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.

Obama's Feet on the Fire

VIDEO GALLERY OF SHAME

Obama's recent troubles forcing a Public Health Care option on an unwilling public is the result of a badly mismanaged campaign. The lies and bouts of projection that have marked this campaign have clearly revealed the underhanded partisan politics of the Obama Administration.

This arrogant Administration and its Democratic Majority has become too overconfident. Now they have learned that even with their overwhelming sympathy from the media, activist organizations, unions and academia... they still can't tell lies at will.

There were two lies that fell apart amidst public outrage.

The first was an act of projection. Tea Party activists, who have been derided as "Tea Baggers", were accused of being "Astroturf" activists and not a real grassroots movement. Yet it quickly became apparent that many Public Option supporters were in the employment of Obama's "Organizing for America" and ACORN, while union thugs beat up "teabaggers". It is rare to see such a blatant act of projection on such a huge scale.

In this video Out-of-State Astroturf Activists arrive in New Hampshire to support Public Option Health Care!!!:



Patriots chant "Don't Come Back! / Get a Real Job!" at leaving ACORN buses after a townhall in Pennsylvania:



Secondly, the Obama Administration insisted that it was the victim of a nefarious disinformation campaign. Linda Douglass, the Communications Director of the White Office of Health Reform, specifically targeted an article on Drudge Report entitled... "Obama Explains How His Health Care Plan Will Eliminate Private Insurance". Even though Obama is clearly quoted before he was president as a supporter of a Single Payer Health Care System and he also related his strategy for eliminating employer coverage over a period spanning a 10 to 20 years. Watch Ms. Douglass lie through her teeth and actually deny Obama's own words:



You may recall that Ms. Douglass is the woman who set up an email address for Americans to turn in their fellow citizens who disagree with Obama's health care proposals:



It turns out that flag@whitehouse.gov is illegal either way you view it:



While the Democratic Party and their media allies have smeared Tea Party activists as anti-Democratic protesters who lower the debate on healthcare, Ringos Pictures Blog reminds them how badly Anti-Bush protesters lowered the debate during the Bush Administration... with little concern from the media and its allies in the Democratic Party:

http://www.ringospictures.com/index.php?page=20090816

Nancy Pelosi decried the use of Nazi imagery during these protests, but Zombietime Blog reminds her of the use Nazi imagery by Anti-Bush protesters during the Bush Administration, once again, with little concern from the media and its allies in the Democratic Party:

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612

Then there is Zombietime's collection of protesters calling for the assassination of Bush:

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621

The media will not challenge the astroturfing hypocrisy and outright lies of the Democratic Party. It is up to bloggers to spread the word through the Internet, while protesters spread the word on the streets.

Race Baiting 101

The Democratic Party has resorted to its deck of race cards in order to push through the appointment of former LA RAZA member and current nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor.

Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, threatened the Republican Party stating, “I just think that their voting against this good woman is going to treat them about the same way that they got treated as a result of their votes on immigration”. He was backed by activists representing civil rights, Hispanic and women’s groups. In this way he was making it clear that the Democratic Party is using such groups to advance Sotomayor’s nomination, as he fielded an unstated assumption to race bait Republicans.

The choice of a Supreme Court judge nominee, who was once a member of La Raza, was guaranteed to solidify the rank and file of the Republican Party against her. This nomination was designed to paint Republicans as prejudiced and to garner the support of minority groups. It is not the result of the post-partisan and post-racial promises that Obama made on the campaign trail. The choice was made to inflame racial tensions for the benefit of the Democratic Party.

It’s ironic that this nomination took place at the same time as the recent arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. The knee jerk reaction of Gates and the leftwing race baiting machine was to accuse the arresting officer of racism. President Obama quickly weighed in to support his friend (Professor Gates) and condemned the Cambridge Police Department’s handling of the case by saying that they “acted stupidly”.

This led Obama to rant about racial profiling:

“…there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcing disproportionately. That’s just a fact… …And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently, and oftentimes for no cause, casts suspicion even when there is good cause. And that’s why I think the more that we’re working with local law enforcement to improve policing techniques so that we’re eliminating potential bias, the safer everybody’s going to be.”

Long time race baiting advocate and former prominent Democratic Party politician, Jesse Jackson, chimed in about racial profiling:

“This issue of Dr. Gates being a victim of excessive force and bad judgment is a much bigger subject...This one case could open up the issue of the pervasiveness of race profiling.”

However, the accusation of racial profiling fell apart when it was discovered that the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, taught a class for five years at the Lowell Police Academy on how to avoid racial profiling.

The politics of race baiting needs to be laid to rest…

Year Round Patriotism

I hope that everyone had a fantastic Independence Day. It would have been nice to have more time off from work to celebrate, but I have to take what I can get... So Happy 231st Birthday America!!!

Patriotism in the U.S.A.

A burning hatred for the Republican Party is a common theme that unites all of the many varieties of leftwing radicalism. Since the Republican Party emphasizes patriotism as one of its most coveted ideals, patriotism is quite often derided by the Left as “blind obedience”.

So when the Fourth of July comes around it is always time for some doublespeak about how patriotic the Left claims to be. In some cases they don’t even bother with such false pretenses and they openly find it distasteful to have to endure the popular expression of patriotism.

Such animosity leads to some wildly inaccurate evaluations of what American patriotism means. Take the Million Workers Rally speech by Dahlia Wasfi. She asserts that patriotism is “a thin veil for racism”. Only an outdated ideology of ignorance could say such a thing in the 21st Century. Ms. Wasfi even admits how uninformed her circle of close associates are by stating that, “Prior to August 2, 1990, when Saddam Hussein moved forces into Kuwait, few of my friends had ever even heard of the country Iraq.”



Fans of Where’s Waldo were disappointed with the release of “Where’s Waldo, the Million Workers Rally Edition”.

The salt on the wound is how these people pretend to support our troops. Wasfi goes on to say, “So should we support the troops? Yes, in the only way we can. Bring them home. Stop them from blowing up children. Stop them from shooting fleeing families. Stop them from murdering demonstrators practicing their freedom to assemble. Stop them from giving up their own lives in the name of Israel, oil, and powerbroker profit.”

Now if U.S. troops really practiced this scale of genocide why would anyone want to support them? Wasfi leaves no question that she believes these accusations so she is clearly lying when she says that she supports the troops. This style of Orwellian propaganda is not unique to isolated extremists like her. Rosie O’Donnell, the popular television host, recently became engaged in a controversy regarding a statement in which she argued that the U.S. is a state sponsor of terrorism.

“I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?”

To defend herself from the fallout that resulted Rosie claimed to “support our troops”, but at the same time she continued to accuse them of committing those 655,000 murders and insisted that our “enemy are innocent civilians”.

Rosie didn’t just pull that number out of the air, she got it from the Lancet Study. This report has the dubious distinction of being released the October before every major national election since 2004. It is the Left’s favorite reference source because its numbers are drastically exaggerated more than any other organization that compiles casualty statistics of Iraqi civilians. That includes, the Iraqi Body Count (IBC), the United Nations and the Iraqi Ministry of Health (the Brookings Institution relies on statistics from IBC and the UN). One thing that all of these organizations have in common is that their statistics compile the number of deaths from suicide bombings, criminal activity and sectarian violence from militias. So in other words, these are the statistics of murders committed by America’s enemies in Iraq. They get away with blaming these deaths on America because as an occupying power we are responsible for the welfare of the Iraqi people, much like our government is responsible for the welfare of its own citizens.

It’s a rather shaky justification; but to say that every Iraqi civilian who lost their life in a car bombing by Al Qaeda, every Iraqi civilian victimized in a murder of passion and every Iraqi civilian executed by a sectarian militia … were all killed by the U.S. is 100% wrong. That’s like saying that the U.S. killed every American that lost their lives on September 11th.

…And here the circle is complete because Rosie also claims that explosives were used to bring down WTC 7. She consistently blames the U.S. for terrorism and excuses the terrorists who commit those acts, a required character flaw for all leftwing activists. In her own words she said, “Don’t fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers.” What could inspire such illogical ramblings? President Bush, V.P. Cheney and many of our troops in Iraq are parents too. Why doesn’t she make excuses for them?

Just because Rosie insists that she supports the troops and gets offended when her friends don’t believe her doesn’t mean that she really supports them. Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels once stated, “If you repeat a lie often enough, it will be accepted as truth”. Rosie is familiar with the techniques of executing this theory.




Last year a small group of self-righteous Leftists gathered together for the 2nd Annual Old Time American Flag Burn in Santa Cruz. I don’t know if they’ve held one this year because I haven’t heard a peep about it. I did a quick Google check to no avail.

So this group got together in order to “share” their personal beliefs about flag burning and oh yeah… burn some flags. I wonder about the emotional maturity of those that relish such activities. It is just a spiteful act with no real substance behind it, BUT “I Still Support the Resistance” (that’s for all you Rosie fans out there!).

Seriously, I am 100% against any legislation to ban the burning of American flags. As a matter of fact when I was a young punker in the eighties I burned some flags to protest because back then it was actually illegal. We won the battle, but some day you have to grow up. There’s nothing more pathetic than a former 60s radical that still goes around burning flags while claiming that his or her rights are being taken away. Especially when the best he or she can say is that President Bush is maneuvering to steal those rights and hasn’t actually taken any away yet. So basically it’s a game of fortune telling what could happen, but hasn’t despite six and a half years of alarmist predictions.




If you want to burn a flag go ahead, its no skin off my back. However, there are people that are offended by it and I think many leftwing activists are committing such acts just to hurt those who view the flag as a sacred object. That means that flag burning can be an act of hatred. It certainly is for Islamists in the Middle East who condone acts of terrorism in the name of their religion. I wouldn’t want to replicate the actions of people like that. Yet protestors have that freedom.




In this day and age the only acts of treason that the state finds worthy of suppressing are those in which dissidents attempt to take up arms against our country, directly assist those who commit violence or commit acts of vandalism. During WWI things were different. Anarchist activist Emma Goldman spent two years in jail just for giving public speeches against the draft. After she was released she was deported back to her native Russia. Jump to 2003 and a much-changed United States is the host to massive protest rallies against the liberation of Iraq. Meanwhile Saddam’s regime tolerates no dissent, but imports Western protestors to serve as human shields.

And guess what? I say this is good. We have a healthy democracy in the middle of a war. So how can protestors bellyache about their lack of freedom? If they want to know what real oppression is like they should take a look at Germany during WWII. The White Rose, a student protest group, peacefully opposed the Nazi regime’s war effort and six of their members were beheaded in 1943 for their activism. The crime which they were executed for was the distribution of leaflets.

That is real oppression, not the fantasies of a protest movement that thinks the opposition to Islamist and Baathist fascism is unjust. If you name all of the countries of the world that have tolerated massive protest movements and activism from prominent citizens during wartime you will only be able to compile a list of Western democratic countries. Looking back since WWI the United States has only become more liberal. Even if you don’t go back that far and look back to more recent events like the Vietnam War you will still find that our country has liberally progressed by great strides.




This Fourth of July we had good reason to celebrate the greatness of our country. We must remember that it is up to us, the citizens of this noble nation, to counter the lies of our political opponents. Communists and Anarchists have the freedom to speak out and even get rich from their activism. We actually pay them to insult us with their accusations of an oppressive government. Osama Bin Laden may take this as a sign of weakness, but he is wrong. He underestimates the strength of a democratic government that is not afraid of its own citizens. The supporters of our country may have had difficulty countering the message of our totalitarian opponents, but we should not be counted out yet.

We know that our soldiers fight not just with guns. They oppose the brutality of our enemy with humanitarian aid projects. Our country is not the bloodthirsty bogeyman that our enemies are. Time and the truth will show us to be right.




Our political opponents have no faith in our country. They harbor totalitarian attitudes that make them think that if their will is not fully embraced by the entire country then something is wrong with it. I leave you with the parting words of Cindy Sheehan, an activist that never appreciated our values and gave comfort to totalitarian regimes by visiting Cuba and Venezuela. From there she denounced our country’s human rights, but never spoke out against the massive attacks on civil liberties by her host countries.

“Good-bye America…you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.”

I love this country, but I am not so arrogant that I demand that the will of the majority must match my beliefs 100%, nor do I demand that our country must do exactly as I say before I give it my love. I believe in the greatness of our people and because of that I feel in my heart that we will prevail in this current conflict. Iraq will be free!!!!!!!!!!!!!



The bottom line is that it is easier to destroy than it is to create...

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.

Weekend Protests in San Diego

This weekend marked the fourth anniversary of the liberation of Iraq. Leftwing protesters were particularly angry at the lack of progress in their efforts to hand over that country to the Baathist Party and Al Qaeda. In downtown San Diego they held a rally with hundreds of protesters and only about a dozen Protest Warriors came to oppose them. We didn’t know it at the time, but in Washington DC our Gathering of Eagles counter-protest was faring much better than we were doing here in San Diego. The moonbats seriously miscalculated by holding their protest at the Veterans Memorial in DC. Thousands of patriots were inspired to protect the monument from being hijacked by these protesters, the majority of whom smear our veterans that have served in Iraq.

We would have been encouraged to know about what was happening in DC, but it didn’t matter because our spirits were really high due to our sense of humor and the inspiration that comes from the ignorance of many of our opponents. We had a small contingent of Marines that joined us and it is ironic that after serving multiple tours in Iraq they now found themselves under attack by American insurgents. Yet they seemed to love the attention. We wound up being the last people to leave the rally site just so we could hang out and socialize for awhile. It was great fun.

The only differences between last year and this year’s protest is that the rally was held in a new location and there were fewer protesters this time around. Otherwise, it was the same old thing. As a matter of fact this demonstration seemed to be stuck in 2004. For some reason they set up a voter registration booth and handed out John Kerry for President bumper stickers. Perhaps they thought that it was better than being stuck in the sixties.




As always the protest was a great opportunity to recruit new members for the International Socialist Organization and make some money selling trashy books. “Peace” protesters have become adept at showcasing “antiwar” veterans and their relatives in order to hide the fact that it is leftwing radicals who really drive the movement.




In spite of the fact that the keffiyeh scarf is an icon of Palestinian terrorism, it has become the most favored fashion accessory for those protesting against “terrorism” by the U.S. government. I was a bit disappointed that this year there was no booth set up exclusively to sell terrorist scarves like there was last time.

At least there was plenty of beautifully packaged Communist propaganda for our consumption. If you need books on Marxist ideology, fragging U.S. soldiers or stories of rabble rousers looking to cash in on their activism - it was all for sale here at the ISO booth. Those Communists sure are aggressive entrepreneurs. (If you don’t know what fragging is, its the act of a soldier killing one of his fellow soldiers on the battlefield. That’s how some “peace” activists believe we should support our troops. )




For those of you who really like the truth and I mean really, really like the truth - you will be glad to know that the San Diegans for 9/11 Truth were on hand to expose the government’s lies about those attacks. There are millions of conspirators that are keeping silent in order to protect President Bush and this plot seems to get more and more insidious as 9/11 fades into memory. The 911 Truth Movement was actually inspired by the research of Dr. Albert Hofmann, the creator of LSD.




In 1943 he conducted research on himself to test the drug’s hallucinogenic properties. He stated;

“Everything in the room spun around, and the familiar objects and pieces of furniture assumed grotesque, threatening forms. They were in continuous motion, animated, as if driven by an inner restlessness.

The lady next door, whom I scarcely recognized, brought me milk in the course of the evening and I drank more than two liters. She was no longer Mrs. R., but rather a malevolent, insidious witch with a colored mask. Even worse than the demonic transformations of the outer world, were the alterations that I perceived in myself, in my inner being. Every exertion of my will, every attempt to put an end to the disintegration of the outer world and the dissolution of my ego, seemed to be wasted effort.

A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind, and soul. I jumped up and screamed, trying to free myself from him, but then sank down again and lay helpless on the sofa.”

Hofmann’s LSD experience is recreated every time someone visits a display booth set up by the Truthers at an “anti-war” protest. Such mass hysteria is well suited for the “peace” movement. On their website there is a quote from an anonymous 9/11 Truth member that really sums things up, “The truth about 9/11 is that we don’t know the truth.” …After .25 mg of lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate it’s no small wonder why this activist can’t grasp the truth.

As you can imagine there were quite a few speakers at the event who bashed the U.S. at every opportunity. In comparison the Baathists and Al Qaeda were barely mentioned and you could have forgotten that they even existed.

In addition to the speakers there were entertainers as well and I was amused by a particularly energetic duo that performed some rap poetry in the vein of Gil Scott Heron or the Last Poets. They dished out some hardcore paranoia at a pace that was too rapid for me to jot down on paper. My attempt to keep up with their tourettes session led me to regret not bringing a voice recorder and finally give up transcribing their words.




I only caught pieces of what was said, but if I transcribe all of it into one poem it makes about as much sense as their fully composed pieces…

Revolution is the solution.
Revolution is the solution.
For this fucked up system

We are stuck in the barrios
They feed us chemicals to our brains

We are the seeds of resistance
AmeriKKKa, AmeriKKKa

A common theme at this event was that our liberties are being stolen and our government is led by a fascist dictatorship. When I challenged a protester who expressed these views he just walked away. The man couldn’t be bothered to describe how the Bush Administration is taking away our rights.

Typically, a repressive regime bans the freedom of expression that ironically these protesters have been exercising.

A fascist dictatorship allows no other political parties except for its own. However, in November of 2006 the Democratic Party won a majority in the House of Representatives and Senate. There weren’t any notable accusations of a stolen election because conservatives are all grown up now.

Speaking of which, I have some pictures of Protest Warriors that were present at the protest to counter the Leftwing/Islamist propaganda machine.



Eric was the glue that kept us focused.



Once again Bob took the long drive from Temecula to pitch in.



Ryan enjoyed going solo behind enemy lines.



Osama bin Laden campaigned for his favorite candidate. You can see where some moonbat protesters tore the sign.

---

The presence of Protest Warriors is always guaranteed to provoke the peaceniks so there was plenty of arguing and debating.



Surrounded by protesters our Marines stood strong.



Gloria Davidson from Veterans for Peace doesn’t like it when other veterans don’t hate President Bush and the Iraqi reconstruction the way she claims they do.



A long, drawn out debate that ended in a handshake.



A leftwing activist finally finds the guts to confront Osama bin Laden.



After a hard day of fighting the power a Socialist protester shows off some butt crack and retires for the evening.

Stay tuned for the next part of this weekend’s protest coverage. I will be posting a Freedom Now exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein. You haven’t heard the last of that genocidal dictator…