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?

By now, Amir Taheri’s comprehensive assessment of Iraq in Commentary has received wide attention. Read the whole thing.

Taheri begins his report about the Real Iraq, describing the almost universal puzzlement of those who visit Iraq for any length, and return to compare their observations with mainstream media (MSM) reporting:

Within hours of arriving here, as I can attest from a recent visit, one is confronted with an image of Iraq that is unrecognizable.

Taheri recounts the many ways public opinion is molded by prominent (and often hysterical) reporting, and concludes:

it is no wonder the American public registers disillusion with Iraq and everyone who embroiled the U.S. in its troubles.

For many of us who criticize MSM reporting on Iraq, Taheri is perhaps too generous or forgiving of their motivations:

To make matters worse, many of the newsmen, pundits, and commentators on whom American viewers and readers rely to describe the situation have been contaminated by the increasing bitterness of American politics. Clearly there are those in the media and the think tanks who wish the Iraq enterprise to end in tragedy, as a just comeuppance for George W. Bush. Others, prompted by noble sentiment, so abhor the idea of war that they would banish it from human discourse before admitting that, in some circumstances, military power can be used in support of a good cause. But whatever the reason, the half-truths and outright misinformation that now function as conventional wisdom have gravely disserved the American people.

This misinformation grievously misinforms much public opinion about Iraq, and seriously undervalues the great successes of the US Military, the Iraqi Government, and the Iraqi people.

Taheri suggests a multi-faceted and diverse range of criteria for what he considers a more accurate assessment of how things go in Iraq, summarized by the following:

Criteria: Refugees

The first sign is refugees. When things have been truly desperate in Iraq -- in 1959, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1988, and 1990 -- long queues of Iraqis have formed at the Turkish and Iranian frontiers, hoping to escape.

Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark. Many of the camps set up for fleeing Iraqis in Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia since 1959 have now closed down. The oldest such center, at Ashrafiayh in southwest Iran, was formally shut when its last Iraqi guests returned home in 2004.

Criteria: Pilgrimage

A second dependable sign likewise concerns human movement, but of a different kind. This is the flow of religious pilgrims to the Shiite shrines in Karbala and Najaf. Whenever things start to go badly in Iraq, this stream is reduced to a trickle and then it dries up completely. From 1991 (when Saddam Hussein massacred Shiites involved in a revolt against him) to 2003, there were scarcely any pilgrims to these cities.

Since Saddams fall, they have been flooded with visitors. In 2005, the holy sites received an estimated 12 million pilgrims, making them the most visited spots in the entire Muslim world, ahead of both Mecca and Medina.

Criteria: Iraqi Dinar

In the final years of Saddam Husseins rule, the Iraqi dinar was in free fall; after 1995, it was no longer even traded in Iran and Kuwait. By contrast, the new dinar, introduced early in 2004, is doing well against both the Kuwaiti dinar and the Iranian rial, having risen by 17 percent against the former and by 23 percent against the latter.

Criteria: Small and Medium Sized Businesses

In the past, whenever things have gone downhill in Iraq, large numbers of such enterprises have simply closed down, with the country’s most capable entrepreneurs decamping to Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, Turkey, Iran, and even Europe and North America. Since liberation, however, Iraq has witnessed a private-sector boom, especially among small and medium-sized businesses.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as numerous private studies, the Iraqi economy has been doing better than any other in the region. The country’s gross domestic product rose to almost $90 billion in 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available), more than double the output for 2003, and its real growth rate, as estimated by the IMF, was 52.3 per cent. In that same period, exports increased by more than $3 billion, while the inflation rate fell to 25.4 percent, down from 70 percent in 2002. The unemployment rate was halved, from 60 percent to 30 percent.

Criteria: Readiness to Talk to Outsiders

Finally, one of the surest indices of the health of Iraqi society has always been its readiness to talk to the outside world. Iraqis are a verbalizing people; when they fall silent, life is incontrovertibly becoming hard for them. There have been times, indeed, when one could find scarcely a single Iraqi, whether in Iraq or abroad, prepared to express an opinion on anything remotely political. This is what Kanan Makiya meant when he described Saddam Husseins regime as a republic of fear.

Today, again by way of dramatic contrast, Iraqis are voluble to a fault. Talk radio, television talk-shows, and Internet blogs are all the rage, while heated debate is the order of the day in shops, tea-houses, bazaars, mosques, offices, and private homes. A catharsis is how Luay Abdulilah, the Iraqi short-story writer and diarist, describes it. This is one way of taking revenge against decades of deadly silence. Moreover, a vast network of independent media has emerged in Iraq, including over 100 privately-owned newspapers and magazines and more than two dozen radio and television stations. To anyone familiar with the state of the media in the Arab world, it is a truism that Iraq today is the place where freedom of expression is most effectively exercised.

Taheri expands on what these factors mean to him in the aggregate. If you don’t read the whole thing, don’t miss his conclusion:

But more sober observers should understand the real balance sheet in Iraq. Democracy is succeeding. Moreover, thanks to its success in Iraq, there are stirrings elsewhere in the region. Beyond the much-publicized electoral concessions wrung from authoritarian rulers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, there is a new democratic discourse to be heard. Nationalism and pan-Arabism, yesterdays hollow rallying cries, have given way to a big idea of a very different kind. Debate and dissent are in the air where there was none before a development owing, in significant measure, to the U.S. campaign in Iraq and the brilliant if still checkered Iraqi response.

The stakes, in short, could not be higher. This is all the more reason to celebrate, to build on, and to consolidate what has already been accomplished. Instead of railing against the Bush administration, Americas elites would do better, and incidentally display greater self-respect, to direct their wrath where it properly belongs: at those violent and unrestrained enemies of democracy in Iraq who are, in truth, the enemies of democracy in America as well, and of everything America has ever stood for.

Is Iraq a quagmire, a disaster, a failure? Certainly not; none of the above. Of all the adjectives used by skeptics and critics to describe today’s Iraq, the only one that has a ring of truth is messy. Yes, the situation in Iraq today is messy. Births always are. Since when is that a reason to declare a baby unworthy of life?

Democracy, in too many places in the world, is an experiment as yet not undertaken. America demonstrates that the experiment can be successful. Iraq may yet demonstrate that the experiment is worth the attempt.

Dr. Sanity summarizes the Taheri report, and further touches on US military recruiting and retention:

These seem like pretty significant changes to me, but of course will hardly convince those who are determined to make Iraq into a "quagmire" and convince the American people how hopeless it is there. These people are unreachable by factual arguments.
From the other side of the argument, note how the U.S. military has met all its recruitment goals and has record re-enlistment--despite the highlighting of dissatisfied soldiers in major newspapers; the opposition of military recruitment on many college campuses; and the overemphasis on familes of fallen soldiers, who make it clear they are opposed to the war.

Dr. Sanity also notes the seemingly intentional counter-report at the NY Times on the “mass Exodus” of middle class Iraqis from Iraq:

Almost as if to deliberately counter Taheri's piece, there is an article in the NY Times today--with the melodramatic title "As Death Stalks Iraq, Middle Class Exodus Begins"(which sounds suspiciously like the headlines they use to talk about Detroit and other urban areas of the US)--except, as noted by Cori Dauber, what they are really reporting on is an exodus from Baghdad..not all of Iraq. But the article is framed to suggest that this is a phenomenon impacting the entire country. Dauber also comments that they have no data to support such an overarching conclusion. (Does an exodus from Detroit or D.C. mean that the entire middle class is leaving America?)
However, the Times piece itself is a data point supportive of my own thesis--that the MSM is dedicated to putting the worse possible face on every current aspect of Iraqi society. Iraqis have reasons to be upset with the slow-moving pace of their new governemnt, and until that government coalesces and starts doing what it needs, it will disaffect many there. How is that different from any other free country, where citizens can leave when it is in their interest to do so? As I mentioned in the comment section to this post, the fact that the MSM and the left desperately want to believe Al Qaeda and chaos are winning is like a beacon of hope to the murderers and terrorists. They know they have lost militarily and politically; but they are hoping that their useful idiot brigade here in the U.S. and elsewhere can pull out a victory for them despite defeat.

Rantingprofs, while not dismissing the NY Times article, agrees with Dr. Sanity that this report about Baghdadis leaving Baghdad is being used to generalize about Iraqis leaving Iraq, which is a pretty large stretch extrapolation-wise.

Also linked for commentary at Gateway Pundit, Mudville Gazette, Powerline, Austin Bay, Carol Platt Liebau.

The Editors at National Review Online post an editorial on General Hayden’s Confirmation Hearings for head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The say he needs to be confirmed, which needs to happen.

NRO points to three major problems with the CIA:

First, the CIA’s analytical track record is poor.

Think Iran in the 70’s, Iraq in the 80’s and the lead-up to the Gulf War, post Gulf War, collapse of the USSR, North Korean Nukes, WMD in Iraq, perhaps Iran Nukes now.

Second, the agency is inept at its core mission of waging covert operations against America’s enemies.

Church Committee hearings, other post-Watergate and post-Vietnam witch-hunts, other misdirected oversight severely degraded CIA capabilities.

Third, while much of the permanent bureaucracy in Washington tends to lean to the left and resent policy innovations by conservative Republican administrations, this problem is particularly acute at the CIA. Indeed, much of the agency has been in a state of semi-open rebellion against the Bush administration. Numerous CIA officials engaged in efforts to torpedo key administration policies by leaking information to the media.

Porter Goss fought this CIA—and the CIA won.

NRO suggests that Hayden can play a critical role in resuming the battle to reform (fix) the CIA:

The message must be that, although Goss is gone, the clean-up at the CIA is not—and that Hayden is going there to finish it.

If we let the bureau-boobs, partisan and other political turf opportunists win this time around, we will only have ourselves to blame the next time catastrophe occurs to American National Security. And by then, those same apparatchiks will be safely retired, out on the links or off on some cruise. That is, when they’re not penning anonymous Op-Eds or leaking classified information to the press.

The Baltimore Sun jumps back on the Bureaucratic Leak Express with a splashy NSA story based on anonymous sources. Can you say, “BLE(H)?!”

This one covers NSA Information Technology (IT) management and decision-making, and dredges up for daylight inspection a seeming muck of IT project gossip. The apparent sources for the story are disgruntled NSA bureau-boobs, who have timed their leak to coincide with the target of their animus, that nasty General Hayden who used to be their boss.

The Sun and its NSA minders set the premise for the story:

Despite its success in tests, ThinThread's information-sorting system was viewed by some in the agency as a competitor to Trailblazer, a $1.2 billion program that was being developed with similar goals. The NSA was committed to Trailblazer, which later ran into trouble and has been essentially abandoned.

One system or program versus another. So what? Ah, step two in the drama:

Both programs aimed to better sort through the sea of data to find key tips to the next terrorist attack, but Trailblazer had more political support internally because it was initiated by Hayden when he first arrived at the NSA, sources said.

NSA managers did not want to adopt the data-sifting component of ThinThread out of fear that the Trailblazer program would be outperformed and "humiliated," an intelligence official said.

And the end result? We are less safe now, and rights are being violated! This according to these anonymous sources for the Post:

Sources say the NSA's existing system for data-sorting has produced a database clogged with corrupted and useless information.
The mass collection of relatively unsorted data, combined with system flaws that sources say erroneously flag people as suspect, has produced numerous false leads, draining analyst resources, according to two intelligence officials.

I work in IT, and have frequently seen this kind of foolishness from technical staff. Childish and immature often, and always reflective of a myopia in which only one’s own bureaucratic concerns and priorities bear any weight. Always judged in hindsight, such as these anonymous sources hype those things that make them look wise and full of foresight; and omit such history as makes them look foolish and shortsighted.

If I was the Executive in charge of whiners like these, who jump at the chance to rehash old policy and strategy decisions as a way of scoring points at best, for partisan advantage at worst, I’d fire entire levels of staff. This is incompetence, malfeasance and dereliction of duty of the worst sort. All involving classified programs and information.

Kevin Drum makes the following observations in the Washington Monthly, ending with a question:

Is this true? Beats me. I do know that you haven't seen a bureaucratic war until you've seen rival teams of programmers badmouthing each other's projects, and that may be what's going on here. Or, we may have a program that's both illegal and crappy because nobody wanted to make the boss's pet project look bad.

Anyway, read the whole thing. One thing, though: there sure are a helluva lot of intelligence agents squawking to the press these days, aren't there? Does that strike anybody else as a little odd?

Daniel Drezner responds in a similar fashion:

I'm not sure if this is an example of dumb policymaking or an example of the losers of a policy decision leaking to the press at an opportune time.

These are highly intelligent, extremely dedicated, and highly experienced Intelligence professionals. Anybody can use 20-20 hindsight and a career’s worth of decisions, and make a great leader look the fool.

Let me take a wild a** guess. Leaks to the press at an opportune time. (They won’t get another like it, will they?)

Wretchard, as is his wont, posts an exceptional essay at The Belmont Club. He senses a change in the blogosphere. This fair wind brings hope, I think.

I agree with Jamie Irons, this is brilliant prose. For the rest, as we say, read the whole thing.

For mostly unrelated reasons, I found the following irresistible for comment:

The need to keep mental furniture in order is the curse of the abstract thinker. A recent visitor from the Philippines told me -- not in so many words, but clearly enough -- about how the famous old Communists of the 1970s and 80s had all gone essentially crazy. Not clinically. But they were all of them gnawing at the ends of old plots, editing unread journals, scheming from miserable academic departments; haunting the peripheries of political life. He described this in quiet tones as we sat at some seaside saloon, a grey mist and rain having fallen over the bay; the perfect time he said "for Godzilla to come popping out of the water". And of course there was a better chance of Godzilla actually materializing than that those dusty old Commies should ever succeed at what they were doing. They knew it and that was the madness. It was better, I thought, to keep watching and have another beer.

This describes perfectly the unreformed, un-reconstituted Peaceniks of our youth, who now expend such pointless musings and ravings, “gnawing at the ends of old plots.” That so many of these old Socialists are deeply embedded (installed? tenured?) in the institutions of the press, academia, Hollywood, and Washington, it might be fond to reflect on these curmudgeons with empathy, or pity.

Pity them if you will, but for goodness sake, keep them from the driver’s seat.

Austin Bay agrees with Wretchard’s analysis, and follows the thread to ask what’s caused the change:

If Wretchard is right, what might those “incremental events” be that have led to the change in tone?  Here’s my first guess, one I’m fairly certain is accurate: there’s a growing awareness that Al Qaeda is being defeated– it’s not dead but it’s on its way to defeat. Even Al Qaeda’s latest rants reflect an awareness that their great gambit has failed. Violent political Islamism isn’t defeated– but its Al Qaeda avatar is on the ropes. Let’s hope that leads to a “re-consideration of methods” by other violent political Islamists (like, drop the violent?). Here’s my second candidate: There is also a growing awareness that Iraq’s long slog may well result in the emergence of a new, more open political system in the Muslim Middle East. It’s still going to take a couple of years for this to be evident –and the worst defeatists and naysayers will either go to their graves denying it– but all of the indicators are there.  The bombs still explode in Baghdad (that is what makes the 24/7 news), but the Iraqis are slowly taking political and economic control.

(Via Powerline)

John Noonan at MilBlogs links to an Op-Ed over at Military.com, written by Frank Schaeffer and Kathy Roth-Douquet, authors of the forthcoming book, AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service – and How it Hurts Our Country. (To be published by Collins Books, of Harper Collins, due out May 2006. Available on Amazon.)

The title of their book takes care of summarizing their point of view.

John suggests a command decision to deal with the AWOLs:

Okay, easy fix fellas. Allow ROTC back at Ivy League schools. Seems like an easier solution than whining about this ambiguous "privileged class."

Another poster at MilBlogs, Steve Schippert goes John one step farther, arguing (“energetically”):

…that any collegiate educational institution expressly disallowing ROTC activities be 'expressly disallowed' federal funding of any type.

I followed the links to the site of one of the authors, and downloaded the sample chapter. I skimmed a bit of it, and just from what I read, I have to agree with the many reviews available online. This from Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution:

"For such a provocative and hard-hitting book, AWOL is also rather fair and balanced — and generally quite persuasive. Best of all, Roth-Douquet and Schaeffer are constructive and forward-looking, with an excellent concluding debate between the authors about the pros and cons of mandatory national service versus other options for bringing the "upper classes" back into the nation's armed forces."

What Schaeffer and Roth-Douquet describe in their book, and summarize in the Op-Ed, is that American elites no longer view military service as an option, much less an obligation or duty of an involved citizenry.

I find this the height of hypocrisy of many of the same intellectual and cultural communities that are the most opposed to the war in Iraq, or the Global War on Terror.

It is one thing to maintain a principled opposition to a war, or military operations, or other use of military forces to meet national security objectives. It is quite another thing altogether to fail to acknowledge any meaning or purpose for national defense. To not attend to what kind of military we have, what it is used for, or who will serve. To dismiss and disrespect those who serve in their place.

After the Holocaust, those cognizant of the absolute brutality and inhumanity of Nazi genocide said, “Never Again.” Our National Guard division, mobilized to deploy to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom, carried into the combat zone a banner honoring the memory of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and United 93 with the motto, “Never Forget.”

It seems to me, far too many of our elites live by the motto, “Never serve, never fight.”

Yet my other two examples are as vivid a testament as to why we need a strong defense (supported by a strong military), as any that should be necessary.

Personal confession time. I come from a family that always wanted to climb into the elites that this book indicts. No one in our family, to my knowledge or within any known familial connection, served in the military since the Civil War. (Until me, that is.)

I still have great difficulty communicating with my family on anything military related. My big sister swears by anything written by Sy Hersh, and “who the heck is this Gryehawk guy and why should [she] listen to him?” My Mom was an Adlai Stevenson Democrat who hated Richard Nixon from 1952 on (think “Checkers”). My Dad was a reluctant Republican during Vietnam, but the release of the Watergate tapes and impeachment proceedings shocked him into opposition. My parents recently celebrated their registration as Democrats in their retirement community, as they’ve struggled to maintain a RINO political orientation, but Iraq was “the last straw.”

They have no experience with anything military, and until I joined, and contrary to all their expectations (and preferences), served over 20, they never knew anybody who served. (Not well, anyway.)

Does it matter that I have first hand experiences to share, or exposure to more ground truth? Not at all. I’m just as deluded by the Neocons as all those other hapless souls who think Patriotism means obedience and following party lines.

Why do our elites think that they do not need to serve? Why do they think that military service is only for others, preferably the economically or intellectually disadvantaged?

In their Op-Ed, Schaeffer and Roth-Douquet make the point of distinguishing military service from a political perspective:

Some people consider their reaction against military service to be a political statement. However, military service is not a referendum on political activity. “Should the country engage in this war?” is politics; “Shall I serve my country because it asks for its members to serve?” is patriotism. It is a gesture of profound citizenship to declare that; “I will take part in this country and its collective decision-making, because someone needs to do it.” It is also an affirmation that there are bigger truths than simply what seems true (or fun) “to me.”

Military.com also has a podcast of an interview with the authors.

Blackfive and Greyhawk picked up this remarkable post by Armed Liberal over at Winds of Change. I’m glad they did. I’ve been meaning to get to this all day.

It turns out that AL had the chance to share a table with (former?) Brigadier General Janet Karpinski of Abu Ghraib infamy. AL plays his reporting straight, and offers a rare insight into both Karpinski’s excuses for the heavily publicized abuses at AG, and the nefarious ways her “testimony” has been manipulated and exploited.

I share Blackfive’s opinion of Karpinski and how she dealt with what was surely a bad situation made worse by extreme failures of leadership. (Hers, among others.)

I remember well when news of AG broke, and to say reports infuriated me would be grand understatement. Granier, England and the rest of their bestial cohorts did more to undermine possible International support for our liberation of Iraq than any other single set of behaviors. We can argue all day long about what AG signifies and what it doesn’t, but the fact remains.

If our enemies wanted to create the most salacious, repugnant, and hate-inspiring propaganda against US forces, they could never have done better than the miscreants at Abu Ghraib.

Hateful, stupid, degenerate, appalling. A million miles away from representative of the vast majority of fine men and women who serve in the US Military. An offense against every one of them, this isolated but grossly over-reported story of personal abuse, official neglect, and dereliction of duty.

This still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, because it happened just as we had activated and were undergoing mobilization training prior to our deployment to Iraq.

I suppose OIF III (we were in country January to November 2005) may have been the first full rotation after all the media over-exposure on AG.

Our MI BN had to endure session after session on prisoner handling, and as we would have a detention facility under our command, even went so far as to prepare a week long Detainee Operations training event in cooperation with our MPs. Many of our Guard soldiers had civilian jobs in law enforcement or corrections. I don’t think our guys really needed to be told right from wrong when it came to prisoners, but we were trained.

Upon deployment, we ended up having administrative control of that detention facility, and several of our Interrogators were assigned to the facility. Several of my soldiers spent their entire tour interrogating detainees at what amounted to an interim detention facility.

I visited our facility several times, most extensively several months after transfer of authority (TOA) for the facility. Clean, orderly, the beneficiary of hundreds of soldier hours of labor in constructing a state-of-the-art facility. Better billeting than our soldiers at the site, who resided in tents. Climate controlled, bright, clean, controlled. Well tended and cared for, both men and equipment. Respectful, all kinds of accommodation for religious observances of prisoners.

I remember drawing aside the Warrant Officer who was OIC of our Interrogators, which consisted of 3-4 of our soldiers and a couple of contractors.

I asked him how he felt about press reports, and whether he had any reason to think Department of Defense (DoD) or military leadership, in his view, had in any way influenced the way detainees were being treated or interrogated. As part of official policy or doctrine.

I remember what he said, because it wasn’t what I expected. I fully expected to hear a blanket denial. I hadn’t heard anything remotely resembling a complaint or concern from any of my soldiers. They were among our best, model soldiers, two were young women, all highly educated and professional.

The Warrant related how, in the days immediately following 9/11, many military interrogators, like many of our soldiers in general, were very angry. They always took their jobs seriously, but in the days of those “first in,” there were isolated reports of Interrogators who crossed the line. Roughed up prisoners. Had to be restrained or pulled out of Interrogations. Not across the board, not a pattern, but something Interrogators (and their NCOs and Officers) were on the look out for.

Media reports were circulating then of the Colonel who fired a round as a means of frightening a detainee into revealing information about a pending ambush.

I zeroed in on the accusation that DOD was promoting methods of Interrogation that might be considered to violate any Army regulations or the Geneva Convention.

He did mention that there was information circulating about interrogation techniques from Guantanamo, where some really hard-core Jihadists were being interrogated, and there were certainly very animated and extended professional discussions going on within counter-Intelligence (CI) and human intelligence (HUMINT) disciplines.

Take it all with a grain of salt. One man’s view and all that. But his big complaint against Big Army and their policies out to the field? Too vague, too much information and not enough direction, and not making it absolutely clear with no ambiguity what would be tolerated and what would be not. Room for loose cannons, maverick operators, for organizations that failed to provide appropriate on-site leadership.

Which underscores the failure of leadership at several levels at Abu Ghraib.

We will never have perfect leadership from the top. We will never have perfect guidance, complete orders, a fully vetted set of procedures for all situations we encounter. That is where NCO and Officer leadership steps in and clarifies what is vague, reinforces what’s expected, does the right thing, and takes responsibility for outcomes and results.

It isn’t always fair, we sometimes have to take the heat for decisions made elsewhere, but what happens on our watch is a reflection of our watchfulness, if you will.

Karpinski finds fault in a lot of other places, but I don’t hear the voice of a leader who took responsibility or tried to be part of making things better (nor for that matter, even recognized anything was wrong).

Note that NCOs in the chain of command reported what they had seen and heard, which resulted in the guilty parties charged and convicted for their crimes. Officers reprimanded and held responsible. Soldiers did the right thing, and that made it possible for vast amounts of ink trashing the US and US military for what amounted to individual criminal behavior.

Read AL’s account of his dinner experience. You won’t see it anywhere else, certainly not in mainstream media, and Democracy Now type reporting that might contain nuggets of truth will be awash with Moonbat spittle.

The President’s speech on immigration has sparked extreme reactions from many of the President’s usual supporters: Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians of all stripes. Much wild rhetoric has erupted. Several have commented that is made many on the right start sounding awfully like their Koskids counterparts.

Sadly, one other consequence of the speech. Internal divisions, apparently long simmering but unacknowledged, were brought into stark relief over at Polipundit.

I am sure we’ll hear more in the days ahead, but here’s one fan that thinks this didn’t need to be an issue that divided us anywhere nearly this much.

For that matter, I’m disappointed in the reactions and vitriol from many of my favorite blogs and commentators.

The President gave his speech on immigration last night, and effectively charted out what is being widely described as the “middle ground.”

While I may find common cause with Conservatives on virtually everything else on the political plate, I will not be joining the “Impeach Bush on Immigration” ravings of many of my erstwhile like-minded right-side bloggers. If you want to wallow in the fury, go read somebody else. They’ll be easy to find.

I’m usually not a big fan of “middle ground” if finding the middle means compromising away essential values or goals. In this case, I’m not so sure middle ground doesn’t mean, best comprehensive solution. Maybe not without some tweaking, adjustment, additions and deletions, but weighing advantages and disadvantages with full awareness of what is possible.

Rhetorically, from a statement of principles, you couldn’t get much closer to the essence of the American experiment, now 230 years old and counting. One might condense the President’s vision as: “the value of immigrants, the necessity of law.”

Here’s how he introduces his two themes:

Once here, illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society. Many use forged documents to get jobs, and that makes it difficult for employers to verify that the workers they hire are legal. Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals, it strains state and local budgets, and brings crime to our communities. These are real problems. Yet we must remember that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives. They are a part of American life, but they are beyond the reach and protection of American law.

We're a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We're also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals. America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time. We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration, and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly, and fair. So I support comprehensive immigration reform that will accomplish five clear objectives.

Objective One: Border Security

First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security.

The specifics of what President Bush means by Border Security:

1. Fences, barriers, sensors, cameras, UAVs
2. More border patrol
3. Temporary National Guard support (6,000 strong) for Border Patrol
4. Federal funding for state and local law enforcement
5. Detention facilities and the end of “catch and release”

Objective Two: Temporary Worker Program

Therefore, I support a temporary worker program that would create a legal path for foreign workers to enter our country in an orderly way, for a limited period of time. This program would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for jobs Americans are not doing. Every worker who applies for the program would be required to pass criminal background checks. And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.

Objective Three: Worker ID Card

Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. It is against the law to hire someone who is in this country illegally. Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees because of the widespread problem of document fraud.

Objective Four: Path to Citizenship

Fourth, we must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are here already. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully, and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration.

I believe that illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, to pay their taxes, to learn English, and to work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship, but approval would not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law.

Objective Five: Assimilation

Fifth, we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot, which has made us one nation out of many peoples. The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language. English is also the key to unlocking the opportunity of America. English allows newcomers to go from picking crops to opening a grocery, from cleaning offices to running offices, from a life of low-paying jobs to a diploma, a career, and a home of their own. When immigrants assimilate and advance in our society, they realize their dreams, they renew our spirit, and they add to the unity of America.

Something to aggravate everyone, I suppose, but a “reality-based” set of solutions (to borrow from the Opposition). And more honest that anything any politician has said recently on the subject.

Richard Reeb evaluates President Bush’s Reluctant Speech on immigration over at the Claremont Institute, and uses the speech as the basis for a primer in good citizenship:

Still more critical than enforcement of the laws and digesting the massive wave of illegal immigration is the requirement of good citizenship. Between lax enforcement and the reigning cult of multiculturalism, this is no mean task. Hence, even legal paths to citizenship are less than encouraging because of massive failures of citizenship education, which is bad enough among native-born Americans. Years of attacks on our founding principles, patriotism, self government, free enterprise, family and public morality have exacted a heavy price. The crisis of both illegal and legal immigration is a symptom (although a big enough problem in its own right) of the decline of American citizenship, with its burdens as well as it benefits. Liberalism has succeeded in defining citizenship down like everything else it has touched. It has corrupted the public mind to such an extent that we as American citizens are practically obliged to ignore public indignities like the May 1 boycott and to open our wallets to every demand on them from designated victims already within our borders or soon to come.

And yet, Reeb sees this speech and the vision it presents as a good start:

The President's speech did not and could not please everyone, but it is a good place to start. To my knowledge, no president has ever spoken as honestly and as frankly as President Bush on this issue.

Dafydd at Big Lizards predicts that border enforcement will be uneven and may require some additional political play to improve results. Dafydd also says we need to think of a dam, with and without a spillway, for the correct analogy to immigration:

So you read it here first: I predict that no matter how much the feds call for state National Guard units to deploy on the border, California, Arizona, and New Mexico will not play along... at least not to the extent that Bush envisions.

Still, some is better than none; I'm sure he'll get cooperation from Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. I have no idea what Gov. Blanco of Louisiana will do: she's a liberal, but LA blacks are not exactly pro-illegal-immigration; and of course, she wants lots of federal aid -- so maybe Congress could include a federal-funding stick for non-complying states to go along with any carrots that are offered in the way of federal help to local law enforcement that works with federal cops on illegal immigration.

He discussed the guest-worker program and "normalization" of those illegals already here; and I was very pleased that he made quite a point of connecting these to border security. He hasn't read Big Lizards enough, or else he would have used my phrase: there is no wall so strong that a million people pushing won't knock it down.

But he did say that there are so many people desperate to come here that a wall and enforcement, no matter how strong, cannot keep them out. That it's imperative to reduce the number of folks trying to get in here illegally... and the only way to do that is to give them a legal way of doing so. (He also failed to use my analogy of a dam, with and without a spillway. His people really do need to get in touch with my people!)

AJ Strata wisely advises that right-thinking Americans have much to be thankful for, starting with gratitude for this President:

Today conservatives and Americans across this nation, especially those who voted for George W Bush, should be thankful for what we have accomplished and for having George Bush as President. My tolerance for the whiners who don’t get all they want, or who say the pace of getting America to become more responsive to conservative ideas is too slow, is totally used up. Tonight, when George Bush speaks he is going to discuss how we can take SOME steps towards getting a handle on immigration and the security threats it represents.

Other Links: Gateway Pundit, Decision '08, Blue Crab Boulevard, Security Watchtower

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette announces something new from MILBLOGS.

One-stop browsing of quick posts, alerts, and other musings from some of the best of the MILBLOGGERS:

Andi

BlackFive

Buzz

Chapomatic

Doc

Eagle1

Greyhawk

Hook

Lex

Smash

And, I am very honored and proud to say, one Dadmanly.

Stephen Hayes serves as correspondent in reporting on the Bush Administration’s war against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), published in the Weekly Standard.

There is, no doubt, much Democratic Party rejoicing on the many travails and precipitously declining popularity of President Bush.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, indeed.

I came of age politically with the many revelations about covert CIA and seemingly rogue criminal operations, in South East Asia, South and Central America, and elsewhere. I’m sure many in my generation, those who didn’t mature out of their early liberalism and anti-authority chic, had an almost universal dislike and distrust of the covert operational side of the American Intelligence community (if not Intelligence activities altogether). The CIA was bad.

The CIA proved largely ineffective against Al Qaeda operations and other fundamental Islamic terrorism in the years leading up to 9/11. They were hampered by prejudices and preconceptions, a stultifying bureaucracy, politically involved careerists, and warlike attitude about anything to do with beltway or government turf. Largesse. Budget.

That major players at the CIA preferred one particular Presidential candidate and party to persevere in National elections is unavoidable. These people are citizens, and they work in a political hothouse. But it is apparent to outside observers that these people stepped outside the bounds in recent years, allowing their political preferences and intra-agency turf squabbles to interfere with their oaths to secrecy, their obligations to their employers, and ultimately to the American people, to whom they owed a responsibility for their loyal service. They were disloyal, they broke the law, and they attempted to influence an election (or two or three or many).

Consider it a given that Opposition Party luminaries will continue to lionize and glorify those who would sell their duties for a few pieces of silver (or some as-yet-unspecified appointment in the hoped for transfer of authority).

If those on the Administration’s side had overstepped their authority, and labored on behalf of their political preferences, you wouldn’t just be hearing about impeachment. Why those same partisans can’t see the utter hypocrisy of celebrating the very spy agency miscreants they have excoriated for the past 30 years, is beyond my power to explain.

You’d think they’d want to wash their hands after all the handshakes and backslapping.

Political parties and honest analysts may yet disagree with the right prescription for such an ailing institution. But rewarding dishonesty and illegal behavior, excusing disclosure of classified information, ignoring attempts to manipulate domestic politics, will be an absolute disaster for the US.

We were woefully unprepared for 9/11, and a Federal Agency arguably most responsible for the fight against our enemies fails us, and favors petty political intrigues over the preservation of National Security.

We cannot afford to have intelligence agencies take partisan stands. We cannot afford or excuse incompetence in our intelligence and security services. We have too much at stake.

What’s the best way to summarize the letter from Iranian President Ahmadinejad to President Bush?

I’m afraid that Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs nails it on the head, headlined An Islamic Declaration of War:

Only a few blogs (and almost no mainstream media) have realized the truth about Iranian madman Ahmadinejad’s letter to President Bush. It was not an offer to negotiate, and it was not simply a lunatic’s rant. It was a calculated invitation to convert to Islam, a da’wa—an Islamic requirement (commanded by Mohammed) before waging war against unbelievers.

LGF links to Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom, who explains the context of the letter, and how the Muslim world would decidedly read it as a declaration of war against the infidel. This is dramatically underscored by Ahmadinejad’s use of a particular phrase at the close of his letter to President Bush.

The New York Sun explains the phrase Ahmadinejad used, its history and significance:

"Vasalam Ala Man Ataba'al hoda." What this means is "Peace only unto those who follow the true path."

It is a phrase with historical significance in Islam, for, according to Islamic tradition, in year six of the Hejira - the late 620s - the prophet Mohammad sent letters to the Byzantine emperor and the Sassanid emperor telling them to convert to the true faith of Islam or be conquered. The letters included the same phrase that President Ahmadinejad used to conclude his letter to Mr. Bush. For Mohammad, the letters were a prelude to a Muslim offensive, a war launched for the purpose of imposing Islamic rule over infidels.

Surely the wider Muslim audience knows full well the significance of what the Iranian letter contained.

Think Johnson, Goldstein, and the editors at The New York Sun are extreme in their views? No more than the Iranian President himself:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Thursday that his letter to President George W. Bush did not concern the nuclear dossier, but rather was an invitation to Islam and the prophets culture.

He made the above remarks in reply to a reporter while attending press conference on his letter to President Bush in Jakarta in the afternoon of the third day of his stay in Jakarta. Stressing that the letter was beyond the nuclear issue, the chief executive said that in principle, the country’s nuclear case is not so significant to make him write a letter about it.

“We act according to laws and our activities are quite clear. We are rather intent on solving more fundamental global matters.”

“The letter was an invitation to monotheism and justice, which are common to all divine prophets. If the call is responded positively, there will be no more problems to be solved,” added the president.

The president said that the letter actually contained a clear message of invitation to human beliefs, adding that its response will determine the future.

Just submit. Then we have no problems with you. Oh, and your women must wear burkas and you need to kill all the Jews.

Now comes news – an unauthorized leak, presumably from someone connected to the UN International Atomic Energy Agency.

The U.N. atomic agency has found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country's defense ministry, diplomats said Friday. The finding added to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities that could be used to make nuclear arms.

The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared close to or beyond weapons grade _ the level used to make nuclear warheads.

(Nice to know these leaks of confidential information can tip the other way sometimes. I’m sure El Baradei didn’t mean to have this come up the day he strongly suggested that Iran has valid reasons for wanting nuclear weapons.)

We can continue to squabble over the threat, how big, how bad, what the right tools are. We can continue to argue over what our enemies real intentions are. WE can debate what are there many grievances. Some may even question whether there’s any threat greater than President Bush and his Administration.

Or we can take our enemies at their word. I, for one, think they’re telling the truth. They mean for us to submit, they want to annihilate the State of Israel, they desperately want nuclear weapons as a means to accomplish both those objectives.

Okay, they haven’t admitted that last bit about nukes. But if the man holding a gun your head says “he doesn’t want to hurt you,” keep in mind that what he means is, “don’t make him hurt you,” and plenty of times, he shoots you anyway.

Did anyone else see this bit of foolishness at Memeorandum?

Rob Kall (who, no doubt, considers himself Brilliant at Breakfast and everywhere else) breathlessly reports on a demographically skewed poll engineered by Zogby International. Here’s his lead:

As we head into the midterm elections, more people than ever before in the reality-based community (i.e. those who don't get their news from the Delusionists at Fox News) believe that George W. Bush stole the 2004 election:

Ever useful to partisan Democrats, Zogby set up a polling methodology certain to achieve the results they desired:

Zogby International conducted interviews of 707 likely voters online. Panelists who have agreed to participate in Zogby polls online were invited to participate in the survey.

I know it’s a futile waste of time, but I couldn’t resist making the following comments.

Just asking: aside from polling data, does it matter whether there is any EVIDENCE for such a belief?

I'll admit I'm partisan, but I saw very minor and sporadic irregularities, partisan attempts on both sides to discredit, make claims, etc. BUT, nothing that indicated even in the slightest a pattern of fraud, tampering, etc.

No proof. Not even much by way of clues that such had happened.

If people like yourselves are so fond of saying that the majority of Americans "mistakenly" believe that Saddam Hussein had any role in Al Qaeda or Islamic terrorism generally, or 9/11 specifically, obviously you would agree that the majority of Americans can often believe in things that are not true.

Doesn't that count for something?

I myself want people who care about important things to care about what's actually true, regardless of what most (uninformed) people think. That is even more imperative for our nation's leaders. Truth over opinion or speculation. What's right over what's popular.

One last point. If we can agree that most Republicans heavily favor Fox News (you might say, because they're biased, I might say they're balanced, the truth perhaps in the middle), over other major news outlets (you might say, because they're balanced, I might say they're biased, the truth perhaps in the middle), then there's an obvious partisan bias.

My guy lost -- the election was stolen. My guy won -- the election was fair.

How meaningful is any of this?

And presuming you want your guys to WIN next time(s), if you grasp onto the notion that "we really won but it was stolen," you don't learn what you need to learn to win.

Me? I don't really want you to learn that. But you? You should want to.

Postscript. For tinfoil hat, this guy’s prepared to go one step better. Our brilliant friend speculates further:

Now I'd like to see a poll about what percentage of Americans believe that the Bush Administration allowed the 9/11 attacks to play out so they could have their war in Iraq.

I wonder if Rob’s been talking things over with the President of Iran.

This story grows. I first wrote on this latest flap yesterday.

The National Security Agency (NSA), arguably the most “on-the-point” of all Federal Agencies in response to the threat of terror attacks in the US, faces intense media and political criticism for its multi-administration and decade old call detail record (CDR) data mining program. Howls about the “most lawless administration in history,” “abuse of power,” illegal and unconstitutional search” abound.

There are no bounds, legal or statutory, across which leakers will not violate their sworn oaths to preserve information classified as critical to national security. Every one of these reports about NSA have revealed classified information about classified projects. Defenders allege these leaks are essential to preserve and defend vital freedoms and citizens’ rights in alerting the public about Executive overreach (and illegal behavior).

Defenders scream back, we’re at war, and critics can’t honestly acknowledge that on the one hand, then pretend any reasonable provision taken to confront that threat as overreach. Global Terrorism in its current incarnation should be a bi-partisan fight, yet both sides continue to step away from that common fight to fight each other for partisan advantage.

These same critics pounded the Bush Administration, while at the same time, giving a pass to the Clinton Administration, for “not putting the pieces together” before 9/11. President Bush rightfully directed, in legitimate fashion, with appropriate Presidential wartime powers and Patriot Act provisions, NSA to undertake all legal means necessary to try to gather intelligence and thwart terrorists plotting more terrorism in the US.

Political observers point to several reasons for the sudden disclosure of a program that’s been quietly at work for years, possibly even as early as sometime in the Clinton Administration. Look no further than today’s New York Times report, quoting Senator Spector (rumored to be a Republican in the Senate):

Some members of Congress also reacted angrily to the news that the ethics office at the Justice Department had been refused the security clearances necessary to conduct a planned investigation of department lawyers who approved N.S.A.'s eavesdropping.

Mr. Specter called the denial of clearances to the department's own investigators "incomprehensible" and said he and other senators would ask that the clearances be granted to employees of the department's Office of Professional Responsibility.

Others point to the leaks as efforts to scuttle the nomination of General Michael V. Hayden to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). No doubt, political knives are being sharpened, and these days, there are few knives sharper than the leak of classified information for political gain.

How does the American public feel about the NSA Program? (To whatever extent they even know about NSA or understand what functions it serves?)

The preliminary results are in, echoing results from earlier dust-ups over NSA intercepts of Al Qaeda communications with possible co-conspirators in the US. The Washington Post and ABC News report initial polls showing a 2-1 majority of Americans support these NSA activities. (If these could be fully explained without hype, with much classified process and privacy protections explained, the support would likely by over 80%.)

That hasn’t yet stopped the program’s detractors and the usual suspects of Bush haters and Democratic activists. Adding to the criticism, we’re told, are both Republican and Democrats in Congress. That’s how the wind was blowing when the perfect storm was seeded, anyway. (Please, you think these leaks aren’t coordinated and timed? Just when General Hayden is about to be interrogated by members of Congress for the head of the CIA?) It remains to be seen how many of these foul weather carpers linger on when the overnight and weekend poll numbers come in.

My guess? Watch for all the about-faces (that would be face two for two-faced politicos) over the weekend.

Outside the Beltway has a good post on today’s NSA Data Mining story, and even better discussion in the comments.

The article in USA Today by Leslie Cauley introduces this controversy with the following lead:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

This one’s worth a careful read. Note the exposure of several details that most certainly are classified, the disclosure of which surely present a significant threat to National Security, as these details help our enemies adapt to avoid our Intelligence efforts.

Tom Maguire at Just One Minute has concerns that this may not be legal, and makes the following excellent points:

If I had been forced to guess, I would have said that this is not legal, since (if I am recalling correctly the debate about the NSA warrantless program), even a pen trace that records only phone number called and not the content of each call requires a warrant. I have no doubt we will see commentary about the legal aspects soon enough.

As to the timing of this leak, can it be a coincidence that Gen. Hayden, who oversaw this while at the NSA, is meant to face Senate confirmation for his appointment to head the CIA?

(snip)

Well - when Bush denies that the government is trolling through my personal life, does he consider my calling history to be personal? And for that matter, do I? Aren't these records sold to marketing companies, in some aggregated fashion?

Dale Carpenter at The Volokh Conspiracy headlines his analysis with “I’m Switching to Qwest,” referring to the lone Telecomm company holdout on giving NSA call detail records (CDR). Dale helpfully links to his fellow blogger Orin Kerr, who has a good review of the possible statutory and obligatory dismissal of potential 4^th Amendment arguments against the program.

Short answer? Program may violate statutory restrictions, but may ultimately depend on how much authority is yielded to the President, either on the basis of his constitutional wartime powers, or specific provisions of the Patriot Act.

Other excellent commentary:

Stop The ACLU

RightWinged.com

Michelle Malkin

The Unalienable Right

Also, see excellent background piece from Group INTEL.

This is a highly complex controversy, with many debatable aspects. Thus, be completely assured that the President’s enemies, and those who dismiss or underestimate the threat of global, radical Islamic terrorism, to have a field day.

(Sigh.) While fighting this war was never going to be easy, it does amaze the many ways that the fight is made ever more difficult. Perhaps we, as a pluralistic, open, and free society, with a penchant for holding our ideals in higher priority than other necessities, is doomed to fall against enemies, foreign and domestic, who lack both our ideals, and any sense of humanity.

(Help from Memeorandum)

Part 1: A Disclaimer

(This is belated follow-up in a multi-part series I introduced, entitled Conclusion.)

First, a disclaimer.

To say that deployment to a combat zone – to say nothing about experiencing combat first hand – changes a person forever is a truism that hardly bears repeating. Except that so many people, including many combat Veterans, seem quick to dismiss such thoughts from their consciousness.

I hesitate to write this post because of what some cranks and critics might make of some of what I report. That, it seems to me, underscores my point. I’m not sure it’s a universally good idea talking about how wars change people. How one war in particular may have changed me.

Prior to getting home, I would have been in complete agreement with viewing an honest accounting as an imperative. Get the truth out there. Help other soldiers come to grips with what changes. Create transparency, openness, get a dialog going. In our case, very few of our soldiers saw anything remotely like combat, most never experienced hostile fire in any form.

Other than one very special group of our soldiers, most of us experienced only the potential for violence, in the form of logistic convoys (delightfully relabeled as “combat patrols” to enhance Officer Evaluation Reports (OERs) and the possibility of earning combat action badges. But I digress.

But we’ve been trained, all of us but with emphasis for leaders, to look for, anticipate, and help our soldiers cope with inevitable effects of their deployment experiences, in the combat zone, and after they return home.

As I said, prior to redeployment, I would have said, get the word out about what it was like. Talk about what it’s like being home. Be honest, open, help spread the word. Help each other who went over, and help those there now and those who will rotate in the months ahead. If it was nasty, talk about the nasty. If it was dangerous, talk about the danger and how you confront it, protect against it, and persevere. If it was stupid, talk about the stupid stuff so maybe others can have it better. If you lost something while you were there, if your mind and heart and feelings and attitudes changed, let people know.

That’s the MILBLOGGER way, right?

But I’m not so sure, now. So much of what we say gets scanned for any useful application in anti-war propaganda by the usual useful idiots, that I hesitate to “air the dirty laundry.” Because some of it may be useful to those who feign or perhaps firmly believe, that national security can somehow be just that (the security of our nation) without any cost, consequence or harm to any living thing. These would include pacifists, partisans, liberals and socialists, but they might find things negative in Veteran experiences, as fodder for their arguments.

As I write this, I straddle my own opinions, write or don’t, and reach back on impulse to the first of the conclusion pieces I wrote. I scan down to the comments, and reminisce with one of my commenters, Papa Ray, who wrote the following:

You’re in the zone, there are no endings, only new beginnings.
In fact, when you arrived in Iraq, you arrived right in the middle of a new beginning and when you look back in a few months or years, you will be involved in yet another new beginning for you and yours and Iraq will be involved in yet another new beginning as well.
I think you see that life is truly a "wheel of life" without any real ending or beginning.
"Round and round we go, where we stop...nobody knows." Remember that from somewhere back in your childhood? Kids have been singing and saying that for eternity.
It’s true, you know.

In the spirit of this wise counsel from Papa Ray, and with the awareness that much of what we observe and reflect open is as old as life itself, I think the answer is: Write away. Right away.

More to come soon.

Gateway Pundit and Mudville Gazette both post a translation by Haider Ajina of press reports from Iraq, with today’s big news of  a meeting of over 200 Iraqi tribal leaders to publicly renounce and condemn sectarian violence and terrorism.

A portion of his report, from Mudville:

“Over 200 Iraqi tribal leaders will meet in Baghdad on Wednesday may 10th to sign an honor compact to denounce and reject terrorism and sectarian violence.

“Tribal leaders announced they will meet in Khademiah Baghdad on Wednesday May 10th at a conference. This conference will result in an honor compact obliging Iraqi tribes to cooperate amongst each other and the authorities to protect their members from terrorist attacks, and to help with national unity and condemning sectarian violence.

The ‘Foundation for Humanitarian Dialogue’ sponsored and organized the conference. Husien Ismail Alsadar who uses Khademiah as his center of activities and enjoys the backing and blessing of Al Sistani is the foundation’s president. Some Sheiks and tribal leaders said they hope that a committee can be formed to represent Iraqi tribes in the “National accord conference” on June 10th along with the honor compact signed by tribal leaders.

A foundation speaker said that the conference will be attended by heads of Tribes from all of Iraq, Arab Kurd and Turkmen tribes. The speaker added that the conference will also discuss political, security, and social issues in the country. We hope to come up with ideas and plans to cooperate in stopping terrorist activities affecting the citizens. He pointed out that the honor compact to fight terrorism and denounce sectarian violence would be the main results of this conference.

An ABC News Report includes more details of the meeting, with some interesting quotes from a senior Shia cleric:

Ayatollah Hussein Ismail al-Sadr, Baghdad's most senior Shiite cleric, called for an end to bloodshed.

"Iraq is undergoing its most critical stage ever. Our blood is being shed every minute and our ordeals are increasing every day. The safety of Iraq should be above all other goals," he said.

Al-Sadr urged his countrymen to "respect the opinions and beliefs of each other because it is the only way to preserve our country."

He said U.N. and Arab League envoys had been invited to attend the meeting and he was disappointed they had not.

"Their absence has a negative effect," he said.

No big surprise that the UN and Arab League want none of this. Goes against both their (real) charters.

Hiader assesses the significance of the meeting:

This news adds to the mounting evidence that Iraqis are united, they are united in their quest for defeating terrorists who hope to destroy the fledgling democracy, they are united in fighting sectarianism (which was encouraged and fostered by the Baathists) and united in wanting their democracy to succeed and thrive. No evidence of civil war, no evidence of splitting up the country and no evidence in giving in to the terrorist. This is a very important conference of all the leading tribes in Iraq. Arab, Kurd, Turkmen, Muslim, Christian, Shiite & Sunni all getting together with a common goal. Defeating terrorism, affirm national unity and condemning sectarianism. All working together and promising to help and protect each other. This is the greatest defeat to Zarqawi and his group as well as the remaining Baathists.

More in a steady stream of good news coming out of Iraq. Iraqis think we can win, and are winning. Al Qaeda thinks we can win, and are winning. US Military thinks we can win, and are winning.

Now if we can only convince the Opposition Party and their patrons in the mainstream media (MSM), we’re on our way to winning the Information Operations (IO) War. To see how likely this will be, look for widespread MSM reporting of this historic meeting.

(Chirp, chirp)

(Help from Instapundit)

If there is any subject upon which Mark Steyn writes, and anyone else, and you have to choose which to read, I have some advice. Read Mark Steyn. Okay, that pretty much goes for any situation, anything he writes, anytime. Guess that makes me a fan.

I may have to rethink my “James Lileks is the best writer on the web,” although it in no way slights Lilek’s excellent prose to claim an equal stature for Steyn.

To the point of all this. My friend John at Blogotional links to a Steyn column on The DaVinci Code and the Gospel of Judas. Here’s what Steyn says about the ersatz Gospel:

The latest Bizarro Christ bestseller is the so-called Gospel of Judas, lost for 1,600 years but apparently rediscovered 20 minutes ago, edited by various scholars and now published by the National Geographic Society in Washington. Evidently, National Geographic has fallen on hard times since the days when anthropological studies of remote tribes were a young man's only readily available source of pictures of naked women. So I hope this new wrinkle works out for them. Renowned betrayer Judas Iscariot, you'll recall, was the disciple who sold out Jesus. Only it turns out he didn't! He was in on the plot! The betrayal was all part of the plan! For, as the Gospel of Judas exclusively reveals, Christ came to him and said, "Rudolph, with your nose so bright . . ." No, wait, that's a later codex. Christ said to Judas that he "will exceed all" the other disciples because it had fallen to him to "sacrifice the man that clothes me."

Steyn notes that the Gospel of Judas strives for the same air of pseudo-scholarship that pervades The Da Vinci Code. He quotes the first sentence of the Gospel of Judas:

"The secret account1 of the revelation2 that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week3 three days before he celebrated Passover4."

Yet when read, the footnotes offer nothing more than synonyms or render a phrase with an alternative but completely equivalent translation. Steyn explains a likely purpose of this technique:

On the face of it, sticking a bunch of speed bumps into every sentence would not normally be considered helpful to the reader. But once again the point is tonal: it's to remind you, relentlessly, that this is "authentic" -- it was actually written by long-time Jesus sidekick Judas! Well, okay, it wasn't. It's a fourth-century Coptic text by some guy, but it's believed to be pretty close to the original second-century Greek text. Okay, Judas wasn't around in the second century, but the fellows who wrote his "Gospel" likely got it from a friend of a friend of a friend of his. As Dr. Simon Gathercole of the University of Aberdeen told my old pal Dalya Alberge in the London Times, the alleged Gospel of Judas "contains a number of religious themes which are completely alien to the first-century world of Jesus and Judas, but which did become popular later, in the second century AD. An analogy would be finding a speech claiming to be written by Queen Victoria, in which she talked about The Lord Of The Rings and her CD collection."

Steyn’s beef with these aging heresies are the same that I have. They beguile a public already too biblically ignorant and illiterate. They lead non-believers further astray. These are not Christian works, nor are they true, nor do they in any meaningful way refute what are commonly understood as the facts of the Bible.

Disbelieve if you will, but not on the basis of old deceptions delightfully packaged to make their authors and promoters fabulously rich. Dismiss faith as personally unnecessary or unwanted, but don’t try to have a theological argument (or anything approaching one) using such fabrications. It’s like selling fake religious artifacts or indulgences.

Steyn makes a similar observation, and a fine suggestion, if you ask me:

It's interesting that so many non-churchgoing readers are interested in Jesus, disheartening that they're so Biblically illiterate. Still, given the success he's had dismissing the premise of the New Testament as a fraud, perhaps Dan Brown could try writing a revisionist biography of acclaimed prophet Muhammad. Just a thought.

More than just a thought, now there’s an idea.

James Lileks post a very humorous Screed, a send-up of the Iranian President’s heartfelt letter to President Bush. As only Lileks could do…

Among the best bits:

. . . Seriously, when I came to the UN and you didn’t even send a fruit basket, it hurt. Did you not see how well I was received? Did you not see the light of God that surrounded me when I spoke, how no one blinked as I related our message, how doves came out of my mouth and the pants of all were filled with flowers. Did you not note how the exact number of letters I spoke divided by the sum (in Euros) we paid the Chinese engineers was the winning lottery number the following week? Including the Powerball? And you seek to confound my work to bring back the Messiah and bring the world once more into the arms of Islam? Including all penguins?

Read the whole Screed.

(Via Instapundit)

If I have to settle on any one accomplishment, one work that I want to be remembered for as a MILBLOGGER, it would be my Profiles. More on that in a moment.

Several weeks ago, I posted an article about Why I MILBLOG. I explained that MILBLOGGERS like Greyhawk, Citizen Smash, and Blackfive had an excellent opportunity to comment on all things military from their blogs. Most importantly, their perspectives, insights and commentary stood in sharp contrast to what passes for "Journalism" on the part of mainstream (news) media (MSM). They spoke of "reality on the ground," and in preparing for deployment. Before I filed my first post, I wanted in some way to contribute to this insight and commentary. So I started to Blog.

I am proud to say I am one a foot soldier in the Army of Davids, emphasis on the “David” and being part of an “Army.” I made my share of mistakes until I learned (with some embarrassment) the etiquette of linking. I realized after a few fevered Blog-days that there will be need for only one Glenn Reynolds (and I wasn’t him). Nevertheless, a MILBLOG can perform a valuable service.

In my view, the most important function of the MILBLOG is to provide information. On-the-ground reporting, and the perspective of those closest to and part of the action. Relatively few soldiers conduct direct combat operations, although more and more are subjected to potential conflict and violence. Still, everything that happens can potentially be a part of history. In many ways, we have only scratched the surface on capturing what it means to be a soldier, sailor, airman, marine.

Somewhere along the way, early on in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), I realized that I would have few opportunities to do the “shock and awe,” real-time, heart pounding and heat of battle war correspondent kind of reporting. I could, however, pay attention to the many fine men and women around me in combat service support roles, serving their country with quiet honor, dedication, and a fair amount of good humor. Thus were Dadmanly Profiles^TM born.

Dadmanly Profiles in the Series:

The CO

The Motor Sergeant

The CSM

The NCOIC

The LT

Cooks and Contractors

Supply Sergeants

The Analysts

The Chaplain's Assistant

The First Sergeant

Vietnam Vets

My contribution is modest compared to the many fine MILBLOGGERS. But if it helps give those back home a sense of who are these many great Americans who served in Iraq, it will be a job well done, and I’ll be pleased to have taken it on.

What treasure we would have if members of earlier, “greatest” generations had had this technology and communications available? The Vietnam era soldiers. The men and women who fought WWII. The men in blue and grey who fought the Civil War. How much more we would understand wars, the sacrifices they impose, the moral lessons they teach, the humanity they confront. We were there at the inception, and it’s an awesome responsibility. I was honored to be a part of it.

Check out the new Truth Laid Bare. NZ Bear and team have done a terrific job, in my view, adding several new features like Hot Topics Across the Blogosphere in chart form.

The guy’s amazing. He deserves some kind of Blog Medal for what he does for the community.

I'm a boob. I don't know where I got the idea these guys were from the 69th, but corrected in the post below to Charlie Company, 3rd of the 172nd Infantry (Mountain). They did a great job in Iraq, and were the subject, spirit, and assigned videographers for this award-winning film.

Mudville Gazette reports that The War Tapes won the Best International Documentary Feature award at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on Saturday.

This is the documentary filmed by New Hampshire National Guard (69^th) soldiers in Iraq, and compiled into a documentary by Director Deborah Scranton. It’s supposed to go into limited (hopefully now, somewhat broader) distribution June 2^nd. I’ll be looking for it, I can’t wait to see it.

Congrats to Deborah, Mike and the other camera men and soldiers of the Charlie Company, 3rd of the 172nd Infantry (Mountain)!

Here’s a little bit of coffee-spitting commentary posing as chit chat, leading into today’s etymology lesson (Courtesy of Merriam Webster Online):

Thousands of students marched on China's Tiananmen Square on this day in 1919, part of a youth protest of imperial aggression that became known as the May Fourth Movement. Americans remember May 4 as the anniversary of the day in 1970 when four students at Kent State University—two of whom were protesting what they viewed as their own country's imperial aggression—were killed by members of the Ohio National Guard.

Did anybody else happen to catch today’s Word for the Wise on National Public Radio? (I’m sorry, is that the more globally correct Public Radio International? That’s more Che’ like, anyway.)

That’s right, the unbelievably stupid paragraph above was the lead-in for today’s word origin lesson for the NPR-nics. At first I mistook the protests that were being referenced. These aren’t the 1989 protests against the Communist Chinese, so dramatically illustrated by the lone man standing up against a line of Chinese tanks. No sir, this reference is to a anniversary celebrated by the other side of that 1989 confrontation. Here’s a little background on the 1919 Protests at Tiananmen Square:

The rally and demonstration that had the greatest impact on this whole period of Chinese history was that of May 4, 1919. On that day 3,000 student representatives from thirteen area universities and colleges gathered in the square to protest the disastrous terms of the Versailles Treaty, ill which the victorious allies granted several former German concessions in China to the Japanese, who had signed secret agreements with the Allies before joining their side in the war. The Chinese were outraged. They had also been on the side of the Allies and had sent more than 100,000 laborers to work the trenches, docks, and supply lines of the British and French forces. Now they were crudely rebuffed.
The protests begun on May 4 inaugurated a new phase of national consciousness in China and firmly fixed in the nation's mind the idea of the square as a political focal point. Small scale when compared to the 1989 demonstrations, May 4 nevertheless roused the nation's conscience, and the term "May 4 Movement" was adopted to describe the entire event as Chinese scholars, scientists, writers, and artists struggled to explore new ways of strengthening China and incorporating the twin forces of science and democracy into the life of their society and government. Linked in its turn to a study of the plight of China's workers and peasants, and to the theoretical and organizational arguments of Marxism-Leninism, the May 4 Movement had a direct bearing and influence on the growth of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which convened its first congress in 1921.

(From The Gate and The Square, itself an online excerpt from Children of the Dragon by Jonathan Spence.)

How charming. A hallowed precedent to the brutal Chinese communists, itself in stark contrast to what most readers think of when they think of Tiananmen Square. (You have to admire how well these public radio folks know their Communist history.)

That, contrasted with what I would consider a highly provocative characterization of the protests at Kent State.

Yes, I know that was a highly controversial event in itself, but I would bet, that however much protesters back then used the words US Imperialism, most were against the War in Vietnam. We were there to support an ally that was threatened by Communist aggression, and we all should know how they brutally they retaliated with their own brand of Imperialism when we left.

It just suggests a line of thinking, a pattern of thought to find the juxtaposition of this particular 1919 event with this particular event in 1970. Doesn’t it?

The rest of the lesson consisted of a little game to pick which words originated in 1919, and which in 1970:

advocacy journalism, attack dog, and greener pastures (all 1970)

Hippy, home front, and provocateur (all 1919, with “hippie” from 1965).

free spirit, sleeping giant, and whistle-blower (all 1970)

You have to wonder where heads of the writers and editors of this little puff piece of radio broadcast are most of the time.

Only because this too spoke of patterns of thought: later, in the same Morning Edition segment, the results of Congressional voting of a pair of measures purportedly aimed at dealing with a perceived crisis in the price of gas and oil.

Bipartisan support guaranteed the passage of a bill that seeks huge penalties for price gouging, while near-universal opposition from Democrats led to voting down a bill that, among other things no doubt, would have allowed increased oil refining capacity and opened up new areas in the US for oil and gas exploration.

And here’s what I’m getting at. In the universe of the Democratic Party (and all too many Republican consorts), Oil Companies are the Bad Guys. They must be. Prices are high, profits are up. The b**tards.

So it is as easy as finding a lobbyist in Washington to posture and pass laws aimed at punishing a price gouging that has never been and probably never will be proved or even suggested by any evidence, while common sense steps to attack the fundamental reasons we are so constrained by oil industry and global market dynamics, get defeated.

Which brings me back to my point about Thought Processes. I think these examples reveal states of mind. Prejudices. Government assistance and solutions for all of life’s problems, natch. The way to go. A communal approach. Corporations and capitalism? Bad, bad, bad.

Unless of course, it’s your ox getting gored. Somehow a Corporate solution that involves Trial Lawyers (big Democratic Party supporters, sponsors, donors = Good) is always a good thing for Government, while anything that involves Oil Companies (big Republican Party supporters, sponsors, donors = Bad) must always be suspect.

Wretchard posts a must-read at The Belmont Club, passing along comprehensive extracts retired General Barry McCaffrey’s trip to Iraq last April 13-20 of this year. As I would expect, Wretchard provides excellent commentary and valuable background to McCaffrey’s assessments, with reference to a 2005 McCaffrey trip to Iraq and his conclusions and predictions then.

McCaffrey, long a critic of Iraq war planning in general and Secretary Rumsfeld in particular, offers a surprisingly upbeat assessment.

His strongest praise, then and now, is for a stellar US military and its soldiers. As quoted by Wretchard:

The morale, fighting effectiveness, and confidence of U.S. combat forces continue to be simply awe-inspiring. In every sensing session and interaction - I probed for weakness and found courage, belief in the mission, enormous confidence in their sergeants and company grade officers, an understanding of the larger mission, a commitment to creating an effective Iraqi Army and Police, unabashed patriotism, and a sense of humor. All of these soldiers, NCOs and young officers were volunteers for combat. Many were on their second combat tour - several were on the third or fourth combat tour. Many had re-enlisted to stay with their unit on its return to a second Iraq deployment. Many planned to re-enlist regardless of how long the war went on.

McCaffrey’s report lauds the Iraqi Army just as effusively:

The Iraqi Army is real, growing, and willing to fight. They now have lead action of a huge and rapidly expanding area and population. The battalion level formations are in many cases excellent - most are adequate. ... The recruiting now has gotten significant participation by all sectarian groups to include the Sunni. The Partnership Program with U.S. units will be the key to success with the Embedded Training Teams augmented and nurtured by a U.S. Maneuver Commander. This is simply a brilliant success story.

McCaffrey views the Iraqi Police with some skepticism, and identifies areas for improvement in what is inevitably a Police “culture of inaction, passivity, human rights abuses, and deep corruption.” McCaffrey considers improving the effectiveness of the Police as crucial to democracy building, but considers the job doable:

This is a very, very tough challenge which is a prerequisite to the Iraqis winning the counter-insurgency struggle they will face in the coming decade. We absolutely can do this. But this police program is now inadequately resourced.

His strongest criticism? Department of Defense planning? A bellicose and unyielding Secretary of Defense? A Pollyanny Bush Administration? Guess again. McCaffrey finds greatest shortcomings with the US Department of State:

The U.S. Inter-Agency Support for our strategy in Iraq is grossly inadequate. A handful of brilliant, courageous, and dedicated Foreign Service Officers have held together a large, constantly changing, marginally qualified, inadequately experienced U.S. mission. ... U.S. consultants of the IRMO do not live and work with their Iraqi counterparts, are frequently absent on leave or home consultations, are often in-country for short tours of 90 days to six months, and are frequently gapped with no transfer of institutional knowledge. ...

The State Department actually cannot direct assignment of their officers to serve in Iraq. State frequently cannot staff essential assignments such as the new PRTs which have the potential to produce such huge impact in Iraq. The bottom line is that only the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces are at war. This situation cries out for remedy.

Where are the hyperventilating media, with their reports of what this retired General has to say? Could it be he wasn’t critical of the current Administration and its war planners, and therefore, not newsworthy? By now, wouldn’t it be really newsworthy if the press could find someone with an upbeat assessment of the war in Iraq?

Read the whole thing.

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette notes the coordination of a media campaign to use President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech (despite that said speech said much the opposite, that there would be a lot of hard work ahead) as a contrast for the obvious “where we find ourselves today” report.

Greyhawk excerpts from a report by David Broder in The Washington Post:

On Monday, to mark the third anniversary of President Bush's appearance on the USS Lincoln to announce that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a news release in which Bush's text was set in contrast to barbed reminders of everything that has gone wrong in Iraq since that boast.

Amazing how congruent are the press releases from major Democratic Party operatives and the reporting of cooperative mainstream media outlets. Broder whitewashes his reformulated press release with Senator Joe Biden’s fanciful “let’s do nation-building lite” proposal on a loose Federation of autonomous Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish Iraqs (three Iraqs at the same price!), and closes with a smarmy, “At a time when most people see nothing but hopeless discord in Iraq, it is healthy to have someone offering alternatives that could produce progress.”

Greyhawk also notes the lock-step in media portrayals on the “Three Years After ‘Mission Accomplished’” theme. (You can almost hear the “hurrumph” when you read the articles.) He also excerpts from Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis in The Boston Globe. Here, the Globe’s reporters go the Post one step better, and add this provocative and completely un-provable assertion:

The oil-rich Gulf region has become less stable, contributing to a run-up in gas prices at home and an increase in terrorist attacks around the world.

Greyhawk suggests that googling "mission accomplished" will yield many similar examples of this kind of reporting and commentary. In contrast to the media presumptions of what President Bush’s speech actually conveyed that day three years ago, Greyhawk reminds those who would listen what the President actually did say. He told us it would not be easy, nor quick. That there was much hard work to be done. As Greyhawk quotes, he also said the following that day:

"The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory."

And Greyhawk suggests, “You can decide for yourself whether your resolve has weakened - or if you ever had any to start with.”

These publicity stunts and press reports are part of a coordinated effort, as I know my readers and Mudville Readers are well aware.

General McCaffrey's assessment of his recent trip is being carefully parsed, with the only significant bits warranting media attention being how much longer, how much more, ignoring all of his (mostly favorable) comments.

Greyhawk mentioned the great disparity between what Bush actually said and the version continuously sustained by liberal and media mythology. This is the same orthodoxy of "fake but accurate" that sustains the same untruths about the President's 2003 State of the Union address and his "16 words."

I have a post due today, if I get to it, about the mental contortions and self-delusions that are required to maintain this liberal, left-leaning, immune to truth or reason point of view, where only the other side distorts or misleads or misremembers.

If ever pinned to the wall with their errors of fact and recollection or downright deceit, they turn to a defense of semantics, or that their critics are arguing about what the meaning of "is" is.

They'll flitter to the next Bush- or war-bashing meme, and on about the business at hand: gaining a political advantage without having to do any heavy lifting coming up with actual ideas or workable policies.

Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters reports on a blow to the Porkbusters effort, in this case a tactical loss to the likes of Senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochran. I hope these men have forever foresworn any hopes of seeking nationwide office in the future. I have to think many of us will be eager to hold this kind of greed and rapaciousness (not to say stupidity) against them.

What did we taxpayers lose to the porcine warriors on Capital Hill? Nothing short of $200 Million in payola to corporate benefactors:

The projects that got past Senate pork hawks like Tom Coburn were a $200 million bailout of Northrup Grumman for indemnifying the defense contractor against losses that its insurers refuse to cover. Coburn faced stiff opposition from Trent Lott, the man who apparently wants to make a career out of defying voters on earmarks, and Thad Cochran. Both Republicans insisted that the government needed to replace the loss, even though Northrup made a 7.1% operating margin in 2005, up from 6.7% in 2004 and 5.6% in 2003. That represents $2.4 billion in profit, an increase from $2.3B in 2004 and $1.9B in 2003.

Why does a corporation that made $2.4 billion in profit need another $200 million from American taxpayers to cover a loss they've absorbed in that same year?

Forget investigations into windfall profits. How about an investigation into targeted earmarks into already bulging corporate coffers, such as this?

Over at Porkbusters, they also report on a comment by Lott about how “wily” he and Senator Cochran are, slipping even more pork barrel spending into critical military appropriations, in spite of heightened pressures to tamp down on earmarks.

As NZ Bear remarks, “Call me crazy, but it seems like these guys aren't just killing their party, but actually bragging about it. That doesn't seem very "wily" to me.”

(Via Instapundit)

David Gelernter writes a searing indictment of those who would say, “Iraq is like Vietnam, we need to pull out now.” His answer, summarized: “No More Vietnams!”

In this piece in the Weekly Standard, Gelernter dispels the lies that lie at the heart of much of Liberal Orthdoxy about Vietnam, an Orthodoxy that continues to cloud the vision (and judgment) of those who so stridently oppose our efforts in Iraq, even as we gain the upper hand against Al Qaeda. (What is it that the WSJ uses as a footnote for this? Al Qaeda that has nothing to do with Iraq in Iraq that has nothing to do with Al Qaeda.)

Gelernter defines the lies behind liberal Vietnam mindedness:

THOSE WHO THINK that "no more Vietnams" means that cowardice is the better part of wisdom don't know their Vietnam history either. There are many important lies in circulation about Vietnam, like counterfeit $50 bills that keep resurfacing. Those who held these views during the war itself weren't liars; in most cases they were telling the truth as they understood it. But decades later, it requires an act of will to keep one's ignorance pristine.

Lie #1: We were wrong to fight the Vietnamese Communists in the first place; they only wanted what was best for their country. In Why We Were in Vietnam, Norman Podhoretz summarizes Vietnam after the Communist victory. He quotes the liberal New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, outspoken critic of the war, on its aftermath. "What Vietnam has given us instead of a bloodbath [is] a vast tide of human misery in southeast Asia." He quotes Truong Nhu Tang, minister of justice in the Provisional Revolutionary Government that ruled South Vietnam after the Americans were ordered by Congress to run away: "Never has any previous regime [previous to the Communists] brought such masses of people to such desperation. Not the military dictators, not the colonialists, not even the ancient Chinese overlords." Prominent South Vietnamese were thrown into prison and tortured with revoltingly inventive cruelty. Virtually the whole South Vietnamese army and government were herded into concentration camps. Tang fled Vietnam in 1979, one of untold thousands who put to sea in crowded, rickety boats. Anything to get free of Communist Vietnam, the workers' and peasants' paradise, Fonda-land by the Sea. In Vietnam, as everywhere else on earth, communism was another word for death.

Lie #2: The Vietnam war was unwinnable. We had no business sending our men to a war they were bound to lose. The Communist Vietcong launched their first major coordinated offensive in January 1968--the "Tet offensive." "Tet was a military disaster for Hanoi," writes the historian Derek Leebaert. "Intended to destroy South Vietnamese officialdom and spark a popular uprising, Tet ironically had more of an effect in turning South Vietnam's people against the North." But America had been fighting ineffectively. In May 1968, Creighton Abrams replaced William Westmoreland as supreme American commander in Vietnam and U.S. strategy snapped to, immediately. With Abrams in charge, the war "was being won on the ground," writes the historian Lewis Sorley, "even as it was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress." The British counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson commented on America's "Christmas bombing" campaign of 1972, which devastated the North: "You had won the war. It was over." American anti-warriors insisted on losing it anyway.

Lie #3: As the American people learned the facts, they turned against the war and forced America's withdrawal from Vietnam. Actually, Americans continued to support the war nearly until the end. The 1972 presidential election was a referendum on the war; "Come home, America!" said the antiwar Democrat George McGovern--and he lost to Richard Nixon in a landslide. Of all U.S. population segments, 18-to-24-year-old men--who were subject to the draft, who did the fighting--were consistently the war's strongest supporters. "It was not the American people which lost its stomach," writes historian Paul Johnson, "it was the American leadership."

Lie #4: The real heroes of Vietnam were the protesters and draft-resisters who forced America to give up a disastrously wrong policy. If this was heroism, it was dirt cheap heroism. While college students paraded and protested and whooped it up, America's working classes bore the brunt of the fighting, bleeding, and dying. Around 80 percent of the 2.5 million enlisted men who fought in Vietnam came from poor or working class families. They lacked the law-breaking and draft-evading skills that their better-educated countrymen could draw on. And they lacked the heart to say no when their country called. Reread Norman Mailer's gorgeously written yet (like the smell of marijuana) faintly disgusting Armies of the Night, about a massive antiwar march on the Pentagon. You will learn or relearn all about the passionate ingenuity of left-wing lawyers fighting for clients they admired--who were innately superior to the law but scared of the consequences when they broke it.

This last lie, that of who the real heroes of Vietnam were, is probably the most offensive. This was the lie that the Swift Boat veterans tried to scuttle. This is the lie that propels so much of anti-Iraqi War criticism as well.

Check out military participation and service in Blue States versus Red. I am well familiar with the levels of participation in the Guard and Reserves as it applies to Red-State-Blue-State comparisons.

This is much like the famous Pauline Kael quote in response (to the election of Ronald Reagan, I believe), “How could he have won? Not one person I know voted for him.”

Likewise, those who so ardently believe the lies of their Orthodoxy on Vietnam, largely can claim to have never served in the Armed Forces, nor do they have family members in the military, nor do they have friends who serve.

It’s just not their bag, man.

Donald Sensing, presumably posting for the last time at One Hand Clapping, indicates he’s hanging up the solo blog, and henceforth posting as part of the terrific blogoperation at Winds of Change. (As an example of how stellar that organization is, check out the ongoing debates sparked by this thread.)

This is the comment I posted to the good Reverend, who adds fine credentials of his own to the already impressive stature of the WoC crew.

---

Rev. Sensing,

Thanks for your honest post, and the many fine posts of your’s I've been blessed to read. God bless your son as he serves his country, as well.

Your post was well timed. I am back from OIF III now 6 months, and dismayed that I cannot find the time I once had, separated from family, friends and civilian employment while in Iraq.

I know God gave me this time to write, to practice, to blog, to connect with like minded writers online, and to build confidence and be part of something bigger than just me. But now, it seems that I keep coming up against the "I have something better for you" kind of awareness.

I read a posting that said something along the lines of "when I started blogging, it was to get myself writing. Now, I realize blogging KEEPS me from writing."

Now I read your very astute observation that group blogs will likely dominate. (And Winds of Change is SO exceptionally good, I'm jealous.)

I must say your post has been part of what I think I am supposed to hear at this time. I think I will miss this great passion, and I was thrilled to be a part of it all at this time, but "there is a season" as the writer of Ecclesiastes says...

One post-script, since you mentioned the MILBLOGGER Conference. It struck me, that aside from 2 or 3 close companions in my OIF unit, in the years ahead I will feel closest comraderie with other MILBLOGGERs than the members of my Guard unit. That's where my passion was, that's where my heart was, that's the thing I thought of as my greatest contribution to our fight against terrorism.

Sigh. “This too shall pass” applies as well to times of accomplishment and purpose, as to times of grief and mourning.

Peter Suderman writes a moving criticism of movie criticism in National Review Online.

He notes the objections to the making of Flight 93, even the neutrality and “just the facts” treatment of this watershed-of-watershed events in critics such as Ron Rosenbaum, Dana Stevens, Matt Zoller-Seitz, Stephanie Zacharek, and Manohla Dargis. Suderman considers this reaction, and thinks he knows from whence this criticism comes:

Part of this reaction might be chalked up to simple critical contrarianism. There is a tendency amongst critics to want to make bold, standoffish statements, as few critics make names for themselves by falling in line with the consensus.

But I wonder if there might be something else at work, a frustration that many left-leaning critics rarely face: how to deal with a well-made film that is also deeply conservative in its values. United 93 doesn’t follow the rules of the politically correct playbook: The heroes are ordinary Americans, mostly white, who say prayers and love their families. They are lead by strong, quick-thinking males who understand that it is their duty as men to take violent, physical action against foreign attackers. The villains are religiously motivated Islamic terrorists who unabashedly celebrate news of the World Trade Center’s destruction and cry “In the name of God!” while slitting a flight attendant’s throat. A European-accented passenger who insists on negotiating is tackled when he tries to warn the terrorists of the other passengers’ plan to storm the cabin. 

But for once, there can be no complaints about diversity, about male dominance, about “unbalanced” portrayals of foreign terrorists or any of the left’s other pet causes, because what the film shows is exactly what happened.

Who could mistake the left’s abhorrence of all things patriotic, righteously angry, or morally absolute, as a deep desire to find a more perfect truth? What they can’t handle is precisely that which is true, to paraphrase a famous Jack Nicholson film character. Thye don’t want to sit uncomfortably in their seats, while acts of pure and unmitigated evil are dramatized, and make so much of their notions of moral relativity, for the lies and self-deceptions they are.

Once upon a time the search for truth, even deeper and complex ones, was highly praised and even revered, as the most noblest of pursuits by those higher educated and wiser souls.

Not so in Post-9/11 America. There are those who fervently desire that we fall back to sleep. As the twilight gathers, and many nod off, I am deeply afraid that they will yet achieve their heart’s desire. It is long past time for us to revisit the carnage, retell the stories, build the memorials, and restoke the furnace of our resolve.

Suderman concludes:

Asking why this film was made is like asking why we go to funerals, why we visit gravesites, why we build monuments. We do it because we need to remember. We do it as a public expression of grief. We do it to honor the dead. We do it because we must.

The strength of our enemies may wane, but their fury will not be quenched until they achieve their violent aims, or meet a violent end. The passengers of Flight 93 learned this lesson, perhaps first of any of us, on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette compares some incredible in-depth reporting in the Army Times with a take on the same subject by the NY Times.

A selection from the Army Times article, describing Task Force 145:

The job of hunting Zarqawi and rolling up his al-Qaida in Iraq network falls to Task Force 145, which is made up of the most elite U.S. and British special operations forces, and whose headquarters is in Balad.

The U.S. forces are drawn from units under Joint Special Operations Command at Pope Air Force Base, N.C. These include the military’s two “direct action” special mission units — the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, known as Delta Force, and the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, sometimes known by its cover name, Naval Special Warfare Development Group; the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and 75th Ranger Regiment; and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.

After Saddam Hussein’s fall, the first order of business for the JSOC forces was capturing or killing the 55 individuals on the “deck of cards” that depicted the regime’s senior officials. Delta’s C Squadron was at the heart of the task force that captured Saddam in December 2003.

The emergence of Zarqawi and his al-Qaida in Iraq group as a major threat to Iraq’s stability then gave JSOC a new priority. As the war in Iraq has ground on, and with Zarqawi still on the loose, the JSOC force in Iraq has grown steadily and undergone several name changes. TF 121 and TF 626 were two previous incarnations.

TF 145 is divided into four subordinate task forces in Iraq:

• Task Force West, organized around a SEAL Team 6 squadron with Rangers in support.

• Task Force Central, organized around a Delta squadron with Rangers in support.

• Task Force North, organized around a Ranger battalion combined with a small Delta element.

• Task Force Black, organized around a British Special Air Service “saber squadron,” with British paratroopers from the Special Forces Support Group in support.

Although Army Lt. Gen. Stan McChrystal, JSOC commander, spends much of his time in Iraq, his job there is to coordinate with Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of Central Command, and other senior leaders. The man in charge of TF 145 is the Delta Force commander, a colonel Military Times agreed not to name.

That’s more detail, newsworthy, remarkable on-background information than has appeared in a year’s worth of New York Times reporting. Do you doubt me? Here’s what the NY Times saw fit to print, following a headline “U.S. Says Guerrillas Were Killed In Raids:”

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 30 — The United States military said Sunday that more than 20 guerrillas it identified as foreign fighters had been killed in recent raids south of Baghdad that were aimed at cutting down on insurgent attacks in the capital.

Insurgents have used the region in and around Yusifiya, a town 10 miles south of Baghdad that has long served as a base for Sunni Arab extremists, as a starting point for recent suicide attacks in Baghdad, the military said in a statement. Some of those killed in the raids over the past few weeks were wearing explosive vests, the military said.

The nationalities of the insurgents have often been difficult to determine, officials said, although they added that most of the dead appeared to be from outside Iraq. Iraqi soldiers have also participated in the raids.

Lush farmland and palm trees allow insurgents to disappear easily in the region, known as the Triangle of Death. Taming the area is central to security in Baghdad, whose southern edge, particularly the suburb of Dawra, has become so violent that many residents are afraid to leave their houses.

Ugh, that’s enough. Note as Greyhawk does the need to caveat the report by making it clear this information is alleged by the US Military. Note too the desire to add some jungle-evoking environmentals. (As to points of fact, I seriously doubt anyone but the NY Times in full-Vietnam Quagmire mode would refer to any rural area in Iraq as “lush farmland.”)

If you sullied your attention to actually read the rest of the NY Times piece, by all means, cleanse the mental pallet with a visit to Newsweek, also linked by Greyhawk. (Yes, that same Newsweek. Go figure.) The Newsweek piece is headlined, “Osama Needs More Mud Huts.”

Imagine if a few months after September 11 someone had said to you, "Five years from now, in the space of a single week, Osama bin Laden will issue a new call for worldwide jihad, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq will threaten a brutal, endless war, and there will be two terror attacks in Egypt." Chances are you would have been quite unnerved. Yet the most striking aspect of last week's news was the reaction to it—very little.

Radical Islamic terror made big, violent and scary moves and—whether you judge it by media coverage, stock-market movements or international responses—the world yawned.

Al Qaeda Central, by which I mean the dwindling band of brothers on the Afghan-Pakistani border, appears to have turned into a communications company. It's capable of producing the occasional jihadist cassette, but not actual jihad. I know it's risky to say this, as Qaeda leaders may be quietly planning some brilliant, large-scale attack. But the fact that they have not been able to do one of their trademark blasts for five years is significant in itself.

Looks like Terror Central’s facing tough times. Forget goods news versus bad news, how about what it all means? Plenty of material available for that.