Via CNN:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi constitutional committee signed off on a draft of a constitution Sunday after making some minor amendments, a committee spokesman said.

The draft, which was signed by the committee, will now go to the National Assembly. The amendments were made in hopes of appeasing the Sunni Arab minority, although government spokesman Leith Kubba said not all Sunnis agreed.

Hardline Sunnis still object to what they consider two key sticking points; federalism and the formal dissolution of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Shiites and Kurds came up with a compromise delaying any action on these issues until a new assembly--essentially the future government--convenes in December.

But what does all this mean?
A couple of things:

1. It proves that the Iraqi people understand the concept of a representative democracy, even the Sunni population from which the insurgency has evolved. Six of seven known insurgency groups have pledged to vote rather than fight in the October vote


2. It proves that the three main groups understand compromise. While no arrangement will satisfy all parties, the majority of people seem to accept the constitution in its current form. The question remains whether that majority is "enough." Despite media oversimplification, the Sunni and Shia voting blocks have already proven not to be monoliths, and may sway the outcome of the constitutional referendum scheduled to be held October 15.


3. If this constitutional draft is defeated in October, the process isn't over. New elections will be held and a new draft constitution will be hammered out. You must remember that it took us over a decade for the 13 colonies to hammer out the United States Constitution and we still had to develop a separate Bill of Rights that we still see a need to amend occasionally.

As important to many Americans, the ratification of the process will not directly impact the training of Iraqi military and police forces that will one day take over Iraq's security needs. It is hoped that Sunni by-in on the constitutional draft and a ratification of this draft might undercut support for the insurgency and hasten the United States withdrawal, but that was primarily a political concern, not a practical one. Iraqi forces will take over their country's security when they are ready for the job, not when insurgent attacks decrease.

Personally, I would not be completely disappointed if this draft of the constitution is not ratified. I'm not sold on the merits of federalism, and would like to see the dissolution of the Baath Party as a formal part of the document.

In any event, I don't have to live with it. Iraqis do. We'll discover their feeling in October.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jihad Tours is going to have to fnd a new way to travel. Via CENTCOM:

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition forces killed Abu Khallad, a major facilitator of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into northern Iraq, during operations in Mosul on Aug. 25. Multiple intelligence sources and tips from concerned citizens led multi-national forces to a location in Mosul where known foreign fighter facilitator Khallad, a Saudi national, was located. Upon arrival at that location, multi-national forces stopped his vehicle, a gunfight immediately ensued, and Khallad and an unidentified terrorist were shot and killed.

"Multiple intelligence sources and tips from concerned citizens" were responsible for taking out a top terrorist. Cool.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:02 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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From comments on Iraq the Model:

The Silver Lining

The process of tearing down centuries of animosity between different factions in the ME has started. This process will play itself out of the years ahead of us.

America and her allies and the people of Iraq should take credit for taking people from all factions and having them sit down together, stepping back and encouraging them to debate, negotiate face to face.

It is a very noble process that requires patience and most importantly, encouragement to all parties from the rest of the world.

'Nuff said.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via The New Editor:

About two weeks ago, word came that Nohe's case had been dismissed by a judge on 7 August. The Coalition was livid. According to American officers, solid cases are continually dismissed without apparent cause. Whatever the reason, the result was that less than two weeks after his release from Abu Ghraib, Nohe was back in Mosul shooting at American soldiers.

LTC Kurilla repeatedly told me of--and I repeatedly wrote about--terrorists who get released only to cause more trouble. Kurilla talked about it almost daily. Apparently, the vigor of his protests had made him an opponent of some in the Army's Detention Facilities chain of command, but had otherwise not changed the policy. And now Kurilla lay shot and in surgery in the same operating room with one of the catch-and-release-terrorists he and other soldiers had been warning everyone about.

Makes you wish we were still sending them to Abu Ghraib, doesn't it?

Wll, we still do. And they like it:

The most serious terrorists do not fear prison here. Captain Jeff VanAntwerp, who commands Alpha Company, recently told me that Iraqis joke among themselves that they would pay 5,000 dinar per night to stay at Abu Ghraib prison. It's air-conditioned, the showers are good, the food is good, and the water is good.

My, how times have changed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Aki via Chrenkoff:

[One] statement issued by six of the seven Ansar groups promised that there will not be attacks against Americans on the day of the referendum, 'to protect those who go to vote.' 'Voting is a jihad of words and is no different from the jihad of the sword,' the statement said. 'There are no objections to participation in the referendum to show the world our strength and to defeat federalism'.

The terrorists know their only chance to substantially change their fate now is with a ballot instead of a bullet.

I would call the acceptance of the inevitability of a vote, and an acknowledgement of their inability to prevent a vote, another small victory against the insurgency in Iraq.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:44 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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While I'm greatly bemused by Kos's hinted-at circular firing squad plan for the Democratic Party, I am far from content with the way conservatives are limp-wristing the War in Iraq right now.

A very vocal anti-American and pacifistic minority in the political far, far left believes passionately that we should withdraw all U.S. military forces from Iraq immediately, literally believing that one more American death in this war is a wasted American life. A somewhat larger group believes that we should set a fixed withdrawal date and pull all of our forces out by a pre-determined time. Another large group of Americans feels that we should pull out once some pre-determined conditions have been met.

These three positions are the only positions that matter in the current political environment, though these three positions are far from equal.

"Not One More"
The most radical of the anti-war protestors want the United States to remove all American military forces in an immediate and haphazard retreat. Their stated goal is to save American lives, because "not one more" soldier or Marine should die in Iraq. Some of the fringe elements, such as Cindy Sheehan, even advocate a full withdrawal from Afghanistan as well.

But what could happen if these protestors got their wish for an unconditional withdrawal?

Frankly, no one knows for certain.

While the insurgency has been regularly hyped by the media and are capable of occasionally spectacular attacks, the insurgent movement in Iraq is already close to collapse, as intercepted letters from terrorist leader Abu Mus'ab Zarqawi and terrorist lieutenant Abu Zayd have indicated. A weakened terrorist group with foreign leadership should not be able to win domestically in Iraq against an Iraq military and police force that is increasingly capable of handling it's own affairs. On a straight head to head match-up between Iraqi government and terrorist forces, it is probable that the Iraqi people would destroy the terrorists in their midst, provided they had a chance to get their government established first.

We are currently still in the process of establishing Iraqi military and police forces. On the plus side, there are no shortage of recruits. On the down side, recruits aren't quite where we would have hoped at this point. We need time to train them, and time to withdraw gradually to let them get established and confident before we leave completely.

If Cindy Sheehan and her compatriots in the "not one more" movement got their wish for a headlong retreat, the ensuing chaos as unprepared civilian authorities fought insurgents and criminals in a power vacuum, would cost thousands of innocent civilian lives before Iraqi authorities would be able to restore civil order. This is in one of the better scenarios.

Abu Mus'ab Zarqawi, of course, would have his own plans.

In a worst-case scenario, sectarian tensions exacerbated by Zaraqawi's terrorists or militias like Muqtada al Sadr's could rip the country apart into tribal and ethnic warfare on par with the genocidal slaughters of Bosnia or Rwanda. At this point, the United States would be forced to reinvade Iraq again to tear the warring parties apart, or allow tens of thousands (perhaps more) to die in a civil war.

In the rush to recklessly disengage, the far left would leave millions at risk, just as they led 2 million Cambodians to die in the killing fields after the end of the Vietnam war because of our headlong retreat from Southeast Asia. While Cindy Sheehan and her allies cannot see it, their tactics would result in the most deaths of the three major disengagement strategies.

I doubt this is the legacy the "peace" movement really wants to leave. Perhaps they are just too ignorant to understand their actions.

"Establish a Timetable"
A popular option among most moderate Americans, and one than spans party lines, is the idea of establishing a fixed timetable for withdrawal and strictly sticking to it.

This strategy is not without its merits.

It allows for an orderly withdrawal of United States forces, it proves to the Iraqi people that we are not imperialists as some fear, and it forces Iraqi government and its security forces to try to be prepared for the handover of security duties as the United States withdraws.

There is only one real downside to this disengagement strategy, and that is that a fixed timetable encourages terrorists to simply hold their operations while building stockpiles so that they can mount a massive offensive once we've left.

The hope of this strategy from the terrorist's perspective is that they can simply outwait the American forces that are their greatest threat, and as soon as we've withdrawn, they could launch a "Desert Tet" in an attempt to ignite the same chaos and sectarian violence mentioned previously. The biggest downside is that knowing they can outwait America, they have time to marshal their forces, and rebuild their supply lines. This strategy is less likely to succeed for Abu Mus'ab Zarqawi in the long term than an immediate pullout, but it cold still cause unnecessary mass civilian casualties. The insurgency may have a chance to go out in a devastating blaze of glory, killing thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. I think most Americans would refer to avoid this option if possible.

"When the Time is Right"
The third option is establish a clear set of criteria for what we consider an acceptable set of conditions, and start a phased withdrawal when those conditions are met. It is not important that the public knows exactly what these conditions are; in fact by making these conditions known, it negates them by creating the same scenario above. The terrorists might simply try placate us, artificially creating conditions so that so that we will leave while they regroup.

But it is important that we have these conditions, and that the public knows we have conditions, and that we withdraw when these conditions are met, and no sooner.

In all likelihood, the Bush administration has these conditions set, but it has failed to articulate this fact to the general public. The administration must impress upon the public the importance of completing the mission, wile keeping up the pressure upon the insurgency so that when the Iraqi government transitions into the lead security role, it faces a battered insurgency it can finish off on its own terms, rather than a rested and waiting insurgency able to pose a real threat to the future of Iraq.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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So, Iran decided to continue down the path of uranium conversion, which many fear might be an early step in developing a nuclear bomb.

Germany's Joschka Fischer warned of "disastrous consequences" if Iran acquires a bomb.

What ever could he mean?

TEHRAN 14 Dec. (IPS) One of Iran's most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only".

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.

Nah, it shouldn't concern us one bit...

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The Independent today reports claims more than 10,000 Muslims in Britain have had at least basic training in small arms and simple explosives. But it gets worse.

"There has been a debate on whether we are facing an insurgency or terrorism," said the source, "and the verdict is on the side of an insurgency."

So, our British allies, which have all but outlawed practical self defense with firearms and even cooking knives, find themselves in the lamentable position of feeling like naked sheep before armed wolves.

Granted, this story doesn't quite pass the smell test, seeming to be highly sensationalized. 10,000 people who know how to something doesn't equate 10,000 people that will use that knowledge for nefarious purposes. There are tens millions of people in Britain who know both how to drive and how to toss back a pint, but I haven't heard of governmental worries of an insurgency of drunk drivers... though it might explain why they all drive on the wrong side of the roadÂ…

No, I doubt there is a real insurgency or intifada threat to England, but I also know that any threat of that sort is far more likely to succeed in a disarmed society like Britain than it ever would in the United States.

Remember the North Hollywood shootout? Two heavily-armed criminals with body armor terrorized Los Angeles for 44 minutes, and the LAPD was almost powerless to stop them. Police officers were forced to grab rifles from civilian gun stores, as their police weapons (incidentally, of the same 9x19mm caliber as the pistols and sub-machineguns of British police) were no match for the criminal's armor.

This was a robbery gone bad, perpetrated by just two men. Now imagine a dozen fireteams of 3-4 terrorists, armed with AK-47s and covered in body armor, set loose upon a major metropolitan city.

Normal police weapons such as pistols and submachine guns will not workagainst most body armor, even with multiple hits. In return, the 7.62x39mm round of the AK-47 cuts though most police-issue body armor like a hot knife through butter. It has all the makings of a slaughter.

SWAT teams will not be able to respond quickly due to the chaos, and even in those locations where they can respond, they will respond late (SWAT teams are made up of regular officers who must report to a centralized location to be outfitted before an engagement), and they will be unprepared for a force-on-force battle in the open (most SWAT teams are prepared for CQB assaults on fixed positions) against a trained enemy.

That leaves the city in question largely defended by under-armed (or in Britain, unarmed) patrol officers, and the citizens that decide that taking action into their own hands is their best chance of survival.

Now, in which country would these civilians and patrol officers have a better chance of survival?

English police officers, while brave, would not stand a chance without firearms, and they have little hope of citizens being able to step in to offer credible assistance with their butter knives. Citizen and officer alike would be nearly powerless. They are reduced to waiting until the terrorists run out of ammunition, which isn't exactly a plan I'd endorse.

American citizens, on the other hand, could potentially help their police, or at the very least might be able to offer up some defense of their own lives. The Second Amendment was designed to help the American people defend themselves against tyranny.

If there is indeed another terrorist attack in England, I wouldn't be very surprised to see the British people push for a similar right to self-defense.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:20 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Two societies.

A person in one society who murders innocent civilians is immediately branded a "bloodthirsty terrorist" by his own government. In the other, the person who murders innocent civilians is celebrated as a hero.

I wonder which of these cultures gets to claim the moral high ground?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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A poll conducted by YouGov published in The Economist, shows that 70-percent of Britons support the new "shoot-to-kill" policies put in place in the wake of the 7/7 suicide bombings, even after an unarmed Brazilian electrician was shot eight times after running from the police. The poll was conducted via an online interview of 2,873 British adults, according to Angus Reid Consultants.

The Belfast Telegraph reports—though I cannot independently confirm—that British police can not only shoot to kill suspected suicide bombers, but they could do so without identifying themselves or challenging a suspected bomber to stop. While sure to rile alarmists, the policy makes perfect tactical sense.

Undercover officers should not risk the lives of civilians by identifying themselves or asking the suspected bombers to stop, as either of these actions would result in a suicide bomber having one last chance to detonate his explosives.

While this policy is nothing less than state-supported assassination, it is the correct response. It is better to make the mistake of having three or five or even more innocent people killed in cases of mistaken identity, than letting one suicide bomber detonate on a bus or subway car and kill or wound dozens. After years of being in denial and under-responding to the threat of radical Islam, it seems that Britons have finally learned how to respond to the terrorist threat.

Or have they?

Worldnet Daily has confirmed the rumor that at least some British Police departments still don't get it, requiring police SWAT teams to remove their shoes before conducting counter-terrorism raids on British Muslim homes. The guidelines, developed before the recent terror attacks, also prevent Bedfordshire Police from interrupting Muslims at prayer during these raids. Presumably, a terrorist can "stop, drop and pray" to prevent arrest.

See if you can tell the subtle difference in treatment of a suspected suicide bomber in Britain based upon his location.

Scenario One: A flat in Luton (Pre-7/7)

If police are tipped to the location of a suspected suicide bomber who lives in Luton, they must apparently put up a sign in teh neighborhood explaining why there needs to be a raid, and then wait until after dawn before taking off their shoes and walking to the house. Once they reach the house, they will knock respectfully and announce their presence so they will not see Muslim women inappropriately dressed. After police officials verify that officers are clad in stocking feet only, and that all people inside are approropriately dressed, they may enter the home.

While in the home, they should refrain from touching anything that looks like it might in some way have any religious significance. They may not videotape the premises, nor may they enter bedrooms or bathrooms, nor may they bring in dogs trained to sniff for explosives. Officers should not interrupt any suspect until after they are done with their prayers.

If they do decide to take a suspect into custody, they should allow him to grab his racksack to take with him before they leave.

Scenario Two: A London tube station (Post 7/7)

BANG!

thump.

I hope British police organizations can come to a consensus as to which approach will prove more effective before the next wave of suicide attacks.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...Completely Stupid.

"Though we're worried about you murdering dozens of innocent civilians, but we don't want to infringe on your cultural traditions."

Oi vey...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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