Friday Sermon from Iran and New York

cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

A moment of silence? At least from Tehran that is how it would appear; in NY however, the Mullahs Supreme Allegiance Branch West, otherwise known as the NY Times Editorial Board is in its usual frothing at the mouth form.

Tehran is quiet from a reporting point of view, which is unusual for a government controlled mouthpiece often overflowing with the propaganda rhetoric of the weeks Friday Prayer Leader. We’ll have to wait and see what next Friday brings to judge whether this lack will become the standard; perhaps their own words are coming back to bite them as they work to hide their faces of evil.

But no sooner does someone finish writing a paragraph and the floodgates are loosed; from Tehran, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei led the congregation with:

“Alert and wise Iranian nation, relying on strong faith and resistance, made US project of weakening Islamic Revolution face defeat. The Iranian nation would continue paving the same proud and glorious path, and a time will come when no power would dare to threaten this nation, even in his mind.”

The religio-politico leader also defined US plans following 9/11 by adding:

“The Americans had a multi-dimensional project, aimed at shaping up a pro-Zionist Middle East, but faced defeat at all layers of that project.”

Sometimes too much love can be harmful, but if you so choose visit the Motormouth Mullah for more of his positive message.

Mullahs West for its part continued the assault to strengthen the imagined belief that President Bush is the real enemy in this war and offered the fruits of wisdom with its summation of the week:

“This was the week in which Americans hoped they would get straight talk and clear thinking on Iraq. What they got was two exhausting days of Congressional testimony by the American military commander, hours of news conferences and interviews, clouds of cut-to-order statistics and a speech from the Oval Office — and none of it either straight or clear.”

It is a shame that in its role as the arbiter of truth the toilet paper believes “Americans” are so easily exhausted by an entire two days of information. Perhaps, as is obvious it is The behind the Times that has issues with the clarity and direction it expected from the testimony and “hours of news conferences and interviews.” When the only thing that would please Mullahs West is what they want to hear, anything short of that is just more smoke, mirrors and clouds.

Beyond the repetition complaining about repetition and various assertive, yet naïve strategies the board did at the least not bash General Petraeus. This was likely due to the lack of this necessity with the discounted full page ad given to the MoveOn group.

Beyond the redun, redundant, redundant and repetitive moaning and alternate propaganda with “cherry picked” remarks and misinformation, Mullahs West did offer up a very revealing sentence that suggests how wrong they really are. In hoping “Mr. Bush would drop the meaningless talk of victory” and the “fiction that the war keeps” Americans safe from terrorism; they offered “credit” to the general for not adopting “that bit of propaganda.”

So used to supporting those in the General Officers club that agree with their perspective, that when a general rightly chooses not to play a role in the larger political snafu; a role mind you that is not the generals to play, that they give him “credit” for doing something he shouldn’t be doing anyway.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely politicians…

Democrats: An End to the War; Short, Bittersweet and the Crux

cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

President Bush spoke for the eighth time on the subject of Iraq this evening; the consensus to most talking heads was it is not much in the neighborhood of new material. A reason for this lack in new material can be attributed to the opposition’s repetition of the past four years; the president is still speaking to the same arguments. This is not to say it is the fault of the Democrats that the president is repetitive, but more in line with yelling in a canyon and hearing an echo in response. Would it be nice if he were to take a new tack? Yes, it would, but it would also be nice if the Democrats tried a new refrain as well.

Senator from Rhode Island, Jack Reed responded to the president with the same tried and still not true material. A piece of which is “ending this war.” This has basically been the crux to the debate; Democrats and their supporters see this as a “war” and the president and his supporters in this vein see this more as a battle in a “war.” These are two very diametrically opposed views and part of that, which has made the debate all the more difficult to move forward in a way that might reach consensus.

Jack Reed referred to the issue in Iraq as a civil war, which is nothing new; so far so good. Setting aside the implausibility inherent in succeeding at what is being attempted with the numbers employed now, but with fewer troops and/or with new geographical post, we can end “this war.” Senator Reed is not wrong if this is a singular and unique war with no relatives in sight. Where Senator Reed and the Democrats fail is if this is as the president has continuously stated; a front in a greater war, this to the Democrats is the great gamble and one with which they have bet our future on.

In a perfect world with pieces that fit like a jigsaw puzzle, the Democrats might have a chance at completing the image of the cute puppy on the box cover. In another perfect world, as horrifying and pitiful as it would be, were the president wrong, amends could be made; not perfectly mind you with all forgiven, but made nonetheless; take it or leave it. Pride or martyrdom in death, like that sought by our enemy is mistaken but to the greater thinking world, admitting error is possible and more likely by no other nation than the United States; we’re great at proselytizing (think Democrats).

The catch is the more likely scenario. The United States and its allies disengage from the battle in the greater war; redeploy, draw down, withdraw and bring an end to the “war” only to find that we have given massive and unimaginable ground reminiscent of a Hamburger Hill magnified, but the planet is the hill. We then spend decades making up for the loss of momentum that we had within our grasp, yet threw away in our haste to end the “war.”

The preceding regarding battle versus greater war has been said and/or written before by many people, as this is the case, please forgive the repetition; at I have a lot of company.

Petraeus Betray Us, Feinstein Lyin’: Iraq and the Greater War on Terror

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

From the Editors at National Review Online comes this closer, which says it all:

“Sen. Dianne Feinstein yesterday dismissed General Petraeus as not an “independent evaluator” of the Iraq war. Everything we’ve heard this year indicates that Petraeus is in fact a cautious and factual evaluator of the surge, but in a sense Feinstein is right — Petraeus is vested in the war, sees it as an important national project, and wants to win. Would that Democrats showed a similar bias.”

There happens to be a lot of great points in this editorial that make it very worthwhile reading as well as more commentary from: Byron York, Michael O’Hanlon, Michael Yon, John Boehner, Mark Hemingway, Fred Kagan, Donald Kagan, W. Thomas Smith, Jr., Michael Barone, William Hawkins, Mark Steyn and James S. Robbins.

So, with the new majority in Washington are we truly to believe that Bush is the whole problem?

On another facet of the war on terror Newt Gingrich visited Fox and Friends this morning, where in part he suggested the U.S. concentrate/debate on the big picture in the war on terror and not just focus on Iraq. This is wise advice as so many speak to the Iraq theater just going away if we withdraw/redeploy; an end to this war.

Iran for some time now has been shelling in the Kurdish north of Iraq; an Iranian delegation at a diplomatic conference in Baghdad at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry warned in diplomatese:

“if the Iraqi government could not stop militants from crossing into Iran and carrying out attacks, the Iranian authorities would respond militarily.”

A veiled suggestion to enter Iraq militarily is the first straight forward remark from Iran even though its words reveal its plans daily.

According to the delegation the U.S. has a “double-standard” as:

‘”Supporting military and political actions by terrorist elements in Iraq against neighboring countries is considered dangerous behavior that we cannot tolerate, and a major factor in the chaotic security situation and instability in the region.”’

This double-standard unfortunately does not reach the heights of the exponentially rising “double-standards” of Iran, but the U.S. has to start somewhere, no?

The conference, which was organized by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry and led by Hoshyar Zebari was attended by the U.S. and other “concerned” neighbors in the region.

We’ve all heard of the calls from many on the Left to bring regional players together in a diplomatic forum (this conference; an example of what they do not see) to bring peace and calm to Iraq. At the conference, Hoshyar Zebari proposed:

“creating a “secretariat” to keep track of the Iraq issues being considered at the meetings.

When it became apparent that the United States and Britain backed Mr. Zebari’s proposal, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and others quickly took the floor to shoot the proposal down. The conference ended with the issue unresolved.”

This is a shame, but par for the course. Groups like this don’t appear to have any difficulty when it comes to say, a Durban II; then again, Durban II is in line with Democrat talking points and strategy of reframing the debate with misleading, obfuscation and lies.

The Violence in Anbar has gone down Despite the Surge, NOT Because of the Surge

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

Senator Chuck Shill Schumer remarked on the Senate floor yesterday regarding the “Surge” in Iraq and its success to date:

“I rise today to discuss the situation in Iraq and the continuing efforts of this administration to paint a rosy picture and cling to straws when the situation on the ground and common sense suggest just the opposite.”

Most would attribute the Senators “rise” to the use of Viagra, however common sense tells us this is not so. To suggest “just the opposite,” of what is actually going on in Iraq as Schumer does is to “cling to straws” when news with even the slightest hint of “good” cannot be allowed. Schumer’s remarks are nothing more than the Iraq debate reframing debate strategy the Democrats have begun prior to Petraeus and Crockers report. We’ve entered September and Harry Reid noticed yesterday that this was the case following the Dems earlier confusion on the calendar a couple months back:

“Many of my Republican friends have long held September as the month for the policy change in Iraq. It’s September. The calendar hasn’t changed. It’s time to make a decision. We can’t continue the way we are.”

According to the Shill occasionally good news is allowed to slip out prior to Democrat pre-emptive measures to downplay it:

“We’ve heard of success stories every six or eight months. This province, this town, this city. “They’re cleared, they’re safe.” And then because of the basic facts on the ground, we revert to the old situation. And let me be clear: the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge.”

“It wasn’t that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords had to create a temporary peace here on their own. And that is because there was no one else there protecting them.”

MORE HERE…

The Right Doesn’t Make Scandals Like the Old Hand Left

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

 

It’s odd that someone in the public eye like a politician would risk their career and/or what they have accomplished for some fun. The recent media revelation of an Idaho senator’s attempt at participating in what is called “anonymous sex,” is just such a case.

Senator Craig is not the first, nor will he be the last, but do you ever notice how much media play a Conservative politician rates when they have fallen from grace? This, we are told is attributed to the usual Conservative stance of “family values,” and the juxtaposition of this moral ethic and “anonymous sex.”

This is, as many have said already a double standard between what constitutes a Conservative scandal and a Liberal scandal. As only one example, Former President Bill Clinton participated in lewd conduct with an intern in the Oval Office of all places and lied about it under oath before a grand jury, yet he escaped impeachment and to this day is the darling of the Left.

Recently Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has been caught in a bit of a mess with donations from questionable sources, the Paw Family and Norma Hsu. It is by no means expected that Ms. Clinton should know about every donor on her list, although Hsu is one of the few, and the proud mendacious “Hillraisers,” so it shouldn’t in that instance be too much of a stretch to have the campaign get a clue about it.

What should be of concern is of the Democrat scandals that lose the front page quickly one that should be back up there loud and clear is the Clinton political machines other questionable campaign financing scandals and how the old intersects (thanks to Jason Breidenbach for the link) with the new.

America Coming Together, a 527 group presided over by former Clinton aide Harold Ickes and heavily funded by George Soros and other wealthy Leftwing individuals getting richer with George Bush’s tax cuts : ), has been required to pay a fine the equivalent of which is a paltry fraction of the almost $100 million spent in the 2004 election.

A scandal of this nature should tower over the perversions of a “family values” politician as the ramifications of such has a vast scope and ultimately affects us all in that Senator Clinton is vying for the highest office in the land

For a further view into the Liberal, Leftist, scandal read some excerpts from Byron York’s 2005 book “The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy,” which is available at NRO today and paints the reality in clear, concise description, which begins with the author’s note:

“On Wednesday, the Federal Election Commission slapped America Coming Together with a $775,000 fine — the third-largest such penalty in history — for violating campaign-finance laws in the 2004 election. Now largely defunct, America Coming Together was the biggest of the so-called “527” groups that took in millions from donors like George Soros for the purpose of defeating George W. Bush. In a case that has taken years to decide, the FEC ruled that America Coming Together did an end-run around the campaign-finance laws in 2004 by claiming it was using its money for non-partisan purposes like voter registration when it was in fact spending millions specifically targeting Bush.”

Political Grind has a discussion post up for debate/comments about the Craig scandal; comment system is via Intense Debate a “beta-ish” application that is not perfected yet, but its possibilities are endless. Give it a visit and keep the discussion going…

Rambama Will Take Musharraf Down!

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

Al Qaeda drew “first blood,” they don’t know who they were messin’ with…

Yesterday, we all got a good laugh when it was revealed that Democrat Presidential aspirant Barack Obama announced he would “invade Pakistan,” if necessary. My post with limited comments didn’t add much as what is there to add to the already ludicrous?

This morning, James S. Robbins has a great take over at NRO on Obama and acting on “actionable intelligence.”

“So President Obama would invade Pakistan? Who would have thought? “It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005,” Obama said at a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” Obama was pinging off a recent New York Times report of an early 2005 mission to apprehend al Qaeda leadership figures in Pakistan, including second banana Ayman al-Zawahiri. The mission was aborted by then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld because the operation had grown too large. This alone makes it a good case-study in the failings of bureaucracy; too many components looking to get involved, not enough risk being accepted, not a shining moment for the partisans of Defense Transformation.”

If anyone wants, link back with an image of “Rambama” let’s see what we can put together.

Obama says he might send troops to Pakistan

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

Let’s get this straight and clear:

“WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.”

Aimed at the president but more appropriately directed at the candidate himself:

“He confuses our mission.”

This only bolsters “his chief rivals” description of “his foreign policy skills as naive.“

Personally this just flummoxes me, so I must hand it over to Michelle Malkin’s “Macho Man.“

Two Liberal Wrongs do NOT Make a Right

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

The NY Times and NBC News are going to be “collaborating” in their coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Interesting, that word “collaboration,” Vichy is the first word to come to mind. So it’s official, rather than trying to bounce off each others tactics the two Liberally slanted sources of “news” will be openly conspiring together to slant the “news.”

Executive editor of the paper, in a message to the staff said:

“In brief, the arrangement goes like this: We will give NBC stories, graphics, pictures and The Caucus blog for their Web site. They will give us video for ours along with links that should expose many new readers to our online journalism.”

And it begins, I guess with video and article about the woman who would be president. Collaboration it is…

Letter to Murtha from Marine L/Cpl Justin L. Sharratt’s Dad – Wake Up America

Cross posted from Wake Up America:

Thanks to CArthur for the email.

Posted in Guest Authors by Longhunter on July 23, 2007

Throughout this Haditha investigation our family has believed in the innocence of our son L/Cpl Justin Sharratt- we knew he was innocent. There are things I do not understand and I would like to find the answers. We do not seek revenge, but we would like to see justice. In a conversation with Congressman John Murtha, my questions still remain unanswered. With the help of the American people, I hope to find justice.

On Wednesday morning, July 17th I spoke with Congressman John Murtha via telephone from his Washington, DC office. We had a courteous conversation. I knew what to expect from a career politician and Congressman Murtha did not disappoint. Mr. Murtha avoided answering the hard questions and I was unable to press him for the answers. I wanted the conversation to remain amicable and decided to let him speak and avoid a heated confrontation.

At no time during the dialogue would Mr. Murtha acknowledge the impending exoneration of my son. I pressed him to use the word exoneration but the best I could get was “things seem to have gone well in your son’s Article 32. The General is a fair man and I believe he will do the right thing.” I replied, ” Lt. Col Paul Ware presented a strong recommendation for exoneration and we are anticipating Lt. Gen James Mattis following this recommendation.”

Mr. Murtha asked me if I had served in the military. He recalled his visits with injured Marines, soldiers and sailors. He said he supports our troops and it is the war he does not condone. Mr Murtha believes combat operations in Iraq have put an enormous strain on our Armed Forces. The stress of combat situations has led our troops to kill innocent civilians. I pointed out to Mr. Murtha, ” Our Haditha Marines are innocent until proven guilty.” It seems he is again denying our Marines their Constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence. Mr. Murtha replied that we have a Marine (Mendoza) testifying that innocent women and children were killed in Haditha. I retorted that he is again believing the reports of the media and Mendoza was granted immunity for his lies. Mendoza has changed his testimony at least two times. NCIS may have threatened him with deportation and denial of US citizenship. This time I scolded him, ” I witnessed their (NCIS) conduct first hand in my son’s Article 32.”

I questioned Congressman Murtha as to his statements of 17 May 2006. On national television, in front of millions of Americans, he stated ” Marines killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” I asked him why he denied these Marines their Constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence. Again the Congressman used his experience to side step the answer. Mr. Murtha stated his intentions were to point out the stress our military was under in Iraq. He replied we would not win the hearts of the Iraqi people by killing women and children. I again snapped, ” Our Haditha Marines have not been convicted of killing innocents and are innocent until proven guilty.”

I believe this conversation was the first step in obtaining justice for Our Haditha Marines. I did not expect Mr. Murtha to admit to or apologize for any wrongdoing in his role to railroad my son and his Marine comrades. The American people now know that his unfounded and untruthful allegations were used to further his political agenda. It is my intention to ask the Congress of the United States to censure Representative John Murtha and hold hearings to explain his conduct in respect to the Haditha incident. I will ask the American people to question his blatant disregard for the Constitutional rights of Our Haditha Marines. I will campaign to the voters of Pa Congressional District 12 to oust Representative Murtha from his elected office. The American people deserve better, we must demand better representation from our elected officials.

Darryl Sharratt
Proud American, Proud father of L/Cpl Justin L. Sharratt

CNN/YouTube Democrat Debate Follow-up

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

Was it a success? Or was it just another debate but with a face on the question? Was it just wishful thinking on my part or was there a brief nano-second(?) of a bust to the right of the person with the first question (his left)?

Yesterday I had concerns about the YouTube angle of the debate making it more of an entertainment extravaganza and said, “I cringe to contemplate faux sincerity from the candidates in response to a question asked by a “real live” previously recorded video of an American citizen.”

Having actually viewed the debate, I didn’t actually cringe at these home made video questions, but just the same the whole addition was kind of useless. Overall I thought the setting and tone of the “show” was good; it was actually better than I had expected. However (seven letter word for “but”), the content was “as expected,” which is unless you’re an easily convinced monkey there was nothing of any use.

Last night a couple hours after the “show” I was a guest on Political Vindication Radio with hosts Shane and Frank the authors of Political Vindication (archive here and previous visit here, entire archive here). As usual it was a lot of fun and I think you will find informative; even if you just agree. You can also listen to their weekly show “Live” every Wednesday nights at 6:00PM Pacific Time by going here.

I’m sure there are many opinions out there as to how things went, but one that I find interesting is from Byron York and his take on “Obama’s Bad Night,” at NRO. Yes, now when I think of it, he did come off as an amateur, but in my partisan way it is and was difficult to take any of them seriously.

Last night Shane, Frank and I did take notice of Senator Clinton’s (speaking of “Hillary,” was the questioner that used her first name a “Plant?”), response to the question regarding the “leadership” question answered first by Obama (the one York sees as revealing), her answer from CNN:

“Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are.

I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don’t want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration.

And I will purse very vigorous diplomacy. And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we’re not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.”

Her response we agreed was pretty impressive, at least as impressive as an answer from a Democrat presidential candidate is concerned. What I find galling is the impression one gets and the easy skirting of a question, the answer to which everyone is impressed with.

We certainly wouldn’t want a new president jumping in with both feet in the ignorance of where those feet might land; but does this new president have to start at the beginning again? It sounds like we would be getting right back into the game of the “discussion” is the “fix.” We meet, therefore the problem is resolved. Where has a President “Clinton” been all these years while not in the Oval Office that she would really question or wonder what the intentions of an Iran would be? Has she not been paying attention? Has she been too busy as everyone else has been going over the same “we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq” mantra without realizing the time has passed and we’re now looking at the year 2007?

This is the main problem I find with our politicians these days, but especially so with the Democrat party politicians. What they have honed is the skill of avoiding responding and/or doing anything about something that may come back to haunt them. This is a part of the reason; I believe President Bush has gotten as much flack as he has. My belief is obviously naïve to a degree, but you can count on the fact that none of these candidates from the Democrat Debate last night will ever make a tough call as President Bush has with regard to Iraq.

We will instead jump on back to the good old days, when diplomacy alone was the answer; not so much because it gave us answers, but because the process was on-going and took time to bear fruit and allowed the politicians to make believe things were working for something, anything they said it was.

I don’t think the next president will have much time to “know what the intentions are,” before some serious decisions will need to be made. Will any of them have what it takes? Not from this group.