Category: World

Chrenkoff’s latest Good News from Iraq is up at OpinionJournal:

One can be forgiven for thinking that our task in Iraq is merely to return the country to its prewar status quo. More often than not lost in reporting is the realization that Iraq has to recover from the violence and destruction not just of the past year and a half, but of the past 30 years.

Iraq of March 2003 was not a normal, well-functioning state thrown into chaos and mayhem only by the arrival of the Coalition forces. In reality, the preinvasion Iraq was a wreck of a country whose great potential of the 1950s and 1960s has been all but completely squandered for the sake of the aggrandizement of one man and the hegemony of his party. It’s important to bear that in mind before rushing to criticize the coalition authorities for failing to rebuild in a year what took three decades to destroy.

That the Iraqi people are not giving up on their desire to overcome the tragic and soul-destroying legacy of the Baath Party misrule and are courageously forging ahead with their new lives is truly a testament to the power of the spirit and human tenacity.

Update: More evidence that Saddam’s WMD went to Syria. (Via Power Line).

I’m watching the repeat of the Olympic opening ceremonies this evening. It’s nice to see some pomp and circumstance every once in a while. I thought the spectacle was very nice. Understated, compared to some recent Olympics, but I liked it.

Unfortunately I had to listen to the inane chatter of Brian Williams and Peter Mansbridge, as they made snide remarks about the US’s possible reception (and of course sounded disappointed when the Americans were greeted with a resounding roar), and totally failed to note the female Afghan flag-bearer, instead sorrowfully and vaguely mentioning a recent change in government — apparently oblivious to the fact that said government had the unfortunate habit of shooting its women in the head in sports stadiums instead of having them carry the flag.

They lamented the inclusion of politics into the games, but couldn’t resist a non-sequitur about the US invading Grenada “to overturn a Marxist government”. Wouldn’t do to mention certain Soviet airbases and missile sites that got overturned as well, I guess.

I swear I’m moving to America as soon as my company goes public.

Just a few months ago, George W. Bush’s National Guard service record was all over the news, even the CBC. Based on the statement of the commanding officer of the airbase in question that he didn’t recall seeing Bush there, Liberals were gleefully proclaiming Bush a deserter.

After several of his fellow Guardsmen turned up with clear recollections of his service at the time and place in question, and the administration turned up dental records proving he was there, and the commanding officer in question turned out to have Alzheimers (!), the issue sort of fizzled out, although it still seems to survive in the Liberal catechism, and I’ve had to rebut it several times in conversations since.

John Kerry has made a great deal of his service in Vietnam during his political career. In the 70’s, he was a vocal protester against the war (he’s even honored as a hero in a war museum in Vietnam), claiming that he and his fellow veterans were war criminals who committed atrocities on a day-to-day basis. During the 80’s and 90’s, he voted against any increase of military spending or new weapons program he saw. He voted against the first Iraq war. He happened to vote for the second war, but then voted against funding it, while criticising the Bush administration for underequipping the troops. In his acceptance speech for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, he made a great deal of his Vietnam experience, and contrasted his service overseas with Bush’s in Texas.

In the last week or two, a story has developed about John Kerry that should be the delight of any investigative reporter.

A group of Vietnam veterans who served in the same Swift Boat unit as Kerry have come out with a book and TV ads that claim that many details of Kerry’s story about his service in Vietnam are false, and that the injuries for which he received the three Purple Hearts that allowed him to return to the US after only four months were trivial and self-inflicted.

In addition, John Kerry has claimed many times over the years to have been in Cambodia in 1968. In a Congressional hearing in 1986 he said that the memory of that Christmas was seared into his mind. In fact, he carries a jungle hat around in his briefcase that he claimed in 2003 was given to him by a CIA operative in Cambodia.

But in his official biography, published last year, we find a journal entry for that same Christmas, dated from Sa Dec, 50 miles from the Cambodian border.

So when asked about this by Fox News, the Kerry campaign first slandered the Swift Boat veterans, then claimed that Kerry never said he was in Cambodia, then claimed that Kerry was mistaken about being in Cambodia, and is now claiming that Kerry, stationed on the Mekong delta, was on the border of Cambodia — an impossibility evident to anyone who glances at a map to see that the Mekong in fact flows perpendicular to the border

So here we have a grand tale of lies, misdirection and coverup, but so far only one reporter at Fox News, and the Telegraph of London, of all things, is covering the story. Why isn’t this story all over the news the way that the Bush’s National Guard service was? Anyone like to offer a hypothesis other than the majority of the traditional media are die-hard liberals who will stop at nothing to defeat Bush?

Much much more at Instapundit and Power Line, and Vodkapundit.

Update: An excellent article is here. Hat tip: Instapundit.

So there was no connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, eh? Recent events suggest otherwise:

Last summer, U.S. troops discovered Yassin Muhhiddin Aref’s (search) name, telephone number and address in a book left behind in a vacated terrorist training camp, a U.S. official told FOX News. The book also revealed that Ansar al-Islam, the group running the camp, had given Aref a title: “the commander.”

Aref, 34, is the Imam of the Masjid As-Salam mosque in Albany, N.Y. He and one other mosque leader were arrested Thursday and charged with helping an undercover informant posing as a weapons dealer who was plotting to buy a shoulder-launched missile that would be used to kill the Pakistani ambassador in New York City.

Ansar Al-Islam, of course, is an affilliate of Al-Qaeda.

Hat tip: Instapundit.