Pajama's Media Straw Poll

If you look to the left you will see I have added the Pajama's Media Straw Poll widget to my blog. I think it is a neat idea to allow any website to add this widget in order to let as many people participate as possible.

If you are visiting A Perfect Contradiction for the first time, or if you are a regular visitor, I ask you to please take part in the poll. Come back each week vote as this vote is counted not only for the "A Perfect Contradiction" precinct but your vote counts towards the overall count as well. So please, vote once each week at this precinct!

This weeks options:
Dems: Bill Richardson, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Al Gore, Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Christopher Dodd

Reps: Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Chuck Hagel, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Tommy Thompson, George Pataki

(the choices are picked by "those national candidates of both parties that score at least one percent on the previous month’s Gallup Poll."

Edwards Urges "Smarter" Approach

Edwards urges direct talks with Iran
TODD DVORAK, Associated Press Writer

DUBUQUE, Iowa - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards criticized the Bush administration on Sunday for failing to engage directly with Iran to resolve problems with the Iraq war and Iran's effort to develop nuclear weapons.

"It's a huge strategic mistake not to be dealing directly with Iran," Edwards told the Associated Press in an interview before a campaign event in Dubuque.

"What we should be doing with Iran, both on the Iraq issue and the nuclear issue, is being much smarter than we're being now. We have tools available to us to engage them."

You see... international diplomacy can be tricky. When dealing with an islamo-fascist state like Iran (a country hell bent on acquiring nuclear weapons with which to wipe Isreal and the United States off the map), sanctions and the threat of military invasion are basically ineffectual. You need a smarter, more nuanced appraoch. To defeat Iran you need to use "tools" - like Edwards - and "talk" at them.

Simple, see. All you need to do is talk at them and they will crumble before us. Sheesh, why didn't Bush think of that! Edwards is a shoo-in in '08.

Is it just me or is Edwards "smarter" plan of "talking to Iran" an aweful lot like Kerry's "smarter" plan.

More Progress in Iraq

Operation nets 49 suspects, uncovers three roadside bombs

YUSUFIYAH, Iraq — Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers detained 49 suspected terrorists and found three improvised explosive devices during a combat security operation Feb. 16-17 in Quarghuli Village, Iraq, southwest of Baghdad.

Soldiers from the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment “Polar Bears,” 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment and the 4th Battalion, 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division conducted the clearing operation coined as “Operation Polar Iron.”

The two-day operation, which consisted of air and ground assaults, was conducted in order to disrupt anti-Iraqi forces believed to be operating in and around Quarghuli Village, long known as a terrorist safe haven.

During the operation the soldiers received small arms fire, but no one was hurt. The IEDs were detonated during a controlled detonation conducted by an explosive ordnance team.

The suspects were all detained for further questioning.

Shhhhh. Nobody tell the AP. Don't want to let anoyone know that the surge can work. Shhhhhhh.

Hillary's Past Haunting Her

Hillary always seemed like an unlikely ally in the War on Terror. I say that not because I believe Hillary doesn't care about the US coming out on top in the War on Terror, but the Iraq War became SO political, and Hillary was one of the President's strongest allies regarding Iraq. Many Republicans and political commentators - Dick Morris comes to mind - believed that Hillary was just posturing and trying to build up record as being strong on defense so that she could run in '08. Hillary did and said a lot of things to appear more centrist and project an image of strength.

But now that she seeks the nomination of the Democratic Party, she is running as far to the left as she can in order to distance herself from the past 5-6 years of un-Hillary-like-behavior. She can finally be herself and let her true colors show through. Except this is proving difficult for her. Her base is calling on her to repudiate her vote, and if she comes out too strongly against all the decisions she has made in the past 5-6 years, the American people will see through her when she starts sprinting back towards the center for the General Election, assuming she can win her part nomination, of course.

Christopher Hitchens has an excellent article over on Slate in which he basically blasts the Presidential hopeful.

On her campaign visit to New Hampshire this weekend, she was asked by an audience member to describe her 2002 vote as a mistake "right here, right now, once and for all, without nuance." Until "we hear you say that," the questioner went on, "we're not going to hear all these other great things you've said." Not for the first time, she declined to oblige. Instead, she took refuge in the softer claim that she couldn't know then what she knew now, and in the following rather bizarre view of the Bush administration's policy:

From almost the first day they got into office, they were trying to figure out how to get rid of Saddam Hussein. I'm not a psychiatrist; I don't know all of the reasons behind their concern, some might say their obsession.

If she continues in this vein, then someone is going to remind her of how truly agonizing an effort to ride two horses can be. The record is very plain and easy to look up. Here is what she said in her crucial speech of October 2002:

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

Notice what this does not say. It does not say that she agrees with the Bush administration on those two key points. Rather, it states these two claims in her own voice and on her own authority. A man like John Edwards can back away from his own 2002 vote easily enough by suggesting that he was deceived by Republican propaganda, but he was barely in politics before 2000. Sen. Clinton, however, was not just in politics. She was in the White House. That's why she had to speak of "the four years" that had elapsed since the relationship between the United States and Iraq went critical once more. As the preceding paragraph of her speech said:

In 1998, the United States also changed its underlying policy toward Iraq from containment to regime change and began to examine options to effect such a change.

Indeed, it was on the initiative of President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, both of whom delivered extremely tough speeches warning of another round of confrontation with Saddam Hussein, that the Senate passed the Iraq Liberation Act that year, making it U.S. policy to remove the Baathists from power. It was the Clinton administration that bombed Sudan, claiming that a factory outside Khartoum represented a chemical-weapons link between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden. And, as Sen. Clinton reminded us in the very same speech, it was "President Clinton, with the British and others, [who] ordered an intensive four-day air assault, Operation Desert Fox, on known and suspected weapons of mass destruction sites and other military targets" in Iraq. On its own, this is enough to make childish nonsense of her insinuation that an "obsession" with Saddam took root only after the Bush-Cheney victory in 2000.

When I read this all I could say is, "Wow." I hope to one day be able to write as effectively, intelligently, and eloquently as Christopher Hitchens. Kudos to him on an excellent article (please read the full article here). This will do quite nicely in our Hillary Resource Center.

The Past 2 Weeks In Iraq

In the past 2 weeks, US Forces:
1) Opened a new high school for girls in northern Baghdad
2) Launched a new operation, "Operation Law and Order" and provided evidence of Iranian involvement in the insurgency
3) Made several weapons cache finds
4) Including a weapons cache uncovered in a Mosque
5) Captured at least 21 Suspected Al Qaeda members in one raid
6) Including a high ranking leader within Al Qaeda
7) And detained 140+ insurgents.

Undeniable proof of progress in Iraq. As each day goes by our forces take a step closer to absolute victory in Iraq.

However, was ANY of this information on the front page of any newspaper? How many articles did the AP write this past week on all the progress being made in Iraq? That's right, one big ole goose egg.

What did the AP cover? Here is a pretty typical example:

2 Baghdad car bombs kill 56, injure 127
BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two car bombs exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 56 people and injuring scores in the deadliest attack since U.S. and Iraqi forces began a major security push around the capital last week.

The twin blasts — which tore through the open-air market in the mostly Shiite district of New Baghdad — marked the first major response by militants to the sweep launched last week and a sobering reminder of the huge challenges facing any efforts against the well-armed factions.

The death toll was reported by police and ambulance service officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. At least 127 people were injured, they reported.

Ah yes: body counts, death and destruction, chaos. The one side of the story we do hear in America.

Here is a novel idea, terrorism wouldn't be nearly as effective if the press covered it up the same way they do the progress in the War on Terror.

Steyn's Commentary on Recent Iraq Developments

I love Mark Steyn. He is probably my favorite columnist.

According to a report by the New York Sun's Eli Lake last month, Iran is supporting Shia insurgents in Iraq and Sunni insurgents in Iraq. In other words, it's on both sides in the so-called civil war. How can this be? After all, as the other wise old foreign-policy "realists" of the Iraq Study Group assured us only in December, Iran has "an interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq.''

Au contraire, the ayatollahs have concluded they have a very clear interest in fomenting chaos in Iraq. They're in favor of Sunni killing Shia, and Shia killing Sunni, and if some vacationing Basque terrorists wanted to blow up the Spanish Cultural Center in Mosul, they'd be in favor of that, too. The Iranians don't care who kills whom as long as every night when Americans turn on the evening news there's smoke over Baghdad. As I say in my book, if you happen to live in Ramadi or Basra, Iraq is about Iraq; if you live in Tehran, or Cairo, or Bei-jing, Moscow, Pyongyang or Brussels, Iraq is about America. American will. American purpose. American credibility.

There was a TV station somewhere -- was it Thunder Bay, Ontario? -- that used to show a continuous loop of a roaring fireplace all night, and thousands of viewers would supposedly sit in front of it for hours because it was such a reassuringly comforting scene. The networks could save themselves a lot of money by adopting the same approach: Run a continuous loop of a smoking building in Baghdad all night while thousands of congressmen and pundits and think-tankers and retired generals run around Washington shrieking that all is lost. America is way out of its league! A dimwitted tourist in a fearful land of strange people who don't watch "American Idol." Iraq is so culturally alien that not a single Sunni, Shia or Kurd has come forward claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole's baby!

Get a grip, chaps! In Iraq, everyone's a tourist. This al-Qaida honcho, al-Masri, is an Egyptian. His predecessor, Zarqawi, was a Jordanian. Al-Sadr is a Persian stooge. For four decades, the country was a British client. Before that, it was a Turkish province. The Middle East is a crazy place and a tough nut to crack, but the myth of the unbeatable Islamist insurgent is merely a lazy and more neurotic update of the myth of the unbeatable communist guerrilla, which delusion led to so much pre-emptive surrender in the '70s. Nevertheless, in the capital city of the most powerful nation on the planet, the political class spent last week trying to craft a bipartisan defeat strategy, and they might yet pull it off.
Read it all.

H/T Protein Wisdom

Another Day, Another Terrorist in Iraq Captured

Coalition Forces Capture Senior-Level Leader In Bombing Network
Multi-National Corps – Iraq PAO

BAGHDAD – Members of the Ninewa Iraqi Special Weapons and Tactics team captured a suspected insurgent leader Feb. 17 during operations with Coalition advisers in eastern Mosul. The suspect is reportedly linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq and is tied to several recent attacks targeting Iraqi Security Forces and Coalition Forces in the area.
Iraqi forces carried out operations with minimal damage and there were no Iraqi civilian, Iraqi forces or Coalition Forces casualties.

No casualties, the US press probably won't report it. It seems like we are making LOTS of progress in Iraq lately, though you wouldn't know it from the US press and you definitly wouldn't know it listening to Congress.
I *think* this is the same story, just more detail:

BAGHDAD – Coalition Forces captured a suspected insurgent leader during early-morning operations Feb. 17 in the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad. The suspect is reported to be a leader within an improvised explosive device and car-bomb network believed responsible for planning and conducting car-bomb attacks against Iraqi civilians and Iraqi Security Forces in the Baghdad area. He is implicated in several bomb attacks that are responsible for inciting sectarian violence in northern Baghdad.

Credible intelligence indicated the suspect was using an area hospital as a safe haven to avoid capture during ongoing security operations. Coalition Forces established security around the Al Numan Hospital and entered the hospital. Coalition Forces immediately met and coordinated with hospital staff to facilitate the search and quickly detained the suspect. Hospital staff provided information on two other persons staying overnight, but who were not listed as patients. Coalition Forces detained these individuals, believed to be associates of the insurgent leader, in a room next to where the insurgent leader was staying.

Coalition Forces worked closely with hospital staff to minimize time spent in the facility and their aid was crucial in the quick identification and detainment of the suspected insurgents.

Coalition Forces operations caused no damage and minimal disturbance to patients.

The operation occurred without incident.

Libby Case

I didn't follow the Scooter Libby case very closely. I knew about Wilson and Plame, Wilson's allegations that Iraq intel was faulty, the investigation into who "leaked" Plame's ultra-super-secret identity (she is the real batman, or something), and that some guy with a stupid nickname - I am *hoping* that "Scooter" is a nickname - was indited and tried for tyring to "cover-up" something that I guess wasn't a crime in the first place. I have to be honest, just typing about it now is making me tired (then again it is 2:35 in the morning).

In any event, I finally read an article about the case that seems to do a decent job of cutting through all the he-said/she-said that kept me disinterested in the first place. Viola. An excellent article indeed:

Trial in Error
If You're Going to Charge Scooter, Then What About These Guys?

By Victoria Toensing
Sunday, February 18, 2007; B01

Could someone please explain to me why Scooter Libby is the only person on trial in the Valerie Plame leak investigation?

Obama: A Black Man Can Be President, Ford: Yeah But Not You

Obama: U.S. ready for black president
AP - White House hopeful Barack Obama, taking a fellow black lawmaker to task, said Saturday voters are ready to elect a black president.
..

Obama responded to comments this past week by Democratic state Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston, who helped mobilize black voters for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in 2004, but has switched to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 presidential race.

Ford said Tuesday that Obama, a first-term senator, has much to prove. "The media made this guy bigger than life," Ford said. "This guy isn't tested and they made him a rock star."

Ford said one reason he was supporting Clinton, the New York senator, is that he is skeptical Obama can win the presidency and worries his nomination could hurt other Democratic candidates.

"Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose — because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything," Ford said.

Looks like I am in agreement with two Democrats. Obama is right: a black man can be President in America. And Ford is right: if Obama is on top of the ticket, Democrats will lose it all in '08. I pontificate why Obama cannot winhere in great detail.

Clinton's Iraq Plan: Cut and Run

With victory in sight, Hillary Clinton has a different idea on how to win in the War on Terror - 3 takes on one story:

Hillary Clinton urges phased withdrawal from Iraq
(AFP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton called in an online video for US troop levels to be locked at January levels and urged a phased US withdrawal from Iraq.

"We have to end this war in a smart way, not a Republican or a Democratic way, but a way that makes us safer and gets our troops home as soon as possible," Clinton says in the video. "If (President) George Bush doesn't end this war before he leaves office, when I'm president, I will."

The SMART way to end the war is TO WIN ! Cutting and running, forcing our soldiers to retreat with their tails between their legs, will NOT make us safer. If Democrats think the world has lost respect for the United States now, just wait and see what happens if the Dems force a pull-out and allow the terrorists to take over Iraq.

Clinton dodges arrows on '02 Iraq vote
HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told New Hampshire voters Saturday that ending the war in Iraq is more important than whether she repudiates her 2002 vote authorizing President Bush to use military force there.

...

Clinton introduced legislation late Friday that would require the Pentagon to begin pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq three months after the bill becomes law — an unlikely scenario with the number of Republicans in Congress and Bush's veto power.

"It's time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or we will revoke authorization for this war," Clinton said in a statement.

Notice how the AP introduces Hillary's cut and run policy in an article about how she is "dodging arrows" for her 02 vote to authorize the war in Iraq. Whereas the two topics are related, the narrative is that Hillary is facing heat from the left for her centrist like behavior in voting to authorize the war in Iraq. They mention, in passing, that Hillary is demanding that we cut and run in 90 days or else! I speculate that reporting the narrative "Hillary wants to cut and run in 90 days" would not be popular with the majority of Americans, so mentioning it in a related story softens the blow. This, of course, is evidence of bias, but everyone basically accepts the US press is biased.

The foreign press is generally biased too; however, they don't particularly worry about which narrative they use when introducing information that would be damning to an American politician. Which is why the AFP uses the term phased withdrawal instead of "phased redeployment" and Reuters didn't worry about couching the truth in a related narrative:

Clinton urges start of Iraq pullout in 90 days
(Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a 90-day deadline to start pulling American troops from Iraq.

Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, has been criticized by some Democrats for supporting authorization of the war in 2002 and for not renouncing her vote as she seeks the U.S. presidency in next year's election.

"Now it's time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or the Congress will revoke authorization for this war," the New York senator said in a video on her campaign Web site, repeating a point included in a bill she introduced on Friday.

See how Reuters gets straight to it. They call it what it is, a pull out, and get right to the point in doing so.

You know we heard time and again that the democrats had a "plan" for Iraq. We heard that it was a "better" plan and that it would win the war and bring our soldiers home. The democrats were able to get elected on this "plan." At the time I often said there was a silver lining in the Republican loss in 06. The silver lining was that it became put up or shut up time for the Democrats. They were an impotent party, the political minority, without representation in the White House and with no real power in the House and Senate. Well now that they have control of both houses of Congress, and what is their plan exactly? Cut and run. Retreat. Run and hide. A vote for Hillary is a vote for defeat in Iraq.

We have all heard the Democrat plan. "Symbolic" resolutions, cutting funds, and forcing a pull-out. Hmmm... Where is their plan to win?

21 Suspected Al Qaeda Terrorists Detained

BAGHDAD, Iraq –Coalition Forces detained 21 suspected terrorists during raids targeting foreign fighters and the al-Qaeda in Iraq network Saturday morning.

During operations in Ramadi, Coalition Forces targeted terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda’s senior leaders. The raids netted a suspected leader of improvised explosive devices and sniper cell networks in the Ramadi area. Seven others suspects were detained, including three believed to have close ties to senior al-Qaeda leaders and a foreign fighter facilitation network.

Coalition Forces also detained 11 suspected terrorists including an alleged senior level vehicle-borne improvised explosive device cell leader in the Baghdad area. Intelligence reports indicate one of the suspected terrorists is involved in anti-Coalition Force activities, including the procurement of weapons and supporting foreign fighters.

The suspected senior-level VBIED cell leader was detained with two of his associates in a Baghdad hospital. The hospital administration was very helpful during the operation and the detention occurred without incident or damage to the facility.

In Karabilah, two suspects were detained with alleged ties to a foreign fighter facilitation network.

Coalition Forces are working diligently to eliminate foreign terrorists and al-Qaeda supporters who are trying to hijack the development and building of a new stable and peaceful Iraq.

More progress in Iraq. It looks like the surge is the right idea. More men on the ground means easier work routing the terrorists. Don't expect to read this on the front page of the NYTs, though. They typically only care to report body counts. Why let the American people know we are WINNING the war in Iraq? If they found that out, there would be no reason to pass symbolic resolutions to undermine the war effort.

Weapons Cache Uncovered in East Baghdad Mosque

Iraqi security forces find weapons cache in east Baghdad mosque

CAMP TAJI, Iraq – The increased presence of Iraqi and Multi-National Division – Baghdad forces on the streets of eastern Baghdad continued to produce results as Iraqi troops found weapons caches inside a mosque and several surrounding buildings in Al Shamisiyah Feb. 15.

The cache was found inside the Al Farkan Mosque and included six mortar tubes, multiple rocket-propelled grenades, several AK-47s and other weapons.

The cache was discovered by Iraqi Soldiers from the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division. Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division provided security for the operation while the Iraqis conducted the search.

Why isn't anyone else blogging about this? Or is finding RPG's hidden in Mosques no longer of interest to anyone?

Follow up on Hijacking Story

via pajamas media

The most underplayed story in France so far this year:

An airplane did not crash into the Eiffel Tower or the Elysée Palace today. So why worry? An insignificant flight from Nouakchott to Nouadhibou—nowhere to nowhere if you get what I mean—made a forced landing because a kooky passenger asked to be flown to Paris.

Landing rights were refused in Morocco, granted in Las Palmas. End of story. Now you can concentrate on the tragic downsizing of Alcatel-Lucent. They are firing engineers, mon ami, engineers! That’s what happens when you let Americans buy a French high tech company. Why did the passenger want to go to Paris? To buy Louis Vuitton handbags? No, he said his request for asylum had been turned down several times. It figures. If you arrive in an airplane, your chances improve radically. Especially if you land on the roof of the Préfecture.

The pilot of the Mauritanian flight, interviewed on Radio France Internationale, added a few details: The hijacker walked into the cockpit (people still leave their doors unlocked in some African villages) and aimed two loaded revolvers at the pilot and co-pilot. Take me to Paris, he ordered. The pilot asked why he wanted to go to Paris, and the hijacker replied: Can’t you see all the bad things they are doing to Muslims.

Muslims? Something to do with Muslims? That’s news to me. The story was briefly reported on earlier radio broadcasts (I don’t think it made it to the TV) as a minor incident: a loner on a domestic flight that went to his head, happens all the time

But the man's motives were not terrorism; he wanted the plane to fly to France so he could request political asylum, said Mohamed Ould Mohamed Cheikh, Mauritania's top police official.

When I blogged yesterday about the AP take and the Reuters take, both purposefully ommitted the fact that this man was a Muslim. Just an ordinary, secularist who was desperate to seek asylum in order to avoid oppression.

So I guess when a MUSLIM man hijacks a plane in order to go to FRANCE because of "all the bad things they are doing to Muslims" that this is no longer considered terrorism. I guess hijacking a plane is not a terrorist act anymore... well, at least if your name is Mohamed.

Gore: Out in '08

Looks like Al Gore is out in '08.

AFP - Former US vice president Al Gore has ruled out a bid for the White House in the 2008 elections and will carry on his fight against global climate change

At least he still has global warming.