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Kneecapping Barack Obama at every opportunity. | ||
I Don't Care What The News Says, It's Another Vietnam I Tell You -- Another Vietnam!!!: Our manic-depressive press started the war out incredibly optimistic, then they almost immediately fell into a deep despair, and now they're three feet high and rising. I personally expect another wave of gloom out of the press if we meet the expected resistance in Baghdad, but at least one writer is getting a head start. That would be Andrew Greeley, who's shouting "Big Muddy" from the rooftops of the Chicago. He uses that phrase five times in the Vietnam flashback that he calls his latest editorial. Here's some what he had to say...
"During the Vietnam War, there was a morose song that claimed that Lyndon Johnson had mired the United States in the ''Big Muddy,'' a dark swamp from which there was no escape. Because the U.S. military never seems to learn from its mistakes, it would appear that we are once again deep in the Big Muddy.
The strength of American military might exists in its technology, firepower and air power--none of which is much good against guerrilla warriors who are ready to die. The war in Vietnam was lost finally because our military leadership was never able to cope with the Viet Cong. Is there any reason to think that the leadership of today is better able to cope with the Fedayeen Saddam?
...Rumsfeld is telling the world that we will not engage in street war in Baghdad, but rather surround the city and lay siege to it until there's an internal revolution--a cockeyed notion if there ever was one. In both cases, many Americans would die and thousands and thousands of Iraqis. The Brookings Institution has suggested that 5,000 Americans might die and 20,000 might be wounded. They estimate that Iraqi military casualties might exceed 100,000, and civilian casualties might be much higher.
...What happens when you want to liberate a country that does not want to be liberated? What happens when the ''only superpower'' is humiliated by a handful of fanatics in flowing desert robes?
Even in details, the venture into the Big Muddy is like the last one. Reporters from the front lines describe serious problems. Central Command headquarters is optimistic in its daily briefings. The Pentagon blames journalists for exaggerating the problems. The president, who now apparently thinks he's Abraham Lincoln (as did Lyndon Johnson), solemnly warns that we will stay the course in a war that will be long and difficult. One wonders why he didn't warn about pro-Saddam Hussein guerrillas before the war. Or even if he knew about them."
So he thinks the Iraqis don't want to be liberated, that we can't possibly deal with the Fedayeen, that we're going to suffer "many casualties" -- he mentions the 5000 killed and 20,000 wounded numbers from the Brookings institute, he thinks we're going to be "humiliated by a handful of fanatics in flowing desert robes", etc, etc. Later on in the column, he does at least he does admit that we'll win the war "eventually". Does "eventually" mean three years, five years, seven years? Vietnam lasted a long time you know.
Someone should have told Andrew that this is such a "last weekend" type of editorial. He should have saved this one for another week or two because the media will probably be screaming "QUAGMIRE" if our troops aren't parading through the streets of Baghdad by then. Of course, Greeley still wouldn't have been right about the "Big Muddy" if he had waited, but at least he would have had more company. As it is, Scott Ritter, Robert Fisk, & Greeley are now out in front of the media's gloom & doom parade and are undoubtedly wondering where the marching bands, the cheering hippies, and the Ho Chi Min Float went.
As for me, I'm doing the same thing I've done since the beginning of the war. Not getting too high, not getting too low and watching the troops do what they do better than anyone else ever has. In the interim, I'm taking note of the Andrew Greeley's in the media, because I think that a lot of them are going to be eating their words when this is all over.
The Democratic Underground On Michael Kelly's Death: Tragically, Michael Kelly was killed in a humvee accident while traveling with the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq. Kelly was the editor-at-large for the Atlantic Monthly, an excellent writer, and I have particular soft spot for him because he actually gave a passing mention to RWN in an editorial.
Unfortunately, some of the folks at the Democratic Underground view this as a happy occasion & a great opportunity to take cheapshots at Kelly. It's sad to see people so fanatical & eaten up with hatred that they publicly gloat over the death of someone just because he dared to disagree with them politically...(Cont)
Saddam Is Counting On You!: RWN reader Mat Bacon sent in this superb graphic that sums up exactly who the useful idiots in the "anti-war" movement are helping by protesting right now...
Thanks Cam!: Oklahoma City talk show host Cam Edwards invited me to be on his show this morning.
Cam mentioned that RWN is one of his favorite pages and was very complimentary in general. We had a short discussion about the war, anti-war protestors, & even the kooks at the Democratic Underground came up.
All in all, it was a blast and I'd like to thank Cam for putting me on the air.
Of Course CNN & NYT & ABC Are CIA: The lunatic who runs Vox News has gotten his page back online and he's just as crazy as he was the last time I perused his web page. He even thinks the CIA controls CNN and he has plenty of kooky readers who agree with him. So put on your tinfoil hats and get ready for a heavy dose of paranoia in the latest edition of ACPOTI (anyone can post on the internet)... (Cont)
***Update***: You'll definitely want to read the first comment on this post. Just trust me on that =)
Kerry Names Annan As Running Mate By Scott Ott: U.S. Sen. John Kerry announced today that if the Democrat party nominates him as the presidential candidate, he will name U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as his running mate.
"This is the only way to heal the wounds America has inflicted on the world," said Sen. Kerry. "I've likened our President to Saddam Hussein in calling for regime change in the U.S., now I'm doing something concrete to fix America by making our government more like the United Nations. "
According to the U.S. Constitution, a vice president must meet the same requirements as a president, and a president must be a natural born citizen. However, Sen. Kerry said that the U.S. Constitution is an "old-fashioned" document since it assumes the U.S. is a sovereign nation.
"We're working to change some of those antiquated provisions," he said.
If you liked this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.
The Iraqi Hero Of The Jessica Lynch Story: There's apparently an Iraqi who deserves quite a bit of credit for the rescue of American POW Jessica Lynch and his story was just...wow. Here are the highlights...
"The Iraqi man who tipped U.S. Marines to the location of American POW Jessica Lynch said Thursday he did so after he saw her Iraqi captor slap her twice as she lay wounded in a hospital.
"A person, no matter his nationality, is a human being," the tipster, a 32-year-old lawyer whose wife was a nurse at the hospital, said in an interview at Marines' headquarters, where he, his wife and daughter are being treated as heroes and guests of honor.
...After he saw Lynch slapped, the lawyer slipped into her room at the Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah and told her, "Don't worry." Then he walked six miles to the nearest U.S. Marines and told them where she was.
...The lawyer, whose first name is Mohammed and who asked that his last name not be published, smiled between every sentence as he recounted in broken but expressive English how he helped the Americans. He learned English at Basra University.
Wearing Marine hand-me-downs after fleeing with only the clothes on their backs, Mohammed, his wife Iman, 32, a nurse at Saddam Hospital, and 6-year-old daughter Abir, seemed surprisingly cheerful for a family on the run.
Grateful Leathernecks showered them with Marine unit patches, a commemorative coin and an American flag on their way to a refugee center near the port of Umm Qsar, where they hope to ride out the war.
"I love America. I like America. Why, I don't know," Mohammed said as he recounted the critical role he played in Lynch's rescue.
...But Mohammed's tale is one of a man who didn't like what he saw when he walked into the Saddam Hospital last Friday to visit his wife and was told by a doctor friend that an American woman POW was in the emergency ward.
The friend walked him to the ground-floor ward, taken over by the feared Saddam Fedayeen at the start of the war, and past a window where he saw Lynch, an Army private first class captured after her convoy became lost near Nasiriyah in the opening days of the war.
Her head was bandaged, her right arm was in a sling over a white blanket and she had what Mohammed thought was a gunshot wound to a leg. But her real problem then was the black-uniformed Fedayeen commander who everyone addressed as "colonel."
The man slapped her, Mohammed said. "One, two," he added, making single slapping and back slap motions with his right hand. She was very brave, he recalled.
"My heart cut," Mohammed added, meaning stopped, putting his hand over his chest and grimacing. "There, I have decided to go to Americans to give them important information about the woman prisoner."
He walked into her room with his doctor friend. "I said 'Good morning.' She thought I was a doctor. I say, 'Don't worry.' She smiled," he recalled.
Doctors treating Lynch wanted to amputate her leg, Mohammed said, but his doctor friend persuaded them not to. His friend, he said, "hates Saddam Hussein and hates security of Saddam Hussein."
Mohammed said he told his wife to take their daughter to his father's house for safety, and then set off on foot to find the American troops he had heard were occupying the edges of Nasiriyah.
"This was very dangerous for me because American soldiers shoot," he said, throwing up his hands in the air to show how he carefully approached what turned out to be the U.S. Marines.
He told them about the woman prisoner, and about a U.S. military uniform he had also seen, presumably of a U.S. soldier killed in the fighting in and around Nasiriyah, some of the heaviest of the war.
They asked him to return to the six-story, 234-bed hospital to gather information on its layout, its hallways, stairways and doors, its basement and whether a helicopter could land on its roof.
He walked back, with no taxis in sight, even as U.S. jets bombed parts of the city of more than 500,000 people. "Boom, boom. I walked under bombs. Fire, Fire," Mohammed recalled.
He did the same thing the next day to report back to the Marines.
There were 41 Fedayeen based at the hospital, with four guarding Lynch's room in civilian clothes but armed with AK-47 assault rifles and carrying radios.
"I drew them a map. I drew them five maps," he said, plainly relishing his cloak-and-dagger missions into the heart of Saddam's terror network.
Fedayeen raided his house the next day, he said, taking away all his possessions and even his car, a Russian-made Muscovitch Brazilia 680. He said a neighbor was shot and her body dragged through the streets just for waving at a U.S. helicopter.
"Very bad people," he said. "There is no kindness in my heart for them."
...Mohammed and his family are now officially "temporary refugees."
After showers, Mohammed put on an oversized green Marine pullover, his wife put on one of the gray T-shirts that MTV donated to the Leathernecks and his daughter was covered to her knees in a green T-shirt from a Marine chemical warfare unit.
But Mohammed did not appear despondent, as his wife smiled and stayed shyly in the background and daughter Abir played with a neon-green illumination stick given to her by a Marine.
"I am very happy," he said, adding that his wife wants to work in a hospital helping Americans and that he is eager to help the Marines any way he can until he can return home to Nasiriyah and resume his normal life.
"In future, when Saddam Hussein down, I will go back to Nasiriyah because my house and office are there," he said. As for the Fedayeen, he said, "when Saddam Hussein down, I sure they go away."
"Believe me, not only I, all the people of Iraq, not the people in the government, like Americans," Mohammed said. "They want to help the Americans, but they are all afraid."
All I can is say is that this guy risked his life, the life of his family, and everything he owns to help an American soldier in trouble and we BETTER make sure he's well taken care of.
Joke Of The Day: All six of Saddam's doubles were called to a meeting today to be briefed as to what their job over the next few days would be. Each of them came eagerly to see what their great leader had in mind for them and also because they were worried after not hearing from him after the initial bombings. Uday came into the conference room with his bodyguards behind him.
"I have good news and bad news." Uday said.
"The good news is that Saddam is alive and well so you all may keep your jobs!"
The lookalikes all cheered and praised Saddam and Allah.
"The bad news is that Saddam lost an eye and an arm."
This joke was cribbed from Expect Nothing.
But The Anti-War Protestors Said That The Iraqis Didn't Want Us To Liberate Them: Here's what the anti-war protestors, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Nelson Mandela, Germany, France, Belgium, the UN, the majority of Democrats in Congress, the Dixie Chicks, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, Robin Williams, etc, etc, did everything in their power to try to prevent...
In Zubayr...
"A crowd of about 500 Iraqis cheered on Wednesday after Britain's Desert Rats unit demolished a five-metre high, five-ton bronze statue of President Saddam Hussein.
Lance Corporal Graeme Church said the British forces were shocked by the response they received when they began to knock down the statue.
"As soon as the locals saw what we were doing, they started coming out to watch," said the 27-year-old from the north-eastern English city of Middlesborough.
"It was as though over the years the statue had helped to put a stranglehold on the whole town and by its destruction the people had been emancipated."
In Safwan...
"Corporal Sharon Astor joined one of the first British patrols to take off their helmets in the town of Safwan.
And her stunning looks and sunny smile won her an army of admirers.
Sharon, 25, from the Wirral, Cheshire, said: "I can't believe the reception I've had - it must be my long blonde hair.
"The kids and some of their dads have been queuing up to give me a kiss - it's totally unexpected."
She was the centre of attention as she handed out water, sweets and biscuits to children in the rundown town near the Kuwaiti border.
She even allowed the smiling kids to try on her camouflaged desert helmet in return for a peck on the cheek."
In Umm Qasr,
``I hope they continue doing what they are coming for and they get Saddam,'' Haider Abduljabar Mrayir, 20, a former student who was hoping to get hired at the port, said of the U.S. and British forces.
...``The British army is here, we are safe,'' said Yasser Hassan Ghanim, 22, who has been unemployed since running away from the Iraqi army in 2001. ``But we are afraid the armies will go back just like in 1991.''
...Still, many Iraqis said they were happy coalition troops were patrolling the streets.
``We don't want Saddam Hussein. He doesn't pay attention to our suffering,'' said Ferras Mohammed, 30, who was walking through town with water jugs perched on the back of a battered bicycle. ``We have been waiting for you to come. We feel good to have soldiers here.''
In NAJAF...
As American troops moved through this holy city Wednesday, thousands of Iraqis lined the streets and greeted them with smiles, chants and advice about the whereabouts of Iraqi forces.
..."It was like the liberation of Paris," said Army Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, 42, of Red Oak, Iowa, after returning from a meeting with representatives of the city's leading Islamic cleric. "It was incredible."
***Update***: Shhhhh..nobody tell Ted Rall about this post...
"...Regardless of their political affiliations, patriotic Iraqis prefer to bear the yoke of Saddam's brutal and corrupt dictatorship than to suffer the humiliation of living in a conquered nation, subjugated by Allied military governors and ruled by a Hamid Karzai-style puppet whose strings stretch across the Atlantic. As much as they may loathe Saddam, they're proud of their country, culture and rich history. The thought of infidel troops marching through their cities, past their mosques, patting them down, ordering them around, disgusts them even more than Saddam's torture chambers.
In this respect, Iraqis are no different than we are. Millions of Americans consider Bush to be a hateful, extremist dimwit who seized power twice, once in an unconstitutional judicial coup d'état and again by using the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext to expand his personal power and gut the Bill of Rights. They call him names, like the Resident and Commander-in-Thief. But even the most passionately anti-Bush Americans would eagerly join their W-loving compatriots to fight any army that invaded the United States in the name of some theoretical "liberation." I know I would."
Sure you would Ted, sure you would.
Hilarious Quote Of The Day: Our quote of the day is from a conscientious objector who the marines have labeled a deserter. He basically said the marine recruiter didn't really give him all the facts because...
"They don't really advertise that they kill people. I didn't really realize the full implications of what I was doing."
Yes, he is claiming that he joined the marines without realizing that he might have to kill someone =D. Apparently he confused the marines with the Peace Corps.
Paypal & Blocking Traffic Have Nothing To Do With Terrorism: I'll be the first to tell you that I really detest the idiotic war protestors who block traffic. As a matter of fact, I loath any protestors who blocks traffic. I don't care if it's the nude, pro-war, nuns for the GOP, if they start running around on the freeway the cops can break out the tear gas as far as I'm concerned as long as they get them out of the road. Your right to free speech is important, but that doesn't make it OK for you to force people sit in a traffic jam while you lie in the street and chant bumper sticker slogans.
That being said, protestors getting in the way of traffic are not terrorists, and to try to treat them as such is wrong. That's why legislation like this should have never been proposed in Oregon...
"An Oregon anti-terrorism bill would jail street-blocking protesters for at least 25 years in a thinly veiled effort to discourage anti-war demonstrations, critics say.
The bill has met strong opposition but lawmakers still expect a debate on the definition of terrorism and the value of free speech before a vote by the state senate judiciary committee, whose Chairman, Republican Senator John Minnis, wrote the proposed legislation.
Dubbed Senate Bill 742, it identifies a terrorist as a person who "plans or participates in an act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt" business, transportation, schools, government, or free assembly.
The bill's few public supporters say police need stronger laws to break up protests that have created havoc in cities like Portland, where thousands of people have marched and demonstrated against war in Iraq since last fall.
"We need some additional tools to control protests that shut down the city," said Lars Larson, a conservative radio talk show host who has aggressively stumped for the bill."
It's fine to try to come up with, "additional tools to control protests that shut down the city," but to try to call non-violent war protests "terrorism" and suggest that these protestors deserve 25 years in jail sounds like the sort of thing that they'd do in China, not in the United States of America.
I'm also not too pleased with this...
"A federal prosecutor has alleged eBay Inc. violated a 2001 anti-terror law aimed at fighting money laundering when it provided payment services to online gambling companies, the Web auctioneer said in its annual report filed on Monday.
Silicon Valley-based eBay said it received a letter on Friday in which the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri accused PayPal of violating a provision of the USA Patriot Act.
The provision prohibits the transmission of funds that are known to have been derived from a criminal offense, or are intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity.
The prosecutor also said the company could be forced to forfeit the money it received in connection with the alleged illegal activity and that it could also be criminally liable.
eBay said in its annual report that PayPal acted in the good faith belief that its conduct was not in violation of the anti-terror law.
Whatever you think of online gambling, it doesn't have a thing in the world to do with terrorism and the Patriot Act was never meant to be used this way.
Now I'm sure that this state Senator in Oregon and this US attorney in Missouri think they're being cute or clever by trying to tie Paypal and anti-war protests into terrorism. But when the law is twisted in this manner, it gives ammunition to people who don't want ANY new powers given to law enforcement or to our intelligence agencies. Down the line, that means the people who defend us from terrorists could be denied powers they need to protect us because of irresponsible legal stunts just like these. That's a shame and John Minnis and the US attorney in Missouri should have thought about that before they came up with these reckless attempts to abuse the law.
When Did France Move Up North Of The US?: Here's how our neighbors to the North treated a Peewee league hockey team that went to a tournament in Canda. Remember as you read this, we're talking about 11 & 12 year olds here...
"MONTREAL -- A peewee hockey tournament in Montreal became a trip into hostile territory for a busload of Americans who say they encountered such fierce anti-Americanism that they will think twice before returning.
During a four-day visit, boys travelling with their Massachusetts hockey team witnessed the burning of the Stars and Stripes and the booing of the U.S. national anthem. When travelling in their bus emblazoned with a red-white-and-blue "Coach USA" logo, they saw people on the street who extended their middle fingers or made other angry gestures.
On the ice, the Canadian players told their visiting counterparts that "the U.S. sucks" and dispensed other anti-American insults, the Americans said.
"We were very offended by the whole thing," said Mr. Carpenter, who accompanied two sons on the trip.
"I understand the opposition to the war. But we were made to feel unwelcome just about anywhere we went.
"Montreal is a 51/2-hour drive for us. It's not like we were travelling to Syria or France or Germany," he said. "As Americans, we felt in the past that Canada was our closest ally and friend. No one told us we were heading into unfriendly territory."
The trip soured soon after the Americans rolled into Montreal on March 20.
Their bus entered downtown Montreal just as hundreds of college and university students were marching through the streets in an antiwar demonstration. Police cruisers spotted the U.S. bus and escorted it to its hotel on Sherbrooke Street as a safety precaution. A police officer urged the visitors to remain in the bus until the protest passed.
The children watched as several demonstrators made obscene gestures toward the bus. A U.S. flag was dragged through the street.
"We felt horrible," Mr. Nadeau said. "How would you feel if the Canadian flag was dragged down the streets in the U.S.A.? This is a country that's supposed to be our ally."
That night, about a dozen families went to the Montreal Canadiens-New York Islanders game at the Montreal Bell Centre, a much-anticipated visit planned months in advance. In a gesture later condemned, the U.S. national anthem was widely booed by the crowd, leaving the visiting American children perplexed.
"The kids were just questioning, 'Why are they doing this?' " said David Cruise, who was there with his 12-year-old son. "It's hard for them to realize we weren't in America any more; we were in a different country.
"I said, 'They're booing our national anthem because they don't like us.' "
Mr. Cruise felt so uncomfortable that he left with his son after the first period. "Whether you're for or against the war, we have guys over there dying," Mr. Cruise said. "The next time, we'll stay in the States. I'm not going back there again."
The visitors say anti-American comments continued when the young players faced off against the Beverly Bandits, a team from Beverly, Ont. U.S. players say the Canadians hurled insults during face-offs and at other times.
"They told us we sucked, gave us the finger and said 'Down with the U.S.A.' or 'The U.S.A. sucks," Mr. Nadeau said. At one point, a Canadian player made a disparaging remark about the United States "and the referee turned around and said, 'I agree with you.' "What stunned us was that the referee, who is supposed to be unbiased, is agreeing with the boys on the ice."
...Mr. Carpenter came across a knot of demonstrators surrounding a protester who, with an Iraqi flag and a U.S. flag, had climbed atop a traffic light.
The crowd cheered when the man waved the Iraqi flag, and booed the U.S. flag, Mr. Carpenter said. Then the protester doused the U.S. flag in kerosene.
"It went up in a puff of smoke and flames, and the crowd went wild. They were all cheering," said Mr. Carpenter, whose 24-year-old son, a U.S. Marine, was sent to retrieve bodies of Americans killed in the 2001 terrorist bombing of USS Cole in Yemen.
...As they crossed the border into the United States, cheers went up in the bus. "We were very, very happy to get back home," Mr. Nadeau said."
All I can say is that you Canadians are very lucky that those 12 year olds didn't get violent because with the state of Canada's military, they may have been able to capture most of Montreal before you could have beaten them back. No, no, I'm just kidding...actually it's great to have Canada next door, it's just like living near France or Belgium.
Hat Tip to Damian Penny for finding this one. He's the 4th coolest Canadian on the planet behind Mark Steyn, Terrence, & Phillip.
The Conservative Thinking Behind The War On Terrorism: The war between America and terrorism was joined by America on 9/11, but that's not when it started. Terrorists have been taking aim at America for more than two decades. Some of the more notable attacks include the Lebanon barracks bombing, the bombing of a German disco frequented by American servicemen, the first WTC bombing, the Khobar towers bombing, the bombing of our embassies in Kenya & Tanzania, & the attack on the USS Cole. Of course, there have been many other smaller attacks and a staggering number of terrorist plans that were thwarted by our intelligence agencies. But until 9/11, these were the pricks of a mosquito trying to take down an eagle. After 9/11, the eagle finally decided to get serious about the problem. (Cont)
Fisking Dave Winer: Michele at A Small Victory pointed out perhaps the most weak kneed, trembling lipped, crepehanger of an editorial that I've seen since the war started.
It was written by Dave Winer from the wildly popular Scripting News (Alexa rank 12,562). The defeatist idiocy written by Winer follows along with my comments...
"Did you listen to Rumsfeld's press conference this afternoon? Oh man. He's warning Iran and Syria to stay out of Iraq. All I could think about is what the f*ck are we doing in Iraq. It's like being in someone else's house. I had this image of the people who live there just stopping in front of us with their hands on their hips and asking What the f*ck are you doing in our house?"
If Winer is determined to use the lame Iraq as a house analogy, he could at least compare it to a great big "People Under The Stairs" style house with blood on the floors, sarin gas in the kitchen, and a torture chamber in the basement. Moreover, I think the people of Iraq would much more likely to say "can we have food & water and can you kill those Baath party members who have been firing artillery at us" than what "are you doing in our house?" But I digress, here's more from Winer...
"Do you believe in what goes around comes around? I do. Okay, I'm really not looking forward to a bunch of Arabs showing up here. Only in this case if they want me to go with them to Washington to kick the *sses of the idiots who run the joint, I'm going with them. I'll buy the beers."
Apparently Winer has forgotten that "a bunch of Arabs" did show up here. It was called 9/11 and they did try to "kick some *ss" at the Pentagon in DC. No word on whether Winer would have bought them a beer if they had lived though the attacks.
"Then I came up with a new doctrine. It goes like this. If you have a choice, you have no excuse going to war. You can only go to war if you have no choice. I'm sorry Dubya. Let's just put the tanks in reverse and bring the boys home. Say we're sorry and ask for forgiveness. It'll be a lot easier than playing it out. This war is just plain wrong."
You always have a choice Dave. Our Forefathers could chosen not to rebel and we wouldn't have a country. Roosevelt could have made the decision not to retaliate after Pearl Harbor. Reagan could have decided not to challenge the Soviets during the Cold War. We had a choice after 9/11 as well. We could have chosen to lay back and take it -- that's what most nations would have done in our place if only because they've let their militaries atrophy down to nothing. But most Americans don't look at the world that way and thank God for that.
As far as "put(ting) the tanks in reverse" goes, Saddam would slaughter Kurds and Shiites by the tens of thousands after we leave. But America wouldn't be involved anymore, so it's not our concern right Dave? Then if Saddam supplies terrorists with Sarin that kills a few hundred people in a New York Subway or explosives that take down a football stadium full of people or smallpox that wipes out a few thousand people in LA, so be it. It's better to live on our knees than make anybody mad right Dave?
"Here's the deal -- we can't the war in Iraq. Even if by some miracle we should win it militarily..."
Yes, he actually believes it would take a "miracle" for us to win militarily. That should tell you all you need to know about ignorant he is about what's going on in Iraq.
"...our occupying force is going to be picked off by suicide bombers from all over the Middle East. It'll be like Woodstock for our enemies. Imagine, hundreds of thousands of US troops a bus ride away, and throw in some CIA and FBI, and civilians from Bechtel and Lockheed-Martin. It'll make Vietnam look like a pot party. It's time to stick the tail between the legs and get the f*ck out of there folks. This doesn't smell good."
Oh no, we've been at war for almost two weeks and we haven't won yet, that means it's impossible!!! Even if we do win, American troops can't be anywhere near the Middle-East without being hit by terrorists every five minutes....well except in Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey etc, etc.
That's not to say that there aren't going to be some terrorists going after our men in Iraq, but that comes with the territory when you're fighting a war against terrorism.
Also, when I see people saying things as imbecilic as, "(Iraq will) make Vietnam look like a pot party," I really have to wonder if they've ever cracked open a history book in their lives. That's something Winer should probably have done before he figuratively peed down the side of his leg in terror and declared that "it's time to stick the tail between the legs and get the f*ck out of there"
'Rumsfeld says we can't write the history yet. Perhaps, but I think we're close. The US-British plan was to blow up small bits of Baghdad and fool the Iraqis into believing they had the resolve to actually fight a war. They weren't fooled. Both sides dug in, to a stalemate. Eventually the American-led force withdrew, after thousands of casualties at the hands of terrorists from all over the Middle East, leaving Iraq to be ruled by a strengthened Ba'ath Party. In the aftermath, the world lost its last remaining superpower (which was mostly a public relations idea in the end)."
He thinks we don't have the resolve to fight a war? He thinks Iraq can maintain a "stalemate" with the type of damage we're doing to them?? We're a "superpower" because of public relations??? Can I make a suggestion for Mr. Winer? Keep talking about nude volleyball, your start menu, XML, things like that, and leave topics like foreign policy, history, politics, & war to people who know more about them than you. Maybe a group like "nude supermodels for peace" could get away being this uninformed about the topic they're discussing -- but someone running a tech geek page like Dave Winer? I don't think so...
Defiling The Graves Of Better Men: As Coalition forces are fighting to liberate the Iraqi people & eliminate Saddam Hussein's rogue regime, some French anti-war protestors are desecrating the graves of Brits who helped France fight off the Germans in WW1...
"Vandals have defaced one of the biggest British war cemeteries in northern France with graffiti condemning the US-British invasion of Iraq, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) said.
Insults aimed at British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush were sprayed in red paint over a monument to Britain's dead from World War I and discovered by a gardener last Thursday.
...The words "Rosbifs [British] go home! Saddam Hussein will win and spill your blood" were painted in French over the base of the cemetery's main monument - an obelisk topped by a cross.
On one side was a swastika and the words "death to the Yankees".
Also daubed were the words "dig up your garbage, it is fouling our soil," and "Bush, Blair to the TPI (International Court of Justice)"
I can't speak for the British, but if France is threatened again, I don't think they're going to have to worry about any new American troops coming to help them and "fouling (the) soil" of France in the process. Our British cousins may be more willing to overlook how the French have behaved in the last year, but there are a lot of Americans who are not going to forget which nations stuck with us and which nations sided with our enemies in the war on terrorism.
Misc: A few things of note...
-- Last month, Right Wing News pulled 137,049 daily uniques & 260,932 pageviews. Thanks to all of RWN's readers for helping make March RWN's best month ever for traffic.
-- This is also RWN's one year anniversary of changing over to a blogging format. A year ago, Right Wing News was pulling about 300 daily uniques. Now RWN is averaging better than 4400 per day. That's not too shabby...
-- Thanks to Those Shirts, Conservative Commentary, Between The Coasts, Belly Flop, Timeshel Arts, & Number 2 Pencil for advertising in March on RWN.
***Update***: This is for a game I'm trying out called...
If you play, buy some shares of RWN.
The Iraqi People Show Their Scorn For The Coalition Invaders: Here are a few more snippets from the Iraqi people who our press would have you believe detest the Americans, Brits, Aussies, & Poles who are liberating them from Saddam...
In Basra...
"(The Brits) received a warm welcome from the members of the 30,000-strong population, with children and adults giving the thumbs-up, smiling and shouting "Mister, mister, England good".
One surprised Royal Marine said: "We were meant to be giving them food but they keep coming up to us and giving us stuff."
On Route Seven heading towards Rafit...
"...Khairi Ilrekibi, 35, a passenger on one of the buses, which broke down near the marine position, said he could speak for the 20 others on board.
In broken English he told a correspondent travelling with the marines: "We like Americans," adding that no one liked Saddam Hussein because "he was not kind."
He said Iraqi civilians living near him were opposed to Saddam Hussein and that most were hiding in their homes and were extremely tired.
...Looking on warily at the POWS he was guarding, who included two Jordanians, as well as an Iraqi colonel, captain, major and second lieutenant from special forces and the regular army, he said he had been moved by comments from local civilians.
He said they told him: "We welcome you. What is your name? We will pray for you."
He said another group of POWS, largely conscripts, had been moved south.
"They told me they wanted to go to America after the war. I said where. They said California. I said why? They said the song Hotel California and they left singing Hotel California."
In Central Iraq...
"The welcome they had hoped for finally greeted American troops yesterday, as waving Iraqis lined the streets when the advance northwards to Baghdad was resumed.
The scenes, long awaited, did much to lift the spirits of the troops as convoys of tanks wound their way through a town on the west bank of the Euphrates.
...As they passed, hundreds, possibly thousands, of people emerged from their houses to signal their welcome."
In Shatra...
"Hundreds of Iraqis shouting "Welcome to Iraq" greeted Marines who entered the town of Shatra Monday after storming it with planes, tanks and helicopter gunships.
A foot patrol picked its way through the small southern town, 20 miles north of the city of Nassiriya, after being beckoned in by a crowd of people.
"There's no problem here. We are happy to see Americans," one young man shouted."
Now I'm not going to tell you that every Iraqi is thrilled that we're invading, but I'm seeing a very different picture than the one the media is trying to portray. I see a terrified, brutalized populace that would welcome liberation from Saddam. However, they're afraid that we won't finish the job and we'll leave them to be slaughtered. So why aren't they showing it more and rising up?
In America, when people refer to the "crushing of dissent", they mean that you're getting in criticized. In Iraq, "crushing of dissent" means that you see your children's brains blown out of the backs of their heads and your wife gangraped before you're tortured to death and hung from a lamp post as an example. If these people are not SURE that we're going all the way they're going to keep on cheering Saddam for the cameras no matter what they really think. Keep that in mind when the media tries to convince you that the Iraqi people don't want to be liberated...
In My World: France Replaces America as a Superpower By Frank J: "You can't hide anything from us!" declared the intrepid reporter, "Tell us the truth!"
"Stop yelling at me!" cried Rumsfeld, slouching behind the podium.
"Admit you hadn't planned for resistance and your war is a failure!" the reported demanded.
"You can't make me," Rumsfeld muttered, now almost completely hiding behind the podium. "Dr. Rice, please save me."
"No," Condoleezza Rice answered as she walked in front of the press, "I've now taken a political position more consistent with my race and gender thus becoming a liberal democratic, a savior of humanity. And I want to announce that this war is evil and a Zionist plot! In fact, ever member of this administration including the president himself is secretly Jewish!"
"Oy vey! Our secret is out!" Rumsfeld exclaimed, "but it doesn't matter how ingenious you reporters all are, you can't stop our war now that it's started."
"But I can!" shouted a voice from the rear as the doors to the room burst open. In strode a hulk of a man, his clothing barely concealing his rippling muscles.
"Oh, it's Michael Moore!" swooned a female reporter, "The protector of truth and justice in this world... and I can't help but remark how great his hygiene is!"
"After my reasoned speech at the Academy Awards, support for this war has crumbled," Moore declared in a booming voice. "It has also embolden the Iraqis to fight against the U.S. imperialism, and now your troops flee."
"Don't hurt me Michael Moore!" Rumsfeld pleaded as he tried to run. He was stopped at the door by none other than Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein.
"America is over as a superpower!" Chirac declared, "But France and Iraq have joined together to form a new superpower - Friaqi!"
"And you are under arrest for attacking, me, a democratically elected leader in your greedy pursuit of oil," Saddam said as he handcuffed Rumsfeld.
"And all Americans are in trouble for their crudeness!" Chirac yelled, "Except for a few of your wisest, such as the paragon of virtue, Michael Moore. And your democracy will be replaced with a much better system where France tell you what to do and think!"
"And new dress code!" Saddam added, "Everyone must wear a beret and grow a bushy mustache!"
"And now the world will have peace at last," Chirac announced, "For all conflicts will be solved with endless debate. Now, as a first order of business, lets ship all those troublesome Jews in Israel into the sea and give the land to the peaceful Palestinians!"
"Hip hip hooray!" cried the reporters, ushering in this new era of peace and Frenchiness.
If you liked this satire by Frank J, you can read more of his work at IMAO.
Anti-War ='s Anti-Flag?: A few college students at Muskingum College "wanted to adorn the entrance to the school's main building with two dozen American flags to show support for the troops." But, "Vice President of the Administration Ransom Clark" turned them down even though there were already flags displayed on the school grounds.
In and of itself, I don't consider that a big deal. Whether they have five flags or fifty flags displayed at Muskingum is no big deal. But, I did find the reason that Clark turned the students who wanted to add more flags down to dubious. According to Clark...
"I was afraid that a major display of American flags would represent a signal if done by the college to those people who are opposing the war that we're coming down against them."
Clark wasn't just pulling this out of thin air either. The article goes on to quote one of the people who are offended by the flag...
"To sophomore Anna-Beth Cohen the flag stands for everything she's against, a war in Iraq.
She is among those the school is trying not to offend.
"You know with a private institution it's a good idea for them on such a controversial matter not to take one position or the other."
First off, if Clark is an educator, why doesn't he educate some of the ignorant people on and around his campus that believe flying the flag means you're pro-war? The flag is nothing but a symbol of the United States and flying it is just a way to show support for our country & our troops in the field. Whether you back the war or not, you should at least still be behind our country & be rooting for our boys to win with as little loss of life as possible.
Additionally, if you wonder why the left is constantly derided for not being patriotic enough, incidents like this are why. Anytime you see any sort of patriotic symbol under attack there's almost always a gaggle of left-wingers
behind it and usually few lefties have anything to say about it.
There should be Conservatives AND Liberals sticking up for the flag in these sorts of situations. But since there aren't, questions naturally arise about where the left stands on issues like this and they have no one to blame but themselves...
Fun Facts About The Iraqi Republican Guard: On occasion, our troops may pause to wonder, "Who were those guys we just killed?" To help with that query, I'm starting a new feature where my crack research staff find all the important information you need to know about America's enemies. Our first subject: the Iraqi Republican Guard
* The Republican Guard were a replacement for the less successful Iraqi Democrat Guard, who would try to whine and tax their enemies into submission. Eventually Saddam became too annoyed with them and had them executed.
* To make sure they were his best-trained troops, Saddam handpicked his most qualified first-born son to lead them.
* In a fight between the Republican Guard and Aquaman, the Republican Guard would win... unless Aquaman could somehow trick them into following him into the sea.
* The Republican Guard is supported by tanks and other hardware that, according to U.S. military experts, are fun to blow up.
* The Republican Guard are so well trained, that, in a one-on-one fight with U.S. ground troops, they can last into the tens of seconds.
* The Republican Guard are dangerous if encountered by civilians. If you see a Republican Guard, do not run; this only provokes him. Instead, stand your ground and wave your arms in the air while yelling to scare him away.
* The Republican Guard's only natural predator is the camel. It will spit in the eyes of a Republican Guard to blind him and then swallow him whole. The shark would be another natural predator... if only Aquaman were somehow able to trick the Republican Guard into following him into the sea.
* In the first Gulf War, most experts identify the main military blunder of the Republican Guard in their fight with the U.S. military as being that they we're fighting the U.S. military. It has yet to be seen if they have learned from that mistake.
If you enjoyed this satire by Frank J, you can read more of his work at IMAO.
The New Champion Of The Media Gloom & Doom Crowd: Wow -- I just read an editorial that is so gloomy, pessimistic, & despairing that it makes Eleanor Clift's "A Bad Remake of Vietnam?" editorial look like it was nothing but the song lyrics for "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Prepare yourself for Robert Parry's, "Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down". Let's hit some of the low spots...
"Whatever happens in the weeks ahead, George W. Bush has "lost" the war in Iraq. The only question now is how big a price America will pay, both in terms of battlefield casualties and political hatred swelling around the world."
...The chilling realization is spreading in Washington that Bush's Iraqi debacle may be the mother of all presidential miscalculations - an extraordinary blend of Bay of Pigs-style wishful thinking with a "Black Hawk Down" reliance on special operations to wipe out enemy leaders as a short-cut to victory. But the magnitude of the Iraq disaster could be far worse than either the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba in 1961 or the bloody miscalculations in Somalia in 1993.
...Few analysts today, however, believe that George W. Bush and his senior advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have the common sense to swallow the short-term bitter medicine of a cease-fire or a U.S. withdrawal. Rather than face the political music for admitting to the gross error of ordering an invasion in defiance of the United Nations and then misjudging the enemy, these U.S. leaders are expected to push forward no matter how bloody or ghastly their future course might be.
...Now, the argument holds, that since the troops have been committed to battle, any result that leaves Saddam in power would be a humiliation to Washington and embolden other dictators around the world.
Here the historical analogy is closer to the Vietnam War during which Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon argued that a U.S. military withdrawal would have dangerous strategic consequences, touching off falling of dominoes across Southeast Asia. That logic led to a deepening U.S. military commitment in Vietnam and the expansion of the war beyond Vietnam's borders. Only after a decade of bloody fighting did Washington painfully negotiate a withdrawal from the conflict.
In Iraq, Bush is demanding that the American people follow him into this new "big muddy" and that having taken the first steps into the swamp there's now no choice but to press on. As a person who has never had much interest in history or other cultures, Bush may be only dimly aware of the worrisome historical precedents surrounding the trail he has chosen.
...Bush also has guessed wrong on the one crucial ingredient that would separate meaningful victory from the political defeat that is now looming. He completely miscalculated the reaction of the Iraqi people to an invasion.
More and more, Bush appears to be heading toward that ultimate lesson of U.S. military futility. He's committed himself - and the nation - to destroying Iraq in order to save it."
Yeah, you're reading that right. We're on day 13 of the war in which we've killed three times more Iraqis in single strikes than we've lost in the entire war and...
-- The war is "lost"
-- This is the "mother of all presidential miscalculations"
-- He's calling for us to pull out
-- This is another "Vietnam,' another "Big muddy"
-- The people of Iraq don't want to be liberated
-- We're going to destroy Iraq to save it
If this thing goes a month (and it looks like it will at this point), we're going to have people like this guy writing editorials saying that we should beg Saddam to take the whole East Coast as a peace offering if only he'll let us surrender. I know this may shock some people in the mainstream media, but we have fought and won wars that took more than a couple weeks. The Gulf War which is considered one of the biggest "cakewalks" in the history of modern warfare took 43 days & Afghanistan took 63 days.
Take deep breaths and let our the people in the field do what they do. We are going to win -- I promise.
Holy Hanoi Jane Batman! What Is Peter Arnett Doing?!?: I just could believe what Peter Arnett said in this interview with Iraqi TV. Just look at the blatant pro-Iraqi propaganda that Arnett is spewing...
"In the interview, Arnett said his Iraqi friends tell him there is a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain are doing.
He said the United States is reappraising the battlefield and delaying the war, maybe for a week, "and rewriting the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan."
"Clearly, the American war plans misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces," Arnett said during the interview broadcast by Iraq's satellite television station and monitored by The Associated Press in Egypt.
Arnett said it is clear that within the United States there is growing opposition to the war and a growing challenge to President Bush about the war's conduct.
"Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States," he said. "It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments."
After hearing that Arnett said that, you almost expect him to follow it up with, "Be strong and support our brave leader Saddam! That's right, I said "our" brave leader! As of now, I am joining the revolution against the Imperialist oppressors! Give me an AK-47 & a suicide belt and point me towards the Yankee pigdogs! Long live Saddam, long live Saddam, Long live Saddam! Aiiiieieieieiiee!"
Even though Arnett has a checkered reputation, I have difficulty believing that he's putting forth this sort of agitprop without having one of the Hussein clan threatening to feed his children into a shredder in front of him.
But, the fact that NBC is actually defending what Arnett said would seem to make it likely that he said it of his own free will...
"His impromptu interview with Iraqi TV was done as a professional courtesy and was similar to other interviews he has done with media outlets from around the world," NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust said. "His remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more. His outstanding reporting on the war speaks for itself."
That is a ridiculous defense. Iraqi TV isn't a "media outlet" in any conventional sense. To the contrary, it is government owned and controlled and is currently has no other purpose besides helping Saddam hold his regime together. Doing this sort of interview for Iraqi TV while there's a war on would be comparable to doing a propaganda film for the Emperor of Japan during WW2.
Whatever Arnett's motivations are, his credibility is permanently shot at this point and he will probably lose his job at MSNBC over this and that's just what he deserves.
***Update***: Well, that didn't take long...
"NBC fired journalist Peter Arnett on Monday, saying it was wrong for him to give an interview with state-run Iraqi TV saying that the American-led coalition's first war plan had failed because of Iraq's resistance. Arnett himself called the interview a "misjudgment."
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