Norm Mineta is resigning as Secretary of Transportation July 17th. Good! But not soon enough.

Under Mineta, the irrational prejudice against Americans defending themselves on air flights continued, and politically-correct safety measures reached levels previously unsurpassed. White-haired grannies were scrupulously searched in order to avoid ethnic profiling.

The Mineta regime’s rent-a-cop insanity reached its ultimate expression in 2002, when in Phoenix, 87-year-old WWII-hero and former governor of South Dakota Joe Foss was detained and had his Medal of Honor confiscated.

Foreign and domestic news agencies are reporting that the US Marine Corps has charged seven Marines and a Navy sailor with murder over the death of an Iraqi civilian.

BBC News

———————————–
Crosspatch (a neighbor here in California) recently commented on the work already done by bloggers to investigate the irresponsible coverage of this matter in the MSM.

I have seen bloggers spending hours of their own time digging, fact checking, comparing, and publishing their findings for peer review and discussion. These are people that have jobs and other things in their lives that place demands on their time and energy but have answered what is apparently to them the call of an important mission, a call of duty.

While professional journalists should be doing the work that is being done by members of the general public in trying to get the story straight, we are already seeing results. Respected media giants such as Time are beginning to back off of some of their initial claims and distance themselves from initial sources.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am simply in awe. This spontaneous and most honest display of devotion by members of our community for our service members in seeing they get a fair shake is enough to make an old grouch misty.

Those troops are at risk every day defending us and it is wonderful to see such an outpouring of support when we have a chance to defend them in return. There are too many people out there doing whatever they can to list because I am afraid of leaving someone out and thereby diminishing their contribution, but they know who they are and honestly, it is events such as this that make me proud to be an American.

This is a real living example of the love and devotion America has for their armed forces members. If someone is going to make accusations that would bring dishonor on the institution of our military, they are going to need to run a gauntlet of ordinary Americans who are going to want to make darned sure they have done their homework first.

Unlike times not so far in the past, we now live in an America that really does support its troops, in both word and deed.

To those of you spending your own time and effort on this issue, I thank you with all my heart.

The battle will continue.

Democrats continually repeat the Big Lie that the US Invasion of Iraq was based on administration falsehoods about Weapons of Mass Destruction which did not exist. Good evidence of the hasty evacuation by truck and airplane of something to Syria are studiously ignored.

Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) disclosed today in a press conference on Fox News that an unclassified portion of a US intelligence report reveals that US forces have found 500 artillery shells containing sarin or mustard gas.

video at Allahpundit.

transcript at Instapundit.

Terrorists in Iraq, wearing no uniforms, recently violated the laws of war by the barbarous murder of two US soldiers.

AP:

The U.S. military recovered the booby-trapped bodies of two missing soldiers Tuesday, and Iraqi officials said the Americans were tortured and killed in a “barbaric” way. An insurgent group claimed the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq executed the men personally…

“Coalition forces had to carefully maneuver their way through numerous improvised explosive devices leading up to and around the site,” the military said in a statement. “Insurgents attempting to inflict additional casualties had placed IEDs around the bodies.”

A number of the usual offenders from the Blogosphere have taken this occasion, when we should all be voicing our indignation at the conduct of the enemy, and wishing our troops success in hunting the malefactors down and exacting vengeance, instead to strike moralizing poses and quote grave legal opinions, informing us of imaginary obligations to avoid excessive injury to the enemy.

Stephen Bainbridge turns to Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England:

Islamofascist terrorists will use torture regardless of whether the US responds in kind or not…

The Anglo-American tradition, according to the great English jurist William Blackstone, includes a “prohibition not only of killing and maiming, but also of torturing (to which our laws are strangers).” We thus ought to abstain from torture simply because a prohibition of torture is part of the moral and legal heritage we are fighting to defend.

Andrew Sullivan gets carried away with himself to the point of spouting treason, attributing to us moral equivalence with this particularly vicious and cowardly enemy.

One can only wish that Andrew Sullivan would go out to a workingman’s bar, and repeat exactly the same sentiments, in order to give some right-thinking American the opportunity to rebuke them in the most appropriate fashion.

My point is that we can no longer unequivocally condemn the torture of these two soldiers because we have endorsed and practised torture ourselves. What was once a difference in kind between us and our enemy is now a difference in degree. That fact profoundly weakens our moral standing in the world, the power of our cause, and impedes the long-run success in the war of ideas that the war on terror involves.

Gregory Djerejian contributes additional sanctimony.

Clearly, when American soldiers are tortured, murdered, and multilated by illegal combatants, the decision of just how the perpetrators should be punished, were the perpetrators of that outrage so unfortunate as to fall alive into the hands of US forces, ought to be the perogative of the local American commander. Politicians should not interfere, and the opinions of domestically-based law professors, corporate attorneys, and old ladies are completely beside the point.

The Laws of England and the Laws of the United States have not a thing to do with any of this. War takes place outside the jurisdiction of civilian law, and the murderers of Privates Menchaca and Tucker have no claim whatsoever to the privileges and immunities of the US legal system nor the least pretence to a right to be treated as prisoners of war.

They are unlawful combatants, and are eggregiously guilty of violating the customs and usages of war. Their lives ought to be regarded as forfeit, and the only questions a US commander on the scene ought to be asking himself in the event of their capture are: what form of execution would be regarded as most disagreeable by primitives infatuated with Islamic superstition? and, what would make the most dramatic impression, and provide the greatest deterrence to future outrages?

The British avenged the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 by tying the mutineers to the muzzles of cannons, which were then fired. Surely, we can do better today.

The two US soldiers murdered by barbarians are being avenged.

Centcom issued a press release this morning:

COALITION FORCES DETAIN SENIOR AL-QAIDA IN IRAQ NETWORK MEMBER

BAGHDAD — Coalition forces detained a senior al-Qaida in Iraq network member and three suspected terrorists during coordinated raids southwest of Baqubah June 19.

The terrorist is reportedly a senior al-Qaida cell leader throughout central Iraq, north of Baghdad. He’s known to be involved in facilitating foreign terrorists throughout central Iraq, and is suspected of having ties to previous attacks on Coalition and Iraqi forces.

Coalition forces secured multiple buildings and detained the known terrorist plus three suspected terrorists without incident. Troops found an AK-47 with several magazines of ammunition and destroyed them all on site.

Several women and children were present at the raid sites. None were harmed and all were returned to their homes once the troops ensured the area was secure.

The BBC reports:

Gen Caldwell said on Tuesday US forces had killed Zarqawi’s “right-hand man” in a raid in Yusifiya on Friday, near where the US troops were abducted.

The general said Iraqi Mansur Suleiman al-Mashhadani was “a key leader in al-Qaeda” and could have succeeded Zarqawi.

The US also said it had killed 15 “terrorists” in an “extremely long firefight” in Bushahin, north of Baquba.

Captain Ed has the most recent information:

CENTCOM announced minutes ago that one of the men expected to take the place of the now-room temperature Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has also reached thermal equilibrium near Baghdad. The spokesman for the military briefed reporters on the death of Sheikh Mansur, displaying before and after mug shots of the dead terrorist and explained his significance to the insurgent network in Iraq. So far, none of the wire services have picked up the story; I will fill in the details as they become available.

Jim Dunnigan’s Strategy Page offers an insider’s assessment of the developing situation.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has been virtually wiped out by the loss of an address book. The death of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was not as important as the capture of his address book and other planning documents in the wake of the June 7th bombing. U.S. troops are trained to quickly search for names and addresses when they stage a raid, pass that data on to a special intelligence cell, which then quickly sorts out which of the addresses should be raided immediately, before the enemy there can be warned that their identity has been compromised. More information is obtained in those raids, and that generates more raids. So far, the June 7th strike has led to over 500 more raids. There have been so many raids, that there are not enough U.S. troops to handle it, and over 30 percent of the raids have been carried by Iraqi troops or police, with no U.S. involvement. Nearly a thousand terrorist suspects have been killed or captured. The amount of information captured has overwhelmed intelligence organizations in Iraq, and more translators and analysts are assisting, via satellite link, from the United States and other locations.

Perhaps the most valuable finds have been al Qaeda planning documents confirming what has been suspected of terrorist strategy. Also valuable have been the al Qaeda assessment of their situation in Iraq. The terrorist strategy is one of desperation. While the effort continues, to attempt to trigger a civil war between Sunni and Shia in Iraq, this is seen as a losing proposition. The new strategy attempts to trigger a war between the United States and Iran. This would weaken the United States, and put the hurt on Iran, an arch-enemy of al Qaeda. Other documents stressed the need to manipulate Moslem and Western media. This was to be done by starting rumors of American atrocities, and feeding the media plausible supporting material. Al Qaeda’s attitude was that if they could not win in reality, they could at least win imaginary battles via the media.

Zarqawi considered al Qaeda’s situation in Iraq as “bleak.” The most worrisome development was the growing number of trained Iraqi soldiers and police. These were able to easily spot the foreigners who made up so much of al Qaeda’s strength. Moreover, more police and soldiers in an area meant some local civilians would feel safe enough to report al Qaeda activity. The result of all this is that there are far fewer foreign Arabs in Iraq fighting for al Qaeda. The terrorist organization has basically been taken over anti-government Sunni Arabs. That made the capture of Zarqawi even more valuable, as his address book contained a who’s who of the anti-government Sunni Arab forces. This group has been hurt badly by last week’s raids.

The government deployed two infantry divisions and over 40,000 police in and around Baghdad to prevent “revenge” attacks by terrorists not yet rounded up by the growing wave of raids. Al Qaeda has announced an increased number of attacks. These have not occurred, although it is believed that more attacks are possible, as many attacks in various stages of preparation can be rushed forward before they are aborted by a raiding soldiers or police. At the moment, most al Qaeda members appear to be scrambling for new hiding places.

The damage done by the post- Zarqawi raids has spurred the Sunni Arab amnesty negotiations. These have been stalled for months over the issue of how many Sunni Arabs, with “blood on their hands”, should get amnesty. Letting the killers walk is a very contentious issue. There are thousands of Sunni Arabs involved here. The latest government proposal is to give amnesty to most of the Sunni Arabs who have just killed foreigners (mainly Americans). Of course, this offer was placed on the table without any prior consultations with the Americans. Naturally, such a deal would be impossible to sell back in the United States. But the Iraqis believe they could get away with it if it brought forth a general surrender of the Sunni Arab anti-government forces. The Iraqis, after all, are more concerned with Iraqi politics, than with what happens in the United States. Iraqi leaders believe that the U.S. has no choice by to continue supporting Iraqi pacification efforts. However, the spectacle of amnestied Sunni Arabs bragging to Arab, European and American reporters about how they killed Americans, might have interesting repercussions.

From goodbye_natalie

(Sung to the tune of Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl)

Hey where did he go,
Days when the bombs came
Laughing so hard I can’t swallow,
Man, Al-Queda is so frickin’ lame,
Laughing and a running hey, hey
They’re tripping and a humping
In the late evening smog when
Zark’s hearts quit thumpin’ and you
My hadji girl,
You’re my hadji girl.

Whatever happened
When Zark was laid so low
Going down one last time
Blew his ass to the patio
Crouching in the sunlight laughing,
Hiding behind a concrete wall,
Tripping and hiding
As the two bombs fall, and you
My hadji girl,
You’re my hadji girl.

Do you remember when we used to sing,
Allah allah la la la la la la la la la te da

Old Zark had his day,
But now he is all alone.
I saw him just the other day,
As he laid there and groaned,
Cast my memory back there, Lord
Sometime I’m overcome thinking ’bout
When they killed Zark’s sorry ass
With those two Mk 82
My hadji girl
You’re my hadji girl

Do you remember when we used to sing,
Allah allah la la la la la la la la la te da

John B. Roberts II, in the Washington Times, points out the latest damaging Intel leak in the War on Terror.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I first learned of the CIA’s covert program to use secular warlords to contain al Qaeda in Somalia. As early as 2002 intelligence officials concluded that al Qaeda had re-established an operational network in Somalia after being routed in Afghanistan. Some reports even suggested that Osama bin Laden crossed the Arabian Sea in a dhow and found sanctuary in Somalia after escaping the noose in Tora Bora.

Until now, I refrained from writing about the Somali front in the war on al Qaeda because of its extreme sensitivity and its vital importance. Regrettably, State Department career officials, in order to condemn the program, have now confirmed to the New York Times the existence of the covert operation being run by the CIA station in Nairobi, Kenya. This is an unconscionable breach of security that ought to outrage us all.

—————
Hat tip to James Lewis at the American Thinker, who asks the correct question:

How long will it be before the leakers are prosecuted for treason in time of war? Or will it take another 9/11?

Jeff Goldstein of the illustrious Protein Wisdom blog scoops the MSM with the first anywhere post-death interview with Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

protein wisdom: “First of all, I’d like to thank you for taking this time to sit down with me, an infidel dog, and a Jew infidel dog, to boot. But I think it’s important that we as Westerners try really to understand what it is that motivates people like you—21st century Minutemen, the Thomas Paines and George Washingtons of the new Caliphate, to hear some speak of it.”

The Israeli-based purveyor of Intel-gossip Depkafile tells us that Jordanian intelligence provided the breakthrough leading to the successful targeting of Zarqawi.

(It is generally believed that Depkafile functions as a mouthpiece for Mossad, and commonly distributes rumors or even false stories, but this one serves no obvious Mossad agenda, and could possibly even be true.)

The final breakthrough in the long pursuit of the most blood-stained terrorist of them all, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, came from Jordan.

The source was Ziyad Halaf al Karbouli, also known as Abu Hufeiza, one of the lowlifes Zarqawi employed to attack and rob the convoys plying Baghdad’s main supply route across the Jordanian border and murdering their Iraqi or Jordanian drivers. Foreigners riding along were taken hostage. DEBKA-Net-Weekly reveals that he was picked up — not by chance, but in consequence of a well-laid Jordanian sting operation set up and executed by King Abdullah’s old unit, The Riders of Justice of Jordan’s 71st Commando Brigade – and on his orders.

Jordanian intelligence had a score to settle with Zarqawi’s highway robber-in-chief. Last September, he kidnapped a Palestinian called Khaled Da Siko, who was an important Jordanian undercover agent, assigned with penetrating Zarqawi’s following. The abduction took place in Ruthba in western Iraq. When Abu Hufeiza asked Zarqawi what to do with his captive, he was told to execute him forthwith, which he did.

From that moment, Jordanian intelligence never let up on their efforts to lay hands on the kidnapper to exact revenge.

The Riders of Justice infiltrated western Iraq at the beginning of 2006 and scoured al Qaim, Ruthba, Falujja and Ramadi for the wanted man. At some point, they realized that even if they overpowered his bodyguards and killed him, they would never make it back to Jordan past Zarqawi’s killers. It had become necessary to go for the boss, who was in any case under sentence of death in the kingdom.

In early April therefore, a decision was taken in Amman to lure Abu Hufeiza into entering the kingdom in defiance of Zarqawi’s prohibition. Double agents held out an offer of a Jordanian base for al Qaeda, plus information on ways to lay hands on the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through the funding channel between Jordan and Iraq.

Abu Hufeiza swallowed the bait. He was dazzled enough to picture himself handing the rich booty over to Abu Zarqawi and being promoted to his Number Two in al Qaeda’s Iraq hierarchy by his grateful master.

The moment he and his bodyguards set foot on Jordanian soil, all got up as Iraqi businessmen on a shopping trip, the trap snapped shut; they were surrounded by the Riders of Justice and hauled to Amman for questioning.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources report that Abu Hufeiza held nothing back from his Jordanian interrogators. He was the source of the first real lead to Zarqawi’s location to be made available to the US command and intelligence in Iraq.

Abu Hufeiza also gave away certain members of the Butcher of Baghdad’s command group. Here is a summary of the data the Jordanians extracted from him:

The name of al Qaeda chief’s chief of operations, Yassin Harabi — an Iraqi Sunni codenamed Abu Obeida. Going down the chain of command, he identified Yunas Ramlawi, a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Ramallah, and Muhammad Majid, a Saudi Arabian known as Abu Hamza.

The descriptions he gave the Jordanians were good enough for identikit portraits and betrayed their hideouts, how they stayed in touch with Zarqawi and their movements.

This data haul Jordanian intelligence whipped across to Washington where analysts went to work on it and rushed their findings to American headquarters in Baghdad.

All of a sudden, the US military in Baghdad had an intelligence bonanza instead of chance identities of the odd Zarqawi adherent which was all they had to work with before. From Abu Hufeiza Jordanian intelligence had extracted the first clue to the location of the safe house near Baquba, where Zarqawi was actually in conference with his senior commanders. The next link in the chain came from a senior Zarqawi commander in Iraq, who fell into American hands and was persuaded to part with the final steps that brought two US 500-pound bombs crashing down on Zarqawi’s last address.

At first, some American officers queried these offerings as disinformation designed to trip them up. But when US commander General George W. Casey and American ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad ordered the input examined and cross-referenced, it proved solid enough for direct action.

———————

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a story which appears to be incorporating the Depkafile report:

Perhaps the most important arrest, however, say Middle East and European intelligence agents, was Jordan’s capture last month of an al Qaeda logistics and smuggling agent, Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly. Mr. Karbouly went on Jordanian television after his arrest and described murdering Jordanian truck drivers moving goods into Iraq. He also described carrying out political assassination of Moroccan and Kurdish diplomats on the orders of Mr. Zarqawi.

The Jordanians worked with agents inside Iraq to draw Mr. Karbouly across the border, Jordanian intelligence officials said last month. And the al Qaeda operative provided Jordanian interrogators with important intelligence on Mr. Zarqawi’s top aides, including his spiritual adviser, Abu Abdul-Rahman. In recent weeks, U.S. military personnel said they monitored Mr. Rahman’s movements and, ultimately, were drawn to Mr. Zarqawi’s hideout near the Iraqi city of Baqubah.

The Jordanian operation “offered a critical link” on al Qaeda’s leadership structure, said a European counterterrorism official.

despite Zarqawi’s death, reports the inimitable Scott Ott.

As Blackberry devices and cell phones on Capitol Hill hummed with news of the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi yesterday, Congressional Democrats vowed that despite the loss they would fight on in “the war on the war on terror.”

“Zarqawi will be missed because he put a human face on the futility of the illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq,” said one unnamed lawmaker, who assured a reporter that “Democrats are still optimistic. We’re still looking for the silver lining.”

Rep. John Murtha, D-PA, a former Marine and vocal critic of the military occupation of Iraq, immediately denounced “the Zarqawi massacre” and suggested that the F-16 pilot who dropped the bombs had snapped under pressure and murdered the al Qaeda leader “in cold blood.”

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-PA, demanded an explanation of the secret intelligence gathering techniques and surveillance used to find Mr. Zarqawi.

“I want to give the president an opportunity to explain the program to the Congress and to assure the American people that nobody’s civil rights were violated,” said Sen. Specter.

Meanwhile, Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and former presidential candidate Al Gore observed a moment of silence as they heard of the passing of Mr. Zarqawi, a fellow Internet pioneer.

Iraqi blogger Hammorabi gloats over US forces at last succeeding in nailing Zarqawi’s well-deserving hide to the barn door:

The Prime Minister of Iraq Mr Al-Maliki just announced that the criminal and terrorist thug Abo-Mousab Al-Zarqawi was killed by the Iraqi forces in the last few hours.

Zarqawi who is Jordanian from Palestinian origin was responsible for thousands of crimes against the Iraqis and the MNF as well as against humanity. He appeared recently in a video challenging the American and Iraqi forces. He beheaded by his dirty hands many Iraqis and foreigners.

Zarqawi was with at least 7 among his closest thugs in an area called Hib-hib in Diyala province north east of Baghdad before the MNF and Iraqi forces attacked them last night.

The attack was first by the US forces with an air strike to a selected target where they cockroaches were hiding in. On the same time and in the ground were the Iraqi forces making an advance towards the target and securing the area before and afterward.

Zarqawi without doubts went into the bottom of the Hell with blood of many innocent children, women and men in his dirty hands.

There were celebrations going on now in the holy city of Najaf and Kerbala. On the other hands there are sadness and shock among his allies in the region and abroad like Al-Jazeera Qatari TV and other Arab pro-terrorists thugs.

Zarqawi and his aides simply went to Hell and this is the worst fate for any one like them.