Our Fallout-Shelter Future
We’ll be back to duck and cover if we don’t stop Iran first…

By Stanley Kurtz

American politics is about to undergo a sea change. Our lives are going to be transformed on a more personal level as well. Sometime between now and five-to-ten years from now we’re going to be forced to choose between preemptive war with Iran, and living in a post-proliferation world. War with Iran will probably mean casualties on American soil. Iran has likely placed terrorist agents in the United States, with instructions to retaliate against civilian targets in the event of war. We’ll also likely see attacks on Persian Gulf oil shipments, and therefore a huge spike in the price of gasoline, with major economic consequences.

 
But what if there is no preemptive strike? What if Iran gets the bomb? (I find it tough to credit the notion that a negotiated agreement with Iran can prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. At any rate, only an imminent American military strike would have any hope of generating a verifiable bargain.) An extraordinary new article by Stephen Peter Rosen, “After Proliferation: What to Do if More States Go Nuclear,” makes it obvious that our lives and our politics are going to change dramatically in a post-proliferation world. So either we go to war with Iran — likely a more costly war than any we’ve faced since 9/11 — or our lives will transform forever. To see what I mean, let’s take a tour of Rosen’s remarkable argument.

Who Hit Me?
Rosen begins by sidestepping (or seeming to sidestep) the controversy between hawkish proliferation pessimists and dovish proliferation optimists. Proliferation pessimists (like yours truly) see only a limited chance of averting disaster if states like Iran get the bomb. For hawkish proliferation pessimists, tough action in the present is our last, best chance to keep the dangerous nuclear genie corked-up in his bottle.

Proliferation optimists, on the other hand, see reasons for hope in the record of nuclear peace during the Cold War. While granting the risks, proliferation optimists point out that the very horror of the nuclear option tends, in practice, to keep the peace. Without choosing between hawkish proliferation pessimists and dovish proliferation optimists, Rosen simply asks how we ought to act in a post-proliferation world.

Rosen assumes (rightly I believe) that proliferation is unlikely to stop with Iran. Once Iran gets the bomb, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are likely to develop their own nuclear weapons, for self-protection, and so as not to allow Iran to take de facto cultural-political control of the Muslim world. (I think you’ve got to at least add Egypt to this list.) With three, four, or more nuclear states in the Muslim Middle East, what becomes of deterrence?

A key to deterrence during the Cold War was our ability to know who had hit whom. With a small number of geographically separated nuclear states, and with the big opponents training satellites and specialized advance-guard radar emplacements on each other, it was relatively easy to know where a missile had come from. But what if a nuclear missile is launched at the United States from somewhere in a fully nuclearized Middle East, in the middle of a war in which, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran are already lobbing conventional missiles at one another? Would we know who had attacked us? Could we actually drop a retaliatory nuclear bomb on someone without being absolutely certain? And as Rosen asks, What if the nuclear blow was delivered against us by an airplane or a cruise missile? It might be almost impossible to trace the attack back to its source with certainty, especially in the midst of an ongoing conventional conflict.

More Terror
We’re familiar with the horror scenario of a Muslim state passing a nuclear bomb to terrorists for use against an American city. But imagine the same scenario in a multi-polar Muslim nuclear world. With several Muslim countries in possession of the bomb, it would be extremely difficult to trace the state source of a nuclear terror strike. In fact, this very difficulty would encourage states (or ill-controlled elements within nuclear states — like Pakistan’s intelligence services or Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) to pass nukes to terrorists. The tougher it is to trace the source of a weapon, the easier it is to give the weapon away. In short, nuclear proliferation to multiple Muslim states greatly increases the chances of a nuclear terror strike.

Right now, the Indians and Pakistanis “enjoy” an apparently stable nuclear stand-off. Both countries have established basic deterrence, channels of communication, and have also eschewed a potentially destabilizing nuclear arms race. Attacks by Kashmiri militants in 2001 may have pushed India and Pakistan close to the nuclear brink. Yet since then, precisely because of the danger, the two countries seem to have established a clear, deterrence-based understanding. The 2001 crisis gives fuel to proliferation pessimists, while the current stability encourages proliferation optimists. Rosen points out, however, that a multi-polar nuclear Middle East is unlikely to follow the South Asian model.

Deep mutual suspicion between an expansionist, apocalyptic, Shiite Iran, secular Turkey, and the Sunni Saudis and Egyptians (not to mention Israel) is likely to fuel a dangerous multi-pronged nuclear arms race. Larger arsenals mean more chance of a weapon being slipped to terrorists. The collapse of the world’s non-proliferation regime also raises the chances that nuclearization will spread to Asian powers like Taiwan and Japan.

And of course, possession of nuclear weapons is likely to embolden Iran, especially in the transitional period before the Saudis develop weapons of their own. Like Saddam, Iran may be tempted to take control of Kuwait’s oil wealth, on the assumption that the United States will not dare risk a nuclear confrontation by escalating the conflict. If the proliferation optimists are right, then once the Saudis get nukes, Iran would be far less likely to make a move on nearby Kuwait. On the other hand, to the extent that we do see conventional war in a nuclearized Middle East, the losers will be sorely tempted to cancel out their defeat with a nuclear strike. There may have been nuclear peace during the Cold War, but there were also many “hot” proxy wars. If conventional wars break out in a nuclearized Middle East, it may be very difficult to stop them from escalating into nuclear confrontations.

Duck!
What would life be like in such a world? Rosen argues that we must lose no time in constructing a specialized radar and satellite warning network trained on the Middle East. Without knowing who’s sending missiles against us, we cannot strike back or deter. Rosen also argues that even a somewhat leaky anti-missile defense system is going to be a must. A star-wars-type missile-defense system may have seemed powerless against the massive might of the old Soviet nuclear force. But against a growing nuclear power with a small arsenal, or against Islamic radicals who manage to commandeer an isolated nuclear-armed missile, an anti-missile defense could make a real difference.

This leads us to what may be Rosen’s most striking recommendation. “Duck and cover” is back! In a post-proliferation world, we are going to be raising another generation of children (probably several generations of children) marked by nerve-wracking “retention drills.” And get ready...the fallout shelter is coming back, too. Given the Soviets’ overwhelmingly large nuclear arsenal — capable of turning the entire United States to dust in the event of a major nuclear exchange — fallout shelters came to seem like a joke. But when dealing with a possible strike from a single weapon, or at most a mere handful of weapons, the logic of the fallout shelter is compelling. We’re going to need to be able to evacuate our cities in the event of a direct attack, or to avoid radiation plumes from cities that have already been struck. Tens or hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved by such measures.

But what about the problem of retaliation? Is there a middle way between the seemingly intolerable option of doing nothing to respond to a nuclear strike on New York or Washington, and indiscriminate nuclear retaliation against a country that may not even have attacked us? Rosen says the answer is a massive conventional campaign to take over and transform the countries that have struck us. That may seem intolerable now, but the public will demand no less in the wake of a nuclear attack on American soil.

So this is the upshot of Rosen’s remarkable article. Now let’s think through the implications.

Dead Doves
For starters, the dovish Democrats are doomed. In “Hawkish Gloom,” I pointed in broad terms to the imminent hawkification of the United States. Well, Rosen’s detailed account of a post-proliferation world makes it clear that the revitalized George McGovern-Howard Dean wing of the Democratic party cannot survive much past the moment when Iran gets the bomb. As soon as that happens, we’re going to plunged into a proliferation crisis and a new Cold War, at least as dangerous as the first Cold War (arguably more so). At that point, the Democrats are going to beg Joe Lieberman to come back and give them his blessing. It turns out that we really are going to see a purge of the Democratic doves, and the accession of a Truman-like party, although it will probably take quite a few election cycles before the Democrats finally manage to remove taint of their Ned Lamont wing.

Funny how the very thing the doves don’t want — a preemptive strike on Iran, is the only thing that can save them. A nuclear Iran, followed by cascading proliferation throughout the Middle East and beyond, means the death of the dove. Even a negotiated and verifiable agreement to put an end to Iran’s nuclear program is inconceivable without the sort of credible threat of force the doves have made impossible to sustain.

A fully nuclearized, multi-polar Middle East will put us onto a permanent war footing. With Americans building fallout shelters, running evacuation drills, and otherwise preparing for a terrorist nuclear strike, dovishness won’t even be an option. Our political choices will probably be of two types. Exactly how hawkish shall we be, and how shall we shape our alliances?

After Iran gets the bomb, the fantasy that we can handle the post-9/11 world with our tiny military is going to disappear. As Rosen points out, the only middle way between helpless acceptance of nuclear terror and massive nuclear retaliation against countries that may not even have attacked us, is going to be through conventional invasions. Before, and certainly after a nuclear attack (even a terrorist and/or Iranian nuclear strike on Israel or Saudi Arabia), Americans will be forced to raise a large army capable of transforming the Middle East before final Armageddon strikes.

What’s that you say? We tried that in Iraq and it didn’t work. Well, after the bomb goes off, I assure you we’re going to try it again. In fact, you’ll demand that we try it. And with your patience and political support, at that point, who knows, it just may work.

New Arguments
Over and above our political arguments over precisely how much to expand our military (really a lot, or a whole heck of a lot), we’re also going to argue about our alliance strategies. With multiple nuclear powers, there will probably be a lot of shifting coalitions. True, the initial alliances are already evident. In a nuclear Middle East, we will be allied with Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia against Iran. But who knows whether Iran may try to strike a deal with one of the other Muslim states at some point, perhaps cozying up to Saudi Arabia if America puts too much pressure on the House of Saud. Just as America (very imperfectly) peeled Pakistan away from the informal rogue-state coalition after 9/11, shifting alliances between multiple nuclear camps will become a real possibility. American power will no longer command a fully nuclearized world. Instead, we’ll be the first among nuclear equals, jockeying for position against coalitions of powers who collectively may be able to stand us down. In this new world, Ned Lamont and the Daily Kos will be a distant memory.

The most egregious American doves don’t even bother to think out a position on the prospects for deterrence in a post-proliferation world. Implicitly, however, like their realist counterparts, the Howard Dean doves are proliferation optimists. Whether they’ve thought it through or not, their policy preferences require them to believe that a nuclear Iran can be deterred on the model of the Cold War.

Rosen claims to be neutral between the dovish proliferation optimists and the hawkish proliferation pessimists. But the truth is, everything Rosen says inclines us toward pessimism. One after another, Rosen knocks down the pillars of the Cold War deterrence analogy, showing that in a post-proliferation world, the balance of forces will tend toward instability. The lesson is that we face two choices: preemptive war with Iran, or a nightmare world on the brink of nuclear war and nuclear terror for the foreseeable future. Anyway you slice it, the doves are doomed. Unfortunately, so may we be all. Ready or not...duck and cover!

Iran's Day of Terror?

 
Iran's Day of Terror?           
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 27, 2006
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frustrated Western officials by refusing to reply to their offer of various incentives in exchange for Iran’s discarding its nuclear program until August 22. The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months?

Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay. He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”

The Night Journey, or Miraj, is central to Islam’s claim to Jerusalem as an Islamic holy city. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was carried on a Buraq, a miraculous horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven and met the other prophets. The only thing the Qur’an has to say about it is this: “Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque, whose precincts We did bless, in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things)” (17:1). There is no identification of the “farthest Mosque” with any mosque in Jerusalem in this, but the Hadith is very clear on the identification of its location with Jerusalem.

The traditions say that Muhammad and the Buraq, along with the angel Gabriel, went to the Temple Mount, and from there to heaven itself, where Muhammad encountered various prophets. In the sixth heaven was Moses, occasioning a dig at the Jews. “When I left him,” Muhammad says, “he wept. Someone asked him, ‘What makes you weep?’ Moses said, ‘I weep because after me there has been sent (Muhammad as a Prophet) a young man, whose followers will enter Paradise in greater numbers than my followers.’”

Evidently, however, Muhammad’s stories of his journey were not altogether convincing: even some of the Muslims abandoned their faith and challenged Muhammad’s most faithful follower, Abu Bakr, to do the same. Abu Bakr was contemptuous: “If he says so then it is true. And what is so surprising in that? He tells me that communications from God from heaven to earth come to him in an hour of a day or night and I believe him, and that is more extraordinary than that at which you boggle!” The world has continued to witness such unshakeable devotion from Muslims to this day.

Did Muhammad really go anywhere? According to his favorite wife, Aisha, he did not: “The apostle’s body remained where it was but God removed his spirit by night.” Nevertheless, the Night Journey has become firmly embedded in the Islamic consciousness, such that Muslims today celebrate it as one of the central events of Muhammad’s life. And now, according to Ghadry, Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey. What the Iranian President, he says, is “promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.”

Certainly a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand. He hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in his phrasing when he said that Israel “pushed the button of its own destruction” by finally retaliating against Hizballah’s relentless rocket barrage from south Lebanon.

“Arrogant powers,” Ahmadinejad said, “have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region. But today, the occupier regime” – that is, Israel – “whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion, has reached its finishing line.”

Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the Miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem? Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry’s words and move to stop Iran before it is too late?

Torture found rife in China

Torture found rife in China
December 3, 2005
From combined dispatches
BEIJING -- A United Nations rights investigator said yesterday that torture was still widespread in China and accused authorities of trying to obstruct his work on a historic fact-finding mission.
"Torture is on the decline, but it is still widespread," Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special rapporteur on torture, told reporters at the end of his two-week trip.
"There is much that still needs to be done; there is a need for many more structural reforms," said Mr. Nowak, a law professor in Vienna, Austria.
Torture methods he cited include the use of electric-shock batons, cigarette burns, submersion in pits of water or sewage and exposure to conditions of extreme heat or cold.
In Tibet, Mr. Nowak was told that sleep deprivation was frequently used, in one case for 17 days.
The victims were usually "monks and nuns who still uphold their allegiance and support of the Dalai Lama and who are seen as endangering national security because they are often seen as separatists," he said.
Mr. Nowak said Chinese authorities had closely monitored and obstructed his work, which included interviews conducted in Beijing as well as in the restive regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.
"There was frequent surveillance of my interviews that I had outside prison with victims' family members," Mr. Nowak said.
He and his team were not allowed to bring photographic and electronic equipment into the prisons and their visits to correctional facilities were limited to the working hours of the staff.
"As the authorities were generally announced an hour in advance, the visits could not be considered to have been strictly 'unannounced,' " said a press release distributed at the end of Mr. Nowak's visit.
Mr. Nowak told reporters he also had received reports that victims' family members were prevented from meeting him -- as they were either put under house arrest, stopped physically from seeing him or simply intimidated.
While interviewing prisoners, Mr. Nowak said he observed "a palpable level of fear and self-censorship," he said.
"Unfortunately, a number of people did not wish to talk to me, which I regretted," he said.
However, the U.N. envoy said he was allowed to speak to any detainee he wished to meet. "Not one single request was actually refused by the prison authorities," he said.
During a two-week visit, Mr. Nowak met 30 detainees held in Beijing, Tibet and the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang.
Beijing-based civil rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng said earlier that he was followed and monitored closely by security agents when he met with U.N. rights officials who came to China with Mr. Nowak.
At the beginning of his trip last month, Mr. Nowak praised China's leaders for acknowledging the widespread abuse of prisoners in the nation's jails, saying there was a growing awareness that improvement was needed.
Mr. Nowak came to China after receiving government assurances it would cooperate with him and allow him unannounced visits to prisons and private talks with prisoners.
In the early 1990s a U.N. special rapporteur on arbitrary detention visited prisons in Tibet, but prisoners were punished for what they told the investigator, rights group have said.
Beijing said Mr. Nowak's visit shows the government's commitment to banning torture.
"Through this visit, we can demonstrate our sincerity," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday, the day before Mr. Nowak's press conference. "It is conducive to promoting understanding."

So there is at least 1 Democrat that understands National Security.....

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007611
Our Troops Must Stay
America can't abandon 27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists.

BY JOE LIEBERMAN
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.

Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.

There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.

It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.

Before going to Iraq last week, I visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel has been the only genuine democracy in the region, but it is now getting some welcome company from the Iraqis and Palestinians who are in the midst of robust national legislative election campaigns, the Lebanese who have risen up in proud self-determination after the Hariri assassination to eject their Syrian occupiers (the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias should be next), and the Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Saudis who have taken steps to open up their governments more broadly to their people. In my meeting with the thoughtful prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he declared with justifiable pride that his country now has the most open, democratic political system in the Arab world. He is right.

In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution, registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous political campaign, and a large number of independent television stations and newspapers covering it.

None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.

The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.

The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000 terrorists who would take it from them.

Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build" accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week.

We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of our forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being made. The Sixth Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now controls and polices more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition and Iraqi forces have together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria. Those areas are now being "held" secure by the Iraqi military themselves. Iraqi and coalition forces are jointly carrying out a mission to clear Ramadi, now the most dangerous city in Al-Anbar province at the west end of the Sunni Triangle.

Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come.

The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it should have, and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador Khalilzad is now implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan--Provincial Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and political experts, working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18 provinces with its elected leadership, civil service and the private sector. That is the "build" part of the "clear, hold and build" strategy, and so is the work American and international teams are doing to professionalize national and provincial governmental agencies in Iraq.

These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about their future--and why the American people should be, too.

I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are carrying most of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart, effective, innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a Thanksgiving meal with a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in western Iraq, I asked their commander whether the morale of his troops had been hurt by the growing public dissent in America over the war in Iraq. His answer was insightful, instructive and inspirational: "I would guess that if the opposition and division at home go on a lot longer and get a lot deeper it might have some effect, but, Senator, my Marines are motivated by their devotion to each other and the cause, not by political debates."

Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for the rest of America and its political leadership at this critical moment in our nation's history. Semper Fi.

Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from Connecticut.

Trouble for L'il Assad

Unsilenced Voices
Damscus’s road to Damascus.

By Nir Boms

With increasing international pressure over the U.N. investigation into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, Syria's young president, Bashar al-Assad, has taken the identification of his country with the Assad name to new levels. In a recent speech he defiantly stated: "It will not be President Assad who will bow his head nor the head of his country. We only bow to God almighty." As he desperately calls for an emergency meeting of the Arab league that might help alleviate the growing international pressures, Assad is trying to reassert control in a troubled country that now must handle parallel attacks from the United Nations, United States, and, increasingly, the Syrian opposition

 
Just hours before the reported suicide of Syrian interior minister Ghazi Kanaan in his Damascus office, President al-Assad vehemently denied that his administration was linked to the February assassination of Rafik Hariri. "Any Syrian involved in the killing," said Assad, "would be guilty of treason." Kanaan, who ran the powerful network of Syrian agents that dominated Lebanese politics for most of the past 25 years, reportedly shot himself in his office following the release of Lebanese reports implicating him in fraud and corruption, and three weeks after he was questioned by a U.N. team investigating the Hariri assassination. It may be the case that Kanaan independently understood that treason in Syria is punishable by death. But recent evidence seems to indicate that somebody else in Syria understood this for him.

Kanaan had information that could have reached the wrong ears. One of his key rivals was none other than Assef Shawkat, the head of the Syrian military intelligence and a brother-in-law of the Syrian president. Shawkat is now considered one of the key suspects in the Hariri plot, according to a recently released U.N. report. Syrian sources noted that Kanaan's liquidation was possibly a direct result of fears amongst Shawkat and his subordinates that the U.N. indictment would lead to Kanaan's trying to remove Shawkat and his followers from power.

The U.N. report implicating Damascus in the Hariri murder is clearly disrupting Syrian domestic politics, stating as it does that "many leads point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination." "In Damascus, fear is now in the camp of power, the camp of Bashar," a senior official told the Washington Post. All this has not escaped notice by the Syrian opposition.

The Syrian opposition, a term that was a misnomer just two years ago, now has over 20 visible outlets with an increasing number of political activists who meet regularly inside and outside Syria. The Syrian Democratic Coalition — a dynamic group of ten Syrian opposition organizations led by Farid Ghadry — held a recent conference in Paris with representatives from political parties, human-rights organizations, tribes, and religious groups. The conference unveiled a registry for Syrians who are interested in voting and establishing a parliament-in-exile. The next conference — scheduled for mid-December — is expected to be the largest gathering of liberal Syrian activists, most of whom are under the age of 40. Ghadry is not the only one. Riyad al-Turk, a leading opposition politician publicly called on President Assad and his government to resign, and Rifaat al-Assad, the exiled uncle of Syria's current leader, is also positioning himself as possible successor to his nephew.

Inside Syria, a coalition of oppositions groups issued the "Damascus declaration." The declaration, signed by a number of opposition groups, including the extremist Islamic Brotherhood, calls for an end to Syria's emergency laws and other forms of political repression, and for a national conference on democratic change. The Brotherhood, however, was quick to release other statements against the participation of Kurds, Alawaites, and Syrian exiles in the process. The Syrian police responded with a series of raids on the opposition and by disrupting a campaign launching meeting in the office of 72-year-old lawyer and activist Hassan Abdul Azim. The Syrian police also arrested Kamal Labwani, a Syrian human-rights activist who had just returned from a trip to the U.S. Labwani, who is also the chairman of the Democratic Liberal Gathering in Syria was charged with spreading news outside the country that "threatened national unity."

But the opposition grows and the Assad regime is losing its grip on power. The United States should sit tight as President Assad, caught in a trap of his own making, will struggle to give answers to the U.N. prosecutor on the one hand, and to his growing circle of critics on the other. In the meantime Europe and the United States should pay attention and listen to the new Syrian voices. Unlike Assad, they belong to the future.

— Nir Boms is the vice president of the Center for Freedom in the Middle East.

The "Moral Authority" Canard

http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200511280803.asp

The “Moral Authority” Canard
Senator McCain is heroic, awe-inspiring, and wrong.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
( a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.)

Key Passages:

I spent a number of years in the eye of the counterterror storm: prosecuting jihadists, putting my family through the attendant anxieties, and watching the criminal-justice system writhe through what the Clinton administration called its "war" on terror — a curious battle plan in which the enemy kills you and is then presumed innocent. I came away thinking the whole prosecution paradigm was a national-security debacle.

"THE TICKING TIME BOMB
Senator McCain well knows this. That's why the most telling part of his essay is his wholly dissatisfying answer to the so-called ticking-time-bomb scenario. Yes, he admits, "if we capture a terrorist who we have sound reasons to believe possesses specific knowledge of an imminent terrorist attack ... an interrogator might well try extreme measures to extract information that could save lives." "

"But why, Senator? You just got done telling us such information would be inherently unreliable — aside from its method of extraction somehow causing our own soldiers to be tortured by the same countries that foreswore such abuse when they solemnly signed the Geneva Conventions. Why is it that we "might well" try some rough stuff?"

"The best way, the honest, bright-line way, is to acknowledge that there are circumstances in which coercive interrogation would be appropriate; to be forthright about what those circumstances are and the lengths you would be willing to go; to require personal approval by a very high-ranking executive-branch official who would then be accountable; and to prove you mean business by aggressively prosecuting anyone and anything that does not meet the rigorous standards you've taken pains to establish."

Pop Quiz

Pop Quiz: 

Who said the following?
1.  "You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq, should be tried as war criminals in courts,"

        A. Michael Moore
        B. Cindy Sheehan
        C. Howard Dean
        D. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
   
Give up?  Surprisingly the answer is "D".   
Doesn't this illustrate the insanity of the American Left?  They are sharing the same talking points with the enemies of this country.  Apparently liberals have their conscious removed while in college.

Tehran raps U.S. as 'war criminals'
November 27, 2005

TEHRAN -- Iran's hard-line president said yesterday the Bush administration should be tried on war-crimes charges, and he denounced the West for pressuring Iran to curb its controversial nuclear program.

"You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq, should be tried as war criminals in courts," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

    Mr. Ahmadinejad did not elaborate, but he apparently was referring to the U.S. military's use of artillery shells packed with depleted uranium, which is far less radioactive than natural uranium and is left over from the process of enriching uranium for use as nuclear fuel.

    Since the Iraq war started in 2003, American forces have fired at least 120 tons of shells packed with depleted uranium, an extremely dense material used by the U.S. and British militaries to penetrate tank armor. Once fired, the shells melt, vaporize and turn to dust.

    "Who in the world are you to accuse Iran of suspicious nuclear-armed activity?" Mr. Ahmadinejad said during a nationally televised ceremony marking the 36th anniversary of the establishment of Iran's volunteer Basij paramilitary force.

    Iran has been under intense international pressure to curb its nuclear program, which the United States claims is part of an effort to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies such claims and says its program is aimed at generating electricity.

    Iran insists that it has the right to fully develop the program, including enrichment of nuclear fuel -- a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or atomic bombs.

    State-run TV said more than 9 million Basij members formed human chains in different parts of the country to mark their militia's anniversary. Thousands linked hands to make a 12-mile chain along an expressway in northern Tehran.

    It is estimated that the Basij comprise 15 percent of Iran's population, or about 10 million people.
    Meanwhile, a leading German newsweekly reported that Iran has offered North Korea oil and natural gas as payment for help in developing nuclear missiles.

    A senior Iranian official traveled to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, during the second week of October to make the offer, the Der Spiegel magazine reported yesterday, citing unidentified Western intelligence sources.

    It was not clear what North Korea's response was, the magazine said.
    Diplomats and intelligence sources say Iran is pushing ahead with plans to enrich uranium in defiance of international pressure to stop developing sensitive nuclear technology to calm fears it is seeking nuclear weapons.

    Iran's Shahab-3 missiles are based on North Korea's No-Dong rockets and Pyongyang is Tehran's most important partner in developing missile technology, Der Spiegel said.

Biting the Hand
Why is the ADL going after evangelical Christians?

BY DAVID BROG
Friday, November 25, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Earlier this month, Abraham Foxman took to the podium to address the key members of his Anti-Defamation League, the leading watchdog of anti-Semitism in America. In somber tones, Mr. Foxman sounded the alarm over the "key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community and to our democratic values." The threat he described was neither Islamic terror nor assimilation but a much more imaginative one. "Make no mistake," Mr. Foxman warned, "we are facing an emerging Christian Right leadership that intends to 'Christianize' all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker room of professional, collegiate and amateur sports, from the military to SpongeBob SquarePants."

Mr. Foxman is an intelligent and experienced man. Thus one must marvel at his ability to scan the nation and determine that the key challenge facing American Jews comes from socially conservative Christians. The fate of beloved cartoon characters aside, there are very serious threats facing American Jews today, and they have nothing to do with social conservatives.

Al Qaeda and the home-grown cells who serve it have targeted Jews around the world, including in America. In 2002, the FBI warned Jewish leaders that al Qaeda was plotting to attack domestic Jewish targets with gasoline trucks. In 2003, the Bush administration raised the homeland-terror threat level to orange due in part to a large volume of threats against Jewish targets. And in August, the Justice Department secured the indictments of four American Muslims in a conspiracy to attack Los Angeles synagogues.

Outside of physical threats from without, Jewish life in America is seriously threatened from within by assimilation. The intermarriage rate has grown in every decade since 1970 and has now reached an alarming 47%. Only one-third of the children of these intermarriages are raised Jewish. These statistics, combined with the very low fertility rates of those Jews who do marry other Jews, explain why the Jewish population in America is steadily shrinking.

Far from being the source of such threats to American Jews, Christians are actually important allies in combating them. Conservative Christians surpass Jews as proponents of a robust war on terror at home and abroad. And when it comes to assimilation, these Christians demonstrate the only solution by their example. Evangelicals take their faith seriously: They go to church, teach religion to their children, and act on their faith through good works. If Jews followed their lead, assimilation rates would plummet.

More troubling than Mr. Foxman's misdiagnosis of the threats facing American Jews is his mischaracterization of Christian goals. Just because Christian activists are motivated by their Christian faith does not mean that they are seeking to "Christianize" America. As every schoolchild knows, Christian churches have been the driving force behind some of the most important social movements in America, from the abolition of slavery to the civil-rights movement. What is relevant, of course, is not a policy's source or motivation but its merits.

And there is indeed merit to the agenda pursued by Christian conservatives. Evangelical Christians are rock-solid supporters of Israel--a fact that the Jewish community has belatedly begun to acknowledge and appreciate. What remains unacknowledged, and certainly not appreciated, is the fact that socially conservative Christians have become the leading proponents of Judeo-Christian values--and, therefore, traditional Jewish values--in America.

When Christians recognize that human beings are influenced by the surrounding culture, and therefore seek to persuade the entertainment industry to stop degrading that culture, they are taking a stand for Jewish values. When Christians fight genocide in Darfur, Sudan, and raise funds for victims of natural disasters around the globe, they are acting out Jewish values. And yes, when Christians stand up for the sanctity of human life and oppose euthanasia or abortion as birth control, they are protecting the most fundamental of Jewish values. Jews are of course free to differ on all of the above issues, but they should not wrap themselves in the flag of Judaism when they do so.

In one of the most poignant moments in the Hebrew Bible, King David's son Absalom is killed while leading a failed rebellion against his father. When David weeps for his son, David's top lieutenant, Joab, argues that the king is disgracing all those who have just risked their lives to defend him, admonishing: "You love your enemies and hate your friends." American Jews have much to learn from this story. In some ways we are Absalom, rebelling against the conservative beliefs of our religious forebears. And in other ways we are David, mourning the loss of a beloved but destructive family member--liberalism--while ignoring the true friends that surround us and preserve us. Either way, we need to follow Joab's advice and dry our eyes.

Arabic Christian channel a hit?

Arabic Christian channel a hit?
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 26, 2005
The founder of the nation's first Arabic Christian TV channel says the programming is attracting phone inquiries from curious Muslims.

    The Southern California-based channel Alkarma, whose name means "the vineyard" in Arabic, premiered Oct. 17. It is the brainchild of Samuel Estefanos, an Egyptian-born businessman.

    The channel gets 10 to 15 calls a day from Arabic speakers with Muslim surnames who are intrigued that Alkarma would give away a movie known as the "Jesus Film" and other materials.

    "Some of them call and say they are Muslims and need to know more about Christ," Mr. Estefanos said. "Other people are Christians but say they don't know anything about Christ. In the Middle East, even though if your religion says 'Christian' on your identity card, that does not mean that you know Christ."

    Mr. Estefanos invested about $200,000, much of it his own money, to purchase airtime and equipment for the 24-hour channel. The station still needs about $40,000 a month to operate. Total contributions so far total about $10,000 a month.

    "I know this is a great station," he said, "and we are doing more productions. We are seeking to build a good foundation so we can grow more. I believe God will provide and we'll keep on going."

    He estimates there are 35 Arabic-language TV channels airing nationally, but none of them were Christian until Alkarma began. The channel, which reaches about a million Arabic speakers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is slowly attracting advertisers.

    "It's great," he said. "Some people call us and cry on the phone. They say, 'We knew Christ through this channel.' People send us e-mails and leave phone messages."

    The channel is one of 25 Arabic-language channels on the GlobeCast World TV satellite, which has 130 radio and TV channels in more than 30 languages. Alkarma, based in Seal Beach, Calif., is part of the nonprofit Media Dream. Its Web site is www.alkarmatv.com.

    Mr. Estefanos, who emigrated here seven years ago, said he began dreaming of such a station 15 years ago after he graduated from college in Egypt in 1990.

    Beginning in 2002, he said, God began directing him to start Alkarma.
    He has had to produce seven original programs in Arabic. One is named "Virtuous Women"; another is called "The Healing Touch"; a third is called "God and Christianity"; and an interview show is called "Where is the Truth?"

    "There are no debates between religions," he said. "Our goals are focused on two things: providing solid biblical teaching and programs for the family."

    Its Arabic programs are in various Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi and Egyptian dialects. The channel also airs some English programming for children plus portions of "The 700 Club" from the Christian Broadcasting Network.

German esteem builder backfires

[ Remember, this is the country that the American Left want us to be more like.  We are somehow supposed to feel inferior to them.  I do feel sorry for all the copy writers in Germany, having to research everything they come up with to see if it's "Nazi-free" ]

German esteem builder backfires
By Kate Connolly
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH
November 26, 2005
BERLIN -- A multimillion-dollar campaign to boost Germans' low self-confidence has backfired after it emerged that its slogan was coined by the Nazis.
The $34 million "Du Bist Deutschland -- You Are Germany" -- campaign was devised to inspire Germans to stop moaning and do something good for their country.
Beethoven, Einstein and the sports stars Franz Beckenbauer and Michael Schumacher have been cited in advertisements encouraging Germans to take more pride in their homeland.
But a historian from Ludwigshafen has provoked an uproar with his discovery that the same "Du Bist Deutschland" cry was used at Nazi rallies in the 1930s.
Stefan Morz uncovered photographs of a 1935 Nazi convention in which soldiers display a banner reading, in Gothic script, "Denn Du Bist Deutschland (Because You Are Germany)." The slogan was topped with the head of Adolf Hitler. Leading Nazis such as Hermann Goring and Joseph Goebbels attended the event.
"Every time I see the slogan 'Du Bist Deutschland' I am reminded of this rather disturbing parallel with the past," said Mr. Morz, a historian and archivist.
Researchers have now set to work to discover how widespread the slogan was, even if most agree it was not one of the Nazis' official mantras. Its intended effect then is believed to be similar to that of the modern version: "You have the potential to make this country great once again."
The backers of the modern campaign, the brainchild of several blue-chip media companies, expressed shock at the discovery but quickly distanced themselves from the Third Reich connection.
Indeed, one of its aims is to release today's Germans from the collective guilt and depression they still feel about the Nazi era, they said.
The project's image has now been battered by that same legacy.
"We are not very happy," said Lars Christian Cords, the campaign's coordinator. "Our campaign stands for the values human dignity, democracy, respect of the individual and pluralism. 'Du Bist Deutschland' is a message to everyone that every one of us has a responsibility for the well-being and future of Germany."
The campaign has been compared to the "I'm Backing Britain" campaign launched during the economic depression in the late 1960s.
Studies show that Germans are among the world's most pessimistic and unhappy peoples. The gloom stems mainly from Germany's economic woes and chronically high unemployment.

So near in Iraq, so far at home - VDH

So near in Iraq, so far at home.

Victor Davis Hanson's weekly gutcheck

Key Passage:
First, are the metrics of this war in the terrorists’ or our favor? Are the Iraqi security forces growing or shrinking? Are elections postponed or on schedule? Are Europe, Jordan, Lebanon, and others more or less sympathetic to a war against Islamic terrorism in Iraq? Are bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Zarqawi more or less popular or secure after we removed Saddam? Is al Qaeda in a strengthened or weakened position? Is the Arab world more or less receptive to democracy in the Gulf, Egypt, Lebanon, and the West Bank? And is the United States more or less vulnerable to a terrorist attack as we go into our fifth year since September 11?

As usual you need to read it all

If you want to win the debate, win the war

If you want to win the debate, win the war.
Michael Ledeen

Key Passages:
The most dangerous, and paradoxically the most vulnerable, of the terror masters was, and likely still is, Iran. Most everyone agrees that Iran played a unique role in the terror war that has been waged against the United States for nearly a quarter-century. According to the State Department's annual survey, Iran has long been the world's leading sponsor of international terror. Both Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are Iranian creations and clients, which is why Imad Mugniyah of Hezbollah and Aywan al Zawahiri of Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda keep showing up in Tehran, along with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of the jihad in Iraq who had operated out of Tehran for many years. Unsurprisingly, the 9/11 Commission found hard evidence of collusion between Iran and al-Qaeda, going back into the mid-nineties.

What is the alternative? If we do not engage, we will soon find ourselves facing a nuclear Iran that will surely be emboldened to increase its sponsorship of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jamaah Islamiah, and Hamas, and will redouble its efforts to shatter Iraq's fragile democratic experiment. Which is the more prudent policy? Cautiously defending Iraq alone, or supporting the revolutionaries against the terror masters? Active support of the democratic forces in the Middle East would be the right policy, even if there were no terror war, and even if Iran were not a shallow breath away from atomic weapons. It is what America is all about.

Read it all here

A political rally dishonors a pioneer.

Death of a Funeral-A political rally dishonors a pioneer.

[More class from the Democrats]

Rosa Parks died in late October, 50 years after her brave stand on a segregated Alabama bus. Her defiant act was the symbolic push the civil-rights movement needed. Her legacy is inspirational, but her funeral was a shameful spectacle.
In Detroit on November 2, some 4,000 gathered at Detroit's Greater Grace Temple to celebrate the life of Rosa Parks. But sometime during the tribute to Parks, the ceremony fell into a graceless political rally.
The message of Rosa Parks's courage in 1955 is a nonpartisan one. And yet, fanatical politics found their way into the ceremony via left-wing stalwarts. Al Sharpton, who has run for president as a Democrat, seemed to get moving on a pulpit strategy for another campaign at the funeral. He declared: "I heard somebody say Jim Crow is who she fought and Jim Crow is still around. But Jim Crow is old. That's not who I'm mindful of today. The problem is Jim Crow has sons."
The crowd went wild.
"One we gotta battle," Sharpton continued, "is James Crow Jr. Esq. He's a little more educated. He's a little slicker. He's a little more polished. But the results are the same. He doesn't put you in the back of the bus. He just puts referendums on the ballot to end affirmative action when you can't go to school. He doesn't call you a racial name, he just marginalizes your existence. He doesn't tell you that he's set against you, he sets up institutional racism. Where you have a nation respond looking for weapons in Iraq that are not there but can't see a hurricane in Louisiana that is there."
Ah yes. President Bush — the same blind president who called the governor of Louisiana to insist on a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans — didn't even see hurricane Katrina coming. Regardless, he was probably still looking for the weapons in Iraq. You know, the ones most of the Democratic politicians (Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bill Clinton ... ), who also spoke at Rosa Parks's funeral, thought were a threat too.
Sharpton went on to more specifically slap down the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which would amend the state's constitution to prohibit "state entities from discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin." The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative is, in truth, the logical continuation of any struggle for civil rights in America — it's just. Al Sharpton would get that if he were a civil-rights leader. But don't let him fool you, he's just a left-wing demagogue.
Jesse Jackson, also a former Democratic presidential candidate, announced during his eulogy — the eulogy — that the president had nominated "an extreme right-wing judge, antithetical to everything Rosa Parks ever stood for." Presumably Jackson was talking about Judge Samuel Alito, who President Bush had nominated the same week to the Supreme Court. Alito is for segregation? That's news to ... everyone. Jackson must have gotten swept away. That sometimes happens at political conventions. People get silly and carried away demonizing the guy they want to beat. But, oh wait. This wasn't a political convention.
It was a funeral.
Rosa Parks deserved better. Americans who can be well served by her example for decades to come deserve better.
In the December issue of Glamour, Geraldine Ferraro has it right. Speaking of Rosa Parks, Ferraro tells Glamour, "I was very impressed when I met this giant of a woman, who was maybe 5'2." The Afghan and Iraqi women who are fighting for their rights are doing so in the tradition of Rosa Parks." I'm the type of gal that's conservative, Reagan-loving and rarely agrees with anything groups like the "National Organization for Women" have to say, but when the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate is right, she's right!
Ferraro gets it. While politicians play blame games over prewar intelligence, complete with childish public-relations stunts, and nonsensical rhetoric fills an otherwise beautiful event, folks here and abroad live the legacy of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat at front of the bus, simply because it is was the right thing to do. It was the brave move someone needed to make. And she made it. No one — Democrat or Republican, black or white, American or Iraqi — should be segregated from that inspiration.

DoD Update from Iraq from LTG Vines

[Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines briefed the Pentagon press corps today from Iraq. Lt. Gen. Vines is the commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps. He has served in Iraq as the commander of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq since February. Following are highlights of his briefing.]

Governance Progress
ØSince January:
•A national election has been held; from this election the Transitional National Assembly was seated.
•A constitution has been drafted and subsequently ratified in a national referendum.
•There will be a national election for a permanent government on Dec. 15; this permanent government will help to provide a higher level of stability in Iraq.

ØIraqis are determining for themselves their own form of government.
•Iraqis are turning out to vote. In the October constitutional referendum, they voted in numbers that exceeded the participation levels in elections in Western democracies.

•Iraqis are not taking their security for granted: They recognize the terrorists and Islamic extremists want to impose their worldview on Iraq, and they recognize what is at stake.

ØSunnis are getting involved in the political process.
•Sunnis are choosing the ballot box rather than violence to influence their government.
•The leadership of the greater Sunni populace is committed to attempting to have a say in the outcome of their government.

Security Progress
ØIraqi soldiers and police are in the fight.
•Volunteers for the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are risking their lives, and in some cases dying, to protect their fellow citizens.

•Iraqi Security Forces are accepted by the Iraqi people as legitimately protecting their security interests.
•One-third of Iraqi army battalions are responsible for their own areas of operation and the operations conducted in those areas.

•Eighty percent of Iraqi Security Forces are in the fight and participating in combat operations around the country.

ØIraqi forces are conducting operations, such as Operation Steel Curtain, that are helping to establish control over Iraq’s borders and denying sanctuary to foreign terrorists.

•The enduring presence that the security forces are establishing in these areas will help provide stability and security there.

Force Levels
ØRecommendations for U.S. force levels in Iraq will be made based on conditions on the ground.
•Included in the range of conditions are the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces, the government’s ability to sustain the ISF, and the state of the insurgency.

ØThe Coalition is in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government.
•Although Iraqi forces are able to conduct operations in a large portion of their areas with limited Coalition support, they still require Coalition support, which will decrease over time.

•A precipitous pullout of Coalition forces would be destabilizing.

Terrorists and Foreign Fighters
ØThe hunt for Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi continues.
•Commanders have no reason to believe that Zarqawi, al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, was killed during a recent raid in Mosul.

ØCommanders believe considerable progress is being made regarding foreign fighters in general.
•The number of foreign fighters showing up in a variety of venues could be half as many as this summer.

"Talibans with Oil and a Good P.R. Company"

“Talibans with Oil and a Good P.R. Company”
The dark kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

[Excellent way to put it- the Saudis are the Taliban with cash and p.r. - the more we face up to that and do something the better off we will be]

Lopez: Is Saudi Arabia our enemy? Is it fundamentally evil?

Murawiec: Let's look at facts rather than speeches. The Al-Saud family is indistinguishable from the Wahhabi sect. They have been wedded like Siamese twins since 1744. The sect lends Islamic legitimacy to the sword of the ruler, the ruler extends the writ of the sect. The one cannot exist without the other. The Wahhabi creed is a nasty, bigoted belief system. It considers itself the sole repository of authentic Islam, and views all other Muslins as heretics, apostates, and schismatics, hence, deserving of death. It considers Jews and Christians as Satanic enemies that should be killed when opportunity arises. Jihad is integral to Wahhabism. Whenever the Saudi royals have had opportunity to manifest and implement the creed, they have. King Faisal gave his every visitor a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Read the sermons and the fatwas and the schoolbooks that pour out of Saudi mosques, universities, imams, and predicators, from TV and media: "death to Jews, Christians, Hindus, Shiites" is a permanent singsong. That's the Saudi-Wahhabi creed in action. Now, since they have needed us to protect them from regional predators, Iran, Saddam in his time, Nasser earlier and so on, they have honed in a nice trick which allows them to emit friendly noises from one corner of their mouth when they speak English, and in hateful tones from the other, Arabic side. When senior Saudi clerics issue fatwas that call for the killing of Americans in Iraq, when Saudi state TV airs these bloodcurdling calls for jihad against America, how can one but conclude that they are no friends, but enemies? The new Saudi ambassador here, Prince Turki, called our toppling of Saddam "a colonial war." Seventy percent of the jihadis we have captured in Iraq are Saudis. King Abdullah, Prince Nayef the interior minister, Prince Sultan and Turki have all repeatedly stated that Israel was behind 9/11 — not the 15 of 19 hijackers that were Saudis — and behind all terrorist incidents in Saudi Arabia! King Abdullah twice in the last few years threatened the U.S. with a new oil embargo. With such friends, who needs enemies? The Saudi royals? Talibans with oil and a good p.r. company. The regime? It is evil, and therefore it is our enemy, and it behaves accordingly.

…but wait there is more….

Read it all at http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/murawiec200511220847.asp

Was Atta in Prague?

Atta in Prague?
An Iraqi prisoner holds the answer to this 9/11 mystery.
[Edward Jay Epstein provides the latest on this story at OpinionJournal.com]
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007584
...and the next day the BIS's source in the Iraqi Embassy dropped a bombshell. He told his BIS case officer that he recognized Atta as the Arab who got in the car with al-Ani on April 9. Mr. Ruzek immediately relayed the secret information to Washington through the CIA liaison. The FBI sent an interrogation team to Prague, which, after questioning and testing the source, concluded that there was a 70% likelihood that he was not intentionally lying and sincerely believed that he saw Atta with al-Ani.

China's 'peaceful' invasion

[absolute must read about China's ambitions in our hemisphere. ("This shit is chess, not checkers") The Panama Canal is merely posistioning for what they will do to us when/if we have to go at it over Taiwan. How outlandish is the scenario that they make a move on Taiwan and threaten the United States with severe consequences if we defend Taiwan? Keep an eye on this…..]

China's 'peaceful' invasion
By Kelly Hearn
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 20, 2005

BUENOS AIRES - China, striving to match the superpower status of the United States, is boosting military contacts throughout Latin America and eyeing the region as a market for its growing arms industry, U.S. officials say.
Chinese military officials made 20 visits to counterparts in Latin America and the Caribbean last year, says Gen. Bantz Craddock, who heads the U.S. Southern Command.
Gen. Craddock, in congressional testimony, reported that nine Latin American defense ministers visited Beijing during the same period.
"An increasing presence of the People's Republic of China [PRC] in the region is an emerging dynamic that must not be ignored," he said.
"The PRC's growing dependence on the global economy and the necessity of protecting access to food, energy, raw materials and export markets has forced a shift in their military strategy," he told the House Armed Services Committee.
Gen. Craddock added that Beijing's most recent outline of military strategy "departs from the past and promotes a power-projection military, capable of securing strategic shipping lanes and protecting its growing economic interests abroad."
The military dimensions of China's economic push into Latin America have grown since Gen. Craddock gave that assessment in March, U.S. officials say.
"Chinese strategic thinking, from the writings of Sun Tzu to classic games such as 'go' emphasize the value of setting the stage, as much as the battle itself," says Evan Ellis, a Latin American analyst with Booz Allen Hamilton.
"The idea is to position oneself at an advantage in all possible realms -- politically, militarily or physically -- so that if a tangible confrontation must occur, the adversary simply cannot prevail."
New arms sales
China appears to be pushing to sell arms and technology to Latin America, especially to Venezuela, a key ideological partner that is working to reduce dependence on the U.S. as a primary weapons supplier.
China recently offered to sell Venezuela its new FC-1 fighter, a potential follow-up on its failed bid in 2001 to sell Caracas its low-tech K-8 training aircraft, one U.S.-based intelligence source says.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed deals to purchase long-range defense radars and a modern communication satellite from China.
In August, Venezuelan Defense Minister Orlando Maniglia and Qu Huimin, vice president of China's state-owned Electronics Import and Export Corp., signed a deal for the purchase of three Chinese JYL-1 mobile air-defense radar systems.
The contract provides for radars, a command-and-control center, technical support and leased access to a satellite communication network.
At least two of the radars will replace two U.S.-made models, according to Jane's Defence Weekly, a leading defense industry publication.
The radar deal and other technology transfers threaten to lock Venezuela into technological platforms that increase its dependency on Chinese technology, says Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington.
"We can anticipate that Chavez will soon be buying Chinese weapons," Mr. Fisher says of the Venezuelan president.
On Nov. 1, Mr. Chavez signaled a deepening military relationship with Beijing during a ceremony announcing a deal in which China will manufacture a communications satellite for Venezuela and train its technicians there.
Mr. Chavez also indicated he was looking for non-U.S. replacements for American-made F-16 fighter jets.
"Maybe we'll have to buy Russian or Chinese planes to defend ourselves," he said, complaining that the United States was blocking Venezuelan efforts to acquire spare parts for the planes.
U.S. officials deny his contention, saying they have kept to agreements to supply spare parts.
Mr. Chavez suggest he may give China and Cuba some U.S.-made military jets so they can study the technology.
The new communications satellite is to be launched in 2008 from China, and Venezuela says it will be used for peaceful purposes. But analysts warn that commercial technology deals could help both nations gather intelligence on the United States.
Spying and space
Analysts voice similar concerns over cooperative aerospace deals between China and Brazil.
The two nations jointly built and launched two earth-research satellites; they plan two additional launches in 2008.
The China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CIBERS-1) was launched in 1999 and its successor last year.
CIBERS-1 was an environmental monitoring satellite that did not have significant military utility, according to a recent report prepared by Mr. Ellis for the U.S. Army War College.
However, the deal did "assist China in developing real-time digital photo technology, thus increasing the capabilities of Chinese military ... satellites and arguably helping China to gain a more comprehensive picture of the flight paths of U.S. satellites," Mr. Ellis wrote.
Rogelio Pardo Maurer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs, recently told Congress that officials had no evidence "that Chinese military activities in the Western Hemisphere, including arms sales, pose a direct conventional threat to the United States."
But Mr. Maurer warned that the United States should be alert "to rapidly advancing Chinese capabilities, particularly in the field of intelligence, communications and cyberwarfare, and their possible application in the region."
Peter Brookes, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, underscored the threat of China's using Latin America as a base to spy on the United States.
"The Chinese are undoubtedly active in Latin America and the Caribbean," Mr. Brookes says. "They are using Chinese front companies, students, visitors and professional intelligence officers to steal and exploit technology and commercial and industrial secrets of interest to enhance their growing military-industrial and military prowess, as well as their commercial economic competitiveness."
Cuban connection
One long-standing concern is that the Chinese are using key intelligence-gathering facilities in Cuba to intercept U.S. communications.
Rep. Connie Mack, Florida Republican, worries about intelligence on the United States flowing from Cuba to Venezuela.
"I am concerned that China will rebuild intelligence-gathering capacity that Cuba lost after the Cold War and then share intelligence with Chavez," Mr. Mack says.
Al Santoli, president of the Washington-based Asia-America Initiative and an author on military history, connects some of the dots.
"China's growing military ties in Latin America have a direct link to their international quest for energy and other vital natural resources," Mr. Santoli says, "as well as their efforts to reinforce the growing reach of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez to create a counterweight to U.S. influence in the region."
The most significant military threats to the United States are the Russian electronic and cyber-warfare bases in Cuba, Mr. Santoli says.
"These bases not only permit enhanced electronic surveillance of broad areas of the U.S. at present," he says. "In the future they can be used to disrupt critical U.S. strategic communications during a period of conflict."
Exploiting a vacuum
Analysts suspicious of China's regional designs worry that it is expanding military ties to fill a vacuum: A U.S. law cuts military aid to nations that refuse to exempt U.S. soldiers from the International Criminal Court.
Gen. Craddock warns that the law, the American Service Members Protection Act, has cost the U.S. key contacts with Latin American militaries. Of the 22 countries cut off from the Pentagon, 11 are in Latin America, he told Congress.
In 2004, Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan visited Brazil, the region's largest and most populated country, calling for expanded military cooperation.
Also last year, the vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, Xu Caihou, traveled to Cuba and Mexico, visiting troops and military academies in both countries.
In October, Mr. Cao met in Beijing with Antonio Justiniano, commander in chief of the armed forces of Bolivia. The Chinese defense minister called for increased ties between the two nations' armies, according to a Chinese newspaper.
The ban on U.S. military aid to countries that refuse to exempt American soldiers from the International Criminal Court stems from fears that the court will be used for politically motivated prosecutions.
"While Latin American states are disappointed in the ban and frustrated by it, militaries in the region are significantly less important than they were a decade ago or longer," says Cynthia Watson, a former associate dean at the National War College.
"Both for budgetary and political reasons, militaries have been put back in the barracks," she says. "Their roles in their individual societies are not nearly as important as they used to be."
But others worry that nations whose armed forces once were trained by the Pentagon, especially Venezuela, are in the position to pass along U.S. military procedures to Chinese soldiers.
Earlier this year, Venezuela ended a 35-year military relationship with the United States that included Special Operations training.
The Jamestown Foundation's Mr. Fisher warns that Venezuelan officers are in a position to instruct Chinese counterparts in what they learned.
"It is clear that Venezuelan Special Forces instructors are able to convey a deep familiarity with U.S. special-operations doctrine and operations," he says.
"As a consequence, PLA Special Forces will gain the benefit of this U.S.-developed and funded knowledge base," he adds, using the acronym for China's People's Liberation Army.
The Taiwan factor
Part of China's interest in Latin America stems from rival Taiwan's success in maintaining diplomatic relations with several nations in the region.
China continues to refashion its military for a potential attack on Taiwan, the democratic island nation that it regards as a breakaway republic. Officials and analysts widely agree that China's key political goal in the Western Hemisphere is to strangle Taiwan diplomatically.
"China is also interested in matching its economic power with political influence in the region," Charles Shapiro, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told Congress in recent testimony. "China's desire to compete with and ultimately isolate Taiwan diplomatically is a key factor in Latin America."
Mr. Shapiro expressed concern that Chinese weapons could wind up in the hands of insurgencies and criminals in the hemisphere.
The United States, he told lawmakers, "will apply our general policy of seeking transparency and accountability in these sales."
Beijing began making economic and cultural inroads about five years ago into Latin America -- in particular South America, which is rich in oil and other natural resources key to feeding China's growing economy.
A year ago, Chinese President Hu Jintao toured six countries, including Cuba, promising $100 billion in infrastructure investments to Argentina, Brazil and Chile, among others.
Among goals of the visit was to weaken Taiwan's diplomatic presence in the region.
Six nations of Central America -- Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala -- retain full diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Starting with Chile in 1970, however, all but one South American state, Paraguay, have moved to recognize Beijing.
Last year, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing.
Eyeing the threat
U.S. trade with Latin America exceeded $445 billion last year, 10 times China's level, U.S. officials say.
Possibilities for U.S.-Chinese cooperation exist in the region, says Mr. Ellis of Booz Allen Hamilton, because "both nations have an interest in reducing political instability, criminality and violence."
"Nevertheless," he cautions, "China may be tempted to support destabilizing movements where it feels that the prevailing government is blocking it from achieving important economic or strategic objectives."
Others stress the economic and political dimensions of China's regional rise, deflecting military concerns.
Bates Gill of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says China's military gestures in the region, including contribution of a contingent of troops to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti, should be read as part of a broadening of Beijing's multinational profile, not as a specific attempt to gain hegemony in Latin America.
V. Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, agrees.
"The current number one priority of Chinese government is economic and commercial," Mr. Rocha says. "It is, in my view, completely premature and alarmist to be highlighting military links."

Judgment Day for Zarqawi???

Judgment Day?Is the end here...or near...for Zarqawi?


[I have thought for awhile that Zarqawi was cutting his own throat (what a happy thought) by attacking Iraqis and then the Jordnians. Eventually the population (who lives in fear reprisal- much like mafia had over certain areas of the U.S. at one time- would turn on him and his Arab cohorts. The Annan bombings has merely accelerated it. His own tribe has dis-owned him, it's only a matter of time before he has to flee to Iran or Saudi Arabia or be killed.]

Why the Democrats are full of shit

Why the Democrats are full of shit

[Mac Owens is essential to refuting the Vietnam analogies to Iraq]

The Badlands of Al Anbar

The Badlands of Al Anbar
Cutting the ratlines and quashing the insurgency in Western Iraq.

[Excellent rundown on what is happening in western Iraq and the role the Iraqis are playing (sounds like the Kurds are the real deal), and who the bad guys consist of (why would hezballah and hamas be represented? hmmmm.sounds like a global war on terror to me. What do you think these guys would be doing without America in Iraq? let's see...blow up an IED in Ramadi or studying the Cotton Bowl's security?

I have always been an optimist about Iraq, and the corner is being turned, which would make sense because the military geniues and noted patriots -Congressional Democrats and the media want us to leave. It is a fact that the opposite what those pussies have said comes true, so judging by the level of hysterics we must be really close to winning]

Military fears critics will hurt morale

Military fears critics will hurt morale

[So again I ask- if the democrats aren't helping the U.S. military then who are they helping by default? Sorry but that is simple logic]