A New Terrorist Tactic?

Terrorists (insurgents, radicals, extremists, resistance fighters, "freedom" fighters....pick a label) know that life is cheap. They also know that westerners consider life to be the purpose of ..... well, of living.

With explosives becoming less plentiful, it seems that the terrorists in Iraq have found a new way to further their goals without all the risks and expense of rigging a car with bombs......just make the Americans think they're being attacked by a car bomber. All that's needed is an old taxi (preferably with a couple of female passengers, just for effect) driven at high speed toward a coalition convoy, ignoring any warning shots or signals to stay clear.

The result is a car carrying "innocent civilians" shot to pieces by trigger-happy military or civilian security personnel. Western news media outlets are fed pictures and "eye-witness" accounts of the incident which they are more than willing to publish without question (the press will jump on anything that helps to undermine President Bush and the U.S. effort in Iraq).

It also tends to undo any goodwill developed between the American military and the Iraqi populace and turns world opinion against the U.S.

This type of negative PR campaign may be more damaging to the Americans than real car bombs could ever be.

General David H. Petraeus

You know just how low the left has sunk when they disparage a man like Gen. Petraeus.

Even before he gave his report to Congress, the democrats were announcing that his report was a whitewash. How can they look themselves in the mirror?

Prior to his testimony on Monday, the dishonorable democrat congressmen running the inquisition essentially dismissed Gen. Petraeus' report before even hearing it.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), in her opening statement, suggested that democrats distance themselves from the MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times that accused Gen. Petraeus of betrayal. Unfortunately, the democrats failed to do so. Their earlier comments had already confirmed that MoveOn.org was merely stating the position of the democrat party.

Disgraceful.

Like some people are saying: "I don't question their patriotism. I know full well that they have none."

Irony

I've never been there, but I understand that some of the poorer sections of Los Angeles are rife with violent crime and gang warfare. I hear the same thing about the poorer sections of Baghdad (Sadr City, for example).

Do you think it would be a good idea to allow every household in LA to have a fully automatic AK-47?

Well, somebody seemed to think it was a good idea to allow every household in Iraq to have one.

There is no criminal background check, no 5-day waiting period, and no questions about where the gun came from (no firearms dealer's receipt required). All they have to do is register the weapon so that the serial number is associated with the owner's name.

Iran's Involvement in Iraq's Violence

The liberals are accusing President Bush of making trumped up charges that Iran is supplying the Iraqi "insurgents" with arms and munitions as a pretext for declaring war on Iran.

The President, in my opinion, has made some really bad decisions while in office, but I don't think he would try to lie his way into a war with Iran. OK...I know what some of you are thinking .... But didn't he lie to get us into a war with Iraq?

No he didn't. Someday our Bush-hating MSM will stop trying to keep alive that provably false accusation....probably the same day that Satan gets frostbite....but who believes what the MSM have to say, anyhow?

My advice to the President is to use our considerable resources in that region to catch the Iranians, red-handed, hauling munitions across the boarder into Iraq. Massive secondary explosions from a cross-border truck convoy after being hit with a few Hellfire missiles would be ample proof of Iran's attempts to promote more violence in Iraq.

Short of that, nothing is going to prove Iran's involvement.

Nuri al-Maliki

In a CNN interview, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that he would not allow Iraq to be a battleground for the United States and Iran, citing Iraq's national sovereignty. He acknowedged that Iran has agents operating in Iraq who were most likely involved in the abduction and murder of 5 U.S. soldiers on January 20, as well as other attacks on American troops.

"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq."

If he really believes that Iraq is not part of the U.S.-Iranian conflict, maybe someone should introduce him to the real world. It's not just Americans being attacked by Iranian infiltrators. Many Iraqis have also died because of the meddling mullahs of Iran.

I suspect that al-Maliki is just hoping to avoid antagonizing his fellow Shiites in Iran. After all, the U.S. will be out of Iraq before long (if our liberal Congress has anything to say about it), but the Iranians will always be just across the border.

Iran has been a big supporter of Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his very large militia. Al-Sadr has been a big supporter of al-Maliki and his shaky government.

There is a rather trite phrase, currently popular in our society, that might just be appropriate for this situation: "Connect the dots."

Al-Maliki cannot be trusted to support the U.S. military in Iraq if the conflict with Iran escalates very much (and it will). He knows that the Democrats are already preparing to abandon Iraq regardless of the consequences.

Be prepared for a back-stabbing in the near future....in return for the back-stabbing Iraq will get from American liberals.

Remember ...... you heard it here first.

A Mockery of Justice?

A short article in today's Star-Telegram raised my blood pressure ever so slightly .... just enough to entice me to make a comment on this blog.

Hadi Jawad, a Pakistani immigrant whose father was born in Iraq, laments that the "U.S. orchestrated a phony trial" of Saddam Hussein. Although supposedly no fan of Saddam, Hadi believes the trial was "was a mockery of justice" and its outcome was a "a meaningless death of a two-bit tyrant."

How can the death of a two-bit tyrant be considered "meaningless?" If you don't already understand the meaning of Saddam's death , then it would be a waste of time for me to try to explain it to you.

No explanation was given for Hadi's opinions. However, it may help to understand where he is coming from when you consider that he is a "co-founder and media spokesman for the Crawford Peace House," an organization affiliated with the so-called "peace activist" Cindy Sheehan, and reportedly heads the End the Occupation of Iraq Committee of the Dallas Peace Center.

Sorta gives you an idea of his mind-set.

Now, if the Iraqis, who supposedly live in the "birthplace of Civilization" will just start acting civilized, it could turn out to be a great new year.

But don't bet on it.

Abu Ghraib - What! ...Again?

Never one to pass up an opportunity to make the U.S. military look bad, CBS 60 Minutes has dredged up the controversy of the Abu Ghraib incident. Remember, it was CBS that "broke" the story in the first place - months after the Army had already begun its investigation. I have commented previously on this story here.

In tonight's 60 Minutes episode, Joe Darby, the Army sergeant who first reported the misconduct of his fellow MP's is presented as an altruistic upholder of what is right. Perhaps he is, I don't know. But if I were his company commander, he would have received a letter of reprimand for his actions at the very least.

Was Darby correct in reporting the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib? Absolutely! Should he have reported it to the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) instead of his First Sergeant? Absolutely not!

Granted, I don't have all the details of the situation, but from what has been released to the public, I can say for sure that Darby should have reported the abuse through his chain of command. His company commander should then have questioned every soldier involved and conducted a 100% "Health and Welfare Inspection" in order to confiscate all evidence (pictures) of misconduct. It would then be up to the company commander to decide if a criminal investigation was necessary after consulting with the Judge Advocate General's office (JAG).

Violations of Army regulations, not including criminal conduct, could have been handled through Article 15's and letters of reprimand, of which at least a few would be warranted.

What no one seems to care about - and this is what bothers me the most about the whole story - is who it was that leaked the pictures to CBS! That individual deserves the harshest punishment of all. A firing squad comes to mind.

SGT Darby can be excused for not being able to foresee the damage that disclosure of this incident could cause to U.S. efforts in Iraq, but whoever leaked the pictures to CBS certainly could and, therefore, is no less than a traitor to his country. And CBS? They should be required to divulge their source for the pictures and shamed for publicizing the incident. News organizations are not immune to the laws that apply to everyone else, nor are they to be congratulated for undermining our country's military in the middle of a war.

One thing most of us learned in Vietnam: Don't talk to the press. They will sensationalize anything, even if it's only a rumor, if they think they can turn it into a "news" story.

Cowardice in the "War on Terror"

Have you noticed that the MSM have resolutely avoided any possibly of offending Islamic terrorists? Oh sure, they say they just don't want to offend the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims (who also seem reluctant to offend the "tiny" extremist elements among them). They're more than happy to point out anything offensive to Muslims if it will serve to undermine the Bush administration, though.

Now it appears that the Berlin Opera House is the latest entity to capitulate to the fear of Islamic terrorists by canceling the performance of an avant-garde version of a Mozart opera that included a scene that included the severed heads of prominent religious figures, including Mohammed. German government officials reportedly urged that the "show must should go on," but the opera house chose to cancel anyway. Does anyone doubt that the terrorists are winning.

[Remember, it was the Germans who quietly freed the terrorist Mohammad Ali Hammadi not in exchange for the release of Susanne Osthoff, a German national working in Iraq who was "kidnapped" by terrorists last year. Susanne is suspected of having participated in her own abduction and assisted her Baathist "captors" in this scam to get Germany to release an important terrorist and cancel the training they had agreed to provide to Iraqi security forces. Don't expect the German government to file charges against her, though.]

Whether the opera production was tasteless or inappropriate is beside the point. Many, if not most, artistic presentations could be characterized as tasteless or inappropriate (Pis Christ, Madonna, CBS News, etc.). Those of us who value civil liberties will allow such garbage as part of the price of having our own freedom.

The performance was reportedly cancelled because the German police informed the opera house that it could result in "a violent backlash from Muslim fundamentalists." They weren't worried about angry Christians or Buddhists, though (why is that?). Although no Muslim group had expressed displeasure with the scheduled performance, it's not hard to imagine that someone would have jumped at yet another excuse to torch some cars or blow up something.

Frankly, I'm getting a little sick and tired of all this tip-toeing around Muslim sensitivities. I was genuinely proud of President George W. Bush when he said to those who wished to attack us, "Bring 'em on!" I was genuinely disappointed when he backed off from that rare show of strength and defiance of our enemy.

The MSM promotes such cowardice in the way it reports (or fails to report) the news. A good example is Newsweek magazine. It couldn't wait to publish an unfounded (and false) rumor that guards at Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet (a physical impossibility, btw), but at the height of the Danish cartoon kerfluffle, the editors at Newsweek refused to publish the cartoons in question to show everyone what the "news" was all about. In fact, no major news outlet had the courage to show what was causing the uproar.

Whatever you might think of former President John F. Kennedy, he inspired me when he said:

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Is there a leader in this country today who has that kind of courage?