Near Tacoma, Washington...

The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is searching for five people who allegedly attacked a uniformed National Guardsmen walking along 138th Street in Parkland Tuesday afternoon.

The soldier was walking to a convenience store when a sport utility vehicle pulled up alongside him and the driver asked if he was in the military and if he had been in any action.

The driver then got out of the vehicle, displayed a gun and shouted insults at the victim. Four other suspects exited the vehicle and knocked the soldier down, punching and kicking him.

“And during the assault the suspects called him a baby killer. At that point they got into the car and drove off and left him on the side of the road,” Detective Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

The suspects were driving a black Chevy Suburban-type SUV.

“This is something new for us, we have not had military people assaulted because they were in the military or somebody's opposition to a war or whatever,” Troyer said.

The driver is described as a white male, 25-30 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, heavy build, short blond hair, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and armed with a handgun.

The vehicle's passengers are described as white males, 20-25 years old. Some of the suspects wore red baseball hats and red sweatshirts during the attack.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and charging of the individuals involved. Informants can call 253-591-5959, and callers will remain anonymous.

h/t Beth at She Who Will Be Obeyed

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Unless you're reading Darleen's Place or Dr. Sanity and a select few other sources of important information, you probably haven't heard about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad's recent letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. That's okay, I understand that there are far more critical events taking place in the world.

Let me break it down for you.

Ahmadi-Nejad tried to kiss up to the German Chancellor with an appeal to her religious convictions (Chancellor Merkel, unlike 49% of her countrymen and women, believes in God); flattery over Germany's achievements in the arts and sciences; and by patronizing her as a woman with a woman's unique gifts.

The purpose of the letter? To enlist Germany as an ally against the evil U.S.-Zionist worldwide conspiracy. You don't have to read between the lines to realize that Ahmadi-Nejad's impression of the German zeitgeist was probably formed by a close reading of Mein Kampf. He still thinks they're Nazis at heart, and therefore potential friends of Islamofascism.

If you take the middle third of the rambling missive (containing the most anti-semitic passages) and replace the universally accepted euphemism "zionist" with the word he really meant, "jew," it looks like the letter could have been written by Adolf himself.

Sixty years have passed since the end of the war. But, regrettably the entire world and some nations in particular are still facing its consequences. Even now the conduct of some bullying powers and power-seeking and aggressive groups is the conduct of victors with the vanquished.

The extortion and blackmail continue, and people are not allowed to think about or even question the source of this extortion, otherwise they face imprisonment. When will this situation end? Sixty years, one hundred years or one thousand years, when? I am sorry to remind you that today the perpetual claimants against the great people of Germany are the bullying powers and the [jew]s that founded the Al-Qods Occupying Regime [i.e. Israel] with the force of bayonets in the Middle East.

The Honorable Chancellor

I have no intention of arguing about the Holocaust. But, does it not stand to reason that some victorious countries of World War II intended to create an alibi on the basis of which they could continue keeping the defeated nations of World War II indebted to them. Their purpose has been to weaken their morale and their inspiration in order to obstruct their progress and power. In addition to the people of Germany, the peoples of the Middle East have also borne the brunt of the Holocaust. By raising the necessity of settling the survivors of the Holocaust in the land of Palestine, they have created a permanent threat in the Middle East in order to rob the people of the region of the opportunities to achieve progress. The collective conscience of the world is indignant over the daily atrocities by the [jew] occupiers, destruction of homes and farms, killing of children, assassinations and bombardments.

Excellency, you have seen that the [jew] government does not even tolerate a government elected by the Palestinian people, and over and over again has demonstrated that it recognizes no limit in attacking the neighboring countries.

The question is why did the victors of the war, especially England that had apparently such a strong sense of responsibility toward the survivors of the Holocaust not allow them to settle in their territory. Why did they force them to migrate to other people's land by launching a wave of anti-Semitism? Using the excuse for the settlement of the survivors of the Holocaust, they encouraged the Jews worldwide to migrate and today a large part of the inhabitants of the occupied territories are non-European Jews. If tyranny and killing is condemned in one part of the world, can we acquiesce and go along with tyranny, killing, occupation and assassinations in another part of the world simply in order to redress the past wrongs?

Excellency

We need to ask ourselves that for what purposes the millions of dollars that the [jew]s receive from the treasury of some Western countries are spent for. Are they used for the promotion of peace and the well-being of the people? Or are they used for waging war against Palestinians and the neighboring countries. Are the nuclear arsenals of Israel intended to be used in defense of the survivors of the Holocaust or as a permanent thereat against nations of the region and as an instrument of coercion, and possibly to defend the interests of certain circles of power in the Western countries.

Regrettably, the influence of the [jew]s in the economy, media and some centers of political power has endangered interests of the European nations and has robbed them of many opportunities. The main alibi for this approach is the extortion they exact from the Holocaust.

One can imagine what standing some European countries could have had and what global role they could have played, if it had not been for this sixty-year old imposition.

I believe we both share the view that the flourishing of nations and their role are directly related to freedom and sense of pride.

Fortunately, with all the pressures and limitations, the great nation of Germany has been able to take great strides toward advancement and has become a major economic powerhouse in Europe that also seeks to play a more effective role in international interactions. But just imagine where Germany would be today in terms of its eminence among the freedom-loving nations, Muslims of the world and peoples of Europe, if such a situation did not exist and the governments in power in Germany had said no to the extortions by the [jew]s and had not supported the greatest enemy of mankind.

The man is so clueless about the progress of history, that he actually believes he can win Germany to his side by appealing to a wounded national pride that he imagines the Germans still feel. Germany has changed since 1945, not always for the better. But if it retains any nationalistic tendencies, it's people like Ahmadi-Nejad who need to worry. No, if Germany ends up aligning itself with Iran, it will be the pacifists and appeasers who'll be responsible for that decision.

I recommend reading the entire letter. Ahmadi-Nejad tries so hard to sound worldly and intellectual, but he just comes off as a poseur trying too hard to make friends. He and Hugo Chavez could form their own Axis of Smarmy.

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I don't really know much about the Florida Senate race, beyond the widely reported comments of Katherine Harris. And you all know how I feel about the so-called "separation" of church and state. But I just got done listening to Medved's interview with Harris on the radio, and even Medved, a sympathetic questioner, couldn't prevent her from coming off as a complete idiot.

Well hell, she's an embarassment, but why should the Democrats have a monopoly on bubbleheads in Congress?

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I just read Photon Courier's excellent post about the murder of Atefeh Sahaleh by the Iranian government. I call it a murder because I learned in my first year criminal law course that the term is defined as "the unjustified killing of a human being by another." What was Atefeh Sahaleh's crime? Having sex.

Oh, she was 16 years old.

[Still think the Iranians are basically nice guys who can be reasoned with?]

So, that led me to Amnesty International's excessively neutral post about the execution. You've heard of Amnesty International. They're the organization that's always criticizing the United States because we still have capital punishment.

So then I decided to compare stats. Without looking, can you guess which country killed more women last year?

If you guessed Iran, you'd be correct. In 2005, only one woman was executed in the United States.

[Her name was Frances Newton, and she was executed by lethal injection on September 14, 2005, by the State of Texas. When she was 24 years old, she shot her husband Adrian, her 7 year old son Alton, and her 21 month old daughter Farrah with a .25 caliber pistol to collect life insurance money. Frances Newton was 40 by the time she was finally executed for the crimes.]

Then I went over to a site called Women's Forum Against Fundamentalism In Iran. It's worth bookmarking if you're curious at all about the type of society our enemy would like to impose upon us.

Just looking at the left sidebar, which contains links to various news stories, is pretty enlightening. Here's a selection of headlines:

Amnesty International: Young woman, Delara Darabi, 19, facing imminent execution

A Kurdish woman sentenced to stoning

More crackdown on women

Women-only buses another government run, gender-apartheid program

Iran’s police stop 10-year-old girl for “mal-veiling”

Women ejected by force from Iran stadium

300,000 homeless women in Iran capital

Iran police prevent women from watching football match

Iran's Islamist rulers want sex segregation on pavements

Iran to hang another teenage girl attacked by rapists

Iran to execute two other women

An Iranian woman in the town of Varamin is sentenced to death by stoning

Iran sentences a woman to death by hanging

Another woman is sentenced to death by stoning in Iran

Female workers are ordered to get home by dusk to serve their families

Senior Iran cleric: Prostitutes must be hanged

Iran to execute two other women

Iran to hang 19-year old mother

Sixty Iranian women activists made a public appeal on Thursday for the release of a Kurdish feminist campaigner

Fundamentalists recruit Women for Martyrdom Seeker Movement in Iran.

Post-election, A New Wave of Crackdown on Women.

Thousands join womenÂ’s anti-government demonstration in Tehran.

Crackdown on Women.

Defeating misogyny in Iran .

Save the Women, Save Ourselves.

UN women's rights official raps Iran over abuses.

Four Iranian Women were executed in 2004 by public hanging or stoning. There are 14 women to be hanged or stoned to death in coming days, weeks or months.

A woman is facing stoning in next five days

A 19 year old mentally ill girl is facing imminent execution in Iran

Another woman facing stoning in Iran

13 year old, Jila, facing death by stoning flogged 55 times

Iranian Student protest forced veiling

Imminent execution of a 33-year-old Iranian women, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh...

Iran moves to roll back rights won by women...

Violence, poverty and abuse led girl, 16, to gallows...

Amnesty International outraged at the reported execution of a 16 year old girl in Iran...

'Painful' day as mother's death recalled. Zahra Kazemi's son still seeks answers. He has no faith in upcoming Iranian trial.

Iran's government has launched a crackdown on women who flout the strict Islamic dress codes during the hot summer months.

An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girlsÂ’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

You know, fuck Mike Wallace, fuck Ahmadi-Nejad, and fuck the fucking mullahs. These people are so completely evil, I can't even finish what I was going to write.

Update: Thanks to Beth of MVRWC, I've been alerted to this update regarding the Nazanin case.

On 3 January, 18-year-old Nazanin was sentenced to death for murder by a criminal court, after she reportedly admitted stabbing to death one of three men who attempted to rape her and her 16-year-old niece in a park in Karaj in March 2005. She was 17 at the time. (See Iran: Amnesty International calls for end to death penalty for child offenders, MDE 13/005/2006, 16 January 2006). At the end of May the Supreme Court rejected the death sentence against Nazanin, reportedly on the instructions of the Head of the Judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi. The case will reportedly be retried in August and sent to a lower court for further investigation.

The Iranian government really is waging a war against women!

Posted by: annika at 07:06 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Is the big surprise, which the Iranians are planning within the next few days, an announcement that they already have the bomb?

Read this chilling interview with former Danish agent Regnar Rasmussen in Front Page Mag. He says the Iranians already got three warheads from Kazakhstan back in the nineties.

In autumn 1991 Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Khazakhstan, sold three nuclear warheads to the Iranians. The Iranians wanted to use them as a prototype for their own bomb manufacturing. The price was said to have been 7.5 billion USD. Whether this amount is true or just the fantasies of a less paid government official, I cannot verify. The amount was to cover all bribes and kick-offs and military protection during transport. Every country involved had demanded their fair share of the deal.

Anyway, the warheads were removed from a military depot somewhere in Kazakhstan and transported by train down to Makhachkala in Daghestan. Here they were reloaded onto huge trucks and then taken through the Caucasian region and into Turkey. In the city of Dogubeyazit the Iranians met the convoy and took over. The three vehicles were then driven by Iranian drivers down to the border post Bazargan, where they entered Iranian territory.

The warheads were brought down to Teheran and parked in the military campus Lavizan. Here they were seen by a soldier who later defected to Israel and told the story to the Israeli intelligence services who at that time were unable to verify the matter further. Various rumours have been circulating ever since. Some stories say two bombs, some say four. The correct number, however, is three.

The Wall Street Journal again reminds us that a nuclear Iran would be a bad thing.

“A nuclear-armed Iran would likely embolden the leadership in Tehran to advance its aggressive ambitions in and outside of the region, both directly and through the terrorists it supports—ambitions that gravely threaten the stability and the security of U.S. friends and allies,” says the House Intelligence report. With a nuclear arsenal that they felt protected them from retaliation, the mullahs would also be more likely to use conventional military force in the Middle East. The domino effect as Turkey, Egypt and the Saudis sought their own nuclear deterrent would also not be “stabilizing,” to cite the highest value of our Middle Eastern “realists.” And don’t forget President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vow that “Israel must be wiped off the map.”

h/t Regime Change Iran & Protein Wisdom

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Guys like Chuck Hagel and David Gergen seem to think that talking to the Iranians will prevent them from joining the nuclear club. It's a crazy idea, and I don't understand why so many notable people have put their faith in this silly course of action.

Iran is presented with a finite number of choices and outcomes, which can be easily and logically analyzed. At the end of any honest analysis, you can see that it is simply not in the mullahs' interest to negotiate away their nuclear arms program. Therefore it's logical to assume that they won't, not only because they have repeatedly said they won't, but also because the best possible course of action from Iran's point of view (regardless of whether they are rational or irrational actors) is to continue their program until they get the bomb.

It's like simple math.

Assume three possible outcomes available to Iran from the current state of negotiations.

Outcome O_N: Iran gets a nuclear weapon.¹

Outcome O_I: Iran gets a package of incentives from the West.

Outcome O_S: International sanctions imposed on Iran, most likely a combination of economic and diplomatic restrictions.

Although it's not essential to my analysis, you may also assume that the West² wishes to prevent outcome O_N, but also that the values of outcomes O_I and O_S are variable and uncertain, due to dissention within the West.

Now at first glance, one can see two alternative courses of action for Iran that are obvious.

Course of action CA₁: Iran refuses to abandon its nuclear enrichment program, rejects all efforts at compromise, and continues working until they get the bomb.

Course of action CA₂: Iran abandons its nuclear program in exchange for the package of incentives offered by the West.

CA₁ = O_N - (O_I + O_S)

CA₂ = (O_I + O_S) - O_N

However, we live in the real world and we all know that the value of a nuclear weapon to the country that possesses it far outweighs the value of any combination of incentives or sanctions the West could possibly offer. Especially if said country has already expressed its desire to wipe a hated enemy off the map, and has recently sent weapons, including rockets, missiles and drones to a proxy army fighting said hated enemy as recently as this month.

Given the above, one would assume that Iran would pursue course of action CA₁, but as we have seen, they continue to pay lip service to the negotiation track, CA₂. Are they really pursuing course of action CA₂? Not if CA₁ > CA₂! What then, are they doing?

Perhaps there is a CA₃, a third course of action that would tempt Iran with the opportunity to gain outcomes O_N and O_I at the same time without incurring any sanctions.

CA₃ = (CA₁ + CA₂) = (O_N + O_I) - O_S

CA₃ = (O_N + O_I + O_S)

But CA₃ contains one flaw: verification. Certainly the West, weak as its negotiating position is, will never agree to deliver incentives without a gauranteed inspection regime. Although the inspections might be watered down, we already know about the Esfahan, Natanz, and Arak facilities, so it would be difficult for the Iranians to refuse access to those sites. Some experts estimate the number of centrifuges necessary at Natanz for a decent enrichment program to be 50,000. That kind of operation would be hard to disguise or relocate.

That's why I think Iran is following another course of action, CA₄:

CA₄ = (O_N x TN_T) - (O_I - O_S)

Course of action CA₄ translates into what we've been watching unfold during the past several months. Iran negotiates in bad faith, makes empty promises, renegs, delays, obfuscates, then makes more empty promises, all the while maintaining their research and enrichment activity.

It's possible that a compromise settlement might be reached in the near future, but I seriously doubt it. Iran has repeatedly and unambiguously asserted its intention never to give up its enrichment program (a fact that seems to be lost on many negotiation-fixated politicians and pundits). I take the Iranians at their word, because it's not in their interest to give up the bomb. They've already done the math.
_______________

1.    Or, more accurately, Iran successfully gains the ability to domestically produce fissile material for manufacturing nuclear weapons. One can assume that creating delivery systems such as missiles and warheads are less of a problem for the Iranians. These can be purchased, or reverse-engineered by Iranian technicians. But weapons grade plutonium and/or uranium from their own factories are what they need to become a nuclear power, and this is the outcome we need to prevent.

2.    i.e. the U.S. and certain allies, to varying degrees.

Posted by: annika at 07:21 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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ABC News says Iran has delivered their response to the "package of Western incentives aimed at persuading Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment." Apparently, nobody knows what's in the Iranian proposal yet.

How much you wanna bet it's a "demand for Jizya," or a tax on non-muslims. Just a hunch, but we've already had the "call to Islam," so it's time for step two in Ahmadi-Nejad and the Mullah's 3 step plan for jihad.

Update: When you read stories about today's Iranian proposal (indeed, when you read any story about the current standoff), especially by the Associated Press, I want you to notice one conspicuous omission. The AP is always careful to balance the U.S.'s accusation that Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon with a "fair and balanced" disclaimer like this:

Iran says it wants to master the technology to generate nuclear power.

Iran says it will not abandon what it calls its right to enrich uranium for use in nuclear power stations.

One might think that little bit of information would add some important perspective to the story.

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From the New York Times:

A senior Bush administration official said Thursday that he anticipated that the United Nations would move rapidly in September to impose sanctions on Iran if it refused to halt uranium enrichment . . .

"I think we would want to move very quickly in the first part of September toward a debate in the Security Council about sanctions," he said. "They will be well deserved as this has gone on a long time."

The resolution passed by the Security Council on July 31 demands that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing work by the end of August or face the possibility of sanctions. It noted the need for “further decisions,” however, before any punishments for noncompliance could be pursued.

“The will of a lot of countries has been strengthened by watching the Iranian government trying to destabilize both Lebanon and Israel over the last 30 to 40 days,” he said.

The Iranian government denies that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is peaceful, for research and energy development.

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The civilized world is in trouble. At a time when our reputation for getting things done around the globe is in doubt, radical Islam's reputation is gaining steam. Israel just lost its first war, at the hands of a bunch of cowards who hid behind women and children. Only a week after we stopped a major terrorist attack that might have killed over three thousand innocent people, a judge in this very country declared one of the methods used to save those lives is unconstitutional. North Korea probably has a nuclear bomb. Iran will probably get one soon (If they can't make it, what's to stop them from getting one from Kim Jong-il?). The best we can do to stop these madmen is to threaten sanctions that will never be imposed and wouldn't work even if they were.

Anything we do to stop western civilization from spiralling down the abyss is criticized and opposed tooth and nail by a fifth column in our own country. Movie stars who deny that al Qaeda did 9-11; people who call Bush the world's #1 terrorist (forget that, people call me a terrorist!); newspapers that refuse to publicize any wartime successes, while rushing to weaken our ability to defend against our enemies; a Supreme Court that bends over backwards for feces throwing barbarians who would kill untold Americans if only they were set free.

We all know what the problem is. It's Bush hatred syndrome. John Kerry says we should have one-on-one talks with North Korea simply because Bush is persuing multilateral talks. Then he criticizes the administration's foreign policy for excessive unilateralism. Bush is villified for removing Saddam Hussein, which is merely the successful culmination of a policy directive signed by President Clinton. The United States, long criticized for supporting evil dictators, is now told by enlightened leftists that the Iraqi people were better off under Saddam (whom we created anyway?!).

There is one solution I can think of, which could neutralize the anti-Americanism of today's leftist fifth column. We need to neutralize them now because the time to fight for civilization's very existence may be coming sooner than we think. And when the real fight comes, it won't be pretty. This country needs to be free to act without destructive second guessing by those who have a political axe to grind, or who outright sympathize with the enemy. A proper solution is one that will silence anti-American critics, and get everybody working on the same side.

The solution I have devised would allow George W. Bush to maintain the same foreign policy course as he has for the last six years. The only thing he would need to do to silence all his critics is to announce that he is gay. A tearful press conference with his longtime "companion" on his right and Laura on his left should do it. From that point on, anything he does will be golden, in the eyes of the left. Andrew Sullivan might even turn Republican again.

What about the so-called evangelicals, you say? First of all, Bush isn't running in '08, so he doesn't need their vote. And if they're smart, they'll understand the unseen political wink, and not be too upset about it. You know the political wink I'm talking about. It's the same one Democrats give to their own base whenever they talk about "reaching out" to "religious people."

Let's all join in a new political battle cry: "George W. Bush, come out of the closet before it's too late!"

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What's worse than snakes on a plane? Crazy "peace activists" on a plane!

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[part of a continuing series]

I know it's like beating a dead dog over and over again, but I feel like if I don't blog about these things when I see them, people might forget.

Check this article from AP, with the headline: "Iran leader praises Hezbollah resistance."

You will note that nowhere in the article does the word "resistance" appear, which leads one to believe that the editors who wrote the headline chose that word because they think it properly describes what Hezbollah is up to.

I'm not asking for an unbiased media, I just want them to admit that they are on the side of the enemy.

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You all remember the story about LBJ, after he saw Walter Cronkite declare the Vietnam War "unwinnable." He switched off the tv and said, famously:

If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.

Is this a sign that some kind of critical mass has been reached?

Well, at least he's still got Annika.

Update: I think it's important to note that neither Michael, nor Rich have given up on Iraq. I am concerned, though, that Michael Yon has not been able to return to the war zone as he has requested. When Rich Lowry starts to get worried, it's even more important that we have the benefit of Yon's reportage, with his uniquely objective voice. Otherwise the real story will continue to be held captive by a biased or disinterested mainstream media.

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[part of a continuing series]

The prime impetus for modern American liberalism is the opposition to any restrictions on abortion. The prime impetus for European liberalism is anti-semitism.

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What is it with these terrorists and the 11th?

I was on a lot of planes during my vacation, and I didn't see a single muslim. Not that that means anything, but I remember noticing it at the time. Usually there's one or two waiting at the gate whenever I fly and I go through the usual mental gyration. You know the one, like this: "oh there's some muslims... I wonder if I should get on the plane... oh no then I'd look like a total racist... I guess they look okay... gee I hope they're not terrorists." Then you get on the plane, nothing happens and you realize you were nervous about nothing. But of course, then something like today's arrests happen.

People are saying this was supposed to be bigger than 9-11. If the plan was to blow up a dozen planes over the ocean, it would have been big. On a scale with 9-11, but it wouldn't have been worse than 9-11. Which makes me think that maybe they were planning to wait until the planes were over the U.S., and detonate the explosives over populated areas. Just a theory.

Or maybe not. Thinking about the whole "fourth generation warfare" thing, it's probably not in the terrorists' interest to "top" 9-11's horror. Ten or twenty planes blowing up over the ocean is evil enough to demonstrate that the terrorists are still there, and that they can still pull shit. It would have been terrible for the victims and their families. People would have been shocked and there would have been political repercussions for sure. But I still don't think it would have been big enough to change certain attitudes which need changing before we can really take care of the problem.

Attitudes like this one:

Do I sound as if I don't believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don't believe it. Read the article. They say the plot had an "Al Qaeda footprint." Ooh, are you scared yet? What that really means is that they found NO evidence whatsoever that the plot had anything to do at all with Al Qaeda, but the plot simply made them think "gosh, this is something Al Qaeda would do." That's what a footprint means. Nice, but no cigar.

Were these guys totally innocent? Probably not. But there's no reason to believe they were any more Osama's right-hand than Jose Padilla, the famed dirty-bomber who I think is now only being charged with jay-walking or something...

You know what, after three plus years of blogging I've learned that I can't argue against such an idiotic theory. People who believe that shit will never be silent, but people will stop listening to them someday.

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There's an excellent article in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle regarding a subject I tried to write about here. The subject is "fourth generation warfare."

The question I asked, and which the Chronicle article addresses, is this: How does a state fight against a non-state in a new era of warfare in which non-states seem to have the advantage?

Look at Hezbollah. It used to be that the side with the most casualties was the loser. It used to be that the side who was forced to give up ground to an opponent was the loser. But as we've seen in the Israeli-Hezbollah war, the world has entered a new era of warfare in which every casualty suffered on the side of the non-state combatant becomes a weapon to be used against the state combatant.

In this new type of warfare, it behooves Hezbollah (and those particular Iraqi insurgents whose goal it is to end the U.S. "occupation") to maximize casualties on their own side of the fence. What we have is a war of attrition in which one side sacrifices its own citizens in order to obtain a strategic goal by non-military means, i.e. by propaganda.

Chronicle staff writer Matthew Stannard provides a more detailed description of "fourth generation warfare:"

A use of all available networks -- political, economic, social and military -- to convince enemy political leaders that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly to achieve.

A lack of clearly defined conditions, including beginning and end, victory or defeat, peace or war, civilian and combatant. Modern wars of this type tend to last for years as conflict surges and ebbs and moves between political, military and other battlegrounds.

Antagonists are organized more as sprawling, "leaderless" networks than as tight-knit hierarchies.

At least one side is something other than a military force organized and operating under the control of a national government -- a force that appears widely dispersed and largely undefined, lacking bases, centers of power and other traditional points of assault. These groups tend to seek to use their opponents' size, power and legitimacy against them.

An emphasis on high technology that allows small organizations to asymmetrically attack larger ones -- for example, availability of weapons of mass destruction, tools of electronic warfare or easy access to global media for purposes of propaganda.

What we've seen with "fourth dimensional warfare" is a completely new way for weak opponents to attack and beat strong opponents. I would say this is one of the lessons of Vietnam, and like the "minie" ball revolution, military planners are slow to recognize that the rug has been pulled out from under them. It is especially important that we get a handle on this problem now, because the Cold War is over and we are going to be fighting Hezbollahs and al Qaedas for the forseeable future.

What concerns me is that, in the battle of civilizations called the "War On Terror," the thing that makes us civilized is the thing that makes us weak -- our compassion. When your enemy is uncivilized, and has no concept of compassion, it's hard to win if you're swayed by world opinion.

My thesis is that we cannot win under these new rules. Only a return to the more brutal methods of World War II can beat these non-state actors and their principals (Iran, Syria). But we can't resort to those older methods unless we abandon our aversion to civilian casualties. And I don't see that happening absent a horrific über-9-11 as a catalyst.

Which is why I ended my last post on the subject with that cryptic and ominous final sentence.

h/t Belmont Club

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1 I was all ready to beotchslap u, until you reached your conclusion. Well done grasshopper. It's gonna be ugly when we take the gloves off, and that day be a'commin.

Posted by: Casca at August 09, 2006 02:42 PM (2gORp)

2 You are right, Annika. Unfortunately, 50% of America and more than 50% of Europe live in Fantasy Land, where if you just "talk," or "negotiate," or "understand" the enemy, all will be good. This idiocy is going to get a lot of civilized people killed while the barbarians continue to storm the gates. Today is the 61st Anniversary of the bombing Nagasaki. Lives were saved and a way of life ensured because we had the courage necessary to make the price too high for our enemies. I hope we don't have to lose another 3,000 citizens before we understand the reality of today and our enemy.

Posted by: Blu at August 09, 2006 02:54 PM (j8oa6)

3 The Chronicle and you forget one important element, Annika. That warfare cannot work without the cooperation, collusion and encouragement of Western media, No one stages a propaganda event unless the media is willing to cover it the way the propagandist desires. If the media ignores the event or critically reports on the event, the events soon disappear. The way to end this type of warfare is to convince the media to develop some ethics and put an end to their bloodlust.

Posted by: Jake at August 09, 2006 03:28 PM (r/5D/)

4 Jake, Excellent point. Thanks for bringing it up. Michelle Malkin has done an amazing job of late cataloging examples of MSM distortion (e.g. Reuters photo manipulation). It is tough to win a war when your own media is clearly cheerleading for the jihadists.

Posted by: Blu at August 09, 2006 03:44 PM (LXOfu)

5 Jake, that's not going to happen. We have to assume that the mainstream media is lost for the forseeable future.

Posted by: annika at August 09, 2006 03:45 PM (zAOEU)

6 Annika: I guess I agree with you. Media ethics is an oxymoron.

Posted by: Jake at August 09, 2006 04:47 PM (r/5D/)

7 You are right, we have to get savage to win this type of war. In fact I believe the following; War should be "nasty, Brutish, and short." Immigrants should be "safe, legal, and rare" and Liberals should be "Stopped, dropped, and rolled".

Posted by: kyle8 at August 09, 2006 05:12 PM (bYW7A)

8 lol, Kyle

Posted by: annika at August 09, 2006 06:00 PM (qQD4Q)

9 Ain't it a shame that while we drop th e bomb on Iran (OK, Israel will do it for us) and level Iran and Syria to parking lots, we can't assemble the entire maintream media to cover it, and send them a love package as well? Casca, the gloves are coming off, and soon. The next attack by the IslamoFascists will turn the tide, and the Bushies will use it to clean house. Hell, they've got my vote now. Why wait?

Posted by: shelly at August 10, 2006 01:11 AM (BJYNn)

10 We're just waiting for the baptism of Carlo & Connie's baby.

Posted by: Casca at August 10, 2006 06:17 AM (rEC2k)

11 Do you guys really think another terror-attack like 9/11 will wake up the Liberals, the MSM, the rest of the free-world? I think they're committed to their warped view of the world where the U.S. and President Bush are to blame for everything, and the solution to all of the world's ills are negotiations, cease-fires, and humanitarian aid. You underestimate just how stupid liberals are, like they underestimate just how dangerous Islamofacism is.

Posted by: Rob at August 10, 2006 07:08 AM (9DumO)

12 Maybe the word "stupid" was too harsh. Let me change that to "misguided."

Posted by: Rob at August 10, 2006 07:10 AM (9DumO)

13 Annie - Don't buy into this 4GW theory. First, there is a substantial difference between a theory of wafare (like 4GW) and tactics in conducting warfare. The generational model is an ineffective way to depict changes in warfare. Simple displacement rarely takes place and significant developments typically occur in parallel. 4GW type tactics as a way of waging war dates back to ancient history, and thus predates the so-called 2d and 3rd generations as described by 4GW theorists. Insurgents, guerrillas, and resistance fighters (pick your term du jour) figured large in many of the wars fought during the age of classical warfare. (The author briefly acknowledges this point and then lets all the other people in the article speak as if somehow today is different) Increased dispersion and availability of technology, information, and finance brought about by globalization has given terrorist groups greater range of capabilities and access worldwide. Globalization seems to aid the nonstate actor more than the state, but states still play a central role in the support or defeat of terrorist groups or insurgencies. Could AQ have grown without protection and support from the Taliban government? How effective is Hezbollah without a weak Lebanese government and Syrian/Iranian support? Hamas without a variety of Arab states? Hamas, Hezbollah, and (to a lesser extent) Al Qaeda actually have integrated themselves into the social and political fabric of mainly Muslim societies worldwide. Hamas and Hezbollah have addressed the every day problems of the people because the existing State has not. Each has also become a powerful political party within their respective governments. Hamas and Hezbollah have turned their constituencies into effective weapons by creating strong social, political, and religious ties with them; in short, they have become communal activists for their constituencies, which have, in turn, facilitated the construction and maintenance of substantial financial and logistical networks and safe houses. This support then aids in the regeneration of the terrorist groups and allows states to network with them. The one point Hammes has right is these conflicts are proxy wars due to larger state issues. Credible threats to take out the Syrian and Iranian regimes and credible assurances to bolster the Lebanese government would do far more to reduce Hezbollah than unfortunately what Israel can do at the moment.

Posted by: Col Steve at August 10, 2006 09:00 AM (pj2h7)

14 Seen in that light, Col. Steve, then one of the most criticized statements of President Bush "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists" becomes one of the wisest things he's ever said.

Posted by: annika at August 10, 2006 02:14 PM (zAOEU)

15 "Credible threats to take out the Syrian and Iranian regimes and credible assurances to bolster the Lebanese government would do far more to reduce Hezbollah than unfortunately what Israel can do at the moment." Yeah, what Col Steve said!

Posted by: Blu at August 16, 2006 11:15 AM (j8oa6)

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Blu sent me the following. It's a commentary by Israeli journalist Ben Caspit for the newspaper Ma'ariv, written in the voice of Ehud Olmert. So far as I can tell, it is not an actual speech by Olmert, just something Caspit wishes Olmert had the guts to say.

I thought it was so good, I'm reprinting it in its entirety. more...

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In the aftermath of the Reuters photo meltdown, wherein photographs taken by a freelancer were doctored for political effect, it might be a good time to note that the most compelling independent evidence of the alleged Haditha atrocities are .... photographs taken by a freelancer.

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You may have been following the Reuters doctored photo controversy. If not, Beth has a great rundown.

Of course, my sources here at annika's journal came through for me again. Now we know why Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj felt the need to doctor the original photograph. Open the extended entry to view the original. more...

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Wikipedia has a list of ongoing wars:

Basque Terrorism in Spain; Colombian Civil War; Islamic Insurgency in the Philippines; Somalian Civil War; Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka; Shining Path Insurgency in Peru; Papua New Guinea Civil War in Indonesia; Turkish-Kurdish conflict; LRA rebellion in Uganda; Casamance Conflict in Senegal; Somali Civil War; Myanmar Civil War; India-Pakistan Kashmir conflict; Georgian Civil War; Algerian Civil War; Ethnic conflict in Nagaland, India; Zapatista Rebellion in Mexico; Nepalese Civil War; Second Congo War; Ituri Conflict; Second Chechen War; al-Aqsa Intifada in Israel and the Palestinian Territories; Laotian-Hmong Civil War; Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan; Côte d'Ivoire Civil War; South Thailand insurgency; Iraqi Insurgency; Balochistan conflict in Pakistan; Waziristan War between Pakistan and al Qaeda; Darfur conflict; Chadian-Sudanese conflict; Western Sahara Independence Intifada; and the Israel-Lebanon crisis.

I made some changes to Wikipedia's list, which was overinclusive. Obviously, the wars that are most relevant to us are the Iraqi Insurgency, the Taliban Insurgency, the so-called Waziristan War, and the Israel-Lebanon crisis. But the main thing one gets from looking at the 33 conflicts listed is that the majority of them involve nation states fighting against irregular armies or guerrillas.

In armed conflict between nations and guerillas, the advantages of a nation state are easy to name. They are usually better equipped and better trained. They have professional leadership. They can form alliances with other nation states to obtain resources such as weapons and intelligence, if not actual military assistance. Their status as a recognized state confers a measure of legitimacy to their actions that guerillas do not have, at least initially.

The weakness of guerrilla forces are similarly obvious. In comparison to national armed forces, guerrillas are usually outnumbered. Their access to advanced weaponry is limited or non-existent. They usually lack formal training and professional leadership. They must operate in secret, which hampers their ability to communicate among themselves and their allies, and to obtain and store weapons and supplies.

However, guerrilla forces have distinct advantages over national armed forces. They usually do not wear uniforms, and when not in actual combat can remain in close proximity to their opponent, safely disguised as civilians. Guerrillas are by definition committed to their goal, and thus have the luxury of time. They do not have to answer to indifferent political forces back home, which can be a great advantage in a war of attrition. As Mao once said: The enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we harass. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue.

And now, the latest Israeli-Lebanon conflict has thrown the weakness of nation states vis-a-vis guerrilla forces into sharp relief. Hezbollah's strategy has been to exploit the political weakness of Israel and its ally the United States. That weakness has been an unwillingness to suffer the opprobrium of world opinion, and that weakness has to date proved decisive.

The war in Lebanon is not over, but it looks like a cease fire is inevitable. If it comes to pass, no one should have any doubts about the permanency of the cease fire. It will not be permanent. How can it be when one side remains committed to the complete destruction of its opponent and the other side is committed to its own survival?

I have always said that there are two sure-fire solutions to the decades long Middle East Conflict. The first would be for all the various Palestinian groups to lay down their arms and adopt non-violent protest as their philosophy. That's a subject for another entire post, but I truly believe that a Gandhi style rebellion in the Palestinian territories would result in a fully independent Palestinian state within probably five years, maybe less. It will never happen because the Palestinian terrorist leadership doesn't really care about independence; they only care about killing Jews.

The second sure-fire solution recognizes the fact that the Palestinian leadership wants the conflict to continue because that enables them to keep killing Jews, which is their reason for existence. The second solution is to allow both sides to fight each other until one side wins. That means no cease fire, no brokered agreement, no cessation of hostilities, no UN peacekeeping force. Fight until one side surrenders.

We all know that if Israel were allowed to engage in Clausewitzian total war against its enemies, Israel would win. The Palestinian terrorists know this too. That's why Hezbollah and Hamas try to walk a fine line. They goad Israel into attacking, then cry foul when Israel responds. A cease fire is imposed and the terrorists bide their time until the next intifada. The enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we harass. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue.

The trouble with the total war solution is its ugliness. Since World War II, the civilized world has not had the stomach for civilian casualties on a large scale. Every civilian death is now "regrettable," which is a new phenomenon in the history of the world.

Civilians have always died in war. Before the modern era, civilians were targeted directly. The ancients knew that pillaging was part of war. Victors from Genghis Khan to Napoleon put whole villages to the sword, simply for the crime of having been on the other side of a line on a map.

Did people protest these atrocities? Sure. Its not that people didn't think this type of warfare was unfair to the innocent. They did, but people had different expectations than we do nowadays. If Napoleon burned your town and his troops raped your wife and killed your kids, you didn't complain to Napoleon. You complained to your king, and then he went over there and kicked Napoleon's ass.

It was all about tribalism in the old days. You belonged to a tribe, and the other guy belonged to his tribe. If the other guy did something bad to your tribe, you expected and demanded that your tribe would retaliate by doing something bad to his tribe. That was understood as justice.*

In more recent times, our rationale for killing civilians moderated a bit, even if the number of dead civilians seemed to go up. During World War II, while the Japanese, Germans and Russians were committing acts of barbarism against civilians on the ground, we held ourselves to a different standard. We killed civilians too, but we did it from afar. And we killed a lot of them. Almost a million German civilians died from strategic bombing, and a similar number of Japanese with them. That was total war, and along with all those corpses it produced a clear victor, and a lasting peace.

I started out by remarking how many of the conflicts going on in the world are between guerilla movements and nation states. I'm trying to understand why, in an age when B-2 bombers from Missouri can attack an unseen enemy 7000 miles away in Afghanistan, yet we're not able to defeat a bunch of punks armed with homemade bombs in Baghdad. One fine morning in 1967, the Israeli Air Force destroyed the entire combined air forces of three sovereign nations. Yet here we are in 2006, about to watch a band of criminals shooting glorified bottle rockets claim victory over the vaunted IDF.

I'm sure there's lots of guys working in thinktanks and war colleges whose job it is to figure these things out, but so far I haven't seen nor heard of any effective way to fight guerrillas other than by total unrestricted warfare — which we won't do. How do you counter the weighty advantage they've claimed for themselves by co-opting the machinery of world public opinion? How do you beat an enemy that has perfected the use of civilian deaths both offensively and defensively, if your one achilles heel is the fear of civilian deaths?

America has fought against guerrilla forces in the past. We did it successfully during the Plains Indians Wars and the Philippine Insurrection. We were unsuccessful during Vietnam, although the ugliness of our methods was similar in all three wars. And that's the point. We can't fight and win against a guerrilla enemy unless we do so in a brutal manner. And even then, the outcome is not certain.

To win, the enemy needs to know that violence begets violence. They need to know that if they mess with our tribe, we will mess with theirs and we won't be deterred if things get ugly and innocent civilians die. But the reality is something completely different, because in fact we are deterred by civilian casualties. In fact, we are fighting two wars and a nominal war on terror with the express handicap that we will do everything to avoid harming civilians as much as possible.

That's the situation, and that's why we're still in Iraq. The administration's policy is not to become more brutal, which could win victory but would turn the world against us. (Even more than they already have, that is.) Instead the administration's ultimate goal is to prepare an Iraqi security force to fight the guerrilla war. In truth, our plan is to pass the buck to the Iraqis. It's the only solution, if one recognizes the fact that the world is not in a place where it will accept brutality by a nation state in a small-scale war like Iraq.

I suppose that is understandable. I'm not arguing here for total war, indiscriminate killing of civilians, collective punishment, or the adoption of brutality in Iraq. I'm merely trying to point out the reality of our dilemma. We can't do what needs to be done, so we won't do it. The enemy knows this and is smart enough to recognize it as our greatest weakness. They will keep fighting us, and using our weakness against us. We advance, they retreat. We camp, they harass. We tire, they attack. We retreat, they pursue. Follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion and you'll realize something even scarier.

We may end up with total war, whether we like it or not.
_______________

* Nowadays the "world" has a different, some would say more enlightened, definition of justice. Today's justice revolves around preventing the innocent from getting killed. That's fine and dandy, except we don't apply that ideal evenly across the board. There's plenty of dead innocent people around the world who might have argued that our new definition of "justice" didn't do them a whole lot of good.

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1 If a Democrat had been President, the Iraqi war would have been over in 2004. The MSM, the academic world and the entertainment industry would have supported the war no matter what. That meant that the terrorists would have received no encouragement from the US to continue their slaughter. The terrorists would have given up within a year.

Posted by: Jake at August 05, 2006 04:16 PM (r/5D/)

2 Excellent post, Annika. In the end, I don't know what is going to happen in Iraq. I hope the administration's Iraqi-fication policies work. If we're lucky, we won't have to partition the country into 3 new ethnic/sectarian nations. Strategy Page surmises that the "civil war" won't last very long at this rate if the Sunni Arabs are the only problem. http://tinyurl.com/oqxqh The Sunni Arab headhackers used to be the ones that wanted us to get out of Iraq the most, but now they want us to stick around to protect them from their formerly oppressed victims in the majority. If the ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs and a Kurdistan mini-apartheid against Arabs will bring stability to that country, we shouldn't stop it.

Posted by: reagan80 at August 05, 2006 07:06 PM (dFOlH)

3 There is one way, just short of scorched earth to fight insurgent/guerilla forces. But it takes time and money. You build up your own insurgent force as secretly as possible and send them out to spy and infiltrate the enemy. At the same time you try to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the local population to harbor the insurgents. Obviously that approach works best when the terrorists are of the same ethnicity as the nation state. It would be more difficult for Israel for instance to do the same although it might be worth a try.

Posted by: kyle8 at August 06, 2006 05:58 AM (pkyh4)

4 I think Peru was successful by using counter insurgent militias against the communist Shining Path guerrillas. Of course that wouldn't work in Iraq, since militias are part of the problem.

Posted by: annika at August 06, 2006 09:30 AM (qQD4Q)

5 Unfortunately, our lack of troops combined with wishful thinking made short shrift of our nonexistent counterinsurgency strategy in the latter part of 2003. First, there are ways to win counterinsurgencies and it's done all the time. The key is to make life very difficult for the insurgents and life comparatively better for those loyal the governmet. This comes from things like fortified hamlets, generous aid to turncoats, saturation patrolling, educating the populace on benefits of working with government, collective punishment and mass dispersal of areas that support terrorists, public executions of captured terrorists, domination of cities with heavy troop presence, a census with draconian punishments for unregistered inhabitants of country, etc. This has worked in Algeria, Malaya, Latin America, etc. We have done almost none of these things, intead buttoning up in bases, occasional presence patrols (combined with mutual fear and misunderstanding with populace), half-assed training of indigenous forces, complete nonconsequence to most regions that support terrorists, hair-brained hearts and minds gestures, and, most important, a lack of understanding that security is the first among equals in things that the replacement regime provided by us needs to provide for commerce and other goals to be achieved. But we never governed Iraq and we never stood up a functioning government. Instead we handed off a nonfunctioning governme to the Iraqis. Instead of providing security as the keystone of any hearts and minds strategy, we thought giving this nonfunctioning government a democratic imprimatur would make the Iraqis rally to it. This did not work; instead our actions have discredited democracy, by combining the defects of the current Iraqi regime with the Iraqi and Arab appraisal of democracy genreally. In their minds, "democracy" is reasonably equated with the chaos now in Iraq. Finally, even if we defeated the first crew of insurgents on the battlefield, we never set the conditions in which the replacement Iraqi regime could rally support from the whole country. And why? Because Iraq was not much of a country to begin with, but instaed and armed camp with lots of constituencies who are mutually hostile. There never was an idea or concept of "Iraq" and the new regime's goals that would unify the country. People don't fight for "democracy." Democracy is a procedure of how one picks his rulers. What the Iraqi government actually is supposed to do has always been up in the air from day one. We of course want it to do our bidding, but this is kind of hard to reconcile with democrayc when most of the people follow an illiberal religion and have other sources of alienation from the US, e.g., anti-colonialist viewpoint, history, sympathy with Palestinians etc. So we've screwed this up tactically (not enough linguists, weak investment in Iraqi forces, all too frequent "collateral damage" that flows from lack of linguists and intel), strategically (aiming for democracy, "light footprint strategy), and politically (no coherent concept of Iraqi agnenda, aiming for democracy at all, handing off nonfunctioning government). More and more it's obvious we must withdraw before our army is destroyed, hopefully after some brutal retaliation on areas of the country that have aimed themselves at our forces, e.g., Sadr City, Fallujah, Ramadi.

Posted by: Roach at August 06, 2006 04:48 PM (TY/gr)

6 Interesting post, and interesting comments. We are not fighting with the primary intention of creating stability in the Mideast. Instead, we are actually roiling the area - intentionally. Our primary purpose is to inject Western ideas into the Mideast - like a virus. We hope the democratic virus will defeat jihadi ideology. Now, God forbid the democratic Iraqi government should either fall, or become irrelevant - like the Lebanese government. However, even if one of these unpleasant results occurs, the democratic virus has already been injected into the Mideast more deeply than ever before - and that is the strategy we believe will make America safer in the long run. OIF has achieved it's primary goal. Therefore, OIF is a strategic success. The only question is how big a success it will be.

Posted by: gcotharn at August 06, 2006 09:10 PM (kHrXu)

7 It had multiple goals, and it's only achieved one, ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein. The "instability" of our presence in Iraq was not supposed to be in the form of an awful civil war that daily shows our impotence vis a vis both the insurgency and brutal elements in the Shiite government. The instability was supposed to come from the Ptoemkin Village that Iraq was to become, a model regime of law, order, democracy, and social peace. It is none of those things; so, instead of showing American client regimes can be well governed, liberal, and rewarded, we created a client regime taht is poorly governed, illberal, hard to control in a way that furthers our interests, and, because of the undeniable hell that Iraq is today, a daily argument against democacy to the rest of the Middle East. The fact that so many Iraqi refugees, chiefly professionals, are headed to Jordan and Syria is quite telling as for what kind of government they think is best, even with the narrow goal of simply being able to work, turn on the lights, and not worry about waking up to a death squad coming to kill one's entire family. It is profoundly dishonest and mistaken to call this a strategic success. We've emboldened Jihadis, emboldened Iran, provided a de facto argument every day of why democracy is NOT a good road for the middle east. This whole stupid and ideologically motivated quest for democacy is wrong on so many levels. First, it misapprehends the genius of our own system as "democracy" rather than our well balanced constitution. Two, it forgets to ask what kind of policies these democracies will pursue. Three, it ignores the benefits of stability from regimes such as King Abdullah's or Hosni Mubarak's. Four, it is too ambitious, the neoconservative equivalent of the liberal war on crime, going after "root causes" that likely won't change for a 1,000 years rather than just finding the bad guys and killing them. These Trotskyites are endangering our country, our military, and empowering our enemies.

Posted by: Roach at August 07, 2006 08:57 AM (1BjlW)

8 Ptoemkin Village refers to a plywood/cardboard/Hollywood set type of fake village. I agree with "multiple goals". You lose me when you fail to include the injection of democracy/western ideas as one of those goals. This indicates a zealous mindset on your part, and an unwillingness to fairly characterize the situation. Pres. Bush has clearly stated, over and over, that we intend to inject democratic ideas into Iraq. The Iraqis themselves must make the ideas real. We did not write and impose a constitution upon Iraq. We will all be dead before it is known if that was the best course of action. You say the Iraq insurgency exposes our impotence. I say, where we are impotent, let it be known. I say that is a good thing: let the light shine in. It's time to get some things defined and declared - for their benefit, and for our own. Let the players show their cards. Old joke: Dr. tells man he is impotent. Man buys a new hat. Man says: "If I'm gonna be impotent, I'm gonna look impotent!" It might or might not be fair to say Baghdad is an undeniable hell. I reject(deny?! that characterization vis a vis the entire nation. I reject this opinion: Iraq is a daily argument against democracy. I don't believe this is happening in numbers which are significant: so many Iraqi refugees, chiefly professionals, are headed to Jordan and Syria, and I reject your stated conclusion: is quite telling as for what kind of government they think is best. You write: We've emboldened Jihadis, emboldened Iran. This would be a problem, if our main goal was status quo stability. It was not. Status quo stability is what was going to get us killed. If Jihadis are emboldened, great. Makes em easier to kill. If Iran is emboldened, great. Wakes the world up, and makes the Iran problem easier to resolve. ideologically motivated quest for democacy is wrong on so many levels As opposed to, what? Ideologically motivated quest for tyranny, oppression, and backwardness? misapprehends the genius of our own system as "democracy" rather than our well balanced constitution "Democracy" is shorthand. No one says "democracy" and means "oppressive, inadequate constitution." The whole argument of "if you inject democracy, they will elect terrorists President" is strawman, strawman, strawman. "Democracy" is shorthand for "injecting democratic, civilized, humane ideas into a backwards, 6th century, stagnant hovel of humanity." You want that written out every time? it ignores the benefits of stability from regimes such as King Abdullah's or Hosni Mubarak's Bullshit. We can inject ideas, roil the region, and still appreciate a proper amount of stability. No one is denying the existence of complexity. going after "root causes" that likely won't change for a 1,000 years rather than just finding the bad guys and killing them. It is your masturbatory dream that we can just find the bad guys and kill them. Just finding the bad guys and killing them entails taking out untold scads of civilians. This is why our strategy is to convert the populace to our side, then have the converted populace take out the bad guys. If you reject, out of hand, the possibility of this strategy working, then you are advocating that we undertake a bloodbath. Things may, God forbid, get to the bloodbath stage. But first, we are trying the conversion strategy. These Trotskyites are endangering our country, our military, and empowering our enemies. Looking at this sentence, I can see I have wasted my time in replying to you. Shit. I guess I'll post this anyway. But it's a close call.

Posted by: gcotharn at August 07, 2006 10:20 AM (kHrXu)

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Great news! It looks like they've arrested two suspects in the Arizona Serial Shooter case. Supposedly the shooter and his driver. That means the Baseline Killer is still out there. I hope they get him soon.

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