Blogcritics Author: Rick Moran

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Should Condi Rice Resign?

Rick Moran — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:28:33 EDT

In the midst of a war where the forces of civilization have just suffered their first major defeat, it is quite natural to start pointing fingers and assigning blame. In Israel, they are already sharpening the long knives as MKs are making room on their lodge poles for the scalps of several politicians and generals who, according to most observers, allowed Hizbullah this rather impressive strategic victory.While the United States was not engaged militarily in this debacle, we nevertheless failed utterly in the only place where we really could have done some good for Israel -- at the United Nations. The passage of Resolution 1701, mandating a cease fire in Lebanon, is already turning into our very own diplomatic nightmare. And the blame for this must rest squarely on the shoulders of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.Perhaps anticipating the heavy criticism that will be coming her way once it is apparent that Hizbullah will not cooperate in implementing the cease fire accord and that Israel will be constrained from taking any action to make them, Rice penned a dishonest op-ed in today's Washington Post where she not only tries to spin her way out of trouble but also misstates several key parts of the cease fire agreement and downplays or glosses over others that she knows will never be implemented. And if she actually believes some of the tripe she has written, perhaps that is reason enough, along with the fact that she may have lost the confidence of the President, for her to resign.Rice lists three components of the cease fire that she claims will be decisive in altering the "status quo" on the Lebanese-Israeli Border:First, it puts in place a full cessation of hostilities. We also insisted on the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers. Hezbollah must immediately cease its attacks on Israel, and Israel must halt its offensive military operations in Lebanon, while reserving the right of any sovereign state to defend itself. This agreement went into effect on Monday, after the Israeli and Lebanese cabinets agreed to its conditions.The United States may have "insisted on the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers" but we didn't get it. That is an issue to be determined later and will almost certainly involve a prisoner exchange, not "unconditional release" of the IDF men. In fact, we insisted on many things in this resolution including an international force not part of UNIFIL operating under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which would have allowed this independent force to shoot if Hizbullah would not comply with the terms of the cease fire. What we got was a tepid augmentation of the UNIFIL force operating under Chapter 6 strictures which are much more defensive and will prevent the UN from enforcing the will of the Security Council with regards to Hizbullah's weapons.Here's the second component of the cease fire agreement that the Secretary assures us will alter the status quo on the border:Second, this resolution will help the democratic government of Lebanon expand its sovereign authority. The international community is imposing an embargo on all weapons heading into Lebanon without the government's consent. We are also enhancing UNIFIL, the current U.N. force in Lebanon. The new UNIFIL will have a robust mandate, better equipment and as many as 15,000 soldiers -- a sevenfold increase from its current strength. Together with this new international force, the Lebanese Armed Forces will deploy to the south of the country to protect the Lebanese people and prevent armed groups such as Hezbollah from destabilizing the area. As this deployment occurs, Israel will withdraw behind the "Blue Line" and a permanent cease-fire will take hold.Either the Secretary has blinders on or she is being deliberately disingenuous and perhaps dishonest.How will this resolution expand the authority of the Lebanese government? The resolution says much. Its high minded words are soothing to the ear. But we are not dealing with people who plan on relinquishing their hard won gains at the conference table that they won on the battlefield. Hizbullah and their leader Hassan Nasrallah are in the ascendancy in Lebanon. During the conflict, Nasrallah exercised veto power over what cease fire terms were acceptable to Lebanon. The sad fact is that Prime Minister Siniora is not in charge at the moment in Lebanon. With Hizbullah balking at disarming as well as moving their forces from the southern part of the country, Siniora doesn't dare call a cabinet meeting to discuss the matter lest the Hizbullah ministers walk out and his government fall - a blow that could open the door to any number of nightmare scenarios. Siniora is trapped and no United Nations resolution is going to help him "expand the authority" of the Lebanese government until Hizbullah is disarmed.And what about that little detail, Madame Secretary? In her op-ed, Rice is all over the map regarding the disarmament of Hizbullah. In the segment quoted above, she seems to be saying that the Lebanese army will deploy with the augmented UNIFIL force to "protect the Lebanese people and prevent armed groups such as Hezbollah from destabilizing the area." So will Hizbullah be armed or disarmed? Here, she seems to be saying that UNIFIL will disarm the terrorists:Finally, this resolution clearly lays out the political principles to secure a lasting peace: no foreign forces, no weapons and no authority in Lebanon other than that of the sovereign Lebanese government.Clearly the two goals are incompatible, although she may be talking about a "lasting peace" in the context of further negotiations over other issues such as prisoner exchanges and the Shebaa Farms matter. However, surely she knows Israel's ironclad position on Hizbullah disarmament -- that the IDF will not leave southern Lebanon until the terrorists lay down their weapons. How can she reconcile her rosy resolution scenario with the completely useless Lebanese army being deployed alongside a UN force that has failed for 28 years to fulfill its mandate?Just today, Secretary Rice said that UNIFIL would not be disarming Hizbullah, that this was a job for the Lebanese government:"I don't think there is an expectation that this (U.N.) force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah," Rice said. "I think it's a little bit of a misreading about how you disarm a militia. You have to have a plan, first of all, for the disarmament of the militia, and then the hope is that some people lay down their arms voluntarily."If Hezbollah resists international demands to disarm, Rice said, "one would have to assume that there will be others who are willing to call Hezbollah what we are willing to call it, which is a terrorist organization." If people are not going to call Hizbullah a terrorist organization after the thugs launched almost 4,000 rockets and missiles into Israeli towns and cities in order to kill as many civilians as possible then nothing on earth they do will change the laggards' minds.It is this kind of disconnect from reality that makes me question the Secretary's fitness to remain in office. For there is much more in the Washington Post op-ed that calls into question Ms. Rice's grasp of the situation as well as her honesty.Her belief that the Lebanese army will be effective in doing anything at all is belied by this assessment from Janes:Yet as things stand the Lebanese Army, which has operated primarily as an internal security force since the 1975-90 civil war, is incapable of undertaking any peacekeeping mission unless Hizbullah is completely disarmed. It has been starved of funds for years because of Lebanon's economic woes, it is poorly equipped and does not have the combat experience or motivation of Hizbullah's battle-hardened Shi'ite fighters. More troublesome is the composition of the army's 11 mechanised brigades and half-dozen special forces formations along sectarian lines between Christians and Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims. The Lebanese army has been a barracks army for 20 years. Calling them an "army" doesn't make them so. And if this is the bunch that is being counted on to help disarm Hizbullah - something that Nasrallah has insisted isn't going to happen voluntarily - then the world and Resolution 1701 are in deep trouble.And what of this mythical arms embargo? As I write this, Iran and Syria are busy resupplying their client in Lebanon with no thought of complying with the resolution's mandate that only the government of Lebanon be the recipient of any arms transactions. Why should Iran and Syria comply? Who is going to stop them?Perhaps the augmented UNIFIL force will be able to help - if they ever get there:A United Nations international force is expected to land in Lebanon within two weeks, but analysts said yesterday that U.N. troops will be unable to disarm Hezbollah against its will. "We would like to see 3,000 to 3,500 troops within 10 days to two weeks," Hedi Annabi, assistant secretary-general for U.N. peacekeeping operations, told reporters in New York. "That would be ideal to help consolidate the cessation of hostilities and start the process of withdrawal and deployment of the Lebanese forces," Mr. Annabi said. [...]Mr. Annan has been working the phones since Saturday to get world leaders to commit to creating a robust international force, but there have been no formal commitments, Mr. Dujarric said. C. David Welch, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said the U.S. would send a senior interagency team to the United Nations today and tomorrow to help shape the enhanced UNIFIL force. The United Nations, he said, "is on a fast track to try and supplement and enhance" the force in Lebanon. "They are meeting every day in preparation for that." The current UNIFIL force has troops from China, France, Ghana, India, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Ukraine. Mr. Welch said other countries, including Turkey, might participate in the enhanced force. There is no doubt that Secretary Rice is sincere in her belief that she got the best possible deal for the United States and Israel at the UN. And despite her obvious spinning and outright dishonesty in putting the best face on the outcome, the fact is that Resolution 1701 - recognizing as it does a terrorist group as a legitimate combatant in a war with Israel - is an unmitigated disaster for the United States and almost as big a blow to the cause of freedom and democracy as Israel's disaster on the battlefield.Pretty strong stuff, I know. But if one were to examine the world prior to the Israeli-Islamist War and the world afterwards, several hugely significant differences have emerged that have further endangered Israel, complicated our efforts to deny Iran the nuclear weapons it wants so badly, pushed our allies in the Middle East closer to the Iranians, and perhaps fatally weakened the Lebanese government.In Rice's defense, it is not entirely her fault. Some of the blame must accrue to the President for not infusing a sense of urgency on Israel's Prime Minister Olmert in the early days of the war against Hizbullah. Bush refused to call Olmert for the first few weeks of the military campaign - a campaign that unfolded with painful slowness and puzzling hesitancy on the part of the IDF. While Bush's reticence with Olmert was rightfully interpreted as signalling a "green light" for Israel to carry out a wide ranging war against Hizbullah, once it became clear that Olmert wasn't moving with boldness and speed, perhaps a call from the President would have alerted Olmert to the fact that his "green light" could turn amber or even red in the very near future unless he got a move on.Finally, it is very possible that Rice has lost the confidence of the President. This piece that appeared in Insight Magazine is extraordinary for the candor of the Secretary's people in describing how the President allowed Rice to be undermined by the Cheney faction in the White House during the war:The disagreement between Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice is over the ramifications of U.S. support for Israel's continued offensive against Lebanon. The sources said Mr. Bush believes that Israel's failure to defeat Hezbollah would encourage Iranian adventurism in neighboring Iraq. Ms. Rice has argued that the United States would be isolated both in the Middle East and Europe at a time when the administration seeks to build a consensus against Iran's nuclear weapons program.Instead, Ms. Rice believes the United States should engage Iran and Syria to pressure Hezbollah to end the war with Israel. Ms. Rice has argued that such an effort would result in a U.S. dialogue with Damascus and Tehran on Middle East stability.[...]The sources said Mr. Bush's position has been supported by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and to a lesser extent National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. They have urged the president to hold off international pressure and give Israel more time to cause strategic damage to Hezbollah as well as Iranian and Syrian interests in Lebanon.Secretary Rice bears most of the responsibility for agreeing to a UN cease fire resolution with little prospect that it will do anything that it says it will. All it has done is prevented Israel from continuing an offensive that was just starting to make rapid progress in inflicting the kind of damage on Hizbullah that would have made Nasrallah's claims of "victory" ring hollow. For this reason, her continued usefulness to the President should be called into question.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

Welcome To The New Middle East

Rick Moran — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 12:55:08 EDT

The state of Israel awoke this morning to the realization that their world has suddenly become a lot more dangerous.And that's saying something. Given that their country is surrounded by enemies that wish to annihilate them, it is hard to imagine how their precarious situation could have gotten any worse. But the sad fact is that the forces representing anti-modernism, anti-Semitism, and genocide are in the ascendancy today over those who represent freedom, tolerance, and civilization.Welcome to the new Middle East, a place where purposefully ordering the launching of thousands upon thousands of lethal rockets into towns and villages with the sole and exclusive goal of killing as many civilians as possible makes one a hero to the overwhelming majority of its people rather than a monster to be stoned in the street on sight. It is also a tactic that has been green lighted by the United Nations in that they have given these gleeful, murderous, rocketeers the opportunity to start their bombardment all over again just as soon as the international community loses interest and moves on to the next outrage that the world body also will be unable to do anything to stop.A true United Nations, one that would live up to one tenth of the noble sentiments contained in its charter, would have voted to join with Israel to destroy Hizbullah. In fact, their actions have now enabled the terrorists to look forward to round two in their genocidal war against the Jews. For make no mistake, this "cease fire" is nothing of the sort. It is a pause in Hizbullah's undeclared war on the Jewish state that has been going on since Israel voluntarily left southern Lebanon in 2000. The aggression from Hizbullah didn't start with their incursion into Israel's territory on July 12. It has been going on for more than two years with nary a peep from this same international community that now seeks to dictate to Israel how it should best defend itself. Where was the outrage when Hizbullah carried out unprovoked attacks on Israeli Defense Force (IDF) outposts? Where were the tears from these slobbering humanitarians when Hizbullah infiltrated suicide bombers across the border in order to kill Israeli children? To those who truly wish for a just and peaceful international order, that kind of world just became much more remote with the shameful capitulation to the tactics of terror that the United States, the United Nations, and the rest of the international community agreed to in this cease fire resolution. It will come back to haunt all who worked for expediency over substance, all the while pretending that a "solution" to Hizbullah's murderous designs on the Jewish state could be "negotiated" - as if the terrorists cared one whit about anything except their own survival as well as the killing of more Jews which is now guaranteed thanks to both the incompetence of Israeli leadership and the world's timidity in the face of outright savagery.The conduct of France in this affair has been one dizzying change of direction after another. Evidently, the French believed that if they kept churning their legs fast enough on the treadmill of international diplomacy, they would eventually get someplace. Beginning with a near agreement with the Americans on the need for a strong international force with a robust mandate to check and disarm Hizbullah, the French ended up groveling before the Sheiks of Araby by accepting their formulation of using an expanded United Nations force that has proven to be about as effective at stopping Hizbullah from attacking Israel as any United Nations force of its kind - which is to say it has failed utterly and completely. In fact, I'm sure Hizbullah was overjoyed to hear that UNIFIL outposts would be augmented. It means they now have that many more locations to place their rocket launchers, safe and secure in the knowledge that no one will do anything to stop them from placing their Vergeltungswaffe next to locations that proudly fly the UN flag. (Funny thing about that flag. There don't seem to be too many people willing to die for it although there is no lack of goons, thugs, and terrorists willing to use it for their own nefarious purposes. In that respect, it is something of an anti-flag.)In this new Middle East, an emboldened Iran will be able to continue to thumb its nose at the international community as they go about the task of building their very own "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." No need to bother with gas chambers and death camps this time around. Those crude instruments of mass extinction have been made obsolete both by science and the willful blindness of a world community that actually believes that, if they pretend hard enough, ignore the extinguishing rhetoric emanating from Tehran, and blame Bush and the "Neo-Cons" in a loud enough voice, that the horror will either go away or only haunt them in their dreams and not be realized in the flesh.Maybe they'll be proven correct. Maybe Ahmadinejad is a rational actor and only wants to live in peace. Maybe all of his talk about the return of the 12th Imam is for domestic consumption. Maybe he really didn't say that he'd "wipe Israel off the map" or that he didn't really suggest transplanting the state of Israel onto European soil. Maybe. Or maybe he means everything he says to the very core of his being in which case maybe someone should stop him before he carries out his threats.But in order to stop Ahmadinejad, someone somewhere is going to have to stand up to his aggression. Israel tried and was slapped down for their effort. And since everyone knows that the only reason America would do anything to try and stop the Persians is to steal their oil, that leaves the fate of Israel and probably the world in the hands of those who preach "collective security" but in practice, carry out "collective surrender." Much has been made in conservative circles recently about events occurring now being reminiscent of events in the 1930's and that mirror Hitler's march to war. It is always problematic to try and graft one historical period onto another to glean "lessons from history" so that we don't make the same mistakes again. I believe that kind of thinking dangerously simplistic and overwrought. Iran isn't Nazi Germany. And America is not Great Britain or France. We see these parallels largely because of the nauseating anti-Semitism raising its ugly head not just in the Middle East but in Europe and America as well. That and the seeming paralysis of the world when confronted with the evil designs of evil men makes the simile an easy reach, almost a writer's shorthand to explain it all in two paragraphs or less.The differences between then and now are profound and obvious - so much so that I am not going to list them. But I would agree that the lessons from that time of world turmoil should never be forgotten regardless of whether there are historical connections to be made between the two epochs. Nations like Iran will not be deterred by diplomatic give and take. They will not be "contained" in any meaningful way by sanctions (especially the kind of sanctions being discussed at the UN Security Council).They must be defeated. And by allowing their proxy Hizbullah to literally get away with terrorist murder, the UN has made the monumental mistake of legitimizing Hizbullah tactics while punishing Israel for exercising its right of self defense. If there is a worse signal the world body has ever sent in its entire, miserable existence, I can't think of one.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

Spinning Israel's "Defeat"

Rick Moran — Sun, 6 Aug 2006 18:12:25 EDT

As Hizbullah fighters fanatically try and hold their ground in the small villages and towns of southern Lebanon, all the while being slaughtered systematically by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), the makings of Israel's "defeat" is being spun unmercifully in some corners of the media and on the left.To date, more than 50 members of the IDF have been killed in the 25 day war. And while information on the numbers of Hizbullah fighters killed in action has been sketchy to say the least, the IDF estimates put the number at 300 on August 1, almost certainly an inflated estimate but one at least more trustworthy than Hizbullah's laughable figure of 43 given on the same day.There is every reason to believe that the figure of 300 is closer to being accurate as of today given what's been happening the last 72 hours in southern Lebanon. Wherever Hizbullah fighters have stood toe to toe with the IDF, they have died. The terrorists perform the best in small unit ambushes where they put the Israelis on the defensive. The IDF then must call in helicopters and fighters to pound Hiz positions in order to extract their men. But in the last few days, the Israelis have attacked in much larger formations, overwhelming the pockets of Hizbullah fighters and causing them to either flee or be killed. The Jersulasem Post reports:At least ten Hizbullah operatives were killed and three were captured overnight. Meanwhile, it was released on Sunday that in the past 48 hours, special forces operated south of Tyre. The troops destroyed 3 rocket launchers, a bunker, three weapons warehouses, and three cars used to transport rockets.Two reserve soldiers were killed in clashes with Hizbullah in southern Lebanon on Saturday. Army forces killed at least 50 Hizbullah guerillas over the weekend, the IDF said. The raid at Baalbek and the most recent Special Forces op south of Tyre killed dozens more. And given the amount of ordinance expended by the IAF, one has to assume that many Hizbullah fighters have died as the result of bombings.The point is very simple; Hizbullah fighters are dying in droves, their infrastructure is being smashed to pieces, they are being thrown out of positions in southern Lebanon they've occupied since Israel left in 2000, and conversely, they have failed to inflict significant casualties on the IAF although they do very well killing unarmed civilians by launching barrages of rockets indiscriminately into the towns and villages of northern Israel.Would someone please explain how Hizbullah is "winning" anything except perhaps the race to have the most martyrs claim those 72 virgins in the afterlife?Where the Hiz are successful, it is in the battle of perceptions. And in this conflict, the IDF is at a huge disadvantage in that the overwhelming majority of the world's press is openly cheering for Hizbullah to give the Israelis a bloody nose. Tom Gross of the J-Post points to the piss poor job being done by the Israelis in the media war:Hizbullah and the Palestinians know the value of propaganda. They often fight their media battles by the dirtiest possible means. An expose in these pages on Thursday by former Sunday Telegraph correspondent Tom Gross revealed that Hizbullah officers supervise CNN reports, that a CBS reporter admitted Hizbullah overseers determine what's filmed, that repeated shots of several downed buildings lend Beirut the erroneous image of devastated WWII Dresden, that journalists are threatened, that Hizbullah holds their passports for ransom, that their analyses are skewed to curry favor, and so on. Not only doesn't Israel engage in significant preemptive damage control, it often seems resigned to lose by default. The axiomatic official Israeli attitude often seems to be that "the world hates us." It may indeed deny us a fair shake, but there's a difference between giving up a priori and trying to do something about it. To forfeit without a fight is reckless neglect. It can only impact on Israel's image, its standing abroad, and the pressure on international politicians to take unsympathetic positions, and thus directly on Israel's future well-being. The pathetic nature of Hizbullah's "success" - the fact that they aren't running away in terror or surrendering as other, less fanatical Arab armies have done in the past - says much more about those who are lionizing the terrorists than it does about whether they are "winning" the war in any real sense of the word. Because when the dust settles and hostilities end, Israel will have a buffer zone of one kind of another, Hizbullah will be prevented from re-occupying positions they held for nearly 6 years prior to the war, and given Israeli-American insistence, Nasrallah's fanatics will be disarmed probably by having his militia folded into the Lebanese army.And this is a Hizbullah "victory?"Ah, but the Hiz are heroes in the Arab street you say! Nasrallah will be more powerful in Lebanese politics, you crow! As for the former, my aunt Mabel would be popular in the Arab street if she was the beneficiary of the dizzying spin being put on this conflict in the Arab and western press. As for the latter, someone please give me the crystal ball making that prediction so that I can pick some stocks. No one knows what shape post-war Lebanese politics will take, or what the impact of Nasrallah's bellicosity that started the war and now his intransigence that is prolonging it will have on his standing among the other factions. My guess is that the Future Party of Prime Minister Siniora, Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt will do a little anti-Nasrallah spinning of their own in the aftermath of this war. And how that will turn out is anyone's guess.The western press always seems able to find present or former State Department officials or analysts of one kind or another who will wail on cue about how badly the war has gone for Israel and how the conflict has "empowered" Hizbullah. These doomsayers have made their prognostications based not what has been happening on the battlefield but what they perceive to be Israel's weakness in not vanquishing Hizbullah in 6 days - that being the standard set by the international punditariat for a clear Israeli victory. Anything more and either the IDF is losing its edge or they have met their match on the battlefield in Hizbullah. This is so clearly tommyrot. Just look at a map of Israeli positions today and see that they have trapped Hizbullah's remaining fighters in a kill zone from the border to the Litani River. With roads and bridges impassable, those Hiz fighters are doomed unless they surrender.Given the fact that Nasrallah has rejected out of hand the provisions in the cease fire resolution that will probably be passed Tuesday or Wednesday, Israel will have a free hand to continue to kill his fighters, bust up his remaining infrastructure, and weaken his organization where it counts - its ability to harm the Jewish state.Will that matter to those who are busy spinning Israel's inevitable defeat? Probably not. But then, I doubt the Israelis care very much just as long as they can prevent Hizbullah from harming their citizens whenever they feel like it.Now that smells like victory...

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

It's So Hard Being A Liberal

Rick Moran — Thu, 3 Aug 2006 19:19:05 EDT

Watching as Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake gets raked over the coals by conservatives for her jaw dropping portrayal of Senator Lieberman in blackface over at HuffPo, I couldn't help but have a twinge of sympathy for her.Not because I care that conservatives are being really, really nasty towards the bitch. She deserves every mean thing said about her and then some. She's a female version of Glenn Greenwald, Dave Niewert, and Billmon all rolled up into a disgusting Rouladen of snark, snippiness, and snobbishness so disturbingly vile that after reading her hysterical rants against righties, you feel compelled to decontaminate your laptop in order to prevent the spread of some flesh crawling contagion.My sympathy for Mrs. Hamsher lies with the fact that being a liberal is such a challenge to rational thought that only a select breed of human is capable of the feat. Think about it for a minute. How many aggrieved races, classes, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, oppressed minorities, mentally challenged, physically challenged, weight challenged, sexually repressed, sexually aberrant people does a liberal have to keep track of so that when trying to be funny they don't step on anyone's toes?It must be like living life in a minefield. One misstep and BOOM! All of a sudden, you're an Internet verb.Can you imagine the thought processes a liberal has to go through in order to try and be funny? I mean, do you think they have a list of forbidden words tattooed on the inside of their thighs so that they remember not to use gay" when talking about people who are simply happy? Or "niggardly" to describe miserly behavior?Perhaps this is why most liberal bloggers are so deadly serious. It's the only way they can be truly amusing. When Glenn Greenwald accuses conservatives of being incipient authoritarians or when Dave Niewert posits prestidigitation as a reason that conservatives sound like neo-Nazis, we should remember that these are considered real knee slappers by liberals and not to take either these gentlemen or their ideas with any seriousness whatsoever. Of course, there are other things that makes a liberal's life a living hell. Keeping up with the latest in grievance group news must be a pain in the butt. Scouring the papers daily for that telltale whine from some newly oppressed sub-sub-group of an already oppressed minority can be a real chore. But Gaia's chosen ones must put their all into the effort to bring the sub-sub-group's grievance to light. There are meetings to organize, T-Shirts to be printed, editorials to be written, blogbursts, blegs, and blab-fests to be highlighted.And then there's that trip to the tattoo parlor to get another word etched on the inside of their thigh, one more sub-sub group they can't afford to injure by using some offending nomenclature while trying to be amusing.The picture of Lieberman in blackface will not injure the reputation of Mrs. Hamsher. After all, no one seriously believes that she has a racist bone in her body. But what truly might become a cause celebre is her candidate's eyebrow raising response to the imbroglio:"I don't know anything about the blogs, I'm not responsible for those, I have no comment on 'em...Independent blogs, I can't say anything about it."Huh? Malkin explains:As I pointed out yesterday, Jane Hamsher is more than a mere "independent" blogger sitting on the Lamont campaign sidelines. She filmed Lamont's first videoblog. She chauffeured Lamont and his staff. She raised money for him. She's still on his blogroll. And despite Lamont's claim that he doesn't control blogs and Hamsher's claim that she "answers to nobody," he told her to pull the blackface Photoshop yesterday -- and she dutifully complied.And this was Hamsher's statement from yesterday:I sincerely apologize to anyone who was genuinely offended by the choice of images accompanying my blog post today on the Huffington Post. It’s also important to note that I do not, nor have I ever worked for Ned Lamont’s campaign. However, at their request, I removed the image earlier today. "Pay no attention to that girl behind the curtain..."Ned Lamont was cruising to a huge victory in the Democratic primary next Tuesday over Lieberman. He may yet win. But his disingenuous response when asked about his...what is Mrs. Hamsher to Lamont's campaign? Personal confidante? Blog Guru? Lapdog? Whatever role she fills in actuality, it is clear that in her own mind, Mrs. Hamster was a mover and shaker inside Little Neddy's campaign. And for Lamont to disavow any knowledge of or connection to Jane Hamsher is a shocking mistake that almost surely will cost him some votes -- but probably not the election. That said, Lieberman's independent campaign for the seat got a huge boost with this idiocy.And who knows? We're only on day two of this little kerfluffle. If the local media latches on and starts to chew, anything is possible. And if it costs Lamont the primary, it will be a blow to the already non-credible netnuts whose track record in elections is surpassed in futility only by that of the Cubs and their efforts to get to the World Series.Makes me glad I'm not a liberal. It's just too much work to prove how ignorant and stupid you are.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

Problematic Profanity Puzzles Pundits

Rick Moran — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 04:44:22 EDT

The Sh*tstorm Over The Word Sh*t This will, necessarily, be one of the most difficult articles I will ever write. Not because of the subject matter, mind you. It's the way I type. In order to maintain the family-friendly nature of my website (can't you see all those impressionable little 10-year-olds clicking over to the House in order to discover the latest in the Glenn Greenwald soap opera? Or perhaps to pick up the latest inventive invective I spew toward the left?), I make it a hard and fast rule that I not spell out three of the more colorful metaphors in the English language.You know which ones they are. I know which ones they are. I know you know which ones they are, just like you know that I know which ones they are, which means I don't have to repeat them. The fact that my site is on the sh*t list in most libraries across the country already, due to its "racist, sexist, homophobic" (did you forget anti-illegal immigrant?) slant, just makes my care to not use vulgarity on the site all the more puzzling. Chalk it up to a residual belief in Catholicism that posits the notion my mother is reading what I write up in heaven. A pleasant thought, that. On the other hand, she was a Roosevelt liberal so I'm sure she clucks her tongue at some of the things that end up on this website.Since I have voluntarily rejected spelling out completely the word "sh*t" and substituting the ubiquitous star, I might as well reveal that I am not a very good typist. Don't ask me why, but I only use three fingers on my left hand and one on my right. Weird, huh? Of course, that means getting my fingers up to that sh*tty star on the keyboard can get to be a real f**king nuisance, ya know what I mean? I mean, sometimes I feel like a real paste eater when typing.Maybe I should get some pointers from Goldstein on that. Or maybe TBogg could be helpful in this respect; he was one of the first to refer to Goldstein as a paste eater. Obviously, he knows all about paste eating, and not much else, but paste eating seems to fall within the scope of his knowledge.At any rate, what brought this unfortunate subject up is the absolute sh*tstorm that has been unleashed all because the President of the United States used the word "sh*t" at the G-8 banquet last night. And every lefty blogger in Christendom (if they believed in that sort of thing) is writing about it, linking each other in a frenzy of chattiness and gossip mongering reminiscent of 12-year-old girls at a slumber party. Since liberals usually behave like 12-year-old drama queens anyway, I'm sure they're comfortable as hell feeling themselves up on the subject.I know, I know, one would think, considering the mouth on some former occupants of the White House who will go unrecognized, that the left wouldn't be casting stones so close to glass houses. He-with-the-constantly-unflaccid-penis swore like a sailor, as did his wife: She-who-throws-ashtrays-like-frisbees. To be fair, the drama queens are also chattering about other things the President said. As he chats with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bush expresses amazement that it will take Putin and an unidentified leader just as long to fly home to Moscow as it will take him to fly back to Washington. Putin’s reply could not be heard."You, eight hours? Me, too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country. Takes him eight hours to fly home. Not Coke, diet Coke. ... Russia’s big and so is China. Yo Blair, what’re you doing? Are you leaving?” Bush said. I have a challenge for you liberals out there. Bug your neighbor and tape his conversations for a couple of days. This has two advantages. First, you'll be doing us all a favor (including the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, the DIA, DHS, and probably a couple of super-duper secret agencies we know nothing about but you're paranoid of anyway) by ascertaining whether or not your next-door neighbor is a terrorist. But more importantly, you'll discover what human beings talk about during their waking hours.The Nobel Prize winning playwright (and anti-American dolt) Harold Pinter used to go to the park near his flat in London, sit on a bench, and listen to people talk. What he found was absolutely startling. In their unguarded moments, even people who've known each other for 50 years talk about nothing at all. Pinter's plays are full of disjointed, disconnected dialogue that works because everyone recognizes it for what it truly is: the grunts and sighs, the vocalizations of human beings talking, not to communicate, but to assure each other that they mean each other no harm. In short, people talk like Bush does in order to put people at ease in a social situation. (I'd love to see Dr. Sanity delve into this.)Those fellows at the summit don't know each other all that well – not in the biblical sense, although watching creepy Putin kiss that kid on the stomach last week chilled my bones – and certainly not in the way long time friends relate to each other. Making polite small talk, as Bush was doing, was a fascinating example of Pinterian dialogue. His comments about Russia's size, the time it takes to fly home, and especially his recognition that Blair was leaving – all of this could have been lifted from a Pinter play. It's how everyone talks. And the fact that it doesn't sound "Presidential" or "intelligent" shouldn't surprise us. It is strange and fascinating to catch a President in the act of being human. But of course, there was also the President expressing what was clearly frustration at the United Nations for not getting on Syria's tail and getting Hizballah to stop shooting and face facts. Bush expressed his frustration with the United Nations and his disgust with the militant Islamic group and its backers in Syria as he talked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the closing lunch at the Group of Eight summit."See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this sh*t and it’s over,” Bush told Blair, as he chewed on a buttered roll.Ezra Klein not only puts the entire incident in perspective, but recognizes how low "political reporting" has fallen: That's a big deal: Bush believes it within the Syrian government's power to calm the conflict. Theoretically, that should have major implications for American diplomacy and, possibly, policy. So what's CNN's headline? "Open mic catches Bush expletive on Mideast"! The story is not that his substantive views on the issue have been uncovered, but that the president curses. Indeed, the article even speculates on how such a stunner slipped out, arguing that "the escalating crisis in the Middle East prompted him to use an expletive in a conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This is your press corps. The President has a potty mouth is a more pressing story than the President believe sufficient pressure on the sovereign nation of Syria could be the key to ending an intensely volatile war in the Middle East. What a proud day for my profession.Don't get out the self-flagellating whip quite yet. Not when every top lefty blog is all a’twitter over the President's potty mouth. Saying “sh*t” out loud in a public place may have lost almost all of its shock value since the left has degraded language and meaning. But all of that is forgotten when Bush uses the term. All of a sudden, the word is indicative of the President's (please choose only one) 1) incoherence, 2) simple mindedness, 3) confusion, 4) lack of vocabulary, or 5) stupidity. I suppose, when an intellectual like TBogg or Micheal Moore uses the word, it's fraught with subtext and meaning. But when our Texas President uses it, it just shows what a sh*tkicking cracker he truly is.I am glad I am finished writing now. Reaching for that star was getting to be a pain in the ass. Almost as hard as typing the words "intelligent" and "liberal" when they're right next to each other. Thankfully, I've had no occasion that I can recall offhand where my fingers were called upon to make that kind of effort.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

"Operation Just Reward" Penalizing The Lebanese

Rick Moran — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:29:28 EDT

You'll get no argument from me that Israel's punitive campaign against their Hezbollah tormentors is long overdue and should continue until the terrorists are severely crippled in their ability to harm Israeli citizens.But "Operation Just Reward" is also imperiling almost a year's worth of hard, slogging work done by a few heroic individuals in Lebanon who have braved assassination threats (and attempts), risked their political hides, and at great personal cost, carefully tried to maneuver through the minefields of Lebanese politics in order to give this tragic country a real shot at something all of us here in America devoutly wish -- a secular, free market democracy in the Middle East.While our attention here has been rightly focused on the struggles for democracy and security in Iraq, Lebanon has been going through a wrenching process of self examination and national dialogue that at times has threatened to shatter the fragile coalition of disparate groups who came together in the wake of the assassination of the former Prime Minister, the beloved Rafiq Hariri. Much more comfortable fighting each other than planning an electoral coup, these groups representing all religions, clans, regions, and interests were able to drive millions into the streets to protest Syria's stranglehold on their country. Their unity led to the premature withdrawal of Syrian forces and a surprising electoral victory for their coalition, the March 14 Forces, a year ago.Things have not gone very smoothly since then. Wrestling with a bloody past, trying to get beyond a civil war that lasted nearly a quarter of a century, the factions have squabbled over ministry appointments, failed to unite in an effort to oust the Syrian stooge President Emile Lahoud, nearly dissolved over a new electoral law that would do away with much of the artificial sectarian divisions in politics, and most importantly, failed to confront Hezbollah and their allies in government over a multitude of sins.Israel's raid into Lebanon to retrieve their captured soldiers and their call for the Lebanese government to rein in the terrorists who operate within their borders are making Prime Minster Fouad Siniora's life extremely difficult. A Sunni Muslim and long-time friend of the Hariri family, Siniora has guided his quarrelsome government with competence but, many critics allege, without much imagination. This may be an unfair criticism because most of the stickiest problems facing Lebanon can be traced to the divided loyalties of some of its most powerful factions.Syria's departure left a power vacuum that Hezbollah was only too ready to step in and fill. It's simplistic to refer to them as a terrorist group given the fact that they have become a symbol of resistance to the Israelis as well as a huge provider of government services in southern Lebanon. Their spiritual leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is one of the most popular political figures in the country, although that popularity is being sorely tested thanks to his unilateral decision to commit aggression against the Israelis. Their influence on the majority Shia population extends far beyond their rather meager representation in Parliament. And, when it comes right down to the nitty gritty, they're one of the only ones with guns in the country. It is widely thought that they are Syria's representatives in government which doesn't seem to hurt them politically as much as it should. There is also divided loyalty found in in the army as several officers have been implicated in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri. President Lahoud, himself an ex-general, may even have been involved in Hariri's killing. In this atmosphere of distrust and recrimination, the Lebanese government is almost totally helpless.Walid Jumblatt, the canny old Druze warlord and head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party, pointed to Hezbollah's divided loyalties as part of Lebanon's larger dilemma:"They don't make independent decisions," he said. "Lebanon is being squeezed on one side from the Israelis and on the other side by the Iranians and the Syrians through proxy. Unfortunately, now Lebanon is a battleground."The other part of Lebanon's dilemma is that the government's writ simply doesn't run in the southern part of their own country. Asking the Lebanese government to prevent Hezbollah from carrying out attacks simply isn't feasible. The army is not powerful enough to take them on. Nor is the political will there to force them to disarm. Hence, Nasrallah has skillfully played his role as both independent operator and aligning Hezbollah with the March 14 Forces by participating in the political process. And he was strengthened last February when another independent player, former Prime Minister Michel Auon, formed an alliance with Hezbollah outside the national dialogue that is proceeding at a snail's pace to reform and reshape the government. The larger than life Auon has been critical of the March 14 Forces for trying to force Hezbollah to disarm. Auon also has his eyes on the Presidency and having a force like Hezbollah on his side certainly doesn't hurt his cause.But the ultimate question has to be who controls Hezbollah? Much has been made of Iranian and Syrian support for the group but some analysts see Nasrallah's aggression against Israel as triggered by domestic politics more than foreign instruction. Nasrallah had been delaying any serious talks with the government about disarming his militia for almost a year, dangling the prospect of folding Hezbollah into the armed forces in some way. He has also maneuvered in Parliament by having the legislature declare Hezbollah "The Resistance" rather than identify them a a militia. But pressure had been building for Lebanon to comply with UN Resolution 1559 that calls for the disarming of all militias and the extension of control by the Lebanese government over all of Lebanon. If Nasrallah was feeling the heat, he may have initiated action against Israel to solidify Hezbollah's position.Instead, if in fact Nasrallah took the soldiers - an operation planned for months - thinking Israel, tied down as they were in Gaza, wouldn't seriously retaliate, he has gravely miscalculated. The Israelis are visiting ruin upon the terrorists and could weaken Nasrallah's army to the point where the Lebanese army could move in and occupy positions in the south:After a cabinet meeting Thursday, the government said it had a right and duty to extend its control over all Lebanese territory. Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat said the statement marked a step toward the government reasserting itself.Other government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, went further, calling it a first move in possibly sending the Lebanese army to the border, a U.N.-endorsed proposal that Hezbollah has rejected. The officials described the meeting as stormy and contentious but said both sides -- Hezbollah and its government critics -- were especially wary of public divisions at a time of crisis."It is becoming very clear that the state alone must bear responsibility for the country's foreign policy," said Samir Franjieh, a parliament member who is close to the Hariri bloc. "But our problem now is that Israel is taking things so far that if there is no help from the international community, the situation could get out of hand."One wouldn't expect Nasrallah to concede without a fight unless he literally had no choice. And that's why the government, angry at the Israelis as they are, may not be too broken up at the prospect of a vastly weakened Hezbollah. In effect, the Jewish state may be helping to solve their problems for them. While it won't bring the two nations any closer, substituting the Lebanese army on the Israeli border for Hezbollah will go a long way to ease tensions between them.At the moment, no one knows whether this latest crisis will lead to a stronger central government in Lebanon or whether the pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian forces will become ascendant and set back the cause of Lebanese democracy for years. Either way, Israel's intervention in order to punish its Hezbollah tormentors couldn't have come at a worse time.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

Middle East: Teetering On The Edge Of The Abyss

Rick Moran — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 19:48:10 EDT

The news out of the Middle East today is grim and getting more grim by the hour. Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran are nerving themselves for a confrontation that could turn into a general war if things were to get out of control.First, visit my friends Kit and Heidi at Euphoric Reality. They will have regular updates throughout the day and night. Their sources appear solid and their analysis is sharp. Also, they will be on WAR Radio tonight from 10:00 PM - 12:00AM Central with their thoughts and reactions to the days events. These events seem to this observer to be slowly spiraling out of control. This is not the sudden spasm of war as we experienced in 1967 and 1973. This is like a slow motion explosion, almost a steady, determined march toward the battlements by Israel and its enemies as the IDF put more and more pressure on Hamas and the Palestinians to relent and release their captured soldier. It was perhaps inevitable that Hezbollah, believing the Israelis tied down in Gaza, felt it an opportune moment to pull the tail of the lion thinking that they would be relatively safe from retaliation. This morning, the terrorist group launched dozens of rockets and mortar shells into the disputed Shebaa Farms region in southern Lebanon killing several IDF soldiers. They then kidnapped two surviving IDF men which precipitated the massive raid by Israel involving planes, helicopters, gunboats, and tanks. So far, the Israelis are making Hezbollah wish they had stayed in bed.Meanwhile, the United States is pointing the finger right where it belongs; Syria and Iran. If not aware of Hezbollah's attack prior to its launch, there is little doubt that the terrorists felt they would have the support of their two major backers in case things got sticky. Given what the IDF is doing to Hezbollah pretensions of being a viable military outfit, things couldn't get much stickier for them than they are right now.Israel is calling up reserves and sources have revealed that unless the kidnapped soldiers are returned, Israel will escalate even further:The IAF on Wednesday began to issue call up orders in preparation for retaliatory air strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, Channel 2 reported. The air force will target power stations and Hezbollah outposts inside Lebanon. The army was also calling up reservists. Only weeks ago, an entire reserve division was drafted in order to train for an operation such as the one the IDF is planning in response to Wednesday morning's Hezbollah attacks on IDF forces along the northern border. A very high ranking military officer said that if the soldiers were not returned in good condition, Israel would turn Lebanon back 20 years by striking its vital infrastructure.Clearly, the Israelis have had just about enough of Hezbollah and their constant provocations and are giving the Lebanese government pretty much of an ultimatum -- rein in the terrorists or suffer the consequences.It appears that Israel may have reached a point that, surrounded as they are by peoples that wish to wipe them off the map, they feel that confronting their tormentors now rather than later is strategically advantageous to them. Hence, the IDF raid into Lebanon to retrieve the two captured soldiers (and pay a visit to Hezbollah) is not only a challenge to Syria (who view themselves as Lebanon's "protector") but also Iran who may be eager to flex their regional muscles on behalf of their Syrian allies.And Iran's most powerful proxy in the region is Hezbollah. It may be too much to believe that the Iranians urged Hizballah to take action in order to relieve pressure on Hamas - another Iranian proxy - in Gaza but it's a possibility that can't be dismissed. More likely, Hezbollah's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah initiated the military action as a result of a combination of internal Lebanese politics and a belief that he could bargain for the thousands of Lebanese prisoners (many of them Hezbollah terrorists) languishing in Israeli prisons.Nasrallah has been under increasing pressure from the March 14 coalition to get on board the democracy bandwagon and disarm his militia. He has played games with the Lebanese government for months, dangling the possibility that he would fold his militia into the Lebanese armed forces all the while insisting that Hezbollah be called "The Resistance" for their confronting Israel over Shebaa Farms, a small village claimed by Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. It could be that Nasrallah saw the opportunity for a quick "victory" over Israel by taking the soldiers and then exchanging them for Lebanese prisoners. If so, he has miscalculated monumentally. The Lebanese government has disowned his actions, the Israelis are shelling Hezbollah positions unmercifully as I write this, and after all is said and done, the Lebanese people could blame Hezbollah for the misery their actions inflict on the country.And the Israelis aren't letting the Lebanese government off the hook that easily. They are blaming them for the attacks. And why not? The attacks were initiated from Lebanese soil. The downside to this is that the Lebanese government may feel compelled to defend Hezbollah even though they really don't want to. This kind of thing could set back efforts to achieve Lebanese stability and democracy many months.Iran, of course, has its own agenda. If Syria feels some kind of military demonstration is in order (and as Lebanon's protector, Assad may feel he absolutely must do something or lose credibility in that regard), Israel may feel compelled to respond to any attack or demonstration with a strike of their own. Escalation would be virtually automatic after that happens.This doesn't help Baby Assad in Syria. Relatively speaking, Iran is a long way away and it is doubtful that Syria's larger but vastly inferior armed forces could stand up to Israel long enough for Iranian intervention to make a difference. But the Iranians may have other plans which could include missile strikes on Israel's cities. God help us if the Iranians are stupid enough to initiate a missile exchange. Could the IDF be absolutely sure that those missiles contained conventional warheads? Would they wait to find out or would Israel go with a "launch on warning" policy where they just assume that any missile launched from Iran contains WMD? Unthinkable.None of the players want war (save possibly Iran). But the longer Israel remains in Lebanon, the shorter the fuse of war will burn. Let's hope that Israel can get their captured soldiers back very soon. The alternative would be devastating to everyone involved.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

Crosstown Showdown: Take Two

Rick Moran — Sun, 2 Jul 2006 17:04:59 EDT

If I didn't hate them so much, I might feel a smidgen of pity for those hapless Chicago Cubs. After playing well enough to win with timely hitting, good defense, and clutch pitching, their efforts fell victim to the World Champion South Siders' penchant for pulling a rabbit out of their hat at the last possible moment to gain victory where defeat seemed a foregone conclusion.Ten times this year the Chicago White Sox came back to win a game in their last at bat. Not only does this make exciting baseball, but it also necessitates my frequent use of a paper bag to purge the excess oxygen in my lungs due to hyperventilation. It worries me that at this rate, watching my beloved Pale Hose could become hazardous to my health. With 24 on hiatus and my beloved Bears not starting their Super Bowl run until September, I would be forced to do something useful with my life this summer like finding a cure for cancer or ordering up world peace.Regardless, the most recent feat of Chisox legerdemain was accomplished yesterday at Wrigley Field. Trailing 6-5 going into the top half of the ninth inning, Cubs closer Ryan Dempster (1-5) seemed to have regained his early season form as he retired the first two Sox hitters with ease. Dempster was a terror in April and early May, going 6-for-6 in closing opportunities with a minuscule 1.38 ERA only to lose his edge during the North Sider's long losing streaks since. This is death for any closer who depends on frequent and regular work to stay sharp both physically and mentally. No opportunities to close out a victory meant a steady erosion in Dempster's confidence and skills. It showed yesterday.With light-hitting Ross Gload at the plate, Dempster threw a pretty good slider that was hit straight back at him, right between his legs. The ball grazed off his glove as Dempster tried to field it and it caromed to shortstop Ronny Cedeno. Too late, Gload was able to beat the toss to first.This caused Dempster to lose concentration as he walked Sox clean-up hitter Jermaine Dye on five pitches. With runners at first and second, up to the plate stepped the man Cubs fans love to hate. A.J. Piersynski, who took a punch to the face delivered by Cubs catcher Michael Barrett during round one of the season series at US Cellular Park last month, paid the Cubbies back in spades when he got a hold of a hanging slider and sent the ball into orbit. Replays showed the pitch hovering like a ripe plum right in A.J.'s comfort zone – belt high and over the middle of the plate. Piersynski's blast made the score 8-6. All that was left in the bottom of the ninth was for Sox closer Bobby Jenks to come in and wipe the blood off the floor, which he did with his usual alacrity, setting the Cubs down with nary a peep. It was Jenks' league leading 25th save. The fireballer's 100 mph heater will make him as much of a sure thing when it comes to closing games. Simply awesome.While both of the game's starters Javier Vasquez and Greg Maddux had to deal with a 19 mph gale blowing out at Wrigley Field, the game was not as much an offensive explosion as others have been in the history of wind-blown Wrigley. While there were 6 home runs hit by both sides, I can recall games where hitting a pop-fly behind second base ended up a souvenir for one of the bleacher bums in the right field stands. Suffice it to say that both pitchers fared better than others in that situation due to throwing effective sinkers. Vasquez especially was able to wriggle out of jams by sawing off Cubs hitters thanks to his moving, dipping fastball. In fact, if he had been able to contain Cubs slugger Aramis Ramirez, the score wouldn't have been close. The third baseman had a double, triple, and home run, accounting for five of the six Cub runs (the other coming on a homer by Sox killer Jacque Jones).Besieged manager Dusty Baker could only shake his head at his team's creativity in finding one more way to lose a ballgame. It probably won't matter to him too much longer as attendance starts to plummet on the North Side thanks to the Cubbies being out of the race earlier than usual. This will lead to the inevitable dismissal of a manager who has proven himself a winner everywhere he has been. And it will hide the incompetence and myopia of one of the richest corporations in the world, the Tribune Company, who fielded a team this year unworthy of a great city and a storied franchise.The Cubs' troubles aren't only on the field; they are also in the front office and on the top floors of the Tribune building. Until those issues are addressed, the North Siders' famous adage of "wait until next year" will be chanted earlier and earlier in the season until the saying itself becomes an anachronism, a quaint hope for the fans of a franchise that just doesn't care enough about winning.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

Escaping The Legal And Moral Quagmire of Guantanamo

Rick Moran — Sat, 1 Jul 2006 11:03:44 EDT

To those of us on the right who still vigorously support the President in the War on Terror, the Hamdan ruling presents us with a golden opportunity to start repairing the damage our detainee policy at Guantanamo has inflicted upon our Constitutional principles as well as our image abroad.To those on the left who, despite the unambiguous ruling by the Supreme Court in Hamdan that we are indeed in a shooting war with al-Qaeda, but still insist that the War on Terror is some kind of gigantic Rovian plot to win elections, the decision is a godsend. It gives liberals a second chance to prove they are serious about protecting America from her enemies by joining with the President and Republicans in Congress in resolving the legal status of detainees in such a way that satisfies both the demands of justice and our national security.Camp Delta has become an iconic symbol worldwide of American hypocrisy in the War on Terror. The name "Guantanamo" will go down in history with other notorious prisons such as the French nightmare penitentiary on Devil's Island and the North Vietnamese disreputable POW camp known as "The Hanoi Hilton." Regardless of whether or not Guantanamo matched those two facilities in sheer brutality and horror, the fact remains that the narrative supplied by western media to describe Guantanamo to the rest of the world has made it so. And in propaganda, perception is everything. There are no starving skeletons or daily beatings as there were at Devil's Island and the Hanoi Hilton. But the brutality that has been confirmed by independent observers, including our own military and the FBI, is real enough and has brought shame to the United States and damaged our reputation as a champion of justice and human rights among friend and foe alike.These are simply the facts. It does no good to argue that what goes on at Guantanamo doesn't rise to the level of torture. Not anymore. One of the main findings in Hamdan was that the detainees at Guantanamo – no matter how bloodthirsty and heinous their crimes – are entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. This includes being protected against "[o]utrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." This means many of the relatively mild "stress techniques" of interrogation well-documented elsewhere were, and are, illegal. And that's only the half of it. The Hamdan decision also knocked the chocks from underneath the government's position that it could try Guantanamo detainees using the rubric of military tribunals. While sympathetic to the reasons given by the government for using the tribunals – namely that trying terrorists in open court could endanger the innocent – the Supremes nevertheless firmly ruled that such tribunals violated the Geneva Convention and hence, U.S. law. The bottom line is that the Supreme Court ruled that the United States government acted illegally and unconstitutionally in the way it has treated detainees at Guantanamo. So the question is no longer one of right or wrong but rather what to do about the mess we have made in Guantanamo.This mess includes the fact our government lied to us when they informed the American people that the prisoners at Guantanamo were "the worst of the worst." The facts contained in the military's own records simply do not bear that out. And it is clear, at least to this observer, one of the main reasons the government insists on holding many of these detainees is not the fear that, if released, they would commit heinous acts of terror but rather because by releasing them now it would prove that the military made many, many tragic mistakes in capturing, interrogating, and holding dozens of innocent men and boys.An exhaustive examination of the military's "Combatant Status Review Tribunals" by two National Journal reporters last February revealed this shocking conclusion:Many of them are not accused of hostilities against the United States or its allies. Most, when captured, were innocent of any terrorist activity, were Taliban foot soldiers at worst, and were often far less than that. And some, perhaps many, are guilty only of being foreigners in Afghanistan or Pakistan at the wrong time. And much of the evidence -- even the classified evidence -- gathered by the Defense Department against these men is flimsy, second-, third-, fourth- or 12th-hand. It's based largely on admissions by the detainees themselves or on coerced, or worse, interrogations of their fellow inmates, some of whom have been proved to be liars. Perhaps most shocking of all is that despite repeated assurances from Administration officials that the Guantanamo detainees were captured "on the battlefield" in Afghanistan, the facts contained in the military's own records do not support that contention. In fact, it appears that many of the detainees were captured in Pakistan and were handed over to the Americans by:"...reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords and by villagers of highly doubtful reliability. These locals had strong incentives to tar as terrorists any and all Arabs they could get their hands on...including noncombatant teachers and humanitarian workers. And the Bush administration has apparently made very little effort to corroborate the plausible claims of innocence detailed by many of the men who were handed over..." How little effort has been made to establish claims of innocence? The Guardian features a story today about one Abdullah Mujahid who the government claims was plotting against the United States. Two years ago, the military invited Mr. Mujahid to prove his innocence by calling witnesses in his defense before a tribunal. A few months later, the government informed Mujahid that the witnesses could not be found which meant that his incarceration would continue indefinitely. The newspaper however, found three of the witnesses within three days. One was working for President Karzai, advising him on tribal affairs. Another teaches at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.The Guantanamo records are replete with examples of such incompetence or deliberate malfeasance, depending on your point of view. And herein lies the root of the quagmire at Guantanamo; our inability to admit we were wrong about some of these people and work to redress the injustice.Clearly, there are many detainees at Guantanamo who should never see the outside of prison bars again. And now that the Supreme Court has offered guidance on what to do with these terrorists – specifically asking the President to go to Congress to get the legal authority to try them – those of us who are interested in both justice and our nation's security should wholeheartedly support this effort.But what can we do to determine the status of hundreds of others whose incarceration is a blot on American jurisprudence and shames our Constitution and our most cherished values? Clearly there must be procedures using our civilian courts to weed out the innocent from the dangerous. And Congress can also intervene here by developing guidelines in concert with the Justice Department and the Department of Defense to insure that justice is done and our national security is protected.One of the major stumbling blocks is the fact that much of the evidence gathered against detainees is of a classified nature. And evidence gathered as a result of interrogation of other prisoners, if released in open court, could endanger the person who supplied that information. For this reason, detainees cannot enjoy all the rights afforded American citizens in similar circumstances. But they should have the right to an attorney, the right to a speedy review of their case, the right to an examination of the evidence by an impartial judge, and perhaps a limited right to face their accuser if possible. At the very least, the above gives us a basis for action. Congress has been dithering about this issue for more than three years, passing the buck to the Department of Justice and the Defense Department. Now that the Supreme Court has cleared up some of the issues surrounding detainees at Guantanamo, Congress could indeed clear up most of the others by dealing with detainee rights in a forthright manner that could begin to repair some of the damage done to our reputation as a champion of human rights and the rule of law.We will be at war with international jihadism for many years. Besides winning on the battlefield, it is absolutely essential that we also win the hearts and minds of the hundreds of millions of Muslims who reject the violence and nihilism of the extremists and really do wish to rid themselves of the terrorists. This won't happen as long as some of our policies reveal us to be hypocrites and worse, little better than the governments that oppress them on a daily basis.We simply must stand for something better, something that we can be proud of. But as long as our detainee policy continues to show us at our worst, it will be impossible for many to see us at our best.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.

Victory Is In Sight in Iraq

Rick Moran — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 20:29:54 EDT

Yes, victory. For all the sneering lefties who will come here and try and explain away the news that the freely elected government of Iraq is about ready to ask the United States military to leave once certain conditions are met and a timetable relating to those conditions is agreed upon, this is the very definition of a win for our side (no thanks to you). Our leaving would also be predicated on the acceptance by the insurgents of some kind of amnesty program for those who fought American troops but not for terrorists who deliberately targeted Iraqi civilians.How is this different than John Kerry or the Democrats asking for a "timetable" based on arbitrary and capricious criteria, specifically neglecting the insurgency factor? For one thing, the proposal comes from the Iraqis themselves, not self-serving domestic politicians wishing to score points with our electorate. For another, no Democrat ever proposed anything that would have taken into account a ratcheting down of much of the insurgency. It never entered into any discussion on any of the resolutions offered in the Senate. The timetables would have been based solely on Iraqi capabilities not on a concomitant easing of the security situation by drawing the insurgents into politics.In short, not only will we leave once the Iraqis can stand up, but also when most of the insurgents lay down.This is a formula for victory albeit not a complete one. Both the White House and the military have fiercely opposed amnesty in the past and will probably continue to do so. I made the point here that though it would be a bitter pill to swallow, we must expect some kind of amnesty program. For Prime Minister Maliki, who is proceeding more quickly and with more determination than anyone expected, the amnesty program is the cornerstone of his Grand Solution or "National Reconciliation Plan:"A timetable for withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq. Amnesty for all insurgents who attacked U.S. and Iraqi military targets. Release of all security detainees from U.S. and Iraqi prisons. Compensation for victims of coalition military operations.Those sound like the demands of some of the insurgents themselves, and in fact they are. But they're also key clauses of a national reconciliation plan drafted by new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who will unveil it Sunday. The provisions will spark sharp debate in Iraq—but the fiercest opposition is likely to come from Washington, which has opposed any talk of timetables, or of amnesty for insurgents who have attacked American soldiers.[snip]The plan also calls for a withdrawal timetable for coalition forces from Iraq, but it doesn't specify an actual date—one of the Sunnis' key demands. It calls for "the necessity of agreeing on a timetable under conditions that take into account the formation of Iraqi armed forces so as to guarantee Iraq's security," and asks that a U.N. Security Council decree confirm the timetable. Mahmoud Othman, a National Assembly member who is close to President Talabani, said that no one disagrees with the concept of a broad, conditions-based timetable. The problem is specifying a date, which the United States has rejected as playing into the insurgents' hands. But Othman didn't rule out that reconciliation negotiations called for in the plan might well lead to setting a date. "That will be a problem between the Iraqi government and the other side [the insurgents], and we will see how it goes. It's not very clear yet."It may surprise you to learn that Iraqi government officials have been in contact with several of the larger insurgent groups for months. Since many of the major Sunni rebel groups are made up of men with tribal and clan loyalties, negotiators have been hard pressed to get a consensus among so many disparate groups. Apparently the ex-Baathists are one of the largest if not the largest insurgent group and are also being difficult although holding out the bait of political participation (making the party legal again) could work in Maliki's favor. But what will Washington do? In the end, Bush will have little choice in the matter. When the Iraqis ask us to leave and set the conditions for that to happen, we can hardly say no. Yes, we can push for a more limited amnesty and for more flexibility in the timetable. But resisting a pullout at this point just doesn't make sense.The President should schedule either a press conference or an oval office address for Monday or Tuesday at the latest. It's not like they haven't been kept fully informed of what has been going on so our response should be immediate. And Bush should take the opportunity to come out and say flatly that this is the path to victory. Not only would it undercut his critics, but he should carefully take the time to explain how this is different than the proposals made by the the cut and run Democrats who were so soundly defeated in the Senate last week.The insurgency is only part of the problem, of course. Al Qaeda in Iraq will not give up no matter what most Sunni groups end up doing. And then there are the lawless gangs of thugs who run large sections of Baghdad and some of the larger cities, making citizens pay them protection and running kidnapping rackets as well as engaging in murder for hire and other crimes of violence. This is a law enforcement problem that can be tackled vigorously once most of the police are freed up from concentrating on stopping insurgent and terrorist attacks. And Prime Minister Maliki seems to have his priorities straight:Maliki's reconciliation plan will undoubtedly be the subject of protracted discussions, and not everyone in the Iraqi government is pleased with it. The document also calls for bringing militias and "death squads" under control—a provision which the powerful Shia party, SCIRI, is not happy with, because it effectively equates militias with the insurgents. Maliki is also Shia but from the Dawa party. And Sunnis, for their part, are reluctant to renounce the insurgency when they are still threatened by Shia militias, and by Shia-dominated police. "The Sunnis have only one card to play, the insurgency," says the senior coalition official. "They don't have enough population and they're not sitting on any of the resources. Therefore their political identity is almost entirely defined by the insurgency."Breaking that Shia/Sunni impasse won't be easy. But as the U.S. ambassador says, "Every war must come to an end," and few on any side in Iraq any longer believe they can kill their way to peace. The only alternative is to try to talk their way there.Peace. Victory. And with some hard negotiating along with a little luck vouchsafed by a just and merciful Providence, our boys and girls can come home in triumph.

Rick Moran is a conservative free lance writer living in the great Ex-Urbs of Chicago, IL.