Straws, Camels, Backs

In a recent e-mail I made an observation: there is an incredible amount of noise to excise from most news reports, particularly those on the fluid situation in Najaf. Troll up to Google News. Some articles are splattered with editorial phrases and leftist code; others handpick Iraqi and foreign kooks as their interviewees. Headlines are atrocious, at once serving to catch the eye at the expense of accuracy. Worse, a great many follow the narrative describing random violence "breaking out" among morally equalized parties, an irresponsible technique I noted four months ago. While I appreciate the practice in objective reading and cross-reference, I wish journalists could be a little bit less opaque.

The Washington Post reports that Iraqi elite and special forces are filing into Najaf, and the Imam Ali Shrine is their target:

"The army will be deployed now" to the city, where U.S. forces have been fighting the militia, said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Units of the new Iraqi army would immediately prepare for an offensive aimed at evicting al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army from the shrine of Imam Ali, a sacred site the militia has used as a refuge, he said.

...One battalion of Iraqi commandos is already in the city. The unit, previously known as the 36th Battalion, was trained by U.S. Special Forces and fought alongside U.S. forces in Fallujah in April. Another Iraqi battalion, trained by the regular army, refused to fight. The commando unit raided a mosque in Kufa this week, supported by a Marine unit that was kept at a distance.

Granted, the infamous Rajiv Chandrasekaran contributed to this story, but one might hope that the Post can get straight the overwhelmingly shared desire to put an end to terrorist activity. The anonymous quote "Everyone wants to go ahead and finish this" is reassuring to our understanding of both the Post's veracity and the situation itself. As Alaa makes clear — intensely, and rightfully so — Iraqi people suffer precisely because evil men sow strife and unrest, committing violence and intimidation. They remain couched in relative safety and hope precisely because brave soldiers from within their borders and without take up arms against terrorists and outlaws. They want their leaders and allies to go the hell ahead and finish this.

THE IRAQI STREET: Ali give his analysis of Muqtada al-Sadr's apparent support and its underlying weaknesses.

EVIL BY ANY OTHER NAME: News agencies continue to fail to impress, framing the dichotemy of Baghdad's democratic conference and the continuing presence of anti-democratic forces in the country as a juxtaposition of "peace" and "violence" — which, of course, inculcates the idea of Allied and Iraqi government troops as equal partners with terrorists in senseless killing. The Christian Science Monitor comes close to getting it right, but still stops well short of abandoning the amoral language we find in a lot of today's reports from Iraq. The question of who is provoking whom is obvious — it's the lunatics firing mortars into crowded streets — but only through implication of events. This is nothing new: Misunderstanding evil's tirelessness leads smart fools to coin phrases like "cycle of violence," where the only solution is a juvenile fantasy of spontaneous peace, rather than the physical victory of peaceable men whose swords started out as plowshares. We're lucky the words of General Peter Chiarelli even made it into print:

We take no action unless we are fired upon. I can cite you example after example where we did not engage when forces fired upon us because to do so would have caused civilian casualties. I might add our enemy does not do the same.

There is a such thing as killing a man without malice. Can you ever get that from page A-3? Frustrating as the disconnect is, it helps to explain the relativist left's inability to cope with the war. They cannot accept that certain people will delight in consuming them.

DON'T REPORT IF YOU CAN'T: Ask and ye shall receive.

Enjoying What Ends Up

This August has been the mildest (read: comfortable) I can remember, and possibly the coolest on record. What began as a sultry, vivacious summer (yes, "summer" and not "woman") has gone benign, with not more than five thundershowers (no, not even storms) over the past sixty days or so. But you can't argue with pleasant weather, especially when you have Saturday afternoons that look like this:

Care of the greatest investment I ever made. Much more beautiful than Colorado. But then we don't have zombies.

Cracking in the Pillars

From Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, an embarrassing failure of Tehran's intentions:

Millions of Iranians boycotted, today, government sponsored rallies against the war in Iraq and the fighting in Najaf. Most Iranians ignored repeated government requests, or demands from the regime's leaders and the Office of Islamic Propagation by staying home, or taking short trips using Friday to enjoy rather than sharing the concerns of the shaky theocracy.

The Islamic regime was only able to coerce limited numbers into the center Tehran streets and some main Iranian cities. A few thousand and some smaller groups of professional demonstrators composed mainly of Bassij and foreign Islamists were were all that the Mullahs could motivate to support their demands. Last week the regime quietly let pass its fiasco of not being able to successfully promote an earlier "popular" demonstration against U.S. led Coalition members that was also ignored by most Iranians.

Read it for yourself. Iran's theocratic leaders have no greater enemy than the Iranian population itself.

One Dream

Bush-Cheney 2004 has, currently accessible from their website homepage, a new television ad celebrating the presence of democracies at the Olympic games — including two that weren't before President Bush took office. It's entitled "Victory."

Shift

Talks between Muqtada al-Sadr's henchmen and the Iraqi government, a farce or feint best described by Wretchard here, have "broken down." Or perhaps the brick refused to fly. Either way, the Iraqi government — via their erstwhile interlocuter, national security advisor Mowaffaq al-Rubaie — has announced that the vise will continue to tighten, peaceful alternatives exhausted. Another public announcement comes from the ever-candid Defense Minister Hazem al-Shaalan:

The operations are continuing in the city and will continue until the militia is forced to withdraw out of the city or they surrender to Iraqi authorities and benefit from the amnesty law which [was] announced by the prime minister.

We'll soon see if victory over Iran's patsy, and only that, will end the action.

Actors

The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger on the Democratic Party and its Hollywood membership:

Isn't it becoming harder by the day to take the Democrats seriously as the party of the common man and the left-out? Besides these people, the party's primary sources of support have become trial lawyers and Wall Street financiers. It is becoming a party run by a new class of elites who make fast money — $25 million for 30 days work on a movie, millions (even billions) winning lawsuits against doctors or asbestos users, millions to do arithmetic for a business merger. But they're all running against "Halliburton."

A 21st-Century Versailles. Let them eat "healthcare."

The Gulf

Touching, yes, but more revealing than anything:

Tankers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (search) knew that intelligence was key to battling the enemy. Capt. Chad Roehrman was at a checkpoint when he thought another dodgy informant walked up.

"One of my guys came to me and said, 'Hey, sir, we got another boy who says he has information,'" he said. What the boy had was information on a well-connected cell of 40 fighters whose leader was a former officer in Saddam Hussein's army. He was also the boy's father.

...After the bust the boy couldn't go home so he moved in with the soldiers. They gave him the nickname "Steve-O" and a bunk right next to theirs.

Buried with the last generation is the old way of life. Young Iraqis are the greatest hope for their own country as well as ours; unspoiled by cynicism and propaganda, eager to make the best friends the impoverished and oppressed could ever know. We owe them as much as they might think they owe us — no, far more.

Rounding the Corner

In "Shoulda Been a Pollster" two weeks ago, I discussed the results of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's post-convention polls. In most surveys his bounce was small and short-lived; in Gallup's, the standard to which incumbent-challenger's bounces are measured, President Bush actually gained five points to lead Kerry, 51% to 47%.

Since 1936 ten incumbent presidents have stood for reelection in twelve contests, only three of them defeated by challengers. No challenger has been successful without leading the incumbent, before August, by an average crest of 24 points (33 for Jimmy Carter, 16 for Ronald Reagan, 25 for Bill Clinton) on the wings of a sizable post-convention bounce. Those leads acted as insulation, compressed in the autumn homestretch when, as almost always is the case, a portion of the electorate finally committed to stay with the incumbent. (Since 1936, Roosevelt versus Landon, incumbents have risen an average of 5 points in Gallup polls between August and Election Day, win or lose.) But in 1976, 1980 and 1992, enough voters had been attracted to the challenger's ticket to offset that return to the incumbent. In "Shoulda...", it was my observation that John Kerry's lack of electoral insulation left him vulnerable, perhaps fatally, to the president's initiative, beginning with the Republican National Convention at the end of August.

Gallup's new numbers are out: President Bush leads John Kerry by three points, 50% to 47%. I would have thought it sufficient for Bush to simply stay even on the eve of his nomination in New York City; with two weeks left until the Republican National Convention, the president seems poised well to bring back to his side a portion of uncommitted — or even dissatisfied — voters.

In coming days, I'll assemble a prediction for the president's post-convention performance and possibilities for the two months following. Until then, more royalty for Bush's hand: according to Gallup, the average presidential approval rating in post-WWII reelection years is 54%. Bush's average rating for 2004 happens to be his current rating, at 51%; it's well below his term average of 62%, but bodes well for reelection: those three unlucky incumbents, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, met public approval by respective averages of 49%, 38% and 41% (an overall average of 42%).

Ideology says it all for me regardless but when it comes to this election's polling, I'm glad not to be a Democrat.

GOOD, INDEED: Craig Brett comments. Craig, a Canadian living in England, has been reading the American economy's (and President Bush's) glass half empty; he has it from good authority, as well as his own observations. I would suspect the economy to be of no advantage to John Kerry in the November election for three reasons.

First and foremost, the public appraisal of the today's economy is astronomically higher than that of 1992, the quintessential market-driven election. The Los Angeles Times ran polls "at various points during 1991 and 1992" revealing that a staggering 9 out of 10 respondents believed the economy was in recession. Who could forget the ubiquitous "WILL WORK FOR FOOD" photograph? There's also a hidden political equation to this November. A good deal of Ohioans blame Columbus, not Washington, for our ho-hum market. Not many were happy with recent tax hikes. Even if a voter is pessimistic, will he necessarily pull the presidential lever for a man who will undoubtedly raise his taxes? Bill Clinton managed to lie through his teeth; it's a thing he does quite well. John Kerry seems not so well accomplished.

Second, the Federal Reserve has made an excellent case as to why the economy will muscle through everything from shifting workplace definitions to temporary resource fluctuations — like the present worry over oil. The Wall Street Journal paper had an excellent commentary piece yesterday entitled "Greenspan Nation" — whose authors escape me at the moment — about the changing and globalizing economy, and how a change in perspective is all that is necessary to see the expansion. That's not a complete argument, no, but my point is this: it suggests a very good chance for all the politically unhelpful numbers to come back in line with the ones that have remained stable all along, giving President Bush complete control of the issue.

Third, even if that August payroll report following the Republican National Convention is less than stellar, it will not resonate. The national conversation will not be about domestic politics. There's one word to it — Iran. But that's for the follow-up I mentioned earlier.

(Note: Made some corrections to the addendum when I realized I was trying to make an extraneous point.)

Refraction

For the latest in Najaf and other places in Iraq — including a warning to wait until information becomes available before jumping to conclusions — Belmont Club is this morning's required reading.

IT GOES ON: News reports are chortling about roughly two hundredths of one percent of Iraq's population in arms over the Allied-Iraqi offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr and his armed gangs. Facts emerging from other reports, however, indicate that regardless of what ratched-down tactics used by joint forces, "80 percent" of Najaf is free of Mahdi thugs, Allied casualties have been extremely low while enemy loss of life high, and the Imam Ali Shrine remains surrounded.

NO NEGOTIATIONS, EXCEPT FOR NEGOTIATIONS: Diminishing al-Sadr in May succeeded in demonstrating that mainstream Iraqis had no interest in his violent mayhem. With the threat of civil war nonexistent, the Mahdi gangs simply represent a threat to the Iraqi government. So why the resuscitation? Zeyad is not happy, and hardly the only one. The only benefit I can see — very typically, too — is that it works into a strategy about which I read this morning: the Bush administration has decided to keep al-Sadr in a box but refrain from killing him, recognizing that an equally opportunistic twerp will take the phony cleric's place. Instead the Allies will concentrate on the source of destabilization. And that source is Iran. I would prefer to see Najaf free of Iranian-backed thugs today. But those who see the larger picture may be planning differently because of it.

Aides sans Sens

Cheryl Benard, writing in today's Wall Street Journal about NGO Doctors Without Borders' abrupt departure from Afghanistan:

Leaving Afghanistan is no solution. It postpones [Doctors Without Borders]'s dilemma but does not resolve it.

The new generation of terrorists does not spare unarmed humanitarians. They do not leave clinics, school and other benign civilian projects untouched: They destroy them especially, because they want civilians to suffer and reconstruction to fail. Fear and backwardness are a kingdom they can rule; healthy, secure and posperous populations have no use for them. This means that humanitarian aid workers are not neutral in the eyes of terrorists; rather, because they work to make things better, they represent a threat.

Terrorists reach far beneath humanity in killing whatever slights them but Benard draws too thick a line if she thinks despots are really much different. How can a paradigm be made when the modern non-governmental organization is less than a century old? If the relationship of master and slave is disrupted, outsiders, however benign, are in peril; that's a paradigm. As technology pushes totalitarians to greater lengths in keeping societies closed, external influence can only become less and less welcome.

I've always doubted the wisdom of missionaries or humanitarians entering dictatorships to help an impoverished people while respecting the standing political order, instead of ending suffering permanently and definitively by lobbying for democratic military action to eliminate a totalitarian regime, the authors of repression. Too often, these groups oppose such efforts for a host of reasons — none of them very logically sound or morally attractive — and react in utter shock when their ward of neutrality is murderously violated. NGOs aren't the only ones skirting death. An ominous prediction, one that no one wants to see come true, is that Islamists will aim to kill journalists and cameramen as readily as they would our soldiers if global news coverage ceases to flatter their vanity.

We know what Churchill said about appeasement: but feeding the alligator doesn't necessarily spare you from being eaten first anyway.

By Sea

Heroism and success in Iraq:

Joint Iraqi Police Service, Iraqi National Guard, and U.S. Special Forces operations in Al Kut, Aug. 11, against Mehdi Militiamen may have broken the back of anti-Iraqi forces in the city, according to the city's governor.

...The fighting culminated in one area when Iraqi guardsmen and police launched an assault across the Tigris River in a small boat under machinegun fire and retook a key bridge in the city. Iraqi forces continue to hold the bridge.

...One MNF serviceman was reported injured in the fight and evacuated after briefly returning to the action. Iraqi forces were fighting side-by-side with the MNF forces in the area.

The Iraqis are learning — they'll be able to protect the country by themselves soon enough.

UNPOPULAR UPRISING: Mohammed: "Everyone here is waiting for the final attack and the end of this crisis. Most people I met are waiting for the moment when they can see Muqtada and his deputies in handcuffs, those criminals have been given a chance they didn't deserve in the first place."

Pincer

It has begun:

Thousands of U.S. troops and Iraqi soldiers launched a major assault Thursday on militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric in Najaf, with explosions and gunfire echoing around the holy city's revered Imam Ali shrine and its vast cemetery.

..."Major operations to destroy the militia have begun," said U.S. Marine Maj. David Holahan, executive officer of the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment. He said thousands of U.S. troops were taking part.

Action is taking place in Kufa, as well. The Imam Ali and Kufa Mosques will not be targeted, but rather surrounded. Pay attention to Central Command; the Western media will likely continue to plod through its misconceptions. Zeyad, thankfully, dispels some of the Western myths surrounding Shiite order. Is it too much to suggest that people who tolerate the use of their shrine as a command center and weapons depot for men who intimidate, kidnap, torture and kill the local population — and yet would be "enraged" if its threshold were crossed by troops come to free the population of fear — are phony Muslims?

Let's look forward to total victory. Remember: this is the final stage of a proxy war against Iran, by whom Muqtada al-Sadr's street thugs and foreign fighters are bought and paid for. Iraqis want al-Sadr out — for their new lives to truly begin.

GOOD NEWS, BAD REPORTING: I meant what I said about sticking to Central Command. I've already found one Canadian report completely misinterpreting of the Marines' and Iraqis' intention to avoid the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, calling it a "halt of operations." Sorry, no. Centcom chastised agencies for incorrectly reporting a mass exodus from Najaf when there has been none, and added information that most journalists have missed: Mahdi thugs are firing at whatever moves from inside Imam Ali, including innocent Iraqis. So much for popularity. A Reuters report threw up a slightly misleading headline, all based on the accounts of "witnesses." Finally, the "Arab street" spectre is in full illumination, a return of the turnip ghost we haven't seen since major military operations in March and April of 2003. As I said above: anyone who accepts outlaws and Islamists terrorizing neighborhoods, making a fuss only when they're brought to justice, is a brittle hypocrite. Or a Near Easterner whose totalitarian government is doing the talking for him.

Can we agree that combat operations are going to be inherently confusing, and that initial appearances will be deceptive if taken out of the larger context of operations? Most press agencies won't, and that is pathetic. The trick is to find reports with the least amount of editorial-weeding necessary: the Washington Times, Telegraph and John Burns of the New York Times should be passable.

Grand Old Evening

A doubly good evening of Republican-rich activities. Arriving home from a door literature drop for Ohio State Senator Bob Spada, I discovered that cinema ne'erdowell Dennis Hopper is a supporter of President Bush, among other erstwhile denizens of the left — something that should cause much chagrin at ABC News' The Note, who tried to claim otherwise earlier today.

While walking in a nearby neighborhood, I approached a woman mowing her lawn. Now these situations can flip like a coin — some people are good stewards and happily take a moment of their time to greet a stranger, while others would be rather be left alone. She was of the first kind.

I bellowed my lines, full use of the diaphragm, over the din of her mower. Walking door-to-door. State Senator Spada. Literature, in case she'd like to know more. He'd appreciate her consideration and support.

She took the literature, giving it a look, turning back to me and then to the paper for a second time. She squinted, looking up. "Democrat or Republican?"

"He's a Republican." Loudly and proudly.

"Good," she beamed, kicked the mower into full throttle and took off at the grass again.

Have You Tweaked the Left Today?

If you haven't, Kevin O'Brien already picked up the slack.

'Going it Alone' and Other Tall Tales by John F. Kerry

Fact: rhetoric runs at the sight of it. Central Command has even provided an easy-to-understand, eagle-shaped depiction of the allied combine.

The Last Hurrah?

Muqtada al-Sadr's thugs may be enjoying face-time in the Western media but reports suggest that exhiliration will be short-lived. From Reuters:

"Iraqi and U.S. forces are making final preparations as we get ready to finish this fight that the Moqtada (al-Sadr) militia started, " Col. Anthony M. Haslam, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Najaf, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The desired end state is one of stability and security, where the citizens of Najaf do not live in fear of violence or kidnappings, and where the city of Najaf can once again return to peace and prosperity," the statement quoted the officer as saying.

Some observers are declaring the May settlement with al-Sadr, made after over a thousand of his gang lay dead, a failure in light of renewed activity in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, Najaf and some selected locales in the south of Iraq. Fears in April and May, however, focused on a popular response to al-Sadr's insurrection that would transformit from an armed band of street urchin and foreign terrorists into an uprising, convicting the Allied effort in democratizing Iraq's society of abject failure. That uprising did not happen. Quite the contrary, Iraq's people — from the humble to the religious to the political — stood against Muqtada al-Sadr and the world witnessed how even an infant democratic society could shame a villain into hiding. Iraqis won a cultural victory alongside the American military one; indeed, from the sound of them recently, their frustration is directed at al-Sadr's brazen, if suicidal, defiance. The matter of whether Iraqis wanted to be gun-toting savages or not has been decided — they do not. The question now is how long they will tolerate the hand of tyrants in their own affairs. If Iraq's democratic bloggers are any indication of the public mood and the military's inclination to follow accordingly, al-Sadr is a dead man.

READ, NOW: Via Glenn Reynolds, a masterful confirmation of the news reports above. Find out what the Mahdi scum-of-the-earth have been up to — and to which carnal, superheated, pitchfork-populated locale many of them will soon be sent First Class.

SIGNS: Craig Brett looks back at the Ayatollah al-Sistani's unlikely trip to London as the key to the Allies' seriousness in removing Muqtada al-Sadr.

Bad Faith

Iran is the holed-up outlaw who just demanded a posse of ten come out with their hands up. But why shouldn't the mullahs pull diplomatic stunts, when Europe looks and plays like a violin?

American Chesed

Winning the war: in the fine tradition of Steven Den Beste, Stephen Green published a late-summer strategic assessment today; Jeff Medcalf has just submitted his.

I wrote my own last year, one that is much broader in scope, more like a manifesto — one that looks beyond the current struggle to prepare for the first day after this war is won. It's still relevant, drawing from a singular belief that "the absence of freedom is a foothold for evil."

Mending Wall Street

Every time investors have suspected the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year, the stock market has dropped like a brick. Not today, when each major index wiped out half of its loss from last week's dip, which may say something for the trade's unpredictability. Or something else:

U.S. stocks rose after the Federal Reserve said economic growth is poised to accelerate and reiterated its plan to boost borrowing costs at a "measured'' pace to contain inflation.

"The Fed statement basically solidifies their confidence in the economy,'' said Seth Tobias, who runs Circle T Partners, a $400 million New York hedge fund. "They think this soft patch will be brief, and they'll continue to be diligent in weighing inflation against growth. And the stock market ought to take a positive cue from that.''

And partisans, eager to sow economic doubt for political gain, ought to shut their mouths — and invest.

The Right Revolution

Counterculture: it's all a matter of perspective. (Via the Corner.)