Work has gotten the best of me this week. I feel as if I've neglected my faithful.

I'm seriously thinking about taking on some staff, so that I can bring you, my most awesome, favorite people, the best content in blogging today. You'll be paid handsomely in Milkduds and slurpies.

Anyway, life is great. I'm staring down the barrel of a four-day weekend and can only smile thinking that I'll have to work on Saturday and Sunday. I say to The Man, "Bring it on!"

I'm taking off on Monday to go climbing. I promise to take lots of pictures and will share when I get back.

In the meantime, tell me of your potential 4th of July plans and how many hamburgers you plan on eating. Extra-points if you are a vegetarian.

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty....

You may feel comfortable with a Starbucks grande-non-fat-chi-latte in your right hand, a piece of low-fat coffee cake in your right, with your iPod cranking the hottest tunes of today as you are walking into to work to spend your day in your cubicle/veal fattening pen. But if you live in the Western United States, you should be forewarned that you still live in the Wild West. Remember, it wasn't very long ago that two-thirds of this country was once deemed inhabitable due to its inclimate weather, lack of water, or the critters that saw humans as their jumpstart, Starbucks-like snack in the morning.

My buddy Kyle, over at From the Still, has noticed that there are now mountain-lion warnings around his office in the Denver area. Remember Kyle, always walk to work next to the fat guy. You don't have to outrun the cat, you just have to outrun him.

*Legal Disclaimer - In no way does tenfingers6strings.com condone running away from mountain lions--even in the presence of a fat people. The staff here recommends carrying a gun to shoot the @&$%er if he messes with you.

Huh?

Ummm, maybe I'm a bit dense, but isn't kidnapping a soldier from another country and holding him for ransom an act of war (well, that and blowing up their civilians, but I guess that is beside the point?

And why does Reuters call them a militant group? This is the elected party running the government of the Palestinian people.

Not exactly a very diplomatic move. I wonder what John Kerry thinks about this.

Ian Wood - On the Road Week 5

Ian is a month into his trip and has seen some amazing places so far. It looks like he's hit and overcome his first major mental/physical wall.

Now it's raining....

Go read about his last week here.

Here is the map of his progress.

If you are a blogger and have been following his story, please take a rest from the nastiness in the news world to give him a little shout on your site.

If you don't have a blog, send him an email and say hi.

According to my sources (technorati/Google), these are the bloggers following Ian so far:

• The Colossus
• Verb-Ops
• Buried Talent
• The Booes
• Trying to Fill the Unforgiving Minute
• From the Still

I'm sure there are more of you, but that's what I have so far. Let me know if I've missed ya.

Right on Ian, keep rollin'!

Jack and the Beanstalk

Things have been a tad quiet around here for reasons pertaining to...any guesses?

You win a free date with Andrew Sullivan if you said "work."

Ha-ha! You have to go out with...

Anyway enough of the silly talk, I'm here to tell you about something extremely important that has happened to me.

I have four vanity wishes that I have always hoped will come true some day: to be funnier, smarter, taller and better looking. It would be unfortunate for you, my readers, if these things materialized, because then I'd stop blogging due to the volume of chicks I'd be managing.

While most of you have been watching the World Cup (haha, watching soccer! LOL!), I've been having a mini-crisis. All of my fitted pants have been fitting awkwardly--the cuffs were barely reaching my shoes. Now, I'm not exactly the most savy housekeeper, as my ability to do laundry usually entails throwing a wad of clothes in the circular thingy, adding soap and pressing the permanent press cycle button. But in the case of my slacks/nice pants, I usually take them to the dry cleaners. So, unless they went to the same laundry school that I went to, chances are my pants haven't shrunk.

I went into my tailor and had him measure my in-seam. Normally I'm a 30, but he measured me at a 31. Strange things were afoot at Men's store.

Couldn't be, could it?

Yep, it could and today it is official. I went to my GP for a physical/annual check-up, and well, I've officially grown into an elite category. I was 5'9 1/4" and now I'm 5'10". I'm 29 years old and somehow my body was able to squeeze that 3/4 of an inch of me. My body has displayed some serious resilience given that it has had to overcome 29 years of gravity. If it wasn't for gravity, hell, I might be 6'4" now.

This fact in-of-itself is astounding, but really, the most important part is that I can now say I'm 5'10". I know that it still technically puts me smack dab in the middle of the "medium-sized" category, but now I'm actually medium-sized plus. There something psychologically pleasing going from 9 to 10. Kind of like, I was a B student, but now I'm a B+ student; it's not going to get you into Harvard (well, maybe if you had a few million behind you), but people are going to start taking notice.

Me: Hey sweet-cheeks, are you enjoying a lovely evening of drinks, sushi and swarming men staring only at your chest?

Sweet-Cheeks: Maybe. How tall are you?

Me: 5 foot 10

Sweet-Cheeks: Ohhhhh, really. Buy me a drink and let's talk.

The unfortunate part of this scenario is that I've only managed to get one of my vanity wishes fullfilled. I'm not smarter, funnier or better looking. So, after about five minutes of trying to get her drunk enough to think I was interesting, she had to "go and do...something else."

That's fine, at least I can get in the door now.

5 foot-frickin' 10. You got that?

Metaphysics and Earthquakes

Life doesn't come without risks. When I graduated college from Indiana, I was always met with the same question from my midwest friends when I told them I was moving to San Francisco:

Me: I'm moving to San Francisco.

Them: What are you...gay?

Me: No, but I'm willing to try new things.

Them: That's nasty.

Me: Forget it, let's go play football.

Wait, I meant this question:

Me: I'm moving to San Francisco.

Them: Aren't you afraid of earthquakes?

Me: I think everyone's afraid of earthquakes, but it isn't going to stop me from moving to San Francisco.

Them: You're crazy. You belong with all the other nuts out there.

Me: Ljljjadouevnahdhfasdfjv jkhyiyeuppnnpe!

Truth is, when I really thought about it, the reality of living right on top of one of the most active faultlines in the world (which, incidentally, had previously destroyed the city a hundred years ago) was not something that gave me warm fuzzies. So, employing some best practices of what people do help cope their fear, I went out an anesthetized myself with beer.

At the time, I found the question a bit misplaced (the one about earthquakes). Why did everyone have such a phobia about earthquakes in particular? Surely they are terrifying and extremely destructive, but two weeks before my graduation party in Bloomington, Indiana, a tornado had ripped through a couple of houses about 5 miles from my house. I didn't see a mass exodus of people who deemed tornado alley "too dangerous" to live in. I did see a local drunk by the name of Wayne who ran up and down the street proclaiming the end of the world, but he'd lost some credibility when he cried wolf earlier in the year proclaiming ultimate doom when they opened up a La Bamba's burrito stand just off campus. Beer clearly didn't help Wayne.

I think this is a phenomenon of human nature that is just a derivative of Donald Rumsfeld's axiom about known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. This is a known known, that you choose to make an unknown known, because living in a place where your known known is an impending disaster that could rip your house in half, turn a 5-mile long suspension bridge into a rubber band, while possibily causing an undewater vibration so fierce it causes 50-foot waves to attack your city afterwards, you tend to get selective with your memory.

So, instead of thinking about those things, we walk down the street blaring Nine Inch Nails on our iPods on the way to work. We meet up with our friends for dinner, eat overpriced, but delectable food, drink too much and tell lots of bad jokes that we somehow still find funny. We sniff the roses (or the urine if you are walking by the Transbay Terminal), walk the hills, argue about how stupid/visionary our Board of Supervisors are, and we pour a tub of melted butter on the floor and roll around in it under candlelight under the aural fixations of Yani. You know, normal stuff whose particulars could be replaced with the particulars of any place. Yet, we sit on this brittle crust which could smote us in the blink of an eye, and yet we rarely confront the possibility unless we are forced to.

Today was one of those days.

When I read an article titled: Southern San Andreas Fault Waiting to Explode: Report, my sphincter tighened up so small it was measured at the subatomic level:

The southern end of the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles, which has been still for more than two centuries, is under immense stress and could produce a massive earthquake at any moment, a scientist said on Wednesday.

Yuri Fialko, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla, California, said that given average annual movement rates in other areas of the fault, there could be enough pent-up energy in the southern end to trigger a cataclysmic jolt of up to 10 meters (32 ft).

"The observed strain rates confirm that the southern section of the San Andreas fault may be approaching the end of the interseismic phase of the earthquake cycle," he wrote in the science journal Nature.

A sudden lateral movement of 7 to 10 meters would be among the largest ever recorded.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1906 was produced by a sudden movement of the northern end of the fault of up to 21 ft.

It's never comforting when some geeky guys in glasses with their gadgets, sensory du-dads and computer simulations tell you that the ground underneath is WAITING TO EXPLODE! I felt a tinge of guilt realizing that I felt relief over the fact that this report put Los Angeles in danger and not San Francisco. But clearly, it was a stern reminder of the place my measley existence finds itself in this fragile, yet unforgiving world.

I think I'm gong to go anesthetize myself with beer....

Watching the Left

There has been seething, festering debate about the cooked up American policy of torturing prisoners, yet other than a handful of events that were either fully prosecuted under the law, or still under investigation by authorities, there has yet to be any evidence pointing to a large-scale, top-down policy of torturing prisoners. Lots of ink, pixels and breath has been wasted trying to argue for an against this imaginary ad hominem attack. But, I can understand the desire to hold Western Civilization to high standards.

Meanwhile, our medieval enemies continue to rape, mutilate and kill.

Two American soldiers from the 101st Airborne were captured by insurgents, and today their bodies were found:

Two U.S. soldiers missing since an attack on a checkpoint last week have been found dead near a power plant in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, according to U.S. officials, and Iraqi officials say the soldiers had been tortured.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim, head of operations at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, said the soldiers had been "barbarically" killed. U.S. officials would not confirm or deny that the men, who were identified Monday as Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., had been tortured by their captors.

Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, left, 25, of Madras, Ore., and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston were apparently kidnapped following an attack by Iraqi insurgents outside the town of Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad.

"Coalition forces have in fact recovered what we believe to be the remains of our two soldiers," said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, at a Baghdad news conference.

Caldwell said the bodies were found Monday night after dark but were recovered early Tuesday because of concern of makeshift bombs around the bodies.

Let's see what the Left has to say about the barbaric killing and booby-trapping of two men wearing the uniform worn by those on OUR SIDE:

Daily Kos: Nothing -- There are some open threads and a post about how many late-night comedians are telling jokes about Bush though (strange, they write as if making fun of the President is a new phenomenon).

Eschaton: Nothing. However there is a post attempting to link the White House to Abu Ghraib. I'll assume they have the best of intentions and just want to make sure that we are upholding Human Rights in the midst of the fog of war. Noble effort, but I'm just figuring that their duties at real-life work have prevented them from commenting and putting any thoughts together on what happened to our soldier this morning.

Kevin Drum: Nothing.

TalkLeft: We have contact! Here, TChris uses the story as an opportunity to bash our "plan" in Iraq:

The uncle of one of the fallen soldiers wants to know why the administration had no plan to win peace in Iraq:

"Because the U.S. government did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid for it with his life," Ken MacKenzie, uncle of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, told NBC's "Today" show.

Good thing they got the chance to let his anti-war uncle opine on the grevious event (apparently the parents of the fallen soldiers weren't available--strangely, I think we might have been able to get a word from them had they been as vitriolic towards the war as Nick Berg's dad). No word yet on the condemnation of the alleged torture practiced by the barbarians that did this to them. However, TChris, who admitted that he doesn't have time to post due to other commitments today, did find time to post about Rove and his "torture policies" (note, no actual evidence given, just links to op-eds, postulations and other conspiracy minded sites).

...And lastly, my favorite bellyaching heartaching pundit, Andrew Sullivan: He has nothing. But he does have lots of content that distresses over Christians and Dick Cheney, detailed descriptions of how we are losing the war through posters, and conspiracy ridden acount of how our rogue nation not only tortures prisoners in Guantanamo, but we simply can't help ourselves, and actually start torturing them on the plane ride over. Hmmn, I'm just guessing here, but I'm quite sure Sullivan won't nominate Rumsfeld for the Richard Branson Award.

-----

Now, to be fair, it is possible the Left has delayed "rushing to judgement" on this issue before all the facts are in. That is a respectable thing to do considering that mutilation and torture of our soldiers is, at this point, just alleged (although Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim stated they were "barbarically" killed).

I will offer this thought to my die-hard, loyal readers: if, in my rush to judgment, I assume that these soldiers were killed, that would now put the percentage of killed-mutilated American soldiers to POWs held under Red Cross/Red Cresent standards over total soldiers captured by the enemy at exactly 100%. Maybe, in my rush to judgement, I missed something, but my count still stands at 100% dead-mutilated, murdered soldiers to total captured.

In aggregate, the total number of POWs held by the insurgents has indeed been small, but my model doesn't weight incomptence in measuring volume.

---

UPDATE: There is no reason to troll the reality-base community for further thoughts on this issue, Jeff Goldstein has done it here.

UPDATE II: I should have known better. If I would have waited a few hours, I would have been able to witness another spectacular meltdown from Andrew Sullivan:

I doubt whether even Donald Rumsfeld will describe what has been done to two young American soldiers as a "coercive interrogation technique." But you never know. Some people wonder why I remain so concerned about torture, and the surrender of our moral standing with respect to this unmitigated evil. Maybe the news of captured, tortured and murdered Americans will jog their conscience. Or maybe it will simply reinforce the logic of torture-reciprocity endorsed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales. As usual, complete silence from Instapundit. Almost radio silence from the Corner, except for the torture-advocate, Mark Levin, who is urging reciprocal atrocities. Give him points for consistency. And so the cycle of depravity and defeat deepens ...

Just when you think Captain Dipstick can't dig his hole any deeper, he tries to "justify" his comment:

Professor Bainbridge writes:

Andrew Sullivan seems to think that the Bush Administration's position on torture is at least a - if not the - root cause of the death by torture apparently suffered by two US service personnel.

No I don't. In fact, I explicitly argued against such an idea here. My point is that we can no longer unequivocally condemn the torture of these two soldiers because we have endorsed and practised torture ourselves. What was once a difference in kind between us and our enemy is now a difference in degree. That fact profoundly weakens our moral standing in the world, the power of our cause, and impedes the long-run success in the war of ideas that the war on terror involves. That this change was made secretly by an executive violating the express laws he is constitutionally bound to enforce makes the betrayal all the more enraging.

Here is a 5-step lesson in Andrew Sullivan-logic.

1. Start from a position of absolute moral authority.
2. Look around and see which pieces of what puzzle can fit the particular narrative you have been building.
3. Add water.
4. Finish narrative full of half truths, trumped up charges and borderline insanity, and preempt disagreement by finding it (enter emotional adjective here) enraging/heartwrenching/gobsmackingly vile/horrifying/disgusting/shocking that people won't agree with you.
5. Re-read and make sure that you've come across like giant prick, if not edit and try again. Remember, the difference isn't in kind, it's in degree.

Checking In

Hey, I have a big essay in the pipeline, but after a weekend of incredible weather and another week of getting pounded at work, I haven't been able to finish it.

Who in the hell do you think I am, Steven Den Beste (BTW, who still missed that guy :::hands up:::)?

Talk to you soon. If you haven't been following Ian Wood's trip, get your keister over there now and start reading. There's even some video footage now.

The Colossus reports that former Marine/current moonbat, Congressman Murtha is demanding another U.S. withdrawl from a current engagement.

I actually think that Murtha may be one of these.

Dubious Democrats

I'm finding it increasing frustrating trying to understand where the Democrats and the Left are leading the country regarding Iraq. Well, I guess when I mean "leading," what I really meant was backseat driving, as you can't really lead squat without control of any branch of the government. But, being a backseat driver, you sure can make things miserable for anyone who's along for the drive.

We have been told since the beginning of the war that honest "debate" is necessary, and that it is "patriotic" to dissent--especially against a criminal President and his "illegal" war. Bring the troops home now, they demand (apparently at the behest of a "majority" of Americans). Honest debate is great, but really, how honest are the politicians who are clammoring for "discussion" over the "quagmire?"

C.S. Scott reports today that Republican leadership in the House is planning a 10-12 hour debate specifically on the Iraq War, followed by a vote:

House Republicans have scheduled 10 to 12 hours on Thursday to debate an Iraq war resolution aimed at putting representatives on the record with respects to their positions on Iraq. Democrats, which are widely divided on the issue, reacted by proclaiming the resolution politically motivated, which it undoubtedly is in some capacity. Regardless, what is wrong with putting our elected representatives on the record about the greatest challenges facing the country?

It [the resolution] puts Iraq in the context of the War on Terror and says its wrong to set a troop withdrawal date. Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., said Tuesday the resolution and ensuing House debate would allow the House to express itself on Iraq and give members time to let their feelings be known about the war so far. Republicans want to draw Democrats out on the pullout question and show they remain unified on Iraq. But House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer called the resolution "a political statement, not a policy statement." Asked what he thought of Democrats being deprived the right to offer an alternative, Hoyer told FOX News: "It tells me Republicans are afraid of ideas about Iraq."

I'd have alot more respect for a representative who took this debate head-on, laid out their positions and voted on the resolution with conviction, regardless of what that view was, then someone trying to dance around the issue and not allow their position on Iraq to become part of the public record. If the majority of the country is "against the war" and it's the disaster they say it is, why the reluctance?

The Democrats continuing push to frame any actions in this war in the worst possible light, without any context of the big picture, have been dubious enough. But as they have demanded "debate" on the issue, the House of Representatives is allowing for all of the opponents of the war to go on record in their demands to leave Iraq now and the refuse to do so.

Let's see where this vote ends up. Note all the Democrats that vote for "support" in staying the course in Iraq, and then turn around and demand the troops to come home in front of the cameras afterward.

Geeze, if these guys can't stand up to the Republicans (apparently with the "backing" of their constituents), how in the heck are they going to stand up to the Islamic Fundamentalists? This isn't schrewd political maneuvering, it's pandering to the extreme Left of their party, which won't accept any action short of putting Bush in jail.

President Meets Iraqi Prime Minister in Bagdad

Quagmire!

Despite the best efforts of one of the most bloodthirsty death cults in history in combination with a murderous dictator and his henchmen, Iraq now has a fully elected government who just hosted the President of the United States.

This isn't going to make the violence go away -- far from it -- but if you are anything but an ideological partisan, this scene should be yet another glimer of hope in a country that is picking itself up off the floor.

There's still a lot more to do though.

Murtha Panders

The anti-war party's new hero, former Marine John Murtha, displayed the operational acumen of a Grateful Deadhead after three days in the acid soaked sun on "Good Morning America" this morning. It appears he was sick they day he was supposed to attend Military 101 class when he became a Marine:

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a critic of U.S. involvement in Iraq, said Monday that now is ‘‘a perfect time’’ for a troop withdrawal. ‘‘People want a change in this country ... a change in direction, and I hope the president hears that and I hope the Iraqis ask us to leave,’’ Murtha said on ABC’s ‘‘Good Morning America.’’

‘‘Even this attack on Zarqawi happened from the air,’’ Murtha said. ‘‘There’s no real need for us to be inside the country.’’

Right John. The only thing we did to find Zarqawi was to fly around in circles until we got a read on his position by locking onto his skull cap and fuzzy beard from 20,000 ft.

Bill Roggio has been providing excellent coverage of Task Force 145 -- a special operations conglomerate specifically aimed with the task of hunting down Zarqawi and other top leaders of the insurgency -- and it remains clear that this was a combined, joint effort, with the money shot being a pair of 500-lbs bombs landing on his head.

Before the Zarqawi became worm-food, Security Watchtower reports that Task Force 145 took out 200 members of Zarqawi's network. Although C.S. Scott's report doesn't specify the actual method of capture or elimination of each of the members of this dubious club, if you put it in context with Roggio's article, it is assumed that ground and air forces combined as one team to execute these operations with tremendous success.

The thing about Murtha is that I think he knows better, but facts are pesky things when you are trying to pander to the delusional "reality-based community."

Death to Zarqawi

Today hasn't been a good day for all of those claiming quagmire in Iraq.

As The Colossus says, Zed's dead, baby...Zed's dead.

Here's a little haiku from the bottom of my heart:

Here lies Zarqawi
His body stiff, toe-tagged
May he rot in hell

I'd personally like to see his decapitated body hanging from the Fallujah Bridge, however I'll be content with just knowing that he'll never take another breath again.

On a more analytical note, for those of you wondering just how you finally wrap a high value target up, here's a link to my post in December entitled En Prise

The reduction in leadership naturally leads to an organization being run by people who are inexperienced, and thus less effective. However, there is something more that our counter-terrorism efforts can hope to gain out this development: penetration. Al-Qaeda over the years successfully managed to keep their core sealed from the outside, so in combination with CIA's overeliance on technology versus HUMINT (Human Intelligence) over the last 20 years, the CIA has been unable to get much first hand knowledge of the world's deadliest enemy.

This is all changing. As Hutchison points out, Al-Qaeda's operational leaders are being decimated. Bin-Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and even Iraq's Abu Musab Zarqawi, are going to have to replace these leaders with men who haven't had the time to go through the screening process. Expanding on Hutchison's observation, in order to ensure confidence that their new lieutenants (as they are so fond of calling them) are not spies, al-Qaeda's senior leadership needs to come out of hiding, exposing themselves to capture or a Predator drone. If they chose to avoid this, and remain in their caves, then the CIA has a golden opportunity to infiltrate their ranks as new, unknown and inexperienced loyalists are left to do the rooting out.

If this was a chess match, this method of attacking al-Qaeda would put al-Qaeda's leadership en prise. En prise is when you attack a piece from multiple directions, finally putting your opponent in a position where if he moves his piece in any direction, he will be captured. If this piece is a King or a Queen, you bring in another attacking piece to finish off the job. This speculative combination of our military and our intellegence agencies could put the United States in position to bring in the last fatal blow to al-Qaeda's King.

Zarqawi was nailed as he moved closer to Bagdad to orchestrate the terror offensive that he ordered. Unfortunately for him, his network has been thoroughly dismantled, and a great deal of the operational commanders that he could rely on a few years ago, are either dead or captured. He was far away from his previous strongholds, and with the Iraqi Army increasing its capabilities, his options were dwindling with each passing day.

This hit on Zarqawi is a fairly important indicator of Al-Qaeda's status in Iraq, in that he was running the show so close the Bagdad. A man with a solid leadership team doesn't need to stick his neck out so close to the fight. While the quagmire crew kept claiming that we were losing, our forces, along with the Iraqi's, have been inching their way towards this moment for a long time.

Years from now, we'll probably get a full de-classified account of how they actually got him, but I'm going to speculate that we will see someone, or a group of people, who penetrated inside Zarqawi's inner circle and gave him up.

Go check out Security Watchtower for C.S. Scott's excellent round-up and more details.

Compare and Contrast

Recently, uber-emotionalist Andrew Sullivan caused quite a stir with these comments:

The United States is a rogue nation that practices torture and detainee abuse and does not follow the most basic principles of the Geneva Conventions. It is inviolation of human rights agreements and the U.N. Convention against torture. It is legitimizing torture by every disgusting regime on the planet. This is a policy mandated by the president and his closest advisers. This is the signal being sent from the commander-in-chief to his troops: your enemy can be treated beyond the boundaries of what the U.S. has always abided by. When you next read of an atrocity of war-crime or victim of torture by the U.S., just keep in mind who made this possible. Keep your eyes not just on the troops but on the people giving them the orders. My column on Bush's responsibility can be read here.

The rogue nation comment is quite the heaping dose of hyperbole, however Sullivan does have a pretty basic argument he is getting at. George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are positive advocates for torture. In turn, this policy trickles from them, to our military leadership, and then down to the boots on the ground, manefesting as a license to kill.

Ok, I think I'll do some further investigation before I take Sullivan's slippery slope as gospel, no matter how tearful he is about it. You know, academic integrity and all that goodness. Andrew's view of the matter from Provencetown might be a bit removed from the situation, and since I am in the same boat (i.e. not being in Iraq), maybe it would be good to see a perspective from someone there.

Michael Yon, and independent journalist, has been an embed in Iraq. Contrary to Andrew Sullivan's claim, Yon demonstrates, while backing it up with actual facts from personal observation, that precisely the opposite of what Andrew claims is true:

It is hard to define the context in a place where the enemy regularly tortures and beheads people, and murders children on a daily basis, and this seems to raise scant ire. They can kill a dozen kids, or come to a classroom and murder a teacher in front of young students, and still be called “rebels,” or “freedom fighters.” I call them terrorists. A smart Australian recently told me during an interview that “terrorist” is not a subjective term; after all, terror is their principle weapon, and so the term is accurate.

Accuracy is important to defining context, but so is proportion. When a few of our rogue elements ran wild, creating the Abu Ghraib debacle that we cannot seem to outrun, the story, which is a horrible black mark on our military and our nation, seems to have been put on a permanent loop, albeit one that leaves out most of what might in fact be the most important news of all.

LTC Rodney Morris took me to a detention facility his soldiers operated in Tikrit. Prison and jail guards have told me many times there is one certainty with prisoners: they always complain. In fact, before going to Iraq, I met with a very experienced corrections chief in Massachusetts, Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, and asked him what to look for when snooping out signs of prison abuse or mismanagement. What are the signs? Sheriff Hodgson gave me a long list, and when I visited the detainees in Tikrit, nothing tripped my alarms.

When the prisoners saw my camera (photography was forbidden in the facility), they wanted my undivided attention. And so, in front of American soldiers, those prisoners gave me an earful. Said they didn’t have enough blankets, were cold at night, and did not get enough food. Several of the men who complained about the food were fat. But what those prisoners really told me, indirectly, was that they saw journalists as potential liberators, and even more importantly, that they were not afraid to complain about the soldiers in front of the soldiers. The prisoners knew when I left they would not be taken out and shot. I was there for as long as I wished to stay, asking an interpreter to translate graffiti written on some cell walls. The prisoners had time and possibly even opportunity to slip me a note. None did. But they all complained, complained, complained.

The Abu Ghraib travesty was an example of a journalist picking up the scent trail and following it. It took moral courage to break that story, and yet that writer knew our military would not hunt him down afterwards. The incident was investigated, and perpetrators were charged, tried and punished for their actions. Conditions in the prison greatly improved and methods of training and supervising soldiers who guard detainees were revamped to preclude future incidents. Somehow those parts seem to get left out of most sentences that mention Abu Ghraib. Today, terrorists view Abu Ghraib as an R&R and training destination. Combined with the catch and release policy, the net result is increased danger for our soldiers and Iraqis. I saw a commander get shot down in front of me by a terrorist who had just been released from Abu Ghraib.

We are facing a savage, savage enemy. I have seen with my own eyes how they have murdered children. I have seen our soldiers risking their own lives to safeguard Iraqi children and adults many times. Two occasions leap to mind.

The enemy rammed a car bomb into a Deuce Four Stryker in Mosul while kids were all around. They could have just as easily attacked our men a few blocks away from the kids. Instead, they cruelly wounded 15 children and killed two of them. I saw American soldiers furiously trying to save one little girl named Farah. One American officer, Major Mark Bieger, actually took Farah and her family in his Stryker and raced them all to the hospital. We needed that firepower at the scene in case of follow-on attack — we were in fact attacked there the next day — yet Major Bieger and his section, with permission from LTC Erik Kurilla who was on the scene, raced through the streets of Mosul to the hospital. Unfortunately, Farah died, and on that day some of our soldiers cried.

Much later one of our soldiers, SGT Ben Morton, who was there that day, died because his platoon was controlling their fire. On many missions when I tagged along, the commander would say things like, “Be careful about throwing flash-bangs [grenades without fragments] into rooms. Don’t throw them unless you really have to. Practically every Iraqi house has children, and flash-bangs can kill the small kids.”

There was hot intelligence that some terrorists were in a certain location. I watched part of the mission unfold from the TOC, but had left before Recon platoon hit the house. SGT Ben Morton from Wright, Kansas, who lived just next to me in Mosul, was a fine soldier, a highly respected young man who earned two Bronze Stars with V (for valor) and a purple heart. Ben’s Recon platoon was conducting the hasty raid in Mosul. The intelligence was correct.

Ben was the first up the stairs, and he took four bullets. Only then did his buddies throw flash-bangs and eventually shot down the terrorist who killed Ben. All the Iraqi kids were fine. But Ben Morton died. Soldiers cried that night.

Sounds quite simple. Michael reports that detainees in Iraq, in front of their American captors, openly cried about abuse to him after they noticed his camera. Usually not the best idea when you know you are going to get your face bashed in when the journalist eventually leaves. Not saying this is de facto evidence that the U.S. isn't torturing captured terrorists, but it does seem fishy that these captives were so fearless of their captors.

But the part that is convincing, in a classical sense, is that Michael provides numerous examples of U.S. soldiers going out of their way to avoid hurting or killing civilians, and many times at the cost of their own lives. Repeatedly, not only are soldiers making battlefield decisions to protect civilians, it also seems to tbe in line WITH THEIR ORDERS.

Michael Yon demonstrates with actual first hand accounts that completely refute Sullivan's claims. However, Sullivan is still on the warpath, providing baseless and, quite frankly, borderline traitorous accusations towards the majority of our troops who are on the battlefield and trying to do the job they were sent to do with the integrity demanded of them. But, maybe Sullivan is privy some information that I'm not aware of. Just where on earth is he getting his ideas from?

A reader captures what has been in my mind and gut for the last few days:

The BBC just released a video alleging yet another covered-up massacre of civilians by American personel in Iraq. 5 women, 4 children, and 2 men in Ishaqi in March. Just when I think I'm totally numb, I find out a fellow American may have executed a 6 month-old baby in the name of protecting me, and I can't hold back tears. What country are we in?

The same country that now practices torture. Cheney country.

Seems that the only thing that is in Sullivan's mind is quicksand, and the only thing in his gut are some old achovies that haven't quite digested. Naturally, this leathal combination was validated by an unsubstantiated BBC report.

Drumbeat of the Metanarrative Keeps Beating

Via Clive Davis comes a name from the past. Frank Schaeffer, former evangelical turned eastern orthodox whose son has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, writes about putting the events of Haditha in perspective:

Even in "good wars" things go horribly wrong. The following quotations from "Naples '44," by the late Norman Lewis (perhaps the greatest English travel writer of the past century), are instructive. Lewis was stationed in Naples following Italy's liberation from the Nazis, and he kept a diary:

"What we saw was ineptitude and cowardice spreading down from the command, and this resulted in chaos . . .

"I saw an ugly sight: a British officer interrogating a civilian, and repeatedly hitting him about the head with the chair; treatment which the [civilian], his face a mask of blood, suffered with stoicism. At the end of the interrogation, which had not been considered successful, the officer called on a private and asked him in a pleasant, conversational sort of manner, 'Would you like to take this man away, and shoot him?' The private's reply was to spit on his hands, and say, 'I don't mind if I do, sir.'

"I received confirmation . . . that American combat units were ordered by their officers to beat to death [those] who attempted to surrender to them. These men seem very naive and childlike, but some of them are beginning to question the ethics of this order.

"We liberated them from the Fascist Monster. And what is the prize? The rebirth of democracy. The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation. The days of Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared to us."

If Lewis's account were the only surviving document from World War II, we might assume that allied nation-building ended in catastrophe. We would wonder why a morally outraged peace movement didn't stop our troops from carrying out their failed and brutal campaigns.

Sixty years later and caught up in another war, we are confronted by the massacre in Haditha. And we are also caught up in the anguish of another generation of young men and women asked to kill but to keep killing within "civilized" bounds, to take insults, be fired upon by men hiding behind women and children, yet not respond in kind.

To most readers this is an academic question of morality, or I-told-you-so politics. To those of us with loved ones in the military, the allegations of an atrocity committed by U.S. Marines in Haditha are personal.

....Judging by Lewis's diary -- and many other accounts -- the so-called Greatest Generation of World War II was often badly led and worse-behaved, and was certainly less merciful than our present-day soldiers and their leaders. We haven't carpet-bombed Baghdad or nuked Fallujah to spare the lives of our troops. Yet most Americans are glad we forced Italy, Germany and Japan to become democracies, however brutal our means.

The flag-waving boosters of our current war and their critics all seem to forget that war really is hell. Proponents sweep the inconvenient dreadfulness under the carpet (no photographs of coffins, please) while opponents are shocked, just shocked, at the nastiness. All sides seem to forget that there are no good wars, only morally ambiguous conflicts that lead to better or worse outcomes.

In this war, we do not have enough political leaders and opinion-makers receiving soul-searing letters from their children. Their sons and daughters are notably absent from our military. That's too bad.

A personal connection to our wars might discourage the sort of glib hubris that leads the media to trumpet events such as the Haditha killings without putting them in the context of the everyday heroism that is the norm, or in the context of history. And a personal connection to our military by our political leaders would give them a stake in our troops' welfare and what we are asking them to do.

I think Frank oversells the fact that some only need to awaken from their ignorance to support this war. In fact, I am becoming convinced the Left and those on the far Right have thrown in all of their chips in opposing the war. The only legitimacy they are holding onto is hope that this war will end spectacularly bad, shaming the "evil" Bush Administration who only makes decisions, according to John Kerry, for the purposes of "looting the country."

Apparently John Kerry with his authorization to use force to make Iraq comply with U.N. resolutions was a ploy to jump aboard the pirate-ship and grab some booty.

Back to Haditha. This battle that we fight is against an enemy whose moral code makes Ghengis Khan look like the patron saint of compassion. Thankfully these 7th century cretins don't share his battlefield acumen.

For the entire war, this dispicable enemy has hidden behind women and children, planted weapons and shot at our troops and Iraqi civilians from religious shrines, schools, and homes. I'm still waiting for the outrage demanding that if these men be held to the standard of warfare they constantly hold us to.

Large portions of the West have completely lost their moral compass in evaluating and fighting this war. Mostly silent on the beheadings, murders and atrocities that everyday are a part of the insurgents grand plan for retaking Iraq, these people have looked for a blemish free United States to operate with complete effeciency and pure morals. I say mostly silent, as the only time they mention the atrocities committed by the insurgents is for the purpose of turning it into a stick to beat the Bush Administration and the supporters of the war with.

You can tell a lot about people by seeing what they value. My stomach turns with the realization that many in this country, and many in parts of the world that are supposed to stand for personal freedom, would rather see Bush go down then to defeat an enemy who not wants to behead women for not wearing a proper covering.

This double-standard has nothing to do with ignorance, it has to do with purposely driven ideology. Bush must go down, they say, and if we have to lie, spin and spread a false narrative about the war to do so, it is done for the greater good.

Anyway, if after the investigation, they find that these Marines guilty of what they are accused of, they should be severely punished (yes I know that means the death penalty). But, facts on the ground are clear, this is the exception and not the norm for the behavior of our troops throughout this conflict. Yet, the side that indiscriminantly kills and murders with impunity, as ingrained in their ideology and in their very being, is completely ignored.

Frank Schaeffer is right to demonstrate, compare and put our current situation into context with past history. But, for some, I don't think it really matters. Facts are pesky things when you are fighting against for the greater good.

Work has me buried. I'm posting from an undisclosed location and have been struggling to find the meaning of life lately.

If you have any theories or revelations, please drop them in the comments.

Or, if you don't have anything better to do, go over to Andrew Sullivan's place and smack him in the mouth.

Don't wear leather though. I'm having images of the gimp.

June 6, 1944 - The Great Invasion

Today is a day of great significance (no it isn't the birth of Satan's spawn). Today is the 62nd anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

C.S. Scott has a great post about the contributions of the Airborne units and the overwhelming odds they faced.

I'll add to this a bit. Here is a great WWII history site that has a detailed description of the Army Rangers who stormed the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc. That's right. Not the beaches, the cliffs. Once they got up the cliffs they had to deal with one of the most entrenched German positions on the French Coast. The point was key because the reinforced concrete bunker on the top of the cliff contained 6 155-mm cannons with full view of both Utah and Omaha beaches.

Steven Ambrose details this event here.

Astonished Head -- On the Road

Hey everyone. I've been linking and pimping Ian Wood's trike trip across the the country since he left about two weeks ago. Several of you have commented to me personally that you were following Ian's trip and that you were really enjoying reading and being a part of what he's doing.

Firstly, since the comments are closed on his site, please drop a line into the comments section here or send him an email. Ian has popped by a few times and I'm sure that a few friendly comments would encourage him during the tough parts of his trip (the Waffle House story can only garner the true sympathy from one who's actually been there). If you are a blogger, a link and shout would be perfect as well.

Secondly, if you so desire, Ian is paying for this trip out of his own coffers, so hit the PayPal Tipjar button on his site for a donation.

Anyway, Ian, we're watching and enjoying the ride so far!

Moonbats on Parade

The man that was entrusted with inspecting Saddam Hussein's genocidal regime said this yesterday:

The US must abandon its "war on terror" to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to the former United Nations' chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix,.

The US foreign policy of pre-emptive strikes against any perceived weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat, its development of new types of nuclear weapons and the "Star Wars" missile defence shield risked fuelling a new global arms race, said Dr Blix.

Dr Blix's warning came in a report, released yesterday, proposing ways to bring about global nuclear, biological and chemical disarmament.

The report by the independent international Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC) said the September 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war on terror have led to the stagnation and abandonment of international cooperation on WMD monitoring and disarmament.

In what will be seen as thinly veiled reference to the 2003 Iraq war, the report said unilateral military action had failed to stem the threat of WMD, with the cost of many lives.

I've spent the better part of 5 years being puzzled by the Left. When I look at events that occur around the world, and put them into context with the history I've learned, it is practically laughable to read the types of things that they put their name to.

Take Hans Blix here. Here he lectures the United States claiming that we are encouraging our enemies to proliferate WMDs because we are setting the example of skirting international organizations.

Now, chronology is very important in history. Last time I checked, September 11, 2001 came before March 19, 2003. My memory, plus subsequent Google searches, have failed to reveal any international institutions that al-Qaeda consulted with before they decided to hijack four airliners and smash them into two-skyscrapers filled with civilians, a government building housing our defense department, and lastly, instead of the White House or Congress, an open field in the middle of Pennsylvania.

The Left can say these things deadpan and with complete seriousness, because it isn't about getting it right, it is about proving their narrative correct. Pesky things like "facts" and "evidence" are irrelevant in the minds of those that are trying to further a transnational progressivist agenda that, at its very core, is based on fallacy. For nations to come together under one roof, one has to assume, as in game theory, that all who gather, come as saints. Well, what happens when you bring a few sinners to the game?

There's been a lot of analysis of this, and it turns out that honesty isn't the best policy. One guy decided to run a computer tournament; people were permitted to create algorithms in a synthetic language which would have the ability to keep track of previous exchanges and make a decision on each new exchange whether to be honest or to cheat. He challenged them to see who could come up with the one which did the best in a long series of matches against various opponents. It turned out that the best anyone could find, and the best anyone has ever found, was known as "Tit-for-tat".

On the first round, it plays fair. On each successive round, it does to the other guy what he did the last time.

When Tit-for-tat plays against itself, it plays fair for the entire game and maximizes output. When it plays against anyone who tosses in some cheating, it punishes it by cheating back and reduces the other guys unfair winnings.

No-one has ever found a way of defeating it.

Now let's analyze two different and even more simplistic approaches; we'll call them "saint" and "sinner". The saint plays fair every single round, irrespective of what the other guy does. The sinner always cheats.

When a saint plays against another saint, or against tit-for-tat, the result is optimum but more important is that everyone gets the same result. When a sinner plays against another sinner, or against tit-for-tat, everyone cheats and the result is still even, though less than optimal.

But when a sinner plays against a saint, the sinner wins and the saint loses.

Which brings me back to the point of all this: Is there anything I would rule out in war? Nothing I'd care to admit to my enemies, because ruling out anything is a "saint" tactic. The Tit-for-tat tactic is to be prepared to do anything, but not to do so spontaneously. In other words, if the other guy threatens to use poison gas, you make sure you have some of your own and let him know that you'll retaliate with it. That means that he has nothing to win by using it, and he won't. (A war is a sequence game and not a single transaction because each day is a new exchange. If you gassed my guys yesterday, I can gas yours today.)

The world is filled with saints and sinners. When you put them into context of nation-states, where despots are granted the same "rights" in the international arena as liberal-democratic countries, you are already setting up a system for failure. Remember, despotic rule isn't just sitting there in a predisposed, natural state within certain countries. It takes work--things like murder, assassination, many times mass killing--to hold onto power.

If there was an international organization that made membership contingent upon certain guaranteed rights of its citizens, it would be a better start (although I remain incredibly dubious). But, just as with the League of Nations, the UN was more of a pragmatic remedy to fight against a serios problem at that time. To halt Soviet expansion after a war that killed millions, territorial sovereignty was what was to be protected at all costs. The UN was a useful tool to that ends (Soviet expansion was halted for the most part), but after the fall of the Soviet Union, it really had no use anymore. The problem is, we gave despotic regimes 50 years to position themselves in areas of power within the international community, while they solidified the power of their own regimes within their borders.

So, this brings me to the Iraq war. What the United States was able to do with the invasion shattered an ideal that transnational progressivists held so dearly. The UN, the embodiment of pure transnationalism, was deemed a fraud the minute the Third Infantry began its dash to Bagdad. Its most powerful member called it out in front of the world and exposed its ill sought intentions. Instead of being an institution designed to protect the rights of individuals, we find that there was an institutional scam that robbed millions from the Iraqi people, while Saddam, the provider of this lucrative shakedown, was allowed to stay in power.

The US not only exposed the UN, it continued down the path to fight the Islamic fascists that are bent on finding ways to kill innocent people. The Arab world is failing. Not failing in the way that a kid who gets bad math grades has the option to get his GED, but failing like a liver exposed to 30 years of 3 bottles of Smirnoff-a-day drinkin'.

Transnational progressivists pretend to care. I'm sure there is an amount of genuine sympathy there. But think it is more like the feeling you get when you pass a bad accident on the road--you initially might be a little shaken up, but within the next few miles your back to thinking about how much the guy in front of you pissed you off when he drives too damn slow in the left lane without moving over.

The world isn't perfect and Lord knows the United States is NOT blemish free (no such place will EVER exist). But, when you have an entire group of people that refuses to take any substantive measures to curb a whole nihilistic-death culture bent on destroying the liberal foundations the West was based on, then you read the kind of agitprop that Hans Blix delivered above.

Unfortunately for the world, we have been forced to look in the mirror and evaluate what we believe and stand for. The fascists know what they stand for, but the West is beating itself to death in trying to figure those questions out.

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