely

Steven Taylor finds yet another problem with campaign finance reform laws.

"You Oxi-popping fat ass."

Somebody please take the PhotoShop away from Jeff Goldstein before he hurts someone.

Or better yet, don't.

Sharp End of the Stick

More on the problem of declining morale in the US Army:

Despite months of action and hundreds of casualties, the combat divisions that fought in Iraq have met their recruiting goals, re-enlisting more of their troops than they normally do. The 101st Airborne division, which took part in the march on Baghdad, and then pacified northern Iraq, exceeded it's re-enlistment goals by seven percent. The 4th Infantry division, which occupied part of the Sunni Triangle and captured Saddam Hussein, exceeded it's goals by 20 percent. The 82nd Airborne Division, which has had brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a few percent short of its goals, but expects to make that up by the end of the year. Overall, the army has achieved 99 percent of its re-enlistment goals (which are based on past experience), and attracted 100 percent of the new recruits it needs. Standards for new recruits have been raised, meaning that more people were trying to get in than the army could handle.

Oops -- did I say declining morale?

Alternate History

Greg Easterbrook in TNR:

Washington, April 9, 2004. A hush fell over the city as George W. Bush today became the first president of the United States ever to be removed from office by impeachment. Meeting late into the night, the Senate unanimously voted to convict Bush following a trial on his bill of impeachment from the House.

Moments after being sworn in as the 44th president, Dick Cheney said that disgraced former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice would be turned over to the Hague for trial in the International Court of Justice as a war criminal. Cheney said Washington would "firmly resist" international demands that Bush be extradited for prosecution as well.

On August 7, 2001, Bush had ordered the United States military to stage an all-out attack on alleged terrorist camps in Afghanistan. . .

It's a must-read.

A Grain of Salt At the Very Least

Steven Den Beste explains how to read the news -- with a properly jaundiced eye.

Click

New-to-me photos from the last Edwards Air Force Base air show. Included are some first-ever air show pictures of the F/A-22 Raptor.

Ignore the Mullah Behind the Curtain

Ralph Peters:

ON Saturday, Iranian agents ambushed an American convoy on the road between Mosul and Akre in Iraq. The attack did not go as planned: Our troops responded sharply, killing two Iranians, wounding a third and capturing two more.

They were carrying their identity documents.

And you haven't heard a word about it. The administration doesn't want to admit how much American blood Teheran has on its hands.

Read the whole thing already.

Same Old

As early as 1988, striking miners marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. But their lot has yet to improve:

The death toll from the Taizhina mine explosion in Russia’s Kemerovo region has climbed to 46. The bodies of all the dead mines have been brought up to the surface, a duty officer at the city department for civil defence and emergency situations reported by telephone from Osinniki on Monday. He said that rescue teams continued searching for just one missing miner.

Kuzbas rescue teams will continue searching for the six miners who reportedly went missing after a methane explosion at the Taizhina mine in the town of Ossinniki, Russia’s Kemerovo region, in the morning of April 10, a source at the Kemerovo regional department for civil defence and emergency situations told Itar-Tass.

16 years later, Russia for the most part remains a Third World nation with nukes.

Check It Out

Ed Brown is my editor at Guard Experience magazine -- and he and his lovely bride Diane were married on Saturday.

The man is too busy to take a honeymoon just yet, so why not congratulate him by subscribing to the mag for members of the National Guard? Or if that doesn't sell you, how about the fact that I'm the recipe guy there?

Another Sign of Early Senility

Wrote this piece a couple weeks ago, after an old old old friend from way back when found his name here via Google. Click on "MORE" if you're interested in reading some silly memories.

If not, I'll give you the denouement right up front -- Kevin did get back to me, and he's better than ever.

Old News

Drudge gives this quote the red-ink treatment, like it's some kind of big news:

TIME MAG QUOTES RETIRED ARMY GENERAL: 'THERE ARE NO MORE AMERICAN TROOPS TO SEND TO IRAQ'...

Folks who read this site won't be surprised at all.

Money Well Spent

Some days, NASA still shines. Read:

NASA's twin Mars rovers, the hardest-working stars in space exploration, face five months of extended duty on the Red Planet, space agency officials say. NASA Mars Exploration Program director Orlando Figueroa announced the extension last week as the official 90-day mission of the Spirit rover ended. Opportunity landed three weeks after Spirit; its 90 days aren't up until April 26.

The agency approved a $15 million extension to the $820 million twin-rover endeavor. "The extension more than doubles exploration for less than a 2% additional investment, if the rovers remain in working condition," NASA said in a news release Thursday.

Sweet.

Notice

Don't know about the Third Annual Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash? Well, you should -- some bloggers are coming all the way from California just for the event.

This one is going to be at the Denver Press Club, so, remember, we can only bring high class dancing girls this time.

Sleep Tight

My least favorite conspiracy theory of right wingers is the one where Hillary Clinton swoops down on the Democratic convention this summer and steals the nomination from [fill in name of "undeserving" Democratic nominee here]. Somehow, there was going to be this brokered convention, see? And then Hillary (who I don't see as the Antichrist, but who I'm no fan of) would steal the show and, somehow, the election.

My second-to-least favorite right wing conspiracy theory -- more of a wet dream, really -- is the one where Howard Dean makes a third-party run and ends up destroying the Democratic Party. This NYT op-ed should lay that to rest:

Many Democrats also admire Ralph Nader's achievements, as I do. But if they truly want George Bush out of the White House, they won't vote for Ralph Nader in November.

Ralph Nader has built a remarkable legacy as a consumer advocate. Because of his tireless work, we have federal consumer protection laws and a federal department dedicated to the protection of our environment, and millions of defective motor vehicles are off the roads. And I campaigned against the very same corporate special interests that he has been criticizing longer than almost anyone else.

But I don't believe that the best way to do justice to Ralph Nader's legacy is to vote for him for president. Re-electing George Bush would undo everything Ralph Nader has worked for through his entire career and, in fact, could lead to the dismantling of many of his accomplishments.

Those words were written by -- wait for it! -- none other than Howard Dean.

Required Reading

I'm back after a lousy week, so I'll start off easy with some Required Reading. Today it's Jackson Diehl, writing in the Washington Post:

Critics who still chastise the Bush administration for failure to "engage" with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seem not to have noticed that over the past several months the White House has been more deeply involved in trying to broker a breakthrough than at any time since President Bill Clinton's Camp David summit in the summer of 2000. The outcome of these mostly secret and underreported parleys will begin to emerge this week, with the latest visit to Washington of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- and the result could be President Bush's commitment to another Middle Eastern gambit that is as risky as it is bold.

The Bush Administration's involvement is all news to me -- and I read damn near everything. Now go read the whole thing yourself to find out all the juicy details.

"Intelligence just sucks."

Megan McArdle has posted the most even-handed and sensible thing I've read to date on the September 11 Commission. A highlight:

[W]e are all seeking some reassurance that we can somehow prevent all this stuff in the future. Everyone is very earnestly asking "What changes do we need to make so that our intelligence doesn't (for example) tell us Iraq has WMD, or not tell us that Al-Qaeda's about to attack us?" Almost no one seems prepared to accept the possibility that the answer is "None. Intelligence just sucks." The energy expended trying to blame this failure on someone--George Tenet, Louis Freeh, Condoleezza Rice, or whoever--goes beyond mere regular partisan bashing. It seems to me to express an underlying conviction that of course someone could have stopped this--it's only a question of who. For the commission, especially, it's an unacceptable answer; they simply cannot turn to a frightened American public and tell them that it's really too bad, but we live in a scary world.

There's plenty more, and you should read the whole thing, but as Megan notes, the fundamental problem with any commission like this is...

...that they find what they are tasked to look for. If you appoint a government commission on fairy rings, they'll do their damndest to dig one up, because after all, fairy rings are the reason we're all assembled in this big, important looking room with the columns and the picture of George Washington.

Unfortunate, but all too true. As Leonard H. McCoy once noted, "The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe."

Look-At-Steve Post

Via Instapundit, John Hawkins at Right Wing News has posted rankings of the 29 most influential sites in the blogosphere. VodkaPundit checks in at a very impressive Number 12 (and I can say that, since this is Steve's site, and he deserves all the credit--wherever the hell he might be at the moment).

Nice work, Martini Boy.

Sheep No More

James S. Robbins at NRO on one of the main and largely unacknowledged reasons why three of the four September 11 hijackings were successful, at least from the point of view of the barbarians:

The al Qaeda attack plan exploited our preconceptions, particularly our knowledge of what a hijacking was. Before 9/11, hijacking was largely a form of theater... The way for innocents to get out of the situation alive was to relax, let the scene play out, and hope that if there is a rescue attempt, that none of the bad guys has a bomb. In short, cooperate, don't escalate. Don't be a hero.

This is why box cutters could be used successfully to hijack airliners...

Would the box-cutter scenario work today? Of course not. We are no longer told to be quiescent and leave everything to the experts...

[B]y the time United Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania the paradigm shift had been made. The admonition "Don't be a hero" was replaced with "Let's roll." I suspect this change is permanent. No Americans will ever be led to slaughter that way again. The terrorists exploited a seam that they could only use once.

Yes, exactly. As Robbins also notes, the vaunted 9/11 commission has not even mentioned the forty years of conditioning to act like sheep when confronted by hijackers--which played as much into al Quaeda's hands as any intelligence or security missteps.

Regardless, there are no more sheep on American airliners. Additional security or no additional security, there will never be another successful takeover of an airliner with American passengers onboard.

UPDATE: A reader points out this staff statement from the commission that does note the hijackers' expoitation of the prior "Common Strategy" for handling aircraft takeovers. That's fair enough, and I suppose it's also fair to note that very few people had actually suggested the possibility of airliners being used as guided missiles prior to September of 2001 (except, er, Tom Clancy in a number-one bestseller, but let's press on).

All of the above brings up two thoughts in my mind. Number one, that doesn't excuse the societal message of "be a sheep when confronted with crime or violence" that had been (and still is being) preached by our supposed leaders in government, the media, and academia.

Secondly, why is it okay to give the promoters of the "sheep strategy" a pass while piling on everybody else (at least everybody with an "R" next to their name) for other pre-September-11 miscalculations?

Heinlein Would Be Proud

The FAA has just approved the first-ever license for a privately-owned manned rocket, to Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites. Rutan's SpaceShipOne is the odds-on favorite to win the X-Prize, to be awarded to the first private group to build and fly a reusable manned spacecraft (suborbital in this case, but it's a hell of a start).

I'll be out near Mojave in a couple of weeks. Hope I get a chance to check this sucker out while I'm there...

UPDATE: Rutan didn't waste any time after his craft was declared legal; SpaceShipOne flew today, reportedly to an altitude of 105,000 feet.

Not Anti-War, But On The Other Side

Outstanding piece here from the Asia Times by John Parker, an American writer living in Vietnam:

[T]he costs of anti-Americanism will be borne not by Americans, but by others. And their numbers are vast: Cubans, North Koreans, Zimbabweans, and countless others suffer and starve under their respective tyrannies because the democratic world's chattering classes, obsessed with denouncing the United States, can't be bothered with holding their criminal regimes to account. Meanwhile, in Iraq, fascist rabble, with no discernible political program save a pledge to kill more Americans, try desperately to extinguish the slightest hope of democracy, economic growth, and stability for that long-suffering land; but the world, instead of helping to beat back the wolves at the door, basks in anti-American schadenfreude. How countless are the political problems, cultural pathologies, and humanitarian disasters that fester unnoticed, all over the globe, as the anti-American cult, wallowing in ecstatic bigotry, desperately scrutinizes every utterance of the Bush administration for new critical fodder.

Read, as they say, the whole thing. Hat tips to Best of the Web for spotting the review (of Jean-Francois Revel's Anti-Americanism), and to the Blogfather for the title line.

Also check out Steven den Beste's take on this week's actions in Iraq:

The primary goal of guerrilla action is to use control of initiative to select time and place for attacks against an enemy which is much more powerful, and then to fade away and hide. To give the enemy a stand-up fight permits the enemy to use his superior power, and that's the opportunity the insurgents in Falluja are permitting us.

... It is not certain that the outcome for us will be positive – nothing in war is ever certain – but it's far more likely than not. And that will not be affected by strident sniping and self-righteous preaching by our opponents.

The most important thing that happened in the last few days is that many of the most dangerous people in Iraq gave us an excuse to destroy them. CENTCOM won't throw this opportunity away.

Quagmire!

Snicker.