Frick & Frack

First the good news: I don't believe the first reports that this personal data was not accessed off of that stolen laptop, but time will tell with further examination by the feds.

Now the bad news: Two More Data Breaches at VA.

The plot thickens, boys & girls.

Just something to think about.....

Not all ideas are good; not all beliefs true and not all philosophies noble.
Relativism sux.
Just something to think about....

Favorite Friday part duex (that's french, ya know)

That prolofic Brit fellow over at the USS Neverdock has posted a handy list of even more good news coming out of Iraq. Take a look over at his place 'cause you'll never see this stuff in the MSM.

Favorite Friday

This guy, Burt Pretlusky, is fast becoming one of my favorite written word windbags. And I don't hold it against him that he is an avowed athiest and genial tolerator of bible thumpers. I'll still read - and tolerate - his pin point prose.

Go on, Burt. Tell the folks why it's not easy being a liberal.

It was inevitable that while most of the civilized people of the world, including millions of Iraqis, celebrated the death of Zarqawi, there was one significant group that pooh-poohed the happy occasion. I refer to those notorious party-poopers, American liberals.

Most of their consternation centered on two things. The first of these was that America had turned him into a martyr. Leftists insisted that his death was meaningless because dozens of Muslims would rise up to take his place, while millions of others would now be provoked into joining the ranks of the extremists. That is what the pinheads always say, but the fact is that by this time, after all the suicide bombings and after the killing of so many so-called insurgents and after the capturing of Saddam Hussein, if there's one thing that's a glut on the market, it's Islamic martyrs. By this late date, surely they must have run out of virgins in Paradise, and be making do with divorcees, the recently widowed, and elderly spinsters.

The other thing the liberals started spouting off about was the suspicious timing of Zarqawi's execution. As usual, when something terrific occurs that might reflect favorably on the administration, the lefties spring into action. In this case, they claimed that we could have killed or captured the butcher of Baghdad on several earlier occasions, except that the Republicans were waiting for the most opportune moment in order to cash in politically. What they failed to bother explaining was exactly how, with elections in November, killing Zarqawi in early June could possibly be regarded as an example of cynical strategy, easily traced to the nefarious mind of Karl Rove.

I suppose the thing to keep in mind is that these are the same lunkheads who kept insisting back in 2004 that, suddenly, on the eve of election day, George Bush would announce that we'd just nabbed Osama bin Laden. And when that didn't happen, I don't remember even one of them admitting he'd been a sap to suggest it.

Speaking of Osama, I wish to go on record and state that I really don't care if we never capture him. Let's face it, if we did, we'd merely have to live through another farcical trial, such as Hussein's. If it’s all the same to you, I don't need to hear Ramsey Clark and a team of leftist lawyers pleading his case night after night on the news. In the end, after all, even if he were found guilty, he'd only wind up receiving a prison sentence. Frankly, I prefer to picture him roughing it in the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan, cowering every time a helicopter flies by, than imagine him watching cable TV, working out in the weight room, and showing up in our living rooms every other week, courtesy of Larry King, Barbara Walters, and Geraldo Rivera.

One question left unanswered for me was whether or not America's bad will ambassador, Jimmy Carter, flew over to Iraq to pay his respects at Zarqawi's funeral.

Burt Prelutsky has been a humor columnist for the L.A. Times and a movie critic for Los Angeles magazine. He is the author of Conservatives are from Mars (Liberals are from San Francisco).

Ok. I'm an idiot.

I'm still learning how to drive this blog machine, so sometimes I make a mistake.
I know, I know, but it's true.

It has come to my attention, by fiddling with all the bells and whistles on this digital machine, that there have been more than a few people who have left comments to many of my brilliant and challenging posts. Due to technical ineptitude of the highest degree, most of those exhilerating comments were hi jacked by roving bands of ferocious (& butt ugly) internet gremlins and held for an exorbitant ransom under penalty of erasure. With great burden to me personally, I have paid the ransom but only a few of the comments survived the harrowing trip back through the worm hole into safety.
I apologize and grieve with you.


The 'display comments' button is now on.
Mea culpa!

Duplicity

I am not a fan of flag burning amendments or any other type of ban on that obnoxious activity any more than I am a fan of municipal ordinances banning the burning of obnoxious weeds for the purpose of ingesting nicotine. That having been said, this cartoon borrowed from the Barking Moonbat illustrates an obvious duplicity and inconsistancy in a rabid moonbat's philosophy of how to tell other citizens what is good for them and how those other citizens should live their lives (with government coersion, of course).

One more of the proud few

Michael Moore may have contempt for you and those who serve, but your country thanks you and respects your sacrifice.

Marine who appeared in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' killed in Iraq.



Our condolences to your family & friends.

Hey! U.S. of A.! Is this so hard to figure out?

Kuwait to identify veiled female voters in coming parliamentary election.
The Kuwaiti Cabinet will soon issue a decree giving female inspectors power to verify the identity of veiled female voters in June 29 parliamentary election, local newspaper Arab Times reported on Monday.

Under the decree, "women voters who refuse to remove their veil to enable such inspectors to verify their identity won't be allowed to vote".

Krykee! Is it so hard to figure out that voters also in the U.S. of A. need to identify themselves before voting?

Women & mid East politics

A first for women in Kuwait election.
Kuwaitis go to the polls on Thursday to vote in elections for a new parliament. It is the first time that women in the country have been able to both stand and vote at national level.

Despite Kuwait having the oldest parliamentary tradition in the Gulf, dating back to the early 1960s, it is one of the last to allow women to vote in national elections.
This has been an embarrassment for many Kuwaitis who have enjoyed perceiving themselves as leading the way in terms of suffrage.

The other states of the southern Gulf are watching the elections in Kuwait carefully. The region is a patchwork of political rights, with populations enjoying a spectrum of freedoms - all of them limited. These countries do have one thing in common though. They are all moving in the same direction - towards greater representation for their people.

I think Iraq was better off under saddam hussein

Dang. Don't that put a chill in your bones!

Here we go.....
Now Saddam to face trial for genocide of thousands of Kurds.
Saddam Hussein and his former top army commanders will go on trial on 21 August on charges of killing tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds in 1988 in a military operation to force them from their villages.

The Kurds, whose northern region is still haunted by the seven- month "Anfal" campaign, have long sought justice and want the former dictator to face the death penalty, as he does in his current trial over the killing of Shiites.

All face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, while Saddam and Majeed face the additional, graver charge of genocide, which also carries the death penalty. Saddam is currently being tried only for crimes against humanity.

In the "Anfal" campaign - Anfal, meaning "spoils of war", is taken from a verse in the Koran that calls for terror to be struck into the hearts of unbelievers - mustard gas and nerve agents were used to drive villagers from their homes. By some estimates 4,500 villages were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people killed, tortured or displaced. The attacks devastated Kurdistan, and the mountainous region bordering Turkey has never fully recovered.

That radical islam sure is a blessing in this world, ain't it?

What? I can't hear you! pt 4

From the USS Neverdock comes word of a new water treatment plant in Iraq that will supply water to over 4,000 Iraqis in the township of Hibhib, Iraq.
HIBHIB, Iraq, June 26, 2006 — A water treatment and distribution facility opened June 25, through the joint efforts of coalition forces and Iraqi government officials in the township of Hibhib, near Baqubah, Iraq.

Members of the civil military operations team from 1-68 Combined Arms Battalion, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Task Force Band of Brothers, and Hibhib Mayor Ali Husan Ali were on hand to cut the ceremonial red ribbon signifying the treatment and distribution facility was operational.

Hibhib is the township equivalent to a U.S. city. Khalis is a kada which is equivalent to a county and Diyala Province would be considered a state in the U.S.

The facility was run down and could not support the needs of the people before it was given an upgrade by Iraqi contractors. Now, the facility with 11 km of new piping can provide clean water for up to 4,000 people, said Capt. Brian Soule, civil military operations planner, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1-68 Combined Arms Battalion.

The project cost $130,000 and was paid for by funds from the commanders emergency response program, which is funded by the U.S. Congress. The program allows commanders in each area of operations to identify needs of the local people and provide assistance as quickly as possible.

I'll bet you frogs to turtles that this story never sees the light of day in the MSM.

What? I can't hear you! pt3

Here's something you don't see published everyday: Good news from Iraq by Jeff Emanuel.
...Iraq's economy is growing at a torrid rate, and is only expected to speed up in the near future. According to a State Department report, Iraq's 2005 GDP was 130% what it was in 2002 under Saddam (not only did it rise 2.6% in the last year, but it is expected to climb 10% in the coming year), and unemployment is 50% lower than it was in June 2003. Annual oil export revenues have increased over 300% from the prewar level of $200 million. More than 30,000 new businesses have been registered in Iraq since the fall of Saddam, and per capita income is now 240% higher than the $500 it was before the war. There are more than 5 million cell-phone subscribers now, as compared to virtually none under Saddam, and the country now has more than 2,000 Internet cafes…and a free press. USAID is also helping train Iraqis to become competitive in the job market, such as a recently-held carpentry workshop for young adults which focused on fostering leadership, independence and financial stability. The shops profits are used to purchase sports equipment, secondary school supplies, and other community-related items.

The Army Corps of Engineers and USAID have done amazing work in the last three years rebuilding-and in many cases improving on pre-war levels-Iraq's infrastructure, completing over 2,900 projects since the end of major combat operations, including the renovation and construction of hospitals, the establishment of new police stations and Border Forts (39 of 45 planned forts along the Iran-Iraq border have been completed-and are manned by Iraqis), and the cleaning up of drinking water. A village near the Baghdad airport, for example, had a problem with negative water pressure, which allowed sewage to get into the drinking water. Coalition soldiers spent ten months working with an Iraqi company to remedy the situation, replacing the Saddam-era water pipes with a system which improved pressure and water accessibility for the rest of the village. 'This is the biggest gift from the (Coalition) Forces to this village,' said the manager of the Iraqi company that contributed to the project, himself a resident of the village. 'People used to be very, very sick in the village. When the water pipes were rotten, sewage was leaking (into the water supply). We're really honored to do this and leave this here as a symbol of sacrifice. (Coalition) Forces sacrifice their lives here to help us. It's the least we could offer this village.'

It shouldn't have to be said that electrical power generation and distribution is currently at a level 720% higher than it was in May 2003 (3,600 megawatts vs. just 500 three years ago), and the Army has been providing excellent training to Iraqis to enable them to operate and maintain the nation's power systems. Demand for electricity in Iraq has doubled, and the US’s goal is to reach 6,000 megawatts of output (over 150% of the pre-war level).

It shouldn't have to be said that over 3,000 schools have been 'rehabilitated,' 9 million new textbooks have been distributed, and 36,000 teachers have been trained, or that 315 of 317 school-building projects in northern Iraq have been completed.

It shouldn't have to be said that Iraqis are now receiving excellent-and accessible-medical care courtesy of the US military. Nearly 100% of Iraqi children have been vaccinated, and the military is conducting regular clinics, such as a dental care clinic recently held by 101st Airborne and Army Special Forces medical personnel in the city of Amu Shabi. In another instance, a group of Army engineers also acted to save the lives of a number of residents of a small Iraqi village by sending tissue samples of a stray dog which had bitten five villagers (including a child) to the Veterinary Corps in Landstuhl, Germany to see if the dog had rabies. It did turn out to be rabid, and the soldiers were able to provide appropriate medical care to the bitten villagers.

This is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg; there is so much more good news from Iraq which has regrettably been ignored, and must now be given the attention it deserves. Fortunately, several 'new media' and talk radio outlets have done a consistently excellent job of getting the word out on the positive developments in the region, and still more information should come to light in the future as the improving situation gives the mainstream media less bad news to report from Iraq. Given the Left's constant harping on Abu Ghraib, Haditha, and this latest incident-the latter two of the three still being far from proven-it is supremely important that Americans be presented with the good news from Iraq, and given the information necessary to understand that the positives in that nation not only outweigh the bad, but that they do so overwhelmingly.

Welcome home & thank you!

NH Guardsmen return from Iraq.
Seven New Hampshire soldiers who spent the last year in the dangerous Sunni triangle of Iraq returned to New Hampshire yesterday, into the arms of loved ones at the Manchester airport.

Applause greeted each soldier as he rode an escalator and walked into the baggage area, where family and fellow soldiers waited.

The seven are the last of 30 New Hampshire National Guardsmen who deployed last spring with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

The soldiers were assigned to Ramadi, a hotbed of insurgent activity. The troops ran raids, provided convoy security, trained Iraqi police and staffed observation posts.


Operation re-entry
Vermonters build network to help Guard members readjust to civilian life.
The growing number of Vermont veterans (including the 400 members of Task Force Saber who will return soon from combat missions in Ramadi) has triggered concern among state and local social service agencies, including the Department of Health, which sponsored the day-long event. Post-deployment realities make readjustment to civilian life a difficult process for some soldiers. Ensuring a successful reintegration will in many cases fall to the professionals who were assembled Thursday.

'Re-entry's going to be a problem,' said Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth College who works with the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 'People have been in very dangerous situations 24 hours a day seven days a week, and you don't just turn off the switch.'

Most returning Guardsmen or enlisted Vermont soldiers, for that matter – estimated at somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 — won't suffer a diagnosable psychiatric condition, according to Friedman.

'The majority of soldiers will naturally adjust and recover normal functioning in the following months,' he says. 'For the minority of people who don't make that transition,' Friedman says, the psychological fallout can be devastating. Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse and aggressive behavior problems can destroy personal and professional relationships.


Pennsylvania Guardsmen return home with a sense of accomplishment, yet frustration.
They speak proudly about building up the Iraqi security force, restoring electricity and watching Iraqis walk miles to vote.

But they wonder whether it will be enough to secure Iraq's future, and at times, express bitterness toward the people they wanted to help.

'They're using our good will, our good-nature policy against us,' says Sgt. Bobby Walls, a 38-year-old Pennsylvania National Guard member. 'The fact that we fight as the good guys sometimes turns around and kicks us in the can, you know?'

Such are the swirling emotions for troops returning home from Iraq. Among the most recent of those returnees are members of the largest contingent of Pennsylvania National Guard troops deployed to a combat zone since World War II.

Fifteen from their ranks of about 2,000 were killed during the nearly yearlong deployment in Iraq's Anbar province, a huge swath of land that's a stronghold of insurgency. Two others are being investigated in connection with the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian earlier this year.

For the rest of these part-time soldiers, it can be a struggle as they return home this summer to regain the sort of normalcy they knew before spending a year with their lives in danger wherever they went. During stopovers at Camp Shelby in Mississippi on their way home, some talked about their experiences...

Welcome home & thank you!

Speaking of diplomacy....

Iraqi PM offers olive branch to insurgents.
BAGHDAD, Iraq Jun 25, 2006 (AP)— Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday offered an olive branch to insurgents who join in rebuilding Iraq and said lawmakers should set a timeline for the Iraqi military and police to take control of security throughout the country.


The plan won the endorsement of the senior Sunni political figure in parliament and would include an amnesty for insurgents and opposition figures who have not been involved in terrorist activities. Al-Maliki stressed that insurgent killers would not escape justice.


'The launch of this national reconciliation initiative should not be read as a reward for the killers and criminals or acceptance of their actions,' he said. 'There can be no agreement with them unless they face the justice.'

The Iraqi leader, who has been in power just over a month, said he was realistic about the difficult road that lay ahead.

"We realize that there is a legion of those who have tread the path of evil (who) - will continue with their criminal acts," he said.

But he held out an offer of peace to those who renounce violence, while threatening retribution and punishment to those who do not.

'To those who want to rebuild our country, we present an olive branch - And to those who insist on killing and terrorism, we present a fist with the power of law to protect our country and people,' he told lawmakers, who applauded his speech.

A generous offer to be sure, Mr. Prime Minister, but it is a good bet that these cowardly islamic terrorists, some who hide behind women & children during gun battles and often take refuge inside of mosques, will simply shoot you and your offer to pieces.

Just a suggestion

Prof. Mike Adams, over at the University of North Carolina @ Wilmington, suggested to me a list of summer reading recommendations. It is a good list to be sure, but I really don't have that kind of time, Mike. I will pick two, maybe three, of the best, thank you.
Click here and Mike will tell you, too, about these good books.

~Just remember, Mark Twain once said that a man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over a man who doesn't read at all.

Don't look, Ted!

Believe it or don't, there are a few self-indulgent western pansies that would not be interested in a report like this one:

West Point takes in its first Iraqi cadet.
WEST POINT, N.Y. -- The U.S. Military Academy is welcoming its first cadet from Iraq, a 19-year-old who wants serve his country's army after witnessing violence in Baghdad. Jameel comes to West Point under a long-running program that allows foreign students to come to the U.S. service academies. The Air Force Academy also is taking in an Iraqi citizen this year.

The international slots, set by law, do not take opportunities away from domestic students, said Maj. Robert Romans, head of the academy's international cadet program.

He risked his safety during the application process by routinely traveling to a U.S. military compound in Baghdad to work on a training regimen of running, push-ups and sit-ups, Romans said.

Jameel plans to major in engineering and join the Iraqi military after graduation. He also hopes to someday meet President Bush, whom his family considers a hero after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.

Soldiers are customers, too.

Personally, I have no problems with HP equipment. I use a wide variety of their products, from industrial sized printers at work to fax-copy machines at home. But, apparently, some army guys in Iraq aren't to happy with the Hewlitt Packard scan-fax-printer in their possession. The soldiers took a direct approach to resolve the situation.

**FYI: This video may not be safe for work due to one cuss word at end of video.

The fourth element

U.S. Accuses Iran Of Interference In Iraq.
PRAGUE, June 23, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The top U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, has accused Iran of being behind some of the deadly violence in Iraq, saying Iran was giving weapons and training to extremist Shi'ite groups, and using 'surrogates' to carry out terrorist attacks.

The United States has accused Iran in the past of interfering in Iraq. But General Casey's comments are seen as some of Washington's most outspoken criticisms yet.

At a Pentagon briefing on June 22, Casey called Iran one of the factors that he said were making Iraq's security situation increasingly complex. 'The fourth element that I'd suggest to you [that] adds complexity to the security situation is Iran,' he said.

'We are quite confident that the Iranians, through their covert special operations forces, are providing weapons, IED (improvised-explosive-device) technology and training to Shi'a extremist groups in Iraq, the training being conducted in Iran and in some cases probably in Lebanon, through their surrogates,' Casey added. 'They are using surrogates to conduct terrorist operations in Iraq, both against us and against the Iraqi people. It's decidedly unhelpful.'

But direct talks to discuss Washington's concerns appear unlikely.

Earlier this year, the United States authorized its ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to meet with Iranian officials to discuss Iraq. Tehran initially said it was willing to talk, but then said such discussions would be of no use.

What? I can't hear you.

Once Again: Saddam Had WMD.
Let's also be clear that this does not mean Saddam's only WMD were from the Gulf War era. Remember that the U.N., in a March 6, 2003, report on 'unresolved' WMD issues with Saddam, said a massive amount of WMD material existed but was 'unaccounted for.'
(FYI: that's what all those ignored U.N. resolutions were designed to compel saddam to reveal.

The deadly trove included: 6,526 chemical bombs; 550 mustard gas shells; 2,062 tons of mustard gas precursors; 8,445 liters of anthrax; growth media for thousands and thousands of liters of germ agents such as anthrax, botulism and clostridium; 3.9 tons of VX nerve agent, and 15,000 chemical weapons. That's a lot of death, and it doesn't include Saddam's well-documented nuclear program, which was intended to build a workable bomb.

This isn't just our opinion, but that of former Iraqi Gen. Georges Sada. Sada claims Saddam spirited WMD labs and material out of the country in early 2003, before the war began. He used a fleet of planes and trucks, and the logistical help of the Russians.

That Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, intended to use them and wanted to make more - and deadlier - ones is now beyond dispute. It's simply too well-documented.

With what we know now about WMD, it's high time for White House critics to retire their foolish 'Bush lied' slogan. And while they're at it, they should stop calling for us to withdraw from a war we're actually winning.

Those 'brave' islamic terrorists

Taleban use children as shields to fight British.
TALEBAN fighters used women and children as human shields as they tried to escape into the mountains of Afghanistan, British troops claimed yesterday.

The tactics were revealed in the first account by those who fought in one of the main battles faced by the men of 3 Para and the Royal Gurkha Rifles in Helmand province, where 3,300 British troops are stationed.

The Taleban’s use of human shields happened during a six-hour battle that began when British troops arrived in a remote area to flush out a suspected Taleban hideout.

They came under attack seven times and fired 2,000 rounds as the rebels set ambushes and opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades. About 21 Taleban were killed.

'It happened twice where they pushed women and children in front of them. The first time they ran into a compound and pushed them out the front to stop the assault,' said Corporal Quintin Poll, 29, from Norfolk.

'The second time they were firing through a building with women and children inside. My guys had to go around the left and right to get them.'

Ruminations

The difference between courageous Iraqi patriots and a self-indulgent western pansy.

Iraqi police storm farm, free 17 hostages

Those AP boys are at it again.
To paraphrase the once governor of Texas, Ann Richards, "Poor AP. They kaint hepp it; they was born with a liberal bone up their behind". These AP boys feel that good news is anathema to good reporting. They just can't let it speak for itself. Note the obligitory, unrelated bad news in the second and third paragraph of this good news story about the Iraqi police and a successful rescue of hostages.
My apologies for the migrating yahoo link concerning that AP story. I have now linked to ABC for that AP story.

The terror of ideology

The West's Multi-Headed Monster by Raymond Ibrahim.
Unfortunately, this ideology is grounded in religion and God, replete with eternal damnations and rewards, and thus not easily discredited. None of the aforementioned men initiated the many commands that create strife between Muslims and non-Muslims; they only upheld them. Immutable verses from the Koran, as well as countless statements and examples by the prophet Muhammad, are what initiate this animosity:

'When the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them - seize them, besiege them, and make ready to ambush them' [9:5]

'When you encounter infidels, strike off their heads' [Koran 47:4].

'I (Muhammad) have been made victorious through terror' [Bukhari B52N220].

No 'radical' Muslim - including head-chopping Zarqawi - made up these verses and others like them. They are understood to be the everlasting words of God and His prophet.

The West's plight vis-a-vis radical Islam is therefore akin to Hercules' epic encounter with the multi-headed Hydra-monster. Every time the mythical strongman lopped off one of the monster’s heads, two new ones grew in its place. To slay the beast once and for all, Hercules learned to cauterize the stumps with fire, thereby preventing any more heads from sprouting out.

Similarly while the West continues to lop off monster heads like figurehead Zarqawi, it is imperative to treat the malady - radical Islam - in order to ultimately prevail. Victory can only come when the violent ideologies of radical Islam are cauterized with fire.

6-21-2006

US soldiers reported tortured, beheaded.
Abducted soldiers' remains are found.
The remains of the soldiers - Private First Class Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Private First Class Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. - were recovered near a power plant in the town of Youssifiyah, where they had been operating a vehicle checkpoint that came under attack Friday, Major General William Caldwell said.

A third soldier, Specialist David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., died in the initial assault.

Caldwell said that it was clear the soldiers had died of wounds suffered in captivity, rather than at the site of the attack on the checkpoint, but that the cause of death could not be immediately determined.

He declined to describe the condition of the soldiers' bodies. Other officials suggested that the soldiers were so wounded or mutilated that they could not be positively identified.

The director of the Iraqi Defense Ministry's operation room, Major General Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured. 'With great regret, they were killed in a barbaric way,' he said. He provided no further details. According to residents of Youssifiyah and a relative of one of the victims, the soldiers were beheaded.

The Mujahideen Shura Council, a collection of several insurgent groups, including Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed in an Internet statement to have 'slaughtered' the two soldiers, suggesting they were beheaded. The group, which had vowed revenge on US forces after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this month, had on Monday claimed to have abducted the two privates.

The Shura Council's statement said that Zarqawi's successor, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, had personally killed the soldiers.

In telephone interviews, two Youssifiyah residents, Muyasar Ghalib al-Qaraghuli, 19, and a tribal leader who gave his name only as Abu Salam, described a gruesome scene in which insurgents beheaded and dismembered the soldiers after dragging their bodies behind pickup trucks.

Strict rules usually protect American forces from capture.
BALAD, Iraq - Few American soldiers have been kidnapped by insurgents in Iraq, due largely to strict military procedures for those on patrol or at checkpoints.

The gruesome killings of two kidnapped U.S. soldiers showed just how important those measures are, and pose a central question: was there a breakdown in what the military calls 'force protection' procedures?

U.S. troops in Iraq travel in groups of about 15 in at least three vehicles - usually armored Humvees. If a convoy has more than four Humvees, often units will split into groups of two to patrol more area.

But a single Humvee patrol is not allowed.

In the case of the soldiers kidnapped Friday, a farmer later told The Associated Press that he saw insurgents swarm a U.S. checkpoint in a region south of Baghdad known as the 'Triangle of Death.'

The farmer said the insurgents managed to draw away two Humvees by firing on them. When they chased the attackers, the insurgents killed the driver of the third Humvee that stayed behind. Two Americans - presumably Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, both of the Fort Campbell, Ky.- based 101st Airborne Division - were captured.

An Iraqi Defense Ministry official said the men were tortured and 'killed in a barbaric way;' al-Qaida in Iraq claimed they were 'slaughtered' like animals - language suggesting the men were beheaded.

Who's Who in Ramadi Among the Insurgent Groups.
By Lydia Khalil
U.S. forces have amassed an additional 1,500 troops for another security crackdown in Iraq's predominantly Sunni Arab center in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. The Ramadi operation, as yet unconfirmed by the U.S. military, is part of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's security offensive on the heels of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death. Multinational forces cordoned off the city and used loudspeakers to warn citizens of impending attacks (al-Jazeera, June 15). Which insurgents, however, are the multinational troops targeting and what can they expect as they step up attacks against insurgents embedded in Ramadi?

Insurgent groups operating in Iraq are a mix of the usual suspects as well as more obscure groups. Prior to al-Zarqawi's death, there were rifts between his organization—al-Qaeda in Iraq—and indigenous Iraqi insurgents in the Anbar area. Evidence has shown that he was driven from Anbar by Iraqi tribal elements and indigenous insurgents frustrated with his modus operandi. Al-Zarqawi's departure, however, did not stop insurgent groups affiliated with him and al-Qaeda from continuing operations in Ramadi. Below is a sampling of groups that the multinational forces may face during the Ramadi crackdown.

Senior al-Qaeda figure killed.
A US air strike on a fleeing vehicle killed a senior al Qaeda in Iraq leader on Friday in the same area where two American soldiers went missing a few hours later, a US military spokesman said today.

US forces had been on the trail of Mansur al-Mashhadani, identified as the top al Qaeda religious leader in the country, before he was killed in the Yusufiya area just south of Baghdad, said Major General William Caldwell.

Mashhadani was one of the top five al Qaeda in Iraq leaders and close to its mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was also killed by a US air strike on June 7.

'He was a right-hand man to Zarqawi,' Caldwell told a news conference.

Lawyer Representing Saddam Hussein Killed.
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; 6:27 AM

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- One of Saddam Hussein's lawyers was shot to death Wednesday after he was abducted from his home by men wearing police uniforms in Baghdad, court and police officials said.

Khamis al-Obeidi, who represented Saddam and his half brother Barzan Ibrahim in their eight-month-old trial, was abducted from his house at 7 a.m., said Saddam's top lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi. His body was found shot to death on a street near the Shiite slum of Sadr City, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi confirmed that al-Obeidi had been killed, although he did not provide any details

And what do dead Greek guys have to say?

I have often wondered why I was born mucho handsome instead of brilliant like Victor Hanson.
Life ain't fair.
But life has lessons to be learned. Mr. Hanson gives us an insight to the current immigration debate via Socrates on illegal immigration.

After Socrates was convicted by a court of questionable charges, his friends planned to break him out of his jail in Athens. But the philosopher refused to flee. Instead, he insisted that a citizen who lived in a consensual society should not pick and choose which laws he finds convenient to obey.

Selective compliance, Socrates warned, would undermine the moral integrity of the entire legal system, ensuring anarchy. And so, as Plato tells us, the philosopher accepted the court's death sentence and drank the deadly hemlock.

Socrates' final lesson about the sanctity of the law is instructive now in our current debate over illegal immigration....

....Yet once we as a nation choose to ignore our keystone laws of sovereignty and citizenship, the entire edifice of a once unimpeachable legal system will collapse. Ironically, we would then become no different from those nations whose citizens are now fleeing to our own shores to escape the wages of lawlessness.

That worry is why Socrates, 2,400 years ago, taught us that the deliberate violation of the rule of law would have been worse for ancient Athens even than losing its greatest philosopher.

Border states

George Will explains why the national border & illegal immigration issues might be the silver bullets that will slay the republican's current vulnerability.

Can somebody get a handle on these boneheads??!

Of course the criminals stealing this stuff need to be caught, but I want these nimrods responsible for securing these laptops with all this private information to show a few more I.Q points than a box o' rocks!!
KRYKEE!
Another Laptop With D.C. Workers' Data is Stolen.
I'm telling ya, boys n girls. These are not just random and isolated thefts by petty crooks.

I'm gone for the weekend

.....You can stop cheering now, smart@ss....

I'll leave you with this to think about.

What the heck is going on here?
big thanks to Darla!

And what do illegal immigrants think of this congressional illegal immigrant plan?

Welcome home

First group of Guardsmen return after year in Ramadi, Iraq.
Forty-four members of the Vermont National Guard's Task Force Saber returned home Thursday evening after 11 months in what has become one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq, a region that claimed the lives of six members of the unit.


God bless you, Holly. I hope you, too, come home safe and sound very soon.
I love you.

...seperated by a common language....

Midnight in Iraq told me of a conversation that he had with some Iraqi children while his unit was out on partol. What struck me was not the fact that he was conversing with these children, but the fact that these children grow up in a diverse nation with a wide variety of dialects and languages. Yet despite the obvious chasm between American soldiers and Iraqi children, a point of human intersection was achieved by something so common and so necessary - a unified language; modern standard arabic, to be exact. The cohessive and diplomatic nature of something so basic is very obvious to the Iraqi people and they strive to teach this unifying force to their children in schools through-out their nation. This lesson must not be lost on us here in the U.S. of A. during this current immigration debate.

Click here and Midnight will tell you, too, all about his conversation with these Iraqi children.

Krykee! It must be the twi-light zone, batman!

This is the second positive report from the AP in as many weeks about weakened resolve and dis-heartened spirits of those al queda boys in Iraq.
Geez. You don't think those AP guys are sunshine patriots, do you?

Papers Show 'Gloomy' State of Insurgency



Now I'm really gettin' creeped out!

Mr. Bush goes to Baghdad

He's not Jimmy Stewart, but then again, who is?
This is a nice lil photo essay of the president's recent whirlwind trip to 'the sand box'.

Yes, I know.
I'm sure there were angry Iraqis in the streets and some anti-USA demonstrations, but they are not portrayed here. I have to give the BBC credit for portaying the president in a decent way without the usual leftist-smear-campaign-goofball photos that the papers so love to publish.

Who's your buddy?

East is East, and West is west and never the two shall meet. But, perhaps Russia, Iran & China can work out a deal.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Mohammad Reza Djalili is a professor of international politics at the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. He tells RFE/RL that he sees two major reasons for Tehran's interest in SCO membership.

"The first reason is ending the isolation of Iran on the international scene," Djalili says. "The other reason is to try to build a real Asian policy. 'Look to the east,' as they say in Tehran. And through these, they can become a more active actor in the international [politics] through the Shanghai group, and through the Asian policy that Iran [has wanted] to develop for many years."

The SCO's two heavyweights -- Russia and China -- have strong economic links to Iran. Djalili also notes that Tehran and Beijing share a common interest in countering Western clout in Asia.

Russia Says Iran Has Right To Nuclear Technology

Who's your buddy?

Large and in charge

Iraq implements new security plan.

Bush Meets Maliki in Baghdad, Praises Troops

'Warmongers' have a point: It's a war.

'Go time' in Ramadi?

I still say this wasn't any petty theft

The Skipper, over at the Barking Moonbat, give us an update on that stolen lap top computer with the personal ID of millions of active duty & retired military personnel.

The Skipper makes an astute observation that could help protect the identities of our service men & women:
I forget when it happened, but sometime after WWII the military stopped using random generated numbers for serial numbers of members and started using Social Security numbers for military serial numbers. So all they needed to do was forward the letters to the IRS with a list of SSN's and the rat finks at the IRS (could locate you).

Sounds like old school is at times the best solution in an age of leaking information data bases and porous borders.

Oh, Mr. Roosevelt! Didn't you promise us back in 1933 that these social security numbers (a misnomer if I ever heard one) were not going to be used for personal identification information? Whatever became of that, Mr. Roosevelt?
Mr. Roosevelt?

That wasn't so hard, was it?

Troops Reducing Illegal Border Crossings
SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Mexico -- The arrival of U.S. National Guard troops in Arizona has scared off illegal Mexican migrants along the border, significantly reducing crossings, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.

U.S. authorities said Monday that detentions along the U.S.-Mexico border decreased by 21 percent, to 26,994, in the first 10 days of June, compared with 34,077 for the same period a year ago.

Along the Arizona border, once the busiest crossing spot, detentions have dropped 23 percent, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Detentions dropped 31 percent, to 8,308 from 11,977, along the Texas and New Mexico border.

The desert region's blistering June temperatures typically drive down the number of migrants, but not so drastically, said Mario Martinez, a spokesman with the U.S. Border Patrol in Washington.


And this here sounds like a great lil dis-information campaign:
Laureano Miranda, a 37-year-old farm worker from Mexico's Sinaloa state, said he was trying to get back to a construction job in Los Angeles.
"We've heard that there are soldiers and armed 'migrant hunters' but we have to try," Miranda said. "If we don't make it in three tries, then we'll go back home."

Pssst. Mr. Miranda, there are no 'armed migrant hunters', but phrases like that sure help sell newspapers. Either way, it is a great bit of 'dis-information'. I say as long as there is no blood shed, use all the tools at the ready.


Speaking of tools:
Reform must break the culture that encourages illegal work force.
Tough talk
With estimates of illegal residents in this country reaching as high as 12 million, immigration reform has become a popular refrain.

In the Arizona Legislature, a bill sought to have illegal immigrants arrested as trespassers and let employers go unpunished if they fired workers upon learning they were illegal. Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed the measure on Tuesday.
Nationally, the Senate and House proposals focus primarily on border security, but they also include provisions to quash the illegal work force:
● Higher penalties and fines.
● A mandatory electronic system to verify work eligibility.
● Fraud-proof identification cards.
● Sharing of information between the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

The Senate bill, which includes a guest-worker program with a path to permanent legal status, would provide more agents to investigate employers. The House bill would not. It deals mostly with border enforcement and makes illegal entry a felony.
President Bush favors a temporary guest-worker program and tamper-proof Social Security cards. He also wants harsher penalties for those who hire illegal immigrants, comparing current fines to parking tickets.
Such changes would worry illegal workers such as Quintanilla, but so far he's willing to live with the risks.
"Why did I come to the United States — to hide?" he asked. "No, I came to the United States to give my family a better life and give my best for a country I'm helping build."

Implementing an immigration plan would take years, even if Congress could reach a compromise, says Daniel Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based libertarian public-policy research foundation.
"There are just a lot of challenges between where we are at now and legislation that could pass Congress and be signed by the president," says Griswold, who has studied immigration for nine years.
Getting there means overpowering a business lobby that has fought hard to preserve the status quo, Oltman says.
"That has been the game all these years — to ask those in power not to enforce the law, drag their feet and make excuses," Oltman says.
Staying there means withstanding shifting political winds, Papademetriou says.
"This is serious money we are talking about, and this is a country that is having serious budget problems," he says. "My guess is that as soon as the country moves on from the issue of immigration, among the first things that will fall by the wayside will be funding for a robust effort at employer sanctions."

Big show
As lawmakers debated reform in recent weeks, Homeland Security unveiled its plan to crack down on employers. Like a Hollywood producer premiering a film, the department put on a big show meant to leave an impression.
Officials stood tall and talked tough on April 20 in Washington, D.C., one day after agents arrested more than 1,100 illegal workers and seven current and former executives of pallet maker Ifco Systems at 45 sites nationwide, including Phoenix.
"Our nation's communities cannot be a wild frontier where illegal aliens and unscrupulous employees subvert our nation's laws," Julie Myers, assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that day.
The plan — Phase 2 of the Secure Border Initiative, which first concentrated on border control — promises to levy criminal charges, not just fines, to punish employers who repeatedly hire illegal immigrants. It also aims to eliminate workers' use of fake Social Security numbers by giving Homeland Security access to Social Security data.
Already under way is the shift toward criminal indictments and away from fines, which range from $275 to $11,000 per violation and which many employers see as a cost of doing business, says Russell Ahr, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman.

This is a problem as wide as the southern border and there are no easy fixes, but steps like this coupled with more physical barriers at the border are a good start.
When is the last time you wrote your friendly neighborhood congressperson? On a state or federal level, I'm sure they would just love to hear from you! Follow this link to find out how to contact and send 'em a message.


NO border security needed here.

'They' chose one of 'them' to continue 'it'.

From the murky depths of occluded grags and fetid recesses, the perverted hords of cockroach legions belched in unison as their new king was exhalted upon the putrid carcass of his executed predecessor......

Man, talk about a nightmare.

But something similar has happened in real time, unfortunately.
Al Qaeda in Iraq named a successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"The shura council of al Qaeda in Iraq unanimously agreed on Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, to be a successor to Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," said a statement signed by al Qaeda and posted on a Web site frequently used by Islamist militants.

"Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is a good brother, has a history in jihad and is knowledgeable. We ask God that he … continue what Sheikh Abu Musab began," it said.

Muhajir, little known in the West, was not among the names that al Qaeda experts had expected to succeed Zarqawi.

Al Qaeda makes up about five percent of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency but its suicide bombers have been responsible for the most spectacular violence, sometimes killing over 100 people in a single attack.

Although U.S. and Iraqi leaders have hailed Zarqawi's death in an American air strike as a major blow against al Qaeda, no one has suggested the 500-pound bombs that ended his life will halt the violence in Iraq.




And speaking of cockroaches, it does appear that some of saddam's witnesses for his defense were bribed to say nice things about him at his trial.
I'm shocked! Shocked!
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Four defense witnesses in the trial of
Saddam Hussein have recanted their testimonies, saying they were coerced into speaking on behalf of the Iraqi ex-president.

Two of the witnesses said they were offered money for their testimony and two said their families had been threatened, according to confessions that were read out in court.

"My family is detained in
Syria until I provided my testimony in defense of Saddam," said the confession of the first witness Monday.

"I had to say I received 500 dollars from (chief prosecutor Jaafar) al-Mussawi, in order to divert the attention of the world away from the Dujail case."

The confession of the second witness also indicated that he testified under threats to his family, but the final two witnesses admitted they did it for money, also 500 dollars.

"Khalil Dulaimi promised me he would get me appointments with (Saddam's daughter) Raghed and (wife) Sajida," said the confession, referring to Saddam's lead defense attorney. "Then my fortune would be assured and I would get residency outside
Iraq."

For all the recanting witnesses, the deals were organized by Saddam's former bodyguards with the final coaching on their court testimony performed by Dulaimi, according to the confessions.

The witnesses testified two weeks ago that they had seen the chief prosecutor in Dujail in 2004 offering bribes for people to testify against Saddam and that many of the supposed victims in the case were actually still alive.

Saddam and seven co-defendants are on trial for crimes against humanity involving the arrest, torture and execution of 148 Shiites from Dujail in the early 1980s following an attempt on Saddam's life.

Following their testimonies, the four witnesses were detained by the court, which was pursuing legal action against the witnesses, the judge said.

Another one of Saddam's attorneys, former Qatari minister of justice Najib al-Nuami denied the earlier testimonies were fabricated, maintaining that the witnesses had been coerced into recanting.

"They said earlier they signed blank papers without knowing their contents," he said, though presiding Judge Rauf Abdel Rahman had said the confessions were handwritten.

"You were trying to use them as a pretext to undermine the case," replied the visibly angry judge.

Saddam or his sycophants obviously still have tentacles to taint this trial and threaten other people's lives. The sooner we get through this fair trial and follow it by a first class hanging, the better.

Soldiers

The weekly Standard gives us this outstanding report of the brave men & women fighting a relentless, bloody and terrifying struggle in and around Ramadi in the Al Anbar province west of Baghdad.


There are four minarets within sniping distance of Corregidor, and the gentlemen in these places of worship regularly shoot at the raised observation posts around the camp and sometimes into the camp itself. Mortars as large as 122mm smash into Corregidor on average every other day. I saw a steel container (the kind carried on flatbed trucks and train cars) hit by a mortar; it looked like an aluminum can blown up with a cherry bomb. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) pop up like mushrooms, and vehicle-borne IEDs delivered by young men determined to get at those 72 perpetually renewing virgins are also a constant threat.

But here in this hellhole, I found men who would have made their famous World War II forerunners proud. They are no longer paratroopers but are brave, bold, and elite in every sense of the word. The actions of these men in fighting an enemy less skilled than the Germans yet far more vicious and fanatical tell a story that has remained largely ignored. In fairness, Ramadi itself has been mostly ignored.



When it finally made headlines across the country in late May, it was because of bad reporting when the Washington Post's Ellen Knickmeyer "broke the news" that 3,500 men from the 1st Armored Division in Kuwait were being deployed there as emergency reinforcements for a city essentially lost to the terrorists. Actually, it was 1,500, of whom "some" are "likely to be sent to" Ramadi as the New York Times correctly reported. And the place is bad enough without such exaggerations as the claim by one of Knickmeyer's sources that al Qaeda runs it.

Corregidor is manned by four companies of 1st Battalion. A and C Companies are the "hunter-killers." B Company guards "Route Michigan" through the city, while D handles heavy weapons. Attached is a tank company from the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and a sapper (engineer) platoon to deal with explosives. There are also "enablers" to assist with the missions, comprising about 100 sailors, Marines, and airmen.

To get there, you take the "Dagger" convoy that travels down Route Michigan from Camp Ramadi (on the outskirts of town). The convoy is preceded by an explosives ordnance disposal unit that painstakingly checks the route for IEDs. On the next Dagger run after mine one such bomb would be found, but there were none this time.

As soon as we pulled into Corregidor and I opened the door of my Humvee, I heard the rattle of machine gun fire. Small arms fire is so common that within days you no longer notice it unless it's up close and personal. By coincidence, I was accompanied not only by AP's Pitman but also a third reporter, Army public affairs staff sergeant Robert Diggler. An extremely affable battalion commander, Lt. Col. Ron Clark, debriefed us. He told us that if we were looking for action, we'd find it.

Although firefights and other hostile action are routine, IEDs are the worst problem, he said. They were responsible for five of the six deaths his men have suffered since deploying in January. As of mid-May, the troops at Corregidor had suffered 380 attacks from IEDs while finding and destroying 667 more. Five deaths (and additional injuries) are tragic, but these numbers do counter the misimpression that "ingenious" insurgents are expert in making and laying bombs. In fact, they must expend a massive amount of effort and materiel to do any harm to coalition forces.

The best way by far of dealing with IEDs is to keep them from being planted. Several observation posts are set up around Corregidor for that purpose. A spotter sees a guy digging a hole in the road or beside it, and a sniper plugs him. Soon the bad guys catch on and rarely try to plant in viewable areas, concentrating on blind spots. One day Clark's men found and dispatched 18 IEDs in a stretch of road that couldn't be seen from the observation posts, he told us. The next day they returned and there were 18 more. So they just placed the road off limits.

Just say no

Iraqi children chant "No to Zarqawi" and "No to Terrorism" during a small demonstration in Baghdad's poor neighborhood of Sadr City. Iraqi and US authorities have vowed to hunt down insurgency leaders after capturing a "treasure trove" of intelligence in the attack that killed Al-Qaeda militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.(AFP/Wissam Al-Okaili)

Holy cow!

When the limp weenies at the AP write a disparaging story about al queda and the waning fortitude of terrorists, you know it just has to be true.
They rose up quickly to take up Osama bin Laden's call for jihad, ruthless men in their 20s and 30s heralded as the next generation of global terror.

Two years later, 40 percent are dead, targets of a worldwide crackdown that claimed its biggest victory with the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's front man in Iraq.

Manhunts in Asia, Africa and Europe have pushed most of the rest deep underground -- finding refuge in wartorn Somalia or the jungles of the southern Philippines. While there are still recruits ready to take up al-Qaida's call to arms, analysts say the newcomers have fewer connections than the men they are replacing, less training and sparser resources.


Read it while its hot, boys n girls, 'cause next week the AP will be singing the praises of these 'insurgents' and 'rebels'.

Parts is parts

Even al-Qaeda is glad to see Al-Zarqawi dead & gone.

He understood and harnessed the power of the internet. He recruited hundreds of suicide bombers, had brilliant intelligence and absolutely first-class bomb makers. He ran his operation on an industrial scale.

However, in recent months he became too extreme even for his allies. The success of his destructive campaign provoked concern and envy and turned all but the most hardline zealots against him.

Iraqis suffered most from his relentless assault, which included assassinations, beheadings and suicide bombings delivered on the streets of Baghdad.

The al-Qaeda leadership also become alarmed by the impact that his brutal methods was having on support in the Muslim World. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda number two, wrote to al-Zarqawi last year urging him to stop the practice of beheading victims and posting the footage on the internet.

Arguably the most disastrous operation happened last November when three suicide bombers acting on al-Zarqawi’s orders killed 60 people in hotels in Amman. The victims included Palestinians attending a wedding celebration.

Most of the militias in Iraq are fighting for political ends, they have an agenda and their aim is to secure some kind of deal giving them power in Baghdad. Zarqawi wanted to provoke sectarian war and to establish a Sunni caliphate, which would have meant rejecting 80 per cent of Iraq's population as collaborators and heretics.

It was an impossible aim but he didn't care, seeing Iraq as a step on the way to achieving this ambition.

Fellow Sunni Muslims became increasingly alarmed by his nihilist ideology and the two sides clashed openly last year when Sunnis decided to participate in the general election against al-Zarqawi’s wishes.

Well, zarqawi has his reward now: 72 'janet reno' lesbians with a hillary demeanor and hell's pitch fork to vex him where the sun never shines for all eternity. Ka-boom, al.

This abu zawahri putz is next on the worm food list.
And this just in: osama bin laden is still dead. Details at eleven.



And why didn't I think of this? Here is a capital idea.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's prime minister imposed a daytime driving ban in Baghdad and in the province where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by American bombs, fearing insurgents will seek to avenge the death of the al-Qaida in Iraq leader.

As Iraqi and U.S. leaders cautioned that al-Zarqawi's death was not likely to end the bloodshed in Iraq, an American general said another foreign-born militant was already poised to take over the terror network's operations.

WOOT!!

I have no idea what 'woot' means, but the kiddies seem to say it all the time. I suspect it means 'really, really neato'! Kinda like this news:
Zarqawi killed in Iraq air raid.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!!

Now, what I want to know is who gets the 25 mil?

Iraqis meet Zarqawi's death with joy & fear.
"I hope his death will be a new page for Iraq," said baker Zuhair Yassin, 25. "He can burn in hell."

Isa Younis, a 66-year-old retired teacher, said: "I thank God and the Iraqi government for this huge gift. I don't know how I'm going to celebrate but I know that this is the happiest day of my life."

"I'm overjoyed. God willing this will be the end of all terrorists. I hope Iraq can now begin to stabilize now this pig is dead," said Qeysar Ahmed, a Baghdad shop owner as he watched Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki make the announcement in a televised news conference accompanied by U.S. officials

Krykee! What a way to wake up.

My fish tank, which was forged before time began in the darkest depths of Mordor, sprung a tiny leak during the night. My toes went 'squish, squish' on my new carpeting while trudging sleepy eyed to the coffee maker this A.M. All tank inhabitants survived in diminished corners until my emergency services transfered them to temporary quarters. What a way to wake up. No fun and games this morning! Besides, these blogspot fellas say there is to be an outage here @ 8:30 am PST.
See you tomorrow.

Those law abiding al qaeda guys

Scrapple face gave me the heads up on that 'honorable & just' al qaeda organization as it Probes Premeditated Murder Charges.

In an attempt to quell the growing furor in the Arab world over reports of al Qaeda beheadings, bombings and abductions of civilians, Mr. bin Laden has dispatched a team of military crime scene investigators and attorneys to conduct a full investigation of all allegations against al Qaeda members.

Dang! Them islamo-fascist guys sure are decent fellas, aren't they?
unlike those wicked american soldiers.

I couldn't pass this up.

It's probably bogus ha! because you know how them guys over at break dot com like a joke, but I just couldn't pass this up. Click play to start. Media player will open a pop up window for the video, so disable any blockers.

No more auto play. Follow this link to view video.

Isreal bombs Iraqi nuclear reactor

That was 25 years ago. As part of a series marking a quater century since Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, former Iraqi nuclear scientist Dr Imad Khadduri speaks to BBC News. Previous to the Israeli attack, Iran attempted to bomb saddam's nuclear sites. Dr Imad Khadduri details how saddam and his government were spurred on by both attacks to hurl even greater effort and resources into obtaining nuclear weapons.

That period saw attempts being made in the following scientific and technical areas, which are all part of a nuclear weapon programme:

* research projects in uranium enrichment or plutonium production from spent nuclear fuel

* exact manufacturing techniques for the casting of the core of the bomb

* a workable design for the bomb itself with accurate explosive lenses

* a suitable design for enabling the bomb to be carried in a long-range rocket head

* a sophisticated command and control system for the guidance, delivery, release and detonation of the bomb

Iraq managed exceedingly well in hiding the scope of its programme from foreign intelligence eyes - whether it was Mossad, the CIA or MI6 - until after the 1991 (Gulf) war.

When the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors arrived they finally managed to put the pieces of the programme together on the ground, but only over a period of one year after that war.

Iran has learned from Iraq's mistakes

Now Iran has an active and extensive civilian nuclear programme which the United States believes is a cover for weapons production.

"The Israelis may have destroyed Osirak but they have not destroyed the impulse to create other Osiraks - in Iran, possibly even in Saudi Arabia, maybe in Egypt eventually," says Charles Tripp.

Dr Khadduri, who watched helplessly as Israeli planes destroyed his industry's showpiece in the space of a minute, believes Iran is on track to acquire a bomb and cannot be stopped by anything less than an invasion.

"Neither Israel nor the US can stop Iran from its determination by diplomacy and threats alone and barring a full-scale invasion and occupation, a military attack on Iran will fail in its objective of stopping Iran acquiring its bomb," he says.

Col Zeev Raz (Rtd), who led the Israeli attack that June evening, also believes the Iranian situation is totally different:

"If it is not solved by diplomatic or economic means, an army has to go there like the Americans did in Iraq and destroy or check all those points.

"No airpower can solve this problem."

A quick note

I regret that some of the links in yesterday's post are now broken. They all had headlines dated JUNE-6-06. Apparently, the moonbats aren't too proud of their stuff and don't wish to see it hang around very long. All I can recommend is to use a search engine other than g00gle and track down the moonbat stories.

I feel pretty. Oh, so pretty

Actually, I think it all very ugly.
As many of my admirers are fond of pointing out: I am nothing if not fair, gentle & open minded. ha! As proof of that, I have a selection of rabidly foaming leftist utopians who are grotesquely animated by their venomous hatred of all things republican in general and all things GWBush in particular. Facts, figures, common sense, a perspective on history and the fact that war is sometimes a necessary evil is lost on them. I'm sure glad I don't live in a moonbats world with all things nefarious, pointless & hopeless.

I don't mind the political dissent and discussion with-in our own house. What fans my flames is that these moonbats proudly proclaim this seething rift for all the world to scrutinize. These moonbats seem to neither know nor care that the enemy reads this sentiment in the global wind. It aids and comforts the enemy as our soldiers fight. Treason? No. Sedition? Maybe. Disloyalty and disrespect to be sure. But, then, they have not really sacrificed anything, have they.


THE 10,000th HADITHA by Ted Rall
NEW YORK--Months after Time magazine reported that U.S. Marines had carried out a My Lai-style massacre of at least two dozen innocent Iraqi civilians, the average "support our troops" American is waking up and smelling the butchery.
As usual, the U.S. government tried to cover up the mass murder--it initially claimed that the victims were blown up by an insurgent IED. But, as Time reported in March, the "civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children." As at My Lai, the bloodlust was not easily sated. "The raids took five hours and left at least 23 people dead."
So far reaction to Haditha has been the reverse of what you might expect. Republicans and other pro-war types are running around like it's the end of the world. (I think you mean moonbats)

A Note From a Friend in Baghdad by Stephen Elliott.
I got a note from a friend today. An American who works in Baghdad and does not want his identity revealed. He says women are being kidnapped and killed for the clothes they wear. He says women are being hunted. The country is in chaos. People are mourning the loss of Saddam Hussein, convinced things were better before.
It's an awful thing to think, that things might have been better under a murderous dictator. But it seems to be accepted wisdom among the diplomats. And even if it isn't true, still, if it is close enough that a sizable percentage could think it, then we have failed miserably.
We have failed miserably in Iraq. We have tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib, murdered civilians in Haditha. We turned our backs on the Geneva Accords and American values, promising to build democracy in the Middle East, and received only a failed state in return.
I wanted to go to Iraq at the end of this month, frustrated by the lack of available information on the conflict. (huh?)

WAR SUPPORTERS STILL DENY UNPLEASANT TRUTHS ABOUT IRAQ
If the peculiar ability to accept only rosy scenarios and optimistic forecasts about Iraq was limited to armchair hawks, it would hardly matter. But that same intentional blindness permeated the White House, the
Pentagon and the ranks of neo-conservative cheerleaders in the months before the invasion. More than anything else, the unwillingness to hear even thoughtful criticism from military experts led to the bungled preparations and inept strategies that have left Iraq on the brink of civil war.

By now, even President Bush has been forced to peek out of his protective bubble into the reality-based universe. In late May, standing beside British Prime Minister
Tony Blair -- both men politically battered by the continuing chaos in Iraq -- Bush acknowledged mistakes in tone, apologizing for the cowboy rhetoric he had used in the early months of the war. He also admitted that the
Abu Ghraib abuses have tarnished our image abroad.

Hayden Confirmed! OMG OMG! by Wonkette.
Michael Hayden has been confirmed! Holy '''' ! This Friday is FULL OF SURPRISES!
The lesson is an important one: You can be an idiotic middle-manager mother ''''' er who’s personally responsible for an overreaching and very possibly criminal domestic spying program, while also being so lousy at this spy '''' that you’re caught by USA TODAY, fer chrissakes, and none of that is any impediment to running, more or less without oversight, the most powerful intelligence agency in the world.
What a great day to be an American! (I think that was sarcasm on her part.)

Well, boys n girls.
That is about all I can stomach from our fellow countrymen right now. It is time to take a hot shower and wash this slime off me.

The da vinci ding-a-lings

I still haven't read the book and I won't go to the theatre to see the movie. I think it's out on DVD next week though. That was quick.

Professor Mike Adams cracks me up and he has done it again with 'The Portable Dan Brown'.

I used to think The Koran was the best book to read in the airport, simply because carrying it guarantees you'll never get searched by airport security. Later, I decided that The Book of Mormon was better because it guarantees the person sitting next to you will never start a conversation during the flight. Now, I've decided - once and for all, I think - that The Da Vinci Code has both of them topped.

Toting Dan Brown's book is far better than toting the aforementioned works of fiction because it helps to identify my least favorite segment of American society - the conspiracy theorists. The following excerpts from real conversations - conversations people actually initiated with me after seeing my copy of The Da Vinci Code - explain why I now carry it to work, to restaurants, and just about everywhere except for church:

Conversation 1

Quacky conspiracy theorist (Q): So, you're just now reading The Code? What took you so long? How do you like it?

Adams (A): Well, I'm trying to enjoy it like a Grisham novel but, unfortunately, people are taking it way too seriously.

Q: Oh, do you mean the religious right?

A: No, I'm talking about the whacky conspiracy nuts who actually think the book is evidence of patriarchal oppression. Those nuts really annoy me.

Q: Well, you have to agree that it's curious that the Bible was written by males, don't you?

A: That's a great point, I've never really thought of that.

Q: Really?

A: Yes, really. I'll remember that the next time I read a report from the Women's Resource Center or the Women’s Studies department.

Q: What does that have to do with it?

A: Obviously, since all the authors of those reports are women, they must be involved in a conspiracy to oppress men. I think I just discovered a new concept; matriarchal oppression. Thanks for the inspiration.

Conversation 2

Q: Oh, I just love that book. Have you read about the Council of Nicea and how they conspired to keep out the Gnostic Gospels? It was all so political the way they choose the Books of the Bible, don't you agree?

A: No.

Q: Well, why not?

A: I've read the Bible seven times, the New Testament ten times, and all of the so-called Gnostic Gospels.

Q: And what have you concluded?

A: The New Testament books were selected long before 325 A.D. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were either written by eyewitnesses or on the basis of eyewitness evidence. The Gnostic Gospels were not. In addition to being incoherent fragments, they were written many, many decades later.

I just try to treat the life of Jesus as a murder mystery, which is easy to do since he was, in fact, murdered. If you want to solve the mystery, you have to know everything you can about the victim. To do so, you should prefer eyewitness testimony over all other forms of evidence. There was no better type of evidence back then. And, of course, only a fool would give preference to the accounts that were written later. That is a backwards way of thinking. I mean that literally.

Q: Then why does The Da Vinci Code suggest that members of the Council of Nicea conspired to exclude certain books for sexist reasons, if it isn't true?

A: Because The Da Vinci Code is fiction.

Q: How do you know?

A: Because I picked it up at Barnes and Noble in the section marked 'fiction.'

Conversation 3

Q: Won't you admit that there was a conspiracy to label Mary Magdalene as a whore in order to deny her true place at the top of the Christian hierarchy?

A: No.

Q: Aren't you open-minded enough to even consider that Pope Gregory's public labeling of her as a whore was an intentional act undertaken in concert with the members of the Council of Nicea?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Well, Pope Gregory made the statement in 591 A.D. If he were Pope during the time of that council, too, that means he called Mary a whore in the 266th year of his pope-hood. You conspiracy theorists are either profoundly ignorant of history or just plain crazy enough to believe in time travel. I don't know which is worse.

Conversation 4

Q: Why do you keep demanding that I produce evidence to support my theories? Do you have evidence to support everything you believe in?

A: I don't know. Test me.

Q: You believe Jesus was a real person who walked the earth, don't you?

A: Yes.

Q: But they haven't found Jesus' bones have they?

A: No.

Q: Is that consistent with the Bible?

A: As a matter of fact, yes. It is consistent with the story of his resurrection.

Conversation 5

Q: Did you hear that they have uncovered evidence that Adam had another wife before Eve?

A: No. But, please, tell me more.

Q: She was not subservient to Adam so he divorced her and married Eve. Since Eve was more submissive they put her in the Bible.

A: Well, that's certainly impressive research. When you got your Master's Degree at Duke, I assume there was a 'Dr. They' who uncovered all of this information. Or maybe there was a They Institute of Historical Research.

Q: Why do you have to be so crass and cynical?

A: I'm only joking. But when people talk about what 'they' have discovered or research that 'they' have done, I find that 'they' generally don't know what the hell 'they' are talking about.

Conversation 6

Q: Are you really serious when you say that there would have to have been too many people involved in a conspiracy to keep Mary Magdalene's marriage to Jesus a secret?

A: I am.

Q: Well, what about the fumes coming from airplanes?

A: I don't know what you are talking about.

Q: Well, they have found that the government has been using commercial airplanes like the one we are on now to spray the earth with chemicals to counteract the effects of global warming. The government makes them do it. You can tell because the fumes look different from the earth than they did before global warming.

A: Ma'am, that is rich. I’m going to write about it in my column next week. I hope you don't mind if I quote you. I promise not to reveal your name in the column. I don't want to hurt your career as a practicing psychiatrist.

Good day. I have another flight to catch. Could you please hand me my book?

Are you listening, U. S. of A.?

Victor Hanson explains why Europe's good intentions have gone sour, how no good deed goes unpunishied and why 'peace through strength' is wisdom of the ages.
The unease is apparent in newspapers and conversations on the streets that echo the view that voters and politicians want nothing to do with the European Union constitution. Perhaps the general European discomfort could be summed up best as the following: Why hasn't the good life turned out the way we wanted it to?

Frontline Spain clamors impatiently for the European Union to clamp down on illegal immigrants streaming across the Mediterranean. The utopian vision of a continent with porous borders is, for the time being, on hold - at least as it pertains to Africa.

The Dutch, the French and the Danes are petrified about unassimilated Muslim radicals in their countries who have killed or threatened the most liberal of Europeans. Churches are almost empty. Mosques are being built; Italians wrangle over plans for one of the largest in Italy - to be plopped amid the vineyards and olive groves of Tuscany.

A majority of polled Germans now believe that the pacifist Europeans are in a "clash of civilizations" with the Islamic world.

What is going on?

Good intentions that have gone sour.

The enemies of Europe's past - responsible for everything from Verdun and Dresden to a constant threat of mutually assured destruction - were identified as nationalism and militarism. Meanwhile, at home, Europeans cited cutthroat competition and unbridled individualism as additional contributory causes of the prior strife and unhappiness.

So in response to the errors of the past, Europeans systematically expanded the welfare state. They welcomed in immigrants. Politicians slashed defense spending, lowered the retirement age and cut the workweek. Voters demanded trade barriers to protect the public from the ravages of globalization. Either to enjoy the good life or to save the planet, couples forswore children.

But instead of utopia, unintended consequences ensued. Unemployment soared. Dismal economic growth, shrinking populations and a scarier world outside their borders followed.

Are you listening, U. S. of A.?

Once more, with feeling!

Minutemen installing Ariz. border fence
Scores of volunteers gathered at a remote ranch Saturday to help a civilian border-patrol group start building a short security fence in hopes of reducing illegal immigration from Mexico.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps plans to install a combination of barbed wire, razor wire, and in some spots, steel rail barriers along the 10-mile stretch of private land in southeastern Arizona.
Timothy Schwartz of Glendale, Ariz., who was among at least 200 volunteers gathered, said he wants to see a fence along the border from California to Texas.
"We're not going to stop," Schwartz said. "We're going to stay here with a group and keep building."
Quetzal Doty of Sun Lakes, Ariz., a retired U.S. diplomatic consular officer, brought his wife, Sandy, to the event.
He said he's convinced the Minutemen and most Americans aren't anti-immigrant.
"They're just anti-illegal," said Doty. "The Minutemen walk the extra mile to avoid being anti-immigrant and that's what we like about the organization and what got us interested."

American Flag Raised At The Border On Its New Permanent Pole


Guard heads to border in June
About 300 Arizona National Guard troops will be sent to the state's porous southern border in June as the first tangible step in President Bush's controversial plan to beef up border security throughout the Southwest.
Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano said Arizona is ready for deployments after months of preparation. In addition to assisting Border Patrol agents, Napolitano said, the Guard can focus on the increasing drug trade that has wreaked havoc on Arizona families.
For months, Napolitano has pleaded for the federal government to do more in the battle against illegal immigration. In January, she unveiled a plan to station more National Guard troops at the border but only if the federal government picked up the tab. Now that plan is about to happen.
On Saturday, she gave a hearty thanks to the men and women in the Arizona National Guard.

Mexican voters fear country on brink of chaos before presidential elections
Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos – a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly.

Fox has failed at job creation in Mexico
(Editors note: I'm not a big fan of the notion that government should be in the business of creating jobs, even if it is a quasi-socialist concern. The creation of wealth, jobs and income is best left to the people who are better served by that interest. However, gov't can foster an enriched climate for citizens to prosper.)
Mexicans are not your typical immigrants, it seems.
"We're not here for the American Dream," Jose Gonzalez said. "We're here to survive."
At various times during his U.S. trip, Fox said his government would "continue expanding jobs in Mexico so that migration is no longer a necessity."
Gonzalez doesn't believe it. So I had to ask: What would he do to make a better Mexico if he were presidente for a day?
Three things, he said.
(1) Tackle police corruption; people have no incentive to be productive if they're constantly being fleeced and robbed by those who are supposed to protect them.
(2) Stop penalizing employers and small businesses; cutting licensing fees would allow companies to create more jobs and pay higher wages.
(3) Clean up the environment by punishing companies that plunder natural resources and lay waste to the countryside and waterways.
Fox hadn't done enough in those areas, Gonzalez insisted.
He's all talk and no action. A mentiroso (liar), he said.


Is the tide finally turning in Mexico?
When I was in Mexico last fall, after dozens of visits over the years, people on every political and social level confirmed these accusations, complaining to me of Fox's failures. Forty families still own 60 percent of Mexico. There are no voluntary organizations, no civic involvement, no family foundations – and thus, no accountability, allowing corruption to flourish. Mexico gains $28 billion from oil revenue and $20 billion from immigrant remittances. There is virtually no industrialization, no small business, no real chance at individual entrepreneurship. Under Fox, it has created only one-tenth of the 1 million jobs needed.

Ah, but there are new voices of change, of reason, of self-awareness in Mexico, in place of the hoary anti-gringo rants: the beginnings of a transformation of the debate. Other prominent Mexicans were quoted as saying, for instance, the formerly unthinkable: that a wall would be the "best thing that could happen for Mexico"; the "porous border" allowed "elected officials to avoid creating jobs." And former Foreign Minister Jorge G. Castañeda, who always took a tough line toward the United States, writes in the Mexican newspaper Reforma that Mexico needed “a series of incentives” to keep Mexicans from migrating, including welfare benefits to mothers whose husbands remained in Mexico, scholarships, and the loss of land rights for people who were absent too long from their property.

This is European social democracy, this is American New Deal, this is real development talk, in place of the tiresome historical Mexican attitude that everything is the gringos' fault and they should pay for it. This is a real revolution of the mind! It also may indicate that, while President Fox failed in carrying through such basic modern reforms, he did lay the basis for them.

Surely the fact that America has awakened to the insult of its "neighbor" cynically exporting its problems, while doing nada at home, can only help Mexico and jar it to some modern sense. Ironically, the debate and the anger in the U.S. about this mammoth illegal immigration has already helped Mexico to begin to shed its dependency on America – and to turn its energies toward its own real predators, all home-grown.

Uh, Mexico promotes tourism? via the american comedy network. Thanks, Boortz!