Armed Liberal at Winds of Change links to a recent post by Greg Djerejian of Djerejian Belgravia Dispatch. AL laments Djerejian’s disappointing evolution from reluctant Iraqi War supporter to harsh critic, as do I. AL follows his critique of Djerejian’s latest comments with a reflection on timetables and the messiness of history.

AL echoes my sentiments. Whenever I (only occasionally) stray back to Belgravia Dispatch, if only  to see if Greg Djerejian has regained any optimism. I am always, of late, disappointed. That as reasoned an intellect as his has turned against our purpose causes me no small discomfort; not that I waver in the rightness of our effort, but that the support of rational, middle grounders is essential for us to maintain national resolve, and national commitment.

The politicians who led us into Iraq may not hold the reins of power for long, let alone for the duration of this multi-generational struggle. We shall need friends in the middle, and even in the opposition, for that is where we may be, before long.

I’d like to think that Djerejian reflects an honest disagreement, a considered opposition to the war, at least in how the war has been executed. But Djerejian appears to want to make that impossible for those of us in strong support of our effort.

In the piece that AL links to, Djerejian  refers to conservative, pro-war bloggers (including almost all of us over at Milblogs, by the way) as “kiddies in the sandbox,” “abject cretins,” “fools,” and “imbeciles.”

Don’t even bother to suggest Djerejian doesn’t mean us. He means precisely us. Bloggers “in the sandbox” or recently returned, who argue that the Insurgency is fundamentally finished.” Or who believe that (most) of the mainstream media reporting from Iraq parrot Al Qaeda press releases, and consider embedding or any form of cooperation with US military as violating their sacred duty to be objective.

Djerejian uses the occasion of Memorial Day to note (but not link) the excellent piece by Owen West, but only as a means of expressing faint praise for “the sacrifice of our troops over the decades.” (As if his insults weren’t enough.)

But, if you are like me, and you believe Baghdad is the strategic epicenter of Iraq, and that a Baghdad descending into Beirut like civil war means that the country will likely mostly disintegrate, then I'm afraid I am less optimistic than West. And so, again, on this Memorial Day, when we thank and remember the sacrifice of our troops over the decades, we must also ask, painful as it is, what precisely they are accomplishing at the present hour in Iraq? Yes, here and there they are making progress. Yes, they are staving off total anarchy. But, if you fear it's a slow grind that we are losing, rather than winning, particularly given the continued lack of credible leadership at the Pentagon, the continued incorrectly placed concerns on 'dependency' theory, the continued dearth of troops, you must, at least to some extent if you are honest with yourself ponder, would it be worth my life (or the life of my son or daughter)? And the answer, it seems to me, is a very, very, very close call indeed.

But that's not a fair answer, is it? Because it's not really an answer at all. Finally, all I can say is that I am deeply torn. If we withdraw hastily we will leave behind a dismembered, increasingly anarchic Iraq, leaving Iraqis to a tremendously bleak future, and likely providing significant safe havens to international terror groups. But if we stay, under the current leadership and force presence/posture, the same result might ultimately come about, with more costs in blood and treasure, only more slowly.

It’s too bad Djerejian can’t see the forest for the trees on this one. He clearly hates Rumsfeld. I’m no great fan, not from pre-war days, but I don’t think our military strategy in light of limited Intelligence pre-war was all that “flawed.” Compared to the idiocy and rampant hypocrisy emanating from the Opposition and their supporters in the media, I’d say the US Military and their civilian and military leaders did pretty darned well.

Djerejian exhibits precisely the “crisis of expectations” that West in his Times Op Ed warned against.

By his calculus, any armed rebel group or insurrection wins by default merely by continuing acts of violence to no effect. Unless one imposes an autocracy or police state, it is hard for me to imagine how it could ever be possible for anyone to ever win as long as fanatics with bombs remain wiling to blow themselves and a few others up.

But let me bring AL’s commentary back into focus. He notes that Djerejian excerpts from Roger Cohen from Times Select:

The image of the United States is in something close to a free fall.

There are lots of reasons, beginning with the fact that any elephant this big bestriding the world's stage is going to irk people, especially when George W. Bush is riding it. But I suspect a basic cause is that in the 65-year period of 1941-2006, the United States has been at war in some form or another for all but 14 years.

There was World War II and then, after a two-year break, the Cold War, which ran until 1989, and then, after an interlude of a dozen years, the war on terror. These were different sorts of wars, of course, and among them were Korea and Vietnam. But somewhere along the way, most acutely in the past few years, people got tired.

They got tired of America's insatiable need for an enemy; suspicious of the talk of freedom and democracy and morality in which every struggle was cast; forgetful of the liberty preserved by such might; alarmed at the American fear that appeared to fire American aggression; and disdainful of the distance between declarations and deeds.

In short they stopped buying the American narrative.

I for one know what the American narrative is, and Cohen’s missed the mark. (The number of myths, inaccuracies, DNC and anti-war talking points and prejudices embedded in Cohen’s description are boggling.)

But I’ll let AL retort, as he does so well:

What's missing from this, of course, is any sense of context at all for that narrative, any sense that - for example - there was an expansionist and brutal Soviet Union who would have gladly conquered all of Europe - and kept it conquered had we not opposed them. Or that there was a brutal China led my the mad, bad, and dangerous Mao Tse Tung who would have gladly enslaved all of Asia had we not opposed them. I'm more than a little puzzled by Greg's failure to point out that gaping hole in Cohen's logic.

So in that view, why is there war? Because America fights, of course.

Damn their willingness to stand up to oppression, indeed. He didn’t even mention Hitler, Nazism, or attempts at Hegemony in Europe or Asia. Our enemies have wagered dear that the West would not fight. We confound that hope, and threaten that wager.

The truly American narrative is a reflection of our ideals, the principles of liberty and freedom, that under-gird every demonstration of national resolve. We restrain ourselves greatly, we rise above both our enemies and the amorality of our times. We strive to leave the world a better place, in spite of and not because of the hollow accusations of our critics.

We are not yet at the brink of the life or death struggle for civilization that our enemies so fervently wish upon the West. Our enemies and our own internal Opposition share the view, that the terrorism and barbarism that initiated our military responses since 9/11, are themselves directly prompted as a first effect from our Omnipotent transgressions (whatever they were or are is immaterial to their arguments.) We are indeed the elephant “bestriding the world's stage,” in Cohen’s words. LA associates this to a “delusion of invulnerability,” that both supporters and adversaries of US Foreign Policy seem to maintain:

And I do think it's the strongest influence on our behavior and attitude toward this war. And, I believe that once it is gone - once the delusion of invulnerability slips away - we will be more brutal and bestial than the worst opponents of the wars today imagine us to be in their fevered dreams.

I often remark that the World will shudder to see America’s retaliation for nuclear terrorism on our soil. I believe it is a question of when, not if. And when it does, any natural reluctance and restraint exhibited by the vast majority of Americans, will end in a moment. In a series of mushroom clouds, widely applauded.

As always at Winds of Change, as remarkable the commentary in posts, the contributions of WoC readers in comments greatly enhance the resulting dialog.

Deborah Scranton, the Director of the Tribeca Film Festival winning The War Tapes, sends notice of the film’s opening in a limited release. So limited, in fact, that I think I’d have to hit NYC to catch the opening.

She sends a War Tapes outtake, featuring Zack Bazzi, with the following description:

Recorded during an interview done while he was at Fort Dix waiting to deploy to Iraq, Zack discusses the little things he missed while he was previously deployed to Kosovo and Bosnia with the 101st Airborne. He also ponders whether he thinks he will change during this deployment to Iraq. We call it 'Scent of a Woman'.

I haven’t been able to preview the clip, blocked by Websense as “violence related,” as is the War Tapes site itself. Go figure.

Here’s Deborah’s info on the NYC opening:

Also, if you are in or near New York City - the movie opens on June 2nd in New York City at the Sunshine Theatre (143 East Houston Street, (212) 330-8182). If you can at all make it, please consider coming to one of the screenings on the opening weekend: movie theatres across the nation will look to the movie's opening weekend tickets sales to determine whether or not to screen the movie. We really hope to be packed every showing. If you believe, as we do, that this is something that the American public has to see, than please send and forward this to anyone you know in the NYC area. And ask them to do the same to their friends and contacts. If any of you have other ideas for how to get the word out let us know.
Come see the first movie filmed by soldiers themselves on the front lines, and the first film directed over e-mail and IM. Stephen Holden from the New York Times called it "Riveting! Compelling!...Gives a stronger taste of the Iraq war experience than any film I can remember". John Burns, the New York Times' Baghdad Bureau Chief and two-time Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent added "the single best document (book, film or article) you could see" on the war in Iraq. Another Tribeca review by Karina Longworth of Cinematical said "The driving concept behind The War Tapes is so simple, it's amazing no one's tried it up to this point: attack the media problem head-on by giving soldiers small, consumer quality camcorders and, communicating with them nightly from the US via the internet, allow them to tell their own stories from the center of the conflict." Mark Bowden author of BLACK HAWK DOWN said "Remarkable. Very moving. Very real."

The War Tapes has a screenings page for openings and screening updates.
For those like me who reside too deeply within Blueville, The War Tapes has set up a frappr map, where those interested in getting a screening near you can add location information: http://www.frappr.com/peoplewhowanttoseethewartapes.

Owen West contributes an excellent Op-Ed essay in, of all places, that resolutely partisan New York Times.

He opens with a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:

“NEITHER party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease.”

West makes the argument that the war in Iraq has allowed both sides of the issue to retreat to bitter partisan rhetoric, thereby hastening a “crisis of expectations.”

This is ground truth, from someone formerly an active participant in the Global War on Terror, who now, along with colleague Wade Zirkle and others, founded Vets for Freedom.

West’s essay is too good not to let him have the last words:

Soldiers are sick of apologizing for a sliver of malcontents who are not at all representative of the new breed. But they are also sick of being pitied. Our warriors are the hunters, not the hunted, and we should celebrate them as we did in the past, for while our tastes have changed, warfare — and the need to cultivate national guardians — has not. As Kipling wrote, "The strength of the pack is the wolf."

Finally, today's debates are not high-spirited so much as mean-spirited. To allow polarizing forces to dominate the argument by insinuating false motives on one side or a lack of patriotism on the other is to obscure long-term security decisions that have to be made now.

We are clashing with an enemy who has been at war with us in one form or another for two decades. Our military response may take decades more. We have crossed several rivers and the nation is hoping that ahead lie streams. But if they are oceans, we should heed Lincoln's call: "With malice toward none, with charity for all ... let us strive on to finish the work we are in."

Victor Davis Hanson started off another excellent, must read essay with this:

There may be a lot to regret about the past policy of the United States in the Middle East, but the removal of Saddam Hussein and the effort to birth democracy in his place is surely not one of them. And we should remember that this Memorial Day.

Hanson ended his short summary of accomplishment in Iraq and the Middle East with this:

Reading about Gettysburg, Okinawa, Choisun, Hue, and Mogadishu is often to wonder how such soldiers did what they did. Yet never has America asked its youth to fight under such a cultural, political, and tactical paradox as in Iraq, as bizarre a mission as it is lethal. And never has the American military — especially the U.S. Army and Marines — in this, the supposedly most cynical and affluent age of our nation, performed so well.
We should remember the achievement this Memorial Day of those in the field who alone crushed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, stayed on to offer a new alternative other than autocracy and theocracy, and kept a targeted United States safe from attack for over four years.

I saw all kinds of links to this, just to name a few, Instapundit, Cannoneer #4 , Soldier's Mom at Milblogs.  

I thought Hanson’s the best of pieces on Memorial Day, until I came across Ben Stein’s very moving piece in the American Spectator (also via Milblogs).

Stein spoke at a Saturday evening event for the Memorial Day weekend seminar and grief camp of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS).
This man has a heart for the US Military, and if you’ve never read anything by Stein, or if you know him only through movie or television appearances, you need to read the whole thing. Forget the disclaimer, you need to read it all even if you know this side of Stein.

Stein speak with deep feeling and humility. H presents a stark contrasts of two very different sorts of “bad days” to set his tone of reverence for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and those who they left behind:

A bad day for me is when I get stuck in traffic or have a toothache or notice that I have gained weight or my teenage son is surly.
A bad day for you is realizing that the only man or woman you have ever loved is gone for this lifetime.
A difficult day for me with my wife is when she's out at her bridge lesson and comes home late so my dinner is late.
A difficult day for you is when you wake up from a dream that your husband or wife or son or daughter or mother or father was alive and laughing with you and realize you'll never see that loveable person again for the rest of your natural lives.
A bad day for an ordinary American is seeing the stock market go down or watching his son sneak a beer.
A bad day for you is a sort of loneliness, a hopeless, cruel loneliness that cuts right to the bone like the cut of a knife, that tells you that there is no one there to hug you, no one to kiss you, no one to fix the kids' bikes, no one to wipe away the tears that just come uncontrollably when you least expect them.
A bad day for me is getting stuck in an airport security line. A bad day for you is being on the plane alone.

Yet your loneliness has meaning. Your loneliness, your pain, is the mortar and concrete that anchors the nation. The sacrifice your loved ones made, the sacrifice you made, that your kids made, is what makes the whole American world safe from terror.

Can there be any more stark reminder of what we memorialize on holidays such as Memorial Day? Can there be any more obvious demonstration of selfless service or sacrifice, than a military family surrendering their loved ones in service to their nation?

Stein offers high honor to his audience, and commends them for the work they do for their Creator:

John F. Kennedy said that here on earth, God's work is our work. That doesn't mean Wall Street's work. It doesn't mean the Washington Post's work. It doesn't mean Hollywood's work. It means the work you guys do and the work of your husbands and wives and kids. Living and dying for your fellow man. That is God's work in the deepest sense, and God bless you for what you do, and God keep you until you are with your loved ones again.

God blesses such as these. Those who have died for their country, for us. Those they have left behind, who joined them forever in their final sacrifice, who must live on with remembrance of great loves lost, without their physical touch or earthly presence.

If you neglected Memorial Day this year, if you shy away from the political arguments that rage, about Iraq, Iran, or the threat of Global Terrorisms, at least do one thing.

Find a way to acknowledge and honor those soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines, who at the fullest expense of their families, have given the last full measure of devotion. We must do more than just bury these heroes, we must find the public ways to praise them.

If you are still catching up from a weekend away – as I am – check out the tributes offered by several of the Milblogs: Castle Argghhh!, Smash and Smash, and Blackfive.

Michael Ledeen, in National Review Online, responds to reporting by Karl Vick and Dafna Linzer in The Washington Post. Ledeen goes so far to suggest Vick and Linzer are playing journalistic patsy for the Iranians, and describes their article as “reporting” with scare quotes.

Clearly, Iranian Mullahs want the American public to think that Iranian “overtures” represent “a profound change in Iran’s political orthodoxy.” And just as clearly, Vick and Linzer aim to be helpful in passing on what amounts to regime propaganda.

Ledeen contrasts this with what are some startling internal developments in Iran, elsewhere largely unreported in the Western mainstream media (MSM). And more specifically, unreported in the Post:

The announcement, via the Post, is a fairly transparent tactical maneuver, and Post readers would recognize it as such if Vick and Linzer bothered to report the news from Iran, which is that there are demonstrations all over the country, and that the regime continues its cruel iron-fisted policy toward the Iranian people.
A few days ago, following the publication of an offensive cartoon (equating the Azeri people with cockroaches) in the state-run Iran newspaper, there were huge demonstrations in Tabriz. According to one eyewitness account there were more than three hundred thousand demonstrators. There were numerous casualties on both sides. The regime is busing in thousands of pro-regime demonstrators today in an attempt to show popular support for the mullahcracy;
Last month, in reprisal for the killing of 12 regime officials, North Balochistan was bombed by government planes, and hundreds of presumed activists were rounded up, continuing a pattern of systematic repression that has been going on for many years;
In the last few days there were big demonstrations on college campuses all over the country, and the regime responded with force. The demonstrations were at least in part in response to new restrictions on political activity at the universities;
A week ago, 54 Bahais, engaged in humanitarian activities in Shiraz, were arrested and jailed, hard on the heels of raids on six Bahai homes, and more than a year of “revolving door” detentions, often with no pretext of legal justification.

As Ledeen rightly observes, so much for “a profound change in Iran’s political orthodoxy.”

Steve Schippert posts a MILBLOGGER Manifesto over at Milblogs.

He links to a terrific essay by Wretchard at The Belmont Club as the source of his inspiration. Please read the whole thing, but check out this:

September 10, 2001 was the last day on which hypothetically incompatible modes of thought could coexist in a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" environment. When the planes smashing into the Twin Towers forced everyone to nail their colors to the mast Marxists no less than the conservatives indignantly found themselves facing an unanticipated rebellion. Liberal rage over Bush -- and maybe Lieberman and McCain -- for behaving "illegitimately" and "turning back the clock" is incomprehensible until one realizes that from a certain perspective it represents a double-cross. The West was supposed to die; slowly and comfortably but ineluctably.  And we were supposed to buy off the Islamists until we could finish the job ourselves. Bush declaring his intention to fight for the survival of the West was just as logical as Chomsky's pilgrimage to Hezbollah and just as infuriating to his enemies.

Until September 11 it was possible for the more "enlightened" segments of society to regard patriotism, religion and similar sentiments with the kind of amused tolerance that one might reserve for simpletons. Nothing that a little institutionalization and spare change couldn't straighten out. The problem for the Democratic Party is that the Great Polite Silence is over. People like Chomsky and President Bush have stopped being hypothetical and become all too real. Bring it on.

Wretchard’s essay describes the sources of our malaise, against which Steve calls us to action:

Why is the defense of this nation a political issue at all? There are those who will argue that it is the manner in which we defend ourselves that is at issue.

That, my friends, is a convoluted disingenuous sheen of reason upon the unreasonable.

A former Attorney General currently vociferously defends a mass murdering dictator deposed by our own forces. An icon of the self-loathing anti-American academic Left, Noam Chomsky, embraces Hizballah, the chief beneficiary of Iran's terror export, and condemns the War on Terror as bigotry wrapped in fiction. A former Vice President travels to the home of fifteen 9/11 hijackers and professes that Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" by America and its sitting president and held in "unforgivable" conditions.

These are not arguments of the manner in which to defend America. These are sycophantic rantings of whether to defend her. The flood of emotions in disbelieving reaction range from anger and rage to depression and grief.

We dare not rest as the most important front of the War on Terror and for the very survival of Western Civilization lies not upon the sands of distant shores, but in our own common discourse. The most important battlegrounds are around our dinner tables and in intelligent and persuasive common sense discussion among our peers, seeking the discomfort of battle and the very defense of defense rather than the comfort and unproductive endeavor of agreement among friends.

There exist things worth fighting for, the loss of which jeopardize the foundations of democracy and freedom, not just at home, but for the many undeclared allies in countries that yet yearn to breath free. Unfortunately, many of those who most enjoy and indulge every imaginable freedom, have forgotten (if they ever knew) how costly those freedoms have been to establish, to preserve and protect.

Andrew McCarthy at The Corner is on a tear.

He cites the lead of the New York Times story on the search of Rep. William Jefferson's office:

"After years of quietly acceding to the Bush administration's assertions of executive power, the Republican-led Congress hit a limit this weekend."

McCarthy reacted as I would, expressing extreme incredulity over the Times’ ridiculous characterization of Congressional behavior relative to Bush Administration policies, lo these past 5 years.

In slamming the Times for a bit of media excess -- I was going to use the term, “journalistic excess,” but I still have respect for what “journalism” is supposed to be – McCarthy concludes:

Nowhere — nowhere — does [Times Reporter] Hulse mention that the search took place pursuant to a judicial warrant obtained by the Justice Department only after a federal judge found probable cause both that a crime had been committed and that evidence of that crime was likely to be found in the place to be searched.  (I won't belabor what Byron and I already commented on last night regarding the absurd procedural lengths to which DOJ went, for the purpose of exhibiting respect to legislative branch, in conducting the search.)

Meanwhile, the Times ends its account with a word from the GOP's new fearless leader, Rep. John Boehner, wondering aloud "whether the people at the Justice Department have looked at the Constitution." 

I defy Boehner to explain where in the Constitution it says that crooks who happen to be congressmen are free to use office space that belongs not to them but to the American people in order to hide the proceeds of their violations of the public trust from agents conducting an investigation on behalf of the American people.

Ack. Buckets of Heh.

Is the New York Times capable of reporting on political issues – this appeared on Page One as news, after all – without an immediate tilt towards partisan spin? Do they really think they live in this Fascist, power grabbing, freedom denying alternate Universe they insist on presenting to their readers?

The American people deserve far better than the shame that is today’s Congress (the fault of both these malformed Parties). They surely deserve a better press, as well, who one might think would be more interested in puncturing the self-inflation of such as Boehner, than in scoring partisan political points. You know, in service to the public.

Not in this time and place, apparently.

How does that go, Life imitates the Onion? This time, it’s the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) imitates Scrappleface.

The New York Times reports that the ACLU moves to halt free speech internally:

"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.

"Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising," the proposals state.

Given the organization's longtime commitment to defending free speech, some former board members were shocked by the proposals.

Nat Hentoff, a writer and former A.C.L.U. board member, was incredulous. "You sure that didn't come out of Dick Cheney's office?" he asked.

Note the gratuitous swipe at the Vice President, retained in the Times piece for, well, because it’s a swipe at the Vice President.

I suppose it is refreshing to see the Times spending some small amount of “equal time” exposing the bureaucratic pettiness and infighting at liberal bastions, taking a break from its usual treatment of Intelligence agencies.

The ending of this insider’s hit piece concludes with a quote from ACLU board member David F. Kennison. Kennison reaches for metaphor that, sadly, is all too revealing of the mindset of this once noble institution:

"I think of the board as the brain and the staff as the fang and the claws," he said, "and the brain should govern the fangs and claws rather than the other way around."

Via Instapundit, who observes that this turn of events for the civil liberties watchdog is “rather ironic.”

Glenn remarks on the decline of the ACLU as exemplified by the squabble related in the Times piece:

The ACLU has been corrupted by its dependence on a comparatively small fundraising base, something that's common with nonprofits. The organization also seems to have been captured by the paid staff, which feels entitled to run things without the Board's actual input. That's another common problem in the nonprofit world. But this is making clear just how far things have gone at the ACLU, at the expense of its ostensible mission.

I think there’s a more widespread, generalized pattern in the world of non-profits that especially affects organizations like the ACLU.

Flashback to your average university, steeped in liberal ideology, offering nothing more logically substantive than liberal arts programs, multiculturalism, and the vestiges of political correctness.

Students have long ago freed themselves from the rigor of the study of Western classics, and if not full fledged acolytes upon entry, by graduation most have adopted the lazy scorn of mathematics, science, and business and industry. Nowhere in their studies did they practice, demonstrate, and certainly not master forms of logic or inductive or deductive reasoning.

In short, their high priced educations failed them, and they were oblivious and happy in the failing.

But there comes a time in every student’s life when he must confront the work-a-day world and the necessity of salary. Unless gifted with such parental largess that work can be hobby, the student must find a job. Such crises this need inspires!

As the prospective employee surveys his prospects, none look appealing. “Why can’t I find a job that involves doing something I love, like reading or chatting, maybe find some cause I of which I can be a part?”

And just as these students – such a vast multitude of students in the years between Vietnam and George Bush – come to the point of this decision, a particular artifact of bureaucratic invention and tax code manipulation comes into being: The Non-Profit Organization (NPO).

NPOs have flourished in this time of Me and My Ideals, organizations formed for the purposes of avoiding otherwise gainful employment. As long as it’s fun, I can hang out with like-minded idealists, and I can get paid pretty well for well, caring, the NPO made great sense for a lot of these liberal arts graduates. Way too many, in fact. More than there were positions to fill.

You may be forgiven for thinking the NPOs exist to serve their cause, whatever it may be. But you’d be wrong, that’s surely not their primary mission.

Their primary mission is to create jobs for these poor souls who find math and science way too hard, business way too demeaning, and military service way too violent, man.

The ACLU, as a kind of plum job of all plum NGO placements, was going to fall victim to the flaws of those “public servants” they inevitably attracted. People who viewed other institutions as so much less important. Government as oppressive and evil. Corporations as greedy and evil. Conservatives as racists and evil. Republicans as all that and more.

People who knew deep down, that anything that sounded right must be right, other people who disagreed were stupid or manipulated, and anyway, we work at the ACLU, and that’s cool!

The New York Times displays a highly selective bit of attentiveness about good news in Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 22 — In the wave of lawlessness and frantic self-interest that has washed over this war-weary nation, small acts of pure altruism often go unnoticed.

-- As unnoticed as almost every other element of good news, when it’s the New York Times that would be doing the noticing.

So why do they notice “small act of pure altruism?”

Why, so they can beat the drum of quagmire, civil war, mass exodus and war torn chaos, of course!

Think I’m exaggerating? Think I’m not giving the Grey Lady her due when she does remark on anything positive?

Check out the mallet with which the Times beats that drum [emphasis mine]:

But the Iraqi government has been taking note of such good works, and now, more than three years after the American invasion, the outlines of a nascent civil society are taking shape.

Since 2003 the government has registered 5,000 private organizations, including charities, human rights groups, medical assistance agencies and literacy projects. Officials estimate that an additional 7,000 groups are working unofficially. The efforts show that even as violence and sectarian hatred tear Iraq's mixed cities apart, a growing number of Iraqis are trying to bring them together. "Iraqis were thirsty for such experiences," said Khadija Tuma, director of the office in the Ministry of Civil Society Affairs that now works with the private aid groups. "It was as if they already had it inside themselves."

The new charity groups offer bits of relief in the sea of poverty that swept Iraq during the economic embargo of the 1990's and has worsened with the pervasive lawlessness that followed the American invasion.

Get it? Anything good happening is in spite of the Americans.

Not convinced? As if to hammer it home, a couple of paragraphs later. As I read I kept wondering how long they would keep it going, and it seems, for the entire article [emphasis mine]:

The Iraqi Chamber of Commerce dates from the 1930's, and its volunteers plunged into Baghdad's poor areas to conduct literacy campaigns in the 1950's, around the time of the overthrow of the monarchy.

Today's groups have picked up that historic thread and offer hope in an increasingly poisonous sectarian landscape that Iraqis may still be able to hold their country together.

And of course, not to point out the obvious, but if those Iraqis “hold their country together,” it will be in large measure due to the security guarantee and long hard effort of the US Military (not otherwise mentioned in the context of this article, natch).

One last observation. The article included this nugget, which the Times reports at face value without any question and no hint of irony:

The need here is growing. The number of acutely malnourished children has more than doubled, to 9 percent in 2005 from 4 percent in 2002, according to a report based on figures from the Planning Ministry that was released this month.

Is there anyone who seriously thinks you can trust any figures on child malnourishment from Saddam Hussein’s government, as reported in 2002? And a figure like 4%? That would be like believing that 100% of Iraqis voted for Saddam in his last election.

This, despite the widespread, pre-War denunciation of Western sanctions that killed “half a million” Iraqi children. If not overwhelmingly from malnourishment, what other leading contender caused these deaths? I’m not an expert, but I’d be willing to bet that the figure of 9% acutely malnourished children in 2005 probably represents a huge reduction in malnourishment figures since 2002.

Skepticism and doubt. The New York Times has both in great abundance, when the Bush Administration or the US Military is speaking. Otherwise, forget it.

(Via Instapundit)

Give Them What They Want.

The prisoners at Gitmo that is, not the UN.

Two reports from AP, of two curiously timed events:

Guantanamo Prison Guards, Inmates Clash

U.N. Urges U.S. to Shut Guantanamo Prison

Bottom line up front, buried 30 paragraphs down in the piece on the UN Report:

Andreas Mavrommatis, a Cypriot rights expert who chaired the committee's review of the United States, said the report should not be blown out of proportion because the United States has "a very good record of human rights" overall.

Fat chance.

The AP characterizes the Gitmo prisoner “uprising” in a way that strongly suggests that prisoners made suicide attempts to draw in guards, conduct attacks and other harassing actions, and (thereby) gain media attention:

Prisoners wielding improvised weapons clashed with guards trying to stop a detainee from committing suicide at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the military said Friday.

The fight occurred Thursday in a medium-security section of the camp as guards were responding to the fourth attempted suicide that day at the detention center on the

U.S. Navy base, Cmdr. Robert Durand said.

Detainees used fans, light fixtures and other improvised weapons to attack the guards as they entered a communal living area to stop a prisoner trying to hang himself, Durand said.

Earlier in the day, three detainees in another part of the prison attempted suicide by swallowing prescription medicine they had been hoarding.

Note the tie-in, without a remark on its significance, deep into the AP report:

Word of the clash came as a U.N. panel that monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty called on the United States to close the prison.

One other item of note at the bottom of the report, obviously meant to elicit sympathy for these poor unfortunates:

The lawyer [Colangelo-Bryan] said the suicides reflect the desperation of detainees held for more than four years with no idea when, or if, they will be released.

"Under these circumstances, it's hardly surprising that people become desperate and hopeless enough to attempt suicide," he said.

It’s sad. Really, this is too cruel. Perhaps, as combatants who conduct operations in a manner completely contrary to the rules of war, we should juts opt for summary executions. Or just let them go ahead with their suicide attempts. But of course, no, we would never dream of treating these fanatics as they would treat us.

Okay. Next up. The UN Report, as also reported by AP:

The United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror, the U.N. panel that monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty said Friday.

The Committee Against Torture also said detainees should not be returned to any country where they could face a "real risk" of being tortured.

The criticism, contained in an 11-page report, followed a hearing in Geneva this month on U.S. adherence to the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture. The criticism carries no penalties beyond international scrutiny, but human rights observers say it could influence U.S. public opinion and hence the government.

It seems that the UN knows how to manipulate the MSM nearly as well as the terrorists at Guantanamo.

I’m not sure the UN makes any attempt to influence the behavior of the other countries it perceives as engaging in torture. Neither by trying to shame the dictators who run these countries, nor by prompting their populations to pressure their governments. Why is it only the US upon whom the UN uses these techniques?

For that matter, why do they spend so much time – and expend such a huge proportion of what you’d think would be limited resources -- on our perceived grievances, when by their own admission, “United States has ‘a very good record of human rights’ overall.”

A mystery, just as mysterious as the secret of how the prisoners at Guantanamo are able to coordinate their suicide-baited media events with the UN. You’d almost think somebody’s working together here.

I was gratified to see a robust US response to the UN’s claims, more energetic than any I’ve seen for some time. Not that it will influence anyone at the UN, or enamored of them:

U.N. investigators were invited to inspect the facilities at Guantanamo but chose not to, White House spokesman Tony Snow said. The investigators have said they didn't visit because they were denied the opportunity to independently interview detainees.

"It is important to note that everything that is done in terms of questioning detainees is fully within the boundaries of American law," Snow said.

He also said the United States makes sure prisoners have food, clothing and other basic necessities and the opportunity to worship.

"In short," Snow said, "we are according every consideration consistent with not only the law but the needs of safety and security at Guantanamo to the people who are there."

The U.N. report came as the military disclosed a group of Guantanamo prisoners wielding improvised weapons clashed Thursday with guards trying to stop a detainee from hanging himself — the fourth suicide attempt that day.

State Department legal adviser John B. Bellinger III, who led the U.S. delegation at the U.N. panel hearing, said the committee appeared not to have read a lot of the information Washington had supplied — or had ignored it.

"There are a number of both factual inaccuracies and legal misstatements about the law applicable to the United States," Bellinger told The Associated Press.

He said the panel's call for the closure of Guantanamo was "a recommendation which we would say, one, seems to be beyond their mandate; two, legally wrong to say that the existence of Guantanamo is a per se violation of the convention; and, three, a not very practical recommendation given that they say that it ought to be closed but that individuals can't be sent back to a large number of countries."

Bell also said the report was "factually wrong" in stating the "individuals do not have access to judicial process."

He called that "simply clearly inaccurate since it's been ordered by our Supreme Court that they have access to judicial process and every detainee in Guantanamo has access to counsel and to our courts."

Hey, I give the AP credit for including such a lengthy official rebuttal to the UN charges. They also tie the two stories together, but that’s the intent, isn’t it?