NOVATOWNHALL

I can’t prove it. I can speculate.

As I mentioned here, I’ve suspected it since Zawahiri started doing the al Qaeda videos.

Seriously, all his audio and video releases of the past few years have been vague “Death to the Infidels!” blabbering with no reference to anything current. Something tells me we’re getting Tupac remixes.

To my knowledge, the last time he made specific reference to a current event was after we waxed Zarqawi, and it doesn’t take psychic powers from allah to know that was coming.

What’s with the jet black beard?

Listen up, al Qaeda. I don’t believe you. I want proof of life. Give me a picture of the guy holding up today’s newspaper or something. Idiots.

[This post has been updated since I sort of fell asleep in the middle of writing it last night]

The “Devil’s Guard” trilogy of books by George Robert Elford are an anomaly in publishing, consisting of three books which are among the rarest and most expensive post-1970 publications in the world. It is difficult to find even a paperback version of either DG1 (Devil’s Guard) or DG3 (Devil’s Guard III Unconditional Warfare) for less than $150 anywhere, and DG2 (Recall to Inferno) is almost impossible to find under $295. Try some Amazon searches on “Devil’s Guard Elford”, “Recall to Inferno Elford” without the quotes, and you will see what I mean.

Apparently, the copyright holders have no intention of allowing new printings, therefore the price of these books is ridiculously, artificially inflated.

Why these books are significant: Several months after 9-11, while perusing an Internet forum, I read where someone noted “the only way we can win against this enemy is to go the route of the Devil’s Guard.” After a bit of research, I learned that Elford’s works, though highly controversial, were also viewed seriously by military strategists around the globe. The story in these books traces the experiences of a former German Waffen-SS battalion under the command of “Hans Josef Wagemueller” which joins the French Foreign Legion after World War II and heads to Indochina to fight the Viet Minh and ends up playing a role throughout the Vietnam War.

The books are framed as a narrative by Wagemueller recorded by author George Robert Elford. The gist of the narrative is: This is what you absolutely, positively must do if you want to prevail over a terrorist insurgency. Methods employed are extraordinarily harsh, although in the course of the stories the acts of the “good guys” are consonant with those of the enemies. What you get is a true sense of war and what it takes to win a war in such an environment.

I will wait for NR to weigh in on this, because his opinion is the only one that matters as far as I am concerned. Is the Wagemueller story useful, or is it crap?

Anyway (this was the point of the post in the first place but the hour got late before I could finish) I found a copy of DG1 on Amazon the other day for $11, “used” and of course snapped it up. Then a few days later the reseller e-mailed me saying my copy had been returned from the local post office “water damaged” and would I want them to find another copy. I wrote back, “sure, that would be great” thinking in the back of my mind they were going to come back with a $300 copy of the book. A few hours later they wrote to me that they could not find the same edition (1984) but found a 1972 edition, and would I want that instead. 1972 was the first run in paperback.

I said “Sure, thanks so much” and then wondered if I was in the process of being scammed, either to receive a totally different book for $11 (there is a a similar work by the same title), or a first print edition of DG1 for full market price, an amount I would never want to pay for a book regardless of its rarity. Well, yesterday the book arrived, a pretty clean first edition of DG1 in paperback, with the invoice for $15 inclusive of shipping. How odd is that? It is going to be kept in a very safe place.

As I said I would, I’m chipping in my two cents on some old news here.

I was a little bit annoyed by this. I understand the President is on his way out and wants to protect his legacy, soften his historical image, blah blah blah. I don’t understand why.

You know what? I don’t regret it. Bush’s tone was perfect at the time he used it. We were (and are) a nation facing a tough enemy on multiple fronts, and the Commander in Cheif of the toughest Army in the world needs to be a tough man when dealing with tough situations.

Imagine this:

I regret the tone I took when I stated: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric. I didn’t want to give the world the impression I was a guy really anxious for war.

-Something never said by Winston Churchill

Granted, the President isn’t as skilled with his words as the Prime Minister, but he DID have the right tone. In retrospect, al Qaeda is close to finished, Libya abandoned its pursuit of nukes, Saddam is hanged, Mullah Omar hasn’t been heard from in over a year, North Korea is at least pretending to get rid of its nukes (hey, it’s a step), and that kook in Iran is digging himself into a hole from which he won’t ever get out. Hey, even France is on board with us for that one. Why the regret?

In an earlier post, I lament the impending demise of “Western Civilization.”  Gadfly “Sanity” suggests that, to keep that from happening, we should, “commit to freedom (yay SCOTUS!).”  I can only assume that he was referring to the SCOTUS  decision to allow Gitmo detainees to file habeas corpus writs in federal court.

Viscerally, I do not like the decision.  As far as I’m concerned, terrorists have no rights.  The problem is, who are the terrorists?  Is there no chance at all that someone at Gitmo is wrongly imprisoned?  That is the whole point of a habeas petition.  When a soldier is captured in uniform, it is clear that he is a soldier of the enemy.  But without a uniform…?

The problem is, where are the witnesses?  Are we going to call soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan to testify?  Well, Congress is going to have to go back to work and answer that question.  Even so, we are not fighting WWII-style, in which soldiers did only one tour of duty.  We rotate our soldiers now, and they can testify when they are home.

So while I do not really like the decision, I think it is the right one.

From the local right-wing rag:

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

…statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

Here is the report. Start about page 16 and every 5 or so pages are the “Conclusion” paragraphs.

The intelligence was problematic - but as the report amply demonstrates both Democrats and Republicans drew the same conclusions about the threat. As Hiatt notes in his editorial, we must wait and see what a future administration will do about future threats, about which side it will err on.

Important new article in TNR: Al Qaeda’s days may be numbered.

You are not going to see a lot of pro-Bush commentary on this blog. But the truth needs to be told: The president has not been wrong about everything. His Supreme Court appointments, for instance, have been stellar.

On the Iraq war, for which the Republican party is getting spanked on a Zeusian scale, the president can be faulted on the prosecution. But it’s important to cut through the ideological fog and recall that the instigation and original rationales for invading Iraq were solid. John Lillpop yesterday noted as much:

For example, a popular refrain is that President Bush lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in order to implement a grand strategy fashioned by neo-conservatives well before Bush actually took office. Said strategy was supposedly aimed at using military force to install democratic regimes friendly to the U.S. throughout the Middle East.

However, the left has never adequately answered the following question. If Bush knew there was no WMD, why would he send 150,000 troops into Iraq since his “lie” would be immediately exposed by invading coalition forces and reported by a large contingent of media embedded within those forces?

NOT acting on the information available would have constituted criminal negligence by the Bush administration. As it turned out, there was a connection between Saddam and major terrorist groups. More importantly, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction programs in place to be activated as soon as international pressure and watchdogs let up.

As Lillpop notes quite clearly, the “Bush lied” charge is a fallacy. Bush acted on intelligence that was affirmed by his very recent predecessors in the Clinton administration and, in fact, throughout the world. Innumerable pieces of evidence of Iraq’s support for international terrorism, including the terrorist training facilities in Iraq should have been sufficient for Democrats and media intelligentsia to acknowledge that Saddam in 2003 was a clear and present danger. And at the time, for the most part, they did.

But the ugly head of politics has been reared for some time now, and many Americans are unaware or have forgotten that the Bush administration was on solid ground with the decision to invade Iraq.

Well, it’s official. Democrat congressmen Bonior, McDermott, and Thompson, shilled against their own country on Saddam’s dime. Saddam paid for the trip. These three dolts who went to Iraq to take the opportunity to play partizan politics, acted as spokesmen for Saddam Hussein before the start of the second Gulf War. Unfortunately they did not realise that they actually were spokesmen for Saddam. This is both hilarious and tragic. I am sure that, being Democrats, Bonior, McDermott, and Thompson did not know. They were just too stupid to check. Lenin is laughing in Hell — his prescience is uncanny.

A prudent congressman, granted this is a term that is becoming an oxymoron, normally checks who is footing the bill, especially when going to a place like Saddam’s Iraq. When comparing Saddam to Bush it is obvious to the fevered mind of the Democrat that Saddam can be trusted sometimes, while any Republican President can never be trusted. These three were in such a rush to say as much that they did not bother to look at Saddam or Muthanna Al-Hanooti.

Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, [prosecutors say] was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.

Bonior, McDermott, and Thompson, Democrats one and all, will heretofore be referenced as “The Three Stooges.” The Three Stooges were in such a rush to score political points against Bush that they did not bother to determine where the money came from. The trip was tagged as a ‘fact finding trip.’ I am sure that Saddam’s handlers would give these three characters free reign around the countryside. From AP

Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles, then the second-ranking Senate Republican, said the Democrats “sound somewhat like spokespersons for the Iraqi government.” Seattle-area conservatives dubbed McDermott “Baghdad Jim” for the Iraq trip

The Senator noted that the three stooges sounded like some of Saddam’s thugs who did the talking for his regime. Why did these three engage in these antics: BDS. Bush Derangement Syndrome goes right up to the leadership of the Democrat house. They have lost sight of the fact that we are Americans first and our party affiliate second or third.

The Three Stooges used this trip to paint Iraq as a country united against us and behind Saddam. Baghdad Jim (D) WA (a.k.a. “Larry”), spoke of how he expected Bush to mislead us. David Bonior (D) MI (a.k.a. “Mo”) was convinced Saddam was fully cooperative. Bonior was the number two Democrat in the House in 2002. He voted NO on military border patrols to battle drugs & terrorism in September of 2001. To Bonior, we can’t go over there and we can’t keep em from coming over here.

Thompson claims he was there to see how the children of Iraq were faring. The evil trade embargo was having a negative impact upon them. In the meantime, Saddam had managed to funnel millions into the pockets U.N. officials. The U.S. was blamed for the misery in Iraq through the 90’s and before 2002. With some people, we just can’t win.

Whether they intended to or not, these three fools did give aid and comfort to the enemy. They shilled for Hussein in a manner reminiscent of Lord Haw Haw or Tokyo Rose. They are despicable. What is worse is that they are typical. Recall the human shields that went to Iraq before the war? The NYT blew the cover on an operation that was intercepting cell traffic between terrorists outside our country. Pelosi just scuttled the law that allowed for electronic surveliance of terrorists outside the country. There is a mindset that allows our internal politics to venture outside our borders. This mindset will destroy us eventually, for this behavior will only escalate over time. We used to prosecute people for acting like this and they suffered for such dalliances.

UPDATE I

Mc Dermott did not care that he as a tool for Saddam

Well, this sure makes you think:

In the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, we heard this from Democrats, constantly: You have to have worn the uniform, in order to qualify as president. Moreover, you have to have gone to war, in order to qualify as president…

One of our favorite topics of late here: Western Civ versus Islamic Civ

The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago.

Invest three minutes and go read all of that - it is one of the best and most succinct essays on the topic.

This seems like one of those wild card happenstances that can totally screw up what everyone in the U.S. might have thought would be happening in the current political contest here - giving meaning to the notion that a lot can happen between now and November:

South America was on the brink of war yesterday as Venezuela and Ecuador amassed troops on the Colombian border in response to the killing of a Marxist rebel leader.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to join the rebels in a war to overthrow hard-line Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a key ally of the United States, deploying tanks, fighter jets and thousands of troops along the Colombian border.

A key question here is whether Hugo Chavez is willing to take the leap - the military leap - of faith as it were. He’s not had to do a lot of that type of thing. He’s had more of the luxury of taking pot shots from the peanut gallery at countries actually involved in conflicts. Wonder if he knows what he is getting into.

You know that saying “you could not make this stuff up”? Well, this is really it.

A partial transcript

Amani, by phone: “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, I say to those cowardly infidels…”

Assud the Bunny: “Those criminals…”

Putting their lives on the line is all in a day’s work for our military.  These guys are amazing:

http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=161927&ESRC=dod.nl

Just a few hours ago an SM-3 missile hit a dying, fuel-filled satellite over the Pacific ocean. The paper of record reports:

The SM-3 missile was fired from the USS Lake Erie in the Pacific Ocean at about 10:26 EST and hit the bus-sized satellite about 133 nautical miles above the ocean, the Pentagon said in a statement.

“A network of land, air, sea and space-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a nonfunctioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite, which was in its final orbits before entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” it said.

As far as educating the public about the importance of continuing to fund missile defense goes, it’s a start. Let’s hope we get some photos.

More on the SM-3 here.

UPDATE: Some great observations in the comments.

I had the thought some time back that one way George W. Bush might repair his legacy would be to pilot a jet fighter into the power plant of an attacking alien mother-ship, as Randy Quaid did in the movie Independence Day, sacrificing his life to save the planet. A lot can happen between now and next January, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, this is pretty cool:

A Navy cruiser in the Pacific Ocean will try an unprecedented shoot-down of an out-of-control, school-bus-size U.S. spy satellite loaded with a toxic fuel as it begins its plunge to Earth…

On a related note, depending on how this attempt fares, I wonder how the next round of budget proposals for missile defense will fare in Congress. I also wonder if certain political candidates will think to make this a campaign issue.

UPDATE: A good story on this is in the paper of record.