Northern Alliance Radio Today

We'll be on the air today on AM 1280 The Patriot from noon to 3 pm CT in the Twin Cities. If you're not blessed with a residence in the Minneapolis metro area -- temperature 20 degrees today -- you can listen to our Internet stream at the above link. No special guests today, but we'd love to have you join us by calling 651-289-4488.

Topics will probably include:

* Iraq War and timetables
* The Biden op-ed
* Canada and the imminent fall of the Liberals
* Travel
* Du Bist Deutschland!
* Political Thanksgiving!
* Other topics as you call in!

Give those cell phones and their free weekend minutes some exercise today -- we'd love to hear from you!

Biden, Democrats Ask The Wrong Question

Senator Joe Biden writes an op-ed for today's Washington Post that gets the entire war on terror fundamentally wrong -- and demonstrates why the Democrats have entirely failed to provide any leadership on Iraq and the wider war. Along the way, Biden slices off half-truths out of context to argue for the worst possible spin on Iraq, and ignores the tremendous progress that has been made by Coalition forces in developing Iraq into a democracy.

First, Biden postulates that the primary issue of a military deployment is when it will end:

The question most Americans want answered about Iraq is this: When will our troops come home?

We already know the likely answer. In 2006, they will begin to leave in large numbers. By the end of the year, we will have redeployed about 50,000. In 2007, a significant number of the remaining 100,000 will follow. A small force will stay behind -- in Iraq or across the border -- to strike at any concentration of terrorists.

That is because we cannot sustain 150,000 Americans in Iraq without extending deployment times, sending soldiers on fourth and fifth tours, or mobilizing the National Guard. Even if we could, our large military presence -- while still the only guarantor against a total breakdown -- is increasingly counterproductive. A liberation has become an occupation.

There is another critical question: As our soldiers redeploy, will our security interests in Iraq remain intact or will we have traded a dictator for chaos?

And in this last question, we have exactly the reason why Biden and his political allies cannot ever take charge of American security. Both of his priorities reflect a fundamental misjudgment about the nature of war, the nature of this war, and the nature of our enemy. Nations do not deploy their troops in order to engage in timelines for their return. They send their men (and women) abroad to tackle specific missions, and the only timetable that matters is victory. Here Biden not only puts the cart before the horse, he also shows that he has no concept of victory.

If our security interests in Iraq have not been secured, then our troops need to remain there until the mission has succeeded. Not only should that be obvious to any thinking person, it answers Biden's questions in the order they should have been asked.

What was the mission in Iraq?

* To depose Saddam Hussein and his genocidal regime after twelve years of defying the cease-fire accord which left him in power and seventeen UN resolutions demanding that he comply with disarmament.

* Determination and resolution of any WMD that Saddam squirreled away, to ensure that they do not fall into terrorist hands.

* Most importantly to the overall war on terror, to establish Iraq as a stable, secure, prefereably democratic nation that can defend itself against its neighbors and deny transit for terrorists across Southwest Asia -- as anyone who can read a map could see in about ten seconds.

We have succeeded in the first two missions in Iraq. We are on the cusp of success on the third, with two highly successful and credible national elections already accomplished and an interim National Assembly and its selected Executive running the nation. In three weeks, Iraq will elect its first formal, constitutional government in decades. The only task left to the Coalition for complete success in Iraq is the building of a security force that will allow the Iraqis to provide for their own security, as we continue to pursue the war on Islamofascist terrorists.

How does Biden reckon we have done in our mission? He glides past the first two goals and focuses selectively on the last, and really only the latter half of the latter point:

The third goal is to transfer authority to Iraqi security forces. In September, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. acknowledged that only one Iraqi battalion -- fewer than 1,000 troops -- can fight without U.S. help. An additional 40 can lead counterinsurgency operations with our support.

The president must set a schedule for getting Iraqi forces trained to the point that they can act on their own or take the lead with U.S. help. We should take up other countries on their offers to do more training, especially of officers. We should focus on getting the security ministries up to speed. Even well-trained troops need to be equipped, sustained and directed.

Well, by those standards, the liberation of Europe failed, too. As our intervention in the Balkans proved, the nations of Europe cannot do much about the defense of their own perimeter without US military aid, either. France could not even transport her own army to the Balkans without hitching rides on American planes and ships. Does anyone think that Germany, Poland, Italy, or any of the NATO nations (or Japan, for that matter) could defend itself entirely without American logistical help -- and even for those who might, why would they? That's why we have NATO, for God's sake. Why wouldn't we provide the same kind of long-term partnership for a rebuilt Iraq? It certainly suits our security interests more than keeping our forces in Germany and France.

The same hearing that Casey testified as having one Iraqi battalion at Level 1 also heard that more than three dozen operate at Level 2 -- able to conduct combat operations under their own leadership with American logistical support. That's much closer to the European readiness posture throughout NATO (except the UK), and Iraq has almost 35,000 troops at that state of readiness after two years of training, while recruits get increasingly targeted by terrorists. Over 200,000 troops have already entered the training "pipeline", pointing to a heavily increased Level 2 posture for 2006.

Why does all this concern the US? We need to cut off the transit lines across the Middle East for Islamist terrorists, and Baghdad used to provide a highly convenient crossroad for such traffic. We need to isolate terrorist-sponsoring nations such as Syria and Iran and force them to withdraw back inside their own borders. We have already shown success with Syria along these lines, with their full-blown retreat from Lebanon this year. Would that have taken place without the American Fourth Infantry Division sitting on their eastern border?

Iraq provides a single theater in a global war, one in which we must succeed if we are to reduce the Islamist threat from a state-sponsored military wing to impoverished rock-tossers living in caves as the world passes them by towards greater freedom and prosperity. If Biden and the Democrats have a better plan for accomplishing that, we'd be glad to hear it. It won't happen with demands for exit timetables and collapsing the hard-won American gains in the Middle East with defeatism and withdrawal. (via Hugh Hewitt)

Liberals Fall Into Folly

With a no-confidence motion all but assured of passage on Monday, the Liberals had a choice as to how they would conduct their last days at the reins of power. They could demonstrate a steady and confident hand on the till, governing responsibly until the last possible moment -- or they could turn the Commons into an Ottawa bazaar in which every bill that could suck up to some small constituency gets tabled despite the fact that it will not survive to a vote. To their shame, the Martin-led Liberals chose the latter course, one that has even the notoriously biased media and punditry scratching their heads:

With possibly 72 hours left in the life of their minority government, the Paul Martin Liberals introduced legislation Friday meant to crack down on gun violence and ban the bulk export of prescription drugs to the United States.

The timing of both measures, which have virtually no hope of passing before the expected defeat of the Liberals in a confidence vote Monday night, were called an insult to the intelligence of Canadians by at least one political observer.

"Like so much else they're doing, it's election posturing," said Michael Bliss, a history professor at the University of Toronto. ...

The fact that both public policy measures, especially gun violence, are being dangled in front of the public like political carrots, with no hope of being passed, is something that will add to the general cynicism about politics and the coming election, said Bliss.

"This is what we've come to in Canada," he said. "It's really bleak."

What we see in the last throes of the Liberal minority government are the cheap legislative tricks that kept them in power, magnified under the stress of the ignominious failure of a pure no-confidence motion. They have spent the last couple of years trying to claim the moral high ground from Conservatives and the BQ despite having operated an unprecedented money-laundering and kickback scheme in the Sponsorship Programme, and the only way they've hung onto power this long is to have rented it from the NDP. Like a one-trick pony, they now exit the stage the way they have commanded it -- only now the trick has been exposed, and the audience has tired of the fraud.

An honorable government would have agreed to elections as soon as the testimony from the Gomery Inquiry went public, in order to allow the Canadian voters to determine whether to hold the Liberals responsible for their actions in Adscam. A responsible government would have tried to accommodate the offered compromise of a February election in order to avoid the need to hold the debate we saw in the Commons this week. These last-minute, here's-what-you'll-miss bills cynically introduced by the Grits this week show that Martin and the Liberal leadership qualify as neither honorable nor responsible, if Adscam itself hadn't already exposed them.

Will the Canadian voters finally punish the Liberals? We shall know in January.

Forgettable Moments In German Marketing

When a country finds itself demoralized, usually someone in the government thinks that a blend of Norman Vincent Peale and Madison Avenue will rejuvenate the nation -- rather than actually fixing the problems. Britain tried it in the 1960s with the "I'm Backing Britain" campaign. Gerald Ford laughably tried to stop inflation by getting people to stop buying goods to "Whip Inflation Now", and handed out those silly WIN buttons. These efforts usually show nothing more offensive than a desire to avoid the painful process of fixing problems that popular but destructive policies have wrought.

Leave it to Germany to inadvertently add offense to stupidity. With their social net strangling their economy and facing a raft of hard choices, someone thought spending £20 million on an ad campaign to boost German self-confidence. However, no one thought to do any research on the slogan selected -- Du Bist Deutschland (You Are Germany) -- until a historian came up with this little wet blanket of an item from the 1930s:

The £20 million Du Bist Deutschland - You Are Germany - campaign was devised to inspire Germans to stop moaning and do something good for their country.

Beethoven, Einstein and the sports stars Franz Beckenbauer and Michael Schumacher have been cited in advertisements encouraging Germans to take more pride in their homeland.

But a historian from Ludwigshafen has provoked an uproar with his discovery that the same Du Bist Deutschland cry was used at Nazi rallies in the 1930s.

Stefan Mörz uncovered photographs of a 1935 Nazi convention in which soldiers display a banner reading, in gothic script, Denn Du Bist Deutschland (Because You Are Germany). The slogan was topped with the head of Adolf Hitler. Leading Nazis such as Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels attended the event.

While the Nazis used many such slogans, the awful parallel comes from the similar intent between the two uses: to convince Germans that they can make their country great again. Most disturbingly, the new campaign uses Albert Einstein as one of the icons of their advertising campaign -- a man who had to flee Germany because of the Nazi takeover and the coming genocide of the Jews in Europe.

No one thinks that the advertising campaign signals the return of the Nazis. Ironically, one of the reasons given by the government for the campaign was to throw off the depression of association with the Nazis and their horrible crimes against humanity, although using Einstein for that purpose seems a bit crass, considering the circumstances. It does demonstrate a certain amount of vacillating and foot-dragging on behalf of Berlin and a lack of intestinal fortitude to actually take on the real problems Germany faces. One would have hoped that they, of all people, would understand that public spectacles do nothing but distract people from the real solutions necessary to solve their long-term economic failures.

Another Katrina Media Myth Bites The Bullet

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times reports that another myth of the Katrina hurrican and its aftermath has been exposed. The infamous "snipers on the bridge" incident that supposedly kept relief contractors from rescuing helpless victims turns out to have been a media-fueled urban legend, according to witnesses. The "five or six" snipers taken out by the police department turns out to be two, and one of those was a mentally-handicapped man whose only venture out of his house in years apparently came out of desperation for food:

Even in the desperate days after Hurricane Katrina, the news flash seemed particularly sensational: Police had caught eight snipers on a bridge shooting at relief contractors. In the gun battle that followed, officers shot to death five or six of the marauders.

Exhausted and emotionally drained police cheered the news that their comrades had stopped the snipers and suffered no losses, said an account in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. One officer said the incident showed the department's resolve to take back the streets.

But nearly three months later — and after repeated revisions of the official account of the incident and a lowering of the death toll to two — authorities said they were still trying to reconstruct what happened Sept. 4 on the Danziger Bridge. And on the city's east side, where the shootings occurred, two families that suffered casualties are preparing to come forward with stories radically different from those told by police.

A teenager critically wounded that day, speaking about the incident for the first time, said in an interview that police shot him for no reason, delivering a final bullet at point-blank range with what he thought was an assault rifle. Members of another family said one of those killed was mentally disabled, a childlike innocent who made a rare foray from home in a desperate effort to find relief from the flood.

The two families — one from New Orleans East and solidly middle class, the other poorer and rooted in the Lower 9th Ward — have offered only preliminary information about what they say happened that day. Large gaps remain in the police and civilian accounts of the incident.

News of the Danziger Bridge shootings roared across cable television for a time. But as with many overblown reports of crime and violence immediately after the hurricane, the facts remain elusive.

The LA Times has done some excellent reporting on the backstories of all the myths that we got fed during the Katrina hysteria: toxic flood waters, cannibalism, armed gangs raping and pillaging at will throughout the city. It seems now that almost everything the Exempt Media reported during the catastrophe either got exaggerated or never happened at all. This case seems particularly disturbing, as it served to rehabilitate the New Orleans PD in a time when their performance created serious questions about their leadership.

The Times reviews the details, such as can be established, of the Danziger Bridge incident. It's still not clear exactly what happened, but it seems clear that vigilantes did not shoot at relief workers in any organized attempt to claim turf for gangsters. That hysterical reporting only served to keep volunteers out of areas where their help could have been used to assist victims desperate for such assistance, and to make the local authorities appear more competent than they were about status on the ground in the city.

A week after Katrina passed through the Gulf, the media went out of its way to give itself a pat on the back for its coverage of the catastrophe, including allowing their emotion to guide their news processes. The string of urban legends they spawned give a much better clue to their utterly vapid performance.

Jemaah Islamiyah Went To Plan B In Bali

Indonesian and Australian security forces now believe that Jemaah Islamiyah bombed the resort hotels in Bali as a backup plan to their original target: the memorials for the 2002 attacks. JI planner Azahari Husin originally planned to use a suicide bomber to kill the high-level dignitaries attending the event, as well as the families of the original victims, in a sick twist to an already demented story:

Southeast Asian extremist network Jemaah Islamiyah planned to bomb a memorial service in Indonesia for those killed in the 2002 Bali attacks but was deterred by high security, a report said Friday.

The Islamic militants instead chose to attack tourist spots on the Indonesian resort island two weeks ahead of the anniversary, carrying out three suicide bombings on restaurants popular with westerners on October 1 and killing 23 people, the Australian newspaper said.

Citing intelligence sources in Indonesia, the paper said that master bomb-maker Azahari Husin had planned on placing a suicide bomber at the October 12 Bali memorial in Kuta.

But the attack was cancelled because of the high level of security at the event attended by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Justice Minister Chris Ellison, Bali police chief Chief I Made Mangku Pastika and relatives and friends of those killed in the blasts.

After killing Husin earlier, the Indonesians found a trove of records and documents, as well as 30 bombs ready to deploy. They now have the strategy 'white paper' for JI, showing the different targets scoped out by the terrorists, and more than likely a good idea of their recruiting efforts and successes. The security efforts put into place in Bali since 2002 have paid off to some extent.

However, the lesson still shows that defensive security will never be enough to defeat these Islamist terrorists. When we protect high-profile targets, the lunatics simply go to a laundry list of other targets to hit and women and children to kill. The only way to defeat these fanatics is to find them and kill them before they have any opportunity to commit their cowardly attacks on unarmed tourists. That is why Islamofascist terror cannot be fought as a law-enforcement effort, but as a war against a determined enemy of civilization.

The Great Liberal Giveaway, Interrupted

It's no secret that PM Paul Martin played Monty Hall most of this year to keep his minority Liberal government from falling after the exposure of Adscam. A 5$ billion deal for the NDP last spring kept Jack Layton temporarily on Martin's good side, and lately the Liberals have tried using the same tactic with the Canadian electorate at large. Scott Deveau at the G&M takes a look at the largesse offered by the Grits in a panicked attempt to stave off a no-confidence motion this session:

With an election pending, the government has given new meaning to term Liberal spending.

It all started with the mini-budget released Nov. 14, which promised wide-ranging tax cuts and spending across most sectors. In addition to another Air India inquiry and reforms to income trusts, there have been so many spending promises it's been hard to keep track.

The G&M list takes a look at this session in particular, when Martin and his party started to turn the Commons into Crazy Paulie's Deal Emporium, offering cash by the bundle for just about every constituency possible. It's not just the cash, either, but also tax cuts on top of them. It starts with the release of the Fiscal Update on November 14th, but it escalates as the obvious intention of offering a no-confidence motion became clear. The Grits reached the apex of their spree on Novermber 22nd and 23rd with this list of handouts:

# Defence Minister Bill Graham promised up to $5-billion to purchase 16 military transport aircraft.

# Human Resource Minister Belinda Stronach promised $1.8-billion for Ontario labour-training programs, the lion's share of the $9.2-billion promised nationwide in the mini-budget.

# A $2-billion compensation package announced for native victims, who were sexually and physically abused, at residential schools.

# $110-million for better security on Canada's urban transit systems.

# $342-million over the next three years for arts centres.

# $755-million in emergency aid for grains and oil seeds farmers.

The Liberals used the Sponsorship Program as their personal checkbook to keep themselves in power. Now, with the lights on, they're raiding the general fund to buy as many votes as possible without regard to the long-term consequences. Canadian voters will have an opportunity to put a stop to this, but at least the combined no-confidence vote expected Monday can interrupt it for now.

Addendum: Bill Teach at the Pirate's Cove has another, more humorous item about one constituency that Martin has not yet tapped:

A former Canadian Minister of Defence has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on with Alien “ET” Civilizations. Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head." Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something." “Time is on the side of open disclosure that there are ethical Extraterrestrial civilizations visiting Earth,” a spokesperson for the Non-Governmental Organizations stated. “Our Canadian government needs to openly address these important issues of the possible deployment of weapons in outer war plans against ethical Extraterrestrial societies.”

I suppose that this may be the scary "hidden agenda" that the Grits keep accusing Stephen Harper of having -- a thirst for intergalactic war. If they start losing ridings to the Tories, look for television ads that appear to be recycled from old episodes of "V". Jane Badler Lives!

Mexican Military Invades US, Steals Drug-Running Truck From Border Patrol

In a disturbing incident that has received little national attention, the US Border Patrol found itself in retreat on US soil after interdicting a dump truck full of marijuana on US Interstate 10 last week. The truck made a run for the border but got stuck on a riverbed. While the Border Patrol started to unload the estimated three tons of weed, a larger armed group apparently comprised at least in part by the Mexican military forced the Border Patrol away from the vehicle and bulldozed it back into Mexico:

The incident began when Border Patrol agents tried to stop the dump truck on Interstate 10, sheriff's officials said. The truck fled to Mexico in the Neely's Crossing area.

The truck got stuck in the riverbed, and the driver took off running. Agents "started to retrieve the bundles (of marijuana) when the armed subjects appeared," said Agent Ramiro Cordero, a Border Patrol spokesman.

The Border Patrol called Hudspeth County sheriff's deputies and Texas state troopers for backup, both agencies confirmed.

Doyal said the truck driver returned with the armed men, including men who arrived in official-looking vehicles with overhead lights and what appeared to be Mexican soldiers in uniform and with military-style rifles.

The Mexican army is used in anti-narcotics operations. Army officials could not be reached for comment.

The standoff ended when the "soldiers" used a bulldozer to pull the dump truck into Mexico, sheriff's officials said.

Several possibilities exist for explaining this incident, none of which sounds good for the border situation. The most likely explanation is that the Mexicans wore fake military uniforms and the armed band worked for drug smugglers. Second, the Mexican army personnel work for the drug smugglers, and third, the operation was approved by Mexican army commanders as a competing interdiction effort. I can think of no other explanation, especially since the band had a bulldozer handy -- which tends to support the first two hypotheses, as American officials believe smugglers use the dozers to cut trails across the rivers for drug runners.

If the Mexican army sent a patrol into the US to steal the truck from our law-enforcement agencies, that qualifies as an invasion and the US government has to get an explanation right now from Vicente Fox as to their intentions. I doubt that this is the case, but the other options don't sound any better. If the smugglers have Mexican army uniforms and can successfully pose as such, it puts American forces at risk of capture or death at the hands of the smugglers if our men work in coordination with them on the border. If the smugglers have real Mexican soldiers working for them, then we have the same problems, plus any ability to coordinate with their army no longer exists.

But by far the biggest problem shown in this incident is that no matter who the Mexicans were, our Border Patrol presents no match for the drug smugglers and bandits along the southern border of the US. To have a dump truck stolen while they stood by and watched, afraid to fire a shot in defense of the border, amply demonstrates the futility of our entire approach to security along the southwestern edge of the US. This incident is nothing less than a rank humiliation and exposes the underfunded and overstretched Border Patrol as completely unable to fulfill its mission with current resources and leadership.

The fact that this happened a week ago and has remained buried in the local press is equally disturbing. How many such incidents have already occurred? How many more have to happen before drug smugglers and worse start pushing through with heavy arms, knowing that nothing we have will stop them? (Hat tip: CQ reader Carolyn C, with a link to WND's report.)

Richardson Balks With Phony Draft

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has received plenty of media attention for his centrist politics and his national appeal as a possible alternative to Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Presidential campaign. That may now be over for the former college pitcher, who has long claimed to have been drafted by the Kansas City Athletics as part of his biography. He now admits that the claim was a lie:

For nearly four decades, Richardson, often mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential candidate, has maintained he was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics.

The claim was included in a brief biography released when Richardson successfully ran for Congress in 1982. A White House news release in 1997 mentioned it when he was about to be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. And several news organizations, including The Associated Press, have reported it as fact over the years.

But an investigation by the Albuquerque Journal found no record of Richardson being drafted by the A's, who have since moved to Oakland, or any other team.

Conveniently, after the AP checked out the claim, Richardson came to the same conclusion -- at least, that's how the former Clinton Cabinet member pitches it now. He now says that he believed he had been drafted because he saw it in a college program, as though a club which drafted a player would skip a minor step like contacting the player involved. He also says that because a couple of scouts thought that he could have been drafted, he actually was drafted. In fact, Richardson now says everything except what really apparently happened: he lied.

It certainly reminds one of the Clinton days, all right. Somehow, though, I don't think that baseball fans need a lesson on the definition of "draft". It's what looks increasingly unlikely for Bill Richardson in 2008.

WaPo Misrepresents Murtha As 'Hawk'

The Washington Post does a poor job on its most recent portrait of Jack Murtha, painting him as a "hawk" who only recently converted to a withdraw position on Iraq. From the headline ("The About-Face of Hawkish Democrat Murtha") through the first several paragraphs of the Shailagh Murray article featured on Page 2, it purports to show Murtha as a Democrat who supported Bush's position on Iraq until two weeks ago, when in truth Murtha has a long track record of pressing for precipitous withdrawals on military engagements going back to Somalia, and even Murray reports late in her article that Murtha's latest position doesn't represent any "about-face" at all.

Here's what Post readers will see if they only take in the first three paragraphs:

Of all the Democrats calling for an end to the Iraq war, Rep. John P. Murtha is an anomaly. Unlike Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Russ Feingold (Wis.), he doesn't want to be president. He's no liberal, like his House colleagues Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) and Maxine Waters (Calif.). He's certainly the only one to call Vice President Cheney a friend.

A man of gruff familiarity -- most colleagues find it more natural to call him "Murtha" than "Jack" -- has been representing his Pennsylvania district for 16 terms, rising to become the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations panel's defense subcommittee. For that perch, he became known for his opposition to defense cuts and his willingness to send troops into battle -- and even to draft them, if necessary. He was the first Vietnam veteran elected to Congress, and has fashioned a reputation as the Democrats' soldier-legislator -- a John McCain type without swagger or upward ambition. He generally prefers the shadows of Capitol Hill to the spotlight -- though that changed dramatically in recent days.

Last week, as Congress was preparing to leave town for a two-week Thanksgiving break, Murtha told a gathering of his colleagues and, later, reporters that -- although he had voted in favor of the resolution authorizing the Iraq invasion -- he now wanted American troops withdrawn immediately. "The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily," Murtha said. "It is time to bring them home."

But that isn't an "about-face" at all. Eighteen months earlier, in May 2004, Murtha had already started demanding that the US pull out of Iraq, although he did it outside of the halls of Congress. As Murray herself reports -- in the sixteenth paragraph -- he told CNN in an interview that further mobilization was impossible, and that made Iraq unwinnable. He started talking up a pullout eight months before the Iraqis held their first election, seventeen months before their constitutional plebescite, and nineteen months before their upcoming elections to elect their first permanent, constitutional republican government.

Even worse, Murray fails to do any research at all on her subject, accepting the Democratic-hawk line without question. Had Murray looked into Murtha's record, she would have found that the Pennsylvania Democrat has a record of only supporting military operations until the first casualties get reported. In fact, the only time prior to 9/11 that America's military faced off against terrorists and warlords in battle, Murtha demanded that Bill Clinton withdraw them immediately from Somalia -- and got what he wanted.

Murtha's stance has remained consistent: he supports the military as a defense unit, but not in any forward engagement that results in casualties. Murray's representation otherwise distorts Murtha's true record and misinforms Post readers.

Happy Thanksgiving To CQ Readers!

I may do some blogging today as I'm still recovering from the flu, and will probably have a bit of time to myself. The FM has cooked up a small turkey dinner for the two of us, but I'm sending her to the Minnesota family for a couple of hours to get a break from taking care of me. She's cooking up some delicious food, and I can't wait for my Thanksgiving supper later on.

I thought I'd share a bit about giving thanks -- nothing profound, but maybe a small metaphor for grace on an appropriate day for it. Yesterday, as I drove to work, I followed a truck just a shade to closely; not so much so to be dangerous per se, but enough to where I couldn't easily see a traffic light as we both approached an intersection. By the time I could see the light, it was yellow and I was too close to stop in time -- and it turned red as I hit the intersection. Not coincidentally, so did the lights on the unmarked police car in the next lane.

I pulled over right away, and after briefly thinking through a dozen lame excuses I could use, I decided to just acknowledge my mistake and take my punishment like a man (crying, sobbing, etc etc). The officer started the conversation with a cheery "Cut that one a little too close, eh?" I told him what I'd done that led to running the red light, and fully expected to get my first-ever moving violation. Instead, after running my driver's license and plates for wants and warrants, he let me off with a friendly warning. Given that I drive this road to work every day, I assume he will keep a close eye on me for the next few weeks to see if he made a mistake in letting me off the hook.

It occurred to me, after I very carefully pulled back into traffic, that this provided a small example of God's grace. There was no doubt that I'd broken the rules (sinned), and had even created a dangerous situation for others by my carelessness. I confessed readily to my transgression, and received mercy rather than my deserved punishment.

So today, while I'm thankful for all the blessings that I have in my life -- my wife, my son and daughter-in-law, my granddaughter, all of my family and friends, especially here at CQ -- I'm most thankful for God's graces on the many occasions when I fall short of being worthy of those blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving, and may God shower his grace on all of you.

(A special thanks to a beautiful compliment paid to me today by the ever-classy Alexandra at All Things Beautiful.)

Turkeys Coming Home To Roost

The Canadian Parliament has taken up the no-confidence motion that threatens to topple the Martin executive and the Liberal grip on power after months of breath-holding following the Adscam investigation. The debate swings from banal to enlightening; the Liberals have attacked the Tories as unpatriotic for working with Bloc Quebecois, and the opposition parties have attacked the Grits for all sorts of policy differences -- a mistake, given the obvious target of corruption which should remain a focus.

Jack Layton started well, but sounds more like MoveOn; anti-Americanism and attacks on George Bush peppering his speech. One great response to the catcalls coming from the Grit bench: "They will have their chance to explain themselves to the Canadian people soon enough." He committed the NDP to the no-confidence motion, however, saying "Enough is enough."

I expect a vote later this morning, or perhaps in the afternoon. Keep an eye on what happens. Also watch John McDonald at Newsbeat1, whose eagle eye for detail has kept Canadians well informed for months.

UPDATE 10:34 - The vote will apparently come on Monday, according to Layton.

UPDATE II: The Globe & Mail has more detail on the motion. Stephen Harper introduced the expected motion, and Layton seconded it, removing most of the doubt. As I noted yesterday, the motion stuck to a simple language of lost confidence, while the speakers on the issue talked at length about the reasons for the loss of confidence.

The G&M also reports that the Liberals have an extensive negative campaign already planned -- attacking the opposition to pre-empt the damage Adscam will do to the Liberals in the first post-Gomery election. They will continue to paint Harper as a "scary" right-wing ideologue, a strategy that has worked well up to now, but might lose some of its sting after Canadians discovered the extent of Liberal corruption. Most of the advertising has already been planned for post-Christmas television.

Thanksgiving (the American version) has turned out to be a busy day for Canadians. It looks like Christmas will be just as fascinating.

72 Virgins Not Enough?

One of the more interesting aspects of this Islamofascist war on the West concerns the fanatical way in which their lunatics willingly commit suicide just to kill others, especially non-combatants. That tactic appears very popular among the hoi polloi of the Islamists, but the leadership apparently doesn't buy into the whole "72 virgins" incentive they shovel out to their minions. The Israelis discovered this tonight when a key Islamic Jihad leader surrendered to them earlier:

A top Islamic Jihad militant surrendered to Israeli soldiers early Thursday, witnesses said, after a daylong siege during which army bulldozers knocked down the four-story house where he was hiding.

Dozens of troops surrounded the building in the town of Jenin in the hunt for Iyad Abu Rob. Witnesses said Abu Rob, a senior commander of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank, emerged from the wrecked house after midnight and was taken away by soldiers along with one of his aides.

The Admiral Emeritus once told me that the definition of disillusionment was watching your martial-arts instructor get his ass kicked in a country-western bar. Having one's commander surrender to the enemy when he and his ilk have sent dozens to kill themselves just to take out a few women and children in buses and pizzerias has to come in at least a close second on that scale. I wonder what Abu Rob's cohorts think of his sacrifice for the cause tonight.

The Turkey-In-The-Straw Poll?

Hugh Hewitt has a Thanksgiving straw poll starting on his blog tonight, taking over for Patrick Ruffini now that Patrick has taken his official role for the Republican Party. Hugh's added a few twists of his own, of course, as he will! Use the link on this post to check out the selections, and we can see how CQ readers see the various GOP presidential elections.

Also, don't forget about the 2005 Weblog Awards at Wizbang -- and feel free to nominate CQ for any of the many categories in which we might qualify ...

The Axe, Poised

While the Liberal government spent the day trying to pass as much legislation as possible while it still holds the reins, the three Canadian opposition parties unveiled the no-confidence motion that will dethrone Paul Martin and the Grits. The motion, which appears certain to pass tomorrow, will take down a minority government on a pure no-confidence motion for the first time in over a century:

The minority Liberal government will be slapped with a rare and ignominious distinction Thursday when its opponents table a non-confidence motion that will all but certainly trigger an election campaign within days.

The Liberals would be the first minority government in at least a century to collapse on a stand-alone motion of censure, said a leading constitutional expert.

The Opposition Conservatives had prepared a long, stinging condemnation that alluded to corruption, scandal and gross abuse of public funds.

But various sources said opposition parties have agreed to put forward a much more sparsely worded motion Thursday.

"We will support a very, very simple motion that simply indicates that the House no longer has confidence in the government," said NDP Leader Jack Layton.

The decision to go sparse on the actual language of the motion points to fundamentally different approaches for the three parties on fighting the election. The three opposition groups will compete against each other as well as the Liberals for new voters and better leverage in the next Commons, after all, and each will give their reasons for demanding new elections. The Tories will undoubtedly press the Sponsorship Programme and the graft and corruption that followed, and the other two parties will also make reference to it as well, but the NDP will have a difficult time making it the centerpiece of an election campaign. After all, Layton had his chance to kick the struts out from underneath Martin this spring, but let him off the hook after landing a $5 billion spending bill he especially wanted.

Needless to say, a no-confidence motion on Adscam six months after the NDP rescued the Liberals from the very same scandal would cause more than a few titters among the electorate.

The Tories and BQ will have no such problems. Expect Harper and Duceppe to run on a clean-government program, and offer their own versions of executive reform to back that rhetoric with policy. Harper may have to run against the supposed "hidden agenda" that the Liberals like to throw at the Conservative leader, but with Adscam exploding all over the Liberals, bringing up anything "hidden" might not make for very good electoral strategy on this pass.

Instead, the Liberals have already begun their electoral campaign this afternoon, tabling a flurry of motions that promise all sorts of progress -- but which will fall victim to the next elections, including an inquiry into a twenty-year-old terrorist act, the Air India massacre, which the Martin government had avoided addressing at all until a sudden reversal today. They will argue that the collapse of the Martin executive will eliminate the chance for all of that legislation to come to fruition, and at least in some instances, they may well be correct.

Tomorrow, while we're eating our fill of turkey, the Martin executive may finally eat the crow that has awaited them for the eight months since Justice John Gomery started his inquiry.

As The Iraqis Stand Up ...

The Washington Post reports that soon after the last round of Iraqi elections concludes, American commanders in Iraq plan to drop three of the 18 brigades deployed in Iraq, in favor of the burgeoning Iraqi security forces. One brigade would transfer to neighboring Kuwait as a rapid-reaction force, and the other two brigades would simply never arrive to relieve two slated to return to the United States in the first quarter of 2006:

Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call" in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said.

Pentagon authorities also have set a series of "decision points" during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a "moderately optimistic" scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end of the year, the officers said. ...

Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the senior tactical commander in Iraq, indicated to reporters at the Pentagon yesterday that his staff had looked at shrinking U.S. force levels more quickly. But he made his opposition to such a move clear.

"A precipitous pullout, I believe, would be destabilizing," Vines said from Baghdad.

Another senior general likened an accelerated withdrawal to "taking the training wheels off of a bike too early," warning that a sudden removal of all U.S. troops would risk the collapse of Iraq's fledgling security forces. He and several other officers privy to the planning for force reductions said the process has not been affected by the mounting political pressure in the United States and among some Iraqi leaders for U.S. troops to leave.

Despite the blatherings in Congress last week, the military has its own plans on when American forces can safely withdraw from Iraq. Based on readiness assessments of the indigenous security forces as well as political progress, it assumes that one American battalion can leave the theater for every three Iraqi battalions that achieve a Level Two readiness -- able to take a leadership role in combat operations with some American support, be that tactical or communication or leadership. It's a formula that makes sense, and more to the point, it's one we've seen work in the field where Iraqi troops have been able to occupy cities after cleaning out terrorist holdouts.

We have heard this formula over and over again from the Pentagon and the White House, and yet the opposition keeps insisting that no one has any plan for disengagement in Iraq. The plan for disengagement is victory -- a free and democratic government in Baghdad that has the security forces to protect itself while Iraqis make their own decisions on how to govern themselves. It's no different than the plan to disengage from Bosnia, only it didn't take ten years to get around to it. It differs significantly from Kosovo; ten years after pacifying the province, no one can decide whether it should even govern itself at all, let alone how to do so and how to build a republic that will signify success.

The Left will keep screeching that the sky is falling all over Iraq, even as the previously oppressed citizens vote in ever-larger numbers and form the region's newest democracy. They will insist on seeing disaster in every newsbreak and failure at every turn, because they do not believe that the US can do any good outside of its own borders or that the American national interest can also benefit Iraqis, Afghanis, and others who have their first taste of true freedom thanks to the efforts of the Anglo-American coalition. The soldiers and Marines know better, even if the journalists by and large won't cover anything but the bombs.

The Innocence Project's Single Guilty Secret

The Innocence Project has a number of groups that use DNA and cold-case techniques to prove the innocence of death-row inmates and lifers. They have freed scores of prisoners over the years through the use of scientific re-examination of the physical evidence of the crimes. Most of the people freed won compensation from the states which wrongfully convicted them of their charges, allowing the released to come back into society.

Of 163 people released because of the Innocence Project, only two have faced new charges of serious felonious behavior after his release, and one cost a young woman her life. Consider the strange case of Steve Avery:

Two years ago, Mr. Avery emerged from prison after lawyers from one of those organizations, the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School, proved that Mr. Avery had spent 18 years in prison for a sexual assault he did not commit.

In Mr. Avery's home county, Manitowoc, where he was convicted in 1985, his release prompted apologies, even from the sexual assault victim, and a welcoming home for Mr. Avery. Elsewhere, the case became Wisconsin's most noted exoneration, leading to an "Avery task force," which drew up a package of law enforcement changes known as the Avery Bill, adopted by state lawmakers just weeks ago.

Mr. Avery, meanwhile, became a spokesman for how a system could harm an innocent man, being asked to appear on panels about wrongful conviction, to testify before the State Legislature and to be toured around the Capitol by at least one lawmaker who described him as a hero.

But last week, back in rural Manitowoc County, back at his family's auto salvage yard, back at the trailer he had moved home to, Mr. Avery, 43, was accused once more. This time, he was charged in the death of Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer who vanished on Oct. 31 after being assigned to take pictures for Auto Trader magazine at Avery's Auto Salvage.

After her family searched for Ms. Halbach for days, investigators said they found bones and teeth in the salvage yard, along with her car. In the car, they found blood from Mr. Avery and Ms. Halbach, they said. They also found her car key in the bedroom of his trailer, they said, and, using the very technology that led to Mr. Avery's release two years earlier, they said they identified Mr. Avery's DNA on the key.

Avery went from poster boy to persona non grata in an instant. Once the toast of political circles, his name disappeared off of reform legislation and promotional material for the groups pressing for freedom for the wrongfully convicted. The family of the slain woman blames the Innocence Project for springing Avery. They point to a string of felony convictions that led to his earlier and disproven rape conviction, which the Innocence Project's volunteers had gotten overturned.

All of this is understandable, given the circumstances that exist now. However, American jurisprudence does not judge potential criminality, but actual guilt. Despite the alleged backslide of Steve Avery, freeing him on the basis of bad evidence is no less correct than it was two years ago, when he first walked out of prison. And while the Innocence Project probably wishes it had never heard of Avery now, they have nothing to do with the death of Teresa Halbach. Only the murderer holds that responsibility, even if it is Steve Avery.

The only problem came with how Avery got treated after his release. Given his previous track record, it seems likely that Avery would re-offend at some point with some sort of criminal behavior. Those involved should have known better than to attach his name to all sorts of causes and reforms. Celebrating recidivist felons for any reason runs those risks.

But knowing what we know now about his rape conviction, clearly Avery should have been released. He was serving no other sentence other than the one related to his rape conviction, and once that evidence was shown to be in error, the conviction had to be reversed and Avery released. American jurisprudence requires us to look at each crime in its own context, and not merely say, It's close enough. Justice will never achieve perfection in this world, and all we can do is pass laws that give us the best chance for an unimpassioned review of the evidence so that we can render the best judgment possible.

It's precisely that limitation that makes us keep looking for the best possible science in reviewing the evidence, and for groups like the Innocence Project to review our past convictions in light of the better tools at our disposal. When we make mistakes, we do our best to make it right. If those freed by that process go out and commit new crimes, the responsibility for those crimes do not fall on those who righted a past wrong, but on the criminals themselves. We should take care not to romantacize either the wrongfully convicted nor those who work on their behalf. As the Avery case proves, all are fallible in the end.

Bolton To UN: Clean Up Or We Go Our Own Way

John Bolton finally delivered the explicit message for which George Bush went to the lengths of a recess nomination to ensure at the United Nations yesterday. The messsage? Either Turtle Bay needs to reform itself and clean out the corruption, or the United States starts looking for other institutions through which to engage its diplomacy:

"Americans are a very practical people, and they don't view the U.N. through theological lenses," Bolton told reporters outside the General Assembly hall. "They look at it as a competitor in the marketplace for global problem-solving, and if it's successful at solving problems, they'll be inclined to use it. If it's not successful at solving problems, they'll say, 'Are there other institutions?' . . . that's why making the U.N. stronger and more effective is a reform priority for us: Because if it's a more agile, effective organization, it is more likely to be a successful competitor as a global problem-solver." ...

Bolton's remarks come as the Bush administration is encountering stiff resistance from poor countries to United States-backed initiatives aimed at streamlining the United Nations' management practices. The influential Group of 77 developing nations recently issued a letter sharply criticizing plans by Secretary General Kofi Annan to establish an ethics office and to review General Assembly-created programs that are more than five years old to determine whether they should be shut down.

The G-77 warning on ethics reforms should give the entire West some pause about the future of the UN. More than 60 nations have been identified by the Volcker report as having some participation in the UN Oil-For-Food scam that put billions into the pockets of a genocidal tyrant and his sick, twisted sons, while simultaneously starving the people of Iraq. That corruption has reached the inner circle of the Secretariat, through Jean-Paul Mérimée and through Kofi Annan's son Kojo.

Yet even that practical failure of ethics fails to move the General Assembly and the G-77. Why? Most of the General Assembly operate their own nations on the same model and have no desire to be held accountable for their lack of ethics on the international stage. Neither the General Assembly nor the UNSC consist of a majority of true democracies, although the Security Council comes closer to it. The UN's constituents do not want the accountability on which liberal democracies depend -- they want the corruption that gives them what they want, when they want it.

The US has had enough of funding such a den of vipers. Bolton makes it clear that the US has other venues in which to operate outside of Turtle Bay, venues that rely less on corrupt autocratic models and more on ad-hoc diplomatic alignments based on mutual need and limited mission. We do not hold ourselves as obligated to treat the UN as a sovereign body for all international diplomacy, and will use it only as we see that it provides effective solutions without corrupting influences. The sooner Turtle Bay understands that message, the quicker they can decide whether to reform or follow the League of Nations into well-deserved oblivion.

2005 Wizbang Weblog Awards Accepting Nominations

Kevin at Wizbang has once again dedicated a huge amount of his time and resources to host the 2005 Weblog Awards. He is now accepting nominations for the splendid variety of categories. Last year, CQ won the Best Conservative Weblog award, a surprise considering the competition involved. Make sure you get your nominations in early, and then return often to vote for your favorite blogs in their categories.

Kevin does a wonderful job in keeping the results honest, and the competition fun. It's also a great opportunity to find new blogs and bloggers. Keep checking in at Wizbang on the progress!

Meanwhile, At The Real Quagmire ...

While Congress debates on the supposed quagmire of Iraq and the lengthy time it has taken to establish a democracy, word comes out of the Balkans that the Americans have finally pushed the Bosnians to normalize their own political system -- after ten years of military occupation separating the three ethnic factions that have threatened to rip each other's throats apart. The Serbs, Muslims, and Croats of Bosnia will dump their ethnically-based tripartite executive in favor of a true parliamentary system, much like the one Americans helped Iraqis establish in less than a quarter of the time spent in Bosnia:

A pact reached in Washington under heavy American pressure aimed to overhaul the creaking constitutional machinery that ended the 42-month war in November 1995, but left the country partitioned and dysfunctional.

At ceremonies in Washington to mark a decade since the Dayton accords ending the war were sealed, leaders of parties representing Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, as well as leaders of non-ethnic parties, agreed "to streamline" parliament and the tripartite presidency and "embark on a process of constitutional reform" that will strengthen a national government.

The ambitious US-authored scheme aims to turn Bosnia into a "normal" parliamentary democracy and reduce the role played by ethnic factors. The plan has been pushed by the US state department. Its progress is crucial to Bosnia's chances of entering the European mainstream.

On Monday the EU launched Bosnia on the path of integration, but made plain that it needs to speed up reforms to become "a fully functioning and viable state" if ultimate accession to the EU is to succeed. Yesterday's agreement, if implemented, should also bring closer the end of the international mission in Bosnia.

Let's make clear what happened here. We occupied a primarily Muslim state for the last ten years, trying to separate three different ethnic factions from each other. We initially went into Bosnia to quell a civil war and a genocide in progress, and then waited ten years for the kind of political progress that would make our presence unnecessary. Despite this quagmire, we kept our troops in the country and continued to work on a political construct based on democracy -- and we gave it ten years without loud demands for precipitous withdrawal prior to an effective resolution.

Now compare this with the hysterics over our position in Iraq. We have spent a year after the toppling of the Saddam regime fighting an insurgency while establishing a democracy designed to bring together three ethnic/religious factions at each other's throats. In two years, we have progressed much farther than Bosnia and will have the first elected, constitutional government at least a full year ahead of Bosnia's. Three elections will have been held before the Bosnians hold one.

Why did we stay in Bosnia for ten years? The long stay had to do with a lack of willpower to demand a resolution to the political questions, but the reason we stayed was to try to finally resolve a war that goes back six centuries between the three parties involved in the Balkans. For some reason, that has been seen as an American priority through two administrations. In Iraq, we have the opportunity to resolve a conflict that goes back decades in a region with undoubted significance to American interests. In the former, we gave ten years for our work to reach fruition, and in the latter a vocal minority won't even give it three before they cut and run.

What's wrong with this picture?

Murtha On The Record On Somalia

Earlier today, I posted about John Murtha's stance on Somalia based on a Newsmax article. Various CQ readers have had an opportunity to research the subject further, and have discovered several references to the cut-and-run position Murtha urged on the Clinton adminstration -- advice it took, and helped to create the paper-tiger reputation that led to a decade of escalating attacks on the United States. These remarks come not from Newsmax but from Nexis searches of mainline press and from the Congressional Record itself.

Let me be clear on one point. In 1993, many people espoused the cut-and-run position from Somalia, among them Curt Weldon, one of the most vociferous hawks on Iraq. In fact, it does not stretch the imagination at all to call that position one of the more bipartisan efforts in the 103^rd Congress. The difference is that in the eight years between our run from Somalia and 9/11, most of us learned the bitter lesson that retreating in the face of Islamists does not connote reasonableness and humanity, but cowardice and powerlessness. Combined with our spinelessness in Teheran, Beirut, and in caving into hostage demands from Hezbollah in the mid-80s, the pattern clearly gave Islamists the accurate depiction that Americans could not stand any sort of casualties in war and would quickly retire after the first bloody nose.

Most of us learned that retreat means that the Islamists simply follow you home. The first WTC attack should have taught us that, but even though the Clinton administration insisted on treating it as an organized-crime case, other battles followed: Khobar Towers, Tanzania, Kenya, and finally an attack on the USS Cole, a daylight attack on our military that went unanswered. Each silence that followed each attack only emboldened our enemies more. They do not want peace -- they want a war, and will take it to our shores if we don't give it to them elsewhere.

I point out these examples of Murtha's statements on Somalia for two reasons. One, his remarks on the state of the troops sounds almost exactly like his assessment of the troops in Iraq; indeed, it sounds like he's using the same script. Two, his track record hardly makes him a "hawk", as the media describes him, but an isolationist that has never believed in a forward strategy against terror or anything else. That doesn't make Murtha dishonorable, at least to the extent that he doesn't pretend his record says anything other than what it does.

In the extended entry, I have copied Murtha's remarks from November 9, 1993 (page H9054) in the Congressional Record. I have also copied portions of Murtha's comments to the public as reported by Murtha's home-state newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (h/t: CQ reader Tom W). See if you, as I, notice the similarities in argument for Murtha. It points to a serial isolationist that refuses to stand and fight outside of the United States, not to a hawk on Iraq or any other theater of battle.

Mr. MURTHA . Mr. Speaker, let me just make a couple of points.

I expressed my opposition to our deployment to Somalia when it began. When I went to the White House, I expressed my concern to President Bush.

I said, `This is a mistake, we shouldn't deploy under these circumstances, and it's going to deplete the resources of the Armed Forces,' and I asked him how we were going to get out and when we were going to get out.

Mr. Speaker, he said, `I'll have these troops out by Inauguration Day.'

Well, Mr. Speaker, the United Nations was slow in its deployment to basically take over the U.S. role. The United Nations came to depend heavily on the United States. That was a mistake, no question about it. The administration has learned substantially from this and it has listened to our voices and our advice.

When I went to Somalia the first time, Mr. Speaker, my reservations remained the same. I told the new administration, when it came in, `We should get out of Somalia as quickly as possible,' and in the middle of July I said, `Get our troops out because this could deteriorate into a very tragic situation.'

I made a second trip to Somalia in October. I know the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] also went there. I talked to the Rangers about the October 3 incident. It was a bloody battle. The troops conducted themselves well. They fought valiantly in a congested urban environment.

The President has reassessed the situation. He called everybody in. He listened to what was suggested by the military commanders, and that was, `We need time, first of all, to put forces in place in order to protect our American forces.' They also stated that, because the United Nations has extremely limited logistics capability and poor communications and intelligence, time was needed for the United Nations to develop these functions which had been conducted almost exclusively by U.S. forces.

Now how are we to get out of there? General Bir, the U.N. commander, said, `It would be chaos, a debacle, a disaster if the United States pulled out too quickly. We have to have time,' and these are his words, `in order to replace the logistic support the United States has been providing.' Now how do we do that?

They have a plan. They are going to do that with a civilian operation. We have provided, in our conference report tomorrow, the authority to the Department of Defense to allow them to contract with a civilian authority to provide these administrative logistics type capabilities.

Not only that, but in the conference report we set aside a sense-of-Congress resolution that says: `In the future, before you get involved in these kinds of operations, have consultation with the Congress. Don't wait until there's a tragedy. Consult with the Congress beforehand.'

In working with the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], and the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], and all the other Members, we have tried to work out some kind of a reasonable process where Members of Congress are consulted, with all the experience in the House and in the Senate, before something like this happens.

But I have to say this:

One thing we have learned from Vietnam is that we cannot from the Halls of Congress dictate to the military the strategy for any kind of operation, but we have got to leave it up to the military to make the tactical onsite decisions.

On the ground, every military commander is saying, `I need until March 31.' The recommendation by General Hoar, who spent over 2 hours briefing me about what happened in that tragic event, was `I need until March 31, because I cannot attain our objectives any quicker. Even if he gets a protective buildup done within a month, it will take considerable time beyond that to phase our forces out in a reasonable manner and to establish adequate logistic administrative support to take care of the U.N. mission. Ambassador Oakley also told me he needed until March 31. I realize this is a nonbinding resolution, I realize the Congress wants to speak on this situation, and I think the administration has heard the objections. The administration came to a conclusion--March 31 is the earliest date we can complete our withdrawal.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge the Members to vote against the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and give the President an opportunity to get the troops out in an orderly manner as quickly as prudently possible.

=====

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Oct 19, 1993
Jack Torry

HEADLINE: MURTHA FINDS U.S. RANGERS IN SOMALIA DISCOURAGED

''They're subdued compared to normal morale of elite forces,'' Murtha said. ''Obviously, it was a very difficult battle. A lot of Somalis were killed, but it was a brutal battle.

''A lot of people were hurt badly; helicopters burned and legs lost. It was a very, very difficult battle.

''I think everybody feels it's hard to define the mission, and there's no military solution. Some of them will tell you to get Aidid is the solution. I don't agree with that.''

But Murtha returned from Somalia convinced that the U.S. ground commanders will need to keep U.S. forces there until next March because ''they say they need that much time for a reasonable chance of success to the operation.''

Murtha has criticized the Somalia operation since former President George Bush sent more than 28,000 U.S. troops to the African nation last year in an attempt to end a famine that was killing hundreds of thousands of Somalians.

But Murtha has stepped up his objections since last summer, when U.S. forces were ordered to locate and capture Aidid. Last week, President Clinton indicated that U.S. forces would no longer participate in efforts to hunt Aidid.

''I think they over-emphasized the Aidid thing,'' Murtha said. ''I think the president did exactly the right thing when he depersonalized it.''

Note that the reporting on this accurately depicts the expansion of the Somalia mission. Much of the history of this mission gets twisted as Bush 41's war on the warlords, but Bush only sent troops to carry out the UN mission of famine abatement. It was Clinton in the summer of 1993 that expanded the US role to include pacifying the warlords, specifically but not exclusively Aidid, and did it without refitting the deployed troops with the necessary resources for the mission.

Did Murtha Urge Retreat From Somalia?

Newsmax reported yesterday that Rep. John Murtha, the former Marine who sent Washington into a firestorm last week with a demand to withdraw American forces from Iraq, has a history of demanding retreats. They claim that Murtha himself took credit for the withdrawal of American forces from Somalia following the "Black Hawk Down" incident, a withdrawal that allegedly inspired al-Qaeda's leaders to pursue active attacks on American assets around the world:

After terrorists attacked U.S. troops in Mogadishu, Somalia 12 years ago, anti-Iraq war Democrat, Rep. John Murtha urged then-President Clinton to begin a complete pullout of U.S. troops from the region.

Clinton took the advice and ordered the withdrawal - a decision that Osama bin Laden would later credit with emboldening his terrorist fighters and encouraging him to mount further attacks against the U.S. ...

Two weeks later, after 18 U.S. Rangers were killed in the battle of Mogadishu, Murtha visited U.S. forces in Somalia.

Upon his return he proclaimed to the world that the Mogadishu defeat had a devastating impact on the Rangers' morale.

"They're subdued compared to normal morale of elite forces," Murtha said. "Obviously, it was a very difficult battle. A lot of Somalis were killed, but it was a brutal battle."

Murtha said the U.S. had to no choice but to pull out now, explaining, "There's no military solution. Some of them will tell you [that] to get [warlord Mohamed Farrah] Aidid is the solution. I don't agree with that."

The comments were eerily similar to Murtha's assessment of U.S involvement in Iraq last week, when he declared, "the U.S. cannot accomplish anything further militarily. It is time to bring [the troops] home."

Newsmax doesn't have the greatest reliability, but when it reports on previous public statements it usually quotes accurately. Most media do not keep transcripts for shows that far back. If this is accurate, it shows that far from being a Democratic hawk who just had a road-to-Damascus moment about Iraq, Murtha has a track record of the kind of cut-and-run that has created the problems we have with Islamofascists today.

The Mogadishu battle and our sudden withdrawal after taking 18 casualties still gets referenced often by AQ and other terrorist organizations when arguing that the US is nothing more than a paper tiger. They firmly believe that any significant casualties will cause us to withdraw from any conflict, no matter what the actual military status is. They have mostly been proven correct, as Somalia came as the nadir of American resolve. In a battle where we killed at least five times the number of enemy combatants, the American political and media elite declared the situation a "disaster" that required nothing less than a complete retreat from Somalia altogether.

The real problem in Somalia had been mission creep. We started out to deliver food and medicine, and then shortly after Clinton took office, he upped the ante by going after the warlords that interfered with the mission -- but without supplying the troops with the equipment necessary for the new mission. That led to unnecessary casualties, but the mission in Somalia could have been a success had we prepared for it properly. It not only could have rescued a "failed state" by building a stable central government, but also could have stamped out al-Qaeda in its germination.

Now Murtha wants to pull another Somalia, using the same tired arguments (as noted by Newsmax), and leave Iraq in the same state as Somalia. As the proverb goes, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but rarely does one person represent both sides of that lesson.

Halloween Continues At Columbia

It sounds like the natural progression from the toga parties popularized by Animal House, with more than a hint of 21^st-century libertinism. The Ivy-League fad of "naked parties" has spread to Columbia University, despite having restrictive policies regarding sexual behavior on campus. Parents sending their children to this very expensive school may not find the cost savings on clothing all that comforting:

"Compadres," the e-mail states, "join us in refusing to comply with a culture that tells us to hide our body, to be ashamed of its scents, secretions, curves, and hair, to conceal those parts that have been dealt sexual connotations. We're gonna f-- this bondage we call clothing and party like the savages we really are."

Following in the footsteps of their exhibitionist peers at Brown and Yale, Columbia undergraduates are staging parties with one basic ground rule - all guests must part with their clothes upon arrival. The invitation circulating around Morningside Heights bans three additional items: cameras, masks, and "spikey things."

"Join us for a night of champagne, martinis, witchcraft, psychedelia, syncopated rhythms, thin bass lines, and body paint," reads the invitation, which was obtained by The New York Sun.

The first reaction for many will be Why couldn't I go to college now, instead of two/three/four decades ago? However, the problems associated with the naked parties are not nearly as humorous as one would imagine. Messages sent by showing up naked at a party can get confused with sexual willingness, and especially so when "champagne, martinis, [and] psychedelia" get involved. The latter appears to be a clear reference to illegal drug use, and all of it -- including the shedding of clothes -- tears down the natural inhibitions against casual sexual contact that not only breeds bitter misunderstandings, but also STDs and unwanted pregnancies.

This does not sound like an Ivy League-level proposition. If this represents the kind of decision-making that these schools help form, then perhaps parents and employers alike should rethink the emphasis they place on diplomas from these universities.

On the other hand, some Columbia students claim they have a defense against the notion that the naked parties serve only to inflame teenage and early-twenties lust. "By and large," writes Zachary Bendliner, the editor of the campus newspaper Blue and White, "[Columbia students] aren't terribly attractive." In a potential corroboration of this theory, the guiding spirit behind Columbia's shedding of inhibitions and Ralph Lauren, fourth-year Comparative Lit major Carla Bloomberg, asked in an e-mail to the Sun, "Why is body hair only acceptable on males?"

So perhaps these parties serve only as extensions of Halloween parties, designed to scare people into celibacy. It seems to me that Catholic schools can do that better than any place else, and they don't charge $30K per semester to do so, nor do their administrations tolerate advertised orgies. One has to wonder about the level of education delivered at Columbia when the students have this much time on their hands to plan out elaborate naked parties with this much preparation. Carla and her friends, at best, seem to have too much time on their hands at midterm for even a junior college, let alone a prestigious institution like Columbia.

Liberals Refuse Compromise On Election

Instead of the expected no-confidence vote on an appropriation bill yesterday, the three Canadian opposition parties in Parliament joined to pass a bill urging February elections, offering one last opportunity to compromise on the fate of the government. Despite easily losing the vote, PM Paul Martin refused to agree to the conditions of the non-binding bill:

Oposition parties easily overpowered the government 167-129 Monday night in a vote on a non-binding motion calling for a Feb. 13 election.

The Liberals dismissed the opposition motion as a publicity stunt and prepared furiously for the more decisive showdown ahead.

Instead of working within the offered compromise, which would allow the Commons to continue working on the tax breaks promised by the Liberals and the spending bills needed to make all of the Ottawa politicians look good, the Liberals insist on making all such legislation hostage to the no-confidence vote. "Canadians will be asked to pay for the opposition's ambition and anger," warned Liberal spokesman Scott Reid, and that means that the same bills that the Liberals are now pushing -- tax breaks and special payments -- will wind up being opposed by a Liberal plurality if they lose the no-confidence motion before Parliament's term is over.

Jack Layton doesn't buy that argument, and has warned Martin that a failure to accept the offered compromise, which the NDP tabled, will result in a no-confidence motion as early as next Monday. That timing will ensure a holiday election season, but also will work for the Tories. The $28 billion tax cut comes up for a vote tomorrow, which means it can get passed before taking the government down.

It seems more than a little strange that Martin refuses to accept the compromise. He may think that he can still split the NDP from the Tories and BQ, even at this late date, and avoid any no-confidence motion altogether. With the rhetoric heating up, that appears much less likely than it did in the spring, when Martin successfully made the deal that kept his grip on power from slipping away. Right now, all he gains from a refusal to compromise is two months, at best, as Prime Minister. The master politician has lost perspective on the long game, it would appear, and has so focused on tactical manuevering that he has forgotten all about long-term strategy for the Liberals.

Aftermath

So yesterday, after getting up, I realized that sometime during the night I had contracted the flu. I could barely keep anything down -- and I had to drive 500 miles to get home. (I also had laryngitis, but I think that came from the screaming.) By the time we made it home, I had a fever and chills, and I slept from around 5 pm until ... oh, now.I can't talk, can't eat much, and still feel a bit dizzy, but I can sit up and do some reading and writing.

Ironically, the First Mate did just fine on the trip. Go figure!

Fixations

I will be traveling today, so blogging will be non-existent until this evening. However, I want to address this one issue, since it has appeared more repeatedly here than most other blogs.]

Some bloggers seem to have a fixation on Michelle Malkin. Most readers appreciate her writing and intellect, but others seem more obsessed with her relationship with her husband than in her actual writing. I suspect that some of the obsession that two CQ commenters repeatedly exhibit have more to do with her status as an attractive Asian-American woman. Since I am fortunate enough to count Michelle as one of my friends, I know that Michelle works hard and writes her own material, but in the interest of open-forum debate, I've let those commenters continue to ankle-bite Michelle with snarky comments, misgynist innuendo, and unfounded allegations of intellectual fakery.

Enough. Michelle answers these critics on her blog today, in an essay titled "Just A Yellow Woman Doing A White Man's Job":

The racist and sexist "yellow woman doing a white man's job" knock is a tiresome old attack from impotent liberals that I've tolerated a long time. It is pathetic that I have to sit here and tell you that my ideas, my politics, and my intellectual capital are mine and mine alone in response to cowardly attacks from misogynistic moonbats with Asian whore fixations. My IQ, free will, skin color, eye shape, productivity, sincerity, and integrity are routinely ridiculed or questioned because I happen to be a minority conservative woman. As a public figure, I am willing to take these insults, but I cannot tolerate the smearing of my loved ones. Because I have always been open and proud about his support for my career, my husband has taken endless, hate-filled abuse from my critics. His Jewish heritage, his decision to be a stay-at-home dad, and even his looks, are the subject of brutal mockery.

Enough.

If you have a problem with my work and what I stand for, go ahead and take me on. Keep calling me whatever four-letter-word makes you feel better when you can't win your arguments. But leave my family alone.

Qiute frankly, I've had it with these comments, too. You two have made your point over and over again, and you're free to do whatever you want on your blog. This is the last post where I'll tolerate this particular topic of discussion. Afterwards, I'd appreciate it if you keep it on your own blogs. Otherwise, I'm going to start banning people who bring it up when I link to Michelle's excellent and original writing. However, if you want people to take your own writing seriously, you may want to reconsider the obsession with marital relations between Michelle and her husband and ask yourselves from where that prurient obsession really springs.