Sat, Jul 07 2007
Of Baqubah
Have your you heard the latest news from Baqubah in Iraq? Now have you heard all the news from Baqubah and the success of the allies in re-liberating [or is that re-re-liberating] that part of Iraq?
Fresh from Michael Yon comes this update:
The big news on the streets today is that the people of Baqubah are generally ecstatic, although many hold in reserve a serious concern that we will abandon them again. For many Iraqis, we have morphed from being invaders to occupiers to members of a tribe. I call it the “al Ameriki tribe,” or “tribe America.”
I’ve seen this kind of progression in Mosul, out in Anbar and other places, and when I ask our military leaders if they have sensed any shift, many have said, yes, they too sense that Iraqis view us differently. In the context of sectarian and tribal strife, we are the tribe that people can—more or less and with giant caveats—rely on.
Most Iraqis I talk with acknowledge that if it was ever about the oil, it’s not now. Not mostly anyway. It clearly would have been cheaper just to buy the oil or invade somewhere easier that has more. Similarly, most Iraqis seem now to realize that we really don’t want to stay here, and that many of us can’t wait to get back home. They realize that we are not resolved to stay, but are impatient to drive down to Kuwait and sail away. And when they consider the Americans who actually deal with Iraqis every day, the Iraqis can no longer deny that we really do want them to succeed. But we want them to succeed without us. We want to see their streets are clean and safe, their grass is green, and their birds are singing. We want to see that on television. Not in person. We don’t want to be here. We tell them that every day. It finally has settled in that we are telling the truth.
But the real demons were active in our absence:
Speaking through an American interpreter, Lieutenant David Wallach who is a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al Qaeda united these gangs who then became absorbed into “al Qaeda.” They recruited boys born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons, including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al Qaeda. These boys were used for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people.
At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.
These are the people that will "win" in Iraq if we lack the persistence and patience to see the mission through to a just and proper conclusion.
I correspond with many people that I believe possess an honest concern for human rights, human liberty, and human decency. It is acts like those above.....often un-reported acts.....that cause me to wonder how such otherwise well intentioned people can find their way to oppose our Iraqi campaign in the larger War on Terror.
Tue, Jul 03 2007
Dead Cat Chronicles
[sigh] Now I'll have to go get the leather gloves. Who really wants something like this hanging around?!?!!?!?
by Dann
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Disappointing News
Well this is disappointing.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Monday spared former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby a prison term, enraging Democrats who accused Bush of abusing power in a case that has fueled debate over the Iraq war.
Stalwart conservatives in Bush's Republican party had pressured him to pardon Libby -- Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff -- and saw him as the victim of an overly zealous prosecutor when he was sentenced last month to 2-1/2 years in prison for obstructing a CIA leak probe.
Bush stopped short of an outright pardon, leaving intact a $250,000 fine and Libby's two-years' probation. A senior White House official said Bush felt it was important to respect the jury process that convicted Libby of perjury.
Although I will point out that the remaining penalties are still many times worse than those given to Clinton administration National Security Advisor, Sandy "Pants" Berger. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Berger sought access to classified Clinton era records. He removed classified files from where they were stored [by sticking them down his pants] and he destroyed some of them once they were out of the national archives. The data was unique [administration notes regarding terrorism in the 1990s] and thus cannot be recovered from other archives. His actions obstructed the 9/11 commissions investigation into the 9/11 attacks as well as our national security posture prior to those attacks.
In my opinion [which seems to be about all you get here], Mr. Berger's crimes were more harmful than anything Mr. Libby did.
That said, Mr. Bush should have let the appeals process move forward before breaking out his seldom used "pardon pen". [He keeps it stored with the "veto pen" in a subterranean vault located in the middle of the Utah desert.] Anything less smacks of political cronyism and a cover-up. Something the moonbats of the left have no problem dreaming up without any help from the White House.
Sun, Jul 01 2007
Photos: A Comparison
A few days ago, I noted a picture over on Mike Peterson's blog. My first reaction was that it was too bad that this poor kid had to live in such times.
But then I noted that Mike was citing Riverbend as some sort of authentic observer on post-Saddam Iraq. Riverbend is presumably female. And I think it has been established that she is Sunni. Other Iraqi bloggers have suggested that her family was reasonably connected to Saddam Hussein so that she has truly fallen from a position of where her life was idyllic.
She has remained anonymous throughout the years while other Iraqis have used their names on public blogs to give their account of the times in which they live. There are many Iraqis will all sorts of opinions about Saddam, about our presence in Iraq, about our tactics, and about their government. Many use their real names. Yet Riverbend alone is referred to by some [I can't speak for Mike on this] as being representative of her nation.
In a recent post she wrote:
I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia?
Bullshit. Excuse my English.
One could not live in safety anywhere in Baghdad or in Iraq. If you failed to yell enthusiastically enough when Saddam paraded by, you ended up in a plastic shredding machine or tossed off of a rooftop
If you failed to win on the Iraqi national soccer team, you ended up being subjected to all manner of torture.
Then there were the hundreds of thousands of Shiites that were murdered in the South, in part because they were Shiites opposed to Saddam Hussein's rule.
Let us not forget the Iraqi Kurds that were gassed as a part of Saddam's effort to create room for Arab Iraqis to live.
And finally let us not forget Saddam's penchant for rape. Either the rape rooms operated by his secret service as a means of torture or his serial rapist sons that used the authority of the government to satisfy their darkest inner urgings.
Iraq under Saddam was a dangerous place. As dangerous as communist East Germany, North Korea, Maoist China, or the old Soviet Union.
I'm certain that certain southern belles were just as aghast at the life imposed by the North after the Civil War.
My response to the picture was sympathy which was quickly displaced by something else when I saw Riverbend's name being bandied about. And I shot off my big mouth by pointing out that there was another picture of an Iraqi boy taking shelter behind a US Marine after a terrorist attack.
[follow the link for the photos - sans commentary by the blogger, but with plenty of discussion in the comments section.]
I don't think that either photo
Lives that our men and women are there to defend against terrorist, insurgents, and others that would like to either return Iraq to the days of dictatorship and plastic shredders and rape rooms or take Iraq "forward" to stoning women for being rape victims, beheading the insufficiently pious, etc.
And as any rational observer of the Middle East will tell you, those are the only two viable options if we were to just pick and leave next week.
The third option, democracy, cooperation, negotiation, conciliation, is only possible if we are there to create enough stability for the Iraqi government to begin to credibly govern. Terrible and perilous times in a region that is filled with such things will or without our presence.
What began in mindless snark resulted in all that you have read above.
Violence In Iraq
Not an unusual headline these days. Yet what one wonders what the American public will say when they learn of this latest act of carnage. [gruesome photos - you are forewarned]
More proof of blood on George Bush's hands?
Canada Day!
Oh by the way, today is Canada Day. Happy Canada Day to our friends from north of the border.
But could you do us a favor....or is it favour...and stop putting your blasted holidays before ours??? Honestly, I expect Christmas in Canada to be celebrated on December 3rd this year and New Years to fall on December 29th.
Michael Totten On Recent Events In The Anbar Province
As I have said on many occasions, Michael Totten is an invaluable resource when it comes to understanding the Middle East. His most recent post on the changes within the Anbar province hint at some cautious optimism regarding the current operations.
I like this quote the best:
At the same time, though, I know that conflict does not equal failure. And lack of victory in the middle of a war doesn’t pre-ordain failure at the end of a war. Otherwise it would not be the middle.
At the least, he has the patience that is sorely lacking in many of my fellow Americans. He also understands the cost of a premature retreat.
What if....
....we had not invaded Iraq?
We would have a different set of problems and less leverage with which to solve them.
Remembering Heinlein
This week marks the centenary of Robert A . Heinlein; science fiction author and source of inspiration to many libertarians. I find it unsurprising that an educated and bright individual became enamored with collectivist theories in the 1920s and 1930s.
The true mark of his intellect was that he grew out of it.
If you haven't read anything by Mr. Heinlein, then permit me to recommend his book "Starship Troopers". It is a personal favorite, for what will be to some, obvious reasons.
Do You Care About Healthcare?
Andrew Sullivan has a short entry on his Atlantic Monthly blog about the demise of pharmaceutical companies in Europe. He has several quotes from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations website .
EFPIA attempts to briefly discuss the difference between our two regions.
It would be too simplistic to attribute the deterioration of the European pharmaceutical environment to a single factor. As a whole, Europe remains less attractive for R&D investments than the US. The economic and healthcare environments, the science base, the investment conditions, the regulatory framework, and societal attitudes towards new technologies all contribute.
US patients, for example, are better informed and more willing to embrace innovation - they want to have the benefits of new approaches to healthcare and new treatments immediately, and to use them effectively.
In Europe, healthcare systems are slower to adopt new technology and less willing or able to accept and integrate these new technologies. New medicines are too often perceived as a cost, or a threat to healthcare systems, rather than an investment and a benefit.
While EFPIA has a problem putting their finger on the source of their problems, I do not.
The problem is socialism. As Mr. Sullivan points out, it never works.
Consider in the list above, US patients embrace new medical technologies. Whereas in Europe "healthcare systems" are less willing to use them. That is because "healthcare systems" are the sole dominion of government and governments.....particularly socialist governments....have a long history of performing the moral calculus required to deny people treatments on the basis of available funds.
For years Great Britain denied kidney dialysis to elderly diabetic patients. This effectively made diabetes a death sentence to anyone over the age of 60. [I understand that the UK has been doing better in recent years with respect to providing dialysis treatments to the elderly.]
If the decision to pursue new treatments were left in the hands of the European patient as opposed to "healthcare systems", then I have little doubt that new treatments would be more widely used in Europe. But instead that decision is left with the government. And the government has other interests to pursue.
It always does.
One of my primary complaints in the American debate over health care reforms is the utter lack of economic knowledge on the part of those advocating a socialist "solution" to the problem. The fact is that large sums of money are required to invent and develop any new technology, including medical technologies. Investors demand a return on their investment.
If that investment does not occur, then the lifesaving medical technologies will not be developed. And people will die that would otherwise live.
The trend towards socialist health care in Europe has driven those companies to the United States precisely because it is only in the US that they can recoup their investments.
Which brings me to my second primary complaint in the American debate over health care reform.
Countries using socialist health care systems routinely cap the amount that pharmaceutical companies can charge for their products. The prices charged overseas are far less than those charged in the United States. Yet the prices charged overseas are enough to make manufacturing of those drugs overseas profitable. Those prices just aren't high enough to cover the cost of research for new medical technologies.
Effectively, foreign governments have created a situation where their citizens enjoy the benefits of new, lifesaving, medical technologies while exempting them from any responsibility to help pay for the development of those new technologies. It is the United States that is thereby subsidizing the health care for the rest of the world.
And so what will happen when that last bastion of freedom falls to socialist pipe dreams? Perhaps investment in medical research will find another, more welcoming home. Perhaps China will be a more inviting climate. Given the quality of toothpaste and children's toys produced by China, I'm certain that any pharmaceutical research they do will yield most interesting results.
To be fair, we are not talking about absolutes but matters of degree. Medical investment still exists in Europe; albeit at a lower rate. And Europe still adds to the world medical knowledge; albeit at a slower pace.
It is the patients unnamed in years to come that will bear the burden. They will be asked to wait a day, a month, a year, and perhaps more for a cure that would, absent government meddling, be developed more quickly.
What if you were the one being asked to wait for something that would, absent government meddling, already exist?
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