Bent Notes

Douglas Stone lays out once and for all the necessity and rightness of the US-led invasion of Iraq and deposing of Saddam.

The Marxist From Chicago actually tried to persuade Iraq’s government to hold off on planning US troop withdrawal until he became president.

We’ve seen this kind of seditious behavior before out of the FHers, but the Marxist From Chicago has now become the embodiment of it.

This needs to be trumpeted from every media outlet of every type in this nation.

If you were a soldier, a pilot or a Marine serving in Iraq next January and this sorry excuse for an American became president, could you really take him seriously as your Commander In Chief?

Even with conventions, hurricanes, Iranian and North Korean nuke programs, Russian imperialism, Palin babies and - ahem - 3.3 percent economic growth in the second quarter, there ought to be more media trumpeting of the fact that the US-led coalition has handed security authority in once-wild Anbar province back to Iraqi forces.

Frank Turek’s latest Townhall column, “Jesus and the Case for War.”

Mohammed Fadhil at Pajamas Media on why Iraq’s prime minister has done an about face in negotiations on a long-term US presence.

Sometimes something will go very right.  Such is the case with the opening of Baghdad’s pools and parks.

Nancy Pelosi spits in the eye of the courageous American military and blows a kiss to our main enemy (Iran, for your sprout-munchers).

 Memo to the American people:  Before you return this slug posing as a human being to the Speaker ofthe House postion, remember that whether you deserve a secure, free and happy future depends on whethr you come to your senses.

Blogging has been light the past few days.  That’s because life is good, professionally speaking.  I’ve knocked out a couple of things for Indie-music.com’s May issue - a review of a lackluster CD, but also a very cool interview to which I’ll link when it comes out.  Also doing some copywriting for a PR / marketing guy I’ve worked for over the years.  I also had to do next Sunday’s Republic column (on why nuclear proliferation isn’t a bigger issue this political season).  I’ve also been lining up musical associates for several upcoming gigs.  Also grading papers and getting ready to administer tonight’s final exam.

I have been paying attention to the world around me, though.  It’s wacky out there, ain’t it?

Were you like me when you heard about Miley Cyrus’s Vanity Fair photo shoot?  I immediately thought, “Oh, no, our sordid, rotten culture nabs another Disney kid.”

I doubt if Obama’s denunciation of Rev. Wright yesterday ends the matter.  That would depend on the Trash Talker from Trinity not shooting his mouth off any more.  How likely is that?  Plus, He Who definitely Doesn’t Walk On Water sounded, shall we say, less than resolute when he said, “I mean it.”  Not the man he met twenty years ago?  Oh, please.  And if he’s that poor a judge of character, we sure as hell don’t want him sitting down one-on-one with Kim, Ahmadinejad and Chavez.

Iran looks to be a front-burner issue.  There’s yet another warning-shot-to-a-speedboat incident in the Persian Gulf, another American aircraft carrier sailing into that body of water, more proof of Iranian weapons and Iran-trained bad guys turning up in Iraq, and, of course, Dennis Ross’s warning to that Toronto congregation that the West has less than a year to prevent Iran from having nukes.

Gas prices won’t be coming down any time soon, for two main reasons: Mideast tensions and Congress’s refusal to allow drilling in places like ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmentalists aren’t just dweebs; they’re agents of misery.  Riot-causing food shortages are menacing the entire world, in no small part because of the diversion of perfectly edible grain into biofuel production.

Zimbabwe’s oppostion is bravely trying to see that political justice and national stability prevail.  Robert Mugabe is showing us how evil dictators operate when they have no more ability to dress up their motives as anything civilized, like “the national interest.”

As I say, it’s wacky out there, ain’t it?

If anything, according to the new Pentagon report, Secretary Powell’s characterization of Saddam’s regime as a “sinister nexus” in the world of terrorism was an understatement:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120631495290958169.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

There has been a fresh spate of bad-mouthing of the US mission in Iraq lately in the BN threads.  A lot of it sounds like an attempt to keep alive Harry Reid’s failure meme from last year.  Maybe this ABC News item will alleviate some of the gloom.  After all, the Iraqis themselves ain’t so gloomy.

The irony is that the world’s major-league Freedom-Haters, who make the ones within our midst look like rank amateurs, are postively giddy about the gloom regarding Iraq spewed forth by the likes of the H-Word Creature.  ( I link to the Freeper post about it because the expressions of exuberance at the source website are in Arabic.)

Christopher Hitchens’ Washington Post column entitled “Iraq Was Worth the Price.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/10/AR2008031001594.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

A commenter thought he was really sticking one down my throat with a link to a news story about the two foundations that reported on the “Many lies the Bush administration told” about Iraq.

I hadn’t anticipated needing to even deal with it, but here’s the refutation:

At Big Lizards, you’ll find the omissions from what the reports had to say.

At Law Hawk, you’ll find references to all the Democrats who were concerned about Saddam’s intentions.

At Hot Air, you’ll find documentation showing that the two foundations spewing this dog vomit are Greorge Soros front groups.

Baghdad residents were boogying for New Years Eve like they haven’t in years.

Here at BN we rarely go over the arguments for the coalition invasion of Iraq.  At this late date, it has sort of a beating-a-dead-horse quality to it.  Everybody understands what the stakes were except the moonbat fringe and some earnest-yet-disconnected types.

This, though, brings together the compelling strategic and historical picture W was looking at in 2002 / 2003 when he made the decision like nothing else I’ve seen in a long time.

The Freedom Haters wish this guy weren’t where he is.

UPDATE: The pro-surrender FHers’ designs are thwarted in the Senate.  There’s hope for this great land yet.

Harry Reid is going to try once again to force W into an Iraq-withdrawal timetable, this time using the next round of funds, funds our military says the absence of which will undercut its recent successes.

In a marked reversal of earlier trends, thousands of Iraqis are going back home and resuming their lives.

Hugh Hewitt interviews Michael Yon on the unfolding victory in Iraq and that country’s steady progress toward becoming a normal, hopeful place.

Viva la surge!

Ralph Peters has an excellent column today about the MSM’s ignoring of the recent good news coming out of Iraq.

Think about this.  One of the major theaters in the current global war is coming to a successful resolution, and no major news outlet will say so.

I feel good about the direction things are going in Iraq, but this willful blind eye on the part of our culture here at home has me concerned for the road ahead.  Without an informed populace, mistaken perceptions of reality will wind up guiding our thinking - and voting.  There’s still an arduous road ahead.  Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming to Pakistan was met with an al-Qaeda attack that killed over 130 and injured hundreds more.   Iran is headed full-steam towards a nuclear weapon.  I could go on.  The point is that if no one tells the American public that Iraq is getting its act together and is no longer the mess it was even earlier this year, a we-don’t-need-any-more-quagmires mindset will prevail when other fronts in this struggle still require our vigilance and keen wits.

There’s always some issue arising in the Mideast that needs to be handled delicately.  Right now, we have a two-pronged dilemma involving Turkey.  The Freedom-Haters on Capitol Hill, in their desperation to find some way to ensure U.S. defeat in Iraq, insist on using this moment to pass a resolution on the Ottoman Empire’s genocide against the Armenians 90 years ago.  Of course, this would enrage our ally Turkey to the point of cutting off our supply lines to our troops in Iraq.

It doesn’t help Turkey’s case, though, to see them gearing up to go after Kurds inside Iran.  W’s saying, “Dudes, don’t do it!”