It looks like someone is trying to steal Michael Yon's pictures. Again.

This time?

The Washington State Democratic Party, on behalf of congressional candidate Darcy Burner.

Interestingly enough, this seems to be the second time a Democatic group has stolen intellectual property while trying to "help" Burner get elected.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It seems that John Kerry can't quit charging the guns:

Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show hosts desperately distorting KerryÂ’s comments about President Bush to divert attention from their disastrous record:

"If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because weÂ’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq."

I'm almost overwhelmed at how politically tone-deaf John Kerry in posting this response on his Web site.

Almost.

Not only does Kerry refuse to apologize for slandering those serving our country, he actually has the gall to try to go on the offensive and attack those condemning his comments. As many of the "assorted right wing nut-jobs" attacking him are current and former members of the military, Kerry insults them not once, but twice.

Kerry even goes so far as to insist that those who are enraged at his slur have resorted to lies and distortions, even though his comments were captured in print, audio, and video formats. The context of his comments was quite clear, and it is disingenuous for him to try to say the video evidence he freely gave of his own accord was a distortion.

His comments devolve from there into what even reads as a high-pitched and hysterical shrieking that seems to indicate that Kerry's immeasurable gaffe is somehow the Bush AdministrationÂ’s fault. Certainly, the rant will play well on the far left fringe of the Democratic Party, but it serves to alienate almost everyone else in the country that expected a measured apology, not a second attack.

Allied against the overwhelming core of the American populace that respects the military even if they have not served, an anemic John Kerry continues to futilely charge into the guns, perhaps snatching a more perfect Democratic defeat from the jaws of possible victory once more.

Cannon to the Right of Them.

Cannon to the Center.

Cannon all around.

The magic hat lies (and lies, and lies... )

shatter'd and sunder'd.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:40 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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The center-right side of the political blogosphere is buzzing this afternoon over a slur made against the military by Democratic Senator John Kerry while Kerry was stumping for California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides.

Kerry said:

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you donÂ’t, you get stuck in Iraq."

The remark, a slight against the intelligence of the men and women serving in our nation's military, would doubtlessly have been front page news if uttered by a Republican, but instead, the mainstream media has so far largely given the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts a pass.

Not one story regarding the slur has been posted in major media outlets as reported on Google News as of 1:00 PM, more than 12 hours after Kerry made the comments.

A simple search of Google News For "John Kerry" captured only a handful of reports from conservative blogs, and the single link to anything approaching a major media outlet was post to a Chicago Tribune blog called The Swamp.

As for North Carolina media outlets, neither the Raleigh-based television station Web site WRAL.com nor the McClatchy-owned Raleigh-based newspaper, the News & Observer, deemed the story worth a mention, even though Fort Bragg, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, and Pope Air Force Base are all within their readership/viewership, as are Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and Marine Base Camp Lejune.

It almost makes you wonder if the media might be attempting to cover for one political party over the other.

Doubtlessly, when the media does catch up to the story, they will present it as a feud between the Republicans and Kerry, not the reprehensible belittling of our men and women in uniform that Kerry's offhand remark so clearly was.

Update: WRAL finally posted an online article on the subject as I was writing this, setting up the story in such a way as to pit the White House against Kerry.

I guess they had to wait until they could figure out a way to minimize the damage.

Update: It's rare that they deserve such credit, but I'll always give it when due: AllahPundit reports that CNN ran the video clip of Kerry's comments "a good four or five times within the past hour."

In the wake of running terrorsit propaganda videos as news on the 19th, that this could be seen as CNN's attempt to "Lurch" back towards the middle.

Update: Kerry refuses to apologize. But he supports the troops!

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:28 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Lurch just can't keep his contempt for our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines hidden any longer.

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

This mindblowingly stupid comment comes courtesy of Allahpundit, who also has Kerry on audio and video over at Hot Air.

I hope that members of our military keep in mind that Kerry is only articulating sentiments that many on the far left have held over and passed down to future generations of service-hating leftists since at least the Vietnam War era, and that our military can voice its displeasure with Kerry's "fellow travelers" at the ballot box exactly one week from today.

If Kerry's backhanded slap at those in uniform isn't a call to get "out the vote" for our brave servicemen and servicewomen and those who support them, I don't know what is.

Update: Republican Senator, Navy Pilot and former POW John McCain lets Kerry have it with both barrels:

Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. Americans from all backgrounds, well off and less fortunate, with high school diplomas and graduate degrees, take seriously their duty to our country, and risk their lives today to defend the rest of us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq, is an insult to every soldier serving in combat, and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk so that the rest of us can sleep more comfortably at night. Without them, we wouldn't live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks.

I'm asking CY readers to send a copy of Kerry's comments and the link to the Hot Air URL (copy and paste: http://hotair.com/archives/2006/10/30/audio-john-kerry-on-americas-lazy-uneducated-military/ ) via email to everyone they know of voting age.

As their selected candidate for President of the United States just two short years ago, John Kerry obviously reflects the mindset of many liberals in the Democratic Party. Let them all know what you think of them one week from today on November 7.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:54 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Happy Hilloween

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Okay, I can't even pretend that I saw this coming:

Former Prince George's County executive Wayne K. Curry, backed by five black members of the Prince George's County Council, today endorsed Republican Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Curry, a Democrat who became the first black Prince George's county executive in 1994, and served two terms, is influential in Prince George's, the state's second-largest county, with about 846,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

But the endorsement itself, while very important, doesn't excite me as much as why Curry seems to be breaking ranks with the state Democratic Party.

Mr. Curry signaled his dissatisfaction with Maryland's Democratic Party last spring, when a Democratic poll was leaked to the press, calling Mr. Steele a "unique threat" to the Democrats.

The poll advised Democrats to "knock Steele down" by linking Mr. Steele to President Bush and national Republicans, to turn Mr. Steele "into a typical Republican in the eyes of voters, as opposed to an African-American candidate."

Mr. Curry was incensed by the poll, and said at the time that Mr. Steele's candidacy presented an "enormously historic" opportunity for blacks that "may ultimately break this sort of vices grip by Democrats who feel entitled to black votes regardless of how they treat black voters."

I've long felt that lock-step voting was bad for blacks as individual voters and as communities, as Democrats felt they didn't have to give them anything other than lip-service attention to blacks during campaign season, while largely ignoring them between elections. The flipside of this, of course, is that Republicans running for office felt that they had no chance of picking up votes from blacks, and they ignored them, too. Both parties took black voters for granted in their own way, and black communities suffered as a result of their political capital being wasted.

Perhaps this movement by a small group of Prince George's County black Democrats is just an anomaly that will prove to be a one-off oddity in the realm of American politics. On the other hand, perhaps other black community and political leaders will key in on Mr. Curry's observations and realize that breaking the vice grip Democrats have on the black vote is the best chance they have of wielding real political power in the future.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:25 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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That is what A.J. Strata, AllahPundit, Bill Roggio and others are thinking today in response to reports that Pakistani military forces killed 80 suspected al Qaeda militants with a strike led by Pakistani helicopter gunships using "precision weapons," Among the confirmed dead so far is radical cleric Maulana Liaqat, who led the al Qaeda-affiliated school.

Roggio suspects that the attack may not have been carried out by Pakistani forces, but instead an combined forces hunter/killer team currently named Task Force 145.

In previous incarnations, this team hunted and killed Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq as TF 626, hunted and coordinated the capture of Saddam Hussein as TF121, and hunted down and killing Saddam's son's Uday and Qusay as TF20.

Whatever the group is called, it is thought to be composed of the most elite American and British Special Forces units from all branches of service, including elements of Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, SAS and SFSG commandos, and US Army, USAF, and RAF special operations air units.

Brian Ross is stating that the attack came from Predator drones.

Zawahiri was targeted and almost killed in a Predator strike under similar circumstances back in January.

Update: The operation appears to be completely Pakistani in execution, as eyewitnesses identified three Pakistani helicopters as having fired upon the Taliban and al Qaeda affiliated madrassa. What is interesting is that the locals have displayed just 20 bodies of the 80 thought to have been killed, even though there is comparatively little rubble remaining to hide bodies according to the few pictures taken from the scene.

We know from previous attacks in the area that the Taliban and al Qaeda forces are quick to claim their bodies for the rubble of such strikes if at all possible, and so the discrepancy between the number claimed killed and those recovered may be an inadverdant indicator of how many militants were indeed killed.

Update: An al Qaeda leader that survived the strike confirmed that the madrassa was used to train militants.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:04 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The American translator kidnapped last week has been identified, and it appears that he broke Army regulations by marrying an Iraqi civilian:

A U.S. Army translator missing after being kidnapped in Iraq had broken military rules to marry an Iraqi woman and was visiting her when he was abducted, according to people who claim to be relatives of the wife.

According to a report in Monday editions of The New York Times, the relatives said that the soldier, previously unidentified by the U.S. government, is Ahmed Qusai al-Taei, a 41-year-old Iraqi-American. The family did not know he was a soldier until after the kidnapping, the relatives said.

Taei married a 26-year-old college student, Israa Abdul-Satar, three months ago, the family said. They showed visitors photographs of the couple's wedding and honeymoon, the newspaper reported.

The relatives said members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia came to the wife's home on Oct. 23 and dragged Taei into their car.

It should be pointed out that the situation al-Taei put himself in is one of the reasons why the military discourages soldiers from marrying into the local population, as it places both the soldier and the family at risk for reprisal attacks.

If al-Sadr's Mahdi Army is indeed behind the kidnapping, the situation has the potential for causing significant a significant political rift, as it may force a more aggressive targeting of the Shiite militia that has formed part of the base of support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I've mentioned the Scott Elliott's polling web site Election Projection before as being among the most accurate in the 2004 election campaign, and his latest results show the Republicans holding onto a slim lead in the Senate and moving within striking distance of maintaining the all-important House of Representatives.

I consider the House to be "all important" for one simple reason; electing a Democratic House means that John Conyers and Lynn Woolsey and other liberals will be able to accomplish their dream of purposefully losing the War on Terror by defunding the military in Iraq, forcing a precipitous withdrawal, and setting the stage for genocide.

Democrats are loath to admit it publicly, but electing them with be catastrophic not only for Iraq, but for our own nation, which will see Democrats furthering censure and impeachment measured they have already filed against the President and Vice President.

In my opinion (and in the opinions of the two airmen and three soldiers I've recently talked to who just got back from Iraq), we owe it to those soldiers who have been killed and wounded in Iraq and the Iraqi people to finish the job we started there, not leave it abruptly in state chaos.

Looking at the projections provided by Scott's formula, perhaps the security moms and dads that decided the 2004 elections are coming around to that same conclusion.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:11 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 What does anyone have to hide from hearings? You guys did everything on the up and up, right? We owe it to those soldiers who have been killed and wounded in Iraq to find out were billions of dollors in waste have gone in Iraq.

Posted by: Fred at October 30, 2006 09:20 AM (jSBbA)

2 Im guessing the money went to: Removing Sadaam from power, killing his sons, killing Abu Musab Zarqawi, bringing about 3 hugely successful elections, killing thousands upon thousands of jihadi terrorists and ex-Baathists, and things of that nature. Have we suffered casualties (dazzingly low numbers, historically speaking)? Yes. Thats what happens in war. I wouldnt expect the typical lib to understand this fact. When you major in post-structuralist philosophy, gay, lesbian and transgendered studies etc.. you tend to lose sight of the forest from the trees, historically speaking.

Posted by: TMF at October 30, 2006 09:56 AM (+BgNZ)

3 Of course you'd be mistaken in this, as well as the rest, if you were to label me "Lib," not that being labeled Liberal is anything close the shame of being labeled, "neo-con." But jumping to conclusions with out verified facts has never stop people like TMF before. No, I was talking about these wastes: 1) Halliburton billed taxpayers $1.4 billion in questionable and undocumented charges under its contract to supply troops in Iraq, as documented by the Pentagon’s own auditors. More… 2) Parsons billed taxpayers over $200 million under a contract to build 142 health clinics, yet completed fewer than 20. According to Iraqi officials, the rest were “imaginary clinics.” More… 3) Custer Battles stole forklifts from Iraq’s national airline, repainted them, then leased the forklifts back to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) through a Cayman Islands shell company — charging an extra fee along the way. More… 4) Halliburton allowed our troops in Iraq to shower, bathe, and sometimes brush their teeth with water that tested positive for e. coli and coliform bacteria. One expert has said that the troops would have been better off using the highly polluted Euphrates River. Halliburton has admitted that it lacked “an organizational structure to ensure that water was being treated in accordance with Army standards and its contractual requirements.” More… 5) Halliburton served the troops food that had spoiled or passed its expiration date. Halliburton managers ordered employees to remove bullets from food in trucks that had come under attack, then saved the bullets as souvenirs while giving the food to unwitting soldiers and Marines. More… 6) Halliburton charged taxpayers for services that it never provided and tens of thousands of meals that it never served. More… 7) Halliburton double-charged taxpayers for $617,000 worth of soda. More… Halliburton tripled the cost of hand towels, at taxpayer expense, by insisting on having its own embroidered logo on each towel. More… 9) Halliburton employees burned new trucks on the side of the road because they didn’t have the right wrench to change a tire — and knew that the trucks could be replaced on a profitable “cost-plus” basis, at taxpayer expense. More… 10) Halliburton employees dumped 50,000 pounds of nails in the desert because they ordered the wrong size, all at taxpayer expense. More… 11) Halliburton employees threw themselves a lavish Super Bowl Party, but passed the cost on to taxpayers by claiming they had purchased supplies for the troops. More… 12) Halliburton chose a subcontractor to build an ice factory in the desert even though its bid was 800 percent higher than an equally qualified bidder. More… 13) Halliburton actively discouraged cooperation with U.S. government auditors, sent one whistleblower into a combat zone to keep him away from auditors, and put another whistleblower under armed guard before kicking her out of the country. More… 14) Halliburton sent unarmed truck drivers into a known combat zone without warning them of the danger, resulting in the deaths of six truck drivers and two soldiers. Halliburton then offered to nominate the surviving truck drivers for a Defense Department medal — provided they sign a medical records release that doubled as a waiver of any right to seek legal recourse against the company. More… 15) Halliburton’s no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure was the worst case of contract abuse that the top civilian at the Army Corps of Engineers had ever seen. She was demoted after speaking out. More… 16) Under its no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure contract, Halliburton overcharged by over 600 percent for the delivery of fuel from Kuwait. More… 17) Halliburton failed to complete required work under its oil infrastructure work, leaving distribution points unusable. More… 1 Iraq under the CPA was like the “Wild West,” with few limits and controls over how inexperienced officials spent — and wasted — millions of taxpayer dollars. More… 19) Cronies at the CPA’s health office lacked experience, ignored the advice of international health professionals, failed to restore Iraq’s health systems, and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. The political appointee who ran the office had never worked overseas and had no international public health experience. More… 20) Administration officials promoted construction of a “boondoggle” children’s hospital in Basra, which ended up more than a year behind schedule and at least 100 percent over budget.

Posted by: Fred at October 30, 2006 10:35 AM (jSBbA)

4 Good one, Mr. Moore. Hows that new "documentary" coming along. On another note: Anyone hear Harold Ford on why TN voters should elect him? "I am a gun loving American who will fight to keep God important in the United States" I thought the blue tidal wave was a referendum on wacky gun loving Christianists? And Lieberman is annihilating deer in the headlights empty suit Ned Lament I thought the blue tidal wave was a referendum on the neo-con imperialistic war in Iraq? Could...KOS.....be....Wrong?

Posted by: TMF at October 30, 2006 10:41 AM (+BgNZ)

5 Here's the deal: Valid questions have been raised about a variety of aspects of the GWOT and its execution. A thorough examination of the facts--even if it's an impeachment hearing--is the right thing to do. If there have been problems, I'm sure even conservatives would want to see those problems solved. If there haven't been problems, then the liberals are proved wrong, and vindication for the Bush Administration is the order of the day.

Posted by: Doc Washboard at October 30, 2006 04:25 PM (/Wery)

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And the Anonymous War continues:

Teenagers set a bus ablaze in Marseilles, France, seriously burning a female passenger and sending three others to the hospital for smoke inhalation.

The group reportedly forced the vehicle's doors opened and threw a flammable liquid into the bus before fleeing, the BBC said Sunday.

Authorities reported several recent bus attacks, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of riots in poor suburbs across France. The deaths of two teens in Paris sparked the riots.

In Paris, about 500 people marched in memory of the two teenage boys who died in 2005. The deaths of the two, both from immigrant families, and suggestions they were fleeing from police touched off weeks of suburban clashes, the BBC said.

During last year's riots, authorities said more than 10,000 cars were set on fire and 300 buildings were firebombed, the BBC said.

It's too bad no one can seem to get a description of the people carrying out these attacks. Apparently, France is being overrun by vague, featureless teenagers.

Oh, the horror...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:25 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 How about "the ugly face of the failure of the French experiment with Socialism." Yes, they are primarily young muslim males, but I'm leaning toward the bulk of the blame being French government policy.

Posted by: Mark at October 29, 2006 10:42 AM (uUD7+)

2 Damn Druids - I knew it would come to this...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 29, 2006 11:05 AM (AuPsg)

3 And how about this wonderfully telling quote on how things are going in France: Two other public buses and 277 vehicles around the country were burned overnight, police said. "...Still the Interior Ministry described the night as "relative calm," noting that up to 100 cars are torched by youths in troubled neighborhoods on an average night..." Yeah, I sure want this country influencing world events. Losers...

Posted by: WB at October 29, 2006 11:05 AM (A9ieS)

4 How fortunate, then, that my home country, Finland, is very reluctant to take immigrants, and is quite keen to deport them, should they commit any serious crimes. I'd hate to see the French way of doing things (or rather, NOT doing things) in here. It seems that much of Europe is held hostage by these criminals, who are so eager to kill, burn, and then blame others for what they themselves have done.

Posted by: Anonymous for now at October 29, 2006 04:26 PM (RMHg5)

5 Anonymous Finn, the last time I was in Helsinki, the central train station was full of sullen Somali "youths".

Posted by: Anonymous too at October 29, 2006 05:56 PM (gq1+F)

6 Just another example of media manipulation. They do it all the time. Just check out my latest article at www.fromthepen.com/issue208.html to see another example. Regards buck

Posted by: bucktowndusty at October 29, 2006 06:53 PM (XDAh6)

7 This is really laughable because everyone on the planet with an IQ above room temperature realizes that "youths" in this context means Muslims. If whites rampaged against Muslims, does anyone doubt that the editors would find "youths" to be an inadequate discription of the perpetrators?

Posted by: Karl at October 29, 2006 10:33 PM (BHlA3)

8 "Anonymous too" - you probably saw most of our Somalis there. BTW, I'm missing your point. They didn't rob you, did they?

Posted by: Anonymous for now at October 30, 2006 12:46 PM (RMHg5)

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Clearly, the appropriate title for this post exposing the Democratic activist who created the faux StopSexPredators blog to attack disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley should have been The Face that Launched a Thousand Quips.

Frankly, I'm past the point of caring about the whole Foley issue, but as this guy sowed, so shall he reap.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via Instapundit, StrategyPage reports that the U.S. military is opening a new front in the War on Terror against one of terrorism's most insidious allies... the mainstream media:

The U.S. Department of Defense is now taking its requests for corrections public through a website known as For the Record (located at http://www.defenselink.mil/home/dodupdate/index-b.html). Here, the Department of Defense is openly calling for corrections from major media outlets, and even noting when they refuse to publish letters to the editor.

The most recent was this past Tuesday, when the DOD published a letter, that the New York Times refused to run, which contained quotes from five generals (former CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, current CENTCOM commander John Abizaid, MNF Commander George Casey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, as well as his successor, Peter Pace) that rebutted a New York Times editorial. This has been picked up by a number of bloggers who have been able to spread the Pentagon's rebuttal – and the efforts of the New York Times to sweep it under the rug – across the country.

The DoD site has specifically challenged the New York Times, Newsweek, and the Weekly Standard.

It's good to see our military is finally willing to start fighting the War on Terror on the media front as well.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:49 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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BBC reporter David Loyn has become an embedded journalist with the Taliban in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, as the terrorists square off against British forces in the region.

I find it quite troubling that a British news organization would send a reporter to embed with those forces attempting to kill their fellow countrymen, and I find it equally troubling that Loyn would accept such an assignment.

I can't imagine Scripps Howard sending Ernie Pyle to report from behind German lines in North Africa, or the Associated Press sending Joe Rosenthal to report from a palm-log bunker on a Japanese island fortress, but perhaps those were more idealistic times where one might expect a nation's news organizations to actually support their own side in a war.

My, how things have changed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:36 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Note with amusement that CNN filed this under "Broken Government," and then get sockpuppet some smelling salts :

Most Americans do not believe the Bush administration has gone too far in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terror, a new CNN poll released Thursday suggests.

While 39 percent of the 1,013 poll respondents said the Bush administration has gone too far, 34 percent said they believe the administration has been about right on the restrictions, according to the Opinion Research Corp. survey. Another 25 percent said the administration has not gone far enough.

Asked whether Bush has more power than any other U.S. president, 65 percent of poll respondents said no. Thirty-three percent said yes. Of those who said yes, a quarter said that was bad for the country.

I'm glad to see that the Halliburton-built concentration camps reeducation centers are finally working.

I was starting to get worried.

Update: Mangled syntax corrected.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:12 PM | Comments (30) | Add Comment
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Andrew Cochran notes something of interest today in the Counterterrorism Blog:

I'm amazed by the op-eds written by Peter Bergen in today's New York Times tiled, "What Osama Wants," and by Michael Scheuer in yesterday's Washington Times, titled, "Another bin Laden victory." Both men are luminaries in the counterterrorism community on the basis of their brave and objective work inside terrorist cases and events, and also due to their open criticism of numerous elements of current national security strategy. Mr. Bergen is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, known in Washington more for criticizing President Bush than for agreeing with him. But both men endorse the current strategy in Iraq and express certainty that the loss of GOP control of the U.S. Congress would be an outright victory for Al Qaeda and jihadists. Frankly, I never would have imagined that either man would write this so close to the election. Given their backgrounds, their views should be taken seriously as a forecast by two world-reknowned and objective experts of probable jihadist reaction to the election.

Considering that Democratic and al Qaeda rhetoric in the 2004 Presidential campaign was almost identical, this should hardly be surprising.

When the language of the Democratic Party's leading luminaries is indistinguishable from that of those who desire to destroy the American way of life, it might be time to reevaluate their choice of words and their positions.

Keep that in mind, Security Moms.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:44 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It is by now a well known fact that Islamic terrorist and insurgent groups are extremely media savvy, producing and packaging their own propaganda, staging false media events, and timing both individual attacks and campaigns in an attempt to influence public opinion so that they might win wars through media manipulation that they are far too weak to win militarily.

I don't doubt that the media knows that attacks are purposefully increased leading up to major events such as national elections in nations allied against terrorists, and yet, that fact rarely, if ever, receives any acknowledgement.

Is it too much to ask for professional media oranizations to acknowledge that the news they report is part of a carefully considered and purposefully shaped terrorist campaign targeted for media consumption, or have we come to a point where we should simply assume that they are willing pawns, conspiring with terrorists toward a common goal?

Does it sound far-fetched that the enemies of our way of life might conspire with those in our own ranks to attempt to defeat what they consider a common adversary?

It shouldn't.

It has happened before, and most assuredly is happening again.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:18 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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A response to Michael J. Fox from Scott Ott (Links shamelessly stolen from Allah at Hot Air).

To date, embryonic cell research has brought forth not one cure, and instead, is plagued with the problem of uncontrolled cell division.

Uncontrolled cell division, of course, has another name.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:01 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Baltimore Sun reporter David Wood makes that claim citing the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, in an oddly-titled article, "Warfare skills eroding as Army fights insurgents":

Pressed by the demands of fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army has been unable to maintain proficiency in the kind of high-intensity mechanized warfare that toppled Saddam Hussein and would be needed again if the Army were called on to fight in Korea or in other future crises, senior officers acknowledge.

Soldiers once skilled at fighting in tanks and armored vehicles have spent three years carrying out street patrols, police duty and raids on suspected insurgent safe houses. Officers who were experienced at maneuvering dozens of tanks and coordinating high-speed maneuvers with artillery, attack helicopters and strike fighters now run human intelligence networks, negotiate with clan elders and oversee Iraqi police training and neighborhood trash pickup.

The Army's senior leaders say there is scant time to train troops in high-intensity skills and to practice large-scale mechanized maneuvers when combat brigades return home. With barely 12 months between deployments, there is hardly enough time to fix damaged gear and train new soldiers in counterinsurgency operations. Some units have the time to train but find their tanks are either still in Iraq or in repair depots.

The Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, recently told reporters that there is growing concern that the Army's skills are eroding and that if the war in Iraq continues at current levels, the United States could eventually have "an army that can only fight a counterinsurgency." Cody is broadly responsible for manning, equipping and training the force.

While General Cody is a career military officer and I am but a humble civilian blogger, I beg to differ with his analysis. Put simply, it seems doubtful that large U.S. mechanized units will every again square off against comparable units in large scale, high-intensity maneuver warfare, if that is indeed the assertion he was trying to make.

Advances in imagery and signals intelligence makes it doubtful that an opposing Army could assemble a large mechanized force without U.S. commanders learning of its location, at which point other intelligence gathering assets would be able to determine the force make-up and develop precise targeting coordinates. At this point, Air Force, Navy, and Marine strike fighters and bombers, along with cruise missiles and long-range artillery assets such as the MLRS and ER-MLRS can repeatedly engage opposing force armor concentrations at a range of hundreds of miles. Once closer, any surviving units can be engaged with close air support by Army and Marine attack helicopters and conventional artillery assets, in addition to on-going attacks from Air Force and Navy strike fighters and bombers. By the time American armor closes to within their several-mile striking distance, the bulk of enemy forces will likely be destroyed, at which point the job for American armored forces will likely be identifying and destroying surviving remaining enemy armored forces that are significantly degraded and largely immobilized.

Likewise, if General Cody does not see large armor-versus armor conflicts on the horizon, the practical experience gained over the past three years in urban street fighting probably makes our soldiers better prepared for future conflicts. The kind of overwhelming short range fire-support and long range "sniping" against fixed position targets that Neil Prakash wrote about in his now-defunct milblog Armor Geddon seems to be the future of heavy armored units in heavily integrated combined arms warfare.

General Casey may indeed have a point if we once again face an opposing force that can deny us the air superiority needed to make a combined arms battlespace its most effective, but as our most pressing projected opponents—Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, according to the article—do not have that capability, his concerns seem to me to be the complaints of the kind of stereotypical general wedded to past tactics, guilty of always fighting the past war.

Note: John Donovan tells me via email that he might address the Sun article in more detail later today at Castle Argghhh!

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Mary Katharine Ham vlogs that it appears once again that Democrats may be priming themselves for another electoral meltdown.

I agree. Now all they need is some good theme music.

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Michael Fumento, who has embedded as a journalist three times with combat units stationed in Iraq's al Anbar province, launches a scathing attack against the way the mainstream media is covering the war in Iraq:

Would you trust a Hurricane Katrina report datelined "direct from Detroit"? Or coverage of the World Trade Center attack from Chicago? Why then should we believe a Time Magazine investigation of the Haditha killings that was reported not from Haditha but from Baghdad? Or a Los Angeles Times article on a purported Fallujah-like attack on Ramadi reported by four journalists in Baghdad and one in Washington? Yet we do, essentially because we have no choice. A war in a country the size of California is essentially covered from a single city. Plug the name of Iraqi cities other than Baghdad into Google News and youÂ’ll find that time and again the reporters are in IraqÂ’s capital, nowhere near the scene. Capt. David Gramling, public affairs officer for the unit IÂ’m currently embedded with, puts it nicely: "I think it would be pretty hard to report on Baghdad from out here." Welcome to the not-so-brave new world of Iraq war correspondence.

Vietnam was the first war to give us reporting in virtually real time. Iraq is the first to give us virtual reporting. That doesnÂ’t necessarily make it biased against the war; it does make it biased against the truth.

Put simply, it's hemorrhoid reporting: "if it bleeds it leads," and you only get it from the rear.

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