Ole’ Mitt is giving John Kerry a run for his money for the Flip-Flopper crown:

On an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” a few days ago, Mitt Romney was asked whether, given what we know today, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. Romney wouldn’t say.

“Oh boy, that’s a big question,” Romney answered. “And going back and trying to say, given what we know now, what would we have done? Would we have invaded or not? At the time, we didn’t have the knowledge that we have now.” Romney mentioned intelligence before the war suggesting that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. After the war, U.S. and international inspection teams did not find those weapons, which had been the basis for much of the Bush administration’s case for invading Iraq. Still, Romney told Fox’s Chris Wallace that the invasion was “appropriate at the time” because the U.S. acted “in light of that belief” — that is, in intelligence that turned out to be faulty.

Three days later?

This time, his answer was not only different but definitive: No, the U.S. would not have invaded Iraq had officials known there were no weapons of mass destruction there.

“Well, if we knew at the time of our entry into Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction — if somehow we had been given that information, why, obviously we would not have gone in,” Romney said.

“You don’t think we would have gone in?” asked MSNBC’s Chuck Todd.

“Well, of course not,” Romney answered. “The president went in based upon intelligence that they had weapons of mass destruction. Had he known that that was not the case, the U.N. would not have put forward resolutions authorizing this type of action. The president would not have been pursuing that course.”

My beef isn’t just his flip-flopping, it’s his focus on WMD’s and whether or not the UN would of authorized force without them. WMD’s were NOT the only reason we went in.

We knew Saddam had ties to terror groups.

we know from Clinton Administration claims, from captured documents, from pre-war and post-war intelligence that Saddam’s intelligence agencies had relationships with various groups in the Al Queda terrorist network of groups. We know from the 1998 Clinton Administration indictment of Osama Bin Laden that the two had reached an agreement to get WMD into the hands of the Al Queda network of terrorist groups.

the indictment states that Al Qaeda reached an agreement
with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons development.

We also know from 1990-2003 Saddam’s government considered itself at war with the United States and from 1992-today Osama Bin Laden’s Al Queda network of terrorist groups has been at war with the United States.

A few great posts to read would be the debate between Scott, our Author, and a commenter. Both parts here and here.

Not only did he have the ties to terrorist groups but he had the means to get WMD’s into their hands. This would be unthinkable after 9/11, and after the previous 13 years in which he flipped the world off that was a chance no one could take.

Oh, but there were other reasons:

• The Cease Fire Agreement, broken many times by Iraq
• They thwarted inspections of their WMD facilities as mandated by the Cease Fire
• Iraq persisted in violating other resolutions by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its people
• The fact that Iraq had proven they were willing to use WMD from prior history.
• The fact that Iraq demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces
• The fact that after 9/11 the threat posed by any terrorist group acquiring WMD would be grave

And many more.

The man was evil and committed acts which ARE acts of war, ie firing on US fighter jets, attempted assassination of political leaders…you add that onto his history of aggression against its neighbors and his relationships with various terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, and you have a great reason to invade.

Not just WMD.

The fact that at the time everyone and their mother believed he had WMD is an added factor, but not THE factor.

Ok, off my soapbox.

Now onto some more Mitt news. It doesn’t just involve flip-floppery but full on stupidity. Here he is claiming that the individual mandate is “conservative”

Requiring people to have health insurance is “conservative,” GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told MSNBC on Wednesday, but only if states do it.

The argument aims to improve Romney’s appeal to Republican voters concerned about the healthcare reform plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts in 2006. The Massachusetts law contains an individual mandate similar to the one in President Obama’s healthcare law, which conservatives despise.

“Personal responsibility,” Romney said, “is more conservative in my view than something being given out for free by government.”

Oh please. Personal responsabilitity is definitely conservative…but forcing someone to pay for everyone’s health insurance is NOT.

Close to five hundred captured Taliban are now free once more to fight another day:

In one of the most elaborate prison breaks in recent Afghan history, the Taliban managed to free hundreds of inmates from Kandahar’s central prison in the early hours of Monday morning through a 1,180-foot tunnel.

The mass escape – reportedly not discovered until hours after it was over – has further shaken Afghans’ faith in their government, and intensified concerns that the freed prisoners will bolster the insurgency in Kandahar.

The escape is a particular blow to NATO and Afghan forces who have ratcheted up their campaign against the Taliban during the past year and hoped to expand their gains this summer. While NATO forces captured many of the Taliban fighters who were being held in the prison, the escape cast doubts on the ability of Afghan forces preparing to take more responsibility for providing security.

“I would call this a shameful incident for the Afghan government,” says Ahmad Shah Khan Achakzai, a former member of parliament in Kandahar. “It is impossible for the Taliban to get 500 men out of prison without anyone’s help. I believe there are some people from the prison or the government who gave the Taliban support.… It’s now clear to everyone how corrupt the government is.”

The reactions by the Afghan population have been quite angry:

…Military analyst Abdul Hadi Khaliq warns that the escapees are “radicalized, ready-to-fight, and extremist” fighters. “This shows that the Kandahar government is paralyzed or has made a deal with the enemy. Either way, major changes need to be made in Kandahar. The Kandahar authorities must be punished, not rewarded as in the past,” Khaliq argues, referring to a previous Taliban prison break in Kandahar three years ago.

Cheragh Daily also alleges that local authorities were complicit in the jail break. “Even if digging the tunnel was not a scenario to free the terrorists from prison as concessions to [Taliban] leaders, we cannot rule out involvement of powerbrokers and influential hands in the incident.” Ridiculing Hamid Karzai’s conciliatory approach to the Taliban, the paper asks the president to explain whether the escapees were “foreign elements” or “dissatisfied brothers.” The paper warns that all escapees will “return to their trenches and continue to kill defenseless Afghan people and troops.” Afghan daily Hasht-e Sobh writes that the escape of Taliban fighters could “boost the morale of the Taliban and weaken the confidence of security forces.”

…Mohammad Sarwar Usmani, a lawmaker from Farah Province, also implicates local authorities and warns that the enemies’ growing infiltration into the security forces is dangerous. Usmani calls on the Karzai government to stop releasing Taliban prisoners through the High Peace Council. The council has recently asked the United States to release Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo jail, including top Taliban leader Khairullah Khairkhah. “If Khairkhah wants to make peace, we will welcome him. We will make contacts and discuss his release,” Karzai told journalist in Kabul recently. Usmani, however, argues that Taliban fighters freed from jail rejoin the terrorists and their release has had no effect on the prospect for peace.

And we’re left to ponder a few things. First, how in the hell can the coalition even think about relying on THIS government to disengage from the conflict. Second, wouldn’t it been better if these 400+ terrorists had no longer existed in the first place?

In the end it matters little from the vantage point of Taliban fighters in the countryside. As I have observed before, given the catch-and-release program, the radicalization of half-way insurgents in these prisons, and the reflexive reversion to capture rather than kill, ISAF operations that capture insurgents are becoming a literal joke among the Taliban (see prior articles). I pay absolutely no attention whatsoever to ISAF press releases that begin with “Taliban fighters detained …”

If this is offensive to sensibilities, if this causes an outcry over advocacy of harsh rules of engagement, if this causes moral preening over the rules of war, then so be it. Withdraw from Afghanistan and end the campaign now. In either case, prisons do not work in counterinsurgency. Kill them or let them go, but putting them into a fake justice system is a worthless enterprise.

The restrictions put on our soldiers fighting in either war is ridiculous and will be the undoing of any success we’ve had in the wars.

Oh, btw, had to throw this out there since it’s related to the War on Terror….more evidence of the ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Former British PM Tony Blair testified in front of another Iraq inquiry today and for the second time this year he testified about the very real danger of Iran and al-Qaeda working together. Of course the storyline by the British papers, the biased MSM, and the lefty blogosphere, is regarding the regret offered by Blair over the loss of life:

At the end of his evidence this afternoon he said it had never been his meaning. “Of course I regret deeply and profoundly the loss of life,”

I’m sure everyone else would cheer the loss of life huh? I mean come on, of course he regrets the loss of life. This is news? Some kind of acknowledgment that he screwed up? Please.

In his written testimony (PDF) he gave much needed attention to the collusion between Iran and al-Qaeda:

The Role of AQ and Iran

This, in my view, merits a special section. This was the game-changer, the dimension not foreseen, that almost tipped Iraq into the abyss. There is no analysis of what happened after May 2003 that is anywhere near the mark, without consideration of how and why Al Qaida and Iran played the roles they did. The truth is: without their interventions, the situation would have been manageable. It was AQ that staged the bombing “spectaculars” that killed thousands of innocent people, drove the international community and development organisations and UN out of Iraq, committed the outrage on the Golden Mosque in Samarra in February 2006 to trigger sectarian violence and created a climate of fear in the country and a sense of a slide into chaos abroad. It was Iran that financed and armed militia groups who created the worsening security situation in the south, contributed to the problems in Baghdad, and through EFPs and IEDs killed coalition and in particular UK soldiers.

The pre-war intelligence made mention of AQ. Various JIC assessments alluded to them and to the possibility of AQ in the north attacking coalition forces. But the bulk of the assessments were focussed on the risks of greater AQ attacks on coalition interests elsewhere in the world, in the Gulf, in Britain etc. There was no sense that AQ would mount a full-scale operation in Iraq after the removal of Saddam. In retrospect as I said in my evidence, the intelligence that al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian AQ leader, had been in Baghdad in May 2002 should perhaps have been given more weight. But actually most of the British authorities were at pains to separate Saddam from AQ in 2002 not to link them.

As far as Iran’s involvement, that was specifically assessed as unlikely given the hostility to Saddam. If anything, it was thought that whilst Iran would have a keen interest, naturally, in what happened in Iraq it would be more interested in promoting stability than instability.

And just as many people have taken pains to point out that Saddam and al-Qaeda would not work together because one is secular and one is not (a theory proven wrong) many people thought Iran and al-Qaeda would not work together because one is Shia, the other Sunni. Tony Blair brought this up when he testified last year:

What nobody foresaw was that Iran would actually end up supporting AQ. The conventional wisdom was these two are completely different types of people because Iran is Shia, the Al-Qaeda people are Sunni and therefore, you know, the two would never mix. What happened in the end was that they did because they both had a common interest in destabilising the country, and for Iran I think the reason they were interested in destabilising Iraq was because they worried about having a functioning majority Shia country with a democracy on their doorstep, and for Al-Qaeda they knew perfectly well their whole mission was to try and say the West was oppressing Islam. It is hard to do that if you replace tyrannical governments with functioning democracies.

This sparked some questions from the inquiry members again. This exchange is memorable (PDF) and quite informative:

SIR RODERIC LYNE: By getting rid of Saddam’s nuclear weapons by decapitating the regime send a signal to Iran not to go on developing nuclear weapons?

HE RT. HON. TONY BLAIR: Obviously it sent a signal to everyone which is why Libya –

SIR RODERIC LYNE: Well, how did the Iranians react?

THE RT. HON. TONY BLAIR: Initially they felt that pressure, now they don’t feel the same pressure.

SIR RODERIC LYNE: Don’t they feel they need them more in case the Americans have the same intentions towards them?

THE RT. HON. TONY BLAIR: No, that is not the reason why Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

SIR RODERIC LYNE: It was doing it even under the Shah.

THE RT. HON. TONY BLAIR: It is a rather different regime today. People can take two views about Iran today, but I will give you my view very, very strongly indeed, because this is a looming and coming challenge. I am out in that region the whole time. I see the impact and influence of Iran everywhere. It is negative, destabilising. It is supportive of terrorist groups. It is doing everything it can to impede progress in the Middle East peace process and to facilitate a situation in which that region cannot embark on the process of modernisation it urgently needs.

This is not because we have done something. You know, at some point — and I say this to you with all the passion I possibly can — the West has to get out of this what I think is a wretched policy or posture of apology for believing that we are causing what the Iranians are doing or what these extremists are doing. We are not. The fact is they are doing it because they disagree fundamentally with our way of life and they will carry on doing it unless they are met with the requisite determination and if necessary force.

The fact that — look, President Obama, not President Bush — this is an important point — President Obama goes in March 2009 to Cairo in the heart of Islam. He makes a speech where he says effectively “Put aside the Bush era. I am now offering the hand of friendship. You, Iran can come into partnership. You are an ancient proud civilisation. We will welcome you in”.

What’s the response he gets? They carry on with the terrorism. They carry on with the destabilisation. They carry on with the nuclear weapons programme. At some point we have to get our heads out of the sand and understand they are going to carry on with this. Iraq is one part of a far bigger picture and right across that region people are facing that struggle.

Many people still do not understand this point and will keep their head in the sand until the worst happens.

Don’t expect to see this on MSNBC or Huffpo, but feel free to send them an email.

Suspected leader of Ansar Al-Islam, 7 criminal associates arrested

BAGHDAD – Iraqi Security Forces arrested the suspected leader of Ansar al-Islam and seven criminal associates during a series of joint security operations conducted in Mansour and Adhamiyah today.

ISF and U.S. advisors searched several residential buildings for the wanted individual who allegedly has links to senior Al-Qaeda leadership.

Brushing aside legitimate criticism, concerns, and harsh questioning of the Obama Administration in wake of the Christmas “dingaling” bomber (as talk radio host Michael Medved refers to Umar Farouk Abdulmullatab), President Obama concluded his weekly radio address (January 2, 2010) with the following call for national unity:

But as we go forward, let us remember this-our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans, not each other. Let’s never forget what has always carried us through times of trial, including those attacks eight Septembers ago. [Did he just invoke 9/11 (not the first time, actually)? Something President Bush was criticized for doing repeatedly?- wordsmith]

Instead of giving in to fear and cynicism, let’s renew that timeless American spirit of resolve and confidence and optimism. Instead of succumbing to partisanship and division, let’s summon the unity that this moment demands. Let’s work together, with a seriousness of purpose, to do what must be done to keep our country safe.

As we begin this New Year, I cannot imagine a more fitting resolution to guide us-as a people and as a nation.

As Medved pointed out in his program Monday, if the president wishes for politics to “stop at the water’s edge”, why then did he feel it necessary to include the following, earlier in the same speech:

It’s why I refocused the fight-bringing to a responsible end the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks [he's used this line in past speeches- wordsmith], and dramatically increasing our resources in the region where al Qaeda is actually based, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s why I’ve set a clear and achievable mission-to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies and prevent their return to either country.

Why does the “new kind of politician who rises above the petty Washington politics of old” never botheres to reach across the partisan divide himself and acknowledge that President Bush kept us safe since 9/11?

What is it with Mr. Unity, Barack Obama, who calls for the nation to come together at this particular moment, even as he sticks in politically partisan cheap shots within the same speech? As Michael Medved points out, how about leading by example, Mr. President?

Michael Medved writing in USA Today:

Obama undermines his own unity pleas by inserting cheap shots against his predecessor in even high-minded public pronouncements. His Nobel speech explicitly praised America’s battles in Afghanistan and in the first Iraq war 19 years ago, conspicuously excluding the current Iraqi conflict (in which soldiers continue to sacrifice). He also emphasized his decision to close Guantanamo a surefire applause line for his European audience but an utterly gratuitous slap at George W. Bush. Similarly, the big Afghanistan speech featured an out-of-context slam of the prior president’s decisions on Iraq. The whole world knows that Obama represents a fresh start, so these reminders of the raging disagreements of the Bush years unnecessarily undermine the spirit of solidarity the new president seeks.

Repeating the mantra “Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11″ is a politically partisan cheap-shot that stands only to alienate Americans such as myself, who rejects the conventional mainstream understanding of that statement.

Would excluding that gratuitous cheap-shot have weakened his radio address? No. Such partisan sniping is “sooo yesterday’s news”; and amongst his fellow liberals, so passé: Been there, believed that..time to moveon.org to the present…None of them need reminding of what a “miserable failure” “King George” was.

But President Obama can’t help himself because he is not the president everyone who voted for him wishes him to be: A great American president who can unite the nation. Nope. He is a divisive liberal president who represents only one side of the country. The wrong side. He is not conducting himself as the American president, but as the liberal Democrat president.

I’m not the one with the unity problem. I’m not the one who has trouble leaving politics behind at the water’s edge. President Obama is the partisan problem. And the saddest part is he can’t even see it; nor would it appear, can any of his advisors recognize his divisiveness.

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer writes on the White House blog in response to Cheney’s criticism:

I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers.

What is telling, is how it took 4 days for the Administration to figure out how to address the recent terror plot, and only hours to confront Cheney.

In the next paragraph, Pfeiffer does as all good Obamadsmen do: Blame the previous administration for where we are at today:

First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years.

It is a lie that Iraq had “no al Qaeda presence” prior to invasion. It also misunderstands the nature of the war we find ourselves in, which is not limited to just al Qaeda, but a network of Islamic terror groups, many of which are affiliated with al Qaeda. (Interestingly, Pfeiffer’s post even mentions it’s not just al Qaeda who mean to do us harm, without seeing the contradiction he makes, here). Note that Osama bin Laden and his terror group wasn’t the only signatory to his 1998 fatwa, but was one of five. All can be said to fall under the umbrella moniker, “World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders”. We are at war with an Islamic (Jihad) Terror Movement. Not just one terror group directly responsible for 9/11, but an entire network of religious nuts who cooperate and collaborate, and have shared ideology and goals.

It is why from the get-go, President Bush said our focus will not be limited to just al-Qaeda:

“Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
-President Bush in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capitol, Washington D.C., September 20, 2001.

As far as Iraq, it became the central front of the GWoT from 2003-2008. Zawahiri regarded it with great importance. As Lawrence Wright, author of the definitive geneology on al Qaeda- The Looming Tower- said on national radio, it was al Qaeda that became bogged down by Iraq. Iraq became their Vietnam. And it is thanks to the war in Iraq that al Qaeda was exposed for the human aberration that they are, losing legitimacy in the eyes of many in the Islamic world- amongst both moderates and radicals, alike (they never had legitimacy in the eyes of peaceful Muslims- and yes, they do exist).

President Bush kept us safe since 9/11. And for the president who campaigned on reaching across the aisle, bipartisanship, and being a new kind of politician, he’d live up to that ideal if he would be gracious enough to acknowledge that and quit scapegoating the last administration for today’s current event difficulties. But president Obama can’t help but be who he is: A divisive, petty, all-about-me-and-my-legacy partisan, blame-handing, far-to-the-left politician. A divider, not a uniter.

Ah…but Pfeiffer’s distortions haven’t stopped spinning yet:

It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia. And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.

President Obama is merely riding out the coattails of the decisions made before he ever came into office, including the signing of the SoFA. The war as it currently stands in Iraq today was “already winding down” with troop withdrawal planned before his watch even began. But he takes credit for success there, conveniently forgetting he opposed the decision that helped bring about that success.

It’s beyond humor to see that in September of ’08, presidential candidate Barack Obama was criticizing President Bush for lack of urgency, as 43 mounted a “quiet surge” into Afghanistan in response to dealing with ever-changing circumstances on the ground. The need for an increase of troop strength for a counterinsurgency strategy was part of a 2008 strategy review. Meanwhile 44, in his continued criticism, seems to have not only adopted “lack of urgency” in dealing with Afghanistan, but made “dithering” one of the memorable words/phrases of 2009 (along with “teachable moment”).

Let’s be clear: President Obama is an inheritor and beneficiary of many of the tools and policy-decisions he will need to continue keeping America safe. This includes the “partnership building”. The notion that Bush only engaged in cowboy diplomacy and did not build alliances and cooperation with other nations is ludicrous and false. A lot of the GWoT was waged “behind the scenes”. But somehow “shock and awe” military aggression has come to define the Bush approach. This ignores the truly multi-pronged effort President Bush did take in engaging the Islamic terror network. Not only were they decimated on the field of battle, but much of their financing choked off and bank assets frozen due to Bush being engaged on the diplomatic front, resulting in law enforcement and intelligence gathering and sharing. The constant usage of the phrase “military alone can’t solve this” is strawman nonsense to fuel the false premise that the Bush Administration only pursued military use of force in combating Islamic terror.

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action.

Try “dithering”. Where was his action when it came to supporting the people of Iran? When it came to Afghanistan?

And he has used “bellicose rhetoric”. On the campaign trail in regards to how to handle Pakistan and Iran. And against political opposition (remember “get in their faces”?).

Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country.

The “bellicose rhetoric” did not happen for 7 years. It only happened on the heels of 9/11, then toned down (rather unfortunately in some cases, imo).

And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.

How about being “off-key” in spending so much time attacking what a former VP (who left office as deeply unpopular in opinion polls as the president, as noted by Mark Hemmingway) has to say, than in attacking those who wish to kill us:

the White House is still in campaign mode, worried about what a private citizen — who left office remarkably unpopular! — thinks of them.

What is laughable is the absurdity of the Administration to wax so indignant and Obama supporters and liberals to be so outraged that “How dare you! How dare former VP Cheney speak out against the sitting president!”

Well, maybe he wouldn’t feel so inclined to speak out if the current administration would have more class and dignity than to make political swipes at the previous administration in rationalizing their every decision in how they are dealing with the current state of affairs.

Maybe when you quit blaming Bush for your own inadequacies in how you’re handling today’s problems, then maybe Bush’s hatchet man will quit chopping you down a notch or two, Mr. President.

Well, it’s gone. 2009 is finally freaking GONE

The year started with my wife outta work, no family income (I just get beer money for my books), two sick kids, the neighbor’s trampoline had just taken flight into the back of our car-almost totaling it.

The year continued…

Obama took office. He and Dems gave a trillion dollars in “stimulus” money to their organized labor donors who paid 80% of their campaign money (according to the Federal Election Commission website) with the idea that if the kickback wasn’t given right away unemployment would rise above 8%.

Then unemployment reached almost 11% (almost 25% in some states…states that probably won’t be blue again in the fall-not w 1:4 voters outta work!).
The war in Iraq continues under the Bush plan, and Obama-who had pledged for 2yrs to focus on Afghanistan-took 10 months to decide on what to do.

Also in Afghanistan, our own Flopping Aces writer, Chris Galloway returned from his tour there in April, but on June 30th his months of being unable to adjust, his frustrations w Obama and the left’s ignorance of the war on terror among other challenges drove him to take his own life. God bless you Chris! You’re missed more than you know.

My wife did find a job, but 3 more of my friends lost their jobs (2 of em far left, unabashed moonbat Obama lovers).

Last night, my wife and I did the usual. We looked back on the year, we complained about some things, and we thanked God for others (a trip to Disneyworld with our kids that was the greatest vacation in our lives!). We talked about making resolutions, and decided on a list of things we wanna try and do instead. As we waited up for the ball to drop on TV, I got a facebook message that a friend of mine’s mom had just died. 2009 was going out like bitch.

I dunno what 2010 will bring. I know the deadline for Iran to give up its nuclear program has come and gone, and that Obama “strongly objected” to the tyrannical oppression of the Iranian people. I know that even if the current plan in Iraq works, 50-70,000 American combat troops will just be re-named “security forces” in October. I know that there’s no plan for fighting terrorists in Afghanistan other than to make soldiers read Miranda rights if they choose to capture a suicide bomber (should Marines get badges now, or will those grunts just toss em on the ground w a firm, “Badges!? We don’t need no stinking badges!”?). I know that even TIME Magazine reported that there is no military option for Yemen. I know from a friend just back from the region that Somalia is a war zone w Americans fully involved and the world ignoring it (but Obama did get a peace prize). I know that Israel is not gonna wait forever re: Iran, that Russia’s making offensive weapons again for the first time in 20yrs, and I know that if I look around the web or TV I can still find some leftwinger nutroots moonbat moron blaming Bush for something-anything-even though Obama’s been President for a year now.

More than anything, I know that 2009 changed me. Chris’ death effects me harder than any other that I’ve known in Iraq or Afghanistan. I know that what pissed him off politically and militarily pisses me off too. I know that the trip I took w my wife and kids to Disneyworld in December changed me somehow. I no longer care as much about trying to warn people on the left of threats. I no longer care to debate them about the validity of the war in Iraq, about the need for the war in Afghanistan, or the (4) 911 Commission report causes that drove Al Queda to start killing Americans in 1992 (3:4 of which were blowback from America’s war on Iraq).

I care more about my family now. I care more about my friends. I don’t live in a leftist nest like San Fran, LA, NYC, DC, or Boston, and since I live between the burbs and farm country in Ohio…I don’t think the war whose name must not be spoken is gonna effect me as much as it will those who cannot dare to speak its name. I will not be attacked. Al Queda’s not gonna waste operatives in the Akron area as much as they gonna aim for someplace where the leftnuts are all gathered-like NYC and DC on 911.

So, when the next attack comes, and it will, it’s gonna be aimed at those who continue to try and pretend there is no war, there is no threat, and if we’re just nice to everyone around the world (except Republicans who they wish would die ala Rush Limbaugh), then everything will be fine. I’ve tried for years to explain documented threats and ties, and now those people need to learn on their own. How? Well, Clinton’s Counterterrorism Czar, Richard Clarke, was asked by the 911 Commission back in 2004, and he told them there’s only 1 thing that gets Americans to recognize the threat: “more body bags.”

Maybe the same is true with the economy. Maybe the leftnuts who lose their jobs and can’t find another will start to ask why they can’t? Maybe they’ll start to see that repealing the Bush tax cuts (or letting them expire) is not a good idea ’cause it raises the tax on those same people who do the hiring? Maybe they’ll see that they can’t find a job because small business owners had their taxes increased, and they have less to spend on new hires? Maybe they’ll see that forcing businesses to spend more on healthcare means less money for hiring them? Maybe the nutroots people who are outta work will say, “Gosh, I like taxing people who make $250,000 a year, but…now those people are spending their money on these new taxes instead of spending it on hiring me? With 1:4 people in the blue state of Michigan looking for work…it could happen.

2009 was a good year and a bad year. Obama gave himself a B+ for having accomplished nothing. Since, by the Bush standard, he is responsible for everything then 2009 gets a B+. If you agree, then great. If you don’t, then you must be some sort of right winger teabagger conservative wackjob (at least by MSNBC, Huffpo, and NYT standards).

In the end, I’m optimistic about 2010. Why-with so much potential horror looming?! I’m optimistic because like no other time in our recent history…there is no place for the left to hide. No conspiracy theories, no blaming Bush, not denial or deliberate ignoring of wars, nothing can hide them from the cold dark realities of the world, from the broken promises of their leaders, from their own cowardly refusal to open their minds to the scary scary thought that if something wasn’t Bush’s fault or the Repubs’ fault, then what caused it?

What caused the recession?
Why are so many out of work?
Why are Dems supporting the indefinite war in Iraq now?
Why did Al Queda start killing Americans?
What if Bush’s anti-charisma wasn’t to blame for “the world hating us?”

So many more cold questions that they didn’t even dare to ask before, but this year…this year they cannot even escape the answers.

Welcome Dems, welcome to reality

Tony Blair got it years ago, and still gets it:

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would have found a justification for invading Iraq even without the now-discredited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction.

“I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean, obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat,” Blair told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast this morning.

It was a startling admission from the onetime British leader, who was President Bush’s staunchest ally in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Blair’s comments were immediately denounced by critics who accused him of using false pretenses to drag Britain into an unpopular war that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of allied troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Speaking to broadcaster Fern Britton, Blair insisted that ousting Hussein had improved the situation in Iraq by laying the foundation for a more democratic country. He described the upcoming Iraqi elections as “probably the single most significant thing that’s happened to that region for many years.”

“I can’t really think we’d be better with him and his two sons still in charge,” Blair said of Hussein.

The title of that article above, from the LA Times, is titled: WMD Not Point Of Iraq War.

Of course it wasn’t. It was One of MANY reasons for that war, one of which….and the most important in my opinion…was Saddam’s support of terrorists. After 9/11 we could not allow this tyrant to continue to support our enemies while thumbing his nose at the entire world for the previous 13 years. As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Phase II investigation report on pre-war Iraq Intelligence stated:

Conclusion 10: Statements in the major speeches analyzed, as well additional statements, regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qa’ida were substantiated by intelligence information. The intelligence community reported regularly on Iraq’s safe harbor and financial support for Palestinian rejectionist groups, the Abu Nidal Organization, and others. The February 2002 NIE fully supported the claim that Iraq had, and would continue, to support terrorist groups.

Conclusion 11: Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al-Qa’ida-related terrorist members were substantiated by the intelligence assessments. Intelligence assessments noted Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq and his ability to travel and operate within the country. The intelligence community generally believed that Iraqi intelligence must have known about, and therefore at least tolerated, Zarqawi’s presence in the country.

Conclusion 12: Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence. Intelligence assessments, including multiple CIA reports and the November 2002 NIE, dismissed the claim that Iraq and al-Qa’ida were cooperating partners. According to an undisputed INR footnote in the NIE, there was no intelligence information that supported the claim that Iraq would provide weapons of mass destruction to al-Qa’ida. The credibility of the principal intelligence source behind the claim that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with biological and chemical weapons training was regularly questioned by DIA, and later by the CIA. The Committee repeats its conclusion from a prior report that “assessments were inconsistent regarding the likelihood that Saddam Hussein provided chemical and biological weapons (CBW) training to al_Qa’ida.”

Amendment 119 – strike the above conclusion and insert

Conclusion 12: Statements by the President and Secretary Powell that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training were supported by the intelligence. Numerous intelligence assessments stated that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training and specifically training in poisons and gases. While some DIA reports raised questions about the credibility of this reporting and one CIA report noted that the source may have exaggerated his reporting in a separate area, the CIA did not raise questions about the source’s weapons training reporting and., in fact, provided and approved the use of this language in both the President’s and Secretary’s remarks.

Comments – None of the statements provided in this report suggested or implied that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had “partnership.” Additionally, while there were policymakers who commented that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, those comments were fully supported by the intelligence. The al-Libi reporting on CBW training was never questioned by the CIA and the information was approved by the CIA for use in both the President’s Cincinnati speech and Powell’s UN speech. In the case of the Powell speech CIA actually provided the information to him to use in the speech in the draft of the speech the CIA wrote. Furthermore, the conclusion as drafted says that intelligence community “assessments were inconsistent” so accordingly, how can the Committee judge policymakers to not have any statements substantiated by the intelligence?

As did the Iraqi Perspectives Project, Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents (pdf):

Saddam’s interest in, and support for, non-Iraqi non-state actors was spread across a wide variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. For years, Saddam maintained training camps for foreign “fighters” drawn from these diverse groups. In some cases, particularly for Palestinians, Saddam was also a strong financial supporter. Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.

~~~

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist-operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some way, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.

Key line:

The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism.

Even more here about the ties.

There was clear evidence Saddam supported terrorists and we could not allow that. No way, no how. I thank god every day we had a few world leaders, like Tony Blair and President Bush, that did what needed to be done to protect our countries.

As for the WMD’s. That same Senate report above concludes that while he may have not had any major amounts of WMD he DID have the intent and capabilities of reconstituting those WMD programs within a short amount of time after sanctions being lifted.

Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990’s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

Did he have those nukes when we invaded?

Nope.

If left untouched could he have had a nuke in a short amount of time?

Yup.

That’s the point.

He supported terrorists and took every step to ensure that he would have WMD within weeks of sanctions being lifted.

Those are the reasons we invaded and why it was the only right, just and smart thing to do.

I will end this post with a portion of President Bush’s speech to the UN in 2002, there were many reasons for the Iraq invasion….and most of the left and our MSM ignores them, instead wailing and gnashing their teeth about WMD. Those possible WMD’s along with Saddam’s support of terrorism made him a “grave and gathering danger”:

In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities — which, the Council said, “threaten(ed) international peace and security in the region.”

This demand goes ignored. Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human rights found that Iraq continues to commit “extremely grave violations” of human rights and that the regime’s repression is “all pervasive.” Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating, burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands; children in the presence of their parents — all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.

In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary-General’s high-level coordinator of this issue reported that Kuwaiti, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for — more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.

In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded the Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq’s regime agreed. It broke its promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organization that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq’s government openly praised the attacks of September 11th. And al-Qaida terrorists escaped from Afghanistan are known to be in Iraq.

~~~

Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its unclear program — weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials, and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq’s state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.

Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150 kilometers permitted by the U.N. Work at testing and production facilities shows that Iraq is building more long-range missiles that could inflict mass death throughout the region.

In 1990, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the world imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. Those sanctions were maintained after the war to compel the regime’s compliance with Security Council resolutions. In time, Iraq was allowed to use oil revenues to buy food. Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials. He blames the suffering of Iraq’s people on the United Nations, even as he uses his oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself, and arms his country. By refusing to comply with his own agreements, he bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens.

In 1991, Iraq promised U.N. inspectors immediate and unrestricted access to verify Iraq’s commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Iraq broke this promise, spending seven years deceiving, evading and harassing U.N. inspectors before ceasing cooperation entirely. Just months after the 1991 cease-fire, the Security Council twice renewed its demand that the Iraqi regime cooperate fully with inspectors, “condemning” Iraq’s “serious violations” of its obligations. The Security Council again renewed that demand in 1994 and twice more in 1996, “deploring” Iraq’s “clear violations” of its obligations. The Security Council renewed its demand three more times in 1997, citing “flagrant violations” and three more times in 1998, calling Iraq’s behavior “totally unacceptable.” And in 1999, the demand was renewed yet again.

As we meet today, it has been almost four years since the last U.N. inspectors set foot in Iraq — four years for the Iraqi regime to plan and build and test behind a cloak of secrecy.

We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in the country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic and the facts lead to one conclusion. Saddam Hussein’s regime is a

grave and gathering danger.

To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.

Delegates to the General Assembly: We have been more than patient. We have tried sanctions. We have tried the carrot of “oil for food” and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has nuclear weapons is when, God forbid, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.

The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?

~~~

Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it and the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.

We can harbor no illusions. Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in 1980, and Kuwait in 1990. He has fired ballistic missiles at Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Israel. His regime once ordered the killing of every person between the ages of 15 and 70 in certain Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq. He has gassed many Iranians and 40 Iraqi villages.

In wake of 4 recent bomb attacks, al Qaeda in Iraq appears to be gaining newfound resurgence, as well as a shift in strategy. Any goal of undermining January elections may be moot, as they may have already been derailed, regardless of what al Qaeda does.

Foreign powers appear to still be exercising influence and interference with the democratization process of Iraq:

What was once a foreign-led terrorist organization is now a mostly Iraqi network of small, roving cells that continue to rely on the flow of fighters and weapons smuggled through the Syrian border, albeit at a slower rate, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

Syria denies role

Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the Interior Ministry’s chief of intelligence and investigations, said Iraqi officials suspect the Aug. 19 and Oct. 25 bombings, which targeted the Foreign, Justice and Finance ministries, among other entities, were planned at a secret meeting in Zabadani, a city in southwestern Syria, close to the Lebanese border. He said al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders met with former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party on July 30 to chart out a new strategy.

The willingness to cooperate and collaborate between supposed “secular” Ba’athists and religious Islamic jihadis held true even prior to invasion, despite what the current UK inquisition is asserting in its testimony.

Bill Roggio questions the possibility that eastern Syria will become another Waziristan safe-haven for al Qaeda.

As the current UK Inquisition continues today (with misleading conclusions), I found this from BBC News, regarding the 2006 assessment:

In September 2006 the US Senate Intelligence Committee published one of the definitive public accounts of the intelligence used to justify the Iraq war.

Its 400-page report, three years in the making, laid bare the justifications for the invasion – and found little or no evidence to back a raft of claims made by the US intelligence community concerning Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction [WMD].

Read Scott and Mark‘s posts.

Also note pg 145, on the Additional Minority Views of Senators Bond, Hatch, Lott, and Chambliss:

for the past two years, rather than pursue our oversight role and ensure that some of the key findings and recommendations of these reports and others were enacted, this Committee ‘s usefulness as an oversight body and as a key element in our national security apparatus has been consumed by a rear-view mirror investigation for political ends.

~~~

(U) Simply stated, this second series of reports is designed to point fingers in Washington and at the Administration. The conclusions in the reports were crafted with more partisan bias than we have witnessed in a long time in Congress. The “Phase II” investigation has turned the Senate Intelligence Committee, a committee initially designed to be the most bipartisan committee in the Senate, into a political playground stripped of its bipartisan power, and this fact has not gone unnoticed in the Intelligence Community.

No mention of the (highly partisan) 2008 Final Phase II Reports in the article?

Scott wrote up the definitive key points of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Phase II investigation report on pre-war Iraq Intel

Other op-ed writers weeks after the initial media coverage of the Final Phase ii Report, also asserted that within the Report, Bush claims were “generally substantiated by the intell at the time”.

The BBC piece also mentions

Eighteen months before the Senate report, the Silberman-Robb commission – set up by President Bush in early 2004 – had reported in no uncertain terms that US intelligence had been “dead wrong” in judging that Iraq had been developing WMD before the invasion.

But fail to mention about how the commission report also exonerated the charge that intelligence was manipulated to persuade public opinion.