June 07, 2007

Those Wonderful Layers of Professional Editorial Oversight...

... have blown it yet again. From AFP's lede this morning (my bold):

One Palestinian was killed on Thursday as deadly clashes between rival Fatah and Hamas gunmen erupted for the first time in the Gaza Strip since the latest truce came into effect nearly three weeks ago.

Really?

I guess this nearly three-hour assault by an estimated 50-100 Hamas gunmen on Fatah's "key Presidential Guard position" just two days ago doesn't count:

Hamas and Fatah forces fought a major gun battle on Tuesday in the Gaza Strip near the Karni commercial crossing, the most serious flare-up in factional fighting in two weeks.

An officer with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Presidential Guard said a "large number" of Hamas fighters attacked a key Presidential Guard position near the crossing, wounding at least one guard member.

Or is AFP keying on the distinction "deadly," implying that if no one dies, then the violence doesn't count?

Perhaps the new AFP standard is "no body/no battle."

Somehow, I don't think that is quite accurate.

Update: Is "No Blood, no Foul" the new media standard for reporting combat? Or is it an old standard I'm just noticing?

Reuters is only slightly better than AFP in their reporting of the most recent outbreak of violence in the Gaza Civil War:

Rival Hamas and Fatah forces clashed in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least one person and injuring 12 others, in the worst flare-up of factional fighting in almost three weeks.

Like AFP, Reuters doesn't seem to consider Tuesday's three-hour battle worth noting as a serious fight. They seem to be of the opinion that the number of casualties that can be noted determines the seriousness of the conflict.

While casualties can be used to a certain extent to determine the severity of a battle, it should hardly be the only criteria, and is completely devoid of any tactical or strategic gains made by one side or the other. As it currently stands, we don't know if either side gained a strategic or tactical advantage in either of these two engagements, because neither news organization is providing that depth of coverage.

By their apparent casualty-only standard, the D-Day invasion of Normandy (where Allied forces suffered an estimated 10,000 casualties, including 2,500 dead, and the Germans suffered between 4,000-9,000 casualties), was far less important than the battle of Iwo Jima, where American forces suffered 27,909 casualties (including 8,226 combat-related deaths) and the Japanese lost more than 20,000 killed.

I don't think any sane person would dare make that argument.

Both battles were extremely costly and important for different reasons, and yet, the apparent criteria in use by these media organizations would make Iwo Jima the far more important battle based on casualty figures alone.

Casualty figures are an important indication of the scale of a battle or conflict, but they are only one indicator... unless someone is willing to argue that the inconclusive Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in May of 1864 where Lee inflicted nearly over 18,000 casualties and nearly 3,000 dead on Grant's Army will be judged as historically important to Americans as the first several years of the Iraq War.

I'm not willing to buy that flawed line of reasoning.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:05 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 06, 2007

Blotter Claims Iran Caught Red-Handed, Ignorant Critics Deny Reality of Sunni/Shia Terror Relationships

Here's the Blotter story, which I'll take with a Prudential rock-sized grain of salt, as I've personally caught Brian Ross being dead wrong on the facts before.

That said, I'm already sick and tired of the smugly ignorant (check out the Blotter's comment thread as well) who repeat the delusion that Iranian Shias will not work with or support Iraqi insurgents, Afghan Taliban, or al Qaeda terrorists, merely because these groups are Sunni.

I hate to break this fabrication with a dose of reality, but does anyone remember who Iran's primary ally is? Sunni Baathist Syria. Iran has also long supported Sunni terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, just to name two more.

Iran has a long and concrete history of allying with Baathist Syria and Sunni terrorist groups to support their foreign policy goals.

It's time to put this self-serving bit of "common sense" to bed as the abject ignorance it actually is.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:13 PM | Comments (42) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

A Link in a Great Chain [Repost]

"Be Seated."

"Men, this stuff we hear about America wanting to stay out of the war, not wanting to fight, is a lot of bullshit. Americans love to fight - traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble player; the fastest runner; the big league ball players; the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win - all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost, not ever will lose a war, for the very thought of losing is hateful to an American."

"You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Every man is frightened at first in battle. If he says he isn't, he's a goddamn liar. Some men are cowards, yes! But they fight just the same, or get the hell shamed out of them watching men who do fight who are just as scared. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some get over their fright in a minute under fire, some take an hour. For some it takes days. But the real man never lets fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to this country and his innate manhood."

"All through your army career you men have bitched about "This chickenshit drilling." That is all for a purpose. Drilling and discipline must be maintained in any army if for only one reason -- INSTANT OBEDIENCE TO ORDERS AND TO CREATE CONSTANT ALERTNESS. I don't give a damn for a man who is not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready. A man to continue breathing must be alert at all times. If not, sometime a German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit."

"There are 400 neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily all because one man went to sleep on his job -- but they were German graves for we caught the bastard asleep before his officers did. An Army is a team. Lives, sleeps, eats, fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is a lot of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting, under fire, than they do about fucking. We have the best food, the finest equipment, the best spirit and the best fighting men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor sons-of-bitches we are going up against. By God, I do!"

"My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he is hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight. That's not just bullshit, either. The kind of man I want under me is like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Lugar against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand and busted hell out of the Boche with the helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German: All this with a bullet through his lung. That's a man for you."

"All real heroes are not story book combat fighters either. Every man in the army plays a vital part. Every little job is essential. Don't ever let down, thinking your role is unimportant. Every man has a job to do. Every man is a link in the great chain. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells overhead, turned yellow and jumped headlong into the ditch? He could say to himself, "They won't miss me -- just one in thousands." What if every man said that? Where in hell would we be now? No, thank God, Americans don't say that! Every man does his job; every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important to the vast scheme of things. The Ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the Quartermaster to bring up the food and clothes to us -- for where we're going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man in the mess hall, even the one who heats the water to keep us from getting the GI shits has a job to do. Even the chaplain is important, for if we get killed and if he is not there to bury us we'd all go to hell."

"Each man must not only think of himself, but of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this army. They should all be killed off like flies. If not they will go back home after the war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men."

"One of the bravest men I ever saw in the African campaign was the fellow I saw on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were plowing toward Tunis. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at that time. He answered, "Fixing the wire, sir." "Isn't it a little unhealthy right now?," I asked. "Yes sir, but this goddamn wire's got to be fixed." There was a real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time."

"You should have seen those trucks on the road to Gabes. The drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting around them all the time. We got through on good old American guts. Many of these men drove over forty consecutive hours. These weren't combat men. But they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it -- and in a whale of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without them the fight would have been lost. All the links in the chain pulled together and that chain became unbreakable."

"Don't forget, you don't know I'm here. No word of the fact is to be mentioned in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell became of me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the goddamn Germans. Someday I want them to raise up on their hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the goddamn Third Army and that son-of-a-bitch Patton again.'"

"We want to get the hell over there. We want to get over there and clear the goddamn thing up. You can't win a war lying down. The quicker we clean up this goddamn mess, the quicker we can take a jaunt against the purple pissing Japs an clean their nest out too, before the Marines get all the goddamn credit."

"Sure, we all want to be home. We want this thing over with. The quickest way to get it over is to get the bastards. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin. When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a Boche will get him eventually, and the hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one. We'll win this war but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans we've got more guts than they have."

"There is one great thing you men will all be able to say when you go home. You may thank God for it. Thank God, that at least, thirty years from now, when you are sitting around the fireside with your grandson on your knees, and he asks you what you did in the great war, you won't have to cough and say, 'I shoveled shit in Louisiana.' No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named George Patton!'"

"That is all."

God Bless the veterans of the Great Crusade launched on this day in Normandy, France in 1944, and the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen that today carry on that same fighting spirit.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:23 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Duke Lacrosse Judge Takes Aim at Nifong

As if having the case thrown out and ethics charges brought against him by the N.C. State Bar weren't enough, now Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong may face action from the judge presiding over the now dismissed Duke lacrosse rape case:

Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III wrote that significant concerns about evidence arose during a Dec. 15 hearing, months before the state Attorney General's Office dismissed the charges. At the hearing, DNA expert Brian Meehan testified that he and Nifong agreed to withhold test results from the defense, including the fact that DNA from unidentified men was found in and on the accuser's body.

The N.C. State Bar has charged Nifong with a number of ethical violations, including withholding DNA evidence favorable to the defense.

Under North Carolina law, the State Bar and trial court judges both have the power to discipline lawyers for misconduct, so Nifong faces the prospect of punishment from both.

Trial judges such as Smith can take a wide range of actions in disciplining lawyers; Smith could scold Nifong, disbar him or even send him to jail for contempt of court.

Another judge in Durham is awaiting the results of the N.C. State Bar ethics case against Nifong before considering a request by a Durham native to have Nifong stripped of his office.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:36 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Did AP Float a Turkey of an Invasion Story?

You know that AP story that Drudge linked this morning about several thousand Turkish troops crossing the border into Iraq?

Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who attack Turkey from bases there, two Turkish security officials said. Turkey's foreign minister denied its troops had entered Iraq.
Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, characterized the action as a "hot pursuit" raid that was limited in scope. They told The Associated Press it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks as Turkish troops built up their force along the border.

Well, maybe not so much:

Turkey has denied a report that several thousand troops had been sent into northern Iraq to combat Kurdish separatists hiding there.

"There is no incursion into any other country at the moment," Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, said on Wednesday.

Earlier, the DEBKAfile website said 50,000 men had been deployed to the area.

Ankara described the report as "disinformation".

Hoshiyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister, said that there was no evidence that Turkish troops had entered Iraq.

"We have checked all along the border and there hasn't been any incursion or military operation inside Iraqi territory," he said.

"Iraq will not tolerate any military incursion. There is always room for dialogue."

A White House spokesman, in Germany for a G8 summit, also said that "no new activity" had been detected in northern Iraq.

An update of the AP article states that their anonymous original source still stand by their claims.

Who would you believe, three anonymous sources apparently in contact with a solitary reporter, or the two named foriegn ministers of the countries in question, and a named National Security Council spokesman?

With no other corroboration, it looks like this reporter has cried fowl foul.

Update: Looking back through the archives, it seems possible that someone other than the Turks are capable of accidental invasions. Anybody checked on the Swiss lately?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:25 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

New RAF Nose Art Approved

(click image for larger picture)

Because you never want to offend anyone before you kill them.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:43 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ahmadinejad Claims Iran's Nuclear Drive Can't be Stopped

Nuclear chicken, anyone?

Iran's nuclear program cannot be stopped, and any Western attempt to force a halt to uranium enrichment would be like playing "with the lion's tail," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday.

In Berlin, Germany's foreign minister reported no progress in talks with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator ahead of the Group of Eight summit. And with the U.N. Security Council preparing to debate a third set of sanctions for Tehran's refusal to suspend enrichment, Britain raised the possibility of adding curbs on oil and gas investment to the limited measures against individuals and companies involved in Iran's nuclear and weapons programs.

"We advise them to give up stubbornness and childish games," Ahmadinejad said at a news conference. "Some say Iran is like a lion. It's seated quietly in a corner. We advise them not to play with the lion's tail."

Added Ahmadinejad: "It is too late to stop the progress of Iran."

In Washington, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack responded: "It isn't."

McCormack is of course referring to diplomatic efforts by the United States and other nations in the international community to coax Iran into giving up their suspected nuclear weapons program.

Like any nuclear weapons program, the Iranian nuclear weapons program must have multiple minimum components, those being the ability to acquire raw uranium ore, the ability and facilities to process and enrich the uranium to "weapons grade," the ability to develop a warhead, and the ability to deliver a warhead.

Iran has as many as 10 functioning uranium mines according to GlobalSecurity.Org, so acquiring the raw uranium ore has never been an issue. Iran also has at least 11 known facilities to process and enrich their raw ores, with Natanz and Bushehr perhaps being the most well known. Iran is also developing a parallel plutonium-based program out of Arak.

As for the warheads, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency (IAEA) stated that they were aware that Iran has acquired documents and drawings on the black market, and there has been speculation that Iran may have acquired dual-use components from western countries in the 1990s, as well as warhead technology from North Korea.

Iran is said to have developed long-range missiles such as the claimed Fajr-3 with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capability typically used only with nuclear warheads, and the proven Shahab-3, which can carry a singe conventional, chemical, biological, or nuclear warhead.

Based upon this information, it seems Iran has the technical capability to build a viable nuclear weapons threat. Based upon the continued threats and rhetoric issued from Iran through President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran also has the political will and strategic goal of becoming a nuclear power.

Western nations that feel threatened by Iran's apparent drive for nuclear weapons essentially have three options:

• Let Iran continue to develop their nuclear program and hope they are not developing a nuclear weapons program as well;
• Attempt to convince Iran not to develop a nuclear through political and economic pressures and incentives;
• Take covert and overt intelligence and military operations to undermine or remove Iran's nuclear capabilities.

We are well past the point where any reasonable nation can assume that Iran is not attempting to develop a nuclear weapons program. They have been caught with warhead plans by U.N. inspectors, and have developed nuclear-capable delivery systems.

The present efforts are primarily diplomatic and economic in nature, hoping to force Iran to the bargaining table, but as Ahmadinejad's most recent threats and rhetoric attest, they have no intention of slowing nuclear development. If they cannot be persuaded to stop their nuclear program through peaceable means, that leaves only the use of intelligence and military forces.

There has been some speculation and a few indications that covert efforts are already underway, some mirroring efforts used against the Soviet Union in the Cold War, such as providing flawed plans through double agents and spies, and at least one top Iranian nuclear scientist has died within the past year.

These covert efforts, however, can at best slow the Iranian nuclear program. There is no way to be sure that any compromised systems will go undiscovered and uncorrected, and the accumulated knowledge is difficult to eradicate with the death of a few occasional scientists, even if they are prominent.

Sadly, with continued defiance by Iran's government and their apparent belief that nuclear capability is in their nation's best interests, a military solution may yet prove that Iran's nuclear drive can indeed be stopped through force of arms.

The IAF Air Force has 25 F-15I "Ra'am" and 102 F-16I "Sufa" long-range strike fighters with the capability of hitting hardened targets with "bunker-buster" bombs in Iran without refueling. If they can arrange in-air refueling, there are no potential targets in Iran out of range.

There seems to be a common misconception that our ground combat in Iraq precludes a strike on Iran if one is warranted, but that supposition has no basis at all in reality. The U.S. assets available for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities are literally too numerous to name. While the U.S. military's ground forces are heavily involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. Air Force and Naval units are virtually free for involvement.

At least three U.S. carrier strike groups carrying more than 240 aircraft are thought to be within range of Iran, and an unknown number of submarine and surface fleet vessels armed with cruise missiles are within range of Iran or can be relatively stealthily deployed to the region.

With mid-air refueling capabilities, the U.S. Air Force fleet of B-1B, B-2, and B-52 bombers and the U.S. strike fighter fleet of F15s, F-16s, and F-117 and F-22 stealth fighters can bring to bear literally thousands of precision-guided bombs if needed in single or multiple sorties.

Should it be determined that the military strike is warranted, precedent indicates that President Bush does not need Congressional approval for such a strike. All U.S. Presidents of the past three decades (yes, even Jimmy Carter) have launched military operations without needing or seeking congressional approval, from Carter's botched attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran, to Reagan's strikes on Libya and Grenada, to Bush 41's invasion of Panama, and Clinton's strikes on Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Sudan.

There is some debate over whether such air strikes by U.S. and Israeli aircraft could destroy or significantly damage Iran's nuclear capability. Even with the recent purchase of Soviet anti-aircraft missile systems, Iran's anti-aircraft capability is second-rate, their aging and obsolete Air Force would probably never get off the ground, so their ability to successfully oppose such a strike through is very unlikely.

I would posit that both the Israeli and the U.S. military have munitions capable of destroying or severely damaging Iranian nuclear sites (even hardened underground bunkers), if those sites can be accurately identified. The attacks would only be likely to fail if the targets cannot accurately be identified and targeted.

The obvious downside of any attack by Israel or the United States upon Iranian nuclear facilities is the very real possibility, if not probability, of an Iranian counterattack by both conventional and unconventional forces.

Iran would certainly target U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf in the wake of any attack on Iran, and may also possibly target civilian shipping as well. Some experts anticipate that Iran may also attempt to invade southern Iraq in retaliation. If such an attack takes place, out-gunned and out-manned British forces are severely under threat, and there is a distinct possibility that units could be overrun before coalition airpower annihilated Iranian conventional forces. Iran may also fire missiles at U.S. bases and Iraqi cities. Shia militias loyal to Iran would be directed to rise up against U.S. forces in Iraq, and the resulting battles would potentially be very bloody. Several dozen to several hundred U.S. soldiers could become fatalities, and no doubt thousands of Shia militiamen and civilians would probably perish on the other side.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups would probably fire barrages of rockets into Israeli civilian populations, and there is some concern--I'm not sure how serious to take these--that Syria would attack and attempt to retake the Goal Heights, with the predictable disastrous results to Syrian forces.

There is also a credible threat of Hezbollah-directed terrorist attacks again U.S. interests worldwide and possibly in the United States as a result.

Make no mistake: Iran has the capability to hit back in retaliation after their nuclear facilities are struck, and depending on how these attacks are executed in Iraq, Israel, the united States and elsewhere, casualties could be significant.

What the U.S government, the Israeli's, and perhaps other western and Middle Eastern powers have to take into account is whether or not the threatened Iranian retaliation is a greater threat that the Iranian nuclear program. If Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons and their continuous threats are sincere and not just rhetoric, then quite literally, millions of lives are at risk. The result of attempting to use military force to destroy Iran's nuclear program could result in the deaths of thousands. While both options could be avoided by an internal revolt in Iran or a sudden change of course by their government, I fear this bloody drama will be played out by January of 2008, one way, or the other.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:04 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

6,301,084,228 undocumented Americans want their piece too

Uncle Harry's a helluva a guy. Between he and Ma Pelosi they're running the most ethical government ever. Those first couple of months in office got off to a rough start, what with President Bush stonewalling them at every turn. But now, now they've got the power. Harry and Nancy, they're the modern day He-Man and She-Ra and Harry, he's the Master of his Domain.

On the first day of the 110th Congress, Democrats introduced bills reflecting the ten priorities that America sent us here to address. Last Friday we concluded a seven week work period, and we have taken action on seven of those ten priorities:

• We passed the toughest ethics and lobbying reform in our nation’s history.
• We passed a much deserved and long overdue raise in the federal minimum wage for working people, which was signed into law last week.
• We attempted to give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices, but this effort was filibustered by Republicans.
• We passed the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, after they had been pushed aside for years.
• For the second year in a row, we voted to give the hope of stem cell research to millions of Americans who suffer, and will soon send that bill to the President.
• We passed a balanced budget that restores fiscal discipline and puts the middle class first – cutting their taxes while increasing investment in education, veterans’ care and children’s health care.
• And we began debate on the complex and crucial issue of immigration reform.

This week, we will vote on cloture and final passage of a comprehensive bill that will strengthen border security, bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows, and keep our economy strong. In the days ahead, we will work to improve the bill to protect and strengthen family ties while improving the structure of the temporary-worker program.

Harry Reid has a plan for world peace, unfortunately it involves adopting every American adopting at least 20 refugees from impoverished nations, like England, France and Germany. That way we can take care of all the 6,301,084,228 undocumented Americans. Personally I'm cool with that just so long as none of mine are those damned dirty scandis. If I had my preference it'd be an even split of hot Latino and Asian chicks. Of course I might have to change my name to Woody Allen.

BFirst I guess we have to deal with those 12 million undocumented Americans, you know the one's doing the jobs the Americans with "papers" won't do. Sure a great number of those undocumented Americans entered our country illegally, forged documents to get work and steal the benefits our tax dollars are paying for; but they're mostly our neighbors and what are you a damned racist? Plus Harry and Nancy need pool-boys and cabana-girls.

No worries about them only focusing on bringing the world under our care though. They've got plans to screw up lots of things.

Following immigration, we will turn our attention to the three remaining bills from our original ten:

• An energy bill that will take a crucial first step toward weaning our country’s addiction to foreign oil.
• A reauthorization of the Higher Education Act that will address the skyrocketing costs of college.
• And a Defense Authorization bill that will make critical investments to address troop readiness problems in the military caused by the President’s flawed Iraq policy.

We will also reconfigure our national security strategy to better meet the threats and challenges we face today and the President is overlooking.

Yay, he's gonna reduce our dependence on oil. Which means prices are going to drop so I can keep pouring oil into my four-wheel-drive F-150. I sure hope they start their focus on education tommorrow, 'cause a great number of today's kids are morons that can barely operate the intertubes.

I wonder if by Defense Authorization bill he means a draft? Or maybe he's going with robots, flesh-eating, fire-breathing robots.

h/t: Michelle Malkin

Posted by: phin at 08:54 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 05, 2007

The Republican Willie Horton

This is Michael Caldera De Latorre, or as fingerprints taken from when he was twice captured trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico in 2004 indicate, Ricardo De Latorre.

He is one of the millions of undocumented illegal aliens George W. Bush and many Congressmen and Senators would like to grant amnesty.

Yesterday morning, while driving a Chevy Tahoe reported stolen in Charlotte, Latorre careened across the median of I-40 in Raleigh, and stuck a Kia driven by George Alwyin Smith, a 54-year-old computer programmer at Duke University, before slamming into a car driven by Carolyn Hageman.

Smith died in the wreck, and Hageman was injured. Pulled from the wreckage reeking of alcohol, De Latorre has been charged with DWI, felony death by motor vehicle, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, no operator’s license and careless and reckless driving.

Perhaps if our federal government had done a better job securing our southern border, Latorre would still be in Mexico, and George Smith would still be alive. But our President, our Congress and our Senate seem primed to allow De Latorre and millions more illegals like him to slip across a border they refuse to defend.

As the Smith family suffers, the Senate is pushing an immigration bill that the Congressional Budget Office says will barely make a dent in the number of illegal aliens flowing into our country.

When you look at Ricardo De Latorre's face, I want you to see John McCain. I want you to see George Bush. I want you to see the congressmen and Senators from both parties who want to bankrupt our nation with a continued flow of illegal aliens that fill our prisons and emergency rooms, that sap social programs and educational opportunities designs for native-borne Americans and legal immigrants while driving wages for low-skilled workers ever lower.

This is Ricardo de Latorre, a twice-caught illegal, apparent car thief, and drunken killer.

Until yesterday, President Bush and many RINOS wanted to grant him amnesty.

I wonder how they feel about that now.

Update: Dan Collins says via email that serial killer Angel Resendez would probably be a better example of what our country's pathetic border security allows, and with nine alledged murders and at least five deportations, and an unknown number of illegal borders crossings that likely numbered in the dozens, he makes a strong case.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:33 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Osama Obama Goes Race-Baiting

Via Breitbart:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago.
The first-term Illinois senator said that with black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, frustration and resentments are building explosively as they did before the 1992 riots.

"This administration was colorblind in its incompetence," Obama said at a conference of black clergy, "but the poverty and the hopelessness was there long before the hurricane.

"All the hurricane did was to pull the curtain back for all the world to see," he said.

Apparently, though, the hurricane didn't pull the curtain back far enough for Obama to see the root of the problem.

If Obama wanted to really expose the core of Louisiana's problems, he'd have to travel back in time no further than yesterday, when William "Cold Cash" Jefferson was finally indicted. Jefferson's family runs political machines that funnel power and corruption through two Louisiana parishes.

Or if Obama wanted to go back a bit further, he could travel back to 1985, when three-time Louisiana governor Edwin W. Edwards was indicted and later convicted for racketeering and fraud after being investigated by nine previous grand juries.

From Huey Long to Leander Perez to the modern day political machines controlled by "Cold Cash" Jefferson and the Landrieu family, most of the problems of New Orleans can be traced back over a century of corrupt political machines in Louisiana.

The fact of the matter is that all Louisiana voters should be on the verge of rioting for the way they have been treated by decades of corrupt politicians. The problem for Obama is that those politicians most to blame, black or white, are overwhelmingly Louisiana Democrats.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:51 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The War Lovers

Experts continue to state that anti-war politicians will spill more blood, not less, in the Middle East.

For months, professional journalists, combat soldiers, defense experts, intelligence analysts, regional governments, and bloggers have been warning about the consequences of the disastrous retreat from Iraqi being orchestrated by the radicalized left wing of the Democratic Party.

Writing in WSJ's OpinionJournal today, Dan Senor ties it all together, showing through the words of experts that the precipitous headlong retreat favored by so many Democrats will only result in American combat forces returning to the region in greater numbers and facing a far more bloody and destabilized Middle East dubbed "Iraq Plus."

Consider Brent Scowcroft, dean of the Realist School, who openly opposed the war from the outset and was a lead skeptic of the president's democracy-building agenda. In a recent Financial Times interview, he succinctly summed up the implication of withdrawal: "The costs of staying are visible; the costs of getting out are almost never discussed. If we get out before Iraq is stable, the entire Middle East region might start to resemble Iraq today. Getting out is not a solution."

And here is retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Centcom Commander and a vociferous critic of the what he sees as the administration's naive and one-sided policy in Iraq and the broader Middle East: "When we are in Iraq we are in many ways containing the violence. If we back off we give it more room to breathe, and it may metastasize in some way and become a regional problem. We don't have to be there at the same force level, but it is a five- to seven-year process to get any reasonable stability in Iraq."

A number of Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors also opposed the war as well as the U.S. push for liberalizing the region's authoritarian governments. Yet they now backchannel the same two priorities to Washington: Do not let Iran acquire nukes, and do not withdraw from Iraq.

A senior Gulf Cooperation Council official told me that "If America leaves Iraq, America will have to return. Soon. It will not be a clean break. It will not be a permanent goodbye. And by the time America returns, we will have all been drawn in. America will have to stabilize more than just Iraq. The warfare will have spread to other countries, governments will be overthrown. America's military is barely holding on in Iraq today. How will it stabilize 'Iraq Plus'?" (Iraq Plus is the term that some leaders in Arab capitals use to describe the region following a U.S. withdrawal.)

Among the people on Iraqi soil cited by Senor is NY Times Bureau Chief John Burns, who has made comments equating an American pullout with the onset of a regional conflict and violence without limits.

CNN's Michael Ware and Kyra Phillips have echoed similar sentiments, saying a U.S. pullout "would be a disaster."

U.S. secretary of Defense Robert Gates is even more blunt:

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday warned that limiting troops' activities in Iraq and withdrawing from Baghdad could lead to "ethnic cleansing" in the capital and elsewhere in the country.

Gates' comment followed a proposal from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to end most spending on the Iraq war in 2008, limiting it to targeted operations against al Qaeda, training for Iraqi troops and U.S. force protection.

"One real possibility is if we abandon some of these areas and withdraw into the countryside or whatever to do these targeted missions that you could have a fairly significant ethnic cleansing inside Baghdad and in Iraq more broadly," Gates said.

The general premises of anti-war groups is that they wants a U.S. military pullout in Iraq seem based upon the following primary arguments:

• There were no WMDs/the reasons for the War were a lie (the playground mentality "I want a 'do-over'" argument).
• The U.S. military is causing tremendous civilian casualties in Iraq (the "remove the babykillers and the bloodshed will stop" argument).
• Leaving American troops in Iraq without a firm withdrawal date with only allow the various factions to continue fighting without coming to a political solution (the "they're all savages until we disappear and they’ll be forced to negotiate with each other" argument).
• The various Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions are going to slaughter each other anyway, so why place American troops in the middle where they can be killed as well (the "they're all savages, let them die/kill each other" argument)

Obviously, there are variations of those major themes, but those are their general arguments.

The common failure of all of these arguments is the purposeful refusal to recognize what many (if not most) experts think will happen in the wake of the arbitrary and precipitous U.S. withdrawal, which are those predictions of a much wider regional war, a phenomenal increase in civilian casualties, the possible attempted genocide of some factions, and the re-entry of the U.S. military into the same region under far worse conditions and the threat of far greater casualties.

Anti-war politicians claim that they want to stop the war in Iraq, but the policies to which they subscribe are akin to throwing water on a grease fire. They would spread the flames of war, and create far more deaths.

Anti-war? No, it is a far wider war they will cause.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:26 PM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Sliding War

According to professional media organizations and politicians, this is only factional fighting:

Hamas and Fatah forces fought a major gun battle on Tuesday in the Gaza Strip near the Karni commercial crossing, the most serious flare-up in factional fighting in two weeks.

An officer with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Presidential Guard said a "large number" of Hamas fighters attacked a key Presidential Guard position near the crossing, wounding at least one guard member.

The Presidential Guard officer said the Hamas fighters attempted to infiltrate the position but were pushed back by the Presidential Guard, a Fatah-dominated force which receives U.S. backing.

Hamas, which leads a Palestinian unity government with Abbas's Fatah faction, confirmed the nearly three-hour-long gun battle near Karni but said the Presidential Guard initiated the exchange.

According to Global Security, there are five recognized criteria for a civil war:

civil war: A war between factions of the same country; there are
five criteria for international recognition of this status: the
contestants must control territory, have a functioning government,
enjoy some foreign recognition, have identifiable regular armed
forces, and engage in major military operations.

1. Both Hamas and Fatah control territory.
2. Both Hamas and Fatah have their own political organizations and function (dysfunction) as part of a recognized government.
3. both enjoy some foreign recognition via support from governments such as ours (Fatah) and Iran (Hamas).
4. both have identifiable and mostly uniformed armed forces.
5. both have engaged and continue to engage in major military operations.

By this definition (and others), the Palestinian Civil War in Gaza is clearly underway, and has been for some time.

A supermajority of the world media organizations refuse to recognize this conflict as the civil war that it is.

Instead, we consistently see accounts that the factions in Gaza are almost in, sliding into, on the brink of, and verging on being in a civil war, but they aren't there quite yet... and have been for over a year.

A few examples:

Abbas acts to halt slide into civil war in Gaza. The U.K. Guardian, May 22, 2006.

Political Violence in Gaza Sparks Fears of Civil War. NPR May 24, 2006.

Gaza sliding into civil war. The U.K. Guardian, October 11, 2006.

Fighting in Gaza Sparks Fears of Civil War. NPR December 17, 2006.

Gaza on brink of civil war as cleric is killed. The U.K. Telegraph, January 8, 2007.

Gaza on brink of civil war. Canada.com, January 29, 2007.

The march toward civil war. The Boston Globe via the International Herald Tribune, February 12, 2007.

Gaza on brink of civil war. The (U.K.?) Times via the Australian, May 17, 2007.

A last chance to avert civil war in Palestine. The U.K. Independent, June 5, 2007.

Abbas: Palestinians verging on civil war. Boston.com, June 5, 2007.

The war in Iraq is widely described in the world's professional media organizations as a "civil war," even though it clearly fails to satisfy the five criteria noted for international recognition as cited by Global Security above, having no formal armies, no functioning governments, nor major battles, instead revolving around kidnappings, bombing, and other random violence.

The Gaza Civil War, on the other hand, satisfies all five criteria for a civil war, and has met these criteria for roughly a year.

Why does the media refuse to recognize the conflict between Hamas and Fatah for the civil war that it is?

I have no easy answers for that question, but is a question that deserves an answer.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:58 AM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hillary tries to convince us she isn't the devil...

...but we all know she'd burst into flames the minute a priest sprinkled her with holy water.

Faith saved her marriage says Mrs. Clinton.

In a rare public discussion of her husband's infidelity, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles without relying on her faith in God.

Clinton stood by her actions in the aftermath of former President admission that he had an affair, including presumably her decision to stay in the marriage.

"I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought," Clinton said during a forum where the three leading Democratic presidential talked about faith and values.

"I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith," she said in response to a question about how she dealt with the infidelity.

Knowing that she'll get to roast Billy Jeff over an open fire for all eternity probably helps to calm her nerves.

For some reason this story reminds me of a scene in The Devil's Advocate where Al Pacino sticks his finger in a bowl of Holy Water and it starts boiling. Not sure why though. At least I think that's the movie.

Posted by: phin at 08:56 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

A Step Too Far?

I disagree with Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War, but I think I disagree with the Marine Corps decision to punish him even more:

A military panel recommended that an Iraq war veteran who wore his uniform during an anti-war protest should lose his honorable discharge status, brushing away his claims that he was exercising his right to free speech.

Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, argued that since he removed his name tag and military emblems from his uniform, he did nothing wrong by participating in the March protest in Washington, D.C.

After a daylong hearing Monday, a three-person Marine board recommended he receive a general discharge under honorable conditions, one step below an honorable discharge. It would let Kokesh keep all of his benefits.

Kokesh had already been discharged from active duty and is a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, completing his eight-year military obligations on June 18.

I'm sure that the Marine board knows far better whether or not Kokesh's decision to wear his MARPAT fatigues was technical violation, but as Kokesh did not wear his name tape or other identifying military insignia, I think they're pushing it when they decided to recommend removing the honorable discharge status he'd previously received.

I suspect if he was on active duty and reported without wearing his name tape and identifying rank and unit insignia, that he would be likely be judged "out of uniform." It therefore seems that a double standard may be in place here.

I'd be very interested in the opinions of any active-duty or veteran Marines on this. I don't agree with his politics, but that does not mean he should be held to a different standard, if indeed he is.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:32 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Not Having What It Takes

Combat journalist J.D. Johannes has decided he doesn't have what it takes to be a New York Times journalist.

Welcome to the club.

I leaned up against the humvee and cried in the parking lot of Fallujah Surgical.

I knew right then I was not cut out for this type of work.

It was even worse a few weeks later on a rainy night in Baghdad...

On Memorial Day a column ran in the NY Times (Not to see the Fallen is no Favor) about the rules for photographing an injured Soldier or Marine.

The author whined about how he had to seek permission from the wounded before using the photo.

The editors obviously thought this column was perfect for Memorial Day.

I disagree. The times I have been around injured Marines I pitched in to help. I ran to get the stretcher. The only photos I have taken of an injured person were of a Soldier treating an Iraqi man for shrapnel wounds. You see the soldier doing his job, but not the face of the Iraqi man.

If I were to be wounded while embeded with Soldiers, Seabees or Marines they would provide medical attention and likely risk their lives to protect me and save my life.

I feel I should reciprocate because these young men and a few women I roll with outside the wire would not stand around snapping photos of me while I bled out--they would do what they do best Save Lives.

I think I might be able to relate.

While I've never seen combat, I've been an inadvertent first responder to an accident while a nominal member of the media. I was working at the university newspaper when a student crossing the street in front of me was hit broadside as she attempted to cross against the light. She cartwheeled through the air and hit the asphalt face first in front of the concrete divider beside me.

I jumped out of my car, and started trying to provide first aid as well as I could, reassuring the injured student as best I could as I directing others to call 911 and check on the condition of the driver. It never occurred to me to try to snap pictures or start composing a story as this student lay on the ground, bleeding from her mouth. The only thought in my head was to do what I could to help a shocked, scared, and injured fellow human being.

If basic humanity has to come second to the job, perhaps I don't have what it takes to be a professional journalist, either.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:01 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 04, 2007

Ironclad Senate Immigration Bill Will Slow Illegal Immigration by 75-Percent, Provide Hogs With Pilot Licenses

Or maybe I read that wrong.

The Senate's immigration bill will only reduce illegal immigration by about 25 percent a year, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report, Stephen Dinan will report Tuesday in The Washington Times.
The bill's new guest-worker program could lead to at least 500,000 more illegal immigrants within a decade, said the report from the CBO, which said in its official cost estimate that it assumes some future temporary workers will overstay their time in the plan, adding up to a half-million by 2017 and 1 million by 2027.
"We anticipate that many of those would remain in the United States illegally after their visas expire," CBO said of the guest-worker program, which would allow 200,000 new workers a year to rotate into the country.

Oh, so what the CBO is actually saying is that 75% of illegal alien traffic will continue under the Senate's bill.

I'm glad to see they're on the job.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:16 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

It's a Slow News Day, so Why Not A Little Indignant Stupidity?

Many of us have heard the term "spearchucker" used as a racial slur against African-Americans, so when I saw via Memeorandum that Fox News anchor Brit Hume used the term, my immediate reaction was to cringe.

The context:

Hume: …he had a mixed record in the Senate and he's a man who always seems somewhat frustrated and bored by the Senate...I particularly remember an investigation that occurred after the Clinton/Dole campaign. We were new here at FOX news and we carried a lot of the hearings live. It was in the campaign finance alleged irregularities with monies supposedly seeping into the American political campaign of Bill Clinton from Chinese sources and so on—it was pretty juicy stuff it looked like a very big deal.

Fred Thompson was the chairman of the Investigating committee and it went absolutely nowhere. he was effectively buffaloed in that investigation by none other than John Glenn—who was a wonderful man, but not somebody normally you would think capable of being a real partisan..ahh…ahh.. spearchucker, who could, who could undo an investigation. So it didn't go very well and I think Fred Thompson has acknowledged since then that it wasn't his finest hour...

But how could Crooks and Liars get all indignant considering the comment was directed at this guy?

To put it mildly, it seems a stretch, but any chance to slur a conservative--especially one on the hated "Faux News" network--on even the flimsiest of grounds is a good one, isn't it?

John Amato, after making the weak case that Hume (an older white guy) was being a racist for calling Glenn (an even older white guy) a spearchucker, then goes on to provide the word Hume was must likely looking for all along, a spear-carrier. That Hume was fumbling for the right term was obvious in the transcript that Amato provided (my bold this time):

...he was effectively buffaloed in that investigation by none other than John Glenn—who was a wonderful man, but not somebody normally you would think capable of being a real partisan ..ahh..ahh.. spearchucker, who could, who could undo an investigation.

Hume fumbled, and produced an embaressing slip, but a purposeful slur? I don't think so.

What should be embarassing...but obviously won't be... is Amato's probable little "white lie" about why he wrote this entry to begin with.

I had to watch it a few times for it to sink in. I looked up "spearchucker," on Dictionary.com, but they didn't recognize it so I wonder how he will explain this one away?

Really, John? You had to look up the term to know it was offensive?

If you didn't know it was offensive, then why did you key in on it in the first place, instead of letting it waft by as the one of the dozens of idiomatic expressions one hears in an average week that most normal people never bother to look up?

No, I suspect that Mr. Amato was well aware of what that slur meant all along, and that he was well aware of what it meant long before Brit Hume spoke it on Fox News.

What is far more likely is that Mr. Amato, as a representative of the politically correct progressive blogosphere, instead decided to play dumb and act as if he had to look it up. Why?

Hume made a mistake, and grabbed the wrong term.

John Amato, on the other hand, acted as if he didn't know what "spearchucker" meant, when clearly he knew it was a slur all along, or he wouldn't have keyed in on it.

Here's another word for John Amato to look up: "honest."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:01 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

2008 Race for the Whitehouse becomes an enzyte commercial...

Goose meet Gander, Gander this is Goose.

We know Fred! likes the ladies, and the ladies like him. But I had no idea, none what-so-ever, that Denny Kucinich pull in the ladies like Fred!.

Meet Smiling Bob. His game?
Spreading the gospel of male enhancement.

Aren't you guys impressed, I mean, I could have gone the Joe Scarborough route and inferred that she used to be a "lady of the evening". But no I choose the high road. Plus, nobody would believe I saw her turning tricks in exchange for carbon offsets behind the waffle house a couple of weeks back, nobody.

What his means? Since I'm kind of partial to redheads, Denny is now my sworn enemy.

h/t: Dave @ A Dark Planet.

Posted by: phin at 02:24 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

William Jefferson may get an extended vacation.

Maybe Paris can give him a couple of prison fashion and survival tips.

Via Faux Nooz.

WASHINGTON — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on 16 counts related to a long-running bribery investigation on counts including racketeering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy...

The 94-page indictment is more than an inch thick, and Jefferson could face a maximum prison term of more than 230 years.

Banks, they're for suckers, what with their interest bearing accounts and the easy access to cash with an ATM card. Me, I always keep my cash reserves in the Freezer right next to the toenail clippings. If Howard Hughes taught us anything its that the feds are going to clone us all one day and I'm not about to make it easy for them.

In grave times though, we have to fall back on the knowledge passed down from previous generations. Those who have paved the way before us. And so Mr. Jefferson, you'll need to build up your "street cred". "How to make a prison shank from toilet paper for dummies", it's easy reading with easy to follow diagrams. You could listen to 50 Cent (pronounced Fiddy-Cent yo), to pick up on the lingo. But most of all Mr. Jefferson, I'm imploring you'll need a mentor. I'd suggest you pick somebody with some notoriety. Like Tookie Williams. Sure he's taking a bit of a nap, but you should follow his lead, 'cause Tookie never "took it lying down", if you know what I mean.

So Mr. Jefferson, when you find yourself in one of those "sticky situations" don't be all uppity like Joe Francis was. Ask yourself, What Would Tookie Williams Do?

Really Mr. Jefferson, it's sound advice and don't be afraid to stick a shank in somebody's kidney on the first day of your visit to Club Fed. Otherwise, well, you'll find yourself singing this little ditty.

Posted by: phin at 01:53 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Cold Cash Jefferson Formally Indicted

You remember William Jefferson, don't you? He's the Louisiana Congressional Democrat that hijacked a National Guard unit in New Orleans searching for Hurricane Katrina survivors so that he could check on his personal property... presumably including the $90,000 cash bribe hidden in his freezer.

His frozen chickens have finally come home to roost:

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on 16 counts related to a long-running bribery investigation on charges including bribery, racketeering, obstruction of justice and money laundering.

The indictment was handed up in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. A press conference is scheduled for later Monday in Washington to discuss the case.

The 94-page indictment is more than an inch thick, and Jefferson could face a prison term of 235 years if he was convicted on all charges, and given the maximum sentence — although that is unlikely.

Jefferson was re-elected to office in 2006 despite widespread public knowledge of the investigation, proving once again the mental acuity of people who think it's a bright idea to live below sea level on sinking land surrounded by massive bodies of water.

Nancy Pelosi, chairwoman of the Most Ethical Congress evah, could not be immediately be reached for comment.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:38 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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