Charming

Great Satan's fans have always been a lucky charm. Especially Australia. Recent former PM Howard from Down Under Yonder shared some.

"Incumbency is a very powerful weapon in politics, and provides the
government of the day with a significant advantage. I fought five elections, won four and lost one. You can say the last election was a bit like the Oval Test. You have to lose one eventually, but after four consecutive victories you can't complain. "

"I continue to be infuriated by the suggestion we went to war on a lie. The intelligence may have been flawed, but it was not made up. Following those meetings, I was satisfied that there was strong evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

And after the war, although we did not find any stockpiles of
weapons, we certainly found that the Iraqis had active WMD programmes. But it was the failure to find stockpiles that turned the public against us."

"There was a lot of support in Australia for supporting America. Don't forget, Australia is the only country whose troops have fought alongside the United States in every major military confrontation since the First World War – including Vietnam.

"911 was an unprovoked and unjustified attack. It made me wonder
how Australians would feel if terrorists had flown a couple of planes into the Sydney Opera House.'

Strike Package

Little Satan's recent 1K mile airborne dry run sorteeing over a hundred combat jets and auxillary air 2 air refueling mommie jets send out like a billion conflicting signals


Reaction from an attack on Iran by Little Satan would be pure heck. Almost surrounded by enemies - all by amazing coincidense rocket rich fed and funded Iranian minions.


Hiz'B'Allah, HAMAS - even Syria could act out in rage if their mentors goodies were deceisively and destructively dissed to death. Oil prices could go through the roof, many nations would have their feelings terribly hurt in lieu of Little Satan's nigh global skirt flirt with such a pre emptive preventive attack.

Funny, though - no one mentions the results would be far worse if the Mullahs actually develop nuclear weaponry.


So like STRATFOR points out - leaking leaks about magical make believe air raids to kill scientists at work in wicked weaponized enrichment in such a trigger happy hood chock full of suicide cult rocketeers, gross body part collecting rocketeers and somewhat neutral neighbors seems awful risque.


Wildly provocative amid the easily provoked - like wearing a thong to Church.


Prob the best look at Target Sets (regime killing talk for vaporizing precious assets) and what it would take to knock them out - all the way out - is the SSP Working Paper by done by aviation sci spy guys Whitney Raas and Austin Long.


This exhaustive (yet fun and light to read dossier - perfect for the beach - and available in pdf) details naughty details.

To have a reasonable chance of success, both in the mission and in the
ultimate goal of rendering Iran’s nuclear program impotent, the target set must
be narrowed to concentrate on the critical nodes in Iran’s nuclear
infrastructure.

The most difficult part of nuclear weapons development is obtaining the
nuclear material itself; thus, if the means of fissile material production can
be destroyed, the setback for Iran will be maximized.

Iran’s nuclear complex has three critical nodes: Esfahan, with its conversion facility, the Natanz enrichment facility, and the heavy water plant and future plutonium production reactors at Arak.


Blitzing bomb building builders of a nuclear persuasion at all three sites (all magnetically attracting multiple 'strike packages'

The total number of weapons needed to have reasonable confidence in
destroying all three target sets is thus 24 5000-lb weapons and 24 2000-lb
weapons.

84 tons of intelligent guided precision weaponry!


Little Satan's Air Force currently has access to a domestic penetrating weapon, a 1000-lb class bomb known as the PB 500A1 The gov has also expressed interest in acquiring two heavier penetrating warheads from Great Satan.

In September 2004, Little Satan announced that it would acquire approximately 5000 PGMs from the U.S., including about 500 GBU-27s equipped with the 2000-lb class BLU-109 penetrating warheads. More recently, Israel has received approval to purchase one hundred GBU-28s equipped with the 5000-lb class BLU-113 warheads.

Weaponeering capabilities includes the happy fact that Little Satan maintains two elite especial forces units dedicated to assisting with air strikes, one dedicated to laser target designation (Sayeret Shaldag/Unit 5101) and one to real time bomb damage assessment (Unit 5707).

These units are extremely well-trained and could potentially be infiltrated to the target zone prior to attack. While it would be both difficult and risky to deploy these units inside Iran, they would be very useful in aiding the strike package, particularly in bad weather.

Like sending a hot text - the Strike Package has got to be reliably delivered.

Little Satan's heaviest dutiest strike aircraft is the world famous F 15 Eagle. Created way back in the last millennium, Eagle literally was the globally proof presence of Great Satan's 30 years in the future combat jet when she first flew in 1972 and came on line in the especially magical year of the Bicentenial!(1976 for the heathen).

Eagle fast became the weapon of choice among tiny tiny sexy democrazies under threat from intolerant neighbors. Little Satan, SoKo and Taiwan blinged and added Eagle to their airborne arsenals. Eagle's combat bona fides are down right lethal.

Like when Little Satan's Eagles literally blasted the Syrian Air Force out of the sky as F-15s shot down 40 Syrian combat jets (23 MiG-21 "Fishbeds" and 17 MiG-23 "Floggers" Russia built jets) and one French made Syrian SA.342L Gazelle helicopter way back in the PLO Lebanon War of 1982 without modesty, restraint or any casualties.

Originally created by MacDonnel Douglas - Boeing began upgrading an especially sexyful Little Satan mod 15I that Little Satan christened "Ra Am" or 'Thunder'

Ra Am can tote an amazing 11 tons of hurt in like a billion diff configurations and has a range of 1445Kilometers (2.25K miles for the unmetrical).

Little Satan deploys about 25 F15I thundering Ra Am's and has about 40 elderly Eagle variants without that kind of range or toting capabilities. Plus Little Satan super sexed up F16 'D' mod

F-16D aircraft which have a "dorsal spine" modification. This dorsal spine is a
fairing extending from the rear of the cockpit to the vertical stabilizer. It
apparently houses a significant anti-radar Wild Weasel system, self-protection
jamming, as well as other specialized electronics. These aircraft, if
retrofitted with CFTs, could accompany the deep strike aircraft and provide
significant suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) capability.

The F-16I is an F-16 Block 52/60 variant produced specifically for Israeli deep strike requirements. Like the F-15I, the F-16I has CFTs to extend its radius of action. The F-16Is exact combat radius is unknown, but is believed to be in the 1500-2100 km range with CFTs and external fuel tanks.

Given the Israeli decision to forgo additional F-15I procurement in favor of increased F-16I procurement, its range is presumably not significantly less than the F-15I. It is equipped with the same targeting systems as the F-15I and could deliver two 2000-lb bombs while carrying external fuel tanks.

A strike package of 25 each of F-15Is and F-16Is, then the Iranian air defense would have to impose significant attrition to cause the mission to fail.

Perhaps best described as fiesty - yet spineless current Iranian air defense capabilities appears non-trivial but certainly not incredibly potent.

It is comprised of three elements: aircraft, SAMs, and anti-aircraft artillery

If even one F-15I failed to complete the mission due to reliability problems, then the Iranians would only have to down one aircraft. If two failed to function, then the mission would fail to deliver ordnance without the Iranians even firing a shot.

Sorteeing a 100 attack aircraft is more than make believe - it is significant signals that Little Satan is planning more than setting the region ablaze by dissing sovereign airspace and blitzing nukey stuff.

A rising hegemon having all her Air Defense capabilities and strategic conventional stand off weapons platforms annihilated could involve way more moves than Little Satan's raid.

American Stealth bombers could target Iran’s air defense and anti-ship missile sites scattered around the Gulf, followed by what military analysts call an "Effects Based Operation," as a naval blockade of the Straits of Hormuz backed by anti-missile Aegis class cruisers and destroyers, together with a guarantee of free passage for all non-Iranian oil shipping (thus reassuring the world that energy supplies will continue to flow) may be easily and simultaneously launched.

Special Ops and airborne forces would seize Iran’s main oil pumping station at Kargh Island and capture or neutralize its offshore oil facilities.

Air Force and Navy war jets could take out Iran’s extremely vulnerable military and economic infrastructure, including its electrical grid, transportation links, gasoline refineries, port facilities, as well as air strikes against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).


The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC's elite Qods force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Qods' stated mission is to spread Iran's revolution of 1979 throughout the region. Few tears would be shed by anyone if al Qods magically disappeared.

Truth is that the Iranian regime is uniquely vulnerable to this kind of campaign. 90% of Iran’s oil production and facilities are sweetly lying in or near the Gulf, and are shamelessly exposed to naval or air attacks.

With the exception of three Russian built Kilo-class subs (which would have to be killed in the opening days of the campaign - natch), the Iranian navy is tiny and actually quite pitiful.

Since Iran imports nearly 40% of its gasoline, an air campaign that destroys its refineries and gas supplies would leave the mulahs and its trucks, tanks, and planes starved for fuel in two weeks or even sooner.

Art by EdDiE at atomicpanda.com

MEK

On Monday the British parliament removed the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) from the U.K.'s list of banned terrorist organizations. The decision upholds a Court of Appeals' ruling in May that there is no evidence linking the Iranian opposition group to terrorism, and that it should be free to recruit, organize and raise money in Britain.

Western and Arab intelligence services have long appreciated the MEK for its sources deep inside Iran. The group was the first to provide evidence of Tehran's secret nuclear project. But the U.S. and Continental Europe shouldn't rush to follow London's move. Although the People's Mujahedeen has won the support of many Western politicians, it is not the force for democratic change it claims to be.

The MEK was founded in 1965 after a split in a Marxist-Leninist movement that had waged a guerrilla war in northern Iran. Its ideology emerged as a mix of Islam and Marxism, with ingredients from the Islamist pamphleteer Ali Shariati, who advocated an "Islam without a clergy."

With help from the KGB, the group engaged in a campaign against the former shah of Iran and sent cadres to Cuba, East Germany and Palestinian camps in Lebanon to train as guerrillas. Its hit men assassinated a dozen people, including an Iranian general and five American military and civilian technicians in the 1970s. An operation in 1971 to kidnap the U.S. ambassador to Tehran, Douglas MacArthur III, failed. But it helped the group heighten its profile among anti-shah terrorist outfits.

Later, the MEK would play a key role in the events that swept Ayatollah Khomeini to power. The break with the mullahs came when the People's Mujahedeen, under its "Supreme Guide" Massoud Rajavi, attempted an armed uprising against the new regime in 1981. Not allowed to field candidates in presidential and parliamentary elections, the MEK sent hit squads to assassinate prominent mullahs and raided several military bases.

Khomeini's reaction was savage. More than 15,000 MEK militants and sympathizers were jailed and some 3,000 executed. Mr. Rajavi fled to Paris aboard a jetliner his supporters had hijacked, taking with him Abol-Hassan Banisadr, the first president of the Khomeinist republic. In a second wave of executions in 1988, Khomeini put more than 4,000 MEK members and sympathizers to death.

In Paris, meanwhile, France's Socialist government negotiated a deal in 1982 between the MEK and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, which was then engaged in a war against Iran. Mr. Rajavi frequently visited Baghdad and formed a close relationship with Saddam, who set up camps in Iraq to train MEK militants for sabotage operations against Iran. Even after the 1988 cease-fire between Tehran and Baghdad, Mr. Rajavi, with Saddam's approval, continued a low-intensity war against Iran from Iraqi territory.

Mr. Rajavi's relationship with Saddam would get the MEK involved even in genocide. In 1991, the MEK's 10,000-strong force in Iraq helped Saddam in his brutal campaign against the Kurds and Iraqi Shiites, a campaign that left over 100,000 dead. The MEK saw Iraqi Shiites as allies of Iran and thus enemies of itself. This is why the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has opened proceedings against the MEK for "crimes against humanity." In 2003, the U.S.-led coalition extended prisoner-of-war protection to MEK members in Iraq, including some 4,000 combatants, now disarmed, in Camp Ashraf northeast of Baghdad. Mr. Rajavi is under "restricted residence" in Baghdad.

Over the years, the MEK has suffered waves of defections, each producing fresh testimonies depicting it as a sect dedicated to the cult of Mr. Rajavi and his estranged wife, Maryam Azedanloo-Qajar. Mr. Rajavi declared her the "President of the Republic of Iran" almost two decades ago.

Does all of this mean that the British decision is morally wrong and perhaps politically counterproductive? Four years ago, my answer would have been an unequivocal yes.

To start with, the group, which has never practiced terrorism on British soil, has not committed any terrorist act since January 2003, when it attacked an Iranian village close to the border with Iraq.

Besides, being blacklisted has not forced the MEK to mend its ways. Instead, the leadership has used the fact that it was put on a terror list to portray itself as a wrongly prosecuted community that required secretive modus operandi and Stalinist discipline from its members.

It also is somewhat hypocritical for Europeans to put the MEK on a terrorist list but deal with the Khomeinist regime, the leading sponsor of terror in the world, as if it were a respectable government. What's more, Tehran exploits the MEK's terrorist label to brand all Iranian opposition groups as "terrorists and traitors."

Finally, blacklisting the MEK makes it harder for other Iranian opposition groups to establish contact with it, and to isolate its terrorist elements and integrate its rank-and-file into a broader popular movement for a democratic Iran.

Despite its bloody history, the MEK continues to enjoy much support inside Iran and among Iranian exiles. Some sympathize with the sufferings of its members: No other political group has sustained so many losses at the hands of the mullahs. Others see the MEK as a valuable asset in the fight against Tehran because it is the only group considered to be as ruthless as the mullahs themselves. These pragmatists like to cite a Persian proverb: "Only a hound from Mazandaran could catch the fox of the Mazandaran forest."

But before Continental Europe and the U.S. take the MEK off their terrorist lists, it needs to reform itself as some other violent groups have. Northern Ireland's Sinn Fein is an example.

To start with, the MEK has to recognize and accept responsibility for its murderous past. A sincere mea culpa could help it out of its moral and political ghetto.

Next, the MEK should publicly renounce terror and commit itself to working for a new Iranian system based on pluralism, the rule of law and democratic elections.

It is also important that the MEK cooperate with Iraqi justice to shed light on the group's role in the repression of Shiites and Kurds under Saddam. Such cooperation would include handing over MEK figures sought by Iraqi prosecutors. The MEK also has to develop a new leadership for itself through open, transparent and multicandidate elections.

Some Iranians may feel that, given its past crimes, the MEK doesn't deserve a second chance. Nevertheless, there has been a change of generations in the MEK. Many of those who murdered innocent people or betrayed Iran by working for Saddam have died or retired; the rest have dwindled to a small minority. The MEK now faces a stark choice: Reform and become a pluralistic group working for Iranian democracy, or remain an obscure sect undeserving of Western support.

PS, Courtney, I have a new book out later this year called "Persian Night". Would love for you to review it.

submitted by AmIr

Intervention Now

In the course of the last few tumultuous months, I have often had cause to consider what it is that makes a country. I believe a country is the sum of its many parts, and that this is embodied in one thing: its people. The people of my country, Zimbabwe, have borne more than any people should bear. They have been burdened by the world's highest inflation rates, denied the basics of democracy, and are now suffering the worst form of intimidation and violence at the hand of a government purporting to be of and for the people.

Zimbabwe will break if the world does not come to our aid.

Africa has seen this all before, of course. The scenario in Zimbabwe is numbingly familiar. A power-crazed despot holding his people hostage to his delusions, crushing the spirit of his country and casting the international community as fools. As we enter the final days of what has been a taxing period for all Zimbabweans, it is likely that Robert Mugabe will claim the presidency of our country and will seek to further deny its people a space to breath and feel the breeze of freedom.

I can no longer allow Zimbabwe's people to suffer this torture, for I believe they can bear no more crushing force. This is why I decided not to run in the presidential run-off. This is not a political decision. The vote need not occur at all of course, as the Movement for Democratic Change won a majority in the previous election, held in March. This is undisputed even by the pro-Mugabe Zimbabwe electoral commission.

Our call now for intervention seeks to challenge standard procedure in international diplomacy. The quiet diplomacy of South African President Thabo Mbeki has been characteristic of this worn approach, as it sought to massage a defeated dictator rather than show him the door and prod him towards it.

We envision a more energetic and, indeed, activist strategy. Our proposal is one that aims to remove the often debilitating barriers of state sovereignty, which rests on a centuries-old foundation of the sanctity of governments, even those which have proven themselves illegitimate and decrepit. We ask for the UN to go further than its recent resolution, condemning the violence in Zimbabwe, to encompass an active isolation of the dictator Mugabe.

For this we need a force to protect the people.

We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force.

Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not trouble-makers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns.

The next stage should be a new presidential election. This does indeed burden Zimbabwe and create an atmosphere of limbo. Yet there is hardly a scenario that does not carry an element of pain. The reality is that a new election, devoid of violence and intimidation, is the only way to put Zimbabwe right.

Part of this process would be the introduction of election monitors, from the African Union and the UN. This would also require a recognition of myself as a legitimate candidate. It would be the best chance the people of Zimbabwe would get to see their views recorded fairly and justly.

Intervention is a loaded concept in today's world, of course.

Yet, despite the difficulties inherent in certain high-profile interventions, decisions not to intervene have created similarly dire consequences.

The battle in Zimbabwe today is a battle between democracy and dictatorship, justice and injustice, right and wrong.

It is one in which the international community must become more than a moral participant.

It must become mobilised.


submitted by MoRgAn TsVaNgIrAi

Intervention of the Sabine Women by Jacques-Louis David

Satanicus Giganticus Doctrinaire'

Here's a prediction: Zimbabwe's Morgan Tsvangirai will win this year's Nobel Peace Prize.


He would be its worthiest recipient since the prize went to Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi (one of the prize's few worthy recipients, period) in 1991. He deserves it for standing up – politically as well as physically – to Robert Mugabe's goon-squad dictatorship for over a decade; for organizing a democratic opposition and winning an election hugely stacked against him; and for refusing to put his own ambition ahead of his people's well-being when the run-off poll became, as he put it last weekend, a "violent, illegitimate sham."

Here's another prediction: Mr. Tsvangirai's Nobel will have about as much effect on the bloody course of Zimbabwe's politics as Aung San Suu Kyi's has had on Burma's.

Effectively, zero.

Zimbabwe is now another spot on the map of the civilized world's troubled conscience. Burma is also there, along with Tibet and Darfur. (Question: When will "Free Zimbabwe" bumper stickers become ubiquitous?) These are uniquely nasty places, and not just because uniquely nasty things are happening. They're nasty because the dissonance between the wider world's professed concern and what it actually does is almost intolerable.

Look at the legislation that has been proposed or passed in the U.S. Congress on Darfur. There is the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act (H.R. 3127), signed by President Bush into law in 2006, which sanctions officials identified as responsible for the genocide. There is House Resolution 992, which urges the president to appoint a special envoy to Sudan. (The president did appoint an envoy; care to remember his name?)

There is the 2007 Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act, which allows (but does not require) U.S. states and municipalities to divest from companies doing business in Sudan. There is Senate Resolution 559, urging the president to enforce a no-fly zone over Darfur. There is the Clinton Amendment, the Reid Amendment, the Menendez Amendment, the Durbin/Leahy Amendment, the Jackson Amendment, the Lieberman Resolution, the Obama/Reid Amendment and the Peace in Darfur Act.

This is a partial list. Meantime, here are the accumulating estimates of the conflict's toll on Darfuri lives. September 2004: 50,000, according to the World Health Organization. May 2005: between 63,000 and 146,000 "excess deaths," according to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain. March 2008: 200,000 deaths, according to U.N. officials. April 2008: The U.N. acknowledges the previous month's estimate might have undercounted about 100,000 victims.

In a video clip for the Save Darfur coalition, Barack Obama offered that the genocide is "a stain on our souls." His proposal for removing it? "Ratcheting up sanctions" on the Sudanese government and making "firm commitments in terms of the logistics, and the transport and the equipping" of an international peacekeeping mission for Darfur. No word, however, as to whether Mr. Obama would actually risk the lives of American soldiers to stop the slaughter.

It's a similar story in Zimbabwe. The U.N. Security Council met yesterday to discuss the crisis, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament "the world is of one view: that the status quo cannot continue."

But, of course, the status quo will continue. Just possibly, Mr. Mugabe and his senior ministers will no longer be allowed to travel to Europe, though that does nothing for the people of Zimbabwe. Other sanctions will have no effect: The regime is already busy expelling relief workers and seizing food aid. Mr. Mugabe wants "his people" to die – it means fewer mouths to feed, and fewer potential opposition supporters to jail, maim or murder.

A solution for Zimbabwe's crisis isn't hard to come by: Someone – ideally the British – must remove Mr. Mugabe by force, install Mr. Tsvangirai as president, arm his supporters, prevent any rampages, and leave. "Saving Darfur" is a somewhat different story, but it also involves applying Western military force to whatever degree is necessary to get Khartoum to come to terms with an independent or autonomous Darfur. Burma? Same deal.

International relations theorists, including prominent Obama adviser Susan Rice, justify these sorts of interventions under the rubric of a "Responsibility to Protect" – a concept that comes oddly close to Kipling's White Man's Burden. So close, in fact, that its inherent paternalism has hitherto inhibited many liberals from endorsing the kinds of interventions toward which they are now tip-toeing, thousands of deaths too late.

So let's by all means end the hand-wringing and embrace the responsibility to protect, wherever necessary and feasible. Let's spare the thousands of innocents, punish the wicked, oppose tyrants, and support democrats – both in places where it is now fashionable to do so (Burma) and in places where it is not (Iraq). If that turns out to be Mr. Obama's foreign policy, it will be a worthy one. It does come oddly close to the Bush Doctrine.

submitted by bReT sTePhEnS

Tahdiya

THE ceasefire between the Palestinian terror outfit Hamas and Little Satan in the Gaza Strip is surely good news.

That Hamas calls it a tahdiya, or period of calmness, rather than a ceasefire, may even underline that good news. Hamas does not want to be seen entering a ceasefire when its raison d'etre is armed struggle.

Yet it may well be good news because it may be a sign of Hamas's weakness. Hamas is a savage terrorist group, as it demonstrated in its short but extravagantly violent and sadistic civil war with Fatah for control of Gaza. Hamas is a branch of the Mohammedist Brotherhood and is dedicated to the jihad struggle, unlike Fatah, which is more secular and predominantly nationalist, at least in its rhetoric.

But Hamas has delivered misery to the Palestinian people even beyond the misery delivered to them by the corrupt and incompetent rule of Fatah. There is some evidence that Hamas has lost a significant degree of popularity with the Palestinian people, even though it triumphed in the last Palestinian elections.

Hamas prob won't give up its version of state power in Gaza, regardless of the will of the Palestinian people. Some analysts believe the reverse, that it may just accept reunification of the Palestinian national movement under the nominal leadership of Fatah and go back to unadulterated armed resistance work.

But it may be that several significant forces have started to move against Hamas. The most important of these is Egypt, which was shocked by the Palestinian incursion into its territory several months ago and is building a wall to keep out the Palestinians.

Finally, the two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians is collapsing. There is no sign that the Palestinian movement can provide a state partner that could assure Little Satan she would not be subjected to constant missile and terrorist attack from an independent Palestinian state.

Moreover, the longer you spend in Jerusalem, the less likely it becomes that any Palestinian east Jerusalemite is going to give up the affluence that comes from living in modern Little Satan to live in a fundamentalist Taliban state run by Hamas or a violent and lawless kleptocracy under Fatah.

Yet the Palestinians ultimately must be given full political rights.

A one-state solution is also impossible. Eventually there will have to be new thinking about federations with Egypt and Jordan, but that seems a long way off.

Reviewed

Courtney from Great Satan’s Girlfriend's blog is is themed on combating anti-American propaganda, tyrannies, intolerant regimes, militias and foes of enlightenment through rants on politics and news.

If you ignore the layout and structure, and the colors used on Courtney’s blog for a few moments and read through the content, you’ll see that what she writes makes good sense and points. What she writes is a clear idea and is as clearly conveyed/presented through the text.

Great Satan Girlfriend’s content will be interesting for anyone who is concerned about politics and global affairs like those, Courtney talks about. And there is quite a large chunk of society who would like to read this kind of stuff.

Now bring the excluded factors back in- the colors used, the management of space, layout and structure, etc. and give a second thought. Would you still like to read through, to the bottom?

Most of you will disagree. Here are what the problems are, in my humble opinion:

Update your color scheme. The links on your blog strain my eyes! Blue on blue is almost unreadable. It could be excused if you linked a word or two, but at many places on your blog, a single link extends over many lines in a go. That’s a wrong practice again. Only link the relevant keywords of a text to any web page. Not the whole paragraph itself!

Increase the ‘readability’ of your blog by changing all the text in alternate case, to Sentence Case. It looks better that way.

Categorize the widgets in the sidebar. Put similar things together- I mean those of same type and similar dimensions. An example is the ‘Eye Candy Ration’ thing. And so with the other things

I had once done a critical review of Angry Jed’s blog and it really had an effect. Angry Jed’s blog was almost in the same state as yours, but he did a commendable job working on it as I suggested and as he wanted… and today his blog looks a lot better.

You should take a look and especially see the arrangement of buttons in the footer. I’d be glad if my review of your blog could help you. Drop me a comment.

Cheers,

Abhinav Sood

Strip Tease Redux

The recent kiss and make up betwixt Little Satan and the HAMAS Strip is just the latest in an elaborate strip tease of regional proportions


The world's very first freely elected suicide gov spins it like a win for innocent civilians trapped in a time traveling semi caliphate where death is precious, praised and preferred, stubborn resistence and a def smack down for those wicked wacky neocons and infidel Fatah leaders sucking up to Great Satan and Little Satan

"There is no doubt that the forces of peace and reason on all sides have
won against the forces of bellicosity, hatred and terror, especially in
Washington and Tel Aviv and some other regional capitals as well.

The people of Gaza, the victims of American-Israeli criminality, are
undoubtedly the biggest winners of this deal. At least, they can breathe again,
following 18 nightmarish months of unimagined brutality and ruthlessness

In addition to the gung-ho neocons in Washington and war-drummers in Tel
Aviv who wanted to exterminate Hamas, not a small amount of consternation is
also likely to be permeating now in Ramallah where a Zionized group within Fatah
had been hoping to see the Israeli army overrun Gaza, murder hundreds, and then
hand Gaza over to the Fatah leadership on a silver platter."

HAMAS also says a hudna v4.0 could be good for biz even if Little Satan is a serpentine zionist entity and undeserving of good faith, spokescat Khalid Amayreh realises that the state must hold the monopoly on violence and magically appearing civilian militia rocket artillery brigades in innocent civilian rich turf may not get the PLOld School wink and a smile.

"Hamas should make meticulous efforts to preserve the ceasefire since doing so is
first and foremost a supreme and paramount Palestinian interest.

Hamas should also make it abundantly clear to the military wings of other
Palestinian factions that the security and safety of the people of Gaza must not
be subject to the whims of this or that faction."

And a hudna is good for biz. Like collecting jizrah from foreigners.

"In fact, preserving the ceasefire would send a positive message to the
international community that Hamas is responsible organization with which
"business can be made."

Moreover, a careful abidance by the agreement on Hamas’s part would show
good- will toward Egypt whose support and backing is essential for the survival
of the Gaza Strip, at least at this juncture of the Palestinian struggle for
freedom and liberation from Zionism."

Total smokescreen too. Nary a word about returning abducted citizens.

Super fly smart guy Michael Oren (6 Days of War is worth the price of admission - Faith and Fantasy is nigh essential) disses the smoke and cuts right to it.

"It represents a historic accomplishment for the jihadist forces most
opposed to peace, and defeat for the Palestinians who might still have been
Israel's partners.

Since Little Satan split the Strip way back in '05 and hiked up 'the wall.' Hamas surged in a post electile dysfunction bliss that not only featured an armed coup de tat, the box set blings over an entire K - one thousand! - missiles, rockets and mortars fired at a sovereign democratic neighbor.

The resulting Hudna gave HAMAS breathing space to raid into Little Satan and capture citizens of a sovereign democratic neighbor which audaciously emboldened Hiz'B'Allah to act out in on the act.

"Hamas now felt sufficiently emboldened to overthrow Gaza's Fatah-led
government, and to declare itself regnant in the Strip. Subsequently, Hamas
launched thousands more rocket and mortar salvos against Israel, rendering parts
of the country nearly uninhabitable.

Israel never mounted the rolling, multi-month operation that the IDF had
planned. Traumatized by his abortive performance in the Lebanon War, hobbled
by financial scandals, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert balked at a military
engagement liable to result in incalculable casualties and United Nations
condemnations, but unlikely to halt Hamas aggression.

Like Hezbollah in 2006, Hamas won because it did not lose. Its leaders
still walked Gaza's streets freely while children in Sderot and other Israeli
border towns cowered in bomb shelters. Like Hezbollah, which recently wrested
unprecedented powers from the Lebanese parliament, Hamas parlayed its military
success into political capital.

The Egyptian-brokered cease-fire yields Hamas greater benefits than it
might have obtained in direct negotiations. In exchange for giving its word to
halt rocket attacks and weapons smuggling, Hamas receives the right to monitor
the main border crossings into Gaza and to enforce a truce in the West Bank,
where Fatah retains formal control.

If quiet is maintained, then Israel will be required to accept a cease-fire
in the West Bank as well. Hamas can regroup and rearm."

This is significant - and where Iran becomes the cat behind the green curtain. This is a great op for the mullahs and their IRGC fanboys to reinforce success (since it looks like Mahdi Army totally sucked at anything other than getting their militia annihilated, incarcerated or co opted).

Taking control of West Bank (Judea in Little Satan speak) will grant Iran frontline access to Little Satan.


Zooming out of Little Satan and her twin client states of the Strip and WB, Iran is deploying her regional assets in a Persian Chess move.

"As the primary sponsor of Hamas, Iran is the cease-fire's ultimate
beneficiary. Having already surrounded Israel on three of its borders -- Gaza,
Lebanon, Syria -- Iran is poised to penetrate the West Bank.

By activating these fronts, Tehran can divert attention from its nuclear program
and block any diplomatic effort.

The advocates of peace between Israelis and Palestinians should recognize that fact when applauding quiet at any price. The cost of this truce may well be war".

Several advocates tend to disregard any jazz about a Persian dominated crescent from Iran to the Med as make believe and way off base for Persian Grand Strategy.

Either way - is Iran buying time to finish WMD witchraft and psychicly determine who Great Satan's electile dysfunction climaxes for in Nov?

With Lebanon devoured, attacking Little Satan could very well be Persia's check move.

Til Iran gets all nukey.

Influence

Noted journalist Barbara Slavin took a break from her day gig at USA Today to honor a commission on behalf of thug hugging dialogue.

United States Institute of Peace 's Special Report (#206)

"Iran has been a significant player in the Middle East, influencing and being
influenced by its neighbors since long before the advent of the petrodollar or
the Islamic revolution of 1979. But in the past five years, Iran’s regional
power has expanded considerably.

Iran has deepened its relationships with militant factions in Iraq,
Lebanon, and Palestine and accelerated a nuclear program that could give it the
ability to make atomic weapons within the next few years.

Iran is a major, if not the major, threat to U.S. interests and U.S. allies
in the Middle East. Yet Iran’s reach remains constrained by an open-ended U.S.
military presence in the region, domestic weakness, and historic divisions
between Arabs and Persians, Sunnis and Shiites, and among Shiites.

Iran’s goals appear to be largely defensive: to achieve strategic depth and
safeguard its system against foreign intervention, to have a major say in
regional decisions, and to prevent or minimize actions that might run counter to
Iranian interests. In the service of those interests, Iran has been willing to
sacrifice many non-Iranian lives.

To achieve its goals, Iran exerts influence in three major ways: through
ties with Shiite clerics, or mullahs, financial aid for humanitarian and
political causes, and weapons and training supplied to militant groups. Much of
this support pales in comparison with U.S. contributions to American allies and
with other resources available to Iran’s partners, although Iran appears to get
(literally) more bang for its bucks.

Recipients of Iranian largesse, especially the Lebanese group Hezbollah,
are not mere proxies and appear to have considerable tactical autonomy and
influence on Iranian policies.

Many Iraqis, including Shiite groups close to Iran, are trying to hedge their
ties with Tehran by maintaining links to the United States.

So far so good. And this starts to open up some interesting possibilities.

"To contain harmful Iranian influence, the United States may have to act on
a number of fronts, working to stabilize Iraq and Lebanon and to resolve the
Arab-Israeli conflict without magnifying its own confrontation with Iran."

Interjecting Great Satan overtly into the Palestinian cause celeb for turf lost fair and square on the battlefield in desperate counter attacks would certainly make a case for pre election chicanery in the Strip. Flooding Iranian fed and funded rocket rich rejects like the HAMAS with
political choices, 'movements' and parties undreamed of in the ME could be fun and easy.

Marginalizing, disarming and electorially usurping HAMAS could then be applied to Hiz'B'Allah:

The U.S. government should consider direct talks with Iran to try to constrain
Iran’s motivation to further destabilize the region and should establish
contacts, if possible, with some of Iran’s partners to increase U.S. options, knowledge, and flexibility.

Direct talks could include several confidence building measures. Like giving up Hiz'B'Allah to Great Satan's tender clutches.

That would constrain Iran's motivations for hegemony - plus - really build up some confidence too.

Seems risque to think about direct contact as Iranian fanboys in Mahdi Army detonate explosives in innocent civilian rich environs in a democratically sovereign neighbors capitol.

Actually - a case for constant confrontation and annihiliation marginalizing Mahdi Army, Special Groups - instability, insecurity and illegitimacy - is far easier made.

Essentially - Great Satan shouldn't really care about direct contact with nuke craving, missile sprouting illegit regimes that torment their own people and their neighbors.

Illegit regimes should really care about direct contact with Great Satan.


"Crystal Ball of Vision" - Persian miniature pixed by aLi ReZa

Steady Drop

3 weeks ago the absentee leader in exile Mookie cried out for Mahdi Army and fans to throw a lo down ho down every Friday Prayer Day to protest the Iraqi gov's demands that Mahdi Army get out of the armed militia game and into the political ballots only game.

Since the inaugural kick off on 27 May - Mahdi Army's attendance has seen a steady drop in fans.


Just like magic Mahdi - Mookie disappeared and promised to return one day.

Getting chased down, gunned down and captured by the new Iraqi Army guys and Great Satan on a nigh daily basis - supporting Mookie or Mahdi Amry is being marginalized.

But Sadr’s call for demonstrations has failed to draw many
protesters.

The U.S. military released imagery of the demonstrations which occurred the
past three Fridays. The first week, the military estimated Sadr had 10,000
protesters in attendance on May 30; about 3,000 on June 6; and 1,500 today.
These numbers are paltry, as Sadr City contains an estimated 2.5 million Shia,
and his protests in 2006 would draw hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

The military also noted that some Iraqis in Sadr city were “coerced” to
join the demonstrations. “Clearly the number of participants is decreasing,”
said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Stover, the spokesman for Multinational Forces
Baghdad. “The steady drop might suggest increasing support for the GoI
[government of Iraq] and less support for Muqtada al Sadr.”

While talks in the status of forces agreements appear to have stalled due
to concerns expressed by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, it doesn’t appear
Sadr’s opposition is having much of an impact.

This is significant. AWOL Ayatollahs bring no bling. Does the ancient concept of honour and shame have a bit here?

Exhorting comrades and cadre to race to the next life instead of prepping for this one far away - safe as milk - in an especial, clerical compound in Preacher Heights in Tehran could be called shameful.

Meanwhile, grinding attrition of attitudes, battlefield reality and the hope of something better with zero fashion posses, secret police, religious police or intolerant militias may very be the honourable path to pursue.

Baitullah's House

Currents events between Talibanistan, the Land of the Pure and Afghanistan are arching towards something faster than gossip and rumours in the last 48 hours before Prom.

Pakistan's #1 Taliban fan is Baitullah Mehsud.

Playing Pakistan's newly elected gov for igmo shorties and victims, Baitullah's posse Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan is a fanclub miltia of outlaws, smugglers, slavers and time traveling intolerants that routinely bring battle from Talibanistan to insurge chaos into neighboring Afghanistan.

What does it mean? Prime Minister Hamid shares what it means (The vid is awesome - way better than the quote)

"This means that Afghanistan has the right of self defense. When they cross
the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and kill coalition troops,
it exactly gives us the right to go back and do the same. Therefore, Baitullah
Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his
house."

Baitullah's house has been converted into a missile impact area. Freshly visited by Great Satan.

This is significant. Great Satan has been launching attacks into Pakistan all year long.

Rand Corps "Counter Insurgency in Afghanistan" makes a great case that til Pakistan's lawless regions settle down - trouble with Taliban will continue. And The Land of The Pure's pussyfooting about with intolerants is fueling more instability.

Essentially, security in Afghanistan has gotten about as good as it gets.

Until those Federated No Go Zones across the border are magically transformed into combat zones with a surge on the ground - regardless or inspite of any 'negotiations' and dialogue with killers who've killed nearly 300 ppl in Pakistan since those contacts have fickled and fizziled.


Baitullah wasn't at home when the missiles hit.

Pakistan's politicians are put on the spot after assuring sovereign neighbors that having a border with Pakistan is safe as milk.(After all - since this cat claims he wacked beautiful Benazir - he might very well wack recently elected politicians).


The state must maintain the monopoly of violence. Playing politics while shielding militant intolerants while preaching to sovereign neighbors not to act out in righteousness on a prob that the Land of the Pure's pure unsovereignity can't seem to get a grip on is totally retarded.


Baitullah's house may very well be the destination that Great Britain's new surge in Afghanistan is all about.

Blitzing no go zones on foot is a "...different but very serious challenge..."

"The Taliban's campaign is now limited to intimidating Afghan communities,
coercing the vulnerable into becoming suicide bombers and carrying out brutal
and indiscriminate attacks on the International Community and above all the
Afghans themselves – men, women and children.

As their conventional attacks have failed we have seen their tactics shift
to mines, roadside bombs and suicide vests. These tactics run deeply counter to
the Afghan culture. As does the Taliban's reliance on paid foreign fighters –
the so called 'ten dollar Talibs' who now make up the majority of those doing
the fighting for them.

Taliban's new tactics pose a different but very serious challenge, both to
our forces and to the local people.

A guestimated 1/2K Taliban fanboys busted out of jail in a 'complex' attack and took over turf near Kandahar. Afghani, NATO and Great Satan have trekked and killed 27 Talibani and recaptured 20.

Taliban fanboys are now combatant bullet magnets.

The quiz is - will they break back to Pakistan for R and R or will they make a last stand in the fruit orchards of Khandahar province?

In the essential "America's Victories" (Sentinel Press, 1st Edition in black and desert sage with gold gilt) Dr Larry Schweikart preaches how Great Satan has always been unique in war - many times launching raids to free and return with American POW's.

Yankee General Stoneman's raid to Macon to free Union prisoners failed - yet a century later Colonel Mucci freed American GI's from certain death in the Philippines in the 'Great Raid."

"In our more than 200 year history, not one of our opponents - not even the
British - conducted a raid, or made any attempt whatsoever to free their own
prisoners. That is an astounding comment on the American way of war."

Taliban's jailbreak is also a comment on a move that proves that either Taliban is adapting Great Satan's 'leave no comrade behind' edict, or is running awful shy on volitguers, or is getting semi pro military advice from Pakistan sympathizers launching a diversion to catch some breathing space after NATO attacks into Pakistan's magical no go zones.

Tipping Point

In all asymmetric wars there comes a time when the tide definitely turns against one side or the other. History, or the gods of Mount Olympus, get tired of the game and decide to pick a winner.

Military experts call it the tipping point. This does not mean that all fighting suddenly comes to a halt. Nor does it mean that the loser would necessarily throw in the towel. What it means is that after the “tipping point”, the loser has no prospect of restoring the balance of power without which no war continues for long.

In Algeria, the tipping point came in 1995 with its first free multi-candidate presidential election.

The tipping point Iraq, too, came with the election, that produced the country’s first freely chosen government under Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. All terrorist and reactionary forces had pooled their resources to make sure those elections won’t happen. The courage of the Iraqi people proved stronger.

However, in 2005 not many shared this view because the debate over Iraq had sharply divided the world before the war had begun. Unconsciously, many people of goodwill wanted new Iraq to fail, which meant a win for terrorists; not because they loved Al Qaeda but because they hated George W Bush.

Now that the Bush presidency moves towards its close, many opponents of new Iraq, especially in the West and Arab countries, are beginning to admit that new Iraq is not failing.

Some are even expressing joy about the fact that Al Qaeda and Jaish al-Mahdi and other terror gangs have been defeated.

As long as Bush doesn’t get the credit, all is OK. Maybe President Barack Obama will end up claiming credit for the success in a speech in Baghdad, ending with a phrase in Arabic: I am a Baghdadi! Since Obama sees himself as a new John F Kennedy, he would have no qualms about imitating JFK who ended a speech in Berlin with the famous phrase: Ich bin ein Berliner!

Anyway, what matters is that today even the most determined critics of the war are beginning to admit, albeit grudgingly, that Iraq might not be the quagmire they have claimed it was since 2003.

Even Obama now admits that although there are not “many good options” in Iraq, there may be some!

One such good option, of course, is to remain committed until new Iraq’s institutions are solidified, its security fully assured, and its economy put back on track.

All that is the good news.

Now for the bad news; yes, as always and everywhere, there is some.

The elections that gave the new system legitimacy, thus helping bring about the tipping point, is beginning to fade in Iraqi memories. In a democracy, mandates need to be renewed, sometimes faster than the governing elite hopes. The “one man, one vote, once “scheme has no place in democracy.

The Iraqi parliament and government are fast approaching their sell-by date. (Many believe they have passed it).

This should not be taken as a criticism of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki whom history is likely to remember as a courageous leader in a difficult time. However, successful or unsuccessful, the incumbents need to be put to the test of popular will again and soon.

There are several reasons for this.

First, the last two elections were, in fact, census operations on a national scale. They were designed to reveal the relative strength of the ethnic and religious communities that together make up the Iraqi nation. The system of voting for lists of candidates was inevitable in a country that had never had free elections and had lived under the most brutal dictatorship since 1958. People could not know individual candidates because Saddam Hussein had not allowed anyone to acquire a political profile.

Now, however, political parties of all description, from monarchist to communist and passing by nationalist, liberal, conservative, Islamist and socialist, have had five years in which to make themselves known and build a support base. In Iraq today, it is possible to vote for party programmes rather than bloc lists of ethnic and/or religious identity.

Second, the list of candidates fielded last time included a disproportionate number of former exiles. That, too, was inevitable because outsiders had had more opportunities to make a name than those inside Iraq. Now, however, a new generation of politicians, homegrown, younger and closer to the reality on the ground is available, and keen, to play a bigger role.

Third, the system of proportional representation used in the previous elections is no longer suitable.

What Iraq needs is a new system under which voters could have a direct relationship with their representatives. This means a system of single, or multi-member constituencies, so that people know whom they are electing.

In proportional representation, party bosses decide who should stand and who should not. This encourages loyalty to the party, rather than the country. The system, which excludes non-party independents, is even bad for parties because it helps promote “yes-men” rather than those who favour debate and dissent.

Fourth, new elections are needed to cut out some of the deadwood in the political elite.

This elite includes some truly embarrassing figures. There are members of parliament who hardly attended a session, content to pocket the fat salary, get hold of the bulletproof limousine, and secure lucrative posts for nephews and cousins. Some spend more time in London and Paris than Baghdad.

Since Iraq is preparing for municipal elections, it could broaden the exercise by including a general election for a new parliament. The ideal time would be at the end of this year or in the fist week of January while George W Bush is still in office and the US commitment beyond question. Even if John McCain succeeds Bush, the Senate and the Congress are likely to be dominated by Democrats, a party whose engine right now is the anti-war network dedicated to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq.

With a new parliament and government in place in Baghdad, backed by a new and stronger popular mandate, the passionate seekers of defeat in the US would find it harder to impose their weird obsession on the new president in Washington.

submitted by AmIr

Papa

Thanks Papa.

For EvErYtHiNg!


ILY

Old Glory Day

14 June is Old Glory Day. Proclaimed by Great Satan's only nuclear regime changer, August 3rd, 1949, President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th of each year as National Flag Day.

"This famous name was coined by Captain William Driver, a shipmaster of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1831. As he was leaving on one of his many voyages aboard the brig CHARLES DOGGETT - and this one would climax with the rescue of the mutineers of the BOUNTY - some friends presented him with a beautiful flag of twenty four stars. As the banner opened to the ocean breeze for the first time, he exclaimed "Old Glory!"

He retired to Nashville in 1837, taking his treasured flag from his sea days with him. By the time the Civil War erupted, most everyone in and around Nashville recognized Captain Driver's "Old Glory." When Tennesee seceded from the Union, Rebels were determined to destroy his flag, but repeated searches revealed no trace of the hated banner.

Then on February 25th, 1862, Union forces captured Nashville and raised the American flag over the capital. It was a rather small ensign and immediately folks began asking Captain Driver if "Old Glory" still existed. Happy to have soldiers with him this time, Captain Driver went home and began ripping at the seams of his bedcover. As the stitches holding the quilt-top to the batting unraveled, the onlookers peered inside and saw the 24-starred original "Old Glory"!

Captain Driver gently gathered up the flag and returned with the soldiers to the capitol. Though he was sixty years old, the Captain climbed up to the tower to replace the smaller banner with his beloved flag. The Sixth Ohio Regiment cheered and saluted - and later adopted the nickname "Old Glory" as their own, telling and re-telling the story of Captain Driver's devotion to the flag we honor yet today.

Captain Driver's grave is located in the old Nashville City Cemetery, and is one of three (3) places authorized by act of Congress where the Flag of the United States may be flown 24 hours a day"

Shout out to Kevin at Amboy Times who has 2 killer cool vids about Old Glory.

How Iraq Got Her Groove On

America is very close to succeeding in Iraq. The "near-strategic defeat" of al Qaeda in Iraq described by CIA Director Michael Hayden last month in the Washington Post has been followed by the victory of the Iraqi government's security forces over illegal Shiite militias, including Iranian-backed Special Groups.

The enemies of Iraq and America now cling desperately to their last bastions, while the political process builds momentum.

These tremendous gains remain fragile and could be lost to skillful enemy action, or errors in Baghdad or Washington. But where the U.S. was unequivocally losing in Iraq at the end of 2006, we are just as unequivocally winning today.

By February 2008, America and its partners accomplished a series of tasks thought to be impossible. The Sunni Arab insurgency and al Qaeda in Iraq were defeated in Anbar, Diyala and Baghdad provinces, and the remaining leaders and fighters clung to their last urban outpost in Mosul.

The Iraqi government passed all but one of the "benchmark" laws (the hydrocarbon law being the exception, but its purpose is now largely accomplished through the budget) and was integrating grass-roots reconciliation with central political progress. The sectarian civil war had ended.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), swelled by 100,000 new recruits in 2007, was fighting hard and skillfully throughout Iraq. The Shiite-led government was showing an increasing willingness to use its forces even against Shiite militias. The announcement that provincial elections would be held by year's end galvanized political movements across the country, focusing Iraq's leaders on the need to get more votes rather than more guns.

Three main challenges to security and political progress remained: clearing al Qaeda out of Mosul; bringing Basra under the Iraqi government's control; and eliminating the Special Groups safe havens in Sadr City. It seemed then that these tasks would require enormous effort, entail great loss of life, and take the rest of the year or more. Instead, the Iraqi government accomplished them within a few months.

The war is not over. Enemy groups are reforming, rearming and preparing new attacks. Al Qaeda in Iraq will conduct spectacular attacks in 2008 wherever it can. Special Groups and their JAM affiliates will probably reconstitute within a few months and launch new offensives timed to influence both the American and Iraqi elections in the fall.

And for all its progress and success, the ISF is not yet able to stand on its own. Coalition forces continue to play key support roles, maintaining stability and security in cleared but threatened areas, and serving as impartial and honest brokers between Iraqi groups working toward reconciliation.

But success is in sight. Compared with the seemingly insurmountable obstacles already overcome, the remaining challenges in Iraq are eminently solvable – if we continue to pursue a determined strategy that builds on success rather than throwing our accomplishments away.

No one in December 2006 could have imagined how far we would have come in 18 months. Having come this far, we must see this critical effort through to the end.

submitted by KiMbErLy

Look for Kimberly's new book ""The Surge: A Military History," forthcoming from Encounter Books.

Rebranding

Brit Cats Edward Beaman and Douglas Murray recently explored the idea of rebranding neoconservatism since the term has nearly lost all meaning or identification among true believers.

"For left and right, neoconservatism has laid down the case which needs
answering. Ideologically it has few competitors and there is no school that
unifies people from such a wide range of the political spectrum.

That said, we might have to avoid flaunting the term around for a while. There’s
no doubt that the willful misrepresentations and misunderstanding of what
neoconservatism is, as well as the desire to pin the strategic mistakes made in
Iraq on the neocons have combined to blacken the term."

Willfull (and unknowledgable) misreps like old War Between the States Confauxderates that are flat out scared to death of long dead bolsheviks, or blatant daydream deceivers - even drive by players who are totally bass ackwards in the intelligentsia biz.

GB's FoSec the Right Honourable (and right Hot! ) David Milliband first cracked ice with a name change with the awsome ''Democratic Imperatives." Sweet! Though as Murray reminds us - the name may not be important.

Yet a catchy title with a hook would be nice too, right?

Great Satan's delectable Sec Of State (no shame in her game!) unveiled a killer cool title that infers a real look at where Great Satan has been in the last 8 years - and where she's headed into the new millennium.

Foreign Affairs shares her massive essay called "American Realism for a New World."

This is significant. Dr Rice, the original Vulcan (along with ex Sec of State Powell, ex Dep Def Sec Wolfowitz, ex Def Sec Rumsfeld, ex Dep State Sec Armitage and the ever avuncular VP Cheney) takes a page from the critics book and rebrands realism ala American neoconservatism and those crazy cool true believers in democrazy, Great Satan's unique status in the world and what Uncle Tony called the Universal Values of the Human Spirit.

Enclosed, please find a wicked sweet tease or twelve to satiate desires - both subtle and gross.

"The process of democratization is likely to be messy and unsatisfactory, but it
is absolutely necessary. Democracy, it is said, cannot be imposed, particularly
by a foreign power. This is true but beside the point. It is more likely that
tyranny has to be imposed.

The story today is rarely one of peoples resisting the basics of democracy --
the right to choose those who will govern them and other basic freedoms. It is,
instead, about people choosing democratic leaders and then becoming impatient
with them and holding them accountable on their duty to deliver a better life.

It is strongly in our national interest to help sustain these leaders,
support their countries' democratic institutions, and ensure that their new
governments are capable of providing for their own security, especially when
their nations have experienced crippling conflicts.

What about the broader Middle East, the arc of states that stretches from
Morocco to Pakistan? The Bush administration's approach to this region has been
its most vivid departure from prior policy. But our approach is, in reality, an
extension of traditional tenets -- incorporating human rights and the promotion
of democratic development into a policy meant to further our national interest.

What is exceptional is that the Middle East was treated as an exception for
so many decades. U.S. policy there focused almost exclusively on stability.
There was little dialogue, certainly not publicly, about the need for democratic
change.

For six decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, a
basic bargain defined the United States' engagement in the broader Middle East:
we supported authoritarian regimes, and they supported our shared interest in
regional stability.

After September 11, it became increasingly clear that this old bargain had
produced false stability. There were virtually no legitimate channels for
political expression in the region. But this did not mean that there was no
political activity. There was -- in madrasahs and radical mosques.

It is no wonder that the best-organized political forces were extremist
groups. And it was there, in the shadows, that al Qaeda found the troubled souls
to prey on and exploit as its foot soldiers in its millenarian war against the
"far enemy."

One response would have been to fight the terrorists without addressing
this underlying cause. Perhaps it would have been possible to manage these
suppressed tensions for a while. Indeed, the quest for justice and a new
equilibrium on which the nations of the broader Middle East are now embarked is
very turbulent.

But is it really worse than the situation before? Worse than when Lebanon
suffered under the boot of Syrian military occupation? Worse than when the
self-appointed rulers of the Palestinians personally pocketed the world's
generosity and squandered their best chance for a two-state peace?

Worse than when the international community imposed sanctions on innocent Iraqis
in order to punish the man who tyrannized them, threatened Iraq's neighbors, and
bulldozed 300,000 human beings into unmarked mass graves?

Or worse than the decades of oppression and denied opportunity that spawned
hopelessness, fed hatreds, and led to the sort of radicalization that brought
about the ideology behind the September 11 attacks? Far from being the model of
stability that some seem to remember, the Middle East from 1945 on was wracked
repeatedly by civil conflicts and cross-border wars.

Our current course is certainly difficult, but let us not romanticize the
old bargains of the Middle East -- for they yielded neither justice nor
stability.

"American Realism for a New World" is a clever name change - rebranding, revamping for future world and America Unbound while knocking the sword right out of the hands of anti Great Satan fans.

Like Beaman and Murray shared -

"But it doesn’t really matter what we call it. There’s never much point in
arguing over nomenclature.

What matters is that the case for democracy and universal rights as well as
the refutation of the lies and misunderstandings of our enemies – at home and
broad – continues. Most people who engage in this will not call themselves
neoconservatives. Many of them will not realize that is what they are.

That is fine. What matters is that the case is made – unashamedly,
unapologetically and by as many people as possible."

"Proper Position"

Iraq's PM al Maliki just returned from a meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader. Flush from a winning hand of 'Who's your Daddy' in Basra and helping transform the No Go Zones in Sadr City into combat zones that has marginalized, and repeatedly defeated the mullahs minion militia Mahdi Army into losers in front of the entire ME.

The wicked old jumped up Ayatollah Khamenei knew very well that Great Satan was behind the green curtain as the raison de etre for the recent stymification that was queering the mix for establishment of a Persian dominated crescent from Iran to the Med.

Lebanon couldn't resist Iran's domination game with Hiz'B'Allah. Of course, Lebanon isn't chock full of the uparmored sons of Great Satan either. A fact that seemed to weigh heavy on the old man's mind.

Supreme Leader must have forgot he was hooking up with a free Arab PM (hey - to be fair - Al Maliki is like only the 2nd free PM in Arab history ever) because he acted out like he was addressing a rep from unfree lands where truth is rebranded to fit the needs of unelected, illegit regimes.

''A foreign agent which wants to dominate the Iraqi affairs is the most
important obstacle against the progress and prosperity of the Iraqi nation

"Occupiers who are interfering in the Iraqi affairs with their military and
security power without any mandate are the biggest problem of the country."

Realizing that Iranian fanboys like Mahdi Army or Badr Corps (that just got their assets handed to them in recent Iraqi sovereignity ops), or the AQ gangsters (that made everybody in Iraq sick to death of their retarded time traveling efforts to establish some kind of 8th century horrificaliphate in An Bar and Mosul) had no mandate, Supreme Leader made sure lottie dottie everybody knew he meant Great Satan.

"The Iraqi nation will pass the current tight situation and reach its proper
position through unity. America's dreams would certainly fail."

It is the 140K+ skoal chomping, ray bann wearing, M16 toting, globestomping heathen hellions with catchy terms like "Anger Management' painted on the side of their 120mm M 1 Abrahm (named after an ancient armored regime changer) panzers that is jamming up the plan for unifying all of Iraq under Tehran's banner.

This is significant. Since Iran's hegemonic designs for Iraq are sucking totally in a military fullfilling fullfillment Iran may now attempt a PR campaign to remove the 2 tonne (as Beaman would say) hand grenade from their flip flop sandles.

Tehran's Preacher Command's well aware they are in easy range of precision, intelligent weaponry in the hands the most expert, most humanitarian, best armed, trained, led and experienced regime changers ever in history that magically appeared, trashed their despotic calamitous neighbor, wiped clean and drew again the face of society held captive since birth and now grow rowdy and restless after killing killers, enforcing the states monopoly on violence over foreign and private intolerant armed 'movements' that violated any legitimacy granted in previous elections by acquiring, deploying and field using heavy weaponry - the very def of usurping a state's legitimacy.

Iraqi PM Al Maliki tried to reassure the old Ayatollah that Great Satan in the hood was safe as milk -

"We will not allow Iraq to become a platform for harming the security of
Iran and its neighbors"

Iraq is delivering a very real message to her neighbors. And for meddling neighbors.

Meddling neighbors that try and stick their bloody fingers into their neighbors sweetly oiled up little pies most likely wind up as meddling neighbors that draw back bloody stumps too.

Smokescreens about a Force Stat agreement - Iran's dossier on it actually credits to NYT for sourcing which BTW credits Iran.

Super smart CIA military think tank spy guy (Oh! He got game!) Dr Kenneth Pollack got righteously psychic in the ever essential "Persian Puzzle"

Essentially - Tehran has faith they are the world's best chess masters at playing the electile dysfunction year.

Articles of Faith like how the Grand Old Ayatollah Khomeini himself defied Great Satan - and xformed Pres Carter into Ex Pres Carter - exiled to humanitarian causes - lately alledgedly afflicted in a pitiful thug hugging blitz and foreign funded, bizarro map stealing dotage.

Supreme Leader's proper position views Iraq like a diamond on a ring in an arc from Persia to the Med.

Security is an admittedly high concern with Great Satan crunk and disorderly right next door in Afghanistan, Azerbajain, Iraq and Persian Gulf.

Currently - Proper position?

Great Satan is large and in charge - in the hood, all about the house and liable to break out the regime killing regime change any night she wants.