Jefferson DeBlanc Sr., 86; awarded Medal of Honor

It’s been four days since my last post and now reading three (news)papers a day, I could not find a news or political story to use as the basis of a blog post.

However, I was fortunate enough to come across the obituary of Mr. Jefferson DeBlanc Sr. in the Los Angeles Times.

Please allow me to post his obituary here as a final tribute to this hero and as a reminder of the heroes that are being made every day on our behalf in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of the world not covered by the media.

It will only take a minute or two of your time, please read the Los Angeles Times’ obituary for Mr. Jefferson DeBlanc, recipient of the Medal of Honor (bold and italics mine for emphasis):

LOS ANGELES - US Marine Colonel Jefferson DeBlanc Sr., who was awarded the Medal of Honor after a World War II battle in which he shot down five enemy aircraft, parachuted from his damaged plane, then swam to an island where tribesmen traded him for a 5-pound sack of rice, has died. He was 86.

Colonel DeBlanc, who later became a high school math and physics teacher, died Thursday at Lafayette General Medical Center in Lafayette, La., from complications of pneumonia, said his son, Frank of St. Martinville, La.

The incident that earned Colonel DeBlanc the nation's highest military honor took place Jan. 31, 1943, during aerial operations against Japanese forces off Kolombangara Island in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.

A Japanese fleet was spotted headed toward Guadalcanal. US dive bombers were sent to attack the fleet with fighter aircraft deployed to protect the bombers. In a one-man Grumman Wildcat fighter, Colonel DeBlanc led six fighter planes in Marine Fighting Squadron 112, according to the citation that accompanied his Medal of Honor.

At the rendezvous point, Colonel DeBlanc discovered that his plane, dubbed "The Impatient Virgin," was running out of fuel. If Colonel DeBlanc fought the Japanese, he would not have enough fuel to return to base. Two of his comrades, whose planes malfunctioned, turned back, according to a 1999 article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

"We needed all the guns we could get up there to escort those bombers," Colonel DeBlanc said in the article. "I figured if I run out of gas, I run out of gas. I figured I could survive a bailout. I had confidence in my will to survive. You've got to live with your conscience. And my conscience told me to go ahead."

Colonel DeBlanc and the other pilots waged fierce combat until "picking up a call for assistance from the dive bombers, under attack by enemy float planes at 1,000 feet, he broke off his engagement with the Zeros, plunged into the formation of float planes, and disrupted the savage attack, enabling our dive bombers and torpedo planes to complete their runs on the Japanese surface disposition and withdraw without further incident," the citation states.

Ultimately, Colonel DeBlanc shot down two float planes and three Zeros, Japanese aircraft equipped with cannons and machine guns. A bullet ripped through Colonel DeBlanc's plane and hit his instrument panel, causing it to erupt into flames. Colonel DeBlanc "was forced to bail out at a perilously low altitude," according to the citation.

Colonel DeBlanc was born Feb. 15, 1921, in Lockport, La. In 1940, he signed up for the Civilian Pilot Training program at Southwestern Louisiana Institute, now the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. He left the program and joined the Marine Corps flight program.

After his plane was shot down in 1943, Colonel DeBlanc swam to an island and slept in a hut until he was discovered by islanders and placed in a bamboo cage. The man who traded a sack of rice for him was named "Ati," an islander whom Colonel DeBlanc later called a guardian angel, responsible for orchestrating his rescue by a US Navy boat.

On Dec. 6, 1946, President Truman awarded Colonel DeBlanc the Medal of Honor. His other honors include a Purple Heart, several Bronze Stars, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

In addition to his son Frank, Colonel DeBlanc leaves four other children and several grandchildren. (End of obituary for Medal of Honor recipient, Mr. Jefferson DeBlanc.)

If a Tree Fell in a Democratic Party Caucus Room . . .
( . . . would a Congressional Democrat hear it?)

I do not apologize to the pro-terrorist lobby and the al Fedaban-Americans who have to suffer through another ZACKlyRight post highlighting the success President Bush's "surge" strategy is having in Iraq.

Below is Mr. Jeff Jacoby's column from today's Boston Sunday Globe. I re-print here just so you can appreciate how differently the surge success is being portrayed by the traditionally, liberally extreme, news outlets and the in-denial, Congressional Democrats.

Please note that on November 25 (so, for a column probably completed by Mr. Jacoby on November 24), Mr. Jacoby mentions the same New York Times article that I mentioned in my November 21 post. I'm still not positive that Mr. Jacoby is not getting concept ideas from ZACKlyRight - see my most recent series of posts "Success in Iraq Continues (Shhh! But don't tell anyone)".

Anyway, Mr. Jacoby's thoughts (bold, italics and increased font size mine for emphasis):

Let's hear it for good news from Iraq
Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist
The Boston Sunday Globe, November 25, 2007

THE NEWS from Iraq has been so encouraging in recent months that last week even the mainstream media finally sat up and took notice. Can the Democratic Party be far behind?

In a story titled "Baghdad Comes Alive," Rod Nordland reports in the current Newsweek on the heartening transformation underway in the Iraqi capital:

"Returning to Baghdad after an absence of four months," he writes, "I can actually say that things do seem to have gotten better, and in ways that may even be durable . . . There hasn't been a successful suicide car bombing in Baghdad in five weeks . . . Al Qaeda in Iraq is starting to look like a spent force, especially in Baghdad."

The signs of life, Nordland acknowledges "grudgingly" - his word - are undeniable.

"Emerging from our bunkers into the Red Zone, I see the results everywhere. Throughout Baghdad, shops and street markets are open late again, taking advantage of the fine November weather. Parks are crowded with strollers, and kids play soccer on the streets. Traffic has resumed its customary epic snarl. . . . The Shorja bazaar in old Baghdad, hit by at least six different car bombs killing hundreds in the last year, is again crowded with people among the narrow tented stalls. On nearby Al-Rasheed Street, the famous booksellers are back in business . . . People are buying alcohol again - as they always had in Baghdad, until religious extremists forced many neighborhood liquor shops to close."

Newsweek's isn't the only big media voice bringing tidings of comfort and joy from the Iraqi theatre.

On Tuesday, The New York Times led its front page with a good-news headline - "Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves" - and a large photo of an Iraqi bride and groom, bedecked in wedding finery and accompanied by a band. Below that: a picture of smiling diners at Al Faris, a restaurant on the Tigris riverbank that is booming once again. Inside, across four columns, another photo showed an outdoor foosball game in Baghdad's Haifa Street, once dubbed the "Street of Fear" because it was the scene of so many lethal sectarian attacks.

In another Page 1 story the day before ("U.S. Says Attacks in Iraq Fell to the Level of Early Last Year"), the Times recounted some of the auspicious data: civilian fatalities down 75 percent in recent months, Iraqi security-force casualties down 40 percent, total weekly attacks nationwide down nearly two-thirds since June. The Los Angeles Times, too, fronted a story on the promising developments, reporting on an "unexpected flowering of sectarian cooperation" in which "Sunnis and Shi'ites are joining hands at the local level to protect their communities from militants." The results, reported the paper from the rural community of Qarghulia on Monday, "are palpable. Killings are down dramatically and public confidence is reviving."

Of course things could still change for the worse. In the Middle East there are few guarantees. Neither the US military nor the Bush administration plans to dust off that "Mission Accomplished" banner anytime soon.

Still: "By every metric used to measure the war," as The Washington Post editorialized on Nov. 18, "there has been an enormous improvement since January." The Post credits this achievement to American soldiers in Iraq, to General David Petraeus, "and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country's foreign policy elite."

With the media at last paying attention to the progress in Iraq, shouldn't leading Democrats think about doing the same? Perhaps this would be a good time for Hillary Clinton to express regret for telling Petraeus that his recent progress report on Iraq required "a willing suspension of disbelief" - in effect, calling him a liar. Perhaps Senate majority leader Harry Reid should admit that he may have been wrong to declare so emphatically: "This war is lost, and the surge is not accomplishing anything."

All of the Democratic presidential candidates have been running on a platform of abandoning Iraq. At the recent debate in Las Vegas, they refused to relax their embrace of defeat even when asked about the striking evidence of improvement. They continued to insist that "the surge is not working" (Bill Richardson), that "the occupation is fueling the insurgency" (Dennis Kucinich), and that the "strategy is failed" and we must "get our troops out" (Barack Obama).

Blind opposition to war that seems lost is understandable. But can Democrats be so invested in defeat that they would abandon even a war that may be winnable? With developments in Iraq looking so hopeful, this is no time to cling to a counsel of despair. (End of Mr. Jacoby column.)

Gen. David Petraeus on the Situation in Iraq

I pulled the following quotes off the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) web site; they’re excerpts from a WSJ interview with Gen. David Petraeus, the most senior U.S. military commander in Iraq. For those who are interested, there is a related story in the November 21, 2007 issue of the WSJ.

All quotes are by Gen. Petraeus; the reader can interpret each quote for her or himself.

* * *

On Al Qaeda in Iraq:

At some point there has to be a sign to the people that security is enabling the beginnings of a better life, which obviously garners their support for the security effort. I do think there has been a pretty substantial recognition among Sunni Arabs, in particular, that al Qaeda Iraq is not for them. They have looked at it as they did not it in the past. In the past they saw it as synonymous with resistance. They now look at it as what it is -- a Taliban-like extremist terrorist movement. They don't subscribe to the ultra-extremist form of religion that it embraces, and they have turned away from it.

* * *

I think al Qaeda Iraq remains a very significant element of the security situation in Iraq… It has a regenerative capacity that has to be reckoned with. But it is a threat that has been diminished over the past six to eight months in particular . . .

It did certainly ignite horrific ethno-sectarian violence and it gave a justification for militia extremists on the Shia side to take action to protect the population. As that threat to the population is removed, you also find, therefore, less support for militia extremists because they're also gangs, basically, uneducated, violent emotional thugs with guns. The reduction of that threat is very significant, but [it] is still there and is something we can't take our eye off.

* * *

There are people that argue that the Sunni populations in particular have begun to reject al Qaeda more broadly as well. This is not like ceasing an objective where it's said and done. This is a long struggle, and it's a struggle of ideas, of ideologies, extremism on one side, pragmatism or moderation on the other. It's about opportunities, it's about economics, it's about employment, it's about education. It takes a vast effort to address the conditions that made certain areas vulnerable to the bin Laden's of the world and the Zarqawis.

* * *

On Progress:

Over time, it all just accumulates. This is not a light switch. You don't go from bad to good. You go from bad to less bad. And then you revert again. Progress accumulates over time. You can build on momentum as it is established. As shops get back into business . . . and some services . . .

It all just accumulates slowly, but surely if you can keep building on the momentum that you've achieved, and that's what we've tried to do, obviously.

* * *

I don't think there's anyone -- the Iraqis included -- who is satisfied with the progress that's been made.

* * *

On Troop Reductions:

We want to maintain the gains that have been made and in fact to build on them. And that means as our forces are thinned out -- and that's the way to of it, rather than just sort of wholesale pulling out of the area. You try to stick in the neighborhood with a smaller presence but thickened by greater support of the local people; increased quality and quantity of ISF; perhaps some continued form of CLC; improved economic conditions.

There's no magic formula or template. You're going to look at each area and the security threats which are much more than al Qaeda.

I'm not out to make predictions from this vantage point of what will happen in every place.
We're not going to be able to maintain all of those. There will clearly be places where we'll have to hand off the joint security stations to Iraqis and then there will be places where we very much want to keep those. And you'll have different models in different places, and that's OK.

* * *

We'll continue to reduce forces . . . It won't all come out of one location. We've already been reposturing because Diyala remains one of those places where we have serious concerns. There are a lot of challenges throughout Diyala.

* * *

On Iran and Other Neighbors:

Iran has clearly made commitments. The massive weapons caches that we found and displayed did appear to come over before those commitments were made. Having said that, there is very much a wait-and-see attitude by everyone involved to see will Iran live up to those commitments not to train, equip, fund and direct militia extremists in Iraq, and we have concerns about that, certainly. At a time when Sadr has told them to cease fire, its very important that Iran not add fuel to the fire. There have been reductions in certain categories of attacks associated with weapons provided by Iran and groups that trained in Iran. It's difficult to tell how much of that is due to the Sadr cease-fire, how much is due to the possible reduction in arming, training, funding, and how much is due to operations by Iraqi and coalition forces against some of the elements that have broken the cease fire . . .

We have a formula to estimate how many foreign fighters come in a month. We think there's been a reduction by a third or maybe more than that, but this is very much an approximation based on suicide bomber attacks, which are often carried out by foreigners. In general, the intelligence is that we have seen a reduction in that flow. As always, there is no single factor.

There does appear to have been more robust action by Syria against some foreign fighter networks. We killed the emir southwest of Baghdad, Abu Tenasi, and then we captured all the records, we did enormous damage to their command and control structure. It's the cumulative impact of what's been done here, and there have been some actions taken by source countries to make it harder for military-age males to travel from a city to Damascus on a one-way airticket. And then to tighten the border ports of entry to Iraq, to look at traditional smuggling routes. That's a campaign within a campaign.

They made promises at the highest levels of the Iranian government to the highest levels of the Iraqi government. These were unequivocal pledges to stop the funding, training, arming and directing of militia extremists in Iraq. It will be hugely significant to see if that's the case. We have some doubts. Everyone is waiting to see, frankly, what is the evidence. (End of Gen. Petraeus quotes.)

Success in Iraq Continues III
(Shhh! But don’t tell anyone.)

Will the bad news for the pro-terrorist lobby and al Fedaban-Americans never end? Two posts in one day on success in Iraq!, what is going on here? As this post sits atop another post from earlier this morning, please make sure you get to both.

And what timing, no doubt many of you will sit next to a bitter, liberal extremist at a Thanksgiving Day feast tomorrow; now you’ll have contemporary commentary to cite (it is Thanksgiving, so please show some kindness in citing fact-based opinion).

I re-produce in its entirety some commentary from Mr. Robert H. Scales, a retired Major General and former commandant of the Army War College (so I’m assuming he knows something about war, strategy and tactics). This appeared in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Patraeus’s Iraq
The Wall Street Journal
November 21, 2007; A18

I've just returned from a week in Iraq with Gen. David Petraeus and his operational commanders. My intent was to look at events from an operational perspective and assess the surge. What I got was a soldier's sense of what's happening on the ground and, although the jury is still out on the surge, I came to the conclusion that we may now be reaching the "culminating point" in this war.

The culminating point marks the shift in advantage from one side to the other, when the outcome becomes irreversible: The potential loser can inflict casualties, but has lost all chance of victory. The only issue is how much longer the war will last, and what the butcher's bill will be.

Battles usually define the culminating point. In World War II, Midway was a turning point against the Japanese, El Alamein was a turning point against the Nazis and after Stalingrad, Germany no longer was able to stop the Russians from advancing on their eastern front. Wars usually culminate before either antagonist is aware of the event. Abraham Lincoln didn't realize Gettysburg had turned the tide of the American Civil War. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive proved that culminating points aren't always military victories.

Culminating points are psychological, not physical, happenings. The commanders I spoke to in Iraq all said that there had been a remarkable change of mood in February when Gen. Petraeus announced that they were taking the fight to the enemy by taking Baghdad from al Qaeda. He pushed soldiers out of the big (and relatively safe) forward operating bases and scattered them among really bad neighborhoods. These joint security stations and combat outposts attracted locals and encouraged them to pass on intelligence about the enemy.

To bolster local security within Baghdad, Gen. Petraeus pushed the security perimeter beyond the city's limits. In May, he began arraying combat units in four successive "belts" around Baghdad. These units painfully ejected al Qaeda influence from the suburbs and satellite cities, effectively choking off reinforcements.

In early June, the enemy miscalculated. Sensing that they were losing inside Baghdad, al Qaeda's leaders pulled out and relocated to Baquba, long an insurgent haven on the outskirts of the city. Al Qaeda propaganda refers to Baquba as the capital of "The Islamic State of Iraq." It's central to our story, because it was the last contested urban battle ground al Qaeda had within greater Baghdad. Once ejected from Baquba, al Qaeda's connection to Baghdad -- the center of gravity of the coalition's campaign -- would be broken.

Given the stakes, both sides fought fiercely for Baquba. The enemy carefully prepared a defense that included concentric rings of improvised explosive devices. Leaks from al Qaeda sympathizers within the Iraqi Army kept the enemy informed of the coalition's intentions.

The U.S. operation, called Arrowhead Ripper, began with a series of carefully orchestrated house to house assaults. This was an intelligence-driven battle with precise information, gleaned from overhead surveillance using unmanned aircraft, signals intercepts and willing Iraqis who came forward. The combat was sharp and at times furious. American casualties rose in late June; the enemy fought knowing full well that losing Baquba would force them to retreat into the empty northern deserts. By the end of July, al Qaeda's decision to regroup in Baquba left it a fractured, relatively leaderless force, stripped of concealment and popular support. Once in the open terrain of the deserts, al Qaeda fighters became easier targets for surgical hits from Special Operations teams.

But successful counterinsurgency operations don't capture fixed objectives. They create what soldiers call "white spaces," areas devoid of influence, political vacuums that compel occupancy by either an enemy seeking to rebound after defeat or by legitimate government forces seeking to establish regional control.

In Iraq now, the white spaces are being filled with a newly resurgent Iraqi military and clusters of Concerned Local Citizens Councils, which sprouted spontaneously as Sunni tribal sheikhs smelled both success and commitment from us.

To be sure, Baghdad and the surrounding belts are not yet safe. But culminating points are psychological events. What I witnessed firsthand in Iraq was a shift in opinions and a transfer of will among Iraqis, not a classic military takedown. This change was palpable and unmistakable.

Whether this military culminating point can translate into a political and economic culminating point remains to be seen. But the campaign that took place from spring until late summer reinforces the classic tenet of warfare, that success on the ground sets the conditions for diplomatic and political success.

Gens. Petraeus and Ray Odierno have achieved success on the ground at an unprecedented speed in the history of counterinsurgency warfare. Now it's time to apply the same sense of urgency and commitment to the task of reuniting the tragically fractured nation and bring it back from the brink of annihilation. (End of Wall Street Journal commentary.)

Success in Iraq Continues II
(Shhh! But don't tell anyone.)

What are the pro-terrorist lobby and al-Fedaban Americans to do when the New York Times starts writing about military success in Iraq? Where will they turn now for anti-American stories and doom-and-gloom predictions?

Continuing with my series on the success of President Bush and Gen. Petraeus' (yes, the Iraq war is now mostly reduced to the back pages of the A section of most liberal newspapers so many of you probably forgot the name of the General leading our forces in Iraq; you so seldom see it in print these days) surge strategy in Iraq, I simply re-produce the beginning of a story in the New York Times from November 20, 2007. I'm not calling the story one of the Times' hard-hitting news stories, but that it was published at all is telling.

Baghdad’s Weary Start to Exhale as Security Improves
The New York Times
November 20, 2007

BAGHDAD - Five months ago, Suhaila al-Aasan lived in an oxygen tank factory with her husband and two sons, convinced that they would never go back to their apartment in Dora, a middle-class neighborhood in southern Baghdad.

Today she is home again, cooking by a sunlit window, sleeping beneath her favorite wedding picture. And yet, she and her family are remarkably alone. The half-dozen other apartments in her building echo with emptiness and, on most days, Iraqi soldiers are the only neighbors she sees.

“I feel happy,” she said, standing in her bedroom, between a flowered bedspread and a bullet hole in the wall. “But my happiness is not complete. We need more people to come back. We need more people to feel safe.”

Mrs. Aasan, 45, a Shiite librarian with an easy laugh, is living at the far end of Baghdad’s tentative recovery. She is one of many Iraqis who in recent weeks have begun to test where they can go and what they can do when fear no longer controls their every move.

The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.

As a result, for the first time in nearly two years, people are moving with freedom around much of this city. In more than 50 interviews across Baghdad, it became clear that while there were still no-go zones, more Iraqis now drive between Sunni and Shiite areas for work, shopping or school, a few even after dark. In the most stable neighborhoods of Baghdad, some secular women are also dressing as they wish. Wedding bands are playing in public again, and at a handful of once shuttered liquor stores customers now line up outside in a collective rebuke to religious vigilantes from the Shiite Mahdi Army. (End of New York Times excerpt.)

For the complete story, please follow the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/world/middleeast/20surge.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Happy Thanksgiving to all, but especially to our troops and their families.

Who Needs the Courts?

Not finding anything in my (news)paper, the Boston Globe, to comment on for six days now!, I found this hysterical piece in yesterday's New York Times (I was "directed" there by someone I imagine to be a fiery, red-head; don't ask); this is the lead editorial:

In Contempt, November 16, 2007, The New York Times

(Employing a gimmick I've used before, I embed my comments within the editorial.)

White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, showed their utter disregard for Congress, the Constitution and the American people when they defied Congressional subpoenas in the United States attorneys scandal. The House Judiciary Committee rightly voted to hold them in contempt, and now the matter goes to the full House.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi should schedule a vote quickly (Blogger's Note: Don't hold your breath.), the House should hold them in contempt and Attorney General Michael Mukasey should ensure that they are punished for their defiance of the nation’s law (Blogger's Note: Punished if they are found guilty of a crime, I'm sure the New York Times meant).

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten in connection with its investigation of the purge of nine top federal prosecutors and other apparent malfeasance in the Justice Department. Invoking executive privilege, Ms. Miers refused to appear and Mr. Bolten refused to turn over critical documents.

They had no right to refuse (Blogger's Note: Who needs the courts when the New York Times can adjudicate everything?). Congress has the legal power to call witnesses to testify, and presidential advisers are not exempt. Conservative lawyers like Bruce Fein (Blogger's Note: Can you say, cherry-picked support?) agree that the administration’s claims of executive privilege are baseless (Blogger's Note: Then it must be so.). If the White House believes specific matters are privileged, it needs to make those limited claims (Blogger's Note: Uh, the White House is making those claims, but because the subpoeneas are so broad, the claims cannot be limited, duh!).

Such defiance is not only illegal, it has seriously obstructed Congress’s ability to get to the bottom of the United States attorneys scandal. It now appears that the scandal reaches beyond the nine federal prosecutors who were fired for refusing to allow their offices to be politicized. It seems quite possible that others, including Georgia Thompson, a civil servant in Wisconsin, and Don Siegelman, a former governor of Alabama, were put in prison (Blogger's Note: Only people convicted of a crime go to prison in America.) — and Mr. Siegelman remains there — to help Republicans win elections.

Just as important, by ignoring valid Congressional subpoenas, Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten are dangerously challenging Congress’s power — and the careful system of checks and balances established by the founders.

The Judiciary Committee voted in favor of contempt in July and issued its final report 10 days ago. The full House should vote without further delay (Blogger's Note: Don't hold your breath; oh, I already wrote that.). If a majority supports a finding of contempt, as it should, the matter would go to the United States attorney for the District of Columbia. If Mr. Mukasey, the new attorney general, believes in the rule of law, he will see to it that Ms. Miers’s and Mr. Bolten’s cases are presented to a grand jury for criminal prosecution (Blogger's Note: Uh, isn't the Justice Department in disarray because of charges of politically motivated prosecutions?). The Bush administration’s days are numbered. But the damage it has done to the balance of powers could be long-lasting. If Congress wants to maintain its Constitutional role, it needs to stand up for itself. A good place to start is by making clear that its legitimate investigative authority cannot be defied, and any who choose to do so will pay a heavy price. (End of New York Times editorial.)

Success in Iraq Continues (Shh! But don't tell anyone.)

First, please pause, if even for a minute, to remember our Veterans on this Veterans Day.

Next, my town’s public school calendar does not recognize Veterans Day.

Finally, buried on page A14 of the Boston Sunday Globe was this report from Ms. Lauren Frayer of the Associated Press, “ . . . at Baghdad's most revered Sunni shrine, the Abu Hanifa mosque, voices blasted from loudspeakers yesterday urging residents to turn against Qaeda: 'We are your sons, the sons of the awakening, and we want to end the operations of Al Qaeda.'

"The backlash against Al Qaeda among Iraq's Sunni Arab community began in Iraq's western Anbar Province last year. Americans recruited Sunni sheiks to help oust Al Qaeda from their home turf, and the movement spread to former militants who once fought US and Iraqi soldiers."

"Along with a US force buildup of 30,000 troops, the Sunni fighters are credited with wresting neighborhoods back from the terror network, yielding a sharp drop in violence here in recent months (Al Qaeda fighters, ex-insurgents clash, November 11).” (End of AP excerpt.)

The rest of the AP story recounted how former Iraqi insurgents captured and killed scores of al Qaeda terrorists. A key component of the story was that the Iraqis requested that the U.S. military stand aside while the Iraqis took care of business themselves.

Again, the story was buried on page A14.

I Simply Don't Know

I don't know if the Democratic presidential candidates would ever condone waterboarding, they've never been asked.

For those that only get their news from ZACKlyRight.blogspot.com, Mr. Michael Mukasey was confirmed by a 53 - 40 vote in the United States Senate.

Only Democrats made the symbolic, pro-terrorist vote against Mr. Mukasey.

All 4 Democratic senators who want to determine as President if detained terrorists should be waterboarded in order to find out if innocent Americans are about to be murdered were conveniently unavailable for the vote.

Great courage that!

Pro-Terrorist Lobby and Waterboarding II

Tomorrow, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the nomination of Mr. Michael Mukasey for U.S. Attorney General. Unless the Committee votes against the nomination, this may be the last post on this subject for a week or so.

In advance of the vote, I re-produce last Friday's Wall Street Journal lead editorial. Please know I did not see this editorial prior to my November 4 post (which I encourage everyone who has not read to read).

Mukasey and the Democrats

Wall Street Journal; November 2, 2007; Page A12

Democrats welcomed Michael Mukasey as a "consensus choice" for Attorney General only weeks ago, but incredibly his confirmation is now an open question. The judge's supposed offense is that he has refused to declare "illegal" a single interrogation technique that the CIA has used on rare occasions against mass murderers.

All of the Democratic Presidential candidates have come out against the distinguished judge, and Democrats on the Judiciary Committee appear ready to block his nomination from even reaching the Senate floor. This is remarkable not for what it says about Judge Mukasey but for what it reveals about Democrats and the war on terror. They'd disqualify a man of impeccable judicial temperament and credentials merely because he's willing to give U.S. interrogators the benefit of the legal doubt before he has top-secret clearance.

Could there be a clearer demonstration of why voters don't trust Democrats with national security? In the war against al Qaeda, interrogation and electronic surveillance are our most effective weapons. Yet Democrats have for years waged a guerrilla war against both of these tools, trying to impose procedural and legal limits that can only reduce their effectiveness. Judge Mukasey is merely collateral damage in this larger effort.

Their immediate political figleaf is that the judge won't pre-emptively declare "waterboarding," or simulated drowning, to be illegal. Mr. Mukasey has declared that torture "violates the law and the Constitution, and the President may not authorize it as he is no less bound by constitutional restrictions than any other government official." But he refuses to say whether waterboarding meets the statutory definition of torture based only on "hypothetical facts and circumstances."

This seems fair enough given that he has not been briefed on any of the classified interrogation details (as top Congressional Democrats have been). It also seems wise given that, if confirmed, he will have to read and consider legal memoranda already approved by Justice Department officials on the same subject. How can he declare himself before he's read them?

Most important, his discretion serves the American people by helping to keep our enemies in some doubt about what they will face if they are captured. The reason that CIA interrogation methods are kept highly classified is so that enemy combatants can't use them as a resistance manual. If terrorists know what's coming, they can prepare for it beforehand and better resist.

What's really at stake here is whether U.S. officials are going to have the basic tools required to extract information from America's enemies. As CIA Director Michael Hayden pointed out in a speech this week, "the best sources of information on terrorists and their plans are the terrorists themselves."

Mr. Hayden added that fewer than 100 captives "have gone through the interrogation program since it began in 2002 with the capture of Abu Zubaydah," a top aide to Osama bin Laden and 9/11 plotter. Yet those interrogations have generated "thousands of intelligence reports." More than 70% of the human intelligence that makes it into formal U.S. intelligence estimates "is based on detainee information."

As for waterboarding, it is mostly a political sideshow. The CIA's view seems to be that some version of waterboarding is effective in breaking especially tough cases quickly. Press reports say it has been used only against a few high-value al Qaeda operatives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Zubaydah. As former CIA Director George Tenet points out in his book "At the Center of the Storm," KSM and others never would have talked about "imminent threats against the American people" had they not been dealt with harshly. "I believe that none of these success would have happened if we had had to treat KSM like a white-collar criminal," he writes.

If Democrats want to strip the CIA of this tool, then they ought to legislate it openly, not make law under the table through the confirmation process. Congress has twice had the chance to ban or criminalize waterboarding, but it declined to do so in both the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. And not for lack of trying: In debating the Military Commissions Act, Ted Kennedy offered a detailed amendment that specifically prohibited waterboarding, as well as other coercive interrogation methods; it lost on the Senate floor, 46-53.

The political calculation here is clear: Democrats want to pander to the antiwar war base of their party that doubts we are even in a war, and in any case wants to treat terrorist detainees no differently than a common street felon. Yet they don't want to be responsible for passing a statute that blocks CIA attempts to gain information that could prevent an imminent terrorist attack. So they dodge and employ ambiguous language that the Justice Department must then interpret. And then they try to run Judge Mukasey out of town because he won't do their political work for them.

In their less cynical moments, some Democrats will admit that a technique like waterboarding may prevent a future attack in extreme cases. "We ought to be reasonable about this," said one Senator at a hearing in 2004. "I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake. . . . It is easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used, but when you are in the foxhole it is a very different deal. And I respect, I think we all respect the fact that the President is in the foxhole every day." He added that all of this should be public in order to have "legitimacy."

That Senator? New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, who recommended Judge Mukasey for Attorney General in the first place. Now Mr. Schumer won't say one way or the other whether the judge has his support. If the Democrats reject Mr. Mukasey, it will tell us they simply aren't serious about the realities of the war on terror. (End of Wall Street Journal editorial.)

Pro-Terrorist Lobby and Waterboarding

The Senate Judiciary Committee will probably vote on Tuesday on the nomination of Michael Mukasey for U.S. Attorney General. The pro-terrorist, liberal extremists have made much of Mr. Mukasey's refusal to declare waterboarding torture, something the cowards in the United States Senate (which includes Sens. Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama) explicitly refused to legislate twice in the last three years.

Anyway, if Mr. Mukasey is not confirmed, I'll have more on this.

In the meantime, here's a letter the New York Times received after they published about 6 letters condemning Mr. Mukasey and none supporting him:

Editor,

I wonder if the moderator at the next Democratic presidential debate, or a "journalist" covering the Democratic candidates, would ask each if they would ever condone waterboarding as President of the United States (The Issue is Torture; Voices of Outrage; November 2).

And, I wonder of the liberal extremists, especially those who wrote letters to the New York Times, would be as outraged if a Democratic presidential candidate said they could not assure us they would never allow waterboarding. (End of first letter.)

And, here's one the Boston Globe received:

Editor,

Of course, it would never occur to the liberal media to ask the Democratic Presidential candidates if they would ever condone waterboarding if they were elected President (Torture issue could threaten Mukasey Senate confirmation, November 1, A10).

And, if asked, we can be sure Sen. Clinton, after her dreadful performance in Tuesday night's debate, would not answer the question (Clinton careful to preserve options, November 1, A1).

That Sen. Clinton will vote against Mr. Michael Mukasey for U.S. Attorney General is the mother of all irony. (End of second letter.)

Lies, Lies Lies. More Liberal Lies.

I'll not reproduce the entire editorial mess, but here is the key sentence from a Boston Globe editorial addressing the Bush Administration's deal with North Korea for the latter to dismantle its nuclear weapons program:

"But it is encouraging that Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates continue to defend a diplomatic deal with North Korea that represents the administration's sole achievement in the realm of nuclear nonproliferation."

As a point of fact, I reproduce a short exchange from the September 30, 2004 Presidential Deabte between President George W. Bush and the Great Equivocator, Sen. John F. Kerry:

LEHRER (moderator): Just for this one-minute discussion here, just for whatever seconds it takes: So it's correct to say, that if somebody is listening to this, that both of you agree, if you're reelected, Mr. President, and if you are elected, the single most serious threat you believe, both of you believe, is nuclear proliferation?

BUSH: In the hands of a terrorist enemy.

KERRY: Weapons of mass destruction, nuclear proliferation.

Finally, we know that in December 2003, Libya declared it would abandon its nuclear weapons program and that in January 2004, under the watchful eye of the IAEA, the most dangerous components of Libya's weapons program were flown out of the country.

My letter to the Boston Globe:

Editor,

Apparently the Boston Globe has forgotten that Libya abandoned its nuclear weapons program because of carrot and stick diplomacy by the Bush Administration (A deal to keep with North Korea, October 27, A14).

During the 2004 Presidential debates, Sen. John F. Kerry said that nuclear proliferation by rogue states was the single biggest security threat to the United States.

With North Korea to follow Libya, that’s two down and one to go.

Thank you, President Bush. (End of letter.)