Walking the Line

Michael Yon is back in Iraq, providing his usual, clear and sobering perspective.

This war is fraught with more paradoxes and seeming contradictions than I can track, but one thing I’ve encountered on every embed is the high number of people who know the most, and suffer the most, still believe we are winning. For the most part, anyway. While most of the young soldiers still hold hope for a good outcome here, others think it’s a lost cause. The same is true for Iraqis. Many are still pushing for better days, while others guzzle apathy tea.

Check out part one and part two, and stand by for part three.

Thousand Words Department

A picture from the DOD.

Did Bush find his backbone?

I certainly hope so. This raid on an Iranian government office in Iraq is encouraging. Also, Larry Kudlow reports that the Treasury Department is barring Iran’s oldest bank from American financial markets.

The day is brightening a little.

Faster, please.

These Guys Look Familiar

Don’t they? Come to think of it, so does she.

Nasty Little Man Update

Alan Dershowitz calls the Nasty Little Man* a hypocrite.

YOU CAN ALWAYS tell when a public figure has written an indefensible book: when he refuses to debate it in the court of public opinion. And you can always tell when he’s a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate.

*America’s Worst Ex-President is never mentioned by name in Buttle’s World.

Updating the Classics

Credit (blame?) me for this one:

What are the four shortest books in the world?

• English Gourmet Cooking

• Italian War Heroes

• Two Thousand Years of German Humor

• Artistic, Cultural and Technological Contributions of the Muslim World

CAIR refuses to answer the question

LGF has video of a CAIR spokesman doing a very, very bad job of making his group look civilized.

But, then, “Islamic civilization” is an oxymoron.

You gotta see this.

Veto Bait?

Ramesh thinks this idea is veto bait. I sure hope they aren’t serious. Bush hasn’t vetoed anything yet.

At least nobody would be stupid enough to get unions, or union workers, involved in national security. Right?

Great new blog

Someone is blogging right from Iraq. The part I don’t get is that it’s being published in the LA Times. But, credit where credit is due. Hat tip: Wade Major.

Read the Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia.

Vital Reading

Shortly before I left on vacation, an author I hear from now and again emailed me to “put down whatever you are reading and pick up Mark Steyn’s new book. I mean it. Now.” I ordered it, and finally got to read it while in Mexico.

Steyn is a treasure. He is clear-eyed, funny, and perceptive. And he has written what may be one of the most important books of our age. I’ve felt like part of a tiny minority who recognize that there is no “Iraq war”, but rather a regional conflict.

I was wrong. Steyn tickles with a feather in one hand, and slams with a sledgehammer in the other. It’s a world war, and nothing less than “the world as we know it” is at stake.

And right now we’re losing. Big time.

Europe is dead. Within a generation there will be no Europe as we know it. (I plan to take my daughter to Italy within the next 5 years, because the art in Florence will not survive Sharia “law”.) Why? Because Europe’s Western population is shrinking, now past the point of no return, and Islam is breeding like bacteria in mayonnaise.

In fact, while reading the book I was struck by the supreme irony: Evolution is selecting for religiosity. Right before our eyes.

America Alone is a doom-and-gloom book with a silver lining. Steyn sees a way out of this mess. I won’t spoil it.

Read the book. Now. I’m not kidding.

A Kodak Moment

Yup.

I’m baa-aaack

Jet lagged, catching up (I had over 14,000 email messages waiting). More stuff later.

But, meanwhile, what do you suppose would happen if the Bush White House couldn’t understand the plain English in the constitution?

It’s enough to make one despair.

On The Road

I’ll be visiting family in Mexico for the next four weeks. Doubtful I’ll have the time or internet connection for blogging.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and all that other stuff.

You don’t need to read the Iraq Surrender Group report

All you need is to listen to the Sargent.

We cannot appease our enemies and we cannot continue to cut and run when the going gets tough. As it stands in the world right now our enemies view America as a country full of queasy people who are inclined to cut and run when things take a turn for the worse. Just as the Tet Offensive was the victory that led to our failure in Vietnam our victories in Iraq now are leading to our failure in the Middle East. How many more times must we fight to fail? I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24 year old but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans. Iraq isn’t fast food-you can’t have what you want and have it now. To completely change a country for the first time in it’s entire history takes time, and when I say time I don’t mean 4 years.

Talking doesn’t solve anything with a crazed people, bullets do and we need to be given a chance to work our military magic. Like I told a reporter buddy of mine: War sucks but a world run by Islamofacists sucks more.

At Least They Aren’t “Cheese Eaters”

The NY Post nails it.

Why would they want to do that?

Investigations indicate that the (non) Flying Imams deliberately acted like terrorists.

Huh.

Why indeed?

Let’s Say Thanks

Xerox is doing something really great. Stop by the Let’s Say Thanks web site and send a thank-you card to a random soldier.

It only takes a minute.

Taxi Shennanigans

Remember the Muslim cab drivers who don’t want to carry passengers who have alcohol with them? Turns out they’re mostly Somali, and that Somalis generally have no problem carrying such passengers. So who minds? The Muslim Brotherhood, for one, although they try to hide the fact that they’re behind it.

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, thinks he knows why the society is promoting a “no-alcohol-carry” agenda with no basis in Somali culture. “MAS is an Arab group; we Somalis are African, not Arabs,” he said. “MAS wants to polarize the world, create two camps. I think they are trying to hijack the Somali community for their Middle East agenda. They look for issues they can capitalize on, like religion, to rally the community around. The majority of Somalis oppose this, but they are vulnerable because of their social and economic situation.”

Associated (With Terrorists) Press

Jules Crittenden has a good point.

When a company defrauds its customers, or delivers shoddy goods, the customers sooner or later are going to take their business elsewhere. But if that company has a virtual monopoly, and offers something its customers must have, they may have no choice but to keep taking it.
That’s when the customers, en masse, need to raise a stink. That’s when someone else with the resources needs to seriously consider whether the time is ripe to compete.
The Associated Press is embroiled in a scandal. Conservative bloggers, the new media watchdogs, lifted a rock at the AP.

Curt at Floppingaces, www.floppingaces2.blogspot.com, led the charge. He thought there was something strange about an AP report, and took a second look at it, then a third look. He and others blew the lid off it. The AP is making up war crimes. But the resulting stink in the blogosphere has barely wrinkled a nose in the mainstream press. The ethics-obsessed Poynter Institute seems to be oblivious to it.

Read the whole thing.

Note: The URL in the article is to the backup blog. Flopping Aces is here.

Flying – make that Faking – Imams

Pajamas Media has the police report up.

“It was almost as if they were intentionally trying to get kicked off the flight,” Pauline said.

Gee, ya think?

Who says economists have no sense of humor?

Check out the Dean of the Columbia Business School.

Re-Thinking the First Amendment

I’ll bet that got your attention.

Andy McCarthy says that what Gingrich is really after is a return to the constitutional view, not the Warren Court view.

Captain Ed says, “The remedy for bad speech is more speech.” This, effectively, is the Holmesian “marketplace of ideas” trope that is just an excuse for not thinking. If someone’s bad speech is a fatwa that sets a WMD attack in motion, my ability to speak out against the fatwa will be cold comfort to the dead. The First Amendment does not countenance commands to murder, and Speaker Gingrich is entirely correct to challenge us to think through these principles.

McCain/Feingold says the political speech that was the core of the original First Amendment protection can be regulated. Are you really telling me that we can stop someone from speaking out on behalf of a candidate for public office but we have to allow jihadists to call for mass murder? I don’t think so.

Flying Imam Watch

Turns out those six weren’t just acting a little suspicious. They could hardly have been more suspicious if they had actually wanted to hijack the airplane.

Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks — two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

My own speculation is that they had no intention of actually hijacking the plane, but that they deliberately provoked suspicion for publicity.

If that’s the case, it may (thankfully) backfire. As has been pointed out before, if Islamists boycott enough airlines we can just do away with the TSA altogether.

My excuse just came in

Now I know why I’m having trouble getting that next screenplay going.

Steyn-o-Rama

First you read Four Jills in a Jeep. Among other things it includes this I-swear-I-ain’t-making-this-up item:

[T]he new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to run a national division of the Anglican Communion. Bishop Kate gave an interview to the New York Times revealing what passes for orthodoxy in this most flexible of faiths. She was asked a simple enough question: “How many members of the Episcopal Church are there?”

“About 2.2 million,” replied the presiding bishop. “It used to be larger percentage-wise, but Episcopalians tend to be better educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than other denominations.”

This was a bit of a jaw-dropper even for a New York Times hackette, so, with vague memories of God saying something about going forth and multiplying floating around the back of her head, a bewildered Deborah Solomon said: “Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?”

“No,” agreed Bishop Kate. “It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.”

Ralph Peters then piles on, claiming it just ain’t so.

THE historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened – even when the threat’s concocted nonsense – they don’t just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.

And Europeans won’t even need to re-write “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” with an Islamist theme – real Muslims zealots provide Europe’s bigots with all the propaganda they need. Al Qaeda and its wannabe fans are the worst thing that could have happened to Europe’s Muslims. Europe hasn’t broken free of its historical addictions – we’re going to see Europe’s history reprised on meth.

All of which is just a setup for Steyn, in an update to the referee at Power Line.

Had he read America Alone, for example, he would know that I do, indeed, foresee a revival of Fascism in Europe. He concludes: “All predictions of Europe going gently into that good night are surreal.” Which of us predicted anything about “going gently”? As I write on page 105 of my book: “It’s true that there are many European populations reluctant to go happily into the long Eurabian night.” What I point out, though, is that, even if you’re hot for a new Holocaust, demography tells. There are no Hitlers to hand. When Mr Peters cites the success of Jean Marie Le Pen’s National Front, he overlooks not only Le Pen’s recent overtures to Muslims but also the fact that M Le Pen is pushing 80. As a general rule, when 600 octogenarians are up against 200 teenagers, bet on the teens. In five or ten years’ time, who precisely is going to organize mass deportations from French cities in which the native/Muslim youth-population ratio is already – right now – 55/45?

Me? I find Steyn more persuasive. And funnier. Not many people can pull off that combination.

Feel Safer?

Hat tip to Powerline for linking to Jim Geraghty. Read the whole thing, and then the comments.

And then read where the comments came from.

Now here’s a boycott I can support

Those whiny Imams want a boycott of US Air.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if Jihadists start avoiding a certain airline, that certain airline suddenly becomes more attractive to me.

I don’t see a down side to this. At least not for US Air.

Prejudice, Fear and Profiling

There are many people who think those are bad things. Well, they aren’t. It should go without saying, but nothing does with so many PC folks out there: If white, Christian women in their seventies had made several violent terrorist attacks, then the wanding and pat-down my mother got on her way to visit us would make sense. Since nearly all terrorist attacks in the last several years have been made by Muslim men, it’s clearly provoking when they complain about this kind of treatment.

But U.S. Airways, and those passengers, did exactly the right thing. Their prejudice, fear and profiling were all quite rational responses, and should be applauded.

Perspective

Pop quiz: In terms of your risk of being murdered goes, which is safer, Chicago or any city in Iraq that isn’t Bagdhad?

OK, it’s a trick question.

Turns out it’s about a wash.

Update:

Thanks to those who left comments pointing out the arithmetical error at Powerline. John forgot to multiply by 12 to get the rate for Bagdhad. So it is about an order of magnitude worse there than in Washington, D.C. in a bad year.

But that still leaves the main point I was trying to make: If you don’t count Bagdhad, the rest of Iraq averages out about the same as Chicago. So it’s still important to have perspective.

Useful Idiot Watch

Hard to know if it’s stupidity, hypocrisy, or both. They must be very comfortable living with their congnitive dissonance.

In the end, though, I think I have to call it cowardice. They know that Israel won’t kill them, at least not on purpose. And they must know that their “hosts” would. So they get to make the self-hating part of them “feel good”, while knowing they’re taking no risk at all.

Perhaps Buzz Lightyear said it best. “You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity.”