I pilloried – justifiably – Obie’s saber-rattling over Pakistan – but Taranto notes that at least there’s some good news in Obama’s flub:

As a candidate recently pilloried by fellow Democrats as a foreign policy naïf, Mr. Obama’s remarks may be no more than an effort to don a Mike Dukakis helmet. And given the Senator’s consistent opposition to the war in Iraq, it may seem peculiar that he should now propose invading a nuclear-armed Muslim country–all the more so since Mr. Obama let slip Thursday in an interview that as President he would rule out the use of nuclear weapons “in any circumstance.”

But in a primary contest where Democrats seem to vie with one another for the title of who will pull out of Iraq the fastest, Mr. Obama’s speech is at least a recognition that he’d be willing to use military force somewhere. It’s also a reminder to antiwar Democratic voters that the terror threat won’t vanish when the Bush Administration does, and that U.S. soldiers will have to be put in harm’s way again.

Mr. Obama:  Pakistani WMDs most definitely do exist.  And what a wonderful way to radicalize not only Musharraf’s society, but to re-radicalize Pakistan’s intelligence service, which was until recently overrun with Wahhabi sympathizers and actively aided (and, no doubt, in many quarters still aids) Al-Quaeda.

Still…:

Too bad, then, that Mr. Obama instantly squandered an opportunity for seriousness by insisting that Iraq is “the wrong battlefield” in the war on terror. In case he hasn’t noticed, Iraq today is the main battlefield where U.S. forces are confronting, and killing, al Qaeda on a daily basis. And GIs don’t have to invade another country to do it.

The best news about Obie’s jape, of course, is it shows that being “anti-war” is losing at least some of its cachet on the left – at least, in responsible quarters on the left: 

Still, Mr. Obama’s willingness to draw appropriate conclusions from realities in Pakistan stands in refreshing contrast to his Democratic opponents. Tragic as a premature withdrawal from Iraq would be, it would be compounded if Democrats draw the lesson never again to use or threaten force abroad. By distancing himself from his party’s pacifist wing, Mr. Obama is growing up as a candidate.

Worth a read.

And then read Victor Davis Hanson’s detailed takedown of our newly hawkish überliberal.

William Kristol, in an article that notes the huge changes in…well, not so much the war, as the public’s media-driven perception of it, over the past month, sums up:

In terms of U.S. national interests–and in terms of its own political well-being–the Republican party faces a moment when, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, honor points the path of duty, and the right judgment of the facts reinforces the dictates of honor. General Petraeus will deliver the facts in September. If Republicans can keep their nerve under media and elite assault, then they will have the honor of following the path of both duty and the right judgment of the facts. I suspect all will come out well. Americans can sometimes be impatient and short-sighted. But when a choice is clearly presented, they tend to reject the path of defeat and dishonor.

Read the whole, vital thing.

Obama would pull out of Iraq, and dive into Pakistan – which, with its bigger population and much-more-difficult terrain, would be a much worse place to fight.

Good one, Barack.

Thomas P.M. Barnett – one of NARN Volume I’s best guests ever – engages Barack Obama’s abdication on genocide and its long-term meaning:

Tell me if this crowd gets back in that they won’t feel compelled to turn many blind eyes across eight long years. And, if so, are we not headed to the same ex post f–ktos as watching ex-prez Bill Clinton whine his way through Rwanda, telling everyone in sight he should have done something–anything?

Do you want to explain to your grandkids why your nation did nothing to counter the Holocaust-size totals in the Gap in the 1990s? Care to go through that again?

Why does Obama play to that base instinct? With Samantha Powers as one of his top advisers?

I sit back at times like this and realize there is no room for me and mine in either party: I don’t demonize the military or interventions so I can’t be a Dem, and I don’t demonize China or want to invade Iran so I can’t be a Republican.

Like all Barnett, the whole thing is an interesting, sometimes infuriating, always fascinating read. 

From today’s Rush Limbaugh show, more talking points from Fox News:

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Well, who cares what Limbaugh thinks.  He’s just a neocon tool.

(more…)

Nancy Pelosi:  “Americans should be a herd, not a pack.”

Harry Reid: “Freedom is slavery!”

 Via Cox ‘n Forkum

To A-Klo’s credit, she was for protecting John Doe – after she was against it.  In her defense, it seems the dog ate her homework:

It would be nice if she actually understood the bill before she voted on it the first time. She’s still new, maybe they didn’t cover that in freshman orientation classes. But in the absence of perfect information, it’s interesting to note what her instincts tell her to do.

“All that reading and reasoning and questioning what CAIR and Cuddles Reid tell me is so complicated“. 

Thanks, Senator Barbie.  Hope your colleagues don’t kill too many of us.

Kevin Ecker subjects the US government to the same “benchmarks” to which Iraqi democracy are currently tied, and finds our bureaucracy sorely wanting.

UPDATE:  And now, with the link…

After having a great interview with him on Saturday’s NARN broadcast, I’m remiss in not posting a link to NZ Bear’s relaunched Victory Caucus website. 

So go read it.

 I’ve been talking with a lot of regional conservatives – as opposed to Republicans, lately, although most conservatives do vote Republican, with one degree of nose-holding or another. 

A lot of them.

And one of the common themes of our discussions is the sense that too many candidates and influential staffers in the GOP – nationally as well as Minnesota – are trying to sneak away from conservatism, back toward the mushy-middle hell that the party endured when many of us center-right bloggers were just becoming aware of politics in the first place.

Of course, with all politics there’s the eternal battle between pragmatism and idealism.  Being on the extremes is easy: the Libertarians, Socialist Workers, Constitution Party and (in most places except Minneapolis) Greens defend their ideals fiercely, unpolluted by the need to actually govern, with its attendant compromises; pragmatists like Jesse Ventura and Arne Carlson, more concerned with getting elected or tinkering with the knobs and buttons of power (respectively), use ideals like election brochures, to be stored away in boxes until the next campaign while they get down to wheeling and dealing.

Most of us pick a place on the continuum between “ideals” and “reality” for a variety of reasons.  Some hover closer to the edges; Paul Wellstone’s idealism was intense enough to marginalize him as an on-the-ground legislator; Ronald Reagan’s was also intense, but communicated better; Phil Krinkie’s made him “Doctor No” on Saint Paul’s Capitol Hill.  Others play the room; Dick Day and Chuck Hegel blow with the most profitable wind.  Tim Pawlenty jumps between both with fluency that, after five years, still astounds me.

And any pol’s position on that continuum is going to influence voters, who themselves have their own point staked out, leading to amazing conclusions; I still roll my eyes at the guy I interviewed at the Patriot Picnic last year who was giving up on Mark Kennedy over ethanol subsidies, as if putting Amy Klobuchar in office would change anything…

And then there’s Norm Coleman. 

Norm’s never pretended to be an orthodox conservative.  It would have been political suicide; he’d have never been elected mayor of Saint Paul had he not first been a DFLer, and then governed as a relatively conservative, pragmatic East Side, Randy Kelly-style Democrat before changing parties.  Since going to DC, he’s been fairly solidly conservative on most issues.  Up until this past year, the big blemish was the ANWR Drilling issue, and while he didn’t vote the way I’d have preferred, it wasn’t the sort of thing I’d drop support over.  He’s been on the side of the angels on taxes, immigration, and especially the UN, where he’s led the charge to uncover the rot in the world’s unofficial, self-appointed government.

And yet…there’s the war.

Hugh is rolling up the towel, perhaps for a vicious snap before throwing it in:  according to Hugh, Coleman is only barely on the “worth fighting for” list.   

Gary Miller disagrees.  Sort of.

We’re not there.  Yet.  The Senator is a champion on taxes, judges and the U.N.  He is a disaster on Climatism and the GWOT.  The former are “nice to haves”.  Getting it wrong on the latter have the very real prospect of plunging the world into a new Dark Ages.

It’s hard out there for a pragmatist. 

And we, the center-right, need to make it harder.  Write the Senator.  Tell him where you’re at on this issue. 

Mixing iced tea and “work”:

And for the record, they had the best tasting iced tea I have ever had, and not just because it hit 100 here in DC today.

Beyond that?  No similarity.  He’s actually doing something useful – in this case, Sunday’s interview with Said Jawad, Ambassador from Afghanistan:

In one sense, it breaks new ground because the Ambassador rarely gets an opportunity to speak in depth about the status of Afghanistan. Normally, all he gets are quick sound bites taken out of context, or a five-minute segment on a talking-head show in which he never gets the opportunity to speak about his country’s experience in any depth at all. In this format, we can allow Ambassador Jawad to speak at length — and if you listen to the show, you can see that the Ambassador has quite a story to tell.

The most groundbreaking aspect of the interview, I believe, is how the questions came to the Ambassador in the first place. Readers of this blog asked the questions in the comments section, and I selected the most germane and posed them to the Ambassador. His staff reviewed that thread and spoke about how impressed they were with the variety and depth of the questions. Afterwards, Ambassador Jawad said the one question I failed to ask that he wanted to answer was one about dirt-biking in Afghanistan’s mountains, which he thought would be a marvelous idea, so I know they paid close attention to your input.

You oughtta listen to his rather remarkable interview with the Ambassador. 

Michael Yon reports from an Iraqi village that was apparently the victim of an Al Quaeda mass murder:

I told the Iraqi commander, Captain Baker, that it was important that Americans see this; he took me around the graves and showed more than I wanted to see. He said the people had been murdered by al Qaeda. I made video of him speaking, and of the horrible scene. The heat and stench were crushingly oppressive and broken only by the sounds of shovels as Iraqi soldiers kept digging.

Yon’s piece is a pictorial, and not for the squeamish. 

Hm.  Maybe if the villagers had been the subject of a stupid giggly photodocumentary by US troops (but were alive today), the US mainstream media would cover the story.

Our involvement in Iraq is bringing terrorists out of the woodwork to attack Americans and their interests:

 Muslim insurgents killed 7 soldiers and wounded 1 in an IED attack…Muslim insurgents walked into schools and murdered three teachers…Muslim insurgents attacked a school bus…Fourteen were wounded after a small bomb packed with “small iron nails of about 2cm each” was detonated as passengers were exiting a ship …[A] ‘militant’ was ordered to behead 3 Christian schoolgirls …[an attack resulted in the] wounding 8 teenagers and the bus driver…Muslim insurgents killed 10 paramilitary soldiers in an IED attack…

…and on, and on.

Except, of course, that this is in Thailand and heavily-Moslem Indonesia.

Hm.  It’s almost like Islamist terrorists don’t need American provocation!

People sometimes ask – usually with a peevish edge in their tone – “Why aren’t you writing about the war?  Huh?  Huh?”

The answer: Mainly, because I have little to say, and there are people much better sited to write about the subject than I who are doing it every day.

Like Michael Yon, whose latest dispatch on the eve of what will likely be the biggest offensive since the end of the conventional war in Iraq four years ago is out today.

Read the whole thing.  Print it out.  Mail it to Harry Reid.  (Reid’s contact form, courtesy of Wake Up America)

More later.

John Hinderaker at Powerline – my long-time NARN colleague – on the ironic “anti-killing” protests by Palestinians – who’ve been raised in a culture that for 40 years has been entirely formed, with the active moral connivance and financial assistance of neighboring Arab governments (who could at any time in the past four decades have absorbed the Palestinians easily into their own societies, or urged them to accept Israel’s offers of peaceful assimilation) on the premise of killing Jews and extincting Israel:

It’s a little late in the day for Palestinians to decide they’re opposed to killing. They’ve been desperately trying to sow the wind of mass murder for a couple of generations now, and if they’re finally getting concerned about reaping the whirlwind, they’ll have to look somewhere else for sympathy.

Put another way – Palestinian leadership has created a society based entirely on death (not only of Jews, mind you, but of any Palestinians who’ve espoused peace with Israel, who’ve been murdered or driven into exile).  One might be forgiven for observing that fact.

Jeff Fecke – who is to “cartooning” and “writing” what he is to “Journalism” and “Feminism”, and who is unfit to carry Hinderaker’s gym bag as a writer, thinker, or human being – assumes Hinderaker’s voice to “write“:

I really hope that a whole bunch of Palestinian children die.

Amusing side note – he constantly calls Powerline “Hacks”.

In a blogging “career” characterized by silly statements self-excused with a giggle and a wink as “snarking” (like his determination of guilt in the Duke rape case, which he excused with perhaps the most juvenile abnegation of personal responsibilty I’ve read this side of an eighth-grade TP raid, “some of us–myself included–jumped the gun in this case.  It happens.  Write enough, you’ll be wrong sometimes” – in other words, the dog ate my homework), this may be his nadir.

Anyone who can’t tell the difference between “I think a society that has trained itself to be a killing machine is ironically ill-advised to plead for peace” and “I hope the children die” needs to be sent to remedial moral grounding.

The best news?  Every dime of deep-pocketed-liberal-pressure-group money spent on Fecke’s “journalism” over at the Minnesota Monitor is a dime that won’t go toward anything remotely useful, and will give the rest of us a wealth of material. 

Moral: Carry on, moral carrion!

UPDATE:  Another NARN colleague, Michael Brodkorb at MDE, notes that Jeff has moved from petty defamation (no, not in a legal sense, yadda yadda) back to his usual turf, crummy reporting:

If you visited Minnesota Monitor in the last 24 hours, you would see a post on the front page titled “Bachmann Personal Financial Report Still Not Available.”  The post, written by the notoriously sloppy and inaccurate blogger Jeff Fecke, makes the claim that Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has not filed her legally required Personal Financial Disclosure Report (PFD).   

“The Personal Financial Report for Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., was still unavailable Saturday morning, one day after the House deadline for filing reports.

Bachmann was not one of the 385 representatives to file a report, nor was she one of the 52 to request an extension, according to Congressional Quarterly.” Source: Minnesota Monitor, June 16, 2007

The reality is that Bachmann’s PFD is available online.  Contrary to the reporting of Minnesota Monitor, Bachmann’s PFD report has been filed.

This is the second post that Fecke has written in the last 24 hours that will need to be corrected.  Earlier today, Fecke wrote that Congressman Tim Walz’s PFD listed two credit card debts, when Walz’s PFD actually listed three credit card debts. Fecke’s oversight did move Walz’s debt below the level of Congressman Ramstad, who Fecke claimed had the most credit card debt.  Fecke corrected the post after I pointed out his error.  

I guess when you write lots of stuff, you’re going to make mistakes – when your fundamental driving force is ideology, not accuracy. 

Or as Jeff himself might write, “Why Does Jeff Fecke Hate The Facts?”

On the one hand, Iran wants to start executing people involved in the pr0n industry.

With a 148-5 vote in favor and four abstentions, lawmakers present at the Wednesday session of the 290-seat parliament approved that “producers of pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered corruptors of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corruptors of the world.”

The term, “corruptor of the world” is taken from the Quran, the Muslims’ holy book, and ranks among the highest on the scale of an individual’s criminal offenses. Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, it carries a death penalty.

The “main elements” refered to in the draft include producers, directors, cameramen and actors involved in making a pornographic video.

Now, I don’t care a whole lot for pr0n; obviously this is a bit much.

Still, I could almost justify it if they’d include the producers of those gawdawful “disaster pr0n” specials on the History Channel.

I’d call it about square then.

Lieberman:

The United States should launch military strikes against Iran if the government in Tehran does not stop supplying anti-American forces in Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday on Face The Nation.

“I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. “And to me, that would include a strike into… over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.”

The Indepedent former Democrat from Connecticut said that he was not calling for an invasion of Iran, but he did say the U.S. should target specific training camps.

“I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air, but they can’t believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans,” Lieberman said.

How long do we tolerate Iranians indirectly (?) participating in a war against the US?

Ed, on the road with the Romney campaign in Iowa, writes regarding the Venezuelan peoples’ dissatisfaction with Chavez’ imposition of his version of the Fairness Doctrine shutting down of the opposition press:

Dictatorships and oppression will afflict mankind for ages to come, and we have to be prepared to fight against it, using the most effective weapons in our arsenal. Fred [Thompson, in an interview today] reminds us that simple communication of truth, and the establishment of our credibility from that effort, is perhaps the most powerful and effective weapon against tyranny that we possess. It’s high time that we start using it again.

This has been one of the worst effects of not only the Clinton Administration, but of both Bushes; Papa George, eager to claim the “peace dividend” at the end of the Cold War, began the process of shutting down America’s information efforts around the world; Clinton and Bush Junior continued the trend.

And yet throughout history, especially during the broadcast era, “propaganda” has been an essential part of getting the truth to oppressed people around the world.  Throughout the Cold War, Radio Free Europe broadcast news to Eastern Europe; Radio Marti to Cuba.  During World War II, occupied Europe relied on the BBC for news (as well as coded broadcasts to resistance units – the Beeb was the fastest way to get information to guerillas in Nazi territory). 

And yet, today, as we fight a war in the Middle East, and continue fighting a three-decade-long undeclared war against a theocracy that is as deeply-unpopular with its own people as were Poland’s, Hungary’s and Czechoslovakia’s among theirs, we have…

…nothing.  No US information service, no “Radio Free Persia” broadcasting to Iran; virtually nothing broadcasting to the Middle East outside of Iraq itself.  No US broadcast outlet serving the Venezuelan that might be looking for something not vetted by Hugo Chavez…

…except the American mainstream media’s foreign outlets.  Which is, of course, the problem…

The US, say some commentators, might be engaged in a black-bag operation to sabotage the Iranian nuke program.

“Industrial sabotage is a way to stop the program, without military action, without fingerprints on the operation, and really, it is ideal, if it works,” says Mark Fitzpatrick, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation and now Senior Fellow in Non-Proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Sources in several countries involved told CBS News that the intelligence operatives involved include former Russian nuclear scientists and Iranians living abroad. Operatives have sold Iran components with flaws that are difficult to detect, making them unstable or unusable.

 One of the good upshots of the war on terror, reputedly, is the CIA’s resurgent ability to actually do things on the ground.  They apparently may still stink at drawing high-level conclusions, but as long as the nuts ‘n bolts get done, it’s a start…

“One way to sabotage a program is to make minor modifications in some of the components Iran obtains on the black market, and because it’s a black market … you don’t know exactly who you are dealing with,” Fitzpatrick says.

Senior government representatives, who spoke to CBS News on condition that neither they nor their country be identified, pointed to the case of the exploding power supplies. Installed at the pilot enrichment facility at Natanz in April 2006 as Iran was first attempting to enrich uranium, the power supplies, used to regulate voltaage current, blew up, destroying 50 centrifuges. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said in January of this year that the equipment had been “manipulated.”

There is other evidence, CBS News was told, that some of the technical difficulties Iran is having in consistently running its centrifuges are the results of a concerted effort at industrial sabotage.

I’m going to watch for the first lefty to condemn this American interference.  I fully expect at least one leftyblogger to call it a civil liberties issue.  I may even take up a pool as to which one.

I don’t think I’ll have to wait long, in any case.

Michael Chertoff on the Dems’ mania for softpedaling the war on terror:

The impulse to minimize the threat we face is eerily reminiscent of the way America’s leaders played down the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s revolutionary fanaticism in the late 1970s. That naive approach ultimately foundered on the kidnapping of our diplomats in Tehran.

A sensible strategy against Al-Qaida and others in its ideological terror network begins with recognizing the scope of the threat they pose. Al-Qaida and its ilk have a world vision that is comparable to that of historical totalitarian ideologues but adapted to the 21st-century global network.

Is this actually a war? Well, the short answer comes from our enemies. Osama bin Laden’s fatwa of Feb. 23, 1998, was a declaration of war, a self-serving accusation that America had somehow declared war on Islam, followed by a “ruling” to “kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military … in any country where it is possible to do it.”

It’s on this misapprehension, I have to hope, that the Democrats will founder in ’08. 

John Kline and Michele Bachmann were joined by Jim Ramstad in voting against the Pork ‘n Pullout bill in the House. 

And while I expected nothing better of Walz, McCollum, Ellison and Oberstar, it’s distressing to see Collin Peterson has voted with his vacuous caucus.  He’s normally this state’s sole responsible Democrat.

I’ve always been ambivalent about Rudy “Freakin'” Giuliani.  On the one hand, he’s never been a conservative in terms of his personal approach and too many of his policy initiatives.

On the other hand, he’s a genuine leader. 

And – unlike too many candidates, including all the Democrats – he understands the situation in this world – and that the Democrats’ perception of this world froze solid on 9/10:

Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

And while “anticipate” might not have been the most judicious choice of words, the real choice – between the party that knows there’s a war going on and the one that denies it as hard as they can – couldn’t be more stark.

The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.

“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”

“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

Bingo.

That’s the key to the whole thing; if the Dems win, they will cede the initiative to the enemy.  And ceding the initiative is how nations lose.

He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”

After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”

He’s got that going for him.

Per my post yesterday, I went to last night’s meeting of the Saint Paul School Board.  There, I met Swiftee from “Pair O’ Dice”. 

The mission?  Speak out against the movement by a well-heeled pressure group to ban or hinder military recruiters from Saint Paul School property. 

The actual “public response” portion of the agenda was shorter than I’d expected.  Aside from Swiftee and I (and a woman who was there to testify about an issue that was both unrelated and deeply familiar), the only speakers were a couple of not-overly-articulate kids from “Youth Against War and Racism”, supported by a couple of rows of Volvo (or Subaru)-driving, alpaca-wearing, Whole Foods-shopping, patchouli-reeking, puerile-placard-bearing pro-dictatorship “anti-war” activist types.

It’s always a pleasure to watch Tom Swift engage the School Board.  What he lacks in Ciceronian polish, he makes up for in passion.  It was – as always – a joy to watch Ann Carroll, Swiftee’s nemesis on the board, shrink down behind the desk when Tom teed up.

The fun, as Tom relates, was after the public hearing was over.  The rows of “activists” noisily got up and stampeded for the door like a bunch of Grateful Dead fans who’d heard there was a bag of Fritos in the rest room; Tom and I quietly left via the side door.

And then it got weird:

After receiving a few handshakes from parents and military vets, we were accosted by a young guy with a “Free Palestine” button on his coat who wanted to have a little dialogue with us…sure, I’ll play!

While we listened to his “Haliburton owns the military” spiel…

 Talking with “Eric” was, indeed, of a piece with a pattern I’ve observed in many attempts to engage these people in a rational debate.  When confronted by facts, they inevitably squiggle away into bizarre conspiracy theories and fanciful self-aggrandizing victimization operas. 

Of course, that’s among the ones that make some pretense of rationality, which to be fair, Eric tried.  Others, as I noted in my coverage of the pro-terrorist “Anti-war” demonstration last month, have let the surly bonds of civility slip, as Tom relates.

… a live, breathing specimen of one of Mitch’s patented “smug, alpaca wearing, Volvo driving, tofu and beansprout eating, prematurely grey” female moonbats cruised by to spin the propeller on her tinfoil hat for us by (loudly) proclaiming that George Bush had “arranged” the 9/11 attacks.

As her pencil-necked life partner shuffled her quickly out of smackdown range, with her screaming incoherently all the while (I think it had something to do with chimpyMcbushitler but I can’t be sure), “Free Palestine” informed us that she was frustrated and felt powerless. 

Swiftee is too charitable.  The woman – a late 40-early-50-something who ooozed “college educated government/non-profit worker”, although that’s just a first impression – had veins bulging from her face; she was howling in an ululating tone that suggested she genuinely felt horrified to confront dissent.  “Why don’t you go to Iraq yourself”, she snivelled as her partner shuffled her, all a-vapor, toward their Volvo. 

“So only the military gets to speak?” I yelled after her – but I let her go.  Confronting actual reason would have probably given her a stroke.

I turned back to “Eric”.

“So”, he said, affecting a moist, unctuous, lecturing tone, “how do you rationalize the fact that our military isn’t democratic, but it’s supposedly spreading democracy around the world?”

I stood, stunned.  Swiftee, to his credit, took a whack at it.  Finally, words came to me.

“Of course the military isn’t ‘democratic’ – but it’s controlled by civilians, who are elected.  The military isn’t controlled by a fascist dictatorship”.

“Eric” affected that “gotcha” look that the rhetorically dim take on, looking a bit like a toddler that’d made a really good pants.  “How do you know it’s not a fascist dictatorship”.

“Oh, for chrissake…”, I started, taking a deep breath, ready to lay into him.

Swiftee was, well, swifter.  “I gotta go”, he said, taking his leave.  It was, in retrospect, the right call.

I can’t wait to do it again!

A commenter at IMAO who claimes to be a former Iran hostage speaks out:

As my screenname indicates, I can speak with Complete Moral Authority ™ on this issue.

On the day of the takeover, the Marines were outnumbered at least 1000 to 1. We held the consulate and the communications vault for over 12 hours, helping to destroy equipment and classified material. We were under STRICT orders not to fire our weapons or pop gas grenades (too late for that last one..hee, hee, hee). We were eventually told that we were on or own and to make a break for it. The monkeys even put one of the diplomats in front of the comm vault peep eye with a pistol to their head and threatened to kill them unless the door was opened. It wasn’t and they didn’t. Once all the material was destroyed the doors were opened and they all got the crap beat out of them.

When we were first taken, the Iranians took us into a room individually and asked us to sign a statement denouncing the US policy in Iran, Israel, the Shah, etc. The Marines signed with names such as Michael Mouse, Chesty Puller, Dan Daly (google the last two…Marine Corps legends), Harry Butz, etc.

Read the whole thing.

The story:

Army Sgt. Neil Duncan, from Maple Grove, MN, was severely injured in Afghanistan on December 5, 2005 when an improvised explosive device (IED) ripped through his Humvee. Neil was seriously wounded as a result of the explosion. He lost both of his legs, shattered his jaw, broke his elbow and hand, and sustained multiple shrapnel wounds. Within a week of the attack, Neil was transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC where he began the long road of recovery.

Neil went through more than 20 surgeries, rigorous physical and occupational therapy along with dental reconstruction over the last 14 months at Walter Reed. However, through his mental/physical strength and determination, Neil has overcome this huge hurdle as he is now able to do things he was once able to enjoy.

The story – which you should read on his website – is a sobering, inspiring read.

Anyway, Sgt. Duncan needs some help:

The benefit is scheduled for Saturday, April 21, 2007 from 2-6 p.m. at the American Legion in Osseo, Minnesota. It will be open to the public and seeks to raise money to help Neil make the difficult adjustments that lie ahead, such as buying a house and adapting it to his specific needs. The event is being organized primarily by Neil’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law who are actively seeking contributions from the public as well as from private organizations who want to be a part of this noble cause.

All donations are welcomed. Both cash donations as well as donations for the silent auction are being requested. All contributions -big or small- will be gratefully appreciated. “We know that people live very busy and active lives. Anything ranging from a gift card to a coffee shop, to a round of golf at a golf course, even tickets to a special event will be a hit!” Minnesotans are saddened that Neil’s life has taken such a dramatic turn as a result of the explosion, yet Neil’s family is confident that Minnesotans’ heartfelt compassion will be reflected in their generosity.

I’m going to try, hard, to get out there. Hope you can, too.

Gwynne Dwyer, a reporter-without-portfolio living in the UK, shows that he learned foreign policy the same place everyone on the left seems to have learned it.

His thesis, after quoting an American officer who noted that American rules of engagement would have allowed our sailors and Marines to have fought back:

Just as well that it was a British boarding team, then. The 15 British sailors and marines who were captured and taken to Tehran for “questioning” last week are undoubtedly having an unpleasant time, but they are alive, and Britain is only involved in two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. If it had been one of Erik Horner’s boarding teams, they would all be dead, and the United States and Iran would now be at war…So there they are, eight sailors and seven marines in two rubber boats, with personal weapons and no protection whatever, sitting about a foot above the water, surrounded by six or seven Iranian attack boats with mounted machine guns. “Defend yourself” by opening fire, and after a single long burst from half a dozen heavy machine-guns there will be 14 dead young men and one dead young woman in two rapidly sinking inflatables, and your country will be at war. Seems a bit pointless, really.

By itself?  Of course.

But the real lesson is much larger.

28 years ago, when the world was accustomed to the US acting impotently, the Iranians had no qualms about taking Americans hostage, and making political hay out of it.

We taught them that lesson twenty years ago, when they tried to close the Straits of Hormuz with boats not unlike the ones that captured the Brit sailors.  The Navy showed up.  Boats started getting blown up.  An Iranian minesweeper “accidentally” got burned to the waterline (it was made of wood, to help defend against magnetic mines) by a flare launched from a passing American submarine.
The lesson – the one Dwyer misses completely – was learned a while ago;  Today?  When the Iranians wanted to make political hay with hostages, they knew better than to grab Yanks.

Our sailors were not faced with the decision to surrender or die this week, because the US long ago made the decision to face Iranian aggression with resolve.

UPDATE: Elder is right.  Blah.