A closer look

This deserves another post.

Jill Carroll: finally free.
Journalist Jill Carroll was freed in Baghdad Thursday ending a period of captivity marked by an enormous global outpouring of support and calls for her release.
"I'm just really grateful. The overwhelming emotion is gratitude. I am glad this day has arrived and thank whatever forces, divine and otherwise, that helped bring about this day," says Jill.

Her support among Iraqis appeared to be quite strong. Several Iraqi newspapers and television stations took up her cause. They reported her story, editorialized for her freedom, and donated public-service announcements designed by the Monitor's Baghdad correspondents that pleaded for Carroll's release.
Across the Muslim world, voices not normally heard on behalf of an American, called for Jill's release: Hamas in the Palestinian territories, the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, and many others.

More of this story can be found here.

This n that

I don't care if you are yellow, brown, white or whatever. Come through the front door, obey the law and show some appreciation.
And as for history, this country wasn't stolen. It was won through conquest. Spain & Mexico lost and the U.S. of A. won. Deal with it.

I'm tired of punks. Show some respect or get the hell out!



This is all I have to say about that.


Thanks for the pictues, Michelle.

No news is good news?

Jill Carroll has been released. The AP title states that 'Captors Treated Her Well' and the story is incredibly short. I guess 'as little news as possible' is good news?
And I'm not sure being kidnaped and threatened with death exactly qualifies as 'being treated well', but what can you expect from the AP? Yes, I know. Those were her words as quoted in the story. But of all the elements to this nearly three month nightmare to compose a headline out of that is the best those AP guys can do???
The title & length of this AP story has since been changed - L.B.1901

But, why, oh, why is this not front page headlines instead? Afterall, everybody could blame it all on 'W'.

And if you think N.Y. cabbies are bad, try Afghanistan. Talk about highway robbery!

Feeling small

Schoolchildren cheered as the first total eclipse in years plunged Ghana into daytime darkness Wednesday, a solar show sweeping northeast from Brazil to Mongolia.
"I believe it's a wonderful work of God, despite all what the scientists say," said Solomon Pomenya, a 52-year old doctor. "This tells me that God is a true engineer."
Total eclipses are rare because they require the tilted orbits of the sun, moon and earth to line up exactly so that the moon obscures the sun completely. The next total eclipse will occur in 2008.

Small slide show

And, of course, scientist still haven't figured out how all this clock work precision came to be.

Welcome to Hotel CHUs

Containerized Housing Units (CHUs).
Thank you to Midnight in Iraq

He ain't no Richard Roundtree

Isaac Hayes, famous way back for singing the praises of 'Shaft', and more recently, by lending his baritone to a cartoon character on the scathingly irreverent 'south park', apparently has been caught in a hypocritical conundrum. He was laughing all the way to the bank by gleefully participating in south park's vicious and unrelenting mockery of....uh, well, anything, including religion in general, but Jews or Christians in particular. Mr. Hayes' tone changed when south park's flame throw roasting turned on his religion, scientology. He quit the show in protest and, well, protested. I guess the mud slinging is different when it hits your house. But Mr. Hayes and the church of scientology will get a pass on all this because everybody knows it's only the Christians that don't practice what they preach.

Despite all this, there won't be enraged mobs in the streets of America burning foreign embassies or demanding the death of south park's producers. It seems that in the West, being ridiculed on the editorial pages, taunted by late night show hosts or socially exiled to the margins of society is sufficiently effective at motivating most people, who aren't criminals or bigots, to clean up their act.

On the other side of this planet, it is a little more brutal and unforgiving for those who are different. Some societies impose a sentence of death on individuals who don't accept the mandated national religion. Islamic law, or sharia, is often at odds with modern constitutional law. Afghanistan's apostasy case reveals these constitutional contradictions in an Islamic nation seeking to will itself into the twenty first century.

In the West, it was long ago decided that politics and religion do not mix very well in a compulsory, dogmatic union. The architects of the constitution of the United States sought mightily to avoid the religious disasters of old Europe. The wisdom of the establishment clause with its brilliant 'free exercise thereof' laid the ground work for a populace free from religious oppression at the hand of government. Unfortunately, too many leftist utopians in this nation tend to spout off about 'separation of church and state' and all too easily forget 'the free exercise thereof' part.

I wrote, sometime ago, of Islam being in desperate need of a reformation, much like that of Europe in Martin Luther's day. There are some glimmers of hope in that respect, but there is a deep rift between the Western philosophy of free societies under constitutional rule and that of ancient Muslim cultures guided by vengeance, revenge and intolerance. The worldwide anti-terrorism battle cannot be won until the vast majority of peaceful Muslims initiate reformation and demand that the violence and bloody fatwas of enraged clerics be refuted and the enlightenment of Suleiman the Magnificent be embraced.

"Faith has the power to heal people and societies. But religion can also be abused -- its unique power to motivate turned against its nobler aims."

Armed and redneck

I'm sure some in this diverse modern military may not like it, but I thought this was funny, so I stole it from Boortz. Besides, I'm having fun with this picture thang.

Dubai goodbye.

The Dubai Ports World thing has sailed into the west.
As I wrote earlier, in a different time under different circumstances, this port deal would have been a good thing for the global economy.

Dubai is a rapidly developing Arab nation that desperately wants to be part of the 21st century with all its amenities. Check out this time lapsed picture.
The sand fleas don't stand a chance.
quick call green peace!

Victor Davis Hanson has his last words on this port postmortem.
...But more importantly, the Dubai port deal shows how at odds are American perceptions and reality. For the last half-century, we have been living in a complex interconnected world of mutual reliance. Soon we will import more food than we grow. We already burn more oil than we pump. For years we have bought more than we export, and we borrow far more than we lend. To justify these precarious dependencies, America assures foreign business leaders, investors and lenders that our markets remain open and immune to the distortions of xenophobia and provincialism.

Americans may not like that devil's bargain, but it was made long ago and, for better or worse, we are long past being an agrarian republic. The resulting singular affluence of the American consumer derives from just these tradeoffs in our autonomy — and the trust we receive from those who loan and sell us things we cannot immediately pay for. So rejecting the Dubai port deal is not only hypocritical, but in the end dumb.

For once, I don't agree with him. Making these cozy alliances with Muslim/Arab nations even more cozy is not wise under the current precarious circumstances. I think the situation with our west coast docks under communist Chinese management deserves another look too. Can you say Taiwan?
And instead of a southern wall, can we just annex Mexico?

Helen Thomas. Please call your keeper.

Some of the most mentally alert and politically astute people I know are in their seventies and eighties. Helen Thomas is not one of them.
Everybody!
Say it with me now.
'Sit down & shut up. Sit down & shut up. Sit down & shut up.
...Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.'

I don't know if I have mentioned this before (ha!), but my kid is stationed in Tal Afar in northern (kurdish) Iraq.
And guess who just posted to me about being newly qualified on the M-240 Bravo machine gun?
She brags about being the only female gunner in her company and assures me that this is only 'routine' as women are not assigned out on search and destroy missions.
Yeah, right.
I'm still scared witless for her. The army is legendary for changing its mind and while it is pretty quiet up around Tal Afar for now, things can change into a bloody mess over night in that country.
I love you. Did you know it is snowing here?

Elsewhere in this region, Iraqis increasingly take the lead in anti-terrorist operations and several weapons caches are discovered near Tal Afar.
Bill Roggio, over at the Fourth Rail, has more details on independent Iraqi operation in the Haditha Triad, U.S. operation in Ramadi and an update on Swarmer & north-central Iraq.
http://billroggio.com/MT/mt-tb.cgi/1069

'Dubia' Bush comes clean on Iraq, et al.

From Scrapple Face comes the all important scoop of President Bush admitting his failures:

President George Bush will mark the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by admitting he made mistakes, and asking Americans and Iraqis for forgiveness, according to a draft of the speech, leaked to journalists today.
"Frankly, I misunderstimated the difficulty of the war for oil," the president will say. "I thought it would be as easy for us as it was for European leaders to pocket kickbacks from Saddam under the United Nations Oil-for-Food program."
The president will acknowledge that his biggest mistake was misinterpreting the word 'resolution' in 12 years of United Nations resolutions about Mr. Hussein's failure to comply with the terms of cease-fire from the first Gulf War.

And speaking of mistakes, is that dubia world ports thing still in play? You bet it is! Dubai Ports World (DPW) has confirmed it intends to sell all its US port operations to an American buyer within four to six months.

In all fairness, Dubia has been and continues to be a good ally to the U.S. They just have a few questionable things to their credit, but what is suspicion among friends, right? What it boils down to for the Bush administration is one of perception, P.R., if you will, during a time of war.

Now, I'm no expert on port management, but it seems to be a no brainer that during a time of war an All-American company should be riding herd on inter-continental port operations. After the war, stand down and go back to the global economy business as usual posture.

I recommend SSA Marine. This is a inter continental port management company located in the pacific northwest. Near as I can tell, SSA Marine is a privately owned American company. The Smith and Hemingway families have owned the company since it was founded in 1949, and maintain an active management role. It is under the umbrella of its parent company,
Carrix,Inc. which is also owned by the Smith and Hemingway families. The center for public integrity, which leans a little to the left, has more information.

I do like this little tidbit reported by the center for public integrity:
"The company is known for its hard-line towards labor unions and for favoring the use of more technology in the ports to reduce its labor costs. It has been called the "most anti-union maritime operation on the West Coast" by union leaders."

They sound like good free market republicans to me!

There, now. That wasn't so hard, was it?

Grey lady down

How many times can a beached vessel torpedo itself?
The new york times has once again embarrassed itself with yet another fake news item it has published. The man who claimed to be in this infamous photograph from abu ghraib prison turned out to be a liar.

It was a dramatic front-page story to match an infamous photo: the chilling shot of an Abu Ghraib prisoner, hooded, standing on a box, electrical wires attached to his outstretched arms.
But after questions were raised by the online magazine Salon, the Times acknowledged last night that the story was flat wrong. The prisoner in the photograph was not Qaissi, who has belatedly admitted that to the newspaper.

"The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph" and "should have been more persistent in seeking comment from the military," the paper said in an editor's note.

I found this analysis most interesting. 'Jeffn' left a comment over at the Captain's Quarters illuminating the festering puss of obvious bias that has plagued the grey lady for many decades:
So let's put this in perspective. The major news outlets will gleefully write a page 1 story about some guy claiming to be "the hooded man" based on claims from human rights organization (which is a euphemism for anti-US groups) but the release of documents about links between OBL and Iraq "don't have enough evidentiary value"? It's clearly a double system where anything this is biased against the U.S. government or intended to embarrass or indict the military has one standard of evidence and due diligence, while the stories that do not accomplish the above are subject to more thorough due diligence in the hope that they are not true. Amazing.

This obvious example of poor journalism is one in a long line of festering puss for this publication. One needs only go back to 2003 and the Jayson Blair debacle that ended with the resignation of the managing editor and the executive editor.
Another example is the obvious manipulation of opinion polls to suit the ny times' bias.
And the festering puss is even decades old as evidenced by the shameful -- and knowingly -- false coverage of the great Ukrainian famine by the new york times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty more than 70 years ago. The Pulitzer committee is currently attempting to strip the ny times, and the now deceased Duranty, of a wrongly bestowed Pulitzer prize for his published lies.

It is one thing for a no talent hack like me to blow hot air and publish ill informed banter because who the heck takes me seriously?
But many of this nations news outlets set their journalistic clocks and agendas by what the ny times has on its pages. How many times can a beached vessel torpedo itself and still have people wanting to buy passage aboard?

War is hell

That is a truism made famous by William T. Sherman in the midst of the American civil war. No doubt others before him knew that horrific truth. Hurry up and wait is also a well known fact of military life. And while no rational person prefers to be in a war zone, Max Boot pens the praises of modern logistics during war in this article for the Weekly Standard.

The U.S. military's logistical feats make the Romans look like amateurs by comparison. The entire greater Middle East, from Qatar to Afghanistan, is studded with vast installations, few of which existed just four years ago. Here, relatively safe behind rows of barbed wire and giant concrete barricades, tens of thousands of Americans can enjoy a simulacrum of their lives back home, albeit without their families (although there is a small but growing minority of soldiers who are married to each other and can wangle an assignment at the same installation). Soldiers may lead Spartan lives by the standards of modern America, but they enjoy luxury unimaginable to their predecessors in World War II or Vietnam. Dorm-style quarters (called "chews," for Containerized Housing Units) are stocked with iPods, TVs, mini-refrigerators, and air-conditioning/heating units.

& etcetera

My kid, who is stationed in Tal Afar, in northern Iraq have I mentioned that before?, made a journal entry this morning and sent it to me:
"There is a feeling here that I can't describe. I don't like the feeling though. This place really puts shit into perspective. What is the most valuable thing in your life? Now imagine that someone has just taken it away from you. We just lost the life of a soldier the other day. I bet that he was someone's most valuable thing. Hold on tight to what you have because you never know when it will be taken away."

I love you.


I know, I know; publish or perish.
I've been out of the loop so bear with me if I rehash some of last week's news. I get the distinct impression that the perpetual pessimists get a buzz from that voodoo that they doo, but you can only fool some of the people some of the time, etcetera, etcetera. At some point success has to smack them in the hind end on their way out the credibility door.


Speaking of success, Bill Roggio, over at the Fourth Rail, speaks about Consolidating Success in Western Anbar. The province of Al Anbar is the largest in Iraq and comprises almost one third of the nation of Iraq.
Another success was highlighted by Ralph Peters question in the NY Post, "Dude, where's my civil war?'
As much as the pessimists were wishin' n hopin' for Iraq to degenerate into an all out nation-wide bloody failure, it just didn't happen.
And what was really impressive were the men of theIraqi army who anchored the successful suppression of a bloody civil war. I guess the msm overlook something good to say about Iraq:
* The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets.
* Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.
* Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war.
* Forty-seven battalions drawn from all 10 of Iraq's army divisions took part in an operation that, above all, aimed at reassuring the public. The effort worked - from the luxury districts to the slums, the Iraqis were proud of their army.
AS a result of its nationwide success, the Iraqi army gained tremendously in confidence. Its morale soared. After all the lies and exaggerations splashed in your direction, the truth is that we're seeing a new, competent, patriotic military emerge. The media may cling to its image of earlier failures, but last week was a great Iraqi success.

A few more bits of good news that conveniently got neglected, which is odd because the more of this Iraqi progress that is consecutively strung together, the more secure Iraq becomes under the command of Iraqis which means the less involved coalition forces have to be which means the sooner those forces can go home, but I guess all that makes too much sense for the pessimists to grasp. nurse! oxygen!

Iraqi Army Battalion Assumes Responsibility
Iraqi Army Brigade Makes Positive Step Toward Indepent Operations
Iraqi Army Takes Over Baghdad Battle Space
Iraqi Army 2nd Brigade Plans and Leads Humanitarian Effort
Iraqi Army medics receive training and help their own
And finally, in a first, Iraq Executes 13 Insurgents

You just can't make this stuff up. From the yapping lap dog's anemic cousin's department comes word that former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, the so-called "butcher of the Balkans" being tried for war crimes at the Hague, was found dead today in his prison cell. He was 64.
Hold on.
It gets better.
He may have been poisoned.

On a lighter note, the oscars are soon to raise their pompous head with a whole cluster F#%k of over dressed and over paid hollywood mouthpieces showing off for who ever will watch and telling us all what great work they do.
You know what?
I just don't care.
I rarely go to the movie houses and have little interest in all this hoopla.
So don't even ask.

~Have a great weekend!

Mucho gracias

I want to post a big thank you to the Neanderpundit for linking me to his site.
Check out his literate ramblings on devolution. Well worth it. Thanks again!

Know your freedoms

I present to you a very good reminder from
La Shawn Barber's Corner as to why the United States in unique among the world's nations. This article is also a sad commentary how apathy and ignorance is the cancer that will destroy us from with in.
The first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, are unmatched in their respect for the dignity and autonomy of the individual. These amendments act as limits on the government. The government shall not...shall make no law. The people's rights shall not be infringed...shall not be violated.

What happens to a people who don't know their rights and freedoms? It's shameful that some have no understanding or interest in knowing why they're not thrown in jail for protesting against the government. They may ignorantly believe this is how the world works.

Know your freedoms or no freedoms.

Donald Rumsfeld is my hero

Nobody knows what to think of me when I say that, but Jerry Agar of KMBZ radio, in Kansas City, Missouri, will be interviewing the Secretary of Defense today at 4 pm CST.

KMBZ does not have a live internet stream (get with it guys!), but you can sign up for the podcast thing and download the audio.

You know, this podcast thing seems to be pretty popular around the net.
Do you think a no talent hack like me could podcast & draw an audience?


God save the republic.

A man named 'Nancy'

Some things are just egregious! Buck O'Neil was not voted into the baseball hall of fame this week. He was robbed, I tell ya. Robbed! I guess ol' Buck is taking it better than me. And if you want to know why he's called 'Nancy', look here.

Misusing words
Ok.
I'm fed up with the misuse of the word phobia. If someone has no rational point for disagreement with me, they toss 'phobe' on the end of a word and hurl it at me during the discussion. For some reason this passes as intellectual ammo in today's sound bite world.
A 'phobia' is defined as a pathological fear of something or someone. It is irrational in nature and spurs unreasonable thought or action in the suffering individual. My informed disapproval or rejection of a stated action or idea does not make me a 'phobe' of any stripe or color simply because you repeatedly scream it. Get a coherent thought or shut up.

Tal Afar once again.
Like I said, my kid is stationed in Tal Afar, so tough it out and read this. It is worth it. I found this over at The Mudville Gazette. It is written by Lawrence F. Kaplan and is an excerpt from his piece entitled 'Centripetal Force: The case for staying in Iraq.

For a glimpse of what Iraq would look like in the event of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal, one need look no further than Tall Afar, where there was a precipitous U.S. withdrawal. Before the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment (3rd ACR) launched its offensive to clear Tall Afar last September, the city, like Falluja before it, had become a horror show. With only 400 soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division patrolling the roughly 10,000-square-mile sector around it, officers say, there simply weren't enough troops to pacify the city. During the Falluja offensive in November 2004, police stations across the province fell to insurgent attacks, and Tall Afar itself fell under guerrilla control. On the western side of the city, tension between Sunni and Shia tribes escalated into open warfare; the remnant of the Shia-dominated police force launched brutal reprisals against the population; and forces loyal to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi moved into the city, mounting their own campaign of atrocities--killing patients in the local hospital, kidnapping and beheading hostages, and forcing children to act as human shields. "I know people at home will roll their eyes," says one American officer, "but Restore Rights [the September 2005 operation to clear Tall Afar] cleansed this place of something genuinely evil."

Police headquarters in Tall Afar is located on the grounds of a centuries-old Ottoman castle, which sits on a large hill in the center of the city. From its parapets, one can usually see the entire city, but it is pouring rain, and even tanks slide in the mud. The castle also houses the mayor of Tall Afar, Najim Abdullah Jabouri, who, until recently, was the city's police chief as well. The mayor still operates as the city's de facto sheriff--a bullet-riddled police vest hangs on the wall of his office. The power has gone out, and it is freezing and nearly pitch-black, but the mayor seems relieved just to be here. Only a few months ago, he says, "Zarqawi was ejecting Shia from the city; and the sky--it was raining mortars. Now, we target the insurgents, not each other." Even today, 3rd ACR has Tall Afar locked down, with tanks on street corners and patrols crisscrossing the city. "The American Army is mediator and judge," the mayor says. "It is a higher authority than any institution in Iraq." So desperate, in fact, is the mayor to block 3rd ACR from leaving that he has penned a letter to President Bush, pleading for the unit to stay. "Our security forces are not well-equipped," he explains. "We are undertrained, nowhere near the situation where we can take care of our own responsibilities."

Still, the violence in Tall Afar has declined sharply. Following Operation Restore Rights, attacks on U.S. forces in Tall Afar dropped from about seven per day to one. At first, the city's Sunni leaders refused to cooperate with U.S. forces, citing the brutality of a Shia commando brigade operating in the area. But 3rd ACR had the brigade pulled back, and it released detainees whom the Sunni sheiks would vouch for. In addition, explains Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hickey, whose Sabre Squadron operates out of the castle that houses police headquarters, "I knew I needed Sunni police to get information from the population. The Shia police were just inflaming sectarian violence." After pressing local leaders to encourage police recruits, Sunnis began to sign up, eventually swelling an exclusively Shia force of 200 into a majority Sunni force of 1,700. And, as Hickey predicted, intelligence tips began flowing in. The regiment also poured millions of dollars into the city, funding 150 water, electricity, school, and cleanup projects. At the same time, it embedded advisers with Iraqi army and police units. Today, 3rd ACR personnel live among Iraqi platoons and among the population itself, having fanned out across the city and established 29 patrol bases--including directly between the warring Sunni and Shia tribes.

Having melted into a once-hostile population center, the Americans have become an essential part of the landscape here--their own tribe, in effect. Seen from a helicopter roaring above Nineveh province, telephone wires provide the only evidence of modernity among the ancient forts, castles, and clay huts that dot the plain below. In this primitive universe, it's easy to confuse the door gunners, their aviation helmets emblazoned with Superman logos (the "S" actually stands for their unit, Stetson Troop), with actual supermen. Which many Iraqis do: Wedged between tribes of Sunnis Arabs, Turkomen, Shia, and Kurds, a regal and persecuted people--the Yazidis--call Nineveh province home. The Yazidis, who, among other things, don't wear blue, don't eat lettuce, and take a somewhat nuanced view of Satan (their Muslim neighbors have accused them, falsely, of being devil worshippers), initially confused the arrival of the Americans with the Second Coming. An officer at the forward operating base in Sinjar elaborates: "They think that, um, we're Jesus."

The Yazidis aren't the only ones. At a base in central Iraq a few days earlier, two U.S. helicopters taxi to a halt near a C-130. The crew chiefs jump out and guide two rows of detainees, handcuffed and blindfolded, away from the prop blast. A detainee's fate, as I learned last year on stumbling across a similar scene in Baghdad, depends largely on his destination. The idea of prisoners begging to get into Abu Ghraib may seem like a stretch, but, more than anything else, they fear being turned over to the Iraqi security forces. They know the Americans probably won't kill them, and that, in all likelihood, they will be released in a few days.

As for the Americans themselves, the soldiers value their roles here just as much as the local population does. Back at regimental headquarters, framed pictures of the fallen line the wall--3rd ACR has lost 42 men during its yearlong tour, and many more have been terribly wounded, including the regiment's command sergeant major. And, yet, contrary to the faux moral posturing of those who claim to speak for the troops back home, when the troops do speak, what they say is invariably some variation of "leave us alone to do our job." The soldiers' confidence in their mission derives in part from a sense of ownership that the Army has about Iraq. While Colin Powell's reported warning on the eve of the invasion--"If you break it, you own it"--applies even as the war grinds toward the end of its third year, for the Army at least, it is equally true that, when you break it, it owns you. Having bled so much here, the officer corps cannot entertain the possibility that they did so in vain. Its members truly believe that victory, even at this late date, may be within reach.