A Real Reporter

I have mentioned Michael Yon in previous post and he continues to provide incredible on the ground reports out of Iraq.

Combat comes unexpectedly, even in war.

On Monday, while conducting operations in west Mosul, a voice came over the radio saying troops from our brother unit, the 3-21, were fighting with the enemy in east Mosul on the opposite side of the Tigris River. Moments later, SSG Will Shockley relayed word to us that an American soldier was dead. We began searching for the shooters near one of the bridges on our side of the Tigris, but they got away. Jose L. Ruiz was killed in action.

Although the situation in Mosul is better, our troops still fight here every day. This may not be the war some folks had in mind a few years ago. But once the shooting starts, a plan is just a guess in a party dress.

Take a few minutes to read some of his post. You won't be disappointed.

Party of Values

Democrats have been known to ask "How did a party that is filled with people with values get tagged as the party without values?"

I will attempt to answer.

First let me make something very clear. I do agree that the democrat party is mostly comprised of people with values. Therefore much of what follows applies to the party leadership and not the vast majority of party members.

1) Most Americans understand that Michael Moore is a first rate propagandist who considers the United States to be the focus of evil in the world. Yet the Democrat Party gives him an honored seat during the Democrat Convention.

2) Most Americans, democrats included, know that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are professional race hustlers. Yet these two are heroes in the Democratic Party. The rest of us are offended and tired of constantly being called racist and bigots.

3) Most Americans love a good movie and appreciate talented actors. They also would prefer that actors keep their stupid political opinions to themselves. Yet the Democrat Party embraces the likes of Sean Penn and Whoopi “foul mouth” Goldberg. So why should millions of Americans not naturally assume that the Democrat Party shares Hollywood's values.

4) Most Americans understand the need for a strong military. Yet the Democrat Party would have us believe that the UN could do a better job protecting our freedom. At best they consider any military as a necessary evil.

5) The vast majority of Americans are sickened by partial-birth abortion yet most Democrats have repeatedly voted against a ban.

I could go own but I think you get the point. Let me also stress once more that these points are aimed at the Democrat Party leadership and not the average party member.

So it Continues

No good deed goes unpunished.

Israel unconditionally surrenders Gaza to the Palestinians. Here is the thanks they get.

Twenty-one people were wounded Sunday, two seriously, in a suicide bombing at a central bus station in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba, Israeli officials said.

I thank God that the only one to die was the bomber. I'll lose no sleep over him.

Hurricane Katrina

It's looking very bad for New Orleans.

Estimates have been made of tens of thousands of deaths from flooding that could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a 30-foot-deep toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, and waste from ruined septic systems.

I hope the estimates are wrong.

Israel's Reward

This is Israels reward for pulling out of Gaza.

Mohammed Deif praised Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for armed resistance, rejected calls for his group to disarm, and vowed to continue attacks on Israel until the Jewish state is erased from the map.

As predicted here and here this is only the beginning.

Here's a thought experiment. What if Israel had decided to return Gaza to the Egyptians? After all it was Egyptian territory prior to the 1967 war. Would the Palestinians still demand Gaza as part of a new Palestinian state? I seriously doubt the Egytians would want Gaza back even if the Israelis made the offer.

The so-called Palestinians are far more interested in murdering Israelis than having a state. I've asked this question before but it's worth asking again. Does anyone really believe that a Palestinian state would be anything other than a terrorist state?

Prepare to witness the bloodiest intifada yet.

Bring on the Lawyers

Global warming is no longer a scientific issue. It's now for a jury to decide.

A federal judge here said environmental groups and four U.S. cities can sue federal development agencies on allegations the overseas projects they financially back contribute to global warming.

The decision Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White is the first to say that groups alleging global warming have a right to sue.

The keyword is "alleging".

Thoughts on the War

This post from Power Line offers some wise insights into the war in Iraq.

The sins of the news media in reporting on Iraq are mainly sins of omission. Not only do news outlets generally fail to report the progress that is being made, and often fail to put military operations into any kind of tactical or strategic perspective, they assiduously avoid talking about the overarching strategic reason for our involvement there: the Bush administration's conviction that the only way to solve the problem of Islamic terrorism, long term, is to help liberate the Arab countries so that their peoples' energies will be channelled into the peaceful pursuits of free enterprise and democracy, rather than into bizarre ideologies and terrorism.

Even if you disagree with the war there is no argument with this assessment of the media coverage.

Maybe WWII should have been reported this way.

One wonders how past wars could have been fought if news reporting had consisted almost entirely of a recitation of casualties. The D-Day invasion was one of the greatest organizational feats ever achieved by human beings, and one of the most successful. But what if the only news Americans had gotten about the invasion was that 2,500 allied soldiers died that day, with no discussion of whether the invasion was a success or a failure, and no acknowledgement of the huge strategic stakes that were involved? Or what if such news coverage had continued, day by day, through the entire Battle of Normandy, with Americans having no idea whether the battle was being won or lost, but knowing only that 54,000 Allied troops had been killed by the Germans?

How about the Battle of Midway, one of the most one-sided and strategically significant battles of world history? What if there had been no "triumphalism"--that dreaded word--in the American media's reporting on the battle, and Americans had learned only that 307 Americans died--never mind that the Japanese lost more than ten times that many--without being told the decisive significance of the engagement?

Or take Iwo Jima, the iconic Marine Corps battle. If Americans knew only that nearly 7,000 Marines lost their lives there, with no context, no strategy, and only sporadic acknowledgement of the heroism that accompanied those thousands of deaths, would the American people have continued the virtually unanimous support for our country, our soldiers and our government that characterized World War II?

Go read the rest of the post.

C.A.I.R

Some things we should all know about CAIR can be found here.

A Few Questions

If Bush lied about WMD's in Iraq, how did he know something that every intelligence agency in the world didn't know?

Why does the UN spend time pointing out the so-called evils of Israel, a country smaller than Belize, but doesn't seem to give a rip about real evil in the rest of the world?

Does anyone really believe that a Palestinian state would be anything other than a terrorist state?

How does Cindy Sheehan's actions give meaning to her son's life and sacrifice?

Why do we not secure our borders?

Why do some say health care is unaffordable but the same folks tell us health care along with a massive government bureaucracy is the solution?

Frisco Rejects USS Iowa

I found this hard to believe.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the Bay Area in 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its new home.

But city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the ship, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on gays, among other things.

"If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.

Feinstein called it a "very petty decision."

Somebody needs to inform Feinstein that this decision is many things, but "petty" is not a word I would use to describe such non-sense. Mind-numbingly unamerican might be a better term to use. How does opposition to the war in Iraq motivate someone to reject such an important piece of American history? Obviously eight of the city supervisors have a very mature hate-america mentality.

"This isn't the San Francisco that I've known and loved and grew up in and was born in," Feinstein said.

Yes it is Senator. This is what San Francisco has become and it's been this way for a long time. The city supervisors believe their opinions on current events to be more important than the heritage of our great nation.

At least someone will benefit from this contemptuos behaviour.

Officials in Stockton couldn't be happier. They've offered a dock on the river, a 90,000-square-foot waterfront building and a parking area, and hope to attract at least 125,000 annual visitors.
...
San Francisco's rejection of such a storied battleship is a slap in the nation's face, said Douglass Wilhoit, head of Stockton's Chamber of Commerce.

"We're lucky our men and women have sacrificed their lives ... to protect our freedom," Wilhoit said. "Wherever you stand on the war in Iraq ... you shouldn't make a decision based on philosophy."

Next time I'm in the bay area I'll bypass Frisco and visit the USS Iowa in Stockton.

Great Raid

I just saw the Great Raid. If you haven't seen it, go see it. Right now.

If it's not the best movie I have ever seen it is surely in the top five.

I'm not joking.

Anti-Semitic UN

I found this interesting and disturbing.

The United Nations bankrolled the production of thousands of banners, bumper stickers, mugs, and T-shirts bearing the slogan "Today Gaza and Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem," which have been widely distributed to Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip, according to a U.N. official.

The So-called Palestinians will not be satisfied until the Jews are completely out of the middle-east. And the UN is more than happy to help.

A special representative of the United Nations Development Program in the Gaza Strip, Timothy Rothermel, told Fox News that his office provided financial support for the production of materials that make up the Palestinian Authority's propaganda campaign, timed to coincide with the Gaza pullout. The Palestinian Authority's withdrawal committee developed and produced the posters and other items using U.N. money, Mr. Rothermel said.

...

Asked by a Fox News correspondent about one of the banners bearing the words implying an impending Palestinian Arab takeover of the disputed areas, Mr. Rothermel, said, "That particular poster was prepared by the disengagement office with financial support from the United Nations Development Program."

Apparently it is part of the UN agenda to get Israel out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Mr. Rothermel, in the Fox News interview, argued that the slogan, which predicts an Israeli disengagement from the West Bank and, presumably, East Jerusalem, is a message that is "consistent with the relevant U.N. resolutions and Security Council resolutions about the status of Palestine."

Someone please tell me why we're in the UN.

12 Steps

Here is a 12 step program to cure one of liberalism.

Infidel

According to this post muslim extremist do not interpret "innocent lives" the way most of us normally would.

Non-Muslims can be forgiven if they assume the reference to "innocent lives" includes those traveling on the Underground and bus lines in London earlier in the month.

So when the clerics issue a fatwa condeming the killing of innocents they are not refering to non-muslims, at least according to the islamist.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, the sect's leader, who publicly condemned the deaths of "innocents," but at the Selby Centre in Wood Green, north London, on July 22 referred to the 7/7 bombers as the "fantastic four" and explained that his grief for the "innocent" applied only to Muslims. "Yes I condemn killing any innocent people, but not any kuffar."

Kuffar is another word for infidel.

The fatwas are meaningless.

Carter the Fabulist

George will expounds on one of my favorites subjects, Jimmy Carter.

A quarter of a century has passed since 44 states said "No, thanks" to Jimmy Carter's offer to serve a second term,

My previous post on Carter will give you an idea about my opinion of the man.

George Will shows us that Carter has not changed. The ex-president has repeatedly accused Will of sabotaging the Carter-Reagan debates.

According to Carter:

Ronald Reagan won because he won the only debate. He won it not because of Carter's debate performance ("I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day, before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry . . .") but only because Reagan had Carter's briefing book. And Reagan had it because this columnist gave it to him.

That's it. A single debate and Carter loses 489 to 49.

Will's responce:

That last accusation, for which there is no evidence, is, as he has been told, false. But he is a recidivist fibber.

Carter sticks with his story regardless of the facts.

Last Oct. 21, on National Public Radio, he said: "We found out later that one of Ronald Reagan's supporters inside the White House had stolen my briefing book, my top-secret briefing book that prepared me for the debate. And a very prominent news reporter was the one who took the briefing book to Ronald Reagan and helped drill him on the things that I might say if he said certain things." Asked who that reporter was, Carter replied, "It was George Will, and it was later known that he did that."

This is typical Carter. He didn't lose the election because of his disastrous Presidency. It's because that rascally George Will stole his playbook.

Will gives us the real story.

Regarding your briefing book, I will tell you what I have told many others. When I got to David Stockman's house on the day he was preparing to play the role of you in the debate preparations, he had on his kitchen table what I gather was the briefing book. I do not know how he got it; more to the point, I do not know who thought having it would be helpful. Frankly, you deserved better. My cursory glance at it convinced me that it was a crashing bore and next to useless -- for you, or for anyone else

I had to laugh when I read that.

Peter Jennings 1938 - 2005

Peter Jennings has lost his battle with lung cancer. The story is here.

Netanyahu Resigns

Binyamin Netanyahu officially resigned his post at the ministry of the treasury in Israel. I had discussed some of his concerns about the pullout of Gaza in a previous post. It looks like these concerns were the prime motivation for his resignation.

To my sorrow, the security fence has not been completed around the settlement blocs, the Philadelphi Corridor will be handed over to the Palestinians, and worse than that, we will allow the Palestinians to open a sea port that will be open to the terror boats.

To my disappointment, the Government ignores reality. As I warned, the Hamas is strengthening, the terror continues, the firing of rockets and mortars on our communities has not ended, and terror elements proclaim that they will move the rockets that drove us out of the Gaza Strip to Judea and Samaria, and from there will operate them until "the complete liberation of Palestine."

This is worse than Oslo. Why the continued rewarding of terrorist? Their strategy of murdering innocents to get what they want brings their desired results. And some still beleive that rewarding terrorist will stop terrorism. Unbelievable.

Netanyahu makes a prediction on what the results of the Gaza pullout will be.

I do not know when the terror will break out in full force. It is possible that it will take a month or two or a year or two. It is possible that the terror will first break out in Judea and Samaria. I hope that it won't break out at all. But just as I warned in 1993 that the Oslo Agreement will bring attacks from Judea and Samaria and rockets from Gaza, so I unfortunately am convinced today that the current move will bring in the course of time to an increase in terror rather than a decrease. As you know full well, security officials also confirm that in the wake of the unilateral withdrawal they expect an increase in terror in the mid-run.

In summary: it is becoming increasingly clear that the unilateral withdrawal under fire doesn't give us anything. The opposite; it endangers the security of Israel, divides the Nation, and sets the principle of withdrawal to the '67 lines that are not defendable.

This is not the way to achieve peace.

I concur.

Hiroshima

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Victor Davis Hanson's latest article offers some interesting analysis.

As it was, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Tojo’s followers capitulated only through the intervention of the emperor. And it was not altogether clear even then that Japanese fanatics would not attack the Americans as they steamed into Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremonies.

The radical militarist generals that had taken over control of Japan considered the fire-bombing of Tokyo worse than the a-bombing of Hiroshima. Based on nothing but the death toll they were right. The militarist concluded that the destruction was "tolerable" and that Japan should prepare for an American invasion. If the Emporer had not surrendered via a public radio address the militarist would have never surrendered.

If Saipan and Okinawa are examples of Japanese resistance, and there is no reason to assume otherwise, the destruction of Japan would have been far worse and the number of dead Americans would have been enormous.

But in August 1945 most Americans had a much different take on Hiroshima, a decision that cannot be fathomed without appreciation of the recently concluded Okinawa campaign (April 1-July 2) that had cost 50,000 American casualties and 200,000 Japanese and Okinawa dead. Okinawa saw the worst losses in the history of the U.S. Navy. Over 300 ships were damaged, more than 30 sunk, as about 5,000 sailors perished under a barrage of some 2,000 Kamikaze attacks.

And it was believed at least 10,000 more suicide planes were waiting on Kyushu and Honshu.

The bombing of Hiroshima was horrible but the alternatives were worse beyond comparison.

In some sense, Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only helped to cut short the week-long Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria (80,000 Japanese soldiers killed, over 8,000 Russian dead), but an even more ambitious incendiary campaign planned by Gen. Curtis LeMay. With the far shorter missions possible from planned new bases in Okinawa and his fleet vastly augmented by more B-29s and the transference from Europe of thousands of idle B-17s and B-24, the ‘mad bomber’ LeMay envisioned burning down the entire urban and industrial landscape of Japan.

Some militarist tried to stop the Emperor from delivering his radio address. Had they succeeded the destruction of Japan would have been complete.

I Missed Something

Does it make sense that we would go to the trouble of toppling two terror supporting governments and then encourage the establishment of a new base of operations for terrorist?

I am referring to the Israelis pullout in Gaza. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had several things to say.

Gaza will be transformed into a base for Islamic terrorism adjacent to the coast of the State of Isreal.

This it isn't just our problem,

It's the West's problem as well because forces that are controlled, deployed and cooperate with Iran - and today Hizbullah and Hamas are controlled in a significant way by Iran - will receive an additional base of operations not only in close proximity to Israel's cities but also on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea not far from Europe.

Netanyahu makes a point that had not previously occurred to me. But a Mediterranean coastal base of operations does provide a great benefit to terrorist. And they will take advantage of this benefit. So why is Israel pulling out and why did the Bush administration lean on Israel to pull out?

What did I miss?

RIP

This is the final resting place of Matthew Ryan Stovall.



He faithfully served his country and made the supreme sacrifice. He will not have died in vain.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. John 15:13

Quagmire

No honest analysis of the the Vietnam War could conclude that the United States suffered a military defeat. We abandoned the cause and handed the South Vietnamese over to the communist because of domestic political turmoil. The radicals won the day and the communist quenched their thirst for blood. There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 than during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. Thank you Noam Chomsky and all your brethren.

I bring this up because of the nonsense I hear from the left. They say that Iraq has become another Vietnam and we should get out. I say the only way Iraq could become another Vietnam is if we, yet again, "abandoned the cause" and handed the Iraqis over to the vampires. Please, let's not make that mistake again.

Voter Fraud

A group calling itself the American Center for Voting Rights (ac4vr) has released a report detailing voter fraud in the 2004 presidential election.

The Captain has some enlightening comments on the subject.

Be sure to read through all the details of the report. It takes a comprehensive view of all the so-called "irregularities" of the 2004 election and makes minced meat of Democratic claims of victimhood. It will not change any minds among the True Believers, but the rational moderates will have this much more information with which to judge the vanishing credibility of Democratic leadership.

I haven't read the report so I won't comment.

Nuclear Iran

Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post reports on Irans progress in aquiring nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile we have this quote from Iranian President-Elect Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad.

We want art that is on the offensive. Art on the offensive exalts and defends the noble principles, and attacks principles that are corrupt, vulgar, ungodly, and inhuman.

Art reaches perfection when it portrays the best life and best death. After all, art tells you how to live. That is the essence of art. Is there art that is more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom? A nation with martyrdom knows no captivity. Those who wish to undermine this principle undermine the foundations of our independence and national security. They undermine the foundation of our eternity.

The message of the (Islamic) Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. It is a human message, and it will move forward.

Have no doubt... Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.

Some say we are not at war. I wonder what they're taking?

Update: Mcq at Q & O has some serious doubts about the timeline of the WaPo report.

So excuse me if I take this assessment with a grain of salt. It seems to me to be fashioned to support a competing alternate view of the state of the nuclear program in Iran within the intelligence community, and frankly, based on the WaPo story, it isn't particularly convincing.

Mississippi

As a native of Mississippi I enjoyed reading this article from Paul Harvey.

Mississippi is still burning. Times have changed, but the incendiaries won't quit. Mississippi, statistically, could shame most of our states with its minimal per-capita crime, its cultural maturity and its distinguished alumni. But Mississippi has enough residual gentility of the Old South not to rub our noses in our own comparative inadequacy.

The pack-media could not wait to remake the movie MISSISSIPPI BURNING, into a TV version called, MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI. Thus yet another generation of Americans is indoctrinated with indelible snapshots which are half a century out of date. The very idea that anybody from New York, D.C., Chicago or L. A. could launch stones from those shabby glass houses toward anybody else is patently absurd. Lilliputians have a psychological need to make everybody else appear small and Mississippi, too nice to fight back, is such an easy target.

The International Ballet Competition regularly rotates among four citadels where there is a sufficiency of sophisticated art appreciation: Vama, Bulgaria; Helsinki, Finland; Moscow, Russia and Jackson, Mississippi.

Only Mississippi has a satellite art program in which the State Museum of Art sends exhibits around the state for the enjoyment of smaller communities. No state can point to a richer per capita contribution to arts and letters. William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Walker Percy, Ellen Douglas, Willie Morris, Margaret Walker Alexander, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Harris (Silence of the Lambs) and John Grisham are Mississippians.

As are Leontyne Price, Elvis Presley, Tammy Wynette, B. B. King, Jimmy Rogers, Oprah Winfrey, and Jimmy Buffett.

Scenery? The Nachez Trace is the second most traveled parkway in our nation. With magnolia and dogwood, stately pines and moss-draped oaks, Mississippi is in bloom all year 'round. And the state stays busy---manufacturing more upholstered furniture than any state; testing space shuttle engines for NASA; and building rocket motors.

Much of our nation's most monumental medical progress has roots in Mississippi. The first heart transplant in 1964. The first lung transplant in 1963. The most widely used medical textbook in the world, THE TEXTBOOK OF MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY, reprinted in ten languages, was authored by Dr. Arthur Guyton of the University of Mississippi.

The "Case Method" of practicing law, the basis of the United States legal system, was developed at the University of Mississippi.

Nationally, educators are chewing their fingernails up past the second knuckle anxious about the disgraceful rate of dropouts and illiterate graduates. In Mississippi, the state government and two philanthropic organizations have teamed up to put a computer-based literacy program in every elementary school in the state. Maybe Mississippi is right to downplay its opportunities, advantages and refinement. The ill-mannered rest of us, converging, would surely mess it up.

This is Paul Harvey...Good Day.

Thank you Mr. Harvey and good day to you also.