Abu Wabu

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard has a devastating critique of the 9/11 Commission that addresses the Commission's intentional exclusion of evidence that contradicted its apparently predetermined storyline, evidence that without the Gorelick Wall would have led directly to Mohammed Atta and other hijackers as well as to the Iraqis who assisted them.

A telling line: "It may be the case, as three individuals associated with the Pentagon unit claim, that Able Danger had identified Mohammed Atta in January or February 2000 and that the 9/11 Commission simply ignored this information because it clashed with the commission's predetermined storyline. We should soon know more. Whatever the outcome of that debate, the 9/11 Commission's deliberate exclusion of the Iraqis from its analysis is indefensible."

Took my favorite wife to California on the well-deserved Summer Road Trip in The Bad Boy, a spanking new black-on-black 300hp Mustang GT convertible. Music by The Beatles, Motown and Nelson Riddle. Destination: the Monterey Historic Automobile Races, and there's nothing else like it. Now that we're back it's time to catch up on our reading:

Christopher Hitchens explains the reality of Iraq to those still waiting for George W. Bush to apologize for something, anything. This is Hitchens at his most elegant, so if you're still an addle-brained Bush-hating idiot after reading A War To Be Proud Of, you'll always be that same idiot. Not to get too personal, you understand.

Speaking of road trips, Edward Morrissey, writing in the Weekly Standard, examines the conflicting stories of Atta's Prague Vacation and asks why the 9/11 Commission chose to believe captured terrorists rather than Army Intel.

Meanwhile, back at Captain's Quarters, Morrissey further describes the 9/11 Commission's malfeasance while showing how the CIA treats information that doesn't match its view of the world:
Like the Atta visit to Prague, for which the Czech government provided intelligence which they insist to this day is accurate, the Commission chose to minimize or ignore evidence and intelligence that would lead Americans to believe that any state had a role in facilitating al-Qaeda in its attack on 9/11. They went out of their way to reach a conclusion that would encourage the US to discount the role of state sponsorship of terrorism, rather than point out that more than one state had some operational ties to the 9/11 conspiracy.

On the ground in Iraq, we find that the human-rights-for-terrorist-assholes crowd on the left have gotten their way with the release of a thousand or so terrorist assholes from Abu Ghraib, and let's be clear about this: there are nothing but terrorist assholes in the cells of Abu Ghraib. And what do these newly-released assholes do? They go back and start shooting at Coalition soldiers. In this particular account, one terrorist-asshole gets the added and poetic bonus of having his shrivelled nuts blown off by his new friend in the U.S. Marines, so maybe a prisoner-release program can be A Good Thing after all.

This last item also introduces readers to Michael Yon, the author of the piece and a man whose voice I pray will long ring clear.

This amazing story by Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer of the Washington Post describes a crucial shift taking hold in the Iraqi mindset. Ramadi's Sunni Muslims have risen up against Zarqawi's demand that Shi'ites evacuate the city, setting up cordones around Shi'ite neighbourhoods and chasing Z's bitches away with grenade-launchers and automatic weapons.
Differences between Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurd will not disappear, but Zarqawi has certainly focussed Iraqis' collective attention on what needs to be done next: get rid of the real invaders and get on with rebuilding Iraq.

Iraq The Model has a message to Cindy Sheehan.

Hat Tip: Tanker at Ace Of Spades

Now that the 9/11 Commission has been exposed as in part an exercise in covering Jamie Gorelick's hide, it's time for the United States Congress to air some laundry; if they won't, bloggers will.

The list of bloggers zeroing in on the story continues to grow. NRO's Jim Geraghty reviews our current knowledge and speculates on a couple of crucial points; Captain Ed Morrissey gives us "A Guide To Able Danger Posts At CQ", which will have more to ponder as days go by; Red State looks at Able Danger, Mohammed Atta, and Prague. The Corner's John Podhoretz opines that Able Danger is becoming "the biggest story of the summer". Then again, maybe not. I don't know how she does it, but Michelle Malkin is keeping track of the whole thing.

One of the most prolific contributors to the matter of the 9/11 Commission is Andrew C. McCarthy, a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others. In two April 2004 articles, "The Wall Truth" and "What About The Wall?" , McCarthy points out the problem of Jamie Gorelick's membership on the Commission panel when she should in fact have been a witness under oath. Much more recently, he draws attention to what the new revelations about what the 9/11 Commission knew but left out of their final report reveal about the curious nature of their methods and Sandy Berger's pilfering of the National Archives.

More as it happens.

The leftist antiwar mob has found another willing dupe through whom they hope to claim legitimacy. Enough has been said about the madness of Cindy Sheehan that I don't believe it is necessary for me to add to the noise. Instead, I would like to turn down the static so that we can listen in to the voices of those noble peace-loving souls who support Mrs. Sheehan, the voices of informed dissent humming away in the background. Take for instance these comments directed at Michelle Malkin:

"An e-mailer named Dan Opacki, whose name appears on this anti-war manifesto, writes:

X-Originating-IP: [206.190.38.172]Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 03:54:29 -0700 (PDT)From: dan opacki danopacki@yahoo.comSubject: oriental dollsTo: malkin@comcast.net
Didn't you pose for Oriental Dolls magazine a couple of years ago? You look just like one of those little fuck sluts with her wide open legs and sloppy cunt - Oh no excuse me, that's your face.
Sincerely,Dan

"E-mailer William cuts to the chase:
X-Originating-IP: [68.142.206.95]Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 13:42:24 -0700 (PDT) From: William us96143@yahoo.comSubject: TIPTo: malkin@comcast.net
Here's a tip for you, I hope your entire family perishes in a war of your liking. Fucking cunt.

"And Patrick Mitchell, who works [Update: he has been canned. Please don't bother the company anymore. Thanks] at the Los Angeles office of Ogletree and Deakins, writes from work:
X-Originating-IP: [216.105.154.202]From: "Mitchell, Patrick" Patrick.Mitchell@ogletreedeakins.comTo: "'malkin@comcast.net'" Subject: Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:41:22 -0400X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2657.72)
YOU STINK you nasty CUNT! Eat Shit and DIE bitch!!

"You tell me who the hate-mongers are."

UPDATE:
"[Update: A different Dan Opacki with a comcast account sent the following e-mail this afternoon to clarify...]
From: danopacki@comcast.net To: malkin@comcast.net Subject: What's going on? Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 22:35:51 +0000 X-Mailer: AT&T Message Center Version 1 (Dec 17 2004) X-Authenticated-Sender: ZGFub3BhY2tpQGNvbWNhc3QubmV0

Hello Michelle,

A friend of mine called me and told me that she was e-mailed by someone else telling of my name on your web-site. I'm not sure what's going on but I can assure you that I did not write such crass words as what appears attributed to my name. I'm a real person with a real profession and a reputation and while yes, I singed a petition, I did not call you those nasty names. I have hardly little time to read ANY website, let alone yours, and I'd appreciate that you also post this letter too. Or, take my name off of your website immediately. I am tempted to seek legal recourse about this if you don't. Any idiot can open a yahoo account free of charge and apprently someone did, using my name - why? I have no clue, but it was NOT the real Dan Opacki. While we disagree politically we share common decency. I hope you respond so. And I am not selling a sofa. I don't know what's going on here.
Peace,
D"

Christopher Hitchens asks and answers this most illuminating question.

"How can so many people watch this as if they were spectators, handicapping and rating the successes and failures from some imagined position of neutrality? Do they suppose that a defeat in Iraq would be a defeat only for the Bush administration? The United States is awash in human rights groups, feminist organizations, ecological foundations, and committees for the rights of minorities. How come there is not a huge voluntary effort to help and to publicize the efforts to find the hundreds of thousands of "missing" Iraqis, to support Iraqi women's battle against fundamentalists, to assist in the recuperation of the marsh Arab wetlands, and to underwrite the struggle of the Kurds, the largest stateless people in the Middle East? Is Abu Ghraib really the only subject that interests our humanitarians?

"...For day after day last month I could not escape the news of the gigantic 'Live 8' enterprise, which urged governments to do more along existing lines by way of debt relief and aid for Africa. Isn't there a single drop of solidarity and compassion left over for the people of Iraq, after three decades of tyranny, war, and sanctions and now an assault from the vilest movement on the face of the planet? Unless someone gives me a persuasive reason to think otherwise, my provisional conclusion is that the human rights and charitable 'communities' have taken a pass on Iraq for political reasons that are not very creditable. And so we watch with detached curiosity, from dry land, to see whether the Iraqis will sink or swim. For shame."

My first reaction to Juan Cole's admonishment of Steven Vincent for getting himself killed in Basra was not indignation. That can only stem from surprise, which has been replaced by the certainty that some things never change with the left, including the use of the rape defense for explaining the murder of one's countryman at the hands of death-cult psychopaths. Such apologism has become the left's stock in trade, and it is well demonstrated here by Cole.

Martin Cramer expands on Cole's problem and reminds us that Cole decided he had an axe to grind with Vincent, who wrote:

"Well, I thank Cole for revealing his gut-level concern for the Iraqi people... My question to the Professor is, which Iraqi people--the fascist thugs he calls the "resistance," or the police, National Guardsmen, politicians, everyday people and eight million voters who comprise the true Iraqi "resistance"? We await his Informed Comment."

Back to Cramer, who points out: "Cole didn't respond then. But now that Vincent is dead, Cole has seized the last word in the argument."

Hat Tip: Instapundit

Light blogging between now and September,
unless I see the Wabu Signal™.

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