Libertarian Leanings

Air America and McCain-Feingold

In case you missed it yesterday, John Lott and Bradley Smith think Air America is really nothing more than a devious way for lefties to get around McCain-Feingold.

When is a campaign donation not a campaign donation? Apparently if you spend the money to run a radio program instead of paying for campaign ads that run on that same program. Just look at Air America. With $41 million in losses since 2004, and $9.8 million owed just to Robert Glaser, RealNetworks chairman, Democrats who bankrolled this "company" weren't so much investors as campaign contributors. The losses are seen as simple business ineptitude,but Air America effectively, and perhaps intentionally, cleverly avoided the campaign finance limits which Democrats had worked so hard to pass.

Al Franken and company may think they're cleverly getting around the McCain-Feingold, but they really demonstrate how well the spending limits work.  Sure, the money they spend is unaccounted for, but what good is that?  Nobody listens to them on their own stations.  Think how much more effective it would be if they just bought time on Rush Limbaugh's show.  But they can't.  It would be against the law.

Disclaimer:  This is in no way intended to be an endorsement of McCain-Feingold, which I view as an unconstitutional encroachment on free speech.

Are we winning?

From Byron York's National Review column on the White House meeting between George Bush and a group of conservative journalists:

CNBC's Larry Kudlow asked, “How can you measure winning? The last couple of years, there just don’t seem to be any signals or signs that we’re winning.”

“This is the significant disadvantage we have in this war because the enemy gets to define victory by killing people,” Bush answered.

It's sad, but that's the definition of victory that's been embraced by the Democrats, as well.  In spite of it, the President is optimistic and determined.

But in the end, there is still that frustration with a level of violence that U.S. forces don’t seem able to control. The consequences tear at Bush every day, but he remains convinced that the war will ultimately succeed. “If we can’t win, I’ll pull us out,” the president said. “If I didn’t think it was noble and just and we can win, we’re gone. I can’t — I’m not going to keep those kids in there and have to deal with their loved ones. I can’t cover it up when I meet with a family who’s lost a child. I cry, I weep, I hug. And I’ve got to be able to look them in the eye and say, we’re going to win. I have to be able to do that. And I’m not a good faker.”

“And so what I’m telling you is — we’ll win this.”

I've always believed that.  Right from the start.

Brother Raul

According to Strategy Page, Raul Castro has extended his authority beyond the "provisional" in brother Fidel's absence.

October 26, 2006: After about three months as acting chief-of-state, Raul Castro seems to be moving well beyond exercising "provisional" authority. He has recently sacked a cabinet member, and quietly been making nice to the United States. Most recently, Raul acceded to a U.S. Weather Service request for over flight during a hurricane...

Apparently Raul sees an opportunity to ride in, when his brother Fidel dies, as a savior. Raul does not carry all of Fidels political baggage, and could get away with a sharp break from his brothers long standing anti-American stand. A large minority of Cubans have benefited from money sent by kin in the U.S., or from working in the growing tourist industry, and are favorably disposed towards the U.S.m despite decades of anti-American propaganda. Most Cubans know that Castro's "revolution" is a failure, and that there's a better world out there. Raul wants to lead the way to a better future, before that future puts him in front of a firing squad of angry Cubans.

Looking toward November

Michael Scheuer looks toward November and he doesn't like what he sees.  The author of the Imperial Hubris, which was a real slam on the Bush Administration, seems to have saved his harshest criticism for Bill Clinton.  Scheuer's remarks come in a Washington Times column titled Another bin Laden victory, which he says Democratic control of congress would be.

The combination of Democratic rhetoric and the indelible fact of the Clinton administration's relentless refusal to try to kill bin Laden — preferring to protect its Arab, arms-buying buddies at the cost of American corpses — ensures that voters will receive what Clinton-era Democrats are best at giving: barely disguised pacifism that has and will continue to allow al-Qaeda and its allies to steadily destroy U.S. security.

He is positively brutal.  You need to read the whole thing.

Hitting the target

From the lead editorial in Opinion Journal,

Yes, the Iraq project is difficult, and its outcome dangerously uncertain. The Bush Administration and its military generals have so far failed to stem insurgent attacks or pacify Baghdad, and the factions comprising Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government have so far failed to make essential political compromises. But the American response to this should be to change military tactics or deployments until they do succeed, and to reassure Iraqi leaders that their hard political choices will result in U.S. support, not precipitous withdrawal.

The current American panic, by contrast, is precisely what the insurgents intend with their surge of October violence. The Baathists and Sadrists can read the U.S. political calendar, and they'd like nothing better than to feed the perception that the violence is intractable. They want our election to be perceived as a referendum on Iraq that will speed the pace of American withdrawal.

The insurgents don't really care who they kill, as long as they can kill somebody, anybody.  It gains them the anti-war vote here in the U.S.  They're aiming at the Democrats and hitting their target.

A worthy cause

A National Review column by former Defense Department consultant Mario Loyola answers the question, Is Iraq a Worthy Cause?  Loyola was responding to an earlier column by Jonah Goldberg, in which Goldberg claimed Iraq was a Worthy Mistake.  Said Goldberg,

If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone to war with Iraq in 2003.

I'm with Loyola, but I take issue with him as well as with Goldberg.  Loyola made this statement:

First, the issue of weapons of mass destruction. If we had known in 2003 that there were no WMDs we obviously would not have gone to war — but this skips right past the central point. Our best intelligence told us that it looked very much as if Saddam Hussein had all sorts of banned weapons, so unless Hussein could prove otherwise, it would have been criminally negligent for the president to draw any inference other than the one he drew.

Had we known there were no WMD, I think we would still have gone to war.  Consider this Bill Moyers interview of Joseph C. Wilson in early 2003. 

MOYERS: So you're saying that it is important to enforce United Nations resolutions.

WILSON: Absolutely.

MOYERS: You think war is inevitable?

WILSON: I think war is inevitable. Essentially, the speech that the President gave at the American Enterprise Institute was so much on the overthrow of the regime and the liberation of the Iraqi people that I suspect that Saddam understands that this is not about disarmament.

Wilson's stated problem with it was that he thought it might not work.

MOYERS: And you agree with that, don't you?

WILSON: Well, no, I don't think that that's the only way. That's where I disagree. I mean, I think that there are several other steps that can be taken before you have to go to total war for the purposes of achieving disarmament.

MOYERS: Coercive…

WILSON: But I think disarmament is only one of the objectives. And the President has touched repeatedly and more openly on the other objectives in recent speeches including this idea of liberating Iraq and liberating its people from a brutal dictator. And I agree that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator.

And I agree along with everybody else that the Iraqi people could — would well be far better off without Saddam Hussein. The problem really is a war which has us invading, conquering and then subsequently occupying Iraq may not achieve that liberation that we're talking about.

MOYERS: So this is not just about weapons of mass destruction.

WILSON: Oh, no, I think it's far more about re-growing the political map of the Middle East.

The war in Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror because it's "far more about re-growing the political map on the Middle East," to use Ambassador Wilson's words.  Al Qaeda knows the war in Iraq is about changing the politics of the Middle East, that's why they have made Iraq their central front in the war.

There is also this to consider.  In his book Bush at War, Bob Woodward presented the picture of a skeptical George Bush, reluctantly won over by George Tenet who said making the case for war on the basis of WMD was a "slam dunk".  Bush was clearly looking for convincing arguments.  If he thought there weren't any WMD in Iraq, he wouldn't have had a convincing argument, and he would have focused on a different aspect of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

And today Democrats would be complaining that he lied about whatever that might have been.

Beginning and ending in Anbar

The Mesopotamian reports on what might be a significant development in the Anbar province of western Iraq -- the rise of an anti-terror movement calling itself the "Anbar Salvation Council".

In the last year or so it seems that the Americans have been using a more subtle approach in trying to corner the enemy in certain locations and surround him without confronting him directly. It seems that he was allowed to concentrate in certain points (in and near the city of Ramadi) and almost given the freedom to exist and fester within these narrow boundaries. Thus the hapless inhabitants of these towns, such as Ramadi, were given the dubious honor of experiencing all the pleasures of living under the yoke of these hordes of Mujahideen who actually surpassed the Taliban in their zeal for various Godly practices.

For instance, here are some of the things that were declared haram (forbidden), not to mention the usual prohibitions of Islam that everybody knows:

- It is haram for men(let alone women) to wear shorts and even jeans, indeed the captain of the Iraqi tennis team was murdered in Baghdad for just this sin as he was leaving his house wearing one (to play tennis).
- It is haram for women to drive. Many women were murdered for this particular sin.
- It is haram to listen to music.
- Haircuts and hairdressing is haram and barbers and barber shops have been favorite targets.

All that is very well but wait for this:

- “Turshi”(pickled vegetables) is haram. I am told by some of my Ramadi acquaintances that jars of “Turshi” are secretly passed around much in the same way that drugs are traded elsewhere.
- Sammoun (bread that is baked in what is considered western style) is haram, and hence the many attacks on bakeries guilty of this practice.
- Last but not least, spoons forks and any such cutlery are haram !!!! The pious Islamic way is to eat with one’s bare hands.

The list can go on and on, with increasing absurdity. It gets to a point when it is clear that they want any excuse to murder people.

Can you imagine what it is like to be living under such regime, adding to that the lack of essential services and the total collapse of almost everything?

He goes on to say that the people of Anbar are getting pretty fed up with the situation, and are coming to realize in much greater numbers what's the real source of their misery.  He bases this on what he's heard from personal acquaintances.  He's decided that this anti-terrorist movement is real the real thing, and he believes it's fairly widespread.  He concludes.

This is an urgent appeal to come to the aid of the risen decent tribes of the Anbar and to put this matter at the top list of priorities. You want some decent Sunnis to uphold, and redress the balance in the new political system? Well, here you have the right candidates. Help to boost, empower, organize and enable the "Anbar Awakening and Salvation Council" to launch the offensive and clean up their province and restore Law and Order. Do not allow the enemy to regroup and launch their counter offensive which is expected any moment now. Help the valiant Dulaim people accomplish what has eluded the U.S. and Government forces for more than than three years. It is in the Anbar that the problem has started and it is in the Anbar that it may end.

I wouldn't have expected it, but what if it's the Sunnis who turn out to be the staunchest American allies in the region.  It might happen.

Under threat of suspicion

Reporters Without Borders claims freedom of the press has declined in the U.S.

Although it ranked 17th on the first list, published in 2002, the United States now stands at 53, having fallen nine places since last year.

"Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of 'national security' to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his 'war on terrorism,' " the group said.

"The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 U.S. states, refuse to recognize the media's right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism," the group said.

Pretext?  How about some ratings on objectivity of the press.

Revenge

According to Strategy Page, Iraqi intelligence has had chalked up some successes in battling terrorism, but revenge killings go on.

Attacks on security forces and critical infrastructure are down, there has been some progress in co-opting the largely Sunni tribes of Anbar into the fight against al Qaeda. Recently, Iraqi intelligence operations managed to bring down a major Baathist network that was moving money around to finance local terrorist operators. In the process, police busted several important mid-level Baath officials, which will reduce Baathist terrorism. But the increase in sectarian attacks, mostly Shia on Sunni, but with some Sunni on Shia as well, is more than making up for the decline in attacks on security forces and infrastructure, or Baathist activity. The sectarian violence is all about revenge, with Shia, and even some Kurdish, gunmen out to avenge decades of murderous rule by the Sunni Arab minority.

Air strikes in Baghdad

Omar reports air strikes in Baghdad, presumably Sadr City.

Looks like there's something big going on in Baghdad to night.
Flares are filling the skies and fighter jets are striking targets in the city.

In the last 30 minutes I could see several aircrafts launching missiles and within seconds explosions would follow.

Meanwhile the Washington Times reports that Senator John Warner has called for a harder crack down on private militias.

In an appearance yesterday on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican, said the Iraqi military needed to crack down harder on the private militias that have fought a low-grade civil war, with daily body counts in the dozens.

With no mention of any air strikes, the New York Times reports that the battle for Baghdad is on in earnest.

BAGHDAD, Oct. 22 — After three years of trying to thwart a potent insurgency and tamp down the deadly violence in Iraq, the American military is playing its last hand: the Baghdad security plan.

The plan will be tweaked, adjusted and modified in the weeks ahead, as American commanders try to reverse the dismaying increase in murders, drive-by shootings and bombings.

But military commanders here see no plausible alternative to their bedrock strategy to clear violence-ridden neighborhoods of militias, insurgents and arms caches, hold them with Iraqi and American security forces, and then try to win over the population with reconstruction projects, underwritten mainly by the Iraqi government. There is no fall-back plan that the generals are holding in their hip pocket. This is it.

Besides Iraq the Model, no one has reported air strikes in Baghdad.  If this really is it, perhaps they signal a new resolve.