Asking Permission to Play Hide-and-Seek in Iraq

So today there are the bodies of three dead French nationals in Iran, killed on a desert trip by Islamic radical elements .... oh wait, those killings were in Saudi Arabia. My mistake. See, even I've been influenced by all of this Iran = Al Qaeda + 9-11 hype. Sporatic incident or a resurgence of the 2003-2004 mini-insurgency which killed more than 150+ foreigners and Saudis and about 136 Islamofacists, before the Saudis laid it down enough, though they swear it was achieved through force and not cash. All in all, couple with continued suicide bombings and sectarian violence, and the President of Iraqi in a hospital in Jordan, it makes for a queasy week over in the Territories of the Grand Western Oil Reserves. Just to cheer you up, our soldiers over in Baghdad are getting to play a wonderful game of hide and go seek. The Sunni Insurgency is making the popcorn and the Shia Militias are bringing the sodapop, so peace may yet break out. Becuase they finally have something they can both laugh at, at the same time. Cheery. Especially for the estimated 1,050 more dead city-dwellers since Feb. 1, among them the 269 kidnap-torture-execute victims who are now only unidentifiable bodies to be buried.

I thought to stop and talk a moment about how this plays out in the American political scene. In my own personal life I've faced a lot of snide remarks that Democrats want the surge to fail (merely because we estimate it will) and that we want a failed state in Iraq (although we expect the rise of a Shiite, Iran-friendly power). Rational discourse becomes next to impossible when faced with such accusations, considering that we are bound by some imposed morality not to start posting blog after blog, or ruining dinner after dinner, by saying that the Republicans only want to send troops to Iraq to cause a bloodbath or to rape Muslim virgins. I'm content with being so nice, despite the thousand little wounds inflicted by the ill-mannered. However.

Why the fury from the Democrats over this one little surge? We aren't stupid. Just the other day the McNeil Newshour reported that the National Guard is getting warnings about future deployments next year. Bush has said let me have one more try and what seems so harmful about that? Ah... he asked. So why did he ask? You all know the saying, better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Bush declared on national television to the insurgents in Iraq that he was sending them, giving them ample time to rent trucks from U-Haul and hide all their goodies, and order "Good Arab" costumes online with regular mail delivery. Bush then sent the troop surge after using the issue to hoard as many congressional working hours as possible. No wonder they can't figure out who to shoot or who's shooting back.

Yes, the Shiite militias are doing horrible things. And what happens if you do remove them, and leave an Iraq vulnerable to the rise of Sunni militarism? The Sunni are backed by al-Qaeda friendly Saudi "private charities" while the Shia are backed by the OBL-unfriendly Iran. Pick your poison. Peace in Baghdad would be nice.. in the short run. And as soon as we leave, that might in itself create the very Islamofacist state we are supposed to be trying to avoid giving birth to. Get rid of the Mahdi Army and Iran still has an interest in backing the Shia in Iraq. Different day and different faces. You will not have changed the underlying causes of the outbreak of sectarian violence.

What do I as a Democrat want? I wanted some evidence that this really would be Bush's last hurrah, the final reinforcements to Custer's Last Stand. I didn't want this sinking feeling that Bush is going to come back again with his hand out. I want to be out of Iraq before the next Presidential elections, I want Bush to finish what he started, and not to have him insist that we clean up all the messes that he has made. You know, a little responsibility? I want the Democratic leadership in Congress to set the "redeployment from Iraq" date by the simple way of saying, there will be not be funding for the War in Iraq in the 2008 military budget, so you have ten months to figure your shit out. If this is the last surge Bush really needs then ten months is by far more than he needs and certainly gracious of the American public.

Modern Witchhunt Kills Fetus, Imprisons Mother

So today Connecticut officially is on probation as a State and if the March 2 sentencing phase of Julie Amero's wrongful conviction sends this innocent woman to jail, they need to just be expelled from the Union. Seriously. Imagine volunteering your time as a substitute teacher, retired after a career as an underpaid kindegarten teacher, during a high risk pregnancy, panicking when a trojan horse floods the classroom computer with porn pop-ups, getting arrested by the baying mob of local townspeople lead by an ethically-challenged detective (investigated for giving beer to minors on the job), locked up, slapped with charges that carry a 40 year sentence.

And then you miscarry the preciously wanted baby you and your husband have sought for years and endured a great deal of fertility treatments to conceive and cherish.

And then... you get found guilty because you didn't wear a burqah to work like a real modest woman and the judge for your trial is Sleeping Beauty. All because a few 7th-graders saw a still-frame of a blowjob for a couple of seconds before you physically pushed them away from the computer. Pretty much makes everyone else's spam story pale in comparison. The only way Conneticut can redeem itself at this point is if the prosecutor and the detective/"expert witness" are placed in stocks in the town square so that we may all go to boo.

Julie originally faced ten counts of "risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53-21)....The statute punishes '[a]ny person who...unlawfully...permits any child under the age of 16 years to be placed in such a situation that...the morals of such child are likely to be impaired, or does any act likely to impair the...morals of any such child'." So at least 6 parents refused to join up in this witchhunt, leaving only those of the remaining 4 students. Why did she keep surfing after the second brief spat of pop-ups around 9 a.m.? Substitute teachers don't teach and aren't required to have teaching degrees; they babysit while students do worksheets or take tests. How could they jump into the middle of some else's lesson plans? They can't, so they don't. The teacher left the computer on so Julie could surf, so it was okay with the teacher who asked her to substitute! Why wasn't she wearing a burqah to shroud the computer? Women aren't forced to wear them in public in this country, and she wasn't wearing a sweater or coat either!

Why didn't she yank the cord? The tech answer is that you aren't supposed to do so:

There are significant forensic reasons not to simply unplug a misbehaving computer. Sure, the question now is whether there was malware, spyware, pop-ups, or possible a Trojan horse on the computer. But what if the computer was being actively attacked, through a Trojan or back-door? Turning off the CPU likely would prevent the tracking needed to find the source of the attack. Unplugging the computer, for example, would prevent the creation of certain registry entries that are created only when, for example, the browser is closed properly – such as the registry entry indicating what URLs were typed into the browser – an important evidentiary issue in this case.

Witchhunts spurn evidence; their purpose is to convict on any charge possible. What Connecticut doesn't want you to understand is that the porn pop-ups occurred as a result of links clicked before the start of class when students accessed the computer without permission while Julie was in the bathroom. Also that they appeared as the result of a malware called Pasco, which was likely picked up when the computer's user (the teacher?) accessed e-Harmony earlier that month. Also, the prosecution used a computer program called ComputerCop to examine the harddrive in question that can't tell if a site URL was typed into a computer, accessed via a link, or the result of malware, although the prosecution testified in the case that their program proved Julie had typed those several links from memory.

The judge reduced the defense's expert witness testimony to two single slides, showing what a legitamate website looks like, and what a psuedo-website that has been set up to infest a computer looks like. Please. If someone is making millions to fool surfers, a jury of people to stupid to get out of the duty isn't easy prey? Also, the prosecutor claimed the porn was visible "for hours" just for shock effect, when the pop-ups were visible for only a few minutes.

Defense witness W. Herbert Homer posted his complete analysis of the harddrive here, and all the testimony he wishes he could have given to save this innocent woman. His examination showed that the teacher logged on, surfed for a few minutes, and then Julie checked her AOL email. Around 0835, the computer access the psuedo-hairstyle site that activated the trojan horse program, that spat out a few porn pop-ups. The computer went inactive, showing that someone stoped the students (Julie). Then at 0920, the trojan horse activated another spat of porn pop-ups, and then activity ceased again. Homer was able to show that these were indeed pop-ups by the size of the images shown.

All of the jpg's that we looked at in the internet cache folders were of the 5, 6 and 15 kB size, very small images indeed. Normally, when a person goes to a pornographic website they are interested in the larger pictures of greater resolution and those jpgs would be at least 35 kB and larger. We found no evidence of where this kind of surfing was exercised on October 19, 2004

That the prosecution blocked the vast bulk of his testimony to sacrafice the truth in pursuit of a conviction to mollify the prudish parents (toting battery operated hedge clippers only their gardeners use because they've never even seen a real pitchfork) marks a witchhunt has occured. And. Its. 2007.

Julie's plight should matter to you, because another day, another time, another innocent click, and you'll face felony charges yourself. Nothing may save you and you may have no warning before just one pop-up makes you a criminal. Spyware is the dark boogyman of the explosive phenomenon of the internet, targeting 8 year-olds googling Barbie.

I have my own sob story. A visit to eHarmony to check out some guys, picked me up a trojan horse made by a company called "AffiliateTarget" using a search engine called "Gleaned." Which I had an IT friend puzzle out for me. I don't suggest attempting to access either of these companies websites... my blockers are just shutting down my browser each time I try so I can give you links. What happened to me? The software kicks in when you click on a link or send an email. It reroutes you to a flash advertisement for an online company (use your imagination, perverts!) and requires you to watch it or wait for it to download completely before it will give you an optional link to click out. It also apparently will just redirect you wholesale to another website and destroy your back-key link to wherever you were (I'm guessing for a higher fee). It also prevents you from using your copy key to copy an email or a blog to a word document before you sent. If it kicks in when you are sending email or posting a blog you loose everything. It even interrupted my webmail's spell checker, for frak's sake.

AffiliateTarget's website at the time had an email link that was broken, and only allowed you to "buy" the promotional software after proving you were a company. I contacted Gleaned who never responded. I contacted the BetterBusinessBureau in both Maryland and in Atlanta, Georgia where an online software reviewer Taming the Beast had given me the address for the company's owner. AffiliateTarget never responded, and failed to respond to the BBB, who then told me if the other party won't engage, they can't help you. A link so people don't think this is normal moonbat lunacy. And then it got much worse. IT told me that all I could do was wipe the computer and start over from scratch, and there was no way they were saving anything saved on it for me! $2500 of Gateway laptopiness now sits unuseable on my desk. At least I'm not behind bars.

Why does the law not protect us? Why aren't these sorts of malware and their creators prosecuted with the zeal shown for band students and toothless grandmothers downloading from Napster? They make money? They target people with content that causes immorality to be assumed by it's meer proximity? Prosecutors don't want to look into a television camera and say "penile enhancement?" I escaped once, but I don't kid myself, and my new laptop has 7 different malware programs that take 3 minutes searching my computer each time I turn it on. Who wants to be Julie, who could have accepted a probation plea that would have scrubbed her record but left her with the reputation as a pervert?

Who wants to end up in the good fight for the worst reason of all?

"I was sitting there looking at porno? I was sitting there pregnant," Amero says, before telling me too much about a private life publicly unraveled.

So why not just accept a probation offer that would have wiped her record clean?

"The baby," Amero, now 40, explains as we sit in her living room in rural Windham. She'd spent years trying to get pregnant before losing the child after her arrest.

Absolutely the worst reason. Protest! Like a lot. Cough up a benjamin. Right this frakking minute!! Before you end up lashed to the stake and watching that on coming match.

Technorati Tags:
Julie Amero, malware, internet, Connecticut, injustice, security, opinion, witchhunt, moonbat, software

Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?

So today the wardrums for attacking Iran have stepped themselves up a notch in the wake of Al-Zawahiri releasing an audio message with pictures to color in and a Guardian story detailing the advancement of plans in the Bush administration to attack Iran in the spring. Con-blogs are latching onto an American Enterprise Insitute initiative to use bunker-busting nuclear weapons. Other reasons for war with Iran embrace the geopolitical ignorance of kindergartners who are another group of American citizens who are blind to certain realities. If Russian missiles are being purchased and used to down U.S. helicopters, why is there no drumbeat to nuke Russia? More self-embraced confusion by the cons comes with the idea that nuking Iran will lower recruitment for Islamic fundamentalism and that Iran can be equated as a wellspring of Al-Qaeda. The rise of Iran as a Middle East power also excites the "End-Times" segments of the cons... but then they also think Boston's mooninites herald the judgement day. Only con-blogs could accuse Iran of arming anti-Iraqi Irai to attack Iraq and American soldiers.

How is the surge going anyways and how could it have ever gone? Crystal balls of course, only really work on the past: How it took six weeks for American troops to pacify one Sunni street... and then loose it again to the same insurgents in 2006, the instant they left. Neighborhoods will be controlled by the dominant armed group who lives in them, although this is a difficult reality about Iraq to face. Talk of "pacifying" isn't talk about creating peace, it's about putting your boot on someone's throat in the hopes that their spirits will break before you need to go take a piss. Get real- these people survived under Saddam, they will survive a couple of 20ish kids from Iowa. Plodding through the partisan muck masquerading as patriotism, your moonbat finds Iran billed as a new front in the war on terror, and Iran's getting a coat of 9-11-backer lipstick, no one's claiming the U.S. will find Osama bin Laden there in a spiderhole.

The wardrums pound out an accusatory beat that must make our nominal Middle Eastern allies rather nervous, given that Iran stands as the least of the offenders in who has been pumping aid into the civil war in Iraq. Of course, if we do attack Iran to stop the supplying of weapons to the Shiites, Russia will still be able to sell to the Sunni through Saudi Arabia, so it won't be a complete loss to them. What makes the pounding of the drums such savagry, is the unflinching support on the Right for the idea of using nukes to intimidate terrorists. States have a vested interest in not getting nuked; terrorists will just relocate. And anyways, the Iranian population strongly dislikes Osama bin Laden right now... but drop a few nuclear missles and the copies of his lectures will become bestsellers. You can even ask them:

"Both Iranians and Americans have strongly negative views of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Three in four Iranians (74%) and more than nine in ten Americans (94%) view bin Laden unfavorably, including large majorities (68% and 89%, respectively) who view him very unfavorably. Only 10 percent of Iranians look at the al Qaeda leader favorably (2% Americans). Nine in ten Americans have a very unfavorable opinion of bin Laden and ninety-two percent of Americans say al Qaeda poses an important threat to the United States, including 59 percent who say it poses a critical one.




Iranians, like Americans, perceive al Qaeda and Islamist militant groups as threats, though less strongly. More than half of Iranians (53%) call al Qaeda an important threat, including a third (33%) who say it is critical. Twenty percent say al Qaeda is not a threat (27 percent no answer). Similarly, 57 percent of Iranians view the threat from “Islamist sectarian militant groups” as important, including 36 percent who say is critical. Fifteen percent say it is not important at all....

Iranians were also asked specifically about attacks on American and Iraqi civilians, with “sometimes” or “never” justified the only options given. Nine in ten Iranians (88%) say that “attacks against Iraqi civilians in Iraq” are never justified. Nearly as many (76 percent) say “attacks against American civilians living in the United States” are never justified (15% sometimes justified).

Respondents were then asked to think “in the context of war and other forms of military conflict” and to consider whether certain types of civilians could be a legitimate target. Overwhelming majorities of Iranians reject as “never justified:” attacks on women and children (91%), the elderly (92%), and “wives and children of the military” (86%).

Americans largely agree, though larger percentages in each case said such attacks are rarely justified. This is true for attacks on women and children (72% never, 15% rarely), the elderly (71% never, 16% rarely), and wives and children of the military (74% never, 12% rarely)."

So, we are declaring war on yet another country and it's not actually about finding terrorists are rooting out bomb cells, we're just calling it the "war on terror" for consistency's sake. What we are really going to bill nuking Iran as is revenge for 1983. Which just goes to show that only the moonbats are reading Dinesh D'Souza. Don't believe me, just check out the Congressional speech when Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) was called upon to speak of Iraq, but stumped for attacking Iran. Boehner reimagines the "war on terror" as having been started by Iran all along, and not Osama:

"It began with the Iran hostage taking in 1979.
Then, on October 23, 1983, the suicide attack on the Marine Barracks in Beirut killed 241 American servicemen and injured 60 others."

Con-blogs love to insinutate or outright claim that 9-11 occurred because President Clinton didn't bomb Afghanistan in retaliation for the USS Cole bombing... so they are trying to sweep under the rug that President Reagan didn't bomb Iran for the Iranian funded bombing in Beirut that claimed the lives of 241 American service personnel and 1 Lebanese janitor. Which is more than the total fatality count for deaths reportedly linked to Iranian manufactured weapons components over the last three years. So what did happen to Iran in 1983. Oh... the French bombed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for their part in the next day bombing of a French barracks that killed 58 paratroopers and 5 Lebanese civilians. Got to love those French. What did Reagan do? A few months later, the U.S. military pulled out of Lebanon.

Wait.. what was the question?? Osama who?? I have no clue.

Technorati Tags:
Iraq, Iran, Osama bin Laden, war on terror, Beirut, liberal, conservative, moonbat

The Noodle Nonsense, No-Case Noise Against Iran

So today peace activists in America got salt poured in their wounds over learning that while everyone wants them to STFU about the Occupation of Iraq, and Bush is going to get his troops surge, our troops in Iraq are still expected to defend themselves with cardboard. Bush's surge is being deliberately sent out their to incur those massive casualties our dear leader admitted would occur, since the Army won't cough up enough protective Humvee armor until the middle of the summer.. which probably means October if the private contractors don't get arrested for graft.

Oh wait.. your moonbat has to back off in her rhetoric for a moment, since as far as anyone can figure, only 11 Americans soldiers and 1 Iraqi interpreter have been killed by EFPs since November 2006. The military this week moved to conceal the exact number and locations from a briefing it decided to hold, to prove what a horrible threat these EFPs posed, and their source as maybe, possible, considered to be Iranian-but also assuredly given to Iraqi militants on the orders of Tehran. No Iranian components have been linked to the 4 helicopters shot down by other insurgents since Jan. 20th of this year.

The State Department advised against travel because of a rise in explosively formed penetrators almost a year ago, but apparently it's taken almost a year for the U.S. military to hold their own press conference. A ... what? EFP, or a hand-held anti-tank weapon for infantry of all sorts. You can even make your own out of champagne bottles, if you are into the classics. Google is a lot more exciting than the pathetic briefing the military did hobble together, so noodle-limp that no one wanted posterity to be able to quote them by name as having worked on it, or end up in the next book categorizing Iraqi Occupation bloopers. Simply outrageous that the military refuses to take responsibility for their own Intel, and blatantly underscores the political use of finger-pointing at Iran.

TalkingPointsMemo has the slides from the briefing. First page opens with a quote from Bush. Since the British haven't found evidence of an Iranian arms cartel operating in Iraq they weren't invited. Since General Peter Pace doesn't back the briefing, it was held while he was in Australia. Ouch. So... besides the press, whom the briefing was not held to romance, who else was there and what was it like? WaPost took Gen. Pace's seat and reports:

"With so much official U.S. buildup about the purported evidence of Iranian influence in Iraq, the briefing was also notable for what was not said or shown. The officials offered no evidence to substantiate allegations that the "highest levels" of the Iranian government had sanctioned support for attacks against U.S. troops. Also, the military briefers were not joined by U.S. diplomats or representatives of the CIA or the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

....The process of the briefing, delayed by more than two weeks, was unusual. President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said in a recent meeting with reporters that the original media presentation had overstated the evidence against Iran and needed to be toned down.

At the Green Zone briefing Sunday, the senior defense official said charts and graphs outlining the scope of attacks with shaped charges had been removed from the presentation by the intelligence community. "The reason we're talking about this right now is the vast increase in the number of EFPs being found," he said. The U.S. forces in Iraq "are not trying to hype this up to be more than it is"."

One of the photos compares markings from a known Iranian munitions shell to a found shell in Iraq:


However, many con-blogs and the International Herald Tribune are reporting a comparison match as that the markings are an absolute match. They clearly are not the absolute same mark. At best, Antiques Roadshow would call them a replica or "made in the same era." The Tribune goes on to confusingly mesh the use of the vast Iraqi Army munitions, left unguarded by the U.S. military after the 2003 invasion, in the Sunni insurgency, to the appearance of EFP in the hands of Shiite militants. The two are unrelated through a half-hearted increase in armor as the Tribune makes out, although the EFP is being used to keep Coalition forces out of Shiite neighborhoods. A sort of mind your own business door prize. Not nearly as great a shock to the con-blogs that links exist between the Shia militias that back Iraqi's current Shiite Prime Minister, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Yawn fest to the reality-based community, considering that while Saddam was in power these militias were largely Shiite exiles in Iran being trained in guerrilla tactics by the Iranians to (maybe) one day overthrow Iraq's Sunni dictator. Yes, I know there are a lot of "s" words in there, but I wouldn't throw the letter around if it didn't apply to some important shiit.

I should be ashamed that I have laughed my way through a good bottle of Merlot over the drumbeat for war by the conblogs. The most amusing little delicacy comes courtesy of RedState.

On EFP: "There can be no doubt that these weapons are designed and manufactured to kill personnel. The impact punches a hole in an armored vehicle, not destroying it, the slug searching out the vehicle’s occupants."

Get the joke yet? What, we had some doubt that all the other IEDs and RPGs and regular small arms aren't being used by militants in Iraq to... actually kill personnel? IEDs are planted to destroy vehicles but not harm it's passengers? Slugs can think and plot? Forgetting that IEDs of the normal variety kill far more American soldiers? Clown. And what, are we also going to declare war on ourselves since the U.S. has been supporting the same Shia militants as Iran?

Truth is that Saudi Arabia is the major player behind the deaths of American soldiers, which have been overwhelmingly from the hands of the Sunni Insurgency and not Shiite guerrillas. In fact, U.S. officials are claiming that these Iranian weapons might only be responsible for about (only) 170 Coalition deaths since June 2004. In the meanwhile, pay attention to the Saudi cash-cow, on whose back private donors and charity boxes at grocery stores funnel millions to the Iraqi Sunni, who then by Russian missiles through the black market. Russian armaments available with such ease, but it's inconceivable for Iranian goods (or pseudo-Iranian) to be likewise out there for the savvy insurgent shopper? Give me a break. Pipe, aluminum shell, TNT, blasting cap, copper, night vision goggles, money to buy articles from Western websites: shake and bake.

One of the more amusing arguments being made is that Iraqis are just not smart enough to make EFP, so they need help, when less than four years ago they were a hair away from nukes. Now, Iran is a hair away from nukes, but not smart enough to wipe their factory marks from shell canisters before smuggling them into Iraq, and then, is also stupid enough to smuggle all the components through the limited Iran-Iraq boarder check points in the same trucks. Obviously, nukes are only made by stupid people. Just ask the con-blogs who just a year ago were certain that Iran wasn't capable of producing high-tech things. Iran's made a vast jump in their esteem in one year... Meanwhile, the black market ensures that 1/8 of a shipment of Austrian sniper rifles, bought to defend the Iranian border against a horrendous upsurge in drug violence following the 2001 *cough* U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, made it to Iraq. Of course they did- they sell for $25,000 in a legal sale and how much do you think members of Iraq's border patrol got for them?

Why does the charge that U.S. military officials offer "evidence" to push for military strikes against Iran as an opportunity to strike possible nuclear facilities have such an unpleasant ring? Simply because it fails to offer a reasonable explanation of what Tehran stands to gain in supplying such munitions as official government policy, in the light of the years long hunt for WMD in Iraq, the sheer scrutiny of the U.S. military on armaments used by any Iraqi guerrillas. Iran has no vested interest in destabilizing a Shiite majority government like itself, which as soon as Coalition forces leave, will use it's oil wealth to land on Iran's side of the Shiite-Sunni power balance.

Iran's power will be increased by an American withdrawal no matter when that happens; can't be helped tomorrow or two years from now. Iran will be benefited by a stabilized world partner in Iraq. And the truth is, if Iran had those nukes, the U.S. military would be absolutely silent regardless of the evidence of whatever, and everyone knows that, especially Tehran. Let's make the case for a nuclear Iran real clear to the Iranian people by bombing them then, eh? Right on!!

1,975 days have passed as of 2-13-07 since Bush promised us OBL's head on a pike. Pike's still empty.

Technorati Tags:
Iraq, Iran, explosively formed penetrators, moonbat, liberal, conservative, peace, war on terror

O'Reilly: Many Americans 'Paid Agents of Oppression' in Iraq

So today I wandered from a search for stories about New Orleans on Fox to where Bill O’Reilly calls the second largest armed contingent of Americans in Iraq “paid agents of oppression.” Trying to defend the largest such contingent, Billy forgets that ah… America does have mercenaries- oops, private security contractors, in Iraq and that the United States… pays them money to kill people and doesn’t ask them to swear an oath of fealty before doing so. So America does in fact have it’s very own 15,000 some force of “paid agents of oppression,” and if some 300 of them have died in the War on Terror, Billy discounts them because at least they got paid. Who can blame him really, when confusion seems rampant? Still, you heard it from Bill O'Reilly, so America must indeed be the Great Oppressor. Nice, Billy.

Why has the internet devolved into a froth of STFU over the word “mercenary?” Osama bin Laden released a new tape? Ann Coulter released a new book and still sporting a ridiculous skimpy black dress? Nope… it’s all NBC, released a STFU clip of several soldiers of Apache Company speaking on Americans who dissent from any aspect of the War in Iraq. One soldier whines that only soldiers who have served in Iraq really have anything intelligent to say. Another maintains that you can't support the troops and not agree wholeheartedly with the war... so liberals are lying. Another sniffles that if Americans don't put on a brave face and say that our soldiers are winning in Iraq, he can't feel good about himself. Other Apache Company soldiers (who didn't make the clip) possess the ability to understand why some 70% of Americans think sending more troops to Iraq is “beating a dead horse” and would rather “go back and play my PlayStation.” All reported to you by that mythical creature that con-blogs swear does not exist: a Washington Post reporter outside of the Green Zone.

William Arkin choked on his Starbucks latte and fired off a STFU: The Troops Also Need to Support the American People, on his WaPost blog, Early Warning. The gist of it being (and of course so often wildly distorted and misquoted by various con-blogs) that soldiers in uniform ought not to think they can get up and tell the American people to STFU and be quiet and obedient little homefront whores. Okay, his language wasn't that strong. But he did go out of the way to state he didn't think they'd been brainwashed or prompted by their superiors, and that they more than of course enjoyed the freedom of speech of those people these soldiers were telling to STFU. Under the indignint sputtering, Arkin had a point: the freedom of speech does not include the freedom to decide that others should be silent for your own peace, and that their superiors should point that the frak out. Certainly nothing dire will happen to those three soldiers, but I would have been immediately terminated from federal employment for making a political statement in my uniform. Arkin has another stinger for the troops in the NBC vid: the liberal anti-Iraq War movement has been bending over backwards to focus their displeasure at the political side of the Iraq spectrum. Appreciation and gratitude for this decorum are in order, and not these sneers and snipes.

900 responses served the cut off for WaPost on that article, yet an astounding number of people wrote back with wild ideas about what the
article they were responding to actually said and who Arkin actually happened to be. Most denounced Arkin as claiming soldiers didn't have First Ammendment rights and as having spent his life safe inside the confines of Washington DC. Arkin took the time to clairfy that his annoyance had not been directed towards the military as a whole, but those soldiers who suggest that dissent against the war should be suppressed for the greater good. Although his post contained no further insults, many con-blogs went on to twist his words to read so, claiming he had gone on to call soldiers inhuman and murders. Which.. sorry, but none of that's in the note. 1500 responses later, WaPost pulls the plug on the comment section: Arkin's been denounced as a traitor, comments on O'Reilly exposing Arkin as an environmentalist, suggestions he actually visit Iraq, and his being a father called a "shame." Arkin opens up his mailbag and organizes all the ways he has beendemonized, and points out that there's a difference between a debate and a mob. Arkin bows out, for the moment, and who can blame him in the face of threats of violence?

Bill O'Reily reared his head to the fore of the blood thirsty mob, charging that Arkin's blog was an attack on the military in "a very personal way" and constituted a "debacle," despite the fact that no interns were soliticited for sex by a member of Congress while Arkin sat by and typed. Herein O'Reilly defends the military's record in Iraq and Afghanistan:

"The United States military has performed heroically in Iraq and Afghanistan in brutal environments. For any American, any American to accuse them of being paid agents of oppression is disgraceful and far over the line of rational thought."

O'Reilly isn't done with just ambushing Arkin when he's on a snow day in Vermont. He teams with FOX news analyst Kirsten Powers (just for an official flair) and his real guest, con-blog Michelle Malkin. Notice on the transcript page of their segment, the two cons get professional ID photos, and Arkin gets a "wild man" blurred mug shot. Surely FOX could have coughed up a professional headshot of Arkin... unless there's a deliberate message there? Wonder what it could be?

On with the show: Michelle's scared silly of course, that Arkin's going to track her down and mug her. "He's an intellectual coward. He's a thug. And he's a radical left wing loon." Michelle goes on to harp about Arkin working for Greenpeace and Human Right's Watch, implying that he worked as a primary activist. (Michelle conceals that Arkin worked for them as a military analyst, especially for Greenpeace's impact study of the Gulf War on the environment of the Middle East.) Michelle conceals (and this is important) any indication Arkin might have a background in the military, making him reputable as a "military affairs analyst and an intelligence specialist." Arkin was in the military you say? Oh yes, dear readers.

"William M. Arkin is an independent writer, investigator, and consultant specializing in national security affairs. He is the "Dot.Mil" columnist for the Washington Post's online service and has written the "Last Word" column in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1985. He is also a regular contributor to Defense Daily. He is an adjunct professor at the U.S. Air Force's School of Advanced Airpower Studies...

Mr. Arkin served in the U.S. Army from 1974-1978, and was an assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the US Commander Berlin. He was engaged in a number of covert intelligence collection projects and was the primary intelligence analyst for the West Berlin command."

Fox passes on a threat of physical assult to Arkin. How... Stalinist. In the only other time FOX acknowledged Arkin's existence and thought to keep a record, was to quote him on possible Iraqi casualties in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Arkin is only then a "a private analyst and expert on the Iraqi military," quoted as noting that Iraqi deaths during the invasion would be a factor in a possible future Iraqi insurgency. No need to mention Greenpeace? Why not? Gee, I wonder. I just can't figure it out...

When Evil Prospers picks up the Michelle's spin nice and clean with: "You see Arkin, like most other anti-war folks, never served in the military, so they don't really understand the idea behind a "cause"." Apparently, google is a really complicated search engine to learn to use, eh? That little white lie picks up steam. We are treated to a great deal of profanity and alliteration over at BlackFive, and also "[soldiers] also happen to be the American people to a degree you and the rest of the hater clowns with your Grinch-sized hearts will never understand" and references soldiers as Arkins "betters." Blackfive then goes on to say that anyone who serves as an army soldier in the feild of intelligence is an "intel weasel." So, who would rather be a paid agent of oppression over roadkill? I would. Blackfive then descends into public confessions of a possible inability to control his bladder, and that Arkin must be a Soviet Commie spy. Don't you just love original insults? Oh wait.. didn't the USSR go away? Don't we just call it Russia now? Anyway, so amusing to find a con-blog who insults soldiers because soldiers were insulted. Clowns.

Novelty emerges in the charge that Arkin isn't a traitor because there can be no traitors to America... anyone who expresses dissent about American soldiers must be an illegal alien, so call ICE. Some intelligent people are speaking up, and should be heard. However, the avoidance of Arkin's military service bears noting for lib-logs and liberal activists, who might think that liberal soldiers opinions will be an effective counter for the con-blogs. Who are becoming less bashful in calling us all traitors, out to get the soldiers by speaking against the Iraqi Occupation: "...for the government and the population to deny them our support is a civil betrayal of the first order and a gross moral failing." Con-blogs who address his military service feel of course free to use it to attack him, claiming there must be an inner demon that makes Arkin unfit to be a soldier. Rare civility may be found, but still the underlying sentiments of evil liberals out to get the troops shines through. Yes, because that's what I think about when I see a hot young enlistee out of bootcamp. Well yes, I do think about getting them, but just.. in another way. Hehehehe.... Go to the comment section here for another American who first called a volunteer army "mercenaries."

Surely some of all this vitrile arises from how much the cons used to love Arkin.. for say... passing on praise of a human rights worker in Iraq of the US military. Or blogging that Ted Kennedy is full of s**t. Or being a leading voice against the real fruitcakes of the left and the 9-11 Truth Movement, by stating that the most diabolical conspiracy theory about 9-11 is that "the U.S. government somehow was complicit and even responsible for the events." Or smiling warmingly when Arkin hates on Hugo Chavez. But wait, what has your favorite moonbat found here??

"Nothing in the description includes the United States, not just as occupier and the most prized target but also as a wholly ineffective force. The U.S. military battles here and there, headhunting for al-Qaeda, engaged in a never-ending game of “whack-a-mole” with insurgents, cat and mouse moving around to avoid faceless IED attacks on the roads and highways, barricaded in its “green” zone.


What the United States is not doing, and what its Iraqi government partner is not doing, and what neither has ever been done since day one, is provide security and safety for the citizens of the country."

The depth of this manufactured outrage over being called mercenaries is highlighted when it takes a moonbat to point out that being called a "wholly ineffective force" is worse. At least mercenaries get to kick @$$ and keep their pride in their boots and not their hurt little feelings.

Sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you. And oh yeah... STFU!!

Technorati Tags:
Iraq, America, William Arkin, Early Warning, liberal, conservative, moonbat, peace

Moonbat Agrees Xena to Blame for 9-11

So today finds I have sputtered my way through revising poor Dinesh D'Souza's twenty-seven page introduction to his new book. My fingers are tired and my tongue is bleeding, but I agree. Feminists above all of the liberals on the goddess' green earth are the root cause of Osama bin Laden's plot to strike America. Dinesh should still be fired and put in a straightjacket, so he does his reputation as a scholar no more harm, so poorly argued do we find his proposition that "cultural" liberals provoked the (not capable of resisting evil) traditionalist Muslims into hating America. "Cultural??" Dinesh explains, that's anything he finds trivial, vulgar and discusting, including the commercials in the upcoming Super Bowl and the word "vagina."

Dinesh claims Muslims were provoked by Shrillary- forgetting that she wasn't elected to the Senate until 2000, after OBL had announced his fatwa in 1998 (which Dinesh quotes but doesn't mention), and the plot had been formed in 1999. Dinesh claims Muslims were provoked by Planned Parenthood International providing birth control to women- except that none of Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, or Peru are Muslim nations. Otherwise, Planned Parenthood only affiliates with local organizations and still, with no countries in the Middle East. Dinesh claims Muslims somehow heard of the basement performance of the sick and demented"Vagina Monologues" in 1996, despite the fact it didn't get national until 2001 or around to critizing the Taliban's treatment of women until 2003. Oh wait, Dinesh must add that it's unproven and a stereotype that Muslim societies oppress women. Really?? Really. Oh yes, Muslims hate America because liberals and feminists encourage improper conduct on the part of vaginas!!

What blinded Dinesh from perceiving that Osama must have been obcessed with the number one "cultural" left vagina in America at the time of his fatwa?? Xena!! That free-flowing black-haired beauty with bare legs and busty armor, prancing around with her equally unrobed "female companion... wink wink" every time poor Muslim men turned on their satellite televison to watch the 700 Club. How could those liberals be exporting a television show about "taking responsibility for past misdeeds, the value of human life, personal liberty and sacrifice, and friendship" and talking vaginas? Intolerable! Must... hijack.. planes... fly them.. into the... World Trade Center... and the Pentagon.... and the White House. Since in fact, it would target the real life "Warrior Princess," the nicknamed Condoleezza Rice, then National Security Advisor.

Little does Dinesh know the depraved depths and far reaching effect Xena had on those Muslims. Under this patron saint, no this patron goddess, feminists spent the 1990s striving to liberalize America's political asylum laws to include violence and oppression that specifically targets women-from gang rape, to forced abortions, to female genital mutilation. American feminists also lent their strenth to local campaigns in Africa, among all those traditional peoples whom Dinesh claims to speak on behalf of, to local women's rights groups working to end the practice of FGM, leading to local success and national victory, for instance in the complete ban of the practice by court ruling in 1997 in the Muslim majority country of Burkina Faso. Little does Dinesh know, and nothing can he then tell you of the evils spread into the minds of women over the world by... Xena!!

AYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYIII!!!

Technorati Tags:
Dinesh D'Souza, Enemy at Home, islam, women, Xena, religion, feminism

Boston Bomb for Sale on Ebay

So today Ebay removed a Lite-Brite that was up for auction #130075321405 because it "encouraged illegal activity" and then flipflopped and the current bid is $610. Proceeds will go towards the legal defense of two messers, Sean Stevens and Peter Berdovsky who in court today pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct and planting a hoax device. See ABC handle this hoax device and survive. Conviction brings 5 years in prison. What the frak did these wholesome boys do? Watch the video. Oh yes, Boston came under seige by ... lite-brites.

Seattle yawned at discovering they were being invaded by these "Mooninites" weeks ago, and phoned Boston with a clue. Bloggers have been following the "Mooninite Invasion" for two weeks before a transit worker (although also reported as a passenger) found one and called in the bomb squad. Now the Boston mayor is on the warpath to convict these guerrilla marketers as wannabe terrorists, when all they want to do is talk about hair. Meanwhile, Adult Swim apologizes like hell.

Avoidable mistake or genuine scare? You can go to Homeland Insecurity, which is a blog that makes me irked to agree with, to compare the Mooninites with an actual IED. Photos of the Mooninites have been available on Flikr by way of an AP photographer, and NYC dealt with their invaders without a blink. At an airport, this device wouldn't have ran up a $500,000 examination bill and would have taken less than 10 minutes to sort out. Whatever, Boston. Switch from espresso to latte, will ya?? And send me an "I Survived the Mooninite Attack" shirt, so I may mock the small brains of your mayor and your govenor in style. And to think so often we moonbats must suffer the accusation that we don't rake other liberals over the coals.

What are we to do with these liberal officials who are encouraging the terrorists and giving them ideas? Don't understand what I mean? They are on television spelling out the perfect new 9-11 plot that's streamlined, cheaper, and leaves you with potentially alive operatives to recycle. Don't actually make bombs and hijack airplanes or whatever; just make fake bombs. Plant them around a city and call into the hotline with a tip, then sit back and enjoy the show, since obviously it's such a tremendous weakness for America's homeland security, to actually have to respond to a threat. Look how we are helpless before cartoon characters. If one city costs $500,000 per scare, and you hit 10 cities once a month.... American won't have the money or the nerve for anything serious. Perfect!! Thanks Boston, for making that clear.

Technorati Tags:
Iraq, Boston, bomb hoax, homeland security, war on terror, moonbat, liberal, conservative