Steyn makes the point... as usual

As usual Mark Steyn has a brilliant column that further illustrates fallacy of the "get out now" crowd.

In war, there are usually only two exit strategies: victory or defeat. The latter's easier. Just say, whoa, we're the world's pre-eminent power but we can't handle an unprecedently low level of casualties, so if you don't mind we'd just as soon get off at the next stop.

Demonstrating the will to lose as clearly as America did in Vietnam wasn't such a smart move, but since the media can't seem to get beyond this ancient jungle war it may be worth underlining the principal difference: Osama is not Ho Chi Minh, and al-Qa'eda are not the Viet Cong. If you exit, they'll follow. And Americans will die - in foreign embassies, barracks, warships, as they did through the Nineties, and eventually on the streets of US cities, too.

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: Brian

Lest We Forget

My words can add nothing to this.
H/T to Jonah at The Corner. There are several other tributes available on the site.
God bless the men and women in uniform and thank you to all of them.

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: MontereyJohn

Happy Thanksgiving

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving...

I wasn't able to post much this week, primarily because I was down for the count with the stomach flu. But, I've recovered and am now read to resume all conspiratorial activities...

By the way, if you're a "progressive" / Leftist, be sure to read this article by Bush critic, tinfoil nutter, and journalism Professor Robert Jensen, called No Thanks for Thanksgiving:

No Thanks to Thanksgiving
By Robert Jensen, AlterNet
Posted on November 23, 2005

Instead, we should atone for the genocide that was incited -- and condoned -- by the very men we idolize as our 'heroic' founding fathers.

One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.
[...]

It gets whackier as it goes...

H/T Michelle Malkin


Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: St Wendeler

This cannot be tolerated....

Bob Lonsberry has an interesting commentary on what appears to be a disturbing trend.

Just a small "leak" to wet your imagination:

You doubt my word, throw a Cheerio in the toilet and watch the men line up to take a shot at it.

(H/T to the Corner)

*** UPDATE - ST WENDELER ***
This post made me recall this article in London's Telegraph:

German men told they can no longer stand and deliver
By Kate Connolly
(Filed: 18/08/2004)

German men are being shamed into urinating while sitting down by a gadget which is saving millions of women from cleaning up in the bathroom after them.

The WC ghost, a £6 voice-alarm, reprimands men for standing at the lavatory pan. It is triggered when the seat is lifted. The battery-operated devices are attached to the seats and deliver stern warnings to those who attempt to stand and urinate (known as "Stehpinkeln").

"Hey, stand-peeing is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don't want any trouble, you'd best sit down," one of the devices orders in a voice impersonating the German leader, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Another has a voice similar to that of his predecessor, Helmut Kohl.

The manufacturers of the WC ghost, Patentwert, say they are ready to direct their gadgets at the British market.

Their prototype English-speaking WC ghost says in an American drawl: "Don't you go wetting this floor cowboy, you never know who's behind you. So sit down, get your water pistol in the bowl where it belongs. Ha, ha, ha."

They also plan to copy the voices of Tony Blair and the Queen.

So far 1.8 million WC ghosts have been sold in German supermarkets.

Now, I think I recall that this was a hoax... but it's still on the Telegraph's website AND it doesn't show up in the Snopes.com database.

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: Brian

Brainwashing in the Middle East

MontereyJohn alerted me to this video, so a Tip of the Hat to our contributor conspirator on the Left Coast (and he'll have to tip his hat to whoever sent him the link)

The Middle East Media Research Institute - TV Project has translated these video from Iran.

#906 - Iranian Animated Film for Children Promotes Suicide Bombings
Transcript

#908 - Palestinian Children Clash with an Israeli Soldier in an Iranian Animated Movie
Transcript (excerpted below)

An Israeli soldier approaches a crowd of young Arab protesters on the street. The protesters are burning an Israeli flag, holding stones in their hands, yelling, and raising a sign that reads "Death to Israel". The protesters throw stones at the soldier, and he in return fires his weapon, killing most of the protesters. A protester who has remained alive cries at the sight of his dead comrades. He picks up a slingshot and a stone and aims at the soldier. As the stone is released into the air, it turns into a hand grenade, and explodes at the soldier's feet. The soldier has now become a skeleton wearing shredded army clothes. Behind him stands an old man, wearing a hat with the American flag printed on it.

These cartoon is intended for kids and is absolutely disgusting. And some want to better understand our enemies? What is the point of understanding this insanity?

Add to this this disgusting tv show that uses an 3 1/2 year old Egyptian girl to spout anti-Semitic garbage from 2002...
Transcript

*** UPDATE ***
I see that Bill O'Reilly will be covering this tonight... No doubt the Left will decry his program as simple-minded propaganda supporting the Zionist pigs.

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: St Wendeler

The War and Chris Matthews...

(H/T Corner)

It is better to keep your mouth
shut and appear stupid than to
open it and remove all doubt.
-- Mark Twain

Unfortunately, it appears that Chris Matthews didn't pay attention to the above phrase. As reported in the Edmonton Sun, Chris gave one of those "we just need to understand the enemy" speeches (translation: surrender). His statements echo the fringe of the anti-war movement. He and Michael Moore obviously see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.

I quote from the article liberally:

TORONTO -- Years after 9-11 and the "crazy Zeitgeist" that permeated the United States, Americans have still not learned to know their enemies instead of just hating them, said American political journalist Chris Matthews yesterday.

Oh goody, he gave the speech in Toronto. Just wouldn't do to give that speech in a VFW hall in Van Buren, MO. Better to give it in a foreign country.

"The period between 9-11 and (invading) Iraq was not a good time for America. There wasn't a robust discussion of what we were doing," Matthews said."If we stop trying to figure out the other side, we've given up. The person on the other side is not evil. They just have a different perspective.

The current engagement with Iraq began in March 2003, and September 11th, obviously, was in 2001. Thats almost 2 years of nothing but robust discussion of what we were doing. How many times I would say to the Saint and others, "Faster please", as the pieces were being moved around the globe for the eventual conflict. What Matthews is really saying here is that he didn't like that the Democratic party's portion of the discussion was to follow the political winds (instead of conviction) and to vote for authorization of war.

He doesn't also talk about the 10+ years we discussed "what to do about Iraq" after the first invasion. That discussion was also certainly robust, it just didnt go anywhere. This meme is just about "Bush's rush to War" which any true analysis of the actions leading up to the war would reveal it to be the bald-faced lie that it is.

"The smartest people understand the enemy's point of view, because they understand what's driving them."

Thanks for the indirect compliment, Mr. Matthews, because unlike some on the left I understand what drives our enemy. They want a return of the Caliphate, a religious-political order (empire if you will) of all peoples in traditionally muslim countries. There is no dissent in this regime. You are either a devout Muslim, or you are imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Political, economic, and religious debates are not allowed. This is the only outcome for which they will settle. Matthews is like Chamberlain seeking "Peace in our time" and allowing enslavement of peoples because he'd rather "leave the german speaking people to the germans".

He said Bush squandered an opportunity to unite the world against terrorism and instead made decisions that built up worldwide animosity for his administration.

"We had a strong international unity coming out of 9-11. The world was never so united against terrorism and we lost that," Matthews said. "That is the great tragedy of the Bush era."

No we didn't Mr. Matthews. We had the appearance of strong international unity because thats what the other nations of the world thought was politically expedient. But when push came to shove, some nations wouldn't even provide troops for the Afghanistan campaign. So long as America seemed weak and wounded we had the sympathy of the world. I'd rather be strong than sympathetic.

When asked what caused the U.S. to invade Iraq, he said it was a combination of factors.

Hmm, you mean like these reasons?

1. Hussein's regime was in violation of United Nations demands for weapons inspections;
2. the Hussein regime produced and possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and posed a grave threat;
3. Hussein had failed to comply with 19 UN resolutions requiring a full accounting of its weapons of mass destruction and full cooperation with UN inspections.;
4. that the Hussein regime had ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations that posed a threat to international safety; and,
5. promoting democratic self-government in the nearly-entirely autocratic Arab Middle East.

"I think the father-son relationship with the Bushes is part of it. I think the oil thing is part of it," Matthews said of the current president and his father, George Bush Sr., who was president during the Gulf War more than a decade ago.

Oh jeez, the ol' canard of "Bush did it for his Daddy." Bush isn't looking for the approval of his father. George Bush (41) wasn't invited to any strategy sessions with the joint chiefs. He doesn't steer what his son is doing.

And the "oil thing," of course, it just has to be that we drive SUV's thats the reason why we went to war to steal their oil! Oh wait, we didn't steal their oil. In fact if we wanted oil, it would have been simpler and cheaper to lift the sanctions against Saddam and just buy it from him. But Matthews has to trot out these reasons or he loses his left-wing moonbat membership card. Is that it Mr. Matthews? Just Oil and some sort of weird oedipal complex of our commander in chief?

"Our friendship with Israel (is part of it) and 9-11 created a kind of crazy Zeitgeist in the country. Bush wanted to do something big. It couldn't just be tracking down al-Qaida. He wanted a big bang. I think it's a mixture of these things."

Oh.. Its the JJJJEEEEWWWWWWSSSSSSS. If those pesky jews wouldn't be around in Israel, if we just let them be driven into the sea, the entire world would like us again.

Maybe we did something big, because the situation warranted it? That the status-quo of "tracking down" al-Qaeda hadn't worked for 10 years, and wouldn't as long as their were regimes such as Iraq and Afghanistan that would harbor them?

Matthews comments should not surprise me. His show has increasingly become the backwater of leftist politics.

It does illustrate a large problem with the Democratic party, however. They just want to put their fingers in their ears and forget about all this "terrorism nonsense" so that we can go back to talking about prescription drug benefits, universal health care, and education benefits.

The enemy is watching however. And they would like nothing better for us to just surrender in the interests of "trying to figure out the other side."

*UPDATE*
Kinda goes hand in hand with this post by the Saint just a few moments earlier. Add Matthews to the list of people asking us to just "give up".
**********

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: Brian

Losing

If you haven't already read this Op-Ed by Ralph Peters, get to it...

HOW TO LOSE A WAR
By RALPH PETERS

QUIT. It's that simple. There are plenty of more complex ways to lose a war, but none as reliable as just giving up.

Increasingly, quitting looks like the new American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can't win the game if you walk off the field at half-time. That's precisely what the Democratic Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we've made remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw the game just to embarrass the Bush administration.

Forget about the consequences. Disregard the immediate encouragement to the terrorists and insurgents to keep killing every American soldier they can. Ignore what would happen in Iraq — and the region — if we bail out. And don't mention how a U.S. surrender would turn al Qaeda into an Islamic superpower, the champ who knocked out Uncle Sam in the third round.

Forget about our dead soldiers, whose sacrifice is nothing but a political club for Democrats to wave in front of the media. After all, one way to create the kind of disaffection in the ranks that the Dems' leaders yearn to see is to tell our troops on the battlefield that they're risking their lives for nothing, we're throwing the game.

Forget that our combat veterans are re-enlisting at remarkable rates — knowing they'll have to leave their families and go back to war again. Ignore the progress on the ground, the squeezing of the insurgency's last strongholds into the badlands on the Syrian border. Blow off the successive Iraqi elections and the astonishing cooperation we've seen between age-old enemies as they struggle to form a decent government.

Just set a time-table for our troops to come home and show the world that America is an unreliable ally with no stomach for a fight, no matter the stakes involved. Tell the world that deserting the South Vietnamese and fleeing from Somalia weren't anomalies — that's what Americans do.

While we're at it, let's just print up recruiting posters for the terrorists, informing the youth of the Middle East that Americans are cowards who can be attacked with impunity.

Whatever you do, don't talk about any possible consequences. Focus on the moment — and the next round of U.S. elections. Just make political points. After all, those dead American soldiers and Marines don't matter — they didn't go to Ivy League schools. (Besides, most would've voted Republican had they lived.)

America's security? Hah! As long as the upcoming elections show Democratic gains, let the terrorist threat explode. So what if hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners might die in a regional war? So what if violent fundamentalism gets a shot of steroids? So what if we make Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the most successful Arab of the past 500 years?
[...]
You've got to understand, my fellow citizens: None of this matters. And you don't matter, either. All that matters is scoring political points. Let the world burn. Let the massacres run on. Let the terrorists acquire WMD. Just give the Bush administration a big black eye and we'll call that a win.

*

The irresponsibility of the Democrats on Capitol Hill is breathtaking. (How can an honorable man such as Joe Lieberman stay in that party?) Not one of the critics of our efforts in Iraq — not one — has described his or her vision for Iraq and the Middle East in the wake of a troop withdrawal. Not one has offered any analysis of what the terrorists would gain and what they might do. Not one has shown respect for our war dead by arguing that we must put aside our partisan differences and win.

There's plenty I don't like about the Bush administration. Its domestic policies disgust me, and the Bushies got plenty wrong in Iraq. But at least they'll fight. The Dems are ready to betray our troops, our allies and our country's future security for a few House seats.

Surrender is never a winning strategy.
[...]

And, hypothetically... let's envision what would happen if Murtha's proposal were to be enacted. It contained three parts:

1. Withdraw troops from Iraq
2. stage them in Kuwait as a rapid response force
3. Institute a draft

While this guy is being hailed as a military hero, his vision for a military campaign seems rather naive. First, withdrawing from Iraq will insure a civil war. The rapid response force would then have to redeploy into Iraq for a second time - and this time, instead of facing a known situation, our forces would be standing between warring parties. This is a much more dangerous situation than just keeping the lid on hostilities until a democratic government can manage the situation. Finally, instituting a draft would insure that the quality of our military forces would degrade significantly... Representative Murtha - Please read Victor Davis Hanson and the historical success that all-volunteer armies of free men (and women) has over conscripts.

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: St Wendeler

World Community Grid

I've had the World Community Grid application installed on my home PC for quite some time now. Previously, the grid was used to analyze protein folding and leverages the computing power of all the idle computers on the 'net. Over the weekend, the screensaver that appears to show the item that the computer is currently analyzing changed to the FightAIDS@Home - and let me tell you, the graphic diagrams of the chemical compounds being analyzed are much weirder than the previous proteins. This is a great project (created by IBM) and everyone should install it.

A virtual supercomputer grid, created by IBM (NYSE:IBM) will allow individuals and businesses to donate down-time on their personal computers via a secure website. The idle PCs will be used to run millions of computations in the search for chemical compounds that could eventually provide more effective HIV therapies, the company was to announce Monday.

"This project was created about a year ago . . . essentially to create a virtual supercomputer devoted specifically to humanitarian purposes," said Stanley Litow, IBM vice-president for corporate community relations.

"We've been working over the last year to build the number of PCs that are connected and we've also been working on a first research project, analyzing all the proteins in the human body," Litow told The Canadian Press from New York.

"But now we are adding this AIDS project. This is brand new to the grid, and the idea is to take years off of the research that would be required to find a cure for AIDS."

The project, dubbed FightAIDS(at)Home, involves virtual testing of hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds to see how they react to a particular protein of the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.

Computations use a 3-D modelling technique, which will show whether chemical compound molecules will attach themselves to the much larger HIV protein molecule - and exactly where on its structure, said project leader Dr. Arthur Olson.

Olson, a molecular biologist at the non-profit Scripps Research Institute, likened the process of seeking the right fit - called "docking" - to an ant crawling over a potato, looking for a spot it likes and settling on one of the spud's eyes.

"The idea is if we can find a compound (that fits) into the business end of one of the proteins that the virus depends upon, we can kind of gum up the works," Olson said from La Jolla, Calif. "We can stop it from functioning and then you have a potential drug to fight the virus."

Compounds that dock well would then be tested in Olson's laboratory to see what effect they have on HIV in test-tube and animal research. Promising compounds would be published in open-access scientific journals so that other researchers could retrieve data for their own experiments.

It doesn't use any computer resources until your pc goes into idle state (ie overnight or after extended periods without user interaction) and you can customize how and when it turns itself on. Companies and organizations that register the app are recognized for the combined computing power that they provide.

Here's some more information on how this works:

Grid Computing: The Basics
Grid computing joins together many individual computers, creating a large system with massive computational power that far surpasses the power of a handful of supercomputers. Because the work is split into small pieces that can be processed simultaneously, research time is reduced from years to months. The technology is also more cost-effective, enabling better use of critical funds.
spacer

Changing Our World Now
Grid computing is not a futuristic technology. World Community Grid is at work right now applying this technology to exciting research projects that can benefit us all.

Our first project, Human Proteome Folding, is identifying the proteins produced by human genes. With this information, scientists can understand how defects in proteins can cause disease, making it easier to find cures.

In 2003, with grid computing, in less than three months scientists identified 44 potential treatments to fight the deadly smallpox disease. Without the grid, the work would have taken more than one year to complete.

For more information or to register yourself, go to http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: St Wendeler

Soft-Spined Dems in The Linguini Triangle

Read this Mark Steyn article on Friday's events and Sen. Rockefeller's actions in particular. (Isn't it great that the party of "the people" has guys like Rockefeller, Kennedy, and Corzine?)

One expects nothing from the Democrats. Their leaders are men like Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, who in 2002 voted for the war and denounced Saddam Hussein as an "imminent threat" and claimed that Iraq could have nuclear weapons by 2007 if not earlier. Now he says it's Bush who "lied" his way into war with a lot of scary mumbo-jumbo about WMD.

What does Rockefeller believe, really? I know what Bush believes: He thought Saddam should go in 2002 and today he's glad he's gone, as am I. I know what, say, Michael Moore believes: He wanted to leave Saddam in power in 2002, and today he thinks the "insurgents" are the Iraqi version of America's Minutemen. But what do Rockefeller and Reid and Kerry believe deep down? That voting for the war seemed the politically expedient thing to do in 2002 but that they've since done the math and figured that pandering to the moveon.org crowd is where the big bucks are? If Bush is the new Hitler, these small hollow men are the equivalent of those grubby little Nazis whose whining defense was, "I was only obeying orders. I didn't really mean all that strutting tough-guy stuff." And, before they huff, "How dare you question my patriotism?", well, yes, I am questioning your patriotism -- because you're failing to meet the challenge of the times. Thanks to you, Iraq is a quagmire -- not in the Sunni Triangle, where U.S. armed forces are confident and effective, but on the home front, where soft-spined national legislators have turned the war into one almighty Linguini Triangle.

I am trying to find the transcript from the floor speeches on Friday... Not sure if they exist or not. If I can find it, I'll post the speech made by Steve Buyer of Indiana. His put the entire call for withdrawal in a similar perspective.

*** UPDATE ***
I see that Brainster is also a fan of Mark Steyn...

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: St Wendeler

*Crickets Chirping*

at least, that's all I've heard about this news item (that didn't even take top billing on Drudge):

The Elaph Arab media website reported on Sunday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group, may have been killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight terrorists blew themselves up in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The unconfirmed report claimed that the explosions occurred while coalition forces surrounded the house in which al-Zarqawi was hiding. American and Iraqi forces are looking into the report.

Let's all hope that we got him...

In related news, it's been quite some time since we've heard any communication from Osama himself... some think that he may have perised in the Pakistani_earthquake.

*** UPDATE ***
Ok, so the Zarqawi story has seen some airtime... and this statement from Frederick Jones isn't too promising:

In Beijing, China, a stop on President Bush's trip to Asia, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones discounted the prospect of al-Zarqawi's death.

"The report is highly unlikely and not credible," he said.

But, if we have to believe every unfounded story ever aired on Al Jazeera, why can't we believe this story from Elaph Arab?

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: St Wendeler

Another Weekend Reading Assignment

In addition to this post at the Mudville Gazette, this Victor Davis Hanson (My Favorite Democrat!) article is a must read:

War & Reconstruction
For Bush’s critics, even hindsight is cloudy.

This is the mantra of the extreme Left: "Bush lied, thousands died." A softer version from politicians now often follows: "If I knew then what I know now, I would never have supported the war."

These sentiments are intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible for a variety of reasons beyond the obvious consideration that you do not hang out to dry some 150,000 brave Americans on the field of battle while you in-fight over whether they should have ever been sent there in the first place.

[...]If the Dean notion is that the president had mysterious auxiliary information, then the case was probably even stronger for war, since no one has yet produced any stealth document that (a) warned there was no WMDs, and (b) was knowingly withheld from the Congress.

A bewildered visitor from Mars would tell Washingtonians something like: "For twelve years you occupied Saddam's airspace, since he refused to abide by the peace accords and you were afraid that he would activate his WMD arsenal again against the Kurds or his neighbors. Now that he is gone and for the first time you can confirm that his weapons program is finally defunct, you are mad about this new precedent that you have established: Given the gravity of WMD arsenals, the onus is now on suspect rogue nations to prove that they do not have weapons of mass destruction, rather than for civilization to establish beyond a responsible doubt that they do?"

Even more importantly, the U.S. Senate voted to authorize the removal of Saddam Hussein for 22 reasons other than just his possession of dangerous weapons. We seem to have forgotten that entirely.

If the Bush administration erred in privileging the dangers of Iraqi WMDs, then the Congress in its wisdom used a far broader approach (as Sen. Robert Byrd complained at the time), and went well beyond George Bush in making a more far-reaching case for war — genocide, violation of U.N. agreements, breaking of the 1991 armistice accords, attempts to kill a former U.S. president, and firing on American aerial patrols. It was the U.S. Senate — a majority of Democrats included — not Paul Wolfowitz, that legislated a war to reform and restore the wider Middle East: "...whereas it is in the national security of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region".

So read the senators' October 2002 resolution. It is a model of sobriety and judiciousness in authorizing a war. There are facts cited such as the violation of agreements; moral considerations such as genocide; real worries about al Qaeda's ties to Saddam (e.g., "...whereas members of al-Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq"); fears of terrorism (" ...whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens."

No doubt many Democrats in the Senate who voted to authorize the war took their cue from Bill Clinton's own November 1998 indictment of bin Laden (still, how does one indict an enemy that has declared war on you?) that explicitly stressed the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein: "In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."

Thus the honest and moral argument for the now contrite would be something like: "I know now that Saddam did not try to kill a former president, did not commit genocide, did not attack four of his neighbors, did not harbor anti-American terrorists, did not ignore U.N. and 1991 peace accords, and did not attack Americans enforcing U.N.-mandated no-fly zones — and so I regret my vote."

Or if the former supporters of the war had character, they would be more honest still: "Yes, Saddam was guilty of those other 22 writs, but none of them justified the war that I voted for, and I should not have included them in the resolution."

Or they could be more truthful still: "I didn't really want a war, and only threw in the bit about al Qaeda and Saddam. So I just voted for the authorization in case some crisis emerged and the President had to act swiftly."

I doubt any will ever say, "I voted to cover myself: If the war proved swift and relatively low-cost like Bosnia or Afghanistan, I was on record for it; if it got bad like Mogadishu or Lebanon, then I wasn't the commander-in-chief who conducted it."

I've only excerpted a small portion and certainly not the best parts... read the whole thing.

Your Co-Conspirator,
ARC: St Wendeler