Saturday, October 30, 2004
OBL Offers Surrender Terms!
The Belmont Club:
It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.Though I must disagree a bit. Bin Laden is trying to convince Americans that if we just elect John Kerry, then everything will be ok.
The American answer to Osama's proposal will be given on Election Day. One response is to agree that the United States of America will henceforth act like Sweden, which is on track to become majority Islamic sometime after the middle of this century. The electorate best knows which candidate will serve this end; which candidate most promises to be European-like in attitude and they can choose that path with both eyes open. The electorate can strike that bargain and Osama may keep his word. The other course is to reject Osama's terms utterly; to recognize the pleading in his outwardly belligerent manner and reply that his fugitive existence; the loss of his sanctuaries; the annihilation of his men are but the merest foretaste of what is yet to come: to say that to enemies such as he, the initials 'US' will always mean Unconditional Surrender.
Of course, it won't. Do you really think the insane mass murderer Osama has decided to give up? Of course not! He believes a President John Kerry will let off some pressure, and allow Osama to run his organization again.
On Nov 2, let's not let that happen. Let's keep America safe.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Satellite Photos Expose Kerry as Fraud
Satellite photos of the Al Qaaba complex were released yesterday, showing trucks parked outside the bunkers on March 17, 2003, demonstrating the most likely explanation: "Faced with an impending invasion, Saddam's forces did what any military would do. They began dispersing ammunition stocks from every storage site that might be a Coalition bombing target. If the Iraqis valued it, they tried to move it. Before the war."
This reconaissance picture, released yesterday, shows two trucks parked outside one of the 56 bunkers of the Al Qa Qaa Explosive Storage Complex on March 17, 2003, prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
(AP)
So who will be the first President to be elected for a lie? Appparently, John Kerry wants it to be himself.
For the fourth straight day, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush of failing as commander in chief to secure explosives missing in Iraq.... "Here's the bottom line — they're not where they're supposed to be; you were warned to guard them; you didn't guard them; they're not secure," he told a rally yesterday in Toledo.Kerry didn't explain how Bush was supposed to guard something that wasn't there.
So much for Kerry's pledge to "be straight" with the American people. Clearly he's trying to run out the clock on this story, hoping to be elected President before the American public figures out he's not telling the truth.
Vote Fraud Smoking Gun
The National Review's Scott Johnson says the Bush Campaign has evidence that the liberal group ACT is literally organizing election fraud in Minnesota.
Under Minnesota's registration law, an eligible but previously unregistered individual may register to vote in his precinct by showing proof of residence in the precinct or, in the absence of such proof, having a voter registered in the precinct vouch under oath that he personally knows that the unregistered individual is a resident of the precinct.Will John Kerry denounce these illegal efforts to disenfranchise voters in support of his campaign? What? Counting illegal votes isn't disenfranchising anyone, as it would if legal votes weren't counted, is it? Actually, yes it is.
Among the well-funded and supposedly independent groups supporting John Kerry in the campaign is Americans Coming Together (ACT). ACT has taken notice of Minnesota's special vulnerabilty to vote fraud and organized a sophisticated effort to exploit it in a manner that violates Minnesota law. In Minnesota the Bush campaign has come into the possession of the following email from ACT to its Minnesota volunteers:Election Day is upon us. You are confirmed to volunteer with ACT (America Coming Together) on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov 2.This email is a smoking gun of massive premeditated vote fraud. The ACT effort contemplates the prepositioning of registered voters as volunteers at their precincts of residence to provide the "vouching" necessary to get individuals registered to vote on election day in the precinct whether or not the volunteer "personally knows" the residence of the unregistered voter.
We will be creating name badges that include your Ward and Precinct information for each of the thousands of volunteers that day to make it easier to find a volunteer to vouch for a voter at the polls.
I am emailing you to request your street address, city and zipcode. We've already got your other contact information, but your record in our database does not include this information.
You can save us time on election day by replying today to this email with this information, or give us a call at [phone number with St. Paul area code].
In order to get your badge correct, please reply by Thursday.
Thank you for your help and cooperation. See you on Election Day!
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
The Stakes are High
Ralph Peters:
Soldiers don't beg. But an old friend of mine who's still in uniform came close the other day. He badly wanted me to write another column before Election Day stressing that our troops are winning in Iraq.Re-elect President George W. Bush to finish the Battle of Iraq and win the War against Islamic Extremists.
He's an Army veteran of three wars. Now he's working to help Iraq become a democratic model for the Middle East. And he's worried.
Not about terrorists or insurgents. He's afraid John Kerry will be elected president.
"Kerry's rhetoric is giving the bad guys a thread to hang on," he wrote. "They're hoping we lose our nerve. They're more concerned with the U.S. elections than with the Iraqi ones."
My pal has been involved in every phase of our Iraq operations — dating back to Desert Storm. And he's convinced that the terrorists have risked everything to create as much carnage as they can before Nov. 2. Our troops are killing them left and right. The terrorists are desperate. They can't sustain this tempo of attacks much longer.
But Sen. Kerry insists that we're losing — giving our enemies hope that we'll pull out....
Of course, the terrorists aren't suddenly going to quit if President Bush wins at the polls — but his re-election would be a terrible psychological blow to them. They know how high the stakes are in Iraq.
The struggle isn't just about the fate of one country, but about the future of the entire Middle East. If freedom and the rule of law get even a 51 percent victory in Iraq, it's the beginning of the end for the terrorists and the vicious regimes that bred them.
Al Qaeda and its affiliates are rapidly using up the human capital they've accumulated over decades. The casualties in Iraq are overwhelmingly on the terrorist side. Extremist leaders have paid a particularly heavy price. But they won't stop fighting because they can't. The terrorists have to win in Iraq. They have to defeat America.
The astonishing thing is that so many of our fellow Americans don't get it. The terrorists aren't committing their shrinking reserves because the outcome's a trivial matter. They recognize the magnitude of what we're helping the Iraqi people achieve.
This is the big one. The fate of a civilization hangs in the balance. And all we hear from one presidential contender is that it's the "wrong war, at the wrong time."
It is. For the terrorists.
Exploiting the Children
Republicans in Wisconsin are using school kids to register voters and get voters to the polls. This jumps way over the line:
Hundreds of public schoolchildren, some as young as 11, are taking time out of regular classes to canvass neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Madison and Racine in a get-out-the-vote effort organized by Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund - a group whose umbrella organization has endorsed George W. Bush for president.Are you outraged? If the parties were reversed, would you be similarly outraged?
The coalition says the effort is non-partisan, but because the group is targeting overwhelmingly Republican areas, Democratic operatives are crying foul amid the highly charged political atmosphere in the state.
"They are exploiting schoolchildren on the taxpayers' dime to conduct what is clearly a Republican, partisan get-out-the-vote effort," said Chris Lato, communications director for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. "To spend this time on a clearly partisan effort when these kids should be in school learning is shocking. It's a disgraceful use of taxpayer money..."
Students are going door to door and using phone banks to call homes urging citizens to register to vote and to remind them where the polling places are. On election day, hundreds of students plan to go out into the community to induce people to go to the polls.
Ringing doorbells in Ward 231 in Milwaukee's far south side on Tuesday morning, Trenise Johnson, 11, and a dozen of her classmates at Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning, missed a variety of classes, including science, math and reading.
The group does not canvass in high Democratic turnout neighborhoods because that is not part of its mission, said Marx.
Georgia Duerst-Lahti, chairman of the political science department at Beloit College, said she finds merit in the program, but she wishes the people at Wisconsin Citizen Action would not "pretend they are not partisan."
"It's a extremely conservative kind of group, and everyone knows it," she said.
"There is absolutely a partisan aim here," she said.
Because I might have accidentally switched them in the excerpt above. Oops.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Nobody likes a Monday Morning Quarterback
From Matthew Berke:
Consistent with the Democratic party's love for liability law, Kerry is a stereotypical ambulance chaser. He waits for something to go wrong — the war in Iraq, the shortage of flu shots at home, anything — and then leaps forward to criticize and to smugly insinuate that he "would have" done better.
"When it comes to Iraq," Kerry declared, "I would have done almost everything differently." Of course, Kerry constantly proposes his alternatives after the fact, not before, when it might matter and when he might have to bear responsibility or blame.
Kerry wonders why, given our failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the president doesn't join him in saying that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. But the issue is totally misconceived. The question is not, as Kerry puts it, whether in light current information we should have invaded, but whether invading was the right call — indeed, the only call — given what was known at the time. A true leader must make decisions in real time, often with imperfect and incomplete information, and he must take responsibility for his actions.
Bush, not having the luxury to spin and fine-tune his arguments in light of history, recognized that if America decided in favor of preemptive war, better to do it sooner than later: U.N. sanctions and weapons inspections had failed; U.S. forces could be poised for attack for only so long; and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, if indeed they existed, needed to be eliminated before they became operational.
Kerry, who supported the original war resolution, now criticizes Bush's actions as hasty — even though he and other Democratic leaders, including Clinton and Gore, repeatedly warned about Saddam's WMDs throughout the 1990s. In 1992 Gore even chastised the first President Bush for not reigning in Saddam's WMD program — as Kerry, no doubt, would also have done in 2004 had President Bush not acted.
In an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News, Kerry was asked whether he thought the Iraq war was "worth it." Kerry, despite his initial support, said no: "We should not have gone to war knowing the information we know today." Sawyer, just to be sure, followed up with: "So it was not worth it?" Oh well, Kerry answered, it all "depends on the outcome ultimately and that depends on the leadership." Sawyer, incredulous, wondered aloud: "So if it turns out okay, it was worth it?"
In that moment, Kerry revealed the depth of his cynicism and opportunism, as well as his utter unfitness for command.
CBS News admits attempted election hijacking
According to the LA Times, "60 Minutes" had been planning on running the apparently fraudulent story about missing explosives in Iraq on Sunday, October 31, giving the Bush Adminstration just one day to respond to the spurious charges.
Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes," said in a statement that "our plan was to run the story on [Oct.] 31, but it became clear that it wouldn't hold, so the decision was made for the Times to run it.""Distraught?" Because his Halloween Suprise was sprung too early?
The tip was received Wednesday, and reporters from both organizations were in place Thursday, but by Friday, when the story came together, only a single TV interview had been taped, said one person familiar with the chronology. Over the weekend, the newspaper got wind that other journalists were on the story, and decided it had to break the story Monday, this source said....
Fager "reluctantly" agreed when the New York Times said it had to go with the story, one person involved said, adding that Fager was "distraught but understood." The Times agreed to credit "60 Minutes."
I wonder what other fraudlent stories are scheduled for this weekend, and who will be dumb enough to believe them.
Update
Who is the "source" mentioned above? That question probably has an interesting answer!
Cliff May has an inside source:
The Iraqi explosives story is a fraud. These weapons were not there when US troops went to this site in 2003. The IAEA and its head, the anti-American Mohammed El Baradei, leaked a false letter on this issue to the media to embarrass the Bush administration. The US is trying to deny El Baradei a second term and we have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Update II
Little Green Footballs is on the case!
Update III
So much for "being straight with the American people." The Daily Recycler catches Kerry telling lies... On tape!
Update IV
The Bush Administration suspects that the UN is attempting to sabotage the reelection of President Bush with this suspiciously timed story:
Bush administration officials suspect political motivation behind a letter focused on the disappearance of 377 tons of explosives sent yesterday from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the United Nations Security Council....
"The timing of this seems puzzling," the spokesman for the American U.N. mission, Richard Grenell, told The New York Sun yesterday....
The loss, according to the Iraqi official quoted in the letter, Mohammed Abbas, occurred "after [April 9] 2003, throughout the theft and looting of the governmental installations, due to lack of security."
But one U.N. official who is well versed with monitoring procedures told the Sun that there is no way for the Iraqis to know whether the material was looted at that date or was hustled out of Iraq earlier, during the war.
Update V
The NY Times cover-up begins. Today the NY Times reports that a US military commander was ignorant of the importance of the weapons site, seemingly contradicting the Bush Administration, headlined "No Check of Bunker, Unit Commander Says"
White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell.Wow, that would seem to make the US Military plan seem to be pretty amatuerish, and expose the Bush Adminstration as liars. But The Belmont Club exposes the NY Times:
But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the site and had merely stopped there overnight.
The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, Al Qaqaa, was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.
[T]he NYT's use of an interview with the Col. Anderson is totally worthless. They interviewed the wrong unit commander. It was a 3ID outfit that searched the place with the intent of discovering dangerous materials nearly six days before. The 101st had no such mission.Captain's Quarters reveals that the NY Times should have talked to Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division. Contemporaneous news reports show that the U.S. did indeed search the site, and did find "laboratory samples of the HMX and/or RDX, but not the massive amounts the IAEA claimed was stored at Al Qaqaa."
U.S. troops found thousands of boxes of white powder, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare at an industrial site south of Baghdad. But a senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the materials were believed to be explosives.Honest mistake, I'm sure.
Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said the materials were found Friday at the Latifiyah industrial complex just south of Baghdad. ... The facility is part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa.
Update VI
Bush reponds to the charges:
After repeatedly calling Iraq the wrong war, and a diversion, Senator Kerry this week seemed shocked to learn that Iraq is a dangerous place, full of dangerous weapons...
If Senator Kerry had his way…Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would control those all of those weapons and explosives and could share them with his terrorist friends. Now the senator is making wild charges about missing explosives, when his top foreign policy adviser admits, quote, "We do not know the facts." Think about that: The senator is denigrating the actions of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts…..
Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site. This investigation is important and it's ongoing. And a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief.
Saturday, October 23, 2004
The Truth Behind the Lies of Farenheit 9/11
Celsius 41.11 -- Open now at a theater near you. Take your friends, and open their minds, because as they say, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
The trailer is here. More info here.
Trust in the Process?
When do Democrats favor pre-emption? Apparently when it comes to challenging legitimate election results. Lawsuits are already being filed in the important battleground states. Why?
1. They actually believe their voters aren't smart enough to figure out where to vote, or to vote correctly, and they don't want to lose their votes. But then, they obviously aren't concerned about "counting all the votes", or they would be protesting the Democratic Pennsylvania governor's disgusting effort to exclude military ballots. So call me a bit skeptical.
2. In the event that George Bush wins, they want to create enough election chaos to claim that Bush was "again" elected illegimately and therefore doesn't have a mandate to purse his "dangerous right-wing" policies. I suspect this is the real impetus of their strategy. Why else would the plan be to declare intimidation before it actually happens? Do they care that they're harming the country and the democratic process in the meantime? Clearly not.
3. Winning at any cost? Could Democrats actually be trying to steal the election by creating so many loopholes and so much confusion that it becomes impossible to detect actual election fraud. I hope not, but that is a possibility, and Bill Hobbs catalog of alleged fraudulent behavior raises "serious questions".
Meanwhile, does it matter to these people that they are making a laughing-stock out of the Democratic process in the world's leading democracy? Are they doing irreparable harm to the idea that people can and should vote for their leaders?
The VodkaPundit opines:
To these guys [Democrats], winning office is more important than the sanctity of elections. Holding power is more important than the Constitution. Much as I despise at least half of what most Republicans stand for, they don't seem nearly as willing to trash the system they're trying to run. Too many Democrats, especially at the national level, just don't care that our system, our nation is far more important than any single election...Does all of this even bother any of Kerry's voters? We'll find out on November 2nd.
I don't mean to say that Republicans haven't used dirty tricks, or won't in the future. But I have yet to see them pull anything as crass as replacing a losing candidate with a more-popular one just weeks before election day, and in violation of state law. I have yet to see Republicans calling on the world's most corrupt international organization, run largely by apparatchiks from the world's most brutal dictatorships, to pass judgment on how we run our elections. I have yet to see the Republicans encouraging their own to commit fraud by shouting "Fraud!" where none yet exists, putting at risk everything we've built here in the last 228 years.
Because, in the end, that's what the national Democrats are doing: They're trying, however inadvertently, to destroy the Republic in order to rule it.
Democracy is the free market of political systems. And like any free market, it can't function without some basic level of trust. That trust comes, slowly, from hammering out rules even competitors can live with. That trust comes, with difficulty, by honoring those rules, even when your candidate doesn't win. That trust exists in relatively few places around the world.
That trust is hard to come by and it's easy to lose....
The system, the trust, is far more important than anything else. It's more important than the White House, or Congress, or Social Security, or jobs, or even the Terror War. Our Constitution is rigged to make it hard for any party to screw things up in the short time of four years. There's always another election around the corner, if you think the current crop of office-holders is screwing things up that's the beauty of our system.
But maybe there won't be another election, if you cause the people to lose faith that elections work.
Update
1. Which party is intimidating voters in Florida?
2. Democrats refuse to condemn violence in Oregon
3. George Will on fraud in Ohio
Do you think if the parties were reversed here, Dan Rather might actually find the time to report on this? I mean, he wouldn't even need faked evidence.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Out of Touch
The ever-patronizing Mrs. Kerry let slip that she doesn't believe that being a stay-at-home mom is a real job.
One of Hugh Hewitt's readers has an appropriate retort:
Just because a housewife doesn't earn a salary doesn't mean her occupation has no value. To the contrary: ultimately, there is no salary because a price can't be placed on the service it provides her family, her community, and beyond. I'm a housewife because I see the need to be one in order for my family to function in the most efficient and effective way possible. Trust me, I'm not attempting to romanticize what I do or to make it sound noble. Heh, those would be the last descriptions I would use when referring to a housewife...except for, perhaps, one other: "It's not a real job."Irony: Teresa inherited her billions from her late husband! Does she even know what a job is?
And now I have to go make dinner. FYI, Teresa, that's one of the duties of a typical housewife. And it's the third meal your servants feed you and your family each day.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Not Bush
Does it sometimes seem like John Kerry's position on everything is that George Bush is doing it exactly wrong?
How else to explain that he is critical of Bush for being too "unilateral" on Iraq, while at the same time being too multi-lateral with North Korea? (In fact, those who remember Bush's nearly year-long dance at the U.N. know Bush has been consistently as multi-lateral as possible.)
So do you wonder what John Kerry would be arguing today if Bush had ignored all reasonable world opinion and intelligence that suggested that Iraq had dangerous WMD and known connections to terrorists?
Ronald Watkins has John Kerry in this alternate universe (via Instapundit):
Democrat Presidential nominee John Kerry delivered a speech today condemning President Bush for failing to invade Iraq in the follow-up of military action against the Talaban and Al Qaeda in Afghanastan. "Leaving this tyrant in power in contravention of numerous United Nations resolutions is unconscionable," Kerry told the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "He has left available a base of operations and a source of supply and money."
Kerry went on to criticize the war against terror as "stalled" while the real threat to America, "Saddam Hussein’s Iraq goes untouched." Kerry said, "People are murdered daily in Baghdad and throughout the country. Rape rooms are a tragic reality. Torture chambers are full as Saddam’s sons carry out their sadistic impulses on the helpless and hapless victims of this regime. President Bush has done nothing as this brutal dictator takes the money from the Oil for Food to build palaces while his people go without food...
"There can be no doubt of Saddam’s ties to our terrorist enemies. We know that in 1998, after bin Laden issued his public fatwa against the United States, two al Queda members went to Iraq where they met with Iraqi intelligence. Within weeks, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden and extend to him safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden remained with the Talaban, but the invitation from Saddam was always there. Al-Zarqawi has long received refuge in Iraq. The terrorist Forouk Hijazi is known to train his forces there. Abu Nidal has safe haven in Baghdad as he plots murders. Abu Abbas, who planned the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, lives in safety in Iraq. And at Salman Pack, just south of Baghdad, terrorists train using the fuselage of a commercial jet airline. The trail of evidence revealing Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorists is self-evident to all but those in the White House.
"Our own intelligence organizations and those of Great Britain, France and Germany, agree that Saddam is aggressively pursuing weapons of mass destruction. For all that, he has been left free to further develop his weapons of mass destruction which he can deliver into the hands of those who make war against us at any moment. Saddam Hussein has trained, financed and armed terrorist who attack and murder us, yet our President stands stalled on the border of Iraq, preoccupied with wiping up the last remnants of the Talaban in Afghanistan. To leave this cancer in the midst of the Middle East is to have assured defeat in this so-called war against terror. We need fresh leadership, a President with the vision to remove those who support our enemies from power. To have not invaded Iraq, when the whole world acknowledged the necessity, is to leave a job undone and is the height of arrogance and criminal stupidity."
Ashley's Story
If you're tired of the negativity of the election season, you'll want to watch this new advertisement.
A Single Issue Election
My friend, the Instapendent, takes me to task for rewriting history, saying that WMD was always the reason we were in Iraq, and that Iraq-war supporters should just admit we were "wrong".
My response is, "So what?"
Of course, I disagree with the Instapendent -- I believe that the Iraq war has always been part of a strategy to combat terrorism by promoting Freedom in traditionally theocratic Muslim lands, and the war can only be fully understood with that in mind. In fact, I believe that perhaps ultimately this is the only way to defeat terrorism, and therefore the only way to prevent a devestating WMD attack on the United States.
But arguing about the rationale for the war misses the point. I hope that America figures out that this election is about the future.
We need a President who fully understands the war against Islamic extremists. We can debate the history, but the reality is that we now find ourselves in an enormously advantageous position in the war against the extremist Islamic ideology, for the reasons I mentioned before.
I don't believe that John Kerry "gets it", and he would throw all of this away by withdrawing troops from Iraq before the job is finished. He will spin this "strategy" as the only responsible way to end Bush's "unwinnable" war. After all, how can you ask someone "to be the last man to die for a mistake."
General Tommy Franks wrote in the NY Times today:
We are committed to winning this war on all fronts, and we are making impressive gains. Afghanistan has held the first free elections in its history. Iraq is led by a free government made up of its own citizens. By the end of this year, NATO and American forces will have trained 125,000 Iraqis to enforce the law, fight insurgents and secure the borders. This is in addition to the great humanitarian progress already achieved in Iraq.This is the only issue on November 2nd -- who will we trust to do everything necessary to defend America, and to bring the War to the terrorists?
Many hurdles remain, of course. But the gravest danger would result from the withdrawal of American troops before we finish our work. Today we are asking our servicemen and women to do more, in more places, than we have in decades. They deserve honest, consistent, no-spin leadership that respects them, their families and their sacrifices. The war against terrorism is the right war at the right time for the right reasons. And Iraq is one of the places that war must be fought and won. George W. Bush has his eye on that ball and Senator John Kerry does not.
It may make the Instapendent feel better to pretend he doesn't have a dog in this election fight, but the reality is that we all do. And he must win.
Monday, October 18, 2004
A Plea from Iraq
The Iraqi blogger Salaam points out the obvious, and pleas for American to reelect Bush. The only question is, will America listen?
Now, do we have a right, as Iraqis to express our opinion about the U.S. elections, which are of course an entirely internal affair for the American people? Or are they?
It seems to me, that since this matter is going to have a direct impact on our lives and very existence and since the U.S. government and people have seen fit to intervene and initiate this profound revolution in our country; it would not be extravagant nor incorrect for us even to demand to take part in those elections, rhetorically speaking of course....
The outcome here on the ground in Iraq seems to be almost obvious. In case President Bush loses the election there would be a massive upsurge of violence, in the belief, rightly or wrongly, by the enemy, that the new leadership is more likely to “cut and run” to use the phrase frequently used by some of my readers. And they would try to inflict as heavy casualties as possible on the American forces to bring about a retreat and withdrawal. It is crucial for them to remove this insurmountable obstacle which stands in their way. They fully realize that with continued American and allies’ commitment, they have no hope of achieving anything.
On the other hand if President Bush is reelected, this will prove to them that the American people are not intimidated despite all their brutality, and that their cause is quite futile. Yes there is little doubt that an election victory by President Bush would be a severe blow and a great disappointment for all the terrorists in the World and all the enemies of America. I believe that such an outcome would result in despair and demoralization of the “insurgent elements” here in Iraq, and would lead to the pro-democracy forces gaining the upper hand eventually....
Unfortunately, it seems to me that many in the U.S. don’t quite appreciate how high the stakes are. The challenge is mortal, and you and we are locked in a War, a National Emergency; and in such circumstances partisan considerations must be of secondary importance. If you lose this war, you are no more, and you will have to withdraw within you boundaries cringing and waiting for terror to strike you in your homeland, afraid to move around, afraid to travel, afraid to do business abroad. You will have to see all your friends abroad annihilated and intimidated and nobody will have any confidence or trust in you anymore. And you will have to watch from far with bitterness the forces of darkness and evil taking over in many parts of this earth, with feelings of impotence and inability to do anything about it. In other words you would lose all credibility...
And all this for what? For failing to confront few thousands ex-baathists and demented religious fanatics and some common criminals, concentrated in some rural areas of a country of the size of just one of your states.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
With Bias Aforethought
In case you missed this, ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin was caught ordering his reporters to show more pro-Kerry bias:
The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.Readers, if you haven't figured this out yet, let me tell you now: If you are still only getting your "news" from the traditional sources, you are not getting the whole truth.
Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.
We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.
I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.
It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.
And this includes your local newspapers, which often just cut-and-paste stories from the AP, New York Times, Reuters, etc.
Time to expand your horizons! For starters:
Instapundit.com
Oh, That Liberal Media!
Washington Times
NationalReview.com
The Corner
Someone's been reading my blog!
Re: Iraq War Explained
The Washington Times reported today "Bush strategy of multifront war weakens rebels in Afghanistan". Military analysts seem to be confirming most of my major points in my own analysis of the Iraq war. Compare:
The Lone Fortress
And while the extremists are occupied in Iraq, they are weak in Afghanistan. Therefore, in Afghanistan the Taliban has few allies and limited resources, and there was almost no resistance to the historic elections there that likely will keep re-elect President Karzai. This is a major victory for Afghanistan and for America.
Washington Times
President Bush's three-year-old strategy of fighting a multifront war on terror is stretching enemy forces thin and reducing their ability to mount attacks in Afghanistan, said U.S. officials and independent authorities.
Much of the debate in the United States has centered on U.S. forces being stressed in the global war. But military analysts are pointing to Afghanistan's near-violence-free elections on Saturday as an example of enemy forces being depleted to the point where they cannot sustain attacks.
The analysts also say some of the thousands of terrorists trained in Osama bin Laden's Afghan camps have gone to fight in other areas, such as Iraq, further stretching their capabilities.
The Lone Fortress
We kill tens of [terrorists] everyday, and in the next few months, we'll be killing a lot more.
Washington Times
"The terrorists are being used up, and they're losing hundreds a day in many cases," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, a military analyst. "The administration has a low profile on that. But [the terrorists] are suffering severe casualties. [ed. I suppose I didn't do our military justice.]
The Lone Fortress
If we weren't fighting the terrorists in Iraq, we'd be fighting them in Afghanistan instead (if not America).
Washington Times
L. Paul Bremer, the former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said captured foreign fighters had told the U.S.-led coalition there that many of them had been trained in bin Laden's terrorist camps in Afghanistan. They presumably would have been fighting in Afghanistan today if they did not have to move to Iraq, officials said.
The Lone Fortress
With American support and steadfastness, Afghanistan has just held their first democratic presidental election in their many thousand year history, in an extraordinary defeat of the extremists. Here we have our first case-study of the power of freedom, and it's ability to defeat extremism....
We have a President who understands this, and who understands that the best way to fight terrorism is to give people living under dictatorships a better choice. And that choice is Freedom.
Washington Times
The election "was a big defeat for the Taliban and a huge defeat for al Qaeda," Gen. Barno said on Tuesday....
"Don't underestimate the power of national elections — the appeal to Afghanis is to run their own government."
A U.S. special operations official agreed. "There is popular support for a stable Afghanistan, and the bad guys would do their cause no good by going against the population," said this source, who has fought the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Lone Fortress
We are killing terrorists. While Clinton was President, thousands of extremists trained in Afghanistan to attack the West. While that didn't seem to bother us much at the time, we are now faced with the aftermath -- thousands of terrorists. So how are we supposed to find all of them, being incognito throughout the world or hidden in caves who-knows-where?
Well, that problem seems largely solved. Many of them have come to fight Americans in Iraq, and they're now largely surrounded in the Sunni triangle.
Washington Times
The source said, "Terrorists don't have the affirmative duty to kill us. They can sit and bide their time if they have to. We don't have that luxury. We're trying to force them into battles where we can kill them.
I do feel affirmed to have my opinions seconded. But then I think all of these points are relatively obvious -- and they should be common sense to anyone with basic military understanding. Unfortunately John Kerry doesn't have a clue about any of this. That's what I find so frightening about the idea of a John Kerry presidency in today's world.
Got Integrity?
Something didn't seem quite right when Kerry mentioned that his mother reminded him about integrity -- 3 times on her death bed!
Roger Simon wonders if Mother knows best --
Why did Kerry's mother feel she had to remind him "Integrity! Integrity! Integrity!" from her hospital bed when he told her he was thinking of running for President? What did she know? My mother would have assumed I would have integrity in the same situation.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Crystal Clear
Jim Geraghty caught an egregious flip-flop from the debate, all the more ridiculous because Kerry had just denied ever flip-flopping.
During the second debate:KERRY: Well, let me tell you straight up: I've never changed my mind about Iraq. I do believe Saddam Hussein was a threat. I always believed he was a threat. Believed it in 1998 when Clinton was president. I wanted to give Clinton the power to use force if necessary.Then, about five minutes later, after a question about Iran:KERRY: I don't think you can just rely on U.N. sanctions, Randee. But you're absolutely correct, it is a threat, it's a huge threat. And what's interesting is, it's a threat that has grown while the president has been preoccupied with Iraq, where there wasn't a threat.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
UN Admits Saddam Nuke Threat
In a stunning admission, the UN IAEA Director General stated that Iraq possessed "high-quality, dual use equipment [and] materials," including "yellow cake (enriched uranium)" prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and that "in the wrong hands, it could be turned to the use in a nuclear weapons program."
However, the UN is downplaying their own report with the remarkable claim that even though there were no international inspectors in Iraq from 1998 until late 2002, when they were forced in by President Bush, they were "satisfied" the materials were "not being used for a nuclear weapons program."
Nevertheless the new revelation, were it properly reported by an unbiased media, justifies the Bush Administration's concern over Saddam's WMD programs, and would likely be enough to guarantee President Bush's reelection.
Monday, October 11, 2004
Iraq War Explained
In previous posts I alluded to Iraq being part of the strategy in the War against Terrorism. But I don't think most people have a firm grasp of how that is, or what the strategy is, so let's discuss...
First and foremost, as the President himself has said, building a successful, (relatively) liberal democracy on Arab lands in the heart of the middle-east will be a game-changer in the fight against terrorism.
This was the one and only reason I supported Bush on Iraq. We will never contain the spread of WMD and WMD knowledge. It's just not possible to keep WMD knowledge bottled up, especially in the internet age, so containment of WMD is impossible. So instead we must destroy the people and the ideology who would use those WMD against us. By defeating the ideology, we defeat the WMD threat.
With American support and steadfastness, Afghanistan has just held their first democratic presidental election in their many thousand year history, in an extraordinary defeat of the extremists. Here we have our first case-study of the power of freedom, and it's ability to defeat extremism.
When January comes, and if the Iraqi vote can be achieved, and Iraqis vote against their former oppressors and determine for themselves the direction their country will take, this too will be another victory against the extremists, and further justification for the Bush strategy to defeat them.
We have a President who understands this, and who understands that the best way to fight terrorism is to give people living under dictatorships a better choice. And that choice is Freedom. And that's why we are in Iraq.
But what about WMD? That's why Bush said we attacked Iraq, right? Not exactly. Bush's decision to focus on the WMD threat was a 1) a legal justification for the war and 2) an effort to win allies and UN support for the action. In the pre-war negotiations, the WMD issue became very contentious, and that's why it became so prominent. But the impetus for the Iraq war was to bring Democracy to Iraq, as a beachhead to push Democracy throughout the Islamic world. And this holds the best option to destroy Islamic extremism. When Muslims have the choice between extemism and Democracy, they will choose Democracy, and extremism will wither away.
This is the essence of the Bush strategy to defeat Terrorism. (Does Kerry even have one?) And it's already been proven effective in Afghanistan. This is ultimately the reason why we invaded Iraq. Yes, there was strong evidence of a WMD threat. Yes, Saddam was building support to have sanctions lifted, so he could resume building WMD. Yes, there were connections with terrorists. Yes, Saddam was gruesomely torturing and murdering his own people. Yes, Saddam was funding Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. Yes, Saddam was a continuing threat to stability in the Middle East. Yes, the Iraq threat required us to station "infidel" soldiers on Saudi terrority, providing PR material for Osama. Yes, Saddam was a strong symbol of resistance to America. Yes, there were many good reasons to remove Saddam.
But the best reason was to bring Freedom and Democracy to the Middle East as part and parcel of the War on Terrorism. It's clear from the reaction of terrorists that they agree. They understand the stakes and the strategy -- they know that if we succeed in Iraq, it will be an unthinkable loss for them. As Al Zarqawi said,
We fight them, and this is difficult because of the gap that will emerge between us and the people of the land. How can we fight their cousins and their sons and under what pretext after the Americans, who hold the reins of power from their rear bases, pull back? The real sons of this land will decide the matter through experience. Democracy is coming, and there will be no excuse thereafter.So even if Kerry and Edwards don't get it, America and her enemies agree on the importance of this fight in Iraq. While it seems that the Bush Adminstration didn't expect such a forceful response to our effort, it's now clear that Iraq is where the fight is.
It's understandable that this may seem strange. As the Kerry campaign says, two years ago Iraq had few direct links to terrorism which threatened America. So why are we fighting in Iraq?
From a lay person, this is a good question. But it's a frightening question when asked by someone who wants to President. For when one considers the history of war, it's easier to understand how this can happen.
Why did Napolean and the Duke of Wellington fight it out in Belgium at Waterloo, not England or France? Why did the most pivotal battle of the American Civil War occur in a nothing Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg? Why did America first invade Africa (not, ahem, Mexico) after Pearl Harbor? Why did major battles in the Cold War against the Soviet Union occur in obscure countries like Korea and Vietnam? Why did America wage a bloody battle against the German army outside of a tiny town in Belgium, in the Battle of the Bulge? None of these places seem entirely relevant to the major players in the respective conflicts, but for different reasons, history decided that those battles would be decided in these places. Similarly, history has decided that the Battle of Iraq will be a major part of the War against Islamic Extremism.
Thankfully for America, like General Meade at Gettysburg, we find ourselves in countrol of the high ground, and so we have several tactical advatages as a result. (And thankfully, for the time-being, we have a president who won't consider abandoning the high-ground.)
First of all, we are killing terrorists. While Clinton was President, thousands of extremists trained in Afghanistan to attack the West. While that didn't seem to bother us much at the time, we are now faced with the aftermath -- thousands of terrorists. So how are we supposed to find all of them, being incognito throughout the world or hidden in caves who-knows-where?
Well, that problem seems largely solved. Many of them have come to fight Americans in Iraq, and they're now largely surrounded in the Sunni triangle. We kill tens of them everyday, and in the next few months, we'll be killing a lot more.
But aren't we creating just as many new terrorists with our bellicose foreign policy? Perhaps, and invading Germany created many more German soldiers drafted from the civilian population. But in truth, if any, we are creating the sort of terrorist who will rush off to Iraq without any military training to face the full might of the American military. This is not a sane person. As Marine Corp. Sargeant Major Bergeron said, "This is the Perfect War. They want to die, and we want to kill them.” It is better that we expose and eliminate these people in Iraq, than have them plotting against American civilians.
Second, we are fighting the war against Muslim extremists on Arab soil, not ours. By occupying them in Iraq, terrorist resources are diverted from attacks on America. While it is painful to read of terrorist attacks on Iraqi civilians, would you prefer hundreds dead every week from car bombs in New York City? If this is too cynical for you, consider that while Iraqi civilians are bearing a heavy toll, their reward is liberation. And in the real world, Freedom has a price.
And while the extremists are occupied in Iraq, they are weak in Afghanistan. Therefore, in Afghanistan the Taliban has few allies and limited resources, and there was almost no resistance to the historic elections there that likely will keep re-elect President Karzai. This is a major victory for Afghanistan and for America.
It's not hard to imagine how this might be different without a war in Iraq. If we weren't fighting the terrorists in Iraq, we'd be fighting them in Afghanistan instead (if not America). The casualties would be in Afghanistan instead of Iraq. We'd be spending billions on reconstruction and security there instead of Iraq. Because the terrorist thrust wouldn't have been diverted, their violence would be focused there, and we would have many of the same problems we have in Iraq. In fact, given the difficult terrain in Afghanistan, as the Soviets discovered, it is fortunate for us that the terrorists decided to bring the battle to Iraq.
Third, the War in Iraq is separating moderate muslims from the extremists. In the War against Terrorism, sides are being delineated. Terrorists are now killing moderate muslims, and we are clearly on the side of the Iraqis. This is not good PR for the extremists who claim that all Muslims are one, and America is the enemy of Islam.
In the same vein, when the war in Iraq is won, and the world sees the better life that America has created for Iraqis, they will know that we stood on the side of Muslims. The ongoing Arab media slander of Americans against Muslims will not stand.
So Iraq has emerged as the central battle in the war against Islamic extremism. And we are very fortunate that this is the case, for we are reaping the aforementioned benefits in this fight. I understand how some of the American public don't see this, because they are busy with their lives, and under the constant barrage of constant media negativity, it can be difficult to see the forest through the trees.
But it's inexcusable that an aspiring Commander-in-Chief cannot understand this. The man who wants to lead America's fight against terrorism must be able to understand the nuance of having A Strategy. And while Kerry just doesn't seem to get it, because of Bush's leadership throughout the tough news this summer, we are close to victory.
But now it's up to America to see this reality through the obfuscation and distraction on WMD by the media and the Kerry campaign.
For if America elects John Kerry, our victory will be in peril. The terrorists in Iraq will receive a shot in the arm -- they will recognize their chance to win. They need only redouble their efforts to win the war in the media, to convince America what Kerry "knows" in his heart -- that Bush's war in Iraq is unwinnable. Then to the delight of the Europeans, the American media, and the American Left, after some attempts to "prove" that "he tried", Kerry will be "forced" to recognize the "inevitable". America will abandon Iraq, and Kerry will be a "hero".
So, America, we cannot risk a Kerry Presidency that would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This war has been difficult, but thus far America and her brave soldiers have proven their mettle. And we hold the high-ground and the momentum is on our side.
Consider a crude poker analogy: We have played through some difficult hands, but now we are holding a straight flush, and we've committed more than a few chips to this pot. There is no doubt that we will win this hand, this battle, unless we let ourselves be convinced by the nitpicking wife looking over our shoulder that this hand is a loser.
People -- Are we going to turn the cards over to John Kerry so he can fold them? Oh, I know he swears he won't, but he also says we shouldn't even be gambling in the first place. "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time." And he's called this war a "mistake", and he still maintains we can't ask anyone "to be the last man to die for a mistake." And frankly, up to this point, his position on Iraq is whatever he thinks will get him elected. So can we trust him to be strong in Iraq?
Maybe, and I'd like to say we can, but the fact is that America cannot risk it. The stakes are way too high. We have all the advantages at this stage in the fight, as I detailed above -- We must let Bush finish the hand he is playing.
And when the terrorists in Iraq see that America has reelected Bush to finish them off, their spirit will be crushed. For then they know that America will never give up, and they will know that America will win the Battle of Iraq, and America will continue it's fight in the inevitable defeat of Islamic Tyranny.
Timeless words for difficult times: "Here we are, and here we stand, a veritable rock of salvation in this drifting world.... a new hope for the whole world."
"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." America, we must see this through to the End. "Our generation has now heard history's call, and we will answer it."
Never Forget.
Update
My analysis has been largely confirmed by the Washington Times.
"Back to the Place We Were"
The Belmont Club dissects Kerry's anti-terror plan:
Bai's article [describing Kerry's plan] reminds me of one of those products which are described on the packaging as being a new space age, high-technology, portable illumination aid which on closer inspection turns out to be a flashlight. When the newfangled description of terrorism as a "blended threat" is subtracted, the entire program consists of the policies of the late 1990s. Bilateral talks with North Korea. Oslo. G-8. The United Nations. Warrants of arrest. Extradition requests. Not a single new element in the entire package, except the fancy rationale. There is nothing wrong with that, any more than there is anything objectionable about a flashlight, but a more candid characterization of Kerry's proposals is not a voyage into uncharted waters so much as return to the world of September 10; in Kerry's words "back to the place we were". It has the virtue of producing known results, and suffers only from the defect that those results do not include being able to prevent massive attacks on the American mainland.
Kerry's world, in a way, is where one goes if George Bush's vision proves false: the frying pan, as a place of refuge if one lands in the fire. As a negative vision it will always hold some attractions; which will grow in proportion to failures in the Global War on Terror and fade in proportion to its successes. Roger Simon succinctly described Bai's article as a plea to return to "business as usual", a call to the past from "the ultimate conservative". It is heartbreakingly pathetic in its own way.
Even More Good News from Iraq
Iraqi Forces Gaining Effectiveness
When Iraq's 202nd National Guard Battalion faced insurgents six months ago, it simply, in the words of one American general, "evaporated." Now, the same outfit, tested in recent combat, is being touted as a vital building block of the force the United States says will increasingly replace its own troops on the front lines.Iraq PM Moves to Take Over Rebel Areas
Storming into the insurgent stronghold of Samarra with the Americans, the 202nd and other Iraqi units seized two holy sites and a large industrial complex, conducting house-to-house searches and raids on militant hideouts, according to U.S. military accounts.
"The good news is that the Iraqi forces are on their feet and getting better every day," said Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the operation. "Our work to train and equip Iraqi security forces is beginning to pay off in spades."
Blending diplomacy with American firepower, Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is moving closer to bringing rebel areas under government control before national elections in January.Weapons handover begins in Sadr City
In just over a week, joint U.S.-Iraqi forces smashed militants in Samarra, forced a truce with Shiite gunmen in Baghdad and pursued insurgents south of the capital....
Allawi's carrot-and-stick approach seems to be working.
Al-Sadr aides announced Saturday that militiamen will begin surrendering heavy and medium weapons next week in a first step toward halting weeks of fighting in Sadr City. Meanwhile, defense ministry officials and the chief negotiator from Fallujah, Sheik Khaled al-Jumeili, told The Associated Press that a deal could be struck soon to bring the embattled city under government control....
Returning Fallujah to government control without bloodshed would be a major victory for Allawi. It would also enable the Bush administration to avoid another major battle for control of Fallujah.
Iraqis aligned with the Medhi Army have started trickling into police stations in Baghdad to exchange their weapons for coupons they can later use to get cash from the Iraqi government.Iraq captures foreign terrorists
Rebels were expected to surrender thousands of medium and heavy weapons at various centers in the Sadr City area of the city under the control of police, the National Guard and City Council officials during a five-day amnesty, officials in Iraq's interim government said Monday.
Observers said the surrendering of rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortars and machine guns was a sign an agreement between radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi government was being.
Iraqi forces have captured 42 suspected foreign fighters in a sweep in the rebel stronghold of Samarra, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan said on Monday.Iraqi troops return to the frontline
Shalaan told Al Arabiya television that the foreigners included 18 Egyptians, 18 Sudanese and one Tunisian national, who were among 105 suspected insurgents detained in the town north of Baghdad....
U.S. and Iraqi forces on Sunday declared victory in Samarra, the first step of a drive to take back all of Iraq's rebel-held areas before elections due in January.
Iraqi special forces commander Fadel Jameel's men charged toward Samarra's sacred golden-domed mosque dodging bullets in an operation that he said showcased the Iraqi military's readiness to take on rebel enclaves in the countdown to January elections....
Jameel and his men swaggered. It was a sharp contrast from the last major offensive on a rebel-held city, Fallujah last April, when the 36th battalion, demoralised and angry, pulled out after a week....
Jameel says a huge difference is the men are now serving an Iraqi government and not the US-led occupation administration.
The year-long occupation forced soldiers to make a formal pledge of allegiance to the Coalition Provisional Authority.
But in Samarra Saturday, Jameel, a former Kurdish rebel commander, said his troops clearly knew they were fighting for their country and not for anyone else.
"The soldiers know the Iraqi prime minister tried to negotiate with the insurgents, but the rebels wanted to overthrow the government," he said....
Aware Iraqi officials want to start taking back insurgent-controlled Iraqi cities, Laibi said his soldiers were prepared for more battles like Samarra in the run-up to January elections.
"We are ready to take back any place. If any city doesn't obey the government, we're ready to take the order and attack," he said and flashed a rare smile, proud of his men in the flush of victory.
And even more from Chrenkoff, part 12. Yes, a blogger can publish a twelve part series of good news while the MSM continues to portray doom and gloom.
Blogging from Afghanistan
It's been a few days since the historic election in Afghanistan, an enormous moment for the Afghan people and a huge victory for America and the fight against Islamic extremism.
The BBC has had good coverage of what the American media doesn't want you to see -- it's worth reading through their election blog:
In Kabul, at the end of the day, emotional women told the BBC that it had been the most memorable day in their lives. Some of them were in tears. One old woman said she'd woken up early in the morning and then woke up her sisters saying: "We have to get out to vote. The future of Afghanistan is at stake....And let's give credit where credit is due. This is also a great victory for the Bush administration. Even som e of those who are anti-Bush, while of course finding a few things to criticize, can recognize the truth:
There's a cheerful, holiday mood in Mazar - schools and shops are closed and children are out flying kites....
There was a tremendous buzz of excitement at the polling stations. I genuinely got the feeling that this was the people's opportunity and that's why in Kandahar the problem with the ink is being laughed out of town....
People are now waiting to hear from the authorities managing the election. But they've been very keen to get in and vote, and defy the threats from the Taleban to those participating in the electoral process....
And women voters have been present too. For people here the election has presented a development following years of conflict. This is something new and it's a change which has not been lost on the Afghan electorate here in the south....
An Afghan cleric Maulvi Sultan Mohammad told the BBC he would only vote when the American forces are gone from his country: "This is not only my decision, but I think the decision of all Muslims of Afghanistan." [Ed. - His count is only off by about 10,000,000!]
Outside, the earlier mood of scepticism has been replaced with a sunnier, more festive spirit. A group of Qabaili tribals - largely Pashtun - have taken out an impromptu victory celebration at the Great Masood Way - a major intersection in memory of the slain Northern Alliance leader. Despite being weeks away from a result, they are confident that the man they support - President Hamid Karzai - has already won. Singing and dancing they march through the streets as a group of Isaf soldiers look on, amused. At least some Afghans have decided to wholeheartedly embrace the democratic spirit....
Large crowds gathered at Kandahar's polling stations clearly excited at the prospect of voting. One old man I spoke to said he had been waiting since his youth to see such scenes. Another said the vote represented a new era in Afghanistan's history and that the situation in the country could only get better...
Afghans in Kandahar celebrate the presidential elections
On Afghanistan, the Bush administration's record is mixed.
It does deserve credit for yesterday's presidential election.
If the leading candidate, President Hamid Karzai, wins the vote, he will become the first elected Afghan leader ever.
It is easy to mock, as I did recently, that 10.5 million Afghans registered when only 9 million were said to be eligible. The inflation was attributed to enthusiasm, or fraud, or merely a desire to multiply ration benefits.
But the fact that an election was held at all, despite the violence perpetrated by a resurging Taliban, was historic.
Many women participated enthusiastically. That others were not allowed by their men to break traditional taboos is not Bush's fault.
Afghanistan is emerging from the living hell it has been for three decades — from Communist rule to the Soviet occupation, to the mayhem of the anti-Soviet mujahideen fighters, to the tyranny of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Unlike in Iraq, where the Bush administration did almost everything wrong, it did do certain things right in Afghanistan.
Within weeks of ousting the Taliban, it had the United Nations mount an international conference in Germany to create a framework of an Afghan government.
It got the first international peacekeepers on the ground within a month.
It helped organize a loya jirga grand assembly of tribes to anoint Karzai as leader, even if he was an American appointee.
It helped organize another such gathering to approve a constitution by January this year.
It has kept its 18,000 troops mostly away from the population centres and focused on finding Osama bin Laden, rather than pacifying Afghans or keeping the peace — a task American soldiers seem incapable of doing, due to cultural ignorance or proclivity to military overkill.
I'm still waiting to hear comments from the Kerry campaign. Though frankly I find it disgraceful that they have not been falling all over themselves to praise this great day for Afghanistan, for America and for the world.
Update
While not specifically commenting about Afghanistan, I believe this statement captures the essence of Kerry:
In this administration, the approach is that democracy is the automatic, easily embraced alternative to every ill in the region,' he told me. Kerry disagreed. 'You can't impose it on people,' he said. 'You have to bring them to it. You have to invite them to it. You have to nurture the process.'So under Kerry's foreign policy, we would have "invited" and "nurtured" the Taliban towards Democracy. And this man wants to be President?
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Bush's Vietnam?
Is the Iraq War similar to the Vietnam War?
Sure it is, in some ways. It's half way around the world. It is a war of choice (in that there was no immediate threat to the United States that we met by invading Iraq). There are plenty of hostile locals who don't want us there. Americans are dying almost every day, and many of these deaths seem pointless. Watching the nightly news, the country seems to be in chaos. Sometimes it seems there is no end in sight. And one is tempted to think we could just quit the theater without immediate reprecussions to US security.
It's pretty clear this is how John Kerry views Iraq: "The wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time." And I'm sure many Americans agree. But is this really the right way to look at Iraq?
While there are many ways Vietnam and Iraq are alike, there are more important ways they are different. David Gelernter at the Weekly Standard gets it right. Please forgive me for excerpting so much, but I think it's important -- David explains why America cannot risk a President John Kerry:
John Kerry is famously hard to pin down; you can reach out to grasp his opinion only to find that it has flitted away like a bashful butterfly, or a goldfish you are trying to catch with your bare hands. But nowadays his pronouncements and campaign ads are easy to read. They suggest that Iraq is like Vietnam; that our top priority is accordingly not to win but to get out. John Kerry evidently believes, a propos Vietnam, that we should have run away sooner. Many Americans disagree. Many Americans believe that we should have stood by our friends until a free and stable South Vietnam had taken root....
We fought in South Vietnam to protect that country from a torrent of Communist evil threatening to roll down from the North. I suppose not many Americans remember the details. But surely a fair number do remember how Congress concluded that Vietnam was a quagmire, a mistake, the wrong war at the wrong time. Whereupon it refused to vote any more money for the war, not one more cent; whereupon we pulled out in a gathering panic, and South Vietnam fell to the invading tanks of the North. Then the picture goes blank. Totalitarian regimes don't like network cameramen advertising the little clean-up that invariably accompanies the establishment of a brand new absolute dictatorship. But many Americans surely recall that, after we ran away, something awful happened. The evil rolled down in a flood. Huge numbers put to sea in rickety rowboats. Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge and its bosses, a group of French-trained Communist intellectuals who created a virtually indescribable hell-on-earth. Millions died.
The truth about Communist South Vietnam leaked out gradually. Hundreds of thousands were executed; many more were thrown into "reeducation" camps--estimates range from a few hundred thousand to over a million inmates. "What Vietnam has given us," wrote Tom Wicker of the New York Times after the Communist victory, is "a vast tide of human misery in Southeast Asia." Two sentences convey more about the regime's character than a page of statistics. In Why We Were in Vietnam, Norman Podhoretz quotes Doan Van Toai, a political prisoner jailed by the Communists after we left and they triumphed. "I was thrown into a three-foot-by-six-foot cell with my left hand chained to my right foot and my right hand chained to my left foot. My food was rice mixed with sand." There in two sentences is the reason we were right to fight and wrong to run. Americans have good cause to reject John Kerry's suggestion that, if Iraq is like Vietnam, getting out is our number one priority. If it is truly like Vietnam, all the more reason to fight relentlessly and to think of victory, only victory, until the enemy has been beaten to bits. Americans want to erase the worst national humiliation we have ever suffered, not recreate it.
But Iraq is not like Vietnam. We control most of the country. A strong and able Iraqi government fights alongside us. The enemy has no phony romantic aura bearing it up, wafting it along; Jane Fonda has failed to materialize in Falluja. (At least, as this magazine goes to press.) But there is something to the Vietnam analogy. Thanks to Vietnam we now understand how a credulous press corps can turn a massive enemy defeat into a first-class victory. At the end of January 1968, the North Vietnamese and the (indigenous-to-the-South) Vietcong launched attacks throughout the South, known as the Tet offensive. They failed disastrously. The attackers suffered more than 40,000 casualties; the Vietcong were virtually wiped out. "Intended to destroy South Vietnamese officialdom and spark a popular uprising," writes Derek Leebaert, "Tet ironically had more of an effect in turning South Vietnam's people against the North." But the press reported Tet as a smashing Communist victory....
Obviously no one wants a quagmire. No one wants to sacrifice American lives to prove a point. Our duty in Iraq is to win fast, make sure the country is safe, and get out. We have a huge preponderance of power, and therefore we win by fighting; the enemy wins by waiting. We need to engage the enemy and win.
Every combat death we sustain is a tragedy. All Americans mourn every one. Nonetheless: A long fight wins a different sort of victory than a short fight, a victory that costs more and is ultimately worth more. "What you have achieved," Wittgenstein wrote, "cannot mean more to others than it does to you. Whatever it has cost you, that's what they will pay." Iraq has cost us plenty, but the payment hasn't been made in vain. We have already gone far towards silencing the post-Vietnam slander that says America is physically tough but mentally and spiritually weak. We have gone far towards recouping a certain kind of credibility we lost in Vietnam--and American credibility is a precious substance; it can save lives by the million. If we had the credibility (or magic power) to tell the regime of North Korea, Iran, or the Sudan: Clean up your act or be crushed by American power, get to it, hop!--millions would rejoice. And Americans know it.
And so if Kerry should succeed in convincing this nation that Iraq today resembles Vietnam circa 1968, he will discover that America today bears scant resemblance to itself circa 1968. Kerry may have learned nothing from Vietnam, but America has learned plenty.
And for those reasons, we cannot afford to leave Iraq. And we cannot afford to risk a John Kerry presidency that might have us do just that.
Historic elections held in Afghanistan
Instapundit has a nice round-up, with a revealing quote:
Voters also said the Taliban had been exposed as weak.And on this historic day, CNN.com doesn't even consider this a top story. I guess they just don't want you to know. Hmmm, why would that be?
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Barone on Duelfer
Michael Barone cuts through the Duelfer report spin and makes the case that, even with the benefit of Kerry's hindsight, Bush was right to go to war. And probably would have been negligent not to.
"U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons" read the headline on the October 7 Washington Post. "Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims" read the subhead. But these headlines conceal the real news in the report of Iraq Survey Group head Charles Duelfer. For the report makes it plain that George W. Bush had good reason to go to war in Iraq and end the regime of Saddam Hussein....
[W]e were facing a brutal dictator with the capability to develop WMDs and the proven willingness to use them. A dictator whose regime had had, as the 9/11 Commission has documented, frequent contacts with al Qaeda. We have no conclusive evidence that he collaborated with al Qaeda on 9/11—but also no conclusive evidence that he did not. Under those circumstances, George W. Bush acted prudently in deciding to remove this regime. He would have been imprudent not to have done so.
Good News from Down Under
The alliance remains strong! In spite of not-too-subtle warnings from the Kerry campaign, Australians reelected John Howard in a "thumping" today!
Update
Chrenkoff is following the election and post-election.
Friday, October 08, 2004
The Sword of the Pajamahadeen
I do not say this lightly: A must-read from self-described September-12th reformed-liberal Bill Whittle, part 1 and part 2.
Excerpt:
Senator Kerry says that Iraq is “a long, long way from the fight on terror.”And a final plea from Bill,
Senator, you might choose to read some history: it might broaden your perspective. The last time this country was attacked, it was by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, whose capitol city was Tokyo.
The first land battle the US Army fought was at Kasserine Pass. Kasserine Pass, Senator, is in Tunisia. Tunisia is in Africa. Africa is a long, long way from Japan.
Tunisia did not attack the United States, Senator Kerry. Tunisia, in fact, was a far, far more innocent battlefield than Iraq, which had spent the preceding decade, and then some, committing overt acts of war against British and American aircraft flying missions to enforce UN mandates.
US troops fought in Tunisia – and they fought badly; infinitely worse than they do in Iraq – because people of vision and courage and great intelligence perceived that this was the first, best front against an enemy that straddled the entire globe. We did not begin our war by launching an armada of landing craft filled with Marines on a suicide mission from Midway to Tokyo. We did not send fleets of transports to get shot down over Berlin carrying fifty divisions of paratroopers.
We attacked in Tunisia because it was the soft underbelly of a powerful enemy. There is a word for this type of action, Senator Kerry, and that word is “foothold.” It is a place where the enemy is weak. It is a place we can capture, fortify, defend and launch further attacks from. As Tunia, so Africa. As Africa, so Italy. As Italy, so Germany.
We were not attacked by the natives of the Marianas, or the Solomans, or the Marshall islands, and yet these innocent people died along with our troops. It was part of a strategy for victory, Senator...
President Bush believes that a free and democratic state provides a shockingly clear example that there is another way for Arab peoples to live. He believes, as I do, that all people want to live free and determine the course of their own lives. You claim that this is a mistake. You seem to be determined to fulfill that prophesy.
You lack the vision, Senator, to see this as a many-front war. You lack the insight to see how the sight of Saddam crawling from a hole inspired an identical self-possessed lunatic to give up Libya's nuclear weapons program. Iraq deterred Libya, you eternal defeatist. And all of the rest of the former free-range dictators now hang on the results of this election to see whether they will get a man who has capitulation in his very marrow, or one who has weathered unbelievable pressure, slurs and insults, and very likely thrown away his second term, to face reality and do something. Something unpopular. Something that he knew would make his poll numbers go down.
I know. I know John. Inconceivable.
Senator Kerry, I do not desire to be President of the United States. I will settle for being the head coach of the Florida Gators. I have a four-point plan on how to win against the Tennessee Volunteers. My plan is foolproof, and it will change the dynamic on the field. I place little weight on the fact that that game was played several weeks ago: that is why my four-point plan is so perfect! I have analyzed all of the Florida errors, and they will not be repeated when I replay that game in my mind.
And I might add I have won every Monday morning game I have ever quarterbacked.
Vote for me.
My friends, if any of you think this may in any way convince people unsure of what to think about this critical election, for God's sake print out as many NON-COMMERCIAL (Short form: that means, no charge) copies as you can and drop them out of airplanes if you are able. This election is entirely too close.
WMD Bottom Line
Who can deny this? In spite of the media spin, isn't this the ultimate truth?
He didn't have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but he could have reconstituted his programs in a matter of months.
And really, what is the difference? Yes, our intelligence was incorrect to say Saddam still had stockpiles of WMD, but it was correct to say he was a WMD threat. And isn't that the key issue?
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
The Global Test
Kerry says Republians are "almost sad" and "pathetic":
They're misleading Americans about what I said. What I said in the sentence preceding that was, 'I will never cede America's security to any institution or any other country.' No one gets a veto over our security. No one.So let's call his bluff. The full quote, helpfully provided by CNN also:
And if they were honest enough to give America the full quote, which America heard, they would know that I'm never going to allow America's security to be outsourced. That's the job of the president.
No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded -- and nor would I -- the right to preempt in any way necessary, to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you've got to do it in a way that passes the, the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people, understand fully why you're doing what you're doing, and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.In spite of what he now says, I think what Kerry said then is pretty clear: He'll reserve the "right" to preempt, but the President has "got do to it" in a way that a) Americans understand why AND b) you can prove to the world you have legitimate reasons. Yes, he probably regrets having said that. But to say Republicans are spinning it is a bit ridiculous.
The truth is that he was, as always, trying to have it both ways -- He was trying to claim that he would both defend America "in any way necessary" and yet at the same time only when it's "legitimate" to the world.
A self-contained flip-flop!
I think he just can't help himself. In fact, James Taranto has a list of 8 others from the debate:
"I believe in being strong and resolute and determined. And I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are. But . . ."
"We have to be steadfast and resolved, and I am. And I will succeed for those troops, now that we're there. We have to succeed. We can't leave a failed Iraq. But . . ."
"I believe that we have to win this. The president and I have always agreed on that. And from the beginning, I did vote to give the authority, because I thought Saddam Hussein was a threat, and I did accept that intelligence. But . . ."
"I have nothing but respect for the British, Tony Blair, and for what they've been willing to do. But . . ."
"What I want to do is change the dynamics on the ground. And you have to do that by beginning to not back off of the Fallujahs and other places, and send the wrong message to the terrorists. You have to close the borders. You've got to show you're serious in that regard. But . . ."
"I couldn't agree more that the Iraqis want to be free and that they could be free. But . . ."
"No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But . . ."
"I've never wavered in my life. I know exactly what we need to do in Iraq, and my position has been consistent: Saddam Hussein is a threat. He needed to be disarmed. We needed to go to the U.N. The president needed the authority to use force in order to be able to get him to do something, because he never did it without the threat of force. But . . ."
Kerry seems to me to have a psychotic need to be on both sides of every issue, probably so as events warrant, he can easily claim he has stood for the one thing or the other. That may be good enough for Massachusetts, but I don't think it will be good enough for America on November 2nd. Americans want a President who will stand strong against enemies of all kinds -- bombers, hostage-takers, beheaders and yes, slayers of children.
The H Bomb
If Edwards tries to argue "Halliburton" tonight, keep this in mind. These are the results of a complete search for "Halliburton" at FactCheck.org:
06.18.2004 Anti-Bush Ad Overstates Case Against HalliburtonMoveon Pac ad says administration gave contracts "on a silver platter," but government investigators say otherwise.09.30.2004 Kerry Ad Falsely Accuses Cheney on HalliburtonContrary to this ad's message, Cheney doesn't gain financially from the contracts given to the company he once headed.06.28.2004 Moveon Pac Objects; But We Still Think Their Halliburton Ad Misled 05.14.2004 Twisted Facts and Falsehoods in Media Fund AdDemocratic group's ad claims Bush turned White House into "corporate headquarters," but backs that up with false claims.
All impugn the credibility of the Kerry Campaign and related groups. For a comparison and a demonstration of FactCheck.org's relative even-handedness, search on Iraq -- it seems about half are anti-Bush and half are anti-Kerry.
But I think Edwards is probably smart enough not to engage Cheney in a debate over Halliburton -- because he knows Cheney will crush him with the facts. But I believe he'll make a few underhanded references to Halliburton, hoping to further associate its "evil" with Cheney in the minds of debate-watchers.
Kerry "Smoking Weed"
A good critique of Kerry's foreign policy, v5.1. More from Martin Peretz:
[H]e is obsessed with the United Nations and our "alliances." In something like 40 minutes of his having the microphone in the debate, Sen. Kerry alluded to the U.N., alliances, allies, and summits fully 27 separate times, about one reference to every minute-and-a-third, always charging President Bush with ignoring them. This means something, and what it means first of all is that Sen. Kerry has confidence that the U.N. (nine mentions) is still a force for good in the world. But the U.N. was designed to protect the territorial integrity of established states, to protect Poland, so to speak, from Germany or Indonesia from the Netherlands. The most disastrous wars now being waged, however, are the near-genocides within established borders, like the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and at this very moment in the Sudan.
As the U.N. did nothing when Saddam Hussein was murdering Iraq's Kurds and Shiites in the hundreds of thousands, it has been less than passive in these cases, passing vaguely reproachful resolutions reluctantly and, in any case, without effect. (The first precedent for these refusals of responsibility was the U.N.'s siding with Nigeria against the Ibos of Biafra 45 years ago, and now you have Nigeria, a monument to brutality, corruption and religious violence, also the main power in the African Union, which is put forward as the apt gendarmerie for Darfur.) The U.N.'s very structure makes it hostage to the five permanent members of the Security Council and to their particular, often pecuniary, interests. (France holds one of these post-World War II "big power" seats only because de Gaulle persuaded Churchill and FDR to pretend that the French actually fought the Nazis. This is a seat that would more aptly be filled by India.) The very essence of the international system is very different from what it once was, and Sen. Kerry cannot or will not see it.
Mr. Kerry claimed in the debate that, had the U.S. gone back to the Security Council on Iraq yet again (and, presumably, again), our "allies" would have finally supported the war in Iraq. He is smoking weed. Our "allies," in this case Russia and France, were actually functional allies, really partners of the Baathist regime in Baghdad, and these two states had been mobilizing to have sanctions lifted from Saddam which they were about to succeed in doing. President Bush did not have the wit to point this out. It is true, nonetheless. And the U.N., somehow seen as a potential arbiter in Iraq, does not have the courage of well . . . those two young Italian pacifist women who were held hostage by political gangsters even though they were against the American presence. When U.N. headquarters was bombed, Kofi Annan immediately pulled his staff out and they haven't returned. He'll put them back when they are perfectly safe, which is to say when they are not needed.
There is a stifling formalism to Sen. Kerry's conception about how one does diplomacy. He likes summits (three mentions), as if they are not commonly mere stage sets for grandstanding. He also likes special envoys -- James Baker and Jimmy Carter in particular -- as if they were what was needed to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, although he did not mention this hackneyed and failed fixative on Thursday night, failed not only in the Holy Land but in Ireland, too.
Sen. Kerry is allergic to force, as we all should be, at least somewhat. But there are times when force is necessary, even unilateral force or force deployed by a small cohort of nations. Sen. Kerry seemed to praise Bush père for the limits he put on the ambitions of the 1991 Gulf War, that it did not target Saddam. But Sen. Kerry -- it is important to recall -- voted even against that war although it was backed by a far larger coalition of countries, many Arab states included.
Multilateralism is not a panacea in and of itself. When you are dealing with global warming, multilateralism is apt, even indispensable. Unilateralism or a small band of countries is irrelevant. But would you really have wanted the clumsy and brutal Russian army, its officers veterans of the first Afghan war, in the Iraq war? Can you imagine a French battalion under the discipline of an American commander? The fact is that there are only a few countries equipped to wage precise modern warfare, and that's another reason why some countries refuse to go to televised wars: They don't want to be exposed as being militarily obsolete.
Still, Sen. Kerry promises that, if he is elected, he will be able to bring both more countries and the U.N. itself into Iraq. And what would be their motivation? To let American divisions out? This is a fantasy, like his fantasy that his found allies would also put up money for the enterprise they and he have railed against.
