Tuesday - May 01, 2007

The War At Home

The confrontation between Democrats and the President is about to go to the next level. Bush is getting ready to veto the pork-stuffed, micromanaging funding bill shortly and then the ball is back in the Donk’s court. I’m sure the Party of Divisiveness & Treason have already prepared their next move, which will probably involve tag-teaming with their buddies in the liberal media who will pile on with all manner of denunciations of Bush and accusations of his being intractable, stubborn and impossible to work with.

We are about to be inundated with round-the-clock media spin from the Democrats, their liberal travelers and an arrogant media. They will pull out all stops to try to convince you and me that they’re perfect angels and only want what’s best for the country. They will drape themselves in the flag and dare anyone to call them unpatriotic. In other words, we are about to receive 24/7 lies, damned lies and outright bullshit from a narrow-minded bunch of narcissistic madmen.

I wish we could veto Congress - or at least have a recall election. All of you people who voted fort these jerks thinking a fresh change in Washington might make the partisan politics go away and better ideas put forth must be mighty disappointed right about now.

All politicians are liars - it’s just that the Democrats are masters of falsehood. They don’t know any other way to act. Honesty with the people and cooperation with other parties is alien to them. It’s a good thing we only have to endure eighteen more months of this abuse.

_{R J Matson - Roll Call}

Here Comes The Veto
_{(MSNBC) - Tuesday, May 01, 2007 2:13 PM}

The White House has just announced that it will be receiving the Iraq supplemental from Congress shortly. And when President Bush returns from Central Command later today, he’ll veto the bill privately and will make a statement about it at 6:10 pm ET.

What’s more, the White House is asking the TV networks and cable channels to carry Bush’s statement live. In his remarks, according to the White House, Bush will outline the reasons for his veto, and make it clear he’s willing to work with Congress—beginning tomorrow—to find a solution.

This will be just the second veto of Bush’s presidency; his first struck down legislation expanding embryonic stem-cell research.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/01/2007 at 02:52 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Iraq • Politics •  
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   Tuesday - April 24, 2007

Quote Of The Day

“Yesterday, Democratic leaders announced that they planned to send me a bill that will fund our troops only if we agree to handcuff our generals, add billions of dollars of unrelated spending and begin to pull out of Iraq by an arbitrary date.

The American people did not vote for failure. That is precisely what the Democratic leadership’s bill would guarantee. It’s not too late for Congress to do the right thing.”

-- President George Bush, in response to Democrats’ latest effort to micromanage the way in Iraq

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/24/2007 at 01:07 PM   
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   Thursday - April 12, 2007

Quote Of The Day

“In Iraq, hope is a fragile thing, but all the more admirable for the courage and sacrifice necessary to nurture it. In Washington, cynicism appears to be the quality most prized by those who accept defeat but not the responsibility for its consequences.

Before I left for Iraq, I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission. Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted.

What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering. A defeat for the United States is a cause for mourning not celebrating.”

-- Senator John McCain, in a speech given at VMI April 11, 2007 --

---

- Click here to visit the John McCain 2008 Official Campaign Site ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/12/2007 at 02:42 AM   
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   Friday - April 06, 2007

Through The Looking Glass

“The Other Iraq”

I came across this picture in the photo gallery of the Washington Post’s “Today In Photos” for April 6. I had to just sit and stare at it for several minutes. I couldn’t help but think what a contrast this idyllic setting with children playing and their parents resting in the sun in Baghdad’s al-Zawraa public park is with the normal images we get from the media in Iraq.

My first thought was “Hey! This can’t be Central Command propaganda as the anti-war activists would probably claim! This came from the Washington Post, of all places.” My second thought was “Why don’t we see more of these pictures?”

I’m sure the terrorists and murdering thugs who are killing people in Iraq ever day make moments like this few and far between but would it hurt to actually show pictures like this to (a) show Americans that life is starting to return to normal in Iraq and (b) show the terrorists they are losing the battle?

I know. Stupid question. The lamestream media will have none of it since the defeat of American troops, the failure of democracy in Iraq and subsequent humiliation of President Bush is more important to them.

I wish these people well. Enjoy the beautiful springtime weather while you can. It will get better if we stick to our goals. Peace be upon you all.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/06/2007 at 04:11 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • Iraq •  
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The Bad News

Yesterday was a day of mixed blessings for our Brit friends and allies. The Iranians finally released the 15 hostages they had been holding for nearly a week but in southern Iraq two female British soldiers were killed when the vehicle they were riding in was hit by an explosive device almost certainly provided by Iran to Shiite insurgents in Iraq.

These EFP’s (explosively formed projectiles) are coming into Iraq from outside and Iran is the only country in the region known to use them. I don’t understand why Iran hasn’t been bombed back into the Stone Age by now. What are we waiting for? Hand me the Big Red Button™. I’ll gladly push it if no one else will and send the Mad Mullahs and Ahmawhackjob to greet Allah. It’s overdue.

Outrage As Two Female Soldiers Die In Basra
BASRA (TELEGRAPH-UK) - 1:22am BST 06/04/2007

Two women were among four soldiers killed in Basra yesterday in an unprecedented day for the Army in Iraq. The women, a nurse and a member of the Intelligence Corps, were in a party of four patrolling the southern Iraq city in the early hours.

The Warrior armoured vehicle in which they were travelling was torn apart by a “colossal” bomb. A fifth soldier was “very seriously injured” and is being treated in the military hospital in Basra.

Iraqis were pictured waving one of the soldiers’ battered helmets while children held aloft fragments of the shattered vehicle collected as trophies.

The nurse, from Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, was the patrol’s medic. The men were from the 2Bn The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. A civilian interpreter was also killed. The patrol was returning to its base in Basra air station after providing protection for a “strike operation” that had seen British forces arrest a man said to be a senior member of the insurgency.

There have now been five female fatalities out of the 140 British dead in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In a war with no front line in the traditional sense, the 18,000 women in the Armed Forces are increasingly finding themselves in the fighting as medics, signallers and in logistics crews.

Yesterday, Mr Blair contrasted rejoicing at the release of the sailors and Royal Marines by Iran with the “sober and ugly reality” of the killings in Iraq. The Prime Minister also appeared to link Iran to the attacks.

“There are elements at least of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming, terrorism in Iraq,” he said outside No 10. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Iran is playing a major role in fomenting the insurgency in southern Iraq by providing terrorists with bombs and advanced technical knowledge.

The Warrior armoured vehicle was ripped apart by a device known as an “explosively formed projectile”. The bombs are being used with increasing frequency in Iraq and have accounted for many American armoured vehicles and tanks.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/06/2007 at 05:23 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Iraq •  
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Armor-Up

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/06/2007 at 04:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Military •  
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   Thursday - March 29, 2007

Mooooo!

_{Gary Varvel - The Indianapolis Star-News}

HR 1591 RH - 110th Congress, 1st Session

TITLE I--SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR

SEC. 3107. MILK INCOME LOSS CONTRACT PROGRAM.

Notwithstanding subsections (c)(3), (f), and (g) of section 1502 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (7 U.S.C. 7982), there is hereby appropriated $283,000,000, to remain available until expended, for payments under such section, using the payment rate specified in subsection (c)(3)(B) of such section, from September 1, 2007, through September 30, 2008. Of such amount, $252,000,000 shall be available only on or after September 30, 2007, and only so long as an Act to provide for the continuation of agricultural programs for fiscal years after 2007, including such section 1502, is not enacted.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/29/2007 at 02:38 AM   
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   Tuesday - March 27, 2007

Breaking News!

The title of this post might as well have been “Ball Breaking News”. The asshats in the Senate have now joined the ones in the House in waving the white flag of surrender. If this is what Congress wants, I’d recommend President Bush go ahead and throw in the towel and bring the troops home today. Why get any more brave young men and women killed if the Democrats are only going to stab us in the back over and over again in this treasonous display of political chicanery?

DAMN! I AM PISSED ....

Senate Signals Support For Iraq Timeline
_{WASHINGTON (YAHOO NEWS) - 4 minutes ago}

Defying a veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Senate narrowly signaled support Tuesday for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by next March. Republican attempts to scuttle the non-binding timeline failed on a vote of 50-48, largely along party lines. The roll call marked the Senate’s most forceful challenge to date of the administration’s handling of a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops.

Three months after Democrats took power in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the moment was at hand to “send a message to President Bush that the time has come to find a new way forward in this intractable war.”

But Republicans — and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat — argued otherwise. John McCain, R-Ariz., a presidential hopeful, said that “we are starting to turn things around” in the Iraq war” and that a timeline for withdrawal would embolden the terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere.

The effect of the timeline would be to “snatch defeat from the jaws of progress in Iraq,” agreed Lieberman, who won a new term last fall in a three-way race after losing the Democratic nomination to an anti-war insurgent.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/27/2007 at 05:41 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Politics •  
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   Thursday - March 22, 2007

The Surge is Working

Even though its only in the beginning stages.  This, according to the NY Post

March 20, 2007—‘I WALKED down the streets of Ramadi a few days ago, in a soft cap eating an ice cream with the mayor on one side of me and the police chief on the other, having a conversation.” This simple act, Gen. David Petraeus told me, would have been “unthinkable” just a few months ago. “And nobody shot at us,” he added.

Petraeus, the new commander managing the “surge” of troops in Iraq, will be the first to caution realism. “Sure we see improvements - major improvements,” he said in our interview, “but we still have a long way to go.”

What tactics are working? “We got down at the people level and are staying,” he said flatly. “Once the people know we are going to be around, then all kinds of things start to happen.”

More intelligence, for example. Where once tactical units were “scraping” for intelligence information, they now have “information overload,” the general said. “After our guys are in the neighborhood for four or five days, the people realize they’re not going to just leave them like we did in the past. Then they begin to come in with so much information on the enemy that we can’t process it fast enough.”

In intelligence work - the key to fighting irregular wars - commanders love excess.

And the tribal leaders in Sunni al Anbar Province, the general reports, “have had enough.” Not only are the al Qaeda fighters causing civil disruption by fomenting sectarian violence and killing civilians, but on a more prosaic but practical side, al Qaeda is bad for business. “All of the sheiks up there are businessmen,” Petraeus said. “They are entrepreneurial and involved in scores of different businesses. The presence of the foreign fighters is hitting them hard in the pocketbook and they are tired of it.”

Posted by Drew458     on 03/22/2007 at 08:31 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • War-Stories •  
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   Sunday - March 11, 2007

Calling Their Bluff

Is it just me or does anyone else get the feeling that Dubya is playing a mean hand of Texas Holdem with the Democrats in Congress? I sense the mysterious hand of Darth Rove in this.

The Donks already have their backs against the wall with their moronic base screaming “PULL OUT!” and foaming at the mouth. They know they don’t have the votes and cutting off funds would be political suicide.

And Dubya just sits across the table with that poker face on and quietly raises the ante by requesting more troops. Nancy Pelosi is about to burst a blood vessel and John Murtha is in the cellar tied up in a straight jacket.

I have a real funny feeling that Darth Rove is about to raise the stakes even more while the Donks sit across the table and sweat bood and their maniacal base stands behind them and screams threats at them to see Bush’s raise while the Donks are holding an empty hand and Dubya has all the aces.

Talk about “between a rock and a hard place” .... I need some more popcorn. This show is starting to get good ....

Additional Troop Increase Approved
President Agrees To Send 8,200 More To Iraq, Afghanistan
_{(WASHINGTON POST) - Sunday, March 11, 2007}

President Bush approved 8,200 more U.S. troops for Iraq and Afghanistan on top of reinforcements already ordered to those two countries, the White House said Saturday, a move that comes amid a fiery debate in Washington over the Iraq war.

The president agreed to send 4,700 troops to Iraq in addition to the 21,500 he ordered to go in January, mainly to provide support for those combat forces and to handle more anticipated Iraqi prisoners. He also decided to send a 3,500-member brigade to Afghanistan to accelerate training of local forces, doubling his previous troop increase to fight a resurgent Taliban.

Although officials had foreshadowed the additional forces for Iraq in recent days, the latest troop increase in Afghanistan had not been known and will bring U.S. forces there to an all-time high. The deployments underscore the challenges facing the United States in both countries and further stretch an already strained military. In Iraq particularly, the moves could fuel suspicions that a troop increase initially described as a temporary “surge” may grow larger and last longer than predicted.

Bush did not comment on his decision during the second day of a six-day Latin America tour. But aides released a letter he signed Friday night aboard Air Force One as he flew to Uruguay from Brazil, asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for $3.2 billion in emergency funding to pay for the additional units. He proposed cuts in other spending to offset the cost.

“This revised request would better align resources based on the assessment of military commanders to achieve the goal of establishing Iraq and Afghanistan as democratic and secure nations that are free of terrorism,” Bush said in the letter.

The president’s decision came as congressional Democrats are struggling to find a way to reverse direction in Iraq. Bush aides said this week that the president would veto a House Democratic spending plan that would require him to certify that the Iraqi government has met certain benchmarks by certain dates to keep U.S. forces in the country. The plan would require, under any circumstance, that troop withdrawals begin March 1, 2008, and that remaining troops be out of combat roles by Aug. 31, 2008.

Pelosi blasted Bush on Saturday. “With his veto threat,” she said, “the president offers only an open-ended commitment to a war without end that dangerously ignores the repeated warnings of military leaders, including the commander in Iraq, General [David H.] Petraeus, who declared in Baghdad this week that the conflict cannot be resolved militarily.”

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/11/2007 at 05:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Iraq • Politics •  
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   Sunday - March 04, 2007

Even More BS From The Arabs

Just what in hell is going on here? Did I miss some special announcement that today is the start of “International Bullshit Week”? First, the editors at the NY TIMES start spewing raving lunacy (see post below this one) and now the Arabs are piling on, demanding we announce a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

Who do these pencil-dick, towel-heads think they are? We’ll leave when we get good and damn ready, got that? And we’re not abut to broadcast our future plans to anyone in the Muddled East. While we’re at it, don’t bother to bring the useless United Nations into this mix. They left Iraq four years ago after the first little bomb hit their offices there.

Arabs Want U.N. Timetable For U.S. Withdrawal
_{CAIRO (Reuters) - March 4, 2007}

The Arab League said on Sunday the United Nations Security Council should set a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa listed what the Cairo-based organization believed were the key issues for easing the crisis in Iraq.

Apart from setting a timetable for U.S.-led coalition to leave, the list also includes a call for the fair distribution of wealth and the disbanding of all militias, which are demands that Arab leaders have repeated many times.

“I suggest that these foundations be included in a binding
U.N. Security Council resolution that all Iraqi and other parties with present roles in Iraq should respect and follow,” Moussa said in a speech to a meeting of Arab foreign ministers.

The United States has rejected calls for setting a date for its troops, who make up the vast majority of multinational forces, to leave the country they invaded in 2003.

Arab governments have little influence in Baghdad. The Arab League representative in Iraq resigned in January because of his frustration over the situation in the country.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/04/2007 at 11:58 AM   
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   Wednesday - February 28, 2007

Newt’s Solution For Iraq

Newt Gingrich gave testimony today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and he described his perception of the current world situation and offered up an 18-point plan to solve the Iraq problem (full text of his testimony here). I agree with most of the suggestions and I think he is taking the right approach to solving the problems in dealing with the insurgency in Iraq.

It’s only when he gets to points 17 and 18 that he loses me. Those two points require one thing: a cooperative Congress. President Bush never had a really cooperative Congress. When his own party was in power they indulged in pork barrel games with the budget, among other things. Bush could have over-ridden them but didn’t. I realize that but he never was in control of that crowd.

However, with Democrats in power now the chances of any bipartisan approach to just about anything is a complete impossibility. You might as well ask Osama Bin Laden to convert to Christianity as ask Nancy Pelosi to cooperate with George Bush. Ain’t gonna happen. The Democrats have been stubbornly fighting the administration for six full years. To ask them to play nice now will only get you a hearty laugh from the Donks. Fuggedaboutit.

Then again, perhaps Newt’s plan is being drawn up for implementation by the next President, one who could possibly get along better with Democrats in Congress - but that would require someone very familiar with the members of Congress and who perhaps knows from experience how to deal with them. I wonder if Newt has a certain former Speaker Of The House in mind for that job ...

It was very disappointing to have the President focus so much on 21, 500 more military personnel and so little on the reforms needed in all the other elements of the executive branch. The proposals for winning in Iraq outlined below follow from this analysis.

Key Steps to Victory in Iraq

1. Place General Petraeus in charge of the Iraq campaign and establish that the Ambassador is operating in support of the military commander.

2. Since General Petraeus will now have responsibility for victory in Iraq all elements of achieving victory are within his purview and he should report daily to the White House on anything significant which is not working or is needed

3. Create a deputy chief of staff to the President and appoint a retired four star general or admiral to manage Iraq implementation for the Commander in Chief on a daily basis.

4. Establish that the second briefing (after the daily intelligence brief) the President will get every day is from his deputy chief of staff for Iraq implementation.

5. Establish a War Cabinet which will meet once a week to review metrics of implementation and resolve failures and enforce decisions. The President should chair the War Cabinet personally and his deputy chief of staff for Iraq implementation should prepare the agenda for the weekly review and meeting.

6. Establish three plans: one for achieving victory with the help of the Iraqi government, one for achieving victory with the passive acquiescence of the Iraqi government, one for achieving victory even if the current Iraqi government is unhappy.  The third plan may involve very significant shifts in troops and resources away from Baghdad and a process of allowing the Iraqi central government to fend for itself if it refuses to cooperate.

7. Communicate clearly to Syria and Iran that the United States is determined to win in Iraq and that any further interference (such as the recent reports of sophisticated Iranian explosives being sent to Iraq to target Americans) will lead to direct and aggressive countermeasures.

8. Pour as many intelligence assets into the fight as needed to develop an overwhelming advantage in intelligence preparation of the battlefield.

9. Develop a commander’s capacity to spend money on local activities sufficient to enable every local American commander to have substantial leverage in dealing with local communities.

10. Establish a jobs corps or civil conservation corps of sufficient scale to bring unemployment for males under 30 below 10% (see the attached op-ed by Mayor Giuliani and myself on this topic).

11. Expand dramatically the integration of American purchasing power in buying from Iraqi firms pioneered by Assistant Secretary Paul Brinkley to maximize the rate of recovery of the Iraqi economy.

12. Expand the American Army and Marine Corps as much as needed to sustain the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan while also being prepared for other contingencies and maintaining a sustainable rhythm for the families and the force.

13. Demand a war budget for recapitalization of the military to continue modernization while defeating our enemies. The current national security budget is lower as a percentage of the economy than at any time from Pearl Harbor through the end of the Cold War.  It is less than half the level Truman sustained before the Korean War.

14. The State Department is too small, too undercapitalized and too untrained for the demands of the 21st century. There should be a 50% increase in the State Department budget and a profound rethinking of the culture and systems of the State Department so it can be an operationally effective system.

15. The Agency for International Development is hopelessly unsuited to the new requirements of economic assistance and development and should be rethought from the ground up. The Marshall Plan and Point Four were as important as NATO in containing the Soviet Empire. We do not have that capability today.

16. The President should issue executive orders where possible to reform the implementation system so it works with the speed and effectiveness required by the 21st century.

17. Where legislation is needed the President should collaborate with Congress in honestly reviewing the systems that are failing and developing new metrics, new structures and new strategies.

18. Under our Constitution it is impossible to have this scale of rethinking and reform without deep support from the legislative branch. Without Republican Senator Arthur Vandenburg, Democratic President Harry Truman could never have developed the containment policies that saved freedom and ultimately defeated the Soviet Empire.  The President should ask the bipartisan leaders of Congress to cooperate in establishing a joint Legislative-Executive working group on winning the war and should openly brief the legislative branch on the problems which are weakening the American system abroad. Only by educating and informing the Congress can we achieve the level of mutual understanding and mutual commitment that this long hard task will require.

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/28/2007 at 11:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Republicans •  
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   Tuesday - February 27, 2007

Pentagon Games

I’ve been mulling this over for a few days now and pondering what to think of it. Fortunately, Robert Tracinski at The Intellectual Activist prodded me with this interesting take on the matter in today’s TIA Daily.

The State Department has in recent years been filled with career “civil servants” with a decidedly Leftist bent but the Pentagon has remained loyal to its commander, The President. Now, that seems to be changing, first with top generals expressing lack of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld, leading ultimately to his ouster from office, and now they’re expressing their disdain for any planned attack on Iran.

They’re even going so far as to say they will resign if ordered to attack Iran. My advice to Secretary Of Defense Gates is simply to call them on the carpet and ask each one of the generals in question if he truly feels this way. If the general answers “yes”, the secretary should then politely tell the general “you’re fired, turn in your uniform and get the f**k out of my army.”

Then the general can go whine to foreign newspapers all he or she wants. You see, the unwritten rule for top-ranking officers is that you can disagree all you want privately but if you want to affect policy and take your grievances public then you can do so - from the outside: quit, then bark all you want. As a civilian, not as a military officer.

These military officers know this as sure as God made little green apples. It is a cornerstone of our Constitution that the military is under civilian management. Period. End of story. The military does not decide policy. For that matter, neither does the State Department. This madness has gone quite far enough and needs to stop ... now, before someone gets hurt.

Nowadays, it seems everyone wants to be a pundit and everyone has an opinion on how things should be done. That’s cool ... but there are rules that need to be followed. The first of which (and the most important) concerns something called “dirty laundry” - don’t air it out publicly. That is a lesson I have learned the hard way right here in the pages of this blog (don’t ask). It is a lesson the Dixie Chicks learned. It is also a lesson these generals will learn too - hopefully before they ruin their career ...

If You’re Not Using My Army, Do You Mind If I Borrow It?
-- by Robert Tracinski (TIA Daily)

The war over the war extends to all areas of government. I recently saw an article (sorry, I couldn’t track down the link) indicating that a collection of State Department officials plans to resign in protest if Bush attacks Iran. Now the article below says that some Pentagon officials may do the same, in a “revolt of the generals.”

Aside from the basic problem of military officers attempting to dictate policy to their civilian leaders, the most repugnant aspect of this campaign is the claim that America should not attack Iran because we “don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on.”

America’s annual defense budget is in the neighborhood of $400 billion, while Iran’s military budget is $9 billion. If our generals can’t figure out a way to defeat an enemy that much smaller and weaker, then they ought to resign—not as a protest, but as a confession of professional incompetence.

The phenomenon of generals who don’t want to use the force they are tasked to wield—that is, generals who don’t want to perform their basic responsibility of fighting and defeating our enemies—is nothing new. President Lincoln is supposed to have written, to one overly cautious general, “If you are not using my army, do you mind if I borrow it?”

“US Generals ‘Will Quit’ If Bush Orders Iran Attack,” Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Times of London, February 25

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources….

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them….

The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran.”…

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs a year, although Tehran claims its programme is purely for civilian energy purposes.

“Speaking of runaway trains, the global warming hysteria is gaining new steam as environmentalists realize that a Democratic Congress is willing to enact their agenda, while the Bush administration seems to have given up trying to stall global-warming legislation. Hollywood gave the juggernaut more energy Sunday night when it awarded Al Gore an Oscar for his role as televangelist for the First Church of the Warming Globe—Hollywood’s official new religion.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/27/2007 at 03:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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   Sunday - February 25, 2007

The Third Wheel In Iraq

OK, what’s up with this porky pig looking towel head? First he disappears to Iran when US troops start arriving in Baghdad and beginning to work on getting things under control. Then his aids say he wasn’t in Iran but was still in Iraq. No one knows for sure where Porky is but he has suddenly started reining in his militia.

The US wants the Iraqi leader, Al-Maliki (a loser if ever I saw one) to apply pressure to Sadr to disband his army altogether but Maliki needs Sadr’s support from his fellow Shiites. Meanwhile, the Mad Mullahs are supplying Shiite insurgents in Iraq with armor-piercing explosives and .50 caliber long-range rifles for snipers - all to be used to kill American troops. This has got to be the biggest cluster f**k I have ever seen and Sadr is at the center of it.

The solution? Take out Sadr and close the border with Iran. Shoot anyone trying to cross into Iraq. And get rid of Maliki and put someone in charge with some balls (and brains). I hope General Petraeus is listening ...

Iraq Rebel Cleric Reins In Militia; Motives at Issue
_{BAGHDAD (NY TIMES) - February 25, 2007}

Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric and founder of the Mahdi Army militia, discovered recently that two of his commanders had created DVDs of their men killing Sunnis in Baghdad. Documents suggested that they had received money from Iran.

So he suspended them and stripped them of power, said two Mahdi leaders in Sadr City, the heart of Mr. Sadr’s support here in the capital.

But did he do so as part of his cooperation with the new security plan for Baghdad, which aims to quell the sectarian violence tormenting the city? Because his men had been disloyal, taking orders from Iran, whose support he values but whose control he fights? Or was it just for show — the act of an image-conscious leader who grasped the risk of graphic videos and wanted to stave off direct American action against him?

Mr. Sadr has been the great destabilizer in Iraq since 2003, wielding power on the streets and in the ruling Shiite bloc, thwarting the Americans and playing out at least a temporary alliance with Iran.  With the new security plan for Iraq under way, every question about Mr. Sadr’s motives touches on a different facet of Iraq’s complicated struggle.

He now finds himself under pressure from several sources. One is his popular Shiite base, which demands protection from devastating Sunni attacks. Another is Iran, with which he has had long but difficult ties. Then there are renegade factions of his own militia that resent his move into the political mainstream.

Finally, the Americans, who have accused Iran of supplying Shiite militias, including Mr. Sadr’s, with an especially deadly roadside bomb known as an explosively formed projectile, or E.F.P, which has killed an increasing number of American soldiers.

It is not clear whether the Americans will move directly against him. The United States has demanded that the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki act forcefully against the Mahdi Army; Mr. Maliki, however, owes much of his political strength in the ruling Shiite coalition to Mr. Sadr’s backing.

For now, American and Iraqi officials say Mr. Sadr seems to be cooperating with the effort to pacify Baghdad, ordering his men not to fight even as American armored vehicles roll into Mahdi strongholds in eastern Baghdad. He seems to be cleaning house of fighters who could taint him by association with Iran or with death squad killings. His aides say he has called for a sectarian truce. “Moktada al-Sadr said to protect your clerics, protect your shrines and cooperate with the government,” said Hazim al-Araji, head of the Sadr office in western Baghdad. “So no actions have been taken.”

In perhaps his boldest move yet, Mr. Sadr has assisted the joint Iraqi-American campaign against parts of his militia, signaling whom to arrest and telling others to flee, said two Mahdi commanders and a Shiite politician in Baghdad. On his own, they said, Mr. Sadr has “frozen” more than 40 commanders, including about 20 with links to Iran.

The moves are part of an organizational overhaul, the Sadr aides said. Though Mr. Sadr’s whereabouts are unknown — the Americans say he is in Iran, which his aides and Iran dispute — a new Mahdi general for all of Baghdad has been appointed for the first time, they said. Mr. Sadr has also selected new commanders for east and west Baghdad.

Some of the Sadr aides and commanders who described Mr. Sadr’s recent moves during separate interviews in Najaf and Baghdad refused to give their names, saying they had not been authorized to speak and feared reprisals from current or former members of the militia.

They said the cleric allowed the arrests of members of his own militia, or suspended them himself, because evidence showed that they had not obeyed his orders and because he wanted to show Iran, American officials and his militia that he was a strong leader who must be respected and feared.

“He wants to prove to the people that he has full control of his militia,” said a 47-year-old Mahdi commander from Sadr City who referred to himself as Jabar Abdul al-Hahdi. “He wants to show he’s in charge.”

Mr. Sadr’s conflicted relationship with Iran mirrors Iraq’s. Each country’s majority Shiites revere the other’s clerics and visit the other’s religious shrines. But they speak different languages, are dominated by different ethnic groups, and fought each other in a long war in the 1980s.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 02/25/2007 at 07:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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