MAKING WAR: NEITHER SADDAM OR THE IAEA OR UNSCOM DESERVED OUR TRUST - AND NEITHER DOES AHMADINEJAD

TOM NICHOLS from a post at AUSTN BAY via INSTAPUNDIT:

The simple fact of the matter is that it would have imprudent–and just plain dumb–to take on faith Saddam Hussein’s assurances about the destruction of his WMD stocks. He had them, he used them, he claimed to destroy them, but wouldn’t allow anyone to verify that claim. To say now that it should have been obvious in 2003 that there were no WMD in Iraq, given the history of the regime and the behavior of its mad dictator, is not only unsupportable, it is irresponsible, and even borders on silly. (copyright Tom Nichols)

This is exactly right. And just as it would've been wrong and imprudent to trust Saddam, it would've been wrong and imprudent to have trusted the IAEA or UNSCOM; after all, they had not detected the nuclear programs of North Korea, AQ Khan, Saddam, or Libya.

Attacking and overthrowing Saddam when we did and for the reasons (YES: reasons in the plural; see this post on UNSCR #1441, and this one details other bogus charges made by Leftists on the Iraq War), we did was correct and prudent.

Just as we couldn't trust Saddam, we cannot trust Ahmadinejad. Therefore, we must ultimately take "direct action" on our behalf, in the name of national security and to defend the Free World. And thing less is dangerously delusional.

POLL: IS THE COUNTRY GOING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

I've felt for a long time that the generic "right direction/wrong direction" polls inflate Bush's negative numbers because many people on the Right are unhappy with Bush because he's been too weak, and not hawkish enough; (for example he pushed for a cease-fire between Israel and Hizballah - something he would never accept between the USA and al Qaeda). In other words, "compassionate conservatism" - which got Bush elected in the first place - is not conservative enough for many in the public.

Many of us who think that Bush is wimping out in the GWOT, and feel that we are now going in the wrong direction, could honestly answer the generic version of the "right direction/wrong direction" poll in the negative, but we are sure as heck not going to vote Democrat in the up-coming election.

The vagueness or ambiguity of the poll question causes all those who are unhappy with Bush to be lumped together, when we should not be lumped together. This ambiguity is the reason why Bush negatives are high. This ambiguity can easily be eliminated from the polls. Here's an example of how I think this type of poll question should be asked:

In foreign affairs, is the country going in the right or wrong direction? In the wrong direction - and too far Left; the country needs to go further to the Right. In the wrong direction - and too far Right; the country needs to go further to the Left. The country is going in the right direction

Similarly less ambiguous poll questions could be asked on a whole range of issues. And they should be. Perhaps I will in the coming days.

TO LIBERATE THE WORLD FROM JIHADOTERROR WE MUST LIBERATE MUSLIM WOMEN FROM MISOGYNY

GATEWAY PUNDIT:

President George W. Bush freed the 50 million people living under these historically brutal regimes... And, President George W. Bush set 25 million women free from two of the worst womens rights abusers the world had ever known.

And yet you wouldn't know this from the supposed women's rights activists.... Today, 25,000,000 women are free from two of the most barbaric regimes in history thanks to George W. Bush. In fact, there has never been another world leader who has given so many women the gift of freedom.

And then, there's this letter-to-the-editor from the London Times:

If the parents of the young men who are attracted to this murderous martyrdom have lost control of their sons, then they must shoulder part of the blame. If the Muslims who choose to live in our society, with all its so-called tempting freedoms, do not protest against those who wish to destroy it, then how can they expect our tolerance? Why are the moderates not, in their hundreds and thousands, standing outside those mosques that are known to preach hatred, shouting “Not in our name” down their megaphones or “One, two, three, four, no more terror anymore”?

And where are the voices of the ordinary mothers and daughters and aunts from the Muslim community saying, “Enough. No more violence. No more deaths”, as did all those courageous women who helped to bring peace to Ireland? And if they, our Muslim sisters, are mute slaves to — or, worse, themselves in thrall to — the siren call of the death-wish culture, is there any hope for the rest of us?

WHERE ARE THEY?! I know where they are: they are afraid, and abused and battered.

I have long argued that in order to transform Muslim "culture" from a regressive, violent, xenophobic, Luddite, and anti-libertarian one, into a pluralistic, democratic, libertarian culture we have to do more than hold elections. We have to force them to end their backward and anti-humanitarian treatment of women, of their mothers, wives, and daughters. (For a complete explanation of the demographic and cultural effects of Muslim misogyny CLICK HERE.)

Basically, I have argued this for one simple reason:

A society which allows it's own women to be systematically deprived of their innate, inalienable universal human rights is of course going to be a society which will condone and even valorize terror and atrocities to people they define as outsiders, infidels. If they condone murdering their daughters, of course they will condone genocide of the infidel.

Liberating the Muslim women from their religiously inspired oppression is as important as was ending the slave trade. And it should be embraced by all civilized nations.

The civilized world could begin to do this by expelling nations which permit misogyny - (in the form of polygamy, endogamy, forced marriages, "honor-killings", and any and all forms of sedcond-class citizenship) - from all international organizations and all international aid.

This would begin the transformation of their "culture", and it would be the beginning of the end of the systematic and dehumanizing practices they condone, if not laud.

IMHO: Transforming Arab Muslim families from ones which condone wife-beating and honor-killing into ones which treasure all - regardless of gender - would truly begin to drain the swamp. The fathers, sons and brothers would become more humane and less sociopathic - and as a result they'd be less likely to become jihadoterrorists.

REPEAT: Liberating the Muslim women from their religiously inspired oppression is as important as was ending the slave trade. And it should be embraced by all civilized nations.

This would be an entirely non-militaristic, totally diplomatic/economic/cultural front of the GWOT, and it is one the doves should totally embrace.

[ASIDE: Not all Muslim culture is misogynistic. It is dominant in Arab and African Islam, but not in all of Asian Islam. For example, Indonesian has , by-and-large, liberated Muslim women. This proves it's possible. And even though there are many Indonesian jihadoterrorists - (the Bali Bombing was but one of their atrocities), it is less of a problem, over all, than in Arab nations. Especially when you consider that Indonesia is the most populated Muslim nation in the world. My feeling is that somewhat liberated Muslim Indonesian women help keep Islamism in check.]

UPDATE: THE AUTONOMIST and I are on the same page, and he has a brilliant post up about the same topic: how the root cause of jihadoterror is sexual misogyny and not bad economic prospects for Muslim men; [though - since prosperity is a by-product of liberty - Islamism, (which is fundamentally anti-libertarian), does adversely effect the local economy. Ending Islamism WILL make their econiomies better!] Here's an excerpt from THE AUTONOMIST:

French film maker Pierre Rehov will soon release his documentary "Suicide Killers," a film delving into the methods and motives of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Rehov interviewed both families of successful bombers and also imprisoned bombers whose bombs failed to detonate. What he found dispels the myth that Arab and Muslim terror bombing is driven primarily by economic forces and a desire to overcome the 'oppression' of the West.

Rehov suggests that suicide bombers are driven by the tenets of Islam and by the sexual misogyny it causes in the cultures where it is prominent.

I have always believed that the sick view of sexuality promoted by strict Islam is one of suicide bombing's prime motivators. Young males, living in Islamic societies where pre-marital sex with women is sometimes punishable by death, and raised by mothers who are treated like chattel, can't possibly have healthy outlooks on sexuality.

(Great minds think alike!)
RTWT. PLUS: He has a great graphic. too!
More HERE on liberating women - via Infidel Blogger Alliance.)

WHO KNOWS MORE ABOUT THE TRUE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN IRAQ, THE MSM OR IRAQIS?

IRAQIS, AND THEY ARE NOT DEFEATIST - like the MSM and the Democrat Party.
(Via Instapundit.)

BTW: Here's a link to 20 short radio-commericals (made by the above linked-to org.) which defend the USA military efforts in Iraq and attack the lying, obfuscating enemy-propagandizing MSM.

IF KERRY HAD BEEN POTUS IN WW2...

HEH.

SERIOUSLY: FDR must spinning in his grave, pissed off that: (a) Bush fights a war against a gang more ruthless and vicious than the Nazis, and fights it with one hand behind his back; (b) Bush gets pilloried for fighting the war much less ruthlessly than FDR fought WW2; and (c) the contemporary Democrat Party advocates appeasement and surrender.

UPDATED AND BUMPED: CONSENSUS GROWING: HIZBALLAH LOST

I was one of the few bloggers - along with the brilliant Captain's Quarters - who argued from the time the "cease-fire" began that Israel had won and Hizballah had lost. Hizballah propaganda - lovingly spoon fed to their comrades in the MSM (and happily regurgitated by the anti-Bush/ant-Israel MSM) - was a major cause of the misconception that Hizballah won. The more we learn about the real war the more it becomes clear that Israel won:

UPDATED AND BUMPED - 8/25:

Via Pajamas Media:

Hezbollah Didn't Win: Arab writers are beginning to lift the veil on what really happened in Lebanon, by AMIR TAHERI

RTWT!

NOTE: I think that as it becomes more clear just how incredibly devastated Hizballah really is, that more nations will send more troops as "peace-keepers."

***UPDATE - 8/24: MICHAEL YOUNG, Lebanese columnist in Lebanon, (Via Instapundit):

So perhaps a victory it is, but in that case Hezbollah's victory is no different than most other Arab victories in recent decades:

the "victory" of October 1973, where Egypt and Syria managed to cross into Israeli-held land, their land, only to be later saved from a thrashing by timely United Nations intervention; the "victory" of 1982, where Palestinian groups were ultimately expelled from West Beirut, but were proud to have stayed in the fight for three months; the Iraqi "victory" of 1991, where Saddam Hussein brought disaster on his country but still held on to power. Now we have the Hezbollah "victory" of 2006: the Israelis bumbled and blundered, but still managed to create a million refugees, to kill over 1,000 people, and to kick Lebanon's economy back several years.

One dreads to imagine what Hezbollah would recognize as a military loss.

That's something I wouldn't dread at all!

(Earlier): BOTW/WSJ:

BY JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, August 24, 2006 4:11 p.m. EDT

Did Hezbollah Win?

The conventional answer is yes... Yet not everyone agrees. One who apparently does not is Fuad Siniora, Lebanon's prime minister. YnetNews reports on an interview Siniora gave to La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper:

The Lebanese PM also told the newspaper he does not expect Hizbullah to drag Lebanon into a war again.

"I don't believe it can happen again," he said. "I don't think Hizbullah is in the same position where it was before the war, and won't be able to repeat what it did. It learned the lesson from what happened."

Er um... this means that Hizballah LOST.

Don't get me wrong: it was a huge mistake for the USA to allow the UNSC to push for a "time-out" because it ONLY benefits the bad guys.

And it's true that the IDF did not do as good as they should have. But still, these two mistakes don't transform the shellacking the Israelis dished out on the jihadomaniancs into a win for Hizballah or even a draw. THE ENEMY LOST. Period.

I think, that if it wasn't for the anti-Semitic propaganda of the MSM that everyone would've seen things differently, and the USA might've never pushed for a cease-fire at all. I think the lies and fauxtographs ("extremist sects, lies and videotapes") succeeded in putting so much pressure on Bush and Condi - it made them BLINK.

BTW: I think that's exactly what the MSM've been trying to do to the USA in Iraq, too: portray it as an unwinnable quagmire in which we're committing atrocity after atrocity.

I wish Bush and Condi and Olmert had shown a much resolve in the Hizballah War as Bush has in the Iraq War.

THE NEW FACE OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY

Okay, news faces, as in plural:

Two pretty boys.
Two rich pretty boys.
Two rich Left-wing pretty boys.
Two rich Left-wing dove pretty boys.
Two rich Left-wing dove pretty boys with next to no experience in government.

But that doesn't matter, they have other experience: One was a "cable guy" (okay: he owned a CABLE COMPANY), and the other "channeled" dead girls to win bogus lawsuits against good doctors.

Maybe we should call them the pretty rich "Dove-o-crats". Or how about this - it's pretty simple: scum.

BTW: Look at the naked LUST in the goo-goo eyes Lamont is flashing at Edwards. D'ya think Kerry is jealous? (More here.)

JIHADOMANIACAL KIDNAPPERS RELEASE PHOTO-ID'S OF HOSTAGES

MALKIN'S POST REVEALS THAT AS A RESULT OF THE RECENT KIDNAPPING, THE JIHADOMANIACS HAVE TEMPLATE FOR REAL MSM ID'S TO GET INTO CONGRESS.

THIS MIGHT BE USEFUL TO THEM: REMEMBER, BINLADEN ASSASSINATED NORTHERN ALLIANCE LEADER MASSOUD BY HAVING HIS AGENTS POSE AS JOURNALISTS.

MAYBE THEY WILL DO THIS AGAIN - BUT NEXT TIME AGAINST US CONGRESSMAN!?

(IT'S JUST A POSSIBLE SCENARIO; I'M JUST HYPOTHESIZING/GAMING.)

JAWA: "ALL YOUR FAKES ARE BELONG TO US"

I SMELL AN OSCAR NOMINATION FOR BEST ANTI-PROPAGANDA FILM EVER!

THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE

FORMER IDF CHIEF OF STAFF: Appeasement and fences will never neutralize a threat, just hold it bay - and allow it to strengthen.

What's true for Israel is true for the West.

More here from Power Line.

BAD NEWS FOR GORE AND THE ENVIRO-NUTS: DEBBIE WEAKENS

Gore thinks Bush and "man-made" global warming are bigger threats than jihadoterror. He and his comrades on the Left have been SWEARING that "man-made" global warming was causing "super-hurricanes" and was responsible for Katrina and last year's awful hurricane season. They said it was gonna get worse.

WELL IT AIN'T. This year has been VERY calm. And the latest tropical - Tropical Storm Debbie - storm just fizzled. Like Gore did and the Left will once again this November. Thank God.

BTW: it should be obvious that this latest storm was only the fourth - hence the "D" for Debbie. Last year we hasd more than twice as many named storms by this time. I guess things ain't getting worse - as Gore and his comrades promised.

HEY: Ya think maybe all that fearmongering was just a lot of BS? Yup.

More here from Professor Reynolds.

POST-WAR IRAQ: WE'RE WINNING

YEAH: POST-WAR. AND WE'RE WINNING - THAT IS, IF YOU RELY ON FACTS. GATEWAY MARSHALLS THE FACTS.

SURE: THERE'RE PLENTY OF BIG PROBLEMS, AND THIS IS A MAJOR CAUSE; WASHPOST - (Via Pajamas Media):

The Iranian government is training and equipping much of the Shiite insurgency in Iraq, a senior U.S. general said Wednesday, drawing one of the most direct links by the Pentagon. ... "I think it's irrefutable that Iran is responsible for training, funding and equipping some of these (Shiite) extremist groups and also providing advanced IED technology to them," Barbero said. "IED" refers to the improvised explosive devices _ roadside bombs _ that have caused much death and destruction in Iraq.

This is just another reason why confronting Iran makes sense, and why talking at them and allowing them to ignore us is idiotic.

WARS FOUGHT HALF-WAY LAST MORE THAN TWICE AS LONG

LILEKS (via THE ANCHORESS):

I’ve no doubt that if Seattle or Boston or Manhattan goes up in a bright white flash there will be those who blame it all on Bush. We squandered the world’s good will. We threw away the opportunity to atone, and lashed out.

Really? You want to see lashing out? Imagine Kabul and Mecca and Baghdad and Tehran on 9/14 crowned with mushroom clouds: that’s lashing out. Imagine the President in the National Cathedral castigating Islam instead of sitting next to an Imam who's giving a homily. Mosques burned, oil fields occupied, smart bombs slamming into Syrian palaces.

We could have gone full Roman on anyone we wanted, but we didn’t. And we won’t. Which is why this war will be long.

That was written on 9/11/03. RTWT. The end is expecially poignant.

WAL-MART HELPS REDUCE WORLD POVERTY

TCS - (via Dissecting Leftism):

"Between 1990 and 2002 more than 174 million people escaped poverty in China, about 1.2 million per month. With an estimated $23 billion in Chinese exports in 2005 (out of a total of $713 billion in manufacturing exports), Wal-Mart might well be single-handedly responsible for bringing about 38,000 people out of poverty in China each month, about 460,000 per year. There are estimates that 70 percent of Wal-Mart's products are made in China. One writer vividly suggests that "One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market."

Even without considering the $263 billion in consumer savings that Wal-Mart provides for low-income Americans, or the millions lifted out of poverty by Wal-Mart in other developing nations, it is unlikely that there is any single organization on the planet that alleviates poverty so effectively for so many people. Moreover, insofar as China's rapid manufacturing growth has been associated with a decline in its status as a global arms dealer, Wal-Mart has also done more than its share in contributing to global peace."

Yet the Dems OPPOSE Wal-Mart. WHY?!?! Because most have never been in one, that's why. WHY HAVEN'T THEY BEEN IN ONE?! Because according the the Left, they're "too smart to shop in Wal-Mart." Corrollary: Wal-Mart is only for people who are too dumb to know were they really should shop."

My message to the Left: if you don't like Wal-Mart then don't shop there. But don't stop people who do like shopping there from shopping there; just mind your own business. Nobody is forced to shop in Wal-Mart or eat a McDonald's. So stop putting down these two hugely popular companies.

The Left's proclivity for this prescriptiveness, for a nanny-state, is another affinity they have with the jihadists. Both oppose free individuals freely deciding for themselves what to spend their own money on and where. Both oppose the free marketplace of goods and ideas. One major reason they oppose individual freedom and free marketplaces is that they know that the ideas which they hold so dear - Leftism and jihadism - can't survive the competiton.

More on Wal-Mart Derangement Syndrome here.

THE BUSH DOCTRINE IS ALIVE AND WELL; ITS CRITICS - ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT - ARE DEAD WRONG!

RTWT. Excerpt:

I must confess to being puzzled by the amazing spread of the idea that the Bush Doctrine has indeed failed the test of Iraq. After all, Iraq has been liberated from one of the worst tyrants in the Middle East; three elections have been held; a decent constitution has been written; a government is in place; and previously unimaginable liberties are being enjoyed. By what bizarre calculus does all this add up to failure? And by what even stranger logic is failure to be read into the fact that the forces opposed to democratization are fighting back with all their might?

Surely what makes more sense is the opposite interpretation of the terrible violence being perpetrated by the terrorists of the so-called insurgency: that it is in itself a tribute to the enormous strides that have been made in democratizing the country. If this murderous collection of diehard Sunni Baathists and vengeful Shiite militias, together with their allies inside the government, agreed that democratization had already failed, would they be waging so desperate a campaign to defeat it? And if democratization in Iraq posed no threat to the other despotisms in the region, would those regimes be sending jihadists and material support to the "insurgency" there?

RWTW! REGISTER IF YOU HAVEN'T! NOW!

75% OF AMERICANS BELIEVE BINLADEN IS PLANNING AN ATTACK

CNN:

As the five-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, nearly three-fourths of those responding to a CNN poll said they believe Osama bin Laden is planning another significant attack against the United States.

Seventy-four percent of the 1,033 adult Americans polled said they believe an attack is being planned, according to the poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of CNN.

Sure, but what kind of attack should we next expect!? See below.

CNN: FORMER CIA OFFICIAL CLAIMS BINLADEN GOT FATWA FOR NUKING 10 MILLION AMERICANS

CNN/Amanpour:

Michael Scheuer, who once headed the CIA's bin Laden unit, says bin Laden has been given permission by a young cleric in Saudi Arabia authorizing al Qaeda to "use nuclear weapons against the United States ... capping the casualties at 10 million."

"He's had an approval, a religious approval for 10 million deaths?" I asked him.

"Yes," Scheuer responded.

He first made this charge here; 11/14/03 (on CBS). IS THIS SO LONG AGO WE SHOULD IGNORE IT, NOW?!?! Maybe, but maybe NOT: ALL of Binladen's major jihadoterror attacks have always been planned YEARS ahead of time. The time may be fast approaching...

I take this charge with a grain of salt: Scheuer was the incompetent head of the Binladen desk at the CIA during the time we failed to get him when we could've, and he's an anti-Semitic piece of crap who like Sheehan and Chomsky argues we went to war against Saddam because Israel/the Likud wanted us to, while at the same time he argues that we are controlled by the House of Saud.

NEVERTHELESS: the fact that Saddam wanted nukes (which he could have given to al Qaeda), and that Iran is trying to make nukes (which they can give to Hizballah), and that North Korea may have some to sell to... ANYONE, makes this charge one that must be paid attention too.

MORE ON CNN'S BINLADEN SPECIAL HERE.

WAR IS HELL - AND IT GETS MORE HELLISH THE CLOSER YOU GET TO THE END

The last V2 bomb hit the UK on 3/28/45 - just two months before the war ended.
The Nazies didn't surrender until... they surrendered.

Kamikaze attacks - Japan's most effective weapon - didn't begin until 10/44 - three years into the war. The closer we got to victory the more kamikazes they sent after us; most were sent in the last three months of the war.

And remember, the Japanese didn't surrender until we nuked them twice.

We should expect no less from our current enemies.

IN MY PRAYERS: The Fox News Team and Gilad Shalit Eldad, Regev, Ehud Goldwasser

I pray for the safe release of the Fox News team, and of the three Israeli soldiers, too. And I pray for our troops and the troops of the IDF and our allies. (More on the Fox News team HERE.)

MSM LIES WORKING: NYTIMES/REUTERS: "51% SEE NO LINK BETWEEN IRAQ AND GWOT"

NYTIMES/"REUTERS":

Americans increasingly see the war in Iraq as distinct from the fight against terrorism, and nearly half believe President Bush has focused too much on Iraq to the exclusion of other threats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The finding that 51 percent of those surveyed see no link between the war in Iraq and the broader antiterror effort was a jump of 10 percentage points since June.

Here's a link to a post of mine from Friday 8/18 which conclusively proved that the Iraq War was always and remains and integral part of the GWOT.

BUSH: HE'S NOT "DOWN AND OUT" IN DC!

HE'S UP IN THE POLLS, AND AND "UP" IN PERSON; (HINDERAKER, excerpt):

I had the opportunity this afternoon to be part of a relatively small group who heard President Bush talk, extemporaneously, for around forty minutes. It was an absolutely riveting experience. It was the best I've ever seen him. Not only that; it may have been the best I've ever seen any politician.

(Maybe this will reverse Power Line's recent slide into defeatism!? I HOPE SO!)

THE TRUE FACE OF THE ENEMY - part 5

VIDEO. Via CUANAS.