Illegal Insanity--Again, Dammit!

I read that only 25% of the American people support this insanity bill, and yet the politicians soldier on. I don't know what the freaking deal is with immigration, but the people are very clear on this one...and consistently. I think Ann Coulter is right:

We're Importing a Slave Class

This is not an exageration. What this amounts to is the creation of a permanent underclass dependent on government. And please, don't tell me we need them, that they do the jobs Americans won't do!!!! This is simply NOT supported by anything except wishful thinking. (see my previous posts for stats) The numbers DO NOT bear out this assertion, and in fact show the exact opposite. There is no such thing as 'jobs Americans won't do' so STOP SAYING THAT! *sigh* see my previous posts for still relevant info. I can't even believe this. Oh, and this is amnesty. Amnesty for criminals. I know, how about we just throw out the rule of law altogether?

The War--What Else?

Some good bits of reading out there, first, a piece by former Senator Bob Kerrey, of my state, Nebraska: The Left's Iraq Muddle

As well, and I find this important, Israelis support the Invasion of Iraq:

Most people in Israel believe the United States made the right decision in choosing to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein, according to a poll by Maagar Mochot, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and the Anti-Defamation League. 59 per cent of respondents believe that, looking back, it was correct for the U.S. to go to war with Iraq. . . . .

As well, this remarkable bit about the concept of Taqiyya in Islam, from a website I certainly did not really expect to see it on.

Poll Numbers

I would just like to point out two things.

1. Harry Truman's approval rating was absolutely abysmal, with only Nixon being worse. Where is he now? On the top of the Presidental stack, ranking very high on the list of greatest presidents.

2. The Congressional approval rating is actually lower than the president's right now.

That is all.

Nothing Happens in a Vacuum

From PatDollard.com:

Diyala Is The New Anbar
Al Qaeda is fighting hard, but caught in it’s last refuge….as long as Al Anbar is held.

This website beat the MSM by many a mile in informing you that a U.S./Sunni military operation had ejected Al Qaeda from its base in Al Anbar Province. In fact, the MSM was almost keeping that fact a secret until they were forced into full disclosure last week by reports that former Sunni insurgents, now working as U.S. allies, had killed two Al Qaeda leaders.

Terrorists are parasites. They rely on a host body to support them. Now they can terrorize a host body into providing them support, but that will only go so far. Ultimately, the host body must be somewhat sympathetic to the terrorists, or else, by sheer dint of numbers, the members of the host body will be able to reject the terrorists. These two principles explain the entire history of Al Qaeda’s reign over Al Anbar. Al Anbar, like Al Qaeda, is a Sunni entity. The people of Al Anbar were sympathetic enough to Al Qaeda that they provided them sanctuary, support and even manpower - which is to say, the very lifeblood that this parasite required. Finally, the Sunnis of Al Anbar had enough of the bleak and empty future, and very bloody present, that comprised the entirety of Al Qaeda’s offerings. And so the host body rejected the parasite. The parasite is now in its last possible refuge, the mixed Sunni/Shiite Triangle of Death & Diyala Province areas, just south and northeast of Baghdad, respectively. My time in Iraq started there, and will likely end there. Along with Al Qaeda’s.

There is a reason neither Al Qaeda or the Iranian Shiite Insurgents have no traction in Kurdistan. There is no sympathetic and compliant host body. There is a reason Al Qaeda has no traction in the southern/eastern Shiite areas of Iraq. There is no compliant, sympathetic (which is to say, Sunni) host body. There is only one place left with enough of a sympathetic, compliant host body for Al Qaeda to keep itself alive in. This is the mixed Sunni/Shiite Triangle of Death. An appropriate appellation for the battlefield of Iraq’s Apocalypse with its Public Enemy #1. Iraqis,Al Qaeda, U.S. forces. A triangle of death,
indeed.

In the short term, Al Qaeda will need to reopen its supply lines from Syria, which flow through through Al Anbar. They would also love nothing more than to reestablish themselves as the masters of Al Anbar. It is critical we keep our alliance with the Al Anbar Sunni tribes intact, and deny Al Qaeda both a home and its critical supply lines. And yes, the elephant in the room cannot be ignored as well: Syria must be forced to stop feeding Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is comprised of Jihadis from around the globe. For example, in Fallujah, I lived in a Chechen barracks. ( Fallujah is not in Russia ). During the battle of Fallujah, the Marines recovered passports from 18 different nations on the Jihadi dead. Most of Al Qaeda’s fighters come through Syria. Syria must be made to heel. Nancy Pelosi wearing scarves and whispering sweetly will not do the trick. In fact, she has only encouraged Syria and Al Qaeda to stick to their ways, to keep up the fight against us. Why should they quit when the Democrats keep promising them victory? When Pelosi lied, our soldiers died. And they still do. If we are allowed by the Leftists, the mainstream ( which is to say Leftisist ) media, and the career-coward Republican lawmakers to get tough with Syria, we can defeat Al Qaeda.

Petraeus has a three pronged agenda, whether he knows it or not, and I’m sure he does. 1. Hold Al Anbar. 2. Defeat Al Qaeda in it’s last possible home in Iraq, the Triangle of Death/Diyala areas, by simultaneously attacking them aggresively and winning over the local Sunni tribes to help us in that effort - - just as we did in Al Anbar. 3. Break the back of the Shiite/Iran Baghdad to Basra insurgency by maintaining a ruthless military campaign; by further marginalizing or killing Al Sadr; by co-opting as many Shiite tribal leaders as possible; and by forcing Maliki to appropriately support us in all this; and lastly by rooting out as much evidence as possible to finalize the case against Iran.

Just like today’s story of the loss of U.S. servicemen, and the spectacular Baghdad/Diyala bombings of the last three weeks, you will continue to see many more Al Qaeda horrors. But these may just be the terrorist organization’s death throes. It is an historical maxim that every empire becomes more violent in it’s final, beleaguered days. We live with the conundrum that there is as much good news as bad in this current carnage. But it will become all bad if we let this opportunity for final conquest slip through our fingers.

As Jim Morrison sang, this is the end. One way or another.

Taliban Leader killed. And what about that spring offensive they've promised?

Everyone is still waiting for the Taliban Spring Offensive to start, but nothing is happening. Well, that's not true, a lot is happening throughout southern Afghanistan. NATO and Afghan troops are all over the place, killing dozens of Taliban at a time and arresting hundreds. The Afghan army believes they have at least two hundred Taliban surrounded in a mountain village, along with a senior Afghan leader (Mullah Dadullah). On the down side, if its only Afghan troops involved, Mullah Abdullah has the financial resources to bribe his way out.

The Taliban insist they are on a roll, and threaten attacks all over Afghanistan. But so far, the Taliban have used mostly terror attacks with suicide bombers and roadside bombs. These are the weapons of someone who is losing. The increased terror attacks on Afghan civilians are another indicator of Taliban distress. More of the rural Afghans have turned against the Taliban. That, coupled with battles between al Qaeda and Taliban forces back in Pakistan, do not translate into good news for the Islamic radicals trying to regain control of Afghanistan.

Being dead, I think he'll have a hard time bribing his way out of that one.

Women in Combat

Does that picture say anything to you?
I think I posted something about this some time ago...
Recently I've been seeing a lot about this issue, in various forms, and it is really pissing me off. In fact, its getting to the point where I have to wonder if having women in the military is a good idea at all, mostly because of the slippery slope it seems to entail. There are reasons, dammit, why women should not serve in combat, and they are not scurilous reasons, they are very real. I think anyone who has read much military history, especially ancient, will know what I mean when I say that unit cohesion is important, and injecting women into that environment radically changes it, even today. Not to mention women are more likely to get injured, not up to the physical challenge, etc. See my linkfest entry for more on that. I would just like to put up a few further things:

No one seems to understand that it is not the primary purpose of our armed forces to provide employment opportunities for women and young men. Our armed forces exist for the single purpose of defending the nation by destroying any enemy that threatens our national security. Clearly, women can contribute to the nation's defense, but not as warriors.

and

Has our nation sunk so low that we are willing to send our daughters and young mothers into battle? Is chivalry completely dead? Breathes there a man with soul so dead that he will not rise up and defend his wife, his sweetheart, his mother and his daughter, against those who want to wound or capture them, whoever they may be?

I get very uneasy whenever I see anything about women in combat, and its starting to make me uneasy about women in the military in general, even though they can surely do somethings.

Gun Control

Lots of articles recently, they were starting to clutter up my favorites, so here goes:

Why Economists Tend to Oppose Gun Control Laws
Feeling Safe Isn't Safe: VT's "gun free zone" was not a gun free zone
Anti-gun Nonsense
Gun Control Isn't Crime Control
Utah Mall was Gun Free Zone
Arming Professors and Students May Not be Such a Far-Fetched Idea
Gun-Free Zones Fail; Concealed Carry Laws Work
Multiple-victim Shootings Worldwide: list
Guns Gone Wild
Gunning For the Wrong People
Bans Don't Deter Killers: Look What Happened at Columbine and VT, both "gun free zones"
Unarmed and Dangerous
Gun Laws Disarm the Vulnerable, not Killers
Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech: boortz
Why You Should Own a Gun

On these kind of shootings:
Psychiatry's War On Our Children

This is pretty horribly ironic
Unarmed and Vulnerable

News From the War

Plenty of interesting reading recently:

The Twisted Lessons of Vietnam

May 3, 2007: One of the more annoying aspects of the war in Iraq are the comparisons to the Vietnam war. The problem there is the two great myths of theVietnam war that keep getting brought up, and misapplied to Iraq. Myth Number One is that the communist Tet Offensive of 1968 was a U.S. defeat. At the time, even reporters on the scene described the great damage that had been done to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. Analysts noted that the attack accomplished nothing, for the communists, in real terms. After a few years, it was clear that Tet was a disaster for the Viet Cong. We know that because, after Tet, the United States implemented a counter insurgency plan that finished off the Viet Cong. By the time American troops left in 1972, the only threat to South Vietnam was invasion by the North Vietnamese army. That happened twice. First, in 1972, North Vietnamese tanks and infantry divisions crossed the border. With some U.S. air support, that invasion was thrown back. The second invasion, in 1975, succeeded. The reason for that was not just a lack of any American air support, but the absence of much U.S. support at all. Congress had cut off nearly all American aid to South Vietnam. This included things like ammunition and spare parts. By 1975, American troops were gone for several years. The pictures of American helicopters evacuating people, showed American citizens and diplomats being taken out, along with South Vietnamese who could expect harsh treatment from the communists.

The U.S. didn't lose the war in South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese did. Tet was a victory for the United States, and a major defeat for the Viet Cong. For years, you had to go dig up old newspapers, or obscure books, to find the evidence that Tet was an American victory and Vietnam was not an American defeat. But now you can just use Google. All the facts are there. All you have to do is go look. Many prefer not to, which is another problem.

That said, it should be noted that the Iraq and Vietnam situations have little in common. In Iraq, the enemy is largely a Sunni Arab coalition (of secular Baath Party diehards trying to regain power, and Islamic radicals like al Qaeda, trying to make Iraq the first conquest of a global Islamic empire), not a broad coalition trying to unite a divided country under a communist dictatorship. Vietnam was all about nationalism and politics. Iraq is about supporters of tyrants who won't accept defeat, and religious zealots who believe they are on a mission from God. The degree of irrational behavior is much higher in Iraq, but it's not politically correct to dwell on that, at least not in the West. The Iraqi media dwells on the irrational elements of their political situation, and they do it quite a lot.

In Iraq, it's popular to blame the United States for everything, but most Iraqis understand that the Sunni Arab violence is basically an Iraqi problem. The Iraqis most intent on keeping the American troops around are the Sunni Arabs, who know that the years of Sunni Arab terror (both before and after Saddam fell) have made the Sunni Arabs an endangered group in Iraq. For some reason, Westerners have a hard time accepting that.

The United States won its war in Iraq. What's happened since is Iraqis working outwhether they want a democracy, or a return to tyranny. This is a bloody argument that the United States is trying to ameliorate. The majority of Iraqis would prefer to deal with the Iraqi Sunni Arabs in the traditional fashion. They still might, even with the presence of U.S. troops, and definitely will if the American forces leave soon. That would be an American defeat of ethical proportions.

I said this before, and I know some people didn't like it.

Media Is Murder
And so is the Democrat Party.

When I first got back from Iraq and I reported that the mainstream media were literally killing our troops, the mainstream media and leftist bloggers shrieked hysterically that such a claim was nothing short of laughable. When I said that the insurgents’ morale was largely shaped by the reportage and editorial bent of the U.S. media, I was also dismissed for making such “ridiculous” statements. Back home these issues are theoreticals. When you are in Iraq, and are still being blown up because the enemy has been led to believe that the Democrats may yet hand him victory, these issues are a matter of life and death. And they make a man very, very angry indeed.

From Victor Davis Hanson on April 26, 2007:

“Sometimes no comment is needed. So it was of Vietnam when victorious Gen. Giap later remarked that that the American Left was “essential to our strategy.” He elaborated to the Wall Street Journal: “Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement.”

And Giap added that anti-war activists, “Gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war.”

And...

Anbar Awakens, So Does the NYTimes

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently got into trouble for saying
aloud what many in his party undoubtedly believe--that Iraq is "lost."

This weekend brought fresh and powerful evidence of why he is wrong.

The story begins last fall when, according to a front page article in the Washington Post by Fiasco author Thomas Ricks, the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq wrote a report concluding that Anbar province--long the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency--was "lost." As the Post reported then, "there are no functioning
Iraqi government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by
the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province's most significant political force... Another person familiar with the report said it describes Anbar as beyond repair."

Flash ahead to yesterday's New York Times, which carried a cover story on the situation in Anbar. The paper says Anbar province is now "undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat."

"Last summer, the American military recorded as many as 25 violent acts a day in the Ramadi region, ranging from shootings and kidnappings to roadside bombs and suicide attacks. In the past several weeks, the average has dropped to four acts of violence a day, American military officials said.

"'There are some people who would say we've won the war out here," said
Col. John. A. Koenig, a planning officer for the Marines who oversees governing and economic development issues in Anbar. "I'm cautiously optimistic as we're going forward.'"

Will the Democrats hail this dramatic turnaround in Anbar--or even acknowledge it? Or will they keep on arguing the same premature defeatism that would have had us abandon Anbar to Al Qaeda?

And finally, an excellent Iraq Update from Bill Roggio:

Iraq Report: Anbar Awakening Spreads, Petraeus Connects Iran to Attacks in
Iraq

The city of Baghdad continues to see a drop in sectarian violence, while suicide car bombings remain al Qaeda's most deadly tool. After the car bomboffensive by al Qaeda two weeks ago, which included 11 major suicide attacks over just five days, the past week inside the city has been relatively free of major attacks. Although roadside bombs, mortar attacks, and small arms fire remain a regular occurrence inside Baghdad, al Qaeda was unable to pull off any further large scale attacks--which threaten to reignite the sectarian bloodshed.

While it is difficult to assess al Qaeda's capabilities in sustaining suicide attacks inside Baghdad proper, it seems the terror group possesses enough resources to conduct several high profile attacks at a time. Coalition and Iraqi operations are putting a dent in al Qaeda's capacity nationwide; however, al Qaeda is still able to assemble enough car bombs to carry out the attacks, which are designed to split the Sunni and Shia communities and create a media frenzy.

Part of the Coalition strategy to cut down on the deadly car bomb attacks and reduce the sectarian violence is to segment the city with physical barriers. These barriers stem the flow of traffic through checkpoints and prevent the infiltration of death squads through back alleys and side streets. The news of the creation of the "Adhamiya Wall" sparked protests and the temporary halting of the barrier's construction. Opportunists likened the barrier to the fence separating Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank.

But, as Omar Fadhil noted early last week, "Work to construct similar walls started weeks ago in the Amiriya and Ghazaliyah districts. The 'news' went utterly unnoticed then." Mr. Fadhil noted the barrier has had some effect in Amiriya and Ghazaliyah, and speculated that insurgents might have stirred up the local protests in an attempt to halt the building of the wall.

Dave Kilcullen, the Senior Counter-Insurgency Advisor for Multi-National Force Iraq, explained that Prime Minister Maliki restarted the project after he was briefed on the need for the barrier and how the protests had come about. "As I understand it, once the reasons for the project and the likely benefits in terms of lives saved were explained to the PM, he was happy for it to continue. I understand that the evidence of extremist manipulation was also a factor." Kilcullen likened the barrier to an "urban tourniquet," and explained that the propaganda campaign to disrupt its construction came from none other than al Qaeda in Iraq.

While Baghdad remains the focus of attention, some real gains have been made in Anbar, once the most violent province in Iraq. The progress in subduing the insurgency in Anbar province has finally reached the front pages of the New York Times and other outlets. The process in standing up the Anbar Salvation Council, a group of local tribes and former insurgents opposed to al Qaeda's harsh brand of Taliban-like sharia law, has been ongoing since the summer of 2006. The Anbar Salvation Council has had such success in Ramadi, which was once the most dangerous city in Iraq, that attacks have dropped to as few as two per day after spiking to as many as 50 a day last summer. Markets are reopening, children are returning to school and Iraqi and American security forces are conducting patrols throughout the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city.

Part of the success of the Anbar Salvation Council is that it provides the Sunnis in Anbar with a political voice as well as security against al Qaeda. The Anbar Salvation Council's political component is the Anbar Awakening. Seven new tribes have just joined the political party. The Awakening is now expanding beyond Anbar province, and is becoming a national movement. The Anbar Awakening is facilitating the creation of the Iraq Awakening, a national political partywhich would "oppose insurgents such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and reengage with Iraq's political process." The Iraq Awakening is scheduled to meet in May, and will be the first Sunni political party to openly oppose al Qaeda in Iraq.

Sensing that the Awakening movement was gaining steam in Iraq--branches are said to be forming in Salahadin and Diyala--I asked Omar Fadhil, and Iraqi blogger living in Baghdad, about the perception of the movement inside Baghdad and prospects of the Awakening expanding into the capital. Omar responded that the tribal dynamics were different, and that it was difficult to draw conclusions about Baghdad based on trends in Ramadi.

The following day, Omar noted a report in As Sabah on the creation of the Adhamiya Awakening. "Some community leaders in Adhamiya are working on forming a salvation council for their own district they will be calling The Adhamiya Awakening," reported Omar. "Sources close to the leaders said they [the leaders] have managed to win the support of some hundred people who agree with the new position. The sources asserted that the goal of the Awakening is to rid Adhamiya of the terrorists."

During last week's Pentagon press briefing, General Petraeus stated that al Qaeda in Iraq remains the primary threat to security, but also highlighted Iran's role in the insurgency. General Petraeus noted that the Iranians were backing Sunni and Shia groups alike, but focused on two examples of Iranian backing of Shia violence--the Karbala raid in January 2007 and the capture of major players in the Sheibani group.

General Petraeus outlined Iranian Qods Force's involvement with the February 20 attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, which led to the aborted kidnapping and subsequent murder of five U.S. soldiers. Qods Force armed, trained, and advised the Qazili network, which carried out the attack. U.S. forces detained several senior leaders of the Qazili network, and captured a "22-page memorandum on a computer that detailed the planning, preparation, approval process and conduct of the operation that resulted in five of our soldiers being killed in Karbala," said Gen. Petraeus.

Petraeus also discussed the Sheibani network, "which brings explosively formed projectiles into Iraq from Iran," as well as other deadly weapons from Iran. A senior leader of the network was detained by U.S. forces. An American military intelligence official informs us the Sheibani network is one of Qods Force's foreign networks in Iraq, just as Hezbollah is an Iranian arm in Lebanon.

This latest news of Iranian complicity in the Shia insurgency came as the U.S. announced the capture of Abn Al-Hadi Al-Iraqi, a senior al Qaeda operative responsible for coordinating al Qaeda's networks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran. Abd Al-Hadi was captured crossing the border from Iran into Iraq. He was a major in Saddam's Army, ran al Qaeda training camps, was a military commander in Pakistan and Afghanistan, set up Zarqawi's network in Iraq along with Saif al Adel, who was in Iranian custody at the time, and served on al Qaeda's senior military and political shura, or councils. Abd Al-Hadi was reported to have been captured sometime late in 2006.

U.S. and Iraqi security forces have been pressing hard against al Qaeda's network nationwide. A single raid against a "constellation" of targets over the weekend resulted in the capture of 72 al Qaeda operatives. Coalition forces killed Abu Abd al-Satter, a senior al Qaeda leader during a raid northwest of Baghdad on April 20. Satter is described as "a known al-Qaeda terrorist leader known to operate in Karmah and Ameriyah areas and was the al-Qaeda in Iraq Security Emir of the eastern Anbar Province." Satter's car bomb cell "used 12- to 13-year-old children as VBIED drivers" to conduct its attacks.

Multinational Forces Iraq still has two infantry brigades to deploy in support of the Baghdad Security Plan. Three have already deployed, and the fourth, the 4th Special Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division (Strykers) was reported to have entered Iraq in mid April, however there has been a reporting blackout on any information on the brigade. General Petraeus and the Iraqi government have made some positive moves in the tenweeks since the kickoff of the Baghdad security Plan. However, he cautions it is still too soon to draw definitive conclusions. The proper time to make a preliminary assessment will be in September. But, increasingly, the war is being fought in the halls Congress. Senior politicians have declared the war lost, and the delay in the supplemental funding bill is preventing the training of the Iraqi Army. It would behoove the Bush administration and the Department of Defense to speed up the deployment of the remaining U.S. combat brigades into Iraq to smash al Qaeda's sanctuary in Diyala but a lack of political support at home is likely to hamper any such effort.

DJ Elliott and CJ Radin also contributed to this report.