April 29, 2006

Show Me How

It's everywhere you turn this evening on the mainstream new sites. Fox. CBS. CNN:


Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters marched Saturday through Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq just hours after an American soldier died in a roadside explosion in Baghdad -- the 70th U.S. fighter killed in that country this month.

"End this war, bring the troops home," read one of the many signs lifted by marchers on a sunny afternoon three years after the war in Iraq began. The mother of a Marine killed two years ago in Iraq held a picture of her son, born in 1984 and killed 20 years later.

Cindy Sheehan, a vociferous critic of the war whose 24-year-old soldier son also died in Iraq, joined in the march, as did actress Susan Sarandon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. One group marched under the banner "Veterans for Peace," while other marchers came from as far off as Maryland and Vermont.

You know what? I want this war over, too.

I want all the fighting to stop, for our troops to come home. I want to never again fear the sound of jet engines carried upon the wind under bright blue skies. I want to never again turn on the news to see that a suicide bomber in an Tel Aviv or Bali or London or Poughkeepsie made widows and widowers and orphans for his bloodthirsty god. I want to be able to do without these concerns.

Show me how.

Show me how to stop bin Laden's planes and Zarqawi's swords with Peace and Love and warm squishy visions of Equality and Justice. Show me how a hug can stop an IED. Explain how constantly apologizing for simply being who I am will stop their lust for killing me for simply wanting to exist.

Please do that. Find a solution. Go beyond your recycled rhetoric and show me how to co-exist with those who will murder the whole world for their thuggish god.

But that would be too hard, and it isn't really your goal, is it? You exist to complain, not resolve. Resolving is so... messy.

You can't bring your cute three year-old daughter to solve the real problems of the world. You can't even acknowledge the world is not a Benneton ad. There are people who want to murder that cute little girl simply because she is an American. Simply because she is a Christian, or a Jew, or a Wiccan. Simply because she wants to go to school, or chose her own fate, or grow up to think for herself, and not bend to their god's rigid dictums of what he says she must do and be and say.

So please, show me how wandering down well-guarded streets on a nice spring day wearing cake make-up, chanting and waving a fan, will keep planes from shattering glass and steel and bodies. Show me how your leisurely stroll stops Next Time from happening. Do that, and I'll be found waving the largest "Bush=Hitler" sign at the very next rally.

But that isn't how the world works is it?

Predator and prey relationships, the most basic of interactions in nature, are something that the followers of the Church of Darwin refuse to acknowledge could apply to themselves.

Show me how to reason with a zealot. In the split-second as his thumb drops on the plunger to detonate the bomb on his belt packed with hundreds of ball bearings, negotiate with him, infidel.

I'm waiting.

Show me how to stop Darwin. Show me how to stop their bloodlust.

Show me that your "peace and justice" aren't empty words muttered by empty heads. Show me how capitulation to their plans for world domination will stop the killing instead of intensify it.

Please.

I'm waiting.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:24 PM | Comments (61) | Add Comment
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Not Just a River in Egypt

Wow, does he sound flustered:


Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, began the 15-minute speech, titled "A Message to the People of Pakistan," with a reference to last month's three-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

He says al Qaeda operatives in Iraq have perpetrated "800 martyrdom operations in three years, besides the sacrifices of the other mujahedeen, and this is what has broken the back of America in Iraq."

He adds, "We praise Allah that three years after the Crusader invasion of Iraq, America, Britain and their allies have achieved nothing but losses, disaster and misfortunes."

Al-Zawahiri appears to be encouraging the Pakistani people to follow the lead of the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, telling them to stand up against "the Zionist-Crusader assault" on Muslims and overthrow Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Al-Zawahiri calls Musharraf a "traitor" who placed the country's nuclear program under the supervision of the U.S. government.

"I call on them to strive in earnest to topple this bribe-taking, treacherous criminal, and to back their brothers in the mujahedeen in Afghanistan with everything they've got," al-Zawahiri said.

This is every bit as pathetic as Musab al-Zarqawi's ACME rocket demonstration earlier in the week. al-Zawahiri's cries amount to little more than a confession that al Qaeda has thrown everything it has against America, giving its best and well, err... well it wasn't enough was it?

al Qaeda can keep fighting dying and killing for some time to come, but the corner has been turned, and they now recognize that without a major change in the game, they cannot hope to survive, much less win.

Quite frankly, al-Zawahiri is starting to sound like someone else's dissembling spokesman from not to long ago. I guess that cold, dank cave air is finally getting to him...

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April 28, 2006

Advertising Grey

Chris Bowers of MyDD is angry that the marketers of United 93 have chosen an across-the-board buy on the conservative advertising network at BlogAds while ignoring the much large circulation at liberals blogs (4.37 million page views/week and 17.78 million page views/week, respectively).

He writes:


Why did the marketers of United Flight 93 decide to only advertise on conservative political blogs? The Liberal Blog Advertising Network is four times as large, and is even a 20-30% better deal per page view (or CPM, to use the relevant industry term). Do they think that attack is only relevant to red America? Do they think that only Republicans were attacked on 9/11? Do they think that only conservatives remember that day? Do they think that the only people who took action on United Flight 93 had voted for George Bush one year earlier?

The Americans aboard Flight 93 were red and blue, male and female, white and not, gay and straight. They were all heroes, and all Americans recognize them as such. All of America was attacked on that day, and all of America worked to save lives that day. There have clearly been, and continue to be, disagreements about the appropriate course of action for us to pursue as a nation in response to that day. However, on September 11th itself, we were all united, including on United Flight 93.

For some reason, in memory of that day, the marketers of Untied Flight 93 have taken it upon themselves to continue the conservative slander against liberals and progressives in this country that we don't remember that day, that we didn't care about the lives that were lost, and that we somehow hate our country. If any single day in American history should have shown just how utterly slanderous statement like that are, it was September 11th, when right in the heart of blue America we all stood together. And yet, even in the marketing of their own film about a day when we were not divided, Universals studios and the marketers of their latest film have chosen to divide us. That is sad and offensive. As not only the manager of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, but also as a proud patriot who works every day to try and help the country that I love, the country in which I was raised, the country where nearly everyone who I ever loved lived, the country that has produced my favorite works of art, music and literature, that country that I still believe is the greatest beacon of hope the world has ever known, I am saddened and offended by this. And I promise that I will not be attending this movie, which I had been intended to see and review on Sunday, until I receive some sort of explanation on this matter.

In some respects, Chris is right: on 9/11 we were not thinking about "red and blue, male and female, white and not, gay and straight."

But we were pink and grey even then. The difference?


The Pink Tribe is all about feeling good: feeling good about yourself! Sexually, emotionally, artistically – nothing is off limits, nothing is forbidden, convention is fossilized insanity and everybody gets to do their own thing without regard to consequences, reality, or natural law. We all have our own reality – one small personal reality is called “science,” say – and we Make Our Own Luck and we Visualize Good Things and There Are No Coincidences and Everything Happens for a Reason and You Can Be Whatever You Want to Be and we all have Special Psychic Powers and if something Bad should happen it's because Someone Bad Made It Happen. A Spell, perhaps.

The Pink Tribe motto, in fact, is the ultimate Zen Koan, the sound of one hand clapping: EVERYBODY IS SPECIAL.

Then, in the other corner, there is the Grey Tribe – the grey of reinforced concrete. This is a Tribe where emotion is repressed because Emotion Clouds Judgment. This is the world of Quadratic Equations and Stress Risers and Loads Torsional, Compressive and Tensile, a place where Reality Can Ruin Your Best Day, the place where Murphy mercilessly picks off the Weak and the Incompetent, where the Speed Limit is 186,282.36 miles per second, where every bridge has a Failure Load and levees come in 50 year, 100 year and 1000 Year Flood Flavors.

The Grey Tribe motto is, near as I can tell, THINGS BREAK SOMETIMES AND PLEASE DON'T LET IT BE MY BRIDGE.

You have to read Whittle's entire essay to catch the full effect, but the fact is that after 9/11 we did divide. It wasn't about "red and blue, male and female, white and not, gay and straight," but about taking a threat head on, or trying to stay in our comfort zones and pretending if we just found a way to be nice, it couldn't happen again.

Greys, for rather obvious reasons, have an abiding affinity for sheepdogs and many followed them to the center right, whereas Pink gravitated towards the "reality-based" community of the center left instead. Former Democrats and social liberals have surprisingly found themselves identified as Grey, and some erstwhile conservatives have been found to be Pink to the core. Lines are crossed and re-crossed and mostly blurred, but is isn't about being a conservative or a liberal.

It is about which way made you feel safe, Pink or Grey.

The passengers who acted of Flight 93 were stone-cold Greys when it counted.

The marketers of this film simply spent their cash where they though they could find an emotional hook, an accord that would work the best for them. Greys attract Greys, and anyone who reads blogs know that most of the Greys have pitched their tents to the right of center, even if in a temporary state. Good marketers market where the bulk of their target demographic lies.

It really is an simple as that.

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Murtha, Sheehan Meet with Generals

Or at least that is what I expected when I saw this headline.

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Safe Haven?

This is interesting, and will almost certainly be seized upon by some (perhaps many) as evidence that the United States is losing the fight against terrorism.

Via CNN:


The State Department's annual terrorism report finds that Iraq is becoming a safe haven for terrorists and has attracted a "foreign fighter pipeline" linked to terrorist plots, cells and attacks throughout the world, a senior State Department official involved in the preparation of the report told CNN.

The report, to be released Friday, also says terrorist groups loosely associated with al Qaeda present the greatest threat to the United States and the world, even greater than al Qaeda itself.

The official told CNN that, with al Qaeda's senior leadership scattered and on the run, autonomous cells inspired by al Qaeda's extremist ideology present a greater challenge because they are smaller, harder to detect and more difficult to counter.

"These micro-actors are launching more attacks, and they are more local and more lethal," the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report had not been released, told CNN Thursday in an interview. This official cited last July's bombings in London by British Muslims with ties to Pakistan as an example of an increase in attacks by local terrorists with foreign ties.

While the official described al Qaeda as "crippled and constrained without the strategic network" it once had, he said there are still indications al Qaeda is planning a spectacular terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

"We have not been able to deliver the knockout punch to al Qaeda, and there is no doubt they are in the planning stages for something big," the official said.

Upon reading this article, my first question was simply this: how does the State Department define a "safe haven?" Afghanistan under the Taliban was a safe haven when it provided more or less official cover for al Qaeda, and the same could presumably be said for present day Sudan, Syria, and Iran.

But Iraq, where terrorists are actively hunted by domestic and foreign militaries, local police, and civilian tribesmen alike? Al Qaeda's "emir" of Samarra Hamid Al-Takhi might beg to differ with the description of Iraq as a safe haven, as would two of his men gunned down by Iraqi military forces today. I don't have numbers in front of me at this time, but I think it probably safe to assume that Iraq is probably among the least safe areas for terrorists right now.

That groups affiliated with al Qaeda are more of a threat than al Qaeda itself should be self evident at this point, as most of al Qaeda's most experienced leaders and operatives are dead or in deep hiding.

This was never more apparent than when top al Qaeda explosives expert Marwan Hadid al-Suri was killed last week acting as a low-level bagman distributing funds to the families of al Qaeda in Pakistan. A healthy terrorist organization would never put a top operative like al-Suri at risk is such an exposed position unless their trusted mid-level manpower was severely depleted. Thus, the "real" al Qaeda may not be dead, but after five years of being hunted down around the globe, they seem to be more a franchise name than an effective operational force.

The key to destroying terrorism, in my opinion, is to reduce or eliminate entirely state sponsorship and several crimp international support, making it increasingly difficult to transfer men, material or knowledge across regions. If you are successful in do that, you isolate terrorists to a local and regional level. Once you've hampered their mobility, they are forced to carry out attacks more or less locally, in the same areas they draw their support from. As you well know, defecating where you eat is toxic, and for terrorists, increases their risk of being captured or killed significantly. Eventually, public support erodes and such organizations end up gutted and minimalized.

Thus, while these micro-actors are indeed initially more deadly, forcing terror to retreat from a global to a micro-level is a significant improvement in the overall war against terrorism, as it reduces the overall lifecycle of terror organizations. We simply need to make sure we are making state sponsorship of terrorism a too expensive proposition in terms of capital (both political and monetary) at the same time, at which point the war against the tactic of large-scale terrorism may very well be won. The White House has taken steps in the past few days to do just that, clamping down on monetary support with the application of Executive orders against Sudan and Syria in the past days alone, placing significant pressures upon their unstable regimes.

Soon, would-be nuclear state Iran may be among the last of the state sponsors of terrorism, and if they continue down their ill-advised and badly miscalculated gambit for nuclear weapons, they may find themselves in a conflict from which their terror sponsoring regime would not be allowed to emerge intact.

The war on terror is far from over, but it seems from my perspective that the major players are choosing their ground for what may well be the final war against state sponsored terrorism of this modern age in this decade. Modern theofascism and the state support of terrorism arguably began in Iran. It seems fitting that the stage may be set so that it may die there as well.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:22 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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April 27, 2006

David Broder, Stand and Deliver

In another WaPo editorial attempt to defend the indefensible, columnist David Broder makes a startling charge:


The firing of McCarthy, a veteran intelligence officer who had held sensitive administrative posts, came after CIA Director Porter Goss and his White House superiors had ordered an intensive crackdown on leaks to the press.

McCarthy had already initiated steps toward retirement and was apparently only days away from ending her career when she and others were asked to take lie detector tests -- and then she was dismissed.

For the first few days after the action was announced, the agency and the White House let stand the impression that McCarthy had been a source for the stories about secret U.S. detention centers in Europe that won a Pulitzer Prize for The Post's Dana Priest on April 17. But when McCarthy's lawyer said she had no part in that transaction, CIA officials confirmed that was the case -- leaving it unclear exactly what she had done to bring down the punishment.

David Broder is being disingenuous here, and dishonest. He seeks to craft a sentence so that a less-than-thorough reader might infer that the CIA had no evidence that Mary McCarthy leaked information to the press at all (as opposed to the specific Priest story), therefore, "leaving it unclear exactly what she had done to bring down the punishment."

That is a demonstrably false assertion by Broder, and I'm calling him out on it.

Via the NY Times:


The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday defended the firing of Mary O. McCarthy, the veteran officer who was dismissed last week, and challenged her lawyer's statements that Ms. McCarthy never provided classified information to the news mediaÂ…

A C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, said: "The officer was terminated for precisely the reasons we have given: unauthorized contacts with reporters and sharing classified information with reporters. There is no question whatsoever that the officer did both. The officer personally admitted doing both."

And from the very top of the CIA this comes from Director Porter Goss, via ABC News:


In a statement to CIA employees, [CIA Director Porter] Goss said that "a CIA officer has acknowledged having unauthorized discussions with the media, in which the officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information."

The bold used in both quotes is mine.

Two named CIA officials have stated specifically and vehemently that the CIA officer fired last week (and later identified as Mary McCarthy) was fired for the specific offenses of having improper media contacts and leaking classified information. Furthermore, they change that she admitted to both offenses, and they contend that evidence of such offenses is apparently beyond dispute.

For David Broder to now try to rewrite history by attributing McCarthy's firing as anything other than what it was is dishonest. Broder either needs to apologize to his Washington Post readers for his intentional misdirection, or he must explain how he himself could so easily be fooled. In either event, his credibility is now almost as suspect as that of the disgraced McCarthy.

"Questionable polices" are afoot indeed, and it is time for the spin and misdirection at the Washington Post to stop.

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The Chamber Pot Spills

I ripped the Washington Post yesterday for a dishonest editorial attacking Porter Goss and the CIA. The Post actually attempted to say it was wrong to fire suspected leaker Mary McCarthy, who may be involved with Dana Priest's Pulitzer Prize-winning article of the CIA prisons, that no one can seem to prove existed.

Well, things just keep getting more interesting with the old "secret prisons" story, and if Dan Riehl is correct, it is a really old secret prisons story, dating back as far as December 26, 2002.

A sample of the potential bombshell from a Riehl World View:


Contrast these two excerpts below published three years apart. The second won a Pulitzer. The first isn't even archived on line.

2002: In other cases, usually involving lower-level captives, the CIA hands them to foreign intelligence services — notably those of Jordan, Egypt and Morocco — with a list of questions the agency wants answered. These "extraordinary renditions" are done without resort to legal process and usually involve countries with security services known for using brutal means.

2005: A second tier -- which these sources believe includes more than 70 detainees -- is a group considered less important, with less direct involvement in terrorism and having limited intelligence value. These prisoners, some of whom were originally taken to black sites, are delivered to intelligence services in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and other countries, a process sometimes known as "rendition." While the first-tier black sites are run by CIA officers, the jails in these countries are operated by the host nations, with CIA financial assistance and, sometimes, direction.


Notice the quotation marks around rendition above in 2005? A new and extraordinary term? Hardly.

Read it all and draw your own conclusions.

If Dan is correct—and upon reading the case he makes, I have a feeling that he may be—then Dana Priest's Pulitzer Prize was awarded for recycling the content of an article she wrote with Barton Gellman years before.

Perhaps more troubling, it brings up the possibility that Mary McCarthy could have been leaking to the press as far back as 2002.

The plot has indeed thickened.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:32 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Misplaced Words

Quick, see if you can find out what word is missing from the lede of this Associated Press article in the NY Times:


Sen. Debbie Stabenow's campaign has corrected her campaign finance reports to show that some donations from 2002 and 2003 came from an Indian tribe then represented by now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, not an individual as she reported at the time.

Stabenow's campaign originally reported that $4,000 in donations came from Christopher Petras, who was the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe's legislative director at the time. The donations came during a period in which Stabenow and other Michigan lawmakers sought funding for the tribe and wrote letters to federal regulators on the tribe's behalf.

The campaign wrote the Federal Election Commission on April 14 to correct the report to show the donations came from the tribe. Records originally listed Petras as giving Stabenow's campaign $2,000 on March 6, 2002, and an equal amount on June 30, 2003. Copies of the checks showed the first was dated Feb. 20, 2002, and the second June 2, 2003.

Give up? The word is Democrat.

Don't bother looking for it in these paragraphs, or for that matter, in the entire article, even though Sen. Debbie Stabenow is in fact a Democrat. Apparently, the Associated Press does not want the words "Democrat" and "Abramoff" appearing in the same sentence, much less the same article.

Miraculously, the AP does find a way to run this story with the Republican Party mentioned three times, twice directly relating it to Jack Abramoff.

Just so we're clear, the Associated Press would like to remind us that whole Jack Abramoff affair is a Republican scandal.

Please ignore that all but five Democratic Senators took contributions from Abramoff's clients. Ignore that Democrat Debbie Stabenow is re-writing her campaign report, and please, ignore the recent ethics complaint filed against Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for taking up to $66,000 from Abramoff's clients.

You wouldn't want these inconvenient facts to get in the way of a good narrative, would you?

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April 26, 2006

Kicking Assad

President Bush has dropped the economic hammer on Syria for the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri early last year.

Via al-Reuters:


President George W. Bush on Wednesday issued an order blocking the assets of anyone connected with the February 14, 2005, assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

Bush in a statement said the new order blocks the property and interests of anyone determined to have been involved in Hariri's assassination and that additional steps were being taken "concerning certain actions of the government of Syria."

A U.N. report last year implicated senior Syrian security officials in Hariri's killing and said Syria was impeding the inquiry. Syria has denied involvement.

Bush's order does not designate anyone specifically, but establishes the criteria for who would fall under the order.

In addition to blocking the assets of anyone found to be involved in Hariri's assassination, the order targets anyone involved in an assassination or bombing in Lebanon since October 1, 2004, related to Hariri's killing or implicating the Syrian government, an administration official said.

Iran has garnered most of the media's attention lately due to its nuclear ambitions, but the President has not forgotten Bashir Assad's murderous regime. These sanctions should bring pressure to bear on the Syria-Iran alliance, and it will be very interesting to watch to see if this pressure destabilizes Bashir Assad's already tenuous grip on power.

The full text of the Executive Order is available here.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:32 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Chamber Pot Pulitzer

Today's Washington Post editorial Bad Targeting was probably left unsigned with the primary goal of protecting the reputation of the wretch assigned to excrete it. You can hardly blame them. If a name were ever assigned to this dunghill of journalistic excuses, the author would forever lose what credibility he or she retains.

The Post sticks with septic certainty to its allegation that the United States has (or had) secret prisons in Europe, even after investigation have found no proof of illegal renditions, and no proof that such prisons ever existed. None.

The Post then has the audacity accuse CIA Director Porter Goss of a "questionable use" his authority, for firing an employee who concealed multiple instances of certainly unethical and possibly illegal acts. "Questionable use?" Brassy words coming from the newspaper that used its bully pulpit to release approximately three hundred articles and editorials on "Plamegate" with many of those calling for Karl Rove's head, with no actual evidence of wrong-doing.

But the most pathetic defense of all that the Post tries to mount is to suggest that Mary McCarthy had multiple illicit contacts with the press out of some sense of patriotism. They would spin this to suggest that Mary McCarthy, who worked in the Inspector General's Office of the Central Intelligence Agency, was unaware of the very real and legal options she would have had under federal whistleblower statutes, specifically the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998. Knowing the intricacies of such laws and the minutia of internal CIA policies regarding the same are among the responsibilities of her office.

If Mary McCarthy thought a real crime was being committed, she had the right—no, the duty—to report it directly to her superiors and/or Congress, and she knew that well. These is no evidence, not one Congressman, not one Senator, who has stepped forward and said that McCarthy attempted to contact them in this matter. Not One.

Instead, Mary McCarthy illicitly and perhaps illegally had contacts with multiple members of the press, including the Post. The Post seeks to uphold the honor of someone who disgraced her position and betrayed her oath as a CIA officer in what turned to be an empty and apparently partisan attack, in hopes of salvaging the reputation of their chamber pot of a Pulitzer.

The Post and McCarthy have failed to shift the blame their indefensible actions, and long may they wallow in their shame.

Note: Grammar mistakes corrected.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:11 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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April 25, 2006

Musab's Happy Video Fun Time

In a rare Internet-posted video, terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appeared for 34 minutes, blasting the United States for a "crusader-Zionist war" against Islam. Rusty has a nice roundup going at the Jawa Report, and once you've seen that along with the analysis of Bill Roggio and Walid Phares of the Counterterrorism Blog you've pretty much got your bases covered.

That said, I did watch the entire 34 minutes, and think I have a few observations that may be of use.

Throughout the bulk of the video, Zarqawi's eyes seem "heavy," blinking slowly and not appearing to open fully. At first I thought this was possibly the result of the lighting in the room in which the video was shot, but people responding to too-bright lights tend to blink more quickly, not more lethargically. In addition, through some sections of the video, Zarqawi seems short of breath. Some of the film transitions seem abrupt, as if trying to cover this.

In addition, Zarqawi's face seems somewhat bloated when compared to admittedly outdated photos. This may simply be a function of age, fatigue, and what is likely a substandard diet, but it could also be the result of some kinds of medications. This is all blind speculation, of course, but worth considering.

The rest of the video is well covered in transcripts (Rusty's post has a rough one), and so I'd prefer to look at elements of the film not heavily covered.

First things first, I'd like to gently correct Athena at Terrorism Unveilled. Zarqawi is not wearing a suicide vest in this video, just a standard AK-style chest rig, similar to this Chinese model or this upgraded commercial version. For comparative purposes, several versions of suicide vests modeled by would-be suicide bombers can be seen here.

By the way, he does fire a M249 that was likely captured from U.S forces. It is a "hero" shot filmed for propoganda purposes, but it simply serves to remind me that a 15 lb machine gun firing 5.56mm rounds best suited for killing woodchucks is a relatively light-recoiling weapon.

Near the end of the video are several minutes of outdoor footage, including the "hero" shooting video, footage of Zarqawi walking, and a few seconds of video of the flatbed truck above, with what appears to be a machine gun on a fixed mount in the bed.

Up until this point, I'd make the argument that this video could have been shot just about anywhere, but the gun-truck footage throws that in doubt. If this is indeed a fixed-mount, it seems very unlikely that this vehicle has been anywhere near where coalition forces could have seen it. That would seem to indicate that this is either a recently-modified truck, or video was filmed in a very remote region where Zarqawi felt safe enough for an open display of weapons that are not easily hidden.

Perhaps this was not even filmed in Iraq.

And then we have this.. well, err, rocket. It appears to be homemade, and suspiciously close to the size of a paper towel roll. It was fired by a hand-lit fuse, just like every ACME rocket delivered to Wile E. Coyote. It did actually go off, but to what effect we may never know. The warhead on a rocket this small can't be much larger or much more lethal than a Cadbury egg.

The "shell fragments" would presumably melt in your mouth, not on your hands...

This larger rocket is also "ACME-fused," and is most likely unguided, but it would potentially present a downrange threat somewhere, though the rudimentary fins indicate that cold be just about anywhere on a 90-degree arc.


CNN tells us that Zarqawi is mocking the United States military in this propaganda film.

My response?

Beep, Beep.

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Two Birds

White House Advisor Karl Rove's shrewd move back into matters purely political may have already stuck gold for the GOP, as President Bush announced a new Administration campaign designed to ease pressure on the nation's oil supply while preserving its supply of illegal alien labor.


President Bush estimates the amount of oil required for a short term visa.

Under the new "Oil for Amnesty" plan, otherwise illegal aliens from Mexico and other oil-rich Central and South American countries would be granted temporary visas, the length of which would be directly tied to the amount of oil they are able to bring with them from their home countries.


Following the official announcement, Mexican President Vincente Fox was among the first to take advantage of the program.

Oil prices fell immediately after Bush's speech.

Note: For real gas news see that Pain in the Gas Jason Smith at Texas Rainmaker.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:04 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Radical Thoughts

Editor & Publisher is apparently trying some of its own advice, attempting to gin up controversy with the headline, Bush Says He Tried to Avoid War 'To The Max,' Explains How God Shapes His Foreign Policy.

A provocative headline, but a half-truth at best, not that this apparently matters to E&P editor Greg Mitchell, who seems intent on dragging Editor & Publisher into shrieking irrelevance with an overly partisan message.

President Bush did unquestioningly use the phrase "to the max" to describe that he tried his utmost to use diplomacy to solve the crisis with Iraq instead of military means. This is true, as even up until the last minute the United States was willing to consider exile and even immunity for Saddam Hussein and his top officials, only to have just such a deal was rejected by other Arab leaders. While "too the max" is an unfortunately conversational and informal turn of phrase, it is hardly incorrect.

But that is not at the heart of E&P's editorial against the president, his professed Christian faith apparently is:


Bush also explained, in unusually stark terms, how his belief in God influences his foreign policy. "I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true," he said. "One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.

"I believe liberty is universal. I believe people want to be free. And I know that democracies do not war with each other."

"Unusually stark terms," you say? By who's estimation?

There is a document that Greg Mitchell could bear reading, written by another group of men who believed in God and liberty, that by E&P standards must be completely unacceptable. It uses such unforgivable language as this:


When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

God, the "Creator" granting an unalienable right to liberty? What an unforgivable document, this Declaration of Independence that President Bush dares to echo.

I'm certain Editor and Publisher will bravely "explore the ways to confront it," as well.


(h/t: Outside the Beltway)

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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As Credibility Exits

I was flipping through the cable channels last night and momentarily came across Keith Olbermann's show, in which he was doing his very best to paint fired CIA leaker Mary O. McCarthy as some sort of a scapegoat fired just before her impending retirement as a warning to others who might dare have the audacity to challenge the Administration. Olbermann, like so many others in the media, seemed willing, even eager to take McCarthy's excuse at face value, even as the media refuses to do anything other than insinuate the very worst about those in the government accused by the media (but not law enforcement) in the Plame and NSA scandals.

Is the media so driven by a partisan desire to be kingmakers these days that it is unable to report events without an inordinate amount of partisan spin?

Apparently.

It be nice for a change to see the media become irate that leaks are so prevalent at the CIA during a war, and that McCarthy got within ten days of escaping the through retirement. Instead, they try to make her a martyr.

Is it any wonder that people increasingly distrust the media?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:27 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The Bright, Smoldering City on the Hill

Via the NY Times:


Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it will refuse to answer questions about a second, secret uranium-enrichment program, according to European and American diplomats. The existence of the program was disclosed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this month.

The diplomats said Iran had also refused to answer questions about other elements of its nuclear program that international inspectors had focused on because they could indicate a program to produce nuclear weapons.

Iran continues down a comically transparent path towards nuclear weapons, while threatening with extinction a country estimated to have well in excess of 100 nuclear weapons of its own, along with multiple delivery systems that it can deliver at will.



Do you ever get the feeling that the mullah's cries for Armageddon are all too sincere?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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April 24, 2006

Illinois Dem Shrieks for Impeachment

Oh, this is too rich:


State Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) has sponsored a resolution calling on the General Assembly to submit charges to the U.S. House so its lawmakers could begin impeachment proceedings.

It would be the first state legislature to pass such a resolution, though the measure faces a dim future in a Republican-controlled Congress.
...

"This president has acted like an emperor," Yarbrough said.

Emperor Bush immediately had Rep. Yarbrough drawn and quartered, with her head placed on a pike at the palace gates as a warning to others.

Get all the gory details at The New Editor.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:12 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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April 23, 2006

Connections

Ever wonder what happens when you set loose a military officer on a recently disgraced intelligence officer? You end up with a lot of interesting connections, courtesy of Mind in the Qatar.

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A Perfect Stranger

Ever wondered why only one faith could be right? Where loves comes from? Whether it is possible to "earn" your way into Heaven?

I read Dinner with a Perfect Stranger tonight, and my head is reeling. At just 100 pages and written in a conversational style, you hardly feel you are reading it as much as overhearing it, and what you get out of it is profound. I'm not much into book reviews as a rule (I've done one before, I think), but I feel compelled to suggest it. It really is that good, and that impactful.

I see via Amazon that A Day with a Perfect Stranger, a follow-up novella, is going to be released July 18. I will be getting a copy.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Juan Cole's Uninformed Comment

I generally ignore University of Michigan History Professor Juan Cole, who often seems little more than Oliver Willis with a PhD. This morning, however I noticed via Memeorandum a shoddily constructed piece he entitled All Right, Not All Right, and I felt compelled to respond.

Professor Cole's post was one of many that I have seen trying to push the meme that the administration shouldn't penalize those who illegally leak classified information, if they are going to “leak” classified information themselves.

This of course is a valid criticism if true, but what Cole and his center left compatriots consistently and willfully ignore in propping up their strawman argument is the simple, unassailable fact that the President and Vice President (via an update to a Clinton-era Executive order) have the authority to classify and declassify information for both broadcast (widespread media) and narrowcast (targeted, selective media) distribution. Only releases made by those without legal declassification are illegal leaks. Those news releases made with Administration approval, whether broadcast or narrowcast, are 100% legal.

Democrats in general and liberals in particular may not like the fact that the Administration has this legal authority to narrowcast information, but the remedy is simple: win elections. Instead of going this route, however Cole and his merry cohorts try to obfuscate the truth and twist facts.

Need proof? Read on. more...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:12 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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April 21, 2006

"Bush Shuffle" Continues

In a week that saw White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan resign and Presidential advisor Karl Rove move away from a policy role, it appears that the biggest, and most surprising shakeup is Vice President Dick Cheney's bid to become a candidate for the next opening on the Supreme Court. more...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:25 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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