Looking For Akbar

Evidence of Islamic terrorism is difficult to find. Especially if your mission is to avoid finding it. And yet when things went the other way (Giffords in Arizona for instance) it took a long time for the White House to chime in.

So maybe that is the rule for judging actual White House opinion. If they come out right away and say it is not terrorism or go to great lengths to avoid the obvious - it is terrorism. If they do nothing for a while or suggest it might be terrorism - it is not terrorism - of course that can be adjusted based on skin pigmentation.

H/T Libertarian Republican

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Defeating The War On Terror

Misha Glenny author of McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworldhas this to say about the drug war:

In the past two years, the drug war has become the Taliban's most effective recruiter in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's Muslim extremists have reinvigorated themselves by supporting and taxing the countless peasants who are dependent one way or another on the opium trade, their only reliable source of income. The Taliban is becoming richer and stronger by the day, especially in the east and south of the country. The "War on Drugs" is defeating the "war on terror."

Because of the problems in Mexico and Afghanistan we are rapidly coming to a fork in the road. Do we opt for legalization of drugs or support of criminals and terrorists?

H/T commenter flicka47 at They Kidnap Americans Don't They?

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Surrender Or The Puppy Dies

Megan McArdle is discussing the failure (or lack thereof) of the media when it comes to the John Yoo memos on the legality of torture for American troops facing irregular combatants. The comments are extensive. With the usual Bush is Hitler slant. I have a little different opinion.

When people don't even know (so many commenting on the article) what John Yoo even wrote about, it is obvious that even for stories people commenting there are interested in, the media has been dishing up moldy slops.

Did Yoo shred the Constitution? How could he? He doesn't make policy.

What was Yoo asked to do? To research the applicable laws, national and international, dealing with torture and irregular warfare.

And what is the number one rule dealing with irregular warfare? Irregular warriors can be summarily shot after a military court. And how rigorous does that court need to be? It can be done on a battlefield.

Why is that a rule of war? Because irregular warfare that does not conform to the rules of irregular warfare endangers non-combatants.

Now if you can kill them on the spot why would torture be out of bounds?

Now that may be a true legal opinion. It says nothing about whether it is wise. It is obvious that our military leaders consider it unwise, despite the legality, because that is not the practice of our military.

Why don't our troops torture and execute as a matter of policy if they have the legal power? It impedes surrender. And we want them to surrender. We want easy fights - not fights to the death. We want to beat them not kill them. A man who changes sides is more valuable in terms of victory than a dead man. Dead men don't change sides.

Now in all this uproar over Yoo has any one of note covered the facts well enough so that at least the majority of the commenters to Megan's piece get it?

I see no evidence of that in those comments.

In this war which side is known as the torturing side? Which side executes civilians at random as policy? Which side is notorious for using human shields?

So for all the fools screaming Yoo, Yoo, Yoo, Yoo, and Bush too, why no outrage at the random mass murder of civilians as a military tactic?

Because the other side is using a tactic well known. It is: give up or the puppy dies.

And the puppy murderers are the friends of so many of Megan's commenters. Not to mention the leftys in general.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

It Is Coming

I have a friend who reports on the defense industry. Nice Jewish boy.

He says via e-mail that it is no use wasting your time trying to convince idiots of the obvious (morally it is sound though).

He says a big war is coming. BIG war. Like Pearl Harbor it will unite us. He says it is a waste of time trying to talk to the idiots. He used to blog a lot on the subject. Now he doesn't bother. He says events are the best convincers. Why does it feel like October 1939 all over again? The period of the "Phony War".

Which reminded me of this piece by Herbert E. Meyer at the American Thinker.

For better or worse, it's part of the American character to wait until the last possible moment - even to wait a bit beyond the last possible moment - before kicking into high gear and getting the job done. It's in our genes; just think of how many times you've ground enamel off your teeth watching your own kid waste an entire weekend, only to start writing a book report at 10:30 Sunday night that, when you find it on the breakfast table Monday morning is by some miracle a minor masterpiece.

However horrific it may be, the knockout punch won't knock us out. Instead, it will shift us from playing defense back to offense - and this time we won't hold back. The president will ask Congress for a declaration of war and he, or she, will get it. We'll bring back the draft, send our troops into battle without one hand tied behind their backs by lawyers, and we won't waste time and energy pussyfooting with the United Nations. And if we've closed GITMO by this time - we'll reopen it and even double its size because we're going to pack it. All of this will take longer to organize, and cost more, than if we'd done it right in the aftermath of 9-11. That's unfortunate, but that's the way we Americans tend to do things. And when we do finally start fighting for real -- we'll win.

That would be my assessment as well. In my opinion once Bush took on Iraq and then won the 2004 election the die was cast. What ever political winds were blowing after that the die was cast.

H/T Reliapundit who got me to thinking about this subject with his reports of recent terror alerts.

Cross Posted at Classical Values and at The Astute Bloggers

Power Without a Plan

In an editorialSleep Walking into the Gathering Storm the Washington D.C. Examiner looks into the future of a Democrat Congress (or at least the keeper of the purse The House). It appears to be a future with no direction.

WASHINGTON - “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” — Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, May 13, 1940

Midterm elections are when voters decide whether they made the right choices last time. And except for 1994, when Newt Gingrich led Republicans to their present majority status, voters have been largely satisfied. Since WWII, the average midterm gain in the House of Representatives has been just 25 seats.

But something feels different this time. In the most expensive mid-term election in U.S. history, leading national Democrats are conspicuous by their silence on the defining issue of our era: the war on terrorism. Instead of laying out their plans in detail for voters to assess, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have in recent weeks stepped back into the shadows and watched as President Bush has endured blow after blow from the mainstream media and other precincts of America’s almost-uniformly liberal and Democrat elites. When they should be proclaiming at least one great idea, these critics offer only a corrosive “Blame America, Blame Bush” litany of bitterness.

The result is Americans know too little of what Democrats will do should Tuesday’s voting return them to majority status in either or both chambers of Congress. In making Bush the focus of the campaign, however, Reid, Pelosi and company still cannot avoid this stark fact: America is under attack here at home and abroad by Islamic facists who killed thousands of us on Sept. 11 and who intend the deaths of millions more of us in the future.

So what is the Democrat plan for figghting this war? Other than abandoning Iraq no one knows. Why? Well the Democrats are fractured on this issue. In fact the Democrats are not even unified on the "leave Iraq" question. Quite a few of them vote with the Republicans on the issue.

A win for the Democrats in the House could divide the party. Permananently.

This would be quite entertaining if the lives of so many people did not hang in the balance.

This Means War

I remember that day (9/11) well. My mate called me over to the TV to look at the first plane hit. I said that that was rather unusual. Strange accident.

After watching a while I saw the second plane head in. Before it hit I told my mate "This means war".

It is strange that so many don't get it.

H/T reader Paul for reminding me.