Hillary: Even *More* Corrupt The Second Time Around?

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Flip Pidot at Suitably Flip has done a marvelous job in ferreting out the financial contributions of Norman Hsu to the Democratic Party and dozens of its candidates over the last few years. Whether bundling the donations of others or contributing directly, the convicted con man has made himself indispensable to high-powered Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Ed Rendell, and Eliot Spitzer. In fact, Hsu has raised over $1.5 million for Democrats in one way or another, and his modest-means associates have donated some eye-popping amounts as well: Hillary Clinton took by far the most money from Hsu and his suspect donor network - $174,000 net of refunds. Clinton has agreed to turn over only Hsu's direct contributions (just 13% of the total) to charity. Tied for the biggest windfall from Hsu directly were New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and New York Governor (and former Attorney General) Eliot Spitzer, with $60,100 each.

Hillary: Innumeracy Ho!

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Privatization never works? Beyond that, Hillary wants to sell Social Security as a problem-free program, despite its upcoming financial collapse. She told the AARP that she will refuse to raise the retirement age, cut benefits, or privatize as noted above. The program's trustees issued a report in April that made clear the deficits Social Security faces: Has the size of the Social Security problem changed over the last year? * In net present value terms, Social Security owes $6.8 trillion dollars more in benefits than it will receive in taxes. That number includes $2.0 trillion, in net present value terms, to repay the bonds in Social Security's trust fund. This $300 billion increase is almost 4.5 percent higher than last year's $6.5 trillion number. The 2007 number consists of $2.0 trillion to repay the special issue bonds in the trust fund and $4.8 trillion to pay benefits after the trust fund is exhausted in 2041.

And We Know Who Jovi Is

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com I spotted your query about the "electoral viability" of congressmen such as Barney Frank and (the late) Gerry Studds despite their entanglement in sex scandals. You know that Latin phrase that William F. Buckley often quotes -- "Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi" (that which is permitted to Jove, is not permitted to oxen)? That which is permitted to Massachusetts congressmen is not permitted to congressmen from other states. I wrote about this back in 1995, at the time of Bob Packwood's downfall. The column began: It was in part at the urging of Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican, that the contemptible Bob Packwood finally threw in the towel last Thursday and resigned from Congress. All the same, Simpson was embittered by the double standard at play in the Senate chamber. "I looked around that room," he said, "and saw people who had done things much worse." Now which senior senator from Massachusetts do you suppose he was referring to?

It's Easy To Spot Who Needs The Mental Health Checkup...

clipped from althouse.blogspot.com Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans. So, the mental health check is mandatory too? Why does he not even realize how bad that sounds? He's so warmed up about the generous benefits he's promising that he doesn't even hear the repressiveness in his own statements. I'm sure he won't be able to deliver on these promises. I'm just wondering about a person with so little sensitivity toward personal freedom.

The End Of Hunting ... And Bambi

clipped from blogs.dailymail.com “You don’t just get up and go hunting one day - your father or father-type figure has to have hunted,” Duda said. “In a rural environment, where your friends and family hunt, you feel comfortable with guns, you feel comfortable with killing an animal.” Indeed, hunting remains vibrant in many rural states - 19 percent of residents 16 and older hunted last year in Montana and 17 percent in North Dakota, compared with 1 percent in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Nationally, 5 percent of the 16-and-over population hunted in 2006, down from 7 percent in 1996. Based on my experience, women raising boys without fathers and urbanization are ending the hunting tradition. Disney and Warner Brothers certainly did not help the cause by depicting hunters over the years as shoot-em-up yahoos.

The General Theory Of Porkorruption

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com [M]edia bias is not the main reason why Republicans suffer more from scandals. Democratic voters expect Democrats to steal on their behalf. Lawmakers are judged on the basis of how many goodies from the federal treasury they can shower on their constituents. The typical Democratic voter doesn't mind terribly if their senator or congressman takes something for himself along the way. The typical Republican voter wants his senator or congressman to keep his taxes low, his government honest. Republicans must be squeaky clean to win elections because their voters will crucify them for behavior Democratic voters wink at so long as the pork keeps flowing. This is why his GOP colleagues already have stripped Sen. Craig of his committee assignments, and many have called for his resignation, while Democratic senators are comfortable having among them a man who left to drown in his automobile a young woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair.

Mexico Is Now Iraq?

clipped from hotair.com Following Calderon’s logic, does this mean that Mexico is now Iraq? On Aug. 14, the same day the car was stolen for the attempted bomb attack, two Iraqi men were arrested in northern Mexico with false passports heading for the U.S. These arrests show that Middle East immigrant groups have already set up a rat-line into the U.S. with the Sinaloa Cartel, which controls alien smuggling routes around Arizona. U.S. intelligence says the number of Iraqis caught trying to sneak across the U.S. has tripled this year. In 2007, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection intercepted 178 Iraqi asylum-seekers vs. 60 in 2006. For every one that’s caught, 10 others get away. “We have intelligence about al-Qaida identifying Latin America as a potential or prospective area where they could come through,” U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, told the El Paso Times. Or does it just mean that those of us who say that the porous US borders are a national security problem might know what we’re talking about?

Welcome To Imperial Mexico

clipped from patterico.com From Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s first State of the Nation speech delivered today: President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying “Mexico does not end at its borders.” The criticism earned Calderon a standing ovation during his first state-of-the nation address. He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: “Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.” Even though it’s tempting, I will not respond to this with sarcasm or anger. I will respond with logic (for all the good it will do): President Calderon, I have some news that will undoubtedly shock you: Mexico does end at its borders. DRJ

Next Stop: 54,000

clipped from www.usatoday.com TEHRAN (AP) — Iran's president claimed Sunday that his country is now running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear program, reaching an Iranian goal that could add momentum to efforts to impose new U.N. sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Iran's ultimate stated goal for the Natanz facility, the only site now open to full IAEA monitoring, is to run 54,000 centrifuges — enough for dozens of nuclear weapons a year.

Ahmadinejad Maybe, Jafari Yes

clipped from pajamasmedia.com On Saturday 1st of September 2007, Brigadier General Mohhamad Ali Jafari, also knows as Aziz Jafari, was appointed as the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). However today another important revelation was made about Jafari’s past. Farda News, an Iranian news agency based in Tehran, revealed that prior to the outbreak of the war, Jafari was in fact involved in the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, which took place on 4th of November 1979. This important disclosure is an important explanation for those wishing to know why Jafari rose through the IRGC ranks so quickly after joining as a simple Baseeji soldier. People who took part in the takeover established important contacts with the other hostage takers who later rose through the ranks, as well as government officials who were running the operation.

Refrigerators Are Not Free

clipped from volokh.com According to this story in the New York Times, about a government campaign to replace 1950s American refrigerators, it's because of the "island's economic isolation, compounded by a United States embargo in place since the early 1960s." Oh, and "unlike education and health care in Cuba, refrigerators are not free." no mention of "socialism," "collectivism," or "Communism," as having any effect on Cuba's economy. Nor is there any mention of Cuba's notorious (but apparently not notorious enough) "Neighborhood Committees for the Defense of the Revolution," nor, relatedly, what, the ahem, disincentives might be for failing to "show one's patriotism," though the author does acknowledge that at least one Cuban refrigerator-owner doesn't feel free to speak openly. And, for the unitiated, Cuba is not actually economically isolated from anywhere but the U.S., it just doesn't sell much of anything that anyone wants to buy.

Angry Lightweights

clipped from www.nytimes.com With the possible exception of the Republicans, is there a major political party more stupefyingly brain-dead than the Democrats? That’s the ultimate takeaway from “The Argument,” Matt Bai’s sharply written, exhaustively reported and thoroughly depressing account of “billionaires, bloggers, and the battle to remake Democratic politics” along unabashedly “progressive” (read: New Deal and Great Society) lines. Well-financed and influential groups ranging from the Democracy Alliance to the New Democrat Network to MoveOn.org may be taking over the Democratic Party, he says, but they are not doing the heavy thinking that will fundamentally transform politics — unlike the free-market, small-government groups formed in the wake of Barry Goldwater’s historic loss in the 1964 presidential race. While sympathetic to the new progressives, Bai describes a movement long on anger and short on thought.

Fool Me Two Times

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com He was able to maintain himself as a " point of access to Asian supporters" of the Democratic party; able to appear at public functions and have his picture taken with national political figures with approximately the same ease you or I could have ourselves photographed with a clown at the local shopping mall. All without anyone suspecting a damned thing. And to top it off, after he turns himself in on a 15-year old rap, which is a lucky break because the authorities were singularly unsuccessful at finding  him, Mr. Norman Hsu doesn't even ask for a reduction in his $2 million bail bond. He just goes ahead and posts it. To show what a good citizen he is. Listening to the story of Norman Hsu is a little bit like listening to a joke and realizing, halfway through, that the joke is on you.

Especially when he skips bail AGAIN...

Hegel's Hand

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com The doctrine of the living Constitution has survived Wilson to do great damage. If not the father of the doctrine, he was certainly its most influential expositor. One can see the dead hand of Wilson at work, for example, in popular opinion represented by Thurgood Marshall's perverse bicentennial lecture on the Constitution. In the debate between Lincoln and Douglas on the meaning of the Declaration, Marshall takes the side of Douglas, and, almost unbelievably, that of Roger Taney in the Dred Scott decision. The doctrine also lives on in the jurisprudence of such members of the Supreme Court as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, as Paul Mirengoff and I tried to show in "From Hegel to Wilson to Breyer" (to which I contributed the Wilson quotes and Paul supplied the brainpower). Pestritto persuasively demonstrates the impact of Wilson’s political writings on the development of the administrative state, the state to which Hegel's historicism is organically linked.

Dust

clipped from andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com Cohen’s most chilling prophecy, brought to reality by his cheapest heckler, is that once the mainstream left runs out of banner enemies, what then? Tony Blair is gone. George W. Bush is on his way out. With fewer and fewer bugbears to assail, the left will have to face real monsters sooner or later, and when it does, it will find that all of its old casuistries and excuses have come to dust.

Understanding AQI

clipped from www.weeklystandard.com Because the members of AQI are overwhelmingly Iraqis--often thugs and misfits recruited or dragooned into the organization (along with some clerics and more educated leaders)--it is argued that AQI is not really part of the global al Qaeda movement. Therefore, it is said, the war in Iraq is not part of the global war on terror: The "real" al Qaeda--Osama bin Laden's band, off in its safe havens in the Pakistani tribal areas of Waziristan and Baluchistan--is the group to fight. Furthermore, argue critics of this persuasion, we should be doing this fighting through precise, intelligence-driven airstrikes or Special Forces attacks on key leaders, not the deployment of large conventional forces, which only stirs resentment in Muslim countries and creates more terrorists. Over the past four years, the war in Iraq has provided abundant evidence to dispute these assertions.

I could say RTWT. But that would be a gaping understatement. If you haven't read this, you're basically unqualified to vote the issue of either the war in Iraq or the general war on terrorism.

Yes, this article is that good.

The Beat Goes On

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Hamas has found governance significantly more difficult than agitation, now that it owns the Gaza Strip. When confronted with unrest, they resorted to beating protestors, armed and unarmed, and threatened the Associated Press if they took pictures of the proceedings: Two journalists were beaten by Hamas supporters, although neither was seriously hurt. Two other French journalists suffered minor injuries from a small explosion. One of the reasons Hamas lost patience was because of an interesting taunt. Fatah loyalists starting yelling "Shi'ites", a reference to Hamas' Iranian ties. Those apparently cause more grief than commonly known in the Palestinian territories, and Hamas -- which is nominally Sunni -- has a little sensitivity to the charge. The protestors also referred to their Hamas masters as "mercenaries", another reference to Iran. If the beatings don't improve Gaza morale soon, what will Hamas do next?

And Looser Still...

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Isn’t it interesting that a main sub-message of the Left has become “Ignore the Strategic Context?” The case involving the theft of nuclear secrets was put down to racism against a Chinese-American. John Kerry’s statement that terrorism was a mere law enforcement problem had the same sub-message. The Clinton Admin bribery was traced right back to the People’s Liberation Army, but it was handled as merely another law enforcement problem, and virtually all of those identified remain at large. Bill Clinton gets a large donation from one of the Oil For Food funding operatives - one he had pardoned - but no linkage is noted. Now Hsu mysteriously funnels money into Democratic candidates – and once again no one is so impolite to ask the question as to why someone with a lot of money – likely the PRC – is again interested in a particular party gaining power in the U.S. clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com How can a man who jumped bail while awaiting sentancing be released on bail?

The Real Loose Change?

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com At the risk of straying into tinfoil hat territory, I am tempted to guess that much that is seemingly inexplicable about Washington politics can be explained by the struggle over the control of the Justice Department: the Clinton's mass firing of US Attorneys; Bush's attempts to install Gonzales and men loyal to him in it; the campaign against Gonzales. The vast struggle swirling around it may be because the Justice Department is strategic high ground when the name of the game is covering your tracks. The LAT quotes "aides to Clinton" as saying that Hsu never asked any favors and just liked having his picture taken with politicians. Uh, riiiiiiiiiight. And he committed the latex-glove fraud because he likes shaking hands with doctors. I suspect the FBI may have more information on whether Hsu asked for a favor or two every hundred thousand dollars by the time they complete their investigation. If they complete it.

Nothing Left To Plunder

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Africabeat links to news that China is withdrawing its support for Mugabe's Zimbabwe. The Telegraph writes: "One of the Zimbabwe president's oldest diplomatic friends, China yesterday told Lord Malloch Brown, the Foreign Office minister, that it was dropping all assistance except humanitarian aid. The move follows a decision by China, a permanent member of the United Nations security council, to work more closely with the international community in bringing pressure to bear on "rogue regimes". It represents a major shift in its previous policy of refusing to attack the internal policies of long-standing allies." China isn't ditching Mugabe because they've suddenly acquired democratic principles. They're ditching him because his ship is sinking. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

No For 800 Please

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com Should we expect a surge of outrage from the Islamic world over this? Holy books used for smuggling narcotics. My guess is no.

A Crocodile's Perspective

clipped from pajamasmedia.com In all likelihood, the right wing conservatives, headed by Ayatollah Yazdi, will beat moderate conservatives because they seem more united and organized. The infighting between moderate conservatives will most probably mean that Ayatollah Rafsanjani, their best known candidate, will be unable to pull off a ‘Shimon Peres,’ and suddenly emerge as a winner after a string of losses. Unfortunately for the West, this means that the chances for a compromise in the nuclear talks will be less likely, as this group is the one most likely to back such an option.

The fact that the "Crocodile" (Mesbah Yazdi) is backing Ayatollah Yazdi now is hardly reassuring when you consider that Rafsanjani (their "Peres"!?) has publicly announced that Iran would win a nuclear war with Israel...

Ruled By Plankton

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com The new issue of the Weekly Standard features Professor Rabkin's article on the Law of the Sea Treaty that the Bush administration is unaccountably urging the Senate to ratify. Professor Rabkin's article is "How many lawyers does it take to sink the U.S. Navy?" Professor Rabkin writes: To find this convincing, one must be awed by the moral authority of the U.N. majority. To think that way means that we seek consensus at almost any price. Why do we claim to be independent, why do we invest so many billions in defense capacities, if we are prepared to go along with an international consensus, articulated (and - readjusted) by international jurists? The Senate should think long and hard before making the U.S. Navy answer to the U.N version of the Law of the Sea.

Slimed? Really?

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Several House Democrats are complaining that when they visited Iraq this summer, military personnel had been given thumbnail biographies containing, among other things, their publicly expressed views about the situation in Iraq. In particular, the bios stated how the members had voted on legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill's enactment. They also contained a cross-section of the member's positions -- e.g., "the year of 2006 must be a year of significant transistion in Iraq" (Rep. Ellen Tauscher) and "things have been getting worse rather than better" (Rep. James Moran). Providing this sort of basic information in advance of the meeting seems perfectly legitimate -- it's what we used to call "doing your homework." However, according to the Post Tauscher and Moran took strong objection. Tauscher called it "being slimed in the Green Zone." How odd to characterize a recitation of one's key vote and statements on Iraq as "being slimed."

About That Crock

clipped from instapundit.com Well, yes. But that wasn't my point here -- rather, my point was that campaign finance law as it exists is a sham (I also used the word "crock") because although it limits free speech it's unwilling to actually police the big-kahuna political players involved. Like a lot of Washington regulations of its ilk, it seems more focused on producing the appearance of regulating the big players than the actuality thereof.

The Hillary Hsu-nami At Ma And Pa Paw's

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com People who met him said they knew only that he ran an apparel business. Efforts to learn more about his trade hit dead-ends yesterday. Visits to companies at addresses listed by Mr. Hsu on campaign finance records provided little information. There were no offices in buildings in New York’s garment district whose addresses were given for businesses with names like Components Ltd., Cool Planets, Next Components, Coopgors Ltd., NBT and Because Men’s clothing — all listed by Mr. Hsu in federal filings at different times.

Clinton and corruption. Like peas in a pod.

You know it's bad when even the NYeT can't bury the story...

Lost Harry

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Shailagh Murray details the long and laughable line of Reid's miscalculations on the war. First, he and Nancy Pelosi took 108 days to get a supplemental funding bill passed, hoping to pressure the White House into ordering a withdrawal that Congress could easily have accomplished by defunding the mission. Instead, with time running out, Congress passed exactly what Bush wanted. Then Reid decided to pull an all-nighter, which turned into a debacle when Republicans actually showed up for it and spent more time on the floor than Reid did, arguing against an early withdrawal. The final straw for Reid came when he dropped the war debate entirely. He figured that Iraq would get worse and the pressure on Republicans would increase. Unfortunately, Reid miscalculated again. The end of the debate gave the surge some breathing space, and the perception of its success got shaped by actual facts and news rather than Democrat spin.

NyeT! NYeT! NYeT!

clipped from www.rogerlsimon.com I am looking between the lines at the venerable NYT. On 44th Street, they too are struggling, but not with Larousse. They are struggling with events. They don't know how to deal with the Surge. Some of their own reporters seem to think it may be succeeding, although that knowledge has not infected the editorial page (and must give Frank Rich fevers). And now there's Sarko. Despite pay the usual obeisance to global warming and American unilateralism in Iraq (how could he not?), he is proceeding as if he were an adjunct of the American Enterprise Insitute. Mr. Sarkozy, who is often faulted for being too pro-American, proudly restated France's friendship with the United States, where he spent a two-week vacation this summer. In a move that is certain to be welcomed in Washington, he announced that France would send more troops to Afghanistan to train the Afghan Army, despite his statement during the campaign that France would not remain in Afghanistan forever.

Will You Join Us?

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com So I would like to invite my fellow bloggers to join me in some verbal “weaponizing.” From this moment on, I will not write about the Beijing Olympics unless the subject at hand is censorship and repression in China. And – unless the Chinese government changes its policies – when the Olympics do come, I will not blog about them at all. I will take the opportunity to write as often as I can about the lack of Freedom of Speech on the Chinese Internet and on the suppression of bloggers and journalists in that country. I hope we could all do this together, especially since this is not an issue of right or left. It is about Freedom of Speech, something upon which the vast majority of the blogosphere can agree. We can reach across the aisle on this one, if others are willing. So… … about those Beijing Olympics – they’re a propaganda sham until the people of China have Freedom of the Press.

Losers

clipped from www.americanthinker.com We can only imagine how much further along we could have been in the war on terror had the Democrats joined in the effort instead of sabotaging it. For one thing, we would have long ago won the ‘hearts and minds' of those like Mokdat Ahmed Shahib who would not be afraid to offer up potentially life-saving intelligence, because they are afraid we may cut and run. Likewise, vacillating states would flock to our cause. We had no shortage of allies during the Reagan years when America conveyed an image of power, confidence and victory. Everybody wanted to be our friend then and understandably so. Not so today, which is no surprise in light of Democrats' unrelenting defeatism. Before the surge had even properly begun, Harry Reid, America's most powerful elected democrat, rushed to the microphones and pronounced it a failure in front of the whole world. Who in their right mind would want to ally themselves with losers?

Deja Winston

clipped from www.americanthinker.com Churchill's challenge was to overcome, not defeatism, but the "puzzlement, boredom and slackness" of the "first generation in European history which had been brought up to expect that there would not be another war." America today is desperately in need of a clarion call that will rouse us from our lethargy and remind us, clearly and definitively, that we too are in a fight for our lives.   There are other lessons to be gleaned from those years: the cost of military un-preparedness; the fantasy that evil can be appeased; the romantic notion that enslaved people will rise up against their oppressors are but a few. Churchill's unifying gesture in making his predecessor the discredited Neville Chamberlain a member of his War Cabinet, a man for whom he nonetheless felt much sympathy, is an example many of today's politicians might follow. Perhaps the overriding lesson is this: those who can't remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Speaking Of Amusing Ourselves To Death...

clipped from yro.slashdot.org "I ran for school board where I live this past fall and created some TV commercials including this one with a 'Star Wars' theme. A few months ago VH1 grabbed the commercial from YouTube and featured it in a segment of its show 'Web Junk 2.0.' Neither VH1 or its parent company Viacom told me they were doing this or asked my permission to use it, but I didn't mind it if they did. I thought that Aries Spears's commentary about it was pretty hilarious, so I posted a clip of VH1's segment on YouTube so that I could put it on my blog. I just got an e-mail from YouTube saying that the video has been pulled because Viacom is claiming that I'm violating its copyright. Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on their copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright!"

The Real Impropriety

clipped from instapundit.com What is it with these guys that they can't even run a proper sex scandal? Who ever heard of sex scandals without sex? At least when the Democrats have a sex scandal, it involves real, honest to goodness sex. Yeah, I know, Bill Clinton said the sex wasn't sex. But let's face it, it was. Had Bill tapped Monica's foot, the most he'd have been accused of was playing footsie, and there'd have been little to no outcry, much less an impeachment. And as Matthew Sheffield makes clear, the double standard is appalling; Democrats keep their jobs after drowning women in cars or keeping male brothels, while Republicans are hounded out of office for sex scandals without even the component of sex. If I were the American people, I'd be totally sick of sexless Republican sex scandals by now. The GOP needs to shape up.

Frankly, I'm disgusted that anyone is spending a nanosecond on this crap. Amusing Ourselves To Death indeed.

The double standard is appalling though. We even have Barney Frank standing up for Craig and it goes unexamined.

Lower Still

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Why would Iraqis join with the Americans, risking their necks, if they believe the Americans will leave before the terrorists were defeated? Why should ordinary Iraqis work with American soldiers in hunting down terrorists when prominent Americans like John Kerry, Richard Durbin, Barack Obama, Edward Kennedy, John Murtha and Michael Moore tell them that those soldiers are as cold and as brutal as the terrorists destroying their families, and America’s most publicized civilian activist, Cindy Sheehan, is telling them that the man leading those soldiers, George W. Bush, is the world’s biggest terrorist?

Saddam Killed Us

clipped from www.pajamasmedia.com Go to Iraq. Not for a few days, like our politicians do, but for months. Spend those days living and working with Iraqis. Try answering the question I often heard from them while I was there: “Why are you Americans saying you are going to leave my country before it is safe?” The first time I heard that question, during a heated political discussion with some of my Iraqi friends, I shot back saying, “When are you Iraqis going to start fighting back when terrorist thugs roll into your neighborhoods? Where are your Washingtons, your Jeffersons, your Gandhis, your Martin Luther Kings? Surely, in a country of 30 million people there must be some of them.” It was unfair of me to say that. I am an American. I had never lived in a place where a slip of the tongue could get me killed. After my outburst, one of the Iraqis explained to me that what I was interpreting as cowardice among Iraqis was deeper than that: “Saddam killed us,” he said.

The Last Straw

clipped from smallwarsjournal.com Islam, of course, is a key identity marker when dealing with non-Muslim outsiders, but when all involved are Muslim, kinship trumps religion. And in fact, most tribal Iraqis I have spoken with consider AQ’s brand of “Islam” utterly foreign to their traditional and syncretic version of the faith. One key difference is marriage custom, the tribes only giving their women within the tribe or (on rare occasions to cement a bond or resolve a grievance, as part of a process known as sulha) to other tribes or clans in their confederation (qabila). Marrying women to strangers, let alone foreigners, is just not done. AQ, with their hyper-reductionist version of “Islam” stripped of cultural content, discounted the tribes’ view as ignorant, stupid and sinful. AQI killed a sheikh over his refusal to give daughters of his tribe to them in marriage, which created a revenge obligation (tha’r) The terrorists retaliated with immense brutality This was the last straw, they said, and the tribes rose up.

If you read nothing else about Iraq this year, read this one.

Getting Up To Speed

clipped from www.spectator.org In response to the President's comments about abandoning Vietnam, some have argued that abandonment was not that important because Vietnam is now a nice capitalist country. This argument shows a callousness toward the loss of human life (in the late 1970s) and the harsh repression of political dissent (from 1975 to today) that is thoroughly out of keeping with how these people normally view international affairs. Hysterical hatred of the Iraq War and President Bush seems the only possible explanation for such an inconsistency. The present-day capitalist economy of Vietnam, moreover, is not reason to doubt the wisdom of U.S. involvement. Instead, it is reason to doubt the wisdom of North Vietnamese involvement. While America was fighting for capitalism in South Vietnam, North Vietnam was fighting to destroy it.

The Star Spangled Banner

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Not ranked on Amazon, it is among the most amazing personal stories of any war. His eardrums ruptured, his face crusted with blood from beatings, one arm broken and both knees badly injured from the ejection, Bud Day was hung by the feet "like a side of butchered beef for many hours" by his captors after he refused to answer their questions. A week into his captivity he escaped. He then hiked 12 days alone in the jungle back to South Vietnam, eating frogs, nauseous from pain, only to be recaptured. With all of his limbs now broken or shot up, he spent the next six years in captivity, undergoing mock executions, hung again repeatedly by his feet, often not permitted to urinate, beaten senseless in scenes "out of the Mongol Hordes" with whips that made his testicles like charred meat. When prison guards burst in on him and other POWs during a clandestine Christian service, Day stared into their muzzles and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner."