That is what Reuter's says this picture portrays.

The caption reads, "Palestinian youths attend a summer camp organised by the Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza City July 30, 2008."

The Islamic Jihad, of course, is a terrorist group established with the goal of wiping out the Jewish state of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian state. Their interests include Qassam rocketry, suicide bombings, and martyr operations.

This isn't a "summer camp" as we would recognize it. This is the modern Hitler Youth.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:22 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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That is one intriguing interpretation of today's disclosure that Iran would be getting the long range Russian surface-to-air missile system known as the S-300PMU-1 (SA-20), and that the system would be deployable in as soon as six months from their expected September arrival.

The Russians no doubt relish the contortions the West is going through over Iran's nuclear program, but at the same time, their intelligence organizations are telling them that Iran is working on developing nuclear weapons and missile technologies that can also threaten Russian interests.

By selling the Iranians advanced weapons systems and then disclosing their most likely deployment dates, the Russians are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

They've outlined the outside window of Iran's greatest vulnerability to an air assault on its nuclear program and command and control facilities. It only remains to be seen now whether or not American and Israeli leaders will strike with enough force to irreparably destroy key elements of the Iranian nuclear program, or if they will make the deadly mistake of trying to avert a nuclear war "on the cheap."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:58 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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...another province, Diwaniyah, was handed over to Iraqi government control.

This means that for the first time, a democratically-elected Iraqi government is in charge of a majority of the country (10 of 18 provinces). The largest province and former home of the Sunni insurgency, al Anbar, is on the cusp of being handed over as well.

You would think that turning point such as the Iraqis taking over the control of the majority of their country would be a moment that editorial writers, always looking for moments pregnant with symbolism, would gush over.

Alas, Iraq isn't as newsworthy with victory so near at hand (and with the anointed candidate faltering so badly), and so this milestone goes all but unreported.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:18 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Matthew Yglesias wants to get into a framing discussion and attempts to argue than an ABC poll was unfair to his man-crush/candidate.

Without nailing down the dishonesties in Yglesias' attempts to recast McCain's position, let's get into the specifics of what will be lost by Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan.

Logistically, it is deemed quite improbable, verging on impossible, for U.S. combat forces to perform an orderly withdrawal in 16 months. A withdrawal of personnel is possible, but at the cost of leaving behind hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars in taxpayer-purchased equipment that would have to be repurchased stateside, increasing future government debt, promising us yet another tax increase courtesy of Obama.

A commenter of his (Allan) claims that "Obama supports removing our troops from Iraq in an orderly process," but that is the height of fantasy; those who work in logistics have noted that his plan would promote chaos and unnecessary stresses on the supply chain and limited port facilities that have to process, decontaminate, pack, and ship outbound equipment and supplies.

This is simply the logistical argument, ignoring the dangers of a too-quick handover in provinces where Iraqi forces are still not deemed capable of taking the lead. Considering the stellar progress and trajectory of security gains and government progress in the last year, it is possible that in 16 months that the Iraqi security forces can take the lead in the eight remaining provinces where the U.S. is in charge of security, but it would be foolish and counterproductive to predetermine the removal of the safety net U.S. forces would still provide as Iraqi forces become more competent and confident.

Unless, of course, you have some vested interest in defeat.

Then there is the simple common-sense matter of which troops Obama wants to remove (combat forces). As a Iraqi war soldier or Marine (I forget which) remarked last week, who's going to be left in Obama's Army in Iraq, cooks and truck drivers?

Who is going to protect our remaining troops and positions and backstop the Iraqis if Obama pulls out our combat troops? Supply clerks? Dental hygienists?

Obama's plans for Iraq, like all of his other plans, are formulated with the impulsiveness and lack of concern for the unintended consequences of international affairs we'd expect from a neophyte government official not even one term removed from an inconsequential and lackluster state government stint, and a responsibility-free community organizer job before it.

Like so many things attached to the name Obama, his withdrawal plan for Iraqi is based upon irresponsible promises divorced from what he can actually deliver without causing far more hurt, a truism of his campign that can just as readily be applied to his domestic and foreign policy perscriptions.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:10 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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You have to give credit where credit is due: the Washington Post isn't quite ready to surrender to victory in Iraq, and they're not above hyping a desperate bid for relevance by waning Shia militias as a significant tactical adaptation.

U.S. Troops in Iraq Face A Powerful New Weapon by Ernesto Londoño of the Washington Post Foreign Service was a much better article the first time I read it over a month ago in Bill Roggio's far more useful Long War Journal article, which the Post mentions but doesn't link. I can only assume that the Post failed to link Roggio's article because is so much more competently written.

While Londoño seems intent on describing a weapon system that is a an improvement over past improvised devices in describing a weapon that has killed at least 21 people, he buries the fact that 18 of those 21 (16 civilians, two Madhi Army militiamen) were killed as a result of the jury-rigged bombs failing, and detonating in their launchers.

The so-called IRAM is a crude, desperate weapon apparently designed by the Judean People's Front.

I'm not surprised that the Post would try to hype potential bad news in Iraq, but a crude weapon that has killed six times more people on the launching end than the receiving end seems more ripe for mocking than fear.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:50 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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They aren't quite ready for coalition forces to leave just yet, but the dramatic gains in terms of security and political successes now have the Iraqi government suggesting a possible U.S. withdrawal.

The Iraqis are confident in their ability to handle their own affairs, and I can certainly understand them wanting Iraq fully back in Iraqi hands. They're hoping for a pull-out in the 2011-13 timeframe and would like to try to establish a deadline based upon "conditions and circumstances" on the ground.

Considering the present situation in Iraq, I certainly think that a pullout in that 3-5 year window is certainly possible, though I can understand why some in Washington may be leery committing to date-based withdrawal schedule, just as I can understand why Iraqis would like to have a specific date to look forward to. As the Iraqi government and coalition forces negotiate, perhaps the best option—and to my mind, the most logical—would be a compromise agreement, that says by X date, Y forces should withdraw if Z conditions have been met, and if not by that date, as soon as those conditions are met.

This would give Iraqis not just a date to look forward to, but give them more incentive to make sure that security and political needs of their citizens are being addressed.

What would be hilarious in watching these developments—if it wasn't so pathetic—are progressive Democrats crowing about this recent decision by Iraqi officials, insisting that a timeline for withdrawal is exactly what they've been asking for all along.

Not so fast.

Some progressives have been pushing for a withdrawal since before the first bomb dropped on Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Some are genuinely opposed to the idea of all wars for any reason, some were opposed to a war launched for reasons they disagreed with by a government they disagreed with, and some fickle souls began pushing for withdrawal only once the conflict became more bloody, expensive, and protracted than they assumed it would be.

However they got to that position, they got there by the worst days of the war in 2006, when Sunni and Shia militias were locked in a deadly sectarian conflict verging on open civil war, and coalition forces were taking heavy casualties. At the time John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and other Congressional Democrats were calling the loudest for a timeline for withdrawing American forces in Iraq, the safety and security of the Iraqi people and the success of their nation was the last thing on their minds.

Democrats wanted American troops pulled out of Iraq as soon as logistically possible, without preconditions, even if it plunged that nation into open an civil war that could cost tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, even if such a headlong withdrawal led to genocide, even if such a morally bankrupt decision led to a widespread regional war.

It was and is a craven, reprehensible act of cowardice, mirroring the shameful behavior of the Copperhead Democrats 140 years earlier who wanted to abandon Blacks to slavery in the South to sue for peace in the U.S. Civil War.

The Copperheads of today's Democratic Party color themselves "progressives" for championing the abandonment of a group of people (slightly lighter in skin tone than the last time) to a fate potentially as bad or worse than the slaves of antebellum, and make no mistake: the modern Copperheads care no more about "liberty and justice for all" than did their forebearers.

Then as now, it was about their selfish personal desires, hopes of amassing political power, and disdain for a stubborn Republican President. Then as now, they could rely upon their friends in the media to carry forth a call for appeasement and abandonment.

But the situation now in Iraq is far different now than it was when progressive Democrats began advocating the abandonment Iraqi civilians to a bloody fate.

Now, it is an increasingly competent and confident Iraqi government itself that builds hope of a U.S. withdrawal, based upon their growing strength and the continuing vanquishment of terrorists, criminal militias, and common gangs.

A timeline for withdrawal based upon Iraqi and coalition successes is to be commended as a beacon of hope for a brighter future for a new and sovereign democracy in the Middle East, just as the timeline of abandonment and defeat advocated by progressive Democrats should be regarded by history as a mark of shame.

Update: A bit dog barks.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:52 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Three gunmen ambushed Turkish police outside the U.S. consulate in Instanbul, Turkey today, in an attack that left all three attackers and three Turkish police officers dead, but not before the police killed their assailants.

The attack was carried out with handguns and a pump shotgun, indicating this was not the work of an organized terrorist organization such as al Qaeda or Hezbollah. These groups have a well-documented history of using large vehicle-borne explosives to carry out attacks against fortified positions such as embassies and consulates. Using such short-range weaponry in such a poorly executed and apparently ad hoc assault, the attack had virtually no chance of success, and no one was apparently injured inside the consulate.

A fourth man seen with the three attackers never left a gray car seen at a nearby carwash moments before the ambush, and escaped after his compatriots were killed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:15 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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"...a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

Such were the famous words of Shakespeare's MacBeth, though they apply equally well to empty Iranian threats against U.S. Naval vessels in the Persian Gulf in case of conflict between our nations.

The simple fact of the matter is that should tensions escalate, U.S. capital ships have no need to be in the Persian Gulf to control the Iranian shoreline and the Straits of Hormuz.

The image above, pulled from Google Maps, shows, small body of water on the left is the Persian Gulf. The large body on the right is the Gulf of Oman, outlet to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean (larger map).

U.S. carriers, amphibious assault ships, and larger surface ships can easily leave the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if a strike on Iran is imminent, far removing them from the range of Iranian surface ships, aircraft, and radar stations. This negates the threat of Iranian anti-ship missiles, and turns the threat of blindly-fired ballistic missiles into irrelevancies splashing down in empty seas.

Iran would retain the ability to strike Israel, and could no doubt stir up trouble in Iraq via it's terror cells there, or even an open but suicidal direct assault against American forces in Iraq and elsewhere on land throughout the Gulf region, but the threats of a Iranian counterstrike against U.S. Naval forces is little more than bluster.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:38 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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