TOBY PETZOLD

With thanks to the Power Line boys, read this David Brooks’ column for the latest on Obama’s approach to our enemies:

“The debate we’re going to be having with John McCain is how do we understand the blend of military action to diplomatic action that we are going to undertake,” he said. “I constantly reject this notion that any hint of strategies involving diplomacy are somehow soft or indicate surrender or means that you are not going to crack down on terrorism. Those are the terms of debate that have led to blunder after blunder.”

Obama said he found that the military brass thinks the way he does: “The generals are light-years ahead of the civilians. They are trying to get the job done rather than look tough.”

What “job” have Obama and the general officers of America’s military settled on? Since the first job of our armed forces is to prosecute war against our enemies, I’d like to know what Obama means by this. Invading Pakistan? I think he’s suggested as much before, so why doesn’t he address it more fully now? Is he in favor of undermining the government of Iran since he sometimes appears to understand that they are one of those “root causes” we need to know so much more about? Let’s hear him say what he ought to be saying —now that he doesn’t need to fight for his own nomination anymore.

Joe Klein is saying that’s he’s just spoken to a “senior U.S. intelligence official” who told him that the NIE was released now because

our “collection” capability within Iran has improved considerably over the past few years.

That would be directly attributable to our presence in Iraq. Such intelligence-collecting was finally possible once we were in a position to exploit the cross-border traffic between Iraq and Iran.

Thus, if one believes that Iran did suspend its nuclear weapons program, it must also be one’s belief that they did have one to suspend. Right? But why should the intelligence community —which has now apparently been upgraded to “IC” for Intelligence Community— even be trusted on this? Didn’t they and the President say just two years ago that Iran was furiously working away at nuclear weapons? Now that they supposedly aren’t, what are we to think?

That the dominoes keep falling. Future wars are averted because present wars are waged. The tacit and not-so-tacit threats of annihilation are justified when their outcome is peace.

I am eager to see how Dinnerjacket reacts to all of this. Maybe it will somehow serve to weaken his credibility with those who believed in all of his code words and suggestions of Iran’s right to the Bomb.

The Leftists in Big Media are calling the latest NIE report a refutation of the Bush Administration’s warnings that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.

It’s great to know that the anti-Bush Left have recovered their confidence in our government’s intelligence agencies —although I can’t recall when it was they had any before we invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam. Anybody know? After all, one of the few standard deviations of the Leftist (or, schizophrenic) mind is its preoccupation with the CIA and the NSA and whatever else now falls under the DNI. They can’t be too sure now that the “intelligence community” knows what it’s talking about if it didn’t before, can they?

Did Iran, in fact, suspend its nuclear weapons program in 2003? If it did, why did it? Iran had been seeking the bomb for many years up to that point —only to stop cold? What could be the reason?

My guess would be the very near presence of the United States military —the single greatest guarantor of human freedom of the past century.

Good. This is the part where the party instructs the American People on the fact that we are succeeding in Iraq.

The hippie cocksuckers will find out later.

Glenn Reynolds links to a blog entry by a reporter named Bobby Calvan who’s currently in Iraq writing for the McClatchy Newspaper people. In his blog post, Calvan describes a recent experience he had at a checkpoint trying to get back into the Green Zone in Baghdad —but he comes off so incredibly arrogant that he is either the most gifted parodist I’ve read all year or the dumbest libtard stumpfuck to ever write from a war zone:

The American soldier assigned by the U.S. military to oversee this particular checkpoint came over to investigate the problem.

He asked if I had a driver’s license on me. I told him I didn’t have one. He looked incredulous. Why would I need a driver’s license in Baghdad; I wouldn’t be driving, I told him.

He took offense at my response.

Then he looked at the second ID of my companion. It was a badge issued by our newspaper. He said it wouldn’t do. Besides, he asked, what is Knight Ridder?

“I never heard of it,” he said. He probably would have never heard of McClatchy, either. (We use Knight Ridder because it already had a bureau in Baghdad before the chain was bought by the McClatchy Co.)

The funniest part, though, is the comment thread. This poor bastard just gets eviscerated. I was actually in tears I was laughing so hard as the hyperbole and righteous anger just piled up.

UPDATE: Oh, okay. Now Calvan’s cut the end of his post off and is waving the white flag. Too late, hippie: we done got you in the cache. Ha, ha! Go read the comments, anyway. They are a work of art. Like the dude from the Hell’s Angels in Gimme Shelter explaining why he and his boys had to beat the shit out of the people for messing with their bikes at Altamont.

The Asia Times Online is reporting that

An all-out battle for control of Pakistan’s restive North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own.

According to a top Pakistani security official who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, the goal this time is to pacify the Waziristans once and for all. All previous military operations - usually spurred by intelligence provided by the Western coalition - have had limited objectives, aimed at specific bases or sanctuaries or blocking the cross-border movement of guerrillas. Now the military is going for broke to break the back of the Taliban and a-Qaeda in Pakistan and reclaim the entire area.

I don’t know if this represents a fantastic opportunity to make a final breakthrough against the Taliban types in Afghanistan or if it means disaster.

A qualified estimate by intelligence officials is that Pakistani military pacification of the Waziristans would slash the capability of the Afghan resistance by 85% as well as deliver a serious setback to the Iraqi resistance.

The militants have little option but to stand and fight, rather than slip across the border or melt into the local population. Aside from the sanctuary and succor afforded them in the Waziristans, most of the fighters there are either Waziris, or from other parts of Pakistan, or foreigners. They would be unable to support themselves in Afghanistan, especially as most of the non-Waziris do not speak Pashtu - a fact that also prevents them from disappearing into the Waziristan populace.

Let’s hope for some sound immigration policy for the sake of our fighting men and women in Afghanistan. Stop the floor-kissers at the border and give that region a chance for peace.

If you’re thinking about the war to come, be sure to read this very interesting analysis of what’s happening in Syria and Iran right now. Jack Wheeler writes about the Israelis’ air strikes on Syria just a few weeks ago:

Since then, it’s panic-squared in Tehran.  The mullahs are freaking out in fear.  Why?  Because of the silence in Syria. On September 6, Israeli Air Force F-15 and F-16s conducted a devastating attack on targets deep inside Syria near the city of Dayr az-Zawr.  Israel’s military censors have muzzled the Israeli media, enforcing an extraordinary silence about the identity of the targets.  Massive speculation in the world press has followed, such as Brett Stephens’ Osirak II? in yesterday’s (9/18) Wall St. Journal. Stephens and most everyone else have missed the real story.  It is not Israel’s silence that ’speaks volumes’ as he claims, but Syria’s.

Read the whole thing.

(Thanks to Glenn Reynolds.)

Until this afternoon, my only acquaintance with Glenn Greenwald was from maybe a year or so ago when he was exposed as a fraud who sockpuppeted positive responses to his own posts and reactions to his own posts around the blogosphere. But with his Salon blog post from last Wednesday, Greenwald makes a tour de force of absolute liberal/Leftist cluelessness. I recommend that it be read and studied. Of the disgusting MoveOn.org ad against General Petraeus that was had on the cheap from the fucking com-symps at the New York Times, Greenwald writes:

For those who think — for some indiscernible reason — that it is important enough to spend the energy developing an opinion on the MoveOn ad, there are, I suppose, reasonable arguments that can be made on both sides as to whether the “betray us” rhyme was rhetorically excessive, counter-productive, etc. But the shrill hand-wringing it has triggered is just bizarre in light of the fact that accusing Americans, including military veterans, of being unpatriotic, anti-American and betraying the country has, for decades, been a mainstream staple of the political rhetoric from our country’s pro-war Right — invoked most aggressively by those, such as [Joe] Klein, now claiming such profound offense over the MoveOn ad.

Greenwald sounds like Principal Skinner telling the kids to stop asking questions about the bizarre cover-up of Groundskeeper Willie’s death. The MoveOn.org ad was purchased with an eye towards attention and controversy, so why should Greenwald dismiss the consequences? Is speaking truth to power too scary a proposition to long remain associated with it? Must it be clumsily covered over by such sacks of apologist shit as Greenwald for fear it might be called what it is?

Indeed, just a few months ago, Gen. Petraeus himself toyed with exactly such rhetoric at the prompting of the incomparably odious Joe Lieberman, whose entire political career is now devoted (ironically) to impugning the patriotism of any Americans who oppose Lieberman’s desire to wage one war after the next against Israel’s enemies. As The Washington Post’s Thomas Ricks reported regarding a Senate hearing in May:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) asked Army Lt. Gen. David H . Petraeus during his confirmation hearing yesterday if Senate resolutions condemning White House Iraq policy “would give the enemy some comfort.”

Petraeus agreed they would, saying, “That’s correct, sir.”

Here, Greenwald knowingly uses Ricks’ inaccurate quote from Lieberman because it better suits his narrative that pro-American politicians sometimes suggest that Democrats and the ant-war crowd do give “comfort to the enemy.” He then immediately sets about to acknowledge that Lieberman didn’t use the word “comfort,” but does so by saying (emphasis mine):

Though subsequent reports suggested that Lieberman used the phrase “give the enemy some encouragement” (rather than the treasonous term of art “comfort”), the point was the same: those who condemned the President’s war policy were, pursuant to Petraeus’ toxic accusations, helping America’s Terrorist Enemies.

“The point was the same”? What are you talking about, liar? Is that this season’s ”fake but accurate”? You got Ricks wrong getting Lieberman wrong. It’s as simple as that.

Read Greenwald’s whole post, as well as the updates. He does not understand the qualitative difference between the rhetoric of the American Right and the anti-American Left because he does not recognize the degeneracy of his own position, which is incoherent in the face of our military and strategic obligations. You know he understands that the MoveOn.org ad was a huge blunder for the Democrats because he takes such pains to dismiss its importance. But these politicians cannot shake their associations with the moobat fringe. And hacks like Greenwald —just as apparently— cannot find a clue as to why they should be called traitors and sympathizers.

(Hat tip to Dan Collins of Protein Wisdom and his commenters.)

I just watched the replay of last night’s Jon Stewart monologue on General Petraeus —and it was typical Stewart: smug, half-informed, and chickenshit.

The anti-war Leftists and liberals have it in mind that the only thing that approximates ideological coherence for them is their opposition to the War for Iraq. But why do they believe that this opposition, in itself, is worth anything? The great majority of them don’t put any strategic or tactical or political thought into why any particular aspect of the war is wrong or right, so what is the point of their opposition? Simple: if they can take their hatred of George W. Bush —and wrap the ethical argument of pacifism for one and all around that— then they believe they are innoculated against charges of treason and of sympathy for the enemy. After all, they [support the troops] —except when they assist in those same men’s and women’s excoriations before the world as torturers, murderers, mercenaries, and all-around sadists. But, you know, dissent is patriotic and other garbage.

The headlines today are all about the Democrats’ rejection of the draw-down that Petraeus envisions. “Too little, too late” and that kind of mindless prattle. Could such criticism be any more transparently devoid of thought or any more obviously partisan in its motivation and logic? To say that the proposed number of troops in the draw-down is “too little” is to suggest that one knows of a better number. Well, the pacifist would say that the only number is the one that accounts for all, but what anti-war leaders are saying that? The nuts. Shitforbrains like Kucinich. Your average Leftist blogger. These mindless ninnies want us gone from Iraq yesterday. But that isn’t going to happen, is it? So, what number is the right number? What is the logical or strategic basis upon which to insist that a certain number of our troops be withdrawn —no matter what?

One’s personal pacifism isn’t the answer.

One’s partisan motivations shouldn’t be the answer, but what else could it be?

Enjoy the coming year, comrades. Your inexplicably insane and white guilt-ridden support of Barack Obama is bound to rend your party in half. Possibly into thirds. You’re closer to having some principles this time around, if only by accident, but now it’s going to cost you extra. A large number of you are destined to be forever associated with anti-Americanism. The failures of your imagination —Obama, the Clintons, the wretched buffoon Edwards, and maybe even the Gorebot itself— are now all in line to drag your hopes of Executive control down into the dust.

I savor the prospect.

Is Hillary deliberately being dry and boring so as to guarantee the least possible media attention paid to her testimony?

What a snooze!