Freedom's Truth

Rich Lowry at NRO Corner shared reader emails on Glimmers of hope in Baghdad and what it means for Iraq. My thoughts and response to some of the comments:

"If it is true that adding this relatively small number of troops to Baghdad is significantly improving the situation there, can you please tell why in it has taken us so long to do this? "

Others have commented on the subtle answer to this question: It is not just numbers, but how they are used and what they do. The specific operations are intended to create a 'green zone' in Baghdad and not only our troops but Iraqi troops are needed for the specific mission of both building and sustaining security. Why? Because the US forces are not suited for the maintainance of security, lacking the policing and community-level knowledge. We need Iraqis to do it.

"Im not sure that the better results are due to adding more U.S. troops to Baghdad (what was it? 6,500) as much as the strategy being employed of basically going house to house looking for weapons and insurgents, as well as taking on the Shiite militias. And for both of these jobs U.S. forces need the Iraqi forces as well as Iraqi will. "

So, what has changed from a year ago, when a similar attempt to pacify Baghdad with Iraqi security forces and US forces was tried, and made only minor impact? The real 'glimmer of hope' is this news: "The 4th IA Division is the fifth of 10 Iraqi Army divisions to take control over Iraqi units in their assigned regions. In addition, there have been 25 brigades and 85 battalions assuming operational command and control to date. ..." See Halfway There.

The buildup of Iraqi armed forces is continuing apace. Most of the remaining divisions and the Army as a whole will be able to 'take the lead' within a year. These are professional forces and if you read most reports, Iraqis have more trust in them than in any other institution (including the Interior Ministry's police, infected with corruption and sectarian influence). This Iraqi Army is the force that will eventually win the victory for a stable and democratic Iraq, and coalition plans and execution on them have been robust and correct. To the naysayers who say 'we dont have a strategy' or say 'pull out', consider this:

"The Iraqi government will officially take control of its major air, sea and land-based military commands beginning early next month by standing up the Iraqi Joint Headquarters, a major step toward putting Iraqis in the lead for securing the country, a senior Coalition spokesman here said Aug. 28."

Now that we have the Iraqi forces getting in place, and we have a viable, successful strategy to pacify specific areas, there is no reason why we cannot replicate that and make Baghdad much safer over the long run. If Baghdad can be improved as is happening now, and sustain that improvement, then the country will be won.

As for the comments that counterinsurgency can take 10 years, the counsel of patience is the right one. We should think in years, not days or weeks, where events ebb and flow. However, given how the Iraqi army has improved in 2 short years, there is no reason to suppose that in the next 2 years we will see further dramatic strides that fundamentally improve the security situation significantly in Iraq.

I argue, and have argued for some time, that the strategic elements for victory in Iraq - defined as a secure and stable democratic Iraq - are already in place. One element is the Iraqi Army and overall Iraqi security capability and commitment. Another is the new Iraqi democratic Government. A third is the will of the U.S. to maintain itself in the effort. Despite the political troubles at home, that commitment is secure at least until January 20, 2009; we will not withdraw forces unless and until the mission no longer requires them, and that's a good thing.

The threat of insurgency in Iraq as having political strategic consequence is lessening as it has long since lost any politically realistic aims and legitimacy; Iraqis are choosing the Government. It remains simply a force for anarchy with its only possible remaining goal the removal of coalition. The remaining threat of militias and sectarianism is serious, but recognized and being dealt with, as Iraqi Army gains strength and the Government works through reconciliations.

We need to take the long view. The current operation in Baghdad appears to be a major turning point on security; perhaps it will even be the kind of turnaround on security that the January 2005 election was to Iraq's political process. But as we saw, that election was just a beginning with many bumps since then and doubts even now as to how the democratic Government will work.

The long view may be this: If Americans see slow but steady progress, then they will stick with it and realize we should shouldn't squander a victory out of impatience. Via the media lens, violence and are overall effort looks to be as bad as ever, as they report mostly just the bad news and neglect the hidden story of real progress in building up Iraq's capability to defend itself from the insurgents, terrorists and militias. It is also true though that American casualties are falling, in part due to Iraqis taking on more operations, and that as Iraqis do more day-to-day security, the operational freedom of the American forces will improve, and we will be able to take more fight to terrorists cells and conduct more aggressive sweeps etc.

The insurgents have stuck it out this long for the simple reason that violence was their bargaining chip to power. Now that elections and the new Government have settled it, the insurgents are left with 2 options: extremist violence that attempts anarchy or overthrow, or accomodation. The hardcore terrorists, Al Qaeda and related groups will take option 1, while the insurgent-friendly Sunni tribes, now stung by Shiite sectarianism, will pick number 2. (This process has already been going on for about a year.) Over time, the insurgency will get reduced to its more radical core. That violent core will in turn have to be defeated by military and intelligence joint operations. This process will take years, and the insurgency will end not with a bang but a whimper. But we know, even today, that if we stick with it, we will win.

The road ahead may be clearer, but there are miles left to travel.

The ignorance of the Bush-bashers is constant source of amazement. A letter writer to the statesman insists "All this Administration has done is kill thousands of people who never did anything to us." adding "All 19 hijackers killed themselves on 9/11." as if this was news.

Well. If we are to only go after the hijackers themselves, then there was nothing to do on 9/12. But are only the hijackers culpable? Under Bush, we captured Sheik Khalid Muhammed, the 9/11 mastermind, and other key behind-the-scenes operatives to many attacks on the US (including USS Cole in 2000 and Kenyan embassy in 1998) and several hundred other terrorist operatives besides who plotted, financed and supported 9/11 and similar attacks.

She says ports, nuclear power plants, etc. are 'vulnerable'. Aha, a danger! but since 9/11 we have had no successful attacks, yet a number of plots, large and small, have been foiled, most recently the plot in London.

Five years after 9/11, the Bush administration, using the intelligence gathering techniques they decry (like the NSA surveillence program) and military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan they oppose, have killed and captured thousands of terrorists, in many cases putting them in Guantanamo, a prison they consider a 'gulag'. There have been thousands of attacks of Islamic extremism and terrorism worldwide since 9/11, so the danger is real. But the impact of our war on terror has been real as well.

USually the liberals bash Bush's war on terror by slighting the war in Iraq as being disconnected with it. Wrong. Iraq is part of the greater Global War on Terror, and the fact that Iraq's Saddam hussein didn't order the 9/11 attack is about as relevent as the fact that Hitler didn't order the Pearl Harbor attack. Saddam was a sponsor of terrorism for decades and the threat of continued sponsorship was and is real. The Islamofascist terrorists including Al Qaeda decided to thwart Iraq's emerging democracy in order to hurt us and creat a haven for terrorism.

US actions did not create the violence in Iraq as much as the wider conflict inevitably made Iraq a battlefield, one that we should not surrender on if we choose to win the war on terror. In that battle, we killed the terrorist leader Abu Zarqawi, the terrorist who murdered and even beheaded many Americans as well as Iraqis. They did nothing against us? Tell that to Nick Berg.

Another take on the topic: "According to most Democrats we apparently are not more safe. The proof they give is that these terrorists were within a few days of bombing these planes. ... As to the issue of security I would say that the answer is a definitive yes. Their hasn’t been a major attack on American soil since 9/11 and the terrorists are caught in a killing field in Iraq."

"Whatever Armitage’s motives, the fact that he was the Novak leaker undermines — destroys, actually — the conspiracy theory of the CIA-leak case."- Byron York

Plamegate, RIP

UPDATE: Hitchens nails it in Plame Out. He quotes David Corn's J'Accuse against BushRove, "The Wilson smear was a thuggish act", and deconstructs it thoroughly as a complete fabrication. Not a smear, not thuggery, not even White House action. Not only was the State Dept's Richard Armitage the actual source (not Rove, not Libby), but worse, the State Dept knew all along and in their silence, let a pointless investigation run on: "the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing could—and should—have ended right there." And why didn't it? Hitchens quotes directly from the Isikoff-Corn book promo:

William Howard Taft, the State Department's lawyer who had been told about Armitage (and who had passed on the name to the Justice Department) ...

"also felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source—possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage."

Isikoff's coda was "Armitage's role thus remained that rarest of Washington phenomena: a hot secret that never leaked." The secret never leaked because the enemies of the Bush administration needed a concocted pseudo-scandal to distract from the real story - the efforts by CIA and State Dept officials embedded in the bureaucracy to undermine administration policy.

Powell Unruffled as he says nothing while he knows all.

Now we know the rest of the story, the indictments of Libby are a cruel hoax and should be withdrawn, as it is clear that Armitage kep more useful information from the investigators than Libby ever did.

Operation Forward Together seems to be making a difference, finally, in Baghdad's security in the neighborhoods where the American and Iraqi forces have swept through and cleaned up. David Ignatius reports from the streets of Baghdad where he toured with General Abazaid:

"We stopped a few minutes later at Abbas Mosque, a small Sunni shrine. Sheik Khaled Mohammed al-Ubaidi, dressed in a knitted white prayer cap and a long white robe, came out to greet Abizaid. The general asked if security had improved and the sheik answered: "Thank God, yes!" Now that U.S. forces are going after Shiite death squads, he said, Sunnis here "understand the Americans are serious about the rule of law." ... The murder rate [in Doura] has fallen by 83 percent in August, compared with the 30 days before the crackdown began. For Baghdad overall, the murder rate has dropped 41 percent this month."

"What does the new battle of Baghdad tell us? I'm still mulling the answer, but my sense is that it's something we already knew: With enough troops and aggressive tactics, American forces can bring order to even the meanest streets. But it's only the Iraqis themselves who can stabilize these neighborhoods permanently."

More than that. It tells us that we can and in fact are winning in Iraq, because the forces to do that are now in place. The strategy is working, it just needs to be replicated across Baghdad, and then the remaining difficult areas of Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Late Edition:

“The violence is not increasing." "Iraq is not in a civil war. Iraq will never be in a civil war.”

While declining to specify exactly how long Iraq will need coalition forces to reinforce its own security efforts, Maliki said the believes it “won’t be long,” possibly “within a year or less.” “I don’t want to commit to a certain time or a certain period, but I want to have my best efforts to decrease this time for a year or less, or a few months,” he said.

But Maliki emphasized that he’s not anxious to see the coalition leave until the Iraqi security forces are prepared to handle the job alone to ensure progress already made can continue.

“Our security ability is increasing,”

A response to my comments, thought I'd make it it's own post.

Al says: "The Good and evil...that's it! 2000 years of documented history and that's what it all boils down to huh?"

So you don't believe in good and evil? Simply because the world is complex, the liberal copout is to fall into moral relativism. It's not just that "The caller was obviously an idiot," there was a specific error in her idiocy. An error that was shared by, say, Susan Sontag, and a host of other "not in my name" intellectualoids who felt it was OUR FAULT that middle-class Saudi Islamic extremists when to Al Qaeda camps and got trained by terror masters under Bin Laden's guidance to kill American civilians.

It's a strawman argument to denounce those who call terrorists 'evil' as 'simplistic' - I understand the complexities of physics, but it can be expressed best by F=ma and pv=nRT and E=mc^2.

"9/11 terrorists are evil" is not a close call, even in a complex world. They were. It is quite shallow and reeks of moral relativism to dismiss that viewpoint as "that's what it all boils down to?"

That attitude makes you an easy mark for evil ideologues who want to replace our good civilization for theirs. If you believe in nothing, you'll end up like those Fox journalists, forced to convert to Islam at the barrel of a gun in Gaza. Either that, or you are reduced to simplistic 'will to power' arguments that in the end destroy the fabric of all that is good in the world; for if there is no good or bad and is just a matter of shades of grey, then might could make for right.

In fact, that view is too simplistic.

The more sophisticated and informed view is to understand that the moral dimension is real and alive in humanity today and throughout our existence. There is good, there is evil, and there is a difference. Solzhenitsen, a victim of the Soviet Gulags, once said that the line between good and evil goes through every human heart. To deny good and evil is to deny a whole dimension of human reality. To admit it then forces us to make the call, and the cowardice of not witnessing or admitting such is one that in our culture is indeed the "mindset that will destroy us all". For we cannot solve problems we dont name and we cannot fight evils we wont acknowledge as such. Our over-hyped love for 'tolerance' prevents real compassion, the compassion for wider humanity that demands action against that which is wrong. A Jewish proerb has it that to be merciful to the cruel is to be cruel to the innocent, and that indeed is a proverb for this age of terrorism.

It's also been said: "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for men of good will to do nothing."

I am an ideologue - I believe in ideas, and in particular two ideas: Truth and Freedom. As an ideologue of Truth and Freedom I believe that enemies of those ideals are in fact disserving man ... I can and will call such disservice "evil" when it abjectly, deliberating and with malice aforethought harms people, communities and nations.

EU Referendum's final report on the staged photographs of Qana, called Corruption of the Media . The exhaustive analysis exposed the Qana attack media reporting and images as crafted, using dead children as props for staged photographs and video, tweaked for maximum propaganda effect. Oh, and it worked.

Hezbollah sinks Australia warship

by Ludwig von Mises should be required reading by all citizens of the world. It's an economics masterpiece, but more than that - a manifesto explaining human economic freedom. Good to see it Summary of Classics in a "Conservative Classroom", but it would be even better to see it in real classrooms in Colleges and Universities.

Another Hezbollah fraudulent allegation of an atrocity that the MSM reported as real: The Red Cross Ambulance Incident

A Democrat wave of dubious and treasonable comments from Moonbat leftist candidates is building for the election:

Who is Keith Ellison? This Nation of Islam member (Farrakhan follower), aka Keith Hakim, Keith X Ellison and Keith Ellison-Muhammad, has CAIR, Hamas-friendly and ANSWER links.

Jeeni Criscenzo, Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives 49th California District wrote in a blog entry earlier this month from Amman, Jordan of her support for the so-called insurgency in Iraq:

Over 95% of the Iraqi people oppose the presence of the U.S. troops in their country and consider the people the U.S. call "insurgents" to be patriotic freedom fighters -- no different that (sic) how we look at the people who fought in our Revolutionary War. Heroic titles go to the victors and if justice is to ever come to the people of Iraq, the people we call insurgents will have to be recognized as the ones who are actually defending their homeland."

This election season, the Moonbats are in full flight. And the pollsters tell us the Democrats - the party of these yoyos - may win the Congress. I fear for the Republic.

Dean Esmay calls out Kos ie Markos Moulitsas, and RNC has some opp research, like this gem: "I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. Screw them." He was later asked if he regretted saying that and said no.

UPDATE: Gosh, Lanny Davis is actually right. But will I ever forgive his own McCarthyite fearmingering when in 1995 he called Newt's Congressional Republicans "terrorists" with "guns to the heads of children" over the budget showdown they had? Politics is a blood sport, but at least Lanny is seeing the Left go too far. He can't be alone.

UPDATE 2: Jimmy Carter is still an idiot

And a commenter reminds us that "We killed the Patriot Act!" - Dingy Harry Reid.

The Moonbat's favorite Senatorial candidate, ed Lamont, has a Communist Family Tree, which may be why "Ned Lamont, in turn, has surrounded himself with people who may be characterized fairly as dedicated socialists and borderline communists."

UPDATE 3: Treason, guilt-by-association-style, as Cindy Sheehan, escaped mental patient, visits with Hugo Chavez, noted dictator who gets his rocks off badmouthing the U.S., to bash Bush and imperialist Amerikkka. A love-fest of hate! "Sheehan thanked Chavez for “supporting life and peace.” ... Sheehan also noted that singer and activist Harry Belafonte recently called Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world,” and said, “I agree with him. George Bush is responsible for killing tens of thousands of innocent people.”"

Are given a review in the Washington Post that gives them a somewhat undeserved boost with Sadr's Armed Movement Becomes Pivotal Force in Fractured Country. In fact, neither "pivotal" nor 'fractured' is true. To the extent that Iraq is fractured, it is fractured by groups like the Mahdi Army. And the article makes clear that the "Force" is neither pivotal for anything needed in Iraq, nor even fully under its own control. Really, the militia has become a troublesome force that blocks Iraqi unity.

The WashPost theme is one of a militia that is biding its time while building a following: "the Sadr movement's militia, called the Mahdi Army, took heavy casualties in two military uprisings against better-armed, better-trained U.S. forces in 2004. Today, according to Sadr leaders and outside analysts, the movement is husbanding its strength and waiting for American troops to go.". What they don't mention is that Sadr represents an extreme and a minority who have become increasingly marginalized as the Iraqi political process and political situation matures. This is the goal of democracy of course. At some point, if Iraq as a whole is to be a success, the militia will have to be disarmed and the group as a political movement normalized within Iraq, sooner rather than latter, by ... the Iraqi Government security forces, with out help.

New York Times injects some political correctness even in a story about Purrfect Angelz entertaining the battlefield troops in Iraq, says StopTheTimes.

Maya civilization collapsed upon learning kings weren't gods: "Madrid, Aug 26 (EFE).- The decline of the Maya civilization began some 1,100 year ago when millions of Indians working on the contruction of tall pyramidal temples and palaces learned that their kings weren't gods, Spanish anthropologist Andres Ciudad told EFE."

Half of the Iraqi Army - 5 out of 10 divisions - is now "in the lead":

The 4th IA Division is the fifth of 10 Iraqi Army divisions to take control over Iraqi units in their assigned regions. In addition, there have been 25 brigades and 85 battalions assuming operational command and control to date. ...

"We will need the intelligence, logistical and medical support," said Iraq's national security advisor Dr. Mouwafak al-Rubaie. "Three years ago we had absolutely nothing and now we have 10 divisions. Today 60 percent of operations here are led, conducted, monitored and accessed by Iraqis."

This significant step in self reliance is due to the stable command and control structure headed by a democratically elected government, said al-Rubaie. "Very soon, we will have command and control of Baghdad. Neighborhood by neighborhood, authority is being handed back to the Iraqis."

Wikipedia entry on Iraqi Security Forces has a graphic on where the Iraqi forces are 'in the lead' as of August 2006:

Independence will be the next and final step.

A University of Pennsylvania demographer's Washington Post op-ed is linked by Redstate in How Dangerous Is Service In Iraq? The demographer's key metrics were:

Between March 21, 2003, when the first military death was recorded in Iraq, and March 31, 2006, there were 2,321 deaths among American troops in Iraq. Seventy-nine percent were a result of action by hostile forces. Troops spent a total of 592,002 "person-years" in Iraq during this period. The ratio of deaths to person-years, .00392, or 3.92 deaths per 1,000 person-years, is the death rate of military personnel in Iraq.

It's noted that:
1. The civilian population of the United States death rate was 8.42 per 1,000 in 2003.
2. The death rate for U.S. men ages 18 to 39 in 2003 was 1.53 per 1,000 -- 39 percent of that of troops in Iraq.
3. "But one can also find something equivalent to combat conditions on home soil. The death rate for African American men ages 20 to 34 in Philadelphia was 4.37 per 1,000 in 2002, 11 percent higher than among troops in Iraq. Slightly more than half the Philadelphia deaths were homicides."
4. "The death rate of American troops in Vietnam was 5.6 times that observed in Iraq. "
5. In terms ofr race: "Hispanics have a death risk about 20 percent higher than non-Hispanics, and blacks have a death risk about 30 to 40 percent lower than that of non-blacks."

These facts clearly puncture many myths.

Leaders in Babil have peace conference:

Seeking a unified province free from terrorism and sectarian violence, leaders of groups in Babil came together Aug. 20 in Al Hillah to reconcile and denounce sectarian violence.

Iraqi Security Force leadership, representatives of the Iraqi national government, local government officials, social leaders, tribal sheik leaders and religious leaders, joined together at the Iraqi police academy convention hall to map out a strategic plan to shape Babil’s peaceful future. ....

The meeting was orchestrated by Maj. Gen. Qais Hamza, Babil provincial police chief, to bring representatives of every facet of Babil culture to the conference and provide them a forum to speak. It is hoped the meeting would signify the commencement of a new era in the region and the end of terrorism in southern Iraq, said a sheik in attendance.

.... “Let Babil be the example for the freedom and the mixture that we have in Iraq,” said Col. Abbas, Al Hillah police chief.

Austin Bay asks "Did Israel Win?" and links to Amir Teheri's essay which makes the case that the Arab world is not buying the spin that Hezbollah won, and points out the many ways Hezbollah is opposed for what it did to provoke this war. One interesting comment:

Mr. Nasrallah justified his style by claiming that involving too many people in decision-making could allow "the Zionist enemy" to infiltrate the movement. Once he had received the Iranian green light to provoke the war, Mr. Nasrallah acted without informing even the two Hezbollah ministers in the Siniora cabinet or the 12 Hezbollah members of the Lebanese Parliament.

So this was not even Hezbollah's war; it was Nasrallah's war. Or Nasrallah-the-Iranian-puppet's war.

I am on the side that says Israel didn't win; their objectives of either destroying Hezbollah or permanently ending the northern border threat weren't met, and the kidnapped soldiers were never returned. Yet for Iran, what was gained? Only some time and some distraction from their nuclear ambitions. For Lebanon, this was a disaster; for the west, it hardens and complicates matters. The best that can be hoped is that the UN force will be 'robust' enough to keep security, even if it doesnt disarm Hezbollah. This "clarifying moment" and "opportunity" did not ultimately cage the terrorist groups as we might have hoped, but has been another opportunity to shed illusions about the nature and the danger of Islamic extremism. And it may have happened, even for Arabs:

"Hezbollah won the propaganda war because many in the West wanted it to win as a means of settling score with the United States," says Egyptian columnist Ali al-Ibrahim. "But the Arabs have become wise enough to know TV victory from real victory."

And muslim Bosnian troops as perps: A series of videos of apparent war crimes against Serbs stir controversy across former Yugoslavia . This certainly spoils the plotline of serbs being the bad guys in the 1990s wars in the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Karl Rove speaks to the ART in Austin Texas and attracts the heckling of Cindy Sheehan and leftwing moonbat minions. Karl said stuff like this:

We cut taxes on income and taxes on small business and taxes on children and taxes on families and taxes on marriage and taxes on dividends and taxes on capital gains and we put the death tax on the road to extinction.

(Applause) What’s the result? Let’s take a look at the result. We have got the strongest economy of any major developed country in the world. We have had a 3.5 percent annual growth rate over the last four quarters; we’ve had 5.6 million new jobs since the bottom of the recession in August of 2003.

Since 2004, we’ve created more jobs than the rest of the G7—Japan and the major countries in Europe combined. Our 4.8 percent unemployment today is lower than the U.S. average for the decades of the ’70s, the ’80s or the ’90s. We’ve got home ownership near a record high.

So, a speech by Rove to boost the GOP by taking credit for a good economy that was in turn boosted by Republican tax cuts. He also said:

President Bush has been a tireless advocate of the Patriot Act, which tore down the wall that prohibited law enforcement and intelligence agencies from sharing information about terrorism. Let’s think about that. Before 9/11, the FBI could not talk to the CIA and the CIA could not talk to the FBI.

The Patriot Act allows Federal investigators to pursue terrorist with tools only used against other kinds of criminals. You could follow the changing cell phones of drug dealers but of the terrorist. You could tract down the business records of a doc who was committing fraud on Medicare, but you couldn't tract down a terrorist.

They were tools good enough to tract down a drug dealer, or crime or mail fraud, but not good enough to bring terrorist to justice, How

Guess what? It’s helped keep us safe for the last five years. Yet when it came up for reauthorization last winter, 40 Democrat senators voted to kill it last December.

Rove didn't invade anyone's privacy to make these points, nor did he need to verbally accost anyone. It's just talking points of the Bush administration, valid points that Republicans needs to make to win in November.

Cindy could do the same. She could make a blog, write petitions, or otherwise make her points calmly and civilly; but then she would be just one voice in a crowd and not a cause celebre of the Moonbat-Left. Just as the media encourages terrorism with their reporting, they encourage the worst sorts of political extremism with their highlighting of style over substance.

Note to Cindy: There is a right way and a wrong way to make your points. You keep picking the wrong ways, perhaps because the point of view is so bereft of logic that it is best made through acts of rudeness and incivil behavior than attempts at reasoning that will fail anyway.

An MNF chart from their August 22 briefing:

Aronoff on Hezbollah's propaganda war alleges that Qana may have been a fraud:

Skepticism also came from the blogosphere. One blogger compared photos from numerous news agencies, creating a timeline and series of images that strongly suggests that this whole event was staged. According to a French Lebanese magazine, Hezbollah actually put children into the building at Qana so they could be portrayed as victims.

The truth is not yet in, but the circumstances and analysis suggest that Hezbollah may have perpetrated a ghastly fraud for the purpose of turning public opinion against Israel.

If you can't believe the MSM swallows Hezbollah terrorist propoganda whole, then consider this: The Faked ambulance story - an outright fraud that helped turn the tide of international opinion on the war.

Hezbollah won the propaganda war because the media let them win it.

Iraqi reporter talks about Dura's Turnaround lately:

Q: Excuse me. Sanar Murad (sp), An-Nashkai (sp). Regarding Dura City, I heard about what you have done to Dura City until I went three days ago and stayed with some of my friends there just to check out what's going on. As a matter of fact, I heard a lot of good things, and tragic stories.

And at the same time, I spent about two days in one of the houses there and talked to the people there. They told me that the American forces or the coalition forces made a lot of good things and everybody is happy there. And some kids told me that the American soldiers were talking to the kids, joke -- making jokes with them, and giving them something. And even one of the kids told me that some soldiers gave them sacks and told them that -- to fill these sacks and they would return to them at 2:00, at afternoon, and each one will take $5. And that story was true, because at 2:00 the kids came there and the American soldiers started to give them $5 for each sack.

The second day, I mean, the same kids went to the same place, waiting for the American soldiers, but they didn't come, because they went to another city. Now every kid say, "Oh, I wish that the American comes again," come again, to give them the garbage and to receive the money and so and so.

And a lot of people told me that the American troops or, let's say, the soldiers made good things for the streets, but until there are a lot of digs and holes in the streets, to the degree that -- I rode a bike, I borrow a bike and went through the city -- lot of digs and holes in the streets.

And one of the men told me that "I don't believe that the American troops cannot do something miracle for us, for the electricity." For example, five or seven hours cut off and just one hour. Everybody is hoping that you are able to do something miracles, and me too, of course, waiting for this miracle. Are you going to pave the streets or to do something good for the electricity? This is the most important things. Thank you, sir.

GEN. CALDWELL: Thank you. If there's a miracle that's going to occur in Iraq, it's going to be the Iraqis that will produce that miracle. And you'll find the coalition forces and the U.S. mission here are here to help support them to achieve their goals and their aspirations. That's what we're here to do.

This neighborhood is a Sunni area in Baghdad supposedly a hotbed of hatred for Americans, yet they are looking to Americans for miracles and are glad and see good things happening with the help of American forces. interesting.

Good News out of Iraq garners little media attention says Redstate. A week back, the newswire did have this:

Violence in Baghdad has declined in the past two weeks and all but ended in some formerly deadly neighborhoods, the U.S. military said in a cautiously upbeat report on Tuesday on a major security clampdown in the city.

A 40% reduction in violence was reported by the military, but it got little airplay in the media.

This past week, the MNF in Iraq reported these events:

In Ramadi, coalition forces captured a Saudi al Qaeda member who was actively conducting terrorist activities. During the early morning raid, one terrorist was captured and 14 others detained. The raid uncovered a suicide vest, multiple small arms and armament, along with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.

Two more wanted terrorists were detained in another Ramadi operation. One was associated with harboring and transporting senior foreign al Qaeda leaders into Iraq, and the other was known to harbor terrorists responsible for attacks on Iraqi citizens and coalition forces.

In the Baghdad area, recent raids led to the capturing of a suspected IED cell leader, who was also suspected of a shooting death of one Iraqi interpreter and one coalition force soldier, as well as two others, wanted al Qaeda terrorists, believed to have had direct association with several recent vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices here in the city of Baghdad.

Operations in Arabjabu (ph) led to the capture of two wanted terrorists associated with a senior al Qaeda and Iraq leader and part of the cell specializing in bomb making and vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. Again, all associated with attacks here in the city of Baghdad.

Near Tikrit, two terrorists and three suspects were captured, one who reportedly controlled the 40 other terrorists in the area. Credible intelligence also indicated that his terrorist cell is involved in the movement of foreign fighters into Gogee (ph) area. Reliable intelligence also indicates that the other terrorists captured in Tikrit is directly linked to the February 22nd bombing of the al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra and was involved with other violent attacks here within the country of Iraq.

... The Iraqi judicial system is critical, and it has been prosecuting these terrorists through the Central Criminal Court of Iraq or the CCCI, which is the only court in Iraq with national jurisdiction to try these accused of terrorism. That court, between August 4th and August 10th, convicted 27 insurgents, two of which included sentences of life imprisonment. Convicted insurgents and terrorists then enter the Iraqi Correctional Services to serve their sentences. To date, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq has held 1,365 trials of insurgents suspected of anti-Iraq and anti-coalition activities threatening the security of this country. These proceedings have resulted in 1,171 individual convictions with sentences ranging up to death.

The real story in Baghdad is the Operation Forward Together, after a bumpy start in June, is now working. Violence is down, security is slowly improving. The other same old story from the media is their unwillingness to tell the good news.

The source of the global MSM's bias against Israel is revealed: LGF explains.

While ESR is Waiting for Castro to die, Chris Hitchens explains the Raoul Castro takeover of power from Fidel: "The Castro era is effectively finished"and "a uniformed and secretive and highly commercial dictatorship is the final form that it will take."

In other good news for democracy in the Americas, Foes of Chavez unite.

Some people will slander America rather than admit there is a moral different between Islamofascist terrorists and the western civilization. Mike Gallagher explains it in a column that cites a caller to his talk show:

And then there was Amanda.

She was calling from Colorado, and she chastised me for embracing violence as a solution to violence. “You right-wingers love blood and guts and you never have any sympathy for the other side”, she said. “The other side?” I asked. “You mean the terrorists?” She responded with a sneer in her voice: “You just don’t understand. They feel that WE’RE the terrorists. You conservatives are wrong in defining this war as something between good and evil.”

I had just about had enough. “Amanda, let me ask you something”, I said. “Do you consider the 19 hijackers of 9/11 evil?” Long pause. “No, I do not,” she replied. “We should look at ourselves to discover what we did to make them hate us so much. This is all our fault.”

Make no mistake, this woman was serious. I actually told her I hoped she was a comedienne, someone making a prank call to a national radio show. She assured me that she was not. So I had to ask her what she did for a living. Her answer will haunt me for a long, long time: “I’m a schoolteacher.”

This mindset of blaming victims for terrorism is childish, morally bankrupt, and insulting to our nation and society. Does she blame murder and rape victims as well? Our kids are going back to school next week. Ugggh.

Fauxtography - none dare call it treason, but at least call it fraud, as in "Reuters Commits Four Types of Fraud".

Someone needed to say it. Victor Davis Hanson has:

When I used to read about the 1930s — the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain, and Germany, the appeasement in France and Britain, the murderous duplicity of the Soviet Union, and the racist Japanese murdering in China — I never could quite figure out why, during those bleak years, Western Europeans and those in the United States did not speak out and condemn the growing madness, if only to defend the millennia-long promise of Western liberalism.

Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians.

Demonstrators on behalf of Hezbollah inside the United States — does anyone remember our 241 Marines slaughtered by these cowardly terrorists? — routinely carry placards with the Star of David juxtaposed with Swastikas, as voices praise terrorist killers.

It is now a cliché to rant about the spread of postmodernism, cultural relativism, utopian pacifism, and moral equivalence among the affluent and leisured societies of the West. But we are seeing the insidious wages of such pernicious theories as they filter down from our media, universities, and government — and never more so than in the general public’s nonchalance since Hezbollah attacked Israel.

These past few days the inability of millions of Westerners, both here and in Europe, to condemn fascist terrorists who start wars, spread racial hatred, and despise Western democracies is the real story, not the “quarter-ton” Israeli bombs that inadvertently hit civilians in Lebanon who live among rocket launchers that send missiles into Israeli cities and suburbs.

... what is lost sight of is the central moral issue of our times: a humane democracy mired in an asymmetrical war is trying to protect itself against terrorists from the 7th century, while under the scrutiny of a corrupt world that needs oil, is largely anti-Semitic and deathly afraid of Islamic terrorists, and finds psychic enjoyment in seeing successful Western societies under duress.

In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around.

Hat-tip to Free Republic, in The Australian, a story of Israel's attempts to fight Hizbollah on the PR front contains this glaring example of BBC bias:

The need for such authentication was demonstrated in the aftermath of the Tyre raid, when a BBC journalist stationed there reported as fact what Hezbollah had told him -- that the raiders had landed by helicopter "and walked right into a Hezbollah ambush".

A few hours later, Israel released videos showing the raiders, a naval commando unit, stealthily approaching the apartment building that was their target and surrounding it before dawn. An officer who participated said their objective was the commanders of Hezbollah's long-range rocket team. The three Hezbollah officers were living in an apartment on the second floor of a five-storey building. The commander of the Israeli team was the first to burst in.

In the shootout, all occupants of the apartment were killed but the Israeli commander was shot through his lungs, another commando was also seriously injured and six others wounded lightly by grenade fragments.

Carrying the two wounded men on stretchers, the commandos were attacked by several groups of Hezbollah fighters who came out of nearby buildings. Assisted by helicopter gunships, the commandos reported killing six to nine of the attackers before reaching the beach where they had landed. There a naval doctor performed a field operation on the wounded team leader that reportedly saved his life. The men were lifted off by helicopter.

The war against terrorism is first and foremost a war about image, ideas, information and propaganda. Hezbollah cannot stand up to Israeli tanks and planes (were the Israelis to actually use all their military power, instead of sheathing it to avoid killing civilians). They can only use the weight of world public opinion, amplified by the ignorant well-meaning pleas for "peace", channeled into the diplomatic 'international community' and the ever-anti-Israeli United Nations.

Such miracles of a vile terrorist group defeating a more civilized, more powerful, more organized and more responsible army can only occur with a large dose of propoganda. That is why it is heart-breaking and chilling to see MSM outfits like BBC and Reuters act as mindless shills for terrorist PR outfits.

Asks the blogosphere - Roger L Simon points out a Lebanese report: "Knowing full well that Israel will not hesitate to bombard civilian targets, Hizbullah gunmen placed a rocket launcher on the roof in Qana and brought disabled children inside, in a bid to provoke a response by the Israeli Air Force."

The mortician from Tyre, Abu Shadi, is identified as the "green helmet guy" who made it into many of the pictures from Qana. He managed to both give an overcount of deaths and pose for multiple pictures pulling kids from the wreckage, with his sidekick white t-shirt guy, who some allege was a Hizbollah fighter, and who some ask "Why is the guy in your right photo running around with a child in rigor mortis?"

Strata-sphere asks: "How many coincidences can one story have before the liberal media realizes what dupes they are?" A journalist says:

As for the death toll going down from 54 to 28, well, that happens. It was apparently a confusing time and the mortician at the al-Bass Government Hospital gave out some numbers that included people also killed that day but in other places.

Yes, it does happen. The propoganda is on page one and the correction on page 28. But does this happen often, as NewsMax (Ken Timmerman) report?

" NewsMax has learned that news photographers saw aid workers wrapping furniture in body bags hours after the attack then loading the "corpses" into ambulances for the benefit of television news cameras. Hezbollah officials at the site prevented the photographers from documenting the fabrication, said sources at the scene who asked not to be identified."

In a stunning blog-post that punctures any semblance of MSM objectivity in reporting on Qana, EU Referendum dissects the Hizbollah-friendly stage-management of the scene at Qana: "The narrative here is of how the combination of Hezbollah's media management and modern photo-journalism has turned the recording of a tragic event into theatre, in the best tradition of Michael Moore."

He shows for example, that many of the pictures that made it to front-pages of newspapers were stage-managed from the get-go, as the key participants (known as 'white t-shirt guy, and 'green helmet guy') discarded certain bodies for the Red Cross folks to handle and waited for specific bodies in the wreckage to do a photo-journalist-friendly 'walk' that could be made into iconic photographs. White T-shirt guy's home? "This is no poverty-stricken man, embittered by deprivation. Even by European or American standards, the house is well-furnished and comfortable. But what is so evident are the pictures of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah - even a calendar. This is not a dwelling - it is a shrine to Hezbollah, the party of God."

More inconsistencies via FR.

And now the punchline - The buiding was destroyed by Hizbollah: "Rumors circulating over what destroyed a residential building in Qana are increasingly pointing to Hizbollah rather than Israel's precision missile strikes. According to well placed sources, with access to IAF recon photos, the residential building in Qana was destroyed by a Hizbollah IED at 0700 Sunday July 30, 6 hours after the Israeli strike."

FR has IDF report on Qana:

Today, August 2nd 2006, the IDF Chief of Staff was presented with the findings of the inquiry conducted into the incident in Qana on July 30th. The inquiry confirms the information provided in the press briefing held by the IDF on the day of the incident, according to which the IDF targeted the building in an aerial attack on July 30th at 00:52 with two missiles, the first of which exploded and the second was apparently a dud.

The building was targeted in accordance with the military's guidelines regarding the use of fire against suspicious structures inside villages whose residents have been warned to evacuate, and which were adjacent to areas from where rockets are fired towards Israel. The guidelines were drafted based on surveillance and study of the behavior of the terrorists, who use civilian structures inside villages to store weaponry and hide in after launching rockets attacks.

Since July 12th over 150 rockets were launched from within the village of Qana itself and the immediate surrounding area. The residents of Qana and the villages surrounding it were warned several times, through various media, to evacuate the area.

The IDF operated according to information that the building was not inhabited by civilians and was being used as a hiding place for terrorists.

Comment on Roger L Simon says: "Well, notice what Hezbollah's story is. That the took a weapon which is a war crime (nails added to the warhead to kill civilians), used a launcher which is a war crime (not precision, aimed at cities), and used it from a location which is a war crime (civilian house with civilians inside.) A War Crimes Hat Trick if you will."

Hezbollah is in many ways culpable for the deaths in any case, and play a sordid game of trading civilian lives, that they hold cheap with their tactics, for PR ... but a simple question: When did the building fall? 0100 hours or 0700 hours?

Marines are impressed with Iraqi soldiers they patrol with. 'Go home, we got it' said Iraqi soldiers after a collaborative operation: " ... the Iraqi soldiers made more progress at gaining intelligence than he would have expected from his own Marines. When the Iraqis saw someone with whom they could relate, they cooperated more readily."

[Sgt Brian] Richmond credits some of the Iraqi soldiers’ success to of the training they received from the Marines’ military transition team. He said the Iraqi soldiers they worked with – according to what his Marines were told –were supposedly the best in Iraq. From what he gathered, he’s a believer. ...

“You can start to see that light,” Richmond said. “In perspective, it feels good to start seeing them work independently.” Richmond said his Marines will continue to support and train Iraqi soldiers to set them up for success, establish a stronghold and sustain that success. “We’re going to do what we can to help them out, so they can be successful at taking back their country,” Richmond said.

It's a Dan Ratheresque "fake but accurate" moment - Freepers and LGF expose a Reuters retouched Photo. Shape of Days has the full story:

Adnan Hajj has a photograph on the Reuters wire that purports to show “smoke billowing from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut’s suburbs.” ... Except the smoke has been so obviously and incompetently retouched that I’m amazed Hajj ever believed he could get away with it. ... At 6:35 this morning, a photo kill appeared on the Reuters wire. It was immediately followed, at 6:36, by what Reuters says is the original, unaltered version of the photo.

Verdict: A lame attempt to use photo-shop clone tool to make smoke look worse is exposed, and Reuters, to their credit, quickly retracted the altered photo. Another victory for the bloggers in defeating journalistic malpractice.