Another Democrat Goes to Damascus

Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who is seeking his party's presidential nomination, blasted President Bush and the Iraq deployment during a visit with Syrian strongman Bashir Assad (via Memeorandum):

US Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich, on a Mideast visit that included a stop in Syria, said the country lambasted by the Bush administration deserves credit for taking in more than a million Iraqi refugees.

Kucinich, a strong anti-war opponent who trails far in the US presidential polls, also said he won't visit Iraq on his trip to the region because he considers the US military deployment there illegal.

"I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation ... I don't want to bless that occupation with my presence," he said in an interview in Lebanon, after visiting Syria. "I will not do it."

Kucinich, who accused the Bush administration of policies that have destabilized the Mideast, met with Syrian President Bashar Assad during his visit to Damascus. He said Assad was receptive to his ideas of "strength through peace."

He also praised Syria for taking in Iraqi refugees.

And I'm sure Kucinich praised Assad for the arms pipeline he's providing for the transit of materiel from Iran to the Hezbollah thugs in Southern Lebanon.

Calls for diplomacy with Syria may be warranted (at least some have argued), but heaping such praise in a visit to the capital of a state that has allowed the free flow of insurgents in and out of Iraq , while at the same time refusing to make a stop in that country - with perhaps a goodwill gesture to the U.S. service personnel fighting valiantly there - ought to automatically disqualify Kucinich as a serious prospect for president of the United States.

Teaching Struggling Students

Thomas Curwen of the Los Angeles Times discusses the everyday hardships of students, and the difficulties such problems present for life inside the classroom:

A friend sent me an e-mail the other day. He teaches third grade at a public school in San Bernardino County, and as he was getting ready for the start of a new year, he found tucked into a folder a note that he had scribbled to himself in the middle of a previous school year.

The words were inspired by one of the more mundane bits of class management, but as he began the work, the reality of the task began to sink in.

"Here I am -- another month of teaching gone by -- contemplating our school's monthly awards: Perfect Attendance, Outstanding Citizen, Outstanding Scholar, Superior Writer, Great Reader. . . [and] all I can think of is: How about an award for Psychological Survivor, Emotional Duress Survivor? In other words, awards for just coping with life."

When my friend wrote his note, he was teaching a class of 30 fifth-graders, and it was easy for the lives of the students, whom he had slowly gotten to know, to overshadow any consideration of monthly achievement. Here are a few of his descriptions:

* A girl who was once locked in a dark closet for eight hours by a baby sitter. The child talked longingly of her dad, who was in prison;

* A girl who was sexually abused at a very young age and taught to steal money from purses at age 2;

* A girl still coping with her grandmother's near-fatal car accident. She brought in newspaper clippings of the accident along with some shaved hair from her grandmother...

Here - and elsewhere, in classrooms across America - some form of psychological trauma in children's lives trumps whatever cards educators and politicians are trying to play. Some of the trauma is the result of poverty, to be sure. In my friend's district, for instance, three-quarters of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches, and in his note he described gang stories and tales of parental drug abuse and violence.

But poverty is only part of the problem, which is really more about the complicated existences that all children lead. So why do politicians and school boards spend so much time discussing budgets and testing and oversight and accountability?

No doubt they are easier to talk about than the emotional lives of children who are often left to struggle by themselves (or, if they are lucky, with a teacher) through matters of grief, abuse, divorce and special needs. It's no wonder then that so many teachers feel that what they are up against on a daily basis is often ignored.

I would bet that the great majority of teachers - with the exception, perhaps, of those teaching in the most affluent, advantaged neighborhoods - would be able to share similar stories of students' personal hardships and educational challenges.

As a teacher of many students from very diverse and underprivileged backgrounds, I've had students time and again who had been victims of domestic violence, who were recovering from stroke or other debilitating diseases, who had been on welfare with multiple kids and inadequate child care, or those who had tragically lost loved ones to murderous violence in the inner city.

Situations like these are not infrequent, and they make the teaching life stimulating and rewarding, especially when one is able to make a real difference in the life-chances of students.

One thing I noticed about the Curwen article is his reporting avoids pleas for extenuating treatment. Student confessions of hardship are often accompanied by appeals to sympathy. But educational standards must never erode in the face of ever-growing student struggles - in my opinion, at least.

Teachers should make every effort to treat students equally and maintain a rigorous curriculum. Helping students succeed despite their troubles should be paramount. Publicizing and attempting to make available student success resources at the school can help, but in the end, some kids may not be as successful as they might, at least until they can change the life circumstances that make schooling a hard knocks enterprise for them.

A Massacre of Innocence at Duke University

I did not follow the Duke rape case very closely. Frankly, I was late in appreciating the story, which in the end is a sad tale of miscarried justice and a deep commentary on contemporary American society.

The events of the Duke case are told in a new book by Stuart Taylor, Jr., and KC Johnson, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.

Abigail Thernstrom has a review of the book in today's Wall Street Journal:

Privileged, rowdy white jocks at an elite, Southern college, a poor, young black stripper, and an alleged rape: It was a juicy, made-for-the-media story of race, class and sex, and it was told and retold for months with a ferocious, moralistic intensity. Reporters and pundits ripped into Duke University, the white race and the young lacrosse players at the center of the episode, and the local justice system quickly handed up indictments. But as Stuart Taylor Jr. and KC Johnson show in "Until Proven Innocent"--and as the facts themselves would show when they finally came to light--it was a false story, a toxic controversy built on lies and bad faith.

There was plenty of wrongdoing, of course, but it had very little to do with Duke's lacrosse players. It was perpetrated instead by a rogue district attorney determined to win re-election in a racially divided, town-gown city; ideologically driven reporters and their pseudo-expert sources; censorious faculty members driven by the imperatives of political correctness; a craven university president; and black community leaders seemingly ready to believe any charge of black victimization.

"Until Proven Innocent" is a stunning book. It recounts the Duke lacrosse case in fascinating detail and offers, along the way, a damning portrait of the institutions--legal, educational and journalistic--that do so much to shape contemporary American culture. Messrs. Taylor and Johnson make it clear that the Duke affair--the rabid prosecution, the skewed commentary, the distorted media storyline--was not some odd, outlier incident but the product of an elite culture's most treasured assumptions about American life, not least about America's supposed racial divide.

Thernstrom's review provides a nice background to the totality of legal and political developments in the case. But I found the following paragraph particularly revealing, where she notes that prosector Michael Nifong's crazed legal railroading of the defendants was abetted by the university and its despicable culture of political correctness:

In this fundamental injustice, he was aided and abetted by others in Durham. Richard Brodhead, the president of Duke, condemned the lacrosse players as if they had already been found guilty, demanded the resignation of their coach and studiously ignored the mounting evidence that Ms. Mangum's charge was false. He was clearly terrified of the racial and gender activists on his own faculty. Houston Baker, a noted professor of English, called the lacrosse players "white, violent, drunken men veritably given license to rape," men who could "claim innocence . . . safe under the cover of silent whiteness." Protesters on campus and in the city itself waved "castrate" banners, put up "wanted" posters and threatened the physical safety of the lacrosse players.

It's truly a shame that the lives of three upstanding white scholar-athletes could have been nearly destroyed by a politically-corrupt district attorney and the multicultural hordes who circled the case likes sharks after the chum.

Watching the Republicans

I caught last night's GOP debate on Fox News. One of the biggest issues of the night was Fred Thompson's absence, a point moderator Brit Hume raised as the initial question for the canidates (Thompson announced his entry into the race last night on Jay Leno's late show).

I thought Rudy Giuliani came off the winner, and John McCain made a strong - if stiff - showing.

Giuliani seemed confident and poised. He stayed on message in stressing his leadership in New York City, and didn't harp on the 9/11 attacks. He certainly seems the one to beat at this point in the campaign.

I still like John McCain, of course, even though his campaign's pretty much dropped to the bottom of the barrel organizationally. McCain best represent my interests as a national security voter. Here's an inspiring excerpt from McCain's comments at the debate:

I’ve spent my life on national security issues. I’ve taken unpopular stands because I knew what was right. Back in 2003, amid criticism from my fellow Republicans, I spoke strongly against the then-Rumsfeld strategy which I knew was doomed to failure and caused so much needless sacrifice. I advocated very strongly the new strategy that some Democrats have called the McCain strategy -- (chuckles) -- which it is not, and I believe that the strategy is winning. I know the conflict. I know war. I have seen war. I know how the military works. I know how the government works. I understand national security.

I have led. I had -- I was once the commanding officer of the largest squadron in the United States Navy. I didn’t manage it; I led it.

McCain did well in promoting the surge, particularly in response to Mitt Romney's missteps on the war. Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard provides a nice analysis of the impact of the debate for McCain's White House chances:

How far McCain went last night in reviving his battered campaign is unclear. A single strong debate performance can't, by itself, resurrect a candidacy. But it can help by guaranteeing McCain more press coverage--and more respectful treatment, at that--and perhaps a bump in the polls that come out almost daily.

By the way, a focus group of 29 New Hampshire Republicans conducted during the debate by pollster Frank Luntz found McCain to be the winner.

I'm hoping McCain can ressurrect some of his 2000 New Hampshire magic. I'm not so sure he'll be able to, however, especially with his problems of money and staff plaguing his organization.

Importing Poverty: Immigration and the Poor

Robert Samuelson's one of those rare journalists who regularly cuts through all the baloney on any number of policy areas. His tightly-reasoned article today on immigration and poverty is an excellent example:

The government last week released its annual statistical report on poverty and household income. As usual, we - meaning the public, the media and politicians - missed a big part of the story. It is this: The stubborn persistence of poverty, at least as measured by the government, is increasingly a problem associated with immigration. As more poor Hispanics enter the country, poverty goes up. This is not complicated, but it is widely ignored.

The standard story is that poverty is stuck; superficially, the statistics support that. The poverty rate measures the share of Americans below the official poverty line, which in 2006 was $20,614 for a four-person household. Last year, the poverty rate was 12.3 percent, down slightly from 12.6 percent in 2005 but higher than the recent low, 11.3 percent in 2000. It was also higher than the 11.8 percent average for the 1970s. So the conventional wisdom seems amply corroborated.

It isn't. Look again at the numbers. In 2006, there were 36.5 million people in poverty. That's the figure that translates into the 12.3 percent poverty rate. In 1990, the population was smaller, and there were 33.6 million people in poverty, a rate of 13.5 percent. The increase from 1990 to 2006 was 2.9 million people (36.5 million minus 33.6 million). Hispanics accounted for all of the gain.

Consider: From 1990 to 2006, the number of poor Hispanics increased 3.2 million, from 6 million to 9.2 million. Meanwhile, the number of non-Hispanic whites in poverty fell from 16.6 million (poverty rate: 8.8 percent) in 1990 to 16 million (8.2 percent) in 2006. Among blacks, there was a decline from 9.8 million in 1990 (poverty rate: 31.9 percent) to 9 million (24.3 percent) in 2006. White and black poverty has risen somewhat since 2000 but is down over longer periods.

Only an act of willful denial can separate immigration and poverty. The increase among Hispanics must be concentrated among immigrants, legal and illegal, as well as their American-born children. Yet, this story goes largely untold. Government officials didn't say much about immigration when briefing on the poverty and income reports. The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group for the poor, both held briefings. Immigration was a common no-show.

Why is it important to get this story straight?

One reason is truthfulness. It's usually held that we've made little, if any, progress against poverty. That's simply untrue. Among non-Hispanic whites, the poverty rate may be approaching some irreducible minimum: people whose personal habits, poor skills, family relations or bad luck condemn them to a marginal existence. Among blacks, the poverty rate remains abysmally high, but it has dropped sharply since the 1980s. Moreover, taking into account federal benefits (food stamps, the earned-income tax credit) that aren't counted as cash income would further reduce reported poverty.

We shouldn't think that our massive efforts to mitigate poverty have had no effect. Immigration hides our grudging progress.

A second reason, notes Samuelson, is because we "import poor people" through our current policies, placing tremendous strain on public schools, social welfare programs, and health care:

We need an immigration policy that makes sense. My oft-stated belief is that legal immigration should favor the high-skilled over the low-skilled. They will assimilate quickest and aid the economy the most. As for present illegal immigrants, we should give most of them legal status, both as a matter of practicality and fairness. Many have been here for years and have American children. At the same time, we should clamp down on new illegal immigration through tougher border controls and employer sanctions.

Sounds good to me - I've been arguing this basic point in many of my posts on immigration (here and here).

General Petraeus to Recommend Troop Reductions

Cross-posted from The Oxford Medievalist:

ABC News is reporting that General David Petraeus, in his highly-anticipated September report to Congress on the status of the surge, will recommend a drawdown of troops by March, if not sooner. There's not much news in this - the surge was always meant to be a temporary operation, hence calling it the "surge." And besides, a lack of additional troops means there's really no way to increase or sustain the effort far beyond spring 2008. What is newsworthy, though, is that the other reason why Petraeus will call for troop reductions is that the surge is working, and violence in Iraq is down to 2006 lows, a point ABC does, in fact, report. The drawdown will probably be to "pre-surge" levels (around 130,000 troops), which still won't satiate the anti-war activists who want a complete withdrawal. But by recommending troop reductions by next spring, with some modest reductions to possibly begin in December, it will buy some political breathing room in the U.S. Congress (ironic, because that's what the surge is meant to do in Iraq.) Granted, it's not what Democrats like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi wanted when they started the process of attempting to legislate defeat. But, faced with increasing news that the surge is accomplishing results, including the General's own report, they'll be forced to accept Petraeus' recommendations that troop reductions begin...when they were to begin all along. In short, despite the hopes of the nutroots, their Democratic majority will be powerless to end the surge - Petraeus and the Iraqis will get the time they needs to continue making progress in Iraq.

Cross-posted from The Oxford Medievalist.

MoveOn Punishes Clear Thinking Democrats

This morning's Wall Street Journal nails it with their analysis of MoveOn.org and its attacks on congressional Democrats reporting recent progress in Iraq:

In the Hell Hath No Fury sweepstakes, groups like MoveOn.org are gearing up to take on a new set of perceived traitors in their midst--Democrats who have acknowledged some success from the troop surge in Iraq.

Chief among the targets is Washington Congressman Brian Baird, whose indiscretion was recognizing progress on the ground, despite having initially opposed the surge and having opposed the war in the first place. After a recent trip to Iraq, Mr. Baird said: "One of the things that gets very little attention is that virtually every other country I visited says it would be a mistake to pull out now."

We hope he took his flak jacket home from Baghdad. MoveOn is rolling out an ad this week in Mr. Baird's Washington district, in which a former soldier tells of being shot at in 2003 by the Iraqis he had fought to liberate and calls America's continued presence in the country "wrong, immoral and irresponsible." What does this have to do with the wisdom--or lack thereof--of the current strategy? Nada, which tells you something about MoveOn's honesty....

Mr. Baird is hardly alone in his assessment of progress in Iraq, even among Democrats. In the past month, Senate Democrats Carl Levin, Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Bob Casey and Jack Reed have all acknowledged progress on the ground--though many still downplay the overall chances of success.

Representatives Keith Ellison (Minnesota) and Jerry McNerney (California) recently returned "impressed" by what they'd seen, though they were careful to temper their statements for any perceived optimism. After watching U.S. soldiers greet Iraqis in Arabic with "peace be upon you," Mr. Ellison reported that "they would respond back with smiles and waves" before quickly adding, "I don't want to overplay it." It's a measure of how far the antiwar left has moved the debate on Iraq that Mr. Ellison doesn't want to sound too enthusiastic about the chances that the U.S. might actually win.

The Journal's editorial provides more support for the notion that hard-line antiwar groups will do just about anything to deny the reality of military progress in Iraq; and they'll relentlessly smear anyone in power who deviates from the assumed netroots dominance of the "progressive" policy agenda.

What's so amazing about this is that many of the Democrats who've reported progress harbor strong left-wing credentials. (Keith Ellison's an American Muslim who's co-sponsored a House impeachment bill alleging high crimes and misdemeanors against President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney!)

Click here to view MoveOn's dishonest anti-Baird advertisment.

In my earlier posts on FireDogLake, I noted how wildly unhinged these hard-line radical attacks on war supporters have become (see here and here). Yet, the scope and vehemence of the antiwar project is astounding, and it's vital that pro-war supporters counter such left-wing hatred and propaganda.

Rumsfeld Revisited

There's an excellent debate on civil-military relations in the Bush administration in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.

The exchange covers Michael Desch's earlier article on the administration, "Bush and the Generals," which argued that normal tensions between civilian policymakers and the military's general staff were exacerbated by the adminstration ideological campaign to transform the military and privilege civilian battle judgements over that of the uniformed personnel.

A noteworthy segment in the current exchange is Mackubin Thomas Owen's assessment of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's tenure. Owen's generally optimistic on the efficacy of civilian leadership; he looks at a number of historical examples, bringing his case up to the current administration:

In the case of Rumsfeld, it is clear that he was guilty of errors of judgment regarding the conduct of the Iraq war. However, as case after case makes clear, Rumsfeld's critics were no more prescient than he. Rumsfeld failed to foresee the insurgency and the shift from conventional to guerrilla war, but so did his critics in the uniformed services. The army's official historian of the campaign has placed the blame for this failure squarely on the army. "Reluctance in even defining the situation," the historian writes, "is perhaps the most telling indicator of a collective cognitive dissonance on the part of the U.S. Army to recognize a war of rebellion, a people's war, even when they were fighting it."

Critics also charge Rumsfeld's Pentagon with shortchanging the troops in Iraq -- by, for example, failing to provide them with armored Humvees. But a review of army budget submissions even after the war had turned into an insurgency reveals that the service's priority was to acquire big-ticket items. It was only after the danger of improvised explosive devices became obvious that the army began to push for supplemental spending to "up-armor" the utility vehicles.

And although it is true that Rumsfeld downplayed postconflict stabilization operations, it is also true that he was merely ratifying the preferences of the uniformed military, which has a cultural aversion to such operations. The real villain in this case is the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine -- a set of principles long internalized by the U.S. military emphasizing the requirement for an "exit strategy." When generals are thinking about an exit strategy, they are not thinking about "war termination" -- how to convert military success into political success.

In retrospect, it is easy to criticize Rumsfeld for pushing General Tommy Franks, the combatant commander, to develop a plan for a force smaller than the one called for in earlier plans, as well as for his interference with the time-phased force and deployment list (TPFDL), which lays out the schedule for deploying forces. But that charge focuses on the consequences of the chosen path (attacking earlier with a smaller force) while ignoring potential drawbacks of the alternative -- for example, that taking the time to build up a larger force would have meant losing the chance for surprise.

The debate over the size of the invasion force must also be understood in the context of the state of civil-military relations at the end of Clinton's presidency. Rumsfeld was correct that civilian control of the military had eroded during the Clinton years. When the army did not want to do something -- as in the Balkans in the 1990s -- it would simply overstate the force requirements: "The answer is 350,000 soldiers. What's the question?" Accordingly, Rumsfeld was inclined to interpret the army's call for a larger force as another case of foot-dragging. In retrospect, Rumsfeld's decision not to deploy the First Cavalry Division was a mistake, but at the time it was not unreasonable to argue that the TPFDL (like the "two major theater war" planning metric) had become little more than a bureaucratic tool that the services used to protect their share of the defense budget.

Uniformed officers have an obligation to stand up to civilian leaders when they think a policy is flawed. They must convey their concerns to civilian policymakers forcefully and truthfully. If they believe the door is closed to them at the Pentagon or the White House, they also have access to Congress. But the U.S. tradition of civil-military relations requires that they not engage in public debate over matters of foreign policy, including the decision to go to war. And once a policy decision is made, soldiers are obligated to carry it out to the best of their abilities, whether their advice has been heeded or not.

Read the whole thing.

For my earlier post on Desch's "Bush and the Generals, click here.

While I admire Desch's political science expertise, I'm not convinced his analysis of the Bush administration is free of hostily to the president's neoconservative foreign policy project.

Vast Left Wing Conspiracy Blocks "Path to 9/11"

The Los Angeles Times reports that Cyrus Nowrasteh, the writer behind last year's ABC miniseries, "The Path to 9/11," has alleged that the Clinton campaign is pulling strings to prevent the release on DVD of the hot-button documentary:

Among the nearly two dozen television DVDs slated for nationwide release on Sept. 11 is the second season of "Bones," the third season of "Grey's Anatomy" and the miniseries "The Starter Wife" that aired earlier this year. Not on the list on that day or any other in the near future is last year's highly controversial "The Path to 9/11."

The $40-million, five-hour ABC miniseries, which recently received seven Emmy nominations and drew a combined two-night audience of more than 25 million viewers, is for now on the path to nowhere. Its Amazon page reads: "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock."

With no date for the release, questions are being raised about whether political pressure is behind its current status as a stalled or discarded DVD project. The reasons are murky, but the miniseries' writer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, believes it's crystal clear: Powerful forces are out to protect Bill Clinton's presidential legacy and shield Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) from any potential collateral damage in her bid for the White House.

Nowrasteh, also one of the miniseries' many producers, said he was told by a top executive at ABC Studios that "if Hillary weren't running for president, this wouldn't be a problem."

"Whatever anyone may think about me or this movie, this is a bad precedent, a dangerous precedent, to allow a movie to be buried," added Nowrasteh, who received death threats even before the miniseries was broadcast last September. "Because the next time they'll go after another movie. The Bush administration may go after a movie. The next administration may go after a movie. No matter who it is, they may go after a movie. I think this town needs to stand up."

Even before "The Path to 9/11" aired on ABC late last summer, the docudrama ignited a political firestorm, almost entirely from high-profile Democratic leaders who viewed its account of events leading up to the terrorist attacks as a right-wing hatchet job on the Clinton administration and its efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Attempts to pressure ABC to cancel the miniseries at the time were unsuccessful, but last-minute network edits were imposed to quell the critical outcry.

An ABC spokeswoman reached Tuesday would say only that the company "has no release date at this time," and she declined to comment further.

Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton's campaign staff did not return an e-mail or a phone call seeking comment.

Like most everyone else, I blogged about the "Path to 9/11" controversy last year (here and here). I thought the miniseries was excellent - I liked the gritty portrayals of the top policymakers in the show, and I liked how the docudrama covered the run-up to the attacks in an objective way.

But this report on Nowasteh's allegations of a vast left-wing conspiracy is hard to swallow. There may be something to it, but read the rest of the Times story. Not every feature film or documentary makes it to DVD. There could be a number of other factors holding up the release of Nowasteh's baby.

Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Measuring Success in Iraq

Frederick Kagan, in the Weekly Standard, provides a nice analysis of the Government Accounting Office's recent pessimistic report on progress in Iraq.

Kagan argues that the report is badly flawed in its focus on benchmarks that are unrepresentative of the changing security situation on the ground:

The GAO report reflects everything that has been wrong with the discussion about Iraq since the end of 2006. Through no fault of the GAO's, the organization was sent on a fool's errand by Congress. Its mandate was not to evaluate progress in Iraq, but to determine whether or not the Iraqi government had met the 18 benchmarks. As a result, as the report repeatedly notes, the GAO was forced to fit an extraordinarily complicated reality into a black-and-white, yes-or-no simplicity. In addition, the GAO's remit extended only to evaluating progress on the Congressionally-sanctioned 18 benchmarks, 14 of which were established between eight and 11 months ago in a very different context. As a result, the report ignores completely a number of crucial positive developments that were not foreseen when the benchmarks were established and that, in fact, offer the prospect of a way forward that is much more likely to succeed than the year-old, top-down concept the GAO was told to measure. As the situation in Iraq has been changing dynamically over the past eight months, as American strategy and operations, both military and political, have been adjusting on the ground to new realities, the debate in Washington has remained mired in the preconceptions and approaches of 2006. The GAO report epitomizes this fact.

A number of commentators have already pointed out the absurdity of measuring whether or not the Iraqis had accomplished benchmarks rather than considering their progress toward doing so. Even the GAO found that task ridiculous, which is why, after criticism from the Departments of State and Defense, it invented the category of "partially met" as a third option, a category not foreseen in the legislation mandating the report.

One of the most striking things about the GAO Report is its failure to take adequate notice of the Anbar Awakening and the general movement within the Sunni Arab community against Al Qaeda In Iraq and toward the Coalition. "Anbar" appears twice in the document, both times in a comment noting that violence has fallen in that province, but without reference to the turn of the Sunni population against the terrorists. That omission is unfathomable considering the significance of the movement among Sunnis over precisely the time in which the GAO was researching and producing this report. During the same period in which the report's authors note that they were in Iraq, I was also in Iraq, and received detailed briefings on the Sunni movement not only in Anbar, but also in Diyala, Baghdad, and Babil provinces. It is difficult to imagine that the GAO authors did not receive similar briefings, but even harder to understand why, if they did, they made no mention of the phenomenon. Of course, the Congressionally-mandated benchmarks take no account of the grassroots Sunni movement, and so made it difficult for the GAO to bring them into the picture.

Read the whole thing. Kagan provide a compelling case against the report, focusing not only on the GAO, but on the Congress itself, which is just jonesing for some negative studies on which to mount a smear campaign against the Petraeus Report out this month.

War opponents just lap up any negative news coming out of Iraq, and they're resistant to any indicators that confirm military assessments of improving conditions in defeating al Qaeda and sectarian insurgents.

Here's an example: Representative Barbara Lee, a San Franciso Democrat, and the only Member of Congress from either chamber to vote against the authorization of force after 9/11, has an attack on the administration's Iraq policy in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

What the debate about military progress really does is serve as a distraction - a smokescreen - put forth by an administration that finds it rhetorically convenient to speak in terms of "victory" and "defeat."

It serves to obscure the basic, fundamental fact that there is no military solution to the situation in Iraq. Our troops are trapped in a civil war and occupation, a situation where there can be no "victory." Our continued presence there is not only breaking our military, it is undermining our national security and our efforts to fight international terrorism.

Members of the Bush administration understand this, just as they understand that there are no pretty or clean options for bringing a responsible end to our policy there. They are content to mouth the words of victory while they try to run out the clock, playing a cynical game of political "chicken," where whoever acts to bring a responsible end to their failed policy will be accused of having lost Iraq.

Lee's sentiment represents much of the hard-line radical opinion of U.S. prospects in the war.

The U.S. and Iraqi forces have reached a critical stage in beating back al Qaeda, crushing sectarian barbarianism, and building indigenous tribal support for the mission. The Democrats and their hard-line antiwar allies will continue to ignore the new realities on the ground.

A victory over the nihilist forces intent to destroy Iraq's infant democracy is entirely reachable at this point. One would think that the Democrats would be cheering the hard work of all the security personnel fighting for a better Iraq future. Instead, we see more and more inventive ways to smear the adminstration and poison public opinion, just as we are closing in on our goals.

Details of White House Planning for Secret Iraq Visit

President Bush's weekend stop to visit the troops in Iraq was carefully planned by the White House, with secret preparations used to maximize the element of surprise:

President Bush was supposed to leave Washington on Monday for an international summit in Australia. Instead, the day found him mingling with U.S. troops in the desert about 120 miles north of Baghdad.

Bush's unannounced trip to Iraq was arranged in tight secrecy, with the president sneaking out a side door of the White House about 18 hours before his scheduled departure for Sydney and driving in a two-car motorcade to Andrews Air Force Base, Md.

Reporters traveling on Air Force One had been sworn to secrecy a day earlier and were held behind curtains in the rear of the plane until takeoff.

The rest of the press corps, on a separate flight headed for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering, learned of the president's Iraq detour only as they arrived in Honolulu for a scheduled refueling stop.

The president met with Iraqi leaders and top U.S. officials during his six-hour stop at Al Asad Air Base, then traveled on to Australia.

On the way to Iraq, White House officials denied that the visit was little more than a stunt designed to help Bush make his case that his military strategy is making progress.

The president "felt it was important for him to come firsthand," said national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley, adding that Bush was particularly looking forward to meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, as well as Sunni Arab tribal leaders. "There is no substitute for sitting down, looking him in the eye and having a conversation with him."

Bush's visit is being held up as a major turning point in the war on terror, commensurate to the significance of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War.

San Diego Backcountry is Last Resort for Illegal Alien Entry to U.S.

This morning's Los Angeles Times has an interesting story on the immigration crisis in the San Yisidro Mountain wilderness, near San Diego, in Southern California, which has become a last resort entry point for illegal migrants to the U.S.

The article focuses on the work of "Team Gold," an elite unit of the U.S. Border Patrol, which is tasked with rough-country tracking of illegals aliens who have evaded the first barriers of U.S. border security:

The Black Hawk helicopter slips between craggy peaks looming over the U.S.-Mexico border and makes a lights-out landing in a barren valley.

Five agents of the U.S. Border Patrol's elite Air Mobile Unit jump into the darkness and take a narrow trail, their night vision goggles illuminating the treacherous terrain.

For an hour, they climb giant boulders, careful to stay away from the trail's edge, which spills into a steep canyon five miles into California.

Then the order comes over the radio in whispers. A motion sensor has been tripped. Migrants may be coming. Split up and take positions along the path.

From a steep perch, team leader Steve McPartland keeps watch on a rocky gap between two peaks across the canyon.

"If it's aliens, they'll probably come through that saddle," he whispers.

The agents lie back on the rocks, waiting in silence as a fog bank rolls in, shrouding the mountains in mist.

Illegal immigrants who make it this far inside California have beaten the front line of border defenses. The only things between them and the freeways are these mountains -- and the mobile unit's Team Gold. Its members are responsible for flushing out smugglers and migrants from some of the border's most rugged terrain.

These scrub-covered peaks in the backcountry east of San Diego are becoming the illegal entry point of last resort as beefed-up enforcement in urban areas and Arizona pushes migrant routes toward more rugged terrain.

Since the agency's San Diego area sector launched the unit four years ago, its 50 agents have apprehended more than 20,000 migrants and 347 suspected smugglers. The unit, divided into three teams -- Gold, Blue and Green -- is the only one of its kind in the agency.

Read the whole thing. The Team Gold membership is something of a thrillseeker's set, and while no members of their unit have died in the line of duty, the daunting challenges of the the job result in regular stress and frequent injuries. Unfortunately, the unit's work is often not always appreciated, with some arguing that this "gold line of border defense" detracts from more central missions of the Border Patrol:

Some Border Patrol brass initially opposed the unit's formation precisely because of such dangers. Others questioned whether the squad was a wise use of resources, saying that it drained staffing from traditional assignments directly on the border.

But because thousands of migrants kept taking mountainous routes without interference, officials decided that the benefits outweighed the potential risks.

Considering the great centality of illegal immigration on the national policy agenda, I see the work of the Team Gold as a vital element of a comprehensive national approach to immigration policy and border security.

Antiwar "Die-In" Shows Utter Collapse of Decency

William Kristol's got a new piece up at the Weekly Standard arguing for the complete collapse of moral decency among the hard-line antiwar forces of the left.

Apparently, the magazine ran a pro-war rebuttal by seven Iraq veterans criticizing - in a very respectful manner - the commentary article in the New York Times of seven antiwar Iraq Veterans. Joe Klein, at his Time blog, denounced the Weekly Standard as having "trashed" the antiwar veterans, and Kristol responds to that hack job as an example of even a normally reasoned journalist descending to rank name-calling rather than dispassionate analysis.

But there's more:

Meanwhile, a motley crew of antiwar groups, including Iraq Veterans Against The War, CODEPINK, ANSWER, and MoveOn.org, are organizing a week of demonstrations in Washington beginning September 15. The "mobilization" will be kicked off with a "Die-In," sponsored primarily by ANSWER and Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). As they explain, "IVAW is asking that participants in the Die-In/Funeral select the name of one of the almost 4,000 soldiers who have been killed in Iraq. You can select a family member, friend or someone from your city, town or state. Please bring a photograph of that person and a sign with his/her name on September 15." Needless to say, the protesters who will be appropriating the names of soldiers and Marines killed in action have no intention of asking the permission of their families. But why should the families think their loved ones' sacrifices are being exploited in an unbelievably offensive way? After all, as one organizer explains, "The die-in will be led by an Honor Guard of Iraq Veterans Against the War who will simulate a 21-Gun Salute before taps is played to initiate the die-in."

Grotesque.

Will mainstream antiwar groups and antiwar politicians denounce this action, which is scheduled to begin the weeklong protest? Will the respectable parts of the antiwar movement stand with veterans and veterans' families who intend to protest this disgusting appropriation of their loved ones' names? Surely most critics of the war still have a sense of decency.

I think most people lose a little of their reasonableness when debating this war, as things have gotten deeply emotional.

But I have to agree that this hard-left "die-in" takes the cake as the most despicable radical antiwar tactic in recent times.

Proud Marine Would Head Back to Iraq if He Could

Of all the my recent YouTube posts on this on this month's "September Surge" of pro-victory rallies in Washington, this one on featuring Andrew Robinson is the most moving (via Wake Up America):

I would also like to share this moving poem of patriotism and sacrifice, from Rich Casebolt's blog:

As I watched as my grandfather was laid to rest, having served in World War II
The flag of our nation was placed over his casket, showing him the honor he was due
Then those colors were carefully folded and gently, placed into my Granny's hands
As a token of thanks to them for serving our nation, so long ago in foreign lands

I have seen that ritual, again and again, and each time it makes me catch my breath
At the sight of presenting that folded flag, to the one left behind by death
It's especially hard, when the one being honored just fell by the enemy's hand
It makes me ask what can I do, so not so many, die so young to defend this land?

Read the rest of the poem.

Rich actually posted this last Memorial Day, but I thought these words might be appropriate for today's holiday, to show some appreciation for our fighting men and women who continue their valiant labors in Iraq.

Have a great day everyone!

Iraq Combat Deaths Decline: Building a Mystery?

According to this report, U.S. combat fatalities in Iraq have declined in recent months (via Memeorandum). Here's the article's introduction:

American combat deaths in Iraq have dropped by half in the three months since the buildup of 28,000 additional U.S. troops reached full strength, surprising analysts and dividing them as to why.

U.S. officials had predicted that the increase would lead to higher American casualties as the troops "took the fight to the enemy." But that hasn't happened, even though U.S. forces have launched major offensives involving thousands of troops north and south of Baghdad.

American combat casualties have dropped to their lowest levels this year, even as violence involving Iraqis remains high.

Military officials and observers are wondering whether the lower U.S. casualties are a sign of success or an indication that insurgents and militiamen simply chose a different battlefield when the Americans mounted their offensive in Iraq's capital.

"Nobody here is doing cartwheels yet," said one senior military official at the Pentagon, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely.

The piece then goes on, straining to portray the drop in fatalities as a mystery, and cites a "British analyst" who argues that al Qaeda forces see U.S. patrols as "irrelevant."

Much more persuasive is this assessment:

Supporters of the troop increase say the lower casualty figures show that the larger number of troops and the counterinsurgency approach of Gen. David Petraeus, the latest U.S. commander in Iraq, have turned Iraqi citizens against armed groups, putting them on the run and fracturing them.

"The population is progressively turning to coalition and Iraqi forces and making a positive difference in bringing security to their towns, villages and neighborhoods. They are pointing out extremist leaders, identifying caches and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and asking to be a part of the legitimate Iraqi security force," Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 commander, said last month.

Read the whole thing. No matter how one spins the numbers, the decline in combat deaths is an indicator of increasing progress toward security and victory in Iraq. Of course, the media will continue to dig for any information the supports left-wing retreatist talking points.

Thankfully, cooler heads can see through the spin. Check Jules Crittenden's excellent (fair and balanced) analysis of these developments.

The surge is working. Yet, one would be hard-pressed to find news to that effect from the mainstream press.

Integrity Redacted: Brian De Palma's New Film

Cross-posted from The Oxford Medievalist:

It is fitting that an anti-war propagandist would first showcase his latest portrayal of U.S. soldiers as heinous savages to a foreign audience:

A new film about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears.

"Redacted", by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months and the first of two movies on the conflict screening in Venice's main competition.

Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it is a harrowing indictment of the conflict and spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.

I said not too long ago that TNR's Scott Thomas Beauchamp debacle signified the opening salvo of the anti-war left's strategy to discredit the Iraq war by attacking our troops. De Palma's effort is simply a continuation of that theme: attack the war by attacking the military. Clearly, the rape, torture and murder of an Iraqi family by U.S. soldiers is a horrible, horrible thing - words can hardly describe my disgust. But De Palma, using this terrible incident (his own fictionalized account, no less), tries to make it representative of our military, in order to indict American involvement in Iraq. Make no mistake: this isn't about illuminating a tragedy in order to hold our soldiers to a higher standard. People like De Palma could care less whether our soldiers perform admirably or horribly; with bravery and valor, or with malice and hate. And it's certainly not about illustrating the plight of the Iraqi people. If it were, we'd have seen a movie highlighting the cutting off of faces with piano wire, the cooking of children, and the strapping of a suicide vest to a handicapped boy, among the many other atrocities that have been perpetrated by al Qaeda terrorists and insurgents - atrocities that will only be committed on a larger scale should De Palma's propaganda succeed. Oh, BTW, De Palma does, apparently, include footage of al Qaeda beheadings, but disgracefully implies the U.S. is to blame for them.

Really - ask yourself, is it about ignorance, or arrogance? Is the vanguard of the anti-war left really ignorant about the Iraq War, or are they simply arrogant, agenda-driven propagandists? What De Palma really cares about is ending the war, a war, any and every war. Because for him and the rest of the irrational anti-war left, military force is never justified, but it's especially egregious when it's an American war. All you need to know about De Palma, his film, and the anti-war left comes from De Palma's own mouth:

"The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people," he told reporters after a press screening.

"The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war," he said.

De Palma's goal is to end the war, despite the atrocities that will occur at this point after a U.S. withdrawal. How can he say in the same breath that he cares about the plight of the Iraqi people and that he wants to motivate an end to the war because of this plight? Understand that the plight of the Iraqis is just a convenient vehicle with which to push his anti-war agenda. That U.S. soldiers tragically committed a rape and murder just make De Palma and the anti-war crowd lick their chops. As De Palma himself said, "I knew I had a story."

De Palma's an old hand at this sort of propaganda: he made the 1989 film Casualties of War, which also sought to portray American soldiers as bloodthirsty rapists.

Cross-posted from The Oxford Medievalist.

Iran is Defiant

The New York Times reports that the Iranian regime has ratcheted up its defiant stance against Western demands for the abandonment of its nuclear weapons enrichment program:

Iran’s leaders issued dual, defiant statements on Sunday, with the president announcing that the nation had 3,000 active centrifuges to enrich uranium and the top ayatollah appointing a new Islamic Revolutionary Guards commander who once advocated military force against students.

The pairing of the messages, just days after the United Nations’ top nuclear official said Iran was striking conciliatory poses, appeared intended to reaffirm the country’s refusal to back down to pressure from the United States over its nuclear program and its role in Iraq, political analysts in Iran said. And it came as the Bush administration was celebrating progress in its talks with North Korea to shut down that country’s nuclear programs.

Indeed, the timing and tone of Iran’s declarations may be more politically significant than their content, particularly in the case of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran had finally reached its stated goal of developing 3,000 centrifuges.

Many technical experts have expressed skepticism over Iran’s periodic claims of enrichment breakthroughs, saying the assertions often turn out to be exaggerated.

That seemed to be the case again on Sunday, though nuclear experts said that even if Mr. Ahmadinejad was overreaching, it would be only a matter of time before the boast became true. The most recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, released Thursday, said Iran had 1,968 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main Natanz plant, 328 in testing, and 328 in assembly — for a total of 2,624. The report noted that the assessment was accurate as of Aug. 19, or two weeks ago.

The goal of 3,000 centrifuges is significant to nuclear experts: they say that if Iran could spin that many centrifuges nonstop for a year, it could make enough highly enriched uranium for a single atom bomb.

But Mohamed ElBaradei, the atomic energy agency director general, said in an interview last week that Iran seemed to be intentionally slowing its progress in an effort to strike a conciliatory note as the United Nations Security Council demanded it stop the nuclear work completely. “My gut feeling,” he said, “is that it’s primarily for political reasons.”

Still, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s new claim was a direct challenge to that notion, and to efforts by the United States and European countries to impose harsher sanctions against Iran. “The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week,” state television quoted the president as saying.

The White House warned that a new round of sanctions was likely in the wake of Iran’s refusal to cooperate. “This kind of announcement is inconsistent with Iran’s recent comments on cooperation with the I.A.E.A.,” said a spokesman, Robert W. Saliterman.

Read the rest. It's extremely interesting that Iran finds its self-interest in intensifying its rejection of international demands at this time.

There has, of late, been a steady drumbeat of increasingly belligerent statements among the world's great powers. So it seems counterintuitive for Tehran to test international resolve now, just as the West's patience is wearing thin.

I'll be interested to see how radical bloggers spin this story, if they address it all. As I've noted in recent entries, there's an increasing effort among the most fanatical Bush-bashers to demonize the adminstration as hellbent on war (see here and here, for example).

For more, see Michael Van Der Galien, who notes the heightening shrillness to the Bush-demonization project among pro-Iran bloggers.

War Supporters Fight For Victory at Home

Check out this YouTube featuring Melanie Moran of Move America Forward (via The Redhunter):

Also, check out yesterday's post, in which I link to Freedom's Watch and discuss this month's upcoming "September Surge" counter-demonstrations.

The Democrats and their antiwar contingents are so up in arms by these scheduled pro-victory rallies, they're planning to hold counter-demonstrations against the counter-demonstrations!

Does that make any sense? Go figure!

Battling for the Independent Vote in 2008

Peter Wallsten's got a nice piece up this morning at the Los Angeles Times on the shift among independent voters away from the Republican Party. In 2004, independents around the country - ensconsed in their "exurban" enclaves - joined more conservative partisans in sending George W. Bush back to Washington.

This time around, these same voters are likely to do a 180 degree political turn, perhaps boosting Democratic chances for securing the White House in 2008:

Unaffiliated voters, who split evenly between Bush and Democrat John F. Kerry in 2004, are now looking more favorably at the Democratic Party, a reaction to Bush's slide in the polls, the U.S. struggle in Iraq and other disappointments with GOP leadership.

It is a dramatic political development in such a closely divided electorate, and one that is likely to paint a different Electoral College map that for the last two elections was shaded Republican red in the heartland and the South, and Democratic blue in the coastal West, the Upper Midwest and the Northeast.

Strategists in both major parties believe the shift among independents was crucial to last year's Democratic sweep of congressional and state races in a number of traditionally Republican states, such as Colorado, Missouri, Montana and Ohio....

Strategists agree that the shift foreshadows a far more complicated calculus as next year's presidential election unfolds. Already, both major parties are examining ways to lure the increasingly important constituency, which though losing faith in Bush, is not enthusiastic about the Democratic Party. At stake are the White House and control of Congress, with competitive Senate races expected in Colorado as well as in Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia -- all with heavy concentrations of independent voters.

"These independents are not marching into the Democratic Party and declaring themselves Democrats, but the change is in the tilt," said Carroll Doherty, associate director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. "They are definitely leaning toward the Democrats."

Polls show that the movement among independents is a broad phenomenon.

It's hard to disagree with most of the analysis, although it might be worth it to take a good look at the Pew survey's sampling techniques and question items.

That said, one basic issue facing the electorate is the question of competence, especially as it relates to the war and national security policy. When it comes to pulling the lever in the voting booth in 2008, most Americans would likely be little influenced by overarching theories of democracy promotion or neoconservative ideology. Had the Rumsfeld Pentagon - and not to mention the military's general staff - been better prepared for post-conflict stablization in Iraq, and had we perhaps sent more troops for the invasion in 2003, our deployment might not have descended into unrelievable destruction and nihilist violence. This long deployment is testing even some arch conservatives. It's unlikely that those sitting on the fence would be unaffected.

Of course, the administration's early mistakes in Iraq have been internalized by those in the national security policymaking community; and now progress in Iraq is developing apace. Yet, the average voter is likely tired of the GOP scandals, and the roiling of the ecomomy and housing market must be putting quite a few voters on edge.

This opening has the Democrats salivating at their prospects. It's an opportunity that's driven the hardcore antiwar establishment into a frenzy, as well.

But there's still time for the GOP. The closeness of past presidential elections has shown that campaigns matters. There's no reason to expect 2008 to be any different. Plus, should Hillary Clinton win the nomination, her negative poll numbers remain high, a situation likely to be especially true of independents who lean toward Republican candidates.

Thus, it's wise for people to hold back a bit, and take all of this early polling and journalistic speculation with a couple of grains of salt. We've got a long way yet until November 2008. A lot could happen in the interim. Improvement in Iraq, or the Democrats' own Larry Craig scandal, might help persuade voters that the GOP might not be such a bad bet after all.

Neoconservativism as Scourge of the Left

This morning's post over at Andrew Sullivan's blog asked "What Maketh a Neo-con?" Here's the main passage:

Today, it seems that a "neo-con" (at least in the fevered imaginations of the net-left) is someone who frequently calls attention to the unprovoked aggression of despotic regimes (e.g. Iran and Syria), the violation of human rights in other countries, and advocates the moral superiority of democratic countries in international affairs. A "neo-con" is now anyone who dares make an issue out of the aggressions and inhumanity of despotisms without explaining them away, and for advocating America do something about these aggressions and inhumanities. It is for this reason that so many on the left attacked Bayard Rustin in the 1970's and 1980's when, in addition to speaking out about racial injustices in the United States and condemning Reaganomics, he also spoke out, vociferously, against the PLO, Robert Mugabe, and the Sandinistas. But Rustin was hardly a proper neo-conservative, even if he happened to write the occasional article for Commentary and helped found the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. And so, simply for stating uncomfortable realities about the world, someone is called a "neocon" (which in today's political discourse--not just left-wing discourse--is akin to labeling someone a "pinko" in the 1950's) and readily dismissed.

I don't know if that last comparison is apt. "Pinkos" in the 1950s were those considered in alliance with the forces of Soviet totalitarianism. Those on the right who opposed these fellow travellers rightly warned against any domestic support for the Evil Empire's ideological and strategic hegemonic project.

Today, neoconservatives support the expansion of democracy around the world, and the rollback of Islamofascism's threatening advance against the developing world's outposts of freedom.

But what really is a "neoconservative"? I think about this a lot, because while I'm Burkean in my basic ideological affinities for traditional culture and values, I firmly believe that America has a mission in the world to advance freedom and justice. Readers here occasionally point out the inconsistency of holding both Burkean and neoconservative positions simultaneously.

But I don't worry too much about it, particularly if one sees Burkean conservativism as a cover for the most paleoconservative isolationism imaginable. If that's what Burke's come to stand for today, I'd come down on the neoconservative side, if I had to take my pick.

Mark Gerston, in his edited volume, The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader, notes that neoconservativism starts with Burkean essentialism, but it depart from Burkeanism's more reactionary inclinations:

In 1952, the sociologist Karl Mannheim wrote, "Conservativism arises as a counter-movement in conscious opposition to the highly organized, coherent, and systematic 'progressive' movement." From Edmund Burke to the present, systematic conservative theory tends to find much of its motivating impulse in critique. True to Mannheim's characterization, neoconservatism, too, has formulated its political positions in response to ideas generated by the left. From the early 1950s to the present day, neoconservatives have castigated liberalism for ignorance of the complexity of social action and the embedded wisdom in human systems, a lack of resolve in confronting evil, a laissez-faire attitude toward human virture, and an unwillingness to defend the critical ideas of American civilization from its discontents. Practically every neconservative argument and position can be seen as a reaction to one of the central ideas of liberalism.

And this is why the radical left mounts its frenzied campaign of demonization against the "neoconazis" in the Bush administration. Today's ideological battles center on competing visions of goodness in the world. For Americans who rightly see the forces of Islamic fundamentalism as the greatest threat to civilization since the Soviet empire, the hard-left represents a fifth column determined to undermine America's mission and values from within.

Much of the debate tends to caricature the views of those on both sides. All of those who support the global war on terror are not crazed Wolfowitz wannabes dead set on preventive airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program. Conversely, all of those troubled by the costs of America's liberation of Iraq - and especially the significant loss of human life on all sides - are not Chomskyite revolutionaries hellbent on the destruction of the United States and its purported project of global imperial expansion.

Yet, there are those who on the left would destroy America and the values of goodness for which she stands. Neoconservative belief - with its stress on anti-authoritarianism, domestic institutions of public order, personal propriety and responsibility - stands against such nihilism and deathlike ideology.

I gladly embrace the neoconservative label. I've been "Radicalized by the Radicals." I believe that if neoconservativism forms the locus of resistance against the forces now intending to destroy the United States, it's an ideational holding ground for the good, to which more right thinking peope will gravitate to some degree, no matter how hard the antiwar hordes try to discredit it.

Iraqi Civilian Deaths as Surge Progress Indicator?

In a report yesterday, Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times wrote that war-related civilian fatalities in Iraq increased for a second month in a row, and the increasing numbers demonstrated the Bush administration's surge strategy had proved ineffective in stemming terrorist violence.

Needless to say, Susman's slanted journalism got signifcant play in the top-dog, hard-left blogosphere. War opponents - increasingly desperate to paint the war as hopelessly lost - seized on passages like this:

Bombings, sectarian slayings and other violence related to the war killed at least 1,773 Iraqi civilians in August, the second month in a row that civilian deaths have risen, according to government figures obtained Friday.

In July, the civilian death toll was 1,753, and in June it was 1,227. The numbers are based on morgue, hospital and police records and come from officials in the ministries of Health, Defense and the Interior. The statistics appear to indicate that the increase in troops ordered by President Bush this year has done little to curb civilian bloodshed, despite U.S. military statements to the contrary.

But if one continues reading Susman's article, the piece indicates that there's little consensus among the U.S. military and outside monitoring groups on the efficacy of civilian death totals as an indicator of the progress on the troop surge:

Military officials have said the security plan is showing progress because the number of attacks on civilians has decreased and sectarian killings have dropped. The security plan, which began in February, has put an additional 28,500 U.S. troops in Baghdad and other trouble spots.

The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, is expected to cite such indicators when he presents an assessment of the security plan to Congress this month.

The U.S. military says the numbers it gathers are lower than those provided by Iraqi ministries, but it does not release them. But it has said that the monthly civilian death toll from sectarian killings, which do not include all bombings, has dropped to about 1,000 per month from 1,200 per month early this year.

Read the whole article. As is the case with earlier Susman articles, she spins her reports with misleading titles and leads.

The following passage is in fact one of the most significant of the article, and it should have formed the basis for a more objective overview of the difficulties of measuring gains in security on the ground:

Various factors can skew the numbers. Baghdad, usually the most violent part of the country, experienced a four-day curfew in June after the bombing of a key Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of the capital. Other cities also were under curfews, which helped keep violence at bay.

Please recall that we're talking about gross statistics on the tragic loss of human life. Thus it's somewhat unfortunate that troubling data like this is being spun by war opponents whose ultimate concern is destroying the Republican war machine in Washington, not the human rights of the Iraqi people.

The stakes are extremely how now, of course, with the highly-anticipated release of the Petraeus Report next week. Thus, any bit of news construed as favorable to the increasingly fanatical antiwar left (see here, here, here) needs to be dissected and placed in the overall context of the slow but difficult job of consolidating Iraqi security and bolstering Iraq's rough steps toward democratization.

Crittenden Makes it Back From Vacation

Jules Crittenden's back from his summer vacation, and his regular posting has resumed after a fabulous interlude of commentary by an all-star cast of guest bloggers.

By sure to read his return post, "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." If he ever gets laid off from the Boston Herald, he might find some promising fallback opportunities in comedy writing:

On day two of the trip, as Crittenden and his wife were departing from Milan for the Greek Isles, their itinerary was changed by an unexpected turn of events:

Enter three gentlemen I will come to know during my long ordeal as Farouk, Achmed and Ali. Fanatical evildoers.

I sensed a problem in the airport departure lounge, when these three, bearded and wearing skull caps, began praying loudly, drawing looks of post-911 alarm from the other passengers. Once on the plane, they start swapping seats, jumping up and running around the plane like an Islamic extremist firecracker drill. The flight attendants watched in horror, exchanging looks. I recognize the look. It’s the one that says, “We’ll get the pants prosecuted off us if we try anything.” This is Europe, after all. No John Doe law. In fact, it is a violation of local multicultural appreciation laws to attempt to interfere with any act of religious expression, such as this clearly is. The other passengers shrug in resignation, as if stuck in a seat next to an overbearing stranger who’s going to want to talk the whole way. What’re you gonna do.

Well, one thing leads to another, and the next thing you know we’re on the tarmac in Tehran. They collect the passports, and I think, OK, here we go.

Read the whole thing and don't miss what happens next!

I'll tempt my readers by noting that those bearded Middle Eastern eminences rubbed their hands together anxiously upon finding "Joooo-leeez Creetindin," that arch infidel, pro-American blogger among those on the passenger manifest!

For those just skimming the entry, be sure to scroll down to the bottom to glimpse Crittenden's cast of guest-posting luminaries, which includes my good blogging buddy, The Oxford Medievalist.

Surrender is Not An Option

Please take a few moments to check out this advertisement from Freedom's Watch (via Spree at Wake Up America):

Click here for the Freedom's Watch webpage.

Also check the Gathering of Eagles and Move America Forward webpages for information on the "September Surge" pro-victory counter-demonstrations in Washington, D.C., September 3-15.

Americans know the war in Iraq is not lost. Our continued support for the troops is essential.

News From Iraq: Veterans and Dead-Eyed Men

If you haven't visited Acute Politics, an outstanding military blog providing ground-level reports from Iraq, this week's entry was excellent:

It wasn't a good night to have a new LT on patrol. Our LT was was out with us, of course- the new guy would be leading the platoon coming to replace us. We were on a mission that could easily turn bad- as it happened, everyones night but ours was bad. We waited around at a Combat Outpost for hours for our Marine attachments to resolve some equiqment issues, cleared our route, and went home. One of our sister platoons ended up MEDIVACing two men on a helicopter after an IED strike, while another route clearance team out of Falluja was hit multiple times, and an EOD team hit a bomb that flipped a Cougar and sent two techs to the hospital.

The new LT asked "Is it always like this?" His eyes had the dawning realization that he was now at war- that he was about to begin a year of one of the most dangerous jobs in Iraq. The "Oh shit" look, we call it. It's the moment when you realize that these heavy armored trucks are not the panacea that Senators and Army trainers make them appear, not when faced with a determined and ingenious enemy. It's what you get when you see something go wrong for the first time, and the guys around you accept it with a quiet prayer and stoic determination, rather than any outward signs of shock or fear. It's the moment that makes you stop and wonder "Oh shit... what did I get myself into?"

I remember when that moment first came for me - it was right after we got to Ramadi. The Transfer of Authority ceremony had just finished, officially putting my battalion in charge of route clearance operations across a broad swath of western Iraq. I saw an old friend from ROTC back in college, and went over to talk to him. He'd been a platoon leader for the last year, and he looked a hundred years old. The last time I saw him was two years prior, just before he left for his final training as an officer before going to his first command. Then, he'd been lively and vibrant and (dare I say it?) he was a little bit of a dork. Always clowning around, that sort of thing. Now, he looked dead, and I knew that the last year had taken something out of him that the years ahead would be hard pressed to put back in.

The circle has turned, now, as it always does. Now, we are the veterans - the calloused, dead-eyed men who just want to turn over the mission and go home. There's so many things that wear men down - the slow, slippery slope of progress, the questioning and lack of support in news from home, the steady churn replacing wounded (and God forbid, dead) men. The lack of sleep, the hectic stress of changing missions, the broken men, broken families, broken children.

I hope these new guys make it through all right, but for now, we just want to go home.

Head on over there and leave a comment of support. With milblogs like these, folks back home get to know something about the convictions and courage of the military personnel laying their lives on the line for American national security.

President Bush Fights Backs on Iraq

On the eve of the Petraeus Report's release, President Bush has taken off the gloves to parry the relentless left-wing jabs, upper-cuts, and below-the-belt blows being thrown by the administration's crazed antiwar foes.

The New York Times has the story:

President Bush, appearing confident about sustaining support for his Iraq strategy, met at the Pentagon on Friday with the uniformed leaders of the nation’s armed services and then pointedly accused the war’s opponents of politicizing the debate over what to do next.

“The stakes in Iraq are too high and the consequences too grave for our security here at home to allow politics to harm the mission of our men and women in uniform,” Mr. Bush said in a statement after his meeting with the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines in a briefing room known as the Tank.

The meeting, which lasted an hour and a half, was among the president’s last Iraq strategy sessions before he leaves for Australia to meet with leaders of Asian and Pacific nations. It came on the eve of a string of reports and hearings that, starting next week, could determine the course of the remaining 16 months of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

Beginning on Tuesday, when Congress returns from its August recess, lawmakers are prepared to debate what to do in Iraq in daily hearings that will culminate on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11 with appearances by the ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, and the military commander there, Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Congress has mandated a progress report from the White House before Sept. 15, and Mr. Bush chided lawmakers for calling for a change in policy before hearing the views of the two men who are, as administration officials repeatedly point out, “on the ground in Iraq.”
“Congress asked for this assessment,” Mr. Bush said in the statement, “and members of Congress should withhold judgment until they have heard it.”

That has not stopped Mr. Bush from making an impassioned defense of the increase in American troops that he ordered in January, making the judgment that the new strategy was working and deserved a chance to continue doing so. In recent speeches, Mr. Bush has highlighted what he and others have called an improvement in security in Iraq and signs of political compromise that have so far been absent among Iraq’s political leaders.

Read the rest. Democrats, like Senator Richard Durbin, spout the most pessimistic reports on the war's progress to make their case for a precipitious withdrawal:

“What we’re hearing is a pretty consistent message of failure on the political front in Iraq,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a Democrat, who visited Iraq in August.

The Times story continues with additional points about expected troop reductions. There's no discussion of the significantly upbeat assessments coming from various sources over the last couple of months.

My post citing Jeff Jacoby's analysis of antiwar denialism is appropriate here. The country's antiwar forces have become increasingly desperate in their efforts to tar the war as a disaster. Many mistakes were made in the deployment, especially early on, with the lack of post-invasion security, and the terrible toll of casualities over the years has worn down public opinion.

But under General Petraeus the U.S. is making real progress. In response, the left has shifted its approach, focusing less on military strategy to hammer home the difficulties of Iraqi political progress. That's not to mention all the denials of Iranian influence in the county and the dismissal of likely instability in the entire Middle East after a U.S. defeat.

So, thankfully, Bush is putting up a good fight in combatting the nihilist, antiwar crowd.

(By the way, be sure to check PrivatePigg's post at Liberty Pundit, which skewers Glenn Greenwald's rabid anti-Bush fantasies.)