So far, anyway - link.

I flew out of Atlanta yesterday, and I haven't seen an airport like that since late September, 2001. I thought Dulles has been busy lately. The lines were astonishing in Atlanta.

I don't think it was just because of security. The rental car return was a madhouse, too. The folks who were in line were mostly business travelers, too. I usually like flying midweek - I don't know if Atlanta is usually busier on Fridays, but if it is, it must have been almost impossible. I have long wondered what happens when we get back to our previous flying volume with the new procedures, Atlanta showed me.

Also, talked with a friend that worked as an independent contractor in the IT field for a dozen years, and became an employee in October of 2001. His name is in a bunch of headhunter databases, and the calls have been pouring in over the past month.

The economy is now doing so well even Thomas Friedman is noticing - and with his typical lack of understanding of understanding of US politics (or just plain old built-in liberal bias), he lets the cat out of the bag:

It's more evidence, to me, that Mr. Kerry may have to run in the most difficult of all environments, and exactly the opposite of the one Democrats had hoped for: an environment where the U.S. economy is rebounding, and Iraq is reeling.

Yes, Thomas Friedman admits that Democrats hope for the worst for America. And that sort of fits in with this I saw in Best of the Web yesterday:

Similarly, 81% of Bush voters and only 48% of Kerry voters think the world would be better if other countries were more like us. When respondents are broken down by ideology, 74% of conservatives say the world would be better, and moderates agree "by a 3-to-1 margin." But "among self-identified liberals, the numbers are 49% better and 37% worse. A plurality of those who say they are very liberal believe the world would be in worse shape if other nations were more like ours."

This is getting some news coverage, but people do not seem that, well, outraged about it. I think that the "connect the dots" folks would be using this to say that now there should be something done. Instead, nothing.

The story is a bit unclear, given that these are confessions from an Arab country - moderate though it be - so there is reason to believe that the confessions are not, well, uncoerced. Both parties - Jordan and the terrorists - have reason to exagerrate the threat posed by the plot.

In this CNN report, some rather astonishing claims are made. For example, that there was a plan to mix 71 different chemicals in a way that would kill people in a 2 km radius - that's how the Jordanians arrive at the number 80,000, that is how many people are in that radius of the Jordanian intelligence HQ.

The pictures of the captured materials show bulk chemicals in retail and industrial containers. I haven't seen a complete inventory, but the presence of sulfuric acid is evident from the photos and the reporting.

My guess is that the plan was to make a large amount of TATP - an explosive made of easy to obtain chemicals including sulfuric acid. TATP is a favorite of the Palestinians, and is what Richard Reid the shoe bomber had in his sneakers.

20 tons of raw materials do not equate to 20 tons of explosives, and even with that amount, it wouldn't destroy everything within 2 km. It would be a big blast, though, and it would certainly have killed a lot of people, but nothing like the terrorists or the Jordanians would have us believe.

That thwarted chemical attack in Jordan, that the blogosphere picked up on 9 days ago (admittedly, actually a BBC story at first) is just now making the major news here - CNN reports: Jordan says major al Qaeda plot disrupted.

Free countries should not compel anyone to service to the country, be it military or otherwise. But some people don't see it that way, so let's take a look at the practical aspects of compulsory service. Right now, about 4 million people turn 18 every year. That is more people than the civilian employment of the entire federal government. Pretty close to the number of civilians plus military.

So we are talking about doubling the size of the government in one fell swoop. If the required service is for 2 years, then we are tripling it.

What would all those people do? The taxpayer is going to have to pay for it. Will these "volunteers" replace people who are already working?

You're not still thinking he's alive, are you?

Anyway, have you noticed that Zarqawi has taken over as Mr. Big in the AQ organization? Spain is his deal, so is Fallujah, and that curiously unreported thwarted chemical attack in Jordan. And where is he based? Where was he based?

Right. Iraq.

Tell me again how Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror.

While flipping channels, caught a little bit of Quentin Tarantino on Charlie Rose. That guy is weird

Tarantino, I mean.

You've seen them around. Aside from the totally manufactured "we can't see the pictures at Dover" issue, I think it puts the lie to the old "Americans coming home in body bags" spiel. The Left loved to say such things because it made it seem more heartless - your kid will go to some foreign land and the government will send him home in a plastic bag like so much garbage.

Look at those pictures. Nothing could be further from the truth. Americans who fall in service to this country come home in coffins, draped in flags, and escorted by honor guards. We don't throw them out like trash.

Heard this on the radio:

"We share the same goal of total victory," Kerry declared, addressing an annual convention of the Newspaper Association of America. "And you can count on this: No matter who wins the presidential election, the terrorists will lose."

So, is anyone running a pool for when the full Andrew Sullivan-John Kerry swoon will take place?

Listening to Hannity on the radio today, he took a caller that was obviously what Rush calls a "seminar caller" - someone who has been prepped to call and make a specific statement to the show. The caller started by saying "given that for 3 months earlier this year the DoD website was recruiting members for a draft board, Senator Hagel's statement of the other day was obviously a trial balloon for the Bush administration blah blah blah....

One more time - thanks a effing lot, Hagel!

Here's what I see the draft strategy to be. Make it out like the Bush administration is pushing for a draft to work a wedge issue with young voters (expect to hear something along the lines of "they are trying to cut college help so you have to go into the military, and if you don't, they'll force you in") and cause the administration to have to deny that they are pushing for it - because they aren't - but then push the supposed Bush Lied stuff into that. Then, if that doesn't work, Kerry pulls out all the stops and pushes for the draft himself - after the administration has set their own opposition in stone - and says that Bush won't do it what it takes to win the war on terror, and besides, you can trust him on the draft because he served in Vietnam.

And Hagel and McCain will continue to be the wind beneath Kerry's wings on that, as they served in Vietnam, too.

Update: Good Lord, Kim du Toit and Mrs. Kim du Toit are for the draft! Stop it. Stop it I say!

UPDATE II: Mrs. du Toit responds in the comments:

Nope, you misread. We agree that compulsary service to one's country is good. It does not have to take the form of military service--how and where you serve your country would be voluntary.

Sorry, you lost me at compulsory. No, no, no, no. It was a bad idea when Wesley Clark was for it, it's still bad.

Ralph Nader says the draft is coming. As the third party candidate who thinks both Republicans and Democrats are too prowar and is running against them, he must be levelling the charges at both sides.

Throughout the Global War on Terror, there have been days when I have woken up, and seen news that inspires me, depresses me, scares me.

Today, I was inspired and depressed at the same time. Pat Tillman has apparently been killed in Iraq. In this day and age, there are very few people to look up to. Pat Tillman, at the age of 27, taught me a lot. Hopefully, his death will not be in vain, and people will understand that America is full of these heros.

The article has his biography in short. What is does not tell you is about his spirit. Pat was told through his career that he too small to be a linebacker. He needed to be over 6 feet, and he was 5'11"' So he became the Pac-10 Division player of the year at the Linebacker position, while earning a 3.84 GPA and graduating in 3 and 1/2 years from Arizona State. He turned down an immense offer from the St. Louis Rams in 2001, to stay with the Arizona Cardinals. And then, at his peak earning potential, Pat decided that he wanted to serve his country more then he wanted to make the big money. Pat joined the Army, and went to be a Ranger.

And he did it with no news conference. He refused to participate in any accolades. This was no publicity stunt. Pat just went to serve his country.

And now this man has died for his country. There are some that say patriotism is a disease. I disagree.

It is apparently a tradition to spill some wine on the ground for the loss of a great warrior. Please spill some for Pat, and all of his Ranger buddies who have, and will, pay the ultimate price.

Please send any other links that you have for thoughts on Pat Tillman

Links

A Small Victory

Command Post

LGF

Langtry

Arkhangel

Donald Sensing

Jeff Goldstein

Mason Wilson

Little Tiny Lies

Belmont Club

I heard on the radio that Secretary Rumsfeld had to deny that anyone in the administration was looking to restart the draft. This is how it starts. The damn Democrats have been out saying we need a draft for over a year, and its the Bush folks on the defensive on it.

Oh, and thanks a lot, Senator Hagel.

Yes, a little photo blogging. Weather today was outstanding. Drove up to the North Shore (the contrast with Waikiki is amazing) and watched the sunset over the Pacific.

Click on it to see it unretouched.

Oh, and its obviously no jillion dollar/pixel thing from geekswithtoomuchmoney.com. It's a $20 VGA camera from Wal-Mart. Yeah, it sucks, but I figured it wasn't that much more expensive than a disposable camera, and I could get more use out of this little thing.

Looking at the picture, you can see that it gets out of focus farther from the center, and the depth of field is pretty poor. But if you were going to take snapshots for a website, it is worth what it costs. $20!

Here is the view from the parking lot of where I was working today. I've decided I really couldn't live here. I'd be homeless, because I couldn't work on days like today. And there are lots of those. And last time I was here, I could walk to my jobsite. I am driving here. The traffic at 6:30 am is ridiculous - and I live in DC.

Allah's boys learned what "No better friend, no worse enemy" means so they decided to take on some Iraqi schoolkids and some Saudis.

Man, those guys are just scary tough.

A piece from Orson Scott Card (link via LGF) ends thusly:

But we really aren’t as stupid as they think we are ... are we?

Not exactly "Are they that dumb or do they think we're that dumb?" but pretty close.

And at Best of the Web (scroll down to the end of the first item):

But as someone once said, hope is not a plan--especially when you're hoping your country will lose a war.

As an issue, anyway. Drudge links to this story about Senator Chuck Hagel saying we might need "cumpulsory service." Like I said a while ago - the draft could become the central issue of this campaign. And though Wesley Clark is toast, the arguments are still the same - kind of a bipartisan thing, the Congress is currently getting all breathless about not enough troops, etc. And then there is also this - so far, all of their attacks on Bush over 9/11 and the war on terror have failed, so far, to do what they want to do - prove that Bush is not strong in the one area they know they can never outshine him. The Left could start pushing for the draft to get to Bush's "right" on the war on terror. Given that the Democrats are now on record promoting racial profiling and preemptive war and cozying up to the Saudis in their zeal to get Bush, I wouldn't put it past them.

This point has been made lots of other places, but these Hamas guys want to be martyrs, right? So why is everyone so upset that Israel is obliging them?

If there is any doubt that there are no moderate Democrats, the sight of John Kerry and Joe Lieberman raising their hands high together at a speech where Kerry accused the President of trying to rig lower oil prices for the election. Say it ain't so, Joe.

But waitaminute - wasn't Kerry saying a few days ago that Bush should pressure the Saudis to lower oil prices? So what's his problem? I really don't get that guy.

Borders Books in Waikiki. Yeah, I'm geeking, searching for the wi-fi here, but it is overcast and raining off and on, so the Mustang convertible is kind of pointless. Anyway, T-Mobile doesn't have hotspots in the Starbucks here yet, so this is the only one. And my hotel has no broadband - again, duh, this is Hawaii, shouldn't you be on the beach? Anyway, the cafe has a lanai/porch deal, so you can sit outside and drink coffee (I tried to fool the jetlag by sleeping on the plane and staying up as late as I could last night, but I still woke up at 2:30 this morning) and blog if you want. Or do work, which some people seem to be doing. Anyway, this is cool. If they just sold margaritas in the cafe, I'd stay the rest of the day.

Not long after "President Bush announced the end of major combat," American troops looking to establish some good will acted on a "lesson learned" from Kosovo. Soccer fields help make friends. Fixing up a soccer field is easy to do, cheap, visible, and the kids love it. In Fallujah, the engineers refurbished an old field, grading it flat, building new nets, chalking the lines, and leaving a bag of new balls in the center.

They expected the balls to be taken - they meant them to be. What they didn't expect was to return the next day to find the balls gone, and the new nets, and even the fill dirt used to level the field.

Perhaps in those early days after the fall of the regime people were even stealing dirt. Or the people of Fallujah wanted nothing of American good will.

Whichever, not much time for soccer there now.

Dulles is once again packed. This was early this morning - a Sunday. And evidently, people who don't normally fly are flying again. It's as if some people had never heard of increased security measures at the airports. Metal detectors? Here?

Been busy with family visiting, so I am glad to see pitts has taken up the posting slack. I'll kick a few bits out there Larry King style before I have to go to Hawaii for work. I hate that. Bloggers in Honolulu holla! I'll buy you a drink on my expense account.

Israel knocked off Rantisi. That is a good thing, coming after Yassin's death. My guess is the next leader of Hamas will not be so vocal about how happy he would be to be killed by an Israeli missile. (Ha! Debka says "Supreme Hamas leader Mashaal tells Gaza group to elect new leader at once but keep his name secret." I bet!) For you Palestinians who say this is Bush's doing, bring it. You talked a lot of smack after Yassin was blown to bits, and then thought better of it real quick. Give me a reason.

Speaking of reasons, now that Arafat's complicity in the murder of Americans in Gaza is public knowledge, he must be defecating masonry.

The press was complaining that Bush answered "you'll find out" to the question at the press conference about the plan for transition to Iraqi sovereignty. Now the plan is out. Kerry is mad that the UN is playing a large role in that. I really don't get that guy.

So now that Air America is having money problems this early in the game, are all the outlets that were drooling over their startup reporting it, or is that blogosphere only?

This is definitely blogosphere only - I've seen it in a couple other places but Instapundit gets the link because he needs the traffic:

Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists planned a chemical attack on Jordan's spy headquarters that could have killed 20,000 people, officials have said. Earlier this week King Abdullah said a massive attack had been thwarted by a series of arrests, but named no target.

Now unnamed officials say the suspects have confessed to plotting to detonate a chemical bomb on the Amman HQ of the Intelligence Services.

The plot was reportedly hatched by al-Qaeda suspect Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi.

Hmmm. A planned WMD terror attack on a US ally, by Zarqawi no less, and it isn't making news? And Newsmax is the only outlet that says the chemicals came from Syria? Seems like someone would be on this?

ASV shutting the doors, kinda? Kinda scary that that was Michele with drugs.

"We knew that Bush is the enemy of God, the enemy of Islam and Muslims. America declared war against God. Sharon declared war against God and God declared war against America, Bush and Sharon." Rantisi

Okay, would the next Islamic extremist please open your mouth and go for a drive, please?

PJ O'Rourke has a good one

He is an admittedly biased observer, but I think the story still shows the utter lack of intestinal fortitude that Kerry has. Which is strange for a war hero, right?

Money quote

"Now, with benefit of hindsight, I think I can tell you why Kerry didn't do so. He was caught in Kerry-ish calculation--an ambitious young senator on his first important bipartisan delegation with its delicate mission of neutrality. Cory Aquino was very popular. But so was President Reagan. Which way to have it? Why, have it both ways! So Kerry was firmly behind Pash Commit of Flips to Dem, up to a point. Just as today Kerry is brave sailor/bold war protester; foe of Saddam/friend of Hans Blix; political underdog/entitled nominee; big government liberal/corporate tax-cutting conservative; rider of Harleys/marrier of Heinz; and, incidentally, still a real jerk."

Debra Burlingame (Sister to one of the pilots killed on 9/11) was on Larry King Live last night. (I just happened upon it surfing, I don't watch it)

And she just stuck it to the reporters, Gorelick, and the 9/11 panel. And she was furious, barely controlled. And all Larry wanted to do was shut her up.

*Transcript*

KING: Debra, why not apparent -- I remember from last night. Why no apparent anger over what happened to your brother? BURLINGAME: Well, I don't know how you got that impression. I have a lot of anger about what happened to my brother. He was murdered. He was brutally murdered in the cockpit of his airplane and...

KING: I mean no anger at any mistakes made by the administration, obviously anger at the people who killed him but anger when you learn about misconnections, CIA not talking to FBI, FBI misconnecting, anger or frustration over that.

BURLINGAME: Well, I have to tell you I had some anger tonight listening to reporters ask this president if he felt responsible, if he wants to apologize, if he, you know, can he admit mistakes? I actually am tired of seeing this president get beat up repeatedly daily by the commission's questions, partisan questions, and by the media that breathlessly reports them.

I got to tell you I read this report. This is the first 9/11 Commission report that was done by the Senate Select and House. This has a lot of really interesting information and here's a dot to connect for Jamie Gorelick who wrote the regulations on FISA warrants and what the threshold was that those agents in Minnesota had to pass to look into Moussaoui's belongings.

Jamie Gorelick, who has asked some of the toughest questions of Dr. Rice from her perch on that commission, she wrote those regulations and, as a result of them, the onerous burdens she put on the agency, the FBI agents that were desperately trying to crack that briefcase that Moussaoui was carrying, they were not able to find that there were numbers.

There were letters in there signed by the man who owned the condominium where Khalid Almihdar and Nawaf al-Hamzi were seen in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Those are the two gentlemen who did, in fact, crack open the door of my brother's cockpit and murder him in cold blood. That letter was in there.

KING: What do you have there?

BURLINGAME: I'll tell you, wait Larry.

KING: So, you have anger. I got -- we're running out of time. You have anger at her?

BURLINGAME: I have anger at her because she has asked very partisan questions and she was part...

KING: But she was interpreting the law though wasn't she? That was her job.

BURLINGAME: She was creating guidelines and she made them extra hard because the Clinton administration was itself allergic to making mistakes.

KING: Who do you...

BURLINGAME: And took pains to make sure that suspicious people would not be offended by warrants.

*END*

Yeah, try to talk around that Larry, you schmuck. (Actually the whole thing has nuggets of wisdom)

And I think W is knocking all these hard balls out of the park. He's smacking down the "some people say" questions. Vietnam? You are sending the wrong message to the troops and our enemies. Apologize? UBL is responsible. And he just laid down a great one - some people say that if people are brown skinned or Muslim that they can't handle freedom - I reject that.

To this day, I still turn to watch a press conference with Bush with trepidation. He hates it, and so do I.

Jay Rosen has a fascinating take (Hat tip, Instapundit)

Will be back with thoughts afterwords.

*Afterward*

No home runs hit, and no deadly blows struck

No talk or questions about Iran.

Why does he give the time to the Jerks like John King, David Gregory, and that rude moron from NPR? Ed from the LA Times is a butthead too.

I neither want nor expect an apology for 9/11. (Especially of the self-serving Clarke variety) I expect action!

Would you admit a mistake? Me neither.

As the article above stated, enough with the prior spin.

June 30 seems to be firm, no more waffling there.

However, I am disappointed about no Iran, although as Bush said, he will give Abizaid all the troops he needs to do the job.

That's about all for now.

*Further Thoughts*

Damn, I am being very negative lately. Could be coming up on graduating law school, taking the Bar, and still not having a job for after law school that is making me a trifle cranky.

Anyhow, some things were quite good. I think Bush nailed the Vietnam analogy, as well as the apology stuff. I think he nailed the pre 9/11. I also think he demonstrated to the world at large that the USA will not be leaving Iraq while he remains in office.

However, once again Iran intrudes. Why are we sending Armitage over there? That guy is a yutz.

I've been saying for a while that there is no political argument so poisionous that Democrats won't use it against President Bush. But I am simply astounded at how many Democrats are out there saying that the President should have known that 9/11 was about to happen because young Arab males were in flight school.

Do these people listen to themselves? Aren't they the ones saying we can't investigate young Arab males differently now, after 9/11?

Constant refrain: are they that stupid, or do they think we are that stupid?

pittspilot seems to be getting a feeling, too - but a different one than the one I am getting. It seems to me that things are coming to a head - that the events of the last month or so are leading to a sea change. Perhaps a widening of the war, to now include explicitly Iran and Syria. Something that definitely puts us on the offensive in the GWOT. pitts sees the opposite - that the world is shying away from this fight, and that may have repercussions on our own will, if we really are all alone in the fight.

I try to remain optimistic, and some days it can be a bit forced. That the State Department says we don't have any evidence that Iran is involved in Iraq right now is more than disheartening - it is a bit frightening. A question I heard asked by talker Glenn Beck on his show to day was "what will the next commission be asking 'what did we know and when did we know it' about?" Will we be suddenly surprised to find that we are at war with Iran?

Allah is on it, pointing to sources who are pointing out the obvious - Iran is a problem that we should not, cannot ignore. Certainly what is in the public domain makes it seem like we are ignoring it. Maybe Bob Kerrey could spend some time looking into it.

What helps the optimism be a bit less forced, though, is that I have been hearing from various places that stuff not in the public domain is a very different story. The President promised us in this war that some victories we would never even know about. I think perhaps we should be pulling back the covers on some of those.

I took a friend to BWI airport today to fly to Kuwait and then work his way back up north to his job in the CPA. He tells me good things. He has kind of a narrow view of what is going on, related to his particular work, but he says that for the most part, that what they are doing in Baghdad is going well. He made it seem that at least at CPA, they understood that Syrians and Iranians are a big part of the problem. I don't know what State's purpose in saying stupid stuff is, but I guess they have to stick to what they do best.

In the end, I still remain optimistic that we are winning, that what we are doing is working. That it isn't everything we'd like to see is disappointing, but I guess not all that surprising. The Presidential election is what throws a big wrench into it all, and I think that Iran and Syria are trying to force things to meet their timetable, not ours. The political jockeying of the 9/11 commission is painful to watch, and I expect that the political haymaking on the war hasn't even begun in earnest. An open conflict with Iran and Syria will no doubt be painted as a desperate measure by the White House to divert the public's attention, and there is a ready constituency to buy that line. And the Department of State's line will be a part of the argument used against it.

See why I say sometimes it is a bit forced? If the President doesn't mention Iran in tomorrow's press conference, or waves off a question about their participation, it will be considerably more forced. But then again, if the press asks about it, I will be surprised, too.

PS: Over at Belmont Club, Wretchard calls it a "meeting engagement" between US and Iranian forces. He sees it as a widening war, but can't tell if he thinks this is good or bad.

Here is what CNN thinks

Foxnews

MSNBC

Drudge

Nope, no one seems to have the same story as belmont club

WRETCHARD properly credits Michael Ledeen for spotting this a year ago.

This scenario is very worrying. Tom Clancy spotted the plausibility of this scenario in his book, Executive Orders. It seems clear that Iran has had designs on Iraq for a very long time. As Wretchard lays out, it may be acting on these designs. And I hope that the Administration is aware of this threat and is acting on it. However, I think the Administration is severely handicapped in its ability to deal with the situation. What can they do?

1) Seal the Border? This would require extensive troops, far more then we could muster at this point. I would have thought that infrastructure would have been in place from Saddam's time, but that does not appear to be the case.

2) Directly invade or attack Iran? I don't think that the political will is there. Nor is the political impetus. Nor is the military muscle available. Plus we have the internal political insurgency inside of Iran attempting to overthrow the Mullahs.

3) Support the internal insurgency? Iran has been quiet over the last few weeks. It is impossible to tell how the insurgency is coming along. My feel is that the insurgency has run out of steam, and will require some period to re-ignite. How we ignite it is the open question.

Hanging over the whole situation is the ugly cloud of nuclear proliferation. I honestly expect to wake up any morning now to the news that Iran has detonated a test nuke in the middle of its desert. Then what? It seems clear that the Administration has given up on trying to stop this from happening, only making tepid arguments for bringing Iranian censureship to the UNSC. Can't really say that I blame them. What can they do to stop it?

However, if Iran detonates a nuke, I think the situation in Iraq gets very dicey. In fact, the whole Middle East situation, from the Israel to Syria to Lebanon to Turkey becomes massively problematic. Israel, for obvious reasons, cannot live under the shadow of nuclear armed Iran able to hit it. They are going to have to do something, although what that something is, is anybody's guess.

To me, this is the headline. I do not care that Al Yankovic's parents died. I do not care about that blast in Mexico. I do not care about Haitians or the Bin Laden memo. I do not care who wins the apprentice show, nor do I care (for the first time) who wins the Stanley Cup. I care about taking care of the Iranian problem. It is the most pressing problem, and I see no easy solutions.

And this is not reassuring either.

My Brother-in-Law, who is a good guy, has this bar. He is very proud of it. It is one of those numbers with the dark wood. A very masculine bar. Except for one glaring feature. A very ornate crystal bowl, into which are put candies, peanuts, or pretzels. The bowl is out of place, and the guy knows it.

So, this year, for his birthday, I purchased him a Bullie Sack. Now I would provide a link, but it seems that this item is out of stock everywhere. Suffice it too say that it is a dried bull scrotum that has been placed between two sticks and is meant to serve as a bowl. I mean the guy has everything, and I thought it would be a great conversation piece. Imagine; person grabbing peanut out of bowl; "what an intersting bowl"; Yeah, you know what that is? etc.

So the "bowl" is delivered for his birthday, and he thinks it's pretty cool. But my sister is having none of it. She confiscates under the pretense that it smells. So the joke in the family is that my sister has my brother-in-law's scrotum and won't give it back. As you can imagine, there is significant mileage in this joke.

What's my point?

Well, it appears that the world has lost its scrotum, and someone better give it back, or we are all going to be up to our eyeballs in shit.

While the Japanese Government is holding firm, it seems that many Japanese citizens are not. This is the same country that was ready to hold of the American Military Machine utilizing every man, woman and child holding a pitchfork. Now, they are having a conniption over three hostages. This is how terrorists win. I don't know if this is the majority of Japanese citizens, but if it is, then there is a problem.

South Korea has banned it's citizens from traveling, although it seems to be holding firm on the troop deployment.

The Polish Government is firm, but the Polish People are beginning to go sideways.

We know what happened to Spain.

Same story with the Australian government

And Blair cannot survive an election with this.
In the United States, public support stays strong.

The problem is that if the rest of the world rolls over, it is going to create huge problems for us. The rest of the world is going to suffer collateral damage, which will only get worse as these countries demonstrate that they are willing to prostrate themselves at every demand. While we do not neccesarily need the troop support, we do need the intelligence, and we do need political support. The feeling that we are alone will weigh upon us. I worry that the road is going to get much tougher now.

A couple of weeks ago, in the aftermath of the Yassin hit in Israel and the Spanish bombs, I posted that I thought that something was brewing. I wrote:

Just a gut feel from the way things are going, but I think something is about to change, or has just changed, in the war on