Abu Wabu

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Decision That President Bush Will Ignore, Andrew McCarthy re-ups to explain International Law v. United States. It won't please those who desperately want to usurp the legitimate Constitutional wartime authority of the office of the President in service to their hatred for the person presently occupying that office, which itself speaks volumes to their inability to comprehend the damage they are doing. Just don't question their patriotism.

The idiot left is willing to ignore U.S. law and the Constitution, confer Geneva rights to illegal non-signatory non-national combatants (also known as terrorists), confer the rights of American citizenship upon such animals around the world, and bow to international laws, whatever the hell they are. And the Supreme Court just answered their prayers.

The shockwaves generated by the Pelosian One's idiotgasm were reportedly felt over five hundred miles from their epicenter.

Ick.

What can I say? It's a new issue of NRO. We're all adults over there. William F. Buckley describes the madness of hating the W.

Deploring Bush By William F. Buckley Jr.

If your assignment was, Write an essay on the stupidity of President Bush, you could start in with some confidence. The reason for this is that George W. Bush hasn't any flair for the spoken word, so that you can take specimens of this weakness and deduce, for your composition on G. W. Bush, that he is stupid.

This is a game of sorts, but the temptations affect the thinking of those naturally attracted to condescension, an exercise which has the gratifying consequence of leaving you exalted. Slate magazine, the spicy child of Michael Kinsley, and nowadays the property of the Washington Post, is celebrating its 10th anniversary, to which end it advertises an anthology, The Best of Slate. One of the essays in it is a mordant derogation of George W. Bush. This isn't accomplished by discussing five public issues on which the critic differs from Bush, effecting demonization. Such public questions are given here and there, but only as background matter, and the passing point is made that he is worse than his father. ("While some describe the second Bush presidency as a restoration, it is in at least equal measure a repudiation. The son's harder-edged conservatism explicitly rejects the old man's approach to such issues as abortion, taxes, and relations with Israel.") But the author of this 10th Anniversary Celebration of Bushwhacking coolly rises from all such political passions, preferring just to leave it that Bush is—the temptation is to write, "sort of dumb," but Jacob Weisberg doesn't say that. He prefers just plain dumb.

On the matter of the president's uttering sentences that are garbled, Weisberg can't be argued with. But a difficulty with language can be attributed to many public figures, paradoxically, even to such as have proven skills. The young Dwight David Eisenhower, for instance, actually wrote military manuals when he served under General MacArthur, who was a fussy overseer and a guardian of holy prose. And of course we know that en route to the White House, Ike served as president of Columbia University. But it remains true that some of his improvised spoken language was as impenetrable as the Rosetta Stone. After his answer to the question, What would he do if the Soviet Union again laid siege on Berlin? someone made a wisecrack to the effect that resourceful Soviet cryptographers would have given Khrushchev absolutely contradictory accounts of what President Eisenhower threatened. It was for many years insisted upon by detractors that Ronald Reagan was basically illiterate. That myth is receding, however reluctantly. For one thing, it runs up against the extraordinary letters by President Reagan to divers people on all subjects. Yet it is correct that if the assignment is to put together from Reagan press conferences structureless sentences with conflicting emphases, the job can be done.

Weisberg reproduces a few sentences from Bush that establish the claim of verbal clumsiness. But Weisberg won't settle for that. His thesis is that Bush is incompetent to think and speak, and that he elected to settle with that incompetence because of laziness, since thinking consumes intellectual calories.

Now there is a problem here, and Weisberg ignores it. It is that Bush has confronted in public contests nimble opponents. You would not do combat with the waspish Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, if you could help it. Ms. Richards is one of the sharpest tongues in town (it was she who said that the senior Bush was born with a silver foot in his mouth). Bush not only survived the encounter, he defeated the wasp.

George Bush met in public debate Al Gore, an experienced debater, and walked away with immunity, as he would do four years later in his encounters with John Kerry. Weisberg doesn't take on the question of Bush being accepted at Yale, and achieving enough credits to graduate. It requires skills not generally associated with idiocy to maneuver so as to win the nomination of a national political party, and then an election; not once, but twice. Mr. Weisberg's premise — that to do this does not require intelligence, thoughtful planning, and marginal lucidity — has one wondering, but not about deficiencies in Bush. There manifestly aren't such in Weisberg in the matter of articulateness, so you find yourself playing with the derivations of it all. 1) You can't be stupid and become president. 2) You can be articulate and be stupid.

Andrew C. McCarthy on what the NYT did not think about before again aiding Islamofascism:

All the while, you never underestimate your enemies. You know they are clever, resourceful, and adaptive. You know they study you, just as you are studying them. More effectively, in fact. After all, when you find their vulnerabilities, there is still due process. When they find yours, there is murder. Mass murder.

NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez points to the letter from Treasury Secretary John Snow, who is not happy, to Old Grey Mare managing editor Bill Keller, who will be on vacation until his latest outrage falls off the radar.

Mr. Bill Keller, Managing Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Keller:

The New York Times' decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide. In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were "half-hearted" is incorrect and offensive. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times - from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you. It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story. Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story. And there was nothing "half-hearted" about that effort. I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure. I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror. Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.

You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that "terror financiers know" our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money. The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works. While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.

Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the "public interest" in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of - even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective. Indeed, you have done so here.

What you've seemed to overlook is that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available - lawfully and responsibly - to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists. I am deeply disappointed in the New York Times.

Sincerely,

[signed]

John W. Snow, Secretary

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Al Aksa Brigades promise to attack Israel with WMDs they have been working on since Saddam spirited them to Syria three years ago. I'm trying to find a nice way to describe what I expect will be the Israeli response to such an attack. How about "crushing"?

Let's watch the MSM's take of this story. The world press and the UN will assert that Israel must practice restraint responding to a Palestinian WMD attack. Yes, it will get that ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the world is about to get a lesson in the Israeli self-defense doctrine.

HT: Captain's Quarters

UPDATE
The Israelis have every reason to crush the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority, and it doesn't invlove the threat of WMDs. It involves humaneness. If his captors do not return Corporal Gilad Shalit unscathed, the Israelis will come down hard on all the bad actors, and rightfully so.

Power Line provides a chuckle:

John Kerry on the campaign trail, in December 2003, before the Council on Foreign Relations:

"I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election, the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy. Their sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal dates, without adequate stability, is an invitation to failure. The hard work of rebuilding Iraq must not be dictated by the schedule of the next American election.

"I have called for the administration to transfer sovereignty, and they must transfer it to the Iraqi people as quickly as circumstances permit. But it would be a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle to speed up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops. That could risk the hijacking of Iraq by terrorist groups and former Ba'athists."

Kerry was against cutting and running before he was for it!

It's as impossible as ever to figure out what John F'n Kerry really thinks about anything, which is why it is an historic blessing that he did not reach the White House. Bush and Rove knew the threat Kerry posed to the U.S., which is why they rigged the elections. It was their duty.

But seriously, all we know about John F'n Kerry is that whatever the conflict, his final answer is to pull out. To paraphrase an old National Lampoon observation, Kerry's father should have "pulled out" sixty-three years ago.

How does the right side of the blogosphere handle such issues as conflict of interest, Presidential gaffes, Vice-Presidential shooting sprees and bad behaviour by the military? They give the problem a name, shine a light on it, discuss it, treat it like adults and let the chips fall where they may. Examples: Abu Ghraib, immigration, Ben Domenech, Jeff "The Manwhore" Gannon, Harriet Miers, Gitmo. The point is not the problems, but how the right deals with them, always amidst the din of hoots, jeers and pot-banging emanating from the children over on the left. I've never heard of the right imposing a cone of silence over any such matter.

Contrast that with how those same children deal with the imminent defrocking of their high priestess, Markos Moulitsis "Screw 'Em" Zuniga. In an attempt to silence a story that he and his friend, SEC target Jerome Armstrong, have been doing funny things with other peoples' money, Kos has sent out a cautionary message to members of his "Townhall" mailing list, which says:

The YearlyKos media people have already forced corrections at Slate and NY Times (Suellentrop's blog). There has been some serious overreach by the few outlets that picked up this story (which as I mentioned before has been shopped around). It was interesting how this one piddly-ass story was used to try and smear Jerome, me, AND YearlyKos.

So the only paper to run this as a news story is the disgraceful NY Post. Others who picked up on it have had to backtrack from their original sensationalistic claims.I am exploring legal options against some of the wingnut bloggers who are claiming I'm syphoning netroots money into consultants and my own pockets. Note how Glenn Reynolds is fueling it with his typical passive aggressive, "I don't think it's a big deal, but let me provide links to everyone who thinks this is THE BIGGEST STORY EVER!"

And Jerome's case, if it could be aired out, is a non-story (he was a poor grad student at the time so he settled because he had no money). Jerome can't talk about it now since the case is not fully closed. But once it is, he'll go on the offensive. That should be a couple of months off.

This story will percolate in wingnut circles until then, but I haven't gotten a single serious media call about it yet. Not one. So far, this story isn't making the jump to the traditional media, and we shouldn't do anything to help make that happen.

My request to you guys is that you ignore this for now. It would make my life easier if we can confine the story. Then, once Jerome can speak and defend himself, then I'll go on the offensive (which is when I would file any lawsuits) and anyone can pile on. If any of us blog on this right now, we fuel the story. Let's starve it of oxygen. And without the "he said, she said" element to the story, you know political journalists are paralyzed into inaction.

Thanks, markos

So the word from Markos Moulitsis "Screw 'Em" Zuniga is to fight PR problems with moonbat rhetoric. No wonder he's one for twenty on the ol' campaign trail: Kos' approach is to bully and cajole whomever he thinks he needs to, including his faithful masses, until the heat blows over. And his minions, proudly independent mavericks all, instantly toed the line set down by their Fearless Leader.

Silence ensued; the lefty blogs were alive with the sound of crickets.

But now cracks are forming. Lefty bloggers have begun asking how long they should try to sit on the story. Faced with an imposition of Kosmerta from on high, they suddenly feel uncomfortable, the way I might if someone was using me as a human shield.

What is this, the new Taliban?


TNR's The Plank:

On June 18, two days after The New York Times's blogger Chris Suellentrop broke the news about Armstrong's run-in with the SEC and on the same day the New York Post basically recycled Suellentrop's scoop in its print edition, a blogger named Mike Stark wrote to the "Townhouse" list:

If we can ignore it, great.

But I think that's hoping for too much.

Hell, our own readers are going to bring this shit up, let alone all the dimwits in Malkinland... You just can't expect to get anything by the netroots.

So. . . there are substantial questions raised.

Gina knocked down the easy one - Markos' only involvement with the convention was lending his brand.

But if you think the hits on Markos affiliating with a DLC'r or Jerome having a (what will be spun into a criminal) history with the SEC aren't gonna take a toll... well, I'd ask a question: what's the most valuable asset a blogger has? And the answer is always their credibility. These are direct attacks on Markos' and Jerome's credibility.

I guess we can leave it to them to formulate a response. But they need to have one ready.

And of the two, I'd say that Jerome is going to have the more difficult time of it. I know that the info this article presents is pretty bare-bones, but to me hearing that he's agreed to some terms with the SEC and is in litigation over financial penalties is pretty devastating. Please don't shoot the messenger, but to unsophisticated folk like me, it's downright damning to hear that one of the leaders of the liberal blogosphere - and one of the people that are closest to the liberal blogosphere's hero (I don't like the term, but there aren't many that fit MArkos better than that given his reception at YKos) - was involved in some kind of financial predation scheme...

Finally... what if it is true? We really need to hear from Jerome - regardless of whether or not this blows up. I will not be a republican rubber stamp. If Jerome was involved in some recent financial chicanery and he doesn't have an adequate defense, how does that make him different from any of the rest of the DC lobbyist/consultant class that will do anything for a buck? I might be digging my grave here, but before I put my credibility on the line ofr anyone, I want to know I'm standing on solid ground. Jerome should provide answers or cut us loose to do what we need to do. This "movement" is bigger and more important than any one of us.

Also on June 18, the blogger Glen Greenwald wrote to the "Townhouse" list:

The anti-Jerome article in the NY Post is written very aggressively and is sure to be picked up any minute by all of the right-wing bloggers and then the right-wing press. If it isn't answered substantively by Jerome or someone on his behalf, I think it will settle in as conventional wisdom somewhat quickly and will be an albatross for some time to come. Ignoring the story or hoping it stays unnoticed doesn't sem like a viable option at this point. The "Dean-paid-Kos" story from a couple of years ago got relatively little traction, and is virtually never mentioned outside of a small circle of right-wing bloggers, because Markos put the facts on the table so quickly, candidly, and comprehensively that it became clear that there was nothing there. To similarly kill off this story quickly and prevent it from taking root, I really think Jerome -- or at least someone on his behalf -- needs to do something similar, and soon. Terse denials and politician-like refusals to talk about it will, it seems clear to me, only inflame things further.

Also on the same day, the blogger Steve Gilliard wrote to the "Townhouse" list:

I dont see how this can be ignored. We should all write in defense of this once we know the facts. Jerome?

From these e-mails, it appears there was a good amount of concern among liberal bloggers about the Armstrong SEC story and the allegations of "pay for play" against Kos and Armstrong, and some of these bloggers wanted to address these issues forthrightly. And, yet, after Kos subsequently wrote the e-mail quoted in my original post asking the bloggers to "ignore" the story in order to "starve of it oxygen," there was virtual silence in the liberal blogosphere about it. That, to me at least, suggests that Kos does indeed have a good deal of influence over what other liberal bloggers write.

Now a Times Select article rebuts Fearless Leader Markos Moulitsis "Screw 'Em" Zuniga's suggestion that his friend, SEC target Jerome Armstrong, will clear up any misunderstanding once the case against him had run its course:

Armstrong has accepted a permanent injunction that prohibits him from asserting his innocence, or from asking his friends to assert it. The injunction states that Armstrong has agreed "not to take any action or to make or permit to be made any public statement denying, directly or indirectly, any allegation in the complaint or creating the impression that the complaint is without factual basis."

And Fearless Leader is beginning to sound just a wee bit shrill. His answer to the pressure? Demonize and censor; control all thought:

TNR and its enablers are feeling the heat of their own irrelevance and this is how they fight it -- by undermining the progressive movement. Zengerle has made common cause with the wingnutosphere, using the laughable "kosola" frame they created and emailing his "scoops" to them for links. This is what the once-proud New Republic has evolved into -- just another cog of the Vast RIGHT Wing Conspiracy.

If you still hold a subscription to that magazine, it really is time to call it quits. If you see it in a magazine rack, you might as well move it behind the National Review or even NewsMax, since that's who they want to be associated with these days.

Can you say Lex Luthor on crack?



I appreciate LGF's take:

I can’t help noticing how much Moulitsas’ conspiracy-oriented mindset echoes the anti-rational paranoia of radical Islam. When the New Republic actually criticizes him, and reveals some of the secret Kos Nutroots Knowledge, the only explanation possible is that they’re apostates under the spell of a massive organized conspiracy. And having been cast out of the fold by Mullah Moulitsas, they’re now legitimate targets for revenge.

The irony is that there is indeed a secret organization, scheming to present a united front and keep all the stories straight and all the messages pure. And Kos admits in the first paragraph above that he’s part of it.

Baseball Crank on the most interesting aspect of this whole story:

[I]t really is revealing of the mindset at work here that anyone would even try
to get not only bloggers but journalists to not write on a story. Trust me, the idea that you could get, say, Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, Jeff Goldstein, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Krempasky, Ed Morrisey and John Hinderaker to agree on a single approach to a story or, more particularly, to not touch a story - the idea that you would even broach that topic across a list of the top conservative and libertarian blogs - is inconceivable. Despite the Online Left’s insistence that conservative bloggers march in unison on an agenda handed down by Karl Rove, it’s apparently the lefties who are the ones seeking to enforce message discipline behind the scenes.

He's correct of course: the right just doesn't roll that way.

Protein Wisdom sees the same thing:

In yesterday’s post on this story, I noted that what was being slowly revealed here—moreso, perhaps, than any evidence of wrongdoing on Kos’ part—was a progressivist mindset that is fanatical about controlling the narrative, and especially about defining the parameters of identitarian “authenticity”. Of course, little did I know at the time that Kos would be so eager to make my point for me.

To remind you, I wrote

I’ve long been a critic of the type of cynical narrative manipulation that seems pervasive [...] on the progressivist left side of the blogosphere (where repetition of debunked memes in the service of a partisan-defined “greater good” is justified by appeals to emotionalism and self-congratulatory claims of bravery and patriotism, and is encouraged and policed to the point where apostates are marginalized)—only to wake this morning to the news that The New Republic, founded in 1914 as a supporter of the original progressive movement, had now been declared just such an apostate—and dutifully marginalized by an online power player vying for control over who gets to describe themselves as authentically liberal or progressive.

The will to power is the tool of totalitarianism. And totalitarianism is totalitarianism even when it calls itself by other names, and constantly asserts its own righteousness and benevolence.

The modern progressive movement—which is founded upon loyalty to established narratives and which defines its members by that loyalty—has nearly completed its transformation from a coalition group interested in guiding policy to an identity group, where membership is thought of in ontological terms. Which is why Kos doesn’t allow that TNR could be comprised of liberals/progressives who disagree with his tactics and/or strategies; instead, they are now essentially right wingers. Which is to say, they are defined by their Otherness.

The first comment after the above passage:

The first rule of Kos Klub is don’t talk about Kos Klub.

Jack Kelly's RealClearPolitics article, Pennsylvania's Embarrassment, reviews points made by Power Line and others about Mad Jack Murtha's ode to Okinawa. In the process, Kelly proves that it can be fun to take on moonbattery:

Mr. Murtha has been recommending redeployment to Okinawa ever since his rebirth as a dove last year, so what he said on "Meet the Press" was no slip of the
tongue.

Let us be clear about the Murtha "strategy." It is insane. It would be easier to defend Germany from Chicago; Alaska from Miami, or Hawaii from Pittsburgh than to defend Iraq from Okinawa.

It would take 10-12 hours -- and six refuelings -- for F-16s to fly from Kadena AFB on Okinawa to Baghdad (assuming China and India would grant overflight rights, a dubious assumption). Mr. Murtha may regard this as "very quickly," but the Air Force does not.

As Bugs Bunny would say: "What a maroon!"

Another howler is Mr. Murtha's assertion that U.S. troops currently serving in Iraq would be "welcomed" in Okinawa. For decades Okinawans have been seeking a reduction in the U.S. military presence, both because they covet the land on which U.S. military bases sit, and because of a long history of pacifism. The U.S. recently agreed to withdraw 7,000 Marines from Okinawa.

"There is no way we can win (the war in Iraq) militarily," Mr. Murtha said. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the al Qaida chieftain in Iraq until the Air Force liquefied his internal organs, had a different view: "Here in Iraq, time is beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance," Mr. Zarqawi wrote in a document captured after his death.

The Bush Administration has "no plan" for dealing with Iraq, Rep. Murtha asserted. Mowaffak al Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, begs to differ. Writing in the Washington Post Tuesday, he said:

"There is an unofficial 'road map' to foreign troop reductions that eventually will lead to total withdrawal of U.S. troops. This road map is based not just on a series of dates but, more important, on achievement of set objectives for restoring
security in Iraq."

If you want to know the truth about Iraq, you should listen carefully to what Jack Murtha has to say -- and believe exactly the opposite.

Mr. Murtha's howlers about Okinawa obscured a more revealing comment he made earlier on CNN. He cited President Clinton's abrupt withdrawal from Somalia after 19 Rangers were killed there in 1993 as an example of the policy the U.S. should follow in Iraq.

Osama bin Laden gave the "change in direction" in Somalia Mr. Murtha applauds as the chief reason why he thought al Qaida could strike the United States with impunity.

"After a few blows... (the U.S.) rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers," Mr. bin Laden told ABC's John Miller in a 1998 interview.

Because he is a retired Marine Reserve colonel who served in Vietnam, Rep. Murtha is regarded as one of the Democrats' leading strategic thinkers. This, sadly, may be the case.

Mr. Murtha sounds less like a Marine colonel these days, and more like a male Cindy Sheehan. Has he become senile? Or was he always this stupid?

My long answer is that anyone who could get their ass in this sling has definitely always been that stupid.

"Memo to everyone who claims there is 'corruption' — saying it doesn't make it so."

HT: Jonah Goldberg

David Frum:

There will alas be no shortage of people ready to suggest that American errors and abuses in the treatment of detainees somehow caused/mitigates/compares with the torture, mutilation, and beheading of captured US service personnel. Let me raise just one of dozens of possible responses to such people:

Much that happens in Iraq seems senseless, but the kind of terrorism practised by al Qaeda in Iraq is anything but. It is profoundly rational, purposeful, and goal-directed. They do not torture, mutilate, and behead because they are enraged by some piece of propaganda they happened to hear on al-Jazeera the day before. Terrorism is a political method, adopted in pursuit of political ends. Those ends were selected - and the methods chosen - long before anybody had ever heard of Guantanamo as anything other than a sleepy naval station.

Too many people on all sides of the political spectrum talk as if only the United States acts, while everybody else merely reacts. But in this war on terror, the United States could install every captured insurgent and al Qaeda operative in his own hotel room with Spectravision and halal room service - without in any way altering the strategy or tactics of al Qaeda.

I've had difficulty deciding whether or not to address the monstrous torture and killings of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker. I have resisted going off full bore against the less-than-worthless pissants blaming President Bush because they don't deserve anyone's attention. And yet, to say nothing is to leave them free to think they won't be called on their ignorance. And make no mistake; those who blame Bush for the fate of those fine young men are monumentally ignorant, especially of the international laws they so often hold up as an indictment against Bush and the fight against Islamic fascism.

Two notable exceptions are Andrew Sullivan and Kos, both of whom are IMO callous, reprehensible liars because they intentionally falsely invoke the Geneva Conventions, which afford no rights to terrorists. They are shameless cheerleaders for terrorists' rights because they know such sentiment will inflame their audience of left-wing anti-war idiots.

No-one need do or write anything to prove Pfc. Menchaca and Tucker did not die in vain; they died fighting the most brutal fascism in history, a fight that will never be in vain.

But it has to be shown that those who demand Geneva protections for Islamofascist terrorists are not only wrong in their opinions, but also wrong in the law they pretend to know better than me. Fact is, they don't know it better; they don't know anything beyond their own projected self-loathing. The fevered and manipulative posturings of Sullivan, Kos et al exemplify this studied obtuseness. Both profess their deep pain for some lost opportunity to afford imaginary rights and freedoms to their blood-lusting terrorist heroes, as if that legitimizes the sickening moral equivalency permeating their claims that Bush is no better; both are glaring examples of the danger of such ignorance in today's world. A moral person would be scandalized to recognize themselves as such; not these two, and not the morons who swoon at their every utterance.

Andrew C. McCarthy once again clearly explains what these cloying propagandists would rather you did not know: the truth about Geneva And Savagery:

So, al Qaeda has done what al Qaeda does. It tortured and murdered our two soldiers. Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker never had a chance once they fell into the jihadists’ savage hands.

Meanwhile, some time in the next few days, the Supreme Court will decide the most important case of its term, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the personal driver and confidant of Osama bin Laden, claims his “rights” would be infringed if he is subjected to a military commission of the type President Bush authorized in late 2001 — the type that has from a time out of memory been imposed on those who violate the laws of war. Hamdan demands, instead, a court martial, with all the elevated protections afforded to our own forces by our own military — if not a full-blown civilian trial, before a federal judge, with all the protections afforded by our Constitution to American citizens accused of crimes.

Of course, a Yemeni national captured in Afghanistan whose only connection to the United States is to wage war against her has no rights under our Constitution. The entitlements Hamdan insists he rates can only come from international law: specifically, the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war.

Except there’s a problem … actually several problems. Al Qaeda, being an atrocious international terrorist network rather than a nation, is not a “high contracting party” to the Convention. It has no general or presumed claim on the treaty’s protections.

This does not necessarily mean it could never claim Geneva rights. But it does mean those rights must be earned. Geneva’s Golden Rule is earned reciprocity. Article 2 of the Convention makes it very clear: a non-party may earn the privileges and immunities of the treaty if it “accepts and applies the provisions thereof.”

So exactly how are Islamic terrorists faring on Geneva’s “Do unto others” scorecard?

Well, the treaty’s provisions call for protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure. Al Qaeda targets civilians for mass murder and intentionally destroys civilian infrastructure.

The provisions call for membership in a regular military force which carries its arms openly. Al Qaeda’s idea of a weapon in open view is a hijacked jumbo jet in the seconds before it crashes into a building. Otherwise, it favors roadside bombs or high explosives concealed in vans burrowed in underground garages beneath bustling civilian skyscrapers.

The provisions call for wearing uniforms in order to distinguish members as authentic soldiers. Al Qaeda’s jihadists dress and conduct themselves ostensibly as civilians — the better to hide from real armies and lull actual civilians to their deaths.

The provisions call for treating captured enemy soldiers with the dignity and respect accorded to honorable prisoners of war: accounting for them, keeping them safe, allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross access to ensure their proper treatment.

Al Qaeda tortures and slaughters them.

When it comes to the prisoners they capture, al Qaeda doesn’t much care about the Geneva Conventions, the approbation of the ICRC, or Kofi Annan’s latest grandiloquence on the post-sovereign alchemy of international law.

All it cares about is “the verdict of the Islamic court.” It was that verdict, and no other, that the Mujahedeen Shura Council — Iraq’s thugs-in-chief — announced had been “carried out” against our fallen heroes by their new Zarqawi, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer. Needless to say, the deed was done “with God Almighty’s blessing.”

Which is to say, al Qaeda tortured and slaughtered them.

When the Supreme Court heard arguments in Hamdan three months ago, much of the internationalist hyperventilating was over what was purported to be the grave injustice of our “legal black hole”: a netherworld in which enemy-combatants — Islamic terrorists — were detained outside Geneva, outside the Constitution, and thus outside the safety-net of laws and rights and courts.

The law, however, is not an end in itself. It is a means to other ends. In the case of the Geneva Conventions, that end is the civilized conduct of warfare. The privilege of honorable treatment is the reward for conducting oneself with honor.

If the whole point of the rules is to promote human dignity, those who find themselves outside the protection of the rules belong in a black hole. The problem is not that the rules are wanting. It is that they don’t countenance barbarians.

It is that they understand repaying torture and slaughter with privilege guarantees only more torture and slaughter. More unspeakable inhumanity. (Emphasis mine.)

The brave men and women who put their lives on the line, far from home, to spare each of us the fates of Pfc. Menchaca and Pfc. Tucker know that. Does the Supreme Court?

The suckers who drink Kos' and Sullivan's swill certainly don't.

UPDATE
The answer to McCarthy's rhetorical question is no. So sayeth the left wing of the Supreme Court Of The United States, which is why they are on their way out of majority status. Big mistake. Huge. The left has won a pyrrhic victory; anyone who cheers this decision is going to be disappointed once the American voter gets his head around the implications.

MORE (HT: Power Line)
James Robbins: "Hue again (and again)"
Joseph Loconte: "Churchillian courage."
John Podhoretz has the column of the day in the New York Post: "Torturer's hope."

Hugh Hewitt sets the record straight on the men whose memories Markos Moulitsas "Screw 'Em" Zuniga viciously insulted in a post that said more about Kos' character, and that of his followers, than anything he has said since. Quoting from The Nation:

Scott Helvenston was a walking ad for the military. He came from a proud family of Republicans; his great-great-uncle, Elihu Root, was once US Secretary of War and the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize-winner. Scott was tall, tan and chiseled and, by all accounts, a model soldier and athlete. At 17 he made history by becoming the youngest person ever to complete the rigorous Navy SEAL program. He spent twelve years in the SEALs, four of them as an instructor, and then tried his luck with Hollywood. He trained Demi Moore for her film G.I. Jane and did a few stints on reality television. In one, Man vs. Beast, he was the only contestant to defeat the beast, outmaneuvering a chimpanzee in an obstacle course. Once the cover boy on a Navy calendar, he also had several workout videos.

On Helvenston's brothers in arms:

Michael Teague, 38, was a former soldier with the Army's elite ''Night Stalkers'' at Fort Campbell. He is remembered at this site. Teague was awarded a bronze star for his service in Afghanistan.

Jerko Zovko had been a Ranger. In one story on him, his motive for being in Iraq was made clear:

In August 2003, Zovko returned to Cleveland to visit his family. He was taking a job with Vinnell in Iraq to help train the new army.

They were skeptical. Why do you want to go to Iraq?

Zovko was adamant. This was a historic opportunity. The Iraqis need a professional army, not the one Saddam Hussein created. And the sooner the army was ready, the sooner U.S. soldiers could come home.

Westley Batalova spent 20 years in the Army, most of them as a Ranger. He is
profiled here.

All four of the murdered men were great Americans, and deserve the respect their service earned.

So when Kos next attempts to explain away his despicable and callous remark from 2004 by asserting he was demonstrating "solidarity" with his "brothers and sisters in arms," the follow-up question should not focus on Kos' own military service, but on the service of those four American veterans murdered in Fallujah.

I decided long ago that Moulitsas is a low-rent pitchman, a fraud and an amoral pig, albeit with a huge following of useful idiots who leave their intellectual rigor to his tender mercies.

Meanwhile, Jim Geraghty, Mickey Kaus and Donkycons are beginning to shine the light on Kosola. Apparently even the Old Grey Mare is paying attention, but the story is behind their wall, and I don't go there; they'd have to pay me.

What's that smell?

Writing for NRO, Mark Levin in Greatest Thoughts advises that it's time to reorient our thinking toward victory:

No branch of government is acting as they acted during World War II. Rather than undermining the president’s leadership, Congress should be looking for ways to contribute to winning this war. They’re few and far between. Rather than intervening in war-making decisions, the courts should acknowledge their limitations during war as past courts have. And even the administration appears tentative about using more military might to destroy this enemy, a hesitation which rarely entered FDR or Truman’s thinking. And, of course, whereas the media in the 1940’s focused their reportage on the evil that was the enemy, much of today’s media view George Bush as the real problem.

Meanwhile, two kidnapped U.S. soldiers were apparently brutally tortured and murdered today. And the question I pose to those who rightly honor the Greatest Generation is this: What would our country have done 60 years ago in response to this war crime? How would our political and military leadership have acted? By all accounts, they would have demanded severe retaliation and retribution. And by that I don’t mean “bringing the perpetrators to justice,” as if we’re talking about some law-enforcement response to a white-collar crime. No, I’m talking about a military response of such devastation that the enemy fears the consequences of future kidnappings and executions of our men and women in uniform. And that’s what’s missing in this war — the enemy does not fear us (at least not enough) and defeatism (rather than victory) is being preached from Capitol Hill and the news and editorial pages.

Levin is correct. The only response to this enemy's latest barbarities is to demonstrate the price the U.S. exacts for Islamist war crimes. U.S. forces in Iraq should rain ferocious hell on these bastards with every last arrow in their quiver until the day of reckoning is done.

Uses Marines' Kidnappings/Murders To Snipe At Bush, Argue For Terrorists' Rights

Andrew Sullivan hides behind the looming murders of two American Marines in order to take another lily-livered shot at President Bush. Sullivan knew what everyone else knew as soon as those soldiers were kidnapped in Iraq: that they would most certainly be tortured before they were beheaded. Conversely, everyone else knew what Sullivan would say: that the terrorists' monstrous acts were Bush's fault because he refused to give captured terrorists full rights under the Geneva Convention. You can almost hear St. Andrew Of The Sacred Heartache's voice quaking with feigned maudlin anger:

Pray for the safe rescue of the soldiers - and for the president who abandoned Geneva.

What a bloviating dishonest prick. Sullivan doesn't honestly believe that, if only the terrorists were protected by Geneva, they wouldn't have kidnapped, tortured, killed and then booby-trapped the bodies of those two heroic Marines. That's simply what Sullivan wants his readers to plug into their own worthless diatribes. What a shameless, dishonest, preening, snivelling asshole. I dare the little puke to say any such thing to the faces of these mens' families and loved ones.

UPDATE
Headmistress SondraK has a message for the Snivellin One and his putrid ilk, and a wish for the bereaved families:

Anyone who, from now on forward, brings up how any of our war prisoners have been or are treated (yes, even by the convicted Abu Graib retards)....brings up the Geneva Conventions or uses the words Illegal War should be removed from civilized society and be treated as the sociopaths that they are.

May the families and loved ones of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker someday find some peace from the terror and pain that they must be feeling right now.

UPDATE
I've never linked to Andrew Sullivan until today, and I never will again. His obscene moral-equivalence, outrage-for-traffic stunts are best left to fester on their own. Instead I'll simply direct you to what other sane people are saying about him.
Ace
Dan Riehl
Slublog
Gay Patriot

Jeff Goldstein concludes from Tim Russert's interview of John Murtha that even Murtha doesn't quite know what he means anymore. Nancy Pelosi might just want to tap Murtha on the shoulder as she did William Jefferson.

John Hinderaker sums it up nicely at Power Line:

Mad Jack Murtha has been exposed, I think. I think the real significance of Murtha's Okinawa blunder is that it reveals the unseriousness of his concept of "redeployment." Remember how, when Republicans characterized Murtha's proposal as "cut and run," Murtha and other Democrats reacted angrily? No, no, they said: the proposal is to "redeploy" our troops where they would be ready to return to Iraq if necessary. Murtha's casual and obviously half-baked suggestion that our troops could be stashed in Okinawa confirms that "redeployment" was always a fraud. Murtha's proposal (and the Democrats') is cut and run, pure and simple.

I empathize:

I passed the magazine stand at the local CVS and glimpsed Newsweek's cover story on the Z-man's dirt nap, blaring the following headline and subhead:

After Zarqawi
How we got him. What we learned ...

To which I thought: what's with the use of "WE" all of a sudden, you defeatist narrative, hypercritical, proudly impartial, Quran-baiting, analytically superficiliberal assholes?

President Bush made the left so sad when he bombed Zarqawi's safe-house and then rubbed it in when he showed up in Baghdad to meet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki 'eye to eye'. The whole thing was a brazen stunt to take the public's eye off the real issues. Whatever the left is peddling as the real issues these days; I think it has something to do with heavy points off Anne Coulter for style.

HT: Ace

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thank you for the warm welcome. Thought I'd stop in to say "hello." (Laughter and applause.) I bring greetings from a grateful nation. (Applause.) I thank you for your sacrifice, I thank you for your service, I thank you for making history.
You know, one of the things I try to do is put good people in place who accomplish hard jobs. And I can't think of two better leaders than Zal Khalilzad and General Casey to lead this important effort. (Applause.) I thank you all very much for your service to our country. Your sacrifice is noble and your sacrifice is important.
I understand long deployments are tough -- they're tough on you and they're tough on your families. And so the first thing I want to tell you is the American people are incredibly grateful for what you do, and I bring their greetings and their thanks for the sacrifices you and your family make.
These are historic times. The mission that you're accomplishing here in Iraq will go down in the history books as an incredibly important moment in the history of freedom and peace; an incredibly important moment of doing our duty to secure our homeland.
You know, right after September the 11th I knew that some would forget the dangers we face. Some would hope that the world would be what it's not -- a peaceful place in which people wouldn't want to do harm to those of us who love freedom. I vowed that day, after September the 11th, to do everything I could to protect the American people. And I was able to make that claim because I knew there were people such as yourself who were willing to be on the front line in the war on terror.
Baghdad and Iraq is a front in the war on terror. It is a part of our mission to help make sure that the world is a better place. I truly believe the work that you're doing here is laying the foundation of peace for generations to come, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
The progress here in Iraq has been remarkable when you really think about it. The people of this country suffered under the hands of a brutal tyrant -- and thanks to the United States forces and coalition forces, the people are liberated from the clutches of Saddam Hussein. (Applause.) America is safer, the world is better off and the Iraqi people have a chance to realize the great blessings of liberty because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.
Thanks to your hard work, the Iraqi people have been given a chance to go to the polls -- not once, but three different times -- to elect a government that is dedicated to the will of the people. Today, I have come to not only thank you, but to look Prime Minister Maliki in the eyes -- to determine whether or not he is as dedicated to a free Iraq as you are, and I believe he is.
I met with the cabinet officials from all walks of life here in Iraq, and came away with the distinct impression that they are unified in serving the people of Iraq. They want to succeed. The faith and future of Iraq is in their hands, and our job is to help them succeed -- and we will. (Applause.)
I have come today to personally show our nation's commitment to a free Iraq. My message to the Iraqi people is this: seize the moment; seize this opportunity to develop a government of and by and for the people. And I also have a message to the Iraqi people that when America gives a commitment, America will keep its commitment. (Applause.)
Our work is not done with the formation of a unity government. This government is just getting started. And the enemies of a free Iraq will do everything they can to stop the progress. That should tell us something about the enemies of a free Iraq. Who wouldn't want the people's will to be expressed? Who wouldn't want a government to be able to meet the needs of the people? Those who kill the innocent lives or those who have no concept of liberty, have no sense of justice, have no respect for human rights and human dignity.
But I believe the Iraqi government that's formed does respect human rights and human dignity, it will respond to the will of the people. There are going to be tough days ahead, and more sacrifice for Americans, as well as Iraqis. But I come here -- come away from here believing that the will is strong and the desire to meet the needs of the people is real and tangible.
You know, one of the things that we've got to realize -- "we," the world, have got to realize, is that Iraqi women want their children to grow up in a peaceful world; they want their sons and daughters to be well educated; they want to live in peace and harmony; they want to be able to realize their hopes and aspirations. It's a common desire, and is one that you all are helping the Iraqis realize. It's important work, it's vital work, and it's historic work.
Our military will stay on the offense. We will continue to hunt down people like Mr. Zarqawi, and bring them to justice. (Applause.) We will continue to train the Iraqis, so they can help the unity government secure the peace. I've told the American people that as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down, and I appreciate all the military folks here who are working hard to help the Iraqi forces become capable and able to do the job the Iraqi people expect them to do.
Those of you who are not in the military, the civilians, have got a really important job to do, as well, and I want to thank you for the job you're doing. (Applause.)
It is clear that Saddam Hussein destroyed many of the institutions necessary for this society to succeed. It is clear that he was a selfish, brutal leader who was willing to sacrifice infrastructure and civil society in order to meet his narrow objectives. And it is clear to me that our job is to help the Prime Minister and his government implement his strategy and his plan to restore infrastructure and education and health and agricultural society so that people have the confidence in their new government. Yours is hard work, but it's necessary work, and the government of the United States stands strongly beside you.
The stakes are high, and what happens here in Iraq reaches far beyond the borders of Iraq. The war on terror really will be addressed by strong actions by our intelligence and military services to bring to justice those who would do us harm. I've told the American people, we will defeat the enemy overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. (Applause.)
Ultimately, the victory in the war on terror, the victory in a struggle against those who have no ideology -- well, they've got an ideology, but it's an ideology that is dark and dismal. It's one that doesn't respect human dignity. It's an ideology that doesn't believe in the freedom to worship. It's an ideology that doesn't respect the role and rights of women in society. It's an ideology that has no hope. The way to defeat that ideology is with an ideology of light. I believe in the universality of freedom. I believe deep in everybody's soul is the desire to be free.
We don't expect the Iraqi government to look like the American government. We expect an Iraqi government to honor its traditions and its histories and its religious faiths. But we do expect the Iraqi government to honor the right of every man, woman and child to live in a free society. And when Iraq succeeds -- and it will -- the rest of the world, particularly in the Middle East, will see such a hopeful example of what's possible.
I told you earlier we were laying the foundation of peace for generations to come, and we are, because we go with confidence knowing that liberty is the desire of every soul. When Iraq succeeds, reformers and people who desire to live in a free society will see such a hopeful example, and they'll begin to demand the same rights and the same conditions and the same hopeful society.
And that's why I tell you what you're doing is historic in nature. People will look back at this period and wonder whether or not America was true to its beginnings; whether we strongly believed in the universality of freedom and whether we were willing to act on it. Certainly we acted in our own self-interest right after September the 11th; and now we act not only in our own self-interests, but in the interests of men, women and children in the broader Middle East, no matter what their religion, no matter where they were born, no matter how they speak.
This is a moment -- this is a time where the world can turn one way or the other, where the world can be a better place or a more dangerous place. And the United States of America and citizens such as yourself are dedicated to making sure that the world we leave behind is a better place for all.
It is such an honor to be here. (Applause.) It is such an honor to be with you. May God bless you all, may God bless your work, may God bless your families, and may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
END

Bad News For Idiots: Evil Genius Karl Rove has been informed by the Special Prosecutor's office that he will not be facing charges relating to Patrick Fitzgerald's meandering investigation. The New York Times reports today:

The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case on Monday advised Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, that he would not be charged with any wrongdoing, effectively ending the nearly three-year criminal investigation that had at times focused intensely on Mr. Rove.

The decision by the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, announced in a letter to Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, lifted a pall that had hung over Mr. Rove who testified on five occasions to a federal grand jury about his involvement in the disclosure of an intelligence officer's identity.

In a statement, Mr. Luskin said, "On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove."

For all those idiots waiting for Jason Leopold's reality-based predictions to manifest in this universe, the only thing they know for certain today is that they've all been duped by shills, which is what makes them idiots in the first place. I mean, how far ahead of the news-cycle can you get? Leopold now has to either admit he was making things up out of whole cloth or out the source of the lies he has been spreading on behalf of someone else's agenda, because the only thing Jason Leopold can know for certain is that he will now go down in history as not just another discredited Rove-hating crank, but quite deluded and therefore eminently exploitable by a country mile.

Leopold will go down in history as one of America's great early blogging jackasses. That can't be good for him.

Truth, out.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one who thinks Wilson/Plame plaything Larry Johnson has been pillow-talking Leopold.

Also today, President Bush secretly flew into Iraq to meet Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Bush also countered recent news reports and declared himself the new head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, replacing Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, who got his ass blown up last week.

"There's a new sheriff in town," Bush said to a bare-bones press conference in Baghdad's Green Zone, adding that, although he won't be there to manage every aspect of the insurgency, "we have in place over 130,000 deputies across the country who are ready to consult with insurgents twenty-four/seven, if you know what I mean, heh."

I've deliberately stayed away from the Haditha story because the whole thing smells rotten to me. Even those expressing a wait-and-see attitude were issuing the caveat that if the story is true, then the guilty should be punished, which I've always thought goes without saying. I also took into account that the story involved alleged manifold atrocities, grievous departures from the ROE by a Marine patrol, a scenario that required one to believe that a company of highly-skilled men, most if not all on at least their second tour of duty in the the hardest of Iraq's hard-ass terrorhoods- places like Fallujah- seasoned warriors in the most professional fighting force in the world, had suddenly acted against all their training and simply, mindlessly run amok.

Damned unlikely.

The more people wrote and pontificated on the thing, the less I heard of substance. This wasn't news, this was baseless speculation combined with moral positioning presented as panel discussion, a disdainful but popular MSM practice. Even Fox got sucked into the morass.

Now a host of blogs are reporting that the story is beginning to unravel, and they all point to Sweetness & Light. Here is a round-up of their articles on the subject:

Reuters Reported "Bodies In The Street" At Haditha
Why Did "Rights Group" Sit On Its Haditha Story?
Did Marine Photographer Have A Personal Motive?
Time's McGirk Wanted To Call Haditha "A Massacre"
The Questionable Sources For Time's Haditha Scoop
Haditha Lawyer Wants More "Compensation"
Times Claims COs Knew Of Haditha Within 2 Days
Haditha Reporter's Thanksgiving With The Taliban
The Haditha Our Media Won't Tell You About
Haditha Doctor Was Arrested, Hates US
Haditha Reporter Was Jailed By US, Shares Name With Source
What Google Considers News Sources For Haditha
Times Begs For Tales Of "Marine Massacre"

Other sources:
The Strata-Sphere
Power Line has links
Washington Post

The Iraqi "journalist" at the center of this story is of interest to me. Consider this caption below his photograph in this AP story:

Secretary-General of the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring, and also a Haditha resident who witnessed parts of the incident, Thaer al-Hadithi, gives a detailed account of the alleged massacre of 24 Iraqis by U.S. Marines last year, to an Associated Press reporter at the offices of the group in Baghdad, Iraq Tuesday, June 6, 2006. The US Marines allegedly stormed at least 20 homes after a deadly bombing in a security sweep that lasted up to nine hours, he said.

I'm supposed to be dazzled by his account, but Who is this guy and Why should I believe him? What are his motives? When did he come forward? Where was he during the incident and afterward?

Answer: He may not even know it, but Thaer al-Hadithi is working on behalf of George Soros and Fenton Communications, which coincidentally serves as the press agent for notorious liar Joe Wilson and books him on the moonbat rubber-chicken circuit. Fans of Dana Priest, who relied on CIA Inspector-General officer Mary McCarthy's leaks to weave a Pulitzer-winning story about apparently non-existant European CIA prisons, will recall that Priest's husband owns Fenton Communications, which handles public relations for Human Rights Watch, which TIME stated worked with the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring, a flowery name for a two-man front-operation that involved only al-Hadithi and Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani.

Says Sweetness&Light:

Al-Mashhadani is described in a December 15, 2005 article from the Institute For War And Peace as an election monitor. In fact, he expressed great satisfaction with the turnout in the Iraqi elections:
Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani, an election monitor in Baghdad with the non-governmental organisation Hamurabi, said no major violations occurred in Baghdad. He expected 90 per cent turnout in Sunni Arab areas. (Which is quite ironic, given that only 150 people out of 90,000 dared to risk their lives to vote in the earlier
October referendum in Haditha.)

But if Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani was talking to the media in December about the election turnout, why didn’t he tell them then about this alleged atrocity at Haditha that had just occurred three weeks before?

Wasn’t that the purpose in starting the Hammurabi group?

Here's the link to the AP report. Compare that nonsense with this from Sweetness&Light.

Protein Wisdom

Then comes a muttered correction from TIME, buried "at the bottom of its online archive of the story which few will revisit." Note the author:

The Haditha Scandal’s Other Casualty

With the Pentagon completing its probe into whether U.S. forces massacred civilians one November morning in Western Iraq, the damage to America’s image abroad could take a further hit

By MATTHEW COOPER/WASHINGTON

Posted Friday, May. 26, 2006

In the original version of this story, TIME reported that "one of the most damning pieces of evidence investigators have in their possession, John Sifton of Human Rights Watch told Time’s Tim McGirk, is a photo, taken by a Marine with his cell phone that shows Iraqis kneeling — and thus posing no threat — before they were shot." While Sifton did tell TIME that there was photographic evidence, taken by Marines, he had only heard about the specific content of the photos from reports done by NBC, and had no firsthand knowledge. TIME regrets the error.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1198843,00.html

Imagine my surprise: a Soros-funded anti-American NGO disguised as a benevolent organization named "Human Rights Watch", whose press agency is Fenton Communications, the head of whom is married to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest and pimps gigs for notorious liar Joe Wilson (whose super-secret CIA soccer-mom wife was "under cover" and therefore his motives can't be questioned), accuses U.S. Marines of atrocities based on information they gave TIME, which defined said information as "one of the most damning pieces of evidence", then recants and scurries back into the shadows when the spotlight on TIME shines in its direction.

Go ahead. Tell me HRW is merely a Fenton Communications client.

Connecting the dots just got a whole lot more interesting.

First they were silent as lambs, then they copped to the usual paranoid babblings or just called it insignificant because, duhh, so where's bin Laden, already? The left is sad because Abu Musab al Zarqawi got a "five-hundred-pound curb-stomping", as one wag put it. Now that he's dead he's a martyr who will inspire others to join the cause, so goes the apologists' argument.

Well.

For one thing, it's intellectually dishonest to attempt, as many do on the left, to separate that thought from its implied but obvious conclusion, being that Zarqawi therefore should not have been killed, which I suppose is consistent with the antiwar idiots' central canard that the U.S. should not have gone into Iraq in the first place and, in fact, should not even be opposing Islamofascism because innocent children might get hurt or killed.

They don't talk about the innocent children of Beslan, raped and executed in front of their classmates and teachers or just blown up, or the innocent children of Ain Laila whom Zarqawi's men pulled off schoolbuses and executed.

That would be indecorous.

Christopher Hitchens writes in response to this soulless drivel:

It hasn't taken long for the rain to start falling on this parade. Nick Berg's father, a MoveOn type now running for Congress on the Green Party ticket, has already said that he blames President George Bush for the video-beheading of his own son (but of course) and mourned the passing of Zarqawi as he would the death of any man (but of course, again). The latest Atlantic has a brilliantly timed cover story by Mary Anne Weaver, which tends to the view that Zarqawi was essentially an American creation, but seems to undermine its own prominence by suggesting that, in addition to that, Zarqawi wasn't all that important.

Not so fast. Zarqawi contributed enormously to the wrecking of Iraq's experiment in democratic federalism. He was able to help ensure that the Iraqi people did not have one single day of respite between 35 years of war and fascism, and the last three-and-a-half years of misery and sabotage. He chose his targets with an almost diabolical cunning, destroying the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad (and murdering the heroic envoy Sérgio Vieira de Melo) almost before it could begin operations, and killing the leading Shiite Ayatollah Hakim outside his place of worship in Najaf. His decision to declare a jihad against the Shiite population in general, in a document of which Weaver (on no evidence) doubts the authenticity, has been the key innovation of the insurgency: applying lethal pressure to the most vulnerable aspect of Iraqi society. And it has had the intended effect, by undermining Grand Ayatollah Sistani and helping empower Iranian-backed Shiite death squads.

So. Memo to idiots: Zarqawi dead good. Zarqawi alive bad. Repeat until seared, seared into your memories.

Zarqawi's death without the option of surrender is the ultimate statement to his followers:

Zarqawi is dead; we have killed your god, and now we're coming to kill you. Right now.

Screw that. I'm outta here.

That's the plan.

A year-old David Frum column in National Review stands up well: Canada And Its Muslims.

I'll leave it to Wretchard at Belmont Club to explain. It's brilliant.

Allah continues to work his divine will through George W. Bush and American Special Forces.

The news reports of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi's death are already out there, so let's move to details and commentary. I'm just hearing someone on Fox (a Catholic priest, as it turns out) saying this is no time to gloat over the death of another human being. I understand and respect the point coming from a man of the cloth, but I have a different opinion: Zarqawi gave up his status as a human being when he took up slaughtering everyone and everything in his path in the cause of an Islamic fascist hell on Earth. To hell with him, then, and to all others who follow in his path. As a bonus, the bombs got Zarqawi's spiritual advisor Abd-Al-Rahman, another monster who needed to die for my freedom, along with six or seven others. Bad news for their command structure, as a Belmont Club commenter points out.

Say "Cheese!"

Abu al Masri is next. The intelligence-gathering success that killed Zarqawi should not be misunderestimated. The Coalition is probably moving on other targets at this very moment, and I expect a number of significant wins against the anti-democracy vermin in Iraq in the next few days or weeks (UPDATE: I see this is already happening.).

Captain's Quarters is updating throughout the day. Note to the good Captain: no-one gives a hoot what Richard Clarke thinks.

Glenn Reynolds has been following the MSM's reaction and notes with more than a hint of sadness:

Funny that when something bad happens, the press doesn't hedge it with qualifiers and contrary views the way they do when something good does. And it's too bad that I have to spend so much of a post on a Zarqawi's death talking about the misconduct of the American press.

Speaking of which, Tim Blair reminds readers of the iconic Robert Fisk.

Mary Katherine Ham has the moonbat quote of the day. So far, that is.

UPDATE: Upon reflection, I have to say that using the word "moonbat" is unfair in this case, even insulting. Nick Berg's father is in great pain and is targeting his grief onto the President, but Nick Berg was by all accounts a good man who went to Iraq with good intentions, and as a father I hope he can someday draw succor from the quality of his son's character rather than the disappointment he is blaming on a man who had nothing to do with Nick's decisions nor his murder. The insult comes from referring to him as a moonbat when that label should be reserved for the people on the left who are tending to Mr. Berg's grief as they have Cindy She-hen's, in the hope it will help legitimize their opposition to the war.

And yet I'm torn, because my belief in personal responsibility dictates that I also agree with Ace:

Does this asshole really think it's an enlightened human response to feel as bad for the death of your son's butcher as for your son's?

I think it makes him less than human, personally.

When he dies (which he will, of course, as we all will; no death threat intended), I hope his son slaps this stupid fuck right in the face.

Pajamas Media has an interview with Omar of Iraq The Model. Omar is very happy.

Bill Roggio has the comprehensive backgrounder on Task Force 145's arduous hunt forZarqawi. Bill Roggio=Red Meat Journalism.

Power Line Of The Day: The Meeting Ended Early. They have video of the airstrike. Paul Mirengoff makes excellent points:

There's something seriously wrong with any non-terrorist anywhere in the world who isn't celebrating Zarqawi's death. The world has become a better place, and Americans are a bit safer too -- as we would have been safer if the Clinton administration had taken advantage of one of its opportunities to kill or nab a certain other master terrorist during the late 1990s.

On the other hand, I don't think Zarqawi's demise is going to change things in Iraq. It's unlikely to have any effect on the strife between Sunni and Shiite, and in all likelihood al Qaeda has other leaders in Iraq who can replace Zarqawi. A power struggle may break out among them, but a power struggle may already have broken out (and possibility contributed to Zarqawi's end).

There may have been a time when Zarqawi played something like an indispensable role in Iraq, but if so that time probably has passed. Progress in Iraq is going to be gradual, and I think it's overly optimistic to be talking about this being a "tipping point."

Attacks against Iraqis today that have claimed dozens of lives support that last point, but the fact remains that the most vicious piece of garbage in Iraq, perhaps in the entire Middle East, is dead meat. No longer a factor.

Also at Power Line:
Zarqawi Dead; Liberals In Denial

How are our friends on the left reacting to the great news about Zarqawi? They aren't happy about it, if postings on Democratic Underground are any guide. Here are some typical entries:

Very curious. I wonder how this plays into neocon plans to attack Iran?

How sad - you know my reaction?? I laughed out loud and said the same thing you did, "AGAIN???" How sad that we cannot trust our government to be honest with us in matters of war and death. The boy who cried wolf is not believed in my house.

Z has only one leg and has already died or escaped so many times...Nah. I don't believe the story.

I don't buy it either...Wonder if they had to cut off the leg of the "Zarqawi" for authenticity purposes? Convenient too that this would happen now....guess we should just all forget about that Haditha mess, the fact that we are approaching 2,500 dead and the fact that our economy is in big trouble.

It's almost an "open joke" among the military and civilians who know how PsyOps operate, and the History, that Zarqowi is merely a "Pentagon creation." And oh, don't we need some good news now? It's so predictable I could write the OP Orders. It's all bullshit LIES paraded around for PR exploitation.

There are many, many more, but you get the drift. These people are lost souls, and it would be easy either to laugh at them or to feel sorry for them, but for their enormous influence within the Democratic Party.

Austin Bay notes that Al Jazeera is playing the "assault-rifle" video the NYT complained made Zarqawi look foolish.


The eeeevil Michelle Malkin on White House Press Corpse sourpusses.
Michelle's roundup is here.


Dr. Sanity is going to lose it if she keeps up looking at more idiotic bile. One of the idiots' favorite snarks seems to be that Bush could have gotten Zarqawi before the invasion, but chose not to. Reminds me of Bill Clinton's decision not to take delivery of Osama Bin Laden on a silver platter before 9/11.

Jeff Goldstein:

FOXNews asks, "Is it unethical to celebrate Zarqawi's death?"

A: No, Shep, it's not.

Now, if there's nothing else, I'd like to finish putting up the bunting and getting the 6' sub ready for the party. Which, I decided to go with ham. Because I so enjoy the irony.

Put me down for a piece o' that baby. Ham, ham, ham, we got ham.

Expose The Left:

I don't know how they do it, but they seem to find a way to hate America and Bush in every situation.

Stuck on stupid, you mean.

TigerHawk:

The humiliation of al Qaeda and its putative allies on the battlefield and in the streets of the West is necessary to destroy the credibility of its ideology. We will win only when the ideology is no longer credible. Al Qaeda bet that victory over the United States in Iraq would bolster its credibility in the Arab and Muslim world. It is losing that bet.

And so the harsh work continues. Congratulations to the good Iraqi people, and to the good men and women responsible for delivering this prototypical Islamofascist bastard to his fate. To those who cry for Zarqawi and attack democracy in Iraq, you're next, Inshallah.

Last word goes to Andy McCarthy:

Hopefully, Zarqawi's demise is a clarifying event in the United States, for the administration, the Congress, and, hope against hope,the media. This was the real American military in action, in all its effectiveness, doing what the American people sent it to do despite often impossibly difficult circumstances: namely, eliminate nondescript terrorists who strike in stealth then weave themselves back into the civilian population.

It is a mission our brave men and women—again, the real American military—perform brilliantly, day in and day out, despite lethal danger to themselves and immense pressure to perform flawlessly. Yet, what we hear about back home is Abu Ghraib. What we hear about is Haditha—as to which the anti-war champion of the current fifteen minutes, Congressman Jack Murtha, is poised to accord our Marines a lot less due process than he and other members are extending to their radioactive colleague, Rep. William Jefferson.

What we might want to remember from time to time is that ever since we unleashed our forces, no American city has had to bury thousands of its dead or gaze upon barren craters where skyscrapers once stood.

Let’s further pray that the administration heeds what is sure to be the very strong public approval of Zarqawi’s killing, apparently along with other terrorists, notwithstanding that it came in an air strike—i.e., an attack of the kind which always carries the risk of collateral casualties.

No one wants to see innocents harmed. But we are at war—something often noted but never quite remembered. Innocents are in peril, both here and in Iraq (and elsewhere) as long as jihadists thrive.
...

We began the war on terror with the clear-eyed understanding that Islamic militants cannot be reasoned with; they have to be eradicated. Winning the war on terror will require the resolve to let our forces do their job, despite occasional vilification from fair-weather allies who bask in the protection of American power while shouldering none of its burdens.

Zarqawi dead, Iraqi officials say.

Let's hope so.

Lileks looks into the mind of a post-Toronto dazed and confused antiwar idiot and finds conflict brewing in that otherwise-arid landscape:

You realize the suspects were all Muslim, and you dread the inevitable pogroms. Haven't been any yet, but any day now. You read that a mosque was vandalized in Toronto after the arrest, and you feel a certain grim relief. Finally, racism! Banners. If you're going to have a march, you'll need banners.

But wait. You read that the suspects were not connected to al-Qaida, and you're confused for a moment. Maybe it won't be over if they get Osama bin Laden (provided he isn't really in a supersecret Idaho prison). What if the "terrorists" hate you for their own reasons? The evildoer-in-chief said "they hate our freedoms" -- as if we have freedoms, really, just try and get a bike-messenger job that has full health benefits. But what if rights and mixed-sex education and an economy based on sustainable hemp-based art installations mean nothing to them?

Maybe you could convince them to hold off while you fix Amerikkka. At least you can get it down to one k. Maybe if the Democrats take the House back. A 10-seat swing won't make the imams cool down, but 20 seats, in red states? Would that be a good-faith effort?

You worry this will push Haditha off the front page. It's very important that everyone concentrate on the atrocities committed by U.S. troops every day. (It's such a relief not to have to pretend to support the troops anymore.) Anyway, nothing happened. Nothing blew up. If the suspects were planning something, they didn't do it, and this proves we can handle this as a law enforcement matter. Even
though the police are racists.

Your head hurts.

You have a friend in Toronto. She's cool. It would kill her if these arrests were made possible by NSA eavesdropping.

You find yourself almost wishing there was another real attack, so people could see the logical consequences of "fighting back" after 9/11. Yes, it would be bad, but sometimes you have to break an egg to show people the health impact of omelettes. Is it wrong to wish the Canadian terrorists might have succeeded?

Shouldn't you know the answer to that question?

Great name, great content, great timing: Nihilist In Golf Pants nails the idiots with a list of Top 11 Things That Anti-War Protesters Would Have Said At the Normandy Invasion on D-Day (Had There Been Anti-War Protesters At Normandy) (#5: "We are attacked by Japan and then attack France? Roosevelt is worse than the Kaiser!").

Captains' Quarters comments on the emerging goals of the Toronto 17 plot:

Did he really want to behead the Canadian Prime Minister?

Here's the newest defense, following on the heels of Moussaui's claim that he had an unhappy childhood. The Circus Defense, the essence of which is to turn the courtroom into a Three-Ring arena. The Times Online reports on the Canadians suspected of plotting a terror attack in Ontario.

One of the 17 suspects charged with planning a series of bomb attacks in Canada was accused yesterday of a plot to behead the country’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. The dramatic claim against Steven Vikash Chand, 25, a restaurant worker in Toronto, was made as the suspects made a brief court appearance. The attack on Mr Harper was reportedly to happen when Islamic extremists were to storm the Canadian Parliament and hold politicians hostage. Mr Chand’s lawyer, Gary Batasar, said: “There’s an allegation apparently that my client personally indicated that he wanted to behead the Prime Minister of Canada. My client has said nothing about that.”

The Mounties have already alleged that the parliament building in Ottawa was among the targets to be bombed. That sounds like such an incredible goal for a mere restaurant worker that maybe Mr. Batasar thought it would help his client to push things into the realm of absurdity. 'And not only that, your honor, he was fixing to decapitate our Head of State' (not strictly true as that is actually Queen Elizabeth), which is ridiculous, almost like trying to topple two one-hundred story skyscrapers with boxcutters or sink a superdestroyer with a rubber boat. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

Ridiculous as compared to the available means, but not perhaps with respect to the available intent. What's really at issue, in both the case of the Canadian terror suspects and the Iranian President is whether there is malevolent intent. The public disbelieves the idea that a mere Third World country would threaten the West with destruction. What about letting Ahmadinejad get the bomb and the West can find out? A restaurant worker of no given beliefs threatens to decapitate Stephen Harper? Impossible. How about we give him a knife and leave him in a room with Stephen Harper and find out? Why not? We're willing to give Ahmadinejad the benefit of the doubt.

I have no idea why anyone would freak over Bush's offer of nucular aid to Iran. It forces the Iranians into an exquisitely-constructed corner.

My bet is that they will find some way to ultimately reject the offer.

Captain's Quarters has an excellent analysis.

Mensa Barbie has video from Iran.

The 1 hour footage you are about to see is not a professional film but rather one man's passionate and caring individualized effort to depict the on-going atrocities and Human-rights abuses, for those who currently suffer under the Islamic Republic's regime. Joseph Compiled this film, not as propaganda, but to help stop the continuing suffrage of the Iranian people in our 21st century. ( Discretion Advised.)

Iran's people want out from under their Islamist leaders, who are a blight on civilization itself. Note to idiots: put the global-warming toys down and pay attention to real evil.

The latest news is that the Toronto 17 were planning to do more than unleash six thousand pounds' worth of murderous fury-by-truck-bomb on such targets as CSIS HQ and the Toronto Stock Exchange. They were also going to storm Parliament and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

BRAMPTON, Ontario (Reuters) - One of 17 men accused of plotting bombings in major Canadian cities and of training militants also faces an allegation that he sought to behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Steven Chand, 25, was among 15 members of the alleged terrorist ring who appeared in a heavily guarded courtroom north of Toronto to set dates for bail hearings. The Muslim men, five of them under the age of 18, were arrested on Friday in Canada’s largest counterterrorism operation, and police said more arrests are possible.

Chand’s lawyer, Gary Batasar, said his client faced several serious charges and was concerned that intense media interest in the details of the case in Canada and the United States could jeopardize Chand’s chances of a fair trial.

Allegations include plans for the “storming and bombing of various buildings,” Batasar told reporters. “There’s an allegation apparently that my client personally indicated that he wanted to behead the prime minister of Canada,” Batasar said. “It’s a very serious allegation — he’s said nothing about that. My client retains the right to silence.”

Members of the group are alleged to have considered plans to take hostages and to attack Canada’s parliament in Ottawa, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. building in Toronto and power grids, according to a synopsis of charges Batasar said he saw.

An interesting revelation appears in a related National Post story: Joint Task Force 2 special ops were stationed near the jihadis' camp north of Toronto in case things got out of hand during surveillance, demonstrating not only the seriousness Canadian authorities brought to the investigation, but also the probability that the case is quite solid.

The commandos of Joint Task Force-2 (JTF-2), Canada's elite special forces unit, were put on standby a short flight away from where suspected terrorists were conducting ''training camps'' at an isolated site north of Toronto, sources told the National Post.

A ''troop'' of about 25 of the unit's highly trained assaulters, part of JTF-2's counter-terrorism unit, were at a nearby military base with their helicopters ready to swoop down should police decide they were needed, said a military source.

''They were within a few minutes flying time of this training camp,'' said the source, who is familiar with JTF-2's operations. ''Basically they were on standby in case things got out of hand and the police couldn't handle it.''

Hot Air has an interesting tidbit gleaned from an FBI affidavit filed in the case against one of the Toronto jihadis’ American acquaintances:

Agents found, concealed in the lining of SADEQUEE’s lone suitcase, two CD-ROMs. One CD contained encrypted files that FBI technical experts remain unable to decode. The other CD contained an apparent bootleg copy of a hard-core ############ film.

Why don't they just state the obvious? We're talking porn here. When Muslim Islamofascists aren't busy making Islamoporn, they watch the other kind. Ace was all over this weeks ago. The disturbing part: the FBI can't crack the encrypted CD. Gotta fix that.

One fact has long been clear in this and other news about Islamist terror: with each new case, police, politicians and the media do their damnedest to ignore the elephant in the room:

As Cliff May and I noted here on NRO, and Roger Simon detailed on his website, readers of the New York Times were told that the 17 men arrested “represent the broad strata of our society … Some are students, some are employed, some are unemployed.” In point of fact, however, they represent a very narrow stratum of Canadian society: They are Muslims, many of whom attend the same mosque, the Al-Rahman Islamic Centre for Islamic Education in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga.

Not only were all those arrested Muslims. The reported evidence against them fits to a tee the shopworn pattern of Islamic terrorism repeated for much of the last two decades. Young men were radicalized at the local mosque and its companion school by elders preaching from the Koran. They participated in paramilitary training in rural outposts. The training involved firearms and communications equipment. The plotters may have conducted surveillance on specific targets. And they ordered prodigious amounts of explosives components—in this case, tons of fertilizer in preparation for the construction of crude but deadly effective ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) bombs.

Nonetheless, the rigorous media practice in Phase One is to suppress any reference to Islam, the single thread that runs through virtually all modern terrorism—from New York, to Virginia, to Bali, the Djerba, to Baghdad, to Mombassa, to Tel Aviv, to Nairobi, to Dar es Salaam, to Ankara, to Paris, to Riyadh, to Amman, to Sharm el-Sheikh, to Aden, to London, to Madrid, and, now, to Toronto.

Consequently, the piece of information most obviously pertinent to the public’s understanding of what could be catalyzing this global savagery is consciously withheld. Such a revelation might, after all, lead people to ask the sensible question: What is it about Islam that makes it such a fertile breeding ground for this pathology?

Instead, we are given the defendants’ nationality, or, even more vaporously, the continental region from which they emigrated to wherever they happen to be making mischief at the moment. The Times relates that the “17 men” arrested in Canada “were mainly of South Asian descent and most were in their teens or early 20’s.” Apparently, some of them had contact with two suspected Islamic terrorists who have been arrested in the United States. At least that’s the inference one draws, since we’re not exactly told whether these two were Muslims either … just that they happen to be “two people from Georgia[,] … Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 19, an American of Bangladeshi descent, and Syed Haris Ahmed, 21, a Pakistani-born American.”

Phase One of the Canadian story nicely dovetails with the Phase One reporting of another story from last week. This one involved the interruption of Islamic terrorists who may have been plotting chemical-bomb attacks in London.

Last Friday, the initial report from Sky News was careful to say only that two arrested men were “both of Bengali origin.” On Saturday, the New York Times followed with a story which grudgingly uttered, toward the very end, that the two—a pair of brothers apparently associated with a “known terrorist group”—just might be “of Pakistani descent.” Such is the state of contemporary political correctness that it’s now safe to flub a once salient multicultural distinction—whether a particular South Asian was Pakistani or Bengali (or the even more hip Bangla)—as long as it’s for the greater good of obscuring that an apparent terrorist is a Muslim.

Read Andrew C. McCarthy's The Elephant In The Room, and pray that one day these PC buffoons will finally get honest with the people under threat from Muslim fanatics and acknowledge the nature of Islamofascism.

Sixty years ago today, ten thousand men died fighting this very same evil, then in the form of Hitler's Nazi Germany. We should speak that evil's name clearly today just as they did then. Its name is fascism. It works its evil today through Islam. And in the names of those ten thousand men and their millions of brothers in arms, it must be overcome yet again, with overwhelming force.