I expect my government to be truthful, but I’ve got constructive knowledge that government can lie or spin.

Constructive knowledge is defined by lawyer Steve at Binjo Ditch as, “the type of knowledge that one using reasonable care or diligence should have, and therefore is attributed by law to a given person.” I’ve lived through the Clinton years and the Nixon years, so I have constructive knowledge that even the U.S. government can lie.

That hardly makes me a wild conspiracy theorist. I certainly have given the Bush admin the benefit of the doubt, for a number of reasons. First, my own constructive knowledge tells me that the left has exaggerated, trumped up and outright fabricated criticisms against Bush and the war. Most of these accusations of lying are easily disproved, as is the case with “Bush lied, people died” on WMDs. So constructive knowledge reassures me that many of those making the claims are hardly credible; they’re ranters, negative beings, BDR sufferers. Here’s a good case in point. And finally, Bush just always struck me as an admirable, Christian man who wouldn’t put up with lying. Call me naive; it’s just been my impression.

Constructive knowledge also tells me that members of al-Qaeda and other jihadists will lie, and indeed are encouraged to lie, about being tortured while being held captive by American forces. They’re trained to do it and the Koran encourages them to do it, and it’s important to keep that in mind as we proceed.

So, who’s lying in this case:

WASHINGTON (AP) – Medical examinations of former terrorism suspects held by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, found evidence of torture and other abuse that resulted in serious injuries and mental disorders, according to a human rights group.

The story from last week — which of course I can’t risk clipping more from, given AP’s recent strict enforcement of its copyrights — goes on to describe what was found in medical examinations of 11 former Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib detainees. Most shocking are allegations (supported, according to the report, by evidence of burns on thumbs) of electric shock, and of sodomization. (The latter charge was not substantiated, as the accuser would not allow an inspection of his private parts.)

Is my country lying to me, to us, about its policies on torture? Or is the human rights group? Or are the former detainees?

Arguing for the latter two is the timing of the release of the report, just as the (Dem-dominated) Senate Armed Services Committee began looking into warnings from military lawyers to the Pentagon regarding the possible illegality of some interrogation measures. Timing like this is often a sign that a study’s been trumped up.

Arguing that interrogation techniques went beyond what we were told and what I personally would accept are the wear and tear caused by the endless stream of reports, and these latest reports, and my cognitive knowledge that the reported incidents at Abu Ghraib were, in fact, abominable.

Arguing against that is the nebulous qualities of the human rights group’s report. Some of these detainees have been out of our control for a number of years, and all of them were living lives before they were detained. There’s no way of knowing if their injuries occurred while under US control — if they occurred at all. And that guy wouldn’t pull down his pants to allow an examination.

Also on point is the fact that some of the alleged “tortures” are mere miscomforts suitable for the interrogation of enemy: sleep deprivation, stress positions, cold, heat, hunger. Sorry, but this is not about redefining torture; it’s about whether torture — being shocked or sodomized, for example — occurred.

Arguing for concern that it might just be true is the committee’s report on the lawyer’s findings. Binjo Ditch summarizes the whole deal:

When military lawyers warn the Pentagon that interrogation techniques they are looking into may be illegal, then the DOD should know that they need to tread carefully, and to look into the legality of the issue, rather than dive in with reckless disregard for the law.

To which Lindsey Graham replied (paraphrasing here for AP’s sake), “Bunk! It was just an irresponsible and shortsighted job by the lawyers!” I would normally say we have a he said/she said here, and that I’m biased to trust the government over the accusers, but Graham made an odd choice of words that’s troubling. Had he used “wrong and deliberate,” he would have communicated one thing (like the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran), but he chose “irresponsible and shortsighted,” which communicates something entirely different.

In the end, we must look for known facts, and that causes us to dismiss the human rights group’s report because it is just too unsubstantiated. That leaves the Pentagon lawyers, the interrogators and those being interrogated.

Without knowing the Pentagon lawyers, my constructive knowledge tells me staff at State and the CIA have gone out of their way to throw up challenges and embarrassments to the administration, so I can’t reasonably say the Pentagon staff would be any different. Their warnings appear to me to be part good and part reliant on a BDS definition of torture.

As for the interrogators, we rightfully don’t know much. If their techniques were common knowledge, the enemy could train themselves to deal with them. But we do know this: Every interrogator knows the rules; they’re clearly written. And every interrogator does not want to be the next Lynndie England, exposed, shamed and convicted.

That leaves the detainees, who constructive knowledge tells us have been trained to allege torture. In the end, this is the only rock-solid piece of evidence in the entire story. All we can say for certain out of all of this is that despite what the Pentagon lawyers said, despite what the interrogators have said, the only provable fact out of the whole pile is that detainees lie.

So, uncomfortable as this entire matter made me about what my country’s up to, it must remain just that: a discomfort, a confusing addition to my constructive knowledge. In the end, it changes nothing.

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Thanks, Mates!

As expected, Australian PM Kevin Rudd, who won his seat following promises to bring Aussie troops home from Iraq, has ended combat operations so withdrawal can begin. The Aussies were stationed in the south, particularly around Nasiriyah, which has seen its share of violence.

Troops held a ceremony Sunday that included lowering the Australian flag from its position and raising the American flag instead over Camp Terendak in the southern Iraq city of Nasiriyah.

“We have to praise the role of the Australian troops in stabilizing the security situation in the province through their checkpoints on the outskirts of the city,” said Aziz Kadim Alway, the governor of the Dhi Qar province. (AP)

Like the dependable ally they are, the Aussies aren’t just pulling up and running home. Several hundred other troops will remain in Iraq in security and liaison roles, and Australia will leave behind two maritime surveillance aircraft and a warship to help patrol oil platforms in the Gulf.

There were no Digger fatalities during their five-year deployment. Six were injured, one seriously.

One Man, One-Half Vote

Dumb Democrats. The party that railed so vociferously about citizens deprived of votes in 2000 and 2004 has decided voters in Michigan and Florida, who had nothing to do with when their primaries were held, are only half-human. And many Dems are PO’d, as this clip demonstrates:

The agreement, termed “politically astute” by Walter Shapiro in Salon, is anything but. It won’t end the acrimony, as the Clinton camp is talking lawsuits and supporters are threatening to sit out the election. Worse, it avoided the simpler, more politically astute solution: Seating all the delegates and punishing the state party leadership. All the delegates should have been seated (delegates of departed candidates could have been redistributed mathematically), and the to states’ parties’ leaders could have been dinged any number of ways: monetary fines, stripping of leadership roles, whatever.

The Dems punished the wrong people: The People. The Hacks should have been punished. But the Hacks are for Obama this year, so the party of the people threw the people overboard. The DNC and Obama deserve all the rancor and defections the agreement generates.

George Will Calls For Carbon Tax

I normally would rail against a conservative calling for a tax — especially a tax to stop global warming, which we know at the outset will fail to accomplish its goal. But in this case, Will’s got a point that’s worth making: Given a choice between a black hole into which money will be poured for no purpose (the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill, which will be debated in the Senate this week) and a clear, visible and straightforward tax on carbon fuels, the latter is more preferable by far.

Could we have neither, please? Maybe, but given the great excuse global warming provides government to increase its power and tax its citizens, I thought I’d present the crux of Will’s argument:

With cap-and-trade, government would create a right for itself — an extraordinarily lucrative right to ration Americans’ exercise of their traditional rights.

Businesses with unused emission allowances could sell their surpluses to businesses that exceed their allowances. The more expensive and constraining the allowances, the more money government would gain.

If carbon emissions are the planetary menace that the political class suddenly says they are, why not a straightforward tax on fossil fuels based on each fuel’s carbon content? This would have none of the enormous administrative costs of the baroque cap-and-trade regime. And a carbon tax would avoid the uncertainties inseparable from cap-and-trade’s government allocation of emission permits sector by sector, industry by industry. So a carbon tax would be a clear and candid incentive to adopt energy-saving and carbon-minimizing technologies. That is the problem.

A carbon tax would be too clear and candid for political comfort. It would clearly be what cap-and-trade deviously is, a tax, but one with a known cost. Therefore, taxpayers would demand a commensurate reduction of other taxes. Cap-and-trade — government auctioning permits for businesses to continue to do business — is a huge tax hidden in a bureaucratic labyrinth of opaque permit transactions.

Cap and trade is often presented as a free market solution. It is anything but. Citizens concerned about the fragile economy and the failure of government to reduce spending should regale their Senators with letters and calls opposing the bill. For me and other Californians, our useless Barbara Boxer has already come out in strong support of the bill. Natch.

Could The Iranians By Lying?

Lying Iranians?! Say it isn’t so! Those who oppose harsh action against Iran’s nuclear program stand ready to believe that Iran is pursuing nukes for purely peaceful energy-producing reasons. Then why this?

Iran Building 7 Refineries to Hike Capacity

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran is constructing seven refineries in an effort to boost its crude and gas refining capacity by more than 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), a senior oil official said Saturday.

“The construction of seven refineries has started with the investment of 15 billion euros ($23.22 billion),” MNA quoted Aminollah Eskandari, a director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) as saying.

“About 1.56 million barrels will be added to the country’s capacity to refine crude oil and gas derivatives,” he added.

Investing $23 billion of an economically depressed nation’s revenues in power plants it wouldn’t need if it had a nuclear power grid seems even madder than what we’ve come to expect from the Tehraniacs.

Too Little, Too Late

Barack Obama has left Trinity United — one month after Rev. Wright accused the prez wannabe of distancing himself from his true beliefs for political reasons and a week after Michael Pflegar exhibited some of the most flagrant racism in recent time from the Trinity pulpit. Here’s his typically over-long and elegant statement:

In it, Obama blames the media for what’s happened:

But it’s clear that now that I’m a candidate for president, every times something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will be imputed to me, even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles.

He accuses news organizations of harassing members, which is warranted because pack journalism is an ugly thing. It took them a long time to wake up to Rev. Wright, but now that they’re awake, there’s no moderating them.

Obama said he’s leaving the church in part to protect the parishioners from the media onslaught — “That’s just not how people should have to operate in their church.” — but he never says anything about protecting the American people from the crazy, racist, hate that is the stuff of sermons at Trinity.

He has “separated” himself from those teachings, but he has never sufficiently condemned Wright and his teachings for what they are: racist hatemongers.

Water, Water, Not All Around

The other CSM writes (via Environmental News) about water as the next oil, and they’ve got it half-right. We can survive without oil, but not without water — so a massive water shortage will bring suffering, war and death.

Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.

Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”

Socialists are taking note:

“We’re at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need — water — is going to be provided,” says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. “The profit motive and basic human need [for water] are just inherently in conflict.”

Some readers might be surprised that I agree with the socialists on this one. In 1995 we helped preserve a local, public water district fight off a take-over attempt by a private water company. Our research on that case showed that private water companies charged more than public agencies and didn’t invest as much in infrastructure.

Plus, public agencies are better suited to fight off challenges from whacked-out environmentalists, who continue to attack new water infrastructure projects despite mounting evidence of the need to address global water shortages.

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A Memorial Day Miracle

This Memorial Day weekend, it would not be right if tears did not well up at least once over a memory or a story of a brave warrior who fell in battle defending our freedoms.

The story of Marine Sgt. Merlin German isn’t really such a story. After all, he fell three years after the IED explosion that starts this story. Sgt. German was, no doubt, a great Marine. But the public story of his greatness began after Iraq, as he was treated for the burns and injuries he sustained in that explosion. His true heroics were found in his will to survive, and to help others survive, and to lift up everyone around him.

Like this:

But he was closest to his mother. When the hospital’s Holiday Ball approached in 2006, German told Norma Guerra [a hospital worker and mother of a serviceman in Iraq] he wanted to surprise his mother by taking her for a twirl on the dance floor.

Guerra thought he was kidding. She knew it could be agony for him just to take a short walk or raise a scarred arm.

But she agreed to help, and they rehearsed for months, without his mother knowing. He chose a love song to be played for the dance: “Have I Told You Lately?” by Rod Stewart.

That night he donned his Marine dress blues and shiny black shoes — even though it hurt to wear them. When the time came, he took his mother in his arms and they glided across the dance floor.

Everyone stood and applauded. And everyone cried.

AP reporter Sharon Cohen writes a wonderful tribute to Sgt. Germany today, ‘Miracle’ Marine refused to surrender will to live. It is a must-read for this Memorial Day weekend.

Many must be reading it, because the web site for the foundation Sgt. Germany set up to help children with burns, Merlin’s Miracles, has crashed. Make a point of going back when it’s up, and if it looks worthy, make a contribution in his memory.

Meanwhile, In Iraq

Sgt. Miracle would have been pleased with this report:

BAGHDAD (AP) – … Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a military spokesman, said violence has dropped some 70 percent since a U.S. troop buildup began nearly a year ago. …

“You are not going to hear me say that al-Qaida is defeated, but they’ve never been closer to defeat than they are now,” Crocker said, speaking in Arabic to reporters during a visit to the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

Driscoll said the number of attacks in the past week had “decreased to the level not seen since March 2004,” due to recent military operations against Shiite militias in Baghdad’s Sadr City and the southern city of Basra, as well as Sunni insurgents in the northern city of Mosul.

Did you catch that last bit? Iraqi military actions (with our support) against both Shi’ites and Sunnis. How can the Left say we’re not making progress in Iraq?

Governor Romney … Of California?

Mitt Romney has an oceanfront house in escrow in San Diego’s toniest seaside town, La Jolla. San Diego Union Tribune columnist Diane Bell asks:

The question of the day: Could Romney be planning to establish residency in California with an eye on the governor’s seat? Gov. Schwarzenegger is forced out by term limits in 2010. Stay tuned . .

The Death Of Global Warming?

Skeptics haven’t been able to kill it. Ten consecutive years of cooler weather since the last hotest year hasn’t been able to kill it. But politics just might kill global warming.

In England Warmie fanatic and premier Gordon Brown is being counseled to drop extremely unpopular taxes to discourage car use:

Gordon Brown is being urged by ministers to scrap rises in car taxes and petrol duty as he struggles to regain popularity after a humiliating by-election defeat. …

Cabinet colleagues are privately urging him to tackle the issue of motoring costs as a way of helping households struggling with rising fuel, energy and food bills. (Guardian)

And in Japan:

These rugged green mountains, once home to one of Asia’s most productive coal regions, are littered with abandoned mines and decaying towns – backwaters of an economy of bullet trains and hybrid cars. But after decades of seemingly terminal decline, Japan’s coal country is stirring again. With energy prices reaching record highs – oil settled above $135 a barrel on Thursday – Japan’s high-cost mines are suddenly competitive again, and demand for their coal is booming.

That’s from the NYT that also tells us:

In recent months, South Korea has experienced calls to create a domestic coal industry in order to reduce dependence on imports. In the United Kingdom, where coal’s decline became a symbol of withered industrial might, companies are increasing production and considering reopening at least one closed mine as demand for British coal rises.

This is getting good! Just as Greenie politics are getting successful enough to actually impact the economy, politicians are trying to figure out how to bring government facilitation of Warmie fanaticism to an end.

hat-tip: Greenie Watch

Dead Revolutionary

Ah, the romance of the revolutionary life!

The leader of Latin America’s largest and longest- surviving insurgency group, Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, died from a heart attack at the weekend, raising hopes in Colombia that a 44-year-old civil war which has claimed 200,000 lives may finally be drawing to an end. (Times of London)

Let’s recap. Marulanda spent his early life trying to try to overthrow a government so he could be another Castro. He failed miserably in that effort, but continued the obviously failed effort for no other reason than to stay employed, bringing death to thousands in the process.

Were the people made better by his life? Was the world? Of course not. The revolution was nothing more than a means to his ends, and how he’s ended, a failure, an evil that is no more. Now can the rest of FARC join him?

Hysterical Mommies At The NYT

Nervous, nail-biting mommies most have overtaken the NYT editorial board. Here’s what they had to say last week:

Anybody worried about the potential danger from plastic bottles and cups, especially for the very young, should take note. The Canadian government has announced plans to restrict the use of bisphenol-a, or BPA, a chemical used to make hardened plastics. The government would prohibit the sale of baby bottles made with BPA. (Those are the ones with the numeral 7 in the triangle stamp on the bottom).

The editorial goes on to call on Congress to push for a ban of BPA in baby bottles or cups, and to authorize investigations into the use of BPA in bike helmets and baby seats.

I’m sorry, but moms are already too worried about far too many things that don’t deserve their worry, and the NYT should be more careful … more reportorial … before they heap another worry on them. Here’s the Stats Blog on just how unfounded the NYT hysteria is:

There are moments when you wonder whether the world is going insane over the wrong health risks. Take BPA. There is no study showing that BPA harms humans or that BPA leaching from baby bottles poses an actual, measurable risk.

The European Union’s Food Safety Authority conducted a risk assessment focusing on the threat to infants in 2006; it was carried out by 21 independent scientists; it raised the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) by a factor of five; in other words, it found BPA considerably safer than it first thought – so safe a mother could give her baby four times the normal number of bottles per day before reaching the threshold of safe consumption (which has an additional safety factor of 100).

The Japanese government also conducted a risk assessment: no risk; a non-profit international consumer safety organization NSF did a risk assessment under the guidance of Calvin Willhite of the California EPA which was published a couple of months ago: again, no risk. The Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction did a risk analysis last year, and dismissed most of the risks activists had been complaining about for years; but they did have some concern over certain animal studies. Oddly, these studies and the effects were not the one’s commonly touted by anti-BPA activists. The National Toxicology Program agreed with the CERHR, but said there was no cause for alarm.

One common thread in these risk assessments is that some of the scientific research has been rejected. In fact, the same scientific research keeps getting rejected no matter which country is doing the risk assessment.

The Stats Blog, from George Mason University, receives no industry funding. It’s just dedicated to trying to get people to report on statistical analyses more accurately.

Surely, readers deserve editorial writers that do a little bit more in the way of reporting, that are a bit more scientifically savvy, that have the nerve to exercise the journalistic equivalent of the precautionary principle, before igniting panic and telling Congress what it should be doing?

Amen.

Incredible Wife says it’s all well and good, but that glass bottles are better in any case, and if BPA makes them more available again, so much the better. But that’s another story.

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I‘m reading Douglas Feith’s War and Decision on my Kindle, and am finding myself periodically “cutting” pages electronically for filing and future reference, and adding notes regularly — excellent features that make the Kindle a good little reference tool.

This morning, I read Feith’s summary of Rumsfeld’s “Strategic Thoughts” memo that presented to President Bush the Pentagon’s thinking at the conclusion of initial planning for the war in Afghanistan. It’s fascinating to read today, so I’ll present Feith’s narrative and excerpts here. Italicized sections are from the actual memo; non-italicized indented sections are from Feith.

In the “Strategic Thoughts” paper, our main point was that the United States should be focusing on the state actors within the enemy network, which could create a strategic and humanitarian nightmare for us by giving a terrorist group a biological or nuclear weapon that could kill hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions.

This purpose, so vivid in the days after 9/11, has faded now for many, but continues to be very real as Iran pursues its bomb, Islamists struggle to take over Pakistan, and intelligence reports of terrorist queries into various WMD components continue to trouble those who think rationally.

One way to disrupt terrorist groups was to compel their state sponsors to change policies on terrorism and on weapons of mass destruction. This could be done, we reasoned, through military action against some of the state sponsors, and pressure– short of war — against others. The effectiveness of the diplomatic pressure would hinge to some extent on the success of our military actions.

Contrast that with Obama’s no preconditions, no military presence in Iraq approach.

In some cases, we would get leverage by aiding local opposition groups, rather than sending U.S. forces to take the lead in overthrowing foreign regimes. The regimes that supported terrorism tended to be oppressive domestically as well as aggressive internationally, so there were opposition groups in various countries that we could assist as a way of pressuring the leaders there. The U.S. “strategic theme,” Rumsfeld advised the president, should be “aiding local peoples to rid themselves of terrorists and to free themselves of regimes that support terrorism.”

We are seeing this work in Iraq today as local citizens are contributing information that is putting al-Qaeda on the run, but in general, the long war in Iraq is preventing us from implementing enough of this strategic theme elsewhere in Repressistan.

The United States could set up the pattern in Afghanistan by supporting the anti-Taliban and anti-al-Qaeda militias:

Air strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban targets are planned to begin soon. But, especially in the war’s initial period, I think US military action should stress:

• indirect (through local, non-US forces) action, in coordination with and in support of opposition groups;

• direct use of US forces initially primarily to deliver logistics, intelligence and other support to opposition groups and humanitarian supplies to NGOs and refugees, and subsequently
• on-the-ground action against the terrorists as individuals — leaders and others …

This is not at all as the war turned out, although it is pretty much how the war is today.

Rumsfeld cautioned that the United States should be restrained on air strikes until we had sufficient intelligence to mandate “impressive (worthwhile) strikes” against al Qaeda and other targets. In an especially remarkable passage, he also advised the President that victory in in the war on terrorism would require geopolitical changes substantial enough to cause every regime supporting terrorists to worry about its vulnerability:

If the war does not significantly change the world’s political map, the U.S. will not achieve its aim. There is value in being clear on the order of magnitude of the necessary change. The USG [U.S. government] should envision a goal along these lines:

• New regimes in Afghanistan and [some other states] that support terrorism (to strengthen political and military policies elsewhere.

• Syria and Lebanon.
• Dismantlement or destruction of WMD in [key states]
• End of many other countries’ support or tolerance of terrorism.

Feith does not reveal the other states where regime change and destruction of WMD capabilities were envisioned; presumably they are Iraq, Iran and North Korea (and Syria and Cuba to a lesser extent). Two of the three biggies still exist and there is little sign that we have moved them one bit off their positions immediately post 9-11. We have done much, but not enough, to stop other countries’ support of or tolerance for terrorism, but these bullets are still largely unrealized.

Rumsfeld again raised the idea of deferring military strikes in Afghanistan:

• It would instead be surprising and impressive if we built our forces up patiently, took some early action outside of Afghanistan, perhaps in multiple locations, and began not exclusively or primarily with military strikes but with train-and-equip activities with local opposition forces and humanitarian aid and intense information operations.

• We could thereby:

• Garner actionable intelligence on lucrative targets, which we do not now have.

• Reduce emphasis on images of US killing Moslems from the air.
• Signal that our goal is not merely to damage terrorist-supporting regimes but to threaten their regimes by becoming partners with their opponents.
• Capitalize on our strong suit, which is not finding a few hundred terrorists in caves in Afghanistan, but in the vastness of our military and humanitarian resources, which can strengthen the opposition forces in terrorist-supporting states.

I am impressed with the clarity and visionary quality this original strategic framework for the GWOT. It is a decidedly American strategy, predicated on our military capabilities, for sure, but also on the belief that people will strive for freedom. It is also typically American in that it is designed to avoid unnecessary deaths and promote humanitarian responses.

It is not, unfortunately, entirely as the war has worked out. “Misunderestimating” the distrust of America in Muslim lands and the ability of Sunni and Shi’ia terror groups to exploit that misunderstanding in the early years of the war ended up focusing our efforts almost exclusively on only two theaters of war, and on war more than humanitarianism. (Yes, of course the humanitarianism is there, but it is not the world’s focus due to the successful efforts of our enemies to refocus attention on violence.) As a result, we are seen too much as occupiers and not enough as liberators; a false perception, but much of the world’s perception nonetheless.

Feith’s book is showing me that there was much more careful thought going into the GWOT than the left would have us believe. There were no cowboys. But it also shows that war is not as much about well laid plans as it is about what really happens once forces are set into action — and if we made more of that in our strategic planning, we might not be as likely to get into difficult, almost intractable situations, as we have in Iraq.

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Will there be no “General Betray Us” this time around, as Gen. David Petraeus faces Senate confirmation for his appointment to U.S. Central Command? One might think so, reading this:

WASHINGTON (AP)- A top Democrat has indicated he supports President Bush’s decision to promote Gen. David Petraeus to head U.S. Central Command and Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno as the next commander of troops in Iraq.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee, said confirmation of the nominations would enable unprecedented continuity of leadership in Iraq by officers whose knowledge of the war effort is unparalleled.

Smooth sailing, then? I think not, and so does CNS:

“I don’t think there is any anticipation of trying to block the confirmation of Petraeus,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Cybercast News Service at a Capitol press conference.

“But the three of us [Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.] have talked about questions we think ought to be asked Petreaus,” said Reid. “I think there are a lot of questions members of that [Armed Services] committee have and that senators who are not in that committee have.”

Reid seems to be having some trouble counting … I get to four on that calculation. Be that as it may, Petraeus should brace himself for some tough questions because the Dems will be using him as a proxy to question Pres. Bush:

“I don’t anticipate [an effort to block the nomination],” said Levin. “You have to remember this Iraq strategy is a Bush strategy. I want to hold Bush accountable. He is the guy who is responsible. The buck stops with him. I want to hold the president, who is the civilian leader, accountable for the strategy and not act as if the military people have the final say, because they don’t.”

So expect the usual Dem “blindsight” — you know, the inability to see what’s in front of them.

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Mark Steyn does it again, summarizing all I’ve thought about Obama’s snitty response to Bush’s Knesset (not Parliament) speech, and getting it just right:

Yes, there are plenty of Democrats who are in favor of negotiating with our enemies, and a few Republicans, too – President Bush’s pal James Baker, whose Iraq Study Group was full of proposals to barter with Iran and Syria and everybody else. But that general line is also taken by at least three of Tony Blair’s former Cabinet ministers and his senior policy adviser, and by the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party and by a whole bunch of bigshot Europeans. It’s not a Democrat election policy, it’s an entire worldview. Even Barack Obama can’t be so vain as to think his fly-me-to-[insert name of enemy here] concept is an original idea.

Increasingly, the Western world has attitudes rather than policies. It’s one thing to talk as a means to an end. But these days, for most midlevel powers, talks are the end, talks without end. Because that’s what civilized nations like doing – chit-chatting, shooting the breeze, having tea and crumpets, talking talking talking. Uncivilized nations like torturing dissidents, killing civilians, bombing villages, doing doing doing. It’s easier to get the doers to pass themselves off as talkers then to get the talkers to rouse themselves to do anything.

And those well-crafted words brings me to what I feel, increasingly, is wrong with our position in Iraq.

I read of the Druze “300″ valiantly standing between the ambitions of Syria and Iran to overwhelm Lebanon in order to assume a power position over Israel and give Syria a port for transshipment of weapons from Iran and NoKo, and I think, why aren’t we fighting alongside the Druze?

Why don’t we have an adequate force on the ground with air support, to stop the advance of the Hezbollah – Syria – Iran front? Why aren’t we using our military assets to give Lebanon breathing room?

We’re not fighting this short war because we are tied up with the long war. There are similar opportunities in Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines and the Gulf — like precise attacks on Iran Revolutionary Guard facilities near the Iranian border — but the long war is limiting our options.

I’m reading Doug Fieth’s War and Decision, and going back to the first days after 9/11, we see these bursts of short wars to very much be in the initial response planning. Remember, we are supposed to be fighting terror and those who support terror, not just al-Qaeda. The Pentagon planners envisioned military actions in Africa, Asia and even South America to take out terrorists and their support network.

Then Iraq and Afghanistan turned into long wars.

The fact that they did turn into long wars maybe shows that the short war option may not be viable. Can we strike here and there and change things? If we support the Druze, can we save Lebanon, or will saving Lebanon require another long war?

A good question, for sure, but perhaps the best way to answer it is to try the short war option. Seize the ship with the weapons. Knock out the training camp. Close the bank account. Stop the next Janjaweed attack in Darfur. Capture the terror-king and his henchmen and transport them to some unknown prison for a friendly debriefing.

Do. Do. Do. We are doing a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan; we are converting whole societies bit by bit, allowing them to taste freedom from extremism and tyranny. It’s time to do more elsewhere. I don’t hear any presidential candidates talking about this, but as we draw down our troops in Iraq over the next few years, transferring authority to a more stable Iraqi government and a better trained Iraqi army and police force, we need to consider “where next?” for our hegemonic military.

We can go anywhere and do just about anything, so let’s do hurry up with getting a few tens of thousands of troops available to support freedom and trounce terror in theaters around the globe.

This is not going to be the Global War on Terror until we take it to the terrorists globally.

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A friend took issue with Prez Bush’s words in Jerusalem yesterday, specifically this part where he spoke about democracy spreading throughout the Middle East.

From Cairo and Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy, tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, where today’s oppression is a distant memory and people are free to speak their minds and develop their talents. And al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists’ vision and the injustice of their cause.

He put his concerns into an e-mail last night, and I didn’t get a chance to answer him today, so …

You often tell me, “it isn’t so, just because you say it’s so…”

This sage advice [Suck up! (I love it.)] can be directly applied to today’s comments, and in fact, his entire policy for the region.

“We’ll be welcomed as liberators…”

As it happens, we were welcomed as liberators. But that was before Iraq turned John Kerry on us and didn’t welcome us as liberators after they welcomed us as liberators. Let me count the countries where people pray that some day they will be welcoming us as liberators …

“Mission accomplished.”

Granted, not a perfect PR moment, but it’s been exploited by the Lying Left. They know the mission that was referenced was the toppling of Saddam’s brutal, repressive, murdering rein, a mission that had, in fact, had been accomplished.

“Saddam Hussein is proliferating WMDs…”

I’m amazed that as bright my friend is, he still repeats these easily rebuttable lies. He must know that our intelligence matched up against Germany’s and England’s and Russia’s. He must know that his own beloved Bill Clinton thought Saddam had WMDs. He must know that Saddam was squirreling away money he stole from Oil-for-Food, intending to spend it on WMDs the first moment he could. And he must know that Saddam frustrated UN weapons inspectors at every turn, increasing the rationality of the “Saddam has WMDs” position.

And on, and on, and on…

Bottom line, it is not even close to so, yet he continues to say it is
so.

So because democracy hasn’t spread throughout the Middle East in five short years, we’re supposed to give up on the entire concept and leave that entire huge part of the world continue in its totalitarian, Islamo-theocratic dungeon? And leave the future of the world to the jihadists?

We have two alternatives: Hide behind our borders, something al-Qaeda taught us we cannot do, or continue to try to bring liberation and freedom to the oppressed people on our planet. I’ll choose the latter.

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Words sometimes just cannot express the rank ugliness of Islamic terror. As a communications professional, I’ve found in cases like this, it’s best to let the ugliness speak for itself, so:

A young girl carrying explosives that killed her, an Iraqi captain and injured four soldiers was blown up by remote control, officials said today.

The incident happened as she approached an Iraqi command post in Youssifiyah, south Baghdad, earlier this morning.

Iraqi army Lieutenant Ahmed Ali confirmed that the girl, who had hidden explosives strapped to her, was the cause of the blast. …

“The bomber was detonated by remote control, killing Captain Wassem al-Maamouri and injuring four soldiers,” Ali added. (the Guardian)

Just to clarify for any confused readers out there, here’s a photo of how we treat young girls in Iraq.

How old is a “young” girl, anyway? Twelve? Eight? Younger? Whatever her young age, she was obviously too young to be counted on to be a noble martyr Hell-bound hooligan in Islam’s war on all that is free and modern, so al-Qaeda in Iraq just murdered her instead.

Obama and the Left will look at this as more chaos, and more reason to leave Iraq. Who strapped the explosives to their intellect and detonated it remotely? Terrorist Islamists are not people who should be given the boost a US defeat in Iraq would give them.

Every day we’re there, more of these scum are killed and their infrastructure becomes less effective, as is evidenced by the fact that they must resort to remotely detonating young girls and mentally retarded women — actions far more pathetic than Japan’s use of suicide pilots in their last gasp before defeat in the Pacific.

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Mr. President, send out the letter today canning this guy. He’s Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, and from what I can tell, he’s using our troops to wrangle some more money from his programs.

How else can you explain this?

The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government’s top psychiatric researcher said.

Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven’t provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in Washington.

Really? These are numbers we can believe?

Let’s see. There have been about 4,500 deaths of US troops on both fronts and 430 suicides among the 1.7 million US troops that have served in the two combat theaters.

For Insel’s prediction to come true, suicide frequency will have to grow ten-fold. While that seems unlikely at first blush, you have to remember that when the war ends, the number of combat fatalities will stop growing, but suicides will continue for years afterwards. Insel is obviously figuring that over time, the suicide stats will slowly build until one day they pass combat fatalities.

But how long will have to pass before Insel will say that war was not the primary factor in the suicide? Two? Ten? Twenty? It is improbable that even without enough mental health clinics in rural areas that Insel’s prediction will come true within a reasonable number of years.

Besides, will every suicide of a war vet be attributed to the war even when there are obviously other more significant factors?

Finally, in blaming the lack of government-funded mental health facilities, Insel overlooks other sources of counseling: health insurance funded programs, a guy whipping out his wallet and paying for it himself, families taking care of their own, or counseling through churches and other caring organizations.

It couldn’t be more obvious that Insel is trolling for dollars and has figured out a way to cook the stats to justify the argument.

Look, I think anything less than first class care for returning vets stinks, especially since the cost differential between so-so care and stellar care is inconsequential. A lot of returning vets will need counseling and they should be able to get it. If they’re living far out in the sticks, they may have to go somewhere other than a neat little clinic funded by NIMH. C’est la vie. People who live in the country understand this phenomenon and choose to live there nonetheless; it doesn’t mean every West Virginia holler and Oklahoma crossroads needs an NIMH crew at the ready.

What I don’t like is a federal bucks-hunter distorting the problem, then riding it into the budget gladiator arena, hoping it’s the right weapon to take money away from some other deserving program — especially when his weapon of choice reflects badly on on war effort and the valiant men and women who are fighting it.

One suicide is too many … especially when someone is exploiting it.

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I recently had a run of exceptionally rude comments from Navigator, a Brit who has a decidedly anti-American POV, which is fine if it’s well articulated, but this is the kind of revisionist junk he spewed:

News flash – America didnt [sic] join WW1 and 2 out of any sort of altruistic inclination.

Remember Japan? India and Burma is on the other side of that front. British Indian troops fought on the other front in Indo- China to help rescue you guys or have you forgotten that part of the story?

No, I hadn’t really forgotten and I can give credit, not sneering abuse. Neither had I forgotten the truly decisive battles we waged Island-hopping the Pacific. Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima. Rescue us? Interesting way of looking at it.

I answered his claims that America is swill in world opinion by asking why Italy and France moved towards us in their last elections, and he answered in part:

[Y]ou’re showing your ignorance and arrogance by thinking the world revolves around the US once again. Naples (thats in Italy) is buried in garbage, unemplyment [sic] is high and economic growth in Italy is restricted to the cities. In short, domestic crisis. Berlesconi is a businessman so for dosmestic interests he has been re-elected.

All I’d said is the Berlesconi is more aligned with Bush than he is with England’s pathetic government, which is hardly grounds for accusing me of thinking the world revolves around the US. But tell me a nation it revolves around more. The failure of the Italian economy is emblematic of the failure of the Euro-Socialist mega-state, a government model England has embraced and America, thank God, has thus far been able to reject.

I could go on, but why subject you? I only bring Navigator up because I thought of him when I read this in the Times of London (a name, by the way, he insulted me for using, claiming it was the Times of Great Britain):

Young women are daring to wear jeans, soldiers listen to pop music on their mobile phones and bands are performing at wedding parties again.

All across Iraq’s second city life is improving, a month after Iraqi troops began a surprise crackdown on the black-clad gangs who were allowed to flourish under the British military.

That was not written by an American reporter who thinks the world revolves around the US. It was written by a Brit about a country a big chunk of the world (including us) used to revolve around.

I have a small idea what happened in Basra and why the British command failed to adapt to the situation as well as we did, but I have a much better understanding of why the British crown failed here: arrogance, inflexibility, greed and outmoded military tactics.

I love Great Britain. I have enjoyed my visits there immensely, we love Incredible Wife’s Aston, and their culture and history are indelibly intertwined with ours. It’s a shame they also have a rude, bull-headed leftist minority full of bile and anger — but hey, that’s just another similarity between our two great nations.

Navigator would do his nation a much greater service if he would redirect his rancor against the EU, because that is the real threat to his country, not us. It threatens to homogenize Europe into a tasteless, over-regulated, PC shell of what it once was.

In closing, the Brits have re-engaged in Basra, and we all thank them for their improved effort and assistance in the recent fighting. But the victory there is the Iraqis’ — and if people like Navigator would remove their blinders and see the results of victory, perhaps they would understand that what we are fighting for is worth it.

(A note to Navigator: As a service to my readers, who prefer discourse to barroom brawls, I have blocked you from posting comments [I think I have, anyway]. You are free to send me any comments via email; my address is near the top of the right column.)

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