Al Qaeda’s Defeat In Iraq

The Democrats and Obama keep trying to separate Iraq from Al Qaeda. But they can't. The Invasion of Iraq is old news... but they keep talking about Iraq as if it were the pre-invasion Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It isn't anymore. The insurgency is mostly Al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups that kill more Iraqis than Americans.

Fighting in Iraq today IS fighting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. There is no long any legitable "insurance" fighting to free Iraq.

Obama needs to quit saying Iraq IS currently a distraction from the real fight. Maybe it was at one time, and maybe not, but today it very much IS the center of our efforts to fight terrorism.... and we're winning...

Commentary » Blog Archive » Al Qaeda’s Defeat In Iraq [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Limits on CIA Interrogations

FOXNews.com - Congress Pushes Limits on CIA Interrogations in Face of Threatened Bush Veto - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum:

"Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, voted against the measure Wednesday."

WOW!! I had expected McCain to vote FOR this. I wonder what his reasons are. I support limiting what the CIA can do, but maybe not this much.

The CIA should have a window of very harsh methods (including water boarding) for getting current information quickly. But once that window has passed, there are less and less reasons to continue to use the harsh methods. To me "torture" is the POINTLESS inflicting of pain and suffering to punish someone, or to "get even" or just to be cruel or to get a false confession. If there is reasonable reason to believe the person has information that can stop an eminent attack, or lead to the capture of other terrorist, then I say just about anything goes. But if they hold out for days or a week or two then...

A - The info he has is old anyways.
B - He may start giving false info just to stop the interrogation
C - He may not really know anything (or anything more than he already told)
D - He may just be strong willed and have "beaten us".

There comes a time when the risk of option 'D' becomes small enough and the chances of A,B or C (or others) being true become large enough that we must stop the harsh techniques. They have become pointless and therefore I would consider continuing them to be "Torture". He could still be subjected to other less harsh, more long term, techniques but eventually he should become "just a prisoner" and simply held.

Until trial of course.

=================================================================
By the way, the argument that Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller made that "Retaliation is the way of the world. What we do to others, they will do to us — but worse," is just silly. Terrorist have no limits on what they are willing to do. What we do with our prisoners may be used in propaganda, but will in no way make terrorist attack us more or in "worse" ways. Nor will it make them treat people they kidnap or capture "worse". It shows Mr Rockefeller doesn't know what he's talking about, and is just using this as his own propaganda against President Bush. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Israel faces nuclear Holocaust warns Gingrich

I've been seeing lots of this lately...

Israel faces nuclear Holocaust warns Gingrich - News from Israel, Ynetnews

and here...

Iran: Israel, US will soon die

I don't know much about th is "ynet" news, but it Israeli owned and operated, so if that matters to you, now you know... [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran

Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran

This comes as no surprise to me. Iran has threaten Israel several times, and nuclear weapons would give threats like "wiping Israel off the map" very real teeth.

While the US and other larger nations can risk Iran (and N. Korea) having a few small nuclear bombs, Israel can't. A few bombs is all it would take to wipe them out.

The world must stop Iran, peacefully through negotiations or bloodlessly through sanctions, or Israel must stop them by attacking them.

The way I see it, Nuclear Weapons WILL be used in combat again within a few years, either Iran will be the next country to use Nuclear weapons when they attack Israel (directly or by giving the bomb to terrorist who will take it to Israel), or Israel will use them to stop Iran from developing these weapon.

9/11 changed the world for the US, but this will be nothing compared to how it changes when Israel looses a major city. But I'm afraid that's what its going to take for Europe (the "west"
) to wake up and help us deal with Iran.


PajamasMedia sees things a little differently...

First and foremost - one must consider the source of this story. The Sunday Times journalist in question Uzi Mahnaimi, is a controversial figure....If his reporting was accurate, Iranian nuclear facilities would already be a smoking ruin – not once, but multiple times.

still they go on to say that..

But was the story accurate? “Listen, of course Israel has active contingency plans for attacking Iran’s nuclear capabilities. So does the U.S., so does Great Britain, so does any Western power that is thinking straight.

But it might not be as likely as I first thought...(so much for my attempts at predicting middle east events...)
[This Post Continues after the jump...]

Pat Robertson Predicts Terrorist Attack

This is pretty specific, so I think it will either be clear that he is right or clear that he is wrong. We will find out in 10 months or so.
(I'll try and find some more direct quotes...)

(see first comment for original article is the link is dead) [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Gingrich: Imams should have been arrested

I saw this over at Instapundit and liked it (like I do most things there).

Newt calls them like he see them. This whole Imams thing was staged from the beginning. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

14,000 languish in American hands with few rights or charges filed

I was very supportive of this type of think at first. Even the US constitution says "habeas corpus" can be suspended during armed rebellion or time of war (or something like that). But its been 5 years since the attack and we should be able to release most of these people now.

I fear the next administration's (of whichever party) is going to have to air some dirty laundry about this...


U.S. detainees face a legal vacuum - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com [This Post Continues after the jump...]