They're Expensive You Know...

clipped from instapundit.com Signs that the government may be running out of money have multiplied in recent months. Tens of thousands of civil servants, including school teachers, have not been paid since January. Bills from private contractors working for the government are piling up, threatening the survival of many businesses. . . . All this may seem surprising if only because Iran has earned almost $150 billion from oil exports since Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005. So, were did the money go? Um, centrifuges, maybe?

Maybe I *Will* Vote For Rudy After All...

clipped from talkingpointsmemo.com

Dems OTOS Again

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com Let’s put this in perspective. The alleged conspiracy to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix was foiled by a Circuit City store clerk who alerted law enforcement after the suspects brought a video to the store for reformatting on DVD. An FBI spokesman called the 23-year-old tipster an “unsung hero” and acknowledged that the plot would have gone undiscovered if he hadn’t stepped forward. The hero clerk later told reporters that after seeing several Middle Eastern-looking men shouting “Allah Akbar” while firing assault rifles and engaging in military-type maneuvers on the video, he discussed overnight with his family whether or not to call authorities. Lucky for us, he made the right decision. But would he have made that call if he thought getting it wrong might require defending himself against a multimillion-dollar lawsuit? Would you?

NYeT MSMemory Hole (Part 52853)

clipped from powerlineblog.com [Last month] the New York Times carried a review of a film called "Hot House" that goes inside Israeli prisons and examines the lives of Palestinian prisoners. We're not recommending the film or the review. But we do want to share our feelings with you about the beaming female face that adorns the article [below]. The film is produced by HBO. So it's presumably HBO's publicity department that was responsible for creating and distributing a glamor-style photograph of a smiling, contented-looking young woman in her twenties to promote the movie. That female is our child's murderer. She was sentenced to sixteen life sentences or 320 years which she is serving in an Israeli jail. Fifteen people were killed and more than a hundred maimed and injured by the actions of this attractive person and her associates. The background is here.

MSMemory Hole Today (Part 92365)

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com So the decline from 10 battalions to six results from the fact that Iraqi units have been fighting, as a result of which they need to be resupplied. This is a "minor variation" that is not "overly of concern." Meanwhile, the number of Iraqi battalions capable of operating in the lead, with American troops in a supporting role, continues to grow steadily, now up to around 100. So the "grim assessment" did not come from General Pace. It came solely from the Associated Press, and the AP made the assessment grim by simply ignoring the explanation and the other numbers that were given by General Pace. This is how news is reported from Iraq: bad news is cherry-picked, deprived of context, and characterized in the most negative way possible for the explicit purpose of providing cover to those in Congress who are trying to bring about our defeat.

The New Boss ...

clipped from instapundit.com Congress now has no base outside of its staff, the reporters who cover it and Mom, and even she is wavering. I am not laughing. I am not gloating. I am troubled. . . . In a democracy, people must have faith in their institutions. In a totalitarian government, fear will do. The problem is that neither party shows leaders in Washington who are in touch with the realities that their constituents face. Congressmen and senators have too much money, too much power and too much tenure.

The Reluctant Beacon

clipped from drsanity.blogspot.com The left and its cadre of neo-marxist fascists harbor the sublime fantasy of imposing their ideological agenda on everyone "for their own good". Make no mistake about it, for all their talk about the Bush Administration's imminent implementation of a theocratic, fascist state; they are the ones who represent the greatest threat to freedom in our society. Psychiatrists refer to the specific tactic of psychological denial used to deflect a hidden agenda by imputing one's own psychological motives to others, as "projection". While they nibble away at freedom from within, the terrorists--who they insist are not a real threat-- carefully plot to destroy it from without. I make no claim that the political right is always and at all times on the side of truth, or reason, or reality. Clearly, they are not any more perfect than anyone else. Nevertheless, today they are a beacon of clarity and a pillar of common sense compared with the idiocies promulgated by political left day in and day out

The Unblinking I

clipped from drsanity.blogspot.com Interesting to note that what "gives the pre-modern fascist killers a pass" is the post-modern rhetoric and dogma of the left. It is precisely this inherently psychologically dysfunctional cognitive strategy that is able to shift, "without a blink" from one subjective conviction to its exact opposite without a shred of self-awareness or mental dissonance. Radical Islam, like Karposi's sarcoma, has manifested itself today and is spreading rapidly for pretty much the same reason, having been given an ideological carte blanche by the political left. The left's postmodern rhetoric with its political correctness and relativistic multiculural fantasies have managed to suppress and otherwise short-circuit the natural defense mechanisms of Western civilization. Without a blink, the left switched from their lipservice championing human life and liberty to championing those whose main desire is to suppress it and bring all of humanity into submission.

Wretchard: "Holy Chihauhau"

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com It is rightly observed that Pakistan is on the brink of precipice. In Pakistan, Chinese nationals, security forces and Musharraf regime, all are in an Islamist terror mess, especially after the fall of Red Mosque early this month. Wave of revenge attacks on Chinese nationals and security personnel have been increasing. Fears for a Pro-Taliban militant backed civil unrest is gaining ground, with the recent spate of violence across the country that has already taken hundreds of lives in the last seven days. Avowed militants continued suicide attacks and intensified their deadly assaults on security forces and Chinese populations. As many as Six suicide attacks have taken place since July 12 Miranshah and Swat incidents including three in one single day.

Welcome To Google "News"

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Bush last underwent colorectal cancer surveillance on June 29, 2002. At the time, the only thing doctors found was an attitude, which medical experts say is not cancerous though his administration has become quite malignant in their support of the President's plan to keep U.S. troops in Iraq.

Bush Butt Probed? Frankly, this is just pitiful garbage. Google should know better than this.

Speaking Of 2 Million ...

clipped from instapundit.com AND TO THINK PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS ACCUSING WAR SUPPORTERS of being indifferent to genocide: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there. So much for the moral high ground.

... or more. We don't need him as president. He's obviously best qualified to be secretary general instead...

The Dems Foul Stench

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com The Washington Times reports that the John Doe law, which would protect tipsters who provide information about potential national-security threats, has run into a buzz saw in Congress. Democrats want the language removed from a Homeland Security bill in the House, and removed quietly. Republicans in the House have called foul. At Heading Right, I question how Democrats can posture as responsible guardians of national security while throwing citizen tipsters to the litigating wolves. Given that the intimidation of torts began here, my interest is somewhat more than academic, especially since I travel more often than before. It’s precisely this kind of disincentive, applied to law enforcement and intelligence, that created the walls that led to the failures resulting in the 9/11 attack.

What "Blitz"?

clipped from article.nationalreview.com It would be nice — or at least more convenient — if America could fight just one enemy at a time. But that’s seldom how it works. World War II was called a world war for a reason: President Roosevelt might have preferred to take on only Imperial Japan, the nation that had attacked us. Instead, he had to lead the country into battle also against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. He had to fight not only in the Pacific but in North Africa and Europe as well. Can you imagine, President Roosevelt being asked: But, sir … what evidence can you present to the American people that the people who attacked the United States on December 7th are, in fact, the same people who are responsible for the so-called “blitz” bombings now taking place in London? What evidence can you present? And also, are you saying, sir, that those attacking London belong to the same organization as do those Japanese who are allegedly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor?

Rational Comment #2

clipped from www.michaeltotten.com Regarding the war effort, when any part of our intelligence apparatus produces a report that reflects negatively on the Bush administration or any part of the war effort, it is quickly cited by those on the left as proof of Bush's incompetence, dishonesty and/or failure of the war effort. The veracity of this intelligence is taken as unassailable -- its accuracy beyond dispute. For instance, recent intelligence reports from the CIA stated that Al Qaeda had rebuilt its capabilities to pre-9/11 levels and that it is concentrated in tribal areas of Pakistan. These reports were pounced upon as proof that the war against terror was a failure -- because we haven't destroyed Al Qaeda and bin Laden -- and as proof that we are wasting our time fighting in Iraq because Al Qaeda is actually elsewhere. However, when an intelligence report from the administration reflects positively on any of Bush’s claims or the war effort, the left immediately dismisses it as a fabrication

Rational Comments Today

clipped from www.michaeltotten.com This is one of those arguments that is more informative about the person making it than about the subject being argued. Someone who believes in identity politics will find it perfectly natural to think Sunni and Shia could never cooperate on anything. Nevermind that in the real world Baathism is literally the Arab branch of (atheist) Nazism, (sunni) Palestinian terrorists happily accepted sponsorship from the (atheist) Soviet Union, the USSR was succeeded in that role by (shiite) Iran, and extremists today are funded by Iran, (sunni) Saudi Arabia, and others with plenty of distinct ideologies, including a large if unintentional contribution from (atheist) Europe. The 9/11 bombers were mostly Saudi and Egyptian as well. The irony is we devote all our attention to attacking the hostile regimes in Iraq, Syria and Iran - but the real terrorist threat comes from Islamists from our "allies" - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan.

In A Rational World...

clipped from www.michaeltotten.com An intelligence official sympathetic to the view that it is a matter of Iranian policy to cooperate with Al Qaeda disputed the CIA and State Department view that the Quds Force is operating as a rogue force. "It is just impossible to believe that what the Quds Force does with Al Qaeda does not represent a decision of the government," the official, who asked not to be identified, said. "It's a bit like saying the directorate of operations for the CIA is not really carrying out U.S. policy."

...the analogy with the CIA directorate of operations would be iron clad. In today's Plame-o-rama world, one realizes it needs second thought...

The Low Bar Too High

clipped from www.michaeltotten.com President Bush's speech Monday about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reminded me of an old joke: A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on an island with nothing to eat, and a can of soup washes ashore. The physicist says, "Let’s smash the can open with a rock." The chemist says, "Let’s build a fire and heat the can first." And the economist says, "Assume a can opener." The Bush administration, along with most of those who have been involved in promoting Palestinian statehood, have been assuming a peace process since Israel won the Intifada, Yasser Arafat died, and Mahmoud Abbas became the PA president. But the fundamental characteristic of the post-Intifada era is the peace process’s otherworldliness, its detachment from facts on the ground, its salience among internationalists, journalists, and diplomats, but not among the people of Gaza or the West Bank. Palestinian territories are joining many other areas of the Middle East in being weak states, tribal regions

Today's Flying Pig -- A Level-Headed Case For Withdrawal

clipped from www.boston.com Ben-Gurion had predicted it all in 1919. "Everyone sees the problem in relations between the Jews and the Arabs," he said. "But not everyone sees that there's no solution to it . . . The conflict between the interests of the Jews and the interests of the Arabs in Palestine cannot be resolved by sophisms . . . I don't know of any Arabs who would agree to Palestine being ours . . . We want the country to be ours. The Arabs want the country to be theirs." In the end, Ben-Gurion was willing to divide the land. The Arabs were not. There may be little comparison between the two national movements who fought the British and each other over Palestine and the contentious groups struggling for power in Iraq today. But the danger of a foreign power fighting a long war to force compromise on combatants who have no interest in compromise is hauntingly similar.

A liberal anti-war piece not filled with invective!

Of course it avoids pointing out that there's a strong case to be made that they'll be killing us here if we're not able to kill them there. It's not the same as the historical examples like Israel that he cites. Remember 9/11? And no, we weren't in EITHER Afghanistan or Iraq then...

And 2 Million In Cambodia

clipped from blogs.dailymail.com Breitbart TV has video of Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts telling a whopper on C-Span. Sen. John Kerry said during a C-Span appearance that fears of a bloodbath after the US withdrawal from Vietnam never materialized. He says he’s met survivors of the “reeducation camps” who are thriving in modern Vietnam. An award-winning investigation by the Orange County Register concludes that at least 165,000 people perished in the camps. And 2 million in Cambodia. You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in the Senate.

A Novel Idea

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com It's a terrific idea! Why didn't we think of this before? Let's coordinate with Pervez Musharraf to invade North Waziristan, which will enrage the moderate Pakistanis and likely push al-Qaeda farther into Pakistan's interior. At that point, we can overrun all of Pakistan and occupy it. Sounds splendid. Hamilton doesn't address a "no" from Musharraf, so let's actually do the analysis that Hamilton avoids. If Musharraf refuses and we invade anyway, we've just committed an act of war against Pakistan. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and probably an inclination to use them in case of an invasion, certainly one by India and probably one by the West. They also have a large, professional, well-equipped army, which we know because we equipped it to keep the Islamists at bay. Instead of using them against the Islamists, they would likely join the Islamists in fighting us. how long do you suppose it will take for Hamilton's friends in Congress to file articles of impeachment against Bush?

The Mickey Mouse Meme

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Bergner's remarks about the fraudulence of the "Islamic State of Iraq" -- that it it is simply an al-Qaeda front -- and about the fictive nature of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi are the first direct indication that MNF is not only learning how to play the meme game but that their operations are already having a powerful effect. Zawahiri's worry about the Islamic State of Iraq's legitimacy may be the effect of MNF counternarrative operations or perhaps reason they are harping on it. Bergner's revelations hammer directly upon the weakest point of al-Qaeda's narrative: it's legitimacy and standing not only in political, but religious terms. Bergner is simply -- and very effectively -- paying them back in their own coin. Now the "Idolatrous Guard" is having a chuckle over the "fake" Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, as AQI's feared leader turns out to be no more genuine than Mickey Mouse.

The Masters Of The Media Have Masters

clipped from billroggio.com During interrogations, Mashadani admitted that the Islamic State of Iraq was merely a puppet front group established by al Qaeda in order to put an Iraqi face on the insurgency. Mashadani cofounded the Islamic State of Iraq with al-Masri in 2006. “The Islamic State of Iraq is a ‘front’ organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within AQI in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of AQI,” said Brig. Gen Bergner. But not only is the Islamic State of Iraq a contrived entity, its leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi is as well. “To further this myth [of the Islamic State of Iraq], al Masri created a fictional political head of ISI known as Omar al-Baghdadi,” said Brig. Gen Bergner. Al-Baghdadi is actually played by an actor named Abu Abdullah al Naima, and al Masri “maintains exclusive control over al Naima as he acts the part of the fictitious al-Baghdadi character.”

Poor Pooty Poot

clipped from www.timesonline.co.uk Reports last night claimed that an assassin was captured at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane, West London, moments before he planned to kill Mr Berezovsky, whose offices are a short distance away. Scotland Yard said last night that it was not prepared to discuss the matter. The revelation could help to explain why the new Government of Gordon Brown decided to take such tough action against the Kremlin this week. On Monday David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, ordered four Russian diplomats, believed to be members of the Russian security services, to leave Britain within ten days. He also announced measures to tighten visas for Russian officials visiting Britain. The reason given for the action was Russia’s failure to extradite Andrei Lugovoy, a former Russian intelligence officer, who has been named as the prime suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

Pinpricks. That Worked Well For Bill Didn't It...

clipped from www.nytimes.com In identifying the main reasons for Al Qaeda’s resurgence, intelligence officials and White House aides pointed the finger squarely at a hands-off approach toward the tribal areas by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who last year brokered a cease-fire with tribal leaders in an attempt to drain support for Islamic extremism in the region. “It hasn’t worked for Pakistan,” said Frances Fragos Townsend, who heads the Homeland Security Council at the White House. “It hasn’t worked for the United States.” While Bush administration officials had reluctantly endorsed the cease-fire as part of their effort to prop up the Pakistani leader, they expressed relief today that General Musharraf may have to abandon that approach as the accord now appears to have unraveled. They said that there was growing concern that pinprick attacks against Al Qaeda targets are not enough, but that some new American measures might have to remain secret to avoid embarrassing General Musharraf.

Long Way To Go

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com And complete denuclearization begins, but certainly doesn't end with the shutdown of the Yongbon reactor. North Korea has a number of "nuclear" cards in its vest, and has only laid down one of them. As Say Anything observes, the Yongbon reactor produced plutonium. However, the reason that North Korea reignited the nuclear arms question was that it was discovered to be secretly enriching uranium. And uranium is the component around around which the Iranian nuclear program is being built. While North Korea's moves are a welcome development, no decisive "nuclear disarmament" has as yet occurred and there remains a long way to go.

Really, really long I suspect.

PC Madness

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com It is the this repetitive dinning of the narrative, this return ever and again to the same storyline despite any facts it may encounter, which accounts for its persistence. Thus Galloway can say with a straight face, time after time, "I deserve a medal". Why? Because I fought for Palestinians beneath the Jewish bootheel. I opposed the War for Oil. The fact that neither of these events actually exists is beside the point. It exists from continuous assertion. It is willed into fact. I was amused, but not surprised to learn that in a certain Islamic school in Sydney, fully 80% of the students believed that the tsunami which devastated parts of Indonesia was caused by an American nuclear bomb test. In other parts of the world, it is thought that the Jews caused 9/11. It repeats its points until they are indisputable. The West has gone mute from embarrassment, leaving even the chronicling of its injuries to its enemies.

Forget I Said That

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com So essentially Sharia banking is the financial equivalent of Halal food. It is money prepared and profits denominated according to accepted ritual. And the attraction of offering it is that you, as a consultant, can get to charge for making sinful old interest wear a pious garb. Forget I said that. Now I know why the Forbes article was not widely distributed.

Phony Is As Phony Does

clipped from powerlineblog.com But it's not as if these fairly recent developments have eroded Edwards' support. He's been pushing his two-Americas theme essentially non-stop since 2003 and has never gained any real traction. This is probably because Edwards is so tranparently phony, a reality that was apparent long before the mansion went up and the haircuts were exposed. Indeed, it's amazing that anyone ever took seriously Edwards' attempt to own this issue. Barack Obama worked as a community organizer in low-income neighborhoods in Chicago before he entered politics. Hillary Clinton was strongly associated with liberal anti-poverty causes for years before she entered politics. John Edwards can point to no pre-political credentials on the anti-poverty issue nor, so far as I know, to any distinctive efforts in this area as a legislator. His credentials consist of speeches and photo opportunities undertaken in conjunction with his presidential campaigns.

On The Other Side In Britain

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com In other words, the House of Commons came to the same conclusions as the US Senate, under Coleman's aggressive probe of the UN scam that put billions into Saddam's pockets during the supposed sanctions regime. Galloway got specifically named as a beneficiary of Saddam's generosity at the same time he vociferously defended the tyrant around the world. It was people like Galloway who perpetuated the notion that Saddam had been put in a "box" while taking cash hand over fist to represent a genocidal maniac instead of his constituency. The report has released the minutes of a meeting between Galloway and Saddam Hussein that occurred on August 8, 2002, in which Galloway discusses with Hussein and Tariq Aziz certain Iraqi oil deals – in clear and unmistakable terms. He specifically mentions how certain unidentified problems with oil prices are affecting "our"' income and "our dues."

Good for Coleman. Bad for the British for giving just a pitiful hand slap to one of the most shameless midget *ssholes in history.

What We Meant

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Do you think those are the people paying $25,000 to get across the Rio Grande? Or do you suppose the "refugees" fleeing with those kinds of resources might have something else in mind entirely? And how convenient that they meet at train stations to go to all corners of the country, after paying a small fortune to get across the border illegally. Remember when the American people demanded that Congress take action to close the border as a national security priority? This is what we meant.

McCain Nails It

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com The supporters of this amendment respond that they do not by any means intend to cede the battlefield to al Qaeda; on the contrary, their legislation would allow U.S. forces, presumably holed up in forward operating bases, to carry out targeted counterterrorism operations. But our own military commanders say that this approach will not succeed, and that moving in with search and destroy missions to kill and capture terrorists, only to immediately cede the territory to the enemy, is the failed strategy of the past three and a half years…. Mr. President, this fight is about Iraq but not about Iraq alone. It is greater than that and more important still, about whether America still has the political courage to fight for victory or whether we will settle for defeat, with all of the terrible things that accompany it. We cannot walk away gracefully from defeat in this war.

Sure. Let's Talk...

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com The second issue seems rather moot, however. If the Iranians know they are there -- and they do, since they attempted to trade them in 2003 for information on an opposition group -- then they have responsibility for their operations and attacks as a matter of sovereignty. And it seems absurd in any case to presume that the Quds force, which is a branch of the Iranian military, somehow manages to be the only part of the Iranian theocracy which runs independent of the mullahs. It creates an even bigger conundrum than Waziristan. In this case, we'd have to go for the entire full-scale war, which would create a choice for us as to whether we'd like to let Iraq go or the bin Laden-Zawahiri AQ cell go, or both, in order to chase down the Adel cell in Iran and fight it out with the Iranian mullahs on their home turf.

...It worked so well with their hero Hitler also...

It Had To End This Way Of Course...

clipped from timblair.net He cut and ran! Mike evidently isn’t one to stay the course. Unless we’re talking several courses, all of them with melted cheese and fried onions on top.

You Won't Hear About Anbar From The MSM

clipped from www.commentarymagazine.com I’ve mentioned several times our focus on stabilizing communities, and I believe this is a fundamental aspect of a successful counterinsurgency campaign. Counterinsurgencies are fought neighborhood by neighborhood with the focus on protecting the population and improving conditions in the community. After clearing an area of terrorists (we do this by conducting large-scale offensive operations), our focus shifts to establishing a permanent security presence with coalition forces and ISF. That is the purpose of the Joint Security Station (JSS). The JSS helps secure and stabilize a community by proving an overt security presence, which establishes a perception of security in the minds of the population. Once they feel safe, they begin to provide intelligence to the police, and security improves steadily. This also helps insulate the community from terrorist attempts to move back into the neighborhood. We then shift our focus on non-lethal efforts to stabilize the community.

Doesn't fit the meme any more...

Bass Buffoon

clipped from instapundit.com Give that man a Nobel prize and some lemon juice.

Gang Way For Tet

clipped from www.strategypage.com The gangs are united by common needs, common enemies, and a desire to see Sunni Arabs running Iraqi again. The chatter among the gangs is that something spectacular needs to be done now,  to prevent the gangs from being hammered into a state of marginalized ineffectiveness. That's where the talk of a "Tet Offensive" comes from. This would emulate the suicidal attacks South Vietnamese guerillas and North Vietnamese troops made in 1969. Militarily, the attacks were a major defeat for the Viet Cong (the South Vietnamese guerillas) and a big setback for the communist effort to take over South Vietnam. But the American media declared it a U.S. defeat, and U.S. government support for South Vietnam declined, reached the point where, in 1975, the second North Vietnamese attempt at taking South Vietnam via conventional invasion worked, because the American Congress had halted even ammo shipments to South Vietnam.

The Ploy

clipped from victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com 3. Democrats said we took our eye off Afghanistan. But if we flee from Iraq, would they then insist on redeploying the 160,000 troops in Afghanistan and engaging in hot pursuit across the nuclear Pakistani border to capture bin Laden’s lieutenants? Or, as we suspect, is the liberal charge that we are neglecting Afghanistan mostly a ploy to criticize operations in Iraq rather than a sincere call for tougher, riskier, and more substantial war making on the Pakistani border? 4. If we get hit again comparable to 9/11, after we have fled Iraq, what would be our response, should we learn that the perpetrators received cash or sanctuary from a Middle Eastern nation? Go back into Iraq to hit the camps in Anbar? Punish Syria or Iran? Or a simple return to cruise missiles? For that strategy, I suggest we all review the 1990s record of such retaliations, perhaps rereading the relevant chapters of Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower.

Superman

clipped from www.michaelyon-online.com Walwark stepped out, seeing that Krauss was not crushed, grabbed Krauss’ M-4 rifle, and that’s when he recalls Krauss, who was rolling on the ground, and half out-of-it started yelling, “I’m invincible! I’m invincible!” Walwark yelled, “No you’re F*&%’ing not! You’re F*&%’ing lucky!” The front Stryker thought they heard small arms. Walwark looked up at Pfeiffer’s driver’s hatch, expecting the worst. Pfeiffer reached up and cranked the lever counterclockwise and the frame had not even jammed the hatch. It popped right open, and Pfeiffer ripped off his headset and began to crawl out. His left leg was in serious pain, and he was dazed and confused but at least vaguely in the moment. His body armor had been blown open, as often happens, and he was staggering through the dust that had not yet cleared.

Why don't you read stories like this in the main slime press? Because they're on the other side of course...

VDH Again

clipped from www.city-journal.org The Times raises the old charge that if we weren’t in Iraq, neither would be al-Qaida—more of whose members we have killed in Iraq than anywhere else. In 1944, Japan had relatively few soldiers in Okinawa; when the Japanese learned that we planned to invade in 1945, they increased their forces there. Did the subsequent carnage—four times the number of U.S. dead as in Iraq, by the way, in one-sixteenth the time—prove our actions ill considered? Likewise, no Soviets were in Eastern Europe until we moved to attack and destroy Hitler, who had kept communists out. Did the resulting Iron Curtain mean that it was a mistake to deter German aggression? And if the Times sees the war in Afghanistan as so important, why didn’t it support an all-out war against the Taliban and al-Qaida, as it apparently does now, when we were solely in Afghanistan?

Yes, the NYeT was the #1 Afghanistan invasion supporter as I recall. NYeT.

What Would Jesus Say?

clipped from www.americanthinker.com Does the New Testament refer to the name Palestine? There are no references to this name anywhere in the New Testament. Could Jesus have called Israel by any other name? In their writings that cover many subjects and historical periods, these historians and travelers occasionally use the name Palestine, usually in the context of Syria and its southern environs: Herodotus (c. 485-420? BC); Josephus (c. 37 to post-100 AD), a Jewish historian; Suetonius (69/75 to post-135 AD); Arrian (c. 90-180? AD) (search here); Appian (c. 95 to post-163 AD); Pausanias  (second century AD). Referencing these historians and travelers is not to say that Jesus (or the New Testament authors) read them, particularly the ones who lived after Jesus and the authors! Therefore, Jesus had the choice of the name Palestine or Israel. But he chose to remain within the Biblical tradition, calling his country Israel. The New Testament authors also chose the Biblical tradition, exclusively.