4 years 4 wars : Today we are fighting Iran and Sryia

Wider War

IRAN and Syria are at war with the United States. In Iraq. Now.

Washington refuses to admit it. The Bush administration claims that the struggle in Iraq is about the future of the entire Middle East, but won't concede publicly that other countries in the region are extensively involved. And the outcome they seek is exactly the opposite of what we hope to achieve.

The bloody combat throughout Iraq this past week didn't only involve Iraqi Ba'athist insurgents and al Qaeda. The Iranians vigorously prepared and supported killer-cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's "Mahdi" militia. Iranians are active agents in the widespread terrorism in southern Iraq. And, according to intelligence shared exclusively with The Post, approximately 30 al Qaeda executives have been allowed to operate from Teheran, feeding agents into Iraq with the collusion of the Iranian government.

To the West, Syria has been increasingly bold in its support of the Sunni-Arab insurgents in Fallujah and elsewhere in the Sunni triangle. Our Marines killed Syrians in Fallujah. They'll find and kill more. Syrian security services are deeply involved in this fight - and in murdering Americans.

Healing Iraq

a friend of mine told me today that he had been in contact with some clients who were members of Al-Mahdi Army, he said that they all received salaries from Sadr's offices throughout Iraq in US dollars. I asked him where he thought the money came from, he gave me a wry smile and said what do you think? "Iran?" I offered, and he nodded back in silence.

New Warfront Opens in Iraq Three Months before Handover

The real cause underlining the Sadr rebellion is brought to light by DEBKAfile’s intelligence and counter-terror sources. They stress that it was far from spontaneous. Indeed it was prepared well in advance to at the behest of Tehran - with the collaboration of Damascus and the Hizballah - by the Shiite master terrorist Imad Mughniyeh. Its purpose: to trigger Iran’s Spring Offensive against the Americans in Iraq.

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  In defense of the Stars and Stripes : A book Review

Therein lies another exquisite irony: the costs of anti-Americanism will be borne not by Americans, but by others. And their numbers are vast: Cubans, North Koreans, Zimbabweans, and countless others suffer and starve under their respective tyrannies because the democratic world's chattering classes, obsessed with denouncing the United States, can't be bothered with holding their criminal regimes to account. Meanwhile, in Iraq, fascist rabble, with no discernible political program save a pledge to kill more Americans, try desperately to extinguish the slightest hope of democracy, economic growth, and stability for that long-suffering land; but the world, instead of helping to beat back the wolves at the door, basks in anti-American schadenfreude. How countless are the political problems, cultural pathologies, and humanitarian disasters that fester unnoticed, all over the globe, as the anti-American cult, wallowing in ecstatic bigotry, desperately scrutinizes every utterance of the Bush administration for new critical fodder.

Indeed, it is not the slightest exaggeration to say that in 2004, anti-American sentiment has become the biggest single obstacle to human progress.

  ¶ 8:13 PM           |

  Our Coalition is kicking Ass

Militiamen loyal to a radical Shiite cleric clashed with Polish troops Wednesday in this holy city, and an aide to the cleric was killed, his office reported.

Fighters from the militia of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr fired on a Polish patrol in Karbala, sparking a gunbattle in the streets. During the fighting, al-Sadr aide Muntadhir al-Mussawi -- who is also a cleric -- was killed, his office said.

  ¶ 7:13 PM           |

  Terrorism is destroying Arabs and Islam:

Islamic terror is caused by Muslims, not, as Islamic and leftist apologists would have it, by the non-Muslims against whom it is directed. In our morally confused world, Spain, Israel and America are blamed for having their men, women and children blown up: What did these countries do to arouse such enmity among otherwise tolerant Arabs and Muslims?

Palestinian terror provides the answer. About 25 percent of Palestinians are Christian, yet if there are any Palestinian Christian suicide bombers, I am unaware of them. Now why is that? Don't Muslim and leftist apologists incessantly tell us that the reason for Palestinian terror is "Israeli occupation and oppression"? Why, then, are there no Palestinian Christian terrorists? Are Christian Palestinians less occupied?

The answer is obvious. There is Palestinian terror for the same reasons there is Muslim terror elsewhere. A significant part of the Muslim world wishes to destroy those non-Muslims -- Americans, Israelis, Filipinos, Nigerians, Sudanese blacks -- who prevent Islam from violently attaining power.

Despite the Spanish cave-in to terror, in the long run, terror doesn't work. By any rational calculation, to take the Palestinian example, it has become the most self-destructive policy Palestinians could pursue. Palestinian terror has convinced almost all Israelis outside of academia that the moral gulf between them and the Palestinians is so wide that there is presently no hope for peace.

Nor has Palestinian terror terrorized Israelis. In what will surely be recorded as among the most impressive behaviors of a national group, Israelis have decided to live as normally as possible among people who aim to murder and maim as many of them as possible. In fact, I learned, many Israelis are now concerned that they have done this too well, that there is not enough mourning and rage after each atrocity.

There is a terrible long-term price that Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians in particular are paying for the minority that engages in terror and for the majority that says nothing about it or supports it.

They may wish to reflect on the fact that with every act of terror they engage in, their people and religion are increasingly identified with cruelty.

Just as the German nation, fairly or not, has had to grapple with the moral legacy of Nazism, and the name of Christianity still suffers (unfairly) because of medieval persecutions of non-Christians, so, too, Islam, Arabs and Palestinians will have to struggle for generations to shed their identification with murdering innocents.

While it is Americans, Israelis and other targets of terror who most suffer individually from Palestinian and other Muslim terror, those with the most to lose are Palestinians, Arabs and Islam.

  ¶ 3:53 PM           |

  Jackson calls Iraq war `crime against humanity'

Even if no sanctions are imposed, Jackson said, the United States should ``apologize'' to the survivors of Americans and Iraqis who have been killed in the conflict. At home, he said, Congress should hold hearings to determine whether President Bush [related, bio] committed an impeachable offense in making his case for war.
But senators should not be held responsible because their vote authorizing war in Iraq merely gave the Bush administration the ability to pursue military action, Jackson said. ``Congress gave him the option. It was his judgment.''

  ¶ 1:39 AM           |

  Kerry Still a Dipshit: 10 U.S. soldiers Killed in Iraq and his response

He called the absence of Arab neighbors as part of the stabilization force "staggering," saying, "All have a major stake in not having a failed Iraqi state, no matter how they feel about our getting there."

I guess he forgot that the Iraqi governing council vetoed that idea, when we had the Turks ready to come in. Update: I was informed that Turks are not Arabs so the only neighboring state that is in NATO couldn't have been what Kerry meant. I wonder who he did mean. Here is a list of Arab States.   ¶ 10:34 PM           |

  What do the people of Iraq think: Poll

It much more positive than you would imagine. So of course its barely reported. But enjoy the read.  ¶ 10:23 PM           |

  Neoconservatives and the American Mainstream

In essence, public opinion shifted in favor of policies that have been articulated by neoconservatives for at least a decade, and neocons have been very adept at articulating a policy that resonates with longstanding ideas in American public life. Therefore, what many label “neoconservative” is a product of ideas that are neither “neo” nor “conservative,” but a worldview that has broad appeal to American citizens in ways that are difficult for many Europeans to fully fathom within the context of their own political systems.

In short, if Europe is waiting for a new administration or a new set of policy professionals to rise to positions of influence, the continent may be in for a very long wait. The style in which affairs are conducted may change, and the blunt take-it-or-leave-it pronouncements of the current administration might be softened, but the substance of American foreign policy will remain roughly the same. The current direction of U.S. foreign policy — reshaping the Middle East, preemptive confrontations with potentially threatening adversaries, and an ambivalent attitude toward international organizations that constrain the use of American power to achieve those ends — is unlikely to change substantially with any new administration that could conceivably come to the White House in the near future. It is not the case that the president and a small band of advisors are steering America on a radically new path; rather, they are following a pattern in U.S. foreign policy with deep historical roots. If there is to be reconciliation within the transatlantic partnership, it must start with this recognition.

  ¶ 9:43 AM           |