June 27, 2006

NYT Announces Formation of Shadow Government

Heh:

In a move experts said was expected for months, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller today announced the formation of a shadow government for the US, effective immediately.

"The power that we have taken is not something to be taken lightly," said Keller. "The responsibility of it weighs most heavily on us and is among the most agonizing decisions I've faced as an editor."

Times' publisher "Pinch" Sulzberger was named shadow President, but was said to be disappointed that he wasn't named shadow Prime Minister.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:49 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 26, 2006

Punking Rosemary's Brother's Baby

Normally I'd leave gossip sheets such as the New York Post's infamous Page Six alone, but as this particular edition features pro-military filmmaker tearing anti-war pretty war George Clooney it was hard to resist:

June 26, 2006 -- GEORGE Clooney may be Steven Soderbergh's muse, but the director's ex-agent sure doesn't seem to be a fan of the outspoken Oscar winner.

Pat Dollard was Soderbergh's 10- percenter until he ditched his lucrative Tinseltown career to make a pro-war documentary about U.S. Marines fighting insurgents in Iraq. Last year, his Humvee convoy was blown up in Ramadi, killing two Marines and sending Dollard to the hospital with a concussion and shrapnel wounds.

So it's understandable that Dollard might have been annoyed when Clooney chastised Democrats last year for not having the guts to condemn the war. While Dollard was careful not to name names, he told Page Six that he went into "a black rage" while in Iraq after reading a certain movie star's pompous pronouncements online.

"I read something on the Internet in which someone was patting himself on the back for having the courage to oppose the war," Dollard recalled. In an obvious reference to Clooney, who owns a villa in Italy, he said, "They actually equate bravery with speaking out against the president because [losing fans] might cost them one less servant at their Italian villa . . . It put me into a black rage and made me sick to my stomach."

Squeamish viewers of Dollard's "Young Americans" will likewise be reaching for their Tums. "It's the most graphic real-war documentary ever made," Dollard says. "It has the spirit and experience of the grunts, absolutely unfettered. I never had an officer standing over my shoulder supervising what I was doing. But I also have the president of Iraq, the prime minister, the generals - so it's not just a grunt's-eye view."

Dollard says his enthusiasm for the war has left some of his former showbiz colleagues cold. "Being a Republican in Hollywood today is not much different than being a communist in Hollywood in the 1950s," he said. "I'm not trying to overstate the case, but the reality is there is a blacklist in Hollywood. It's very McCarthy-like. It just shows the hypocrisy of the left."

And what does left-leaning Soderbergh think of "Young Americans"? "He loved the footage," Dollard says. "He's seen a lot of it, and he has given me some advice."

Dollard says he's in talks with HBO and Showtime about airing "Young Americans" but may end up releasing it as a DVD. "Given the sort of grass-roots support and cult status that it's been getting, it's going to come out somehow," he said. The trailer can be viewed on patdollard.com.

As many of you know, I found out about Pat Dollard several weeks ago and I've been promoting "Young Americans" as new trailers come online. I think—based upon the trailers I've seen so far—that the project may develop into the definitive documentary about the U.S. Marines in the Iraq War.

As alluded to above, Dollard is a Hollywood rebel for making this documentary. He isn't being backed by any major producers or studios. Everything he filmed was paid for out of his own funds, which are now running short. If you want to support the completion of "Young Americans" and show the rest of America what our Marines are really doing, instead of listing to George Clooney opine from his lakeside Italian villa, simply go to Pat's Web site and drop a couple of bucks (say, a ten-spot?) via the Paypal link. You can help produce a movie, and you don't have to be a millionaire.

Consider it as film-making via an Army of Davids.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:34 PM | Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Prosecute Them

I just sent the following email to comments@whitehouse.gov,

Dear Mr. President,

I strongly urge you to listen to the request from NY Rep. Peter King, and instruct the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute editor Bill Keller, and reporters Eric Lichtblau,and James Risen of the New York Times under Title 18 > Part I > Chapter 37 > § 793. Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, and any other applicable crimes.

I also ask that you request that the Justice Department seek out the identities of those who have leaked the existence of this program to the NY Times, and prosecute them as well.

I recognize that this is an extraordinary request, but we all recognize that we live in extraordinary times. A major newspaper has deemed itself the ultimate gatekeeper of national security information, and it then disclosed information about a specific program, hence destroying it's effectiveness.

Investigating and aggressively prosecuting these crimes will hopefully reign in those who seek to profit from disclosing classified information, and it will hopefully spare the lives of Americans such disclosures put in jeopardy.

Thank you respectfully and sincerely,

Bob Owens
Confederate Yankee Blog
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu

If you, too feel that the New York Times went over the line, I'd suggest sending along an email of your own.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:10 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Another Blind Keller

New York Times editor Bill Keller has offered up a vapid dodge for his once great newspaper's repeated disclosures of anti-terror programs, blaming the messengers for how poorly his message was received:

I don't always have time to answer my mail as fully as etiquette demands, but our story about the government's surveillance of international banking records has generated some questions and concerns that I take very seriously. As the editor responsible for the difficult decision to publish that story, I'd like to offer a personal response.

Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government's anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that's the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.) Some comes from readers who have considered the story in question and wonder whether publishing such material is wise. And some comes from readers who are grateful for the information and think it is valuable to have a public debate about the lengths to which our government has gone in combatting [sic] the threat of terror.

You will note there is no link to Keller's excuse. My tiny contribution to their readership (and hence advertising revenue) is infinitesimal, but even that was too much. I will not link the NY Times again.

In any event, the Keller obfuscation satisfied very few people, including President Bush who lambasted the Times just a few moments ago:

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror."

[snip]

"Congress was briefed, and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Bush said, talking with reporters in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with groups that support U.S. troops in Iraq.
"We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America," the president said. "What we were doing was the right thing."

Bill Keller is blind to this fact. "Right" doesn't matter, and it often seems, "right" is the enemy. Getting the President—hurting Bush, bringing down this Administration—seems to be the primary focus of the New York Times under Bill Keller's leadership.

The offending Times article publicized and hence destroyed an effective and legal way of tracking and disrupting those who finance Islamic terrorism, solely so that it could stick a thumb in the eye of George Bush.

Bill Keller has visions of a Bush Administration hobbled, embarrassed, and ineffective. What his newspaper's disclosures do to tip off terrorists and enable their success at the possible cost of American lives doesn't apparent enter into this blind man's view.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:38 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Crash

That crashing sound you hear is shatering of the liberal myth that Saddam Hussein's Iraq didn't have ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Of course it did, and the documented ties are getting stronger:

Newly declassified documents captured by U.S. forces indicate that Saddam Hussein's inner circle not only actively reached out to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and terror-based jihadists in the region, but also hosted discussions with a known Al Qaeda operative about creating jihad training "centers," possibly in Baghdad.

Hussein had been host to Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, and Abdul Rahman Yasin, and so adding more terrorists to the Baghdad social scene would make perfect sense.

If nothing else, Saddam was consistent in his ties with the "movers and shakers" of Islamic terrorism.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:43 AM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 23, 2006

Killing Times

Hi Eric! Hi James!

Once again, I see you've taken it upon yourselves to disclose national security secrets (I refuse to link to the article, thus putting advertising dollars in your pockets), and your good buddy Bill was more than happy to let it fly, even though the program you compromised:

• was legal
  
• had congressional oversight
  
• had built-in protections against abuse
  
• was effective at catching terrorists

Does that just about just about cover it? Maybe. Maybe not.

I tend to agree with quite a few others who think you have gone far too far, once again.

At first, I caught myself nodding my head when Patterico said:

I am biting down on my rage right now. I'll resist the temptation to say Ann Coulter was right about where Timothy McVeigh should have gone with his truck bomb. I'll say only this: it's becoming increasingly clear to me that the people at the New York Times are not just biased media folks whose antics can be laughed off. They are actually dangerous.

And they are dangerous, but I think Patrick is wrong to even imply a truck bomb should be used against the New York Times. Even when paraphrasing someone else as a dark form of humor, that is a horrible thought. Someone radicalized enough could get it into his head to try to build such a bomb, and were he successful in detonating it, many innocent people in nearby buildings could be killed or injured.

Besides, the editorial staff, hidden behind the impenetrable wall of Times Select, would walk away untouched.

Nor do I advocate the much more precise use of small arms, in case some of you were thinking that route. There should be a chilling of the New York Times staff to run stories such as these, but cooling staffers to room temperature isn't the way to do it. Monetary damage is all they seem to understand.

Can you file lawsuits as private citizens on behalf of national security against the Times?Can their sources be indicted for exposing classified information, and how do we bring about pressure to bear on the government to pursue such charges?

I'd like to see the terrorist protectionist NY Times broken as a business, and I'm open to suggestions.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:27 AM | Comments (30) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Netroots Meltdown?

The Netroots movement will fail because it's a myth based upon a lie sitting upon a foundation of fragmented political thought.

Gee Dan, tell us what you really think.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:05 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 22, 2006

Democratic Underground: Miami Terror Raid Keeps the Black Man Down

The Democratic Underground is all over the Miami terror arrests, quickly discerning the real reason for the raid:

This raid sounds like b.s. and voter intimidation to me

This is more of J.E.B.'s campaign to keep black people in Florida from voting. Bet on it.

The Democratic Underground: Because sometimes, you feel like a nut.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:42 PM | Comments (30) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sears Tower Targeted For Terror

ABC News has the details:

ABC News has learned that federal agents, including the FBI, are launching a series of raids tonight targeting a suspected terror cell based in Miami.

According to sources familiar with the investigation, the group allegedly planned to bomb the FBI building in Miami and the Sears Tower in Chicago.

The group has been under surveillance for some time and was infilitrated by a government informant who allegedly led them to believe he was an Islamic radical. The suspects are described as African Americans and at least one man of Caribbean descent.

I guess that NSA "domestic spying" program works pretty good, doesn't it? (Yes, I know it sounds like a classic infiltration operation, but still.) At least one was an illegal alien.

This operation is on-going, expect more details to follow.

As always, Allah is on top of it. It's almost like he has something to do with Islamic terrorism...

Update: moved D.U. quote to it's own thread.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:41 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Talking Moore

Via InstaPundit, we hear thoughts about a man we don't hear too much of these days, Michael Moore:

With all the uproar over what rating the movie "Facing the Giants" will get, surely Moore would be offering some thoughts?

After all, when "Fahrenheit 9/11" was given an R rating, Moore told teenagers to disregard authority: "I encourage all teenagers to come see my movie, by any means necessary. If you need me to sneak you in, let me know." Moore said, "There is nothing in the film in terms of violence that we didn't see on TV every night at the dinner hour during the Vietnam War."

Speaking of Michael Moore and wars and small screen violence, a frontline Iraqi interpreter named "Hoss" at Pat Dollard's has a few words (Quicktime, NSFW) for Mr. Moore in his latest Young Americans teaser. I didn't catch all of it, but I think he compared him to poison ivy.

At least, I think he called him a "little itch." I might be missing something in translation.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:29 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

In My Mind, I'm Gone To Carolina

I'm against using the entire state, but we could certainly slip them into Chapel Hill without anyone noticing. *

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:04 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Santorum Code

We've now had roughly 15 hours since Senator Rick Santorum and Rep. Pete Hoestra announced in a hastily-called news conference that a newly declassified portion of a report from the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) confirmed that approximately 500 chemical weapons have been recovered in Iraq since 2003.

Since that time, the major media outlets have greeted this story with a virtual news blackout, leaving this story to the blogosphere to analyze.

Predictably, reaction to this story seems to fall along party lines. Many conservative bloggers covering the story see this as an absolute vindication of the Bush Administration, and are ecstatic. Quite a few others are more cautious, hoping to see more in the way of details released from the still-classified NGIC report from which the summary was culled.

On the other side of the political spectrum, many liberal blogs seemed almost rudderless in the hours after the story broke, almost as if they were waiting for guidance from either the silent media or equally quiet top-flight liberal blogs. Since then, they have mostly seemed to fallen in line behind Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post, who is taking the position, "nothing to see here/this doesn't count."

So what do we really have, and what do we really know?

We know for a fact that under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi began cultivating the development of chemical weapons in 1971. An article from the United Nations News Centre tells us further (h/t Flopping Aces:

Iraq first started exploring chemical weapons in 1971, and reviews developments through the establishment of a “large-scale chemical weapons programme” in 1981. The capacity expanded from there to the point that “according to Iraq, the use of chemical weapons achieved its major purpose and made a significant impact on the outcome of the Iran-Iraq war.”

According to declarations made by Iraq, in the period from 1981 to 1991 the chemical weapon programme produced approximately 3,850 tons of the chemical warfare agents mustard, tabun, sarin and VX, the report states.

Of the total of some 3,850 tons of chemical warfare agents produced, approximately 3,300 tons of agents were weaponized in different types of aerial bombs, artillery munitions and missile warheads.

In the period from 1981 to 1991, Iraq weaponized some 130,000 chemical munitions in total. Of these, over 101,000 munitions were used in combat, according to Iraq, in the period from 1981 to 1988.

Iraq declared that some 28,500 chemical munitions remained unused as of January 1991; about 5,500 filled munitions were destroyed by coalition forces during the war in 1991, while another 500 filled munitions were declared destroyed unilaterally by Iraq. “These last two figures were partially verified by United Nations inspectors,” the report states.

The bulk of the destruction of some 22,000 filled munitions occurred under the supervision of the UN inspectors in accordance with Security Council resolution 687 (1991) – the "ceasefire resolution" which ended the war – in the period from 1991 to 1994. During the collection of chemical weapons for destruction after the 1991 war, Iraq stated that it was not able to locate some 500 chemical munitions.

Iraq claimed it had 28,500 chemical weapons in 1991, and about 5,500 were destroyed in the 1991 Gulf War bringing the total to 23,000. Iraq then claims to have destroyed 500 munitions on their own and 22,000 weapons were destroyed under the supervision of U.N. weapons inspectors. This leaves us with roughly 500 chemical weapons that Iraq was unable to locate.

Are these same 500 chemical weapons that Iraq was unable to account for the same 500 chemical weapons that Santorum and Hoekstra revealed that U.S. forces have captured, and the same 500 that Dafna Linzer claims were buried in the desert near the Iran-Iraq border during their 1980-88 war?

If it can be verified that these are the missing 500 munitions from Saddam's declaration to the United Nations, then the accounting of Saddam's known weapons of mass destruction should be very close to complete. There should be no more significant caches of chemical weapons found in Iraq. It took 15 years and a war, but his chemical weapons have apparently all been accounted for and no significant quantities of thes munitions seem to have fallen into the hands of the various terrorist groups that Saddam cultivated in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

This news in and of itself would seem to be a significant victory.

But this is not how this story has been presented by Rick Santorum and Pete Hoekstra. They make the presentation that the 500 weapons found by U.S forces since the invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces justify the WMD rationale, one of several reasons and by far the one most publicized used to justify this conflict.

I wish that this did justify that rationale, but it does not.

Our rationale was based on the thought that Saddam was continuing to develop and experiment with weapons of mass destruction, and that he continued to have the capability to build chemical and biological weapons. Saddam, indeed, led the world to believe that he still had this capability, and it wasn't until after the war that we discovered that he may have been bluffing all along. We have found no more modern (post 1991) chemical weapons in Iraq. We have found no smoking gun showing concrete proof of more recent development, and it is quite possible we never may.

It does, however, seem to close the book on the WMDs known to have existed in Iraq as of January 1991, as declared by the government of Saddam Hussein. The 500 munitions Saddam's Army could not locate seem to have been recovered by the U.S military. While small quantities of these weapons may still turn up, no significant caches should remain to be discovered.

That fact alone, that we recovered these approximately 500 "lost" munitions, is reason enough to celebrate, but it neither proves nor disproves the existence of a post-1991 weapons program.

If any significant future caches are found, however, then the game will indeed be afoot, and both the media and doubters in the blogosphere will be out of valid excuses.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:30 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

WMD Media Blackout

To put it mildly, this bears discussion:

The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

Or at least, one might think this would bear discussion, whether Santorum and Hoekstra are right or wrong.

If correct, their claims of found chemical weapons—mustard gas or sarin, filled or unfilled, degraded or in perfect condition—would seemingly vindicate the Bush Administration and bury a key canard of leftist opposition to the war, that soldiers and civilians have "died for a lie."

Likewise, it would be worth it for the media/anti-war/Democratic Party camps to begin questioning the story, on the chance that Santorum and Hoekstra have buried themselves with inaccurate information.

Everyone should be talking about this… so why aren't they?

While Fox News runs a story about the Santorum/Hoestra release, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe have taken the code of omertà as of midnight, though the Washington Post, to its slim credit, squeaked out a page A10 mention essentially claiming that these WMDs didn't count, even though they provide exactly zero support for their claims.

With the exception of Fox News, the WMD story and the underlying newly declassified six paragraph summary (PDF) seems to be the subject of a major news blackout.

Is this silence the sound of fear?

7:00 AM Update: According to a Google News search for WMDs, all the news organizations cited above still refuse to discuss this news.

Shocking.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:32 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 21, 2006

Jeep Jihadi to Plead Guilty

Via the News & Observer:

The man accused of driving a rented SUV onto the UNC campus in March and striking nine people told a judge he plans to plead guilty to the charges against him.
Mohammed Taheri-Azar entered the courtroom this morning to ask that he be allowed to represent himself. A judge had ordered the public defender's office to work with him while it was determined whether he was competent.

But after being told he would have to submit to a psychiatric evaluation in order to do that, the 23-year-old said he would rather keep his court-appointed lawyer.

Taheri-Azar told Superior Court Judge Carl Fox he had met a few times with the psychiatrist and psychologist and "they don't appear to be very good psychologists and psychiatrists in my oinion[sic]."

Taheri-Azar has said in letters and in a 911 call that he wanted to kill people to avenge Muslim deaths around the world when he drove a rented SUV through The Pit, the main gathering spot on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, March 3.

Do you think UNC-Chapel Hill will finally admit this was a homegrown Islamic terrorist attack?

Me neither.

Update: I've been told that it isn't unusual for Carolina graduates to refuse psychological evaluations, so perhaps we shouldn't read too much into that part of the story.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:26 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Higher Ground

When I came across this comment by Markos "Kos" Moulitsas via LGF, I was momentarily speechless:

There's a reason the Geneva Conventions exist. We've lost the moral high ground. What a fucking waste of a war.

Note I said, "momentarily."

You would think that Kos, as an Army veteran and a graduate of the Boston University School of Law, might have the inkling that what he states above is incorrect.

After all, the Geneva Convention was written to protect soldiers, militiamen, and civilians, not terrorists. As a matter of specific fact, groups such as terrorists seem specifically exempted from Geneva's protections [my bold]:

• Articles 1 and 2 cover which parties are bound by GCIII
• Article 2 specifies when the parties are bound by GCIII
  • That any armed conflict between two or more "High Contracting Parties" is covered by GCIII;
  • That it applies to occupations of a "High Contracting Party";
  • That the relationship between the "High Contracting Parties" and a non-signatory, the party will remain bound until the non-signatory no longer acts under the strictures of the convention. "...Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof."
• Article 3 covers internal armed conflict (not of an international character) and it provides similar protections for combatants as those described in the rest of this document for a prisoner of war. That Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including POWs; shall in all circumstances be treated humanely. It also lays out some basic rules for the treatment of all people combatants and non-combatants alike. Article 3 also states that parties to the internal conflict should endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of GCIII.
• Article 4 covers all conflicts not covered by Article 3 which are all conflicts of an international character. It defines prisoners of war to include:
  • 4.1.1 Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict and members of militias of such armed forces
  • 4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:
    • that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
    • that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I);
    • that of carrying arms openly;
    • that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
  • 4.1.3 Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
  • 4.1.4 Civilians who have non-combat support roles with the military and who carry a vaild identity card issued by the military they support.
  • 4.1.5 Merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
  • 4.1.6 Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
  • 4.3 makes explicit that Article 33 takes precedence for the treatment of medical personnel of the enemy and chaplains of the enemy.
    

At no point in the section above are terrorists granted protection by the Geneva Convention. Article 4.1.2 stipulates that groups to be granted Geneva rights as "militias or other volunteer corps" must fulfill "all of the following conditions."

• that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
• that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I);
• that of carrying arms openly;
• that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Islamic terrorists, under the guise of al Qaeda or the insurgent Mujahedeen Shura Council, have never, at any point in the war, fulfilled these required four conditions, and very rarely meet even one. By definition, they are therefore exempted from Geneva's protections, and can be—quite legally—shot on sight.

As Jonah Goldberg notes:

We've all seen countless WWII movies about how soldiers out of uniform can be shot as spies under the Geneva Convention. Well, all of al Qaeda's soldiers are spies. And they most emphatically do not provide their prisoners with ping-pong tables and dormitories. They cut off their heads and put the pictures on the Internet and TV. The same goes for Osama's allies and fellow travelers in Iraq.

The liberal punditocracy seems to think it's an obvious fact that the Geneva Convention should apply to the war on terrorism, even though the plain text of the Geneva Convention applies as much to the war on terror as it does to the battle between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.

By hiding among civilians, torturing and beheading captives, and acting like, well, terrorists, these people have, by their own actions, exempted themselves from Geneva's protections.

Kos states and apparently believes "we have lost the moral high ground" to the kind of barbarians who torture, mutilate, and kill their captives. This is the same Kos that said of American contractors killed, mutilate, burned and then hung from a bridge in Fallujah, "screw them."

It seems to me that Markos Moulitsas is the last person to be lecturing others about ground clearly so far above his reach.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:11 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Murtha's Haditha Cover-Up Story Exposed As A Lie

At least one part of Congressman John Murtha's Haditha story has now been conclusively debunked.

Murtha had maintained that the incident that culminated in the deaths of up to 24 Iraqi civilians at the hands of Marines after a fatal convoy ambush had been covered up:

Mr Murtha, himself a former Marine, charged that US military authorities had paid compensation to the families of the victims, indicating they had assumed responsibility for the deaths. "They paid people $1,500 to $2,500. This doesn't happen unless it comes at the highest authority," Mr Murtha told CNN.

Asked if he meant victims' compensation, Mr Murtha said: "Yes. And that doesn't happen ... if it's an explosive device."

Mr Murtha repeated his accusation that the Marines had sought to cover up the killings."This is what worries me. We're fighting a war about America's ideals and democracy's ideas and something like this happens, they try to cover it up," he said. "It is as bad as Abu Ghraib, if not worse."

An independent Army General who investigated the charges of a cover-up has completed his report, and concludes otherwise:

The general charged with investigating whether Marines tried to cover up the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha has completed his report, finding that Marine officers failed to ask the right questions, an official close to the investigation said Friday.

Nothing in the report points to a "knowing cover-up" of the facts by the officers supervising the Marines involved in the November incident, the official said. Rather, he said, officers from the company level through the staff of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force in Baghdad failed to demand "a thorough explanation" of what happened in Haditha.

I imagine many netroots liberals reading this account published in the L.A. Times will immediately dismiss the report as a whitewash, saying that though an Army General investigated a Marine incident, it is still a military cover-up.

But never fear. They still support the troops.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:30 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Flags

Some have more meaning than others.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

June 20, 2006

False Equivalation

Will all the liberals out there equivalating how Americans treat captured terrorists with how terrorists treat those unlucky souls they capture, please take the time to remind me when that last time was American soldiers did anything like this:

The bodies of two U.S. soldiers found in Iraq Monday night were mutilated and booby-trapped, military sources said Tuesday.

Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker went missing after a Friday attack on a traffic control checkpoint in Yusufiya, 12 miles (20 km) south of Baghdad.

The sources said the two men had suffered severe trauma.

The bodies also had been desecrated, and a visual identification was impossible -- part of the reason DNA testing was being conducted to verify their identities, the sources said.

A tip from Iraqi civilians led officials to the bodies, military sources told CNN. The discovery was made about 7:30 p.m. Monday.

Not only were the bodies booby-trapped, but homemade bombs also lined the road leading to the victims, an apparent effort to complicate recovery efforts and target recovery teams, the sources said.
It took troops 12 hours to clear the area of roadside bombs. One of the bombs exploded, but there were no injuries.

The terrorists captured two of our men, and what steps did they take?

The did not take them to a tropical island where captives are so well fed that almost all gain weight. Nor were they forced to put womens underwear on their heads, and they did not have fake blood thrown at them, or pull other fraternity/reality TV-grade tricks.

But I don't here liberals complaining about the actions of the terrorists, and how uncomfortable it must be for those captured by terrorists to be mauled with a power drill, or scorched with acetylene torches, or castrated, or beheaded, or hung, dangling from meat hooks while still alive, or raped with found objects.

No, the left can bear to shed no real, heart-felt words of sympathy, and they drop crocodile tears as they quickly use this occasion to bash both the Adminstration and the troops.

If we treat terrorists like anything other than privileged dinner guests it is torture by their sophomoric definition, and it's the President's fault. If terrorists, in turn, perform unspeakable acts of barbarity on our soldiers, it's still the President's fault.

Nothing is ever the fault of the terrorists, and the United States is never, ever in the right.

Do I question their patriotism?

No.

Where they stand is abundantly clear.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:11 PM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Funding "Young Americans"

Pat Dollard, former Hollywood agent turned Iraq War documentary filmmaker needs your help:

I gave it all up, my life and my income, to serve my country in the War in Terror, with the one weapon a 42 year old civilian like me could use: a camera. I'm bleeding my life savings dry, and we all need your help with finishing funds for the project. I may soon have to go back to Ramadi to cover a potential large operation in the city ala Fallujah. It's a risk, as usual, that I'm willing to take. Any donation you can make towards "Young Americans" will be greatly appreciated, and more importantly, will have a huge impact on America
by helping to balance out the non-stop BS liberal message we are all drowning in. All contributors, if requested, will be named in the end title sequence with a shared Associate Producer credit. Please rally around the project, the Marines, and America.

At my request Pat set up a Paypal account (via the link above), which will allow you to help contribute to the completion of this project. Please consider doing so. Every dollar helps Pat get one step closer to finishing a real reality series that will show America the war in Iraq as fought by the Marines that the mainstream media would never dare show you.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:55 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Bodies of Missing Soldiers Apparently Found

Sadly, I think this is what we expected:

A high-ranking official with the Iraqi Defense Ministry told CNN on Tuesday that the bodies of two missing U.S. soldiers were found Saturday south of Baghdad.
No more details were immediately available.

"Two bodies have been found," Maj. William Wilhoite, spokesman for Multi-National Forces-Iraq, told CNN.

"We haven't made any confirmation if they're the two U.S. soldiers we're looking for."
He said he did not know whether the bodies showed signs of torture. "I haven't heard anything through our official channels," he said.

"Obviously, before we made any announcement, if it was our soldiers, we'd have to make notification to the families," Wilhoite said.

Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon, went missing Friday after an attack on a traffic checkpoint near the town of Yusufiya, 12 miles (20 km) south of Baghdad.

The Washington Post reports that the two men had been tortured:

Two U.S. soldiers missing since an attack on a checkpoint last week have been found dead near a power plant in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, according to an Iraqi defense official.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim, head of operations at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, said the soldiers had been "barbarically" killed and that there were traces of torture on their bodies.

As I predicted yesterday, the media quickly found their anti-war, anti-Bush soundbite:

The news is going to be heartbreaking for my family," Menchaca's uncle, Ken MacKenzie, told NBC's "Today" show.

He said the United States should have paid a ransom for the two soldiers from money seized from Saddam Hussein.

"I think the U.S. was too slow to react to this," MacKenzie said. "Because the U.S. did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid with his life."

MacKenzie is entitled to grieve, but he cannot blame this on anyone other than the terrorists. Today Show host Matt Lauer even called him on it.

Once his nephew surrendered he was a dead man, and there was nothing, no "plan" or bribe that would have changed this outcome.

The terrorists of the Mujahedeen Shura Council probably think they have scored a victory, and indeed, in the short-term, they have. They can claim that after three years of war, they finally captured and killed a grand total of three U.S. soldiers. Accounts of the capture and killing of U.S. soldiers will receive a great amount of press worldwide. Arab media will likely present the deaths as a thinly veiled triumph, and the western media will use it as an opportunity to once again call for disengagement, as will many Democrats.

But these killings will not be received favorably by the U.S. military in Iraq, which will likely step up operations to hunt down and destroy terror and insurgent cells operating in this part of Iraq. Though official orders will not be given, perhaps U.S. forces will not be so inclined to take prisoners after this incident. Insurgents and their al Qaeda allies set the tone of giving U.S. forces no quarter when they took prisoners.

They made a huge mistake.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:16 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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