In the wake of the recent leak and subsequent media misrepresentations of the most recent National Intelligence Estimate, it’s been made abundantly clear that there are many who fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the war we are fighting. Democrats and other critics think Iraq was a distraction from the true threat. They believe this because they think we are at war with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda. We are not. Al Qaeda is an enemy, but they are not the war. When Japan launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt did not respond with a declaration of war on the Japanese navy. Nor did he limit his efforts to only those generals directly involved in the attack. He declared war on Japan.

President Bush was right not to focus our response exclusively on Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a subset of the enemy; just one tool amongst many that they use to advance their cause. The true enemy is violent Islamic Jihad. This is why the Democrats are wrong to think our efforts should be limited to only those directly involved in 9/11.

President Bush recognized this larger threat immediately. It is this threat which the Bush Doctrine, whether you think its methods are sound or not, is designed to combat. President Bush believes that in order to defeat Islamic Jihad, the absolute authority that virulent propaganda has in the Middle East must be eroded. The Bush Doctrine is the belief that the establishment of representative governments in the Middle East, with the personal and economic freedoms they bring, provides our best chance to achieve this goal. I believe it as well. By its nature, however, the success of the Bush Doctrine will be indeterminate for some time, possibly a generation.

In order to defeat an enemy, one must know the enemy. Violent Islamic Jihad is itself a subset of a larger group, that of Islam as a whole. But the whole of Islam is not our enemy, rather it is a fraction of the whole that seeks to spread Sharia law, through violence and intimidation, across the world. They believe the world is Islamic and all that’s needed is the elimination or subjugation of the infidels for their Islamic world to be realized.

We should not kid ourselves as to their religious faith. Their interpretation of their faith is just as legitimate as that of those who do not wage violent jihad. We do no one any favors by continually trying to deny that fact. Instead, what we must do is embrace it.

We need to do more to encourage Muslims who do not support this radical agenda to speak up for and defend their interpretations. As it is now, many within Islam have their heads in the sand. They insist the jihadists have no basis for their beliefs, and so they refuse to engage them. Instead of simply allowing them to deny that they have any obligation to defend Islam, we must take a firm stance and demand their vocal support.

When democrats and other critics complain that Iraq has made more jihadists, they expose their ignorance of the enemy we face. Those jihadists have been in the making for decades. They have been exposed to virulent propaganda since birth. Any efforts we make will be exploited by the enemy to motivate those they have spent so much effort making predisposed to violent jihad. That fact is not a reason to quit fighting.

We must keep our eyes on the prize. A world without violent Islamic Jihad can be realized, but it will come only after the slow and steady implementation of the Bush Doctrine. This will require a level of resolve that has not been asked of us in generations, if ever. Yet we must remain firm, as the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Merkel warns against bowing to fear of Muslim violence

Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.

“I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam,” she told reporters. “It makes no sense to retreat.”

Merkel’s comments, which echoed those of other senior German politicians, fueled a row over the cancellation of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” that overshadowed a government-sponsored conference to promote dialogue with the country’s 3.2 million Muslims.

Berlin’s Deutsche Oper said on Monday it had pulled performances of the opera, which features a scene depicting the severed heads of the Prophet Mohammad, Buddha and Jesus, after police warned it could pose an “incalculable” security risk.

Somehow I doubt they were equally concerned about any “security risk” from Christians or Buddhists.

As I see it, there are two major conditions that need to be met before coalition forces can begin seriously reducing numbers in Iraq. 1) The Iraqi public needs to have faith in their government institutions and security apparatus. 2) Those security forces need to be able to do the job. A new poll suggests that, as confidence in coalition military forces wane and confidence in Iraqi government and forces increase, the time may be ripe for serious coalition troop reductions.

Seven in ten Iraqis want US-led forces to commit to withdraw within a year. . . If the US made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government. Majorities believe that the withdrawal of US troops would lead to a reduction in the amount of inter-ethnic violence and improvement in the day-to-day security of Iraqis. A modest majority, including a large majority of Shia, now believes that in the near future Iraqi security forces will be strong enough to deal with their security challenges without foreign forces. There is little interest in replacing US-led forces with an international peacekeeping force.

. . .Overall, a large majority expresses confidence in the Maliki government, the Iraqi army, Iraqi interior ministry forces and the police.

In addition, Iraqi’s view Al Qaeda and other terrorists with overwhelming disapproval.

Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very).

The remaining question is the readiness of Iraqi forces. Generally speaking, they’ve been accepting greater responsibilities across Iraq. If things continue I suspect we may see major reductions as early as the first half of 2007.

Wars are filled with tough decisions, both tactically and morally. In order to defeat the Confederacy, General Sherman’s “March to the Sea” sought to break the enemy militarily, economically and psychologically. The results of this march included the near complete destruction of Atlanta.

During WWII, in an effort to hamper German communications and prevent reinforcement of their eastern front, the allied forces firebombed Dresden.

In order to avoid a ground invasion of Japan that would cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, the US ended the pacific war by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Whether or not these actions were justified are positions which reasonable people can disagree. What is clear, however, is that wars have historically been fought by people willing to make tough decisions in order to achieve victory. Unfortunately, our current crop of leaders seem incapable of even considering the merits of such decisions today.

Of course, the enemy we face today operates in a different manner than the enemies we’ve fought and defeated in the past. This enemy is an ideology, not a specific state. It has little infrastructure to target. Its only significant vulnerability (beyond the little bit of infrastructure that has been targeted) is the knowledge possessed by specific leaders regarding their operational cells and plans.

Given this knowledge, the prudent course of action would be to immediately determine how far we are willing to go to get that information. But that requires an honest debate, conducted in good faith, within the public sphere. Neither parties’ leaders seem willing to have such a debate openly and honestly.

The Bush administration has been reluctant to make its case clearly to the public. The administrations opponents have been too willing to demagogue the issue with indiscriminate and faulty use of inflammatory words like “torture”.

What exactly constitutes “torture” is a point of debate, as the definition is subjective. But the opposition skips right over the definition and hopes you’ll accept their assumptions on faith. But does slapping a terrorist in the face to get his attention really constitute torture? Critics want you to think so. Most Americans would probably not be persuaded by such an argument. The most serious technique our interrogators wish to employ is that of waterboarding. That’s where the subject is made to think he is drowning and death is imminent, though he is never in any physical danger. But we’ll never know precisely what the public thinks of these things since the public debate has been demagogued beyond recognition and few public officials seem to have the guts to state their position clearly and unequivocally.

Others, most likely the strongly religious, may find moral objection to any coercive interrogation techniques, whether they constitute torture or not. Making the argument that a terrorist in captivity is incapable of harm, they believe that to bring them any amount of harm beyond that absolutely necessary to keep the terrorist from presenting a threat to civilians, such as imprisonment, would be immoral.

I do not agree. I find the underlying assumption of that position, that a terrorist locked away in prison is no longer a cause of harm, to be faulty. A prisoner may no longer be capable of picking up a gun and shooting someone, but they can still do harm in their choices. If they have knowledge of the harm their companions are meaning to carry out and they choose not to divulge it, that choice is as much an act of aggression upon us as if they were out doing it themselves.

The individual’s very silence about their known terrorist cohorts and their plans is a harm upon me and my countrymen. Given the scope of the attacks they wish to carry out, I find it morally unacceptable to not do everything in our power to get that information in order to protect those targeted by the terrorists. This is especially true when that knowledge constitutes the primary means by which to defeat an enemy that doesn’t rely on railroads, airports, factories or other easy to bomb targets. Their blatant and deliberate targeting of civilians serves to erase any remaining moral qualms I might have to putting known terrorists in unpleasant situations in order to learn what they know.

Sadly, even as legislation is being considered, few seem willing to openly consider the tough choices in front of our generation. The leaders of previous generations had the guts to risk the deaths of thousands of civilians, rightly or wrongly, in order to protect many more Americans. Today’s leaders apparently lack the courage to even consider risking harm to a handful of known terrorists in order to protect thousands of American civilians. And that’s truly a shame.

Halt! Put the donut down, sir! Put it down!

Three years after the city banned smoking in restaurants, health officials are talking about prohibiting something they say is almost as bad: artificial trans fatty acids.

The city health department unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would bar cooks at any of the city’s 24,600 food service establishments from using ingredients that contain the artery-clogging substance, commonly listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated oil.

Once again we see the principles this country was founded on being thrown out the window on the pretext of “protecting” us. It’s exactly that kind of government “protection” that the Constitution aimed to shield us from.

. . .Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden acknowledged that the ban would be a challenge for restaurants, but he said trans fats can easily be replaced with substitute oils that taste the same or better and are far less unhealthy.

“It is a dangerous and unnecessary ingredient,” Frieden said. “No one will miss it when it’s gone.”

Liberalism is a dangerous and unnecessary ingredient. Hmm, that gives me an idea…

Hat tip: who’s your nanny?

In his final speech at the annual Labour Party conference, British Prime Minister Tony Blair showed once again that he has rare clarity of vision for a world leader when it comes to combating global jihad. It’s unfortunate that his people so villified him for this fact. But then again, these are the same people that ignored Winston Churchill’s warnings for a decade; then, when they finally let him fight the war, tossed him out like yesterdays garbage for his efforts.

As most everyone in the world has heard by now, thanks to the tireless efforts of the media liberal spinmeisters, some snippets from the National Intelligence Estimate were leaked a few days ago by an individual (or individuals) with an apparent anti-Bush agenda.

The response to this leak was rather inevitable, as the administration has now moved to declassify and release some conclusions from the report in an effort to combat the news misrepresentations.

In so far as the newly released judgements support the Bush Doctrine (“Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim majority nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit. Over time, such progress, together with sustained, multifaceted programs targeting the vulnerabilities of the jihadist movement and continued pressure on al-Qa?ida, could erode support for the jihadists.”), it’s reasonable to believe this whole episode will be a plus, rather than the intended minus, for the Bush administration. In addition, the issue keeps the election focus on the war on terror.

It is for this reason that I am now predicting that many on the left, particularly in the blogosphere, will attribute the original leak to their ubernemesis, Karl Rove. They will claim that if the original leak never happened, Bush would not have had the pretext to declassify parts of the report. Thanks to the leak, conveniently made right before election time, the administration was able to justify releasing selected portions of the report. And, once again, the inept attempts at sabotage from some leftist will blow up in the Democrats face, and Karl Rove will get the credit.

Much more on the NIE from Michelle Malkin.

Related Post: New York Times Misses Mark On NIE Report

According to a new Gallop poll, 42% percent of Americans admit to being dumber than a rock. Er, I mean, 42% of Americans think conspiracy behind gas price drop.

It’s not just the bloggers suggesting that the 66-cent drop in the average pump price over the past seven weeks to $2.38 per gallon is thanks to the collusion of former oilmen President Bush and Vice President Cheney and their Big Oil buddies. (Bloggers advancing this theory include Long Delayed Echoes, NH Insider, Various Miseries, and The “What Do I Know Grit.”) A Gallup Poll found that 42 percent of the public thinks the Bush administration is deliberately manipulating the price. As plausible as that scenario apparently seems, energy analysts nevertheless deem it impossible.

The wave of ignorance that has swept over this country, thanks to massive failures in the media to report based on rationality instead of political hysteria, would be laughable if it weren’t so depressingly dangerous. When reporters label massive market conspiracies to manipulate prices for a commodity where no one has the market power to much effect the price of trading as “plausible” instead of the more accurate description of “retarded”, it’s little surpise that the public is this ignorant.

It certainly begs the question, plausible to whom? Five year olds? In a sane world, that’s what one would think. Apparently, however, it’s plausible to all known victims of Bush Derangement Syndrome. All 42% of them.

Related Post: Dr. Gaspump or; How I Learned To Shutup And Love The High Prices

American college and university students, supposed to be the best and the brightest, are unable to pass simple tests on core American knowledge. A study of freshman and seniors at 50 colleges and universites

Freshmen and seniors at 50 of the nation’s colleges and universities were asked 60 multiple choice questions about America’s history and government, its relationship to the rest of the world and the market economy in a survey done by the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy on behalf of the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

. . .Among the findings in the report are:

• Less than half of the college seniors surveyed recognized the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” as originating from the Declaration of Independence;
• Roughly 80 percent of college seniors were unaware that the federal government’s largest payout is for social security; and
• Even with their country at war in Iraq, fewer than half of the seniors (45.2 percent) could identify the Baath Party as the main source of Saddam Hussein’s political support. In fact, 12.2 percent believed that Hussein found his most reliable supporters in the Communist Party, and almost 5.7 percent said Israel.

. . .Lesser-known colleges such as Rhodes College, Calvin College and Grove City College ranked at the top of ISI’s list, but at many of the nation’s most prestigious universities, including Brown University, Yale University and Georgetown University, seniors know less than freshmen about America’s history, government, foreign affairs and economy.

“This phenomenon is ‘negative learning,’” said Bunting. “We were stunned to find that a majority of the 16 schools where negative learning occurred are considered to be among the most prestigious colleges in the United States.”

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to learn that these big, liberal institutions are not teaching about America. Unfortunately, the left’s anti-American principles have so penetrated these institutions that many are actually exhibiting “negative” learning. Given the rhetoric of modern liberalism, it’s not hard to see why.

The history of America disgusts them. They don’t see a rare congregation of political genuises that led to this glorious bastion of freedom. They see an oppressive, imperialistic conglomerate of evil, capitalist exploiters. They carry this historic guilt with them wherever they go, blaming all the world ills on the American system. Many of these people are college professors, where they spread their filth to future generations.

But something must be done about this tragic ignorance of America’s most basic systems. Otherwise, the lefts American deprecation will continue to fester until the public is no longer capable of acitvely sustaining our fragile balance of freedom and prosperity.

Hudson Institute covers EPA’s deceptive attempts at regulatory expansion.

Nine years ago in these pages, in an article on new EPA air pollution standards (”The EPA’s Hot Air,” July 7, 1997), I predicted that lawn mowers would one day fall victim to these onerous and unnecessary regulations. This was not really going out on a limb. In 1994, the Clinton EPA administrator Carol Brown er had said that “small gasoline engines that Americans use in yard and garden work are a significant source of air pollution.” But in sworn testimony to Congress in 1997, she told a different story. The standards are “not about outdoor barbecues and lawn mowers,” she testified, smearing such assertions as “junk science” and “scare tactics.” Said Browner: “They are fake. They are wrong. They are manipulative.” Frank O’Donnell, then-executive director of the Clean Air Trust, called talk of regulating lawn mowers “crazed propaganda.”

Today the EPA openly seeks implementation of pollution standards for lawn mowers that would apparently cut smog-causing emissions by 35 percent. As for O’Donnell, he’s now president of Clean Air Watch where he’s working hard to implement that “crazed propaganda.”

So what’s new? The EPA lies, and the green groups lie. That’s because they’re on a mission: Where you might see a freshly-mowed lawn, they see an opportunity to extend another regulatory tentacle. But if we accept that some environmental regulation is good, is this?

No. The EPA’s clean air standards are based on false claims of reduced deaths and illness. Careful research, such as a 30-year study of elderly Californians published in the December 2005 issue of Inhalation Toxicology, has failed to show the predicted link between “fine particulate air pollution” and mortality rates.

This is merely another in the long list of examples highlighting the modus operandi of the environmental movement. They will say anything, with little to know regard for the truth, to get regulatory control over your life.