PrairiePundit

Opponents of the US-UK Resolution at the UN The French, Germans, and Russians are opposing the resolution stating that Saddam is not in compliance with Security Counsel Resolution 1441. They have all said that Saddam must disarm, but do they mean it? The results of a US led war against Saddam will be that Saddam will be disarmed and as an Iraqi Kurd said, Iraqi civilian casualties from such a war will be less that Saddam kills intentional on a monthly basis. The US and its coalition will bear the risk of their own casualties, not France, Germany and Russia. So what is their problem? It is regime change. They are attempting to sabotage the US effort in order to keep the murderous thug in office. They like doing business with him. They are also not serious about disarming Saddam. If they were serious it would not have taken 12 years to accomplish. They embrace inspections now only because they think it will restrain the US from taking effective actions. If they had their w

Iraq's Missle Destruction Ploy Euro wimps are swooning over Iraq's agreement in principal to destroy some missles. This from a government that has no principals other than deceit, deception and destruction of any opposition. Rather than being proof of Iraqi complaiance or that the inspections are working, it is really proof that Iraq continues to game the process. If they were serious about disarming that would have disclosed the missles last year and immediatly started destroying them. They did not because they have no intenetion of voluntarily disarming. With respect to their request for suggestions on how to destroy the missles, what they need to do now is disclose the exact coordinates of the missles and US can take care of them on the opening day of the war. Critic of Frank's Battle Plans Buster Glossam who participated in the planning of the bombing campaign during the 1991 Gulf War has suggested that Frank's plan as leaked to the media (hopefully

Bush's Regime Change Speech The President's speech before the American Enterprise Institute was not about just disarming Iraq. The speech was about briniging democracy to Iraq. Clearly UN Resolution 1441 does not mention that. Bush has signaled that the time for voluntary disarmament by Saddam has passed. If Saddam destroys a few missiles and finds a few old bombs at this point it is too little too late. The clarity of his vision of a post Saddam Iraq has to be contrasted with the continued hell on earth that would exist for the Iraqi people if Chirac and the Euro wimps vision prevailed in even a disarmed Iraq. What was also made clear is that any hope the Palestinians have for a state rest on Saddam's loss of power. Arafat, who always seems to make bad choices on these matters, is still exchanging love letters with Saddam and is thankful for the blood money paid to families of human bombs. There was a message for him too. To have a Palestinian state, the P

Protesting Half a War Much has been made of the "peace" marcher's failure to condemn Saddam and Iraq, and their failure to work for a free Iraq. This leaves them only protesting half a war. War is inherently a contest of wills. The "peace" protesters demanding that the US surrender to the will of murderous despot, because they do not think he will murder them. The moral bankruptcy of this position makes these people irrelevant to serious decision makers. By giving Saddam hope that he can achieve his objectives without war they have made it less likely he will disarm and more likely that war will happen. And, these people think they are smarter than the rest of the world.

Saddam's House of Horrors Tales from the torture chambers are provided in interviews of Saddam's victims. One of the Kurds said that worries about Iraqi civilian deaths in a US attack on Iraq are misplaced. He said the total for the war will be less than Saddam kills every month. The writer worries about radicalizing "moderate" muslims but thinks Saddam is so bad that it is worth the risk. What kind of moderate muslim would shed any tear for a butcher like Saddam? The concern assumes muslims are indifferent to suffering of other muslims unless they are Palestinian. There is a brutality in the muslim world that goes beyond most people's comprehension. The stories were the same in Afghanistan as Iraq. Inhumane torture is a way of life. It explains why there are so many refugees from these brutal regimes and why none of those refugees oppose US liberation. For those who oppose the liberation what fear do they have that could rationalize the continuati

Irrational Opposition to War Lee Harris looks at opposition to the war with Iraq as expressed by Robert Fisk. Fisk is a man who feels guilty about being a member of the white oppressor race. His opposition is not based on the results and the benefits flowing to the Iraqis. He is projecting base motives to the reason for the US action against Iraq. Opponents of a war with Iraq clearly misread Bush's intentions because they are not used to someone saying exactly what they mean. Shortly after Bush took office some Democrats were aghast that Bush intended to do exactly what he said he would do during his campaign. The same is true for his motivation to go to war with Iraq. He has repeatedly said that the war will be about getting rid of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. He has never said it was a war about oil. Yet, the anti war pukes continue to march with signs that say no war for oil. OK, we will not fight a war for oil, especially when it would be cheaper to

The Insults of Cowards Teachers in Maine have been accused of telling the children of service people deployed to fight a war with Iraq, that their parents are bad people who are doing something wrong. This charge sounded incredible until I read the memo from the administrator telling the teachers to be more "sensitive" in dealing with the children of service personel. Sensitive--How about respectful of the sacrifice these people make? When I got back from Vietnam I saw the signs and heard the insults that were always shouted from the safe distance . None of these people had the courage to do that sort of thing face to face. I doubt that any of the teachers engaged in this awful conduct would have the courage to make that sort of statement to the serviceman in person. They issue the insult to his kids while he is thousands of miles away putting his life on the line in defense of this country. Cowardly is certainly one word to describe this conduct. I am sure there

Independent Contractor Terrorist Bill Gertz reports concern in the US that Saddam will use third party terrorist to attack the US. As the war gets closer it is expected that Saddam may attempt a preemptive strike using the free lance terrorist. This concern, of course, has been the driving force behind US policy on Iraq since 9-11. Saddam just made the move to war easier by openly violatring his obligations to disarm. By failing to disarm he made an attack more, not less, likely. It is a lesson that North Korea and Iran must learn. The Incredible Credibility Charge Sen. Daschle and the Dems have decided they need to drive up George Bush's negatives as we go to war. Their vehicle for this move is to use the complaints of the Euro wimps for a baseless challenge to Bush's credibility. By coincidence on the same day news of this plan broke in the Washington Times, Paul Krugman devotes his regular Bush bash in the New York Times to another challenge of Bush's

UN lateralist Most of the politicians in this country who insist on getting UN approval for attacking Saddam are Democrats who hope France will prevent such an attack. Sen. Carl Levin is an obvious example. Apparently, if polls are to be believed, there are many people outside the US who seem to think there is something important about UN approval. At best these are usually political leaders who do not want to take responsibility for what they know needs to be done. They want to be able to tell their people that the UN made me do it. This is leadership through cowardice. The Levin example is interesting because he was totally unmoved by UN approval in 1991. I have often thought that the Bush 41 team went to the UN first because they knew they could get approval there which would put pressure on the wuss wing of the Democratic Party to not be the only people in the world oppose to reversing Saddam's conquest of Kuwait. Now Levin says that was the right way to approach

Civil Rights Language Abuse Jay Nordlinger at NRO points gives another example of language abuse. Those who support the University of Michigan's discrimination against the unpreferred, claim that it is a "civil right" to do so. Discrimination to achieve "diversity" is a new civil right. Of course the unprefered have no civil right to the equal protection of the law under this language abuse.

Reversing Muslim Immigration to Europe Muslims are immigrating to Europe because of the failure of muslim dominated governments to create jobs and opportunities. In many cases they are fleeing oppressive regimes like the one in Iraq. Just as millions returned to Afghanistan when that country was liberated from the Taliban despots, many Iraqi's will return to that country once they no longer have to fear Saddam's torture gulag. If this trend is extended to other Arab countries Europe's problem of assimilating muslim immigrants can be greatly reduced. It is in the interest of France and other European governments to help this process. Unfortunately, they are too hung up on pacifism to see it at this time. Socialism has weakened their military and their moral fiber. It will take leadership to overcome this problem. At this point it will have to be external leadership, since Chirac and Schroeder have clutch the philosphy of losers to their bosom.

Rationalizing the French It has been suggested that the French are reluctant to take effective action in Iraq because of fear of antaganizing a large muslim population. I do not think the French are intimidated by their own muslim population. Certainly the Dutch have not been intimidated by a similarly large muslim population; they are supporting the US. The French calculation appears to be based on what they believe will be a negative fallout from the US liberation of Iraq. This calculation is made in the face of much less resistance to the US move in the Arab world than in the streets of Europe. We need to also remember that the US dispute with France is mostly over the means of disarming Iraq. It comes down to the French wanting Iraq disarmed with Saddam still in power, while the US wants Iraq disarmed after Saddam's removal. One reason the French position makes no sense to the US is that Saddam is a recedivest builder of WMD. Completely cleaning WMD from Iraq would

Profiles in Cowardice Award Dennis Kucinich, formerly a flakey mayor who went on to become a flakey congressman has made a different choice on the abortion issue. To most potiticians choice when discussing abortion means making a choice between being a baby killer or a women hater. since most politicians are neither, it makes for a decision almost as painful as having to decide whether to have an abortion. But political viability usually trumps all passionately held positions, and for Kucinich to be allowed to speak at Democrat candidate forums he had to switch to pro choice. Life can sometimes require you to chose between two bad positions, but you knew the job was difficult when you took it Dennis.

Charitable Diplomacy Fails in Africa Sen. Patty Murray argued awhile back that the US could make more friends by building day care centers around the world to compete with Osama bin Laden and his charitable good works. She has just been proved completely wrong. In an attempt to avoid a humanitarian disaster in Africa, President Bush proposed increasing funding to $15 billion to fight the aids epidemic that is killing millions of africans. In a show of appreciation, 52 african countries chose not to support the liberation of Iraq from a despot responsible for a million deaths not associated with aids, but instead embraced the side the axis of weasals while being treated to French whine (a pun not a typo) in Paris this weekend. This raises the question of how much aid the French have offered to stop this epidemic, or how much Saddam has offered. It is likely that Saddam's only interest in aids would be in how he might add it to his arsenal of bilogical weapons. Perhaps they

Reason Arab Armies Have Performed So Poorly Against Isrealis I have read the the MEMRI translations of sermons by muslim cleric on Little Green Footballs, and recently saw the rebroadcast of a sermon by a sword wielding cleric on the Fox News Channel. It suddenly occurred to me why the muslim forces arrayed against Isreal have done so poorly. They keep waiting for the trees and rocks to speak and betray the Jews. Perhaps they are waiting for an earth quake under the feet of the IDF. It could be they are waiting to be mesmerised by a transformation of IDF soldiers into pigs and monkeys. At any rate the wait has not worked out for them so far. Will it ever occur to these clerics to question the validity of these fantasies and try to live in peace with these "people of the book?"

A War About Values The head of the Center for Liberal Studies in Bulgaria, Ivan Krustev, told a reporter for the London telegraph, "We understand that this is a war about values, whereas for France and Germany it is about commercial interest." This followed Chirac's emotional outburst at Eastern European countries that support the US. Certainly the driving force behind the French and German opposition to the use of force against Iraq has been the subject of much speculation, including their commercial interest. Some have focused on the French desire for a "counter weight" to US power i.e. the French desire to position the European Union with France and Germany at it head as a force to restrain the use of force by the US. It has also been argued that these countries are afraid their complicity with Saddam in making the banned weapons will be discovered. Some have argued that the US is interested in getting Iraqi oil or business for US companies. Mr. Kru

Turkey's Faulty Economic Impact Argument Turkey claims it needs roughly $32 billion to compensate it for economic disruption expected to be caused by the coming war in Iraq. They make this assumption based on their experience in the '91 war. However this time the likely economic impact will benefit Turkey. Most of the past losses are the result of the sactioned imposed on Iraq for failure to comply with its obligations under the cease fire agreement. After Iraq is liberated, the sactions will be lifted and the Turks will be positioned for a thriving trade relationship with Iraq. The overall impact should be positive. Palestian Problems A University of South Florida professor along with seven others has been charged with participating in a terrorist organization, Islamic Jihad. With this organization being squeezed in the US and Hamas looking at the loss of human bomb rewards from Saddam Huessin the Palestinians will find it increasingly difficult to operate. T

Iranian Plane Crash When the shuttle Columbia broke up in the sky over Texas several Islamist suggested that God was showing displeasure with the US. I think they will probably not think the act of god--bad weather--which brought down the plane with over 300 Revolutionary Guard on board was a message indicating displeasure over the inept rule of Iranian clerics. Estrada The main complaint driving the Dems filibuster of the Estrada nomination is that not enough is known about his legal positions. This is a bad faith argument that is contrary to the facts. With 15 cases argued before the US Supreme court, there is at a minimum 15 briefs he either wrote or had a hand in writing setting forth legal positions. No doubt there are numerous briefs filed in lower courts by Mr. Estrada. This is more than enough information to make a judgement on his legal skills and qualifications. In fact, if they cannot make a judgment on his record from these documents, it calls in to questio

Bug Zapper Opinion Journal reports that Taliban forces are attempting to move back into Afghanistan. A force of around 80 has been under attack by US forces with at least 18 reported dead. This illustrates one of the central problems for Taliban and al Queda forces. If they concentrate for an attack they are vulnerable to bombing by American planes. If they attempt to attack in smaller units, they can not achieve meaningful results. In fact one of the surprises of post Taliban Afghanistan is how few successful attacks have been launch. This is especially true considering the criticism that Kabul is the only city under effective control of the new government. While this may be true the war lords in the other cities know that if they permit any Taliban activity in their area it will draw attention from the American who otherwise will leave them alone. If they do mount attacks it will be a gift to the Americans who would otherwise have to go out and search for them. Their att

Euros Try To Look United The European Union attempt to send a unified message to Iraq today that complaince with the UN resolutions was mandatory. Schroeder from Germany immediately undercut the message by making it clear as far as he is concerned the Iraqi can take their time in complying. I guess that is what weasals are for. In the meantime, Chirac of France was putting on his mean face as he attempted to bully eastern European leaders who had signed a pro American letter. He threatened to exclude these countries from EU expansion. Even when they try to hide their animosity the Germans and French do a poor job of it. While the EU was able to paper over difference on the surface, the underlying problem keeps perculating up. The NATO leaders also managed to act like they were approving help for Turkey. At that point the Turks say they need more time to approve basing of US troops. The question is, are they just trying to extort more money out of the US, or do they have

Democrats Vice President Race Wesley Clark, who has been hanging out in Arkansas after retiring from the military plugged the Dems anti Bush agenda on the Sunday shows yesterday. He is being "encouraged" to run for President. Since he has no constituency, his only hope is to be on the ticket as a VP candidate to try to give the Dems some credibility on the national security issue. The big problem with this idea is that he is pushing the same old flawed national security agenda of the Clinton administration. It is an agenda that is going to be rejected no matter how many times John Kerry mentions he spent some time in Vietnam, or Wesley Clark reminds people he is a former general who was in charge of NATO. Another potential VP candidate is Bob Graham a senator from Florida who recently had heart surgery. He is being encouraged to run because the Dems are hoping that Florida will be critical in another close race with Bush. It is not clear at this point he will be

Anti War No Show With the fear on parade shows across Europe and in parts of the US, outside of Baghdad, the vaunted Arab Street was silent. In fact Saudi papers were calling on Saddam to abdicate or in the alternative commit suicide. It seems clear that the arabs outside of Iraq's torture chambers have come to grips with regime change in Baghdad. At some point perhaps the Germans and French will too. Already NATO has agreed to help the Turks. The French position on assisting this ally is an example laughable logic disguised as diplomacy. It appears the people on the wrong side of history in the Cold War want to solidify that position for the current war. The French have begun to acknowledge that they were rescued by the Americans twice in the last century. They just do not seem to be able to ackowledge that Saddam and his regime are a threat to the US. The idea of containment of Saddam is like living with a painful appendix, because you do not want to take the risk of

UNilateralist Politics has a way of massaging the meaning out of some words. While any coalition that the US leads into Iraq will have more members than there are on the UN Security Counsel many liberal Democrats still refer to a fight without the UN blessing as "going it alone" or acting "unilaterally." Doing some massaging of my own I think the Dem definition should be spelled with two initial caps--UNilateral. That way no one would be confused into thinking they were tryiing to mislead the public into thinking that the Bush administration had no foreign support for their operation in Iraq. I think this type of massaging has been going on a while by the Dems. Back in the 90's when the rate of growth in spending did not meet their objectives the increase in spending was called a "cut." Fraudulant use of language will eventually lead to a credibility problem. Anti War Show II The anti war marchers did not persuade. In putting their

Strategy Watch Saddam Huesein may attempt a scorched earth strategy to defend the Iraqi capital. In the past he has used floods and fires to avoid defeat and he may try again. The problem with a scorched earth strategy is that it is only effective against an invasion that is dependent on finding supplies as it advances. The strategy worked for the Russians against Napolean and Hitler. However, Iraq is not a place that an army would depend on foraging for supplies. The last time an American army used foraging as a means of sustaining an attack was in Sherman's march through Georgia. Saddam will attempt to make his fall as messy as possible. He will still fall. Anti War Shows Anti war demonstrations are made up of people who have taken counsel of their fears. Some fear that the US will win, and in this country there may be some who fear the US will lose. There are other fears--Iraq civilian casualties for example. Despots like Saddam play on such fears in an atte

The French have indicated they oppose overthrowing Saddam Huessin because of the cost of war. Since the actual cost of such a war will be paid by the US in blood and treasure, what are the cost to the French? Apparently the cost to the French would be the loss of favorable contracts with the Iraqis. The value of the contracts must be worth more to them than their relationship with the US. The value of the contracts is such that the French are willing to risk making themselves and the UN irrelevant. After the Blix-French show in the UN on Friday, there is really only one good reason why the US does not tell the UN et.al. to take a hike. I think that troops will not be in place for another two weeks. Bush just spoke at a ceremony were equipment including helicopters in large baggies, was still being loaded at the port in Jacksonville, Florida. Airborne units are still in transit. Since there is a remote chance that something positive might happen as the UN marches into the dus