Labels: Iraq
posted by Alcibiades @ 5:48 PM
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posted by Alcibiades @ 1:42 AM
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A bloc of Iraqi lawmakers and cabinet ministers allied with militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr launched a boycott of their government duties Wednesday to protest Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to attend a summit in Jordan with President Bush.Now if only they could find a way to extend the boycott indefinitely and recompose the Iraq government.
"We announce the suspension of our participation in government and parliament," said Nasar al-Rubaie, the leader of Sadr's parliamentary bloc. "We gave a promise last Friday that we will suspend our participation if the Prime Minister met with Bush and today [Wednesday] we are doing it as a Sadrist bloc."
posted by Alcibiades @ 11:31 AM
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At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.Would Senatorial etiquette lessons be out of place for this titan? Or skip that and head straight for anger management intervention?
Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.
“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.
Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.
"He's not a typical politician. He really has deep convictions," said Schumer, who headed the Senate Democrats' campaign arm.
Labels: Domestic Politics
posted by Alcibiades @ 11:17 AM
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I first met Mitt Romney in early 1994 when he was beginning his Senate run against Ted Kennedy and was a washed up pol at age 27, having lost my bid for state representative in 1992. I’m proud to say that I was one of the first volunteers for the Romney for Senate campaign.
posted by Alcibiades @ 10:24 PM
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I first met Mitt Romney in early 1994 when he was beginning his Senate run against Ted Kennedy and was a washed up pol at age 27, having lost my bid for state representative in 1992. I’m proud to say that I was one of the first volunteers for the Romney for Senate campaign.
posted by Alcibiades @ 10:24 PM
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I first met Mitt Romney in early 1994 when he was beginning his Senate run against Ted Kennedy and was a washed up pol at age 27, having lost my bid for state representative in 1992. I’m proud to say that I was one of the first volunteers for the Romney for Senate campaign.
posted by Alcibiades @ 10:24 PM
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I first met Mitt Romney in early 1994 when he was beginning his Senate run against Ted Kennedy and was a washed up pol at age 27, having lost my bid for state representative in 1992. I’m proud to say that I was one of the first volunteers for the Romney for Senate campaign.
posted by Alcibiades @ 10:24 PM
1 comments
I first met Mitt Romney in early 1994 when he was beginning his Senate run against Ted Kennedy and was a washed up pol at age 27, having lost my bid for state representative in 1992. I’m proud to say that I was one of the first volunteers for the Romney for Senate campaign.
Labels: Merkavah Mysticism, Mitt Romney, Mormonism, Presidential Election 2008
posted by Alcibiades @ 10:24 PM
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The United Kingdom should be broken up and Scotland and England set free as independent nations, according to a huge number of voters on both sides of the border.
A clear majority of people in both England and Scotland are in favour of full independence for Scotland, an ICM opinion poll for The Sunday Telegraph has found. Independence is backed by 52 per cent of Scots while an astonishing 59 per cent of English voters want Scotland to go it alone.
There is also further evidence of rising English nationalism with support for the establishment of an English parliament hitting an historic high of 68 per cent amongst English voters. Almost half – 48 per cent – also want complete independence for England, divorcing itself from Wales and Northern Ireland as well. Scottish voters also back an English breakaway with 58 per cent supporting an English parliament with similar powers to the Scottish one.
Labels: Britain
posted by Alcibiades @ 1:27 AM
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In a new first, Fatima Omar Mahmud al-Najar, a Palestinian Grandmother, blew herself up in a suicide bombing on Thursday, November 23, killing herself and lightly wounding three Israeli soldiers. The mother of nine and grandmother of 41 became the oldest Palestinian suicide bomber at the age of 57, approaching troops operating to curb daily rocket attacks, the army said.This was obviously a very proud moment for Hamas for reaching and surpassing this hurdle, as the bombing was claimed within minutes.
"Troops saw a woman approaching them in a suspicious manner and identified her carrying an explosive device," a spokeswoman said of the incident in the northern town of Jabaliya.
"They then threw a stun grenade in her direction but she managed to blow herself up," the spokeswoman said, adding that three soldiers were lightly hurt.
Relatives said Najar had seven sons and two daughters, plus some 41 grandchildren, and that they were proud of her "martyrdom", which daughter Azhar said was a direct response to the Beit Hanun shelling.Lovely sentiment.
"She did this operation in response to the Beit Hanun massacre. She was very moved by what happened," said Azhar, speaking from home in Jabaliya where relatives came to congratulate Najar's nearest and dearest.
Azhar also said her mother had taken part in a daring rescue operation, staged by Palestinian mothers and wives, who acted as human shields to free more than a dozen gunmen holed up in a Beit Hanun mosque on November 3.
Zuheir, Najar's 20-year-old son, told AFP from the family home: "We are really happy. It's a big operation. She told us last night that she would do a suicide operation. She prepared her clothes for that operation and we are proud.
"'I don't want anything, only to die a martyr.' That's what she said."
posted by Alcibiades @ 10:23 PM
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He started off by mentioning that "tomorrow is an extremely important day for America," and the crowd went wild, thinking he was talking about taking power. But of course, he launched into his praise of the Marine Corps, and the crowd cheered a little less loudly. Then he thanked all the brave veterans and brave men still fighting, and the crowd cheered a little less loudly again.They've elected themselves a paleo-con, that's what.
Then he mentioned that he received a call from Sen. Allen, and the crowd went nuts again. Then he mentioned how pleasant and dignified Allen was, and the crowd grew quiet. Then he said he was having lunch next week with Allen — and the crowd was dead silent. Finally he told the audience that they should all thank Sen./Gov. Allen for his many years of dedicated service to the people of Virginia — and you could almost hear the people gathered looking at each other asking, "What the $#@! did we just do?"
It was priceless.
posted by Alcibiades @ 6:35 PM
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A purported audio recording by the leader of Iraq's al Qaeda wing gloated over the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, as a top U.S. general said the military was preparing to recommend strategy changes.
Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, said in the recording posted on the Internet on Friday that the group had 12,000 armed fighters and 10,000 others waiting to be equipped to fight U.S. troops in Iraq.
Iran's most powerful leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Friday called U.S. President George W. Bush's defeat in the congressional elections an "obvious victory" for the Iranian nation.
"This issue (the elections) is not a purely domestic issue for America, but it is the defeat of Bush's hawkish policies in the world," Khamenei said in remarks reported by Iran's student news agency ISNA on Friday.
"Since Washington's hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."
Today the Mighty Media Notes Spotlight turns on the liberal pundits and whether they are being magnanimous in victory.
Answer: Not.
Twelve years after congressional Democrats were relegated to the minority offices, six years after they were evicted from the White House, the liberals are hootin', hollerin' and high-fivin' their way through the week.
"WE WON!!! WE WON!!! WE'RE TAKING BACK AMERICA!!! The Stephanie Miller Show was a full-on gloat zone this morning."
That's from the L.A. radio host's own blog , and she was so gleeful that she started playing the nah nah nah nah nah chant seconds after saying hello.
Unseemly? They don't care. And Stephie has plenty of company.
posted by Alcibiades @ 12:53 PM
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I wanted him replaced two years ago, and said so. (I wanted Condi replaced too, for that matter). I thought he was a bad manager, and a poor judge of people (some of his top aides don't belong there). It took me quite a while to get to that conclusion because of his reputation as an outstanding manager, but that's what I think, and I'm sad to think it. Because, in a town overpopulated with journeyman minor leaguers, he's an all star. He shakes up the system, which is not always a good thing, but it almost always is. He's the only member of the Cabinet to do that, and DoD, for all of its faults, is probably the most interesting building in town. It's sure a lot better than the White House and the NSC, and none of those people—the Hadleys, the O'Sullivans (a name you probably don't know, but she is in charge of Middle East policy at the NSC), the Abramses, etc.—is walking the plank. We can't prevail without people like Rumsfeld, the meteors of the political universe. He's a pure American type.
He's one of those people who does a lot of good things you never hear about, because he doesn't talk about them and he doesn't want his people to talk about them. One example: there's a Pentagon program to train dogs to assist blinded and crippled soldiers. It takes about two years to properly train the dogs, and the cost is forty thousand dollars each. One of the dogs was brought in to Rumsfeld's office for a visit, and when it was over, he took out his check book and covered the full cost of one of them. You wouldn't have read about it in the MSM, I promise you, but his future biographers should know such things.
And while I thought he should be replaced, I found the manner and the moment of his purge utterly disgusting. What was the rush? It was one of the worst moments of W's presidency. It was a double surrender by the president, throwing a severed head to the Democrats and to the terrorists. You can be quite sure that the terror masters saw the election as a great victory, and Rumsfeld's ritual sacrifice as a moment of glory. It will encourage them to redouble their efforts, both in Iraq/Afghanistan, and elsewhere. They believe they have Bush's number, that they have broken him, and all they must do now is keep the blood flowing to accelerate our retreat. My heart breaks for the Iraqis.
I think [Rumsfeld] was right, and that most troops in Iraq today would agree. I was just talking to a Marine Lt. back from Haditha and Hit; his chief worry was not too few Americans, but rather Iraqi Security Forces insidiously expecting Americans to do their own security patrolling. Since sending in tens of thousands to do a Grozny-like smash-up is both politically impossible and antithetical to American policy, I don't see the advantage of more troops at all, especially when we will soon near 400,000 Iraqis in arms, which, together with coalition forces of ca. 150,000, would in theory provide 555,000—or more than the "peacetime" army of Saddam's. As a rule in history, it is not just the size, but the nature, rules of engagement, and mission, of armies that matter.]
For the future, neither precipitous withdrawal nor a big build-up are the right solutions, the former will leave chaos, the latter will only ensure perpetual Iraqi dependency. As it is, there are too many support troops over in Iraq in compounds, who are not out with Iraqis themselves; more troops will only ensure an even bigger footprint and more USA-like enclaves. Abezaid, Casey, Petraeus, McMaster, etc. understand counter-insurgency and the need for a long-term commitment that marries political autonomy for the Iraqis with American aid, commandos, and air support. Rumsfeld supported them all.
A final note.Whatever Rumsfeld's past in the 1970s and 1980s, he wholeheartedly supported the present effort to offer the MIddle East something other than realpolitik. I don't see how the Reagan-Bush era 1980s and early 1990s policies in the Middle East—selling arms to Iran, putting troops in Lebanon and running when they were hit, cynically playing off Iran against Iraq, selling weapons to any thug in the Middle East, giving a blank check to the House of Saud, letting the Shiites and Kurds be massacred in February-March 1991—were anything other than precursors to the events of 9/11—when, of course, enhanced by the shameless Clintonian appeasement of the middle and late 1990s.
The return of the realists-Baker, Gates, and the former advisors to GB I-should prove an interesting mix with the Dean-Pelosi Democrats. The latter used to call for idealism in foreign policy, then got it with GWB's democratization, then turned on him, and now will get the realism that they currently profess to favor. Don't hold your breath.
posted by Alcibiades @ 5:08 AM
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David Frum, a co-author of Mr Bush’s 2002 “Axis of Evil” speech, told The Times that Mr Baker was now “Secretary of State in all but name”, and that the appointment of Mr Gates signalled a new phase of foreign policy where negotiation, and carrots rather than sticks, would dominate.
Frank Gaffney, a Pentagon official under Ronald Reagan, described Mr Gates’s appointment as the “beginning of the Baker regency”. Mr Frum said that he suspects Mr Baker is already negotiating with Tehran — a policy he deplores — and that he believed the White House will offer Iran both an end of sanctions and a “sphere of influence” in Iraq.
Mr Brzezinski told The Times that Mr Gates’s nomination was the beginning of a “major corrective” in US foreign policy on the Middle East.
“The most immediate change will be in tone and style because he is a very different personality to Rumsfeld,” Mr Brzezinski said. “Long-term changes probably involve a more open-minded reassessment of what has been going on because he is less inclined to be sympathetic to the neo- con perspective.”
SO WHAT KIND OF SECRETARY OF DEFENSE will Bob Gates be? I don’t know for sure and more ominously, I bet the White House doesn’t either. Personally, I find more to fear in his appointment than I do in Alcee Hastings’, but we’ll give him a chance. If the country is about to re-embrace Scowcroftian realism, we’re about to realize a hard lesson about that policy’s limitation. And if the military is going to return to worrying about the enemies it chooses instead of the enemies that choose us, we’ll have bigger troubles still.
Maybe if Gates wasn't a Cold Warrior of precisely the opposite sensibilities of Cheney and Rumsfeld the conclusions wouldn't be as inescabable. But Rumsfeld is hated in the Pentagon far more for RMA than Iraq, and now it looks like the President is giving up on RMA.
posted by Alcibiades @ 3:48 AM
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Some congressional leaders will push for President Bush's impeachment now that the Democrats have taken control of the House and possibly the Senate, former New York Mayor Ed Koch predicts.
"I expect that [Rep. John] Conyers as chairman [of the House Judiciary Committee], now with great freedom, will do anything he can to commence such impeachment or investigatory activity, and we'll see whether Pelosi will prevent it," Koch says.
posted by Alcibiades @ 1:57 PM
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Most troubling regarding Iraq, Mr. Gates was deputy national security adviser under Brent Scowcroft in 1991, when President Bush's father abandoned the Shiite uprising that followed the first Gulf War. One reason the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki has had such a hard time dismantling Shiite militias is because Shiites fear that it's only a matter of time before the U.S. abandons them again and they will have to confront the Sunni Baathist insurgency on their own. If President Bush wants to reassure Shiites on this score and about Mr. Gates, he should announce that the recent efforts to appease the Sunni terrorist political fronts in Iraq have failed.
HH: I want to go back to the country, and its ability to wage this war after last night. Has it been compromised?
CH: Very much by the appointment of Mr. Gates, I believe. I mean, I think that's a disgrace. It was very lucky for Mr. Gates that he was able to escape prosecution during the Iran-Contra scandal. And before that, he was the man at the CIA who was in charge of the pro-Saddam Hussein policy of the mid-80's, including giving, directly, important intelligence to Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran. He's hopelessly compromised. I can't think of a worse choice, really, and I hope he gets a real hard time at confirmation from Republicans.
Yesterday, just after President Bush announced that he would nominate Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld, I suggested that Gates would not enjoy his confirmation hearings. After all, they will be chaired by Sen. Levin who helped lead the charge against Gates when Gates was nominated to head the CIA in 1991. Levin ended up voting against Gates. He cited Gates' alleged dishonesty in answering questions about Iran-Contra, the liberal cause celebre of a few years earlier.
But I made my prediction before I knew about Gates' close relationship with former Secretary of State Baker, the man heading up the commission that trying to figure out what to do about Iraq. Reportedly, the commission is seriously thinking about enlisting our friends the Syrians and Iranians to cover our exit.
But a source told NBC News’ military analyst Bill Arkin that prior to the election, Vice President Dick Cheney argued with other politicians over whether Rumsfeld should stay. White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and others said Rumsfeld should be removed, the source said. Both sides agreed the decision would be made after the election, when Bush would make the final call based on how Republicans did.
According to the source, Bush agreed Rumsfeld should be removed after seeing election results favoring Democrats. Cheney then lost another argument, protesting Gates’ nomination as Rumsfeld’s replacement.
Fritz W Ermarth: Well, from everything the president has said, the strategy won’t basically change. Now, I can’t guarantee that sitting here in my study, but the execution you can count on will be very thoughtful and careful. That’s the kind of person Gates is. But until the president signals it, I don’t think you ought to look for a change of strategy...
He’s very realistic, and he’s very committed to the exercise of American power in a thoughtful way, and I think for all those reasons he’s an excellent choice.
The National Interest: What would you say his ideology is?
FWE: He’s a national security professional. He comes from a camp with which I personally identify. He understands strategic realities such that he’ll know we can’t back out of the situation we have in Iraq, but we can’t stay in it either without behaving very deftly and getting as much support as we can.
Robert Gates is drawing rave reviews from those who want the U.S. out of Iraq. Zbigniew Brzezinski says "I think the Gates appointment is the best appointment that President Bush has made in the course of his six years in office." Sen. Hagel says "President Bush has made an excellent choice for this critically important position. Bob Gates is qualified, competent and experienced." Rand Beers, a national security adviser to the Kerry campaign also has kind words for Gates.
posted by Alcibiades @ 12:19 PM
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posted by Alcibiades @ 10:45 AM
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Labels: Domestic Politics, GOTV 2006
posted by Alcibiades @ 9:45 PM
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The European Union urged Iraq on Sunday not to carry out the death sentence passed on Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein after his conviction for crimes against humanity.
"The EU opposes capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances, and it should not be carried out in this case either," Finland, current holder of the rotating EU presidency, said in a statement.
The statement offered no direct comment on the outcome of the trial but did say, however, that the EU had repeatedly condemned "the systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law committed by the regime of Saddam Hussein".
posted by Alcibiades @ 9:09 PM
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“It’s not that this gaffe was so bad,” says Ann McLane Kuster, a prominent New Hampshire activist, “But it plays into all the traits he has that are out of touch, like using intelligence as a way to distinguish himself rather than compassion. The underlying joke wasn’t funny.”
Watching a wide range of talking heads the last few days on the various news shows, it became clear that some Democrats at least were genuinely hurt and confused by the implications drawn and accusations made that they did not care about and support the troops.
In fact, many Democrats do care, deeply, and do support those troops, with sincerity. The divide is in how they do so...
There is a clash of cultures at work in this, between the historic Democratic culture of ‘caring’, and those who value the ‘warrior culture’ of our military. Both sides care, but express that care with very different methods.
One can hardly find a Democrat anywhere who, when addressing the topic of support for our troops, does not immediately go to the subject of Veteran’s medical benefits, followed shortly by education and retraining programs. When it comes to addressing actual combat, the Democrats again almost invariably go to a lack of body armor or a shortage of up-armored Humvees and the like.The better of the Democratic left (and they are better than the condescending-to-hostile left from Kerry to numerous KosKids) look at the military and the veterans the military produces as another demographic constituency.
Like any other needy Democrat constituency, military and veterans need their help and care, naturally delivered through the offices of a paternalistic government. The warrior culture of the military rightfully views itself as the protector and defender of citizens, politicians and the state itself. The enormous gap between those two conceptions offers a profound clash of cultures
There was an oddity during the months long hi-tempo media onslaught about the troops not having enough body armor. One could find on the Milblogs and a very few news outlets complaints from soldiers in combat about being weigfhed down by too much body armor. The professional military folks understood that, as it was in the days of the armored knights, there is a tradeoff between defensive armor and aggressive mobility. Sacrificing either to the other may at times and places get you dead.
If one only listened to the media and the Democrats, one had the impression that the military were all crying out to be totally encased in body protection, even should they then have moved like Robocop.The familiar Democrat solution of spend more was obvious implicit solution...
The troops want the nation to support their commitment to victory. They do not aspire to the status of needy client, they want to be victorious warriors and commit their very lives to it.
“There is not a Democrat in Washington who thinks John Kerry is a viable presidential candidate after last week,” says a longtime Democratic strategist (who isn’t working for one of Kerry’s potential rivals). The strategist, who spoke freely and at length about Kerry on the condition of anonymity, says the gaffe reminds Democrats that he is politically inept. “This is not something that will linger in pool halls and bars and normal places in America,” he says, “but among the donors and activists who like to win, this memory will last a long time. Remember, his entire candidacy is based on electability. And when that’s the basis of your candidacy, and you’ve already lost once, amateur hour doesn’t begin to describe John Kerry. And that’s without even getting into the personal animus towards the guy.”
I’ll add a personal story. In 1999 I briefly served as deputy commander of a Hurricane Mitch recovery operation headquartered in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. An earthquake (6.6 magnitude) struck the region and damaged our barracks area as well as several of the dikes our engineers had erected along the Motagua River. We had to evacuate our barracks, in the midst of heavy rains spawned by a tropical depression. The day after the quake I flew to the US air base at Soto Cano, Honduras, to meet with our regional commander. After I met with the brigadier general in command I: (1) washed and dried two sets of BDUs and (2) bought a bottle of Chivas at the PX. The next morning I caught a plane flight back to Guatemala, and transfered to a helicopter to fly back to our base.
That night I took the still-boxed Chivas to one of the troops –a tired, exhausted fellow who had earned a gift so precious. He shook his head when I passed him the scotch. I told him, “You’ve earned it.” He looked at his watch, observed we were ten minutes from midnight, and said “You and I are now off duty.”...
We chatted for about twenty minutes, about my trip to Soto Cano, about the task force’s new job (earthquake relief), about the lousy weather, about how tired we were. The discussion of weariness led the conversation to our advanced age and years of service, which in part explained the conversation’s next turn. My friend asked, with a glint in his eye: ”You remember what John Kerry said about those of us who served in Vietnam?”
I nodded.
“I was in Vietnam in 1971,” my buddy continued. “I didn’t commit any war crimes and I didn’t see any. Kerry said we were committing war crimes everywhere all the time.”
Remember, readers, this is 1999. We’re in a creaky barrack, wearing t-shirts, BDU trousers, and boots. Earthquake aftershocks occasionally boom –and the booms sound and feel like heavy artillery. And he mentions John Kerry.
“I despise the man,” my friend said. “He lied and benefited politically from his lies….He lied about me.”
I simply listened — that’s what you do in a moment like this. I remember noticing I still had scotch in my cup. He had barely touched his drink. He took a long sip, put his cup down. Plop. Period. End of moment.
Labels: 2006, Domestic Politics, Military
posted by Alcibiades @ 9:06 PM
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Strong yet sensitive, introducing the Bond that bleeds.But do we want to see Bond's sensitive side?
Casino Royale is the story of how Bond got started, before he became 007," he said. "Daniel Craig is such a good actor. He plays him as strong but emotionally vulnerable. For the first time you see Bond's sensitive side."
Labels: Entertainment, Metrosexual
posted by Alcibiades @ 9:05 PM
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If they win, Democrats will immediately reach out to Bush to find a bipartisan way to begin redeploying troops "outside of Iraq," Pelosi said. They will also apply pressure to disarm the militias, amend the Iraqi constitution and engage in diplomacy in the region.
"A Democratic victory would be in furtherance of reaching that goal. Absent a Democratic victory, we'll be there for the next 10 years,'' Pelosi said.
Labels: Domestic Politics, Iraq, Military
posted by Alcibiades @ 9:04 PM
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| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak. | |
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Labels: speech
posted by Alcibiades @ 1:28 AM
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I also blog at Kesher Talk
Email me at alcibiades at rcn.com
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