Posted on 05/05/2007 10:41:28 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
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As the Sharm al-Shaykh conference wrapped up, the big stories all seem to focus on who Sec. Rice would talk to in Egypt, and what that might mean for US diplomatic strategy.
Back home, the Post runs a front-pager writing that the Iraq war -- the issue that delivered the Congress to the Democrats in November -- is distracting from their domestic agenda.
From Tikrit, Joshua Partlow reports in the Post that Iraq and the US have asked Syria to exert more control over its 375-mile desert border with Iraq, to block the influx of foreign fighters in the country. He interviews Iraqi Maj. Gen. Hadi Taaha Hasoun al-Mamoori, commanding officer of the 2nd Region Department of Border Enforcement, who is responsible for Iraq’s border with Syria. Gen. Petraeus estimated that 80 to 90 percent of suicide bombers in Iraq come from outside the country. At the same time, Iraq’s border crossings are becoming valuable revenue-generating points, and Iraq is reluctant to stifle cross-border movement trade and movement. Iraqi border patrols are under-supplied, Partlow writes. Border forces often are forced to procure their own food and fuel while on operations. Five US soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed in the last two days. Two other suspected “high-level fighters” for al-Qa'ida were also killed in the fighting that killed Muharib Abd al-Latif al-Jubouri, according ot to the US military: Sabah Hilal al-Shihawi, “religious advisor” to al-Jubouri, and Abu Ammar al-Masri.
In raids in Sadr City, the US arrested 16 people it suspects to have led a weapons smuggling ring, Alissa Rubin reports for the Times. The detained Iraqis were accused of importing explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) from Iran. 20 bodies were recovered, 15 in Baghdad. A bomb killed five Iraqi policemen in Baghdad. Three Shi'a brothers were found dead in Adhamiya, and a Shi'a mosque was burned near the Adhimiya border, and its guards kidnapped. Baghdad’s Radio Dijla studio was blown up, after being besieged earlier in the week.
More than one-third of US soldiers surveyed by the Army support the use of torture if it can gain information about insurgents, with four in ten supporting the practice if it would save a GI’s life, Thomas Ricks and Ann Scott Tyson report in the Post. Two thirds of Marines and one-half of Army soldiers surveyed “said they would not report a team member for mistreating a civilian or for destroying civilian property unnecessarily,” Post reporters write. The Army report stated, “Less than half of Soldiers and Marines believed that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect.” Ten percent of soldiers surveyed “had mistreated civilians in Iraq, such as kicking them or needlessly damaging their possessions.” Human rights activists said the report supports the view that abuse of Iraqi civilians is widespread, not isolated to a few cases. The military spun the report by saying that even though solders might hold these views, “they're not acting on those thoughts," according to Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, the acting Army surgeon general. The report also found high levels of stress and anxiety among soldiers and Marines, 25 and 20 percent, respectively. 20 percent of soldiers said they were planning a divorce or separation. The report was completed in November. Worth a full read.
The Democratic domestic agenda has faltered “as Washington policymakers have been consumed with the debate over the Iraq war,” Jonathan Weisman and Lyndsey Layton write in the Post “Not a single priority on the Democrats' agenda has been enacted, and some in the party are growing nervous that the ‘do nothing’ tag they slapped on Republicans last year could come back to haunt them.” Chairman of the party’s House Caucus, Rep. Emmanuel warned that the Dems were in danger of being a “one-trick pony.” Not one of the “Six for ‘06” campaign promises on the 2006 election platform has been signed into law, Post reporters write. Worth a full read, for more detail on the progress report on different aspects of the Democratic domestic agenda, and for a sense of how the Iraq war may effect the 2008 campaign in unexpected ways.
Sharm al-Shaykh, day two
Reporting from Sharm al-Shaykh, Michael Slackman and Helene Cooper write in the Times that “perhaps the most significant development, many people here said, was the more humble face of American diplomacy,” adding “Officials of countries that were once on the Bush administration’s do-not-call list are now getting face time with top American envoys.” The US and Iran did not hold substantive talks during the ministerial conference, and did not appear to have realigned their positions vis-à-vis Iraq, despite the urging of the Iraqi government for rapprochement between the two. The meeting between Sec. Rice and Syrian FM Walid Moualem, they write, was a significant departure for Bush administration policy, but did not overcome the impasse between the two countries.
Karen DeYoung notes in the Post that Iran and US officials had “a brief and largely symbolic conversation with an Iranian official Friday morning.” DeYoung writes that regional tensions over the situation in Iraq were visible at the conference,
Journal editors write that the Iranians “snubbed” Rice and that “Ms. Rice is trying toohard to negotiate with people who only have contempt for her -- and America.”
In other coverage:
Efforts of Democratic presidential candidates to assert themselves on Iraq have injected complications into attempts in Congress to reach a deal on Iraq funding, Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse write, looking especially at the recent proposals by Sen. Clinton to de-authorize the war.
WASHINGTON POST
Four types of bacteria “are causing severe and hard-to-treat infections for many troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan: Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus,” according to military medical doctors, Jackie Spinner reports.. The bacteria are apparently especially hard to treat in bomb victims, which often suffer large amounts of tissue damage. The Army Institute of Surgical Research has awarded $1.6 million for a four-year study of the infections.
Two security contractors, Blackwater and Erinys Iraq, are challenging the US Army, saying they were unfairly excluded from competition for a security job in Iraq, Alec Klein and Steve Fainaru report.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Economic issues will catch up with the Iraq question that dominates the 2008 campaign at the moment, Gerald Sieb predicts in the Journal. Sieb projects that the economic questions for 2008 will include the extension of the Bush tax cuts, energy policy, Social Security and Medicare entitlements, and trade policy.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, USA TODAY
No weekend edition.
Thank God for stupid foes.
The Iraq The SurrenderMedia Failed To Show Us
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In a very poignant piece in the WaPo today an Iraqi asks America to finish what it started, to fulfill its promises and not allow al Qaeda to take our successes to date and turn them into the next Holocaust simply because the Surrendercrats have no stomach for facing down Islam Fascists:
al Qaeda Loses Another Capitol Of Its Caliphate
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If this war was being reported on honestly, then the Surrendermedia would be noting that al Qaeda has lost its second declared capitol of its exhaulted Caliphate - centered in Iraq. When al Qaeda ran Anbar Province Ramadi was designated as the modern Caliphate’s capitol city. Anbar and Ramadi have been purged of al Qaeda as the Iraqi government won local Sunni support. The Caliphate lost its first capitol. al Qaeda pulled a Democratic-Manuever and then ran from Anbar to Diyala Province (just like the Surrendercrats want to run from Iraq to Okinawa to find al Qaeda).
In Diyala’s capitol city of Baqouba al Qaeda established the modern Caliphate’s second capitol city from which they would conquer the region and the world:
We Want An Iraq Civil War - Duh!
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Linda Chavez made the obvious point many have missed in her article out today: The article is about whether or not Dems are anti-war or anti-troop. But the real question is will the Dems become anti-America? Here is the crux of all this - we want a small civil war in Iraq and we want one side to win and we need to make sure that side wins. Sound strange? Only to those in the surrendermedia and liberal far left echo chamnbers. Here is Chavez’s point:
The problem in Iraq is not the performance or the mission of American forces. The biggest problem is that Iraq has become a battleground in an Islamic jihad against not only America and the West, but non-Islamist Muslims. Al Qaeda targets the Shiite population, while Iran and its puppets in Iraq target the Sunnis. This is not civil war as commonly understood but a proxy war between two radical extremes in the Islamic world.
There is not fighting between the radical Islamo Fascists of the Shiia persuasion and the Sunni (al Qaeda) persuasion. The Islamo-Fascists are attacking the moderate Muslims trying to enrage them into sectarian violence. But so far it has not really worked. This is the war between Islamo Facists and ‘mainstream’ Muslims we have needed to take shape. The civil war is the extremists against the Arab/Muslim street.
For most of the Iraqi forces here the areas they patrol are familiar. They know the people, the area, and who does not belong. This is where they grew up.
“This is my home,” said one Iraqi policeman, who asked not to be identified due to concerns about his family’s safety. “We grew up here and know people here. (Terrorists) need to leave or they die here.”
This is a huge advantage for the U.S. military which has seen its share of conflict spring up in this area.
We cannot change Islam alone. We can ally with those Muslims who are willing to reject and throw off the Islamo Fascists. We see indications ALL OVER Iraq that the brutality of the Islamo Fascists is turning the tide in our direction. Anbar Province is now primarily aligned against al Qaeda and extremists. Diyala Province is following suit. In the broader sense Saudi Arabia is fighting back as is Jordan and Pakistan and Afghanistan. Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and The UAE are solidly against the Islamo Fascists. We have wanted the Muslims to take up this fight and stand for peace and co-existence and they are.
And this is the ‘civil war’ the Dems claim we do not want? This is the quagmire? No wonder they are known only for the most spectacular loss in America’s history. They are so oblivious they cannot see success when it is sprouting up all around them. The Hagel’s and Kerry’s of the world are known for their failure in Vietnam - and now they want company. They want a new generation of admirers who can claim ‘we failed just like you did’. They are not going to get them. This generation is more like my father’s - the WW II generation. They are smart, savvy, fearless - and for them ‘failure’ is still not an option. Watching the boomers fade is turning out to be a lot worse than I thought (I am at the tale end of the boomer generation). There are lots of great boomers - don’t get me wrong. President Bush comes to mind. But the group has some serious issues as we can see in the likes of Hagel and Kerry. They are so desperate to salvage their reputations that they become dedicated to creating another Vietnam no matter what the cost. Thankfully, they will fail at that too.
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More at the Blog....
See the updates following your post.
Democrats' Momentum Is Stalling
Washington Post ^ | 5/5/07 | Jonathan Weisman and Lyndsey Layton
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The voters seem to have noticed the stall. An ABC News-Washington Post poll last month found that 73 percent of Americans believe Congress has done "not too much" or "nothing at all." A memo from the Democratic polling firm Democracy Corps warned last month that the stalemate between Congress and Bush over the war spending bill has knocked down the favorable ratings of Congress and the Democrats by three percentage points and has taken a greater toll on the public's hope for a productive Congress.
Dems agenda distracted, “All Bush’s fault!” say Reid and Pelosi.
BREAKING: Present At the Bombing
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Back from Iraq, Richard Miniter joins David Corn again and tells of what he saw there, how the bombing in the parliament building galvanized the lawmaker’s will to stand up to terrorists and the role of neighboring Iran. In the home front, they discuss presidential politics only minutes away from the debate, the showdown between Congress and the White House on the Iraq supplemental bill, and much more. Plus a surprise special guest!
(MP3 audio version available HERE)
Great stuff. Thank you
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While the political tug of war over Iraq continues, the carpet of jihad woven by the various groups with that country is beginning to fray around the edges. And no one in Washington seems to have noticed.
I'm not talking about the open warfare between the Sunni and Shi'ite militias - in a sense that is old news. What I'm referring to is the cracks that are becoming more and more evident among the Sunni jihadist groups.
JihadTV: Sneaking Into America (al-jazeera coming to Vermont -- CONTACT INFO)
Al Qaeda No. 2 Mocks Iraq Pullout Bill [Wants 200,000 to 300,000 Americans killed
BTTT
the Iraq war -- the issue that delivered the Congress to the Democrats in November -- is distracting from their domestic agenda....which is astounding, considering they barely have one. :') For that matter, it's astounding, because they don't have any agenda on foreign policy other than Kucinich' campaign focus from the 2004 primary season. :')
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