It is all your fault, Kevin, you and the liberal media, that there isn't a flowering democracy in iraq, and peace love and harmony everywhere!

Frist?

The horrible part, to me, is that these are very commonsensical moves--why didn't they do these in April 2003? You have to be kidding me. This is called shutting the barn door after the animals have fled. We need a whole new administration. Knowing they are the worst changes nothing for the better unless we are willing to impeach them quickly. The modern world runs at pace dangerously hectic for such incompetence.

Oh, and the dollar is dropping like a rock--Bush and company must be stocking up on Euros.

Shame on me for saying so, but I agree with RumDumb on bullet point #3. However, my date certain for complete withdrawal would have been the day after we captured Saddam Hussein. Saddam would have made a good cellmate for Manuel Noriega, another tinpot dictator that was supported and propped up by the American right-wing until they went off the reservation.

The bottom line then, is: maybe some small changes, maybe a change in rhetoric, but nothing serious. On the bright side, at least Rumsfeld recognizes that things aren't going well.

Hah? Where do you get that Rumsfeld "recognizes that things aren't going well"? In fact, I would interpret his support of small changes as showing how well things are going. Since the current course is going so well, there's no need for widescale changes so we can simply stay the course. And Centcom agrees with me things are going well.

Link

"Iraqi officers will soon command all four Iraqi Army divisions operating in northern Iraq, a senior U.S. officer said Friday.

“By February, all four Iraqi divisions in Multi-National Division-North will be under Iraqi Ground-Force Command,” Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon told Pentagon reporters during a satellite briefing. "

The roar of the falls grows louder.

If you'd like a peek inside the White House head, so to speak, look at Rumsfeld's bicycle analogy, the phrase, "pull up their socks," and recall Card's explanation of Bush's view of Americans as ten year old children.

I like the recommednation that US should tell Syria and Iran to stop it.

Sadly for all of us, he does not adequatley describe the tone of voice and the contortions in the facial terrain that George Bush should have when he tells Assad and Ahmedinezad to stop it.

America has lost a great soul in Rumsfeld's firing.

Donald Rumsfeld: "Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough."

I wonder how long it is that he has known this unassailable fact? Because in the run-up to the election, as far as I can recall, he was generally upbeat and positive about all our so-called "progress" there. Sheesh....

As for the rest of it, it's a pretty unremarkable list and I can see problems with most of them, not to mention that I cannot see any of them leading to any degree of success. The one thing that I found most interesting is that some of his recommendations basically suggest that we retreat to bunkers in Iraq and stay hunkered down (the accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases, drawing down Coalition forces, providing security only for those provinces and cities that actively cooperate, withdrawing forces from vulnerable position, beginning modest withdrawals, and moving the forces to Quick Reaction Force status (gee, just like Murtha recommended), etc.)

The other interesting thing I found was this one: "Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist." In short, Rumsfeld is effectively taking the first step toward "cutting and running," aka "declaring victory and getting out."

gregor wrote: "Sadly for all of us, he does not adequatley describe the tone of voice and the contortions in the facial terrain that George Bush should have when he tells Assad and Ahmedinezad to stop it."

Yup, McCain was similarly lacking in details when he proposed the same solution. I wonder if anyone will call either of them on it?

It would be interesting, perhaps, to compare the statements in the memo with Rumsfeld's public statements in the month before the election.

If we withdraw and lose control over Saddam before he's executed, who knows what might happen?

I see that Al is still in denial. To be expected, I guess. Lock-step loyalty to BushCo is alive and well.

How, exactly, are things going well in Iraq, Al?

Oh, right. A Centcom briefing. From an obedient serving officer saying what he's been told to say.

Oh fuck it. What's the point?

As they say, "When you are up to your ass in alligators...."

Rearranging slightly:

Move a large fraction of all U.S. Forces into Baghdad to attempt to control it.

concentrating on Baghdad,

Increase Brigade Combat Teams and U.S. forces in Iraq substantially.

Increasing the number of troops,

Set a firm withdrawal date to leave. Declare that with Saddam gone and Iraq a sovereign nation, the Iraqi people can govern themselves. Tell Iran and Syria to stay out.

withdrawing,

Assist in accelerating an aggressive federalism plan, moving towards three separate states — Sunni, Shia, and Kurd.

splitting Iraq into three mini-states

Try a Dayton-like process.

Donald Rumsfeld isn't so far off from the ideas KD listed, except negotiating with Syria and Iran, which might or might not fall under "Dayton-like". I myself think that negotiating with Syria and Iran is a fine idea as long as the U.S. doesn't wait for any agreements that we can't enforce. An agreement like "Syria and Iran will stop interfering as soons as all American troops are gone" is something we can't enforce, and so is worthless.

Donald Rumsfeld: "Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough."

Surely that is not an admission of defeat; "not well enough" is not equivalent to "not well".

Thanks to Al for this, which I almost posted yesterday: "Iraqi officers will soon command all four Iraqi Army divisions operating in northern Iraq, a senior U.S. officer said Friday.
...
“By February, all four Iraqi divisions in Multi-National Division-North will be under Iraqi Ground-Force command."

The test will be in how well they do. The Iraqi army has been reported to do well some of the time, and not so well other times, and sometimes to alternate between brutality and ineffectiveness.

UCLA 13 USC 9

I hate people like the UCLA coach who thank God for sports victories.

Al is going to get cancer of the rectum from blowing all that smoke out his ass.

klyde -

So right.
Do they blame God when they lose?

I dunno. Haven't read the article yet but maybe this memo was the final straw. Rummie wasn't on board to a sufficient degree and just had to go. In short: Rummie went wobblie. Sad too. Musta wrecked Dick's day.

Seperate Iraq into three states? Won't that invite Turkish intervention in the north?

Rumsfeld changed his mind two days before being fired?? I mean, what we're the chances?? What a coinkidink!

"A good cellmate would have been Manuel Noriega"

A very good cellmate would be George Walker Bush. Sort of a Mano on Mano moment.

This memo brings to mind some other well-timed memos, like Ken Lay's memo on how to prevent massive corporate fraud (written just two days before he was arrested). Or like the Pope's memo on reconcilling the animosity between Christendom and the Muslim world (written just two days, mind you, before he called Islam a religion of hate). Or even Ted Haggard's memo on fidelity, sobriety and honesty (written just two days, can you believe just two days before getting caught buying sex and drugs from a male prostitute).

What's disappointing is that the memo - and all of the plans floating around - has nothing there about moving more troops to Kurdistan. If we do scale down efforts in Iraq in general, the least we could do is make sure the Kurdish areas are well provided for with support in case the arabs start to cause trouble over Kirkuk or something. And if we are moving troops right now (whether to Kuwait or to "large bases" within Iraq) couldn't they just as well go to Kurdistan?

matt r marler ... the ideas you re-worded are listed by rummy as the less attractive options.

the snark by kevin still stands ... as the pre-eminent civilian chickenhawk neocon, rummy's assessments and priorities probably accurately reflect those of bush/cheney.

If we do scale down efforts in Iraq in general, the least we could do is make sure the Kurdish areas are well provided for with support in case the arabs start to cause trouble over Kirkuk or something.

after all, cecce, it's the least we could do after selling saddam the weapons he used to kill all those kurds.

klyde: I hate people like the UCLA coach who thank God for sports victories.

I sympathize -- it's hard to take seriously the belief that God cares about sports outcomes. But religious athletes pray to do their best, so it is natural for them to feel grateful. Besides, do you feel better toward people who feel no gratitude at all for good things that come to them?

Did you have a point, Nads?

If we withdraw from Iraq soon, we must make sure to do three things:

1) As we rotate forces out of Iraq, we must rotate them into Afghanistan. We should make the point that we are not retreating from the jihadists, but that the greatest threat no longer lies in Iraq, but Afghanistan. We are not withdrawing from the War on Terror as a whole, but shifting our forces to match a shift in our enemy's center of gravity. We must send a message to the Muslim world that our withdraw from Iraq is not a retreat. And we must confront Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as they are a real and growing enemy. Finally, a confrontation in Afghanistan may continue the one positive effect of the Iraq War: that it prevents many jihadists from attacking the U.S. by putting their homeland in danger and thus drawing them away from the U.S. As Scipio Africanus drew Hannibal away from Rome by attacking Carthage, we must draw Al Qaeda away from the U.S. by attacking them in Afghanistan.

2) We must have a post-Reconstruction strategy for Iraq. After the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union rearmed many of the Communist forces attempting to overthrow South Vietnam, but the U.S. Congress voted to cut off all aid to the South Vietnamese. There was no strategy concerning how to deal with South Vietnam after U.S. troops were gone from that country. That is why it fell, or at least why it fell as quickly as it did. We must send a message to the Iraqi people that we will provide their government with economic, diplomatic, and intelligence assistance if they reciprocate by holding the government together to the point that the Iraqi government can work in cooperation with U.S. intelligence services to prevent Al Qaeda and other radical Islamists from establishing havens in the area. The incentives of diplomatic and economic aid, substantial diplomatic and economic aid, just may give at least some Iraqis reason to support national unity in Iraq. This may not be total, but it may make a vital difference in the stability of the Middle East.

3) We must work with the other powers in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, to ensure that U.S. withdraw in Iraq does not upset the balance of power in the region. If Iran wishes to turn Iraq into a satellite state, than the Sunni nations may have to be assisted in forming an effort to balance out Iran and achieve an equilibrium of power in the region.

Ever notice how with time, Al sounds more and more like Baghdad Bob?

I just find selective sympathy for whomever the current "good arabs" are supposed to be somewhat tiresome.

Rumsfeld is seeking some distance between himself and Bush. Bush is a pariah.

Pelosi for President 2007

OIC. Except, Kurds are not arabs. So I guess not.

that probably makes it easier for you, cecce.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK21Ak01.html

A little off topic (but has something to do with getting a bit more compliance out of the Persians) but pretty cool. From Asia Times:

Jihadis and whores

Wars are won by destroying the enemy's will to fight. A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women.

The French sold their women to the German occupiers in 1940, and the Germans and Japanese sold their women to the Americans after World War II. The women of the former Soviet Union are still selling themselves in huge numbers. Hundreds of thousands of female Ukrainian "tourists" entered Germany after the then-foreign minister Joschka Fischer loosened visa standards

in 1999. That helps explain why Ukraine has the world's fastest rate of population decline. On a smaller scale, trafficking in Iranian women explains Iran's predicament.

To understand Iranian politics, cherchez les femmes: the fate of Iranian women sheds light on the eccentricity of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. By Spengler's Universal Law of Gender Parity, the men and women of every place and every time deserve each other. A corollary to this universal law states that the battered Iranian whore is the alter ego of the swaggering Iranian jihadi.

In the interest of balanced reporting, I cite the history of Jewish prostitution before delving into the Persian example. The Jews have lived long enough to be defeated more often than any other people. After Spain expelled them in 1492, the Jews sold their women so widely that the character of the Jewish prostitute figured prominently in 16th-century literature, notably in one of the earliest novels, La Lozana Andaluza (1528), a story of refugee Spanish-Jewish whores in Rome. After Russian pogroms drove Jews out of the Pale of Settlement in the late 19th century, Jewish women became the raw material of the white-slave traffic, supplying Argentina as well as Western Europe. [1] Jewish prostitutes are almost unknown today, a measure of the revival of the Jewish nation.

These distasteful facts bear directly upon Iran's national decline, and the impulses that push the Iranian leadership toward strategic flight forward. Iran's plunging birth rate, I observed in essays past, will burden the country with an elderly population proportionately as large as Western Europe's within a generation, just at the point at which this impoverished country will have ceased to export oil. By 2030, Iranian society will collapse.

One does not have to destroy an opponent's military forces to defeat him. Russia collapsed without a single shot fired when Mikhail Gorbachev and his generals understood that they could not compete with Ronald Reagan's United States. The Islamic world also has been defeated, by a globalized economy in which the US dominates the top, and China blocks entry at the bottom. As the most urbane people of Western Asia, the Persians grasped the hopelessness of circumstances quicker than their Arab neighbors. That is why they have ceased to bear children. Iran's population today is concentrated at military age; by mid-century, today's soldiers will be pensioners, and there will be no one to replace them.

That is why it is folly to approach Iran as a prospective negotiating partner, and meaningless to offer the clerical government security guarantees, for the threat to its security arises from within. Once a people has determined to extinguish itself, nothing will prevent it from doing so. There is no doubt as to the demographic data, which come from the demographers of the United Nations. But it is one thing to read the statistics, and quite another to consider the millions of intimate decisions that together sum up to national suicide.

What is it that persuades women to employ their bodies as an instrument of commerce, rather than as a way of achieving motherhood? It is not just poverty, for poor women bear children everywhere. In the case of Iran, deracination and cultural despair impel millions of individual women to eschew motherhood. Prostitution is a form of psychic suicide; writ large, it is a manifestation of the national death-wish, the hideous recognition that the world no longer requires Ukrainians or Moldovans.

Iranians already behave like a defeated people. That is why they are so unstable, and so dangerous. The new Persian Empire masquerading as an Islamic Republic is a wounded beast. The rural misery and urban squalor that drive Iranian women into the brothels of Dubai and Brussels contrasts sharply with neighboring Azerbaijan, whose economy will double in size by 2010 as new oilfields come online, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Half of Iranians do not speak Persian, and half of those speak Azeri. Azerbaijan's oil wealth is a giant magnet; it must attract either the largest national minority in Iran, or the military attentions of Iran itself. If a Kurdish state asserts itself out of the ruins of Iraq - a long-delayed justice for that ancient and resilient people - Iran's Kurds will be tempted to throw off the Persian yoke.

The proliferation of Iranian prostitutes in Western Europe as well as the Arab world helps explain the country's population trends. The European Commission's most comprehensive surveys of human trafficking found that Iranian women made up 10-15% of the prostitutes working in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. [2] "Fatima" from Persia has become as familiar as "Natasha" from Belarus. Iranian whores long have been a scandal in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, which periodically round up and expel them.

It is hard to obtain reliable data on prostitution inside Iran itself, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it has increased since Ahmadinejad became president last year. Anti-regime sociologists claim that at least 300,000 women are whoring in Tehran alone. The ADNKronos website reported on April 25:
Prostitution is on the rise in Iran ... Sociologist Amanollah Gharaii Moghaddam told ADNKronos International (AKI) that he believes Iran's deteriorating economy and the high unemployment rate among youths to be the main causes of this worrying phenomenon. In Iran, 28% of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 are unemployed ... The age of prostitutes is increasingly younger, and girls as young as 12 are selling their bodies on Iran's streets. Overall, the number of prostitutes is also on the rise and there are an estimated 300,000 of them in Tehran alone ... Nevertheless, Gharaii Moghaddam says "the number isn't so high when compared [with] the 4 million unemployed only in Tehran and the 5 million drug addicts today in Iran".
The clerical regime vacillates between repressing prostitution and sanctioning it through "temporary marriages", an arrangement permitted under Shi'ite jurisprudence. In the latter case the Muslim clergy in effect become pimps, taking a fee for sanctioning several "temporary marriages" per women per day.

These numbers cannot be verified, to be sure, but the spillover of Iranian prostitutes into Western Europe and the Gulf states suggests that the actual numbers must be very large indeed, so large, in fact, as to help explain the frightful rate of Iran's demographic decline. Along with Albanian, Chechen and Bosnian women, Iranian prostitutes are living evidence of the dissolution of the traditional Muslim society that purports to shield women from degradation.

Islamism (or what George W Bush has called "Islamo-fascism") responds to the crisis of faith. As I wrote on November 8, 2005:
The crisis of modernization first of all is a crisis of faith, and the attenuation of religious faith is the root cause of the birth-rate bust in the modern world. Traditional society is everywhere fragile, not only in the Islamic world; by definition it is bounded by values and expectations handed down from the past, to which individuals must submit. Once the bands of tradition are broken and each individual may choose for herself what sort of family to raise, religious faith becomes the decisive motivation for bringing children into the world ...

The collapse of traditional society has brought about a collapse of birth rates across cultures. Cultures that fail to reproduce themselves by definition are failed cultures, for the simple reason that they will cease to exist before many generations have passed.

That is why the Islamists - Muslims who seek a new theocracy - display a sense of extreme urgency. They are not conservative Muslims, for they reject Muslim society as it exists as corrupt and decadent. They are revolutionaries who want to create a new kind of totalitarian theocracy that orders every detail of human life. [3]
Nothing is more threadbare than the claim of Islamists to defend Muslim womanhood. Islamist radicals (like the penny-a-marriage mullahs of Iran) are the world's most prolific pimps. The same networks that move female flesh across borders also provide illegal passage for jihadis, and the proceeds of human trafficking often support Islamist terrorists. From Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur to Sarajevo to Tirana, the criminals who trade in women overlap with jihadist networks. Prostitutes serve the terror network in a number of capacities, including suicide bombing. The going rate for a Muslim woman who can pass for a European to carry a suicide bomb currently is more than US$100,000. The Persian prostitute is the camp follower of the jihadi, joined to him in a pact of national suicide.

Note that it says "will collapse in 2030". A bit optimistic to assume this will really improve things today.

I did read somewhere recently, though, that Iranian oil production was declining rapidly and they were soon out of energy.

A pointer to Rummy's memo will appear at Wikipedia under "Too Little, Too Late."

Erm, not quite "out of" but getting there:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_50/b4013058.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

Within a decade, says Saad Rahim, an analyst at Washington consultancy PFC Energy, "Iran's net crude exports could fall to zero."

As Borat would say: niiiiice!

So we got into a war for politics, fucked it up because of politics, can't change course because of politics, will leave because of politics, and will learn exactly the wrong lesson from the whole affair due to politics.

Then we'll do it all over again in a few years. Or am I missing something?

Actually, Nads, what ought to make it "easier" (as you say) to support helping the Kurds is that they have been with us from day 1. In keeping with the idea in this memo to "reward good behavior" it's generally good to support your friends, rather than your enemies, and to support those who support you.

OK, completely off topic, but WOW!

U.K. Home Secretary John Reid said yesterday five planes were examined, including two British Airways Plc airliners in which an unspecified radioactive substance was found. One was later cleared, the airline said in a statement posted on its Web site. A third BA plane, which was grounded in Moscow, was to be tested on its return to the U.K., the airline said. The two planes still being investigated, including the one in Moscow, were used on 150 flights, 34 to or from Moscow. BA yesterday was trying to contact 33,000 passengers and 3,000 staff members.

Scientists at the U.K.'s Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, west of London, have traced the polonium 210 found in London to a nuclear power plant in Russia, the capital's Evening Standard newspaper reported today. Officials at the establishment didn't return calls.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=alIVN4QzXTws&refer=uk

MatthewRMarler wrote: "Donald Rumsfeld isn't so far off from the ideas KD listed"

Matthew, those were the ideas that Rumsfeld didn't want to do, not the ones he did.

Sounds like one of Rummy's famous C.Y.A. memos to me - designed to allow future apologists (cough, cough Friedman....) to say Rummy could have won it except for interference from that idiot Bush and evil San Francisco liberals like Deadeye Dick Cheney.

In keeping with the idea in this memo to "reward good behavior" it's generally good to support your friends, rather than your enemies, and to support those who support you.
Posted by: cecce

of course ... just as we turned a blind eye to saddam's atrocities while he was our friend ... until it became politically expedient for us to switch our support.

I'm not sure why I'm trying to educate someone who earlier was so mesmerized by the ramblings of worthless canadian high school dropout steyn. some people are beyond help.

(snort). Nads is "trying to educate someone" - a moment ago he thought that Kurds are Arabs and Arabs are Kurds. He must have taken some super-duper correspondence course between 9:05 and 9:55.

"lick":

You sure that "Asian Times" piece you just dumped here wasn't a Mark Steyn editorial? :)

Bob

I posted the link, dimwit.

Kevin Drum - what a snide, snarky way to end your post.

A brief reminder that - no matter what - Jimmy Carter is STILL our worst president ever.

The World According to Carter
Books
BY ALAN DERSHOWITZ
November 22, 2006

Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover. President Jimmy Carter's decision to title his new anti-Israel screed "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (Simon & Schuster, 288 pages, $27) tells it all. His use of the loaded word "apartheid," suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa, is especially outrageous, considering his acknowledgment buried near the end of his shallow and superficial book that what is going on in Israel today "is unlike that in South Africa—not racism, but the acquisition of land." Nor does he explain that Israel's motivation for holding on to land it captured in a defensive war is the prevention of terrorism. Israel has tried, on several occasions, to exchange land for peace, and what it got instead was terrorism, rockets, and kidnappings launched from the returned land.

In fact, Palestinian-Arab terrorism is virtually missing from Mr. Carter's entire historical account, which blames nearly everything on Israel and almost nothing on the Palestinians. Incredibly, he asserts that the initial violence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict occurred when "Jewish militants" attacked Arabs in 1939. The long history of Palestinian terrorism against Jews — which began in 1929, when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ordered the slaughter of more than 100 rabbis, students, and non-Zionist Sephardim whose families had lived in Hebron and other ancient Jewish cities for millennia — was motivated by religious bigotry. The Jews responded to this racist violence by establishing a defense force. There is no mention of the long history of Palestinian terrorism before the occupation, or of the Munich massacre and others inspired byYasser Arafat. There is not even a reference to the Karine A, the boatful of terrorist weapons ordered by Arafat in January 2002.

Mr. Carter's book is so filled with simple mistakes of fact and deliberate omissions that were it a brief filed in a court of law, it would be struck and its author sanctioned for misleading the court. Mr. Carter too is guilty of misleading the court of public opinion. A mere listing of all of Mr. Carter's mistakes and omissions would fill a volume the size of his book. Here are just a few of the most egregious:

Mr. Carter emphasizes that "Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued to live in this same land since Roman times," but he ignores the fact that Jews have lived in Hebron, Tzfat, Jerusalem, and other cities for even longer. Nor does he discuss the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries since 1948.

Mr. Carter repeatedly claims that the Palestinian Arabs have long supported a two-state solution and the Israelis have always opposed it. Yet he makes no mention of the fact that in 1938 the Peel Commission proposed a two-state solution, with Israel receiving a mere sliver of its ancient homeland and the Palestinians receiving the bulk of the land. The Jews accepted and the Palestinians rejected this proposal because Arab leaders cared more about there being no Jewish state on Muslim holy land than about having a Palestinian state of their own.

He barely mentions Israel's acceptance, and the Palestinian rejection, of the United Nation's division of the mandate in 1948.

He claims that in 1967 Israel launched a preemptive attack against Jordan. The fact is that Jordan attacked Israel first, Israel tried desperately to persuade Jordan to remain out of the war, and Israel counterattacked after the Jordanian army surrounded Jerusalem, firing missiles into the center of the city. Only then did Israel capture the West Bank, which it was willing to return in exchange for peace and recognition from Jordan.

Mr. Carter repeatedly mentions Security Council Resolution 242, which called for return of captured territories in exchange for peace, recognition, and secure boundaries, but he ignores that Israel accepted and all the Arab nations and the Palestinians rejected this resolution. The Arabs met in Khartum and issued their three famous "no's": "No peace, no recognition, no negotiation." But you wouldn't know that from reading the history according to Mr. Carter.

Mr. Carter faults Israel for its "air strike that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor" without mentioning that Iraq had threatened to attack Israel with nuclear weapons if Iraq succeeded in building a bomb.

Mr. Carter faults Israel for its administration of Christian and Muslim religious sites, when in fact Israel is scrupulous about ensuring those of every religion the right to worship as they please — consistent, of course, with security needs. He fails to mention that between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Hashemites destroyed and desecrated Jewish religious sites and prevented Jews from praying at the Western Wall. He also never mentions Egypt's brutal occupation of Gaza between 1949 and 1967.

Mr. Carter blames Israel, and exonerates Arafat, for the Palestinian refusal to accept statehood on 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza pursuant to the Clinton-Barak offers at Camp David and Taba in 2000–2001. He accepts the Palestinian revisionist history, rejects the eyewitness accounts of President Clinton and Dennis Ross, and ignores Saudi Prince Bandar's accusation that Arafat's rejection of the proposal was "a crime" and that Arafat's account "was not truthful" — except, apparently, to Mr. Carter. The fact that Mr. Carter chooses to believe Arafat over Mr. Clinton speaks volumes.

Mr. Carter's description of the recent Lebanon war is misleading. He begins by asserting that Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. "Captured" suggests a military apprehension subject to the usual prisoner of war status. The soldiers were kidnapped, and have not been heard from — not even a sign of life. The rocket attacks that preceded Israel's invasion are largely ignored, as is the fact that Hezbollah fired its rockets from civilian population centers.

Mr. Carter gives virtually no credit to Israel's superb legal system, falsely asserting (without any citation) that "confessions extracted through torture are admissible in Israeli courts," that prisoners are "executed,"and that the "accusers" act "as judges." Even Israel's most severe critics acknowledge the fairness of the Israeli Supreme Court, but not Mr. Carter.

Mr. Carter even blames Israel for the "exodus of Christians from the Holy Land," totally ignoring the Islamization of the area by Hamas and the comparable exodus of Christian Arabs from Lebanon as a result of the increasing influence of Hezbollah and the repeated assassination of Christian leaders by Syria.

Mr. Carter also blames every American administration but his own for the Mideast stalemate with particular emphasis on "a submissive White House and U.S. Congress in recent years." He employs hyperbole and overstatement when he says that "dialogue on controversial issues is a privilege to be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and withheld from those who reject U.S. demands." He confuses terrorist states, such as Iran and Syria, to which we do not extend dialogue, with states with whom we strongly disagree, such as France and China, but with whom we have constant dialogue.

And it's not just the facts; it's the tone as well. It's obvious that Mr. Carter just doesn't like Israel or Israelis. He lectured Golda Meir on Israeli's "secular" nature, warning her that "Israel was punished whenever its leaders turned away from devout worship of God." He admits that he did not like Menachem Begin. He has little good to say about any Israelis — except those few who agree with him. But he apparently got along swimmingly with the very secular Syrian mass-murderer Hafez al-Assad. Mr. Carter and his wife Rosalynn also had a fine time with the equally secular Arafat — a man who has the blood of hundreds of Americans and Israelis on his hands:

Rosalynn and I met with Yasir Arafat in Gaza City, where he was staying with his wife, Suha, and their little daughter. The baby, dressed in a beautiful pink suit, came readily to sit on my lap, where I practiced the same wiles that had been successful with our children and grandchildren. A lot of photographs were taken, and then the photographers asked that Arafat hold his daughter for a while. When he took her, the child screamed loudly and reached out her hands to me, bringing jovial admonitions to the presidential candidate to stay at home enough to become acquainted with is own child.

There is something quite disturbing about these pictures.

"Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" is so biased that it inevitably raises the question of what would motivate a decent man like Jimmy Carter to write such an indecent book. Whatever Mr. Carter's motives may be, his authorship of this ahistorical, one-sided, and simplistic brief against Israel forever disqualifies him from playing any positive role in fairly resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. That is a tragedy because the Carter Center, which has done much good in the world, could have been a force for peace if Jimmy Carter were as generous in spirit to the Israelis as he is to the Palestinians.

Well, at least one of his recommendations was accepted by Shrub - Rumdumb said that if you wanted something, reward it and if you didn't want something, penalize it.

Shrub must not have wanted anymore of him, so he penalized him.

Al: "Since the current course is going so well, there's no need for widescale changes so we can simply stay the course. And Centcom agrees with me things are going well."

And mommy said so! That's why I'm suiting up and going there tomorrow. Buh-bye!

is it common for the trolls to devolve into chimps hurling off-topic feces whenever one of their little neocon bitches gets fired?

just asking.

Mommy I made poopee!!!

By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer
Sat Dec 2, 12:52 PM ET

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Worried by Iran's deepening involvement in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia has been working quietly to curtail the Shiite nation's influence and prevent the marginalization of Sunni Muslims in the region's hotspots.

Analysts say the tug-of-war between the two Mideast powers signals a new chapter in an uneasy relationship, one that has swung over the years between wariness and — at times — outright confrontation.

On the surface, both countries have maintained the civil front that has marked ties since a thaw in relations in the early 1990s.

"But events on the ground indicate that the two countries are working against each other as their differences are played out outside their borders," said Ibrahim Bayram, a reporter for the Lebanese An-Nahar newspaper, who follows the country's pro-Iranian Hezbollah group.

Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the region, has been putting its economic and diplomatic weight behind groups in direct confrontation with factions backed by Iran in every major conflict zone in the region — Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

The kingdom has also expressed concerns over Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. contends Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran denies. But Saudi Arabia has fears even about a peaceful nuclear program because of the possible environmental threat and the potential for conflict between Iran and U.S. troops stationed in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.

A Saudi official said Iran has sent messages expressing its desire to work with the kingdom to resolve the area's conflicts. But the official said Iran's actions speak louder than those messages, making Saudi Arabia cautious in dealing with Tehran. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The tense situation has also made the kingdom more determined to explore ways to find a settlement to Mideast upheavals on its own.

Saudi Arabia has stepped up attempts to reconcile Iraq's fractious groups and has invited Iraqi leaders for talks, including anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Harith al-Dhari, head of Iraq's influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars. It has also been talking to Iraq's Sunnis to urge them to renounce violence and become more involved in the political process.

Elsewhere, the kingdom is supporting the U.S.-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who is facing street protests organized by Hezbollah meant to topple the government. The Saudis are also backing beleaguered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is trying to work out a new unity government with the militant Hamas group, which is allied to Iran.

The relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia has long been uneasy, especially after the 1979 Iranian revolution. Saudi Arabia sided with Baghdad in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and Riyadh and Tehran were openly hostile at the height of the conflict.

Iran frequently called on Muslims to overthrow the Saudi ruling family, seize its oil wealth and strip it of its role as guardian of Islamic holy places. Riyadh accused Tehran of trying to undermine its security and broke off relations in 1988.

But distrust between the two countries eased after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death in 1989, and diplomatic relations were restored shortly after the 1991 Gulf War.

Saudi analysts say Iran is now trying to wrest the traditional leadership role Riyadh has played in the region. But Saudi Arabia will "not allow Iran to expand at its expense as a big regional power," said Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi journalist.

"Iran is acting as a Persian state and not as an Islamic state," he said. "The conflict in the region is not a Sunni-Shiite conflict. It's a Persian-Arab conflict."

The view from Iran is different, said Mashaallah Shamsolvaezin, an adviser to the Middle East Strategic Studies Center in Tehran, which is closely affiliated with the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

He said a change in Iranian foreign policy to focus on improving economic and political ties with Middle Eastern countries instead of Europe has prompted the Saudi fears. He said the political shift is not coming at the expense of traditional powers like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

He blamed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "radical" rhetoric for Tehran's failure to send a reassuring message about its policy shifts.

"His statements not only have not helped. They have hurt Iran's strategic policies," he said.

Oh great, Nads, toilet humor. Just what we needed.

The Saddam in Rumsfeld’s Closet

Five years before Saddam Hussein’s now infamous 1988 gassing of the Kurds, a key meeting took place in Baghdad that would play a significant role in forging close ties between Saddam Hussein and Washington. It happened at a time when Saddam was first alleged to have used chemical weapons. The meeting in late December 1983 paved the way for an official restoration of relations between Iraq and the US, which had been severed since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

With the Iran-Iraq war escalating, President Ronald Reagan dispatched his Middle East envoy, a former secretary of defense, to Baghdad with a hand-written letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and a message that Washington was willing at any moment to resume diplomatic relations.

That envoy was Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld’s December 19-20, 1983 visit to Baghdad made him the highest-ranking US official to visit Iraq in 6 years. He met Saddam and the two discussed “topics of mutual interest,” according to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. “[Saddam] made it clear that Iraq was not interested in making mischief in the world,” Rumsfeld later told The New York Times. “It struck us as useful to have a relationship, given that we were interested in solving the Mideast problems.”

Just 12 days after the meeting, on January 1, 1984, The Washington Post reported that the United States “in a shift in policy, has informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in the 3-year-old war with Iran would be ‘contrary to U.S. interests’ and has made several moves to prevent that result.”

In March of 1984, with the Iran-Iraq war growing more brutal by the day, Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad for meetings with then-Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. On the day of his visit, March 24th, UPI reported from the United Nations: “Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers in the 43-month Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, a team of U.N. experts has concluded... Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, U.S. presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld held talks with Foreign Minister Tarek Aziz (sic) on the Gulf war before leaving for an unspecified destination.”

The day before, the Iranian news agency alleged that Iraq launched another chemical weapons assault on the southern battlefront, injuring 600 Iranian soldiers. “Chemical weapons in the form of aerial bombs have been used in the areas inspected in Iran by the specialists,” the U.N. report said. “The types of chemical agents used were bis-(2-chlorethyl)-sulfide, also known as mustard gas, and ethyl N, N-dimethylphosphoroamidocyanidate, a nerve agent known as Tabun.”

Prior to the release of the UN report, the US State Department on March 5th had issued a statement saying “available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons.”

Commenting on the UN report, US Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was quoted by The New York Times as saying, “We think that the use of chemical weapons is a very serious matter. We've made that clear in general and particular.”

Compared with the rhetoric emanating from the current administration, based on speculations about what Saddam might have, Kirkpatrick’s reaction was hardly a call to action.

Most glaring is that Donald Rumsfeld was in Iraq as the 1984 UN report was issued and said nothing about the allegations of chemical weapons use, despite State Department “evidence.” On the contrary, The New York Times reported from Baghdad on March 29, 1984, “American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name.”

A month and a half later, in May 1984, Donald Rumsfeld resigned. In November of that year, full diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US were fully restored. Two years later, in an article about Rumsfeld’s aspirations to run for the 1988 Republican Presidential nomination, the Chicago Tribune Magazine listed among Rumsfeld’s achievements helping to “reopen U.S. relations with Iraq.” The Tribune failed to mention that this help came at a time when, according to the US State Department, Iraq was actively using chemical weapons.

Throughout the period that Rumsfeld was Reagan’s Middle East envoy, Iraq was frantically purchasing hardware from American firms, empowered by the White House to sell. The buying frenzy began immediately after Iraq was removed from the list of alleged sponsors of terrorism in 1982. According to a February 13, 1991 Los Angeles Times article:

“First on Hussein's shopping list was helicopters -- he bought 60 Hughes helicopters and trainers with little notice. However, a second order of 10 twin-engine Bell "Huey" helicopters, like those used to carry combat troops in Vietnam, prompted congressional opposition in August, 1983... Nonetheless, the sale was approved.”

In 1984, according to The LA Times, the State Department—in the name of “increased American penetration of the extremely competitive civilian aircraft market”—pushed through the sale of 45 Bell 214ST helicopters to Iraq. The helicopters, worth some $200 million, were originally designed for military purposes. The New York Times later reported that Saddam “transferred many, if not all [of these helicopters] to his military.”

In 1988, Saddam’s forces attacked Kurdish civilians with poisonous gas from Iraqi helicopters and planes. U.S. intelligence sources told The LA Times in 1991, they “believe that the American-built helicopters were among those dropping the deadly bombs.”

In response to the gassing, sweeping sanctions were unanimously passed by the US Senate that would have denied Iraq access to most US technology. The measure was killed by the White House.

Senior officials later told reporters they did not press for punishment of Iraq at the time because they wanted to shore up Iraq's ability to pursue the war with Iran. Extensive research uncovered no public statements by Donald Rumsfeld publicly expressing even remote concern about Iraq’s use or possession of chemical weapons until the week Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, when he appeared on an ABC news special.

Eight years later, Donald Rumsfeld signed on to an “open letter” to President Clinton, calling on him to eliminate “the threat posed by Saddam.” It urged Clinton to “provide the leadership necessary to save ourselves and the world from the scourge of Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction that he refuses to relinquish.”

In 1984, Donald Rumsfeld was in a position to draw the world’s attention to Saddam’s chemical threat. He was in Baghdad as the UN concluded that chemical weapons had been used against Iran. He was armed with a fresh communication from the State Department that it had “available evidence” Iraq was using chemical weapons. But Rumsfeld said nothing.

Washington now speaks of Saddam’s threat and the consequences of a failure to act. Despite the fact that the administration has failed to provide even a shred of concrete proof that Iraq has links to Al Qaeda or has resumed production of chemical or biological agents, Rumsfeld insists that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

But there is evidence of the absence of Donald Rumsfeld’s voice at the very moment when Iraq’s alleged threat to international security first emerged. And in this case, the evidence of absence is indeed evidence.

rcmk1,

Bob, no that long editorial was by Spengler - Check out the Asia Times - Spengler writes long essays on political subjects - He wants the US to take out Iran.

Smells like desperation around here. Charlie is working his ass off, and it looks like he's been getting some help in fucking up the threads.

We've seen heavy impersonation, all kinds of bullshit.

Is it time to go to backchannel comms and stay organized? If there's anyone who needs a free e-mail account so they can exchange info with regulars, I think hotmail works pretty good these days for getting one.

Shoot, move, communicate.

Sorry for polluting the forum with my nonsense earlier. I just read this article in the Nation, and it completely changed my perspective. Clearly, Rumsfeld and the rest of the PNAC are war criminals.

Rumsfeld the War Criminal

In April of 2003, The Nation called for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as Secretary of Defense. "The indictment has many counts," we wrote, "from misrepresenting the threat posed by Iraq, to the miscalculation of human and financial costs, to the shredding of international relationships."

More than three years later, this judgement was met with mainstream consensus and national cheers as last week's election results finally forced President Bush to show Rumsfeld the door.

Now, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is working to hold Rumsfeld accountable for being a central instigator of an illegal war. The legal group's President and co-founder Michael Ratner yesterday filed a criminal complaint in Berlin asking the German Federal Prosecutor to open an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking US officials--starting with Rumsfeld--for authorizing war crimes in the context of the "War on Terror." The complaint was filed on behalf of 12 current and past US-held captives at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantánamo detention center, and argues that the Bush administration authorized policies and interrogation techniques that led to their torture.

The Bush Administration has refused to seriously investigate the abuses that have taken place under Rumsfeld's command, so CCR has had to go to Germany to do it. Why Germany? The complaint is being filed under the Code of Crimes against International Law, enacted by Germany in compliance with the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court in 2002, which Germany ratified.

The CCIL provides for "universal jurisdiction" for war crimes, crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. It enables the German Federal Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute crimes constituting a violation of the CCIL, irrespective of the location of the defendant or plaintiff, the place where the crime was carried out, or the nationality of the persons involved.

The German Prosecutor has discretion to decide whether to initiate an investigation. CCR is urging people to write to her so she knows that people around the world support this effort. Please urge the German Prosecutor to open an investigation into this case. CCR has a good letter you can send along with contact info. (Note that all letters are in both German and English with German appearing first.)

Needless to say, even a conviction wouldn't put Rummy in the docks. But it would send an important signal to the world that war crimes will not be ignored. It could also crimp Rumsfeld's travel plans! The more of us who write to the German Federal Prosecutor, the more likely she is to open an investigation.

"lick"

Quit spamming the thread please.

What are you? Some kind of reverse concern troll with a penchant for buggery?

Yeah, great ideas, Pale Rider. Let's go to bachchannel comms. Let's synchronize our watches, too. This is going to be too much fun, almost like camp.

Who knew being a poster on a leftie message board could be this exciting?

Have any good Playboy articles? Or the Saskatoon Gazette? Mother Jones? Catholic Times? The Austrian Gross Glockner Gittle?

Bring 'em on. Baited breath awaits.

Don't bait your breath too much, 3Paul. It's bad enough as it is...

Perhaps Charlie/DonP/Alice/Jeffery/Spooko, et alia could post a week's worth of the Congressional Record from 1957.

Or tell us about Hog Futures?

Is it time to go to backchannel comms and stay organized? If there's anyone who needs a free e-mail account so they can exchange info with regulars, I think hotmail works pretty good these days for getting one. Shoot, move, communicate.
Posted by: Pale Rider

That's AWESOME, Pale Rider. Thanks for posting that. Wow.

Shoot, move, communicate. That is really cool. Not as cool as eats, shoots, and leaves, but pretty cool nonetheless.

Mommy I made poopee!!!
Posted by: Nads

Ironically, I was using the ... facilities when this was posted, and did, in fact, make a poopee.

Too funny!

"If we withdraw and lose control over Saddam before he's executed, who knows what might happen?"
Posted by: cld on December 2, 2006 at 7:48 PM | PERMALINK

This is a fascinating point which helps explain the stubbornness to leave as well as anything else. Could it really be true that our main reason for going into Iraq was to "get" Saddam? Or is it that there were many reasons for going and this is just the one reason for not leaving "too soon"?

"The Persian prostitute is the camp follower of the jihadi, joined to him in a pact of national suicide."
Posted by: lick on December 2, 2006 at 9:21 PM | PERMALINK

very interesting stuff!

It might relate to the Vietnam war in a curious way: our involvement on one side of a 'country of interest' to direct it's attention away from something going on in the other direction may have distracted China away from fighting a nuclear war with the Soviets and our involvement on the West of Iran may distract it's attention from the growing importance of Azerbaijan. But, are American politicians even capable of such machinations? It doesn't seem likely.

More likely we're in Iraq to get Saddam, make gobs of money through no-bid contracts and to make the Israelis happy.

Don't disregard the obvious simple answer just because the more interesting complicated answer is there. Sometimes truth is simple and obvious.

Yea sure MarkH, but let's keep our eye on the ball here. When Iran is well and truly vanquished (even more beaten than today), we'll get lots of Persian whores! How cool is that?

"lots of Persian whores"

Oh yeah, I remember when the Shah's people came over - They all became Publicans. Yeah, that was very cool.

Well, hopefully they won't come over here. We gotta have some standards. But look on the bright side: Amsterdam is just a quick flight away.

despite the whores in Full Metal jacket, we still lost vietnam ... I question spengler's premise.

PR,

Doesn't feces say the coolest things?

The guy who just posted under my handle at 12:21 is an imposter. I would never suggest you're a shit, Pale Rider.

Well, they sure didn't do me a whole lot of good. I mean all I was able to do was snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

But, they'll always be remembered.

"Islamist radicals (like the penny-a-marriage mullahs of Iran) are the world's most prolific pimps. The same networks that move female flesh across borders also provide illegal passage for jihadis, and the proceeds of human trafficking often support Islamist terrorists."

Is that really true? Seems I read somewhere that these were separate networks.

"These distasteful facts bear directly upon Iran's national decline, and the impulses that push the Iranian leadership toward strategic flight forward. Iran's plunging birth rate, I observed in essays past, will burden the country with an elderly population proportionately as large as Western Europe's within a generation, just at the point at which this impoverished country will have ceased to export oil."

- I call bullshit. Iran is a developing country. Their population has gotta be growing quickly, with sky-high fertility rates.

Posting under someone else's name and using their e-mail address is a very lame and infantile practice. The 12:25 post was not by 3Paul - You've done it to Global, PR, PaulB, rcmk1 and now you've done it at least 4 times, 2 on the House of Saud thread to that of thethirdPaul. Get a life DonP, or whom ever or what ever you are - If you can't prevail on your own merits, don't try to steal from others you twisted perverted fuck. Besides if you are going to post as 3Paul, try not to be so erudite as he is such a much simpler folk.

Actually, the Iranian fertility rate has cratered and is already below replacement level. And the Persian population has had sub-replacement level fertility rates for a long time.

Pale Rider, too. If you're going to post under his handle, you should affect near-retardation. That's the only way to fool'um, y'see. He's That Stupid.

Nads,

Oh, and I see the slime hit you as well. Gutless little tripe, is it not?

No, at 12:09? That really was me.

the preceeding little shithead is right ... the 1209 one really is me.

We can all speculate until the cows come home, but if we mentally eliminate Americans from the Iraq picture we might conclude that the Sunni/al Qaeda forces are not going to over-run Shia neighborhoods because they don't have the manpower to do it. They've got about enough true fighting people to do what they have been doing, which is to put out the occasional IED and send suicide bombers in cars. Thrown in a dozen snipers and that's about it.

The various Shiite militias do have lots of manpower and lots of weapons, but no apparent adult supervision.

Syria and Iran have been keeping the Iraq mess going, but of the two Iran is much, much the stronger, even before you consider Iran is going to be a regional nuclear power.

In fact, even if Syria has all kinds of Saudi promises of aid and support, Syria seems to be pushing its luck in provoking Lebanon to a new civil war. Israel will not allow all of Lebanon to become greater Syria, period. The New York Times will undoubtedly try like hell to blame the Maronite Christian Lebanese for resisting local Islamo-fascism, but the Maronites I have met are very smart, relatively wealthy, and not into putting on kid gloves before going to war.

The two preceding posts are NOT by me. Same piece of shit that has been stealing our handles all night long. Go fuck yourself! And the 12:09 is definitely not me. Nads.

This is really Nads.

"We can all speculate until the cows come home, but if we mentally eliminate Americans from the Iraq picture we might conclude that the Sunni/al Qaeda forces are not going to over-run Shia neighborhoods because they don't have the manpower to do it."

They had enough manpower, though, to run the country for x decades, right?

Now we know why Rumsfeld got canned.

Mike Cook - "Syria and Iran have been keeping the Iraq mess going, but of the two Iran is much, much the stronger, even before you consider Iran is going to be a regional nuclear power."

That's why we need to fuck Iran up much more severely than we have as of yet. That might be the solution to some of the Iraq problem as well (at least by keeping them occupied at home). One way to do it: get some of their ethnic groups to ceceede.

Oh, and BTW, above where is says: "I just find selective sympathy for whomever the current "good arabs" are supposed to be somewhat tiresome" under my handle, that wasn't me either. I think it was Don P trying to make me look stupid by creating the appearance that I don't know Kurds from Arabs. Of course I would never write something that dumb. This was an imposter, too.

Amnesty slams Israel 'war crimes'

The rights group's report for 2004 says Israeli forces have killed some 700 Palestinians - including 150 children - mostly in unlawful circumstances.

The report lists "reckless shooting, shelling and air strikes in civilian areas... and excessive use of force".

It also condemns the killing of Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants and violence by Jewish settlers.

"Certain abuses committed by the Israeli army constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes," Amnesty's report says.

Dear G-d, the president is such a pussy.

Teen Questioned for Online Bush Threats

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Upset by the war in Iraq, Julia Wilson vented her frustrations with President Bush last spring on her Web page on MySpace.com. She posted a picture of the president, scrawled "Kill Bush" across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She later replaced her page on the social-networking site after learning in her eighth-grade history class that such threats are a federal offense.

It was too late.

Federal authorities had found the page and placed Wilson on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class.

The 14-year-old freshman was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents. The incident has upset her parents, who said the agents should have included them when they questioned their daughter.

On Friday, the teenager said the agents' questioning led her to tears.

"More and More Like A Civil War"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jordT1Kuc88

Perhaps it's not altogether surprising that so many of us* never realized how incompetent Rumsfeld was until he took his leave.

*For sufficiently clueless values of us, it should go without saying.

How about this: Rumsfeld leaves just as he came in, making every effort to make Rumsfeld look good. He produces a laundry list of every conceivable option so he can't be blamed for hewing to one, failed course (which of course he has).

Bush the first tried to sabotage Iraq by getting ethnic groups to secede, with the unfortunate result of getting a lot of Kurds and swamp Arabs killed. The U.S. has quite a reputation for encouraging people to be rash and then slipping away to leave them twisting in the wind. Of course, all great nations do that. The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto hoped that the Russian army might possibly reach them if they could hold out against the Nazis, but Stalin only wanted them to think that. His long-term plan was a post-war Poland without Jews and someone else would take the blame.

Rummy finally realized that he could lose his job, but came up with squat to try and defend it.

All of Bush's stupid ideas.

So now what is Bush going to do? Perhaps arm the Shiite's with military weapons, which gives the Saudis reason to continue financing the madrassas schools. Bush's new agenda to "bring on the terrorist". Bush can never have enough terrorist to scare American, had go out make more terrorist.

Israel Fakes a Provocation for War(the "kidnapping" of Cpl Shalit).

The following passages are from this article published in the Telegraph on 26/06/2006.

Last night two Israeli soldiers were killed and another kidnapped in a dawn attack by Palestinian militants who tunnelled under Gaza's heavily protected border.

The attackers, believed to number seven or eight, surprised Israeli forces when they appeared at first light through a tunnel on open ground 300 yards inside Israel near a kibbutz.

Gaza is built on old semi-consolidated sand dunes. It is extremely unlikely that anyone could tunnel 500, or more, yards in the sandy ground of Gaza (300 yards into Israel plus 200 yards of no-mans land plus more to the tunnel entrance), without the tunnel collapsing at some point, or the Israeli listening equipment, hearing their tunneling activity.

They split into three groups before launching simultaneous attacks on three Israeli defensive positions - a look-out tower, plus a tank and an (unoccupied) armoured personnel carrier, both dug in, facing Gaza.

If you were only seven or eight, would you split into three groups? If you were only two, or three, would you attack a tank over flat ground, manned by four soldiers waiting inside to kill you?

They blew open the tank's rear doors (the Israeli merkava tank has one rear door) with a missile fired from point-blank range before tossing grenades inside. Two of the tank crew died and another was severely wounded but the final crew member, the gunner, was forced out of the wreckage at gunpoint.

The rear doors are blown off and a few grenades popped inside. Tanks are not made to fall apart. Blowing off the rear doors would have taken a blast sufficient to seriously hurt those inside. The grenades would have then made mincemeat of them.

Later reports, from the New York Times and others, tell us that Shalit suffered only minor injuries to his abdomen and one arm, even though everyone else in the tank was severely wounded or killed. Shalit would have been very close to those killed (there's not much spare room in a tank).

And, how exactly did the Jew press find out about his injuries, when no one else seems to have known.

Israeli trackers said they found his blood-stained bulletproof vest close to the Gaza perimeter fence.

One wonders, if it is standard practice to wear a bulletproof vest inside a hot tank, especially Shalit, who was supposedly the gunner. One would think that the tank would be bulletproof enough not to require such a vest. Can Israeli tanks stop bullets, or not?

Anyway, the militants force Shalit to take off his bulletproof vest and leave it close to the Gaza concentration camp fence, in order to help the Israeli's with their investigation. By the way, whose blood is it on his bulletproof vest? Did his minor wounds bleed profusely, or was it the other soldiers blood and guts all over him. Pity their bulletproof vests didn't save them.

Meanwhile, two other militants attacked a nearby concrete watchtower.... The troop carrier was also damaged in another attack but it was unoccupied. The attackers then escaped back into Gaza by cutting their way through the perimeter fence.

Interestingly, the attackers esca