From GrouchyOldCripple:
Jesse Jackson has added former Chicago Democrat Congressman
Mel Reynolds to Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's payroll. Reynolds was among the 176 criminals excused in President Clinton's last-minute forgiveness spree. Reynolds received a commutation of his six-and-a-half-year federal sentence for 15 convictions of wire fraud, bank fraud, and lies to the Federal Election Commission. He is more notorious, however, for concurrently serving five years for sleeping with an underage campaign volunteer.
This is a first in American politics:
An ex-congressman who had sex with a subordinate...
won clemency from a president who had sex with a subordinate...
then was hired by a clergyman who had sex with a subordinate.
On March 28, 2006, the four co-captains of the Duke lacrosse team accused of gang-raping an exotic dancer met with university president Richard Brodhead. One of the captains, David Evans, emotionally protested that the team was innocent and apologized for the misbegotten stripper party. "Brodhead's eyes filled with tears," write Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson in their new book on the case, "Until Proven Innocent" (420 pages. Thomas Dunne Books. $26.95). Brodhead "said that the captains should think of how difficult it had been for him." The misbehavior of the players, said Duke's president, "had put him in a terrible position." Listening to Brodhead, Robert Ekstrand, a lawyer representing the captains and many of their teammates, "felt his blood starting to boil," write Taylor and Johnson. "Here, he thought, is a comfortable university president wallowing in self-pity in front of four students who are in grave danger of being falsely indicted on charges of gang rape, punishable by decades in prison."
Nifong, the Durham D.A. (who was held in criminal contempt of court last week for lying to a judge while pursuing the case and sentenced to a day in jail), is depicted as a bully and blowhard.
By and large, the press did not let the facts get in the way of a good race-class-sex-violence morality play.
But their most biting scorn is aimed at the "academic McCarthyism" that they say has infected top-rated American universities like Duke. The authors make the Duke faculty look at once ridiculous and craven. For months, not one of the university's nearly 500-member faculty of arts and sciences stood up to question the rush to judgment against the lacrosse team.
The only group that shows any common sense in "Until Proven Innocent" is the student body. Aside from a few noisy activists who assumed the players were guilty, Duke undergrads mostly overlooked the political correctness of their professors.
#1
As a proud member of the boomer generation, I resent that remark about the boomers dying off. It is uncalled for. There is no reason to wish death on an entire generation just because of the actions of a few.
I, too, am a boomer, and this is the most spoiled, egotistical, and self centered group of people since the French revolution ended the French nobility.
This country could have avoided a lot of problems if the "Greatest Generation" did a better job of raising kids.
#4
The problem was the "greatest generation" was tired and only want the best for their kids. But they couldn't handle education the kids were getting and were stunned that the kids turned out the way they did from that education by a solidedly "pink" teacher's union that was growing more and more radical day by day. I remember my university was haunted by left-wing faculty and that was 1961-1965. My dad was career USAF officer and raised me in a military fashion and it probably saved me from having the usual liberal to conservative epiphany in my 40's. I was already there.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/05/2007 16:14 Comments ||
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#5
There are a lot of us boomers who were raised by good parents. I work with a lot of them. It seems the more rural (in general) the less left-leaning spoiled liberals we are.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/05/2007 16:21 Comments ||
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#6
A spoiled, highly vocal, plurality of that generation, now down to a core of idiots, as the rest responded to the various muggings of reality. Most of y'all are delightful, and have done your best to represent your generation under very trying circumstances.
Way too many of this group are examples of everything bad ever written about us. The only thing that may help is that the loser brigade didn't do much in the way of breeding for all their crap about free love.
To that point about eddication and pinko unions, my parents pulled out of NYC for NJ 50 years ago to get away from the NYC PS system. Luckily I got pretty much through school (pre-college) before NJ fell to the onslaught.
At least, that's the only logical interpretation I have to give this characterization of what the country will be if Hillary Clinton is elected president:
Yesterday, before hundreds of union members and their families at a Labor Day picnic in Sioux City, Iowa, Mrs. Clinton suggested one role for her husband should she be elected: repairing the country's reputation in the world after what the Clintons and other critics charge is the damage done during the Bush years.
"The day I'm elected," she said, "I'm going to be asking distinguished Americans -- including my husband -- of both parties, to start traveling around the world, and not just talking to governments and leaders, but talking directly to people and telling them that America is back."
Clearly, she's trying to appeal to the people who want to erase the traumatic memory 9/11 (and somehow hoping that the first 9/11 attack will be forgotten, along with Khobar Towers, Kenya, Tanzania, and the U.S.S. Cole). I've criticized the TV remote mentality before, but I'm concerned right now with the idea that electing Hillary would bring America "back." I see three premises within the statement:
1. America is not here now;
2. America used to be here -- but only when "we" were in charge;
3. Because my husband is behind me and because we used to be America, electing me is the only way to bring America "back."
Isn't she confusing her identity with that of the country? Isn't that called megalomania?
Maybe, but maybe not. By Hillary's reasoning, there are two Clintons who are synonymous what was once called "America," and I think megalomania is usually supposed to involve one person at a time.
I mean, I've heard of codependency, but I've never heard of a thing called "comegalomania." (There's no such word.)
Posted by: Mike ||
09/05/2007 06:36 ||
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#1
Hey! That's my gig. Back away from my rice bowl, Arkansas hillbillies.
#4
"The day I'm elected," she said, "I'm going to be asking distinguished Americans -- including my husband -- of both parties, to start traveling around the world, and not just talking to governments and leaders, but talking directly to people
Only thing I can figure, she wants Bill dead, this should do it nicely.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/05/2007 12:17 Comments ||
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#5
somewhat off topic, but there is a pic of Hillary taken when she was a student at Wellsley - she actually looks quite good.
Just goes to prove Lincoln's observation that "everyone over forty is responsible for what he looks like".
#7
"there is a pic of Hillary taken when she was a student at Wellsley - she actually looks quite good."
Thats because its a head shot and not an ankle shot.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/05/2007 16:17 Comments ||
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#8
Great. Jimmie and Bill's Excellent Adventure. Travelling the world, shoveling out cash and sucking up to the media.
DoDo, you forgot mollycoddling and praising every two bit thug dictator they can find, supporting evil and criticizing good, working for total globalization and the abolition of free market economies, and of course, when they have some slack time, castigating Israel morning noon and night.
Personally, Hillary, just between you and me, I kinda like it when the world "hates" us. Most of them have gone to hell in a handbasket, and their dislike shows me we still have hope of not going the same way.
In the Hell Hath No Fury sweepstakes, groups like MoveOn.org are gearing up to take on a new set of perceived traitors in their midst--Democrats who have acknowledged some success from the troop surge in Iraq.
Chief among the targets is Washington Congressman Brian Baird, whose indiscretion was recognizing progress on the ground, despite having initially opposed the surge and having opposed the war in the first place. After a recent trip to Iraq, Mr. Baird said: "One of the things that gets very little attention is that virtually every other country I visited says it would be a mistake to pull out now."
We hope he took his flak jacket home from Baghdad. MoveOn is rolling out an ad this week in Mr. Baird's Washington district, in which a former soldier tells of being shot at in 2003 by the Iraqis he had fought to liberate and calls America's continued presence in the country "wrong, immoral and irresponsible." What does this have to do with the wisdom--or lack thereof--of the current strategy? Nada, which tells you something about MoveOn's honesty.
The group doesn't aim to engage in debate, but to punish and silence Democrats who dare to think for themselves. . . .
Mr. Baird is so far showing no signs of backing down from his comments. In response to the MoveOn attacks, he said: "I believe I must speak and act based on what I believe is in the best interest of our nation regardless of political advertisements or partisan interests. Based on personal visits to the region, I believe the dynamics on the ground in Iraq are changing for the better and, while there are still multiple and serious challenges, and while the course is uncertain and dangerous, the changes I have seen warrant continued support of current actions through next spring." This guy is probably a political opponent of most of us here Rantburgers, but he's an honorable one, and he's to be commended for his honesty.
Nice to see some political backbone in Washington. Meanwhile, MoveOn and its billionaire donors are out to solidify their ideological control of the Democratic Party, even if that means denying what is actually happening inside Iraq.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/05/2007 06:20 ||
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#1
Mr. Baird said: "One of the things that gets very little attention is that virtually every other country I visited says it would be a mistake to pull out now."
First time I heard this, speak up Baird!
Posted by: Boss Craising2882 ||
09/05/2007 8:14 Comments ||
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#2
Unfortunately, Congressman Baird, in common with Members Pelosi, Murtha, and Hoyer, does not accept e-mail messages unless you are a constituent - even if they are short and congratulatory.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/05/2007 8:22 Comments ||
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#3
Just a reminder - do not buy Progressive auto insurance. Make sure you dump them if you have them. They, through their owner, is the biggest contributor to MoveOn and the other left wing 526s.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/05/2007 16:19 Comments ||
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It is becoming rather sickening to find that anyone wanting to make a quick buck or gain cheap publicity can do so simply by creating "revelations" relating to Muslim states like Iran and Pakistan. For us, the nuclear programme is the favourite whipping boy of the Western media and analysts since the Western world now clearly seems to be suffering from the trauma of having to deal with Pakistan possessing nuclear capability -- and that too a Muslim state which appears to outsiders to be constantly going through internal crises and which is still within the fold of the developing rather than the developed world.
It is interesting to note that whenever Pakistan faces domestic upheavals, along comes another attack on the nuclear front from some Western source or the other. Honestly, there is a ridiculous absurdity to these shenanigans from opportunistic Western sources. The latest trash -- for that is what it comes down to finally -- in this context has come in the form of a book entitled "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons: Pakistan's Nuclear Programme" which will come on the market next week.
Of course, if ever there was a deception in terms of nuclear trading it was the US assistance to Israel -- which still continues. The only nuclear trade that has been more secret has been India's acquisitions of, for example, krytrons, flash x-rays, maraging steel and so on, especially in the early sixties and seventies when India did not have the capability to produce all the nuts and bolts for its 1974 nuclear tests. But these are not topics for making a quick buck or for arousing the latent anti-Muslims sentiments still dormant within the souls of the Christian West!
As for the authors of this latest piece of trashy propaganda -- Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark -- their previous foray into writing books had nothing to do with nuclear or remotely related issues since the two books to their credit are entitled, The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasures, and The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade. But that hardly matters since they are inventing a story that will be bought by so-called Western security experts, a naive Western press and a Western audience that laps up any attack on Pakistan's nuclear programme and on Dr A Q Khan -- who certainly traumatised them by his audacious extrication of enrichment knowledge from within their midst. The truth is that the "facts" presented in the book, as seen in the extractions published in the British press, do not add up, the chronology's off track and the dots do not connect.
Extracts from the book, published in Britain's Sunday Times -- for whom the authors worked before they joined The Guardian -- show the authors asserting that Pakistan's nuclear programme is a threat to the security of the whole world because it can fall into the hands of "Islamic terrorists at any time." Such a tall claim, and with no hint of proof or even a logical argument to back it up. Just for the record, it would be more rational to fear the US nuclear capability since presently nuclear command authority in the US rests with President Bush who in his second inaugural address declared that he received his guidance from "beyond the heavens." Was it this guidance that led him to invade Iraq on false pretexts of WMD? What if this source of guidance becomes his raison d'etre for attacking other Muslim states? In contrast, Pakistan's nuclear command, control and communications are firmly in the hands of professionals.
There are also major contradictions including on the one hand claiming that President Musharraf had already been reducing Dr Khan's role in the nuclear programme and on the other declaring that it was all done under pressure from Bush -- and then going on to state that in fact the proliferation has still not stopped. Yet no proof or even linkage has been cited to support the last claim, except for a reference to a 2006 report by German Intelligence Service -- the BND -- that had declared that proliferation had not stopped. Now one only has to recall the BND being fooled by Iraq's so-called WMD in 2002-2003 to question the credibility of this "early warning" assessment which sounds more like a recycling of propaganda trash put out by the CIA and Mossad to a gullible consumer of such manufactured intelligence. Incidentally, of what crime is Dr Khan guilty apart from perhaps alleged corruption in terms of making personal financial gains? Anyhow, with indemnity perhaps becoming a formal part of our political landscape, will corruption be seen as a crime now?
One of the biggest canards of our time is the claim that Pakistan's arsenal is "unsecured" and vulnerable to terrorists. They cite the views expressed by 100 so-called US foreign policy experts in a poll conducted by the Centre for American Progress and the Carnegie Endowment that Pakistan posed the greatest nuclear threat to the world. Well, would they have been honest enough to admit that their own country posed the greatest nuclear and conventional threat to the globe? But this tirade against Pakistan is a desperate move by Americans to deflect attention away from the US destruction of the non-proliferation regime as a result of its nuclear deal with India. This deal violates US obligations under the NPT and NPT Agreements of 1995 and 2000. Attacking Pakistan also deflects attention away from US failures in Iraq and elsewhere, but especially in Afghanistan.
Even at the level of micro details of the now concluded Libya-A Q Khan links, the authors are unclear or wrong about the facts on the ground. For instance it was Libya that revealed all on its nuclear ambitions to the US in return for a political, economic and strategic deal so there is little for the CIA to claim as its success. But worse is the authors' lack of basic nuclear knowledge. For instance, they refer to the churning out of "cheap centrifuge components" whereas in reality centrifuges are high precision machines and cheap ones will not work. Even India has not yet perfected uranium enrichment and had to go the plutonium route for its tests of 1974 and 1998, nor has Japan.
Perhaps the most ludicrous assertion by the authors is their claim to finding a range of materials and components still being procured by Pakistan that "clearly exceed" what Pakistan needs for its domestic nuclear programme. Now that is presumptuous of the authors to assume that they know what is adequate for Pakistan. Trash at its peak! But then here is a new growth industry in the West that hypes the WMD threat, now diversified into an "Islamic nuclear threat". The reality of Pakistan's cooperation with the international community, including assisting the IAEA on Iran and Libya, and Pakistan's publicly revealed and clear cut command and control mechanisms as well as its export control laws do not sit well with this hype industry and propagandist trash.
We are also to blame. We tolerate this abuse and continue to give explanations in a defensive mode. This must stop. Although presently we are totally immersed in critical domestic issues, let us not allow these to be used by external forces to undermine our capabilities and national assets, including nuclear assets. Perhaps if we looked inwards to our own people rather than to external players to decide our political fate, we would keep the latter's access and influence limited and more circumspect.
The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad
Posted by: john frum ||
09/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
GUARDIAN > Moud's 3000 centrifuges > iff Iran does continue to add centrifuges, Iran may have a working nuke bomb in circa one year. It'll be too late then to stop the techs transfer = techs proliferation to Radical Islam, no matter how many times Iran gets bombed.
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2007 7:58 Comments ||
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But these are not topics for making a quick buck or for arousing the latent anti-Muslims sentiments still dormant within the souls of the Christian West!
A quick reminder that Islam and Islam alone leads the pack in "arousing the latent anti-Muslims sentiments still dormant within the souls of the Christian West". No one else could possibly exceed Islam's ability to simultaneously antagonize and unite this world's other religions against all Muslims.
Pakistan's nuclear programme is a threat to the security of the whole world because it can fall into the hands of "Islamic terrorists at any time." Such a tall claim, and with no hint of proof or even a logical argument to back it up.
Some assumptions are so blindingly obvious that proof is an afterthought. Regarding "a logical argument to back it up", I'd maintain that disproof of this notion is of far greater importance and much less likely to occur.
Just for the record, it would be more rational to fear the US nuclear capability
Yes but, quite obviously, you do not. Otherwise Pakistan might have distinct second thoughts about retribution over its support of terrorism. Instead, you make yourselves the ideal candidate for nuclear annihilation precisely because of your irresponsible handling of atomic weapons technology.
Well, would they have been honest enough to admit that their own country posed the greatest nuclear and conventional threat to the globe?
If by "the globe", you really mean "Islam", then you're damned right that we pose a significant threat. The only unexpected aspect of this situation is how Islam blithely disregards the imminent danger that they place themselves in by so constantly antagonizing the West.
Trash at its peak!
Dang! Barely even wiggled the old Juche Spittlometer.
#7
"Latent anti-muslim sentiments still dormant within the souls of the Christian west"???
Awfully wordy, and dead flat WRONG! Trust me, Shireen Mazari, it's not latent, and it's not DORMANT. Keep up with your shit, and you'll soon see how non-dormant it is.
#4
Whether it is true or not, Global Warming shouldn't be driving policy as much as long term energy independence and less noise and air pollution.
The next big thing will be electric cars. Five years from now y'all be laughing that anyone would consider a hybrid. The Lithium Titanate battery from Altair NanoSafe is a good solution that works. There may be better solutions. Last year we had a deficit to OPEC for 105 billion dollars. I don't have to have Al Gore convince me that's real.
#5
You mean I can start selling refrigerators to eskimos, again?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/05/2007 16:39 Comments ||
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#6
The reason may change, but the goal will not. They'll find another excuse to demand that people surrender their cars, A/C, flush toilets, air travel and everything else that makes living in the first world more desirable than living in the third.
#7
True, but THEY won't "surrender their cars, A/C, flush toilets, air travel and everything else that makes living in the first world more desirable than living in the third."
#9
OTOH, DRUDGE [paraphrased]> GLOBAL WARMING may increase risks to human heart. But-t-t, also on DRUDGE > McDonalds of JAPAN offering 1/2-priced BIG MACS in suppor of anti-Global Warming fundraising. IOW, iff you have to die being cooked by the Sun, die happy eating Big Macs D ***ng it.
* ION, YAHOO NEWS > COSMIC COLLISION between two asteroids may had killed off the Dinos. KEY LINE -EARTH MAY ONLY BE IN THE TAIL-END of a 65.0 Miyuhns-years old ongoing meteor shower. D ***ng it, 1960's-70's pre-Oliver Stone Oliver Stone + AEROSMITH, etc. say that 105-mile versus 40-mile colliding asteroids are NOT TEXAS/TEHAS-SIZED rocks - think benchmark > 1000-miles wide, people. NOT ONE, BUT SEVERAL, ESCALATORY GLOBAL EVENTS.
See that silver lining? That won't do, we need a black cloud.
By Colin Kahl, Shawn Brimley
Backing Sunni groups is reaping big gains on the ground in Iraq, but it may be unleashing forces the U.S. military cannot control.
When the two most powerful Americans in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, testify before Congress next week, expect a lot of debate over whether Iraq has met Congresss benchmarks for success. But dont be fooled. The most important improvements in Iraq have little to do with the U.S. troop surge and even less to do with the central government. In Anbar province, once the focal point of Sunni rebellion, tribal and insurgent leaders are cooperating with U.S. forces. This so-called Anbar Awakening has resulted in a dramatic reduction in attacks and has raised the prospect that large numbers of U.S. troops may be able to leave the province in the near term. But although its true that backing Sunni groups is reaping big gains, the success of that strategy has little to do with the surge and, more importantly, if poorly managed may unleash forces that undermine the ultimate goal in Iraq.
Poor Iraq, it's doomed, just as it was in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 ...
It is fast becoming conventional wisdom, even among leading Democrats, that the surge is helping bring large numbers of Sunni sheikhs and former insurgents into the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq.
Of course not, it would be better if they were still shootin' at us ...
But this grassroots progress is not the result of extra troops. Instead, it is the result of Sunni outrage over atrocities committed by al Qaeda in tribal areasgrievances that predate the surge.
We don't have to take credit for turning the Sunnis, we just have to use it intelligently.
Sunni groups also want to reverse their current marginalization and position themselves vis-à-vis their Shiite counterparts, and Iran, in the event of a U.S. withdrawal. It is enemy-of-my-enemy logic, not a change of heart or U.S. troop increases, that is driving Sunni cooperation.
The smart people driving policy know this, and they don't bother with Newsweek ...
Nevertheless, the United States is now applying the Anbar model in Babil, Baghdad, Diyala, Salah al-Din, and elsewhere across the country. The hope is apparently that local cease-fires and new auxiliary security forces charged with going after terrorists and sectarian death squads will produce political reconciliation from the bottom up, even as national efforts from the top down have stalled. Or, as U.S. President George W. Bush recently put it, As reconciliation occurs in local communities across Iraq, it will help create conditions for reconciliation in Baghdad.
That's the plan, and one that has worked in most successful counter-insurgency plans. The amazing part isn't that this is working, the amazing part is the stupidity we displayed in 2005 and early 2006 thinking that 'search and destroy' would work. Never has, never will. 'Clear and hold' worked in Malaya, Kenya, Algeria and Vietnam even when the politicians failed.
Any opportunity for improved security in Iraq should of course be seized.
Hey, thanks for that.
Engaging Sunnis provides one possible bridge to a substantial withdrawal of U.S. forces. But this strategy also comes with risks. U.S. cooperation with Sunni groups is already fueling Shiite fears in ways that may compromise the overall reconciliation effort. Thanks to a long history of repression under Saddam Hussein and an endless series of large-scale bombings by Sunni insurgents since 2003, Iraqs Shiites are a majority with a minority complex. They blame the Sunnis for Iraqs ongoing violence and fear a return to Sunni tyranny despite their demographic dominance. And a troubling number of them downplay sectarian murder by Shiite militias as self-defense.
Which we can use. We tell the Sunnis: 'behave and work with us or we'll let the Shi'a have at you'. We tell the Shi'a: 'behave and work with us or the Sunnis will slip out of control and back to the old ways'. We tell the Kurds: 'behave and work with us or the others will come at you again'.
When the United States courts Sunni militants, this fear and hyperbole only becomes magnified. Even if Shiite fears are misplaced, perception in Iraq is reality. By exacerbating Shiite anxieties, the U.S.-Sunni lovefest jeopardizes the United States ability to get Shiite politicians to take steps toward political reconciliation.
Which is why we're implementing a magic word: 'balance'. We're working with all sides, and we're making it clear to the moderate Shi'a the advantages of going along with us. Seems to be working, as the middle south of the country, heavily Shi'a, is increasingly quiet.
It is also conceivable that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will judge U.S. aid to Sunni militias so intolerable that he demands a U.S. departure and turns to Iran or Syria for patronage.
In which case he'll be the ex-prime minister in about five minutes. One of the advantages of being the 'Great Satan' is that every so often you can act like one.
And this is to say nothing of another danger: Sunni blowback. The U.S. militarys desperate effort to destroy al Qaeda in Iraq also empowers Sunni groups that may one day further escalate the civil war, topple the current government, or turn their guns against the United States. Todays saviors could very easily become tomorrows enemy.
The authors fail to notice one condition for the Sunni tribes to get our help: biometrics. Every single new Sunni soldier, police officer, auxiliary officer and gun-boy is fingerprinted, photographed and genotyped. Who do you think has full, complete control of that database?
Any successful strategy in Iraq must ensure that the sum of local initiatives will add up to a stable and lasting peace. Pulling this off will be tough.
If it were easy we'd be done already.
Efforts to build up local Sunni militias must be calibrated so that tribal leaders are strong enough to feel secure and fight al Qaeda, but weak enough to ensure they cannot topple the central government.
Hence our effort with biometrics, and that we're giving Sunni tribal auxiliaries rifles but not howitzers.
Similar caution should be exercised when applying the Anbar model in mixed Sunni-Shiite areas or within stranded islands of Sunni minority populations, including several neighborhoods in Baghdad.
The authors miss how important tribal affiliations are even in the urban areas. If the chiefs go along, their members in Baghdad will cooperate.
Nonsectarian divisions of the Iraqi Army, rather than local Sunni militias, should police these areas. And the number of embedded American advisors mentoring Sunni forces and monitoring human rights abuses must increase.
So we need more troops? And for a longer time period?
Money will be another key factor to any successful strategy. Currently, most payments to Sunni groups come from the U.S. military. Thats a mistake. Arrangements to pay Sunnis through Iraqs central government are a vital next step to assuaging Shiite fears and deterring Sunni troublemaking.
Except that the central government couldn't buy an egg from a henhouse. That's been one of their major problems. We'll be the paymaster for now, thanks, with the ability to control when and to whom the money is disbursed.
Reconciliation in Iraq will remain a distant star well into the foreseeable future. In the meantime, progress toward that goal requires seizing the enormous opportunity presented by engaging Sunnis, while navigating the danger this very strategy poses. How this delicate balancing act will be achieved is the central question that should be posited to Petraeus and Crocker. And their answer is the true benchmark against which the current U.S. strategy in Iraq should be measured.
Colin Kahl is assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University.
Shawn Brimley is the Bacevich fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/05/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
HOTAIR > Permanent bases for US [Allied] milfors hinted at. Ditto on FREEREPUBLIC but for the Philippines???
#4
As an aside, I wonder if consideration has been given to the idea of returning Sunni refugees who have fled Iraq?
That is, about half the Sunnis who used to live there have left the country. Could the US use their return to both stabilize Iraq and keep the Iranians out?
If it was done in an organized manner, with returnees being screened for known offenders, and with the help of those countries where they have gone, it might prove advantageous.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/05/2007 12:36 Comments ||
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If this had happened with a Democratic president at the helm the MSM would be referring to it as "successfully winning hearts and minds".
We have not given the Sadrists free rein and we have been killing a lot of AQI so we can not be accused of caving on our core principles. Cooperation with the right locals makes all the difference. Clearly Iraq's political situation is rapidly improving at the grassroots level but how long will it be before this manifests at the highest levels?
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been waging war against America in Iraq from the very first days of U.S. military operations against Saddam Hussein. And yet, until just recently, no one in the U.S. government has been willing to acknowledge this openly.
Iran began planning operations to undermine an eventual U.S. invasion of Iraq many months before U.S. military forces arrived in the region in late 2002.
As I will reveal in my upcoming book, Shadow Warriors, one aspect of this forward-looking Iranian planning became apparent as U.S. troops were rolling toward Baghdad.
Whereas the United States was still relying on a Commando Solo aircraft to beam crude Arabic-language radio programming into Iraq, the Iranians unrolled a whole series of slick, Arabic language television stations that blanketed the entire country with anti-U.S. propaganda.
The effect on Iraqi public opinion was devastating. At one point, Iran had 42 radio and TV stations in Arabic beaming into Iraq, whereas the U.S.-led coalition had just one.
A new report jointly sponsored by the Weekly Standard and the Institute for the Study of War, released last week, provides extraordinary new details of Irans propaganda, intelligence, and military offensive against the U.S. presence in Iraq since those early days of the war.
Kimberly Kagan has done yeomans work in pulling together information released in dribs and drabs in recent months by U.S. military spokesmen in Iraq.
Here are just a few of the main points she covers in great detail in this dense 32 page report:
Iran is using Hezbollah to train Iraqi terrorists, sending top Hezbollah operatives into Iraq periodically to ensure hands-on management of their terror protégés;
Iran has set up training camps near Tehran where they regularly graduate classes of between 20-70 terrorists, who then return to Iraq as a self-contained network to carry out terrorist operations against U.S. military and Iraqi targets;
The Revolutionary Guards Qods Force is running operations in Iraq through a network of secret cells within Shia militias, whose agents assassinate key Iraqi leaders, run death squads, infiltrate government ministries, and distribute weaponry to other insurgents.
Iran is also working with Sunni terrorist groups, include al Qaeda in Iraq and an Ansar al Islam, and has been terrorists from both groups at special camps inside Iran.
This deadly litany of Iranian actions leaves no doubt about the intentions of Irans leaders.
They aim to defeat us in Iraq. Its as simple as that. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2007 07:59 ||
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A strong military principle is that you should use the most effective tactic against your enemy, NOT the tactic that gives you the most emotional satisfaction.
They are rarely the same.
Emotional gratification, when war is concerned, is for civilians who at a safe enough distance from the fighting that they cannot interfere with it.
In this case, only our experts in the field know how much Iran is bleeding, militarily and financially, by sending its personnel to Iraq to die. Every day they become weaker, and without any measurable gain.
Certainly, at some point, if not already, we may decide to take the battle to them, but that decision will be made in as cold and calculating a manner as is possible.
While being squeezed out of the global markets because of sanctions imposed by the UN, Iran's banks have landed new business opportunities in Lebanon. Operating through front men and companies, they are financing land purchases that could, in time, redraw Lebanon's complex ethnic and religious map.
Soon after last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic set up a "Lebanon Committee" ostensibly to rebuild Shi'ite areas damaged during the fighting. This started with a $250 million "Islamic gift", distributed by Hezbollah among its supporters. However, those who received the cash did not use it to rebuild their homes in Shi'ite villages south of the Litani River. When I visited the former war zone last spring, I was surprised to see that there was very little reconstruction work in Shi'ite villages close to the Israeli border.
Is Tehran developing a new strategy in which Lebanon south of the Litani would serve as a buffer zone in a future war against Israel? Until last year's war, the area was Hezbollah's stronghold and host to more than 90 per cent of its arsenal, including thousands of rockets and missiles. Now, however, Hezbollah, though still present, is not allowed to bear arms south of the Litani. More importantly, from Tehran's point of view, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is no longer able to maintain a presence there. Today, some 12,000 UN troops and almost as many men from the Lebanese regular army control the area. It is against that background that Tehran's new strategy makes sense.
The strategy pursues three goals.
First, it aims at creating a string of bases north of the Litani from which rocket and missiles could be launched against Israel. It would also enable the Revolutionary Guards and its Hezbollah allies to cut the route through which the central government in Beirut and/or the UN might send reinforcements to the south.
Second, acquiring land and building new villages in non-Shi'ite areas north of the Litani will provide territorial contiguity for the portion of the Shi'ite community loyal to Hezbollah and thus to the Islamic Republic. Tehran would be able to ferry aid and arms to its Lebanese allies through the Syrian border without having to cross areas controlled by other Lebanese sects. The state-owned Iranian Telecommunication Corporations is already building fibre-optic lines for internet, television and telephone networks out of control by the Lebanese government.
Finally, the new strategy could cut off part of the warrior-like Druze minority, some five per cent of Lebanon's population and currently the most dedicated supporters of democratization, from its traditional stronghold in Wadi Al Taym. The Christian community could also be divided, with its traditional Greek Orthodox stronghold, Marj Ayoun, cut off from Maronite and Orthodox villages in southern Beka'a Valley.
That this may be one aim of Tehran's strategy is corroborated by the fact that most of the land bought with Iranian money in recent months has been sold by Christian and Druze families, often at prices too attractive to refuse. The Iranian-financed land grab could also isolate the Sunni Muslim population in the disputed Shebaa Farms, still under Israeli occupation.
If the scheme is fully implemented, Lebanon's Shi'ite could end up as the only one of the country's 18 communities to have a contiguous area of their own from the Syrian border to the frontier with Israel, and passing by southern Beirut. That would give the Hezbollah, considered as a state within the Lebanese state, a clear territorial expression as well. A chunk of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah plus Gaza under Hamas control would form the two arms of a pincer that the Islamic Republic could use against Israel in case of a broader conflict in the region.
Iran's "buy Lebanon" drive affects other sectors of the economy. Pro-Iranian groups already own five of the eight television stations and two of the four top-selling newspapers in Lebanon. Add to this Hezbollah's rebuilt military machine, including some 2,000 new fighters, and the "state-within-the-state" would look like a fully-fledged state controlled by Tehran.
New strategy
Tehran's new strategy is strengthened by the fact that Shi'ites represent the fastest growing community in Lebanon. Most estimates indicate that Shi'ites, accounting for at least 35 per cent of the population and already the largest community in Lebanon, may achieve a demographic majority within the next decade.
Encouraged by special funds set up by Tehran, Shiite families produce more children than other Lebanese communities. At the same time, Shi'ites represent the only community gaining in numbers because of expatriates returning home, often from West Africa. Lebanon's other big communities, the Maronites and Sunni Muslims, are losing numbers due to smaller families and rising immigration. While giving the impression that a war against the United States may be imminent, Tehran appears to have assumed that President George W. Bush's administration, sailing towards the sunset, is in no position to take action. This, Tehran strategists believe, gives them time to fortify Iran's positions in Gaza and Lebanon as bridgeheads against Israel. The assumption is that, faced with the possibility of massive losses of life in Israel, no future US president would think of attacking Iran.
Having invested some $20 billion in Lebanon since the 1980s, Tehran appears to have opted for a long-term strategy there. This may help calm things down, especially as Lebanon moves towards a potentially explosive presidential election this month.
There is, however, one big question: Will Syria, Iran's indispensable ally in the region, also have an interest in calming things down in Lebanon? Traditionally, Syria has pursued a policy aimed at presenting itself as the only power capable of imposing stability on a chaotic Lebanon. If Tehran decides to buy Lebanon rather than grab it by the force of arms, Syria might find itself marginalized. That, in turn, might persuade the Syrians to reassess their ties to Tehran. But, that is another story.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/05/2007 00:00 ||
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Plan goes all to shit if Israel annexes all the way to the Litani and expels all who don't want to be part of Israel. Not too many rockets have the range to hit Israel proper from north of the Litani.
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2007 7:44 Comments ||
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"I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts--she needs none," Daniel Webster famously said in the Senate in 1830, extolling his home state. "There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves."
Veteran Boston political reporter Jon Keller also invites us to behold his native state . . . and shudder in dismay. In "The Bluest State," he argues that, although Massachusetts does not suffer alone from its notorious affection for liberalism, it is the incubator for "Massachusetts viruses" that infect the national Democratic Party. The viruses come in many forms: "addiction to tax revenues and a raging edifice complex couched in disrespect to wage earners; phony identity politics without real results for women and minorities; reflexive anti-Americanism in foreign affairs; vain indulgence in obnoxious political correctness; self-serving featherbedding; NIMBYism; authoritarian distortion of the balance of governmental power, all simmered in a broth of hypocritical paternalism." "I'm John Kerry, and I approve this simmering broth of hypocritical paternalism."
When Democrats fight off the viruses and run more centrist campaigns, Mr. Keller says, they can prosper, as they did in 2006. But the infection is always lurking--and could be the party's undoing next year. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
09/05/2007 06:17 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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While being squeezed out of the global markets because of sanctions imposed by the UN, Iran's banks have landed new business opportunities in Lebanon. Operating through front men and companies, they are financing land purchases that could, in time, redraw Lebanon's complex ethnic and religious map.
