Grannies dance, but they don’t fall down…no matter how wobbly they may be.

(If you don’t get that allusion, you don’t know your history of International Socialism, comrade.)

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette offers insightful commentary on a recent court appearance of aging revolutionaries. Apparently, some anti-war Grannies managed to get themselves arrested, and thereby gain an inordinate amount of press coverage from the likes of the NY Times.

This is the paragraph that caught Greyhawk’s attention, and prompted my reference above to a bit of international communist nostalgia:

The trial was extraordinary, if only because it gave 18 impassioned women — some of whom dated their political activism to the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg — a chance to testify at length about their antiwar sentiments and their commitment to free speech and dissent, in a courtroom that attracted reporters from France and Germany.

Greyhawk’s take:

Google Ethel and Julius if you need to, fellow travelers - I'm not giving that part of the history lesson today. But small wonder the supporters of the team that helped hand the A-bomb to the Russians are against America today. Many, if not all of the "grannies" are simply remnants of a bygone era, revitalized by new threats against a nation they can't bring themselves to support. If any of them actually have children who also have children it's less a validation of their wisdom and more a reminder that four or more decades of supporting a failed ideology does not of itself grant credibility to the cause.

The Grannies and their supporters take the judge’s decision in this case – to dismiss charges rather than seek punishment for their acts of (apparent) civil disobedience – as a victory for the right of free speech. I think they’re mistaken, and so does Greyhawk. He celebrates their victory, and notes the other, more significant demonstration of freedom, and its cost: the acts of those men and women who made their way past the obstructionist octogenarians, and enlisted for military service:

I celebrate their "victory"... as I celebrate the right to non-violent free speech anywhere in the few countries that allow it today. But I cheer loudly for those recruits who used that space they left available to enter the recruiting office and join to actually defend free speech too. In a way I truly pity those who wasted a life lived in freedom leading cheers for those who would end both life and freedom were they ever to be successful in their cause.

Funny how contemporary practitioners of civil disobedience can so enthusiastically celebrate being relieved of suffering any consequence of their acts? That was certainly not Gandhi’s example, nor Martin Luther King’s. They embraced the judicial consequences of their disobedience.

I suppose that’s reflective of the times, the Me Generation impulse towards taking the easy route on anything. Darn End of History protesters. Can’t even do a little stint in Birmingham Jail, for cripes sake. Had to go hire a flashy First Amendment lawyer to get them all off with a compassionate dismissal.

I’ll leave the last word to Greyhawk, as he does so well:

Expect more from these intrepid grannies, they aren't likely to be content to go back to making brownies. These age of Aquarian septuagenarians have achieved a first - the first generation to protest their parents and their kids.

Back in the "good old days" they popularized a slogan: "never trust anybody over 30". They were wrong then, and they're wrong today.

United 93 opened today, and I would urge all of us to see it, maybe more than once, and strongly urge our fellow citizens to see it, too. Trailers and other links available here.

Debbie Schlussel nominates United 93 for Movie of the Year, and declares that the film, due for release Friday, April 28^th, should be “required movie viewing for all Americans who love freedom.” I would add, “as well as for all of those who would sell cheap what some hold dear.”

Schlussel makes the same point, and highly commends United 93 for the following people who don’t seem to get it:

Assorted ACLU-style lawyers and activists

Federal "law enforcement" bureaucrats

FAA brass

Most Hollywood directors and writers

She concludes her peace, obviously to those of us who “get it:”

While the United 93 passengers had barely a warning--perhaps less than an hour, we have had plenty of warning in America. It was not just the 9/11 attacks and the foiled shoe-bomber attempt in 2001, and other escapades since. Before that, we had the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, the blowing up of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, the 1996 Khobar Towers attacks, "Black Hawk Down" in Somalia, and so on. Before that, Hezbollah--a group which works with Al-Qaeda training its insurgents and which took part in the Khobar Towers attack--hijacked TWA Flight 847, torturing to death Navy diver Robert Stethem, and murdered 300 U.S. military and civilian personnel in Lebanon.

Yes, we have had the warnings. Plenty of them. And unlike in Hollywood, in real life, Jack Bauer does not usually save the day.

The question is: Will we take heed of them like the passengers on United 93 and go down fighting? Or will we "see no evil" and silently, willingly submit to the will of the Islamists who repeatedly tell us of their mission . . . until the West is dead?

Schlussel is worried about the signs of how this question is being answered, even as this movie opens. Couldn’t have come soon enough – the telling of this story --  one might conclude. Others disagree.

Many of my fellow conservative bloggers maintain that only liberals think that it’s too soon to start showing movies about 9/11. That’s perhaps debatable, although the sampling done by the Wall Street Journal Online seems to underscore conservative belief.

Sure, I know the job of a reviewer and critic is to very specifically address the artistic content of artistic works, and surely delving into structural elements of plot and dramatic exposition is well within the Drama Critic’s Area of Operations.

Still, based on the Journal’s selection, which I have no reason to doubt is representative, note those reactions critical of the movie. “Why it was made in the first place?” they whine. “Why was this movie made?” “We need something more from our film artists than another thrill ride.” They ask, “What, exactly, this re-creation illuminates?”

Or the most representative of this line of reasoning, from Manohla Dargis of the The New York Times:

"United 93" inspires pity and terror, no doubt. But catharsis? I'm still waiting for that.

Which kind of crystallized for me what I think of objections to the film.

Manohla, the rest of us aren’t waiting for a catharsis anymore. We experienced ours when we watched the planes hit the towers, the collapse of these massive structures, the instant transformation of nearly 3,000 people into dust and vapor and ash.

Perhaps that is the genius of this film, perhaps will be the genius of any accurate and honest film that will ever be made about the events of 9/11. Like some ancient Greek tragedy and the finest of Shakespeare’s work, there is something so universal, so elementally, brutally, human in the events of that day. The clear distinction, so starkly evident, between good and evil, that to tell the story is to make that instant connection to something timeless and essential.

The fact that the American people have been lulled into a predisposition for going back to sleep, to think this was after all some fantasy of revenge dreamed up by George Bush and the Neocons, that we can somehow talk and schmooze our way out of the Nuclear nightmares we face in Iran and North Korea, is reason enough to tell this story.

We needed to scream this story from rooftops on September 12, 2001, and every day thereafter. We need to honor our dead and fallen, each anniversary and day set aside for remembrances of heroes and sacrifice. We need to tell these stories to our Children’s children, and their children, for generations yet unborn.

It saddens me that such a world exists, and that the evil, so unimaginable to those who seek peace at any cost, exists. But I know it does. Those who died on United 93, at the Twin Towers, at the Pentagon, in Afghanistan and Iraq, know it too in a more final sense.

Some will never need to be reminded of that fact. For others, there will be films like United 93.

Please read, too, David Beamer’s piece in the Journal. Mr. Beamer is the father of Todd Beamer, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93. He urges us to see United 93, and offers the following admonition, and prayer:

Be reminded of our very real enemy. Be inspired by a true story of heroic actions taken by ordinary people with victorious consequences. Be thankful for each precious day of life with a loved one and make the most of it. Resolve to take the right action in the situations of life, whatever they may be. Resolve to give thanks and support to those men, women, leaders and commanders who to this day (1,687 days since Sept. 11, 2001) continue the counterattacks on our enemy and in so doing keep us safe and our freedoms intact.

May the taste of freedom for people of the Middle East hasten victory. The enemy we face does not have the word "surrender" in their dictionary. We must not have the word "retreat" in ours. We surely want our troops home as soon as possible. That said, they cannot come home in retreat. They must come home victoriously. Pray for them.

Other commentary on United 93 well worth your while:

Michelle Malkin:   THE HIJACKING OF UNITED 93...AGAIN?

John / OPFOR:   HERE'S YOUR CHANCE AMERICA

BLACKFIVE:   NEVER YIELD  —  We should never forget the heroism of September 11th.

IMAO:   Loose Screws  —  Though it doesn't come out until Friday …

Mark Noonan / Blogs for Bush:   United 93  —  David Beamer, father of United 93 passenger Todd Beamer …

Sister Toldjah:   David Beamer, father of Todd Beamer, on the Flight 93 movie

In a communiqué, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) notes conditions at Guantanamo have “improved considerably,” and finds it “extremely regrettable” that hysterical media attention to Guantanamo has distracted from (really) “troubled sites in places like Chechnya and Burma.”

Wow. Regrettable, do you find it? Any remorse in being part of the full court press and media campaigns that helped whip up the hysteria?

(Chirp, chirp.)

Now if Jakob Kellenberger could only chat up the leaders of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, we could do something more than just regret the insane focus on minor US infractions while really nasty people go on about business as usual.

I read stories like this, and wonder. Could it be that FOH* and FODP** are laying the groundwork to doing 180’s on various aspects of the Global War on Terror, come the day when they won’t have to do the knee-jerk “that SOB Bush is in the White House” routine, and sensible NGOs can go back to being, well, full of sense?

* Friends of Hillary

** Friends of the Democratic Party

Instapundit points to this short blurb on The Corner at NRO:

Follow this link (hat tip Tim Blair) to read how Robert Fisk digs a deeper and deeper hole for himself over whether or not Zarquawi exists, is a threat, should be covered by the media, and much else.

I know Robert Fisk as the namesake of the blogging practice of critiquing columns or opinion pieces, by presenting those pieces interspersed with running commentary. Fisk earned that dubious honor by the great prevalence of his critics’ use of the technique. Apparently Fisk’s writing reveals a preference for gross inaccuracy and flights of illogic.

You couldn’t find any better example of these tendencies than his interview in this Australian Broadcasting Corporation television appearance.

Critics might be tempted to fisk Fisk, but Fisk so thoroughly fisks Fisk, no further fisking is required.

Read the whole thing, it’s very humorous.

Here’s my logical reduction of his interview:

1. The recent tapes purported to be from Zarqawi appear to really be from Zarqawi.
2. Contrary to Fisk’s assertion that Zarqawi is a “creature created, in a sense, by American propaganda,” Zarqawi clearly exists.
3. Contrary to what Fisk has also maintained, Zarqawi is alive.
4. We “bestialize” Zarqawi and Bin Laden. These individuals don’t matter anymore, their creation, Al Qaeda, does.
5. Fisk questions whether Zarqawi “is seriously an enemy of the ‘West’,” or just some lunatic. He likens our distortion of Zarqawi and his role to the way in which the West “bestialized” (demonized) Khomeini, Gaddafi, Nasser.
6. Fisk maintains that, if Zarqawi was in fact the individual who appeared in the Nick Berg snuff video, he’s “obviously the monstrous figure we make him out to be.”
7. Fisk suggests that we create creatures (like Zarqawi) as evil caricatures, as figures for us to hate.
8. Contrary to what Fisk has just said, according to Fisk, Bin Laden is a real “problem for all of us.”
9. Contrary to what Fisk has just said, Bin Laden and Zarqawi quite intentionally act and fashion themselves as kindred, malignant creatures. Only we help them do that, claims Fisk, by acknowledging their acts, and recognizing their evil character.
10. Fisk maintains that, “absolutely,” we must not ignore the existence of these monsters.
11. Contrary to prior statements, Fisk acknowledges that “There's no doubt about it. They are bad guys.” But they’re popular in the Muslim world.

Man, my head hurts. Anyway, that’s the Cliff’s Notes version of Robert Fisk.

A short reflection on why busting pork in terms of earmarks -- member items, pork barrel spending, supplemental appropriations, etc. – is only one battle in a bigger war. (The occasion of this reflection is the Senate Proposal to reorganize the FEMA Portion of Homeland Security.)

When you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Better yet, when you’re a hammer aching to look like you’re really important, anything looks like it needs you pounding away at it.

Best of all, when you’re head’s made of iron, pounding away at nails is probably all you’re good for. Except, it’s long past “hammer time.”

Okay, enough with the hammer metaphor, but that was fun.

It’s humorous, after all, to think of most of our Senators as a kind of select group of Tim Allens, playing at TV handymen and women on some kind of Governmental Tool Time program. It’s also sad and pathetic that this is indeed what our elected officials amount, to at a time of grave threats and fiscal dangers. And their solutions? More bureaucracy, bigger bureaucracy, new bureaucracy.

Anything to make it look like “They Are Doing Something About It.”

My Dad retired as a Civil Service employee after many years as an Actuary for two Insurance companies. He spent his last 15 years or so as the senior non-appointed employee for a State Insurance regulatory organization.

Dad used to self-effacingly call government service “the last refuge of the mediocre.” Witnessing the many years that he toiled to keep the insurance companies operating in New York honest, and the many occasions that he confronted dishonesty and corruption in various government or public employee union settings, I know that his observation was less true than some might think. Even corrupt government employees rarely exhibit mediocrity in their criminal pursuits. Surely those who attempt to do the right thing, even less so.

I have spent the better part of my Civilian career consulting within government agencies, and have seen both sides of the issue, and all kinds of civil servants. They are no more, and no less, than any other type of employee.

Like military men and women, Civil Servants do not make the decisions that create their missions, direct, or otherwise regulate their efforts. Politicians do that.

It may be a truism, that there is no area or endeavor that Government involvement cannot make more confused, ineffective, or inefficient. Many of us grow infuriated with Government bloat and ineffectiveness. But.

My Dad used to be a Conservative, many years ago now. I won’t discuss that further, it’s painful and distressing, but nevertheless, he once was as Conservative as I, and I remember the things he often said. He is perhaps my Mentor most of all, in this.

One thing he also said, reflects on the rapacious tendency of Government to want to consume every issue and “crises,” at least those events so characterized that they will inevitably rise to a certain threshold level of awareness. In responding to these crises, the Politician finds a ready made soapbox, a venue for issue- (and thus self-) promotion, and media attention. (Which is, after all, the ready grease of political opportunity.)

Dad firmly believed that, if private industry or business or other appropriate institutions or organizations would fail to police or regulate themselves, no doubt government eventually would, but less effectively. He often expressed it something like this: there is no better way to guarantee unwanted (and otherwise unnecessary) government intervention, than failing to deal with a problem at the appropriate level.

He invoked this observation, axiom-like, whenever current events provided ample demonstration of the truth of his observation. This happened often, as it happens. The Stock Market. Environmental Protection. Baseball.

I don’t know that I have previously noted how commonly this occurs within Government. Citizens in local communities first, but then small and mid-size “g” Government at local and state levels fail in their responsibilities. Who steps in? Uncle Sam, of course.

Visit for a moment today’s press report:

"The first obligation of government is to protect our people," said Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation. "In Katrina, we failed at all levels of government to meet that fundamental obligation."

She added: "We must learn from the lessons of Katrina so that next time disaster strikes, whether it's a storm that was imminent and predicted for a long time, or a terror attack that takes us by surprise, government responds far more effectively."

Presumably, since today’s report of Senate fulminations makes no mention of any change that affects preparedness for terror attacks, we might conclude that Sen. Collins thinks that half of her verbal construct is being dealt with sufficiently by the Bush Administration and its myriad Executive Branch apparatchiks. (Better guess, that’s coming somewhere down the Campaign Trail.)

So how does the Senate ensure that Government best meets this “first obligation?”

Why, rename and reshuffle Agencies, of course:

WASHINGTON - Hurricane Katrina turned FEMA into a "symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy" so far beyond repair that it should be scrapped, senators said Thursday. They called for creation of a new disaster relief agency as the next storm season looms on the horizon.

This will make everything better!

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., said FEMA needs to be stripped out of the larger department and restored to an independent Cabinet-level agency. "That's how it was done in the past and it worked as we hoped," said Lautenberg, a member of the Senate panel.

This is an odd rewriting of history, even for a crass partisan opportunist. By all accounts, the FEMA response to Katrina was arguably better, faster, more resourced, than any emergency response in FEMA’s history. Even before that rather non-sensical, Democratic Party-prompted subordination of FEMA within the cumbersome Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

A DHS spokesman responded to the Senate announcement with a tart rejoinder:

"It's time to stop playing around with the organizational charts and to start focusing on government, at all levels, that are preparing for this storm season," Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said.

Oddly enough, that was just as true on September 12, 2001, before politics created DHS as a way of letting Politicians then (mostly Democrats, but joined obviously by Republicans) of using Bureaucratic turf building to show how much Good They Could Do.

Have at the After Action Reports. Identify areas for improvement. Increase funding, reset priorities, all well and good.

But how many different ways do we need to rearrange the deckchairs before we get at what the real problems are?

Back in the Active Duty Army, I remember the ways in which each new Commander needed to “Reorganize” unit operations at our Intelligence site, each reorganization forming the basis for the End of Tour Legion of Merit. Usually the Big Man in charge found the easy way to accomplish this, alternating between Centralization and Decentralization, with each new Commander finding the Last Commander’s Design as the Source for all our Problems. Hence, the imperative to reorganize.

Do they teach this technique at one of the War Colleges? Did GE teach this technique at Croton-on-Hudson? I don’t think anyone puts this in writing. My guess is this is learned through Informal Mentoring, by those who observe, like my Dad, that there’s a predictable pattern to the Ways of the Organization, which are after all, all Political at their core.

And so the Senate ruminates, fulminates, gesticulates, regurgitates.

We can only hope that someone, at some point, decides to make better use of obligation to do the People’s Work.

(Great alliteration via the Wall Street Journal Online)

Check out http://www.floppingaces.net/?p=1551 for the best compilation of updates and links on the firing of CIA Analyst, former Clinton Official, and Democratic Party Activist Mary McCarthy.

(Via Tom Maguire at Just One Minute)

Universal Pictures is releasing UNITED 93 on Friday, April 28^th. I don’t have time to comment much – I am trying to wade through the backlog of work while I was away vacationing and attending the First Annual MILBLOGGER Conference on April 22^nd.

The only comment I absolutely need to make is that it is way past time to start reminding Americans of 9/11. Too many have forgotten, what not enough realized would be the gravest threat for this or any generation. We did not ask for this fight, but the fight was pressed upon us on 9/11 with as much force as that which brought down the Two Towers, and turned 3,000 souls to dust and vapor.

From the Press Release:

UNITED 93 director Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Supremacy) creates a gripping, provocative drama that tells the story of the passengers, crew and the flight controllers who watched in dawning horror as United Airlines Flight 93 became the fourth hijacked plane on the day of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil: September 11, 2001.

Trailers:

QuickTime Formats

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_trlr_2_128k.mov

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_trlr_2_300k.mov 

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_trlr_2_700k.mov 

Windows Media Formats

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_trlr_2_128k_wmv.asx

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_trlr_2_300k_wmv.asx

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_trlr_2_700k_wmv.asx  

Featurettes:

QuickTime Formats

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_featurette_128k.mov

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_featurette_300k.mov

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_featurette_700k.mov

Windows Media Formats

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_featurette_128k_wmv.asx

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_featurette_300k_wmv.asx

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_featurette_700k_wmv.asx

Images: 

http://media-file.net/united/united1/Set1/  

http://media-file.net/united/united2/Set2/

Jake Klim, from an outfit called Normandy Films, passes along a request for footage or other assistance in locating personal videos from troops in Iraq.

Per his email:

I am an Associate Producer who just finished working on a documentary series for the (Discovery) Military Channel called BATTLEFIELD DIARIES. Three of the 10 hours have highlighted various aspects of the Iraq War – a Kiowa crash rescue in September 2004, the USMC drive towards Baghdad in April 2003 and the 724^th Transportation Company Ambush of April 2004.

My boss and I are currently developing an exciting new television project for another major cable network that will utilize images personally shot by the troops and some text from various MilBlogs.  So I am looking for personal videos and stills of our servicemen & women in Iraq, shot by those same servicemen & women.  I'm especially looking for soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines talking INTO the camera...video diaries, having fun, being creative, interviewing one another, explaining what life is like in Iraq, down time, training, explaining what happened to them that day, music videos, etc.  Nothing is out of bounds!  The good, the bad, or the ugly.  Action, gore/bodies, down time, fun time, helping Iraqi communities, interacting with Iraqi civilians/children/police/military...anything that has little a story to it or is visually interesting.  If you know of anyone that kept a video diary while deployed; or did some "interviews" with his comrades in arms, please ask them to contact me.  Any format is probably workable.  (CD, DVD, cassette, etc.)  All originals will be returned at my expense.  If you have some ideas about how I should go about trying to get some footage together, I'm open to suggestions?  Are there a couple of websites I should post my footage request on?  Also, can you help me by passing the word around to other units?  I need to act quickly as I must show the network some sample footage in 8 weeks.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.

He can also be reached at Jklim007@yahoo.com.

Chester’s exceptional piece on Iran: simply the best analysis I have ever read. On Iran, or anything else geopolitical.

Go read it as soon as you can. It is as much must read as anything you will read on Iran.

Glenn Reynolds describes it as round-up, that’s not really true, unless you view it as a round-up of the best long term analysis on Iran. Chester quotes widely but with precision, and even concludes his analysis with a reflection on Moby Dick.

You still here? What did I say? Go read it!

Sidney Blumenthal opines in Salon that Bush is completely caught up in his own lies and deceit:

Bush is entangled in his own past. His explanations compound his troubles and point to the original falsehoods. Through his first term, Bush was able to escape by blaming the Democrats, casting aspersions on the motives of his critics and changing the subject. But his methods have become self-defeating. When he utters the word "truth" now most of the public is mistrustful. His accumulated history overshadows what he might say.

The collapse of trust was cemented into his presidency from the start. A compulsion for secrecy undergirds the Bush White House. Power, as Bush and Cheney see it, thrives by excluding diverse points of view. Bush's presidency operates on the notion that the fewer the questions, the better the decision. The State Department has been treated like a foreign country; the closest associates of the elder President Bush, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, have been excluded; the career professional staff have been bullied and quashed; the Republican-dominated Congress has abdicated oversight; and influential elements of the press have been complicit.

Inside the administration, the breakdown of the national security process has produced a vacuum filled by dogmatic fixations that become more rigid as reality increasingly fails to cooperate. But the conceit that executive fiat can substitute for fact has not sustained the illusion of omnipotence.

The precipitating event of the investigation of the Bush White House -- Wilson's disclosure about his Niger mission -- was an effort by a lifelong Foreign Service officer to set the record straight and force a debate on the reasons for going to war. Wilson stood for the public discussion that had been suppressed. The Bush White House's "concerted action" against him therefore involved an attempt to poison the wellsprings of democracy.

Aside from the usual suspects, I seriously doubt anyone takes talk of ethics from a Clinton insider, confident, and operative as particularly compelling. (I am disappointed in reacquainting myself with my erstwhile debating partner Liberal Avenger. I had hoped that his long silence was based on a change in interests. I suspect it is because he lost any ability to talk civilly with an avowed supporter of the evil Bush Administration.

Anyone but a rapid Partisan knows Sidney Blumenthal for who he is, and however else he may be characterized, he has no shame or remorse about elevating partisan gain over public trust, integrity, honesty, or any recognizable code of ethics. He’s a Democrat, first and foremost!

Only a hack like Blumenthal could so baldly characterize the Washington party game of Policy Warfare as such High Drama. To Blumenthal, if we can believe him, the highly public but anonymous turf wars that pit the Pentagon against the State Department and the CIA against, well, everybody else, are the stuff of free and informed debate. Only an insider Player of Blumenthal’s gall could suggest that efforts to tame errant Departments and Rogue Bureaucracies represent stifling of debate, and thus “thrives by excluding diverse points of view.” Blumenthal knows the script from which he waxes so melodramatic: that of the Stupid Boy King who the King’s Regent Must Keep in Ignorance, lest a little knowledge become a dangerous thing:

Bush's presidency operates on the notion that the fewer the questions, the better the decision.

This from the enabler of a constantly dissembling and prevaricating Bill Clinton?

But alas, the evil is so much more: “career professional staff have been bullied and quashed” over at Foggy Bottom. Ah yes, these career Diplomats and analysts who value talk talk talk so highly over war war war. We have seen the many warm embraces between the former Madame Secretary and her North Korean admirers.

But even that’s not all. Blumenthal warms to his topic in highlighting what he sees as the real source of all the many hysterical press reports in the Plame Flame Game:

The precipitating event of the investigation of the Bush White House -- Wilson's disclosure about his Niger mission -- was an effort by a lifelong Foreign Service officer to set the record straight and force a debate on the reasons for going to war. Wilson stood for the public discussion that had been suppressed.

Only, as has been well demonstrated, Joe Wilson was the liar. No evidence has been presented that refutes the long established fact that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. No matter how often Democrats and their media friends continue to misrepresent or distort (okay, lie) about what actually was said, both by the Preesident and by Joe Wilson, the facts remain, however overlooked.

Apparently, Saddam did not succeed in Niger, specifically, nor, apparently, elsewhere. But it is substantiated by many documents seized in the fall of Saddam’s government, and agreed by all knowledgeable experts, that Saddam sought a capability and the means to restart a nuclear program, banking on the ultimate success of his Russian and French friends in lifting the sanctions, that prevented him for trading for components more easily. Everyone who really remembers the politics of sanctions, and No Fly, and the constant problem and threat posed by Saddam throughout the 90’s and into 2000, 2001, 2002, knows how grave a threat he was perceived to be. Even Democrats.

And yet, and yet. The President is beleaguered and his popularity and approval ratings plummet. His enemies and political opponents smell blood, and see advantage and opportunity. Gone are the constraints that, until now, how held back their wrath. Now, it seems they can attack and score and pay little or no price politically.

They still have no plan, save to Really Real Security^TM. But they sure know who and what the enemy is, and they aren’t wearing turbans in Tehran.

Wade Zirkle, writing in The Washington Post, sums up his frustration with the media unwillingness to give voice to veterans, unless they are against the war in Iraq.

Zirkle, executive director of Vets for Freedom, uses a recent staged political event to frame what seems the source of his frustration:

Earlier this year there was a town hall meeting on the Iraq war, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), with the participation of such antiwar organizations as CodePink and MoveOn.org. The event also featured Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who had become an outspoken critic of the war. To this Iraq war veteran, it was a good example of something that's become all too common: People from politics, the media and elsewhere purporting to represent "our" views. With all due respect, most often they don't.

Not in our name, you might remark. Another easy observation might be that there are as many views of the war in Iraq as there are soldiers in and veterans out of uniform, and any attempt to characterize what “most of them think” would be a gross over-simplification.

Perhaps, on the particulars. But the fact is, why are so many veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) re-enlisting in record numbers? Because, whatever specific policy or command differences they may have with the current Administration, their civilian and uniformed leaders, they believe in their mission, their purpose, their cause and their duty.

You can find the carpers, the second guessers, the political opportunists, the partisans, the disgruntled or passed-over. Naysayers abound. But why so few, in contrast to those who willing volunteer and continue to volunteer?

But I digress from Zirkle’s narrative. Which is a really entertaining if provoking read, of which must be said, read the whole thing.

Zirkle has a highly informative first person account to relate from the Murtha gathering:

The tenor of the town meeting was mostly what one might expect, but during the question-and-answer period, a veteran injured in Afghanistan stood up to offer his view. "If I didn't have a herniated disc, I would volunteer to go to Iraq in a second with my troops," said Mark Seavey, a former Army sergeant who had recently returned from Afghanistan. "I know you keep saying how you have talked to the troops and the troops are demoralized, and I really resent that characterization. The morale of the troops I talk to is phenomenal, which is why my troops are volunteering to go back despite the hardships. . . ."

"And, Congressman Moran, 200 of your constituents just arrived back from Afghanistan -- we never got a letter, we never got a visit from you, you didn't come to our homecoming. The only thing we got was a letter from the governor of this state thanking us for our service in Iraq, when we were in Afghanistan. That's reprehensible. I don't know who you two are talking to, but the morale of the troops is very high."

What was the response? Murtha said nothing, while Moran attempted to move on, no pun intended, stating: "That wasn't in the form of a question, it was a statement."

Zirkle means no nor conveys any disrespect towards Murtha as a fellow veteran. But he rightly observes what so many of us observe, that his views are not the predominant ones in today’s military:

In view of his distinguished military career, John Murtha has been the subject of much attention from the media and is a sought-after spokesman for opponents of the Iraq war. He has earned the right to speak. But his comments supposedly expressing the negative views of those who have and are now serving in the Middle East run counter to what I and others know and hear from our own colleagues -- from junior officers to the enlisted backbone of our fighting force.

I guess the Post printing Zirkle’s article is a start at giving other military voices an airing, but consider how rare. How amplified are the voices of the Stars, the Generals who so publicly come forward now and decry those “responsible for the mess in Iraq.”

All based on a false premise, if you ask me. What “mess in Iraq? Compared to what, and where, and when?” But nobody is, that’s the problem. Not me specifically, but soldiers on the ground. Who have been to Iraq. Who aren’t selling a book or seeking their 15 minutes of fame or seeking a political appointment or office.

The only voices that get serious media attention are the Zinnis, the Shinsekis, the Batistes. If you create great Bush-, Cheney-, and Rumsfeld-bashing sound bites, you’ll get mass audience and above-the-fold and Page A1 coverage. Think McClellan in the Civil War, or even McArthur in Korea for historical antecedents.

If you have political ambitions, those won’t hurt, either, but beware all those glad-handlers, because they’ve never been too keen on the Military, and today’s back-patters will be butt-kickers tomorrow. Armchaired Generals, you’ve been warned. Wesley Clark gained traction until he started having his own (admittedly wacky) ideas, then, unceremoniously was bounced to the curb. Same with Paul Hackett, only he was tossed off because he actually had some positive things to say, and do.

I want to let Zirkle have the last word, with the conclusion  of his piece in the Post:

Like so many others past and present, I proudly volunteered to serve in the military. I served one tour in Iraq and then volunteered to go back. Veterans continue to make clear that they are determined to succeed in Iraq. They are making this clear the best way they can: by volunteering to go back for third and sometimes fourth deployments. This fact is backed up by official Pentagon recruitment reports released as recently as Monday.

The morale of the trigger-pulling class of today's fighting force is strong. Unfortunately, we have not had a microphone or media audience willing to report our comments. Despite this frustration, our military continues to proudly dedicate itself to the mission at hand: a free, democratic and stable Iraq and a more secure America. All citizens have a right to express their views on this important national challenge, and all should be heard. Veterans ask no more, and they deserve no less.

Other bloggers who have linked with comments: Bull Moose, Blackfive, The Jawa Report, Hugh Hewitt, Instapundit, Academic Elephant, Gateway Pundit, Carol Platt Liebau, Michelle Malkin, Chez Diva, Mudville Gazette Blogotional.

(H/T Memeorandum)

You have to start thinking there’s a Plan behind all this news recycling going on.

What News is That?

Today, it’s a Washington Post with a strangely familiar story about conflicting technical findings about two trailers discovered in Iraq and initially thought to be mobile biological weapons laboratories. Surely this isn’t news, at least not new news, is it? According to the Post:

The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons -- who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers.

Here’s how the Post’s Joby Warrick justifies the new story about old findings

The story of the technical team and its reports adds a new dimension to the debate over the U.S. government's handling of intelligence related to banned Iraqi weapons programs.

Ah, we had all the leakage from the outraged bureaucrats at Foggy Bottom at in UN circles, but now, you see, the technical team doubted the findings too, and this report was classified. (This helpfully demonstrates how much gets classified that has long ago become common knowledge or available by open source.)

I suppose I should acknowledge that the “gotcha” substance of the “new” revelations is that the findings of this technical team were transmitted on May 27^th, according to the Post, 2 days before President Bush said on May 29^th [sic] “we found the WMDs.” (His public statement to that effect appears to be May 30^th 2003, according to the links I found.

Whether the President saw these results – they would have been sent to the DIA one would think – before he made his comments on May 30^th (or 29^th) is highly questionable. But even if he did, this means that one team of experts disputes another team. This was I the context of a steady stream of reports in May, June and July of 2003 about WMDs, program components and programs hidden from UNMOVIC, and so on.

Anyway, let’s do a little googling. In an odd coincidence of date, the first link we find is an entry from September 11^th, 2003 at Front Page Magazine. This references an original New York Times report from 2003 (link no longer functional), reporting based on a leak probably emanating from the State Department’s Intelligence Branch. This can be found all over the left side and anti-Bush portions of the Blogosphere, as evidenced by the pasting of some or all of the following on myriad “Bush Lied” websites and blog postings:

..."Engineering experts from the Defense Intelligence Agency have come to believe that the most likely use for two mysterious trailers found in Iraq was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons rather than to make biological weapons, government officials say.

The classified findings by a majority of the engineering experts differ from the view put forward in a white paper made public on May 28 by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which said that the trailers were ["likely used"] for making biological weapons....

The State Department's intelligence branch, which was not invited to take part in the initial review, disputed the findings in a memorandum on June 2. The fact that American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence were disputing the claims included in the C.I.A. white paper was first reported in June, along with the analysts' concern that the evaluation of the mobile units had been marred by a rush to judgment." --NYT, 08.09.03

Not to be outdone by its NY competitors, it turns out the Washington Post had the story in January 2004, coincident with Weapons Inspector David Kay’s report to Congress, admitting that evidence of WMD stockpiles weren’t found by the Iraq Survey Group.

As reported in their story from January 2004, Washington Post reporters made contact with project engineer Thair Anwar Masraf, who claimed to have information on the two trailer-mounted production plants. Their source reported the following:

When Iraqi engineers told investigators that the discovered trailers were meant for hydrogen, the CIA dismissed the "cover story."

By July, with contrary evidence piling up, Kay described the trailer episode as a "fiasco." He told BBC Television, which broadcast the tape Nov. 23: "I think it was premature and embarrassing."

Even so, Kay's October report to Congress left the question unresolved. Kay said he could not corroborate a mobile germ factory, but he restated the CIA argument that the trailers were not "ideally suited" for hydrogen.

Had Masraf found Kay's investigator at the Palestine Hotel, he said he would have explained that Iraq actually used such trailers to generate hydrogen during the eight-year war with Iran. Masraf and his former supervisor at the Saad Co. said Masraf managed a contract to refurbish some of the units beginning in 1997.

According to the two men, Iraq bought mobile hydrogen generators from Britain in 1982 and mounted them on trucks. The Republican Guard used one type, Iraq's 2nd Army Corps another.

Iraqi artillery units relied on hydrogen-filled weather balloons to measure wind and temperature, which affect targeting. Munqith Qaisi, then a senior manager at Saad Co. and now its American-appointed director-general, said the trailers used a chemical -- not biological -- process to make hydrogen from methanol and demineralized water.

The feature that analysts found most suspicious in May -- the compression and recapture of exhaust gases -- is a necessity, Masraf said, when gas is the intended product.

In the late 1990s, the Republican Guard sent some of its trailers for refurbishment at the Kindi Co. The 2nd Army Corps signed a similar contract with Saad Co. Masraf said the first units were finished in 2001, including the two discovered by coalition forces around Mosul.

Qaisi's account may also clear up an unexplained detail from the May 28 intelligence report: traces of urea in the reaction vessel aboard one of the trailers. Qaisi said the vessels corroded badly because Iraqi troops disregarded strict orders to use only demineralized water.

"The stupid army pissed in it, or used river water," he said.

The CIA’s own “Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD,” dated 30 September 2004, online here, there’s this quote from Chapter 6, Biological Warfare, Key Findings:”

ISG [Iraq Survey Group] thoroughly examined two trailers captured in 2003, suspected of being mobile BW agent production units, and investigated the associated evidence. ISG judges that its Iraqi makers almost certainly designed and built the equipment exclusively for the generation of hydrogen. It is impractical to use the equipment for the production and weaponization of BW agent. ISG judges that it cannot therefore be part of any BW program.

According to an online history posted as “Historical Background, Office of the Historian, US Department of State, THE UNITED STATES AND THE GLOBAL COALITION AGAINST TERRORISM, SEPTEMBER 2001-DECEMBER 2003,” finds the following entry for June 2003:

June 26, 2003: The New York Times reported that the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research disputed the CIA’s conclusion that two Iraqi trailers were mobile biological weapons laboratories.

One Last Observation

A political one. The most commonly expressed sentiment by those suffering most from Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) for the past three years, has been the complete lack of traction with the public for their ravings.

No matter what gets reported, the complaints go, Bush never gets held accountable for the many lies, deceptions, power grabs and complete disregard for the Constitution. His critics fairly sputter when it comes to the recounting of abuses and deceits.

And yet, until now, no traction. The public still thinks George Bush has a handle on Iraq, and the Global the War on Terror.

But as we all know, public attitudes and perceptions have changed, haven’t they? The President’s popularity is at an all time low.

What occurs to me, is that the movers and shakers in the Democratic Party, aided and abetted by their friends in mainstream media (MSM), long ago concluded that the reason they couldn’t get the public to see things their way was that this President was just too darned popular. Because the public couldn’t see Bush as the evil incarnate the BDS victims have long seen him to be, they refuse to hear or accept the many “proofs” of his evil nature.

So why not recycle all those tired old news stories now? Find a plausible hook for a “new report,” dish the old dirt out again now that the President is almost as unpopular as Chirac in France.

Then they’ll start to see things our way, they must think. Surely they must.

Austin Bay posts an excellent piece up at  Strategy Page, and harkens back to 2004 to place breaking news in Iraq into context. Bay, something of a Multinational Force palace insider, recalls the circumstances of the “uprising” of the Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi militia:

August 2004: The Battle of Najaf was raging, with Shia radical Muqtada Sadr's rogue Mahdi militia turning Najaf's imposing Imam Ali Mosque into a fortress -- the equivalent of an Irish Republican Army terror faction using the Vatican as a bunker.

Bay describes a conversation he had with British Maj. Gen. Andrew Graham, deputy commander of Multi-National Corps-Iraq, who was involved in the coalition's military response to Sadr and his militia’s two-week takeover of the Mosque. As Bay recalls, Graham emphasizes to Bay that Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Al-Sayid Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani was the key to neutralizing Sadr and promoting nascent democracy in Iraq.

An aside. Significantly, those who fret most over Sadr’s Mahdi Militia and Sadr’s political influence tend to downplay the significance of Sistani and his role in disarming Sadr and the situation back in 2004. As Bay recounts:

Within two weeks, Sistani helped engineer a withdrawal of Sadr's militia from the mosque. Tactically (and with little media fanfare), coalition military units had mauled Sadr's militia. Superficially, Sadr had "lived to fight another day." But the mosque wasn't rubble. Damage to the mosque was blamed on Sadr's militiamen. (Iraqi police also found pornographic magazines left by Sadr's men inside the mosque.) The people of Najaf greeted coalition troops as liberators.

Sistani's aides told Iraqi and coalition officers: "Let us deal with Sadr. We know how to handle him and will do so. However, the coalition must not make him a martyr."

I left Iraq with the impression that Sistani's plan for handling Sadr would be a python-like squeeze only an Iraqi insider would fully understand.

Bay assesses recent events and asks: “Has Sistani's python begun its final squeeze?”

Most notably, Bay sees the March 26^th attack on a Mahdi militia facility in Baghdad as indicative of an unpublicized, Sistani-supported campaign against Sadr, using police and political forces of the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

Though not mentioned in his Strategy Page column, Bay includes mention of some recent public statements by Sistani in a post on his blog, noting that Sistani told Iraqi leaders to reach a compromise on selection of the Prime Minister. I saw these reports a few days ago too, but finding online sources proved a challenge, as none of the wire service or news sites I checked turned up anything.

Bill Roggio a few days back mentioned Sistani stepping forward into the deadlock on Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and quoted Kirk Sowell at Window on the Arab World. Sowell links to Al-Hayat (link in Arabic, I could not find an English language version), and conveys his sense of the report:

…the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has shifted ground and is advising (read: instructing) Iraq's largest party, the United Iraqi Alliance, to make unspecified concessions to the Sunnis in order to break the political gridlock and help form a government of national unity. The statement was issued through Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala'i, a key Sistani representative. The appeal was supported by Sadr al-Din al-Qabanji, the Imam of the Hussein Fatimid Mosque in Najaf, who urged Shia leaders to heed Sistani's call forthwith. Although unspecified, this probably means that PM-nominee Ibrahim Jaafari should be replaced by someone more acceptable to the Sunnis. Most ominously for the UIA, Sistani warned that he might withdraw his support for the coalition if its factions failed to agree to concessions necessary for a unity government.

(Emphasis Sowell’s)

Sistani came through at what seemed like a very critical moment on 2004, and it remains to be seen if he plays the deal-maker role in the deadlock over al-Jaafari.

Incidentally, in the course of searching for details on Sistani’s recent moves, I came across Sistani's English Language Website. This probably says volumes more about Sistani, than much of what’s reported in English language media. (The fact that he has an English language website, not any particular information found therein.)

Via Mudville Gazette)

Okay, I’m stumped by the underreporting – even among MILBLOGs – of two of the more potentially controversial items on the web in the past two days.

The first, which I posted about yesterday, was Senator John Kerry’s Op-Ed in the New York Times Wednesday, Two Deadlines and an Exit.

Here’s the start of my rebuttal to Kerry from yesterday:

Kerry starts off his ill-informed missive in the Times with an acknowledgement that we are, in fact, at war against terrorists in Iraq. This is in contrast to Democrat talking points for the past several years, and a pleasant surprise. Then again, he also describes the current situation as an “escalating civil war.” Not just a civil war mind you, but an escalating one. Oh my. Evacuate the troops now, John, they actually kill someone every day or so. And it’s getting worse according to Kerry. Maybe it’s just a case of flashbacks. (You know, to the 2004 Campaign.)

How Kerry reaches this conclusion is beyond me, with US and Coalition casualties at their lowest in over a year, lower rates of casualties for Iraqi forces, and even a tapering off on violence relating to efforts to create phony and staged “sectarian violence.” But then, much of what he’s ever said publicly is beyond me. I think it is yet again an example of Kerry’s proclivity to taking the wrong positions at precisely the worst possible moments. (This may be the best sign yet that a break in the political Iraqi logjam is imminent.)

Which leads me to the second, largely un-remarked on item, a remarkable, and perhaps to some, startling collection of casualty data, compiled and posted over at My Election Analysis. The source for this remarkable data? Mudville Gazette and their MILBLOGGER propagandists (to quote a critic)? Some cabal of Neo-conservatives? No, in fact these numbers are from the Brookings Institution.

Here are the relevant data segments, quoted by My Election Analysis:

US Troops killed in hostile action in Iraq, last 6 months, from October 2005 to March 2006, in order: 81, 76, 50, 49, 43, 25.

Iraqi military and police killed in Iraq, last 6 months, from October 2005 to March 2006, in order: 215, 176, 193, 189, 158, 193 (and the three months before that were 304, 282, 233).

Car Bombings, last 6 months, from October 2005 to March 2006, in order: 70, 70, 70, 68, 30, 30.

Civilians killed in Iraq, last 6 months, from October 2005 to March 2006, in order: 527, 826, 532, 732, 950, 446 (upper bound, two months before that were 2489 and 1129).

I fully understand why mainstream media (MSM) might ignore this data, or underplay its significance (thereby to justify ignoring it altogether). But I am at a total loss why supporters of our effort in Iraq, the Administration and its more prominent boosters, and, frankly, the conservative blogosphere are not making with the so-called hay. Are we all that busy beating up on Trent Lott, or piling onto one side or the other of the Immigration skirmish (I’m as yet unheard from on this topic)?

And why are MILBLOGGERS themselves otherwise preoccupied?

I know we have seen what looks like hopeful trends in violence in Iraq, only to see setbacks in a quickly evolving situation. I also know our enemies and the enemies of the emerging Iraqi Government are quite adaptive, and altering their strategies (and even strategic goals) to overcome their operational failures. I know of the machinations of Iran and its vassals in the region, and that the dangers the new Iraqi Democracy face are largely political, but no less a threat to the democracy project.

But still.

I echo the sentiments of the blogger at My Election Analysis:

Again, my point isn’t that we’re winning. My only point is that if the data you’ve received left you completely surprised by these numbers, what does that really say about the completeness of the data you’ve received?

If this war is all about Information Operations (I/O), and I believe it is, then the least we can do is make sure that we don’t lose important IO battles which we can win without shots being fired. Because if we don’t, naysayers like Kerry, and others with political agendas, can continue to distort ground truth. How many Americans believe that things in Iraq are getting worse, when all data indicates the opposite?

(H/T Instapundit, also linked at Mudville Gazette.)

Scott Johnson at Powerline digs into the media archives for a revealing comparison of current hyperventilation over President Bush’s 2003 declassification of portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

Johnson extracts from AP and Knight-Ridder news stories from July 2003, and convincingly demonstrates that current reporting is a virtual regurgitation of 2003 reporting. Scott presents both stories, then concludes:

Note that these stories show what we all know: the release of the NIE report was part of an attempt to quell the political uproar that was starting to build over what Bush did and did not know before the war. The stories also show that the "leak," while criticized for being "selective," included the State Department minority opinion -- material more than sufficient for most MSM stories written after the briefing to be negative!

The only new element of the story that was added last week via Patrick Fitzgerald's brief is that President Bush, according to Cheney according to Libby, authorized the release of the NIE report ten days earlier than the July 18 briefing that was widely reported, and that they disclosed it to Judith Miller, who didn't write about it. On the contrary, however, today's New York Times story reports that Bush only authorized the declassification and release of the NIE report, not the manner of its disclosure specifically to Judith Miller on July 8. Nevertheless, Kenneth Bazinet's representative New York Daily News story that I wrote about here on Saturday reports, for example, that Fitzgerald's probe uncovered Bush's role in the "leak" of the NIE. Yet it bears repeating that the Knight Ridder headline on July 19, 2003 was: "Bush Releases Excerpts of Top-Secret Iraq Report."

The correspondent who forwarded this material to us comments: "That Fitzgerald is one helluva digger, able to ferret out this stuff that was in the headlines [three] years ago..." And don't these reporters deserve credit for making everything old new again?

John Hinderaker adds:

They also deserve credit--or, more properly, blame--for distorting the conclusions of the NIE beyond recognition. By emphasizing footnotes, they deliberately convey the impression that the document is one of "division" and "uncertainty." No such division or uncertainty was expressed, however, in the Consensus Intelligence Estimate's conclusions:

Confidence Levels for Selected Key Judgments in This Estimate

High Confidence

Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.

We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs.

Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.

Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons grade fissile material

Moderate Confidence

Iraq does not yet have a nuclear weapon or sufficient material to make one but is likely to have a weapon by 2007 to 2009.

Gateway Pundit presents a more detailed chronology for those remaining few who don’t know the sequence of events, and actually want to read something informative. Gateway Pundit concludes that current reporting results from mainstream media (MSM) outrage that President Bush was willing to use actual intelligence to confront distortions, lies and other fabrications (some committed by Joe Wilson, some perpetrated by MSM accomplices).

Gateway Pundit also points to a well researched and balanced editorial (with short chronology included) in The Washington Post. While the Post faults the Bush Administration for clumsiness in the affair, the Post’s lead sentence obliterates the moral hyperventilation of Bush critics:

PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do. But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr. Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that Democrats are leveling.

Precisely these kinds of measured, balanced stances underscore and emphasize the differences between the Post and, say the NY Times. The Post editorial by all appearances maintains a continuity of historical record, and seems to care that they do. The occasional zeal with which The Washington Post mashes partisan hash is most probably due to a typical kind of press excess. “If it bleeds it leads,” as we always hear. But never so much as to blatantly or obviously step away from Truth with a capital “T.”

While the Editors at the NY Times, the “Paper of Record” as they would like to be remembered, refuse altogether to maintain any sense of history, objectivity, or even factual accuracy.

Original tips and additional reporting via Instapundit, Blue Crab Boulevard,

Captain's Quarters, and Mudville Gazette.

By Way of Introduction

I want to put the links up front, because there has been so much excellent commentary, in response to so much faux outrage and posturing from the mediots (to use Sister Toldjah’s term).

In addition to Sister Toldjah, Tom Maguire has at least two excellent riffs here and here at Just One Minute, John Podhoretz in The NY Post, factual reporting in the The New York Sun, Austin Bay, Paul Mirengoff at Powerline, Andrew McCarthy, writing at The Corner, and Captain Ed at Captain’s Quarters.

The best summary, I think came from Captain Ed:

Not too long ago, newspapers made a big deal out of nothing when it came out that Bush had given Cheney the authority to declassify material at his discretion. At the time, they clucked their tongues at the delegation of authority to the VP, claiming that it showed Bush's disinterest in his responsibilities. Now suddenly everyone is shocked to find out that Bush has the authority to declassify material. In fact, he has the ultimate authority to do so, and he is only responsible to the voters in the execution of these duties. And the estimate on Iraq and WMD involved in this story was released to the press on July 18, 2003, at a White House briefing.

Why did George Bush release the NIE at all? Because Joe Wilson had busied himself by spreading misinformation via leaks to Nick Kristof and Walter Pincus, and then finally under his own by-line at the New York Times twelve days prior to the release of the NIE information. The media had demanded answers to the charges leveled by Wilson and his supporters, and those answers were found in the NIE. The decision to declassify it and publish it came as a result of that demand. Once the decision is made to declassify information, it can be released in any number of ways. This was both leaked and openly presented in the same fortnight.

Beyond the issue of the Libby leak and its tie to George Bush, the hypocrisy of the media is truly astonishing. I just at at a dinner two nights ago where Senator Chris Dodd demanded that Congress pass a federal shield law to protect reporters from revealing sources. Why? So that they can report leaks of exactly this kind. I suppose when they like the leaker, then they call him a whistleblower. When they don't like the leak, and especially when it turns out not to be all that significant, then apparently the source is a weasel who doesn't deserve protection.

John Hinderaker added the following observation over at Powerline:

This is the same "scandal" the press tried to sell a few months ago. I wrote about it here. The Sun article (unlike some other press accounts) explains clearly what was going on. Intelligence insiders like Joe Wilson were leaking a combination of falsehoods and minority views to the press in order to challenge the administration's decision to go to war with Iraq. This was deeply unfair. In October 2002, the intelligence agencies presented to the administration their "consensus estimate" with regard to Iraq's WMD programs. The consensus of all of the agencies (CIA, DIA, etc.) was, with a "high level of confidence":

Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.

We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs.

Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.

Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons grade fissile material.

The Bush administration naturally relied on the consensus of the intelligence agencies in making decisions about Iraq and in describing the dangers of Saddam's regime to the American people. This is why the "Bush lied" theme is so foolish.

What could I possibly add to what’s been said already? Only that it I am profoundly dispirited from the lengths to which the media opposition to Bush will go, and their willingness to sacrifice any semblance of reason, proportion, perspective, or (needless to say) objectivity.

My Take

So I want to try something else. I want to try to understand the logic of those who trumpet this latest “revelation” as big news. People like Andrew Sullivan, or the editors at The New York Times.

So here it is in a nutshell. If a government employee comes across classified information, and that information is really important to an accurate public understanding of vital information, that’s a leak, maybe whistleblowing, but it’s definitely virtuous.

If the President concludes that the media is grossly misreporting a situation, creating false impressions, passing along rumors, disseminating inaccurate information, and on his rightful authority, elects to declassify information to set the record straight, that’s a leak, possibly a criminal offense, but it’s definitely immoral and hypocritical.

And I’m having a tough time, you see, because The NY Times has spent hundreds of column inches arguing that seeking the government employees who willfully and illegally disclosed information about a classified NSA program, was a witchhunt, and looking to punish people who “share the truth.”

But the President, acting on his authority to declassify information that had already been widely disseminated in the media, to confront and contradict untruths wildly promulgated by the media, if it was information the NY Times wanted to get, why then that would be a welcome leak. As long as they didn’t think it came from the Administration. (And of course it was something that hurt the Administration in some way).

Ah, but you see it’s all about President Bush’s hypocrisy, you see.

I am also trying to remember if we haven’t seen this pattern of reporting before, where old news get hyped as new news to see if a new frenzy or “media flame” can be generated. Almost like it was planned, or something.

Like when the Patriot Act came up for renewal, and the “NSA Story” happened to to leak out. Well timed. Almost like some “Anti-Rove” were at work, manipulating media attention.

Either the 2006 Election Season has started early, or somebody out there is getting some Spring Training in Information Operation (I/O) techniques.

NZ Bear found a new slogan for his Porkbusters blogsite:

“We make Trent Lott Tired.”

Here’s how the AP reports the source of Lott’s “tiredness:”

"I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble ever since Katrina," he said. "We in Mississippi have not asked for more than we deserve. We've been very reasonable."

We had a derisive saying in our unit, usually uttered in response to some act of extreme selfishness or other self-serving behavior by one or other staff officer at Battalion or Division:

“I got mine.”

Trent’s got his. The taxpayers can go pound salt. [More characteristically frank military terminology inserted here.]

NZ Bear’s response to Trent’s expression of fatigue?

I'm sorry to say it, but we have just barely gotten started making the likes of Mr. Lott tired. So I hope he's ready for many sleepless nights to come.

Tired? My guess Senator Lott’s going to be pretty ragged when NZ Bear, Glenn Reynolds, and the other Army of Davids’ soldiers over at Porkbusters.

(Via http://instapundit.com/archives/029532.php, with links to Mark Tapscott, who quotes the AP Story as it appeared in The Washington Post) (Man, that’s a pile of attribution, isn’t it?)

(Posted as a follow-up to my earlier post. I’m back, and I read the whole thing.)

Following a quote from Carl Sandburg’s The People Yes, Gerald Vanderleun writes:

IN THE DAYS AFTER THE TOWERS FELL, in the ash that covered the Brooklyn street where I lived at that time, in the smoke that rose for months from that spot across the river, when rising up in the skyscraper I worked in, or riding deep beneath the river in the subway, or passing the thousand small shrines of puddled candle wax below the walls with the hundreds of photographs of "The Missing," it was not too much to say that you could feel the doors of history open all about you.

Before those days, history happened elsewhere, elsewhen, to others. History did not happen to you. In your world, until that day, you lived in the time after history. There were no more doors in front of you, all history lay behind you. It was a given.

So begins Vanderleun in his brilliant essay, "On the Return of History," in the American Digest.

Vanderleun reflects on the societal and political forces that emerged from the carnage and destruction of World War Two, and acknowledges how ready for the end of history, were those generations who endured. He also notes the Cold War as a period in which we applied our greatest efforts to keep any more history from happening:

In general, the history of the Cold War is the history of what didn't happen punctuated by a few things every now and then such as Korea and Vietnam.

Vietnam and Korea were the exceptions that proved the rule, and seen in this light, perhaps best explained why so much effort as well has been spent, submerging both these troubled anomalies into cultural subconscious. We have not wanted to revisit these times, until “history returned,” with the wrath and vengeance of 9/11.

We wanted history to end in our day, because so much of what we saw, and heard, and were taught from the pages of history was horrible, hurtful, and an affront to all cherished ideals and moral frameworks. Vanderleun notes that suited us just fine:

Most sensible people liked it that way. In fact, a lot of people really liked it that way. Because if history for the world was over, these people could get on making the history that really mattered to them: The History of Me.

History spoke of evil, of powers and principalities who so rudely intruded upon our consciousness, that we could not maintain the centrality of our self-awareness, that desire to see ourselves as the center of everything. Civilization’s most cherished artifact became the mirror, not fire, and surely not the printing press.

Now, after the collapse of those majestic towers in lower Manhattan in a coordinated attack against our homeland, we are back where we will inevitably be, according to Vanderleun, and it won’t be what we want:

Now we find ourselves back in history as it has always been and it is not fun. Not fun at all. The history of history has little to do with fun, almost nothing at all.

Thus it is time, again, for a new seriousness. Not a seriousness in which we stamp our feet and say, “No, really, we mean it this time,” such as with the recent plan put forth for Really Real Security^TM. Not a seriousness that says, “we’ll do everything they’re doing, only better.” In other words, not a portrayed seriousness that panders yet again to the many mini-me’s (to use Vanderleun’s humorous reference).

No more pandering. What we need, as often expressed by the fine thinkers and impartial analysts at Winds of Change, is an urgent appeal to our mature selves. To the Us that can weigh the threats and opportunities in front of us, gain consensus on the risks, and strive for the greater good without partiality, reserve or constraint.

History is back, and looming larger than ever. We rise to our better natures on the crest of these waves, or risk being swept away in its tides.

(H/T: Joe Katzman at Winds of Change. Thanks Joe, for the terrific tip.)

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change quotes extensively from an essay by Gerald Vanderleun, "On the Return of History," over at the American Digest.

Joe’s absolutely right on this one. From his excerpts, I’m a fool if I don’t go read the whole thing, immediately.

Here’s what made it essential, quoting Vanderleun:

We will have war whether we wish it or not. It will continue to be brought to us as it was brought for many years before we could see it in a pillar of flame by day and a pillar of smoke by night. We will be long in this wilderness, perhaps as long as forty years, and it will take a terrible toll from us, soldier and civilian alike; a toll we have not yet begun to see. Like all global wars in the past century, the war upon us will rise in violence until such time as we either capitulate, or find the will to kill our enemies wholesale. This is not what we would choose, but it is what we shall have.

We could, if we wished, withdraw every soldier from every inch of soil that is not American territory and leave them here inside our borders rusting for a decade. War will still come because war is already upon us, and wars do not end in staged withdrawals, but in either defeat or victory. The lessons of Vietnam and the Cold War teach this to us if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

In this First Terrorist War, the character of our leadership will make a difference to some degree, but it will not decide. It is who we are and who we shall become as a people that will decide. How that will be in the end, I do not know. What I do know is that history, no matter what they tell you, never comes to an end. And because of that, the one small thing that I have the power to do is to decide that I shall no longer vote for Me. I shall vote for Us."

I’ll comment more after I’m done what Joe tells me to do. Read the whole thing.

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette points out some glaring examples of misreporting from the factually challenged but accurate. Kevin of Command T.O.C. immediately jumps on Greyhawk in comments. (It must be that Kevin is focusing heavily on Mudville these days; I am often the subject of his diatribes, too, but not so much lately.)

As is his wont, Kevin misses the point of Greyhawk's post.

The many miscellaneous inaccuracies themselves suggest the reporters and editors at the Times are far less interested in reporting than they are in finding supporting evidence for what they want to portray.

That is the point, that they bend news or pick and choose data points to fit the what I've previously described as "the template."

The country is in chaos, sectarian violence is on the rise, Civil War is either imminent or upon them.

Only, as Greyhawk points out, reporting from the military and Iraqi government officials involve strongly suggest that the violence described was by insurgents "portraying" sectarian violence. (In other words, Sunni on Sunni to look like Shia on Sunni.)

Kevin can argue that "dead is dead" all he wants, the reality is the NY Times used that violence to support a report that spoke of heightened "sectarian violence."

And of course that is the point. The NY Times reporters and editors involved have sought to portray reality in Iraq in a certain way, then slant their reporting, fact selection, storyboards, etc., to support that "template."

And when the underlying facts are wrong, since news stories aren't supposed to be subjective or include editorializing, they correct the underlying fact but can't correct the subjective tone and thematic "under-story."

And reliable "useful idiots" can criticize the criticizing of the NY Times as harping on trivialities.

Not that those who need to would ever listen, but Victor Davis Hanson attempts to correct the 6 Big Myths in opposition thinking about the War in Iraq, in today’s National Review Online.

What are the 6 Big Myths? Hanson transcribes the following, which he then effortlessly debunks:

1. Saddam was never connected to al Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11.

2. There was no real threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

3. The United Nations and our allies were justifiably opposed on principle to the invasion.

4. A small cabal of neoconservative (and mostly Jewish) intellectuals bullied the administration into a war that served Israel’s interest more than our own.

5. Saddam could not be easily deposed, or at least he could not be successfully replaced with a democratic government.

6. The architects of this war and the subsequent occupation are mostly inept (“dangerously incompetent”) — and are exposed daily as clueless by a professional cadre of disinterested journalists.

Note that all of these myths save #4 are now affirmed as fact in the Democrats’ plan for Really Real Security^TM, and that the vocal opponents of the war in Iraq frequently refer to these fables as established fact. This is even more the case when one reads the Really Real Details of Really Real Security^TM.

What do we want to say of the analytic and decision-making abilities who can based critical judgments on false information? (Please, let’s not repeat the opposition’s deceit in suggesting these people are liars.) But seriously, how can we possibly hope to have an intelligent discussion with people who refuse to act like adults? Those who attach themselves most tightly to rhetorical slights of hand and parlor gimmicks, than actual ideas and evidence?

What if we have a debate on National Security, and for one side of the debate no serious students of history, terrorism, or military operations shows up?

Hanson notes that those who have most vocally insisted that there was “no proof whatsoever” of links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, now fatuously parrot the line that “Saddam was not connected to September 11.” Despite the fevered imaginings of the sufferers of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), no such claim has ever been made by this Administration.

Hanson reviews the continued stream of intelligence information coming out of Iraq, and rightly holds that Saddam’s connections to Al Qaeda are fully established:

The issue is closed: Saddam Hussein’s regime had a mutually beneficial association with al Qaeda. All that remains in doubt is the degree to which Iraq’s generic support enabled al Qaeda to pull off operations like September 11. It may be that Saddam and Osama, in their views of Islam and jihad, were as antithetical to one another as Japanese and Germans were in attitudes about racial superiority. But in both cases, rogues find common ground in their opposition to hated Western liberalism.

Not that this will ever be acknowledged by the critics of this war.

And how about those last two myths, about how improbable would be the success of our efforts in Iraq, and how “dangerously incompetent” is the current Administration in fighting terrorism, Al Qaeda, and this war in Iraq?

Hanson takes on myths 5 and 6, and reflects on the real history that can be used as a basis for comparison.

Fifth, after the three-week victory of April 2003, we have now forgotten the earlier prognostications of millions of refugees, oil wells afire, and thousands of dead that were to follow in Iraq. Twenty-three hundred American fatalities are grievous losses, but must be weighed against three successful elections, and the real chance that such sacrifice might result in the first true Arab democracy emerging in Iraq, with ramifications beyond the Middle East for generations to come. Currently, tens of thousands of Iraqis are the only Arabs in the world who daily risk their lives to fight al Qaeda terrorists — something that just may be in America’s interest.

Sixth, we have not had another September 11. Two-thirds of the leadership of al Qaeda is dismantled. Fifty million people have voted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Syria is out of Lebanon. The Middle East is in democratic turmoil from the Gulf to Egypt and Libya, not mired in the old autocratic stasis. The Europeans are waking up to the dangers of Islamism as the Western world seeks to deal with a nuclear Iran.

This can’t be right, according to the true believers in the opposition. Why, their plan for Really Real Security^TM explicitly says that we have failed in Iraq:

The Bush Administration’s incompetence in Iraq has inflicted a heavy toll on our troops…more than 2,300 U.S. troops have been killed…

Why even “Conservative Icon William F. Buckley” says so!

What’s more, the clear eyed, “reality-based” assessment found in Really Real Details of Really Real Security^TM explicitly says that Iraq has allowed Al Qaeda to triumph, and for Iraq to become a “training ground” for terrorism!

By opting to pursue a war of choice in Iraq, the Bush Administration diverted scarce resources from the war on terror, which enabled Al Qaeda to morph into an expansive movement, fueled other terrorist organizations, and turned Iraq into what it was not before the war – a terrorist training ground and launching pad. (Page 45 of 123 in .pdf file)

Wow, how’s that for a catch phrase: War of Choice^TM. Note how Really Real Security^TM acknowledges that there is, in fact, an actual “war on terror.” I thought Democrats thought that you couldn’t have a war on an idea, that that was just “fear-mongering.”

As Hanson points out, the deaths of over 2,300 valiant Americans in Iraq are grievous, but these relatively small number of casualties, given what we’ve accomplished, are miniscule in comparison to any previous or comparable military operations in history. The casualty rate barely exceeds the rates that could be expected from training and other non-combat injuries and deaths for a standing Army involved in peacetime, peacekeeping, or other contingency operations. Comparisons have been done by reputable sources, knowledgeable in military affairs. No impartial analyst would consider these losses surprising, nor evidence of incompetence.

The idea that our efforts have made Al Qaeda stronger and allowed it to “morph into an expansive movement,” instead of weaker, fewer in number, and often dead and on the run, is laughable on its face. There exists a great amount of documentary evidence that Saddam was very interested in doing a sideline business training terrorists, hosted terrorists, sponsored terrorists, funded terrorists, and exported terrorism. The only arguable points are how extensive, how direct as policy, how much the Iraqi intelligence services were involved, and how much actions were taken by Saddam merely on whim.

Note too, the deniability inherent in the weasel phrase, “morph into an expansive movement.” That could represent something as amorphous as creating an Al Qaeda legend or mystique, comparable to those members of the naïve and ignorant western elites who so favor their Che Gevara posters and T-shirts. “What? We never said Al Qaeda got stronger or grew because of Iraq. We said its ideas formed the basis of an ideological movement of sympathizers.”

Contrary to what is stated as “fact” in Really Real Security^TM, the realities of the war in Iraq and the US Global War on Terror are a mixed bag, to be sure. There are worrying signs, the outcomes are in doubt, and as our commitment and will as a people to fight against those who seek our harm wanes, we possibly embolden otherwise weakened enemies.

The leadership of our military has a strategy for victory, we have plans to accomplish that victory, and we have achieved great success in the three and a half years since 9/11. We better see our enemies for who they are, we have mobilized against them, and we now confront them head on. We do all this in a stifling environment of political rancor, partisan score-settling, morale-crippling denouncements, cynical opportunism, and hateful and prejudiced speech. And that’s just from our supposedly loyal opposition, not to mention a more-hostile-than-not media.

Hanson notes the threats, and thinks our strategy effective:

Our military cannot be defeated by either the Islamists or their autocratic supporters. We have the right strategy of hunting down terrorists, securing the homeland, and insidiously, but carefully, promoting democratic reform in the Middle East (an impossible notion, by the way, with the sinister presence of an oil rich and genocidal Saddam Hussein, given his history of attacking four of his neighbors.)

We have even articulated, at last, an exegesis of the dangers of radical Islam — why it hates Western freedom and how it thrives on the oil, misery, and dictatorship of the Middle East.

Hanson notes the dangers, too, but they’re not military:

There remains this last unknown — how well can a liberal democracy, in its greatest age of affluence, leisure, and self-critical reflection, still fight a distant war against emissaries of the Dark Ages who seek to behead apostates, blow up democrats, and silence with death writers, journalists, and cartoonists. It is not just our democratic values versus their IEDs, but whether our idealism still has the resilience to defeat their nihilism.

Or put more directly: Can Western enlightenment and power, embedded in deep cynicism, still prevail over ignorance and self-inflicted pathology energized by fanaticism?

If we fall under the spell, and substitute rhetorical flourishes of Really Real Security^TM for the hard-nosed and battle proven tactics of our Global War on Terror, I wouldn’t hold out much hope.