Even I get a vacation every now and again... but now is not that time.

I'm packing my family and our stuff this weekend, leaving my adopted state of New York, and hoping to be comfortably and permanently ensconced in our new digs south of Raleigh, NC in time for fireworks on the Fourth.

Depending on just when Time-Warner gets my new cable modem installed, I should be posting again by the middle of next week.

Till then, Phin will keep and eye on things, and he promised me that if thing got too out of hand, he'd find out where your mom lives and mail her one of these in your name, so play nice.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One thing that Democrats apparently cannot stand is when facts get in the way of their ideological narrative:

"The president's frequent references to the terrorist attacks of September 11 show the weakness of his arguments," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said. "He is willing to exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."

I hope Congresswoman Pelosi will be sure to relate that point to the thousands of dead Iraqi men, women, and children and coalition soldiers who have died at the hands of al Qaeda in Iraq. I want to be there when Congresswoman Pelosi tells the families of dead American soldiers that their loss was not in a war against al Qaeda's Islamic terrorists. I want to be there when she explains that the al Qaeda terrorists who killed innocent civilians in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, PA, are not allied with and commanded by the same al Qaeda terrorists currently killing innocent civilians and soldiers alike in Iraq. I want to be there.

Pelosi is symptomatic of the myopic view of a Democratic leadership that cannot see the larger picture. To them, Osama bin Laden is the be all and end all of the War on Terror.

"The president's numerous references to September 11 did not provide a way forward in Iraq," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said. "They only served to remind the American people that our most dangerous enemy, namely Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose and al-Qaida remains capable of doing this nation great harm nearly four years after it attacked America."

Democrats would have you believe that with the capture death of Osama bin Laden that the world would return to September 10, 2001. That world, that age of innocence, will never exist again. The Democratic leadership is in engaged in fantasy, not reality.

Iraq was an elective war, but a necessary war all the same. more...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:11 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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Several days ago I wrote about a column in the Middletown, NY Times Herald-Record by THR columnist Beth Quinn, called "Proof is in the Memo: Soldiers Died for a Lie."

The article revolved around the so-called Downing Street Memos (DSMs); a group of seven leaked British government documents written in 2002 in advance of the coalition invasion of Iraq. Record columnist Quinn focused solely on the first of the seven DSM documents, echoing a claim of many on the far left that the document "proved" that President George W. Bush had "fixed" government policy around going to war with Iraq at all costs. According to this theory, Bush wanted war and was not pursuing any other options, and thus lied to the American people when he said in widely reported statements at the time that options other than war were still available.

Using this dubious claim, the Record's Quinn reiterated her claim over and over again that President Bush lied, and that 1,700 American soldiers died-"based on a lie."

It turns out lies were being spread, not by the President, but by Beth Quinn. Her outright lies and omissions of the truth never should have made it to print.

I cannot see where this is any less an offense than those cases of
embellishing, exaggerating and outright lying that got Janet Cook (Washington Post), Stephen Glass (New Republic), Patricia Smith (Boston Globe), and others fired for similar kinds of behavior. more...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:29 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Welcome one and all, to Confederate Yankee's new home on the web!

If this is your first exposure to my blog, I've got nearly nearly eight months of archives my web guru phin just imported for me that I'll start sorting into categories quite soon.

My favorite philosophying piscatorial pal phin and the wickedly witty lady Sadie are responsible for building Confederate Yankee as you see it today, and are soon to start their own blog design firm. I highly suggest you visit these two, as they have a scary amount of talent and can do wonders for the look and feel of your blog.

And now, back to the show...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:49 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Returning from a one-day visit to the military prison in Cuba where suspected terrorists are being held, U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes said Monday that complaints about abuse at the prison are the work of people determined to "blame America first."

The Republican congressman from Concord said his Eighth Congressional District constituents would probably be upset if they saw how well the detainees at Guantanamo live.

"The most astounding thing to me was how nice the prisoners are being treated," Hayes told reporters during a news conference on the campus of Central Piedmont Community College." These folks are getting privileges that a prisoner of war under the terms of the Geneva Convention would not get."

U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield believes many of the accusations of abuse of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay "are, in my estimation, false," he said yesterday after his return from a one-day tour of the prison...

..."We did not see any evidence of abuse of detainees whatsoever. I know there have been widespread reports of detainee abuse, but we did not see any abuse nor did we see any evidence of abuse," Butterfield said at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. "Many of the reports you have seen about Guantanamo Bay are, in my estimation, false."

There is no torture taking place in our terrorist detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There probably never was. It is too bad that so many people around the world want to think otherwise, and especially those here at home.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:05 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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From Pirate Ballerina:

"For those of you who do, as a matter of principle, oppose war in any form, the idea of supporting a conscientious objector who's already been inducted [and] in his combat service in Iraq might have a certain appeal," he said. "But let me ask you this: Would you render the same support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit?"

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:52 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The high-pitched polemic professes to be about the now infamous meeting minutes of top British government officials that became known as the “Downing Street Memo,” or the DSM. Liberals such as Quinn claim that the document shows that President Bush knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, and that he was determined to attack seven months before the war.

The DSM does not in fact show that. As a matter of fact, six more documents were leaked by the same source, and some flatly contradict the claim, but you won't here that from the Record's Quinn. She either didn't bother to research the subject, or made the conscious decision to ignore the evidence. It seems her hatred of President Bush was more important than the truth. Quite frankly, I'm surprised her editorial made it to print.

Even her understanding of the original DSM as a stand-alone document is nearly nonexistent.

Quinn makes the claim that the original DSM “is a report on a meeting between Rycroft and the White House in July 2002.” That is patently false. The DSM was the minutes of a meeting—not a report—among top British officials. The White House is never mentioned, and the only mention of Bush was the comment that “it seemed” he had made up his mind. This is hardly evidence. This is an opinion, and one that turned out to be wrong, as later documents showed.

Quinn spews:

What we're talking about here is proof that Bush engineered the war in Iraq – based on a lie.
What we're talking about here is 1,700 dead Americans – based on a lie.

What we're talking about here is Lou Allen of Milford, Pa.; Brian Pavlich of Port Jervis; Eugene Williams of Highland; Irving Medina of Middletown; Doron Chan of Highland; Catalin Dima of White Lake; Brian Parrello of West Milford, N.J.; Kenneth VonRonn of Bloomingburg; Joseph Tremblay of New Windsor.
All dead – based on a lie.

The David Manning memo to Tony Blair, one of the additional documents leaked, says in a telling line, “Bush wants to hear you [sic] views on Iraq before taking decisions.” The Iraqi Options paper (PDF) specifically mentions that the United States is “considering regime change”—specifically indicating that the decision to invade had not been made.

Beth Quinn, by design and by obscuring facts that contradict her predetermined ideological position, lied to her readers. Even more disgusting is that Quinn would cheapen the sacrifice of our local servicemen in her quest to further her cause.

Quinn mentions that, “if it turns out he lied, as the Downing Street Memo most surely suggests, let's impeach him.”

Contact the Times Herald-Record.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Google News proudly features this “news” article from jihadunspun.com, a known pro-terrorist propaganda site:

From Jihad Unspun:

US forces shot and killed a nine-year old Iraqi girl as she came out of her school following final exams in Baghdad. A medical specialist in Baghdad's al-Yarmuk General Hospital told the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam that an American sniper opened fire on ‘A'ishah Ahmad ‘Umar, killing her.

For its part, the US military occupation forces announced that they had begun an investigation of the Marine who shot the little girl and promised to punish him if he is found guilty.

A source in the Iraqi puppet army told Mafkarat al-Islam that the American soldier was very drunk at the time of the killing and that he was withdrawn from his observation post after the incident.

The father of ‘A'ishah, who works for the Railroad Department said that residents in the area where his little daughter was killed told him that the American had been betting with his buddies whether he could hit the little girl who had come out of the school some 700 meters from the US observation post.

For its part, the American propaganda TV station called “al-‘Iraqiyah” blamed what it called “terrorists” for the shooting of the little girl, but subsequent statements by the US military and the Iraqi puppet forces exposed the “al-‘Iraqiyah” story to be a lie.

No, instead we start with the fact that Google News was the focus of an article by honestreporting.com on this same pro-terror site back in January. Six months afterward, Google still features the pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic web site as a valued news contributor.

One could presumably ignore honestreporting.com, but Google News also ignored the April 8, 2005 State Department warning of Jihad Unspun's suspected al-Qaeda support:

A trio of obscure Web sites and individuals has combined to spread deliberate disinformation, particularly about U.S. actions in Iraq. The entities involved are Islam Memo (Islammemo.cc), Muhammad Abu Nasr, and Jihad Unspun (jihadunspun.net).
Most of the disinformation appears to originate with Islam Memo, which is a pro-al Qaeda, pro-Iraqi insurgency, Arabic-language Web site based in Saudi Arabia.
Muhammad Abu Nasr, co-editor of the Free Arab Voice Web site (freearabvoice.org), translates material from Islam Memo into English and posts it as "Iraqi Resistance Reports" on his Web site.
Jihad Unspun publishes selected articles by Muhammad Abu Nasr, giving them a broader audience.

Note: Hat tip to Rusty Shackleford, himself a former Google News contributor, who alerted me to this story.

Update: Instalanched before I could even fix the spelling of "al-Qaedariffic." Thanks again, Glenn. More spelling errors are available free of charge to my valued guests on the main page.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ken Mehlman Says Liberals Want Our Troops to Die

So this is the nice quiet RNC chief who is so unlike that nasty Howard Dean:

Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman, speaking in Puerto Rico, said there was no need to apologize because "what Karl Rove said is true."

And I can't imagine where some might get the idea some liberals want out troops to die...

Update: Welcome to all those coming in from Instapundit. If this is your first time here, please try the main page and have a look around.

Update: Leftist Ward Churchill rears he head to suggest the fragging of officers is a more effective way to protest war:
alatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times;" >

"For those of you who do, as a matter of principle, oppose war in any form, the idea of supporting a conscientious objector who's already been inducted [and] in his combat service in Iraq might have a certain appeal," he said. "But let me ask you this: Would you render the same support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit?"

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:05 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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He needs the trafffic.

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Lott had made the comment on the occasion of Thurmond's 100th birthday celebration.

In his apology, Lott said:

"A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past," Lott said. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."

Fast forward to June 14, 2005.

The second-ranked Democrat in the United States Senate, Dick Durbin, compares the actions of American servicemen to the “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings.”

Durbin's comments comparing the actions of American soldiers to that of the 20th centuries most genocidal regimes drew immediate fire from Republicans—and a stonewall of silence from Democrats. Two days later on June 16, Durbin revised and extended his comments, insisting he said nothing objectionable.

Late Friday, Durbin said he was sorry if his comments had caused anyone to “misunderstand my true feelings,” but still refused to offer an apology for his outrageous rhetoric. Democrats—meanwhile, refused to comment, or tried to deflect criticism away from Durbin's slander. Not one national Democrat came out against Durbin's attack on America's military. Not one.

Only yesterday, one week after Durbin's calculated assault, did Chicago Mayor Richard Daley finally step up to the plate and say Durbin should apologize. Later, Durbin finally gave a week half-apology, stating:

“Mr. President, I have come to understand that was a very poor choice of words. I tried to make this very clear last Friday that I understood to those analogies to the Nazis, Soviets and others were poorly chosen. I issued a release which I thought made my intentions and my inner-most feeling as clear as I possibly could.”

• “I sincerely regret if what I said causes anybody to misunderstand my true feelings.”
• “I'm sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain…”
• “I'm also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military.”

2 ½ years ago, Trent Lott made a remark at a birthday party about the guest of honor and was driven out of office for his trouble. While his speech was an attempt to pay tribute to one man, it raised the specter of segregation and its racist policies. Lott had to go, and resigned as incoming Senate Majority Leader.

Now in 2005, in a nation at war, another Senator slanders our military by directly comparing their actions to some of modern history's most murderous regimes. His speech was not an accident or a misguided tribute, but a carefully crafted assault that he vigorously defended and has yet to retract.

Both Trent Lott and Dick Durbin have admitted to making “a poor choice of words” for obscene comments. It is only fair that they suffer the same fate.

Like Lott before him, Dick Durbin must go.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the North Carolina ACLU, apparently reviewed Garner's proposed ordinance under what appears to be a veiled threat of legal action, which the ACLU has announced it is considering against other towns that have adopted comparable ordinances.

Rudinger said:

"We certainly understand and support the city's interest in promoting public safety. But these overly broad laws that punish people based only on their status do not serve the goal of making the public safer."

I can only assume that the North Carolina ACLU viewed an opportunity to help draft a law protective of non-predators as a conflict of interest.

***

In not unrelated news, Ryan Hade who survived being raped, mutilated, stabbed and left for dead in 1989 at the age of seven in a Tacoma, Washington park, died as the result of a motorcycle accident June 9. He was 23.

Earl Kenneth Shriner, the brutal sexual predator that brutalized Hade, will sadly not be able to take advantage of the sex offender ordinance-free Garner park system, as he is serving a 131-year sentence.

The 33 registered convicted sexual predators in Garner, and 525 within Wake County don't have that problem.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Read the original Downing Street Memo,

A left-wing site dedicated to the DSM is available as well.

A quick review of the DSM conspiracy site above implies something nefarious is going on, but can't quite nail it down to specifics… but they know Bush did “something” criminal.

But what does the DSM really tell us?

Not much. It never could.

For starters, the document that became known as the Downing Street Memo is not a memo, or even a transcript of a conversation. It was, and has never claimed to be anything other than, meeting minutes.

Minutes are the paraphrased summary of a meeting. Informational points are presented and summarized, decisions noted, action items are discussed, and status updates for previous action items and decisions are presented for review. Unless transcribed from audio, they are at best the selective, paraphrased recollections of the individual taking notes during the meeting.

In practice, meeting minutes are the summary of several other summaries, filtered through one set of eyes, in fits and starts. If you have a good scribe taking minutes, he or she hopefully doesn't miss major points of the current conversation while trying to decide how to summarize what was just said. Minutes are only meant to capture high-level thoughts, and are notoriously inaccurate in the details.

That is the truth of the Downing Street Memo, and one of its many critical failure points.

Since the release of the original Downing Street Memo, other documents have come forth from the same source, and these documents flatly contradict the assertions some were making in interpreting the DSM. There was no early decision to go to war. There was no intention to set up a false WMD case.

The 9/11 Commission Report and several congressional probes also investigating these and similar claims also found that they had no merit even before the “discovery” of the DSM.

Proponents of the DSM as evidence of a smoking gun must also put aside the fact that Saddam was given a chance to comply with United Nations inspectors, and he made the conscious decision not to do so. Are we next going to hear that Saddam Hussein was in on the plan with Bush and Blair from the very beginning?

The Downing Street Memos, as the original and following documents are now collectively known, are historically interesting as they show insight into the British view of a relationship between two old allies, but that is their only real merit.

Someone gin up Lucy Rameriz. The Left is going to need more documents.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Even in death, the battle still continued between Michael Schiavo and Terri's parents Bob and Mary Schindler, as Michael wanted Terri cremated and her ashes interred in a family plot in Pennsylvania, while the Schindlers wanted her body buried in Florida. Once again, Schiavo won in court, and most suspected that her ashes would be interred in Pennsylvania.

When I saw yesterday that Michael Schiavo seemed to relent somewhat and decided to inter Terri Schiavo's ashes in Florida as her parents had requested, I thought he'd decided to compromise. I had a bit of hope that this was a small gesture of goodwill and reconciliation towards the Shindler family.

That bit of hope was all too brief.

To backtrack for a moment, I don't think any of us are in an empirical state where we can categorically claim with absolute certainty which side was right and which side was wrong in this case. If Michael Schiavo truly believed that her was carrying out Terri's wishes, I can completely understand that at least in his mind, he was carrying out his promise. I would hope that under similar circumstances, that my wife would fight for me if she really felt that is what I wanted.

At the same time, I cam sympathize with the Schindler family, who felt that they were doing what they thought Terri would want. I am both a husband and a father. I see both sides, and I am torn between the two. While it is irrelevant here, my biggest gripe was the manner of Terri's death once it had been decided that she would die; but that is a subject for a different day.

At this point, only two things are certain.

Terri Schiavo is dead.

Michael Schiavo is an ass.

Michael Schiavo firmly ensconced himself as a first class heel as he went for the literal “last word” in against the Schindler family, using Terri Schiavo's bronze grave marker to strike out at her family one last time.

The marker lists February 25, 1990 as the date his wife “Departed this Earth,” and March 31, 2005 as the date she was “At Peace.” The obvious implication of this was that the Schindler's prolonged legal battle to keep Terri alive kept her soul in limbo from the time Michael claims she “departed this Earth” to her physical death fifteen years later.

Whatever their disagreements, using a dead woman's grave as a final insult to her family is unusually petty and cruel.

It may very well be true that Michael Schiavo never abused Terri Schiavo while she was alive, but he certainly abused her in death.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Take Back the Memorial offers it. Here's a sample of the outrageous deception currently engaged in by the IFC and countered by Take Back the Memorial.

From the IFC:

Myth:
The IFC is inconsistent with what 9/11 families want to see at the World Trade Center Memorial.

Fact:
The Mission Statement for the Memorial, which was crafted in 2003 and was the product of very substantial input from many family members, calls on us, through the Memorial, to “strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance, and intolerance.” That is what the IFC is about. A clear majority of family members on the WTC Memorial Foundation Board support the IFC and this Mission Statement.

Truth:

The WTC Memorial mission statement appears in full on the TakeBacktheMemorial home page. IFC cherry-picked from this quote, “May the lives remembered, the deeds recognized, and the spirit reawakened be eternal beacons, which reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance and intolerance.” See anything in there about “Freedom's Failures?”.

Truth:
Three family members on the WTC Memorial Foundation Board are adamantly opposed to the IFC at the Memorial site. Here are the remaining four:

• a board member of the LMDC, which voted to bring the IFC onto the Memorial site and to give it $300 million federal dollars
• a personal family friend of the LMDC chairman; the only family member selected to be a Memorial design juror and who is now a Vice Chair, board member and salaried employee of the IFC
• a Vice President of Gilbane Building Co, which was awarded a $45 million contract at Ground Zero by the LMDC
• a former aide to Gov. George Pataki who now works for the LMDC

Make sure you sign the petition.

Contact the IFC and let them know exactly what you think of their project. Tell them Ground Zero is about 9/11, not their transparent political agenda which even IFC President Richard Tofel admits, “will host debates and note points of view with which you–and I–will disagree.”

A Ground Zero memorial isn't about debate, it is about honoring the fallen.

Tell Richard Tofel and the IFC that Ground Zero is no place for politics: theirs, ours, or anyone else's. Fight for those who can no long speak.

International Freedom Center
120 Broadway, 31st Floor
New York, NY 10271

Fax
(212) 336-6727

E-mail
contact@ifcwtc.org

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:13 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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As Ace said:

A genuine apology would disavow the Nazi-Khmer Rouge-Soviet comparisons. A genuine apology would distinguish between those hellish regimes and our own. A genuine apology would actually confess true error, not just in clumsy phraseology (an error of happenstance). A genuine apology would confess that his words were intentionally grandstanding and slanderous, and that these words were deliberately chosen for effect, not blundered into by some sloppy draftsmanship.

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It is happening here.

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While reaction on the Right was swift in defense of our military against Durbin's seditious charges, all that has emanated from the Left is a deafening silence, or even agreement with Durbin's seditious comments.

There has been no outcry from any major Democratic Party figure, from Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, would-be 2008 presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton, or anyone else on the political left. Nor has there been any grassroots outrage of rank and file Democrats that increasingly bow to the capricious and shrill whims of the radical MoveOn.org fringe of the party. Durbin has refused to apologize for his comparison, and Democrats have not pressed him for one. Many, it would seem, agree with his off-kilter assessment.

This leaves us to draw the frightening conclusion that the Democratic leadership really does feel that our military is on par with the Gestapo, Stalin's NKVD, and the Khmer Rouge. If this is the case—and Democratic leaders have given us no reason to think otherwise over this past week—then the Party of the People has devolved into the Party of Treason.

Durbin's comments—attributed to a faceless FBI agent who is in every way an “anonymous government source” like those that have misled the world on so many aspects of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility as of late—have been a propaganda victory for the enemy, and an baseless, seditious slander of our troops.

Not one charge of anything even approaching torture has been substantiated at Guantanamo Bay, not one charge.

At most, those interrogating the terrorists—excuse me, “illegal enemy combatants”—at Guantanamo have on a handful of occasions improperly treated a book, and made living conditions almost as unpleasant for these terrorists as those our elite military units go through voluntarily during training or intra-service competitions. If we run a “gulag,” as Mark Steyn dryly observes:

...It's the first gulag in history where the torture victims put on weight. Each prisoner released from Guantanamo receives a new copy of the Koran plus a free pair of blue jeans in his new size: the average detainee puts on 13 pounds during his stay, thanks to the “mustard-baked dill fish”, “baked Tandoori chicken breast” and other delicacies.

Dick Durbin joins a growing litany of hysterical Left-wing voices that will say or do anything, stoop to any level, slander any person or group, and yes, even commit acts of treason and sedition against this nation in their naked pursuit of political power. They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. So then does a blind chase for power when it consistently portrays fellow Americans as evil in a twisted bid to gain political influence.

The bared treason and sedition of the American political left is reprehensible; they're aiding and abetting of the enemy cause unconscionable. Durbin and his allies on the left would elevate the status of terrorists and murderers to that of legitimate soldiers, while tearing down a United States military that has been the last, best hope for human dignity and freedom against the forces of tyranny on this planet for most of the past century. 50 million people have been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in just the last few short years, and yet the Left would undermine it all to undermine a single man, a president that they do not like.

Dick Durbin and his silent allies in the Democratic leadership would equate us with the most repressive regimes in history. Instead of segregating the actions of a few rouge guards at Abu Ghraib (acts brought to light by our military and prosecuted swiftly in accordance to military law, I might add) he would demonize all soldiers, sailors and airmen of the United States in pursuing his own power-mad agenda.

Durbin and his ilk consistently downplay the threat of terrorists, and would have America forget the actions taken by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Democrats downplay the very real and continued threat of Islamic terrorism, while insisting that our nation is deeply committed to criminal acts.

Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and Dick Durbin are among the leaders of a 21st Century Democratic Party that stands with a shrill chorus of attack-America-first radicals that rejected the will of the American people, because on November 2, 2004, America rejected them. In their anger at their rejection, bereft on anything like ideas for the future of this nation, they instead chose to attack it, and care little for the collateral damage they create in the process.

Far from being supportive of our troops in harm's way, the party that marched under banners proclaiming “we'll support our troops when they kill their officers” would not even consider deaths resulting from their treason as those resulting from “friendly fire.” They've manifestly placed themselves on the side opposite of that of the will evidenced by the American people on November 2nd and opposite that of our men and women in uniform. Liberals have placed themselves against the families of those who perished on September 11th by trying to build a we-deserved-it “memorial” called the International Freedom Center at Ground Zero (NOTE: sign the petition against the IFC).

American liberals have become increasingly anti-American, to the point that they themselves seem to question their own patriotism, by always fervently claiming that we shouldn't question their patriotism. Perhaps someone should tell the Democratic Party that if they feel compelled to keep bringing it up, it might be for a reason.

John Stuart Mill, said that:

"war is an ugly thing. . . . but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war is worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature."

Democrats have crossed the line from being anti-Bush to anti-American. Let's hope they can find their way back.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:49 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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While I find myself fighting (and occasionally losing) the urge to declare the American Left as al Qaeda allies, the setting of a timetable in Iraq would precisely mean that we concede the war to the insurgency. Too many good men and women, Iraqi and coalition partners, have died to allow this to happen.

As Stephen Green of Vodkapundit correctly noted:

Â…wars are generally won in one of two ways:

1. By completely eliminating the enemy's ability to resist.
2. By convincing the enemy that he's beaten.

For brevity's sake, we'll call these two routes "Means" and "Will." In the first option, the enemy's means of fighting are taken away from him. In the second, it's his will to fight that you take away.

I'm not certain how you take the Will away from people who take their inspiration from God – but I'm pretty sure that, eventually, killing enough of them in large enough numbers would do the trick. Do we have enough soldiers on the ground to do the job? Do we, as a people, have the political will? Will the Iraqi forces evolve quickly enough to help us in this vital task? Can all this be done without completely alienating the Iraqi people?

The 72 raisin-chasing Jihadists are out to kill infidels, and most are more than willing to take out Iraqi civilians along the way; many even conclude that Shias, Kurds, and even some Sunnis are infidels. Domestic Sunni insurgents, however, are generally more secular in their demands; they had a good life under fellow Sunni Saddam Hussein, and are fighting for their secular lifestyle as much as they are for their religion.

Iraqi Sunnis are at least as motivated by alms as Allah, and as long as they think their best option is an insurgency, they'll continue to fight. The inclusion and growing support of Sunnis within the Iraqi government will slowly but surely become the low-hanging fruit of disaffected Sunnis, and should the proposed amnesty deal go into effect, we could see many Sunni elements of the insurgency go quiet virtually overnight. We saw this happen with the Shia insurgency of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, and there is little reason to doubt that the same carrot-and-stick appraoch might work for a similar horse.

When—and if—Iraqi Sunnis decide to try the diplomatic route, it would leave the largely foreign forces of al Qaeda in Iraq in a difficult position.

al Qaeda has already blown any foreseeable chances it had of turning this into a Muslim vs. European Infidel war when it began purposefully targeting Iraqis. They have, in effect, driven the majority of the population (Shias and Kurds) toward the uncertain future of an Iraqi democracy and away from the murderous certainty of militant Sunni radicalism. If the Iraqi government can co-opt the majority of Sunni insurgents by giving them a role in the political future of Iraq, they may place the remaining Sunni insurgents and their al Qaeda allies in a position where their logistical supply lines are sufficiently compromised as to reduce their ability to fight an insurgency. This is hardly assured, but seems to be within the realm of possibility.

Suicide bombers don't tend to make return trips, and if Iraqi Sunnis remove themselves from the equation, the mostly foreign fighters of al Qaeda will stand out like a sore thumb, turning them from the hunters into the hunted. Insurgencies only tend to work if they have a significant percentage of the population supporting them. If the Sunnis can content themselves within the political process, the “means” approach might work, at least, “enough.”

By “enough,” I'm referring to the tendency of “means” to affect “will,” and vice versa. A physically diminished force often encounters moral problems, and if the Sunnis insurgents largely abandon their al Qaeda allies, the al Qaeda recruiters might find it increasingly difficult to find people willing to join their cause. As Mr. Green correctly noted in the quote above:

I'm not certain how you take the Will away from people who take their inspiration from God – but I'm pretty sure that, eventually, killing enough of them in large enough numbers would do the trick.

If the Sunnis can be made to feel that the political solution is their best option, then what constitutes “killing enough” drops significantly.

Regardless of whether the insurgency dies by “means” or “will,” it is imperative that we stay there to ensure that the death of the insurgency is the end result. We have a moral obligation to finish what we started when we invaded Iraq, and that includes not leaving until the job is done. That job entails us defeating the insurgency and setting up an environment in which Iraqi democracy has a chance to thrive.

Because of this, setting an arbitrary date that allows the insurgency to go into hibernation until after we've left is precisely the wrong move to take. This would only create a situation where we—or even worse, the United Nations—would have to go back in later to re-fight a war we should have finished in the first place.

Setting a withdrawal date is exactly the wrong message to send to the insurgency, giving them hope where there should be none. The 25 million people of Iraq deserve better, and it is our responsibility to finish what we started. Anything else is a coward's way out.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Drudge reports:

"Hillary's aides noticed that Bill seemed to grow even more reckless after his memoir MY LIFE became a big bestseller. Thanks to his record-shattering $12 million book advance plus another $10 million in speaking fees, he was rolling in money -- and hubris," Klein writes.

"Throwing caution to the wind, he started a torrid affair with a stunning divorcee in her early forties, who lived near the Clintons in Chappaqua. There was nothing discreet about the way he conducted this illicit relationship; he often spent the night at his lover's home, while his Secret Service agents waited in a car parked at the end of her driveway."

"It's one thing to go out to California with his wild buddies and stuff there,' said someone with intimate knowledge of the former president's philandering. 'But being indiscreet with a woman in Chappaqua steps over the line. That's the place Hillary calls home.'"

The book presents a photo of the former president 'mouth-kissing' an unidentified woman.

I have one question: does it matter?

I have no love for either Clinton. Bill is a philanderer, was in my opinion a weak if popular president, with few ethics and fewer lasting accomplishments. Hillary is a shrewd socialist hunting for a presidency of her own, and her ethical past is checkered, to say the least.

But isn't that enough?

Is there really a need to attack Hillary for being an enabler of a serial womanizer? Even if it does paint Hillary as an enabler of a sexual predator, does this really tell us anything we didn't already know about Hillary that we didn't know after the Lewinsky affair?

I don't see anything to gain from focussing on her personal failings, when her political failing are so much greater. We should focus on the failure of TennCare, the very real failing of her first foray into socialized medicine, and the recent flu vaccine shortage that was another direct result of her flawed socialist policy ideas. We should look at her radical political past, and her current refusal to condemn a fellow politician for comparing our military to the greatest genocidal regimes of the past century. Refusing to support our troops over such outrageous charges is reason enough to deny her the title of Commander in Chief. We should make these things our focus, not her personal weaknesses.

Her willingness to be a doormat for Bill's sexual conquests is irrelevant, except in that they serve to underscore her already well-known failures as a person of character. Hillary, almost certain to run for the White House in 2008, should be pilloried for her political failings, not her personal failures.

There are certainly enough things—Whitewater, the Rose Law Firm billing records scandal, Travelgate, and a lifetime of radical socialism far out of the American mainstream—to keep Hillary out of the White House.

Let's focus on keeping the debate in the public arena, where her long record of failure really matters.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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