Not just from blogging. But from reading blogs. From listening to the radio, watching TV. Just isolate myself from it all for a little while. No, not because I can't handle bad news. Bad news happens. But because the reactions I am seeing and hearing are making me feel sick in my soul.

I was listening to some lesser talk host on the radio this evening (the car was tuned to it, the guy just happened to be on), and some lefty talk host was on. Fine. He's talking about the prisoner thing with one of his callers, and he ridicules the fact that GEN Myers asked CBS to wait on displaying the pictures on TV. He just laughs.

Like there is something funny about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff trying to protect American lives, and further our foreign policy.

Oh yeah, big yuks.

And for all those Arabs who say that these pictures bring back memories of Saddam - I thought you guys loved him.

Changing your story now?

Yeah, I'm a little sick of it. Some apologies I would like to see. Prince Abdullah, for, you know, that little thing with the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Some - any - Iraqi leader for the charred bodies in Fallujah. Bashar Assad for lots of stuff. Yasir Arafat. Khameini.

I'm waiting.

Meanwhile, I think the President made a strategic error in apologizing. Only in Iowahawk land does an apology buy us anything. I don't think it makes any difference in the Arab world, and really, it doesn't make any difference with his critics. What it will, do, however, is provide the setup for the next press conference. No matter what the subject is, the question will come up - "You apologized to Prince Abdullah, why can't you apologize to the American people."

Which, unfortunately, is actually a good question.

I don't think that the President has anything to apologize for. To the "Arab world" or at home. So if he is willing to do it over there to buy some non-existent goodwill, then why not do it here?

Is anyone else in this country getting a little sick of constantly being told that we have to apologize for everything? Only Americans, mind you. The rest of the world seems not to have to apologize for anything.

Do you remember the Saudi government apologizing for 9/11? The Egyptian government? I understand that these were not government people, but its not like bin Laden was a low level Saudi.

How about the forthcoming apology from Arafat for killing US diplomats? Or that Pakistani apology for the fact that numerous elements in thier government are responsible for proliferating nuclear weapons? How about the Iranians for storming an embassy and taking the people therein hostage in direct contravention of every principle of international law?

Do you guys remember any apologies for that? Well, probably not, because when you apologize in this region you can expect your apology to be thrown back into your face.

Apologies seem to be a waste of everyone's time, except when they are used to destroy an Administration.

In order to lower the amount of hate for Americans in Iraq we should send in the Peace Corps

So let me get this straight. The reason we are having trouble in the Middle East is that the people there, just don't like us. So the solution is then, to make them like us. Oh, I see.

I don't know who wretchard really is, or what his background is, but he is really becoming required reading. Especially when he writes something like he did today.

It is a perfect articulation of the growing frustration that I am having with our political elites in this country. The Republicans are angering me, and some Democrats are driving me into a blind fury. That travesty on the Senate and House floors was appalling on all fronts.

What drives me to the point of killing my TV is something that should be completely clear to every right thinking person in this country regardless of ideology. It is a very simple concept. Here it is. WE CANNOT LOSE THE PEACE IN IRAQ. How important is this concept? It quite simply is pivotal to the war on terror. It is the fulcrum upon which we will live in world of terror, or a world of relative peace. It is incalculably important.

Now, I am not going to start with the usual placatory remarks about the abuse in Abu Ghraib because I shouldn't need to. No, reasonable person should. Could I see a show of hands of those who saw the pictures appear, and thought amongst themselves that this was a good thing? No one? Good, lets move along.

The events in that prison affect a few. The GWOT and the events of Iraq effect millions. We simply must keep our eyes on the ball. All of this nation's strength is going to be tested in Iraq, and we cannot allow it to be sapped by this scandal. There are simply more important things to talk about. Like, what should we be doing about Iran and Syria? Are there enough troops? What exactly happened in Fullajah? What about that foiled chemical attack in Jordan? Who the hell is this lawyer in Portland whose fingerprints were found on packages that were used in the Midrid bombings? Questions like these are important, not whether we are a bad state because some of our soldiers acted like total and complete assholes.

One last thing. Could we not hear the excuses of Lynndie England's family about why she is in those pictures. I could give a shit about what she thinks. To my mind she is a complete and total idiot. She and her compatriots have endangered millions, and I have no tolerance or patience for any of her or her families bullshit.

A little while back I wrote the following:

I think I know why the President won't just come out an admit he was wrong about WMD in Iraq.

Could just just be that he wasn't. That's all I'm saying.

Joe Wilson, Mr. "I drank mint tea in Nigeria so that's how I know the President was lying about yellowcake," writes a book and you know what? There was intelligence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger - and it's in Wilson's book.

Meanwhile, we continue to beat ourselves up over Iraqi prisoners.

ABC News poll says Rumsfeld should stay.

Still, given current knowledge, most say the buck should stop before it gets to Rumsfeld. Twenty percent in this ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll say he should resign, while many more, 69 percent, say he should retain his position. Even most Democrats — hardly the administration's fondest fans — say Rumsfeld should stay.

I think I'm starting to feel better.

Instapundit thinks that the Democrats are overplaying their hands on Rumsfeld, and links to Donald Sensing who also thinks so.

Last night at Target, I was looking for a birthday card for Mrs. Blaster, and there were 4 cards to choose from that were anti-Bush - 2 focused on the scariness that such a stupid man was in charge, 2 on lack of WMD. Target. In Texas.

I wonder if the blogosphere is missing something profound. I started wondering when I heard Lou Dobbs - CNN's business reporter - saying simply vicious things about the President on Imus a few weeks ago.

(Shamelessly lifted from Little Tiny Lies)

I almost went on a rant today watching this utter, total, crap, but I had too much else to do.

I honestly cannot think of a time when so many politicians have acted like total complete self-serving assholes. It's honestly pathetic.

The latest National Review has an article about 3 cases coming up before the Supreme Court soon - all regarding detainees. There is Jose Padilla's case, Hamdi's case, and the Guantanamo prisoners. Padilla, of course, is a US citizen captured on US soil and declared an enemy combatant and held in a Navy brig in South Carolina. Hamdi is a US citizen (born in Louisiana but raised in Saudi Arabia) captured in Afghanistan, and then of course all of our friends at Gitmo.

The NR article was written prior to the current prisoner scandal hitting the TV, and it makes the case that the US should win for various reasons. One of the reasons is that just because the various prisoners are not within judicial review, it doesn't mean that they are not in a legal system, it is just one administered by the military. SCOTUS all live in DC and no doubt have seen the photos on the front page of the Post the past few days. I think that probably bodes ill for the US case.

I suspect that the Guantanamo case will be decided in favor of the US - i.e., the adminstration's position that they are illegal combatants, and being held in Cuba are not within SCOTUS's jurisdiction. I also suspect that we'll lose on the others. Hamdi and Padilla both will be put back in the judicial system, and taken out of military custody. And we can see how well that has worked with Moussaoui and that yahoo in Germany.

That would be a defeat for the administration in its prosecution (pun intended) of the war on terror. Delivered right here at home.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln

Yes, it's a real quote.

I saw it on a poster today about network security, and it struck home, obviously, with the way I am feeling.

The left is going totally, well, apeshit, for want of a better word. It sickens me, of course, hearing it - it makes me think, those young people dying in Iraq, they aren't doing it for Halliburton, they aren't doing it for the Iraqi people, they are doing it for us, all of us, and they are doing it for those baying for Rumsfeld's head, and saying all the ridiculous things about how what happened at Abu Ghraib is just a reflection of US culture, really, and all of that.

Those people - those Americans - who so desire a US defeat - they do not deserve what those men and women are doing for them.

Lileks, at least, thinks that the lefty batshit is a sign that we are getting through this:

The minute I heard Biden refer to Rumsfeld with the magic words - “what did he know, and when did he know it?” - I knew that the Iraqi POW story had jumped the shark. Or rather jumped a pyramid of blindfolded, homoerotic sharks.

I don't know. I would hope so. I would hope that the rest of the country would look at these lunatics screaming for the resignation of the Secretary of Defense during war and think the same thing. That they would be horrified.

The worst part is, that on many other fronts, we are winning. There are a lot of things over on Instapundit, who though he declaims being a man of the right, has been extremely optimistic in the face of it all. Pretty much his whole front page right now, but particularly principled support for democracy, everywhere and always, and this about Iraq.

We shall see, I guess, if the shark is jumped, or whether we will wallow in our own squalor. We shall see.

I was in Athens when the decision that the 96 Olympics would be held in Atlanta was announced. The Greeks were angry - they expected that they would get the Centennial Olympics, what with history and all that. They were especially angry at Coca Cola - the local bottler had printed Athens 96 logos on the cans, and now the Games were going to Coca Cola headquarters!

But the truth is that Athens was not ready for an Olympics then. The international airport was not a good airport, and transportation to and from was abysmal with the local population, much less hundreds of thousands of international visitors. Plus it was the #1 terrorist airport in the world.

The Greeks "auditioned" for their ability to host an international sporting event by having the Harlem Globetrotters put on a game in Athens. It was a fiasco - the crowds were unruly, people were all over the court, there was fighting over counterfeit and real T-shirts, etc.

Plus the Greeks had a plan to do $2B worth of renovations to Athens, and have the EU foot most of the bill. That was a no go.

It is 14 years after all of that. And there seems to be a problem getting the stadiums finished (I wonder how much the EU is paying for - or will end up paying for), and home-grown terrorism strikes in Athens.

When I first heard the story, I thought ELA, because it was a "demonstration" bombing against property, and the Greeks had finally put November 17 out of business. Sure enough, the linked article puts the blame on Greece's Revolutionary Struggle - the ELA.

A joke that the Greeks used to tell about their country was that when Alexander struck out to conquer Asia, he said "don't change anything until I get back." Apparently, its still true.

I am no Kerry Fan. However, this new story that Kerry lied about flying should be stopped in its tracks. It is quite plausible.

I have over 3000 hours of flight instruction given, most of it in tail-wheel, single engine, aerobatic aircraft. Many thousands of hours teaching aerobatics as well. Aircraft like this Pitts below.

One of the things that we would do at the flight school where I taught, was give "Demo" rides. Pilots, and many non-pilots, could come and experience what it was like to fly in a high performance aerobatic aircraft. The ride will make any rollercoaster you ever ride on again seem tame in comparison. Naturally each person was different, and thus, I would tailor the ride. One thing I did to make the ride more fun was to routinely allow non-pilots to do the take-off, and to do loops and rolls.

Takeoffs are easy. I have had people take off tailwheels, including the Pitts Specials which are squirrily on the ground, the first time out with no problems. You can guard out the controls, and even give them a gentle nudge or two. And people would never notice the nudges. If you are not used to the feel of the flight controls, it is hard to tell if someone is slightly interfering.

It should be remembered that an aircraft like a Pitts is much more unstable on the ground then a military jet. It is in the nature of the design. Military jets are tricycle geared, while most aerobatic aircraft have a tail wheel. Tail wheels tend to want to swap ends, while tricycles want to go forward.

Loops and rolls are fairly easy using the same technique. A loop in a military trainer would also be very large. And you can make them very low G (2-2.5 G) and floating over the top. Rolls are even easier. A roll is very easy in a Jet. simply move the stick to the side until the aircraft returns to level.

The thing is, loops and rolls are easy to do, but very difficult to do well. And I doubt Kerry as an unseasoned pilot would be able to tell a good loop from a bad one.

I had many ex-military pilots that were fellow flight instructors and students tell me that tail-wheels were much harder to land and take off then were Jets. Jets are only hard to fly for a few reasons.

1) Speed. Jets are very fast and it is easy for someone who is not used to the speed to get behind them. By that I mean that the person is not thinking ahead, but is thinking about what the jet just did.

2) Loss of control. When you lose control of a Jet, things get very ugly very fast. I could inverted flat spin, or tumble, a Pitts all day, but no Jet driver wants that.

3) Systems. Along with the speed, the Jet driver has a bunch of systems to moniter. The light civils are much more simply.

So, I don't think Kerry lied about this. t would have been easy for the Israeli instructor to make Kerry think that he had "flown" the jet. Now, for myself, I only think that someone has truly flown when they go up in the air by themselves. Hence the honor of one's first solo flight. Other then that there is no story here.

Wichita Falls, Texas. I expect that I shall be able to find some Tex-Mex food there for Cinco de Mayo. And maybe enjoy a margarita or two to celebrate a French defeat!

Maybe that will make me feel better.

According to Fox News, that threat on an LA shopping mall was a hoax.

Zameer Mohamed, 23, of Canada, was charged in federal court here with a single felony count of using a telephone to maliciously make a false threat. He could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

A guy named Mohamed? From Canada?

How cliche!

This John Podhoretz editorial is an example. People seeking personal aggrandizement over the war effort. Over our very survival.

Not only are we unwilling to defend ourselves, we are actively committing suicide.

Clarification - it isn't Podhoretz that is self-aggrandizing at our expense. He is providing an example of what I mean:

Hersh and CBS are leading the media pack with graphic and lurid coverage of the disgusting atrocities committed at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The tone they are adopting is a tone of moral outrage. But beneath it you can feel the thrill, the excitement of being back on the old familiar turf of standing in opposition to the foreign-policy aims of the United States - using the most despicable actions of a few criminals as a stand-in for the overall effort in Iraq.

Of course, if this means we have lost in Iraq, and therefore in the war on terror, then this country will be electing John Kerry this fall. Here's some interesting stuff from his youth (via Powerline Blog):

I think you will find they will respond to whatever government evolves, which answers their needs, and those needs quite simply are to be fed, to bury their dead in plots where their ancestors live, to be allowed to extend their culture, to try and exist as human beings. . .you can satisfy those needs with almost any kind of political structure, giving it one name or the other. In this name (sic) it is democratic; in others it is communism; in others it is benevolent dictatorship.

Sure, the callowness of youth and all that. I would hope that he has learned that there is some difference. But it doesn't matter.

I've swung back and forth on this pendulum before. Before I have always wondered whether we had the will to win the fight for our survival, but never doubted whether we - Western culture, if you will - was worth saving. Now I am doubting that.

We are so hostile to the idea of our own existence that we cannot go on. And the Isalmo-fascists will be glad to usher in a New World Order.

I think.

I have been maintaining optimism throughout the rough period, here. But I just saw something on CNN that makes me want to give up. The uncle of one of the soldiers accused in the prisoner abuse case was on making some very strong accusations of his own. About what was going on at that prison. Now it does seem self-serving (or nephew-serving) that he would say the things he did. But either way, it sickens me. If what he said was true, then what was going on there was out of control. And if it wasn't true, then he is disparaging others to fend off trouble for his relative.

Either way, going on CNN live to tell those tales is not helping things. The man is willing to sacrifice the war effort to cover for the things wrong that even his nephew admits to.

CBS broadcast this story and the photos - and the story is months old - during this time of high tensions in Iraq perhaps for the ratings sweeps. I'm not expecting the press to censor itself, but I would expect it not to be actively for the other side.

Evidently, I would be wrong.

Of course, we didn't lose Walter Cronkite at some point during the war, we lost him and his heirs well before it started.

<Hudson>Game over, man.</Hudson>

Along with losing, of course, will come the chorus of "I told you so's" from those who actively worked to make their prophecies self-fulfilling. That will be tedious to endure.

But won't be worse than what the rest of the world will dish out to the US. bin Laden is dead, but there really will be tens of thousands of replacements.

USS Clueless is beginning to feel trepidation. To some degree, I long ago passed him into the realm of outright fear.

Stephen lays out the many errors that the Bush Administration has made in the last few months in the global war on terror, and the war in Iraq. All of them are true.

But, what I think den Beste fails to consider is the monumental task facing the Administration on 9/12/01. For years I told everyone around me that we would pay the price for our ignoring burgening foriegn policy disasters throughout the 90's. Pakistan and India went nuclear, Iran was right behind. Syria was left alone to its own devices. Terrorists attacks went undealt with.

And meanwhile we sat around, watched the DOW and the NASDAQ climb and discussed important political topics like Presidential BJ's and stained dresses. To this day, I despise Clinton because his actions, his selfish and ego driven actions, which distracted us from burgeoning problems that were an immense threat. Yes, the Republicans were short sighted. We all were. But, if Clinton had instead concentrated on the task at hand, we may have been able to stave off our deadly looming crises.

And it is looming. As we began the global war on terror, my thought has always been the same. We are a decade too late. Maybe if we are willing to risk it all, just maybe we can pull off the immense task of pacifying the Middle East and ensuring that this region's political structure can mature fast enough to trust it with weapons of unimaginable devastation. Because, you see, the genie is out of the bottle. It has been out for a while. And there is no putting it back. Our technology has overtaken us. Possible we could have slowed it, but once Pakistan and N. Korea closed, it only became a matter of time. And still when that happened, we have sat and done nothing.

There were glimpses of hope. Afghanistan went fairly easily. Iraq was not so bad at first. Then Libya. But as den Beste states, things have gone sideways since then. And for one reason:

The Iranians and Syrians, as well as the Pakistanis, the Saudis, need us to lose in Iraq. In fact, I would argue that if we win, they lose utterly and completely. The Iranian government will fall if there is a Democracy set up in Iraq. They know it. So will the Syrians, and they know it. Therefore, these nations are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure our failure. They know the corruption game first hand, and how to play it to perfection. Iran knows how to ensnare the Shiites of Iraq by pointing out that there is an infidel army in Iraq. I am not sure we can beat that. The Iraqis apparently are showing no signs of wanting to shake this off, and in fact, show signs of wanting to shake us off.

The task is enormous. It always was. Was it as enormous as WWII? In many ways it was worse. It's not 1932, its 1939, and we are losing.

We can win. This nation has the resources, the Pat Tillman's ready to go. But the will has not been harnessed. And it is difficult to see how it could have been without an event that dwarfed 9/11.

In one sense it is somewhat difficult to blame Bush for this. What was he to do? If Bush explained the project in detail, then the Arabic nations would have fought us tooth and nail much harder then they are now. On the other hand, the nations have seen through the duplicity, and have now begun to fight in Iraq.

Maybe Wretchard is right. I surely hope he is. Maybe this is all part of a draw play on the part of the Bush Administration. Maybe the task has clarified, and the impossibility of staving off a "Clash of Civilizations" has become apparent.

All I know is, when the Iranians detonate thier test nuke, the game will change. We MUST have Iraq tamed by then. I don't think we are winning that race. And thus we are entering a century of uncertainty the likes of which we cannot imagine.

But, then again, maybe I am just your friendly local pessimist, and I am wrong. Please, prove me wrong?

Here's an interesting bit of political speechifying. Where did it come from?

One of those constructive forces is enhancement of individual human freedoms through the strengthening of democracy, and the fight against deprivation, torture, terrorism and the persecution of people throughout the world. The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language.

Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity, and who suffer for the sake of justice -- they are the patriots of this cause.

I believe with all my heart that America must always stand for these basic human rights -- at home and abroad. That is both our history and our destiny.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America.

Ours was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded explicitly on such an idea. Our social and political progress has been based on one fundamental principle -- the value and importance of the individual. The fundamental force that unites us is not kinship or place of origin or religious preference. The love of liberty is a common blood that flows in our American veins.

The battle for human rights -- at home and abroad -- is far from over. We should never be surprised nor discouraged because the impact of our efforts has had, and will always have, varied results. Rather, we should take pride that the ideals which gave birth to our nation still inspire the hopes of oppressed people around the world. We have no cause for self-righteousness or complacency. But we have every reason to persevere, both within our own country and beyond our borders.

Once you find it- surprised?