Shampoo and Conditioning

British illusionist, Derren Brown, has made a career out of his obsession with subliminal messaging. In the video below he displays a stunning example of how easily we can be influenced. I don’t want to spoil the video for you so I will let you see for yourself. It is amazing…

Now that you have watched the video; I have one word for you, “Islamophobia”. For years we have been conditioned into believing that attacks on Al Qaeda, Baathists, and the Taliban are heavily influenced by our prejudice against Islamic people. We are continually taught that terrorists attack us because of our prejudices.

It was no accident that the Obama Administration bizarrely obsessed over a false narrative regarding the Benghazi attacks on a US “diplomatic compound” in that city. Against a mountain of evidence the Administration continued to insist that the attacks were the result of a fabricated protest against a video that made fun of the Prophet Mohammed.

The YouTube video, “Innocence of Muslims”, was made by an Egyptian-American. It led to violent protests in Cairo that later spread around the world. Even though the Pentagon, the State Department, CIA, FBI and the President of Libya disagreed, the Obama Administration continued to mislead the American people.

In order to promote this absurd view point Obama stated;

…What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.”

NATURAL PROTESTS?! If there had been similar protests against the “Piss Christ” there is no way Obama would have described them as “natural”. (The Piss Christ was a federally funded artwork that shows a crucifix with Jesus Christ immersed in a glass of the artist’s urine.) Obama is conditioned to embrace the belligerent anger of Muslims and ignore or condemn any similar Christian sentiment (you know, the ones who “cling to guns and religion”).

On September 16th, 2012 Libyan President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf confirmed on the CBS show ‘Face the Nation’ that the Benghazi attack was a planned operation and it was organized months before the video protests.  He stated;

It was planned definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who … entered the country a few months ago, and they were planning this criminal act since their… arrival.”

Yet Susan Rice continued the Obama Administration’s lie on the same show.  She declared;

…based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy.”

Libyan President El-Magariaf was a Sunni Muslim, but still felt no need to attack American Islamophobia and link it to this attack. Like most Americans he clearly understood that the attack was an organized operation that had nothing to do with the Cairo protests, while the Obama Administration continued to push a false narrative.

Missing in Action

In view of Obama’s preoccupation with Islamophobia, it was no surprise that he was not interested in one of the largest political rallies in French history. On Sunday, January 11th 3.7 million people and over 40 world leaders marched in Paris and other French cities to condemn recent terrorist attacks on a French newspaper and a kosher supermarket.

Despite the large scale attendance of Muslims and Muslim religious leaders, Obama had little interest in promoting moderate Islam on this occasion. Instead he stayed home and watched football.

The White House claimed that since planning for the event had begun only 36 hours before, there wasn’t enough time to organize security for the President. However, over 40 presidents and prime ministers (including Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu) attended the event. Are we to believe that the Secret Service could not match the security services of 40 other countries, including Israel?

This bald-faced lie is completely in character for the Obama Administration. To understand what really happened take a good look at one of the targets of the terrorist attack, Charlie Hedbo magazine.

God Damn the 1st Amendment

In 2006 Charlie Hedbo republished the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons that had previously ignited deadly riots around the world. The magazine’s right to free speech was upheld by a French court when the editor was acquitted of the crime of “abusing a group on the grounds of their religion”.

This sort of free speech does not fit President Obama’s vision of the “future”. Around the time he was falsely blaming the Benghazi attack on an imaginary protest, Obama pushed his cherished talking point on the UN General Assembly.  He infamously proclaimed:

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”.

In the space of one minute he placed Americans who exercise their freedom of speech on the same level of 1) the terrorists who kill Coptic Christians in Egypt and 2) the dictator of Syria, who slaughters his own people with crude chemical weapons. Obama said:

1) “The future must not belong to those who target Coptic Christians in Egypt.”
2) “In Syria, the future must not belong to a dictator who massacres his people.”

I’m sorry. My future shouldn’t be threatened because I don’t believe that Mohammed was a prophet. It is my right not to believe and my right to express my right not to believe. I am not an “obstructionist”.  I am exercising my right to free speech.

Obama has allies in his fight against the defamation of the prophet of Islam. In Pakistan a Christian mother of five, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to death for “defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed”.

It is interesting to note that the charges were brought against her by Pakistanis who were discriminating against her faith. Bibi’s fellow field workers refused to drink out of a bucket of water that she touched because she wasn’t Muslim. An argument ensued and now she is condemned to death. Several prominent politicians in Pakistan have been assassinated for speaking out on Bibi’s behalf (including the only Christian member of the Cabinet).

In Bangladesh a cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, was jailed for six months because he made an innocent, a-political joke naming a cat “Mohammed”. Under pressure from Islamists Bangladesh has also persecuted bloggers for insulting Mohammed. Writer, Asif Mohiuddin, was murdered last week for defending them. This has become a regular pattern in that country.

When an Egyptian social studies teacher, Demiana Emad, said that the former Coptic Christian Pope Shenuda III was a better man than Mohammed she was jailed for six months and forced to pay a heavy fine.

We can go down the list such as; Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkey, UAE, Yemen, etc… but you get the idea. The most relevant case is the death sentence for seven Egyptian Christians for their roles in the movie “Innocence of Muslims”.

As his allies in Egypt were busy building a death penalty case, Obama was trying to persuade Google and YouTube to pull down the video. Although he failed, the video was later taken down for reasons that had nothing to do with insulting the Prophet.

The funny thing about some Americans is that they really do treasure the freedom of speech. It’s not just words…

The Future of Those Who Slander the USA

When a bully is looking for an excuse he will always find another one.  So if we surrender our freedom of speech Islamic terrorism will still continue. The conspiracy theories that fuel the hatred of Islamists are not even the sole domain of just Islamists. Westerners themselves are often the first to blame western imperialism.  We give them the reasons to justify their holy war against us.

On the other hand, I refuse to censor 9/11 Truthers and other conspiracy nuts no matter how much they offend me.  I also reserve the right to criticize them in return.

In protests we have turned a blind eye towards those who urge soldiers to assassinate their officers.

Anti-war activists protested at Walter Reed Medical Center, where injured soldiers were recovering from their wounds. They carried signs such as, “Enlist Here and Die for Halliburton” and “Maimed for Lies”.

However, there is no way in the world that I would demand that they be censored.  I will condemn their hateful propaganda until my last breath, but I am proud that my country tolerates such foolishness so that we can protect EVERYONE who expresses unpopular opinions.

Almost everyone “condemns” the violence of Islamists, but we often hear the caveat that cartoonists and amateur movie makers should behave themselves. So if a sacrilegious artwork such as the Piss Christ can be federally funded, how can anyone who approves of that object to publishing privately funded artwork such as the Mohammed cartoons? (Or is government approved blasphemy OK? Just kidding comrades)

The Elephant in the Room

Thanks to “Islamophobia” and our self-loathing bias we are blind to what is really happening in the world.  We know very little outside of anti-American talking points. The only reason we are familiar with the opposing point of view is because we are very familiar with the talking points that form the criticisms of them.

As an example, Gwen Ifill conducted a PBS interview of an author who traveled to the Islamic State to report on what is happening there. It was almost amusing to watch her confusion over the fact that the author was not beheaded when he traveled to ISIS territory.

It stands to reason that if you are a journalist covering international events you would understand the motivations of the subjects of your interview. Even before I pressed play to watch the video I knew the answer to Ifill’s lack of understanding.

The author that Ifill interviewed is a German named “Jürgen Todenhöfer”. Without any research I immediately realized that he was an anti-war activist. How is it possible that she can’t figure this out?

Todenhöfer was proud to criticize the ICC indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan. The Sudanese government and its Janjaweed militias destroyed 400 villages, displaced 2.5 million people and instigated a genocide that cost 400,000 lives (and countless rapes).

In an open letter to the ICC prosecutor, Todenhöfer argued that if President Bush or Prime Minister Blair has not been indicted by the court then they should not indict the Sudanese President. So HELLO Gwen Ifill, it’s obvious why the Islamic State let this man into their territory without beheading him.

We Are Useful Tools

Todenhöfer seems like a really nice guy, like a friendly grandpa... But very friendly with terrorists and dictators and a complete tool. The problem is that he knows this. That is why he reiterates over and over that he criticizes the Islamic State. I’m sure he does, but he didn’t make too many criticisms during the interview.

Regardless, the Islamic State doesn’t care when Todenhöfer criticizes their brutality or their dictatorial nature. They actually want him to report those things. They rule through terror so they don’t want the message to go out that they are reasonable and accommodating liberals.

Most of all they want Todenhöfer and other likeminded Westerners to continue their propaganda. He has no sense of history outside of anti-Americanism. Only a pronounced bias can lead to this claim by Todenhöfer;

If you send your troops, even your best troops, I think they would have little chance to fight in a guerilla war in a big city. Because an American soldier, even your best soldiers the Marines or Special Forces, they want to come home, they want to survive. But these people want to die. They want to win and they are ready to die.”

He conveniently forgets the tenacity that US troops have shown over the years. This is nothing new to our soldiers.  In the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II the Japanese commander, General Kuribayashi, issued an order forbidding his troops to commit suicidal Banzai charges because they always failed against US firepower. The Banzai charge was replaced by kamikazes, but the US still defeated the Japanese Empire.

During the Battle of the Surge US Marines also used superior firepower against a suicidal enemy with success. Al Qaeda suffered a great defeat. Todenhöfer knows this, but he feels that he needs to propagandize against the US to help prevent us from being what he considers to be warlike and foolish.  The Islamic State counted on that when they issued him a guarantee of protection.

That is why they offered Todenhöfer the opportunity to try on a suicide belt. During another interview with CNN he blurted out that, “…these belts are very small, very easy to wear… I wore one… it’s a horrible feeling…”

In the video you can see that Todenhöfer realized he shouldn’t have admitted that on camera. He becomes visibly uncomfortable and looks down away from the camera as he grasps for words. Thankfully for him it is CNN and the interviewer bails him out by changing the subject. Soft interviews are a given when you have the right talking points.

In actuality the Islamic State doesn’t really need Todenhöfer.  There is enough anti-American propaganda in the Western world. However, he posed no threat for them and they felt they could use him anyway.

As long as we tell the world that Americans are racist warmongers and that is why we invade other countries, they will never believe anything we say (other than when we say bad things about ourselves). When Obama suffers from the Karzai Dilemma and tells the UN that the US is racist, the Muslim world will not believe him when he claims to be bombing the Middle East for humanitarian reasons.

To them it’s no different than a bank robber who rats on his accomplices. And just imagine if the leader of the gang tries to blame the other robbers. Who is going to believe him?

The cognitive dissonance will only be overlooked by those who claim to be American patriots, but are conditioned to believe that America’s foreign policy has always been primarily motivated by bigotry and greed.

Our Ignorant Activist Media

In the 2008 presidential elections the media threw away any pretense of objectivity and campaigned on behalf of Barack Obama. Most news articles were sprinkled with the conformist nuances of ‘truths’ that are widely accepted by our intellectual elite. The result is that they continue to behave like Pavlov’s dog at every mention of the Iraq War and obediently serve the role that Al Qaeda gave them.

Such bias can only thrive in an environment of ignorance. The media misinforms the American people in its partisan battle against Republicans.

Today, I had enough when reading a New York Times article about the piracy problem in Somalia. Ever since this subject has become headline news the media has pushed a meme stating that the piracy was created by the fall of the Islamic Courts.

Much like our elites mourn the downfall of mass murdering Saddam Hussein, they claim that American and Ethiopian interference led to this piracy problem. These robots don’t have an original thought in their puny collective mind.

I have never seen such utter ignorance as this article entitled, “Grand Theft Nautical”. The writer, John Burnett, relies exclusively on leftwing talking points. If you can read this quote without regurgitating your last meal you have a stronger stomach than I do, or you really don’t understand the issues here…

“There was some semblance of law and order in 2006, when the Islamic Courts Union, loosely linked with Al Qaeda, took over much of the country and imposed Shariah law. Though there were cruel tradeoffs, the Islamists virtually eradicated piracy. (The crime was a capital offense punishable by beheading.)

When Ethiopian forces, supported by the United States, replaced the Islamists with an ineffective transitional government in 2006, piracy returned with an intensity not seen since the 17th century.

It is evident that no nation can impose its will on Somalia; the colonial British and Italians learned the hard way. And certainly no nation can force Somalis to stop the best business in town. But if the West really hopes to eliminate the scourge of piracy in these strategic shipping lanes, then it should consider involving the courts union, the only entity that has proved it could govern the country, and its militant wing, Al Shabaab, in a new government.”

Where to begin? This guy is a complete idiot and makes a lot of money as a result. He writes what our intellectual elite wants to hear. Here is a short history lesson for Mr. Burnett...

Somalia is split into many different regions. Some of them consider themselves to be independent countries, but are not internationally recognized. Somaliland is one of the most prominent of them. At one time the Islamic Courts controlled much of the lawless south, but not these autonomous regions. To the north is Puntland, another autonomous region that unlike Somaliland does not consider itself to be independent. This is where the majority of pirates are headquartered. Local Puntland authorities have developed business links with the pirates who have safe havens there. The Islamic Courts has never had any significant control of any land in Puntland.

How can journalists go to the best universities and still come out so utterly ignorant in the blind pursuit of leftwing political activism?

Burnett wants to give the fascist Islamic Courts influence in a region that they have never had any control?... All so liberals can thumb their nose at Republicans and America’s lukewarm ally, Ethiopia?

Let me be fair. According to a report by the Chatham House, the Islamic Courts eradicated piracy during the second part of 2006 when they rose to a brief supremacy. However, the pirates simply moved to Puntland and continued their expansion of criminal activity. So does Burnett advocate handing over Puntland to the hurting Islamists? (Yes, I know the Islamists have recently made some gains, but they still are a shadow of their former power. It all depends if your glass is half full or half empty… Or rather, if you choose to propagandize on behalf of Islamists or not.)




Funny enough, the report goes on to say that funds from the ransoms paid to pirates have gone to Al-Shabaab. If you recall, Burnett advocated the inclusion of Al-Shabaab in the Somali government as a solution to the piracy problem. Even you overlook the problem that he doesn’t know the difference between the Somali Transitional Federal Government and the government of Puntland, you still have to admit that he doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about.

Navigating The Media Spin

Back in June a frustrated correspondent from the NY Times complained that there wasn’t enough news stories about the Iraq War…

“According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of the war in Iraq has been ‘massively scaled back this year’. Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq war coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The ‘CBS Evening News’ has devoted the fewest minutes to the war, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC’s ‘World News’ and 74 minutes on ‘NBC Nightly News’. (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)

CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.”

The real reason for the journalist panic rears its ugly head later in the article. Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News, relates how she begged to embed with some Navy Seals only to have a CBS producer tell her that, “One guy in uniform looks like any other guy in a uniform”. But all is not lost. Don’t be alarmed by the prejudice against our troops that comes from a big shot at CBS. Its not just prejudice that distorts our media, its an agenda. As the article continues:

“In the follow-up phone interview, Ms. Logan said the producer no longer worked at CBS. And in both interviews, she emphasized that many journalists at CBS News are pushing for war coverage, specifically citing Jeff Fager, the executive producer of ‘60 Minutes’. CBS News won a Peabody Award last week for a ‘60 Minutes’ report about a Marine charged in the killings at Haditha.”

You may remember the headlines that this case made several years ago. Congressman John Murtha was infamous for making the false accusation that the marines involved in this incident, “murdered these Iraqis in cold blood”. Despite the fact that the marines were convicted in a ‘trial by media’ before the investigation was even completed, all of the defendants except for one have been cleared of all charges (the last defendant’s charges have been reduced and his trial has been postponed). So as the U.S. is winning the war in Iraq, Ms. Logan is excited about an executive producer like Jeff Fager who keeps alive the media’s hostile view towards U.S. troops. It’s no wonder why Ms. Logan bemoans the fact that the media hasn’t released enough pictures of dead American soldiers when she bizarrely ties that statement to her assertion that our soldiers are forgotten by the public. As if plastering pictures of dead American soldiers everywhere is something that our troops would benefit from, rather than benefit the “antiwar” lobby.

The McCain Doctrine & Republican Revolt

Now that the Surge has dramatically succeeded above expectations don’t expect the media to continue dubbing it, “The McCain Doctrine” or “McCain’s Plan”. Over a year ago the media advocated a meme that McCain was putting himself at risk for being such a staunch advocate of the Troop Surge. This came at a time when the Surge was controversial so there was some truth to this sort of analysis. However, to create a scenario of impending doom that supports this conclusion, the media misled the public about the level of Republican dissent against the war.

In July of 2007 the L.A. Times tried to paint McCain as being slowly isolated from even his fellow Republicans on the issue and that the Republican Party was looking to redefine itself away from President Bush’s Iraq policy:

“As President Bush struggles to maintain support in Congress for his Iraq ‘surge’ strategy, the three leading Republican presidential contenders have been quietly backing away from any commitment to continue the buildup.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson have made it clear that their original support for the escalation does not mean they are signed on to keeping the current 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, even as they have laid out hawkish positions on other aspects of foreign policy.

Their recent moves underscore the president’s growing isolation on Iraq as the GOP begins searching for a post-Bush foreign policy. The shifts also distance the three top contenders from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the former front-runner who Tuesday reaffirmed his commitment to the troop escalation.”

Over a year later it is obvious that this article was pure partisan bullshit. All of these former candidates have faithfully supported the Surge and continue to support the President’s Iraq policy.

You don’t hear much about the alleged Republican Revolt anymore, but over a year ago it was a vital part of the Democratic Party’s strategy that was used to manipulate public opinion with an unbalanced viewpoint of what was really going on. After a suicidal ousting of Senator Joe Lieberman from the Democratic Party during the 2006 elections, an appearance of Democratic Party unity and Republican Party division was created by Democratic Party strategists and a compliant media.

In July 2007 the House passed the “Responsible” Redeployment from Iraq Act (HR 2956), which was designed to withdraw most U.S. troops from Iraq in less than a year. This legislation was proposed about a month after the Surge officially began. The Redeployment Act was a desperate attempt to destroy the Surge before it had a chance to run its course.

In many cases when anti-Iraq policy legislation is proposed, the Democratic Party has used a handful of sympathetic Republican Party politicians as sponsors or authors to create a false bipartisan appearance. The Redeployment Act had three Republicans who were promoted as cosponsors (out of 43 total cosponsors); Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. However, the voting record shows that only four Republicans voted in defiance of their party to pass this legislation. Unsophisticated observers might still feel that this justified the media’s assertion of a revolt within the Republican Party, but the media and general public missed the fact that 10 Democrats defied their own party by voting against the measure!

So despite all claims of a Republican Revolt, more than double the amount of Democrats revolted against their own party and the top “three” presidential candidates from the Republican Party have remained steadfast supporters of President Bush’s Iraq policy. As the minority in Congress, the Republican Party needed to remain loyal to Bush in order to beat back the many legislative attempts by the Democratic Party to reverse the Surge. While the Republicans brilliantly maintained party discipline amid an unpopular war, the Democrats were not as successful.

The hysterical chatter of a Washington Post columnist (Harold Meyerson), who called the GOP a bunch of “gutless wonders”, reveals that the Republican Revolt was just a creature of wishful thinking by partisan journalists and the Democratic Party. He displayed some extreme bitterness towards the few dissenting Republicans who supported the Democratic Party on this issue, but failed to change our Iraq policy. Its as if he wouldn’t be happy with them unless they became suicide bombers…

“They have seen the folly of our course in Iraq. The mission, they understand, cannot be accomplished. The Iraqi government, they discern, is hopelessly sectarian.

In wisdom, they are paragons. In action, they are nullities. Perhaps they are simply farsighted. They have seen the problem with Nouri al-Maliki’s administration in faraway Baghdad. They seem unable to see the problem with the Bush administration at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Lugars and the Warners seem to share with many of their Democratic colleagues a common assessment of our presence in Iraq: It has become an unfocused and costly occupation in a land beset by civil war. We should, in good order, pull back, leaving behind only what we need to deter jihadists who threaten us.”

This article is worth reading in its entirety in order to digest the full extent of the conformist, bullying tactics of those who were determined to defeat the Troop Surge. It is mind boggling to imagine that intelligent people once thought that the withdrawal of the majority of U.S. forces from Iraq would lead to conditions that could deter jihadists in that country. At the same time those who defended such a highly unpopular policy as the Surge were accused of being gutless. A year later it is now obvious that those whom Meyerson labeled as gutless were actually very brave to help enable the enormously successful Surge operation against all conventional wisdom and savage criticism.




Leadership & the Mortgage Crisis

If you want a great example of leadership then look no further than Senator John McCain’s stance on the Surge. It was pointed out that his enthusiastic support for this unpopular issue could have hurt his presidential campaign, but he took the risk because he felt that it was worth taking.

Both leading presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain support the recent $700 million dollar bailout package for the financial industry that passed last Friday. Yet McCain has taken a beating for temporarily suspending his campaign in order to get House Republicans to support the bill. Critics have labeled his effort as grandstanding, but just like the Surge it shows that McCain is willing to take risks that come at his own expense for the sake of the country.

As Obama takes a back seat on the issue and can only hope for change, he and his fellow Democratic Party partisans blame their Republican counterparts for the current financial crisis. At this point in the election the media’s collective memory only extends to whatever benefits Obama’s presidential campaign. Its up to bloggers to force the media to cover more than just the Democratic Party’s talking points.

Back in 1999 the NY Times wrote about the pressure that Fannie Mae was receiving from the Clinton Administration to take on more risky loans. It was an ominous sign of the negative influence that the Democratic Party was to play in this crisis:

“Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.”

Ironically, the Democratic Party has taken to blaming the crisis on the Republican Party’s support for deregulation, but the American people are not getting the whole story of what really happened. In 2003 the NY Times relates the following:

“The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.”

Guess who opposed President Bush’s attempt to enforce meaningful reform of the regulation of these GSEs?… Almost any blogger knows that the Democratic Party joined ranks to fight it. Get a load of this infuriating statement from Rep. Barney Frank, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee:

“These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Rep. Melvin L. Watt, a fellow Democrat, continued to display the same attitude of downplaying the risk of subprime lending that got us into this mess in the first place:

“I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing.”

Attempts to pass this legislation were thwarted along partisan lines as the Democratic Party solidly voted against any attempt to reform the regulation of the GSEs. However, the Republican Party continued to struggle with the obstructionist Democratic Party voting bloc. In May of 2006 John McCain addressed the Senate about a different regulatory reform bill:

“For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO's report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.”

When the Obama campaign accuses McCain of being against regulation of the GSEs and that Obama warned about the potential problems of the financial crisis in 2007, you have to wonder how biased the media is in order to understate such an outrageous lie. The resistance of the Democratic Party to such regulation for years is lost in the memory hole. By 2007 it was obvious even to the staunchest supporter of risky loans like Barney “Not facing any kind of financial crisis” Frank that the Democratic Party could no longer deny that subprime lending had created a disastrous situation. On the other hand, McCain had cosponsored legislation going back to September 2003 calling for regulation of the GSEs.

Interesting enough, Opensecrets.org compiled a list of the top recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac campaign contributions over the last 19 years. Its no surprise that Democrats top the list; but as a freshman U.S. Senator, Barack Obama incredibly came in third place even though he’s only been in office for less than four years! As number three on the list he actually beat out Barney Frank who’s been in office for the entire 19 years that the survey covers. So if Obama was so concerned about the root causes of this crisis; why did he take so much money from these two GSEs in such a short period of time, even as the financial crisis unfolded into catastrophic proportions?

Almost all legislation attempting to reform the regulation of the GSEs was drafted, sponsored and voted for by Republicans. In addition, many Democrats are on record defending Fred and Fannie, going as far as denying that there was a problem with them.

H.R.1409: Secondary Mortgage Market Enterprises Regulatory Improvement Act - Apr 4, 2001

H.R.2575: Secondary Mortgage Market Enterprises Regulatory Improvement Act - Jun 24, 2003

Thank you to Rep. David Scott (D-GA), who was the only Democrat to cosponsor the bill out of 21 cosponsors. Unfortunately, this bill was not able to make it out for a vote.

H.R.2803: Housing Finance Regulatory Restructuring Act of 2003 - Jul 21, 2003

S.1508: Federal Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2003 - Jul 31, 2003

John McCain was a cosponsor of this bill.

S.190: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 - Jan 26, 2005

John McCain was a cosponsor of this bill.

H.R.1461: Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005 - Apr 5, 2005

The bill made it out of the House, but the vote was more or less along party lines with the majority of Democrats voting against it. Thank you to the only two Democratic Representatives who cared enough to vote for the bill… Sam Farr (CA) and Gene Taylor (MS). 208 Republicans and only 2 Democrats voted Aye.

H.R.509: Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1461) to reform the regulation of certain housing-related Government-sponsored enterprises, and for other purposes. - Oct 25, 2005

Passed by the House. 220 Republicans and 0 Democrats voted Aye.

Then after years of denials by the majority of the Democratic Party… all of a sudden in 2007 new reform legislation is introduced by Barney Frank, a politician who previously stated the following during a House Financial Services Committee hearing addressing regulatory reform in 2003:

“I worry, frankly, that there’s a tension here. The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios.”

Then look at this favorable exchange between Frank and executives from Fred and Fannie which transpired at another hearing. It is unbelievable the amount of deference that Frank shows them when he should be grilling them instead:

“Rep. Frank: Let me ask [George] Gould and [Franklin] Raines on behalf of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, do you feel that over the past years you have been substantially under-regulated?

Mr. Raines?

Mr. Raines: No, sir.

Rep. Frank: Mr. Gould?

Mr. Gould: No, sir. . . .

Rep. Frank: OK. Then I am not entirely sure why we are here… I believe there has been more alarm raised about potential unsafety and unsoundness than, in fact, exists.”

So this is the same politician who introduced the following bill:

H.R.1427: Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007 - Mar 9, 2007

Many long-term Democratic deniers voted for this bill, allowing them to be so duplicitous that a year later they would claim to have warned the American people about the subprime crisis and that they are champions of regulatory reform of the GSEs. This is despite the fact that only a handful of Democrats were in favor of reform before this bill and the absolute majority of Republicans were in favor. The Democrats only jumped ship after it was no longer credible (even in a compliant media) to deny the problems with regulating the GSEs. Incredibly it is John McCain who is being painted as a flip flopper on this issue.

Besides Barney Frank, another Democrat who voted for the 2007 bill (H.R.1427) was Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY). This “Johnny-come-lately” stated the following during the same hearing held by the House Financial Services Committee in 2003 that Barney Frank issued his bogus denials:

“…I am just pissed off at OFHEO [Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight] because if it wasn’t for you I don’t think that we would be here in the first place. And Freddie Mac, who on its own, you know, came out front and indicated it is wrong, and now the problem that we have and that we are faced with is maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you have given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they have done a tremendous job…”

In addition to Frank and Meeks there were other “Johnny-come-latelies” who voted for this bill. Take Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr. (D-MO) for instance. At a 2004 hearing concerning allegations of accounting and management failures by Fannie Mae, he was adamant in his defense of FM:

“…I find this to be inconsistent and a rush to judgment. In informal conversations with the executives from Wall Street and individual large brokerage houses, I get the feeling that the markets are not worried about the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae, as OFHEO says that it is. But of course, the markets are not political…”

Clay’s best sound bite of the evening was when he declared, “this hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines (the ex-Fannie Mae chief executive officer)”. Hmmm… Eventually Raines was forced to pay a settlement of $24.7 million in that accounting scandal. In addition, Fannie Mae paid a $400 million civil fine in a settlement with OFHEO and the Securities and Exchange Commission back in 2006. Clay’s accusations of political partisan politics were clearly acts of projection, as revealed by his hypocritical defense of a guilty party for political purposes.

Incredibly, the media reports that McCain is losing in the polls due to the financial meltdown caused by the mortgage crisis. Yet he has a record going back to 2003 of cosponsoring legislation to reform the regulation of the GSEs responsible for this mess. At the same time the Democratic Party has a solid record of opposing such efforts and in Obama’s short experience in the U.S. Senate he has taken an enormous amount of money from them.

Lacy Clay said that the allegations of misdeeds by the GSEs were politically motivated. This is how the Democratic Party’s attempt to cover up financial mismanagement by the GSEs led to unwarranted attacks on the Republicans who only wanted the truth. See the following quote from an article published back in 2004 when Fannie Mae’s CEO Franklin Raines was under fire. The author, Henry Blodget, is an Obama supporter who sometimes writes for Slate.com and the Huffington Post. Check out how he twists and turns in order to protect Raines:

“…Maybe … or, maybe, more likely, he (Franklin Raines) is the same man of discipline, intelligence, honor, and integrity that a half-century of actions and words suggest. If so, we need another explanation for the Fannie proceedings and the assault on Raines.

The simplest, and most conspiratorial, is that the Fannie investigation represents a Republican payback for Enron and Halliburton. Conservatives are delighting in the gutting of Raines and Fannie Mae—a Democratic boss of a Democratic-leaning company. Former Fannie CEO James Johnson, who got some of the bonuses OFHEO criticized, has also been short listed as a possible Kerry treasury secretary. The accounting investigation, if nothing else, has probably made both Raines and Johnson untouchables to a Democratic president.

My fellow bloggers you have every reason to be angry with the media, but please keep in mind that they are eager to smear and misrepresent your voice. They are very protective towards Obama when it comes to what they can construe to be smears. However, they are quick to ignore the torrential amount of smears hurled at McCain and Palin. Obama has never suffered from an attack as vicious as Sarah Palin had to put up with. Nothing compares to accusations that she lied about giving birth to her last child Trig. The assertion that her husband had sex with her daughter and that Trig was born as a result of incest is the worst campaign smear that I have seen in a long time. Yet it is Obama who is continually painted as a victim.

The extent of the media memory hole is proof that a Representative Democracy is only as healthy as those who participate in it. So spread the word and keep our country strong!!!

Zarqawi Revisited

One year ago last week on June 7, 2006 the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. air strike. Unfortunately Al Qaeda didn’t have to scratch up a publicity campaign in order to perform damage control. No… they had the luxury of relying on Western Liberals to do it for them.

There was a flurry of articles stating that the insurgency would not suffer from this loss and some even claimed that the insurgency would actually be invigorated by the death of its most prominent figure. Such sentiment was echoed by political hacks like the culture critic at the Washington Post, Philip Kennicott. In addition to his optimism that the insurgency could benefit from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s “martyrdom”, Kennicott cried foul because he was worried that the death of Zarqawi was being politicized by our government. Yet Kennicott ignores his own politicization of the event. Furthermore, he doesn’t bother to consider that during times of war our government has the right to promote such victories in order to support our troops in the field … At least as much as he has a right to harangue his readers in an effort to undermine the hard work that our troops put into tracking down Zarqawi.





The government was only doing its job by congratulating our troops on a job well done. In times of war this is not unprecedented. Take for instance the Doolittle Raid which was conducted on April 18th, 1942 at the low point of the American war effort against the Japanese Empire. Shortly after this raid the fortress of Corregidor fell and the Japanese conquest of the Philippines was completed. Basically the raid was militarily insignificant because it failed to cause any lasting damage and was not immediately followed up by more air raids. However, it was a propaganda triumph since it marked the first time that the U.S. successfully bombed the Japanese home islands. Our government zealously used the raid to promote its efforts against our enemies and our current government could hardly be blamed for doing the same in the case of Zarqawi’s death. If any motives should be suspect it should be of those Americans who criticize the promotion of a military success that benefits our troops in Iraq and instead explores every possible avenue to spread propaganda against them.

I am not saying that the freedom of speech for such activists should be curtailed in any way. I am merely making the observation that their accusations should be put into proper context and I hope that my own freedom to criticize them in turn is respected as well. Freedom of Speech needs to be a two-way street.

An article in the NYC newspaper, The Indypendent, highlights the extremes that self-professed Advocacy Journalists or Alternative Journalists would go to spin Zarqawi’s death. One of The Indypendent’s writers by the name of A.K. Gupta declared, “…Bush Administration policies promoting sectarianism and death squads also ensure the fighting will continue…”

In a calculated gesture of misinformation Gupta breezes by Al Qaeda’s dependence on sectarian violence and blames President Bush for it. The real source of the current violence should not be glossed over so quickly. Zarqawi championed the complete elimination of the Shia. Two months before his death Zarqawi issued a recorded statement which dictated that, “The Muslims will have no victory or superiority over the aggressive infidels such as the Jews and the Christians until there is a total annihilation of those under them such as the apostate agents headed by the rafidha (Shiites)…” So Zarqawi actually viewed the Shia as a worse enemy than the United States!!! He was rather direct on this point, “The danger from the Shia… is greater and their damage is worse and more destructive to the (Islamic) nation than the Americans… we will hurt them, God willing, through martyrdom operations and car bombs.”

Zarqawi’s words were backed up by a campaign of mass murder that was orchestrated to spark all out war between the Sunnis and Shiites. In March 2004 he was responsible for attacks on Shia shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, which killed over 180 people. In December 2004 he masterminded car bomb attacks against Shiites in Najaf and Karbala, claiming over 60 lives. In addition to many other sectarian attacks he is also believed to be responsible for the bombing of the Golden Mosque in early 2006, which finally succeeded in instigating all out sectarian warfare between the Sunni and Shia. After Zarqawi’s death Al Qaeda continued to use the same sectarian tactics. Just today the Golden Mosque was attacked once again. Sectarian warfare is clearly the policy of the Sunni insurgency and they benefit the most from the instability that it causes.

The Indypendent article was so biased that it actually echoed Al Qaeda propaganda by stating that Zarqawi’s death was a boon for his supporters. Gupta pronounced, “Not that everything is lost for Zarqawi’s followers. Now they have a new martyr to rally around.” It was a very similar tone to a statement published on an Al Qaeda website stating, “We announce the martyr death of our sheikh, fighter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (His death will) only reinforce our determination to pursue jihad so that the word of Allah gains the upper hand.” (Only the religious fervor is missing from the Indypendent’s article.)

Despite their cheerleading, the Indypendent is not consciously on Al Qaeda’s side. They just harbor a pathological aversion to President Bush. So they fail to ponder the fact that their staunch opposition to the U.S. –in combination with– their silence against the brutal methodology behind terrorism is as charitable as donating weapons or money to Al Qaeda. It’s actually worse because weapons and money are only the means by which Al Qaeda seeks to achieve its goal of generating such media stories. The success of their manipulation of the media only encourages more brutal attacks against innocent civilians because it makes such violence a much more valuable commodity.

These news stories are vital to terrorists because they cannot raise an army large enough to defeat an enemy like the United States. They can only hope to break the will of their opponent’s civilian population to support its war effort and shift the blame for their own violence to their enemies. Ever since World War I warring armies have gained a greater appreciation for the value of propaganda. No one understands this better than modern-day terrorists. They actually wage war with the intent of using it for propaganda and don’t use the traditional model of promoting propaganda to support their war effort.

Unfortunately the Indypendent willingly follows the path laid out for them since they actually train future generations of journalists to corrupt their writing. The newspaper holds weekend-long workshops on journalism that teaches its students to assume a one-sided bias in order to discredit the establishment that they hate so much (Al Qaeda is not a part of the establishment so they don’t warrant a second glance, unless it embarrasses the Bush Administration.)

In a discussion of these workshops they addressed their students’ concerns about objectivity in the media. While they make a good point that accuracy is one of the most important aspects of journalism, the workshop goes on to promote political activism as a higher virtue than objectivity. Editor John Tarleton stated, “…we shouldn’t forget that power tends to corrupt and that those who hold power and wealth will often abuse it while trying to conceal or spin their activities. What we’re striving to do is tell the story of the world around us from the bottom-up instead of with the usual top-down perspective of the giant media corporations.” Interesting enough, earlier in the linked article Tarleton had also cited ‘open-mindedness’ as another important aspect of journalism, but judging from the previous comment he has already made up his mind about what to write before starting any story. ‘Open-mindedness’ in this case is complete agreement with his activism against the alleged conspiracies of a conniving upper class.

The leading intellectual of this school of thought is Noam Chomsky. His idea of media bias was the accusation that the Cambodian dictatorship of Pol Pot was unfairly criticized due to the alleged anti-Communist sentiment of the media. The opposite was true. Chomsky defended the Khmer Rouge because of his anti-American bias. Under Pol Pot the Khmer Rouge exterminated an estimated one to three million Cambodians. So in recent times it is not surprising that he is also a leading critic of the Iraqi reconstruction. He consistently takes the side of America’s enemies no matter how reprehensible they may be.

The prevalence of such a strong leftwing bias against the US government led to a hysterical reaction to Zarqawi’s death. Take Michael Berg for example. He is the father of Nicholas Berg, an American civilian who was believed to have been personally beheaded by Zarqawi. Although his son was killed by Al Qaeda, Michael Berg blamed President Bush for his son’s death.

Even before his son’s killer finally paid for his crimes Michael Berg displayed a bizarre sympathy towards Al Qaeda that was akin to something like Stockholm Syndrome. In the wake of his son’s death he said, “I am sure that he (Nicholas Berg) only saw the good in his captors until the last second of his life. They did not know what they were doing. They killed their best friend.” Such cloudy reasoning could have been attributed to Michael Berg’s grief, but it is also consistent with his statements made years later after he had time to reflect.

During this time Michael Berg rarely condemned Zarqawi, instead he reserved almost all of his bitterness towards our President, who he insisted was as bad as or worse than Zarqawi. This was his reaction to Zarqawi’s death in an interview video taped by CNN’s Mary Snow;

“I think it is a tragedy when any human being dies, but Zarqawi’s doubly because Zarqawi, aside from being someone’s son who is now going to suffer what my family suffered, he is also a political figure. And he and George Bush are involved in this cycle of revenge and revenge begets revenge… I think that one is cowardly. The man in the oval office doesn’t look at his victims when he kills them…”

When challenged if he thought that the murder of his son by Zarqawi was a brave act Michael Berg responded, “No I’m not saying that Zarqawi committed a brave act, I abhor what he did, I’m just saying that he looked into Nick’s eyes when he killed him.”

Wow! ... There is a serious lack of context in Michael Berg’s reasoning here. Whether he intends to or not he gives credit to Zarqawi for not being a ‘coward’, as he accuses President Bush of. He also gives Zarqawi a small measure of legitimacy by saying that he was “a political figure”. Did Zarqawi run for election? How can a terrorist be elevated to an equal or even higher level than an elected official that is the legal representative of his people?

This derangement is the result of a propaganda echo chamber that elevates the hatred of our President into a fever pitch. Michael Berg tortures himself with his political activism and this is no way to mourn such a loss. The whole situation is actually a best case scenario for his son’s killers and it is no mystery as to why they chose the tactics that they do. For the most part, terrorism increases because these tactics are so effective against its target audience, Western Liberals. That’s why in victory or defeat Al Qaeda could count on their message to be echoed by Western Liberals and filtered out to the media.

Let’s take another look at Michael Berg’s reaction to Zarqawi’s death. He added, “…My feelings this morning are feelings of sorrow for the loss of yet another human being. I know he’s the one that is supposed to have killed my son, but I have learned to forgive a long time ago and I regret mostly that his death will bring about another wave of revenge from his cohorts in Al Qaeda.”

Why does Michael Berg continually forgive the terrorist who killed his son and yet refuse to forgive President Bush who did not commit the murder? Pacifism and loving forgiveness are some of the highest human traits that makes us a more advanced species than any other creature on this planet. However, there is no love in this forgiveness, only spite for President Bush. I understand that leftwing activists believe the President to be a “liar” and a “warmonger”, but is beheading an innocent civilian the measure of honesty or bravery? Zarqawi was a terrorist before Bush became president, why does he deserve forgiveness and Bush doesn’t?

Anyways, we’ve examined how the Washington Post, The Indypendent and Michael Berg have exhausted every argument to convince the public that Zarqawi’s death wouldn’t make a difference or could actually benefit Al Qaeda. … But is there any truth to these claims?

Iraq is certainly as violent as ever so in one crucial aspect it could be said that maybe they are right… However, there have been some dramatic developments over the year and the death of Zarqawi was an essential ingredient that enabled an important shift in the composition of the counterinsurgency.

Up until Zarqawi’s death the terrorist mastermind was consolidating the insurgency under his leadership. Even in the wake of his worst defeat, the Battle of Fallujah, two Iraqi insurgent groups joined forces with Zarqawi, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army and the Islamic Army in Iraq. Through his adept hand at using the latest technology to promote his propaganda, his fearsome brutality, his ability to elude capture and the perception that he crafted of an effortless transfer of his terrorist operations to Ramadi - Zarqawi pervaded a superhuman aura that magnetized the insurgency around him.

A year before his death U.S. military intelligence revealed that Zarqawi commanded thousands of fighters from various rival groups and dominated the smaller resistance groups in the pivotal city of Ramadi. A resident of the city related the following; “His men announced through leaflets that all Shia should leave Ramadi or face ‘the iron fist’. At first local Sunnis didn’t want anything to do with it, but they know how powerful Zarqawi’s group is, that it doesn’t hesitate to kill and is not afraid to die. They control Ramadi now. They have the best weapons and the most money, and more and more men. They walk openly on the streets when the Americans aren’t around. So the Shias left, by their thousands.”

In order to counter Zarqawi’s hold on Ramadi American commanders held meetings with local Sheiks in November of 2005. Although the Sheiks were enthusiastic about American proposals for cooperation, Zarqawi squashed the potential alliance in a fit of violence.

However, in the aftermath of Zarqawi’s death Al Qaeda lost its momentum. There was a short spike in violence, but something was dramatically different. Al Qaeda in Iraq seemed directionless. A website frequently used by Islamic militants announced that a little known terrorist named Sheikh Abu Hamza al Muhajir was appointed as Zarqawi’s replacement. This led to a stir of confusion by terrorist experts. The U.S. military came to the conclusion that al Muhajir was actually an alias for Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an experienced associate of Zarqawi who based his operations in Iraq even before the ouster of Saddam in 2003. Egyptian lawyer, Muntasir al-Zayyat, claims that the person identified as al-Masri is really a fellow Egyptian named Yusif al-Dardiri.

Whatever the identity of al Muhajir may be, Al Qaeda could not handle the disarray that they added to the mix when a video by a spokesman of its Islamic State of Iraq announced that al Muhajir was only the Minister of War in the “cabinet” of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. Al-Masri then pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi in a muddy succession that failed to impress anyone. Clearly both parties are not as strong willed as Zarqawi and cannot live up to the legacy of their predecessor. This demonstrates that Al Qaeda in Iraq has lost much of its flair for propaganda. Most Americans don’t even know the name of any Al Qaeda operative in the country anymore. Despite claims that al-Masri was killed early this spring, the terrorist has failed to personally issue a message of denial. While it looks like the claim might have been false, it is telling that while Al Qaeda has denied his death they were only able to scrounge up an old audio tape of al-Masri which denies that there is infighting between the Sunnis and Al Qaeda, but doesn’t even mention claims of his death. It is an uncharacteristic for Al Qaeda to be so defensive and not to seize upon an opportunity to drum up some valuable press by releasing a mocking video or audio tape that the Western media would have fallen over themselves to cover. The authoritative guidance of Zarqawi is clearly missing and it shows. Iraqi Sunnis have taken notice.

[The announcement of Al Qaeda’s “Islamic State of Iraq” was a comically pathetic attempt to look sophisticated. Even the well funded terrorist organization could have afforded a lot more than just an empty desk and a flat screen monitor with speakers…]





Earlier I mentioned that Zarqawi had scored some successes in Ramadi. He kicked out a large portion of the Shiite population and dominated the local Iraqi police force. If it wasn’t for the presence of American troops he would have seized complete control over the city just like he did in Fallujah. However, since his death things have dramatically changed.

In response to Zarqawi’s brutal campaign in Ramadi U.S. Army Col. Sean MacFarland began to implement aggressive new tactics in the city. He started to establish combat outposts deep in Al Qaeda strongholds. These outposts were so strongly defended that Al Qaeda couldn’t remove them, putting a serious dent in their over-inflated reputation. The new stations enabled our troops to directly support our Sunni allies where they needed it. So when Al Qaeda’s attacks against these outposts failed they focused their attacks once again on pro-American Iraqis. In an attempt to replicate the decisiveness of Zarqawi’s thuggery his successors made a huge mistake by killing a Ramadi Sheik and not allowing the family to bury him for four days. This event was the catalyst of a sustained Sunni revolt against Al Qaeda. The formation of the Anbar Salvation Council went mostly unnoticed when it began operations against Al Qaeda only a few months after the death of Zarqawi (in September of 2006).

The organization is headquartered in Ramadi and was founded by a prominent Sunni Sheik, Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi. He was a former member of the secular neo-Baathist insurgent group Al-Awda and had actually been imprisoned several times by the Americans. The Anbar Salvation Council has since pushed Al Qaeda out of Ramadi and most of the Anbar province. To prevent Al Qaeda from re-entering the city Ramadi police have had to set up a screen of checkpoints on its outskirts because the terrorists have been retaliating by sending suicide bombers from their remaining pockets in Anbar and other Iraqi provinces. In Western Ramadi U.S. troops haven’t experienced a single death in four months and have had only one serious injury during that time. Only the eastern portion of the city has a few insurgent holdouts.

By May of 2006 the whole city of Ramadi had 254 attacks total, but during the same months in 2007 there have only been 30 (and U.S. troops didn’t win control over the city until March). For all of 2006 only 1,000 Iraqis volunteered for the Iraqi Security Forces in the entire Anbar Province, however, since the beginning of 2007 over 12,000 Iraqi citizens have volunteered. These developments were significant because the 2004 U.S. victory in Fallujah created an exodus of fighters to Ramadi and the city became the new capital of the insurgency. The loss of another base of operations is a major blow to Al Qaeda.

The stakes are high so any American success story is guaranteed a chorus of naysayers. Last year Common Dreams featured an article about Ramadi that was originally published by the L.A. Times. They reported, “The death last week of Jordanian-born terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi may have dealt a psychological blow to the Iraq insurgency, but it is not expected to dent the destabilizing power of anti-American guerrillas in Al Anbar.”

Such activists found the Holy Grail in a classified intelligence report entitled, “State of the Insurgency in Al-Anbar”. It was partially leaked in late 2006. This was only a few months before the unraveling of Al Qaeda in the Anbar province and just in time for the November elections. Although the details of the report were not publicly revealed because the report was top secret, the media and “antiwar” movement seized upon it as evidence of the failure of American policy in Iraq.

Here is an excerpt of the report printed by the Washington Post; “Al-Qaeda itself, now an ‘integral part of the social fabric of western Iraq’, has become so entrenched, autonomous and financially independent that U.S. forces no longer have the option ‘for a decapitating strike that would cripple the organization’, the report says. That is why, it says, the death of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June ‘had so little impact on the structure and capabilities of al-Qaeda’, especially in Anbar province.”

Incredibly, an NBC News correspondent (Jim Miklaszewski) used the report to chase a reporter’s pipedream to be the first to announce a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq (or at least a partial withdrawal). Miklaszewski creatively added his own interpretation of the situation by stating, “The top U.S. commander in Iraq said Tuesday there has been some military and economic progress in Anbar, but for the first time, it appears the U.S. military is preparing to concede a large piece of Iraq to the enemy and leave it entirely to the Iraqis to eventually sort it out.” If you look at the source of the quote you will see that it was made by Marine Major General Richard C. Zilmer, who was a regional commander in the province and not the top commander in Iraq as Miklaszewski erroneously states. It should also be pointed out that Zilmer never mentioned any preparation to evacuate his command so the second half of the sentence is a complete fabrication. As General Zilmer said earlier in the article, “Recent media reports fail to accurately capture the entirety and complexity of the current situation”. The NBC article shows that the general was being too generous in his assessment.

In the linked Washington Post article above there is also a video interview with Thomas Ricks, a reporter for the Post who sums up what he claims to be the Pentagon’s views on the state of Iraq. Basically his news brief is on par with what you would expect from a junior high school social studies report. I would be extremely disturbed if Ricks did not misrepresent the Pentagon by either quoting those that are not in a position to represent the agency or if he merely used his own artistic license to craft their words into his own. I can grudgingly live with activist journalists, but our military leaders should be free from this kind of political maneuvering.

When asked if the Pentagon agrees with President Bush’s assessment that Al Qaeda has fomented the sectarian violence in Iraq through their brutal attacks against the Shiites, Ricks goes off the board. He concludes that, “the Pentagon analysis definitely says that the roadside bombs which are the main killer of American troops are not an Al Qaeda operation and tend to be Iraqi insurgents”. What the hell does roadside bombs that target Americans have to do with sectarian violence in Iraq? This is clearly an argument built upon political activism. If we were talking about sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims then Ricks (or whoever he is quoting, if he didn’t take their stance out of context) would at least have some evidence that is almost relevant to justify such a stance. The reality is that insurgent IED Attacks on American troops do not contribute in any appreciable manner to the sectarian violence that is plaguing the Sunnis and Shiites. This is just shoddy reporting.

The news brief just gets worse from here. Ricks is then asked if the Pentagon has a strategy for dealing with the problematic Shiite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. So he launches into a rant about how powerful the Pentagon believes that Al-Sadr is becoming. Ricks went as far as to say that, “He (Al-Sadr) now has an armed force of between 40 to 60,000 which makes him probably a much more effective military force than the Iraqi government itself...”

In times of war most intelligent military leaders typically attempt to intimidate their enemies and motivate their support base by exaggerating the capabilities of their forces. In modern times America’s enemies are relieved of such pursuits because the American media will invariably engage in such propaganda on their behalf.

At the time of Rick’s report there were about 319,000 trained and equipped Iraqi Security Forces (now there are about 350,000). While the quality of these recruits can legitimately be challenged, the performance of Al Sadr’s militia has proven them to be of the lowest quality. The Mahdi Army draws its recruits from Iraq’s poorest slums and in many cases their militia members have been sent into battle barefooted and under equipped. Most importantly they have failed in every major military objective. Al Sadr’s militia has only been able to score any success when they have significantly outnumbered their enemies. In any case, having almost 300,000 less fighters than the government hardly gives the militia military superiority over the Iraqi government. (Which is also allied to the powerful Coalition forces. That’s another 100,000+ troops with heavy armor and airpower.) This analysis reeks of the biased ignorance that could be expected from a journalist with an agenda. Actually I can’t see how such an incorrect evaluation could be labeled as an analysis. It is clearly nothing but propaganda.

Anyways, the NBC reporter that was interviewing Ricks had to interrupt him because he was not addressing the question. So he rephrased it by saying, “Its one thing for the Pentagon to have an assessment about the capability of Muqtada al-Sadr, but do they have a plan for dealing with it?” You just have to watch the video to believe Ricks’ answer.

He said;

“I don’t think that they really do. Their plan is… the political people should come up with a political compromise that takes care of Muqtada al-Sadr. But I think there’s kind of a despair of that they don’t see that happening and so I was really surprised when I was doing this interview at the Pentagon that what was said was WE PROBABLY SHOULD ABANDON THE POLICY OF RECONCILIATION, of trying to get the Sunnis and the Shiites to sit down together and really throw in our lot with the Shiites and the feeling was that’s the way we might diffuse Muqtada al-Sadr and make him more of a political act and less than a military one.”

Ricks claimed that this statement came from a top Pentagon official. He continued by saying this official insisted that, “We tried reconciliation now for several years, it hasn’t worked, we should tell the Shiites OK you have the country you’re in control. He said yes, the Sunnis will probably walk out at that point and we are going to have to pay that price and just say OK it didn’t work. The Shiites are now in control of this country and then he said double the size of the Iraqi army and police and hire every Shiite you can find and create a Shiite Kurdish military. He said this is a prospect the Sunnis aren’t going to like, but this is a situation the Sunnis have now created.”

I would love to know who this mysterious top Pentagon official is. When such buffoons look at Iraq they don’t see anything except President Bush. As a high ranking defense official this person has access to more detailed data on Iraq than anyone else on the planet, yet he or she has lost the ability to interpret this information rationally (if this person actually exists).

The biggest problem the U.S. has had in the Sunni provinces of Iraq is the extreme difficulty to set up effective police forces. In areas with active insurgents Sunnis are reluctant to volunteer so Shiites and Kurds fill in. As outsiders they are resented by the local population and they are not familiar with the people or territory they patrol. To add to the mix, Shiite policemen have been accused of sectarian violence against Sunnis. The premise that the complete subjugation of the Sunni is the only way to subdue the insurgency is laughable. This short-sided fix is a recipe for a permanent insurgency with no hope for reconciliation. Well… it’s actually against reconciliation! This is typical of the wisdom of those who think they have a better plan.

While Ricks is cautious and claims that he is only the messenger, I have seen him use this ploy before. He clearly sees this as a more desirable strategy than reconciliation because he said, “I think they’re both (the Pentagon and the ISG) looking at that kind of radical changes in our posture in Iraq to try to do one last best chance at getting this right”. As he finishes that sentence the screen ominously flashes a text message saying that, “Sunnis Comprise the Overwhelming Majority of the Muslim World”. Due to the fact that the ISG Report or any Pentagon Report that I’ve seen hasn’t released such a drastic recommendation like the scenario Ricks produced I am all the more curious about Ricks’ unidentified source.

Such activist journalism has ensured that the legacy of Zarqawi’s death is not fully appreciated by the general public. I do not make this point to prove that the U.S. has won the war, but that the death of Zarqawi was a legitimate U.S. victory.

This must be pointed out because there is an established pattern here. Every notable U.S. victory like the referendum on a new Iraqi Constitution, the election of Iraq’s first truly democratic government, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the killing of Zarqawi and military successes like Fallujah, Najaf and Ramadi are all undermined as much as possible. This is not only true about radical activists and the Democrats, but in the media as well.

On the flipside U.S. setbacks are exaggerated through fabrications and misinformation. Data is continually held out of context. Body counts are repeated over and over and artificial milestones are proclaimed as much as possible. Yet figures like these are virtually ignored…

Pentagon Press Brief May 31, 2007

(Operational Results in Iraq since January 15th, 2007)

29 Car/Truck bomb factories neutralized

6 IED Cells dismantled

17,946 Detained

3,184 Enemy killed (A figure that is higher than the total number of U.S. military personnel Killed in Action since March 2003. As of June 8, 2007 the total of U.S. soldiers KIA was at 2,864. The other 627 died of other causes.)

Over 1,700 High Value Targets (291 killed, 1,499 detained)

2,493 Caches found and cleared

The naysayers said that nothing good would come from Zarqawi’s death, but back in Ramadi Colonel Sean MacFarland knew otherwise. He said that, “When a tribe ‘flipped’, attacks on U.S. soldiers and Marines in that area dropped to zero almost immediately”. This was not possible when Zarqawi was alive.

Under Zarqawi’s Mujahideen Shura Council the Anbar Province was dominated by Al Qaeda. With his death their aura of invincibility was cracked and the tribes rebelled. The Abu Risha tribe was the first to reject Al Qaeda’s self proclaimed sovereignty over its self declared Islamic State. The resentment of these foreigners declaring their own country in Iraq was enough to jump start the dissent. Al Qaeda’s harsh reaction to this dissent led to outright warfare not only with the tribes, but with Sunni insurgent groups as well.

A slow trickle of infighting has led to full scale war. Sunni insurgent groups like Jaysh Mohammed, 1920 Revolution Brigade, Iraqi Armed Forces, The Al-Awda Party and The Islamic Army have turned against Al Qaeda in bitter fighting (a truce between The Islamic Army and Al Qaeda was recently declared, but it is unclear if it is holding.). Former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, tried his hand at getting Sunni insurgent groups to cooperate against Al Qaeda last year, but had no success. We have finally been able to win some cooperation now that Zarqawi is gone. Without his leadership Al Qaeda has made some major mistakes like the declaration of its own state and its inability to continue their brutal treatment of civilians, just as Zarqawi was able to do, without completely alienating a large block of their Sunni supporters.

Not long ago it was unthinkable to imagine Sunni insurgents joining forces with U.S. soldiers. Yet they have banding together to wrestle control of the Sunni neighborhood of Amiriyah in Baghdad. Fighters from the 1920 Revolution Brigade and the Islamic Army in Iraq have waged all out warfare against Al Qaeda. They are being supplied by the Americans and are actually patrolling side by side with them as well. Even just as important was the fact that at least two Imams who were previously against the American presence in Iraq have agreed to cooperate with U.S. forces. Such clerics are crucial for winning local support of the population and chipping away at the terrorists’ support base.

It has been called by some a bargain with the devil or a gamble that could backfire. I have even heard some say that the U.S. is just creating new militias when that is the last thing we need. However, if these ‘militiamen’ are currently organized into insurgent groups that kill Americans, isn’t it better to turn them into pro-American militias instead?

Throughout this post I have torn into the press coverage of Iraq, but I must admit that we need the media. It is a complex situation. On one hand their inaccuracies and biased reporting must be addressed. Then again it is a mistake to needlessly alienate the press. That’s why the use of the terms like MSM and Old Media has always disturbed me. Not that it is morally wrong or anything of the sort. It’s just that I feel that if you denounce the press you should use specific examples of why you feel that way. Showing such hostility doesn’t do any good since we can’t compete with the sensational headlines that Al Qaeda’s brutal terrorism creates.

Civilization could fall before such tactics unless we can win the battle of perception. We need to check our own perceptions first…

There are some who say that there are no moderate Muslims in these days of Jihad. They should look to President Bush’s trip to Albania. He went there looking for Muslim allies and got mobbed by adoring crowds. When the President called for the independence of Kosovo he got out the message that America is not against Muslims.

In Iraq our policy of reconciliation is finally showing some signs of success. The secular nature of their society is rejecting Al Qaeda’s fundamentalism. Christian America needs to embrace the idea of working with Muslim Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites, Turkmen and the neighboring Kuwaitis… If a working relationship is not nurtured with them then it will spell disaster for all of us.