Heritage Quote

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. "

-- Samuel Adams, 1749 - essay in The Public Advertiser

A larger tragedy

Thomas Sowell, over at Townhall makes some insightful observations about the real tragedy in the Duke non-rape case.

However reprehensible District Attorney Nifong's words and actions have been throughout this case, it would be a serious mistake to see in this tawdry episode just the vileness of one man.

The larger tragedy is what this case revealed about the degeneration of our times and the hollowness of so many people in "responsible" positions in the media, in academia, and among those blacks so consumed by racial resentments and thirst for revenge that they are prepared to lash out at individuals who have done nothing to them and are guilty of no crime against anybody.

The haste and vehemence with which scores of Duke University professors publicly took sides against the students in this case is just one sign of how deep the moral dry rot goes, in even our most prestigious institutions.

Recommended.

Heritage Quote

"Your love of liberty - your respect for the laws - your habits of industry - and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness."

-- George Washington, 1789 - letter to the Residents of Boston

Heritage Quote

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue."

-- John Witherspoon, 1776 - The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men

Heritage Quote

"[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous."

-- George Washington, 1790 - letter to Steptoe Washington

Heritage Quote

"Newspapers...serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1802 - letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko

'Probably' a crock

James Lewis has an enjoyable op-ed piece up at American Thinker about the unlikelihood of global warming.

He concludes:

Now imagine that all the variables about global climate are known with less than 100 percent certainty. Let's be wildly and unrealistically optimistic and say that climate scientists know each variable to 99 percent certainty! (No such thing, of course). And let's optimistically suppose there are only one-hundred x's, y's, and z's --- all the variables that can change the climate: like the amount of cloud cover over Antarctica, the changing ocean currents in the South Pacific, Mount Helena venting, sun spots, Chinese factories burning more coal every year, evaporation of ocean water (the biggest "greenhouse" gas), the wobbles of earth orbit around the sun, and yes, the multifarious fartings of billions of living creatures on the face of the earth, minus, of course, all the trillions of plants and algae that gobble up all the CO2, nitrogen-containing molecules, and sulfur-smelling exhalations spewed out by all of us animals. Got that? It all goes into our best math model.

So in the best case, the smartest climatologist in the world will know 100 variables, each one to an accuracy of 99 percent. Want to know what the probability of our spiffiest math model would be, if that perfect world existed? Have you ever multiplied (99/100) by itself 100 times? According to the Google calculator, it equals a little more than 36.6 percent.

The Bottom line: our best imaginable model has a total probability of one out of three. How many billions of dollars in Kyoto money are we going to spend on that chance?

Or should we just blow it at the dog races?

So all ye of global warming faith, rejoice in the ambiguity that real life presents to all of us. Neither planetary catastrophe nor paradise on earth are sure bets. Sorry about that. (Consider growing up, instead.)

That's why human-caused global warming is an hypothesis, not a fact. Anybody who says otherwise isn't doing science, but trying to sell you a bill of goods.

Probably.

Heritage Quote

"Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech."

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1722 - writing as Silence Dogood, No. 8

On greed

Thomas Sowell talks about the "greed" fallacy. Here is his conclusion:

Every time oil prices shoot up, there are cries of “greed” and demands by politicians for an investigation of collusion by Big Oil. There have been more than a dozen investigations of oil companies over the years, and none of them has turned up the collusion that is supposed to be responsible for high gas prices.

Now that oil prices have dropped big time, does that mean that oil companies have lost their “greed”? Or could it all be supply and demand — a cause and effect explanation that seems to be harder for some people to understand than emotions like “greed”?

I urge you to read how he arrived at that . . .

Good news from Iraq

Bill Crawford has posted another report about the many good things happening in Iraq. The article is quite long (almost 10 printed pages), but provides a good detailed look. Here's an excerpt:

Mosul and al Qaim are other areas where significant progress has been made over the past year. In Mosul, Iraqi police and army forces have brought law and order to a historically violent area:

“Yes, there is violence in this city. But, there is violence in American cities that have nearly two million people in their population as well,” said [Maj. Gen. Benjamin R.] Mixon.

Recognizing the similar levels of violence in a comparable city in America, Twitty paints an optimistic picture of the current state of Mosul and Ninewa Province.

“Amidst the turmoil and issues that persist in Iraq, there is a semblance of peace and normalcy in the north. Ninewa’s leadership works hard to provide its citizens security, build its economy, and implement programs that will continue to keep sectarian violence from the province,” said Twitty. “One thing we cannot do is attempt to put an American standard on any Iraqi city,” said Twitty. “We have to remember that this country lived under a dictator for more than 30 years. The major and significant difference between U.S. cities and Mosul is the use of improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, and other military - grade weapons. Anti-Iraqi forces persist in their attacks, but the Iraqi security forces, consisting of the Iraqi Army, border patrol and police, continue to quell those attacks daily,” Twitty continued.

Al Qaim was frequently called the “Wild West,” but the Marines cleaned the area up in 2005, and the situation is improving daily:

Two years ago, the same streets were fraught with roadside bombs and snipers, and sellers and buyers stayed away. The area was considered too dangerous even for a quick tour by a U.S. general in his armored Humvee.

The Al Qaim region routinely was described as an out-of-control "wild west" where the Marines were fighting, with only limited success, to control the smuggling of insurgent fighters and weapons from Syria.

Today, Marines walk the downtown beat, chatting with residents, fielding their complaints, encouraging them to contact the Iraqi police if they suspect insurgent activity.

In a country studded with areas where the United States either has failed or had only limited progress toward stabilization, Husaybah and the surrounding Al Qaim region stand out as a success, officials said.

Unfortunately, the American people aren’t hearing about this, as Army medic Corporal Ignacio Garza observes:

Based on his experiences in Iraq, events there are not as bad as the news media make it seem, an Army medic from Adrian said.

Cpl. Ignacio Garza, a medic in the 1st Armored Division home on leave after serving in Iraq for six months, said the troops don’t watch television news for war updates because they think none of the networks show an accurate depiction of what’s happening. He said they ignore large parts of the country, including the Kurd-dominated north, that are stable.

Clearly, progress is being made over there, as Mr. Crawford's extensively sourced article shows us. Too bad our media does not care to disseminate that information.

Recommended reading.

Defeatism

A long time ago, when my wife and I were attending a Sunday School class for newlyweds, our teacher said something to us about relationships that has stayed with me for 28 years: "If you say bad things about your spouse long enough, you will come to believe them." That is precisely what is happening in this country. We are so busy bitching about America and its involvement in Iraq that we are starting to believe our own rhetoric.

The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism. In the halls of Congress, across endless newspaper columns, amid the punditocracy and on Sunday morning talk shows--all emit a Stygian gloom about America.

Yes, on any given day on some discrete issue (Prime Minister Maliki's bona fides, for example), the criticism of the American role is not without justification. But the cumulative effect of this unremitting ill wind is corrosive. We are not only on the way to talking ourselves into defeat in Iraq but into a diminished international status that may be harder to recover than the doom mob imagines. Self-criticism has its role, but profligate self-doubt can exact a price.

It pains me to say this, but I do not believe that America, as it is today, would have had the fortitude to fight and win against the Axis powers in WWII.

We, as a nation, no longer have the sheer cussedness required to succeed in the face of determined opposition. And thus we, as a nation, are diminished.

Heritage Quote

"We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honors, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper's ally, It would be easy to enlarge on its evils. They are in England, they are here, they are everywhere. It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it."

-- Fisher Ames, 1807 - Review of the Pamphlet on the State of the British Constituiton

And so, he was

President Bush was, in fact, brutally honest in his SOTU address.

If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country -- and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.

For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective. Chaos is the greatest ally -- their greatest ally in this struggle. And out of chaos in Iraq would emerge an emboldened enemy with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to harm America. To allow this to happen would be to ignore the lessons of September the 11th and invite tragedy. Ladies and gentlemen, nothing is more important at this moment in our history than for America to succeed in the Middle East, to succeed in Iraq and to spare the American people from this danger. (Applause.)

This is where matters stand tonight, in the here and now. I have spoken with many of you in person. I respect you and the arguments you've made. We went into this largely united, in our assumptions and in our convictions. And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the field, and those on their way. (Applause.)

The war on terror we fight today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others. And that's why it's important to work together so our nation can see this great effort through. Both parties and both branches should work in close consultation.

I wonder how many Americans truly understand the magnitude of this fight we find ourselves in. We need to stop milling about and step out together with the common objective of exterminating this threat to every one of us -- and our descendants.

Lessons learned

Varifrank posts on the ten things he has learned from Iraq. Here is one of them:

- Now that America is in Iraq, the world cares deeply of the loss of quality of life of the Iraqi people. When Saddam was in charge, the world couldn’t possibly have cared less.

I have noted this, as well. It almost seems as if the world is more comfortable with tyrants who keep their murderous excesses quiet, than with an open society wherein everything is out for all to see. Pretty sad, that.

Varifrank has more thought-provoking observations in the rest of his post. Recommended.

Dismounted Patrol: Khadimiya

Michelle Malkin has posted a video report taken when she accompanied a U.S. Army patrol in Khadimiya, IRAQ.

The video is about 10 minutes long, but it's well worth watching.

Heritage Quote

"The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon . . . has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right."

-- James Madison, 1798 - Virginia Resolutions

The SOTU address we needed

Jules Crittenden writes, for Pajamas Media, a much more brutally frank State of the Union address than that delivered last night.

So what is the best thing I can do tonight? I can tell you the truth. What none of you want to hear. What you’ve been stopping your ears to. The ugly truth.

The State of the Union is a disaster. I did my best, but I made mistakes, and my best wasn’t good enough.

We went to war without building up our army, and now, I am trying to make up for that.

But that is not the disaster.

The disaster is that you, Congress and the American people, do not care to fight.

It's something we Americans need to hear.

Go read the rest.

Iraq for dummies

Bridget Johnson, over at NRO provides us with a quick reference guide about Iraq.

Shouldn’t there be some sort of “Iraq for Dummies” guide that easily shoots down the nonsensical claims pushed by the antiwar left and swallowed by the gullible middle?

Now there is! If you’re tired of wasting your breath countering these familiar refrains over and over, just hand the vociferous war opponent a copy of my rant. Better yet, just paper the windshields of hybrid cars with this run-through at your next local Code Pink rally.

Despite the snarky comments, she makes some good points. Recommended.

Different

Marine Cpl. Matt Sanchez writes about how our military is different than what is being portrayed in liberal circles.

So why did a bunch of privileged brats calling me cannon fodder for joining the Marine Corps bother me so much? I could speak of racial injustice, breaking group and student conduct rules, or harassment, but that wouldn't be the entire story. When I'm completely honest with myself, I understand the real reason this episode made my blood boil.

Deep down inside, most of the people at sophisticated, exclusive Columbia University felt they were superior to the military, and particularly the Corps. Honor, courage and commitment? Any undergrad and most of the faculty would tell you, in a double-spaced six-page essay, that these things are relative — impossible to define. For the academics, joining the Corps over attending an Ivy League school was an obvious sign of desperation.

Were we desperate? Our platoon "heavy hat," Staff Sgt. Forde, never once mentioned he was named the best tanker in the Corps — two years in a row. But my professors at Columbia always mention the books they and their colleagues have written and often assign those books, as graded papers, so we all have to mention them, too. Who is desperate?

I joined the Corps not because I couldn't make it elsewhere or because I needed money to go to school. No signing bonus was going to turn me into a soldier. I became a Marine because I wanted to be among the best, just as I applied to Columbia because I wanted to be among the brightest. I knew both required a high price.

I thank God every day that there are men and women in this country like Cpl. Sanchez. I am privileged to be able to work with quite a few of them myself. This country needs them -- whether we care to acknowledge it, or not.

Go read the whole post.

[Via Sarah at trying to grok.]

Heritage Quote

"If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself."

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1789 - An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz. The Court of the Press

Feeling the heat

Eric Berger, at the Houston Chronicle website, has a fascinating article about scientists who feel as if they've oversold global warming.

Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.

Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.

In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.

"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.

Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.

The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.

I wonder how Al Gore will respond to this?

Go read the whole thing . . .

Beirut

Michael Totten has a post up about the Hezbollah "capital", Haret Hreik in the aftermath of the battle with Israel last summer.

Our first stop was only a few streets from his house. Whole blocks of towers were missing.

“Did you stay here during the war?” I said and shuddered at the thought of hunkering down while whole towers exploded just down the street.

“No,” he said like I was crazy for asking. “No one could stay here. Everyone had to leave.”

The Israeli Air Force dropped leaflets over the neighborhood warning residents to get out of the way of the incoming air strikes. Many times more people would have been killed if they hadn’t done this.

His post is interspersed with many photos, as well.

Recommended.

Ghost soldiers in Iraq

Bill Ardolino, embedded with the Marines in Fallujah, has posted a report on corruption in the Iraqi Army and how it endangers our troops as well as the mission.

Many American personnel, including former Military Transition Team (MiTT) members advising the Iraqi Army in Fallujah, vehemently complained about fuel, supplies, weapons and pay stolen by higher echelons of the Iraqi Second Brigade of the First Iraqi Army (IA) Division, as well as IA officials up the chain of command. Current members of the MiTT, however, declined to comment.

A former MiTTer described how "ghost soldiers" result in both American and Iraqi deaths by compromising security operations in Fallujah.

"Let's say there are 500 soldiers reported on staff; there will really be only 300, but someone up the line will report 500 and pocket the extra pay," said the former MiTT member who insisted on anonymity. Having fewer actual soldiers available for patrols and other missions exposes both Iraqi and U.S. soldiers to more lethal attacks by insurgents, he said. The reduced manpower allows insurgents "freedom of movement" to both stage attacks and plant Improvised Explosive Devices, the number one killer of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and police.

"There's always some level of corruption going on, and that's one thing, but when it's getting people killed, it's unacceptable," he angrily explained.

There has got to be some way that this can be spotlighted, so that the Iraqi government will do something about it . . .

Heritage Quote

"Conscience is the most sacred of all property. "

-- James Madison (essay on Property, 29 March 1792)

Disturbing poll results

Dean Barnett, over at Townhall makes some remarks about the results from a Fox News poll that were released on Thursday. He finds it very depressing.

In the latest Fox News poll, just out today, the pollsters asked the following question:

Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?

Here are the results:

Overall: 63% Yes 22% No 15% Don’t Know

Democrats: 51% Yes 34% No 15% Don’t Know

Republicans: 79% Yes 11% No 10% Don’t Know

Independents 63% Yes 19% No 17% Don’t Know

Friends, I’ll allow you a minute to wrap your minds around this, for we are truly through the looking [g]lass. Even though we have some 150,000 troops in harm’s way and we universally profess to “support the troops,” over 1/3 of our society either wants them to fail or doesn’t know if they want them to succeed. Even more chilling are the results regarding our currently dominant political party. 49% of Democrats either want us to lose in Iraq or “don’t know” if they want us to succeed.

I would love to hear why losing in Iraq would be in the national interest. And I would love to hear the humanitarian justification for leaving Baghdad’s civilians to the tender mercies of the murderous militias and terrorists that stalk that city.

And I would also love to hear Democratic leaders respond to these poll numbers. But I won’t hold my breath.

I'm hoping it's because people who responded to the poll weren't paying attention to what was actually asked . . .

Congressional backbone, please!

Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke is warning Congress of the dangers of fiscal inaction.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned the U.S. Congress on Thursday that failure to take action soon to deal with the budgetary strains posed by an aging U.S. population could lead to serious economic harm.

"Unfortunately, economic growth alone is unlikely to solve the nation's impending fiscal problems," Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee.

Bernanke acknowledged that official projections suggest the U.S. budget deficit could stabilize or shrink in the next few years, but cautioned: "We are experiencing what seems likely to be the calm before the storm."

Left unchecked, the costs of so-called entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, are set to soar as increasing numbers of the baby boom generation retire.

Recognize the chorus? We need to rein in our entitlement programs! Perhaps the Democrat-controlled Congress will take some decisive action -- the Republican-controlled one surely did not.

Heritage Quote

"During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.”

— Thomas Jefferson, 1805 - Second Inaugural Address

Words from the grave

2LT Mark Daily died in Iraq while doing his duty. He left behind friends and family, and an inspirational post on his MySpace page.

Here's a link to the post.

Here's an excerpt:

So that is why I joined. In the time it took for you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny. Every tool of philosophical advancement and communication that we use to develop our opinions about this war are denied to countless human beings on this planet, many of whom live under the regimes that have, in my opinion, been legitimately targeted for destruction. Some have allowed their resentment of the President to stir silent applause for setbacks in Iraq. Others have ironically decried the war because it has tied up our forces and prevented them from confronting criminal regimes in Sudan, Uganda, and elsewhere.

I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined.

The entire post is reprinted below the fold.

[Via Michelle Malkin.]

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Why I Joined:

Current mood: optimistic

Why I Joined:

This question has been asked of me so many times in so many different contexts that I thought it would be best if I wrote my reasons for joining the Army on my page for all to see. First, the more accurate question is why I volunteered to go to Iraq. After all, I joined the Army a week after we declared war on Saddam's government with the intention of going to Iraq. Now, after years of training and preparation, I am finally here.

Much has changed in the last three years. The criminal Ba'ath regime has been replaced by an insurgency fueled by Iraq's neighbors who hope to partition Iraq for their own ends. This is coupled with the ever present transnational militant Islamist movement which has seized upon Iraq as the greatest way to kill Americans, along with anyone else they happen to be standing near. What was once a paralyzed state of fear is now the staging ground for one of the largest transformations of power and ideology the Middle East has experienced since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks to Iran, Syria, and other enlightened local actors, this transformation will be plagued by interregional hatred and genocide. And I am now in the center of this.

Is this why I joined?

Yes. Much has been said about America's intentions in overthrowing Saddam Hussein and seeking to establish a new state based upon political representation and individual rights. Many have framed the paradigm through which they view the conflict around one-word explanations such as "oil" or "terrorism," favoring the one which best serves their political persuasion. I did the same thing, and anyone who knew me before I joined knows that I am quite aware and at times sympathetic to the arguments against the war in Iraq. If you think the only way a person could bring themselves to volunteer for this war is through sheer desperation or blind obedience then consider me the exception (though there are countless like me).

I joined the fight because it occurred to me that many modern day "humanists" who claim to possess a genuine concern for human beings throughout the world are in fact quite content to allow their fellow "global citizens" to suffer under the most hideous state apparatuses and conditions. Their excuses used to be my excuses. When asked why we shouldn't confront the Ba'ath party, the Taliban or the various other tyrannies throughout this world, my answers would allude to vague notions of cultural tolerance (forcing women to wear a veil and stay indoors is such a quaint cultural tradition), the sanctity of national sovereignty (how eager we internationalists are to throw up borders to defend dictatorships!) or even a creeping suspicion of America's intentions. When all else failed, I would retreat to my fragile moral ecosystem that years of living in peace and liberty had provided me. I would write off war because civilian casualties were guaranteed, or temporary alliances with illiberal forces would be made, or tank fuel was toxic for the environment. My fellow "humanists" and I would relish contently in our self righteous declaration of opposition against all military campaigns against dictatorships, congratulating one another for refusing to taint that aforementioned fragile moral ecosystem that many still cradle with all the revolutionary tenacity of the members of Rage Against the Machine and Greenday. Others would point to America's historical support of Saddam Hussein, sighting it as hypocritical that we would now vilify him as a thug and a tyrant. Upon explaining that we did so to ward off the fiercely Islamist Iran, which was correctly identified as the greater threat at the time, eyes are rolled and hypocrisy is declared. Forgetting that America sided with Stalin to defeat Hitler, who was promptly confronted once the Nazis were destroyed, America's initial engagement with Saddam and other regional actors is identified as the ultimate argument against America's moral crusade.

And maybe it is. Maybe the reality of politics makes all political action inherently crude and immoral. Or maybe it is these adventures in philosophical masturbation that prevent people from ever taking any kind of effective action against men like Saddam Hussein. One thing is for certain, as disagreeable or as confusing as my decision to enter the fray may be, consider what peace vigils against genocide have accomplished lately. Consider that there are 19 year old soldiers from the Midwest who have never touched a college campus or a protest who have done more to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and individual rights by placing themselves between Iraqi voting lines and homicidal religious fanatics. Often times it is less about how clean your actions are and more about how pure your intentions are.

So that is why I joined. In the time it took for you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny. Every tool of philosophical advancement and communication that we use to develop our opinions about this war are denied to countless human beings on this planet, many of whom live under the regimes that have, in my opinion, been legitimately targeted for destruction. Some have allowed their resentment of the President to stir silent applause for setbacks in Iraq. Others have ironically decried the war because it has tied up our forces and prevented them from confronting criminal regimes in Sudan, Uganda, and elsewhere.

I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined.

In digesting this posting, please remember that America's commitment to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his sons existed before the current administration and would exist into our future children's lives had we not acted. Please remember that the problems that plague Iraq today were set in motion centuries ago and were up until now held back by the most cruel of cages. Don't forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans will always have a responsibility to the oppressed. Don't overlook the obvious reasons to disagree with the war but don't cheapen the moral aspects either. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction. So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include "Good Luck"

Mark Daily

I thank you, Mark, for your willingness to die for the rest of us. Your sacrifice is appreciated more than I can put into words. God rest your soul, and may His grace be with your friends and family.

Heritage Quote

"[T]he policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language, habits and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures and laws: in a word, soon become one people."

-- George Washington, 1794 - letter to John Adams

Heritage Quote

"[L]et the poor the needy and oppressed of the Earth, and those who want Land, resort to the fertile plains of our western country, the second land of Promise, and there dwell in peace, fulfilling the first and great commandment."

-- George Washington, 1785 - letter to David Humphreys

Four days in Baghdad

Bryan Preston accompanied Michelle Malkin to Iraq for a few days early this month. He has put together a quick assessment of what is going on over there along with the prospects for success.

Before setting off on this post, I want to stress that I don’t think spending a few days in Baghdad has turned me into an expert on the war. I’ve followed the war like you have since it began and obviously following the conflict day to day informs what I think about things. But I’ve now been in Iraq and I’ve seen the war up close. So while I don’t claim to be an expert, I guess you could call me a quick study.

This post is mostly about mistakes. The troops didn’t sit down with us and tick off all the mistakes that they think we have made in Iraq to date, so what follows isn’t their gripe list being published under my name. They did answer our questions forthrightly and we learned much from interviewing them and just talking with them over chow and listening to their crosstalk in the Humvees. So this post is made up of my observations after seeing the war up close and following it from afar, including mistakes, fumbles and ways forward to win–and what victory actually looks like.

Go read the whole thing.

Iraqi reactions

Amir Taheri reports on some Iraqi reactions to President Bush's new strategy for success in Iraq.

'A SIGH of relief!"

So one resident of Haifa Street, in the heart of Baghdad's badlands, reacted to the new plan to secure the Iraqi capital with the help of thousands of additional American troops.

"Maybe the Americans aren't running away after all," said the resident, a Sunni Arab, over the phone moments after President Bush unveiled his new plan. "The message seems to be that the United States will remain committed as long as Bush is in the White House."

Apparently, our commitment to success in Iraq is very heartening to its citizenry.

Though this article came out a week ago, I think it is worth highlighting. It provides a nicely balanced view of Iraqi reactions, both positive and negative. Recommended reading.

Interview with a policeman

Bill Ardolino, currently embedded with the Marines in Fallujah, posts an interesting interview with an Iraqi policeman there. Here's how he begins:

The difficulty of obtaining this interview underscores the political and cultural complexities of the American effort in Fallujah. In order to get a few minutes of alone candor with an Iraqi patrolman, the Marines had to coordinate a task that excused his visit to the American wing of the station. Some Iraqi policeman - typically the ones who are in positions to work most closely with the Marines and civilian advisors - like the Americans, some tolerate the Americans, some dislike the Americans, and it's widely believed that a few actually (at least passively) work with insurgents. Paradoxically in most cases, the majority want Americans to leave, but not yet.

Go read the rest -- it's well worth your time.

[Via Instapundit.]

Heritage Quote

"The Alien bill proposed in the Senate is a monster that must forever disgrace its parents."

-- James Madison, 1798 - letter to Thomas Jefferson

Not the same thing

Daniel Henninger has a good op-ed up about how the U.S. strategy for success in Iraq has, indeed, changed. Here's how he begins:

Immediately after the president's speech, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, "I heard nothing new." Nothing? When Gen. David Petraeus takes command of U.S. forces in Iraq, it will mark the start of an historic turn in military strategy in Iraq and perhaps in U.S. war-fighting doctrine.

The U.S.'s primary problem in Iraq, manifest across 2006, has been an urban insurgency in a 30-mile radius around Baghdad and in Anbar province. The Petraeus command is the overdue beginning of the counterinsurgency.

This isn't a one-off effort as at Fallujah, but counterinsurgency as daily U.S. military policy. It is the product of an enormous amount of self-criticism and analysis done by military and civilian analysts in and out of government. It does not mean, as often suggested the past 24 hours, that 20,000 U.S. troops are now going to run out and look for gun battles with insurgents in back alleys.

I've reprinted the entire piece below the fold.

'Unity of Effort'
The Petraeus command is the overdue beginning of the counterinsurgency.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, January 12, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Immediately after the president's speech, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, "I heard nothing new." Nothing? When Gen. David Petraeus takes command of U.S. forces in Iraq, it will mark the start of an historic turn in military strategy in Iraq and perhaps in U.S. war-fighting doctrine.

The U.S.'s primary problem in Iraq, manifest across 2006, has been an urban insurgency in a 30-mile radius around Baghdad and in Anbar province. The Petraeus command is the overdue beginning of the counterinsurgency.

This isn't a one-off effort as at Fallujah, but counterinsurgency as daily U.S. military policy. It is the product of an enormous amount of self-criticism and analysis done by military and civilian analysts in and out of government. It does not mean, as often suggested the past 24 hours, that 20,000 U.S. troops are now going to run out and look for gun battles with insurgents in back alleys.

---

In broadest outline, the plan divides Baghdad into nine districts, essentially neighborhoods. The job of providing daily security in each district will be undertaken by an Iraqi army brigade of several thousand soldiers, a U.S. support battalion of up to 1,000 troops, and most importantly, about 20 U.S. military "embeds" or advisers.

Some of us predicted late last year that advisory embeds would be part of the new Bush strategy on reading National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's November memo of advice to the president in the New York Times. After a late November trip to Iraq, Mr. Hadley said four times in the memo that the U.S. should embed coalition forces with Iraq's army and dysfunctional police.

The source of this idea, in part, was a successful Marine experiment in Anbar province. Rather than attach just a single U.S. military adviser to an Iraqi commander at the division level, the Marines put advisers alongside Iraqi units down to the NCO level. They stayed with and fought with their Iraqi counterparts 24/7. And the Marines reported that the Iraqis fought with more confidence and effect, a k a spine-stiffening.

In 2004, a similar but broader effort at integration between U.S. and Iraqi forces was planned in Anbar province by Marine Maj. Gen. James Mattis. The Mattis plan is summarized in the middle of the Army's new Counterinsurgency Manual, released just last month. The manual's drafting was overseen by Gen. David Petraeus, who will now direct the U.S. military effort in the neighborhoods of Baghdad. It's not a coincidence. The manual describes in detail the purpose, theory, tactics and problems (including spikes in violence and casualties) likely to emerge during the new counterinsurgency strategy.

At the end of the manual there is a bibliography of books, studies and articles on fighting insurgency. It includes classics, such as Alistair Horne's "A Savage War of Peace," but what's interesting is how many of them were published since 2003, amid the Iraq war. Out of this effort has emerged a "best practices" for the U.S. when fighting an insurgency, as now.

Whether the U.S. should have done this back when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his foreign suicide bombers emerged is a legitimate question. The point is this: The Iraq violence has not been running like an untended open hydrant. Some of our best and brightest have been thinking hard about how to shut the valve. Last month AEI released a plan reflecting similar counterinsurgency ideas by military specialist Fred Kagan and the Army's former vice chief of staff, Gen. Jack Keane.

In November, the Bush administration joined the rethinking. The participants in that process looked at the whole range of criticisms and formal critiques of what the U.S. had been doing in Iraq to that point. They concluded the one thing that wouldn't change is the goal, mainly establishing a democratic government in Iraq. What would change, heretofore a nonsubject, were the strategic concept and the level of resources.

Some of this came out of Gen. Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual, some from U.S. commanders in the field and some from the military think tanks. Suggestions that had gotten a "no" before, now got a "yes."

Is it all a day late and a dollar short? Maybe. Some 20,000 more troops may be insufficient. The inevitable front-page casualty reports and blood-soaked photos may still drain the will of domestic pundits. But what we are seeing in the Petraeus command is the kind of step back that the military sometimes excels at. This the U.S. military at its potential best--remaking itself, as it did with the transition to training a volunteer army after Vietnam.

---

It is not the least bit obvious that this counterinsurgency plan will fail, and only the most churlishly neurotic Bush hater would want it to. The stakes for the region and the war on terror have been described many times. There is another reason: How this ends will have an important effect on the morale of our officer corps, the people who must summon the gumption to protect us. They deserve a final chance to succeed. This is the chance.

An idea one finds in the counterinsurgency literature, crucial to the success of any such strategy, is known as "unity of effort." Basically, it means all oars pulling in the same direction. The Iraqi government, for instance, has told the U.S. it will stop interfering in the military's rules of engagement. Tuesday's victorious 10-hour battle on Baghdad's Haifa Street, by a combined U.S.-Iraqi force, looked like a successful test of unified effort. It remains to discover whether anything resembling unity of effort can be achieved along Constitution Avenue.

Nothing would more raise the tenor of this debate than if some member of the Democratic Party would take ownership of the subject of military doctrine in Iraq. On the evidence of their statements the past 24 hours, barely a Democrat exists with a clue of what Gen. Petraeus is about to do or why.

Sen. Barack Obama, presidential second-runner, said, "We are not going to babysit a civil war." Democrats will get a chance soon at Senate confirmation hearings to question Gen. Petraeus. Babysitter is not the word he brings to mind. His appointment is the result of a ferment in American military thinking on Iraq that goes well past George Bush "alone." They should hear him out before deciding whether to support this effort, or remain in the opposition.

Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Roadblocks to getting it right

Amir Taheri provides some interesting insight about why the media has had such difficulty with accurate reporting on Iraq. It's not what you think . . .

JUST outside Um al-Qasar, a port in south east Iraq, a crowd had gathered around a British armored car with a crew of four. An argument seemed to be heating up through an interpreter.

The interpreter told the Brits that the crowd was angry and wanted U.K. forces out of Iraq. But then a Kuwaiti representative of Amnesty International, accompanied by a journalist friend, approached - and found the crowd to be concerned about something quite different.

The real dispute? The day before, a British armored vehicle had an accident with a local taxi; now the cab's owner, backed by a few friends, was asking the Brits to speed up compensating him. Did these Iraqis want the Brits to leave, as the interpreter pretended? No, they shouted, a thousand times no!

So why did the interpreter inject that idea into the dialogue? Shaken, he tried a number of evasions: Well, had the Brits not been in Iraq, there wouldn't have been an accident in the first place. And, in any case, he knows that most Iraqis don't want foreign troops . . .

*

Since 2003, Iraq has experienced countless similar scenes, with interpreters, guides and "fixers" projecting their views and prejudices into the dialogue between Iraqis and the outside world.

Immediately after liberation, interpreting and "fixing" for the Coalition and for hundreds of foreign media people became a cottage industry, employing thousands. Most of those were former Ba'athist officials, often from the Ministry of Information or media companies owned by Saddam Hussein and his relatives. Some tried to curry favor with the new masters; others decided to wage political guerrilla war against the "invaders" by misleading them. Both ended up offering a twisted view of post-liberation Iraq.

Read the rest. There are several other reasons discussed. You'll find it a fascinating article.

Heritage Quote

"[E]very Man who comes among us, and takes up a piece of Land, becomes a Citizen, and by our Constitution has a Voice in Elections, and a share in the Government of the Country."

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1784 - letter to William Straham

Points of view

Mark Steyn, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, has some things to say about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And then he asks an interesting question:

I think the GOP should give up trying to demonize Nancy Pelosi. The Botox gags and bug-eyed photos won't work. Tonally, she seems very normal, in ways that, for example, certain presidentially inclined New York senators can never quite manage. But Pelosi's fellow California liberals and those gushing feminist columnists ought to ponder why ''the most powerful woman in America'' is quite so untypical: What does it say when it's the exception that proves the ruler?

Go read the whole thing.

Global warming?

The California citrus industry is the latest victim of global warming.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Shoppers soon will be feeling the sting of higher prices from a wave of icy weather that has hit California farms. As much as three-quarters of the state's citrus crop withered in the field during the cold snap, but nearly every winter crop, from avocados to fresh-cut flowers, has suffered severely.

Price hikes still won't be enough to offset the damage, as growers cope with nearly $1 billion in losses following four consecutive nights of subfreezing temperatures.

On Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the federal government for disaster aid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration for growers and other affected businesses.

Sorry -- I couldn't help but note the irony.

Heritage Quote

"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment."

-- George Washington, 1783 - Address to the Members of the Volunteer Association of Ireland

John McCain on 'surging'

John McCain has a short piece at Powerline that advocates a surge of U.S. troops in Iraq.

We have made many mistakes since 2003, and these will not be easily reversed. But from everything I witnessed on my most recent visit, I believe that success is still possible. Even greater than the costs incurred thus far and in the future are the catastrophic consequences that would ensue from our failure in Iraq. By surging troops and bringing security to Baghdad and other areas, we will give the Iraqis the best possible chance to succeed. Our national security, and that of our friends and allies, compels us to make our best effort to prevail, and to do it now.

Recommended.

Heritage Quote

"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1801 - letter to Hugh White

Good news from Iraq

Bill Crawford has a new installment of information about what is going right in Iraq.

"None of the accomplishments presented here would make the failure to establish security and stability in Iraq any less disastrous. Yet these accomplishments are by no means rendered irrelevant because we are unsure of whether we will emerge victorious from the war. It is difficult to appreciate the good that is done by our soldiers if we are unaware of it; and it is easy to become discouraged if we ponder only the mess of the war and not the steady progress being made toward defeating our enemies and establishing a stable Iraqi society not ruled by a murderous despot. We still have a long way to go, but 2006 was the kind of year that should make us optimistic about the road forward."

Go read the whole thing.

Heritage Quote

"Strangers are welcome because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old Inhabitants are not jealous of them; the Laws protect them sufficiently so that they have no need of the Patronage of great Men; and every one will enjoy securely the Profits of his Industry. But if he does not bring a Fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live."

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1784 - Those Who Would Remove to America

Heritage Quote

"I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast...would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1814 - letter to Edward Coles

Heritage Quote

"It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government."

-- Mercy Warren, 1805 - History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution

Our Democrat Congress at work

Concerning homeland security, the Democrats seem to be sinking to new lows by portraying themselves as correcting a Republican-caused problem, when in fact, it was Democrats who caused the problem in the first place.

Consider the record. Under a Republican-controlled House, a majority of Democrats voted against the following bills, all of which were drafted with commission recommendations in mind:

• The commission stated: "The House and Senate homeland security committees should have exclusive jurisdiction over all counterterrorism functions of the Department of Homeland Security." Yet every House Democrat in the 109th Congress voted against making the Committee on Homeland Security permanent.
• The commission stated: "The REAL ID Act has established standards for state-issued IDs acceptable for federal purposes, though states' compliance needs to be closely monitored." But 152 House Democrats in the 109th Congress voted against the REAL ID Act.
• The commission stated: The United States should develop "a common coalition approach toward detention and humane treatment of capture[d] terrorists... for those cases in which the usual laws of war did not apply." But 162 House Democrats in the 109th Congress voted against the Military Commissions Act, which establishes guidelines for the detention and trial of terrorist suspects.

I guess this period of time will go down in American history as the '100 Hours of Hypocrisy'.

It seems that there are very few statesmen left in Washington D.C., anymore.

Please pardon my cynicism as regards our new Congress. It is neither charitable, nor Christian-like. I am struggling with my attitude, right now.

Strategy analysis

Bill Roggio, over at The Fourth Rail has some important things to say about the new strategy for Iraq.

President Bush articulated a comprehensive and intelligent strategy to turn the tide in Iraq. The new strategy deals with some major shortcomings in the Iraq theater over the past few years: lack of pressure on the Iraqi government to take charge of security and rein in Muqtada al-Sadr and the militias; restrictive rules of engagement; the absence of the Commander's Emergency Response Program program, which puts cash in the hands of combat commanders; the absence of a public campaign against Iran and Syria; lack of involvement of State, Commerce, and other important U.S. institutions at a provincial level. The new Iraq strategy provides solutions to these problems.

Questions still remain. Are 17,500 U.S. troops enough to secure Baghdad? Are we devoting too few forces to Anbar? Will the Iraqi government follow through on its pledge to deal with Sadr and the militias? Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has balked in the past, but his recent statements have been encouraging. Will Iran, which is rightfully a charter member of the Axis of Evil, be dealt with meaningfully? The strategy towards Iran and Syria appears to be largely defensive, although the public announcement of the deployment of carrier battle groups and Patriot missile batteries sends a strong message. Will the changes in the rules of engagement include ending the dangerous and demoralizing “catch and release” program, where arrested insurgents are freed and allowed to return to the streets, where they continue committing attacks due to an overly generous military justice system? Are State, Commerce, and other civilian agencies truly committed to success in Iraq? Their commitment to date has been paltry, and the U.S. military has shouldered the burden of reconstruction the country.

He then proceeds to amplify on that. Recommended.

Some ideas for a successful Iraq strategy

Amir Taheri, over at the UK Times Online has some good tips on how to deal with Iraq. He begins with some insightful comments:

In immediate terms, therefore, Mr Bush is left with “go big”, the option his opponents have already attacked. Those familiar with Iraq know that the real war for its future is waged in the United States and, to a lesser extent, Britain. The terrorists have no hope of riding in triumph into Baghdad, but they continue to fight to persuade US and British opinion that the war is lost and that new Iraq does not deserve further support. Moreover, some in the new Iraqi elite have become fence-sitters. Worried that the US may run away, they have sought insurance from Tehran or, in the case of Sunni Arabs, the jihadis.

So, what should Mr Bush do? The last thing to do is to seek a bipartisan policy. Too many Democrats have invested too much in the hope that Iraq fails for them to agree to help Mr Bush to ensure success.

What is needed, therefore, is a nonpartisan policy. This means a policy that safeguards what has already been achieved in Iraq, without further provoking Democrats. In such a policy, there is room for all three options in the Pentagon paper. It is possible to chew gum and walk at the same time.

Then he goes on give ten tips on how best to deal with the situation in Iraq. Here are the first three:

• Whatever you announce, make sure that your Administration and military commanders believe in it. Journalists covering Iraq know that there are three Iraq wars: one inside Iraq, another in the US political theatre and a third within the Administration.
• Focus on the home front. Many Americans do not realise that Iraq is one theatre in a global war from Indonesia to Algeria, passing by Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Mr Bush must become explainer-in-chief and mobilise support for defeating jihadism and reshaping the Middle East with the help of moderate, reformist forces.
• Remind the Iraqis that the US and allies have fulfilled their promise to take power away from Saddamites and return it to the people. Force was used to remove impediments to democratisation. But, force cannot be used to build democracy. That requires the effort of the Iraqis. Some Iraqis, including many in the new elite, have developed a “room-service” mentality, expecting the US to do everything. The President must disabuse them of that notion.

Go read the rest. He's got some good ideas.

Heritage Quote

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1800 - letter to Benjamin Rush

A new strategy

The President's address to the nation is in the extended entry.

Good evening. Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror -- and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.

When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. The elections of 2005 were a stunning achievement. We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together, and that as we trained Iraqi security forces we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.

But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq -- particularly in Baghdad -- overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's elections posed for their cause, and they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam -- the Golden Mosque of Samarra -- in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. So my national security team, military commanders, and diplomats conducted a comprehensive review. We consulted members of Congress from both parties, our allies abroad, and distinguished outside experts. We benefitted from the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. In our discussions, we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. And one message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.

The most urgent priority for success in Iraq is security, especially in Baghdad. Eighty percent of Iraq's sectarian violence occurs within 30 miles of the capital. This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis. Only Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

Now let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations -- conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.

This is a strong commitment. But for it to succeed, our commanders say the Iraqis will need our help. So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them -- five brigades -- will be deployed to Baghdad. These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.

Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences: In earlier operations, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neighborhoods of terrorists and insurgents, but when our forces moved on to other targets, the killers returned. This time, we'll have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared. In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter those neighborhoods -- and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.

I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: "The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation."

This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas. Most of Iraq's Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace -- and reducing the violence in Baghdad will help make reconciliation possible.

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.

America will change our approach to help the Iraqi government as it works to meet these benchmarks. In keeping with the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, we will increase the embedding of American advisers in Iraqi Army units, and partner a coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army division. We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped army, and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq. We will give our commanders and civilians greater flexibility to spend funds for economic assistance. We will double the number of provincial reconstruction teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen the moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance. And Secretary Rice will soon appoint a reconstruction coordinator in Baghdad to ensure better results for economic assistance being spent in Iraq.

As we make these changes, we will continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda document describes the terrorists' plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq's democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.

Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to keep up the pressure on the terrorists. America's men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan -- and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq.

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

We will use America's full diplomatic resources to rally support for Iraq from nations throughout the Middle East. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States need to understand that an American defeat in Iraq would create a new sanctuary for extremists and a strategic threat to their survival. These nations have a stake in a successful Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors, and they must step up their support for Iraq's unity government. We endorse the Iraqi government's call to finalize an International Compact that will bring new economic assistance in exchange for greater economic reform. And on Friday, Secretary Rice will leave for the region, to build support for Iraq and continue the urgent diplomacy required to help bring peace to the Middle East.

The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy, by advancing liberty across a troubled region. It is in the interests of the United States to stand with the brave men and women who are risking their lives to claim their freedom, and to help them as they work to raise up just and hopeful societies across the Middle East.

From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, millions of ordinary people are sick of the violence, and want a future of peace and opportunity for their children. And they are looking at Iraq. They want to know: Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists, or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?

The changes I have outlined tonight are aimed at ensuring the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life in a part of the world of enormous importance to American security. Let me be clear: The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent. Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue -- and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties. The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world -- a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people. A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them -- and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and our grandchildren.

This new approach comes after consultations with Congress about the different courses we could take in Iraq. Many are concerned that the Iraqis are becoming too dependent on the United States, and therefore, our policy should focus on protecting Iraq's borders and hunting down al Qaeda. Their solution is to scale back America's efforts in Baghdad -- or announce the phased withdrawal of our combat forces. We carefully considered these proposals. And we concluded that to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear the country apart, and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale. Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.

In the days ahead, my national security team will fully brief Congress on our new strategy. If members have improvements that can be made, we will make them. If circumstances change, we will adjust. Honorable people have different views, and they will voice their criticisms. It is fair to hold our views up to scrutiny. And all involved have a responsibility to explain how the path they propose would be more likely to succeed.

Acting on the good advice of Senator Joe Lieberman and other key members of Congress, we will form a new, bipartisan working group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror. This group will meet regularly with me and my administration; it will help strengthen our relationship with Congress. We can begin by working together to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st century. We also need to examine ways to mobilize talented American civilians to deploy overseas, where they can help build democratic institutions in communities and nations recovering from war and tyranny.

In these dangerous times, the United States is blessed to have extraordinary and selfless men and women willing to step forward and defend us. These young Americans understand that our cause in Iraq is noble and necessary -- and that the advance of freedom is the calling of our time. They serve far from their families, who make the quiet sacrifices of lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table. They have watched their comrades give their lives to ensure our liberty. We mourn the loss of every fallen American -- and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice.

Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve. It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom. Yet times of testing reveal the character of a nation. And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can, and we will, prevail.

We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours. Thank you and good night.

Immigration reform

The Examiner urges Congress to fix our broken immigration system. Here's how it begins:

One of the most urgent problems facing the new Congress is our broken immigration system. Unchecked immigration threatens not only our physical and financial security, but the very future of the United States as a sovereign nation. So comprehensive immigration reform simply cannot be put off any longer.

Job one on immigration reform is regaining control of America’s borders.

Allowing millions of unknown foreigners to enter our nation illegally is foolhardy in the extreme in the post-Sept. 11 era. You would never let strangers move into your own home uninvited, then pay the intruders for being there. But that’s exactly what we’ve been doing at the national level for too many years.

And there's much more. Recommended reading . . .

Hezbollah's legacy

Michael Totten is back in Lebanon and reporting from the southern, Hezbollah-controlled, part of the country. He talks to one of his Lebanese guides who talks about the struggle against terrorism in Lebanon.

"We have been screaming about this conflict for 30 years now," Henry said as he dealt himself a hand of Solitaire from a deck of cards in his pocket. "But no one ever listened to us. Not until September 11. Now you know how we feel all the time. You have to keep up the pressure. You can never let go, not for one day, one hour, not for one second. The minute you let go, Michael, they will fight back and get stronger. This is the problem with your foreign policy."

"Since 1975 we have been fighting for the free world," Said said. "We are on the front lines. Why doesn't the West understand this? America can withdraw from Iraq, you can go back to Oregon, but we are stuck here. We have to stay and live with what happens."

Something about terrorism -- and our struggle against Islamist fascism -- we Americans have yet to fully understand . . . or take to heart.

Recommended.

Taking the fight to the terrorists

The U.S. special ops going on in and near Somalia is just another example of America's strategy to take the fight to the terrorists. And we are bagging some foes from the last decade:

The suspected al-Qaeda militant who planned the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in east Africa was killed in an American airstrike in Somalia, an official said Wednesday.

"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told The Associated Press. "One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead."

Unfortunately, this is the only way we are going to be able to root out many of these radical terrorists. Our military takes its role of protecting this nation and its citizens very seriously. Our polity needs to do likewise.

Heritage Quote

"If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify."

-- Alexander Hamilton, 1788 - Federalist No. 33

Good economic news from Iraq

James C. Roberts at the Washington Times provides us with a glimpse of Iraq's economic strides since Saddam's regime came to an end.

Did you know that Iraqi real-estate prices have gone up several hundred percent since the fall of Saddam Hussein?

That Iraqi workers' salaries have increased more than 100 percent in that time?

That the number of cars in violence-torn Baghdad has grown by 500 percent in the same period?

That the Iraqi construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are all growing at a healthy pace?

Chances are that you are astonished by these facts. I certainly was when I read them in an article by Silvia Spring in the end-of-the-year edition of Newsweek International.

Go read the whole thing.

A sincere thank you

Wal-Mart has generally been getting bad press over the last few years for reasons that are more political than anything else. Here is a sterling example of the good things that Wal-Mart brings to this country.

Frankly, if it wasn't for Wal-Mart, you wouldn't be reading this page. The VFW Foundation website is just one of numerous things this great company has backed to support our cause.

Wal-Mart has donated money, time, and products to help our military personnel and their families stationed all over the world. Every time, it seems, the Foundation needs something, Wal-Mart is there asking what it can do to aid in our success.

Without the generosity of Wal-Mart, we simply wouldn't be where we are today. We simply wouldn't be supporting and managing all the programs we do. We simply wouldn't be reaching nearly the number of service personnel and their loved ones with the help and support they deserve.

Thank you, Wal-Mart. Thank you, thank you.

[Via Sarah at trying to grok.]

The Iraqi dinar exchange rate . . .

. . . has been going up and up since October.

Iraqi currency is getting stronger. I wonder why the market is so bullish on Iraqi money? Do they know something we don't know?

Heritage Quote

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

-- Thomas Paine, 1776 - American Crisis, No. 1

A case for a troop surge

Senator Joe Lieberman has recently returned from Iraq and says that he favors sending more troops there. He wrote an article after Christmas detailing his case for why he believes that.

The article, overall, makes a good case for increasing the number of warfighters in Iraq, but one paragraph in particular caught my attention:

In Baghdad and Ramadi, I found that it was the American colonels, even more than the generals, who were asking for more troops. In both places these soldiers showed a strong commitment to the cause of stopping the extremists. One colonel followed me out of the meeting with our military leaders in Ramadi and said with great emotion, "Sir, I regret that I did not have the chance to speak in the meeting, but I want you to know on behalf of the soldiers in my unit and myself that we believe in why we are fighting here and we want to finish this fight. We know we can win it."

The colonels, majors, and captains are the ones who have the best view of their part of the war. It is meaningful that they are saying the same things that the generals are saying. And no, in my experience, it is not a common thing in the U.S. armed forces for officers to be ordered to say certain things to congressmen (or any one else, for that matter). In fact, I doubt seriously that any U.S. officer would even consider giving, let alone accepting, such an order.

Senator Lieberman goes on to discuss the reasons that we must not lose the war in Iraq.

As the hostile regimes in Iran and Syria appreciate -- at times, it seems, more keenly than we do -- failure in Iraq would be a strategic and moral catastrophe for the United States and its allies. Radical Islamist terrorist groups, both Sunni and Shiite, would reap victories simultaneously symbolic and tangible, as Iraq became a safe haven in which to train and strengthen their foot soldiers and Iran's terrorist agents. Hezbollah and Hamas would be greatly strengthened against their moderate opponents. One moderate Palestinian leader told me that a premature U.S. exit from Iraq would be a victory for Iran and the groups it is supporting in the region. Meanwhile, the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have bravely stood with us in the hope of a democratic future would face the killing fields.

And then he concludes by reiterating our long-term reasons for staying in Iraq until the job is done, but dismisses the short-sightedness of those seemingly ADD-addled (ADDled?) proponents of cut-and-run.

In Iraq today we have a responsibility to do what is strategically and morally right for our nation over the long term -- not what appears easier in the short term. The daily scenes of death and destruction are heartbreaking and infuriating. But there is no better strategic and moral alternative for America than standing with the moderate Iraqis until the country is stable and they can take over their security. Rather than engaging in hand-wringing, carping or calls for withdrawal, we must summon the vision, will and courage to take the difficult and decisive steps needed for success and, yes, victory in Iraq. That will greatly advance the cause of moderation and freedom throughout the Middle East and protect our security at home.

Go read the whole thing. Highly recommended.

The capitulation of the West?

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers), has an unsettling analysis of how the West could lose in its struggle against radical Islamism. He details some very real capabilities that Islamists (defined as persons who demand to live by the sacred law of Islam, the Sharia) has in this asymmetric war we are now in.

Islamists deploy formidable capabilities, however, that go far beyond small-scale terrorism:

• A potential access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate Western life.
• A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.
• An impressively conceptualized, funded, and organized institutional machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill, and electoral success.
• An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape, from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, from illiterates to Ph.D.s, from the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians. The movement almost defies sociological definition.
• A non-violent approach – what I call "lawful Islamism" – that pursues Islamification through educational, political, and religious means, without recourse to illegality or terrorism. Lawful Islamism is proving successful in Muslim-majority countries like Algeria and Muslim-minority ones like the United Kingdom.
• A huge number of committed cadres. If Islamists constitute 10% to 15% of the Muslim population worldwide, they number some 125 to 200 million persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists, combined, who ever lived.

The analysis begins by describing three potentially fatal flaws in prevailing Western attitudes: pacifism, self-hatred, and complacency.

Alarmism? Perhaps. Pessimistic? Definitely. However, the West has been ignoring increasingly common indicators of our culture/civilization being subverted by that of Islam, and one day, I fear, we will regret it . . .

Recommended reading.

A letter to Lou Dobbs

Donald Boudreaux, Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University, writes a letter to CNN managing editor, Lou Dobbs, and provides him with a remedial economics lesson. Here's how he begins.

Dear Mr. Dobbs, Congratulations on having a large new bloc of voters bear your name! Politicians ignore the "Lou Dobbs Democrats" at their peril.

Every night on CNN you claim to speak for these people. They are America's middle class: decent folks who work hard and play by the rules but who, you insist, are abused by the powerful elite. Free trade is one of the policies allegedly supported by the elite and for which you reserve special vitriol. You thunder that imports destroy American jobs, reduce wages, and make the economy perilously "unbalanced."

But you are mistaken.

Go read the rest.

Heritage Quote

"Nevertheless, to the persecution and tyranny of his cruel ministry we will not tamely submit - appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to die or be free...."

-- Joseph Warren, 1775 - American account of the Battle of Lexington

Exposing myths

Victor Davis Hanson exposes some myths about the U.S. military. And points out some interesting historical analogies:

Most obvious is the inability of our conventional forces to translate amazing tactical success in Afghanistan and Iraq into rapid strategic victory, a transition of establishing a stable postbellum government that requires everything from winning hearts and minds to inspired counter-insurgency. These questions about the transition from conventional to asymmetrical warfare always have nagged—why did the armies of Sherman and Grant who crushed nearly half-a-million Confederate soldiers in a little over a year from summer 1864 to spring 1865, not secure Reconstruction in 12 miserable years of failure, in the face of a few thousands Klansmen, and assorted night riders?

Go read the whole thing.

What to do next

Dan Senor and Roman Martinez, who previously served as foreign-policy advisers to the Bush administration, based in Baghdad from April 2003 through June 2004, outline a strategy for success in Iraq.

I've reprinted the whole thing in the extended entry.

Dynamic Ideas for Iraq
How about a "counterinsurgency economic czar"?

BY DAN SENOR AND ROMAN MARTINEZ
Friday, January 5, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

The president is on the cusp of making the most important decision of his second term: increasing our troop presence in Baghdad and Anbar in an effort to stave off Iraqi civil war. A troop surge into Baghdad will not solve problems overnight. But by helping to establish security, more troops can weaken the insurgency, which is the first step to addressing most of Iraq's other problems, including the growth of Shiite militias. Here are things for the president to consider as he moves forward:

• No more half measures.With a possible troop increase gaining steam, some military officers at the Pentagon and in Baghdad are advocating only a temporary and minor increase of forces which they view as a reasonable compromise from their minimalist position. But 10,000-15,000 more troops would be insufficient to stabilize Baghdad and at the same time maintain a strong presence in Anbar, where the insurgency is likely to spill over if chased out of the capital. Such an approach would replicate the failures of "Operations Together Forward I and II" in 2006, when troop increases of 7,000 and 3,500 were unable to bring down the violence.

  In light of the deteriorating situation in Iraq--and the president's anemic poll ratings--this may be his last opportunity to shift his Iraq policy for good. This means erring on the side of more troops, not fewer--even if it is politically painful in the short run. If the president decides to add more troops, he will not score points at home for deciding on a smaller increase. Any size surge will be controversial. So he should go for a number that maximizes chances for success.

• A new military strategy calls for military leaders who "own" the change. Donald Rumsfeld has been cast as the architect of our current military strategy--focused on training Iraqi soldiers and minimizing the U.S. footprint. But outgoing Central Command Chief John Abizaid and Iraq Commanding Gen. George Casey have also been firm backers of Mr. Rumsfeld's approach.

  A fresh plan centered around a surge in troops will require military leaders who are as invested in the new strategy as Gens. Abizaid and Casey are behind the current approach. Gen. Jack Keane, a former vice chief of the U.S. Army, has been an instrumental advocate for a substantial surge. He is well-respected among the Pentagon brass, rank-and-file troops and civilian policy makers. The president should call him out of retirement and appoint him to head Central Command, as Gen. Abizaid's successor. He should also send Lt. Gen. David Petraeus--a two-tour Iraq veteran who just finished crafting a new counterinsurgency doctrine for U.S. forces--back to Baghdad to replace Gen. Casey, who is set to rotate out of Iraq in the coming months.

• Economic aid must be matched by dramatic distribution reform. The administration is considering proposals by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and field commanders to pair a troop increase with a funding surge for new Iraq jobs programs. But this only makes sense if there are vast changes in how the new programs are managed by the U.S. and Iraqi bureaucracies.

  The funds appropriated by our government barely affect the lives of average Iraqis. This is because large-scale U.S. reconstruction programs continue to be subject to Federal Acquisition Regulations applicable in peacetime. This means that major government contracts for Iraq are subjected, in advance, to the slow and cumbersome "Request For Proposal" process. An even larger cause of the bottleneck is that the Iraqi government lacks the manpower, infrastructure and decisiveness in its ministries to disperse funds effectively. So of those funds appropriated to the Iraqi government, only a small percentage ever moves from the government to the Iraqi people.

  To make a "New Deal"-style jobs program work in Iraq, the president should propose that Congress streamline the acquisition process to allow for rapid project approval, following the model of the enormously successful Commander's Emergency Response Program. He should also appoint a respected retired military leader or business executive with expertise in logistics management to oversee distribution of aid on the ground. Anything related to funding and contracting for Iraq is understandably a sensitive issue, especially given the new Democratic majority's focus on oversight. So the president should ask the Democratic congressional leadership to propose a candidate for this position of "counterinsurgency economic czar."

• Continue to support democracy and constitutionalism. As the situation has grown worse, some have called for abandoning the goal of democracy. If giving up on democracy could magically solve Iraq's other problems, it might be worth considering. But dropping support for democracy would be radically destabilizing. Shiite and Kurdish leaders would fear a move to disenfranchise their communities and restore a Sunni strongman to power. Instead, the president should continue to seek political solutions--alongside a new security strategy--via existing political and constitutional structures. This is an area where he deserves enormous credit: His commitment to democracy has been admirably steadfast.
• Become the briefer in chief. When announcing the troop surge, the president should also announce that he will come before the American people every four weeks with a prime-time update on the war. The goal should be to emulate FDR's wartime fireside chats, when Americans were told to be ready with their atlases so they could follow along. Each month, President Bush could provide Americans a live update--perhaps alongside his commanders, with maps, statistics, etc.--charting progress from the previous four weeks and outlining metrics for the next month.

This would be a dramatic change in the president's public management of the war, to be sure. But the hands-off, "trust-my-generals" style is not working. Rightly or wrongly, too many citizens believe the president does not own his military campaign. Now is the time to change the dynamic.

Messrs. Senor and Martinez served as foreign-policy advisers to the Bush administration, based in Baghdad from April 2003 through June 2004.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Venezuela's dictatorship?

Mario Loyola points out the similarities between Castro's takeover of Cuba in the 1960s, and Chávez's current takeover of Venezuela. In both cases, democracy was snuffed out by fascism.

For students of the Cuban Revolution, it was an ill omen to hear Hugo Chávez in the final weeks of Venezuela’s presidential campaign proclaiming that “there is no longer room in Venezuela for any project other than the Bolivarian Revolution.” Sure enough, just one month after his reelection victory, Chávez is moving against both opposition parties and opposition press. Venezuela is staring into the abyss of fascism.

Yes. When I said that democracy was snuffed out in Venezuela, I used the past tense deliberately.

Recommended reading.

Heritage Quote

"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants."

-- Alexander Hamilton, 1787 - Federalist No. 1

Pollyanna-ish Americans

Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down", has an interesting, though pessimistic, op-ed at OpinionJournal about how the rest of the world is more like Saddam Hussein than most Americans care to admit.

We Americans consistently underestimate the deep hatreds that divide people. Our political system is designed to wrestle peacefully with the divisions of race, class, ethnicity, religion and competing ideological or geographical interests, and has generally worked as intended--the Civil War being the one glaring exception. Generations have struggled to live up to ideals of tolerance and diversity. When we look out at the world, we tend to see millions longing to get past the blood feuds, to be, in short, more like us. George Bush and the neocon intellectuals who led us into Iraq are just the latest in a long line of evangelical Americanists. No matter how many times history slaps us in the face, the dream persists.

He makes a good point. However, I'm American enough to think we can pull it off once again. (Some would call this naivete, but I disagree.) We managed to forge democracy out of fascism during and after WWII with Japan and Germany, we did it again with South Korea. Why can't we do it with Iraq and Afghanistan?

Heritage Quote

"It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness."

-- James Wilson, 1791 - Lectures on Law

The Iran connection

Eli Lake, on the New York Sun website, reports that captured documents irrefutably link Iran to both Shiite and Sunni terrorists in Iraq.

Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq.

The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.

An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.

Another American official who has seen the summaries of the reporting affiliated with the arrests said it comprised a "smoking gun." "We found plans for attacks, phone numbers affiliated with Sunni bad guys, a lot of things that filled in the blanks on what these guys are up to," the official said.

One of the documents captured in the raids, according to two American officials and one Iraqi official, is an assessment of the Iraq civil war and new strategy from the Quds Force. According to the Iraqi source, that assessment is the equivalent of "Iran's Iraq Study Group," a reference to the bipartisan American commission that released war strategy recommendations after the November 7 elections. The document concludes, according to these sources, that Iraq's Sunni neighbors will step up their efforts to aid insurgent groups and that it is imperative for Iran to redouble efforts to retain influence with them, as well as with Shiite militias.

I also recommend you read Michael Ledeen's commentary on this situation. He urges that we finally acknowledge and act on the information that Iran has been stirring the pot in Iraq for years.

In passing, it follows from this that the entire debate over more or less troops in Iraq, surge or no surge, Baghdad or Anbar Province, all of it begs the central question. As long as Iran and their appendage in Damascus have a free shot at us, all these stratagems are doomed.

As it happens, this is a particularly good moment to go after the mullahs, because they are deeply engaged in a war of all against all within Iran. I wrote in NRO two weeks ago that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been carted off to the hospital–a major event, of which the Intelligence Community was totally unaware–and his prognosis is very poor. That information has now trickled out, and I found it today in the Italian press and on an Iranian web site. The mullahs are maneuvering for position, and Ahmadi-Nezhad’s ever more frantic rhetoric bespeaks the intensity of the power struggle, which includes former president Rafsanjani, Khamenei’s son, and Ahmadi-Nezhad’s favorite nut ayatollah. We should propose another option to the Iranian people: freedom.

Freedom is what most Iranians want, and, unlike their neighbors in Iraq, they have considerable experience with self-government. The Iranian Constitution of 1906 is remarkably modern, and Iranian intellectuals have in fact been debating the best form of government for their country for many years. Iranian workers are in open revolt against the regime, along with such minority groups as the Kurds, the Balouchis, the Azeris, and the Ahwazi Arabs. In other words, most of the Iranian people. It is long past time for us to speak clearly to them and support their cause.

We've known that we need to do something about Iran for years. Perhaps we should show some resolve and follow through on our national pledge to treat supporters of terrorism as our enemies.

Heritage Quote

"Religion in a Family is at once its brightest Ornament & its best Security."

-- Samuel Adams, 1780 - letter to Thomas Wells

Border security is a joke

It is reported that National Guardsmen were overrun at the border.

A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.

If this is true, we need to stop talking about border security and start actually doing it.

Change of command

Ralph Peters, in the New York Sun comments on the impending new U.S. commander in Iraq: General David Petraeus.

With back-to-back tours of duty in Iraq behind him and the most-positive image among Iraqis of any U.S. leader, military or civilian, Petraeus is a natural choice. His intelligence, drive, devotion to service and negotiating skill make the lean, young-looking general seem perfect.

The question is whether Gen. Petraeus is the right choice - or if he'll merely be the final executor of a failed policy.

Ralph Peters is very blunt, but he makes some good observations. Read the whole thing.

Heritage Quote

"The most important consequence of marriage is, that the husband and the wife become in law only one person... Upon this principle of union, almost all the other legal consequences of marriage depend. This principle, sublime and refined, deserves to be viewed and examined on every side."

-- James Wilson, 1792 - Of the Natural Rights of Individuals

Heritage Quote

"As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight."

-- Thomas Paine, 1776 - Common Sense

Heritage Quote

"The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. . . . How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers?"

-- John Adams, 1778 - Diary

Heritage Quote

"What is it that affectionate parents require of their Children; for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their accounts? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, Benevolent and kind."

-- Abigail Adams, 1783 - letter to John Quincy Adams

Back to the future

R. James Woolsey, co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger, and director of central intelligence from 1993 to 1995, has a new years op-ed about using hybrid, plug-in, and ethanol technologies in combination to more than double the mileage of current hybrids. This kind of utilization of technologies would not only serve to conserve oil, but would also reduce carbon dioxide emissions, facilitate America attaining energy independence, contribute to our national security, and reduce consumers' fuel costs.

Gentlemen, Start Your Plug-Ins
How does 500 miles a gallon sound to you?

BY R. JAMES WOOLSEY
Monday, January 1, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

An oil and security task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recently opined that "the voices that espouse 'energy independence' are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future." Others have also said, essentially, that other nations will control our transportation fuel--get used to it. Yet House Democrats have announced a push for "energy independence in 10 years," and in November General Motors joined Toyota and perhaps other auto makers in a race to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, hugely reducing the demand for oil. Who's right--those who drive toward independence or those who shrug?

Bet on major progress toward independence, spurred by market forces and a portfolio of rapidly developing oil-replacing technologies.

In recent years a number of alternatives to conventional oil have come to the fore--oil sands, oil shale, coal-to-diesel and coal-to-methanol technologies. But their acceptability to a new Congress, quite possibly the next president, and a public increasingly concerned about global warming will depend on their demonstrating affordable and effective methods of sequestering the carbon they produce or otherwise avoiding carbon emissions.

Ethanol's appeal rose a few years ago when it became clear that genetically modified biocatalysts could break down the cellulose in biomass and thus enable ethanol's production from a wide range of plant life. This means that, compared with corn, little fossil fuel is needed during biomass cultivation and land use presents much less of a problem. Indeed two years ago the National Energy Policy Commission (NEPC), making reasonable assumptions about improved vehicle efficiency and biomass yields over the next 20 years, estimated that just 7% of U.S. farmland (the amount now in the Soil Bank) could produce enough biomass to provide half the fuel needed by U.S. passenger vehicles, and that production costs for cellulosic ethanol were headed downward toward around 70 cents per gallon. Further, conversion of only a portion of industrial, municipal and animal wastes--using thermal processes now coming into commercial operation--appears to be able to yield an additional several million barrels a day of diesel or, with some processes, methanol.

But in spite of the technological promise of alternative liquid fuels, skeptics rightly point out that it will take time to build production facilities and learn the practicalities of operating biorefineries and shifting industry from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates. Most of all there is a sense of investor caution, driven by memories of the mid-'80s and the late '90s when sharp drops in oil prices, driven in part by increased production from Saudi reserves, bankrupted such undertakings as the Synfuels Corporation. Also, industry support for moving away from oil dependence has long been weak outside agribusiness, and consumers see little immediate savings from using alternative liquid fuels.

---

All this is likely to change decisively, because electricity is about to become a major partner with alternative liquid fuels in replacing oil.

The change is being driven by innovations in the batteries that now power modern electronics. If hybrid gasoline-electric cars are provided with advanced batteries (GM's announcement said its choice would be lithium-ion) having improved energy and power density--variants of the ones in our computers and cell phones--dozens of vehicle prototypes are now demonstrating that these "plug-in hybrids" can more than double hybrids' overall (gasoline) mileage. With a plug-in, charging your car overnight from an ordinary 110-volt socket in your garage lets you drive 20 miles or more on the electricity stored in the topped-up battery before the car lapses into its normal hybrid mode. If you forget to charge or exceed 20 miles, no problem, you then just have a regular hybrid with the insurance of liquid fuel in the tank. And during those 20 all-electric miles you will be driving at a cost of between a penny and three cents a mile instead of the current 10-cent-a-mile cost of gasoline.

Utilities are rapidly becoming quite interested in plug-ins because of the substantial benefit to them of being able to sell off-peak power at night. Because off-peak nighttime charging uses unutilized capacity, DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles. Further, those plug-ins that are left connected to an electrical socket after being fully charged (most U.S. cars are parked over 20 hours a day) can substitute for expensive natural gas by providing electricity from their batteries back to the grid: "spinning" reserves to help deal with power outages and regulation of the grid's voltage and amperage.

Once plug-ins start appearing in showrooms it is not only consumers and utility shareholders who will be smiling. If cheap off-peak electricity supplies a portion of our transportation needs, this will help insulate alternative liquid fuels from OPEC market manipulation designed to cripple oil's competitors. Indian and Chinese demand and peaking oil production may make it much harder for OPEC today to use any excess production capacity to drive prices down and destroy competitive technology. But as plug-ins come into the fleet low electricity costs will stand as a substantial further barrier to such market manipulation. Since OPEC cannot drive oil prices low enough to undermine our use of off-peak electricity, it is unlikely to embark on a course of radical price cuts at all because such cuts are painful for its oil-exporter members. Plug-ins thus may well give investors enough confidence to back alternative liquid fuels without any need for new taxes on oil or subsidies to protect them.

Environmentalists should join this march with enthusiasm. Replacing hydrocarbons with fuels derived from biomass and waste reduces vehicles' carbon emissions very substantially. And replacing gasoline with electricity further brightens the environmental picture. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute has shown that, with today's electricity grid, there would be a national average reduction in carbon emissions by about 60% per vehicle when a plug-in hybrid with 20-mile all-electric range replaces a conventional car.

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Subsidizing expensive substitutes for petroleum, ignoring the massive infrastructure costs needed to fuel family cars with hydrogen, searching for a single elegant solution--none of this has worked, nor will it. Instead we should encourage a portfolio of inexpensive fuels, including electricity, that requires very little infrastructure change and let its components work together: A 50 mpg hybrid, once it becomes a plug-in, will likely get solidly over 100 mpg of gasoline (call it "mpgg"); if it is also a flexible fuel vehicle using 85% ethanol, E-85, its mpgg rises to around 500.

The market will likely operate to expand sharply the use of these technologies that are already in pilot plants and prototypes and heavily reduce oil use in the foreseeable future. And given the array of Wahhabis, terrorists and Ahmadinejad-like fanatics who sit atop the Persian Gulf's two-thirds of the world's conventional oil, such reduction will not be a disservice to the nation.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Sounds almost too good to be true doesn't it? Yet it is a definite possibility. One that we may want to investigate, develop, and advocate.

Happy 2007!

My family and I wish you and yours a happy new year!

It's looking to be an odd year, isn't it?