Battle of Wills

Whenever nefarious characters have heavy influence or control within a given population, they maintain their power by preying off of the weak. If, at some point, the leadership within the terrorized population decides they are fed up with this behavior, they have no choice but to brace themselves for conflict.

For four nights now, there have been riots in the suburbs of Paris. Here is the story so far:

Police clashed with angry youths in a Paris suburb for the fourth straight night, police sources said on Monday, with accusations over the use of teargas in a mosque set to exacerbate the situation further.

Six police officers were slightly injured after being hit by projectiles, the sources said.

Eleven people were arrested after the violence in which eight cars and 16 rubbish bins were torched, said departmental security spokesperson Jean-Luc Sidot.

The violence was originally triggered when two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, died by electrocution on Thursday after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and fell against a transformer.

The local public prosecutor said the boys wrongly thought they were being chased by police - based on questioning of a 21-year-old man who was with them and survived the electrocution.

In looking for a "root cause" to this mess, here are several reports from different sources:

News 24:

Crime policies behind tensions

Tough new French anti-crime policies are partly to blame for riots that gripped a Paris suburb at the weekend, after the accidental deaths of two teenagers who thought they were under police chase, the opposition and rights campaigners said on Sunday.

Described by the main police union as "guerrilla" violence, the nights of rioting came a week after France's fiery interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, vowed to wage a "war without mercy" on crime in the suburbs of Paris.

Critics say Sarkozy's tough talk is feeding tensions between youths and the police while failing to cut crime in run-down suburbs, high-immigration areas facing chronic poverty, unemployment and a lack of prospects.

CNN:

Sarkozy, whose law and order policies have been criticized by human rights groups, made his name by cutting crime figures during his first stint as interior minister from 2002 to 2004.

The popular minister returned to the job in May and has continued to be outspoken, provoking criticism from opposition politicians who say he has made things worse.

Laurent Fabius, a former Socialist prime minister and also a potential presidential candidate in 2007, said the Clichy violence marked a failure for Sarkozy and mocked his frequent visits to such areas.

"When he announces that he's going to visit such and such a commune or suburb every week, that's not how we resolve those problems," Fabius said on Europe 1 radio.

"We need to act at the same time on prevention, repression, education, housing, jobs ... and not play the cowboy."

BBC:

Local people in Clichy have accused Mr Sarkozy of heightening tensions by using inflammatory language.

During Saturday's march in memory of the dead teenagers, there were calls for the government to tackle discrimination against immigrant communities such as theirs.

Mr Sarkozy told police on Monday that "for 30 years the situation has been getting worse in a number of neighbourhoods".

"It's not a story that's three days, three weeks or three months old," he said.

Reuters UK gives us a little further look into the neighborhoods that are the center of these conflicts:

Police sources said the situation seemed to have calmed down in Clichy-sous-Bois, a neighbourhood of high-rise public housing projects, but they urged caution.

"It is like a dormant volcano. It could erupt again any time, but in general these kinds of riots don't last longer than 48 hours," said a police source who had been at the scene during the riots on Thursday night.

Many northeastern suburbs, where immigrants and families from poor backgrounds live in Soviet-style housing estates, have become notorious for youth violence.

In June, an 11-year old boy was killed by a stray bullet in the northern area of La Courneuve. The eastern suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine made headlines in 2002 when a 17-year old girl was set alight by an 18-year-old boy whose friends stood nearby.

The latest riots occurred days after Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy launched an offensive against crime this month, ordering specially trained police to tackle 25 tough neighbourhoods in cities across France.

"There are some gangs and traffickers who are living off the underground economy, off drug traffic, who think that these neighbourhoods are outside the authorities' reach," Sarkozy told TF1 television on Sunday.

"There is no reason why compatriots living in these neighbourhoods, the poorest ones, don't have a right to safety, too," he said, vowing to visit a sensitive neighbourhood each week and to publish monthly figures on urban violence.

The minister, who has stated his ambition to run for president in 2007, will meet the victims' families on Monday.

The tough-talking Sarkozy, whose law and order policies have been criticised by human rights groups, made his name by cutting headline crime figures during his first stint as interior minister from 2002 to 2004.

The situation in Paris is quite clear: there are young, angry and organized, mostly-Muslim men that are ruling their neighborhoods through violence and intimidation. These activities were tolerated, as they often are, for long periods of time as this behavior was localized. Sarkozy, a Presidential hopeful in 2007, has seen the opportunity to deal with not just localized crime, but a problem that is a microcosm of a pandemic that has been spreading across France and even Europe as a whole--the problem of large portions of unassimilated, poor Muslim populations maintaining their meager living off of state-funding, but also through crime.

Sarkozy has opened Pandora's box, and opinions that his tough on crime policies are partly to blame for the riots is true. But conflict (in this case, violent conflict) is the inevitable result of dealing with ruthless armed gangs who maintain their control by preying on the weak within their sphere of influence.

Sarkozy is leading the battle in just one part of the world where radical Islamism needs to be fought. This is no longer just about al-Qaeda or Sunnis or Shiites, this is a world-wide battle that is occurring where the world must demonstrate that it will no longer cow to threats and intimidation by those following an ideology that is being directly and forcefully confronted to live peacefully with its neighbors.

Now is not the time to tread lightly, or sensitively. The more we "tolerate" acts of crime, intimidation and terror, the deeper these dubious characters will be able sink their teeth into our free world. Not only do they rely on their subjects' weakness, they need for the rest of the world to roll over, blame itself and continually apologize for problems caused by them.

The free-world rose to the occassion in World War II, when they dug in their heels and successfully resisted Fascism and we finished the fight by standing up to communism for the next 50-years. Now, the free-world is being asked yet again to stand-up for itself against those that ultimately seek their demise. Just as the battle for Europe was far from decided after a successful, but bloody battle for the beaches of Normandy, our future in the fight against terror remains uncertain.

One thing that is certain, however, is that there will be conflict and it will not go away through avoidance.

Eric Johnson at The Independent: San Francisco

Tonight I was able to see a guitar player that has influenced me since I was a little rug-rat. Eric Johnson played the Independent in San Francisco and brought a flood of memories back, and demonstrated that year later he is still taking the guitar to new levels.

Back when I was in 8th grade, a friend of mine gave me a tape of Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover". Sitting in the back of Spanish class, my jaw, which had still not been touched by a razor, hit it the floor with a thud and drool spilled everywhere. What was coming out of my headphones was not an ordinary catchy tune, or a brief flash of brilliance--it was as if something devine was speaking through a beat-up Fender Stratocaster, shot through a Marshall stack. (Click the link to hear the clip).

A few months later, I found that Eric was playing in Tucson (where I lived at the time), but the show was in South Tucson--not exactly a place for a couple of 8th grade white boys, but my mom and dad drove us there, dropped us off, gave us a gun and told us to hold us to watch out for a guy that calls himself Sanchez.

The night was uneventful, except for Eric sending screaming tones from his Strat. We stood right in front of him, watching in awe, a guitar player that was able to get so much from his guitar. When he played "Cliffs of Dover", I resolved that I would learn that song inside and out even though at the time, I was barely able to play a few chords without some serious sweat.

Eric's output over the subsequent years had been minimal. Eric is a bit obsessive compulsive, and cannot stand something that is not quite perfect (he can tell the difference between different batteries that power his effects pedals). However, that didn't keep my friends and family from having to put up with endless renditions of "Cliffs of Dover" (ask Kyle, "Cliffs of Dover" came out of my guitar so many times in college, we thought of calling Eric up to share with the rent).

Studying Eric taught me the necessity of touch, feel and tone. I realized that you can get so many different tones out of the guitar either by plucking, picking or tapping notes in different positions. This isn't too groundbreaking, but being able to put it into a context that is interesting and heartfelt is. Tone became my obsession, as I would stay up in my room, with the amp turned off, just playing a single note for hours over and over, just to understand how it felt to play it with different vibrato, picking, tapping, feeling and stength.

Anyway, tonight I was able to catch Eric playing in a rather small venue, not too unlike the one that I saw him in 15 years ago, and he delivered another stunning performance. Of course, "Cliffs of Dover" was amazing, but he also played "Desert Rose" with a passion and fury that was nothing short of magical.

Eric is able to make his music float in a way unlike anyone I've ever heard to this day. If the Devil had a guitar tone, it would probably sound like George Lynch, however, if God picked up his axe and started to play, he might sound pretty close to Eric.

UPDATE: I must have been tired last night. Clearly if the Devil had a guitar tone, it would sound like Robert Johnson, NOT George Lynch. Sheesh, its like I am obsessed with 80's metal or something.

I'm off to grow my mullet.

European Policy Journal

Not much from me today. It is a gorgeous day and I am going to Golden Gate Park to slack-line with some friends.

In the meantime, Marc Schulman emailed me a great new (and FREE!) Europe-wide Policy Journal. Check it out, and I'm sure that we'll be pulling some good stuff from there in the future.

Happy Sunday, oh and Dave, GO GIANTS!

Indiana - Michigan State

It has been drizzling all morning, and I've tortured myself trying to listen to the Indiana/Michigan State game for the last few hours.

Man, Indiana is just plain bad. How can you win a game when you allow the other team to run the opening kickoff for a touchdown, throw two interceptions and a fumble while you are in the red-zone, arm tackle every single ball carrier, and then get your extra-point blocked then ran back for a two-point conversion?

I've got a lot of faith in the new coach, but it is going to take years to recruit enough Big 10 quality players to compete. We have one quality player in WR James Hardy, but that is it...

There is only one real shot to win another game this year against Purdue, but I'm seeing blowout city for the rest of the year against Minnesota and Michigan.

Is it basketball season yet?

More stuff coming up, I am going to relax a bit today...

Friday Post

Halloween weekend is such a blast. There are always tons of parties, and in a zany place like San Francisco, people take their Halloween seriously.

Tonight's nasty little soirée is going to be a high school theme. In deciding my costume, I have found that there are a hundred people doing different characters from the 80's high school movies and there were going to be some "naughty school girl" costumes displayed. I then decided that it is really hard to pick up on naughty school girls when you have a bra on your head dressed like Gary from Weird Science.

So, I am opting for something cool, and hopefully off the radar. I'm going as Jim Stark (James Dean) from Rebel Without a Cause. The only thing I have to buy is the pack of cigarettes for $24 (Thanks Bill!).

Anyway, speaking of cool (or more accurately, the complete opposite of cool), today I was walking to work when I notice my shoe was untied. At the same time, I had the Godfather, James Brown, playing some funk in my inner ear through my iPod. Trying to keep in beat, I bent down to tie my shoe, and one of my ear phones popped out. Since I was walking on the streets of San Francisco, I didn't want it to fall on the ground where it was a high probability that at some point someone had peed there. So I grabbed the hanging ear piece and put it in my mouth while I tied my shoe.

I got up, looking cool as someone could possibly be who is jammin' to some James Brown, and I put the ear piece back in my ear...

...and it was wet.

I had given myself a Wet Willy. Some young vixen that was walking towards me saw the whole thing, saw the sour look on my face as my ear turned moist from my own saliva, and busted out laughing.

James Dean would be rolling over in his grave...

- Happy Weekend -

One Last Time

Here is, as Charles Johnson would say, a last grim milestone post. My digital camera is shot, so I am going to have to go with the verbal description today.

Last night I was walking home after getting my ears pulled back, and I happened to walk right into the "candle-light vigil" that was being held across the street from City Hall to exploit honor the 2,000 soldiers who have fallen in Iraq. Being generous, there were maybe a hundred people there with their candles, signs, and posters. Some of the posters contained pictures of soldiers faces that spelled out the word "2,000", some just said Peace, and others said things like "The Pentagon is Just Terrorism with a Bigger Budget." Every poster was made out of black cardboard.

This rally didn't go unnoticed. There were four news vans out covering a hundred people, who if you have been seeing the posters and stickers filling the city telling people to come to this event, didn't exactly form spontaneously. The cameras were focused on a group of people that were bunched together to make the crowd look bigger than it was. I can get 200 people to show up to an empty warehouse in the middle of Oakland if I promise free beer.

Someone was handing out flyers giving directions to an "afterparty". That's right, and afterparty to "celebrate" the deaths of our troops.

As I started to walk away, I saw a lady holding a poster with images of coffins draped with American flags. Normally I would just walk away, but this one struck me as it was a picture of real coffins of real soldiers who were killed in Iraq. Being for the war, this picture should be a sober reminder of the price to be paid for my arguments and actions in its favor. The effect this poster had was tremendous to me, but not in the way this protester would have hoped. This is only one variable in the equation; there are others as well.

Here is my retort in images (WARNING - Graphic Pictures below):

This sacrifice...

...is so that this...

...doesn't happen again. To be replaced by this...

Put into context, it is the same as this:

This sacrifice...

...in order to stop this...

...from ever happening again.

Freedom from tyranny cannot be bought cheaply.

Objectively Pro-Fascist

Public pressure against the war is supposidly mounting:

Protesters across the United States took part in hundreds of vigils and rallies on Wednesday to mark the 2,000th U.S. military death in Iraq, hoping to increase pressure on President George W. Bush to start bringing troops home.

Anti-war activists said their movement was rapidly growing in strength and now spoke for a majority of Americans who now thought Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was a mistake.

Who is speaking for this rapidly growing movement?

"We're seeing rapid changes in public opinion in favour of ending the war and bringing back the troops and it's beginning to be reflected in Congress," said Phyllis Bennis of the anti-war Institute for Policy Studies.

"The anti-war position is no longer held exclusively for activists. It is beginning to give voice to the majority in this country," she said.

First, here is a description one of the objectives of the Institue for Policy Studies, under "About Us":

The projects of the Peace and Security Cluster seek to make the U.S. a more responsible global leader and global partner. Foreign Policy In Focus, a collaboration with the Interhemispheric Resource Center, offers policymakers and journalists ready analysis of breaking world events. The New Internationalism project offers an unflinching progressive voice on UN and Middle East affairs.

Phyllis Bennis heads up the New Internationalism Project. Below are the aims of the Project. It is a long excerpt, but please read it in detail--it is a doozy:

Since 1996, IPS has been working in the U.S. and in various international venues towards the broad goal of crafting a new kind of UN-centered, democratic and people-based internationalism. The project's work is in three major areas: the fight for peace with justice in the Middle East, defense of the United Nations against U.S. domination, and the challenge to U.S. unilateralism and military interventionism, especially in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Directed by IPS Fellow Phyllis Bennis, the project works closely with a number of partner organizations both in the U.S. and abroad.

MIDDLE EAST PEACE WITH JUSTICE

This project works primarily on two issues: Iraq and Palestine/Israel. In both arenas the project focuses on education and activism regarding the problems caused by failed and failing U.S. policies, and how those policies should be retooled to meet the goal of a comprehensive peace with justice, rather than an unequal imposed stability.

IRAQ - Bennis has been working on the issue of the aftermath of the U.S. war against Iraq since the Gulf crisis began in 1990. Much of her work has focused on opposing economic sanctions, which continue to devastate the Iraqi population while having little impact on the regime, while simultaneously working to oppose the on-going U.S. military strikes against Iraq. At the U.S. policy level, the call is to delink economic from military sanctions: ending all economic sanctions, and redefining military sanctions to focus on arms suppliers, primarily the U.S. and its allies, and on a regional arms control regime rather than solely focusing on Iraq. The project is also in the forefront of the national and international challenge to the Bush administration's threat of a new war.

In early 1999 Bennis participated with former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday in a six-week, 22-city speaking tour sponsored by seven national peace, Arab-American and faith-based organizations, aimed at building opposition to economic sanctions (www.afsc.org/iraqhome.htm ). She testified, with Halliday and others, in several congressional hearings on the same issues. And in August 1999 she accompanied the first group of U.S. Congressional staffers to Iraq, to report back to their bosses on the impact of U.S. policy in Iraq: on the humanitarian crisis facing Iraqi civilians and on the effect of depleted uranium. (Read the Report from Congressional Staffers' 1999 trip to Iraq.)

The project works closely with members of the Black and Progressive Caucus of Congress and their staff, including those who traveled to Iraq, in educational work aimed at ending economic sanctions, and most urgently, work aimed at preventing a catastrophic U.S. war against Iraq.

Bennis travels frequently for speaking engagements at universities and community, church, and peace organizations across the country and abroad. Op-eds and other articles from the Project appear frequently in numerous U.S. and international newspapers and magazines (see www.merip.org) and Bennis is a regular guest on numerous television and radio programs. The project is a co-sponsor of the National Iraq Task Force, and participates in most of the national anti-sanctions campaigns in the U.S.

PALESTINE - The Project's work is based on a commitment to ending Israel's occupation and realizing Palestinian national rights, including the right to an independent and viable state. The three areas include U.S. policy towards the Palestinians, Europe's role in the Middle East peace process, and the role of the UN and international law.

Early Project work has included holding a conference on alternatives to a "two-state" solution for Palestinian nationalism, including Palestinian scholars and analysts from the West Bank and Gaza, as well as numerous U.S. Palestinian and American counterparts.

U.S. POLICY - From the time of the collapse of the Camp David talks and the beginning of the "second intifada" in September 2000, Bennis was involved in discussions and analysis about the central role of U.S. policy in the Palestine-Israel conflict. Those discussions and analysis (see Strategy Paper - "A Memo on Palestine & the U.S., on Palestinians & Americans") led to the creation of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. Bennis now serves as co-chair of the Campaign steering committee. The Project is also part of the steering committee of the new UN-based international coordinating committee of NGOs on Palestine.

Other Project work in this arena also includes speaking (in venues including the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, numerous universities, and conferences throughout the U.S.) and writing in a number of magazines and newspapers. Bennis has worked with members of the Progressive Caucus of Congress to arrange appearances before Congress of Yasir Arafat and other Palestinian leaders. The Project is a member of the North American Coordinating Committee of NGOs working on the Palestine question, and Bennis served as a special analyst for the NACC in examining major developments such as the Madrid process, the Oslo Accords, the Wye River Memorandum, etc. Project work also challenges Israeli settlements and U.S. reluctance to challenge the illegality of settlement policy. Bennis played a major role in 1998's successful campaign to urge Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream to end their contract with a settler company.

EUROPE'S ROLE - This work focuses on increasing European participation in Middle East diplomacy, and urging Europe to challenge more directly U.S. control of the diplomatic process. Bennis addressed the European Parliament in Brussels on this issue, and has written and spoken widely in European venues and European media. The Project works closely with partners in Europe, particularly at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, and TNI fellows based in Germany, Brussels, the UK and Spain, to create collaborations dealing with Europe's alternative approaches to Israel-Palestine diplomacy.

UN & INTERNATIONAL LAW - The focus is on maintaining the primacy of international law and UN resolutions in Middle East policy, against U.S. efforts to deny the relevance or undermine the significance of them. The project works with civil society organizations as well as government officials from UN member states to build support for new United Nations initiatives to reclaim the diplomatic center on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This means including all pertinent UN resolutions as relevant to Middle East diplomacy. Bennis has been a featured speaker about the primacy of the UN role in Israel-Palestine diplomacy at UN conferences on Palestine, in venues including Madrid, Toronto, New Delhi, Prague, Athens, New York, Paris and elsewhere.
Earlier Project campaigns included work with the Center for Economic & Social Rights (www.cesr.org) to pressure the U.S. to recognize the legitimacy of the 4th Geneva Convention's applicability to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, through participation (which the U.S. rejected) in the 1999 international conference of signatories to the Convention.

UNITED NATIONS - This area of the Project's work challenges U.S. domination of the United Nations, and works to maintain the centrality of the UN in international diplomacy. Bennis' 2000 book, Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today's UN (contact www.interlinkbooks.com) continues to be used both for university classes and as a background primer for activists wanting to support the UN. She speaks often in both university and political settings on this issue, and her writings appear in a wide variety of journals and books. The Project also supports campaigns aimed at forcing the U.S. to pay its back dues and peacekeeping arrears to the United Nations, and related issues of UN legitimacy and primacy.
The Project's Iraq work overlaps with the United Nations arena, through the effort to challenge how the UN itself has been made a victim of U.S. policy towards Iraq. That includes focusing on the illegality of U.S.-British unilaterally-imposed "no fly zones" in Iraq, and on the illegality of U.S. decision-making regarding Iraq policy that routinely ignores the central role of the UN. This area has taken on new resonance with the Bush administration's preparation for war in Iraq based on a combination of sidelining and undermining the role of the UN, which should be the central decision-making actor in the Iraq crisis.

AFTER SEPTEMBER 11th: U.S. UNILATERALISM & INTERVENTIONISM -- This area of the Project's work challenges the growing unilateralist tendencies of U.S. foreign policy. Begun during the Clinton administration to challenge the sidelining of the UN and reliance on NATO to justify the bombing of Yugoslavia, the defense of internationalism and international law has become even more urgent with the Bush administration's assertion of preemption as a legitimate strategic option. The Project works with many organizations, including those such as Families for Peaceful Tomorrow and others made up of families of victims of the September 11th attacks, saying "not in our name" to the Bush administration's "anti-terrorism" war. With the 2002 moves towards official U.S. embrace of unilateralism and the right of pre-emptive strikes, and the Bush administration efforts to undermine the legitimacy and integrity of the United Nations, the Project is working with national and international coalitions to prevent war in Iraq, and to restore the UN to its appropriate role. Bennis' newest book, Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis, published in September 2002, analyzes the legacies of unilateralism, and dissects what changed and what did not with the September 11th 2001 attacks.
Earlier the Project was involved in the national coalition efforts to challenge U.S. intervention in Yugoslavia and Iraq, and Bennis is a frequent speaker and writer on the "laws of empire" that now govern U.S. definitions of international law. Bennis has also testified in Congress on the illegality of NATO's attack on Yugoslavia.

In doing a piece on public pressure to "end the War" that we didn't actually start in the first place, Reuters quotes a woman responsible for organizing a "project" that actively promotes some of the most anti-American vitriol one could possibly display.

Let's just call this marking the protesters. The media would have you believe that these protesters are representative of average citizens fed up with the War, but a little Googling around will often show you that these people are professional protesters trying to further their one agenda: bringing the United States to its knees.

Hmmm, that wouldn't be objectively pro-fascist would it?

More Bad Journalism

The U.S. Ambassador to Iraq said:

"I do believe it's possible that we could adjust our forces, downsizing them in the course of next year. That's possible given the positive political developments and continuing growth in the capabilities of the Iraqi forces," Khalilzad said.

However, Reuters continues to push their symbolic, and not actual, setbacks, started with the following:

President George W. Bush's envoy to Iraq predicted on Wednesday that some U.S. troops may be pulled out of Iraq over the next year, a day after the grim news broke that 2,000 Americans had been killed in the war.

And a few paragraphs down they continue, in case you missed it the first time:

Increasing the pressure on Bush was the news on Tuesday that 2,000 U.S. troops had now died in Iraq.

So, do you believe me when I claim they are obsessed with their own self-importance in recognizing symbolism yet?

Media Problems

Yesterday, an old friend left a good comment below my follow-up post about the suicide attack on the Palestinian Hotel in Bagdad. BergBruder writes:

I recently heard a comment from Oli North that one of the main problems with the American media's recent coverage of the War On Terror (in Iraq) is that the cost of keeping journalists embedded is very high. Consequetly, not one American news company has maintained embedded journalists throughout the war. I remember the early days of the war when the coverage was good, when every news channel had their own embedded journalists, when the coverage made you feel like you were a part of what was going on over there--when it made you feel connected. It's unfortunate that the recent attack on the Hotel Palestine happened when it did as Fox News (and others, I would presume) was planning to revive their efforts at embedded journalism by sending their people into the field as early as this week. Yes, the terrorists know what they are doing. The good news is that we are going to win this war, with or without an Iraqi democracy. I, for one, hope it is with an Iraqi democracy but the media must do their part. Watch for the new reports from embedded journalists in the following weeks!

Very interesting observation. This seems consistent with a narrative and description of the logistics required to be an embed by Michael Yon, a freelance independent writer who was embedded with Deuce-Four in Mosul:

People who wonder about the limited number of reporters on the ground in Iraq probably think it's the danger that keeps many away. This certainly is true for some. For others, the persuasive problems are more practical: the expenses can be severe. There's expense associated with planning and applying for the embed. There is specialized gear to be purchased: protective equipment alone can cost thousands of dollars per person, and even in peaceful times, the desert climate is still extremely hard on electronic equipment. Getting to the Middle East requires a long, expensive flight. And the Hilton that came so highly recommended also came with a high room rate: $590 for a room that would have been worth maybe $150 in Florida. There was nothing to drink in the room, but the front desk offered to send up two bottles of water for about $23. There was no internet cable in the room. For $590 per night, a guest shouldn't have to pay for water, or call for an internet cable. For that kind of money, there should be a helipad on the roof. (The next night I got a room at the same Hilton for closer to $200, and negotiated the first room down.)

Read the rest and definitely read through the rest of Michael's site. He has provided for himself with expenses out of his own pocket to produce the closest and most intellegent reporting on the War in Iraq to date.

I'd also like to add that I think journalists also suffer from a severe lack of military or general historical knowledge. I don't think that it is quite enough to "get experience" in country--it is key that if one is going to report to the world what is happening on the ground in Iraq, it would require a more than just a basic understanding of the military and somewhere to put reporting into context. Even then, most journalists lack the basics.

For instance, there are numerous examples of reports where reporters makes egregious claims, and then try to further their agenda based on fallacy. Here is a perfect example where COUNTERCOLUMN caught Wolf Blitzer pitching a doozy back in August:

Now I remember why I don't have a TV.

I was in the lunch room at work today, right before coming home, and Wolf Blitzer was on, talking to some retired general about the incident in which 14 marines were killed by 1 IED.

The general was trying to make the point that the IED was a "monster IED," and a shaped charge IED at that, and that it is not even clear that a Bradley or even an M1 Abrams tank crew could have survived that particular blast at that range.

The marines, apparently, were riding in a LAV or similar armored fighting vehicle:

The explosion flipped the 31-ton troop carrier over and caused it to burst into flames. It was not immediately clear how many of the marines had died from the explosion or from the flames.

That's right. The explosion flipped a 31-ton APC.

And what is Wolf Blitzer's argument? That the military didn't provide good vehicles in the Al Anbar Province. And that -- and I quote verbatim, -- "an up-armored Humvee would have stood a better chance."

Do the math. If the explosion flipped vehicle weight 31 tons (plus another ton and a half or so of marines and gear), then what are the survivability chances of a 4-ton uparmored Humvee?

I'll tell you:

Anything left of the Humvee would have been parked in Syria, dumbass.

The retired general was being too diplomatic to tell Blitzer he was being a moron, but Blitzer kept pressing the point. "I'm very disappointed that we don't have the good vehicles in the Al Anbar province," he says. "It's a very sensitive issue for me, because I was there in March.

Yeah, Wolf. How was the ride to the hotel?

This is the kind of dimwittery posing as military analysis in the media.

Essentially, the media is sitting at the bottom of a really big hole. They are ill-trained, unexperienced, and ideology challenged. Unfortunately, what they do have is a big mouth and are complete uninhibited about shoving crap down our throats that could barely muster a D-minus grade, on a curve of course, in a Freshman Year Sociology course.

Real Progress - Real Victory

Marc Schulman:

At 4:02 PM EDT, the AP announced that 2,000 members of the US military have now been killed in Iraq.

Brace yourself. The onslaught from the Left will now begin.

The Left has been unable to provide any real options or solutions since the beginning of this conflict which started on September 11th, 2001. Skeptical of Afghanistan, the U.S. Military led a Coalition that tossed the medieval Taliban out of power within weeks, just as the word "quagmire" was being uttered from their lips. They now have a democratically elected government, and have represented the more peaceful front in the War on Terror.

Iraq, when viewed against Afghanistan, has been much more problematic. This is predominantly due to the very nature of the previous regime's control over Iraq and its strategic location and influence in relation to the remaining terror supporting regimes in the region. Even those who supported the most optimistic of post invasion assessments, which didn't clearly anticipate a large scale insurgency that would fight this hard, were willing to abandon it when the going got tough. The Administration and the U.S. Military, regardless of earlier preconceptions that ran the gamut, buckled down and resolved to fight it out to the best way they knew how: they innovated, improvised and built their policy around empowering the Iraqis.

The media, who has the mouthpiece, has been able to frame the public debate over the results of the war. They implicitly claim that positive results are only those with zero defects. They do not and have not been able to grasp that military campaigns like Afghanistan and Desert Storm are the exception rather than the rule. The fact that Operation Iraqi Freedom has demanded a bigger price in blood and resources versus the previous examples is not the result of ineptitude or "bad planning." It has to do with the very nature of the conflict: Operation Iraqi Freedom is the crux where the United States meets the fascist and terrorist supporters to gain the clear upperhand going into the future of this war. The enemy we face is determined, intellegent, cold-blodded, wholly ruthless and have decided that they will fight to the death in Iraq. No amount of additional troops or tactical fighting will change that we were going to have to spill our own blood in order to fight it out.

Now, war opponents would argue that this is why we shouldn't have gone into Iraq. I argue that this is precisely why we should have. The battle between the Radical Islam and its opponents is an historical inevitability. Our leadership has been smart enough to realize this, and with great courage and political risk, decided it would rather this fight occur on our terms versus another blantant provocation equal to or greater than September 11th. However, the Islamic Radicals' strategy is pinned on the skeptics view that we will do anything, including bugging out of a clearly, strategically advantageous position, to avoid casualties.

The United States has worked miracles in Iraq. Shifting from a lightening-quick strike force which crushed the strongest army in the region for the second time in a decade, to an occupying force under the watchful eyes of a dubious and even treacherous world-eye, has yielded much slower, but clearly substantive progress. The U.S. decided that the only recipe for success was to empower the Iraqi people to take their country back from the murderers and thugs that previously ran it, while in turn combating the even more blood thirsty murderers who allied with them. This was done militarily (training a Security Force), politically (elections) and civily (reconstruction of infrastructure).

Going back to my first sentence, I claimed the Left has been unable to produce any viable and real solutions to our problems. They have done nothing but snipe and snap the whole way. Here are just a few of the major examples.

The First Elections were Illegitimate - The Left claimed the Sunnis were "disenfranchised" so they didn't participate and thus rendered the results illegitimate. However, after months and months of negotiations, the Sunnis came to the political table for the first time, "coincidentally" at around the time that the Iraqi Security Forces, in combination with U.S. troops, were securing terrorist and insurgent strongholds in Western Iraq. The security situation has improved, and the fact that the Iraqi Forces have demonstrated that they are capable of fighting against their oppressors, has caused many to look to the political situation for results.

The Second Election and Civil War - The Left claims the Sunnis have too much blood on their hands to live peacefully with the Kurds and Shiites and, ideologically, none of these people are capable of getting along. Additionally, the Left continues, the Sunnis voted against the Constitution and won't support it. Although it remains to be seen if their ideologies can coexists without a strongman at the top, the signs towards stability have certainly been encouraging. Moderate voices are being heard, and although the predominantly Sunni areas voted against the Constitution, they all became part of the political process and voted.

Look at how many people voted with fervent passion against George Bush in the last election -- regardless of the threats people made, there wasn't a mass exodus to Canada, nor were there any serious threats of secession (even in San Francisco!). Many people around the world have learned to live with political disappointment, and the signs in Iraq are promising, but ultimately, we'll have another litmus test to see how the Sunnis respond to the political process in the January parlimentary elections.

Iraq has a constitution, a strengthening and functioning governing body, better security, and an enemy that is being beaten internally and externally. The enemy is not in its "last throes," they're too suicidal, determined and blood thirsty to count them out yet. But, my examples are real and tangible victories, while the Left will continue to point to "symbolic" and arbitrary setbacks such as "2,000 Dead Milestone." Regardless of the news reports that constantly shout doom and gloom, the 2,000 members of our military will be remembered for the valor and courage it took to hunker down and bring freedom to people under the upturned nose of a large amount of the world didn't think they deserved it.

And to that, I can only say "thank you."

--------

Here are some more well written essays by some friends that put the sacrifice of 2,000 of our soldiers into perspective. If you see any others you like, email them to me, or post them in the comments and I'll put them on the main page.

The Colossus: The 2000 - Part 1

Jayne Doodles: Milestones

Bet I Can Throw This Football Over 'Dem Mountains

I'll have comments on the 2,000 man mark tonight, but in the meantime how about a little change of pace: something to make you laugh...

Attack on the Hotel Palestine

Ian Wood made this comment yesterday about the attack on the Hotal Palestine in Bagdad yesterday:

Actually, they're attacking the hotel because that's where the journalists are. They know that half this war, or more, is being waged in the American media.

By attacking the journalists' "home base," they believe that they'll produce a new wave of "Things Are Going Badly" slant from journalists who feel personally endangered and who routinely let their personal attitudes and situations color their reporting. And they're probably right.

The reporters won't see that because 1) they believe they're unbiased and 2) they suffer from the arrogance of the overeducated, which won't allow them to believe that the terrorist enemy has a grasp of media warfare.

The media already thinks that Iraq is full of idiots that are incapable of governing themselves, as even the "morons" in the flyover states can pull off democracy. If they don't think they are sophisticated enough to do that, then how can these "savages" be sophisticated enough to understand something as complex and thought provoking as journalism?

Your points 1) and 2) answer my rhetorical questions.

If it wasn't so dangerous, I'd say it could be mildly entertaining to watch the media get used like a handywipe in a peepshow. Unfortunately they are being used by a bunch of murdering, terrorist bastards, so I don't exactly find it funny.

Iraq Adopts Constitution

QUAGMIRE! IRAQ IS A...

...place that just democratically adopted her first Constitution written by democratically elected officials.

Officials said Tuesday that a majority of Iraqi voters have adopted the country's draft constitution.

Results released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq show Sunni Arabs who opposed the draft document failed to produce enough votes to defeat it.

The constitution is considered another major step in the country's democratic transformation. It clears the way for the election of a new Iraqi parliament on Dec. 15.

QUAGMIRE!

Apparently Cindy! is going to tape herself to the White House fence in protest.

Like I said, follow her right off the cliff.

Symbolic Victory?

Today, the insurgents attacked the Hotel Palestine in Bagdad. This is the Hotel where a large number of journalists stay while covering the war in Iraq. Here is the meaning of the attack from journalists perspective:

[Headline]Briefing: hotel bombing a coup for insurgency [Subheading]Stephen Farrell, Middle East correspondent for The Times, explains why the attack on the Palestine Hotel is a symbolic victory for the insurgents

..."The hotel is also symbolic because it was from their that the old ministry of information used to give its briefings to the Iraqi people. During the closing days of Saddam's era, the roof of the Hotel Palestine was where 'Comical' Ali would hold some of his briefings.

"It was outside, in Paradise Square, that the statue of Saddam was toppled signifying the end of his rule.

"This would be a prize scalp for the insurgents; the next best thing to hitting the Green Zone - one of the highest profile American targets in Baghdad.

"My guess is that they were killing Iraqi soldiers, whom they consider to be collaborators, alongside American soldiers - and doing so on live TV."

I guess this war isn't about actual victories, it is about the symbolic ones. And, if it is about the symbolic, it has to be something the Left choses as their symbol. It wouldn't actually be a powerful symbol, like a large scale attack during an election, it would be an attack on a big building that harbors journalists. They define the symbol, you swallow.

Hate to tell you, Stephen Ferrell, but the Iraqis have been at the business end of a few more of these bombs than you have, and they probably won't be amused at the implicit symbolism you've assigned. Specifically, over 200,000 of them have signed up to defend their country from these murderers.

Pre-emptive Responses

Piggy-backing of my essay this morning, here is my first pre-emptive link to someone writing about the media's inevitable exploitation of the 2,000th soldier death in Iraq. This one comes from Ralph Peters:

WE'LL soon reach a total of 2,000 dead American troops in Iraq. You won't miss the day it happens. The media will pound it into you. But no one will tell you what that number really means — and what it doesn't.

Unable to convince the Bush administration or our troops to cut and run, the American left is waging its campaign of support for Islamist terror through our all-too-cooperative media. And you're the duck in the anti-war movement's shooting gallery.

Breathless anchors and voice-of-God columnists will suggest that 2,000 dead is an exorbitant price to pay in wartime, that reaching such a threshold means we've failed and that it's time to "support our troops and bring them home."

All lies. Certainly, the life of every American service member matters to us. But the left's attempt to exploit dead soldiers and Marines for partisan purposes is worse than grave-robbing: Ghouls only take gold rings and decaying flesh; the left wants to rob our war dead of their sacrifices and their achievements, their honor and their pride.

Those who died in Iraq have not died in vain. Even should Iraq fail itself in the end, our courageous effort to give one Middle-Eastern Muslim population a chance to create a rule-of-law democracy has been worth the cost — for their sake, but also for ours. Without a transformation of the Middle East, we shall see no end of terror.

Ralph adds some very useful historical perspective following this intro. Go read the rest of the article which only gets better.

*Via Security Watchtower

Dark Days for Who?

The media is already trying to set the stage for a HUGE LOSS! that the President is inevitably going to face:

Facing the darkest days of his presidency, President Bush is frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter, his associates say.

With a seemingly uncontrollable insurgency in Iraq, the White House is bracing for the political fallout from a grim milestone that could come any day: the combat death of the 2,000th American G.I.

Granted, this story comes from the NY Daily News, however it is representative of a rather large contingent of media folks who, for purely partisan political reasons, have yet to figure out that the war is actually being won.

Before I give evidence to the contrary, let me point out where they are heading with their reporting. All along the Left-leaning media has hid behind the canard that they want to pull the U.S. out of Iraq because they "support the troops." This fallacy erroneously gives the claimant the "moral highground," since they are the ones who really care about the troops, because they are opposing those that support a war that sends other people's children to die for oil, imperialism, middle-eastern popcorn, whatever.

So, the debate from their standpoint, can only involve emphasis on the deaths of our own. Nevermind that terrorists have taken to blowing up cars in the middle of packs of children. When a story is written about car bombs killing children, its focus is towards the ineptitude and inability of our troops (whom they support, remember?) to do anything to stop it. The "seemingly uncontrollable insurgency" is a monster of which the American paper tiger cannot contain. We can only sit back and watch these evil nihilists kill, kill and kill.

The media's intentions have been exposed, but does it doesn't a priori mean that the war is being won. What evidence can I bring to the table that supports my claim that the war is really been won?

Michael Yon, an independent reporter who has been writing about the battle against the insurgency in Mosul, reported on the Iraqi election that just occurred. He does not describe a picture through rose colored glasses:

I WAS IN BAQUBA during Iraq's January elections, having hitched a ride with the U.S. Army to a polling site. There were bombs exploding, mortars falling, and hot machine guns. The fact that the voting was going great despite the violence was something few people expected. Until that day, I'd been skeptical about Iraq. Not fashionably cynical, merely skeptical. We could all hear what President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and other elected leaders were saying, but they are politicians. We also could hear the end-of-the-Iraqi-world predictions by so many others. But nobody really knew what the Iraqi people had in mind, and the Iraqis were the people who counted most.

The millions who voted sent a message: Serpentine lines of ebullient Iraqis risked their lives--dozens died--to have a say in their futures. People who voted dipped their right index fingers into purple ink and cast their ballots. The image of Iraqis proudly holding their stained fingers aloft became a symbol for the success of the election. In Baquba, many voters asked me to photograph them as they left the polling places, all smiles and purple fingers.

The courage of the Iraqi people that January day planted a seed of confidence. These were not timid or cowering souls. There I was: an American alone in a dangerous Iraqi city, at the very polling site that soldiers were wagering would be bombed. One after another, Iraqis came and shook my hand, showing me their children, laughing, smiling, saying over and over, Thank you, thank you, thank you. I felt like an honored guest, and I felt a twinge of shame that I'd been less confident in the Iraqis than they were in themselves. The voice of the Iraqi people had risen above the clamor of insurgent violence.

What escapes the war skeptics is that courage can be displayed by a group of people that didn't land on the beaches of Normandy or Iwo Jima and, for that matter, by a group of people, whom most skeptics have argued on a continuum were either incapable of standing up to Saddam Hussein or were willing subjects of his tyrannical rule (See Michael Moore's depiction of Iraq in Fahrenheit 911 with children peacefully flying kites in Iraq pre-invasion). The same heroism that was displayed by the Allies in WWII, is the same brand of courage that is being demonstrated on multiple levels within Iraq, by the Iraqi people.

The Iraqi Security forces have surpassed the 200,000-man mark. The Iraqi security forces have been instrumental in the Western Iraqi campaign designed to choke the insurgency's supply routes from Syria into Bagdad. American troops strike quickly, knocking the terrorists off balance, while Iraqi troops enter and hold territory (mostly towns and cities). Key in this process is that as the Iraqi Forces have demonstrated to the populace that they are willing AND able to fight the blood-thirsty terrorists, tips revealing terrorist safe-houses and planned attacks have been flooding in.

This process has been happening for the better part of two-months now and the results have been tangible. Here Yon, in the same article linked above, demonstrates this and offers some much need perspective:

We left, drove here and there, and landed at a different unit: the 170th MPs from Fort Lewis. This unit was responsible for supporting 20 polling stations. Sergeant First Class Dilbert French mentioned some minor SIGACTS that were not worth jotting down. (SIGACT is military jargon for significant action; anything that significantly affects friendly or enemy forces.) "Is it like this all over Iraq?" I asked. I could hardly believe it. Where are the mortars? The IEDs? The homicide bombers and car bombs? No snipers? Surely the ground must be shaking in Falluja or Ramadi, and what about Mosul, Baquba, and Basra? What about Tal Afar? French checked the secure computer for all of Iraq. The whole country looked quiet. "The media is going to be very disappointed," chuckled one soldier, and I laughed along with him.

By 6:30 p.m., when we visited Arizona National Guardsmen serving as the 860th MPs, all was quiet except for a couple of rockets that exploded harmlessly in a field. Some of the 126th MPs from the New Mexico National Guard told us that two car bombs had exploded in the morning, but there were no known casualties, and if there had been casualties, they probably would have known. There was something special about the New Mexico National Guard. They seemed very proud, and they talked about one of their fallen, Sergeant Marshall Alan Westbrook, who had been killed by an IED just down the road two weeks before. They said that over 2,000 people had attended Sergeant Westbrook's funeral in Farmington, New Mexico. Some soldiers did not grasp the importance of this day in Iraq, but I had the feeling that the 126th did.

Unit after unit that we visited was proud that nothing was happening in their sector, and now that the polls were closed, it was just a matter of securing the ballots.

We then visited the 504th MP Battalion from Fort Lewis, who had a poster with detailed cartoon instructions on one of the doors: "Turn Your Hamster into a Fighting Machine." Basically, just tape a knife to its back. Mellinger burst out laughing and walked away, and I stood there laughing uncontrollably while reading the whole set of instructions.

We walked into the TOC--the tactical operations center--of the 504th, and the board was quiet. Nothing.

And that was it: 7:03 p.m. The four Humvees from the 42nd MPs drove away in the darkness, and we drove home. This was the finest, most complete mission I had ever gone on.

Next morning, I got information from the Army that there had been 19 attacks on polling sites throughout Iraq, and in January there had been 108. There may be some garble in the numbers (there usually is). There had actually been somewhere between 300 and 350 total attacks on the January election day. And the army would later say that there were 89 total attacks during the voting last week. Who knows? I know that it was quiet from my perch, and that the guns had been silenced long enough that we could hear the Iraqi voice speak for a second time. The voice was louder, stronger, and prouder than it had been in January.

Very few of us that have been supporting this war have thought this would be a bloodless affair. Many of us knew damn well that this was going to a hell of a fight. Granted, I didn't figure that it would be this long in duration, but more bloody during the initial invasion, but nonetheless, knew that it was going to be costly in good men and women.

The Left-leaning media has decided that the 2,000th body count marks a significant metric that proves Iraq has been the quagmire they have been barking about since U.S. troops were caught in a massive sandstorm during the initial invasion. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Once the American-led coalition shifted tactics to face the insurgency, they knew the only way to secure the country was to give it back to the people. Instead of sending another 100,000 troops, they began the slow and tedious process of training the Iraqi people to stand-up to these murderous terrorists themselves. We can fight the terrorists, but what good does that do if the Iraqi people are unable to fight?

The people, in turn, have risen to the occassion. They braved attacks to vote in January, and they continued to pour into the streets in greater numbers to vote a few weeks ago, under signficantly improved security provided mostly by their own people. This is not exactly the sign of a "seemingly endless insurgency." The insurgency has not been able to gain one strategic objective since the war began, more and more of them are ending up dead or behind bars, while the Americans are well on their way towards empowering the people of Iraq to take control over security as well as its own rule.

Unfortunately, the Left is fighting not against George Bush, but against hard reality. In the future, I predict that it will be clearly shown that the collective acts of courage demonstrated by the Coalition troops and the Iraqi people will be on par with any of the greatest acts of courage in history. The Left was on the wrong side of the Cold War, and it looks like they are continuing to go 0-for.

The days are getting dark indeed, but only for those that have hoped that Iraq would fail.

Justin King

Back when I actually posted about guitar stuff, I featured a fantastic guitar player by the name of Justin King. I posted a review of a show that he and his band put on in San Francisco here.

Anyway, my general lack of enthusiasm for the music industry, which has been putting out far too much generic, bland and safe music, has kept me from putting any energy into writing about it for a while. Well, score one for the music industry, as Justin King has been signed! The album will be coming out on Epic records...soon.

Justin's Website has been revamped and has a bunch of videos that you can download. I highly recommend going through this exercise, as Justin is one of the most exciting musicians I have come across in years. An innovative, talented guitar player with a voice like an Angel. Seriously, check this cat out...

Go.

Now.

UN Impeded Investigation

Allegedly the UN impeded the investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri. This was discovered because, not only are UN officials inept at handling international crises, they apparently are unable to properly use Microsoft Word:

THE United Nations withheld some of the most damaging allegations against Syria in its report on the murder of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, it emerged yesterday. The names of the brother of Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and other members of his inner circle, were dropped from the report that was sent to the Security Council.

The confidential changes were revealed by an extraordinary computer gaffe because an electronic version distributed by UN officials on Thursday night allowed recipients to track editing changes.

The mistaken release of the unedited report added further support to the published conclusion that Syria was behind Mr Hariri’s assassination in a bomb blast on Valentine’s Day in Beirut. The murder of Mr Hariri touched off an international outcry and hastened Syria’s departure from Lebanon in April after a 29-year pervasive military presence.

Oops.

No Pain, No Gain

As my 7 longtime readers know, I am a graduate of Indiana University. Historically, our football team has been, well, poo. So bad, in fact, other teams have given us 5 downs instead of 4, to no avail.

But, we now have a new coach who is turning the program around. IU fans for the first time since I became a Hoosier, are actually excited about the sport that we previously referred to vaguely as that which happens before basketball season.

So, this weekend we are hosting Ohio State. I'm not so much of a homer that I think the Hoosiers have a chance in this game, however, for the first time in a long time, Indiana fans will outnumber Buckeye fans in our home stadium. It is really embarrassing to admit this, but we do the same thing to Northwestern fans in basketball.

I'm reading an article about this fact today from my favorite Hoosier reporter, Terry Hutchens of the Indianapolis Star. He was referring to the overflow parking logistics and made a comment that, mostly, those who live in a city can really laugh at:

There will be overflow parking lots available. One of those, at the business school, can accommodate 600 cars. The downside is the six-block walk to the stadium.

Six-blocks! Holy crap! Someone call Mayor Nagin to get those abandoned buses down there to pick those people up, or, for God-sakes, someone might burn a calorie or two with the walk there and back!

Anyway, I'll be walking my usually 21-blocks, up-and-down (or uphill bothways) the San Francisco hills to get home from work tonight.

Go Hoosiers!

Reuters -- Pulling for the Other Side

Reuters reports on President Karzai's condemnation of the burning of two Taliban bodies by U.S. soldiers:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded a quick investigation on Friday after the release of video footage appearing to show U.S. soldiers burning the corpses of two Taliban fighters in Afghanistan

The U.S. military -- already under fire for the handling of Afghan detainees and desecration of the Koran in Guantanamo Bay, which provoked angry protests in Afghanistan -- has ordered an inquiry into the footage shown on Australian television.

"We in Afghanistan, in accordance with our religion and traditions and adherence to international law, are very unhappy and condemn the burning of two Taliban dead bodies," Karzai told reporters at the presidential palace.

It's hard not to recoil when reading a Reuters report of anything the U.S. military is doing as they try to blemish the U.S. military with yet another incident that like they are making a mountain out of molehill.

In the second paragraph bolded above, the reported angle is clear. However, they didn't further mention how the U.S. Military has responded to the incident. Here is the official statement from CENTCOM:

Recent media reports out of Afghanistan have alleged that U.S. forces were involved in an incident involving the desecration of the bodies of deceased enemy combatants.

Under no circumstances does U.S. Central Command condone the desecration, abuse or inappropriate treatment of enemy combatants. Such actions are contrary to U.S. policy as well as the Geneva Convention.

The Army Criminal Investigation Division has initiated an investigation into the alleged misconduct. Should that investigation uncover actions by U.S. personnel that were contrary to the Geneva Convention and U.S. policy, legal and disciplinary action will be taken in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

It looks to me as if the U.S. Military and President Karzai are on the same page. Furthering the investigation, CENTCOM continues:

The Army Criminal Investigation Division has initiated an investigation into alleged misconduct by U.S. service members, including the burning of dead enemy combatant bodies under inappropriate circumstances.

"This command takes all allegations of misconduct or inappropriate behavior seriously and has directed an investigation into circumstances surrounding this allegation," said Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, Combined Joint Task Force-76 Commander. "If the allegation is substantiated, the appropriate course of action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and corrective action will be taken."

Service members are expected to abide by the highest standards of behavior and the law, he said.

"This command does not condone the mistreatment of enemy combatants or the desecration of their religious and cultural beliefs," Kamiya said.

"This alleged action is repugnant to our common values, is contrary to our commands approved tactical operating procedures, and is not sanctioned by this command. Our efforts to thoroughly investigate this allegation are a reflection of our commitment to the Government of Afghanistan and the Afghan people."

"We do not like such incidents and I hope such incidents will not occur again."

The footage was shot by an Australian network in the southern province of Kandahar, former bastion of the Taliban.

The report quoted the U.S. soldiers as saying they burned the bodies for reasons of hygiene. But the act could be deeply offensive to Muslims, whose faith prohibits cremation and demands respect for the dead.

The Reuters article makes it look as if the U.S. Military was acting in concert as a whole to create a situation that led to the burning and desecration of Muslim bodies. Apparently, Reuters was not interested in what CENTCOM had to say, or what they are actually doing. If they were, they might have found something that they didn't want to hear.

October Classic - Somone Get Me Vin Scully

This weekend starts an exciting World Series between two squads with deep pitching representing two cities who have, like the plague, avoided meaninful baseball in October. Combine this with a ton of heart and we could be seeing an all out battle for the World Series crown.

However, if I were you, I'd mute the T.V. and turn on the radio dial, as this year is another year in which FOX will be broadcasting the game. A FOX Broadcast means Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, which really means, get a spoon so you can gouge your eyes out everytime Tim or Joe says something utterly devoid of any understanding of the game of baseball.

It has been utterly unbearable listening to these clowns. In the Astros/St. Louis series, I had to bear listening to McCarver and Buck constantly prattle along about how, after Albert Pujols's dramatic game winning shot in Game 5, the Cardinals were in the driver's seat and that the Astros were collapsing (Before we go on, I was completely agnostic about the outcome of that game--both teams are a lot of fun to watch and since they aren't the hated Yankees or Braves, I'm happy to enjoy watching without caring about who wins).

However, how can one possibly be in the "driver's seat" when they are facing an elimination game that will first face Roy Oswalt, and if they don't win that game, then Roger Clemens? Understandably, the Astros were not too happy about blowing game 5, but it was just one game. Maybe St. Louis believed the hype, or myth, because they looked flat in game 6. Too bad, as LaRussa is going to spend another year with a dominant team regular season without getting a ring.

McCarver and Buck's game is over-dramatizating. Vin Scully, the legendary broadcaster that called many of the October Classics in the 80's (Mets/Red Sox - A's/Dodgers most notible), once said that when a big moment happens, he sometimes just likes to be quiet. He lets the crowd have the microphone as sometimes actions and emotions speak for themselves. Scully very rarely interjects himself into the game, making the focal point being the play on the field or the people making up the game.

Contrast this with McCarver--during the epic American League Championship Series between the Red Sox and the Yankees, Boston was down 3-games-to-2 and were leading 4-2 going into the bottom of the ninth. Foulke comes in to close out the game and proceeds to walk Matsui. Tim McCarver then says (paraphrase), "What a disaster. Walking Matsui was the worst thing Foulke could have done...even worse than giving up a homerun." Immediately, Al Leiter, who I think is a pretty bright guy, challenges McCarver's assinine statement. Clearly the walk was a bad thing, but in McCarver's kneejerk attempt to over-dramatize, he becomes incoherant.

Now, we all say stupid crap from time-to-time (Lord knows this site is full of it), but McCarver couldn't resist continuing on throughout the rest of the inning--the Bottom of the 9th in an elimination game for the Red Sox--arguing with Leiter about how he was right. The focus shifted from the game on the field, to the announcers both. Very un-dude un-Scully-like.

And I guess I just hate that.

If I sound bitter about McCarver, being a long-time Met fan, I had to listen to this insufferable man broadcast Mets games on WWOR for years, so needless to say, the man gets under my skin.

I would have rather listened to a drunk, old bastard who was completely tongue-tied when pronouncing a Latin players' names ("Rammerrez"), unable to distinguish between a catcher throwing a strike-three around the horn versus a "llliiine shot ta tha third-baseman", and a singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" just slightly less incoherant than Ozzy Ozbourne (Everyone rightfully makes fun of Ozzy in that performance, but only he was able to capture the moment's "true spirit").

Anyway, enjoy the game!

Who the Duce Are You?

The PTC came out with a denunciation of one of the funniest shows on TV, The Family Guy. Apparently, this adult themed show is one of many on their list that are horribly offensive to The Children, and thus should not be watched by adults under any circumstances. Watching these shows could be horribly damaging to your health. Rumored side effects include going blind, getting hair on your palms, making your face stick, and (as Ian Wood would say) making Baby Jesus cry.

...oh, who is this PTC juggernaut I speak of?

Apparently they are a conservative media watchdog group. The PTC is an acronym in Bantu for click-tu--pppu--click-click or, Thou Shall Not Engage in Lewd Conduct on the Tele.

Continuing Operations in Western Iraq

I was threw a few Mainstream Media (MSM) stories at you yesterday to deliberately show a contrast between what major media outlets are reporting as "facts," versus what is actually happening. I wouldn't gratuitously bash the media without offering any alternatives, would I?

Looking at further operations in Western Iraq, the media is still presenting the argument that the Sunnis, even though they voted, are still strongly opposed to future Iraq as proposed by the Shiite and Kurdish dominated government. This is true as their seems to be a large portion of Sunnis who voted "No" on the referrendum.

However, does this necessarily imply an irrevocable schism that will inevitably lead to civil war? Categorically, and ironically, the answer is "No." To look at what the Sunnis say, versus what they are actually doing is very important. Of course, politically, their language is going to be very strong as they are using the implied threat of civil war, which no major sect wants, for further leverage. But, what are the Sunnis actually doing behind the scenes? Are they demonstrating cooperation, or are they entrenching their positions and preparing for an all out fight? Strategypage reports this:

In Anbar Province, the large desert region of western Iraq that borders Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, the government has apparently reached an agreement with several of the Sunni tribes to form a “Desert Protection Force.” The DPF will be recruited from tribal militias, who have an intimate knowledge of the desert, and the traditional – as in thousands of years – smuggling routes into the adjacent regions. Although it can be viewed as a bribe to the tribal leaders to keep their people in line, the initiative may yield important benefits in the future, since it links local tribal fortunes to the success of the new government.

If the Sunnis were preparing for an all out fight, it is rather dubious that they would be negotiating and cooperating with the current government. Bribes make Americans turn their collective nose (rightfully so, as I don't enjoy this kind of behavior in my government), but this is custom in the Arab world. The Sunnis know that they are in a tenuous and unstable position, so the current government greased their palms to induce some cooperation, and they took it. This is not the mass behavior that one would expect from a group preparing for an all out fight.

Additionally, on a follow-up from yesterday's story that claimed that U.S. airstrikes killed 20 civilians along with 70 terrorists, Strategypage continues:

Another interesting demonstration of how everyone tries to spin the news there way, Yesterday, the U.S. announced that air strikes killed about 70 hostile gunmen in and around Ramadi. In one case, a crowd of armed men were observed planting a roadside bomb, at the site of the successful use of such a bomb last week. In other cases, tips came in about the location of houses where gunmen were gathering. The terrorists and anti-government forces immediately declared that the smart bombs blew up women and children, and that the Americans are heartless war-criminals and butchers. What was not reported, and is no secret, is the sharp detail visible via the airborne cameras used to scope out these targets before the bombs are dropped. Many clips of these videos have gotten out, and it's pretty clear in them who is a young guy carrying weapons, and who are women and children, or unarmed men just standing around. There's also the usual failure to find all the dead bodies, or people with appropriate injuries in local hospitals, to back up the massacre claims. But the Big Lie gets play every time. Too good to pass up by many news outlets, especially those who believe, in their gut, that Saddam should have been left alone, and still be in power.

Yep. If these news outlets truly looked in their gut, they would find enough yellow to produce Crayola crayons for the next millenium.

UPDATE: Bill Roggio has an excellent post that details his suggestions to ensure the success of this “Desert Protection Force”:

Co-opting local tribes to provide for border security is a reasonable solution if the proper checks can be put into place to ensure there are performing their duties as advertised. First and foremost, the Coalition should embed personnel into the proposed Desert Protection Force, and U.S. Special Operations operators are ideal for this mission. Air, artillery and quick reaction forces should be placed nearby to provide superior firepower when needed. Financial incentives should be established, and reward offered for foreigners and Baathists caught moving across the border. Payment should be withheld from units that fail in the mission, and severe punishments for those who double cross the Iraqi government and aide the insurgents.

"Alleged" Equivocation

It seems to be media perfidity day here at Ten Fingers, 6 Strings. Here is a report in the Boston Globe about a town coming to terms with Saddam's upcoming trial. It starts off with a horrible account of murder and oppression by a woman at the hands of Saddam and his regime:

When Hussein's long-awaited trial opens tomorrow, Iraqi prosecutors plan to charge him first with ordering the killing of more than 140 men from Dujail and exiling their families to a desert camp in 1982 after a band of gunmen tried to assassinate him on a visit to the town. To the families of the alleged victims, and hundreds of thousands more across Iraq, the trial offers tantalizing hope that they will see Hussein punished at last.

''We want to eat him alive," said Salimah Majeed Al-Haidari, 60, who spent more than four years in detention, then waited 17 more to learn that her husband and two sons, hauled off by security officers, had been executed. ''We wish they would cut him to pieces and hand them out to us and families like us."

Don't fear Salimah, the Boston Globe has found some other Iraqis that are agonizing over this trial as well:

Hussein's trial opens at a precarious time for Iraq. The former president, still a symbol of national pride and identity to some of the disaffected Sunni minority, goes on trial four days after a referendum in which voters appear to have approved a new constitution over strong Sunni objections.

...And international human rights advocates want the trial to build a precedent for holding rulers responsible for crimes against humanity, both by thoroughly documenting abuses and by adhering to high standards of defendants' rights -- goals that specialists have said the trial may not achieve because of confusing rules, politicization, and time pressure.

Ah, I see. One side is affected by having all their families murdered, while the other is disaffected by having their source of pride taken down a notch. A clear case of equivocation of which the international "specialists" apparently agree.

I think history should clearly point out now that Hilter was a fool for killing himself. Under these standards, he could have remained a source of national pride and identity to some disaffected, minority Nazis after the War in Europe ended. Then he could gain his "defendant's rights" to protect him from all the politically charged defamation coming from those disaffected Jews. I mean, how could one possibly expect them to not "confuse the rules" and be objective?

Subversive Activity

Howard Dean heads south and openly condemns American policy to a foreign government:

Howard Dean traveled south of the border to meet with Mexico's presidential contenders Monday, and lashed out at the Bush administration's policies on Mexico.

Dean, the Democratic National Committee chairman, claimed President Bush "turned his back on Mexico" after it refused to support the Iraq war.

The former Vermont governor told The Associated Press in an interview that "a strong Mexico and a strong Mexican economy fixes a lot of the problems between the two countries, particularly immigration and narcotics."

"We ought to have a partnership with Mexico" Dean said. "President Bush has lost ground in the relationship."

Charming. Looks like a play right out of Jimmy Carter's playbook.

Legacy of Saddam Hussein in Iraq

Security Watchtower has a write-up and an image of just one of the imprints Saddam left on Iraq. Click on over and count the "flags."

They cannot hang him soon enough.

"Wolf! um...wolf?"

Reading through the news after the successful election in Iraq gave me strange sense of deja vu. Here are two of the major stories out of Iraq after the election:

Allegations of Fraud in Iraqi Election

Iraq's election commission announced Monday that officials were investigating "unusually high" numbers of "yes" votes in about a dozen provinces during Iraq's landmark referendum on a new constitution, raising questions about irregularities in the balloting.

Word of the review came as Sunni Arab leaders repeated accusations of fraud after initial reports from the provinces suggested the constitution had passed. Among the Sunni allegations are that police took ballot boxes from heavily "no" districts, and that some "yes" areas had more votes than registered voters.

...and from the LA Times:

U.S. Killed Civilians in Airstrike, Iraqis Say

American fighter jets and attack helicopters killed about 20 Iraqi civilians and injured 15 other people, including women and children, during an anti-insurgent operation in the western city of Ramadi, local police and a doctor who treated the wounded said Monday.

The city, 60 miles west of Baghdad, has been the site of a major U.S. offensive, and fighting escalated four days ago, residents said. On Saturday, five U.S. soldiers died in Ramadi when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle. U.S. forces said they launched three airstrikes in the area Sunday, killing 70 suspected insurgents.

Let's put this in journalistic context. Here was the report just after the 2004 election in Afghanistan which elected Karzai President:

Hamid Karzai has won Afghanistan's landmark presidential election, a spokesman for its electoral board said Wednesday, after investigators concluded that fraud and technical errors were too minor to overturn his triumph.

A formal announcement declaring Karzai the winner of a five-year term as the country's first directly elected leader was expected later Wednesday.

There were allegations of fraud immediately after the Afghan election and Karzai's opponents boycotted the results. Shortly after, it was found that the abnormalities were minor. Unfortunately, even in moderm countries, elections aren't exactly a zero defects event, regardless of intention.

Next, here were some accusations against the U.S. military in a strike back in 2004 as well:

The US military has denied allegations that its forces in Iraq killed dozens of people celebrating a marriage in the west of the country. Initial reports suggested that a wedding party near the Syrian border was the target of a US air strike.

A US military spokesman confirmed that about 40 people had been killed in the area - but said US forces had targeted a safe house used by foreign fighters.

He said coalition forces had retaliated after coming under attack.

The incident occurred late on Tuesday at the village of Makr al-Deeb, near the border town of Qaim.

The BBC quoted a "source":

They [Americans] hit two homes where the wedding was being held and then they levelled the whole village. - Iraqi Witness

As we know now, the border town of Qaim, and the region around it, where flooded with terrorists using the Euphrates to supply the insurgency into the heart of Iraq. As U.S. assets attacked, unnamed "Iraqi witnesses" were quick to find reporters to tell them what they "saw." Other than giving the BBC, NY Times and Democratic Underground some more cannon fodder for their "U.S. = Nazi" meme, the reports were largely unsubstatiated and, after months of fighting in Western Iraq, it is highly likely the the BBC, NY Times and DU were all, as Vladimir Lenin might say, "useful idiots."