To ALL of you I saw in DC proclaiming that you "support the troops, but are against the war"...
This is what we were trying to tell you about that stance. This is why we are against you. This is why we call you traitors to your country.
This is the difference it makes...
Democrats Back Down, Troops Morale Boosted
Posted: 22 Jun 2007 12:31 PM CDT
(Excerpt By Amir Taheri, New York Post)
The morale of both U.S. and Iraqi troops has been boosted by the decision by the Democrat Party to tone down its campaign against U.S. military commitment to Iraq. There is a feeling in Baghdad that the possibility of America opting for a cut-and-run strategy has decreased. That, in turn, has encouraged the Iraqi military to stop hedging its bets and enter the battle with greater resolve. SIX months ago, the U.S.- led Coalition force in Iraq appeared to be largely in self-defense mode, allowing terrorists and insurgents much latitude in parts of Baghdad and the troubled provinces of Anbar and Diyala. At the same time, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeared to be engaged in abroad political offensive.
Today we have what looks like a reversal of the two situations - with dynamism in the military field but lethargy in the political. The Coalition has increased its effective force by almost 20,000 men and, under its new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has moved into offensive gear:
The province of Anbar, Iraq’s wild west since ancient times, has been partly stabilized with the help of Sunni Arab tribes who have taken up arms against al Qaeda and its Ba’athist allies.
In those of Baghdad neighborhoods where terrorists held sway, Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S.troops, are establishing an effective presence, allowing a slow return to normal. Reassured by the troop presence, the inhabitants of at least one neighborhood, Amiriyah, have chased away a terror outfit entrenched there since 2003.
The Iraqi army, backed by U.S. and British troops, has moved onto the offensive in the Shiite south as well. This week a major operation smashed an extensive smuggling ring in Maysan province, shutting one route through which Iranian-made weapons are supplied to terrorists.
Iraqi forces have designed and led a number of operations aimed at clearing the environs of Baghdad of insurgents and flushing out terrorist cells in Baquba’s orange groves. More than 5,000 Iraqi troops and some 2,000 paramilitaries are taking part in“combing out” operations in Diyala, the largest turnout of Iraqi forces at any one time since 1992.
A new corps of Iraqi officers is taking shape, as hundreds of NCOs and officers up to the rank of two-star general from the disbanded army are re-inserted after extensive probing procedures.
Recruitment in the new Iraqi army and police is up by almost 10 percent; the number of battle-tested battalions is up from 22 to almost 50.
Iraq forces, backed by Coalition troops, are finally in control of the 1,483-kilometer land and waterborders with Iran, which had been left virtually unsupervised since 2003. Only last month, the Iraqis and the Coalition established control over Al Qaim, the town that controls the border with Syria.
Reports indicate that in the last 10 weeks the various armed enemies of new Iraq have suffered their heaviest losses since the start of the conflict four years ago.
The insurgents are suffering a significant number of defections while an unknown number are believed to have left Iraq, presumably to pursue “jihad” in other Muslim countries.
Coalition and Iraqi forces have seized weapons from the insurgents on an unprecedented scale. More than 20 bomb-making factories have also been discovered and neutralized in and around Baghdad.
The morale of both U.S. and Iraqi troops has been boosted by the decision by the Democrat Party to tone down its campaign against U.S. military commitment to Iraq. There is a feeling in Baghdad that the possibility of America opting for a cut-and-run strategy has decreased. That, in turn, has encouraged the Iraqi military to stop hedging its bets and enter the battle with greater resolve.
BUT the political situation has deteriorated. The Maliki government may well be on life support. At least eight Cabinet posts are effectively vacant while two key partners in the pro-government bloc, the Fadila (Virtue) Party and Muqtada al-Sadr’s group, have walked out. Another key group within the coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, has effectively switched to the opposition and is emerging as Maliki’s most outspoken critic.
Thus, the Maliki government now lacks an effective majority in the National Assembly (parliament) and theoretically could be brought down with a no-confidence motion any day.
Worse still, the Shiite alliance, which provided the core element of political stability, has ceased to exist. Even Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the primusinter pares of Shiite clerics, no longer enjoys the unifying clout he did a year or so ago.
It may be premature to speak of political paralysis. But the fact is that the Maliki government has been unable to pass key items of its program. Crucial bills on the oil industry and the distribution of oil revenues remain bogged down in parliamentary committees. Also unresolved are such explosive problems as the status of Kirkuk (a city disputed between the Kurds and Sunni Arabs) and the creation of new federal entities.
The government’s weakness also prevents it from setting a date and rules for the municipal elections needed to create local government units to end defacto control by militias in many parts of the country.
All this has encouraged talk of a military coup. Some political groups clearly favor a coup, in the mistaken belief that Iraqis can’t order their affairs without some form of dictatorship. The coup option is also encouraged by some Arab states and by Turkey, which is concerned about the revival of Kurdish terrorism from Iraqi territory.
What Iraq needs, however, is not another moustache. It needs to revitalize its political life by forming a new government, with new partners capable of garnering greater support inside and outside parliament. If that proves impossible, the way out is through early general elections. Though set for January 2008, the next vote could be brought forward - although the Kurds, hoping to win Kirkuk with the help of a weak Shiite government, oppose that option.
The U.S.-led Coalition is making significant military progress - but it could be undone if Iraq doesn’t get its politics right. It may be time for America and its allies to talk frankly with the Iraqi parties on how to use the military success as a basis for ending the political deadlock.
Can you quit singing long enough to hear how your efforts effect the morale of BOTH sides?
Monday, June 25, 2007
Friday, June 1, 2007
All the news thats fit to... embolden the enemy
Again the media show it’s bias, aid and support for forces attempting to destroy our country by covering anything negative about our folks and nothing negative about terrorist, anti-American politicians or the socialist movement. Bulldog
Osama's House of Horrors
By Patrick PooleFrontPageMagazine.com June 1, 2007
The same media hacks that brought us countless images of Spc. Lynndie England doing her best John Dillinger imitation with an Iraqi prisoner while covering the Abu Ghraib scandal have suddenly gone mute on the release last week by US military officials of a graphic al-Qaeda torture manual that provides illustrations and instructions on how to use hammers, blow torches and meat cleavers to extract information from their victims in Iraq. This deliberate silence has been occurring as US forces are scouring Iraq looking for two US soldiers who presumably are being subject to the very tortures described in that manual and the body of one of their colleagues was discovered exhibiting signs of that same torture.
The manual was recovered earlier in the month when US soldiers conducted a raid on an al-Qaeda site northeast of Karmah. Freed during the raid were four men and a 13-year old boy – all of whom showed evident signs of torture. According to the military press release, the five individuals said that they had been beaten with chains, cables and hoses by foreign Arab fighters, presumably waging “defensive jihad” against innocent Iraqis. The illustrated torture manual was recovered on a computer found at the location.
But as Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters noted in a short item last week (“Will Media Report Al-Qaeda Torture Manual with Same Zeal as Abu Ghraib?”) and a follow-up post on Friday (“Media Totally Ignore Al-Qaeda Torture Manual”), the media establishment has barely noticed the story even though it features attention-grabbing images even more shocking than the Abu Ghraib abuses. Sheppard asked, “With this in mind, given the media’s fascination with what American soldiers were doing at Abu Ghraib, is it safe to assume that the same level of attention will be given to what our enemy is doing? Or, would that be too much like journalism?”
To their credit, CNN made a brief mentioned of the discovery of the torture manual and the release of the Al-Qaeda captives in a May 23rd segment on “The Situation Room”. That was followed on Friday by a short article on the Fox News website, which was subsequently noticed by Gary Carney at the USA Today blog. CNN elaborated on the story again over the weekend, reporting that 42 al-Qaeda torture victims had been freed by US troops. But a search of the websites of the three major TV networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – as well as the major daily national newspapers – the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the LA Times – finds not a single mention of the al-Qaeda torture manual.
Notwithstanding the slight coverage of this story by CNN, Fox News and USA Today, virtually every element surrounding this story is an indictment on the increasingly irrelevant Fourth Estate. The public was first made aware of this story and given access to the cartoon images of the torture manual by The Smoking Gun. That report was then linked to by the nemesis of the old media, the Drudge Report, and then picked up by most of the major conservative blogs and publications. But virtually no one would have known the story existed if we had to rely on the media establishment.
This raises an important question: what stories did the American people miss during the decades-long media establishment hegemony and how would our country have responded if it had been fully informed? There may be no way of every knowing.
The media establishment can’t claim ignorance about this story. The May 21st military press release that first made this information available was published by the Combined Press Information Center in the Baghdad Green Zone, where virtually all Iraq-based US journalists operate out of. And the issue of the torture manual was raised during a well-attended Pentagon press conference last Thursday with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace. Only one question was asked about the subject, however, with no subsequent follow-up (the transcript doesn’t indicate which journalist asked the question).
The indictment over the silence on this story doesn’t stop just at the US media establishment. As details slowly leaked out last week, the Center for Public Integrity, which promotes itself as “Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest”, published an article last week by Michael Bilton of the “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists” entitled, “US Treatment of Detainees Deplored”, where he expresses such outrages as the waterboarding of al-Qaeda operations chief, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and revisiting the Abu Ghraib scandal.
A check of the Amnesty International website directory for Iraq also finds no mention whatsoever of al-Qaeda’s torture networks and methods. But a report from last year, “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” identifies the primary culprit of torture and abuse in Iraq – the US armed forces: “As Amnesty International has reported elsewhere, many of the abuses occurring today are committed by armed groups opposed to the US-led Multinational Force (MNF) and the Iraqi government that it underpins.”
The foreign press has also joined the conspiracy of silence on the al-Qaeda torture story. Two weeks ago, the BBC published a hand-wringing article, “US detainee mentally tortured”, about the horrors described by Majid Khan, an al-Qaeda operative imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay who was planning to conduct terrorist operations inside the US.
And what exactly were the horrible conditions and “mental tortures” that Mr. Khan was subject to? I’ll let the Beeb tell you:
Mr Khan complained about how US guards had taken away pictures of his daughter, given him new glasses with the wrong prescription, shaved his beard off, forcibly fed him when he went on hunger strike, and denied him the opportunity for recreation.
This led him to attempt to chew through his artery twice, Mr Khan said.
Later, Mr Khan produced a list of further examples of psychological torture, which included the provision of "cheap, branded, unscented soap", the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that "hardly bounce".
Unscented soap and half-inflated basketballs. Oh, the humanity! Someone call John Murtha! But gouging out eyeballs, drilling into skulls and blow torches applied directly to human skin by Mr. Khan’s al-Qaeda associates have thus far been too unimportant for the BBC to mention.
The events over the past week surrounding this story are indicative of why so many Americans are turning to alternative news outlets for reporting and commentary and why media establishment newsrooms are slashing staff to cut costs. But rather than cover the real important stories, such as the grotesque examples of the craven depravity of our sworn terrorist enemies, the Fourth Estate feels compelled to stick to their ideology and political bias than adjust to the information age – all while the truly independent and investigative media runs circles around them.
The silence of the lame continues.
Osama's House of Horrors
By Patrick PooleFrontPageMagazine.com June 1, 2007
The same media hacks that brought us countless images of Spc. Lynndie England doing her best John Dillinger imitation with an Iraqi prisoner while covering the Abu Ghraib scandal have suddenly gone mute on the release last week by US military officials of a graphic al-Qaeda torture manual that provides illustrations and instructions on how to use hammers, blow torches and meat cleavers to extract information from their victims in Iraq. This deliberate silence has been occurring as US forces are scouring Iraq looking for two US soldiers who presumably are being subject to the very tortures described in that manual and the body of one of their colleagues was discovered exhibiting signs of that same torture.
The manual was recovered earlier in the month when US soldiers conducted a raid on an al-Qaeda site northeast of Karmah. Freed during the raid were four men and a 13-year old boy – all of whom showed evident signs of torture. According to the military press release, the five individuals said that they had been beaten with chains, cables and hoses by foreign Arab fighters, presumably waging “defensive jihad” against innocent Iraqis. The illustrated torture manual was recovered on a computer found at the location.
But as Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters noted in a short item last week (“Will Media Report Al-Qaeda Torture Manual with Same Zeal as Abu Ghraib?”) and a follow-up post on Friday (“Media Totally Ignore Al-Qaeda Torture Manual”), the media establishment has barely noticed the story even though it features attention-grabbing images even more shocking than the Abu Ghraib abuses. Sheppard asked, “With this in mind, given the media’s fascination with what American soldiers were doing at Abu Ghraib, is it safe to assume that the same level of attention will be given to what our enemy is doing? Or, would that be too much like journalism?”
To their credit, CNN made a brief mentioned of the discovery of the torture manual and the release of the Al-Qaeda captives in a May 23rd segment on “The Situation Room”. That was followed on Friday by a short article on the Fox News website, which was subsequently noticed by Gary Carney at the USA Today blog. CNN elaborated on the story again over the weekend, reporting that 42 al-Qaeda torture victims had been freed by US troops. But a search of the websites of the three major TV networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – as well as the major daily national newspapers – the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the LA Times – finds not a single mention of the al-Qaeda torture manual.
Notwithstanding the slight coverage of this story by CNN, Fox News and USA Today, virtually every element surrounding this story is an indictment on the increasingly irrelevant Fourth Estate. The public was first made aware of this story and given access to the cartoon images of the torture manual by The Smoking Gun. That report was then linked to by the nemesis of the old media, the Drudge Report, and then picked up by most of the major conservative blogs and publications. But virtually no one would have known the story existed if we had to rely on the media establishment.
This raises an important question: what stories did the American people miss during the decades-long media establishment hegemony and how would our country have responded if it had been fully informed? There may be no way of every knowing.
The media establishment can’t claim ignorance about this story. The May 21st military press release that first made this information available was published by the Combined Press Information Center in the Baghdad Green Zone, where virtually all Iraq-based US journalists operate out of. And the issue of the torture manual was raised during a well-attended Pentagon press conference last Thursday with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace. Only one question was asked about the subject, however, with no subsequent follow-up (the transcript doesn’t indicate which journalist asked the question).
The indictment over the silence on this story doesn’t stop just at the US media establishment. As details slowly leaked out last week, the Center for Public Integrity, which promotes itself as “Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest”, published an article last week by Michael Bilton of the “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists” entitled, “US Treatment of Detainees Deplored”, where he expresses such outrages as the waterboarding of al-Qaeda operations chief, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and revisiting the Abu Ghraib scandal.
A check of the Amnesty International website directory for Iraq also finds no mention whatsoever of al-Qaeda’s torture networks and methods. But a report from last year, “Beyond Abu Ghraib,” identifies the primary culprit of torture and abuse in Iraq – the US armed forces: “As Amnesty International has reported elsewhere, many of the abuses occurring today are committed by armed groups opposed to the US-led Multinational Force (MNF) and the Iraqi government that it underpins.”
The foreign press has also joined the conspiracy of silence on the al-Qaeda torture story. Two weeks ago, the BBC published a hand-wringing article, “US detainee mentally tortured”, about the horrors described by Majid Khan, an al-Qaeda operative imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay who was planning to conduct terrorist operations inside the US.
And what exactly were the horrible conditions and “mental tortures” that Mr. Khan was subject to? I’ll let the Beeb tell you:
Mr Khan complained about how US guards had taken away pictures of his daughter, given him new glasses with the wrong prescription, shaved his beard off, forcibly fed him when he went on hunger strike, and denied him the opportunity for recreation.
This led him to attempt to chew through his artery twice, Mr Khan said.
Later, Mr Khan produced a list of further examples of psychological torture, which included the provision of "cheap, branded, unscented soap", the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that "hardly bounce".
Unscented soap and half-inflated basketballs. Oh, the humanity! Someone call John Murtha! But gouging out eyeballs, drilling into skulls and blow torches applied directly to human skin by Mr. Khan’s al-Qaeda associates have thus far been too unimportant for the BBC to mention.
The events over the past week surrounding this story are indicative of why so many Americans are turning to alternative news outlets for reporting and commentary and why media establishment newsrooms are slashing staff to cut costs. But rather than cover the real important stories, such as the grotesque examples of the craven depravity of our sworn terrorist enemies, the Fourth Estate feels compelled to stick to their ideology and political bias than adjust to the information age – all while the truly independent and investigative media runs circles around them.
The silence of the lame continues.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
