Free Frank Warner

Barack Obama, when would you withdraw troops from South Korea?

Barack Obama poorly defended his earlier statements that John McCain “wants a hundred-year occupation” in Iraq. He avoided apologizing for his deception, and accused McCain of failing to say when he’d declare “success” and bring the American troops home.

Here’s a question for Obama, whom I admire: When would he declare the U.S. presence in Europe, Japan and South Korea a “success” and bring those troops home? The answer would be revealing. I’d like to hear it.

McCain had said it would be “fine” if the U.S. stayed in Iraq 100 years, as long as the Americans were not being harmed while they were there. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have twisted McCain’s statement to say McCain “wants” a century of “war” or “occupation.”

Not been clear. Today, Obama was asked generally to explain his statements about McCain and 100 years in Iraq:

“John McCain has said that we will stay there as long as it takes and if it takes another 100 years he’s up for that commitment and that implies that there is some criteria by which we would understand how long it takes. John McCain has not been clear about what exactly would lead him to decide it’s time to pullout.”

He argued that neither President Bush nor McCain have defined what success in Iraq would entail and that, according to Obama, implies that U.S. troops could remain in Iraq indefinitely.

All right then, Barack Obama, explain why or why not you’d leave U.S. troops in Europe, Japan and South Korea, and what conditions would allow the withdrawal of those troops.

What McCain said. McCain was asked Jan. 3 in New Hampshire about the prospect of the U.S. maintaining a presence in Iraq for another 50 years. He said it was possible Americans would be there even longer. “Make it 100 [years]” or “Maybe 100 [years],” he said. The exact words were hard to make out.

McCain said then:

“We’ve been in South Korea . . . we’ve been in Japan for 60 years,” he continued. “We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that’s fine with me. I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day.”

We give an extra layer of security to democracies in Europe, Japan and South Korea. Why shouldn’t we do the same for Iraq? That’s a question Obama must answer.

Frank Warner

Muqtada al-Sadr cries uncle, begs for time to re-arm his killers

I love how Moktada al-Sadr claims he’s calling an Iraq “truce” when (1) he’s not there and (2) his lackeys in the illegal Mahdi militia are out of ammunition. It’s like yelling “Time out!” just before you’re caught in Tag. Hey, catch ’em!

Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki should offer to release the Sadrists whom the Iraqi Army has captured in the last six days, but only after Sadr goes unarmed to Falluja to apologize for sending his men out to kill innocent Sunni Arabs.

Frank Warner

Dith Pran, who survived Cambodia’s Killing Fields, dies

Dith Pran, who helped report on the Communist massacres of 1.7 million Cambodians after the U.S. withdrew forces from Southeast Asia in 1973, died today of pancreatic cancer.

Recall that it was Noam Chomsky who told the world to ignore the Killing Fields, which Pran documented with photographs and personal accounts. Chomsky claimed that the Khmer Rouge, the Communists under Pol Pot, had executed maybe a few thousand democrats -- at  most -- because they got in the way.

Pran exposed Chomsky’s accounts as lies, but Chomsky continues to tell the world that people enjoy being silenced, imprisoned and murdered, and never want to be freed from oppression. Pran saw what happens when self-absorbed big mouths cover up for tyranny.

Dead cry out. Said Pran:

“It is important for me that the new generation of Cambodians and Cambodian Americans become active and tell the world what happened to them and their families ... I want them never to forget the faces of their relatives and friends who were killed during that time. The dead are crying out for justice….

“The Jewish people’s search for justice did not end with the death of Hitler and the Cambodian people’s search for justice doesn’t end with Pol Pot.”

Pran knew there is no justice without freedom.

Frank Warner

Maliki says Sadr’s thugs are ‘worse than al-Qaida’

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has sent the Iraqi Army to duke it out with Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi “Army” in Basra. Sadr is no where to be seen. He’s letting his lackeys take all the risks.

What’s significant is that Maliki, who is a Shiite Arab, has declared Sadr’s mob, which also is Shiite Arab, “worse than al-Qaida.”

This bodes well for the Iraq’s new democratic government. Maliki is delivering the message that the law applies equally to Sunnis or Shiites, minority or majority. Do violence, and you will be punished, he is saying.

Sadr now has declared his militia must not surrender its weapons in the struggle to make him theocratic dictator of Iraq. Which is funny, because he probably is not in Iraq, but in Iran.

Frank Warner

Good advice for Hollywood: Tell a real Iraq war story

Conservative Jay Reding writes about the Iraq war movie that would be a hit. No, it wouldn’t be an anti-war movie. It wouldn’t be a pro-war movie either. It would be a war movie.

It’s a sad commentary on Hollywood today that one of the most relevant shows in terms of exploring this war is Battlestar Galactica in which the terrorists are inexplicably attractive, yet evil robot clones. In Galactica the military and the government are not a bunch of moustache-twirling villains, but are portrayed as three-dimensional characters dealing with an impossible situation. ... Hollywood can be relevant, at least in metaphorical form.

The reason why most of the Iraq War movies have failed is that they constantly try to be “message” movies. War is bad. Halliburton is bad. Bush is bad. Cheney is really, really bad. …

If anyone wants to make a truly great war movie, here’s what they need to do. Don’t try to give us a “message.” Don’t try to push an agenda. Just tell a story. You know, the thing that Hollywood is supposed to do well? You don’t have to create some scathing indictment of war—if you just show war it indicts itself. Saving Private Ryan is one of the greatest war movies ever made because it never flinches from showing the horrors of war. It’s not a “pro-war” movie, nor is it an “anti-war” movie. It’s just a movie about war. You don’t need to create the character of Col. Evil McHitler who secretly sells the organs of Iraqi children to Halliburton to be used to grease oil drills to expose the horrors of war. War is itself horrible, and by creating all these silly little contrivances Hollywood doesn’t add to their message, they detract from it. …

Hollywood is supposed to be good at telling stories. Yet they are nowhere near as good as the men and women who have served in Iraq in understanding what this war is really about. For all Hollywood’s obsession with their own “bravery” none are so bold as to let the truly brave tell their own stories. Hollywood isn’t brave enough to create a movie told from the Iraqi perspective that depicts the systematic brutalization of the Hussein regime followed by the uncertainty and chaos. For all Hollywood’s bravery, few in Hollywood are so brave as to make a movie in which al-Qaeda is the enemies. It’s safe to indict your own government. We live in a free society. A film that indicts al-Qaeda could get you killed. So much for bravery.

Read the whole thing.

Frank Warner

McCain’s strategist explains why he’ll step down if Democrats nominate Obama

Mark McKinnon, chief media strategist for Sen. John McCain, confirmed to National Journal today that he admires Sen. Barack Obama enough that he’ll leave the McCain presidential campaign if the Democrats nominate Obama.

McKinnon disagrees with Obama over winning the Iraq war, but otherwise he sees something fundamentally responsible and hopeful about Obama’s candidacy.

National Journal: So you’ve said that you will leave the McCain campaign if Obama is the nominee. Does that still hold and why?

McKinnon: Yeah. Well, this goes back to a memo that I wrote to the campaign when I came aboard more than a year and a half ago, and I simply let them know that I had spent time with Obama and read his book and I like the guy. I think he has strong character and a fascinating life story, and I disagree with him fundamentally on issues like Iraq and trade and a number of others. But I just flashed forward to the improbable scenario, at that time seemingly improbable, that John McCain and Barack Obama might face off against one other. And I just told them at the time that I thought that I would be uncomfortable being on the front lines -- being as aggressive as you need to be in a presidential campaign -- and not only that I would be uncomfortable, but that it would be bad for the campaign, and that if that circumstance were to come to be, that I would just take a step to the sidelines and continue to support John McCain 100 percent and be No. 1 fan and cheerleader. But just kind of take myself out of the front lines.

Q: So you are still going to do that?

McKinnon: I’m a man of my word.

Q: And it’s because, what, you don't want to run negative ads against Obama?

McKinnon: Yeah.

Q: Or is there also a concern on your part that you don't want to run ads against Obama, the first African-American candidate to have this kind of a chance? Is that a factor as well?

McKinnon: I suppose that is in part, but it’s more just that I like and admire the guy. I’ve come to a point in my life where I think character is important. I think he has great character. Again, I think he's really wrong on fundamental issues, but yeah, I just don’t want to -- you know, I kind of want to put my guns down. It’s just a matter of degrees, and like I said, I don’t think I’m the best person to have in that slot for the campaign. So it would just be better for me to step to the sidelines.

Q: So if Hillary Clinton were the nominee, you would stay, presumably. So give us a preview of how you would not hold back if she were the nominee. What would be the campaign that you'd run against her?

McKinnon: Well, you know, I think that fundamentally she represents an extension of the Clinton legacy, which this country is just tired of. They are tired of the Clinton-style politics, and we’ve seen it manifest itself over the course of this campaign. And I have a lot of Democratic friends who like and respect Senator Clinton, but they don’t want another extension of the Clinton administration for another four or eight years. And again, on some fundamental issues I think there’s a great departure between her and Senator McCain, so that’s where it sits.

I agree with McKinnon. I just hope Obama takes note of the expectations of millions of independent voters like us. We want a break from the old political power structure, and we want problems solved. For many of us, that means we expect him to protect and consolidate democracy’s victory in Iraq.

Frank Warner

Bill Roggio, the ‘pro-soldier’ journalist with the facts

Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal has returned from Iraq just in time to see the publication of an in-depth profile of Roggio himself in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Roggio, a former soldier, just spent a month in Iraq (his fourth embed), where he came up with several scoops, including stories on the Iraqi Army relieving a neglectful battalion commander from his post in Mosul and, days later, a suicide attack that killed 13 soldiers in that same Iraqi battalion.

Here are some observations by Paul McLeary in Columbia Journalism Review, “Blogging the Long War”:

What sets LWJ apart, Roggio insists, is his focus on reporting. … He has been ahead of the coverage curve on the occasional significant story—he predicted, for instance, the truce between the Pakistani government and the Taliban in North Waziristan nine months before it happened, and he identified Al Qaeda camps in North and South Waziristan long before the mainstream press started paying much attention to the fighting between the Pakistani government and the Taliban.

His story from December 2007 on the “ratlines” many American military officials say Iran was using to move supplies and weapons into Iraq is an interesting illustration of both the kind of journalistic work The Long War Journal can produce and its limited ability to influence the broader news agenda. As a work of investigative reporting, it had all the elements an editor at a mainstream publication would want: an important, undercovered story, a confident point of view, and sources the reporter trusts. It was accompanied by a multimedia presentation detailing the routes from Iran to Iraq, including purported “distribution hubs” inside Iraq. I can’t help but think that if the story had appeared under, say, Seymour Hersh’s byline, it would have received major play. It had U.S. military officials providing intelligence—albeit anonymously—that pointed to what they said was a major smuggling ring from Iran to Iraq. As it was, the piece got virtually zero pick-up in the mainstream press. …

Roggio takes that job seriously. What you won’t find on The Long War Journal, at least not overtly, is politics. That’s by design. “I’m trying to create an environment where readers can get away from the political pointing that I think we see in a lot of news reporting,” Roggio says. “I just want to explain what is happening in the theater, without the politics.” …

Having read The Long War Journal for several years, I can comfortably say that while Roggio is pro-soldier—he wants the U.S. military to succeed at its job in Iraq and Afghanistan—he does, in fact, work hard at playing it straight politically; he tries to describe and explain the tactics of the mission, whether they are working or not. …

Andrew Cochran, the founder of the nonpartisan Counterterrorism Blog, says simply that “Bill wants to win. I don’t know if he’s necessarily pro-Bush.”

An eye to victory. We’re fortunate to have reporters like Roggio with the courage and dedication to go get the full story on Iraq, Afghanistan and the other battlegrounds, and the experience to know what he is looking at when he gets there.

Yes, I’d say Roggio wants a democratic victory. Who doesn’t? Those who have seen the destructive power of oppression understand best that freedom is the only path to a long peace.

Frank Warner

Pat Nixon’s visit to the Vietnam war zone

First lady Pat Nixon also visited a war zone back in July 1969, right around when Apollo 11 was preparing to take Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins to the moon. She flew into Vietnam in a helicopter with bulletproof mats on the floor.

Frank Warner

John Adams: ‘Support the army with faith in what they do’

I’ve been watching the impressive HBO series, “John Adams,” which finally fills me in on the important, but generally overlooked role of America’s second president.

I was struck by this statement by Adams, about the rag-tag American army fighting the British:

“We must support them with guns and leadership and faith in what they do.”

I just wonder if America did that with Iraq, where our troops only now are sealing the victory of freedom. Our troops got the guns. The leadership was shaky, but adequate. But what happened to the “faith in what they do”?

Of little faith. How was it that so many of the people who voted in October 2002 for the liberation of Iraq -- not just removing WMDs but removing tyranny and replacing it with freedom -- showed almost no faith in the cause as soon as the invasion began?

Check the record in 2003, especially among leading Democrats. Rare was the comment that, “Democracy must be victorious.” With their eyes on the 2004 presidential election, the top Democrats were far too interested with finding fault with the commander in chief, and distancing themselves from the troops and “what they do.”

The Democrats’ moral retreat early in Operation Iraqi Freedom was an exercise in the most contemptible cynicism. In 2004, they deserved their second straight electoral humiliation.

What they do. It was John Adams who also said:

“I must study politics and war that our sons have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy … in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture.”

All democratic leaders should study those words.

Frank Warner

Hillary’s deception

Hillary Clinton told her story of scurrying off an aircraft, ducking under sniper fire in Bosnia, so often that anyone paying even a little attention to politics heard it.

She told the story again last week:

“I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia,” she said. “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

It was the special vignette that gave her foreign-policy cred.

Calm on the tarmac. Now we know it didn’t happen. We have CBS News video of first lady Clinton and daughter Chelsea getting off the aircraft in Tuzla, Bosnia, on March 25, 1996, taking their time, with people smiling and waving in a greeting ceremony on the tarmac, and no gunfire.

Why does this remind me of that 2004 Democratic National Convention film that showed bullets hitting the water near John Kerry’s swift boat?

When you hear Clinton’s words, “I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia,” it’s hard not to think of Kerry repeatedly telling us how “Christmas in Cambodia 1968” was “seared in my mind” -- and yet he had no Christmas in Cambodia.

Frank Warner

Hitchens says Obama sold his own grandmother

As usual, it's hard to argue with Christopher Hitchens. Barack Obama flubbed that speech on "race in America," and Hitchens believes Obama is a political calculator of the most untrustworthy kind.

Read the Hitchens piece.

Frank Warner

Tens of thousands more register as Democrats in Pennsylvania

In just the last two weeks, tens of thousands of voters registered as Democrats in Pennsylvania, either by signing up to vote for the first time, or switching from the Republican Party.

Whom do you think they’re voting for in the April 22 primary? I guarantee that, despite Hillary Clinton’s 12-point lead in this state, most of the new Pennsylvania Democrats are voting for Barack Obama. “Change” is a vague thing, but it has its appeal.

Yes, I’ll watch Barack on Iraq, on Social Security, on energy, on taxation, on trade. Can we trust him? Tens of thousands of new voters do.

Frank Warner

Wonderful to see Dick Polman actually criticize a Democrat

The great thing about reading The Philadelphia Inquirer is, first, you get to see all the news through the Democratic reporters’ eyes. Then you get to see the editorials through the Democratic editors’ eyes. And then, just for added perspective, they throw in columnist Dick Polman to hammer in how perfect Democrats are and how all Republicans must die.

The Inquirer certainly has no liberal bias, because the bias seldom favors anything liberal, like saving Social Security or defeating fascism. It’s the Democratic Party bias.

So it’s almost wonderful to see Polman find a moment of clarity to criticize a Democratic saint, Hillary Clinton, and her sad lackey, Evan Bayh, for trying to find votes that Hillary doesn’t deserve.

Frank Warner

Are you a ‘free rider’ if you refuse a vaccination?

I liked this point an e-mailer made to Glenn Reynolds about people who don’t get vaccinations:

Vaccination refusal is an example of the free rider problem. That’s because of herd immunity. If everyone except Bridget vaccinates their kids, Bridget’s kids benefit from not ever being exposed to the diseases, but they don’t share the (small but nonzero) risk of being vaccinated.

The problem is that like all cases of free riding, too much of it destroys the system. When a large percentage of the population refuses to vaccinate, then herd immunity no longer functions and the diseases return.

It’s like democracies that refuse to do their share to defend and spread freedom. The selfish free nations benefit from the risks taken by others. However, if enough of them stop bothering, all will be infected by the tyranny virus.

That being said, you don’t have to submit to every vaccination. But you have educate yourself enough to know when you’re doing the right thing for yourself and your community, and when you’re not.

Frank Warner

Evan Bayh wants ‘superdelegates’ divided by Electoral College formula?

Oh, come on. Since when does the Democratic Party embrace the wisdom of the Electoral College? Isn’t that the system Hillary Clinton said she intended to repeal eight years ago?

So now Evan Bayh, who backs Clinton, goes for this?

Frank Warner

Another ‘grim milestone’: The 4,000th U.S. death in Iraq was worse than the 3,456th?

The Associated Press today reports the Iraq war has reached a “grim milestone” of 4,000 Americans dead. And yet it has no news-related reason to call 4,000 deaths a “grim milestone.” Each death is a catastrophe for the one killed and for his or her loved ones. If the 4,000th death has unusual significance over the 3,456th death, the AP should spell it out.

The grim milestone for Iraq was the day Saddam Hussein and the Baathists imposed fascism there. It’s been a bloody fight ever since, with the hopeful milestones since 2003 of toppled tyrants, free elections, a free press, free opposition parties and each Iraqi’s right to speak out against the government without having his or her tongue cut out.

If 4,000 deaths means we should abandon the fight for freedom, well, then we should have surrendered to the Japanese and Germans in June 1942, when that war’s death toll passed 4,000. By the end of 1945, 400,000 Americans were dead in that war. Was that 100 times too many to pursue the victory of democracy and freedom’s lasting peace -- a peace proven out in 63 years of history?

Preventing worse. Isn’t it more likely that each American risking his life in Iraq is preventing a much grimmer future in that region? We could use fewer stories suggesting that soldiers are dying for nothing, or that they don't count unless their number has at least three zeroes.

Frank Warner

Bin Laden defied: Pope baptizes former Muslim

Just three days after Osama bin Laden threatened Pope Benedict XVI with violence over the Muhammad cartoons that the pope had nothing to do with, the pope today baptized a former Muslim.

The convert is Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born Italian, who has to be one of the bravest men alive. He’s a journalist who recently published the provocatively named book, “Viva Israel,” that is, “Long Live Israel.”

Keep in mind that, in bin Laden’s stupid world, converting from Islam to any other religion is apostacy – sacrilege, punishable by death. The pope just poked that bonehead bin Laden in the eye.

Brave? Stupid? Or simply necessary if one is to live life with any integrity?

Frank Warner

Obama’s passport was peeked at by Obama aide’s company

Strange campaign. John O. Brennan ain’t helping Barack Obama much.

Obama adviser Gen. Tony McPeak: ‘We’ll be in Iraq a century, if it works right’

At a campaign rally in Oregon today, presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama today introduced retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. “Tony” McPeak as a trusted adviser.

Obama let McPeak defend Obama’s patriotism against what might or might not have been an innocent comment by Bill Clinton.

The truly interesting thing is, Gen. McPeak five years ago said of Iraq, “We’ll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right.” No, not at war, but working with a new friend, slowly nurturing the growth of democracy in an otherwise unfree desert.

In March 2003, as U.S. forces were approaching Baghdad, McPeak said he would not push Iraqi elections quickly, for fear anti-democratic forces would win and never allow a second election. But he noted it took several years before West Germany, Japan and South Korea held free elections, but U.S. protection guided their democratic development.

Here is the key question put to McPeak in 2003:

Question: Is Iraq the last country we confront in the Middle East?

McPeak: Who wants to volunteer to get cross-ways with us? We’ll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right.

I’ll tell you one thing we should not hope for [is] a democratic Iraq. When I hear the president talking about democracy, the last thing we should want is an election in Iraq. We’re not very popular. So I don’t think we’ll see any open elections in Iraq for a long time.

Hopefully over time they can be brought along like Japan and Germany -- Japan and Germany were relatively easy, I think, and South Korea.

The democratic idea. Isn’t it encouraging that, despite such misgivings, the Iraqis already have held free and fair elections? As it turned out, Iraq in 2005 was the first nation on Earth to bring out most of its voters under credible threat of death.

But McPeak had one thing right. We’ll be in Iraq a long time – with its democratic government’s consent – “if it works right.” If it works right, in a generation or two, Iraq’s neighboring peoples will be claiming their democratic rights, too.

This McPeak is someone to watch. He says something hopeful about Obama.

Frank Warner

See also: Barack Obama on Iraq: ‘I reserve the right … to assess the situation.’

Martin Luther King would have backed Iraq invasion?

Martin Luther King probably would have supported the forced liberation of Iraq, King’s long-time friend Clarence Jones says in a soon-to-be-published book, “What Would Martin Say?”

“A complicated King emerges from Jones’s portrait—not the familiar pacifist but a likely supporter of the Iraq War who in Jones’s words might believe that military action is an unavoidable option that even those who are otherwise committed to non-violence must be prepared to consider now in order to save many more lives later.”

I’m not sure how Jones will prove his case, but it’s an interesting thesis. How will Jones be able to explain King’s opposition to the bloody and prolonged U.S. battle against the Communist take-over of South Vietnam?

War and color. Would King, who was assassinated in 1968, say his opposition to U.S. military action in Vietnam was based solely on drafting too many black Americans to fight then? Look at the U.S. casualties. The proportion of the U.S. Vietnam war dead who were black (13 percent) was only a little higher than the proportion of U.S. Iraq war dead who were black (10 percent).

(The black population is about 11 or 12 percent of the U.S. population.)

In 1963, King said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed,” and “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Though he did promote nonviolent resistance to repeal unjust laws, he never seemed strictly turn-the-other-cheek. But who knows whether he thought oppressed people ever are entitled to military assistance from the outside?

What did Jones hear that we didn’t? In his book, he had better show some convincing evidence.

Frank Warner

Oh God, the Rev. Wright was a guest at the CLINTON White House!

Can this get any more ridiculous? We’ve got a September 1998 photo of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at a clerics breakfast in the East Room of the White House with President Bill Clinton. Was Hillary there? Don’t know.

Hillary Clinton’s newly released records of the Bill Clinton presidency show she was scheduled to be there. But at this breakfast, President Clinton told the clerics, “I have sinned.” The Kenneth Starr report was about to be published. Maybe Hillary had her cornflakes in bed.

But now it’s safe to vote for Barack Obama again.

Frank Warner

57% of Americans say U.S. probably will win Iraq war

orty percent of Americans say the United States probably will lose the war in Iraq, meaning, I suppose, they believe U.S. forces will surrender next year.

But 57 percent of Americans say the U.S. will win. Iraq will have its secure democracy, advancing it 50 to 100 years into the light of progress and out of its stubborn political and social darkness.

This is according to a CNN-Opinion Research poll, taken March 14-16 to judge sentiment five years into the liberation of Iraq.

Cost seems too high. With gasoline prices at or near their all-time high and the economy at the brink of recession, most Americans -- 58 to 66 percent -- also are saying the war wasn’t worth the cost. But if Iraq’s democracy takes hold, its openness and accountability, its freedom and its good example probably will spare us from much worse wars in the future.

The USA Today-Gallup poll of Feb. 21-24 also had mixed results:

Choose: Keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better, even if that takes many years, or set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq at the time:

Stay until the situation gets better: 35 percent.
Stick to a withdrawal timetable: 60 percent.
Unsure: 5 percent.

Do you think the United States does or does not have an obligation to establish a reasonable level of stability and security in Iraq before withdrawing all of its troops?

Does have an obligation to Iraq: 65 percent.
Does not have an obligation to Iraq: 32 percent.
Unsure: 3 percent.

In the long run, will Iraq be much better off, somewhat better off, somewhat worse off, or much worse off than before the U.S. and British invasion?

Much better off: 23 percent.
Somewhat better off: 44 percent.
Somewhat worse off: 14 percent.
Much worse off: 12 percent.
Same or unsure: 8 percent.

So Americans would like a timetable for bringing troops home, but we also believe we have a responsibility to leave a stable and secure Iraq. Seems contradictory, but maybe not.

Here’s a test the pollsters should try: Ask those same questions about U.S. troops in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Should there be a fixed timetable for bringing them home? Should we consider the stability and security of those nations first?

Fully 67 percent of Americans believe the invasion, removal of Saddam’s regime and establishment of an Iraqi democracy ultimately will leave Iraq better off than it was. Oddly, that’s 10 percent more than think we’ll win. In any case, it’s good to see Americans already understand some of the probable benefits.

Worse off? Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore and Harry Reid and the rest of the 12 percent are sure the Iraqis will be worse off because they were liberated. For them, it’s always sad to see repression end. May they be forever sad.

Frank Warner

* * *

Here’s a better link to the Iraq war polls.

Barack Obama missed a chance to unify

When Sen. Barack Obama spoke yesterday of “race in America,” he should have mapped the history of discrimination based on skin color, but he should have ignored the sideshow over his pastor’s intemperate words.

Obama then should have told us that the real reason he has a chance to become president of the United States is not that he is a black man or a brown man, or the son of black and white parents; it’s that he is a free man in the greatest democracy on Earth.

In his history lesson, he should have listed key Americans of all colors who applied principle, intellect and courage to the idea of political freedom, who opened all the doors he now walks through, protected by U.S. law.

Dwelling on the petty. Instead, the senator took a great topic and threw in the distractions of a petty controversy over the things his pastor has said. His pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, didn’t free anyone by damning America. Obama should have told us who the real heroes of American freedom are.

Obama’s campaign has been inspiring because he has not emphasized his skin color or ethnicity. By playing down color or “race,” whatever that is, he has given Americans – and the world, really – hope that the new day of social color-blindness, of “a more perfect union,” has arrived.

The speech yesterday tried to return to that message, but failed because most Americans are hearing only the excerpts about the Rev. Wright.

Fall from loftiness. Once the TV networks started playing the Wright tapes a few days ago, Obama lost his footing. He has spent far too much time talking about a minister’s divisive words, which he should have dismissed in two sentences before moving on.

The Obama campaign is supposed to be about the lofty idea of moving forward. The speech yesterday moved him back.

Frank Warner

5 years later, Hitchens notes some Iraq progress

Christopher Hitchens says the five years since the 2003 Iraq invasion have had their obvious flaws and equally obvious democratic achievements.

There is, however, one position that nobody can honestly hold but that many people try their best to hold. And that is what I call the Bishop Berkeley theory of Iraq, whereby if a country collapses and succumbs to trauma, and it's not our immediate fault or direct responsibility, then it doesn't count, and we are not involved. Nonetheless, the very thing that most repels people when they contemplate Iraq, which is the chaos and misery and fragmentation (and the deliberate intensification and augmentation of all this by the jihadists), invites the inescapable question: What would post-Saddam Iraq have looked like without a coalition presence?

The past years have seen us both shamed and threatened by the implications of the Berkeleyan attitude, from Burma to Rwanda to Darfur. Had we decided to attempt the right thing in those cases (you will notice that I say “attempt” rather than “do,” which cannot be known in advance), we could as glibly have been accused of embarking on "a war of choice.” But the thing to remember about Iraq is that all or most choice had already been forfeited. We were already deeply involved in the life-and-death struggle of that country, and March 2003 happens to mark the only time that we ever decided to intervene, after a protracted and open public debate, on the right side and for the right reasons. This must, and still does, count for something.

It's a good thing Hitchens is on the side of freedom. As I see it, he's a true, open-eyed liberal.

Frank Warner

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Man, I'm getting a zillion hits on that old "Quiet Man" post.

Everyone is Irish today.

Frank Warner

Washington Post and NPR turn Petraeus’ resolve into surrender

Geez, The Washington Post story almost sounded as if Gen. David H. Petraeus had surrendered:

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

The day that story was published, Petraeus issued a statement rebuking The Washington Post for irresponsibly distorting his comments. But yesterday, two days later, I heard a National Public Radio announcer read from that same Washington Post report as if it were gospel truth.

Correction ignored. NPR’s conclusion: The “surge” has failed.

Apparently, NPR still hadn’t seen Petraeus’s response to The Post’s inaccurate report.

Petraeus had said everyone wants more progress in Iraq. The Post decided to spin the general’s words to say “everything has failed.” The NPR commentator and every other friend of fascism then took The Post’s big lie as yet another way to promote a hasty exit from Iraq and a return to repression, genocide and larger wars for Iraq.

Clearing Saddam. That wasn’t enough for NPR. After its misleading commentary on Petraeus, it went on to talk about the recent Pentagon-sponsored study that supposedly concludes Saddam had “no operational ties” to al-Qaida.

Of course, no top U.S. official in the Bush administration ever said Saddam did have “operational ties” with al-Qaida. And NPR neglected to point out that the Pentagon-sponsored study’s own summary also concludes that Saddam did have a “de facto link” to al-Qaida, and at times even “worked together” with al-Qaida on common goals.

The NPR’s conclusion: Saddam had no direct operational al-Qaida ties, so he was a completely innocent man. Murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis didn’t matter; the world now should do everything it can to restore his fascist regime to Iraq. OK, that exaggerates the NPR position, but it certainly follows the NPR logic.

The story slant. For the record, here’s how The Washington Post reported on Petraeus’s March 13 comments:

By Cameron W. Barr
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 14, 2008; Page A10

BAGHDAD, March 13 -- Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences,Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that “no one” in the U.S. and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation,” or in the provision of basic public services.

The general’s comments appeared to be his sternest to date on Iraqis' failure to achieve political reconciliation. In February, following the passage of laws on the budget, provincial elections and an amnesty for certain detainees, Petraeus was more encouraging. “The passage of the three laws today showed that the Iraqi leaders are now taking advantage of the opportunity that coalition and Iraqi troopers fought so hard to provide,” he said at the time.

Reporter Cameron Barr twisted a short, off-hand comment from Petraeus to conclude the general had dramatically changed his tune.

The actual words. Here’s the discussion between Petraeus and The Post:

Petraeus: No one…no one in the government or US…or even in the government of Iraq feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation, legislation to cement the gains, and so on. They are all keenly aware. And the same with respect to basic services. I mean I actually…today I was invited by the prime minister after we had our weekly meeting with him, the ambassador and I, he said, “Will you stay around and sit in on the meeting with the ministers of oil and electricity?” And so I said, “Okay. I guess so.” I mean after three and one-half years of monitoring daily exports, towers up or down, you know, 400KV, 132KV, 11KV, the different oil lines, the different generators, and everything else, it’s actually helpful. And in fact, I just got a commitment from, you know, an enormous, maybe the biggest, electrical production company in the world to renew its efforts here after some pretty frustrating years, frankly. So…

The Post: So you’re going to have…The surge is going to be gone by July. Are you…do you think the government has lost an opportunity to…

Petraeus: No. I think…no. I think the opportunity is very much still there.

The Post: You’re going to have less…you’re going to have the surge troops gone. One of the key goals of the surge troops is not…won’t be achieved by July.

Petraeus: Well, again, the security progress, again, we certainly will do all that we can. I mean we’re going to fight like the dickens to maintain the progress and where we can to try to build on it. I mean we are really just embarking on the effort in Mosul which is of enormous importance to al-Qaeda and the related groups. It’s just very, very significant because of geography, politics, money.

The Post: Yeah.

To sum up, The Post asked, “Do you think the government has lost an opportunity?”

And Petraeus said, “No. I think…no. I think the opportunity is very much still there.”

Unless the reporter or editors are anti-victory partisans, how do Petraeus’s comments translate into, “Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences”?

Hope or hopeless? Petraeus said nothing about the relationship to the “surge” or the “reduction in violence” to progress toward reconciliation. He was saying only that insufficient progress has been made, period. What they’ve failed or not failed to take advantage of, the general did not say. Had the reporter been more specific, Petraeus might have told him the Iraqis made more progress during the surge than they could have made without it, but still not enough to declare victory.

With the facts it had, The Post easily could have reported that Petraeus has hope the Iraqis will take advantage of “the opportunity” it still has to reach reconciliation. That’s what he actually said. But then that wouldn’t have sounded negative, would it?

The Washington Post and NPR know there’s a difference between saying “The job isn’t done” and “The job has failed.” But the Post and NPR also know what the defeatists want to hear, and they’re happy to print it and broadcast it.

Frank Warner

* * *

Afterthought: Why does NPR every Sunday afternoon have someone ranting for the defeat of democracy in Iraq? Why is that radio spot never followed by someone spending an equal amount of time arguing for the victory of democracy in Iraq? I’m paying part of NPR’s bills. Why does NPR take public money to spit on the things I treasure: freedom and freedom’s lasting peace?

The totalitarian advantage: China Communists will crush Tibet protests this year

Pro-independence demonstrations in Tibet could spoil the China Communists’ dreams of a glorious Beijing Olympics.

Or probably not. What embarrassed the Communists in 1989 was that they let the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square demonstrations continue loudly and publicly for weeks before the bloody crackdown. That was unusual for a totalitarian police state, and it happened only because the Communist leadership was in transition. It won’t happen this time.

The big propaganda advantage of a totalitarian system is that it cracks down with full force on any protest -- instantly killing, torturing or imprisoning all who resist. The crush response signals to the population that all resistance if futile, so don’t bother. It also quickly brings the illusion of order and contentment, allowing the dictatorship to claim everyone is happy. (Appeasers like Noam Chomsky eat this up. So do the other pseudo-liberals.)

Freedom unpopular? By contrast, a weak dictatorship, with pro-Western ties and democratic promises, is more likely to tolerate some public demonstrations, some anti-government news reporting, and often, the formation of some anti-government political parties. To the weak dictator, the obvious disadvantage of those limited liberties is that they leave the government vulnerable, they let the opposition organize against it, and the open demonstrations give the appearance that people with a little freedom and hope are unhappier than people with no freedom or hope.

If the China regime’s initial response to the unrest in Lhasa is any indication, we’re witnessing the totalitarian reflex in Tibet. This revolt will be crushed totally. With faked, strained and cynical smiles, the Olympics will go on.

Frank Warner

3.14, it’s Pi Day 2008!

We’re all celebrating the irrational number today.

Pi is approximately 3.14159265, but it’s hard to be exact. And the number does have practical applications.

When I was a kid, I designed my own model rockets -- you know, the kind with the balsa wood nose cones and fins, and cardboard-construction-paper tubes. Pi came in handy.

If you wanted to know how much construction paper you needed for a rocket tube, first, you decided how tall the rocket tube would be (18 inches, for example), no problem. Then you decided how wide the tube would be -- the diameter -- and multiplied by Pi.

Calculating size. If you want an 18-inch-tall rocket tube to be 2 1/4 inches across at the widest point -- the cylinder’s diameter -- you multiply 2.25 times 3.14, which equals 7.85. That’s the circumference of your proposed tube.

That tells you that you need your rocket tube material, the construction paper, to be 18 inches long by about 7 7/8 inches wide. Cut it out, roll it, glue it, add fins, cone and engine, and you’re off!

Easy as Pi.

Frank Warner

Read the so-called ‘No Al-Qaida Link’ Pentagon study, and notice all the al-Qaida links

Several news agencies are reporting that a Pentagon-sponsored study found “no al-Qaida link” to Saddam Hussein, despite the study’s own words that Saddam’s forces and al-Qaida at times “would work together.”

I think “work together” would be considered a link.

Saddam and al-Qaida didn’t trust each other and maintained their basic independence, but the Iraq and Terrorism study finds that the two groups had a “de facto link.”

Use affiliated operatives. Read the report’s own summary, and then decide whether you can say honestly that Saddam and al-Qaida had no link whatsoever:

While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist-operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some way, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust.

How were they linked? Let me count the ways.

The common bonds. No, Saddam didn’t plan 9-11 with Osama bin Laden, and Saddam almost certainly had nothing to do with 9-11. No U.S. official in authority ever said he did. No, Saddam and bin Laden weren’t directly, publicly or officially coordinating their terrorism programs on a day-to-day or month-to-month basis. No, they didn’t sign a mutual aid treaty. No responsible U.S. official ever claimed they did.

But did they use each other’s operatives, work together at times, have considerable overlap, harbor affiliates and in some ways form a “de facto link”? That’s exactly what the report says.

And one more time: Saddam needed no al-Qaida tie to justify the forced ouster of his totalitarian regime. Saddam, who was required by U.N. resolutions to end his repression, was responsible for at least 10 times -- maybe 100 times -- more killings than al-Qaida. To think, some people wanted to keep him in power! The shame.

Frank Warner

* * *

Update: I notice ABC-TV is withdrawing from the “no link” claim and now saying the report found “no direct connection.” Sorry, but that’s not news.

When President Bush went to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, to make his case for action against Saddam, he said, “Al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in Iraq.” That’s true. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his band ran from Afghanistan to Iraq. In his State of the Union address of Jan. 28, 2003, Bush also said, “Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda.” The new Pentagon study confirms that.

On the day of indignity, why did Dina McGreevey stand by Gov. McGreevey?

Dina McGreevey, who stood by her husband Gov. James McGreevey when he announced his sex-related resignation in 2004, today helps explain why Silda Spitzer did the same thing with Gov. Eliot Spitzer yesterday.

In The New York Times, Dina McGreevey writes:

For me, I was essentially in the dark about what my husband was going to say. He never told me he was gay; he simply passed me a copy of his speech an hour before the press conference. I was in a fog. I certainly didn’t volunteer. I was in no emotional state to make a rational decision, and there simply wasn’t time. He asked me to stand next to him, and I did.

Frankly, all I was thinking about was my daughter. If I had to do it over again, I’d do the same thing. I did it for my daughter’s father.

Hat tip to JJ Mollo.

Decision in chaos. Many thought it made no sense for Silda Spitzer, who had just found out about her husband’s infidelity, to stand next to him two days in a row as he went through the usual trapped politician’s legalistic apology, never specifying what he was sorry for. (He forgot to take out the garbage?)

Dina Matos McGreevey helps clarify the wife’s thought process, if it can be called thinking in such emotional chaos.

Frank Warner

NATO is smart to tell Russia to cool rhetoric

In telling the Russian leadership to tone down its “fiery rhetoric,” NATO is making a wise move. The public advice is likely to have two good effects.

First, coming from Europe’s committed democracies to Russia’s hollow democratic framework, the statement will force Russia’s leaders to explain themselves better. Understand between democracies -- even hollow ones -- helps avoid violent conflict.

Second, the statement will help reveal who runs Russia. The question right now is, who is in charge in Moscow? Does Dmitri Medvedev, the president-elect, respond with authority? Or does would-be dictator Vladimir Putin respond as the permanent puppeteer?

The voice you hear. Soon we will discover what the Kremlin is up to, and whether Putin has so terrorized everyone around him that no one else, not even a semi-elected successor two months from taking office, dares to speak for Russia.

NATO should keep this up. Keep asking Russia to speak. Soon we’ll find out who’s allowed to speak there.

Frank Warner

Keith Olbermann becomes Hillary Clinton’s singing instructor

Keith Olbermann last night had some pompous advice for Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is trailing Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic delegate race, 1,614 to 1,487:

Senator, as it has reached its apex in their tone-deaf, arrogant, and insensitive reaction to the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro… your own advisers are slowly killing your chances to become President….

In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media, and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Senator Obama. ...

Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barack Obama were the Democrat, and you… were the Republican.

Shill to Hill. Geraldine Ferraro’s original controversial comment, that Obama wouldn’t even be in the race if he weren’t black, might have been well-intentioned, but her point was too vague and the effect bordering on racist. So Olbermann at last caught the obvious.

But if freedom is the sweetest music, isn’t Olbermann calling Clinton tone-deaf like Hayden Christensen (the guy who played the teen Darth Vader) telling Ben Affleck he can’t act?

Frank Warner

David Mamet is tired of being a ‘brain-dead liberal’

I call them “closed-eye liberals,” or pseudo-liberals. Movie writer David Mamet calls them “brain-dead liberals.” He was one, and he doesn’t want to be one anymore.

Who are the “brain-dead liberals”? They are people who believe that everything’s always wrong, everyone in power is corrupt, and nothing will improve until the U.S. armed forces, all corporations and the Republican Party disappear. They also pretend they can solve most big problems by doing nothing at all.

In The Village Voice, Mamet writes:

As a child of the ’60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. “?” she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as “a brain-dead liberal,” and to NPR as “National Palestinian Radio.”

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. …

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it?...

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it….

I found not only that I didn't trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

And I began to question my hatred for “the Corporations”—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

And I began to question my distrust of the “Bad, Bad Military” of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world….

I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.

At the same time, I was writing my play about a president, corrupt, venal, cunning, and vengeful (as I assume all of them are), and two turkeys. And I gave this fictional president a speechwriter who, in his view, is a “brain-dead liberal,” much like my earlier self; and in the course of the play, they have to work it out.

The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed about the fools on the other side—but, at the end of the day, they are the same folks we meet at the water cooler.

Liberalism is the way to go. But what we need is brainy liberalism, open-eyed liberalism dedicated to defending the defenseless and freeing the oppressed, and committed to using our hearts and heads to solve big problems.

Not everything is wrong. Our armed forces are as good or bad (human) as most of our friends and families. Corporations do lots of good things, but need watching. And we can live with a few Republicans. We even have to work with them to solve those big problems.

Let’s all of us open our eyes.

Frank Warner

Empathy moment: If you’re Eliot Spitzer, how do you feel?

You’ve got money, always had it. You’ve got fame, always angled for the headlines.

But now you’ve got no trust, no love, no power, no sex.

How do you feel? What do you do now?

Frank Warner

Eliot Spitzer is toast: Democrats would not stand for an impeachment trial on an election year

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is the victim of his own wildly expensive passions, of his own hypocrisy and of bad timing. Revealed as a man who paid for prostitutes, he found himself in a presidential election year with no friends in either major political party. He had to resign.

For Spitzer, it was bad enough that he prosecuted prostitution rings and invited headlines for it when he was state attorney general. He couldn’t now claim that he is somehow exempt. But on this election year, his fellow Democrats knew they couldn’t afford the spectacle of a high-profile Democrat going through a sensational state impeachment trial.

Now Spitzer faces possible criminal charges. Then he’ll have to negotiate his penalties, the most serious of which is likely to be his agreement to testify against the prostitution ring organizers.

Democrats in a bind. He probably won’t go to jail, but he has little bargaining power. He has avoided an impeachment trial, but his testimony at prostitution hearings and trials won’t be easy. It could be the most public humiliation since Bill Clinton’s “definition of is, is” tape was released. The Democrats are hoping all of that can wait till 2009.

Many now are debating the wisdom of our laws against prostitution, and it’s a worthy debate. But should Spitzer be prosecuted, at least on a minor charge? Yes.

As Glenn Reynolds says today, “One of the best ways to ensure that bad laws are changed is to enforce them vigorously against the powerful.”

Frank Warner

The Emboldenment Effect: Do defeatist words encourage the enemy in Iraq to kill Americans? Harvard says yes

Harvard University researchers Radha Iyengar and Jonathan Monten have proved what any sane person already knew: That harsh public criticism of a U.S.-led military action encourages the enemy to kill more Americans, unless the scornful comments are combined with equally strong words showing a sincere commitment to winning the war.

Iyengar and Monten report on “The Emboldenment Effect”:

Are insurgents affected by information on US casualty sensitivity? Using data on attacks and variation in access to international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify an “emboldenment” effect by comparing the rate of insurgent attacks in areas with higher and lower access to information about U.S news after public statements critical of the war. We find in periods after a spike in war-critical statements, insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent.

Learning the truth. Oddly, these political scientists are the first to put this question to a statistical test. There are some questions most professors don’t dare ask, some truths they dare not reveal. The cynic’s seat is too comfortable to risk reality’s challenge.

Free speech is one of the most important things American troops risk their lives for. But American leaders who exercise that liberty should be aware they give the enemy an unearned boost when they belittle the liberation of 25 million people, or call for a withdrawal whether or not the enemy’s defeat is certain, or declare a war “lost” before it is finished.

If our enemies sense they are winning, some of them will kill Americans, and themselves too, just to be part of what they mistakenly believe will be a grand victory for God. With less encouragement, less emboldenment, they’d probably ask themselves seriously if they want to be the last to kill themselves in a losing cause.

Words matter. Tell the fascists they’re winning, they’ll fight harder to finish the task. Tell them they’re losing, they’ll consider a more peaceful way of life. They’ll even begin to question their ultimately pointless ideology.

It would be sad enough if the fascists fought one extra day because they happened to hear a democratic leader’s honest questioning of U.S. military operations in Iraq.

But it’s horrifying to know that much of the criticism we have heard over the last five years has been distorted, exaggerated and manufactured, not for the purpose of winning the war, but for the purpose of winning votes and weakening political adversaries.

Killer politics. If the Harvard researchers are right, the dishonesty and defeatism that have characterized the loudest complaints about the U.S. role in Iraq may have cost the lives of hundreds of Americans, and also may have compromised the future of democracy in the Middle East.

Everyone has the right to speak his mind sincerely. No one has the right to tell a selfish, deadly lie.

Frank Warner

* * *

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.

Saddam didn’t order 9-11? No!

Another report says Saddam Hussein had no operational ties to al-Qaida. He didn’t order the 9-11 attacks. Well, no kidding. No responsible leader ever said Saddam and al-Qaida were planning attacks together.

The best quote Michael Moore could come up with in “Fahrenheit 9-11” to fit his dishonest propaganda that President Bush made a direct connection between Saddam and al-Qaida was from Condoleezza Rice, who said:

“Oh, indeed there is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9-11….”

Editing floor. But then Moore left off Rice’s all-important explanation, in her next sentence:

“It’s not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself and his regime involved in 9-11, but, if you think about what caused 9-11, it is the rise of ideologies of hatred that lead people to drive airplanes into buildings in New York.”

So that was that. We are against ideologies that lead to decades of repression, torture and murder.

And funny, isn’t it, that when the U.S. knocked al-Qaida out of Afghanistan, the first place al-Qaida affiliate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi went was Iraq, where he started “al-Qaida in Iraq.” Zarqawi was referred to by the Bush administration, because he was related to al-Qaida, was a dangerous man, and Saddam did nothing to stop him while he was in Iraq. (In fact, Zarqawi may have received medical care in Baghdad in 2002.)

Plenty of justification. Saddam violated U.N. resolutions not simply by making Iraq a safe harbor for al-Qaida, but by providing aid to any number of other terrorists. Why, in 2002, were both Abu Nidal, top terrorist of the 1970s and 1980s, and Abu Abbas, who planned the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro, free in Iraq?

The bigger point is that Saddam’s association with terrorists wasn’t even his worst crime. His repression of the Iraqi people, forbidden by U.N. Resolution 688, was reason enough for a rescue mission to remove his totalitarian regime. He had murdered more people than all the terrorists put together.

Frank Warner

The beaten jihad in Iraq

Michael Totten:

Fallujah is an extremely conservative city even by Arab standards. Amariyah is about as hard-core as it gets. Even so, the jihad has nearly been vanquished. If it can't survive even here with American targets driving and walking around, it will be in serious trouble everywhere in the world, at least in the long run.

Contrary to the hysterical negativism we heard a year ago, there really will be a much better long run. In that not-too-distant future, all people want to live in peace, which depends on freedom.

Frank Warner

Hey, the space shuttle went up this morning!