Freedom's Truth

A good IDF fight song ...

Speaking of very solvable problem, consider this exchange recently on another message board:

"Firstly, I would dispute (and if I was a US citizen I would strongly dispute ) the assertion that the Social Security Trust Fund etc. belongs to the government."

You can dispute it all you want. Until Congress passes the kind of personal savings account proposal that Bush was pushing last year, your Social Security payments are in hock to the whims of the Congress-critters.

Congress could screw the over-65 people tomorrow by simply pasing a law... We know the power of ballot box prevents that, so Congress screw the *under-40* crowd, ie next generation by NOT doing anything to remove the Soc Sec timebomb and leaving it status quo.

Frankly, the financial numbers are grossly unimportant to the perils the US is in. The main perils are wholly due to unwillingness to simply solve the - very solvable - problems we face.

As I saw on a bumper sticker once: The only crisis is a crisis in leadership.

A modest proposal for saving the world from poverty, war, famine, environmental destruction, economic depression, cultural degeneracy and bad manners:

That 'cargo cult' liberalism article got me thinking about the decline and fall of 'progressives'. That and mideast turmoil, and the general level of fear in the world and in politics today got me thinking - too much fear, not enough hope; too much emotion, not enough ideas. Time for some ideas to clear the air. This should be a time of hope. We better off than we were in 1980, when USSR was astride the globe; today a single cell phone is more powerful than a supercomputer of 1980; today, more of the world is run by democracy instead of distatorship. There is no reason to suppose the world

Premise #1: Most of the problems of the world are solvable ... if we understand what the problem really is. So why are we not there yet? If it was easy, we'd be there by now. It is not a matter of not having the ability to address them, but first the capacity and courage to understand what the true underlying problems are, and the mindset to fix them without creating bigger problems with the 'solution'. Most of the "problems" of the world are complaints about reality and a desire to make it better.

Most of the world's power brokers are looking out for number one, and most of the ideologiues have other axes to grind, and that creates a reality distortion field around many problems and proposed solutions. Premise #2: Path to a solution starts with the mind; it starts with understanding what the real problem is and the underlying causes.

Aha! Say some. Find the solution and force it on those ungrateful, selfish people who keep doing the wrong thing and problem will get solved. Not so fast. Most of the 'social engineers' of the world ignore the human behavior component - like 'incentives matter' and 'people act on fear and greed' and other basic realities - and simply try to force-fit their ideological utopia in ways that simply cannot and will not work in the real world. Premise #2: Real-world solutions must take into account reality and real-world human behavior.

Consider these problems:

Poverty. root causes: Socialism, corruption in Government, illiteracy. Solution: Free-market economies with strong rule of law, property rights, non-corrupts Governments that spend money on education and basic infrastructure (water, roads, power, sewage). Models - Taiwan, India(!), Chile.

Human-induced global warming via greenhouse gas generation. Root cause is production of CO2 from energy use, ie burning fossil fuels, and other activities (cows and methane etc). This is a good example of fearmongering overwhelming less dramatic reality. Most of the fearmongering is based on models that show a doubling of CO2 in 100 years, and maximize the models impact based on that (ie 5 degree centigrade increase), but then the proposed solution is dramatic and immediate stopping of CO2, taxes, etc. But a doubling of CO2 requires not merely generating CO2 at current rates, but increasing it massively from current levels. In fact, a long-term plan to phase out or ramp down gradually on CO2 producing energy production would work just as well at preventing the doubling of CO2. Human activities have led to CO2 levels of around 370 ppm today versus 280 ppm at the dawn of the industrial age. Here is how US can cut CO2 production by 2/3rds - replace coal-fired and gas-fired power plants with nuclear power plants. If done over a period of 30 years, with 15 power plants a year built, we could 70% of our power generation on greenhouse-gas-free nuclear power within 30 years. Goals: first Kyoto should be scrapped; countries arent meeting targets meant for 2010 anyway. Use today as the baseline, and forget about CO2 trading or emissions credits; the solution will be not to tax CO2 but to simply replace fossil fuel with alternatives; taxes in each country to accomplish that should be up to them . A reasonable goal would be to work toward a maximum of 500 ppm CO2, which means the current levels of CO2 generation need to: first, stop increasing and steady, at 2ppm per year; second, start decreasing within a decade or two. A voluntary goal that all countries might work from to start: reduce the CO2 production per uit of GDP by 1% per year, and those countries that are well above the per capita level, like the US should have a goal of 2% per year (this could still mean CO2 increases, if the economy is growing). Or have a simpler goal of: reduce total CO2 generation by 2% per year. In the end, goals won't matter: Technology, the application of it, and the appropriate incentives to use are what will matter.

The technology that can best solve the global warming problem is nuclear power. Nuclear power is proven safe in the US, has an environmental record that makes it cleaner than any non-renewable alternative; indeed, nuclear power should be considered the other alternative energy, and promoted as such; it is as clean as solar, wind, and hydro (which all have some environmental impacts, as does nuclear with its waste a reprocessing of fuels). In the US today, 104 nuclear power plants provide 20% of our electricity. If we envision a US in 2030 where 80% of our electricity is from nuclear power, similar to where France is today, and we are using twice the total electricity because some of our transportation needs shifted from oil to 'plug-in' (more CO2 reduction!), then we need a total of 800 nuclear power plants. We need to be building them today, at a rate of 35 per year. Each plant would cost about $1 billion, so at a cost of merely $35 billion a year (most of that borne by public utility investors), we could drastically reduce the US contribution to CO2 emissions by 2030.

What about the rest of the world? The answer, if it is to be nuclear power, needs to be based on forms of proliferation-resistant nuclear power plants, that could be used in the developing world. There have been designs where the nuclear 'core' is a cartridge, so that 'refueling' is done once every 15 years and is done by shipping in a whole new reactor core. It's possible, if you extend the US need to the rest of the world, it could take currently 2,000 or so power plants of 1GW or more to serve the world; by 2050 this could be twice or three times as much. This is quite doable, as the cost would be $3 trillion, but spread over 50 years is $60 billion per year, for 60 plants per year constructed.

The other part of global warming would relate to how oil and other fossil fuels are used for transportation and for heat. Replacing both with electricity from nuclear power plants reduces that CO2 component as well. A word about efficiency: We won't solve the CO2 issue with efficiency or energy conservation alone; that will reduce the ratio of value to energy consumption but if total economic activities go up, such impacts will get diminished. For example, going from 20mpg to 40mpg helps, but we are steady-state if miles travelled still doubles. Thus, while efficiency helps, fundamental changes to fuels is required to dramatically reduce our CO2 generation.

If the world has sufficient safe, clean, reliable energy, and it is run on the right ideas - then there is no problem the world faces that can't be solved.

Refugee pleads to MSM: “Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar, a young Christian man, referring to his village. “They are shooting from between our houses.” “Please,’’ he added, “write that in your newspaper.”

... Many Christians from Ramesh and Ain Ebel considered Hezbollah’s fighting methods as much of an outrage as the Israeli strikes. Mr. Amar said Hezbollah fighters in groups of two and three had come into Ain Ebel, less than a mile from Bint Jbail, where most of the fighting has occurred. They were using it as a base to shoot rockets, he said, and the Israelis fired back.

One woman, who would not give her name because she had a government job and feared retribution, said Hezbollah fighters had killed a man who was trying to leave Bint Jbail. “This is what’s happening, but no one wants to say it” for fear of Hezbollah, she said.

Now the Weekly Standard is picking up the Failure of Intelligence meme that I blogged on July 19. Wars against terrorism are asymmetric wars that hinge on information. Our failures regarding intelligence are the critical difference between defeat and victory.

NYTimes plys defeatism on the war in Lebanon to the point of saying: "The very clear winner, for the moment at least, was Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah." If israelis die, he wins; if Lebanese die, he wins; if israel stops before he dies, he wins. Along the way, they lie about what causes Arab extremism: "Its 18-year occupation of the south brought Hezbollah into existence." Um, no. Iranian theocrats brought Hezbollah into existence and it continues as an arm of Iranian influence in Lebanon.

Hezbollah is winning? He says: "in Bint Jbail, a town the Israelis said they controlled, a well-laid Hezbollah ambush pinned down infantrymen from the elite Golani Brigade for hours." He didn't add that IDF forces killed at least 50 Hizbullah operatives and wounded hundreds on Friday during the intense firefight [at Bint Jbail]. Most of the wounded operatives were from Hizbullah's special forces. Weapons stores were seized and senior terrorists killed:

During IDF activity in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon yesterday, IDF forces uncovered 5 anti-tank missiles, 30 hand grenades, 41 ammunition clips, 10 battle vests, 20 assault rifles, 15 handguns, 4 shotguns, a mine detector and equipment used to manufacture and detonate explosive devices. During the activity 26 Hezbollah terrorists were killed by IDF forces.

Strategy page notes:

Israel has destroyed most of Hizbollah's economic assets, and is now going after the military ones. There are thousands of bunkers, fortified buildings and tunnel complexes in southern Lebanon that Hizbollah can use to fight from. Israeli troops may have to battle through all of them to cripple Hizbollahs military strength. Israel has done this successfully against the Palestinians for years. This will not be reported very accurately in the media because that would be boring.

So, despite gaps in intelligence, Israel is taking apart the Hezbollah terrorist organization piece by piece. If the military operation is stopped prematurely, it will be a terrible political miscalculation, the type of miscalculation that continues to give terrorists escapes they don't deserve. ... Islamofascism Delenda Est. Terrorism Delenda Est. Hezbollah Delenda Est. Al Qaeda Delenda Est

End-time Panic and the Liberal Ghost Dance exposes the psychology of the Left.

Another day, another terrorist attack on Israeli civilians: Hezbollah Rocket hits Israeli Hospital in Naharya

As explained in The Oregonian , It's a good thing that "the misguided diplomacy of moral equivalence and just-stop-the-killing appeasement failed".:

It's worth noting what Hezbollah was doing while world leaders were gathering in Rome: firing rockets at civilian populations in northern Israel. On Tuesday, it fired 90 rockets. The casualties included a 15-year-old girl who was killed when a rocket struck a home in a Muslim neighborhood in a Galilee village and a 78-year-old Haifa resident who suffered a heart attack while trying to reach a bomb shelter. On Wednesday another 100 rockets hit northern Israel.

Did Hezbollah issue warnings or statements of regret? No, one of its leaders promised Wednesday to soon fire missiles even deeper into Israel.

Hezbollah is to blame for all civilian casualties, on both sides. It is their terrorist behavior that costs lives of innocents.

Enough of these calls for ceasefire. There should be no ceasefire until Hezbollah's militia is nothing but rubble and bad memories; that is my hope. My fear is Israel will stop too soon, and the cycle will go on without end.

Prime Minister Maliki's Address to Congress, July 26, 2006. On freedom and the new Iraq:

"Every human possesses inalienable rights which transcend religion, as it is stated in the International Convention of Human Rights. They transcend religion, race and gender, and God says in the Koran, and surely we have honored all children of Adam.

I believe these human rights are not an artifact construct reserved for the few; they are the divine entitlement for all. (Applause.) And it is on this unwavering belief that we are determined to build our nation, a land whose people are free, whose air is liberty, and where the rule of law is supreme.

This is the new Iraq, which is emerging from the ashes of dictatorship, and despite the carnage of extremists, a country which respects international conventions and practices non-interference in the internal affairs of others, relies on dialogue to resolve differences, and strives to develop strong relations with every country that espouses freedom and peace.

On the terrorist threat:

"The greatest threat Iraq's people face is terror, terror inflicted by extremists who value no life and who depend on the fear their wanton murder and destruction creates. They have poured acid into Iraq's dictatorial wounds and created many of their own.

Iraq is free and the terrorists cannot stand this. They hope to undermine our democratically elected government through the random killing of civilians. They want to destroy Iraq's future by assassinating our leading scientific, political and community leaders. Above all, they wish to spread fear.

Do not think that this is an Iraqi problem. This terrorist front is a threat to every free country in the world and their citizens. What is at stake is nothing less than our freedom and liberty. Confronting and dealing with this challenge is the responsibility of every liberal democracy that values its freedom. Iraq is the battle that will determine the war. If in continued partnership we have the strength of mind and commitment to defeat the terrorists and their ideology in Iraq, they will never be able to recover."

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

"Are film critics necessary?" Maybe not.

There is only one indispensible movie critic. The American Spectator's James Bowman, at: http://www.jamesbowman.net/default.asp

Dick Morris takes no prisoners and along the way outlines another episode of craven Clintonism, when Clinton joined the chorus to stop Israel's attempt in 1996 to crush Hezbollah - Israel threw in the towel then, and the terrorists learned an evil lesson. The money quote:

The reason Israel has to fight in Lebanon today is that the United States did not permit it to finish the job of destroying Hezbollah in the ’90s. Now, fortunately for Israel’s true friends, the White House is letting Tel Aviv win without reining her in.

Nothing so illustrates the generic anti-Semitism of the global community than its current obsession with proportionality in judging Israel’s response to the kidnapping of its soldiers and the rocket bombing of its cities. The Vatican, the European Union and Russia have said nothing about the almost daily bombardment of Israel’s northern border by Hezbollah or the constant attacks from Gaza after Israel magnanimously vacated the strip. But now that the Jewish state is defending itself, the global community is outraged at the “disproportionate” Israeli response. Only Jewish lives have to be dealt with proportionately.

Let Israel defend itself fully. Kindness to terrorists is only repaid later, in blood.

Some thoughtful gems on Government and society labelled as The Fundamental Principles of How The World Works remind me that Bastiat's "The Law" is the best primer on Governance I've ever read:

Bastiat explained that Governments overstepped their bounds when they engaged in 'legalized plunder' which all forms of protectionism and socialism fall prey to, and that all errors in Governance flow from violation of the simple Law that Bastiat observed: "The law is the organization of the lawful right of self defense."

Since "lawful" introduces some circularity to the sentence, consider it instead as "inalienable", and since "self defense" is the defense of the self, we need to ask *what* in the self is worth defending - why our life, our liberty and our property of course. Thus, Bastiat's terms could be restated as: "The law is the organization of defense of the inalienable rights of life, liberty and property." Bastiat's ideal was the American ideal.

Darwinian Conservatism: How Darwinian science refutes the Left’s most sacred beliefs: "Those with the realist vision see social processes such as families, markets, morality, and government as evolved rather than designed. Darwinian science is on the side of this realist vision of the conservative tradition. The main idea of the realist vision is evolution—the idea that social order is spontaneously evolved rather than rationally designed. Friedrich Hayek saw this. Steven Pinker, in his book The Blank Slate, shows how modern biological research on human nature supports the insight of the realist vision that there is a universal human nature that cannot be easily changed by social reform. "

Greene's "The Elegant Universe" ( Amazon reviews) describes string theory (aka Superstring theory) , and shows how it may lead us to a Unified Theory of Everything that reconciles the general theory of relativity (and its view of space, time and gravity) and quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics (and its understanding of the micro-world of particles, forces and energy). Written for the informed layman (at the level of articles in Scientific American) in 1998, it is quite current with the latest state of physics, while providing a good layman's survey of 20th century physics, all the way up to "M-Theory", which is the latest elaboration on string theory. Greene himself is a Professor of Physics actively contributing in String Theory, so he is ideally suited to explain string theory. Faced with a challenge of describing a theory about 11 dimensions and all the weirnesses of quantize probabilities and warped time-space, formalized by extremely challenging mathematics, Greene elucidates the outlines of the theory withoutgetting weighed down by obsure jargon or mathematics. It's an excellent exposition.

Physical science is about trying to finds an economical explanation for multiple phenomena (following Occam's Razor), and often those explanations exploit symmetries: "the known laws of physics are associated with principles of symmetry". Maxwell's equations unified electricity and magentism as a single force in the 19th century, exploiting the common underlying magnetic and electrical force field mechanisms. Since the 20th century, with discovery of atomic-forces, scientists have been dealing with four known fundamental forces in the universe that we are familiar with today - strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity. For each force, we have a basic particle - strong:gluon; electromagnetic:photon; weak:weak guage bosons; gravity:graviton. (The basic 'stuff' of the universe comes in 3 families of particles; family 1 is electron, neutrino, and the up and down quarkes; families 2 and 3 build on the Muon and Tau particle and exists at much higher energy levels than the normal universe (ie particle accelerators or during the big bang).

Greene explains how Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics upended classical physics. Having read layman's (and textbook) treatments of Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics before, I found his treatment useful but not unique; however, his explanations of how weak, strong and electromagnetic forces are really one force was quite new to me and compelling (see page 178). The core movitation for String theory is this conundrum: These two theories (general relativity and quantum mechanics) both have proven themselves experimentally, yet they are incompatible. What is required is a theory that can reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics through a common underlying mechanism. Physicists are looking for the underlying reality that expresses the symmetry between different all known forces, particles and energy configurations in a consistent way. String theory and its evolved form M-theory (which subsumes several variations of superstring theory in one framework) are today's leading candidates for the "Theory of Everything".

Along the way of uniting gravity and other forces, String theory has picked up something unexpected and as of yet unmeasured features: Six or seven add dimensions of space, tightly bundled up into geometric configurations called Calabi-Yau spaces. The string terminology reflects an analogy with violin strings, that expresses that fundamental entities have fundamental modes (i.e., like wavelengths l, l/2, l/3, etc. can occur on a string). The term "branes" has been used to describe 'membranes' that are multi-dimensional analogs of these strings. Fundamental matter-energy elements of the universe are resonating configurations (ie strings or 'branes') in these spacial bundles.

Is this the 'right' answer? The full answer hasn't been figured out yet. Both experimental data and theoretical model-building is still to be done, but Greene expresses convincingly that the Ultimate Theory will draw on what String theory and M-Theory has built up so far. He explains how black holes and some peculiar quantum mechanical features of such (ie entropy) are explanable by String Theory, and how space-time is likewise made consistent with quantum mechanics with the theory. Yet this consistency is not enough, because it doesnt yet uniquely explain everything. A tall order, but a necessary one for a 'theory of everything'. While a plausible structure for fundamental physics, it's a theory in search of both experimental validation and a core organizing principle: "A central organizing principle that embraces these discoveries ... within one overarching and systematic framework ... is still missing."

I have a hunch there is an information-theoretic element to that 'ultimate answer'. I have no insight on how it would apply other than observations that finite information as an axiom leads to discreteness (quantization), different geometries from the view of point-particle in continuous space (viz. strings as planck-length), and informatin-based limits to observability (uncertainty principle). A discrete digital universe might has a finite set of states in each planck-length region, observable at units no finer than planck-time. Our universe is far more interesting, complex and profound than such a model. It may be that the requirement for a continuously observable yet finite space creates the defined geometries and topologies that lead inexorably to a model or our universe; or not.

With each scientific discovery, we are humbled by our previous ignorance; we find out what little we actually know, even as our understanding gets closer than ever before to the ground truth.

Rheingold's "Tools for Thought" is a tour of Computer Science. I went there to read about the links between entropy and information and found this:

"One of the things Shannon demonstrated in 1948 was that the entropy of a system is represented by the logarithm of possible combinations of states in that system -- which is the same as the number of yes-or-no questions that have to be asked to locate one individual case. Entropy, as it was redefined by Shannon, is the same as the number of binary decisions necessary to identify a specific sequence of symbols. Taken together, those binary decisions, like the answers in the game, constitute a definite amount of information about the system.

When it comes to arranging molecules, living organisms seem to have a great deal of information about how to take elementary substances and turn them into complex compounds. Somehow, living cells manage to take the hodgepodge of molecules found in their environment and arrange them into the substances necessary for sustaining life of the organism. From a disorderly environment, living creatures somehow create their own internal order. This remarkable property now sounds suspiciously like Maxwell's demon. The answer, as we now know, is to be found in the way the DNA molecule arranges its elements -- doing so in such a way that the processes necessary for metabolism and reproduction are encoded. The "negative entropy" that Schrodinger says is the nourishment of all life is information, and Shannon showed exactly how such coding can be done -- in molecules, messages, or switching networks."

The Universe is made of information and energy, a yin and yang of function and form. The law of energy conservation says that all real-world processes involve transformations of energy, and that the total amount of energy is always conserved expresses time-translation symmetry. Contrawise, information processes destroy and create information - and in doing so impose an arrow of time on the universe. Entropy, a measure of the statistical probability of states, ties energy and information together, and thus conceptually underlies many biological and physical processes. This measure is expressed in The Second Law of Thermodynamics: "The balance equation of the second law, expressed as S > 0, says that in all natural processes the entropy of the world always increases, and thus whereas with the first law there is no time, and the past, present, and future are indistinguishable, the second law, with its one-way flow, introduces the basis for telling the difference. "

Natural processes has energy gradient 'potentials' that are erased through processes that conserve energy but increase entropy; the example of the spreading of heat is one, the falling of bodies in gravitation is another.

Entropy says:

According to the old view, the second law was viewed as a 'law of disorder'. The major revolution in the last decade is the recognition of the "law of maximum entropy production" or "MEP" and with it an expanded view of thermodynamics showing that the spontaneous production of order from disorder is the expected consequence of basic laws. This site provides basic texts, articles, links, and references that take the reader from the classical views of thermodynamics in simple terms, to today's new and richer understanding.

The punchline is this:

"What does the law of maximum entropy production have to do with order production? Given the foregoing, the reader may have already jumped to the correct conclusion, namely, if ordered flow produces entropy faster than disordered flow (as required by the balance equation of the second law), and if the world acts to minimize potentials at the fastest rate given the constraints (the law of maximum entropy production), then the world can be expected to produce order whenever it gets the chance (Swenson, 1989d, 1991a, b, 1997a, b; Swenson & Turvey, 1991). The world can be expected to act opportunistically in the production of dynamical order because potentials are thereby minimized at a faster rate. The world, in short, is in the order production business because ordered flow produces entropy faster than disordered flow, and this, in most direct terms, provides the nomological basis for the reconciliation of the otherwise two incommensurable rivers. Rather than being anomalous with respect to, or somehow violating physical law, the "river that flows uphill" that characterizes the active epistemic dimension of the world is seen to be a direct manifestation of it.

In short: Local order can be consistent with the Second Law because the overall production of entropy is greater. This concept is important from the perspective of understanding how complex organized systems can exist in nature, how indeed life itself can exist.

I am interested in looking into entropy because of the connection with economics. More specifically, consider this simple fundamental law of economics:

Everything of (economic) value requires effort to produce.

We know that we need potentials in energy to do "Useful Work":

"But when all the parts of a steam engine are the same temperature, and the hot and cold molecules are equally likely to be found in the boiler and the condenser (and hence the entropy is high), the engine can't do any work."

There is an analogue of thermodynamic 'useful work' in the economic realm. The two fundamentals quantities required to do "useful work" as inputs of economic value-creation are energy and information (or ideas); economic value is based on information value and energy value; that is to say everything of economic value can be considered as a creation based on information-work and energy-work. Both quantities are expressible in terms of the the potentials created, ie, "useful work" of both an informational and energy type. For information, this is measured by complexity. In the past, the incorrect 'labor theory of value' was defined to express the inherent economic value. (The problems with this theory are many: It should be a theory of cost, not value, since value is subjective; it ignores the value on entreprenueership; etc.) We might instead speak of a 'complexity measure of cost'. More on this later.

Speaking of information as a physical construct, in my view Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a law about the finiteness of information in quantum systems, not measurement in quantum systems. Limited quantified information in the physical realm is a natural observation that follows from the quantization that underlies quantum mechanics. Our Universe is a closed informational-energy complex.

Sniper Takedown of insurgents, a photo essay.

Life's too short to be tearing people down.

Why the Katyushas Are Falling explains Israel's previous errors that led to the current war in Lebanon. It was a lack of intelligence that led Israel to this point, and the author notes that the previous betrayal of the SLA and giving up ground to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is making Israel's situation more difficult now. Israel needs better intelligence to go after only the terrorists and have less collateral damage. Israel will lose in international credibility what it hopes to gain in military success if hit infrastructure and homes without hitting Hezbollah leaders. Thus it is in previous conflicts: As civilians die, the pressure mounts from the international community and eventually Israel cracks before they are able to fully destroy the terrorist groups. Thus, all players are 'trained' to create the worst situation - A war without end.

LGF sees it as Hezbollah shaping the media battlefield. No lack of intelligence in shaping the media story, with Israel as the 'heavy'. Hezbollah is ultimately responsible party here, and could get a ceasefire if they only de-escalate and hand of the soldiers. Yet they are the ones with the best PR. Amazing. And disturbing.

The only hope to get some good out of this distressing violence is to get some final resolution. Tearing up bridges and killing hundreds without getting to a full, final resolution of Lebanon's fate and without ending Hezbollah's reign of terrorism on northern Israel, is the worst of both worlds. So no turning back until their objectives are met. The only thing worse than appeasement is appeasement after you've unleashed war on civilian populations. Israel's ugly business needs to be completely completed - Israel needs to not stop this s*** - or people will suffer down the road.

UPDATE: A related story on Israel's failure on Hezbollah intelligence:"The Israel Navy's internal inquiry into Friday's deadly Hezbollah attack on the Hanit missile ship indicates a failure on both intelligence and operational levels. " Hezbollah is not breaking, yet, and this war may be 6 weeks, to interminable if neither side is interested in ceasefire.

This blog started under the name "Freedom's Truth" and was turned into "Liberating Iraq" as a 'single-issue' blog in July 2004. I have for some time posted on general politics (including a rather deep dive into immigration politics in May), while staying particularly abreast of Iraqi political and security developments, and today I come full circle back to "Freedom's Truth" as the blog title.

I've asserted since the summer of 2004 that our goal in Iraq was not conquest or occupation, but liberation of Iraq, and that the successful transition to stable and democratic Iraq is achievable and is being achieved. I still hold that fundamental view. For two years, this statement has graced the cover of the blog:
"The American soldier is trying to protect me from the terrorists and the American president saved me from Saddam's regime. If this is an occupation then I show my deepest respect to it and if such suicide attacks are called resistance then let the resistance go to hell." - Hoshyar Zakhoi-Duhok/Iraq

The message is that while terrorists foment violence and treat us as enemies, the 'silent majority' understand our military's role in bridging the secuirty gap until the Iraqi security forces can maintain order. It's a role tarnished by well-publicized crimes and allegations of crimes, and it's one that has been longer, harder, and more costly in men and treasure than we might have expected. But that has not made the effort unworthy of the sacrifices nor less noble. The invasion of Iraq has unleashed forces of change that for now are very challenging but in the long run are absolutely essential to ultimate victory in the global war on terror.

I believe in freedom. More than that, I believe that the world cannot have peace without justice, it cannot have justice without freedom, and cannot have freedom without the institutions of liberty and democracy. We can visualize world freedom, but an illusion that freedom's enemies are toothless has been shattered by too many examples of history and current events.

This blog will continue to track Freedom's March at home, in Iraq, and across the globe.

Will be removing many links, most old and dead links, and slimming down the links overall.

I am removing these Book links that were under - Books and Reviews:

• March Up to Baghdad (NRO review)
• The Connection (NRO review)
• Thunder Run
• Boot on the Ground:A Month with the 82nd Airborne
• Dawn Over Baghdad
• American Soldier, by Genl Tommy Franks
• Iraq's Smoking Gun
• Plan of Attack, Woodward
• Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq
• War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom

All my Election-related Posts are no longer needing showcasing:

• Reasons to Vote For Bush
• The Lincoln of Our Age
• Kerry's UN Thing
• 9/10 Senator vs 9/11 President
• Moore: triumph of the swill
• Bush defends Iraq decision
• 9/11 Commission vindicates Bush
• Kerry flip-flops on troop alignment
• Kerry's disengagement plan
• Why Kerry is wrong for Iraq
• Mistakes were made
• President on Deulfer report
• Price of a Kerry Victory
• Kerry's Debate
• Kerry Wrong on Zarqawi
• Fisking blithering Michael Moore
• Tommy Franks responds to Kerry
• Kerry Insults Allawi
• Democrats on WMDs

A Genl News Links are probably superfluous:

• Google World News
• Google News
• News Ignored
• BBC News
• FOX News
• New York Times
• Weekly Standard
• David Warren
• NRO
• Intel Messages
• American Spectator
• Front Page
• Christian Science Monitor
• Free Republic
• DEBKAfile
• Foreign Affairs
• Truthful News
• GlobalSecurity.org
• BacktoIraq - journalist blog

I will be cleaning up Soldiers Blogs too:

• New Chief Wiggles
• Candle in the Dark
• Boots on the ground
• Iraq Now
• MY WAR - Fear And Loathing In Iraq
• e-rocky-confidential
• baghdad_cafe
• docinthebox
• angry mindy
• daggerjag
• turningtables
• atheist soldier
• Andrew Olmsted
• pontifex
• Babel On (CPA blog)
• Deeds (CPA blog)
• The Donovan
• COUNTERCOLUMN

Via Powerline, David Horowitz has a few points in this 'moment of truth' time:

(1) the impossibility of a Palestinian state and the necessity of a civilized occupying force in a region that is populated by a people who have been terminally brainwashed into an ideology of hate, which makes their self-government a crime waiting to happen;

(2) the treachery of certain world leaders (e.g., Chirac and Putin) who are lining up on the side of the Islamic terrorists; and

(3) the central role of Iran in the attack on Israel, which further demonstrates the sincerity of its stated intention to obliterate Israel.

Electing Hamas was a moment in clarity. This crisis is another. Let us sacrifice comfortable illusions rather than our security.

UPDATE - When reading this from Horowitz:

There were 10,000 Jews living in Gaza until recently. They were so creative that while representing less than one percent of the population they accounted for 10% of the entire gross national product of the country. Productive and law-abiding as they were, their existence in Gaza required a Israeli army presence to protect them. So uncontrollable is the genocidal hatred of Palestinians for Jews (more than a million Palestinians on the other hand live peacefully in Israel enjoying more rights than any Arabs or Muslims living in their own countries). The Israeli army in Gaza was also necessary to prevent genocidal Palestinians Jew-haters from lobbing rockets into Israeli schoolyards.

Eventually, the Israeli leadership made a decision to capitulate to Arab Jew hatred and uproot the Jews living in Gaza, and to withdraw the forces that protected Israel from being attacked by Arab criminals. In the months that followed, the Arabs did nothing to improve their new homeland, which they now controlled completely. Instead, they elected genocidal terrorists to govern them. They destroyed the horticulture industry the Jews had created and that provided 10% of their GNP. They lobbed 800 or so rockets into Israel. During all this mayhem no word of condemnation for the Gaza aggressors came from the UN, France, Russia and rest of the Jew-hating, terrorist-appeasing and terrorist-supporting international community.

My take on this: Those who can't maintain greenhouses shouldn't throw stones.

UPDATE 2: Palestinian illusions are not being catered to by more and more fellow Arabs. "To my Arab brothers: The War with Israel Is Over — and they won.". Reminds me of that line from the movie Gladiator: "A People should know when they are defeated."

The thought occurs that we lack a clear vision of victory in the Global War on Terror; we lack clarity as to the connections between the battle Israel is facing against Hamas, etc,; we lack clarity because the cross-currents of partisanship, ignorance, dissention, and hidden agendas have obscured the big picture for most of us. Our leaders also have been distracted, absorbed and perhaps even overwhelmed by events to see clearly, and constrained by public diplomacy to the extent that clear but undiplomatic truths have not been expressible. We need a common sense grond-clearing to give Americans (and other friends of civilization) the clarity of where we are and what we must do, to move forward. I have linked to the World War IV essay of Norman Podhoretz, written two years back. We may need an update to our understanding of the current war.

Some thoughts to put in the mix. NB. This is a work in progress.

Q: What sort of war is this?

A: WW IV, where WWIII was the Cold War. This war is much like the Cold War. A real, serious, long-term struggle to defeat an ideology (Islamofascism) and the power structure around it (Al Qaeda, Iran, etc). But it is also unique in some ways.

Q: Bush said in September 2001 this was a 'different kind of war'. What are the key differences with other wars?

A: Most other wars are about having the power to overcome your opponent. This war is an assymmetric war against terrorist organizations (and their state sponsors), which means our enemies will use information mechanisms such as deception, secrecy and propaganda, to do their work - since they have not divisions and bombing fleets, but only terrorist cells. In this asymmetric war, we have raw power to destroy the enemy, but choose not to because of the huge collateral damage cost that would entail; we constantly seek ways of surgically striking without collateral damage so that what we gain in the kinetic side of the war we lose on the information side (ie hearts and minds). Conseqeuently, most of the war is a war about propaganda and information, and not about scale, scope and raw power.

AS SUCH, THE MAIN SACRIFICES WE HAVE TO MAKE HAVE TO DO WITH INFORMATION: 1) ACCEPT THE NEED FOR US GOVERNMENT SECRETS IN THEIR EXECUTION OF THE WAR 2) ACKNOWLEDGE AND MINIMIZE THE MEDIA IMPACT OF TERRORISM, IE, TERRORISM DOES NOT WORK WITHOUT MEDIA CREATING FEAR 3) UTILIZE INFORMATION AND OUR OPEN SOCIETY TO OUR ADVANTAGE, BY PROMULGATING OUR IDEALS AND IDEOLOGY DIRECTLY TO THEIR REGIONS AND AREAS. 4) DO NOT ACT AS CHANNELS OF TERRORISTS' DECEPTIONS OR PROPAGANDA. (That's what this thread is about - the media's complicity in Mahdi Army PR !!)

Q: What about the influence of Islam on terrorism? To what extent is Islam as a religion to blame for the violence?

A: Our fight is not with a religion, and it would be wrong both strategically and from fundamental perspective of truth to make that assertion. Rather we face a political enemy whose ideology is rooted in an interpretation of Political Islam. Specific brands of political Islam are the ideology of our enemies; these ideologies have as one leg Islamic fundamentalism and another leg radical (and somehwat leftist) critiques of modern society. It's a mix of modern leftism. The leaders of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, are followers of Egyptian extremist Islamicist ideologue Sayyid Qutb, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, who was executed by Abdul Nasser. So one might call the enemy "Qutb-ism". Islamicist belief is that Sharia, ie Islamic law, should prevail, and an Islamic calphate should unite Muslim countries; to the extremists, this means opposition both to existing regimes and to all western influences. "Knights Under a Prophet's banner" is al-Zawahiri's account of Al Qaeda's Jihadist Islamicist beliefs and where they are.

Q: Is Islam the religion of peace?

A: Islam is as Islam does. No religion, as practiced by humans, is without flaws. Islamic fundamentalism, like any religious fundamentalism, looks to the root of the religion and adheres strictly and seriously to it. Christian fundamentalists look to the Bible. We do not have Buddhist fundamentalists strapping on suicide vests and blowing up buildings, because their fundamental beliefs are fatalistic and pacifistic; Christian fundamentalism goes to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Acts of the Apostles. With Islam, the fundamentalists look to what was said in the Quran and what was done by the prophet Mohammed as their guides to behavior. Mohammed would have been just another major historical figure of the 7th century, warts and all, had he not be ornamented as a prophet of God. Now, his actions are a role model for others, for good or ill. This blog recounts Mohammed's directing hte assassination of poetess Marwan's daughter as an example of the ill that might come from following Mohammed's example.

Q: What are the main battles now?

A: There are two ideological centers of gravity to Islamicism - Al Qaeda and its Salafist/Sunni version of extremist Jihadism, and Iran's Shia theocracy that supports terrorist groups sucvh as Hezbollah. For Al Qaeda, their home base is still Afghanistan and Pakistan, in caves and mountains; but they are fighting us in Iraq and have a stake in the outcome in Somalia. We need to win in Iraq but also make sure Somalia doesn't fall into Islamicist hands the way Afghanistan did when the Taliban took over. We obviously need to continue to pursue Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, destroying what is left of the Taliban. We reduced Al Qaeda significantly, they on the ropes in Iraq, in training and logistics they are already marginalized and hampered since the overthrow of the Taliban.

Iran is another matter and right now a bigger threat. Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and their support of terrorism is a rerun of pre-war Iraq, and Iraq's instability, which Iran has helped foment, is making is harder to credibly oppose Iran's nuclear ambitions. Diplomact will likel fail, leaving it to regime change or a targetted strike at nuclear facilities as the only way to stop Iran.

LGF, Michelle Malkin, and others have exposed the NYTimes engaging in dubious praise of a photo book of terrorists and insurgents in action called "In the Company of God". Malkins calls it "In the Company of the enemy" and it could be "In the Company of Terrorists" or "In the Company of Lunatics." Alas, no, any non-Christian anti-Western creed must be treated with awe and respect - especially when the adherents are aiming mortars at our young US soldiers.

The photo album includes pictures of the Mahdi Army as they take aim against US forces. Imagine Life magazine in 1943 having a glorifying pictorial of an SS unit in action. No word on whether the pictures include the hundreds killed by the Mahdi Army as al-Sadr took up 'court' in Najaf and killed off enemies. It's not merely the pictures but how the work is described that sets off alarm bells. Our enemy deserves no plaudits nor propagandistic free rides such as this: "This photographic body of work, recorded over twelve months, richly captures the Shi'as' intense commitment to their faith and their indomitable spirit of sacrifice."

I am coincidently reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense today, and a line stuck out that fit:

Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

This was Paine's retort to those colonial Tory loyalists in 1776, at a time when loyalty to the crown versus to America was in question. There is no such need for even a question in our war on terror. Those who shake hands with our enemy, or give them undeserved praise, are cowards and sycophants - that's just Common Sense.

Found on a message board: "Extemism is born from poverty... Replace your muntions with FOOD bombs...WHY? ... nobody is going to strap a bomb to themselves with a full belly... "

This has been proven wrong many times. Most of the 9/11 bombers were from comfortable backgrounds, middle-class and college-educated. Just very hateful and radical. Osama Bin Laden himself was from a rich family. Extremism is born out of extremist ideologies. Poor and starving people don't have the luxury of radical and extreme ideas, they are too busy fending for themselves. But middle-class semi-comfortable people, seeing the inevitable injustices and wrongs of the world can be drawn into cults of extremism that advocate violence of the worst kind to implement political change.

The well-spring of terrorism is extremism, the source of extremism is radical ideologies of of hatred of the existing order. In this dark place you can put anarchism, bolshevism and other Communist ideologies such as Maoism, the leftwing terror groups of Europe of the 1960s (Bader-Meinhoff army), the IRA, the PLO, and - yes - Al Qaeda's Islamo-fascist extremism.

I would also note that most of history's predators - Hitler, Stalin, Mao - were not starving. They were simply the extremists that got to power and got to implement their warped vision ore fully.

Islamofascism is a very dangerous and evil ideology. It has nothing to do with starving people. Should their ideology rule a country, it would be a despotism comparable to Nazi Germany or Communist USSR; the Taliban rule and Iran's regime has shown as much. And those rules will surely havae full bellies as they send others to their deaths.

On Lebanese blogsite, I gave a Response to Lebanese solidarity. To "Mr. Olmert, Hassan Nasrallah was right...you are an idiot. Your miscalculation that by bombing all of Lebanon you would cause us to mobilize against Hizballah is an idiotic notion." I replied:

Wait a second. Nobody miscalculated more than Nasrallah here! Hezbollah announced their policy of kidnapping IDF soldiers back in late 2005. See this November 2005 news report: ""Our experience with the Israelis shows that if you want to regain detainees or prisoners ... you have to capture Israeli soldiers," Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told a rally in Beirut to mark the handover of the bodies."

Did anyone in the Lebanese Government or other parties condemn this or highlight its implications at the time? Did Nasrallah anticipate his kill-and-kidnap policy would create a war? Or is this exactly what Hezbollah wants, lots of Lebanese killed?

Nasrallah is hiding behind the shield of Lebanese patriotism and to this non-Lebanese it seems a transparent ploy. Just as terrorist groups often use 'human shields', Nasrallah is abusing Lebanese solidarity. Instead of crowing he should be apologizing for miscalculating and creating a conflict ... The IDF and Israel is not asking the Lebanese to mobilize against Hezbollah, the time for that has passed. That has been asked for some time, but didnt happen. Now, the IDF is doing it by force. It's a sad thing to see Lebanon suffer as a consequence of Hezbollah's misguided aggressive.

We also hear that Fouad Siniora offered to deploy the forces along the international border with Israel according to UN Resolution 1559 in a ceasefire offer. Great --- why didn't this happen BEFORE Hezbollah crossed the border and killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers? Israel will not stop unless both Hezbollah is defanged (ie disarmed) and the soldiers are returned. So the ceasefire offer to be credible needs to at least include the immediate return of kidnapped soldiers.

Postscript: Journal News Report (on Fox) had one commentator talking about his visit to Hezbollah HQ at the height of the "Cedar Revolution" and saying that he noticed no Lebanese flags, but the portraint of Ayatollah Khoumeni and Ayatollah Khameni hung prominently. So will the real Lebanese patriots please stand up?

As the Israel-Hezbollah conflagration widens in Lebanon and Israel gives Syria ultimatum, Ledeen asks why we aren't looking to seize the day to turn this moment of clarity into a chance to strike at the terror-master. As he usually does, he sees the Tehran regime as the heart of the matter, and he is right. He's not the only one, as DoD background comments are showing up in media reports, such as:

“It is no coincidence that the Hizbullah operation comes at a time when the international community is working to impose sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear program and settle the score with Syria by establishing an international court to try those behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri,” the Pentagon source said

"This military escalation (by) Hezbollah is extremely significant," said Wayne White, former deputy director of the U.S. State Department's intelligence office. "I find it very hard to believe that Hezbollah would have engaged in, one, rocket attacks on Israel and, two, the initiation of a hostage crisis with Israel, without consultations with Tehran."

This means not that the US will be readying an active response, but that the U.S. at least is willing to unmask the puppet-masters who orchestrate this violence. Previous post signed off with "Molon Labe", the Spartan War cry used against the Persian King Xerxes - it mean 'come and take us' (or as Bush put it, "Bring It On"). Let's add Latin - Carpe Diem.

I have an optimists confession to make: In January, I said "Don't worry about Iran", thinking the time for international consensus-building was enough. I said last year that the top in oil was reached. Wrong and wrong, and on the same point. Fear and fecklessness have overtaken the place of strenght and unified resolve.

I was wrong to underestimate Iran's inventiveness as a malefactor in the region, an instability that directly is driving crude oil. Hizbollah, the Lebanese client of Iran, opened a new front against Israel, showing an innovative capacity for provocation that now embroils Lebanon in war. They did it based on a plan that was set in motion in January at the same time Iran was snubbing the world on nuclear developments. I'm not the only optimist upended by the violence engulfing Lebanon and Gaza in the wake of similar cross-border kill-and-kidnap attacks by Hamas and Hizbollah against Israel's Defence Force. The Hamas and Hizbollah attacks have provoked Israel into war, undermined Arab democracy, eliminate hopes for peace, and raised tensions in the region and the world.

Many lessons are being learned the hard way as bridges, figurative and real, get burned. The Arab Democracy optimists (and I'm one) have to contend now with the reality that popularly-elected leaders in Gaza and one party in the Lebanese Government, not only were terrorist groups in their past, but openly decided to continue in the terrorist path after gaining democratic acceptance. The world was wrong to assign even a modicum of rationality to the Hamas and Hizbollah organizations. Hizbollah and Hamas were wrong to think that Israel's previous compromises were signs of weakness instead of attempts at accomodation and peacemaking. Israel now has learned the hard way that 'land for peace' won't work when the new landlords become terrorists. Israel must now know that their security requires the elimination of Hamas and Hisbollah as organizations.

The Islamic way of fighting is indirection and skirmishing. Today, Iran is fighting wars of indirection...Indirection in Gaza, indirection in Baghdad, indirection in the Bekaa valley. And indirection on the Security Council. Iran starts one fire to distract from another. Their meddling in Iraq helps Iran secure their Government at home from democratic activists; their attacks on Israel now through a proxy weigh down the options to Iran from the Secuirty Council and from the United States. Reaching their goal of having nuclear weapons will enable them to pursue further proxy wars with more assurance. The real threat a nuclear-armed Iran poses is not a nuclear blast in Tel Aviv, but that horrible spectre will be a distracting bauble will give Iran a shield of nuclear deterrence that will embolden Iran in a long series of skirmishes, terrorist campaigns and other wars of indirection, their preferred form of warfare.

Israel now has learned the hard way that 'land for peace' won't work when the new landlords are terrorists. Israelis is not indirect nor subtle. They are the most direct and decisive of people and that will be their strength. Israel must now know that their security requires the elimination of Hamas and Hisbollah as organizations, and what some wincing diplomats see as an over-reaction is anything but. Israel is at war. We will have 50 years of war if we don't have a decisive victory.

Kristol says It's Our War:

For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

So it is - against Syria, Iran, Hizbollah, and Hamas. Add them to Al Qaeda and you have the crux of the problem of Islamofascism in a nutshell. The West and Israel cannot fight half-wars, we do full-blown wars better. Let us not flinch from what is required to rid the world of Islamofascist terrorism.

There will be a time to say to these latter-day Persians what was once said to a Persian despot long ago: Molon Labe.

Uber-Liberal Univ of Wisconsin at Madison is letting a 9/11 Conspiracy crank teach students about Islam. This intolerant nutjob named Kevin Barrett now is shaping the minds of the next generation. Yikes.

We have gone from Academic Excellence, to Academic Freedom, to "The Closing of the American Mind", to the "Losing of the American Mind". Degeneration in 3 generations. ... The Liberal deans' rationalizations:

"There is no question that Mr. Barrett holds personal opinions that many people find unconventional," Farrell says. "These views are expected to take a small, but significant, rolein the class. To the extent that his views are discussed, Mr. Barrett has assured me that students will be free - and encouraged - to challenge his viewpoint."

... there is no question that such intelligence could be applied to rationalizing the selling of botulism-infected meat, with a flippant "but they need not eat it" addendum. Yet that doesn't make it any less poison!

Note the hype-non-judgemental "views that some find unconventional". There is a place out there that explains how the University is set to favor totalitarian thinking, and this mindlessness is a part of the philosophical nihilism that leads to it. If no ideas can be judged, then no ideas are better than other ideas. If no ideas are better than others, ie, the view of nihilists and moral relativists, than a sort of intellectual Grisham's Law sets in, and bad ideas chase out good ideas in the debasement of the intellectual climate. That's what we see here. No faith at all that objective truth should over-ride the nut-job's right to spread foul debased lies. (Nevertheless, these same Deans would rationalize the quick firing of a creationist if they had to.)

The philosophic roots of the University rot are quite deep. This Democracy Project article points to a Frontpage article that notes that: "The 20th century university evolved from the same philosophical foundations as 20th century Nazism. Phil traces the fascistic background of today's universities through the life of Paul de Man, the paid Nazi propagandist who after World War II was founder of the deconstructionist literary movement popular on left wing campuses today and known for its politically correct tendencies."

Intolerance of moderation and assertions of the rights of grotesque extremists is now simply the accepted way of business for will-to-power campus radicals. Thus we see:

"Basically, the rules of the university are such that it would be a gross violation of academic freedom to fire me," said Barrett, 47, who earned his PhD in African languages and literature from UW-Madison in 2004. "I don't think they'll stand in the way of my teaching. I think I'll basically be able to stick with the syllabus as it currently stands."

What is sad is that "Conspiracy Nutjob gets Job at Liberal University" is now a 'dog bites man' sort of yawner story. Been there, done that.

Solution? End. Tenure. Now. End the myth that professors are in a class to deserve some exemption from job insecurity. Academic freedom is not the highest goal of a University; truth and academic excellence are; academic freedom is merely an adjunct means to that end, and it is myth that a functioning University or tolerable campus requires the impossibility of firing nut-jobs to maintain academic freedom. University teaching, and also K-12 teaching, would be better if Professors and teachers had to fight harder for the right to maintain their positions - like the rest of us.

Three years after Bush's (now regretted) "Bring it on" and two year since we began blogging on 'liberating Iraq', where do we stand in building Iraq's new democratic political order and fending off the terrorist insurgency?

The one-step forward half-a-step back nature of progress in Iraq, and the twists and turns of events have obscured the enduring realities and main trends of the war. I first listed these in mid-2005, when America was in an earlier cycle of war-weariness:

Number 1: This war in Iraq today is a part of the global War on Terror and success or failure in Iraq will dictate success or failure in the GWOT.

Number 2: We are winning in Iraq and have the strategic elements necessary for ultimate success. The only thing that can defeat us in Iraq is defeatism itself.

Number 3: The war in Iraq has been a Liberation of Iraq from tyranny into democracy. Liberating Iraq from Saddam and setting up a Constitutional Republic has already given Iraq a brighter future.

The progress in Iraq recently has borne out all three propositions.

The insurgency in Iraq that has has ebbed and flowed in the past three years has been dealt major blows in the past month. Al Qaeda in Iraq's terrorist leader Abu Zarqawi was killed in a well-executed coalition hit that also neeted a huge information trove; followup raids killed over a hundred terrorists and captured hundreds more. Zarqawi was an icon for the linkage between Iraq and the wider war on terror; he was also a barometer of the depth of barbarism that the terrorists were willing to sick to: Beheadings, bombings of mosques and churches, murderous targetting of all manner of Iraqi civilians, direct attempts to provoke sectarian violence. He was a terrorist's terrorist, and the gain to Iraq in ending his life cannot be underestimated.

"We believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq," Mr Rubaie, Iraq's national security advisor, said after the death of Zarqawi.

Zarqawi's death has enabled a much wider and aggressive hunt for terrorists in the past month, decapitating top levels of Al Qaeda in Iraq. It is not just the defeat of the terrorists that is important, its the matter of who are defeating them. This is no longer a fight that American soldiers wage alone, or even lead; increaingly, Iraqi soldiers are taking on the fight head-to-head.

In mid-June, Iraqi security forces arrested Abu Qudama al-Tunisi in a raid in the suburb of al-Dhuloiya north of Baghdad that killed 15 other foreign terrorists. The Tunisian terrorist confessed to the February 22 bombing of the Golden Dome Shrine in Samarra, and named the terrorist leader behind the attack, al-Badri, responsible for many other crimes as well. People in Samarra now put a price on al-Badri's capture.

Step-by-step and day-by-day, the capability and power of the Iraqi forces has been improveing. They are leading in more engagements, and doing many things alone that were once on the shoulders of the coalition alone. Many provinces and regions are being given over to the Iraqi security forces, for example, part of Diyali province was given over Iraq's 5th Iraqi Army Division in early July, and Iraqi forces will have responsibility for security in about half of Iraq's 18 provinces by the end of the year.

The capture of commanders in the Mahdi Army, al Sadr's Shiite militia that has been engaged in violence since February, is the biggest news since Zarqawi's death, and makes clear the willingness of the Iraqi Government to end the rule of militias and strike blows against all forms of sectarian violence. This raid on July 7 by Iraqi soldiers with American, killed or wounded 30 to 40 gunmen and captured a high-level Shiite militia commander accused of attacking Iraqi and American troops. The daily reports of hit squads that murdered Sunnis and left their bodies in backalleys of Baghdad fed the media babble of civil war since February, but until PM Maliki was selected, Iraq's political stalemate prevented energetic action against militias and these crimes. Now, we see the bracing and positive effect of a Government in secure hands with clear responsibilities. Curtailing the death squads and the militias will stop the infection of civil war.

Increasing Government competence and capability to eliminate violence and adding to their credibility gets citizens more supportive and willing to take risks to expose criminals and terrorists; this virtuous cycle tamps down the violence and enlarges the 'democratic circle' on which Iraq's future will rest.

We saw after the January elections in 2005 some euphoria over Iraq's future, with hopes that "maybe the Sunnis will see their future lies with democracy". The hope of near-term resolution dissipated as the real workings of the Government exposed the limits of Iraq's political arrangements. We can also look back and put some responsibility on the shoulders of then-PM Jafaari and those who were in charge of that Government for not doing more sooner to put political sectarianism and self-interest aside for national unity. Neverthless, by the December elections, many parts of the Sunni community had turned away from insurgency and towards political participation. Since then, more tribes have become active in attacking terrorist and insurgent groups and helping to root them out.

History may well look back on the summer of 2006 as the final corner-turning against the insurgents in the war in Iraq, but would be premature to tempt fate and declare that it will be so and there will be no backsliding. However, the strategy of the last two years in building the Iraqi security forces is bearing fruit and the momentum of Iraq's security progress is well past the point of no return.

Getting Iraq's political house in order has been the linchpin to Iraq's progress in recent months, and successful further progress will depend on the quality of the leadership in Iraq's security forces, as well as the political skill in bringing insurgent sympathizers into the fold.

My three statements have stood the test of time: The first in the way that Al Qaeda has been explicitly in Iraq and in the ways that Saddam and the Baathists supported terrorists before 2003 and support it now; number 2 in how Al Qaeda has been in retreat. America has been fighting a two-front war in Iraq. The war fought in Iraq - in Ramadi, Baghdad, Mosul, Fallujah, Tikrit and a hundred towns and villages in Iraq - and the war fought at home to define the rightness or wrongness of the fight and to determine our future strategy.

The endurance of Iraq as a democracy will have to wait on the judgment of history. But it is not hard to see how this Iraqi Government is vastly improvement over the genocidal despotism of Saddam.

Endnote: Will update further (original version, July 8).

Blackanthem news reports the 5th Iraqi Army Division assumes security lead in Diyala.

The 5th Iraqi Army Hadeed Division officially assumed the lead for security in Diyala Provice from Task Force Band of Brothers Monday at the Kirkush Military Training Base after months of training and preparation.

"This division will be successful because it is composed of the full spectrum of Iraqi people," said Gen. Ahmed Klepos Awad Majhool al-Kozaee, commander of the 5th IA, during the ceremony. "It represents the hand of the government that carries the weapon and the olive branch at the same time." Ahmed promised his division would be "the strong hand of the Iraqi people in defeating the insurgency."

This ceremony was a demonstration of the Hadeed Division’s commitment to providing security for their own country. They successfully conducted their validation operation in May, which tested their ability to work independently of Coalition Forces.

The Soldiers of the Hadeed Division have been proving themselves in battle ever since. One month ago, 5th IA Soldiers joined with Iraqi Police just south of Baqubah to fight off four separate attacks and force terrorists to give up their cause and retreat. The 5th IA lost no Soldiers that day and provided quick response medical care and evacuation for wounded police officers and civilians.

Iraqi Army Maj. Gen. Ahmed (left) grasps his division's colors during the 5th Iraqi Army Hadeed Division's Transfer of Authority ceremony at the Kirkush Military Training Base Monday. He was given the colors by British Maj. Gen. Peter Everson, deputy commanding general, Multi-National Corps-Iraq. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Lee Elder, 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment)

This quiet progress in increasing Iraqi armed forces capability is one reason we can be confident the insurgency will eventually wither and die. As Iraqi Army Major General Ahmed put it in the article: "There are no insurgents who can win over the Iraqi people," Ahmed said. "This is the start of their failure in Iraq and hopefully they will fail all over the world. We will win the war against terrorism."

The United States of America celebrated its birthday today with a successful shuttle launch.

Around the world, people clamor for the kind freedom and democracy we enjoy. An Iranian poll from June 2005 says:

A recent public opinion survey of Iranians, conducted by The Tarrance Group, surprisingly found that a vast majority (74%) of Iranians feel America's presence in the Middle East will increase the probability of democracy in their own country. The survey, which was the first of its kind, found two-thirds of Iranians believe that regime change in Iraq has been a positive for both neighboring countries: with 66% believing that it served Iran's national interests, while 65% believed the Iraqi people will, in the long-run, be better off.

The Left is defending the New York Times' treasonous behavior by wrapping themselves in the Constitution and the founding fathers, a matter of convenience that will get thrown away soon enough. Consider this attack on Bush by a Times defender: Bush, an underwhelming intellect in college, presumably slept through history class -- you know, the part where Thomas Jefferson, says, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

The underlying, or should I say underhanded and lying, premise is that all of the newpapers freedoms require the front page reporting on classified operational activities during a war. That's what the outrage is about. Not that the New York Times dares to criticize Bush (been there, done that for 6 years and running); or that they dare to have an opinion on the GWOT (they have one every day). Would simple restraint of newspapers - to tell themselves "In time of war like this, we won't release operational classified information that would harm the national security" - be an end to press freedom? Of course not! That is all that is being asked, yet that restraint was not forthcoming.

The New York Times found it un-necessary to report on Iraqi soldiers finding and killing a terrorist last week. They found it unnecessary to inform us of how US soldiers saved a babies life the week before. They find it frequently unnecessary to remind their readers of successful operations and details of same. They felt no need to report on the 500 WMD munitions found in Iraq. (What, no WMDs?) They decided to ignore the treasure trove of Iraqi documents that showede Saddam supporting terrorist operational activities in the 1990s and right up to the 2001 WTC attack.

And curiously, while the Times has broken many stories about the US operations, they seem negligent about reporting on terrorists themselves. A real scoop would be telling us where Bin Laden was hiding, not what our own folks are doing to track him down. An even bigger scoop would be: WHO IS BREAKING THE LAW IN LEAKING OPERATIONAL DETAILS OF CLASSIFIED ACTIVITIES TO Is it, as some have speculated, the Democrat staffers on Senator Hagel's office staff who leaked the latest story? Which particular NSA worker or Congressional aide broke the wiretapping story? Was Senator Rockefellar involved in the latter, as some have speculated? Would the media bloodhounds be as silent if they smelled a Bush scandal under the questions? And why don't they see that there is some thing more serious than their game of "Get W" that they play?

All this begs the biggest question: why is it necessary for them to tell us an operational and successful program that was highly secret and depended on secrecy for success?

The author says: "It is funny how the president gets more worked up about a free press doing its job under the Constitution ..." *All* citizens are under the Constitution, and for most Americans , doing our job doesnt require us to aid and abet terrorists. In what sense is undermining the war on terror a parot of any American journalists job description? It is not. Nor did this revelation tell Americans anything that we otherwise needed to know about. We know the war on terror is being fought, and we know it includes many secret and hidden operations. Did not Bush promise as much on September 20, 2001 in his speech? He said:

Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest.

So for the New York Times to announce this program is about as unsurprising as if they announced in their paper a planned invasion of France in early 1944. The problem? Would they have told us that Patton's army was fake and that the invasion was to be in Normandy, and that we have broken the German codes with the Enigma machine? Can they not see the consequences of operational details being shared as harming our fight? They used to call this stuff 'treason'.

"... than about rogue American soldiers torturing suspects in Abu Ghraib, or U.S. troops allegedly raping an Iraqi girl, killing her family and burning her body, or the administration's own ad hoc system of military tribunals that flies in the face of U.S. and international laws, or government spooks plowing through phone records."

Ah, so it comes out. Let me guess, the author is of the opinion that Bush is worse than Bin Laden. Never mind that there was no real serious torture at Abu Ghraib, that acts of abuse and criminality by some in uniform are dwarfed by our military members' heroism and courage each and every day, the plain fact is that there have been serious amounts of concern to fight this war against terrorists the right way. The author smears not only Bush, and not only the administration, but the whole executive branch of Government. Consider the 'plowing through phone records' - it turns out that the overheated rhetoric about it was wrong. It's a justified and limited program to find out who has been calling known terrorists. It's also another program that Americans would be better off not getting details about, as it is tipping off terrorists to operational secrets. Consider the lable 'ad hoc system of military tribunals' which are anything but ad hoc, rather were set up under specific guidelines, have gotten USSC scrutiny, and our now likely to have Congressional imput to further regulate them. This indeed is the most legalistic, scrutinized and overseen war effort in global history. We don't even bomb terrorist safe-houses without JAGs (military lawyers) getting involved.

This war is a war about information more than anything else. We have enough kinetic power to defeat the enemy,but what we need more than anything is the information to defeat the enemy. This requires keeping information from the enemy while gaining the informational upper hand.

Asymmetric warfare is the war of those who lack the kinetic power balance, and make up for it in fnformational ways: First, by attacking soft targets (terrorism), they magnify the power of their kinetic force; Second, by being secretive and having diffuse forces that are not responsible for people's wellbeing, they can sow more chaos with less force (guerilla tactics); Third, by using propaganda, they can motivate via ideology rather than authority or established power (revolutionary war tactics).

Much of how the mainstream media behaves today undermines our information war efforts. First, the media plays into the hands of the terrorists by reporting on their attacks in ways that de-personalizes *who* is making the attacks, as if to treat terrorism as an act of nature, or even God. Second, the media focuses responsibility and blame on the governing bodies, without, again, personalizing the cause of difficulties; it's as if the police are to blame for all acts of crime, not criminals. Last, the ideological component of the conflict is not addressed through patriotic media.

Indeed the concept of a 'patriotic media' would be laughed at by media elites who tout the phony claim of "objective" media. There is no objective media, but there is a media that behaves as if there is no difference to them whether our side wins or loses. Such is the stance of the New York Times, as if they and even we the American people are standing outside this fight that the Bush administration is waging against Al Qaeda, standing as spectators ready to judge the Bush administration like judges at an Olympic event. Thus, the Times tells of this the Bush administration is doing, or that, and inveighs in grave tones when the Bush administration isn't living up to the standards of US Times and ther benighted leaders like "Pinch" and Ed Keller. No, this is not a patriotic media and they would be proud to tell you that, but that doesn't make them objective, for they still have an agenda, an ugly and uninspiring agenda but it will do in a Pinch. That objective is to stymie the efforts of the Bush administration. Just as the New York Times had an agenda to get women to play golf at Augusta, they have an agenda to make the Bush administration stop acting like USA is at war with terrorists and get back and 'play ball' with a kinder, gentler approach to things.

The non-patriotic and non-objective media is at war, but which war they are fighting is the question that only the media can answer. But answer it they do - on their front page.

American Forces Press Service reports on "Iraqi and coalition forces captured or killed three insurgents and detained 17 others throughout Iraq in operations yesterday and July 1", and describe how Iraqi forces in Tal Afar found and killed a terrorist:

Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Iraqi Army Division, killed an assassination cell leader in Tal Afar in an exchange of gunfire yesterday.

The soldiers were patrolling Tal Afar when Col. Kareem Jassim Hathal, the 3rd Battalion commander, recognized Ghassan Abd al Khadir Farhat, a known insurgent leader, wanted by Iraqi and coalition forces.

Hathal directed his troops to detain the wanted man, who attempted to evade the soldiers. As the troops chased Farhat, several insurgents in the vicinity began firing small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at the Iraqi troops.

The soldiers took cover, while Hathal coordinated with coalition forces to provide aerial coverage and surveillance. A team of Apache helicopters from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade and ground forces from Company A, 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, responded.

Once the Apaches arrived in the area, the Iraqi troops resumed their search for Farhat. The Iraqi soldiers searched the areas surrounding of Farhat's last sighting and were about to move on when a soldier heard a faint sound in a water tank, where the terrorist was found hiding.

Farhat fired several errant shots at the Iraqis before he was shot and killed by the soldiers.

Robin Boyd: Does the Media Use al-Qaeda & Iraqi Insurgency Organizations for Reports?. It looks like details about rape allegations that showed up in a Washington Post article were taken from the "Free Arab Voice", a site for the "Iraqi Resistance". Boyd says: "While researching the claims of US soldiers raping a young Iraqi woman and then killing her and her family, I came across an article from Mafkarat al-Islam via Free Arab Voice. The article cites eyewitness testimony about the US rape and murder of the Iraqi family. ... The accounts in the Washington Post and Mafkarat al-Islam are almost identical, down to the job held by the father of the rape victim. Both reports describe the condition of the young woman’s body in the same manner."

Boyd comments:

According to the US State Department, Muhammad Abu Nasr, co-editor of the Free Arab Voice website is one of the main purveyors of deliberate disinformation about US actions in Iraq. Abu Nasr “translates material from Islam Memo into English and posts it as “Iraqi Resistance Reports” on his website.”

This is shaping up like another Haditha, in more ways than one.

Today, we are winning in Iraq, but losing in the media.

Soldiers from Logistical Support Area Anaconda in Balad saved the life of an abandoned, near-death baby June 9. Centcom reported it, but our local paper only had space on their front page for rape allegations and a report on a terrorist killing of 66 Shi'ites where, curiously, they never used the word 'terrorist'. They did give a few paragraphs to an al-Sadr Mahdi militiaman's viewpoints on the matter, which was to blame the US and Iraqi Government for the violence. This is about as accurate as blaming Poland for World War II, but such illogical and prejudiced views don't need to make sense, they are self-validating expressions in our nihilistic 'we are objective because we are on no side' media that curiously gives more expression and validation to our enemies than to our friends.

Underscoring the point that terrorism is committed by terrorists, this week the terrorist Samarra mosque bombers were arrested:

Iraqi security forces arrested Abu Qudama al-Tunisi in a raid in the suburb of al-Dhuloiya north of Baghdad. 15 other foreign terrorists were killed in the raid according to al-Rubaie. The terrorist of Tunisian origin confessed that he was responsible for the attack that destroyed the Askari Shrine in Samarra back in February 22 of this year. ...

(Iraq's national security advisor) Al-Rubaie described how the bombing was organized and says details were taken from the confessions of the captured Abu Qudama: 4 Saudis, two Iraqis and one Tunisian entered the mosque at night, handcuffed and locked up the guards in a room and spent the night planting the bombs all around the mosque. Next day they kidnapped and murdered Atwar Bahjat while she was trying to cover the news of the bombing.

The leader of this gang, Haitham Al-Badri, is a terrorist with connections to elements in the past regime who later became one of the leaders of Ansar al-Sunna and later al-Qaeda organization in Iraq.

I've been away from the papers for a few days, so maybe I missed the reporting on this. If it was like the reporting of other finds, it would be tucked inside the middle or "bombing of the day" article. To make too much of such events would expose the whole media reporting as incoherent. Recall that this crime was said to be a spark for a 'civil war'; it nearly was, yet it has the earmarks of the Baathist-Al Qaeda alliance that has all along been the core of the terrorist 'insurgency'. This was an act that was to show that Iraq can't rule itself or that Iraqis want a different political scheme - and yet these terrorists were mostly foreigners. Terrorists commit terrorist acts, and the best the media can come up with is treating them like acts of nature, rather than what they are - acts of war by a vile enemy of civilization.

The media is like putty in the hands of the terrorist groups. Al Qaeda's playbook is to sow chaos but to be an unseen hand; their gameplan is to keep our forces front and center and theirs obscured, so that our forces and allies are blamed for the anarchy. So what does the media report? They report in exactly the way that Al Qaeda would wish them to! Do they focus on our actions or ours? To be clear, when The New York Times reveals where Bin Laden has been hiding for 5 years - that is a scoop. When the New York Times gets some low-level bureaucrat to illegally release classified information, that is treason.

Which gets us back to the headline. Our soldiers are saving Iraqi lives, not just babies, each day. The media is not telling us everything; they are not telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They are giving us a slice, a small slice, of the whole story. The snippets of the whole story that they are choosing to give us is harming our ability to defeat the terrorists. The battlefield against the terrorists is as much in the media as in any other front, and we are losing in the media front for the simple reason that much of the media chooses to vehemently not be on our side.

I am doing housecleaning on my website, cleaning up old links. On this pro-Jihadist news website, we find Cindy Sheehan and Juan Cole show up as "informed comment".

The owner of the website is "Khadija Abdul Qahaar" who " ... writes on her continuing journey into Islam". She has a column that starts: "From the time I was old enough to sport a set of love beads, rally against war and generally become disillusioned with the “system” in the early 70’s, I have heard..." In other words, she's a wetern leftist for many years before she came to fall in with Jihadist Islam. Unholy Alliance indeed!

has been stolen (warning: 25 page PDF, but worth the read)

Every responsible library, advertiser, reader, publisher and journalist should publicly condemn the New York Times' revelation of yet another useful tool in the global war on terror, and should shun the New York Times. Piece by piece, the Times is deconstructing the war on terror, in their own Jihad against the Bush adminstration. It's an outrage, in an era where outrages are flying thick and fast.

A letter was posted as a comment that went full-bore into moonbat BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) mode, so much so that my response merits its own post:

"How can an entire world allow a ruler to govern when that ruler is, and has been proven time and again to be, a liar? "

Show me a leader who has not lied in the view of some. There are none. Show me a leader who is perfect. If you think there is one, you were born yesterday.

Bush has told more truths about the terrorists and about what we are doing and why we must fight it than any other President before him. He has made an honest effort to destroy terrorism, in the right way. He said we would turn dictatorships into democracies and in Afghanistan and Iraq that is happening; he has spoekn the truth about Arab dictatorships while others hide behind lies. Other countries and even the UN stood back, yet got exposed as frauds when the oil-for-food scam was exposed.

More lies have been told against his efforts than against any other President, and the biggest lie of all is the lie that Bush himself lied. In fact, every evidence points to the opposite - that everything Bush has done has been in good faith.

The other big lie told by Bush critics is the lie that this war in Iraq, a part of the global war on terror, is 'immoral' or wrong. It was the right thing to do, and there is nothing at all immoral in removing Saddam Hussein, responsible for genocide of many hundreds of thousands, from power.

"The President of the United States is, among his other crimes, guilty of multiple murders all around the world, yet you, the people of the world, are so afraid of his power that you tolerate this criminal and allow him to continue on his murderous rampage unopposed."

Ah, spoken like Bin Laden himself! What 'murders'? He has engaged in war against terrorists. By calling the destruction of Al Qaeda a 'murder', you are validating the terrorists.

"Bush is responsible"

What an absurdity. Bush is responsible for the attacks of an enemy against us and our friends?!? Was FDR responsible for Pearl Harbor and Dunkirk?

"Have you forgotten that a liar is determined to maintain his lies, he lies to frighten you, he will say anything to keep you paralyzed with fear and thus maintain his control over you."

No, I've not forgotten the Clinton years.

"To the peoples of other nations, do you really think that Bush is just the leader of the American people"

Er, that is what his elected position is.

The full-throated cry of the moonbat ...

"They will remember our time as we remember the time of the Nazis, we don’t ask, why did our parents allow Hitler to cause such misery, because we know that, at the time, they did not know, however the same is not true now, now we have the Internet, satellite television, cell phones, we have such technology in our time that it is virtually impossible to hide the terror of Bush."

Such a smear smack's into Godwin's Law, which states that in internet forums, Hitler comparisons effectively end debate. It's the 'n'est plus ultra' assignment of evil, and there is nothing left to say ... except perhaps this to the braying moonbat:

Your smears and defamations against the President of the United States show that you have NO "thoughts about terror", your sole thoughts are to oppose America's just fight against terrorists. You say you are against "a liar". Yet you lie with the smears about who Bush is, the absurd claim about 'end times', etc. expose you as someone who has no interest in truth, but let your hatred and your own fear-mongering distort reality.

Bush is a good but imperfect President who has made his #1 mission the pursuit of Al Qaeda and winning the global war against terrorists.

You have decided to join the parade of clowns, fools, miscreants and evil-doers who, rather than analyze intelligently the dire problems that Al Qaeda and Islamofascism raises for civilization, have decided to pretend that it doesn't even EXIST, and instead waste your efforts at smearing the side of civilization and civilization's greatest champions. (Yes, that includes Bush. Bush is not Hitler, Bush is our FDR, or as FDR once said "He may be an SOB, but at least he's our SOB." Except that Bush is no SOB, just a compassionate conservative Republican President. You hate conservative Republicans more than you hate terrorists that killed 3,000 innocents in a single terror attack? Your problem. Grow up and get real.) This is civilization's fight, and to step on civilization's side is to become the enemy that you hate.

Metaphysician, heal thyself!