From the front page of today's JPost:

Take note of the headline and contrast it against the caption: "Hizbullah fighter watches IDF Wednesday."

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Pat Dollard, the former agent who traded in the glitz of Hollywood for the grit of the Iraqi desert, is nearing completion of the feature film and follow-up cable series for Young Americans, which chronicles the lifes of Marines fighting in Al Anbar Province. He also has a "combat journal" that will be featured in Maxim magazine in November. Maxim Editor-in-Chief, Jimmy Jellinek, said the journal was, "the best thing written about the Marine Corps at war since the book 'Full Metal Jacket' was based on." That book, in case you were wondering, was Gustav Hadford's "The Short Timers."

For folks new to Confederate Yankee in the past weeks, I invite you to take a look at Ward Brewer's Beauchamp Tower Corp's "Operation Enduring Service" blog. BTC is a not-for-profit corporation focused on two awesome goals. Part of their effort is to acquire World War II-era warships and turn them into museums.

BTC recently went to Mexico to acquire the former DD-574 John Rogers, the longest-serving Fletcher-class destroyer in the world, from the Mexican Navy, where combat veteran of Iwo Jima, Guandalcanal, and raids on Japan was on active duty until 2002. Ward has some cool pictures of the aging veteran from this recent foray, and milblogger John Donovan of Argghhh! chronicled the trip as well Start here and go. John Rogers will make its way to Mobile, Alabama where it will be turned into a Maritime Museum, and will be rededicated in November.

Brewer's Operation Enduring Service also has a major humainitarian goal as well, of converting retired naval transport vessels into state-of-the-art hurricane response ships to operate throughout the Gulf states and eastern seaboard. surprisingly enough, the federal government, particularly the U.S. Maritime Adminstration, is fighting this effort tooth and nail. Why they are against donating ships (that they intent to scrap anyway) to a life-saving effort is nothing less than insane.

Speaking of insane, Patterico demolishes sockpuppet master Glenn Greenwald (again) and his inane defense of the proven and admitted photo-staging that occurred in Lebanon. Ace piles on as well, as only Ace can do.

Oh, and torture? It works. Dolts can say otherwise, but it has been around for thousands of years becuase of it's effectiveness. I can sleep at night if pulling out a few fingernails (or worse) kept several thousand airline passengers from plunging into the Atlantic from 30,000 feet. As Al Davis says, "Just win, baby."

Ideals are nice, but don't do you much good as a corpse.

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Yes, I'm getting just as tired of this kind of stuff as you are (my bold):

Lebanese civil defense volunteers unload a coffin from a refrigerator outside the Hakoomy hospital in port city of Tyre, southern Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006. At least 842 people were killed in Lebanon during the 34-day campaign, most of them civilians. Israel suffered 157 dead _ including 118 soldiers.(AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

According to the Associated Press "most" (by definition more than half; at least 421) of those who died were civilians. Considering AP's recent track record in Lebanon, I'm disinclined to believe their claim. Their vague figures run in opposition to what we see here from Strategy Page:

On the ground, Hizbollah lost nearly 600 of its own personnel, and billions of dollars worth of assets and weapons.

Ynet News, citing the IDF as a source three days ago, states that 530 Hezbollah members have been killed.

If the Hezbollah deaths cited by StrategyPage and Ynet are correct and the AP's overall casualty count is close to accurate, then more than 60% of those killed were Hezbollah fighters, even as Hezbollah attempted to hide behind old women and children.

However, when looking at the figures provided by the Associated Press, one would be tempted to infer that Hezbollah's attacks were more precisely targeted at Israeli military forces, as the AP points out that the majority of the Israelis killed by Hezbollah--118 of 157--were soldiers, while "most" of those killed by Israel were civilians.

But the AP conveniently leaves out the fact that half of the Israeli civilians killed were the result of 4,000 indiscriminately targeted Hezbollah rockets purposefully aimed at civilian areas. It also leaves out the glaring fact that Lebanese civilian casualties were so high precisely because Hezbollah chose to fight a war using Lebanese civilians as shields.

Israel specifically targeted precision weapons and artillery fire on infrastructure and Hezbollah targets, while Hezbollah aimed their rockets almost exclusively at Israeli population centers.

In the media war against Israel, somehow the captions are never quite big enough to fit that most basic truth.

Update: An IDF First Sergeant clarifies the situation with first-hand knowledge in the comments:

CY, this is a great post you have written here, though I feel I have to eluminate a few things.

I'm an IDF first sergeant and recently returned from Lebanon. And the way things are develping I might return there sooner then I've hoped.

Hizb'Allah casualties. The numbers you have presented are quite close to accurate, but they don't show the whole picture. It's not classified, but I dought you'll ever see these figures in the MSM. According to our statistics we (the IDF) have scored OVER 600 CONFIRMED enemy kills (photgrphed, documented, claimed and added to the killboard, I personally scored 2 kills to add to my record) and another 800-1200 unconfirmed/unclaimed kills (this estimation includes kills form airstrikes/artillary shelling). The Hizb'Allah losses aren't counted, on the most part, against the official number of Lebanease casualties. Hizb'Allah admits to loosing only 58 of it's own men and 21 more from their ally - the Amal terrorist organisation.
How much troops Hizb'Allah has really lost we'll probably never know since they're quite unlickly to release this information.

Hizb'Allah also lost a lot of weapons and equipment, and quite large amounts of equipment were captured by us.

But the operation wasn't deemed as successful since we didn't get our boys back. Also we (the soldiers) feel that some high ranking officers in the Northern Command had little idea what they where doing. Our political leadership could've should've done more - like sending us in early on/buying us more time to finish the job.

At any rate, Olmert chose to succumb to the will of Kofi Anan and his Useless Nations with their Hizb'Allah backed Associated Propaganda and al-Reuters spitting lies all over the world about disproportionate response and us indiscriminately
killing civilians.

But this isn't over by any means, this "cease fire" is just a temporary respite before all hell will break loose once again. And then we'll finish what we've started.

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Almost five years after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan, the release of 1,613 emergency calls made under that bright blue September sky are like ripping scars:

"Listen to me, ma'am," that operator told a panicky Melissa Doi during a 20-minute phone call. "You're not dying. You're in a bad situation, ma'am."

A portion of Doi's end of the conversation was played for jurors in April at the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

"I'm going to die, aren't I?" Doi asked the dispatcher.

"Ma'am, just stay calm for me, OK?" the dispatcher said. The conversation ended with the operator trying vainly to speak with Doi, a financial manager for IQ Financial Systems: "Not dead, not dead," the operator said to no response. "They sound like deep sleep."

The phone line cut out. Doi never made it out of the World Trade Center.

"Oh, my lord," said the operator, whose words to Doi were previously not made public.

At Hot Air, AllahPundit managed to listen to about 90 seconds of Doi's 24-minute call before he had enough.

I admire him for getting as far as he did.

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While the war between Hezbollah and Israel seems to be on an increasingly temporary hiatus, the public relations battle over who actually came out ahead in this latest Arab-Israeli conflict seems to depends on whether or not you give military successes or temporary political successes more weight.

Leftist poster boy in favor of Islamic oppression, Robert Fisk:

The truth is Israel opened its attack on Lebanon by claiming the Lebanese government was responsible for Hizbollah's attack - which it clearly was not - and that its military actions would achieve the liberation of the captured soldiers.

This, the Israelis have signally failed to do. The loss of 40 soldiers in just 36 hours and the successful Hizbollah attacks against Israeli armour in Lebanon were a disaster for the Israeli army.

The fact that Syria could bellow about the "achievements" of Hizbollah while avoiding the destruction of a blade of grass inside Syria suggests a cynicism that has yet to be grasped inside the Arab world. But for now, Syria has won.

Was Lebanon's government—the same government which refuses to disarm Hezbollah—aware of Hezbollah's plan to kidnap Israeli soldiers?

Fisk says they weren't complicit.

Hasan Narallah, leader of Hezbollah, indicates otherwise (my bold):

I told them on more than one occasion that we are serious about the prisoners issue and that this can only solved through the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. Of course, I used to make hints in that respect. Of course I would not be expected to tell them on the table I was going to kidnap Israeli soldiers in July. That could not be.

[Bin-Jiddu (Al-Jazeera)] You told them that you would kidnap Israeli soldiers?

[Nasrallah] I used to tell them that the prisoners' issue, which we must solve, can only be solved through the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

[Bin-Jiddu (Al-Jazeera)] Clearly?

[Nasrallah] Clearly. Nobody told me: no, you are not allowed to kidnap Israeli soldiers. I was not waiting for such a thing. Even if they told me no you are not allowed [nothing would change]. I am not being defensive. I said that we would kidnap Israeli soldiers in meetings with some of the key political leaders in the country.

To call Robert Fisk a liar would be redundant.

Is the loss of 40 soldiers in 1 1/2 days a "disaster" as Fisk states? To the family members of the soldiers it undoubtedly is, but otherwise, the lost of 40 men in a close quarters ground assault against the entrenched positions is hardly a disaster, even if the overall outcome of the battle was not the total destruction of Hezbollah in South Lebanon. "We won because we didn't all die" is hardly the most convincing victory speech for Hezbollah and their Syrian and Iranian patrons, not matter how the politics of the situation are spun.

Of course, that is just the political angle played up by Hezbollah's supporters.

Let's look at another view, based on the facts:

Hizbollah suffered a defeat. Their rocket attacks on Israel, while appearing spectacular (nearly 4,000 rockets launched), were unimpressive (39 Israelis killed, half of them Arabs). On the ground, Hizbollah lost nearly 600 of its own personnel, and billions of dollars worth of assets and weapons. Israeli losses were far less.

While Hizbollah can declare this a victory, because it fought Israel without being destroyed, this is no more a victory than that of any other Arab force that has faced Israeli troops and failed. Arabs have been trying to destroy Israel for over half a century, and Hizbollah is the latest to fail. But Hizbollah did more than fail, it scared most Moslems in the Middle East, because it demonstrated the power and violence of the Shia Arab minority. Sunni Arabs, and most Arabs are Sunnis, are very much afraid of Shia Moslems, mainly because most Iranians are Shia, not Arab, and intent on dominating the region, like Iran has done so many times in the past. Hizbollah's recent outburst made it clear that Iran, which subsidizes and arms Hizbollah, has armed power that reaches the Mediterranean. This scares Sunni Arabs because a Shia minority also continues to rule Syria (where most of the people are Sunni). The Shia majority in Iraq, which have not dominated Iraq for over three centuries, is now back in control.

Hizbollah did enjoy a victory in its recent war, but it was over Sunni Arabs, not Israel.

Two different reactions, one based in leftist cant sympathetic to terrorists, and another based on the actual physical damage and the political resonance felt throughout the region. At the end of the day, I think the Israelis came out far better in their "defeat" than did Hezbollah's military wing in their corpse-riddled "victory."

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Nuance:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Democratic political ad is under fire from Hispanics who say it unfairly compares Latino immigrants to terrorists.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sponsored a 35-second ad on its Web site that shows footage of two people scaling a border fence mixed with images of Osama Bin Laden and North Korea President Kim Jong Il.

Pedro Celis, chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, said in a statement Tuesday that the DSCC should remove the ad because it vilifies illegal Hispanic immigrants and is "appalling."

Houston City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado, a Democrat, sent a letter to DSCC Chairman Sen. Charles Schumer of New York asking that the ad be pulled. She said it could alienate Latino voters.

"To liken Latino immigrants to bazooka-toting terrorists not only undermines the positive relationship our party has with this community, but also lowers us to a despicable level as breeders of unfounded fear and hatred," Alvarado wrote.

The ad opens with the words "Security Under Bush and GOP?" It features scenes of a masked man with a bazooka, scenes from terrorist attacks and police inspecting a subway train. It also shows Osama bin Laden, Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a docked ship as it claims "4 times as many terrorist attacks in 2005."

Then comes footage of a person climbing over a corrugated metal border fence and another preparing to climb it as the words "millions more illegal immigrants" form on-screen. In the following scene, viewers see the words "North Korea has quadrupled its nuclear arsenal" with footage of a tank and North Korea President Kim Jong Il.

The ad ends with the words, "Feel safer? Vote for change."

Terrorism and illegal immigration are two hot-button issues facing America right now, but the Democrats seem unwilling or unable to realize that while there is some concern that our lackadaisical border security may enable terrorists to cross the border, illegal aliens are not terrorists. While they are an economic and social concern, illegal aliens are not actively engaged in trying to destroy America and take America lives.

That Democrats seem to view these two issues on an equal plane betrays the fact that the reality-challenged Party doesn't hold Islamic terrorists as any more of a threat to American lives than does an illegal alien's attempt to find a better life by the wrong means. With increasingly rare exceptions, Democrats are still a party incapable of admitting and coping with the very real threats of Islamic terrorism facing the Western world.

Does an entire political party unable and unwilling to address your safety with a single concrete plan to address terrorism in the five years since September 11 make you feel safer?

Me neither.

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Yesterday I quipped that I found Gatorade's new energy Drink "self-Propel," after discovering a series of three pictures by Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra. In those photos, a mysteriously mobile bottle of water appears and disappears beside an elderly injured woman that Bensemra said was waiting to be rescued, and was made to appear utterly alone.

The moving bottle and other suspicious elements in the photos lead me to believe that this series of photos, like so many already discovered coming from Arab Muslim stringers in Lebanon, were quite likely staged.

The curious composition of Bensemra's photos continued today, as this one was, err, unearthed in Yahoo's Photostream:

I have no doubt at all that Lebanese Red Cross members are unearthing bodies from the rubble of Israeli air strikes, and will continue to do so for days weeks, and even months to come. But the damaged structure in question would seems to offer a very narrow opening, and with two rescuers already inside the cramped space (you can see the reflective stripes on the sleeve of another rescuer further in), it would seem strange to bag a body in the narrow confines of unstable rubble, when it would be both safer and easier for the rescuers to do so in the open.

Of course that is making the assumption that this is indeed a cramped space.

Another photo, which I have enlarged and then cropped to show the relevant area, indicates that the external area of the structure in question is only several yards wide, and no more than a couple of yards high. Note the expansive open area in the left side of the frame, and edge of the structure over the shoulder of the second man from the right. This structure these men were emerging from is far too narrow to be a residential building. It seems doubtful that a normal residential dwelling would have such a narrow profile, a concrete roof, walls a foot or more thick, or space for two or more live adults to body bag the undefined deceased inside, before bringing him out.

Victim, or target? House, or bunker? Perhaps the Israelis were able to kill someone other than old women and children after all.

I cannot prove that Zohra Bensemra is complicit in staging photos in Lebanon, but at the very least I can feel comfortable of accusing Bensemra of writing misleading captions that alter the context of how the picture is viewed. A caption reading "Lebanese Red Cross personnel remove the body of a person who died during an Israeli air raid during the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah, at Tayba in south Lebanon August 15, 2006" may be entirely accurate, but a caption reading "The body of a Hezbollah fighter is removed from a bunker near Tayba" would tell quite a different story, if that is indeed what happened.

Is Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra a journalist, or propagandist? I'll leave that for you to decide, Myself, I tend to judge people by the company they choose to keep.

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I'm currently in a quandary, trying to determine whether the United Nations cease-fire or Lebanon's implementation of it is more of a joke.

Hizbullah will not hand over its weapons to the Lebanese government but rather refrain from exhibiting them publicly, according to a new compromise that is reportedly brewing between Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The UN cease-fire resolution specifically demands the demilitarization of the area south of the Litani river. The resolution was approved by the Lebanese cabinet.

In a televised address on Monday night, Nasrallah declared that now was not the time to debate the disarmament of his guerrilla fighters, saying the issue should be done in secret sessions of the government to avoid serving Israeli interests.

"This is immoral, incorrect and inappropriate," he said. "It is wrong timing on the psychological and moral level particularly before the cease-fire," he said in reference to calls from critics for the guerrillas to disarm.

According to Lebanon's defense minister, Elias Murr, "There will be no other weapons or military presence other than the army" after Lebanese troops move south of the Litani. However, he then contradicted himself by saying the army would not ask Hizbullah to hand over its weapons.

If these reports are true, and Lebanon allows Hezbollah to retain their weaponry, they are not only in breach of the cease-fire resolution, they are choosing to side with Hezbollah. Israel should now consider Prime Minister Fuad Seniora's government as an enemy regime.

At some point in the future, maybe only hours or perhaps as long as years from now, Hezbollah with take aggressive actions against Israel that will necessitate another Israeli campaign. The next campaign must not be one of a tentative nature, but one of decisiveness.

Israel must break Hezbollah.

As an "pajama general" half a world away, with no military experience, I must turn to the history books for a solution to Israel's "Hezbollah problem," and a decisive battle in the "Forgotten War" of Korea offers a possible winning strategy.

On June 25, 1950, 135,000 North Korean troops swarmed into South Korea. Within three days they had captured South Koreas capital of Seoul. The U.S. Eighth Army came to South Korea's aid, but even then, they were driven into a small pocket called the Pusan Perimeter before the combined forces were able to establish and hold a defensive line. It was a desperate land stand against the North, and the Korean Peninsula seemed that it might fall completely into communist hands.

That changed on September 15, 1950, when General Douglas MacArthur executed a brilliant "left hook," landing 70,000 men at Inchon, well behind the front, cutting North Korean supply lines. Seoul was liberated ten days later. Half of the 70,000 North Korean troops on the Pusan Perimeter were killed or captured, and the remaining 30,000 were forced to retreat out of South Korea.

Israel may have the capability too consider a similar battle plan in a future war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. While Israel lacks the amphibious forces and manpower of MacArthur, it does have enough helicopter transport capability to perform deep insertions of elite infantry and light artillery units well into Lebanon. By airmobile insertion of these forces along transportation routes from Syria to the west and placing a blocking force to the north and west of Beirut, Israel could cut off Hezbollah from it's Syrian and Iranian suppliers far more effectively than air strikes alone did in the last campaign. It would also open up a multi-front war, keeping Hezbollah off-balance and unable to concentrate firepower in any one direction.

While these airmobile forces are inserted, Israeli strike aircraft could take out cell phone towers, central telephone exchanges, and other command-and-control targets, rendering Hezbollah largely blind and isolated except for short-range communications. At the same time, Israeli reservists and heavy armored units would bypass and cut off Hezbollah strongholds in the south, which could then be targeted and destroyed one-by-one.

This is the campaign Israel should have waged, and perhaps one they may yet fight. It is important to recognize that such a campaign might trigger a conflict with not only with Hezbollah, but the Lebanese Army as well. The conflict would not doubt result in hundreds of Lebanese civilian deaths, perhaps as many or more than this last month-long campaign. The responsibility of these deaths will not only belong to Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah, but with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora and the elected Lebanese government as well. A government that sides with terrorists, becomes terrorists, and Israel should now regard Lebanon as a state-sponsor of terrorism.

Fuad Seniora has signed a deal with the devil, and however and whenever the next war between Israel and Hezbollah is waged, he will bear the blame for the deaths of hundreds or thousands of Lebanese, as assuredly as if he had pulled the trigger himself.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:06 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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According to Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra, an elderly injured woman lies injured in the ruins of her house, awaiting rescue as Bensemra snaps these pictures.

Let's for a moment try to look past the staging elements that we've become accustomed to searching for over the past weeks.

Ignore for a moment the fact that a wounded elderly woman in a bombed out building is unlikely to be in the kind of physical condition needed to drag several pristine sofa pillows through the rubble and make a bed out of them. Look past the fact that she, in her weakened condition, has found a nearly spotless black blanket in the fine gray dust of a bombed out building to cover her legs against the 80 degree cold. Ignore the conveniently-placed bottled water she somehow found intact and had for the middle photo only.

Look past all this, and the total absence of any readily identifiable injury, to momentarily take Zohra Bensemra's word at face value that this is an injured, elderly woman lying in the rubble, that he seems to have stumbled across before help has arrived.

Now place yourself in Zohra Bensemra's shoes.

If you came across someone lying injured in the rubble, would you cry for assistance, seek to comfort her, or stop to determine which camera angle best captures this scene?

Would you come forward quickly and see how badly she is injured and try to render assistance, or would you compose an increasingly intimate montage of photos?

Reuters, no doubt, will offer the excuse that the photographer has the duty to capture the story, not to become part of it.

I'd like to ask Reuters when a photo-op becomes more important than basic humanity, but I'm afraid they'd be all too ready and willing with an answer.

Update: After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided one element of these photos deserves more attention, so I updated the second photo to highlight the interesting detail.

According to the photographer's caption:

An injured Lebanese woman lies in her damaged house as she waits to be rescued during the first day of ceasefire, at Bint Jbail, east of the port city of Tyre (Soure) August 14, 2006. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra (LEBANON)

If she "waits to be rescued" alone, who, then, is moving the bottled water in the second photo out of frame in the first and third pictures? Is it Gatorade's new fitness drink, "self-Propel?"

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:27 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Safely hidden in his hidden Brazillian jungle fortress, sockpuppet sallies forth to warn us of the evils of the BushCo Mind Control Agenda:

The Bush administration has adopted an array of tactics to control the news, from threatening journalists with criminal prosecution to paying pundits and manufacturing and distributing propaganda videos disguised as taped news segments. One such tactic, used with increasing frequency and obviousness, is that when Bush officials need to do an interview in order to address some brewing crisis, they will sit with only the most sycophantic and Bush-loving "journalists" who will shower them with praise and adoration in lieu of scrutiny and real questions.

Sockpuppet's biggest gripe seems to be that al-Reuters, al-Jazeera, and al-Franken aren't the primary means of distributing information to the world at large. By his estimation, Sean Hannity, Brit Hume and Pamela of the blog "Atlas Shrugs" are the Administration's primary media outlets to the world.

And you know what? He's right.

Sockpuppet cites ironclad evidence showing that Hume was granted an interview with President Bush in September, 2003 and just three years later an interview with Vice President Cheney in February of 2006. Such single-source media domination should not be stood for in a free society.

The blatant right wing domination of the news reared its head again on August 12 as Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice dared to be interviewed by Sean Hannity, only to be followed by Pamela's hour-long interview of Ambassador John Bolten, when he obviously should have been appearing on The View or Al-Manar instead.

These developments have been a huge point of concern for White House Spokesman Tony Snow, long since cut out of the news distribution loop in favor of a mom from New York, a point he made at his last White House Press conference that a now jobless White House Press could not attend.

It is a sad day indeed when politicians are reduced to associating with extremists, as Sockpuppet notes.

A sad day indeed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:06 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Ah, Qana... the staged massacre that won't go away.

Bernice S. Lipkin, editor of Think Israel wrote to let me know that I was one of several bloggers cited in her newest article, The Bloggers Take on The Qana Massacre. It's worth a read if you haven't been following the story, and probably a nice way to tie everything together if you have.

Due in part to this article and Kathy Gannon's shamefully lightweight defense of AP's reporting (thinly veiled as an article about Slam Daher, AKA "Green Helmet"), I decided to revisit the Qana photostream on Yahoo!, when I noticed something that hadn't quite caught my eye before.

This photo got my attention.

A female victim is being carried out of the naturally lit, open-air basement. Her legs are covered with a white sheet and her torso with a black one, but an armed encased in a black-full length sleeve all but points at the cameraman.

And on the third finger of her left hand, what do you see?

A simple band of gold. A wedding ring?

Aren't wedding bands are Christian tradition?

The 28 named dead were all reported to belong to the same Shiite Muslim family.

Update: Could be dead wrong on this; I dont know. I figured it was better to put it out there and let folks debate it.

Update: CY reader Bruce sends me this link, which seems to indicate that the use of wedding rings in Muslim culture is a flagrant violation of their cultural norms:

The following are some of the practices that are meticulously carried out during matrimonial affairs despite the fact that they are either expressly forbidden in Shariah, or have no bases in Islam:

The engaged couple meet at a public gathering where the boy holds the girl's hand and slips a ring onto her finger whilst the two look romantically at each other. This act is void of modesty and completely [sic] foreign to Islamic culture. It is furthermore, a flagrant violation of the Quranic Law of Purdah. It is an evil innovation of the godless west , and those indulging in it should take cognizance of the Prophet's stern warning that "those who imitate others will rise on the Day of Judgement as of them".

If this is correct, then the use of wedding rings in the strictly Shiite Hezbollah-dominated culture of south Lebanon very unlikely, begging the question, "where did this body, with an apparent wedding band, come from?"

Now more than ever, I strongly suspect this body, among others, may have been "planted" at Qana.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:01 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Michael Totten podcasts live from the Israeli/Lebanese border as a major Israeli offensive is about to give in.

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If I wrote the hare-brained editorial that appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News today, I'd want it left unsigned as well.

A fisking, anyone?

THESE PEOPLE have no shame. Their contempt for democracy is so great they will stop at nothing to undermine it. Their adherence to fundamentalist beliefs that blinds them to reality is frightening. They must be stopped.

And that's just the Republicans.

Nothing like getting your mind-numbed partisanship out front.

Let's start with Vice President Dick Cheney.

Yesterday, Cheney bashed those who voted for Democrat Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate primary, claiming that these votes would encourage "al Qaeda types" to think that "they can break the will of the American people."

The idea is that since 18-year incumbent Joe Lieberman lost based on his support for Iraq, Americans opposing the war are waving a white flag of surrender to terrorists.

This is stunningly ignorant logic, as well as annoyingly consistent with the Bush administration's fundamentalist myth that Iraq had ties to al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden - a claim by now well-discounted, most notably by a presidential commission.

Mr. Anonymous Editorialist, are you trying to tell us that Ned Lamont's cries to pull the troops home now—exactly what Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri, and the late Abu Musab Zarqawi have called for—is not the exact position of the world's leading terrorists?

The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how you try to shade it, the headlong retreat—or "redeployment" or whatever you want to call it—favored by the radical left is precisely what al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups desire. We know that, because they've said so, repeatedly. The only stunning ignorance displayed here is your own ignorance of the fact that both the terrorists and the Democrats agree that they want the U.S to retreat from the Middle East and stop killing terrorists.

Further, it is precisely the headlong "redeployment" that John Murtha called for from Somalia and heeded by Bill Clinton that resulted in the terror attacks of September 11.

Dead terrorists don't cause problems, and retreating from live terrorists inspires them to attempt greater acts of terror. What part of that logic are you incapable of understanding?

In addition, Mr. Anonymous Editorialist has his fingers crossed and hoped no one would actual check his facts, which would reveal that the 9/11 Commission Report did not say that Saddam's Iraq did not have ties to Osama's al Qaeda. In fact, it said something else entirely.

Bin Ladin also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Ladin had in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994. Bin Ladin is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Bin Ladin associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States. Whether Bin Ladin and his organization had roles in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and the thwarted Manila plot to blow up a dozen U.S. commercial aircraft in 1995 remains a matter of substantial uncertainty.

Communications between senior officers of organizations are ties, ladies and gentlemen, whether or not they cooperated on attacks against the United States.

Iraq may not have played a role in the terror attack against America on 9/11, but al Qaeda and Saddam's Iraq certainly had ties to one another dating back to 1994, as stated by then CIA Director George Tenet:

• Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qa'ida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.
• We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida going back a decade.
• Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.
• Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad.
• We have credible reporting that al-Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.
• Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al-Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.
  
  

Since the 9/11 Commission Report was issued, even more documents have shined a light on the connections between al Qaeda, their Taliban hosts, and Iraq. Mr. Anonymous Editorialist can say Iraq had no ties to al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden if he wants, but rational people looking at the still-accumulating evidence will be hard-pressed to draw that same conclusion.

But back to the editorial:

And yet the presidential fog machine has continued to belch out its Iraq-al Qaeda-link fumes to the extent that a recent poll suggests that 64 percent of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to al Qaeda. More people than ever now believe, according to a new poll, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

No ties in the preceding paragraph has been walked back to "strong links" in this one. I've give this to the writer; when it comes to headlong retreat, he practices what he preaches.

It goes without saying that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction; it is a simple incontrovertible fact. He used thousands of them in his 1980-88 war with Iran, and gassed thousands of Kurds in a single four-day strike on Halabja in 1988. Iraq maintained and declared WMD stockpiles at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, and an Iraqi general says his men moved WMDs out of Iraq into Syria in the weeks before our 2003 invasion. Anonymous may discount it, but as evidence slowly accumulates, even more people will believe in Iraq's WMD capability because it did exist, and it was never fully accounted for.

Ironically, the number who believe in the al Qaeda link is almost precisely the same number of Americans - 62 percent - who believe we are bogged down in Iraq.

For Cheney - and other Republicans like GOP National Chairman Ken Mehlman - to suggest that those Americans are encouraging terrorism is reprehensible.

And yet, we have to go back to the essential fact that John Murtha's 1993 call for retreat from Somalia is directly responsible for Osama Bin Laden's decision to attack America. I certainly know it is not the Democrat's intent to encourage terrorism, but that fact—and it is a fact—remains that that is exactly what their position has done, and will continue to do.

Cheney's comments came out a day before British intelligence officials announced they had thwarted a major terrorist attack. Surely Cheney was aware of the plot and the work to thwart it, and was no doubt aware of the timing of yesterday's announcement.

To exploit a very real terror threat that could have led to major casualties, and to even indirectly implicate Americans who were exercising their democratic right by going to the polls and making a choice borders on the criminal, to say nothing of the insane.

Has Cheney completely lost it?

Mr. Anonymous has no shame. While more than eager to attack Cheney for politicizing events, he studiously avoids his own Party's attempts to politicize things as well. Should we wait until his next editorial comes out calling Teddy Kennedy or Harry Reid insane or asking if they have "completely lost it?" Probably not.

The latest terror scare is upsetting enough: It is bound to lead to havoc and chaos both domestically and internationally. It could damage the economy if fears on flying are sustained. It reopens the profound wounds of 9/11, a scab we should figure by now will never completely heal.

But the real terror is this: While our Vacationer- in-Chief and his vice president shut down dissent, and discourage questions about the way our government has directed our intelligence and military resources toward a single target in Iraq, we are no closer to understanding or dismantling the threat of al Qaeda.

They "shut down dissent," eh? I spent all this effect to fisk an overly-dramatic editorial, and the guy who wrote it will be inside a Halliburton-run concentration camp before he can even read this. Darn.

Interestingly enough, it now seems that how our President has led our intelligence and military resources may have had a direct impact in thwarting this latest attack, as the very intelligence programs that the New York Times is trying to destroy may have provided crucial intelligence. Of course, ensconced in irons in a cell somewhere near Allentown, Mr. Anonymous will never know or admit to that.

Cheney's remarks underscore just how unsophisticated our understanding of terrorism is. We have no more understanding of the global forces at work that lead so many to want to bomb and destroy innocent lives than we did five years ago.

America's latest crisis is not what happened in Connecticut; it's what was going to happen in airplanes over the Atlantic.

The immoral and ridiculous claims coming out of the Bush administration's reign of error could ultimately be responsible for the kind of casualties that al Qaeda can only dream of.

Actually, terrorism is very simple to understand. It isn't a matter of nuance. Islamists want the whole world to subscribe to their way of thinking, and those that don't, they want dead. That is why Islam partitions the world into Dar al Islam, the House of Submission for the true beleivers, and Dar al Harb, the House of War, where infidels must convert, or die. It's actually quite straightforward. Even a Sea Monkey can grasp the basic concept, even if a Philadelphia Daily News editorialist finds it too taxing.

Claims don't kill people, Mr. Anonymous Editorialist.

Terrorists do.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:11 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Michael Yon issues a stark warning about the growing civil war in Iraq. His comments are disturbing, to put it mildly, but I trust his analysis. We have soldiers and commanders on the ground that know how to succeed, and it seems they are not being allowed to complete their mission.

I've made it apparent in the past that I've had my disagreements with the present Administration, and while I've been impressed with the efforts of our soldiers on the ground, the leadership—primarily the political leadership—seems to have misjudged how best to conduct this war time and again, and quite frankly, seems on the verge of blowing it if they haven't already.

I think it is time for Donald Rumsfeld to consider retiring. He presided over two very successful and very different military invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, winning each handily with minimal loses to men and equipment on both sides. I think it highly unlikely two countries the size of Afghanistan and Iraq can easily be dispatched as well by any other nation, and Rumsfeld ran two excellent invasion campaigns. The performance of our individual soldiers and commanders on the ground have also been phenomenal as well, and I cannot say enough about their professionalism or the degree of restraint and respect for civilian life with which they have fought these on-going wars.

But I do doubt how our political leadership have run the occupations and rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan after we established a large degree of control over these nations. Too many mistakes have been made.

The Sunni insurgency and their al Qaeda allies have been dealt crippling blows during the rebuilding of Iraq, but no rational person with any knowledge of history expects them to completely go away for years to come. But during this same time, Kurdish forces in the north have been allowed to engage in raids into Turkey with little or no repercussions, setting a stage where Turkey may invade northern Iraq. Shiite militias in Baghdad and southern Iraq have been allowed to exist and strengthen ties with Iran. The country is on the verge of collapsing into sectarian genocide, and our political leadership doesn't seem to have the stomach to crack down on these groups with the force necessary to literally kill the private sectarian armies that are ripping the country apart.

The Administration isn't wholly to blame for the situation in Iraq—it is after all their country and they are the ones killing each other—but it is responsible for Iraq to the point where some people have come to view private armies instead of a national government is in their best interests, as many Iraqis obviously do. The person most directly responsible for these failures in Iraq are not the soldiers on the ground, but their senior leadership in the Pentagon, and the man sitting at the desk of the Secretary of Defense. It is his job to run the military's wars, and he has allowed Iraq to reach its present state.

Perhaps it isn't entirely Rumsfeld's fault—he does take orders from the President, after all—but he is most directly in charge of a situation growing increasingly out of control, and I think it is time to have a fresh set of eyes look at the problem, and seek a better resolution. We must win in Iraq, and by "we", I mean the coalition and the Iraqi people. Their lives matter to me. They deserve a chance to live in a society without fear.

We cannot win this war for the Iraqi people by withdrawing. The "nediots" chanting on a Connecticut stage, and mewling around the anti-victory left, refuse to address the genocide that could certainly occur if we heed their calls for a headlong, cowardly retreat. And yet, we cannot win by slowly reacting or failing to act to changing situations. The 25 million people of Iraq deserve the free nation they braved bombs and bullets to vote for, and we owe it to them as much as to ourselves to make sure they succeed.

Our present top level military leadership is failing at that task, and we need fresh eyes on the ball. I thank Donald Rumsfeld for his many years of hard work and dedication to our great nation, but I think it is time for him to pursue other opportunities.

We owe that to our Iraqi allies.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:22 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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I spoke several days ago about the Ghosts in the Media Machine, and how media coverage of the war between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon is heavily slanted in favor of Hezbollah.

Scan the photos coming out of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, and you'll see and unending stream of dramatic photos of dead women and children and anguished rescue workers climbing through the remains of bombed-out residential buildings, and you will see heart-rending photos of toys in the rubble. You will see mourning. You will see pain. You will see a civilian infrastructure in tatters.

What you will not see, except in very rare cases, is Hezbollah.

There is a flipside to that coverage as well, coming from the same photostreams. Photographers chronicling the war from the Israeli side of the conflict also seem to have their own agenda, geared toward the same end.

The photos of Israel's participation in this war are interesting in that they are heavily invested in showing the army component of the Israeli Defense Forces in an odd light.

There is an old maxim that says life in any military is very much a "hurry up and wait" prospect, where soldiers experience an existence that intersperses long periods of boredom with short, intense periods of combat. The photos coming out of Lebanon and northern Israel certainly capture the boredom aspect of military life, to an extent that seems contrived. The same photostream that has provided the scenes of dead and dying Lebanese civilians and bombed out buildings shows a IDF army on the ground that seems to spend a considerable amount of time marching in an out of Lebanon, or sitting around waiting for something to happen. Time and again, the photos show soldiers that seem equally spent and bored... or worse. Certainly, a large part of the IDF soldier's life in this war is sitting around waiting for something to happen, but what this war is not providing scenes of IDF soldiers engaged in the intense, often close-quarters ground combat that has caused most of the IDF's casualties and many more Hezbollah casualties on the ground.

We do not see photographers following the IDF into action; we have not a single photojournalist comparable to a Michael Yon following IDF soldiers into close combat. We have no Kevin Sites embedded with IDF forces as they clear enemy villages (as a side note, while Sites was vilified by many for shooting the footage of a U.S. Marine killing a wounded insurgent in Fallujah, the Marines he was embedded with seem to have no hard feeling, and Sites himself certainly had no animus towards the Marines). There are no stories telling of the bravery or selflessness that so many soldiers display in their character in the heart of war, no stories of individual courage, though almost certainly these events have transpired.

Instead, the media covering Israel's army seems focused on showing the bored, the wounded, and the dead. Proof is simple enough to find. At the time this post was written, the first 15 pages of the Yahoo! News photostream showed 57 photos of Israeli soldiers and their families, some of them duplicates.

Eight photos showed Israeli military vehicles driving, nine showed Israeli soldiers walking. 15 pictures showed Israeli soldiers sitting, or otherwise stationary. Four photos showed wounded IDF soldiers being evacuated. Nineteen photos--the most of any category--were focused on the death of Israeli soldiers and the anguish of their families and friends. One photo showed an IDF artillery round being fired.

Only one photo--a single, solitary photo--showed an IDF soldier in action.

If the IDF itself is not allowing media to accompany soldiers into Lebanon, this perception of a feeble, ineffective army is proof that the IDF itself does not know how to fight a postmodern media war, and the Israelis have only themselves to blame. If, however, the IDF will allow embedded photographers and journalists to accompany their army into Lebanon (and the photo linked above of an IDF soldier advancing in Qlai'a suggests that it does), and the media is refusing to either accompany IDF forces, or else refuses to distribute the stories and images they gather, then we have something else entirely.

An argument can be made that the media photos coming out of Lebanon and Israel of the IDF's ground forces are meant to show an ineffective force that spends most of its time sitting around doing very little when it isn't burying its soldiers. Obviously, "something" is occurring between the sitting and the dying, and the world's media is failing to tell that story.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:47 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Noting really wrong with this photo out of Lebanon, but the caption is, well, slightly misleading:

Palestinians, in the Bedawi refugee camp near the port city of Tripoli in north Lebanon, collect leaflets dropped by Israeli warplanes August 10, 2006. REUTERS/Omar Ibrahim

Just normal, everyday Palestinians. On a stroll with AK-47s assault rifles and military load-bearing equipment (LBE) to carry more rifle magazines and grenades, like they would in say, New York or London.

Reuters: the gift that keeps on giving.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:50 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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German Confederate Yankee reader Niko translates this response from a letter to the photo editor of Stern magazine, a major German news magazine. The Editor-in-Chief, Andreas Trampe, attacks the reader for questioning Stern about "Green Helmet" (article translation available at EU Referendum), the designated dead baby carrier for Hezbollah in Lebanon since 1996:

Dear Mr ...,

As Editor-in-Chief of Stern's Picturedesk I write this in response to
your harsh letter dating from August 5th, 2006. So what is it that you
don't like about our reporting? What do you find lurid about that
report [i.e. the initial report depicting Green Helmet as "some rescue
worker"]? In the first two pages we show the carnage and victims in
Qana, the next two depict the carnage and victims in Haifa. The
following picture pages are equally balanced, even more so the text
which, obviously, you didn't bother to read. There's no dispute that
the Israeli air raid on that building in Qana did happen, there's also
no dispute that it caused a lot of civilian victims. So what's wrong
about that? What about it appears to be staged? Did Hezbollah dare the
Israelis to conduct the air raid in your opinion? Did Hezbollah
initiate the bomb raid on their own? Did the Palestinian [sic!]
civilian casualties never happen? Where's the faking? We did not
conduct a story about Green Helmet Ali, even less so a lurid one! That
man is featured in just a single picture and a single caption. Even if
that man were indeed to parade dead children intentionally before the
eyes of the world, those children were dead nonetheless, killed in the
raid. And sadly, they won't rise again even when fervent supporters of
Israel's politics pull out red herrings to distract from actual
events.

Your accusations of anti-Semitism on our part, or that we were hoping
for the destruction of Israel, are the biggest bullshit I've heard in
a long time (leaving aside the fact that it's factually wrong).
Israeli victims are to be bemoaned equally, the death of people in
Haifa and Jerusalem is lamentable in the same way. But crude
conspiracy theories seem to be the latest trend. Thanks to upstanding
internet bloggers. They're sitting in Norway, England or Germany, and,
of course, they're much more intelligent, smart and incredulously
independent. They possess knowledge of remote locations and events,
they're capable of classifying complex matters and doing quick
research. There you go, brave new digital world !!!

We, however, prefer to do it the old way, we send journalists and
photographers around the world for large sums of money so that they
can speak on location and directly to the people. For instance, with
Green Helmet Ali, who will answer those allegations put out, and he'll
tell our readers where he's from, what's his name, and what actually
happened on that day in Qana. That, of course, you won't find
originally reported in internet blogs. What you will find, though, is
some super post from some smartass guy about how Green Helmet Ali once
again fooled the whole world because, in actual fact, he's a secret
agent of Hezbollah. I hope you enjoy the reading.

Andreas Trampe
stern Bildredaktion / stern picturedesk
PS What was it again about intelligence and ideology?

Andreas Trampe
Stern-Picturedesk
Am Baumwall 11
20444 Hamburg
Phone: +49-40-3703-4122
Fax: +49-40-3703-5685
Mail: Trampe.Andreas@stern.de

Editor-in-Chief Trampe tells us that the crude analysis and questions brought about by bloggers about the incident in Qana isn't up to the standards of the highly trained, well-paid media on the front lines of the war in Lebanon.

Perhaps Trampe should save his self-righteous indignation, at least until he can explain this video footage (from German TV, no less) of "Green Helmet" directing the body of a child to be pulled from an ambulance, placed on a stretcher, and then paraded in front of the media.

I have no doubt that the fine media reporters and photographers in Lebanon are paid "large sums of money" as the editor states, but you might think that someone being paid so much might feel the obligation to tell the entire story, at least as long as they are unbiased, as these many Arab Muslim stringers covering a war with Israel certainly are. Of course, I'm just trying to clarify complex matters by doing quick research from another country, so what do I know?

(Note: replaced text link with Youtube video)

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As details emerge on today's foiled mass murder plot from members of the Religion of Peace, most people are thankful that the attacks were thwarted and that many of those involved in the plot have either been arrested or are on the run.

Of course, that would be most normal people.

The Jim Jones wing of the Democratic Party smells a conspiracy.

Although it may not be a "cry wolf" situation, I am skeptical because of the timing.
Granted the timing would have been better for BushCo, Inc. for this to break prior to Holy Joe's spanking in CT, it still fits in the every other year (just before elections) pattern of TERROR!!!! alerts.
Or am too cynical?

Comment by BuzzMon

Yeah, yeah, yeah, even if this is real, the timing is a political event. (9/11 redux.) I'm both skeptical and jaded. Bojinko!

Comment by eCAHNomics

Damn Brits. They weren't supposed to run this op until two weeks before the election!

Comment by Castor Troy

From the latest AP story, he're the key line:

"Officials said the government has been aware of the nature of the threat for several days."

In other words, instead of warning people a few days ago when they would have been out of harm's way, they created maximum inconvenience at a time of maximum danger for maximum effect after setting the whole thing up with tony snow's press conference yesterday.

Comment by angry young man

I guess the 2006 election season has now officially begun

Comment by DeepDarkDiamond

These comments are just a few representative excerpts from one popular liberal blog, but they mirror the comments made by many others.

It would seem a sizable portion of the Far Left thinks George Bush and Tony Blair engineered a massive al Qaeda terrorist plot to punish liberals for selecting Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic Primary. What, you haven't heard that one yet? Don't worry.

You will. They did.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:40 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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By now, I'm relatively certain you've heard of a immense terror plot that has been foiled in Great Britain, where between 6-10 international flights (some early reports stated as many as 20) from Great Britain to the United States were targeted for attack. The plotters were apparently intent on using liquid explosives disguised as beverages to detonate the flights in mid-air.

United, American, and Continental flights to New York, Washington DC, and California were specificly mentioned as being targeted. As many as 50 suspected terrorists may have been involved in the plot, and it is not clear if all have been captured. Follow media reports and blog reaction to this story at Pajamas Media and Hot Air. Ace has good round up as well.

So, what do we make of this?

First, we're still short of a lot of details. What we can say with a fair degree of certainty is that a group of Muslim terrorists attempted to carry out the mass murder of western civilians on a scale that, if it had been successfully carried out, could have exceeded the carnage of September 11, 2001. The number of casualties would have been determined not only by the number of people onboard the targeted planes, but also where the terrorists decided to detonate the planes. A bomb detonated on a plane over the Atlantic would most likely kill only those on board; a plane detonated shortly after takeoff or landing on a flight path over populated areas could have the potential to take lives on the ground, as did American Airlines Flight 587 when it crashed into Belle Harbor, Queens, after taking of from JFK International Airport in New York on November 12, 2001.

We also know that this plot is very similar to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's disrupted al Qaeda plot to bomb 11 planes in the mid 1990s.

More as this develops.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:54 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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As I hoped they would, Democratic primary voters in Connecticut unleashed "nedrenaline" on an unsuspecting American public last night, as the single-issue candidate Ned Lamont beat long-time Democratic Senator Joe Liebermann by four percentage points.

Liberals are of course loving this, one even dropping in a taunting comment in my last post on the primary race,"Scared to death, aren't you?"

Err, not quite.

The Lamont victory, which may be known in years to come as the "Lamonticide" of the Democratic Party, is precisely what conservatives would have hope for if we were voting (and judging by the number of new voters and voters who switched parties prior ot the election, we may have) in Connecticut last night. Lamont's vicotry speech chant of "troops out now!" with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton over either shoulder couldn't have been scripted better if it had been written by Ann Coulter and filmed by Rush Limbaugh. It was the perfect re-introduction of a McGovernite Democratic party as it would occur in Karl Rove's dreams.

Shlock waves rippled across the country almost immediately. A giddy Kos immediately said Senator Joe Lieberman is not a real Democrat, and proclaimed he should to be stripped of his committee appointments.

New York Times editorial this morning fatally misunderestimated the average American's intelligence as it tried to label the Daily Kos/Code Pink/Cindy Sheehan fringe "moderates," while fellow "moderate" Michael Moore, in all of his bloated myopia, issued a threat to all Democratic congressmen and senators that they better play by the rules of the radical left, or else.

Ned Lamont's win has galvanized the netroots and encouraged the progressive movement's most partisan fringe to bring forth their most barbaric yawps.

It is, in short, a disaster in the making. Moderate voters to retch as the netroot's most vile proponents are thrust on stage. By the time November rolls around and moderate Democrats and independents flee the now-radicalized left that has run roughshod over the exclusionist Democratic Party, the radicals will too late learn that the active ingredient in "nedrenaline" is syrup of ipecac.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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