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.

Durban II; It Ain’t Dick!

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

In an opinion/essay follow up to Saturday’s post “UN Summit: Boycott Israel” posted by Basti comes this from Anne Bayefsky at NRO, “Durban II; the coming “anti-racist” spectacle.”

“Last Friday in Geneva, the U.N. launched a two-year plan which will culminate in a full-throated anti-American and anti-Israel world conference on racism in 2009. Modeled on the notorious 2001 Durban “anti-racism” conference, Durban II similarly promises to attract terrorist sympathizers and anti-Semites from around the globe. The spectacle of last week’s planning session might be described as the theater of the absurd, except that the check handed to the American taxpayer for 22 percent of the costs was very real.”

The UN has many different offices that work toward “peace” on earth, one of which is the “powerful” Security Council, however, with all the interest groups that help direct government on the planet the Security Council doesn’t hold the propaganda sway that others do.

Consider the “Human Rights Council,” the lead instigator in the revisiting Durban I and serving as the preparatory committee (PredCom) for Durban II:

“At its third session, the Human Rights Council in its resolution 3/2 decided that the Human Rights Council will act as the Preparatory Committee for the Durban Review Conference which shall be open to the participation of all Member States of the United Nations and members of the specialized agencies and also to the participation of observers in accordance with the established practice of the General Assembly. It further decided that at its organizational sessions the Preparatory Committee shall elect, on the basis of equitable geographic representation, a bureau for the Preparatory Committee and that, at the same session, the Preparatory Committee shall decided on all the relevant modalities for the Conference in accordance with established practice of the General Assembly, including deciding on the objectives of the Review Conference, the level at which the Review Conference shall be convened, regional preparatory initiatives, date and venue.”

According to Bayefsky:

“On the first day of the session the PrepCom elected Libya as its chair, Cuba as rapporteur, and Iran as a member of its executive — to plan a conference about human rights.”

The Organization of the Islamic Conference or OIC (for entertainment purposes glance at some of the OIC news on its homepage) holds the majority of seats on the African and Asian regional groups, so it effectively is in charge in the quest to guide the world in recognizing and doing something about human rights.

Some of the PrepCom’s issues it would like to and very likely will include are:

• adopting objectives far beyond the original idea of a “Durban review conference”;
• creating another U.N. committee to prepare for Durban II;
• issuing special participation invitations only to the U.N. investigators (rapporteurs) on racism and Islamophobia, and freedom of religion;
• adopting new rules of procedure especially designed for the Conference;
• introducing vetting for a pre-conference questionnaire that might have asked potentially intrusive questions of states about actual protection from discrimination;
• paying for the Durban II preparations from the U.N.’s regular budget (that is the West); and
• allowing every NGO that participated in Durban I to participate in Durban II unless objections were made in just 14 days.

These are pretty cute when you take a look at them and fall pretty much in line with any UN led initiative including the usual lack of accountability that defines the “austere” body. Rather than pacify, members of this committee are those that enflamed Islamic sensibilities during the “InkQuisition.”

The unrecognized war of civilizations continues with the usual suspects in the UN in the lead.

Never Jump Too Quickly on an Offer from Iran

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation:

From The NY Times today:

“BAGHDAD, July 2 — Iranian operatives helped plan a January raid in Karbala in which five American soldiers were killed, an American military spokesman in Iraq said today.”

“Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, the military spokesman, also said that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has used operatives from the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah as a “proxy” to train and arm Shiite militants in Iraq.”

“American military officials have long asserted that the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has trained and equipped Shiite militants in Iraq. The Americans have also cited extensive intelligence that Iran has supplied Shiite militants with the most lethal type of roadside bomb in Iraq, a bomb called the explosively formed penetrator, which is capable of piercing an armored vehicle.”

In response to the news of intelligence gleaned by the U.S. through interrogations that have led to a comfort level by the U.S. of stepping up the accusations, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Mostafa “Who Loves You Baby?” Mohamad-Najjar blamed the U.S. and CIA:

“Occupation of Iraq followed a big lie, escalation of tension in the occupied regions and resort to terrorist tactics have been the customary methods of the CIA to justify the US presence in the region, cover up Washington’s past failures and mislead public opinion in the US.”

Iran denies any involvement as they have repeatedly said that Iraq security is Iranian security and of the utmost importance to them. However that is antithetical to what would most likely provide the most security to Iran. The U.S. presence in Iraq is not good for Iran and Iraq has a Shia majority.

On June 25^th an opportunity for “jumping on Iran’s latest offer,” in which it was reported that, “Iran has invited an International Atomic Energy Agency team to Tehran to work on clearing up suspicions about its nuclear program, an IAEA spokeswoman said Monday.” Oddly just a little more time will be necessary to make it happen….SURPRISE!!!!!! What was considered, “the latest move in possibly allowing Iran further time to continue with its “peaceful” nuclear research,” is appearing to be just that.

From IRNA this morning:

“Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said that Tehran is ready to continue its nuclear talks within the next three weeks, it was reported on Monday.”

This was reported in a interview on the “Arab-language news channel Al-Jazeera broadcast Sunday evening.”

Additionally he indicated that all sides of the debate should be supportive of this new initiative. Iran also wishes to get the talk continuing with a new suggestion of taking this from the U.N. Security Council and back into the purview of the U.N.’s IAEA.

Time is all that Iran needs; let’s continue giving it to them.