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…

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.

On September 11, 2006 I visited the Arizona 9/11 Memorial at its opening. Following the fanfare led by Governor Janet Napolitano at its unveiling I visited for a closer inspection to read the panels.

Unfortunately I had no camera in hand; I certainly did not expect to have the reaction that I did; seeing it was a memorial to those lost on that sorrowful day. Suffice it to say, I brought my camera the next day and posted my reaction in my Arizona’s Offensively Politically Correct 9/11 Memorial post.

Yesterday’s Arizona Republic called the memorial “still a lightning rod,” and covered the slow effort to edit this appalling “piece” of Leftist trash that rather than honor those on that day, tries to perform an educational experiment representing various views in negative PC-speak.

A “lightening rod” could have been avoided had the commission responsible for the debacle kept to the day and the sorrow; a memorial as it should be to the victims of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

Some plates included on the memorial that miss the 9/11 target, but not the Leftist one:

“Fear of Foreigners” Balbir Singh Sodhi, A Sike, murdered in Mesa”

“Foreign-Born Americans Afraid”

“Must Bomb Back”

“You don’t win battles of terrorism with more battles”

“1st US soldier killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan”

“Middle East violence motivates attacks in US”

“Erroneous US air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians’

“Avtar Singh Cheira, a Sikh, shot in Phoenix”

“Terrorist organization leader addresses American people”

Interestingly, the commission has been revisiting and working on replacement panels, which according to The Republic would:

“Remove two inscriptions, including an inaccurate reference to an “erroneous” U.S. air strike that killed civilians in Afghanistan.

Add two explanatory panels near the front of the memorial that emphasize the historical events of 9/11 and help visitors interpret the memorial.

Etch as many as seven new inscriptions into the memorial, including “Let’s roll” and “God bless America.””

Remove an “inaccurate” panel regarding an “erroneous” U.S. air strike? Inaccuracy misses the point; does anyone recall that “erroneous” U.S. air strike on the 11^th of September 2001? Remember the images above?

Adding “Let’s roll” and “God bless America” are certainly more appropriate as they were spoken that day, but they still appear to be missing the point. Sure, you can include the words of those that took the bull by the horns and dealt with a life threatening moment.

According to the paper, this “revision” is a “delicate balance;” because:

“the public remained divided. Supporters rallied to the memorial’s defense at a series of public hearings, saying the memorial reflects the nation’s conflicted psyche in the days surrounding the terrorist attacks.”

May I suggest at this time that we approach this “delicate balance,” with the raising of the “Nation’s Conflicted Psyche 9/11 Memorial,” in Wesley Bolin Park in Phoenix Arizona.

In an era when so much is politicized that we keep the political garbage out of a local tombstone memorializing families’ losses? Memorializing Americans and others that walked into work one morning just like any other day prior, but did now walk out.

A memorial such as this that claims to be a memorial to “the family, friends and fellow citizens we lost on September 11,” because they “should never be forgotten.” One way to avoid forgetting the names of those taken, would be to include their names in a “memorial” to them, rather than a plaque listing the members of the “Governors September 11^th Memorial Commission;” especially in a memorial so unmemorable.

A “lightening rod” could have been avoided had the commission responsible for the debacle kept to the day and the sorrow; a memorial as it should be to the victims of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

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.

Did you know that “the Balkans are at peace today through the joint efforts of the United States, the European Union and the United Nations?” Makes it sound like the EU and UN were on board from the get go, doesn’t it? In fairness, NATO does consist of EU nations, whatever an EU nation is.

The above is an example of success(?) that didn’t come to fruition overnight, nor is it perfected yet. We could go over the “reasons” we are in Iraq, but why cover it all over to make the point that statements like the above and “a similar strategy should have been part of our Iraq policy from the outset but has never been seriously attempted,” from former leaders in our country is some of the reason we are where we are in Iraq today.

Former Secretary of State, Madeline “Not so” Albright believes that a fundamental shift in sectarian divisions in Iraq “will not occur through Iraqi actions alone.” Nor will it result from, “given America’s lack of leverage,…from our patrols, benchmarks, speeches or “surprise” presidential visits to Anbar province” either. “That leaves coordinated international assistance as the only option.”

MORE HERE…

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…

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.

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…

From the Left Coast via The New York Left Times OpEd page comes the “piece” “Occupation Hazard,” which discusses the future legality of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The legality in question is “the Authority” – which (is) to say “the occupying powers under unified command” – as Iraq’s effective legal government,” as granted under annual Security Council Resolutions.

According to the “piece” the “current mandate expires at the end of December,” and will require renewal. This past June, “the Iraqi Parliament passed a bill requiring that the next renewal should not be made without its advice and consent.”

Were the mandate not renewed it is conceivable that the U.S. would be required to leave Iraq, however, as the author says the “Bush administration is of course unlikely to give too much heed to any Security Council resolution.”

The author believes there is a possibility that if the Iraqi parliament chose not to allow renewal and the U.S. did not depart that this might “matter greatly to the Iraqis, even to the point of becoming the signal for a general uprising of Shiites against foreign forces.” This could then lead to a general uprising against our forces and those included in the multi-national coalition, Iraq finding another friend say Russia or “the most obvious and presumably most willing new partner for Mr. Maliki would be Shiite-dominated Iran.”

If this last were to become the reality while our military was still in Iraq the author theorizes the following:

“should the United States attack Iran pre-emptively? Some in high places favor this, but a pre-emptive American attack on Iran could quickly lead to an Iranian counterattack closing the Straits of Hormuz at the lower end of the Persian Gulf. The American forces would then be trapped — both their main supply line and their main evacuation route cut off.”

“It may be time to change the slogan on the yellow ribbon from “support the troops” to “defend the nation.” Rather than see the American army of liberation humiliatingly voted out of Iraq or have its avenue of exit cut off by opportunistic enemies, the Senate should join the Iraqi Parliament, through a “sense of the Senate” resolution, and call for the next Security Council mandate to be one that requires the progressive withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq, without haste but with all deliberate speed.”

Would the U.S. truly be cut off from its route of exit were it to strike at Iran? Certainly not without a fight and we can bring that, but “humiliatingly voted out of Iraq?” According to the author the remedy would be for our Senate to follow the lead of the Iraqi parliament and its non-binding resolution with the call for a withdrawal timetable.

The question of what to do were the mandate to require the U.S. presence reversed is not nothing and perhaps if it was to become a reality the U.S. should seriously consider heeding it, especially if Iraq leaned on Iran for support. As unattractive as our leaving too early would be the target area could become that much larger for our military and perhaps the U.S. could not worry so much about collateral damage as the war on terror would take quite a turn to the more violent.

This call for the future mandate of the Security Council to require a “progressive withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq, without haste but with all deliberate speed,” is just more of the same Leftist driven NY Times agenda that it and the rest of the msm feels obligated to force down the throat of the U.S. and its citizens. It is the newest tactic in sounding non-agenda like, but is nothing different.

From the editorial board at The NY Times regarding the purchase of “The Journal:”

“When Americans are served by many different, responsible, competing news outlets, they can make more informed judgments.”

“The exodus of American news organizations from Iraq, for example, means more Times exclusives from the war zone, but Americans need and a healthy democracy demands as broad a view of the war as possible.”

This is very much the case as with few exceptions at the NY Times we have to receive its slanted dregs every day. Like this thoughtful article on the front page this morning, “In Fox News, Giuliani Finds a Friendly Stage,” versus say earlier front page articles this week on Hillary Clinton and Chelsea, “Two Liberal Wrongs do NOT Make a Right,” and “NY Times Loves Hillary Unbiasedly.”

In closing, the board hopes, but you know they have already made up their minds:

“The best way for Mr. Murdoch to protect his $5 billion investment is to protect The Journal’s editorial quality and integrity. That will mean continued high-quality competition for The Times and other news organizations. And that will be good news for all Americans.”

Let’s hope this acquisition is not just a further boogeyman to the “old gray lady” that thinks so highly of herself.

For much more detail on the acquisition visit Spree over at Wake up America, who has as usual outdone herself with all that is really fit to print, “Owner of Fox News Now Owns Wall Street Journal.”