Hitchens:

I continue to be amazed at the way in which so many liberals repeat the discredited mantra of the CIA to the effect that Saddam Hussein's regime was so "secular" that it not only did not collaborate, but axiomatically could not have collaborated with Islamists. If you can imagine a Hitler-Stalin pact (which, admittedly, a lot of American leftists still cannot), you can probably imagine collusion between discrepant factions with common interests.

In any case, the Saddam regime was not as "secular" as all that. The campaign of extermination waged in northern Iraq by Saddam's army was titled "Anfal" after a verse in the Quran that supposedly licenses total war. The words "Allahu Akbar" were placed on the Iraqi flag after the defeat in Kuwait. The Baath Party became the open patron of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine. The rhetoric of the Saddamist leadership was exclusively jihadist for the last decade, with special mosques built all over the country in honor of the regime. Now comes a document from the files of the Iraqi secret police, or Mukhabarat, dated March 28, 1992, and headed routinely, "In the Name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate." It is a straightforward listing of contacts and "assets," quite unsensational until it comes to the "Saudi front," where we find the name "Osama bin Ladin/he is well-known Saudi businessman, founder of Saudi opposition in Afghanistan, had connection with Syrian division." Of course, this is not a smoking gun.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Please make the bad man stop Mommy:

(CNN) -- A group of students at Florida State University is demanding that FSU's president ask Vice President Dick Cheney not to attack Sen. John Kerry or make a "political diatribe" Saturday when delivers the school's commencement address.

The demand comes after Cheney used a speech Monday at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri to sharply criticize the presumptive Democratic nominee's record, including votes against funding various weapons programs during his two decades in the Senate.

In a letter to FSU President Thomas Wetherell, the students characterized Cheney's speech in Missouri as "a nasty, personal attack" which "had no place in an official university setting."

The effort was organized by Tom Barcus, a member of FSU's College Democrats, and signed by about 130 people. The school is in Tallahassee, Florida.

Cheney is a laser when he speaks, no BS, right for the jugular. Suck it up, FSU, what would Bobby Bowden say? I hope that the majority of graduating students are tougher than this, if not, I will be forced to learn arabic and read the Koran in my latter years.

Bob Kerrey is a friggin' joke as is the 9/11 Commission:

WALK OUT: 9/11 COMMISSIONERS BOB KERREY AND LEE HAMILTON LEAVE IN MIDDLE OF BUSH/CHENEY TESTIMONY
Thu Apr 29 2004 18:24:41 ET

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney answered every question on Thursday from the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, a meeting that both the White House and the 9/11 commission had billed as historic.

The Oval Office session began at 9:30 a.m. and ended at 12:40 p.m., but two Democrat commission members -- Lee Hamilton, the vice chairman, and Bob Kerrey -- walked out before it was over!

The stunning walk out -- after Democrats had complained that Bush was not alloting enough time for questions -- has ignited talk throughout official Washington.

In a written statement, Kerrey said he left an hour early to attend a previously scheduled meeting with Senator Pete Domenici on Capitol Hill.

Kerrey: "My office has received several calls asking why I left the White House prior to the conclusion of the session with the President and the Vice President. The reason is I had a previously scheduled meeting with Senator Pete Domenici on Capitol Hill."

Kerrey explained to reporters: "Yeah, it's a little awkward to leave early. But the president certainly understood what we were doing."

Hamilton left Bush/Cheney 70 minutes early to meet with the Canadian Prime Minister.

They have gotten their face time and of course, today was not televised so why stay? Hell, Bob Kerrey is only auditioning for the VP slot anyway.

Now this is pretty cool:

Army scientists are working on a liquid body armor for clothing that stays flexible during normal use but can harden to stop a projectile when hit suddenly.

Researchers hope the liquid could be used in sleeves and pants, areas not protected by ballistic vests because they must stay flexible.

The liquid, hard particles suspended in a fluid, is soaked into layers of Kevlar, which holds it in place. Scientists recently had an archer shoot arrows at it to see how well the liquid boosted the strength of a Kevlar vest.

"Instead of the arrow going through the Kevlar, it is completely stopped by the Kevlar vest -- and sometimes just bounces right off," said Norman Wagner, a University of Delaware chemical engineering professor who is working on the project.

Vests treated with the liquid have also blocked stabs from an ice pick, and researchers are doing more tests to see if it can stop bullets or shrapnel, too.

The uses for this are limitless. God bless American ingenuity.

Near catastrophe in Jordan and the worlds press is...silent:

Jordanian authorities say that the death toll from a bomb and poison-gas attack they foiled this month could have reached 80,000. We guess the fact that most major media are barely covering this story means WMD isn't news anymore until there's a body count.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--the man cited by the Bush Administration as its strongest evidence of prewar links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and the current ringleader of anti-coalition terrorism in Iraq--may be behind the plot, which would be al Qaeda's first ever attempt to use chemical weapons. The targets included the U.S. Embassy in Amman. Yet as of yesterday, most news organizations hadn't probed the story, if at all, beyond the initial wire-service copy.

Perhaps the problem here is that covering this story might mean acknowledging that Tony Blair and George W. Bush have been exactly right to warn of the confluence of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Jordan's King Abdullah called it a "major, major operation" that would have "decapitated" his government. "Anyone who doubts the terrorists' desire to obtain and use these weapons only needs to look at this example," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

More details of the plot emerged Monday night with the dramatic broadcast on Jordanian television of confessions from the terror cell's leader and associates. The idea apparently was to crash trucks--fitted with special battering rams and filled with some 20 tons of explosives--through the gates of targets that included the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian Prime Minister's office and the national intelligence headquarters. The explosions notwithstanding, the real damage was reportedly to come from dispersing a toxic cloud of chemicals, which included nerve and blister agents.

Saddam had WMD, they had to go somewhere, most likely Syria. Why is the press largely ignoring this story?

The White House Correspondents Dinner (scroll down) is approaching , and damn, I didn't get an invite. Oh well, I'll just do important things like hang out with my family:

So you didn’t get invited to Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner? Don’t feel bad. More than 540 other people who wanted to join President Bush and 2,650 guests, including celebrities ranging from actor Ben Affleck to pollster John Zogby, at the Washington Hilton aren’t going either.

“It’s the worst ever this year,” said WHCA Executive Ddirector Julie Whiston, who has been in charge of the annual affair since 1991. “It’s been sold out every year I’ve been doing it, but this year, we had another 540 people who sent us checks, and many others who would have.”

At $175 a person, that’s $94,500 Whiston’s had to return.

The lucky attendees will dine on filet mignon and tilapia, be entertained by late-night talk-show host Jay Leno, hear a speech by Bush and get to gawk at, and maybe even have an intelligent conversation with, celebs such as Drew Barrymore, Drew Carey, Minnie Driver, Henry Kissinger or Meg Ryan.

Ron Hutcheson of Knight-Ridder Newspapers will take over the WHCA helm from the outgoing president, National Journal’s Carl Cannon. And Whiston will breath a huge sigh of relief Sunday.

I never thought I'd see intelligent conversation, coupled with Drew Barrymore and Meg Ryan, in the same sentence. Kind of oxymoronic if you ask me.

Glenn has alot on the Nightline/Ted Koppel reading of the names of the men and women who've died in Iraq:

Koppel, also in the announcement, acknowledged that Memorial Day might have been "the most logical occasion" to do the program. Ya think?

"But we felt that the impact would actually be greater on a day when the entire nation is not focused on war dead," he said.

Ah yes, and, of course, Memorial Day falls outside the May sweeps, when viewer levels are used by the networks to set advertising rates. Memorial Day is also traditionally a day of very low television viewing. He forgot to mention that stuff.

Sievers and others we spoke with at ABC News insisted they did not realize that the May sweeps start tomorrow.

Emphasis mine. Why would they leave out the names of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Oh right, they were fighting in a "multilateral war" that ABC approved of. What a friggin' disgrace.

Lileks:

"Go back and get the file footage," said John Kerry.

He was on "Good Morning America," sorting out whether he threw over the White House fence his medals, his ribbons, someone else's medals, someone else's ribbons, or a combination of the above mixed with some Cracker Jack prizes. How to clear things up? In a peeved and hectoring voice, Kerry told the interviewer to "go back and get the file footage."

Hmm. This would be the film of a grim, long-faced young man with ultra-'70s hair hurling some symbols of military honor at the White House. That's the sort of image the opposition usually puts in the October negative ads. Particularly when the nation is at war and soldiers are in vogue.

Kerry wants us all to see it in prime time. He seems to think it's something we want in a president.

It would impress those who abhor American power, who think that Vietnam turned into Sunny Candyland the moment the United States got out and let Ho Chi Minh's minions poke everyone into the camps. But it reminds others that once we cut and run -- and that guys like Kerry were there with the scissors and track shoes.

Few would hold his medal toss against him today; his record as a senator and a presidential candidate is much more pertinent. People do things in their 20s they later repudiate. But Kerry is one of those people who hasn't changed his mind much in 30-plus years. The 60-year-old senator and the 27-year-old war vet getting his first taste of the sweet juice of national publicity -- same guy.

Kerry is getting creamed over this issue, and for no good reason. His campaign is heading straight into the shitter. I suppose we'll see more of this soon:

With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party's got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can't exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.

With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner.

Geez, when even the ultra-liberal Village Voice calls you out of the race, things are really bad.

Non Sequitur is by far the best daily comic drawn today. They've been tearing into Air America. Meanwhile Boondocks. which isn't even drawn by McGruder anymore, delves into non-PC territory.

One last thing, the pro-abortion protest (or pro-choice if you wish) was a bit ridiculous. Abortion is no closer to being overturned now than it was four years ago. There are no new Supreme Court justices, the public is pre-occupied with other matters, and Bush knows it would be political suicide to do anything at this point. So why the march? Maybe the NOW crowd just wanted to flex its muscles (so to speak), but it was nothing but an anti-Bush rally. That and an excuse for the feminists to feel good about themselves.

Have any of those marchers really stopped to think about what they were marching for? Abortion is the taking of life. When does life begin? At conception? At birth? I believe it's the moment the sperm meets the egg and the cells split. Look at your son or daughter. Look at you brother or sister. Think how much of you is in your child. I look at my kids and see my wife's smile in my sons face. I see my body movements in my daughter. Life is the greatest thing we can give.

I always get the "How can you be for capital punishment and be against abortion" question. That's not difficult. The person put to death had a choice. Granted the possibility of an innocent being killed is real, that's the reason the law allows numerous appeals and we do our best to avoid that situation. There are numerous other arguments and I've got a response to all.

Sadly, abortion is used as birth control, in the majority of cases. I hear the pro-choice supporters talk of rape and incest. What percentage of abortions are tied to those sick acts? One percent? Five percent? The laws can be written to ensure that the women that may be affected in such circumstances have the options they need.

I'm all for sex as enjoyment. But there are consequences to people's actions. If you don't want to protect yourself by using a condom, you should deal with the fact that pregnancy is a strong possibility. And by the way, guys should have some say when it comes to the ending of their child's life. Men have no input either way and that is plain wrong.

I've been blogging less so I've been writing less. I mean that I've been posting just to post and not writing things out as much as I'd like. That will change as soon as my life slows down. I have a minute now, and I'd like to spend it with you.

Here we are a year after the Iraq war started and a lot of things have happened since. Our soldiers and sailors are currently fighting in Fallujah and getting ready to let loose in Najaf. These guys and girls are the front line in a war that will take a decade or more. Retention is up, which of course makes me extremely proud. These folks are staying in an unthinkably trying situation, and as I'd have felt, proud to do it. Are you proud of these service people? I mean, are you really proud or just mouthing the words?

I've been there. I was on a ship for six months from San Diego to Hawaii to Okinawa to Hong Kong to Singapore to Malaysia to the Persian Gulf to Somalia to Kenya, back to Singapore to Bali to Australia to Papua New Guinea...You get the point. 180 days at sea with 36 days in port. Of those 36 days, 1/3 was spent on duty, which means not leaving the ship. 24 days of freedom in between 18 hour workdays. I didn't mind as I recall. Of course that was roughly twelve years ago, and my memories might be duller. I missed my beautiful wife desperately, but I was serving my country and defending the US. Sounds pretty corny, huh? I don't care. I miss wearing the uniform and the camaraderie, I miss the feeling of looking at the good ship Schenectady and thinking that was my ship. I can't explain it to you in a way that would sound coherent.

I salute the men and women out on the front lines and in the rear supporting them. These people are fighting the battle of our generation. Is it as important as WW II? Most definitely. This is the true war to end all wars. If we fail, the world will suffer a drastic change. If we succeed, regardless of what allies are with us, the world will be a better, safer place. Americans are blessed with short memories in alot of cases, we tend to forgive people quickly. We have long memories, however, when we think of Vietnam. As a country, we've got to get over the Vietnam syndrome. I think a Kerry trouncing will go far in this respect.

Suck it up folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride for the next few years. I have no idea how history will look back on this period. I suspect that it will be the 9/11 era or something to that effect. Will Bush be remembered as a great President? I don't know. I do believe he's the right man for this moment and that a Kerry presidency would be catastrophic.

Well, enough this evening, thanks for reading this idiots drivel.

Cheney puts the wood to Kerry today:

"In his years in Washington, Senator Kerry has been one vote of 100 in the U.S. Senate and fortunately on matters of national security, he was often the minority. But the president always casts the deciding vote and the senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security."

Cheney's speech coincides with a $10 million television advertising spree by Bush's re-election campaign, starting this week, that seeks to portray Kerry as weak on national security. Other Bush ads have questioned the Massachusetts senator's fitness for the presidency because he voted against a $87 billion funding measure for U.S. troops in Iraq. Bush, Kerry has said, threatened to veto the bill.

And of course the Dems are having fits:

"Call off the Republican attack dogs," DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe told reporters in Washington.

Cheney is has forgotten more about politics than dumbass Terry McAuliffe will ever know. Why is this guy still the head of the DNC? That's rhetorical as he's the Clinton's lapdog.

Kerry melts down on GMA:

GIBSON: 1984, senator, to the present. you have said a number of times, as brian pointed out as recently as friday with the ""los angeles times,"" have you said a number of times that you did not throw away the vietnam medals themselves. but now this interview from 1971 shows up the in which you say that was the medals themselves that were thrown away.

KERRY: no, i don't.

GIBSON: can you explain?

KERRY: absolutely. that's absolutely incorrect. charlie, i stood up in front of the nation. there were dozens of cameras there, television cameras, there were -- i don't know. 20, 30 still photographers. thousands of people and i stood up in front of the country, reached into my shirt, visibly for the nation to see, and took the ribbons off my chest, said a few words and threw them over the fence. the file footage, the reporter there from the ""boston globe,"" everybody got it correctly. and i never asserted otherwise. what i said was and back then, you know, ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable . senator simmington asking me questions in the committee hearing, look ad at the ribbons and said what are those medals? the u.s. navy pam let calls the medals, we referred to them it is a symbols, representing medals, ribbons, countless veterans through the ribbon -- threw the ribbons back. everybody did. veterans threw back dog tags. they threw back photographs, they th rew back their 14's. there are photographs of a pile of all of those things collected on the steps of the capitol. so the fact is that i have -- i have been accurate precisely about what took place. and i am the one who later made clear exactly what happened. i mean, this is a controversy that the republicans are pushing , the republicans have spent $60 million in the last few weeks trying to attack me. and this comes from a president and a republican party that can't even answer whether or not he showed up for duty in the national guard. i'm not going to stand for it.

GIBSON: senator, i was there 33 years ago and i saw you throw medals over the fence and we didn't find out until later -

KERRY: no, you didn't see me throw th. charlie, charlie, you are wrong. that's not what happened. i threw my ribbons across. all you have to do -

GIBSON: someone else's medals, correct in?

KERRY: after -- excuse me. excuse me, charlie. after the ceremony was over, i had a bronze star and a purple heart given to me, one purple heart by a veteran in the v.a. in new york and the bronze star by an older veteran of world war ii in massachusetts. i threw them over because they asked me to. i never --

Read the whole thing. I wish I'd seen it but I have a job and con't watch GMA.

You are an absolutely despicable human when you use religion when it suits you, and discard it when it doesn't:

Michael Jackson is ending his relationship with the Nation of Islam, sources tell Foxnews.com. Jackson has apparently decided, in the wake of firing his lead attorneys over the weekend, to also get rid of his controversial recent "business manager" Leonard Muhammad, son in law of Louis Farrakhan.

The change in Jackson's camp reflects the sudden rise to power of Michael's brother Randy, and his own advisor, Brian Oxman who have gained leverage with the singer of late. It was Randy and Oxman who engineered the hiring of Thomas Meserau as Jackson's new lead attorney in his child molestation case. One of Meserau's requirements in taking the job was that Jacko rid himself of the NOI. But it won't be so easy to get rid of Muhammad. According to my sources, he is resisting Jackson's decision.

"He won't go without a fight," says a source.

The Marines are going at it in Fallujah:

The firefight, though, continued for a good two hours after that. [There were] very heavy exchanges of gunfire; U.S. Marine Cobra attack helicopters were called in.

They were firing off missiles, and also we're told a mortar platoon from further back in the rear was firing off 8-millimeter mortars, and those impacted in a number of buildings behind us, setting them on fire and sending plumes of black smoke into the air.

Also, there was a mosque ... here; it had a minaret 50 to 60 feet high. Marine commanders say they were taking sniper fire from that minaret.
That minaret has now been leveled by U.S. military ordnance, missiles and mortars. There's nothing left at all of that minaret. ...

Emphasis mine. Mosques cease to be mosques when used for military purposes, they then become targets and should be treated as such.

If they do this to G.I. Joe, I'm going to kick someone's ass:

Armed with guns, tanks and military helicopters, Action Man represented plucky British soldiering to a generation of boys. But after years of rebranding as a climber, skydiver and skateboarder, sales of the toy have plummeted. The youngsters of today believe Action Man has gone soft.
The 38-year-old is suffering a midlife crisis as he struggles to keep up with younger action figure rivals such as Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Industry experts accuse manufacturer Hasbro of ignoring children's wishes in a politically correct quest to move Action Man away from gung-ho fighting in the wake of the 11 September attacks.

...Ronnie Dungan, editor of Toy News magazine, added: 'When I was a kid he was in Second World War regalia and a fighting man. Now he's in cycling shorts.

Go to this site and help support the Marines.

Cyprus is another ongoing problem that must be dealt with. When it gets difficult what does the UN do?

The United Nations announced it was shutting its Cyprus peace envoy office after Greek Cypriots rejected overnight a UN plan to reunify with Turkish Cypriots.

They will leave some peacekeepers to perfrom function in the disputed areas. This is an interesting quote though:

It is the second time de Soto is pulling out in the past 14 months. His office was shut after a collapse of negotiations at The Hague in March 2003, only to be coaxed back into the Cyprus mediator's seat when negotiations between the two Cypriot sides resumed in February of this year.

Annan's future engagement in Cyprus peace efforts after the resounding slap his plan received on Saturday is questionable.

"Getting Annan back on board on Cyprus after the first rejection was like pulling teeth so I don't know how he will react to this," said one diplomat.

I guess there's no oil on Cyprus for Mr. Annan to profit from. (emphasis mine)

Maybe Mother Nature was making a statement:

A gust of wind knocked over scaffolding at an Earth Day concert Saturday, injuring nine people, police said.

Just the band Third Eye Blind was scheduled to take the stage at the band shell on the Charles River, witnesses said wind caught a banner that was attached to the sound tower, knocking it into the VIP section of the audience.

The concert resumed after all nine people were taken to the hospital. Police said none of the injuries was life-threatening.

Who the hell would be in the VIP section of an Earth Day concert? Isn't the Earth for everyone equally?

The last gasp of an old pathetic man:

"The wind will not move the mountain," Arafat vowed three times in a fiery speech, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's comments on Friday that he no longer felt bound by a pledge he made three years ago to President Bush not to harm Arafat.

"I am not afraid to become a martyr," Arafat said as the crowd outside his besieged headquarters chanted.

I say we fulfill the man's wish and martyr him. He sounds so brave, but alas, he's still the scared little terrorist he's always been:

But he called on other Arab leaders to protect him from Sharon.

Mark Steyn on why the Bush poll numbers have increased after the events of the last month:

That's why even the old quagmire scenario now playing 24/7 on the cable channels doesn't work for Kerry. Visiting foreigners often remark on that popular T-shirt slogan, usually found below the Stars and Stripes: "These Colors Don't Run." To non-Americans, it seems a trifle touchy. But for a quarter-century the presumption of the country's enemies was that those colors did run -- they ran from Vietnam, from the downed choppers in the Iranian desert, from Mogadishu. Even the successful campaigns -- the inconclusively concluded Gulf War and the air-only Kosovo war -- seemed designed to avoid putting those colors in the position of having to run. As Osama saw it, these colors ran from the African embassy bombings, and the Khobar towers, and he pretty much expected them to run from 9/11, too.

A narrow majority of Americans get this: Being seen not to run -- or, if you prefer, being seen to show ''resolve'' -- is now an indispensable objective of U.S. foreign policy. So, when four contractors get lynched and hung off a bridge in Fallujah, poor foolish Sen. Robert Byrd may think it's time for an ''exit strategy,'' but most Americans want to see the thugs who did it hunted down and killed.

...The left resists this analysis. ''Resolve,'' they say, may sound macho but it's also simplistic. Not necessarily. In today's phony-baloney world, nuanced inertia is the simple choice, the default mode of international diplomacy, of the U.N. and the European Union. When you dig into what's holding up American resolve on Iraq, the people seem to be making more subtle distinctions than their elites.

Thus, the president's numbers aren't affected by the sob sisters of CNN's Baghdad bureau filing their heartrending reports on how thousands of Baathist apparatchiks haven't been paid since they were made redundant from Saddam's Department of Genital Mutilation and Electrode Clamping last April.

U.S. public opinion is hardheaded about this: The welfare of the Iraqi people is a bonus, but the welfare of the American people is the primary objective. That's why the United States went to war.

Steyn concludes by saying 'But it's hard to claim that your powers of diplomatic persuasion would have won over the French and Germans when you can't even win over your ''family.'' And do Americans want to hand over responsibility for Iraq to someone who won't even take responsibility for the car in his driveway?'. The difference between the Dems and the Republicans is this; Democrats want to be told that everything will be OK, that the bad men are gone and you can come out of yhe closet you were hiding in. Bush never went in the closet, instead he took a look around at the destruction around him, put on his gloves, and went to work. He never told the public that this would be easy or short. In other words, he spoke to us like the adults we are. I think the American citizenry respects that and admires Bush for it.

A Marine writes home about what's really going on:

OK, I'm up out of my hole---at least for now. Nick called last night. His MAP-3 (Mobile Assault Platoon {replaced the 1980's-90's CAAT that was designed for armor threat vice threat they are facing now}) was brought back for a few hours to refuel/rearm/eat chow and he got a few minutes. What you won't hear on audio-bites "...parts of Falluja/Ramadi still under enemy control..." or from those fat phoney ****s Kennedy and Kerry et.al. is this: "Dad, we are kicking the living **** out of those mother****ers." It seems that the group that got ambushed were elements of 'G' 2/4. The rags set up diversional ambush sites elsewhere in Ramadi to draw attention and devoted their main effort on the Golf''s routine foot patrol. Nick has been told that the Ramadi front is designed to take heat off Falluja (2/1 and 1/5...1st recon is there as well). MAP 3 was called to provide relief to 'G.' Nick says that as they moved up, the rags were performing disciplined, as he calls it, "bounding fire and movement---they knew what they were doing---even when we knocked them back, they were 'bounding' " When I asked if he had cranked-off any rounds he replied with disgust, "Uhhh...yeahhhhh" (a version of 'no duh')...Dad our platoon alone has killed over 200 of those (again) mother****ers."

Semper Fi to all the Jarheads. Take the bastards out.

I have more respect for active-duty Americans than ever:

As of March 31 -- halfway through the Army’s fiscal year -- 28,406 soldiers had re-enlisted, topping the six-month goal of 28,377. The Army’s goal is to re-enlist 56,100 soldiers by the end of September.

“It’s a very positive retention picture at this point,” said Lt. Col. Franklin Childress, an Army public affairs officer. The Army had nearly a half-million active-duty soldiers.

When I mention the word scumbag, who comes to mind first? No not Ted Kennedy, I was thinking of Courtney Love. She's broke, drug addicted, an unfit mother, and bad singer. Whose fault is it? Well President Bush of course. What do you expect from the person whose husband wrote these words about her:

I'm married
buried
I wish I was like you
Easily amused

He then ate a shotgun because of her.

The San Diego Chargers give Archie and Eli Manning the finger and take Eli first in the draft. I hope he does sit out and gets the reputation as a dirtbag. I also hope that the Bolts trade him for a Hall of Fame caliber player and that Eli turns out to be a bust, just like Eric Lindros.

Update: The Bolts traded Manning to the Giants. As someone who hates the Giants with a paaion that is damn near as much as the Cowboys,I say to Eli-- Welcome to the Division-- you'll learn to love the Philly sky as you will be spending alot of time on your back looking up at it.

How can you tell Kerry is lying? His lips are moving:

One day after John Kerry stressed the importance of buying American cars to keep American jobs, records show that his wife owns a pricey imported German Audi.
The green 2001 Audi Quattro is registered to Teresa Heinz Kerry at their townhouse in Boston's posh Beacon Hill, according to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. Her registration is good through February 2005.

That news comes the day after Kerry reluctantly admitted, on Earth Day, that his family owns a gas-guzzling Chevrolet Suburban SUV but blamed it on his wife, saying: "The family has it. I don't have it."

Kerry added that it's important for his family to buy American and vowed to protect American autoworkers' jobs. Next week, he's launching a "jobs tour" that will take him through the industrial heartland, home to many autoworkers.

Kerry left out the pricey Audi import two months ago when he detailed the cars that his family owns to the Detroit News.

And from the Weekly Standard:

OVER AT JohnKerry.com's campaign blog, they're referring to Kerry's appearance on Meet the Press as a "home run." If that was a home run, I'd hate to see Kerry strike out. On question after question, Kerry managed to turn under-armed softballs into high and tight strikes, and the damage from his reflexive parsing and dodging are just beginning to be recognized.

Kerry tried to deceive Russert on the availability of his military records, and then his campaign tried to stonewall the Boston Globe reporter who heard the candidate quite clearly promise that all the military records would be available to all comers at "headquarters." That position lasted a day before Kerry sounded retreat, though the files are still not available.

It's easier to catch Kerry in a lie than it was Al Gore.

Victor David Hanson takes a hammer to the myths about the war in Iraq and the Mid-east in general:

Elsewhere fiery demonstrators were shaking keys to houses that they have not been residing in for 60 years — furious about the forfeiture of the "right of return" and their inability to migrate to live out their lives in the hated "Zionist entry." Notably absent were the relatives of the hundreds of thousands of Jews of Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, and other Arab capitals who years ago were all ethnically cleansed and sent packing from centuries-old homes, but apparently got on with what was left of their lives.

The Palestinians will, in fact, get their de facto state, though one that may be now cut off entirely from Israeli commerce and cultural intercourse. This is an apparently terrifying thought: Palestinian men can no longer blow up Jews on Monday, seek dialysis from them on Tuesday, get an Israeli paycheck on Wednesday, demonstrate to CNN cameras about the injustice of it all on Thursday — and then go back to tunneling under Gaza and three-hour, all-male, conspiracy-mongering sessions in coffee-houses on Friday. Beware of getting what you bomb for.

The leaders and dictators throughout the Mid-east are very scared. The status quo has always been that the US maintains a semi-neutral stance with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian issues. Not anymore. I'm reading alot of drivel about the Bush comments and the destruction of the "road map" for peace because of those comments, bullshit! Arafat seeks to benefit only himself and continually turned a blind eye to the actions of the al-Aqsa brigades and Hamas. Sharon took steps necessary to the security of the citizens he must protect, namely, taking out the Hamas leadership. Bush has to support him because Israel's war and our war are the same war. The pundits will wring there hands and whine about this break in tradition regarding the US acceptance of the Gaza withdrawal and the security fence. To them I say who cares.

The Portland Idnymedia site is among the more despicable sites on the web. How do they choose to headline a story about Pat Tillman being killed in action? Go see. Poke around that site for a while and then take a shower, you'll need it.

My friend Kate is a huge fan of Ann Coulter, in fact she even has the talking action figure. In this piece, Coulter skewers Arlen Specter who is in a tight campaign against Pat Toomey:

Specter pretended to weigh the attacks on Bork thoughtfully and after careful consideration announced he would vote against Bork. By exploiting the fact that he calls himself a "Republican" – despite voting with John Kerry more often than he voted with Ronald Reagan – Specter gave cover to the left's portrayal of decent, God-fearing Americans who love their country as being about one step away from David Duke. As the first Republican to oppose Bork publicly, Specter ensured that other craven "moderates" would soon follow suit.

The Bork fiasco utterly cauterized the Republicans. After that, Republican administrations were terrified of nominating anyone provably to the right of Susan Sarandon. Instead of legal giants like Judge Robert Bork, we ended up with Anthony Kennedy and David Hackett Souter on the Supreme Court.

Specter is the ultimate RINO to the Right and Republicans. That wasn't huge issue ten years ago. Now the state of PA is leaning a little more toward the conservative side and Specter has become vulnerable. By the way, start a blog Kate, the blogosphere can always use one more kooky liberal opinion.

Krauthammer:

That leaves . . . France. What does Kerry think France will do for us? Perhaps he sees himself and Teresa descending on Paris like Jack and Jackie in Camelot days. Does he really believe that if he grovels before Jacques Chirac in well-accented French, France will join us in a war that it has opposed from the beginning, that is now going badly, and that has moved Iraq out of the French sphere of influence and into the American?

The idea is so absurd that when Tim Russert interviewed Kerry and quoted Democratic foreign policy adviser Ivo Daalder as saying that handing political and military responsibility to the United Nations and other countries is not realistic, Kerry simply dodged the question. There was nothing to say.

Which may help inside-the-Beltway Washington find its way out of its conundrum over the latest polls. No one can understand how, with the president being pummeled daily on the front pages by Richard Clarke, the Sept. 11 commission hearings, the Woodward book and the eruption of Iraq into open warfare again, Bush nonetheless has gained over Kerry on the issue of national security.

The answer is simple: Americans are a serious people, war is a serious business, and what John Kerry is offering is simply not serious. Americans may be unsure whether Bush has a plan for success in Iraq. But they sure as hell know that going to U.N. headquarters, visiting foreign capitals and promising lots of jaw-jaw is no plan at all.

As Charles said, the issue of how to win this war was Kerry's for the taking and he tanked. The Oil-for-Food scandal has only tainted the UN more than vere and Kofi Annan is neck-deep. American's see how the UN handles tough matters, they bug out as fast as possible and write a resolution condemning Israel.

John Kerry waffles, Teresa Heinz does not. Teresa is a piece of work, kind of like Hillary without the peevish personality.

A ten-year long quagmire that no one even notices.

Horrible news. Pat Tillman, current Army Ranger, former NFL player, has been killed in Afghanistan. He joined the Army because he felt the need to do something after 9/11. He left $ millions on the table and in the spirit of Ted Williams chose to serve his country. God bless him, his family, and every person in uniform.

Peggy Noonan, as usual, sums it up much better than I or anyone:

But it was clear to those who knew Mr. Tillman that after September 11 something changed. The attack on America had prompted a rethinking. Len Pasquarelli of ESPN reported last May that the "free-spirited but consummately disciplined" starting strong safety told friends and relatives that, in Mr. Pasquarelli's words, "his conscience would not allow him to tackle opposition fullbacks where there is still a bigger enemy that needs to be stopped in its tracks." Mr. Tillman's agent and friend Frank Bauer: "This is something he feels he has to do. For him, it's a mindset, a duty."

...Except for this. We are making a lot of Tillmans in America, and one wonders if this has been sufficiently noted. The other day friends, a conservative intellectual and his activist wife, sent a picture of their son Gabe, a proud and newly minted Marine. And there is Abe, son of a former high aide to Al Gore, who is a lieutenant junior grade in the Navy, flying SH-60 Seahawk helicopters. A network journalist and his wife, also friends, speak with anguished pride of their son, in harm's way as a full corporal in the Marines. The son of a noted historian has joined up; the son of a conservative columnist has just finished his hitch in the Marines; and the son of a bureau chief of a famous magazine was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army last month, on the day he graduated from Princeton.

As the Vietnam-era song said, "Something's happening here." And what it is may be exactly clear. Some very talented young men, and women, are joining the armed forces in order to help their country because, apparently, they love it. After what our society and culture have been through and become the past 30 years or so, you wouldn't be sure that we would still be making their kind, but we are. As for their spirit, Abe's mother reports, "Last New Year's, Abe and his roommate [another young officer] were home and the topic came up about how little they are paid [compared with] the kids who graduated from college at the same time they did and went into business.

"Without missing a beat the two of them said, 'Yeah--but we get to get shot at!' and raised their beer bottles. No resentment. No anger. Just pure . . . testosterone-laden bravado."

The Abes and Gabes join a long old line of elders dressed in green, blue, gray, white, gold and black. Pat Tillman joins a similar line, of stars who decided they had work to do, and must leave their careers to do it. They include, among others, the actors Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable and Tyrone Power in World War II; sports stars Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio in the same war; and quarterback Roger Staubach in Vietnam. It is good to see their style return, and be considered noble again. And good to see what appears to be part of, or the beginning of, a change in armed forces volunteering. In the Vietnam era of my youth it was poor and working-class boys whom I saw drafted or eagerly volunteering. Now more and more I see the sons and daughters of the privileged joining up.

That is a bigger and better story than usually makes the front page. Markets rise and fall, politicians come and go, but that we still make Tillmans is headline news.

Amen.

Update: Gregg Easterbrooke also writes about Tillman and the sacrifice he made. I wish I could describe to you what it feels like to serve in the military. Ten years hence I probably remember the good things as better and forget alot of the bad, but, I will never forget the pride of putting on my full dress uniform including medals and ribbons. Every soldier puts themself in the position of peril and they deserve they deserve the respect of everyone.

Photo's from Dover, DE of the caskets of the soldiers who've given everything are making there way out. Tim Blair has a few comments.

Kill Americans, excellent, kill Israeli's, even better. Kill Saudi's and that's against Sharia law:

BY televising the destruction caused by a car bomb at the Saudi General Security Services building in Riyadh, Saudi authorities have taken the right step. Showing such scenes on TV is the only way to convince Saudis of the crimes being committed by terrorists who kill innocent people against the rules of Sharia. Let the Saudi people see for themselves how terrorism is claiming the lives of innocent people in Fallujah, Basra and now in Riyadh. Saudi security authorities must use this as a tool to fight terrorism. They must highlight the terrorists thirst for blood. Now that they don't have political targets, these terrorist are killing innocent Saudis which proves they are averse to stability and security.

...Terrorism no longer has any specific objective. Although the Americans left Saudi Arabia a long time ago, terrorists have chosen to target innocent Saudis, who offer prayers five times a day and live in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and not in Washington.

Emphasis mine. I'd say the House of Saud is shitting their robes at this point. How could Muslim's, especially the carefully cultivated Saudi Wahhabist type, attack Muslims. Frankenstein's monster is loose and GWB is the only guy with the balls to stop it.

Bush has had a tough month and his poll numbers go up. Why? Peggy Noonan answers that question way more eloquently than I could:

They look at him, listen to him, and watch him every day. They can tell that George W. Bush is looking out for America. They can tell he means it. They can see his sincerity. They can tell he is doing his best. They understand his thinking because he tells them his thinking. They think he may be right. They're not sure, but at least they understand his thinking.

They are not shocked that our intelligence system wasn't working very well before 9/11. They would like our intelligence system to be first-rate and the best in the world, and they like to say they expect it to be best in the world. But they also think it comes from Washington, it's government, and so by definition flawed. Mr. Bush has survived not finding of the weapons of mass destruction for two reasons. One is that Americans have come to be sure that Saddam was an unusually bad man and a threat to whatever stability the Mideast enjoys. The other is that Americans believe Mr. Bush himself honestly believed Saddam was a threat. If Bill Clinton, who thought Iraq had WMDs, had invaded Iraq post-9/11 and not found them, he would have been thrown out of office. That's because no one ever believed what Mr. Clinton said, and they wouldn't have believed his explanations. They assumed most of what he did had a cynical and self-serving basis. Mr. Bush doesn't have that problem, because regular people don't think he's a habitual liar. (This is why in presidential elections character trumps everything. It's not some abstraction, it has practical and daily presidential applications.)

Americans do not think Mr. Bush has a persona to dazzle history, they think he is the average American man, but the average American man as they understand the term: straight shooter, hard worker, decent, America-loving, God-loving.

Indeed.

I'm not a big fan of questioning anyone concerning their bravery while in uniform. John Kerry, however, has run on his war record, a record he used for nefarious purposes when he returned. He opened this can of worms and it's going to hurt him.

John Kerry, should he be elected President, will go back to the UN on his hands and knees and beg for forgiveness. You know, the same UN that has stopped all the great world conflicts like...Um...well the UN. At least they can run a food program that feeds the people who need it most. OK, maybe not. Then what do they do well?

The tale has been all very interesting, and all very complicated. For those who look yearningly to the UN for answers to the world?s problems, it has provoked, perhaps, some introspection about the pardonable corruption that threatens even the most selfless undertakings. For those who believe the UN can do nothing right, Oil-for-Food, whatever it was about, is a delicious vindication that everyone and everything at the world organization is crooked, the institution a fiasco, and politicians who support it fit for recall at the next electoral opportunity.

The excitement may be justified, but a number of important facts and conclusions have gone missing. Oil-for-Food, run by the UN from 1996 to 2003, did, in fact, deliver some limited relief to Iraqis. It also evolved into not only the biggest but the most extravagant, hypocritical, and blatantly perverse relief program ever administered by the UN. But Oil-for-Food is not simply a saga of one UN program gone wrong. It is also the tale of a systematic failure on the part of what is grandly called the international community.

Read the entire, devastating, piece. The OFP was a scam that including Kofi Annan and the entire UN. What a disgrace. For more on the scandal read this blog daily. It's written by this guy.

I meant to post this yesterday. Lileks is starting get some play:

It plays to the base. The left is terribly worried about what the popular kids are saying about them in the United Nations. "We've alienated the world! For heaven's sake, we've alienated China! Oh, and Free Tibet!" The right couldn't care less, but what can you expect out of a party that would rather get married to Great Britain than have an affair with France? The undecided middle -- defined at this point as "people who aren't paying attention" -- is waiting to learn why we'd be safer trusting an organization whose response to Rwanda was to send not armies, but condolences. And even that took years.

One suspects that the number of undecided Americans may be fewer this week than the last -- at least if they heard about the U.N. reaction to Israel's ballistic dismissal of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, Hamas' leader-of-the-week. What a loathsome man he was. A architect of death and terror. Religious bigot, child-killer, slaughterer of fellow Arabs. Israel finally takes him out. The United Nations springs into action -- to consider a resolution to condemn the attack.

It was "extra-judicial," you see. Contrary to "international law." In the mind of a Eurocrat, whose paycheck demands belief in these ephemeral concepts, these are grave charges. To your average American, however, the strike on Rantisi was like a strike on Osama bin Laden. Anyone whose main objection to the death of a terrorist is its "extra-judicial" nature has odd priorities, particularly in wartime.

It's as if U.N. groupies think we should prop up "international law" so it'll be our shield when the tides turn against the West. As if a triumphant Hamas would petition The Hague for the right to exterminate the Jews before the final pogrom began.

Yesterday, the Supremes heard arguments concerning the Gitmo terrorists. Of course the 'hoards' of protesters were there in all their idiot glory. Pictures are here.

Michael Moore has credibility somewhere between Jayson Blair and Richard Nixon, Right Thinking takes him out.

Something doesn't quite sound right about this:

KEVIN Spacey was attacked by a mugger in a London park, it was revealed yesterday.

The Hollywood star suffered a minor head injury.

Spacey, 44, walked into a nearby police station at 5am and told how the thief stole his mobile phone as he was walking his dog half an hour earlier.

But hours later he withdrew the allegation. The actor, who won Oscars for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, said he was assaulted near his home in Kennington, South London.

He was later treated in hospital. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “A man attended a police station at 5am on April 17 suffering a minor head injury to report the theft of a mobile.

“He later contacted police to withdraw the allegation.”

The park is close to the Old Vic theatre where Spacey — dogged by rumours about his sexuality — became artistic director a year ago.

Jill Nelson, writing in the Inquirer, was almost onto something concerning the lack of Black leadership and role models in the election. Alas, she delves into the Colin and Condi are "Uncle Tom's" abyss:

It's unfortunate that in an election year in which a tremendous amount is at stake, the only black faces seen or voices heard with any regularity are the highly partisan visages of two members of the Bush administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Absent is an elected or independent black leadership that can challenge or put into context the Bush administration policies Rice and Powell hold so dear, especially those that most harshly affect African American communities.

It's both stunning and disturbing that in this year when the Democratic Party seems to have been revitalized by the disasters of the Bush administration, black voters, we who overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party, are virtually invisible. Thanks to the loss of more than 2 million jobs in the last three years; the invasion of Iraq in search of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction; the continuing and escalating loss of life and the military and political debacle there; the despoiling of the environment; and the continuing push for more tax cuts for the wealthy, the Democratic Party is back!

Blah, blah, blah. The usual Powell and Rice are partisan bullshit. Why does she not encourage the African-American community to look at the Republicans and make a decision who they should support. Of course, if the Black community heard what Republicans have to say, the NAACP would have some explaining to do. The real party of tolerance is not the Dems.

Spain capitulates in record time:

Spain's prime minister on Sunday ordered Spanish troops pulled out of Iraq (news - web sites) as soon as possible, fulfilling a campaign pledge to a nation recovering from terrorist bombings that al-Qaida militants said were reprisal for Spain's support of the war.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero issued the abrupt recall just hours after his government was sworn in, saying there was no sign the United States would meet his demand for United Nations (news - web sites) control of the postwar occupation — his ultimatum for keeping troops there.

Even Chirac has bigger balls than "the Shoemaker". Sad for the Spanish as al-Qaeda will not let up, or if they do, ETA will be reinvigorated.

Update: Here's more.

Hitchens has been saying this forever, now others are wondering when the Kurds will get their own state.

Tony Auth sinks to an almost new low. The prortrayal of Bush as a puppet for the Israeli's would fit quite well in the pages of Arab News or other anti-US Arabic papers. Despicable.

Bush finally came out in support of Sharon and the withdrawal from Gaza. As usual, there's carping from all over the place. I think this occurred because Sharon needed a boost at home, and Bush forces Kerry to either side with Israel or waver. More here.

French bashing is always fun, Sgt. Mom takes a few well-deserved whacks at them:

4. I would not worry about the petty insults from American comics, M. Levitte; I suggest you worry about the way that France no longer matters to Americans. In the minds of people in fly-over America. that part of the country that votes, and fields our military, and pays taxes, you are no longer seen as an ally, worthy of special consideration or regard.
5. Finally, grow a pair and stop whining.

Read the whole thing.

A knucklehead at Slate writes what appears to be a non-partisan, objective review of Al Jazeera's coverage of the war which is now enshrined on film by an Egyptian director. Objective until the last paragraph that is:

At the Control Room screening I attended, viewers seemed to accept these theories with equanimity, while they invariably moaned loudly every time a U.S. official appeared to be evading a question.

There will always be a certain number of Western news consumers predisposed to believe anything so long as it attributes mysterious and sinister motives to the U.S. government. The problem for the rest of us isn't Al Jazeera or Arab-press-style conspiracy theories appearing in the Western media. Rather, the White House, with its accumulated misstatements and deceptions, has unwittingly collaborated with the enemy's public relations wing. By playing fast and loose with the truth, the Bush administration has created an atmosphere where Al Jazeera's paranoia and conspiracy theories almost seem legitimate.

Nice Lee. This is a review of a film for crying out loud. Control the venom.

Andrew Sullivan answers Osama:

Re: the "truce." Go fuck yourself.

That sums it up for me.

More proof that young people are patriotic and feel that they have a sense of duty to win the war on terror:

The tide of combat deaths and the prospect of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come, Americans continue to volunteer for duty and are re-enlisting at record rates.

The services believe a combination of patriotism and the economy is driving people to the military and keeping them there.

"The war is not only not having a negative effect, but it is helping to reinforce the number of people who want to join," said Cmdr. John Kirby, a spokesman for the Navy's Bureau of Personnel.

Even the Army National Guard, which has had 150,000 citizen soldiers mobilized for up to a year, has seen retention rates "going through the roof," said Guard spokesman Maj. Robert Howell.

"Mass exodus has not been the case in the Army National Guard," said Howell, deputy chief of the Strength Maintenance Division at the National Guard Bureau in Washington.

I felt the same way. If the world was not at peace when I got out, I might not have. God bless all of them.

Europe stiffens more than bin-Laden's dead body:

European politicians have ruled out negotiations with Osama bin Laden after a tape that the CIA says is likely to be the al Qaeda leader offered a truce to European nations if they pulled troops out of Muslim countries.

"It is completely unthinkable that we could start negotiations with bin Laden. Everyone understands that," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters.

European Commission President Romano Prodi said there could be no negotiating under a "terrorist threat."

Even Chirac got some balls today.

The Donks have race problems.

Peggy Noonan on the Bush press conference:

It was after the statement that things got more awkward. The president rambled and repeated talking points, playing for time as he tried to remember what he'd decided he was going to say in response to this question or that. Sometimes he remembered and became energized; sometimes he didn't.
But here the press came to his rescue, and God bless them. They are so clearly carrying water for the left-liberal establishment, they were so clearly carrying water for the preening and partisan hacks who dominate the 9/11 commission, and the Washington Post's coverage of the news conference yesterday morning was so clearly teeing up Bob Woodward's next book, that the media nullified their hostility. They could have done some damage to the president with a grave and honest spirit of inquiry.

Instead, they played left-wing Snidely Whiplash. They almost twirled their mustaches, and I don't mean only the women: Will you apologize, Mr. President? Do you feel personally responsible for Sept. 11? Do you think you're a loser as a communicator? What was your worst mistake? Do you really like that tie? Do you ever consider hanging yourself from a cornice in the East Room with your tie? When you look in the mirror do you feel mild disgust or just that feeling of shame where you sort of want to tear your face off and run screaming from the room?

Imagine it is April, 1943 and FDR is meeting with the press. Mr. President, why did you fail us on Dec. 7? You call it a day of infamy, but didn't it reveal your leadership style to be infamous? Why did you let the U.S. fleet sit sleepy and exposed at Pearl Harbor? Do you think your physical infirmity, sir, has an impact on your ability to think about strategic concerns, and will you instruct your doctors to make public your medical records?

But of course they wouldn't have asked these questions. Our press corps in those days was more like Americans than our press corps is today. They were both less self-hating and more appropriately anxious: Don't be killing our leaders in the middle of a war, don't be disheartening the people. Win and do the commentary later.

Of course Bush is ridiculed as a horrible speaker, and he did stumble over the question about whether he made a mistake or not. We expect that from him as he has never been a good speaker. He just speaks like most Americans and that's why alot of people like him.

I'm too damn tired to blog anymore this evening. Don't forget to watch Bush this evening at the press conference, I hope he smacks around the press corps.

Hitchens puts the recent battles into context:

If the United States were the nation that its enemies think it is, it could quite well afford to Balkanize Iraq, let the various factions take a chunk each, and make a divide-and-rule bargain with the rump. The effort continues, though, to try and create something that is simultaneously federal and democratic. Short of that, if one absolutely has to fall short, the effort must continue to deny Iraq to demagogues and murderers and charlatans. I can't see how this compares to the attempt to partition and subjugate Vietnam, bomb its cities, drench its forests in Agent Orange, and hand over its southern region to a succession of brutal military proxies. For one thing, Vietnam even at its most Stalinist never invaded and occupied neighboring countries (or not until it took on the Khmer Rouge), never employed weapons of genocide inside or outside its own borders, and never sponsored gangs of roving nihilist terrorists. If not all its best nationalists were Communists, all its best Communists were nationalists, and their combination of regular and irregular forces had beaten the Japanese and French empires long before the United States even set foot in the country, let alone before the other Kennedy brothers started assassinating the very puppets they had installed there.

...The scenes in Fallujah and Kut and elsewhere are prefigurations of what a transfer of power would have looked like, unedited, in the absence of coalition forces. This is the Iraq that had been prepared for us by more than a decade of sanctions-plus-Saddam, with a new lumpen class of impoverished, disenfranchised, and paranoid people, with bullying, Khomeini-style, Wahhabi-style and Baath-style forces to compete for their loyalty. Such was the future we faced anyway. This is implicitly admitted by those antiwar forces who asked, "Why not Zimbabwe?" or, "Why not Rwanda?"

I could give a list of mistakes that I think the Bremer administration has made, but none that would have justified theocratic barbarism. I don't feel I should give free advice to officers in the field, but if the locations seized by Sadr or his Sunni counterparts had been left to their own devices for a few days, there is some reason to think that the local population would have gotten a glimpse of that future and rejected it. A few days rule by the inflamed Party of God. … Or what about a quarter-century of it, as the Iranian people have just had to endure?

Read the whole thing. Hitchens has to write another book soon.

Sadr, the wannabe Shiite leader, may have been arrested. Meanwhile, Iran is distancing themselves as fast as possible:

Iran is dismissing attempts by Washington to link it to Moqtada al-Sadr, the young radical cleric whose militia has battled US forces in neighbouring Iraq.

Iranian leaders, including President Mohammad Khatami and the influential former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, have called for calm in Iraq while blaming US mismanagement for the crisis. On Monday Hamid-Reza Assefi, the foreign ministry spokesman, dismissed a report that Mr Sadr would come to Tehran as a political refugee.

I don't think Sadr was counting on that.

Ashcroft put the proverbial wood the former Janet Reno assistant, and current 9/11 Commission member, Jamie Gorelick:

Attorney General John Ashcroft strongly defended the Bush administration and himself today before the 9/11 commission, laying the blame for intelligence failures prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks squarely on the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Mr. Ashcroft said Al Qaeda was able to plan and carry out the attacks that killed some 3,000 people in large part because of policies of the Clinton administration and its deliberate neglect of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's computer technology.

"The simple fact of Sept. 11 is this," Mr. Ashcroft told members of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States in a public hearing. "We did not know an attack was coming because for nearly a decade our government had blinded itself to its enemies.

...The attorney general sounded almost contemptuous as he spoke of a "legal wall" put into effect in 1995 to separate criminal investigators from intelligence agents in an effort to safeguard individual rights.

Far from protecting individual rights, Mr. Ashcroft asserted, the wall has been an obstacle to protecting the American people.

Referring to the 1995 document that constructed the figurative wall, Mr. Ashcroft went on to say, "Full disclosure compels me to inform you that the author of this memorandum is a member of the commission."

Emphasis mine. This is exactly what the Bush administration has to do, push it back on Clinton. Clinton has thus far got a pass.

Update: ABC News didn't even mention the Gorelick angle, which is extremely important in the context. To paraphrase what else Jennings had to say ' Cofer Black accepted some of the blame for 9/11, something we've not seen alot of'. Way to go Pete, you are so fair and non-partisan.

Gregg Easterbrooke is on a roll. Today he takes a closer look at the Kerry Misery Index. My Kerry Misery Index is simple, every time I think of him as President, I feel miserable.

Remember those brave Human Shield idiots? They pretty much accomplished nothing and were just useful idiots to Saddam. A NJ contractor, however, can assist the Iraqi people in ways that they could never have:

The horrific scene last week in Fallujah (search) of four U.S. contractors burned, mutilated and hung from bridges was tragic and alarming — but it won’t stand in Rangarajan’s way.

He intends to accompany six of his employees to Iraq because despite the dangers, he believes the project is essential to the volatile country’s restructuring. WorldWater has already used its patented solar power technology to bring water into areas of the Philippines, Somalia and even Afghanistan.

Of course, the left will view him as a war profiteer or mercenary.

It appears the Japanese hostages are set to be released, was something suspicious going on?

Happy Easter to those who celebrate. The Bush administration released the August 6th memo, a mistake in my opinion. The memo just says that bin-Laden, along with abu-Zubayda and others were preparing to use explosives in an attack in the US. It mentions nothing about planes being used as missiles. How does the Inquirer headline the article? About as you'd expect:

Memo Informed Bush of Terrorists

They have changed it on their site.

More here, here, and the NY Post has a great analysis here.

The CIA's Aug. 6, 2001 memo for President Bush should pose serious new credibility problems for the nation's spy agency, not for Bush.

Democrats such as 9/11 commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste have sought to paint the memo as a CIA warning that Bush ignored a month before the terror attacks - but it turns out to be nothing of the sort.

Far from sounding the alarm about an imminent risk that al Qaeda would hijack airplanes, the CIA pooh-poohed the idea as a "sensational" claim that couldn't be verified.

"We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting such as that from a [foreign intelligence] service in 1998 saying that [Osama] bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheik" [Omar Abdel-Rahman] and other U.S. extremists," the CIA wrote.

That foreign intelligence report came in while Bill Clinton was president, but three years later the CIA had found nothing to back it up and thus seemed to downplay it - the very opposite of issuing a red-alert to Bush.

In cataloging potential risks from al Qaeda at Bush's request, the CIA made no mention at all of the threat that planes could be turned into flying bombs, although we now know that idea wasn't a total novelty.

Partisan politics, as practiced by the Democrats, has sunk to a new low. That is definitely saying something.

A new baseball season is upon us, and as I'm a glutton for punishment, I predict again the playoff teams and the eventual series winner:

NL East
The Phillies, with the addition of the nasty Billy Wagner win it in the the last week. They have a good record at the new Citizens Bank Ballpark. They finish first by 2 1/2 over the Mets. The Mets are revitalized with Piazza playing first base and the pitching staff shining with 4 ten game winners. The Mets win the Wildcard.

NL Central
The Astros are unstoppable with Andy Pettite picking it up after a slow start. Bagwell hits 35 dingers and Biggio is his normal outstanding self. Clemons wins 13 games to finish at 13-8. He will miss at least a month due to injury.

NL West
The Padres make a run, but alas, they lose out to the Giants in the last few weeks. Bonds hits 40 and breaks records damn near weekly. The Padres play well in their new crib, Petco Park.

Tomorrow, the AL.

Gregg Easterbrooke imagines if Bush had, in fact, attacked Osama prior to 9/11:

When dozens of U.S. soldiers were slain in gun battles with fighters in the Afghan mountains, public opinion polls showed the nation overwhelmingly opposed to Bush's action. Political leaders of both parties called on Bush to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan immediately. "We are supposed to believe that attacking people in caves in some place called Tora Bora is worth the life of even one single U.S. soldier?" former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey asked.

When an off-target U.S. bomb killed scores of Afghan civilians who had taken refuge in a mosque, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Aznar announced a global boycott of American products. The United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn the United States, and Washington was forced into the humiliating position of vetoing a Security Council resolution declaring America guilty of "criminal acts of aggression."

Brilliant.

Has Jimmy Carter said anything of relevance since his "malaise" speech? He's still talking stupid:

"President Bush's war was ill-advised and unnecessary and based on erroneous statements, and has turned out to be a tragedy," Carter said. "And my prayer has been that brave young American men and women, and others who are there, that their lives will be spared and there will be some peaceful resolution of the war."

Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, also blamed what he called Bush's pro-Israel policies for engendering animosity against America.

"The prime source of animosity towards the United States is the lack of progress in dealing with the Palestinian issue," Carter said, adding that past U.S. administrations since Harry Truman's have maintained a "balanced position" in dealing with the rights of the Arab population within the Jewish nation.

"The present administration has not done so at all. We have been exclusively committed to the policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israel, and have made no effort to try to have a balanced negotiating position between Israel and the Palestinians," Carter said.

I get it, it's the Israeli's fault. Jimmy Carter, blah, blah, blah.

What would the response of the press be if Condi Rice was a Democrat? Probably much the same as that of the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas kerfuffle. The press was all for Anita Hill, a credible black woman speaking her mind and making her case. Why are they not up in arms about the treatment of Dr. Rice? One reason is that the whole affair was a showcase for the members of the commission instead of a group of non-partisan types attempting to figure out what went wrong. Bob Kerrey was auditioning for the Vice Presidency it seems:

We thought the former Senator had more class than to preface his remarks with a condescending allusion to the fact that Ms. Rice is a black woman. ("I'm very impressed . . . [by] the story of your life.") Or to then complain that her attempts to answer his monologue were cutting into his time. In their zeal to show all the things that went undone before 9/11, Mr. Kerrey and other Democrats on the Commission inadvertently underscored all that President Bush has done since. Think of it as one long endorsement of pre-emption.

Rice did fine and it should be noted that her appearance is pretty much unprecedented.

The security barrier separating Israel from potential homicide bombers seem to be good all around:

JENIN, Northern Samaria — Life is returning to normal here in the city once known as the suicide-bombing capital of the West Bank. The economy is picking up, services are being restored and local leaders describe a new optimism.

The reason, Israeli military officials say, is the nearly completed security fence separating this sector of the West Bank from Israel. A 50-mile stretch — from the Jordan River to just north of Netanya — is three months from completion. Already the barrier has virtually eliminated terrorist incidents, as well as car thefts and illegal infiltration, inside nearby parts of Israel. In response, the army has sharply curtailed the hated roadblocks and closures that had disrupted life for local Palestinians. Workers can now reach their jobs. Farmers can bring their crops to market, reviving Jenin's business district.

The idiots who screamed "Apartheid Wall" should be ashamed of themselves.

I just returned from seeing The Passion of the Christ, I figured there's no more apt day than today. A stunning movie. I have to give Mel Gibson credit for even attempting this movie. I further give him credit for making a movie that was excellent on all levels. I do not hate Jews for what Caiphus did, because he believed Jesus to be a blasphemer. What if the Messiah came today? What would the reaction of people be? I disagree with what was said by numerous groups or publications, from the Simon Weisenthal Center to the various newspapers. I believe this movie was written according to Christian writings and gospel.

Update: The Pope has these words:

At the pope's "Passion" service, a prayer for brotherhood with Jews was read, just days after the Italian premier of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" revived fears of an anti-Semitic backlash.

"We pray for Jews. May our God, who chose them before all other people to accept his word, help them always move forward in the love of his name and faithfulness to his covenant," a priest said in Portuguese.

Up until 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church's Good Friday services included a prayer that spoke of "perfidious jews," a reference that was banned after the Second Vatican Council.

The Council also repudiated the idea of collective Jewish guilt for Christ's death. Since then relations between Catholics and Jews have made great strides.

Friday's prayer did not appear to be a direct response to fears that Gibson's film could spark fresh anti-Semitism, but it took on greater significance given the heated debate.

The pope also heard confessions of 11 faithful chosen at random from people in the basilica.

James Taranto:

A lesson we would draw from Vietnam is that losing a war has costs that go far beyond the immediate defeat. Losing in Vietnam bred an excessive caution in foreign policy that led, among other things, to Jimmy Carter's impotent response to Iranian terrorism, Ronald Reagan's withdrawal from Lebanon after the Marine barracks bombing, George Bush's failure to finish the Gulf War, and Bill Clinton's retreat in Somalia and desultory pursuit of al Qaeda.

Sept. 11 was supposed to have changed all that, and it did--but not completely. In October 2002, after the resolution authorizing Iraq's liberation passed with strong bipartisan support, we proclaimed McGovernite isolationism dead. Obviously we were too optimistic. So this time let's be hortatory instead of prognosticative: For the good of the country, McGovernite isolationism must die. A decisive victory in the Iraqi "Tet," if it is widely understood as such, will deliver a crushing blow and help to liberate America from Vietnam's enfeebling legacy.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the Marines who were killed, as well as the families of our coalition partners who died. This is a crucial battle we are fighting right now. We will hear alot of carping about the attack on the mosque, and of course the Sadr Shiites will try to claim a "Jenin Massacre". Let's await the facts and see what is truly happening instead of jumping to conclusions. Perhaps the Mosque was being used as a place for snipers to fire, if so, it becomes a legitimate target and should be taken out.

I just heard a quote from Richard Ben Veniste, I'm paraphrasing here "During the millenium celebrations the administration was at battle stations. In the Summer of 2001 the administration was not". I'll get the exact quote later. So to sum up what this guy is saying, Clinton was prepared and Bush was not. During the New Years Eve celebration in on December 31, 1999, we were at high alert because of suspected terrorists we arrested crossing over from Canada. During the New Years celebration in December 2000 we of course stepped up security because of the holiday, as we tend to do during any holiday. On September 11, 2001, we weren't celebrating anything and didn't suspect that a plot was in imminent. It's now official, the 9/11 Commission is playing partisan politics with the one committee we can't afford to. Shameful.

Mark Steyn:

The contours of our epic clash of civilisations are clear now: Christians are a cheap laugh and in control of the Bush Administration, Jews are sinister and in control of the Bush Administration, and Muslims... whoa, best not to mention them, man. You don't want to be Islamophobic. You can sing "We're Sending You A Cluster Bomb From Jesus" because there are no "fundamentalist Christians" within 20 miles of the Birmingham Rep - or at least none that is going to be waiting for you at the stage door. "We're Sending You A Schoolgirl Bomb From Allah" might attract notice from a livelier crowd. If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked.

Read it all.

Markos (screw 'em) Zuniga, AKA Daily Kos, was on Air America, the loser liberal radio network today. LGF was all over it. I've stayed out of the fray; not because I don't think Zuniga is a hideous little a-hole. I've stayed out because I've better things to do than link to that little prick.

Heres Instapundit's and Lileks take on it.

The Brits are facing some nastiness:

British authorities believe terror suspects arrested last week were planning to make a bomb that would include a highly toxic, easily obtained chemical called osmium tetroxide, ABCNEWS has learned.

Used primarily in laboratories for research, osmium tetroxide is known to attack soft human tissue and could blind or kill anyone who breathed its fumes. According to the New Jersey Department of Health, it is a colorless to pale yellow solid with a strong, unpleasant odor.

"It's a nasty piece of work," said Dave Siegrist, a bioterrorism expert at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Va. "It irritates the eyes, lungs, nose and throat. It leads to an asthma-like death, what we call a 'dry-land drowning.' "

More proof that the EU is a friggin' scam:

A senior member of the European parliament yesterday exposed what he claimed was widespread corruption at the Strasbourg assembly by revealing that nearly 200 of his fellow Euro MPs had faked attendance at parliamentary sessions in order to pick up generous daily allowances.

Hans-Peter Martin, an Austrian Social Democrat MEP, said he had seen scores of colleagues signing on for parliamentary sessions which they had missed, to claim a daily attendance allowance of €262 [$315 – Ed.].

"I have witnessed almost 200 MEPs hurrying to the central register to sign on for a session and then watched them drive to the nearest airport or station," Mr Martin told Germany's Bild Zeitung newspaper. "There are countless MEPs who go to Strasbourg and Brussels simply to pick up the €262. They have told me so themselves."

Whores for $315 a day. That will be $262 soon(scroll):

With the prospect of higher interest rates on the horizon on the heels of Friday's Employment report and a potential interest rate cut in Europe, the dollar has appreciated against the euro to its highest level since the beginning of December...

Oriana Fallaci has a new book:

ROME - A new book by controversial journalist Oriana Fallaci that hit bookstores here Monday accuses Europe of having sold its soul to what she describes as an Islamic invasion.

Entitled "The Strength of Reason," ("La Forza della Ragione" in Italian), the book also accuses the Roman Catholic Church of being too weak before the Muslim world.

"Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam. And Italy is an outpost of that province, a stronghold of that colony," the book says. "In each of our cities lies a second city: a Muslim city, a city run by the Quran. A stage in the Islamic expansionism."

The book comes more than two years after the Italian writer's best-selling essay "The Rage and The Pride" drew accusations Fallaci was inciting hatred against Muslims.

A group in France unsuccessfully sought to stop distribution of the book, while two other associations have requested that it carry a warning.

Fallaci says what she wants, when she wants. It takes too damn long to interpret her books to emglish though.

Mark Bowden on the desecration of American men in Fallujah:

The worst answer the U.S. can make to such a message--which is precisely what we did in Mogadishu--is back down. By most indications, Aidid's supporters were decimated and demoralized the day after the Battle of Mogadishu. Some, appalled by the indecency of their countrymen, were certain the U.S. would violently respond to such an insult and challenge. They contacted U.N. authorities offering to negotiate, or simply packed their things and fled. These are the ones who miscalculated. Instead the U.S. did nothing, effectively abandoning the field to Aidid and his henchmen. Somalia today remains a nation struggling in anarchy, and the America-haters around the world learned what they thought was a essential truth about the United States: Kill a few Americans and the most powerful nation on Earth will run away. This, in a nutshell, is the strategy of Osama bin Laden.

Many Americans despise the effort under way in Iraq. They opposed overthrowing Saddam Hussein by force, and disbelieved the rationale offered by President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. There may well be a heavy political price to pay for the mistakes and exaggerations; President Bush faces a referendum in just seven months. But however that election turns out, and however imperfectly we have arrived at this point, the facts on the ground in Iraq remain. Saddam is gone and Iraq, thanks to U.S. intervention, is struggling toward a new kind of future. Its successful transformation into a peaceful, democratic state is in everyone's interest except Saddam's extended family and the Islamo-fascists. It's time for opponents of the war to get real. Pictures like those we saw from Fallujah last week should horrify us, but they should also anger us and strengthen our resolve. The response should not be to back away from the task, but to redouble our efforts.

Indeed.

To tired to blog tonight, but go read Lileks.