Illuminating the untempered soul and the blunt mind by hammering out sparks of Clarity and Truth on the Anvil of Debate.
"Sometimes, you go to war with the media you have, not the media you wish you had"
-Wordsmith
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Best of Senator Robert Byrd: "This hearing is adjourned suspended!"
"This hearing is adjourned!" Byrd shouted, hammering his gavel violently. An aide whispered in Byrd's ear. "This hearing is suspended!" he corrected.-Dana Milbank,Preaching to the Chorus, Washington Post
I first heard about this while listening to Laura Ingraham. If there's one thing that I still listen to her program for, it's the Robert Byrd soundbytes.
I think I might do a new "semi-regular" feature, posting video links to Senator Byrd's ramblings, in the same spirit as my "saturday morning cartoons" and Monday "Caption This".
Remember: As president pro tempore, Senator Robert Byrd is 3rd in line behind Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the presidency.
Pray, it never ever comes to that.
This took place September 26, 2007, with Robert Byrd chairing the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Saturday Morning Cartoon: ABC Schoolhouse Rock "Elbow Room"
The way was opened up for folks with bravery. There were plenty of fights To win land rights, But the West was meant to be; It was our Manifest Destiny!
Perhaps the least "politically correct" of the Schoolhouse Rock videos...unapologetically so...and one of my favorites.
Few opinions I've expressed on air have produced a more indignant, outraged reaction than my repeated insistence that the word "genocide" in no way fits as a description of the treatment of Native Americans by British colonists or, later, American settlers.
I've never denied that the 400 year history of American contact with the Indians includes many examples of white cruelty and viciousness --- just as the Native Americans frequently (indeed, regularly) dealt with the European newcomers with monstrous brutality and, indeed, savagery. In fact, reading the history of the relationship between British settlers and Native Americans its obvious that the blood-thirsty excesses of one group provoked blood thirsty excesses from the other, in a cycle that listed with scant interruption for several hundred years.
But none of the warfare (including an Indian attack in 1675 that succeeded in butchering a full one-fourth of the white population of Connecticut, and claimed additional thousands of casualties throughout New England) on either side amounted to genocide. Colonial and, later, the American government, never endorsed or practiced a policy of Indian extermination; rather, the official leaders of white society tried to restrain some of their settlers and militias and paramilitary groups from unnecessary conflict and brutality.
Moreover, the real decimation of Indian populations had nothing to do with massacres or military actions, but rather stemmed from infectious diseases that white settlers brought with them at the time they first arrived in the New World.
UCLA professor Jared Diamond, author of the universally acclaimed bestseller "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," writes:
"Throughout the Americas, diseases introduced with Europeans spread from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves, killing an estimated 95 percent of the pre-Columbian Native American population. The most populous and highly organized native societies of North America, the Mississippian chiefdoms, disappeared in that way between 1492 and the late 1600's, even before Europeans themselves made their first settlement on the Mississippi River (page 78)....
"The main killers were Old World germs to which Indians had never been exposed, and against which they therefore had neither immune nor genetic resistance. Smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus rank top among the killers." (page 212).
"As for the most advanced native societies of North America, those of the U.S. Southeast and the Mississippi River system, their destruction was accomplished largely by germs alone, introduced by early European explorers and advancing ahead of them" (page 374)
Obviously, the decimation of native population by European germs represents an enormous tragedy, but in no sense does it represent a crime. Stories of deliberate infection by passing along "small-pox blankets" are based exclusively on two letters from British soldiers in 1763, at the end of the bitter and bloody French and Indian War. By that time, Indian populations (including those in the area) had already been terribly impacted by smallpox, and there's no evidence of a particularly devastating outbreak as a result of British policy.
For the most part, Indians were infected by devastating diseases even before they made direct contact with Europeans: other Indians who had already been exposed to the germs, carried them with them to virtually every corner of North America and many British explorers and settlers found empty, abandoned villages (as did the Pilgrims) and greatly reduced populations when they first arrived.
Sympathy for Native Americans and admiration for their cultures in no way requires a belief in European or American genocide. As Jared Diamond's book (and countless others) makes clear, the mass migration of Europeans to the New World and the rapid displacement and replacement of Native populations is hardly a unique interchange in human history. On six continents, such shifting populations – with countless cruel invasions and occupations and social destructions and replacements - have been the rule rather than the exception.
The notion that unique viciousness to Native Americans represents our "original sin" fails to put European contact with these struggling Stone Age societies in any context whatever, and only serves the purposes of those who want to foster inappropriate guilt, uncertainty and shame in young Americans.
A nation ashamed of its past will fear its future.
One of the most urgent needs in culture and education for the United States of America is discarding the stupid, groundless and anti-American lies that characterize contemporary political correctness.
The right place to begin is to confront, resist and reject the all-too-common line that our rightly admired forebears involved themselves in genocide.
The early colonists and settlers can hardly qualify as perfect but describing them in Hitlerian, mass-murdering terms represents an act of brain-dead defamation.
Some RPers claim there's no difference between the Democrat Party and the Republican Party today. I ask, "what's the difference between Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich?" RP has moved so far to the right, he's now to the left....whereas DK is so far to the left he's....far to the left.
They died fighting a dictator who [I admit it] considered himself at war with the US, but had never actually attacked the United States. Of course, when that dictator sits on 40% of the world's oil...then aristocratic families in the White House are bound to come up with any reason to go to war; as long as it gets them their blood money!
3393 Americans will never become doctors and save lives, will never run businesses and feed families that build a nation. They'll never teach subsequent generations, create and share unique art, and they'll never add to American literature or culture again.
They died under a false pretense that they were fighting to free others and open the door to Democracy for those 'oppressed'-I mean really, you canNOT force someone to vote, and if they really wanted Democracy they could have risen up and fought for it like Americans did in the Revolution
3393 Americans are dead because our President needed a war to pull this nation out of the economic toilet! They fought for each other, they hoped to survive, and everything else...the mom, apple pie, and politics of Saturday night is just BS!
3393 Americans are dead because this nation was attacked by suicidal wackos who got the nation's blood pressure up, and happened to have a 'relationship' with another 'Axis of Evil' power. COME ON! A relationship? There's NO evidence at all of a "COOPERATIONAL RELATIONSHIP" BETWEEN THE TWO!! We now know from British documents that intelligence before the war was being focused and manipulated to make the case for war almost a year before it started.
3393 Americans are dead! They died on June 6th 1944 Invading France to impose democracy on a people who should have risen up for it themselves, to fight a dictator who never attacked the US but considered himself at war with the US, and who had no operational ties to Japan-the nation that DID attack the US.
Students demonstrate on the Columbia University campus where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was set to speak during his stay in New York.Lucas Jackson - Reuters
Basically, it's not about us, and all about him. We're mere stooges in a play of his making.
I wrote the following comment on a couple of blogs:
I think the problem with the whole "isn't our country great/freedom of speech/let him expose himself for who he is" line of reasoning, is that back in the Middle East, and in Iran in particular, they are going to cherry-pick/edit what Boellinger said, and what Ahm on a jihad said, for propaganda purposes. We already know he's a monster; and those in the free world who don't understand that, wouldn't have learned anything new about it, from this exchange. What we have given him, is footage that will get edited and spun into propaganda fodder for those back in Iran.
We've allowed ourselves to be used.
My viewpoint was swayed to this line of thinking after listening to a bit of Hugh Hewitt, Friday and Monday.
Despite entire US media objections, negative propagation and hue and cry in recent days over IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's scheduled address at Colombia University, he gave his lecture and answered students questions here on Monday afternoon.
On second day of his entry in New York, and amid standing ovation of the audience that had attended the hall where the Iranian President was to give his lecture as of early hours of the day, Ahmadinejad said that Iran is not going to attack any country in the world.
Before President Ahmadinejad's address, Colombia University Chancellor in a brief address told the audience that they would have the chance to hear Iran's stands as the Iranian President would put them forth.
He said that the Iranians are a peace loving nation, they hate war, and all types of aggression.
Referring to the technological achievements of the Iranian nation in the course of recent years, the president considered them as a sign for the Iranians' resolute will for achieving sustainable development and rapid advancement.
The audience on repeated occasion applauded Ahmadinejad when he touched on international crises.
At the end of his address President Ahmadinejad answered the students' questions on such issues as Israel, Palestine, Iran's nuclear program, the status of women in Iran and a number of other matters.
Is this an accurate portrayal of what happened yesterday?
Also check out Al-Jazeera. And then tell me why giving Ahmadinejad a platform to speak at a prestigious American university was still a good thing. Just check out this list of their cherrypicks from yesterday:
On the Holocaust:
Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?
On Holocaust deniers:
My question was simple: There are researchers who want to approach the topic from a different perspective. Why are they put into prison? Why isn't it open to all forms of research?
On Israel as a Jewish state:
We are friends of all the nations. We are also friends with the Jewish people. There are many Jews in Iran living peacefully with security ... in our constitution and our laws and the parliamentary elections for every 150,000 people we get one representative in the parliament. For the Jewish community one-fifth of this number they still get one independent representative in the parliament... What we say is that to solve this 60-year problem, we must allow the Palestinian people to decide about its future for itself.
On nuclear research:
Some big powers create a monopoly over science and prevent other nations in achieving scientific development as well. This, too, is one of the surprises of our time. Some big powers do not want to see the progress of other societies and nations... Regretfully, they have not been trained to serve mankind.
On 9/11:
If the root causes of 9/11 are examined properly - why it happened, what caused it, what were the conditions that led to it, who truly was involved, who was really involved - and put it all together to understand how to prevent the crisis in Iraq, fix the problem in Afghanistan and Iraq combined
What's sad, is not only does this cater to the fancies of a Middle East audience, but also to the impressionable minds of university students held hostage to liberal indoctrination, all the while seeing themselves as "free-thinking" and exposed to "diversity of thought".
President Bush (C) reacts as White House Press Secretary Tony Snow speaks while newly announced White House Press Secretary Dana Perino (L) listens in the press briefing room of the White House August 31, 2007. REUTERS/Larry Downing
2007/09/25 13:53 Thanks to everyone who participated. It was hard to pick who had the best caption...so naturally, I went with mine:
President Bush: I will miss Tony....but, you have to admit: Dana has a better head of hair on her!
President Bush certainly does look a bit giddy like a naughty schoolboy.
What does Kermit the Frog and Ahmadinejad have in common?
Exactly! Beats the hell out of me as well. One's a muppet and the other's somewhat thought of as a puppet. But leave it to a KosKid to be smitten by her frog prince:
I know I'm a Jewish lesbian and he'd probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon...
Okay, I admit it. Part of it is that he just looks cuddly. Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight. I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog. Sort of. With smaller eyes. But that’s not all…
I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding.
Read more if you want to vomit. Some diaries really should be kept private.
Knowing what Magellan's fate was, historically, I really wasn't sure how it'd be reconciled at the end of this video, as I was watching. I "lol'ed" at the gentle, cute interpretation of a violent end to Magellan's life, in cartoon-humor, palatable for kids.
A bit of personal and unconventional history....
Before the mainstream discovered mixed martial arts (popularized with the rise of NBA and MMA-type of competitions) and the value of cross-training by not limiting yourself to a single art, I was already practicing the concepts and principles espoused by Bruce Lee (I was also a longtime student of Dan Inosanto):
Research your own experience
Absorb what is useful
Discard what isn't
Add what is specifically your own
For a number of years, training 6 and 7 days a week, I was an apprentice instructor in Filipino Kali. Really, it was an umbrella term- like saying "martial arts", because what we practiced wasn't limited to just the warrior arts of the Philippines; but an eclectic mix of combat arts from around the world- many exotic and non-traditional. No stone was left unturned. And in essence, this was kali. Using whatever worked. Didn't matter where the technique originated from. The boundaries that distinguished one style from another dissolved. Efficiency was anything that scored.
Why do I bring this up? Two reasons.
There was a time in my life when as much as I hated talking about martial arts, I also loved talking about martial arts! I loved serious training and hated the "pretense" and "mystique" that surrounded it.
The charlatans and samurai-wannabes.
In a fight between a lousy boxer and a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, I'd bet my money 9 out of 10 times, that the boxer would come out on top (generally speaking). There is just so much bs in martial arts, that it used to drive me crazy. My idea of martial arts was an F15. A sig-sauer. A finger jab through the eye-socket; sinking your teeth into your attacker's throat and ripping out his jugular. That was martial art. A zero-tolerance for violence by the use of violence as last resort.
That attitude of "overkill", went against the philosophy of aikido, one of the many arts I also studied ("....no stone unturned"). But I felt it was the more realistic one. The one that could keep you alive.
So many martial artists I knew would avoid serious delving into the nature of "the beast" and in serious study of violence; they circumvented it, by remaining in the civilized world with Mr. Miyagi-style esoteric philosophy of non-violence preaching.
In my opinion, most martial artists live in a fantasy world of fancy dance routines and memorized technique. Real training, to me, was dipping your carry-folder in baby oil, to simulate the viscosity of blood while slashing through a side of beef. It was bringing in psychological and emotional realism into the sparring. And we had all kinds of ways to spar. It was smart training and survivable training.
Other martial arts I had studied before (such as aikido) gave me a false sense of security. The kind that can get you killed. But kali as taught by my primary teacher, gave me a weird kind of confidence- because it made me realize just how vulnerable we all are. And it doesn't matter if you are purported to be the "best fighter on the planet"- anyone on any given day can be sucker punched and have his ass kicked in. Nor can you be the "best fighter" in every conceivable environment and under all types of circumstances.
I remember one story relayed to me by Dan Inosanto, about how, a bunch of martial artists had gathered together at, I think it was a pool-side party, boasting about what they could do. Finally, one guy contemptuously scoffed at all this talk, and announced that he could take them all on. He went into the swimming pool and challenged all comers. The karate guy went in there, and got his head dunked down, giving up when he ran out of air. The boxer tried his luck, but was also held under water, flapping his arms. The wrestler faired no better and was held under as well. No one could beat the guy. They all finally asked him what style he practiced. His response? He didn't do martial arts. He was a water polo player. In that particular environment, the water polo guy was king.
To my knowledge, it's a true story (even though I know the details have my own embellishment to them from faulty memory), based upon Inosanto's personal experience. But he told it, to illustrate the point.
My second reason for talking about the warfare, tribal art of kali is that Lapu-Lapu- the chieftain who is said to have slain Magellan- is celebrated in Filipino martial tradition.
My primary teacher wrote this up for one of the old school brochures:
In elementary school we learned about a Portuguese navigator named Ferdinand Magellan who was, supposedly, the first man to circumnavigate the earth in 1522. That's interesting, because in the Philippines, they tell of a courageous Moro chieftain named Lapu Lapu who killed a pirate named Magellan in 1521 when he raided their island (Mactan) in search of plunder. The truth, of course, is somewhere in between. We do know that Magellan never finished his famous voyage; his crew went on to carry his name into the history books.
Perhaps of further interest, from the brochure, is the following:
Kali's brutal effectiveness was felt in the Americas as far back as the Revolutionary War, when Filipino merchant marines utilized it in service to the army of George Washington, under the command of Lafayette.
More recently, after the United States received the Philippines as reparations for the Spanish-American War (1898), the U.S. Marines learned, first-hand, why the southern islands, the realm of the fierce Moros, were never conquered by the Spanish. Charged with halting the insurrections of the Jurimentados (fanatical Moslem Moros who had taken an oath to die in battle killing Christians), the marines faced literally unstoppable warriors who so frequently beheaded their enemies that the American government issued thick leather collars to be worn as protection, hence the nickname "leathernecks".
It was around this time that Kali's most profound, yet least recognized impact on the western world took place. Boxing was already an established tradition in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. This was the era of John L. Sullivan and western boxing was firmly rooted in the English style, which was characterized by the upright stance and palm-up position of the fists. During the American occupation of the Philippines, sailors and marines witnessed a centuries-old unarmed sub-art of Kali called Panantukan, a sophisticated, rapid-fire striking art utilizing the open hand, forearm and elbow. Most intriguing to the Americans, though, was its use of the closed fist. Derived from Daga y daga- a double knife-fighting method- Panantukan training was done with teh fists bound in Manila rope, turning them into equally formidable wapons, to say the least. Immediately recognizing this ancient method as being far superior to traditional western boxing, the Americans offered the Filipinos boxing gloves in trade for instruction. This exchange changed the history of boxing forever, and nearly destroyed the art of Panantukan in the process. Today, Kali is practiced (in a highly-diluted form of Panantukan) in every boxing ring in the world.
The claims on the history of the term, "leatherneck", I've never been able to substantiate, as it's told in this account. The boxing influence, although also not found in any western books that I'm aware of, I am sure is rooted in factual history. Much of the knowledge and evolutionary history, in terms of specifics, have been lost, through the passage of time, unwritten and unrecorded. Dan Inosanto is a walking national treasure of information on the seldom-known history, having personally met and known some of the history-makers, who passed their knowledge onto Dan (including the jigsaw history).
The problem of scholarly accuracy is compounded by the many Filipino martial arts that have added their own spin to legend and lore, over time.
BLITZER: You listened closely to General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Both are career professionals -- a career military officer, a career diplomat. They made the case, effectively for President Bush, that the U.S. should continue this strategy.
MAHER: Wait a second. He put the words in their mouth. That wasn't the Petraeus report.
BLITZER: But they say those words were their own.
MAHER: Well, it was a White House written report. We know that. Bush has an interesting little scam going. He also quoted in his speech on Thursday night, Maliki. And he said basically that the Iraqi leadership is asking us to stay. So in other words, he puts words into his stooges' mouths. And then, he quotes them.
It's the same thing that ...
BLITZER: Let me point out. General Petraeus who has been a military officer for more than 30 years, the first thing he basically said out of his mouth, last week, is I didn't show this testimony to anyone. I wrote it myself. I didn't have it vetted by the chain of command. Not by the White House. Not by anyone at the Pentagon. Not by anyone in Congress. Don't you believe him when he says that?
MAHER: No. I'm sorry, I don't.
In addition, Bill Maher also said this:
BLITZER: Well, you attack him personally. You just did on our show. You said you don't believe him when he said he never cleared his testimony with anyone in Washington.
MAHER: Call me a cynic, Wolf. Look, I understand that he's doing an impossible job over there. And I have no doubt that he actually does more before 9:00 a.m. than I do all day or perhaps all year. Yes. I admire anybody who is in the war zone. But that doesn't mean that he is not performing a political function for the White House. Now, you can read into that what you will. But I'm sorry. Just because he's wearing a uniform, I can't not see what I see, which is that the man is doing a political job for George Bush.
Maher is such a vile, useless idiot. I doubt he really paid close attention to the Petraeus and Crocker testimony, but simply got the MDB (Moonbat Daily Brief) from Huffington Post and Daily Kos.
Robert Kaplan is not someone who I would consider a partisan. He has also spent a vast amount of time with the military, being the author of Warrior Politics and Imperial Grunts (as well as a new book out). Here is, by far and away, the most balanced and straight-shooting perspective I've seen on whether or not General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are political tools of the Bush Administration:
The idea that General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are front men for the administration is ludicrous. Until he took the job as overall ground commander in Iraq, Petraeus was a favorite of liberal journalists: the Princeton man who enjoyed the company of the media and intellectuals, so much so that he was vaguely distrusted by other general officers who envied the good ink he received. As for Crocker, he is a hard-core Arabist, a professional species that I once wrote a book about: He is the least likely creature on earth to buy into neoconservative ideas about the Middle East. Neither of these men are identified with the decision to go to war. If I had to bet, I’d say that Crocker especially would have been against it, like his other Arabist colleagues. Thus, these men have no personal stake in proving the president right. They and their staffs are much more likely to provide a balanced analysis of the reality in Iraq than senators and congressmen looking over their shoulders at opinion polls and future elections. As Petraeus said, “I wrote this testimony myself,” meaning, the White House had nothing to do with it. Watching them brief Congress Monday, I came away convinced that they made a better impression on the public than anyone else in the room.
So, who to believe? Bill Maher or Robert Kaplan? Which one has the more informed and educated opinion?
On September 11, Youssif and his family arrived in Chicago en route to the Children's Burn Foundation in Los Angeles as Youssif prepares to undergo lengthy rehabilitation for his burns.
The family is overwhelmed by the beauty in America:
"Oh my God, it's so green. Am I in heaven?" –Youssif’s mother
"I feel like I'm in a dream. Someone needs to pinch me. You see America on television, but you never imagine or dream that you will ever be here.” He paused, tears in his eyes. "It's more than paradise." -Youssif’s father.
Major Troy Gilbert's Wife Speaks Out Against the Liberal Media
While they (that is, the media) remain largely silent on it. The only place I've seen this story gain any legs and traction, is in the conservative blogosphere.
In November of 2006,Major Troy Gilbertwas killed when the F-16 he was piloting crashed while supporting ground forces in Iraq. Gilbert was assigned to the 309th Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base. In the last week, an al Qaeda-led group released a video which they claim is the body of Gilbert, along with anti war propaganda.
In the video, terrorists rail against George Bush and American policies, and shows images of what appears to be a body in a U.S. soldier uniform, along with an ID card with Gilbert's name and photo. The group claims to have shot down Gilbert's aircraft, but the cause of the crash remains unknown.
Over the past several days I have received dozens of requests to see the recent video released by al Qaeda in Iraq which showed the terror organization desecrating the body of downed pilot Maj. Troy L. Gilbert. The majority of those requests came from Troy's friends and comrades at Luke Air Force Base. They expressed a wish to see just what it was that Troy was fighting in Iraq.
Despite my hesitation over sending the video, many insisted that they needed to see the video. Some of them are close with Troy's widow, Ginger Gilbert, and felt that watching the video would help them support her in this time of need.
One of those that requested the video is an instructor at Luke AFB. He says he will use the video to show his students what they are up against.
Friends of the Gilbert family told me earlier today that Ginger, would be holding a press conference today.
"When media chooses to use Troy's plane crash as a political catalyst to generate anti-war sentiment, it only serves to degrade the moral integrity my husband possessed and the morale of those still selflessly serving," Gilbert said at news conference at Glendale's Falcon Dunes Golf Course, across from Luke.
"Every time the press lends credibility and significance to terrorist propaganda clearly designed to erode public support or questions the validity of our brave soldiers' selfless acts of service and the war itself," she added, "it only serves to damage our country from within its own borders and embolden those who would do us harm."
I wonder: if Ginger spoke out against the war, lashed out at our President, do you suppose the media would have then made a circus frenzy over this press conference?
God bless Ginger and her five children. And may her husband rest in peace.
Ginger Gilbert, widow of Air Force Maj. Troy Gilbert, a war victim in Iraq, gets support from well-wishers as she lashes out at the national media during a meeting with reporters near Luke Air Force Base. [Photo by Scott Wong]
University of Florida student Andrew Meyer struggles with University Police trying to remove him from a question and answer session with Sen. John Kerry in Gainesville, Fla. Meyer attempted to speak after the question and answer session had ended, university officials said.Andrew Stanfill - AP
Now take it from one who has used tasers to subdue combative suspects, this guy could very well have had some long term damage done to him if the police HAD NOT used the taser. That's what the tool is for. They receive some zaps and ta da! They comply. If they didn't have that tool then they have their fists, their batons, their flashlights. It's called pain compliance.
If they guy didn't think he should of been arrested the time to fight it is NOT during the arrest. It's after the arrest in a court of law. Once we have come to the conclusion that a person needs to be arrested you must comply. No if's, and's or but's about it. There is plenty of legal recourse to fight it later but physically fighting the police is not the way to go about it.
Why isn't this obvious to belligerent loudmouths like Meyer?
A couple takes shelter from the pouring rain inside a portable toilet unit during an antiwar demonstration in February on the grounds of the Washington Monument. The rally, which drew protesters from as far away as Hawaii, was organized by a group called World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime. Ricky Carioti - The Washington Post
Sept. 6: An Iraqi Sunni "volunteer" (former insurgents who have joined forces with US and Iraqi troops against Al-Qaeda in Iraq) holds a knife to the neck of a man in Hawra Haajab village who was detained for links to Al-Qaeda.David Furst - AFP/Getty Images
Last May, I warned of the possibility of a summer bloodbath in September, due to the widely advertised progress report by General Petraeus:
"We expect that al-Qaida and Iran will both attempt to increase the propaganda and increase the violence prior to Petraeus's report in September [when the US commander General David Petraeus will report to Congress on President George Bush's controversial, six-month security "surge" of 30,000 troop reinforcements],"
Simply put, they look to have tried during the holy month of Ramadan and in wake of General Petraeus' progress report to Congress, but have largely failed. With all the bad news going on for al-Qaeda, it sounds like they are so bogged down in a quagmire that launching a big "Tet Offensive" of their own has been taken off the table.
Matt Sanchez says he conducted the last interview the Sheikh gave.
"I want to go to Afghanistan and kill Bin Ladin" was his big declaration. It's sometimes hard to tell if the Sheik is kidding or just hamming it up for the cameras. He was, after all, slated to meet the president and visit the United States.
What is not difficult to tell, is how much risk Sattar took last year when he stood up against AQI following the death of his father and brothers. "These people (the Islamists) take the oxygen from the air."
Of Eagles, Doves, WarDoves, Warhawks, Chickenhawks, and Moonbats
A counter-protester yells at anti-war demonstrators on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais - AP
A protester struggles to get over a barrier and away from Capitol Police during an antiwar protest in Washington. At least 150 protesters were arrested.Melina Mara - The Washington Post
Ron Harood from Mount Pleasant, North Carolina, waves an American flag in support of U.S. troops in Iraq. Melina Mara - The Washington Post
Geoff Millard, president of the D.C. chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, participates in the "die-in" demonstration. Melina Mara - The Washington Post
Demonstrators stage a "die-in," pretending to be dead soliders killed during battle in Iraq. Organizers said at least 1,000 people had registered, mostly on the Internet, for the "die-in."
Melina Mara - The Washintgon Post
Police arrest protesters that cross the barricade at the base of the Capitol building. Earlier in the week, President Bush ordered the first limited troop withdrawl in Iraq since a new Congress was elected last year, but protesters argue the drawdown to pre-"surge" troop levels is not enough. Kevin Clark - The Washington Post
A protester is dragged away after breaching the barricade erected by Capitol police during the antiwar rally. Kevin Clark - The Washington Post
At a "support the troops" rally, Bill Cook, from North Carolina, folds an American flag. Melina Mara - The Washintgon Post
Counter-protester John Gonder, left, talks with antiwar demonstrator Gian Carlo Destefano. The antiwar protest was organized by the ANSWER Coalition, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. Kevin Clark - The Washington Post
Counter-protesters display support for U.S. troops in Iraq, and they claim Americans are safer since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A large stage on the National Mall at 7th Street offered speakers a platform to ask leaders to complete the course in Iraq. Melina Mara - The Washington Post
