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.