The Liberation of Iraq & The War on Terror - A Roundup

• Iraq - Quit or Stay?", by Orson Scott Card. The Ornery American January 15, 2006:

  I keep wondering why I'm getting flashbacks to the 1960s. I never took any hallucinogenic drugs. And yet I keep hearing people on TV saying we need to bring the troops home now.

  Of course, back in the 60s, the people saying that were all wearing long hair and, if they were of the guy persuasion, beards; now it's people in suits. . . .

• Media “Mistranslates” Bin Laden Tape, by Cinnamon Stillwell. NewsBusters.org. January 22, 2006. Did Bin Laden offer a "truce" to America or didn't he?

• Jimmy Carter's "So-Called Terrorists" - In a interview with CNN, former President Jimmy Carter claimed "that although Hamas were "so-called terrorists," so far "there have been no complaints of corruption against [their] elected officials." [Jerusalem Post, Jan. 20, 2006]. The Weekly Standard's Daniel McKivergan corrects the record.

• A Holiday in Wartime, by Greg Jaffe, Michael M. Phillips, and Yochi Dreazen. Wall Street Journal Dec. 23, 2005: "For soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dec. 25 will mostly be just another workday, full of patrols, guard duty, raids and the distribution of aid to the local population. . . ."

• George Mason Law Professor Ronald Rotunda recently served a year as special council to the Defense Department. On January 2, 2006, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung published an edited version of Professor Rotunda's column on the American detention facility in Guantanamo; Prof. Ronald Rotunda has provided the full version of the article -- "Guantanamo, another story" -- to Powerline:

  there is another side of the story -- what the United States is doing in its prison in Guantanamo Bay. I visited several times and was given complete access to all parts of the base I cared to see. I visited the prisoners’ cells, where they were interrogated, where they played volleyball, and where they ate.

  It was not what I had expected. . . .

• Sgt. Mark Seavey confronted Democrat Reps. Jim Moran and John Murtha at a town hall meeting in Arlington, Va., on the latter's claim that the troops were "demoralized." Michelle Malkin has the video. The look on Sen. Moran -- rendered speechless -- is priceless.

• "On October 26, 2005, Mike Lukovich "did an illustration depicting the word 'why' using the names of the 2,000 troops who had, at that time, died in Iraq. Here on this blog, the feedback from readers, both pro and con was enormous. In response, a young woman, an 11th grader, has created a response.

• Smoking in the Background, by Deroy Murdock. NRO Dec. 21, 2005:

  On two key fronts — Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass death and his generous support for Islamofascist terrorists — the Bush administration maddeningly conceals evidence that justifies the president’s decision to topple Hussein. This information should be rolled out to counteract the destructive arguments of Democratic chief Howard Dean, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senator John Kerry, and other Bushophobes who relentlessly carpet-bomb American efforts in Iraq.

  Michelle Malkin compiles more links and information on Saddam's Terror Training Camps.

• Saddam's Chemical Supplier Gets 15 Years For WMD, as reported by Captains Quarters, Dec. 24, 2005:

  For those who keep insisting that Saddam had no WMD and no way of producing them, The Hague has some embarrassing news. It convicted Saddam's supplier, Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat, to 15 years for selling Saddam the chemicals used to kill at least 5,000 Kurds in Halabja, among others . . .

• An American in Baghdad. National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, former presidential envoy to Iraq. Bremer recently published My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope Simon & Schuster (January 1, 2006).

• General Abizaid spoke recently to the Naval War College regarding the current status of the war on terror, and that speech was summarized by an unidentified student. The file was briefly available at C-Span, but no longer. Patrick, at Liberating Iraq, translated the PDF file into plain text. MarineCorpsMoms provides some "talking points."

• Airmen and Soldiers take a moment to pray for each other's safety before heading out for another day of convoy duty in Iraq. The Airmen run the convoys into Iraq and the Soldiers, in their armored trucks, escort them. (Thanks to Officer's Club's "Photo of the Day").

• Appearing on CBS' Face The Nation, Senator John Kerry appeared to be in fine form, proclaiming the Democratic Party's opposition to "young American soldiers terrorizing kids and children":

  Schieffer: Let me shift to another point of view, and it comes from another Democrat, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. He takes a very different view. He says basically we should stay because, he says, real progress is being made. He said this is a war between 27 million Iraqis' freedom and 10,000 terrorists. He says we're in a watershed transformation. What about that?

  Kerry: Let me--I--first of all, there is so much more that unites Democrats than divides us. And Democrats have much more in common with each other than they do with George Bush's policy right now. Now Joe Lieberman, I believe, also voted for the resolution which said the president needs to make more clear what he's doing and set out benchmarks, and that the policy hasn't been working. We all believe him when you say, 'Stay the course.' That's the president's policy, which hasn't been changing, which is a policy of failure. I don't agree with that. But I think what we need to do is recognize what we all agree on, which is you've got to begin to set benchmarks for accomplishment. You've got to begin to transfer authority to the Iraqis.

  And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not--

  Schieffer: Yeah.

  Lance Frizzell (Lance in Iraq) provides evidence of just such an occasion, with graphic footage of US soldiers terrorizing Iraqis in their homes. (Here is another one, courtesy of blogress Sondra K.). And U.S. Soldiers Terrorize Iraq Family! - Strategypage.com gets it on film in time for the eleven o'clock news!

• LTC Eric Wesley of the 1st Battalion of the 13th Armored Regiment assesses the loss of a soldier to a roadside bomb and a suicide bombing of a girl's school and asks Is the War Progressing? The American Enterprise Jan/Feb 2006.

• The Healers . Charles Kuralt once said "The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines." Reporting from the front in Iraq, Danjel Bout (365 And A Wakeup) tells a simple story of medics SPC Hart and SPC Night answering the call of duty.

• The Panic Over Iraq, by Norman Podhoretz. The Wall Street Journal Dec. 12, 2005. Drawing from an observation of Thomas Pain about the consequences of national panic in time of war, Norman Podhoretz takes a look at the "sunshine patriots and summer soldiers" and makes a case for a rather provocative diagnosis:

  Yet in spite of these similarities, there is also a very curious difference between the American panic of 1776-77 and the American panic of 2005-06. To put it in the simplest and starkest terms: In that early stage of the Revolutionary War, there was sound reason to fear that the British would succeed in routing Washington's forces. In Iraq today, however, and in the Middle East as a whole, a successful outcome is staring us in the face. Clearly, then, the panic over Iraq--which expresses itself in increasingly frenzied calls for the withdrawal of our forces--cannot have been caused by the prospect of defeat. On the contrary, my twofold guess is that the real fear behind it is not that we are losing but that we are winning, and that what has catalyzed this fear into a genuine panic is the realization that the chances of pulling off the proverbial feat of snatching an American defeat from the jaws of victory are rapidly running out.