Tag Archives: Iran

Bullets instead of kisses

Posted on January 27, 2007 | Comments Off on Bullets instead of kisses

For more than a year, the Bush administration has been quietly playing kissy-face with the mad mullahs, doing a little overlooking of their high-explosive coming into Iraq to kill Americans and capturing-and-releasing (without harming) their agents. All to try and convince the mad mullahs that Americans are ever so nice, if the mullahs will just pick up and go home. No need to have a war, don’t you know. Now, supposedly, it’s going to be open season on Iranian soldiers in Iraq. It makes me want to scream. Do we have any American politicians who aren’t morons?

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Posted in The War, Troops

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President Bush unfiltered

Posted on January 23, 2007 | Comments Off on President Bush unfiltered

Some conservative and libertarian bloggers, Bush supporters all though they wish he would fight harder, are calling it his best State of the Union message yet. While I agree that it’s doubtfull it will do him much good politically, it at least had the virtue of reinvigorating those of us who have supported him all along.

"Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers."

New Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s rebuttal got less praise, particularly his claim that a majority of the military doesn’t support the "way this war is being fought." That’s a narrow enough claim that it might have some truth to it, since I suspect from all the milblogs that I’ve read that the military would, if anything, like to fight harder, eradicate Mookie and his gang, and hit Iran and Syria, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. But not, as Webb implied, that they’d sooner abandon Iraq.

Steve Green, the Vodkapundit who is struggling with what might be Graves Disease, concluded after live-blogging Bush’s effort that about all that seventh-year presidents have left to accomplish is foreigh policy. That would be a lot for Bush who staked his all on it after 9/11. Hopefully he will follow through on his words this time, and we’ll finally have a resolution to the trouble Iran and Syria are fomenting in Iraq and Lebanon, possibly through military action, or whatever it takes. We can hope so, anyway.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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An inside job

Posted on January 23, 2007 | Comments Off on An inside job

Omar at Iraq the Model thinks the killings of those five American troops in Karbala last Saturday was not the usual insurgent or sectarian violence but more likely an inside job engineered by Iran with the cooperation of the local Iraqi police.

"…this was not just a brazen attack by some militia or terrorists; behind this is a message and a threat from Iran and its surrogates…"

If that proves to be true–and American troops are interrogating everyone involved–there might soon be some use for the strike fighters of those two carrier groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf.

Ben of Mesopotamia turns out to have known one of the slain and adds a bit of intel that backs Omar: "…my friend Captain Brian Freeman was killed in Karbala. (I don’t know if his family has been briefed on the details, so for now it suffices to say that Brian and four other members of his Civil Affairs team were killed by militia members, likely Jaish al Mahdi trained in Iran)."

UPDATE  This Jan. 26 AP story, more careful than much of their Iraq reporting, is about the latest the military knows and is willing to disclose about the incident, in which Freeman died first and four others were abducted before being slain. Includes the unconfirmed idea that one of the attackers was a blonde. 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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The Second Holocaust

Posted on January 21, 2007 | Comments Off on The Second Holocaust

It won’t be personal in the least, it will be over in minutes, and it might be that no one, including the USA, will respond:

"The second holocaust will be quite different. One bright morning, in five or 10 years, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran’s acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go-ahead."

A plausible, and therefore chilling, read. Fortunately, it’s only one scenario.

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Posted in Israel, The War

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Help Save Nazanin

Posted on January 9, 2007 | Comments Off on Help Save Nazanin

MullahJustice-1.JPG

The mad mullahs aren’t content with threatening nations like Israel and the US with nuclear annihilation on behalf of a mythic religious figure. They also take out their fundamentalist wrath on teenage girls. Real macho men.

"This entire situation is evidence of how primitive, barbaric, and misogynistic the Iranian Islamic regime really is. Iran supposedly has signed international treaties which forbid them to execute any one under the age of 18; however they continue to do so under Islamic Sharia law."

Good read at Dr. Sanity with advice how you can help save a young lady who planted a knife in her wouldbe rapist.

UPDATE Nazanin has been acquited, but with a catch. Now she has to pay "blood money" to the family of her wouldbe rapist, until which time her bail stands at more than $40,000 or she can’t get out of prison. What a charming system. 

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Posted in The War

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W’s last stand

Posted on January 6, 2007 | Comments Off on W’s last stand

In Bush’s coming speech Wednesday we’ll learn whether he finally has the will to do what he should already have done, i.e. taken the war to Iran, Syria and, if they don’t stop sending money and volunteers to Iraq’s Sunni insurgency, Saudi Arabia. Or not. He’s made so little effort in the past four years to explain himself and his strategy, popping up every three months or so to make another speech, then disappearing again for another three months, that serious change doesn’t seem to be in him. Apparently he’s just going to shuffle the commanders around and send a token 10,000 more troops to Iraq for "a push," which will be inconsequential in the long run. It will just give the bad guys more American targets to shoot at and bomb, while Iraq’s neighbors keep undermining Iraq and us. Debka sees hope for more than a token effort. But Debka always sees more, whether it materializes or not. For one thing, Debka has the Stennis carrier strike group already headed for the Persian Gulf when the Navy says it won’t leave until late this month. So far, we haven’t even had the sense to arrest or kill Mookie Sadr and put his Shiite militia out of business. Bush might as well bring the troops home, or shuffle some to Afghanistan, where Iran and Pakistan can go on undermining the effort there. Not that I think the Dems have anything more to offer than retreat. Wretchard says what we really need is the will to win. The bitterly divided populace plainly doesn’t have it. It’s becoming apparent that even the leadership doesn’t. Not even 9/11 could produce it, and it remains to be seen if even a second 9/11 would do it. Though we may get the chance to find out.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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Surge or escalation?

Posted on January 4, 2007 | Comments Off on Surge or escalation?

Democrats already are calling the proposed surge of troops into Iraq "an escalation," reiving the terms of Vietnam. But apparently Bush’s coming speech about what a surge would mean will turn on some aspect of this "secret plan" captured with the Iranians of recent days–who were, then, incredibly, let go.

Omar at Iraq the Model is astounded that anyone would think that the plan’s disclosure of Iranian and Syrian cooperation with the Sunni insurgents and the Shia death squads is unusual:

"This war is different from conventional wars; networks of terror and their relationships with their supporting regimes and the manner in which they work are complex and different than those of conventional enemies and this situation necessitates that our ways evolve and adjust accordingly."

Meanwhile, the Navy says a second carrier battle group for the Persian Gulf won’t leave Washington until later this month. Perhaps it’s just another empty show of force. Or perhaps Bush has finally decided to do something about Syria and Iran, the latter hinting that its bomb will be ready by March 20.

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