Victor Davis Hanson points out that “surging,” i.e., significantly increasing, US troop strength in Iraq needs to be accompanied by new rules of engagement and a more aggressive approach.

Putting Iran and Syria on notice that we will bomb terrorists flocking across their borders.

Give an ultimatum to militia heads, especially Moqtadar Sadr, to disband or face annihilation from the United States.

Expand the rules of engagement in all matters dealing with IEDs, with a shoot on sight rule concerning anyone found implanting or aiding such efforts.

Enlarge the planned Iraqi security forces to near 400,000, and embed far more Americans in those units.

Recalibrate the ratio of support to combat troops, so that we don’t simply create bigger compounds to facilitate larger troop levels to end up with more stationary and more numerous targets—and ever more enclaves of Americans behind thousands of acres of bermed reserves.

So spell out the mission, the new rules of engagement, and then, and only then, surge—if need be— more troops.

Russ Vaughn has some reflections on Vietnam War draft resistance that would do a lot of my classmates good to read.

I have just read a mea culpa by Vietnam War protestor, novelist and poet, Pat Conroy, who possesses the literary skills to express what I am willing to bet many other older American males, his former brothers at the barricades, also feel, but lack the skills and the honesty to articulate. It is left to men like the politically born again David Horowitz and novelist Conroy to speak for these old troupers of the Left’s long-haired legions, to reveal their long hidden recognition that they were possibly misguided in their protesting but more often than most will ever admit, motivated more by fear of serving in combat than by any sense of moral/political rectitude.

Milbrook, UK

Auto Express has been playing with Google Earth and has found ten of the most covert manufacturers’ test tracks.

Travis Patriquin, an Army Captain serving in Iraq, who was killed last Wednesday by the same IED which killed Marine Corps Major Megan McClung, previously prepared a Powerpoint presentation outlining a different strategy for success from that currently being employed.

His “”How to Win in Al Anbar” is reported by ABC News to have achieved a large informal circulation.

Patriquin killed.

PJM reports:

Broadcasting from a secret location in Syria, Al-Qaeda and its allies now have their own 24-hour television station, Pajamas Media has learned.

Known as Al-Zawraa, Arabic for “first channel,” the station broadcasts enemy propaganda and rebroadcasts of Western anti-war material, including Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. It is not connected with Al-Jazeera.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is delighted by al-Zawraa. A U.S. military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media that the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Masri, “has long-term and big plans for this thing.” Previous attempts by al-Qaeda to set up media propaganda outlets have been limited to satellite radio and the Internet. Al-Zawraa, however, is seemingly well financed and striving for a broader appeal….

The programming originates from Syria, where its main backer, Mishaan al-Jabouri, a well-known Sunni Baathist agitator and former Iraqi parliamentarian, recently fled to escape an Iraqi arrest warrant for suspected corruption and embezzlement. He initially set the station up in Tikrit, Iraq, but in early November its studio was raided by authorities and closed down for incitement.

Al-Jabouri, who in Damascus during the final years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, is widely believed to have forged close ties with Saddam’s intelligence services. More recently, he has been linked to al-Qaeda.

The speed with which al-Zawraa was able to resume its transmissions from Syria and Nilesat after the raid on the Tikrit station is unusual, according to Sennitt. Moreover, the reach of al-Zawraa’s broadcasts indicates that the station is attempting to influence viewers far beyond Iraq.

Government officials tell Pajamas Media that they are trying to remove al-Zawraa from the airwaves. Jim Turner, deputy director of Defense Press Operations, told Pajamas Media in an e-mail that this is the State Department’s decision because “they are the department of the US Government that would interact with another country on such an issue.”

In turn, a State Department official told Pajamas Media, “We are strongly supporting the Iraqi efforts to work with the Egyptians to get this off the air.” The State Department’s comment seems designed to avoid diplomatic fallout, since Egypt’s control of Nilesat would allow it to stop al-Zawraa’s signal.

Turning off al Zawaraa without Egypt’s help would be nearly impossible. Jamming its signal may prove difficult since the physical location of the signal’s feed would need to be located and, according to Sennitt, it could be anywhere. “All that’s needed is a dish pointing at the satellite, and a transmitter on the correct uplink frequency. The satellite will carry whatever signal it receives.”

Wouldn’t the unexpected arrival of a cruise missile work very nicely at turning it off?

The comedian does a brief monologue on Fox News.

2:39 video

Hat tip to Tom Delay.

Those who were relieved when incoming democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi, under pressure, reconsidered her first choice for House Intelligence Committee chairman, and refrained from appointed Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings, who was previously removed from the federal bench for corruption, are worrying again.

Canada Free Press reports:

Law enforcement and intelligence experts are scratching their heads in disbelief upon discovering that the next House Intelligence Committee Chairman doesn’t possess even a basic understanding of terrorism or terrorist groups. In fact, he’s never heard of Hezbollah.

Representative Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), who was Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s second choice to head the sensitive and vital committee, did not know what Hezbollah was and incorrectly described Al-Qaeda as being Shiite rather than Sunni.

Rep. Reyes appeared disoriented when a reporter asked him basic questions about the Islamic groups that are the principal targets of America’s intelligence agencies, including Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and others.

“Al-Qa’eda is what — Sunni or Shia?” Jeff Stein, the Congressional Quarterly magazine’s national security editor, asked Mr Reyes. “Al-Qaeda, they have both,” replied Reyes.

“You’re talking about predominately?”Predominantly — probably Shiite,” said the puzzled Democrat from Texas.

As Mr. Stein noted in his CQ column, “He couldn’t have been more wrong. Al-Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an Al-Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.”

He also asked Reyes about the terrorist group Hezbollah. “Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah…” he said, laughing. “Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

“This is no laughing matter. Where was this man when Israel and Hezbollah battled for almost two weeks?” asked a former intelligence officer and now New York City detective.

“We went from an impeached judge to a man ignorant of the basic facts regarding terrorist groups. What kind of oversight will that be?” he added.

Some NCO’s discuss their own experiences with ROE in Iraq. Food for thought.

Scenario: You’re a gunner on an M2 .50 caliber machine gun mounted atop a M1114 Up-Armored HMMWV. You are the last vehicle and you are pulling rear security. A vehicle in the distance is swerving through traffic on a mission from God and closing on your convoy quickly. You wave your arms to get the driver’s attention to no avail. You yell obscenities at the crazy Iraqi while drawing down on the vehicle with your large caliber, fully automatic, machine gun. Hell, you even throw your water bottle hoping to get the hood on a bounce. Nothing. You notice a male driver who appears to be gripping the wheel a little too tight and who has beads of sweat forming on his brow. You realize that this could be trouble. But… to complicate the matter, there is a woman (presumably his wife) and 4 children in the car as well. The vehicle is fast approaching… and you have a mere second to react. Your buddy’s, nay, family’s lives are on the line behind you. They trust you to make the right decision. What do you do?

Option 1: Warning shots. Sure. Can work. Collateral damage becomes an issue, and high ranking military personnel HATE such paperwork.

Option 2: Wait it out. This choice is putting the lives of a “civilian” before the lives of your military “family.” I wholeheartedly disagree with this choice, but it keeps you out of Leavenworth.

Option 3: Stop the vehicle by any means necessary. Shoot ‘em up and ensure the safety of your family who depends on you.

Some naughty little middle school kid (a lot like me) in Joliet, in the conspicuously hoplophophic state of Illinois, brought a pellet-gun (a species of non-terribly-hazardous airgun) to school. Young Ryan Morgan (and an associate) learned of the presence of the contraband, and went and retrieved it from its cached location and turned it in to the authorities.

The same pettyfogging and nincompoop authorities gave Ryan the local Pavel Morozhov Award for Political Correctness, expelling him from school for a year on the basis of the school’s “zero tolerance” policy on the theory that he was technically “in possession” of the pellet gun.

Warner Todd Huston is shocked and appalled by the injustice, but I think there is a good lesson in all of this for young Ryan.

——————

A few years back, when I still lived in Newtown, Connecticut, that Northern Fairfield County community was subjected to a wave of terror in which hormonally-incited teenage males were shooting little holes in some windows with the same dreadful and awe-inspiring pellet guns.

The local forces of social uplift demanded condign action against the wielders of allegedly lethal instruments of destruction, and a new wave of legislation was in the works when I lodged a demurral in the local paper, pointing out that CO2-powered pellet guns were considerably less than lethal to life forms larger than squirrels. Someone prominent in the League of Women Vipers attempted to argue that airguns were dangerous to life. So, I issued a challenge, offering to provide a typical .22 caliber, CO2-cannister-powered airgun, and to stand at 25 feet (7.62 meters) facing my adversary, and allow her to shoot me anywhere she liked, provided I could wear eye protection.

If I died from my injuries, I would leave $500 to the charity of her choice. If I survived, she would be obliged to donate an equivalent sum to the National Rifle Association.

Curiously enough, the lady declined the wager.

WorldNetDaily publishes things I quote myself. Imagine my embarassment at running into today’s column direct from the fever swamps.

Jim Rutz, who seems to be not only a whackjob, but a snake-oil-selling evangelist and author of a number of The-End-of-the-World-Is-Right-Around-The-Corner books, thinks that soy beans make you queer.

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.” No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.

I eat edamame all the time at sushi restaurants myself without observable effect.

WorldNetDaily, please clean up your act, and get rid of these kinds of clowns.

Try the game Left Behind.

Godless heathens in San Francisco don’t like this one.

Dutch Insurance Commercial with Oriental setting.

video

Apparently, Centraal Beheer‘s commercials are famous for their humor.