Rounds Out or Just The Beginning

There are 4 pieces in the New York Post today that are "Rather" informative. Here they are in all of their Glory...nothing is sweeter than the scent of Victory...that is why the Fruit Loop Brigades smell so bad...they revel in defeat.

TORA Battle heating up...

August 16, 2007 -- BAGRAMI, Afghanistan - Hundreds of U.S.-led troops have launched an offensive against al Qaeda and Taliban militants in an area of eastern Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden once hid, officials said yesterday.

A bomb near the capital, meanwhile, killed three German police officers assigned to protect their country's embassy, and a British national was shot dead in Kabul.

The offensive involving ground troops and airstrikes in the Tora Bora region of eastern Nangarhar province is targeting "hundreds of foreign fighters" who are using dug-in positions, said a coalition spokeswoman, Capt. Vanessa Bowman.

General Petraeus Eying Troop Draw Down (due to the successes, naturally)

August 16, 2007 -- BAGHDAD - The top American commander in Iraq said yesterday he was preparing recommendations on troop reductions before he returns to Washington next month for a report to Congress. He predicted the U.S. footprint in Iraq would have to be "a good bit smaller" by next summer.

But Gen. David Petraeus cautioned against a quick or significant U.S. withdrawal that could surrender "the gains we have fought so hard to achieve."

He declined to offer specifics on upcoming recommendations. The report, expected next month, is seen as a potential road map for U.S. military and diplomatic policies in Iraq.

Petraeus also said the "horrific and indiscriminate attacks" that killed at least 500 Yazidis, an ancient religious sect, in northwestern Iraq on Tuesday were the work of al Qaeda in Iraq fighters. The suicide bombings occurred near the Syrian border, and U.S. officials charge the Damascus regime has not done enough to police the frontier against infiltration by foreign fighters who dominate al Qaeda.

The attacks, Petraeus added, bolstered his argument against moving too quickly to draw down the 30,000 additional U.S. troops deployed in the first half of the year.

Killing For Congress

August 16, 2007 -- TWO days ago, al Qaeda det onated four massive truck bombs in three Iraqi vil lages, killing at least 250 civilians (perhaps as many as 500) and wounding many more. The bombings were a sign of al Qaeda's frustration, desperation and fear.

The victims were ethnic Kurd Yazidis, members of a minor sect with pre-Islamic roots. Muslim extremists condemn them (wrongly) as devil worshippers. The Yazidis live on the fringes of society.

That's one of the two reasons al Qaeda targeted those settlements: The terrorist leaders realize now that the carnage they wrought on fellow Muslims backfired, turning once-sympathetic Sunni Arabs against them. The fanatics calculated that Iraqis wouldn't care much about the Yazidis.

As far as the Thieves of Baghdad (also known as Iraq's government) go, the terrorists were right. Iraqi minorities, including Christians, have been classified as fair game by Muslim butchers. Mainstream Iraqis simply look away.

But the second reason for those dramatic bombings was that al Qaeda needs to portray Iraq as a continuing failure of U.S. policy. Those dead and maimed Yazidis were just props: The intended audience was Congress.

Al Qaeda has been badly battered. It's lost top leaders and thousands of cadres. Even more painful for the Islamists, they've lost ground among the people of Iraq, including former allies. Iraqis got a good taste of al Qaeda. Now they're spitting it out.

The foreign terrorists slaughtering the innocent recognize that their only remaining hope of pulling off a come-from-way-behind win is to convince your senator and your congressman or -woman that it's politically expedient to hand a default victory to a defeated al Qaeda.

Whacking Iran...interesting bit of analogy

August 16, 2007 -- THE media missed a big one yesterday.

They ran with the story that the Bush administration will soon designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a major troublemaker in Iraq - as a terrorist organization. But they didn't look past the public-consumption explanation that the move lets our government go after the Revolutionary Guards' finances and the international companies that cut deals with Tehran's thugs.

The real reason for the move is to set up a legal basis for airstrikes or special operations raids on the Guard's bases in Iran.

Our policy is that we reserve the right to whack terrorists anywhere in the world. Now we have newly designated terrorists. And we know exactly where they are.

This doesn't mean we won't go after their money, too. The Revolutionary Guards have built up a financial empire - they're religious fanatics, but, in their version of Islam, "greed is good." Hurting Iran's assassins in the pocketbook reduces their ability to export terror.

But watch that space: We've long delayed taking action against the Iranians who provide Iraq's Shia extremists with the sophisticated IEDs that kill and maim our troops. We fell into the Vietnam-era trap of allowing the enemy a sanctuary - this time, in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards' al-Quds subsidiary helped butcher hundreds of our troops - and got away with it virtually scot-free.

Looks like those days are nearing an end.

Good News From Iraq...Bad News for Dummies

August 15, 2007 -- News out of Iraq continues to be encouraging: High-profile attacks have fallen nearly 50 percent since the start of the troop surge, USA Today reported this week.

Gen. David Petraeus, commanding the war in Iraq, says hundreds of al Qaeda fighters were killed or captured in just the past month alone.

Tips about the enemy are up fourfold over the last year - to some 23,000 a month.

"Tribes and people are starting to stand up and fight back," said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, deputy commander of the U.S. division north of Baghdad, in the USA Today report. "They are turning against al Qaeda."

It's a sign of the preliminary success of a number of operations now under way, as troop strength has finally reached the maximum planned by the surge.

To think that just a month ago, Democrats were trying to pull the plug on Iraq.

Maybe they feared exactly what is happening: The tide in Iraq seems to be turning in America's favor - and that spells bad news for the Dems, who've pinned their own political fates on the White House failing in the war.

Democrats aren't the only ones who have suddenly gone mum: Little by way of saber-rattling has been heard from the mullahs' motor-mouth in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The shifts, in rhetoric and on the ground, could portend, well . . . anything.

The enemy may be laying low, figuring they can't bear - at the moment, anyway - the high cost of additional attacks and confrontations.

Or they may be re-arming for a major offensive.

Surely they've by no means ended their violence completely, even temporarily: Yesterday, suicide bombers killed at least 175 people and wounded 200.

But Coalition forces aren't letting up, either: This week, they launched a third major campaign, Operation Phantom Strike, aimed at disrupting al Qaeda and Iranian-backed operations.

The verdict is still out on Iraq. Far-left Democrats may yet force a premature pullout.

But Americans can hope for the best. There's no reason to cut this war short.

Remember the Food For Oil Scandals? The S-L-O-W wheels of justice churn on...

August 15, 2007 -- A Texas oil baron facing trial for his role in the United Nations' oil-for-food scandal may have also committed treason by secretly giving the Iraqi government advance warning of U.S. plans to invade, court papers allege.

The feds have evidence Oscar Wyatt Jr. told Iraqi officials "when the United States would begin bombing Iraq, when the army would invade Iraq and how many soldiers would be sent," Wyatt's lawyers claimed in a bid to keep a potentially incriminating diary out of the trial.

The diary, by a former Iraq oil official, also suggests Wyatt "convinced Sen. Edward Kennedy to deliver a speech against the war with Iraq," say court papers filed by the defense. But a Kennedy spokeswoman insisted he "based his decision to oppose the war on briefings by experts, insight from military personnel and testimony and briefings from the administration."

Wyatt, 82, founder and ex-chairman of Coastal Corp., is set to go on trial next month for allegedly paying Saddam Hussein kickbacks to reap illegal profits through the U.N. oil-for-food program.

How many feet does Obama have, anyway? And who gave him more bullets?

August 15, 2007 -- Rivals of Sen. Barack Obama slammed him for saying the U.S. needs to have more troops fighting Taliban forces in Afghanistan so "we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians."

Obama made the comments during a campaign swing in New Hampshire.

"Now, you have narco drug lords who are helping to finance the Taliban, so we've got to get the job done there, and that requires us to have enough troops that we are not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there," Obama was quoted by the Nashua Telegraph saying.

Aides to GOP hopeful Mitt Romney told the Washington Examiner that it reflects inexperience and is "an entirely inaccurate condemnation" of the U.S. military in the Mideast.

But Obama supporters pointed to comments from military leaders and others acknowledging the civilian deaths, including comments from President Bush at a press conference last week, where he said he'd apologized to Afghanistan's president for civilian deaths.

This Socialist Party called the Democratic Party is self-imploding. It is both sad and funny but funny in a sad way.