Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Hi Tom, I was trying to hide over here on rants to avoid further discussion with you on Iraq

As I told a friend recently, I don't believe we had bin Laden in our grasp or sights and then just let go because those exact fighters of ours were suddenly needed in Iraq.  In Afghanistan, we have more allies helping us, and like you say we had more immediate justification.  OTOH, once al Qaida leadership fled, we are left to fight the Taliban whose main 'crime' was to harbor al Qaida (who fled).  The story of heroin crop yields seems to me as just negativists looking for data and finding it.  Are we managing crops fields or fighting terror.  Afghanistan pre-war was an economy, as George Gilder put it, incapable of manufacturing a flashlight.  BTW, isn't the plant of heroin also source of legal drugs such as morphine I received after being hit by a car?

You supported the invasion then.  You support staying now.  We all suffer war fatigue and for me I am experiencing that lakeside, sipping something cool on a beautiful and comfortable Minnesota summer afternoon.  Imagine how the soldiers feel in desert heat.

So we second guess and use hindsight to judge strategies, and that's okay.  That's what these boards are for.  We should have surged sooner? Maybe. We should have known this would be difficult.  Maybe we needed our accumulated knowledge base in Iraq for this surge to succeed, if it is.  And maybe these tactics would have cost more lives if tried sooner.  I don't know.  For me, rather than blame the prosecutors of the war, it is a little more obvious to blame the dissenters of the war for lifting the spirits and giving the enemy encouragement to keep going in spite of all the errors they too have made.

Americans will stay on to watch the peace post-war?  I suppose so.  We are still in europe and Asia.   Not really a hidden agenda when the repeated theme is to fight them there so we won't have to fight them here.

A brief political insight from Paul Mirengoff of Powerlineblog.com this week.   Opposing replies welcome. 

The difference between a liberal and a leftist

Democrats are fond of arguing that we should withdraw from Iraq so we can fight more effectively on the "real" battlefields in the war on terror in Afghanistan and perhaps Pakistan. But at the Contentions blog, Max Boot maintains that defeat in Iraq will make it more difficult to fight in Afghanistan and to counter terrorists in Pakistan. Boot points to a report in the Washington Post that Pakistan's dictator Musharraf has complained that his leverage over tribal militants has slipped because their leaders are less fearful of the U.S. given our difficulties in Iraq. Boot suggests that U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would accentuate this trend.

The point is a rather obvious one -- failure to succeed at war reduces a nation's ability to exert influence and emboldens a nation's enemies and potential enemies. This may not be a rationale for continuing to fight a lost cause. However, recent developments in Iraq strongly suggest that the cause there is not lost.

If the Democrats push for defeat in Iraq under these circumstances, it would be difficult not to conclude that either (a) they would like to see the U.S. unable to exert influence in the world or (b) they have no understanding of how the world works. Option (a) provides a good working definition of an American leftist; option (b) of an American liberal.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2159249.ece

The Sunday Times (of London)
July 29, 2007
Musharraf risks civil war as he invades the Al-Qaeda badlands
Pakistan’s president takes on the Islamic militants who have set up a rogue state on his country’s wild north

IN North Waziristan, the wild border land that America hopes will be Osama Bin Laden’s graveyard, the normally busy roads are almost deserted and the fear is pervasive. Army helicopters sweep the valleys at night hunting for Al-Qaeda militants as troops and gunmen exchange artillery and rocket fire.

America and Britain regard this usually autonomous tribal area - where Bin Laden is long believed to have been hiding - as the logistics centre of Islamic terrorist attacks around the world.

President Pervez Musharraf sees it as the centre of a campaign to “Talibanise” Pakistan. Spurred on by Washington, he has abandoned a truce with Waziristan’s Islamist guerrillas and ordered his army to root them out.

There are believed to be about 8,000 gunmen – a mix of foreign Al-Qaeda volunteers, Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Islamists and local Waziris whose families have for centuries fought off any attempt to impose outside rule on this area. In modern times, even map-makers have been shot to hide the region’s mysteries from the outside world.

Last week soldiers sealed all the roads into Miran Shah, the provincial capital, occupied the hills around it and fired the first artillery salvo in what Musharraf’s many critics have called a war on his own people.

On Friday morning the army moved into parts of Miran Shah itself after militants blew up government buildings overnight. Most of the 60,000 townspeople are feared trapped, but hundreds of families have fled their mud homes in villages nearby and headed east for the sanctuary of Bannu, a town in the neighbouring North West Frontier province.

Quoting Tom:"THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESCTRUCTION when we invaded Iraq.
Simple as that. There fore the excuse for going into Iraq due to the fact theres was no WMD just dosen't fly..."

All the best intelligence in the world said there was and the burden of proof was on him .  There is no do-over.  All the best intelligence still says he maintained everything necessary to re-constitute his  'past' programs.  Are you now saying his shell game compliance was sufficient or that his previous surrender agreement was not binding?

"Ia'm no Bush lied person"  - ok, but you wrote recently: "my opinon a personal vendetta by Bush", that's a pretty fine distinction IMO.

"If you read my posts you'll see where I have stated several times my support for the Iraq war and I voted for Bush twice...Iam one who at least can admit we F'D that one WAY UP."

That you have changed your view doesn't mean for certain that you are correct now.   - Doug

"Doug, If you want to hold on to the WMD thingy I also got a hand full of air for you...with about as much substance."

Didn't appreciate the ridicule.  My reasons follow; you are welcome to discount each piece as you see fit.  IMO the 'Bush lied' crowd is over-hyping their hand more than Bush, Blair, Powell, Cheney did.

Nuclear: Israel struck the Osirak facility in 1981 and the Americans finished it off in 1991.  Best information I know of concludes that Saddam was working on nuclear capabilities.  Even Joe Wilson's original report said he was trying to buy yellow cake in Niger.

He gassed his own people, right? Evidence: witnesses and mass graves.  The Downing Street memos said the Brits feared he would use WMD Bio and/or Chem against the liberators.  To not find stockpiles after giving a year to hide, move, transfer or destroy doesn't prove anything to me.  I think the 'lies' (exaggerations) about WMD capabilities came from Saddam's inner circle.  A bad move for him in hindsight.  I'll tack on further WMD info at the end of the post.

"Proof is in the pudding,so they say....as for the ties to terrorism.......don't suppose you could name any for instances could you? I mean actual for instances...not just accusational or theory ones."

Sorry I don't know where your distinction between actual and accusatory lies.  I'm only telling you why I believe what I do, not trying to change your mind or 'prove' you wrong. 1) Saddam's regime provided major financial support for suicide bombers; I didn't know that was still in dispute. 2) Saddam's Iraq was tied to the first WTC bombing in 1993.  3) Actively shooting at US planes doing their lawful UN enforcement routes. 4) Gassed his own people.  Terror, right? 5) Terror inside Iraq such as the story of Dujaille.  Have you read the story that led to his death sentence and just hanging.  Certainly it was all about using terror to hold on to power.  How else did he win 99.9$ of the vote? 5) Attempted Assassination of President Bush by Iraqi Agents, April 14, 1993.  I don't b elieve you have to be the target's son for a sitting President to take that act personally.  6) Ties to al Qaida.  Iraq Study group concluded: NO COLLABORATIVE, OPERATIONAL RELATIONSHIP.  I find that more parsed than Clinton pondering the meaning of what is is.  They didn't say no relationship.  They didn't say no meetings.  The didn't say no harboring or training camps.  And they didn't say no common enemy as a motive.  Remember the action in Iraq was not to avenge 9/11, it was to preempt future attacks. 

A bizarre story always stuck in my mind that no one else seems to care about.  I'm happy to post here if it wasn't covered back then.  Saddam's state newspaper named the targets than bin Laden would hit 2 MONTHS before 9/11.  It was subtle and in the floweriest of terms and had no real meaning without hindsight, then became prescient.  On July 21, 2001 [less than two months prior to 911] the Iraqi state-controlled newspaper "Al-Nasiriya" predicted that bin Laden would attack the U.S. "with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House." The same state-approved column also insisted that bin Laden "will strike America on the arm that is already hurting," and that the U.S. "will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs" - an apparent reference to the Sinatra classic, "New York, New York."  This was entered into the Congressional Record on Sept.12 2002  by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC). http://www.uscg.mil/Legal/Homeland_legislation/Text/091202%20Homeland%20Security.txt http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=S8526&dbname=2002_record
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WMD programs and capabilities continued:

Nuclear
   
    * Acquired nuclear material for small civilian nuclear program during the Atoms for Peace program in the mid-1950s.
    * Nuclear weapons program began in mid 1970s as a response to a perceived Israeli nuclear weapons program.
    * 1976, a $300 million deal completed between the French and the Iraqis for two nuclear reactors: a 40MW(th) reactor that the French dubbed "Osirak," and an 800kW(th) reactor called Isis. The Iraqis called the reactors Tammuz-1 and Tammuz-2.
    * Osirak (Tammuz-1) was destroyed by an Israeli aerial bombing campaign in June, 1981.
    * In 1990, Iraq launched a crash program to divert reactor fuel under IAEA safeguards to produce nuclear weapons.
    * Iraq considered two delivery options for nuclear weapons: either using unmodified al-Hussein ballistic missile with 300km range, or producing Al-Hussein derivative with 650km range.
    * Until 1991, Iraq had a nuclear weapon development program that involved 10,000 personnel, and had a multi-year budget totaling approximately $10 billion.
    * After the Gulf War of 1991, the Iraqi nuclear weapons program progressively decayed due to Coalition bombing and UNSCOM disarmament efforts.
    * April 1991, UNSC Resolution 687 adopted enabling the IAEA to carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's nuclear capabilities and carry out a plan for the destruction, removal or rendering harmless of prohibited items.
    * August 1991, UNSC Resolution 707 adopted demanding Iraq "halt all nuclear activities of any kind, except for use of isotopes for medical, agricultural, or industrial purposes."
    * Saddam retained intellectual capital (scientists) for the possibility for restarting a nuclear program post 1991.
        * November 15th, 1991, the first removal of highly enriched uranium from Iraq. An IAEA cargo flight carrying 42 fresh fuel elements from the IRT-5000 5 megawatt light water research reactor at Al Tuwaitha, and 6.6 kilograms of uranium-235 left Baghdad for Moscow.
    * Iraq Survey Group's (ISG) inquiry found Iraq concealed elements of its nuclear program from inspectors after 1991, including the hiding of documents, technology, and attempting to maintain the brain trust of scientists who had earlier worked on the nuclear program; this conclusion echoes the statements made by Hussein Kamel upon his defection in 1995.
    * In 2004 Jafar Dhia Jafar, former head of Iraq's nuclear agency, announces all weapons programs had been destroyed after 1991, at which point they had been 2-3 years away from producing a nuclear weapon (2006-2007).
   
Biological
   
    * Signed the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention in 1972. The Convention prohibited development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons.
    * The Iraqi Ministry of Defense published a manual in 1987 entitled Principles of Using Chemical and Biological Agents in Warfare, including a section on military use of biological agents with instruction for small attacks and sabotage operations before a general offensive begins.
    * The timing of the publications suggests the use of such tactics in the Iran-Iraq war.
    * Iraq authorized use of BW against Israel, Saudi Arabia and US forces prior to the 1991 Gulf war, should the need arise.
    * Post 1991, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 687, authorizing UNSCOM and the IAEA to implement on-site inspections of the facilities in Iraq believed to be related to WMD production.
    * Resolution 687 required Iraq to declare and destroy all holdings of biological weapons.
    * Upon commencement of the inspections, Iraq declared despite a biological weapons research and design program for defense purposes, no offensive biological weapons (BW) program existed.
    * Ratified the BTWC on 4/18/91, as required by the Gulf War cease-fire agreement.
    * 1995, Saddam's son-in-law and advisor General Hussein Kamel defected and admitted to destroying all weapons programs, including biological, though research and design elements were preserved.
    * Iraq acknowledged open-air testing of biological agents between March 1988 and January 1991 including Bacillus anthracis, Bacillus subtilis, botulinum toxin, aflatoxin, and ricin at facilities such as al-Muhammadiyat, Khan Bani Saad, Jurf al-Sakr Firing Range, and the Abu Obeydi Airfield.
    * Conducted research on BW dissemination using unmanned aerial vehicles.
   
Chemical
   
    * Established Chemical Corps in the mid-1960s, foundation of the future CW program. The Corps were tasked with the nuclear, biological and chemical protection of Iraqi troops and civilians.
    * Mid 1970s, the Corps developed a laboratory-scale facility which later synthesized chemical warfare agents and evaluated their properties.
    * Repeatedly used CW against Iraqi Kurds in 1988 and against Iran in 1983-1988 during the Iran-Iraq war.
    * Due to CW success in the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam viewed this type of warfare as efficient and necessary in defensive and offensive strategy.
    * Saddam considered his chemical weapons program to be a deterrent to Coalition forces moving toward Baghdad in 1991.
    * ISG found all CW holdings had been destroyed in 1991 after the Gulf War as a result of Saddam's desire to have sanctions lifted.
    * Throughout the 1990s, Iraq maintained a trust of scientists that had worked on the previous CW program.
    * Chemical programs were reinstituted in the mid-1990s due to a brief period of economic recovery.
    * An extensive CW arsenal–including 38,537 munitions, 690 tons of CW agents, and over 3,000 tons of CW precursor chemicals–was destroyed by UNSCOM prior to the inspectors' withdrawal in 1998.
   

Regarding the MN Daily piece "Who is the enemy"  from my alma mater, the student newspaper at the U. of MN,  that assessment doesn't match what Gen. Petraeus said last week.  I see from Bob Woodward's column that the Michael Hayden report was from Nov. 2006, probably the lowest point in the war.  Petraeus this year makes a very different analysis.

Seems to me the question of 'who is the enemy' is different from the question of where is violence coming from.  That distinction is lost in the piece.  If we are fighting against Sunnis, Shia (and Kurds?) then all is obviously lost.  The other theory is that the public for the most part and most leaders of Sunni, Shia and Kurd groups as well as the central government are with us wanting security, stability, peace and political settlement.  If that is true then an insurgency can be defeated, but only with a determined fight over a long period of time.

ps. I see war opponents quick to quote CIA information when negative but aren't previous CIA errors also the centerpiece of what has gone wrong so far?

I highly recommend listening to Charlie Rose interviewing NY Time Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns on Tues. July 17: http://www.charlierose.com/schedule/  Sorry I can't find a transcript.  Burns argues very persuasively that American military forces are an inhibitor, not a provocateur of the violence in Iraq and that there will be a cataclysmic escalation of violence if the Americans forces leave.  He acknowledges there is also enormous cost and makes no judgment on the issue of withdrawal.  He says: " After all, I'm a reporter."  He calls the issue in congress an agonizing, agonizing decision.

I heard General Petraeus interviewed on the radio yesterday and found it to be a worthwhile listen or read for what is happening there right now.
Audio link (34 minutes)here: http://www.townhall.com/talkradio/Show.aspx?RadioShowID=5
Transcript: http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=484182dc-bf7c-42a7-ac74-9e270a9ef0f2

The North Koreans shut down a known reactor and the South Koreans delivered oil to them.  The difference between this and the Clinton agreement is that this administration is reacting with caution, acknowledging that other covert reactors may still exist.  Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright reacted with an end zone dance that could have made Randy Moss blush.

What I fail to grasp is why a rogue NK is useful to China in 2007. 
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National Security Director Steven Hadley on Fox News Sunday: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289361,00.html

"It's a first step in implementing an agreement that was reached last February, which is part of an overall framework of a year ago September, and under that framework, they need to give up their entire nuclear program."

[Understood. But what effect — what practical effect does the shutdown at Yongbyon have on their ability to continue to produce nuclear devices?]

"It means they will no longer be able to process to produce the plutonium from which they — of those nuclear weapons that are made out of plutonium.  We have concerns they may have a covert enrichment program. That will be the next subject of discussions..."

[And that's a uranium deal, right?]

"This is basically enriching uranium to the point where it can be used for nuclear weapons."

[Harder to do than with plutonium, correct?]

"Harder to do. We've had concerns they have a covert program. They at one point admitted that program.  But the route that they have used to date is the reprocessing route. That will be shut down. That route will be cut off, assuming these facilities are shut down.  We will then pursue to work through toward disabling, ultimately dismantling that program, getting a full accounting of what they've been doing with any covert enrichment program, and finally getting them to turn over any nuclear materials from which nuclear weapons have or could be made."

I don't know what happened to Paul Craig Roberts but I liked him better before.  He enjoys the by-line of working for Reagan and the WSJ in the past but didn't get those jobs by advancing the types of views he writes now for anti-war.com and for 911 conspiracy sites.  His impeach-now view would make sense if he backed up his Bush staged the terrorism claim with a shred of evidence. No matter what actions Bush does or does not take with Iran, we aren't going to be in a "dictatorial police state" next year.  The '08 elections will be held on schedule, and it was misguided Jihadists, not an American conspiracy, who brought down the towers. JMHO.

Replying to a couple of recent posts here:

"Is he (Dick Morris) suggesting the individual cap gains should be taxed at the same rate as income?!?" - I think he is comparing her to the further left positions of Obama and Edwards.  Also, I think 50 states tax capital gains same as ordinary income (a crime IMO); the states were laughing to the bank when the fed rate was cut.

"Does anyone know what rate corporations pay on cap gains?" - 35% vs. 15% individual: http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/kerpen200604110850.asp

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Commenting on the Richard Viguerie piece attacking Fred Thompson as no conservative leader:

First evidence shown is his former support for McCain Feingold, terrible legislation.  He now agrees at least parts of that were a mistake.  To me that was already the biggest issue that I disagree with Fred on, so the criticism provides no new light and skips intentionally the fact that he has had second thoughts.

Viguerie admits Thompson is more conservative than Giuliani, McCain or Romney.  From a conservative point of view, isn't that the point.  He goes on to show how Thompson with his moderate friends can't be painted into a far-right corner.  Isn't that the rest of the point - winning.

Thompson isn't pro-life enough? He's running against Giuliani - prochoice.  Then against Hillary Clinton most likely.  The President's role in this is to appoint good justices.  Seems to me both Giuliani and Thompson would do that.  Thompson played a leading role with the John Roberts confirmation.

A ho-hum career in the senate.  Yes, each vote can be picked apart.  Likewise for Hillary and Obama.  Great senators have different skills and strengths than great Presidents.  Thompson didn't find a permanent place for himself in the senate even though he could have easily won another term.  At 8 years he is still on par with his likely opponents.

I noticed the anti-Thompson opinions have picked up since both Rasmussen and Zogby show Thompson slightly edging Giuliani in their latest polls.  All before announcing.  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-192.html

I find that Thompson has quite a gift for expressing conservative views unapologetically. Viguerie says he doesn't have prominent conservatives in his inner circle.  In that case, like Reagan, it must be Thompson himself writing his own very clearly articulated conservative views.

VDH wrote about the threat to civil liberties this past week.  Always a worthwhile read IMO.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/the_real_threat_to_civil_liber.html
July 02, 2007
The Real Threat to Civil Liberties
By Victor Davis Hanson

A common liberal complaint against the Bush administration is its supposed trampling of civil liberties. The Patriot Act, wiretaps, and Guantanamo supposedly have undermined our freedoms--or so we are warned ad nauseam by liberal watchdogs.

True, we have not received any detailed analysis or cost/benefit ratios of how many deadly terrorist plots have been circumvented by these new controversial measures. The administration's past defense of tough interrogations abroad of suspected terrorists sounded to many a lot like an endorsement of torture-light. In any case, as the danger of another 9/11 fades after almost six years, the public seems to be backing off from such anti-terrorism measures--at least until another such mass murder takes place on our shores.

But at least the Patriot Act passed both houses of Congress with wide public support. In contrast, there are a variety of other assaults on personal freedoms, due process, and the sanctity of the law that leftwing moralists not only ignore, but often seem to endorse--as if the liberal ends should justify illiberal means.

First, take illegal immigration. Not only have we neglected to enforce federal immigration statutes, but also local communities, due to pressures from Hispanic lobbyists and tacit approval from employers, have passed local codes barring arrests of suspected illegal aliens.

Tens of thousands of regional and local government officials, along with law enforcements, have taken the law into their own hands by simply deciding not to enforce it.

Both employers and aliens--the former for profit, the latter with the expectation of ethnic solidarity and support--have simply flaunted the law with impunity. We don't talk about massive fraud in our Social Security system due to false names and numbers used by illegal aliens, but only in pragmatic terms of whether such flagrant disregard ultimately puts more into the system than it takes out.

The result is one of the most grievous examples of civil disobedience in our nation's history--with 12 million de facto exempt from the law. In fact, we haven't seen state and local government defy federal laws in such blatant fashion since the Jim Crow days when the states of the Old Confederacy were openly insurrectionist.

Second, every bit as dangerous as wiretaps are prosecutors who manipulate the law, either for personal, ideological or political reasons. And here too reappears a pattern in which perceived political liberalism seems to trump adherence to the spirit of the law.

In the so-called Duke rape case, now disbarred District Attorney Michael Nifong withheld evidence in his holy crusade to convict three innocent Duke Lacrosse players--in hopes of appeasing the lynch mob of local black activists and self-righteous university professors. But even before evidence was adduced--all exculpatory to the defendants--liberal forces had tried and convicted the falsely accused in the media in furtherance of their own leftwing race, class, and gender agendas.

In the case of Valerie Plame, a special prosecutor was selected to find out who outed supposedly covert status at the CIA. The common liberal allegation was that administration lackies had stooped to hound a CIA employee for the anti-war politicking of her husband Joe Wilson.

But very early on in Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald's investigation, two inconvenient truths emerged. Ms. Plame was not a covert agent as envisioned by the original mandate of the special prosecutor. And second, the culprit who disseminated knowledge of her employment in with the CIA was almost immediately revealed--former State Department official Richard Armitage.

But no matter. Armitage was out of office and had voiced misgivings about the Iraq war. Thus his early conviction would have earned little public attention, but might instead have ended the investigation before it could snowball in the daily press.

So Fitzgerald barreled ahead anyway on a new mission to satisfy the partisan lust for high-value scalps--hoping to find some top administration official guilty of something else in the growing labyrinth of competing testimonies.

Presto! Scooter Libby, Chief of the Vice President's staff was found to have offered contradictory evidence, and thus convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. We tend to think of smooth Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald as far more professional than the buffoonish Nifong. Maybe. But as was true of Nifong in the Duke rape case, Fitzgerald knew of information that might be fatal to his case--that early on Richard Armitage confessed to the leak--and yet neither apprised the public nor shut down his investigation.

Prosecutors pick and choose what charges to bring. When they either act unprofessionally or beyond their mandates, they have enormous, unchecked powers to undermine the very legal system that employs them.

Everyone has their own particular complaint about the modern Supreme Court's propensity to legislate new rather than interpret existing laws. But two years ago this June, they dismantled much of the constitutional protections of the right to hold private property.

In the Susette Kelo case, the court gave state and local officials unchecked rights of eminent domain to expropriate her house. The property was not condemned for a necessary bridge or public highway. Instead it was seized for "urban redevelopment"--even when the property in question was not blighted, and the urban renewal project was of questionable viability.

City officials were delighted. Their stock and trade have been to confiscate properties, sell them in sweet heart deals to wealthy insider developers--and paper over the entire shanigan with utopian rhetoric about helping the underclass.

Fourth, most recently Democrats have discussed reinstating some sort of "fairness" doctrine aimed at regulating talk radio. They are furious that the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Bill Bennett, Michael Savage, and a host of other conservatives dominate the AM airwaves--while Air America, Jerry Brown, Jim Hightower, Mario Cuomo, and other liberals have failed utterly to carve out a comparable audience in the marketplace of ideas and entertainment.

Once again, liberal civil libertarians are not so liberal about free speech when it is a matter of the public not buying into their own progressive agendas. We should remember that the public is free to choose--and advertisers respond accordingly--about what they wish to hear. Apparently, whiny sermons by nasal-droning elites about the illiberal nature of the yokel middle class is exactly what most on their way to work do not wish to endure.

Of course, conservatives likewise lament the imbalance of left-leaning public radio and television, the major networks such as NBC and CBS, the predominantly liberal print media, universities, the entertainment industry, and foundations. But the difference is that for the most part they are not calling for the government to mandate "fairness" by empowering federal bureaucrats to curb the liberal biases of these institutions.

It is stereotypically easy to identify authoritarians who seek restrict civil liberties during war in the name of "national security." But it is much harder to take on crusading special interest groups, district attorneys, court justices, and liberal Senators who ignore, twist, or subvert our constitutional freedoms under the liberal clarion call of helping minorities, stopping the war, or championing the underclass.

If we are to lose our civil liberties, it won't be all of sudden due to Patriot-Act zealots in sunglasses and flattops, but rather insidiously and incrementally by egalitarian professors, moral crusaders, muckraking journalists, and government utopians all unhappy that constitutional justice is too little and too late for their ever impatient desire to ensure heaven on earth.
Victor Davis Hanson

Here is a short podcast audio of Fred Thompson taking on Harry Reid regarding comments and policies in Iraq. Not exactly a fair fight IMO.  Besides calling Harry Reid on the carpet, he is obviously practicing his aim for Hillary where the same points would apply. Click the link at Powerline and click play. Just takes a couple of minutes.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/017975.php

For a negative story on Fred Thompson, see George Will from last week: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19140623/site/newsweek/page/2/

Will says Thompson is 99% charm, 1% substance.  I disagree.  I think it's the opposite.  He has been speaking out very frankly on the key issues of the day.  Will's only example that Thompson lacks substance:

"Thompson expressed a truly distinctive idea about immigration. Referring to the 1986 amnesty measure that Reagan signed into law, he said: "Twelve million illegal immigrants later, we are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women and children around the world."

Maybe that quote and context is inarticulate or he failed to explain his thought, but I think plenty of people can see a potential connection between unchecked entrances and our next catastrophe.

Getting back to what Denny (Captainccs) wrote, thank you very much for the first hand explanation.  Your recap of recent history is very helpful. 

My understanding and recollection is that the recall vote was going against Chavez 40-60 in exit polls but tht Chavez vote won by 60-40on the state count,a 40 point swing.  International observer Jimmy Carter declared the results good to go.  Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell quickly recognized the result. 

Curious what your take on that was and wondering if anyone has seen Powell express any second thoughts.

Jumping in with my 2 cents, I would put a distinction between single women and single moms.  I doubt single women who are childless are less educated or much poorer than male counterparts.  I found CCP's title to be provacative: "girls can marry a guy to take care of them - or vote for the Hillary". Not speaking for him, but it could be interpreted generously to mean that some women find a man of equal or similar income to her own, they take care of each other, live well as we know it, travel, buy and furnish a nice home, raise children, invest, pay for college, heath care, cars, insurance, retirement, etc. Single women as a group see more of a state role in financial security, particularly in health care and retirement security even if they have high incomes.

Single moms might be most likely to appreciate laws that force businesses to give time off with pay for childbearing as well as likely to support programs such as child support enforcement, welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing, WIC, free school lunches,and most safety net programs  There are plenty of exceptions I'm sure; I am a single Dad raising a daughter and my personal views certainly don't fit that description.

The conservative argument as I see it is that assistance skews the incentives and removes responsibility from individuals.  As an inner city landlord, I have seen families hide the father to qualify for a program and had pregnant applicants point out how their income will go up after the next baby is born.  Where you find multi-generational poverty, you tend to find women who see government as the provider of security more than the (missing)husband/father and you tend to see the man who passed on that responsibility filling his time and energy with less desirable activities. Crime and prison statistics seem to bear that out.

Yes, a single woman might be more likely to support current abortion law that requires no input whatsoever from the unborn's father.  I have no data but doubt that pro choice passions trump pocketbook issues for most ordinary, single women.

The Prime Minister of Iraq wrote an op-ed published yesterday in the WSJ, posted below.  Very worthwhile read IMO.  First my comments on the previous 2 posts here.

My conclusion from the Strat piece, if they are correct, is that the Americans are now allied with the Sunni, Shia and Kurd political leaders and populations along with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi security forces, and are fighting against mainly foreign jihadists and Shia militias. Sounds like the political side is going well but violence continues because the enemy believes that continuing war is  their victory.

The Gore video is amazing.  He strongly attacks Bush I for being soft on Saddam in years prior.  It is perhaps easier to understand as a 1992 Clinton attack piece in the general campaign with the VP candidate with his 'hawk' credentials delivering the attack. Amazingly they weakened Bush for raising taxes when they would raise them more and for being soft on tyrants when they would be softer.  Masterful political selling if deception is your product.

Here is the Prime Minister of Iraq from yesterday:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010203

Our Common Struggle
America had its civil war. Why expect freedom to come easy to Iraq?

BY NOURI AL-MALIKI
Wednesday, June 13, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq--Americans keen to understand the ongoing struggle for a new Iraq can be guided by the example of their own history. In the 1860s, your country fought a great struggle of its own, a civil war that took hundreds of thousands of lives but ended in the triumph of freedom and the birth of a great power. Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation signaled the destruction of the terrible institution of slavery, and the rise of a country dedicated, more than any other in the world of nation-states then and hence, to the principle of human liberty.

Our struggle in Iraq is similar to the great American quest, and is perhaps even more complicated. As your country was fighting that great contest over its unity and future, Iraq was a province of an Ottoman empire steeped in backwardness and ignorance. A half a century later, the British began an occupation of Iraq and drew the borders of contemporary Iraq as we know them today. Independence brought no relief to the people of our land. They were not given the means of political expression, nor were they to know political arrangements that respected their varied communities.

Under the Baath tyranny, Iraqis were to endure a brutal regime the likes of which they had never known before. Countless people were put to death on the smallest measure of suspicion. Wars were waged by that regime and our national treasure was squandered without the consent of a population that was herded into costly and brutal military campaigns. Today when I hear the continuous American debate about the struggle raging in Iraq, I can only recall with great sorrow the silence which attended the former dictator's wars.

It is perhaps true that only people who are denied the gift of liberty can truly appreciate its full meaning and bounty. I look with admiration at the American debate surrounding the Iraq war, and I admire even those opinions that differ from my own. As prime minister of Iraq I have been subjected to my share of criticism in that American debate, but I harbor no resentment and fully understand that the basic concerns of Americans are the safety of their young people fighting in our country and the national interests of their society. As this American debate goes on, I am guided and consoled by the sacred place of freedom and liberty in the American creed and in America's notion of itself.

War being what it is, the images of Iraq that come America's way are of car bombs and daily explosions. Missing from the coverage are the great, subtle changes our country is undergoing, the birth of new national ideas and values which will in the end impose themselves despite the death and destruction that the terrorists have been hell-bent on inflicting on us. Those who endured the brutality of the former regime, those who saw the outside world avert its gaze from their troubles, know the magnitude of the change that has come to Iraq. A fundamental struggle is being fought on Iraqi soil between those who believe that Iraqis, after a long nightmare, can retrieve their dignity and freedom, and others who think that oppression is the order of things and that Iraqis are doomed to a political culture of terror, prisons and mass graves. Some of our neighbors have made this struggle more lethal still, they have placed their bets on the forces of terror in pursuit of their own interests.

When I became prime minister a year and a half ago, my appointment emerged out of a political process unique in our neighborhood: Some 12 million voters took part in our parliamentary elections. They gave voice to their belief in freedom and open politics and their trust imposed heavy burdens on all of us in political life. Our enemies grew determined to drown that political process in indiscriminate violence, to divert attention from the spectacle of old men and women casting their vote, for the first time, to choose those who would govern in their name. You may take this right for granted in America, but for us this was a tantalizing dream during the decades of dictatorship and repression.

Before us lies a difficult road--the imperative of national reconciliation, the drafting of a new social contract that acknowledges the diversity of our country. It was in that spirit that those who drafted our constitution made provisions for amending it. The opponents of the constitution were a minority, but we sought for our new political life the widest possible measure of consensus. From the outset, I committed myself to the principle of reconciliation, pledged myself to its success. I was determined to review and amend many provisions and laws passed in the aftermath of the fall of the old regime, among them the law governing de-Baathification. I aimed to find the proper balance between those who opposed the decrees on de-Baathification and others who had been victims of the Baath Party. This has not been easy, but we have stuck to that difficult task.

Iraq is well on its way to passing a new oil law that would divide the national treasure among our provinces and cities, based on their share of the population. This was intended to reassure those provinces without oil that they will not be left behind and consigned to poverty. The goal is to repair our oil sector, open the door for new investments and raise the standard of living of Iraqi families. Our national budget this year is the largest in Iraq's history, its bulk dedicated to our most neglected provinces and to improving the service sector in the country as a whole. Our path has been made difficult by the saboteurs and the terrorists who target our infrastructure and our people, but we have persevered, even though our progress has been obscured by the scenes of death and destruction.

Daily we still fight the battle for our security. We lose policemen and soldiers to the violence, as do the multinational forces fighting along our side. We are training and equipping a modern force, a truly national and neutral force, aided by our allies. This is against the stream of history here, where the armed forces have traditionally been drawn into political conflicts and struggles. What gives us sustenance and hope is an increase in the numbers of those who volunteer for our armed forces, which we see as proof of the devotion of our people to the stability and success of our national government.

We have entered into a war, I want it known, against militias that had preyed upon the weakness of the national government and in the absence of law and order in some of our cities, even in some of the districts in Baghdad, imposed their own private laws--laws usually driven by extremism and a spirit of vengeance. Some of these militias presented themselves as defenders of their own respective communities against other militias. We believe that the best way to defeat these militias is to build and enhance the capabilities of our government as a defender of the rights of our citizens. A stable government cannot coexist with these militias.

Our conflict, it should be emphasized time and again, has been fueled by regional powers that have reached into our affairs. Iraq itself is eager to build decent relations with its neighbors. We don't wish to enter into regional entanglements. Our principle concern is to heal our country. We have reached out to those among our neighbors who are worried about the success and example of our democratic experiment, and to others who seem interested in enhancing their regional influence.

Our message has been the same to one and all: We will not permit Iraq to be a battleground for other powers. In the contests and ambitions swirling around Iraq, we are neutral and dedicated to our country's right to prosperity and a new life, inspired by a memory of a time when Baghdad was--as Washington is today--a beacon of enlightenment on which others gazed with admiration. We have come to believe, as Americans who founded your country once believed, that freedom is a precious inheritance. It is never cheap but the price is worth paying if we are to rescue our country.

Mr. Maliki is prime minister of Iraq.

The key phrase to me was not the news in the news story, that the opposition was voicing opposition, it was the background information that concerns me:

"Congress, which has granted Chavez the power to rule by decree..."

I will look into the points you made and I hope others will post, especially Denny, who is there.  By his cartoon post that shows Chavez speaking on all channels, I don't think he agrees with you, but hopefully we will get a first-hand account in his own words.

Thanks for the Newt speech.  I would like to read it closer and offer my comments later.

Here is a new Obama speech.  Near as I can tell he is going after the Edwards' 'Two Americas' theme. He says he has new ideas, but blames American poverty on the war, and mainly supports expanding federal programs in order to 'strengthen the family'.  In the end it all comes back to what I would call socialized medicine. Also, by my read, he is saying he has God on his side, then mentions Pat Robertson in the next breath.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/06/quiet_riots_in_america.html
(Post was too long; read the speech at the link, if interested.)

Adding to the questions and challenges that GM posted, I disagree with the  'October surprise' part of Brian's post:

Quoting:"
If you will recall during the Iran Hostage Crisis, Ahmedimjad was one of the captors.  The hostages were released on the 444th day after Regan’s inauguration.  This is known as the 'October Surprise.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise#1980_Carter_vs._Reagan A deal was supposedly made between the terrorists and the Regan administration (Karl Rove) to NOT release the hostages until after Regan defeated Carter in the election!"

The wikipedia statement admits it lacks a citation.  The phrase 'October surprise' was supposed to be the opposite - the incumbent would time some major event, such as the negotiated release of the hostages, with the final weeks of the campaign to steal the momentum.  There is no reference to Karl Rove at the link and no credible mark in history tying the Reagan campaign to delaying the release of the hostages. 

The hostage crisis was the captors fault.  The fact that America was incapable of solving it was a symbol of the weakness that Reagan was running against.

This could go under humor or politics or just left alone, but I'll stick it here for the media perspective.  I saw Al Gore on the PBS News hour yesterday.  I'm no linguist, but when Gwen Ifill tried to pin Gore down on whether we were lied into war, Gore said that Bush made an "explicit implication...",  I couldn't help but wonder where that slip would have been re-broadcast if Bush had fumbled those words.  Probably all over Letterman, Leno, etc., maybe the NY Times.

I found the PBS transcript and emailed the tip to OpinionJournal, who did the following piece ripping Gore pretty badly with it yesterday, and gave me a credit at the end for the tip.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010147

Assaulted Nuts

Is Al Gore a genuine intellectual, as he would like us to believe, or is he just pretentious à la John Kerry? He has a new book out called "The Assault on Reason," and we suppose reading it would shed some light on the question. But life is short.

Here's an excerpt from an interview Gore gave Gwen Ifill of PBS's "NewsHour":

    Ifill: You write of a "determined disinterest" in learning the truth, on the part of the Bush administration on pre-war intelligence. You accuse the White House of an "unprecedented and sustained campaign of mass deception," very strong words. And you say that President Bush "outsourced the truth." Are you suggesting that President Bush deliberately misled the American people when it comes to the Iraq war?

    Gore: Well, there was certainly a coordinated effort in the White House and in the Department of Defense simultaneously to convey the image of a mushroom cloud exploding over an American city and to link it to a specific scenario, the very strong and explicit implication that Saddam Hussein was going to develop nuclear weapons and give them to Osama bin Laden, and that would result in nuclear explosions in American cities.

"Explicit implication," huh? How do you know it wasn't an implicit explication? Such slipshod thinking leads one to think that Gore does have more in common with Kerry than with, say, Pat Moynihan.

CCP, I see your post came through as I was writing - looks like our observations overlap...

I like David Gordon's site and I appreciate the link to maplight.  It's important to track money and watch over the people's representatives as closely as we can.  After that, I just don't follow their logic to its conclusion.  For example, if a pro-life organization gives to a pro-life congressman, or a trade group gives to a free trade supporting congressman, and they vote in the way that they already said they would vote, what have we uncovered?  It seems that this system needs to track at least one more variable, such as changing a position in correlation with timing of the money in order to support the claim that "money buys votes".

Quoting the original post: "I probably sound absurdly naive here. But truth is, I can't quite figure out why these contributions are even legal."

My answer:  Likewise, maybe I'm missing something, but let's say you have a legitimate business and the regulators are considering legislation that you think is unwise, unfair and would devastate or destroy your investment and lifework.  This kind of thing happens all the time.  Shouldn't you have the same right to vote, to speak, and to contribute to campaigns that everyone else has?

Let's take his example: "You find out that on H.R.5684, the U. S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement, special interests in favor of this bill (including pharmaceutical companies and aircraft makers) gave each senator an average of $244,000. Lobbyists opposed to the bill (such as anti-poverty groups and consumer groups) coughed up only $38,000 per senator.  Surprise! The bill passed."

I've admitted my pro-free-trade views, so forgive me but I have no idea why an anti-poverty or pro-consumer group would oppose a free trade agreement with Oman or how they would justify soliciting money from their members to oppose the sale of American, life saving medications into a friendly foreign market or even into a questionable one.  In my view, it's too bad a pharmaceutical or aircraft maker feels they need to contribute to a campaign for the right to sell American products overseas.  The fact that there is more money on one side of the issue doesn't tell me anything about whether of not money changed a vote or whether or not the greater public interest got a bum deal.

I'm not saying there is no corruption of motives, but money also plays a positive influence.  We saw recently a roomful of Republican candidates debate, share the stage and microphone and receive equal time, no matter how little support they really had.  It takes serious amounts of money to run for high office and mount a winning campaign, so contributions raised are one indicator of which candidates are connecting in the campaign. As they see they aren't connecting, some hopefully will drop out voluntarily along the way.  If anti-special interest people want campaigns to be public financed in equal amounts, then we might see a hundred or a thousand candidates share the stage and demand equal time. 

Don't we spend more money getting out the message on laundry detergent than we do on candidates and positions on public policy?

If we could get the money out of politics, we would then have the pundits, editors and news anchors controlling the message.  Some might think that would be better.  I don't.

Gingrich rips the Bush Administration

(First, a poll update: Rasmussen has Romney passing McCain, just slightly,for second place of the Republicans.) http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/2008_republican_presidential_primary

Gingrich picks a fight with the White House. If interested, read The New Yorker article "Party Unfaithful - the Republican Implosion" for context.  I understand the strategy of separate from Bush, but I don't follow him on all the details.  Basically he attacks Rove for a bad strategy in 2004, but in 2004 Bush added 25% to his 2000 vote and held the house and senate.  To me it would make more sense to criticize everything they did after successful reelection.  As we look back now at the Gingrich congress, there is plenty of open criticism between Newt, Delay and Dick Armey, among others.  Unfortunately, each point has some validity IMO.  (I see Newt as a policy and strategy expert; I don't see him as a future President.)
--
Excerpt from the article, regarding Newt: "...he blames not only Iraq and Hurricane Katrina but also Karl Rove’s “maniacally dumb” strategy in 2004, which left Bush with no political capital. “All he proved was that the anti-Kerry vote was bigger than the anti-Bush vote,” Gingrich said. He continued, “The Bush people deliberately could not bring themselves to wage a campaign of choice”—of ideology, of suggesting that Kerry was “to the left of Ted Kennedy”—and chose instead to attack Kerry’s war record.

The only way to keep the White House in G.O.P. hands, Gingrich said, would be to nominate someone who, in essence, runs against Bush, in the style of Nicolas Sarkozy, the center-right cabinet minister who just won the French Presidency by making his own President, Jacques Chirac, his virtual opponent."

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/04/070604fa_fact_goldberg
--

Bush could have run on tax cut success or on getting another shot at re-making social security, but the issue of the day was war, and backbone on war was the weakness of his opponent.  Bush needed to win on that question in order to ever have any say on the rest.

Crafty and all, My two cents of personal experience with the Dutch system.  Amsterdam had a nice reputation for being mostly free of violent crime because of so-called legalization of prostitution and drugs, but I was attacked there while walking down a city street in December 1991.  As the article suggests, hard drugs and trafficking were still illegal and so the associated crime still existed, like anywhere else.  I can only speculate on my attackers, but they were not Dutch.  People there who I told the story to believed them to be "North Africans" and most likely feeding a heroin habit or involved in trafficking.  Short story is that they did not get any money from me, but I did need my head stitched up afterward in a Dutch hospital.  Wish I had been traveling with one of you that day.

The Great Forgotten Debate
Forty years ago, Reagan taught RFK a lesson that ought to be remembered.
By Paul Kengor
National Review referred yesterday to this historic debate with excellent  commentary and context:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTZkMjI1MjJmMmVlNjYyZDU0MzhkZmVhMjAxGI0NmU=

You can read the text of the debate here: http://reagan2020.us/speeches/reagan_kennedy_debate.asp

My take, rather than a win or a loss, was that the answers from the two main players were far more civil than we see in the arguments of today.

Interesting post, thanks for bringing up a number of issues for discussion.  In general, I am pro-free-trade both for economic growth, but also I believe the right to buy and sell goods and services is a basic economic liberty.  Reasonable exceptions for me are fine and would include national security concerns or preventing support for slave labor, etc.

If you believe as I do that the USA is the greatest nation on earth, then by definition all trading partner nations are flawed to some extent, even worse than us.  We still should allow transactions between consenting adults unless harm is caused, like selling technology to enemies, etc.

Be careful with labels.  Globalization in terms of economics is a fact and I think beneficial.  Loss of sovereignty is another matter.  Weve lost enough control over self government to Washington from the states and local jurisdictions and should not give any conrol over our nation to international bodies.

I think the federal reserve is a system that has performed well at least since the stagflation of the 1970s.  I dislike certain players and disagree with certain moves of the Fed, but the overall record has generally been good IMO.  I favor a single currency for the nations of North America called the US Dollar. That choice belongs to the others.  Economies of the Far East have done very well tying their currency to the dollar.  Canada has its pride and Mexico is not even an ally of the US right now, so other than cross border trade and wanting them to solve their own problems, I wouldn't tie our nations together any closer.

"A world currency and a 'new economic order' are also part of the elites plans for global governance." - Again, I think a distinction can easily be made between allowing global trade and losing national sovereignty.  Yes there are elites who envision global governance and they are already starting by proposing global regulations and 'global' taxes (on the 'rich').  They should be opposed aggressively at every turn.  A better strategy is the so-called association of democracies where we could make voluntary agreements and cooperations with countries that maintain certain minimal levels of human liberty and decency.