No, not about Easterbrook getting fired from CNN. About the prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, making that speech. You know, the one where he said:

"The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them."

What's the big deal? Honestly, he could be my Congressman! (This is what Jim Moran, D-VA, said: "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this.") The 9/11 terrorists who attacked the Pentagon lived and obtained their drivers licenses illegally in this district, and bin Laden's brother used to run an Islamic "charity" right down the street from there, so Mahathir might have a constituency.

The blogosphere is almost universally against it. I am too, but I can understand why some Senators voted the way they did. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, for example, said something to the effect that it was very hard to explain to his constituents why US taxpayers should get stuck with the bill when the people who financed Saddam Hussein - namely France, Germany, and Russia - will get paid back.

I understand it, though I don't agree with it. It is a bad idea, as is. And I agree, partly, with John Cole's assessment that it isn't a position to bargain from with Saddam's financiers, but not because it puts us in a position of weakness.

The reconstruction of Iraq has to be done. And it doesn't matter - on reconstruction, anyway - what the weasel position on the debt is. But it does matter here at home. I think we should grant the money for Iraq, but also make it clear that debt relief from the weasels (and Kuwait) must be done. I wouldn't expect all $200B or so to be written off, but I would expect to see at least the $20B we are putting in the kitty matched. But this bill isn't the mechanism to make that happen.

Does anyone remember why Saddam invaded Kuwait? No, not because April Glaspie told him to. Because the Kuwaitis loaned Saddam money, about $25B, for the war against Iran. Hussein wanted that debt forgiven, and the Kuwaitis said no, so he said, fine, I'll get mine.

The Kuwaitis still want that money back. They could write it off and not miss a thing. And as for the weasels, if we said we wouldn't repudiate that debt so we could get their votes on the UNSC resolution, then it was a bad deal, because they still won't pony anything up.

Seems to me that the State Department could really help out by getting some of the creditors to announce their clearing of some of that debt....

I am sure you heard about the boxcutters and other stuff found on the Southwest airliners today. This is from the Southwest Airlines statement on it:

A note in both packages indicated the items were intended to challenge the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint security procedures.

There is a suspect:

The man, described as a college student, had previously informed the Transportation Security Administration (search ) via e-mail that he planned to put packages on planes in an effort to expose gaps in aviation security.

Hey, we are all concerned about security. But that is just stupid.

This is the kind of thing that erodes my faith. Next up - I expect the ACLU will be defending his actions on First Amendment grounds....

The War on Terror will be long. We obviously have the military might to win, the only question is do we have the will to win. That the leading Democratic candidates don't is a little disturbing, but they are still losers in the grander scheme, so it isn't so bad, and Ted Kennedy is just full of it anyway. President Bush said "We will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail." And that is my article of faith in this war. That regardless of how things look, regardless of news reports hyping bad events, regardless of stories of Homaeland Security being a joke - regardless of all of that, there is a serious man at the helm, who is pursuing this War on Terror for all of us. We will prevail.

And then I see while perusing LGF:

Yesterday, on the same day three Americans were killed by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, President Bush once again signed a waiver allowing the PLO to continue operating in the US by granting them an exemption from the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987.

The link goes to this memorandum:

SUBJECT: Waiver and Certification of Statutory Provisions Regarding the Palestine Liberation Organization

Consistent with the authority vested in me under section 534(d) of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2003, Public Law 108-7, I hereby determine and certify that it is important to the national security interests of the United States to waive the provisions of section 1003 of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987, Public Law 100-204.

The same day that Palestinians targeted and killed 3 Americans. "Allah is in the House" is a joke, but the truth of this joke is almost too painful to bear:

The other glorious development is that the Palestinian mujahedeen have been granted a de facto license to kill Americans. Seriously, kufr, you know it, they know it, Allah knows it, even Bonzo knows it. The world's only hyperpower is not going to bully The World's Most Oppressed People for knocking off a few of its citizens here and there. Allah figures that so long as the killing is confined--for now--to the West Bank and Gaza, he can count on most Americans to shrug and mumble something about how the victims should not have been there, etc.

My faith is a bit shaken. If we do not care to defend ourselves, we do not deserve to survive.

Enjoy the ummah, people.

Amazing how many residents of my blogroll are on Hosting Matters. Lotta folks I can't read now.

UPDATE: Dean Esmay says its a DoS attack.

A massive explosion ripped apart a U.S. diplomatic vehicle in Gaza Wednesday, killing three Americans and wounding one in the first attack on a U.S. target in three years of Israel-Palestinian fighting.

Don't make us angry. You won't like us when we're angry.

I wrote before that the administration needs to get the word out that we are being successful in Iraq. And they are doing just that - major speeches from the President, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Cheney. All of them. And even though I have only seen bits and pieces reported, even on Fox, and even though it is always reported as part of a PR campaign, even on Fox, it seems to be working - Andrew Sullivan thinks that the PR campaign (though he calls it what it is rightly - "the administration's spirited defense of its Iraq policy" - another odd note, when all the Democrats criticize the President, it is never called a PR campaign) is behind the rise in the President's poll numbers. And Susanna at Cut on the Bias notes how mad the mainstream media are getting because the President is going around them. That has to be a good thing.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I criticized the Administration for not having a "spirited defense" of its policies, and now they are out there swinging, and it is working. Good on 'em.

John Cole takes on some more lies. Mike Hendrix has a big ole roundup of them. (I guess we have to give some credit to Al Franken - where would we be without his book?)

* So are we going to beat the crap out of Syria, or are we just going to let Israel do it?

* Israel is also going to bomb Iran. I didn't know there was a race to beat the crap out of terrorist states. We need to get back on the ball before Israel shows us up.

Sweet.

I wondered before what Clark's position on the draft was. We may be getting a clue. He has proposed a "Civilian Reserve." On Fox, they said that it was similar to other volunteer programs, except that people could be mandatorily mobilized. Here is how he put it in his speech:

Under circumstances of grave national emergency, the president would have the authority to issue a mandatory call-up. But this would be exceedingly rare.

Sprinkled throughout his speech are references to national service. Service to the nation is a good thing - I volunteered and served. And national service is one of those mom and apple pie issues that can't be argued against. Compelling people to serve is another thing altogether. Clark couches his programs here in volunteerism, but he said this:

This New American Patriotism recognizes that it's not enough to say you're an American; you have to live it - with action, deed and commitment.

It recognizes that we as Americans owe our strength to certain values and principles - liberty, equality, and the freedom to debate - and it calls on our willingness to sacrifice for those principles.

On its face, this is unobjectionable - the old rights have responsibiities argument. But on closer examination, it is wrong. It is enough just to say you're an American. We get our rights from God, not from government, and certainly not as a reward for being patriotic, newly or otherwise. But then again, this former economics professor believes that this country was founded on the concept of progressive taxation.

Also, Clark says he supports the Kennedy-McCain-Bayh proposed bill on national service, which among other things creates some shorter term enlistments for the military, but does not raise the number of people on active duty, which will actually make it harder to get people onto active duty.

The CNN report on this speech includes this:

This community-service component of the general's platform was honed in large part by Clark's campaign chairman Eli Segal, who in a past life founded and headed President Clinton's AmeriCorps.

Segal has been described as "a key adviser" in shaping the general's upcoming policy speeches, particularly today's remarks on service and volunteerism.

"But Gen. Clark has had his own ideas on national service that he's developed over 38 years," Israel says. "Eli Segal recognizes that Wesley Clark puts a high premium on national service. They're pretty much allied forces in this regard."

Segal pioneered volunteers for pay - now he is behind mandatory volunteerism.

I said before that the draft can become the central issue in the next election. It is important to find out, now, what Clark's position is on it. Charles Rangel has endorsed him and supports reinstating the draft, and these statements certainly make me suspect that Clark does too.

While we are at it, let's look at one that I see around a bit, and that is the whole Dick Cheney said Iraq had nuclear weapons! thing that some people are using to bolster the "imminent threat" claim. Eugene Volokh did a big takedown of that in NRO back in June. In short, the argument is that Cheney said "nuclear weapons" and not "nuclear weapons programs" at the end of a long discussion on nuclear weapons programs. The Vice President could not possibly have meant that Hussein had reconstituted nuclear weapons when we know quite well that Hussein never had them - nuclear weapons - to begin with.

Some of that "psychological pressure," I guess. But even when corrected on that point, the Left still says that, well, Cheney was lying to drum up irrational fear. Hmmm. What exactly did he say?

And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.

Now "we" here is the government of the United States, not a neocon cabal. Did the United States actually believe that Hussein had reconstituted nuclear weapons programs? Well, the National Intelligence Estimate prepared in October of 2002 says this:

Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; in the view of most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

Now we aren't arguing the definition of "is," here. The Vice President said that the view of the United States government was that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons programs, and lo and behold, in the NIE, we find that very same conclusion. In the view of most agencies. Should the President and Vice President have ignored the judgement of most intelligence agencies?Imagine that sitting in the vault and a dirty bomb going off in New York or Washington. What do you think the first inquiry would be?

The question, it answers itself.

If you haven't stumbled across Allah is in the House yet, get over there quick. You'll be hooked by the very first paragraph:

What is happening today, infidels? Everywhere Allah goes he is surrounded by Italians. Has the United Federation of Organ Grinders called a strike or something? No matter. The point of Allah's blog is not to make gratuitous ethnic slurs; the point of Allah's blog is to make ethnic slurs in a carefully constructed narrative framework.

Also added Michael Ubaldi's uBlog - I had followed it for awhile, then lost it in the streams of the blogosphere, and got reacquainted through the comments sections. Into the blogroll so it doesn't get lost again.

In the Independent. Purportedly a scorecard on the state of Iraq after 6 months. It appears to be a mixed bag, some good, some bad. But some of the bad are, well, lies.

Child deaths

Infant mortality has nearly doubled since the war. An independent survey last month showed 103 child deaths per 1,000 live births compared with 57 deaths per 1,000 in 2002.

Hmmm. What an astounding statistic! I mean, I thought that the US was killing Iraqi children with sanctions (funny, the world didn't think that multilateral action was all that justified, either), so it seems strange that child deaths have doubled in the past 6 months. So let's see what the Independent had to say during the sanctions:

The number of babies and young children dying in Iraq has doubled since the Gulf conflict and the introduction of United Nations sanctions.

Hmmm. The details of the article are pay archives, so a similar report from the BBC at the same time - which is free - supplies the details:

They found that in south and central Iraq, infant mortality had risen to 108 per 1,000 between 1994 and 1999, while child mortality - covering those between one and five years - rocketed from 56 to 131 per 1,000.

So, yes, that is 1999, maybe things got that much better by 2002. Looking up the infant mortality rate in Iraq, we find that the CIA World Fact Book reported that infant mortality was indeed 57 deaths per 100 live births in 2002. However, the Independent says that infant mortality rate was 57 last year, but the child mortality rate was 103 after the war in Iraq. Infant and child mortality rate are not the same thing. If you look at the World Health Organization statistics for Iraq, we see that the child mortality for Iraq in 2001 show males at 122 and females at 11, or an average of 117 or so. So comparing actual child mortality to child mortality, we are looking at an improvement of better than 10%!

And now other lefty outlets like Mother Jones are spreading the lie.

And then there is this one:

Education

Iraq has 15,000 schools and 1.5m secondary school pupils. The United States says 7,000 schools needed repair before the war. So far, 175 have been repaired.

Well, that doesn't sound right, either - I've heard that the 101st has done more than 175 alone. According to Paul Bremer:

Six months ago, all of Iraq's schools were closed. Today, Bremer said, all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges, as well as almost all primary and secondary schools, have reopened their doors. The coalition exceeded by 500 its goal of rehabilitating 1,000 schools by the time school opened, he said.

So in this "mixed" report card, we find egregious errors, and all on the negative side. If there were no bias, then shouldn't we be seeing mistaken articles talking about how great is in Iraq, too?

One would think that the Left would have plenty of issues to campaign on without making them up. Making up your opponents argument and then refuting it is called attacking a strawman (look, a quote from Lileks on that page!). And speaking of Lileks, today's Bleat is about that mischievious little FBI agent Colleen Rowley, who is so publicly - i.e., in the op-ed pages - critical of her superiors. Being critical gets Ms. Rowley plenty of attention, so coherence in her criticism is not a necessity. Before, she was concerned that Justice wasn't doing enough to catch the Muslim terrorists. Now, however, what gets attention is hating on Ashcroft and the rest of the Bush administration, so now we are doing too much. Among the things she trots out:

It didn’t matter whether you were a career FBI agent, a decorated war veteran, a duly elected congressman or senator, a military general or even a former president, you were labeled a traitor for voicing any criticism of administration policies.

Just like the "imminent" thing, the Left likes to use this to club the Administration, but, just like the "imminent" thing, I have never, ever seen any cites of this actually happening. Noone is called a traitor, or unpatriotic, for "dissenting." Whenever I ask people for an example, I get the same answer we see on "imminent" - it's a "feeling," or an "impression." Jonah Goldberg took this on a few days ago:

But these guys never provide any examples of what they're talking about. It's as if they think everyone who reads them already agrees with them. And, come to think of it, that might be largely true. Regardless, besides one campaign ad against former-Senator Max Cleland in Georgia, which was certainly defensible on the merits, I can't even think of a serious example offered by the Left to back up their constant whining about how their patriotism is being questioned. I loathe these sorts of arguments: but sometimes it's hard not to think that they're complaining so much because they've got something to be insecure about.

This idea is apparently the centerpiece of Wesley Clark's presidential campaign - the tagline on his website is "New American Patriotism," which Clark defines like this:

"We need a new spirit, a new kind of, a new American patriotism in this country. … [T]his new spirit of patriotism should be dedicated to the protection of our rights and liberties. … In times of war or peace, democracy requires dialogue, disagreement, and the courage to speak out. And those who do it should not be condemned but be praised."

Unfortunately, Clark still hasn't answered the question about what he would do for a threat that actually exists - and how he would go about winning the War on Terror.

Those guys are so going to lose.

I watched Senator Jay Rockefeller on Fox News Sunday this morning - what amazing, I dunno, chutzpah, he displayed. He said that Iraq wasn't an imminent threat like the President said it was, and Tony Snow challenged him on that, saying the President never said it was. Snow also put up the Senator's own words from last October, where the Senator said Iraq was an imminent threat. And Rockefeller said that he said that because of the President's speech. Of course, the speech was made in January, after the Senator's comments.

Liar.

As soon as Fox News get's the transcript up, I'll excerpt and link it.

UPDATE: Dang, this is frustrating. The link for the transcript has been up on foxnews.com since about 11 o'clock, and it still goes to a 404 at midnight.

UPDATE II: I would be remiss if I didn't mention Andrew Sullivan has been on this thing all week.

UPDATEThe transcript is up!