Excellent News Out of Iraq

The tide just keeps on turning.

NY Post reports:

BAGHDAD — U.S. and Iraqi forces killed 85 terror fighters at a suspected training camp along the marshy shores of a remote lake — one of the highest guerrilla death tolls of the two-year war, officials said yesterday.

They said citizens emboldened by the January elections are increasingly turning in intelligence tips.

The devastating raid at Lake Tharthar in central Iraq turned up booby-trapped cars, suicide-bomber vests, weapons and training documents, Iraqi Maj. Gen. Rashid Feleih said. He said the rebels included Iraqis, Filipinos, Algerians, Moroccans, Afghans and Arabs from neighboring countries.

"What's really remarkable is that the citizens this time really took the initiative to provide us with very good information," Feleih said.

In three days, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials' accounts, troops have killed at least 128 rebels nationwide, culminating in the announcement of Tuesday's attack by Iraqi commandos, backed by U.S. air and ground fire.

Read the whole thing here.

This is important for three reasons:

1) Effective action against the "foreign" fighters deals a direct blow at al Qaeda and its network of terror.

2) Iraqi citizens are now providing us with timely and useful information and in doing so are making it extremely difficult for "insurgents" to operate effectively in their homeland.

3) The sweep against the foreign fighters was spearheaded by Iraqi troops with US forces only in support roles. Iraq is much closer today than it was just a few months ago to being able to provide its own internal security.

All in all, things are looking pretty good over there. Iraq has become the place where Jihadists go to die.

I'm baaaaack.......

Bloggery, I am beginning to understand, involves discipline. It takes time, effort, and concentration, and it distracts from other, more normal enterprises. This was brought home to me Tuesday night. One [at least this one] cannot successfully blog and simultaneously engage in dining, drinking, carrying on convivial conversations with friends and family, shopping, sleeping, etc. And, it requires a high degree of alertness. It's hard to blog when half-asleep.

After a couple of days of partying, dining, visiting with friends and family, packing and traveling, etc. I am finally back, rested and ready to resume. This time, from the harbor.

Let's see what's been happening while I was having a real life.....

Kyrgyzstan..... check,
Hitler.... check,
Terri Schiavo.... not gonna touch that one,
Hmmmm.... Mad Bobby Mugabe's back

Let's get started....

Restaurant Bloggery -- Da Niece 

Restaurant Bloggery

Blogging tonight from Viva Restaurant in Reading, PA. -- right across the street from the famous outlet malls. She Who Shall Not Be Named and I drove down to Reading from the mountains with some friends and family this afternoon. We had an early dinner, then She and the other women headed to the outlets, while we guys settled into the lounge. They have a WiFi hookup here, so my niece and I both brought our laptops and happy bloggery has ensued.

Iraqis Fighting Back -- The Tide Just Keeps on Turning

This in itself isn't new. Iraqis have been resisting the "insurgents" for a long time. What is new is that the MSM has finally deigned to notice it. The NYT reports:

Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon today, a carpenter named Dhia saw a troop of masked gunmen with grenades coming towards his shop and decided he had had enough.

As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia and his young relatives shouldered their own AK-47's and opened fire, police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed, and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's young nephews and a bystander were injured, the police said....

The battle was the latest sign that Iraqis may be willing to start standing up against the attacks that leave dozens of people dead here nearly every week. After a suicide bombing in Hilla last month that killed 136 people, including a number of women and children, hundreds of residents demonstrated in front of the city hall every day for almost a week, chanting slogans against terrorism. Last week, a smaller but similar rally took place in Baghdad. Another demonstration is scheduled for Wednesday in the capital.

The world looks a lot different when you finally get out of your hotel room and actually do some reporting.

The Casualties of War

I missed this first time through. The NYT "Week in Review" section ran a terrific [as in terrifying] story by Marc Lacey on the "second way of death" in Africa's wars.

He writes:

BUNIA, Congo — There were two ailing boys, both appropriately named Innocent, at a makeshift hospital here. They didn't know it but they represented the two different ways of dying in Africa's wars.

The older of the two Innocents, at 14, was a victim of the most obvious killer - violence. He had machete wounds to his neck, suffered as he tried to escape the tribal militiamen who swooped down on his village recently. Innocent's mother was killed. The men with machetes tried to sever Innocent's head, as well, but for some reason never finished the job. Innocent's neck had a series of deep hack marks when he arrived at the hospital in the arms of his father.

Doctors at the hospital, which is run by Doctors Without Borders, rushed him to surgery and managed to bind the wounds. They are not yet sure if he will survive.

The younger Innocent, just 12, was from another village overrun by tribal fighters, albeit several years ago. He got out in time to avoid injury. But ever since, this Innocent has lived in a camp, huddled together with other displaced people. Still, his survival is in doubt. His arms are covered with mosquito bites and his blood is full of plasmodium parasites. Malaria kills if left untreated, which it often is in war zones like eastern Congo.

There's much more. Read the whole thing here. The scope of devastation is mind wrenching.

There is an accompanying graph that speaks volumes. For every violent death in Congo's war zone, 28 children under five die, as do six kids 5-14, 13 women 15 and older, and 15 men fifteen and older -- total of 62 deaths.

What kills them? Malnutrition, respiratory diseases, diarrhea, anemia, measles, meningitis, accidents, and TB, and other causes too numerous to mention.

This is the face of pre-modern war -- the very kind that has been endemic in Africa for as long as anyone can remember. We've gotten past the point that this incessant brutality can be reasonably be attributed to the ravages of colonialism. And it has become clear that no real progress will come without massive intervention from the developed world. But have we the will to pursue sweeping reforms on the order of what is happening in the Middle East? I doubt it.

RELATED:

The NYT today runs a story by Donald G. McNeil, Jr. on efforts to combat malaria. Something as simple as hanging a mosquito net becomes a political statement. Read it here.

US is moving forces into the Middle East -- Is Something Brewing?

Regime Change Iran reports [citing the India Daily]:

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is on the move in Atlantic Ocean and is possibly headed towards the Mediterranean Sea....

Outbound from Singapore, the USS Carl Vinson is currently crossing the Indian Ocean headed towards Middle-East....

This will place three carrier groups within easy striking distance of both Syria and Iran [the Truman is already in the Persian Gulf]. In addition there are US bases in Turkey, Qatar, and the UAE, and lets not forget Diego Garcia. And, of course there are more than 100,000 battle-tested US troops already in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read it here.

The US is already engaged in cooperative diplomatic efforts with the EU aimed at freeing Lebanon and stopping Iran's nuclear weapons program. I have often opined that diplomatic efforts are nearly useless unless backed by a plausible threat of the use of overwhelming force. These movements could constitute just such a threat.

Or, possibly, they could be a prelude to military action against Syria, Iran, or both.

Or, it could possibly mean nothing more than a rotation of forces. Read Chap's assessment over at Chapomatic. He think's it's no big deal. He may be right.

Stay tuned....

Sleazo-cons

David Brooks has a terrific article on the corruption of the conservative movement over the past decade. He in particular targets Grover Norquist.

It goes without saying that all the major institutions that organize our lives [political, academic, religious, economic, social, etc] are thoroughly corrupt. This, I would argue, is not necessarily a bad thing. Rigid adherence to principle has its unlovely side too. But it would be foolish to think that the conservatives are any different.

Read Brooks article here.

Things are Heating Up in Kyrgyzstan

Revolutions don't always make much of a wave in the MSM, but as Glenn [or was it Glenda?] Reynolds reminds us, they will be blogged.

Protests are spreading widely in Kyrgyzstan. Gateway Pundit raises a few very pertinent questions.

1) Is Kyrgyzstan Another Link in the Chain of Political Change? My answer is "yes" but remember I'm the guy who just a couple of weeks ago thought that the demonstrations would die out. [For what it's worth, TOL is still of that opinion. Read it here.]

2) Where is [President] Akayev? He seems to have gone into hiding.

3) Is the situation irreversible? One Soviet expert is quoted as saying so. There will be a regime change.

Tajikistan seems to think so. It has tightened controls over its border with Kyrgyzstan.

Russia is not so sure. Publius Pundit reports that Russia is demanding that it be able to send in its own team of election observers. As Publius points out this is a blatant attempt, used before by Russia, to attempt to control the outcome of the elections.

The US is finally taking an interest, but the MSM seems to be oblivious to the great changes going on outside the Middle East.

For updates, including pictures [but no hot protest babes] check out Ben Paarman and Christopher Schwartz' blog here.

Ditto with Registran.net.

The wave of revolutions emanating from Ukraine has spread farther and faster than I would have imagined just a few weeks ago. Central Asia is an area of immense importance. We cannot afford to ignore the great changes taking place there.

Parenthetically [heading right back into the shallow end of the pool], if the Kyrgyzistan revolt succeeds, it will blow the "babe theory" out of the water.

Another Great Academic Site

Check out John Bruce's blog In the Shadow of Mt. Hollywood. Lotsa good academic bloggery here.

Churchill, Churchill, Churchill

Another great site for those of us who harbor a horrid fascination with the Churchill affair and worry about its consequences. Check out Pirate Ballerina, one of the best one-stop shopping sites for all things Churchillian.

A Nobel for al-Sistani? Let's think about this for a while.

Those who wish to demean and diminish George W. Bush's accomplishments are following a predictable course of argument. First they predict disaster, then when it doesn't happen they say the cost was too high for the payoff, then when the payoff turns out to be great they say that Bush was just lucky, that other things or people were the "real" cause of the change.

The latest effort in this anti-Bush genre is Tom Friedman's article nominating Ali al-Sistani for the Nobel Prize. Read it here. [in the NYT, of course]

Dhimmi Watch posts a response to Friedman's article by Jihad Watch Advisory Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald. There is a lot about Sistani and the peculiar variety of Islam he represents that many writers are overlooking in their haste to praise anyone but Bush. Friedman praises Sistani for his "progressive" inclinations. After reading Fitzgerald I sincerely doubt that such a term is applicable here.

Read it here.

French Socialism Confronts the Real World

AP reports on the French government's decision to at long last scrap one of the hallmarks of Jospin's socialist dream -- the thirty-five hour work week.

By LAURENCE FROST, AP Business Writer

PARIS - Sophie Guilbaud not only holds a full-time job, she also helps run her son's nursery and treats herself to regular weekdays of shopping, movies and art shows. The secret to her balancing act is a remarkable piece of social engineering — France's 35-hour workweek. Introduced under the Socialists but headed for effective abolition by lawmakers Tuesday, "les 35 heures" have been a boon for some but, critics argue, a big drain on the economy.

There are wider implications:

Heated debate over dismantling the working time law has fed into wider political and literary soul-searching in France, on themes ranging from the country's economic frailty and bureaucratic office culture to whether quality of life should be measured in time or money.

Abolition of the 35 hour experiment is most strongly supported by the very people it was designed to help -- the working class and the marginally employed.

Amid soaring unemployment and stagnating wages, the reform is supported by jobseekers and even by factory workers, according to a survey that pollsters CSA published last month — and by 46 percent of the overall population, with 43 percent opposed.

And what about women?

Often touted as the working mother's godsend, the 35-hour week actually made life harder for poorer women and single parents, according to women's organization CLEF.

"The women that suffered were the lowest paid, who needed all the overtime they could get to make ends meet," said CLEF president Monique Halpern. "I think this is one of the reasons that Lionel Jospin lost the elections."

Read the whole thing here.

Socialism always looks good on paper -- so elegant, so rational, so scientific... that's why it appeals to intellectuals and bureaucrats. But then it comes into contact with the messiness of the real world and the wheels come off. You would think we would have learned by now.

Kuwaiti Women Organize

I have often argued that one of the benefits emanating from Bush's freedom imperative has been an increased concern for women's rights in the Islamic world. The evidence continues to mount. AFP yesterday ran a piece about the emerging women's suffrage movement in Kuwait. Excerpts:

Kuwaiti pro-women activists have launched a campaign to collect signatures of citizens backing women’s suffrage....

The petitions declare total support for women’s right to vote and run in parliamentary elections and urge lawmakers to support these rights....

According to [an organizer of the effort], a government-proposed bill granting women full political rights has secured the backing of a large number of lawmakers and “we are only two to three MPs short of an absolute majority.”

The main opposition comes from [a] bloc, comprising 13 MPs, and their tribal allies who are against women’s rights on religious and social grounds.

But the Ministry of Islamic Affairs on Saturday issued a new fatwa authorizing the emir to eventually rule on the controversy over whether to give women political rights.

Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah favors giving women the vote. In 1999, he issued a decree granting women full political rights but it was narrowly rejected by Parliament the same year.

As an obscure American entertainer once put it..., "the times, they are a'changin'."

Steyn on life and choice

My admiration for Mark Steyn keeps rising and rising. His latest is a meditation on the European birth dearth and the culture of modern secular socialism. He defines it not so much as a culture of death but as a culture that sees life as a mere option or choice. To him this is "the central political challenge of our time."

Check him out here.

Demonstrations in Qatar

AP reports:

DOHA, Qatar - Qataris in traditional flowing robes and foreigners in jeans and business suits rallied Monday in a state-organized show of indignation and unity against terrorism near the site of a suicide bombing that killed a British teacher and wounded 12 other people.

A previously unknown militant group, Jund al-Sham, posted a statement on an Islamic Web site claiming it carried out the attack to start a campaign against those who "desecrate the soil of the land of Islam."

Many demonstrators said they wanted everyone to know foreigners are welcome in the Persian Gulf state and terrorists are not. Banners at the demonstration read: "Western Expatriates We Love You. Your Security is Our Concern."

Read it here:

Anti-terrorism demonstrations are starting to become common in the Middle East. I know, Qatar is different, but it's still a hopeful sign. The tide is turning.

FOLLOWUP:

Reuters reports:

DOHA (Reuters) - An unknown group has formally claimed responsibility for a Qatar suicide bombing that killed one person and vowed more attacks, including on churches and "crusader" facilities, an Internet statement said on Tuesday.

The group calling itself the Army of the Levant addressed what it called "the supporters of the devil, America, Britain and Italy and all those who have defiled the lands of Islam to be ready for the grand surprise."

Read the whole thing here.

Nobody seems to know anything about this group. The bomber was an Egyptian, and their title references Lebanon. No known group claims any affiliation with them.

Keep tuned.

Tony and Juan, phase two

I'm a bit late on this, but it's worth noting. Tony at Across the Bay continues his slow but thorough demolition of Juan Cole and his henchmen. Read it here.

Archaeologists get Excited over Ancient Sh*t

Archaeologists in Scotland have found human coprolites [petrified faeces] dating from around 3,000 BC. Here's the project director's statement regarding what the find indicates:

"The inhabitants appeared to be cultivating a little enclosure around the house with grain. This was probably part of their diet alongside meat and fish.

"They would have had mainly sheep but it's possible they had cows or goats. They would have had the best diet possible in that type of environment, with plenty of roughage and fibre."

Read it here.

That's basically it! Now you tell me, what is there about this that is particularly interesting, important, or newsworthy? Nothing, that' what! Note that there is no specific information in this at all. Note the weasel words, "appeared to be," "probably," "would have had."

They have no hard evidence and nothing to really say about what they do have which is a few pieces of ancient sh*t. From the story it appears that the stuff hasn't even been analyzed yet. But they went ahead and contacted the media anyway.

Archaeologists [remember, they claim to be "scientists" -- they do, really]!

Turning the Corner in Iraq

Wretchard over at the Belmont Club [new site url, check it out here] reviews recent reports out of Iraq to the effect that the Sunni insurgency is being marginalized [multiple posts, scroll down]. This has been apparent for some time to people who have followed events there closely, so what he reports is not really news. What has changed, however, is that this progressive marginalization has finally begun to filter into the MSM. That the NYT should feature a story on the decline of the "insurgency" is itself a major turning point.

The Truth About Good Government Activist Groups

The MSM often assumes that government officials and corporations routinely lie, and therefore must be rigorously challenged and fact-checked. That is right and proper. But, seldom do they subject no-profit, charitable, and citizen activist groups to the same scrutiny. That is unfortunate, because activist groups are not to be trusted -- not on anything.

John Fund, writing in the WSJ, exposes the deceit, unscrupulous tactics, and fundamental dishonesty engaged in by "good government" groups in support of the McCain-Feingold law. As a result of their duplicity, our political culture has been seriously damaged, perhaps beyond repair, and nobody in the MSM, save the WSJ, seems to care.

The MSM has not served the American public well, and because of their institutional failure, travesties like McCain-Feingold have been foisted on an unsuspecting public. Read about it here.