Category Archives: Iraq

Axis of Illogic

Don’t forget that at the time Bush was preparing to invade Iraq, he was giving North Korea room to maneuver freely on the axis of evil. While Iraqi palm dates were being subjected to strict trade embargoes, North Korean Scud missiles were allowed to safely reach their destinations: the jammed-with-Jihadist nations of Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Libya and Yemen.

In 2002, a North Korean vessel was not allegedly—but actually—apprehended in the Arabian Sea, carrying 15 well-concealed Scud missiles. At the time of its invasion, Iraq was suspected of hiding a total of 60 Scud-variant missiles. While Bush was revving up for war with Iraq, North Koreans were sailing the seas in search for markets for the equivalent of a fourth of the entire Iraqi arsenal.

You see, North Korea didn’t and apparently doesn’t sell missiles to Al-Qaida. While Iraq might have. That’s an important distinction.

The weapons inspectors, who were criss-crossing Iraq before the invasion, were not allowed to finish their uneventful task (Bush threw them out so he could invade). At the same time, Bush exempted North Korea’s Yongbyon research base from inspections, but not before bribing the North Koreans with $95m.

So long as you understand that North Korea’s belligerence is ultimately all Clinton’s fault.

You say Foley; I Say Iraq

Democrats, Iraq, Republicans, War

Florida Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican, “abruptly quit Congress on Friday after reports surfaced that he had sent sexually charged electronic messages to boys working as pages,”reports the Washington Times. Foley is under the FBI’s criminal investigation, although it’s not clear what federal or state laws, if any, he has violated. (The Law Against Lowlifes in Politics?) It appears the agency is searching for that law. (The country’s journalists are incapable of writing a news lead, much less properly fleshing out a story.)

Foley, like Debra LaFave, another paragon of the public-sector, claimed one of those bogus illnesses: alcoholism (at the root of the diseasing of behavior is the eradication of good and bad). To quickly establish the presence of mitigating factors, Foley checked himself into a rehab facility. However, he doesn’t have slut appeal; so it probably won’t work.

If Democrats weren’t so dumb, they’d comment tersely on this sordid affair, and then move on post haste to the real corruption: Iraq. (Condi Rice—as fleet of foot as ever in evading responsibility for anything, really—has used the distraction to deny her contribution to the lack of preparedness for the 9/11 onslaught. She’s resurrecting the same excuses I deconstructed in “Hold their Feet to the Fire.”)

The Republicans don’t deserve to govern because of Iraq (and immigration), not Foley. But neither do the Democrats (a pox on both their houses). As for traditional conservatives, (as opposed establishment Republicans), at the very least, they ought to consider President Bush’s positions on mass immigration and the national identity, the debt, and the growth in the size and power of government inimical to conservatism. However, they rarely pipe up these days about the accretion of the state under Bush. If only their concept of good government extended beyond pious homilies to family values, faith and fetuses.

Doe a Deer In A Massive Mailbox

Iraq, WMD

Americans are like Australian Marsupials; they’ve developed in isolation, an existential condition that may account for some bizarre traits, such as believing every tall-tale—WMD in Iraq, for instance. So it comes as no surprise that the press has run with a story alleging Virginian Senator George Allen, already a controversial character, caught a deer during his college days, and “after the deer was killed…cut off the doe’s head, asked for directions to the home of the nearest black person and shoved the head into that person’s mailbox.”

Maybe I’m over inquisitive, but my only question is, How on earth did Allen get the deer’s head into a US mailbox?

When Wrong is Still Right

Bush, Iraq, Islam, War

In reply to James Huggins’ letter, posted here, whose stance has been to consistently bash those of us on the Right who opposed the war in Iraq for daring to be right (there’s a nice quote about that tactic. Someone please find it): Now that Iraq is broken, as we said it would be, these individuals continue to heap scorn on us. “What are ya gonna do; let’s be pragmatic. What’s done is done, so unless you have something constructive to say, shut up and let’s get on with the job.”

What job? Does it not occur to you that sometimes things are irreparably broken? Do you really think we can solve the problem of Iraq? Are there no limits to hubristic and delusional thinking? Are there no limits to the defiance of the laws of nature, such as that central planning has NEVER worked; freedom must rise from the roots, it cannot be imposed from the tree tops? Violate rules a school child learns on the playground, and you’ll come up shortalways. And is it worth losing one more American life to the Iraq Moloch? Oh, I forget, we only value fetuses, not fully grown human beings, thousands of whom are hobbling around on prosthetic limbs, lives ruined. Cicero said, “The first law of history is to tell the truth.” Let Huggins and the rest quit the Hussein-equals-Hitler inanities and admit that, while he was by no means a pleasant fellow, he kept Iraq as together as it will ever be. The trains ran on time and Shia and Sunni lived in relative peace in THE SAME NEIGHBORHOODS. There was no civil war (or “civil strife,” as the euphemism goes). In fact, the Iraqis I had met before the war were generally well-educated and had their act together. That simple thing comes from having an infrastructure: law and order, schools, universities, electricity, potable water, hospitals. Mark my words: this war, over which I am constantly castigated, will be responsible for the loss of a generation of young Iraqis. Mark my words (you heard it here first), in a few years time, the lost Iraqi generation will be a topic for discussion among the talking titmice.

Ibn Saud said: “It may be accepted as an incontrovertible fact that it will be impossible to manage the people of Iraq except by strong means and military force.” A prescription Saddam had mastered. The Sultan of Najd (born in 1876; died in 1953) knew of what he spoke.